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Should've bet it in Vegas... you could make $77 off that $10 if McCain won: http://www.1800-sports.com/presidential-betting-odds.shtml Obama has a 10 point lead in the latest Gallup poll: http://www.gallup.com/poll/111661/Gallup-Daily-Obama-52-McCain-42-Among-Likely-Voters.aspx And 538 now places Obama's odds of winning at 97.2%

I think the figures reflect how much people are willing to pay for change... ...and I'm not just talking about Obama. Look at Ron Paul. He set several fundraising records. The liberals are sick of the neocons and the paleocons are sick of the neocons. And they're willing to put their money where their mouth is. I donated money to Obama, which is notable as it's the first time I've ever donated money to a mainstream presidential candidate (i.e. not 3rd party)

Please reread my post. The point is the system should not be structured with an enormous penalty in place after you hit a particular income ceiling, or people will get stuck there.

Okay, I'm confused, because you started out like this: Yet now you're defending a system which would make it even harder for the lower class to advance? The rich get richer and the poor get... children. Awesome. Shouldn't people who do try to get better jobs because they are smart be able to earn their way out of poverty? So really quick, who do you think pays more for their living accommodations, the guy in the mansion or the guy in the trailer. Do you really think it's "about the same"?

I'm really surprised you all feel that way. Under Bush the Republicans have pursued the imperialistic ideas which are central to neoconservatism. I really see this as being something of a 19th century philosophy... it's manifest destiny to a certain degree, but rather than expanding America, they seek to expand democracy. I don't many people expected to get a neoconservative when they voted for Bush, and I think that's a pretty severe departure from where the party was at beforehand. At least in my own experience, the result of a Presidency and Congress controlled by the Republicans was far worse than I ever expected. I think compared to, say, Europe, the US Republican party comes off as extremely conservative, and the Democrats somewhat moderate. Perhaps some of our resident Europeans can chime in on that.

That'd be true if we actually had a balanced budget. I'd argue that indefinite ceiling for government spending has far more to do with how often we raise the cap on the national debt and very little to do with progressive taxation. Bush has overseen more spending than any other president in history, while at the same time cutting taxes for the rich and super-rich to a large degree.

A flat tax places the majority of the tax burden on the lower and middle classes. Everyone must pay for the necessities of life, like room and board, and for the lower class that eats up a substantially higher percentage of your income than it does the upper classes (who are most likely living a more opulent lifestyle while paying a lower percentage of their income to do so). I've seen flat tax schemes that try to resolve this problem by setting a floor underneath which you would pay no tax. However, I'm highly suspicious of the ability of any such scheme to collect sufficient tax revenue without overtaxing those at the bottom end. Such schemes would also make it difficult for people to move up from underneath the "floor", because as soon as you do you suddenly find yourself being taxed. Having incremental tax brackets helps alleviate that problem, as you aren't hit with going from paying no tax to paying the same amount of tax as the wealthiest people in America. Progressive taxation works off the idea that those who have the means to pay a greater burden of the taxes ought to do so.

The 20th century gave us the realization that misapplications of science could destroy humanity. Nuclear weapons pose an existential risk to the human species, and were conceived as an application of scientific principles. This idea arguably gave birth to postmodernism and the idea that not all progress is progress.

Yeah, I guess I'm not from the Alex Jones school of thought that the Democrats and Republicans are two sides of the same coin, two management teams competing for the CEO job of Slavery, Inc. I voted for Nader in 2000, believing that there was no way Bush could win. Most tests I take say Nader's politics are closest to my own. I now regret that decision, as do many others who voted for Nader in that election.

If you're doing 2D vector graphics then linear algebra and trigonometry should be sufficient

Didn't hear anything about paying 60% of his income in taxes. The comparison of progressive taxation to slavery was what made me think she was a wingnut. That was enough to elicit boos from what was quite likely a pro-McCain crowd.

I see one group being rather vocal on CRA (the Ron Paulites) however FactCheck.org didn't include it on their list of causes leading to the financial crisis. I think such accusations are overblown. Moreover, the CRA was worded so that banks didn't need to take unnecessary risks. It did not encourage risky lending. Fractional reserve banking also leads to the volume of credit needed to drive modern day American society. Imagine if there were a multi-year waiting list before you could take out a loan. Moreover, we have it from the horse's mouth here. If any one single person is responsible for the financial crisis, it's Greenspan, and he now has the opportunity to look in 20/20 hindsight and see what he did wrong. And he blames the assumption that the self-interest of financial institutions was sufficient that they would always act in their shareholders' best interest.

That's the kind of thinking I was hearing in 2000 when people said Gore vs. Bush was like paper vs. plastic

This assumption: ...is the basis of free market economics.

Why would Obama even need to rig the vote? He's way ahead in the polls...

ParanoiA, what do you think about the $5,000 refundable tax credit that McCain wants to give every American?

Okay, it's official, there's no substance to US presidential politics:

The Dow rose 889 points today, the second largest one-day gain since earlier this month when it shot up 906 points. However, this cannot be described as a good month on Wall Street: http://money.cnn.com/2008/10/28/markets/markets_newyork/index.htm What does this bode for our economy? Are we headed for a second Great Depression? Or will we eventually ride this one out like we did the S&L crisis? I opt for the latter, but I think who we choose as President will greatly influence the outcome. We need a President that can reinstill our faith in the economy, get people to start spending again, and get banks to start lending again. Personally I hope Obama gets elected and we see something akin to the Clinton years again... I can only hope.

What's "socialism for the strong"? Communism at least in the colloquial sense can be described as a totalitarian form of socialism. I don't see anyone around here defending communism. However, would you call countries like Sweden and France "fascist"? I'd certainly say America is far more "fascist" than either of them.

And there's equivocation of that to socialism, which isn't any more valid than equivocating socialism to communism, but we have people vicariously equivocating "spreading the wealth" to communism too... What Obama is actually doing is using taxes from the wealthy to help lower taxes for the middle class and poor. How is that socialism?

ParanoiA, can you please point out specifically what you don't like about Obama's plan? Preferably, can you post a link to the relevant section on Obama's web site and quote the relevant text you disagree with? You seem to be arguing about general ideas rather than specifics. This is what I take issue with: The only case I can see in Obama's tax plan where they would receive a refundable tax credit without being able to qualify for welfare is because they have too much income. Those people aren't the dead beats who are mooching off the government. These are people who are working and paying more into the system than they're getting back from it. As far as I can tell, the moochers won't qualify for Obama's tax credit. Tax refunds aren't necessarily a bad thing. If I sign up for withholding and pay more into the system than I'm supposed to, I should get a tax refund back from the government. How is Obama's plan any different from that?

I suppose I should add: I think all state stored by the hippocampus is temporary, and I was under the impression that we've observed the hippocampus replaying its buffered patterns back down the neocortical hierarchy. Jeff Hawkins places the hippocampus at the top of the neocortical hierarchy, where it acts as a buffer for patterns which weren't recognized and handled elsewhere.

Like what? Equivocation with communism, particularly the Russian brand of communism? Which the New Yorker article also mentioned was silly... case in point being someone like George Orwell who liked socialism but hated totalitarianism and wrote Animal Farm as an allegory about the failure of Russian communism and how it lead to totalitarian regime taking over the country which was little better than the Czars. Or did you have something else in mind? With the number of angry McCain supporters I see calling Obama a communist, I can't help but feel this is the main argument. Socialism = communism = USSR/China = evil.

I foresee a series of tubes in his future: