"The closest thing we've ever had to a free market was in the 19th century, and we saw the greatest rise in standards of living and infrastructure in the history of mankind."
It was also a century of one panic after another, robber barons, massive monopolies, labor exploitatio and it ended in extreme concentration of wealth and power in their hands. It ended in the progressive movement and labor uniotns to try to correct all the excesses and imbalances it created. The robber barons for example were using their railroad monopoly to starve out the farmers that had to rely on them to move their hard won crops to market. Corporations were abusing child labor and paying starvation wages.
It was also a period in which a vast continent rich with natural resources was opened and exploited. We were literally hauling billions out of the ground in gold and silver.
You can't reliably say the expansion in the 19th century was just because markets were free.
The media execs and share holders are mostly conservative. A lot of journalists tend to be well educated, idealistic, liberals. Fortunately for the conservatives we are replacing most of our journalists with talking heads who just spout what their audience wants to hear which happens with the views of their bosses and whichever party is popular at the moment. As a result there is very little critical analysis of how true anything is, you know the stuff journalists used to do. Today's "fact checkers" are a pale shadow since they don't uncover anything new.
The New York Times and New Yorker seem to be one of the very few outlets still doing investigative journalism, and exposing things like the Bush spying program. It drives the right nuts that the only investigative journalism that seems to be left in the U.S. is left leaning.
"First, once the primaries ended, all remotely honest reporting ended with it."
You guys seriously need to stop obsessing on "media bias". Maybe "all honest reporting" did end but Fox News reporting has been just as biased against Obama as MSNBC's has been biased in his favor. You have an entire cable news network, the #1 cable news network in the country as I recall, carrying your water for you. Talk radio is heavily right wing biased so its overwhelmingly in your favor. To offset the New York Times and Washington Post there are big newspapers just as biased to the right like the New York Post and Washington Times.
Your media bias shtick might have worked in the 90's but it simply doesn't wash any more. The right has just as much media bias in their favor as against. From about 9/11 to 2005 the media bias was overwhelmingly in the Republican's favor. Botching Katrina, the Iraq War, and the economy lost you most of the media sympathy you had. Yes, now a lot of media channels want your party thrown out, so do a lot of American people. Believe it or not media outlets pander to what the public wants because they make their money off their ratings, so they give people what they want. In 2002 America wanted pro Republican, bomb Iraq, flag waving and the media gave it to them. In 2008 America wants "run the bums" out and most media outlets are giving it to them.
As best I recall in recent weeks the EU with some degree of assent from the U.S. are talking about global market regulation. That is kind of scary in its own right, if you are going to have a global bureaucracy writing the rules. We are pretty much screwed at this point because thanks to computers and fiber optics the markets are already completely global and huge sumes are moving around in a heart beat. Thinking if you just get rid of all regulation that will fix everything is either naive or cynical. If you are a wealthy fat cat gaming the system I can see why you would want that though, at least until one of two things happen:
A. A smarter, richer fat cat games the system better than you and cleans YOU out B. The global economic system collapses and you run crying to your government for billions of dollars to bail you out which is what most of your "free market rules" friends seem to be doing at the moment.
The irony is most of you free marketeers only want free markets when you are making money, as soon as wreck the system with your greed, you seem to be the first ones running to the tax payers to save you ass(ets).
"You are the idealist -- some people (often the smart ones you deride) deserve to be rich. Others deserve to be poor."
That is a view point that has led to a lot of rich people being executed, most prominently Marie Antoinette when she told starving people to "eat cake".
If you think your idealistic, Libertarian world is going to work where a few rich people clean everyone else out you really are delusional.
I'll agree that lazy people deserve to be poor, and handing them welfare is wrong. Its just as wrong for hard working people to be robbed by a bunch of crooked fat cats which is exactly what you are advocating and seems to be more or less the system we have today.
Nice troll. I probably shouldn't bite but I can't resist....
First off here is an interesting juxtaposition:
"It isn't negative campaigning to point out the church, and its Pastor"
and
"And it is interesting how they left goes after Joe the plumber, Palin"
Have you seen the YouTube video of the minister in Palin's church standing behind Palin casting out witches. Do you know exactly how extreme and fringe Palin's Pentecostal church is? Do you know the positions of HER minister, Larry Koon? Palin's church is on par with Wright's for being nuts in the eyes of a lot of people. Not me because I seriously don't care what happens in Palin's or Obama's church as long as they aren't hurting anyone.
Has the Obama campaign said ANYTHING about Palin's church? Not to my knowledge. A person's religious preference shouldn't really have anything to do with a campaign as long as they don't bring it in to the campaign themselves. This is a basic part of separation of church and state and religious freedom in this country. For just about every religion in this country you will find some large group of people who think its nuts for one reason or another. If you are going to have a country with religious freedom and diversity you need to refrain from being intolerant and obsessive on the subject or its going to look like you are playing "my religion is better than your religion".......Archangel Michael.......
Only thing that bugs me about this country is its basically impossible for anyone who isn't a Christian to get elected to any important office. It used to be you had to be Protestant before Kennedy broke the taboo on Catholics. Its very hypocritical to claim you live in a country with separation of church and state, and religious freedom but you have to pass a religous litmus test to hold political office.
As I recall when Palin first ran for mayor she ran on an anti abortion campaign, against an incumbent with a Jewish sounding name who was mostly an indifferent Lutheran. She won almost entirely by bludgeoning him with her religion, with a whiff of antisemitism mixed in. Her minister has some pretty antisemitic positions so does that mean Palin is antisemitic. By your reasoning, yes it does. If so she is screwed winning the Presidency because AIPAC has a lot of political power in this country and will do everything in their power to keep an antisemite from winning.
I'm not gonna bite and defend the Fed, dude, so your troll didn't work. It has served a useful purpose at times, in particular it was formed to try to stop the serious panics that were happening in the U.S. every decade or two prior to its creation. It was also a legitimate thing to create an entity that managed the money supply, had some visibility and supposedly served in the public interest. It sought to replace a tiny group of New York bankers, like J.P. Morgan, who had been doing the same functions behind closed doors at their own initiative and were often serving their own interests ahead of the intrests of the nation.
