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At 11/9/12 03:56 AM, Feoric wrote: The demographics are changing, and rapidly. More importantly, the demographic shift favors the left almost exclusively: immigration will inevitably make Texas turn purple, making it a hotly contested state in the Electoral College with the massive Latino vote. As long as the GOP doubles down on their views on religion, women, immigration and social issues like gay marriage, they will lose a massive amount of votes.

Why, because the Democrats will never be able to make a more attractive proposal to Hispanics than the Dream Act? Or for basic contraception coverage? Or some definition of gay marraige? Democrats will always be able to go further to the left than the GOP on immigration and women's issues, and there simply aren't enough gays in the US to compensate for the disillusionment some conservatives would experience after an outright republican endorsement of gay marraige.

I won't go as far to say it will be the death of the GOP, but it will certainly be interesting to watch over the next 4 years. Literally all signs are pointing to a significant boost in support of the Democratic party.

Yeah right. People said the same thing about the Democratic party in 2004 and look what happened. This was a turnout election in which the GOP base stayed home.

Agreed on by who? How many women were outraged by Democratic congressman over their stances on rape and abortion? How many people were outraged by Democratic voter suppression? How many people were outraged by Democratic politicians on their comments about the lower class?

Not the lower class, in most polls Romney had a significant advantage among the working class and those lacking an higher education.
The only people who were upset about so-called voting "suppression" were minorities and the very poor who somehow live without IDs. He was never going to win those votes anyway.
And saying Atkin represents the entire republican party? Really? Why not say they're all closet homosexuals because of Larry Craig? Meanwhile I'll brand all democratic party members in terms applicable to Gary Condit.

it comes down to finances, and liberals cannot budget when their voters want handouts. Obama voters are zealots, committed to the cause no-matter-what. And when there's nothing to show for it in 2016, you can't point the finger back to 2008 to get a new candidate. This lopsided party is going to fail unless it compromises in Congress.

Man you really gobble this shit up. I'd love know who is asking for handouts.

The poor and those who like to think of themselves as "middle class" but can't feed themselves or their families without government assistance. Those like Sandra Fluke who think other people should pay for their birth control. Those who think that they are entitled to mortgage relief because they were too stupid to understand what an adjustable rate mortgage could entail. Those who think they have an inalienable right to recieve subsidized medical care despite the fact that they make far too much and have too many assets to be eligibile for Medicaid. And while they aren't asking for handouts directly, I'd include the group of people who either resent the wealthy for their money or can't recognize the fundamental iniquity of demanding more of people's money that they earned themselves to fund a massively bloated and inefficient government.
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At 11/8/12 03:08 PM, Camarohusky wrote: Wages get deducted from gross income. So if the wages are deducted from gross income, how exactly does higher taxes, which do not cover income that goes to employee wages, hurt jobs?

Because, as offensive as the idea may be to you, a business owner does not run a company for the sake of giving people jobs, but to make a profit. Higher taxes limit profits and reduce the incentive to invest in production over the long run, which ultimately leads to lower output and fewer jobs. On the corporate level, lower corporate tax rates reduce the incentive to base operations overseas in lower-tax countries.

Like what? When your starting proposal is totally outrageous, like raising taxes on anyone during a recession, watering it down a bit doesn't make it a compromise.

So in order to compromise he has to give up the only point he wants? That's not compromise, that's submission.

Why is that the only point he wants? The goal is deficit reduction, not sticking it to rich people.

Pass the buck. Who needs personal responsibility when you're a Republican? Face it, Obamacare immitates the Republican proposal of a country 20 years more conservative, and now it's too liberal? Petty gamesmanship at its best. If things were different and the same exact legislation was called MCCaincare you can be damn sure that the Republicans would have cummed on it 100 times each.

Hardly. What was proposed in 1993 was never a rallying cry for republicans or conservatives; most conservatives hated the republican plan, and the bill died in committee.

such as the dramatic cuts to Medicare reimbursements,

If you had a shred of knowledge about the ACA you'd ralize those numbers are projected. Projected on what? Projected on less NEED to pay those reimbursements are a result of funnelling what is not dual medicare medicaid coverage into just one of the two programs.

No, that's not how it works at all, and what you're describing doesn't any sense. The providers are paid on a fee for service model, and they aren't paid twice for the same service if a patient is dual-eligible for Medicare and Medicaid. What they're trying to do is reduce the healthcare utilization of those dual eligible people by managed care because they tend to be really unhealthy.
What the ACA does it attack hospitals and providers from both ends by cutting reimbursements and hitting private insurance companies, which providers rely on to stay afloat. Hospitals can't survive on Medicaid and Medicare patients alone; the government has special funds set up to pay these hospitals extra. ACA will cause hospitals to go bankrupt or be bought out by for-profit systems, which typically reduce the variety of healthcare services and according to some, provide lower-quality care. The entire bill depends upon these cuts.

the birth control mandates,

Because The Conservatives would rather pay hundreds of thousands per unwanted child than a few bucks here and there for a rubber... Penny pinchers only when they want to be.

Show me these people who can't afford a $5 box of condoms? Or $10 for birth control pills? How much you want to bet they have no problem getting their booze and cigarettes? It's never been about cost or access.

the overreach into private companies' budgets,

By providing them a cheaper alternative?

I was referring to insurance companies.

and the basic fact that the legislation, despite its trillion dollar price tag, does very little to actually bring down healthcare costs (the measures that could bring costs down cost relatively little to implement).

So the attempt to shift the payment of healthcare from a procedure based (whcih rewards subpar and shoddy work) to a quaity based system, thus ncouraging proper procedures the first time isn't saving money?

It is, but it doesn't cost $2 trillion dollars over 10 years. The biggest expense for the quality-based system is funding electronic medical record infrastructure, and the CMS incentive payments have only cost a few billion total over the past two or three years.

Encouraging people to get preventative care for simple things like exhaustion, constipation, toothaches, stomachaches and so on that are cheap to fix, but if left alone could become expensive problems such as intestinal rupture, absess, ulcers is more expensive?

Unfortunately, most preventative care costs about the same or even more than the treatment for those conditions because they are over-prescribed. Diagnostic imaging is the biggest example, and its why the government health agencies are now trying to get people to have fewer mammograms. Preventative care makes sense for the elderly people with chronic conditions, but I've never heard anything about how more physician office coverage would reduce health spending in the general population.

At 11/8/12 11:21 AM, Camarohusky wrote: No Obama was NEVER in control of the economy. The economy is a complex web and there is very little the government can do to directly hurt it. Don;t give me the "tax hurts busienss" bullshit. The only way tax hurts business is that the greedy owners cut out money that would otherwise go to the business to make up for their own taxes.

Classic reasoning of Obama's ideal voter: taxes don't depress the economy, evil GREEDY businessmen do. You're chiding korriken for not making intelligent contributions to the discussion and here you are claiming that higher taxes don't negatively affect commerce.

Failure to negotiate and compromise? WTF? Is your definition of compromise "bend over and let your opponents fuck you"? Obama offered numerous compromises to which the Republicans said "If it's not exactly what we wanted to begin with, it was not a compromise."

Like what? When your starting proposal is totally outrageous, like raising taxes on anyone during a recession, watering it down a bit doesn't make it a compromise.

Obamacare was a compromise. Obamacare was the creation of Republicans, from the Romneycare to the healthcare plan by the Republicans under Clinton. The ONLY reason the Republicans didn't like it now is because of the name on it (Hint: OBAMA).

Created by republicans? As though "republicans" is one monolithic, homogenous group with no difference in opinion in its members?
Despite the similar goals, there's enough of a difference between what Romney helped bring about in MA and what Obamacare became to justify opposition to the bill, such as the dramatic cuts to Medicare reimbursements, the taxes on device manufacturers, the birth control mandates, the overreach into private companies' budgets, and the basic fact that the legislation, despite its trillion dollar price tag, does very little to actually bring down healthcare costs (the measures that could bring costs down cost relatively little to implement).

At 10/26/12 09:45 AM, JMHX wrote: So what you're telling me is that the Republican Party, after criticizing the admittedly zonky Cindy Sheehan for unloading on the Republicans over Iraq (and parlaying this into a run for Congress), has now found their own Cindy Sheehan to pump on conservative news networks?

The difference is that while Sheehan wanted an immediate retreat and withdrawal, blaming Bush for making her son do what he voluntarily signed up to do, this guy is upset because his son and others were apparently left out to dry by the military and the administration.

You don't need this guy to dislike the way the Benghazi incident was handled. I have less problem though with how Obama and others initally attributed it to the video than how Panetta can go before Congress and say that no reinforcements could be sent because no one had enough information and that it would have been irresponsible to put soldiers in harm's way. Within a half hour of the attack, the State Department knew about 20 armed men were attacking the post, which was staffed by about 30 Libyan guards. That should have been troubling enough. Meanwhile, if this article is to believed, CIA support operatives were denied permission to assist in defense (though they apparently later disobeyed orders and went anyway, the two ex-SEALS that died were part of the group). It seems to me that if the US had to wait to know more about the attack, it'd be a good idea to send in nearby CIA operatives trained in combat to assess the situation. This whole thing stinks and Panetta's remarks have in my mind made it even worse.

