Obama

[DingleBerries]

I don't recall him saying "black" he said "minority" where I live Whites are the minority. it's funny how everyone assumes that when we say minority we automatically mean "black"

I also said Hispanic. But yes in general blacks are a minority

A subordinate group whose members have significantly less control or power over their lives than members of a dominant or majority group

There are more white males in power then black male. When ever some one say minority they are referring to a race other than non Hispanic whites.

Citations

http://academic.udayton.edu/race/01race/minor01.htm

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/01/21/...ain537369.shtml

http://www.census.gov/Press-Release/www/re...ion/006808.html

[SmoothCriminal]

I think it is sickening how Americans actually think Obama is a socialist. He is not, and never will be a socialist. If you want to talk about distribution of wealth then look at Reagan Economics. He cut taxes to the rich and raised taxes to the poor. We have seen a large portion of the middle class wiped out from this, all that is left are a few rich people and many more poor people. When 2% of the people have control of over 50% of the wealth that is distribution of wealth (thanks Republicans). People are so worried that if and when they make over 250k there taxes are going to go up. Well big news here, if you are making over 250 k you can afford to pay an extra 1000 to the government. Really Obama isn't raising the taxes that much, he is making them more fair. Where largely the middle and lower classes were taxed high, now everyone will be taxed.

What I find comical is all these people are talking about this, when in all likely hood they will never make that much money a year, especially under current tax laws. The current tax system makes raising your standard of living much harder than under Obama's plan. You are much more likely to save money under Obama's plan. Statistics show only 1.5% of households make more than 250 k a year currently, so really are you all that worried that your taxes will increase?

I hope some day that will apply to me, as that will mean I will make over 250k a year. Really Obama is cutting taxes to over 95% of Americans, and cutting taxes to ALL small businesses (look at his website) "Eliminate capital gains taxes for small businesses, cut corporate taxes for firms that invest and create jobs in the United States, and provide tax credits to reduce the cost of healthcare and to reward investments in innovation.".

[VaKo]

So to have an opinion based on reading and understanding the facts automatically makes you racist? or is he racist because he disagrees with some of Obama's polotics. Honistlly do we still have to try and make arguments about race? havent we grown passed that yet? the only racist people I still see are the ones who abuse their ethnicity to try to manipulate others. honistly can't we get past the stupid race thing already?

No, we haven't. Especically when your try and pin the blame on minority groups who are supposedly not pulling there weight. The basic problem is that people are looking at Obama's tax plans and going "well why the fuck should I be paying for people who live on handouts and use credit to buy bling?". Its not. Its intended to allow most normal people with regular jobs and incomes to pay less tax while people who do earn well over that limit will have a higher tax bill.

This is exasibated by people who don't earn anywhere near the threshold he has proposed for a higher tax band but would like to some day, so consider this a threat to a future potential earning power they will likely never achive under the current system. His policy is geared towards most people paying a lower rate of tax which will allow them to keep more money and have more potential for actually achiving there dreams. I really do not understand why this is so hard for people to get there heads around.

So, yes i do consider it as falling backing on a racism to say that this is just to fund minoritys who don't work to support themselves when under even a basic examination of the facts its clear that the policy is intended to aide a large proportion of the people who are complaining. A cheap shot basically, and one that cannot be backed up with actual data unless you consider anyone not earning $250K+ to be lazy as well.

Funny I thought it was the terrorists that started it all. no one seemed to voice that many problems with bush until we got attacked and he had to make a huge decision. I'm not saying that decision was right or wrong but he was the presidant at the time. if somthing like that happenes a year into Obama's term who's to say he's not going to have to make a decision that could lead to an even greater war... perhaps one on our own turf.

Bush's presidency would have been quiet and he would have been forgotten about had 9/11 not happened and none of the events which led from that occured. He was always a piss poor president but until 9/11 he could just coast. His discion to focus on invading afganistan and then Iraq which a: wasn't involved with 9/11 and b: took away resources from his first war cost him dearly. Allowing politicans to micro-manage the early stages of the war was another bad choice. He was forced to focus on a war and failed to focus on the home front which just lead to things slowly falling apart. Had there not been wars then more attention could have been given to regulating the financial services sector, education, research and development of new technology (where America should be leading the world) and fixing social & economic policys which were not suitable for the 21st century.

