[Pat Burke]

I try not to get involved in ANY political fights, because, I believe we are screwed in general, and there is
plenty of blame to go around, starting with the electorate.  However, in a debate such as this, I do believe that
the biggest problem facing our country is reflected in the last line of the post above
"Shivas has posted 23 times in just the last three pages nattering about this stuff, and is allowed to ramble on.  And to think, Ran was going to run a tighter ship!"
Not to single this out either, as the emoticons make it reasonably light hearted to me at least.

Shivas created this thread, has contributed along with anyone who is disagreeing with him, but in our country today,
he is rambling on, but those that agree may not be.

I agree with many posts from both sides btw, and am not jumping in to defend shivas (believe he doesn't need or desire my help anyway! ).  I just think it sad that us against them is ruling this country, more than any time I remember (not just this admin)

[A.G._Crockett]

Shivas,
If indeed the President is able to negotiate deals with India that result in $10b in US exports and 50,000 jobs here, would it be worth whatever we spent for security on a trip to the most dangerous region in the world to protect a President that doubled down in Afghanistan after we dropped the ball back in '03?

And by the way, it is not an ad hominem attack when someone correctly points out that you are saying EXACTLY the same things that the Fox commentators and the Hannity and Beck shows are saying.  It is just a simple fact.

[J Sadowsky]

Here's the British take on the trip:

Probably not since the days of the Pharaohs or the more ludicrous Roman Emperors has a head of state travelled in such pomp and expensive grandeur as the President of the United States of America....

As to the cost of all this, the White House will not reveal details – which has allowed Mr Obama’s political foes to bandy about sums including a widely-quoted $200million (£123million) a day. Whatever the figure, it makes the costs associated with the Royal Train and the late Royal Yacht Britannia seem like small change.


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1326962/Obamas-India-visit-security-erect-bomb-proof-tunnel-Gandhi-museum.html#ixzz14Wpgj4B8


http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1326962/Obamas-India-visit-security-erect-bomb-proof-tunnel-Gandhi-museum.html

Not only is the Daily Mail treating the $200 million as legitimate and a fair approximation, it also repeats multiple falsehoods, such as the entire Taj Mahal Palace and the 34 ships which have already been discredited as absurd.  Plus it attacks Obama for travelling on....Air Force One.  Really?  

Maybe if you find a German right-winged/tabloid rag ALSO repeating the same lies, that will make the lies true?

BTW, is anyone else as entertained as me by the fact that Shivas proudly claims as his trumping fact the nonexistence of any facts?

[Gary Daughters]

Shivas, here's how it works.  Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity look for and find any flimsly pretext to attack any democrat who happens to be in the White House.  That the current one is black only makes it that much more fun.  

I was wondering how long it would take to make a simple P&L question of fact into a racist conspiracy...

Nice  try.

[Dan King]

Shivas writes:
I actually think for myself.  I repeat nobody's talking points, and am beholden to noone.

Sounds like a tweet from Ms. Bachmann.

The truth is that I haven't watched Fox since Monday (before this came up) so to call me a Fox parrot re: this question is assinine!  But what else is new...?

That's what is amazing about Fox. You don't even have to watch their channel to get their talking points. Others in the media and blogosphere just waits for silliness from Fox and then repeat it.  

Because all I'm doing is asking what this fricking trip is going to cost and why the White House won't give an answer to a simple question...

I believe they did answer the question. You don't seem to like the answer, but they did answer.

I have one fact on my side (the fact that the White House won't say what this trip is gonna cost), but that's all I need to win this debate - given that you have NONE.

They didn't answer it the way you want it answered, but they did answer. I don't know if the WH typically answer these questions or not. If I were investigating this story, that is some of the context I would want to know. But investigating isn't part of the new journalism, so we are left with the WH response in a vacuum.

I have no reason to believe this trip is out of the ordinary. Do you?

