freeheelbillie

well that didn't take long Amazon I wasn't aware that Nancy was ever president. I'd ask you to read the request for "Intellectual Conversation" at the top of the post... This ability seems to have escaped you once again. Sad really WOW those panties sure do get in a bunch way too easily. Have you ever considered boxers instead???? I go commando Gently pushing comfort zones since 1976...

$enators and Reps? Add Democrats to the mix and you're right...they "all" should be held accountable... In the words of Ron Paul; However, many in Washington fail to realize it was government intervention that brought on the current economic malaise in the first place. The Federal Reserve’s artificially low interest rates created the loose, easy credit that ignited a voracious appetite in the banks for borrowers. People made these lending and buying decisions based on market conditions that were wildly manipulated by government. But part of sound financial management should be recognizing untenable or falsified economic conditions and adjusting risk accordingly. Many banks failed to do that and are now looking to taxpayers to pick up the pieces. This is wrong-headed and unfair, but Congress is attempting to do it anyway. These housing bills address the crisis in exactly the wrong way, by seeking to hide the problem with more disastrous government bail-outs and interventions. One measure, HR 5830 the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) Housing Stabilization and Homeowner Retention Act would allow the FHA to guarantee as much as $300 billion worth of refinanced home loans for those facing threat of foreclosure. HR 5818 the Neighborhood Stabilization Act, would provide $15 billion in loans and grants to localities to purchase and renovate foreclosed homes with the object of then selling or renting out those homes. Thankfully, President Bush has vowed to veto both of these bills. It is neither morally right nor fiscally wise to socialize private losses in this way. The solution is for government to stop micromanaging the economy and let the market adjust, as painful as that will be for some. We should not force taxpayers, including renters and more frugal homeowners, to switch places with the speculators and take on those same risks that bankrupted them. It is a terrible idea to spread the financial crisis any wider or deeper than it already is, and to prolong the agony years into the future. Socializing the losses now will only create more unintended consequences that will give new excuses for further government interventions in the future. This is how government grows - by claiming to correct the mistakes it earlier created, all the while constantly shaking down the taxpayer. The market needs a chance to correct itself, and Congress needs to avoid making the situation worse by pretending to ride to the rescue. -Ron Paul; May 11, 2008 Gently pushing comfort zones since 1976...

well that didn't take long Amazon I wasn't aware that Nancy was ever president. I'd ask you to read the request for "Intellectual Conversation" at the top of the post... This ability seems to have escaped you once again. Sad really Gently pushing comfort zones since 1976...

funny...The legacy Reagan and others like him (JFK, MLK), leave behind lessons. There is no need to reinvent the wheel. Its fair to say that Obama's short resume leaves something to be desired when it comes to his leadership. His oratory skills can’t make up for this. Did you read the article? Gently pushing comfort zones since 1976...

Well put! Gently pushing comfort zones since 1976...