At 10/1/12 02:48 PM, Camarohusky wrote: Don't overestimate the effect of profit drive on large equity firms.

Venture Capital (the infusion of money into start ups and small firms looking to make it big) puts money into the little fish that have high potential.

The best acquisitions are most often those where the target is quite successful. Public corporations are vulnerable to takeover at any time. The Directors and Officers, charged with ensuring the best deal for the shareholders, have heavily restricted options when it comes to fending off such an advance.

Except that Bain didn't engage in hostile takeovers of publicly traded companies. Company owners voluntarily sold their shares to Bain.

At 9/30/12 07:04 PM, HiryuGouki wrote: We can all agree on this last statement. After all, Mitt Romney certainly knows how to get foreign bank accounts to avoid paying US taxes, AND knows how to get his dressage horse to be labeled as a $77,000 tax deduction, so yeah, of course. Let's not forget his knowledge of destroying companies and profiting as a result.

Christ, does not one person here know what a venture capital business does or why they exist?
Consider this: Why would a board of directors or a business owner give up control of the company to a third party which has "destroyed companies?" Could it be because Bain has saved a lot of companies as well? That the people in charge of the company see Bain as the only possible solution besides bankruptcy and liquidation? Without companies like Bain Capital, there's no question that a lot of businesses would fail and a lot more people would be out of work than otherwise. I'd wager that not one of the companies Bain managed could have been considered "healthy" and "thriving," otherwise there'd never have been any reason for the original owners to surrender control in the first place.

As for his taxes and bank accounts, that's an argument for limiting available deductions, which Romney plans to do. It's pointless to criticize his accountant for taking advantage of them considering that's his job, and it's absurd to criticize anyone for not wanting to pay more taxes seeing as virtually no one does. I strongly doubt that the mortgage deduction, standard deduction, and child deduction, for instance, are the only things saving the vast majority of people from poverty and hardship, yet one never hears any crticism of those people who could conceivably say more and not suffer.

What I can't understand is why so many people engage in predictions usually based on wild assumptions and fears about what may happen if Romney wins the WH, rather than look at the terrible outcomes that have actually happened while Obama has been in office. If it's simply a question of "whoever I dislike the least," I don't see how anyone can think one year of Romney the candidate even holds water to four years of Obama the president.

At 9/25/12 05:34 PM, Feoric wrote: No, it's not, it's actually the centerpiece of their nuclear program, and I've done my best to demonstrate that to you. The only reason why you would say that is because you don't accept that all the concerns over the Iranian nuclear program are largely illegitimate, and so far you haven't done much to convince me that they're working on a nuke.

Then how do you explain the fact that France and Britain and at times Russia and China have gone along with the sanctions? Why did the security council unanimously (except Qatar) support the resolution for Iran to halt enrichment? Do we have France, Russia, and China in our pocket now, not to mention the other non-permanent members who were part of the council at the time? In fact, every UN resolution that either added sanctions or demanded an end to enrichment was passed with nearly unanimous support. It seems to me that the concern over Iran's nuclear program is shared by many nations who weren't involved in the Iranian coup and don't have unilateral sanctions in place against it.

Let's look at the report, shall we?
That's a pretty convoluted way of saying "they were no longer working on the development of a nuclear weapon after 2003, but they do some things that might be useful for weapons" which is absolutely useless as evidence of a nuclear program. There's nothing in the report that says its "likely" that they were continuing their program. Find the relevant text if I'm wrong.

I don't understand; you seem to think that there is no way Iran could carry out any weapon research without the IAEA discovering incontrovertible proof that it had happened, and that the organization decided to say that some aspects may be ongoing without any justification. Do you not believe it's possible that Iran could be conducting a secret nuclear weapons program and that they're doing it so well that there couldn't be any definitive evidence of it before they accomplished their goal? (Hint: the IAEA says that it is, otherwise they wouldn't say that they can't verify the peaceful nature of Iran's nuclear program)

I didn't ask you if you agreed with the justification, only that you agreed that the chances for conflict increase with each unsatisfactory IAEA report.

The IAEA reports are fodder for rhetoric for warharks, so there's a degree of separation there.

Direct quotes lifted from the reports are not "fodder for rhetoric," it's what the IAEA actually said.

I hope this was a freudian slip and not an actual position you would publicly state. We're now in Iraqi yellowcake territory, along with the mysterious CURVEBALL laptop, the September Dossier, the BushâEU"Blair memo, etc. Hows that for mitigating risk?

No, it's exactly the point I'm trying to make. Your demand for incontroverible evidence is just absurd because there will never BE incontrovertible evidence in these types of situations. I've read the US senate intelligence committee reports on the Iraq pre-war intelligence. With the exception of a few claims that were products of inefficient agency cooperation and filtering, the majority of the claims (like Saddam's chemical weapons program) were supported by intelligence. The only criticism anyone could make was that the intelligence reports didn't constantly hedge every assessment with "or we could be wrong." Nothing is ever certain, but that doesn't mean that the conclusions will always be wrong, neither does it mean we should always ignore what we don't know for certain.

Because they violated the NPT to begin with! This what the IAEA said in 2004 [...]

This was in reference to 2003. Here is the report you're talking about, and let's show the relevant text:

"As indicated in those reports, Iran has made substantial efforts..."

Yeah, that's exactly what I said. Iran violated its agreements under the NPT. I'm not aware of any sections that say "any country that violates the NPT gets a reprieve so long as they don't do it again for a certain number of years," which is what I can only guess you're implying.

At 9/22/12 05:14 AM, Feoric wrote:

If you want to boil it down to a pissing contest that's okay, but that post wasn't even about the Iranian revolution, it was the historical role of the USSR and Western powers against Iran and how it helped shaped the current geopolitical situation in that region. You can't just hand wave extremely important variables out of the discussion just because you don't know a lot about it.

The geopolitical situation is irrelevant. You only think its important because you don't accept that there are any legitimate concerns over the Iranian nuclear program.

So now you're splitting hairs over ratification? Iran's government said it would abide by it. That's not something to be said lightly; it's not as if Ahmedinijad and Khomeni really want to abide by it but whatever general assembly Iran has just refuses to ratify it and the hands of Iran's leadership are tied. The Ayatollah and his council run the show. If Iran says it will abide by the additional protocol, it's because they said so. If Iran decides to back out of it, it's because they said so.

It's not splitting hairs because there is no legal requirement for them to abide by it. "But they said so!" isn't grounds for anything except discussion unless the AP was signed (not to mention they were abiding by the AP voluntarily but they soon realized it did nothing to change the attitude Israel/US has w/r/t their nuclear program nor did it stop the sanctions).

They abided by the AP for two years, from 2003-2005. It didn't stop the negotiations, but no sanctions were enacted against it. An end to US sanctions was discussed, but they were never supposed to end simply because Iran agreed to the AP.

The only other possibility is that they deliberately put off formal ratification just so they could back out of it later, which is even worse because it displays a greater level of Iranian intransigence and deceit.

I would agree with that but I disagree with your conclusion, The point is that the US doesn't find it acceptable at all for Iran to have a domestic nuclear energy program since the assumption is that they will pursue nuclear weapons.

Not true; when Obama announced the US was willing to abandon demands to halt enrichment in 2009, Iran rebuffed the offer and responded, nine months later, with a proposal that didn't even mention the controversy over its nuclear program.

They did! They became ornery in 2011 when they realized nothing they would do or say would appease American paranoia as long as they had a nuclear program. That is, literally, the only way we will be satisfied.

No, in 2011 the IAEA issued a report saying that Iran had likely continued with weaponization research beyond 2003. Before that, Iran demanded that all UN sanctions be lifted as a precondition to negotiations, which of course would never be accepted.

Fuck no, I do not see any 'justification' for an airstrike on their nuclear facilities which they have every right to have under the NPT just because Iran doesn't want to play a game they know they will lose.

I didn't ask you if you agreed with the justification, only that you agreed that the chances for conflict increase with each unsatisfactory IAEA report.

Again, that Iran isn't complying with the Additional Protocol now is hardly indicative of a hidden nuclear weapons program, and you've yet to show me any sort of solid evidence that shows a strong possibility of a nuclear program.

It's not about indicative evidence, it's about risk. The West doesn't trust Iran, with good reason, (and vice versa, with less of a good reason) and simply an absence of direct evidence isn't enough. Its doubts have to be put to rest.

Of course its still relevant! Even if you're right in saying he's an American partisan, that's even more of a reason for Iran to be more cooperative, because our interests would be supposedly disguised by international legitimacy.

How on earth do you figure this after all that was discussed? Read this if you're skeptical. "Amano reminded [the] ambassador on several occasions that he would need to make concessions to the G-77 [the developing countries group], which correctly required him to be fair-minded and independent, but that he was solidly in the U.S. court on every key strategic decision, from high-level personnel appointments to the handling of Iran's alleged nuclear weapons program."

