Obama intensifies push for ‘Buffett Rule’

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Honestly Persuader I hope some day you move into the real world and consider real world solutions instead of utopian dreams and university based theories that work better on paper than in real life.

Your response regarding the factors creating poverty is dismissive…let’ them eat cake or let them all get graduate degrees. What you’ve ignored is that I am talking about regular people and what they can do to avoid poverty. To get a graduate degree takes money, determination, a base of knowledge in a certain area, and is likely out of the hands and brains of 99% of America.

It does not, however take a rocket scientist to simply graduate from high school, avoid intoxicants and addictive substances (including cigarettes), do not get pregnant or get someone pregnant unless you are in a stable marriage. This is an achievable goal unlike your sarcastic remark.

How does this translate into policy? QUIT REWARDING BAD BEHAVIOR. Reward positive productive behavior. Teach young people about the above. Are you aware that something like 80% of inner city youth have never experienced a father in the home who gets up and goes to work every day to support his family? Do you think this might have something to do with generational poverty?

We have to break the cycle and it is possible. One organization I am aware of is called “Best Friends” a mentoring group for inner city (mostly minority) pre teens and teens. The focus is to get them thinking about a real future with a family and a job and an education. They have a very good record of seeing their “graduates” through the high school years without drug use, pregnancy and dropping out of high school. I think it would be a far better use of our tax dollars to promote positive behaviors than to simply pay for birth control, abortions, and drug treatment. Unfortunately our system is set up to do the latter. We reward bad behavior and wonder why this behavior grows instead of decreases.

As to your nasty comment about me being cruel and heartless, you don’t know a thing about me so I will consider that comment with all the thought that went into it.

I will welcome you to the real world anytime you’d like to join up.

Lisa
I think you hit the nail on the head, Lisa.

Welfare and other safety nets are certainly a good thing to have. But when we reward bad behaviour and perpetuate the problem, it doesn’t do any good in the long run. We have an unsustanable system, and we are seeing some counties at the tipping point. When collapse happens, everyone hurts and the poor hurt more.
 
Some of them will, some of them won’t.
And that’s the economy we have now. Lowest percentage of the population working since numbers have been collected, more than 50% unemployment/underemployment among recent college graduates and a true 20% unemployment in the workforce. I suppose they should suck it up too?
 
I think you hit the nail on the head, Lisa.

Welfare and other safety nets are certainly a good thing to have. But when we reward bad behaviour and perpetuate the problem, it doesn’t do any good in the long run. We have an unsustanable system, and we are seeing some counties at the tipping point. When collapse happens, everyone hurts and the poor hurt more.
:confused: The “collapse” (2008) has happened. What we are seeing now is the “elites” (Wall Street) who caused this mess trying to wiggle out of paying for it. Placing the burden for the recovery on the less fortunate is inconceivable. Yet, that is just what they are proposing. They are proposing and your supporting I might add.

Shameful!
 
:confused: The “collapse” (2008) has happened. What we are seeing now is the “elites” (Wall Street) who caused this mess trying to wiggle out of paying for it. Placing the burden for the recovery on the less fortunate is inconceivable. Yet, that is just what they are proposing. They are proposing and your supporting I might add.

Shameful!
So you blame the entire malaise of this economy on a few Wall Street bigwigs who even though four years have passed, still manage to keep the entire US economy in the dump? I remember when Mao died and everything bad that happened for years following his death was blamed on the “Gang of Four” which included Mao’s widow. Right…

There are no angels in this play and I completely agree that those who benefitted from taxpayer bailouts should be sharing the load. John Corzyn a Democrat and favorite of Obama should be frog marched to jail IMO for the billions unexplicably missing from his firm’s client accounts. OTOH where is your ire when it comes to the executives of Fanny and Freddy who took millions and millions out as compensation even as these organizations were near collapse. How about the Community Reinvestment Act that “inspired” banks (with threats and regulations) to give those wonderful NINJA loans…you know No Income No Job. This ginned up the housing market, inspired overbuilding and when they realized that nothing was holding up this house of cards, the taxpayers got stuck holding the bag and paying the bill.

It was not Wall Street fat cats who passed this legislation. Nor was Franklin Raines a Wall Street fat cat. Nor was Barney Frank who sputtered and spat out defense of Fanny and Freddy to the bitter end even as the Bush administration tried to rein them in.

