Cost of Chrysler financing

What entitlements are you referring too. Here's a few...

From MSNBC:

"Taxpayers for Common Sense, a bipartisan group favoring less federal spending, said it found 11,772 projects worth $15.8 billion. Projects included:

a.. $335,000 to protect sunflowers in North Dakota from blackbird damage. b.. $60 million for a new courthouse in Las Cruces, N.M. c.. $225,000 to study catfish genomes at Alabama's Auburn University. d.. A potential boon for Bush himself, $2 million for the government to try buying back the former presidential yacht Sequoia. The boat was sold three decades ago, and its current owners say the yacht is assessed at $9.8 million and are distressed by the provision. "

Hell-lo, is there empty air in that head or what? you WON the election ya idiots! Are we going to hear another 4 years of whining that "oh we have both houses of congress and we got to stuff the Supreme court with our lackeys but po lil us we just can't do anything because of those nasty liberals"

If so, I guess on the bright side since your friends are CHOOSING to be helpless then you will be too busy whining that you won't have much chance to f*ck up the country.

You conservatives have been claiming since the Vietnam War that you could do a better job of running the country than us liberals. Well, now is your chance to prove it. Iffin 4 years from now we still have no balanced budget - and it was your party that was campaigning for the balanced budget amendment a few years ago, mind - then it will be obvious even to a blind monkey you have been full of shit all along, and your going to initiate the end of the consrvative swing in the US, and by 2010 we are going to have gay marriage, an end of government funding of religious schools (aka vouchers) and all the other things that make you wake up scared in the night.

It's your choice, are you going to be a party of whiners or a party of doers?

Ted

I think your underwear is on too tight.

Doublespeak. One does not "pay for" a reduction in income. One *might* "reduce spending", or choose to engage in deficit spending. You see, "paying for" implies that the government is "giving" us something. It is not.

It is being forced, by law, to not *take* as much of what is rightfully OURS *from* us. Not that this is a distinction that you'll be able to understand, Ted.

No, conservatives love to talk about the amount of their *own money* they get to keep, as compared to what would otherwise be if you socialists were in power. I love my tax cut; I went down an entire bracket. I want ANOTHER tax cut, an even larger one. I'd like to see my federal income tax somewhere around 5-10%, and my FICA eliminated.

Republican != conservative, although conservative Republicans are the majority

Democrat != socialist, although socialist Democrats are the majority

Liberal = socialist, every single time.

Another fine-line distinction that will doubtless go over your head, Ted.

Trained monkeys could do a better job than you socialists did. Oh, wait a minute, Bill Clinton WAS a trained monkey!

Well, now is your

Who says that a "balanced budget" is a goal of today's conservatives? A "balanced budget" is a canard, a red herring, a vaporware goal. Nobody who's ever had a mortgage has had a "balanced budget". "Deficit spending" is a commonly-accepted means to an end, and it is workable and manageable. Don't give me this "balanced budget" hooey. I couldn't honestly care *less* whether or not the budget is "balanced."

- and

If so, it was misguided, and probably an attempt to reign you socialists in.

Fortunately, we were able to do so without amending the Constitution that time. Regardless, if amending the Constitution is what it takes the next time, we'll likely pull it off.

then it will be obvious even to a blind monkey you

The conservative swing in the US is just getting under way, Ted. We're only 10 years in, and if the pattern repeats, there's 30 more to go. By the time we're done, there won't BE any liberals as currently defined. Heh! I can't wait until all the socialist hippies from the 60s are DEAD! :-)

I think he's right. Funny, I didn't think you socialists even wore underwear.

--Geoff

Yes, we won and you need to get over it. I hear there are support groups in Florida that may still have some openings. :-)

Ha, ha, ha. Teddy, Teddy, Teddy, please take your medication.

A lot will be done, but there is no way to balance the budget and still do anything, unless major cuts are made to defense, medicare, medicaid and SS. And no politician who wants to get re-elected is going to do this, doesn't matter what the party affiliation. I know you all think Clinton was responsible for a balanced budget for a year or two, but the fact is that he was the lucky recipient of an economic bubble that was years in the making and about which he had no involvement (other than partnering up with Gore who we all know invented the internet that fueled the telecom bubble).

The reality is that the American people have gotten so used to the hand-outs initiated during the "New Deal", that we'll bankrupt the country before we go back. That is today's reality and no politician is going to change that as they'll get voted out as soon as they do and the next politician will undo whatever they did. And this isn't a partisan issue, it is an American issue.

