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Panel to examine the threat of sequestration on the space industry

With each passing day, people in both government and industry are becoming increasingly concerned about the prospect of sequestration, the automatic, across-the-board budget cuts that would go into effect at the beginning of calendar year 2013 unless Congress comes up with an alternative deficit reduction strategy (or otherwise overrides those planned cuts.) This has been particular true in the defense industry, where companies have warned of major layoffs should programs be cut by up to 10 percent. Last week, for example, the Aerospace Industries Association (AIA) warned of “widespread” job losses: in excess of two million overall in the US economy.

Less has been said, though, about specific effects of sequestration on the space industry due to cuts in both military and civil programs. While NASA administrator Charles Bolden has said on multiple occasions he wasn’t worried about sequestration, that optimistic attitude is not widely shared. On Thursday afternoon, the Marshall Institute and the Space Enterprise Council are hosting a panel on the impact of sequestration on the space industrial base on Capitol Hill. The event, according to the announcement, “will consider the impact on the space industrial base and the implications for the short- and long-term health of U.S. space programs and priorities.” Given the panel’s members, the focus may be more on military than civil space activities, though.

25 comments to Panel to examine the threat of sequestration on the space industry

  • amightywind

    The battle over sequestration taxes and spending is the civil war of our time – the Makers vs. the Takers. The leftists would use it blackmail conservatives into ruinous tax increases. Obama could have had this battle in 2009 under more favorable economic circumstances. Then the chose to extend the existing rates. The only thing that has changed is that the economy is worse. Conservatives should do nothing. Let the democrat Senate run on the issue. They’ll cave. Sorry NASA and the military have to suffer for our political convulsions, but there is no other way.

  • Robert G. Oler

    Sequestration and the associated expiration of the Bush tax cuts are in the case of the former a bad idea whose time has come and in the case of hte latter a great idea.

    Two things are sucking the life blood out of the American economy. The first is bad spending on technical programs that sap industrial energy and talent…and produce little. Most of this is concentrated in the defense department but NASA has its projects which illustrate this as well…Webb and SLS to name two. Webb at least has a purpose, but SLS is just spending for spending sake…along with the tens of billions already spent its another 20-40 billion (along with Orion) to get to anything flyable…and aside from asking why it is taking so much money you have to wonder then “what the heck we do with it” when it cost to much to fly.

    The DOD is loaded with these projects. And sadly sequestration is the answer to them…As soon as the Bush tax cuts expire the GOP will be amenable to tax relief for 99-98 percent of Americans and taxing the upper class which have made out like Bandits in the bush/obama years…

    Why the GOP agreed to sequestration is hard for me to understand…but they bought it and its time to shove it.

    Sequestration wont hurt either NASA or the DOD and it will help America a great deal.

    RGO

  • MrEarl

    Sequestration is just another big can to be kicked down the road like congress always does. At least till a new congress and president are sworn in in January.

    The Bush tax cuts can be solved easily. No tax hikes until unemplyment is below 7%. Takes the employment argument away from the republicans and give the democrats a face saving out to their pledege to raise taxes on the wealthy.

    Next problem please! ;-)

  • Robert G. Oler

    MrEarl wrote @ July 26th, 2012 at 1:13 pm

    The Republic cannot heal the damage done to it during the Bush years if it does not reverse the disastrous tax and spend policies of that administration…

    A free society is in decay when it cannot effectively touch the wealth of the upper class and is stuck relying on the wealth of the middle class and the poor to sustain the policies which keep the upper class rich. Go look in history (Rome for instance) and you see the seeds of the end of power when the people who have profited most from the country cannot be taxed to continue it.

    this is the essence of SLS and Orion which are simple wealth transfers from the middle class (who based on their income carry the largest percentage of the tax load) to corporations which otherwise do nothing to justify their existence.

    Sequestration is the start to the end of this note of irresponsibility and returning some accountability to the political system. If NASA has to chose a 3 biillion or so dollar hole in its budget to fill, whoever advocates doing it at the expense of other programs but saving SLS/Orion will finally have to stand to and be accountable for their decisions.

