San Diego Housing Bubble News and Analysis

P.J. O'Rourke is one of my favorite writers. The book he wrote about 15? years ago--Parliament of whores is hilarious.

"Republican Party Reptile" is pretty damn good, too.

That article would have been hilarious if it wasn't so true.

I sit here gritting my teeth as Sarah Palin begins her (inevitable) run at the 2012 primary. Which proves that we not only lost the rudder, we appear to have the lost the boat, too.

Ron Paul 2012

O'Rourke and some of the posters on this board are part of the few Republicans that I do respect.

As for your question: In the past, I was always employed by liberals, and to this day, all of my clients are liberals. Who woulda thunkit?

This thread = waste of disk space.

Take this crap to a political forum somewhere.

I've been employed by both liberals and poor people -- usually not poor and liberal, strangely enough.

Amost all of the rich people I've known were liberal, and most of the poor people I've known have been conservative. Who woulda thunk? ;)

BTW, I define "rich" as having incomes of $1MM or more, and/or having a multi-million++ dollar NET worth.

IIRC, aren't most people employed by small businesses, and aren't most small business owners "poor" relative to what many of us consider to be "rich" (can live off of their wealth and never work again in their lifetimes). Just a guess there, but if anyone has hard numbers, I'd love to see them.

as a moderate Republican, I for one am glad McCain lost and lost big.

by forcing McCain to pick Palin, the Republican party I knew of officially became the Creationist Christian Party. hopefully with the lost the moderate fiscal conservatives can use this opportunity to take the party back from the religious right.

ocrenter: I'd love to see that happen. What I see happening now is the radicalized element (the Far Right) and evangelicals are cohering around Palin as the putative front runner for 2012.

I don't know at what point we lost our way, but we clearly have. We have abandoned all of the principles we held dear and are now a reactionary element practicing opposition politics.

Listening to this clown from Georgia calling Obama a Marxist marked a pathetic new low.

AFF: I would too.

To Lucius bee:
Yes I have been employed by both but not for long by the poor ones (see they were poor).

My family are rather successful and employ people and they are far more knee-jerk liberal than I. They make a LOT more than $250k per year. Something about Irish peasants I guess.

When presenting this as a serious question, it begs another question. Has the questioner noticed that the 2 biggest concentrations of wealth and economic power in this country are in the San Francisco and New York areas?

So yeah I am pretty sure there are liberal employers.

just like alcoholics who need to really sink to rock bottom before they realize the need to change their lives around and stay sober, maybe the Republicans need to taste the true political bottom with Palin in 2012.

When I was sparring with Rich several weeks ago regarding political party, this is what I meant. This is the kind of party-killing identity crisis that could give a 3rd party sufficient gravitational pull to gain serious grouping.

However, honestly, I think it is more likely to just mean a reorganization like the Dems in 94.

Dan: Agreed on the SF/Bay Area as being a concentration of wealth, but wouldn't it (geographically speaking) be more correct to point out that the Silicon Valley/Santa Clara County region is really the economic force that drives the area?

I bring that up because Silicon Valley/Sta Clara represent a very interesting mix of liberal and conservative politics, with the epicenter being Stanford University. Stanford, for years now, has wrangled back and forth with the liberal element (the academics) fighting the conservative element (the scientists and researchers) over the programs that Stanford supported which were funded by the defense industry and government.

So it isn't completely clear cut in the case of the SF/Bay Area, especially when you consider that many of the companies (Intel, Loral/L3, Varian, etc) have been sucking the government teat for decades (going back to the 1950s and 1960s in some cases).

Yes, once we get away from the moss covered rock, we have a tendency to do quite well for ourselves :)

yooklid: Ah, saints preserve us! Are we all going to start singing "Danny Boy" and crying into our Guinness?

That's all we need: A bunch of Fenians railing against the Crown!

The USG has turned into a a sleaze piece of three-penny farcical kabuki theater performed by mentally challenged grumpy old shriveled Faust impersonators who’ll sell their grandkids for a slice of the power pie. They sold their souls long ago. And Obama voters will be faced with an identical choice as Bush voters were. To go insane or lose faith in their party. His dog collar is a attached to the same leash as Bush's is.

