The anti-Bush game

[geldonyetich]

Looks like that "Michael Moore's Movie Banned by Bush Administration" thing in that anti bush game is now outdated.

Flash! - "Fahrenheit 9/11" is to be released in American theatures June 26th.

(Also according to that article it wasn't Bush Jr. who prevented the game from hitting theatres but rather the Movies' previous owners, Disney, fearing political backlash.  They sold the movie to Miramax who apparently habors no such fear and that's why it's a-go.)

[Dark Vengeance]

Looks like that "Michael Moore's Movie Banned by Bush Administration" thing in that anti bush game is now outdated.

Flash! - "Fahrenheit 9/11" is to be released in American theatures June 26th.

(Also according to that article it wasn't Bush Jr. who prevented the game from hitting theatres but rather the Movies' previous owners, Disney, fearing political backlash.  They sold the movie to Miramax who apparently habors no such fear and that's why it's a-go.)

Misinformed much? The only facts you got right are that George W Bush (his Dad was George Herbert Walker Bush....he isn't a "Jr") did not attempt to prevent the films from being shown, and that Disney had opted not to distribute. They did the same with Kevin Smith's "Dogma".

Disney owns Miramax....Disney feared that the controversial nature of Moore's film may motivate conservatives to boycott Miramax and/or Disney films. Disney certainly doesn't need that kind of heat, especially since they are about to lose Pixar, and watch as they become Disney's biggest threat.

The film is being distributed through Lion's Gate, IFC, and a new company formed by Bob and Harvey Weinstein (who happen to be co-chairmen of Miramax). Showtime has gotten exclusivity for pay-TV rights, and they're rumored to be close to a deal with Universal Home Video for VHS/DVD rights.

Check out what this smug fuckwad has to say about the distribution:

"On behalf of my stellar cast -- GW, Dick, Rummy, Condi and Wolfie -- we thank this incredible coalition of the willing for bringing 'Fahrenheit 9/11' to the people," Moore said in a statement.

Moore wanted to have his film out by July 4th, and on video in time to influence the November election. The film's release date is June 25th.

Of course, you could have researched all of this yourself....wouldn't have been too tough if you had bothered to read the article on CNN.

Bring the noise.
Cheers.............

[daveNYC]

Looks like that "Michael Moore's Movie Banned by Bush Administration" thing in that anti bush game is now outdated.

Flash! - "Fahrenheit 9/11" is to be released in American theatures June 26th.

(Also according to that article it wasn't Bush Jr. who prevented the game from hitting theatres but rather the Movies' previous owners, Disney, fearing political backlash.  They sold the movie to Miramax who apparently habors no such fear and that's why it's a-go.)

Misinformed much? The only facts you got right are that George W Bush (his Dad was George Herbert Walker Bush....he isn't a "Jr") did not attempt to prevent the films from being shown, and that Disney had opted not to distribute. They did the same with Kevin Smith's "Dogma".

Disney owns Miramax....Disney feared that the controversial nature of Moore's film may motivate conservatives to boycott Miramax and/or Disney films. Disney certainly doesn't need that kind of heat, especially since they are about to lose Pixar, and watch as they become Disney's biggest threat.

The film is being distributed through Lion's Gate, IFC, and a new company formed by Bob and Harvey Weinstein (who happen to be co-chairmen of Miramax). Showtime has gotten exclusivity for pay-TV rights, and they're rumored to be close to a deal with Universal Home Video for VHS/DVD rights.

Check out what this smug fuckwad has to say about the distribution:

"On behalf of my stellar cast -- GW, Dick, Rummy, Condi and Wolfie -- we thank this incredible coalition of the willing for bringing 'Fahrenheit 9/11' to the people," Moore said in a statement.

Moore wanted to have his film out by July 4th, and on video in time to influence the November election. The film's release date is June 25th.

Of course, you could have researched all of this yourself....wouldn't have been too tough if you had bothered to read the article on CNN.

Bring the noise.
Cheers.............

Wake up on the wrong side of the bed?

[Alkiera]

He's not entirely off the hook, as being in office is exactly when his administration has had the oppertunity to bring it up to revise it, and apparently chose not to.

He was kinda busy, given that his team was held up from getting into the Whitehouse for awhile due to Gore refusing to give up counting dropped chads, and trying to keep military absentee votes from counting.  Once he finally did get into office, some idiots flew planes into a couple large buildings.

Anyhow, I agree that Bush is not exactly a perfect President.  I disagree with some of the things he's done domestically, especially the changes to Medicare.  I'm firmly against big government, and anything that makes our current bloated behemoth any bigger.  However, I feel that Bush is more likely to not go overboard on government growth than any Democrat alternative.  Breaking up agreements with our neighbors, without first proving unequivocally that they aren't working, doesn't neccesarily sound like good foreign policy, either.  And proving that will take time Bush doesn't really have to spare right now, given all that is on his plate.

--
Alkiera

[heck]

However, I feel that Bush is more likely to not go overboard on government growth than any Democrat alternative.

This would of course be excluding the Department of Homeland Security using its wealth of resources to access abortion records?  And a big government wouldn't er, want to change the constitution based on religious beliefs would it?

