I gots none, cool guy in my book of cool people

8/14/2012 7:12:55 PM

8/14/2012 7:14:05 PM

i lol'd

8/14/2012 7:14:35 PM

ROMNEY LET THE DOGS OUT! WOOT WOOT WOOT!

8/14/2012 7:16:20 PM

there is nothing to hate about ronny except the fact that he's too cool for school and everything you like sucks

8/14/2012 8:15:45 PM

I like Ronny. The most entertaining thing about him, though, is his fixation on the break of one's pants.

8/14/2012 8:28:39 PM

I thought of making this thread earlier, but I didn't want Ronny thinking I didn't like him

8/14/2012 8:31:13 PM

you should have, no one cares what you think

8/14/2012 8:34:03 PM

I like Ronny

vinylbandit makes me want to bring back the cargo shorts thread....that was fun

8/14/2012 8:35:05 PM

I think he's a complete shithead.

And I like him for it. Cuz I am a shithead too.

8/14/2012 8:37:00 PM

Quote :

"there is nothing to hate about ronny except the fact that he's too cool for school and everything you like sucks"

Also, he's been known to talk cash shit about women who he considers to be busted, who in actuality, aren't busted at all.... All while having an only moderately attractive girlfriend himself.

[Edited on August 14, 2012 at 9:03 PM. Reason : n]

8/14/2012 8:58:05 PM

Ronny is way too much like Obama. I'd never vote for him.

8/14/2012 9:19:05 PM

Quote :

"cash shit"

8/14/2012 9:23:10 PM

I have been on the fence for a while, but just like 4 years ago, the VP nomination has sealed my voting fate. Paul Ryan is a dangerous, counterproductive, hypocritical ideologue who would be a fucking disaster as a VP.

I supported McCain in 2008 until the moment he announced Sarah "mama bear" Palin as his VP. I had no choice at that point but to vote for Obama. Even the outside possibility of Palin running the country scared the shit out of me, and Ryan is no different.

The Republican party is so far off in the weeds, it's really sad for all conservatives. Why in the world would you nominate a hard-line VP? How is that going to pull in independents and moderates? It's just going to alienate even more undecided voters.


Now, all this bullshit about "he didn't pay taxes, he's rich, he's religious, blah blah blah" is all propaganda back and forth.

Here's a few legitimate reasons why I can't conscionably vote for the Romney/Ryan pair:

1) Both Romney and Ryan are "supply-side" economic policy believers. To the core. They believe that cutting taxes and deregulation of markets will spur growth that offsets the cuts, netting an increase in total tax revenue.

Just one problem. It doesn't work. It has never worked. There's not a shred of evidence that it will ever work. Reagan did this in the 80's with "trickle down" economics, which LITERALLY called "supply-side economics" then too. It failed, horribly.

President Bush did the exact same thing during his tenure, with none other than Paul Ryan being one of the biggest backers of the push (going so far that even the Bush administration had to pull the reigns back on Ryan). Not only did it not work the second time, it resulted in an additional 2 TRILLION in debt AND is arguably one of the contributing factors to the financial market meltdown.

Next up was the 2010 election cycle and the beginning of the "job creator" rhetoric. The notion that the wealthy (over 250k'ers) are the people who create jobs in the US. And the implication that raising or lowering their taxes will directly impact their hiring decisions.
Two problems with this.

First, there's zero evidence that the majority of people who make hiring decisions fall into the top tax bracket (and in fact, if you look at small business stats, it points to most small business owners making far less than 250k a year). The majority of the 1%'ers, including Romney himself, make their money from institutional investments (aka capital gains) which has NO impact on jobs.

Second, the causal implication that raising taxes on this population of people will directly affect their hiring decisions. The problem here is that it's completely made up. Every single study, survey, analysis and even personal interviews people say over and over again that their tax rates has NO effect on their hiring decisions. Market growth affects hiring decisions, personal income taxes do not.


So here we are on generation 5 of "supply-side economics". It's failed every time before, the entire economics community thinks the idea is laughable, and we now have 30 years of evidence to say it doesn't work.

You can look at the marginal income tax rate from the 1920's to today. The top 1% have watched their marginal tax rate decline steadily over the past century, with a marked decline starting in the late 70's through to today. If the "job creator/supply-side/trickle down" theory worked, we should have seen the middle class grow larger, the US tax base grow faster than population and inflation, income per capita increase steadily, social welfare programs growing at population growth rates and open markets growing in a healthy, sustained manner.

