DebateGate
General Category => 3DHS => Topic started by: Xavier_Onassis on October 17, 2011, 10:07:29 AM
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It seems likely that Cain asked one of his advise (ftp://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/13/herman-cain-999-sim-city_n_1008952.html)rs for a "bold tax plan", and they simply lifted it from Sim City.
Probably not the best way to run a country, unless we are threatened by cartoon gorillas and in need of rescue by cartoon plumbers.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/13/herman-cain-999-sim-city_n_1008952.html (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/13/herman-cain-999-sim-city_n_1008952.html)
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This is hilarious. At first, I thought, "This is it for Cain," but then maybe not. His followers are so dumb they will probably think the guy is a genius for stealing plans from Sim City and not from Mario Brothers.
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I must omit that Sim City is a better place to steal a tax plan from. I don't think there are taxes in the land of Donkey Kong. There do not seem to be any donkeys, either.
The similarities are too close for there not to be some connection. It seems to me that Cain is simply on some sort of macho ego trip, and is a lot better at speaking than thinking. He is a blowhard, but a lot of people like that. If not for blowhards, Trinity Broadcasting Corp. (The preacher network) would have to close four of five channels at least.
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Isn't it funny how XO insisted that Herman Cain would never get the nomination to now posting attack pieces against him? Oh how the winds change. Look how fast he is backpeddling.
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How is pointing out that this blowhard stole his key plan from a video game backpeddling?
Cain will not get the nomination because he is a fool. This is simply more proof that he is, in fact a fool, a blowhard and a crackpot.
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Isn't it funny how XO insisted that Herman Cain would never get the nomination to now posting attack pieces against him? Oh how the winds change. Look how fast he is backpeddling.
XO is a racist
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Posting false attack pieces against the man is backpeddling and shows that you now take him seriously. Why else would you waste the time to post something against somebody who doesn't have a chance? You have also backpeddled in other threads, that Sirs has humorously pointed out.
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This is not any sort of false. I do not take Cain seriously, but some of you yokels do.
What do you do when Fido poops in the carpet? You rub his nose in it.
Now shut the eff up and wipe off your nose.
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This is not any sort of false.
Prove it.
I highly doubt that Cain is sitting around playing Sim City, like you are.
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Amanda Terkel. Is she related to Studs Terkel.
One would think she would have harder proof that speculation and similarity before going to press with her couched accusation.
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I do not take Cain seriously, but some of you yokels do.
I'm sure plane will love that you are calling him a yokel.
I used to think Cain was a longshot, but I don't anymore. He now leads Obama.
He actually may be our strongest candidate. If he can get 30% of the black vote, Obama cannot win under any scenario.
Passage of his 9 9 9 plan will depend upon if he can get a majority of the vote when he is elected. Then he will have a mandate.
You obviously are taking Cain seriously because that is all you talk about. You are constantly backpeddling. And you posting this attack piece, which is obviously just a coincidence, further demonstrates that.
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<<One would think she would have harder proof that speculation and similarity before going to press with her couched accusation. >>
Gimme a break. The similarity was proof enough.
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I do not take Cain seriously, but some of you yokels do.
I'm sure plane will love that you are calling him a yokel.
I am mostly a Cracker, but there is a bit of Yokel from my mothers side and also a bit of Hic on my Dads.
I am also distantly related to the Rubes.
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I don't play Sim City. I have nothing against playing Sim City.
I am retired, which is what Herman Cain should be. I figure that by this time next year, he will be retired, or perhaps pursuing a second culinary career.
I don't think Cain plays Sim City, either. He is an extrovert, and craves attention from others. He is competitive, and wants to beat others. Videogames like Sim City tend to attract introverts.
I believe that we shall find that he asked his advisers for a "bold plan", and his advisers. not being economists and wishing to look like they were thinking "outside the box", looted this 999 idea from Sim City.
I think that it is interesting news when anyone who seeks to run a country takes an idea for a tax plan from a video game. If a candidate running for president of Albania, Estonia, or Uzbekistan did this, I imagine that it would end up in the news. It is like a man who bites a dog: a topic of interest that will attract readers.
It has nothing to do with what I think of Cain's likelihood of being elected. I imagine that looting a tax proposal from Sim City will not win him widespread acclaim for his profound intelligence, though. I still think that the nomination is Romney's to lose. Huntsman would be a better president, but he seems unlikely to get the nomination.