Why should they have halted enrichment? They were right, the resolution would have been a direct contradiction of the NPT.

Because they violated the NPT to begin with! This what the IAEA said in 2004, "Many aspects of IranâEUTMs nuclear fuel cycle activities and experiments, particularly in the areas of uranium enrichment, uranium conversion and plutonium separation, were not declared to the Agency in accordance with IranâEUTMs obligations under its Safeguards Agreement. IranâEUTMs policy of concealment continued until October 2003, and has resulted in many breaches of its obligation to comply with that Agreement."
You can't use the NPT as a justification for Iran's continued enrichment and yet claim that all of its breaches of the agreement somehow don't matter.

So, no, I'm not seeing any evidence of Iranian compliance leading to further sanctions. What I see is a country dragging its feet, delaying, and wasting time with endless negotiations while it continues with actions that led to the conflict in the

If I had an enumerated right and the neighborhood bully threatened me for exercising it I'd drag my feet in too.

Lol, as if Iran is the victim here. Iran's only conceivably legitimate complaint against the US happened over 50 years ago. Iran is more like a weasel confronted by a bear.

At 9/18/12 02:12 PM, Feoric wrote:

At 9/18/12 01:16 PM, adrshepard wrote: That's one interpretation. You write about it as if it's settled fact when there's actually historical debate about it.

I think it's as objective as it possibly could be. If you want to read more about it, read this.

I'm not going to get into a historian's argument with you. I remember hearing about the Soviet fears, and this mentioned it http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup_d%27%C3%A9tat #U.S._motives. If you want to get into a pissing contest about who knows more about the Iranian Revolution, great news, you've won.

Even so, the side your argument resembles makes it clear that the CIA didn't involve itself simply to do the British a favor, which is what I found implausible.

Huh? What? How did you figure this? Operation Ajax was conducted by CIA and MI6 cooperation. [1] [2]

I figured it because we obviously didn't help the British merely because they asked us to and for no other reason. Whatever the justification, it was meant to advance our interests in some way, that goes without saying.

Again, Iran never ratified an Additional Protocol.

So now you're splitting hairs over ratification? Iran's government said it would abide by it. That's not something to be said lightly; it's not as if Ahmedinijad and Khomeni really want to abide by it but whatever general assembly Iran has just refuses to ratify it and the hands of Iran's leadership are tied. The Ayatollah and his council run the show. If Iran says it will abide by the additional protocol, it's because they said so. If Iran decides to back out of it, it's because they said so.
The only other possibility is that they deliberately put off formal ratification just so they could back out of it later, which is even worse because it displays a greater level of Iranian intransigence and deceit.

In actuality, Iran was complying with the Special Rules voluntarily up until 2011. You've yet to make any convincing argument why Iran should comply with the Additional Protocol other than the fact that you think the IAEA is cool.

I have no idea what these "Special Rules" are and I can't find any information on them.
I think Iran should comply with the Additional Protocol because its the best way to defuse the conflict. Do you not see how the justification for an armed strike becomes greater every time the IAEA issues a report saying that Iran isn't cooperating and it can't reasonably say if it isn't trying to outmanuever the inspections?

While they have not been cooperating as fully as possible with the IAEA (though frankly any resistance is a lot less relevant since the IAEA director was replaced with a pro-American instead of a non-partisan like El Baradei),

Of course its still relevant! Even if you're right in saying he's an American partisan, that's even more of a reason for Iran to be more cooperative, because our interests would be supposedly disguised by international legitimacy.

But this has not happened in a vacuum. It is a direct result of Iran's past compliance only leading to sanctions and resolutions and unreasonable demands. It is impossible that Iran should ever resolve every outstanding issue with the IAEA even if they wanted to, because the US could always pressure the UNSC or the IAEA to come up with new issues. You'll never see IAEA assurance because it's not insulated from the pressures of US interests.

I was going to do a point by point look at each round of sanctions, but this site lays it out already, along with this: http://www.armscontrol.org/factsheets/Iran_Nuclear_Proposals
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sanctions_against_Iran
The first sanctions came after Iran refused to halt enrichment in summer 2006. In this case they were inevitable because a security council resolution specifically forbade them from doing so.
There doesn't seem to be any progress in 2007 or early 2008, when the next rounds of sanctions were passed.
In June 2008, Iran gave no clear response to a proposal with economic assistance and promises of ended sanctions in exchange for not expanding its enrichment program further. Instead it offered a proposal that about regional cooperation that had made no commitments on its nuclear program. Sanctions were passed in September.
When Obama was elected, he indicated a willingness to accept Iran's right to nuclear enrichment, explicitly granting a key Iranian demand. In return, Iran offered another meaningless proposal with no details on its nuclear program.
The final round of sanctions came after Iran agreed to a proposal with Brazil and Turkey that included fuel swaps, but did nothing to address expanded uranium enrichment and LEU stockpiling.

So, no, I'm not seeing any evidence of Iranian compliance leading to further sanctions. What I see is a country dragging its feet, delaying, and wasting time with endless negotiations while it continues with actions that led to the conflict in the first place.

At 9/17/12 11:36 PM, Feoric wrote:

We didn't advocate the return of the Shah just to give the British oil companies more money (oil companies whose property the Iranians ended up stealing), but because we were afraid he was going to turn to the Soviet Union. We were wrong about that, but can't change it now.

That's factually incorrect. We knew Iran was playing Western forces against the Soviets with zero desire to join rank with either side...

That's one interpretation. You write about it as if it's settled fact when there's actually historical debate about it. Even so, the side your argument resembles makes it clear that the CIA didn't involve itself simply to do the British a favor, which is what I found implausible.

Israel can't do anything about it on its own (at the very least, it'd be extremely difficult) and we obviously don't answer to Israel. In the end it will be us that does it or helps the Israelis do it, and you can't say that Iran has done much to address our concerns.

AIPAC and other interest groups have become immensely powerful since the late 1990s. They wield enormous political influence, and have often been able to get their way if people don't play ball with them. It's why the Republican platform promises to back Israel no matter what 100%. The political relationship between Israel and the US is pretty cozy, I think.

Yet we haven't struck Iran yet and haven't set out the redlines like Netanyahu wanted, and we did criticize Israel's settlement activity early in Obama's administration. For all of AIPAC's supposed power, it wasn't enough to change Obama's policies and it hasn't been enough to change the nature of the presidential race. We are allies with Israel, yes, but we don't answer to them, and Netanyahu's rhetoric isn't an adequate reflection of the US position.

You're right; the IAEA has no authority to make those sort of decisions. And its not true that it has no way of determining noncompliance. It's board adopted a resolution in 2003 for Iran to stop enrichment which was taken up and approved by the Security Council. That's how its supposed to work.

Iran is obligated by treaty to announce when enrichment begins at a site and allow inspectors, and since 2003 they have. They don't comply with the Additional Protocols we made up specially for them (example: allowing inspectors into a site 6 months before it begins enrichment) because they weren't part of the original treaty and haven't been ratified.

Iran voluntarily chose to abide by them on an ongoing basis. Whether or not they are a part of the original treaty is irrelevant. The Additional Protocol contains the standards that Iran pledged to agree to, and it has not followed them.

Project 111, which is what you are referring to, has been ended and Iran offered full disclosure of its program. Pretty forthcoming if you ask me. All of Iran's declared nuclear material is accounted for. The Additional Protocol Iran signed was a confidence-boosting measure that came with the disclosure of Iran's now-defunct bomb program and little else.

The IAEA doesn't seem to think so. They think they Additional Protocol is a big deal, and I'll take their opinion on such things over yours any day of the week. Also, while inspectors verify that declared nuclear material is not being diverted, the IAEA states in its latest that it cannot confirm that all of Iran's nuclear material has been declared, and that's the entire premise of US and Israeli concerns. Until the IAEA can make that reasonable assurance, the western world will be suspicious.
The best way to allay those suspicions (or at least eliminate the political justification for an armed strike) would be to comply fully with the inspections and the Additional Protocol. Why Iran simply doesn't do that, I have no idea. It could still do that, continue enrichment in defiance of the security council, and after the sanctions ended (which they would probably not long after the IAEA said it was satisfied), declare a political victory.

At 9/17/12 04:25 PM, Feoric wrote:

At 9/17/12 02:20 PM, adrshepard wrote: What, Hiroshima wasn't devastating enough for you?

Enriching uranium-235 to bomb-grade is far more difficult and costly than the low level of enrichment needed for nuclear power. It uses the same processes, but reactor grade is ~5-6% U-235, while bombs require 35% or more (little boy used 64 kilograms of 80% enriched uranium). Each additional percent increase becomes increasingly difficult and costly, so you really have to go out of your way for serious reasons to make bombs.

So? The question isn't one of convenience for the Iranians. It's probably far more convenient simply to let inspectors go wherever they want. It would probably have been more convenient to stay out of Iraq rather than set up covert support for Shiite militias and show them how to build EFPs. It'd probably have been more convenient to just let the hostages go and not piss off one of the world's two major superpowers for the foreseeable future.

