I don’t think Angela Merkel has any business experience either and she still or because of that has been doing quite a decent job as Chancellor.[YSaerTTEW443543]
TOEIC listening, talks: Radio commercial for insurance products[YSaerTTEW443543]
Andrew Carnegie is said to have had very little knowledge about the making and marketing of steel and yet he dominated the steel industry in the USA. Why? Simply because he had the ability and skill to assemble the best specialists in the steel industry and make sure that they worked in harmony. To run a tech company you don’t necessarily need to know a lot about technology. What you really need is people skills. 80% of your success depend on your soft skills so Obama doesn’t have to be a great entrepreneur to run the country.[YSaerTTEW443543]
TOEIC listening, talks: Sales agent is leaving voice message for customer regarding new time for appointment[YSaerTTEW443543]
If you must credit politicians for being such a great influence on the economy, then Clinton created a huge bubble that was doomed to burst. Cutting taxes will create another bubble. Yes, everyone will be happy because they think they will have more money in their pocket, but once the bubble bursts, everything will be worse than before. That happens every time. The government must create a solid foundation, which can only be achieved by closing loopholes and by circulating tax money through sound and well-coordinated spending.
First of all, there is no recession in America, just an economy with a slowed-down growth. This is happening all over the globe. An economy never does always well and always bad. Depending on all those factors that I named before, there is always an up and down, and that is out of any president’s hands.
And that’s the problem I named before: tax money being put to non-productive use. Wasting tax payers’ money is what needs to be eliminated. But I don’t see Romney going to change that. No politician ever does. They simply don’t set their wits on it. So they either raise or cut taxes as they see fit, and make promises that a tax payer wants to hear.
I don’t think the taxes in America need to be raised, but I don’t think they should be cut, either.
You know it is just a deception that tax cuts create more revenue, don’t you? A tax cut does not automatically bring about a boost in the economy, especially not a lasting one. If the ordinary citizens don’t have any money to spend because their wages are too low to make ends meet, the companies don’t hire people as they should, and the social security network is so flawed that people get into so much depth or end up in the street, there is not going to be a boost in the economy despite a tax cut. One needs to think in the long run, not just what might be of benefit now.
Claudia
Torsten, neither your remarks about Merkel nor about Carnegie reflect the least bit on Obama. Merkel understands the principles of economics, even if she hasn’t run a business. Carnegie understood the principles of running his industry. Both of them were competent. Obama doesn’t understand what he’s doing, and he’s incompetent. He tries something, gets the opposite of the intended effect, so he tries it again. It doesn’t work the second time either, so he wants to try it a third time. His mistakes are not ones that Merkel or Carnegie would make, let alone make twice. This is not a competent president, and he is unable to learn from his failures.
Romney doesn´t have to be a skillful speaker since he hired actors like Clint Eastwood in order to blame a chair as substitute for Obama to have promised to lower the sea level and such silly things. Is leftist German TV cheating us about such facts? Come on, Romney and his companions did do their best to blame Obama for every misery in the USA. In fact, I am sure that economic strong companies do all their best in order to have the Republicans in charge of the power in the USA, btw, it´s the same as we can learn here always. It´s sort of use of sweet bread and bullwhip the really economic powerful society deals with in order to impress voters.
Btw, I always see complaints about taxes (usurious taxes) poor wealthy people have to pay. Can you please tell me how much taxes people in the USA pay on profits thexy make on the stock market? I ask since people here are complaining about a plan of 0.2% on the total profit. I wonder on what level people there are whinging about.
Presidents are not responsible for speculative bubbles. However, along with their legislatures, they are responsible for policies that encourage businesses to grow and employ people, and that free or shackle the economy. Government spending does not create a sound economy. That’s been proven over and over again. Business and free enterprise are the foundation of a good economy.
Unemployment was 7.4% when Obama took office, and it’s 8.3% now. Consumer confidence is way down, and so is industrial production. Half of all new university graduates can’t find jobs. The people living on the street are no longer just drunks and drug abusers. Poverty is up. I guess that’s what you call “growth”. Sure feels like a recession to most of us!
That’s why taxes should be kept to a minimum! People are better stewards of their own money than the government is!