On the other hand the Fed is composed of flawed human beings who pander to the interests more or less of a handful of New York bankers too. For all the good its done its probably done just as much damage. It has a kind of karmic balance in that.
"They say things like "regulated free markets." That's like "fun cancer.""
All I can say is you are delusional if you think totally free markets are going to work in this world. You are going to end up with massive gaming of the system by a bunch of smart people with computers, and free market forces wont correct them or stop it. You, sir have an idealistic view of the world, that simply wont work in practice. You will end up with a few extremely rich people and everyone else poor, starving, living in slums, and pissed off. Kind of like the U.S. was around 1900 with a bunch of robber barons and everyone else screwed. It led to the rise of the Progressive Party under Teddy Roosevelt to try to rein in all the excesses of the free markets.
"is the most independent minded Republican Senator "
This defense of McCain would have worked in 2000. I would have voted for him in 2000. Unfortunately he has abandoned so many of his principles in the last four years to win the Republican nomination he is a pale shadow of his former independent self. Can't really blame for this. He had to do it because he had to get a nomination from a party that is now officially nuts and is dominated by nuts. I feel for him, he was put between a rock and hard place. He had to sell out to get the nomination. In the process of selling out he completely lost the support of independents and moderates he had to get to win the election.
The charges about Wright are maybe defensible. The accusations about Ayers are complete bullshit. Obama was eight when Ayers led the Weather Underground. The FBI decided to never charge him for anything so he has no criminal record He turned over a new leaf and is a respected University professor and champion of better education in Chicago and this country. Obama didn't associate with him in the first part of his life only in the second, and there are just as many Chicago Republicans who work with him as Democrats. Not like his ties to him are particularly close. If you are going to make it a prerequisite for a President that they NEVER have associated with anyone every in their life who might be in any way be controversial you are going to require them to live in a bubble their entire life, and they sure can't go to a college. We've already have one President who lives in a bubble, George Bush, it was a disaster, we don't need any more.
Sending out robocalls that somehow Obama is a bomb throwing anti American terrorist because he knows Ayers is over the top offensive. Sure go ahead and do it, you are just going to turn off every independent in the country doing it which is what you did in my case.
The fact is there was a serious culture war in the U.S. in the 60's and early 70's. Obama and I missed it, we were to young. We aren't fighting it any more, we are moving past it. Its unfortunate the rest of you haven't. Its time to move on. This country has serious issues to fix and the culture war is making them worse, not resolving them. One good thing lately is young people are starting to get involved and vote again, I'm hoping they are a lot less rascist and homophobic and lot more tolerant than previous generations.
Its just a ruthless campaign tactic, and it has incredibly little value in discussing the issues that matter, or picking a President. In the cell phone camera, You Tube, age the political process is going to self destruct if you pick leaders based on what any associate of a candidate happens to have said in the previous 40 years.
Using Wright as your the basis of your campaign platform makes as much sense as Obama using the video of Sarah Palin having witches cast out of her by the African minister in her church in Alaska. If you want to dig in to Palin's past her church is pretty extreme too, as was her flirtation with the Alaskan Independence party. So is McCain's association with the Keating Five who was a complete crook and he bought protection from McCain and four other senators. That was outright corruption and McCain is lucky he dodged it with more damage than he got. So is McCain's dumping his first wife as soon as he got out of Vietnam for a woman young enough to be his daughter who happened to be rich and well connected in Arizona to insure him a successful launch of his political career.
If you look at Obama's campaign they've done very little of that politics of personal destruction bullshit. Its getting old, people are tired of it, the Democrats figured that out, the Republican's haven't. The most negative things I've seen them run are using McCain's own words saying he voted with Bush more than 90% of the time. I live in a battleground state. I don't think I've gotten a single negative robocall from the Democrats or Obama or their surrogates. No negative mailed fliers either. I get an offensive negative robocall a day from the Republicans, on Ayers, abortion, socialism accusations, etc. I even got a DVD from a Republican surrogate trying to revive the old Muslim fear mongering of 2004.
If McCain is so feeble he can't run his own campaign, or lead the party of which he is head as their Presidential candidate, it is a basic indicator he doesn't have the leadership or executive skills to be President. How the heck can he run a country if he can't manage his own party.
A lot of indicators are he is a terrible executive because his campaign has been problem plagued all the way through, it nearly went bankrupt, constant turnover in his top staff, constant direction changes, turmoil within his staff, backstabbing especially of Palin through leaks the media, etc.
Obama's campaign by contrast has been smooth and nearly flawless, as has his demeanor. He doesn't have much executive experience but at least he can run a complex campaign operation successfully, and also knows how to surroung himself with good people, though Biden isn't exactly great.
Not something I've made an issue of but McCain's character is pretty flawed too. He has serious anger management issues, always has. When he was released by Vietnam he came home and promptly started cheating on his wife Carol, with a woman young enough to be his daughter, Cindy. Carol stood by him through his years as POW. As I recall she was also severely injured in a car accident, she championed POW issues and was very popular among Republicans. McCain came home and promptly dumped his old, damaged wife, for a pretty young heiress to a Budweiser distributor in Arizona. The switch also happened it made him personally rich thanks to his new wife's fortune, and bought him instant country club connections in Arizona, political connections and campaign funds to insure a successful political career which is all he cared about when he got out of Vietnam. His entanglement in the Keating Five scandal came through his wife's father's Arizona political connections.. He really doesn't have the great character the Republicans say he has. I did like him back in 2000 and wish he'd won then since it would have saved this country and the world a great deal of misery but he missed his window back then thanks to Bush/Rove dirty tricks.
