Where is the US economy headed?

bush and Clinton left-overs are not radicals.

There you go again. I do not beat the drum for tax cuts. I do however point out correctly that lowering tax rates can at least in some cases increase tax revenues, and I also correctly point out that the rich are in fact already paying the vast majority of income taxes, so that I frankly am sick and tired of liberals demonizing and demagoging the rich and higher income earners as greedy people robbing the poor. The truth is the poor pay little or no income tax at all, and in fact are the recipients of money they never paid in. Look, we can have compassion for the poor, but it is not the least bit accurate to constantly blame the rich for their plight.

Another point, much of the deficit is due to government spending that I am not in favor of, and neither are most conservatives in favor of. Most of the deficit problem is due to liberal Democratic policies, period.

You have SAID that. You did NOT POINT IT OUT, as pointing it out should involve more proof than just saying something.

You write poorly. I know you have never heard of Benjamin Whorf but he was an American linguistic who, among other things, concluded that one's ability to use language dictates one's ability to learn.

You have a scant background in history and government. My kids did more academic work in both subjects before they began high school! What gives you the chutzpah, the hubris, the gall to correct people who have devoted their lives to the study of those fields?

I can point it out if it is something that is obvious to most people, or at least obvious to most reasonable people. In other words, if the handwriting is on the wall, it can be pointed out, even if you are too blind to see it.

Another dumb statement, pom. Since you like to compare educational achievements, I have a BS in Geology with a minor in Math, which required a high proficiency in things like analytical geometry, calculus, and other complex subjects. I worked 16 years for a major energy corporation, in very responsible postions, and have now owned and run my own business quite successfully and profitably for the past 25 years. All of that work has involved much writing, including many technical reports, so I need not apologize for my writing ability to anyone. My experience has enabled me to gain a respectable knowledge about the realities of how businesses operate and produce goods and services, as well as what government does, by virtue of the fact that I have had to become quite familiar with certain government bureaucracies in process of doing the work I have done. I also served in the military, with an honorable discharge, completing one year in the infantry in Vietnam.

I would not rate my accomplishments second to yours in any way, pom, if you really wish to compare them. By the way, to back up a little, I grew up in humble circumstances on a farm, but worked for every dime to pay my own way through college to earn the degrees that I did. I was salutatorian of my high school senior class, and my grade point in college was somewhere around 3.5 overall, and that was when a 4 point was maximum, they had not yet watered it down yet. Judging by your posts, I would guess you would have flunked out of some of the classes I took. Sorry, but that is my honest opinion.

What you are calling gall is courage, courage to call something for what it is, based upon evidence. If it means anything to you, I have a childhood or grade school friend that I have seen occasionally, that went on to become a history professor at some prestigious universities. To obtain the degrees he has, he attended places like Berkeley, and yes, he was or perhaps still is partly liberal. He admitted to me recently that his father, an Oklahoma farmer, was a communist - if you can imagine that, because it is hard to believe. This guy therefore grew up with some confusion in his head and had to work through alot of the political and religious issues in his life. Besides being a sort of cultural dropout and hippie, his experiences include living in over 3 dozen countries, not visiting, living. After some serious conversation a couple of years ago or so, the man admitted to me that he has come to realize that capitalism is the worst economic system on the face of the earth, except for all the rest of them, and also that the farmers in Oklahoma and the simple hard working folks that he went to school with out in the country, they had life, the world, politics, and the economy figured out a long time ago and they have more common sense and are more intelligent than most of the intelligentsia or academic world that he has spent much of his life with.

