Speakeasy forum: This Administration can't cut

unlike the thousands of sailors you've know, all sharing the same brain.

THIS unstable environment,

Get your financial house in order...

Reduce expenses are being told they can't re-enlist and increase income/taxes.

Defense is FEDERAL...It's their baby....States have no say? Does A landlocked state with NO financial gain from Naval activity REALLY give a rats ass about the shipyards in Norfolk?

Defense?...Federal....don't like what the Feds are doing?...State Navy...The Arizona Navy? The Nevada Navy? That would work out, when states start seceding...each state would have it's own forces to fight their neighbouring states, UNLESS you decide to form a union and it could be called The United States Of America.

we're sitting ducks with a Prez who thinks he can still talk his way out of everything because he's so cool

You think he's trying to Glam YOU?

He may be good, but he's not THAT good.

Come back when your brain actually can put a coherent sentence together.

You'll be waiting?

WHAT IS that definition of insanity?

doing the same thing again and again and expecting a different result?

as a probably consequence over 2 weeks ago.

in that both sides are willing to let things go south and take a chance on any bad results can be spun to be the other sides fault.

And given there was a give in tax increase in regard to the "fiscal cliff" settlement, there probably should have been some cut in spending agreed to next, without ties to more tax reform. Not necessarily everything, but something. Even if had been token, it may have allowed the discussion to move forward.

Then they could have negoiated more tax reform and cost cuts, either tied together or see saw wise.

There is no doubt that the administration tried in the last few weeks leading up to the deadline to play up all the negative consequences and blame it on the Republicans. Of course, they denied any responsiblitity at all.

But please show me where anything in this country has improved since this prez took office....the only reason the stock market is where it is at is because the Feds keep printing/borrowing money to throw at the 'economy'. You can bad rap the 'rich' all you want, but it's ONLY the rich who have the money to play the market the way it is being played today........and we have far fewer 'rich' today than we had four years ago, so soon there will only be a handful left to take anything from. As it stands now, with the tax rate increases BO got in January you now have the top 5% paying 72% of the taxes, and even that isn't enough for this greedy prez and his cohorts.

It's like using one credit card with a larger balance allowed to pay off the first credit card and then brag about how you paid off your largest credit card debt. When the credit card of taxes was no longer enough to satisfy the politicos living outside their means in this country, out came the bigger credit card from the Fed Reserve and off they want to go on another shopping binge of entitlements, especially Obama. Money doesn't grow on trees, it grows on the printing presses of the Federal Reserve.

to crawl off the ice sheet to a more solid footing before getting back up, and then falling down again, increasing one's injury.

Don't be myopically focused on the stock market. That's just serving the same as a sleight of hand trick for the shysters. They keep you looking at that, but meanwhile other signs, especially "real" unemployment is showing there's a big problem that threatens to drag it all back down, and it may be worse the second time around.

.....but you'd just poo poo on them so why bother. And even if nothing had improved, that doesn't mean the President of the United States is actively and intentionally trying to destroy the country and that he only ran for office so he could unleash his evil plot. Yes, you have to be delusional to believe a thing like that.

that there are more billionaires now than ever.

However, I think that was world wide.

Ok, this from March 2012, from Forbes......

There are now billionaires from 58 countries including ones from Peru, Morocco and Georgia. The U.S. is still home to more billionaires than any other nation, with 425, a dozen more than a year ago.


And report in 2011 from the WSJ.........

According to the annual World Wealth Report from Merill Lynch and Capgemini, the U.S. had 3.1 million millionaires in 2010, up from 2.86 million in 2009. The latest figure tops the pre-crisis peak of three million.


However, other sites picking a certain year say we lost millionaires, others agree we gained. So either normal slant according to what they want, or different definitions of millionaires and different stats based on what start and stop date you pick.

a million ain't what it use to be.

However, it was just an observation that individuals most people consider "rich" isn't disappearing.

But comparing 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, and 2012 numbers with each other isn't even a decade ago, much less a century. Inflation has not been high enoug the last 6 years to drastically change the lifestyle as regarding being a millionaire or billionaire. That's even truer if you're talking about a million dollar income.

