Washington Post reporter Dan Balz (4/10/11) presents the Obama/GOP budget deal asevidence that the White House wasmerelyrespondingto public opinion:
Most important was showing the country that he could make Washington work. “Like any worthwhile agreement, both sides had to make tough decisions and give ground on issues that were important to them,” he said.
At the same time, knowing that the public also favors reduced spending, Obama pointed to the size of the cuts in the new agreement while noting that his priorities had been preserved. The budget, he said, would “invest in our future.”
Balz also notes that “the battle was fought on turf far more hospitable to Republicans, given the country’s concerns about spending that contributed to the Democrats losing the House in November.”
This was the conventional wisdom about the 2010 election, but it has very little to support it. Most public opinion polling shows far more concern about job creation than the deficit or national debt. As Jim Naureckas noted here, budget cuts will cost jobs, not create them. But in the minds of reporters like Balz, the public has lined up to back drastic spending cuts–and the media don’t seem interested in talking much about the likely effects of such cuts.
Dear Misleader says these cuts will be painful.
Remember “I feel your pain”?
I’d sure as hell like to help him to, but I couldn’t get close enough, could I?
The Associated Press left out key context in an article released today on the budget battle in Washington. It noted multiple times that Obama’s budget will cut Medicare and Medicaid but made no mention of the other (more popular) steps Obama supports to reduce the deficit. They also make no mention of the drastic cuts to Medicare and Medicaid in Ryan’s 2012 budget. Read my full anaylsis at Truth Matters.
http://jasonbeets.blogspot.com/2011/04/associated-press-leaves-out-important.html
As apparent as warts on a toad – This attack on the least able to bear the pain- just to protect the lack of civility, that seem the mark of the GOP, and their wealthy backers! I expect this will breed a yet unknown and nasty event.
You can dress like an elephant or a donkey,but the plutocrats in power don’t care.Their job is to continue the transfer of wealth from the poor and middle class to the uber-rich.
So far they’re on track to take us back to the era before the Great Depression.
Class warfare ,only its more like economic rape.Watch as it unfolds,or do something about it NOW!
the “people’s budget” name is taken by the fact that – according to an interview I’ve heard on Pacifica – the priorities given to cuts and increases has been derived by tracking many public opinion polls – so it is a very apt name (and “we the people” are the first words of the constitution, so to deny that this country has been created by the people is un-american… and that it is a republic “of the people” is also unamerican, besides being legally wrong).
I’ve been fuming at the lack of main stream media reporting on this budget, ever since I heard the interview yesterday (I didn’t even know there was a “third way”!).
Unfortunately I’m unable to share articles on facebook these days because of my location, but I would like very much to receive a moveon or other organization email that says “click here to send an email to your representatives asking them to pay attention to the people’s budget” – anything that allows my voice to be heard!
And yet, even grassroot organizations have been remarkably silent in bringing this budget to their subscribers attention. Even the FAIR email I’ve gotten, which led me here, included a number of articles and I had to purposefully look for one about this budget.
If anyone knows of any place on the web where I can channel my voice in support of an open discussion of this budget please post it here!
I find it most difficult to respect President Obama who talks about peace but offers more war, who talks about closing Guantanamo but keeps it functioning, who talks about bank accountability but demands none, who talks about ending the bush’s obscene tax cuts for the wealthy but extends these cuts, and who provides other talk but no action. It would not hurt too much if I hadn’t invested $1,200.00, hours of work, travel time and proselytized, argued, cajoled, and voted for the man–all on a $500.00 a month Social Security retirement check. I plan to sit out the 2012 election in a pub: I’m not so sure I won’t find that more satisfying.
You have to give it to these congressmen,are they good or what? They propose a budget that cuts out everything for everyone but the rich,the pentagon and themselves. Not hard to figure out who really counts is it? Bush runs the deficit up higher than the water that drowned New Orleans (when are we going to repair that town? oh yeah I forgot after Iraq,afghanistan and Libya) on his phony war based on lies and the pentagons waste and wars for profit are not even mentioned, but its ”assumed” that the war costs will be down by 50 billion a year by the time the budget cuts take effect or the country goes under.In light of the fact that we are already wasting some 900 million(or more) in Libya, you can guess which one will happen first cant you? Obama and Boehner put on a good show for a few weeks, a lotta bombast and threats as they waved their chainsaws,but after a few behind the doors meetings where John assured Barack that the T party were nothing but pawns and Barack assured John that the wars were safe they traded in the chainsaws for penknives blamed each other and parted each saying ”we’re gonna get you next time pal.The media ate it up.
And the only thing that got really screwed was big bird and elmo. I guess its ok to give 450 million of your tax dollars to Jerry Falwells university(didnt know that did you?) but not 420 to NPR. So the house passes Ryans bill all the while knowing that it stands no chance in the Senate and Obama will veto it anyway. If they thought it had a chance they never would have passed it,because if it did become law there wouldnt be any republicans in the house come 2012 to vote to overturn it. So what have we learned? That its politics as usual,both parties are alike and your left once again arguing over things you cant change, and it wouldnt make much difference if you could change them.The masters make the rules for the wise men and the fools and both groups are wearing clown suits. You figure the rest out.
The PEOPLE want the government to STOP paying private corporations to do jobs, from military jobs to clerks at the desks of Social Security offices 10s or even 100s of TIMES the amount it WOULD COST for public workers to do those jobs.
We want government haters who are only in it for the money and to enrich their fat cat billionaire friends to stop gutting government services for profit for a few while taking those dollars from the rest of us for which WE get nothing in return.
I don’t want to live in a country where mercenary private armys are running out of control on our streets instead of our local law enforcement doing the jobs THEY are trained to do with the proper restraint. I want to live in a country where the amount of money a person has isn’t the determinate as to whether he/she will be held to the same laws the rest of us have to live by. I want to live in a country where it is more important to make sure the food we feed out children is safe to eat than it is for some fat cat corporate CEO to make a bigger profit.
Comments from people that are still so un-aware that they don’t get the fact that congress does not work for us. Particularly the Republican side because they have taken on the Holy Graile that corporate wealth increases translate into middle class wealth increases. The past few decades have proved that this is just not the way it works.
It could work though with some fairly strict overview by the Federal Government, but they would choke rather than admit that.
They in fact have a history of currupting any meaningful oversite of corporations, banks and wall street, and it is still going on today with the current budget they are turning out.
We need election reform badly so people start demanding their representatives work for them.
Action is need by “we the peole” if we are going to preserve the American way of life. A new American revolution, not the phony tea party. Protests, rallies.
I think its time to bring the whole house of cards down. No more voting, being nice, being polite, passively accepting our fate. Screw it – if they’re going to destroy the poor, the weak, the lower and middle classes, then we should just start fighting back by destroying everything they hold dear. I and a lot of other people are ready for a revolution now.
Dani,
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/…/the-peoples-budget_b_846573.html
http://www.cpc.grijalva.house.gov/index.cfm?sectionid=70§iontree=5...
http://www.grijalva.house.gov/uploads/The%20CPC%20FY2012%20Budget.pdf
dani, as you will find out, the links I referred you to is about the progressives alternative to the Ryan plan.
dani, I apologize the second doesn’t work, but this does:
cpc.grijalva.house.gov/index.cfm?sectionid=70§iontree=5…
dani, sorry but the previous post was wrong the link doesn’t work, and I cut and pasted it from google.????
But the other two links in a previous post do work.
Read; THE GOP WILL BENEFIT FROM THE BUDGET DEBATE by Karl Rove.It says it all.
Ted…….You better calm down.Your believing this class warfare nonsense. Give ya a hint;Obama may shovel it, but he doesn’t believe it.He is very rich.Has always done a good job at securing the best in tax situations for himself(look at his crooked land deals).Has never been charitable .Not even within his own extended family.Made most of his money in book deals(now there is a real working man for you). Weaseled his way in some way I still cant figure into Harvard(his grade were not high enough to get in). Entered politics and has pissed away every dime of the HUNDREDS of million of dollars he was handed in Chicago.Every program a bust. Was the highest spending Senator. Became So while he leads this elitist life of riches and grandeur.Now he is spender and chief of all the American people.And he is carried on the shoulders of those less fortunate because he is your savior who feels your pain?Sweet dancing Jesus give me a break .Believe me his little girls are going to Ivy league schools.They will marry rich ,and or enter cushy overpaid jobs just like mommy dearest. There will be no social workers in this family.
As far as his budget it is no such thing.It was a campaign speech pandering to his base.It was devisive ,angry ,and filled with class warfare rhetoric. Just what libs wanted.Also a complete non starter.More wasted time
How far does a rightwinger have to shove his rightwing head up his rightwing ass to think that Karl Rove is worth reading?
The wealthy, their Teabagger water carriers and the Republicans denounce anything resembling fairness in a Democratic budget proposal as “class warfare” in an attempt to provide cover for the class war they’re waging on everyone not in the top 2%. If someone dare point that out they get labeled as “angry” or “divisive.”
dani- link for taking action in support of the people’s budget
http://capwiz.com/pdamerica/callalert/index.tt?alertid=41361501
Also I would recommend we take Michael Moore’s lead and show up at a local rally near you! A link to finding such events can be found in this article:
http://www.opednews.com/articles/This-Tax-Day-Make-THEM-Pa-by-Michael-Moore-110416-952.html
We must take action, make a large public presence across the nation if we are ever to be heard. The time to sit back is over. If we do nothing or pray that the vote alone or simply contacting our representatives by email is enough and will save us, we are greatly mistaken. Freedom is earned not given. We have nothing to lose at this point since most of our heads are already nearing the chopping block. To prevent that, we must be bold and be courageous, assemble peacefully but loudly and in great numbers!
Abe…How far does a left winger have to shove his leftwing head up his leftwing ass to think that president Barrack Obama is worth listening to….or voting for…..or reading, or just about anything I can think of?I’d match Roves brain against that pinhead any day of the week ,and twice on Tuesday.And that is as straight up As I can put it.
Helen really are you still using filthy words to describe those you disagree with?Tell me please how you look ,or sound?Your nationality, or race or sexual proclivities?Im sure there are any number of filthy words including those for woman we could use to make you feel right at home.It is sad that this is what we on the right must contend with from the left.Being called filthy names.Think about it.
As far as the top 2% Id bet they would be willing to pay what you demand of their worth just to shut you up.But that is not how it works.They would always have more.You would always want more.You would always point to the person who has more than you as the evil enemy even if it were 10 cents.That is the essence of class warfare.And then of course it would be the top 10% and so on.This is not Communism.How many people should Bill Gates support?A thousand?10 thousand?100thousand?Or as many as he can?This is a complete misunderstanding of Capitalism.If you want a different system,constitution and so on say so.The conversations would be more civil.
