Where is the US economy headed?

Hey pom, dummie, I've already said I do not have an SUV, and have neer had one, but any dummy can see that for many people they are probably practical for all the reasons I've pointed out, which should be common ssense.

1.) He never said he did not have an SUV.

2.) Where did I say that he did?

3.) I had estimated his reading level as 6th grade. It must be 5th.



What reasons? He clearly said that people buy SUVs because of the seat belt law. Perhaps, his own car is so old that it is without seat belts? Could it be that he doesn't know the difference between a coupe, an SUV and a sedan?

Reminds me of that old joke: Why does a chicken coop have two doors?

Because if it had four, it would be a chicken sedan.

Oh, Magoo, you've done it again!

Apparently in Michele Bachmann's direction:


Michele Bachmann has become known as the Queen of the anti-government Tea Baggers, protesting health care reform and slamming every other government handout as “socialism.” But what her followers don’t know is that Rep. Bachmann is also a queen of another kind—a welfare queen. That’s right, the anti-government insurrectionist has taken more than a quarter-million dollars in government handouts thanks to corrupt farming subsidies she has been collecting for at least a decade.

And she’s not the only one who has been padding her bank account with taxpayer money.

Bachmann, of Minnesota, has spent much of this year agitating against health care reform, whipping up the tea-baggers with stories of death panels and rationed health care. She has called for a revolution against what she sees as Barack Obama’s attempted socialist takeover of America, saying his presidential policy is “reaching down the throat and ripping the guts out of freedom.”

But data compiled from federal records by Environmental Working Group, a nonprofit watchdog that tracks the recipients of agricultural subsidies in the United States, shows that Bachmann has an inner Marxist that is perfectly at ease with living on the government dole. According to the organization’s records, Bachmann’s family farm received $251,973 in federal subsidies between 1995 and 2006. The farm had been managed by Bachmann’s recently deceased father-in-law and took in roughly $20,000 in 2006 and $28,000 in 2005, with the bulk of the subsidies going to dairy and corn. Both dairy and corn are heavily subsidized—or “socialized”—businesses in America (in 2005 alone, Washington spent $4.8 billion propping up corn prices) and are subject to strict government price controls. These subsidies are at the heart of America’s bizarre planned agricultural economy and as far away from Michele Bachmann’s free-market dream world as Cuba’s free medical system. If American farms such as hers were forced to compete in the global free market, they would collapse.

However, Bachmann doesn’t think other Americans should benefit from such protection and assistance. She voted against every foreclosure relief bill aimed at helping average homeowners (despite the fact that her district had the highest foreclosure rate in Minnesota), saying that bailing out homeowners would be “rewarding the irresponsible while punishing those who have been playing by the rules.” That’s right, the subsidy queen wants the rest of us to be responsible.

Bachmann’s financial disclosure forms indicate that her personal stake in the family farm is worth up to $250,000. They also show that she has been earning income from the farm business, and that the income grew in just a few years from $2,000 to as much as $50,000 for 2008. This has provided her with a second government-subsidized income to go with her job as a government-paid congresswoman who makes $174,000 per year (in addition to having top-notch government medical benefits). “If she has an interest in a farm getting federal subsidy payments, she is benefiting from them,” Sandra Schubert, director of government affairs for the Environmental Working Group, told Gannett News Service in 2007, when the subsidies to Bachmann were first publicly disclosed.

But Bachmann isn’t the only welfare recipient on Capitol Hill. As it turns out, there is a filthy-rich class of absentee farmers—both in and out of Congress—who demand free-market rules by day and collect their government welfare checks in the mail at night, payments that subsidize businesses that otherwise would fail. Over the past couple of decades, welfare for the super-wealthy seems to be the only kind of welfare our society tolerates.

In the 11 years for which the Environmental Working Group has compiled data, the federal government paid out a total of $178 billion to American farmers. We’re not talking about the Joads here. The bulk of subsidies go to the wealthy, not small farmers, as Ken Cook, the group’s president, explained to the Central Valley (Calif.) Business Times:

American taxpayers have been writing farm subsidy checks to wealthy absentee land owners, state prison systems, universities, public corporations, and very large, well-heeled farm business operations without the government so much as asking the beneficiaries if they need our money. … Even if you live smack in the middle of a big city, type in a ZIP code and you’ll find farm subsidy recipients.

