US Presidential Debate #2 Tonight: Discuss Here 706
The second U.S. Presidential debate kicks off in about a half-hour (9PM ET, 6PM PT, 0100 UTC) from Hofstra University in Hempstead, New York. Incumbent Barack Obama and challenger Mitt Romney will take questions from an audience of allegedly undecided voters. A live stream of the event will be available from a number of sources (C-SPAN, CNN, ABC, and PBS), and it will be broadcast nationally on the major networks. The flash-less and television-less can use rtmpdump to catch the debate from C-SPAN. It won't preempt the more important telecasts, like playoff baseball. Candidates from smaller parties again went uninvited (e.g. Gary Johnson from the Libertarians, Jill Stein from the Greens, Virgil Goode from the Constitution Party, and Rocky Anderson from the Justice Party). In fact, Jill Stein was arrested for attempting to enter without credentials (her side of the story). Assuming she's out of jail by Thursday, she and Gary Johnson will be participating in an online debate hosted by IVN.us. While tonight's debate is in progress, Politifact will be fact-checking the candidates in real-time (while CNN has demonstrated their journalistic capabilities with a debate drinking game). Feel free to weigh in with your commentary on the debate below — it would be helpful to provide timestamps or other context when referring to particular statements. As before, we're posting this here in a vain attempt to keep the political discussion out of other story threads tonight. If either of the candidates spontaneously concedes the election or catches fire, we'll do our best to update you.
Logical Fallacy Bingo (Score:5, Interesting)
Prediction (Score:-1, Interesting)
And here is a prediction:
there will be no question about inflation, there will be no question about the trade deficit.
A poll was conducted by Fox "News", still, their numbers show the following [foxnews.com]:
People worried about rising prices: 41%
People worried about unemployment: 24%
People worried about taxes: 19%
People worried about housing market: 7%
If this poll is anywhere near correct, then twice as many people are worried about rising prices (resulting at the minimum from inflation) than there are people worried about unemployment or taxes. 6 times more people worry about rising prices than about housing market.
Yet the Fed's policies are all aimed at 'curbing deflation' and creating inflation by buying more and more mortgages (40 billion a month now or more forever, "until the economy gets better").
And really, if the rising prices is such a good thing in housing (according to the Fed), why is it then something that worries so many people?
Of-course people are worried about rising prices in energy, food and other things that they have to buy all the time. All the stupid 'economic data' that the news like to show right now display 'rise in consumer confidence' based on people spending more.
Nobody in the news is paying attention that people are spending more to buy the same or even less, because things cost more. Is inflation a problem? Not if the Fed has to say anything about it, yet 41% of people think rising prices are a problem.
I would love to see someone challenge Romney on... (Score:4, Interesting)
A great example was this banned TED talk [youtube.com] released by venture capitalist Nick Hanauer where he put in really simple, easy-to-understand terms the concept that giving money back to middle class families means they will buy more stuff leading to more job creation than giving tax breaks to a millionaire. This comes from the first non-family investor in Amazon by the way.
Considering this is Romney's whole ideology, I'd love to see an audience member nail him and get an on-record comment on the subject.
Re:Romney bs (Score:5, Interesting)
Romney mentioned no taxes to be paid for mutual funds and capital gains tax. Well guess what? Most middle class folks who have money invested in mutual funds and other investments have small actually irrelevant gains to pay taxes on
I'm already outraged at the current 15% rate. Why should people who get richer by sitting on a big pile of money all year pay a lower tax rate than some of us who work our butts off all year?
Nick Hanauer's economic illiteracy (Score:1, Interesting)
Nick Hanauer interview (part 1 [youtube.com], part 2 [youtube.com]) with Peter Schiff was THE reason why I bought a premium subscription to Schiff radio show [schiffradio.com].
Let me be absolutely clear on this: Nick Hanauer is the kind of an idiot that can make money while being absolutely ignorant on economics.
Consumers do NOT build businesses, businessmen build businesses. Consumption is the trivial consequence of production, and just like the case with every other business and product, the product has to be invented and built first and there is absolutely no clear way to know that the product or a business will be a success.
Growing an existing successful and profitable business into a more profitable one is much simpler than starting a new business with a new idea and an unproven track record. The only thing that can be said about demand is that if a business is already successful and profitable, then there is at least money to attempt and expand capacity.
Nick Hanauer is an absolute moron when it comes to economics, he thinks that the consumer appears first. As if the people appeared BEFORE the Sun and the Earth was here.
Re:More importantly (Score:4, Interesting)
What power does the President have to actually enact any tax related policy they have on their platform?
