Empire of the Iguanadons

So it is done. The ticket for the Republican party has been decided at last: Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan will be the team to lead us to victory in November.

There were a number of people up for contention for the spot, all of whom would have made a good choice: Paul Ryan, Marco Rubio, Tim Pawlenty, Chris Christie, Bobby Jindal, Rob Portman, and even General David Petraeus. In the end, Romney has made a wise choice by picking someone with solid experience, the qualifications to fill the office should the need arise, and someone who has proven fiscal discipline and the ONLY worthwhile budget plan to have been floated in the Senate in decades. Combining this with Romney's executive experience as both a governor and a CEO, the ticket is as solid as it could get at this point. Now it's on to dealing with the menace that is Obama-Biden.

Ryan wasted no time in coming out fighting and slamming Obama for the mess he's made over the last 4 years. It would be damn near impossible for anyone to dispute that things have been bad, and that Obama has done nothing whatsoever to improve the situation. Instead, he's simply made it WORSE that it could have been. Unemployment figures published by the government are woefully understated, even at 8.3% currently. Look around you, I'm sure you know at least 3 people who are out of work right now and can't find any. One of those people has probably resorted to collecting welfare just to survive. One probably found a way to get on disability, and the 3rd one - if they were lucky - managed to collect unemployment. Guess who the only one actually being counted is? Double your statistic and you'll have a much clearer picture of the problem. It's far more likely the real numbers are around 15%. Not 8%.

Of course, the Obama campaign retaliated almost immediately against Ryan's accusations, but had nothing of substance to offer up for it other than calling Ryan's budget plan a sham and a return to the "Failures of Bush." Seriously guys. It's time to get a new line of rhetoric. Bush has been gone for 4 years now. Take some damn responsibility for the catastrophe you've helped cause. Plus, the notion that Ryan is attempting to end Medicare seems a bit disingenuous when it was Obamacare that signed Medicare's death warrant and Ryan has been against that all along.

Whatever you may think, it's time to get ready for full on campaign season to begin. Both sides are going to be at each other's throats between now and November. I for one am looking forward to seeing who shows up to speak at the Republican convention, and then to watch as Romney and Ryan wipe the floor with Obama and Biden during the upcoming debates. Though, as I'm sure everyone has noticed, the TV ads are going to get brutal. Very brutal.

Oh, and for those wondering, no, this isn't the 500th post yet. A number of posts were sacrificed as software tests in early days. This is actually only #477.
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RIP United States of America

July 1776 - November 2012.

Except you asked me to provide the numbers to support my claim - which has always been that Democrats run up huge debts. The charts I spammed you with all support this conclusion.

Counter it with facts, or admit you're wrong. I won't hold my breath waiting.

Or, we can go on throwing charts and links at each other until one of us falls asleep at the keyboard. Your call.

Firstly, you are not even addressing any point i have made, but rather running a side argument. The point is, that you say conservatism is about balanced budgets and reduction of public debt. So, i will ask you again, show me a republican president who has delivered on the core conservative principles of low public debt and and balanced budgets.

Because, according to your own treasury data, there has been only 1 president in the last 30 years to do this, Clinton, all the others have expanded public debt.

Reagan by 186%
Bush by 56%
Bush by 89%

Seems rather ironic, that the conservatives who over saw the greatest peace time expansions in the US economy have been the ones who have also expanded public debt by the greatest margins. Which means, they sold your future for riches now.

This is why I really REALLY hate doing this shit with you. I'm not even kidding at this point. I could throw up an entire scrollbars's worth of charts to prove you're absolutely full of shit and you'll just come back with what amounts to "lol, no u".

Seriously. This is a massive waste of my time at this point. You've been arguing the same complete bullshit the whole time, repeating yourself doesn't make it true. If this is all you've got, just admit you're trolling and let's move on to something else.

We can't in any sane measure be the ones expanding public debt by the largest margins when all the data one can hope to find flat out says otherwise, especially over the last 4 years.

Hmm...guys, gross national debt isn't measurement of how the governments are managing to budget. I'm entirely sure why you're trying to use it to 'prove' on party or another racks up debts. Its completely possible for a government to run a surplus while gross national debt rises. Australia's done this for most of the past decade.

Although, 357%, Jesus Christ. Australia's managed to go through a development boom over the last ten years with the savings rate in dis-savings territory and only managed to rack up a 60% of GDP national debt. What are you guys buying?

I could go on for a bit about the limits of economic policies and how just throwing statistics around isn't a great way of debating, but I think you two both know this.

Chinese junk bonds or some such, considering they're holding most of the markers now.

And you have not once addressed the central point of my argument. I even made it really simple for you,



But you cannot even do that, let alone admit to yourself that as a percentage if GDP (the ability of your economy to repay debt) that republicans, during times of prosperity, have run huge deficit budgets, rather than saving for the future which is central to conservative doctrine. Let alone face the idea that Clinton was more conservative than the conservatives you idolise, or that Bush 2 could have brought public debt to 0 if he did not cut taxes as he did. Let alone that Romney and his planned tax cuts are going to expand on Obama's ever expanding public debt.



