FROM 2012 INTO 2013 POLITICS THREAD

Re: THE 2012 POLITICS THREAD

People who are in Mitt Romney's income bracket and line of work have a habit of shielding their money in Switzerland. Mitt Romney has a lot of money in Switzerland.

The Swiss government has always resisted giving the U.S. government the information it needs to investigate these cases. A new agreement reached in March 2012 is supposed to lead to more cooperation. But in the time frame we're talking about with Mitt, the old way of doing business was, as expressed by Time:

While the existing agreement has long allowed the release of tax information in cases of proven wrongdoing, various stumbling blocks, like different interpretations of tax evasion under Swiss and American laws, often slowed or even halted the process. (Evasion is a civil, not a criminal, offense in Switzerland.)

The amended treaty will now allow U.S. authorities to identify American tax evaders who exhibit certain "behavioral patterns" more easily. That includes stashing undeclared money in banks, "dummy" corporations, trusts and foundations created specifically to hide these assets.

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2109183,00.html#ixzz2BNipRYJw

If you can't prove it, you can't have the records, and if you can't the records, you can't prove it. This is not close to a birther-level conspiracy theory. This is pointing out that Mitt Romney's tax returns look exactly like the tax returns of someone who was being protected from investigation by the old Swiss way of doing things.

 

Re: THE 2012 POLITICS THREAD

You're not usually prone to goalpost-moving, so I may be mis-interpreting what you're getting at here. The founders, in launching this country, were acting on their Locke-ean inclinations. The idea of enlightened self-interest ("doing well by doing good") would not have been one of their leading lights. And while economic liberty as they understood it would be different from how we understand it, it's not remotely at odds with self-interest as it's widely understood today.

 

Re: THE 2012 POLITICS THREAD

Wasn't the Franklin-Jefferson rewrite (apparently of Locke): Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Property Happiness? That's the one that made it to press, right? I'm certainly no scholar when it comes to this stuff but I always figured there was a good reason for it.

 

Re: THE 2012 POLITICS THREAD

Obama, by one accounting, set to win record-high percentage of Latino vote, with 73 percent of likely voters saying they were for Obama.

http://www.latinodecisions.com/blog/2012/11/05/final-impremedia-ld-tracking-poll-if-latino-vote-is-high-obama-will-carry-4-key-swing-states/

“With 11 weeks of tracking, we are headed towards a record level of Latino votes for a Democratic presidential candidate,” said Matt Barreto, principal investigator for Latino Decisions. “If Latinos turnout at the high rates we are expecting, they could deliver Nevada, Colorado, Florida and Virginia to Obama.”

 

Re: THE 2012 POLITICS THREAD

Aw damn. There goes o_t to pick up some spray paint, write BORDER PATROL on his truck and park it outside the polling station in the nearest affected state.

 

Re: THE 2012 POLITICS THREAD

Why in the world have staunch free-market publications like The Economist and The Financial Times endorsed the Socialist Barack Obama?

http://www.salon.com/2012/11/05/free_market_defenders_agree_vote_obama/

 

Re: THE 2012 POLITICS THREAD

Suggesting people get a job instead of leach off the makers would seem to go toward the "common good."

 

Re: THE 2012 POLITICS THREAD

Stupid soldiers. Stupid old, retired people.

 

Re: THE 2012 POLITICS THREAD

Fuckin' freeloaders wanting their Social Security checks after 40 years of paying into the system.

 

Re: THE 2012 POLITICS THREAD

A bit of metathought here. Regardless of who wins tomorrow (or however long after that), as far as human beings can know, it will be by a narrow margin, maybe an historically narrow margin. Remember, Obama won 53-47 in 2008 and that margin was treated like a landslide (it wasn't).
It also appears likely the winner will preside over a divided Congress -- without a filibuster proof majority for sure. So any attempt by either man to push forward dramatic initiatives are liable to be a) hard to do, and b) generate immediate and ferocious blowback.
Oh, President Romney would get his tax cuts. Congress will ALWAYS vote for those. But big cuts in social spending, particularly Medicare and Medicaid, can only be crammed though by brute majority force, a force likely to last only until the next election, and which he may not have in any case. He can have increased defense spending, another Congressional addiction. But eliminate the mortgage interest tax deduction, or even modify it? I don't believe so.
Same goes for Obama. He can preside over the economy, nudging it in various ways, but the Republicans will never give him anything else.
In my increasingly long life, I've seen two major trends in American political history. On economic issues, the curve has bent the Republican way. Our society has pretty much abandoned the idea of distributive justice for better or worse. The idea that wealth equals speech, which would have given James Madison an aneurysm, is the constitutional law of the land.
In that broad area known as social issues, the curve has bent the other way. I grew up in a border state city with plenty of informal segregation into the late 1960s. We've now had an African American President. Whatever you think of Obama, that's pretty dramatic change. When I first moved to Massachusetts, contraceptive devices had been legal for less than a decade. We've had gay marriage for nearly a decade and nobody but nobody cares about it anymore except those getting married. Again, dramatic change.
So if I was a counselor to President-elect Romney, I'd tell him, go for the tax cuts, and forget the other stuff. You will only be judged on jobs, so you had better make sure there are some.
Were I a counselor to re-elected President Obama, I'd say the only big thing he can really push with any hope of success is immigration reform. If the Republicans lose, that's one of the reasons why they did, and pols hate losing. They might, probably not but might, be willing to change their tune.
That's all. I am a Democrat, I hope one of those two curves will start bending the other way in my lifetime, but I don't think it will. I think both economic inequality and our erratic but real social progress stem from the same element of extreme belief in individualism.

 

Re: THE 2012 POLITICS THREAD


Yet there are things like hurricanes that shake that belief in individualism. It becomes so apparent that people must rely on others. They must rely on government.

And as the Earth warms, we will have more natural disasters. What curve does that bend?

 

Re: THE 2012 POLITICS THREAD

The trouble with going with tax cuts alone is that it'll balloon up the deficit. That being said, it'll take Romney about five seconds to either shrug away his pre-election concern for govermental red ink or blame those obstructionist Dems...