Go Obama!

The friendliest place on the web for anyone that follows U2.
If you have answers, please help by responding to the unanswered posts.
Status
Not open for further replies.
I disagree with a couple of points in that blog, but I'm not about to seize hold on one of them to refute the entire post, nor will I allow them to supplant the overall point, which I think is worth appreciating.

Also, it's just one person's opinion, which you're free to disagree with, but to retort with bunk and snarky comments contributes nothing valuable to the discussion.
 
I disagree with a couple of points in that blog, but I'm not about to seize hold on one of them to refute the entire post, nor will I allow them to supplant the overall point, which I think is worth appreciating.

Also, it's just one person's opinion, which you're free to disagree with, but to retort with bunk and snarky comments contributes nothing valuable to the discussion.

I guess I'm just sick and tired of hearing from AM talk radio, the privelaged, and others who really have no clue as to some people's lives(I'm not saying you're any of those) that anyone can pull themselves up from their boot straps the playing ground is level and anyone who doesn't or can't are just lazy bums looking for a handout.

It's an extremely short sighted view.

That paticular blog, though it's a great principle to have personally, just came off sounding extremely naive and incredibly snobbish at times.
 
I guess I'm just sick and tired of hearing from AM talk radio, the privelaged, and others who really have no clue as to some people's lives(I'm not saying you're any of those) that anyone can pull themselves up from their boot straps the playing level is level and anyone who doesn't or can't are just lazy bums looking for a handout.

It's an extremely short sighted view.

This is how my brother in law is. He considers himself some kind of lower class, yet he owns a home, has a child who is well cared for, and makes enough so that his wife can stay home. I'm not saying he's rich so I look poor, not at all. I am quite content with my current circumstances. If he wants to complain about his life, that's one thing, but he's a total contradiction. He thinks the politicians on the right actually care about people like him. On one hand he wants all these hand outs and wants people to make his life easier, but on the other hand he doesn't think he should have to pay for them and that too many undeserving people get things they don't deserve. So which is it?
 
I guess I'm just sick and tired of hearing from AM talk radio, the privelaged, and others who really have no clue as to some people's lives(I'm not saying you're any of those) that anyone can pull themselves up from their boot straps the playing ground is level and anyone who doesn't or can't are just lazy bums looking for a handout.

It's an extremely short sighted view.

That paticular blog, though it's a great principle to have personally, just came off sounding extremely naive and incredibly snobbish at times.

So are you suggesting that expanded government programs are the solution?
 
So are you suggesting that expanded government programs are the solution?

I'm suggesting that doing nothing while sticking your head in sand and pretending everyone has the same opportunities will just further divide the country.

Demeaning all those that don't have the same opportunities as bums just looking for a handout makes you look like an ass.

But the real solution lies in a combination of government programs, better education, personal determination, and groups/mentors or individuals willing to see that those on government programs that have potential are find their way out of the programs.
 
Well then please enlighten me oh wise one...

Let me try:

BLANKLEY: Obama lied; the economy died
Big government is really his bag, but he doesn't own up to it
Tony Blankley
Tuesday, March 3, 2009


I am trying to capture the spirit of bipartisanship as practiced by the Democratic Party over the last eight years.

Thus, I have chosen as my lead, the proposition: Obama lied; the economy died. Obviously, I am borrowing this from the Democratic Party theme of 2003-08: "Bush lied, people died." There are, of course, two differences between the two slogans.

Most importantly, I chose to separate the two clauses with a semicolon rather than a comma because the rule of grammar is that a semicolon rather than a comma) should be used between closely related independent clauses not conjoined with a coordinating conjunction. In the age of Barack Obama, there is little more important than maintaining the integrity of our language - against the onslaught of Orwellian language abuse that is already a babbling brook, and will soon be a cataract of verbal deception.

The other difference is that George W. Bush didn't lie about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. He was merely mistaken. Whereas President Obama told a whopper last week when he claimed he was not for bigger government. As he said Tuesday night: "As soon as I took office, I asked this Congress to send me a recovery plan by President's Day that would put people back to work and put money in their pockets. Not because I believe in bigger government - I don't."