Instead we have watched our national debt balloon, the middle class shrink, our social welfare systems ballooning, our tax base shrinking, infrastructure crumbling, and the richest getting a LOT richer while everything else falls down around them.

2) Paul Ryan's budget plan is vaporware and completely laughable. Romney is, as with everything else policywise, unwilling to confirm or deny or do anything concrete.

That really is my biggest gripe with Romney. The entire Republican machine is content to blast Congress and Obama on every single decision made, being critical at absolutely pedantic levels, yet I have not seen ONE concrete policy that Romney has put forth. He continually backpedals, restates, flip-flops and puts his foot in his mouth.

Changing your opinions and views over time is a natural, human thing. But doing so multiple times in one year, on tape, in front of different audiences is just bullshit. His level of pandering, double-speak, and non-committal speaking points just give me a ton of distrust in the guy.

Everyone knows politicians make claims and promises they won't be able to keep. Obama has plenty of those under his belt already. But at least he PUT SOMETHING OUT THERE. Romney is still running not to lose, rather than running to win. I've yet to see how he is going to be fundamentally better in any regard than Obama, because he won't actually commit to anything, it's a "just trust me guys" mentality that I don't believe in.

3) Romney is a foreign policy disaster waiting to happen. A big part of being an effective president is being able to find common ground and, for lack of a better term, "schmooze" foreign dignitaries to further the policies with other countries and regions.

Romney has botched every foreign engagement he's had so far. He pissed off the UK, he pissed off Israel AND Palestine in the same visit. He is a wooden figure, the guy is completely unapproachable in casual conversation, has no idea how to talk to people on THEIR level, and spews shit out of his mouth that just makes you shake your head.

He has the "bull in the china shop" mentality. He see's something wrong or stupid and calls it out, regardless of the context or audience. He's not wrong (for example, the London Olympics planning WAS a disaster) but you don't fucking say that on national television on your FIRST visit to the country. For being a politician and successful businessman, it amazes me how often he puts his foot in his mouth.

That's all fine and good on these candy-cane publicity tours, but what's going to happen when there's serious business to attend to? If he gaffes with North Korea, Syria, China, Russia or Iran, the consequences could be HUGE. Like it or not, Obama is a SHIT TON better speaker than Romney, and that carries real weight in foreign policy.
----------------

I'm not a huge fan of Obama either, but it depresses me how much everyone vilifies him for double-speak political bullshit. Obama is not a socialist, not a communist. The guy is the most centrist democratic President in the last century.

Eaton Bush: You couldn't be more fucking wrong about his defense or foreign policy. We are pulling out of Afghanistan (which we shouldn't be, but that's another issue). We didn't "go into Libya", never landed a single soldier. It was a multi-lateral military effort that cost America little monetarily, no deployments, no loss of US life and toppled a major regime in a matter of months. Because we have stopped the unilateral operational bullshit of the Bush years, we don't HAVE to go in to every warring country and nation build. And that is due to Obama's administration. We won't be landing troops in Syria, Iran or SE Asia with Obama.

We have not "alienated our allies". Israel still loves us, Saudi Arabia does too, we actually have diplomatic relations with Iraq, Libya, Tunisia, Yemen and Turkey for the first time in decades. Now that we're pulling out, Afghanistan is warming back up the US, Egypt fucking loves us (they did before, but now the people and elected government do versus a dictator). Relations with China and even North Korea are better than they have been in a long time.

Guantanamo being open and bigger should be a Republican thumbs up, shouldn't it? Every Republican I know of was fucking irate at the thought of shutting it down. So how is that a bad mark for Obama from a Republican standpoint?

Gov't transparency is a wash. Certain parts have become much more open and shared (petitions, census data, data consolidation, foia process, financial accountability), others have continued to be locked down (TSA and Homeland Security). But again, what Republican hasn't pushed for exactly the same things?

Fuel prices have not skyrocketed. They have remained inline with crude prices, and markedly below the global price of fuel.


In addition, Obama has opened up offshore drilling, coal, reopened nuclear in the US and every other possible energy policy to end our dependence on the global crude price. The guy has done more deregulation and market opening for the oil and coal industry than ANY democratic president, and more than many former Repblican presidents.

There's plenty to be upset with Obama over, and frankly there's quite a lot of upside I see to Romney, but we should all stop following the pandering propaganda machines on both sides and pay attention to the POLICIES, historical facts, real data, and stop trying to polarize these guys.

[Edited on August 14, 2012 at 5:41 PM. Reason : .]

8/14/2012 9:35:55 PM

vbandit for music smugness
ronny for photo smugness
who and to what category rounds out the hipster trifecta?

