Re: “10 or more people will be killed on US soil during 2010 as the result of a deliberate attack by a party with a political goal, not overtly the act of any state”.
How come “Pakistan” got dropped? A contributing reason for the claim being unlikely was that it was extremely specific.
From the wording, it seemed that the 50% was for any attack, not just one with Pakistan involved. I think I’m on to a pretty good bet even without it. It’s not as unlikely as a US state seceding, but I didn’t want to wait ten years :-)
The US State seceding is something that many of my friends sit around contemplating. We have had speculations about whether it will be a state like Mississippi, or South Carolina (Red), or if it will be a state like California or Oregon (Blue).
The Red States are pretty easy to understand why they might wish to secede from the heathen atheistic socialist nazi USA… But, the motivations for a Blue State are a bit more complex.
For instance, in California, I have noticed a lot of people complaining about how much money this state pays into Social Security, yet only gets back about 10% of that money. If we were able to get back all of it, instead of supporting states like South Carolina or Mississippi, we would be able to go a long way toward solving many of our own social ills. Not to mention that many in CA chafe under having to belong to the same union as states such as those I have mentioned, and thus have issues with being able to even pursue social solutions that might pay off big (Stem Cell research, Legalization & regulation of narcotics, work and skills training for inmates—and socialization skills for the same, infrastructure work to which the USA is slow to commit, and so on).
All of these are also issues that Red States like to brag about being able to focus on if they were to secede. The only problem with most Red States is, just like in the Civil War, they have little to no economy of their own. Texas (Maybe Florida) is really the exception. Also, should a Red State secede, most of the best and brightest would flee the state (Academics usually don’t like working under ideological bonds, for instance).
It will be interesting to see what would happen should a state try to secede. I think it could be the best thing that could happen to our country if things continue to become divisive.
As I understand it, our economy is in such dire straights because most of the money in CA’s taxes leaves the state instead of staying in it.
I could be wrong about that. I am mostly dealing with facts I have obtained from Gov’t web sites, so the data could be skewed.
Your statement only deals with the management and not the fiscal reality of the cash flow in CA. It is true that we have a financial shortfall, but that could be the case with anyone, even if they made billions of dollars a year if all of that money was being taken by another party. No management in the world would be able to help in that situation.
Texas is another big tax donor state, yet they turn budget surpluses mostly. The difference is California doesn’t bother to balance their out of control spending with their revenues.
Texas, though, doesn’t contribute more to the US Budget than they get out, and… I hate to say this… Both GW Bush, and his predecessor in the Governors office did pretty good jobs managing the State.
During the Office of Rick Perry, they had some tremendous problems (I am from Texas, and technically, it is still a state of residence for some of my bills). Texas and California are however, the only two states (NY Possibly an exception, but only barely) that could really stand as an independent country in this day and age (They both did so in the past under very different conditions).
Upon thinking about it a bit. CA does have a more out of control spending problem. I still think that the problem could be remedied by a more equitable share of their Federal Tax money (not just Social Security) being returned to the state. Regardless of whether that happened, fiscal responsibility is needed. It doesn’t do any good to increase an income if the expenses rise disproportionately.
California’s uniquely awful budget crisis is mainly due to the state’s consitutional amendment that requires a supermajority to raise state taxes (and the fact that it’s never in the Republican minority’s political interest to agree to a tax hike), along with the lawmakers’ shortsighted tendency to cut taxes when the economy was in great shape.
I knew that I wasn’t imagining that bit about the Fed Taxing v spending.
I was also aware of the supermajority thing. Although, I wonder exactly how much of a Republican Schwarzenegger really is (I hope I spelled his name right. I can’t be bothered to find out). He has many beliefs about the rule of law and government that I find to be very at odds with the Republicans, and all I can really find that binds them together is his extreme misogynism and love of guns (alright, I could look further and find more, I am sure, but my point is that he is really a populist candidate/politician who just happened to land in the Republican’s back yard).
CA’s budget crises can also be traced to several Texas Energy companies (Does Enron mean anything to anyone) who gouged the state in all kind of manipulative practices during the late 90s/early 00s.
Also, never mind that California is responsible for around 12% − 14% of the USA’s total economy, or that we have a GDP, all on our own of around 2 trillion dollars (the largest in the USA, and I believe that we are right behind England or France in total GDP)… Yeah, never mind all that (to the naysayers of California).
I’m not sure that the acts of a single person with no associations with anyone else are really the sort of thing I had in mind, but it’s too late to refine the bet now, so we’ll see whether people think such a thing counts if we need to.
“10 or more people [...] as the result of a deliberate attack” seems to suggest that 10 assassinations in 2010 would probably not qualify—unless it was proved that they were all linked. My summary of the link is that there have been few terrorist attacks against Americans on American soil recently.
Re: “10 or more people will be killed on US soil during 2010 as the result of a deliberate attack by a party with a political goal, not overtly the act of any state”.
How come “Pakistan” got dropped? A contributing reason for the claim being unlikely was that it was extremely specific.
From the wording, it seemed that the 50% was for any attack, not just one with Pakistan involved. I think I’m on to a pretty good bet even without it. It’s not as unlikely as a US state seceding, but I didn’t want to wait ten years :-)
The US State seceding is something that many of my friends sit around contemplating. We have had speculations about whether it will be a state like Mississippi, or South Carolina (Red), or if it will be a state like California or Oregon (Blue).
