Puterbac News Network and Political Discussion Thread

[Toemeesleather]

You need to read this...

[sardis]

"two thirds comes from inheritance"

This is what I have a problem with. And as an example I give you Mike Brown, Owner of the Cincinnati Bengals. His father was a legend. A football icon. The NFL today is where it is because of his dad. Mike is a great business man but knows nothing about football yet, because of his Dads DNA he thinks he's also a great football GM. He's not. Mike wanted a new stadium or he was moving his team to Baltimore. He got his stadium. Free. Hamilton County passed a sales tax increase to fund those on the backs of property taxes. Historically it's the worst county stadium deal in America. Look it up. Today, because of this stadium fund (which calls for the county to pay for all improvements) Mike Brown is actually being paid by the county to play in their stadium. Yet the county now has to come up with $14 million to cover a gap in the stadium sales tax fund. When they went to Mike to ask for help he told them to fuck off and then handed them an estimate for a new HD video system & a new playing surface, or which the county is required to pay for. To cover that $14 mil the county has had to lay off cops, firefighters, sold a county owned hospital for $15 million when it was worth over $100 mil. And the county Commissioner who brokered the deal for all of this between the Bengals and the county took a job as the Bengals "Director of Development at Cincinnati Bengals" a few months after voters approved the tax with their hands behind their backs.

Since Paul Brown died in 91 & Mike took over, the football team has made the playoffs 3 times and has yet to win a playoff game. 2 of those 3 in the last 3 years.

So it's great to inherit a fortune but that doesn't make you smart. Mike Brown has cost the city of Cincinnati and their people a tremendous amount of pain with jobs cuts, funding cuts to the homeless, hospitals, etc. His team is worth over half a billion yet he can't pay for anything in the stadium he rents free because that's what's in the lease?

Inheritance only means your parents were smart, worked their fingers to the bone day in and day out, and you lived a gifted life without even a sense as to what they went through so you wouldn't have to. Doesn't make you a better man because your Daddy has money. Doesn't make you any smarter either. You just drove a better car than I did when I was 17. I paid for mine.

As dumb as he is, he was evidently smarter than you local government leaders...

[Professor Tiger]

Rat, if Mike Brown is wealthy, then he is good. Really, really good. He is smarter, and works harder, than all the average people. Furthermore, he is productive, a job creator, and deserves his 15% tax rate. This is PNN gospel.

This would be true even if, by sheer and violent attrition of his brothers, Fredo wound up with the whole Corleone fortune. Then, Fredo would suddenly be smarter, hard working, productive, job creating, etc.

[Professor Tiger]

From

http://www.bostonherald.com/news/opinio ... tts_guise/

Establishment Republicans are in “full panic mode,” as Newt called it yesterday, filling the press with hopeful speculation about a “brokered convention.” That’s when no candidate has won a majority of delegates at the ballot box and the GOP insiders get to pick who they want.

It’s the perfect outcome for folks who prefer a Politburo over a polling place.

But that’s how desperate the establishment is to nuke Newt. The terrified look on the face of GOP pundits as they talk about a possible Newt victory reminds me of the babysitters in the “Friday the 13th” movies waiting for the guy in the hockey mask to kick in the door.

The horror, the horror . . .

And so the old guard is on the attack. Former Speaker Tom DeLay — himself forced to resign from Congress — says Newt’s “not really a conservative.” Sen. John McCain attacked his leadership style. Even William F. Buckley’s National Review has sunk to the level of an anti-Newt gossip mag — post after post on Newt’s divorce, depositions and snarky details from his personal life.

Fellow columnist Jonah Goldberg spotted the irony: “Six months ago it was absurd to call Newt an outsider. But now that the insiders have thrown him out, he is one.”

The message is clear: Washington Republicans really hate Newt. And the conservative response? “Is there some way we could vote for him twice?”

The GOP establishment of Bush, DeLay and McCain gave us massive spending increases, huge debts and poorly-executed wars. They also gave us candidates who lost the popular vote in every election since 1992.

After the electoral fiascoes of ’06 and ’08, it wasn’t the Washington GOP that turned things around. It was the conservative base and the Tea Party. They helped elect Sen. Scott Brown here and handed the House back to the GOP.

