Kerry voters: A question for you

[peachfuzz]

(I haven't seen this covered, so if this is a dupe, feel free to lock or delete.)

I am wondering, for those who DID vote for Kerry, what would you be saying now if HE had won? Would you be happy that your man is in office and looking forward to the policies and "plans" he would strive for, or would you just be happy that Bush was out?

Thanks,
peachfuzz

 

[PentelPen]

Yes

 

[ainitfunny]

Yes.

 

[Tweakette]

I didn't vote for Kerry but work in an office full of folks who did, so I might be able to answer this.

The apparent sentiment from those who voted for Kerry that I either talked to or overheard was that they held their nose and voted for him. For about 75% of them it was an anti-bush vote, not a pro-kerry vote. For the other 25% it was because they liked the guy.

Tweak

 

[DarkImbolc]

I would still be worried about the USA, though, I would rejoyce that Bush had been removed. As for what to expect from Kerry, I think this phrase summed up and continues to sum up my feelings:

I don't know if the US could survive four years of (s)Kerry.
I know it won't survive another four years of Bush.

The re-(s)election of Bush promises four more years of the same. Now, to see what that means, look at the past four years:

Four strait years of declining wages.
Four years of outsourcing and insourcing
Four years of detriment to our foreign relations
Four years of the divisions in America growing deeper
Four years of enviromental protection legislation roll-backs
The Patriot Act
Two wars
The single, greatest terrorist attack to be perpitrated on American soil


Would Kerry be better? Who knows, though, right now it is a moot quandry. We have Bush, for bad or worse.

Gods help us all.

 

[nanna]

My county is overwhelmingly Republican ... 98% of our elected officials are Republican, for example, and the folks here are basically very conservative.

It shocked us all to see the county voted for Kerry by a large margin.

The level of Federal spending is frightening to say the least ... the budget deficits are putting more and more pressure on state and local governments to raise taxes to offset the cuts resulting from the Federal side. Fortunately our property taxes are *only* going up about 8 percent next year due to some headcount reductions and extraordinarily good fiscal management by our local officials.

I say "only", because in several counties around here, property taxes are going up by 20-35 percent next year.



Say what you will, but Clinton was one of the most -fiscally- conservative Presidents we've had for some time. Bush's economic policies scare the hell out of me, and, it seems, my neighbors, too.



nanna

 

[Green]

Yup.

I voted against Bush.

Big time.

But then again, I live in a "Blue" state where normal thinking is normal.

I truly pity the "Red" state residents. And drive real fast to get through a "Red" state whenever I have to cross through one.

Democrats are the true American Patriots.

The other guys seem content to be good Germans.

 

[F.Drew]

My county is overwhelmingly Republican ... 98% of our elected officials are Republican, for example, and the folks here are basically very conservative.

This was precisely why the country needed Kerry for its overall good. Kerry would have balanced the nation, and at least provided some ultimate representation for the middle of America, the moderates, that would have resulted from compromises reached by a Republican Congress knowing that if they went too far the Democrat president would veto.

The GOP of today is not the GOP of 40 or 60 years ago. It spends too much, and has expanded the gov both physically and invasively (ie loss of rights) more than any other administration.

Maybe we should have two presidents/vps - one for urban areas, one for everywhere else.

 

[Ravekid]

Say what you will, but Clinton was one of the most -fiscally- conservative Presidents we've had for some time. Bush's economic policies scare the hell out of me, and, it seems, my neighbors, too.

Well, Clinton's plan worked. Clinton didn't cut anything. He handed welfare over to the states so the Dems couldn't be blamed (as a whole) that _they_ cut welfare.

Bring a president, Clinton showed the world how it is ok to lie about anything and everything. I honestly believe that by having someone with these values in the White House made the folks at Sun Micro, Enron, Corning, JDS Uniphase, figure that telling lies about income wasn't lying, it was just another method of accounting. The stocks go high, very very very very very high. Millions of folks selling and day trading. Tons of money being made, the government gets it's almost 30% cut of billions of dollars.

The truth comes out, tech companies fall and fall hard. People who purchased stocks high start taking loses (they can only write-off so much though). Idiots who purchased company stock in their 401(k)s find themselves with no retirement nest egg. Tax income falls and falls hard. The tens of thousands, if not millions, of dollars these companies were donating to charity and the like quickly drys up...almost over night. In the end we were left with more folks who needed services and more private agencies who needed funding. All the while, when the tax income was like a fire hose, government hired more cops, more firefighters, more street workers, etc. etc.. Everything got bigger. When the hose shut off, things stayed the same, at least in my neck of the woods. Recently, a city near me finally state that layoffs for cops and firefighters might be coming. San Fran residents voted down two tax measures and the mayor has said he might have to layoff a lot of workers.

Truth be told, under Clinton, the economy grew on a wave of lies. All we need now is a housing bust and this country can get back to normal. If housing prices were to come back down by 20-30%, folks would be able to make it.

 

[nanna]

Of the companies you named, the accounting scandal was at ENRON (and, it is the Bush family, not the Clinton family with those ties, ravekid) ... the others were part of the bubble days, but I don't think you can blame investor greed on anyone but the investors. These companies did not cook the books (aka commit fraud).

I can't begin to tell you how many of my clients told me that "earnings don't matter" and that "what they taught you in your MBA program no longer applies" when I begged them to take profits on their stocks which had gone up beyond belief.

But, I was a single voice in the din of the media promotion of "playing the market".

If investing successfully wasn't hard work, we'd all be rich.



nanna

 

[Ravekid]

Of the companies you named, the accounting scandal was at ENRON (and, it is the Bush family, not the Clinton family with those ties, ravekid) ... the others were part of the bubble days, but I don't think you can blame investor greed on anyone but the investors. These companies did not cook the books (aka commit fraud).

Enron lied. The others kinda lied. Most of the hardware giants sold hardware with yearly service plans. The service stuff usually was paid yearly, as companies that purchased a Sun server wouldn't want to pay service for year #5 because the server _might_ be outdated three years from purchase. These companies took the promise to pay for service and put it down as a lump sum gain for the current year. At that time, the rules were unclear. When the rules were made clear...that is when everything fell apart.

 

[nanna]

Heh, and they were valuing internet companies on "eyeball views" at the time, too.

Made the contract accounting look almost straightforward.

Rule of thumb with reading annual reports: read the footnotes FIRST. And, if you feel compelled to start drawing diagrams to figure out the financial structure, put the report into the round file.






nanna