In this thread, we talk about the State of the Union Address

[agzg]

Originally Posted by ggforever

I found all the clapping and standing very disruptive. It was not as bad as last year when Nancy Pelosi clapped and stood every time the President took a breath, but I still felt made the speech disjointed.

The President is a wonderful speaker but I felt the speech was lacking.

The standing and clapping was disruptive? Every SOTU from every president always has the standing and clapping. I don't see how it's more disruptive this or last year than it ever has been.

[ThetaDancer]

I wasn't particularly moved by the speech but I did like that the seating was mixed up and that everyone seemed a lot less angry than we've seen in a long time.

Originally Posted by agzg

The standing and clapping was disruptive? Every SOTU from every president always has the standing and clapping. I don't see how it's more disruptive this or last year than it ever has been.

Agreed. I guess I missed the part where it was particularly disruptive.

And ggforever, Pelosi was far from the most disruptive person last year, but that's a different discussion.

[agzg]

Originally Posted by ThetaDancer

I wasn't particularly moved by the speech but I did like that the seating was mixed up and that everyone seemed a lot less angry than we've seen in a long time.



Agreed. I guess I missed the part where it was particularly disruptive.

And ggforever, Pelosi was far from the most disruptive person last year, but that's a different discussion.

Agreed on your first point, although I missed most of the speech so maybe I would have been better moved if I had heard the whole thing.

And wasn't there a guy last year who screamed out "You're a liar!"?

[Ghostwriter]

Blah, blah, blah investments... blah, blah blah competition. ZZZZZZ

His jokes fell flat and made me feel sorry for him. Don't think that was the intent.

Time to forget all that blather and take an ax to the budget. Let's go back to 2001 (last year the budget was in balance or had a surplus) for the budget and then go with a 10% across the board cut in all budget items and programs.

Allow those who wish to opt out of SS to do so and raise the retirement age 3 years for those who wish to remain in the program. Privatize it for those who wish to invest their own funds. Others can remain in the program as is.

[Senusret I]

Originally Posted by agzg

Agreed on your first point, although I missed most of the speech so maybe I would have been better moved if I had heard the whole thing.

And wasn't there a guy last year who screamed out "You're a liar!"?

[agzg]

Originally Posted by Senusret I

Also, OMG, Joe Biden wore the same outfit this year! #fashionfauxpas

[DeltaBetaBaby]

Originally Posted by agzg

Also, OMG, Joe Biden wore the same outfit this year! #fashionfauxpas

HAHAHAHAHAHA, great.

[Drolefille]

Originally Posted by PeppyGPhiB

Because foreign engineers from Russia, Romania, China, India, etc. who come here on worker visas will work for less. $50k is a fortune in Romania, but do you think an American engineer will be happy to make that?

We bring in so many foreign engineers in this country that the kids studying engineering in American universities can't get jobs. So a lot of kids aren't choosing engineering anymore. My husband, who is an aerospace engineer, says he would never advise a college student in the U.S. today to study engineering - our country's companies just don't want to hire American engineers anymore. Proof: it took more than 10 years for my husband to get an engineering job in aerospace, first at a government contractor, but finally at Boeing (after applying for various positions within the company over 14 years). He has engineering degrees from one of the best engineering schools (Michigan), a MBA, post-grad experience from a year study in Russia, and he's one of the smartest people I've ever met...he's seriously a genius. When he finally got to Boeing, he met all the foreign contractors he was competing with for jobs. Not only do they have less education than him, but they have no emotional investment in the company they're working for or the country they're working in. They're all here to make a tidy sum, then go back to their home countries where they can live rich and use the information and experience gained at America's largest exporter against us. It really infuriates him, and me. Same thing happens at all the technology companies.

I don't think you can use an anecdotal experience and call it proof per se. My dad is an engineer turned manager/supervisor who has hiring power and he hires American engineers all the time. My sister's boyfriend is a nuclear engineer and once he started looking for a job (long story) he found one within about a year and he was handicapped by not having completed an internship during school. That's why the plural of anecdote isn't data.

That said, how do you solve the problem then? Either you make yourself more marketable or you work for a different industry or you work for that lower pay. Because if that is what the job skills are actually worth then that is what you're going to get paid, even if you're Engineery McAwesomesauce (which a company won't find out until they hire you, not really.)

We make it really hard to immigrate here, I'm not surprised that people from elsewhere aren't particularly invested in America. Why should they be?

Originally Posted by AGDee

I agree, but I don't think we should have a single payer system either. I think employers should give health insurance vouchers and allow us to shop for our own. This would increase competition among health insurance providers and make us their REAL customers while providing them incentives to keep costs down, because we could switch if we are unhappy. Currently, their customers are the employers. Why should our employer get to choose our insurer? I want options.

While that would give you options it still puts costs on the employer and in fact would increase costs because the only reason you pay as 'little' as you do for employee insurance is because the company has put you into a big pool with all of its employees. A voucher would, in anything resembling the current system, cost much more. Single payer healthcare takes the costs off of employers, spreads them out over the largest possible pool of people and eliminates the profit margin of insurance companies for the operating costs of Medicare (about 4% per the last reports the Dems were using).

Originally Posted by Ghostwriter

Blah, blah, blah investments... blah, blah blah competition. ZZZZZZ

His jokes fell flat and made me feel sorry for him. Don't think that was the intent.

Time to forget all that blather and take an ax to the budget. Let's go back to 2001 (last year the budget was in balance or had a surplus) for the budget and then go with a 10% across the board cut in all budget items and programs.

Allow those who wish to opt out of SS to do so and raise the retirement age 3 years for those who wish to remain in the program. Privatize it for those who wish to invest their own funds. Others can remain in the program as is.

I'm sure Obama feels your pity from here.
That whole 10% across the board thing is silly.

And serious question, someone takes their money out of SS. They invest, they make every reasonable choice, they lose all of their money because the market crashes. Now what? Same question but this time they blew it all on lottery tickets, Now what?

Originally Posted by agzg

Also, did any of you guys see the word cloud that NPR did? Basically, they asked their twitter followers to tweet them one word to describe the speech. Then they did a word cloud. This was the result.


Link.

3 words, but yes I thought that was cool. I've always enjoyed the create-a-word-cloud websites.