Friday, December 21, 2012

Has the Cliff been factored in? Plan "B" self destructs and the market sheds less than 1%.

 http://www.marketwatch.com/investing/index/DJIA

The world didn't end.

The world on Wall Street didn't end.

President Obama, it's been seventeen months since your Fiscal Cliff was invented.

Call us when you get an idea.

1773-2009

19 comments:

  1. "Boehner has purged four conservatives from their key committees because they would not follow his line and surrender their conservative beliefs. What has gotten much less publicity is a quiet purge of certain conservatives not receiving chairmanships of subcommittees, even though by seniority they should get those assignments.
    Sources in DC have said Boehner and his team spent their time yesterday threatening conservatives with retribution if they failed to go along with Boehner.
    To their credit, House conservatives, some of them at least, stood their ground.
    http://www.teapartynation.com/forum/topics/plan-b-3

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  2. Obama advises everyone to go drink some eggnog and jets off to paradise. The senate will return next Thursday the 27th, and leave again on the next day.

    Seventeen months of campaigning with not a hint of a solution. BO doesn't have a clue.

    Yawn. The stupidity is institutional.

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  3. You, William, are part of that small subset of America that believes it is so correct, so patriotic, that it has a mandate from God to completely grind the country to a halt until your demands are met. While you may believe that you are supporting the very will of the founding fathers, you are denying democracy to millions of Americans who would be willing to compromise and find a reasonable solution to our problems. The group that you belong to is so fervently entrenched in their beliefs that they will continue to do what they are doing until a point where the rest of the country finds them so intolerable that they find ways to electorally silence them for good.

    I believe in balance and I definitely do not want a far left agenda to dominate the country. Yet, when elected people from your far far right slice of the political world refuse to give an inch on anything whatsoever, you make possible only two outcomes, one is that you win and the country becomes a far right wing fascist nation, or you make people so disgusted they reject you completely and look for ways to punish you electorally. What Boehnor is doing is jut the start. Be careful what you wish for William, you won't like it if the entire country slides to where you are and chooses to silence anyone who disagrees.

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    1. Max, RINO'S compromising with socialist-progressives has given us a $16,000,000,000,000.00 debt. The house holds the purse strings and at this point in time the people have turned them over to a combination of career GOP and Tea party conservatives.

      Since the senate hasn't taken up a spending bill in months or found their way to passing a budget in years it is up to the adults. Enough has become enough. Prepare to pay more tax thanks to your vacationing charlatan.

      A majority is hardly a slice Max, responsible people hardly qualify as fascists. Exaggeration never solved a problem. We are not only doing this for our grandchildren Max, we are doing this for your grandchildren. No one is trying to silence anyone. In fact Max, the more you emote the more your weak arguments are exposed for the crap they represent.

      1773-2009 God Bless our Constitution.

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    2. "Max, RINO'S compromising with socialist-progressives has given us a $16,000,000,000,000.00 debt. The house holds the purse strings and at this point in time the people have turned them over to a combination of career GOP and Tea party conservatives. "

      Factually, William, there are some flaws in this thinking when you really drill down. Something you will never accept is that Reagan was the president who completely untethered us from the ideology that we must pay our bills. Reagan was probably the greatest RINO of them all because he allowed the national debt to double under his watch and allowed spending to skyrocket as long as he got his precious tax cuts. Bush Sr. was the last adult Republican who was willing to raise taxes rather then let the debt keep climbing. With Republicans, there is no consequence, at least there is no consequence to people with wealth.

      As for the majority, gerrymandering has as much to do with that as anything else. When you slice voting districts into the most ridiculous shapes to ensure your candidate is nearly impossible to beat, you get perceived mandates. If they were actually fixing the problem, that would be one thing. But they are not. They are simply doing what benefits their money backers. Republicans talk endlessly about cutting spending, but never about how you start to pay down 16T and that's because they dont' want to pay for it. Republican presidents are STILL responsible for over half of what we owe despite the fact Obama spent 6T.

      But, all we get is lip service and demands that something be done.......when they aren't in power.

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    3. Max, To be correct, yes debt was accumulated under Reagan and again under Bush 1. In the case of Reagan, The Democrats agreed to cut spending 3 dollars for every dollar in taxes. The taxes happened, the Democrats failed to deliver the spending cuts. One would have thought Bush should have learned a lesson. He agreed to 2 dollars in cuts for every dollar in new taxes. Taxes were raised, spending cuts were never delivered.

      Moral of the story. get the cuts first then raise taxes.

      MAx, can parties change? The spendfest of the Bush years have passed, could it be that the Repub's have learned a less on spending? Obviously nothing has changed with the Democrats as we spend our way into oblivion.

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    4. Spending benefits Republicans as much as Democrats Lou, that is why it is not cut. It does not have a damn thing to do with ideology. The difference, IMO, is that we used to believe we had to pay our bills. We used to believe it was immoral to let the debt get so big. And we used to have very high tax rates on the wealthy. Whether that is moral or or not is it's own issue.

      Cut first, then raise taxes? It sounds great, and the way you present it makes it sound nice and tidy that Democrats are the ones who are really at the heart of the problem. But, in 2000, we had a surplus. We had a system of pay go wherein you had to cut something before you could start new spending. For the piddling tax and worthless tax cut we cut then, we could have just left things alone and really started to make a dent in out debt. We chose something else.