As for Rove and the GOP coming out of this smelling like roses or major media calling this latest Obama capitulation to the right the will of the people, forget it! Major media represents the major corporations like GE(MSNBC) who is evading incomes taxes in a record profit year and might actually get a huge tax rebate on top of it. The GOP are the servants of these same corporations, some of whom donate huge chunks of campaign finance to Barrack Obama. When Lockheed Martin praises this Obama speech, it isn’t because they expect spending cuts to the Pentagon or a hike in corporate taxes or that Social Security and Medicare won’t be gutted. Obama’s base(most of us) is broke. This is why the president is so quickly willing to “compromise”(fold his hand again and again) to most of the large corporations and their GOP brokers. He is expecting a one billion dollar political war chest, all given to him by the biggest income tax evaders, the same people who created this financial crisis purely from greed and then got bailed out by us and trust me when I say none of these corporations give a flying damn about Social Security and Medicare or anything else that doesn’t make them more money.
Cant argue with you Mike .It might not be all about the money……but it is a lot.
I watched the GOP declare that we must reduce our budget by eliminating entitlements, reducing taxes on the super wealthy and ending most of our social programs. It is a crazy budget. Way over the top. No Christian charity for the poor and suffering. no jobs, no bullet train, no healthcare, no safety net, no reduction in taxes for the middle class, no rebuilding America, is it possible the GOP leadership actually believe their own falsehoods. Could it be, the billions of dollars spent in advertising, creation of the tea party from the old John Birch society wing nuts, and the bills handed to them at fundraisers, has clouded their view of the world around them? Town hall meetings are basically supporters, when do they see the opposition except on talk shows or in the legislature. We are talking lots of demands for their time. No time or desire to check on reality. We are talking a shift of lots of wealth. 400 of our citizens own as much as 155 million of countrymen. It’s a business plan that doesn’t include humanity. The GOP doesn’t see individual suffering, except when it’s personal. The super rich cultural group is real hard to get in. Once achieved it could mean generations of super wealth. For the greedy leaving a cultural class that doesn’t feel financial pain, is worse than death. Each leader in the GOP wants the top rung of our culture. They want their lineage to praise them as the one who put the family out of the financial reach of the masses. So they took the fast track. The GOP became the lap dogs of the extremely wealthy. Like David Koch and the Walton family, saints of the wealthy. Their Evangelical Christian religion applauds their greater good of being Saved by their religion. They consider humanity a lesser good. The great works of Gandhi and Mother Teresa are a lesser good. So if you are Saved by religion and do bad things to your fellow human you will still go to heaven. The GOP is even off the hook to God. They don’t have to worry about guilt or shame. I believe they think they are bulletproof. The GOP leaders are playing with fire. They think they can get away with their meanness. The GOP will soon find out that slick advertising and a lock on the game, is not a winning hand when so many of our citizen’s lives are shattered.
Bob that is the the biggest load of Bullbleep i have ever read
“You would always point to the person who has more than you as the evil enemy even if it were 10 cents.”
You’re making things up again there. You do that a lot.
On the one hand, in their new budget Republicans propose massive tax cuts for the rich and a dismemberment of our major healthcare safety net programs while shifting the cost to middle and lower income Americans and this is considered brave, non-partisan and in no way class war.
The fact that the Ryan plans cuts health care to pay for his tax cuts goes unmentioned. Everybody gets a cut! Fairness! Shared sacrifice!
On the other hand, Obama calls the GOP out on this and then proposes modest tax increases on top earners and that is seen as wildly….disgracefully….partisan class war.
Funny how that works.
No I disagree, the media is being completely honest, they just left out a key word by mistake. It should have read “OBAMA/GOP budget cuts are what the people on top ordered” There we go, all fixed now
Helen…I dont see where the Rs have done what you claim in their budget.And I also think you are misreading Obamas budget.Although the Devil is always in the details I would say the R budget is trying to roll back the clock in spending.No new taxes..stop spending!Trying to not burden any faction of our people with new taxes.Trying to better fund/save programs now in place.The hope is that by removing governments heavy hand they can re ignite the economy and jobs therefor growing the tax base.Will it work?Some of it is great.Some of it is trash.Some of it is somewhere in the middle.
Obama was forced to respond ,and basically landed on his next campaign motto response which is shared responsibility.Love the sound of it.Bottom line is no cuts in spending or entitlements.No turning off the spigot of green flowing down the rat hole.No rolling back to pre Bush levels.No promises to stop borrowing or printing money.And the only concrete proposal is tax the rich .Ho hum.Any economist who runs the numbers will tell you that will accomplish little.Feel good moment.I would love for him to say “If the rich pay 5% more i will totally back off”.He never would because it is not about money.It is class warfare for political capital.You would think the top 10% in this country pay exactly 0% of the federal taxes the way Libs go on.Soak the rich is all wet Helen.We must only grow the tax base through growing the economy.
Questions
What percentile of federal taxes do the top 1%now pay?Pick the closest number
a)1%
b)5%
c)20%
d)38%
What percentage does the top 10% of earners pay?
a)1%
b)5%
c)20%
d)50%
What percentage pays no federal taxes?
Just answer forget the ABC and D Crappola.It is around 45 %!
If you confiscated all the wealth of the rich how long could you run the government.
a) 1 week
b)2 weeks
c)5 months
d)till the stars burn out
Questions like this make one think.
Income taxes and federal taxes are not the same thing. Everyone with a job pays federal taxes.
The richest 1 percent pays 28 percent of federal taxes, and gets 19 percent of pretax income.
http://www.cbo.gov/publications/collections/tax/2010/AverageFedTaxRates2007.pdf
Total household wealth in the U.S. is about $55 trillion, of which the richest 1 percent control roughly a third. The federal government spent about $3.5 trillion in 2010, so at that rate you could go for a little more than five years on a confiscatory program.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wealth_in_the_United_States
http://sociology.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/wealth.html
http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/omb/budget/fy2012/assets/tables.pdf
It does make one think.
You figures are wildly inflated,and of course you are talking about running the government NOT paying down the debt.If you meant to run the government ,and pay down the debt you would last only days.And of course all your top producers would then be broke needing government assistance.Even your figures are startling.To believe that even if you confiscate all the rich and their belongings you would last little more than one presidents term shows how stupid this thought process is.Killing the goose that layed the golden egg.
Today 45% are paying no federal taxes.In essence 20% are paying for a huge part of all the rest.
“Today 45% are paying no federal taxes.”
This is, for at least the sixth time you’ve said it, wrong.
“Today 45% are paying no federal INCOME taxes.”
If you can’t understand the difference……
Statistics consistently show that Federal taxes are at a historic low.
For the past two years, a family of four earning the median income has paid less in federal income taxes than at any time since at least 1955, according to the Tax Policy Center. All federal, state and local taxes combined are a lower percentage of per-capita income than at any time since the 1960s, according to the Tax Foundation. The highest income-tax bracket is its lowest since 1992. At 35 percent, it’s well below the 50 percent mark of much of the 1980s and the 70 percent bracket of the 1970s.
The right has long looked at federal income taxes in isolation to argue that only the rich pay federal taxes, which is miles and miles from the truth.
The bottom 80 percent of the earnings ladder paid around 9 percent of their incomes in Social Security taxes; the top one percent paid just 1.6 percent of theirs.
http://www.alternet.org/story/150625/
How much are the Bush tax cuts worth to millionaires? They’re worth an estimated $32.7 billion this year alone, according to an analysis the Joint Committee on Taxation
Jonathan Chait
There’s really one clear issue here that encapsulate both the intellectual and the political vulnerablity of Paul Ryan’s “Path to Prosperity,”: It contains a massive, regressive tax cut.
Ryan does not want to talk about the tax cut. His video touting the plan focuses entirely on the debt, and makes no mention whatsoever of the tax cuts…
Ryan doesn’t mention the tax cuts, of course, because they unravel the entire rationale for his proposal. Ryan understands he can only make his plan acceptable if those cuts are seen as necessary to save the Medicare and Medicaid programs.
Ryan’s level of cutting goes far beyond what’s needed to preserve those programs, and it does so in order to clear room for a very large, regressive tax cut. He is making a choice — not just cut Medicare to save Medicare, but also to cut Medicare in order to finance a huge tax cut for people who don’t really need it.
http://www.tnr.com/blog/jonathan-chait/86270/the-achilles-heel-the-path-prosperity
Stating the obvious here….if the GOP was serious about balancing the budget. the last thing they would suggest is another massive tax cut.
Underdiscussed fun fact about Ryan’s plan….depending on how you run the numbers, it will take between 28 and 38 years to balance the federal budget.
Heard some Republican bragging about reducing the debt $4 trillion in the next 10 years…..gone unnoted…the GOP added $5.7 trillion to the debt [at the least] during the eight Bu$hco years….
Anyone who thinks the federal income tax is the same thing as (all) federal taxes shouldn’t be discussing tax policy with the grown-ups.
“I would say the R budget is trying to not burden any faction of our people with new taxes.”
Quite. Heaven knows the rich have suffered enough.
Dick and Helen of course you know i mean INCOME tax.What is it we are discussing-The tax on the federal program for turtle hatching?And stop with the tax cut.There is no effective tax cut.He answered that question at length ,in depth,with great specificity last week.There will be no tax hike.To Dems that is the same thing.
Now lets get to the crux of the matter.You say the rich have the best tax rate in years.GOOD!!!I t’s their frigging money.We should all have the best tax rate ever.WE are in a recession. The government has proven again and again on both sides of the isle to be a horrible steward of OUR MONEY! They(top 1-10%) also are paying the largest percentage of the whole EVER!!!You forgot that little matter.I ask again…. and I will keep asking till you admit what it is you want to confiscate from the most successful among us. What is YOUR top rate? The final go-no-higher number?Im in effect pulling you out into the sunlight. Then explain to anyone listening the pro’s and cons of what that will accomplish. And please don’t scrimp on the cons. Don’t play stupid.
By the way our pin headed president earned 1.5 million last year(mostly on book sales)His savings on the BUSH tax cuts came to 100 thousand! Now ask me if he gave it back to the Federal government that he so believes can use the money better than he himself can. The answer in no.He kept it. And that leads me to my last idiot lesson. Any Dem ,rich or poor, has the right to give far past what the government takes.Be my guest. Especially you my president.Mr vice president.Mr Gietner….Mrs Pelosi. The Dem senate(Mr Carey) and Congress.All the tax cheats in mr Obama’s cabinet. And the other millions of libs believing in these lying hypocrites.Be my guest. Lead with your wallets not your God damn mouths. Maybe we will be so impressed we will follow you in a patriotic fervor. Want to know how many of our unbelievably rich legislators on the left refused the tax “breaks”?At last count exactly zero! How can you be so stupid as to believe in,and vote in this nest of snakes?
michael e: Any Dem ,rich or poor, has the right to give far past what the government takes
__________________________________
That’s a two-way street isn’t it: any deficit-hawking big-business Republican is free to give ’til it hurts, too. Heck, the way some of ’em like to start expensive wars, you’d think the least they could do would be to kick in a few bucks– ’cause, for the most part, they ain’t kicking in their sons and daughters to the fight.
