Soxbadger

QUOTE (greg775 @ Jan 9, 2018 -> 03:55 PM) Is this board truly reflective of the country's opinion of Trump? I was in Dallas area over the weekend and I asked two rich oil people (one man, one woman) what they thought of Trump. One immediately declared: "I like him," adding that he says some dumb things on Twitter but aside from that she liked him. Then the other person said the economy actually was improving and he also liked Trump. Then I hear he gets half cheers/half boos as the national title game. You'd think it would be 90 percent boos if you read this board and listen to the pundits and Hollywood types bash him daily. I know Hollywood tore into Trump at the Golden Globes, but Hollywood should be more humble and silent right now with the scandal going on. I'm just saying ... has Trump had some accomplishments that are making 50 percent of Americans think he's OK to good? Its all just opinion. Itd be like asking if you were happy after the last play of the National Championship game last night. Georgia fans will answer much differently than Alabama fans.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Jan 9, 2018 -> 03:08 PM) Bannon out at Breitbart. Trump's base has made it very clear that they follow him above all else. Swamp wins.

So out of curiosity I decided to go read Breitbart and see what reactions are to the Bannon/Trump thing. Shockingly, most are coming down on the side of Trump. To me this is pretty concerning, because Trump was everything that Bannon followers hate for 90% of his life. Only recently did he become a "Republican" and id say without Bannon vouching for him most wouldnt have really believed Trump was a conservative at all. Its like they have completely bought the Trump snake oil and they dont even care what is said about him anymore. Im no Bannon fan, but to reading the comments, he is now being paid by Soros/China and is a liberal. Its pretty scary how people can cling to a leader based on a few catchphrases.

Id say Falcons and Titans as well due to lines. But thats 2 away teams...

QUOTE (greg775 @ Dec 25, 2017 -> 11:20 PM) Good post. Maybe it was Duncan Donuts instead of Starbucks. But I've gotten "Merry Christmas" at several stores. BTW I can't remember the last time I initiated a "Merry Christmas" to a stranger. Even this year I've only returned the greeting after it was given to me. I am too frozen by PC myself to dare say Merry Christmas to somebody. I've been trained to fear the repercussions from saying Merry Christmas to some stranger. Because that would be implying I believe they are Christian and they might be anything but Christian. I could receive a reply of "How dare you say Merry Christmas to me when you don't know I recognize Christmas!" So I am not that stupid to every say Merry Christmas to a stranger unless they offer it first. Now if I worked at Starbucks and they made me say Happy Holidays after taking somebody's money, I'd resign. I'd rather not be forced to give a greeting. How dare your clients say "they jewed me down." That's disgusting and I can honestly say I've never heard that from anybody and I wouldn't stand for it if somebody said that in conversation with me. As far as your last line, I'm not offended by somebody saying "Happy holidays" If they say it to me I smile and say thanks. I just like when they say Merry Christmas. Like I said, I gave in to PC and never ever say Merry Christmas to somebody. Why? It's because right now I've been trained by the PC police very well. I'm scared to death to say Merry CHristmas lest the person be an atheist or be in a religion that doesn't celebrate Christmas. To be clear, when they say Merry Christmas to me, I've said it back this season and it feels really weird coming out of my mouth. Now I also do not say Happy Holidays to anybody ever cause I feel like I'm copping out. So I say nothing. Cept now I'll return the "Merry Christmas." What you say about the Jewish insults disgusts me. I can't believe grown adult clients would say such a thing. It's not good. Greg. People arent going to verbally attack you for saying Merry Christmas. More likely the person who is offended will remain silent and politely say it back. You call it the "PC" police, but again, isnt it really just people informing you that maybe you should be aware of what "other" people feel like. How is it even possible to say that there is a "war" on Christmas, when Santa is still at malls, when the Daley Center has a 'Christmas" tree, it has a Christkindelmarket (spelling and there is actually was a second one near Wrigley this year). The idea that there ever was a "war on Christmas" is at best disingenuous and at worst its just a cover for blatantly trying to attack minority religions. Next time when you think about the idea that the majority religion in America is under attack, imagine for a second what it may be like to be a "minority" religion. I will say that one day it would be nice to live in a county where you could say "Happy whateverthef*** you believe in" and not worry that either party would be offended.

