robertwooddellweaver wrote:And if you are not in a purple state, there are too many other people voting a specific color that your vote won't be significant.

We need to remove the electoral college mechanism. It made sense once, before communication networks, but a more [small d] democratic approach is called for today.

I used to think that too. The problem is that smaller states would have absolutely no say in the election. Those midwest ultra conservative states dont have enough people to count and if we got rid of the electoral college no-one would care about them.

Oh, wait. Maybe that is a GOOD thing! No more bailouts for the farmers (seriously, THEY were against the Auto bailouts? Farmers? Who have been getting bailouts for decades?)!

The whole state of Alaksa Population: 735,000. About the same as the city and suburbs of Syracuse, NY. If there was no electoral college who would you focus on as a politician? Alaska or New York State?

The Northeast and California would elect just about every president without the electoral college. (assuming Texas secedes !)

All you righties should think twice before proposing getting rid of the electoral college just because you lost a single election.

lroux wrote:The whole state of Alaksa Population: 735,000. About the same as the city and suburbs of Syracuse, NY. If there was no electoral college who would you focus on as a politician? Alaska or New York State?

The Northeast and California would elect just about every president without the electoral college. (assuming Texas secedes !)

All you righties should think twice before proposing getting rid of the electoral college just because you lost a single election.

Agreed, democracy is a terrible form of government. That's why the founders set us up as a Constitutional Republic and tried to severely limit the powers of the federal government. The entire point was to protect the minority from the will of the majority (the old 2 wolves and a sheep joke).

feciii wrote:Conservatives don't want small government. They want a weak government so they can do whatever they want. We had that and this financial crisis is the result.

Not to get specific here, but the blame can be laid on both sides of the aisle for the financial crisis, starting with the repeal of Glass-Steagall act in 1999 and signed by Bill Clinton, and the continued strong opposition to regulation of derivatives by Alan Greenspan (who was someone EVERYBODY listened to because of how well he was managing the economy at the time). When the dot-com bubble of the late 1990's collapsed in early 2001, a lot of investment equity disappeared along with it, so Greenspan and co. lowered the federal funds rate from 6.5% to 1% to try and foster new business investment. Instead he effectively deferred the financial recession by creating a real-estate bubble, and with several other contributing factors working in concert helped lead to the financial crisis of 2007-2008 that quickly led to the global recession we ended up in. Sure the Bush administration can be blamed, but so can the Democratically-controlled congress & senate whose finance committees ran oversight on these same entities.

Those contributing factors included an absence of regulation of financial institutions that were using complex financial instruments such as off-balance sheet securitization and derivatives to make riskier investments and become too highly leveraged to absorb losses (and those financial instruments made it extremely difficult for regulators to monitor institutional risk levels), predatory lending practices (Countrywide Financial, et al) that resulted in shaky mortgage-backed securities that were being used by these same financial institutions to leverage their riskier investments and then insure them with credit default swaps (CDS) that were insured by firms like AIG (who was betting that only a portion of the CDSs would get called on instead of nearly all of them).

This whole house of cards began to start falling when the big 5 investment banks started taking extremely heavy losses in 2007 when their higher-risk gambles started to blow up and ultimately resulted in their collapse (Lehman), fire-sale (Bear Stearns & Merrill-Lynch) or conversion to commercial banks (Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley). These banks conned/aggressively lobbied both sides liberal and conservative to keep regulation out of their business, and we all ultimately paid the price for that.

Disclaimer: as a registered Independent I hate both Republicans and Democrats equally, and ultimately after they've tried everything else they'll agree to the correct course of action we should have done in the first place.

lroux wrote:The whole state of Alaksa Population: 735,000. About the same as the city and suburbs of Syracuse, NY. If there was no electoral college who would you focus on as a politician? Alaska or New York State?

The Northeast and California would elect just about every president without the electoral college. (assuming Texas secedes !)

