Lurchy

http://www.cnn.com/2015/06/01/opinions/abukhdeir-p...

Just curious about the weather down there. I'm planning a trip to Latin America and I want to find the best place for beautiful beaches, friendly people, nice weather, and lower cost (relative to other Latin countries). I've heard good stuff about Ecuador, so I'm curious. Any help appreciated.

I would really like to go somewhere that isn't muggy.

I'm looking to do a FaceBook type of interaction with the investors in my company, however, obviously FaceBook sucks for security. I need a website that is totally secure, meaning nobody has access unless I invite them and even once I invite them, the secret company information is not going to get shared with the world just because they "liked" something or commented on something. I want to use it to give regular updates on the business growth and business needs in a way that my board and investors can support the company in a collaborative manner, even though some are based in separate states and even countries.

I did use Posterous, but Twitter bought them and is killing that site. Any help greatly appreciated!

We all know that Bush, and Reagan, vacationed a heck of a lot more than Obama has at this point in their terms. But with all the lies and laughable whining about the costs of Obama's official trips, wouldn't it be interesting to see an apples-to-apples comparison of the three including total vacation days and costs to the tax payer for those vacations?

He ran on a platform of "We have to balance our budgets, so should the U.S. government." But the first thing he wants to do is transfer our money to himself and his cronies through more ineffective and unfunded tax breaks fro the rich!

The U.S. government needs to balance its budget, unless Rand can give himself a handout!

Just curious but, Rush Limbaugh gets our tax dollars to be broadcast on Armed Forces Network (seems he should be paying me, not the other way around), and yet he is famous for calling our fighting forces "phony". Just wondered how much of our tax dollars go to pay his salary every year, anybody know?

The robber barons and colonizers of the 1800s used to basically rape a colony of its natural resources for their own profit. Look at the Opium War, for example. Addict much of a nation to a new drug like opium that will put the people and country into what will essentially a permanent debt to the colonizer when it is the colonizer who is really getting all the benefit from the relationship and should owe money to the colony if it were a free market/free trade.

In America's case, just replace opium with consumerism, home ownership, and/or cheap credit. Sound familiar?

In India, Great Britain found an excellent source of natural resources, and tea in particular. Once colonized, the Brits forced the Indian farmers to grow tea instead of the normal food stuffs for feeding locals. At the same time, the British govt gave the East Indian Company monopoly rights to export the tea, thereby creating a false monopoly on the Brit purchasing side that could then use its monopoly power to manipulate prices. So, by forcing the farmers to grow a non-food item for export on their farms, the population was short on food. And by paying them less than what the tea was worth on the market because of the monopoly, the farmers did not get paid enough to purchase the food they used to grow themselves but now had to buy from overpriced British companies. The Brits got all the profits, the labor, and the natural resources with vary little rebellion while the Indians went broke paying for the privilege to be colonized and plundered.

It sure feels like the Rothschilds and all have run out of third-world countries to pillage and plunder and have been turning their sights on America for at least the last few decades. We as a nation became addicted to consumerism. Instead of tea, we are going broke trying to pay off 'debt instruments' that vary few of us ever would have voted for or supported if the foreign-owned mass media had not fed us lie after lie while hiding the truth. We were the world's lender before 1980, but by 1988 we were the world's borrower. How did that happen? We had a surplus in 2000, which was again a deficit by the end of 2001 because the corporations and the rich here and abroad needed more high-interest absolutely safe debt to invest in ala the U.S. Treasury. If they don't have enough T-bills to buy, they are not happy because their portfolios take on more risk than they are comfortable with.

Hence, like India and the tea, the power elite got our government to pass a $1.4T tax break for the rich during a time of two wars so that the rich would have that much more money for free (!) to buy that much more debt from our govt, making money for nothing now and making more money for nothing off of us for the next five to thirty years. It's like how so many corporate CEOs got rich; on top of a hefty salary, borrow company money at zero interest to exercise the stock options that then put the company in even worse shape. The power elite treat out govt as nothing less than a free bank where it can print or receive money for nothing for itself, creating a debt for the American working class. At the same time it will use that free money to finance the debt that we've taken on without any of us seeing any benefit whatsoever. Anybody else feel like an Indian farmer in the 19th century?

