For GOP only

[NUKE_CLEVELAND]

I watched this all the way through. Its very disturbing. Its funny, how these organizations are the spokepersons for the UK for religious tolerance, and openness yet behind the doors when the public is out they are preaching death to non-islam and the creation of an islamic britain under sharia law. And its not just one or 2 mosques. Its a bunch of the "moderate" mosques. Our media here is too politically correct to have a undercover item like this. I would think if they did this in the US, we would find the same thing.

 

The basic jist of every speaker, is that all muslims are good people, and if you are not muslim you have 2 choices become a muslim or perish to Jihad. My favorite was the one crazy who wanted to crucify the christians if they didnt convert, and let them bleed for 3 days. Nice reference there crazy terrorist wantabee.

 

Nice.

 

 

Religon of peace...............

[mr_genius]

Our media here is too politically correct to have a undercover item like this.

 

most of the US news media have no journalist integrity. political agendas trump accurate news.

Edited January 22, 2007 by mr_genius

[NUKE_CLEVELAND]

most of the US news media have no journalist integrity. political agendas trump accurate news.

 

 

Those political agendas usually involve saying anything they can to discredit the President ( even to the point of fabricating damaging information ). Their agendas also follow strict politically correct guidelines that preclude them from exposing these savages for what they really are.

[southsider2k5]

I love this logic...

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/21/washingt...amp;oref=slogin

 

Senator Max Baucus of Montana, the chairman of the Finance Committee, a critical venue for any Social Security plan, said he too believed the president must give up his private accounts before serious talks could occur. If so, he added, “I’m more than open, if the president is truly willing to look at all options.”

 

In otherwords, if the President does what I want, I am open to it, and there are no other options!

[southsider2k5]

Chuck Shumer has imaginary friends?!?! I guess you are never too old?

 

Biking through New York's boroughs in 2005, I thought about some old friends, Joe and Eileen Bailey. Though they are imaginary, I frequently talk to them. To me, they represent the hardworking and often-ignored families who are not tuned in to special-interest newsletters or editorial pages, but want a little something more from their government and their leaders.

 

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16723384/site/newsweek/

[southsider2k5]

I call this the Spitzer factor...

 

http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/new-...AAD364C74F54%7D

 

New York as financial center seen threatened

 

PrintE-mailDisable live quotesRSSDigg itDel.icio.usBy Greg Morcroft & Robert Schroeder, MarketWatch

Last Update: 3:13 PM ET Jan 22, 2007

 

 

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) -- The United States needs to reshape its accounting, legal and regulatory structure if New York City is to remain the world's preeminent financial center, three of the state's major politicians said Monday.

 

At a press conference in New York City, Mayor Michael Bloomberg as well as New York Sen. Charles Schumer and Gov. Eliot Spitzer unveiled a report that said that absent the restructuring, Manhattan could lose its role as the center of the financial universe within a decade to rivals like London and Tokyo.

 

Both those cities are growing their business faster than New York, according to the report's findings.

 

The trio cited a report by consulting group McKinsey & Co. that put London, Japan and other parts of Asia as growing in influence and jobs, while New York is declining. Read full report.

The findings echoed another study, conducted last year by the Committee on Capital Markets Regulation.

 

Monday's report interviewed 50 chief executives in the financial-services industry and calls for legal changes to reduce litigation and urges consolidation of federal regulatory agencies.

 

"America had undermined its own global competitiveness," Bloomberg told a gathering of reporters at City Hall as he stood with Schumer and Spitzer in the first gathering of the three since the latter was elected governor last fall.

 

Standing in pin-striped suits under a portrait of Thomas Jefferson, the "dream team" -- as Schumer described them -- took turns touting the importance of making it easier for financial firms to do business here, without a "race to the bottom" by enacting lax rules. "I'm obsessed with this issue," the senator said.

Schumer stepped away from setting any timetable for changes to Sarbanes-Oxley, but said that his first strategy will be to attempt to push for changes on the administrative level at the Securities and Exchange Commission, rather than through a new law.

