The Goat Pen

T Dot O Dot wrote:I pass the Occupy Toronto "camp ground" every day on my work commute

it transformed from a youthful, peaceful protest into a straight up squatting ground for dirty hobos.

they've been told to move on and now the mayor is under hacker threat from the same "anonymous" dude who hacked St. Louis

At least now we know where hedge is.

eCat wrote:Newt , unlike McCain is a seasoned pro. He's won't step into any landmines. I have to believe he has been Romney's biggest fear all along.

I thought Romney's biggest fear is caffeine.

Dum-dum-dum-dum-dummm

TheBigMook wrote:

eCat wrote:Newt , unlike McCain is a seasoned pro. He's won't step into any landmines. I have to believe he has been Romney's biggest fear all along.

I thought Romney's biggest fear is caffeine.

and losing the magic underwear.

A little bit past Veteran's Day, but a good read about the hardships of war and a reminder of the sacrifices these guys go through....

http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/feat ... nat-201112

that is a long read

I'm not surprised by the outcome of that. A regular family of a regular soldier would have probably just accepted that war is hell and their son died because he was in a fire fight.

A family of a popular soldier like Pat Tillman would have the external resources to get more info, and in this case the family of a well connected former soldier would get more information from internal resources

but in the end...war is hell, and his son died because he was in a fire fight.

He is driven by the guilt of requesting his son serve with the Rangers in Afghanistan, what he thought would be nothing and turned into the worst war theater American soldiers have seen in perhaps any war.

The saddest part is the net result of his inquiry into the fight regarding his son's leadership. The young man is blamed for the deaths of 8 other men for wanting nothing more than to work with what the army gave him.

eCat wrote:that is a long read

Yep, that's the benefit of riding a subway 35 minutes each way in my daily commute.

I thought the whole thing was sad on so many levels and highlights the difficulty of war.

This looks like a good ad by Bachmann, but she'll need to be much more aggressive along these lines in the debates for it to have an effect (and she will need Fox News to highlight her comments)

[youtube]jIiBPTBO-2M[/youtube]

Jessie spoke to Occupy Cincy tonight. Here we go.

I didn't even know there was an Occupy Cincinnati

You live in Mford. You'll find out next week.

I've noticed the occupy kansas movement isn't gaining a lot of steam

Jungle Rat wrote:You live in Mford. You'll find out next week.

It has its advantages. When I lived off Bramble the riots were just down the road.

eCat wrote:

Jungle Rat wrote:You live in Mford. You'll find out next week.

It has its advantages. When I lived off Bramble the riots were just down the road.

A perfectly good opportunity for a tiger-pit wasted.

read this and I thought it was pretty good

from the perspective of a recent college grad who is part of the Occupation movement

"when I was in high school they told us to go to college if we didn't want to flip burgers for a living, and now that I've graduated college, they say I have a sense of entitlement because I don't want to flip burgers for a living."

What they meant was go to college to get a REAL degree in something that can be useful and not examples of the following:

Art
Art History
Photography
Dead Languages
Journalism
Under Water Basket Weaving
Physical Education
Hotel Management

don't forget Economics.

The unemployment rate for people with college degrees in this country is around 4%. I don't think the problem is even degrees worth about as much as 63 year old Tijuana hooker. The problem is that graduates come out of colleges that charged them 10s of thousands of dollars, at best, and 100s of thousands at worst for positions that will make it virtually impossible to manage that debt, a car note and an apartment and still put enough away to one day buy a house that the banks have raised the bar on you qualifying for.

So, I think some kids come out with a sense of entitlement...but more along the lines of "I thought I was entitled to have a job that lead to a career, when I actually just have a job that can maybe lead to me managing this Apple Store."

The truth is, wages have stagnated since the mid 90s. People don't make as much money (as new graduates or regular working people), it's just that no one really noticed it because we were living high on the hog by leveraging. Now, the debt engine blew a gasket and people are seeing that the creedos they heard about working hard and getting a college degree will ensure you a level of success in this society are wrong. It's a myth that hasn't been true in over a decade, but many couldn't see it because it was hidden by growth spurned off debt. Now, the truth is out and college graduates are looking at a reality that their parents, quite frankly, never had. Everyone isn't built to be engineers and scientists. A robust economy is a diverse one.

It's just easier to label the whole lot as entitled clowns and whiners.

you are right about that - Consumer spending drives the economy and a significant amount of consumer spending came from credit cards, unsecured loans and home equity loans. When house flipping and housing values dropped, those sources of income (debt, actually ) dried up and slowed the economy to a crawl.

Any growth in the economy is primarily driven by those folks that managed to live within their means and still have cash leftover after the bills are paid and the recent college grads that managed to land the 75K to 100K jobs.

I don't see that changing in the near future until the housing market levels out.

That is why I don't believe in a stimulus plan or increased government spending because its just a one time shot - it doesn't create sustained revenue for business because the people don't have any ability to leverage themselves or build on that influx of initial cash.

I see this growth of 2.5% and perhaps creating 100K to 500K jobs a month as the process for the next few years.

The government also has a stimulus plan that is ongoing anyways - its called Social Security and millions of additional people will be receiving it in the next 15 years.

that said, for the life of me I don't understand why a kid out of high school would agree to having 100K of student loan debt in 4 years.

Its true that not everyone is setup to be an engineer or a scientist, but the adage of "just do what interests you and the money will follow" never considered that 60% of the income would go to paying back a student loan for 8 years.