Matt

Never heard of the government subsidized underwear program? :)

I understand this but it really has no bearing on anything. If you want to play these kinds of games then I'll remind you that WE the people CHOSE the representatives and government officials that created the government programs that the government spends money on. WE approved these programs and WE are responsible for paying for them. WE chose to spend our money on everything from Social Security to buying the Sequoia yacht

Where I am annoyed is that while I may be responsible for choosing to spend my money on these programs - via taxes - unlike you I happen to want the expenditures on these programs cut down to the point that the government isn't deficit spending to pay for them.

Choosing to engage in deficit spending - is that how you put it - is not a viable long term method of funding anything. I suggest if you think so that you quit your job and run all your credit cards up to the maximum and see what happens.

I am perfectly willing to go with a reduction in many of the programs in order to produce a surplus so that we can have a big tax cut, this is as responsible a fiscal policy as the previous one was, as both result in a balanced budget.

I am not willing to see even more spending and increases in programs at the same time as a big tax cut, as not only is it first of all irresponsible to increase the spending in the first place, since no money was budgeted for it to begin with, and second of all it is irresponsible to cut taxes without cutting spending so the budget stays balanced.

You apparently seem to think it is OK to increase spending when there is no money to support it. I don't. Returning my tax cut doesen't solve anything because I didn't want to see the increased spending to begin with. Why support it with more tax money?

Good, no problem with that - as long as you are perfectly willing to cut the spending in accordance. If you are willing to give up your Social Security, and you are willing to stop throwing money into trying to prosecute doctors that are following state law, then no problem - let's see, how much is it going to cost us when John Asscroft on his way out the door filed a court challenge of Oregon's D.w.D?

Explain how support of stem cell research is socialist, this ought to be good...

Great, then the Republicans in control of the government don't have to work very hard to make the grade.

A mortgage is nothing like what the US government is doing today. When the US government's budget was balanced back in the late 90's, at that time a portion of the budget was going into paying interest and principle on the national debt. (mostly interest) This was equivalent to a household that maintains a mortgage on a balanced budget.

Today, the US government is STILL paying interest on the national debt, AND they are ADDING to it. The situation is equivalent to a household that had a mortgage that they were successfully paying the monthly payments on, suddenly going on a home buying spree and buying a new home a month, and assuming yet another mortgage every month. It is in short, a giant Ponzi scheme.

means-to-an-end do you really know what that phrase actually means? Ever wonder about that small word "end" that is a part of it?

What end are you talking about. I see no end in sight. And if we ever do get to an end, who is going to pay the national debt that we have run up?

Bush cut taxes in year 2000. The economy did not pick up as a result, it's been FOUR YEARS and we still aren't creating enough jobs for simple growth. Tax cutting did nothing to stimulate any economic growth so I don't see that it did anything to reach any kind of end.

And you think your better off with that tax money? Well let me tell you this - in 1999, before any tax cutting, I personally was in an industry where there was a shortage of workers, and if I had wanted to make more money I could have walked out of my job and within a month had another one in my industry that paid me more.

Today, well I'm still in that industry, still working that job, still making the same money I was in 1999. But, what has changed is that now the depression has destroyed most of the other positions that were out there, and there's a glut of workers in my industry. So I can no longer go out and just move to another employer and get a big raise as a result. So on one hand I have a tax cut, on the other I don't have any leverage when review time comes round to demand more money. And prices have gone up in the last 5 years, too. Overall I would have been better off with a healthy job market and no tax cut, than what we have now which is a tax cut and a crappy job market. And most other professional people I know are the same way. Wages simply do not rise very fast when there's an oversupply of workers in the market, that is basic supply and demand.

Well, thanks at least for proving to everyone that you are a complete fool. For an explanation as to why this kind of economic system is impossible, refer to "Economics and Politics in the Weimar Republic" by Theo Balderston.

What a recommendation for political advice - you don't even know obvious things about political history and you think you know what's going on? Unbelievable.

Please do. I would love an amendment requiring a blanced budget.

The conservative swing started in 1980 with the election of Ronald Reagan. What happened with President Carter's handling of the Iran hostage incident was the end result of many years of political correctness, and how this kind of thing could be driven to an extreme. The American public realized then that, Sorry, when bad people do bad things, innocent people are going to get killed when you take the steps to punish the bad people, and there's nothing that can be done about it.

The Iran hostage situation was probably the most collosal mishandling of hostage taking that has happened since WWII. The number of subsequent people who have died simply because mid east terrorists decided as a result of this that taking hostages was a profitable endeavor, surely dwarfs the number of hostages in the American Embassy. This event crystalized how misguided an untraliberal approach is in government, and started the pendulum swinging to the conservative side.

On reflection, I really feel sorry for you. Quite obviously you are either young and have had a piss-poor education, or you are older and just plain ignorant and happy to be so. You simply cannot understand politics without understanding political history, and you don't even understand that.