As for a ground war on American soil, the last people who did that were the canadians in 1812. Currently the sheer scale and power of the US army dwarfs the nearest potential threats from China and Russia. In a conventional war it would be very hard to do any serious damage to America. But due to the policys of Bush in Iraq and Afganistan Russia feels liberated to do the same whilst rallying against this perseived slight. It really doesn't have the military power to back this up though, unless it resorts to its cold war stock of nukes. But this is something Obama will have to deal with through diplomacy as opening a Russian front would lead to global war. China's military is worse than Russia's, and they're not stupid. Which is why they are concentrating on consolidating there economic power and cyber-warfare capabilities. No one in there right mind would even consider attacking America in a conventional fashion and gurilla warfare would have a very limited effect. (9/11 was limited, not many people died and the area destoryed was tiny when you compare it to bombing in Iraq or to damage done in Europe during WW2).

[deleted]

I found this really funny before the election, I was watching the news and they were intervewing voters, and there was these two replys.

"I aint voti'n for no baby killer, im voting for John McCain"

and

"My mommy told me obama kills babys, and i like babys"

lol

[still learning]

It does not mean your lazy if you dont make 250k a year or more, it means you dont have rich parents to help you out

I know the laziest person i've ever met in my life and his parents own an air conditioning business, they were mccain to the fullest then i know Jose down the street who works two jobs 80 hours a week making like 10$ an hour, which equals out to like less then 60k a year

enough with helping the rich people out, they dont need anymore help they are allready rich!

normal people cant even afford to keep their houses and cars anymore because republicans have sucked all the blood and money out of us

[bobisn'tabuilder]

"Live with in your means." You don't need internet if you do you usually have a decent job if it (your job) interntet for your job. Also it seems most people hate republicans, what is it becaouse when Bush lowered taxes they were happy but know becaouse he defended America and people not any party are causing this crisis. Yes why do banks need help, loans that aren't being paid. Otherwise we would not be in this situation. Not the goverment, not any party, but the people caused this, people living beyond their means and some people believe that everyone should have a house no that is not what I am arguing its that because if that the goverment steps in to get people houses (this was about nine or ten years ago) that has caoused many loans and no banks are going bankrupt because people have no consicuenses. Please enlighten me how higher taxes is going to fix this and the goverment being a big brother. The goverment doesn't know my situation or my business why should they make my business decisions. Such as I have to give health care well what if you already do maybe it is better than what the govement does due to your business. Goverment does not equal Big Brother but seems people want that so they don't have responsibilty. Responsibilty that is what it comes down to.

[Fred Wilson]

Do you? If not shut the fuck up and enjoy your lower taxes you racist hick.

I work. You're from the UK so why are you even in this thread?

I'm not racist -- I wouldn't care if Obama was purple. I just have problems with the 'immigrants' that come and leech off society. I'm a conservative and I think I'm entitled to my views. You have yours and I have mine. There's nothing wrong with that.

There also is another side of this: It's gonna be hell for small business.

It's really going to be an interesting four years.

[bobisn'tabuilder]

Fred Wilson. Agreed Agreed

[bobisn'tabuilder]

Is it just me or do most of the people in this forum support Obama. My question why, is because you believe Bush has screwed us up enough or do you want to elect Robin Hood for four years. (Robin Hood due to "Spreading the wealth". I echo what Fred Wilson said

It's gonna be hell for small business.

[VaKo]

I work. You're from the UK so why are you even in this thread?

I'm not racist -- I wouldn't care if Obama was purple. I just have problems with the 'immigrants' that come and leech off society. I'm a conservative and I think I'm entitled to my views. You have yours and I have mine. There's nothing wrong with that.

There also is another side of this: It's gonna be hell for small business.

It's really going to be an interesting four years.

I'm in this thread for a few reasons.

1: I'm genuinely impressed with Obama, what he says and how he says it. I saw Obama on the Daily Show back in November, 2005 and since then I've kept noticing him pop up and say (what I consider to be) intelligent things that resonate with the way I think things should be run. He is inspiring. I don't agree with everything he says (some things are just to American) but unlike Bush he doesn't seem to treat people like children when it comes to explaining what and why he is doing.

2: The UK is inexorable tied to the US (we sub-let our nukes from you ffs), and our politicians seem to bootleg a lot of the general concepts of US policy. We signed treaties that basically say we will go to war when the US asks us to and we (or at least a large chunk of our politicians) supported you in 2 pointless wars that had very little to do with us. This has caused problems such as a rise in domestic terrorism threats from disaffected Muslim youths which lead to the tube/bus bombings in London. So when I hear, not a day after his election, British politicians trying to out-Obama each other after 8 years of pandering to a moron it brings the hope that we won't be blindly following you into yet another death-trap.

3: Despite things I have said over the last 8 years America is a good country. I spent a large part of my youth wanting to move there as it seemed like a better place than the UK. My cousins family used to live there before moving back to India after 9/11. My dads family very nearly moved there from Germany after WW2, but chose Australia after my grandfather got in an argument with his brother. The American dream is a good ideal to uphold. You did have a space program while the UK had a man on a ladder. It seemed like a place where anything could happen when I was growing up in a rainy poor ex-mining town in the North.

But the Bush years pretty much killed this off for me, it seemed like you were collapsing into a fearful and crumbling empire where idiots were admired for style over substance and intelligence was a bad thing. You elected a coke-head failure who used character assassination, lies & FUD like regular people use toothpaste and surrounded himself with people who made that look like a good thing.

So seeing Obama being elected is like seeing an old friend quit heroin. Its the first in a long series of steps you need to take, but its a damn good sign.

p.s. Your entire population are immigrants aside from the few locals who weren't exterminated. Isn't it a bit rich to blame your issues on immigrants considering either you or your friends come from similar backgrounds although a few generations removed?

As for small businesses and the issues they may face:

Support Small Business

* Provide Tax Relief for Small Businesses and Start Up Companies: Barack Obama and Joe Biden will eliminate all capital gains taxes on start-up and small businesses to encourage innovation and job creation. Obama and Biden will also support small business owners by providing a $500 “Making Work Pay” tax credit to almost every worker in America. Self-employed small business owners pay both the employee and the employer side of the payroll tax, and this measure will reduce the burdens of this double taxation.

* Create a National Network of Public-Private Business Incubators: Barack Obama and Joe Biden will support entrepreneurship and spur job growth by creating a national network of public-private business incubators. Business incubators facilitate the critical work of entrepreneurs in creating start-up companies. Obama and Biden will invest $250 million per year to increase the number and size of incubators in disadvantaged communities throughout the country.

Yeap, its a quote from his site but its a good jump point for a debate as to why he will be worse than Bush.

[DingleBerries]

I think its pretty awesome Vako has such strong opinions about American politics, considering he resides in the UK. His statements are alot more researched then most of the things Ive read so far in this thread, and they also use correct grammar and make sense so thats a couple of cool points in my book.

Just because a person isnt American doesnt mean they cannot get involved in a conversation about our politics, i know we talk about the iraq economy all the time and their situation and we are not from there. So its really not cool to dismiss someones opinions just because they are not a resident of a certain country. Plus look at that post count... he seems legit.

[Fred Wilson]

But the Bush years pretty much killed this off for me, it seemed like you were collapsing into a fearful and crumbling empire where idiots were admired for style over substance and intelligence was a bad thing. You elected a coke-head failure who used character assassination, lies & FUD like regular people use toothpaste and surrounded himself with people who made that look like a good thing.

Bush certainly didn't help at all, but Bill Clinton with the deregulation is one of the major causes of the current financial crisis. The Democrats were in control of the House, Senate and now the White House.

p.s. Your entire population are immigrants aside from the few locals who weren't exterminated. Isn't it a bit rich to blame your issues on immigrants considering either you or your friends come from similar backgrounds although a few generations removed?

Yes, I did make a bit of a generalization there. My main point here would be, again, those who don't work or pay taxes shouldn't be able to get by on someone else's money. Immigrants were not the cause of all the issues we currently face, but this situation certainly isn't helping anything. The whole idea of immigration is that they come over, get an education and contribute to society to offset the costs of bringing them here. This isn't exactly what's going on...

You do have some very good points, VaKo.

[still learning]

There is no doubt Vako brought up good points, it was well said.