This he asserted though the budget he proposed the next day asks for federal spending as 28 percent of gross domestic product (GDP), higher by at least 6 percent than any time since World War II. Moreover, after 10 years, Mr. Obama's proposed spending as a percentage of GDP would still be 22.6 percent, nearly 2 percentage points higher than any year during the Bush administration, despite the full costs of the terrorist attacks of Sept, 11, 2001, the Iraq and Afghan wars and the rebuilding of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina.

Consider also his assertion in his not-quite-State of the Union address that:

"My administration has also begun to go line by line through the federal budget in order to eliminate wasteful and ineffective programs. As you can imagine, this is a process that will take some time. But we're starting with the biggest lines. We have already identified $2 trillion in savings over the next decade."

But, lamentably, a few days later, The Washington Post reported: "A senior administration official acknowledged yesterday that the budget does not contain $2 trillion in spending cuts over the next decade. Instead, the figure represents Obama's total efforts at deficit reduction, including tax hikes [of more than $1 trillion] on families making over $250,000 a year. It also includes hundreds of billions of dollars 'saved' by not continuing to spend $170 billion a year in Iraq."

Only a big government man would think of calling a trillion-dollar tax increase a spending cut or "saving." Technically, of course, it is true. A trillion-dollar tax increase will reduce spending by a trillion dollars for those private citizens who were taxed. And, from the perspective of the federal government, a trillion dollars taxed is a trillion dollars saved from the greed of the taxpayers who produced the wealth - and might well want to spend or invest it in non governmental activities.

But the foregoing are merely pettifogging numbers compared to Mr. Obama's bigger ideas about energy and health care.

Our president shares a fascinating idea about energy with most of what used to be known as the "small is beautiful" crowd. It is a curious phenomenon that one needs a very big government to enforce the beauty of small.

As Mr. Obama's energy secretary, Steven Chu, said last year: The price of electricity in America is "anomalously low." You see how much smarter that Nobel prize winner is than you. You probably thought you were already spending enough on electricity and fuel.

And sure enough, Mr. Obama explained last week that in order to make alternative energy sources wind, solar - perhaps eventually human muscle power? - economically competitive, he intends to raise the price of carbon-based energy until it is so expensive that even solar power will be such-a-deal.

This level of destructive irrationality cannot be accomplished in the private sector. It will take a very big government indeed to bring such inanities into being. (disclosure: being rational, I give professional advice to carbon-based energy producers.)

If President Obama were to try to misrepresent his positions for the next four years, there would be nothing he could say that would approach the inaccuracy of his claim last week that he is not for big government. It is the essence of the man and his presidency. He doesn't like America the way it has been since its founding - and it will take an abusively big government to realize his dreams of converting America into something quite different. If you don't know that, you don't yet know Barack Obama.

Wake me up when the stock market hits 4000.00.

<>
 
That paticular blog, though it's a great principle to have personally, just came off sounding extremely naive and incredibly snobbish at times.

A college student being naive and snobbish...imagine that!!

I think you're laying a lot of baggage on that blog post that isn't really there. The notion of personal accountability is not a right or left, privileged vs non-privileged issue.

Lack of accountability and scapegoating seems to be pervasive throughout our entire society.

Mostly I'm tired of hearing that the last 8 years were all Bush's fault (or inherited from Clinton) or that current (and near future abysmal) failures are all Obama's fault (or inherited from Bush).

Who is holding them accountable?
 
Vox, I understand what you're saying, but I can't fully agree. I do think the playing field is still uneven and opportunities are not available to everyone, but the disadvantaged aren't completely innocent. Most of the poor don't take advantage of the opportunities that are available. I mean, what's the dropout rate for black and Latinos?

People like my brother, a bank manager, believe people have more or less the same opportunities, because he's met and serviced thousands of poor people who have lifted themselves out of poverty. Even college students who, like he and even I, worked two, sometimes three jobs to pay for school, because their parents are financially unable to. He has all these success stories and examples, and looks at people who say they can't because of excuse A or excuse B, and says "why not you?"