And now party bosses wonder why the base refuses to take our “Mitt medicine” and do as we’re told. Maybe it’s because we’re tired of losing.

That’s the real message Republican voters are trying to send. No more losing politely with some moderate squishy candidate who cares more about what East Coast elites think of him than conservative voters do.

[Big Orange Junky]

Question for the bedwetting treehugging liberal class warriors on the board here. If someone worth 10 million had a bad year and their taxable income was low enough to claim the earned income credit would you support that?

Why or why not.

This should be interesting.

[Jungle Rat]

No one here is qualified to answer that honestly.

[Hacksaw]

When has that ever stopped us?

[10ac]

http://www.globalwarming.org/2012/01/27 ... this-week/

[puterbac]

Rat, if Mike Brown is wealthy, then he is good. Really, really good. He is smarter, and works harder, than all the average people. Furthermore, he is productive, a job creator, and deserves his 15% tax rate. This is PNN gospel.

This would be true even if, by sheer and violent attrition of his brothers, Fredo wound up with the whole Corleone fortune. Then, Fredo would suddenly be smarter, hard working, productive, job creating, etc.

Unless Mike Brown makes the vast majority of his money off of LONG term capital gain sales he pays more than 15% and of course you know this.

PT or tick have never answered the question of whether there should be a lower rate for capital gains.

[puterbac]

Romney paid 15% because he INVESTED in other business for a long term gain..aka..more than a year.

He invested and what he invested in did well. Otherwise it would have been a loss and it wasn't buy this and sell a week later or it would have been at earned income rates.

I just don't get all the hate for someone who has been successful. Has he broke any laws? No. Has he paid all he is legally required to pay in taxes? Yes. Is the same tax rate available to all Americans? YES. How much money ended up in the treasury due to his investments helping to create wealth and jobs for others?

Meanwhile the same people that are bitching and moaning about his rate will take every fucking deduction they and/or their accountant can find to reduce their taxes.

[puterbac]

I'm sure tick will inform us how all this below is written by first graders being paid by big oil...

Forget global warming - it's Cycle 25 we need to worry about (and if NASA scientists are right the Thames will be freezing over again)

Met Office releases new figures which show no warming in 15 years

By DAVID ROSE
Last updated at 5:38 AM on 29th January 2012
Comments (375)

The supposed ‘consensus’ on man-made global warming is facing an inconvenient challenge after the release of new temperature data showing the planet has not warmed for the past 15 years.
The figures suggest that we could even be heading for a mini ice age to rival the 70-year temperature drop that saw frost fairs held on the Thames in the 17th Century.
Based on readings from more than 30,000 measuring stations, the data was issued last week without fanfare by the Met Office and the University of East Anglia Climatic Research Unit. It confirms that the rising trend in world temperatures ended in 1997.

A painting, dated 1684, by Abraham Hondius depicts one of many frost fairs on the River Thames during the mini ice age
Meanwhile, leading climate scientists yesterday told The Mail on Sunday that, after emitting unusually high levels of energy throughout the 20th Century, the sun is now heading towards a ‘grand minimum’ in its output, threatening cold summers, bitter winters and a shortening of the season available for growing food.
Solar output goes through 11-year cycles, with high numbers of sunspots seen at their peak.
We are now at what should be the peak of what scientists call ‘Cycle 24’ – which is why last week’s solar storm resulted in sightings of the aurora borealis further south than usual. But sunspot numbers are running at less than half those seen during cycle peaks in the 20th Century.
Analysis by experts at NASA and the University of Arizona – derived from magnetic-field measurements 120,000 miles beneath the sun’s surface – suggest that Cycle 25, whose peak is due in 2022, will be a great deal weaker still.

More...
Hotter summers 'may kill 5,900 every year', warns first national risk assessment of climate change
According to a paper issued last week by the Met Office, there is a 92 per cent chance that both Cycle 25 and those taking place in the following decades will be as weak as, or weaker than, the ‘Dalton minimum’ of 1790 to 1830. In this period, named after the meteorologist John Dalton, average temperatures in parts of Europe fell by 2C.
However, it is also possible that the new solar energy slump could be as deep as the ‘Maunder minimum’ (after astronomer Edward Maunder), between 1645 and 1715 in the coldest part of the ‘Little Ice Age’ when, as well as the Thames frost fairs, the canals of Holland froze solid.