* Foreclosure Phil Gramm, aka the Father of the Enron Loophole, Author of Gramm-Leech Act that overturned the Glass-Seagal Act which protected Americans from predatory banks since the Great Depression, also slime-ball who bragged about slipping the Mortgage-Backed Securities (debt swap) into a spending bill at midnight thereby single-handedly creating the moral hazard that caused the mortgage crisis and global economic recession.

* Ben "Deficits are good" Stein, aka "Tax the Rich to Pay for the Military" Ben Stein, and the Conservative who goes on Fox and Calls Cavuto the lying azzhole he is.

* Mark Zandi, Moodys Chief Economist, whose studies have shown that the Bush tax cuts only return $0.29 in economic benefit for every $1 lost in revenue while UI extensions return $1.64 in economic benefit for every $1 spent in welfare.

The Republicans got their arses handed to them by young voters in 2006 and 2008. Here's College Humor explaining the young adult image of the Republican/Tea Party Party.

http://www.collegehumor.com/video:1938095

Little remembered fact, but one mainstream view in the Right Wing was that surpluses were bad for the economy. They robbed the financial markets, meaning the rich, of safe high-return investments guaranteed and paid for by the U.S. taxpayers. Hence, when Bush took over in 2001, instead of using the Clinton surplus to pay off the Reagan debt, Bush immediately went to work to give $1T in tax breaks to the rich. It was not so much that the rich needed the money, they didn't, or they were going to invest in America, they didn't, when the foreign markets were so much more exciting, but it was that if the tax breaks went to the people, there would be little need for the social services that drive so much of the deficit. If that happened, the govt would not need as much money and the deficit would shrink, thereby providing less instruments for the rich to invest in safely and profitably to offset their new investments in riskier, higher-return instruments overseas.

http://yglesias.thinkprogress.org/2010/05/the-forg...

"For example, the bizarre episode in 2000 and 2001 when a mainstream view among right-of-center economists was that the nation was facing a threatening situation in the form of possible elimination of the national debt. That’s right, the Clinton administration’s budgeting had not only eliminated the budget deficit, but was seen as possibly leading toward paying off all the accumulated debt of the Reagan years. And the right was afraid! One leading exponent of this view was Alan Greenspan, who used it as a reason to push for the Bush tax cuts, tax cuts that would save us from the curse of surpluses"

I had 249 points, and then I asked this question.

17 of the 20 (85%) states receiving the most federal spending per dollar of federal taxes paid are Red States. 11 of the 14 (79%) of the states receiving the least federal spending per dollar of federal taxes paid are Blue States.

http://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2004/09/re...

2003 Republican Healthcare Reform = trillions in Big Pharma, Big Insurance, and Cadillac Medicare Advantage welfare.

Bush tax cuts are welfare, or wealthfare, for the rich. They are paid for by the middle class, just like welfare. Only real welfare is about five times more economically beneficial to the economy than Bush tax cuts.

http://endtheecho.wordpress.com/2008/01/25/moodys-...

Moody's Chief Economist, Mark Zandi, was an economic advisor to the McCain campaign in 2008, as well as a maxed-out donor to the McCain campaign. No Leftie by any stretch of the imagination.

But not all people on the Right are liars. He is one of the honest RWers. Here is his, and Moody's, official projection of the economic benefit of various economic stimulus methods. The figure indicates the amount returned to the economy in benefit for every dollar invested in that method:

Make Bush tax cuts permanent: 0.29

Cut Corporate tax rate: 0.3

Make Capital Gains cut permanent: 0.37

Refundable lump-sum tax rebate: 1.26

Temp Payroll tax holiday: 1.29

General Aid to State Govt: 1.36

Increased Infrastructure Spending: 1.59

Extend UI Benefits: 1.63

Temp increase in food stamps: 1.73

http://endtheecho.wordpress.com/2008/01/25/moodys-...

Note that the Republicans are for everything that benefits the overall economy in general and everything that benefits the overall economy more than it benefits themselves in particular. Meanwhile, they are 120% for the programs that are harmful for the economy but that benefit them personally.

Didn't the Founding Fathers warn us about people like the Conservatives?

Not looking to blaze new trails so much. Just wondering about places to get away and retire in comfort, earlier than I would be able to here in the States. So some language concerns, no taxes for $ brought in, low cost of living, high quality of life, safety, healthcare are all considerations. Thoughts?

Curious to hear what you think.