Political discussions about everything
By snakeoil
#68836
We should change the title of this message board from the Political Forum to the Bashing Section. It seems obvious to me that some of our members have very little knowledge of the facts about our government; they just recite what the "leaders" tell them. Any serious subject quickly sinks to a bashing section which to me indicates hat the bashers have a limited knowledge of the facts. Let's look at a few of those facts.

Wealth http://www.mybudget360.com/percent-of-t ... ed-states/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

1. 88.9% of the wealth of this country is held by the top 20% of the population.

2. 9.4% of the wealth is owned by the second 20% of the population.

3. 2,6% of the wealth is owned the the next 20% of the population.

4. -0.9% of the wealth is owned by the bottom 40% of the population..

Why must we give the farm away to be Conservative? How long do we expect the bottom 40% to put up with this? Remember that King George was kicked out of the Colonies because he taxed them at 3%.

National DebtCBO.gov

1. When Reagen took office, the national debt was about one trillion dollars. He decreased the top rate from 70% to 50% to 25%. When he left office the national debt had increased by three trillion dollars, a 300% increase.

2. Bill Clinton was a piker; he only increased the national debt by 689 BILLION dollars.

3. Now comes good old George W. In his eight years in office he increased the national debt by 10 trillion dollars. with his Prescription Drug Plan (unfunded), The tax cuts for the top 1% (unfunded), The Iraq War (unfunded), The Afghanistan War (unfunded), The War On Terror (unfunded.)

4. To be fair, much of the increase in the debt under Obama was inherited from George W. and the effects of the recession on the economy without the required cuts in spending. (Policies under one Presidential Administration usually have an effect on the debt for 10 years or more after that President leaves office,) This is not let Obama off the hook, he has presided of an increase to over 18 trillion dollars without him decreasing spending or raising taxes to pay off some of the debt. The Congressional Budget Office also states that ObamaCare, that plan to save us money, will increase the national debt.

Now the bad news...The CBO says that the national debt will increase to 22.667 trillion dollars by 2022.
By Grog
#68838
Fair enough. So what do you hope to accomplish here? Are you here to provide factual enlightenment for about twenty or so assholes, myself included, who come here only to fuck with each other?

This hasn't been an even semi-serious discussion board for about ten years.
By snakeoil
#68839
If the national debt wasn't enough to scare you, there's the increasing lack of competition in the market place to take more of your money.

1. 20 banks own 84% of the nation's GDP. 12 banks own 70% of banking assets.

2. In the food industry, 4 companies control 90% of the global grain trade, 3 companies control 70% of the beef industry, and 4 companies control 58% of the pork and poultry industry, (One of those, Smithfield is owned by a Chinese company.)

3. WalMart controls 25% of the grocery industry.

4. 4 companies control 75% of our breakfast cereal industry, 70% of our snack food industry and 60% of our cookies and half of our ice cream industry.

5. 4 health care insurers control 70% of the health care market. 2 insurers control 58% of that market.

6. 4 companies control 89% of the cell phone industry and 4 companies control 75% of the internet industry. (South Korea has Internet speeds of 200 times the USA and pay #29 a month. France gets Internet,home phone and cell phone for $70 a month.)

7. In the past 30 years, foreign companies have bought 3$3 trillion worth of USA companies.
By Grog
#68840
What do you hope to accomplish? Do you think that anyone comes to a low participation political board on a porn site to learn about anything serious?
By snakeoil
#68841
Now about jobs and our trade balance..

1. Since 2000, Multi-National Corporations have laid off 2.9 million US workers and hired @.4 million foreign workers.

2. South Korea sends $11.72 billion in cars to this country (2009 figures.) We were allowed to send only $492 million worth of cars to South Korea.

3. Our trade deficit with India is $10.4 billion.

4, Our trade deficit with China is $273 billion; the largest recorded trade deficit in history. China also has a record of stealing company secrets and patents.

5. Because of the trade deficits, manufacturing in the US is about 10% of our economy. Finance is about one third of our present economy.
By snakeoil
#68843
Grog, I've never been one to waste my time bashing others, I must admit that I get exasperated sometime and spout off at someone but it is usually because someone refuses to think or just posts ridiculous stuff they saw on the Internet. I love to discuss ideas and solutions to our problems (and there are many.) I feel that our country is going down the tubes because we refuse to discuss ideas, I learned in college that facts cannot be taken at face value but must be analyzed and put in context. Example: As a percentage of GDP, Reagen's debt increase is twice as bad as Obama's even though Obama's is more. My point to these posts is that there is plenty to discuss.
By sillydaddy
#68845
The saying goes,"Those who do not learn from history.... are doomed to repeat it".

Are we too sophisticated for a revolution?
By johnforbes
#68848
To Grog's question, what does even a famous writer accomplish?

F Scott Fitzgerald died young of alcoholism and a heart attack, thinking himself a failure.

Hemingway was a high school graduate and his economical prose was likely in part because he had no college. He was an ambulance driver in one war and a journalist in another, so he likely flunked his own tests of machismo. An alcoholic, he shot himself.
By Intrepid
#68852
Grog, not being of the caliber of F. Scott Fitzgerald or Hemingway (and a Canadian to boot), will infest this world forever.
Nah...the Molson will get him.
We hope.
Go Molson.
Quickly.
By Grog
#68856
There are lots of things to be discussed, Snakeoil. This hasn't been a place for discussion for a long, long time.

But keep on keeping on.
By johnforbes
#68857
I'd like to thank Grog for his many contributions to this fine forum.

But, inasmuch as Grog has made no contributions, I cannot.
By snakeoil
#68882
More on giving away the farm. I wonder if I should learn to speak Chinese.

wsj.com The Wall Street Journal
Chinese companies are on a U.S. shopping spree. From The Wall Street Journal. wsj.com

On Wednesday, U.S. technology distributor Ingram Micro Inc.IM -0.08% said it had agreed to be acquired for about $6 billion by a unit of Chinese conglomerate HNA Group. The transaction pushed the total value of Chinese-led purchases of U.S. companies to $23 billion so far in 2016–already breaking the full-year record just seven weeks into the new year, according to Dealogic.

The value of the 24 acquisitions of U.S. companies by Chinese buyers is up 15% from the previous record, set last year, when Chinese companies announced 115 deals valued at a total of $20.5 billion.

And 2015 broke the record set in 2014, when Chinese buyers spent $14 billion on U.S. acquisitions. The tally for each year includes transactions where Chinese firms took big stakes in U.S. firms, such as the 5.6% stake that Alibaba Group Holding Ltd.BABA +1.14% took in Groupon Inc.GRPN +6.51% this week.

The Chinese e-commerce giant on Friday disclosed a in the once-popular, but lately shunned, daily-deals company.
Amid slowing growth in China, companies there have become more aggressive in pursuing U.S. firms. Many of the deals announced recently involve U.S. makers of computer chips that have attracted scrutiny on national-security grounds. The deal for Ingram doesn’t fit into that template. Instead of building technology, it distributes a wide range of computer products.
By johnforbes
#68885
The four daughters of my younger brother grew up in China.

One of them got an MBA from NYU only to learn that she had been hired not for the MBA, but for her fluency in Chinese.
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