Osama bin Laden got a 660,000,000% return on his investment. SIX HUNDRED AND SIXTY MILLION PERCENT. He’s dead, but we’ve bankrupted ourselves. He would have died eventually. We didn’t have to bankrupt ourselves. But we did. He won.
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2011/09/08/us/sept-11-reckoning/cost-graphic.html
Stucky said to Smokey, “The small flaw in your logic is that Bin Laden ALREADY bankrupted the Soviet Union. He had a track record. He didn’t need to be a great thinker to estimate that the same would happen with the USA.”
Contrary to that staement and what a couple of other comments have implied, bin Laden was a BIT PLAYER in the resistence to the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. Just another small-change Jihadi wannabe from Saudi Arabia. The heart and soul of the resistence were Afghan citizens, some of whom were Islamic extremists (Taliban) and others who just wanted the Soviets out (Massoud, leader of the Northern Resistence Movement).
And the Soviet Union largely bankrupted itself through unsustainable defense spending and a sclerotic, state-controlled economy. I visited the Soviet Union at the apex of its global power in the summer of 1979, BEFORE it invaded Afghanistan that December. It was a 3rd World shithole.
Stucky discredited again.
Smokey declaring victory
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“….then what the fuck have you been doing on this site for the past two years?”
Bashing curs like you.
Administrator applying his usual beating to Smokey
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Smokey
Are you still cowering in your basement waiting for the terrorist attack you predicted for this weekend?
You’re predictions are on par with RE’s.
Cower you cur.
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Please check my prediction.
I do believe I include tomorrow.
Is it tomorrow yet ?
So you’ll be in the basement until Tuesday?
Smokey declaring victory like his hero
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Here’s the dweeb who put together that worthless New York Times link Admin posted at the beginning of the article. He states (and I’m not kidding you here), “I enjoy sewing.” He ought to start by sewing his fucking mouth shut.
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Neo-Cons – Repeat after me.
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Osama Bin-Laden won an extended stay in a rat hole with undoubtedly stinky, unkept wives.
SSS
Does his usual trashing of the messenger because the facts do not support his storyline. Please address the facts please.
Sound of crickets.
No, no, this only the start of the first move is:
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vs.
worse than my spelling will be:
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OK. Fine. The USSR was already in the shitter pre-Osama. I’ll concede the error of my ways.
It’s time to declare a winner
for I need to go and eat dinner
Ms Freud a wild salmon did bake
I’ll leave Smokey to play with his snake.
.
FIRST PRIZE goes to MUCK
—— “But 9/11 didn’t do shit on its’ own – just hurried it up a bit.”
—— Muck has Wisdom that comes with age.
RUNNER UP IS ADMIN
—— “Guess what? Even if he didn’t think he would bankrupt the US. HE FUCKING DID IT”
—— Jim cuts to the chase with the precision of a laser.
—— Jim gets bonus points for showing pics of Smokey getting kicked in the nuts. Precious!!
.
Smokey looses … for the 854th time.
Jim, I might have declared you the winner but I don’t want to be accused of planting my lips around your cock ever again.
Admin pleads for facts after he said, “The extremely low interest rates created the housing bubble led to the collapse of the worldwide financial system.”
Bullshit. The housing bubble was created by a combination of factors and government policies that started long BEFORE 9/11. As for extremely low interest rates, between September 1992 and September 2009, the range on interest rates for a 30 yr mortgage was between 5.25% (September 2003) and 9.25% (March 1995). It was March 2010 when 30 yr mortgage rates headed south below 5%. The housing bubble burst LONG BEFORE THAT.
Now, Mr. Smarty Pants, fact check THAT!!!!
Administrator,
To say that 9/11 and the reaction to it led to the collapse of the worldwide financial system is an extremely narrow, incomplete view.
It is far more accurate to say that pervasive fraud, from both a borrowers and a lenders standpoint, led to the sub-prime crisis which has adversely affected world markets.
NEWSFLASH—JQ
Interest rates have been in a downtrend for THIRTY YEARS. But, according to you, 9/11 caused the decline over the past ten years and therefore doomed the world.
That is bullshit.
Fuck, you might as well say 9/11 CAUSED all the no doc and liar loans. In fact, why not just say that 9/11 CAUSED the entire goddamn unregulated derivatives market?
Stucky’s @5:21 is absolutely right in the evaluation of who has the most brains on this thread of doom.
I’d give Admin 4th place, not second, but you can never be sure about Jemmeh as he loves to drop in comments just to stir up the shit.
