OT: Bimbo Eruptions

[afx114]

Did anyone else chuckle when in his press conference Cain said, “my wife comes up to my chin?”

[eavesdropper]

[quote=afx114]Did anyone else chuckle when in his press conference Cain said, “my wife comes up to my chin?”[/quote]

My immediate response was, “You’re shittin me, right?”. Does that count as the same thing?

[GH]

I actually don’t care if these allegations are true or not. What I do not like is the way he is responding.

Arnie was pretty straight “I have behaved badly” end of story.

How about some honesty rather than denial, blame and conspiracy?

[Anonymous]

[quote=ctr70]But I would really love to see a REAL business person get the presidency […][/quote]

The track record of businessmen as presidents is not that great. Truman was an unsuccessful businessman before entering politics. The most recent – and perhaps only – example of a successful businessman as president would probably be Harding in the early 1920s. History doesn’t give him high marks.

[markmax33]

[quote=pri_dk][quote=ctr70]But I would really love to see a REAL business person get the presidency […][/quote]

The track record of businessmen as presidents is not that great. Truman was an unsuccessful businessman before entering politics. The most recent – and perhaps only – example of a successful businessman as president would probably be Harding in the early 1920s. History doesn’t give him high marks.[/quote]

Any president should be required to have spent 20 years studying economics before they can be elected. If they couldn’t predict economic trends they shouldn’t be allowed to run after the 20 years.

[Anonymous]

You just disqualified Ron Paul.

Bummer.

Fortunately, Krugman is still eligible.

[markmax33]

[quote=pri_dk]You just disqualified Ron Paul.

Bummer.

Fortunately, Krugman is still eligible.[/quote]
lol, he’s been studying for 40 years and writing about it, nice try!

[bearishgurl]

RP is going to get my vote!

[eavesdropper]

[quote=markmax33]……Any president should be required to have spent 20 years studying economics before they can be elected. If they couldn’t predict economic trends they shouldn’t be allowed to run after the 20 years.[/quote]

Hey, markmax, i appreciate the sentiment, but be reasonable: today’s *economists* don’t appear to be able to predict economic trends.

I definitely agree that presidential candidates should possess certain levels of essential knowledge, including economics. But it’s becoming increasingly clear that for many individuals the point of attending college is the degree and not the actual education. It’s gotten to the point that people actually appear to believe that the conferring of a degree is synonymous with the learning of the course material and the ability to apply it to real-life challenges and situations. That it’s not necessary to actually learn the material because at the moment the dean hands you the diploma, all of the knowledge implied by the degree is magically transferred into your brain.

Yeah, sounds ridiculous, doesn’t it. In fact, it sounds exactly like the logic behind……No Child Left Behind!

Now what I suggest as a way to ensure good quality presidential candidates (in fact, lets throw Congressional candidates in there, too) is to create a Candidates Certification Exam. It should have questions (no multiple choice) on U.S. and world history, economics, finance, foreign relations, and other topics essential for those who have the safety and security and the future of our nation under their control, and it should be given over a five-day period. The test will not be a simple regurgitation of memorized facts, but will included questions that require application of knowledge to particular circumstances and situations.

Candidates do not need to possess a degree or attend classes as a prerequisite to sitting for the exam. However, they do need to achieve a 98% correct rate if they wish to run for office.

If they do not, they can choose to take the test one additional time. However, completion of 60 credits of college senior-level work on test topics with a 3.5 GPA is required before doing so. Once again, a minimum of 98% correct is required.

To those who believe that the rigor of the test will unfairly eliminate a significant portion of the population, I ask how many people have you met, or do you encounter in your daily life, to whom you would entrust the safety and security of the U.S.?

Of course, it will never happen. Look at who’s responsible for making the laws.

[scaredyclassic]

Who grades it? I can’t conceive of a knowledge application test that isn’t somewhat subjective in grading.

