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Voting is today

AmericanBilly said:
I guess I just have a problem with the idea to single out 5% of the population to buy the votes of the other 95%... isn't that how Hitler funded his brand of socialism?
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Nope, he did not. The coming to power of the Nazis is a fascinating story. Start with Evans' "The Coming of the Third Reich." Then we'll talk again.
 
doug reich said:
(yes, yes, I know 45% don't pay taxes)
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Small quibble here. Everyone in this country pays taxes. Every single last person. Some may not pay income tax, but many pay sales taxes. Many pay Social Security and other payroll taxes. Tariffs on imports are passed along to consumers in the form of higher prices. There's a tax on gas and a tax on cigarettes. There are associated fees of all sorts -- like when you have to pay to get a passport -- that are, in effect, taxes. (Don't think so? The American Revolution wasn't fought over income taxes, which didn't really exist at the time, but over fee-based taxes on tea, sugar, and other commodities, as well as governmental service fees like the Stamp Act.)

This myth that income taxes are the only taxes that count (or even exist) is a pernicious one, and one that must be stopped.
 
I came to the place around 8 AM and there were no line at all. Whole procedure took me less than 5 minutes. I was surprised to read stories about people who waited 7 hours in line to vote. This is kind of crazy. If I had to wait this amount of time, I wouldn't vote after all. It doesn't make a difference if I vote or not in New York anyway.
 
I was in and out in about 30 minutes. The polling place was packed, but the lines moved pretty quickly. Go Brooklyn! Two friends of mine, however, waited over two hours in line at a polling place in midtown last week just to get their absentee ballots, and my girlfriend had to wait about an hour to vote in Hell's Kitchen yesterday.
 
bigbadwolf said:
Nope, he did not. The coming to power of the Nazis is a fascinating story. Start with Evans' "The Coming of the Third Reich." Then we'll talk again.
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Yeap, I guess that all that Holocaust stuff is just a myth after all... I'm sure Ahmadinejad will be happy to book tickets for you and Rev. Wright, Obama and Farrakhan when he holds his next Holocaust denial convention.
 
AmericanBilly said:
Yeap, I guess that all that Holocaust stuff is just a myth after all... I'm sure Ahmadinejad will be happy to book tickets for you and Rev. Wright, Obama and Farrakhan when he holds his next Holocaust denial convention.
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Are you really arguing that raising your taxes slightly is comparable to the Holocaust? That is deeply insulting to the memory of six million murdered innocents. You need to drop this argument NOW.
 
I love how everyone wants everyone else to pay taxes... how's about advocating an income tax increase for everyone in your income bracket? I didn't think so. What a bunch of hypocrites! So altruistic when it doesn't cost you anything. So pathetic!
 
AmericanBilly said:
Yeap, I guess that all that Holocaust stuff is just a myth after all... I'm sure Ahmadinejad will be happy to book tickets for you and Rev. Wright, Obama and Farrakhan when he holds his next Holocaust denial convention.
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What are you talking about? You put GWB's arrogant stupidity in the shade. Hitler did not raise money from the Jews to win his elections. The economic exploitation of the Jews came later, once he was in power, and came gradually with ever-harsher edicts. Confiscation of Jewish property occurred after 1933, and since you clearly don't know any history at all, that's when Hitler came to power. Who is saying anything about the Holocaust one way or another?
 
bigbadwolf, you can apologize for Hitler all you want but to me he will always be a very naughty man...
 
Is this thread really still alive? I thought I killed it with that 'I F'ed Billy' line. A lot of the dribble here is a little embarrassing for QuantNet I have to say. I'll just note a couple of things here.

250k is an arbitrary number. The current tax bracket for a married couple is 200k - 357k, which is 33%. Above 357k is 35%. Note that this is the marginal rate, which means you pay 35% on every dollar you earn *above* 357k, not 35% on your whole income (think about this when you start thinking that no one will want to earn more that 249 because they'll be earning less... false). I'm not sure why Obama chose 250 instead of 357 except that he wants to be able to afford the cuts for the other brackets, pay down the debt or pay for other programs. We'll see. One thing's for certain is that the gov needs to start running a surplus real soon.

The language on Obama's site (and what he's been using lately) says 'tax cut for 95% of *working families*' which is more accurate. Before they were saying 95% of Americans, which was just false. People who don't work won't get a tax cut, but they could see one of those rebate checks if they do that windfall profits tax on oil companies (I don't think either is a good idea).

Like I said before, the *temporary* Bush tax cuts that are in place now will expire without congress doing anything. We can call that 'raising taxes' if we want; we've called sillier things raising taxes.

The argument for lowering taxes on middle-income folks is that they spend money. When they spend money, business owners make more money. When they make more money, investors make more money. The argument for lowering taxes on higher-income folks is that they will have more money to invest. Their investments will require workers. The workers then make money that they spend. The danger here is that the investor might decide to not invest if demand is uncertain, or they might invest overseas, or they might just buy some financial derivatives. This wouldn't help the economy as a whole. Just think, Adam Smith wrote little about income tax because why would any government tax income... that's just stupid.

Ok, now you can go back to talking about natzis and communists and the destruction of America and disbelief in government or whatever. I have nothing to add to that discussion.

p.s. It took me 30 mins to vote (ten times then normal wait for my neighborhood). I know someone for whom it took 3.5 hrs. Normally, he probably wouldn't have bothered since in NY we always choose the dem. But this time people were really motivated to cast their ballot in this election. They felt good about voting for Obama or strongly about voting against him.
 
AmericanBilly said:
bigbadwolf, you can apologize for Hitler all you want but to me he will always be a very naughty man...
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Billy, I'm not denying he was a bad guy -- don't put words in my mouth. You simply have your history wrong. And now, respecting Woody's wishes, I have nothing more to say on this subject. This is a quant forum.
 
The brilliant Sarah Palin:

 
maxrum said:
According to The Deal.com New Jersey Governor and former Goldman Sachs trader Jon Corzine may be a candidate to take over from Henry M. Paulson, who said he would not continue to serve as Treasury Secretary in an ew administration.

If Mr. Corzine were tapped for the post, he would be joining a string of a fellow Goldman alumni to serve as the chief of the Treasury, including Mr. Paulson and Robert E. Rubin.
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Doesn't look like CHANGE to me.
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CHICAGO (Reuters) - President-elect Barack Obama on Friday moved toward nominating Timothy Geithner as Treasury secretary and charging the respected head of the New York Federal Reserve with helping pull the United States out of an economic nosedive.
 
Geithner failed to pay $43,000 in taxes. Now he is going to be supervising IRS.

There are also talks that he helped to bail out AIG because Goldman desperately needed this bailout.

And lets not mention that he hired a person who had no permission to work in the US as his housekeeper.

Yes we can.
 
bigbadwolf said:
What for? The triumph of style over substance?
The news is all bad. Let me pour myself another stiff shot.
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Today we have an executive order mandating that all interrogations follow the guidelines laid out in the Army Field Manual, thus ending the practice of torture, effective immedately. This was followed by another executive order mandating that the Guantanamo Gulag be closed within one year.

If these are examples of style over substance, I'll take style, thank you, and join you happily in whatever you're drinking.
 
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