Cheers,
Dan King

I have found out that there ain't no surer way to find out whether you like people or hate them than to travel with them.  
 --Mark Twain

[RJ_Daley]

David, David, David... I'l stand exactly on every word I said in my last.  You are practicing nothing more than rt wing agitation.  the very fact that you even seem to have Pat Burke confused- that you have started this thread and hung in there for all responses to your questions is only a backhanded tribute to your incessant nattering of these rt wing echo chamber points of faux controversy. You are good at what you do, but not immune from being criticized and called out.  I'm calling you out that your motives are purely political at this point, not GCA related in the least.

Pat B just to be clear, Pat Mucci started this thread about the stated WH proposition to cut mortgage interest deductions over 250K single-500K family on income taxes, and went on to ask the question of whether that would harm membership rolls at many private clubs, due to people having less at that strata of income that they might divert extra tax costs and not pay club dues.  And, if that in turn may effect GCA.  That is at least a reasonably related discussion to the purpose of this discussion group, albeit that many of us might see it as a bit of a trojan horse to get politics into the discussion.  Many knowlegeable and seriously intentioned people weighed in on that matter expressing intelligent views from both sides. 

Shivas on the other hand has taken this discussion far afield, and used it for rt wing agitation over an issue that anyone with a half a brain can understand that Presidential missions of this sort have taken place in every administration in our lifetimes; that support for the Pres in terms of security is paramount, the military is paid salary not overtime, and a pentagon spokesman even had to have a briefing to tell the public what a completely rediculous proposition it was, yet that Shivas has made it a multi day, multi page nattering of sophist argumentation that he is somehow owed a grand accounting..  Dave Schmidt will pollute any discussion on any subject he possibly can to cast aspersions against Obama, or browbeat all comers over rt wing conservacon propaganda.  Golf  Course Archtecture has not entered his mind in days now, as long as he can drag out this soapbox grandstanding of phony indignation that someone dares challenge him on his motives or methods.

[Sean_A]

David, David, David... I'l stand exactly on every word I said in my last.  You are practicing nothing more than rt wing agitation.  the very fact that you even seem to have Pat Burke confused- that you have started this thread and hung in there for all responses to your questions

I haven't received a response on the totalitarian laws passed back in 2009 when the Dems wielded their super majority like a hammer for four months.  I would find it enlightening what Shivas considers totalitarian especially in light of the so called Patriot Acts.

Ciao

[Doug Ralston]

And, incredibly, I did not respond, however his ravings turned. 

Doug

PS: Hiya old friends, long time no see.

[RJ_Daley]

Gents, just because Shivas has taken us around every mulberry bush over every rt wing talking point he can glean out of the past few days news, doesn't necessarily mean he is using GCA.com for a political soapbox and that he doesn't know plenty of GCA topics he can talk about with 'half his brain tied behind his back'.  He may just be lonely and need someone to discourse with, and we are his best opportunity.  Maybe he doesn't know about some of the argumentation political blogs.  So, he has us.  He needs us.  I'm there for you Dave!  I'll be here all night! 

Sure Dave, you are righteously indignant.  But hell, aren't we all?  How many more pages on this moot court topic of how much the Asia Presidential trip costs?  Do you have another 5-6 pages Dave?  If you run out of gas on this topic, maybe we can pick up on some other revelation tomorrow.  Maybe Obama will announce some phony 10billion dollar agreement to sell US products or that it will stimulate 30,000 jobs.  I'll just bet that is another lie and you will tell us why. Stand by, angry man coming through....

[A.G._Crockett]

I am indeed indignant - and righteously indignant at that.  It's too bad that you can't understand that there are actually people in this country that do not need Rush or Hannity to tell us what's going on or why it's wrong.  We can and have figured it out for ourselves (frankly some of us do a far better job of processing information and reaching logical conclusions than any of these pundits or Washington clowns).

This man is a socialist ideologue, and an economically incompetent one at that.  Not a good set of traits in a President.  From what I've seen so far, there's virtually nothing he couldn't screw up if left to his own devices.  Thank goodness that won't happen now....  

      

Deleted.  Pointless.