QUOTE (greg775 @ Dec 25, 2017 -> 06:50 PM) I also would like to thank Trump for bringing back Christmas. Say what you want, but I've noticed it this year. Now that Trump said it's OK, Southwest Airlines, store employees, etc., Starbucks have been saying Merry Christmas to me. I've noticed cause I now get to say it back and I like it. I will say for some reason at Midway today people were in s***ty moods. I got yelled at for getting tripped while getting into space No. 31 in the A group on SW and nicked somebody's boot and said, "Sorry." She was furious that I nicked her and she was in space 31 instead of her 35 which I didn't say anything of course as I don't care bout that. Then somebody at the Avis rental place yelled "I was here first!" and I wasn't even trying to go ahead of them. I'm a little puzzled at the Scrooge like behavior today. But anyway, there was a war on Christmas. I haven't said Merry Christmas to a stranger in years til this Christmas since it's now OK to do so. Don't discount the P.C. in America. It's very very bad and this is one thing Trump did that was OK. Greg, Ill agree that more people have said Merry Christmas. Definitely not at starbucks though, seeing as that is against their corporate policy. But I do know someone who works at Starbucks who was accosted by a customer because they said Happy Holidays and the customer demanded that the employee say Merry Christmas. Where I have noticed more Merry Christmas is with clients of mine, the ones who will say things like "They jewed me down"or call asking me to explain how they can legally shoot and kill someone. Even though Christmas is one of my favorite holidays, Ive actually stopped saying it because I find the entire idea inane. Youre in the majority Greg, you literally have no idea what it means for there to be a "war" against your beliefs. I literally had someone this month say that the other party "jewed" them down. Has anyone ever used your religion as a negative adjective, while asking you to fix their problem? Imagine that for a second. And then think that the "war" your fighting is the mere fact people arent being forced to say "Merry Christmas" in order to fit in to the majority. But hey, Happy Holidays, sorry if it offends you.

QUOTE (Brian @ Dec 22, 2017 -> 10:18 AM) I see why they could go that route, but to have the character of Leia have to be killed off outside of a movie and within the opening scroll seems off. I trust JJ though. I think id start the movie with her funeral and somehow connect Luke's ascension to the force with her death.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/mark-hamill-rips...-145123576.html Hamill had creative differences with Rian Johnson about Luke. Its an interesting take because in reality it was TFA that had Luke "quitting" and running off to the other side of the galaxy. It makes me think that during TFA Hamill must have been told about future ideas, and then Johnson came in and went in a different direction. Another thing Ive been thinking about is that for all the complaints about Disney, this movie actually was the complete opposite of how Disney usually has movies end. I have to imagine Disney would have loved to have Luke and Han Solo in every film, those character guarantee box office results. (Edit) Going to add this link in as well because no need for a triple post: https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/star-wa...-181545618.html So a large training scene was cut where Luke begins to articulate old jedi v new jedi. I think that as more stuff comes out people may begin to get more angry about how this film was edited. To me it seems like this training scene may have been more important to the entire context than some of the fluff they kept in.

