Who´s going to win ?

[Baron von Beer 0]

translation: In the US Election Process, popular vote does not mean victory. Electoral Votes do. A candidate could theoretically win by winning 11 of the top 12 states. (top in population and thus Electors) Not a single vote for him in any of the other 39 states in the US, and he could win the White House. That is the way it works here. For people who bitch that someone won without the popular vote, get on the phone or get a pen and paper, and start writing your legislators to ammend the US constitution, and the Electoral System. You can cry till your tear ducts dry up and your eyes turn to dust, but the system won't change. If you really care, and aren't just complaining to hear your own voice, try and change it. Otherwise, deal with it.

[denoir 0]

That's why it's good not to be American in these discussions. I can criticize, moralize, complain and bitch without being a hypocrite for not doing something about it

[ralphwiggum 6]

That's why it's good not to be American in these discussions. I can criticize, moralize, complain and bitch without being a hypocrite for not doing something about it  

ROFL!

[FSPilot 0]

translation: In the US Election Process, popular vote does not mean victory. Electoral Votes do.  A candidate could theoretically win by winning 11 of the top 12 states. (top in population and thus Electors)  Not a single vote for him in any of the other 39 states in the US, and he could win the White House. That is the way it works here. For people who bitch that someone won without the popular vote, get on the phone or get a pen and paper, and start writing your legislators to ammend the US constitution, and the Electoral System. You can cry till your tear ducts dry up and your eyes turn to dust, but the system won't change. If you really care, and aren't just complaining to hear your own voice, try and change it. Otherwise, deal with it.

You're making it sound like the popular votes don't count for anything. It's very rare when the electoral college differs from the popular vote. IIRC it's only happened twice.

[Tex -USMC- 0]

translation: In the US Election Process, popular vote does not mean victory. Electoral Votes do.  A candidate could theoretically win by winning 11 of the top 12 states. (top in population and thus Electors)  Not a single vote for him in any of the other 39 states in the US, and he could win the White House. That is the way it works here. For people who bitch that someone won without the popular vote, get on the phone or get a pen and paper, and start writing your legislators to ammend the US constitution, and the Electoral System. You can cry till your tear ducts dry up and your eyes turn to dust, but the system won't change. If you really care, and aren't just complaining to hear your own voice, try and change it. Otherwise, deal with it.

You're making it sound like the popular votes don't count for anything.  It's very rare when the electoral college differs from the popular vote.  IIRC it's only happened twice.

the popular vote doesn't mean anything, because in the two instances that they have differed, it's been the EC, not the popular vote, that has decided the next president. And that's why I know my vote this year won't count for jack.

[hellfish6 7]

I long ago realized that my vote didn't count for shit. So now my political voice is my mediocre pocket book - I fund organizations I support. Greenpeace, ACLU, Moveon.org, Sierra Club, and some others all get money from me because I realize that money is what drives politics, not votes.

Yes, I'm cynical and really angry right now.

[Schoeler 0]

I'd love to see Bush open up the amendment process for marriage. Once you open up that can of worms, any amendment can be added. It'd be a circus, but I'd like to see Constitutionally amended campaign finance reform and a privacy amendment.

[Baron von Beer 0]

You're making it sound like the popular votes don't count for anything. It's very rare when the electoral college differs from the popular vote. IIRC it's only happened twice.

Point is, popular vote does not count for much at a national level, only state level. In a state, the electors are expected to vote for the popular vote. (Each party picks their own electors. Whoever wins the popular vote, gets their electors to vote. Rarely do they vote against their bid.) At a national level though, it is all an illusion,making it appear they matter, when in reality, they simply do not. As shown, get 51% of the vote in 11 of those 12 states, and none elsewhere. You win the election. You are VERY far behind in the total popular vote though. Just because it looks like it counts does not mean that it does....hence, the illusion. As for Electors going against popular vote, they would not in such a case. State by state, they would go by the popular vote, but those 49%s in those 11 states make up a huge portion of the US voters, and all 11 of those 49%s don't mean a thing in the end, despite being a massive number of votes.

[Colossus 2]

As I said, Bush sucks anyway.

[Albert Schweitzer 10]

Funny enough that the election in the US seems to be more interesting to most germans than our own one.

I bet if you would have an election for a US president by european citizens you would have 80% of the population showing up for the vote.

