Obama's Destroying The Nation

Discussion in 'Bill Archer's Guestbook' started by IntheNet, Mar 5, 2009.

  1. IntheNet

    IntheNet New Member

    Nov 5, 2002
    Northern Virginia
    Club:
    Blackburn Rovers FC
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
  2. Karl K

    Karl K Member

    Oct 25, 1999
    Suburban Chicago
    Destroy? That's a bit harsh.

    The nation's financial system was in bad shape when he took office, but he's not exactly helping matters.

    In fact, he's making things worse.

    Barry has many problems -- talking out of both sides of his mouth at the same time, deferring to Nancy Pelosi, and, worst of all, trying to do everything all at once, including, presumably, making government larger than its ever been.

    What he should do is say, "Look -- all I am going to do is to concentrate on economic policy and foreign policy. For now. Not health care, or Rush Limbaugh, or any of that."

    This administration needs focus. It has none.

    They're gonna blow it.
     
  3. Chris M.

    Chris M. Member+

    Jan 18, 2002
    Chicago
    Again, I agree with you on much of this. I don't necessarily agree with any policy of "all hands on deck" to support stock prices or bank and mortgage bailouts.

    Of course, the economy needs massive attention right now, but most of the stuff proposed by both sides is simply different doses of caffeine. A payroll tax holiday? I don't object to the concept, but why not start addressing the problems with our major entitlements to make them do what they are supposed to do and perhaps reduce payroll taxes in a more permanent fashion.

    Health care costs are absolutely crippling to our economy. They have risen exponentially to inflation over the past decade (they have been getting out of whack for several decades but the last ten years have seen a real jump in the curve.) Much of the burden is felt by private companies providing benefits making them less competitive with companies in other countries.

    Why on earth shouldn't we address that now? We have cabinet level departments devoted to this. We have congressional committees devoted to this. Should they simply put everything on hold that they are charged to do because we need to focus on the economy?

    It hasn't been 100 days yet, and Obama is identifying and beginning the discussion on things that are the root causes of our economic problems. Throw our energy policy in there as well.

    I fully expect disagreements on how to proceed in each of these areas, but I think it is foolish to say that we can't deal with them now. We didn't deal with any of them sufficiently when times were good, so why not deal with them now so that when we come out of this, we have changed the fundamentals that caused the problems?
     
  4. JBigjake

    JBigjake Member+

    Nov 16, 2003
    Obama's Not Destroying The Nation

    Much of the federal budget is entitlements, which the President can't touch without offending the constituencies that benefit from them. Whether it's Social Security, farm supplements, the defense industry, etc., there are Congressmen or Senators that will fight to protect that money. Rich & poor alike have benefitted from government largesse in the past and will again. The stock market has been as big a bubble as the housing market over the last few years. I don't begrudge people who invested and made money in the past; nor do I feel sorry for people who have now lost money or their jobs in the financial world due to the downturn.
     
  5. Chris M.

    Chris M. Member+

    Jan 18, 2002
    Chicago
    Re: Obama's Not Destroying The Nation

    Well, Obama's first budget proposal eliminates farm subsidies for all but the smallest farms and he has already convened leaders to talk about reforming the two major entitlements. The campaign is over and obama has cover from the financial crisis to ignore the tough problems if he chooses to. So far, he is pressing forward.

    It's not so much constituencies as it is interest groups and lobbyists. The biggest hurdle on real social security reform has been AARP. They think that any form of means testing for benefits is a slap in the face to the dignity of old people. With Medicare it is drug companies, insurers and others who feed at the trough.

    And yet obama has pressed forward to address these things that are not popular with those lobbies but should be popular with the rest of us -- conservatives included.

    So, perhaps "change" is really pie in the sky nonsense, but Obama was elected to do just this and by God, he actually is following though on his promises. Of course, instead of cheering him, conservatives bash him for not focusing on the economy as if our government must stop everything else.

    Btw, he has also taken a stand on education that again, is not popular with the biggest lobbyists in education but should be supported by all of us -- again, conservatives included.
     
  6. IntheNet

    IntheNet New Member

    Nov 5, 2002
    Northern Virginia
    Club:
    Blackburn Rovers FC
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Re: Obama's Not Destroying The Nation

    Interested in dialog rather than name calling? I added a few observations below =>

    If you were really serious about that statement you would be really concerned about the Union's subsidy of the Obama campaign and how they and the Union lobbyists have become Obama's greatest interest group.

