Stimulus Details

The Times offers details of the stimulus deal.  I especially like the incentive-free tax cuts, but I know others will have their favorites as well.

[END OF THREAD]

Comments

[Extraneus]

TM, if you're reading, it may be better to use this as the END OF THREAD. Or even better you could add both so they can be compared.

(Just replace .html with /comments/page/99/ in the URL.)

[Pofarmer]

Ya know, every left wing loon in the blogosphere seems to feel vindicated by the election of Obama.

I'm going to have to change my attitude somehow, or it's going to be an unbearably long 4 years.

However, it's rather difficult to sit back and watch your country go to shit. Maybe if I just unplugged the intertubes.........

[Pofarmer]

I kinda feel like putting my McCain Palin sign back up.

[bad]

That article covers very little.

What are the details of the Alternative Minimum Tax change? Is it another temporary fix or a permanent change?

[LH]

Here is my favorite:
Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) asked the Congressional Budget Office to estimate the impact of permanently extending the 20 most popular provisions of the stimulus bill. What did the CBO find? As you can see from the table below, the true 10 year cost of the stimulus bill $2.527 trillion in in spending with another $744 billion cost in debt servicing. Total bill for the Generational Theft Act: $3.27 Trillion.

The Heritage Foundation has all the blood-curdling details.

[Pagar]

Every single Congressperson who voted for this bill should be made to sign it. Not a single one of them know every thing that is in it. It needs to be thrown in their face every single day for the rest of their political life.

[Soylent Red]

The Obamaburg Address

[bad]

D'ya mind, Soylent? It's lunchtime for many and we need to keep up our strength.

[matt]

I am seeing little signs that there is some recovery, completely uninfluenced by the doings in Washington. It's as if I'm a biologist on the Galapagos, it seems, in the face of all the news being reported.

I have a feeling we're being rolled big time.....

[bad]

Rolled and thoroughly screwed, Matt. And yet, I feel totally unsatisfied...

[PaulL]

I skimmed a few paragraphs of the article, fast. I loved how the Times called the size of the porkulus bill "almost trifling."

[Jane]

I'm going to have to change my attitude somehow, or it's going to be an unbearably long 4 years.

Po,

I was really struggling for a while - I knew I should stop watching but my excuse was that I had to prepare for the radio.

Lately my attitude has become more perverse. I just keep muttering "I told you so" under my breath.

I can't exactly say what allowed me to make the change from being on the verge of tears to being on the verge of laughter - nor can I say it's permanent, but it is better.

[kim]

Irrational hysteria, Jane; very comforting at times, just as is denial.
=============================

[narciso]

Maybe detached bemusement is the right attitude, Jane, to see the faces of those
who were duped, who make a fair portion of people I meet in a given day, when reality finally dawns on them will be priceless. As
I pointed out in your comment section, Dick is coming around, and was rather complementary toward Sarah, and if can happen in Massachussetts it can happen anywhere. People are already dissatisfied about Patrick, and he's a smaller scale version of Obama, so dissolutionment will eventually settle in

[Enlightened]

"am seeing little signs that there is some recovery, completely uninfluenced by the doings in Washington. It's as if I'm a biologist on the Galapagos, it seems, in the face of all the news being reported.

I have a feeling we're being rolled big time....."

Ya think? This morning news: foreclosures down 10% in January. Unemployment figures unexpectedly - lower. The reporter stuttered so bad cuz he couldn't get a tingle announcing another all-time low...Retails sales unexpectedly up in January.

And last night my hubby and I are commuting home on I80 in the Berkeley/Albany area - and we see no less than 5 new cars in about a half mile. And here's my racist horns come to the fore - every driver was black. Seriously.

I'm with Po - I need an attitude change. I guess I'll just have to force myself to stop paying my mortgage, stop paying my credit cards, start smoking dope and try and get knocked up with 8 - or even more! - babies.