This is exactly the point I bring up often about electoral college reform with regards to why the Delaware compromise was created in the first place (to keep Virginia from dominating everything and give the other states a fair say). Since it is ultimately up to the states to decide how their electoral college votes are apportioned, the winner-takes-all method has marginalized many states to Democrat or Republican with a few swing states being the deciding factor. If more states did what Maine does, and allot the two Senate electoral college votes to the overall popular vote winner in that state and then allocate the rest by the popular vote winner in each congressional district, it would make it a much more diverse and competitive election.

Keep in mind states like California would never go for this, as the democrats control the legislature and most posts in the state government and would NEVER want to give the republicans a chance at the 53 electoral college votes that are always a sure-fire guarantee for any democrat candidate (again, politics getting in the way of real reform).

Has anyone seen Reince Priebus since the election? I'm worried,hope he checks in soon. I want to thank him for his efforts because without him it could have gone the other way.

Kevin0425 I know where you're coming from and the point you're trying to make, but the real estate collapse would have been much easier to deal with with no deficit. Having borrowed $1.2 trillion a year since 2002 has crushed this country.

To stop now throws this country into a depression. Hopefully these pinheads in Washington can get it under control within the next two years and hopefully get a plan in place to pay the debt down. I personally doubt it. It should be a scary decade.

I voted for a President and all I got was a clown.

FrankTownend wrote:I voted for the winner. I am 2 for 2 in the last 8 years.

Ha, ditto! ;)

vegassmitty wrote:I voted for a President and all I got was a clown.

No name calling,Mitt did his best. Yes he has lost 3 out of 4 campaigns, just not likable I guess but he gave it a shot.

feciii wrote:So, we go from a system where some corporate entity focused on maximizing profit decides if we can have a procedure to someone in the government decides, like they already do for Medicare. I'm ok with that. Doctors will remain the same in either case and they won't be working for the government. It doesn't contribute to the conversation to make up threatening scenarios that will never happen.

I also voted for Gary Johnson. I live in the blue-Meany land of the MRC (the Marxist Republic of California). My vote does for President doesn't matter...so I voted my heart...Gary Johnson. I am a Republican but I vote my heart which is Libertarian. I've already ordered my bumpersticker for 2016. MARCO RUBIO 2016. That should take care of Obama running for a third term (BHO...will definitely try to do it).

kevin0425 wrote:Not to get specific here, but the blame can be laid on both sides of the aisle for the financial crisis, starting with the repeal of Glass-Steagall act in 1999 and signed by Bill Clinton, and the continued strong opposition to regulation of derivatives by Alan Greenspan (who was someone EVERYBODY listened to because of how well he was managing the economy at the time). When the dot-com bubble of the late 1990's collapsed in early 2001, a lot of investment equity disappeared along with it, so Greenspan and co. lowered the federal funds rate from 6.5% to 1% to try and foster new business investment. Instead he effectively deferred the financial recession by creating a real-estate bubble, and with several other contributing factors working in concert helped lead to the financial crisis of 2007-2008 that quickly led to the global recession we ended up in. Sure the Bush administration can be blamed, but so can the Democratically-controlled congress & senate whose finance committees ran oversight on these same entities.

Those contributing factors included an absence of regulation of financial institutions that were using complex financial instruments such as off-balance sheet securitization and derivatives to make riskier investments and become too highly leveraged to absorb losses (and those financial instruments made it extremely difficult for regulators to monitor institutional risk levels), predatory lending practices (Countrywide Financial, et al) that resulted in shaky mortgage-backed securities that were being used by these same financial institutions to leverage their riskier investments and then insure them with credit default swaps (CDS) that were insured by firms like AIG (who was betting that only a portion of the CDSs would get called on instead of nearly all of them).

This whole house of cards began to start falling when the big 5 investment banks started taking extremely heavy losses in 2007 when their higher-risk gambles started to blow up and ultimately resulted in their collapse (Lehman), fire-sale (Bear Stearns & Merrill-Lynch) or conversion to commercial banks (Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley). These banks conned/aggressively lobbied both sides liberal and conservative to keep regulation out of their business, and we all ultimately paid the price for that.