Pawlenty is a pretty sharp guy. I wish Palin had been just a keynote speaker, and Pawlenty had been the veep choice. Ah well, mavericks, whaddya do?

arraya: I don't always agree with you, but that was a beautifully written post above. I mean that sincerely. You have an excellent command of the language and the use of Faust in there really got me. Update Goethe to the present day and re-write the play.

HWG: I agree about Pawlenty. Unfortunately, for the party "faithful", he is now the "fringe" element.

I don't think Palin is going to get traction. The evangelicals may use her to try to stay on the map but the Republican party isn't going to stand for it and either are main street Republican voters who didn't have a choice in her participation this time around. Next time they will,Her face is going to undergo a metamorphosis like that Dorian Gray's portrait. Her glasses are going to go out of style. Her star fell four days after McCain choose her. She will get sent packing if she shows up in the primaries. Republicans will have better front runners next time. I hope so anyway. They kicked the only good one they had to the curb this time around.

We need a great communicator to emerge once again...

http://video.aol.com/video-detail/a-time...

You have a point. Lots of those in academia also work as researchers for the defense industry. Foreign policy conservatives living on government subsidies. Similarly, many of those in positions of economic power in NY are right-leaning with regards to regulation and defense. However, I think that as a rule, one could argue that both of these areas have high concentrations of socially liberal thought. As someone who grew up near there (and who is liberal) I find the monothink I encounter in the bay area to be, at times, maddening.

Of course, this was a tonge and check question.

However, like the republican thread, I tend to agree with the generalization. Certainly, there are concentrations of wealth in the liberal cities (not necessarily earned by liberals from business enterprises, but through inheritance, etc.)

However, I believe the stereotype of the far-left liberals residing in government, the universities, and unions is true. For every Internet start-up started by a liberal Berkeley or Standford grad., there are thousands of professors and government workers who are hardcore liberals and have never employed a person or met a payroll in their lives (thebreeze being a notable exception).

Anyway, what prompted me to ask this (in addition to the rural Republican thread) was a conversation with my young brother-in-law who is an accounting major and voted for Obama. I was a little surprised when he told me this (as we started talking about investment and corporate tax issues). Anyway, he was clueless about the Democrats' positions on increasing various taxes (and how it would impact American businesses if enacted).

Anyway, I left with him this picture: "You know the guy who is a hardcore Obama supporter who you think is cool, smart, and trendy? Yes, well just remember that guy will probably never give you a job (instead going to graduate school to teach, etc.) . . . This made him think for a second and, after a minute thinking, he told me that every job he has ever had was given to him by a Republican.

I don't think it is a coincidence. I have never been employed by a poor person or liberal either, especially one who started the business.

Just some food for thought . . .

I see that now teaching and academia are not real jobs by your measure.

I am not clear how being a lawyer is more productive but clearly we are talking past each other.

If this qualifies as food for thought for you then that explains the posts that are so thin on intelligent discussion.

Please keep feeding that thinking machine of yours luchabee.

Have I ever been employed by a liberal? Depends on the year...

Well, I've worked for several large publicly traded corporations since the 90's, so I really worked for the shareholders. So I would assume they weren't poor. As to their political leanings:

The majority of voters own 401k/IRA's, thus current employees of all SP500 companies are actually employed by liberals.

I guess Socialist/marxist's own the most successful corporations in the world and are the country's primary employers...

Urbanrealtor: You missed the point.

The point has never been "real jobs" (like a teacher versus an engineer), but jobs that create other jobs for poor people like me . . . For example, people who start businesses.

Again, some of hardcore liberals are big fans of regulating and taxing businesses at every opportunity.

As I mentioned to my brother-in-law, these far left-wing types will never give him a job, never hire people, never pay business taxes, etc., so he might want to think twice about jumping in bed with them politically (unless he can get a nice government job as an accountant). I know it's a radical thought.

Nice video!

Unfortunately, we did have a great communicator emerge in this election . . . in President Obama.

Well, I've been employed by a gay liberal for the last 11 years. It's been the most rewarding job of my life.