Further why hasn’t the economy recovered? It’s all about Wall Street fat cats right? Nothing to do with the exploding debt and deficit courtesy of the Democrat controlled Congress that passed the Stimulus Bill, Obamacare and Dodd Frank. We have never had such a slow economic recovery since the Great Depression. And this is all orchestrated by a few Wall Street fat cats?

You’re forgetting how much government officials have meddled and messed and regulated and stifled our economy. You’re forgetting the millions lost in Obama’s nutty green energy policy give aways.

Fine criticize the bad guys on Wall Street but don’t forget they got plenty of help from Washington DC and as you said those who caused the problem are trying to get out of taking any responsibility for it.

Lisa
 
:confused: The “collapse” (2008) has happened. What we are seeing now is the “elites” (Wall Street) who caused this mess trying to wiggle out of paying for it. Placing the burden for the recovery on the less fortunate is inconceivable. Yet, that is just what they are proposing. They are proposing and your supporting I might add.

Shameful!
Did I ever blame it all on the less fortunate?

Wall St. certianly had their role to play.
 
So you blame the entire malaise of this economy on a few Wall Street bigwigs who even though four years have passed, still manage to keep the entire US economy in the dump? I remember when Mao died and everything bad that happened for years following his death was blamed on the “Gang of Four” which included Mao’s widow. Right…

Lisa
1.There were more than a few. But Yes, I blame Wall Street.

2.The “gang of four” were simply mobsters.

ATB
 
Didn’t say anything about blaming the less fortunate. Just about asking them to shoulder the burden. 😉

ATB
One can argue that they have a duty to limit/pay back thier reciept of public assistance. Simply expecting cradle to grave full benefits is not sustainable, as we are seeing. I am not against short term benefits to help people get back on their feet.
 
1.There were more than a few. But Yes, I blame Wall Street.
Despite all evidence to the contrary? Please tell me HOW Wall Street created the housing bubble? How did Wall Street cause the explosion of spending and doubling of debt via Stimulus, Obamacare, EPA over reaches, green energy debacles? How did Wall Street block the Keystone Pipeline? How did Wall Street manage to keep unemployment at over 8% for the past three years?

I think you’re missing a few of the bad actors in this play. Wall Street is a convenient target but they are hardly the proximate cause of our economic doldrums. I maintain government has a lot more to do with our situation than a few hedge fund operators
Lisa
 
One can argue that they have a duty to limit/pay back thier reciept of public assistance. Simply expecting cradle to grave full benefits is not sustainable, as we are seeing. I am not against short term benefits to help people get back on their feet.
You can’t just make statements like this. Cradle to grave? I’ll point out that in 2008 Before the (GR) less than 1% of our tax dollar went to public assistance. That .93% went to among other things, Veterans pensions and Medicaid. Granted, the veterans pensions do run to the grave. But, many programs are temporary in nature. This myth about people making a career out of welfare is doing nothing but harm.

ATB
 
Despite all evidence to the contrary? Please tell me HOW Wall Street created the housing bubble? How did Wall Street cause the explosion of spending and doubling of debt via Stimulus, Obamacare, EPA over reaches, green energy debacles? How did Wall Street block the Keystone Pipeline? How did Wall Street manage to keep unemployment at over 8% for the past three years?

I think you’re missing a few of the bad actors in this play. Wall Street is a convenient target but they are hardly the proximate cause of our economic doldrums. I maintain government has a lot more to do with our situation than a few hedge fund operators
Lisa
I’d have to see the evidence.😃
 
I’d have to see the evidence.😃
Come out from under a rock. Look at the numbers…unemployment, housing prices, increase in use of food stamps and other entitlement programs, two years of unemployment, debt and deficit increases.

Walk around your neighborhood. Houses without occupants, bank owned, abandoned. Stores shuttered. Talk to your neighbors. How many are out of a job? Even those sectors where you don’t expect a high unemployment rate; high tech, professional sector.

I think it’s pretty obvious how the Obamanomics plan is impacting our economy if you just open your eyes.

