Clearly, Sarah Palin passed the 3rd grade test last night. She showed she was capable of stringing together a couple of sentences where there was subject-verb agreement. She was competent at delivering platitudes and slogans and speaking in simple, abstract phrases.
But like a 3rd grader, she tended to repeat the same few words - reform, maverick, etc. - without offering a single specific to support her statements. This, again, is typical of a 3rd grader's writing ability.
And like a spoiled 3rd grader, Palin showed an inability to stick to the topic, and a refusal to follow directions and answer the questions asked.
Virtually all the polls showed Biden won the debate by double digit margins, even among independents and undecided voters. Among independents, Bidon was perceived as the winner by 47-21 percent.
Most telling, when asked who was qualified to be VP, 87% voted for Biden. That was double the number who said Palin was qualiified.
Biden answered questions, offered specifics. Palin threw out campaign slogans and canned lines.
What we have to hope for is that there are more voters who want a VP who can actually think, than there are voters who want a cheerleader who is comfortable smiling, winking, being cute and flirty, and treating ideas as if they're silly inconveniences that it's okay to shoo away.
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7 comments:
You nailed the debate better than anybody else.
I am sorry, but how anyone can support the Obama/Biden ticket following this line is just beyond me:
"with regard to bankruptcy now, Gwen, what we should be doing now -- and Barack Obama and I support it -- we should be allowing bankruptcy courts to be able to re-adjust not just the interest rate you're paying on your mortgage to be able to stay in your home, but be able to adjust the principal that you owe, the principal that you owe.
That would keep people in their homes, actually help banks by keeping it from going under. But John McCain, as I understand it -- I'm not sure of this, but I believe John McCain and the governor don't support that."
This is REDISTRIBUTION OF WEALTH!! This is SOCIALISM!!! This is UN-AMERICAN!!!!
So I work my ass off: work full time while taking classes to put myself through college paying every sent for that education so I could get a good job; make financially smart decisions and not buy a McMansion I could not afford; I don't pull equity out of my house to go on vacation, buy an expensive car or a boat, etc.; and work anywhere from 60 to 80 hours a week to prove my abilities to get promotions and raises. And now I am expected to fork over more of my hard earned money to support people who go out and get mortgages they could NEVER AFFORD IN THE FIRST PLACE!!!
Everything else aside, ANYONE who votes for Obama and Biden are voting for a socialist form of government and that is something I will never support.
Boy was Ayn Rand right....Who is John Gault?
OOO! The dreaded S word!
So what? Countries are constantly evolving political/economic systems. Systems never remain static. They change as they fail to address the needs of their citizens. Certainly you aren't still laboring under the delusion we are actually operating according to the principles of Democracy as the founders envisioned?
And even more certainly you aren't going to make an argument that the type of predatory Capitalism running/ruining our country is what the Founding Fathers had in mind?
Lots of countries have adopted modified aspects of socialism, esp. in the economic sphere, without losing the freedoms stolen from us by the Bush/Cheney regime.
So, no, I'm not going to pee my pants in fear because an attempt to rescue our economy from the ravages of predatory capitalism takes a more socialist approach to the problem. Which is actually a more Christian approach, too, for anyone who bothers to familiarize themselves with that philosophy.
I worked my ass off, too, putting myself through college without one penny of help from anyone. I had to pay my own rent. I have spent my life advocating for the rights of working people, minorities, the homeless - those whose lives have been ignored and voices excluded from the table of need while the Exxons of the world make billions of dollars in profit without paying one cent in taxes.
Listen, we just had 4 years of 'leadership' by someone whose intellectual capabilites match McCain's and look like Nobel material next to Palin. People make their choices. I prefer to trust someone who can actually think to someone who acts openly claims it's unfair that they are asked to have some minimal level of knowledge and wisdom. Palin does think/speak/reason like a 3rd grader. I know. I teach hundreds of them every year. And I do mean 3rd grader, not 4th grader. I know lots of very bright 3rd graders - none of whom are capable of being president.
I hope you find your Midas Mulligan and airdrop to Galt's Gulch. Don't forget to bring your hockey stick and lipstick. Smile. Wink. You betcha.
"This is REDISTRIBUTION OF WEALTH!! This is SOCIALISM!!! This is UN-AMERICAN!!!!"
"ANYONE who votes for Obama and Biden are voting for a socialist form of government and that is something I will never support. Boy was Ayn Rand right....Who is John Gault?"
John Galt was a fictional narcissist in the fictional fantasy in Ayn Rand's Bible of Narcissism, Atlas Shrugged. In the book, her heroes all ran away to Colorado to smoke cigarettes with gold dollar signs on them, leaving the rest of us mere mortals to fend for ourselves. Actually, it wasn't such a bad idea - sending them away to the desert [as long as they don't come back].
And by the way. The wealth has already been redistributed...
First off, this country is not, was not and never has been a Democracy. It is a democratic republic, there is a significant difference. One of the reasons most democracies fail is because of socialist actions like the one proposed by Obama and Biden. The poor "vote" themselves the money of the wealthy. It's called the redistribution of wealth and as I said it is that is Un-American.
