O, how that comment drips with sarcasm! I could practically bottle it and sell it! Hold on, give me a minute to google something to back me up…
Wow! Those are in fact not at all helpful, since neither of them provide any evidence whatsoever of Barack Obama doing anything to change welfare or social security.
You’ve got to be joking with these, right? I mean, jesus, seriously?
God, I didn’t have to do THIS much work in my senior year of high school!
Fine, that’s not good enough for you? Why don’t YOU find something, Professor? You think you know so much, prove it!
Come at me, bro!
If you think Barack Obama is in a position himself to change welfare or Social Security, step one is gonna be some very, very basic education. But if you think a message board post from fluther.com with a picture of a cat that starts with “I heard [Obama] wiped out welfare reform…” serves as either a cite or as anything remotely educational, you’re really in a world of ignorance that I wouldn’t touch with a very long object.
Finally, around here and most places with intelligent people debating, if you make a claim, the onus is on you to support your claim, not on other people to dig up evidence to refute it.
I’m curious, humanafterall - how old are you?
If you are above 12, just come on out and say if this is some kind of a put-on. Are you just trolling here?
I’m 20, and I’m trying not to troll, i’m being as dead serious as a heart attack. I’t funny you know, you can read and read and read, and learn and learn and learn; but in the end you end up realizing you don’t know a damn thing.
Ah, fuck it. Hey, Marley23, can you suspend me for a couple years so that I have time to get some education under my belt?
Just to be clear, the original statement you made was about taxes on corporate profits. Now, it seems, you are shifting to personal income rates.
So, what is it?
And it’s not up to us to disprove your uncited opinions. You need to demonstrate to us that your assertions are rooted in economic studies. If you can’t, then you should withdraw them or take them a forum like IMHO.
humanafterall, you do realize that welfare and social security are codified in law and the executive branch (i.e. Obama) has no power to change an existing law. The only people that can make changes to welfare and social security are the legislative branch (by writing new laws or amending old ones) or the Judicial branch (by invalidating laws as unconstitutional). Now, granted, the executive (i.e. Obama) has a part in this process by being able to veto newly minted laws instead of signing them. Or he could declare that his interpretation of the law is different than everybody else’s and he will execute the law in a different way (something that would immediately expose him (i.e. the US Government) to law suits that we would all be talking about), but otherwise he cannot change shit. Just an FYI.
Now, about the dope: if a person makes an extraordinary claim, especially in Great Debates, (and claiming that the president, by himself, changed SS and welfare is an extraordinary claim), they are expected to prove it. Proving it means linking to the law or policy on a government website, citing a peer reviewed paper, or linking to an article (not blog or opinion piece) in the mainstream press. Linking to another message board or a Yahoo answers post or whatever is equivalent to saying “my post is my citation”. No one will take you seriously.
I did not mention corporate profits, I said “Unless profits are taxed at a very high rate owners of profitable businesses have no reason to invest in future growth”. Which is not very specific. So I’ll make it very specific for you.
Profits - That’s when you have more money than you had before.
Taxed at a very high rate - Higher than the current rates. High enough to significantly influence investment decisions.
Owners of profitable business - That’s the individuals or groups that decide what to do with profits.
Reason to invest in future growth - The factor(s) that are used to decide what to do with profits.
The part that is my opinion is the word ‘no’, which would be inaccurate if taken as an absolute. I contend that investment in future economic growth in the US, particularly in job creating growth, is not seen as providing the return on investment desired by too many people who have the money and decide whether or not to invest it.
That is why there is stagnation in investment in this country. If you don’t believe there is stagnation in investment in this country I’ll waste time finding the opinions of other people that say that. Unfortunately most of them will have a much worse record at predicting the future of the economy than I do. And mine isn’t even all that great.
That’s why I think the economy is still shit, which is the topic of this thread. Now do I need to find a cite that the economy is shit for you? I probably can, but that will be an even bigger waste of time.
If you believe the economy is not shit, or there is some other way to improve the economy besides tax disincentives for not investing in domestic growth, say so. If you think the people who make investment decisions don’t do so based on maximizing profits, or that they haven’t been investing in domestic growth at a greater level for some other reason, say so. If you have anything to add that counters my argument, do that. But I don’t have to justify my opinions, other than as being based on reason. I haven’t made any appeals to authority.
:dubious:
You’re either a troll or extremely dumb and/or lazy.
You said Obama was gonna let people sit on their ass and get $330 per week. Even if that were true, do you feel that’s a large amount of money?
Where do you live that $330 per week sitting on your ass is a better option than a 6 figure job?
(i’m gonna guess that your figure of $330 per week is about what the average unemployment benefit pays)
Fine, how does this sound? Obama proposed changes to SS and welfare programs to Congress, who actually has the power to change laws,and I’m not sure whether Congress actually OK’d them. Changes to welfare laws are huge, you can’t change them with out a major news network finding out. Which is why it’s not even working. I don’t even know what to put into a search engine that will give me useful results.
Or maybe they are just afraid to invest in new jobs, infrastructure, equipment if they don’t know if they will get a return on investment. And even if they do, you have the government threatening to take it from them in the form of new mandates (Health Care, Cap and Trade) or new Taxes.
I’m warning both of you for personal insults .This is Great Debates, and if someone says something you believe to be incorrect, you’re expected to respond with facts, not rude comments and accusations of trolling. Don’t do this again.
My own gut feeling is that today’s problems are because we didn’t let the banks go bust. We’ve just shored up the dam a bit. Hopefully it will work, but if it doesn’t, then the problems are going to be worse.
OK. Prove it. I never heard about it, so unless you can link to a mainstream news article, I am going to dismiss it as an urban legend.
[QUOTE=internet urban lengend]
OMG!!11!one! I heard that kenyan socialist in the white house proposed a change to the welfare program where all baby mommas get an extra $5,000 per month if they can prove that their babies don’t know who their daddies are! Ima gonna get me some of that!
[/QUOTE]
We should have nationalized a couple so lending would restart. But the bankers clamped down on lending and bought T notes with our money. Since they got our money for free, the interests was a guaranteed win. Then they jacked credit card interests and fees up further dampening the recovery . Then they scammed to foreclose as many homes as possible. Another blow to the powerless people.
It could have been, and should have been, a lot better. The bankers only think of themselves. Patriotism is for the poor.
If we had let the banks go bust, we would have wished for today’s problems. Some of tomorrow’s problems will result from bailing out the banks without forcing them to agree to reforms, though.
That’s the battle now. The banks are using all their financial and lobbying leverage to keep from being regulated. Amazingly, it is working. Even the small time changes Elizabeth Warren’s suggesting are being treated like a communist plot. The banks will agree to nothing. There is no political will in the whores we have in congress and the senate to do right by the people. They do not work for us.
- Do you agree or disagree that wealth has been increasingly concentrated in the hands of the rich? Whether they have too much money or not depends on how you measure it. If you are rich, you probably don’t think so. But, do you think this wealth concentration has helped or hindered the level of consumption for the nation as a whole?
- Do you agree or disagree that middle class wages have stagnated? If you agree with point 1, the money has to have come from somewhere, right?
- Do you agree or disagree that lack of regulation of the mortgage and derivatives markets had a negative impact on the economy as a whole?