[HaemishM]

Let's reiterate the reasons I refuse to vote for George Bush in November:

1) During his administration, he has taken what was a balanced budget and continually RAISED government spending, including deficit spending, while lowering taxes, mostly for upper middle class and upper class income people. He's intentionally making the government spend more money than they are taking in, and that's WITH a majority of Republicans (supposedly the fiscally responsible party) in Congress.
2) The tax cuts mentioned above gave a higher percentage of cuts to people who DID NOT NEED THEM, while completely ignoring the people most hard hit by the economic situation. He used the worst aspects of "trickle-down" economics to suggest these cuts would help stimulate the economy.
3) The people he appoints into positions of power are intransigent cockmunchers, with weekly news reports of new scandals that they are just slippery enough to avoid.
4) His appointee John Ashcroft has single-handedly made the most egregious affronts to the Bill of Rights all in the name of "Homeland Security." My perception is that we are no more or less secure today than on September 10th.
5) While he handled the post-9/11 crisis well, he has rode that tragedy to maximum effect, involving us in one just war, and one war that I have seen no good justification for. He has saddled the American taxpayer with a gigantic bill for the latter war, while I have seen no positive gains come from the war and a whole lot of negative.
6) He has taken the US from the highest international regard (post 9/11) to the lowest in just 2 years. Our foreign policy is a clusterfuck, and what influence we might have had under Clinton has been eroded for years to come.
7) Rather than admit their faults, his entire administration has participated in buck-passing, or worse, outright attacks on his opposition based on Fear, Unrest and Despair.
8) He looks like a simpering, arrogant fool.

Kerry may not be better, but I have a hard time thinking he'll be worse.

[Dark Vengeance]

Wake up on the wrong side of the bed?

Maybe you missed it when geldon said the following:

You define prejudice to see "Geldonyetich is talking politics" and immediately assume I'm trying to bandy about my uninformed opinion anymore. Those days are behind me. I'm not making uninformed opinions, I'm trying to better understand both sides our political climate.

...then he proceeds to not only provide uninformed opinions, but to report incorrect facts that are easily obtained with a quick hop over to the most popular news site on the internet. And people wonder why his opinions in political discussions aren't respected.

By comparison, although I disagree with Haemish on some points, I at least respect his opinion as being pretty well-informed. Our difference of opinion is based primarily on our view of the facts....not necessarily a dispute of what the facts are.

Big difference.

Bring the noise.
Cheers.............

[personman]

One has to compare the numbers on jobs created to the unemployment figures.  You also have to look at first-time filers for unemployment benefits.  These numbers are mostly guesstimates anyway, but between these three indicators you get a feel for the number of people who have given up or otherwise now have jobs that have fallen off the radar.

I suggest it is a mistake to assume all those people are now suddenly contented sole proprieterships.  They're more likely declaring bankruptices, defaulting on credit, and when they finally do find employment are working well below levels that make for a more stable recovery.

I don't fault Bush for getting us into Iraq, I fault him for conducting the war so that our military will suffer declining recruitment for at least another decade, squandered our last bit of global capital, and ensured petro dependence for at least two generations.  I don't fault Bush for securing the longest list of health care changes ever made, I fault him for doing it in a way that doesn't provide safety nets for society and bleeds the government of resources.

And so on down the list of his "accomplishments."  I fault Bush because he's basically sold the country to private interests and undermined our ability as a genuine superpower.

An interesting repeated lesson of superpowers over the last three thousand years is that as soon as they use unilateral blunt force they begin their decline.  A reading of Gibbon's Decline of the Roman Empire sounds eerily similar to our current society's refusal to pay for a stable country - everyone wanted "their" money then too...

Private enterprise is operationally efficient, but it's not socially **effective**.  The point of government, its effectivity, is to provide a stable society.  We can't do that when we have a government of infinitely layered sub-contractors, each siphoning off their 20% while evading responsibility to provide effective stability to society.

[geldonyetich]

Moore wanted to have his film out by July 4th, and on video in time to influence the November election. The film's release date is June 25th.

Of course, you could have researched all of this yourself....wouldn't have been too tough if you had bothered to read the article on CNN.

My Post: Wed, June 1st, 1am PST
CNN Source: Wed, June 1st, 10am CST

So no, I guess I did not go forward in time 7 hours to read that article and instead had to use what little facts were available to me in the distant past from a less reputable news source.   Of course, this is completely my fault for not using my psychic powers to scry this knowledge from the future.

[Re: Why the Bush Administration didn't take the time to try and revise NAFTA to correct overseas hiring policies]
He was kinda busy, given that his team was held up from getting into the Whitehouse for awhile due to Gore refusing to give up counting dropped chads, and trying to keep military absentee votes from counting. Once he finally did get into office, some idiots flew planes into a couple large buildings.

Perhaps, but it's hard to say how long it takes a few hundred officials to get through the red tape and get those things done.   It's really a matter of prioritizing, isn't it?   He had time to draft lots of tax cuts, he should have had enough time to consider a revision to the NAFTA.

...then he proceeds to not only provide uninformed opinions, but to report incorrect facts that are easily obtained with a quick hop over to the most popular news site on the internet. And people wonder why his opinions in political discussions aren't respected.

You're under the effects of selective hallucination.   I've strived to provide as little opinions of my own as possible here.  Any opinions I did provide were someone else's, and the primary idea there was to show you that some people other than myself disagree with what you had said.   I did this full knowing that if it were coming from me, you'd disagree automatically, but apparently that backfired because this extends to include links to other people (even popular news sites) coming from me.   I mention a CNN hosted debate and it is now firmly in the pit of lies for you, amazing considering you used it just a few hours before as basis to prove I didn't research anything.

By comparison, although I disagree with Haemish on some points, I at least respect his opinion as being pretty well-informed. Our difference of opinion is based primarily on our view of the facts....not necessarily a dispute of what the facts are.