MA
Smokey
Does your ignorance know no bounds?
The Federal Reserve controls short term rates through thr discount rate. Please try to understand the following chart.
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The housing boom, with its no doc loans and derivatives, would have never occurred if Greenspan had not lowered the discount rate to 1% as a response to 9/11.
There are unintended consequences to every action. 9/11 and the reaction to it by politicians and bankers led to unintended consequences that continue to this day. To deny it is just a bad use of your brain power.
Do you people actually believe this country accumulated a $5.8 trillion national debt in 212 years and it is just a coincidence that we’ve added $8.8 trillion since 9/11?
REALLY? COINCIDENCE?
And I’d have to give Smoky 2nd spot… I’ll never lose track of that word again..
MA
Administrator,
I nearly posted the SAME fucking chart.
Look at the thirty year trend. It is DOWN.
It makes my case.
Smokey
I guess you can see what you want to see. The only period that matters is 2001 until 2005. Cause and effect seems to be a very difficult concept for people who don’t want to think.
Lowering rates to 1% and leaving them there for two years after the recession was over created a housing bubble that pushed home prices two standard deviations higher than they should have been. This collapsed as all bubbles do. The resulting actions to this collapse added billions to the national debt. This was a direct result of actions taken by Greenspan in response to 9/11.
Administrator,
You keep digging yourself deeper. You’d be better off to concede that you are woefully over matched today, and find solace in the fact that Phillie’s convicted felon once again carried them to a victory.
Smokey
I understand Peyton really misses being with the guys in the locker room
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Admin
Did you actually read some of the bullshit thrown out in that link you posted to the New York Times article which came out with that preposterous $3.3 trillion figure as a cost of 9/11? Here’s a couple of examples which went into that article’s math.
—-$100 billion in “costs” due to an average 20-minute additional wait time at the airports for airline passengers, calculated at an average salary of $37/hour. This $100 billion figure was just for Oct 2001 through Dec 2004 and concedes that wait times have decreased since then (well, damn, people are still waiting, just not as long, so why not run the figure all the way to the present).
Talk about pulling shit out of your ass, this one takes the cake. How in hell did they come up with an average salary for airline passengers of $37 per hour? That means the average passenger in the 2001-2004 timeframe made nearly $78,000 a year. And what about kids, retirees, and the unemployed who don’t work? Did they get any monetary credit for waiting?
—-$19 billion from deaths of 2,400 people in car accidents in the Oct 2001-Sep 2003 timeframe because people drove more and flew less because of 9/11. How on God’s green earth does ANYONE know that 2,400 people died in car accidents because of 9/11. Did they interview dead people and ask them why they were driving? Did people automatically decide in Oct 2003 that it was now safe to fly, so they gave up driving to their intended destination? Give me a fucking break.
If you want to bite on this absolutely worthless piece of shit analysis, that’s your call. I’ll pass.
SSS
Of course you will pass. It doesn’t support your storyline. Statistics are confusing to people who choose to be confused.
Administrator,
What I am saying is that 9/11 is a convenient scapegoat.
Yes it probably is responsible for moving the time table of our destiny up by 6-10 years. But it did not change our ultimate destiny.
This country has a rendezvous with economic collapse ANYWAY.
The country is still run by corrupt assholes, 9/11 or not. Derivatives would have been developed and abused, 9/11 or not. Social Security, Medicare, none of that shit would have been paid regardless of 9/11.
Spending was going to continue out of control, with or without 9/11. Politicians were going to take bribes, steal and fuck over the country with or without 9/11.
Go through the fucking math, spending was NOT going to be cut.
Look at the recent budget ceiling deal. Are you telling me that those irresponsible thieving deluded assholes would have made the system solvent if it wasn’t for 9/11?
To say “If only it weren’t for 9/11 look where we’d be.” I’ll tell you where we’d be. We’d be fucked up the ass anyway, that’s where.
Wrong again Smokey. Revenues equaled spending in 2000. Those are the facts.
