44 replies to this topic

[ccabal86]

The best moderation is self-moderation

 

[Yates]

The best moderation is self-moderation

 

Which is why I am seldom sober.

[Yates]

There is no such thing as a political party called The Tea Party.

Fair enough. If you want to split hairs, the Tea Party is a MOVEMENT. I kind of like that descriptor better anyway since I had a "movement" this morning...

 

Snagging a web domain doesn't make you an authority on a movement.

No. Certainly not. It does, however, indicate that there was enough cohesive ground swell to necessitate the creation of an organized online presence that exists to this day representing TODAY’s Tea Party.

 

Even though I agree with every item on your little list... they are not why the Tea Party of 2009 was created.

I can’t argue this point. I can only point to THEIR stated purpose on THEIR website as evidence of what the Tea Party stands for.

 

I don't agree that New Deal spending ended the depression. It made the depression impossible to end. WWII ended the depression by employing everyone. It will be chicken scratch compared to the depression that will happen if we don't get the debt under control.

This is the point where you start getting into MY wheelhouse, Macro Economics. The way the government spends money can not and should not be equated to balancing a home budget. While I agree that we need some better decision makers at the helm, I disagree with the Tea Party’s stated method of doing so.

You live in New York, right? Let’s take a look at how INTELLIGENT government spending has rescued parts of Upstate New York, revitalized manufacturing in the State, and been a boon not just for New York State but for our Country as a whole…

Back around 1996 or 1997, a Physics professor at a SUNY college was able to convince New York State to give him a couple million dollars to build a special type of research facility for something called “nano technology,” a foreign term at the time. That money, along with public/private partnerships with companies like IBM, AMD, Tokyo Electron, Applied Materials, etc. has blown up into a multi BILLION dollar research institution, the creation of a new SUNY College, thousands of jobs for upstate NY, and new sites coming up in Utica, Rochester, and Buffalo.  What's awesome about this model is that WE own the facilities and the tools.  Since the tools are worth upwards of $150M-$200M a piece [especially for Alpha tools] PLUS specialized installation knowledge, it would be extremely cost prohibitive for any of these companies to try to pull out.  We are doing it for 1/10th of what it would cost them to do it privately anywhere else.  So this prevents a full pull out - a la Kodak or GE - and any type of a bubble burst.  Thus, this strategy not only brought jobs to New York State but has actually created a situation where they pretty much HAVE to stay at this point.  As a Republican, you've got to love that we grew and have a strategy for MAINTAINING jobs, right?

One of the outcomes of this initial investment was the ability to save two solar manufacturing and research companies and to bring them to New York State. In fact, this is being built on a brown space [the former site of Bethlehem Steel] in Buffalo, NY. As a Republican, you’ve got to love the fact that we are supporting research and manufacturing that will lessen our dependence on foreign oil, right? And that’s not even taking into account the thousands of high paying jobs that single program will be responsible for creating.

It also set upstate New York up as the new “Tech Valley” and a place that companies want to be in order to take advantage of the high tech resources, training, and talent pool we have in this area. International SEMATECH relocated their headquarters from Austin to Albany, as one example. MW Group, a construction firm that specializes in cleanroom buildings, moved their headquarters from out of state to the Watervliet Arsenal, a 10 minute drive from downtown Albany. Moves like this is what fed Global Foundries’, an Arab company that is a manufacturing subsidiary of AMD [the guys that compete with Intel], decision to build their chip fab plant in Malta, NY – 30 minutes from Albany. They chose Malta in the United States of America over areas like Taiwan, Singapore, and Dresden. That Fab created almost 2000 jobs directly [process engineers, tool specialists, gas and chemical technicians, etc] with an average salary that borders on 6 figures. And that doesn’t take into account all the startups that have been popping up to support this industry [cleanroom supplies, special cleaning services for cleanroom gowns, chemical and gas supplies, etc]. As a Republican, you’ve got to appreciate that as a big win for our COUNTRY, right?

And none of this would have happened without an initial INVESTMENT by our GOVERNMENT in education.

 

Oh before I go... nobody defines me... including great people I meet on game forums.

I hope that wasn’t directed at me. I’m not trying to define you, if it was. I just think this is a polarizing issue worth healthy, intelligent debate. And frankly, if I didn’t respect you I’d just call you an idiot and wouldn’t bother with discussion! Since I think you are NOT an idiot, I am fascinated by your decision to support the Tea Party and I’m trying to understand it.
 

[Lysistrata]

In short Sir, I'm in Las Vegas.

I firmly believe that private investors and the free market are the solutions to our stagnant economy.

The Government takes (steals) money from people who earn it, gives it to people that don't earn it (their friends), and they don't care what happens to the money, because it's not their money. They just go get some more.

 

Nothing is gained when there is no profit, and nobody cares until someone creates a way for there to be a profit.

 

I am no economist and George Bush did a very bad thing paying for two wars on the credit card.

He just didn't want the American people to "feel" like we were at war. End result... about 4 trillion added to the debt in 8 years.

Bad George... no biscuit. Along comes Obama... 7 trillion in 5 years with 3 to go.

 

It's not working. What happens when the Fed stops printing money to prop the DOW?

What happens when interests rates go up? And they must go up sometime... the money is worthless when it's free.

What happens if the rest of the world decides our money is just no good anymore and the dollar is no longer the world reserve currency?

It all collapses and we're standing around burning tires cooking rats on a spit. Not my vision of the American Dream.

 

With all our efforts since 2009, Obamacare has done more harm to itself in the last 3 months than we could ever do.

Obama is repealing his own law a little more each day. Glorious.

[Simternity]

The real question is, is this just a small part of all the things the media keeps us occupied with while the government makes moves behind closed doors? They keep us rambling and debating on silly things constantly....are we all that petty? Or is it to keep the masses woefully unaware of reality? (Real reality, not "reality" TV shows)


Start paying attention to things that actually matter and that will affect generations to come, IM0O.

 

 

I would think that the government has little to do with reality TV, though if it did, that'd probably be the CIA's business. Wouldn't be the first time they'd tried to affect the public mindset for their own gain.

I doubt this, though, as the entertainment industry is huge, and it would be very difficult to morph it, at the very least it would take a LOT of money (though the CIA does probably benefit greatly from their protected drug routes, which of course goes to show that the CIA is just the shadiest branch of the U.S. government ever). However the NSA did manage to sway Verizon and AT&T, so there's an example.

Though it's fun to hypothesize about the shady things the government does, as well as discuss the things it is currently doing, I doubt that this has anything to do with the government at all, and is just a PR stint done by a private corporation. Either them backpedaling or trying to make money off controversy. Either way, it brought much attention to the show.

 

If I had a private multimillion dollar business, I'd probably pay PR guys to do these same things.

 

Edit to fix awful quote formatting.