Obama General Discussion, vol. 4

[financeguy]

for people to still dig in their heels on that particular issue in this day and age, and for people to continue to blame most, if not all, of our current ills on it, is ridiculous.

Who has made such an assertion?

 

[Moonlit_Angel]

I was talking in a general public sense-there are still people out there who do make such claims. The religious right in particular seem to think our society is on a downhill slide because of our "loose morals" on issues such as this.

But heck, just go look back through the thread we have going on it here, as well as the other numerous debates we've had on the topic in years past on here. You can find examples from those who oppose same sex marriage.

 

[BVS]

The report of the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission would disagree with your statement that the blame for the crash isn't debatable. Economists and analysts more intelligent than you or I continue to debate and analyse where the blame lies for the crash, and will be debating it for decades.

Have you read the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission report, incidentally? Well, here it is:

Get the Report : Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission

Read it last night, thank you.

The details are debatalbe, that's true, but there are areas of agreement throughout, they even state as much.

 

[Angel617]

The blame for the crash really isn't debatable its dishonest to turn your eyes away from the fact that certain policies over years lead to this demise. It's also dishonest to talk as if crashes such as these recover quickly. It's economics 101. Do you remember during the Bush years how Republicans talked about Clinton's foreign policies and how it lead to the then current issues? CONTEXT. Economies, wars, health epidemics, etc these all take a culmination of years to develop and then take years to fix. Nothing this big changes overnight, and for the Republicans to pretend otherwise is just playing dumb for politics sake.

Deregulation, if that is the fault of the crash, is something that started long before Bush ever came into office. In addition, even though Obama was not President at the time, what steps did he take as Senator to prevent the crash from happening?

Is an average growth rate of below 2% for Obama's Presidency normal given that the recession ended in June 2009?

Is it wrong for American citizens to say, you know what, I understand Obama tried, but he has had four years and the country is still barely moving and has significant economic problems, why not try somebody new?

Do you really think economic growth would be any worse under a Romney Presidency?

 

[BVS]

Is it wrong for American citizens to say, you know what, I understand Obama tried, but he has had four years and the country is still barely moving and has significant economic problems, why not try somebody new?

The American people can say anything they want. I would just like them to say it in an informed way and ignoring Bush's role and the fact that recessions of this magnitude take time to see significant recovery is not informed.

Do you really think economic growth would be any worse under a Romney Presidency?

Short term, no. Long term, absolutely.

 

[Angel617]

The American people can say anything they want. I would just like them to say it in an informed way and ignoring Bush's role and the fact that recessions of this magnitude take time to see significant recovery is not informed.


Short term, no. Long term, absolutely.

You may wish that Bush was challenging Obama for the election this year, but he is not. The last time Bush was on the ballot was 8 years ago in 2004. The only important criteria in 2012 is Obama's record as President and whether Romney could do better. Obama can't ignore his record. Good or bad, he has to stand by that and win or lose with it in November. Hiding behind Bush is dishonest and won't work.

 

[Irvine511]

Do you really think economic growth would be any worse under a Romney Presidency?

there are issues other than economic growth.

 

[BVS]

You may wish that Bush was challenging Obama for the election this year, but he is not. The last time Bush was on the ballot was 8 years ago in 2004. The only important criteria in 2012 is Obama's record as President and whether Romney could do better. Obama can't ignore his record. Good or bad, he has to stand by that and win or lose with it in November. Hiding behind Bush is dishonest and won't work.

If you want to continue through life ignoring context, more power to you. You're ignoring the context that put us here, and then you also ignore that so far what we've seen of Romney's economic plan is that it would repeat much of those same practices. So will you act confused when history repeats itself?

What part of Romney's plan would have created more growth than that of what we've seen the last 3 years without long term damage?

 

[U2DMfan]

Supply Side economics is the one sure-fire way to create more deficits. Demonstrably proven across 20 years of Reagonmics in the White House. The numbers don't lie. We've tried it. And that was with two Presidents (Reagan, HW Bush) that actually raised taxes! Wow. That's why I can't vote for Romney. The Democrats, for all their spending woes (and they are egregious, for sure) at least will acknowledge that we need revenues to pay for the bills.

Oh and...

 

[PhilsFan]

Obama has a better economic plan than Romney anyway, so the point about Bush is moot.

 

[BonosSaint]

I debated which of the two candidate threads to put this in. Figured this one, since if the election is close in November and Obama is in danger of losing PA, I will vote for Obama.

However: From Today's NY Times

July 30, 2012
Dullest Campaign Ever
By DAVID BROOKS

A few weeks ago, Peggy Noonan wrote a column in The Wall Street Journal that perfectly captures my attitude toward this presidential campaign: It’s incredibly consequential and incredibly boring all at the same time.

Since then, I’ve come up with a number of reasons for why it is so dull. First, intellectual stagnation. This race is the latest iteration of the same debate we’ve been having since 1964. Mitt Romney is calling President Obama a big-government liberal who wants to crush business. Obama is calling Romney a corporate tool who wants to take away grandma’s health care.