Perhaps you may want to get off this “The Dems are hypocritical and therefore should be scorned” policy. It’s politics, dude: hypocrisy is its lifeblood.
“How far does a left winger have to shove his leftwing head up his leftwing ass to think that president Barrack Obama is worth listening toâ┚¬Ã‚¦.or voting forâ┚¬Ã‚¦..or reading, or just about anything I can think of?”
a whole lot of the usa must be left wing now
from today’s washington post/abc news poll:
Q 11
Do you think Obama’s views on most issues are too liberal for you, too conservative for you, or just about right?
Too liberal Too conservative About right No opinion
4/17/11 39 8 48 4
whoops! fair ate the formatting again
from today’s washington post/abc news poll:
Q 11
Do you think Obama’s views on most issues are too liberal for you, too conservative for you, or just about right?
Too liberal 39%
Too conservative 8%
About right 48%
No opinion 4%
so 39% think he’s too liberal while 56% think he’s right where they would like him to be or think he should be more liberal…..
michael to jim: “You figures are wildly inflated,and of course you are talking about running the government NOT paying down the debt.If you meant to run the government ,and pay down the debt you would last only days.”
the total wealth in the u.s is $55 trillion. the fy2011 federal budget is $3.7 trillion. 2011 gdp is $13 trillion. the national debt is approx. $14 trillion.
even if we paid the debt down to zero tomorrow using the public’s money we would have 10 years worth of budgets left…assuming that gdp also went to zero…which it won’t.
ps
which of jim’s numbers were wildly inflated?
“Dick and Helen of course you know i mean INCOME tax.What is it we are discussing?”
——————–
Michael Shaw is first person to mention income taxes and he was talking about GE not paying them.
Then came this from you “What percentile of federal taxes do the top 1%now pay?”
followed by “What percentage pays no federal taxes?”
Then this from Jim: “Income taxes and federal taxes are not the same thing. ”
There is no way to read your sentences as discussing income taxes.
Michael e vs Michael e
April 16th, 2011 at 12:39 pm
“How far does a left winger have to shove his leftwing head up his leftwing ass to think that president Barrack Obama is worth reading”
April 19th, 2011 at 5:28 pm
“By the way our president earned 1.5 million last year(mostly on book sales)”
Looks like we’re all left-wingers now, judging from the book sales….
Mr e: “You say the rich have the best tax rate in years.GOOD!!!I t’s their frigging money.We should all have the best tax rate ever.WE are in a recession. ”
Translation from Teabagger into English: We’re in a recession caused by the rich and since we’re in a recession caused by the rich, the rich should have low tax rates! Plus, also: Reagan proved that deficits don’t matter if they’re caused by low taxes on the rich!!
“The government has proven again and again on both sides of the isle to be a horrible steward of OUR MONEY!”
Actually, that’s one party….the GOP. From Ronaldus Maximus to Shrub and beyond…..90% of the national debt since 1980. That’s the one side that should be voted off the isle-land.
Dick …First Im sorry if my writing gave the impression i was talking about anything other than income tax.Past that your ridiculous.A recession caused by the rich?90% of national debt since 1980?(Actually BAM spent more than all presidents from Washington to present in just months)And your part of that small group in the liberal set that uses filthy names to speak about those who disagree with you(teabagger)Your beyond contempt.
W and B It has been stated that very soon you could sell everything in this country 5 times over and not pay the interest on the debt.We are supporting all figures on IOUs and that is the fuzzy- in the fuzzy math..The 14 trillion dollar debt I acknowledge is the excepted figure…but the real debt is far far farhigher.Is it a purposeful shifting of numbers by government.Abso friggin loo-telly!Bernie madoff on steroids. Bottom line is taxing the so called rich(and yes it will effect business big and small)will accomplish little on the plus side.We can speculate on the down side.As far as those polls they come down to this .48% believe he is just right.Well that is close to the number of registered Dems,so what is the surprise.Polling numbers between +20 and -20 tend to break even. More surprising is a blind poll of in depth policy issues.Obama got 22%.Palin 67%!.Trump is polling all over the place.Hilary has not entered the frey(yes i think she will)
I think Republican incompetence should make this race closer than thought.SHOULD i say.In truth i think it will not ….and he will be slaughtered hearkening back to Reagan.And yes you may quote me on that.He just has nothing positive to say except in spin mode.In the end every president must run on the state of the union.And it sucks
John Republicans don’t agree with it…and are not bound by it
“Actually Obama spent more than all presidents from Washington to present in just months.”
Actually, that’s not remotely true. His first full FY budget [2010] was about $200 billion more than the last Bush budget. The eight Bush budgets combined add up to somewhere in the $20-22 trillion range.
—————-
“90% of national debt since 1980?”
Reagan, Bush41 and Bush 43 added $9 trillion to the national debt. Clinton $1 trillion. The debt has gone up $3 trillion since Obama took office but the majority of that was caused by the collapse of the Bush economy leading to less revenues and more social services spending.
——————–
“48% believe he is just right.Well that is close to the number of registered Dems,so what is the surprise. ”
No, currently about 35% of Americans are registered Democrats. Rasmussen reports Obama’s approval number among moderate voters is 54% [Poll dated 4/11/2011]
————————-
“More surprising is a blind poll of in depth policy issues.Obama got 22%.Palin 67%”
This is at least the fifth time you’ve brought up this poll and everytime the numbers change:
52% of Likely U.S. Voters say their own views are closer to Sarah Palin’s than they are to President Obama’s, according to a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey.
Just 40% say their views are closer to the president’s than to those of the former Alaska governor and Republican vice presidential candidate.
Conservative Ed Morrissey adds “Interestingly, in the same survey, Palin only gets a 48% favorable rating, with a 49% unfavorable rating. That seems to indicate that while some voters think she represents their VALUES, they may not be as supportive of her as a candidate.”
This was not a blind poll and it wasn’t about policy issues, either.
http://hotair.com/archives/2010/09/20/rasmussen-voters-feel-closer-to-palin-than-obama-5240/
———————
“and he will be slaughtered hearkening back to Reagan.And yes you may quote me on that.”
In a McClatchy-Marist poll released on Wednesday Obama led Mitt Romney 46%-45%, Mike Huckabee 48%-43%, Sarah Palin 56%-34%, and Donald Trump 54%-38%.
michael e worte: Republicans don’t agree with itâ┚¬Ã‚¦and are not bound by it
______________________________________________________
Oh. Well. I didn’t realize it was just that simple. Carry on, then.
Seriously, dude? So they can be hypocritical all they want when they hawk on deficits and handouts to the less fortunate, but cut taxes, spend lavishly on the military, and give corporate handouts? And all that hypocrisy is just great, because they don’t agree with “it” and aren’t bound by “it”? And yet, the Dems can be called to the carpet for being hypocritical? You don’t see any kind of “sauce for the goose, sauce for the gander” problem with this position?
OK, fine. We’ll take another tact: The issue isn’t about what an idividual Democrat should be doing. It’s about what the government should or shouldn’t be doing. So pointing out that no Dem voluntarily gave all his income to the government is just a ridiculous distraction, designed to score points with those who really haven’t thought it through completely.
John
What i said is in effect most Republicans see clearly that the government has overstepped the bounds in endless taxation(and the belief there-of)and insane spending.If democrats believe so strongly in this madness give give give till it hurts and beyond. Give everything you have if you believe the government is the best steward of your wealth.Do not expect republicans to follow you down that rat hole.Not hypocritical at all.What is hypocritical is that Obama who has fought tooth and nail against the so called Bush tax cuts takes advantage of them when they profit him. This is the height of hypocrisy. No way to talk your way or his way past that.It is so hypocritical that I would have a laughing fit except that it isn’t funny in the sense that it is par for the course. Remember his promise to be the president that would be open and honest about all. Transparency?Trump calls him out on the simplest thing imaginable.Mr president there has been a lot of hoopla concerning your failure to produce your birth certificate. Could we see it please?Obama throws the finger at Trump and the American people.
I know what you wrote. It’s there in black and white.
What I’m wondering is: (1) why don’t you see that the Rep’s are just as guilty of their own brand of hypocrisy regarding certain issues; (2) why don’t you see the “sauce for the goose/gander” issue in crying hypocrite at Dem’s while being glibly and completely dismissive about the same sorts of accusations against Rep’s; (3) why are you so hung up on the issue of hypocrisy when it’s been part and parcel of politics for probably the last 1000 years; and (4) why does focusing on Dem hypocrisy have any validity at all, when the underlying issue is not what an individual politician does or doesn’t do but rather what the government should or shouldn’t be doing?
I’m still left wondering about those 4 things, since you chose to address my last post with yet another diversion. I sense some sympathy for the Birther movement– or at the very least some hostility towards the Pres. for not playing along with Mr. Trump’s Birther Reality Show. That speaks volumes, dude…
Well, anyway, nice talkin’ to ya…
“and he will be slaughtered hearkening back to Reagan.And yes you may quote me on that.”
I’m assuming you mean Mondale, not Reagan. But, the red/blue map has changed in the last 20+ years…there are now 19-20 “bright red” states [states where the GOP candidate, no matter who, is a lock: 170 EC votes] and 18 “true blue” states [states the Democratic candidate has won 6 straight elections: 246 EC votes.]
Next year will come down to NV, CO, MO, IA, IN, OH, NH, VA, NC and FLA. The days of the EC turning out 49-1 are long gone.
—————–
“What is hypocritical is that Obama who has fought tooth and nail against the so called Bush tax cuts takes advantage of them when they profit him. ”
My (very) rough guesstimate is that on a reported income of $1.73 million, Obama’s tax bill was about $79K lower than if the tax cuts had expired (which, of course, he wanted to have happen.) The Obama’s donated $245k to charity.
————
“A recession caused by the rich?”
Yes……Countrywide, Bears-Stern, AIG, Goldman-Sachs [of course, they’re always involved], S&P, Moody’s, Greenspan, the three Bu$hco stooges that ran the SEC….etc, etc
Who did you think caused the recession? Cashiers? Hotel staffers? Burger flippers? Teachers?
Dick I am not a republican mostly due to their hypocrisy.Believe me i don’t overlook it.And I dont agree it is an excepted form of politics.Far from it.Im not a birther BUT…..I am well aware of the things Obama has under lock and key.Believe me it is unprecedented.I hope the Republican move in Congress to create the rule that a proper birth certificate must be proffered by all presidential candidates and that it will pass unopposed.Word is there is unanimous agreement.Word is the executive branch(Obama)is fighting tooth and nail to thwart this simple request.And yes Obama would have to produce his for the coming run.Case closed.
