Stephen Joseph

Thank you for quoting that. BigOlSmitty continues to not understand the basics behind that which he posts. Sigh...

Okay, what about the the tremendous American economic growth in the post-WWII era, when taxes were higher than they'd ever been before or have been since? Or during the 90's, after the Clinton tax hikes? I know you can come up with excuses for these, but higher taxes in these instances did not have a crippling effect on economic growth. Took the words out of my mouth. Except that the growth of the 90's was largely powered by overpriced internet stocks --- and the internet was very much not taxed. Odd that the ONE area that was not taxed was, easily, the one that grew the most. -=Mike Dammit Mike, don't make their brains hurt with simple logic. You know and I know that taxes affect growth. So does every economist with a bachelors (It's called the Solow Growth Model or newly endogenous growth theory). But such logic can't possibly work, you know.

Actually, Illinois is probably medium blue. The whole state is very red except for Cook County (where Chicago is), which is dark dark blue. But, Chicago has enough people to make it probably safely blue for quite a while for presidential candidates. Jason I just went by the last two election results there. =)

Firstly, RobotJerk, I never said what you quoted me as saying...Not cool. Secondly, why can't we present some valid form of identification to vote. Hell, a driver's license or an ID card? That could help a bit. Thirdly, you must recognize the geopolitical nature of a campaign. You can't just run in those 11 states and win, because not all 11 of those states can be won by a Republican or Democratic platform. There are issues intrinsic to the region that appeal to either side. Thus, it can't happen, and you cannot win unless you go out to mid-major states and get those votes. If you don't believe in regional issues in politics affecting national outcomes, or think its entirely possible that a candidate can win all 11 of those states (excluding Reagan, for obvious reasons as that was just a landslide), then back it up. Most argument against the e.c. is rhetoric at best. Feel free to correct my logic here in naming the states, but you'll clearly see that there's states THAT one side cannot win by their platform http://electoral-vote.com/ California (BLUE - STRONG) Florida (TOSSUP) Georgia (RED - STRONG) llinois (BLUE - BARELY) Michigan (BLUE - BARELY) New Jersey (BLUE - MEDIUM) New York (BLUE - STRONG) North Carolina (RED - STRONG) Ohio (RED - BARELY) Pennsylvania (BLUE - MEDIUM) Texas (RED - STRONG) Under a popular vote system, a candidate COULD go and campaign very heavily in these states and secure enough votes to win the popular election regardless (just based on state party strength). Under the electoral college, neither party can. Nice theory, bad in reality.

Oh please, let's not get overdramatic. We've still got the Americas all wrapped up. How long did we think we'd control the other side of the Pacific anyways? Ain't no damn prophecies coming true. Besides, I'm not aware of such "biblical" prophecies in the bible anyways. Revelations says nothing on such.

Technically, the war wasn't fought over slavery. The war was fought over whether or not the South had a right to leave the union. The reason the South wanted to leave, however, was due to slavery and Lincoln's opposition to its expansion. Tarriffs and sectionalism were reasons too, but slavery factored into both sectionalism (resentment between North and South) and tarriffs (the South didn't want tarriffs because slavery had made agricultural production so cost effective). Thus slavery was the reason the South wanted to leave and thus the reason for the war. Sorry, your link didn't work for me Stephen. I'm going to try to find that book, though. The North faced a crippled economy if the South seceded (and more reliance on ole GB, yes. I think that if weed was in high supply back then, we'd have had less problems.

I *was* a card counter back in my college days. I could handle about a six-deck shoe, and used the very basic hi-lo system. By myself, I would earn a paltry 2% an hour on average from card counting. If I had a partner with a bigger roll, he might get 5% when I would call to a hot deck. We got bored pretty fast because in order to make counting profitable, you need a whole crew, and casinos identify that pretty fast. We made a killing in underground casinos in Atlanta though...

