mr mahs

If we fall into a depression then the whole Global economy falls into a depression as well....Don't you agree? If so then what would be the financial environment you would like to see in place? A place where credit doesn't exist? You do realise that with out the stock market and especially credit we wouldn't be communicating on the Internet. You understand that right? Granted people are spending more then they earn but that graph you posted fails at telling what the credit is for. When people hear credit they automatically thing high interest credit cards, often forgeting that mortgages and a rising population are at play. Credit is how businesses expand and when companies expand jobs are created. Credit is the most important factor that seperates us from a third world country....

Very Interesting.....

I've noticed that to bud.... They is a thirts for freedom in that country hopefully the Mullahs will lose power, so it can become a reality.

Flat, Fair, and Forever Post # I like to hear everyones especially the Lefts opinions on this subject of flat and consumption tax. Interesting read. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ http://www.nationalreview.com/nrof_...00401270850.asp Flat, Fair, and Forever The time is right to repair the tax system. By Ed Feulner Every profession has its unofficial list of things you don't say, and politics is no exception. A leading entry: Never call for a tax hike. At least, not by name. Instead, do what the Democratic presidential candidates do: Cloak your hike in the reassuring moniker "tax reform." All the Democratic contenders want to repeal at least some of the tax cuts enacted since President Bush took office. Howard Dean, Dennis Kucinich, and Al Sharpton (plus Richard Gephardt, before he dropped out in the wake of the Iowa caucuses) want to repeal all of the Bush tax cuts. In other words, the reform they favor is a tax increase. Even if they were candid enough to admit it, though, their policy is misguided. There are two things we should do this year: Make the previous tax cuts permanent and begin replacing the entire tax code with a simple and fair flat tax. The concrete results of the Bush tax cuts are all around us. Economic growth for the third quarter of last year was 8.2 percent. The stock market is soaring again. Business investment is at a 10-year high. Yet there's a big problem with many of the cuts: They're set to expire in a few years. Consider the estate tax, or the death tax, as it's often called. It's being phased out year-by-year and will finally expire in 2010 — only to return at pre-2001 levels the next year. If you think family farmers and mom-and-pop business owners have a tough time passing their businesses on to the next generation now, look ahead a few years. Should they plan to die in 2010, or set up the elaborate tax schemes required to preserve their property for their family? Of course, all this confusion can be settled with the stroke of a pen. If Congress will agree to make the previous tax cuts permanent, everyone could begin to plan and make sensible decisions about the future. After all, lawmakers were smart enough to realize that slashing taxes would energize the economy. Certainly they're smart enough to realize that a huge tax hike in 2010 would be a devastating mistake. But we need to do more than just lock in the earlier cuts. We should fix the tax code to bring down taxes even further and to enact a flat tax. Our current tax code is 17,000 pages long and includes more than 1,100 forms and publications. It's so confusing that taxpayers are forced to spend almost $200 billion each year just to comply with it. Even IRS employees don't understand the laws they're supposed to enforce. Several years ago, a General Accounting Office survey found that IRS employees gave incorrect tax advice half the time. We could save time, money, and trouble with a flat tax. We could file our returns on a form the size of a postcard. And we would bring down marginal tax rates without causing revenues to fall because loopholes would be eliminated. (A faster-growing economy also would generate more tax revenue.) That's important, because, as my Heritage Foundation colleague Daniel Mitchell wrote recently, "History tells us that tax revenues grow and wealthy taxpayers pay more tax when marginal tax rates are slashed. This means lower-income citizens bear a lower share of the tax burden — a consequence that should lead class-warfare politicians to support lower tax rates." Simply put, a flat tax would be fairer. Unfortunately, it's probably not yet politically possible to enact a completely flat tax. Politicians have spent years attempting to use the tax code to engineer social policy, crafting deductions and credits for behavior they approve of. It'll take some time to undo that damage. And after all, the presidential candidates in one of our political parties are actually pressing for higher, not lower, taxes. Still, this year we should start taking steps toward a flat and fair tax system. When voters see how well it works, they're sure to demand we make it permanent.

