Changing the President isn't going to fix the House and Senate.  Worse yet we've flushed the House pretty good in either direction twice over the last decade and it really doesn't seem to have gotten any better.

Agreed Dave, but.. The Tea party, in my humble opinion, is going to make a huge impact going forward, in both the House.. and Senate.. again, IMO... they are the voice of fiscal responsibility that has been missing in Washington for far too long.

Things are about to change... if not.. its over for all of us... welcome to the Chinese-American Republic.

Ahhh, you don't want him, he was Governor of New Mexico, that's where I live.  He is a pretty good politician, if you know what I mean. 

and he thieves punchlines

I'm thinking Social Security here. it has helped millions upon millions of people over the last 60 years.

that's not the definition of "free market" that I saw.

A free-market economy is one within which all markets are unregulated by any parties other than market participants.

which seems pretty clear that it is a bad idea.

There is.. a place for sensible regulatory policies in a free market... obviously... I'm not suggesting otherwise.

What's the alternative... socialism? Didn't work out too well anywhere else in the world.. now did it?

How is Greece doing?, Spain? Portugal?

It's where we are headed under the current policies.. period.

Only with MUCH more debt. Why are you so blind to what's going on around you?

This president, these policies, this agenda, have  f a i l e d.

It's time to change direction. and mark my words.. we will change direction.. staring Nov. 12.

All I hear here is the same old REPUBLICON drivel. Let the job creators create! What a bunch of BULLSHIT.

The banksters and the hedge fund managers stole OUR MONEY AND THEY GOT AWAY WITH IT

Those are the jobs they created!

Standing in the que to collect a check that you can barely feed a family on.

Thank you Ronald Reagan and George W Bush!

8 years of letting the banksters and Wall Street steal our future and then

YOU HAVE THE NERVE TO BLAME THIS ON OBAMA!

Those Wall Street crooks should be rotting away in jail!

There hasn't been any any law passed by this administration that prevents business from investing in THIS COUNTRY.

What stops investment in this country and the heart and soul of this country is GREED.

The heart and soul of this country is the middle class but is is being destroyed.

The Koch Brothers, Citizens United, The Tea Party and The Republicons. Those are the the people who are the enemy. They lie. They sell themselves like whores. They are the enemy of the people because they care more about making profits then the well being of the people.

The Republicons care more about bringing down Barack Obama then taking care of the people of the United States.

You can say that you've lived here for 25 years and all that stuff but you aren't an American and you don't know what the real America is!

Long Live The Unions! Long Live Workers Rights! Power To The People!

I actually kind of like the Tea party's fiscal conservatism.  It's the rest of their package I have a problem with.

Again though, if any of these candidate regurgitates anything that even hints at the understanding of the long-term effects of a trade deficit, and any sort of semi-rational methodology of turning it around, that candidate will certainly catch my attention.  Mostly they all just seem to do the ol' "See how bad it is" routine.  Broken record.

Then .. Chasbo.. enjoy your grey house, in between two more grey houses, on your grey street, in a grey neighborhood.

With a big speaker at the end of the road, doing its very best to tell u whats best for you, and feeding you, and owning you.

The Great American Chinese Dream... ask 3.8 billion Chinese how they like it... they wont answer you for fear of being executed.

This is my side of the fence. The free side.

I am American, with 4 grown American Sons and an American wife.

I'd rather die poor .. having done my best, than live forever, living off the backs of others.

Hey, Dave, what would you do, to turn around the trade deficit?

Well i'm over 66 so guess I'm safe

You are safe... at least as far as SSI goes. No politician in their right mind is going take Med. from seniors.

The GOP wants to restructure SSI to stop it from going bankrupt, any changes will only affect those under 52.

and if changes aren't made, no one will have SSI pretty soon. We just don't have a choice.