Bambi has made it clear that personal responsibility is not required, so I'm hitching up my waders and jumping in. Cesspool Diving - It's the New Black!

[bad]

The new black has always been cesspool diving.

[Enlightened]

"The new black has always been cesspool diving."

Yeah but now I'm gonna have to pretend I like it.

[DrJ]

hubby and I are commuting home on I80 in the Berkeley/Albany area...

Another NorCal person! I had no idea.

We really should do a NorCal JOM get-together this summer. Maybe at the Boeger Winery near Placerville. There would be a certain poetic symbolism meeting in the former Hangtown, given all the gallows humor going around.

[sylvia]

I am not a fan of the stimulus bill. I mean it's more crap we don't need to go along with all the strip malls and housing developements we made that don't need. I say, simple, use the tax money to raise the minimum wage by 2 or 3 bucks. That will directly increae the spending power of a large segment of society, resulting in more jobs and more taxes paid. Why is that never considered? Because it's not pork and will not line some official's pocket,

And of course also a judicious investment in our infrastructure since we need that anyway, but nothing too crazy.

[Enlightened]

"Another NorCal person! I had no idea."

And not too far from Placerville - we live in Cordelia! And work in SF - BUT - we have a two seater commute car and get the diamond lane and no bridge tolls! Take that you dipshit libs - GOP'ers doin it right!

[Enlightened]

Insty has a great graphic by Greg Mankiw - deficit/surplus as % of GDP - what a perfect logo for a t-shirt - sadly the majority of the public would not even comprehend what they are looking at.

[DrJ]

Cordelia to SF? Man, that's some commute.

I'm serious about the get-together. BF/Ignatiz is close, matt is in SF (I think), and maybe ccal could be convinced to come up from the Fresno area.

[boris]

could add both so they can be compared.

Over on the boycott thread I posted a link comparison test. ?cid=x consistently outperforms /page/99/ for new comments on the "handle the truth" thread.

[boris]

However ?cid=x has stopped working for multipage threads. New clue, nevermind.

[Thomas Collins]

Has anyone uncovered a site with the text of the conference committee bill or the Statement of the Managers? All I am getting are the prior House and Senate versions.

[Extraneus]

Seems that way to me, too, boris.

What did you think of cathyf's search bot scenario? I'm really not sure how those things work, because these pages probably aren't static. In other words, I don't think TypePad is storing every /comments/page/n/ as an html file on their servers, but instead is pulling the individual comments and creating the page when it's requested, in which case I'm not sure what the bots can actually find except the main justoneminute.typepad.com and then follow all the links on that page. cathyf, if I understand her explanation, thinks this, too, and that since the << and >> links on each page go to urls in the form /comments/page/n/, those are the only ones that get cataloged by the search engines.

They're also the only way you can link to a comment in another thread, although this fact seems elusive to the TypePad programmers. I just don't understand why comments posted from pages with ?cid=x would be less searchable than ones posted from /comments/page/n/ pages, but I really don't get how that all works.

[Extraneus]

?cid=x has stopped working for multipage threads

Is that right? It still works for me on We're Stimulated.

[boris]

Be Darned, started working again! WTF? FOr at lwast 20 min it all the cid=x links on the main page only went to the 1st page of the thread.

[bad]

Thomas Collins, I'm not sure one exists. Pelosi's little helper (no, not Botox, booze or drugs) a congress critter, was on Fox News this morning saying he was looking forward to reading the finalized BILL.

Boy was that reassuring!!

[sylvia]

As an fyi:

http://www.bls.gov/cps/minwage2006.htm

"According to Current Population Survey estimates for 2006, 76.5 million American workers were paid at hourly rates, representing 59.7 percent of all wage and salary workers."

Raise taxes on the rich. Use those tax increases to cut corporate taxes, at the same time mandating a good rise in the minimum wage. Our society has become too top heavy with all the speculation, we need to distribute the wealth downward. A little socialism, but practical, and hey, we elected a socialist, we might as well put his socialism to work.