Big difference.

And so you continue to define prejudice.   If I were to write some of the exact same things HaemishM did, you would probably attack me saying I was making baseless accusations.   In fact, come to think of it, I did and you have.    

It's interesting that he doesn't need to provide massive proof to back up every little thing he says and I do.   Basically you just disagree with me but simply have not enough respect for me to think anything I say may have any basis in fact.    That's fine, I can't ask for someone to give me their respect, and it's clear that you've already made up your mind.  

Now if Boog were here, with backup from some other #hate chronies, I'm sure he could accuse me of something outragous that would cause me to lose my composture and make me look like a total ass like I did before.    You don't quite have the finesse for it.   So just spare me more pointless mudslinging, as it's tiring to have to overstep another dig at me in every second sentence you've written on this thread.

[Dark Vengeance]

My Post: Wed, June 1st, 1am PST
CNN Source: Wed, June 1st, 10am CST

So no, I guess I did not go forward in time 7 hours to read that article and instead had to use what little facts were available to me in the distant past from a less reputable news source.   Of course, this is completely my fault for not using my psychic powers to scry this knowledge from the future

Don't blame me because your sources suck, and you don't know enough to tell the difference.

Perhaps, but it's hard to say how long it takes a few hundred officials to get through the red tape and get those things done.   It's really a matter of prioritizing, isn't it?   He had time to draft lots of tax cuts, he should have had enough time to consider a revision to the NAFTA.

He should have pencilled this in somewhere between unprecedented terrorist attacks on the US and unprecedented corporate scandals on Wall Street.

You also ignore a very important point about outsourcing....companies have to maintain this thing called PROFIT. When costs exceed revenues, the company has to cut back as many costs as possible. Take away the ability of companies to cut costs during the last few years, and you'd have a LOT more bankrupted companies. There is some "sacrifice a few jobs to save the company" involved that you aren't considering.

Bringing them back is a bit tougher...because now you're asking a company to incur greater costs to bring the same job back to the states. It is due to the need for PROFIT that companies are lax to bring the jobs back.

You're under the effects of selective hallucination.   I've strived to provide as little opinions of my own as possible here.  Any opinions I did provide were someone else's, and the primary idea there was to show you that some people other than myself disagree with what you had said.

WTF are you babbling about? So now the opinions expressed in your posts are not your own? Give me a fucking break. Playing devil's advocate and asking people to make counterpoints to the flash movie is pretty fucking transparent....particularly when you press the counterpoints, and bring up other points against Bush.

You implied that big business is doing temporary hires so that unemployment figures look favorable for Bush....that's fucking idiotic.

You've also made several comments that certainly express opinions about the candidates. If you like, I can point them out to you via PM.

I did this full knowing that if it were coming from me, you'd disagree automatically, but apparently that backfired because this extends to include links to other people (even popular news sites) coming from me.

The fucking facts about Moore's film were not accurate. Bitch about it all you want, isn't going to change it.

I mention a CNN hosted debate and it is now firmly in the pit of lies for you, amazing considering you used it just a few hours before as basis to prove I didn't research anything.

WTF did I say about the Crossfire link? NOTHING.

And so you continue to define prejudice.   If I were to write some of the exact same things HaemishM did, you would probably attack me saying I was making baseless accusations.   In fact, come to think of it, I did and you have.

Prejudice would be if I were judging your comments before you said anything. This is not the case.

It's interesting that he doesn't need to provide massive proof to back up every little thing he says and I do.   Basically you just disagree with me but simply have not enough respect for me to think anything I say may have any basis in fact.    That's fine, I can't ask for someone to give me their respect, and it's clear that you've already made up your mind.

He's expressing opinions, and not trying to dispute facts. Fuck, his post barely brings any facts into the equation, and those that are used I am willing to concede as accurate.

Pull the sand out of your vagina, geldon. I disagree with you because you don't know what the fuck you're talking about. Look to your comments about unemployment rates....and take a look at how quickly you backpedalled when Alkiera provided facts that proved your statement wrong.

Now if Boog were here, with backup from some other #hate chronies, I'm sure he could accuse me of something outragous that would cause me to lose my composture and make me look like a total ass like I did before.    You don't quite have the finesse for it.   So just spare me more pointless mudslinging, as it's tiring to have to overstep another dig at me in every second sentence you've written on this thread.

Let's leave Boog and Corp out of it...you certainly don't need their help to look like an ass.

I don't particularly want you to look like an ass. Quite the opposite...I want you to use some goddamned brain power and do your research. Actually make an effort to UNDERSTAND the shit, instead of just linking to it. If you insist on posting in political threads, I'd prefer to see you make a point that doesn't leave me shaking my head at your ignorance.

Bring the noise.
Cheers..............

[Arnold]

Let's reiterate the reasons I refuse to vote for George Bush in November:

1) During his administration, he has taken what was a balanced budget and continually RAISED government spending, including deficit spending, while lowering taxes, mostly for upper middle class and upper class income people. He's intentionally making the government spend more money than they are taking in, and that's WITH a majority of Republicans (supposedly the fiscally responsible party) in Congress.
2) The tax cuts mentioned above gave a higher percentage of cuts to people who DID NOT NEED THEM, while completely ignoring the people most hard hit by the economic situation. He used the worst aspects of "trickle-down" economics to suggest these cuts would help stimulate the economy.
3) The people he appoints into positions of power are intransigent cockmunchers, with weekly news reports of new scandals that they are just slippery enough to avoid.
4) His appointee John Ashcroft has single-handedly made the most egregious affronts to the Bill of Rights all in the name of "Homeland Security." My perception is that we are no more or less secure today than on September 10th.
5) While he handled the post-9/11 crisis well, he has rode that tragedy to maximum effect, involving us in one just war, and one war that I have seen no good justification for. He has saddled the American taxpayer with a gigantic bill for the latter war, while I have seen no positive gains come from the war and a whole lot of negative.
6) He has taken the US from the highest international regard (post 9/11) to the lowest in just 2 years. Our foreign policy is a clusterfuck, and what influence we might have had under Clinton has been eroded for years to come.
7) Rather than admit their faults, his entire administration has participated in buck-passing, or worse, outright attacks on his opposition based on Fear, Unrest and Despair.
8) He looks like a simpering, arrogant fool.