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The wrong question is being asked.."Did Herman Cain plagerise the Sim city tax plan?" is the wrong question , I don't care if he did but I don't think a total coincidence is unlikly at all. No proof will be thefre either way.
So here is the right question... "In simulation did the 9-9-9 tax program prove workable?"
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So here is the right question... "In simulation did the 9-9-9 tax program prove workable?"
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Being as Sim City is a city and not a country, and many other details are different from this country at this time in the state that it is in, the answer to the question is irrelevant to its possible functionality in real life.
In Sim City, I hear there is some clever cheat to avoid all taxes completely, and that would make this even less relevant a question.
Much of Europe uses a value added tax, which is similar to Cain's sales tax, but there are other taxes that serve to make the playing field much more equal in most countries than in the US. Only Portugal, in all of the EC, is less egalitarian than the US with regard to wealth and incomes.
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It's interesting that you would debate this but you cannot name any Obama accomplishment. That doesn't look good for the chances of your guy being reelected. You can't even think of one accomplishment.
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I can think of many, but I am refuse to debate you twerps. You know nothing and are just stupid lumpenproletarians. I might as well debate my cat.
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And yet you are trying to debate Sim City, a game none of us have heard of. The truth is that you cannot name any accomplishments otherwise you would.
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I can think of many, but I am refuse to debate you twerps. You know nothing and are just stupid lumpenproletarians. I might as well debate my cat.
Here's where you are completely disingenuous Xo. You "claim" you won't provide any response to the serious question posed about listing even 1 Obama accomplishment, because you wrongly believe a response would illicit a bunch of name calling and irrelevant snarking. YET, you relatively respond with precisely that, regardless the thread, when someone dares to disagree with your opinion.
So, you either
- have no response, contrary to your claim of "I can think of many"
or
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hmmmm, can't think of any other, since you're going to respond with insults anyways, why wouldn't you provide even one from your claim of "many". That's a far more substantive debate question, in this a political debate forum, than talking about the pros and cons of playing Sim City. I guess your cat plays Sim City better than you do, apparently
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I gotta say that this thread has taken on the qualities of the surreal where a possible Presidential candidate whose brain-power is probably on the level of the average house-plant has actually lifted his national tax plan from a computer game that simulates an absurdist city (in which alien abductions and similar events are taking place as we speak) and the guy who exposes the fraud is then subjected to a barrage of questions as to how the stolen tax plan is actually working out in the simulated city.
I think Cain and his supporters should simply abandon the real world for cyber-space, move to Sim City and debate the merits of "his" tax plan in real time there, where he'll probably be sued for plagiarism if the zombie invaders haven't already eaten the court by the time Cain and his followers get there.
In the meantime, anyone interested in preserving his sanity should abandon this thread immediately.
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I gotta say that this thread has taken on the qualities of the surreal where a possible Presidential candidate whose brain-power is probably on the level of the average house-plant has actually lifted his national tax plan from a computer game that simulates an absurdist city (in which alien abductions and similar events are taking place as we speak) and the guy who exposes the fraud is then subjected to a barrage of questions as to how the stolen tax plan is actually working out in the simulated city.
I think Cain and his supporters should simply abandon the real world for cyber-space, move to Sim City and debate the merits of "his" tax plan in real time there, where he'll probably be sued for plagiarism if the zombie invaders haven't already eaten the court by the time Cain and his followers get there.
In the meantime, anyone interested in preserving his sanity should abandon this thread immediately.
The surreality is the assumption that a presidential candidate who has a degree in mathematics and a masters in computer science is labeled dumber than a house plant. That has got to be one of the dumbest posts written on this forum.
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Cain is probably smarter than most begonias. Maybe he is as clever as a Venus flytrap. But we are not electing a floral arrangement here. Cain did not dream up this 999 Plan, it was presented to him by some adviser, and he did not bother to cost it out. Now Cain has put his foot in it again, saying that the border fence should be electrified, so that sneaking into the country can be a capital offense. When criticized for this, Cain said he was just "joking" about the electric fence. A day later, he is back to defending the idea.
But we do not need a president who is in the habit of provoking arguments by saying really stupid things and then saying it was all a big joke Note that after Nixon said, "I am not a crook", he accomplished nothing useful for the country. Joking about electrocuting people is not something a president should do.