[Granny]

Keep posting on the possibility of any NorCal get-togethers; might make it myself.

Has anyone beat me to this one-word description of the stimulus: obamination

[DrJ]

Will do, Granny. Where are you?

[bad]

Hi Granny!!

[Pagar]

The reporter stuttered so bad cuz he couldn't get a tingle announcing another all-time low

I'm seeing reports that the Dow was at lows not seen since the 21st of Nov which was supposed to be the low of the bear market.

Michelle Malkin says the Acorn money is still in the stimulus bill and, of course, the money to start killing off the seniors is still there.

For those silly few of you left who DO CARE, I’ve uploaded the just-arrived document.

[narciso]

The point of these future tax rates
increases, and are they coming; you betcha, is not about revenue generation, it's about
seeking revenge, and encouraging class envy and producing social stagnations, specially in the middle of a downturn. Where do most business who are starved for cash, go to get money for a minimum wage increase.

[Ignatz Ratzkywatzky]

Placerville is about 40 minutes from me so that would be a quick trip.

Michelle Malkin says the Acorn money is still in the stimulus bill and, of course, the money to start killing off the seniors is still there.

Did they ever strip out that 'buy American' gimcrackery or are Reid and Pelosi bound and determined to see their names next to Smoot and Hawlys's in future econ textbooks?

[bgates]

Sylvia, employers need to have enough money to pay their least productive people the new, government imposed (and therefore better) wage. The problem is customers don't buy enough. Let's mandate minimum purchasing standards too. Do you buy a gallon of milk a week? Now you have to buy two. Cable tv? Sign up for the premium channels. Super Size it - it's not just tasty, it's the law.

Once we provide businesses with more revenue by forcing customers to buy stuff we don't need, it will be easier to force the businesses to pay employees more.

we need to distribute the wealth downward
And we need to keep it there. Left to their own devices, the poor tend to spend money on mass-produced items, invariably from large corporations, which means their money goes back up the income ladder. The solution, as always, is government force. Shut the poor out of chains and franchises, and make them buy goods produced locally by other poor people. Progressives are off to a pretty good start here, keeping Wal Mart and other companies whose size proves their evil nature out of the poorest communities. Of course, a good, European-style (but I repeat myself) gas tax will also help keep the needy in their place community.

Our society has become too top heavy with all the speculation
Damn straight. Have you seen the price of oil lately?

[matt]

am in Orange County, DrJ, but might be persuaded if that winery is any good. Maybe we can pan for gold up in Coloma. We're going to need it.

The dems are by no means duped by the bill. It is exactly what they wanted. Remember, they have been planning this since Congress went back into session. And the Kabuki posing by Specter, Snowe, and Collins is just a fig leaf for politics as usual in DC. Someone got paid off, and the Republicans can all voice their "freighted opposition' as they all go back to their offices and dinner parties thinking they put another one over on the American people.

There's a quote by Neruda that is germane;

"Latin America is very fond of the word Hope.We like to call it the continent of Hope. Candidates for Deputy, Senator, President call themselves "candidates of hope". This hope is really something like a promise of Heaven, an IOU whose payment is always being put off. It is put off until the next legislative campaign,until next year, until next century". I wonder if Obama read this, or one of his advisors.

[bgates]

I don't think TypePad is storing every /comments/page/n/ as an html file on their servers
I'm not so sure about that. It's usually quicker to serve a static file than to hit the database to collect the comments. That's harder to do with a dynamic page like a blog with a lot of comments, but with pagination, it should be possible to detect when comment page n has started and use that as a signal to make a static page n - 1.

why comments posted from pages with ?cid=x would be less searchable
The problem is cid=x is not static - it points to the last page, whatever that page is. A bot hitting a link to cid=x will associate that link with different content over time, while a link to /comments/page/3 is always to comments/page/3, whether there's 3 or 300 pages of comments total.