"However, most people believe in... in free markets"
I think that statement is very much open to debate after the last few months. A better statement would be people believe in regulated free markets. Completely free markets would just be handing all the worlds money to a bunch of wolves who are already using the global economy as a giant casino with all the tables rigged in their favor. The challenge is in figuring out the fine line between enough regulation, not enough and to much.
It is certainly true that a number of the economic problems we have were due to government intervention in the markets, like Fanny and Freddy. Government interventions in markets are almost always bad. The current Treasury program to secretly pump $700 billion in to the pockets of the same system where they work is HORRIBLE.
But credit default swaps, for example, were completely unregulated and a sterling example of what happens when you let greedy people do things without any checks and balances. They are an "economic weapon of mass destruction" where people were making billions writing insurance on investment vehicles when they had no mechanism to pay them off if they ever came due. John Cassano made something like $200 million, personally, selling CDS's as a contractor at AIG, When his house of cards collapsed AIG kept paying him $1 million a month because only he knew the entire history of his screwed up division. His tiny division of a couple hundred people took down a giant company of 100,000 people, and created a gigantic gaping hole in the economy its not clear even the Fed can plug if all the CDS's they wrote, come due.
Just ask Alan Greenspan, champion of free markets and less regulation;
REP. HENRY WAXMAN: In other words, you found that your view of the world, your ideology, was not right, it was not working?
ALAN GREENSPAN: That is -- precisely. No, that's precisely the reason I was shocked, because I had been going for 40 years or more with very considerable evidence that it was working exceptionally well.
He'd discovered that you couldn't trust people or companies to do the right thing when unregulated. He thought people and company wouldn't do stupid things, if it might end in the destruction of their company. He apparently lacked a basic understanding of human greed, in particular if people see an opportunity to make a lot of money in the near term, they don't necessarily care if what they are doing will ultimately lead to calamity, as long as they know they wont be the one paying the price for their misdeeds. They know that once they have their FU money in hand, it doesn't matter if they cause complete devastation in their wake, in fact in many instances they know the company they are intentionally destroying will give them a golden parachute as reward.
"From day 1 the democrats were labeling McCain as Bush Jr.. if that's not negativity, then I don't know what is."
It isn't negative campaigning to point out the party, and its President, you are running against has completely sucked for 8 years. If the Republican's don't like that...... they shouldn't have sucked so bad for the last eight years. Its entirely their own fault they are losing, they had their chance, they controlled all the levers of power.... and they blew it. That is the whole idea of a campaign against an unpopular incumbent. Unfortunately for McCain he does in fact support the lion's share of things Bush did with the possible exception of torture, profligate spending and a mismanaged war. Though he originally opposed the Bush tax cuts for the rich, for the obvious reason that they created staggering deficits, he has since flip flopped and has been running on a campaign to make them permanent.
"I am actually surprised McCain didn't try to switfboat this election."
Are you kidding? They've been running Jeremiah Wright saying "Goddamn America" steadily on DirectTV the last couple days.
Did you get the Republican party robocall about Ayers, that basically said Obama was a bomb throwing terrorist who would bomb the Pentagon.
Did you see Sarah Palin saying Obama "pal'ed around with terrorists".
As soon as McCain fired his old advisors and replaced them with people who ran Bush's campaign they adopted all the same Swift Boat tactics and it completely turned Independents, like me, against McCain, that and picking a right wing nut like Palin.
So they did try to Swift boat Obama it just didn't gain any traction because people are sick of the tactics and recognize them for what they are, fear mongering for power. The country and the media are also sick of Republicans. Bush has one great accomplishment in eight years, something I predicted when he won in 2004, that by the end of this second term we would completely turn the country against the New Republican party, an intolerant, far right party, dominated by evangelicals. A party pandering to the rich and manipulating a bunch of not so bright middle class supporters in to voting for them using abortion, homophobia and fear, manipulating not to bright middle class people in to voting for a party that is completely screwing them economically. Let's hope its finally over. Now we just have to worry about all the stupidity the Democrats will perpetrate when they are in control.
"If you decline to vote, then you really have no recourse to complain about the results of that process"
So not true. I'm a registered independent. I can't stand either of the two parties that dominate the system. They control the system not me. In my state these two parties prevent me from voting in the primary unless I register in one of their parties which I'm not going to do. As a result I have absolutely zero say in the candidates they put on the ballot when I do get to vote.
I still vote but every candidate the two parties are putting on the ballot such and have for a good 50 years, the all suck bad and I'm just picking the lesser of two evils. At this point don't start ranting about third parties, again the two major parties have so completely stacked the system in their favor that a third party candidate has no chance to win. They can't get on the TV and candidates who aren't on TV will never win. Its hard for them to even get on the ballot in most states.
Our electoral system and the two parties that run it are completely dysfunctional and as a result so is our government and increasingly our entire country. Everyone is free to complain about it whether they vote or not.
As for education which is pretty thinly discussed here from what I've read so far, I'm of the opinion that thinking the Federal government or any President is going to fix anything about education it is delusional. You have to look no further than "No Child Left Behind", a program with broad bipartisan support, which is a complete and utter disaster. How did they possibly think you were going to make every child in a school literate, some kinds either can't or wont learn, you can't make them. It was a Republican scam designed to give them an excuse to destroy public education and the Democrats fell for it. And I'm not sure public education shouldn't be destroyed, as noble as the goal was it is failing now. When you have teachers that are the dregs coming out of the college system and kids who don't want to learn it ain't gonna work no matter how much money you throw at it. You can do what the Republicans want and give good education to the rich but the U.S. doesn't have the money, the people or the raw material in kids that want to learn to give everyone a good education. That's what India does, they have a phenomenal education system for their upper class, and they turn out people how are sought the world over, but the vast majority of their people get spectacularly bad educations.
Probably the best thing a President could do for eduction..... shut off television.....
"Only a hardcore partisan calls getting a tax CUT a handout from the government"
I'm all for cutting spending and cutting taxes for everyone just like you....