[img2]http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2012/01/ ... 68x286.jpg[/img2]

Yet, in its paper, the Met Office claimed that the consequences now would be negligible – because the impact of the sun on climate is far less than man-made carbon dioxide. Although the sun’s output is likely to decrease until 2100, ‘This would only cause a reduction in global temperatures of 0.08C.’ Peter Stott, one of the authors, said: ‘Our findings suggest a reduction of solar activity to levels not seen in hundreds of years would be insufficient to offset the dominant influence of greenhouse gases.’
These findings are fiercely disputed by other solar experts.
‘World temperatures may end up a lot cooler than now for 50 years or more,’ said Henrik Svensmark, director of the Center for Sun-Climate Research at Denmark’s National Space Institute. ‘It will take a long battle to convince some climate scientists that the sun is important. It may well be that the sun is going to demonstrate this on its own, without the need for their help.’
He pointed out that, in claiming the effect of the solar minimum would be small, the Met Office was relying on the same computer models that are being undermined by the current pause in global-warming.
CO2 levels have continued to rise without interruption and, in 2007, the Met Office claimed that global warming was about to ‘come roaring back’. It said that between 2004 and 2014 there would be an overall increase of 0.3C. In 2009, it predicted that at least three of the years 2009 to 2014 would break the previous temperature record set in 1998.

[img2]http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2012/01/ ... 68x290.jpg[/img2]

So far there is no sign of any of this happening. But yesterday a Met Office spokesman insisted its models were still valid.
‘The ten-year projection remains groundbreaking science. The period for the original projection is not over yet,’ he said.
Dr Nicola Scafetta, of Duke University in North Carolina, is the author of several papers that argue the Met Office climate models show there should have been ‘steady warming from 2000 until now’.
‘If temperatures continue to stay flat or start to cool again, the divergence between the models and recorded data will eventually become so great that the whole scientific community will question the current theories,’ he said.
He believes that as the Met Office model attaches much greater significance to CO2 than to the sun, it was bound to conclude that there would not be cooling. ‘The real issue is whether the model itself is accurate,’ Dr Scafetta said. Meanwhile, one of America’s most eminent climate experts, Professor Judith Curry of the Georgia Institute of Technology, said she found the Met Office’s confident prediction of a ‘negligible’ impact difficult to understand.
‘The responsible thing to do would be to accept the fact that the models may have severe shortcomings when it comes to the influence of the sun,’ said Professor Curry. As for the warming pause, she said that many scientists ‘are not surprised’.

[img2]http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2012/01/ ... 68x290.jpg[/img2]

She argued it is becoming evident that factors other than CO2 play an important role in rising or falling warmth, such as the 60-year water temperature cycles in the Pacific and Atlantic oceans.

‘They have insufficiently been appreciated in terms of global climate,’ said Prof Curry. When both oceans were cold in the past, such as from 1940 to 1970, the climate cooled. The Pacific cycle ‘flipped’ back from warm to cold mode in 2008 and the Atlantic is also thought likely to flip in the next few years .

Pal Brekke, senior adviser at the Norwegian Space Centre, said some scientists found the importance of water cycles difficult to accept, because doing so means admitting that the oceans – not CO2 – caused much of the global warming between 1970 and 1997.

The same goes for the impact of the sun – which was highly active for much of the 20th Century.
‘Nature is about to carry out a very interesting experiment,’ he said. ‘Ten or 15 years from now, we will be able to determine much better whether the warming of the late 20th Century really was caused by man-made CO2, or by natural variability.’
Meanwhile, since the end of last year, world temperatures have fallen by more than half a degree, as the cold ‘La Nina’ effect has re-emerged in the South Pacific.

‘We’re now well into the second decade of the pause,’ said Benny Peiser, director of the Global Warming Policy Foundation. ‘If we don’t see convincing evidence of global warming by 2015, it will start to become clear whether the models are bunk. And, if they are, the implications for some scientists could be very serious.’


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/ ... z1ksAoJbas

[Jungle Rat]

It's simple. Everyone pays 30% on any earned income period. Donate to charity because you want to, not because you have to just to screw Uncle Sam.

Next?

p.s. I hate graphs

[puterbac]

Yeah great.

BTW cap gains isn't earned income.

And 30%? Jesus man. You just more than tripled my tax rate.

I make under a 100k and with a stay at home Mom and 3 kids I probably end up paying around 3k a year in fed income taxes and that is all with the standard deductions as our interest on house isn't even close to be able to be deducted.

I'll post this years numbers when I get all the tax docs.

[puterbac]

BTW that is mostly due to 3k from child tax credit, so that is 3k right off the balance of taxes owed.

Oh and I still don't think taxes should be raised on the "wealthy".

[Jungle Rat]

There was a time when income tax rates were %60. That tax rate built the country we live in today. Just sayin.

[sardis]

I'm sure tick will inform us how all this below is written by first graders being paid by big oil...

Forget global warming - it's Cycle 25 we need to worry about (and if NASA scientists are right the Thames will be freezing over again)

Met Office releases new figures which show no warming in 15 years

By DAVID ROSE
Last updated at 5:38 AM on 29th January 2012
Comments (375)

The supposed ‘consensus’ on man-made global warming is facing an inconvenient challenge after the release of new temperature data showing the planet has not warmed for the past 15 years.
The figures suggest that we could even be heading for a mini ice age to rival the 70-year temperature drop that saw frost fairs held on the Thames in the 17th Century.
Based on readings from more than 30,000 measuring stations, the data was issued last week without fanfare by the Met Office and the University of East Anglia Climatic Research Unit. It confirms that the rising trend in world temperatures ended in 1997.

A painting, dated 1684, by Abraham Hondius depicts one of many frost fairs on the River Thames during the mini ice age
Meanwhile, leading climate scientists yesterday told The Mail on Sunday that, after emitting unusually high levels of energy throughout the 20th Century, the sun is now heading towards a ‘grand minimum’ in its output, threatening cold summers, bitter winters and a shortening of the season available for growing food.
Solar output goes through 11-year cycles, with high numbers of sunspots seen at their peak.
We are now at what should be the peak of what scientists call ‘Cycle 24’ – which is why last week’s solar storm resulted in sightings of the aurora borealis further south than usual. But sunspot numbers are running at less than half those seen during cycle peaks in the 20th Century.
Analysis by experts at NASA and the University of Arizona – derived from magnetic-field measurements 120,000 miles beneath the sun’s surface – suggest that Cycle 25, whose peak is due in 2022, will be a great deal weaker still.

More...
Hotter summers 'may kill 5,900 every year', warns first national risk assessment of climate change
According to a paper issued last week by the Met Office, there is a 92 per cent chance that both Cycle 25 and those taking place in the following decades will be as weak as, or weaker than, the ‘Dalton minimum’ of 1790 to 1830. In this period, named after the meteorologist John Dalton, average temperatures in parts of Europe fell by 2C.
However, it is also possible that the new solar energy slump could be as deep as the ‘Maunder minimum’ (after astronomer Edward Maunder), between 1645 and 1715 in the coldest part of the ‘Little Ice Age’ when, as well as the Thames frost fairs, the canals of Holland froze solid.

[img2]http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2012/01/ ... 68x286.jpg[/img2]

Yet, in its paper, the Met Office claimed that the consequences now would be negligible – because the impact of the sun on climate is far less than man-made carbon dioxide. Although the sun’s output is likely to decrease until 2100, ‘This would only cause a reduction in global temperatures of 0.08C.’ Peter Stott, one of the authors, said: ‘Our findings suggest a reduction of solar activity to levels not seen in hundreds of years would be insufficient to offset the dominant influence of greenhouse gases.’
These findings are fiercely disputed by other solar experts.
‘World temperatures may end up a lot cooler than now for 50 years or more,’ said Henrik Svensmark, director of the Center for Sun-Climate Research at Denmark’s National Space Institute. ‘It will take a long battle to convince some climate scientists that the sun is important. It may well be that the sun is going to demonstrate this on its own, without the need for their help.’
He pointed out that, in claiming the effect of the solar minimum would be small, the Met Office was relying on the same computer models that are being undermined by the current pause in global-warming.
CO2 levels have continued to rise without interruption and, in 2007, the Met Office claimed that global warming was about to ‘come roaring back’. It said that between 2004 and 2014 there would be an overall increase of 0.3C. In 2009, it predicted that at least three of the years 2009 to 2014 would break the previous temperature record set in 1998.

