Yes you can. You seem to know more about the future than you do about the present, proving my point that you are a delusional church boy who doesn't believe in anything other than what your reverend told you. You understand it really well.



I am not hating on anyone, only showing your double standard when it comes to the very same issues that you are talking about. Did you whine like this when Patriot Act was passed, did you protest?



Now you can see the future.
So what, they will be replaced by another bunch of morons only wearing different colors. I DON'T CARE !



I
I really do not want to see things the way you see it, or ill be locked up in the world of illusions and nightmares. I suggest you write a movie script called ,,adventures of Midnight Flyer''.


Now you know who I am and how I lead my life.




It will go to hell if you have your way. i can only imagine if you had power to change things how this country would be like. No thanks, you can keep it.


Ok i promise. My email is [email protected] so please send me a confirmation to a one way to Sydney, Australia.

Rights that no one took away from you, sae freedoms that you had when you were born.
Ooo almighty one, please tell me WHAT RIGHTS HAVE YOU LOST AND WHAT FREEDOMS DID YOU LOOSE ????????????????????????????????????????????????

No its not, you can fight all you want. Ill go peacefully. Hey, ill even buy u a AK 47...




I have absolutely no interest in your opinions nor the world that you live in. Its just that am telling you, that it is working against the things you are trying to preach reverend. You are getting childish, thats all..



All I have to do is type apocalypse and ill see your people, all over the internet preaching for the end of days and whatnot. It makes me puke to see someone sharing your preachings and living in this country.



Everything you say revolves around the Bible, but if you want to preach it you could have done it before we bombed a foreign country.

Pointless..

 

Nice red herring. The only entity to have claimed that "We're all socialists now" was Newsweek. Aside from your ideological brethren there, nobody has said that the country is now a socialist one. Conservatives do consistently observe a trend. If you care to dispute that such a trend exists, I have no interest in trying to convert you. You and I see things very differently and this is not going to change.

I've argued some points with you on a handful of topics, Hobo, but I've resisted the temptation to call you a liar. I'm trying to choose my words carefully here because you seem to be a decent guy, but what you've just said was an outright falsehood. If my parents loan me ten bucks from their checking account, then I ask Dad to give me ten bucks from his savings account so I can give it to Mom, I have not actually paid them back. Not even the liberal outfits are trying to defend this whopper.

A fundamental tenet of capitalism is that, once you run out of money, you cease to exist as an entity. Our nation has often chosen to disregard this tenet. I think we have done so to our own detriment. Some may think we have done so to our own benefit. In either case, this began long before He Who Shall Be Blamed For Everything took office and it will continue long after The One™ leaves office. None of this makes artifical intervention in the marketplace any more or less capitalist, by definition.

You're hearing from such a conservative now. As noted earlier, the discussion is less about absolutes than it is about trends. If you dictate that insurance companies must cover people who are already sick (as Obamacare does), and if you prevent those companies from charging higher prices for those who will extract more claims (as Obamacare does), and if you enact a small and laregely unenforceable mandate to theoretically keep healthy people paying into the pool (as Obamacare does), then the logical conclusion will be the eventual bankruptcy of the private insurance market. What follows? A simple 'cash for services rendered' system or a single-payer solution? Answer honestly and then tell me that conservatives are resorting to scare tactics.

Why would such "options" be necessary if the government could handle the needs of its people?

I'm fine with everything you've said here. The issue is that the artificial requirements will distort the market beyond its rational ability to handle them. "The private market has failed but Uncle Sam will save you" is the most likely outcome.

Off the top of my head... Tax on tanning beds. Tax on medical devices. Increased capital gains tax on wealthy Americans. Raising of the floor for medical deductions from 7.5% of AGI to 10% of AGI for all Americans. I'm sure there are others, but these are enough to defeat your point.

I think this law will be the final test on the question of whether or not there is ANY check on the reach of the commerce clause. The Supreme Court has rolled over on most commerce-oriented cases. I don't share the view of many conservatives that they'll step in on this case. The idea that Congress can force an individual to enact a transaction with a private entity is awfully troubling though. Since "we all" own shares of GM right now, it is probably in the "public interest" that we each buy a Chevy. It sounds like a silly hypothetical, but where is the distinction between one public interest and another? Once the government can legally compel us to act within the private marketplace, there's not a lot left to control them.

