Republican Candidates

[Gorgon]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gold

 

http://www.dimensionsguide.com/volume-of-water-in-olympic-swimming-pool/

Edited April 27, 2012 by Gorgon

[Gorgon]

So, off by about half. Still in the ballpark though.

[HoonDing]

You'd think Fort Knox is bigger than a swimming pool, though.

[Walsingham]

Fair dos on the volume.

 

Real point is that the volume of gold available doesn't increase in proportion to the economic activity of the world. So a country could work incredibly hard and industrialise and whatnot and not get very much richer. Not to mention the aforementioned <sic> Goldfinger dodge.

[Hurlshort]

So Mitt Romney chose Paul Ryan as his running mate. I don't know a ton about this guy, but this seems like a decent choice, much better than Sarah Palin. He's young, he's fiscally conservative, he has experience in Washington. I still don't think it is enough to counter the fact that Romney is not really very popular. The guy needs momentum, and I don't know if this pick will give him enough to make it a strong challenge.

[Calax]

 

From the Obama squad about the guy.

[Monte Carlo]

I am not a big fan of Mister Obama. However, I am also wary of Mister Romney. Partially because of his wacky religious views, and partly that I suspect he couldn't find his own arse with a map.

 

His VP choice is an ideological wet-dream for the Tea Party. In times when the sun was shining economically, it could work. Right now? I imagine that the Democrats are laughing their socks off. A negative campaign based on fear, and Mister Ryna's utter lack of real-life experience outside of politics awaits.

 

Of course, Obama has never had a real job in his life, either. But he is the incumbent. The job is his to lose, not to win.

[Morgoth]

Whoever wins the election, the American people lose.

[Hurlshort]

Whoever wins the election, the American people lose.

 

While I agree that there isn't a real stellar candidate here, people seriously put too much stock in who the President is. The balance of power is extremely effective at limiting what the executive branch can do.

[Calax]

At least it's somebody I've recognized from various other news reports, rather than the Palin "HOLY JEEZ! NEW PERSON!"

[Wrath of Dagon]

Top down economy being capitalism I guess.

[Calax]

Top down economy being capitalism I guess.

We've never been a pure capitalist country. Just ask Herbert Hoover (or more specifically Andrew Mellon).

[Humodour]

Whoever wins the election, the American people lose.

 

This. But it's easy to make the case that the US citizens lose a lot more under Romney and his Tea Party VP.

[Hurlshort]

While all Tea partiers may be fiscal conservatives, not all fiscal conservatives are tea partiers.

[HoonDing]

Romney and Ryan both look like crooks.

[Nepenthe]

Whoever wins the election, the American people lose.

 

While I agree that there isn't a real stellar candidate here, people seriously put too much stock in who the President is. The balance of power is extremely effective at limiting what the executive branch can do.

I dare say it's become too effective at it, based on the past few years. *cough filibusters cough*

[Pidesco]

So Mitt Romney chose Paul Ryan as his running mate. I don't know a ton about this guy, but this seems like a decent choice, much better than Sarah Palin. He's young, he's fiscally conservative, he has experience in Washington. I still don't think it is enough to counter the fact that Romney is not really very popular. The guy needs momentum, and I don't know if this pick will give him enough to make it a strong challenge.

 

Paul Ryan is not, in any way whatsoever, a fiscal conservative. Unless you consider reducing revenue by 4 trillion over 10 years to be fiscally conservative.

[Rostere]

So Mitt Romney chose Paul Ryan as his running mate. I don't know a ton about this guy, but this seems like a decent choice, much better than Sarah Palin. He's young, he's fiscally conservative, he has experience in Washington. I still don't think it is enough to counter the fact that Romney is not really very popular. The guy needs momentum, and I don't know if this pick will give him enough to make it a strong challenge.

 

Paul Ryan is not, in any way whatsoever, a fiscal conservative. Unless you consider reducing revenue by 4 trillion over 10 years to be fiscally conservative.