[Peter Pallotta]

Over the years, I've asked the few economists I've run into why "economic growth" is so important, i.e. why everyone cheers when we're growing 3%-4% a year, and cries when we're not. And I've asked that question for a very specific reason, i.e. I find it fascinating that it's one of the rare subjects that Republicans and Democrats agree on. They agree that on-going, year after year "economic growth" of at least 3-4 % is vitally important, and that it is a very good thing. (As too do the Liberals and Conservatives and NDP agree in Canada; and the Conservatives and Labour and the Liberal Democrats in the UK.)  Few else seem to find this unanimity of opinion strange and vaguely unsettling, but I do; I find the overwhelmingly strong consensus, this set-in-stone conventional wisdom very strange -- and, truth be told, I'm suspicious of it, as I am of all conventional wisdom. Anyway, not one of those economists ever gave me a satisfactory answer; maybe I was talking to dumb economists, maybe I'm too dumb to understand what they were telling me (and that's not false modesty). But I'm still left with this conclusion (as it applies to this thread): there are a whole bunch of very smart and very well educated posters on this board sure that they are looking deep into the heart of this issue/question, but I have a feeling that none of us is looking nearly deep enough, not nearly deep enough into the underlying structures and assumptions of modern economic life, globally. But then again, I have always been of the view that economics is not a science but an art, and that you couldn't find anything more unlike the "law of gravity" than the "laws of economics".        

[corey miller]

Many knowlegeable and seriously intentioned people weighed in on that matter expressing intelligent views from both sides.


And where were the intelligent views form both sides?  We got a bunch of whining from those that don't belong to clubs guessing how others would or should act even basing views on some increase in caddy fees at Winged Foot golf club.

[corey miller]

Tax revenue as a percentage of GDP has been relatively stable over a very long period of time regardless of what individual marginal tax rates have been?  Might this tell you something? 

I take this to mean that we should have a pro-business, pro-growth economy, what do you think?

[A.G._Crockett]

Over the years, I've asked the few economists I've run into why "economic growth" is so important, i.e. why everyone cheers when we're growing 3%-4% a year, and cries when we're not. And I've asked that question for a very specific reason, i.e. I find it fascinating that it's one of the rare subjects that Republicans and Democrats agree on. They agree that on-going, year after year "economic growth" of at least 3-4 % is vitally important, and that it is a very good thing. (As too do the Liberals and Conservatives and NDP agree in Canada; and the Conservatives and Labour and the Liberal Democrats in the UK.)  Few else seem to find this unanimity of opinion strange and vaguely unsettling, but I do; I find the overwhelmingly strong consensus, this set-in-stone conventional wisdom very strange -- and, truth be told, I'm suspicious of it, as I am of all conventional wisdom. Anyway, not one of those economists ever gave me a satisfactory answer; maybe I was talking to dumb economists, maybe I'm too dumb to understand what they were telling me (and that's not false modesty). But I'm still left with this conclusion (as it applies to this thread): there are a whole bunch of very smart and very well educated posters on this board sure that they are looking deep into the heart of this issue/question, but I have a feeling that none of us is looking nearly deep enough, not nearly deep enough into the underlying structures and assumptions of modern economic life, globally. But then again, I have always been of the view that economics is not a science but an art, and that you couldn't find anything more unlike the "law of gravity" than the "laws of economics".        

Pete,
I'll take a shot.  You are right that the "laws" of economics are not comparable to gravity; weather systems are a better comparison.  There are so many variables and interactions that forecasting is very tough to do in any long term sense.  But there are laws, nonetheless; too large a money supply causes inflation, the inverse relationship of price and quantity demanded, and so on.  It's just that they are not really predictive tools when you are talking about a $13 trillion economy.  Even a device like the Index of Leading Economic Indicators is limited; various indicators point in different directions at a given moment about where the economy is headed.

Economic growth refers to GDP, and somewhere around 3% is the level that mainstream economists think will make either recessions or unanticipated inflation unlikely.  It is related to full employment production levels; if we exceed full employment for a period of time with uncontrolled growth, we simply return in the long run to full employment production at a higher price level.

