Thanks for proving my point JP. Palin is running for "VP", not President.

And of course it's going to get better, the economy has no where else to go but up.

And please don't try to say that McCain is going to die in office.

Kool-Aid is for kids, and it's time for some of you to put your sippy cup down. Mr. Hussein can run again in four years. Hell, if he shows me some real leadership in congress between now and 2012 I may even vote for him. But now isn't the time for a make believe rock star to run the most powerful country in the world. We need someone who's been around the block a few times (insert Palin joke here).

By the way JP...........why haven't you paid up on the bet with wish yet?

We're WAITING......................

Thraxle, I am writing my reply atm... it might take some more time but I hope I will be done soon. Please come back later.

Do you have to get it copyrighted?

Is it a 3-page essay?

No copyright needed... Even though my English is rather good, I still need some more time than native speakers to write a meaningful, readable paragraph...

I wrote a rather harsh comment on GW Bush (=Retard) earlier and you gave me an even harsher answer. Now (as I said above) I want to give you a more reasonable reply.

I don't imply that you support McCain because you are homophobic/racist, so don't imply that I support Obama because he's popular and I "drink the kool aid."
His policies make much more sense and I think he's going to a better job of fixing the country that W has fucked up.

I don't think McCain is going to die, but I do think that if you're going to criticize a presidential candidate on experience, it's silly to support a VP without any. Not that McCain is likely to die, but that he himself picked (by your argument) an unready candidate (for a pretty damn important position) and that serves as a perfect example of his poor judgment (or rather, that he's become another pawn of the conservative right, and is no longer the McCain of 2000).

I truly think the experience argument is a weak one to begin with on either side, but if you're going to keep making it, I'm going to point out the hypocrisy.

The only Kool Aid you're drinking Thraxle is the non-sense you're posting about tax increases. If I were making 250K for myself I'd be fine with paying a little bit more in taxes. In fact the marginal increase in taxes is so minuscule until you are making up around 350K or more a year that you would hardly know the difference. Will those 500 dollars extra in taxes you pay actually cause you to lay off an employee? What are you paying your employees??

Seriously Thraxle??

Thraxle,
I respect you as a player and I also respect you as a person on the Internet, so don't take it personal what I will write.


I will write a very detailed answer on your previous comment about the opinion I have on the GOP and their people and what my general political opinion looks like.

First of all: I would call myself a moderate. I don't like extreme positions and I don't like being conservative just for the sake of being conservative. I think it is important that a society has values, but not if they come from the stone age and not if the values discriminate other people.
Be aware that I am not a "leftwing" either.
I think that a market economy is by far the best and most reasonable economic system we could live in. Believe it or not but I do own Starbucks stocks (unfortunately L ), because I believe in the success of companies. However, I still think that to some degree we need a second power (i.e. the state) which takes care that the market doesn't hurt the people (hyper capitalism). The state should also take care that the weak people in a society don’t get ruled out by the market.
That’s my position in a nutshell.

Now on Barrack H. Obama.
As a European I used to support Hillary Clinton during the presidential race, since she was the most prominent Democratic politician and was most likely to beat the GOP. However, after I had a closer look at the Democratic Presidential candidates, I found that John Edwards actually had the best policy among all candidates. I think the USA has a lot of huge problems and that the root of those problems is poverty as well as the absence of a social system.
If a person has bad luck in America (i.e. their business fail) they can’t expect much help from the social system…because there is not a well developed social system in the US. If a person from a low-income family gets ill and needs an operation, there is the danger that this person has to die only because s/he doesn’t have a health insurance, since the US doesn’t have universal health care. These are only two examples of how poverty and the lack of a social system damages the American society (more and more). I think that this issue should be tackled first by any politician who is an charge since it doesn’t affect hundreds but millions (!) of American citizens. To sum it up: For me (neglecting private issues), John Edwards would have been the most capable candidate to solve America’s major problems. Obama on the other hand has always been a show person.
I didn’t really like how Barrack Obama staged himself and how he was talking about the big word “change” without being really able to define what he actually means by that and without being realistic about changing a gigantic more than 200 yo system (Washington).
Now, I still see Obama as the “smaller evil” and not as THE perfect solution for the highest political office of the world. I think we should be less emotional and more realistic when we judge him. He’s not the Messias but he is not a terrorist either as some people claim. And calling him Mr. Hussein is just cheap and I am sure you used it in a sarcastic way. I agree that he is (by far) overrated but he is still the better choice…. because he is a Democrat!