As for my solution. I think, firstly, we have to eliminate the current school subject hierarchy, as we longer live in the 19th century. We have to offer the subjects that students really want to learn, and help them become whatever it is that they want to become, instead of imposing the belief that math and science are the most important subjects, while the arts are expendable (how many kids are told by their parents not to study music because they'll never be a musician, or don't do art, you'll never get a job as an artist)

We need to offer more school choices and the money should be attached to the student.

Currently, the US spends $40,000 a year for every family of four below the poverty line, yet they're no closer to being out of poverty. And all these government programs haven't lifted people out of poverty, it's created generation after generation of dependent people.

Instead, we should tell government to back off and allow there to be more benefit/mutual aid societies like these: Delancey Street Foundation - Home (who teach the homeless and the poor to be accountable for what they do or don't do, and helps them become self-depedent) or Habitat for Humanity Int'l

And help eliminate the need for this: Urban Poor Cope with Help from Informal Economy : NPR

I guess I'm a firm believer in that old Polish (I think) saying: If you want something badly enough, you'll make arrangements. If you don't want something badly enough, you'll make excuses.

But, er, yeah, I think my brain just fell out of my head.
 
I think you're laying a lot of baggage on that blog post that isn't really there. The notion of personal accountability is not a right or left, privileged vs non-privileged issue.

You're right on a personal level. But into today's political environment this is the right's national argument, and it doesn't work that way.

On a personal level I agree 100%.
 
Vox, I understand what you're saying, but I can't fully agree. I do think the playing field is still uneven and opportunities are not available to everyone, but the disadvantaged aren't completely innocent. Most of the poor don't take advantage of the opportunities that are available. I mean, what's the dropout rate for black and Latinos?

People like my brother, a bank manager, believe people have more or less the same opportunities, because he's met and serviced thousands of poor people who have lifted themselves out of poverty. Even college students who, like he and even I, worked two, sometimes three jobs to pay for school, because their parents are financially unable to. He has all these success stories and examples, and looks at people who say they can't because of excuse A or excuse B, and says "why not you?"

As for my solution. I think, firstly, we have to eliminate the current school subject hierarchy, as we longer live in the 19th century. We have to offer the subjects that students really want to learn, and help them become whatever it is that they want to become, instead of imposing the belief that math and science are the most important subjects, while the arts are expendable (how many kids are told by their parents not to study music because they'll never be a musician, or don't do art, you'll never get a job as an artist)

We need to offer more school choices and the money should be attached to the student.

Currently, the US spends $40,000 a year for every family of four below the poverty line, yet they're no closer to being out of poverty. And all these government programs haven't lifted people out of poverty, it's created generation after generation of dependent people.

Instead, we should tell government to back off and allow there to be more benefit/mutual aid societies like these: Delancey Street Foundation - Home (who teach the homeless and the poor to be accountable for what they do or don't do, and helps them become self-depedent) or Habitat for Humanity Int'l

And help eliminate the need for this: Urban Poor Cope with Help from Informal Economy : NPR

I guess I'm a firm believer in that old Polish (I think) saying: If you want something badly enough, you'll make arrangements. If you don't want something badly enough, you'll make excuses.

But, er, yeah, I think my brain just fell out of my head.

Well I too understand what you are saying but don't agree entirely.

I agree, like I said earlier we need to find a way so that these programs don't create a cycle of poverty and dependency, but I don't think the answer is for the government to completely back away...
 
If the government did such a good job, this discussion would not exist. Government does a horrible job of "helping" people. War on drugs, war on terror, war on porn, welfare, food stamps, public schools, public housing, etc.

Look at what HUD did to black communities.

Or look at what the Bureau of Indian Affairs have done. They've been issuing hand-outs for 100 years, and Indians are the poorest people in this country, with one of the lowest life expectancy in the world, with 80% unemployment.

And, as one of our founding fathers said, "I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents."

Not only is using taxpayer money on "objects of benevolence" wrong, but there's zero efficacy.

And during his SOTU address, Obama spoke nothing about governmental accountability. Instead, he reduced accountability to a punch line with, "Nobody messes with Joe."

But the biggest problem with Obama and his supporters is that they believe that our problems can be solved by government intervention, and I believe I've done a pretty good job of demonstrating that they don't, and private markets do: look at what Homeland Security has done for Katrina victims versus Habitat for Humanity.
 