The conservative swing is getting very close to the end. I give it maybe 10 years more, tops. What has happened is that now the conservatives have finally gotten what they have been fighting for since 1980, - control of the executive and legislative branches of the federal government. The smarter people in the conservative movement know that now is a very delicate time, it is crucial to tread carefully so as not to provoke a backlash. But, as has always happened in American political history, the radical elements in the party who have been pouring their blood sweat and tears into pushing the movement, now they finally got what they want and they are going to run hog-wild. The same thing happened with President Carter when he booted Ford out of office. The idiot ultraliberals in the Democratic party wern't restrained and Carter got booted.

Ted

CHOSE the representatives and government officials that created the government

on everything from Social Security to buying the Sequoia yacht

Bzzt! Wrong. Basic misunderstanding of the representative republic form of government. Also misunderstanding of the concept that one state doesn't elect another state's representatives. Nice try, Ted.

spend my money on these programs - via taxes - unlike you I happen to want the expenditures on these programs cut down to the point that the government isn't deficit spending to pay for them.

Hey, I'm all for spending reductions. Let's cut spending to the bare minimum specified in the Constitution, for starters, then allow people to make the case for every expenditure approval that follows.

not a viable long term method of funding anything. I suggest if you think so that you quit your job and run all your credit cards up to the maximum and see what happens.

What a fool. You somehow seem to think that an individual's finances are somehow on the same scale as the U.S. government's and get treated the same by others.

MANY of the programs, yep. Almost all of them, in fact.

in order to produce a surplus so that we can have a big tax cut, this is as

See, here's where we differ. I think surpluses ought to be illegal and returned forthwith. Or preferably, not collected in the first place.

for

So you don't think the President prepares a budget proposal every year which has to be voted on in Congress, eh?

Weren't you just saying a few 'graphs up that you had agreed to pay via your elected representatives? You can't have it both ways, Teddy boy.

Why raise taxes at all, then?

eliminated.

Yep

doctors that are following state law,

Huh? You must be talking about the marijuana thing, right? Smoke up, Teddy, I couldn't care less.

How 'bout YOU explain why the government should do anything that private enterprise could.

you could do a better job of running the country than us liberals.

wait a minute, Bill Clinton WAS a trained monkey!

work very hard to make the grade.

Guess what, Ted? Despite your *best* efforts, your side lost the last election. Think the grade hasn't been made yet?

When the US government's budget was balanced back in the late 90's, at that time a portion of the budget was going into paying interest and principle on the national debt. (mostly interest) This was equivalent to a household that maintains a mortgage on a balanced budget.

You reversed yourself within the same paragraph, Ted. It's not like a mortgage first, then just a few hundred characters later it is? Maybe you ARE smoking something.

But wait, Ted, just a few 'graphs ago, you wanted me to quit my job and pay for everything on my credit cards, since my personal finances are comparable to the government's. Which way is it, now? Oh, that's right, whichever way gives you support for your argument.

Gee, Ted, who paid off the national debt incurred during fighting of WWII? Oh, wait a minute, the government was spending money hand over fist back then, too! And somehow, the economy survives. I wonder how, given that you've posited that a growing national debt is the harbinger of economic doom?

Wrong.

it's been FOUR YEARS and we still aren't creating enough jobs

Wrong.

Tax cutting did nothing to stimulate any economic

Wrong

That's the only truth I can find in this entire paragraph

Why, yes. I go to work to earn it, and I'm far better off when I get to spend it myself. Every single time.

industry where there was a shortage of workers,

Unix sysadmins. Yeah, tell me about it. I was an NT sysadmin in '99. Nice, wasn't it? Oh yeah, didn't you take a stab at being an author, too?

Nicepic, BTW.

and if I had wanted to make

Me, too. Wait a minute...I did walk out, and I had a new job the next day. Making about $40K more/year, too.

Well, here's the crux of the problem, Ted. You didn't apply yourself. You sat back on your laurels. You did nothing to increase your skills or your value to potential or current employers. You stagnated.

Meanwhile, the first graduating classes in the Indian invasion ate your sandwich for you when you weren't looking.

I, on the other hand, chose not to stagnate. I chose to improve myself. I have continued to improve myself, and as a result, I've achieved permanent employee status (rather than contractor), advanced to a programmer/analyst position, and have started accruing wealth in the form of a larger home, a 401K, a pension, a couple of raises...

But, what has changed is that now

It wasn't a depression, it was a recession. And it was over in 2002.

Mmm, no, Ted, there's a decidedly large number of people in the industry who have failed to advance their skills, and are hoping for the government to clean up their mess. Like you, evidently.