Trump is fantastic entertainment.He is hitting the president in way a wishy wash like McCain could not.He will fade of course but like the chicken man he is not lying.Many of his points are absolutely correct.Where Obama has no executive experience Trump is a master.Trump has actually run massive businesses where Obama has never owned a lemonade stand.At least on that side he is well worth taking council from.His negatives are massive .I love his run though.He is gonna slap the same old- same old political mask off the face of both sides.Just what we need in debates. Add Ron Paul to that or Michelle Backman and you will see an end to meeley mouthed political niceties. McCain was horrible for that.And obama is like nailing jello to a wall.
Obama saved around 100k on the cuts.Made 1.73 million.The VP made about 378k and also got a nice present from ex pres Bush……Abomination!
As far as the coming election Dems have a few things on their side.As they create a dependancy state- that state must vote for those they depend on.Obama has made inroads on this.He has massively expanded that reality.
They also will again try to run against Bush.A nonsensical diversion that shows their disdain for America yet seems to work.
They always have the equally inept help of Republican candidates who have been handed a great message by the Tea Party but still are as immersed in the swamp of Washington as the Dems are.Well almost!
All that aside he must run on a simple fact.And that is not” are we better off than under Bush” (we are not, except for the last months of Bushes presidency.The question is “have you the belief ,and the vision, that Americas finest days are ahead of her?He will have to run on his record.Forget the Republicans.They are all expectation.Obama is the President.He must stand or fall on his record.That record is the worse in our nations history(arguably)He will fall.My guess is…he will be demolished.But as i say never underestimate the republicans capacity to be inept.
The recession …..To blame those that support the great majority of all government through their own hard work and successes along with corporations that are taxed higher than anywhere else in the developed world is silly.Basically it is -hey guys thanx for paying for almost everything but we think there is still more blood we can get from you.More gas in the tank.Why because the government has no intention of putting any plugs in the spending.In fact it increases like a snowball running downhill into hell.I spoke for years against Fanny and Freddy.I worked with republican leaders to halt the insanity.I was thwarted at every turn by Dem leaders who thought this a cornerstone of the liberal Nirvana. Bush tried 27 times to stop it. Blocked every time(I still blame him for not going to the public to warn them)I told Franks”when this all comes down you bastards will try to sluff off blame on the banks or wall street”….and in my heart i new libs would buy it.So I gave speeches chapter and verse how the collapse would happen.Who was to blame(and believe me there was only one R in that fanny and freddy bunch).Franks and Dodd and Shumann lied to my face.All was well …all was well they cajoled in snake like voices. Today some of those same men are chief members of the rebuilding of the American financial system.And fanny and freddy have an unlimited loan…actually gift from taxplayers.So please you have the wrong man to try to foist this nonsense on.I was one of the bell ringers.i positioned myself for what i knew was coming.When the world collapsed I made out like a bandit.Among other things I bought bought bought gold.So you keep believing this lying sack of dung.Yeah its all the rich.All their fault.Was there great wrongs done by banking and wall street.In a manner i suppose.They are like vultures they make money coming or going.Win or loose.But they almost always follow after policy.
And policy was spend spend spend.Print print print,and assign blame somewhere else.
George W. Bush speechwriter David Frum 4/16/2011
America and the world were hit in 2008 by the sharpest and widest financial crisis since the 1930s. Conservatives do not like to hear it, but the crisis originated in the malfunctioning of an under-regulated financial sector, not in government overspending or government over-generosity to less affluent homebuyers. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were bad actors, yes, but they could not have capsized the world economy by themselves. It took Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch, AIG, and â┚¬” maybe above all â┚¬” Standard & Poor’s and Moody’s to do that.
Speaking only personally, I cannot take seriously the idea that the worst thing that has happened in the past three years is that government got bigger. Or that money was borrowed. Or that the number of people on food stamps and unemployment insurance and Medicaid increased. The worst thing was that tens of millions of Americans â┚¬“ and not only Americans â┚¬“ were plunged into unemployment, foreclosure, poverty. If food stamps and unemployment insurance, and Medicaid mitigated those disasters, then two cheers for food stamps, unemployment insurance, and Medicaid.
http://www.frumforum.com/two-cheers-for-the-welfare-state
Donald Trump — or companies that bear his name – have declared bankruptcy four times.
Trump has built an American empire from Las Vegas to New York with towering hotels and sparkling casinos. Forbes estimates he’s worth $2.7 billion. But not all of Trump’s business ventures have been constant money-makers. In 1991, 1992, 2004, and again in 2009, Trump branded companies or properties have sought Chapter 11 protection.
“[The banks] could have simply taken everything he had right then, but they wanted his cooperation,” said Lynn LoPucki, a bankruptcy expert and professor at UCLA Law School. “There’s that old saying, ‘If you owe your banks a little, you’re at their mercy. If you owe the banks a lot, the banks are at your mercy. They saw the best way for him to repay the money was to keep the Donald afloat.”
John Pottow, a bankruptcy expert and law professor at the University of Michigan, said banks would often agree to lose millions in reorganizations like Trump’s to prevent the massive losses they would incur if they foreclosed on the property.
LoPucki said it was very unusual for anyone to have that many large businesses go through bankruptcy. Most of the debt Trump incurred was through bonds that were sold to the public.
“People knew who Donald Trump was and for that reason were willing to trust the bonds, and they got burned,” LoPucki said. “The people who invested with him or based on his name lost money, but he himself came out pretty well.”
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/donald-trump-filed-bankruptcy-times/story?id=13419250&page=1
Your version of the meltdown is pretty selective.
On the one hand the Bush administration asked the Republican controlled congress from 2001-06 repeatedly about reforming Fannie and Freddie and nothing happened.
On the other the Bush administration was pushing the types of mortgages that were major contributors to the collapse….
HUD 3/11/2003
The Department of Housing and Urban Development is proposing to enhance homebuying opportunities by expanding its offerings of adjustable-rate mortgage (ARM) products on FHA-insured mortgages. Potential homebuyers would be able to choose mortgages with periods of three, five, seven or ten years, depending on their needs, during which time the interest rate would be fixed.
HUD 1/19/04
As part of President Bush’s ongoing effort to help American families achieve the dream of homeownership, Federal Housing Commissioner John C. Weicher today announced that HUD is proposing to offer a “zero down payment” mortgage, the most significant initiative by the Federal Housing Administration in over a decade. This action would help remove the greatest barrier facing first-time homebuyers – the lack of funds for a down payment on a mortgage.
http://archives.hud.gov/news/2004/pr04-006.cfm
********************
The other underdiscussed caused of the collapse is the Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000 which deregulated over-the-counter derivatives by claiming they weren’t â┚¬Ã…“futures.â┚¬Ã‚Â
OTC derivatives, especially the credit default swap, were at the heart of the financial crisis of 2008 and the subsequent recession.
***********************
“Was there great wrongs done by banking and wall street.In a manner i suppose.They are like vultures they make money coming or going.Win or loose.But they almost always follow after policy. And policy was spend spend spend.Print print print,and assign blame somewhere else.”
The “great wrongs” were done in the early 2000’s…..and the policy during that era (of course) was the Bush administration’s.
************************
“My guess isâ┚¬Ã‚¦he will be demolished.”
The Electoral College, not the popular vote, determines the Presidential election.
Currently there are 18 states that the Democratic candidate has won 6 straight elections which hold 246 EC votes. The odds of Obama losing even one of them is virtually nil. If Marco Rubio isn’t the GOP veep candidate, the President wins Florida and that puts him above 270.
This will be clearer once we know who is running against him. If, by some bizarre chance, it’s Palin or Huckabee they’ll win, at best, the same 22 states McCain did and get swamped in the popular vote.
********************
“I am well aware of the things Obama has under lock and key.Believe me it is unprecedented.”
I’m curious, what does Obama have under lock and key that you are aware of?
**********************
“Michelle Backman” You mean Michele Bachmann, possibly the biggest idiot in Congress (even by the dubious standards of today’s GOP.)
In March 2004, 2 years after 9/11 she said, “(Gay marriage) is probably the biggest issue that will impact our state and our nation in the last, at least, thirty years. I am not understating that.”
In Jan 2005 she said, ”If we took away the minimum wage — if conceivably it was gone — we could potentially virtually wipe out unemployment completely because we would be able to offer jobs at whatever level.”
In September 2003 she said, “‘I just take the Bible for what it is, I guess, and recognize that I am not a scientist, not trained to be a scientist. I’m not a deep thinker on all of this. I wish I was. I wish I was more knowledgeable, but I’m not a scientist.”
On Jan. 23, 2011 she said, ”But we also know that the very founders that wrote those documents worked tirelessly until slavery was no more in the United States. … I think it is high time that we recognize the contribution of our forbearers who worked tirelessly — men like John Quincy Adams, who would not rest until slavery was extinguished in the country.”
*******************
We should take note that the Founding Fathers did not work to end slavery, and John Quincy Adams was not one of them.
It figures that she’s one of your heroes.
Dick never said she was one of my heros.I did say she would help to rip the facade off.And stop the nonsense of picking quotes to make her look dumb.Old dem trick.All republicans are dumb.Vp Bidon removed that bullet from your gun long ago.And Obama has been pretty adept at stupid remarks(how many states are there mr president?)Please don’t ever believe I do not see Trumps massive negatives.I could add 20 to yours without blinking an eye.But lets also agree that Obama’s complete lack of major league experience is not, and never was a plus factor.You don’t hire a surgeon to operate, and say the best thing about him is he has never operated in his life.I love these lightening rods thrust into a debate.Most politicians shudder at forces not controlled by the status quo even being let into the room let alone the game. Bush…. I would not be the man to be found standing behind him.He did not turn back the Clinton/Reno pressure on banks to force them to loan outside their understanding of market forces.I screamed about it then and i agree with you now.I would love it if we were arguing now not about the next Bush /Obama election- but about two other contenders.That alone would be a plus for America.To acknowledge the failures they were ,and move on.But these cockroaches live on.And in 4 or 8 years they end up on the golf course together yucking it up in the millionaires club.
As far as that coming election….i have seen the polls you are counting on.The same type of figures that indicated a Reagan loss to carter 2 weeks prior.There has been a reconfiguration of red state blue state of course but I see it flowing the other way.Most true polls are already saying it is over.Do I believe them?Um….as of now yes,but things could change.
As far as David Forums take on things.I think i read his song and dance once.He has no weight in these discussions.He is a word smith.Close to the president yes…not as close as Monica to Bill ,but i care little about what she thinks on Clintons sex education in school programs either.He has written a good many things that i feel are efforts to remove blame from Bush and place it everywhere else.