On the Grand Old Party.
As I already mentioned earlier: I think John McCain as a person would be a good President and would have been miles better than GW Bush. The main reason I don’t favour McCain, is the party he belongs to.
You complained that the economy is going down… but please tell me: who is responsible that the USA has no substantial industry anymore? GW Bush and with him the GOP has been in charge for almost 8 years. They have been responsible for the downfall of the US economy. Here are the major reasons:
Under Bush’s (/=the GOP’s) administration, the general interest rate was reduced to only 1%… which had dramatic consequences! The US currency lost almost 50% of its value (until recently) and the low interest rates were the reason for the subprime crisis, which eventually caused a financial crisis and so on…
But Bush also caused a structural crisis...
Instead of trying to establish new industries, Bush rather supported his old oil buddies and their BIG companies (lobbyists)… also ignoring that oil has no future in the long term. This is also why the biggest US car manufacturer General Motors will be bankrupt soon (to name the most prominent example). Instead of investing in ecological technologies, which in the long term mean more jobs, the GOP ignores the issue of climate change and its consequences. In my opinion this is politics from medieval times (to be plain).
Another example how Bush/ the GOP have ruined the American economy, are the tax cuts they implemented. Now we first have to ask ourselves: Are taxes good or bad? I hate to pay taxes…Of course, no one likes to pay them... and I am sure in America as in Europe a lot of the tax money is wasted. But Taxes also have an important function: To maintain the welfare system, to enable the state to help the poor people in need, to enable the state to invest in necessary infrastructure where private companies don’t want to invest and finally to enable the state to help the economy in difficult times. With his tax cuts, Bush basically helped the BIG companies instead of investing in the medium sized businesses. Have they created more sustainable jobs during the time of the tax cuts? - apparently not…otherwise you wouldn’t be so worried right now. The tax cuts were just there to make the rich even richer and….

With no money left to actually invest in the country’s infrastructure etc…
I don’t say that raising taxes is a good thing, but I think taxes are necessary to push society into the right direction and I am sure Obama won’t “tax the shit out of you” when he is in power.

…
Okay… I wanted to write even more things, like how Bush ruined the transatlantic relationship with his war in Iraq and the naïve view of the GOP on teaching science at school, but it’s really late now and maybe I will continue tomorrow…
But I think now you got an idea why I support the Democrats (with the economy in mind).

Define miniscule meagles...........2 percent???

If the company I work for makes a gross profit of $500K and has an increase of 2 percent in taxes paid, it equals $10,000 lost. The compan I work for actually earned a little bit more than $1.5mil gross last year, which equals $30,000 in additional taxes paid. That's more than some of our lower level employees make in a year. You don't think the "miniscule" tax increase will force modest layoffs in larger small businesses across the U.S.?

And again JP, the lack of experience is much less of a problem on the JV team than it is on the Varsity. Obama's policies point toward socialism and aside from complete withdrawal of troops and immediate negotiation with terrorist harboring countries, nobody really knows his abilities in leading the armed forces. I KNOW what I'll get with McCain and it won't be that bad. I haven't a clue what will happen if Barry makes it to office.

I'm not high on either candidate, but McCain is the only option available to defeat Obama. Definitely the lesser of two evils.

Thraxle, the fact that you are misstating some very basic premises in your argument is really troubling and makes it very hard for me to really take your argument seriously.

First on Gross Revenue/Net Income some important distinctions...

Do Small Businesses pay taxes on their gross revenues or their net income?
As a small business owner who claims small business income on your individual tax return (whether through a sole proprietorship, partnership, or S-corp) you pay individual income taxes only on your net income — or profit — and not on your firm’s gross revenue. Accordingly, when Obama says that he would roll back the Bush tax cuts for all couples earning more than $250,000 a year, these income figures include only net income that a small business owner takes home. Because net income is usually far lower than gross revenue, even if your revenue is above $250,000 you are still likely to get a tax cut under Obama’s tax plan. If you are a small business owner using the tax calculator, you should select your income level based on the net income you claim — your revenues minus your costs — to see how you would fare under each candidate.
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SOURCE: http://taxcut.barackobama.com/sb_faq.html

I would find it hard to imagine your company making 1.5 Million also having such a significant > 500k Net Income.