[markmax33]

[quote=eavesdropper][quote=markmax33]……Any president should be required to have spent 20 years studying economics before they can be elected. If they couldn’t predict economic trends they shouldn’t be allowed to run after the 20 years.[/quote]

Hey, markmax, i appreciate the sentiment, but be reasonable: today’s *economists* don’t appear to be able to predict economic trends.

I definitely agree that presidential candidates should possess certain levels of essential knowledge, including economics. But it’s becoming increasingly clear that for many individuals the point of attending college is the degree and not the actual education. It’s gotten to the point that people actually appear to believe that the conferring of a degree is synonymous with the learning of the course material and the ability to apply it to real-life challenges and situations. That it’s not necessary to actually learn the material because at the moment the dean hands you the diploma, all of the knowledge implied by the degree is magically transferred into your brain.

Yeah, sounds ridiculous, doesn’t it. In fact, it sounds exactly like the logic behind……No Child Left Behind!

Now what I suggest as a way to ensure good quality presidential candidates (in fact, lets throw Congressional candidates in there, too) is to create a Candidates Certification Exam. It should have questions (no multiple choice) on U.S. and world history, economics, finance, foreign relations, and other topics essential for those who have the safety and security and the future of our nation under their control, and it should be given over a five-day period. The test will not be a simple regurgitation of memorized facts, but will included questions that require application of knowledge to particular circumstances and situations.

Candidates do not need to possess a degree or attend classes as a prerequisite to sitting for the exam. However, they do need to achieve a 98% correct rate if they wish to run for office.

If they do not, they can choose to take the test one additional time. However, completion of 60 credits of college senior-level work on test topics with a 3.5 GPA is required before doing so. Once again, a minimum of 98% correct is required.

To those who believe that the rigor of the test will unfairly eliminate a significant portion of the population, I ask how many people have you met, or do you encounter in your daily life, to whom you would entrust the safety and security of the U.S.?

Of course, it will never happen. Look at who’s responsible for making the laws.[/quote]

Eavesdropper,
Watch this video and get back to me:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TNDvLRUevSo

Dr. Paul predicts the following in 8 minutes:

1. 9/11
2. Long term Iraq war
3. Housing bubble
4. Financial bubble
5. fiat currency bubble
6. exploding debt
7. the lobbyist explosion
8. Afghanistan war
9. Libyan overthrow
10. Egypt overthrow
11. uncontrolled spending by congress
12. gold increases by 5X
13. Patriot Act killing US Citizens

I have NO CLUE why people can’t see why this is important.

Austrian economists have predicted EVERY downturn. Even Rich Toscano admitted Austrian economics helped him predict the downturn and start this blog. He stopped short of outright endorsing it, but he did endorse Jim Grant who Ron Paul would put in charge of the fed. My point is that there is only one school of thought that gets it right. I’m not against another politician adopting the Austrian school but Gary Johnson polling at 1% is the next closest.

[SK in CV]

[quote=markmax33][quote=SK in CV][quote=markmax33] The problem is there hasn’t been a President to have a balanced budget and THEREFORE could not lower taxes. [/quote]

Yes, there was. Clinton, his last 3 years in office. Better than balanced, a nominal surplus in excess of $400 billion his last 3 years, and even ignoring the huge SS surplus in those years, still had a surplus in each of those years. With tax rates higher than they are today. Those pesky facts.[/quote]

No those pesky facts don’t take into account the federal reserve lowering interest rates and creating the surplus. It had nothing to do with Clinton, just the business cycle. It was short lived as the tech bubble bust a year or two later.

Those pesky facts…[/quote]

First, your claim was simply false, regardless of the reason. You said “there hasn’t been a President with a balanced budget”. Just dead wrong.

And beyond that, the Fed didn’t lower interest rates. The average federal funds rate during the surplus years was 5.51%. The average for the 2 years before that was 5.43%. They RAISED rates on average. And before those 5 years? They raised rates by 2.5%. They didn’t begin lowering rates until the last 5 months of his final budget year (the last BETTER than balanced budget year) . When some other guy was already president.

