Gee, in one of the most economically free and prosperous nations in human history, I am supposed to worry about the failure of those who fail to do the most simple and basic things to all but ensure they will not live in poverty:

1. Don't have children until you are married
2. Don't get married until you graduate highschool
3. Graduate highschool
4. Do not abuse drugs or alcohol

Care to take a guess what the poverty rate is among people that follow those four rules, each of which is almost universally within the complete control of the individual?

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"It's a good feeling to shoot a bad guy. Something you democrats would never understand. Americans are homesteaders, we want a safe home, keep the money we make, and shoot bad guys!"

----Denny Crane

I've never thought "technology" could be classified as good or bad. I guess the most obvious effect of needing less manpower for "production" means we will have an opportunity for most people to create value that's not tied to producing tangible goods. That could be a wonderful thing. How that transition is carried out and which specific technological model wins out will be determined by social, economic, and political power - not technological merit.

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The most important political office is that of private citizen.
Louis D. Brandeis - First Jewish Supreme Court Justice

Sorry southern but this is accepted as common knowledge, what your asking me for is like asking for links to prove that grass is green.
Several factors have contributed to this FACT.

1) Companies have outsourced lesser skilled labor to "outside" companies (I emphasis outside since these companies many times only do work for one larger company) who pay as little as 50% of what used to be paid with the previously union employees. (again this is a fact, not an opinion)
2) "changing names" on a building. Ford Motor Company, as an example simply changed names on some of their buildings to "Visteon" - called it a subsidiary company and reduced hourly wage cost for all newly hired employees by 20% - 30% with substantially less benefit packages as well.

The point is, liberals should stop whinning about the loss of "manufacturing jobs" as though it is a symptom of something bad. We manufacture more in this country than ever before in our nation's history, and we do it at far less cost (including labor hours). That is one of the reasons our material standard of living today is vastly superior to what it was 10, 20, 30, 50 years ago.

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"It's a good feeling to shoot a bad guy. Something you democrats would never understand. Americans are homesteaders, we want a safe home, keep the money we make, and shoot bad guys!"

----Denny Crane

What if the grass is blue?

Companies outsource because it's in the best interest of the company. Companies are in business for profit. If it's more profitable to conduct business outside the states you have to ask yourself why. The company I work with outsources tech work to Ireland (not sweat-shops in asia); now why would they do something like this?

Despite a common misconception companies are in business to turn a profit; not to ensure that their workers are taken care of the rest of their lives.

Speaking of broad statements....

I know this is directed at Corpmediasux, but I want to guess the poverty rate for those who follow those 4 rules.... 10%?

'curious to see your correct answer and where you got the statistics...

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Screw Change!! Let's have a Seamless Transition of Power and Policy.. John McSame in 2008!

What matters is that if you beleive the polls, most people think their personal financial situation is good, and that everyone elses sucks. IE, Jack things his life is fine, but his next door neighbor Bob must be having a hard time. And Bob thinks his life is fine, and that Jack must be having a hard time. Which means, they are both doing fine, and have a misconception about the rest of the world. Sound familiar?

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http://www.fairtax.org

Elminate all taxes on income and replace with a national sales tax.

If we were losing those jobs because of improvements in technology as you suggested above, it wouldn't be bad. The problem is we are losing them mostly to foreign countries that employ the equivalent of slave labor. That is not progress. That is regress.

If we were producing more with less labor, that would be great; the history of automation in agriculture shows that clearly, as well as what automation we see in industry. It means there is more wealth to go around, and with the right setting of the game's rules, that wealth will be fairly distributed, because the jobs people move to will pay more than the old ones.

But we are not producing more with less labor. We are just producing more with less American labor. And instead of the jobs people move to being paid more, they are paid less.

And yes, that is a problem, no matter how you spin it.

Been drawing a paycheck nonstop since I was 15.

I got a raise when Congress bumped up the minimum wage.

Nah, just kidding, the minimum wage bump was a net loss for me, probably. Got to pay more for my Triple Whopper w/ Cheese + Onion Rings, now.

I've gone up at least 7% a year since I was 25 years old. Personal best yearly raise within the same job was 15%. Never took a new job that paid less than my previous one.

Go me!

A silly part of me wants to see a Dem win, just so we can behold the immediate change in the interpretation of the numbers.

As far as newspaper [anything] being some sort of indicator... You slay me!

Subscriptions are down, so advertising revenue goes down. Subscriptions are not down because people cannot afford newspapers. Newspapers just suck. Some more than others.

Circulation Plunges at Major Newspapers

Older article, sure, but still within the period of which you speak.

Oh, by the way, New York Post, Wall Street Journal, and Washington "Moonie" Times circulation? Up. What do they have in common, hmmmmmmm?

NYT, Boston Globe, Washington Post, LA Times? Down. What do they have in common?

Go, economy, go!

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"Compassionate Conservatism"?!?! That is a stupid phrase. Conservatism is inherently compassionate. It is liberalism that is cruel for the sake of maintaining a constituency.