Conversely, if we don't grow fast enough, there may be insufficient jobs being created, aggregate demand can fall, and a recession can result.  OR recovery from a recession would be slowed by lagging employment.  This is where we are right now, with a projected GDP growth of 2%, which isn't enough to create new jobs quickly enough.  The economy has expanded for something like 9 straight months now, but job creation is happening very, very slowly.

[RSLivingston_III]

Is this still going?!

Ben/Ran please kill it. It flies in the face of everything you where saying you wanted this site to be.

That plus I might not be able to restrain myself much longer and have to jump in.

[JohnV]

This man is a socialist ideologue, and an economically incompetent one at that.  Not a good set of traits in a President.  From what I've seen so far, there's virtually nothing he couldn't screw up if left to his own devices.  Thank goodness that won't happen now.... 

But, more importantly, does he use a cheater line when he putts?   thought I'd take this back to golf

[RJ_Daley]

Shivas, you are spinning so fast and setting up so many strawmen that this is really why I say you are good at what you do.  But, once again, don't expect me for one to roll over.  Example of your spin and strawmen technique... I mentioned Pat Mucci again in the context that he indeed started this thread, and made plausible points related to GCA with his posit about mortgage intrest deducts proposals, and their efffect on membership rolls, etc. etc.   You then spin it to a statement of confrontation and try to coopt his name into your crusade and imply I am picking a fight with Pat.  

And, I don't believe I ever brought up Hanity's name or Rush for that matter.  I said you are acting like Michele Bachmann, who has a POV that she will flog no matter what the question, she will go into a talking points trance (she says her stuff is true because it was reported on FOX and on opinon blogs - which would explain the use of echo chamber characterization).

Do conservacon internet trolls looking to provoke a debate to expound rt wing ideologies only use Fox and their commentators; I don't know.   There are just as many talking point sites and sources on either side.  Actually, I think the best discussions come from people that don't go to the talking points, and offer something based on their actual experience, education, or research, not repeat blather from either side.  I have seen some of that good offer of supporting information here on this discussion when it was still on topic.  But in your case I can only conclude you are flogging an agenda that has nothing to do with GCA, or even the original point of this thread.  Unfortunaately for the other readers now watching a train wreck instead of th original topic of this thread, you are as bull headed as I it would seem and will keep arguing with me until the last dog barks..  So, you keep bringing up strawmen arguements, trying to coopt others  in non sequitur points, and I'll try to hang with you if that is all you want.  

[Pat Burke]

"Pat B just to be clear, Pat Mucci started this thread about the stated WH proposition to cut mortgage interest deductions over 250K single-500K family on income taxes, and went on to ask the question of whether that would harm membership rolls at many private clubs, due to people having less at that strata of income that they might divert extra tax costs and not pay club dues.  And, if that in turn may effect GCA.  That is at least a reasonably related discussion to the purpose of this discussion group, albeit that many of us might see it as a bit of a trojan horse to get politics into the discussion.  Many knowlegeable and seriously intentioned people weighed in on that matter expressing intelligent views from both sides. "

I stand completely corrected.  Jumped in thread that was taken over, but point is pretty much the same, although irrelevant to this thread (sorry).  Just too much of I'm right and you're wrong in this country, no matter where you stand. IMO

[JC Jones]

Is this still going?!

Ben/Ran please kill it. It flies in the face of everything you where saying you wanted this site to be.

That plus I might not be able to restrain myself much longer and have to jump in.

It won't be killed because too many people posting here are apart of the old guard.  See Dick Daley's post above giving them all (himself included) a free pass because they have posted on many architecture matters before (though they have also posted on non-architecture matters because if you use the search function you'll find these types of threads dating back 10 years).

Mucci should just re-title the thread "OT - GCA Political Thread" and we can move on.

[Martin Toal]

Here's the British take on the trip:

Probably not since the days of the Pharaohs or the more ludicrous Roman Emperors has a head of state travelled in such pomp and expensive grandeur as the President of the United States of America....

