Did any conservatives defend the BLS stats?

7.8% is a lot.

It's easy to explain... People still aren't making as much as they used to.

I have a friend of mine who worked in marketing for a large firm, made big bucks. She got laid off. Work was impossible to find. Eventually she got a part time job at Starbucks, which eventually turned into a full time job. She's making one fourth of what she used to.

Yeah, too bad huh? Next thing you know, it'll be 6.8%. There goes the neighborhood.

The unemployment rate fell. It's a good thing. The only ones upset about the news are assholes.

Obama 2012.

http://www.uspoliticalnewswire.com/w...05-images1.jpg

I hope the USA gets better employment...

It's amazing that all along the GOP has been using the numbers as irrefutable fact that Obama needs to go.

Now they say those same numbers are not to be believed.

Fuck. That. It's as bad as birtherism. Dumb shits.

Obama 2012.

http://www.bartcop.com/gop-jobs-numbers-5.jpg

Not going to get into a debate here, but I do want to present some food for thought...

The number of jobs added does not equate to the number of individuals that began working, these are just jobs created that are or need to be filled.

The number of jobs that are needed per month is not to "break even" that number is to keep up with population growth. That still doesn't mean that the people who reach an age to work all enter the job force. Many become stay at home moms, go to school full time, start a business of their own, or make other decisions that make them not part of the job force. This has always been the case.

Jobs are paying less, this is 100% true, but four years ago there were quite a few people, some who are on this board, that I personally had to lay off. Almost every single one of those people have jobs, or have started their own small businesses. Whether they employ any other employees or not, I do not know, but they are working.

The unemployment rate would have dropped below 7% 2 years ago had their been no extension of unemployment benefits at the end of 2010 as part of the congressional deal made to also extend the Bush tax cuts. This too would have been a false drop, but a drop non-the-less.

Has anyone got a solution. We all know it's bad, what's Romney's solution?

In the debate he said that oil and gas production and the Keystone pipeline were part of it.
The other part is cutting taxes on small business which gives them more money to work with.

Both those ideas sound like common sense to me. I don't KNOW if they will work or not...but with Obama we will never know because he hasn't had any solutions yet.

The housing market was already in turmoil and Lehman Brothers had already failed but the economy was still good?

I meant compared to what happened in 2009. At that time in 2008 I was still kinda thinking that it would turn around within a year or so. Never in my wildest dreams did I think that 4 years later it would still be like this.

Oh, good news... I'm now registered to vote.

I think it's going to fall even more - The Christmas season will be starting in full force and retail will be bulking up with seasonal employees. While this might be a tad bit misleading, it is a yearly thing, and of course Obama will take as much credit as he can for it.

This is a huge part of the problem. People seem to think this is something the President can quickly fix. It isn't. This isn't a four year problem, it's a ten year problem. The entire world is feeling this.

This is one step above the Great Depression. Half of the houses on my street were vacant at the height of this crisis - HALF. That's not something you can quickly recover from.

Don't believe me? Read about the "lost decade" of Japan.

Because tax cuts worked so well when Bush did it.

Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
Albert Einstein

BTW, oil and gas production in the US is higher than its been in 10 years.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...362643448.html

Where will the money come from for the small business tax cuts?

Giving small businesses a tax break may create some expansion or it might mean the bosses take it as extra wages.

The downside is tax cuts have to be matched by tax cuts, borrowing or increases in other sectors. Tax cuts = job losses.

So how can small businesses be encouraged by Government to expand?

Here's an idea. Make US produced Solar Panels subject to a discount at the tills. So more consumers will switch to them and move away from traditionally generated electricity to solar power.

Put $1,000 on the cost of a new gas driven car and a discount of $1,000 on an electrical or hybrid car. The $ amount can be adjusted for effectiveness.

Government aided or funded projects in new technology.

Taxing imported goods more.

Tax cuts bring $0 growth we have seen the proof of that so many times it's amazing people don't laugh when it's put forward. Because for every $10,000 cut a job is lost, (adjust the $10,000 it was an example) and the $10,000 spent by a tax payer doesn't result in 1 job created.

