Braineack

iTrader: (62)

it's also, ironically, the most exspenive "war" we've ever paid for... and it didn't get better...and it's getting worse today...back to 15.1% this month.

what would happen if we went bakc to the same policies between 1950 and 1968? what do you suppose would happen? divide by 0?

hustler

iTrader: (6)

So...Perry hates cancer, Michele Bachmann has inside information that ties vaccines to retardation, and Gardasil is not taking her to court? That's not very fair to Rick Perry after their agreement.

gearhead_318

iTrader: (1)

What do you mean by "war" in quotations?

By "back to the same policies between 1950 and 1968" do you mean go to war with N. Korea, find some Communists to fight in Viatnam and then invade Cuba? Or do you mean fight a proxy war against China in place of the USSR?

Braineack

iTrader: (62)

because you cant fight a war on poverty.

and we are already pretty much doing this other part...problem is, it's not creating wealth.

gearhead_318

iTrader: (1)

So how would you deal with poverty if you where queen for a day?

rleete

iTrader: (21)

Start sterilizing stupid people, for one.

mgeoffriau

iTrader: (7)

Stop incentivizing laziness, for another.

gearhead_318

iTrader: (1)

How do you draw the line between incentivizing laziness and helping people who truly need it?

mgeoffriau

iTrader: (7)

You don't have to draw a line between them, you simply have to understand how incentives work.

The old saw about the guy who didn't want a raise because it would bump him up a tax bracket and make him poorer isn't actually true, but there's still too many disincentives to working harder, and plenty of people are aware of the rules of eligibility for things like Medicaid, food stamps, and so on, and are willing to maintain a nominally-low income in order to maintain their free ride. Structure the assistance so that there is actually an incentive to work harder and earn more, rather than an incentive to not lose government assistance.

Braineack

iTrader: (62)

we have the richest poor in this country...think they are okay.

If I was Queen for a day, I'd lift minimum wage and outlaw unions. I'd let the rest work itself out... I hear charities love to help the needy.

trickyrix

Well, after 11 years of this asshat, we Texans can really brag about where we're at...

A quarter of Texans lack health insurance coverage, the highest share in the country.

Texas ranks second to last in the percentage of the population covered by employer health insurance.

Texas ranks 47th in the country for the level of state spending on schools.* Texas state capitol in Austin saw*thousands*of protesters descend on the grounds for a rally against a proposed $10 billion—yes, billion—in education cuts to the state. Representatives from 300 school districts, students, teachers, parents, and others marched and called on Perry to use the state’s “rainy day fund” to cover the shortfall in schools rather than lay off a projected 189,000 education workers.* Aside from the impact such layoffs will*have on the economy, since a good chunk of the new jobs Perry touts as part of his economic miracle were in schools, there’s the actual impact on the state’s students. It’s not just public schools that take a hit—universities will see their budgets slashed and*financial aid eliminated*for 43,000 students.
Texas has the lowest rate of people over 25 with a high school degree.* Interestingly, Perry did not apply for federal “Race to the Top” education funds because he said it would force national standards upon Texas.

Texas has the fourth-highest poverty rate.

Texas ranks highest in the country for the levels of toxic chemicals released into the water and carcinogens released into the air.**BP spill was still churning oil into the Gulf of Mexico, Perry called it*“just an act of God”*and warned against any “knee-jerk reaction” that might include things like halting deepwater drilling until the dangers could be assessed. Unsurprisingly,*Perry also got $129,890*from the oil and gas industry for his last reelection campaign.

And, just for grins, we can take a look at the favors he does for his precious campaign donors...

John McHale, an entrepreneur from Austin, Tex wrote a check to Gov. Perry for $50,000 – ironically n May 2010 an economic development fund administered by the governor’s office handed $3 million to G-Con, a pharmaceutical start-up that Mr. McHale helped get off the ground. At least two other executives with connections to the firm had also given Mr. Perry tens of thousands of dollars like* David M. Shanahan, who also has a significant ownership stake in the company. He is also the founder and president of Gradalis, a biotech firm based in Dallas that received a separate $1.75 million grant from the state’s technology fund in February 2009. Campaign finance records show that Mr. Shanahan contributed $5,000 in 2007 and then $10,000 to the governor in November 2009.

Mr. Perry has raised at least $17 million from more than 900 appointees or their spouses, roughly one dollar out of every five that he has raised as governor.

Appointees of the State Parks and Wildlife Commission and the board of regents of Texas A&M, Mr. Perry’s alma mater have donated more than $4 million to his campaigns for governor.

Need help from Gov. Perry’s signature projects like the Texas Enterprise Fund and the Texas Emerging Technology Fund?* The enterprise fund, which is intended to be a deal-closing tool for the state as it competes for jobs, has dispensed $435 million in grants to businesses since 2003. The technology fund, which has doled out nearly $200 million to companies since 2005, has a similar job creation mandate.* More than a quarter of the companies that have received grants from the enterprise fund in the most recent fiscal year, or their chief executives, made contributions to either Mr. Perry’s campaign dating back to 2001 or to the Republican Governors Association since 2008, when Mr. Perry became its chairman.

