Rebane's Ruminations
August 2012
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George Rebane

More of same + more time = more of same.

Romney_RyanWell, if the local lefties are any indication, then there was a lot of Dems dancing in the streets last night after it cooled down a bit.  All the progressive pundits are heralding Obama’s upcoming slam dunk victory.  Might as well not spend the rest of the campaign cash on attack ads because Obama’s ‘one mo’ time!’ plan for the economy will stack up well with the Ryan plan.  It’s going be easy to tell all the Earls of Entitlement what part of their monthly checks will be nipped here and there by the Romney/Ryan team.

Romney’s VP pick of fiscal wizard Rep Paul Ryan sent shock waves over both sides of the aisle.  The socialists know that they will now have an easy message to bend the ears of their constituent legions.  And those who understand the country’s fiscal crisis know they now have a stalwart on the ticket who will keep the center-right Romney on the straight and narrow.  These are the people who have read a history book or two, and know that great empires fall from within when they no longer understand how to manage their money and their fisc.

The rest of the celebrants will never notice when the ‘people’s prosperity police’ finally march in and lay down the new law of the land.   Don’t be surprised if the next national holiday will be Regulation Recognition Day, added to celebrate all the blessings that the fresh batch of yearly regulations brings to each and every one of us.  There may even be ‘spontaneous’ parades like there were in the countries liberated by the Red Army after WW2.  A puzzlement to some was why all the marchers carrying huge banners and signs looked dour.  But we know that if you looked too dour, they sent you to a place where the benefits of collectivism were made crystal clear to you – the first of which was that if you understood, they’d let you live.  Everybody understood.

On the other side there are some thoughtful voices who recommend that Romney not point to the example of where Europe has wound up.  Most independent voters don’t know enough about what’s going on in Europe, and only picture sitting at a sidewalk café in a picturesque city, drinking wine, and listening to pleasant melodies coming from the nearby accordion player.  And most believe that America could do with more of such an atmosphere.  It’s hard to convince people about national bankruptcies and the euro getting inflated to oblivion while the listener can only hear the accordion on a balmy evening.

Nevertheless, people like Peggy Noonan are telling Romney to stay closer to home and use California as the more accessible and recognized exemplar of gross government mismanagement – everyone in the country, most certainly people declaring themselves as independents, know that California is already in the tank.  She also joins those who point out that the country no longer has ANY values – these have been carefully excised by the government educational system that has been on a post-modernism tear for the last forty years.

Post-modernism?  That’s the ideology where absolutes disappear, mores are malleable, and everything is relative.  Repartees like ‘it all depends on what you mean by is’ are offered the limp, lame, and looney to plumb and celebrate their intellectual depths.  And surveys across the land confirm that the triple-Ls dominate the landscape, and by a greater majority every year.

And then I wonder what would happen if there were a great awakening (a true miracle); if people suddenly realized that no liberal candidate or commentator has recognized, let alone offered, any kind of an economic future that does not have the country follow California down the rat hole.  That people suddenly grasp that it requires genuine entrepreneurial, capitalistic, free markets growth to pull us out of our dive.  This is the single piece that is absent from all the myopic mavens who totally miss our only way back, as they focus on their ‘but you can’t cut …’ mantras without realizing that that’s exactly what we have to do, and that is exactly what we will do.  The only remaining choice the socialists have is will we do it without or with blood in the streets.

And that is also the choice that faces us this November – can America’s Great Experiment be revived, or will we also become a one party ‘democracy’?

[17aug12 update]  Bloomberg and Washington Post/ABC News are reporting on data from voter registrations across the nation that should figure in the joyous Democrat celebrations.  My advice to our liberal neighbors is to ignore the whole thing, Obama is as good as re-elected, just have another glass of Kool-Aid.

The news today is that since 2008 the Dems have been losing registered voters at a rate of more than 10:1 than have the Republicans, and this has been most pronounced in the ‘battle ground states’.  Most of these these party-pooper voters have joined the ranks of the Independents, and further polling results show that “Romney holds a 14-point lead over Obama among independent voters nationally.”

Meanwhile, socialist columnists like Amy Goodman are celebrating Romney’s “floundering campaign” that, she says, received another blow with the selection of running mate Paul Ryan.  Given Obama’s performance against a floundering Romney, I wonder how the President will fare when the Romney/Ryan campaign really takes off as they seem to be doing even as I write.