American politics went through tremendous changes between 1900 and 1936, and then again between 1940 and 1976. But our big government/small government debate is back where it was a generation ago. Candidates don’t even have to rehearse the arguments anymore; they just find the gaffes that will help them pin their opponent to the standard bogyman clichés.

Second, lack of any hint of intellectual innovation. Candidates used to start their campaigns by giving serious policy addresses at universities and think tanks to lay out their distinct philosophies. Bill Clinton was a New Democrat. George W. Bush was a Compassionate Conservative.

But the ideological climate has ossified. Candidates know that they’d be punished for saying something unexpected — by the rich, elderly donors and by the hyperorthodox talk-show hosts. Instead of saying something new, now they just try to boost turnout within their own demographic niches and suppress turnout in the other guy’s niches.

Third, increased focus on the uninformed. Four years ago, Barack Obama gave a sophisticated major speech on race. Mitt Romney did one on religion. This year, the candidates do not feel compelled to give major speeches. The prevailing view is that anybody who would pay attention to such a speech is already committed to a candidate. It’s more efficient to focus on the undecided voters, who don’t really follow politics or the news.

Fourth, lack of serious policy proposals. Has there ever been a campaign with so few major plans on the table? President Obama’s proposals are small and medium-size retreads, while Mitt Romney has run the closest thing to a policy-free race as any candidate in my lifetime. Republicans spend their days fleshing out proposals, which Romney decides not to champion.

Fifth, negative passion. Both parties are driven more by hatred than by love. Both sides feel it would be a disaster for the country if the other side had power during the next four years. Neither side is propelled by much positive enthusiasm for their own side.

Many Democratic politicians think Obama looks down on them as a bunch of lowlife hacks. As Noonan wrote in that column, he sometimes seems to regard politics as a weary duty on his path to greatness. The Republican coolness toward Romney is such that he’s having trouble recruiting people to work on the campaign.

Sixth, no enactment strategy. To avert catastrophe, the next president will have to rally bipartisan majorities around a budget deal and many other things. That will require personal and relationship skills neither has demonstrated. The polarizing, negative tactics the candidates use to get elected will make it impossible to succeed after one of them wins.

Seventh, ad budget myopia. Both campaigns fervently believe that more spending leads to more votes. They also believe that if they can carpet bomb swing voters with enough negative ads, then eventually the sheer weight of the barrage will produce movement in their direction. There’s little evidence that these prejudices are true. But the campaigns are like World War I generals. If something isn’t working, the answer must be to try more of it.

Eighth, technology is making campaigns dumber. BlackBerrys and iPhones mean that campaigns can respond to their opponents minute by minute and hour by hour. The campaigns get lost in tit-for-tat minutiae that nobody outside the bubble cares about. Meanwhile, use of the Internet means that Web videos overshadow candidate speeches and appearances. Video replaces verbal. Tactics eclipse vision.

Finally, dishonesty numbs. A few years ago, newspapers and nonprofits set up fact-checking squads, rating campaign statements with Pinocchios and such. The hope was that if nonpartisan outfits exposed campaign deception, the campaigns would be too ashamed to lie so much.

This hope was naïve. As John Dickerson of Slate has said, the campaigns want the Pinocchios. They want to show how tough they are. But the result is a credibility vacuum. It’s impossible to take ads seriously. They are the jackhammer noise in the background of life.

This is the paradox. As campaigns get more sophisticated, everything begins to look more homogenized, less effective and indescribably soporific.

I'm safe but unenthusiastic. Of course, I was the same four years ago. PA wasn't close so I got to vote my heart.


http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/31/opinion/brooks-dullest-campaign-ever.html?_r=1&hp

 

[financeguy]

“If you’ve got a business, you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen.” Mitt Romney fell on this Obama quote like an NFL lineman on an end zone fumble during the Super Bowl. And understandably so.

For this was no gaffe, said Romney, this is what Obama believes. This is straight out of the catechism. Obama thinks that had not the government created the preconditions, none of us could succeed. We all depend on government. None of us can make it on our own.

Here is Obama’s full quote:

“If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help. There was a great teacher somewhere in your life. Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive. Somebody invested in roads and bridges. If you’ve got a business, you didn’t build that. Somebody else made it happen.”

“Seeing government as antecedent to enterprise, Obama has it backward.”

Even with this preamble, Romney seems to have it right. Obama sees government as indispensable. Without the roads and bridges that government builds, without the teachers government provides, no one succeeds. It takes a village.

Obama’s America—and Ours - Taki's Magazine

 

[Irvine511]

 

[financeguy]

Fuck's sake man. Where in the name of all that's holy do you think the money to build all those things comes from?

 

[Irvine511]

taxes.

 

[BVS]

Fuck's sake man. Where in the name of all that's holy do you think the money to build all those things comes from?

You're missing the point. It's a symbiotic relationship, they both need each other. Why are some burying their heads?

 

[Moonlit_Angel]

For this was no gaffe, said Romney, this is what Obama believes. This is straight out of the catechism. Obama thinks that had not the government created the preconditions, none of us could succeed. We all depend on government. None of us can make it on our own.