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No we aren't electing a floral arrangement. But what intrigues me is why is it always the easy way out to just label someone you disagree with as dumb. Cain was a product of the Atlanta School System, a graduate of Morehouse College which at that time was one of the premier black colleges, then he went on to Purdue.
He was given major responsibilities, when he worked for the Department of the Navy, and brought back both Burger King and Godfathers Pizza from the brink. Hardly the resume of a dumbass.
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He rescued the a holding company owning 400 Burger King franchises, not the entire BK operation. If Godfather's Pizza is still in business, I have seen no evidence of this in Miami, where Papa Johns, Dominos, Pizza Hut and Little Caesars have nearly all the chain stores.
Being able to sell pizzas does not qualify a person to run this country. Cain is always sounding off like he got the truth straight from God, like some TBS preacher. He makes stupid statements and then waffles about what he really meant. He often looks like a fool, and that is certainly what this country needs.
Ross Perot was some sort of business genius as well. But he sounded like some dumb hillbilly, he had a voice like a strangled chicken, and he seemed to have a lot of paranoid fantasies about how "They" were about to get him and sabotage his daughter's wedding.
He started out with the media mentioning that he really might have a chance of winning, but by election day, he was down to 19%, because people realized that they really did not want to hear some diminutive twerp from Texarkana spouting conspiracies at them in his angry chicken voice for the next four years.
Cain does not have Ross Perot's money, and it seems likely to me that he will fade sooner than Perot did.
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Being able to sell pizzas does not qualify a person to run this country.
He didn't sell pizza's silly. He managed a corporate division, which alone gives him more executive experience than Obama had when he ran for office.
Every speaker has a cadence. Obama too.
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Every speaker has a cadence. Obama too.
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This is true. But Cain's cadence is that of some Baptist preacher and Obama sounds more like that of a thoughtful professor.
The fact is that Godfather's Pizza had as its goal, the selling of pizzas. Had no pizzas been sold, Cain would have been thrown out of the job of the company would have floundered and failed.
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If I had ever heard Cain discussing mathematics or computer science, I might not have formed the opinion of his intelligence that I did. But I heard him discuss only political and related matters, and on the basis of what I have heard from him so far, I will have to stand by my first assessment.
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The fact is that Godfather's Pizza had as its goal, the selling of pizzas.
No it had as its goal the turning of a profit. If Cain made more money by selling less pizza, perhaps by upscaling the recipe to gourmet boutique flavors, he would have been just as successful.
You problem with preachers cadence has little to do with Cain's intelligence.
Obama seems lost without his teleprompter, does that make him a dumbass?
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If I had ever heard Cain discussing mathematics or computer science, I might not have formed the opinion of his intelligence that I did. But I heard him discuss only political and related matters, and on the basis of what I have heard from him so far, I will have to stand by my first assessment.
I see. Your ignorance of Cain's bio makes him the dumbass. That's pretty dumb.
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I disagree that Obama seems at a loss without a teleprompter. I think he uses one in order to prevent being assassinated. The screen would surely serve to deflect and slow a bullet.
I really doubt that a takeout pizza business is about anything other than selling more pizzas. It is conceivable that on some planet there are gourmet pizza fans who are wiling to pay double for a gourmet pizza, but this seems quite unlikely in the US.
The purpose of running a country, by the way is NOT to make money. It is to provide safety and services for the citizens.
In a pizza business, you need not deal with anyone but customers who are voluntarily buying your product. To run a country, you must serve everyone, even those who do not like you.
I am unimpressed by business people who claim that their experience is so bloody useful.
Businessman presidents include Herbert Hoover, who was very successful as an engineer and a businessman and a failure as president, and Juniorbush, who had an MBA but was rather unsuccessful at everything.
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<<I see. Your ignorance of Cain's bio makes him the dumbass. That's pretty dumb. >>
You don't see much. It wasn't my ignorance of Cain's bio that made him the dumbass, it was everything that I heard come out of his mouth. "Pretty dumb" might be better applied to your ability to read my texts and understand them. They're not all that complex.
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Sure. Calling someone dumb because you disagree with their ideas is well.... dumb.
You know the Russians operate on a flat tax of 10% . What a bunch of dummies.