QUOTE (Chisoxfn @ Dec 21, 2017 -> 11:50 AM) Let me ask a question...do people think our actual corporate tax rate was appropriate? Staying away from individuals for a second, do we think Corporations are taxed appropriately? This is somewhat of a loaded question because some of this is dependent on what industry the Corporation is in? I dont really have an answer to that. I think that the problem is that wealth keeps getting more concentrated in a few people and that is just not beneficial long term for our society. So the issue I have with the tax cut is that on one hand we are saying we dont have enough money to make sure everyone has some level of health insurance or food on their table. But at the same time we are taking actions to give back more to people who dont really need it. Again thats just all opinion.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Dec 21, 2017 -> 11:42 AM) Then, as I said - we'd start seeing a boost in productivity, that's literally how that is defined - doing more business with the same number of workers. That has been remarkably low for a decade as well, and there may only be some hints of it ticking up the last few months. https://commercial.jpmorganchase.com/pages/...on-effect-wages I think this article touches on a lot of things we are talking about. Its a combination of a lot of things, but I still dont think the argument that "unemployment is low" is some novel thing.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Dec 21, 2017 -> 11:34 AM) Well you specifically cited ones who "thought" the range was in 5-6%. I totally agree there is a floor, I think we're approaching it but not there yet, and that's why I think there will still be some stimulative effect from this tax cut, for example. We'll know we're close to the floor when we have a much stronger spike in earnings because companies will be paying higher wages to attract workers. We may also see an increase in productivity, after a very long time, if the labor market gets tight enough that companies look for other ways to improve output without having to hire. I also think, if there are economists out there who are saying the floor is several percent higher than it was 98-2000, that we need better economists, and it's not worth citing ones who said that there's now a 5% floor to U3 once we've passed that. Yes I cited ones who said 5-6% because that further proves the point that 4% is low. If you want to prove something is low (imo) the best way would be to show people who thought it could never even get there. I think wage increase etc is much more complicated and a lot of it depends on how easy it is to hire people outside of the US or replace them with automation. A big part of the reason why there isnt huge wage increases is that I can hire someone from another country far cheaper or I can get a machine to do it. For example, McDonalds now has kiosks to take your orders. Those kiosks compete with the workers for the cashier job, if the cashiers start making too much money, you start replacing more of them with the kiosks.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Dec 21, 2017 -> 11:26 AM) I need to bring in other economists to prove that something that is happening right now can happen? The key word was "thought". Its just like saying "Many scientists thought the Earth was flat." Im not sure if its purposeful or not, but the crux of the post was that currently unemployment is low. And the support for that was many economists thought sustained 4% unemployment may not even be possible. Now maybe your saying 3% is the floor? I dont know, but the entire point was that there is an unemployment floor and that the US economy is around that floor.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Dec 21, 2017 -> 11:16 AM) The simplest and 100 most obvious, textbook level signal that "unemployment can't go any lower" would be wage pressure. Maybe added in with productivity growth as well since that has been so badly depressed along with the job market since 08. We might finally have some hints of that the last few months, but that is completely different from the "economists said unemployment couldn't get this low" thing that I'd still call laughable. Misquoting (imo) is really a deceptive practice. The comment was: If youre going to say something is "laughable" at least have the courtesy of commenting on the actual quote, which is supported by fact. You have yet to bring in all of these other economists who think 4% unemployment isnt low. Or have yet to bring in any articles etc where economists dont talk about a range of unemployment floor.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Dec 21, 2017 -> 11:00 AM) You could have just cut a $16k check to every household in the country for the price of this tax plan. Well ATT is going to pocket some of the money obviously

