Politics

I think this is really central to the debate surrounding Fox News. Several people are suggesting that there is no need to distinguish Fox News from other TV news organizations like ABC News, MSNBC, CNN, etc. Members of ABC News, for example, have argued that Fox News should be considered a news organization and given the same access to the White House as any other news organization. Others think Fox News cannot be considered a news organization. What do you think?

I thought it might be nice to have a thread about the UK General Election, which will be held on the 6th of May. It seems that this election could bring in some major changes since everyone is so disillusioned with the main parties. Like in the US, UK politics has been stuck in basically a two party system for decades. We have the Labour Party and the Conservatives (sometimes called the Tories) which are roughly comparable to the Democrats and Republicans in the US (though both to the left of their US counterparts). Usually one of these is in power, with the other forming the opposition and only a few seats going to other parties. However, following a live elect…

Apparently you burn. http://finance.yahoo.com/news/3-dead-as-antiausterity-riots-apf-4019313165.html?x=0 The Canadian European Economic Council says that this problem is based at least in part on "Keynesian profligacy" and "putting ideology over common sense". (source, warning: PDF) The liberal New York Times focuses instead on tax evasion, suggesting that Greeks just need to "grow up": http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/02/world/europe/02evasion.html But for an organization that adheres to an ideology that ostensibly believes in the root cause theory of responsibility, the Times seems oddly reluctant to seek the root cause of Greek tax-dodging…

There have been numerous threads in Politics where members like myself are castigated for challenging unsupported opinions, and in doing so have been repeatedly told by the Moderator that "All opinions are equal on this forum." I disagree with that. I think opinions which are supported with fact, substance, and logic will nearly ALWAYS be better than those which are simply put forth as opinion alone and left at that. This is not about silencing people who don't support their opinion. This is not about censoring unsupported opinions or saying they have no place here. This is about acknowledging that not all opinions are equal and that it's fair to acknowledge th…

I sometimes wonder if killing the rich is the answer. Sure, people shouldn't support murder because it's illegal, unethical, immoral, against religion, etc... But would it work to help solve economic problems? Would killing certain individuals work to solve economic issues? I like to think back to before World War I and the Black Hand Society. You had a bunch of young people with a hitlist. And this killing the people on the hitlist was suppose to make their living vicinity a better place. For the Black Hand Society, it ended up causing, if I remember correctly, rival countries to feud and create war amongst them. So, it backfired in a sense. The Black Hand Soci…

The question is fairly well captured in the thread title. There is an ever evolving dynamic in our nation, and across the globe. There are subtleties and complexities tied to every decision and action we take, every law we pass, and every debate we have. I fear that some of these subtleties and complexities get missed when we continually try to paint them with the broad brushes of "democrat" and "republican." I would love to hear from both citizens within the US and SFN members from other areas on the globe who may have some insight and perspective on this topic from their own governments. Is the two-party dynamic adequate for dealing with the subtlies and c…

Hey, how come none of our UK members started a thread on this? I saw this on the news last night and was blown away. What a moment! In a nutshell, apparently what happened is that Gordon Brown was talking with a woman when she asked about immigration from Eastern Europe, and when he got back to his car, not realizing his mike was live, he called her a "bigot". I'd love to hear what our UK friends think of this event. http://voices.washingtonpost.com/postpartisan/2010/04/gordon_browns_campaign_disaste.html Here's a YouTube video of the event: jFl_evwML2M

I'm somewhat curious how people's opinions of how the government should manage money compare to their personal lives. How do you stack up? Note that for the purposes of this poll, I'd like the term debt to refer to non-amortized debt without collateral. That means it doesn't apply to mortgages or vehicle loans which amortized and are for a singular, tangible piece of property. These types of "debts" can be thought of more as installment payments. However, it does refer to credit cards, lines-of-credit, etc. Student loans are a bit of a gray area... because a university can't repossess your education I'd say they should be considered a debt. NOTE TO MODS: I…

I am really surprised this story hasn't picked up a lot of steam. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/36597290/ns/business-us_business/ http://www.foxbusiness.com/story/markets/industries/finance/sec-charges-goldman-sachs-fraud/?test=latestnews http://money.cnn.com/2010/04/16/news/companies/sec.goldman.fortune/index.htm?hpt=T2 I am sure the timing of this is political, as implied by the above articles. This could turn out to be a big deal though. Goldman says they are going to fight the charges. This move by the SEC could turn years of de-regulation on it's head, if done correctly of course. Here are some other links from different sites to the same st…

I would like to propose an informal moratorium on starting threads with News Corp articles. That's not to say that you shouldn't reference a News Corp article in the original post of a thread, but rather that you shouldn't let a News Corp article provide the exclusive content upon which a thread is started. Examples of News Corp sources would include: Fox "News" (cable channel, web site), Wall Street Journal, New York Post, Weekly Standard Is this an ad hominem against News Corp? Just because a News Corp-owned organization authors an article doesn't necessarily make it wrong. I certainly can't defend that position. However, I have noticed many threads which…

I thought I'd share this since I found it a pretty interesting watch: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/money/ The psychological experiments are pretty interesting, and personally I found the explanation for how the housing bubble fueled the derivatives bubble really put it into an interesting perspective. There are some aspects I didn't like: I think they mischaracterize chicago economics and explained those theories in a more cumbersome manner than they needed. I doubt it's so much a political bias as jumping on something new.

Interesting (and quite lengthy) article in Politico on Wednesday about anger and frustration amongst reporters covering the Obama administration. http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0410/36454.html Some interesting numbers: Ouch. On the other hand: But apparently it's not just about the numbers. Asking the wrong questions can get you into a lot of trouble. Playing favorites with the New York Times certainly seems familiar. Kinda like Bush playing favorites with Fox News Channel. But IMO a lot of this reads like sour grapes and petty grievances, but it's an interesting piece and it illustrates an ongoing problem that a lo…

Many threads under politics, and some posters, try to define the founders during the early days of America as atheist, non-believers or that they personally believed that religion had no place in in the NATION they were forming. This couldn't be further from the truth.... People that came to the 'New Land', particularly in what were later those 13 original Colonies, over the 250 years leading up to Independence were in LARGE part leaving religious intolerance. War's were being fought all over Europe, Asia, most with religious overtone. http://www.zum.de/whkmla/military/18cen/18cenindex.html A good site and list of wars in any century, nearly 200 in the 1500's alone…

What aspect would you consider to be the fairest way to distribute the tax burden? (This is an opinion, since what you regard as fair may not be the same as what others regard as fair). Would it be flat, proportional, progressive, or regressive? Would it depend on how the government spent said tax? Would it be based on number of people (head tax, dependent deductions)? Would it be based on ownership (property tax)? Would it be based on purchase value (sales tax, value added tax)? Would it be based on total revenue (income tax), or perhaps on net revenue (business/corporation income tax)? Would it be based on ownership of cash (inflation tax), or perhaps ownership of wealt…

Via CBC LET THE BOOBQUAKE BEGIN

So a lot of folks, for example Rush Limbaugh and Stephen Colbert, have given to charity, based at least in part on things like fund-raising and auctions. I have two questions: 1) How exactly does the tax-deductible aspect work? It can't all be deduced directly from the taxes, can it? 2) Who exactly gets to deduce this from their taxes? For example, if someone bids for an item knowing that the funds go to charity, and probably over-paying for it for that reason, do they get to count that as tax-deductible? Likewise, can the host, knowing that they got more money for an item than its real value since it is going toward charity, count all that money as tax deductible?