    No surprise here... the AARP represents the interests of the elderly and those approaching or on social security! What the hell do you expect the AARP to do? If Obama really wants to do something about Social Security he would investigate how Congress has looted the Social Security trust fund. That would be an honest first step.

    What social security issue has he "pressed forward" on?

    Last month we were in the largest economic crisis this nation had ever witnessed (his words) and this week the Obama Administration is adopting McCain's campaign rhetoric, "Of course the fundamentals are sound," Obama economic adviser Christina Romer said Sunday. Conservatives are angry that Obama has yet to develop any kind of plan to rescue the banks and instead Obama is spending money like a drunken sailor. Far worse, his words of bi-partisanship he voiced during campaign are being ignored since he is not even interested in ideas from the GOP, much less letting them add minority plans to his budget. Following through on his promises? He said he'd act on earmarks. He didn't.

    What stand on education did Obama take? My understanding is that his budget does away with school choice (vouchers) in the District, that even his Education Chief favored, as well as Mayor Fenty and Michelle Rhee (DC Schools Administrator) and he caved completely to the NEA! So by sending his daughers to private school in DC he is a hypocrite and doing something that other parents can't do! Some tough stand! Oh yeah... he also gave DOE a blank check for Secretary of Education discretionary spending while states are cutting teachers and closing schools! Some principled "stand" there!!!

    I know you're a smart guy there ChrisM but put down the Gibbs talking points for a minute and take a look at what your guy is actually doing! It sure isn't change and it sure isn't working! Stock Market even/down today but headed down for another week and not a single thing he has yet done has made things better for economy - most of what he has done has made it worse.
     
  7. Microwave

    Microwave New Member

    Sep 22, 1999
    Obama is not destroying the Nation, he is helping finish it off though. But anyone who supported George Bush has no room to speak against Obama.

    And Chris M, Obama is hardly indentifying the problems of the economy. He is proposing huge Keynesian policies which have failed everytime they've been tried. He wants to borrow and spend out of a problem that borrowing and spending got us into.

    I am not sure why Keynesian's even exist at all anymore. It's a dispelled philosophy. The United Kingdom is almost paralyzed by debt because of what Obama's proposing. Yet people like Paul Krugman praise Gordon Brown as England loses private sector jobs and tax receipts. Europe as a whole is in debt despite the fact that they "tax the rich" as "resdistribute wealth". That's not even mentioning South America's recent move to the left which is turning out to be more disasterous than the extreme right wing politicians.

    Whenever a conservative points out that Obama is spending alot of money the reaction from people like Bojendyk and Gringotex is "well George Bush spent trillions" and while that is true, Bush wasn't exactly a Friedman-ite so no true fiscal conservatives could have ever supported George Bush. So both Bush and Obama are big spenders. So what? It doesn't justify borrowing against what we have.

    Let's ask ourselves these questions:

    1) Does borrowing (for any reason) devalue the dollar?
    2) Does growing the money supply too fast and/or flooding the market with false capital raise inflation?
    3) Can you borrow yourself out of a recession?

    I honestly think anyone who voted for George Bush should be ashamed of themselves but anyone who voted for Obama should be equally ashamed. Luckly even the Democrats are against his budget proposal and are fighting him on it.

    And the Republicans who oppose his budget are a joke, these are the same guys who voted for the bottomless financial hole that is the Iraq war. From Reagan to Bush to Bush, the Republicans are a big spenders and should all be thrown out of office just as fast as Obama and Chris Dodd and Barney Frank.
     
  8. bojendyk

    bojendyk New Member

    Jan 4, 2002
    South Loop, Chicago
    Ted, this just simply isn't true. At all.

    Look, even conservatives like Greg Mankiw praise Keynes, even if they don't subscribe to everything he believed. Even Milton Friedman found a lot to praise in Keynes, although Friedman clearly rejected much of it too.
     
  9. Microwave

    Microwave New Member

    Sep 22, 1999

    Prove it isn't true. Name a single country that isn't in shambles that has adopted Keynesian policies. There is NOT A SINGLE one. Not only that, but even when the socialist countries were doing ok, it obviously relied on U.S. consumerism too heavily.

    You don't listen to the Proffessors at your school do you? Hell even Keynes himself admitted he was wrong about alot of the stuff he said.

    But hey you idiot liberals can keep taxing and borrowing and leaving us bankrupt if you want. Eventually there will be another tea party. The bottom line is that the constitution is not compatible with Keynes. Period. There isn't even any sort of argument that it is.
     
  10. bojendyk

    bojendyk New Member

    Jan 4, 2002
    South Loop, Chicago
    Okay, I can now add "Keynesian economics" to The Great List of Things That Ted Doesn't Understand.

