Malachi151
Graduate Poster
- Joined
- May 24, 2003
- Messages
- 1,404
I went to a Howrd Dean houseparty last night in Orlando and it was pretty cool. At first a little dead, but as ti got later the real political dicussions started to pick up and I was impressed by what some people had to say. Interestingly the most local and interested people were women, it was basically me and another guy talking to about 4 or 5 women about geopolitics and economics.
The guy that hosted the party was the former COO of Jenson electronics. He had some interesting insights one international trade and economics as he has dealt extensively with business in Asia. We basically all agreed that our economic system is dependant on disparity, and that the only real thing we have done over the past 100 years is push the disparity out of our own country so much and onto the rest of the world. But we all agreed that without that disparity the US position would not be as strong; its a hard issue to tackle.
Being in Florida we had plenty to say about Jeb Bush too. One of the guy's wife is a property appraiser that used to work for the state back tine 80s. And he was talking about how when Bush came in the changed that were made in terms of property appraisal, and I brought up the S&L crisis and how Jeb bought a piece of property for $4,500,000 defaulted on the loan, then when the S&L was closed the property was reappraised at $500,000 which Jeb paid. Tax payers were stuck with the $4 million.
Of course Jeb is also pushing to increase prison funding and make the 12th grade volentary in Florida. Florida and Texas have the 2nd and 3rd most regressive state taxes in the country.
Mostly though we talked about economics and I was impressed with the quality of the conversation, so it was interesting.
Oh, and Dr. Dean got on the phone, speaker phone, with everyone in Florida and Georgia (this was a coordinated event) and talked and took questions and anwsers. He did dodge one question about immigrants and minorites. The question was about what his thought were on higly skilled foriegn immigrants who are taking American jobs, but it was posed by a guy that sounded obviously Indian. He just changed the subject and talked about the importance of getting minorities invovled in politics.
http://www.deanforamerica.com/
http://dean2004.meetup.com/
The guy that hosted the party was the former COO of Jenson electronics. He had some interesting insights one international trade and economics as he has dealt extensively with business in Asia. We basically all agreed that our economic system is dependant on disparity, and that the only real thing we have done over the past 100 years is push the disparity out of our own country so much and onto the rest of the world. But we all agreed that without that disparity the US position would not be as strong; its a hard issue to tackle.
Being in Florida we had plenty to say about Jeb Bush too. One of the guy's wife is a property appraiser that used to work for the state back tine 80s. And he was talking about how when Bush came in the changed that were made in terms of property appraisal, and I brought up the S&L crisis and how Jeb bought a piece of property for $4,500,000 defaulted on the loan, then when the S&L was closed the property was reappraised at $500,000 which Jeb paid. Tax payers were stuck with the $4 million.
Of course Jeb is also pushing to increase prison funding and make the 12th grade volentary in Florida. Florida and Texas have the 2nd and 3rd most regressive state taxes in the country.
Mostly though we talked about economics and I was impressed with the quality of the conversation, so it was interesting.
Oh, and Dr. Dean got on the phone, speaker phone, with everyone in Florida and Georgia (this was a coordinated event) and talked and took questions and anwsers. He did dodge one question about immigrants and minorites. The question was about what his thought were on higly skilled foriegn immigrants who are taking American jobs, but it was posed by a guy that sounded obviously Indian. He just changed the subject and talked about the importance of getting minorities invovled in politics.
http://www.deanforamerica.com/
http://dean2004.meetup.com/