Even then, building a fleet of weapons as big as what the US has purely out of uranium-235 alone would cost magnitudes more than paying off the national public debt since Uranium-235 is basically the platinum of naturally-occurring nuclear isotopes.

They don't need thousands of warheads. One would be enough to make us nervous, a handful would be enough to take out several major Israeli cities.

Okay, but my guess is that the resulting plutonium wouldn't be good for much of anything other than a bomb, which would be a dead giveaway of Iran's intentions. Sticking with uranium would probably be simpler and easier to parse with their official story.

Plutonium is difficult to detect. U-233 can be detected from space even in a properly shielded reactor, due to the strong gamma releases from the U-232 decay chain. Iran would obviously be trying to be covert in their nuke ambitions, so Plutonium would be the element of choice here. Uranium is way too costly for them.

But its far more difficult to turn into a weapon. The Iranians don't have the technology and expertise to do it, yet.

It wouldn't necessarily have to be a large weapon like Fat Man. A crude, dirty bomb would be pretty terrible, too. Besides, how long before they devised a missile that was capable of deploying it. There's no corresponding inspection system for conventional weapons.

That would be a bad outcome as well.

Why's that? You like it when the United States and Israel constantly antagonize them and enact crippling sanctions which destroy the middle class and make the lower class die of starvation in droves?

Antagonize Iran? By not letting a fundamentalist Islamic state roll over the Iraqis? By punishing them for holding Americans hostage for years?
Besides, before 2006 or so the sanctions only prevented US institutions from doing business with Iran. The country is not entitled to interaction with us. Even the current sanctions only really target their financial sector, and if Iran has enough money to spend millions in military upgrades, centrifuge facilties, and massive underground enrichment bunkers, I think they can spare the funds to feed the hungry. If they aren't, that's on them.
And I don't really give a damn about the "middle class" of Iran. The socio-political problems of that country lie far deeper than the wealth gap, for Christ's sake.

That would be correct if and only if you define intervention strictly in the sense of the military (which isn't really correct either, remember the Iranian hostage crisis that stemmed from the Mosaddegh coup).

You mean the coup where 10 CIA guys managed to overthrow the widely loved and immensely popular PM with nothing but some cash and a printing press, all by themselves? That was in the fifties, the hostage crisis occured in 1979.

By definition and in practice, sanctions are a form of intervention, so you're completely wrong.

Nope, because intervention, as its defined on dictionary.com is the involvement of one party in the state of affairs of another. Sanctions only affect internal affairs as much as they restrict the country's ability to act externally. Iran has complete control over all resources and affairs within its territory. The rest of the world is not obligated to interact or engage in trade with them.

And they don't really do anything effective, ever, because it's the lower class that feels it the worst, not the administration.

Except that the administration ends up providing over a poor, ineffectual state with plenty of domestic unrest. A country like North Korea can get away with that indefinitely, but Iran cannot.

Not to mention Iran is frequently targeted with covert attacks and there are plenty of US and Israeli politicians calling for more strikes. What about the assassination of their scientists? But that's all somehow okay because "dictator!"?

I can't speak for the Israelis. It's not pretty, but you can't say that the Iranians aren't asking for those sorts of things to happen.

Saudi Arabia is indeed feeling threatened by Iran's growing influence, as is Israel. The US has traditionally kept the region on a fairly tight leash, and you either toe the line or the US will depose you and/or topple your government. In fact, exactly that happened over oil revenues in the 50s. The Iranians wanted a bigger share of the profits the British were extracting from their oil, so the CIA deposed them and installed a dictator. After 25 years, he inevitably fell and naturally the resulting government was a lot less tolerant of US influence in region. They've been under sanction ever since, before even the nuclear program excuse.

The terms of our "tight leash" are pretty generous. Don't start conflicts with Israel, don't develop WMDs, keep the oil flowing. Whatever you do to your citizens is okay, and in the case of Saudi Arabia, the US will even tolerate some muted support for terrorism.
We didn't advocate the return of the Shah just to give the British oil companies more money (oil companies whose property the Iranians ended up stealing), but because we were afraid he was going to turn to the Soviet Union. We were wrong about that, but can't change it now.

The rhetoric needs to be cut from Netanyahu who is currently trying to influence the US elections with anti-Iranian propaganda while constantly giving speeches about an imminent airstrike against their nuclear sites and pleading for the US to be fully supportive of their position, not to mention the assassination of their nuclear scientists. Who do you think is responsible for that?

Israel can't do anything about it on its own (at the very least, it'd be extremely difficult) and we obviously don't answer to Israel. In the end it will be us that does it or helps the Israelis do it, and you can't say that Iran has done much to address our concerns.

No, you're entirely wrong. The NPT does not contain any procedure for determining whether or not a country violated it's obligations under the treaty, and there isn't any formal procedure for determining such violations.

You're right; the IAEA has no authority to make those sort of decisions. And its not true that it has no way of determining noncompliance. It's board adopted a resolution in 2003 for Iran to stop enrichment which was taken up and approved by the Security Council. That's how its supposed to work.

At 9/15/12 02:31 PM, Saen wrote: If either of those organizations had proof of their claims of Iran having the potential to produce 90% enriched Uranium, much less within any time soon, they would provide data first, then use a variant of an equation I provided above.

You're being obtuse. You're asserting that all of these organizations must be lying their asses off because their publicized reports don't contain technical enrichment data. Simultaneously, the fact that no one else besides you has ever disputed the conclusions on those grounds (go ahead and try to find a similar critique on the Internet. I've looked, with no success) doesn't bother you at all.

They each basically concluded that centrifuge production rates have increased over the years, with a maximum enriched stockpile of less than 20%. Iran's most pure stock of Uranium at 20% enrichment is no cause to believe they are building any nuke period.

That stockpile can be refined further. That's the entire point.

The document proves you are wrong.

If the point was irrelevant, don't start the topic that Iran could produce nukes within four years. My initial point was Israeli intelligence is no more credible than our own governments, his comment holds no ground.

Way to sidestep. At least we've established that when you said Iran didn't have the capability to enrich uranium to weapons grade that you didn't have any idea what you were talking about.

Are you joking? Ever since we first invaded Iraq and governmental agencies suspected Iran was shipping terrorists and bombs to Iran, the government wanted to invade Iran.

Who's "the government?" Republicans? Democrats? The military? Not one of them is united on how to deal with Iran.

Like the article states, the Additional Protocol procedures agreement is optional/voluntary.

And Iran agreed to abide by it. They don't simply get to snake out of it whenever its convenient.

The agreement was voluntary.

Your debating skills are truly remarkable, as the above conversation shows.

They article states and has collected data from every bit of Uranium that is placed in and the product Uranium that comes out of their centrifuges. If reading their articles didn't disperse your fear, nothing will.

Christ, even THEIR fears aren't dispersed. It says right there, in the text, that the IAEA cannot provide reasonable assurances that all of Iran's nuclear material and enrichment activities have been declared, and that Iran's refusal to allow inspectors access to the country's Parchin facility is cause for "concern."

Is that all? If all this talk about Iran having enough uranium for nuclear weapons is a big lie, why is it so hard to find any material on the internet that says as much? You'd think that given such a globally important issue, there'd be at least one report that supports your position. Yet all you can give me is some email addresses?
How about this: since you apparently know at least one of these people, why don't you write him an email and ask him to tell you why Iran could not build a nuclear weapon?

I was joking earlier, these Physicists are actually very nice people, I just can't guarantee some have the time to talk...I'm not presenting your argument to anyone else, that is absurd.

Ha ha. It still doesn't change the fact that your the only one, anywhere, who claims that Iran doens't have enough nuclear material to make into a nuclear weapon.

At 9/16/12 04:36 AM, Feoric wrote: Regardless, even the highest enriched Uranium (~90%+) yields comparatively poor weapons.

What, Hiroshima wasn't devastating enough for you?

If anyone was seriously scrutinizing Iran's capability of nuclear weapons development, they would instead be pointing out a substantial amount of Plutonium-239, the typical weapon fuel, as opposed to Uranium. Plutonium-239 can be manufactured by exposing Uranium-238 (depleted uranium) to a carefully calculated dose of neutron radiation, and then allowing the resulting products to decay.

Okay, but my guess is that the resulting plutonium wouldn't be good for much of anything other than a bomb, which would be a dead giveaway of Iran's intentions. Sticking with uranium would probably be simpler and easier to parse with their official story.

Which brings us to another question: why would anyone want to make a Uranium bomb in the first place? The resulting Uranium bomb will be too big to load into a missile and will have to be plane delivered (or delivered by a suicide ship or what have you.)

It wouldn't necessarily have to be a large weapon like Fat Man. A crude, dirty bomb would be pretty terrible, too. Besides, how long before they devised a missile that was capable of deploying it. There's no corresponding inspection system for conventional weapons.