The president's veto and the vice-president's tie-breaking-vote (in the senate only) shift the number of votes required to pass/defeat a bill from 67/51 (without the white house) to 50/34 (with the white house) in the senate, and from 290/218 to 218/146 in the house, so you could say the white house has the power of 17 senators and 72 representatives.
Business doesn’t necessarily create jobs (Score:5, Interesting)
A smart non-partisan FBriend of mine wrote this
Business Doesn’t Create Jobs
The misconception everyone seems to have is that businesses create jobs. That’s true in the sense that business provides the mechanism for people to contribute to making goods and services. But businesses don’t create jobs.
A good businessperson tries to reduce costs and run as efficiently as possible. That’s why automation so revolutionized the world—we could do more work with far fewer people. That’s why businesses pursue productivity, so they can scale up their production faster than they need to scale up their headcount.
Any businessperson who is acting in the interest of the bottom line should be trying to slow job growth or actively shed jobs within their company.
Jobs are created when a business experiences so much demand that it has no choice except to hire more people to cope with the demand. The demand drives the business to create more jobs.
Someone with the business experience of presiding over a growing business does not know how to create jobs; they know how to create demand for their specific products and services. This is a great skill for growing an individual business.
Growing a business isn’t the same as growing an economy. As Apple grows demand for its products, it grows demand in no small part by taking business away from its competitors. Apple does well, but Microsoft does less well that it otherwise would. Getting one business to do better is not the same thing at all as growing an overall economy so everyone does better.
http://www.steverrobbins.com/blog/2012/10/business-finance-and-jobs/ [steverrobbins.com]
Re:Romney says top 5% pays 60% of the load (Score:3, Interesting)
Mitt Romney was the governor of my state. He fucked us over and then quit to run for the presidency in 2008 in an attempt to FUCK OVER the whole country.
Why did you (as a state) elect him?
It's a serious question - did he renege on his promises or has he screwed up the implementation of what you actually wanted him to do or what?
Re:Logical Fallacy Bingo (Score:4, Interesting)
Someone else. I'm dithering between Green and Libertarian, but the main point to not to vote for either of those liars. (Even if whoever I vote for won, congress would ensure that they couldn't do anything.)
OTOH, I'm having trouble believing that Romney would be quite as bad as he's claiming he would be. I suspect that his backers would ensure that his more radical programs are dropped. Just as Obama's were and will be.
OTTH, both of them are liars through and through. You can't trust them to mean a thing they say. And each of them promises so many different things that they can pick and chose which promises to keep, and end up claiming to have kept their campaign pledges, even when they only did the things you were really hoping they'd forget.
Voting for either of them would REALLY be throwing my vote away, even in comparison to voting third party.
Re:Romney bs (Score:4, Interesting)
The argument is that the rich will leave the country if you raise taxes, and you lose even the taxes you are currently collecting. The middle class and the poor are less likely to do.
I, personally, dont subscribe to this idea. The rich have very few places in the developed world to move to. I would say it is a bluff. Even if they move, the void will pretty soon be filled up someone else who starts a company (or whatever the rich were doing here).
Re:Logical Fallacy Bingo (Score:2, Interesting)
A perfect thought-terminating cliché [wikipedia.org]
at the end of the debate by Obama.
Ignoring the moderator & clock (Score:5, Interesting)
They need a mechanism like a chess clock . When a candidate presses his button, his microphone turns off and his opponent's clock starts running. If a candidate runs out of time on his clock, then he can't talk for the rest of the debate.
Re:Logical Fallacy Bingo (Score:5, Interesting)
You hit the nail on the head. I don't agree with the entire Green Party platform, but their candidate was ARRESTED for trying to get into the debate. Why wasn't she (or any of the other 3rd party candidates) included? Because they are not high enough in the polls. Why aren't they polling well? I expect it's because they cannot get media coverage for love nor money.
The whole damn political system is owned, rigged, and horribly corrupted. But because the worst of the corruption is legal, we're supposed to turn a blind eye to it.
Re:More importantly (Score:5, Interesting)
Getting stuff done was never in the design of the house or senate or the Presidency. Laws were supposed to be fought for with logic and majority viewpoints. While it is true that Presidents have acted as you say for ages, The The House was designed to be the people's voice and the Senate was designed to stop majority rule running over a portion of the electorate that needs a voice of it's own. The President's main functions after you remove the Madison Avenue style marketing tactics are still to appoint the judges of the Supreme Court and also to perform veto powers, as well as other obvious functions like national security, Commander In Chief, etc. But in the end, a veto pen does not lend itself well to "getting stuff done".
