2011-06-21, 20:16 | Link #14321 | |
Knight Errant
Join Date: Dec 2007
Location: Dublin, Ireland
Age: 35
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Under George Senior, debt continued to climb, times continued to be good. Under Clinton, debt initially climbed, and then began to decline. Admittedly there was a republican congress when a lot of the deficit reduction was carried out. Prosperity continued. Under George Bush Junior, the deficit started to climb again. Other then the dot com crash, times were very prosperous. Under Obama Debt balooned, but the entire country was in a deep recession prior to him taking office. I think the fact the country is in the largest recession since 1929 gives Obama a pass. So overall all 3 of the last republican presidents presided in times of prosperity, and could have reduced the debt, but chose not to (and in fact made it larger). Of the last 2 democratic presidents, 1 pulled off a surplus and the other has a reasonable excuse. Now I'm not really counting congressional influence here, but I think the Republicans clearly have the worst fiscal record, at least on the federal level. No republican government in the past 30 years has done anything meaningful to combat the deficit, or ever managed to have a budget surplus. I don't want to make it seem like the democrats are guiltless either, but clearly the greater burden of responsibility lies on the party that racked up the debt. Which is the Republicans. |
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2011-06-21, 20:32 | Link #14323 | |
Senior Member
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The debt has gone up under each administration of the past 35+ years. The Government has also grown exponentially in that time, while America's manufacturing base has fled. Both parties are at fault, and for you to single out the Republicans, shows a very clear bias. The Democrats had controlled Congress since 2007, and the White House since early 2009. The Republicans now have the House of Representatives, but the Democrats still control the other two. The Democrats had the largest majority control of Congress and the White House, of the past 70+ years. I admit the Republicans had a large part to do with our current mess, but you absolutely cannot say they had the majority. Not without telling me exactly what policies in-acted by them, caused what problems we have now. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KjPBtfpn8wI http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cMnSp4qEXNM http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iW5qK...eature=related |
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2011-06-21, 20:33 | Link #14324 |
Gamilas Falls
Join Date: Feb 2008
Location: Republic of California
Age: 46
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No one living in those times would consider them good. There was still a lot of fear of mutual destruction between the Americans and Soviets in the early 80s. The vast spending was supposedly an effort to out spend the Soviets and force them to break their own economy. It seems to have worked, but at a large cost. A cost that is still being paid...thanks to other conflicts since the end of the Cold War.
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2011-06-21, 20:57 | Link #14326 |
Obey the Darkly Cute ...
Author
Join Date: Dec 2005
Location: On the whole, I'd rather be in Kyoto ...
Age: 66
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This is why large complicated bills tend to go bad no matter which party is in charge. Our politicians can't decide whether to be more inept or more corrupt - its a race condition.
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2011-06-21, 21:34 | Link #14327 | |
Knight Errant
Join Date: Dec 2007
Location: Dublin, Ireland
Age: 35
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Now the 80s weren't perfect, but they certainly were better then the 70s, and there was consistent growth. Certainly if the government had wanted to, they could have ran a surplus. However, I was born in 88, so take that with a grain of salt. But my general perception is that the 80s were generally economically good years, while the 70s were bad. Regarding the democrats today, there is nothing they could have done in the 3 years they've been in office to avoid a lot of the deficit spending they have had. Admittedly the stimulus was all their choice, but even without the stimulus they would have been left with the deficit the bush administration already had, and additionally the lost tax revenue caused by the recession. In comparison, Ireland is in a far worse state then the US, but we didn't have any kind of stimulus (it wouldn't work in Ireland anyway), we actually had a surplus before the crash, our current deficit is almost entirely caused by the huge loss of tax revenue, combined with shouldering responsibility for bailed out banks. In the US, the debt has climbed by about 5 trillion in the time Obama has been in office, while the stimulus is less then a trillion, and it may have saved money by preventing further recession (and further loss of tax $). Most of that deficit would still be in place regardless of what he did. The problem is simply too entrenched for him to achieve anything meaningful particularly quickly. The fact is, the administration can't work miracles. The financial flaws the US has are deep and entrenched. Frankly, if congress had moved forward with Universal Healthcare that would have been a very good first step. Most of the structural deficit is caused by innefficient healthcare, after all. And yet that was blocked by Republicans and conservative democrats, ostensably to save money. Other countries have succesfully brought in Universal healthcare under far worse circumstances, and with great success. The basic flaw was the belief among the right that tax cuts are the ultimate way to grow the economy and increase the government budget. Admittedly, there is a level where higher tax doesn't bring in more revenue, but that's far below what the US charges. If there's one policy that I think Obama clearly made a mistake with it was extending the Bush tax cuts. Shouldn't have bowed to the pressure, though at least it was only a 2 year extension... I think a better indication of how Obama's administration will have performed will come over the next term, after the economy has stabilised. If a republican gets elected it could be interesting, but my guess is that the presidency is a bit of a poison apple at the moment, the republicans are probably not going to try very hard for it. |
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2011-06-21, 21:47 | Link #14328 | |
Obey the Darkly Cute ...
Author
Join Date: Dec 2005
Location: On the whole, I'd rather be in Kyoto ...