    We are approaching a pivot point in the history of our country RGO

  • Vladislaw

    Windy belched:

    “The leftists would use it blackmail conservatives into ruinous tax increases. “

    This would be the same level of “ruinious” taxation that was in place under President Clinton when over 20 million jobs were created?

    Time to take you pill Windy … you keep forgetting to take your meds.

  • Robert Oler: Sequestration wont hurt either NASA or the DOD and it will help America a great deal.

    I don’t entirely agree with the first part (do you really think that it’s the SLS that will be what’s cut if NASA’s budget is cut?), but I kinda do agree with the second half. If we want to get the budget under control, all will have to contribute, and that means NASA. If you want to look at the bright side, sequestration is one of the really rare instances in our recent history where we’ve actually made a decision and so far stuck to it. (Forget for a moment that this decision was made as a way to avoid making decisions: I’m looking at the bright side, remember?) While I agree with your implication that the wealth transfers to the rich (and, to be honest, to the non-needy elderly and away from children and our future) are a cancer eating at the U.S. economy, a far more immediate problem is the fact we’d rather squabble over pointless social issues than make decisions that matter. More than anything else, the inability to make hard decisions is what dooms societies, and we are (possibly irretrievably) far down that road.

    — Donald

  • Vladislaw

    “(Forget for a moment that this decision was made as a way to avoid making decisions: I’m looking at the bright side, remember?)”

    That is why the Keynes model has actually never been fully utilized. Politicans only do those parts of the model when the economy is going towards the bottom of the trough, like cutting taxes, that get them elected. You do not get elected by promising to do those other “messy things”, like raise taxes when the economy starts heating up.

    You get elected by promising to cut taxes during the downslide, you do not get elected by promising to return the taxes to a higher rate to pay back the deficits you created during that downturn.

    This is exactly what we are seeing being played out in realtime. A recession is starting when President Bush gets elected. He promises tax cuts which he gets, he also puts a sunset clause in that the taxes will return to their previous rate, the same rate they were under President Clinton when 20 million jobs were created.

    Massive deficits were created by those tax cuts, but you do not get elected by promising to cut budgets and raise taxes to pay back that debt.

    You get elected/reelected by promising to make those tax cuts permnant not by returning them to the previous rate.

  • amightywind

    This would be the same level of “ruinious” taxation that was in place under President Clinton when over 20 million jobs were created?

    Raising taxes on job creators and increasing taxes on capital gains and dividends is economic Jonestown for a country teetering on recession. The GOP won’t drink the Koolaid. The better option to gut the bloated and rapacious public sector. The imbalances of the Clinton era took some years to develop. That’s why the Bush tax rates were implemented in the first place.

    No tax hikes until unemplyment is below 7%.

    A better policy would be to limit taxes to 12% of GDP.

  • DCSCA

    Sequestration is on a par w/’supercommittees’ and national credit down-grades– much ado about nothing when it comes to affecting the day-to-day life of most Americans. Funding for ‘national security’ budget items will get work-arounds, no matter what, as anything columned under the umbrella of ‘national security’ can be rationalized and argued as a Constitutional essential for defending the nation. Everything else, including most of the luxury civil space toys, like multi-billion overbudget space telescopes, multi-billion Martian rovers– even out year financing of the ISS, are up for grabs. All the more reason why the 21st century NASA is long overdue to be streamlined, reorganized and repositioned as a civil department of the DoD– and thereby granted the added protection as an ‘essential’ for ‘national security.’ As a stand-alone civilian agency, it’s a sitting duck. .

    @Robert G. Oler wrote @ July 26th, 2012 at 12:34 pm

    “Most of this is concentrated in the defense department but NASA has its projects which illustrate this as well…Webb and SLS to name two. Webb at least has a purpose, but SLS is just spending for spending sake…”

    =yawn= Except you’re wrong. Of course. And you have it backwards.

    The poorly managed JWST project has no purpose other than as make work for the space science and aerospace commuinty (shades of the ISS) and to burn bucks- 42 cents of every dollar borrowed BTW- and it’s been a classic big science oinker for years. And as recent discoveries continue to show, HST is working just fine, after a messy start, repaired BTW by HSF ops They don’t need a new toy and in austere times, best play with the ones Uncle Sam already have bought on the national credit card for them. JWST is an orbiting ‘supercollider’ – and a massive waste or dwindling resources in the current environment. Terminating it makes for a great sacrificial lamb, along w/government financing/subsidies of NewSpace commerical HSF toys. SLS is HSFs future for BEO ops and a much wiser long term investment than an infrared telescope targeted for positioning a million miles out, unable to be serviced when, as with all machines built by man, it inevitably experiences a breakdown and needs maintenence or repair.

