Did Cain's 999 Plan actually come from a Sim City videogame?

[Xavier_Onassis]

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.

[Michael Tee]

<<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.

[BT]

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.

[Kramer]

I think he uses one in order to prevent being assassinated.

I doubt NASA would hire you, unless it was to sweep the floor.

[Michael Tee]

<<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?

[Christians4LessGvt]

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

[BT]

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?

[Michael Tee]

<<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?

[Amianthus]

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.

[Michael Tee]

<<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.

[Kramer]

<<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.

[sirs]

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

[Amianthus]

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"?

[Xavier_Onassis]

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"?
=======================================================
This is not true. Many states charge sales tax on food and drugs. Missouri and Virginia do for sure.

999 sucks.

[Michael Tee]

<<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.