Disclaimer: as a registered Independent I hate both Republicans and Democrats equally, and ultimately after they've tried everything else they'll agree to the correct course of action we should have done in the first place.

__Terrific post. Thank YOU for your objective post! No MSNBC or FOX bacteria detected....

feciii wrote:So, we go from a system where some corporate entity focused on maximizing profit decides if we can have a procedure to someone in the government decides, like they already do for Medicare. I'm ok with that. Doctors will remain the same in either case and they won't be working for the government. It doesn't contribute to the conversation to make up threatening scenarios that will never happen.

You do not work in the medical field and you are NOT an informed voter. There will be a 15 person panel appointed- not elected- who will decide what care anyone covered by obama care will receive. They will make this desicion without ever meeting you. Currently, if you are on traditional medicare you do not need any pior authorization, all you need is a doctor who thinks you need the test, xray or surgery. Also there will be fewer doctors taking care of a LOT more people. Good luck calling and getting into the doctor the same day. Physicians are facing a 26.5% reimbursement cut after the first of the year. Do you know many people that can afford that kind of pay cut and still be working?

Bloomers04 wrote:You do not work in the medical field and you are NOT an informed voter. There will be a 15 person panel appointed- not elected- who will decide what care anyone covered by obama care will receive. They will make this desicion without ever meeting you. Currently, if you are on traditional medicare you do not need any pior authorization, all you need is a doctor who thinks you need the test, xray or surgery. Also there will be fewer doctors taking care of a LOT more people. Good luck calling and getting into the doctor the same day. Physicians are facing a 26.5% reimbursement cut after the first of the year. Do you know many people that can afford that kind of pay cut and still be working?

Ridiculous to even suggest that this panel has to approve all procedures ordered by a doctor.

nanaejt wrote:Ridiculous to even suggest that this panel has to approve all procedures ordered by a doctor.

That's correct. There will be blanket rules for every situation and no deviation from that set rule. They will not take into cosideration the patient, their ability, or standard of life.

Bloomers04 wrote:That's correct. There will be blanket rules for every situation and no deviation from that set rule. They will not take into cosideration the patient, their ability, or standard of life.

Kind of like we have now with for profit insurance. So if I break my big toe and the doctor orders a facelift they won't pay for it. Sounds reasonable to me.

ddoz wrote:You obviously haven't been listening.

Really? I've been listening very well. What I heard during those eight years was my patriotism questioned because I was against a stupid war which caused loss of life and accomplished nothing except for spending billions of dollars and making corporations rich. You people just want to call the shots all the time and be listened to. You don't actually want to listen to anyone else. Those days are over. Get used to it.

feciii wrote:Really? I've been listening very well. What I heard during those eight years was my patriotism questioned because I was against a stupid war which caused loss of life and accomplished nothing except for spending billions of dollars and making corporations rich. You people just want to call the shots all the time and be listened to. You don't actually want to listen to anyone else. Those days are over. Get used to it.

He was actually pointing out that only slightly more than half of eligible voters actually voted.

You profess to be listening but you did not comprehend.

kevin0425 wrote:Not to get specific here, but the blame can be laid on both sides of the aisle for the financial crisis, starting with the repeal of Glass-Steagall act in 1999 and signed by Bill Clinton, and the continued strong opposition to regulation of derivatives by Alan Greenspan (who was someone EVERYBODY listened to because of how well he was managing the economy at the time). When the dot-com bubble of the late 1990's collapsed in early 2001, a lot of investment equity disappeared along with it, so Greenspan and co. lowered the federal funds rate from 6.5% to 1% to try and foster new business investment. Instead he effectively deferred the financial recession by creating a real-estate bubble, and with several other contributing factors working in concert helped lead to the financial crisis of 2007-2008 that quickly led to the global recession we ended up in. Sure the Bush administration can be blamed, but so can the Democratically-controlled congress & senate whose finance committees ran oversight on these same entities.

