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Very interesting, startling numbers. Another figure I read earlier was talking about the 20 million extra homes in the United States, so I'd expect the real estate housing market to be in poor shape for a while.

Which parts of the bill do you think are especially obnoxious, Little Alex?

Ludi wrote:Which parts of the bill do you think are especially obnoxious, Little Alex?

The point is not one congressman read it before signing it.

shades of the Patriot Act

Doomwarrior: That isn't entirely true, as a number of congressman were involved in writing it and renegotiating it with the Senate obviously some of them read it. Possibly a majority didn't but some knew what was in there.

Thralen

They should let me write the bills, as I am very succinct. This complaint about not reading it is pretty duplicitous though. I doubt there has been any bill that was actually read by the actual congressman all the way through in a long long time. They have staff to summarize and they may read the parts they are most interested in.

Each one read the part about his particular piece of pork.

Getting back to the original post, things are structured to be largely impossible for standards of living to go down, at least in a graceful manner.

Here in rural Kansas, and large swathes of the country, you will have a line out the door of reliable, English-speaking, literate workers for pretty much any job at $7 an hour. A couple, working 60 hours a week between them, can function okay out here on that (considering that there are lots of not-so-bad houses for $30-35k).

But, the Chinese, et al, will work for much, much cheaper than that. So there aren't even enough $7 an hour jobs.

This makes the gradual slide in the standard of living a discontinuous dropoff. Once $7 is too much, everyone is just unemployed.

I understand the philosophy behind something like the minimum wage. Hell, I'll support it applied to all our products. But, having one, then free-trading out from below it, is cruelly hypocritical against 90-IQ Joe trying to live the 'low standard of living' they're touting.

Then they can buy sh*t like this for $88.




My sub-woofer alone was $500.

Personally, I can't see the purpose of all this electronics.

I don't need a flat screen TV, a small boom box does us for a sterio and a radio, we do have the internet and satilite TV ( otherwise no TV ) and I do have an ancient cell phone.

Now I am old and this is probably why.

The video was pretty good. That guy's pretty doomeristic. Time to deleverage...

I get the impression that huge bills are generally written by the lawyers of corporations and industry groups who DO have the time to read the legislation.

Why should Congressman read the legislation? It was written by the people who paid good money for them to get elected. I'm sure they trust the corporate lawyers to look after the corporation's best interest and screw everyone else.

vision-master wrote:Then they can buy sh*t like this for $88.




My sub-woofer alone was $500.

But then you probably piss the neighbours off with it - and the $5k amplification system attached. Some folk do not have the where-with-all to do better. Watch the wheel

Ok, a lot of people don't understand why all the reps don't read the bills. The reason is that federal legislation is just too massive. That's why these bills are drafted through committees, and are written by legislative aides (and lobbyists, no doubt).

I think what is needed is more funding for each rep and senator's staff. They really need a large enough to staff so they can quickly get a handle on what's in each bill.

My gut tells me they don't do this because if each congressman knew what was in each bill, there would be endless debate and gridlock.

Sixstrings wrote:Ok, a lot of people don't understand why all the reps don't read the bills. The reason is that federal legislation is just too massive. That's why these bills are drafted through committees, and are written by legislative aides (and lobbyists, no doubt).

I think what is needed is more funding for each rep and senator's staff. They really need a large enough to staff so they can quickly get a handle on what's in each bill.

My gut tells me they don't do this because if each congressman knew what was in each bill, there would be endless debate and gridlock.

Sounds like we need the line item veto power, to cut through all the c**p in the budget...

rangerone314 wrote:

Sixstrings wrote:Ok, a lot of people don't understand why all the reps don't read the bills. The reason is that federal legislation is just too massive. That's why these bills are drafted through committees, and are written by legislative aides (and lobbyists, no doubt).

I think what is needed is more funding for each rep and senator's staff. They really need a large enough to staff so they can quickly get a handle on what's in each bill.

My gut tells me they don't do this because if each congressman knew what was in each bill, there would be endless debate and gridlock.

Sounds like we need the line item veto power, to cut through all the c**p in the budget...

All the line item veto is going to do is a)destroy what's left of the Constitution, since Congress gets to spend money, not the President, and b)ensure that whatever party's in the White House gets their projects through while the others get busted. You think there's back room deals now, wait till the president gets to decide what's pork and what's "necessary projects".

No, what we need is a revolution.

jdmartin wrote:No, what we need is a revolution.

Who will you revolt against? How will you revolt?


Why don't you revolt NOW?