 sj |
||
|
||
BS: Obama Goes For Broke
|
|
|
Subject: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: Peter T. Date: 27 Feb 09 - 07:31 PM The title is just so the righwingers around here can't complain that they aren't given anything to work with. Obama seems to have decided that carpetbombing and shock and awe is the way to go forward. I withdraw any remark about maybe he isn't going to be as daring as he promised. The justice department stuff, and the ridiculous refusal to go for universal health care (the only plausible solution, not hurling more money at a broken system) are doubtful; but the 10 year budget and the overall agenda are finally someone standing up to the Republican nonsense. Now if the Chinese don't pull the money plug....... Hey, and finally people are going to see pictures of dead soldiers' coffins. A little reality goes a long, long way. yours, Peter T. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: John on the Sunset Coast Date: 27 Feb 09 - 08:17 PM Peter T. Perhaps being President requires more responsible actions than being a candidate does. Maybe President Obama knows something now that President Bush knew then, and Peter T. nor JotSC will ever know. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: Peter T. Date: 27 Feb 09 - 08:31 PM I note as a sidebar (nuclear energy proponents take heed) that one of the budget wrinkles (thanks to Reid being from Nevada) is that Yucca Mountain storage facility for waste is now dead). But that doesn't exactly solve the problem...... yours, Peter T. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: Q (Frank Staplin) Date: 27 Feb 09 - 08:36 PM We shall see. Can he carry Congress along? Interesting times ahead. I am afraid a lot of the money will go to projects that will not help recovery, but I dunno. All major economies seem to have the same plans, so the U. S. is not acting in isolation. I don't agree with the Afganistan increase- I think the Taliban and the Pushtun people who support them will just pull back and wait for a more propitious time. Credit and support of Israel should be stopped until they agree to an equitable settlement of Palestinian grievances. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: Bobert Date: 27 Feb 09 - 08:39 PM People are only going to see coffins where the family memebers of the deceased agree to have them shown... Otherwise, none will be shown... But yeah, Obama is a purdy smart and savy guy who realizes that the country is at a crossroads... Now, blues lore has it that when you are at the crtoosroads that you have the option of making a deal with the devil but in doing so you will have great powers... Ahhhhh, I "hope" this isn't the situation... I rather think that Obama realizes that it's time to turn away from 30 years of Reaganomics and back toward the Great Society and the New Deal... The US hasn't done well with the Reagan model of late... Now some folks would argue that Obama is copying the European model and would warn that that hasn't turned out all the great either... I really don't know... I do know that the Reagan model is badly broken and ain't workin'... And I think that Obama knows this as well so... ...roll the dice... B~ |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: CarolC Date: 27 Feb 09 - 09:12 PM In this context, are the terms shock and awe and carpetbombing being used metaphorically? |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: Riginslinger Date: 27 Feb 09 - 10:25 PM "(thanks to Reid being from Nevada) is that Yucca Mountain storage facility for waste is now dead)." Hopefully not. It's the one source of energy that will keep consumerism going, it that's what you want. If not, Yucca Mountain is a really poor place to attack the problem, it seems to me. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: Bill D Date: 27 Feb 09 - 10:40 PM No one has yet found a real solution to the 20,000-30,000 year half-life of some of these wastes. A number of years ago, they were sure they could bury it in salt mines in Kansas, about 40 miles from where I lived. Then someone pointed out that sat is a fluid.....a slow fluid, to be sure...but it moves, and no one could prove where it would go in 30,000 years. The only real 'disposal' would be to shoot it at the Sun in rockets....but the cost and only a 97% success rate in launching rockets made 'em give up that idea. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: Riginslinger Date: 27 Feb 09 - 10:46 PM It wouldn't bother me if folks around the country decided not to further develope nuclear energy, as long as they were willing to scale back their standard of living to justify the move. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: GUEST,Slag Date: 27 Feb 09 - 11:34 PM With Monopoly Money (reg.) in such great supply, yes! Go for broke, Obama! How audacious! What's 13 trillion? Just shake a little more out of those filthy rich bastards! You all deserve their money, not them! So what if they turn turtle and try to hang onto what they've got. So what if they close up shop and stop doing business. We can make bricks WITHOUT straw! Meanwhile on the reality front in Iraq/Afghanistan things are a little more dicey. I would assume that Mr. Obama is getting a close look at what Iran is and what the conditions are in Afghanistan. Looks like, well, not ENDLESS war but maybe just 10 more years and then we'll see. Hell, it's Bush's fault anyhow. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: Amos Date: 28 Feb 09 - 01:53 AM Slag: Those sweeping nabobberies have no semantic substance to them. Take some deep breaths and consider the actual vectors involved, not your imaginary cartoon version. A |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: Bee-dubya-ell Date: 28 Feb 09 - 04:03 AM I don't have any problem with increasing taxes on the wealthy, but I'm not naive enough to think it's going to equal more money in my pocket. The wealthy make their money by selling goods or services to the less than wealthy. Increase taxes on them and they just pass the increase on to us in the form of higher prices. Having them pay higher taxes just turns them into de facto tax collectors for the rest of us. It doesn't matter how many times you shuffle a deck of cards, there's still gonna be the same 52 cards in it. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: Peace Date: 28 Feb 09 - 02:38 PM AMEN to THAT! |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: dick greenhaus Date: 28 Feb 09 - 03:35 PM Hmm- Isn't there a difference between personal and corporate income? I don't see that concentrating personal wealth in the hands of a very few--and that concentration has been the result of government policy, not Horatio Alger type hard work--does anyone else any good. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: Peter T. Date: 28 Feb 09 - 04:23 PM Boy, you listen to Obama's radio address this afternoon, and he is really going for it. He's really decided to be FDR, and I say more power to him. It is quite awe-inspiring. He seems to have got religion at last! But the wolves are going to be after him..... yours, Peter T. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: Amos Date: 28 Feb 09 - 06:24 PM He has decided to be Obama, and do what he can, I think; if people paint him up as an imitation of FDR it is because of the similarity of thier situations, but the differences are legion. A |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: Bobert Date: 28 Feb 09 - 07:31 PM Well, I heard Rush Limbaigh on TV this evening and he has to be lovin' Obama... I mean, ol' Rush's veins were poppin' outta his head like some mental case or TV wrestler... He was throwin' the "S word" (socialist) around like it was a bob-a-link (remember them)... I mean, he was havin' a blast... Rush has waited his entire life for Obama... But let's get real here... By restoring the tax level on the upper wage (haha) earners to pre-Bush-tax-cuts day the Treasurt Dept will take in somewhere around $900B... That ain't chump change... Will Obam have to raise taxes on the middle class down the road??? Probably will if he gets some form of national health care thru but in doing that he will be taking the burden off the costs that the middle class is now paying... So I see that as a wash... Ya know, this is fun... Yeah, I know that alot of folks, myself included, are being severely pinched by the economic messes that 30 years of Reaganonmics have left, but it is exciting to see that folks just don't buy into that old "government-is-bad" stuff that came with Reaganonomics... I just wished that Reagan himself was still alive so he could see just how badly he has messed the country up... Yeah, that's my only regret... Go get 'um, Barack!!! B~ |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: Peter T. Date: 28 Feb 09 - 07:37 PM I meant on the scale of FDR. Of course one difference is that FDR had more control over Congress. So Obama is in big trouble there. And another is of course the endless free market blather that has gone on for so long. The idea that governments can invest in society for the common good is going to take some time to resurrect. (Of course in Herbert Hoover's day there were powerful versions of this sanctimony too). It is sure going to be interesting to watch. Some members of his government (Hilary?) must be wondering if this is going to be Clinton Mark I all over again, rather than FDR. yours, Peter T. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: Bobert Date: 28 Feb 09 - 09:20 PM I don't think so, Peter... Obama's approval rate is in the high 60s and even Domocrats in Congress in the high 30's... This means that Obam can spend some capital and brow-beat the Dems in Congress and get enough Repubs who are from blue leaning states (like Maine) to get thru the bulk of what he is proposing... Plus, in the the words of Bill Clinton, Obama has the microphone... Having the microphone is like having home field advantage... One last thing... Obma just today said that he undersatnds that it is going to be a fight to get his agenda thru Congress but followed that up with, "I'm ready to fight"... We didn't see Obama the fighter in the campaign... We saw Obama the Coool, Obama the Intellect, Obama the Smiler but never Obama the Fighter... I'm lookin' forward to watching him use his political capital, which BTW seems to increase with every stand he takes, take on Washington... This is gonna be fun... B~ |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: GUEST,heric Date: 28 Feb 09 - 09:34 PM (I think they're talking about financial carpet bombing, Carol. I don't see any news items about bombing in Afghanistan.) God I would be SO popular with $13 trillion. . . . |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: GUEST,heric Date: 28 Feb 09 - 09:53 