But I didn't call the changes in tax rages a handout so STOP putting words in my mouth. The point that is apparently going completely over your head is wage earners are now taxed at a dramatically higher rate than the wealthy and they make vastly more per capita. That is how income redistribution really works and why certain people want to control the government so badly. All you have to do is change the tax rates so working people are taxed more than the wealthy and you quickly redistribute all the wealthy in to the hands of the wealthy. Read about the Progressive Party circa 1900. It was born for this very reason. Back then wealth concentration was extreme too, and it was leading to social unrest, you can only drain the wealth out of the lower and middle class so long before you have social unrest or revolution. Eventually even thick people notice they are all starving and living in slums, and a few people have all the money and are living in mansions. All those lower and middle income people are the ones that make economies run, because they buy lots of food, energy and housing.
If you leave it to market forces the rich are always going to get richer. Progressive taxation as one of the few ways to check wealth concentration that actually works. The catch is finding a careful balance where the rich pay enough, but not so much that they stop investing in capital markets. The old 70-80% rate was probably to high, the current 15% capital gains rate is way to low especially when your government has racked up an $11 trillion deficit. I assure you the current regressive tax system isn't good for ANYONE, not even the rich that think they are making out like bandits right now because our economy is extremely unhealthy now do to wealth concentration.
I'm all for people who build companies that make good products getting rich. But hedge fund managers are playing the economy like a casino, they are doing almost nothing productive other than providing some liquidity, and they are doing a whole lot of bad things like causing one bubble after another. Causing bubbles in food and oil kills people who can't afford to pay for bread when the price goes up 3X due to hedge fund speculators getting rich causing bubbles in commodities markets.
"and increased income redistribution (Obama worse than McCain)."
This is nonsense as is all of the rhetoric coming out of the Republicans on the issue lately. The income redistribution has been going on at a furious pace for eight years and it will continue under McCain. The redistribution of the money flowing out of the lower and middle class in to the pockets of the wealthy. Obama is just proposing slowing it down a little. Its really simple, if you are already rich it is really easy to reinvest your money and get even richer at a really fast rate. Read anything by Warren Buffett or buy Berkshire Hathaway stock and he will show you how, it has to do with compound interest from investing your capital. The more capital you have sitting around the more you make. You actually don't have to do anything resembling work to make it, you just have to have some investment broker shuffle it to the right places, and an accountant to pencil whip your taxes.
This wealth concentration spun out of control when the Republican's cut capital gains taxes to 15%. Most of the rich get their income on capital gains on stocks, bonds and dividends. They are paying a really absurdly low tax rate now, especially after they exploit skilled accountants and an array of tax shelters reserved for the rich.
By contrast wage earners lose 12.5% of their income to payroll taxes before they even get it. Then take out another 25-30% in assorted income, property and sales taxes. Do you see the problem here? Rich taxed at 15%, workers taxed at like 40%. If you don't have any money its really hard to break out of this cycle unless you work really hard, start your own business and have a lot of luck so it succeeds. If you are a wage slave your real income has gone DOWN the last eight years in the U.S. between stagnant wages thanks to globalization, off shoring, inflation and steep tax rates.
If you want to see McCain hypocrisy on the subject... he is a huge admirer of Teddy Roosevelt. Teddy Roosevelt was one of the original leaders of the Progressive Party. The Progressive party championed progressive taxation where the rich paid more taxes, its used to be a LOT more than the lower and middle class, because they could afford it and it offset wealth concentration. Bush, McCain have instuting and are advocating Regressive Taxation where the rich are taxed less than everyone else which is only sane if you want to concentrate all the wealth in the hands of a tiny elite and put everyone else in to poverty, which they do. A hedge fund manager making billions a year usually pays less taxes than working people pay in payroll taxes, not even counting their income taxes. Its kind of a classic "Big Lie" to rant about Obama being the "wealth redistributor" when its really the Republican party doing it and doing it massively. Unfortunately most Americans are dumb enough to believe them just because they keep repeating it on TV, and our so called journalists are to stupid to point out the huge disparity in tax burden in this country.
Yes the rich do pay a lot of taxes, but its because they are making ALL the money.
I hear Sarah and Todd Palin are backing the Alaskan Independence Party ticket. It shows you how patriotic they are that Todd was a card carrying member of a party that wants to secede from the Union and Palin attending their meetings, though she knew actually joining might impact her future political career.
I submit this classic angry post from yesterday. Slashdot is a far better laboratory for this kind of thing. In 2004 half of America was in this kind of blind rage over Bush and now the other half is in a blind rage over Obama. It is a little hard to fathom how a Republican would find a way to rationalize a defense of their party after the last eight year but cognitive dissonance is quite a strange phenomena. I'm sure in four or eight years Democrats will be defending their party after they've been thrown out of office for committing a different but equally outrageous set of atrocities.
Im the case of Obama it would be Warren Buffet. You'd be hard pressed to find a better financial advisor. He is one of the world's best value investors and believes companies should make money they old fashioned way buy earning it, instead of through Ponzi schemes.
Speaking of Ponzi schemes in the case of McCain it would be Phil Gramm, the guy who a few months ago said the American economy is fundamentally sound and its just a bunch of whiners causing the problem. Phil Gramm who also wrote the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act while in the Senate that repealed Glass-Steagel, the depression era legislation that was enacted to prevent a repeat of the 1929 crash. Many blame Gramm's Congressional efforts to relax regulation of the financial system for the current collapse. Gramm has also been a VP of UBS, a Swiss bank that profited mightly during the housing bubble, and since its collapse has written off at least $40 billion in losses and is in precarious shape. UBS has also seen multiple corruption investigations, the biggest being an illegal tax evasion scheme shielding 20,000 wealthy Americans from paying their taxes.
Slashdot Mirror
"The closest thing we've ever had to a free market was in the 19th century, and we saw the greatest rise in standards of living and infrastructure in the history of mankind."