Boy I'd be a pretty smart guy if I had that figured out, wouldn't I?   Seriously though, and it sounds simple enough, we need to focus more on specifically producing goods and services to ship overseas, and/or producing price-competitive items domestically that can replace imports.  Would also be helpful to stop shipping employment overseas.  Huge argument would be over government's role in that.  We've created huge sectors of our economy that basically are non-productive in terms of generating income to "our family's house".

A favorite little example of this is a story I just saw on the news this week.  A guy, a very "normal" down-to-Earth guy, in Georgia started a factory.  Georgia is wood-rich.  The Chinese are wood-poor and chopstick-poor.  This guy's little factory of I think about 100 people builds chopsticks and sends them to China.  I laughed out loud when I saw that, I think it's friggin' brilliant.

We need to do things like that.  Times a million.

lol.. great story Dave... maybe I should switch to making designer Chopsticks

Hmm.. what do I have, the Chinese want..

(Gosh, I could be SO rude here)

Oh yes... my country.

I'll bet you could make a wicked-ass chopstick   Hmm, maybe if nothing else you and the guy from Georgia could get together and we could get a little more cash coming in.

Change will not happen until the people of this country get off their asses and demand change. I don't mean just writing your congressmen...I mean marching on Washington in a show of force the way we used to do. If they don't see a show of force they won't take anyone seriously and will just continue doing what they want.

And I'm not suggesting a violent show of force...and I'm also not ruling it out...but a physical show of force of what's needed. And it's not only your right to do that...it's your duty as citizens of this country. In case you forgot ...we didn't gain anything worth getting by holding hands...people have fought and died for what everyone else seems to take for granted these days. We've become lazy and they are taking advantage of it.

When they decided to "vote themselves a raise" I was floored that there wasn't so much as a peep out of people. These people work for us...we don't work for them. I wrote a letter to the editor of my local paper about this and after that I didn't see anyone else raising hell about it. My letter was as follows:

"To the Editor:

Isn't it wonderful that in this time of corporate layoffs and downsizing and divisive uncertainty about who's working and who isn't, that last month members of Congress gave themselves another substantial raise? In 1975, the annual salary was $44.600.00. In 1990, it was $97.500.00. On January 1, it goes to $157,105.00. Has anyone else's salary increased by 48 percent in the last decade? Has anyone's salary increased even 13 percent since 1999? According to the U.S. Congress Disbursing Offices quarterly report, our congressman's have.

There were 374 votes for and 54 votes against this new pay raise. I hope everyone remembers this in the next election."

Of course nobody did. Which is the biggest part of our problem. Until we all stop this finger pointing/blame game and look at ourselves things will continue to get worse. We have no one to blame for our current situation except ourselves. They are only doing what we allowed them to do.

For starters...we need to demand term limits as well as salary limits. We need to remind them that the jobs they hold is not there for them to fill their pockets by taking advantage of the positions they hold...or give their friends an unfair advantage by awarding them government contracts in which they can charge $40,000 for a toilet seat or a tool you can buy at sears for $10.00. We need a clause that allows us to tar and feather them the second they get out of line and forget who they are working for. We need a forum that allows anyone to run for an office position and not just the rich. We need to ban any person or corporate entity from giving money to someone running for a position for favors in return. We need to start watching them with a magnifying glass. We need to get more involved in our future...or we won't have a future to look forward to.

So stop finger pointing...no political party is without guilt.

Presidents are just mouth pieces for the rich...stop blaming them for what's happening...they don't have the control you think they do.

Start working together...because we're all in the same boat...and the boat is sinking.

And enough with the political correctness...there's nothing correct about it.

Boycott businesses that choose to outsource our jobs but yet expect us to buy their products.

Demand that our leaders start enforcing laws already on the books by deporting illegals in this country and preventing possible terrorists from entering...immigration is fine...but please use the front door.

Rant over

Brilliant.

Well stated Steve. 

"free market" to "socialism" that's quite a swing. but if I had only these two to choose from, I'd probably choose socialism.

Says it all for me.

Night all.