[Apollo 0]

I see a big return of the catch phrase that killed G.W.Bush senior's reellection: It's the economy stupid!

Personnaly i don't want Bush to win.True due to U.S financial position it would be hard to wage another war in the "campaign on terror" ,but he can still do a lot of dammage to the relations with the partners of the U.S (like with certain European country's) ,he can still favor the rich and hurt the U.S economy more ,as such also hurting the EU exports to the U.S ,weak dollar aint everything.

I'm preppared ,as european citizin that was against the war ,to aid financially in the rebuilding process of Iraq and to aid the U.S in dealing with their budget defficit ,given that Bush isn't reellected.I wouldn't trust Bush with European money ,partly for the reasons Denoir put forward.

But the reality is that the U.S is on a very weak point financially and politicly ,and as top E.U partner that hurts the E.U to.If we can aid the U.S it will benifit us all ,but we need a U.S president that treat's the European allies like equal partners with respect ,like Clinton did for ex. ,the U.S and Europe worked very well toghether.

And that Iraq is a mess thats a problem.If Europe isn't going to give it's big brother over the ocean a help in Iraq then it probably will become a international disaster.An Iraq that falls apart in civili war could be very dangerous for the world.But europe doesn't trust Bush enough to aid the U.S.

In the long term ,such catastrofic event's as civil war in Iraq and further economical downturn in the U.S and thus also in Europe would also make the gap between the U.S and Europe bigger ,and that would only hurt both.In the case of the E.U ,the growing gap between the U.S and Europe could make the E.U itself more devided ,like whjat happened when country's like Spain ,Poland and the U.K were supporting the U.S against Germany/France and others like my country Belgium.

I want to return to the time when the europe and the U.S could mannage their difference's diplomaticly ,and witness the fruitfull results of their cooperation.Sure it wasn't perfect back then ,but there was a heck lot of more stability in the world.With Bush ,the world is getting more and more dangerous.

[shinRaiden 0]

Having just seen my coworker get double-screwed in firing (job position requiried certain certification, assignments from manager who fired him precluded obtaining certification), as well as a lot of other nonsense including the CEO of Boeing (not my employer) banging every secretary within arms length, and wiping his rear end with the company, I would tend to attribute the economic troubles more to barbarian bosses who'd rather bleed a company for personal pocket padding than corporate advancement, over schemeing politicians. A previous post mentioned that Dean grew a successful investment over 20+ years, rather than putting a economic stick of dynamite in the stock market and watching money rain like the tech boom farce.

While the democrats have been arguing over how bad things are and what is going wrong, with little attention relatively to what they're going to do about it, the republicans are looking at a situation where to avoid a democratic president they'd have to elect Bush, and then fight had to stack the congress to block his numskull ideas like inviting illegal (Hello, can I be illegal?) aliens in country.

Tom Clancy writes: "Power corrupts, but absolute power is actually kinda neat."

Now I got to go to work. Maybe I'll blow a whistle, get fired, and start a class-action lawsuit. Problem is all the 'good' lawyers are democrats.

[Albert Schweitzer 10]

For that you gotta blame 3 things

1. Layoffs! Yes, downsizing is still going on. Not only in recessions

2. your public auditing firms are slightly corrupted (not just the italians).

Trick1: A company is being monitored by an independant accounting auditor who then forwards informations to the government. THis is some kind of control mechanism so companies dont cheat! This auditing company has to be a different one every 3 years (depending on country). And yes the auditing companies change but the auditors dont. They simply change employer and surprise surprise they are auditing the same company again after 3 years. Great opportunity for hardocre corporate finance cheating!

3. US CEOs are largely overpaid. Often CEOs of LLC or Plc s earn 10 times the amounts of their european counterparts. So money makes them horny for the job rather than self-actualisation. And no, money is not always the right motivation.

4. Corporate governance. The Board of directors often knows jackshit about what is the actual P/L statement they only get to see some modified vanilla versions with flowery results.

5. Over-optimism of the american investors. You always believe and trust in companies and then you create confidence bubbles and then one day reality hits hard!

okay this all sounds pretty silly when I criticise the Management practices of the economically most powerful nation in the world. But hey you had a few scandals this year

[Apollo 0]

The U.S ,the growing coorperate republic...