 

Government, industry support

 

He added that both Christopher Cox, chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, and U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson have seen the McKinsey study and support it. U.S. Chamber of Commerce President and Chief Executive Tom Donohue also supported it.

 

"The Bloomberg-Schumer report underscores the growing consensus on the need to bolster the competitiveness of U.S. capital markets," Donohue said in a statement. A commission established by the chamber will issue a similar report in March.

 

"The 20th century was the American century in no small part because of our economic dominance in the financial-services industry, which has always been centered in New York," Bloomberg and Schumer wrote in a letter accompanying a copy of the report on Schumer's Web site.

 

"But as technology has virtually eliminated barriers to the flow of capital, it now freely flows to the most efficient markets, in all corners of the globe. Today, in addition to London, we're increasingly competing with cities like Dubai, Hong Kong, and Tokyo," they concluded.

 

Following the release of the McKinsey report, Dealogic, a data-compiling firm, said that in both 2005 and 2006 only one of the top 20 IPOs globally was U.S.-listed, continuing a downward trend since 12 were U.S.-listed in 2001.

 

For the first time on record, according to Dealogic, the volume of U.K.-listed IPOs was higher than those coming out of New York, with Britain tallying $55.2 billion in volume compared with $46.6 billion in America.

T

he firm added that in the United States, investment-banking revenues also have dipped as a percentage of global revenues, now accounting for 44.6% vs. 56% in 2001. The U.S. portion of global IPO revenues has dipped to 32% from 55% in 2001, Dealogic said.

 

Bloomberg and Schumer recommended several changes to help New York maintain its position as the world's leading financial city. They said that lawmakers should revisit the 2002 Sarbanes-Oxley Act, which they blamed for entangling U.S. and foreign companies in a thicket of regulations.

 

The two also said reforms should be implemented that result in a reduction in "spurious and meritless litigation."

 

"The prevalence of meritless securities lawsuits and settlements in the United States has driven up the apparent and actual cost of business -- and driven away potential investors," they wrote.

 

Steps should also be taken to make it easier for foreigners to study and work in the United States, according to Bloomberg and Schumer. "The [financial-services] industry will continue to experience rapid growth in the 21st century, which holds great promise for our nation -- but only if we take seriously our competitors, who are rapidly gaining ground.

 

"Failing to do so would be devastating both for New York City and the entire nation."

[NorthSideSox72]

I call this the Spitzer factor...

 

http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/new-...AAD364C74F54%7D

Funny that they don't mention Chicago, who seem to be pushing NY's derivatives markets to the brink (aside from oil and gas).

[southsider2k5]

Funny that they don't mention Chicago, who seem to be pushing NY's derivatives markets to the brink (aside from oil and gas).

 

That's because NY's deriv's markets have long been behind Chicago's. They put too much power into the greedy seatholders who had no vision for the future except protecting their monopoly. The exchanges in Chicago have always had more power outside of the seatholders, which is why you had innovations like TOPS, Globex, and ECBOT for electronic trading. NY didn't make a move until Globex started listing NY contracts.

[Chisoxfn]

Interesting, I actually agree with Bloomberg's quotes and that article for the most part. That said they were still pretty quiet on what they actually want to do. What changes to SOX they want to make and how they want to go about getting rid of the frivolous securities lawsuits.

[Balta1701]

Here's one for you Republicans on Reid...it's a pretty complex piece about how Sen. Reid may have purchased some land through dealings I honestly don't understand from people that had an interest in legislation Senator Reid has been pushing for the last decade or so. Link.

[Texsox]

• Half the world — nearly three billion people — live on less than two dollars a day.
• The GDP (Gross Domestic Product) of the poorest 48 nations (i.e. a quarter of the world’s countries) is less than the wealth of the world’s three richest people combined.
• Nearly a billion people entered the 21st century unable to read a book or sign their names.
• Less than one per cent of what the world spent every year on weapons was needed to put every child into school by the year 2000 and yet it didn’t happen.
• 1 billion children live in poverty (1 in 2 children in the world). 640 million live without adequate shelter, 400 million have no access to safe water, 270 million have no access to health services. 10.6 million died in 2003 before they reached the age of 5 (or roughly 29,000 children per day).