Chuck Grassley, the longtime Republican senator from Iowa who warns his constituents of Obama’s “trend toward socialism,” has seen his family collect $1 million in federal handouts over an 11-year period, with Grassley’s son receiving $699,248 and the senator himself pocketing $238,974. Even Grassley’s grandson is learning to ride through life on training wheels, snagging $5,964 in 2005 and $2,363 in 2006. In the Grassley family they learn early how to enjoy other people’s money.

Sen. Grassley railed against government intervention in the health care market, telling The Washington Times, “Whenever the government does more … that’s a movement toward socialism.” As the top Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, he ought to know, especially because the government has done more for him and his kin than for Americans struggling with high medical bills and mortgages. Even the free-market think tank the Heritage Foundation criticized Grassley on his deep connections to farming interests and his stubborn lack of transparency.

Then there’s Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., whose family has been on the government take for at least the past 11 years, pocketing some $500,000. The senator recently held a “prayercast” with Michele Bachmann to beseech God to kill health care reform as soon as possible because it would bring an evil socialist spirit into America. Like Bachmann, Brownback has a fierce belief in God, the free market and a two-year limit on all welfare benefits—unless it’s welfare to rich Republicans who don’t need it.

Not surprisingly, Blue Dog Democrats are on board with this welfare-for-the-rich thing. Max Baucus, the fiscally conservative Democratic senator from Montana who did his best to sabotage the health care reform process before it ever began, collected $250,000 in taxpayer subsidies to his family’s farm while fighting to keep Americans at the mercy of free-market health insurance. Sen. Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas, another Democrat, also helped hold the line against so-called socialized medicine for Americans who need assistance, even though her family farm business follows the socialized subsidy playbook to a T. The Lincolns pocketed $715,000 in farm subsidies over a 10-year period, and the senator even admitted to using $10,000 of it as petty cash in 2007. Democratic Rep. Stephanie Sandlin of South Dakota stayed true to her conservative free-market roots by voting against the public option. Meanwhile, her daddy, Lars Herseth, a former South Dakota legislator, collected a welfare jackpot of $844,725 paid out between 1995 and 2006.

That’s just the way the game is played these days. Republicans and conservative Democrats bitch and moan about the allegedly Marxist underpinnings of universal health care and do everything they can to deny struggling Americans access to social services. Meanwhile, many of them profit off taxpayers in a massive welfare program.

Farm subsidies have become so corrupt that payments sometimes go to dead people for years. Federal farm subsidies, which were originally meant to help struggling farmers survive, are now little more than taxpayer robbery, taking taxpayer wealth from working Americans and sending it to the have-mores. According to 11 years’ worth of Environmental Working Group data that tracks $200 billion in subsidies, the wealthiest 10 percent of “farmers” have collected 75 percent of the money. That’s exactly the kind of socialism that Rep. Bachmann and her elite ilk like.

Yasha Levine is a mobile home inhabitin’ editor of The eXiled. He is currently stationed in Victorville, CA. Levine and co-editor Mark Ames first broke the connection between the Tea Party and the billionaire Koch brothers in Playboy.com in February 2009, sparking lawsuit threats, and causing CNBC’s Rick Santelli to publicly distance himself from the Tea Party movement and cancel his Daily Show appearance. You can reach him at levine [at] exiledonline.com.

Who is going to post in support of bachmann first? okie? ican? someone else?

You're conflating two separate issues. The 'safety requirements' have nothing to do with the room in the car. If people want an SUV in order to have more room, fine. But that's not the argument you tried to make above, which seems to posit that Regulations are somehow pushing SUVs, which is of course perfectly incorrect.



Yes, Okie, I know that parents have SUV's to take their kids places. That has nothing at all to do with the conversation we've been having.

Other than, perhaps, to help prove my point: that VW just doesn't think that they can make money selling tiny cars in a culture where large ones are preferred over gas mileage.

Occam's razor, Okie. Do you know what that is?

Cycloptichorn

You know plainoldme for a 17 yr old lady I find the info that you share with us to be very attractive when the emotions are not included! I hope that this does not qualify me as a pedophile!