I think you're right here, and this is why the law seems designed to destroy the private insurance industry. The government says that I have to buy insurance. I say, "Bite me." The government says that it will take my tax refund. I adjust my W-4 to claim 10 exemptions and make sure that I'm not owed a refund. I wait until I'm terribly ill and then sign up for a guaranteed-issue policy, to which the law says I'm entitled. I pay my $100 premium and extract $80,000 in claims. It's a scam.

As noted above, I disagree that this is how the Constitution was meant to be enforced but I suspect that the courts will roll over and let us get screwed.

All fine as a moral argument. Ask people if insurance companies should be allowed to do these things and you'll find 80% support for your views. Tell them the truth about the costs though. Tell them that prices are about to skyrocket (for reasons that I've already noted) and force them to weigh cost vs. morality. The larger pool of payers is a canard. Healthy people will be better off either paying the tiny fine or refusing to pay the tiny fine. Sick people will flood the system. It's a house of cards.

This is where the Obamacare argument conflates two issues and becomes misleading at best and dishonest at worst. If people would argue honestly (as the hardcore liberals do) that we're going to take it up the ass financially but we have a moral obligation, then I could accept that argument. They would lose the agument though. If people would argue honestly that we should have free markets to keep costs in check, but that a handful of people would be SOL (as the hardcore libertarians do), then I could accept that argument. They would also lose the argument. The winners of the argument are the ones who convince people that they'll get something for nothing. Both sides make this sales pitch and both sides are liars.

Excessive profits? I'm one of those neanderthal conservatives who can't understand intellectual discussions, so maybe you can dumb it down and help me here. To my neanderthal mind, the fact that we could confiscate every penny of insurance profits and only lower our costs by a few pennies on the dollar seems to suggest that insurance companies are irrelevant. Medical costs are the issue. Nobody wants to talk about medical costs. Please explain to this dumbassed conservative how much better my life would be if my weekly premium was $29 instead of $30. It seems to me that the issue is a whole lot bigger but, you know, I'm just a wealthy lobbyist representing the special interests or something.

Level the playing field? Again, this is simply dishonest. We're talking about tilting the playing field against the productive parts of our society and in favor of the nonproductive parts. This is entirely bad from the standpoint of a libertarian academic but I think we've largely accepted it as a society. The notion that Bill Gates can get by with 50% of his marginal dollar while vitocorleone99 should be able to keep 75% of his marginal dollar has already been accepted by the nation at large. Using dramatic language like "level the playing field" does nothing to clarify the situation though. You could confiscate 100% of the earnings from The One™'s dreaded "top five percent" and you would do nothing to close the nation's budget gap. Tax revenues have grown over the years, even following those tax cuts enacted by He Who Shall Be Blamed For Everything. Revenues have not been the issue. Spending has been the issue.

Bringing us back to the topic of this thread, our outstanding obligations are right in line with those of Greece - somewhere around 500% of GDP. Maybe we'll avoid default longer than various European countries and maybe we won't. The point that we'll have to face though, sooner or later, is that the government cannot give us a better life. In it's feeble efforts to do so up to this point, our government has effectively gone bankrupt. We could make the choice, here and now, to plot a different course. Sadly, I don't think we will. People are fond of touching anecdotes about their children and grandchildren, but they consistently vote for whatever goodies they can grab today. Those children and grandchildren will face the day of reckoning. The next nation to emerge from bankruptcy in a state of freedom and liberty will be the first.

 

:eek2: What's that suppose to mean?:eek2: If it means what I think it means, you are going to be pretty sick for a really long time. You may want to call into work and tell them you are going to be out for a while. YOU are WAY outnumbered.utnumbered: You better have a really BIG trashcan. OK, lets start counting the number of people in THIS country who share Twi's preachings, we'll start with me.... 1 [sarcasm...of course]:roll:

 

Spin, spin, spin, spin, spin the whole day through. You can spin that all you want and it doesn’t change the facts. But keep on going…it’s rather comedic.