[EvilMonkey]

• Half the world — nearly three billion people — live on less than two dollars a day.
• The GDP (Gross Domestic Product) of the poorest 48 nations (i.e. a quarter of the world’s countries) is less than the wealth of the world’s three richest people combined.
• Nearly a billion people entered the 21st century unable to read a book or sign their names.
• Less than one per cent of what the world spent every year on weapons was needed to put every child into school by the year 2000 and yet it didn’t happen.
• 1 billion children live in poverty (1 in 2 children in the world). 640 million live without adequate shelter, 400 million have no access to safe water, 270 million have no access to health services. 10.6 million died in 2003 before they reached the age of 5 (or roughly 29,000 children per day).

Sounds like the world needs a s***load of condoms.

[Balta1701]

Sounds like the world needs a s***load of condoms.

Abstinence is the only option.

[NUKE_CLEVELAND]

• Half the world — nearly three billion people — live on less than two dollars a day.
• The GDP (Gross Domestic Product) of the poorest 48 nations (i.e. a quarter of the world’s countries) is less than the wealth of the world’s three richest people combined.
• Nearly a billion people entered the 21st century unable to read a book or sign their names.
• Less than one per cent of what the world spent every year on weapons was needed to put every child into school by the year 2000 and yet it didn’t happen.
• 1 billion children live in poverty (1 in 2 children in the world). 640 million live without adequate shelter, 400 million have no access to safe water, 270 million have no access to health services. 10.6 million died in 2003 before they reached the age of 5 (or roughly 29,000 children per day).

 

 

That's why we have charitible organizations. Its comical to me how freekin stupid people in the 3d world are. They keep on popping out children with no way to feed, clothe or educate them and then the bleeding hearts here whine about how horrible it is that children are living in squalor. No sympathy here for the idiots of the world. If you want to assign blame for the plight of these people it isin't because we dont have a global welfare state funded by U.S. taxpayers, its because of stupid people breeding.

[southsider2k5]

A little more on the Social Security impass that continues to crack me up... I love how Bush is the biggest obstacle, when he has said he would listen to tax hikes to pay for SSI, yet in the article Bloomberg quotes multiple other people who say what there "must" be in order to make things work.

 

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=206...&refer=home

 

Paulson May Find Bush Is Biggest Hurdle to Social Security Deal

 

By Alison Fitzgerald and Kevin Carmichael

 

Jan. 30 (Bloomberg) -- U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, who left one of Wall Street's most powerful posts in part to broker a Social Security overhaul, may find his biggest hurdle is his boss, President George W. Bush.

 

For both substantive and political reasons, any fix to Social Security must both increase revenues and reduce benefits, budget experts say. Paulson, the former Goldman Sachs Group Inc. chief executive officer, is inviting Democrats and Republicans to talks including all options; at the same time, White House officials appear to rule out raising taxes.

 

``It's not me he has to convince,'' said Representative Mike Thompson of California, a member of the Blue Dog Coalition, a self-described group of ``moderate'' Democrats. ``The convincing needs to be done in the White House.'' Thompson, who serves on the House Ways and Means Committee, participated in a meeting with Paulson on the subject last week.

 

The retirement program is forecast to sink into deficit within a decade; Bush's commitment to a deal fixing it has waned over the years, as charted by the annual State of the Union speeches that he has used to lay out his agenda.

 

After a push with former Treasury Secretary John Snow failed in 2005, Bush in January 2006 called for a bipartisan ``commission.'' Last week, he pared his initiative to a request for ``enough good sense and good will'' to work together on altering the government's health and retirement programs.

 

Democrats including Senator Kent Conrad of North Dakota, who chairs the Budget Committee, say comments by Vice President Dick Cheney give them reason to doubt that Paulson's efforts are fully backed by the White House.

 

`Very, Very Clear'

 

Cheney said in an interview with Fox News on Jan. 14 that Paulson's commitment to all options doesn't mean the administration is open to raising taxes. ``The president has been very, very clear on his position on taxes, and nothing's changed,'' he said. ``Paulson is trying to get people to the table to sit down and talk.''

