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At 8/15/12 04:40 AM, Korriken wrote:

At 8/15/12 01:51 AM, Warforger wrote:

Al Gore made one movie, other than that he's merely made guest appearances on Comedy Shows like Futurama or 30 Rock. If he is exploiting a crisis then he's sure as hell doing a poor job at it, hell if Mitt Romney had tried it he would have made a fast food chain dedicated to climate change.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/jamestaylor/2011/10/19/how-to-ma ke-money-off-of-global-warming-fears/

Yah this looks like a blog rather than a concrete new story.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/energy/6491195/Al-Gore-coul d-become-worlds-first-carbon-billionaire.html
http://www.canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/11607
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/mar/03/global-warmi ngs-biggest-winners/

So he invested in a company, Mitt Romney has done far worse, does that mean that Mitt Romney is exploiting the Republican party for his own personal gain?

doing a poor job at it? yeah. Al Gore is making more money by pushing the agenda than any of us on this forum will ever see, combined.

He's not pushing an agenda if he just buys a company. What I'm saying is that after he made the Inconvenient Truth he hasn't done anything since that would put him the spotlight, he hasn't made another movie he hasn't done anything more that would be even an attempt to capture the momentum of that documentary.

How many pages do we have to go through before the conversation finds its way back to Paul Ryan?

At 8/15/12 02:27 PM, 24901miles wrote: How many pages do we have to go through before the conversation finds its way back to Paul Ryan?

2

thousand

He also enjoys making large cuts and changes to Medicare and Social Security, giving enormous tax breaks to the wealthy, and taking long walks on the beach.

That last one's kind of a dealbreaker, but cutting/changing bloated entitlement programs can only be a positive.

Guess who's going to be moving in with you if you cut these said entitlement programs? If you guessed your grandparents, who most likely rely on Medicare and Medicaid, you are correct.

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 8/16/12 11:09 PM, adrshepard wrote: 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.

What kind of "means test"? What are the criteria? I think a lot of the problem is actually that we don't use the system the way it's intended (people paying in, that benefits current recipients, recipients behind them pay so that when current workers retire it's there...the baby boomers proved this wouldn't work because their numbers far outstripped the working generation behind them), but I agree that say Donald Trump for instance really doesn't need and shouldn't get social security benefits when he hits retirement age. So an asset threshold isn't an idea that's disagreeable to me.

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.

Do we actually have evidence that Medicaid is covering a lot of "unnecessary care"? Not being snarky, just asking because I've not seen much on that subject.

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.

But examples other then anecdotal are actually necessary to help make your case and point...that's what one does when they make a claim :)

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.

Oh this one...see, there's a flaw in this plan. When employers (and we're talking big corporations like say Wal-Mart) continue to slash hours and freeze hiring, it actually ISN'T ridiculous to have to extend benefits to the unemployed. I know of people who have been trying for well over 99 weeks to find employment and cannot do it. They will take ANY job, even minimum wage retail, but when minimum wage retail refuses to hire you and decides to be selective to save their own ass, whatcha gonna do?

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.

There are some good ideas here...but I also can't help but feel there's also a certain ignorance of the realities of what opportunities are available everywhere in the country. There seems to be a certain level of assumption that if you're unemployed, it must be your fault and it's because you aren't trying.

At 8/20/12 12:44 PM, SenatorJohnDean wrote: Self-employed person here. And I could do this job if I was 85, completely unable to move from a chair...I do feel that if you are completely unemployed, you have an issue, cuz the Internet has opened up incredible opportunities to make money.

However, if you have not been adequately educated about how to find opportunities in general, you may have trouble with this new world. I know that I am an exception because I was raised in a two parent home with exceptionally smart advice (that I have squandered, for the most part) but the fact is, I was raised so well that to incorporate even 10% of what I have learned means that I will be able to make a living no matter what. Most people do not have this support system.

I would therefore propose the investment of government funds into educational systems, the earlier the better; an emphasis on the economically disadvantaged. If it is known that someone has come through these educational systems and is still fucking up, they die alone in the street.

Not entirely. There is one problem, companies often want to hire people who the least qualified because those people are the least mobile. Say you have a masters degree but got fired from a good paying job, a fast food restaurant would rather hire a person who dropped out of high school because they know the instant you find another job you're going to leave as fast as possible whereas the guy who dropped out of high school probably won't have another job opening anywhere else and thus will stay with the company longer. It works on other levels too companies often hire people fresh from College over people who've been in that industry for decades for the same positions because it's easier to hold onto the new people and they can pay them less.This is how you become overqualified for a job, and those people are in particular the most frustrated people out there because their only choice is to try to get more qualifications to get into a job they're currently underqualified for racking up even more debt.

This does however create problems for companies, such as banks which hire high school drop outs to the position of negotiating loans and all, so some people attribute that to the housing crisis.

At 8/12/12 12:00 AM, Retreaux7 wrote: Okay I'm 16 and really don't know anything about politics I just thought I'd post something.

Wow. Do you think you are a kid at 16? Grow the fuck up and read the news.