Politics
The Budget Puzzle
16/11/10 08:41
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010/11/13/weekinreview/deficits-graphic.html
The NYTimes made a flash-based budget calculator that lets you the reader solve the budget crisis. You can do so through any number of tax increases and spending cuts.
I will note that it is nearly impossible to solve to this budget crisis without reducing defense spending.
That, and taxing the wealthiest 2% of Americans at Clinton-era levels really goes a long way.
The NYTimes made a flash-based budget calculator that lets you the reader solve the budget crisis. You can do so through any number of tax increases and spending cuts.
I will note that it is nearly impossible to solve to this budget crisis without reducing defense spending.
That, and taxing the wealthiest 2% of Americans at Clinton-era levels really goes a long way.
Memoirs
28/10/10 08:30
On November 9th, George W. Bush will be publishing his official memoir. This will be his "perspective" on the last eight years of his misrule.
In the teaser describing his book, he "gave away" what "he thought" was his biggest mistake.
Please be sitting down while you read this, it's going to baffle your mind.
George W. Bush, with all the hindsight and wisdom, felt that, without a doubt, his biggest mistake was not privatizing social security in 2005.
You know, about one year before the stock market plunged 40%.
Hat's off to the man, because, quite frankly I'm speechless. When you say things like this, in utter seriousness, people with the benefit of a working brain choke up for a second. The gears seize. Some of the gray matter tries to make a break from it out one of your ears.
Knowing an economic collapse was coming, his biggest regret was....that poor people weren't royally bent over and fucked.
You know what I think his biggest mistake was? Not reading a memo called "Bin Laden Desires to Strike US" one month before the towers and the Pentagon were hit. Maybe sat down with the one guy Clinton asked to Bush to "keep on" and ask him why Bill Clinton had all but signed Osama Bin Laden's death warrant before leaving office.
And maybe i'm being hard on him here. Let's say this was a once-in-a-lifetime leadership/intelligence failure that also had catastrophic consequences. Okay, let's let this slide. Let's remove it from the equation.
You know what I think his biggest mistake was?
Not finding Osama Bin Laden in 7 years. With all the rhetoric of how he was going to "smoke him out of his hole", and "smite the evil-doers", well, you know, WHY DIDN'T WE ACTUALLY DO THAT?
Let's also face facts: If a Democrat had waffled on promises like that, Iraq war or no, they would have been a one-term president.
And so let's say this is also one of those impossible tasks, Chris. You're asking too much.
You know what I think his biggest mistake was?
Leading this country into a trillion dollar plus war, founded on lies, that he HAD to have known, but didn't care, because he was trying to build that epic legacy of his. The ultimate freudian daddy complex.
Seriously, that his brain dead idea of letting Wall Street gamble with the retirement of millions of seniors was DOA was not because the democrats woke up one morning and said, "Hey, just this once, let's act like an opposition party....that has a spine." It's because this idea has NEVER had traction.
And compared to all that bad ideas that did have traction in the Bush era, like letting your vice president out a CIA operative and declassify documents without consulting anyone, privatizing social security is far, far, far down on the list of mistakes and missteps that plagued his leadership. You don't earn the title "easily in the top 5, most likely top 3 worst presidents ever" before leaving office, without working for it.
In the teaser describing his book, he "gave away" what "he thought" was his biggest mistake.
Please be sitting down while you read this, it's going to baffle your mind.
George W. Bush, with all the hindsight and wisdom, felt that, without a doubt, his biggest mistake was not privatizing social security in 2005.
You know, about one year before the stock market plunged 40%.
Hat's off to the man, because, quite frankly I'm speechless. When you say things like this, in utter seriousness, people with the benefit of a working brain choke up for a second. The gears seize. Some of the gray matter tries to make a break from it out one of your ears.
Knowing an economic collapse was coming, his biggest regret was....that poor people weren't royally bent over and fucked.
You know what I think his biggest mistake was? Not reading a memo called "Bin Laden Desires to Strike US" one month before the towers and the Pentagon were hit. Maybe sat down with the one guy Clinton asked to Bush to "keep on" and ask him why Bill Clinton had all but signed Osama Bin Laden's death warrant before leaving office.
And maybe i'm being hard on him here. Let's say this was a once-in-a-lifetime leadership/intelligence failure that also had catastrophic consequences. Okay, let's let this slide. Let's remove it from the equation.
You know what I think his biggest mistake was?
Not finding Osama Bin Laden in 7 years. With all the rhetoric of how he was going to "smoke him out of his hole", and "smite the evil-doers", well, you know, WHY DIDN'T WE ACTUALLY DO THAT?
Let's also face facts: If a Democrat had waffled on promises like that, Iraq war or no, they would have been a one-term president.
And so let's say this is also one of those impossible tasks, Chris. You're asking too much.
You know what I think his biggest mistake was?
Leading this country into a trillion dollar plus war, founded on lies, that he HAD to have known, but didn't care, because he was trying to build that epic legacy of his. The ultimate freudian daddy complex.
Seriously, that his brain dead idea of letting Wall Street gamble with the retirement of millions of seniors was DOA was not because the democrats woke up one morning and said, "Hey, just this once, let's act like an opposition party....that has a spine." It's because this idea has NEVER had traction.
And compared to all that bad ideas that did have traction in the Bush era, like letting your vice president out a CIA operative and declassify documents without consulting anyone, privatizing social security is far, far, far down on the list of mistakes and missteps that plagued his leadership. You don't earn the title "easily in the top 5, most likely top 3 worst presidents ever" before leaving office, without working for it.