If you listen to these 9 idiots latley you get the impression that if elected (god forbid) they would want to punish the rich. John Edwards on O'reilly last night said if elected he wants to tax the higher income individuals at 70% and bring back the Death tax. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ http://www.fortune.com/fortune/arti...,582229,00.html To hear some candidates talk, business poses a bigger threat to America than Osama bin Laden. By Bill Powell One of the certainties—hell, it may be the only certainty—coming out of the first two Democratic contests this year is that the candidates are unanimous about one thing. They know who the enemies are. First, of course, it's the incumbent, the man whose job they all seek—President George W. Bush. The other enemy is ... well, actually, the other enemy is ... you. That's you as in corporate America. You're "special interests," you understand (every major candidate uses the phrase); you own the White House and Congress lock, stock, and barrel. You may even work for a "Benedict Arnold" company, as Senator John Kerry starts his riff on the stump, sending your "headquarters to Bermuda and jobs to China'' (as Howard Dean finishes his). Woe unto you if you work for the oil industry, the pharmaceutical industry, for insurance companies or a health-care provider, or for Wal-Mart. Sometimes, to hear the Democratic presidential candidates, you almost seem like a bigger threat to America than Osama bin Laden. You sure get mentioned more often than he does. Populism—and more recently faux populism—is a staple of American politics. From Al Gore, in his strange acceptance speech four years ago warning of "powerful forces" stacked against the little guy, all the way back to William Jennings Bryan and his "Cross of Gold" speech in 1896 ("the humblest citizen in all the land, when clad in the armor of a righteous cause, is stronger than all the hosts of error"), David vs. Goliath is a familiar political theme. Its most strident form is usually practiced by bumptious third-party candidates with little to lose (think Ross Perot and George Wallace). What's interesting about this year's election is that all the plausible Democratic candidates—not to mention the formerly plausible Howard Dean—have a heavy dose of big-business bashing in their standard stump speeches. That means, simply, that those lines have resonance, at least among potential primary voters. "The polling for all of us is showing the same thing," says a senior campaign operative for one of the Democrats. "People think that this guy [bush] is the CEO's President. He does whatever CEOs want, and doesn't give a damn about the consequences. That's why the candidates all sound similar themes—because those fears are real." It's easy for GOP operatives, with an eye on the fall elections, to dismiss the political effectiveness of this stuff. They can just start reciting statistics. Housing starts at a 20-year high. The combined value of homes and stocks now just a shade below their all-time high in 2000. More than 50% of the voting age population own stocks. A rising tide lifts all boats—and squashes the allure of populism. There are, moreover, reasons to suspect that the populism being peddled this year is mainly rhetorical, not real. It's fine to say, as all the Democrats do, that they'd change the tax code to prevent companies from getting any benefit from having their headquarters in Bermuda. But how many "Benedict Arnold" companies are there out there? Of the FORTUNE Global 500, all of three are incorporated in Bermuda. And when John Edwards talks about "two Americas," one in which the "rich" get the finest health care and everyone else has to go to an HMO—or wherever their insurance company tells them to go—the questions just keep on coming: Isn't the point of "managed care" to try to restrain the overall cost of health care? Or, as Edwards seems to imply, should everyone have access to the finest health care available all the time, no matter what it costs? And if so, who pays for that? The government? In any event, the idea that allegedly evil HMOs and insurance companies aren't going to continue to play a huge role in health care is fantasy, no matter who's in the White House. Still, even if the populism on the stump is somewhat phony, the polling results that the Democrats are getting isn't. There is some real danger here for Bush, given that nearly every stance the administration has taken on regulatory and environmental issues follows the Bush-does-as-big-business-wants rule. There are, to be sure, a few exceptions. The administration actually changed some fuel and emissions standards in ways that specific manufacturers didn't like. More broadly, it now requires government agencies to calculate economic costs and benefits of new regulations before they are enacted—which is good for consumers. But beyond that there isn't much the administration can boast about, and some Republicans worry that the perception that the wolves are in charge of the hen house could matter in the fall, particularly among moderate women voters. Furthermore, the "CEO's President" will stick as long as jobs are scarce. To state the obvious, Bush badly needs the economy to start creating some jobs over the next six months, particularly in key battleground states like Ohio and Michigan, which have hemorrhaged manufacturing jobs over the past few years. In those states the economy may well trump Iraq and the war on terror as an issue, as it did in the Iowa caucus. And if productivity continues to rise but the number of jobs doesn't, the "two Americas" theme that John Edwards strikes, however hoary it may be, will continue to get some traction.

Oh you mean the less the a thousand enemy combatants that took arms against us in Afghanistan?? Yeah def resembles the concentration camps in Germany where MILLIONS were executed... Your clueless! Go tie die some shirts you tree hugging hippie!

Answer the question Deuchbag!

Where does the massacre of MILLIONS of Jews fall into modern day history? I mean c'mon thats the little aspect people are leaving out right? Where are we killing millions for being jewish or even muslim? If we were really acting like Germany there would be concentration camps all over the country gassing Arabs... Until then stick your .org site up your ass!!!!!

Here is ladies and gentleman "The toughest kid on the Internet"....

Kucinich:laugh: :laugh:

Great lets repeal the Patriot Act because some liberal Deuchbag Cunt Judge from LA of all places, says it's unconstitutional.... I've heard it all now.....

You are a HIPPIE CUNT!!!!