While Americans only vote for big spending campaigners, or motivated by short term greed, the system will never change. And as Robbie points out the system is at fault.

I only answered Paul's question.

Thunderballs, if you watched the debate Romney told Obama to his face that Obama's administration has cut new oil drilling on Federal lands in HALF. He had nothing to do with oil & gas production going up. It is all happening on PRIVATE land.

Paul...as unemployment goes down and more people pay taxes instead of taking govt. checks...the federal revenue doesn't go down. Federal revenue was fine during the Bush years...problem was that Bush was busy trying to conquer the world with the military. The whole idea behind the tax cuts was that the govt. was running a surplus...which means it was taking more of our money than it needed. Bush's stupidity was thinking we could fight expensive wars at the same time. That isn't the case now.

If not for invading a couple of countries in the middle east we wouldn't have had a deficit. The numbers for federal revenue by year are easy to Google.
Start doing that instead of asking dumb questions to adult webmasters on GFY:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...993_-_2008.png

True, so how do you get employment down?

Yes Bush inherited a surplus, spent and cut you into the mess you're in now. And?

The case now is. The US is deep in debt and taxes are not covering the debts? So cut taxes and then what happens?

I don't get this. You don't lower my taxes and I say "Hey, I'm going to hire another person". Instead I say "Wow, more money for me let's see what else I can write off to screw the government".

That's a valid point.

But then that person SPENDS that "more money for you" and that stimulates the economy and increases jobs as other businesses need more employees.

We can't grow the economy if we keep taking money out of it and giving it to the govt.

That guy who now has more money...he may just go buy a new car. Or a new flat screen. Or maybe his income has moved to a level where he now feels more comfortable purchasing a new home.

Giving it to Washington D.C. to spend on war and cronyism just doesn't sound right to me.
Remember..today the U.S. Federal govt. spent 10.6 BILLION dollars. And borrowed 4 BILLION of that from China.

Through this whole economic disaster the Feds have not slowed down spending one bit. While the rest of us are struggling to get through this...Washington has kept right on spending like nothing is wrong at all.

They don't need MORE money. They need LESS, and to STOP spending.

Taxing people more isn't going to do anything to create jobs. We are in DEBT over 16 TRILLION dollars. They haven't even slowed down the spending.

If I were in debt like that, I would STOP spending on anything not essential (I'd pay my mortgage, power, water, and groceries) and start paying down my debts.

That isn't what is happening in Washington. Those motherfuckers are still getting rich!

Think about it...10.6 BILLION dollars per DAY. They spend more in 29 minutes than Mitt Romney's entire net worth.
They spend more in 4 days than Warren Buffets entire net worth.

The number I saw was that you could "tax" all the people making over 250 thousand dollars at 100% and it would only run the govt. for about a month.

More taxes isn't the answer. As Obama likes to say: "It's mathematics" But he only likes to say that about CUTTING taxes. When it comes to taking people's money and spending it in Washington...math no longer exists.

https://gfy.com/showpost.php?p=19237909&postcount=64 for my answer.

If THE WEST stopped spending, you would go out of business.

Why not tax people more and just cut the borrowing?

Are you some kind of communist?

Paul...one more time...the MATH doesn't add up.

We are spending 10.6 BILLION DOLLARS PER DAY.

If you taxed everyone who made over $250,000 ONE HUNDRED PERCENT of everything they own it would only run the govt. for 30 days.

The federal govt. spends more in 29 minutes than Mitt Romney's entire net worth. They spend more in 4 days than Warren Buffets net worth.

Do the math. There is NO way to tax ourselves out of this. The spending has to STOP. It has never been at the levels it is now...and no, we don't need the govt. to spend 10.6 billion dollars a day or I'll be "out of a job"

You are ignorant in every way on this.

Bill O' Reilly has the solution for Social Security and Medicare. Raise the age on social security, and don't pay out to people that don't need it. Create a national sales tax of 1 - 2% to pay for Medicare.

Why not? Lets say you need $5k/month to live now... taxes get lowered, and you get $6k/month after taxes... you have an extra $1k/month now, so you might figure "why am I working 80 hours per week? I'll hire someone to help out"...

Stop spending, cut borrowing and there's less money going around THE WEST.

