You guys are all making AWESOME points, I'm just pissed because I have been saying ALL these things in these political threads for the last three days and no one is acknowledging them. I am going to ask the Fed to institute a program to educate against Italian-American bigotry, that's OBVIOUSLY what's going on here. JK!!
THANK GOD, finally someone with some sense !! Please read my post in the "winner takes all economy thread"
there is no legislation that would have prevented Enron, Worldcom, Parmalat etc. ITS CALLED FRAUD. everything they were doing was and is illegal. these guys were crooks and thought they could mask over problems 'till things turned around.
DITTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO !!!!!!!!
Get your head out of your ass !! Where do you get that from? Besides, as has been mentioned before, the supposed Clinton derived 6 figure salaries were created in a so-called industry that was a polyeana fantasy of the left that came collapsing down under its own weight - the dot.com fiasco. Go ask someone in Silicon Valley where those jobs are now? It was PURE FANTASY !!!
Where is it written that because you have a degree from ANYWHERE University that you are ENTITLED to an upper-level management job? I have news for you, unless you went to school for a precise discipline like engineering, medicine, law, you get what you get and then you work your way up. Period. Bob Lutz of Viper, Chrysler, etc. fame started out in sales in the automobile industry and worked his way up. Get over it, that's life. Quit your crying. These kids coming out of school today think they are ENTILTLED to make $100k from day one !!! Earn it like the rest of us did.
Good post Art. Welcome back - I believe. I think the huge budget deficits that we are running right now are scary and get worse after 2009. We are spending more than we can afford and reducing taxes at the same time. That's not a good combo for the generation that will have to foot the bill - our kids.
Right, there's no legislation that could have completely prevented it, but there was legislation passed by congress (over a clinton veto) that made it much easier for them to get away with it. A few searches will dig up all the info you need. I'm just gonna cut and paste so I don't have to retype everything. Not that anyone will read all this.. but here goes...(note the Clinton quote I've bolded at the end..) 1) Stopping Auditor-Consulting Conflicts by Accountants In 2000, Clinton Securities and Exchange Commission Chair Arthur Levitt, Jr. proposed regulations to prohibit accounting firms from simultaneously serving as consultants and auditors. Arthur Andersen and other accounting firms mounted a massive lobbying campaign against the Clinton-Levitt regulations, killing them. The lead lobbyist for the accounting firms was Harvey Pitt. After being sworn in as President, George W. Bush named Pitt chair of the Securities and Exchange Commission. 2) Greater Disclosure of Energy Derivatives In 1997, Bill Clintons Commodities Futures Trading Commission Chair Brooksley Born proposed greater regulation (by way of more stringent disclosure) of energy derivatives, the key financial instrument in Enron's Ponzi-scheme empire. Her proposal was beaten back by House Republicans, including then-House Banking Committee Chair Jim Leach (R-IA) who scolded her for two hours at a hearing. 3) Oversight of Energy Traders In 2000, William Rainier, Born's successor as chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, told Congress that he was "deeply concerned" about a bill to exempt energy trading from CFTC review, noting that those who trade energy derivatives were not subject to any other oversight. Rainer's objections were largely ignored by the Republican-controlled Congress, and the exemption, heavily backed by Enron, became law. 4) Cracking Down on Tax Havens In 2000, Clinton Treasury Secretary Larry Summers proposed a crackdown on tax havens such as those used by Enron. With the US co-chairing the OECD's Forum on Harmful Tax Practices, Summers crusaded for a crackdown on money-laundering and tax havens. His proposal was opposed by the GOP Congress. When the Bush Administration took office, Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill abandoned Summers' crusade, telling the Wall Street Journal, "The government has not been respectful of the cost it imposes on society." The New York Times reported that Bush's top economic adviser, Lawrence Lindsey (a former economic adviser to Enron) also opposed efforts to crack down on tax havens. 5) Protecting 401(k)s In 1997: Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) proposed banning investment of more than 10 percent of the total 401(k) plan in the employer's stock--the maximum that investment experts recommend a person sink into any company. The GOP Senate watered down her bill so much it no longer applied to any corporation in America; 6) Protecting Investors and Shareholders On December 20, 1995, President Clinton vetoed the Public Securities Litigation Reform Act, which would have restricted lawsuits against corporation accused of securities fraud. In his veto message, Clinton presciently noted that while he supported the notion of reducing frivolous lawsuits: "I am not, however, willing to sign legislation that will have the effect of closing the courthouse door on investors who have legitimate claims. Those who are the victims of fraud should have recourse in our courts. Our markets are as strong and effective as they are because they operate -- and are seen to operate -- with integrity. I believe that this bill, as modified in conference, could erode this crucial basis of our markets' strength." The GOP Congress overrode Clinton's veto. -R