Age: 66
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2011-06-21, 21:51 | Link #14329 |
Senior Member
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DonQuigleone
I can't say that I agree with even half of your post and your view of history. Your giving Obama a free pass on his incredible spending, yet bashing Bush for his, is laughable to me. One person runs up a debt of 20 thousand dollars a year on credit that he can't afford and that's evil. The next guy to take over runs up a debt of 80 thousand a year on credit, and he gets a pass. And I am completely against Universal Healthcare, as I am also against Obama's Healthcare Reform. Yes Newt Gingrich was trying for something similar 20 years ago, but I wasn't old enough to vote then, and I would have been against what he was after had I been able to. Perhaps our Healthcare system wouldn't be so incredibly fubarred, if Lawyers hadn't jacked it up and twisted it into the mess that we have now? I have zero faith in the Government being able to manage a fast food restaurant, let alone Healthcare or the economy. History of America shows that I am right on my pessimism. Also, I don't see how putting the very same guys who helped contribute to our banking/housing crisis, in charge of the economy, is ever a good thing? But that's exactly what the Democrats did with Barney Frank and others. Last edited by justinstrife; 2011-06-21 at 22:02. |
2011-06-21, 21:54 | Link #14330 |
books-eater youkai
Join Date: Dec 2007
Location: Betweem wisdom and insanity
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Ryanair boss sees China catching Airbus, Boeing
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/...75K1TB20110621 Somehow I have some doubt about this one...
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2011-06-21, 22:44 | Link #14331 |
Gamilas Falls
Join Date: Feb 2008
Location: Republic of California
Age: 46
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Sounds like an unsound plan. Chinese may be able to produce in bulk to lower prices, but they don't have the quality one desires in a long term use airliner. Also Ryanair has all Boeing aircraft right now. Won't adding another company's aircraft just increase their maintenance costs since they have to import parts from two companies and train people to work on more types of aircraft?
China seems a lot like Japan was in the late 1950s. The products are cheap and cheaply built. Over time they might get to the quality of more recent Japanese goods (1990s era stuff), but that will take a while. Not only to get the industry to make the quality goods, but also for their workers and designers to become craftsmen and not accept crap produced by their factories anymore.
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2011-06-21, 23:22 | Link #14332 | |
This was meaningless
Scanlator
Join Date: Jan 2004
Location: Not on this site no more.
Age: 36
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I have some friends who can get about 1.3-1.6 coins a day with their gaming machines on 24/7. Depending on how your electric bill is figured, this may be crap. My video card isn't geared toward making these calculations so I've only gotten less than half of a coin for about 30 hours. I'd earn more money looking for spare change on the ground. |
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2011-06-22, 01:21 | Link #14333 | |
Asuki-tan Kairin ↓
Join Date: Feb 2004
Location: Fürth (GER)
Age: 43
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2011-06-22, 01:29 | Link #14334 | |
I disagree with you all.
Join Date: Dec 2005
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2011-06-22, 01:31 | Link #14335 | |
Senior Member
Join Date: Mar 2007
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However, it's also much harder to generate bit coins. The algorithm for the overall system makes it so that as more and more people mine for bitcoins, the slower it is to get a bitcoin per hour of work put in. I believe the amount of bitcoins that can be generated is about 12 mil, and there's already 6 million in circulation. Essentially, early adopters contributed some money towards this in the hopes of it taking off and thus profiting off of their initial investment. At this point, if you haven't already set up a mining system for yourself, it's really pointless to go in if you're looking to get 'free money'. |
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2011-06-22, 01:39 | Link #14336 | ||
I disagree with you all.
Join Date: Dec 2005
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2011-06-22, 01:52 | Link #14337 | |
Senior Member
Join Date: Mar 2007
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So although the transaction itself will be seen, it's not linked to any real information. The process itself is 100% anonymous. However, even though the transfer itself cannot be linked to you, usually the real item that you're buying/selling would. Ie, the transaction would usually be linked to some real transaction such as buying pot through some online dealer that accepts bitcoins and thus they can track you through that. However, if both parties really cared about anonymity and the whole thing was set up correctly, then it's basically 100% untraceable back to the end user. |
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2011-06-22, 01:55 | Link #14338 | |
Asuki-tan Kairin ↓
Join Date: Feb 2004
Location: Fürth (GER)
Age: 43
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2011-06-22, 02:04 | Link #14339 | |
Senior Member
Join Date: Mar 2007
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You can't just say okay, let's use this new currency, and everyone has 100 bitcoins. Cryptography is needed because these problems are known to be solvable in a certain amount of time, and no amount of computer hardware could 'break' the system and generate more bitcoins than designed. Using this system, everyone can generate bitcoins at a rate that everyone knows. So yeah, it's essentially tying bitcoins to some tangible, real world commodity so that getting a bitcoin requires some time and money. Without speculation, each bitcoin would be worth exactly how much electricity it costs to generate them (+ the initial hardware frees). However, the rate of bitcoin generation also slows down as more and more are generated. This then essentially controls the 'supply' of bitcoins, while demand goes up when more people join in on this. |
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2011-06-22, 03:57 | Link #14340 | |
books-eater youkai
Join Date: Dec 2007
Location: Betweem wisdom and insanity
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To be realistic, I expect them to be soon a good competition for Bombardier and Embraer but for Boeing and Airbus it will take more than one decade and/or much industrial spying.
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current affairs, discussion, international |
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