[JM Hanes]

Thomas:

I'm not sure where to find the conference version of the bill yet, but Read the Stimulus had this interesting piece of information:

From yesterday's Congressional Record, Page H1096:

Mr. LEWIS of California moves to instruct the managers on the part of the House that they shall not record their approval of the final conference agreement (as such term is used in clause 12(a)(4) of rule XXII of the Rules of the House of Representatives) unless the text of such agreement has been available to the managers in an electronic, searchable, and downloadable form for at least 48 hours prior to the time described in such clause.

This instruction passed unanimously in a recorded vote. So in theory, talk of votes on Thursday or Friday this week are nonsense, unless the House decides to completely ignore this vote. There is some wiggle room to be had as the instructions specify that the text must be available to managers in the House, not the general public, but that still can't be strictly true at least until final bill text is ready.

Someone mentioned that the first few hundred pages were stuck through, but I'm not sure whether that was a joke or if it means that the text is actually in evidence somewhere.

[DrJ]

Matt,

The winery is solid, specializing in reds (Zins and Barberas, but there are many, many others on their list) in the $15 to $25 range. I can probably arrange for use of a separate building -- namely, not their main tasting room -- so that we can find one another and not overwhelm the usual retail crowd.

Coloma is close by, if you are interested in visiting. It is worthwhile.

Seems to me there was someone else in SF.

[bad]

JMH, I just read at Malkin that another, different version of the conference bill is due out shortly.

[MayBee]

Judd Gregg pulls nomination!!!!

[bad]

Does that mean he's gonna vote against the damn BILL?

[MayBee]

He said he doesn't support it, and realizes he doesn't agree with this administration (also the census problem)

[MayBee]

And now Obama is in Peoria.
He has a new accent.

[MayBee]

Obama says Ray LaHood embodies that Midwestern Bipartisanship, possibly to compare him to Judd Gregg's East Coast partisanship.

Holds congressman traveling with him up for ridicule for not supporting his bill.

[Extraneus]

why comments posted from pages with ?cid=x would be less searchable

The problem is cid=x is not static - it points to the last page, whatever that page is. A bot hitting a link to cid=x will associate that link with different content over time, while a link to /comments/page/3 is always to comments/page/3, whether there's 3 or 300 pages of comments total.

I think I understand that. What I don't get is, how does the comment, bot, or anyone know if you posted a comment while sitting in the ?cid=x version of a page? And why would a bot ever hit a link to a ?cid=x page? It's only ever used by us as a hack to get to the last page. How would the bot know about it at all?

Once you post a comment, it must be stored in their database, associated with the original page somehow and using whatever their next-comment-id logic is. Then it's served onto the pages, static or dynamic, from their database, right? What does the comment care how your actual URL looked was when you typed it into the comment box?

[Ignatz Ratzkywatzky]

Once we provide businesses with more revenue by forcing customers to buy stuff we don't need, it will be easier to force the businesses to pay employees more.

Bgates, not sure if you realize precisely how closely you are describing FDR's wage policies from the 30's that contributed so mightily to the >15% unemployment of the entire decade and into the forties.

[Granny]

Sorry, Dr. J & Bad, I had to run out for an appointment, but I am on the central coast.

[bgates]

I didn't get that you were talking about comments made from a ?cid=x link. I agree that should make no difference.

And why would a bot ever hit a link to a ?cid=x page? It's only ever used by us
I don't think that's right. I think the bots can see the ?cid=x links as well as they can see the << and >> links. The comment doesn't care what the url is when the comment is made, but the bot can tell what the url is when it crawls the site.

The thing is, ?cid=x serves inconsistent content (or at least it did - now it seems to be defaulting to the first comment page instead of the last.)

[Pofarmer]

Just had an on air chat with a local radio host. There are two local shows, his 2 hour drive time show and a local 3 hour morning show. The last two days both hosts have been trying to get somebody to call in who supports the stimulus bill, so far, nobody. The guy's name is Gary Nolan. He used to work and lobby in D.C. I made the comment that after listening to the some comments he played by Harry Reid, The Maxine waters clip, and one of the Reps from Mass yesterday, that I was really questioning the IQ of these folks. He said that from his experience he more than agreed.