Yeah, and the biggest contributor to the dems is who: the Trial Lawyer Association of America that filibusters at every turn tort reform that would GREATLY reduce health care costs in this country and give you, the consumer, more choice among physicians because fewer of them would leave their fields of specialty due to malpractice insurance premiums. So DO NOT bring up Clinton's care for the common man routine. He was in bed, as are the Dems historically, when it comes to allowing lawyers to fleece people. And I do not, BTW, hold any disdain for attorneys. Are you actually saying that Clinton's GREAT legacy of the tobacco litigation was a good thing? Are you going to sue Toyota when your Supra turbo goes out of control because you think you can drive like Takuma Sato? It's the cars fault, it's just too damn fast !! Guns kill people !!! When are people responsible for their own actions? Enron, MCI et al. were crooks, plain and simple, and there are crooks on both sides of the aisle and it is not a partisan thing. Nor is it honest to say, the republicans want to ENCOURAGE dishonesty and theivery in the corporate world. Sorry to tell you but Ken Lay and Enron contributed the same dollar amount to both parties, as do most large corporations because they know they have to grease both.
Guys: Let me get this straight: don't pass legislation that will allow people compensation for being defrauded because the Trial Lawyers will get some of the money by representing them. Great logic. What about being responsible for your actions. Guess not if your enemies get some of the money, huh? So we didn't allow this, and they screwed us? That's why the issues get screwed up: Ideologes can't seem to get past their own issues, even when the facts are clearly against them. Art As for the comment about Gore: the site is: www.snopes.com and the actual quote is: Claim: Vice-President Al Gore claimed that he "invented" the Internet. Status: False. Origins: No, Al Gore did not claim he "invented" the Internet, nor did he say anything that could reasonably be interpreted that way. The derisive "Al Gore said he 'invented' the Internet" put-downs are misleading distortions of something he said (taken out of context) during an interview with Wolf Blitzer on CNN's "Late Edition" program on 9 March 1999. When asked to describe what distinguished him from his challenger for the Democratic presidential nomination, Senator Bill Bradley of New Jersey, Gore replied (in part): During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the Internet. I took the initiative in moving forward a whole range of initiatives that have proven to be important to our country's economic growth and environmental protection, improvements in our educational system. Clearly, although Gore's phrasing was clumsy (and self-serving), he was not claiming that he "invented" the Internet (in the sense of having designed or implemented it), but that he was responsible for helping to create the environment (in an economic and legislative sense) that fostered the development of the Internet. Al Gore might not know nearly as much about the Internet and other technologies as his image would have us believe, and he certainly has been guilty of stretching (if not outright breaking) the truth before, but to believe that Gore seriously thought he could take credit for the "invention" of the Internet in the sense offered by the media is just silly. (To those who say the words "create" and "invent" mean the same thing: If they mean the same thing, then why have the media overwhelmingly and consistently cited Gore as having claimed he "invented" the Internet when he never used that word? The answer is that the words don't mean the same thing, but by substituting one word for the other, commentators can make Gore's claim sound [more] ridiculous.) However, validating even the lesser claim Gore intended to make is problematic. Any statement about the "creation" or "beginning" of the Internet is difficult to evaluate, because the Internet is not a homogenous entity (it's a collection of computers, networks, protocols, standards, and application programs), nor did it all spring into being at once (the components that comprise the Internet were developed in various places at different times and are continuously being modified, improved, and expanded). Despite a spirited defense of Gore's claim by Vint Cerf (often referred to as the "father of the Internet") in which he stated "that as a Senator and now as Vice President, Gore has made it a point to be as well-informed as possible on technology and issues that surround it," many of the components of today's Internet came into being well before Gore's first term in Congress began in 1977, and it's hard to find any specific action of Gore's (such as his sponsoring a Congressional bill or championing a particular piece of legislation) that one could claim helped bring the Internet into being, much less validate Gore's statement of having taken the "initiative in creating the Internet." It's true that Gore was popularizing the term "information superhighway" in the early 1990s (when few people outside academia or the computer/defense industries had heard of the Internet) and has introduced a few bills dealing with education and the Internet, but even though Congressman, Senator, and Vice-President Gore may always have been interested in and well-informed about information technology issues, that's a far cry from having taken an active, vital leadership role in bringing about those technologies. Even if Al Gore had never entered the political arena, we'd probably still be reading web pages via the Internet today. Last updated: 27 September 2000