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I think he uses one in order to prevent being assassinated.
I doubt NASA would hire you, unless it was to sweep the floor.
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<<Sure. Calling someone dumb because you disagree with their ideas is well.... dumb. >>
It sure is. But I didn't call Cain dumb because I disagreed with his ideas, I called him dumb because everything I heard him say was, well . . . dumb. And I called you dumb because you went that extra mile and called me dumb. Which I thought was pretty . . . dumb.
<<You know the Russians operate on a flat tax of 10% . What a bunch of dummies. >>
I don't know enough about their current economy to make any calls at all on them. I don't know for example whether the income tax falls on everyone or whether there's a large class of tax-exempt bottom-dwellers that pays no taxes at all. I don't know if they have a retail sales tax or not. Nor do I particularly want to know. Who the fuck am I to call them dumb for their tax policies?
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I must say I was pleasantly surprised at how well
Herman Cain did on Sunday's Meet The Press.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3032608/vp/44921014#VpFlash (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3032608/vp/44921014#VpFlash)
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But I didn't call Cain dumb because I disagreed with his ideas, I called him dumb because everything I heard him say was, well . . . dumb.
So whose ideas was he expressing when you called him dumb?
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<<So whose ideas was he expressing when you called him dumb?>>
How the hell would I know? His own . . . the authors of Sim City's . . . his dog Fido's . . . Barry Goldwater's . . . ? what am I, his biographer?
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I disagree that Obama seems at a loss without a teleprompter. I think he uses one in order to prevent being assassinated. The screen would surely serve to deflect and slow a bullet.
Perhaps you should have taken some physics classes when you were in school.
I really doubt that a takeout pizza business is about anything other than selling more pizzas. It is conceivable that on some planet there are gourmet pizza fans who are wiling to pay double for a gourmet pizza, but this seems quite unlikely in the US.
You might want to go by one of the four *sit down* Godfather's Pizza's in Miami and check them out. And considering that gourmet pizza is one of the growing sectors of the food business in the US, I'd have to say that just about everything you said in that paragraph is incorrect.
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<<I must say I was pleasantly surprised at how well
Herman Cain did on Sunday's Meet The Press.>>
I was surprised too, at how slick he was. I changed my mind about how smart he is, too. He's a real snake-oil salesman, so he can't be as dumb as I thought he was. A snake-oil salesman's a lot more dangerous than a dumbass. GW Bush was also a snake-oil salesman, but nowhere near as slick as ole Herman here.
I followed the beginning fairly closely. The interviewer was good - - he challenged Cain on his contention that the 9% sales tax would be counteracted in part by the removal of "hidden taxes" a.k.a. "embedded taxes" in the item itself, but Cain weaseled out of a question asking on what basis he could make such a claim.
Then Cain got hit with a claim from conservative critics (through the interviewer) that the national 9% tax combined with state sales taxes could add up to a 17% sales tax, which would be a punch in the head to the poorer taxpayers, which Cain attempted to wriggle out of by pointing out that the national sales tax would only affect the sale of new goods, not used, but again had no studies to indicate how much of the poor's purchases were of new goods and how much old.
It was clear to me that Cain was in trouble with the interviewer, but his demeanour never showed it. He was very slick, talked all the way through like a winner, content be damned.
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<<I must say I was pleasantly surprised at how well
Herman Cain did on Sunday's Meet The Press.>>
I was surprised too, at how slick he was. I changed my mind about how smart he is, too. He's a real snake-oil salesman, so he can't be as dumb as I thought he was. A snake-oil salesman's a lot more dangerous than a dumbass. GW Bush was also a snake-oil salesman, but nowhere near as slick as ole Herman here.
I followed the beginning fairly closely. The interviewer was good - - he challenged Cain on his contention that the 9% sales tax would be counteracted in part by the removal of "hidden taxes" a.k.a. "embedded taxes" in the item itself, but Cain weaseled out of a question asking on what basis he could make such a claim.
Then Cain got hit with a claim from conservative critics (through the interviewer) that the national 9% tax combined with state sales taxes could add up to a 17% sales tax, which would be a punch in the head to the poorer taxpayers, which Cain attempted to wriggle out of by pointing out that the national sales tax would only affect the sale of new goods, not used, but again had no studies to indicate how much of the poor's purchases were of new goods and how much old.
