Just wondering.

As for why poor people are fat, if they are fatter, it is because they eat a lot of cheaper high calorie foods. Usually the only things they can afford. And now with prices the way they are, the problem should get worse. They eat alot of filling foods like spaghetti and potatoes. Starchy foods that give the illusion of a full stomach. As for the fat Mr.Gramm he has no excuse.

This man is responsible for much of the de-regulation of our financial market and institutions. And he is the FAT HEAD heading McCain’s economic policy. And if McCain gets elected, this man with the milk of human kindness running in his veins will be the Secretary of the Treasury.

This arrogant, most umpopular, selfish right wing nut job and his ditto head wife are and always have been in total disconnect from everyone else. He represents so many of the Republicans and the neocons that now have run this country into the ground. He has nothing to connect him to his fellow Americans except he was born here. I often wonder what happens to these people that turn out to be so very nasty.

What happens in their lives that makes them so totally contemptuous of others. Why the only standard they judge by is financial? I wonder just who will mourn this man and his equally selfish wife? Just how will all that money and greed leave the world any better? It won’t. That thought never occurs to these people. People like this and the Bush’s go through life in a closed little society of money and power.

The only foot print they leave is one of devastation behind. I have seen more empathy, more generosity, more common sense, more good qualities in the four legged animal. This elitist man whose sole criterion for existence is the bank balance and power of money.

Guess what? He is going to die like the rest of us. His body will fail and his grasp on his life will disappear too. How much money will help him? And the real question is, who will care? Money may or may not prolong his selfish existence, but who cares?

“Minimum wage laws tend to cut the bottom rung off the economic ladder. The plain truth is there should be no minimum wage law in this great land of free enterprise.” — Gramm, 5/17/89
You’re right as always, Phil. Our country would be much better off if we could just fill the bottom rungs with child laborers and people who could work as they starved to death, or rotted away from diseases they could have recovered from if they just could have seen a doctor. I think we cut the bottom rungs off of our food supply as well. Why shouldn’t poor people be able to eat the dead as well?

“We’re the only nation in the world where all our poor people are fat.” — Gramm, 9/6/81
Holy crap! And all these years I thought PIGBOY LIMPBALLS was rich! Seriously though, Phil, you look like you have one foot in the grave already and I was pretty surprised to see that you are still alive. I’m gonna fix one hell of a good martini on the day you kick it.

(former CEO of Exxon/Mobil – with a retirement golden parachute of $500,000,000.00)

http://aycu28.webshots.com/image/35947/2002733381467038500_rs.jpg

I hope Jhonny keeps him on board for November because he is sure to lose……………

This wealthy politician is a MORON………

upright left Says:

______
Greed isn’t restricted to the wealthy. How many of the people who got into trouble by buying too much house bought modest three bedrooms? I haven’t seen the statistics, but the individual cases of which I’m aware involved homes that were quite expensive compared to the national average. Beyond mortgage issues, should the govt also regulate what cars people can buy and whether they are given credit cards? At what point do you expect people to take responsibility for their actions?

I see you completely ignored my point and instead responded to the emotional buzzword that tripped your trigger.

I never said anything like greed was restricted to the wealthy. It’s precisely because greed isn’t restricted to the wealthy that regulation is necessary.

I explained a solid reason for regulating transactions that pose serious risks to those unschooled in the legal or financial intricacies of the process — so that such transactions can take place comfortably and with reasonable expectations of fairness, a condition which benefits the industry as well as the consumer. (The only one it doesn’t benefit is the crook out to rip off people.) You, for some reason, seem to have read that as a call to relieve people of the responsibility for themselves and their choices.

Rather than read the point I made, you seem to have translated it immediately into right-speak and responded to the interpretation that most closely matched a liberal stereotype.

The question is, why should I have expected any different from you?

“Do you object to price floors, as well as ceilings?”

But the fact that Graham has done all these things for years and McCain brought him on board shows that McCain is in agreement.

(Not to mention many bills with Graham and McCain as sponsors that gave us disastrous results.)

What “arguments’ like this ignore is that the conditions for such bad loans have traditionally been restricted precisely because they lead to the kind of ponzi-scheme collapse that we’ve witnessed over the last few years.