PM Did you know that all of the households in all of the US combined make/earn/receive less than $5 trillion gross? (I'm not saying I disapprove of the budget - just for perspective.) |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: CarolC Date: 28 Feb 09 - 11:16 PM Civilization is inherently socialist. There's no way around it. Any time people pool their resources and energies for a common purpose, they're practicing a form of socialism. People who are phobic about the idea of socialism are misinformed if they think they have the option of not being a part of a socialist society unless they go live in alone in a cave and hunt/gather all of their own food (using sticks and rocks as weapons). |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: GUEST,Slag Date: 28 Feb 09 - 11:24 PM Nabobberies? Gee Amos, do you know something I don't? I'll let you know when I make my first million. With the anticipated inflation rate, it shouldn't be too long. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: Ebbie Date: 28 Feb 09 - 11:31 PM heric, let's keep it straight and acknowledge where the $13T figure comes from, and also acknowledge the ballooning it underwent in the last 8 years. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: dick greenhaus Date: 28 Feb 09 - 11:38 PM Any physicists here? I would think that anything with a half-life of 20,000-30,000 years wouldn't emit enough radiation to bother anybody--if I'm wrong, please correct me. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: Peter T. Date: 01 Mar 09 - 05:11 AM It depends on various assumptions. For some people low-level radiation is troublesome; for others, they don't believe it is anything to worry about. For some people additional radiation of any kind is unacceptable; for others it is. Technically -- at least the materials I work with -- there are different decay times, and in fact some of them peak much later than 20,000 years (peaking here being relative to a low level start). The management problem is more like: can we actually manage anything to stay put without leakage, etc., for any length of time that matters (not 20,000 years but, let's say 1000)? So far, no one has come up with anything that everyone -- including reasonable engineers -- can agree on is perfectly safe. If perfection is what you are after..... yours, Peter T. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: Peter T. Date: 01 Mar 09 - 05:16 AM Returning to the very short term, I think the problem is not that Obama isn't popular, it is that it doesn't translate very well into votes where it matters. The Republican core against him has nothing to lose by being completely in opposition for the next two years (the next election). It will make them feel embattled and noble, and allow them to regroup around their theological orthodoxy, etc. We have already seen that happen. It means that whatever Obama wants to do, he has to take every one of his own party with him, plus the extra Republicans he needs. EVERY SINGLE TIME. The polls don't really matter here, except in getting his own people in line. yours, Peter T. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: akenaton Date: 01 Mar 09 - 05:47 AM That's right Peter, and the more popular Mr Obama becomes with "Joe Public", the less likely his people are to stay "in line", especially with the assumed agendas of many of his administration! I hardly think Hillary will be fighting "beak and claw" to promote loyalty to Mr Obama. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: Ebbie Date: 01 Mar 09 - 11:26 AM Secretary Clinton, ake, has shown no lack of loyalty. She is a political animal, she is pragmatic, she is focused and she wants the side she is on to succeed. No one knows better than she that only one candidate can take the top spot and I have no doubt that she accepts that. Being Secretary of State isn't chopped liver, you knonw. Various Secretaries have made a huge mark on this country. After all, Secretary of State William Seward bought Alaska and his name has gone down in history. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: Peter T. Date: 01 Mar 09 - 03:08 PM Actually, apart from Geitner and Larry Summers (these guys worry me), I think Obama has a pretty good cabinet (compared to the last bunch of total yes men and women, and criminals). There's a lot of pragmatic knowledge in there. yours, Peter T. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: Bobert Date: 01 Mar 09 - 04:14 PM Hate to differ with you, Ake, but my feeling is that Obama has brought in alot of independent thinkers who all seem to have one thing in common and that one thing is to be part of what may one day be looked back upon as the finest administartion since FDR... That's a lot of motivation to do things right... I have no fear whatsoever of Clinton... Hillary, that is... Bill is still Bill and he will, from time to time, open moutn and insert foot... B~ |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: akenaton Date: 01 Mar 09 - 04:57 PM "I have no fear whatsoever of Clinton... " Bobert my friend.....be afraid!.....be very afraid!! and if you're Mr Obama...be petrified! The appointment of Hillary the Hawk as secretary of State, was the biggest mistake in an administration riddled with contradictions. This woman has ambitions and is perfectly placed to become the face of America abroad, while Mr Obama becomes submerged in financial problems and civil unrest. Aided and abetted by the other Mr Clinton, she is right in position to add to Mr Obama's problems. This is all about politics and power, Mr Obama's job was to beat the Republicans.....now get set for America's first female President....Coming Soon!! |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: Q (Frank Staplin) Date: 01 Mar 09 - 05:02 PM Oh, goodie! I preferred her in the first place. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: Ebbie Date: 01 Mar 09 - 05:45 PM Ake, Thou art spinning fantasies out of whole cloth that make sense to thee alone. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: Ron Davies Date: 01 Mar 09 - 05:49 PM Situation normal. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: Peter T. Date: 01 Mar 09 - 05:54 PM Actually, I think that the story of the administration is going to be that Hilary falls in love with Obama. You read it here first. yours, Peter T. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: akenaton Date: 01 Mar 09 - 06:09 PM Shucks!...Thar aint no accountin fer taste.....(spit) |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: akenaton Date: 01 Mar 09 - 06:12 PM Goldarn it!! thet wis meant fer ol' Q |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: Ebbie Date: 01 Mar 09 - 06:13 PM Which one of them do you fancy? :) |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: akenaton Date: 01 Mar 09 - 06:43 PM Think they probably deserve each other Ebbs..... |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: CarolC Date: 01 Mar 09 - 08:34 PM Wouldn't be the first Secretary of State to fall in love with the president, I suppose... :-\ |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: Sawzaw Date: 01 Mar 09 - 08:52 PM Does anybody here know the total income of all of the top 2% of tax US payers added together is? |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: GUEST,heric Date: 01 Mar 09 - 09:41 PM I don't, but in 2005 The top 1 percent of filers held 21.8 percent of all reported income, with an average of $1.1 million. There about 150 million tax returns filed- I don't know how many people that represents, or if the figure above is based on "filings" or "people." (I think its filings.) I guess these numbers are changing quickly from week to week now. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: Sawzaw Date: 01 Mar 09 - 10:05 PM OK 150,000,000 returns filed They are paying what percentage now and how much is Obama going to raise it? |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity Date: 02 Mar 09 - 02:57 PM Sure, he's going for broke! He got elected, and the nation is now going broke!..Stock market is now less than half it was, since he was nominated!..Oh well,..being as living in denial is part of the far left mind set..you probably can't see it...........or care... |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: Don Firth Date: 02 Mar 09 - 03:17 PM Living in denial? Who's living in denial here? Clinton left the country with a budget surplus. Look what Bush, in a mere eight years, left behind! And the Repubs and Right Wingers want more of the same! One of the definitions of insanity is to keep repeating the same actions, each time expecting a different result. SHEESH! Don Firth |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: Amos Date: 02 Mar 09 - 03:32 PM Someday, Ake, I predict you will have a flash of insight and notice the sheer volume of fear, anger and hatred which has been informing so many of your thought processes, lo, these many year. It will be a sockdologer of an epiphany, I warrant. A |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: CarolC Date: 02 Mar 09 - 04:44 PM The economy was already in a nose dive when he took office. An economy that big doesn't get turned around over night. The policies he's putting in place now will probably not make a noticeable difference until 2010. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: Peter T. Date: 02 Mar 09 - 05:42 PM And if Rush Limbaugh keeps saying he hopes Obama will fail, we might well see the demise of the Republican party. Bring on class warfare. It would be interesting to see what a moderately right wing party might look like -- a Burkean party again. yours, Peter T. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: Donuel Date: 02 Mar 09 - 10:49 PM just say no and hope we fail cartoon |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: Amos Date: 02 Mar 09 - 11:23 PM Seems so far the only serious counter-proposal from Limbaugh and his rotten ilk is lowering taxes on the wealthy and hoping for trickle-down. The only trickle-down he's ever seen is his own incontinence. A |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: GUEST,heric Date: 02 Mar 09 - 11:31 PM I thought the Republican party was gone. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: Sawzaw Date: 02 Mar 09 - 11:51 PM Well I don't see no hands up in the air with the answer. I just need somebody to educate me on how Obama is going to collect an extra Trillion from the top 2% of tax payers to finance his socialist agenda. It does not sound workable to me but I will remain open minded on the matter. PS: The DJI is now in the shitter due to Obama's Budget proposals. It is back down to the Clinton era, pre dot com bubble levels. Corporations will have to evacuate the US to make a profit and shift all their jobs offshore. This is because of a more favorable labor market (read non union) and lower corporate income tax rates. November 15, 2005 The U.S. Corporate Income Tax System: Once a World Leader, Now A Millstone Around the Neck of American Business by Chris Atkins and Scott A. Hodge Special Report No. 136 Executive Summary In the Tax Reform Act of 1986 (TRA'86) the U.S. Congress lowered the top corporate income tax rate from 46 percent to 34 percent, the largest reduction since the tax was enacted in 1909. This change, along with an earlier move in the United Kingdom, started a wave of corporate income tax reduction worldwide. One of the ironies of tax policy during the Bush presidency is that five years of tax-cutting legislation have left the corporate income tax rate unchanged. Meanwhile, another wave of corporate income tax reduction has swept around the world and is still underway. The United States is not the leader this time around. In fact, the U.S. is lagging behind and now has the highest combined statutory corporate income tax rate among OECD countries. A review of corporate tax policies in the OECD countries reinforces a theme that is well developed in the economic literature: a nation will not attract new and expanded business and its attendant job creation if its corporate income tax is significantly higher than it is in comparable nations. Therefore, as the U.S. contemplates fundamental tax reform, one of the major goals should be a lower corporate income tax rate. The President's Advisory Panel on Federal Tax Reform has done just that in its new report, but possibly with an overly modest rate cut. The panel suggested a 31.5 percent top rate in one plan and a 30 percent top rate in an alternative plan. Both plans would improve the U.S. worldwide ranking, but the U.S. would still be taxing corporate income at a rate well above the OECD average. Lawmakers should consider reducing the federal rate to 25 percent which, when coupled with state corporate income taxes, would almost bring the U.S. rate down to the OECD average of 29.2 percent. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: number 6 Date: 02 Mar 09 - 11:52 PM Limbaugh .... didn't state he hoped Obama would fail .. he stated he hoped socialism would fail. Conservatives (republicans) hate and fear socialism. Lefties (democrats) hate and fear capitalism. All in all things are just as polarized with the new power (machine) in Washington as it was before. The war will continue. The crooks on wall street and the corporate board rooms will take as much as they can. The bureaucrats throughout the country will take as much as they can. The little working stiff loses in the long run. biLL |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: CarolC Date: 03 Mar 09 - 01:37 AM Obama's tax policies could create an environment in which the presence of the large corporations becomes unnecessary for a strong healthy middle class in this country. Once employers are no longer depended on for their employees' access to health care, we will see a lot of growth in the number of successful small businesses in this country, and they will be much more competitive in the global economy. Obama's approach to the green economy will also help small businesses in this country. It's entirely possible that increasing the tax rate on large corporations could have no effect on employment in this country at all. A lot of those huge corporations aren't really paying any taxes anyway, with all of the loopholes and offshore tax havens they currently enjoy. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: Peter T. Date: 03 Mar 09 - 06:03 AM Of course. Although it remains ominous that while Obama is liberating things economically at home, he is really doing the same old stuff politically in the rest of the world -- bombing other countries, fighting for secrecy, etc. yours, Peter T. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: CarolC Date: 03 Mar 09 - 06:29 AM I'm definitely concerned about the possibility that Obama will continue some of the imperialist foreign policies of past presidents. But under the surface of what appears to be his foreign policy stance, I see undercurrents of possible approaches that are at odds with what we have seen from past presidents. I'm watching what he and his people do very carefully, but at this time, I don't feel that I have a very complete picture of where he's headed with his foreign policy approach. I think it's going to take several months, at least, before I will feel that I have a good understanding of the relationship he is shaping for the US and the rest of the world. One thing I am noticing is that he and his people are extremely adept at knowing where the levers and fulcrums are and knowing how to use them. And he seems to value an approach that I understand and use myself. When raising baby raccoons as a wildlife rehabilitation worker, I would observe in which corner the raccoons liked to do their business, and I would put the paper there, instead of deciding myself where I wanted them to go and trying to make them use that place. I find that using this approach is also very effective with people (obviously not the same exact circumstances, but the same basic approach). Obama and his people seem to like this approach as well. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: Greg F. Date: 03 Mar 09 - 08:17 AM Doesn't the Republican Boobocracy EVER get tired of spewing the bullshit that the graduated income tax- or for that matter, any progressive policies or whatsoever are socialism?? I know I'M tired od hearing it. However, this this nonsense does mobilize their knuckledragger constituency to foam at the mouth ... |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: Donuel Date: 03 Mar 09 - 11:12 AM Senator Byrd is just not up to making coherent comparisons between Rome and the American empire anymore so I will try to fill the bet I can. President Obama has much the same challenge as did Octavian did as Ceasar of a divided Rome. The rich members of the Republic 'party' had soaked the people beyond all reasonable bounds. Octavian was a threat to the very rich depnding upon how he was going to help the people at the expense of the rich or even worse, rouse the people against the upper class. Octavian defended himself by the clever use of propoganda in the form of his image on coins and statue. His image was crafted to be almost demure in his pose of offering a hand to the poor while not being overly militaristic in his clothing. Obama has to satisfy a similar two masters. It will be perilous especially when dealing with the current spokesman of the military industrial complex, Gates. Obama's dilemma is not just that he is offending the plutocrats of the US financial sector, or that he faces Republican resistance in Congress, or that he's running headlong into the Right's potent media machine. Obama also will have to take on key leaders of the US military. Part of this is his own fault for listening to centrist Democrats who urged him to retain President Bush's Defense Secretary Robert Gates, one of Obama's high-profile gestures of bipartisanship. Though well-liked in Washington power circles – and possessing a disarming style – Gates has a history as a hawkish policymaker who will undercut a President he sees as going soft. As a young CIA officer, Gates was linked to the behind-the-scenes sabotage of Carter in 1980. [See Parry's Secrecy & Privilege, or Consortiumnews.com's "The Secret World of Robert Gates."] When Bush nominated Gates to replace Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld in November 2006, Official Washington (and many Democrats) assumed that the move meant that Bush was adopting a more pragmatic approach to Iraq and would soon begin a phased withdrawal. Gates has caused Obama to break with his planned quick withdrawl from Iraq and has even promised an expanded land war in southern Asia / Pashtoonistan / Afghanistan / Pakistan. How cleverly Barak can navigate around these great forces while restoring some stability to the people of the United States will rely on circumstances and providence. A quick fake and move to the inside, as he does in basketball will serve him well. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: Amos Date: 03 Mar 09 - 11:24 AM IF Obama really wanted to cut to the quick of our festering national disarray, he would nationalize the banks and castrate their ability to invent money out of whole cloth, reserving that right solely to the Federal government. This would suddenly and sharply apply the brakes to the catastrophic exponential growth path of the money supply as a function of debt, and put it on the path back to being the index of stored value it used to be. This single mechanism would suddenly stop the treadmill, and require a conscientiius re-evaluation of policies andbusiness models throughout the banking industry. Not such a bad idea. But...screams? Oh, they would be world-class!! Probably result in a whole flock of hit-men showing up in DC. A |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: Peter T. Date: 03 Mar 09 - 11:28 AM While as a northern Druid I am an ardent proponent of the Rome=America analogy, and the imperial presidency, there are some issues here. Octavian -- when he became Augustus -- could have killed anyone in Rome he wanted to, and burned the place down. He decided to back off a little, but no one with any brains ever really tested him. The great problem which Octavian and everyone else had to wrestle with was the grim fact that the expansion of Rome into a colonial power, and its total reliance on African grain, completely corrupted Roman politics. The huge amounts of money that corrupted the political system and made the rich obscenely rich was a structural problem no one could dea with -- change the name from grain to oil, and you have the exact same problem. yours, Peter T. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: DougR Date: 03 Mar 09 - 12:01 PM "Obama Goes For Broke." An understatement if I ever heard one. Trouble is WE are the ones who will be broke due to his "enlightened" "progressive" economic policies. I do believe, however, that the the thinking portion of our population is beginning to wake up. Obama's approval ratings are beginning to slide and I have little doubt he may succeed in breaking GWB's lowest ranking by year's end. DougR |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: Don Firth Date: 03 Mar 09 - 12:03 PM "The DJI is now in the shitter due to Obama's Budget proposals." I'm growing increasingly amazed at the level of mental acuity of those who keep saying that Obama is to blame for the big pile of steaming poop that the Republicans left on the national carpet. Don Firth |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: GUEST,number 6 Date: 03 Mar 09 - 12:16 PM Obama ... first he was the new Kennedy, then the new FDR, and then further back inot history as the new Lincoln ... and now he's the new Octavian. Good grief ... think I'll go out now and scrape ice off of my driveway. biLL |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: Amos Date: 03 Mar 09 - 12:21 PM His approval ratings are at 62.6% as of March 1. Your boy? SOuth of 28% last I saw. Gee. Maybe DOugR is projecting. A |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: Greg F. Date: 03 Mar 09 - 12:39 PM Maybe DougR is an irrelevant inanity. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: CarolC Date: 03 Mar 09 - 12:51 PM The person who is predicting that Obama's approval ratings will break GW's record low approval ratings by the end of the year is the same person who guaranteed us that we would not attack and invade Iraq. Not the best track record for predictions. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: Peter T. Date: 03 Mar 09 - 01:44 PM There is no chance Obama's rating will go that low, unless he turns out to be Osama Bin Laden in cunning disguise. People realized that Bush was an idiot and completely out of touch with reality. It took them a long time, but they figured it out eventually. Obama's personality is quite different: he is sane and reasonably in touch with reality. People may not like what he does, but they will give him a lot of mistake room. yours, Peter T. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: Don Firth Date: 03 Mar 09 - 01:50 PM Wishful thinking from the Right. Ain't gonna happen. I think the Right is scared spitless that Obama is going to pull it off and get the country back on track again. By instituting, or reestablishing badly needed reforms and regulations that they regard as "socialistic." The ones Reagan got rid of, setting the scene for the mess we're now in. It's all happened before. FDR in the Thirties. Hated and reviled by the Right. But he did institute the regulations and programs that went a long way toward pulling the country out of the Depression, and the Republicans have been smarting ever since. Until Reagan screwed it up and put the foxes in charge of the chicken coop. Don Firth |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: Amos Date: 03 Mar 09 - 02:51 PM Limbaugh .... didn't state he hoped Obama would fail .. he stated he hoped socialism would fail. Umm, I think his exact line was "I hope he fails.", Bill. Limbaugh spouts platitudes about loving people and America, but when you watch his actual attitudes he drips a very nasty brand of hatred from his enlarged pores. A |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: Sawzaw Date: 03 Mar 09 - 03:08 PM our work shows that the recovery would have been very rapid had the government not intervened FDR's policies prolonged Depression by 7 years, UCLA economists calculateTwo UCLA economists say they have figured out why the Great Depression dragged on for almost 15 years, and they blame a suspect previously thought to be beyond reproach: President Franklin D. Roosevelt. After scrutinizing Roosevelt's record for four years, Harold L. Cole and Lee E. Ohanian conclude in a new study that New Deal policies signed into law 71 years ago thwarted economic recovery for seven long years. "Why the Great Depression lasted so long has always been a great mystery, and because we never really knew the reason, we have always worried whether we would have another 10- to 15-year economic slump," said Ohanian, vice chair of UCLA's Department of Economics. "We found that a relapse isn't likely unless lawmakers gum up a recovery with ill-conceived stimulus policies."In an article in the August issue of the Journal of Political Economy, Ohanian and Cole blame specific anti-competition and pro-labor measures that Roosevelt promoted and signed into law June 16, 1933. "President Roosevelt believed that excessive competition was responsible for the Depression by reducing prices and wages, and by extension reducing employment and demand for goods and services," said Cole, also a UCLA professor of economics. "So he came up with a recovery package that would be unimaginable today, allowing businesses in every industry to collude without the threat of antitrust prosecution and workers to demand salaries about 25 percent above where they ought to have been, given market forces. The economy was poised for a beautiful recovery, but that recovery was stalled by these misguided policies." Using data collected in 1929 by the Conference Board and the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Cole and Ohanian were able to establish average wages and prices across a range of industries just prior to the Depression. By adjusting for annual increases in productivity, they were able to use the 1929 benchmark to figure out what prices and wages would have been during every year of the Depression had Roosevelt's policies not gone into effect. They then compared those figures with actual prices and wages as reflected in the Conference Board data. In the three years following the implementation of Roosevelt's policies, wages in 11 key industries averaged 25 percent higher than they otherwise would have done, the economists calculate. But unemployment was also 25 percent higher than it should have been, given gains in productivity. Meanwhile, prices across 19 industries