I could not have agreed with him more, pom. I am patiently trying to explain all of this to you, pom, just in case you have a bone of reason in your body. My dear parents were married over 53 years, and neither one finished high school, but I am here to tell you that both were more intelligent and wiser than most of the people I meet up with in today's world. I would start the evidence for that by the fact that both could balance their checkbooks, they were responsible, worked hard, showed up for work on time, never used drugs or alcohol, and they ended up being somewhat wealthy, not rich, but comfortable, and never took a penny of welfare or unemployment benefits from the government. They had more sense than many people with degrees, and even than what our government and politicians have. And to clarify a point, neither of them really ever cared about money or becoming wealthy, they did what was right and responsible, and the financial part of their life turned out okay, and furthermore, neither of them ever cared if someone else had more than they did, they did not preach to us children or teach us to have class envy, which you pom seem to have a huge chip on your shoulder about it.

To make a long story short, I am not going to apologize to you for my accomplishments, including my education and my writing ability. And I am not going to shy away from telling you and everyone else that liberalism is the wrong path to take, and that conservatism is the path to responsible living for us as individuals and for government as well. Conservatism is what this country was founded upon, both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.

What gives you the chutzpah, the hubris, the gall to assume something about somebody you dont even know?
You know nothing about okie's background, his education, his life, and him, yet you think you can decide what education he does or does not have, or anything else about his life, or anyone elses.

How do we know that you are telling the truth about yourself?
How do we know that you arent just some homeless person using the computer at a public library?

The deficit is due to Bushy babies inability to control the banking industry and military expenditure.

The only people you consider reasonable the majority would consider whack jobs.

Furthermore, you only consider science a worthy object of study and yet most scientists are liberals. As for your expected request for documentation, look it up yourself for once.

You give evidence of writing poorly and of not understanding what you read. I am not alone in that judgment. You have been told that many, many times. However, for you to assume that I would have flunked a science course is silly. I have taught high school science and math. In fact, I considered majoring in biology because when I took the standardized final after Biology II, I outscored the rest of my classmates. The reason I did was that I was burnt out with the study of bio at that time in my life. I do not regret turning against biology at that point in time and have never reconsidered a career in the sciences. My ex-husband has a PhD in chemistry. I rewrote everything he ever needed to submit and he wrote a dissertation. (That was prior to meeting me but a dissertation is a sustained piece of writing.) Scientists are known for writing in the passive voice and that is not your problem. Your problem is more basic.

So, you think your circumstances were humble. My family was solidly blue collar. My mother was the first in her family to graduate from high school and my father went through school to the 8th grade. He dropped out because his divorced mother was exhibiting the early signs of multiple sclerosis and he was called upon to support her, his younger sister and himself. He became a tool grinder and his unschooled knowledge of mathematics is solidly at the college level. He could always correct both my high school and college math problems. He does volunteer work during income tax season for senior citizens because his math and reading skills are excellent. That's my point: with native intelligence and curiosity, one can learn. You refuse to learn.


Your campaign is not based on bravery. It is based on ego. Your assumptions are baseless. I know every time I hit home in a post: you ignore it.

The rest of your post, following your statement that your stand is based on bravery or whatever word you used decayed into further drivel.

Why would you use phrases like "if you can believe it?" Do you think I stereotype as you do?

Appealing to authority is a logical fallacy POM. You education should have taught you that.

Everybody makes mistakes or arrives at false/incorrect conclusions. Having a PhD from Harvard does not make one perfect, nor does it make them above questioning. EVER.

A person's intelligent is writ large or not-so-large in everything they write. . . or say. Okie would be a candidate for remedial English at the community college where I teach.

I could indeed be a homeless person, using the computer at the public library.

Look, all of my kids were able to read at the college level at the end of sixth grade, based on standardized assessments. I suspect my daughter could do so earlier. I tested as proficient at the college level as a sixth grader as well.

My youngest son applied to one college. He was accepted but turned it down and went a community college to pursue an associate's degree in paralegal studies. As he doesn't like to be in school, he felt that if he went into paralegal studies, then later earned a bachelor's degree in environmental studies, he could, eventually, become an environmental lawyer. He left school after a year and completed a commercial program in auto mechanics. While living in ME, working as a mechanic, people would ask him whether he was a professor. He would honestly tell them what he did. When they fawned over him, he would say, "There is this thing called the Internet. Before that, there were books and libraries."