Want to see a lively speech…look up Rush tracing the entire downfall to progressive liberalism.He hits it out of the ballpark.
For me it is all going forward.And Obama and his ideas are just useless
As far as David Forums take on things.I think i read his song and dance once.He has no weight in these discussions.
______________________________________________
Well. That certainly settles that.
Ok you are right(about David)He does not deserve to be chucked overboard so dismissively.I know a bit(a lot) more about him than i let on ,and yes i was being flippant.He has a decent resume(yale..Forbes…etc.)He has a good mind. The quote you mentioned was from a series of articles “hooray for the welfare state” I think it was.In it as i recall his premise was that a welfare state is here.A natural outgrowth of the progression and inequities of a technological age. People need it,deserve it,and shall have it .He believes conservatives ask too much, and should move to shape that reality,away from the lefts method -which he acknowledges is unsustainable.His theory is loaded with great points.But I feel….it fails to acknowledge the corrosive influence of liberalism.He sees the weakness in the timbers and moves to replace them but leaves the termites in place.I read him and like him for the most part.On this i do not disagree that fanny and freddy (did not) collapse in a vacuum.There was plenty of blame to go round.Most of it governmental.It does not infuse me with any belief system that would hand them any more power.
“There has been a reconfiguration of red state blue state of course but I see it flowing the other way.”
What blue states do you see going red? Everyone else is watching red NV, NM, and CO trend blue. Last November saw some “red movement” in MI, Wi and PA, but now all the new GOP governors are underwater and the “end Medicare” vote is seen as putting the House back into play. The only state Obama won in 08 that I think he’ll lose in 2012 is IN [and NH if Romney is the GOP candidate]
********************
“Most true polls are already saying it is over.”
I’d really like to see at least one example of what you call a “true” poll because I can’t read your mind so I don’t know who (or what) you’re thinking of… Throw us a bone here: Pollster by name and date of poll.
In the meantime…..looking at polls doing head-to-head competition between Obama and specific Republicans, all the current surveys except Rasmussen show the same thing: While Obama would beat Sarah Palin and Newt Gingrich by double-digit margins, he’s got a 5-7 point lead over Mike Huckabee and he’s in a statistical dead heat with Mitt Romney.
Rasmussen’s numbers (from polls done during March) flip Mitt and Mike with Huckabee running even and Romney behind the president by five, 45% to 40%. Others who trail by single digits include Ron Paul and Haley Barbour. Candidates trailing by double digits include Sarah Palin, Newt Gingrich, Tim Pawlenty, Mitch Daniels, Herman Cain and Jon Huntsman.
They did a Obama/Trump poll the other day…Obama 49%, Trump 34%
************************
“The same type of figures that indicated a Reagan loss to carter 2 weeks prior.”
I think you’re misremembering. Polls a year plus out showed Carter winning….
A review of the late 1980 polls shows that Reagan’s numbers jumped in the final week after the only debate was held on Oct. 29. Until that point, the race was tightly competitive, not trending towards Carter. A Gallup poll conducted Oct. 24 to 27 showed Carter up six among likely voters but that was offset by a similarly large Reagan lead in a NBC-Associated Press poll.
The debate was the difference maker.
******************
F & F failed after the banks did and F&F didn’t cause the banks to fail. The banks did that to themselves.
Take Fannie and Freddie off of the board and the meltdown still happens.
Because the proximate cause of the lock up of the credit markets is all of the mortgage-backed securities consisting of mostly the Alt-A and Subprime mortages that Fannie and Freddie (largely) couldn’t buy. Which is MOST OF IT.
This bad paper was written for thoroughgoing middle class homeowners in fast growing places like California, Florida, Arizona, Nevada â┚¬” mostly in major metro areas and rim suburbs. The majority of the â┚¬Ã…“innovativeâ┚¬Ã‚ loans written for these houses weren’t conforming loans, so Fannie and Freddie aren’t even in the picture, except as a buyer of the ABSs that came from them. Foreclosures went up at higher end homes including vacation homes, again â┚¬” not Fannie or Freddie qualified.
â┚¬Ã…“Poor peopleâ┚¬Ã‚ were not at the root of the problems. The government did not force a single bank to write what they knew to be an obviously bad loan.
There are no statutory requirements to write option ARMs, or to avoid the usual diligence in evaluating a borrower’s ability to pay or to waive downpayments or to use overheated appraisals or any of the other mortgage writing craziness that let these banks make money like no tomorrow.
http://www.delawareliberal.net/2008/09/28/republican-talking-point-smackdown-freddie-mac-and-fannie-mae-are-not-responsible-for-the-meltdown/
************
I’d just add that ultimately it wouldn’t have mattered if F&F were fully funded…..they were never designed to deal with a collapse of the housing market on this scale.
In retrospect it’s amazing how few people thought this could happen. The banks certainly didn’t. When they started selling instruments that would pay off if the market cratered, they priced the stuff so low that they couldn’t have honestly believed in the possibility that they’d be on the hook for this stuff.
The Securities and Exchange Commission yesterday (Friday) charged Goldman Sachs & Co. and one of its executives with fraud in a risky offshore deal backed by subprime mortgages that cost investors more than $1 billion.
The complaint alleged that Wall Street hedge fund Paulson & Co, paid Goldman to assemble a deal in which Paulson would select certain mortgage-backed securities and then take short positions, or bet against them. When the securities tanked, losing almost all their value, Paulson made a $1 billion profit.
â┚¬Ã…“The product was new and complex, but the deception and conflicts are old and simple,â┚¬Ã‚ the SEC’s Robert Khuzami said in a statement. â┚¬Ã…“Goldman wrongly permitted a client that was betting against the mortgage market to heavily influence which mortgage securities to include in an investment portfolio, while telling other investors that the securities were selected by an independent, objective third party.â┚¬Ã‚Â
The complaint said that Goldman and Goldman Executive Fabrice Tourre â┚¬Ã…“knew that it would be difficult, if not impossible,â┚¬Ã‚ to find investors for a synthetic CDO if they disclosed that a short player, such as Paulson, played a significant role in selecting the securities. Thus, they sought a third party to play that role and approached ACA, calling it â┚¬Ã…“important that we can use ACA’s brandingâ┚¬Ã‚ in an internal email.
*************
Just another day in the free markets.
Dick your assertion that banks were never forced to take loans is false. Please look a little deeper into the Reno/Clinton affair for clarity.I find it is disingenuous that far after the fact you try to find facts that Fanny and Freddy(F&F) did not play the key role as a catalyst for the collapse that we know they did. When my colleagues and i would speak on where it was all heading in those days we dealt with endless derision from the left.Now after the fact you are kind enough to say yes F & F fell so you caught us in that lie.Yes the government was in collusion as you said -so ok you caught us there. Yes the collapse was monsterous as you warned ,and the house of cards you prophisized happened, and we ARE blaming the banks ,the loaning industry ,free markets,and wall street as you guessed,and refunding F and F and trying to shift blame as foretold BUT…….you just don’t get it.
I like to think the guys who called the game to perfection just might “get it”.And those who said we were chicken little nuts- might not.But that is just me.To say no-one saw this coming is a lie.Liar liar liar pants on fire.We rang the clarion bell as loud as we could but were shouted down by all on the left….and some on the right.So as I say I find it all a little disingenuous.
Actually it was an easy call.The numbers did not add up.As Obama’s economic advancements are loony today…But later we can call all the mistakes Obama is making today the fault of(wait for it)…THE TEA PARTY!!!!It never ends the spin.Of course Dick i am not saying F and F were in a vaccum.Lots of scum to go round.
As far as the election…..All your points are salient……and as useless as are my ramblings.We could talk and discuss all day and night the permutations of the coming election.Anyone who thinks they have this called or any election called are falling into a trap.You see this country is basically split 40 to 45 by the same- left and right.A certain amount are independents.But those votes are not in the bank as some would believe.Obama could be leading by twenty points and something could happen to change it overnight.And visa versa.The Right has not even chosen their spokesman,and Im not even sure that Obama wont have serious challenge on the left.My guess is now that he will get creamed.If Christy ran against him i think he would lose for instance.Because he has led a country in shambles and has changed little.I would say made it far worse.Now you would blame Bush.But that can’t fly.You can’t honestly run another election of Bush vs Obama and believe America will buy it,can you?It would not even matter if you were right.Bush is fishing for christ sakes.Obama is in charge.He has a bully pulpit but he also must accept full responsibility for his ship of state.So Republicans will ride the next wave of anger against government failure I feel.Even before Obamas first speech at the DNC he became my pet project.I thought his Chicago thug base and slipperier than thou continence would serve him well in coming elections.I had no doubt of his aspirations(though he then said other wise).I wrote about him a lot though even then I was completely frustrated by his “hidden world”.Everything sealed.I used to call it proof positive of his future run for the big job .And he is a good campaigner.He says nothing…or nonsense and yet just try to nail that jello to a tree.A born politician.Just the kind that got slaughtered during the last elections.
We have all seen the maps that show the entire country red except for the coasts.We know this country is still center right.We know OBAMA cant count on any independents.We know people vote their pocket books and if gas shoots up to some horrific number anger is not going to be at Sarah or Bush.
And that leads me to my last point.On the left you paint someone like Palin as a duffas.A buffoon.You laugh as she speaks ignoring the massive cheering crowds.You believe your own press.You think you have won the boxing match without a blow being thrown by the other side.The first crushing right to your jaw is usually a wake up call.Just as the right did with a boy man contender who had huge negatives ,no experience,and found it hard to answer any question straight.AND….had a muslim name after 911 to boot.On top of that he picked an all time nutwit as his VP.As i recall Hilary was the golden goose.So all Im saying is these things are fun for now.But it is like calling the weather years in advance(oops bad comparison for you libs)So sit back and enjoy the ride.
Personally looking at this in a non partisan way it is simple questions we need to ask.
A)Is this country in a good place today?
B)If Obama has not righted the ship of state in 4 years ,can he in eight?
If those questions are a no……..he looses.And he should loose.In the end Bush caused the rights decent because he had 7 decent economic years, but the last paid for all.We were at war.Tough times.If we asked those questions of Bush in a framework, we will see he was held to blame…as he should of been!
So I think it will be a simple call.People will look at the landscape.Check off Obamas promises.And yell at the top of their lungs NEXT!!!!
Have a happy Easter season.
Dick your assertion that banks were never forced to take loans is false. Please look a little deeper into the Reno/Clinton affair for clarity.I find it is disingenuous that far after the fact you try to find facts that Fanny and Freddy(F&F) did not play the key role as a catalyst for the collapse that we know they did.
_______________________________________________________
Ummm… Last I checked, this was not the consensus view of the economic professional or academic community. There are a few fringists who keep hammering it, though, and some people who keep buying it.
