Martha Coakley-Scott Brown Election (MA)

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Now, now guys ... crucis doesn't post on the boards very much, we can be kind before we eviscerate -- or at least do so gently.

 

Heck, I wish we had one of those, rather than what we have now.

You are right, of course, T2. We should play nice - for now.

 

For the comment:



What it means:







What some may do as a response:

 

Chandos, the only problem with this is that insurance companies have given as much to democratic candidates in recent years as they have to republican ones. Since the Dems seriously started talking about reform, that may have changed, but Big Industry bought out both sides a long time ago.

Don't sell it short, Chandos. We're the world's largest everything!!

 

Absolutely true. As I mentioned above, the consevacrats have been taking a lot of ready cash from the insurance companies. There is a story that the first thing Baucus did on reform was invite all the insurance lobbyists to a big sit-down open meeting in which they started shaping the bill into what it is today. When regular citizens tried to enter the meeting, Baucus had security "escort" them out.

You are absolutely right, NOG, and that is the reason I'm not a Democrat. A "consevacrat" is just a contraction of conservative Democrat.

http://www.opednews.com/articles/Max-Baucus-Should-Not-Be-D-by-Kevin-Zeese-090510-512.html

 

Get a clue.

When any "public option" becomes available, companies that currently provide health insurance will start dumping their company sponsored coverage and leave people to have to go to the "public option". Obummer can say you can keep the insurance you already have, but that only works so long as your company continues providing it. They won't. And when enough companies have stopped providing health insurance, everyone will end up with the only option ... the so-called public option ... aka the government option.

And there's an outright lie. There's no way in HELL that the private sector can "compete" with the government. The GD Government can just set whatever price it wants to set. The private sector has to live in the real world.

It's not de-regulation that caused the meltdown. It was INCOMPETENT GOVERNMENT MEDDLING that caused the meltdown!!!! Forcing banks and mortgage companies to give mortgages to people who simply wouldn't qualify under proper rules, for starters.

The private sector economy doesn't need incompetent morons like Barney Frank telling them what do do. This moron has never EVER worked a day in his life in a real job. He want straight out of college to working for politicians at the state level before becoming an elected pol himself. At least with a guy like Corzine, the Dem who was a Senator and Governor in New Jersey actually worked in the private sector and had a freaking clue about real life. But the Dem party has too many bozos like Frank who have simply never worked an honest day in their lives in the real world.

For your information, some republicans actually did see the meltdown coming and tried to do something about it in Congress, but the DEMS blocked them at every turn because they WANTED a meltdown that they could blame on Bush!!!

 

As much as I hate to question, here are a few.

So UPS is being put down by USPS?

My understanding is that a number of people in formerly redlined areas kept paying back their loans. The foreclosures sure haven't been confined to urban ghettos.

Though here is a odd thought about loan making. Get a system where profit made off of loan repayment is greatest (most rewarding) for the risky to whom the highest rates can be charged. See what happens over time when profits are emphasized.

Also how about the argument point that the deregulated private industry got so complex and secretive with its paperwork that different elements of it had no idea what they were buying and selling? Plus that this makes it even harder to renegotiate current loans as it tangles and lengthens lines of communication.

Letting Business do as Business will didn't work prior to the Great Depression. The system was arguably loosing stability under Coolidge before Hoover was even POTUS.

I believe they did that by denying W immigration reform, but to do so with the US economy just to get him? Especially when many states that were hit lean left? If you can drop it in here I would appreciate seeing the source of this claim.

 

Really? Did you buy a house in 2006? I did. The government never "forced" lending companies to lower their "standards," they barely had any at that point, since the companies you are crying over sold off the loans. That's right: They never kept the loans on their books because they were sold off on Wall Street as bundled investments to investors all over the planet, after being certified as A+++ by underwriters. Show me how the government "rewrote" the lending standards for these mortgage companies and where they were forced to give subprime loans.

Really? Which ones? And what did they try to do to prevent it?

 

I should feel something about this, right?

Oops.


In other news, Scott Brown just whored out his daughters on national TV. Love it.

 

No, they don't. They can completely jack things up with their own incompetence. They only need "morons" like Frank to bail them out with your money once the corporate welfare state, that passes for a "free market," needs more money to gamble away in the investment markets - which go largely unregulated and unpoliced, because corporate America owns guys like Frank.

He must have read Sara's book.

 

I have a clue, thank you very much. Your uncalled for ad hominem aside, it just isn't that simple. Under the (failed) original proposal, companies that chose to do that would have had to then pay into the public option...unless they were a particularly small business (and small businesses almost never provide health insurance, anyway). Unless the public option were cheaper than the the plan they were providing, this would not happen.

Fed/Ex. UPS. Medicare Supplemental insurance (yeah, supplemental insurance doesn't compete directly with the government, but these policies do profit off of a government program, showing the inventiveness of our free market and its ability to evolve). Private schools still thrive despite the existence of public schools. Private colleges still thrive despite the presence of cheaper public universities. On a healthcare related note, Germany offers a public option still has a strong private insurance industry. I could go on, but these examples should be sufficient. Private contractors and mercenaries compete just fine with the US military. The private sector competes with the public sector just fine.

That aside, weren't you saying that we would be better served by the private sector (ie, the free market) than by government-provided healthcare? Since you would have to buy into a public option the same way you buy into private insurance, and since the public option was going to be externally funded and required to negotiate its rates with doctors just like private insurance (and unlike medicare and medicaid), the only way the private sector could "fail to compete" would be for it to be unable or unwilling to provide the same service for the same price. For-profit private insurers already successfully compete with their non-profit counterparts, so why do you think they wouldn't be able to provide the same rates provided by a public program? Put up or shut up. If the free market is truly the better option, it is the free market -- not the public option -- that would win out. Shouldn't we put both options out there and let the market decide?