  • Heinrich Monroe

    And as recent discoveries continue to show, HST is working just fine

    There are many reasons one could be critical of JWST, but this is a flabbersghastingly dumb statement. Yes, you deserve that word. At least if one wants to be critical of space science, which is your passion evidently, at least try to do it in a halfway credible way.

    JWST is orders of magnitude more sensitive than HST, and will answer questions that HST won’t touch. HST has been a good machine, but the gold nuggets it can pick up are largely long gone, and keeping HST alive is, if anything, more of a make-work project for the science community. Yes, the hugely capable STScI press office works hard to spin it’s “discoveries”, which are frankly getting kind of lame and, in many respects, could have been done by ground based telescopes with adaptive optics. Yeah, it’s working “just fine” which is, I guess, good enough for you. My 1995-vintage PC is working “just fine” too. You want it? Just pay me shipping. I’ll throw in a stack of floppy disks for free. They work “just fine” too. Sheesh.

    As to new toys in austere times, that’s a wonderful description of SLS, which will loft payloads we can’t even hope to afford.

  • Vladislaw

    “Raising taxes on job creators”

    Job creators have had the lower tax rate for over a decade… where are all the jobs? What are they waiting for?

    You can cut the job creator’s tax rate to zero and it won’t matter if their customers buying power has dropped, which it has. The whole decade the job creators got the lower rate consumers have lost ground. If your customers are going broke and can’t buy your product and services, it really doesn’t matter now does it.

    Gosh .. if I was threatened with higher taxes I guess I would start creating jobs then instead of letting trillions sit on the sideline waiting. But I guess just letting it sit in offshore accounts is better for the economy.

    When President Reagan wanted capital gains taxed at the regular income rate, which was a tax increase, did you cry then? When President Nixon had capital gains raised from 25 – 35 percent .. any crocodile tears then?

    How in the world were any jobs created with those ruinous rates?

    But back to the point. As I wrote, if you bothered to read it, when the economy is over heating, you raise the taxes back to the rate they were before they were cut to stimulate the economy during a recession.

    Try and keep up with the arguement.

  • DCSCA

    @Heinrich Monroe wrote @ July 26th, 2012 at 6:39 pm

    “JWST is orders of magnitude more sensitive than HST, , and will answer questions that HST won’t touch.”

    Which means NOTHING when weighed against the astronomical, deficit-driven expense so far and cost overruns of this idiotic project in an era of massive debts, when the United States government has to borrow 42 cents of every dollar it spends. It’s the same myopic, self-serving baloney big science advocates, with vested career interests, spewed defending the ‘supercollider’ fiscal fiasco. And, of course, space science managers fouled up the HST as well an it took specialized and costly HSF ops to salvage it– and it has been serviced and up graded through the end of shuttle. Bottom line- . you’re sloppy project and money managers and, as with all spoiled kids, are whinning for new toys when you have plenty to play with already that, in big science terms when you look at the price tags, aren’t all that old and been ‘upgraded’ quite recently as shuttle ended.

    The space science community is long overdue for the adults in the room to say NO, go play with the toys you have, Uncle Sam can’t afford to buy you new ones right now. For centuries the cry was to have a space telescope above the atmosphere. 20 years ago you got one, and now, a mere two decades lagter, you want another one even w/computer enhanced ground-based telescopes having made marked advances correcting for atmospheric distortions. These gadgets benefit a very select few at the expense of the many, who could care less, but are burdened w/t expense for decades. Ask Musk to finance the JWST.. or Gates… or Zuckerberg… or Exxon, Shell…. or Google and see how your ‘it sees more’ pitch sells with them in a cost/benefit analysis meeting.

    We’re in one of the worst economic depressions in nearly a century and in need of big investments in very down-to-Earth necessities and infrastructure. Your toys are expensive luxuries. And the questions you seek answer to have waited eons for answers– a few decades more won’t matter that much to science… just to the scientists hungry to have others pay for them to play.