The rationalization that the people who were suckered into buying too much house deserve what they got is neither compassionate, understanding, nor insightful regarding the wider impact on all of us in this economy.

It’s a standard, conservative justification for greed. John Kenneth galbraith said it best:

The modern conservative is engaged in one of man’s oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness.

July 11th, 2008 at 11:12 pm
______
Greed isn’t restricted to the wealthy. How many of the people who got into trouble by buying too much house bought modest three bedrooms? I haven’t seen the statistics, but the individual cases of which I’m aware involved homes that were quite expensive compared to the national average. Beyond mortgage issues, should the govt also regulate what cars people can buy and whether they are given credit cards? At what point do you expect people to take responsibility for their actions?

So for example, greenhouse gasses are a cost that have obviously been ‘hidden’ for quite some time. You can say that the market can’t solve that problem but I think the real solution is instead of trying to centrally micromanage the ecnomy, you simply make people FEEL the costs of greenhouse emissions with a tax and create an incentive to counteract them with subsidies.

When you use price controls instead you are basically speaking for other people’s monies instead of your own. For example if you want cheaper housing in your city, doesn’t it make more sense to subsidize it with the voters who want its money (and simultaneously increase the incentive to create more supply) than to tell the landlord he’s not allowed to make more than $X and disincent people to build more and increase the supply.

I see nothing wrong with trying to deal with these issues, however if we publically agree that they are a cost we’d like to pay then WE should pay them with subsidies and taxes, which don’t distort a market in the same ways as price controls. (Different ways, but I think they at least accomplish their intent instead of being counter productive).

-Brad
Walt Disney World For Grownups

bjohnson Says:
I wasn’t saying it WAS beyond discussion, I was asking you if you believe its beyond discussion.

My apologies; I mis-read your comment.

I simply don’t think that believing that a minimum wage is counterproductive makes a man self serving.

No, it doesn’t. It is a striking coincidence, however, how many self-serving people make that argument, for presumably self-serving aims. I think believing in a market economy, in a classic, pure sense, demands a blindness to human realities in favor of theory. Whether that blindness is fed by self-interest or by a naive faith in simple theory is open to question.

In my view, unfettered free market economies inevitably trend toward concentration of wealth in the fewest number of hands. We’re seeing it now, as Bush economic policies have resulted in a sharp widening of the income and wealth gap over the past seven years.

Now, free market conservatives may be willing to accept that result as a natural consequence of what they see as the “fairest” way to organize economies. But I think most people recognize that society is more important than economy, and the economy should serve the society, not the other way around. And the best, healthiest and most peaceful society is one in which a large middle class participates in a vibrant economy. This requires regulation on all sorts of business practices so that people who are not expert in law or in real estate can purchase a home with some degree of comfort and confidence that they’re not getting taken advantage of.

A minimum wage has not been statistically shown to have any of the adverse effects claimed by opponents, and it has been shown to have positive impacts on local economies.

http://www.epi.org/content.cfm/briefingpapers_min_wage_bp

Hey a$$whipe, i’m not going to sit around and starve while we wait for one of your economic theories to pan out.

If I can’t feed myself, guess what, I’m going to eat you. Now what would you rather pay for – minimum wage to keep me from redistributing your wealth (to me) or an entourage of body guards.

Progressives seem to have forgotten the threat of violence is what keeps the elite in line.
Maybe it’s not that they’ve forgotten

The Have-littles and Have-nothings have become more civilized.
The have-mores and have-everythings have not.

Turn your back on your fellow country man, don’t be surprised when he sticks a knife in it.

I wasn’t saying it WAS beyond discussion, I was asking you if you believe its beyond discussion. That is are you completely confident that if we abolished the minimum wage that it would be bad for anyone. I honestly believe its largely a non-issue, but its representative of a price control which generally have the opposite effects of their intention. Quite simply if I disincent people to create demand for something by forcing a minimum price then I create excess supply. If I disincent people from creating supply of something will create excess demand.

You may believe what you wish, but studies have shown that minimum wage increases have no measureable effect on hiring practices, thus, the minimum wage itself causes no deleterious effects to the business climate.