Stop spending, cut taxes and those with a little bit more spend on more imports. Those who lose their jobs, spend a little bit less.

Why only tax those earning more than $250,000 a year?

Total US work force is 146,743,000 unless you have better figures. Tax each one $10 more a week and $1.46 billion is raised a week. Cut borrowing by the same amount and your children will have less of a debt to repay. $75 billion a year less to borrow.

It will have exactly the same effect as cutting borrowing by $75 billion a year. Except your children will have less to repay.

$4 billion a day is flowing into the US economy. The other 6 is recycled around the US economy. This is the same situation most of the EU is in. Look at those not in trouble and think why.

No the opposite. I think the solution is in Western businesses developing more exports. Not a few spending more on imports and more spending less.

Where does the extra $1k a month come from?

The answer is from sacking someone. Who isn't buying so much.

You just can't understand the math can you?

Tax everybody $10 more a week and raise 1.46 billion in a week.

Paul...they are SPENDING 10.6 BILLION DOLLARS A DAY. They are BORROWING 4 BILLION DOLLARS A DAY.

That's what I'm trying to explain to you. You apparently are refusing to do the math. They will have spent the 1.46 billion you propose taxing more per week in less than 5 HOURS.

You can't tax people fast enough to keep up with that.

Spending needs to be actually CUT. And I'm not talking about the bullshit Washington D.C. idea of "cutting" They call it a "cut" when it doesn't RISE as much as it did the year before.

Has anyone yet mentioned that unemployment is a lagging economic indicator that is typically two to three quarters behind? The fact that it is down to 7.8% means things are even better than the rate implies.

$75 billion a year is a drop in the bucket and that $10 per week tax would actually hurt a lot of low income people.

Hurt people to do nothing. Brilliant.

I never said trust anyone, I said I don't trust Obama, based on his track record.

Romney won't raise taxes, but will probably invent new government fees. That's how he did it in Mass.

Obamacare will still leave 30 million uninsured and 3 million paying the tax to stay out of it that will payout to the government 8 billion a year according to the CBO.

Because of the extensions in unemployment that went on for up to 2 years, that economic indicator has changed. I'm glad that we are finally below 8%, but reserve celebrating about it till we get below 5%.

Because I would much rather spend that money on hookers and blow.

that's what reagan did.. he committed treason in order to get elected

'bowing'

Because Romney's track record is better? He left the governor's office with a 34% approval rating.

Obama has made promises that he has failed to keep. I would take that over Romney, who lied to us during the debate when he told us he made Massachusetts the best schools in the country. While Massachusetts sure are number one, it had nothing to do with Romney and everything to do with a ten year education plan that doubled the amount of money the state poured into education that was in full swing long before he took office.

You have a someone telling us he's going to lower our taxes and lower our deficit while increasing our military and increasing jobs. He's making it sound like it's very easy to do - but he's not telling us how he plans on doing it.

Fuck yeah! :pimp

He did what ever it was to end a conflict without shooting.

I could care less about approval ratings, I care about my own approval rating and Obama has done a shitty job. I talked to a guy that worked for Chevron and he gave scary numbers how 4 years ago we had a ratio of refineries to population in California and that the population has grown but the amount of refineries has actually dropped.
I also know that Obama keeps taking credit for pumping more oil now than with Bush, failing to tell you that it's because of the permissions Bush gave we are pumping more and that under Obama, they have dropped to records lows.
If that doesn't do it for you, watch the speech where Obama told everyone that Osama was dead, count how many times he said "I" or gave credit to himself and never once mentioned the Seal team. He never even said "Seal". He said "I" a lot!

Oh yes, let's give Obama credit for ending the war. even though 69% of the casualties happened under Obama, that's 1,272 of the 1,844 deaths since Operation Enduring Freedom started in October 2001.
Obama soundly lost my vote when he said he wanted to go back to sending more troops to Afghanistan. Everyone was pissed about the war, yet they voted for him when this is what he promised.

http://communities.washingtontimes.c...-laden-raid-p/

So Richard, if you are going to place your vote on lies, the present administration is full of them. And they cost lives, cost at the pump and cost in the economy.