Even with this preamble, Romney seems to have it right. Obama sees government as indispensable. Without the roads and bridges that government builds, without the teachers government provides, no one succeeds. It takes a village.

Except both of these are still wrong. He never said that the government alone is responsible for all our success and that they and they alone will be what we need to do well. He DID also note in that speech that private business is instrumental to making things run, too.

All he's saying is that rich people and business owners are going around claiming they got where they are all by themselves, without any help of any kind. And he's saying that's not true. Be it the government, be it teachers, be it your family, your friends, a loyal customer, a private business who supports you, whomever, the fact is there are plenty of people involved in helping someone become successful.

And he was also responding to the people who claim the government had no hand of any kind in their success. They're wrong. At some point and time, you had some interaction with the government, be it on a local, state, or federal level. To claim otherwise is, well, ridiculous.

 

[financeguy]

All he's saying is that rich people and business owners are going around claiming they got where they are all by themselves, without any help of any kind.

Name 100 that have claimed that. Let's name and shame 'em.

No, I'll make it easy for you. Name a dozen.

 

[Irvine511]

i just posted a picture of someone who claims that.

 

[Moonlit_Angel]

I was going to say, there's one right there.

And if you listen to the CEO/Republican talking points, they say things like that all the time. They go on and on about pulling yourselves up by your bootstraps. That if you're not rich it's clearly because you were lazy and didn't work hard enough. That they worked hard for their success and if you just follow their method you too can live the American Dream. They completely ignore or refuse to talk about all the things that helped them get as successful as they are. Luck, being born into money, knowing the right people, going to the right schools.

 

[KhanadaRhodes]

All he's saying is that rich people and business owners are going around claiming they got where they are all by themselves, without any help of any kind. And he's saying that's not true. Be it the government, be it teachers, be it your family, your friends, a loyal customer, a private business who supports you, whomever, the fact is there are plenty of people involved in helping someone become successful.

i've encountered so many people like this. the ones that bother me the most are those "i pulled myself up by my bootstraps..." type people. (and ha, i just saw you said the same thing in a later post!) regardless, people who think they achieved success all by themselves without help from anyone or anything are just wrong.

i mean yeah, anyone who has a successful business has a lot to be proud of and i don't blame them for wanting to take credit for it. but to take credit for everything as if you've had no help from anyone is pretty much impossible. you'd have to have already been wealthy to not need to rely on any government assistance and even then they got tax credits or something.

 

[INDY500]

In a blink-and-miss-it moment in the new Total Recall you can see Barack Obama on the bill of a futuristic currency. Which country's currency is not clear.

Still, quite ironic given that the movie, like the Obama presidency, requires the process of brainwashing.

 

[Diemen]

Still, quite ironic given that the movie, like the Obama presidency, requires the process of brainwashing.

Classy.

 

[Moonlit_Angel]

In a blink-and-miss-it moment in the new Total Recall you can see Barack Obama on the bill of a futuristic currency. Which country's currency is not clear.

Still, quite ironic given that the movie, like the Obama presidency, requires the process of brainwashing.

Wow, I've been brainwashed? It's all so clear now!

(And you were complaining about lack of civility in the last same sex thread?)

 

[Irvine511]

my God. Obama's not-real-American un-American disbelief in American Exceptionalism is even affecting our OLYMPIANS!

especially the black ones!


Fox Complains Gabby Douglas And Other American Olympians Not Showing Enough Patriotism - YouTube


thank Jesus Fox News is on the case.

you know when we were appropriately patriotic! 1984. and guess who was president then?

you see?

 

[yolland]

What, all their cringe-inducing programmatic babble about "Well I'm just here to, y'know, support Team USA and, y'know, do my best for Team USA and, y'know, be part of this great experience of being here at the Olympics as part of Team USA" wasn't good enough for him?

 

[Moonlit_Angel]

So is there, like, a checklist or something that these people use to determine who is "most patriotic"? What all does someone have to do to prove how much they love this country?

 

[Irvine511]

What, all their cringe-inducing programmatic babble about "Well I'm just here to, y'know, support Team USA and, y'know, do my best for Team USA and, y'know, be part of this great experience of being here at the Olympics as part of Team USA" wasn't good enough for him?

Not when every world event must be shape to fit a predetermined meta narrative.

 

[KhanadaRhodes]

So is there, like, a checklist or something that these people use to determine who is "most patriotic"? What all does someone have to do to prove how much they love this country?

probably. i started to type out a list but it seemed too mean-spirited. i'll just say pulling up yourself by your bootstraps was on there.

 

[maycocksean]

my God. Obama's not-real-American un-American disbelief in American Exceptionalism is even affecting our OLYMPIANS!

especially the black ones!


Fox Complains Gabby Douglas And Other American Olympians Not Showing Enough Patriotism - YouTube


thank Jesus Fox News is on the case.

you know when we were appropriately patriotic! 1984. and guess who was president then?

you see?

What an embarrassment. The entire segment makes both host and guest look like imbeciles.