[poorgradstudent]

Obama/Feinstein/Davis
(Not sure on the others yet… will have to figure that out in the next two weeks)
30 – Yes
31 – No
32 – HELL NO
33 – EVEN BIGGER HELL NO
34 – Yes…?
35 – Yes? (need to research)
36 – Yes
37 – No, offsetting my wife’s vote
38 – No
39 – Yes
40 – need to research

[poorgradstudent]

[quote=jstoesz]Squat, I am sure you will appreciate this, the bike to work today was amazing. 15 miles in 45 min, how could you beat that. It was like a bike freeway, flat and fast with nearly no intersections only overpasses, etc. time to buy a road bike.

Btw, the job is amazing, they do no documentation, just a database of solidworks files! I am pinching myself. Forget defense! Real design, and man does my brain hurt.

We looked at a few houses under 300 last weekend. Amazing houses in perfect cosmopolitan neighborhoods. I am going to be able to walk to the grocer, restaurants and church not to mention bike to work on dedicated and separate bike paths. What more could you want?[/quote]
Winter is coming…

Seriously, if Minnesota could be Spring and Fall year round, it would be by far the greatest place to live. But trust me, come winter you won’t be biking to work or walking anywhere.

[poorgradstudent]

[quote=dumbrenter]Am I the only one around who questions this data that concluded that women these days get paid less?
The candidate who questioned the data would surely impress me.

From what I am aware, there is full parity in pay for similar job types, especially in tech industry.[/quote]
Unfortunately, Obama has repeated an exaggerated figure for male-female income disparity in the US. When you factor out lifestyle and career choices and only look at apples-to-apples comparisons, women on a whole make 5-7% less than men of identical experience and education. However, you are correct it does vary by field. Tech and medicine tend to have much smaller gaps than manufacturing and financial services, for example.

[poorgradstudent]

Rents, like a lot of things, tend to be awfully sticky on the way down. I think we’re much more likely to see a few years of flat-to-very-slow increases in rents rather than a crash. There was a huge jump in rent prices in 2011, while this year’s increase seems pretty small. But yeah, I don’t really expect rent prices to collapse unless unemployment starts shooting up again.

I will add that the SFH rental market seems a lot hotter than the condo/apartment market.

[poorgradstudent]

I love Minnesota. If I could have San Diego’s weather in Minnesota I would move back there in a heartbeat. For me, the cold winters are just too oppressive to deal with, but in terms of education and cost of living, Minnesota is very hard to beat.

[poorgradstudent]

[quote=Diego Mamani]Can someone explain to me where this silly idea of carpet in the bathroom comes from?

I bought a new house in Orange County back in 2001. The builder was Centex, and I was shocked to learn that the “list price” included carpet in the secondary bathroom. Carpet in the bathroom is like lining your fireplace with paper..[/quote]
Yeah… seriously. This is why bathmats exist. So you can easily pick them up, wash them, and lay them back down.

[poorgradstudent]

Landlord.

[poorgradstudent]

[quote=Brutus]
Here’s what they can do about it:
Stop watching trash TV. Stop watching MOST TV.
Read a friggin’ book or two. Go to school.
Study.
Stop listening to rap “music.”
Stop believing that all Liberals want to do is help you.
Stop smoking pot.
Stop smoking crack.
Stop getting drunk.
Stop having babies you can’t afford.
Go to school.
Be a nerd.
Get a job, ANY job. Keep it until you can get the job you want.
Work harder.
Work better.
Think.
Read books of all types.
Read some more.
Stop watching TV.
…
[/quote]
Y’know, I know plenty of nerds that are huge pot enthusiasts, yet make enough money to pay a higher percentage of their income to federal income tax than Mitt Romney. Some even like “rap music”! Cutting back on TV time is always good advice, as is avoiding having babies too early. In this state you’d actually be better off talking about Meth use than crack. Oh, but it’s mostly poor whites that use meth, so I suppose that doesn’t fit the narrative you’re trying to weave…

[poorgradstudent]

[quote=Allan from Fallbrook][quote=paramount]Why not pledge allegiance to a candidate that is not irritating at all?