 

Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform, said after a Capitol Hill gathering of anti-tax groups this month that Bush and his aides have made clear that ``they don't intend to raise taxes.''

 

``We don't doubt Paulson's sincerity,'' said Jason Furman, director of the Hamilton Project, a Brookings Institution initiative in Washington started by Democrats including former Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin. ``The question is: Can he deliver the president?''

 

No Preconditions

 

``The administration's position is that we want to talk about this with no preconditions,'' Paulson's spokeswoman, Michele Davis, said in Washington. She said Paulson was unavailable to comment.

 

Allan Hubbard, head of Bush's National Economic Council, said in an interview that while all options are open for discussion, ``the American people know that this president is not a tax raiser, he's a tax cutter.''

 

Paulson, 60, and Rob Portman, the White House budget director, met last week with a group of Democrats to discuss Social Security. The topics included forming a bipartisan group of lawmakers and White House officials to discuss entitlement overhauls. Portman said Paulson would probably be the administration's lead representative on the panel.

 

No Blueprint

 

``I do not think he carries the blueprint that can produce a bipartisan deal,'' Representative Earl Pomeroy, a North Dakota Democrat, said from Minot, North Dakota. Pomeroy said he reached his conclusion after participating in a Jan. 24 meeting with Paulson that touched on Social Security only briefly.

 

The panel is one of at least three proposals being floated for committees to address issues in the Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid programs. Spending on the plans will climb as the number of retirees rises; Social Security costs are forecast to jump as much as 80 percent to $789 billion by 2015.

 

Bush's 2005 proposal called for creating personal retirement accounts that could be used to buy stocks and bonds, and passed on to heirs. Democrats on Capitol Hill refused to even discuss it because they said the plan would have cut benefits without raising revenue.

 

``Both sides have to be willing to give up their fixed positions,'' Conrad, 58, said at a Washington press conference last week. ``There needs to be more revenue.''

 

While acknowledging in his Senate confirmation hearing in June it might be ``naïve,'' Paulson said he was optimistic on making progress on entitlement changes.

 

``One of the reasons I decided to come to Washington'' was to engage in overhauling the entitlement programs, Paulson said in his first speech after taking office, at Columbia University in New York.

 

Since then, the Democratic takeover of Congress and the Bush administration's preoccupation with the war in Iraq and rising dissent at home have changed legislative priorities. In addition, said Representative Frank Wolf, a Virginia Republican, Paulson may have underestimated the difference between brokering deals on Wall Street and in Washington.

 

``He is a Wall Street guy; he's used to making decisions and moving on,'' Wolf said in an interview from Cambridge, Maryland. ``This place can allow a decision to go on forever.''

 

To contact the reporters on this story: Alison Fitzgerald in Washington at [email protected] ; Kevin Carmichael in Washington at [email protected]

 

Last Updated: January 30, 2007 07:32 EST

 

http://www.heritage.org/Research/Taxes/bg2001.cfm

 

10 things you need to know about the 2003 tax cuts:

*Current tax revenues of 18.4% of GDP are now above the historical average;

* The 2006 tax revenues of $2,407 billion were $47 billion above the level projected by CBO before the 2003 tax cuts, and just $58 billion below the level projected by CBO in 2000, before the 2001 tax cuts;

* Capitals gains tax revenues have more than doubled to $103 billion since the 2003 capital gains tax cuts;

* The child credit, 10% bracket, and marriage penalty reduced revenues much more than many of the “tax cuts for the rich;”

* Even if the Bush tax cuts are made permanent, CBO projects revenues will still surge to a record 22.8% of GDP by 2050;

* Letting the tax cuts expire would raise long-term revenues by less than 1% of GDP;

* Historical tax revenues correlate almost perfectly with GDP, and not all with income tax rates;

* Negative GDP, investment, and jobs trends immediately reversed after the 2003 tax cuts were enacted; and

* The Bush tax cuts actually shifted the total tax burden even further towards the rich, according to CBO.