Kerry may not be better, but I have a hard time thinking he'll be worse.

+1

[heck]

You also ignore a very important point about outsourcing....companies have to maintain this thing called PROFIT. When costs exceed revenues, the company has to cut back as many costs as possible. Take away the ability of companies to cut costs during the last few years, and you'd have a LOT more bankrupted companies. There is some "sacrifice a few jobs to save the company" involved that you aren't considering.

O man.  Boo.

Does the name Dennis Kozlowski ring a bell?  Hope ya don't think he's an anomoly.   Granted, I heard about that dude on CNN so he may not exist.  

Bringing them back is a bit tougher...because now you're asking a company to incur greater costs to bring the same job back to the states. It is due to the need for GLUTTONOUS PROFIT that companies are lax to bring the jobs back.

Fixed!

[SirBruce]

One has to compare the numbers on jobs created to the unemployment figures.  You also have to look at first-time filers for unemployment benefits.  These numbers are mostly guesstimates anyway, but between these three indicators you get a feel for the number of people who have given up or otherwise now have jobs that have fallen off the radar.

This is a common liberal refrain I see in response to strong emplyement figures.  "Oh, well, they don't count all the people who stopped looking for work!"  Also soon followed by, "And the new jobs aren't as good as the old ones!"

The problem is we didn't count those people when CLINTON was President either, and under 6% unemployment was considered amazingly awesome.  What was the "true" unemployment then?  Well, there are lots of studies that try to quantify this, but it is complicated by lots of other factors.  For example, incarcerations... we have a much larger prison population today than we did 1o-30 years ago, and they aren't counted either.  Meanwhile, retirement ages have risen.. do we consider this a good thing, that people are living longer and more productive longer, or a bad thing, because "evil Republican policies" are "forcing older workers to work since they can't live on Social Security, etc."?  It all depends on how you want to spin it.

But the bottom line is we're talking about relatively small fluctuations in an otherwise very healthy economy, especially in the face of the dot.com bubble burst, 9/11 and other terrorist threats, and rising oil prices.  You want to see bad times?  Talk to those who went through the Great Depression, or the period from 1972-1982.  Those were economic tragedies.  Anything better than that is fine by me.

Bruce

[personman]

I don't know what liberals say, not being one and only knowing a single individual who self-labels as such.

The definition of unemployed only encompasses those who tell government offices they are actively seeking work and/or are claiming unemployment.  The difference between new jobs and the new unemployment numbers gives us a rough idea of whether unemployment really dropped due to a recovery.  Or people truly just gave up.

This is not a "liberal" vs. "conservative" thing, it's just the way the current government chooses to cast the stats.

We can always look at the actual numbers on the US DOL site:

http://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/surveymost?bls

Enable "Civilian Unemployment" and "Unemployment Rate", then click "Retrieve Data" at the bottom.  They recently added charting so at the next screen change the From date to 1990 and leave the To date at 2004.  Then enable "Include Graphs".

There is a short peak in unemployment for the first six months of the Clinton administration.  The trend strongly declinesand there is a slight trend upwards after the Bush administration takes office.  Of course after 9/11 the trend understandably skyrockets.  Though interestingly the father's numbers were worse than the son's now - intriguing since the elder Bush inherited the benefits of Reagan's revolution.  (Must... resist... sarcasm...)

We can certainly debate how much the policies of the Democratic party had anything to do with global boom/bust cycles.  I question that myself.  But your point that things are the same now is incorrect.

There was tremendous creative destruction in the 90s, but we really did see people rotate out of manufacturing into knowledge positions.  We're now seeing people rotate out of knowledge positions into unemployment or service jobs.  The Bush administration's policies of tax cuts for individuals and corporations only demonstrates what we saw in the Reagan years: it does not create jobs and encourages adverse behavior by the corporations.

The difference this decade is that we see is the difference pocketed by the senior execs via bonus and stock payouts as they invest overseas.  All a magnitude more than ever seen before.

Can things be worse?  Sure, but to use your example we're being asked to re-elect Herbert Hoover.  Hoover's strategic decisions also were rooted in the truths of his day and like now the actual implementations were pretty destructive.

I suspect Bush will do better than Hoover's 59 electorial votes.  Not that I'll be one of his voters this time around.

[geldonyetich]

Don't blame me because your sources suck, and you don't know enough to tell the difference.
...
The fucking facts about Moore's film were not accurate. Bitch about it all you want, isn't going to change it.

*blink* Come again?   I post that info from a webpage that was available to me at the time.  CNN, which is probably more accurate, was not yet posted up when I did my post.

You're basically complaining here that I was too dumb to have gone forward in time to gather the correct information.   Now you are aware that this is a metaphysical impossibility, correct?   Would you like tommorow's lottery numbers while I'm at it?