    And BTW, comparing your 1995 PC to a muilti-billion dollar cost overrun project is the ultimate exercise in false equivalency– and a strawman. For a few bucks- not billions- you can up grade your ol’PC and keep it running- or buy a new one as the costs of PC have dropped dramatically since 1995, not risen, as with big science projcest you advocate. You remind me of an old colleague who lived in an apartment without furnitire in Beverly Hills, just so she could say she had a 90210 zip code. Slept on a mattress on the floor, but could say she lived in Beverly Hills. =eyeroll= You only reinforce how lame the arguments space scientists can be.and that, my friend, is pretty dumb indeed, especially in the Age of Austerity

  • Heinrich Monroe

    It’s the same myopic, self-serving baloney big science advocates, with vested career interests, spewed defending the ‘supercollider’ fiscal fiasco.

    Nope. It’s the same science community that is trying hard to understand what our universe really is, and exercising the curiosity of a culture. = snort = For goodness sake, if you want to look at fiscal foulups in NASA, you’ve got a lot of nerve pointing at the science community. They’re the ones that go places and do the real exploring. At least since the Apollo era, which is the era you seem to be living in. In fact, a good number of NASA science missions have come in below budget.

    The space science community is long overdue for the adults in the room to say NO, go play with the toys you have, Uncle Sam can’t afford to buy you new ones right now.

    Nope. The human space flight community is more due for those adults in the room. Why? Because we spend ghastly amounts of money on human space flight, and we don’t ever really get anywhere. = chortle = I like the idea of human space flight, but what it’s turned into in the US is nothing to be proud of. It’s turned into a machine whose whole purpose is to pump money into large aerospace corporations and congressional districts.

    We’re in one of the worst economic depressions in nearly a century and in need of big investments in very down-to-Earth necessities and infrastructure. Your toys are expensive luxuries.

    Nope. Get a grip. SLS, Orion and even ISS and Shuttle are “big investments in very down-to-Earth necessities and infrastructure”? I don’t know what you’re smokin’ but it’s pretty strong stuff. = harrumph =

    You remind me of an old colleague who lived in an apartment without furnitire in Beverly Hills, just so she could say she had a 90210 zip code.

    You remind me of what Richard Feynman might have called “cargo cult exploration”, where the historical trappings of space exploration — humungous rockets, big flames, and people in space suits — translate into real exploration. Let’s see, if we have a humongous rocket, a big capsule, and fancy space helmets, we MUST be doing exploration. Oh, but Richard Feynman was a scientist … myopic, self-serving and full of baloney, right? = smirk =

    I don’t think anyone likes projects that go over budget. It’s true that JWST has basically eaten the farm for NASA astrophysics, and that community will be paying dearly for that management mistake for the next few decades. But the idea of big science as a valid form of exploration is right on, and although we’ve gone past the stage where humans are crucial to basic space science, human space flight does have something to add to the enterprise. = cough, cough =

    Nope. It’s a perspective like yours that demonizes scientists and what they do that is spectacularly dumb. This country spends far more on science than it does on human space flight. So at least our leaders have figured out what investment strategy is most defensible. The idea that we’ll rocket ourselves out of the “Age of Austerity” (you like that phrase, don’t you, and I’ve carefully capitalized it just for you!) and that sending people to Mars or back to the Moon will invigorate our entire economy is simply crackers. No, you didn’t say that exactly, but that’s where you’re pointed. Your arguments have low ISP. Lots of words, but not pushing very hard. Take a hike, and take your desperate fear of pioneering science and your eyerolls with you. = aaaachoo! (excuse me) =

  • Robert G. Oler

    amightywind wrote @ July 26th, 2012 at 4:55 pm

    “Raising taxes on job creators and increasing taxes on capital gains and dividends is economic Jonestown for a country teetering on recession.”

    History at some point will categorize all the “goofy” phrases that were created by the folks at the top of the GOP who manipulate low information voters like the right wing…and label them for what they are “propaganda”… “Job creators” will be right at the top.