Lisa
 
How does this translate into policy? QUIT REWARDING BAD BEHAVIOR. Reward positive productive behavior. Teach young people about the above. Are you aware that something like 80% of inner city youth have never experienced a father in the home who gets up and goes to work every day to support his family? Do you think this might have something to do with generational poverty
So you want to support mentoring programs in high schools. Certainly admirable, but it doesn’t address the systematic problems, where wages are low and jobs are few. If one managed to implement a successful, nationwide mentoring program, there is still the need to supply those people with decent work. Nevertheless, if you could get effective mentoring programs going (I would imagine it would cost billions of dollars for a nationwide push), I am not dismissing that as part of a solution (although I’d like to see some studies about its effectiveness versus other measures). I have to ask, though, which politician is fighting for this? Are you, or anyone you know, pressuring any politicians to put together such a project? Do you see your tea-party friends yelling about such projects? I’ve never heard a word about it. Why do you think that is? More important that rich people get tax cuts? Probably.
I think it would be a far better use of our tax dollars to promote positive behaviors than to simply pay for birth control, abortions, and drug treatment. Unfortunately our system is set up to do the latter. We reward bad behavior and wonder why this behavior grows instead of decreases.
I want you to tell me exactly how that relates to anything I have said. How does strengthening unions or cutting tuition reward bad behavior? How does any of my suggestions about mobility reward bad behavior? If you’re worried about welfare-programs, increasing wages would strengthen the financial incentive to work.

So you’re telling me I’m being unrealistic etc., yet you have not made any arguments against my proposals. How does that compute for you?
As to your nasty comment about me being cruel and heartless, you don’t know a thing about me so I will consider that comment with all the thought that went into it.
I read what you write, and I think you were cruel in your characterization of single mothers. I am actually flabbergasted that you think I am being nasty for bringing attention to your own words. Do you actually think it’s fine to call single mothers drug addicts and crazies? To suggest that they’re so useless, they shouldn’t even have money? Don’t you understand how offensive that is? How can you expect to get away with that kind of talk?
I will welcome you to the real world anytime you’d like to join up.
I don’t want to live in a world where people less fortunate are written off as drug addicts and crazies. You can have that world all to yourself, sister. Enjoy.
 
Come out from under a rock. Look at the numbers…unemployment, housing prices, increase in use of food stamps and other entitlement programs, two years of unemployment, debt and deficit increases.

Walk around your neighborhood. Houses without occupants, bank owned, abandoned. Stores shuttered. Talk to your neighbors. How many are out of a job? Even those sectors where you don’t expect a high unemployment rate; high tech, professional sector.

I think it’s pretty obvious how the Obamanomics plan is impacting our economy if you just open your eyes.

Lisa
You do realise I’m from Detroit.😉

I hate to rehash a lot of history. But in a nut shell. Wall Street, after disposing of Glass-Steagal.
pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/wallstreet/weill/ (refresh your memory here)
Went on a spree of high risk behavior. This caused not only the bursting of the worlds housing bubble. Look at Ireland for another example. They also, caused the world wide loss of confidence in the banking system. (post Gramm, Leach, Bliley the investment, and savings banks were back together) Our government had no choice but to prop up the tettering banks. To claim other wise would be false. You can look back into history to see the impact of a run on the banks. Imagine it again today. Wall Street did infact drive the worlds economy into the ditch. What little recovery we have seen. Has been highly selective.

I do agree with you on one thing. WE should quit rewarding bad ie high risk behavior.

Come join the good guys.
 
Despite all evidence to the contrary? Please tell me HOW Wall Street created the housing bubble? How did Wall Street cause the explosion of spending and doubling of debt via Stimulus, Obamacare, EPA over reaches, green energy debacles? How did Wall Street block the Keystone Pipeline? How did Wall Street manage to keep unemployment at over 8% for the past three years?

I think you’re missing a few of the bad actors in this play. Wall Street is a convenient target but they are hardly the proximate cause of our economic doldrums. I maintain government has a lot more to do with our situation than a few hedge fund operators
Lisa
Real revisionist history here… so you want us to educate you as to the cause and facts of the economic crisis, the housing crisis where banks made profits with funny-money games betting on people not being able to pay their mortgages, how derivatives trading and other unregulated Wall Street trading went out of control. Did Obama use a time machine to start the crisis before he got into office? Incredible that four-five years ago the world was holding its breath and hoping that the US economy didn’t go into total depression, but now they blame the green energy investments. Really bizarre, this world-view.
 
And that’s the economy we have now. Lowest percentage of the population working since numbers have been collected, more than 50% unemployment/underemployment among recent college graduates and a true 20% unemployment in the workforce. I suppose they should suck it up too?
And a lot of those nonworking population are people over 62 who would rather go on the dole than to work. If we eliminated social security and medicare, then they would have no choice to suck it up.
 
And a lot of those nonworking population are people over 62 who would rather go on the dole than to work. If we eliminated social security and medicare, then they would have no choice to suck it up.
SSI, and Medicare are the dole?:rolleyes: I sense a lot of hate, and contempt, for your fellow humans, in these few words of yours. Where did you come from?
 
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