My prediction is that Team Obama is going to duct tape shut Joe Biden’s mouth (‘y’all gonna be back in chains’), and send Congressman Chris Hollen’s (D-MD) good suit to the cleaners.  Hollen is the ONLY Democrat that has bearing and a command of numbers, and can concoct a coherent collectivist spin with them.  The rest – from Reid through Waters to Pelosi – look and talk like an assortment of clowns right out of Central Casting.  But then again, their constituents don’t do numbers.

My advice to the Repubs is stay on message re the economy, Obama’s record, and most emphatically emphasize the demonstrated damage that keeping that guy in the White House will do to America.

[18aug12 update]  The real perspective on deficits.

GrossFederalDebt

 

Posted in , , , , ,

130 responses to “Dems Happy Dancing in the Streets (updated 18aug12)”

  1. George Rebane Avatar

    TomK 1016am & 1021am – your understanding of capitalism and economics, more so when viewed through conspiratorial lenses, is priceless. That an energy company, in a grandfathered California oligopoly, will purposely take one of its (and one of the very few) refineries that makes affordable ‘California gasoline’ off the market, while oil prices were already increasing due to worldwide tensions, boggles all minds except those with which you and yours are blessed.

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  2. TomKenworth Avatar

    You probably felt the same way about Enron.

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  3. TomKenworth Avatar

    And maybe you should listen to this industry analyst, for his take on Chevron’s directions, from back in March 2012.
    http://www.bloomberg.com/video/58150414-oppenheimer-s-gheit-interview-on-chevron-refiners.html

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  4. George Rebane Avatar

    TomK 1104am – Thank you for the link. The dissertation of the featured analyst said NOTHING to support your interpretation of Chevron’s Richmond refinery fire or of your understanding of the oil industry. But as a Lucky Strike extra, the analyst again confirmed how the government mandated bio-fuels integration mangles gasoline markets and raises costs for all consumers.

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  5. billy T Avatar

    OMG. TomKenworth has uncovered Chevron’s nasty evil plot. I am shocked people still think the BP Gulf oil spill was an accident. Well, we got away with it the first time, but I told the boys that setting the Richmond refinery on fire would raise some suspensions. Those silly lads are so impatient. They are good with all the new techie gadgets, but they haven’t learned patience yet. That will come with time. OK, Tom you figured it out. Kudos. Gas in Arizona has been selling for $3.40 a gallon and CA gas has been selling close to 4 bucks/gallon. California special blend is in short supply, so lets burn it down. Burn, Baby, Burn. Jerry Rubin’s “Do It” and all that stuff. Tom, for figuring it out, please grab your vibrator and enjoy this video made with you in mind http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6TDfDzWWvOA

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  6. TomKenworth Avatar

    So the “losing money on refineries” is nothing? OK, you win.

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  7. George Rebane Avatar

    TomK 310pm – Yes Doug, surprising as it may be, when you own one of the very few refineries in California that is also a cash cow, you don’t set fire to it and take it off line to suffer hundreds of millions in lost revenues, take an inestimable public relations hit, and untold millions more in bringing the asset back on line.
    But when an oil company has money losing assets – like a losing refinery somewhere else – they spruce it up and put it on the block for sale. Such assets are valuable and are bought/sold all the time. It’s called capitalism.
    I don’t want to “win” just yet. Please take another swing at the pinata, this revelatory teaching moment still has legs.

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  8. billy T Avatar

    Tom, I must sing your praises again. Make sure you change the batteries in your vibrator before watching your bonus prize short video. Of course I don’t need to remind you to put the used batteries in the proper container.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rSLGt0-bHIA&feature=fvwp&NR=1

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  9. Paul Emery Avatar

    Let’s hear if for the Flipper. Romney already is backing away from the Ryan budget. The problem is he’s already on record many times saying if he were President he would sign it-that includes the original. That’s consistent with anything he says he believes in. Just come back next week for an update.
    TOP ROMNEY ADVISER ED GILLESPIE: Well, as Governor Romney has made clear, if the Romney, sorry, if the Ryan budget had come to his desk as a budget, he would have signed it, of course, and one of the reasons that he chose Congressman Ryan is his willingness to put forward innovative solutions in the budget.
    RNC CHAIRMAN REINCE PREIBUS: First of all, he did embrace the Ryan budget. He embraced it.
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=LKFqTj_JCZc#!
    Condi would have been a strong choice but she couldn’t wash off the Bush stains.