The way I see it, the reason that Israel and the United States want to dissuade Iran from gaining nuclear weapons is not so much that they fear an attack, but rather because they know that it will lend Iran a certain level of international credibility,

That would be a bad outcome as well.

which would complicate the free reign of violation of national sovereignty and interventionism that many ex-empires and the United States in particular have enjoyed in the past (what kind of effects do you think our sanctions have?).

Please. There hasn't been any intervention of the type you describe in the past 40 years, unless you consider dictatorship to be a legitimate expression of people's sovereignty.

It's about keeping Iran from developing a domestic energy source that would insulate it from sanctions and protect it from international bullying.

It would do neither. Nuclear power isn't a reason for the sanctions; it's Iran's obstinence, deceit, and knuckle dragging over the nature of its program. Cutting down the rhetoric and granting inspectors unlimited access would lead countries to end the sanctions relatively quickly, and Iran could still claim a victory by resisting attempts to curb its enrichment.

The IAEA doesn't think Iran has a weapons program. The US doesn't think the Iranians have a weapons program. This is all about "convincing Iran not to start a weapons program" by denying them an enumerated right under international treaties to which they are a signatory. If this wasn't the case, and Iran really was trying to stealthily build a Uranium-based nuke, why would Iran give their Uranium away and get useless fuel rods back? And why would the US veto that deal?

Neither group thinks Iran has a nuclear weapons program, at the moment. We know that Iran did, and we know that its done about as much dual-purpose research as possible.
The report about vetoing uranium exchanges is old news. The most recent exchange deal failed because the Iranians only wanted it to occur on Iranian soil, which would make the entire effort pointless.

This is about Iran's plan for energy independence; 30 years of crippling sanctions will do that to a nation. Iran has an enumerated right under their treaties to refine uranium, but for the US any Iranian refining capabilities are an absolute, full stop red line. If you don't agree with that, tell me why.

Iran was never straightforward on its nuclear development in the first place. An IAEA report from around 2004 specifically laid out all the ways Iran had breached the NPT, and it's even more true if you want to believe US intelligence that says its nuclear program stopped in 2003 (its existence would be a direct violation). So, no, it has forfeited its right to enrichment by not following the guidelines to begin with. But if you ask me, any future deal will reaffirm that right, so it was probably included as a position for the sake of leverage.

At 9/14/12 10:24 PM, Saen wrote: Mathematically they don't, no equations were used as an example and as evidence that Iran could even produce 90% (so an equation drawn out step by step, with the end result being 90+% enrichment, amount of 90+% enriched product, and in x-amount of years/time to reach that final product) enriched Uranium, much less in four years. Statistics and governmental reports are all that are being used as evidence here, they don't hold any water.

What are you saying? That the methodology of the FAS and ISIS, both of which say Iran has enough nuclear material to potentially be made into at least one nuclear weapon, is wrong? Do I have to prove to you, some 20-year-old kid without even a college degree (let alone a doctorate in nuclear physics), that the people in these nongovernmental organizations have some idea of what they are doing?

Ok you're forcing me to back up, so lets. You're original statement taken from the article (which I underlined) was, "Iran could conceivably produce enough highly enriched uranium in less than four years".

The timeline is irrelevant. You've disputed that Iran has enough nuclear material that could be converted into weapons-grade uranium and asserted that Iran didn't have the capability to enrich it that far (you: "This is once again assuming has the technology to reach the 90% enrichment, which they don't.")
The document proves you are wrong.

No one said it was. But it's reason to be suspicious of their intentions.

Suspicious yes, cause for invading and declaring war on the country or imposing our will, absolutely not.

We aren't there yet. No one's advocating an immediate military strike, not even the Israelis.

Like the article states, the Additional Protocol procedures agreement is optional/voluntary.

And Iran agreed to abide by it. They don't simply get to snake out of it whenever its convenient.

On top of this, from your article (www.fas.org), later on describes that the amount of centrifuges, Uranium fed into those centrifuges, and even final enrichment concentration (19.94%) at the end by Iran's facilities by a MONTHLY basis! It seems like the IAEA knows exactly everything that's being done at Iran's facilities.

You clearly have no idea what the nature of the issue is. The IAEA knows everything about declared nuclear material and enrichment, that is, what Iran decides to tell them about. The Additional Protocol ensures that Iran can't covertly enrich nuclear material on the side or obtain it in secret. Part of the Protocol allows inspectors to make much more expansive and detailed investigations and places greater burden on the signatory country to cooperate and provide information. If Iran abided by the Protocol, we could be reasonably sure that Iran's declared nuclear activities represented the entirety of its program. But since it doesn't, we can't be sure, and it only makes other countries nervous about Iran's true intentions.

What stake do you think the U.S. has in middle-eastern affairs and why?

Too much to name really. The investment we've made in Iraq and Afghanistan, not to mention Israel, plus the relationships we've made in regard to counterterrorism efforts. Oil consumption is always a big one, seeing as the US consumes about 50% more oil than the entire EU (at least as of 2010).

Rational requires a sense of intelligence, none of which is present in any government within or occupying the middle east.

Whatever. I don't care about the sematics of rationality at this point.

I did, I gave you a link to a whole page of university physicists. Here it is again, www.physics.fsu.edu You can personally email or talk to anyone you'd like, they'll all give you the same answer to your question. Actually wait, some may bother explaining themselves and some may simply refer you to a mental hospital.

Is that all? If all this talk about Iran having enough uranium for nuclear weapons is a big lie, why is it so hard to find any material on the internet that says as much? You'd think that given such a globally important issue, there'd be at least one report that supports your position. Yet all you can give me is some email addresses?
How about this: since you apparently know at least one of these people, why don't you write him an email and ask him to tell you why Iran could not build a nuclear weapon?

At 9/13/12 06:44 PM, Saen wrote: Try your best to source your information from scientific journals, international organisations, independent history texts, etc. The news is a quick, easy, and entertaining way to keep you up to date on domestic and global events. However, watch/read too much of it and you will be brainwashed.

If you'd taken your own advice, maybe you'd have done better in your argument with me and not simply insisted that everything you didn't like was a "lie."

Still waiting for your response, if it's even coming.

At 9/13/12 07:08 AM, Korriken wrote: It would help if we stationed more AMERICAN soldiers to guards our embassies and killed the stupid sons of bitches who try to assault our embassies. Why we're trusting foreign powers to guard our embassies is beyond me.

I think the difference was that it was just a consulate and not an official embassy, where there's always American security. I bet that will change after this, though apparently about 10 Libyan security guards were killed or wounded as they tried to protect the consulate. We have to give them credit for that.

At 9/12/12 12:33 AM, Saen wrote:

At 9/11/12 09:43 PM, adrshepard wrote:

Once again, this amount of Uranium (366 tons) is not pure U-235 as stated in the article several times. This uranium oxide would have to be heavily centrifuged if any desire to stockpile U-235 is desired by Iran. Also in the article it stated that most of the Uranium would likely be reserved for a reactor, not bombs.

And they have enough of it to produce the quantities of highly enriched uranium needed for nuclear weapons. Again, I don't see what you don't understand.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/05/26/us-nuclear-iran-ur anium-idUSBRE84O0SN20120526

Read the very first page. Then read page 19 to see that Iran could conceivably produce enough highly enriched uranium in less than four years, given its capacity in 2011.

That statement was made by Israeli intelligence, not by the FAS. So if you're suggesting the credibilities are equal, you're out of your mind.

Did you not read the very first page? It says,
"Specifically, the same centrifuges that produce low-enriched uranium (LEU) for reactors could make highly-enriched uranium (HEU) for a bomb. There is, therefore, no question that Tehran has the technical capability to produce a nuclear
weapon,3 if it chooses to do so..."
That footnote does not reference Israel in any way, and this statement is not hedged by saying "According to Israeli intelligence..." or hedged at all, for that matter.

Which is also stated in the U.N. conference, however most of the U.N. does not accept accusations of Iran developing nuclear weaponry. Although Iran's prior secrecy on nuclear projects may be violating the U.N.'s policies, secrecy is not enough evidence or may not be considered evidence for Irans building nukes.

No one said it was. But it's reason to be suspicious of their intentions.

The term "Additional Protocol" because it is capitalized, must be a specific term coined/defined by the IAEA's investigation/data collecting processes. Basically this is a form of deception, by not directly stating that, "Iran has enriched U-235 hidden from us" and saying that phrase instead. They don't have the proof to make that direct statement, so they coin a word and use that to create the impression that Iran is hiding U-235. This article is deceptive and doesnt proof a thing.

No, the "Additional Protocol" refers to additional safeguards of nuclear enrichment that are meant to ensure none of it is being diverted to weapons development. Iran agreed to abide by the Additional Protocol in 2003. The IAEA report is stating that Iran is not abiding by the terms it voluntarily agreed to, and therefore the IAEA cannot confirm that Iran is not declaring all of its nuclear material.

The thing about media resources is that they always favor the more juicy and exciting position. What's more exciting, a slim possibility that Iran could produce a nuclear weapon, then carry on the imagination writing about the potential devastation to be caused, or reporting that most likely Iran is not attempting this.