QUOTE (JenksIsMyHero @ Dec 21, 2017 -> 10:45 AM) I think it would be really tough to create an incentive large enough to offset the costs of hiring employees and providing them the full wages and benefits that people want. Isn't the general rule that you triple an employees wages to get to the real cost of the employee to the employer once you factor in training, insurance and whatnot? (maybe it's double, I can't remember). That's a pretty huge tax incentive you'll have to come up with. Lets say ATT makes 86,902,000,000 in profit. Lets say you give them a 5% tax break incentive. Thats a 4bil tax break. Att has 247k employees. That would work out to approximately 16k benefits per employee. The problem with the tax cut, is you just gave it away, when you could have tied them to something and made it better for average employees, while still giving the company something significant.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Dec 21, 2017 -> 10:35 AM) Ok, i'll accept. I'll also say these people are fools. This was easily done because there is still a large portion of workers who have left the job market - here's an EPI version with some interactive graphics summarizing. Also worth noting that the opiod epidemic is probably at this point large enough to matter. Balta, What you posted actually works into the idea of why unemployment will never be 0. Now there can be argument as to what the floor of unemployment may be, but generally speaking for as long as I can remember that range is between 4-6%. The reason is that while Job A may be available, there are certain workers who just dont want it. Whether its because the pay isnt good, whatever. So lets say they increased minimum wage, that would increase the amount of people who would work Job A, but there also would likely be a decrease in jobs available. So it would likely be a net wash. The only way to counteract this is to give extra incentive to break the cycle. IE You get some sort of tax break if you hire X amount of employees. You get some sort of tax break if you dont lay off X% of employees etc. Unless you create incentives, it will simply be a shell game.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Dec 21, 2017 -> 10:28 AM) Um, who are these economists and why are people still listening to them? Unemployment was lower than this in 1998 and there is still a large pool of people who left the labor force after 2008 and haven't yet been drawn back. https://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/11/...low-can-you-go/ Most economists place the rate in the range of 5 to 5.5 percent, though some estimates go as high as 6 percent. The Congressional Budget Office‘s latest projections have it at 5.5 percent. https://www.federalreserve.gov/faqs/economy_14424.htm Many estimates suggest that the long-run normal level of the unemployment rate--the level that the unemployment rate would be expected to converge to in the next 5 to 6 years in the absence of shocks to the economy--is in a range between 4.5 and 6 percent. https://www.npr.org/2013/01/03/168508910/wh...t-number-really NARIMAN BEHRAVESH: Well, full employment is defined as basically everybody who's looking for a job or is looking to be employed is, in fact, employed. INSKEEP: The first time I ever heard of this concept - when I was a teenager, maybe -people talked about full employment as being about a 5 percent unemployment rate. They didn't think of the zero percent unemployment rate. They said 5 percent. http://money.cnn.com/2017/06/02/news/econo...ment/index.html Some experts believe it's starting to get too hot. The U.S. unemployment rate fell to 4.3% in May, according to Labor Department numbers published Friday. It's the lowest level since 2001. That's why some experts think the U.S. economy is at, or getting close to, something called "full employment," which means employers can't find many more available and qualified workers for open jobs. If youd like more I can gladly pull them. But its not really a controversial statement.

QUOTE (ptatc @ Dec 21, 2017 -> 10:16 AM) this what I'm trying to wrap my mind around. How can this be done. i don't know the answer. I'm not a financial person by any stretch of the imagination. I'm in the medical field. i'm truly looking for opinions. The last part of my post gave an idea. You would have to give incentives. Instead of just giving a tax break to corps, you could have given a tax break to corps who "pay for their employees health care", who have full time employment rates over (insert X%), who keep X% of their production or workers in the US. The problem is that this requires the goal to be helping out the lower/middle class. If that is the actual goal, its not really hard to accomplish. But that wasnt the goal, the goal was to make it so the ultra rich could become even wealthier and the regular people would be happy with a tax cut that will be less than what most of their health insurance premiums will increase due to the destabilization of the health care market this year. There is enough money to go around, but not everyone really believes that all American's deserve a minimum standard of living.

QUOTE (ptatc @ Dec 21, 2017 -> 10:09 AM) this is true. But the stats are a little misleading with the number of "forced part-time" employment. They aren't considered unemployed but don't make enough money to not have 2 jobs. That is a large number. These are the many of the people needed 2 jobs to make ends meet. If they had a full time job with full time pay and benefits, it may change as well But that problem lies in the fact that there is no incentive to hire full time employees or give benefits. If for example the tax cut on corporations were tied to something like "Only corporations that have X% of full time employees and provide full benefits" then you would get a meaningful change. Weekly I get questions on how can my company avoid hiring people full time, giving out benefits, calling employees/ICs etc, all to try and make a little bit more profit for people who are already making 10-100x more per year than the employee they are trying to cut benefits to.