As to the cost of all this, the White House will not reveal details – which has allowed Mr Obama’s political foes to bandy about sums including a widely-quoted $200million (£123million) a day. Whatever the figure, it makes the costs associated with the Royal Train and the late Royal Yacht Britannia seem like small change.


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1326962/Obamas-India-visit-security-erect-bomb-proof-tunnel-Gandhi-museum.html#ixzz14Wpgj4B8


http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1326962/Obamas-India-visit-security-erect-bomb-proof-tunnel-Gandhi-museum.html

The Daily Wail hates Obama more than Fox News. It is an odious and entirely unreliable publication. Hardly a reflection of what "The British" think.

[Mike Sweeney]

Over the years, I've asked the few economists I've run into why "economic growth" is so important, i.e. why everyone cheers when we're growing 3%-4% a year, and cries when we're not.

But I'm still left with this conclusion (as it applies to this thread): there are a whole bunch of very smart and very well educated posters on this board sure that they are looking deep into the heart of this issue/question, but I have a feeling that none of us is looking nearly deep enough, not nearly deep enough into the underlying structures and assumptions of modern economic life, globally.

Peter,

I can actually tie this one back to golf course architecture. Looking at just America, there are roughly 15,000 golf courses in America. I would guess here at GCA.com we spend 80%+ of our time talking about roughly 500 golf courses. Guess what, that is 3-4 percent. Doak 4's really are not that interesting to talk about after a few post.

Now extend it to the economy and jobs. Social Media/Facebook, Stem Cell Research/Geron, Cancer Immunology, Autism Research, Green Energy (Google is now becoming US Steel )...... None of it gets created, none of it happens without the 3-4% growth to extend and push the envelope of life. These types of "investments" are Las Vegas crap shoots from an investment standpoint and you need a stable and growing economy beneath them to support the risk investment. These technologies also are trans-formative technologies that not only add jobs to the economy but they add to the quality and interest of life.  When you get too much growth, it simply can't be sustained. Bad ideas get through, money is lost ....... when you get too much growth. Life is more interesting, and more sustainable with 3-5% growth.

PS. Most of my work is with the 3-5%, and in the last six months things are going in a better direction. Before that .........

[A.G._Crockett]

I have to ask you, though, Dick:  do you seriously think that every conservative gets their information from Rush, Hannity etc?  That we're all spoonfed all our information by these types of sources? 

Are you SERIOUS with this crap?  Do you think Pat Mucci or me or any of the others on this board don't get our information elsewhere?  Better question:  how could anybody, anywhere have been a conservative before Rush went on the air or before Fox News showed up on cable?  Where would we have gotten all these "right wing talking points" prior to 10 or 15 years ago or whatever it's been since they went on the air?  Do  you think Mucci was some sort of flaming liberal until Rush got on the air and brainwashed him?     
 
Really?  You're serious with this crap?  That the source for all conservative information and beliefs begins and ends with Rush and Fox News?

Comparing the thoughtfulness of your posts to those of other conservatives here (like Pat Mucci) is presumptuous to say the least.  You DO spout talking points from Fox, et al, to a degree well beyond anyone else here, IMO, and when your outrageous charges are refuted with fact, you simply move on to the next outrageous charge.  Reference the term "socialist ideologue" in a prior post.  Read back through the thread; you've done it repeatedly.

You DO point out the exact problem with Fox/Limbaugh/Hannity, though.  Prior to 10 or 15 years ago, there was a thoughtful and constructive tone to conservatism in this country.  With Reagan's conservatism, or even Gingrich's Contract With America, there was at least a positive approach based on a rational philosophy.  Too often that is missing now; the aim seems to be simply to inflame the base at the lowest common denominator, and then obstruct and insult.

You might want to see if you can find David Stockman's book or read a transcript of his interview on 60 Minutes a couple of weeks ago.  He was thoughtful in the 80's, intellectually honest enough to admit that he was wrong, and very clear headed about where we are and where we need to go.  It is refreshing to hear a conservative do that again.  Try it, you might like it.

Now, however, too many conservatives are just like yourself.  There are no solutions or positive programs offered, and you turn a blind eye not only to the achievements of others but to your own inconsistencies. 