The Red States are pretty easy to understand why they might wish to secede from the heathen atheistic socialist nazi USA… But, the motivations for a Blue State are a bit more complex.
For instance, in California, I have noticed a lot of people complaining about how much money this state pays into Social Security, yet only gets back about 10% of that money. If we were able to get back all of it, instead of supporting states like South Carolina or Mississippi, we would be able to go a long way toward solving many of our own social ills. Not to mention that many in CA chafe under having to belong to the same union as states such as those I have mentioned, and thus have issues with being able to even pursue social solutions that might pay off big (Stem Cell research, Legalization & regulation of narcotics, work and skills training for inmates—and socialization skills for the same, infrastructure work to which the USA is slow to commit, and so on).
All of these are also issues that Red States like to brag about being able to focus on if they were to secede. The only problem with most Red States is, just like in the Civil War, they have little to no economy of their own. Texas (Maybe Florida) is really the exception. Also, should a Red State secede, most of the best and brightest would flee the state (Academics usually don’t like working under ideological bonds, for instance).
It will be interesting to see what would happen should a state try to secede. I think it could be the best thing that could happen to our country if things continue to become divisive.
That’s why California’s economy is 20 billion plus in the red. And has been for years. Fine fiscal management.
That’s why your governor has gone begging Washington for a bailout. Off of our backs, not yours.
You folks should secede. You’d save the rest of us from yourselves.
-- Born an bred in California, escaped the insanity as soon as I could.
As I understand it, our economy is in such dire straights because most of the money in CA’s taxes leaves the state instead of staying in it.
I could be wrong about that. I am mostly dealing with facts I have obtained from Gov’t web sites, so the data could be skewed.
Your statement only deals with the management and not the fiscal reality of the cash flow in CA. It is true that we have a financial shortfall, but that could be the case with anyone, even if they made billions of dollars a year if all of that money was being taken by another party. No management in the world would be able to help in that situation.
Texas is another big tax donor state, yet they turn budget surpluses mostly. The difference is California doesn’t bother to balance their out of control spending with their revenues.
Texas, though, doesn’t contribute more to the US Budget than they get out, and… I hate to say this… Both GW Bush, and his predecessor in the Governors office did pretty good jobs managing the State.
During the Office of Rick Perry, they had some tremendous problems (I am from Texas, and technically, it is still a state of residence for some of my bills). Texas and California are however, the only two states (NY Possibly an exception, but only barely) that could really stand as an independent country in this day and age (They both did so in the past under very different conditions).
Upon thinking about it a bit. CA does have a more out of control spending problem. I still think that the problem could be remedied by a more equitable share of their Federal Tax money (not just Social Security) being returned to the state. Regardless of whether that happened, fiscal responsibility is needed. It doesn’t do any good to increase an income if the expenses rise disproportionately.
Actually, Texas does contribute more than they get back. Texas gets 94% of federal tax contributions back. California gets 79% back.
http://www.taxfoundation.org/blog/show/1397.html
Based on that map we can also see that more agriculturally focused states do well from federal tax dollars. I assume this is mostly farm subsidies.
You are correct about federal taxing vs. spending with respect to states.
California’s uniquely awful budget crisis is mainly due to the state’s consitutional amendment that requires a supermajority to raise state taxes (and the fact that it’s never in the Republican minority’s political interest to agree to a tax hike), along with the lawmakers’ shortsighted tendency to cut taxes when the economy was in great shape.
(N.B: it’s spelled “dire straits”.)
I knew that I wasn’t imagining that bit about the Fed Taxing v spending.
I was also aware of the supermajority thing. Although, I wonder exactly how much of a Republican Schwarzenegger really is (I hope I spelled his name right. I can’t be bothered to find out). He has many beliefs about the rule of law and government that I find to be very at odds with the Republicans, and all I can really find that binds them together is his extreme misogynism and love of guns (alright, I could look further and find more, I am sure, but my point is that he is really a populist candidate/politician who just happened to land in the Republican’s back yard).
CA’s budget crises can also be traced to several Texas Energy companies (Does Enron mean anything to anyone) who gouged the state in all kind of manipulative practices during the late 90s/early 00s.
Also, never mind that California is responsible for around 12% − 14% of the USA’s total economy, or that we have a GDP, all on our own of around 2 trillion dollars (the largest in the USA, and I believe that we are right behind England or France in total GDP)… Yeah, never mind all that (to the naysayers of California).
Oh, I see—sorry!
I looked into who was going to win such a bet.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_assassinations_and_acts_of_terrorism_against_Americans
...looks like a reasonable resource on the topic.
I’m not sure that the acts of a single person with no associations with anyone else are really the sort of thing I had in mind, but it’s too late to refine the bet now, so we’ll see whether people think such a thing counts if we need to.
“10 or more people [...] as the result of a deliberate attack” seems to suggest that 10 assassinations in 2010 would probably not qualify—unless it was proved that they were all linked. My summary of the link is that there have been few terrorist attacks against Americans on American soil recently.
Agreed.