Those contributing factors included an absence of regulation of financial institutions that were using complex financial instruments such as off-balance sheet securitization and derivatives to make riskier investments and become too highly leveraged to absorb losses (and those financial instruments made it extremely difficult for regulators to monitor institutional risk levels), predatory lending practices (Countrywide Financial, et al) that resulted in shaky mortgage-backed securities that were being used by these same financial institutions to leverage their riskier investments and then insure them with credit default swaps (CDS) that were insured by firms like AIG (who was betting that only a portion of the CDSs would get called on instead of nearly all of them).

This whole house of cards began to start falling when the big 5 investment banks started taking extremely heavy losses in 2007 when their higher-risk gambles started to blow up and ultimately resulted in their collapse (Lehman), fire-sale (Bear Stearns & Merrill-Lynch) or conversion to commercial banks (Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley). These banks conned/aggressively lobbied both sides liberal and conservative to keep regulation out of their business, and we all ultimately paid the price for that.

Disclaimer: as a registered Independent I hate both Republicans and Democrats equally, and ultimately after they've tried everything else they'll agree to the correct course of action we should have done in the first place.

For the record, I like neither Republicans or Democrats as well. First priority is to wipe out the conservatives. Then the next target is the Democrats. This country is not served by the "Us vs. Them" philosophy. Both political parties call too many shots which do not serve the people of this country. Tea party is a joke, but at least it corralled all the bigots into one place. We can play the game of winning over the other guys, or we can work together to make this country great again. But if all you have to contribute to the conversation is to demonize the other guys, then you're clearly in it for yourself over the success of this country. Are you in or are you out? We've got a country to fix here. And if you're looking for your team to win, you're clearly in it for yourself, so don't tell the rest of us that you're an American who cares about the country instead of your selfish wants.

There sure are a lot of Gary Johnson voters here considering his percentage of the total vote.

And you can add me to the list, I'm another one.

lroux wrote:The whole state of Alaksa Population: 735,000. About the same as the city and suburbs of Syracuse, NY. If there was no electoral college who would you focus on as a politician? Alaska or New York State?

The Northeast and California would elect just about every president without the electoral college. (assuming Texas secedes !)

All you righties should think twice before proposing getting rid of the electoral college just because you lost a single election.

Please, Texas, secede. So much for the Alamo. The right is doing just what they've been doing for the last four years. Crying like the baby in the family and threatening to take their ball and go home. Except they never actually go all the way and actually go through with it. Please. Kick it into high gear. We need to get some work done here.

+1 for Gary Johnson here

cappo wrote:He was actually pointing out that only slightly more than half of eligible voters actually voted.

You profess to be listening but you did not comprehend.

That's always going to be the case. Our personal freedoms guarantee that voting is not required like in other countries. But those who vote get to decide for those who don't. And those who don't, don't get to complain. If you're a conservative, you're in favor of screwing them and taking what they have for your personal gain. If you're a progressive, you accept the responsibility that their needs are still important and need to be accounted for. You can attempt to win an argument on a technicality. But it still doesn't address the needs of the entire nation.

nanaejt wrote:So very true.

can you provide specifics please? what do you mean by a weak government? so anyone that identifies as conservative is plotting on a weak government to exploit, whatever that means?

Thanks for the info,I thought that we simply wanted a sound fiscal policy. perhaps even one where federal revenues collected were at least as much as expenditures.

bcfrdrummer wrote:I voted Gary Johnson. My conscience is clear for the next 4 years.

You could have had something in the direction of Gary Johnson, but no. Instead we have someone that's the polar opposite of Johnson. Happy now?

joshaw wrote:Agreed, democracy is a terrible form of government. That's why the founders set us up as a Constitutional Republic and tried to severely limit the powers of the federal government. The entire point was to protect the minority from the will of the majority (the old 2 wolves and a sheep joke).