As for the last part

Support Small Business

* Provide Tax Relief for Small Businesses and Start Up Companies: Barack Obama and Joe Biden will eliminate all capital gains taxes on start-up and small businesses to encourage innovation and job creation. Obama and Biden will also support small business owners by providing a $500 “Making Work Pay” tax credit to almost every worker in America. Self-employed small business owners pay both the employee and the employer side of the payroll tax, and this measure will reduce the burdens of this double taxation.

* Create a National Network of Public-Private Business Incubators: Barack Obama and Joe Biden will support entrepreneurship and spur job growth by creating a national network of public-private business incubators. Business incubators facilitate the critical work of entrepreneurs in creating start-up companies. Obama and Biden will invest $250 million per year to increase the number and size of incubators in disadvantaged communities throughout the country.

Yeap, its a quote from his site but its a good jump point for a debate as to why he will be worse than Bush.

Why will he be worse then bush, his small business plan sounds great, im for new biz, not the same old biz thats been around forever. New people with great ideas, need to create fresh money.

This just shows how important this debate and the future of America is, the whole world is watching.. we need to do the right thing.

[SmoothCriminal]

Bush certainly didn't help at all, but Bill Clinton with the deregulation is one of the major causes of the current financial crisis. The Democrats were in control of the House, Senate and now the White House.

Yes, I did make a bit of a generalization there. My main point here would be, again, those who don't work or pay taxes shouldn't be able to get by on someone else's money. Immigrants were not the cause of all the issues we currently face, but this situation certainly isn't helping anything. The whole idea of immigration is that they come over, get an education and contribute to society to offset the costs of bringing them here. This isn't exactly what's going on...

May I point you to this:

I find it interesting that you site deregulation as a source of our current economic crisis, as that has been one of the Democrats main points of blame against the Republicans. “The Bush Administration’s eight long years of failed deregulation policies” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Bush has maintained throughout his presidency that deregulation is the way to go on wall street. Furthermore, we enjoyed for the large part economic prosperity during the Clinton years (aside from dot com bust). He left office with the largest U.S. surplus in our history.

May I also say that Vako wasn't arguing if Bill Clinton was a good president.

Obama never says that he is going to hand out free money for immigrants and the poor. He says he will cut taxes. If they are truly illegal citizens they are probably not paying taxes in the first place, thus they won't get a tax cut. Furthermore may I point you to this:

Bring people out of the shadows:

Obama and Biden support a system that requires undocumented immigrants who are in good standing to pay a fine, learn English, and go to the back of the line for the opportunity to become citizens.

I got this from Obama's website.

[lazaruswws]

Obama isn't in office yet and only history will judge his future decisions, I personally do not support him, Bush's presidency will be judged in time and will not go down as a great president but by far not the worst. I have confidence in Obama's ability to blame all of the problems created in his presidency on previous administrations and get reelected in the future. I didn't vote against Obama because he is black but voted for John McCain because he was the most pitiful candidate my party could come up with, if he really wanted to win he would not have picked Sarah Patin. The Vagina's voted with the biggest vagina Hilary (even though she has a penis) and by Hilary I mean Obama.

[Zimmer]

Gee Democrats didn't you last one past the DMCA. Isn't that reason enough not to elect him ;). I'm joking, incase you could not tell.

[Zimmer]

Fred Wilson and bobisn'tabuilder Agree.

[gcninja]

wtf is with all the double posting dude? srsly theres an edit button, a QUICK EDIT to top that, now, look at what clinton did though, lowered our debut a sheetload

[Swathe]

I knew he would win. Whether it makes a difference remains to be seen. I would have voted for him from what I know.

[VaKo]

@Fred Wilson

Yes, I did make a bit of a generalization there. My main point here would be, again, those who don't work or pay taxes shouldn't be able to get by on someone else's money. Immigrants were not the cause of all the issues we currently face, but this situation certainly isn't helping anything. The whole idea of immigration is that they come over, get an education and contribute to society to offset the costs of bringing them here. This isn't exactly what's going on...

As has been said, the tax issue isn't going to target immigrants, its going to target the vast majority of Americans who play by the rules and find themselves worse off for there troubles. I suspect that you will be included in this number, or am I wrong? I do however agree with you on the imigrantion issue. I'm a 2nd gen imigrant to the UK myself and I know my father was deffinately one of the immigrants who intergrated with British society when he arrived, worked hard and earned a nice amount of money to pay tax on, but I've still taken a lot of shit for having a forigen name from the natives here. We have a very similar issue with immigration, probally a lot worse than the situation in the US given the size of the UK population.