Have made this point before as well, but with juts a little bit of a difference as in;

1.Don't have children until you are married and financially able to sppt. them
2. Don't get married until you complete your education as in, college, vocational school etc.
3. Graduate highschool
4. Do not abuse drugs or alcohol

And there’s 2 ways to ask the statistics question I believe; what % of these folks that followed the above are at or under the poverty line and what % of the folks that didn’t, make up those below the poverty line. And of course what % of the adult pop. is below the poverty line?


I'll guess, 35% below didn't follow the above dictum(s)...

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Obama-e fungis nati homines....

Almost every business owner I talk to is complaining, none are out of business, but they all say things are slow.
Figure that anyone who buys gas is having an extra couple of double-sawbucks lifted out of his wallet every week, and mailed to Iraq and Venezuela, that adds up.
And I can't turn on the news without hearing about foreclosures being up, and defaults being up and credit being tight.

The economy isn't any one person, there are always people doing better and people doing worse.
But from a political handicapping point of view, there are more people who have done better in the past and are feeling the pinch now, than there are people who are better off than they were a few years ago.
Which should skew votes to the left.

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“The thought of his being president sends a cold chill down my spine.”

Senator Thad Cochran, Mississippi (R)
on McCain

“I decided I didn’t want this guy anywhere near a trigger.”
Senator Pete Domenici, New Mexico (R)
on McCain

“My anger did not help my campaign ... People don’t like angry candidates very much.”

McCain on McCain

"Mortgage Crisis" cracks me up because quite some time ago some libtard called me a racist for predicting this very thing when everybody (including the GWB administration) was touting "unprecedentedly high minority home purchasing/ownership". I saw those shady fucking deals out there with the teaser rates, too, but I ain't no dummy, have an excellent FICO (wasn't always that way...took a lot of effort and time to get it repaired after college), and I'm a veteran, so I got myself a reasonable and fixed loan for a home I knew I could afford.

As for the smacknuts people of various stripes who are taking in the ass for financing homes they couldn't really afford and have negative equity because the values went down...guess what? Fuck them.

All this does is reinforce my long-held belief that high school students should all be required to take a course on finance including solid information on credit cards, car loans, mortgages, credit bureaus, credit scores, bank accounts, investments, and so on... But I can't be held responsible for the dipshits that were too busy fucking around to become informed. That is what is called an "opportunity cost" -> if you are doing one thing, by definition, there are an infinite number of other things you are not doing. In other words: choose how you spend your time wisely.

Gas prices are a pain in the ass and are dragging everybody everywhere down. Alternate forms of energy will be developed - driven by the free market, not the government. In the meantime, we are not running out of oil, so get crackin' on exploration and extraction.

Are a number of people doing worse now than they were during the tech bubble? Duh. Of course. Shit happens, but the market still rebounded and got higher than it ever was during that time. Economies fluctuate. This is by design.

Again, people are doing fine. If there is an actual malaise beyond that which is reasonably caused by fuel prices, you can thank the MSM for convincing everybody that their neighbor is in trouble. You see, it is not effective to tell people that they, themselves, are "in trouble" because that can be easily refuted ("Uh, what's that idiot on TV talking about? We're doing just fine.") Nope, simple mass persuasion technique (tried and tested by the Nazis among others) - get everybody speculating about their neighbors because the truth cannot easily be discerned, so the talking head on TV might be "correct".

Yeah, right.

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"Compassionate Conservatism"?!?! That is a stupid phrase. Conservatism is inherently compassionate. It is liberalism that is cruel for the sake of maintaining a constituency.

On the contrary. It is our government who has changed the definitions of the statistics. The CPI has been rigged to hide the actual inflation rate, which is closer to 10%, than the stated 2-3%. This has kept wages low relative to actual inflation. With only an increase of .6% in GDP, the economy has actually been shrinking when you factor in actual inflation.

Businesses are having a harder time financing their debt, which has led to over 4000 store closings last year, and there will be close to an additional 7000 store closings this year. That equates to a lot of job loss, and negative growth.

The cost of groceries have risen about 40% since last year, not to mention the price of gasoline has gone up over 100% since 2001.

My wife now has to get a job making only $12.50 an hour at a call center on the graveyard shift to make ends meet (she has a college degree, but we can't afford day care, so she can't take a 9-5 job which would pay better.)

We have three kids, 11, 4, and 2, and real inflation (not government spin) has really taken a chunk out of my once adequate salary. I'm grateful that we had a mild winter here in Pennsylvania, as the cost of heating oil was difficult to manage (and our thermostat is never above 65).

What I'm talking about ain't based on political ideology, it's based on cold hard truth.

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"Shake off all the fears of servile prejudices, under which weak minds are servilely crouched. Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call on her tribunal for every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason than that of blindfolded fear."

"An honest man can feel no pleasure in the exercise of power over his fellow citizens."

-Thomas Jefferson

Public policy decisions which impact the economy need to be based on what will benefit the vast majority of americans. Those who receive most of their income from working at a job. That means employment figures, wage growth, and buying power.

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The most important political office is that of private citizen.
Louis D. Brandeis - First Jewish Supreme Court Justice