It's important and plausible enough that the governments of several major countries believe in sanctions against Iran and continued inspections.

Most of all people, especially in Europe are not even slightly concerned by the threat, because they understand the threat does not exist. On top of this, I have visited and worked Ireland and Northern Ireland (keep in mind, part of the U.K., involved in the war on terror) four times, including last winter.

Your personal experiences mean nothing.

So the skeptic may ask, why does Europe generally not consider this to be a huge issue while the U.S. presidential candidates are using it as an essential part the current political platform? It's a good question.

Because Europe is in no position to do anything about it, even if it wanted to. That and it has less stake in Middle Eastern affairs than the US does.

As for claiming that Iran is a rational government or its leaders as rational, that's another lie. I never stated or implied that,

You, in your last post:
"You're also stereotyping about Iran's leadership and its people by assuming they're extremists, which you are also entirely incorrect about."

Or are "extremism" and "rationality" not mutually exclusive in your mind?

Just because I strongly stated the Iranian government isn't extremist doesn't make the government rational, this is obvious to a person who isn't limiting in reading black and white. Once again, if you had actually read what i wrote, i made the argument that the war they are fighting in is retarded because it is being waged for religious motives.

Actually, saying it's not extremist is the same thing as calling it rational. Governments look out for their own national interests and goals, regardless of ideology or consistency. Any government that abandons the practical for the ideological, especially at the expense of its own interests, is inherently extreme.

Find and watch several interviews with physics professors around the world and watch those, or sit on on a lecture by a physicist. When he starts a lecture on nuclear fission, ask about this Iranian conspiracy, he will enlighten you quite firmly ahaha.

By all means, give me a link to any scientist who can say that Iran doesn't have enough uranium to produce a nuclear weapon, or that its centerfuges cannot be used to enrich uranium to weapons quality.

At 9/11/12 07:55 PM, Saen wrote: And there are two more lies. Lets do some simple math here. Refer to the first table under "Uranium Availability" on http://www.world-nuclear.org/http://www.world-nuclear.org/in fo/inf75.html

Here you begin a train of very specious logic.

The total amount of potentially extractable natural Uranium ore in the world is 5,327,200 tonnes. Only .73% of that is extractable Uranium 235, so 38,888.56 tonnes globally...This means Iran must buy its Uranium from other countries.

This is totally irrelevant, as I'll show you.

Referring to http://www.un.org/ you can see all of the world's major and significant suppliers of Uranium are members of the U.N. (Including, funny enough if you notice, Iran, which doesn't have a viable source of Uranium, just a member of the U.N). Most members of the U.N. do not believe that Iran it attempting to develop nuclear weaponry and none of them would dare trade them enough U-235 to potentially create enough enriched U-235 for a bomb.

Iran received roughly 531 tons of yellowcake uranium ore from South Africa in the 1980s. A report from 2009 said that the IAEA put Iran's quantity of UF6, which can be refined to produce nuclear weapons, at 366 tons. Iran has enough fissile material to make several bombs once it is enriched enough; this is not in dispute by anyone besides yourself.

This is once again assuming has the technology to reach the 90% enrichment, which they don't.

http://www.fas.org/pubs/_docs/IssueBrief_Jan2011_Iran.pdf
Read the very first page. Then read page 19 to see that Iran could conceivably produce enough highly enriched uranium in less than four years, given its capacity in 2011.

Yet you link to an article that says Iran refused inspectors access to an area where they allegedly worked on an nuclear detonator and which Iran has rushed to demolish and cover up over the past several months. The article also quotes the IAEA as saying that Iran's uncooperative nature has not assured anyone of its peaceful intentions.

The United states is one of the few countries that believes Iran may not have peaceful intentions with nuclear resources. Therefore, an article from the United States will most likely be biased towards this position.

The IAEA is an international organization which is quoted in the article. The fact that the Washington Post wrote the story is irrelevant. The quote is verbatim from the IAEA's August 30 report "...Iran is not providing the necessary cooperation, including by not implementing its Additional Protocol, the agency is unable to provide credible assurance about the absence of undeclared nuclear material and activities in Iran, and therefore to conclude that all nuclear material in Iran is in peaceful activities." Page 11 http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/interactive/2012/sep/04/iaea -report-full-document

That's another lie, most of the world does believe that Iran's intention's with radioactive supplies and purely for energy. By this lie you've told me, it's obvious you've never been outside of the U.S. to another industrialized nation.

I don't have to; I read the news.
http://www.haaretz.com/news/middle-east/france-iran-continue s-to-be-two-faced-on-nuclear-issue-1.417054
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/breaking-news/nuclear-armed -iran-not-an-option-says-german-foreign-minister/story-e6frf 7k6-1226468703229
http://articles.cnn.com/2011-11-21/world/world_europe_uk-ira n-sanctions_1_nuclear-program-military-dimensions-iranian-ba nks?_s=PM:EUROPE
http://articles.cnn.com/2012-01-24/world/world_europe_iran-a ustralia-sanctions_1_nuclear-program-nuclear-watchdog-intern ational-atomic-energy-agency?_s=PM:EUROPE
And this extends to Middle Eastern countries as well
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-02-16/how-iran-nuclear-st andoff-looks-from-saudi-arabia-mustafa-alani.html

As for claiming that Iran is a rational government or its leaders as rational, that's another lie. I never stated or implied that,

You, in your last post:
"You're also stereotyping about Iran's leadership and its people by assuming they're extremists, which you are also entirely incorrect about."

Or are "extremism" and "rationality" not mutually exclusive in your mind?

By all means, continue to enlighten me on the "lies" I've just posted.

At 9/11/12 04:37 PM, Saen wrote:

That is a flat out lie. You need need at least 90% enriched 235 Uranium (and about 50lbs of it) for a nuclear chain reaction to occur in a fission bomb. In a nuclear reactor you primarily need 238 Uranium, none of which is used in a fission bomb.

It's not a lie when you realize Iran has thousands of pounds of U235 which can be refined into 90% enriched uranium using the same techniques Iran is using now. Technically, Iran has enough uranium for several bombs, it just hasn't been enriched enough yet (so we think).

None of you should have any concern about Iran's nuclear program, it's just nonsense.

Yet you link to an article that says Iran refused inspectors access to an area where they allegedly worked on an nuclear detonator and which Iran has rushed to demolish and cover up over the past several months. The article also quotes the IAEA as saying that Iran's uncooperative nature has not assured anyone of its peaceful intentions.

It's about trust. Iran doesn't the rest of the world's trust, and while countries like Russia and China don't give a damn, we can't afford to take Iran at its word. After all, if Iran has nothing to hide, this sort of obstruction doesn't exactly reflect the "rational" approach you assign to the Iranian leadership, right?

At 9/6/12 02:49 PM, Camarohusky wrote: While that makes sense, my point still stands. My point is that lagre business, as a whole, even purely service based businesses, use massive amounts of infrastructure that well outweigh that which a regular person would use.
In other words, my money is going to fund businesses. I don't mind that at all, so long as they contribute back.

They are. In addition to paying taxes, they are employing people, and they produce goods and services that provide some useful function to people or other businesses.

But, again, Romney would likely only pay around 19% without deductions, while would be stuck with 25%. Why should I be punished because I have less to work with or he rewarded because he has more to work with?

How is he going to pay 19% without using deductions, in this case I'm guessing it'd be something involving offsets from investment losses? Besides, why shouldn't he pay less taxes on investment income? Whatever he put into it was already taxed once when it was initally earned.

Few would claim that the current government spending and employment level represents the best possible use of taxpayer money. It doesn't make economic sense to pay someone to do a redundant or relatively useless job when that money could be better served going to the people who earned it in the first place.

A shit ton of people "earned it" and don't get much money. Others want to earn it but are not given the opportunity. Very poor choice of language. Extreme wealth is HARDLY a function of "earning it". It is more a function of luck and being in the right place at the right time.

That's where our fundamental disagreement is. To me, "earning" it isn't just a question of how hard you work at your job, but how hard you've worked to make yourself valuable relative to other people. I have no doubt that certain factory laborers etc work very hard in jobs that punish their bodies, but the fact is that there are a hell of a lot of people that can do exactly the same thing. Most jobs don't pay in relation to what a worker actually does (exceptions would be output or commission-based pay) but to how much it would cost to get someone else to do it. Fast food workers don't make much because they are so easily replaced. CEOs make a hell of a lot because they bring a lot of special skills to an organization that relatively few people have. They can be very difficult if not impossible to replace. So when you say someone has earned more than they are being paid, I don't see it as a trend but as an anomaly or unavoidable inefficiency in the system.

You don't understand my point. I don't care about the person who directly sells the isntrument, the direct buyer, or the financial industry. I am talking about the whole economy.
Let's go down the list:
Bonds - The money goes directly to the party in need of it.
Stock - Outside of an issuance or liquidation stocks provide no help to anybody but the direct seller, buyer, and incidentals. The company doesn't see a cent of post Issuance sales or purchases. The money spent on this does not help the named company, only those in the financial sector.