QUOTE (JenksIsMyHero @ Dec 21, 2017 -> 10:04 AM) Honest question - how many people here complaining about the tax cuts removing wealth from the lower class pay more in taxes than they actually need to? Do you mean: 1) Pay taxes above what my liability should be? or 2) Pay an effective tax rate that is higher than people making far more than me?

QUOTE (ptatc @ Dec 21, 2017 -> 09:58 AM) Here is some information from the Bureau of labor and statistics. Among the major worker groups, the unemployment rate for teenagers increased to 15.9 percent in November. The jobless rates for adult men (3.7 percent), adult women (3.7 percent), Whites (3.6 percent), Blacks (7.3 percent), Asians (3.0 percent), and Hispanics (4.7 percent) showed little change. The number of persons employed part time for economic reasons (sometimes referred to as involuntary part-time workers), at 4.8 million, was essentially unchanged in November but was down by 858,000 over the year. These individuals, who would have preferred full-time employment, were working part time because their hours had been cut back or because they were unable to find full-time jobs. (See table A-8.) still seems to me that there are far too many full time unemployed workers. The "involuntary part-time" workers especially. Many companies are now considering 30 per week "full time" to cut back on wages and benefits for workers, especially in retail. I don't think you can force companies to change the policies but if there were a shortage of workers the companies would become the "buyers" not "sellers" and may get them to change. Many economists thought it was impossible to get unemployment this low. 4% unemployment is really low. Right now there are actually more low paying jobs than workers. The real question is, would higher wages cause employers to cut jobs and therefore increase unemployment. The answer is likely yes. If anything corporations should be having to pay for more benefits for employees, especially if those corporations are making massive profits. Things like "health insurance" should be obvious because sick workers cost time and money, so it makes no sense not to keep your workers healthy.

QUOTE (TaylorStSox @ Dec 19, 2017 -> 01:18 PM) He stopped a f***ing blaster bolt mid air and held it there for minutes the first time we saw him. Both Luke and Snoke said he's the most powerful force user they've seen. Yet he gets put in a headlock by an imperial guard. The movie is so dumb and inconsistent. I dont recall Luke or Snoke ever saying "Ren is the most powerful force user." I recall Luke saying something to the effect of "The last time I saw power like this I didnt fear it." But I didnt view that as saying Ren was more powerful than Vader, just that Kylo possessed an intense power for a padawan. Snoke's comment didnt clearly say Ren was the most powerful user. I believe he compared Ren to Vader and what he thought he could be. Ren stopped a blaster in mid air, so what? Qui Gon and Obi wan deflect blasters from droids like its nothing. The blaster looked cool, but I cant recall any scene that included a Jedi/Sith where blocking a single blaster would have made a difference. No one is denying that Ren possesses raw power, but has he even won a single light saber battle? I think people forget that there were a massive amount of powerful Jedi in episodes 1-3. Windu, Obi Wan, Yoda, Anakin were at the top of order. Ren has done a few tricks, but has yet to successfully best any force user in single combat.

QUOTE (Quin @ Dec 19, 2017 -> 11:59 AM) It was like Return of the King, except instead of tying together all of the plot threads it just wanted to keep going. Don't forget the Force connection between Rey and Ren. And he was making Kylo Ren look like a fool, after TFA set Ren up as one of the most powerful we've ever seen. How is Ren one of the most powerful force users ever? He isnt even on par with Anakin after episode 2. That puts him way behind Yoda, Dooku, etc. I would say that Kylo right now is weaker than Obi Wan at the beginning of Episode 1. Kylo lost to Rey, who is completely untrained. Ren has raw power, but its no where close to any of the legendary force users. He simply looks much stronger because there are no other powerful force users to go up against. Most likely he is not even as powerful as Maul right now.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Dec 19, 2017 -> 11:51 AM) Are we reading each other clearly? I said he "did" use it in this movie, in TLJ. Is that what you're agreeing with? the "Didn't" is confusing me. It was a typo on my part, I corrected it.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Dec 19, 2017 -> 11:46 AM) Didn't he use the lightning early in the movie with Ren? I believe he did. Youre right, he did use it in this movie.