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-me...oo-good-check/ Are your pants on fire? Jebus, some idiots will believe anything on Face Book

Yes, he's done a shitty job. When he took office exactly HALF of the houses on my street were empty. Now they are all full. Every last one of them. Housing is up all around, unemployment is down below 8%. Our government (and time) has finally reversed the flow.

Do you think McCain would have done better? Hardly.

Do you think Romney can do better? Romney's entire life has been spent using other people's money to buy stuff that wasn't his, charging a ton of money to "manage it" and then walking away as it fails. Fucking brilliant. Yes, we need that in office.

I have no idea what this has to do with politics. Is Obama shutting down oil refineries?

My brother works for the oil refineries - he works on them when they shut down. Oddly enough, it seems oil refieneries shut down all the time.

And Romney is taking credit for having the top schools in the nation although that was something started ten years prior to him being in office. Welcome to politics!

You are former Navy and you know damn well who sits on top of the chain of command. If the Navy Seals failed, one person and one person only was going to take blame for it. Yeah, he said "I" - because he's the one at helm.

Clearly Romney is full of character, has never told lie, and always worked in the best interests of his employees.

No problem. Romney will just fix everything. He'll lower the deficit while reducing taxes and increasing military spending while creating millions of jobs - as if it's that easy.

below 8% by how much? Job growth is still slowing down

Conjecture, we will never know will we?
Looking at what he's done, well, he lead Bain & Company out of a Financial Crisis, then co founded Bain Capital that became highly profitable and one of the largest of it's type in the world, Which helped companies like Staples get started. Until recently, haven't really followed whats been going on, but Romneys business deals have been pretty profitable. They worked with or aquired Domino's pizza, Sealy Corporation, Brookstone, Sports Authority and a bunch more.

Seems a lot of them are shutting down, hows that good?
It does highlight a point that currently, the school system is fucked and what's been done in the last 4 years?
Reagan never took credit for what we did!


You mean like Obama Promised?

If at the stroke of a pen someone reduced my taxes by $1000 a month I wouldn't employ another person (and unlike some people here I actually own an office and have staff, this isn't theoretical), I'd pay down debt or invest in the market creating no new jobs with it*, that's the issue with giving tax cuts to the "job creators", we don't neccessarily create new jobs with it. Give a tax cut to someone living week to week and it's going to be used to buy something straight away and much more likely to go directly into the economy...

I've only ever put on more employees when work demand was there to earn extra money, not just because I had extra money lying around, that would be a less efficient use of resources.

*At least not directly and not for a while.

You won't accept that $4 billion a day flows into the US and the UK and many other countries are in the same boat. Look at Greece for an example of what cutting brings.

Imagine you bought a house when everything in online porn was going great. Mortgage is $10,000 a month, breeze to pay it because everything is going great. Then 2008 hits you and your income starts to decline. 2012 and you need to borrow $4,000 a month to pay the bills.

You move out of your mansion, into 2 bedroom apartment in a less desirable neighbourhood cut expenditure. Then live a more frugal life. To stop the borrowing and live within your income until and if the good times return.

Now think of it in terms of a country. Are you prepared to see 40% of your income lost, when the US stops borrowing the 40%?

Many countries are living on credit, stop the credit and lose the money to spend. Happens to people with credit cards and countries with debts.

$10 a week won't fill the gap, it was an example of how to narrow it a little.

$1.460 trillion goes into the US economy every year to keep everyone in a life style they clearly can't afford. Just because it's borrowed by the Government doesn't mean it stops there.

Finding out where it's spent reveals 100s of different opinions and statistics. Except it's mostly spent in the US.

Cutting it, stops the spending and removes it from the flow.

Cut out military spending and soldiers lose a jobs, a factory lose contracts, administrators lose jobs, shops and porn websites lose customers, their shops lose customers, so porn websites and shops 1,000 miles away cut staff. These people spend less money, because they're now unemployed, where they shop lose money and the the money loss keeps going around and around.

Romney says he will cut spending. Welcome to the nightmare. Except a lot of big businesses thrive on Government spending and he knows it. So don't expect any big cuts soon.