Claudia, you don’t have to look far to find the proof that lower taxes produce more government revenue and stimulate the economy. In the US we’re far from the days when most people didn’t have discretionary income. When you put more money into their paychecks, they save it or spend it. Both stimulate the economy.
And your assertion that cutting the taxes of people who don’t have money to spend won’t help them is quite bizarre. If people are struggling, it always helps to put more money in their pockets.
Government spending would create a sound economy if the money was spent on sensible things. The government is so much in debt that it isn’t funny. It has been before Obama, and even before baby-Bush. Businesses don’t employ more people just because they get more money. And if someone wants to start his or her own business, (s)he’s going to do so, no matter what. New businesses are created in Germany despite our, as you call it, “draconian laws”.
However, do you know how many newly created businesses fail every year in America? Since it is so easy to start a new business there, they get a loan, start their business, can’t make enough money to cover the costs of the business and then give up, only now they are in debt to such an extend, that they lose their homes. Does that help the economy?
When Reagan took office, unemployment was a little over 7%. In his first year, it rose to more than 10% before it finally declined. Consumer confidence always has the tendency to rise when a new president comes into office. The national debt increased rapidly during Reagan’s reign, despite, or perhaps because of his tax cuts and packages there were supposed to stimulate the economy.
Do you really believe that the only people living on the street were drunks and drug abusers before Obama?!!!
But “feeling like” a recession doesn’t mean that it actually is a recession. It’s opinion, not fact.
Saving does not stimulate the economy. This is why politicians try everything in their power to keep you from saving your money. And when a tax payer gets a tax cut and he saves his tax money rather than spend it, the economy will not get a boost.
I never said that it won’t help poor people if their taxes were cut. If I did, please show me. But what politicians do when they talk about a tax cut is not cutting the taxes of those with a low income. The biggest cuts are for those with a high income because they believe it will help the economy more than helping the average Joe.
Claudia
I doubt he hired Eastwood for one thing. On second thought, I think it’s completely outside the realm of possibility - Eastwood isn’t hurting for cash as far as I know. Then, Eastwood delivered an extemporaneous speech, it was obvious he was speaking off the cuff, without preparation. His speech was far from stirring in the strictest sense of the word. He was a bit rambling and sounded all over the map. But at the same time he was nothing if not clear. The point he got across was: if a person falls short of our expectations we fire him, we musn’t countenance somebody we don’t want.
But we also shouldn’t hire anybody who doesn’t look trustworthy.[YSaerTTEW443543]
TOEIC listening, talks: A commercial for a vitamin supplement product[YSaerTTEW443543]
Oh…really? So you are going to tell me that Eastwood climbed the stage out of the blue and was inoxerable whilst babbling nonsense for a quarter or half an hour? Phew, that’s what I’d call freedom of speech. And we all know Clint is a real cowboy.
Btw, who is our and we in your last sentence?
Be careful with word cowboy. Jamie is going to explain to you that the Germans use this term incorrectly as they with many other words.[YSaerTTEW443543]
TOEIC listening, talks: Afternoon traffic report on the radio[YSaerTTEW443543]
Well, we wouldn’t want to be called a Kraut, Hun or worst of all: Bavarian! 
Claudia
Hello Torsten and Claudia
and thank you both for good advice. Actually I didn´t mean to offend anyone.
Writing that bad word I was thinking of that brave but sometimes a bit overmotivatied and straightforward bolts I knew from old western movies, such as John Wayne, Ronald Reagan, Charles Bronson and of course Clint Eastwood himself. Not to forget Gregory Peck, Michael London (Little Joe) and Dan Blocker acting as skillful riders, herdsmen and gunfighter, tricky poker player and so on. Some of them, of course, also showed great business skills as being Ranchers. And what about Kevin Costner acting in “Dancing the wolf”, eventhough he acted as a Soldier to me he was a cowboy, too. There are ,many other attributes I think of when thinking of cowboys. Being a youngster in the age of 5 to 12 years I proudly masqued as cowboy on carnival. Gosh, all that should have been a mistake?