I don't particularly want you to look like an ass. Quite the opposite...I want you to use some goddamned brain power and do your research. Actually make an effort to UNDERSTAND the shit, instead of just linking to it. If you insist on posting in political threads, I'd prefer to see you make a point that doesn't leave me shaking my head at your ignorance.

Well, I appreciate you're not aware that you are deliberately endeavoring to make me look bad.   I don't appreciate that you dig into me every second or third sentence you've been writing on this thread as though I'm the idiot savant invader pounding on the iron doors to your castle.  

Particularly when you consider this is the first political thread I've gotten involved with in three months and your using the word "threads".    Do the wounds from my previous ignorance run so deep that  a three month gap is entirely transparent to you?   Apparently so.

But you have made an effort to try to explain the issues, and I do appreciate that.   Though you may not believe it, I am trying to register your perspective on the matter based on what you've said here.   I may not neccessarily agree with you any more than you agree with HaemishM, but as you've asked, I'm trying to keep that to myself, with apparently varying levels of success.

You want to see bad times? Talk to those who went through the Great Depression, or the period from 1972-1982. Those were economic tragedies. Anything better than that is fine by me.

Fair enough.  Still, you know how it's human nature to always be wanting more.

I'd just like a job myself, but I suppose if I spent more time looking and less time posting on this board I could probably make that happen, not that I'm not already fulfilling double my state requirement of job contacts per week.

We can always look at the actual numbers on the US DOL site:

http://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/surveymost?bls

Enable "Civilian Unemployment" and "Unemployment Rate", then click "Retrieve Data" at the bottom. They recently added charting so at the next screen change the From date to 1990 and leave the To date at 2004. Then enable "Include Graphs".

Good resource.  

Apparently there's no danger of artifically inflated employment levels and/or world conspiracies involving giant bees, because the employment levels haven't changed much at all since December.

[SirBruce]

I don't know what liberals say, not being one and only knowing a single individual who self-labels as such.

Then why are you responding as if you know what liberals say:

This is not a "liberal" vs. "conservative" thing, it's just the way the current government chooses to cast the stats.

And it's the way the previous government chooses to cast the stats, too.  Again, you seem to totally miss the point.  You can't claim X% of unemployment under Bush isn't really good because of those who have stopped looking, because the same is true under Clinton... his X% would have been higher as well, had we counted those folks.  But we didn't.  So the point is to compare apples and apples.

X% during the Clinton era was widely regarded as great, so a similar X% in Bush's era should be as well.

We can certainly debate how much the policies of the Democratic party had anything to do with global boom/bust cycles.  I question that myself.  But your point that things are the same now is incorrect.

You're a moron.  I never said "things are the same now".  I said that there was X% of unemployment under Bush now, and when X% occurred under Clinton, things were regarded as great.  I also said that it is erroneous to discount X% under Bush because of Y adjustments because you need to apply those same adjustments under Clinton for the comparison to be relevant.  This is not to pick on Clinton; it's just the common point of reference where we recently encountered historically low unemployment rates.

blah blah blah

More unfounded rhetorical spin.  Facts are facts, jack.

Bruce

[stray]

I suspect Bush will do better than Hoover's 59 electorial votes. Not that I'll be one of his voters this time around.

I always liked Kerry in the past. When he decided to run, I really wanted to like him at first, but the guy can't make up his damn mind. He's not a leader. Sure, Kerry has some things planned that he hasn't flip-flopped on, but I wouldn't be surprised if he changes those too. After his first year in office, it's all polling and gauging the public from there. Maybe he can do that in the Senate, but not as President. And if he chooses Hilary as his running mate, he can definitely kiss my (ass) vote goodbye. The more I think about it, the Dems probably would have been better off if Dean won the primaries (at least the guy was "passionate").

Neither Bush or Kerry are who I'd ultimately prefer, but as it stands right now, I'm voting for Bush. Both R and D sides have issues I'm for and some I'm against, but at least I know Bush will carry out a good portion of what he says he's going to do. The fact that he's relentlessly offensive about the terrorist threat (while Kerry only speaks of "Security") is almost good enough for me. I happen to think some things outweigh the bad with Bush.

[daveNYC]

...but at least I know Bush will carry out a good portion of what he says he's going to do.

Funny, that's the exact reason I'm not going to vote for Bush.

[Logain]

Bringing them back is a bit tougher...because now you're asking a company to incur greater costs to bring the same job back to the states. It is due to the need for GLUTTONOUS PROFIT that companies are lax to bring the jobs back.

Fixed!

Are you somehow trying to imply that an entity that exists solely to make money is somehow being immoral for making money?

Businesses exist to create wealth. They don't exist simply to provide jobs.

[geldonyetich]

If only it were that simple.

[Tebonas]

And exactly because businesses are about making money for themself and nothing else, they shouldn't be able to dictate government policies. They are not immoral, but certainly amoral.

Which a government shouldn't be. So the question is not what do the businesses want to do, but what the government does to temper that basic greed so that it doesn't hurt the other citizens of the country, without going to far into the other direction and making the environment hostile to businesses.

That unchecked greed doesn't work we already found out in the early days of liberalism, which even the USA recognized with such things as anti-trust laws and child labour laws (I guess others exist as well to further prove that point if you are thusly inclined),

[Romp]

yep it amazes me why some people are so concerned with keeping the government 'out', when in a democratic society where the government intervenes it is usually in a benevolent manner in order to provide services which the market will not provide or correct injustices or bad outcomes for society which are caused by the market.  

