A Strategy for Peace - Obama best choice for anti-war conservatives/libertarians?

[financeguy]

http://antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=12491

John McCain can mouth tepid free-market, low-tax bromides until the cows come home, but objectively his warmongering mania will make free markets and low taxes impossible. On the other hand, Barack Obama may be very far from a libertarian on economic issues, yet his program of getting us out of Iraq will avoid a turn in the road where tax cuts and free markets are entirely precluded. If we're lucky, this drawback will drag us back from the brink of economic disaster and prevent the Iraq recession from becoming a full-fledged Iraq depression.

From a libertarian perspective, Hillary Clinton represents the worst of all possible worlds: a combination of warmongering abroad and coercive maternalism at home. In Hillary's World, the Internet will be reined in and 23-year-olds will be forced to buy health insurance or face fines – and, if they persist, perhaps reeducation in a guarded facility.

 

[Infinity]

Yea this is the problem. Since Ron Paul is not going to be the nominee. I feel that I have nobody to vote for. When people talk in a hawkish tone and start supporting the war and continued U.S. involvement in the world, I start leaning left. When people talk about raising taxes and regulating I start leaning right.

This really sucks.

 

[anitram]

The free market people are all busy lining up at the guvmint's door asking for free HANDOUTS at the moment. I guess they have no faith in the free market correcting itself.

 

[melon]

The free market people are all busy lining up at the guvmint's door asking for free HANDOUTS at the moment. I guess they have no faith in the free market correcting itself.

The prevailing monetarist theory, currently, is that depressions and bad recessions are due to lack of liquidity (with the Great Depression starting out bad, due to that, and made substantially worse through the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act of 1930). This would explain their behavior, at the moment. Combine this with it being an election year, and Bush is very keen on making sure that a recession does not happen this year, or, at least, ends in the summer before the election, at latest. Although the Federal Reserve is supposed to be independent, I have wondered how truly "independent" Bernanke is, having been a Bush appointee.

Inflation, while being the long-term concern, is clearly not their short-term concern. If our currency goes to shit sometime in 2009, triggering 1970s-style stagflation, and the Democrats win in the election, then they'll just blame the Democrats for their fiscal irresponsibility. It's how the GOP works.

 

[deep]

If our currency goes to shit sometime in 2009, triggering 1970s-style stagflation, and the Democrats win in the election, then they'll just blame the Democrats for their fiscal irresponsibility. It's how the GOP works.

I am fairly certain we will have that stagflation again. There will be inflation, and high interest rates, with a very weak economy.

bleak times