the most important election of your lifetime: 2012 american general election thread

http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/files/2011/07/2011-wealth-gaps-24.png

jesus fuck

you can't lose wealth you actually didn't have ie lotsa house millionaires turned out not to be house millionaires

Romney's gonna get wealth to trickle down. He says (that when he's not working on his car elevator for his expanded mansion) that he's more in touch than Obama.

We're doomed

yeah, all those uppity minorities speculatin'

I mean you can cause all value is imaginary but it still needs to be put in perspective - comparing net worth to net worth *at the peak of an enormous bubble* is very misleading

xp

yr not wrong, but that doesn't explain the disparity in percentage loss b/w races.

yeah the disparity is insane. $6k a year?!

Eh, isn't that Net Worth, IE all of the money you have now, minus all your debts? I'm surprised it's positive!

(not that this is not holy shit, torches to the capitol stuff)

well wait, it's not "per year", is it? It's net worth, so amount in bank account + value of house + other assets - student loan/credit card/other crippling liabilities

despite having a decent job, my net worth is currently near the -70K mark thanks to student loans

(again, not saying that the disparity between whites and minorities isn't alarming, just saying having a net worth of 6K doesn't equal making only 6K a year or anything)

any way you slice it, by that data, the net worth of the median white household lost 17% of its value, the net worth of the median hispanic household lost 64% of its value, and the net worth of the median black household lost 53% of its value in ~4 years.

poor and middle class people (which skews minority) were more likely to have most of their wealth in imaginary house-$. the point is that they were always poor and the progress was imaginary.

Bruce Bartlett:

The 2001 tax cut did nothing to stimulate the economy, yet Republicans pushed for additional tax cuts in 2002, 2003, 2004, 2006 and 2008. The economy continued to languish even as the Treasury hemorrhaged revenue, which fell to 17.5 percent of the gross domestic product in 2008 from 20.6 percent in 2000. Republicans abolished Paygo in 2002, and spending rose to 20.7 percent of G.D.P. in 2008 from 18.2 percent in 2001.

According to the C.B.O., by the end of the Bush administration, legislated tax cuts reduced revenues and increased the national debt by $1.6 trillion. Slower-than-expected growth further reduced revenues by $1.4 trillion.

However, the Bush tax cuts continued through 2010, well into the Obama administration. These reduced revenues by another $369 billion, adding that much to the debt. Legislated tax cuts enacted by President Obama and Democrats in Congress reduced revenues by an additional $407 billion in 2009 and 2010. Slower growth reduced revenues by a further $1.3 trillion. Contrary to Republican assertions, there were no additional revenues from legislated tax increases.

In late 2010, Mr. Obama agreed to extend all the Bush tax cuts for another two years. In 2011, this reduced revenues by $105 billion.

(xp) except poor and middle class minority people are less likely to own real estate and houses (imaginary or maginary) which should be a compensating factor to your above ^

xp except not - middle class and especially poor also most likely to have been receiving "You yes you can afford a house despite your shitty credit rating / no job" + house market collapsing / mortgage default between 2005 and 2009.

people who lucked out cause they were too poor to buy real estate...are still poor

yeah, i didn't consider the loansharking

like, poor ppl and minorities were systemically preyed upon and have disproportionally suffered - for sure - but the wealth drop says more about how poor we were in 2007 than how much money has disappeared. imaginary money became more explicitly imaginary.

Imaginary money wasn't just purchased by the poor.

people who lucked out cause they were too poor to buy real estate...are still poor

Lucky bastards.

yes, which is why the median white figure - that's gonna be a middle class person - also fell. but the poor were more likely to have almost all of their wealth in their house.

As soon as I track down some wealth it's going in a Vanguard index fund let me tell you

Jeb, off message!

“I think we’re in a period here for the next year of pretty slow growth; I don’t see how we get out, notwithstanding who’s president,” Bush said. “We’ve got major headwinds with Europe and a slow down for Asia as well.”

http://www.salon.com/2012/06/12/what_jeb_bush_really_said/singleton/

Jeb seems like a guy who doesn't want to be president anymore.

sometimes I fantasize that Dubya's disastrous presidency was all just an elaborate ploy to sabotage his bro's prospects

Phil --

We're adding a twist to the upcoming Dinner with Barack:

You not only have the chance to sit down for a meal with the President and a guest of your choice. You also get to help pick the President's guest.

Pitch in $3 or whatever you can to be automatically entered to win a seat at the table, and then make sure to weigh in on who you think should join President Obama.

Now this I like. I've worked up a shortlist:

1) Goose Gossage
2) Joe King Carrasco
3) the really big guy who calls everyone a mook in Mean Streets
4) Salma Hayek (I know that runs completely counter to the joke I'm crafting here, but I want her there anyway)
5) Abe Vigoda

you mean the band, right

Didn't know there was one till now, but no, I want the real thing. Looking good at 86:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/ac/Abe_Vigoda.jpg

6) The Rev. Jeremiah Wright

7) Mitt Romney

8) Legless Pakistani orphan underage combatant

9) Bradley Manning

10) Dr. Morbius

^^^seriously

Thanks for #8. You're the conscience that none of us has.

lol Jeb's party didn't want to nominate Poppy in '80 or '88.

what they want
and what they do
has been confused

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/political-animal-a/2012_06/wall_street_places_its_bets_on037921.php

As nice as Obama has been to Wall Street, the folks there are giving most of their money to Romney. Who would have guessed it.

shocking

I'm sure they're giving plenty of money to Obama too. Got to hedge your bets, right?

if there's one thing Wall Street has become notoriously terrible at, it's hedging bets

if only they could spin off some derivatives from their bets

i'd like to make a large bet on those bets, with all of my money

i'd like to make a large bet on those bets, with all of my your money

I bet the guy next door's house

Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign and the super PAC supporting it are outraising Obama among financial-sector donors $37.1 million to $4.8 million.

they really don't like their servants calling em names, even for show.