There is an old saying: "Better the devil you know than the one you don't."

This has often been applied to political races, and I've heard a few of my friends make that comment concerning the upcoming election in November.

The problem in this case is that it's more of a choice of two devils you don't really know all that well.

Mitt has a record in politics, government and private employment, and we can pretty well tell where he stands on some issues. Still, what *exactly* he might (try to) do isn't awfully clear on many things. For many conservatives, the fear they most seem to express, at least casually, is that he's a Mormon, which to me seems rather silly. (I don't think he's going to urge passage of a new underwear law for us.)

Barry didn't have much of a record in the Senate and swept into the office with all manner of promises, many of which were a little more than politicial mumbo jumbo. His "open administration" is but one example of his promises of expediency, meant only to sound good, because they certainly haven't been followed. Early on in the 2008 campaign he struck me as a career politician, so I didn't really trust the blather emanating from his lips, but since he was such a terrific speaker I figured many would drink the "hope and change" kool-aid. (That he picked another blowhard career politico for his VP didn't allay my concerns about him.) A second term may reveal more of the man, but is that what a presidency is about? Shouldn't the man (or woman) be known before the office is bestowed? His rumblings about us needing to do something about "gun violence" might be a signal that in a second term his view will "evolve" and he'll urge the signing of the UN arms treaty -- devoid of any recognition or protection of the second amendment. True, he may indeed *not* do that. But the point is that he is also a devil we don't know that well.

So how do you choose between these devils? That's the real question, and I don't have a ready answer. I often take the third-party candidate route, since I'd rather vote for someone, as opposed to voting against someone. It's almost more of a "devil you kind of know or the devil you really don't trust." But you still have to figure out which is which.

Very simple. In politics and sales "It's not what you've done, it's what you've done lately." What B.O. has done lately is GLARINGLY OBVIOUS!!! He has driven us down with an extra $6T in debt in less than 4 years. He has saddled us with the slowest recession recovery since the thirties. He has drastically increased the deficit after pledging in his campaign to cut it in half. He also pledged transparency while in practice has invoked Executive Priviledge and has obscured what's going on in his administration at every turn. He promised change and we got it, just not the way he implied that it would be.

If he had cut the deficit in half like he promised, I would NOT be voting for Mitt.

In short he has shown his incompetency which should be no surprise since before his Presidency he never so much as ran a Lemonade stand, which means ZERO executive experience.

Although I'm not a big Mitt fan, he has run a state as a Governor and run a business. His management and leadership experience is so far more than B.O.'s, it's like Mitt is a major league starter, and B.O. hasn't even gotten off the bench in the little league yet.

The electorate made a HUGE mistake in 2008 and the people capable of admitting their mistake CLEARLY see it.

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2001 SLK 320 six speed manual
2014 Porsche Cayenne six speed manual

Annoy a Liberal, Read the Constitution

As I've written before I think both are essentially clueless. I don't think either are really worth voting for, but the reality is that they are the two we are stuck with.

- Peter.

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2021 Chevrolet Spark
Formerly...
2000 GMC Sonoma
1981 240D 4spd stick. 347000 miles. Deceased Feb 14 2021
2002 Kia Rio. Worst crap on four wheels
1981 240D 4spd stick. 389000 miles.
1984 123 200
1979 116 280S
1972 Cadillac Sedan DeVille
1971 108 280S

How true, BUT in my lifetime (I've been voting Presidential elections since 1972) I've never had an election where I could vote FOR someone. It has ALWAYS been a choice of the lesser of two evils. This one is no different.

__________________
2001 SLK 320 six speed manual
2014 Porsche Cayenne six speed manual

Annoy a Liberal, Read the Constitution

I'm not going to weigh in here because my musings will never change anyone's mind but......
I found it interesting to contrast the two candidates' approach to the fiscal crisis. (And it is a crisis the likes of which the world has never seen before. $16T is a million a minute for almost 32 years.) BO's tax plan raises taxes on higher income folks and MR's plan lowers them. As an example the top 1% of earners will pay almost 5% more with the BO plan and almost 8% less with the MR plan.
Which one is the answer? Who knows? Heck, who knows if either would ever get passed? Just thought I'd share.

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1983 M-B 240D-Gone too.
1976 M-B 300D-Departed.

"Good" is the worst enemy of "Great".

The idea of providing relief for the stinking rich so they "invest" in the country and employ the schmucks like us, sounds great in theory. Unfortunately it just doesn't work that way in practice.

- Peter.