Thank you. If only people understood that point.

this video commentary explains in a very clear and understandable manner why and how America is in such dire fiscal shape. It's doubtful we will ever recover. everyone just wants to ignore it and pretend that it doesn't exist. welcome to the matrix.

http://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/EW5IdwltaAc?rel=0

feciii wrote: We lived with slightly-more-than-half-of-voting-America's choice for eight years, and with a lot less complaining than I've heard in the last four years.

Thank you for that laugh. It was sorely needed.

jandlynn wrote:can you provide specifics please? what do you mean by a weak government? so anyone that identifies as conservative is plotting on a weak government to exploit, whatever that means?

Thanks for the info,I thought that we simply wanted a sound fiscal policy. perhaps even one where federal revenues collected were at least as much as expenditures.

Happy to. You think a small government gets out of the way so you can make money. That's what you want. But you don't get to define what smaller government looks like. And you don't get to say that a smaller government is good for everyone. I'd love a smaller government. We can start by cutting defense by at least 50 percent since we have a defense budget which is higher than the defense budget of the rest of the world COMBINED. There are twelve aircraft carriers in the world. We own eleven of them. China is building the other. How much better would we be financially if we didn't spend billions of dollars on a war that accomplished nothing? Do we have more freedoms now or less? But if we roll back financial regulation (smaller government which "cuts back on expenditures") we enable those who can't control themselves to ruin the economy, but get million dollar bonuses. Because we have a weaker government, which doesn't enact financial regulation, which would have prevented this from happening in the first place. The smaller government you want is one who gets out of the way so you can make money. We tried that and it ended with the American taxpayer bailing out those who caused it in the first place while you complained about us bailing out companies who actually produced a product, the auto companies.

jandlynn wrote:this video commentary explains in a very clear and understandable manner why and how America is in such dire fiscal shape. It's doubtful we will ever recover. everyone just wants to ignore it and pretend that it doesn't exist. welcome to the matrix.

http://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/EW5IdwltaAc?rel=0

Oh please. You people think you always have the magic bullet. You've always discovered the secret nobody else knows about. The bottom line is this. You want to spend money on the things you think are important and the rest of the country is stupid and just doesn't understand. Except you people are the ones who got us into this mess in the first place by ruining the economy through your financial speculation and you expect the rest of us to pay for it. Those days are over. That's what this election was all about. For all your hundreds of thousands of yard signs, and bumper stickers, the majority of Americans have said we don't sign on to your hocus pocus anymore. So get with the program or actually leave the country as you've been threatening to do for years if you don't get your way.

feciii wrote:Oh please. You people*

You keep saying *"you people"* - as if anyone who disagrees with any single point you've made is part of a single group? Then you say we need to work together... I am confused by you. Is everyone who thinks differently in any way part of a single political party? No. Do we all (including you) need to figure out a better way to steer this massive, sinking ship of ours? Heck yes.

*Smaller government cannot mean getting rid of regulation -
It should also mean kicking the former employees of large industries (banking, farming, etc.) the heck out of the power positions in the very government agencies designed to oversee and regulate those same industries. That will clean up some things.

But we can get rid of 5 defense and intelligence agencies that only seem to succeed in violating everyone's rights, worldwide.

Bloomers04 wrote:You do not work in the medical field and you are NOT an informed voter. There will be a 15 person panel appointed- not elected- who will decide what care anyone covered by obama care will receive. They will make this desicion without ever meeting you. Currently, if you are on traditional medicare you do not need any pior authorization, all you need is a doctor who thinks you need the test, xray or surgery. Also there will be fewer doctors taking care of a LOT more people. Good luck calling and getting into the doctor the same day. Physicians are facing a 26.5% reimbursement cut after the first of the year. Do you know many people that can afford that kind of pay cut and still be working?