Smokey
Here is a link to the January 2001 CBO 10 year budget projection. It was surpluses for as far as the eye could see. Your storyline is false.
http://www.cbo.gov/doc.cfm?index=2727&type=0&sequence=1
Both economic conditions and policy decisions significantly worsened the debt outlook since 2001, when large surpluses were forecast for the following decade by the CBO. The Pew Center reported in April 2011 the cause of a $12.7 trillion shift in the debt situation, from a 2001 CBO forecast of $2.3 trillion cumulative surplus by 2011 versus the estimated $10.4 trillion public debt in 2011. The major drivers were:
Revenue declines due to two recessions, separate from the Bush tax cuts of 2001 and 2003: 28%
Defense spending increases: 15%
Bush tax cuts of 2001 and 2003: 13%
Increases in net interest: 11%
Other non-defense spending: 10%
Other tax cuts: 8%
Obama Stimulus: 6%
Medicare Part D: 2%
Other reasons: 7%
JIM!!!
Smokey seems to be conceding some points. He’s taking a softer stance. Even being reasonable. Now is the time to motherfuck him!! Pounce on his ass. Kick him in the ballz! Don’t you dare fucking say something nice back. Don’t you concede shit. Fuck him up. Fuck him up bad. Do it Jim.
On the other hand, while eating dinner we were watching one of the many specials they are running today on 9-11 human interest stories. Dammit it’s still hard to watch folks talk about the people they lost without tears welling up. That’s why I’m back downstairs. Jim, fuck him up!!
Jim fucks up Smokey with stats, numbers, and facts!
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Smokey, try looking at your problem a different way.
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Administrator,
Hey, if you want to believe it was surpluses as far as the eye could see, be my guest. That shit would have been revised downward the first recession, and last I checked, recessions roll in every few years.
I will concede that because of NEWT GINGRICH’S republican congress, things had briefly turned up economically. But you conveniently forget, Newt was out of Congress in 2001 and a downward slide was inevitable.
Of course, now that you are getting your ass torched unmercifully in front of one and all, we don’t hear a fucking peep from you about the off the books liabilities that you normally drone on about ad nauseum. You are quiet as a cigar store Indian. A mouse in church. A small town church cemetery on a rainy Sunday afternoon. The sound of crickets.
But if you weren’t on the ropes, you’d be screaming “All this debt! We’ll never pay social security! It’s bankrupt. Medicare can never be paid!”
So instead, since you are cornered, you proudly proclaim “surpluses as far as the eye could see.”
But you forget, you are debating a heavyweight here, not a pussy bantam weight like Stuck, or platoplubius or Welshman or Persnickety.
Trying to learn Smokey and SSS basic economics is like trying to teach a shit eating monkey not to eat their shit. Hopeless.
They will continue to flail about slinging shit in every direction but unable to resist eating it.
The cause and effect gene is clearly missing from their microscopic brains.
They compensate for this missing gene by having an oversized declaration of victory gene which leads to them blurting out declarations of victory while the Administrator kicks them in the balls with facts for the 25th time on this thread.
It has actually been quite a pitiful display by these two old timers. I suggest a nap.
Admin
That 2001 Congressional Budget Office projection begins with, “In the absence of significant legislative changes.”
Yes, 9/11 contributed to wiping out your “surpluses for as far as the eye could see,” but did any of the these “significant legislative changes” also contribute?
—-No Child Left Behind
—-Bush tax cuts
—-Medicare Part D
—-Federal budget increases for EVERY program and department EVERY year
—-TARP
—-$840 billion in stimulus
—-Obamacare
ad naseum
What do Peyton and Eli Manning have in common?
(1) They have a father who was an NFL star
(2)They were both college football stars
(3) They both play in the NFL
(4) They both won what?
Damn, I can’t remember. Something about post-season play. It escapes me now. Maybe I can find it if I google SUPER BOWL WINNERS.
I’m watching Eli Manning in the most pitiful display of Quarterback since Peyton Manning threw four interceptions against the Eagles last year. It looks like the NY Midgets might be joining the Colts in moving to the Arena Football League.
Smokey sneaks in a sucker punch with that “off the books liabilities” bullshit.
Fuck him up Jim! Go all Putin on him!!
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OK, so we all agree with what I said 5 hours ago.. The Federal reaction to 9/11 hastened our economic downfall. Why don’t we stop this shit and just let it lie (or as Smoky would say “lye”).
But we still did it to ourselves.
If anyone had done any thinking, we’d have spent several hundred million, used the CIA (SSS note) and assassinated Osama way back when we were started bombing cave systems in the Afgan mountains. We could have then declared victory (long before Bushes banner) and got on with the budding housing bubble and building up the FSA to an even larger size.
We still would have croaked but it might have been about 2015 instead of as we speak.
MA
Sorry, Smoke.. Make that “Bushs’ banner”. I loosed it..