So, sure my son impress people with his learning. However, he is an autodidact, a hands on learner. He speaks well. He is able to use logic and draw conclusions well. He has a vast amount of arcane and not so arcane knowledge, practical and theoretical.

Of course, there are people who are able to bluff others, to reach positions that require an academic/experiential background they do not possess. They climb based on their native intelligence . . . and charisma.

However, when people, like okie and ican, spout stuff that is always askew, it is pretty easy to see where they are off in the hinterlands.

okie exhibits a double standard. He claims expertise for himself in his own field. He also, however, claims expertise in fields for which he has no background. That's hubris.

When I said my kids knew more about history and government as they entered high school, I was not exaggerating. He has made an emotional commitment to the idea that the left is a fascistic school of thought which is ahistorical and demonstrates a void in political knowledge. Let me repeat, intelligence is obvious.

A few weeks ago, I remarked that I could always tell when people lack a college education. I referred to people of intelligence whose verbal style is somehow not quite . . . shall we say . . . 100%. Several people became angry with me. Well, it is true. When you know someone fairly well and listen to their speech patterns carefully over a period of at least a few weeks, you can determine their educational level with some accuracy.

Interesting. You must hate ebonics, or at least think all urban minorities are utterly stupid.

Anyway, about that US economy---where do y'all think it's headed?

SOCIALISTS SEEK GOVERNMENTS THAT WILL STEAL FOR THEM WHAT OTHERS HAVE LAWFULLY EARNED!

LEFTISM, WHEN ALLOWED TO PERSIST, INEVITABLY PRODUCES DICTATORSHIP!

That is an ugly stat....we are back to where we were in FEB, basically there has been no recovery of jobs, we are still at the bottom and going no where. And Obama does not understand why he is not getting credit for doing this great job that he thinks he has done??!! Does not understand why Americans don't beleve that we are in recovery??!!

Straight into the toilet.

And it appears I'm not the only one...

Agree with the forecast, but tremble at the thought of further government fixes.

me too, mostly because I think they're all band-aids. I think we're looking at a Japanese type L-shaped recovery, at best. A Greece-like debacle is more likely.

From Robert Creamer, courtesy of the Huffington Post (Italics mine):

The Republicans have a set of dirty little (actually not so little) secrets they don't what you to know -- and certainly don't want you to think about when you go to the polls in November.

And the fact is that some of those secrets could provide Democrats with silver bullets this fall. But first let's recall the context.

Over the course of eight short years -- between 2000 and 2008 -- the Republicans methodically executed their plan to transform American society. They systematically transferred wealth from the middle class to the wealthiest two percent of Americans -- slashing taxes for the wealthy. They eviscerated the rules that held Wall Street, Big Oil and private insurance companies accountable to the public. They allowed and encouraged the recklessness of the big Wall Street banks that ultimately collapsed the economy and cost eight million Americans their jobs. They ignored exploding health care costs, tried to privatize Social Security, gave the drug companies open season to gouge American consumers and presided over a decline in real incomes averaging $2,000 per family. They entangled America in an enormously costly, unnecessary war in Iraq, pursued a directionless policy that left Afghanistan to fester, and sullied America's good name throughout the world.

Their economic policy of cutting taxes for the wealthy and deregulating big Corporations failed to create jobs. In fact, over his eight year term, George Bush's administration created exactly zero net private sector jobs. They inherited a Federal budget with surpluses as far as the eye could see and rolled up more debt than all of the previous Presidents in the over 200 years of American history. And in the end they left the economy in collapse.

This was not a disaster that could be remedied overnight. By taking bold action at the beginning of his administration, President Obama and the Democrats in Congress prevented the financial crisis from morphing into a Great Depression -- but the Republicans, some Democrats, and the powerful special interests have done everything they can to throw sand into the gears of change. Most importantly, they have stood in the way of providing enough economic stimulus to launch a robust, widespread economic recovery.