It was also a century of one panic after another, robber barons, massive monopolies, labor exploitatio and it ended in extreme concentration of wealth and power in their hands. It ended in the progressive movement and labor uniotns to try to correct all the excesses and imbalances it created. The robber barons for example were using their railroad monopoly to starve out the farmers that had to rely on them to move their hard won crops to market. Corporations were abusing child labor and paying starvation wages.
It was also a period in which a vast continent rich with natural resources was opened and exploited. We were literally hauling billions out of the ground in gold and silver.
You can't reliably say the expansion in the 19th century was just because markets were free.
"the media is mostly conservative."
The media execs and share holders are mostly conservative. A lot of journalists tend to be well educated, idealistic, liberals. Fortunately for the conservatives we are replacing most of our journalists with talking heads who just spout what their audience wants to hear which happens with the views of their bosses and whichever party is popular at the moment. As a result there is very little critical analysis of how true anything is, you know the stuff journalists used to do. Today's "fact checkers" are a pale shadow since they don't uncover anything new.
The New York Times and New Yorker seem to be one of the very few outlets still doing investigative journalism, and exposing things like the Bush spying program. It drives the right nuts that the only investigative journalism that seems to be left in the U.S. is left leaning.
"What landmarks did Liddy bomb?"
Right you are. As best I recall..... he just napalmed our Constitution and tried to nuke our electoral process. Nothing important.
I'm assuming you are saying that since his terrorism was state sponsored it was different? Right you are....
"First, once the primaries ended, all remotely honest reporting ended with it."
You guys seriously need to stop obsessing on "media bias". Maybe "all honest reporting" did end but Fox News reporting has been just as biased against Obama as MSNBC's has been biased in his favor. You have an entire cable news network, the #1 cable news network in the country as I recall, carrying your water for you. Talk radio is heavily right wing biased so its overwhelmingly in your favor. To offset the New York Times and Washington Post there are big newspapers just as biased to the right like the New York Post and Washington Times.
Your media bias shtick might have worked in the 90's but it simply doesn't wash any more. The right has just as much media bias in their favor as against. From about 9/11 to 2005 the media bias was overwhelmingly in the Republican's favor. Botching Katrina, the Iraq War, and the economy lost you most of the media sympathy you had. Yes, now a lot of media channels want your party thrown out, so do a lot of American people. Believe it or not media outlets pander to what the public wants because they make their money off their ratings, so they give people what they want. In 2002 America wanted pro Republican, bomb Iraq, flag waving and the media gave it to them. In 2008 America wants "run the bums" out and most media outlets are giving it to them.
Good point!!
As best I recall in recent weeks the EU with some degree of assent from the U.S. are talking about global market regulation. That is kind of scary in its own right, if you are going to have a global bureaucracy writing the rules. We are pretty much screwed at this point because thanks to computers and fiber optics the markets are already completely global and huge sumes are moving around in a heart beat. Thinking if you just get rid of all regulation that will fix everything is either naive or cynical. If you are a wealthy fat cat gaming the system I can see why you would want that though, at least until one of two things happen:
A. A smarter, richer fat cat games the system better than you and cleans YOU out
B. The global economic system collapses and you run crying to your government for billions of dollars to bail you out which is what most of your "free market rules" friends seem to be doing at the moment.
The irony is most of you free marketeers only want free markets when you are making money, as soon as wreck the system with your greed, you seem to be the first ones running to the tax payers to save you ass(ets).
"You are the idealist -- some people (often the smart ones you deride) deserve to be rich. Others deserve to be poor."
That is a view point that has led to a lot of rich people being executed, most prominently Marie Antoinette when she told starving people to "eat cake".
If you think your idealistic, Libertarian world is going to work where a few rich people clean everyone else out you really are delusional.
I'll agree that lazy people deserve to be poor, and handing them welfare is wrong. Its just as wrong for hard working people to be robbed by a bunch of crooked fat cats which is exactly what you are advocating and seems to be more or less the system we have today.
Nice troll. I probably shouldn't bite but I can't resist....
First off here is an interesting juxtaposition:
"It isn't negative campaigning to point out the church, and its Pastor"
and
"And it is interesting how they left goes after Joe the plumber, Palin"
Have you seen the YouTube video of the minister in Palin's church standing behind Palin casting out witches. Do you know exactly how extreme and fringe Palin's Pentecostal church is? Do you know the positions of HER minister, Larry Koon? Palin's church is on par with Wright's for being nuts in the eyes of a lot of people. Not me because I seriously don't care what happens in Palin's or Obama's church as long as they aren't hurting anyone.
Has the Obama campaign said ANYTHING about Palin's church? Not to my knowledge. A person's religious preference shouldn't really have anything to do with a campaign as long as they don't bring it in to the campaign themselves. This is a basic part of separation of church and state and religious freedom in this country. For just about every religion in this country you will find some large group of people who think its nuts for one reason or another. If you are going to have a country with religious freedom and diversity you need to refrain from being intolerant and obsessive on the subject or its going to look like you are playing "my religion is better than your religion".......Archangel Michael.......
Only thing that bugs me about this country is its basically impossible for anyone who isn't a Christian to get elected to any important office. It used to be you had to be Protestant before Kennedy broke the taboo on Catholics. Its very hypocritical to claim you live in a country with separation of church and state, and religious freedom but you have to pass a religous litmus test to hold political office.
As I recall when Palin first ran for mayor she ran on an anti abortion campaign, against an incumbent with a Jewish sounding name who was mostly an indifferent Lutheran. She won almost entirely by bludgeoning him with her religion, with a whiff of antisemitism mixed in. Her minister has some pretty antisemitic positions so does that mean Palin is antisemitic. By your reasoning, yes it does. If so she is screwed winning the Presidency because AIPAC has a lot of political power in this country and will do everything in their power to keep an antisemite from winning.
I'm not gonna bite and defend the Fed, dude, so your troll didn't work. It has served a useful purpose at times, in particular it was formed to try to stop the serious panics that were happening in the U.S. every decade or two prior to its creation. It was also a legitimate thing to create an entity that managed the money supply, had some visibility and supposedly served in the public interest. It sought to replace a tiny group of New York bankers, like J.P. Morgan, who had been doing the same functions behind closed doors at their own initiative and were often serving their own interests ahead of the intrests of the nation.