A really pure market system would result in a society just as bad as a totalatiarian communist one, except for the very rich.

[Dark Vengeance]

*blink* Come again?   I post that info from a webpage that was available to me at the time.  CNN, which is probably more accurate, was not yet posted up when I did my post.

You're basically complaining here that I was too dumb to have gone forward in time to gather the correct information.   Now you are aware that this is a metaphysical impossibility, correct?   Would you like tommorow's lottery numbers while I'm at it?

I'm complaining because for anyone that has followed the story, it was obvious from the start that you didn't know wtf you were talking about. Additionally, the only "news" provided by your faulty source got BOTH pieces of new information wrong....the distributor and release date.

Well, I appreciate you're not aware that you are deliberately endeavoring to make me look bad.   I don't appreciate that you dig into me every second or third sentence you've been writing on this thread as though I'm the idiot savant invader pounding on the iron doors to your castle.

I'm aware that I am probably making you look like an ass. I don't give a fuck. Stop blubbering about how the bad man is being so mean to you. If you don't say stupid shit, I don't bust your chops for doing so....see how that works?

Particularly when you consider this is the first political thread I've gotten involved with in three months and your using the word "threads".    Do the wounds from my previous ignorance run so deep that  a three month gap is entirely transparent to you?   Apparently so.

What difference does three months make when you apparently learned nothing? The lesson wasn't "stay away from politics", it was "come to political discussions with an informed opinion".

Reasearch, learn, understand, apply logic and common sense...maybe toss in a dash of humor (but don't compromise the point to do so), and you'd hang in just fine. But you haven't done that yet...you keep trying to just jump into the pool and swim, without first learning any strokes.

But you have made an effort to try to explain the issues, and I do appreciate that.   Though you may not believe it, I am trying to register your perspective on the matter based on what you've said here.   I may not neccessarily agree with you any more than you agree with HaemishM, but as you've asked, I'm trying to keep that to myself, with apparently varying levels of success.

If you are trying to learn something, you may want to consider the "mouth shut, eyes & ears open" approach. If you have questions ask....but as it stands right now, your existing bias (the same one that was there 3 months ago) is obvious.

Fair enough.  Still, you know how it's human nature to always be wanting more.
I'd just like a job myself, but I suppose if I spent more time looking and less time posting on this board I could probably make that happen, not that I'm not already fulfilling double my state requirement of job contacts per week.

Let's stick to finding the job first, before you start "asking for something more". For starters, the state requirement is a BARE MINIMUM. Anytime I've been unemployed, 8AM-5PM has remained time for work.....when you don't have a job, finding one is your full-time occupation.

I can appreciate the mindset that blames Bush for your job troubles....but he didn't get you fired, didn't determine your job qualifications, and isn't the one doing your interviews. You can't absolve yourself of personal responsibility...and that applies whether it's about finding a job, or what you post here.

At this point, I'm going to stop the Brucing...you're either going to get defensive and go on blubbering about how I'm so mean to you, or you're going to try and do something to improve your situation.

Just anything that gets you out of the cycle of 'unfounded statement - correction - oh, well what about this then? - correction - rinse - repeat'.

Bring the noise.
Cheers............

[Dark Vengeance]

And exactly because businesses are about making money for themself and nothing else, they shouldn't be able to dictate government policies. They are not immoral, but certainly amoral. *snip*

A good post....but nobody is suggesting that businesses should dictate government policies.

All I was attempting to suggest is that you don't spur the economy and job growth by installing policies that are going to drive many companies out of business. Fuck, I can't even count the number of companies that went under since 2001....some startups that flopped, some established companies that fell apart in the tough economic climate.

My employer didn't outsource....we used attrition to cut jobs, and then even cut some people loose after it started taking too long. We also reduced our compensation for salespeople, and raised quotas. Long story made short - we paid fewer people less money and asked them to do more. The end result is even worse than overseas outsourcing for those that remain.

Why did we do this? Because we had to trim "inessential infrastructure". This included merging a couple sales offices, closing one remote office in favor of having reps work from home, putting tighter reigns on waste around the office, and even dropping jobs. We needed to do this to make something reasonable close to our projections for profitability and earnings per share.

The "gluttonous profits" we were trying to post worked out to less than $0.30 per share for our stockholders. Guess who holds the most stock in my company? THE EMPLOYEES.

But sure...it's just that evil corporate America lining the pockets of the ultra-uber-rich. It can't possibly be sacrificing a few for the good of the company as a whole, right?

I'm all for legislation to discourage overseas outsourcing...this is one of the few things I like about Kerry's economic plan. I just think that the corporate America = evil greed machines that serve the uber-rich is just a knee-jerk reaction. Better to understand the business realities, not just the antoagonistic vision of big business....because after all, if not for big business, most of us wouldn't have any jobs at all.

Bring the noise.
Cheers............

[Tebonas]

A good post....but nobody is suggesting that businesses should dictate government policies.

I think they actually do in times with strong lobbies and too compliant governments. But the posting was deliberately held neutral without making accusations. It just was meant to be a statement to Logains posting, no deeper sinister meaning behind it.

My crazy European mindset gets me in enough arguments with you guys without people putting words into my mouth or hidden agendas into my mind. Not that this should stop you through, its a free forum after all.

Just to counter any antiamerican tendencies interpreted into it, I see the same problem surfacing in the EU with the lobby work in our EU organs. For me the latest Software Patent laws are a sign for that. It even hurts our own interests und quite many Developers and small to medium companies mourn it, but substantial lobbying work (with some Nepotism on the side) pushed it through anyway.