But notwithstanding Republican opposition, Obama, the Democrats and their progressive allies have -- after a century of trying -- finally passed health care reform allowing America to end its status as the only industrialized nation that did not provide health care as a right. They are on the brink of reining in the recklessness of the big Wall Street banks. And they have set the stage for massive long-term investments in economic growth and clean energy.

But it has been hard to pull the car out of the deep economic ditch and Americans are angry at the slow pace of economic recovery -- and also at the special interests that profited from their economic pain.

So the Republicans now have the audacity to argue that President Obama and the Democrats are somehow responsible for the hardships that they themselves created. In effect they want the election to be a referendum on whether the Democrats have mopped and swept fast enough cleaning up the mess that they created.

They will do everything they can to prevent America from focusing on the real choice before them in the fall elections -- a choice between going backward to the failed policies of the past that caused this catastrophe and a new direction that will create sustainable, long-term, bottom-up, widely shared economic growth. The real question before the country is whether it is willing to hand over the keys to the economy once again to the same gang that just caused the most serious economic pile up in 60 years.

That's where the dirty little secrets come in. It turns out that the leaders of the Republican Party have learned nothing from the reckless escapade that caused so much economic pain, and came perilously close to inflicting mortal wounds on the American economy.

They still actually believe -- despite what we have all just experienced -- that by "freeing" big oil, the insurance companies and Wall Street banks of the "burdens" of government accountability, that the plutocrats and the "invisible hand" of the market will lead American into the promised land of economic prosperity.

Some of the things they believe are not only dangerous to the economy, luckily they are also politically radioactive. And quite remarkably, many key Republicans are actually willing to say them out loud. Here are a few:

Meet Congressman Paul Ryan. Ryan is the ranking Republican on the House Budget Committee. If the Republicans once again take control of the House, he will be the Chair of the Budget Committee. Ryan believes -- and says out loud -- that Medicare, one of the most popular Federal programs in history, should be abolished and replaced with vouchers for private insurance. Let's recall that one of the ways Republicans stirred up opposition to health insurance reform was by falsely accusing Democrats of wanting to cut Medicare. They convinced some unwitting seniors that "Government" should keep its hands off Medicare -- which is, of course, a "Government" program. Democrats need to make it crystal clear in this campaign that Republicans -- who opposed Medicare from its inception -- actually want to abolish the program and hand over control of health care for America's seniors to the same private insurance companies responsible for driving up rates three times faster than wages while their profits have exploded.
Congressman John Boehner, the House Minority Leader, has endorsed another Ryan proposal to raise the retirement age of Social Security to 70 years old -- a proposal that might go over fine with a guy like Boehner who makes speeches for a living. But it won't be very popular at all with someone who has laid bricks, or run an earth mover, or waited tables for forty-five years.
The whole Republican crew wants to resurrect the failed Bush proposal to "privatize" Social Security. The defeat of Bush's privatization plan was the turning point in the Bush Presidency. It was all downhill from there. Yet -- whether it's to pad the investment accounts of their friends on Wall Street or because they are "private markets uber alles true believers" -- the Republicans want to try it again. Only this time retirees won't have to work very hard to imagine what it would have been like if their Social Security checks had plummeted in value the way their 401K's did when the market collapsed just two years ago.
The Republicans want to weaken and repeal the new law to rein in the recklessness of the big Wall Street banks. Most Republicans and Democrats voted to bail out the big banks to prevent a 1930's style market collapse. The difference is that Democrats supported legislation to rein in their recklessness -- that had cost 8 million Americans their jobs -- and assure that a bailout was never allowed to happen again. But with very few exceptions, the Republicans voted to a person against holding Wall Street accountable. Given a chance, they plan to team up with their pals on Wall Street to free them to return to their reckless ways at will. In fact, they told the titans of Wall Street as much in fundraising meetings, where those "masters of the Universe" were asked to ante up. Republicans claim to oppose more Wall Street bailouts, but they refuse to support legislation that would prevent one in the future and hold Wall Street accountable. That -- coupled with those big contributions from Wall Street -- is a position that is very difficult for average voters to swallow. In fact, the polling says it's down right toxic.
Republicans have consistently voted against extending unemployment benefits to workers who have been laid off because of Bush-era policies and the recklessness of Wall Street. Remember, people who get unemployment benefits -- by definition -- are looking for jobs that the economy doesn't provide. In addition, many Republicans actually believe that the best way to spur employment is to lower the minimum wage.
Finally, meet Congressman Joe Barton. If the Republicans win back control of Congress, he would once again most likely serve as the Chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee -- the Committee that oversees the oil industry. Congressman Barton has never met an oil company he doesn't like. In fact, he's the guy who actually apologized to BP when they were forced by the Obama Administration to take economic responsibility for the disastrous Gulf oil spill. As a political matter, that's like apologizing to Jack the Ripper.
These are politically radioactive positions that do, in fact, define the core of Republican policy if they were once again to control the gavel in either House of Congress.