[NUKE_CLEVELAND]

A little more on the Social Security impass that continues to crack me up... I love how Bush is the biggest obstacle, when he has said he would listen to tax hikes to pay for SSI, yet in the article Bloomberg quotes multiple other people who say what there "must" be in order to make things work.

 

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=206...&refer=home

http://www.heritage.org/Research/Taxes/bg2001.cfm

 

10 things you need to know about the 2003 tax cuts:

*Current tax revenues of 18.4% of GDP are now above the historical average;

* The 2006 tax revenues of $2,407 billion were $47 billion above the level projected by CBO before the 2003 tax cuts, and just $58 billion below the level projected by CBO in 2000, before the 2001 tax cuts;

* Capitals gains tax revenues have more than doubled to $103 billion since the 2003 capital gains tax cuts;

* The child credit, 10% bracket, and marriage penalty reduced revenues much more than many of the “tax cuts for the rich;”

* Even if the Bush tax cuts are made permanent, CBO projects revenues will still surge to a record 22.8% of GDP by 2050;

* Letting the tax cuts expire would raise long-term revenues by less than 1% of GDP;

* Historical tax revenues correlate almost perfectly with GDP, and not all with income tax rates;

* Negative GDP, investment, and jobs trends immediately reversed after the 2003 tax cuts were enacted; and

* The Bush tax cuts actually shifted the total tax burden even further towards the rich, according to CBO.

 

 

B..B..B..B..B..BUT THE TAX CUTS ARE COSTING US BILLIONS IN LOST REVENUE AND EXPLODING THE DEFECIT AND SQUEEZING THE MIDDLE CLASS AND TAKING FOOD OUT OF THE MOUTHS OF THE POOR AND KILLING BABIES AND RESPONSIBLE FOR RACISM AND GENOCIDE AND ANYTHING ELSE EVIL THAT I CAN THINK OF!!!!1!!1!!1!!!!

 

LIES!!! ITS ALL A BUNCH OF EVIL LIES!!!!!!!!!!!

[Chisoxfn]

That's why we have charitible organizations. Its comical to me how freekin stupid people in the 3d world are. They keep on popping out children with no way to feed, clothe or educate them and then the bleeding hearts here whine about how horrible it is that children are living in squalor. No sympathy here for the idiots of the world. If you want to assign blame for the plight of these people it isin't because we dont have a global welfare state funded by U.S. taxpayers, its because of stupid people breeding.

Its harsh but true. People need to get there heads out of there asses and act responsibly and that happens rarely enough in tihs great country let alone this piss poor 3rd world countries. Seriously, I don't get how dumb you need to be...if you don't have enough food for yourself, don't have more kids. Than again in many of those countries the feeling is if you have all those kids, some will die and others will hopefully make enough money that the family as a whole will end up making enough money to care for each other (the problem is most of the time they all just starve).

 

Its flat out a tough business but I'm a freaking hard ass when it comes to the homeless and less fortunate (especially for those who flat out screwed up as opposed to those that screwed up due to being placed in an impossible situation).

 

For me, I'd rather donate money to cancer research than some homeless bum on the street (because people can't control getting most types of cancer, yet they can get off there asses and get work and yes I realize a lot of homeless people are f'd up in the head but a lot of them are just lazy). I'd also rather give money to animal shelters or animal rights groups than a homeless person. In fact I pretty much never help the homeless or drug addicts because I flat out believe people are capable to an extent of making the right decision and I don't see where helping some dumbass that has thrown his life away is worth it (I'd rather throw my money or support to something where people ended up being placed in a terrible decision through no action of there own).

[southsider2k5]

Out of curiousity, when everyone referrs to the Repubs holding up the minimum wage to try to get corrisponding tax breaks for affected small businesses, how come no one has asked the dems why they are trying to pass an unfunded mandate onto small businesses?

[EvilMonkey]

Out of curiousity, when everyone referrs to the Repubs holding up the minimum wage to try to get corrisponding tax breaks for affected small businesses, how come no one has asked the dems why they are trying to pass an unfunded mandate onto small businesses?

Because capitalism is eeeevillll!

[NorthSideSox72]

Out of curiousity, when everyone referrs to the Repubs holding up the minimum wage to try to get corrisponding tax breaks for affected small businesses, how come no one has asked the dems why they are trying to pass an unfunded mandate onto small businesses?