Trying to get some intellectual conversation started here…so if you have something to add other than the typical; waaaahhhhhhh, boohoo, you’re a right flinger, voodoo economics comments by all means chime in. It seems like emotions run high in here and a bit of well directed adult conversation would be a nice change of pace. Just curious what your thoughts are regarding the article below; President Barack Obama's honeymoon period seems to have ended quickly. That's because Mr. Obama doesn't grasp the essentials of presidential leadership. Rather than making a compelling case for his economic policies, he has resorted to curt rebuffs, such as telling House Republican whip Eric Cantor, "I won." House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said the same thing the same day: "We won the election; we wrote the [stimulus] bill." This is the trope of a party that has lost its ability to make an argument. Mr. Obama and his team would be well advised to put aside the imperious FDR model and study Ronald Reagan's first 200 days in office. The contrast is instructive. Upon entering office in 1981, Reagan's team produced a 50-page, detailed blueprint for their first six months in office. The passage of their economic policy was the central objective. This report, called the Initial Actions Project (IAP), has received little attention from historians or journalists (with the notable exception of Lou Cannon). It would be highly useful for Mr. Obama to review it. One of the main themes that emerges from the IAP report is that Reagan and his team didn't assume that a landslide victory meant they had a mandate to do whatever they wanted. To the contrary, the report's authors, Richard Wirthlin and David Gergen, wrote: "The election was not a bestowal of political power, but a stewardship opportunity for us to reconsider and restructure the political agenda for the next two decades. The public has sanctioned the search for a new public philosophy to govern America." Establishing a new governing philosophy, in other words, would require sustained public argument -- something for which Reagan had an abiding instinct. Even in private sessions with Democrats, Reagan relished vigorous arguments about the welfare state. This was much to the annoyance of then House Speaker Tip O'Neill, who just wanted to cut deals. Reagan never attempted to stifle debate by saying "I won." The IAP noted that President Jimmy Carter "failed to realize that leadership means more than 'laying it all out;' it also means keeping at it." Like Mr. Carter, Mr. Obama seems peeved that Washington won't roll over for him. The IAP report understood that the American people "are yet to be convinced that Mr. Reagan's policies will work." Relying on his skills as "the great communicator," the IAP recommended that the president focus on "the outlining of broad strategic policy outlines, and not on narrow programs" and that his explanations be "simple, straightforward and understandable." Translation for Mr. Obama: Don't go on TV to talk about the stimulative effects of "weatherization." Even Jon Stewart thought that was lame. Throughout the tax cut battle of 1981 -- which was no sure thing right through the final vote in July -- Reagan understood the need for constant argument about the substance of the matter to convince the American public and bring together enough Democrats to pass his agenda. To be sure, Reagan's team knew that the honeymoon period would provide maximum leverage, and that they had to move quickly before "organized interest groups regain their strength and aggressiveness." But by handing over the drafting of the stimulus package to Capitol Hill, Mr. Obama started out by empowering interest groups to unleash their pent-up aggression. This is a lesson in the character of the two parties. The Democratic Party has been, at least since the Nixon years, a predominantly congressional party, finely honing the means of running the iron triangle of interest groups, bureaucracy and spending. This is why Presidents Carter and Clinton came to grief with their own party in Congress, and why the more executive-minded Republican Party generally presents better examples of presidential leadership. The IAP also warned what would happen if the economy remained weak under Reagan: "Should the economy remain in its current disarray, the administration could quickly lose control of the current economic policy agenda. By summer, ignited by a weak economy, the Congress could press for a host of measures to stimulate the economy generally and to shore up particularly weak sectors such as autos, housing, thrift institutions, and small businesses. Under such circumstances, the administration could easily find itself on the defensive, constantly opposing ill-conceived though well meaning bail out schemes. We would essentially be reduced to reacting to events rather than shaping the economic agenda." With Congress already unleashed in exactly this fashion, the months ahead will be grim for Mr. Obama unless he steps up his game. Mr. Hayward is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, and the author of "The Age of Reagan: The Conservative Counter-Revolution, 1980-1989," forthcoming from Crown Forum. Hayward, Steven F. (2009). Opinion Journal. Wall Street Journal. Retrieved February 13, 2009, from http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123440526764875671.html Gently pushing comfort zones since 1976...

So I will be finishing AFF this weekend (weather dependent) and I have been looking at containers as well as complete rigs...just getting ideas & prices. It sure seems like the majority of rigs posted here are for guys about 5'8" or under...At 6'0" and 185lbs I am having a hard time finding a good deal. Just thought it was odd skydiving seems to be dominated by vertically challenged guys. At least the guys selling anyway... Gently pushing comfort zones since 1976...

I like that mine does not jump...thats my me time and hers as well. Works out great. Gently pushing comfort zones since 1976...

hmmmm your time must not be very valuable...considering you always find the time to post a weak response. If you would like to actually debate ideas or even carry on something other than a one sided conversation, let me know. But you'll need to sharpen up...I dont even need to try with you. Why bother shaprening anything when I'm shooting fish in a barrel... LMAO...you are the model of your party, congrats. I know you are but what am I? there now we are at the same level. Hope that makes you feel better Gently pushing comfort zones since 1976...

hmmmm your time must not be very valuable...considering you always find the time to post a weak response. If you would like to actually debate ideas or even carry on something other than a one sided conversation, let me know. But you'll need to sharpen up...I dont even need to try with you. Gently pushing comfort zones since 1976...

DUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUDE you are seriously in need of a whole cheese factory.... you seem to have an inexaustible supply of WHINE WOW! Thats 2 well thought out, educated and supported rebuttals in one day! If you can't come up with something other than what I have heard on a playground, keep it to yourself. As for my opinion, they rest in the ideals of freedom and the capacity for people to innovate and prosper when the government leaves them alone. I believe in the the ability of the private sector to improve the standards of living for all. I also believe that the Federal Government is encroaching on our freedoms and as Hayek points out in "The Road to Serfdom" , government attempts at central planning lead to tyranny, even though many times these plans are made with the best of intentions i.e. $800,000,000,000 in "planned" projects. I don't whine, I only point out the hypocrisy and falsehoods spewed by those who want to further their political agendas. Gently pushing comfort zones since 1976...

I think it's absolutely shameful what both sides of the aisle have done in terms of adding pork and crazy tax cuts to it, but . . . you have to do SOMETHING. There has to be an infusion of cash that will start to circulate. Parts of the bill are great, parts are things we needed to do anyway and are simply moving up, parts are stupid as shit. Ok, yeah, you do have to grease the skids I guess to get people to sign it, that's how politics seems to work. All of that said, it's CONGRESS, not Obama, that is to blame for the wacky shit. I totally agree with you here...mind you Democrats run Congress and have for some time now. Either side of the isle thinking that they can control the micro/macro economy is actually really silly. See below, it's kind of dry reading but shows how foolish government messing with the economy really is. I, Pencil My Family Tree as told to Leonard E. Read RP.1 I am a lead pencil—the ordinary wooden pencil familiar to all boys and girls and adults who can read and write.* RP.2 Writing is both my vocation and my avocation; that's all I do. RP.3 You may wonder why I should write a genealogy. Well, to begin with, my story is interesting. And, next, I am a mystery—more so than a tree or a sunset or even a flash of lightning. But, sadly, I am taken for granted by those who use me, as if I were a mere incident and without background. This supercilious attitude relegates me to the level of the commonplace. This is a species of the grievous error in which mankind cannot too long persist without peril. For, the wise G. K. Chesterton observed, "We are perishing for want of wonder, not for want of wonders." RP.4 I, Pencil, simple though I appear to be, merit your wonder and awe, a claim I shall attempt to prove. In fact, if you can understand me—no, that's too much to ask of anyone—if you can become aware of the miraculousness which I symbolize, you can help save the freedom mankind is so unhappily losing. I have a profound lesson to teach. And I can teach this lesson better than can an automobile or an airplane or a mechanical dishwasher because—well, because I am seemingly so simple. RP.5 Simple? Yet, not a single person on the face of this earth knows how to make me. This sounds fantastic, doesn't it? Especially when it is realized that there are about one and one-half billion of my kind produced in the U.S.A. each year. RP.6 Pick me up and look me over. What do you see? Not much meets the eye—there's some wood, lacquer, the printed labeling, graphite lead, a bit of metal, and an eraser. Innumerable Antecedents RP.7 Just as you cannot trace your family tree back very far, so is it impossible for me to name and explain all my antecedents. But I would like to suggest enough of them to impress upon you the richness and complexity of my background. RP.8 My family tree begins with what in fact is a tree, a cedar of straight grain that grows in Northern California and Oregon. Now contemplate all the saws and trucks and rope and the countless other gear used in harvesting and carting the cedar logs to the railroad siding. Think of all the persons and the numberless skills that went into their fabrication: the mining of ore, the making of steel and its refinement into saws, axes, motors; the growing of hemp and bringing it through all the stages to heavy and strong rope; the logging camps with their beds and mess halls, the cookery and the raising of all the foods. Why, untold thousands of persons had a hand in every cup of coffee the loggers drink! RP.9 The logs are shipped to a mill in San Leandro, California. Can you imagine the individuals who make flat cars and rails and railroad engines and who construct and install the communication systems incidental thereto? These legions are among my antecedents. RP.10 Consider the millwork in San Leandro. The cedar logs are cut into small, pencil-length slats less than one-fourth of an inch in thickness. These are kiln dried and then tinted for the same reason women put rouge on their faces. People prefer that