They paid back the loans using more government loans. Try and keep up...you’re slowing down the class. :roll:

Wait…lemme channel Hoggie here. *snort…guffaw…hjork…*

Well, you got something right at least. The liberals don’t have the gumption to get up off their lazy azzes and make their lives better; they expect the government to do it for them “I expect the government to do SOMETHING to level the playing field…” Why? Because you’re lazy and won’t work as hard as me? Because that is exactly the liberal or democratic mindset, be it insurance or welfare or any other part of life. Be lazy, the government will take care of you, because the conservatives are doing 3 time the work you do and will support you. No statement ever made by you has been more telling. A five roller for sure. :roll: :roll: :roll: :roll: :roll:

Here’s a newsflash. Life ain’t fair.

Deal with it.

.
.
.

To Dejanh:

Aww…did you get your widdle feelings hurt?

That was a good post. Lacking in any sort of substance, but quite entertaining nevertheless. :clap: :clap: :clap: :clap: :clap:

 

Got a PM from a poster pointing out that the snarkiness level was rising rather quickly on this thread and another one. Gosh darn it and right after I unleashed a couple of snarky-bombs myself.

But far be it from me to claim perfection. The poster was right, so it's time for everyone to tone down the acid and get back to either debating the merits of the thread topic or bowing out of the discussion if that is not possible.

Myself included. :bow:

 

Thank you Batman..

Now about that ticket...?

 

I dont have to call anyone to tell them anything. i just stay home as much as I like Robbie ....


capish?

 

Now you had to go and do that.issedoff: What is it with YOU guys and the name calling, or antagonizing, or whatever you want to call it.:thumbsdown: Have I done that to you? I don't think I have, if so, just let me know. I don't agree with you, but I don't think I have called you anything. Otherwise, ????, I couldn't bring myself to say it.

And I was having SUCH a good evening:banghead:

 

Done what?

I know, do it harder, you might change for better.

 

Europe Crisis Deepens as Chaos Grips Greece

GRANITSAS John Kolesidis/Reuters

Demonstarters smashed shop windows, overturned garbage bins and set fire to at least two businesses.

ATHENS—Greece's fiscal crisis took a new turn to violence Wednesday when three people died in a firebomb attack amid a paralyzing national strike, while governments from Spain to the U.S. took steps to prevent the widening financial damage from hitting their own economies.
U.S. Treasury officials have been quietly urging their European and International Monetary Fund counterparts to put together a Greek rescue plan more quickly to contain the damage, it emerged Wednesday, as U.S. policy makers worry the continent's problems could undermine a U.S. recovery much as U.S. housing woes hammered Europe in 2008.
In Spain, rival political leaders came together Wednesday with an agreement that aims to shore up shaky savings banks by the end of next month. Banks in France and Germany, which are among Greece's top creditors, pledged to support a Greek bailout by continuing to lend to the country. Investors, meanwhile, are pouring money into bonds of countries seen as less exposed to the crisis, from Russia to Egypt.
Greece was gripped by a nationwide strike, in what is seen as a key test of the government's ability to shepherd through tough austerity measures. Charles Forelle, Evan Newmark and Mike Reid discuss.

Anxiety over the euro-zone economies sent the euro down to about 1.29 to the dollar, its lowest level in more than a year. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell for the second straight day, losing 58.65 points, or 0.54%, to close at 10868.12.
Greece's 24-hour nationwide general strike brought much of the country to a standstill, closing government offices and halting flights, trains and ferries.
At the same time, tens of thousands of protesters marched through Athens in the largest and most violent protests since the country's budget crisis began last fall. Angry youths rampaged through the center of Athens, torching several businesses and vehicles and smashing shop windows. Protesters and police clashed in front of parliament and fought running street battles around the city.
Witnesses said hooded protesters smashed the front window of Marfin Bank in central Athens and hurled a Molotov cocktail inside. The three victims died from asphyxiation from smoke inhalation, the Athens coroner's office said. Four others were seriously injured there, fire department officials said.