MA
“The most fundamental purpose of government is defense, not empire…War is just one more big government program.”
Joseph Sobran
We have such a huge federal bureacracy now, it seems like it’s self perpetuating.
They keep finding reasons to perpetuate the gargantuan national security apparatus.
Yet, when they catch somebody, it’s a few private citizen collaring the fucker and taking him down
(like the nigerian kid on the airplane two years ago).
It just seems impossible for the feds to cut anybody or anything which means the bloat is going to continue until the whole thing collapses.
Smokey has delivered an monumental bitch slap to the Admin. Admin needs to stop practicing with the amateurs and move up to the pros, or at least to the college kids, because it is truly embarrassing to watch Smokey (and SSS) kick crap out of him.
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llpoh enters the fray after Administrator has mopped the floor with the entrails of the curs.
As usual, Administrator issues a huge yawn at llpoh’s false bravado and late arrival.
Be on your way son.
False bravado? Bah. Late arrival, yes, I will give you that.
Administrator dealing with llpoh
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Admin – I would have been here sooner but I was typing away at an article for you (in your in tray as we speak) in hopes of enlightening a few naysayers around these parts. So, I get a free pass for coming in late.
You are just lucky I wasn’t around earlier or this would have been likely result for you when the big dogs went into feeding frenzy:
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llpoh
Nice picture of Smokey. That’s the best he’s looked in a long time.
As always, LLPOH delivers an objective, unbiased assessment of the blog action.
LLPOH is a giant on this site, a man of unimpeachable integrity, and extraordinary intelligence.
For the slow witted on the site. The original post stated:
“He’s dead, but we’ve bankrupted ourselves. He would have died eventually. We didn’t have to bankrupt ourselves. But we did.”
Only a fool would argue that this statement is not true.
Fools, please respond.
Damn, Admin. let us exame that statement line by line. First line – the implication is that there is a relationship between OBL and US bankruptcy. Yes there is, but it is not a 100% correlation. Any fool knows that. Line 2 – duh. Line three – yes indeedy. Line 4 again gives the implication that the bankruptcy is 100% related to OBL and his actions. No indeed. It certainly contributed to it, tho.
By the way, what did OBL have to do with Iraq – seems to me the biggie was WMD.
Your statement is full of implication. Each sentence when looked at individually stands up, but together they make the implicatio that OBL is responsible for the US going bankrupt all by his little lonesome. No fucking way.
It is the Admin playing at being a politician – saying one thing, meaning another, and then twisting it around again.
LLPOH
You may have asked the dumbest fucking question in the history of TBP. That is quite a feat. But you pulled it off.
“What did OBL have to do with Iraq?”
Are you really as clueless as you seem? Were you huffing glue today?
Have you ever heard of the Bush Doctrine, which was rolled out BECAUSE of 9/11?
Would there be a Bush Doctrine if 9/11 had not happened?
The Bush Doctrine was used as the basis for invading a country that did not threaten the US.
JFC. It’s like trying to teach physics to a bunch of mental midgets.
With friends like you, Smokey doesn’t need enemies.
How embarassing for you. I sure hope no one in your family reads your response. Truly a pathetic display.
LLPOH,
He is squirming now. Panic stricken. Trying to find a way out. He’s sees the writing on the wall. Desperation is setting in.
His biggest fear, because he’s been there before—–Smokey AND LLPOH.
You better believe it, when America disintegrates into a third world police state racked by poverty, counterinsergencies and corruption that would be right at home in Argentina or Zimbabwe, the wail of despair eminating from your ruin of a country will be music to those who despise you everywhere.
Whats even better is the list of those countries actively working against your interests will include most of europe, great britain, all of asia, middle east, africa and even the paciffic rim countries. After all the shafting the governments and citizens recieved at the hands of Wall Street will be remembered and acted upon when the time is right…
LLPOH,
By Administrator’s warped logic, if Bush had decided to invade Greenland, then that means 9/11 CAUSED it.
Smokey now flailing about with invasions of Greenland as his comeback. That is about as weak and pitiful response as SSS denying CIA involvement with OBL. The rats are jumping ship.
Are you actually arguing that Bush would have invaded Iraq even if 9/11 had not occurred? Really? Seriously?
This was such an epic beatdown that I’d be surprised if you, SSS, and llpoh ever posted a comment again on this site.
Shit, for that matter, according to the curs, Bush and the neocons were going to invade Iraq whether there had been a 9/11 attack or not.
So the neocons could impose on the world their radical beliefs.