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2004/01/25/wirq25.xml&sSheet=/news/2004/01/25/ixnewstop.html David Kay, the former head of the coalition's hunt for Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, yesterday claimed that part of Saddam Hussein's secret weapons programme was hidden in Syria. In an exclusive interview with The Telegraph, Dr Kay, who last week resigned as head of the Iraq Survey Group, said that he had uncovered evidence that unspecified materials had been moved to Syria shortly before last year's war to overthrow Saddam. "We are not talking about a large stockpile of weapons," he said. "But we know from some of the interrogations of former Iraqi officials that a lot of material went to Syria before the war, including some components of Saddam's WMD programme. Precisely what went to Syria, and what has happened to it, is a major issue that needs to be resolved." Dr Kay's comments will intensify pressure on President Bashar Assad to clarify the extent of his co-operation with Saddam's regime and details of Syria's WMD programme. Mr Assad has said that Syria was entitled to defend itself by acquiring its own biological and chemical weapons arsenal. Syria was one of Iraq's main allies in the run-up to the war and hundreds of Iraqi officials - including members of Saddam's family - were given refuge in Damascus after the collapse of the Iraqi dictator's regime. Many of the foreign fighters responsible for conducting terrorist attacks against the coalition are believed to have entered Iraq through Syria. A Syrian official last night said: "These allegations have been raised many times in the past by Israeli officials, which proves that they are false."

You just don't get it bud.....

If Kerry gets the nod for the dems Karl Rove is going to pick apart this joker. John Kerry aka Ted Kennedy Jr must have amnesia with all the complaing regarding key issues like the Education bill, the Patrot act and the vote for regime change. Someone has to call this guy and tell him to take his foot out of his mouth and this article illustrates and brings to light all the flip flopping Sen kennedy has done. Can he be trusted as Commander and Cheif? ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ http://www.nationalreview.com/lowry...00401260838.asp January 26, 2004, 8:38 a.m. Kerry vs. Kerry Running against his record. MANCHESTER, N.H. — John Kerry has surged into first place here, proving his oft-repeated contention that he is a "good closer." Kerry has long said that he is a great fighter. If he completes his miraculous comeback to win the Democratic nomination, he will indeed have the fight of his life on his hands — against his own legislative record. Kerry, of course, has struggled with his vote in 2002 to authorize the Iraq war. "We did not empower the president to do regime change," Kerry said of the resolution on Meet the Press last summer. Actually, the Kerry-supported resolution specifically cited regime change as a goal, and Kerry also voted to make regime change U.S. policy in 1998. That's two Kerry votes in favor of regime change, but who's counting? The Massachusetts senator has similar trouble with other prior votes, making him the first candidate in U.S. history to run a presidential campaign against himself. Today's Kerry excoriates Attorney General John Ashcroft for violating American civil liberties with his evil tool, the Patriot Act. "We are a nation of laws and liberties, not of a knock in the night," Kerry huffs. "So it is time to end the era of John Ashcroft. That starts with replacing the Patriot Act with a new law that protects our people and our liberties at the same time." Maybe Kerry should have thought about that before voting for the Patriot Act in 2001 — since laws and liberties are pretty important and all. Back before he had to worry about competing with one Howard Brush Dean, Kerry was positively delighted by the Patriot Act. "It reflects," he said on the Senate floor, "an enormous amount of hard work by the members of the Senate Banking Committee and the Senate Judiciary Committee. I congratulate them and thank them for that work." While supportive of "sunset" provisions in the bill, Kerry pronounced himself "pleased at the compromise we have reached on the anti-terrorism legislation." These are not the words of a man about to help inaugurate an era of brown-shirt law enforcement. John Kerry, A.D. (After Dean), attacks President Bush's No Child Left Behind Act as "one-size-fits-all testing mania." Worse, according to Kerry, "By signing the No Child Left Behind Act and then breaking his promise by not giving schools the resources to help meet new standards, George Bush has undermined public education and left millions of children behind." The funding charge is a canard — overall spending on education under Bush is up 65 percent — but it gives Kerry a way to join the Dean-led assault on the act, which he voted for — enthusiastically. "This is groundbreaking legislation," John Kerry, B.D. (Before Dean), gushed on the Senate floor, "that enhances the federal government's commitment to our nation's public education system ... and embraces many of the principles and programs that I believe are critical to improving the public education system." He didn't just support the bill, he took credit for it: "Last year I worked with 10 of my Democratic colleagues to introduce legislation that would help break the stalemate and move beyond the tired, partisan debates of the past. Our education proposal became the foundation of the bill before us today." As for the North American Free Trade Agreement, the target of Dean and other liberal critics, Kerry promises to "fix it." The agreement supposedly doesn't do enough to keep Mexico from employing low-wage workers, thus encouraging jobs to leave the United States and depressing wages here. True to form, he used to love the trade deal. "NAFTA is not the problem," he explained in 1993. "Job loss is taking place without NAFTA." And so, if the senator grabs his party's nomination, it will make for the fight of the century, a brawl to the finish — Kerry vs. Kerry. No wonder he wants to get himself out of the Senate. By his own lights, Kerry's votes there were simply too dangerous and shortsighted for the nation to tolerate any longer

Thank you, They should make this post a sticky!