Fail.

[ctr70]

[quote=poorgradstudent][quote=ctr70]But I would really love to see a REAL business person get the presidency (George W. was not a REAL self-made business person and Arnold was an actor, not a real biz person). Just like I was hoping a businesswomen (Meg Whitman) would have won the CA governorship vs. the career bureaucrat that won. No more lawyers and career bureaucrats that have never had real jobs outside of politics. I like to see someone that has had the responsibility of employing people in the private sector, running a company, innovating, running a balance sheet, etc… I have always wanted to see Micheal Bloomberg run.[/quote]
On paper this kind of thinking sounds good, but in practice Good Government is nothing like Good Business. Businesses exist to make money, governments exist to provide public services. As a business owner if you’re doing something that isn’t profitable, you can stop doing it. Government has an obligation to continue taking care of the disabled and the elderly and defending our borders, even though it can’t make money doing it.

Having worked in both private and public sector jobs, I’m surprised by the “government is wasteful compared to private enterprise” argument. Sure, inefficient businesses eventually fail. But on the whole, given the scope of what it does, the government does a lot of things very, very well. The last company I worked for was incredibly wasteful in how much we paid our mediocre CEO. Upper management made mistakes left and right thanks to not listening to the concerns of workers how their new initiatives actually reduced productivity. Middle managers often fudged numbers on their failed pet projects to save their skins. Show me a private company that doesn’t have plenty of waste and fat to trim, and I bet there are no more than 2-3 employees working there.

I will agree that because both sides of the political aisle are in bed with huge corporations, government does very little to really incentivize small businesses. Both sides pander around election time, but policy rarely cuts in favor of the little guy.[/quote]

You gotta be kidding me. Governments and Unions are terribly, terribly inefficient. One of the few competitive industries left in the U.S. is Silicon Valley b/c it is the purest form of capitalism left in this country and a “meritocracy” where brains and talent get you ahead. And there are no unions or seniority in Silicon Valley. Detroit is the opposite. They got their asses kicked in the 1980’s by Japan b/c of their bloated Unions, pensions and health care costs.

I worked in a Union Hotel in college and a non Union Hotel. People in the Union Hotel did not hustle, it was old, out of date and a crappy place overall. Workers only did what they had to do and nothing more. It is human nature when you have job security, seniority, safety, you stop hustling and innovating. Now most of Europe (except Germany) is imploding b/c most of it is one giant Governmental/Union body.

And the private sector has a right to do what they want with their profits and pay people what they want b/c their revenue comes from PRODUCT SALES, not TAXES like the Government.

But I also do believe there needs to be some Government and some regulation. There is definitely a place for some Government. And I do agree that there needs to be protections against big disparities in wealth and the abuses of that wealth getting out of control. We don’t want to live in a county with a tiny # of super wealth and huge amount of poor.

Some excellent Big, Big Government success stories…China and Russia in the 1960’s, North Korea, Cuba…all wonderful places we all would dream of living. They all needed fences to keep people IN instead of OUT.

[ctr70]

[quote=pri_dk][quote=ctr70]But I would really love to see a REAL business person get the presidency […][/quote]

The track record of businessmen as presidents is not that great. Truman was an unsuccessful businessman before entering politics. The most recent – and perhaps only – example of a successful businessman as president would probably be Harding in the early 1920s. History doesn’t give him high marks.[/quote]

Those examples are a long time ago, and as you say Truman was an unsuccessful businessman. We have not had a real businessperson in there in a long time.

[eavesdropper]

[quote=walterwhite]Who grades it? I can’t conceive of a knowledge application test that isn’t somewhat subjective in grading.[/quote]

I do, naturally.

Seriously, thing have gotten so bad with regard to candidate quality that I’d be tempted to give an automatic 25% grading bonus to any one of them who had the brains and the balls to write their real name on the blue book cover.

[Author]

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