So I can no longer

Why would you expect to? You just told us that your value hasn't increased since 1999! And according to your resume, you didn't finish your degree, which is pretty much a basic requirement in this business.

So on one hand I have a tax cut, on the other I don't have any

Because you were lazy.

Yeah, so?

Overall, you would've been better off if you had applied yourself.

Know a lot of lazy people, huh?

Wages simply

...when you do nothing to improve yourself, as you have seen.

The guy whining about not getting a raise since 1999 despite the fact he's done nearly *nothing* to improve himself is calling me a fool? :-) No wonder you're a Democrat.

Gee, Ted, you seem to have a complete misunderstanding of the economics of your own industry. What makes you think you understand the national economy?

No. According to this logic, it could've started with Nixon. Or Ike.

The correct answer is it started in 1994 in the mid-term elections. Remember the 'Contract with America'?

1979 was at least 4 years before 'political correctness' was even coined as a term.

crystalized

Yet you wanted to return us to that approach by electing Kerry?

Misery loves company, eh?

We're within a few years of each other

I got MY degree

No, just wiser and better-educated.

--Geoff

Really? I do. I don't want to see even more of my tax dollars being spent on paying interest on old loans, I'd prefer to see it doing something useful.

You obviously don't understand how a mortgage works, either. It's a secured loan, with the house being used as the security. A person generally takes out a mortgage to buy a house or other dwelling simply because he can't, or prefers not to for whatever reason, scrape together enough cash to pay for it all in one lump sum. He still needs to make the regular payments in full and on time, however. The basic difference between the federal gov't and the average homeowner with a mortage is this - the homeowner is planning to someday pay off his mortgage and actually own his place outright. The federal gov't just keeps on taking out more and more loans to meet the mortgage payments so it doesn't have to cut back on all the steak dinners. It would seem obvious on the face of it that people would realize that this was a Bad Idea(tm) but nobody actually seems to want to actually do anything about it. A good start would be a balanced budget, so that we don't actually dig ourselves deeper into a hole. If we end up with a surplus, so be it. Pay off some debts, so that we don't have to spend as much on interest payments next year. Then you get a bigger surplus, etc. etc. etc. see how it works? Eventually we can then cut taxes *without* deficit spending and everyone's happy.

"deficit spending" might be a useful short term tool, however, we've gone far, *far* beyond that.

nate

The libs are believing their own lie - one of the many, many, many factors that cost them credibility and the election. You are falling into the trap of thinking that conservatives, including GWB, is against funding (federal gov't and otherwise) of stem cell research. Fact is, it is funded (federal gov't and otherwise), and GWB supports it. You are intentionally confusing the very dead-end fetal stem cell research (as in very little if any return on investment) with the very beneficial and broader category of (non-fetal) stem cell research). Christopher Reeve's widow and Ronald Reagan's son (and the entire Democratic Party) were FOS on that issue, and most Americans knew it, thanks to some honest reporting on the issue.

Even if that were true (and it isn't), was there anything else going on in the last four years that could have had a negative effect on things? Gee - I'll have to stop and think real hard to answer that one. I know there was something, but I just can't think of it. Let's see - what could it be...?

(BTW - I too believe in a balanced budget)

Bill Putney (To reply by e-mail, replace the last letter of the alphabet in my adddress with the letter 'x')

Don't forget what went on in the eight years previous to GWB's first term - the decimating of the military by Bill "I loathe the military" Clinton. Rebuilding the military costs money, lots of it.

I have no strong opinion one way or the other on stem cell research but it seems to me a bit crazy to be against it when thousands of embryos are destroyed every year during artificial insemination procedures. Or don't the right wingers know that.

Well, no. What would really be crazy would be to spend a lot of effort and money on something that holds, at best, very little promise, when the non-embryonic stem cell research is where the results are. Why divert resources away from things that offer benefits (and I don't mean just non-embryonic stem cell research) to something that offers no bang for the buck.

Face it, Art: The distortions about stem cell research were simply a vehicle for the Dems to come up with anything to attack Bush. If there had been anything genuine to it, Dan Rather would not have been so eager to try to legitimize yet another red herring like he did. The fact that the distinction between embryonic and non-embryonic research was so carelessly but intentionally blurred by your liberal buds made it pretty obvious. But please - do all you can to make sure it is a major issue for the Dems to run on again in '08. M. Moore and G. Soros would make excellent spokesmen for the cause once again.

Let's let the state of CA report back in a few years on the medical breakthoughs resulting from their stem cell initiative.

Bill Putney (To reply by e-mail, replace the last letter of the alphabet in my adddress with the letter 'x')

You guys crack me up, here is this financing thread, and Im reading about stem cell research, we Chrysler finantics are certainly well-versed in EVERYTHING!!! LMAO

SRG