If the government did such a good job, this discussion would not exist. Government does a horrible job of "helping" people. War on drugs, war on terror, war on porn, welfare, food stamps, public schools, public housing, etc.

Look at what HUD did to black communities.

Or look at what the Bureau of Indian Affairs have done. They've been issuing hand-outs for 100 years, and Indians are the poorest people in this country, with one of the lowest life expectancy in the world, with 80% unemployment.

And, as one of our founding fathers said, "I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents."

Not only is using taxpayer money on "objects of benevolence" wrong, but there's zero efficacy.

And during his SOTU address, Obama spoke nothing about governmental accountability. Instead, he reduced accountability to a punch line with, "Nobody messes with Joe."

But the biggest problem with Obama and his supporters is that they believe that our problems can be solved by government intervention, and I believe I've done a pretty good job of demonstrating that they don't, and private markets do: look at what Homeland Security has done for Katrina victims versus Habitat for Humanity.

Like I said previously, I agree that the system as it is now is not working, but that doesn't mean just stop and pull out.

There's a lot the private sector can't do nor do they want to do. Plus at times like this it's obvious the private sector can't do everything for they are drying up and backing out of poor communities right now. Especially education.

You show some examples but every single one of those examples upon deeper investigation would show there are several factors playing in these failures.

I think the biggest problem with Obama detractors and their followers is they actually believe just what you said. Obama has said himself several times that the government can only do so much, and most of us agree it's going to have to be a combined effort. Anyone who thinks otherwise be it the government will save all or the private sector will save all is just fooling themselves.
 
Like I said previously, I agree that the system as it is now is not working, but that doesn't mean just stop and pull out.

I guess that depends on what is meant by government pulling back. Frankly I think the big bailouts need to stop. Let the market adjust itself, however harshly, and spend government money on sustaining workers and families in transition through unemployment, retraining and national healthcare.
 
I guess that depends on what is meant by government pulling back. Frankly I think the big bailouts need to stop. Let the market adjust itself, however harshly, and spend government money on sustaining workers and families in transition through unemployment, retraining and national healthcare.

I agree. Let the bubble pop and the market will correct itself. The market is inherently self-correcting. FDR's spending did nothing for the economy except prolong it by seven years. It was monetary demand that lifted us out of the Great Depression, not government intervention.

And it was government intervention that started this mess to begin with, forcing financial and lending institutions to take on risk they otherwise would not have.
 
I guess that depends on what is meant by government pulling back. Frankly I think the big bailouts need to stop. Let the market adjust itself, however harshly, and spend government money on sustaining workers and families in transition through unemployment, retraining and national healthcare.

I don't agree with all the bailouts, but to think the market will just correct itself at this point is pretty short sighted.

If the American automobile system collapsed you are not only sending the manufacturers home; you are shutting down those that fabricate the seats, the seat belts, mirrors, etc these are all seperate entities. These are not all done on site, so you put out dozens of industries, most of which are specailized and can't restructure. Millions unemployed. How does the market just correct itself after that? Especially if you have several industries that collapse at the same time? Please do tell...

I loved it the other day, Hannity got called out on this, he's been talking about the market correcting himself for months but someone asked him how will it do that, he just fumbled around for 15 seconds and said "we're a great people that can pick itself up by the bootstraps". Great answer Sean. :|

The theory that it would just correct itself is a nice one if it was one small industry at a time.
 
It isn't strictly Darwinian, but economies are definitely a type of evolutionary system, the dynamics of a free market and the natural world share common elements, and show emergent complexity.
 
If the American automobile system collapsed you are not only sending the manufacturers home; you are shutting down those that fabricate the seats, the seat belts, mirrors, etc these are all seperate entities. These are not all done on site, so you put out dozens of industries, most of which are specailized and can't restructure. Millions unemployed. How does the market just correct itself after that? Especially if you have several industries that collapse at the same time? Please do tell...

I don't have any real answers, but I do have some questions?

Yes, I bought the first auto bailout for the reasons you cited.

