Do you know the answers?

There are a couple of questions we'd like to ask and solicit feedback from the Romney/Ryan middle class supporters out there, based on an exchange in last night's VP debate, over Mitt Romney's 20 percent tax-cut plan. ABC's Martha Raddatz questioned Ryan:
MS. RADDATZ: Well, let's talk about this 20 percent.
VICE PRESIDENT BIDEN: Well – (chuckles) –
MS. RADDATZ: You have refused yet again to offer specifics on how you pay for that 20 percent across-the-board tax cut. Do you actually have the specifics, or are you still working on it, and that's why you won't tell voters?
REP. RYAN: Different than this administration, we actually want to have big bipartisan agreements. You see, I understand the -"
MS. RADDATZ: Do you have the specifics? Do you have the math? Do you know exactly what you're doing?
REP. RYAN: Look – look at what Mitt – look at what Ronald Reagan and Tip O'Neill did. They worked together out of a framework to lower tax rates and broaden the base, and they worked together to fix that. What we're saying is here's our framework: Lower tax rates 20 percent – we raise about $1.2 trillion through income taxes. We forgo about 1.1 trillion [dollars] in loopholes and deductions. And so what we're saying is deny those loopholes and deductions to higher-income taxpayers so that more of their income is taxed, which has a broader base of taxation –..
Ryan, fair to say, again here refuses to answer Raddatz's yes-or-no question about specifics.
There are no specifics.
So here are our questions:
1. Do you know of any specifics on the 20 percent across-the-board tax cut that convinced you to support the Romney/Ryan ticket?
2. Have you paid off your mortgage and no longer care about interest or charity deductions?
3. Is it simply a case of "anyone but Obama/Biden"?

More bad news ...for Jack Welch

By Shobhana Chandra and Mike Dorning (Bloomberg)

It isn’t only the federal government’s Bureau of Labor Statistics that is issuing surprisingly good news about the U.S. economy these days.
If former General Electric Co. Chief Executive Officer Jack Welch's charges of a political fix to manipulate economic data ahead of the presidential election are true, there must be a vast econometric conspiracy embracing auto dealers, real estate agents, the Federal Reserve and corporate America’s 96-year-old Conference Board.
The economy is improving more than professional forecasters anticipated, particularly in data on employment and housing, according to the Bloomberg Economic Surprise Index, which compares 38 indicators with analysts’ predictions. The index, based on gauges compiled by private businesses and trade groups in addition to government, confirms U.S. growth is generating jobs in the face of a global slowdown and looming federal spending cuts and tax increases known as the fiscal cliff.
President Barack Obama and Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney are each trying to convince voters ahead of the Nov. 6 election that they are best equipped to spur growth and accelerate hiring. Nonpartisan forecasters who have developed models to predict the outcome of elections disagree on how the economy will shape the results this time.
An Oct. 5 report from the BLS showed the jobless rate fell in September to 7.8 percent, the lowest since Obama took office in January 2009, from 8.1 percent in August. The rate was forecast to rise to 8.2 percent, according to the median estimate in a Bloomberg survey of 88 economists.
“Unbelievable jobs numbers. . . theseChicago guys will do anything. . . can’t debate so change numbers,” Welch wrote in a Twitter message immediately after the report. Obama’s campaign is based in Chicago.
The BLS data also showed that employers added 114,000 workers to payrolls last month after a revised 142,000 gain in August. The September figure was in line with economists’ estimates for an increase of 115,000.
Gallup’s daily tracking of likely voters conducted Oct. 4 through Oct. 10 shows Obama with 47 percent and Romney with 48 percent support. The tracking is a rolling average of seven days of surveys with a margin of error of 2 percentage points.

Obituary: Greek-American athlete and actor Alex Karras 1935-2013

Greek-American athlete and actor Alex Karras (Alexander George Karras) died Wednesday. He was 77.
LA Times - Sports - Alex Karras, NFL great and 'Webster' star, dies at 77

" NO to the 4th Reich"

Demonstrators display a banner that reads " NO to the 4th Reich" prior to an protest in Athens on Tuesday Oct. 9, 2012. German Chancellor Angela Merkel makes her first visit to Greece since the eurozone crisis began here three years ago. Her five-hour stop is seen by the government as a historic boost for the country's future in Europe's shared currency, but by protesters as a harbinger of more austerity and hardship. More than 7,000 police will be on hand, cordoning off parks and other sections of central Athens, to keep demonstrators away from the German leader who is due to arrive Tuesday in the Greek capital for talks with conservative Prime Minister Antonis Samaras. (AP Photo/Lefteris Pitarakis)