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  10. Michael Anderson Avatar

    On 60 Minutes Romney said, in reply to Bob Schieffer’s question, that he was not interested in the Ryan Plan, that this election was all about the Romney Plan vs. the Obama Plan.
    He appreciates Ryan’s input, but not to the point where it might make him lose the election. Lovin’ it.

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  11. TomKenworth Avatar

    Perhaps you have forgotten, George, ( George Rebane | 13 August 2012 at 03:43 PM) that Chevron did have this very refinery on the chopping block, to China? Refineries of this vintage all need to be replaced, to meet today’s needs. The real estate, by location, is outstanding. If the refinery were to miraculously disappear, an astute developer could buy up the surrounding house ten blocks deep and flatten it for a donated green belt, which would raise all the boats in Richmond, and gentrification would set in.
    My first job after graduation was working for the Richmond Unified School District, working as a research assistant for the PhD who was in charge of evaluating the effects of Title I money, 2 million of it. We had 6 experimental schools, and one control school. 3 research assistants, We rotated from site to site among the experimental schools, making observations and notes, and I wound up doing the videos, when I could get the primitive equipment working. The portables were record only, no reviews possible in the field. The HS coaches had managed to get to the gear first the year before I got there, and it was about 50:50 that anything actually recorded.
    But I digress, PG&E is also milking all the old plants for every last dollar, while solar folks take up the slack, along with all the residential ratepayers, who get screwed with tiered rates, unlike businesses. So who’s sucking off the government tit here?

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  12. billy T Avatar

    “And that is also the choice that faces us this November – can America’s Great Experiment be revived, or will we also become a one party ‘democracy’?” Fantastic question posed by Dr. Rebane. As Ms. Pelosi said “Elections have consequences”. Glad the headlines the last couple of days are devoid of Spain and LoLo. Obama is running around campaigning hard on “America in which prosperity is shared” over and over again. He is acting and speaking as if he is running against the Republican VP pick. Shared prosperity? That is what a shoplifter thinks.

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  13. billy T Avatar

    There are too many structural problems facing us that whoever wins the election in November will have little effect. Unless these problems are addressed we will not get back to the glory days. I have yet to read one commentator say that Medicare will not go broke. Folks from Ralph Nader to Dennis K to our colorful former school teacher think all our problems can be laid at the feet of corporate America. Folks like me think all problems can be laid at the feet of a bloated corrupt government. I will concede that it is not 100% one or the other. I do not go along with this “womb to tomb” mentality of government taking care of the populace. I suppose if I came from a field where there was tenure or had a nice Postal worker no layoff contract or from ACORN, I might see thing differently. Still, among all the noise, structural reform must be addressed. It is a fact that Medicare and Social Security is a Ponzi scheme. It is also a fact that the government has made a contact with the people to provide Social Security. A growing economy is the best way to fund these programs. Reforms and changes take time, years. Government public education will not turn around on a dime and the USA won’t be pumping out math and science or college ready students tomorrow. Our contract with government is this: protect us, secure our borders, fix our potholes, put out fires, and keep issuing passports. Make sure our food supply is safe. But, somebody please deal with the coming tsunami of Medicare going broke, trillion dollar deficits into infinity, Social Security paying 75% of what it does now, and government taking more and more of a shrinking dollar. This reality tv show is getting crazy.

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  14. TomKenworth Avatar

    Changes can be effected very quickly by insisting that no member of the government is entitled to any better healthcare than what Joe Blow average worker gets. Suddenly professional schools of health and medicine will be much better funded, as well as the K-12 schools that feed them. Protecting USA multinats in foreign lands will seem less important.
    If you wish to drain the USA coffers faster, you might like the advice given here:
    http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/2012/07/social-security-secrets-you-need-to-know-now.html?utm_source=Tumblr&utm_medium=ThisDayHistory&utm_campaign=August%2B14%2BSocial%2BSecurity

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  15. Paul Emery Avatar

    The Dems are dancing new steps because of the diversion of the campaign emphasizing Medicare reform rather than Obama’s weak economic record. What a gift! They pitched the Dems a fatty on this one.