[img2]http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2012/01/ ... 68x290.jpg[/img2]

So far there is no sign of any of this happening. But yesterday a Met Office spokesman insisted its models were still valid.
‘The ten-year projection remains groundbreaking science. The period for the original projection is not over yet,’ he said.
Dr Nicola Scafetta, of Duke University in North Carolina, is the author of several papers that argue the Met Office climate models show there should have been ‘steady warming from 2000 until now’.
‘If temperatures continue to stay flat or start to cool again, the divergence between the models and recorded data will eventually become so great that the whole scientific community will question the current theories,’ he said.
He believes that as the Met Office model attaches much greater significance to CO2 than to the sun, it was bound to conclude that there would not be cooling. ‘The real issue is whether the model itself is accurate,’ Dr Scafetta said. Meanwhile, one of America’s most eminent climate experts, Professor Judith Curry of the Georgia Institute of Technology, said she found the Met Office’s confident prediction of a ‘negligible’ impact difficult to understand.
‘The responsible thing to do would be to accept the fact that the models may have severe shortcomings when it comes to the influence of the sun,’ said Professor Curry. As for the warming pause, she said that many scientists ‘are not surprised’.

[img2]http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2012/01/ ... 68x290.jpg[/img2]

She argued it is becoming evident that factors other than CO2 play an important role in rising or falling warmth, such as the 60-year water temperature cycles in the Pacific and Atlantic oceans.

‘They have insufficiently been appreciated in terms of global climate,’ said Prof Curry. When both oceans were cold in the past, such as from 1940 to 1970, the climate cooled. The Pacific cycle ‘flipped’ back from warm to cold mode in 2008 and the Atlantic is also thought likely to flip in the next few years .

Pal Brekke, senior adviser at the Norwegian Space Centre, said some scientists found the importance of water cycles difficult to accept, because doing so means admitting that the oceans – not CO2 – caused much of the global warming between 1970 and 1997.

The same goes for the impact of the sun – which was highly active for much of the 20th Century.
‘Nature is about to carry out a very interesting experiment,’ he said. ‘Ten or 15 years from now, we will be able to determine much better whether the warming of the late 20th Century really was caused by man-made CO2, or by natural variability.’
Meanwhile, since the end of last year, world temperatures have fallen by more than half a degree, as the cold ‘La Nina’ effect has re-emerged in the South Pacific.

‘We’re now well into the second decade of the pause,’ said Benny Peiser, director of the Global Warming Policy Foundation. ‘If we don’t see convincing evidence of global warming by 2015, it will start to become clear whether the models are bunk. And, if they are, the implications for some scientists could be very serious.’


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/ ... z1ksAoJbas

Wow, there's alot of so-called experts quoted in that article. I wish tick would help us figure out which ones are insignificant peddlers of big oil and which ones are true scientists...

[Jungle Rat]

Puter, you live in a great country. Pay up.

[Dr. Strangelove]

Conservatives believe life is unquestionably worse today than 100 years ago. Thanks to the income tax, women's suffrage, and the introduction of countless, unnecessary govt programs that give money to lazy fatasses.

[Jungle Rat]

Your uncle thanks you.

[Professor Tiger]

I guess the obvious question to puter and PNNery is this: why should the super-rich guy pay a lower tax rate than the middle class guy?

I'm not talking about the legality of it. I know it's legal. Just like partial birth abortion. But being "legal" does not make it rational, much less moral.

So what rational or moral justification is there for a mega-wealthy corporate raider like Romney to pay a lower percentage of their income in taxes than a typical truck driver or school teacher?