Thank you for your kind words. I'm sure we all see the light of reality much more clearly after reading your posts. Another article about the roaring job market. http://www.infobeat.com/index.cfm?action=article&id=158350 I fail to see where I mentioned entitlement or did any crying. I beleive we started with the fact that job creation has been mostly in the low paying service sector and not in higher paying finiancial services or technology sectors. I made my point by illustrating my own observations about the situations I observe people having day in and day out. I mostly deal with students so that is my point of refernce. I also realize you have a moral "high horse" complex but I have two jobs and run a business to help pay for your neoconservative handouts to every group and country under the sun. Again thank you for your compliments. The f chat experience would not be the same without you.
I actually agree with you on pretty much everything you've said. I was just trying to point out that it wasn't Clinton's fault that Enron, Worldcom, etc blew up. Quite a few Democrats sided with the Republicans to override his veto...I'm not defending the Dems, just Clinton on this one. The big problem I have with 'the right' is that everything is Clinton's fault. Doesn't matter what the topic is, when it happened, how it happened... everything negative about the last 14 years is all because of Clinton, and all the good stuff that happened was because of the Republican controlled Congress. I even watched GW giving a speech a few months ago in which he referred to how he's handling "the poor economy that I inherited from the previous administration.." The friggin president of the United States... 3 years into his term.. was blaming Clinton for the economy. I find that disturbing.. Then everyone goes and blames Clinton for 'allowing' Enron and Worldcom to cook their books under his watch, even though he tried to enforce stricter auditing regulations that would have caught the cheating earlier. Then they try to blame him for allowing Hussein to do whatever he wanted, even though David Kay reported that the 1998 air strikes are what knocked out Hussein's chemical weapons labs. It's getting old... all these tough guy conservatives need to pull their panties up, stop their crying and finger pointing, and deal with it. -R
Thanks for the Snopes article. He obviously said the wrong thing. The funny part about it is that whenever Bush mixes up his words or says something really stupid ("There ought to be limits to freedom..") the righties pass it off as "oh he was misunderstood.." "you took it out of context.." "he's just not an articulate guy..." It's a two way street guys... -R
Clinton....Bush - who gives a crap? All I know is I work in high-tech and 4 years ago we couldn't hire people fast enough at any price. Now we can't fire them fast enough. Scores of people in just my one building alone lost their jobs to India and Costa Rico.
Robin said "I even watched GW giving a speech a few months ago in which he referred to how he's handling "the poor economy that I inherited from the previous administration.." The friggin president of the United States... 3 years into his term.. was blaming Clinton for the economy. I find that disturbing.." I don't see where you can interpret Bush's statement as blaming Clinton for the economy. I read it as a statement of fact. Is it not true that when Bush came into office he inherited a waning economy? I don't see blame there at all. Small example: I was voted to lead an organization on campus that failed miserably the previous year. If I told everyone that I inherited a difficult situation would I be lying or blaming others? No. It would just be me making a statement of the current conditions as they are. Now if Bush had said "the poor economy, due to the last administrations bad decisions." we would not have any differences. Another example would be if Kerry wins the election and says "the unbalanced budget I inherited from the previous administration." There is absolutely nothing wrong with that statement. All it means is that Kerry is stating the history behind the current situation, sans blame being placed. Mark, you said, "Clinton....Bush - who gives a crap? All I know is I work in high-tech and 4 years ago we couldn't hire people fast enough at any price. Now we can't fire them fast enough. Scores of people in just my one building alone lost their jobs to India and Costa Rico." I don't understand your point. I am interesting in your take as well. I am asking because I don't know what you are implying (whether it be that you don't think either president is wholly responsible for the economy or not). Care to jump in and elaborate a tad more?