Okay, what about the the tremendous American economic growth in the post-WWII era, when taxes were higher than they'd ever been before or have been since? Or during the 90's, after the Clinton tax hikes? I know you can come up with excuses for these, but higher taxes in these instances did not have a crippling effect on economic growth. Took the words out of my mouth. Someone obviously doesn't understand where their money comes from. The Clinton tax hikes did not push taxes to the level that European countries have endured for decades. According to JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES (OMG LIBERAL ECONOMIST!!!) here's how you work taxes. In good times (Clinton) you raise taxes to slow down growth to manageable levels and collect revenue and RUN A SURPLUS. In bad times (Bush I, last year) you lower taxes to speed up growth and use the SURPLUS to fund your DEFICIT. It's Budget Management 101, which makes perfect economic sense. Economically speaking, theory predicts the results we see given the constraints. However, all that I've seen in this thread has been worked based on correlation between variables, not causation. Correlation A and B are related Causation A affects B or B affects A. Raising tax rates lowers growth rates. True or False? Ans: True, there is causation. (Again, look at the CIA Factbook, which is right handy reference. If you want to analyze something in economic terms it must be done in three ways 1) Ceteris Paribus 2) Opportunity cost of next best use 3) Relative Changes at the margin. Your much Lurrrved Economist!

I guess we had this discussion before, but while there are some inefficient uses of money, some in more regions than others, in general FEDERAL tax (which is what we're talking about) tax is not for "hippie" programs, which are predominately local or state. Federal tax goes into the Feds' funds, and if you look at their spending, military, defense, and homeland security outweighs almost everything by a margin that's somewhere between absurd and ludicrious. So if you want to sit around and bitch about how you'd rather buy another plasma TV than pay taxes, you'd be be able to cope with a reduced military budget. In the meantime, while Dubya gives you your money back, he isn't spending any less of it than he did before. Instead, he's spending money that isn't there and blowing up our deficit. That's bad economics, plain and simple. Once a month, I agree with Jobber. Today is such a day. It's bad economics what the government is doing now. However, to correct, the amount spent on military programs is dwarfed by spending social programs. However, relative to other nations, our miliary budget as a share of our total budget swards theirs. So 6 of 1 ...

My point is that even noting the illegals activity that is concentrated in those states, it would not destroy those states' economies. A slight dent, maybe, but not the disaster you seem intent on believing. But then again, I quoted research and facts, and you've yet to cite ONE source.

Sigh...Not again. Okay. Taxes affect the rate of growth of the economy, not the size and scope of the economy. You'll find the fastest growing countries are the developing countries. Economic growth matters, not the size of your current economic system. Growth creates wealth. I'm pulling from the CIA Factbook for these stats. % change in GDP is my proxy for growth rate United States 3.10% #105 Denmark 0.00% #191 Finland 1.48% #148 Sweden 1.70% #154 Mexico 1.30% #166 So, would I rather be in a country whose growth rate means I'm able to outpace inflation, or in a country that's not growing? Countries with better growth rates that are both a major player in the world and industrialized are Russia (but, economically speaking, they're abysmal) and China. Remember Kiddos: Statistics can be made to support any argument. The true value of an economy involves its size, scope, and potential yield. Also Remember Kiddos: Taxes cannot be generalized. Some taxes help growth, others inhibit. What's important is how they're used. =)

Is it just me, or are there some Peeps signs in the audience and a slight face reaction for Christian from time to time?

Yet their money spent is on par with other households. A household making more money generally spends less that an illegal household. But illegals DON'T MAKE MONEY. It's a drop in the bucket relative to a non-illegal household. Yes, they spend money. But it's not enough to be noticed nation-wide! Maybe county-wide, but definitely not state-wide. Secondly, I don't know where you pulled the second assumption, but it violates any economic notion I understand about the spending behaviors of households (looking at Becker in the Chicago School here). Economically, there's a marginal propensity to consume. 1 - MPC = marginal propensity to save. Studies done in AER (American Economic Review) seem to show that an illegal's household has a higher MPS than a non-illegal. If we allow for the fact that their earned money could be being returned to their native land, then this could in fact be true in real-life. Theoretically, we would expect MPS to be higher for them anyways due to their increased uncertainty.

