Study Shows Tech Execs Slightly Prefer Romney Over Obama 461
redletterdave writes with an excerpt from IB Times that should be met with a bit of skepticism: "A new study released by international law firm DLA Piper Monday morning shows that among technology companies and their executives, Republican nominee Mitt Romney is the preferred presidential candidate for improving and advancing the technology industry. The study surveyed thousands of entrepreneurs, consultants, venture capitalists, CEOs, CFOs, and other C-level officers at technology companies, asking them their opinions about the 2012 presidential election and the issues facing their particular industry. The majority of respondents said Mitt Romney would be better with the technology industry, with 64 percent favoring the former governor from Massachusetts, and only 41 percent favoring the incumbent president. This is a complete turnaround from 2008 when the numbers were heavily in favor of Obama, with 60 percent of respondents saying then-Sen. Obama would be better for the sector than the Republican candidate, Sen. John McCain."
There's a whole lot of number stretching going on: the results more or less indicate only a slight preference for Romney; a healthy chunk of responses were that his policies would be "neutral" and Obama's would at worst be slightly bad. Would you like six politicians, or half a dozen? One thing is universal: everyone hates SOX.
Slightly (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm surprised that high-paid execs only "slightly" prefer a republican to a democrat. You'd think it would be a landslide.
Re:How do you know? (Score:1, Interesting)
Romney lies through his teeth, so how do you know what his policies would be?
Given his stage charisma and lack of honesty, I suspect Romney may be a sociopath.
Re:Slightly (Score:5, Interesting)
You'd think it would be a landslide
Only if you are one of those people who thinks that the Democrats are not equally pro-corporate-system as the Republicans are. Just because the Democrats claim to be working for the benefit of "commoners" does not mean they actually are. In case you have forgotten, it was a Republican administration that kicked off the "bail out the companies that screwed up" plan, and a Democratic administration that put the plan into action. Let's not forget the various hand-outs to corporations that we have seen from Democrats: the DMCA, continued support for a standing army and the military industrial complex, widespread propaganda campaigns that help pharmaceutical companies (ahem war on drugs), the current campaign to make trademarks, copyrights, and patents more restrictive, etc.
In America, your choice is between one set of right wing pro-corporate fascists, and another set. Or you can vote third party.
Re:Slightly (Score:5, Interesting)
Or you can vote third party.
As a Libertarian, I spent many years preaching that people should vote for a third party. Over time, I started to realize that it wasn't really so much of a social problem as a technical problem. Specifically, plurality voting has a known weakness, and it is gamed by considering only the two most-likely parties, and picking among only them. In other words, even if you manage to bring a third party into popularity, plurality voting will soon "fix" the situation until only two dominant parties remain.
So, the answer, it turns out, is not to try to bring a third party into popularity. It is to pick one of the parties and work to reform it. Yeah, I know, it sounds imppossible, but hey, it's more possible than bringing a third party into popularity (without revising the constitution). You really do have more sway in the primaries than in the main election anyway. So, pick one of the big two, and get active in their primaries. Then don't even waste your time voting among the final two contenders--you cannot make a difference there.
Re:The fucks the difference? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:A liberal convinced me to take a second look... (Score:5, Interesting)
That's a load of nonsense.
Mitt and Ann have said that they can't talk specifics, because that would give their critics a target. They've said that once they were elected, that there were going to be changes that people wouldn't like. They can't talk about their plans, because they know we won't vote for them if we know what they're going to do. That's good enough for me. If knowing their plans is going to make me not vote for them, then I have enough information to know that I don't want to vote for them.
Then there's Ryan. Questioned about how his budget plan would work, he replied that they hadn't run the numbers on it. That's really the essence of conservative thought today, in a nutshell. It's all ideology, and no data. They don't care enough to actually test their theories, or examine how they'll work in practice. They go with their gut and hope for the best. It's absolutely ridiculous.
Re:Slightly (Score:2, Interesting)
It took you many years to realize that people were behaving in an economically rational way with their votes? That's hilarious. More libertarian-irony stories, please!
Re:Correction (Score:2, Interesting)
It would take a really silly rich person to spend his money on general consumer goods instead of airplanes and "yachts in Dubai" which an increase of production in would not help the general population.
It's funny that you mention this. The yachts in Dubai used to be yachts in Miami. What changed? When Bush Sr. broke his "no new taxes" promise, one of the taxes is a luxury boat tax. What happened? People with enough money to buy yachts stopped buying them here. Overnight we destroyed an industry and lost 600,000 jobs. Why? Because some petty assholes thought it would be a good idea to punish the rich. The problem with that kind of thinking is that it's limited. The rich weren't punished. The tradesmen who used to make boats for the rich were punished.
Of course, don't let reality get in the way of ideology [nytimes.com]
LK
Re:The fucks the difference? (Score:5, Interesting)
A trendy enough thing to say, but falls on its face out here in the Real World.
Speaking for myself, here -- I don't want to be chained to working for a megacorp to be able to buy decent health insurance. I've done that, and it sucked. If we can make it to 2014 without repeal of legislation scheduled to be enacted, I'll actually be able to buy a decent individual policy at a reasonable price, even if I'm working for myself.
Second -- there are groups I'm active in (one regarding transportation policy, the other focusing on marriage equality) where the difference between the parties on matters important to us is night and day. Which party controls Congress (and, to a lesser but by no means trivial extent, the executive branch) makes a serious difference in terms of what we're doing -- as in, fighting for incremental improvements vs fighting to avoid repeal of the last 20 years of progress -- so this "they're all the same" BS falls completely flat when exposed to actual practice.
Re:Slightly (Score:4, Interesting)
No, it's a vote for apathy. That's how politicians interpret it. And they will ignore you.
Imagine if an election was held and nobody showed up to vote.
Is that apathy or a defacto vote of no-confidence in the government?
Just like you'd call into question an election with 105% turnout, an election with 5% turnout is equally meaningless.
So somewhere between the current voter turnout and zero, is a turnout rate that means the government does not represent the people.
Re:Correction (Score:2, Interesting)
Maybe you need to listen to what Romney is saying.
You can find more information and commentary on the plan here [american.com].
It doesn't seem to resemble your comments much.
This will be payed by cutting . . . Public Health Mandate, Food Stamps, Subsidized Housing and COBRA aka everything the poorest among us have to not fall into desperate poverty, disease and hunger.
I believe that it is Governor Romney's* plan to move as many people off those programs as possible to a replacement that is much better for both the poor and the taxpayer while leaving the programs for the truly needy. This replacement is called a "job". I hear they work marvels. It is strange that President Obama is trying to gut the Workfare requirements in law [nationalreview.com].
You do know he was governor of "right wing" Massachusetts, infamous for its poor farms and debtors prisons, right?
Enron? What about Bain?? (Score:2, Interesting)
Why focus on Enron, Bain Capital, his *star* claim was bailed out by the Federal Govt in a dubious manner:
http://www.drudge.com/news/160516/federal-bailout-saved-mitt-romney
He loaned money from a bank, took the money out as 'bonuses' from Bain and the Federal Govt had to bail Bain out so the loans didn't drag the banks down. The bonus system agreed that allowed this he got from a political crony he later hired from the Federal govt into Bain.
Nasty and corrupt.