OP ED-"Little Timmy Wants to Know Why Nobody Likes Airplanes Anymore?

[alex]

Very nice....any with the ones who borrowed you wallet? I need motivation at this point.

[AndyFromCB]

Very nice....any with the ones who borrowed you wallet? I need motivation at this point.

 

Here is some latin american cuties I hang out with on a trip to Mexico ;-) Way before I met my wife...Juarez can be fun with the right company...

[John Pleisse]

 

Here is some latin cuties I hang out with on a trip to Mexico ;-) Way before I met my wife...

 

 

POW!!!!!

[AndyFromCB]

Scott,

 

We should write a book together: "How to make friends and influence people online". I smell a best seller.

[AndyFromCB]

I am not on this thread to "make friends"...But I have.

 

Why so serious?

[alex]

Guess which one is my favorite. I'll give you a clue....she's on a boat.

[AndyFromCB]

Guess which one is my favorite. I'll give you a clue....she's on a boat.

[AndyFromCB]

It is now illegal under the ACA (2015) for states to allow husband-wife combo's to be considered an "insurance group". In the state of Maryland, two makes a group. As you know, "groups" are rated on statistics, such as age (primary) and claims advanced overall, not evaluation of the individual. Major health carriers have wanted this exclusion removed for decades and have lobbied each state individually to this end. Instead, they got a national hand out.

 

Here's the rub. If my wife and I were living in sin, we would still be considered a 2 person "insurance group" in the state of Maryland and would have not lost our health insurance. Similarly, if we divorced and I paid child support to my wife, we (I) would arrive at about 18% less federal and state tax obligation. It is this very attack on marriage, both with taxation and insurance that I find troubling. There is no greater bastion of American small business than the maw-paw shop. Store fronts, seamstresses, tailors, plumbers, lanscapers, etc. Many men work their asses off to make cash, while wives assist by toiling over the books, customer relations and paperwork (or women do the work and the opposite is true).

 

This is also be the case for two gay men in 16 states who are married, who bust their asses (pardon the pun) in a consulting firm or (pardon the second pun) a Florist shop. This is an overt attack on the institution, or as in my case, the sacrement of marriage and a direct route to providing millions of fresh, new warm bdies at the front door of the ACA and frankly, a single payer system. We know this will be a disaster.

 

You mean single payer will be a disaster like Medicare is a disaster, delivering quality care to elderly at much lower cost than private industry. Anyways, you are correct. This will lead to a single payer system. It was designed to be a disaster and of course that it is going to be a disaster. Obama took the bill straight from Heritage Foundation as it was written by you, conservatives. And like all conservative ideas, it turned out to be a disaster. We've tried them all. We have tested every neo-consevative, Ayn Rand and Heritage Foundation idea in the last 35 years. Trickle down economics destroyed the middle class. Fighting a war on two fronts proved to be a total disaster. Romel could have told them that. Teaching abstinence based sex-ed, which I guess is akin to teaching skiing in the desert, proved to be a giant fiasco, with red states now leading in teen pregnancy. Results of relaxing gun control are heard loudly across the entire country on daily basis. War on drugs made drugs cheaper and more available than ever before. 35 year long conservative disaster is coming on an end, soon. Give it few years and we will have a single payer system and in another 10 everyone will wonder how we managed to ever live without.

 

The demographics are changing, the social attitudes are changing, Jesus is losing ground each day, with 16% of Americans now openly agnostic. So I understand why you guys are screaming louder and louder, behaving like petulant children and digging in your heels. You really do believe that most of the country agrees with you too and that will be the ultimate downfall of conservatism.

 

Show me one conservative policy of 35 years that did not turn into a giant disastrous cluster fuck. Show me one. And yes, I consider ACA to be a conservative idea. 

[flyboy0681]

 

Show me one conservative policy of 35 years that did not turn into a giant disastrous cluster fuck. Show me one. And yes, I consider ACA to be a conservative idea. 

 

Don't regressives have any success stories over the past 35 years?

[AndyFromCB]

Don't regressives have any success stories over the past 35 years?

 

Can't think of any. Even the charter school experiment in DC and New Orleans turned out to be a total, complete disaster with rampant fraud everywhere. Problem with every conservative idea is that they are all "common sense based". What makes us human is "uncommon sense". Common sense tells you sun goes around the earth. Common sense tells you printing dollars will lead to hyper inflation. Common sense tells you jailing drug users and dealers will make heroin so expensive everyone will quit using.

[flyboy0681]

Can't think of any. Even the charter school experiment in DC and New Orleans turned out to be a total, complete disaster with rampant fraud everywhere.

 

 

But what about deregulation of the Savings and Loan industry. Wasn't that a success?

[AndyFromCB]

But what about deregulation of the Savings and Loan industry. Wasn't that a success?

 

No you're just sticking fingers into an already open wound. I just don't understand how you guys can for a second believe liberals have been in charge for last 35 years? It was your turn, you had the steering wheel, you drove off the cliff, you fucked up for everybody but top 10% of the population. And you've done it repeatedly. Now you believe the problem was you were not driving fast enough around the curve and believe the outcome will be different if you just double down. Obama policies are a continuation of the policies of 5 prior administrations. 