In 2005, when the TXU Corporation, a utility based in Dallas, sought permits to build coal-fired power plants, Mr. Perry issued an executive order for a review panel to fast-track the application. In the months that followed, current and retired TXU executives, as well as the company’s political action committee, sent Mr. Perry more than $100,000 in donations, including one check dated the same day as Mr. Perry’s order. Mr. Perry’s office said at the time that the order was unrelated to the contributions. A state judge later blocked the order, ruling that Mr. Perry had overstepped his authority.

In 2003, after a rash of mold-related lawsuits against home construction companies,* Perry created a state board, the Texas Residential Construction Commission. The most generous contributor?* Bob Perry(not related), a homebuilder who has contributed more than $2 million to the governor over his career.* The legislation creating the board also sharply limited the rights of homeowners to sue contractors for faulty construction, shunting most disputes to the commission. After its passage, Bob Perry and his wife sent two $50,000 checks to the governor’s campaign. Three weeks later, the governor appointed an executive of Perry Homes, Bob Perry’s company, to the commission.

You really want this guy running the country? I mean, he's got good hair and all, but really...

Braineack

iTrader: (62)

I know zero about Perry. But if this is the worst you can dig up..


NM is at 20%, LA is at 20%, AZ 20%, MS 20%, OK 19%... You think this number could have something more to due with it's proximity to Mexico? The states that are under the national average of uninsured have an above national average percentage of participants in medicaid.
47% of the Texas population was covered by their employer...53% is the national average. In CA it's 49% -- and they are the biggest employeer of all the states, could it be the size of the state itself?

In TX, your burden of the State's debt is $520. If you lived in NJ it would be $3,699. CT is $4,859. For a state its size, they spend money VERY wisely...

Quote:

Texas has the lowest rate of people over 25 with a high school degree.

This is a very deceptive statistic. Again, think of proximinity to Mexico. TX can also boast about it's VERY low student-to-teacher ratio.

California spends more on and educates more students than any other state; they rank 45th out of 51 in this regard. 81.3% vs 78.3% when you compare diploma by state population. Numbers don't even look that bad when you see the actual percentile.

The diploma rates by average and by race are on par with each other (68%). Shouldn't CA be much better? They spend the most per child to educate. National average is 70%. Meanwhile Nevada has a graduation rate of only 47%.

Quote:

Interestingly, Perry did not apply for federal “Race to the Top” education funds because he said it would force national standards upon Texas.

This is a state's right. As you should know each Texan must complete the state's Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills (TAKS) during their junior year. Successful completion will allow the student to graduate. Is the TAKS or Some Beuracratic National Standards more strict? Would you really want your kid to be educated at the same level they do in DC?

could that explain the graduation rate? The amount of funding, as seen above, surely doesn't seem to make a difference. the states with the highest graduation rates have the largest state debts, is there a correlation between that?

What is interesting is that in TX in 2009 252,121 students graduated (68%), and in Vermont with the highest rate of graduates, the raw numbers were only 7,392 (86%).

Could TX be better? Definitely. But if you consider the amount of federal spending levels of CA and it's comparative size, TX isn't doing bad at all. So that kinda debunks the need for extra federal dollars, maybe the TAKS is too tough? Maybe other problems? I dunno.

It's acutally the 6th highest. D.C. being the worst.

So what does THIS mean? You gotta dig deeper than that. I bring up mexico a lot, CA and TX rank 1 and 2 respectively for the amount of illegal aliens per state. Estimated at 2.2 and 1.0 million per state.

If D.C. is the 5th best "state" in this regard, why is the poverty level so high?

CA ranks 17th in poverty rate, but raw number is 4,716,000. In TX it's only 3,680,000 million.

So while saying they are 6th highest in poverty rate, they don't have the largest population of imposerished...CA does, one of the most entitilted states out there.

Quote:

Texas ranks highest in the country for the levels of toxic chemicals released into the water and carcinogens released into the air.

Again, this is false. They are 4th behind Nevada, Arizona, and Alaska. Throw campaign dollars into the mix isn't fair to the statistic, everyone in gov't is a croney.

Let's talk about GE and George Soros.

At least he's governed. There's a reason you don't play a rookie WR in fantasy football...

UrbanFuturistic

Oh come on. We all know that his time as a community organiser was MORE than enough to prepare him to be Pres.

jacob300zx

Lol, droppin knowledge Braineak, love it. I actually was going to respond to that but then my fish stick buzzer went off. I then got bored and gave myself a Burt Reynolds mustache and posted it on facebook to troll comments. Then my wheels came in and I went and mounted up some slicks. Then I remembered about it today and read your post...win.

Scrappy Jack

iTrader: (2)

Spot price of gold's correlation to web searches for "hot girls" = key to trading success in the financial markets?!

Braineack

iTrader: (62)

http://www.google.com/trends?q=flesh...ate=all&sort=0