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HH buddy, foreign companies ALWAYS wish to do business in America. Its been a no brainer for decades. We're the biggest, richest market. The bonus or them is that they can play 50 states against each other to get the best deal possible. Programs that Obama is doing such as improving infrastrucure actually entices foreign companies to come to America.

 

As far as Romney he created jack schitt. Bain is not in the job creation business...nor should it. Its in the money making business. As far as Perry:

http://www.usnews.com/news/blogs/rick-newman/2011/08/16/how-rick-perry-created-jobs-in-texas

 

So to figure out why the Texas economy has outperformed the nation's, I analyzed data from the government's Bureau of Labor Statistics to determine what kinds of jobs have been created and destroyed in Texas since the beginning of 2008. Then I compared that to national data. (BLS's statewide data only go through the end of 2010, so I used national data for the same timeframe.) The numbers confirm that the job picture in Texas is much brighter than elsewhere. But they also show that Texas has benefited disproportionally from growth at all levels of government. Here's a detailed breakdown:

 

Total jobs. Texas: Up 0.7 percent since the beginning of 2008. U.S: Down 5.6 percent. Since the recession began, Texas has added about 75,000 jobs, one of the few states with any job creation at all. Overall, the U.S. economy has lost about 5.6 million jobs since then. But net job gains in Texas have come entirely from government hiring, which accounts for 115,000 new jobs over the past three years. The private sector in Texas shed about 40,000 jobs during that time.

 

This the CS job creation plan and policy changes. Some of which I've mentioned before. (* only throw fresh fruit)

 

1. Allow Americans to amortize the half the cost of 100% American made hybrid vehicles over a 5 or 7 year period. Max 30k cost of car.

2. Over a period of 10 years, replace ALL local, state and federal vehicles to hybrids. Again, American made only. Work out an agreement with all states to do this and have a plan for replacement.

3. Set up refueling kiosks at all government buildings. Allow businesses and gas stations to amortize 100% of the cost of refueling stations or hybrids (electric refueling). Get an agreement with the major hotel and motel chains.

4. Massive infrastructure spending. Not only bridges, tunnels and roads but also to have America wired for internet. In S. Korea and other countries bus stations have GPS connections that allow you to know when the next bus will arrive. Create tons of jobs to do the same in America, especially urban areas.

5. Get an agreement with the states and major ubran bus lines to convert all city busses to natural gas operated. LA has a huge us fleet and they are all natural gas operated.

6. Lower corporate tax rate substantially but ONLY for any business that has no overseas income, offices, plants, etc. Companies who operate solely in the U.S. and hire solely within America. Multinational companies are fine. They make enough money. They can have their foreign plants and workers but we shouldn't be giving them a tax reduction for doing so.

7. No sales tax on American made products.

8. This is already being done with Brazil and China but I'd reduce and speed up tourist visas for EU countries as well as other industrialized nations.

9. This one is risky as it may lose jobs I guess but to force the medical industry to reduce the cost of medical care, allow people who have to have life threatening or certain surgeries or medical operations the ability to write off part of their traveling expenses for medical tourism (with receipts so you're not underwriting vacations)

10. Allow pharma companies to amortize and write off R&D costs of breakthrough drugs IF they allow a negotiated reduced fee for its use. Special work permit to visas for qualified foreign doctors and specialists.

11. Convert housing projects to private ownership for those grandfathered in before a certain date and have been in housing for a specified period of time. Make instant property owners of the nation's poorest.

12. Strengthen the credit union system. Have an agreement where they cash state and federal checks free of charge.

13. Tear up the Patriots Act and change the TSA objective at airports. Change airport security to be similar to Israel's. Hire people who are adept at identifying potential terrorists, etc.

14. Audit the Federal Reserve Bank

15. Repatriate almost all overseas military personnel and close overseas bases. Modernize and update the VA hospitals. Recognize the combat related maladies.

16. End corporate welfare.

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Some interesting ideas presented. Of course, the devil is in the details, which, invariably, are written by legislators and their most-favored supporters/donors. Lots of money involved. The country is cash-poor nowadays (as are many). The current president has had 3 years to come up with some of these ideas. Why hasn't he? We already import quite a few doctors and health care workers. In the next 30 years, maybe all will be imported (just another form of foreign outsourcing). I can't see any body in their right mind wanting to become a doctor at this point in time. Too much expense in getting the education, opportunity cost (lost income during school/internship/residency) and a liberal Congress and Administration that will dictate how much you can charge to recoup your costs.