For regular readers here, many of you know I am a big fan of the PBS program FRONTLINE. In fact, based on many of my exchanges with several of you (of ALL political leanings and ideologies), I'm inclined to believe that many of you are fans/appreciators of the show, as well. Tonight on FRONTLINE was a special dedicated to exploring the real story behind how healthcare reform passed in the US. Fans of the show know, like me, that no matter how much you have read or paid attention to the issue they discuss and explore, viewing their specials always leaves you in a position of being more knowledgeable of the topic than you were prior to watching. They pick up on…

In this past week's Economist poll about the budget deficit, 62% of Americans favored cutting spending to combat the deficit, while only 5% favored raising taxes. Alright in theory, but cut spending where, exactly? The only thing that more than about a quarter of Americans can agree on cutting is foreign aid, at 71%. (Americans, on average, estimate that 24% of the budget goes to foreign aid. It is actually less than 1%.) Now, that doesn't necessarily mean that most of us want to abstractly "cut spending" without actually cutting any spending - we could all just have different opinions of what should be cut. But this still present a problem, since everyth…

http://podcast.thisamericanlife.org/special/405_Bonus_Bet_Against_the_American_Dream.mp3 All we gotta do, to make our dreams come true is bet against the American Dream. ============ a little journalistic background http://www.propublica.org/feature/all-the-magnetar-trade-how-one-hedge-fund-helped-keep-the-housing-bubble a video of the studio session, recording the song http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/405/inside-job op-ed piece in the NYT http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/25/opinion/25rich.html?hp

In the UK Election campaign, electoral reform is becoming a big issue. At the moment we have a first-past-the-post system, where each individual seat has a restricted voter pool (by geographic area) and the candidate with the most votes wins the seat. This can lead to situations where a party with just 30% of the vote but voters concentrated in a fixed number of constituencies, can win the election, in preference to a party with 40% whose voters are all spread out. The Labour party is suggesting an "Alternative Vote" system, while the Lib Dems would prefer a Single Transferable Vote system, or as a compromise, the AV+ system. The conservatives want no change. …

http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2010/04/19/1386782/partisan-discipline.html So now you know, all you yellow-bellied surrender monkeys -- you just weren't spanked enough!

The Value Added Tax (VAT) is being highly talked about for the US, to cover current and pending expenses for the Federal Government. To the consumer, it simply would raise (inflate) the price on all goods purchased or the price paid to the distributor of any item, built into the cost, then the Federal, probably the IRS. There is no discussion on it replacing any current Tax, thereby being an additional tax. Of course there is nothing new in this, with a good many Countries already using this program to raise revenues for Social Programs, a couple at 25%*, 12 of which are 20% up to 25%, today. *http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/tax_val_add_tax_sta_rat-value-added-t…

When it comes to national politics, is there some common ground that the vast majority (say 80-90%) can agree on, and move on from there? I think we spend a lot of time redesigning the wheel when it comes to a great many of these things, arguing without ever recognizing those things that the vast majority probably already accepts. I think most people don't want to deny aid to people who truly need it, but don't want to give tax dollars to those who could help themselves but find excuses not to. Yet both get lumped under the general term "welfare", and I think some people oppose welfare programs because of it. The Interstate Highway system seems like pretty good …

It boggles my mind when I realize that otherwise reasonably intelligent people still listen to this bloviating blow hard. http://thinkprogress.org/2010/04/17/limbaugh-volcano/ Yesterday, hate radio host Rush Limbaugh talked about the volcanic eruption that’s affecting air travel over much of Europe, saying it was “God speaking” in response to the passage of health care. I stand firmly behind the principle of free speech, and I welcome this jackass continuing to poke about like the buffoon he is. He's taken a cue right out of Pat Robertson's playbook with this one, and look at what has happened with public perception of that asshat. Keep it up,…

I was just thinking today about an idea of how to bipartisanship a little easier by refining the nuance in how the Senate and Congress cast votes. Nothing would change mathematically or how they are counted, just each "Yes" would be on record as one of two variations and the same for each "No" vote cast: Yes - in the affirmative: You agree with and support this action and consider it's success or failure as reflective on your reputation. Yes - concessional: You may not agree with the action entirely for ideological reasons or are otherwise skeptical of it's chances for success, but you concede given the political climate and the need to give solutions a chance …