However, I learned early on not to believe my own BS that I was slinging. Take lesson, michael e: if y’all did, indeed, predict the economic collapse, then savor it. But it was probably just a lucky guess, there Nostradamus. You can guess right; kudos.
Hitting the lottery doesn’t mean you’re a financial genius who gives worthwhile investment advice. It just means that you got lucky and rich. You may be a well-educated and pedigreed lottery-winner, but the proof of that ain’t in the lottery winnings.
“My guess is now that he will get creamed. If Christy ran against him i think he would lose for instance.”
People living in New Jersery don’t agree. 4/20/11 â┚¬Ã…“Voters don’t believe Gov. Christie, 60% to 33%, when he says he can beat President Obama,â┚¬Ã‚ Maurice Carroll, director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute, said.
In New Jersey, Christie’s approval rating was almost evenly divided, 47% favorable to 46% unfavorable. President Obama did well in the NJ poll, garnering a 51% to 45% approval rating.
**************
As for Palin, her numbers in Alaska have gone south. A poll done in March showed
* 61 percent of Alaskans had an “unfavorable” view of Palin; * 39 percent of those had a “very unfavorable” view * 13 percent had a “very favorable” view.
Her national disapproval numbers are now over 60%
****************
“We know OBAMA can’t count on any independents.
Obama’s job approval numbers among independents is currently 40%.
********************
“In the end Bush caused the rights descent because he had 7 decent economic years, but the last paid for all.
That’s like saying Thelma & Lousie had a spotless driving record until they got to the Grand Canyon.
*****************
“To say no-one saw this [the housing collapse] coming is a lie.Liar liar liar pants on fire.”
I wrote “In retrospect it’s amazing how few people thought this could happen. ”
One entertaining aspect of the books “The Big Short” and “The Greatest Trade Ever,” is that a Deutsche Bank investment adviser figured out, in 2005, how the market was going to tank and in meeting after meeting, he couldn’t get any of his clients to buy instruments that would turn a profit after the crash. They thought he was crazy.
Tanta 7/14/08 “I think we can give Fannie and Freddie their due share of responsibility for the mess we’re in, while acknowledging that they were nowhere near the biggest culprits in the recent credit bubble. They may finance most of the home loans in America, but most of the home loans in America aren’t the problem; the problem is that very substantial slice of home loans that went outside the Fannie and Freddie box. ”
Krugman 6/3/10 “The housing bubble reached its point of maximum inflation in the middle years of the naughties. During those same years, Fannie and Freddie were sidelined by Congressional pressure, and saw a sharp drop in their share of securitization while securitization by private players surged. It’s convenient to believe that somehow, this is all Barney Frank’s fault; and so that belief will continue.”
Mark Thoma 9/21/10 “The point that Fannie and Freddie followed the private market down the tubes in an attempt to preserve market share has been known since at least September 2008.”
Ritholtz 2/15/11: “The facts of the matter are simply this: During the housing boom, it was Wall Street, and their mad purchases of Sub-Prime, Alt A and non conforming loans for their privately issued securitization that drove the credit bubble. Not, as the ideologically blinded Peter Wallison claims, Fannie & Freddie. Class dismissed.”
John that presupposes that it was a guess on my part,or a hard call.It was not.i feel that prior to those dark days i did the correct research, and drew the correct assumptions.You have a right to listen to any economists you may want,and their ramblings on why it all happened-enjoying the way they level their guns everywhere but left.I would say as a litmus test read their ideas on all this before it happened.If they were stone cold wrong why have faith in them now?I would recommend reading Dr Walter C. Williams.In my estimation he has a very clear understanding of the economy. Give him an honest listen. You may be surprised.
@michael e: You feel you did the right research. I feel it was a lucky guess.
This is based mainly on the knowledge that most Nobel-laureate-level Ph.D.’s don’t hang out on the FAIR discussion board whining about how Donald Trump is a great man, claiming to know what the Pres. is hiding in his school records and whatnot, getting personally insulted when the term teabagger gets used, and– here’s the cruncher– boasting about how they alone saw the economic meltdown coming. I find it hard to believe that someone with that set of personality characteristics did the massive amounts of homework required, understood it all, and reached, with absolute conviction apparently, a conclusion that pretty much eluded most of the academic and professional world. The guys who study this stuff for a living, I’m willing to bet, are way smarter than you or me, and don’t do their boasting around here.
Just a feeling…
Well would it matter if i was educated in some of the same schools as your president?Have a doctorate?And have opinions just as valid as you…or him…..or your nobel-lauraetes(some of which were dead wrong) ?
And you are applying things to me that i have never said.Never have I said that the Donald is a great man. Personally i think he is a type a personality who is looking for the next mountain to climb.I think his negatives are massive.My question to him would be “if you are not elected, would you be willing to work in the presidents cabinet to lend your economic expertise for the good of the country.”You and I both know that would be a no.
I do not know what the president is hiding in any of his records.Only that they are all sealed.
As far as tea bagger…..I consider it a derogatory filthy term.And why are we arguing that it is ok for the democratic parties representatives who represent half the country to use it as an insult to the other half?Any person of class ,education,and or simple moral values would understand that.The dem party is always “whining” about civility please from all those “teabaggers”.Please!!!!
Boasting.Ok i see your point.But my point was that yes I saw this coming.Tons of people saw this coming.Most of your nobel laureates saw it coming.Bush and Clinton saw it coming.Glen Beck saw it coming(Rush did not).We all deluded ourselves to greater or lesser degrees.Me less than you.
Today the drilling in the arctic to the tune of 27 billion barrels was halted.Obamas administration is being held in contempt for halting the issuance of permits to drill.Oil is skyrocketing.Compare its prise to 2 years into Bush.John……..I see it coming right now.And yes you can quote me for future reference.
michael e: Well would it matter if i was educated in some of the same schools as your president?Have a doctorate?And have opinions just as valid as youâ┚¬Ã‚¦or himâ┚¬Ã‚¦..or your nobel-lauraetes(some of which were dead wrong) ?
_________________________________________________
It matters immensely. The economic meltdown, its causes and effects, and all the second- and third-order effects aren’t something that are completely and easily understood by some of the smartest people on the planet. People who’ve spent their lives doing nothing but studying the kind of stuff that would put me to sleep in a heartbeat. And yet, ’cause Glenn Beck, or anyone else with a mind to, can google some search terms and hit the public library, he’s got it all figured out? Sorry, but I have trouble buyin’ that.
When you’re talking about something highly technical, not everybody’s opinions are just as valid as everybody else’s. I take my doctor’s advice based on his education, knoweldge, and experience; I don’t go asking Glenn Beck whether I should opt for physical therapy or surgery for my shoulder injury. But with the internet today, anybody can do some research and grab what’s out there and think they know what they’re talking about. When someone does that, the amount of BS that person is full of tends to increase as the complexity of the issue goes up.
I’d take it easy on the predictions there, Oracle at Delphi…
The reality here is that all the elements of the housing crash were in place by early 2005……It was no longer a question of if, but when.
However, there were literally less than a dozen investors who had figured it out by doing some outside the box data studies and taken agressive “short” positions at the time.
By the time Washington was urging F&F into riskier waters our fate was already sealed.
The big firms like Goldman didn’t wake up til late 06, early 07.
Just to repeat, F&F did not crash the banks, the banks crashed F&F.
“Today the drilling in the arctic to the tune of 27 billion barrels was halted.”
This isn’t true. Permits were put on hold last December until drillers could offer blow-out prevention and cleanup abilities. Currently only one company, Shell, says it can have spill tech in place, and they won’t be ready until 2012.
27 billion barrels equals 7 1/2 years of current u.s. oil import levels.
“Most of your nobel laureates saw it coming.”
In October 2008 Alan Greenspan admitted to the US Congress that he had been mistaken to put so much faith in the self-correcting power of free markets and that he had failed to anticipate the self-destructive nature of wanton mortgage lending and the housing and credit bubble it generated.
Bruce Barlett notes than Greenspan gave speeches in both 2003 and 2004 discounting the possibility of the housing bubble.
More Bartlett, from an article subtitled “Some forecasters were prescient; financial leaders weren’t.”
The first report I have pointing to the potentially disastrous effects of a collapse in housing on financial institutions came from economist Paul Kasriel of Northern Trust on July 30, 2004. He noted that 60% of banks’ earning assets were mortgage-related–twice as much as was the case in 1986.
If the housing market were to go bust, Kasriel warned, the banking system would suffer significant damage. And since the banking system is the transmission mechanism between the Fed and the economy, any serious downturn in that sector could make monetary policy impotent, thus pulling down the entire economy.
That same day, however, I received a report from Bear Stearns economist David Malpass arguing that the housing market was healthy and that much of the rise in prices simply represented a “catch-up” because they had lagged behind the rise in equity prices since the mid-1990s.
source:
http://www.forbes.com/2008/12/31/housing-bubble-crash-oped-cx_bb_0102bartlett.html
“Oil is skyrocketing.Compare its prise to 2 years into Bush.”
2 years into Bush, we had invaded Iraq and prices were spiking.
A better comparion would be compare its price to where it was in 2008. Oil is actually cheaper today, although gasoline is not.
Please, explain how Obama is responsible.
@ John
All you need to know about “economist” Williams: he once described “Ayn Rand’s Capitalism: the Unknown Ideal” as “one of the best defenses and explanations of capitalism one is likely to read.”
Yet another true believer in The Economy Fairy.
Ok Helen now Dr williams is a dolt? You just attack anyone not in agreement.
Dick it is true that my Doctorate is not in economics.It is true that the complexities of the meltdown and the range are immense. But you keep acting like “we”could not see it coming.I remember talks I gave in 01 that pretty much nailed it. The information was all out there. Easy to read.I cant re tack to every day ,but i tell you that many of us knew the government was lying.We wrote articles.S poke to the politicians involved. Nothing added up.I spoke to economists i know from Harvard,and Washington( in the administration.) Their attitude was that although what i was speaking about could happen in a worst case….the safe guards in place would halt it from collapse as so many of us envisioned. Personally i did not believe it..And This idea that we the people should/must put our trust in government bean counters is nonsense. Absolute rubbish. Elitist claptrap that pats people on the head and says leave your money to the experts.Any fool knows giving homes to people who cant afford them is stupid.Or printing money.Or spending what you don’t have.I don’t need to give an hour long lesson on micro and macro economics to have the “peasants” understand that.Those experts are bloody incompetents if you asked me.Classic overeducated fools who over complicated the works -believing they could play the numbers no matter how unbalanced they became.Stop stop stop handing your selves over to these so called experts.They are mired in politics,and serve you badly.Do you think Obama has turned our economy over to them?Certainly he has no Doctorate in economics.His experience is zero.Do they pat him on his head?