 

Stuff like plug-in stations won't happen until the auto industry finds a way to make electric vehicles an economical/practical alternative to gasoline-powered wheels. So far, it hasn't happened. Of course, it wouldn't surprise me if the libs tore another piece off the constitution and REQUIRED all vehicles to be electric by a certain date. After all, it would be allowed under the "inter-state commerce" clause, right? Under the current corrupt Administration, all I can envision is a constant line-up "Solyndras" cuing up on the White House grounds.

 

Still, like I said, some ideas worth considering (if not now, in the future). BTW, all of those "shovel-ready" infrastructure jobs/projects: what happened to them? Less than about 5% of money allocated to the "recovery" legislation has been spent on such projects. In the meantime, things such as the Keystone pipeline are only a "pipedream" until the next election and Obama can piss backwards on his enviornmental supporters if he succeeds in fooling so many useful idiots again. :biggrin:

 

HH

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I prefer a carrot than a stick with regards to wholescale changes that changes our lifestyle. Hybrids are one of them. Make it ecnomically advantageous to get people to do it. You can still buy gas only cars but it won't look as attractive. Also, befor we do it, get the G8 to do it as well. For Detroit the government purchases guarantees hundreds of thousands of vehicles. This would include Post Office vehicles, Jeeps for the army, etc. Not just your standard staff car. Trust me, you'd be surprised at the innovations car companies will come up with once they see a the size of the market. I have absolutely no doubt. This would also greatly reduce our need for oil. If the G8 nations do it, the rest of the world has to follow. It has no choice. China and India may be the biggest hold outs to due to the logistics and size of their countries but Europe would go along with it, as well as Japan. The world would have no choice as I said though if the biggest nations are changing their economies to reflect it. They'll be slower to adapt but they'll work toward it. The Middle East would be the biggest region hurt by it as well as the other major oil producing countries (Venuezuela, Nigeria). They all better figure out another way to make some money.

 

Tons of brick ready jobs. Don't know what's up with that actually but there are a lot of white collar related and tech jobs in infrastructure as well.

 

Have a sweet heart deal for areas that really do need hi speed bullet trains such as California, the north east Boston to Washington corridor. Possibly links between the Texan cities of Houston, Dallas/Ft. Worth, Austin, San Antonio. Federal Dept. of Transportation money if residents of that state allow it.

 

I'd allow those who have med school and dental school and nursing school loans to be able to have part of forgiven if they work for a certain length of time at clinics/hospitals in low income rural areas (W. Virginia, Mississippi, etc.) and urban areas (Harlem, south Central, East LA).

 

Legalize pot, gay marriages. Allow ex cons to vote in federal elections. If you've served your time and have paid your debt to society you should then be a full member of society. You can be an ex con and be President but not vote. Makes no sense. Either you've paid your debt to society or you've not. Controversial but its fair. Any one convicted of personal use quantities of hard drugs are not jailed but have house arrest with an ankle bracelet, attend manadatory drug counseling and perhaps volunteer work. This will reduce the jail population. Same with non violent offenses like DUI, white collar crime, and a host of other items. Fines and house arrest for non working hours. You can still work and be a contributing member of society but are under house arrest for 12 hours a day. 8pm to 8am or another time that accomodates work schedule. Weekends, home under house arrest. 3-6 months depending on severity.

 

Open back up the state and country mental hospitals that Reagan closed and single handedly created the vast homeless problem in America.

 

Make many federal functions contracted work/temporary work instead of permanent to reduce the high cost of government and retirement monies paid in or outsource a lot of it.

 

Immigration. Actually defend the border with a combinatin of technology (drones--unarmed drones...lol, motion and heat detection in sparsly populated areas, cameras, etc.) and with bodies. Grant green cards to the ones already here who don't have a criminal record. Yes, they came here illegally and broke the law but they are already here and in great numbers (approx. 12 million). Grandfather anyone who has been here for more than a year with a green card and if they stay out of trouble, gainfully employed, etc, can apply for citzenship within 7 years. If you serve in the military you can speed up the citizenship time. Combat service, automatic citizenship.

