The Debates

[Corkey]

yea but unlike Robme Obama can be self deprecating and do it with such grace. Robme could never do that his ego prevents it.

[Martina]

I don't know. He had his moments. I do not want Romney as my President. But as a human being, he has some true strengths. One of them is his tendency to win. He is one of those people who makes it happen for himself. I do not always like that. But I admire it. It's a quality that many better men lack. It's a scary trait for him to have at this moment. Fortunately, the President has a lot of it too. Plus better media consultants and just as much money to spend.

[ruffryder]

I think the next debates on Monday are about Foreign policy.



I don't know how to take this.


750,000 more women unemployed since Obama took office.
.. and the number one issue for women is free birth control.

how can we even begin to talk about equal pay for women when we are all struggling for a damn job.

[Toughy]

Originally Posted by ruffryder

I think the next debates on Monday are about Foreign policy.



I don't know how to take this.


750,000 more women unemployed since Obama took office.
.. and the number one issue for women is free birth control.

how can we even begin to talk about equal pay for women when we are all struggling for a damn job.

ever hear of multi-tasking, especially when the tasks are pretty solidly linked....a women's economic capability and freedom entirely depends on how many crumb snatchers she will have responsibility for...Remember in the debate Romney said since mothers were going to work for him then he had to give them flex hours so they can take care of the wee ones....and for less pay but he did not outright say that.

The BIGGEST hinder is the fact men don't do 'womens work'................cooking bathing feeding all the mouths at the table. then the rest of the housework and finally the outside the home job...............

I haven't done the fact checking on the 750000 number however my inclination is the numbers are manipulated...........

[Kobi]

The facts:

The Romney statement would imply that between January 2009 (when Obama took office) and September 2012 (the most recent month for which we have statistics), that 580,000 women have lost their jobs.

According to the monthly jobs report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, there were about 66.1 million women on nonfarm payrolls in January 2009. In September 2012, that number was 65.8 million. That's a loss of roughly 300,000 jobs -- 283,000, to be precise.

So where does the 580,000 jobs lost claim come from? It could be 6 months old.

In March, 65.5 million women were employed -- a net loss of 583,000 jobs since January 2009. That would give Romney the magic number. But, since March, 300,000 jobs have been added to the economy, reducing the jobs lost number to 283,000.

http://www.cnn.com/2012/10/17/politi...obs/index.html

[Kobi]

As the U.S. continues to rack up more than $1 trillion of new debt every year, Americans are beginning to worry about who we owe this money to and how much power our creditors have over us.

According to Barry P. Bosworth, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, our two biggest foreign creditors are Japan and China.

Although it may seem as though our debt to these countries renders us a puppet on strings, Bosworth says this fear is overblown. The U.S. market is very important to China's economy, so China would be loathe to do anything that might exacerbate tensions or disrupt trade between the two countries. And the same can be said for Japan. China owns $1.15 trillion of U.S. government debt -- more than any other country -- but U.S. taxpayers actually owe less money to China compared to recent years. China holds 10% of U.S. Treasuries, down from 12% two years ago.

And what about all the anti-China rhetoric that we hear about on the campaign trail?

Republican Presidential Nominee Mitt Romney has been promising the country that he will declare China a "currency manipulator" on the first day of his presidency--and then enact tariffs as necessary until he forces China to level the trading playing field. Is that something that Romney is actually likely to do if he gets elected?

No, says Bosworth.

Tough talk with respect to China has become standard rhetoric for any presidential challenger. If and when Romney becomes president, his position will likely mellow.

Bosworth also says that the problem with the U.S.-China trade relationship is not, as is commonly believed, that China doesn't play fair. China has actually addressed lots of its unfair practices over the past decade, Bosworth says, while the U.S. is still pursuing the same old self-destructive habits. Until we stop consuming so much and start producing more, Bosworth says, we're in no position to demand anything.

http://finance.yahoo.com/blogs/daily...191108431.html

[JustJo]

Thanks Kobi....I appreciate you pointing out that neither China or Japan want our economy to fail when they depend on it. Very true.

Also, people forget that the "national debt" is the sum of the Treasury bills that are issued. Essentially, we've written an IOU and promise to pay with interest. The vast majority of Treasury bills are owned by U.S. citizens and our own Social Security Trust Fund. So, essentially, the bulk of our debt is in our own hands.

Having said that, I'm not comfortable with us having this much debt. It's simply bad policy...much like an individual living off their credit card. At some point, there's a reckoning, and the amount spent on interest could have been better used on other things.

However, the Republican/Tea Party spin on the national debt is all about fear mongering.....big surprise, right?

Look here if you want to see the breakdown.