Most people who run the entertainment business (my other job is producing independent films) are liberals. They employ thousands of people in California.
Steven Spielberg, anyone? Robert Redford, anyone?

How about Google? It's market cap is over $97B and it employs over 10,000 people. They just donated $100,000 to try and defeat Prop. 8, and are considered very liberal in other positions.

How about Apple and Steve Jobs? Market cap over $80B and employs 28,000 worldwide. Another big No on Prop. 8 supporter.

I could go on and on, but what's the point? There are plenty of Democratic, liberal employers. Right-wing Republicans hardly have a lock on that. And the way the economic winds are blowing, it looks like the next big employer will be neither, but the federal government.

Your premise seems to be that liberals don't start small businesses.

I suppose you should post some data to support, considering that 52% of the voting population now qualifies as "liberal" by your standards.

I haven't personally been employed by scary liberals, but my spouse and I do own several small businesses and have dozens of employees. Their response to the original thread question would be "yes."

Realizing the plural of 'anecdote' is not 'data' - I thought I might contribute anyway.

I was Robert Shapiro's (O.J. lawyer) kids' nanny when I was in college. He was pretty liberal.

Well, I guess you wouldn't take it on faith that we have a liberal media and liberal university system (I would)?

There are some things that are pretty self-evident, but I understand the request for data over anecdote.

Again, these are generalizations (and as generalized as the rural Republican comments).

Also, I couldn't find any business school studies, etc. about political identification and business startups after one minute of searching on google, but I did find this:

Small Business Owners Back McCain, Believe Republican Party Holds the Key to Solving Issues Important to Small Businesses

Which party do you think is better for small business?

Republican
57%

I don't think the party matters
25%

Democratic
18%

http://www.surepayroll.com/spsite/press/...

For whatever it is worth . . .

Yes your assertion has been that entrepreneurs and business operators and stockholders ("bosses")are generally rich and/or conservative.
I suppose it depends on what you mean by "liberal". In the sense that these bosses often rely on themselves to take care, I would agree that there is a general preference to avoid non-business payment burdens (like taxes or business fees or association fees). That is by definition true (people who want to make money don't like giving it away without obvious benefit) but pointing that out is obvious and dumb.
However, in the social dimension, a great number of bosses believe in gay rights, better government health care, environmental issues, and ending the war. The gay rights march I attended today was testament to that. Almost every person I knew there was self-employed. Most of us (I am also self-employed) use w-2 or 1099 contractors or assistants. We are your liberal employers.

There are idiots all over the political spectrum. Again this is obvious and dumb.

Liberals and far left are not the same or even similar. Your comparison is akin to comparing William F Buckley (a conservative I respect) to Mussolini(because they are both on the right side of the political spectrum). Liberals focus on social issues and progressive taxation. Far-left focuses on government ownership of the means of production. I am a liberal and I have been to leftist countries. While Cuba has some great things (ice cream, music, dancing, booze, cigars), they really lack free enterprise and free expression in a palpable way.

Its not radical. Just ignorant and reactionary.

Dan: You make an excellent point, and one I was thinking of bringing up myself. That being the difference between liberals and leftists. "Liberal" is one of the best words going, especially when combined with "democracy".

As of late, though, it's bandied about as an epithet or pejorative.

I'm very conservative, but I hold no loyalty to the idiots and zealots that have seized my party and turned it into a self-parody. For me to consider someone like Sarah Palin a "conservative" makes a mockery of true conservatism and some of the best political thought in the last 60 years.

While I disagree ideologically with folks like Dan and Gandalf, I respect their intelligence and reasoning and treat them accordingly. Dialogue, discourse and disagreement are what makes this country great (or at least they used to) and the give-and-take between the poles is what keeps the system healthy.

Dan: As far as Cuba goes, it's a repressive dictatorship run by a murderous Stalinist thug who is long past his day. Cuba has imprisoned thousands whose only crime was trying to speak freely against the depredations of the Castro regime. Yes, we've supported worse in our time, but it doesn't change what Fidel and his ilk represent. Cuba Libres and ice cream notwithstanding, he makes for a bad example.