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  16. George Rebane Avatar

    PaulE 646pm – Indeed it seems to be the happiest turn of events because future Medicare funding in the Ryan plan was supposed to be the next diversion dealt by Team Obama. Tonight we saw both Romney and Ryan separately celebrating the opportunity to raise Obamacare’s treatment of Medicare which both double counts it financially and then destroys it. The sun is shining in both camps.

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  17. Todd Juvinall Avatar

    There is some speculation now that Syria has the WMD’s from Sadaam. Maybe we can see if that is true once Assad id toasted.

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  18. George Rebane Avatar

    ToddJ 759pm – Agreed Todd. I also recall reports of truck convoys spotted heading for Syria just before the invasion began. I don’t know what happened to that thread, but we do know that Assad has WMDs from multiple sources including Assad himself.

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  19. Paul Emery Avatar

    Of course there were trucks headed for Syria before the invasion. They were filled with American bucks we showered on Saddam when he was our friend and we turned a blind eye to his use of WMD’s on the Kurds. Todd, can you share where you got the “speculation” about the WMD’s? Perhaps it was a hallucination from spending too much time in the sun at the County Fair. By the way, as always it was nice seeing you at the fair.

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  20. Paul Emery Avatar

    Also Todd since I can’t seem to get on your blog, your ra ra about Romney being up in the Rasmussen poll by 3 points doesn’t look that good since he was up by 4 last time around. Most interesting is Fox which shows Obama up by 9.
    http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2012/president/us/general_election_romney_vs_obama-1171.html#polls

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  21. billy T Avatar

    Man o man, what a mess Syria has become. Today a group of rebels caught a bus full of Iranian Republican Guardsmen disguised as pilgrims. Leon Panetta confirms this as Iran is calling on Assad to secure their safety. Iran funded Hezbollah is pouring in there and the Free Syrian Army (rebels) is capturing/ killing them. The CIA says that Al Qaeda is establishing a stronghold in Syria that will impossible to remove. Whose the good guys and whose the bad guys? This Arab Spring stuff definitely is not a democracy movement nor ever was. Never. The only who thought that was….er…well, somebody with zero foreign policy experience. Panetta can do only so much with his hands tied. I hope we don’t get involved and establish another Muslim Brotherhood theocracy.

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  22. billy T Avatar

    “Dems Happy Dancing in the Streets’. The dems should be dancing. They finally have a VP pic to attack and focus their nastiness on. We Republicans are not so fortunate. Nobody attacks Joe Biden. Nobody takes him seriously. We just smile and shake our heads when he says things like he did today. Joe is coming off a 6 day vacation and can’t even get the correct state he was campaigning in. Telling today’s black audience that Romney wants to chain up “y’all” again is not even worth discussing. How can you work with that? Oh, I know, that is just ole Joe. Kinda like the crazy Uncle that one keeps locked in the attic and brings down out of pity and compassion on Turkey Day. Amusing, yet harmless, never to be believed. Yep, the Dems are dancing. They have two people to go after, while we just have one.

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  23. Paul Emery Avatar

    And what would you do about Syria Billy T ?

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  24. Todd Juvinall Avatar

    PaulE, it was nice to see you as well at the Fair. I always enjoy outsmarting you in our political conversations. LOL!
    You should not have a problem on entering my blog. It has no moderation. It has to be on your end.
    Regarding Syrian WMD’s. I cannot recall where I saw that speculation but I will try and find it. It may have been on a TV program.
    It appears the Assad regime is not long for the world and he should get the hell out and go to Indonesia if he wants to be alive. But like most dictators he doesn’t want to give up any power, even into the grave.
    Romney/Ryan by seven points in the general election. I think we have a bet on that one. Obama and Biden will be the recipients of a couple of hundred million dollars worth of ads and it won’t be pretty. The Tea Party is energized and the Republican base is as well with the Ryan pick. It is going to be a classic smackdown.

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  25. billy T Avatar

    Paul, I would not do anything about Syria. Side with the “Freedom Fighters” with Al Qaeda in the mix, or side with the dictator with Iran in the mix? Easy choice. Stand back and let them work out their differences. Maybe have our Nobel Peace Prize President make some speeches that would end the bloodshed immediately. Then feed the refugees and support the countries that accept the refugees. Set up some UN refugee camps and have UN peacekeepers go into the camps and let them rape all the women with diplomatic immunity of course. No boots on the ground.

