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44565. concerned - 10/1/2012 11:38:18 PM Not me. Speaking of health, how are you doing? I've got a little congestion in my bronchial tubes that just doesn't seem to entirely go away. I don't know if at almost 58, something like that is 'normal' or not. 44566. concerned - 10/1/2012 11:45:08 PM The Teleprompter Whiz Kid, between the Roulette Wheels and the one armed bandits at Lost Wages: "Governor Romney, he's a good debater. I'm just okay."
0bama should sing: "Jesus or Muhammad (his preference) is Just All Right With Me." 44567. concerned - 10/1/2012 11:49:12 PM And another Democrat Star, Sandra Fluke, became upset at Bill O'Reilly joking about condoms dropping on her instead of balloons at the Dem Convention.
Boy, is no-humor Fluke leaving herself open for more jokes of a similar thrust. I'll stop here, so as not to enrage any more Bill Clinton groupies, er supporters. 44568. concerned - 10/2/2012 12:16:30 AM When It Comes to Multi-millionaires, Blue States Dominate
Not to say that it's necessarily that the Democrat Party is the party of the ultra rich, although it probably is, but this probably explains why Blue States pay more taxes than they get in Federal handouts. What else would you expect, given this, in all honesty?
44569. concerned - 10/2/2012 12:27:05 AM I caught Ben Bernanke outright lying about his QE and Twist maneuvers. Now I don't know what his party affiliation is, but he is simply lying if he maintains that current Fed policy is not meant to allow the US to continue to run huge deficits without paying a large interest penalty. If he was telling the truth, he would never have started in on QE3 which has many more long term negative effects than positive ones. 44570. concerned - 10/2/2012 12:34:54 AM QE and Operation Twist are almost the direct opposite of Supply Side economics in its effects. It is a weak dollar policy meant to support the huge debt load that the US is accumulating. Such weak currency plans work better for countries that have large export surpluses which the US does not. If the US is dependent on imports of commodities such oil that become more expensive in US dollars, that erodes discretionary spending power of consumers, and without a strong export oriented private sector to go along with such economic policies, incomes decline over time. 44571. concerned - 10/2/2012 12:35:19 AM ...their effects... 44572. concerned - 10/2/2012 12:38:39 AM QE and Operation Twist are almost the direct opposite of Supply Side economics in their effects. They are weak dollar policies meant to support the huge debt load that the US is accumulating. Such weak currency plans work better for countries that have large export surpluses (such as China has had) which the US does not. Also, if the US is dependent on imports of commodities such as oil that become more expensive in US dollars due to QE, et al, that erodes discretionary spending power of consumers, and without a strong export oriented private sector to go along with such economic policies, incomes decline over time.
44573. concerned - 10/2/2012 1:09:21 AM Questions Romney should ask 0bama during the debates (since the moderators won't):
• Most economists agree this is the worst recovery since the Depression. In 2009, you said that if you couldn't turn the economy around by now your presidency would be a "one-term proposition." Why shouldn't voters take you up on that?
• Your resume includes community organizer, civil-rights attorney, professor and politician. Your opponent has not only started up his own company but helped turn around other companies, as well as the Olympics. How is he not eminently more qualified to turn around this economy?
• Biographer David Maraniss documents 38 fabrications in your memoir, "Dreams From My Father." If readers can't trust you to be honest in your autobiography, why should voters trust you with another term?
• Did Ayers, as he has claimed, help you write "Dreams"?
• On several occasions you've led voters to believe your cancer-stricken mother was denied "treatment" for a "pre-existing condition" and had to fight her insurer for payment on her death bed. But a reporter found that Cigna in fact paid all her medical bills. Did you tell a story about your own mother to help sell ObamaCare?
• On the campaign trail, you commiserate with debt-burdened college students by noting you took years to get out from under your own student loans. What was your total debt, and who held those notes? What scholarship money did you get, if any? And did you ever apply for or receive foreign student aid?
• Voters have seen college transcripts of past presidential candidates. Why not yours? What were your GPAs at Occidental and Columbia?
From IBD 44574. concerned - 10/2/2012 1:26:39 AM Thomas Sowell presently has a column where he talks about the two main reasons capital gains are taxed at a lower rate than 'guaranteed incomes' (e.g. hourly or salaried pay).
1) Capital gains tax rates are lower for those who take the actual risks as an individual starting an enterprise, writing a book, opening a franchise outlet, etc. than for salaried or hourly employees because the latter are guaranteed by an employer while there is no guarantee of any profits or even income in the former case.
2) Investments in corporations such as stocks and bonds are already taxed once as corporate income, and taxed again as capital gains to investors. There are arguments that any capital gains taxation rate here is unlawful double taxation.
The argument for a lowered capital gains taxe rate compared to salaried or hourly income taxes is not one of 'fairness'. It is to encourage people to risk their money in investments in private sector business activity, from which about 85% of jobs are created. Those who argue for an increased capital gains tax rate, if they get their way, almost surely don't understand that that would have a direct and negative effect on the job market. 44575. thoughtful - 10/2/2012 3:33:40 PM If that is the case, concerned, then how to you explain the earnings from hedge fund guys being taxed at the capital gains rate when none of it is their own money at risk?