On the other hand the Fed is composed of flawed human beings who pander to the interests more or less of a handful of New York bankers too. For all the good its done its probably done just as much damage. It has a kind of karmic balance in that.
"They say things like "regulated free markets." That's like "fun cancer.""
All I can say is you are delusional if you think totally free markets are going to work in this world. You are going to end up with massive gaming of the system by a bunch of smart people with computers, and free market forces wont correct them or stop it. You, sir have an idealistic view of the world, that simply wont work in practice. You will end up with a few extremely rich people and everyone else poor, starving, living in slums, and pissed off. Kind of like the U.S. was around 1900 with a bunch of robber barons and everyone else screwed. It led to the rise of the Progressive Party under Teddy Roosevelt to try to rein in all the excesses of the free markets.
"is the most independent minded Republican Senator "
This defense of McCain would have worked in 2000. I would have voted for him in 2000. Unfortunately he has abandoned so many of his principles in the last four years to win the Republican nomination he is a pale shadow of his former independent self. Can't really blame for this. He had to do it because he had to get a nomination from a party that is now officially nuts and is dominated by nuts. I feel for him, he was put between a rock and hard place. He had to sell out to get the nomination. In the process of selling out he completely lost the support of independents and moderates he had to get to win the election.
He sucks to be him in 2008.
The charges about Wright are maybe defensible. The accusations about Ayers are complete bullshit. Obama was eight when Ayers led the Weather Underground. The FBI decided to never charge him for anything so he has no criminal record He turned over a new leaf and is a respected University professor and champion of better education in Chicago and this country. Obama didn't associate with him in the first part of his life only in the second, and there are just as many Chicago Republicans who work with him as Democrats. Not like his ties to him are particularly close. If you are going to make it a prerequisite for a President that they NEVER have associated with anyone every in their life who might be in any way be controversial you are going to require them to live in a bubble their entire life, and they sure can't go to a college. We've already have one President who lives in a bubble, George Bush, it was a disaster, we don't need any more.
Sending out robocalls that somehow Obama is a bomb throwing anti American terrorist because he knows Ayers is over the top offensive. Sure go ahead and do it, you are just going to turn off every independent in the country doing it which is what you did in my case.
The fact is there was a serious culture war in the U.S. in the 60's and early 70's. Obama and I missed it, we were to young. We aren't fighting it any more, we are moving past it. Its unfortunate the rest of you haven't. Its time to move on. This country has serious issues to fix and the culture war is making them worse, not resolving them. One good thing lately is young people are starting to get involved and vote again, I'm hoping they are a lot less rascist and homophobic and lot more tolerant than previous generations.
Its just a ruthless campaign tactic, and it has incredibly little value in discussing the issues that matter, or picking a President. In the cell phone camera, You Tube, age the political process is going to self destruct if you pick leaders based on what any associate of a candidate happens to have said in the previous 40 years.
Using Wright as your the basis of your campaign platform makes as much sense as Obama using the video of Sarah Palin having witches cast out of her by the African minister in her church in Alaska. If you want to dig in to Palin's past her church is pretty extreme too, as was her flirtation with the Alaskan Independence party. So is McCain's association with the Keating Five who was a complete crook and he bought protection from McCain and four other senators. That was outright corruption and McCain is lucky he dodged it with more damage than he got. So is McCain's dumping his first wife as soon as he got out of Vietnam for a woman young enough to be his daughter who happened to be rich and well connected in Arizona to insure him a successful launch of his political career.
If you look at Obama's campaign they've done very little of that politics of personal destruction bullshit. Its getting old, people are tired of it, the Democrats figured that out, the Republican's haven't. The most negative things I've seen them run are using McCain's own words saying he voted with Bush more than 90% of the time. I live in a battleground state. I don't think I've gotten a single negative robocall from the Democrats or Obama or their surrogates. No negative mailed fliers either. I get an offensive negative robocall a day from the Republicans, on Ayers, abortion, socialism accusations, etc. I even got a DVD from a Republican surrogate trying to revive the old Muslim fear mongering of 2004.
If McCain is so feeble he can't run his own campaign, or lead the party of which he is head as their Presidential candidate, it is a basic indicator he doesn't have the leadership or executive skills to be President. How the heck can he run a country if he can't manage his own party.
A lot of indicators are he is a terrible executive because his campaign has been problem plagued all the way through, it nearly went bankrupt, constant turnover in his top staff, constant direction changes, turmoil within his staff, backstabbing especially of Palin through leaks the media, etc.
Obama's campaign by contrast has been smooth and nearly flawless, as has his demeanor. He doesn't have much executive experience but at least he can run a complex campaign operation successfully, and also knows how to surroung himself with good people, though Biden isn't exactly great.
Not something I've made an issue of but McCain's character is pretty flawed too. He has serious anger management issues, always has. When he was released by Vietnam he came home and promptly started cheating on his wife Carol, with a woman young enough to be his daughter, Cindy. Carol stood by him through his years as POW. As I recall she was also severely injured in a car accident, she championed POW issues and was very popular among Republicans. McCain came home and promptly dumped his old, damaged wife, for a pretty young heiress to a Budweiser distributor in Arizona. The switch also happened it made him personally rich thanks to his new wife's fortune, and bought him instant country club connections in Arizona, political connections and campaign funds to insure a successful political career which is all he cared about when he got out of Vietnam. His entanglement in the Keating Five scandal came through his wife's father's Arizona political connections.. He really doesn't have the great character the Republicans say he has. I did like him back in 2000 and wish he'd won then since it would have saved this country and the world a great deal of misery but he missed his window back then thanks to Bush/Rove dirty tricks.