I look pretty, not a pallid white. The slats are waxed and kiln dried again. How many skills went into the making of the tint and the kilns, into supplying the heat, the light and power, the belts, motors, and all the other things a mill requires? Sweepers in the mill among my ancestors? Yes, and included are the men who poured the concrete for the dam of a Pacific Gas & Electric Company hydroplant which supplies the mill's power! RP.11 Don't overlook the ancestors present and distant who have a hand in transporting sixty carloads of slats across the nation. RP.12 Once in the pencil factory—$4,000,000 in machinery and building, all capital accumulated by thrifty and saving parents of mine—each slat is given eight grooves by a complex machine, after which another machine lays leads in every other slat, applies glue, and places another slat atop—a lead sandwich, so to speak. Seven brothers and I are mechanically carved from this "wood-clinched" sandwich. RP.13 My "lead" itself—it contains no lead at all—is complex. The graphite is mined in Ceylon. Consider these miners and those who make their many tools and the makers of the paper sacks in which the graphite is shipped and those who make the string that ties the sacks and those who put them aboard ships and those who make the ships. Even the lighthouse keepers along the way assisted in my birth—and the harbor pilots. RP.14 The graphite is mixed with clay from Mississippi in which ammonium hydroxide is used in the refining process. Then wetting agents are added such as sulfonated tallow—animal fats chemically reacted with sulfuric acid. After passing through numerous machines, the mixture finally appears as endless extrusions—as from a sausage grinder-cut to size, dried, and baked for several hours at 1,850 degrees Fahrenheit. To increase their strength and smoothness the leads are then treated with a hot mixture which includes candelilla wax from Mexico, paraffin wax, and hydrogenated natural fats. RP.15 My cedar receives six coats of lacquer. Do you know all the ingredients of lacquer? Who would think that the growers of castor beans and the refiners of castor oil are a part of it? They are. Why, even the processes by which the lacquer is made a beautiful yellow involve the skills of more persons than one can enumerate! RP.16 Observe the labeling. That's a film formed by applying heat to carbon black mixed with resins. How do you make resins and what, pray, is carbon black? RP.17 My bit of metal—the ferrule—is brass. Think of all the persons who mine zinc and copper and those who have the skills to make shiny sheet brass from these products of nature. Those black rings on my ferrule are black nickel. What is black nickel and how is it applied? The complete story of why the center of my ferrule has no black nickel on it would take pages to explain. RP.18 Then there's my crowning glory, inelegantly referred to in the trade as "the plug," the part man uses to erase the errors he makes with me. An ingredient called "factice" is what does the erasing. It is a rubber-like product made by reacting rape-seed oil from the Dutch East Indies with sulfur chloride. Rubber, contrary to the common notion, is only for binding purposes. Then, too, there are numerous vulcanizing and accelerating agents. The pumice comes from Italy; and the pigment which gives "the plug" its color is cadmium sulfide. No One Knows RP.19 Does anyone wish to challenge my earlier assertion that no single person on the face of this earth knows how to make me? RP.20 Actually, millions of human beings have had a hand in my creation, no one of whom even knows more than a very few of the others. Now, you may say that I go too far in relating the picker of a coffee berry in far off Brazil and food growers elsewhere to my creation; that this is an extreme position. I shall stand by my claim. There isn't a single person in all these millions, including the president of the pencil company, who contributes more than a tiny, infinitesimal bit of know-how. From the standpoint of know-how the only difference between the miner of graphite in Ceylon and the logger in Oregon is in the type of know-how. Neither the miner nor the logger can be dispensed with, any more than can the chemist at the factory or the worker in the oil field—paraffin being a by-product of petroleum. RP.21 Here is an astounding fact: Neither the worker in the oil field nor the chemist nor the digger of graphite or clay nor any who mans or makes the ships or trains or trucks nor the one who runs the machine that does the knurling on my bit of metal nor the president of the company performs his singular task because he wants me. Each one wants me less, perhaps, than does a child in the first grade. Indeed, there are some among this vast multitude who never saw a pencil nor would they know how to use one. Their motivation is other than me. Perhaps it is something like this: Each of these millions sees that he can thus exchange his tiny know-how for the goods and services he needs or wants. I may or may not be among these