We hear a lot about how Democrats have to "localize" the elections to have a chance of victory in November. And it is true that people vote for people in elections -- and the quality of Democratic candidates will give them a major edge in many races. So while it is a good idea to "personalize" the races for Congress, the last thing Democrats should do is to "localize" them, because the party that nationalizes a midterm -- and dominates the national dialogue -- almost always comes out ahead.

Instead, Democrats need to take the offensive and dominate the national conversation by talking about what the Republicans actually believe and what they would do if they win in November. Voters must be offered a stark choice between Democratic and Republican policies in the fall. If they are, "Conventional Wisdom" that keeps predicting a Democratic disaster will be proven wrong, the same way it was when it predicted that America would never elect a tall, skinny African American guy named Barack Obama.

I don't know why I continue to address your posts, pom, but I think I find your liberal mindset to be a fascinating study into what makes some people think the way they do. Again, your above statement comes out of the blue with no evidence to back it up whatsoever. Just in case you can reason about it, I know many reasonable people, and their professions include farmers, doctors, teachers, engineers, geologists, insurance reps, people working for federal or local governments in various capacities - some as managers, plus many in the trades such as carpenters, plumbers, electricians and the like. Most of these people are pretty conservative, certainly not wild liberal and as whacked out as some of your opinions seem to portray.

Another far out accusation or statement with no evidence whatsoever. Never have I said that science is the only worthy subject of study, but I do definitely believe that scientific endeavors form a pretty large part of the economic backbone of America, there is little doubt about that. But every necessary endeavor is crucial to our society, example I had a nice conversation with the trash pickup guy a while back and I thanked him for his work. I have a relative that is in police work, and although I have never had an interest in doing his job, nor do I think I would have been that good at it, I am very thankful there are people like him that do like the work and do a great job of it.

Again, you say some strange and totally unsubstantiated things, including your mistaken belief that I write poorly. I even doubt your claims about your education and teaching, given your mistaken assessments of my writing. It makes me curious about your having an ex-husband, not to be nosy, but did the man get tired of you berating his writing and his work, and so he left?


I commend you on your family history and your personal degree of success, that is if you are telling the truth? I still come back to my impression that you are carrying around much baggage, baggage in the way of resentments and "woe is me" type of stuff, and that is the source of your lashing out at conservatives and folks that you perceive as having more or achieving more, or having principles that elude you. I think much of your liberal mindset is due to all of those resentments, class envy, and indoctrinations against those people that are top producers in our society. And anyone that expresses clear principles of right and wrong, such as taking definite stands against things, example being abortion, such black and white principles scare you, as they do most liberals. Liberals live in a world of shades of gray, sort of directionless, and in an emotional fog, looking for a liberal politician and government to solve all of their problems and provide the utopia that seems to elude them.

You will ridicule my above statements, but I am not here to sugarcoat a bunch of opinions, I am here to post my honest and sincere beliefs.