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  26. billy T Avatar

    Joe Biden has had me dancing for almost 4 years. I remember when he ran for President in 2008. Got almost 3% of the vote in the Democrat Primaries in his neighboring states. Think it was 2%. My gawd, if Joe Bide is not reelected for 4 more years, the late night comics will be devastated.

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  27. billy T Avatar

    Joe Biden has had me dancing for almost 4 years. I remember when he ran for President in 2008. Got almost 3% of the vote in the Democrat Primaries in his neighboring states. Think it was 2%. My gawd, if Joe Bide is not reelected for 4 more years, the late night comics will be devastated.

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  28. Gregory Avatar

    Latest Rasmussen poll of Florida
    Mitt Romney (R) 45%
    Barack Obama (D) 43%
    Some Other Candidate3%
    Not Sure 8%
    Better dance faster. Maybe be more shrill about demanding all of Romney’s tax returns.

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  29. TomKenworth Avatar

    Russian woman takes separation of church and state very seriously:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=861oGyUkmEQ
    Could she be a follower of Ayn Rand, who did not appreciate religion either? Paul Ryan cherry picks just a few ideas from his idol? Please show me the super secret site for Demo talking points that features this video.

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  30. TomKenworth Avatar

    Corporate America scores again with great customer service, provided by the cheapest outsourced labor, and customer help desk in India. Sue the bastards, and vote Obama!
    http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-501843_162-57494094/united-airlines-loses-girl-on-solo-trip-to-camp/

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  31. Ryan Mount Avatar

    provided by the cheapest outsourced labor, and customer help desk in India
    The call centers are located all over the globe, including the United States. The systems are built to route calls for efficiency. The technology is actually quite fascinating, in a Mr. Rebane Singularity kind of way. Also note that customer service is very expensive for most companies. It doesn’t “make” money. It’s a cost center on the ledger. That is no excuse for poor service, but it’s more complicated than just saying “outsourcing” is the issue.
    There is no mention in the article about India. I’m certain the Indians appreciate their characterization as cheap and incompetent. Easy to do on a blog, I guess. Another bogeyman to haunt our collective conscious.

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  32. TomKenworth Avatar

    Multiple stories on the topic. This particular one didn’t mention the India side of things. First tipoff was in Facebook, but the link wasn’t easy to grab, so I Googled and this seemed to cover it. Customer service loses money? Then they should all cease offing it instantly. Or would that indirectly affect the bottom line? I rather think so. Only compartmentalized thinking would call it a money losing department. Outsourcing phone banks to India is providing a free language lab to the sons and daughters of rich Indian families, look it up.

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  33. TomKenworth Avatar

    The problem with “customer service” is that it does its best, its very best, to get you to go to a web site. Like “hey, I’m so stupid I never thought of it.” Then they will try every which way to get you to use the roboinfo available through the phone, and then finally, when you finally make it through to the que for a live operator, your are informed “we are experiencing high call volume.” No they are not, they are choosing not to hire enough folks to handle the calls in a timely manner. With few exceptions, most companies have mastered these arts and practice them daily. HostMonster and Country Home Products are the exceptions to the rule.

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  34. Ryan Mount Avatar

    Then they should all cease offing it instantly.
    What? I’m assuming that’s a facetious comment because eliminating customer service centers would not be a good idea.
    Only compartmentalized thinking would call it a money losing department.
    How much time do we have to discuss cost center recovery? Most consumers to not like to be sold goods and services when they call for help, although some organizations still continue this practice. AT&T comes to mind, but they do it in a somewhat sly way by trying to get you to bundle services. But generally speaking, customer service is a notable cost center for any business, large or small. I know when I ran a business, I could upsell a customer call, but I didn’t expect my hipster support staff to do that…even with sales incentives.
    Outsourcing phone banks to India is providing a free language lab to the sons and daughters of rich Indian families,
    That’s not true. Well, I dunno, maybe for some. I’ve setup support centers in different parts of the globe. My experience is that most nationals who come to work are highly skilled and educated. The ones with Bachelor’s degrees get the call center jobs. The ones with Graduate degrees get the better jobs like Project/Client Management and engineering jobs.
    Anyhow, I want to caution folks from making assumptions about other countries/cultures that aren’t based in reality. It’s like making sweeping assumptions about, I dunno, other groups of people.