 

No more bailouts. Criminal prosecution automatically of present and/or former CEOs and managment in charge of the departments that do that shit again. Any and all bonuses earned during that time gets taken back.

 

Commuter's rebate. Write off transportation costs for bus/subway on taxes and if your car has under a certaiin mileage over the course of a year you get to write off part of your car insurance bill.

 

Foreign policy:

Recognize Cuba. Make nice with Fidel and open up Cuba to American trade. Give up Guantanomo if need be to cut a deal and normalize relations.

Get out of the Israel/Palestine negotiation business. Have the U.N. be the main mediator. America can help, advise, etc. but not be the main country. Close all Middle East basis. Close all European bases. Close S. korean and Japanese bases.

Drop NAFTA.

 

Other shit:

Change the national minimum wage law. Its a one size fits all wage. The cost of living in Philadelphia, MS and Philadelphia, PA are two totally different ones. Minium wage should reflect the LOCAL livabble wage. States can determine what their minimum should be. They pretty much do. 7.25 I think is the national minimum. That's pretty low but it should reflect the local cost of living.

 

National lottery. This would bring in many billions of dollars. The winning state gets a part of it. This only taxes the willing. Proceeds can fund something exclusively. Social Security or whatever. Whatever it funds, it can not be used for anything else, no IOUs, etc.

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Gallup: Obama's approval below reelection standard

 

Gallup released a memo earlier this week titled, "Where the U.S. Election Stands Now," comparing past presidential approval ratings with each candidates reelection results. Gallup concluded:

 

This historical pattern suggests that Obama would need to see his job approval rating climb to 50% to be in a comfortable position for re-election. History shows that by March of the election year, all winning presidents in the modern era, including George W. Bush, had job approval ratings above 50%, and all losing presidents had job approval ratings below 50%. This suggests that where Obama stands by next month may be an important indicator of his ultimate re-election chances.

According to Gallup's most recent daily tracking poll, Obama's current approval rating is even at 47 percent. He has not been over 50 percent since Osama bin Laden was killed last May.

 

 

 

Galumpf Poll

 

 

 

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20% of Republicans leaning to Obama!

 

 

WASHINGTON – For critics of Barack Obama, 2012 has been portrayed as a do-or-die year for the country – an election that will determine whether America stays on the road to European-style socialism or veers right to reclaim its positions as the most vibrant economy in the world and the home of individual liberty.

 

But the 2012 election is looking more like a replay of 2008 than a do-over.

The latest WND/Wenzel Poll shows none of the current crop of Republican presidential candidates has solidified the base of the party, with one in five GOP voters leaning toward support of Obama in November.

 

The results are from the public-opinion research and media consulting company Wenzel Strategies. The poll was conducted Feb. 1-3, 2012, and has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.44 percentage points.

“The improvement in Obama’s prospects compared to the four remaining Republican challengers stems largely from two factors,†suggests pollster Fritz Wenzel. “First, Obama has largely avoided the political limelight while the GOP candidates savage each other with increasing intensity. Second, a smattering of evidence indicates that the economy is getting a little better, which helps the White House in the eyes of the voters. Secondly, the bloody fight for the Republican presidential nomination – by most estimations the nastiest GOP fight in memory – has really hurt the images of the challengers in the eyes of both Republicans and, especially, independent voters. For Republicans, each candidate carries with them now some taint that cannot be ignored.â€

 

In every case except the match-up against Ron Paul, more than 20 percent of Republican voters said they are more likely to support Obama than the Republican challenger. And Ron Paul is close, as 19 percent of Republicans said they are more likely to support Obama than Paul.

 

Making the situation more bleak for opponents of Obama, independent voters are apparently quite put off with the Republican nomination fight. While polls last fall showed them leaning Republican by roughly a two-to-one margin, they are now either split evenly or favoring Obama.

 

“What must be particularly alarming to every Republican campaign regarding this nasty fight is that, even among those who say they think the nation is heading in the wrong direction, Obama still wins at least 20 percent support in head-to-head match-ups against the four remaining Republicans, and among those who said they were unsure about the overall direction of the nation, Obama wins by overwhelming percentages,†observes Wenzel.

 

...