I have no "high horse" complex, in fact I grew up wealthy with all the advantages but BECAUSE I did not want a handout from my father in the early 1990's I was working 2 jobs for 20 hours a day total, that is no embellishment or exageration, and it was not until I fell asleep at the wheel coming home one day from my overnite shift job and rear-ended an Audi at 80mph and went through the windshield that I realized it was time for a change. What handouts are you referring to? Welfare, unemployment, funding for feces in a bottle disguised as art, federal subsidies for the liberal bastions of NPR and PBS even though they pimp contributions from the private sector, paying for rubbers so trashy teenage girls can STILL have babies on my dime? Sorry, handouts come mostly from the NEW DEAL libs.
Your insights are truely wonderful. I'm happy you wear that you didn't take big dadies money like abadge of honor. I had no "big daddy" to even think of falling back on if **** went south. Federal funding for art is going UP under bush to a whopping 151 million. More poop in a bottle will surely be here soon. Drug Handout to seniors an pharmacutical companies: 520 BILLION Rebuild Iraq: 87 BILLION Notice the "B" in billion not the "M" as in million. These are DISCRETIONARY ITEMS Not entitlements and they aren't keeping me safe at night. NPR is pretty much completely funded by a single donation from the Mcdonalds lady for someithng around 10 years. I believe Unemplyment funded entirely by another line deducted from your paycheck. No fed dollars there. The federal gov't's funding of free birth control is the smartest thing they can do so those "Trash" people as you call them at least have a chance at not getting pregnant and createing more "Trash people" But without them, who will pick up your garbage, stock your shelves or protect you while you sleep? Such a vile underclass is where these men and women come from. The majority of truely successful people ussually start at the bottom as well. The guys who start in the middle tend to stay there. Here's a timely article about our friend GW's big spender status. http://www.amconmag.com/2_16_04/feature.html Have a fun night,
I think the current situation sucks. Many of my friends and I graduated hs in 98. At this time things were wonderful, jobs were thrown at everyone, we did the college thing well, with part time jobs/internships, sports, high gpas. well aware on how the economy has slowed, we feel that we are good enough to find a couple of good employment oppurtunities. Then we finish ready to take on the world only to find out that very few companies are offering decent positions to people of our expeirence/education level. We go to job fairs, to compete with people x2 our age for a entry level position. Then when a good job is found it is taken away months later because of lay-offs. But what doesn't kill us makes us stronger, right? ha ha
"Right, there's no legislation that could have completely prevented it, but there was legislation passed by congress (over a clinton veto) that made it much easier for them to get away with it. A few searches will dig up all the info you need. I'm just gonna cut and paste so I don't have to retype everything. Not that anyone will read all this.. but here goes...(note the Clinton quote I've bolded at the end..)" and in response: 1) Stopping Auditor-Consulting Conflicts by Accountants Conflicts or not. These auditors either ignored and plainly missed the bad accounting. They were not doing their jobs. 2) Greater Disclosure of Energy Derivatives 3) Oversight of Energy Traders Would have done nothing to stop Enron which used multiple corporations, partnerships and dealing to "create" accounting gains. And, then later used "california's free market energy reforms" against the state by arbitraging against their price controls. 4) Cracking Down on Tax Havens Theres a reason it's called DaimlerChrysler and not visa versa. The US tax code is so penal US companies have to incorporate entities of shore to remain competitive. The US is the only country that taxes its interest on worldwide income regardless of where it earned. 5) Protecting 401(k)s maybe, but i don't want some idiot in washignton telling me that i can't invest more then 10% in my company stock. 6) Protecting Investors and Shareholders this bill, i gift to the trial lawyers in part, failed.