Chandos addressed this already. The government did not force banks to issue liar loans and then package them as credit default swaps.

So you don't like Barney Frank. Fine. How about you attack his policies on their merits instead of attacking his character?

....and aliens from Roswell killed Kennedy. I think we've all had enough conspiracy theories.

 

That's a good point and I should not have attacked his character either. I will say that it's been really hard to get banking reform and new regulation out of his committee in Congress, for some strange reason.

But a year ago I would never have believed it of Barney.

 

For those who didn't see Brown's acceptance speech, here is what happened. He was obviously very excited and while introducing his two daughters he said that they were both available. Then I believe it was his wife reminded him that one of the daughters had a boyfriend so he recanted and said only one of his daughters was available. He then realized his wife and daughter were going to kill him when he got home. It was pretty amusing.

More analysis about this election will have to wait as I'm on the road today.

 

Hate to burst everyone's bubble here but FedEx and USP do not compete with the USPS. They found a niche the USPS did not provide and capitalized -- the USPS tries to compete with those companies but has a hard time being as efficient.

Private colleges can compete because they often provide things the state colleges cannot (often more personalized instruction -- which is a crock, but they sell it well). Most of the successful private colleges have been around for a very long time and maintain support from alumni (who send their children). In my area Northwestern can charge whatevery they want -- they have a huge support network and are, quite simply, the best academic university in the midwest (even compared to UI and Madison). The other private colleges offer huge scholarships to incoming students and so universities like Bradley are only about $1000 more per year than state schools (they sell themselves on a low student to teacher ratio). People generally chose the religious private universities for personal reasons. So again the private colleges find a niche that is not provided for by public universities.

You already conceded the medicare supplimental insurance -- as you can tell I happen to agree with crucis, the private sector cannot compete with the government ... which is why the government is not allowed to compete with the private sector. Does anyone else remember the IRS having an on line tax program they were not allowed to implement? Millions of dollars were spent developing a tax program which the public could use for free when TaxCut and TurboTax sued and stopped the IRS from competing in the private sector.

 

Local opium delivery? Someone I met in Seattle claimed brown started there by doing those packages.

Public colleges look to alumni too so that isn't unique. Granted private colleges may look for niches but many offer basic degrees that are supposedly similar in qualification to public colleges.

 

That's the problem. It was. By a large margin in most cases. That's probably part of why it failed.

I don't know about the Dems wanting a meltdown, but there actually was a Republican measure put forward to re-regulate which would have stopped this before it happened. It didn't recieve support from either side.

LMAO! Well, at least he held his gaffe until he had won.

 

Oh please pplr ... someone you met in Seattle ... opium delivery? I have a friend who knew a guy whose brother's wife was on call in the hospital (but in the delivery room, so she heard it from the emergency room staff member) where Rod Stewart had four ounces of semen pumped from his stomach. Both claims are ridiculous.

I'm positive more drugs have been sent through the USPS than all the other carriers combined.

Drew, you could have at least credited me with the Roswell conection....

 

The person worked as a local tour guide at the time. Granted the story may still be BS but is interesting enough to entertain. While it wasn't called UPS the parent company of that organization has its roots in Seattle-a fact I didn't know at the time.

I don't expect UPS to be intentionally involved in shipping drugs right now but back then or at least for a time it isn't impossible.

 

Good grief, I just watched John Stewart on Coakley and Brown.

Brown is not impressive but Coakley is impressively stupid. Standing outside, in the cold, speaking with my future constituents? Yuck! Misspelling her state's name? Being a lame duck generally? Massachusetts voters punished her for that. You don't get elected on 'Hey vote for me blue staters, because I'm a Democrat!' That doesn't suffice.

I also think it was a mistake of Obama to campaign for that dolt. Heads should roll in the Democratic party to weed out the incompetent morons who concocted that mess; Massachusetts voters did that only for the commonwealth.

Still, I think it is hyperbole to claim that this special election will have national repercussions. It may, but not necessarily. It is certainly not the turning of the tide, yet. This is local. Coakley lost for being an utter idiot, not because of Massachusetts suddenly having turned into a red state. It is a wake up call for the D's to stop taking things for granted and to get their act together eventually. If they don't they will continue losing elections.

Funny, I didn't mistyped Massachusetts all the time in this thread, but it didn't do harm because I used a spell checker.

 

LOL! I figured this would be a hot topic here and for some reason felt a desire to see what the major players were saying. Nice to know that some things never change. Have to say that as usual the moderates on the board are closest to the mark in my opinion. One thing though, someone commented on the Dems wanting to take over the medical industry and someone else denied that and said that they only want to offer insurance and that has nothing to do with taking over the medical system. Unfortunately this logic is false as the public option will eliminate private insurance, especially if the gov't starts taxing private insurance. At that point the gov't does control the medical system as money is what drives it and if you control the money you control the system.

I have to say I am stunned that a Republican won a senate seat in MA, never thought that could happen in my lifetime. The debate on whether it is a loss to be blamed on Coakely or a referendum is never going to be closed 100%, but a lot can be interpreted by the turn out and votes of independents.

Crucis, we have no history as I gave up the fight you are picking long before you came here, but while I admire your attempts to provide the counterpoint to the very strong opinions of certain members here I do have to caution you. You and Chandos are headed down a road that another member here (Ragusa) and I already traveled. Trust me, if you continue it will not end well for you. I don't know if the debates Ragusa and I had are still on the server, but you might want to do a search on my name and see what you could be in for.

Best wishes to all here (and no Tal, this is not my return to the boards so rest easy ). Had a few minutes of boredom waiting at the dr office and thought of my old friends here. Sorry for typos and such, product of typing this out on the iPhone and probably a bit of the handicap of a public education. Cheers!