8/14/2012 10:16:53 PM

I wish i could say EverMagenta on literature and general topics

I'm Krallum and I approved this message.

8/14/2012 10:49:07 PM

I approve of Ronny

8/14/2012 11:04:44 PM

^^^^ too dumb to get it.

8/14/2012 11:31:25 PM

Quote :

"I like Ronny. The most entertaining thing about him, though, is his fixation on the break of one's pants. "

I wouldn't say fixation as much as an appreciation.

8/15/2012 3:33:31 AM

Sure, but it's often the first thing you mention, be it positively or negatively.

Nothing wrong, of course, I just find it amusing.

8/15/2012 3:58:05 AM

I need some pictures taken of me at the pool, where all you would see are my legs and feet and the pool in the background. To get the angle you might need to straddle my face. Hopefully.

8/16/2012 4:46:58 PM

I realize this thread is about reason to hate Ronny....which I am not. Hear me out, maybe I can offer some insight.

I am in outside sales, which is currently salary+commission, but will move into straight commission starting at the beginning of July 2010. I have been in this position since July 2009. I have competition from several direct manufacturing sales reps, large distributors, and local distributors. Here are the advantages and disadvantages of each:

Direct Advantages: Immediate knowledge of new technology, no middle man mark up, one shipping bill (paid by manufacturer or buyer of goods), access to larger range of non-commodity items, control inventory, have access to many distributors that can effectively sell their goods which increases market share, and set prices of commodity they manufacture.

Direct disadvantages: Typically have 1-3 sales reps per region (i.e. southeast, mid-atlantic, northeast, etc.) limiting the number of accounts they can successfully manage/cold-call, lack physical customer service or physical technical service available to or affordable for smaller users or altogether, are sometimes not trustworthy because they will go in behind their distributors that sell their commodity to one account in large quantities (i.e. they missed a big account, and have found out about it through a distributor selling their particular product) which leads to the distributor not selling their product anymore, have too many distributors selling the product ultimately driving the set price down through deviations, possibly rely on distributors to actually sell the product, and competition from other direct sources.

Large distributor advantages: have access to other commodities that go hand in hand with other manufacturers (poor example- grocery stores sell milk as well as cereal), get direct pricing, many locations regionally or nationally easing the shipping burden of buyers with multiple locations, personal service either customer or technical, many sales reps that are able to cover a broader territory, access to multiple manufacturers of the same commodity allowing to keep prices in check, service programs that smaller companies can't offer and direct providers can't match in price or value, and experts of many many commodities as opposed to one or a few.

Large distributor disadvantages: smaller local distributors creating price wars (think Michael Scott Paper Co vs Dunder-Mifflin), direct mfg's going in behind and stealing business, limited access to all of the mfg's (you won't find Harris Teeter name brands in Food Lion and visa versa), can't truly set prices because it's based on both supply and demand, territory management, and tough growth prospects in slower economies (this is true for direct as well really)

Local distributor advantages: Typically a good ol' boy setting where the seller and the buyer know each other for years (this does happen at all levels, but mostly at the local level), local folks are right down the street and can be used in emergencies, if the local guy buys at high enough volumes then there is no shipping charge to the end user, and access to both direct mfg's and large distributors.

Local distributor disadvantages: easily beaten in price, array of commodities, array of technology, lack of trained staff, low cash flow, etc etc etc.

This is what I have noticed in my six months, I am sure there are plenty more that need mentioning. The way I am setting myself apart as a sales person is this: I go after the big accounts right now while I am new. The big accounts, if I land them, will take care of me while I am new and building a customer base. The money made off of those allows me to focus free time on smaller accounts that get me higher margins. I build up big accounts, I would like to have 5-10 of these, then get 20-30 medium accounts. If I lose 1 or 2 big accounts, the 20-30 medium accounts keep me afloat while I go after new big accounts. I don't really waste time on small accounts simply because they basically pay for breakfast or something really small.

I will say this, if you can't get a big account in the first 6-8 months (assuming you have cash flow that you can ride this long) you could be in a world of trouble. If you can get one, it will really make going after the others a lot more enjoyable and less stressful. It's simply just very exhausting wasting any time on anything other than big accounts in the very beginning. You work just as hard on the medium sized accounts and see 1/3 to 1/36 of the money in my situation.

If you have any other questions, you can PM me. I hope this helps in the slightest!

8/16/2012 4:52:30 PM

Yawn... lame ^

8/16/2012 7:28:55 PM