[Extraneus]

I thought cathyf mentioned that comments posted when page was on the cid=x didn't get stored on Google. I'm not exactly sure I understood, though, so that could be wrong. I just noticed that cid=x didn't work on this thread, which seems like new behavior, but /comments/page/99/ did. At any rate, what I was talking about is what I thought she explained: that the way search bots work is the start from the main page, then follow all the links. Since none of the links could ever go to a cid=x page, there's no reason search bots would know about that trick.

[DrJ]

You have a life other than JOM, Granny? For shame!

More seriously, the get together was a trail balloon. There seems to be interest, so I'll try to do something in the early summer. It might help if you -- you too Ignatz, Enlightend and matt! -- send me an email address to info at sonatabio dot com, so I can reach you directly.

[cathyf]

Extraneus, I don't think that it matters what you have up when you are reading the page. It's the links that are on the page.

Take a simple 2-page thread. First there are 3 links to the first page.

link under Recent Posts list, Recent Comments list, and the link on the top of the post on the main page:
.../stimulus-details.html

link on the main page, under the post where it gives the comment count in parentheses:
.../stimulus-details.html#comments

link on the second page that goes back to the first page (the << link):
.../stimulus-details/comments/page/1/#comments

Ok, then there are the links to the second page, which is the last page, because it's a 2-page thread.

the link that TM put in with the words "[END OF THREAD]":
.../stimulus-details.html?cid=x

link on the first page that goes forward to the second page (the >> link):
.../stimulus-details/comments/page/2/#comments

Various and sundry comments discussing how to get to end of thread, and posting end-of-thread links using the syntax
.../stimulus-details.html?cid=x
or
.../stimulus-details.html?CID=X

What I'm seeing when I search for comments using google is that some of them are showing up as being on a particular page with the /comments/page/2/#comments syntax, while others are showing up with the url having the .html?cid=x or .html?CID=X syntax. And of course the comment in question is sometimes not on the page that the .html?cid=x url takes you to -- which happens when more pages have been added to the thread since the search bot went through, or happens when the sixapart people momentarily change the software so that .html?cid=x goes to the first page. Now the ONLY WAY that any web-crawling search bots are going to see a url of the form .html?cid=x or .html?CID=X is if TM keeps sticking them at the bottom of his posts, and if we commenters keep putting them up as links in our comments.

What I've never seen, though, is a comment attached to a url with the form:
.../stimulus-details/comments/page/10000/#comments

I think this is because when the search bots crawl the site, if they follow the link .../stimulus-details/comments/page/10000/#comments it immediately gets rewritten as .../stimulus-details/comments/page/2/#comments, which is the correct (and permanent) address of the page containing those 100 comments.

[sylvia]

"Left to their own devices, the poor tend to spend money on mass-produced items, invariably from large corporations, which means their money goes back up the income ladder."

Well Bgates that's exactly what we need. We need to get the money flowing again, right now it's all locked up in the real estate capital and the banker/landlord class. And I'm sure we don't have to mandate spending. Give the less wealthy people moeny, and they will be sure to spend it. Yes there will be a little bit of a leap to get corporations to pay more, but the ripple effect has to start somewhere. Once they pay more, people will buy more. That's the stimulus. Instead of spending billions on painting government buildings and such, give it to the people who need it and they will create the jobs. Maybe we could start the increase in wages very gradually and step it, say .25 cents every 6 months for two years to give the economy time to cycle the money.

I'm trying to think of other direct ways for the stimulus. Maybe giving credits to state and community colleges, giving more spending power to families (not private, they are wasting enough money on extras). What I believe though is no more tax decreases. The people that need them hardly pay any income tax now, giving them less won't help.