Ron Paul Write In Campaign 2012 [/quote]

Paramount: Have you looked at Gary Johnson yet? I’m planning on writing him in come November.

It’s not like a GOP vote goes anywhere in this state, anyway.[/quote]
I’m actually giving Gary Johnson a long hard look, despite my general liberal leanings. If Cali was a swing state I would vote against Romney, but we have the luxury here of supporting third candidates like the Greens or Gary Johnson without worrying about tipping the scale. Gary Johnson is the kind of candidate I *wish* the Republicans would run to give a genuine choice between two sane options. I actually would have given Huntsman a long look had he won the Nom, but we all know how little traction he picked up in the party of No.

[poorgradstudent]

Thanks for all the ideas. I will have to look into them with more detail this weekend.

[poorgradstudent]

Where can I get me some $25 internet? Is that AOL dial-up?

[poorgradstudent]

Well, for starters, Romney’s record on women’s issues and gay issues are two big openings Obama has been pounding Romney on. Also the fact Romney believes in trickle down economics. And it’s pretty legitimate to attack Bain Capital for being a driving force in outsourcing american jobs; nothing illegal there, but Mitt clearly believes in outsourcing, something a lot of Americans aren’t fans on. These are legitimate policy differences.

I do think Romney should be more open in saying “I didn’t write the tax code. Like most American families, we maximized our deductions while following the laws as they are written”. But I think Mitt needs to be more open and honest about a lot of things.

[poorgradstudent]

Motley Fool isn’t bad for getting ideas for small cap stocks to do your own Due Diligence and research on. Their track record is mixed; they didn’t exactly see the mortgage crisis coming, and they recommend a lot of dogs. I don’t think I’d pay for their service, but their free articles are worth the time it takes to read them.

[poorgradstudent]

[quote=flu]
1. How about government spending less defense
2. How about government spending less social entitlement benefits programs.
3. How about government start actually make some of the corporations that pay no taxes at all pay taxes, like somewhat reforming the expatriation corporate tax rules.[/quote]
These are all great ideas in theory, and would all be challenging to implement.

1. If the government spends less on defense, I would happily see most of those savings go to tax cuts for the rich. It’s a pipe dream, because there is so much pork barrel spending on defense it would take a huge, bipartisan effort that just won’t ever happen in our lifetimes.
2. I hate having all social entitlement programs lumped together. Are we talking welfare? medicaid? medicare? social security? The biggest problem with entitlement spending right now is a demographic one, and there are no easy answers to that. Plus, seniors vote in droves, so politically it’s almost suicidal to piss them off. I’m not sure there is room for huge cuts in entitlements without significant long term social costs.
3. I would love it if we could cut individual taxes while increasing corporate taxes. Good luck with that though; corporations are even better at dodging taxes than rich people are.

[poorgradstudent]

[quote=Allan from Fallbrook]

OCR: I read that Op/Ed piece about the Romney landslide in the UT. Wow. I’m surprised that Obama is struggling with a candidate as weak as Mittens, but I doubt very much it’s gonna be a landslide. It should prove to be a very tight race, right to the finish. I think Obama is pursuing a very canny strategy in trying to deliver a knockout blow early, but I’d also be very nervous (if I were him) at this point. He’s expended gobs of cash and still hasn’t achieved any meaningful separation in the polls.

Given that polls tend to oversample Dems, he hasn’t been looking at a lot of good news lately, especially when you look at Romney’s developing edge in the fundraising race.

Gonna be interesting.[/quote]
It’s gonna be tight, and it’s actually feasible Obama will lose the popular vote and win the electoral college, simply by squeaking by in a lot of purple states while getting killed in Red states. Romney is really benefiting from the terrible economy and new SuperPAC rules. Based on economic numbers alone, Obama should be getting killed in the polls. His resilience shows both that he is personally popular and Willard is a bad candidate.

I’m not sure why you think polls oversample Dems, unless you mean polls that look at registered voters instead of likely voters? Republicans do tend to win the turnout battle, so registered voter polls aren’t good at reflecting elections. Polling science is complex, the best method really seems to be to average a bunch of polls together over time.

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