"However, most people believe in... in free markets"
I think that statement is very much open to debate after the last few months. A better statement would be people believe in regulated free markets. Completely free markets would just be handing all the worlds money to a bunch of wolves who are already using the global economy as a giant casino with all the tables rigged in their favor. The challenge is in figuring out the fine line between enough regulation, not enough and to much.
It is certainly true that a number of the economic problems we have were due to government intervention in the markets, like Fanny and Freddy. Government interventions in markets are almost always bad. The current Treasury program to secretly pump $700 billion in to the pockets of the same system where they work is HORRIBLE.
But credit default swaps, for example, were completely unregulated and a sterling example of what happens when you let greedy people do things without any checks and balances. They are an "economic weapon of mass destruction" where people were making billions writing insurance on investment vehicles when they had no mechanism to pay them off if they ever came due. John Cassano made something like $200 million, personally, selling CDS's as a contractor at AIG, When his house of cards collapsed AIG kept paying him $1 million a month because only he knew the entire history of his screwed up division. His tiny division of a couple hundred people took down a giant company of 100,000 people, and created a gigantic gaping hole in the economy its not clear even the Fed can plug if all the CDS's they wrote, come due.
Just ask Alan Greenspan, champion of free markets and less regulation;
REP. HENRY WAXMAN: In other words, you found that your view of the world, your ideology, was not right, it was not working?
ALAN GREENSPAN: That is -- precisely. No, that's precisely the reason I was shocked, because I had been going for 40 years or more with very considerable evidence that it was working exceptionally well.
He'd discovered that you couldn't trust people or companies to do the right thing when unregulated. He thought people and company wouldn't do stupid things, if it might end in the destruction of their company. He apparently lacked a basic understanding of human greed, in particular if people see an opportunity to make a lot of money in the near term, they don't necessarily care if what they are doing will ultimately lead to calamity, as long as they know they wont be the one paying the price for their misdeeds. They know that once they have their FU money in hand, it doesn't matter if they cause complete devastation in their wake, in fact in many instances they know the company they are intentionally destroying will give them a golden parachute as reward.
"From day 1 the democrats were labeling McCain as Bush Jr.. if that's not negativity, then I don't know what is."
It isn't negative campaigning to point out the party, and its President, you are running against has completely sucked for 8 years. If the Republican's don't like that...... they shouldn't have sucked so bad for the last eight years. Its entirely their own fault they are losing, they had their chance, they controlled all the levers of power.... and they blew it. That is the whole idea of a campaign against an unpopular incumbent. Unfortunately for McCain he does in fact support the lion's share of things Bush did with the possible exception of torture, profligate spending and a mismanaged war. Though he originally opposed the Bush tax cuts for the rich, for the obvious reason that they created staggering deficits, he has since flip flopped and has been running on a campaign to make them permanent.
"I am actually surprised McCain didn't try to switfboat this election."
Are you kidding? They've been running Jeremiah Wright saying "Goddamn America" steadily on DirectTV the last couple days.
Did you get the Republican party robocall about Ayers, that basically said Obama was a bomb throwing terrorist who would bomb the Pentagon.
Did you see Sarah Palin saying Obama "pal'ed around with terrorists".
As soon as McCain fired his old advisors and replaced them with people who ran Bush's campaign they adopted all the same Swift Boat tactics and it completely turned Independents, like me, against McCain, that and picking a right wing nut like Palin.
So they did try to Swift boat Obama it just didn't gain any traction because people are sick of the tactics and recognize them for what they are, fear mongering for power. The country and the media are also sick of Republicans. Bush has one great accomplishment in eight years, something I predicted when he won in 2004, that by the end of this second term we would completely turn the country against the New Republican party, an intolerant, far right party, dominated by evangelicals. A party pandering to the rich and manipulating a bunch of not so bright middle class supporters in to voting for them using abortion, homophobia and fear, manipulating not to bright middle class people in to voting for a party that is completely screwing them economically. Let's hope its finally over. Now we just have to worry about all the stupidity the Democrats will perpetrate when they are in control.
"If you decline to vote, then you really have no recourse to complain about the results of that process"
So not true. I'm a registered independent. I can't stand either of the two parties that dominate the system. They control the system not me. In my state these two parties prevent me from voting in the primary unless I register in one of their parties which I'm not going to do. As a result I have absolutely zero say in the candidates they put on the ballot when I do get to vote.
I still vote but every candidate the two parties are putting on the ballot such and have for a good 50 years, the all suck bad and I'm just picking the lesser of two evils. At this point don't start ranting about third parties, again the two major parties have so completely stacked the system in their favor that a third party candidate has no chance to win. They can't get on the TV and candidates who aren't on TV will never win. Its hard for them to even get on the ballot in most states.
Our electoral system and the two parties that run it are completely dysfunctional and as a result so is our government and increasingly our entire country. Everyone is free to complain about it whether they vote or not.
As for education which is pretty thinly discussed here from what I've read so far, I'm of the opinion that thinking the Federal government or any President is going to fix anything about education it is delusional. You have to look no further than "No Child Left Behind", a program with broad bipartisan support, which is a complete and utter disaster. How did they possibly think you were going to make every child in a school literate, some kinds either can't or wont learn, you can't make them. It was a Republican scam designed to give them an excuse to destroy public education and the Democrats fell for it. And I'm not sure public education shouldn't be destroyed, as noble as the goal was it is failing now. When you have teachers that are the dregs coming out of the college system and kids who don't want to learn it ain't gonna work no matter how much money you throw at it. You can do what the Republicans want and give good education to the rich but the U.S. doesn't have the money, the people or the raw material in kids that want to learn to give everyone a good education. That's what India does, they have a phenomenal education system for their upper class, and they turn out people how are sought the world over, but the vast majority of their people get spectacularly bad educations.
Probably the best thing a President could do for eduction..... shut off television.....
"Only a hardcore partisan calls getting a tax CUT a handout from the government"
I'm all for cutting spending and cutting taxes for everyone just like you....