Exactly my thoughts. Sadly, there doesn't seem to be any alternative for those who want a sane budget.

[Nepenthe]

I often wish I could hold the (surprisingly widespread) opinion that the opinions posited by one party are always correct, while those of (an)other(s) are always utterly false. In fact, it's an interesting psychological phenomenon, but, yeah.

[Hurlshort]

I often wish I could hold the (surprisingly widespread) opinion that the opinions posited by one party are always correct, while those of (an)other(s) are always utterly false. In fact, it's an interesting psychological phenomenon, but, yeah.

 

Yeah I've never understood how anyone believes anything either party is saying. It's all hyperbole. It's worst in the media, there doesn't seem to be any journalistic integrity anymore, you just make stuff up that sounds insane.

[Meshugger]

What's lacking the media is serious investigative journalism. Currently, it's out in the fringes, instead of where it should be, in the forefront of every major broadcasting network.

[Meshugger]

Btw, could someone please give some reflection on this Paul Ryan guy? The news only talk about him being from wisconsin and that he's there to attract the teaparty-block.

[Monte Carlo]

I don't understand this guy's back-story. Dad was a small-town lawyer. Tragically, when he's sixteen, Ryan comes home and finds him dead from a heart attack. He makes good by dint of hard work and public support.

 

Now the guy wants to decimate welfare spending on the most vulnerable people in America. I'm hardly a quivering Socialist, but I don't get this guy. I've seen his videos on the deficit, they make sense by and large but... and but. Is he a flinty-hearted Ayn Rand fanboy slavering to scale back the state, making the rich even richer (yes, Mitt, that means you) or is he an aw-shucks Reaganomics hopeful for the GOP.

 

Answers on a postcard. And regardless of the VP, the answer to the problem that is Obama ain't Mitt Romney. He makes George Bush look like Dwight Eisenhower. Romney *comes across* as an identikit American president as designed by a European committee of yank-haters - moulded out of plastic, ignorant, dim-witted and greedy.

 

And if Obama got out his birth certificate then Mitt can dig out his tax returns.

[Wrath of Dagon]

The point of lower tax rates is to increase economic growth, which also benefits the "poor", while welfare only make them poorer and dependent on government. Lower tax rates in exchange for elimination of deductions were also recommended by the bipartisan deficit reduction commission which Obama himself created. Government revenues would not decrease if everyone shares the tax burden in a more fair way. Government spending has exploded tremendously over the past few years, and any attempt to rein it in is always met with the charge of "hurting the most vulnerable" by those who are trying to protect their own special interests. And really you should make $250 million and run the Olympics before you call Romney " ignorant and dim witted".

[Calax]

The point of lower tax rates is to increase economic growth, which also benefits the "poor", while welfare only make them poorer and dependent on government. Lower tax rates in exchange for elimination of deductions were also recommended by the bipartisan deficit reduction commission which Obama himself created. Government revenues would not decrease if everyone shares the tax burden in a more fair way. Government spending has exploded tremendously over the past few years, and any attempt to rein it in is always met with the charge of "hurting the most vulnerable" by those who are trying to protect their own special interests. And really you should make $250 million and run the Olympics before you call Romney " ignorant and dim witted".

 

Lowering the tax rate on the average american (those that make between 90 and 150k a year)? Correct.

 

Lowering the tax rate on the top 1% of americans (those that make 250k a year)? No. That's the point that Obama and the Democrats are trying to throw out. Should the Romney crew enter the white house, the tax rate would fall for that upper percentage, while the lower rungs would either stay the same, or see their taxes increase in an effort to salvage the economy. Of course, judging by the ads in my area, Obama is also trying to point out that Romney's realistic tax rate is significantly less than what the government is taking because of tax havens like the Bahamas and Monte Carlo.

 

And the thing that politicians continually ignore is the fact that we have military budget that far outweighs what our military actually does. The republican party is doing everything it can to keep that budget at wartime levels by chopping social services spending, which most members of the american political institution circa 1945-1975 would probably think unassailable.