Bovine feces. First of all, I can't get into the doctor the same day now and I'm with Kaiser. My partner is on Medicare. I know what the options are and the care options we have. And there is a big difference between what a doctor orders and what Medicare pays for. We don't go to a government doctor to get Mecicare. We go to a Kaiser doctor, or another medical group doctor. That's not going to change. There are the same amount of doctors in this country as there will be. They won't work for the government, they will be paid by the government. And I have to say I'd trust the government to approve a procedure before I'd trust Humana Health Care, whose only interest is to maximize profits. I believe you are the one misinformed. You need to actually live it instead of hear about it on AM Radio.

thumperchick wrote:You keep saying *"you people"* - as if anyone who disagrees with any single point you've made is part of a single group? Then you say we need to work together... I am confused by you. Is everyone who thinks differently in any way part of a single political party? No. Do we all (including you) need to figure out a better way to steer this massive, sinking ship of ours? Heck yes.

*Smaller government cannot mean getting rid of regulation -
It should also mean kicking the former employees of large industries (banking, farming, etc.) the heck out of the power positions in the very government agencies designed to oversee and regulate those same industries. That will clean up some things.

But we can get rid of 5 defense and intelligence agencies that only seem to succeed in violating everyone's rights, worldwide.

Yup, I do say "You people". Because that's what it's come down to. I've been told for many years that it's me, or the "stupid liberals" who doesn't understand how things run in this country. The 47% you people don't care about. But it's not us who screwed up the financial sector. It's the "job creators" who benevolently bestow upon us the things we enjoy. It's time to admit that the problem with this country isn't the politicians, it's those who they pander to. And what I saw from conservatives the last four, no, twelve, years tells me that the problem isn't the liberals, which the conservatives always complain about. It's you people.

feciii wrote:Yup, I do say "You people". Because that's what it's come down to. I've been told for many years that it's me, or the "stupid liberals" who doesn't understand how things run in this country. The 47% you people don't care about. But it's not us who screwed up the financial sector. It's the "job creators" who benevolently bestow upon us the things we enjoy. It's time to admit that the problem with this country isn't the politicians, it's those who they pander to. And what I saw from conservatives the last four, no, twelve, years tells me that the problem isn't the liberals, which the conservatives always complain about. It's you people.

Take care to not fall from that lofty steed, sir finger pointer.

feciii wrote:Happy to. You think a small government gets out of the way so you can make money. That's what you want. But you don't get to define what smaller government looks like. And you don't get to say that a smaller government is good for everyone. I'd love a smaller government. We can start by cutting defense by at least 50 percent since we have a defense budget which is higher than the defense budget of the rest of the world COMBINED. There are twelve aircraft carriers in the world. We own eleven of them. China is building the other. How much better would we be financially if we didn't spend billions of dollars on a war that accomplished nothing? Do we have more freedoms now or less? But if we roll back financial regulation (smaller government which "cuts back on expenditures") we enable those who can't control themselves to ruin the economy, but get million dollar bonuses. Because we have a weaker government, which doesn't enact financial regulation, which would have prevented this from happening in the first place. The smaller government you want is one who gets out of the way so you can make money. We tried that and it ended with the American taxpayer bailing out those who caused it in the first place while you complained about us bailing out companies who actually produced a product, the auto companies.

I never said any of those things. you are injecting your opinion into my ideal.

I'm not convinced that we are speaking the same language as you are using big banking as your example of small government.

feciii wrote:Oh please. You people think you always have the magic bullet. You've always discovered the secret nobody else knows about. The bottom line is this. You want to spend money on the things you think are important and the rest of the country is stupid and just doesn't understand. Except you people are the ones who got us into this mess in the first place by ruining the economy through your financial speculation and you expect the rest of us to pay for it. Those days are over. That's what this election was all about. For all your hundreds of thousands of yard signs, and bumper stickers, the majority of Americans have said we don't sign on to your hocus pocus anymore. So get with the program or actually leave the country as you've been threatening to do for years if you don't get your way.

not sure what your context of reference actually is in this statement.

did you even watch the video?

what people am I? and what magic bullet are you referring to specifically??

I post a video illustrating the budget, and you respond by informing me you think I.should leave the country? classy.

feciii wrote:Conservatives don't want small government. They want a weak government so they can do whatever they want. We had that and this financial crisis is the result.