Greeks protest Merkel visit

Demonstrators, dressed as Nazis, wave a Greek and a swastika flag as they ride in an open-top car in Syntagma Square in Athens as they protest against the visit of Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel, October 9, 2012. Germany's Angela Merkel arrived in Greece on her first visit since Europe's debt crisis erupted here three years ago, braving protests to deliver a message of support - but no new money - to a nation hammered by recession and fighting to stay in the euro. REUTERS/Yannis Behrakis

Merkel Urges Greece to Maintain Austerity as Way to Stay in Euro

By Brian Parkin and Marcus Bensasson 

German Chancellor Angela Merkel
used her first visit to Greece in five years to maintain pressure on Prime Minister Antonis Samaras to meet austerity pledges, proclaiming her desire to keep the country in the euro.
The two leaders stood side by side at a press conference as protesters massed outside the Parliament building in a capital city on virtual lockdown. Merkel has become the face of austerity in a country suffering a fifth year of recession, which many Greeks blame on German-led conditions attached to emergency loans.
“I want Greece to remain in the euro,” Merkel told reporters today halfway through her six-hour visit. “A lot has been done, much remains to be done.”
At stake is Greece’s membership in the 17-nation euro and the payment of 31 billion euros ($40 billion) from bailout commitments first made in 2010. Since then, the debt crisis has frustrated policy makers and stunted the region’s economy. Spain
 is considering asking for help and Cyprus is in talks for a lifeline, following Ireland, Portugal and Spanish lenders.
“Merkel is on a carrot and stick exercise: show support and hope for the plight of Greeks with the reminder that there has to be a quid pro quo,” Ralph Brinkhaus, a lawmaker from her Christian Democratic Union and a member of parliament’s finance committee, said in an interview today. “Merkel’s primary constituency is Germany, not Greece: she knows what millions of voters back home expect her to say.”
Athens was the scene of protests on and around its main Syntagma Square as thousands of Greek citizens vent frustration over Merkel’s perceived role in the country’s economic misery. Some 7,000 police were deployed in the capital, with some firing tear gas. Merkel’s destinations are cordoned off.
Merkel’s trip to Athens, her first since July 2007, reciprocated a visit by Samaras to Berlin in August this year and underscored her desire to silence the calls from her own coalition to kick Greece out of the currency union.
“Merkel’s visit to Greece first of all proves that we are breaking an international isolation that existed to now. And this was due to our mistakes as well. The political power and image of a country corresponds to its credibility.”
Merkel has softened her tone on Greece since Samaras’s election earlier this year. He formed a coalition after beating back a challenge by parties that advocated tearing up the terms of Greece’s rescues and calling the bluff of the so-called troika of international creditors -- the IMF, theEuropean Central Bank and European Commission -- at the risk of triggering global meltdown in financial markets.
Calling Greece a friend contrasts with the threat she delivered in November 2011, when former Prime Minister George Papandreou
 proposed a referendum on austerity measures. She said the ballot, subsequently rescinded, “will revolve around nothing less than the question: does Greece want to stay in the euro, yes or no?”

-Bloomberg

Τα Υπ’Όψιν podcast 7/10/2012

Στα Υπ’Όψιν αυτής της εβδομάδας, συζητάμε:
-Τα μεθεόρτια του αμερικανικού προεδρικού debate
-Ανεργία στο7,8%: είναι το εισιτήριο για το Λευκό Οίκο;
-Μέρκελ – Έλληνες: μαζί για 6 ώρες. Τί θα μάθει; Τί θα μάθουν;
-Τουρκία-Συρία: πόσο ελέγχει τα όπλα ο Ασάντ;
-Βενεζουέλα: ιστορικές εκλογές
-Ανθρώπινα Δικαιώματα και αμερικανικό Ανώτατο Δικαστήριο

Και στη δεύτερη ώρα:
-Βραβεία Νόμπελ Ειρήνης: αλλάζοντας τον κόσμο χωρίς βία
-Μηνιγγίτιδα και Ιός του Δυτικού Νείλου ξαναγυρίζουν στις ΗΠΑ
-Υπέρβαροι και οι κριτές τους: ποιός καταπιέζει ποιόν;
-Το μπλέ μέλι και το μενού με τα κέρατα
-Η  Ρώμη απαγορεύει να κλειδώνεις την αγάπη
-«Ημέρα Επιστροφής της Κλεμμένης Πετσέτας»: μέχρι εδώ και μή παρέκει!

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