And double taxation and even triple taxation isn't illegal. We pay social security and medicare taxes out of our wages, then we pay income taxes out of our wages and then we pay sales taxes when we spend our wages. I am taxed at a higher rate (alternative minimum tax) because I pay so much in property taxes and sales taxes and personal property taxes that it is considered a "tax dodge" and thus I pay even more taxes.
And of course it is questionable how much corporate taxes are actually paid. From every small business owner who writes off their cars, and part of their houses and gasoline and everything else they can, to major corporations who have paid no corporate tax, it's very hard to identify which or how many corporations pay even the appropriate statutory rate. 44576. concerned - 10/2/2012 7:22:17 PM Let's break your examples down a little here:
We pay social security and medicare taxes that are out of our wages,both purportedly targeted for social services/funds, not for government to spend arbitrarily on other programs, thus not 'double' taxation), then we pay income taxes out of our wages and then we pay sales taxes when we spend our wages (sales taxes are not Federal Taxes).
The double taxation comes about because the same entity (Federal Government) taxes the same individuals' capital gains profits twice for the same reason - to provide general revenues. In the case of stock held in a corporation, the shareholder is by definition a part owner, so his investment is taxed once as a business tax and taxed again as a capital gains profit. Notice all the specific conditions necessary that must be satisfied here. The same nominal individual is taxed twice by the same entity (Federal Government) on the same money (capital gains) for the same reason (unspecified general revenue) twice - all these conditions must be satisfied in this case for unlawful double taxation. I'm not saying that I'm committed to that exact view, but it does seem to have a pretty valid basis to me.
Feel free to ask questions if this isn't clear enough. 44577. concerned - 10/2/2012 7:32:54 PM I'm not sure whether or why hedge funds managers only get taxed at a capital gains rate for profits made by others' investments - but hedge fund managers are not my favorite people - a lot of people in Wall Street and big banks are getting away with what they shouldn't - there hasn't been enough spine in the Federal Government since the Reagan Administration to do anything effective about it.
I believe that the Reagan/Bush 41 DoJ ultimately sent something like a thousand people to prison (estimates vary from 800 - 1500) in the wake of the savings and loan crisis of the late '80's.
What do we hear from the 0bama administration regarding all the wrongdoing regarding the Housing Crisis and the economy since then which is far worse than the S&L crisis was? Crickets. The conclusion: 0bama's completely in bed with all the big money people.
But notice that I'm not lumping job creating businesses here in with Wall Street and Banking - the Left always seems to think they are all in everything together, which is terminally stupid and ignorant. 44578. concerned - 10/2/2012 10:02:03 PM 
And who said, in 2008:
the country faced "a choice between more of the same policies that have widened inequality, added to our debt," or policies that "will restore balance to our economy; that will invest in the ingenuity and innovation of our people; that will fuel a bottom-up prosperity."
44579. concerned - 10/3/2012 12:17:16 AM found on the 0bama/Biden website:
 44580. concerned - 10/3/2012 6:49:07 AM Just had a thought regarding the 'Piss Christ' art. Somebody should come up with a 'Shit Mohammed' image to match it and they should be displayed side by side at every opportunity.
Sounds fair to me. 44581. concerned - 10/3/2012 6:51:10 AM An image of a hog having the hershey squirts right in Mohammed's face is right about in line with Piss Christ. 44582. thoughtful - 10/3/2012 1:12:26 PM Utter BS. If paying for soc sec and medicare aren't taxes, I'd like to see you try to get out of paying them....when they garnish your income or throw you in the clink, it sure will feel like taxes.
And the reason why they don't tax hedge fund managers at income tax rates rather than capital gains rates is because the monied interests operate so well to manipulate fairness into the tax system....what is fairest for them, that is.
And Ben Bernanke is a republican...he was appointed by Bush. 44583. concerned - 10/3/2012 9:06:03 PM 'Thoughtful' - you sound like you have a problem with Al Gore's 'lockbox' definition of SS and medicare taxes.
IAC, they are supposed to be used to fund the social security and medicare programs, so you would have a pretty hard time finding anyone who would think of them as double taxation, IAC.
Bernanke was only a Republican when it suited him, sort of like the mayor of NYC, if he ever was. Right now, Bernanke's completely in the tank for 0bama. 44584. concerned - 10/3/2012 9:41:09 PM If all he has to work with is an administration that insists on spending more irresponsibly than a drunken sailor, Bernanke will definitely help them 'kick the can down the road' with QE and the like to avoid a worse alternative at least for the short to medium term. If Bernanke pursued a tighter money policy, it would have immediately thrown the economy into a worse recession than it already is in and he would also be in open conflict with the WH. You may notice that this is not what is happening, so trying to pigeonhole Bernanke as being doctrinaire in any way is not appropriate to the facts.
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