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  35. TomKenworth Avatar

    Show me the dalites working in call centers with college degrees.

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  36. TomKenworth Avatar

    For those of us who are hard of hearing, dealing with highly accented, non idiomatic aware folks, to get information is very frustrating. Especially when most of the time they don’t even have the answers at their disposal, and have to go up a level, or two, or three.

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  37. Ryan Mount Avatar

    For those of us who are hard of hearing, dealing with highly accented, non idiomatic aware folks
    I appreciate your frustration, but it’s a global world now and most of it speaks English thanks to the colonial efforts of Britain, and the corporate hegemonic forces of the American Empire. Is it ‘merikan English. No. But you can find Pringles and Ambien at the local Chennai market. (Note: the Pringles cost more than a few doses of Ambien)
    Show me the dalites working in call centers with college degrees.
    I have no idea what “dalite” is. But what you would suggest? Set up a conference call to discuss their education? I guess I could have a couple of associates send you their resumes. Aren’t these odd questions?
    Anyhow, most younger middle class (there’s 200+ million of them) Indian knowledge workers attend technical school in Bangalore, because that is India’s military and technology hub. You will also find “knowledge centers” outside of Delhi and in Hyderabad. Mumbai (Bombay for the colonial types) is the financial hub.
    Mumbai is also home to the most horrible and crushing poverty I have ever witnessed in my brief life. It’s hard to hear people complain about their mobile phone provider or airline layovers when you’ve witnessed people literally living in shit.

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  38. George Rebane Avatar

    TomK 808am – CEO compensation in private corporations continues to be an irritant to socialists. Some people even forget that CEOs’ pay also gets taxed, and at a very high marginal tax rate. What should the government do when CEOs get paid more than their companies pay in taxes?

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  39. Ryan Mount Avatar

    Taxes on companies good and services are simply passed through to the customer in the form of higher prices. Some CEOs don’t pay anything because they’re taking options in lieu of pay. And then pay the Cap gains when they cash in.
    A Consumption Tax, as a proposed replacement, taxes people and businesses when they consume, not when they produce. If not that, then a Flat Tax. But certainly not what we have right now which has produced this Romney-esque behavior of him paying less taxes (as an effective tax rate) than his reports.

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  40. TomKenworth Avatar

    Dalites are the old “untouchables” I guess you were pretty well insulated when you went to India. You saw3 them but were not informed that they lived that way because India is not an egalitarian society. Neither are we but no where near as bad as India.
    Glad you asked George. Reduce the pay of the CEO to match the amount of taxes the govmint receives. But no less than the USA defined poverty level. Might up their productivity, and thus possibly even improve the numbers for new workers hired.

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  41. George Rebane Avatar

    TomK 1218pm – Now why would the federal government increase its meddling in the compensation of corporate executives? In your particular case, you haven’t even shown that the feds wind up with less cash given the current way things work. And as I have stated for years (reinforced here by RyanM’s 1209pm), corporations really don’t pay taxes. The cost burden of corporate taxes is built into the price of their goods/services and passed on to the customer. For consumer goods companies such corporate taxes hit the poorest customers the hardest. (But all this is invisible to liberals who don’t do numbers or economics.)

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  42. Ryan Mount Avatar

    Dalites are the old “untouchables”
    Never once heard this term. You must have heard it on the Discovery Channel or something. Maybe an old colonial textbook. Who knows? Sounds like a slur, but that’s just a guess. I would ask my friends, but I’m guessing it would be offensive.
    I guess you were pretty well insulated when you went to India. You saw3 them but were not informed
    That’s an extraordinarily presumptuous thing to assert. I’m assuming you’ve been to the Mumbai slums? Or stepped in Elephant dung during the Ganesh (Ganesha) parades? Or swarmed with dozens of children on the streets of Hyderabad? Nevermind. Maybe you’re like every other American getting your information from Slumdog Millionaire or the Learning Channel? Provincial and colonial attitudes are alive and well here in the West.
    So rather than offering your experience, beyond veiled bigotry of an entire class of people, you attack my bonfides. That pretty much underscores what’s wrong with the tone and tenor of discourse in this country. Feel free to provide evidence and I will retract my statements.
    Anyhow the lower castes are not spoken of in India, even though the caste system was outlawed decades ago. They are invisible, but not to foreigners. When you ask about their plight, the conversation gets politely changed. The Hindus tend to be more diplomatic; the Muslims and the Christians will tend to address it, but not always.
    Insofar as there is any resemblance to American poor, there is none. None. At. All. America’s poor are economic titans (the real 1%) compared to the rest of the world. Our poor are overweight and have mobile phones and complain about how unfair life is on the Internet.