[A.G._Crockett]

You DO spout talking points from Fox, et al, to a degree well beyond anyone else here, IMO, and when your outrageous charges are refuted with fact, you simply move on to the next outrageous charge.  Reference the term "socialist ideologue" in a prior post. 

AG, with all due respect, you're all wet.  I knew Obama was a socialist ideologue before Hannity or Rush had ever even heard of him!

Man, you and Dick really need to get your facts straight and stop presuming that every thought that every conservative has ever had comes verbatim directly from that evil, right wing media you guys all love to hate so much....

 

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123751241072091037.html

http://www.csmonitor.com/Business/The-Daily-Reckoning/2010/0429/Ron-Paul-Obama-s-not-Socialist-he-s-Corporatist

So YOU know better than Ron Paul OR Alan Blinder?  Remarkably high opinion of yourself, and a remarkable ignorance of fact and truth.

Shivas, you are so loud that you drown out any possibility of rational discussion.  Ron Paul's take on the difference between socialism and what has happened for the last two years is dead on; your yelling about socialism just obscures the facts and prevents meaningful examination of the facts.  Get over it.

[A.G._Crockett]

You DO spout talking points from Fox, et al, to a degree well beyond anyone else here, IMO, and when your outrageous charges are refuted with fact, you simply move on to the next outrageous charge.  Reference the term "socialist ideologue" in a prior post. 

AG, with all due respect, you're all wet.  I knew Obama was a socialist ideologue before Hannity or Rush had ever even heard of him!

Man, you and Dick really need to get your facts straight and stop presuming that every thought that every conservative has ever had comes verbatim directly from that evil, right wing media you guys all love to hate so much....

 

And by the way, I don't hate Fox or Hannity.  I just recognize them for what they are and are not.  They are entertainment, not journalism.  (I don't listen to Limbaugh; I have to work while he is on the air.)  

I do, however, think that it is sad that so much of the right in this country now takes what they do as a valid source of information and then repeats it mindlessly like you have here, instead of listening to and reading more thoughtful sources from the right side of the political spectrum.  They are out there; you just have to be less lazy in your thinking processes.

[A.G._Crockett]

You DO point out the exact problem with Fox/Limbaugh/Hannity, though.  Prior to 10 or 15 years ago, there was a thoughtful and constructive tone to conservatism in this country.  With Reagan's conservatism, or even Gingrich's Contract With America, there was at least a positive approach based on a rational philosophy.  Too often that is missing now; the aim seems to be simply to inflame the base at the lowest common denominator, and then obstruct and insult.

 

AG:  I have a serious question for you.  In the passage above, is there any particular reason you mentioned only the lack of thoughtful, constructive tone among conservatives?  Any reason you speak only to their lack of a rational philosophy?  Any reason you spoke only to their inflaming the base at the lowest common denominator?  To only their obstruction and insults?

Any reason you happened to forget to mention, for example, the Huffington Post or the Daily Kos or The Nation or, for that matter, Chris Matthews and MSNBC?

Be honest.  I know why....I just wanted to give you the chance to say it for yourself...

Shivas,
I do not consider ANY of the sources that you list above to be valid sources of news or information, or as spokespersons for liberalism.  Each is entertainment, and I give each very little credibility beyond their entertainment function.

And I never said that conservatives AS A GROUP lack thoughtfulness and a rational philosophy.  I said that "too many conservatives are like yourself".  I gave you David Stockman as an example of a thoughtful conservative; I have since given you Ron Paul as another.  You could also read some of Greg Mankiw's stuff if you want a rational conservative viewpoint on economic issues and policy.

As happens so often, you make my point for me.  Instead of refuting or discussing what I said, you point and say, "Oh, yeah? What about the left?"  And then you provide examples of media that I presume you think are EQUALLY offensive to Fox/Hannity/Limbaugh.  Thanks for the help; I agree with you on that score.

[Tags:]

Tags:

[Tags:]

Tags:

Call to undefined function theme_linktree()