I've averaged less than 3% annual rise in pay rate a year for the last 6 years. Given inflation as probably been about the same, that's good enough I guess. It's better than many working people. Now I am working less overtime, so annual salary is actually down, but not enough so I rather work the extra hours. Last year was my lowest year in over 10 years, however I missed work time, regular and overtime, due to my wife's illness. But even leaving out last year, my annual salary (in unadjusted dollars) has actually been down a bit for the last few years even with the benefit of inflation equalizing raises. If you add in the (fairly low) inflation and the lower value of the dollar, the decrease is even larger.

The huge dip in stock market in 2008-2009 and now the return probably made a lot of money for those professional investors, while scaring many lower income working class individuals into withdrawing their retirement savings at the very bottom at the greatest loss.

that getting from millionaires to billionaires was as easy as it use to be.

Inflation would actually push people up and devalue the lable some, as I think Steve was pointing out.

Regarding poor and middle class, are you saying that just because the official poverty level has been raised that makes people worse off? or think they're worse off?

Surely just as things change and a million dollars isn't as "rich" as it use to be, $20K isn't either. It sounds like you're saying people would be happier making $20K if they were called middle class instead of poverty class. Surely that's not exactly what you meant.

Do you think $20K is a satisfactory income for a family? a couple?, even an individual? That's roughly $400 gross. After taxes (even if as you complain they dont pay federal income tax, there is still all the local taxes and fees), so after taxes, electricity, gas if they have to drive a job, shelter (mortgage or rent), food, retirement savings, is there anything left.

Actually I doubt it will go that far.



And you have said everyone should have a stake in paying taxes, and complaining about the lower income that doesn't pay federal income taxes. So those making minimum wage should be paying more I guess is what you mean. Minimum wage is what, about $15K if you make 40 hours average?

......the drugs must be GREAT in that fantasy world you're living in.

>>>I do remember that this last tax increase is actually an expiration of a temporary tax cut. And I'm starting to wonder if the cuts for more people should have been allowed to expire also. Not necessarily for everyone, but lower than the cut off point they agreed.>>>

Not entirely true.....yes, the Bush tax cuts were allowed to expire on those making over $400K, but those making over $400K ALSO had a tax RATE increase, and EVERYONE saw their paychecks reduced by 2.4% because the FICA (SS and Medicare) tax relief that BO put into place two years ago expired (I never agreed with that relief in the first place because it reduced the necessary income for those two programs. Freezing the SS recipients' COLA was actually a good idea and could have been kept in place after the FICA relief expired and billions more could have been saved that way).

I personally think one of the best things this prez could have done instead of the stimulus when he first took office was to put a price freeze on rent, food and fuel until things could stabilize. Those are the three main driving forces in people's home budgets that could have been managed by the Feds on a temporary basis when you consider how much the States could have saved regarding payments for Section 8 housing and food stamps.

I know economics pretty well........

Freezes on the items I mentioned would NOT have distorted the economy...it actually would have HELPED because people would be getting the same amount of goods for what the dollar was worth at that time instead of less because the FEDS reduced the value of the dollar tremendously, and continues to do so, by printing funny money and dumping it. Evidently, I'M not the one who needs a course in economics.

Stimulus money didn't go into the economy at all.......it went to the auto industry, it went into Cash for Clunkers, it went into Cash for Caulkers, it went to 'green' crap that has failed miserably, it went to buying electric cars for the government as the biggest customer of the failed Chevy Volt, etc. It did NOT go to infrastructure as BO stated........except it DID go for all those freaking thousands of dollars each for signs that high-fived the few projects. When you are using BILLIONS of dollars to 'create' jobs and only one to 10 jobs are created for each of those projects costing HUNDREDS of THOUSANDS for EACH job 'created', you are a joke at economics class 101.....especially when those jobs disappear as rapidly as they came up because those green companies failed and filed for bankruptcy....not to mention the solar panels that went into the dumpster (do you remember Solyndra's videos/pics of that happening after they never sold even ONE unit?)