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[john p]

It is very hard to have systemic change after a society has gone bad. You get too many bad and dumb people in power who keep the talented from sharing their gifts.

Even in this Stimulus, I worked six straight months of 60-70 plus hour weeks to put out a "shovel-ready" project. To meet Obama's Stimulus Deadlines.... Anyway these knuckleheads thought they were getting this Stimulus Money and put the project out to bid. We had 20 bidders. They say that it can cost up to 1% of construction cost to put a bid proposal together, so with 20 bidders in a down and hungry economy, that is the equivalent of 1/5 of the project cost, and only one of the 20 will win. Well, they didn't have the money to award the contract so it effectively drained 1/5 of the project cost to get nothing, on top of our 8 percent or so design fee. Now we have to redesign to what they can actually afford. This is all because you have political hacks wasting and wasting money and talented people's time. These government hacks don't even care if they wasted 1/5 of the project cost, they are oblivious. Government waste goes way beyond what the numbers show, their negative impact of mismanaging projects or policies is unbelieveable. A lot of their disposition resides in their sense of entitlement and job security. People won't target poor judgment because politics and graft trumps competence. This is why so much waste and corruption and incompetence is tolerated, you can't go after someone because they are part of this in-crowd of government workers; everyone is connected.

We have to turn the soil over to keep it fertile. This is Obama's base so don't expect him to pull a Governor Christie and clean house. It is just sad that only one party can go after certain waste while they turn a blind eye to other forms of waste. The Tea Party seemed to target all waste, but they are getting a bad reputation by the media because they present them as if they are dangerous radicals. Chris Matthews had t.v. programs equating them to militants showing radical people with automatic weapons running around in military garb, saying "This is the Tea Party". It was like they had to vilify anyone who was against government corruption and waste. The Tea Party wouldn't have the numbers they do if they were led by militants. The reason why this movement is gaining momentum is that Americans understand the structural flaw of corrupt and wasteful governments and their spending.

In all fairness to Obama and Krugman, the two competing arguments are:

I'll start my diet on Monday, versus I'll worry about my diet after I stop worrying about starving.

The problem is that Obama is letting certain people starve and others get fat.

Liberals seem to have this unsaid philosophy that the rich don't need morals and the poor can't afford them. As bad as this sounds, it explains why they let the banks become too big to fail and bail out the rich "elites"; they feel that we need an elite class that is above any constraint of morality so they allow politicans to lie, bankers to cheat. Think of how many liberals have no problem saying "Oh, politicans just say whatever they have to to get elected...". They don't expect morals to go to an "elite". As long as that politician can use big words and feel good cliches and tap dance and isn't as blatant as Rod Blagovich, they are entitled to be able to cheat on their wives, lie, etc. As far as the poor, well, they can't afford morals. Even though the overwhelming pecentage of criminals come from broken families, it is perfectly fine for young men to leave their children and their childrens mothers. It is ok to make folk heros of these kids who act like gangsters because they are poor. It is ok that people can lie on their mortage applications, or paying bills is optional to poor people in the view of Liberals. Poor people should also have the license to steal, lie, etc. You'll notice that it is typical viewpoint of many liberals. I mean this is why the liberals were lining up to let Ben LeGuer out of jail. The conservatives want to keep the criminals out of the neighborhoods by removing them and putting them in prison. The conservatives want to keep illegal immigrants out, while the liberals could care less that there is illegal human trafficing and that our border patrol is being shot at daily by illegals with automatic weapons. It is like the knee jerk reaction is against law enforcement because evil doesnt' really exist. I mean liberals don't even want to acknowledge bad behavior of terrorists. This liberal Fareed Zakaria on CNN talks about how we shouldn't even use the word "terrorist". Then you have the President and his liberal administration apologizing to everyone and getting mad at Israel for defending itself against neighbors that are shooting rockets in their neighborhoods. It is crazy and absurd how liberals allow the rich to rape and pillage and make every excuse for anyone who they see as disadvantaged to skirt any type of personal responsibility.

This is where Obama is wrong, you need a foundation of morality and responsibility, because if you give someone disadvantaged an excuse instead of the values to overcome their hardships, you're just preserving a permanent lower class. I mean to think that it is the Democrats in Massachusetts that are allowing casinos is crazy. I mean weren't the Democrats against those that preyed on the poor? Why then are they the ones pushing this? Sadly, and I hope I'm wrong, but I think that liberals believe that the elites don't need morals and the poor can't afford them so it is ok for the elites to prey on the poor because that is the order they believe in.

[john p]

I really hope the content of my rant is false. I totally want to be proven wrong and would happily eat my words if I am...

[Boston ITer]

[john p]

Do you think they are playing it like the United States is "Too Big to Fail"?

[mpr]

[Boston ITer]

[Kaidran]

As far as I know SS is and never was a retirement plan, it was to stop old people freezing/starving to death. I'm not sure where the idea came from that you can live comfortably (by modern standards) on SS?


John, I still have no desire to argue when you get the glazed look and the foamy moth but just a few points:

TV news is shit, I would have thought you would have already figured this out. It exists to generate ad revenue and it does so by telling people what they think they already know. MSNBC tells people Tea Partiers are loonies, Fox tells people they are patriots because that is what their audience expects. The Tea Party problem as it seems to me is that it does not have a unified direction or message that it seems to be able to get across. I dont know if this is because "Tea Party" just means different things in different states (very much like democrat and republican does)

The rest of your post is just so black and white as to be ridiculous. Liberals are immoral, liberals are unfaithful, liberals are liars... Conversely Conservative has ever been unethical, cheated on their wife or told a lie? If we take out all the liberals and shoot them would the US become some sort of Utopia? The parties are blurred and only distinguish themselves by who is in power. I know that you have a quest for increased morality, and it is not a bad quest, but assigning it to a political flag is just plain silly. For every liberal that cheats on his wife there is a conservative doing the same thing and I think somewhere deep down you already know this. I believe the divorce rate is actually lower for liberals, though it is probably due to other factors.

Casinos are bad, I completely agree. Gambling is a tax on people who cannot understand math. Having said that, unless you are going to close the CT casinos and/or stop the free buses which ship people to them from MA, you are just sending MA dollars into CT. BTW if there was a move to ban all gambling I would personally support it.

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