But, it seems like this is not temporary. It is spreading and not just a U S auto industry problem. People are just not consuming at the same unnecessary rate. Our auto industry may end up where people actually buy cars when the need them. Not when they get a whim, because their old (2 year old) car is not as shiny.

The music industry has had to reinvent itself.
The newspaper industry, is/ will have to reinvent itself.

It may be cheaper to pay many auto workers and related businesses unemployment and medicare. Than to keep giving billions to a dying industry.

No doubt, there will be autos made, distributed and sold in the U S. There may be more economic ways to do this, just like with the creation and distribution of music. :shrug:

I used to buy cut outs. L Ps that were over produced, so they cut the corners off and sold them for $1 instead of $5. The same with C Ds, they drilled holes in the jewel case and sold them at 20% of the new cost.
Have you ever seen any over produced mp3s?


Why manufacture thousands? millions? of cars that no one has requested?
and store them on dealership lots all over the country?

Virgin Record Stores and Tower Record Stores were great, I spend thousands of hours in record stores, I even managed one in Hollywood for awhile, in the 70s:D

Are we doing the auto industry right?
 
I don't agree with all the bailouts, but to think the market will just correct itself at this point is pretty short sighted.

If the American automobile system collapsed you are not only sending the manufacturers home; you are shutting down those that fabricate the seats, the seat belts, mirrors, etc these are all seperate entities. These are not all done on site, so you put out dozens of industries, most of which are specailized and can't restructure. Millions unemployed. How does the market just correct itself after that? Especially if you have several industries that collapse at the same time? Please do tell...

I loved it the other day, Hannity got called out on this, he's been talking about the market correcting himself for months but someone asked him how will it do that, he just fumbled around for 15 seconds and said "we're a great people that can pick itself up by the bootstraps". Great answer Sean. :|

The theory that it would just correct itself is a nice one if it was one small industry at a time.

What's really shortsighted is the idea of Keynesian economics. Government can't inject money into the economy without first taking money out of the economy, so it borrows it. There's no increase in national income, it just redistributes it from the right pocket to the left.

Hoover and Roosevelt tried it and it didn't work. Gerald Ford and Bush tried it and it didn't work. During the 90s, Japan tried and they sufferred the Lost Decade.

As for the automakers:

Don't Bail Out the Big Three

There's nothing wrong with a "Big Two" | Cato's Center for Trade Policy Studies

America without its automakers | Cato's Center for Trade Policy Studies

It's 65 Million B.C. for the Detroit Three: Why use taxpayer money to postpone the inevitable? - Reason Magazine

YouTube - Bailing Out the Big Three - Why reward Detroit (and punish taxpayers) for making unprofitable cars?

YouTube - Where's Sock Puppet's Bailout?

The stregnth of America, unlike other countries, is that our market fluctuates. Certain jobs are destroyed and certain jobs are created. Places like France, Germany and Spain fight very hard to protect jobs, but as a result they have higher unemployment rates, even before this mess.

And how about you listen, analyze, and critique, I don't know, actual economists instead of boring radio/TV hosts?
 
Let me try:



Wake me up when the stock market hits 4000.00.

<>

Indeed. We're all still waiting for a coherent plan from the Treasury secretary and his team. Wasn't this administration supposed to hit the ground running?

Understaffed Geithner can't keep up, critics say


Or maybe today was 'Health Care Summit Day' at the White House.
Or 'Green Energy (your light bill is going up up up) Day'.
Or 'Stomp Rush Day'.

:doh: How many jobs are disappearing every month?
 
Are we doing the auto industry right?

I agree with you line of thinking. The auto industry has been profiting while lazily shooting itself in the foot for years. I'm hoping that this will be a realization that they too are vulnerable and actually start innovating again.
 
when cell phones became popular, att had to lay off ppl.

change will always be w us.

therefore let change happen instead of throwing money away.

<>
 
And how about you listen, analyze, and critique, I don't know, actual economists instead of boring radio/TV hosts?


I actually do, it's just you have to listen the blowhards sometime to know where others are coming from...

But it's becoming blantantly obvious to me that those that are just saying it will heal, don't really know how.

You never once answered my question. Some cute videos and some interesting articles but they didn't answer my question either...
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top Bottom