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SuperJerk

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Posts posted by SuperJerk


  1. Mittens weighs in on the stimulus plan...

     

    He said the $819 billion measure that passed the Democratic-controlled House was a plan to "spend and borrow with reckless abandon."

     

    That approach could worsen the current economic crisis, he said, adding, "we could precipitate a worldwide crisis of confidence in America, leading to a run on the dollar ... or hyperinflation that wipes out family savings and devastates the middle class."

    http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090131/ap_on_...ney_republicans

     

    More proof that he is about as sharp as a bowling ball when it comes to political positioning. If the worst case scenario doesn't occur, Mitt just ends up looking like an economic nay-sayer and obstructionist.


  2. I completely disagree with you on the value of newer infrastructure (heard anything about collapsed bridges lately? What effect do you think making it harder for commuters and shipping to travel has on the economy and productivity?), but this took me by surprise...

     

    ...construction jobs don't pay that well...

     

    You might want to qualify that a little bit.


  3. Infrastructure as opposed to collapsing bridges, even more congested highways (look out for those potholes), and more roads into areas that can be used for further economic development.

     

    But I still say the main reason to do it is that it creates jobs, which give people money to spend, which increases demand for goods and services, which creates other jobs and more people with money to spend. Yeah, eventually the initial jobs go away, but it is potentially offset by the new jobs that were created, and the people who had those infrastructure jobs can be absorbed into the workforce in other areas once the economy is moving again.

     

    Things like infrastructure, health care, and education are good investments for ngovernment because (if done correctly) they can enhance private sector productivity.


  4. You guys saying you can't wait for 2010...you really want to put those idiots back in charge of the Congress? After the awesome job they did up until 2005? Really?

     

    What would a Republican stimulus plan look like? Based on their track record, it'd look like corporate giveaways (i.e. war profiteers and the pharmecutical industry), none of which ever seems to trickle down to most people. At least when the Democrats are in charge, they throw money at regular people instead of big business.

     

     

    The problem with infrastructure spending is that once it is complete, it stops stimulating. Infrastructure spending doesn't really do much, if anything at all, in the long run. I'd rather quite a lot of the money go towards things that will create the next Bill Gates or Steve Jobs rather than fixing the next pothole.

     

    The only things the government can do to encourage people to come up with technological innovations is other incentives for those innovations and make sure the public is being educated to a degree that someone with Gates' or Jobs' innate talents can realize them, but conservatives tend to argue against both of these things.

     

    Isn't it possible that infrastructure spending will employ people, who will in turn spend money, which will in turn create more jobs, which will in turn cause other people to spend money....you get the idea (but if not, look up "the multiplier effect").

     

     

    Reading is a skill.

    Okay, so I missed one word. In my defense, what you wrote, with your references to Hispancis and big families, made it sound like you were talking about births, and not just pregnancies.


  5. Not really, Mike.

     

    States ranked by rates of pregnancy among women age 15-19 (pregnancies per thousand):

     

    1. Nevada (113)

    2. Arizona (104)

    3. Mississippi (103)

    4. New Mexico (103)

    5. Texas (101)

    6. Florida (97)

    7. California (96)

    8. Georgia (95)

    9. North Carolina (95)

    10. Arkansas (93)

     

    It's pretty much anywhere where hispanic populations are more concentrated, if you've noticed. It's definitely a cultural thing, as women being pregnant at a younger age is not as big of a deal in latino culture as it is in other ones. But yes, there's definitely a correlation there between the bible belt, especially if you look at the top ten states by live birth, although that shouldn't be as big of a surprise because abortion is severely frowned upon in some of those states.

     

    Although I cannot dispute the reasoning behind the high rankings in your list, the CDC has different results, in which southern states continue to be over-represented in the top 10:

    http://health.usnews.com/articles/health/2...state-rank.html

     

    Rank State Birth rate per 1,000 women ages 15-19

    1 Mississippi 68.4

    2 New Mexico 64.1

    3 Texas 63.1

    4 Arkansas 62.3

    5 Arizona 62.0

    6 Oklahoma 59.6

    7 Nevada 55.8

    8 Tennessee 54.7

    9 Kentucky 54.6

    10 Georgia 54.2

    11 Louisiana 53.9

    12 Alabama 53.5

    13 South Carolina 53.0

    14 North Carolina 49.7

    15 Wyoming 47.3

    16 Missouri 45.7

    17 Florida 45.2

    18 West Virginia 44.9

    19 Alaska 44.3

    20 Colorado 43.8

    21 Indiana 43.5

    22 Kansas 42.0

    23 Delaware 41.9

    24 Hawaii 40.5

    25 South Dakota 40.2

    26 Ohio 40.0

    27 California 39.9

    28 Montana 39.6

    29 Illinois 39.5

    30 Idaho 39.2

    31 Oregon 35.7

    32 Virginia 35.2

    33 Utah 34.0

    34 Michigan 33.8

    35 Maryland 33.6

    36 Nebraska 33.4

    37 Washington 33.4

    38 Iowa 32.9

    39 Pennsylvania 31.0

    40 Wisconsin 30.9

    41 Minnesota 27.9

    42 Rhode Island 27.8

    43 North Dakota 26.5

    44 Maine 25.8

    45 New York 25.7

    46 New Jersey 24.9

    47 Connecticut 23.5

    48 Massachusetts 21.3

    49 Vermont 20.8

    50 New Hampshire 18.7

     

     

     

     


  6. Based on his definitions, I think snuffbox confused conservatism with libertarianism, and liberalism with authoritarianism.

     

    There are too many legitimate sources available that explain the meanings of these two ideologies for me to need to define the terms. Sufficed to say, in all my years of political study and involvement, I rarely if ever seen definitions as simplistic and inadequate as the ones he offered.


  7. And Bush's tax cuts, at the expense of sounding like Sean Hannity, WERE instrumental in shortening the Clinton recession of 2000/2001 that Bush inherited and led to 52 months of uninterrupted job growth(a record, btw). If you think the current economic crisis is at the feet of just the Republican party and has anything to do with Bush's tax cuts, you are a blind partisan moron.

    You don't think massive amounts of federal spending after 9/11 and the business cycle played a substantial part in the recovery from that recession?


  8. Or, you think that all it takes is to say something to make it so. Facts are stubborn. You can't have the biggest government ever and call it 'conservative' just because you want to. Conservative = small govt, liberal = big govt, those are definitions...you cant just say something is one or the other just because they're your 'enemy' or whatever.

    I don't think your definitions are accurate.

     

     


  9. Why does the government need to pick up that bill?

     

    Becuase it will save the government money in the long run in health care costs and AFDC payments.

     

    If you want to put the money towards actual sexual education other than abstinence (which I'm fine with teaching that as well) then cool. Course abstinence doesn't need money since it's really just telling kids "Don't have sex until your married" and there is zero to spend money teaching there. We've still got kids who firmly believe the pull out method is 100% full proof and that the pill is 100% effective with no chance of getting preggers. That alone tells me the schools are doing a really REALLY shitty job with sex ed now.

    How do you know the people who think that passed or even took sex ed?


  10. All that un-conservative stuff you are saying they did were unintended consequences of their failed conservative tax and military policies.

     

    When you look at the massive military spending, foriegn invasions, restrictions on civil liberities, xenophobic immigration policies, tax cuts for the rich, state sponsorship of religious charities....that's a pretty conservative administration.

     

    The reason they didn't get the results they wanted wasn't because they weren't conservative enough, but because conservatism doesn't work.

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