Doesn't matter who you ellect ,their ellection funds come from strategic industry's ,so they know who they have to appease.

You vote wich company's get favoured.Medicine's for the Democrats ,guns for the Republican's.

[SpecOp9 0]

Honestly I don't care who's gonna win.

(where is the "I don't care" vote selection?)

Republicans, Democrats, Optimists, Pessimists, X-mas, who cares about these people.. lets name them "nobodys" and get this over with and go to a dance club or something.

Let all the Democrats and Republicans do their crap so I can buy myself a car and break the speed limits on my street.

[Hit_Sqd_Maximus 0]

3. US CEOs are largely overpaid. Often CEOs of LLC or Plc s earn 10 times the amounts of their european counterparts. So money makes them horny for the job rather than self-actualisation. And no, money is not always the right motivation.

What's the net worth of those European counterparts?

[denoir 0]

3. US CEOs are largely overpaid. Often CEOs of LLC or Plc s earn 10 times the amounts of their european counterparts. So money makes them horny for the job rather than self-actualisation. And no, money is not always the right motivation.

What's the net worth of those European counterparts?

Comparison:

The CEO of Ericsson (mobile phones, communication systems etc) makes about 1 million euros/year.

The CEO of Motorola makes about 2 million euros/year (1 million pay and 1 million "bonus")

This is just one example I dug up. I'm not sure if it's representative or not.

[Hit_Sqd_Maximus 0]

3. US CEOs are largely overpaid. Often CEOs of LLC or Plc s earn 10 times the amounts of their european counterparts. So money makes them horny for the job rather than self-actualisation. And no, money is not always the right motivation.

What's the net worth of those European counterparts?

Comparison:

The CEO of Ericsson (mobile phones, communication systems etc) makes about 1 million euros/year.

The CEO of Motorola makes about 2 million euros/year (1 million pay and 1 million "bonus")

This is just one example I dug up. I'm not sure if it's representative or not.

Not really, whats the net worth or net income of the company.

[Koolkid101 0]

Howard Dean=Very Very Bad

John Kerry=Very Very Bad

[denoir 0]

Not really, whats the net worth or net income of the company.

It depends on which company. Kind of an impossible question to answer. Big ones like say Philips or Deimler-Benz etc it's billions and billions of euros.

I'm not sure what you want to know.

[EiZei 0]

Howard Dean=Very Very Bad

John Kerry=Very Very Bad

Care to elaborate?

[Hit_Sqd_Maximus 0]

It depends on which company.

The 2 examples you gave.

[denoir 0]

It depends on which company.

The 2 examples you gave.

Ericsson, 2002: ~15 billion euros

Motorola, 2002: ~20 billion euros

[Milkman 1]

LOL. IMO, Al Gore was NOT a great candidate. He had no personality and he talked down to the public as if they were kindergarteners.

I agree. Gore might have been a good president, but he had little charisma, which made him weak in contests of popularity, such as elections.

I think that Bush will win the elections. People in USA don't appear to be to concerned about the whole lying-to-start-a-war thingie, and the economy is getting better.

From a general point of view, I think electing a man like Bush is a homage to dark-age mentality. He appeals to the oldest part of the human brain. Capping the brain stem is the R-Complex, the seat of aggression, ritual, territoriality and social heirarchy, which evolved hundreds of millions of years ago in our reptilian ancestors...on the outside, living in uneasy truce with the more primitive brains beneath, is the cerebal cortex...Civilisation is a product of the cerebal cortex.

Bush appeals to the reptilian brain. It would be nice with a candidate who appeals to the higher brain functions and the cerebal cortex.

Yes, thats exactly it, because I support Bush I must be a reptile who can talk, write, and play freaking computer games. I always wondered why my human friends didn't notice the green skin...

[denoir 0]

Yes, thats exactly it, because I support Bush I must be a reptile who can talk, write, and play freaking computer games. I always wondered why my human friends didn't notice the green skin...  

You should have payed more attention in biology. Everybody has as part of the brain the so called "reptilian brain" (located near the brain stem). We all have those impulses and they are balanced against the more evolved cerebral cortex part of the brain.

It's just a question of which one is dominant in you. And because you support Buhs, who appeals to territorialism (nationalism), ritualism (religion) and aggression (war), you are obviously letting the reptilian brain to dominate over the cerebral cortex.