items. No Master Mind RP.22 There is a fact still more astounding: the absence of a master mind, of anyone dictating or forcibly directing these countless actions which bring me into being. No trace of such a person can be found. Instead, we find the Invisible Hand at work. This is the mystery to which I earlier referred. RP.23 It has been said that "only God can make a tree." Why do we agree with this? Isn't it because we realize that we ourselves could not make one? Indeed, can we even describe a tree? We cannot, except in superficial terms. We can say, for instance, that a certain molecular configuration manifests itself as a tree. But what mind is there among men that could even record, let alone direct, the constant changes in molecules that transpire in the life span of a tree? Such a feat is utterly unthinkable! RP.24 I, Pencil, am a complex combination of miracles: a tree, zinc, copper, graphite, and so on. But to these miracles which manifest themselves in Nature an even more extraordinary miracle has been added: the configuration of creative human energies—millions of tiny know-hows configurating naturally and spontaneously in response to human necessity and desire and in the absence of any human master-minding! Since only God can make a tree, I insist that only God could make me. Man can no more direct these millions of know-hows to bring me into being than he can put molecules together to create a tree. RP.25 The above is what I meant when writing, "If you can become aware of the miraculousness which I symbolize, you can help save the freedom mankind is so unhappily losing." For, if one is aware that these know-hows will naturally, yes, automatically, arrange themselves into creative and productive patterns in response to human necessity and demand—that is, in the absence of governmental or any other coercive masterminding—then one will possess an absolutely essential ingredient for freedom: a faith in free people. Freedom is impossible without this faith. RP.26 Once government has had a monopoly of a creative activity such, for instance, as the delivery of the mails, most individuals will believe that the mails could not be efficiently delivered by men acting freely. And here is the reason: Each one acknowledges that he himself doesn't know how to do all the things incident to mail delivery. He also recognizes that no other individual could do it. These assumptions are correct. No individual possesses enough know-how to perform a nation's mail delivery any more than any individual possesses enough know-how to make a pencil. Now, in the absence of faith in free people—in the unawareness that millions of tiny know-hows would naturally and miraculously form and cooperate to satisfy this necessity—the individual cannot help but reach the erroneous conclusion that mail can be delivered only by governmental "master-minding." Testimony Galore RP.27 If I, Pencil, were the only item that could offer testimony on what men and women can accomplish when free to try, then those with little faith would have a fair case. However, there is testimony galore; it's all about us and on every hand. Mail delivery is exceedingly simple when compared, for instance, to the making of an automobile or a calculating machine or a grain combine or a milling machine or to tens of thousands of other things. Delivery? Why, in this area where men have been left free to try, they deliver the human voice around the world in less than one second; they deliver an event visually and in motion to any person's home when it is happening; they deliver 150 passengers from Seattle to Baltimore in less than four hours; they deliver gas from Texas to one's range or furnace in New York at unbelievably low rates and without subsidy; they deliver each four pounds of oil from the Persian Gulf to our Eastern Seaboard—halfway around the world—for less money than the government charges for delivering a one-ounce letter across the street! RP.28 The lesson I have to teach is this: Leave all creative energies uninhibited. Merely organize society to act in harmony with this lesson. Let society's legal apparatus remove all obstacles the best it can. Permit these creative know-hows freely to flow. Have faith that free men and women will respond to the Invisible Hand. This faith will be confirmed. I, Pencil, seemingly simple though I am, offer the miracle of my creation as testimony that this is a practical faith, as practical as the sun, the rain, a cedar tree, the good earth. RP.29 Leonard E. Read (1898-1983) founded FEE in 1946 and served as its president until his death. "I, Pencil," his most famous essay, was first published in the December 1958 issue of The Freeman. Although a few of the manufacturing details and place names have changed over the past forty years, the principles are unchanged. * My official name is "Mongol 482." My many ingredients are assembled, fabricated, and finished by Eberhard Faber Pencil Company. Return to top Copyright ©2000 Liberty Fund, Inc. All Rights Reserved Gently pushing comfort zones since 1976...