We have a lot of people who have come to this country both illegally and legally and the biggest problem I see is that society clumps the people who come to our shores together to better themselves with the people who arrive here seeking benifits and free housing (which are given out to a degree which would probally make you faint). This general air of hostility leads to a problem where imigrants tend to keep to themselves and form little enclaves with other people from similar backgrounds. So they don't intergrate with the native culture and population which causes the hostility to increase against them. So while the issues aren't the same in our 2 countries, there is a similar vein here.

Obama's imigrantion plan recognizes this problem, people from less economically viable countries will always seek to move to places they percive as being able to provide a better quality of life for them and there familiys (wouldn't you?). This tenant was what make America a great nation ("Give us your poor, your tired, your huddled masses longing to be free..." etc). A properly regulated imigration plan is a far better approach than say a blanket ban, border fences and milita-esq border patrols. If for example you find people who have been in the US for a long time, haven't got a criminal record and have been contributing then is it better to kick them out or better to force them to file the right paper work, fine them and make there residence legitmate? No, not everyone is going to be like this, but for those that are why not take a softer approach? For the people who are just there to leeach, deport them. If your a guest you should support yourself, even Mexico's imigration policy recognizes this.

Bush certainly didn't help at all, but Bill Clinton with the deregulation is one of the major causes of the current financial crisis. The Democrats were in control of the House, Senate and now the White House.

If you are talking about the Financial Services Modernization Act passed in 1999 then I don't think you can realistically blame the Democrats for that one. It was voted for by more republicans than democrats (a narrow margin though) so the support was bi-partisan. And if there was a problem with financial regulation then why in the 6 years that the republicans had control of most of the government, allowing them to push through many laws regarding anti-terrrorism measures, was nothing done about it? I'm guessing it was because of lobbying (on both sides) and the fact that the economy was doing well enough to hide the underlying problems. Fannie and Freddie's accounting problems have been on the table for 4 years now, but they used a strategy of presenting themselves as the champions of affordable housing to cover those problems. The issue with that was that no one was willing to be seen as going against this.

The problems we face now come from a deeper issue, that is we have allowed accountants to have to much power and have not regulated there behavior. We need to realize that to provide affordable housing we need to create an enviroment where people can earn enough money to afford housing, by reducing taxation on poorer people, increasing the avalibility of jobs, educating people to be able to get decent jobs and impressing realistic expectations on people regarding what they can actually afford. Simply relying on cheap credit and trickle-down economics cannot do this. McCains policys would not have fixed this problem as they were a simple re-jigg of what is happening already.

[twocs]

Is it just me or do most of the people in this forum support Obama?

Terrible troll... lolz.

Point #1: Most people in America supported Obama. Didn't you see the front page?

Point #2: Most people who use the Internet supported Obama. The 50% of Americans without broadband are predominantly in red states.

[Nophix]

I'm sorry to say this to you haters, but you are seriously taking Obama's tax reform and twisting it. I think you may have watched too many McCain ads!

Obama is going to balance out the tax system. Right now, the people making the most money have the most write-offs. I'm sorry , but when I see someone making 300k/yr and they are able to write off all those luxuries, such as the 8 snowmobiles, 4 atv's, and the custom 20k+ home theaters, and wind up paying less taxes than I do at my under 60k/yr, it pisses me off! Then, they whine because they may have to pay out another couple thousand in taxes that those write-offs would have covered. I'm sorry, but your damn olympic size swimming pool is not a tax write-off! Neither is your new Mercedes!

Taxes should be balanced across the board, based on a percentage of your total income, with the only write-offs being things such as medical expenses, child care, and homestead. You know, things you actually NEED to live!

As for the living within your means, there are a lot of us that DO. I know I don't make 250k/yr, so I don't drive an 80k car. But the things we do NEED as a family eat away nearly everything we make. Our housing costs, utilities, food, clothing, transportation, everything. We don't have cable TV, but internet is a MUST in today's world. Everything has gone digital. Add to that the fact that I HAVE to have it for work, to be able to remote in when not here, and that becomes a necessity.