Sure if you want. I am not inflexible in what i do and do not discuss.

You're still doing it. Almost like you're trying to make sure you get the last slap in a silly girl's game of tag or something.

Claiming Conservatives don't believe in their core principles over and over doesn't make it true.
Claiming Clinton is or was or will be a conservative over and over again won't make it true, no matter what MSNBC is telling you.
Claiming Bush Jr. was going to be able to pay down the debt Clinton ran up by violating a core tenet of conservatism just makes you look dumb, like you're accusing me of. This is why it's futile to argue this stuff with you. You've bought into the left wing dogma.

The one chart you even bothered with as a semi-serious attempt is actually trying to claim that the exploding debt is a GOOD thing, calling it "trend improving" despite the numbers reaching the astronomical levels even prettyfly is acknowledging are there - 357% of GDP. The number you love so much. It basically screams "FURY IS FULL OF SHIT AND KNOWS IT" but you aren't even willing to accept the numbers. They're even from your glorious government sources. CBO and GAO.

Look at the charts. Tell me we aren't in far worse shape now than we were in 1933 at the height of the Great Depression? Go on, just try.

I'd much rather you just admit you hate right wingers and think they're all liars and you won't accept a word they say. At least that would be honest.

I'll go out on a limb and say that things aren't as bad as they were during the Great Depression. They aren't good, but they aren't that bad. Calculating the levels of debt doesn't indicate that things are inherently worse for the economy, and lets not forget that the world economy has become much more open over the 80 years since then and as a result increased levels of foreign debt are typical. 357% (in 2010) is a lot though.

Did Reagan reduce public debt?

Did Reaganomics lead to less public debt?

Did the starving the beast policies lead to less public debt?

Very simple now, yes or no answers.



Pfft, please, Howard was right wing, and i voted for him in 3 elections, Malcome Turnbull is right wing also, and i would vote for him if he was leader of the conservatives here also.

It is not that I do not like right wing, it is that i despise policy that favours the rich at the expense of the poor or the future good of the country. I will not, as a matter of principle vote for Tony Abbott, because he stands for the same bullshit trickle down economics that are to blame for the position the US currently finds itself in. Short term gains for long term pains.

You cannot have reduce taxes and have deficit budgets and expect to have long term prosperity. But that is what the republicans have done for 30 odd years. That is exactly what Romney has in store for you.

Will things be better under Romney much faster than Obama, Yes they will, but only because it is deferring the pain to some later date. Eventually, someone is going to have to raise taxes and cut spending, and bring about sound fiscal policy that will ensure that you have growth in the long term.

Australia did this in the 80's, through Hawk, Keeting and then Howard, we had 18% interest rates in the 80's, I know what it is like to do it tough, to have 20% unemployment, to work for 50% of the award wage just because it was the only way i could get enough work to pay the bills.

I fucking hated every minute of it, but, i am now glad that our government took the hard road, because we now have a strong economy that is able to withstand contraction with minimum deficit expenditure, and be back into surplus budgets. With 20+ years of modest growth.

So do not accuse me of hating conservative politics, because i do not, i hate stupid politics that are only a repeat of the mistakes of the past.

And that gets me back to the point i have been making all along. If Romney is going to use the same policy's of the past, that have only ever lead to more deficit spending, who is going to be the one to pay the bill?

@Prettyfly: Trust me, it's worse: http://cnsnews.com/news/article/record-88921000-americans-not-labor-force-119000-fewer-employed-august-july

@Fury: Get bent. You're simply screeching shrill repetition at this point. Rush Limbaugh was right. It's futile to argue with liberals. You claim to be in favor of every last thing conservatism stands for, yet you vote for scumbag liberals and communists. MAKES NO FUCKING SENSE. Then you spout off nothing short of vile hatred of everything on the right and have the audacity to claim you don't hate them? I call fucking bullshit. Enough is enough.

In as much as you are avoiding to answer the direct question because to do so will destroy your ideological world view. I voted for conservatives who reduced public debt and delivered surplus budgets over the life of their term in office and I will vote again for conservatives who will deliver lower public debt and surplus budgets. Or progressives who will deliver lower public debt and surplus budgets.

Which is much more than you can claim. You cannot even give the name of a single president that you have voted for who has reduced public debt and delivered surplus budgets over the life of their term. And you have the hide to tell me to Fuck Off. Please, i am if nothing consistent with my own political ideology and voting habit. Can you even claim the same? Voting in people who you know will not deliver on core fiscal conservative doctrine that you claim to be central to your own belief, because their policies lead to higher public debt.

This is why it's impossible to take anything you say politically seriously. Progressives DO NOT lower public debt, period. That's not even close to their methodology, and I know you know this.

And yes, every single Republican president since the end of WWII has driven down the debt (other than Bush, who I remind you isn't a conservative) - it just took longer than their stays in office would allow. The fact that it takes 10-15 years for a fiscal correction to work ought to clue you in that an 8 year run in office will never be enough for credit to go to who its due given our fucked over media here. Yet they'll turn around, and like you, falsely credit progressives with having fiscal discipline when it was them who damaged things so badly to begin with.

