This problem with the stock market is the reason why Social Security should not be privatized, and should not be considered the wholly owned pension of the individual tax payer. If you happen to chase the returns and suffer these losses at the time that you need the money, will you be able to wait it out until the fund recoups its losses? Keep SS as a government program, safe and secure, as your safety net into retirement.

Posted at January 22, 2008 3:17 PM in response to The Housing Bubble Explodes: Fed Rushes for Fire Extinguisher

I don't know how many times I've seen "raise capital by cutting labor" mentioned in the last few days.

There you have Mitt Romney's real economic program to revitalize the automobile industry in Michigan... Cut benefits (health) and jobs to improve productivity and the bottom line.

Posted at January 22, 2008 3:10 PM in response to The Housing Bubble Explodes: Fed Rushes for Fire Extinguisher

It didn't have to be this way. We let Bush get past the primary races into the finals and set up the stolen elections. Once they put a conservative republican president in cahoots with a conservative republican Congress, both practicing in your face partisan politics, it was only a matter of time before disasters followed. Do we finally put to rest the folly of republican leadership?

Posted at January 20, 2008 7:24 PM in response to America Must Avoid Presidents Who Will Use Conflict to Define His or Her Presidencies

The first thing out of my mouth when I heard about giving this money to taxpayers was is this going to be a repeat of his last giveaway which turned out to be nothing more than an advance on the next tax filing's refund. After that, my selfish gene kicked in and I thought of the fact that I have no taxable income this year and would likely not even file a return, therefore I wouldn't be eligible for anything. As far as I know, I, like many other responsible non taxpayers, spend money, and spend it on food, clothes, and other necessities. In fact, the low level of the funds we have available to us make it more likely that we quickly spend the money than someone with more income. Carrying that a little further, what incentive is it to the high income earner to get a rebate or check of $800 from the government? Perhaps there should be an upper limit to the income where the additional government check is cut off. Failing to allow for us to get some of this cash is cutting out a significant part of the population from the effort to stimulate the economy away from this impending recession.

Posted at January 19, 2008 3:34 PM in response to Always Wrong

I think the Republican mantra that they believe in lower taxes and smaller government is a leftover from the decades when they were in the political minority in government. What they were really doing was complaining about the fact that they had no say on what the money was spent on. It just manifested itself as a complaint about taxes and spending, a phrase that worked for them in elections. As they showed when they held the presidency and had tight control of both houses of Congress, their desire to spend on the goodies they were interested in, rather than implement the small government they carped about for decades, was what was really important to them.

Posted at January 16, 2008 3:33 PM in response to Morality vs. Politics and My Job as a GOP Operative

Given his history, don't you think that it's likely that Edwards is 'triangulating', himself, staking out positions that can sharply differentiate him from Clinton and Obama? He's just picked out a niche where he hopes he can be seen as a viable candidate. I see nothing in him that says I can trust him to follow through on anything he is saying. Of course, the same can apply to the other candidates. It's a sorry place that we've come to where our first instinct is not to trust what a candidate says to be the truth.

Posted at December 13, 2007 8:28 PM in response to Obama Talks the Talk, But Where’s the Walk?

Catholics haven't covered up priestly abuse, the hierarchy of the Church has. The hierarchy treats the Catholic Church as their organization that they provide to the faithful, instead of a religious belief that they all follow. They've stonewalled their own parishioners, rewarded Bishops who have lead the coverup (Cardinal Law, formerly Abp of Boston, & now living in comfort in Rome), closed parishes to pay for the legal settlements with the abused (Boston), & in general morally bankrupted their religion, with Rome turning a blind eye to it all. The parish I grew up in is one of those closed & disbanded. It has been occupied for the past 3 years by parishioners who refuse to accept the Archdiocese's edict.

Posted at December 4, 2007 8:00 PM in response to Christianity as a Global Threat

You say that Clinton would beat Giuliani because of how narrowly he is defining his candidacy. I don't agree with that idea because Giuliani is running for the Republican nomination now, and in the primaries, Republicans always run hard to the right. Once the general campaign starts, they begin moving their rhetoric to the middle. I believe a nominee Giuliani would do the same, and a gullible electorate would fall for it as always, narrowing the race to nail biting closeness, witness the vote spread/post convention comparisons from past elections. If you want to try and analyze various match races between candidates, you have to try and come up with figures based on their likely general campaign positions.

Posted at October 24, 2007 9:40 PM in response to Clinton and Giuliani Are Way Out Front in New Poll

The 93,000 figure is a fudge factor. We used to use them in physics lab to make the results we obtained through raw data sampling, seem reasonable. It usually didn't fool the prof. Isn't there a very large number, in excess of 100,000 that is needed just to stay even with the growth in the population? So, it would seem that we are really doing little more than treading water, and that's only by counting jobs, not analyzing the quality of those jobs, or the wages they provide. What is the exact break even number?

Posted at October 6, 2007 3:48 PM in response to Spinning Jobs at the White House

Sorry, double posted.

Posted at September 17, 2007 3:57 PM in response to Why Right-Wing Ideas Keep Failing