*Cough* Fogel and Engelman, Time on a Cross *Cough* Points 1) Moral rights be damned here. Legally, they had the right. So legally speaking, if the war had been fought over slavery, in a court of law the South would have prevailed. When discussing history, it must be discussed and debated in its context, not inclusive of more modern thought (though more modern data helps quite a bit). 2) I know who he's referring to. That's because I did my research by googling them, though some I;ve read. To cinch this up, I'm going to pimp some economic historians. Fogel and Engelman 1. Slavery was not a system irrationally kept in existence by owners who failed to perceive or were indifferent to their best economic interests. The purchase of a slave was generally a highly profitable investment which yielded rates of return that compared favorably with the most outstanding investment opportunities in manufacturing. 2. The slave system was not economically moribund on the eve of the Civil War. There is no evidence that economic forces alone would have soon brought slavery to an end without the necessity of a war or other form of political intervention. Quite the contrary; as the Civil War approached, slavery as an economic system was never stronger and the trend was toward even further entrenchment. 3. Slaveowners were not becoming pessimistic about the future of their system during the decade that preceded the Civil War. The rise of the secessionist movement coincided with a wave of optimism. On the eve of the Civil War, slaveholders anticipated an era of unprecedented prosperity. *Note* A good bit of their work has since fallen out of favor. However, the economic notions they explored still cannot be ignored, nor can the book's contribution to economic scholarship. http://mutex.gmu.edu:2051/view/00028282/di...6dc%3DEconomics

Okay... more statistics on illegal immigration, which won't be read, but whatever. I'll stand by an argument supported by research anyday. Louis Rea and Richard A. Parker, Illegal Immigration in San Diego County: An Analysis of Costs and Revenues (Sacramento: California Legislature, 1993). Frank D. Bean, B. Lindsay Lowell, and Lowell J. Taylor, "Undocumented Mexican Immigrants and the Earnings of Other Workers in the United States," Population Research Center, University of Texas at Austin, 1986. Kevin F. McCarthy and R. Burciaga Valdez, Current and Future Effects of Mexican Immigration in California (Santa Monica, Calif.: Rand Corporation, May 1986). Rebecca L. Clark, Jeffrey S. Passel, Wendy N. Zimmermann, and Michael E. Fix, "Fiscal Impacts of Undocumented Aliens: Selected Estimates for Seven States," photocopy, Urban Institute, Washington, January 1995. That's just what I have lying around my office currently. Okay, so one of the books (the last one) I got from my neighbor. Here is research done at the Dallas Fed Bank. http://www.dallasfed.org/research/swe/2003/swe0306a.html --It provides some data and feel for immigration, but economic numbers on immigration can't be put to illegal immigrants because they're undocumented...so on we go. http://www.dallasfed.org/research/papers/2001/wp0103.pdf --Again, more trend data on illegal immigration. http://www4.nationalacademies.org/news.nsf...66?OpenDocument --Quotage Immigration benefits the U.S. economy overall and has little negative effect on the income and job opportunities of most native-born Americans, says a new report* by a panel of the National Research Council. Only in areas with high concentrations of low-skilled, low-paid immigrants are state and local taxpayers paying more on average to support the publicly funded services that these immigrants use. http://www.cis.org/articles/2004/fiscalexec.html --Tells you the basic financial impact illegal immigrants have in the US. Households headed by illegal aliens imposed more than $26.3 billion in costs on the federal government in 2002 and paid only $16 billion in taxes, creating a net fiscal deficit of almost $10.4 billion, or $2,700 per illegal household. • With nearly two-thirds of illegal aliens lacking a high school degree, the primary reason they create a fiscal deficit is their low education levels and resulting low incomes and tax payments, not their legal status or heavy use of most social services. • On average, the costs that illegal households impose on federal coffers are less than half that of other households, but their tax payments are only one-fourth that of other households.

No, they're not. If you knew what the Klan was, you wouldn't make that comparision. The MMP is designed to showcase our lack of border security, create publicity, and hopefully lead to some change. That's it.