    Ignoring the reality of the years of the Bush tax cuts being in affect and jobs not being created instead actually disapearing; while at the same time the people who manipulate the right wing actually got better off…the reality is that the US is not a top down economy; it is a bottom up one.

    IE you cannot have jobs unless you have a middle class to create them by its purchasing power. In China we have the “Romney” world…the people who make IPADS and other devices simply cannot afford to own them or if they do do so with massive subsidies (and control) by the state.

    In the US we have (had in most respects) jobs which had enough earning power to actually drive the R&D cycle in various things like “consumer electronics” …..It wasnt the wealth of Willard Mitt Romney that created jobs, he has done little with his wealth but try and make himself more wealthy…it is the wealth of people like Musk trying to create products that the middle class can buy directly or through services.

    If rumors are true and SpaceX now is in negotiations with DirecTV for the launching in a few years of very large comm satellites to service the direct home market…again that product will create wealth based ont he ability of the middle class to spend the 150 or so a month that the service takes.

    Romney is like a lot of the leaders of the GOP, he has gotten wealthy pandering slogans like you mention to people like you, who have no real clue about economics.

    But here is the kicker…the person on unemployment…creates more jobs for the percentage of his spending; then Willard ever did.

    RGO

  • Maybe I’m having one of my rare pessimistic moments, but I’m starting to think sequestration is going to happen. I can’t see any scenario post-election where the Republicans back down from their stance refusing to consider any tax increases on anyone. Time and again, the CBO has said there’s no way to balance the federal budget without tax increaes. But the GOP won’t budge.

    Win or lose in November, Obama knows that he simply has to run the ball into the line and the Bush-era tax cuts expire at year’s end. Problem solved.

    This table shows income tax rates for the lowest and highest brackets going back to 1913. Right now the highest bracket is 35%. During Reagan it was 50%. In the 1970s it was 70%.

    I’m looking forward to the presidential debates this fall, because Obama should bring this up and ask Romney to explain why he stubbornly refuses to insist the richest of the rich should continue to be “rewarded” at a rate historically much lower than what it’s been in the past.

    As for NASA … A few programs will be slowed down or cut, but if this is what it takes to move the nation forward on reducing the deficit then so be it.

  • DCSCA

    @Heinrich Monroe wrote @ July 26th, 2012 at 11:40 pm

    “It’s the same science community that is trying hard to understand what our universe really is…”

    At what cost- who pays for this… not the science community… but the taxpayers… howzabout pitching Shell, Exxon, Apple, Google, Gates or Zuckerberg for finacing your toys, and not a government which has to borrow 42 cents of every dollar it spends. It’s the supercollider redux.

    You crave satisfaction for a curiosity of a very elite ‘culture’ – a select few at the expense of the many who could care less if you see God blink and he blinks back, especially if they’ve been out of work for months or years. The answers you seek to those questions bantered about in the faculty lounge have waited eons for answers- waiting another another decade or three for better economic times won’t affect the science much, just cause consertnation to space science elitists desperate for government funding to finance their careerd as they can’t convince and secure funding in the private sector to buy new toys. Sober up and get witrh it- get witrh the rest of us and make do with what you have for a few years. Cause what you do just ain’t that special to the people you’re asking to foot the bill.

    “We’re in one of the worst economic depressions in nearly a century and in need of big investments in very down-to-Earth necessities and infrastructure. Your toys are expensive luxuries. Nope.”

    Uh yes, out here in the real world, beyond the realm of academia and ivory towered campuses of government financed ressearch grants, yes, it is. In the next few decades the U.S. needs new roads, bridges, electrical grids, etc., not a new space telescope for an elite few to play with, especially when they have one already just 20 years old- that works just fine. . The immediate needs are jobs for people, outting money in their pockets, food, etc. Necessities– not luxuries like a new, expensive space telescope. And whether you like it or not, BEO HSF ops are an iinvestment in the future for a broader base of commercial and government industries– ‘technical life insurance’ for the U.S. as Frank Borman called it. Space telescopes like the JWST, not so much- especially when you have the HST among others to play with already, and vastly improved ground based telesciopes, computer enhanced to null out atmospheric distortion. Savvy space scientists would push for a lunar base if only to establish a telescope and other BEO instrumentation installations on Luna. HSF is the friend of space science, not the enemy.