Re:Logical Fallacy Bingo (Score:4, Interesting)
I'd vote Libertarian. They are more likely to let me shoot some strange indecisive Slashdotter wandering onto my property.
Good on GP for voting for another. I always feel awkward commenting about US matters, but I share the "someone else" sentiment
If you've got libertarian tendencies, then you probably shouldn't vote Greens. Although in NZ's experience, they were the only party who stop up against the 3-strike copyright, prove your innocence, MP3 downloading law - so I give them credit there.
Our Greens are a bit too watermelon. The advertise vagaries about the environment, but their policies all want to take more of the money you earn and spend it in ways they think are superior to you.
Re:Romney says top 5% pays 60% of the load (Score:4, Interesting)
I can't explain how he got elected. Despite being a fairly liberal state, we do tend to choose Republican governors. He screwed us with Romneycare, increased fees and taxes, and he cut the hell out of the state college system's budget. He made the state books look better by burying the towns and cities. i.e. typical creative CEO accounting methods.
Re:Logical Fallacy Bingo (Score:3, Interesting)
Ross Perot [wikipedia.org] did.
Realistically, we need to fix the winner-take-all system. You can't just hope everyone will vote for a third party.
Re:Same Difference (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Logical Fallacy Bingo (Score:5, Interesting)
If you can't decide between the Green Party and the Libertarian Party, you probably shouldn't vote for either... they are pretty much polar opposites as far as the government's overall influence in many areas.
However, oddly that doesn't discount one agreeing with the general core ideas of both.
I don't live in the US, so the current elections there aren't something I have any say in. However, since what happens there does tend to have some influence on the entire world (whether we like it or not), I do keep myself somewhat aware of what's going on.
Last time I described my politics here on Slashdot, I got flamed badly, so I expect that to happen again to this post. I describe myself as being strongly liberal in many ways and strongly libertarian in other ways. I don't see these as conflicting with each other since I don't consider either side to be an "all or nothing" approach.
For example, I am liberal in that I consider it important to have a strong government that will take money from me (and everyone else, fairly) in the form of taxes so that the common good can be maintained. I don't want to have to pay a different toll for every road I drive on - I want the govt to take care of that for me. This also applies to education, defence, "necessity of life" utilities; and so on ("and so on" being the sticking point for many people - it's hard to agree on what IS a "common good" and what is better handled by private industry).
On the other side of the coin though, I am against a government that interferes in my private life when it has no effect on others. They should stop me killing, stealing, and being a public nuisance (e.g. having an obnoxiously loud party in a suburban area that keeps people awake in the middle of the week when they have to work the next day); however I believe they should have no business telling me what drugs I am allowed to consume; whether I wear a bicycle helmet or not; what I can and can't do with information that I bought (e.g. ripping my own CDs to my computer as MP3s); and so on.
Here in Germany, the party that most closely aligns with my beliefs is the Pirate Party (I do disagree with them on some points though - for example: I'm in favour of continuing and improving nuclear energy use until we've got the infrastructure to cut over to "green" power. I am strongly against the idea of shutting off the reactors with no sensible replacement plan (and I consider coal to be a non-sensible replacement)). Were I in the US however, I would indeed have a hard time choosing between Green and Libertarian (I'd PROBABLY go with the Greens, but I'd be unhappy about their leftist nanny-state policies).
Re:I smell rope-a-dope (Score:3, Interesting)
Well, the context is there in plain english. Perhaps you can point out where I'm wrong.
You're not wrong. The proof is that several 0 administration figures (Carney etc.) refused to state it was an act of terrorism for around two weeks after that, instead claiming that it was a "spontaneous act" that arose from a "demonstration" outside the embassy over an "anti-Muslim movie".
Sadly for 0 and his cohorts, the actual facts have emerged, which do not involve any of the original scapegoats. Instead, it's clear that the administration dropped the ball and failed to recognize the threat from al Qaida on the 9/11 anniversary, leading to the murder of several people including the ambassador. That will not help on election day!
As is often the case, it's not so much the original act that gets you in trouble, it's the coverup. If it had been GWB in power, the press would have been all over it. With 0, not so much...but the truth is slowly coming out.
Re:I smell rope-a-dope (Score:2, Interesting)
Except for the part where the president detailed his reaction and the moderator confirmed it.
Except both were wrong, with 0 continuing his track record of constant lying.
The moderater also completely violated her duties - she'll never moderate another debate.