It was clear to me that Cain was in trouble with the interviewer, but his demeanour never showed it. He was very slick, talked all the way through like a winner, content be damned.
what's funny about Obama is his followers are as dumb as him.
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Remember Kramer. Tee's lost his Obama mojo. So technically, he's no longer a believer or follower. Tee's problem is not Obama however, its the Democrats, who pretty much prevented Obama from aquiring his Socialist dream. They were apparently too worried about reelection, and thought they could go Socialist-lite, and still maintain power
They thought wrong
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Then Cain got hit with a claim from conservative critics (through the interviewer) that the national 9% tax combined with state sales taxes could add up to a 17% sales tax, which would be a punch in the head to the poorer taxpayers,
Did the interviewer also point out that in most, if not all, states that food and other necessities are not charged a sales tax, so those poor taxpayers would not be "punch[ed] in the head"?
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Did the interviewer also point out that in most, if not all, states that food and other necessities are not charged a sales tax, so those poor taxpayers would not be "punch[ed] in the head"?
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This is not true. Many states charge sales tax on food and drugs. Missouri and Virginia do for sure.
999 sucks.
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<<what's funny about Obama is his followers are as dumb as him.>>
Well, I admit that he sure had me fooled in the beginning, but even at my most supportive (before the Presidential elections of 2008) at least in a few of my posts, I had stuck in a caveat that he could turn out to be just one more Democratic phony, like Clinton, who would make a sharp right turn after the election. And I sort of had an inkling when he threw Jeremiah Wright under the bus before the election, but I just rationalized it as doing whatever it takes to get in.
I saw a good sound-bite from one of the Occupy! ladies, basically that anyone who votes for the lesser of two evils is still voting for evil.
I wouldn't say those who supported Obama in the beginning were all dumb - - we all had hope, and hope isn't necessarily a bad thing. We really wanted to believe. The ones who still support him aren't dumb either - - XO is one of the smartest guys in this group - - but I don't think they've come around to look at the "lesser of two evils" thing the way the Occupy! lady and I now do. They've still got hope. Chris Hedges, one very, very smart guy, thinks Obama can still be moved to the left (by Occupy!) and keep his base, but I'm kind of old-fashioned and adhere to the "Fool me once . . . " school of philosophy.
I think, ten or twenty years from now, when the first major history of the American Communist Revolution is written, that the Occupy! movement will be seen something like the 1905 Russian Revolution, a failed movement whose historical significance was that it was a warning sign, one that the ruling class ignored at its peril.
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<<I think, ten or twenty years from now, when the first major history of the American Communist Revolution is written, that the Occupy! movement will be seen something like the 1905 Russian Revolution, a failed movement whose historical significance was that it was a warning sign, one that the ruling class ignored at its peril.>>
Sadly over 100 years later Russia is as much a shit-hole now is it was then. I would hope all those people (the ignorant protesters) would somehow be able to compare the last 100 years in the USA to the last 100 years in Russia and clearly see the obvious. But I'm afraid they are way too stupid to see the obvious!
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Russia has developed hydroelectric all over the place. It has three times the resources of the US and less than half the population. It's not Germany, but the average Russian still lives better than most of the people on this planet.
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<<Did the interviewer also point out that in most, if not all, states that food and other necessities are not charged a sales tax, so those poor taxpayers would not be "punch[ed] in the head"?>>
I would have thought that was Cain's job, when the interviewer hit him with the "17%" combined sales tax rate.
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There are many states where food and drugs are taxed. It is not true that these things are exempt in most or all states.
And Tee is correct, Cain has the job of defending his rather unoriginal tax gimmick.
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There are many states where food and drugs are taxed. It is not true that these things are exempt in most or all states.
There are 16 states that tax groceries. Of those 16 states, 8 of them charge a lower sales tax on groceries than other items.
There are 17 states that tax prescriptions. Of those 17 states, 1 of them charges a lower sales tax on prescriptions.
I stand by my statement that "most states do not charge sales tax on groceries" as 16 is significantly less than 50.
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I stand by my statement that "most states do not charge sales tax on groceries" as 16 is significantly less than 50.
ANY QUESTIONS?
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but the average Russian still loves better than most of the people on this planet.
How would you know unless one of your hands is Russian?