And it helps the person buying it through potential gains in correlation to the company's success. If buying stock only helped the financial sector, no one would purchase it to begin with.

CDs and Savings Accounts - Now that banks do not need to carry more than a small amount of capital inrelation to outstanding loans, CDs and Savings have little productive value. If BoA only needs 10%, they could get away with

having $1 billion in capital. Massive CDs help to this point, but then do nothing else beyond that.
I don't see your point. Raising the reserve ratio may make banks more solvent, but its a very heavy handed tool of monetary policy compared to open market operations and the interest rate target, which can acheive the same things.

Takeovers, buyouts, and restructing capital (i.e. what Bain calls "venture capital") - Sometimes this can help, but quite often buyers become nothing other than leeches. Then there are people like Icahn who have made billions off of greenmail, in the end doing nothing but siphonig money away from the economy into their own accounts.

A business owner will only sell control of his company to a business like Bain if he believes there's nothing he can do to save it. Bain took over failing companies and tried to make them profitable. Bain made money when its efforts failed and it was forced to liquidate plants and equipment, but that would have been the same outcome for the business anyway had Bain or some similar company not stepped in.

Commodities - This is the most nefarious form of financial instrument around. Third party commodity speculators hurt everyone's pocketbook. They raise the prices of needed goods and provide ZERO return to the economy. A large part of the reason gas has returned to $4/gallon is because a bunch of people in some 60th floor office in NYC are afraid that oil prices may spike and they don't want to lose money on their old options. They don't want to ever see any of that oil, they just want all of us to pay more so they can make a profit for essentially doing nothing.

I admittedly don't know enough about commodity instruments to say very much. I can say that this sort of speculation has always existed and is very difficult to stop, but my gut tells me that getting rid of commodity markets entirely to end speculation would be a bad idea.

At 9/4/12 10:24 PM, Camarohusky wrote: You completely whiffed here. I wasn't saying that their success is solely or largely because of this, rather two things. Their success is allowed because of it, and their success uses a shit ton of it. Without the government provided infrastructure most business that exist today would not exist and those that still would would be nowhere near as profitable.

If anything, your argument justifies a tax on business operations depending on resources used. A financial advising company, by your reasoning, does not use nearly as much infrastructure as a shipping or freight company, therefore one should be taxed at a different rate. It doesn't make sense to say that rich people use the infrastructure when in reality its businesses and corporations. In terms of the rich person himself, he is using about the same amount of infrastructure as anyone else (he may have marginally higher energy consumption and produce slightly more garbage because he buys additional stuff, but he's still paying more for that anyway).

FACEPALM. Seriously. Did you just read the first sentence and make up what you thought I had said? I said that businesses, especially large businesses, use a HUGE amount of infrastructure.

You said "the wealthy," and what you said afterwards sounded so much like Obama's recent "you didn't build that" remarks that I couldn't help myself. If you meant to say "businesses," your argument makes more sense, but still doesn't quite work. The resources a company uses aren't free, and I can't think of a public resource that isn't directly or indirectly paid for by people who use it. Roads and highways are funded by gasoline taxes, schools and utility infrastructure by property taxes

Depends on the exact deductions that would be ended and on the extent of the overall rate decrease.

How would that be revenue neutral like Romney wants? To make up for the massive cuts almost every deduction would have to go, thus raising taxes on all but the wealthiest.

The wealthy use deductions, too, that's why they can sometimes pay a relatively low effective tax rate. Since its a question of extent, you'd have to have the numbers to work with, and as far as I know the only number Romney has given is an overall tax rate of 25%, I think, which he mentioned months ago. Plus, you don't know how much he plans to reduce government spending.

You misunderstand; he can't solve it, but he can nudge things along. Obama has been nudging things along in the wrong direction.

By taking money from those who actually move the economy and giving it to those who hide their money and take it out of the economy? By encourging those who are doing juyst fine to send American jobs and money overseas?

It's not "American" money, it's "their" money, and they can spend it how they wish. In terms of jobs, you're putting the cart before the horse. The investment doesn't make it more profitable to outsource, outsourcing is more profitable to begin with. Someone's going to pursue that profit opportunity, better that it be an American than some other foreigner.

Bet you can't guess what the country's largest employer is. Hint: the vast majority of their employees are paid well enough to drive the economy.

Few would claim that the current government spending and employment level represents the best possible use of taxpayer money. It doesn't make economic sense to pay someone to do a redundant or relatively useless job when that money could be better served going to the people who earned it in the first place.

Do you even know what financial instruments do? Most of them are bullshit and serve to do nothing but hide money and inflate value. Bonds are good. Stocks, after the IPO, are a complete waste of dollars and resources. Commodities options do nothing but leech. The current banking laws making direct banking instruments unneeded economically. Venture capital only serves any value when the target venture is a start-up. Economically, most of these instruments serve only the holder and a few other people whilst harming the economy as a whole.

If you think bonds are good, you must know that all those financial instruments are bonds in one way or another. Stocks are essentially unsecured bonds with no expiration date. They provide money to the company who issues them and if it does well, they pay back the person who bought them with a net gain. Options are zero-sum agreements between two parties that manage risk. The damage is only limited to the two people who engage in them. Venture capital, by definition, only targets start-ups, so I don't know what your complaint is.
It was only when risk-spreading instruments like mortgage-backed securities and swaps got so convoluted that nobody could really figure out their value that there was a problem. That led to the widespread resentment and fear of the financial industry that you're expressing now.

At 9/4/12 03:09 PM, Camarohusky wrote:

At 9/4/12 01:10 PM, adrshepard wrote:

No. I mean the wealthy. The wealthy use a MASSIVE amount of government funded infrastructure. The entitlement comes with the idea that it's just "their" money and the roads, power lines, phone lines, garbage, police, fire, education, sewer, and so on had nothing to do with it. In other words, they use more services than the average person by far, but insist not only that they shoul dnot pay more, but that they should pay less for their higher usage. See the entitlement here?

No, because you're totally wrong. It makes about as much sense to attribute their success to roads, phone lines, power etc as it does to point out that it's only because of plants and photosynthesis that we have enough oxygen in the air to respirate. Infrastructure is a given; everyone has access to it. Nothing is stopping anyone from building a business that use it and makes money in the process. Yet most startup businesses fail outright, some pedal along, others do well, and a few do extremely well. The difference between those businesses is not access to roads or power or sewer lines or police officers, but the ability of the person running them, the viability of their business plans, and their ability to adapt to changes in the marketplace. To discount real personal acumen and suggest that the infrastructure is actually responsible for their success is patently absurd, and I'm surprised someone like you bought into it.

I haven't been following Romney's campaign really closely, but I remember some of his policies would include a reduction in tax rates across the board, accompanied by ending certain deductions. That would theoretically help the economy.

Raising taxes on the middle class by ending deductions would hardly help the economy. Taxing the average family actually DOES directly effect the economy. As people, not only are they taxed on gross, they as consumers use their profit toward the economy.

Depends on the exact deductions that would be ended and on the extent of the overall rate decrease.

He also calls for ending and modifying regulations like Obamacare and the financial reform bill. The power of the EPA to impose enviromental restrictions will also be reduced.

Really, how much has the EPA hurt the economy? Sounds sexy to conservatives "Stop government regulations whilst sticking it to the tree-huggers!" but in the end it's a small impact, at best.

Well there's this: http://www.usnews.com/opinion/blogs/on-energy/2011/08/25/epa s-proposed-ozone-regulation-could-cost-1-trillion
And this: http://www.forbes.com/sites/larrybell/2012/05/01/the-epa-has -petroleum-processers-over-a-barrel-costly-regulations-produ ce-crude-unrefined-results/
And there's this and this to show what a mess the entire regulatory system has turned into
http://www.economist.com/node/21547804
http://www.economist.com/node/21547772

Honestly, I don't think there's a whole lot he can offer. Obama's signature policies haven't helped much and have possibly harmed in some ways, but Romney's plans aren't going to solve the problem by themselves.

No President can solve the economic problems we have. Voting on this point is just plain ignorant. Kind of like voting a student body president on their promise of lowering homework.

You misunderstand; he can't solve it, but he can nudge things along. Obama has been nudging things along in the wrong direction.

At 9/4/12 01:17 PM, adrshepard wrote: Hate to respond right away, but that makes no sense at all. It's going to have an effect on some level given the size of the economy. The 90's saw strong job growth in spite of relatively higher taxes, not because of it. It's a given fact that the government will distribute resources less efficiently than the private sector when it comes to absolute economic performance (with exceptions for public welfare costs and smoothing business cycle reductions). It's the fundamental premise of free-market economics.

When the government gets money it spends it. It may not be the best manner of spending, but it is spent back into the economy. When the ultra-wealthy get money, yes they spend a bit of it, but they hoard the rest. This is money that leaves the economy and serves no further use. Other than the fattening of net-worth this money is as good as destroyed.