Claudia, am I allowed to ask you whether you live south or north the “white sausage equator”? You as a native Franconian must get a huge chip on the shoulder getting called a bavarian.
Kind regards
Michael
Hello Michael,
I had no idea that Earth has a white sausage equator, but learning never stops. 
I’m a southern northerner who is forced to be a northern southerner. It’s torture, I tell you, plain torture! Nee, Bavarians are all right . . . when they’re far, far away in their Bavarian lands. When somebody wrongly calls me a Bavarian, I just tell him that I am Franconian. If he cares to know why I say that, I explain to him the whole story. I don’t get upset, though. People just look at the map. They aren’t aware that there is a difference. Many of them don’t know about the love-hate relationship between Franconians and Bavarians and why it exists.
Frei statt Bayern,
Claudia
This videos explains why the US remain the greatest nation in the world regardless of who they are going to elect, Obama or Romney. Just read this:
From Chicago to New Orleans
From the muscle to the bone
From the shotgun shack to the Superdome
We yelled “help” but the cavalry stayed home
There ain’t no-one hearing the bugle blown
We take care of our own
youtube.com/watch?v=-x8zBzxCwsM
TOEIC listening, question-response: Which vendor do we use for break-room supplies?
Hello Claudia,
I think it´s not the earth having another equator since the “white sausage equator” is unique in Germany only. Inbetween its borders there lives a small people being called in Germany " a small martial hill people (hill billies)" or so called hillside chicken (having one short and one bit longer leg (caused by evolution)). Their chairman is a very martial politician named Horst Seehofer. They always do unexpected things.
Just google “Bayern” on google maps and you will see an area surrounded by the “white saussage equator”. It´s the bold line around an area shown there.
glad to know you´re franconian
regards
Michael
Hmmm . . . since Germany isn’t round and doesn’t revolve around itself, perhaps you mean “belt” instead of “equator”. The “white sausage belt”.
Martial, huh? 
Thank goodness Bavarian politics is not the topic here.
I don’t think I need to google “Bayern”. I know all too well what and where it is.
Glad I am Franconian.
Claudia
The US could solve all their problems if Americans started to listen to and absorb the ideas and information contained in ‘The Science of Personal Achievement’ by Napoleon Hill. The problem is, that the vast majority will not make the time to listen to the program because they think that the government has to fix their problems.[YSaerTTEW443543]
TOEIC listening, question-response: When are you going to submit your cost estimates?[YSaerTTEW443543]
Here is something about Romney that’s working its way around the Internet. It’s funny.
Top 10 Reasons to Dislike Mitt Romney
- Drop-dead, collar-ad handsome with gracious, statesmanlike aura. Looks like every central casting’s #1 choice for Commander-in-Chief.
- Been married to ONE woman his entire life, and has been faithful to her, including through her bouts with breast cancer and MS.
- No scandals or skeletons in his closet. (How boring is that?)
- Can’t speak in a fake, southern, “black preacher voice” when necessary.
- Highly intelligent. Graduated cum laude from both Harvard Law School and Harvard Business School…and by the way, his academic records are NOT sealed.
- Doesn’t smoke or drink alcohol, and has never done drugs, not even in the counter-culture age when he went to college. Too square for today’s America?
- Represents an America of “yesterday”, where people believed in God, went to Church, didn’t screw around, worked hard, and became a SUCCESS!
- Has a family of five great sons…and none of them have police records or are in drug rehab. But of course, they were raised by a stay-at-home mom, and that “choice” deserves America’s scorn.
- Oh yes…he’s a MORMON. We need to be very afraid of that very strange religion that teaches its members to be clean-living, patriotic, fiscally conservative, charitable, self-reliant, and honest.
- And one more point…pundits say because of his wealth, he can’t relate to ordinary Americans. I guess that’s because he made that money HIMSELF…as opposed to marrying it or inheriting it from Dad. Apparently, he didn’t understand that actually working at a job and earning your own money made you unrelatable to Americans.
There’s this video going around the net, called “breaking up with Obama”.
It features this gal who was so stoked on Obama 4 years back. Now she’s withdrawing her endorsement of Obama:
youtube.com/watch?v=zoekOZTu … r_embedded
Quite funny.