suggestion - learn how to network, learn how to look for jobs that aren't there. there are a few tricks that you can try, but no promises: look for an opening that isn't up for grabs. a friend of mine bought a piece of property several years ago for a mere $20 from the original owner. how did he do it? well, he looked for property that wasn't for sale. and he's probably younger than you too. to go with that mentality, that's something to work with. keep trying. work with temp agencies. something, anything to get yourself motivated. it is easier to find a job when you have a job. well, enough pep-talk. but do drop the Nietschian-cliche's. =) question - regarding the unemployment numbers - how accurate are they? are they only taken due to the work force commissions? are they taken from unemployment checks? what happens with some workers who are out there, unemployed, and they have ran out of unemployment checks? are those counted too? what I am asking is - is the number actually higher than it is actually documented? or is it very close to being dead on?
This may sound very simplistic but have you noticed how technology has even crept into the supermarkets and places like Home Depot and Lowes to take away jobs. Have you seen the new self-service check-out counters in these stores? How many human jobs have been lost to these machines? Consider this. We have three Home Depots and three Lowes within 10 miles of our house. Total supermarkets number 12 in that same area. That is 18 stores. The stores are averaging putting in 4 self check-outs in each store. Hence, 72 self check-0uts. And that is just in a 10 mile radius of where I live. It takes one attendant to watch over these four check-outs so that means that conceivably 3 jobs were lost at each store by installation of these check-outs. 54 jobs lost in a 10 mile radius just by electronic self-service check-outs. Now, how much does that equate to in the US? If each Home Depot, Lowes, Albertsons, Safeway, Tom Thumb, Simon David and such lost three jobs each across the US, how many jobs has that cost? And how about the big supercenters like Target and Wal-Mart? How many family run businesses have they caused to close? I believe that the new technology that has exploded in the past two decades and is exploding faster still will have an even larger impact on the jobless count in the US and around the world. What was the book about when the machine stopped and all the humans that had moved underground centuries earlier had forgotten how to fix the machine and were rescued by a young rebel who led them back outiside into the light?????? Is that us today?? Are we being forced out by "the machine"? Just a thought!!!!!!!!!!!!!1
Beleive it or not young folks have and edge in those entry level spots. One of the joys of having student employees is the lack of pre concieved bias about the "way things are done". Some of the mot creative solutions to complex problems are the ones that come from students who aren't "engrained" with one way to write a program. The biggest offense kids make is that they don't network enough. Nothing most people don't love more then a young person trying to make something new. People aregue that the .com bubble was a total waste but many companies that you haven't heard of are surving and thriving from that melle. All because a lot of bright people had a new idea about how to make a better widget. A lot of young people also chase money to much these days. Do what you love, the money will follow. They also tend to rule out carreers that'll make them happy because it won't make them rich. Remember: Plumbers retire at 47. Theres a lot of money in unglamorous work. I don't do what I do or work like I work because it makes me a lot of money. I do it because it makes a man I repect and admire, respect and admire me back for my talents I have learned through him.
First of all, drug benefits have come about because, as I have said before, the left scares their electorate into a frenzy, like they do in every election year by telling the geezers "so and so is going to CUT social security, the biggest New Deal scam/handout there is and what amounts to nothing more than a governmentally legitimized PONZI scheme Secondly, the Kroc gift only came late last year and prior to that the Fed had a rather large budgetary line item set aside for it, check you facts at the GAO Thirdly, unemployment IS NOT funded entirely by another "line deducted from your paycheck" I thought you supposedly RAN a business; I as an entrepreneur PAY a contribution to each and every employees enemployment retirement benefit, another big New Deal scam that is what causes a lot of jobs to go south or be converted to independent contractor status. As a business owner, when I don't sell my widget the government doesn't offer to bail me out or pay my mortgage or send my kids to daycare or wipe my ass for me !