You're exactly right! I have said this before, but obama was running on "hope" and "change" now 2 weeks later he is a fear monger playing on "catastrophe" and "doom" Gently pushing comfort zones since 1976...

I hope that you are not one of those people who has a Bush scapegoat mentality. He his hardly to blame for all the troubles in America. Obviously, he is responsile for some issues...but if you look closely at the housing FUBAR Democrats require as much credit for "requiring" high risk loans. That aside if we are using the French and their systems as a blueprint or any type of guidance...brace yourself its about to get worse, MUCH worse! Gently pushing comfort zones since 1976...

I hope that you're not implying that makes it okay? Both parties are to blame...and obama has put the last nail in our coffin. Either way its the end of America, as we know it. Gently pushing comfort zones since 1976...

Not sure if any of you have seen the cover of News Week or not. At least one media outlet can call our governmental system by it's rightful name... [url] http://www.newsweek.com/id/183663 The founding fathers are rolling over in their graves Gently pushing comfort zones since 1976...

lmao Gently pushing comfort zones since 1976...

It IS the government job to protect us...I wasn't aware that the last 8 years had anything to do with "caring" fo rthe public, certainly obama's entire campaign was based on the belief that Bush left the poor in greater despair. Also are you insinuating that terrorists don't still hate us and want to bring harm to our people? Don't be foolish. Bush did use fear to get things done the way he saw fit though. Reminds me of obama, who spoke of hope and change...now speaks only of coming catastrophe. Its the same fear mongering. I hope that you never have to eat your words. Gently pushing comfort zones since 1976...

Kewlllllll you found the Caps Lock Key..... I am sure there will be plenty of RIGHT FLINGERS.. flinging letters away at the White House... Nice rebuttal...I can only assume that the lack of content was due to the fact you shot yourself in the foot. Now that the bill has passed you can hardly make an argument about spending and deficit. Democrats will no doubt hold the record for eternity, blaming Bush along the way. The double standard is laughable. Gently pushing comfort zones since 1976...

Its very simple.. put in the URL then you can cut and paste to your hearts content. Please go look at the amount of the National Debt in 1981. BUEHLER>>>>BUEHLER .. and the subsequent years under Ronnie RayGun and King Bush I and King Bush II. Its now up to 11 TRILLION Dollars... under their system of VOO DOO DOO Economics. At some point... most people who are not crooks.. realize you actually have to pay your debts. MAYBE YOU SHOULD SEND A LETTER TO OBAMA AND REMIND HIM OF THIS!!! Gently pushing comfort zones since 1976...

My last comment was "not my words" far from being a PLAGARIST. Maybe we could set some guidelines for proper reference page format...APA, MLA maybe Chicago Style ?? (that would be a good one for you.) I think you need to chill a bit. Of course I am going to use and post information that supports my standing DUH? As for Mr. Ferrara pointing out the success of RWR's policies that got us out of the Carter malaise, I prefer to look at history and facts. Mr. Obama will be judged on that too. That said, are you disputing the results of the Reagan policies or disputing the contention that the markets lack confidence in the proposals of the Obama administration? Gently pushing comfort zones since 1976...

Reaganomics vs. Obamanomics In his inaugural address, President Barack Obama said, "The question we ask today is not whether our government is too big or too small, but whether it works -- whether it helps families find jobs at a decent wage, care they can afford, a retirement that is dignified." Or as administration spokeswoman Stephanie Cutter said in January, the touchstone is, "What will have the biggest and most immediate impact on creating private sector jobs and strengthening the middle class? We're guided by what works, not by any ideology or special interests." Unfortunately, this rhetoric is not true. Mr. Obama's economic policy is following not what has been proven to work but liberal ideology. The best way to understand this is to compare what's being proposed now with what Ronald Reagan accomplished. In 1980, amid a seriously dysfunctional economy, Reagan campaigned for president on an economic recovery program with four specific components. The first was across-the-board reductions in tax rates to provide incentives for saving, investment, entrepreneurship and work. The second component was deregulation to remove unnecessary costs on the economy. In today's world, that would especially mean removing the onerous restrictions on energy production -- allowing drilling offshore and onshore for oil and natural gas, revival of the nuclear power industry, and construction of more electric power plants. Third was the control of government spending. In 1981, Reagan forced through Congress not only his famed, historic tax cuts, but also a package of budget cuts close to 5% of the federal budget -- equivalent to roughly $150 billion today. In constant dollars, nondefense discretionary spending declined by 14.4% from 1981 to 1982, and by 16.8% from 1981 to 1983. Moreover, in constant dollars, this nondefense discretionary spending never returned to its 1981 level for the rest of Reagan's two terms. By 1988, this spending was still down 14.4% from its 1981 level in constant dollars. Even with the Reagan defense buildup, which helped win the Cold War, total federal spending declined to 21.2% of GDP in 1989 from 23.5% of GDP in 1983. That's a real reduction of 10% in the size of government relative to the economy. The fourth component of the Reagan recovery plan was tight, anti-inflation monetary policy, which was spectacularly successful. Inflation was cut in half to 6.2% in 1982 from 13.2% in 1980, and cut in half again to 3.2% in 1983. We know such policies work because they turned around in just two years an economy far worse than today's. We were suffering from multiyear, double-digit inflation, double-digit unemployment, double-digit interest rates, declining incomes, and rising poverty. In fact, what we suffer with today is not the worst economy since the Great Depression, but the worst economy since Jimmy Carter -- the last time liberals were dominant politically and intellectually. The Obama administration's economic policies do not include any of the four Reagan components. In fact, the stimulus plan is the greatest increase in government spending in the history of the planet. Meanwhile, the Fed is furiously reinflating, sowing more havoc down the line. Mr. Obama is still promising future increases in tax rates by letting the Bush tax cuts lapse, because for ideological reasons he thinks even current rates are too low. And instead of deregulating for more energy production, he is still promising massive increases in regulatory barriers -- through global warming cap-and-trade legislation -- to increased production from proven energy sources to serve an extreme environmentalist ideology. This is why America seems so hopeless right now, and so depressed. We are stuck going in exactly the wrong direction on economic policy because of currently dominant ideological fashions. A natural economic recovery will begin sometime this year, not because of the president's policies, but because soon this will be the longest recession since World War II. However, thanks to the administration's retrograde policies -- cut from the cloth of the 1970s and even the 1930s -- the recovery will not be what it should be. Rather, unemployment will remain too high, and inflation will resurge, recreating the disastrous economic results we suffered the last time Keynesian policies were dominant. not my words but interesting none the less... Gently pushing comfort zones since 1976...