I know you know that as well, which is why you deserve to be told to fuck off when you keep harping on bullshit you know is a lie.

The reason we're so much worse off this time is because Bush Jr. allowed his liberal side to show through too much in his second term and the recovery he could have built never materialized after the Dems took over Congress. So when Obama came along, there was nowhere to go but down.

And that is where you show yourself to be a real dickhead. Hawk and Keeting, both progressives, whose policies are responsible for the great position Australia now finds itself in. Or how about they other guy from the UK, Tony Blair.



Care to show by how much Reagan reduced public debt? Or Bush Snr? You know, in actual numbers, how much debt they inherited and how much they passed on to the next guy.

Fuck you, asshole.


See page with chart spam. Enlighten yourself for once. If it helps, it's usually credited to the Dems who had absolutely nothing to do with it.

Gotta call it how it is hey? The fact is, what you claim, "Progressives DO NOT lower public debt, period" is not true, and anyone who even says such a thing, is either an ideologue or dickhead. Take your pick which one, because your world view is not based in reality. Hawk/Keeting and Blair/Brown are certainly good starting points for progressives who have better fiscal credentials than your own republican party.



Which one, most of them were about jobs. Which is not even being contested here. The numbers are pretty easy to find, you can look them up at your treasury department. Which you won't because you know, public debt trebled under Reagan, that is what the number say, from $997 billion to $2.85 trillion says your treasury department. On what planet is that a reduction?

(at some point, this is the only appropriate response for your epic level ignorance)

Here, i will even be nice, read this, all of it. Then come back and say i was right about Reagan, Bush, Bush and Clinton, and you are right about Obama, which i never disputed anyways. Then I am done with this topic for good.

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2011/may/19/nancy-pelosi/nancy-pelosi-posts-questionable-chart-debt-accumul/

Specifically this:

Reagan: Up 14.9 percentage points
George H.W. Bush: Up 7.1 percentage points
Clinton: Down 13.4 percentage points
George W. Bush: Up 5.6 percentage points
Obama: Up 21.9 percentage points (through December 2010 only)

Anywho, I know you cannot admit that i am right, for you this is a matter of religion. And one should never get between a man and his god. Now i am off to read in bed for a while.

Night.

Sums it up. Your own page citation calls you out as a lying dog. The chart is totally bogus, as I said from the start. Not surprising given it was generated by Pelosi's office.

So no, you're not right. You're grossly cherry picking bullshit that you HAVE to know is bullshit in order to try and make me admit to something you and I both know isn't remotely true.

No, take a look again, the one i used was the corrected one, not the original which was wrong. Which is beside the point anyways. What is important, is that, the reporters of that site FACT CHECK the claims of both parties, confirm what i have been saying all along. That, the republican presidents of the last 30 years have not delivered on core conservative values of debt reduction and surplus budgets and the only president who has done that is Clinton. You know, the "Progressives DO NOT lower public debt, period" guy.

Specifically this, using what those authors claim to be a better measure of indebtedness.

Reagan: Up 14.9 percentage points
George H.W. Bush: Up 7.1 percentage points
Clinton: Down 13.4 percentage points
George W. Bush: Up 5.6 percentage points
Obama: Up 21.9 percentage points (through December 2010 only)

That is not selective cherry picked data, ALL the data shows the same consistent theme, the only fiscal conservative in the last 30 years has been Clinton.



I know what i have been saying is true, because i can read and also because i understand basic math.



And yet the treasury and OMB disagree with you and still you cannot admit you are wrong. I have provided you with 2 government departments and differing measures that say you are wrong, as well as a variety of sources who have fact checked the claims made to confirm my position is correct and all you have given me is lip service, saying you are right and i am wrong.

Repeating the same pile of shit over again changes nothing.

I think you guys need to chill for a bit.

Of course not, because you are so fundamentally indoctrinated in republican folk law that you cannot see that going from 1billion to 3billion is an increase in debt. According to you, that is a decrease in debt.

I have to give credit where credit is due Samson, you are a tough nut to crack, it takes some balls and blind faith to deny the shit that you deny.



I was in bed reading, for the last few hours, but the bloody heart burn is driving me nuts so i have been getting up, drinking a ton of Mylana and spending a few mins posting a reply.

Have you read any of Joe Abercrombie's books prettyfly? He is a fairly new author on the scene. I started reading his books after i finished up the George Martin SOFAI books, Abercrombie is well worth the read if you get the chance. Do you have an e-reader? Best investment i ever made was in the Kobo i bought, i much prefer paying $8 a book to the $25+ for a paper version.

Anywho, my gut is back to normal and i am going back to bed and back to the book i am reading, Witches of Eileanan a series of 6 books by Kate Forsythe, an Australian author. I read her 2nd series a number of years ago, Rhiannon's Ride, and now i have gone back to her first series to read that. It is a bit of a girly kind of read, but not unenjoyable.

I could say the same about you. "Folk law" is an interesting term btw. Sounds like what you believe in though.

Well what else was I meant to have called it, when going from 1 trillion to 3 trillion is debt reduction, it has be be a fairy tale of brothers grim proportions for that math to have any validity.