[personman]

I don't know what liberals say, not being one and only knowing a single individual who self-labels as such.

Then why are you responding as if you know what liberals say:

This is not a "liberal" vs. "conservative" thing, it's just the way the current government chooses to cast the stats.

And it's the way the previous government chooses to cast the stats, too.  Again, you seem to totally miss the point.

So if I understand you correctly, when I say statistics are defined consistently and absolutely, not by partisan terms, than I must be partisan.  How... interesting.

I didn't miss the point because I didn't dispute it.  If you are going to take a stance that 6 is approximately equal to 6, granted.  Thanks for your insight.

Where you are violently childishly wrong is that the relative percents, taken on a month by month basis, might be in the same ballpark but they don't describe the same reality.  Six is just a number.  We have to look at the trends to understand what the number means.

In the Clinton years new jobs outpaced lost jobs.  That's a better thing than we see now, where new jobs substantially trail lost jobs.  The numbers are roughly the same simply because more people currently are falling off the charts.

The current situation is not all that different than what we saw about the time Clinton took office.  The difference is that the recovery happened when people rotated into higher skilled jobs.  For the last three years that trend has been reversing itself.

The general trend would have happened had Gore won the election.  The difference would be how the government might have responded.  It's entirely possible to do the right thing the wrong way.  The neocons are demonstrating that.

[Dark Vengeance]

The current situation is not all that different than what we saw about the time Clinton took office.  The difference is that the recovery happened when people rotated into higher skilled jobs.  For the last three years that trend has been reversing itself.

The general trend would have happened had Gore won the election.  The difference would be how the government might have responded.  It's entirely possible to do the right thing the wrong way.  The neocons are demonstrating that.

Holy shit, imagine that...a political thread where I disagree with both geldon and SirBruce. The more things change, the more they stay the same.

personman has a point here, Bruce....both this administration and the previous one benefit from this practice. There isn't really much of a way to dispute that Bush has had a net loss of jobs during his administration.

Of course, I wasn under the impression that we were making a recovery in terms of new jobs within the past year, though it wasn't on pace to break even by the end of the term.

We could also point to the vastly different economic climate the Bush administration had to deal with. Let's note that the impending dotcom implosion, corporate scandals, and Al Qaeda threat existed under Clinton's watch as well....they just didn't happen to blow up in our faces until after Bush took office. And let's be realistic....they all certainly could have.

I think Gore may have handled things differently, and Bush probably should have. But wtf does that matter? It might make for a damn interesting episode if they ever decide to bring back Quantum Leap, but it doesn't do us a damn bit of good to speculate about it now. The best we can do is look at the stated plans of each candidate to improve the situation moving forward.

Bring the noise.
Cheers..............

[HaemishM]

Here's my big problem with the rush to outsource these days.

Businesses spent and overspent then spent on credit in the dot.com explosion days. Everybody was happy, everyone was supposedly getting rich. Businesses hired out the ass to provide customer support, and other things, often hiring people who may or may not have been totally qualified for the job, but because they at least had some knowledge of the field, they got the job. I should know, I was one of them. I had about 1 week worth of HTML experience when I was hired to start designing web sites, back in 1995. Luckily, not many other people did either. Often, these businesses hired at what they KNEW was way over the market value for that person, simply to secure their employment.

The corporate structure of America essentially showed reckless abandon, planning and building businesses around shaky business practices at best, outright short-sighted stupidity at worst. No good business plan will tell you to pay over the market value of an employee. In 2 years time, I doubled my yearly salary in positions I was barely qualified for, and I'm not the only one. Call centers were probably the biggest area where this type of thing happened, but look at all the barely competent network admins that got hired as well.

So corporate America was spending and planning based on the high times, with no thought to how their business would be profitable if the economy shrunk. And that's not even getting into the whole "we fake the accounting thing to appear profitable" ploy. Corporate America as a whole made stupid, shortsighted decisions based on aberrent profit cycles, and when the economy shrunk, they found profitability was impossible without abberent economic conditions or accounting fraud. And instead of cut their executive salaries, take a hit, and live up to their responsibilities to their workers, they instead go for the cheap labor in foreign countries. Never mind that the corporations are in existence because of tax breaks they've been given by the communities they are now turning into ghost towns when the factory closes. Then, some of these industries get hit with a disaster and suddenly they are crying to the U.S. government for subsidies (hello, airlines!) while laying off more people.

And in all of this, not only is the employee left to flap in the very strong breeze of an economy that ain't hiring no more, the customer is left to hear Apu on the phone when they call customer support for a warranty problem.

Certainly a corporations first task is to be profitable. But pure capitalism is dangerous, because a corporation without any sense of responsibility to its employees and its communties is all too often a lumbering beast crushing all in its path.

Shareholder interest should never take precedence over your company's employees, or the community where your company is located.

[Dark Vengeance]

Certainly a corporations first task is to be profitable. But pure capitalism is dangerous, because a corporation without any sense of responsibility to its employees and its communties is all too often a lumbering beast crushing all in its path.

Shareholder interest should never take precedence over your company's employees, or the community where your company is located.

Your example is certainly tilted toward the large manufacturing/industrial business that shuts down an entire location to outsource it to another country. In that case, I agree....the company has to consider more than just shareholder value. For this reason, I applauded Moore when he opposed GM in his film "Roger & Me". Flint still hasn't fully recovered.

However, in other scenarios, it doesn't always leave the ghost town....although it may mean that the on-site call center jobs go away. In those cases, it may well be a case where cutting the costs saves the company.