Me thinks our supposed LIBERTARIAN has not actually checked on the Libertarian position concerning drugs All parties will at one time or another conflict with a individuals ideals. Unless of course you look to your party to define you, not the other way around. Gently pushing comfort zones since 1976...

oops I did a flip flop of the 1st and the 2nd, you get the idea now. As far as using Liberal and Democrat as one in the same I guess its just habit. Yes I would agree DEM's and REP's alike seem to want to "change" the Constitution to pander to their own parties wishes. Gently pushing comfort zones since 1976...

I haven't really been on the offensive. I did, however, just fart while sitting at my computer. Believe me, it was rather offensive. I think billvon is doing a fairly good job of defining what liberalism is. By the way, there is no Liberal Party in the United States that I am aware of. The Democratic Party likes to define itself in terms of liberalism, but a lot of people who tend to lean that way don't buy into their whole platform. My personal political views tend toward libertarianism (note small l), but I recognize the need for some government social programs aimed at alleviating poverty. I believe that the United States' founding document is the Constitution, not the Bible. I believe, as you said, in individual freedom, individual responsibility, and limited government. As someone else pointed out, the Constitution charges the government with "promoting the general welfare." I believe that means that the government has a legitimate interest in keeping people from starving, freezing, or turning to crime when they have no other choice. Well directed "welfare" programs should be aimed at that goal. I do not, however, support all types of welfare, but I don't believe (as many right-wingers do) that everyone on welfare is there because they are lazy cheats. I used to be a very staunch Republican when I thought that meant a small Federal government, strong support for the Bill of Rights, and strong military protection of our Nation. Since I've grown older I've realized that modern Republicanism stands for Christianity, support for the 2nd Amendment over all the others, and the use of the military for purposes outside of protecting the country. The current Republican Party was very little to do with what I believe. The current Democratic Party goes too far in the other direction for me as well, but I voted for Obama because all I saw on the McCain-Palin ticket were the things about the Republican Party I most hate. Oh, as requested a direct response to your characterization: Peace: Sounds good to me. War sucks. Love: I like that, too. Dope: I don't partake, but think people should be allowed to (you know, individual responsibility and all) How things "should" be: isn't that what we should be striving for? Making things how they should be sounds great to me. I suppose you're more into, "war, hate, dope is evil, and resigning ourselves to live in the past?" Damn bro...you and I are very much alike, although I did not vote for Obama or McCain. Not a fan of war myself...obama seems to think he can trade one war for another (we'll see how the love affair last) dope? yes please =) Live in the past NO learn from it and not repeat the bad YES. Maybe for once in this forum we have reached the common ground???? This may just be a sign of the coming apocalypse !! muahahahaha Gently pushing comfort zones since 1976...