Related Reading

A police spokesman said eight fires in Athens office buildings and bank buildings had been brought under control.
Later Wednesday, black smoke billowed from fires on one of Athens's main shopping streets. Glass shards and smoldering garbage littered the sidewalks.
Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou condemned the violence. "Everyone has the right to protest," he said in a statement to parliament. "But no one has the right to violence and especially violence that leads to the death of our compatriots."
Wednesday's protests were sparked by Greece's weekend agreement to adopt austerity measures in exchange for a €110 billion ($143 billion) bailout loan from the European Union and the IMF. Unions challenged Greece's parliament, which could consider the measures as soon as Thursday, to vote them down.
The general strike marks the broadest challenge to date to the government of Mr. Papandreou, which is pressed to pass the austerity legislation to unlock bailout funds to meet a debt payment later this month that it otherwise couldn't meet.

A fire-bomb attack on a bank in Greece killed at least three people Wednesday as protesters are furious about brutal budget cuts designed to avoid national bankruptcy.

The protests also brought out many Greeks who were resigned to belt-tightening. Their unhappiness at the cuts was matched with rancor toward a generation of politicians who they say spurred the crisis with decades of corruption, kickbacks and accounting legerdemain aimed at obscuring to the EU the true level of Greece's annual deficits.
"For 30 years the Greek people have been held hostage," said Periandros Athanassakis, 48, a garbage collector in Piraeus, the port near Athens. "Those who stole the money should pay."
Some officials saw in Wednesday's protests the seeds of broader discontent. "We may have an uprising in the making," one senior Greek official said.
Greeks generally don't blame Mr. Papandreou for the country's problems, however, saying he inherited them from predecessors. It was his administration, elected in October, that announced the government's budget deficit for 2009 would be equivalent around 13% of gross domestic product, compared with the 6% claimed by the previous administration.
Mr. Papandreou's approval ratings are higher than those of the leader of the main opposition party.
Analysts also said the shock of Wednesday's deaths could nudge Greece's fractious political parties toward closer cooperation in dealing with the crisis and making it easier to pass reforms.
"This changes the political scene," said George Sefertzis, an independent political commentator with the Athens consultancy Evresis. "There is no doubt that the deaths ease some of the political pressure."
Under terms of the bailout deal, Greece's government has announced a €30 billion package that will slash public-sector wages, cut pensions, freeze public- and private-sector pay, liberalize Greece's labor laws and raise some taxes.
In Berlin on Wednesday, Chancellor Angela Merkel called on parliament to approve Germany's contribution of €22.4 billion in loans to Greece. German public opinion opposes a Greek bailout but Ms. Merkel said it was essential. "Europe stands at a crossroad," she said. "With us, with Germany, there can and will be a decision which lives up to the political, historical situation."
Protests Rage

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Thanassis Stavrakis/Associated Press A riot police officer was engulfed in flames from a fire bomb thrown by protesters in Athens.
—Gilberto Fondu

In Greece's northern city of Thessaloniki, there were reports of violence as police clashed with demonstrators who were attacking shop fronts amid a rally that drew at least 20,000 protesters to the streets.
Police officials estimated there were 20,000 protesters in Athens. Union officials said union-affiliated protesters alone totaled more than 60,000. Others put the number higher still. "This rally was double the size of the largest rally that has ever been held in Greece," said Spyros Papaspyros, president of Adedy, a civil-service umbrella union. "If the government doesn't listen, there will be more strike action next week."
The day's general strike, the year's third, shut ministries and public offices. State hospitals and public utilities operated with skeleton staff. Shopkeepers joined the strike at midday, while journalists, bank workers, teachers, court workers, lawyers and doctors also walked off the job.
Many Greeks taking part in the demonstration saw little alternative than to accept the government measures and brace for a long, deep recession.
"I don't expect the measures to be withdrawn," said Pericles Papapetrou, 61, an architect and engineer who used to be mayor of the town of Elefsina. But, he said, the measures "could lead to extreme situations, such as an increase in crime, and also to an explosion of young people with no future."
Artemis Batzak Panayou, a cleaning lady working for a local government, saw her €1,200 monthly salary, on which she supports three children, cut by €250 at the beginning of the year. She believes it will fall further. "There is no way to survive on the daily wages in the public sector," she said, adding: "Greece won't be fixed until all the crooks are removed from government."