    I don't think you understand just how much of the entire field of macroeconomics comes from Keynes. You're focusing on interventionist policies (which, for Keynes, included both fiscal and monetary policy) and neglecting everything else.

    You want me to name one country that adopted Keynesian policies that isn't in shambles? Okay, fine: the United States.
     
  11. bojendyk

    bojendyk New Member

    Jan 4, 2002
    South Loop, Chicago
    Jesus, I just realized that you're conflating socialism with Keynesian economics.

    :rolleyes:

    You need to return your economics textbook to whatever comic book store sold it to you.
     
  12. bojendyk

    bojendyk New Member

    Jan 4, 2002
    South Loop, Chicago
    Bump.

    How's that market doing?
     
  13. Karl K

    Karl K Member

    Oct 25, 1999
    Suburban Chicago
    Better than it was earlier in the year, but certainly not where it was back last summer.

    Of course, the reason that the market is doing reasonably OK is that interest rates are effectively zero, and they have shed costs substantially by shedding jobs.

    Meanwhile, how are the economic policies of the Obama administration, such as they are, doing now?

    They're doing sh-t, frankly.

    The head of the CEA has said the "stimulus" (effectively payouts to the states so their budgets don't collapse, plus pork) is petering out and we won't see any benefit next year at all. Lovely.

    Obama meanwhile is all in a dither about financial services pay packages, and berates the industry at a fund raising dinner while raking in $15K per table, but has done nothing, nada, zilch, zip, to actually achieve effective regulatory reform necessary to prevent melt downs from happening again.

    And we've got this goofy Rube Goldberg healthcareinsurancereformpublicoptionhelpthepoordowntroddenuninsured death panel legislation, and a president who is ....what's the phrase I am looking for?? Oh, that's right...all WEE WEED up about actually listening to his generals about what should be done in the "good war" (or the former "good war" ...it's so hard to figure out what the most awesomest president evah! ACTUALLY thinks) in Afghanistan.

    Sorry, it's amateur hour at the Whitehouse, where everyone is asking for more cowbell. A joke.

    But, lest we forget, Fox news is the ENEMY!!

    Tell ya though, the guy really looks good in a suit. The coat hangs on him just super...40 long is my guess. He has a future as a Ralph Lauren model, and they won't even have to photoshop him!
     
  14. Karl K

    Karl K Member

    Oct 25, 1999
    Suburban Chicago
  15. Microwave

    Microwave New Member

    Sep 22, 1999
    Is this a joke?

    I've offered to debate you for money before and you pussied out like all liberals do. Conflating socialism and keynesiem? Have you read Keynes? Apparently not. I am totally willing to debate this with you if you put up some cash you piece of shit.

    The U.S. is in in massive debt and was in much better fiscal shape before both income taxes and stimulus/government intervention.

    /over
     
  16. Microwave

    Microwave New Member

    Sep 22, 1999
    How is unemployment? how is retail spending? how is the debt? How is the value of the Dollar?

    BoFail.
     
  17. Microwave

    Microwave New Member

    Sep 22, 1999
    It will be funny if Bo tries to bring up the recent surge in the dollar to defend himself. :D I bet he does and as everyone on both the left and right, including Krugman, has argued otherwise. But it will be funny!
     
  18. bojendyk

    bojendyk New Member

    Jan 4, 2002
    South Loop, Chicago
    You mean the part where I point out that the dollar is roughly as strong as it was in 2003? That part?

    Nice job moving the goalposts, though, since the original point of this thread regarded the stock market.

    Since it's apparently acceptable to shift the goal posts, how are those inflation predictions going, Rep. Ron Paul?
     
  19. IntheNet

    IntheNet New Member

    Nov 5, 2002
    Northern Virginia
    Club:
    Blackburn Rovers FC
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    The dollar is strong? What part of your ass you pulling that from? Hell the Treasury has been printing so many of them many foreign countries don't even accept US currency any more! The coming inflation is a tsunami everyone is worried about... Obama has truly screwed our net value domestically and internationally... regrettably BHO has done far more damage to us economically than Al Qaeda... and you're spouting bull about a strong dollar?
     
  20. BobanFan

    BobanFan Member+

    Jun 28, 2007
    Club:
    AC Milan
    You guys going to reelect him to finish the job off?
     
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  21. American Brummie

    Jun 19, 2009
    There Be Dragons Here
    Club:
    Birmingham City FC
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Dafuq, got sent here from here:

    Dem crazies be crazy.
     
    Dr. Wankler repped this.

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