All wage rules and laws on private business are unfunded mandates. Overtime, FMLA, minimum wage, etc. They are considered civil protections, which businesses bear the burden of cost for, for good or bad. Further, since the minimum wage hasn't increased in a decade while real wages have increased, here is a follow-up question - why are small businesses now complaining about the freebie they got for the last decade? If the argument works one way, it works the other.

 

But as many here have been saying, if they can manage to attach a pegged, automatic inflationary increase to it from here out, then the cost increase is theoretically a net zero effect. Minimum wage increases with inflation and/or real wage rates, then everything is even keel. Then we don't need to keep having this discussion. That to me is the ideal solution.

[kapkomet]

"civil protections"?

 

Ouch.

[southsider2k5]

All wage rules and laws on private business are unfunded mandates. Overtime, FMLA, minimum wage, etc. They are considered civil protections, which businesses bear the burden of cost for, for good or bad. Further, since the minimum wage hasn't increased in a decade while real wages have increased, here is a follow-up question - why are small businesses now complaining about the freebie they got for the last decade? If the argument works one way, it works the other.

 

But as many here have been saying, if they can manage to attach a pegged, automatic inflationary increase to it from here out, then the cost increase is theoretically a net zero effect. Minimum wage increases with inflation and/or real wage rates, then everything is even keel. Then we don't need to keep having this discussion. That to me is the ideal solution.

 

Exactly. Now how come no one is comparing this to an unfunded mandate? Especially when the Repubs are actually using the Dems "pay-go" theory, by requiring this to be funded? I'd really love to hear how this is different.

[Texsox]

That's why we have charitible organizations. Its comical to me how freekin stupid people in the 3d world are. They keep on popping out children with no way to feed, clothe or educate them and then the bleeding hearts here whine about how horrible it is that children are living in squalor. No sympathy here for the idiots of the world. If you want to assign blame for the plight of these people it isin't because we dont have a global welfare state funded by U.S. taxpayers, its because of stupid people breeding.

 

Yet, if somone was evoking capital punishment and killing a thousand adults, we'd open the checkbook for billions and billions of dollars, send thousands of soldiers off to die.

 

And conservatives are against birth control, it's against God's will.

[NorthSideSox72]

Exactly. Now how come no one is comparing this to an unfunded mandate? Especially when the Repubs are actually using the Dems "pay-go" theory, by requiring this to be funded? I'd really love to hear how this is different.

Pay-Go is targeted at in-unit funding, which in this case, is government funding. That is different than costs to business due to legislation.

 

I think you make a really important point though, and I agree that it should always be considered - any law or act put in place by the government has a cost to someone (with few exceptions), and those costs should always be part of the equation. Its more than just a nice principle - some might even say its a natural extension of the takings clause of the 5th amendment. If the government taketh away, they need to compensate the person from whom they took. That cannot be extended infinitely of course, but where is the line? Some people will feel that an increase in minimum wage is over that line. Others do not.

 

That right there should be the discourse - how far is too far for unfunded mandates, and when do laws need to be passed for the betterment of society, even at the cost of the consumer or a business?

[southsider2k5]

Pay-Go is targeted at in-unit funding, which in this case, is government funding. That is different than costs to business due to legislation.

 

I think you make a really important point though, and I agree that it should always be considered - any law or act put in place by the government has a cost to someone (with few exceptions), and those costs should always be part of the equation. Its more than just a nice principle - some might even say its a natural extension of the takings clause of the 5th amendment. If the government taketh away, they need to compensate the person from whom they took. That cannot be extended infinitely of course, but where is the line? Some people will feel that an increase in minimum wage is over that line. Others do not.

 

That right there should be the discourse - how far is too far for unfunded mandates, and when do laws need to be passed for the betterment of society, even at the cost of the consumer or a business?

 

Why is it different based on who the initial payee is? When it comes down to it, its businesses paying the costs initially, through an unfunded mandate, and in the other case, taxpayers are paying for it, which is usually the same people in the long run.