Thanks for the info

Sure they do. To accomodate 3 or 4 children in child restraints or car seats, it takes more room to do it. Come on, cyclops, admit the obvious. Have you been around young families? No, it is not incorrect. Not only did I provide evidence of a VW dealer in Canada that said VW told him they would not attempt to market the Lupo in North America, because it could not meet safety standards here, plus I have provided common sense evidence why families prefer SUVs for families. These factors are huge influence upon car model marketing decisions made. Are you so partisan that you refuse to admit the obvious truth of these things?That has lots to do with it. I have attempted to explain over and over, but you refuse to acknowledge the obvious.
I explained to that the reasons this country does not buy only little cars are not simply becausethe people just like large cars over gas mileage. That is not true at all. People do care about gas mileage, obviously, especially when it goes over $4.00 per gallon. There are lots of little cars around, but it depends upon who are using them. My brother in law has a Prius and he loves it, but he is now retired and only his wife and him use it. He has no little kids to haul around now, but if he still did, he would probably have an SUV. His kids have families, and most of them do have SUVs, because they are more practical for their families. I do not have an SUV, but if I were younger and still had my children young at home, my wife and I both agreed that we probably would have tried an economical SUV. Would you please wake up to the fact that there are many things to consider besides gas consumption? There are safety issues, room and hauling capacity, reliability, and other uses such as shopping,picking up supplies, etc.I looked it up, but frankly it doesn't affect the logical arguments I've made here.

SUVs and vans are not safe as their center of gravity is too high. When they make turns at high speed they tend to roll over as the centrifugal force pulls the vehicle over as the wheel base width is only slightly wider than a car but they are top heavy and loaded with passengers. The Hummer is the way to go for safety but they guzzle gasoline like beer.

I tend to agree with you, and that is one reason I've never owned an SUV. I've always had sedans and pickup trucks as second vehicles to be used sparingly. However, I was simply explaining that a great many people did not and do not view SUV's as unsafe, but instead practical for many other reasons. Little cars are certainly not that safe either, nor are the very economical motorcycles and scooters. I've known many people killed on them. One of the erasons is that others tend to overlook them in traffic.

There are multitudes of reasons for various vehicles, one not mentioned so far are for business use, and small business is a huge component in this country. I have relatives with a flower shop, and the most practical for them was a roomy mini van to deliver their flowers. It also provided a venue to advertise their services on the side of the van, which they also parked at the business when not on delivery.

Then, we must assume that three children without child restraints share a single space or seat. Is that right?

Families with 3 or 4 kids would probably be more conservative and would believe that there is no global warming and that the entire fuel problem can be solved by off-shore drilling.

Ah, Magoo, you've done it again! This foolish man is again flogging common sense.

Is your brother-in-law Tarzan?

okie has to be a masochist. There can be no other reason for his continued posting here.

This is an urban myth.

Driver error tends to cause vehicles to roll over.
Make sure you know how to drive because it's the operator, not the vehicle.

A contributing factor to the rotten state of the economy -- which is far from new -- is the consolidation of businesses.

I recently received a catalog called Serengeti. No, it is not full of mounted animal heads and hunting gear but with women's clothing. I liked two or three items in the 64 pages catalog which means I never want another one to come to me. I sat down to email them to request they not send me any more catalogs. When I entered their email addy, I was directed to a site offering access to several retailers and several classifications of women's wear (petites, tall, plus-sizes). I noticed that Talbots and Lane Bryant were prominent in the mix. I googled the question: are Talbots and Lane Bryant owned by the same company and found that they are.

How can merchants offer original design, original presentation and remain flexible if stores are not independently owned but fall under the umbrella of a mega-corporation? Why shop at one when the other offers the same things?

No wonder the economy is withering. There is no competition.

The #1 contributing factor to America's worsening economy is government
spending and Obama's democrats have only exacerbated the situation.
The fed needs to freeze spending at 2008 levels and implement The FairTax Plan.

Plainoldme we could use your help in another thread!
This is where I learn from you and others and I would be grateful for any help that you are willing to share on this subject being that I think this may be your field of expertise!
If you have not noticed my writing skills sucks and I would like to get it right one day!

http://able2know.org/topic/167119-175#post-4571499

It takes practice, practice, practice, but you must also understand the fundamentals of proper grammar. An occasional mistake is not a big deal. Also, if English is not your first language, most people will overlook grammatical and spelling errors.

Well the sad truth is English is my first language! Perhaps you all can make believe that it is not my first language and let me slide at times? I never did like English until now!

It's more than a matter of VW supposing the car would not sell well in the US. VW has stopped making the car.

If you're not on Facebook, then you haven't seen this:


Remember when teachers, public employees, Planned Parenthood, Public Radio and PBS crashed the stock market, wiped out half of our 401Ks, took trillions in TARP money, spilled oil in the Gulf of Mexico, gave themselves billions in bonuses, and paid no taxes? Yeah, me neither. Repost if you can't remember, either.

Dont let it get you down kid. i am 75 and english is my only language and I am still learning how to express myself. Dont let people get you down, I understand you just fine.