    But you’ll get no argument over the ISS– it’s a turkey and would have better served anchored to the floor of the Ocean of Storms as an exploitation/exploration hub rather than doing in circles, doomed to a Pacific splash.

    “Oh, but Richard Feynman was a scientist … myopic, self-serving and full of baloney, right? = smirk =” More times than you- or he would have liked to admit, yes, his eccentricities at times were the stuff of Oscar Meyer legend and well documented. And he’s been dead since the tail end of the Reagan administration, over two decades ago, and has no bearing on the political and economic realities of our times.

    “I don’t think anyone likes projects that go over budget. It’s true that JWST has basically eaten the farm for NASA astrophysics…”

    Which reaffirms the sloppy fiscal and project management of the space science community.

    “It’s a perspective like yours that demonizes scientists and what they do that is spectacularly dumb.” No, in fact, they do it to themselves, simply by demostrating lousy bookkeeping so your pitch is decidely arrogant. The costs should be going down, not up. And in the Age of Austerity, denial of that reality by the space science community is pretty dumb indeed.

  • amightywind

    Richard Feynman might have called “cargo cult exploration”, where the historical trappings of space exploration — humungous rockets, big flames, and people in space suits — translate into real exploration.

    I wonder what Dr. Feynman would think about the laughable farce and humongous waste that is the ISS? Surely ISS has all of the trappings of an international laboratory, with out the slightest hope of ever achieving significant results.

    the people who make IPADS and other devices simply cannot afford to own them or if they do do so with massive subsidies (and control) by the state.

    Somebody’s buying them.

    “Apple has previously said China has become the company’s second largest market after the U.S. Reflecting the country’s growing importance…”

    Perhaps it is the Mongolians. Entrepreneurs like Steve Jobs and Mitt Romney are held in high regard in China. Strange that they should run into so much trouble with the socialists here in the States.

    But here is the kicker…the person on unemployment…creates more jobs for the percentage of his spending; then Willard ever did.

    Our resident Reagan Republican is channeling his Nancy Pelosi.

  • Robert G. Oler

    amightywind wrote @ July 27th, 2012 at 8:38 am

    The Chinese government subsidizes the purhcases of certain goods for its people with enormous restrictions. But if you think that the Chinese version of capitalism is a success then I assume you have also decided being red is better then being dead! RGO

  • common sense

    “Entrepreneurs like Steve Jobs and Mitt Romney ”

    Calling Mitt Romney an entrepreneur is a farce on its own merit.

    Associating Romney with Steve Jobs is an insult to all the entrepreneurs of this world and elsewhere. Jobs had more in common with Musk than with Romney.

    You clearly are NOT a capitalist.

  • Robert G. Oler

    Stephen C. Smith wrote @ July 27th, 2012 at 7:06 am

    Maybe I’m having one of my rare pessimistic moments, but I’m starting to think sequestration is going to happen. I can’t see any scenario post-election where the Republicans back down from their stance refusing to consider any tax increases on anyone.>>

    I think sequestration is going to happen for a wide variety of reasons; not the least of which is that I suspect it will be the main issue in the campaign for the last month or so…

    Defense and other contractors (mostly defense) are already mailing to people in the industry “Prepare to get your 60 days notice to be laid off” notes…and the topic will only grow as events move toward election day.

    This coupled with the two segments of the Bush tax cuts (the tax cuts for most Americans and then the ones for the very rich) are going to be the issue in the last month of the campaign…in large measure because the economy is going to continue sinking due to the intrasegence of the two political parties.

    BUT it does matter who is elected in Nov. The bush tax cuts will expire no matter what (unless they are renewed) on Jan 1 but they can be “fixed” in some fashion shortly there after with little or no effect.

    What I foresee happening if Obama is reelected is that the tax cuts will both expire and very quickly the Congress will move to try on the GOP’s part to resurrect the entire package and the Dems will support only doing the middle class version. Where the momentem is in this will be determined by the election.

    Same with how sequestration plays out. If Willard wins they will move quickly to cut domestic programs and shore up defense…Obama would be different. RGO

  • amightywind

    But if you think that the Chinese version of capitalism is a success…

    No, I said they buy iPads, which refutes your ludicrous assertion.