How is Obama responsible(for oil prices)?Obama two years ago had a job to do. Explode oil exploration,natural gas etc everywhere it can be found.Tap that ocean of energy beneath our feet. Drill baby drill drill drill.Even a hint that he was going to do so today would send speculators spinning. Explode our refining capacity.He has been nothing but a hinderance.Literally in contempt of court.He is our Don Quixote.Searching for windmills.The oil pulled from this arctic hole would equal more than all the oil taken through Alaskan waterways in the last 30 years.
7 wells went to Brazil today…. fed up with Obamas anti oil administration insanity.
Sorry Dick you just cant give Obama Kudos on much.A complete nothing.Disastrous to our country.
Read walter williams…..Brilliant
@michael e: Alright, Punxatawney Phil: got any links to these articles where you pretty much nailed it? ‘Cause I’m still awfully skeptical. Were they peer-reviewed?
You keep harping about how danged smart y’all were. “Those experts were bloody incompents if you ask me.” Yep– you’re the smartest one in the room, alright. OK, then. If this ain’t hindsight being 20/20, time to put your money where your mouth is, Yoda: let’s see a link to these articles.
[sigh] I’m running out of well-known soothsayers to reference.
I love Punxatawney Phil John.And your right there are not that many soothsayers im coming up with.Sorry J cant do(articles).With that info people on these blogs could track me.Know my real name(and yes my address….Though two of the articles do use my pen name but I think you can now google the cross reference(i will think about those)Some on these blogs have come close to threats.One or two serious nuts.I don’t need them on my doorstep.I find speaking before liberal crowds to be a….. worrisome endeavor these days.Im starting to feel writing to them may be problematic as well.So like Obama I will keep me and my bat cave sealed info .Shady?Sorry
As far as being incompetent,or me being the smartest guy in the room…..I believe those “experts”had the info going back a long way that foretold of a massive collapse of our economic structure.Remember Ross Perot?His chicken little routine was a big yuck yuck.How many years ago was that?And what i am trying to tell you is we are cycling through the same thing now.People who understood the gravity then and understand the gravity now are being shouted down(by some people on these blogs also)Economists are today playing academic exercise games AGAIN.Have you noticed the way the cost of Obama care is never factored into any discussions these days on the run for presidency?It is as if it all disappeared poof in a puff of smoke.Really the real story is that.Why were so many people ringing the clarion bell,who were proven right while so many(not all)experts were saying all was well.
I remember Glen Beck saying your government is lying 2 weeks prior to the crash.Sell your stocks and buy gold he shrieked like a tea kettle.I took an interest and studied his stats.Then i studied the rebuttal from all the experts. Glen beck is a nut…a clown….a fool….a madman….. uneducated(sound familiar). Pretty hot attacks.My friends and i had a pow wow,a real old fashion sit down cigar smoke /whiskey and all and discovered that we all agreed……with him.We took a huge risk,took the plunge and went deep into gold…. just in the nick of time thank the lord.Of course we did well.Very well.Unflippen believably well.I have heard from political friends of mine that there was a great herd of politicians heading to the same troth(some day that will be i am sure a powerful article).
John…I have heard from you for a while.Helen.Tim.Dick.I dont agree with you- all…but but but. I wish you would get over this idea that these people( who work for you) are anything all that special…..I have known many key players in the halls of power.Some are very bright men(Clinton).Some are as dumb as a box of hammers(Pelosi).My guess would be you people here would see that you could “hang” with any of them.My favorite saying(F lee buckley i think) was that he would like any person off the street running things when matched against a harvard grad.I never took offense.Because i know exactly what he means.
“Any fool knows giving homes to people who cant afford them is stupid.”
Dean Baker (who actually was the first to see the crash coming …in 2002)
It is worth noting that many of the subprime loans that began going bad in 2006 and 2007 were not PURCHASE mortgages but rather mortgages used to REFINANCE homes. Subprime lenders aggressively, and often deceptively, marketed mortgages for refinancing to low and moderate income homeowners as a way of getting access to extra money to meet bills or pay for big purchases like a care or home remodeling.
****************
Oil is actually cheaper today than it was in 2008, although gasoline is not. Please, explain how Obama is responsible for current gas prices.
PS
Ross Perot was talking about the effect NAFTA would have on our economy. It was conservative freetraders who attacked him.
“My favorite saying (F lee buckley i think) ”
That’s a funny slip of the mind, Michael. Somehow F Lee Bailey and William F Buckley merged.
The actually quote (from Buckley) “I’d rather entrust the government of the United States to the first 400 people listed in the Boston telephone directory than to the faculty of Harvard University.”
F lee….yes OJs/Patty Hearsts lawyer right?He still alive?
Yes that is the quote i was channeling.And i do know what he meant.Harvard has a certain “current” that runs through it that you don’t feel as you are carried along.Step out and look at it and it is not the real world.Strangely their are those academics who carry the cloistered environment of academia with them. Especially into politics.My feeling is that it has usually been a failing recipe.
Oh about whistle blowers or clarion bell ringers.There have been tons of them.You are playing semantics in examining each sentence and trying to find fault. Ofuscation is the playground of the left. Deniability the life and breath.I will grant that you are professionals at this.But you have finally come up against the nail that can nail your jello to the wall.That nail is the tea party.The tea party represents that part that no longer believes much that is said by the left.We believe give a pig a finger and he will take a knuckle.For instance you say oil is cheaper today……But what you dont say that is due 100% to moves Bush made….( that our clown in chief has taken credit for.)How about his talk on how well “HE” is doing in the gas and oil industry..Hardy har har!
Ross said Nafta was the great sucking sound of jobs leaving.He was right. He also said it would work well as we open competition in theory.But what the republicans did not get is the lefts penchant for massive spending that would undercut any gains,leaving us deficit ridden.Right again.Read his words or Reagans on unions and socialized healthcare.Then tell me they did not read you correctly.So send up smoke screens all you want.We are not buying it.You can send me stories and facts all the live long day that 4+4 equals 10.I will let it go .Believe what you want and rail against those you cant convince.In those days when I would speak of the coming economic disasters I published to great specificity how the Dems would extricate with plausible deniability things going on at that time.Again I was pretty scary close.I did not see Fanny and Freddy collapsing without some Dems going to jail and all loosing their seats.Instead they in effect got raises.Astounding!
Today Trump actually got Obama to open his locked vault and reveal a smidgen of the “world of things” he has locked away in his pledge trunk of total transparency.And people actually get mad that OBama was being forced to come clean.Next hopefully will be his college records…billing records….land deals….This sanitation that took place in the first election is going to all be revisited.This is the sad state.We simply dont trust him…or you by extension.He will not be allowed to stand stubbornly closed mouth before his employers anymore.He answered today because his polls showed Americans wondering why he was obfuscating.I would like to poll America….IS OBAMA SHADY?Bet you it is near 90% yes.
http://www.pollingreport.com/obama_ad4.htm
CNN/Opinion Research Corporation Poll. May 21-23, 2010.
“Do you think Barack Obama is honest and trustworthy?” N=524 (Form A), MoE ± 4.5
Yes: 60 %
No: 39 %
Unsure: 1 %
“But what the republicans did not get is the lefts penchant for massive spending that would undercut any gains,leaving us deficit ridden.”
By the end of the Clinton era, budgets were in balance. In 2002 the GOP house dropped the PayGo rules. The entire 8 Clinton years added $1 trillion to the national debt. The 8 Bush years added over $5 trillion. Somewhere between 80% to 90% of the debt increase since 09 is due to Bush policies. Who did all that Bu$hco spending? The left?
********************
“For instance you say oil is cheaper todayâ┚¬Ã‚¦Ãƒ¢Ã¢”š¬Ã‚¦But what you dont say that is due 100% to moves Bush madeâ┚¬Ã‚¦.”
In what world? Oil was $140 a barrel in Aug. 08…then Bu$hco destroyed the economy, depressing world demand and lowering prices. Demand, especially in the U.S. hasn’t recovered.
If you can point to any move Bush made in his last 6 months that led to lower prices today [other than crashing the economy] let’s hear it. I’m all ears.
******************
“How about his talk on how well “HE” is doing in the gas and oil industry..Hardy har har!”
Oil and Gas production have been up in the last two years….Your point?
*******************
“I did not see Fanny and Freddy collapsing without some Dems going to jail and all loosing their seats.”
That’s odd. F&F collapsed because Wall Street collapsed. I’m amazed that nobody on Wall Street went to jail and they all got ACTUAL raises.
****************
“I would like to poll Americaâ┚¬Ã‚¦.IS OBAMA SHADY?Bet you it is near 90% yes.”
What sorry bullsh*t. Obama’s favorability numbers are currently in the 46% to 51% range.
In addition: Quinnipiac Jan 04-11, 2011
Voters 63 – 31 percent say Obama is honest and trustworthy, he has strong leadership qualities, voters say 64 – 33 percent, and generally shares their views on issues they care about, voters say 49 – 46 percent.
Given four choices, 44 percent say they like Obama and his policies, while 2 percent don’t like him but like his policies. Another 29 percent like him personally but not his policies and 19 percent dislike both him and his policies.
http://www.quinnipiac.edu/x1295.xml?ReleaseID=1547
Michael….we get the fact that you hate Obama. However, much of the rest of America doesn’t share your views.
Pew April 8, 2011
As the Tea Party has evolved to become a major force on Capitol Hill, public views of the Tea Party have grown more negative. Slightly more disagree with the Tea Party than agree with the movement — a reversal in public evaluations from a year ago.
The latest national survey by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, conducted March 30-April 3, among 1,507 adults, finds that 29% say they disagree with the Tea Party, while fewer (22%) agree; nearly half (49%) say they do not have an opinion either way.
Since last March, the percentage saying they disagree with the movement has grown 15 points while the percentage saying they agree with the Tea Party has remained mostly unchanged (24% March 2010, 22% April 2011.).
The rise in negative views of the Tea Party has occurred largely among political independents and Democrats. Last March, more independents agreed than disagreed with the Tea Party by a 26%-to-14% margin. Today, as many independents disagree as agree with the Tea Party (27% each); the percentage disagreeing with the Tea Party has risen 13 points.
Currently, moderate and liberal Republicans are as likely to agree (18%) as disagree (16%) with the Tea Party; most (65%) do not offer an opinion of the movement. Currently, 53% of conservative Republicans agree with the Tea Party, while just 5% disagree.
http://pewresearch.org/pubs/1956/tea-party-declining-popularity-democrats-independents-moderate-republicans
Why drill baby drill doesn’t matter……
4/26/11
CHRIS MATTHEWS: If we were taking apart the ANWR and drilling everywhere, would the price of gas be much different? In the world market, since this all fungible, if we were doing all that here in the United States, would the price of gas be much different? Iâ┚¬Ã‹Å“m just asking that question.