-Syria has 3 billion of Iraq's money -A deserter from the intelligence org in Syria claims they were smuggled there. -It makes PERFECT sense!

It was great to watch Brit and Peter Jennings pull Clark's card...

There in Syria.

http://www.worldtribune.com/worldtribune/breaking_4.html Friday, January 23, 2004 "The Al Qaida of the 9/11 period is under catastrophic stress," State Department counter-terrorism coordinator Cofer Black said. "They are being hunted down, their days are numbered." Black's assertion, made in an interview with the London-based British Broadcasting Corp. on Thursday, is based on U.S. intelligence community estimates that about 70 percent of Al Qaida has been neutralized, officials said. Saudi officials agreed with the U.S. assessment and said the kingdom has made significant gains against Al Qaida, Middle East Newsline reported. They said Al Qaida leaders have been arrested and training camps have been discovered. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Health insurance for the self-employed: Special offer -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- U.S. officials said Al Qaida has been rapidly losing its attack capabilities and was relying increasingly on smaller Islamic groups based in Southeast Asia and North Africa. The officials said thousands of Al Qaida operatives have been captured, killed or neutralized, with cells eliminated even in such strongholds as Kuwait and Yemen. The intelligence community assessed that Al Qaida was at the height of its strength in mid-2001 with thousands of recruits trained in Afghanistan and other sent abroad as agents and sleepers. The intelligence assessment was presented to the Bush administration and reported by President George Bush during his State of the Union address on Tuesday. The assessment regards Al Qaida as becoming steadily weaker, with difficulties in raising funds and sustaining insurgency cells. [in Hamburg, a German court was told that authorities have a witness who claims that Osama Bin Laden met Iranian supreme leader Ali Khamenei and senior Iranian officials on May 4, 2001. The meeting took place in an air force base to plan the suicide attacks in the United States in September 2001. The witness was identified as an Iranian defector, known by his cover name Hamid Reza Zakeri, who had been an agent for Iranian intelligence until mid-2001.] Officials said Al Qaida would continue as a much weaker organization and would focus largely on Saudi Arabia, the Horn of Africa while seeking to consolidate under the protection of Iran. They envision attacks being financed rather than carried out by Bin Laden. The loss of veteran insurgency operatives has reduced the lethality of operations, officials said. Another factor has been the lack of success by Al Qaida to establish and sustain cells in many Western countries. "The next group of concern would be a generation younger," Black said. "They're influenced by what they see on TV; they are influenced by misrepresentation of the facts. They seem to be long on radicalism and comparatively short on training." -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Secret Society of Independent Investors Whips the Market Prosper beyond the market. Find safety and wealth in the market's most exclusive research-based equities team. Learn how they're extracting unseen profits out of the market and how you can double your money in 30 days or less with their proven strategies. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- "We have arrested over 600 terror suspects; many of the top Al Qaida leaders in the kingdom have been killed or captured," Adel Al Jubeir, foreign policy adviser to Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah Bin Abdul Aziz, said. "And scores of cells and training camps have been uncovered and destroyed before they could do any harm to the innocent." On Thursday, the United States and Saudi Arabia requested that the United Nations freeze the assets of four branches of an official Saudi charity accused of financially supporting Al Qaida. The U.S.-Saudi demand concerned the freezing of assets of the Riyad-based Al Haramain Islamic Foundation in such countries as Indonesia, Kenya, Pakistan and Tanzania. "These branches have provided financial, material and logistical support to the Al Qaida network and other terrorist organization," the U.S. Treasury Department said. Al Haramain is a charity sponsored by the Saudi government. Saudi Islamic Affairs Minister Salah Ibn Abdul Aziz Al Sheik oversees the charity. "Al Haramain stated it closed branches in Indonesia, Kenya, Tanzania and Pakistan, but continued monitoring by the United States and Saudi Arabia indicates that these offices and or former officials associated with these branches are either continuing to operate or have other plans to avoid these measures," the Treasury Department said.

Look at CALIFORNIA. The reason they are suffering a fiscal crisis is because of the social services illegal aliens are receiving....ie...health care etc... Let me say this again... I HAVE NO PROMBLEM W/LEGAL JUST ILLEGAL!

My parents came here LEGALLY.... Please read my response again brotha, it was directed at ILLEGALS who drain our civil services.

Ironic isn't it?

God article but he ignores all the economic developments that have indeed occured and Bush somewhat mentioned such as strong corporate profits, declining unemployemt rate,trade deficit and a robust 3rd quarter.