Okay, again just let me reiterate that the contribution that illegal aliens give to our economy is minimal at best. We would not notice readily if all illegals were not working tomorrow, because they're in primarily low-end service oriented jobs, or migrant farm work. Again, it's just economics people. Link Pimpage http://www.frdb.org/images/customer/copy_0...mm2_23jun01.pdf

I've argued this with you on several occasions, Mike, and I can never comprehend your stubborn resistence to the very simple equation of "most votes = winner". Majority rule is the most basic fundament of democracy, and we've had four elections now where the minority ruled. Big cities wouldn't dominate in a popular vote system. Nobody would dominate. Every single individual vote would be counted equally. "But what about big-city vote fraud" you'll say. Well, first of all, if there's no fraud or scandal in the elections these days and everything runs so smoothly, how would all this new fraud come about? And secondly even if that were an issue, my favorite voting system idea, doling out the electoral votes individually in each state based on the percentage of the popular votes that the candidates receive in that state, neatly sidesteps that issue altogether by narrowing the effect of any possible voter fraud to just one small area. Jingus, The problem with winning the popular vote and popular vote only stems from the fact that a candidate would only have to campaign in a very small number of states to get the necessary support to win. The E.C. system tries to mitigate this by forcing candidates to visit many more mid-major states. Thus, you get a better sampling of geographic representation. -sjp

I, for one, applaud the MMP, for they're proving that a group of concerned citizens, forming a PRIVATE project, can actually do what the government is supposed to do (to an extent). Privatize the border... Oh, and about the illegal immigrants contribution to our country's wealth production. You and I wouldn't likely see any noticable changes in retail prices. Their impact would be essentially highly localized in nature.

I think Locke being shot is another wacky vision. We know the raft will be finished. Probably the big reveal about the hatch happens in the last 5 minutes. I don't see Sayid torturing Locke, but I can see him pressuring. Shannon would be more likely to go off (gee, I hope Sayid doesnt like that too much). btw, I've been thinking. Jack's a pretty damn good trauma doctor. And he sports mean tats. And can handle a gun. Desert Storm Field Medic for the good guys? Make a nice connection there with sayid.

Everything affects you directly. In terms of personal welfare, you *should* be more concerned with interest rates and mounting federal debt. Those problems will hurt much more than $3 gallons of gas.

You're going to be associated with the cause on the basis of easy generalities, because its much easier to think of a whole group being evil or racist rather than realizing the diversity of the actual group. You can't fire up your army and people by saying "Well, most of the people we're fighting today are just like you and caught up in what the leadership says, but we've got to kill them anyways. You have to make them different and EVIL to make your fighting force effective. When you sit back and become a detached observer, rather than getting caught up in the rhetoric, is when you realize just how tragic war is. Slavery, in the end, would have been abolished when it became economically inefficient. By separating from the north, the South was effectively signing the death warrent to slavery vis a vis economic reasons(go back to Ricardo again). However, slavery was still economically viable then, and would like have remained a viable option until the early 1900s. Ripper, you speak in such black and white terms. The world's grey man, the whole damn thing's grey.

I never understood the whole change the flag thing while I lived in GA. I mean, really, its just a heritage of the state, sometime wearing a scarlet A helps one to realize the mistakes of the past. The georgia flag was adopted in the late 50s in a act of defiance towards the civil rights movement. The flag before that didn't have the symbols of the confederacy in it. The flag was basically a "screw you washington, we ain't integrating" statement by those that ran Georgia at the time. When people try to say it was about the heritage of Georgia, it kinda was. A 50 year heritage and it was brought forth by ignorance. It had no business still flying above the state capital and below the United States flag. And seriously, who cares if they were caught in the middle. At the end of the day, the confederacy was a gigantic act of treason. Why should this be celebrated and flaunted at public properties? Why celebrate those who got caught up in the middle? Well, I wouldn't celebrate, but we should reflect and remember. Just like with Vietnam or with any war, we should remember those who fought and died regardless. Most everyone on any side of a conflict is just caught up in the middle, as the few people at the top dictate what happens and what side they're on. Good men and women die on each side of a war.

Jingy, you may want to avoid pumping up my ego like that, I might try to save the board again!!

That's why I love this show. Dr. House has absolutely no bedside manner and doesn't pander. He's calls it like he sees it. He's arrogant, rude, insincere, callous, and always right.