    Associating Romney with Steve Jobs is an insult to all the entrepreneurs of this world and elsewhere

    Both men took substantial risks with their own wealth. Both achieved spectacular success. In that they are similar. The only real difference was that Jobs was less of a man of character than the loyal family man, Romney.

    because Obama should bring this up and ask Romney to explain why he stubbornly refuses to insist the richest of the rich should continue to be “rewarded” at a rate historically much lower than what it’s been in the past.

    Hmm. I’d ask right back why Obama feels so stubbornly entitled to seizing half of a man’s wealth and property for a corrupt and incompetent state. You ought not dwell on the wealth that another man has. You should focus on creating your own. The Lord said, “Thou shall not covet thy neighbor’s goods.” And you leftists are a covetous lot.

  • Robert G. Oler

    amightywind wrote @ July 27th, 2012 at 1:01 pm

    you wrote

    No, I said they buy iPads, which refutes your ludicrous assertion.
    ||

    But the Chinese do not buy IPADS without for the most part the subsidies of the government; which means that my point is correct.

    As for Willad.. what did the Brits call him “Mitt the Twit” RGO

  • Vladislaw

    A mighty misinformed Wind wrote:

    “Both men took substantial risks with their own wealth. Both achieved spectacular success. In that they are similar.”

    Windy it would actually be so refreshing if you kept yourself informed with facts rather than your fantasies.

    Romney’s risk-free deal with Bain

    “Bill Bain’s idea was simple. His firm, Bain & Co., was making lots of money by advising companies in exchange for fees. The fact that it was making money was proof that its staff understood what it took to make struggling companies successful. So why not eliminate the middleman? Rather than advising companies for a fee only to watch the current management reap the big profits, Bain Capital would take over troubled companies, manage them to profitability and reap the rewards itself. And Bill Bain knew exactly who he wanted to run this venture: Mitt Romney.

    And then Romney stunned his boss by saying no.”

    What? Romney told his boss no? Now why would Romney not want to run Bain?

    “As Michael Kranish and Scott Helman, authors of “The Real Romney,” describe it, Romney “explained to Bain that he didn’t want to risk his position, earnings and reputation on an experiment. He found the offer appealing but didn’t want to make the decision in a ‘light or flippant manner.’ So Bain sweetened the pot. He guaranteed that if the experiment failed Romney would get his old job and salary back, plus any raises he would have earned during his absence. Still, Romney worried about the impact on his reputation if he proved unable to do the job. Again the pot was sweetened. Bain promised that, if necessary, he would craft a cover story saying that Romney’s return to Bain & Co. was needed because of his value as a consultant. ‘So,’ Bain explained, ‘there was no professional or financial risk.’ This time Romney said yes.”

    Romney managed, in other words, that most unusual of career transitions: a move entirely without risk. And, as he tells it, he did the same thing when he left Bain Capital.”

    So as the other posters stated. Romney was NOT a risk taker ….. AT ALL.

    Come on windy, get with the program and at least read the news and stay current before you commit yourself to spouting more nonsense.

  • Vladislaw

    Windy wrote:

    “Entrepreneurs like Steve Jobs and Mitt Romney are held in high regard in China.”

    So let me get this straight, China holds, in high regard, potential American Presidents who says things like:

    “Romney has accused Obama of being too soft on the Asian nation, saying he would label China a currency manipulator on his first day in office and defend against the theft of intellectual property and job losses.”
    http://news.yahoo.com/obama-challenges-romney-china-trade-043039778.html

    I can see why.. China loves to be called a criminal who steals and a currency manipulator… I bet the chinese press just eats that up and it makes the headlines in chinese newspapers and the all the chinese stand on street corners applauding statements like that from Romney… because they hold him in such high regard.

  • Coastal Ron

    amightywind wrote @ July 27th, 2012 at 1:01 pm

    The only real difference was that Jobs was less of a man of character than the loyal family man, Romney.

    You mean Jobs was more like Reagan than Romney is?

    I think it’s funny when supposed “conservatives” keep forgetting that their political gods don’t meet today’s conservative standards. Heck, even the Republican standard bearer in the previous Presidential election didn’t meet the “One Wife” standard.

    Get a clue.

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