[AndyFromCB]

If liberals have been in charge for last 35 years, we'd have:

 

-single payer health care system

-free higher education at state schools and complete elimination of government student loan program

-$18 an hour minimum wage

-probably some sort of maximum wage

-top combined tax rate of around 65% on incomes over $250,000

-elimination of capital gains tax discount

-6 weeks paid vacation

-12 months paid maternity leave

-free childcare and preschool

-a functioning public transit system

-$10 a gallon gasoline

-gun training and licensing and registration

-a military 1/10th the current size

-cars that are not a complete total pieces of crap

 

And probably very little national debt as our entire national debt has been created by armed forces sucking down the entire federal budget every year. A trillion a year now and nothing to show for it but bunch of dumb kids with missing arms and legs on both sides of the conflict.

 

We don't have any of that, so my point is proven, we have not been in charge. You guys fucked it all up, not us. You're all big man. OWN IT. Norway had liberals in charge and they have all of the above, and their net national debt is -169% percent. Yes, negative, because they did not give away their country's oil for free, instead charged proper taxes and put that money into a sovereign wealth fund. Did I mention their unemployment is 3.4%. And their GDP is twice ours per capita. Fucking socialists.

 

And they have happy people and Timmy there gets to spend quality time with his parents who take him on vacations and teach him right/wrong instead of working 3 minimum wage jobs to try to make ends meet. Maybe, just maybe investing in your most precious capital asset, your citizenry, just works. Who would have thought.

[flyboy0681]

No you're just sticking fingers into an already open wound. I just don't understand how you guys can for a second believe liberals have been in charge for last 35 years? It was your turn, you had the steering wheel, you drove off the cliff, you fucked up for everybody but top 10% of the population. And you've done it repeatedly. Now you believe the problem was you were not driving fast enough around the curve and believe the outcome will be different if you just double down. Obama policies are a continuation of the policies of 5 prior administrations. 

 

Surely the Bush tax cuts was good policy. Wasn't it?

[jetdriven]

But what about deregulation of the Savings and Loan industry. Wasn't that a success?

It's a success in that the Wall Street crowd had their losses covered and basically engineered the biggest transfer of wealth from the middle class to the richest few percent. Then convinced a lot of us that poor people took that money. 16 to 22 trillion is lost economic output, basically an entire year. But no, welfare mommies and Obama phones is where it went.

[flyboy0681]

It's a success in that the Wall Street crowd had their losses covered and basically engineered the biggest transfer of wealth from the middle class to the richest few percent. Then convinced a lot of us that poor people took that money. 16 to 22 trillion is lost economic output, basically an entire year. But no, welfare mommies and Obama phones is where it went.

 

 

I guess it was a good thing because it taught us a valuable lesson about deregulation and that how it should never again be done when it comes to banks.

[scottfromiowa]

And Fannie and Freddie are doing it again.

[AndyFromCB]

And Fannie and Freddie are doing it again.

 

Yeap. And lots of rich people are becoming richer. At your expense. And my expense. And your beloved military is not here is protect you, it's here to protect their interest. Tell me, Scott, what are your holdings in South Korea? Or Germany? Or Iraq? It protects the interests of the empire. Hate to break it to you, you're not a citizen of "Rome, the city proper". Neither am I. This debt you're talking about was not run up one food stamp at a time. It was run up one cruise missile at a time, one shady multi billion dollar deal at a time. It was not poor Granma getting her SS checks. It was Lockheed Martin, it was Halliburton, it was Blackwater. It was Chase. It was JP Morgan. It was Bank of America. But it wasn't Tyrone. Well, might have been Tyrone, via Correction Corporation of America.

[jetdriven]

Yup the evil gubmint forced those banks as trading houses to take billion dollar bets in speculative derivatives. And to convince Moody's to rate all those mortgage backed securities as AAA+ even though they were garbage. And the billions in bonuses too. The govt made them do it.

[flyboy0681]

Yeap. 

 

 

Wait a minute, what about Dodd-Frank? Wasn't that supposed to save us from future disasters and take government bailouts off the table?

[scottfromiowa]

I had a friend that married a Norwegian. Moved there.

He now lives in the USA.

Keep it rolling. I am enjoying this.

[flyboy0681]

I had a friend that married a Norwegian. Moved there.

He now lives in the USA.

Keep it rolling. I am enjoying this.

 

Couldn't take the cold?

[AndyFromCB]

Yup the evil gubmint forced those banks as trading houses to take billion dollar bets in speculative derivatives. And to convince Moody's to rate all those mortgage backed securities as AAA+ even though they were garbage. And the billions in bonuses too. The govt made them do it.

 

Well, Byron, as they say, opportunity makes a thief, you could say they made them do it. If I left the keys to my mooney, told your it was free and clear, left a signed empty bill of sale and told you I will not call the cops, you might be tempted. Admit it, 215knots sounds a lot better than 165…It's kind of the same when you already have billions…Few more does't hurt...

[flyboy0681]

I had a friend that married a Norwegian. Moved there.

He now lives in the USA.

Keep it rolling. I am enjoying this.

 

 

This is obviously all in good fun, but how about sharing with us just three republican policies introduced over the past 30 years that were a resounding success. Your choice.

[AndyFromCB]

This is obviously all in good fun, but how about sharing with us just three republican policies introduced over the past 30 years that were a resounding success. Your choice.

 

I've got a better question for Scott. If tea party was to take over both houses and the white house, what do you think you will gain personally. Because I have never heard you be for something, only against. Is balanced budget all you want?