You misunderstand. The argument is not so much that the money goes back into the economy but that the government will never be able to distribute it as efficiently. All the money collected through taxation in a command economy goes back into the system, but the outcomes are usually horrible (like in the Soviet economy). By definition alone, when everyone spends their money the way they want to, the outcomes will be better for everyone. There has to be some government, obviously, but that core idea is something we should always aim for.
"Hoarding" is not the right word to use for rich people's spending habits, either. Unless they are putting the money in a sack and hiding it under their beds, it is contributing to investment spending, even if it's sitting in a checking account. More likely, rich people are putting their money in various financial instruments, which serve an vital purpose in the US economy. Restrict liquidity or discourage investment and you will see fewer jobs and smaller economic growth.

At 9/4/12 01:08 PM, Camarohusky wrote:

At 9/4/12 11:55 AM, Brae wrote: This dodges the OP's main point.

How so? His point was that low taxes for the wealthy does not create job. I was merely adding onto that that high taxes do not cost jobs. Essentially saying that taxes levels on business and wealthy people have no noticable impact on the economy.

Hate to respond right away, but that makes no sense at all. It's going to have an effect on some level given the size of the economy. The 90's saw strong job growth in spite of relatively higher taxes, not because of it. It's a given fact that the government will distribute resources less efficiently than the private sector when it comes to absolute economic performance (with exceptions for public welfare costs and smoothing business cycle reductions). It's the fundamental premise of free-market economics.

At 9/4/12 11:38 AM, Camarohusky wrote: Don't be fooled by this "job creators" nonsense. It's a lie made by those with money to convince the poor that the wealthy do not have to pay for the astronomical amount of services they use. Entitlement at its finest.

By "they" you mean the poor, right? Wouldn't you be describing then that the right to keep one's own earnings is an entitlement?

I haven't been following Romney's campaign really closely, but I remember some of his policies would include a reduction in tax rates across the board, accompanied by ending certain deductions. That would theoretically help the economy.
He also calls for ending and modifying regulations like Obamacare and the financial reform bill. The power of the EPA to impose enviromental restrictions will also be reduced.
There's other stuff on his website about promoting free trade, investing in education, and reducing union-favoring legislation. Some of them offer specifics.

Honestly, I don't think there's a whole lot he can offer. Obama's signature policies haven't helped much and have possibly harmed in some ways, but Romney's plans aren't going to solve the problem by themselves.

At 9/3/12 10:13 AM, SenatorJohnDean wrote:

At 8/30/12 11:26 PM, Feoric wrote: He certainly destroyed some things, but certainly not Obama.

Big ups to this statement, and the OP is definitely a troll, because Clint Eastwood sounded like a true representative of the Republican party, a senile old white redneck fuck.

It's considered "redneck" to be proud of your country? It's being a "fuck" to point out the unemployment numbers? He seemed to ramble a bit and the empty chair thing was kind of weird. He's Clint fucking Eastwood. He can get away with it.

So the man made some great movies. Your school janitor does more for society. Give the awards to the man who makes sure your kid doesn't catch jondis.

It's jaundice. There are 4 billion adults in this world who can do what your janitor does. Not one of them can replace Eastwood. So no, he's done far more for society in entertainment value alone than the janitor's mindless labor.

At 8/31/12 03:12 AM, aviewaskewed wrote:

Which really isn't the point he was making...the point he was making is the hypocrisy of a party that last election cycle bitched that the opposition was celebrity obsessed, but now dips their toe into that pool when it suits them...

You don't think there's a difference between having a celebrity endorse a candidate and having a celebrity BE the candidate?

Not that Obama had the star power of Eastwood, but it certainly wasn't his vast political and leadership experience that got him nominated (Bush hatred probably got him elected).

At 8/15/12 03:46 AM, aviewaskewed wrote:

At 8/15/12 01:39 AM, Korriken wrote: its VERY unlikely they would try to dismantle all of them. However, I do agree that entitlements have gotten out of hand and need to be reigned in.

Which entitlements and how? Again, tired of this "we should reign it in..." then nothing.

Especially when it ignores the largest part of our budget...defense spending.

How about social security? Reduce the amount of benefits recieved based upon a retired person's other income and assets. Perform some sort of means test.
Look for similar opportunities in Medicare, adjusting premiums to wealth. Look for types of care that could be considered unnecessary and have little medical function. Certain types of hospitce care are good examples, where nurses are paid to more or less visit people who are already taken care of in nursing facilities (happened to my grandma). I can't give you lots of detailed examples, but that doesn't mean they don't exist.

Also, end these ridiculous extensions of unemployment benefits that have cost a few hundred billion over the past few years. 99 weeks is an absurd amount of time to be paid not to work, even in a recession.

I can't tell you how much a difference it would make. There isn't any data available about the assets and income of Medicare, SS, and unemployment insurance recipients. I've looked for it and found nothing.

Ryan's plan is a good starting point; he made a proposal that few politicians would ever have the courage to make. If seniors on average end up paying more, I don't see a problem with that so long as they are protected from destitution.

At 7/31/12 11:24 AM, Camarohusky wrote: The tax code is a clear example of this. There are a ton of tax loopholes, breaks, shelters, and so on for those who have the resources to take advantage of them. Very few people, outside the most wealthy, have the ability to own more than on home, or to have a foregin bank account.

I see most of those as unintentional. That's how a loophole is usually described. And because it is so incredibly complex, it's hard to close them all without opening up new ones. So the rich may take advantage of them, but I doubt the people who write and modify the tax code deliberately insert loopholes just to please rich people.

That's 30,000 people who aren't on welfare.

That in no way makes Apple a respectable company.

What's more respectable than financial success and consumer popularity? Can't you admire the ingenuity of their products (or at least credit them for making everyone else admire them)?
Also, why shouldn't people be paid low wages for low-wage work? I don't see any moral obligation for Apple to pay people more than what they are willing to work for (the market rate). You're verging on a moral argument that demands people do everything they can to help other people all the time. That ends with devoting all your energy to charity to the point of exhaustion and giving away all your possessions until you're just above the poverty line. Drawing the line above requires arbitrary distinctions that are entirely subjective.

Ok, so they are stashing it, but to what end? Money that you don't spend is useless, unless its insurance of some type. It's going to come back in some form or another.

... I have extremely little faitthat this money is being put to any use, and is not solely intended to stik it to the "greedy government who merely wants me to have a gold shark bar in my ifinity pool instead of a platinum one."

Are you saying that they would rather have none of it than give the government a little? I doubt it.

I'm also curious about the reverse of this finding, i.e. how much of rich people's wealth isn't put away offshore, and why?

What would be the use of this statistic?

To try to get some of that money back inside the country. Surely the trillion-dollar figure doesn't represent all the wealth or investments of all rich people. Some rich people do pay capital gains taxes, and I don't think it's just because they're too lazy to put it in an offshore account but because it's worth the cost. If we know why its worth the cost, perhaps the government could do something to encourage rich people to put more of their money in the US. Lowering the capital gains tax might help, but I'm sure there are other factors.

At 7/26/12 11:03 PM, wwwyzzerdd wrote: How would free-market mechanisms work to fix a recession? Demand goes down, businesses lose money, workers are let go to reduce operating costs, said workers don't spend as much money, (apparently rich misers step in at this point and save the economy), the economy recovers.

The people that leave the workforce aren't the major drivers of consumption, especially when you consider that the people who are let go first typically have the lowest income. Eventually price goes down to the point where the 92% of people who are still employed will start buying things again. Free market mechanisms will always bring a recovery, the question is whether and how much the government should try to speed things along.

We've witnessed the years of wealth incumbency where people have fought tirelessly to slant rules to their absolute benefit,

Certain industries may get special rules, but I've never heard of rules that favor the rich simply because they are rich.

And this should be great because Apple employs about 43,000 people in America (pretty damn good job-creators I'd say), but unfortunately 30,000 of those are hourly employees at retail stores who make on average $25,000 a year.

That's 30,000 people who aren't on welfare.

Pretty shitty attitude to have for a person to say "I want to operate in a country that amasses a military that's not bothered by anyone, an infrastructure that allows me to utilize energy use, transportation of myself and my goods, and a large labor force that quite honestly will take just about any job I offer them. I just don't want to pay any extra for this privilege."

Ok, so they are stashing it, but to what end? Money that you don't spend is useless, unless its insurance of some type. It's going to come back in some form or another.
I'm also curious about the reverse of this finding, i.e. how much of rich people's wealth isn't put away offshore, and why?

At 7/28/12 03:57 PM, Camarohusky wrote:

I only use the term satanically to show the Owner how far his hating views have placed him from the religion he claims to speak for.

I'd say "hating" is a pretty strong word. He believes that marraige, as he understands it with all its tradition and etc., is between a man and a woman. I think he probably defines marraige as something more than "being able to see a loved one in the hospital" or "getting shared tax returns." It's not the same as trying to suppress the rights of gays under the law out of hatred, though the end results may be similar because of how entangled a religious ceremony has become with the law.

Also, what about the alderman's fall-back defense about traffic and congestion? He could just use that and avoid the whole 1st amendment issue.