DOUG HOLTZ-EAKIN, White House’s Chief Economist under Bush : No, he canâ┚¬Ã‹Å“t change the price very much. So, I mean, heâ┚¬Ã‹Å“s trying to do thingsâ┚¬”Â
MATTHEWS: But the conservatives are saying all you have to do is pump likeâ┚¬”Âall you got to do is drill likeâ┚¬”ÂPawlenty said, just got at this, dig, dig, and dig, drill, drill, and drill, and somehow the price of the gas is going to down on the world market. Youâ┚¬Ã‹Å“re saying thatâ┚¬Ã‹Å“s not true?
HOLTZ-EAKIN: Well, I mean, you canâ┚¬Ã‹Å“t change the oil price very much with the U.S. exploration. It certainly canâ┚¬Ã‹Å“t change it quickly. We know that. And I think Republicans have been honest about that.
Of course, any extra oil the U.S. produced could be quickly offset by a cut in OPEC production.
â┚¬Ã…“This drill drill drill thing is tired,â┚¬Ã‚ said the Oil Price Information Service’s chief oil analyst Tom Kloza. â┚¬Ã…“It’s a simplistic way of looking for a solution that doesn’t exist.â┚¬Ã‚Â
Even if the U.S. hit the motherlode tomorrow a dramatic expansion of domestic oil-and-gas drilling will have little effect on prices, as they are largely set on world markets.
Energy Information Administration Administrator Richard Newell, in testimony delivered to the House Natural Resources Committee March 17 wrote â┚¬Ã…“Long term, we do not project additional volumes of oil that could flow from greater access to oil resources on Federal lands to have a large impact on prices given the globally integrated nature of the world oil market….”
Obama releases long form birth certificate GOP still in denial
Survey USA
40% of the Tea Party and 33% of Republicans say they still have doubts about where the President was born.
17% of the Tea Party and 18% of Republicans say they are sure the document released 04/27/11 is a forgery..
**************
51% of the gop either has doubt or is sure the document is a forgery. The party has lost its mind.
Frum adds:
…with rare exceptions, leading Republicans from the Speaker of the House downward played games with the birther issue. Maybe they played those games unhappily, but they played the games even so. That was a choice, not a compulsion. And some Republicans â┚¬“ Sarah Palin inevitably, but others too â┚¬“ did much more than play games. That was a choice too.
What else could Republicans have done? They might have answered as Bill Clinton answered when confronted by 9/11 conspiracy theorist hecklers. He heard them out. He recapitulated the facts. He restated the truth. And he told people who continued to defy reality that they â┚¬Ã…“looked like idiots.â┚¬Ã‚ He added for good measure: â┚¬Ã…“We heard from you. You go away.â┚¬Ã‚Â
Now the more haunting question: How did this poisonous and not very subtly racist allegation get such a grip on our conservative movement and our Republican party?
I know there will be Republican writers and conservative publicists who will now deny that birtherism ever did get a grip. Sorry, that’s just wrong. Not only did Trump surge ahead in Republican polls by flaming racial fires â┚¬“ not only did conservative media outlets from Fox to Drudge to the Breitbart sites indulge the birthers â┚¬“ but so also did every Republican candidate who said, â┚¬Ã…“I take the president at his word.â┚¬Ã‚Â
Birthers did not doubt the president’s â┚¬Ã…“word.â┚¬Ã‚ They were doubting the official records of the state of Hawaii.
http://www.frumforum.com/the-birther-disgrace
Les Leopold:
The Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations report, â┚¬Ã…“Wall Street and the Financial Crisis: An Anatomy of a Financial Collapse, â┚¬Ã‚ notes that Washington Mutual (WaMu) used focus groups to help its mortgage brokers find better ways to sucker customers into risky mortgages even though the applicants had qualified for and wanted safer fixed-rate mortgages.
The report also details outright fraud committed by brokers â┚¬“ forging documents, making phony loans, stealing money â┚¬“ who then got rewarded again and again by the bank for their high sales records, even after they were caught!
Then it turns out that the Office of Thrift Supervision, the regulatory agency that was supposed to halt WaMu’s shoddy and corrupt practices knew of these deceptive practices in great detail for five full years and still failed to stop the pillaging. Why? Because OTS’s top regulators didn’t believe in regulations. Banks should regulate themselves. OTS only wanted to help. And one way it helped was by deliberately impeding other regulators like the FDIC from enforcing stronger regulations on WaMu.
Moodys and Standard and Poors, the Wall Street rating agencies doled out AAA ratings to thousands of â┚¬Ã…“innovativeâ┚¬Ã‚ securities based on the junk mortgages that WaMu and others originated and packaged. Then when it became obvious to everyone it was actually junk, the agencies drastically downgraded thousands of toxic assets overnight. This forced pension funds and insurance companies, who by law could only hold investment grade securities, to dump their downgraded assets all at once. The result was a rapid and deep collapse of all financial markets.
Finally Deutsche Bank and Goldman Sachs were packaging and selling toxic securities while, at the same time, betting that those securities would fail. The report notes, â┚¬Ã…“Investment banks were the driving force behind the structured finance products that provided a steady stream of funding for lenders originating high risk, poor quality loans and that magnified risk throughout the U.S. financial system. The investment banks that engineered, sold, traded, and profited from mortgage related structured finance products were a major cause of the financial crisis.â┚¬Ã‚Â
Dick your the funniest thing you wrote is drilling today wont help.Well lets use that same logic with green technology.As far as all that rot about what a great job Obama is doing and how America and the world loves him so,and the boatload of skewed facts lets just say this……If Obama looses on a November day hence, or worse gets creamed…..What is your exit strategy to explain this tragedy.1)America is stupid?2)America fell for the rights lies?What will you say.?If he looses- everything you write and believe is bull.As far as the tea party ..it cannot suffer for long the lefts painting it this way or that.It simply represents the constitution.And weather they know it or not ALL Amerians support the ideals.And that is all the TP is.An ideal.
Obama was your genius.Our dolt.He told you he would cut the deficit in half,and get America back on firm ground.We are now borrowing 188 million dollars an hour!!!!Nuff said?the country is in tatters and he is the leader.Forget trying to blame anyone else.He holds the job and the blame.
As far as the birther issue…..He lied and lied and lied in his run.”Who me no I never met William Airs)He sealed and sealed again all records.He ducked and dodged the simplest questions(birth certificate)to the point that a celebrity business man(Trump)had to shame him into opening his flipping mouth and answering his employers(us).And there is a ton of other shady things about this guy that we still want to know.So if we have to shame him over and over until he learns what the word transparency truly means- then so be it.And stop the race bullshit.As far as I know he is as white as he is black.At this point Im surprised anyone on the right or on the left would believe anything he says or does or information he releases.He is simply a snake oil salesman.He cant regain trust.Once a liar always a liar.You actually quoted Bill Clinton.There is a man who wrote the book on lying.Under oath no less.And about nonsense.So people should believe him on the hard things?And by the way who do you think started the birther issue?THE CLINTONS!Hilary began the whole thing during her run.Another little tidbit you forgot.
As far as les….He never even mention Fanny and freddy,as if they never had a stake.What a joke.He never states the mechanics and the lefts involvement in even the things he mentions.It is as if they were on vacation,and the store was only being minded by Republicans,wall street and banks.I was recently reading the history of the rise of the Nazi party.To hear the Nazi’s blaming the bankers and the rich(Jews) for their collapse was almost indistinguishable from your arguments now.Scary.Sorry dude.i read your script before you even looked it up on google(the lefts brain drain).I spent a lot of time writing how the left would find deniability.Ive covered all this before it was even mainstream.So to me it is a shell game.Old news and boring.In my time as an analyst for your favorite president I learned the game of cross engineering facts.Look far ahead to how the other side will play this.The left never disappointed in their absolute gall.One of the reasons I could not do it anymore even as a paid exercise.I saw the corruption inside.You believe the rhetoric from ouside the window they never let you in.
If you have not noticed I do not throw endless published facts at you.I simply give my opinion,along with
touching on some important points.No amount of facts will change your mind.You have an agenda that needs no facts.Helpful yes.Needed no.You believe the world is inherently unfair as represented by the right .The left means to remake America(as stated by your president)to make it fair.In practical terms that means making everyone equal by any means necessary.All your so called facts are funneled through that prism.You are incapable (it seems)of seeing the inherent problem with your stance.Or that it is not at all reflective of how America was formed ,founded and continues to be…a capitalist country.A country of individual freedoms and free market principles.
“Dick your the funniest thing you wrote is drilling today wont help.”
I wrote that drilling won’t help lower oil prices. Since it’s true, why is that funny?
Obama produced his birth certificate in 2008.
“To hear the Nazi’s blaming the bankers and the rich(Jews) for their collapse was almost indistinguishable from your arguments now.”
Scurrilous horseshit…..Pointing out that everyone from Countrywide to Moody’s helped crash the economy is in no way, shape, or form anti-semitism…
“Les never states the mechanics and the lefts involvement in even the things he mentions.”
The banks crashed F&F, F&F did not crash the banks. The left’s involvement in WaMu, Bush’s OTS, the rating agencies, Goldman and Deutsche Bank? Do tell. I’m all ears.
“You have an agenda that needs no facts.”
90%+ of what I post here are facts that have been sourced.
“If you have not noticed I do not throw endless published facts at you.”
Actually I have noticed. You don’t throw facts, period….Except the ones you make up.
For example “And by the way who do you think started the birther issue?THE CLINTONS!Hilary began the whole thing during her run.Another little tidbit you forgot.”
Totally untrue…..a bunch of deadend Hillary supporters, most notably Linda Starr and Phillip Berg, started that.
“He ducked and dodged the simplest questions(birth certificate)”
In June 2008, the Obama campaign released his certificate of live birth on its Web site as part of its “fight the smears” effort. Factcheck.org and other organizations examined the document in person and declared it genuine: “Our conclusion: Obama was born in the U.S.A. just as he has always said.”
The moment you have accomplished a company administration diploma on-line, there will be a number of advantages you will get started to discover virtually right away. For 1, you will be capable to full your day-to-day responsibilities with a renewed sensation of function and self-confidence. Furthermore, you will be qualified for a increased place and better shell out. If your career refuses to provide you this, you have the capabilities and the qualifications to look for employment elsewhere.
It’s a shame you don’t have a donate button! I’d definitely donate to this excellent blog! I suppose for now i’ll settle for bookmarking and adding your RSS feed to my Google account. I look forward to fresh updates and will share this site with my Facebook group. Chat soon! クロエ http://chloe財布.seesaa.net/
shoe lifts insoles are one of the simplest ways to enhance your gait and improve your height immediately