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  43. TomKenworth Avatar

    Actually Ryan. the information came from studying the Olympics, in an ESPN article, on sexing athletes, and it dealt with a very fast runner from that class (caste). I miss-remembered the spelling, Dalits:
    “Soundarajan has a restless energy and a wide smile. She’s slight, 120 pounds soaking wet, but walks with a champion’s confidence. During a break in the cricket game, a promo for the Olympics comes on. “I know her,” she says through an interpreter, cocking her head toward Krishna Poonia, the Indian discus thrower on-screen. “We used to train together.”
    Soundarajan is from the lowest caste in India, the Dalits, who were previously known as the untouchables. Sports offered a chance out of the life of backbreaking labor and desperate poverty that she was raised in, and she ran as if her life depended on it, breaking national records and winning hundreds of medals. At age 25, she found herself in Doha, Qatar, at the Asian Games, the second-largest multisport event in the world after the Olympics. Competing against athletes from 45 countries, she won a silver medal — the realization of a lifelong goal. But she enjoyed this triumph for barely a moment before her career was over. Not because of injury or doping. Her body betrayed her in another way: She failed a gender test. ”
    http://espn.go.com/olympics/story/_/id/8192977/failed-gender-test-forces-olympian-redefine-athletic-career-espn-magazine
    I took The Anthropology of India from Gerald Berreman back in 1965, one of the most depressing courses I ever took. Not because of him, but rather because of the sorry state of India and Pakistan. You might want to check out his bonifides before deciding I’m a know-nothing.
    http://anthropology.berkeley.edu/users/gerald-d-berreman

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  44. TomKenworth Avatar

    “The cost burden of corporate taxes is built into the price of their goods/services and passed on to the customer”
    ~ George Rebane | 17 August 2012 at 12:33 PM~
    This makes the silly assumption that the customer has to buy, and that is not the case. If the cost is too high, the customer does without, or finds a cheaper substitute, and then the corporation loses money because it doesn’t have that customer any more. It is a fluid dynamic, with companies lowering and raising prices, trying for that sweet spot of maximum return, and the only thing keeping American multinats rich these days are the new customers abroad, who are slowly replacing our home grown citizens.

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  45. Russ Steele Avatar

    Some people have the vocabulary to sum up things in a way that you can quickly understand them. This quote came from the Czech Republic . Someone over there has it figured out. It was translated into English from an article in the Prague newspaper Prager Zeitungon on 04.28.2010.
    “The danger to America is not Barack Obama, but a citizenry capable of entrusting a man like him with the Presidency. It will be far easier to limit and undo the follies of an Obama presidency than to restore the necessary common sense and good judgment to a depraved electorate willing to have such a man for their president. The problem is much deeper and far more serious than Mr. Obama, who is a mere symptom of what ails America . Blaming the prince of the fools should not blind anyone to the vast confederacy of fools that made him their prince. The Republic can survive a Barack Obama, who is, after all, ‘merely a fool’. It is less likely to survive a multitude of fools, such as those who made him their President.”

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  46. George Rebane Avatar

    TomK 241pm – there is no “fluid dynamic” here. The customers of ALL corporations ALWAYS pay ALL the corporations’ taxes. To think otherwise is to evince some fluid on the brain.
    RussS 511pm – thanks for reprising that quote from the Czechs. (I have posted it at least twice on RR.) It needs to be brought back often when we consider the incompetents now in the White House – OJT Obama and his trusty sidekick Duct Tape Biden, a heartbeat away from the Presidency. Can anyone really imagine the horror of the country under his leadership? Let’s all light a candle for the Secret Service that they don’t let down their guard.

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  47. Paul Emery Avatar

    Here’s a good one. When will Romney balance the budget. From his chief advisory. He doesn’t know. What will happen till then whenever it is? We’ll borrow money of course. This is really funny.
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=K9xpIqI2d5w

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  48. Paul Emery Avatar

    Just a reminder the only Republican to balance the budget in the last 50 years was Eisenhower in 1958. Johnson and Clinton did it several times.

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