      I won't blame Republicans solely for that, because all of America thought we were soooooo good that we deserved a tax cut when we were already trillions in debt. Have Republicans learned a lesson on spending? I don't think so. At best, they are willing to cut spending they are philosophically opposed to, which is basically any spending they don't believe will directly benefit them. Democrats have no moral high ground of course. But instead of a real discussion about what kind of spending is really an investment in the future, we are just having mindless spats about why taxes should not budge an inch when we are trillions of dollars in debt. The majority of America is whacked on this issue, it's like believing you can eat nothing but cake and lose weight.

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    5. Max we know it's a given that you hate Reagan and love Clinton. In fact both presidents had to deal with an opposition elected congress.

      Show me where Reagan borrowed 43% of every dollar spent.

      Show me where under Reagan we didn't have a budget for three consecutive years.

      Show me where under Reagan where our foreign affairs were a joke as they are today.

      The fact is Maxie that you can't stand the fact that Reagan was the greatest president of the 20th century.

      Reagan, a leader that freed more people globally than any leader in history.

      Reagan the leader that restored confidence in our country.

      Reagan a leader that actually believed and lived our constitution.

      Maxie, Merry Christmas.

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    6. Merry Christmas to you as well, and that's not sarcastic.

      You are wrong about my feelings for Clinton. I give Clinton credit where it is due. He was a much better poker player then Obama and he knew how to sell something to the people, something Obama has been incapable of. But, he was also very fortunate. Bush Sr. did not resort to the voodoo economics of Reagan and he raised taxes. Clinton walked into an economic situation that was correcting itself and also arrived before Greenspan had finished destroying the middle class. Clinton also, however, signed off on horrible trade bills. Clinton was basically a moderate Republican.

      To your first two points, it doesn't erase the fact that Reagan doubled the debt on his watch and was the first POTUS to take it over one trillion dollars. Spending also went parabolic on his watch. To your third point, Reagan did some things I approve of, but he also had his disaster in Lebanon. Nothing to be proud of there. Reagan the greatest POTUS? More accomplished then Eisenhower? Hardly.

      Your fifth point is one open to debate. Claiming Reagan single handidly ended communism is ridiculous. To the next point, there is no doubt, Reagan made the country FEEL better about itself. We are paying the price today for that false swagger. What Carter started in deregulation, Reagan accelerated to warp speed. But, it can't be ignored that the end of the cold war left us with nothing to fight but ourselves. Also, Reagan was not the cartoon he is made out to be by the uber right of today. I don't hate Reagan, I look at him objectively just as a do Clinton. Everything you say about Reagan is a plattitude and never objective or critical. Nobody is that perfect.

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    7. Max, Eisenhower worked also to free many people but that was during his time as a general. Reagan lead the effort to end communism in Russia and the eastern iron curtain block.

      "Mr. Gorbechev, tear down this wall!" That was 25 years ago Max and arguably the most important words spoken during the 20th century. Those words helped to free the most people in history. Words do have consequences.

      1773-2009

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  4. If the cliff becomes a real event then the Republicans will be blamed. Republicans are in danger of losing their power and Democrats could become a near-permanent majority if the GOP doesn't conduct a major overhaul on its party operations, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich has warned. Did Newt get it right this time?

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    1. A little secret for you Mick. No matter how the GOP acts they will be blamed by the well schooled brain washed media.

      So who gives a flip? Solve the problems like adults. Stop shoving the pile of horseshit down the road.

      Taxes are going up. Spending will be cut. And lot's more spending is going to be cut.

      Get used to it.

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    2. William, I don't believe Newt Gingrich falls in the brain washed media category.

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  5. Mick
    “If the cliff becomes a real event then the Republicans will be blamed.”
    It may be interesting to look to history. Which Pres and which Party held the Congress for the past 10 recessions in your country? Armed with that information, perhaps there is justification for ascertaining the same information concerning the recovery which followed.
    Perhaps history has not yet been formed to answer the recovery phase of the question currently. However if Australian history is a guide, Labor create recessions and Conservatives lead the country in the recovery. Good luck with your problems and from an ancient Aussie at the beginning of a hot Christmas, all the best to you and yours. Yesterday we carted 150 bales of hay into the shed; I believe you currently have ice and snow throughout the Midwest and north.
    Cheers now from Aussie

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    1. Kingston,
      Of course the Republicans will be blamed led by the media claiming injury to the country and how it could have been easily avoided.
      The media is quite void of substance in the US.
      1. During Katrina, the media was center front leading the charge on how bad the response from FEMA naming Michael Brown as totally inept. Sandy response has been as dismal but there is a lack of reporting on the situation.
      2. Fast and Furious. Locked down by the president claiming Executive Privilege.
      3. The fiasco named Benghazi. Totally missing from the news. What a joke.
      4. During the Enron mess, nightly news carried story after story outlining the entire mess. Solyndra, totally missing in action with virtually nothing in the news. Also missing A123 systems, Evergreen Solar and all the other companies that took tax payer dollars and declared bankruptcy. The corruption in the news is only transcended by the corruption in out government. Free phones, 70 million people on medicaid, 47 million people collecting food assistance, 23 million looking for work and all is well in the USA as stories are totally ignored..

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    2. Merry Christmas Kingston, and God bless Australia and the United States of America.

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    3. Merry Christmas louman. Better days are coming.

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    4. Merry Christmas William Martin.

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