__________________
2021 Chevrolet Spark
Formerly...
2000 GMC Sonoma
1981 240D 4spd stick. 347000 miles. Deceased Feb 14 2021
2002 Kia Rio. Worst crap on four wheels
1981 240D 4spd stick. 389000 miles.
1984 123 200
1979 116 280S
1972 Cadillac Sedan DeVille
1971 108 280S

What does work in practice? How do we generate enough revenue to pay off (yeah, right) over $16T in debt and operate a country?

__________________
1983 M-B 240D-Gone too.
1976 M-B 300D-Departed.

"Good" is the worst enemy of "Great".

I wouldn't characterize either one as a devil. One's a pussy, and the other one is a silver spoon shill for the rich.

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You're a daisy if you do.
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84 Euro 240D 4spd. 220.5k sold
04 Honda Element AWD
1985 F150 XLT 4x4, 351W with 270k miles, hay hauler
1997 Suzuki Sidekick 4x4
1993 Toyota 4wd Pickup 226K and counting

The 800 lb. gorilla at the table is the tsunami of baby boomers and the strain they will place on the social security and medicare programs. What's the number? 10,000 a day will turn 65 every day for the next 10 years? It's something like that. Class warfare? Nah, generational warfare looms.

I read something over the weekend: 42% of Americans die with $10,000 or less in net worth. That's astounding.

Writing in Hillary's name. I may not agree with her politics 100%, but at least the woman has backbone, guts, and isn't anyone's shill.

True dat.

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You're a daisy if you do.
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84 Euro 240D 4spd. 220.5k sold
04 Honda Element AWD
1985 F150 XLT 4x4, 351W with 270k miles, hay hauler
1997 Suzuki Sidekick 4x4
1993 Toyota 4wd Pickup 226K and counting

You don't.

So reducing taxes of the uber rich in the facile assumption that they will then invest all that money in new jobs for the likes of you and me is silly. They won't, so it wont' happen. All that will happen is the rich will sit on more money and spend that money as they see fit, including in other countries. Relieving the uber rich of their "impossible" tax burden will not return millions of jobs to the US because no matter what you do locally in the US with the current popultion in the next ten years or so you will never be able to compete economically with asia in terms of labor costs, so those jobs will not return ot the US. Not in sufficient quantities to grow the economy well enough to fix the problem.

So Romneys plan will fail.

Increasing the tax burden on the uber rich and "redistributing" the procedes to the regular schmucks like you and me will result in a small amount of money extra for those regular schmucks but it wont be enough to make any meaningful change in our lives. This is because when the handful of uber rich's monies are distributed amongst the hundreds of millions of regular schmucks the starting amount becomes an insignificant trickle when it's spread out amongst the hundreds of millions.

So Obamas plan will fail.

So what's the alternative? I have no idea. The US is screwed from what I can see or at least heading for some extremely rough waters which might, or might not, include a humungous waterfall or whirlpool or whatever.

The US needs to reign in it's spending, this is true, but it cannot as too many people are dependent on welfare and world reality does not allow us to refrain from war and military expenses.

So what the US needs to try and do is both reduce spending somewhat while simultaneously growing the economy. Sounds simple enough in theory but how do you actually do that? Well one way is to understand that it's not going to happen fast or easily. The world has changed and most of the proverbial "good middle class" jobs are gone and the US will have to compete more than effectively in order to get them back in such a way that it will re-inflate the post war high tech boom that provided the platform for every American to wind up with a house in the suburbs and a couple of cars in the garage - amongst other things...

I dont know how to do that. But a moribund fiddling with tax rates will not cut it. Americans will have to make do with less for some time, they will have to be more ingenious than they have been for a long time (and become much better educated) and they will have to understand that a country is not a business, and cannot be run like a business. It has to find a balance amongst many issues, social, economic, military, political etc and all the while be prepared to deal with a changing world and the likelyhood that despite the fondest dreams of the isolationists we do not have autarky, never did have autarky and certainly will not have any for the forseeable future, so we will have to be prepared to meet any military expenditures that will be forced on us by unforseen and unforseeable events, ruinously expensive though these will be.

- Peter.

__________________
2021 Chevrolet Spark
Formerly...
2000 GMC Sonoma
1981 240D 4spd stick. 347000 miles. Deceased Feb 14 2021
2002 Kia Rio. Worst crap on four wheels
1981 240D 4spd stick. 389000 miles.
1984 123 200
1979 116 280S
1972 Cadillac Sedan DeVille
1971 108 280S

Disagree about the military expenditures. Yeah, some may be unavoidable in the short term. But the long term (10-20 year) plan should be to wean ourselves off dependence on foreign energy resources and oil in general, even if this results in considerable short-term pain. This has been a continual thorn in our side since WW II, and unnecessarily at that.

That's me, babay! I'm gonna burn through that like a whore in a crackhouse.

And then some!

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