And one more thing. MEDICAL CARE. FUCK the medical and insurance industries! How is it that I pay $500/month for medical coverage, and still wind uop paying out over $10k/yr in simple checkups and visits. God forbid you actually get sick!

But, for some reason, these executives are STILL going on company paid vacations totalling hundreds of thousands of dollars, and taking mone millions in bonuses... Gee, I wonder where my money is going.

I welcome Obama, and hope he can put policies in place to get the country back on track. If not, I'm moving to Canada!

[kickarse]

I didn't vote against Obama because he is black but voted for John McCain because he was the most pitiful candidate my party could come up with, if he really wanted to win he would not have picked Sarah Patin. The Vagina's voted with the biggest vagina Hilary (even though she has a penis) and by Hilary I mean Obama.

Talk about a pot calling the Kettle black. You only voted for McCain because you have some silly loyalty to a certain party. Do you even care about the issues at hand?? And yet you talk about people who voted for certain other candidates because of a gender bias. OMGWTFBBQ?!!?!

It's Sarah Palin, not Patin, but I knew you knew that already. And I didn't know that when you voted you had an option to vote against a candidate. I wonder what those polls showed!

And most people probably didn't realize all of the other parties that actually ran; libertarian, etc. And only really saw them while they were inking in their chosen candidate. How is that even a fair race?

The issue with the bailout is that when you give companies, extremely large companies, money it won't trickle to the little people in time for it to be of use.

The much better way of handling that would have been to give almost every man, woman and child a percentage of that. Give nothing to those in high society or those averaging over a certain amount of family income a year. Whether it be through actually giving money to people or reducing taxation.

Similar to what Dvorak was stating on his blog. It's not like most people would horde it. It would have been spent on things that were of need, like food, shelter and clothing. I think that would have bolstered the economy much more. These banks should have been allowed to crash. They won't learn their lessons and we have to pay for it.

[VaKo]

We have to much invested in big banks to let them all crash. If you burst the bubble everything will come crashing down, so instead you have to deflate it gently. An alternative to the bailout would have been to give that cash to debtors to pay off there debts, and debts only. Yes, its a bad solution and people should have been more responsible but one way or another paying off the debts is the only way to do this. Giving the money to someone was already on the table and having hundreds of thousands of people paying off there credit cards and loans would have added the much needed liquidity to the system in the same way that bailing out the banks was supposed to accomplish. The second stage of this would be to enact a *tempory* 90% tax on bankers bonus payments with the money being put in a special fund to be used to continue the first stage of the program. This would stop the payments being made in the first place, and if a few still did happen the money could be put right back where it is needed. I know there is a strong desire to fuck over the bankers who did this but now is not the time for revenge, now is the time to fix the actual problem which is to many people owing to much money. I'm not sure how this idea could be applied to buisness debts though, but I suspect that taking the pressure of the bottom of the pile would give us the time to find a longer lasting solution.

[still learning]

We have to much invested in big banks to let them all crash. If you burst the bubble everything will come crashing down, so instead you have to deflate it gently. An alternative to the bailout would have been to give that cash to debtors to pay off there debts, and debts only. Yes, its a bad solution and people should have been more responsible but one way or another paying off the debts is the only way to do this. Giving the money to someone was already on the table and having hundreds of thousands of people paying off there credit cards and loans would have added the much needed liquidity to the system in the same way that bailing out the banks was supposed to accomplish. The second stage of this would be to enact a *tempory* 90% tax on bankers bonus payments with the money being put in a special fund to be used to continue the first stage of the program. This would stop the payments being made in the first place, and if a few still did happen the money could be put right back where it is needed. I know there is a strong desire to fuck over the bankers who did this but now is not the time for revenge, now is the time to fix the actual problem which is to many people owing to much money. I'm not sure how this idea could be applied to buisness debts though, but I suspect that taking the pressure of the bottom of the pile would give us the time to find a longer lasting solution.

I agree completely instead of giving a 700 billion dollar bail out to big biz, they should have given each American citizen 2333$ (thats what it would equal out to according to federal population stats) then maybe all of us could pay our bills , and the money would go back to the companys anyways, this sounds like a much better fix then just giving away free money so a big AIG exec can spend 500k on a weekend vacation with the 700 billion dollar bail out that was given away, probuly to republican businesses , start from the roots , trickle effect does not work

I know all of the republicans are pissed Obama won haha :P