I do believe that the Founding Fathers intended for a free market economy being the primary market force and socialism never being a market force in this country. All that has to be done to understand that is read Adam Smith's "Wealth of Nations". Also, here is a quote from a letter Jefferson wrote to Madison in 1785:
"The property of this country is absolutely concentrated in a very few hands, having revenues of from half a million of guineas a year downwards... I am conscious that an equal division of property is impracticable. But the consequences of this enormous inequality producing so much misery to the bulk of mankind, legislators cannot invent too many devices for subdividing property, only taking care to let their subdivisions go hand in hand with the natural affections of the human mind."
I take this quote to mean that a progressive tax is OK, so long as it is tempered and is not for the purpose of redistributing the wealth of the rich to the poor (i.e. subdivision of property).
The one thing that is lost is the idea of "predatory Capitalism" is the notion of personal responsibility. People must be held responsible for the consequences of their own actions. If you make bad decisions you deserve to fail. If we keep eliminating the consequences of poor decision making and prevent people from failing, then we remove the "invisible hand" that Smith wrote about.
Did someone force the idiot to take the $600,000 mortgage on the McMasion? or the $600/month lease on the Yukon Denali? NO!! And what should happen if they make those decisions and latter can not afford it? As Obama & Biden see it, they should take money from me, who didn't make those bad decisions, and give it to idiot who made the bad decision. You don't see a problem with that?
Second, your view of corporate taxes and profits is way off. All you see is the billions in money that Exxon has "raked in" over the past few years without understanding any of the details. Somewhat understandable with dollar amounts in the billions, tens of billions or even hundreds of billions. The profit margin for Exxon for last quarter was 8.4%. When you talk about $11.7 billion, it is easy to loose track of the fact that since the oil/gasoline prices have been increasing, the profit margin for Exxon actually has decreased. The average profit margin last quarter for the energy sector was around 9.7%, above that of Exxon. And the profit margins of other industries, such as the pharmaceutical industry, is up to 20%, much higher then that of Exxon. So while the shear volume of money is staggering, the profit margin is less then spectacular. My company operates on a target of 15% profit margin and has yet to miss it in the five years I have been here.
As for the taxes, I think you might finds this blog from an economist interesting: http://mjperry.blogspot.com.
Here is some info from a post he made several months ago about corporate taxes on Exxon Mobile:
"just one corporation (Exxon Mobil) pays as much in taxes ($27 billion) annually as the entire bottom 50% of individual taxpayers paid in 2004 (most recent year available), which is 65,000,000 people! Further, the tax rate for the bottom 50% was only 3% of adjusted gross income ($27.4 billion / $922 billion) in 2004, and the tax rate for Exxon was 41% in 2006 ($67.4 billion in taxable income, $27.9 billion in taxes)."
So your assertion that Exxon made "billions of dollars in profit without paying one cent in taxes" is just factually not true.
Boringoldman,
Obviously we disagree about the value of Atlas Shrugged. So I will leave that since it is not germain to the rest of the discussion on the post.
As to your assertion that the wealth has already been redistributed and the Gini coefficient graph you posted. First, the graph you posted is extremely misleading. It does not present the Gini coefficient but rather changes in the coefficient since 1947 relative to the coefficient in 1967. The 1960's had the lowest gini coefficients in recent history. If you look at the percentage of change in the coefficient over the time frame of the graph it tells a different story. In the 1940s the Gini coefficient was approx. 0.53, in 2005 (latest year available from the US Census) 0.47, that is only a change of roughly 13%. And it is a trend shifting money from the wealthy to the poor. But even this time frame is misleading since we were coming off WWII and out of the great depression in the 1940s. If you look at it from the turn of the 19th century it shows an even greater shift in the same trend. In the 1910s the Gini was approximately 0.56 and reached a peak of around 0.62 in the 1930s just prior to the great depression, those are changes of 19.1% and 31.9%, respectively. Again, shifting wealth from the rich to the poor.
Further, economist have postulated that a Gini coefficient between 0.3 and 0.5 promotes economic growth while coefficients above or below those amounts are seen as negative to economic growth. The high Gini coefficient in the late 1920s and early 1930s is often cited as one of the causes of the great depression.
Bottom line for me is that our Gini coefficient is slightly on the high side but not significantly different from other developed counties in Europe and other places.
Jesse,
You should spend a little more time thinking about what Jefferson says in his quote, so you read it accurately.
"The property of this country is absolutely concentrated in a very few hands, having revenues of from half a million of guineas a year downwards... I am conscious that an equal division of property is impracticable. But the consequences of this enormous inequality producing so much misery to the bulk of mankind, legislators cannot invent too many devices for subdividing property, only taking care to let their subdivisions go hand in hand with the natural affections of the human mind."
The key phrase is - legislators cannot invent too many devices for subdividing property
Let me repeat - legislators cannot invent too many devices for subdividing property
That does not mean the legislators should not try to subdivide property. Just the opposite.
It means the legislators need to make as many efforts as they can to redistribute property precisely because it is concentrated in the hands of a few.
Some of your comments about socialism and Obama's positions are way too simplistic and inaccurate. Palin argues this way, too.
Predatory capitalism and personal responsibility for going into debt are two different things. If a woman wears a short dress that does NOT mean it's her fault if someone rapes her. The rapist is still responsible for his reprehensible behavior.
The profit percentage for Exxon means nothing. The dollar figure still matters. And if you bothered to research it you would've seen that although Exxon claimed they were going to put excess profits into R and D they didn't. You're quick to criticize a guy who buys a $600,000 house as cheating you, but you make all these weak excuses for Exxon to keep multi-billion dollar profits? Little bit of a problem with priorities there.
richard
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