Certainly, some of this can be blamed on overpaid employees, or poor business plans. But let's also keep in mind how much revenues tightened up....the auto industry was feeling the pinch, enough so to offer unprecendented incentive plans. Several suppliers were given a flat-out mandate...lower your prices, or lose our account. In some cases, businesses had made themselves lean to maximize profit, and when revenues dried up, they had no place else to cut.

Like I said, I agree...but I can also see situations where a company had to dump a few jobs and/or send them overseas in order to keep the company afloat, preserve the profitability of the company, and provide jobs for the vast majority of their employees.

Ultimately, if a company cannot posts profits, they aren't going to be around very long. The opposite held true for much of the dotcom era, so people tend to forget this. If the company goes under, ALL the jobs are lost....so in some cases outsourcing was used to benefit the man at the expense of the few.

But as I said, I'm willing to concede where there are cases where it was a necessary evil, and other cases where it was simply used as a way to make more money without feeling any sense of responsibility. Can we each agree that both situations exist, that the former is acceptable yet undesirable, and that the latter is the type of behavior that needs to be addressed?

Bring the noise.
Cheers.............

[HaemishM]

Certainly, I will agree with you that both situations can exist. I never said that they didn't exist.

However, especially in the tech sector, the benevolent business is the exception rather than the rule. That's where many of our growth gains came in the 90's, and where most of our job losses have come from outsourcing and overworked employees. The first thing to go in all of these cases has been customer service. So not only does the customer pay through the nose for the product, gets little to no good customer support because he's having to deal with someone whose name he cannot even pronounce on the phone, but his community also loses 100 or 200 jobs because the call center that used to be down the street is now located in New Dehli.

And overall, the biggest problem with outsourcing is that THE JOBS DON'T COME BACK. And all these bastards talking about how "it'll be a hard transition to a new career once your job has been outsourced" aren't the motherfuckers who lost their jobs. They are the consultants who showed the executives the ten-cent savings in having a foreigner do your phone support.

[Malindor]

I also have a problem with the current economic model that corporations employ to satisfy their shareholders.  That is the increasing salaries and defered stock options that most CEOs recieve these days, and the continual downsizing of the little guy.

If they are so interested in cutting costs, I think they should trim the fat at the top first, before they cut it at the bottom.

[geldonyetich]

If you are trying to learn something, you may want to consider the "mouth shut, eyes & ears open" approach. If you have questions ask....but as it stands right now, your existing bias (the same one that was there 3 months ago) is obvious.

I've actually been adopting a "asking questions while eyes and ears open approach".   You might find those questions assinine, but I'm humble enough to endure you abuse if it means getting to the point.   Honestly, if I was asking for a device to find fault in myself, there's no shortage of mirrors in the world.

Maybe I did expose a bit of bias.   My mom's a retired school teacher, and apparently the republicans had not been kind to them over the past, and as a result I've been risen in a somewhat Democratic-favoring household.    

But, are you're telling me you totally lack bias yourself?   Well, that's not terribly fair of me to say seeing how I asked for some defence for Bush Jr. in the first place.   Granted I did it in a somewhat biased manner because I knew that was the only real way to produce some results.

I can appreciate the mindset that blames Bush for your job troubles....but he didn't get you fired

Didn't he?   I used to work for a small company which was having such troubles in the current economical situation that they repeatedly had to tighten their belt and move more and more work onto my position while cutting our training and increasing our work load for no pay increase.   After going through nearly four years of that, most people are going to succumb to the stress.  

Though, if I weren't such a tool sporting such lofty ideals of company loyalty I'd probably have done the smart thing and bailed out the moment I saw things were going the direction they were.   Unfortunately due to several jobs in the tech industry at about my level of qualification (just call center ISP stuff) moving over to India where it could be done much cheaper, I really haven't had much places to go.  

But no, I guess your perspective would be that this really isn't the BUsh Jr's administration's fault, as you're pointing out that Bush Jr. didn't cause the economy to have issues.    Maybe you're right.   I think I have established at least that the business politics have not been favoring me during his administration, coincidentally or otherwise, so it's only natural for your average man on the street to pick up that impression.    Ask CNN, most people think the job market is poor, even though it's supposedly improving.

Personally, I'm going to school, but maybe I should start going to church instead.   That's why we need to start cutting money from schools so there can be more government funding for faith-based institutions.

[heck]

I've actually been adopting a "asking questions while eyes and ears open approach". You might find those questions assinine, but I'm humble enough to endure you abuse if it means getting to the point. Honestly, if I was asking for a device to find fault in myself, there's no shortage of mirrors in the world.

This is the smartest thing I've ever read on the internet.  It made me decide not to post a very bitter rant!

[Pug]

My employer didn't outsource....we used attrition to cut jobs, and then even cut some people loose after it started taking too long. We also reduced our compensation for salespeople, and raised quotas. Long story made short - we paid fewer people less money and asked them to do more. The end result is even worse than overseas outsourcing for those that remain.

Oh those poor people! They actually got to keep their jobs! How terrible!

Hey, you're one of those poor people. Why don't you do yourself a favor and quit your job? You can just pretend that your company outsourced your position. Then you'll be available to apply for one of those new manufacturing jobs!

[Paelos]

Hey a job is a job no matter how tedious or mundane. If times were hard on me, you can bet your ass I wouldn't scoff at taking a job working minimum wage to keep the lights on. Sometimes anything is better than nothing when others are counting on your income. Pride shouldn't get in the way.