Solution, raise more in taxes to cut spending and lower interest rates. Encourage businesses to come to America to create jobs, invest in tomorrows technologies. Yes if a company can get more oil out of the US soil, go get it. so long as it doesn't ruin the environment. Better still, get off oil dependency. Drive smaller cars.

Buy more US made goods, buy less new imported gadgets, like the latest Chinese manufactured iPhone. Tell Apple in no uncertain terms to close their Chinese sweatshops and bring jobs back. When you buy a car, bike, don't buy a Toyota, BMW, Suzuki, etc. Buy one MADE in the US, not just assembled. Buy a more fuel efficient smaller one, so less oil is imported.

There are no quick fixes to a long growing problem. The most important thing is to understand the fix will be painful for all. Not just the US in all Western Countries running on huge debts.

Correct!

Republican policies took a surplus and turned it to a never ending deficit. Republicans lied to the American people and the U.N. to push for two wars that are currently estimated to cost over 6 trillion dollars (even the WSJ puts the cost of the Iraq war at $4 trillion). Not to mention creating over 100,000 civilian casulties and close to 1,000,000 refugees. All at the same time he was passing the biggest tax cut ever.

Now Romney wants to cut taxes again, even though there is still 1 war going on. And he wants to add 2 trillion to the military budget and get tough on Iran (get ready for another war)

But hey those wars were 8 years ago, so ancient history. The fact Romney has the exact same policies means nothing. "Those who forget history are doomed to repeat it"?

Now tell me Im a stupid Liberal (even though I'm not) who loves Obama (even though I don't) who doesn't understand math.

This guy is going to follow the same path as Bush. He said so.

https://gfy.com/showthread.php?t=1084506

Why would I call you stupid or say you don't understand math. That is Paul who is trying to say we can tax our way out when I'm pointing out that the Federal Govt. is spending 10.6 BILLION a day,

I'm with you 100% about Romney being a warmongering fool who wants to continue doing what Obama is doing...Keep fighting and keep troops occupying these countries.

We won those 2 "wars" in a matter of days. But then our giant military industrial machine wanted to keep the money flowing so we did "nation building" and we're still there! Just like we are in Germany & Japan 70 years after WW2

Go check out what Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson says he will do (that's who I am voting for by the way):
http://www.garyjohnson2012.com/

Just go there for a couple of minutes and hear what he has to say. I think he makes more sense than Obama and Romney combined.

I corrected you on that, you must of missed it. Go back and read my answer to your previous mistake.

I agree Robbie, to me the biggest problem of this whole election is that there was one guy who had legitimate ideas and he was made to seem insane. I didn't agree with everything Ron Paul said but he at least had clear ideas that he could articulate.

I really hope Gary Johnson makes an impact in this election.

Talking about cutting PBS or taking on subsidies for Corporate Jets when your spending $300 million a day in Afghansistan is like saying I'm going to stop paying to have my rims detailed on this lamborghini I can't afford.

I have family members in oil business and I hear its booming. Record profits are being made as we speak.

There is nothing wrong at all with cutting spending, Hell I'm all for it.. The problem is the Right Wing tries to use that as their platform when if fact they never cut spending. The last 3 Republican presidents have increased spending by record numbers then try to call the tea pot black when they are the kettle.

You absolutely have to be an idiot, live in lala land or completely un-informed to actually believe the Republicans will ever "really" cut spending. (not aimed at you just at anyone in general)

The right always get on their high horse and blow the trumpet about spending cuts blahhblahh blahh on "social" services then they increase the spending on military & give tax cuts to the rich that they can't pay for.

It's the exact same cycle every Republican president since Reagan. Maybe before then but Reagan was my first personal experience with Republican president and even he knew in the end that he fucked up & had to raise taxes.

Give me a real "Physical" Conservative that will actually cut the budget sensibly and I'd vote for him no matter who he was or what party he was with. Everyone knows spending is too high but it's only too high on the shit this party or that doesn't care about.

Hell Clinton was a better "Physical" Conservative than any of the Republicans we have seen in the last 30 years. At least he put the budget back in control after the Reagan era spending and we would of been set up pretty well had Bush Jr not been elected.