 

 

 

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Flash (and others) I suspect the turnuot in this election will be markedly lower than '08. I get a feeling of a general malaise amongst people. A lot of folks won't vote. I think a lot of Republicans are not excited by Romney. He would need a VP to make up for it. If he was smart he'd get a Santorum type. Santorum would conceivably bring Penna. and the base. Michigan and Penna. of the big swing states and if he can get either of Florida or Ohio, it would put a lot of pressure on Obama. I don't want Santorum but if its a strategy to win, that's whom. Paul would be an intersting VP choice as well. He would poll very well against Obama and bring in independents.

 

As for Obama, drop Biden. Biden won't leave. His ego is loving being VP. Hillary would be a choice that would poll well. With Hillary you get Bill on the stump which can be a risk. He can get you votes or hurt you big time. I am no fan of Hillary but if the goal is to get re-elected, Hillary is better than Biden. She will re-invigorate the base.

 

Romney will get nominated and his next big chance of narrowing is his VP choice.

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http://www.thenation.com/article/165979/sure-apple-could-build-iphone-here

Sure, Apple Could Build the iPhone Here

When President Obama dined with the kings of Silicon Valley last year and asked, “Why can’t that work come home?†Jobs’s reply was “unambiguousâ€: “Those jobs aren’t coming back.â€

 

In loyalties, Apple is spiritually offshore. “We sell iPhones in over a hundred countries,†an Apple executive told the Times. “We don’t have an obligation to solve America’s problems. Our only obligation is making the best product possible.â€

 

It was the phrase about having no obligation that riled up Clyde Prestowitz, one of the US government’s top trade negotiators in the Reagan years. In an acrid posting on the Foreign Policy website and in a chat over the phone with me from his winter quarters in Maui, Prestowitz efficiently dismembered Apple’s “no obligation†pretensions and its rationale for why it and kindred companies had no alternative to offshoring.

 

In the 1981–86 period, Prestowitz says, Jobs and his executives “had the funny notion that the US government had an obligation to help them…. We did all we could, and in doing so came to learn that virtually everything Apple had for sale, from the memory chips to the cute pointer mouse, had had its origins in some program wholly or partially supported by US government money…. The heart of the computer is the microprocessor, and Apple’s derived from Motorola’s 680X0, which was developed with much assistance, direct and indirect, from the Defense Department, as were the DRAM memory chips. The pointer mouse came from Xerox’s PARC center near Stanford (which also enjoyed government funding). In addition, most computer software at that time derived from work with government backing.â€

 

Prestowitz points out that Apple also assumes the US government is obligated to stop foreign pirating of Apple’s intellectual property and, should supply chains in the Far East be disrupted, to offer the comforting support of the Seventh Fleet. “And those supply chains. Are they the natural product of good old free market capitalism, or does that scalability and flexibility and capacity to mobilize large numbers of workers on a moment’s notice have something to do with government subsidies and the interventionist industrial policies of most Asian economies?â€

 

What about those jobs that “aren’t coming back� We’re not talking about simple assembly that costs a bundle per unit in America and mere cents in China. In the mid-’90s, at the Apple plant in Elk Grove, California, the cost of building a computer was $22 a machine, compared with as little as $5 at a factory in Taiwan. This is not a dominant factor when the machine sells for $1,500 and you have costs like transport to figure in. Furthermore, stricken America is actually becoming a low-wage magnet.

 

The high-wage, more complicated manufacturing jobs are in microprocessors, memory chips, displays, circuitry, chip sets and so forth. This is where America is supposed to have a comparative advantage. So why are Asian countries supplying the memory chips and microprocessors and displays instead of the United States? Prestowitz points to government subsidies and protection for Asian producers, currency manipulation and bureaucratic pressure on US corporations by Beijing to make the product in China.

 

So there’s nothing irrevocable about the job loss. US workers, taught the necessary skills, can put things together properly. But if the jobs keep going away, why would any American lay out the money to learn those skills? Obama’s recent State of the Union speech was a step in the right direction: calling on business leaders to “ask what you can do to bring the jobs back.†Specifically, he proposed ending tax breaks for US corporations operating overseas, rewarding US-based production and turning the unemployment sinkhole into a re-employment system. “These jobs could and would come back to America,†says Prestowitz, “if Washington were to begin to respond tit for tat to the mercantilist game…. It wouldn’t be difficult to make a lot more of the iPhone in America and to make it competitively if either Apple or the US government really wanted that to happen.â€

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