But I didn't call the changes in tax rages a handout so STOP putting words in my mouth. The point that is apparently going completely over your head is wage earners are now taxed at a dramatically higher rate than the wealthy and they make vastly more per capita. That is how income redistribution really works and why certain people want to control the government so badly. All you have to do is change the tax rates so working people are taxed more than the wealthy and you quickly redistribute all the wealthy in to the hands of the wealthy. Read about the Progressive Party circa 1900. It was born for this very reason. Back then wealth concentration was extreme too, and it was leading to social unrest, you can only drain the wealth out of the lower and middle class so long before you have social unrest or revolution. Eventually even thick people notice they are all starving and living in slums, and a few people have all the money and are living in mansions. All those lower and middle income people are the ones that make economies run, because they buy lots of food, energy and housing.
If you leave it to market forces the rich are always going to get richer. Progressive taxation as one of the few ways to check wealth concentration that actually works. The catch is finding a careful balance where the rich pay enough, but not so much that they stop investing in capital markets. The old 70-80% rate was probably to high, the current 15% capital gains rate is way to low especially when your government has racked up an $11 trillion deficit. I assure you the current regressive tax system isn't good for ANYONE, not even the rich that think they are making out like bandits right now because our economy is extremely unhealthy now do to wealth concentration.
I'm all for people who build companies that make good products getting rich. But hedge fund managers are playing the economy like a casino, they are doing almost nothing productive other than providing some liquidity, and they are doing a whole lot of bad things like causing one bubble after another. Causing bubbles in food and oil kills people who can't afford to pay for bread when the price goes up 3X due to hedge fund speculators getting rich causing bubbles in commodities markets.
"and increased income redistribution (Obama worse than McCain)."
This is nonsense as is all of the rhetoric coming out of the Republicans on the issue lately. The income redistribution has been going on at a furious pace for eight years and it will continue under McCain. The redistribution of the money flowing out of the lower and middle class in to the pockets of the wealthy. Obama is just proposing slowing it down a little. Its really simple, if you are already rich it is really easy to reinvest your money and get even richer at a really fast rate. Read anything by Warren Buffett or buy Berkshire Hathaway stock and he will show you how, it has to do with compound interest from investing your capital. The more capital you have sitting around the more you make. You actually don't have to do anything resembling work to make it, you just have to have some investment broker shuffle it to the right places, and an accountant to pencil whip your taxes.
This wealth concentration spun out of control when the Republican's cut capital gains taxes to 15%. Most of the rich get their income on capital gains on stocks, bonds and dividends. They are paying a really absurdly low tax rate now, especially after they exploit skilled accountants and an array of tax shelters reserved for the rich.
By contrast wage earners lose 12.5% of their income to payroll taxes before they even get it. Then take out another 25-30% in assorted income, property and sales taxes. Do you see the problem here? Rich taxed at 15%, workers taxed at like 40%. If you don't have any money its really hard to break out of this cycle unless you work really hard, start your own business and have a lot of luck so it succeeds. If you are a wage slave your real income has gone DOWN the last eight years in the U.S. between stagnant wages thanks to globalization, off shoring, inflation and steep tax rates.
If you want to see McCain hypocrisy on the subject... he is a huge admirer of Teddy Roosevelt. Teddy Roosevelt was one of the original leaders of the Progressive Party. The Progressive party championed progressive taxation where the rich paid more taxes, its used to be a LOT more than the lower and middle class, because they could afford it and it offset wealth concentration. Bush, McCain have instuting and are advocating Regressive Taxation where the rich are taxed less than everyone else which is only sane if you want to concentrate all the wealth in the hands of a tiny elite and put everyone else in to poverty, which they do. A hedge fund manager making billions a year usually pays less taxes than working people pay in payroll taxes, not even counting their income taxes. Its kind of a classic "Big Lie" to rant about Obama being the "wealth redistributor" when its really the Republican party doing it and doing it massively. Unfortunately most Americans are dumb enough to believe them just because they keep repeating it on TV, and our so called journalists are to stupid to point out the huge disparity in tax burden in this country.
Yes the rich do pay a lot of taxes, but its because they are making ALL the money.
I hear Sarah and Todd Palin are backing the Alaskan Independence Party ticket. It shows you how patriotic they are that Todd was a card carrying member of a party that wants to secede from the Union and Palin attending their meetings, though she knew actually joining might impact her future political career.
If they were smart they would post their problem on Slashdot and let all the nerds figure out a solution for them for free......
I submit this classic angry post from yesterday. Slashdot is a far better laboratory for this kind of thing. In 2004 half of America was in this kind of blind rage over Bush and now the other half is in a blind rage over Obama. It is a little hard to fathom how a Republican would find a way to rationalize a defense of their party after the last eight year but cognitive dissonance is quite a strange phenomena. I'm sure in four or eight years Democrats will be defending their party after they've been thrown out of office for committing a different but equally outrageous set of atrocities.
I wonder if they count the nose cone fuse assemblies the U.S. Air Force accidentally exported to Taiwan.
"however I'm really not so terribly interested in what you do about your own problems"
I figured since you were suggesting I hand out fliers about UK causes in the U.S. which is "nutters".
Im the case of Obama it would be Warren Buffet. You'd be hard pressed to find a better financial advisor. He is one of the world's best value investors and believes companies should make money they old fashioned way buy earning it, instead of through Ponzi schemes.
Speaking of Ponzi schemes in the case of McCain it would be Phil Gramm, the guy who a few months ago said the American economy is fundamentally sound and its just a bunch of whiners causing the problem. Phil Gramm who also wrote the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act while in the Senate that repealed Glass-Steagel, the depression era legislation that was enacted to prevent a repeat of the 1929 crash. Many blame Gramm's Congressional efforts to relax regulation of the financial system for the current collapse. Gramm has also been a VP of UBS, a Swiss bank that profited mightly during the housing bubble, and since its collapse has written off at least $40 billion in losses and is in precarious shape. UBS has also seen multiple corruption investigations, the biggest being an illegal tax evasion scheme shielding 20,000 wealthy Americans from paying their taxes.