averaged 23 percent above where they should have been, given the state of the economy. With goods and services that much harder for consumers to afford, demand stalled and the gross national product floundered at 27 percent below where it otherwise might have been. "High wages and high prices in an economic slump run contrary to everything we know about market forces in economic downturns," Ohanian said. "As we've seen in the past several years, salaries and prices fall when unemployment is high. By artificially inflating both, the New Deal policies short-circuited the market's self-correcting forces." The policies were contained in the National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA), which exempted industries from antitrust prosecution if they agreed to enter into collective bargaining agreements that significantly raised wages. Because protection from antitrust prosecution all but ensured higher prices for goods and services, a wide range of industries took the bait, Cole and Ohanian found. By 1934 more than 500 industries, which accounted for nearly 80 percent of private, non-agricultural employment, had entered into the collective bargaining agreements called for under NIRA. Cole and Ohanian calculate that NIRA and its aftermath account for 60 percent of the weak recovery. Without the policies, they contend that the Depression would have ended in 1936 instead of the year when they believe the slump actually ended: 1943. Roosevelt's role in lifting the nation out of the Great Depression has been so revered that Time magazine readers cited it in 1999 when naming him the 20th century's second-most influential figure. "This is exciting and valuable research," said Robert E. Lucas Jr., the 1995 Nobel Laureate in economics, and the John Dewey Distinguished Service Professor of Economics at the University of Chicago. "The prevention and cure of depressions is a central mission of macroeconomics, and if we can't understand what happened in the 1930s, how can we be sure it won't happen again?" NIRA's role in prolonging the Depression has not been more closely scrutinized because the Supreme Court declared the act unconstitutional within two years of its passage. "Historians have assumed that the policies didn't have an impact because they were too short-lived, but the proof is in the pudding," Ohanian said. "We show that they really did artificially inflate wages and prices." Even after being deemed unconstitutional, Roosevelt's anti-competition policies persisted — albeit under a different guise, the scholars found. Ohanian and Cole painstakingly documented the extent to which the Roosevelt administration looked the other way as industries once protected by NIRA continued to engage in price-fixing practices for four more years. The number of antitrust cases brought by the Department of Justice fell from an average of 12.5 cases per year during the 1920s to an average of 6.5 cases per year from 1935 to 1938, the scholars found. Collusion had become so widespread that one Department of Interior official complained of receiving identical bids from a protected industry (steel) on 257 different occasions between mid-1935 and mid-1936. The bids were not only identical but also 50 percent higher than foreign steel prices. Without competition, wholesale prices remained inflated, averaging 14 percent higher than they would have been without the troublesome practices, the UCLA economists calculate. NIRA's labor provisions, meanwhile, were strengthened in the National Relations Act, signed into law in 1935. As union membership doubled, so did labor's bargaining power, rising from 14 million strike days in 1936 to about 28 million in 1937. By 1939 wages in protected industries remained 24 percent to 33 percent above where they should have been, based on 1929 figures, Cole and Ohanian calculate. Unemployment persisted. By 1939 the U.S. unemployment rate was 17.2 percent, down somewhat from its 1933 peak of 24.9 percent but still remarkably high. By comparison, in May 2003, the unemployment rate of 6.1 percent was the highest in nine years. Recovery came only after the Department of Justice dramatically stepped enforcement of antitrust cases nearly four-fold and organized labor suffered a string of setbacks, the economists found. "The fact that the Depression dragged on for years convinced generations of economists and policy-makers that capitalism could not be trusted to recover from depressions and that significant government intervention was required to achieve good outcomes," Cole said. "Ironically, our work shows that the recovery would have been very rapid had the government not intervened." |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: GUEST,number 6 Date: 03 Mar 09 - 03:18 PM Amos ... what I'm trying to say is the right (republicans) want to see socialism fail ... just as the left (democrats) wanted to see the republicans fail ... our team has the right answer, while the other team is all wrong, way wrong .... god forbid the other team win. In my stage in life right now I have become disillusioned with politics ... much the same way I have with religeon. What the answer is I don't know. I feel no one really knows. All I can say is that there is a problem and we all have to come together to remedy it one way or another and no one has the answer, no one can find the way ... unfortunately. Just my opinion ... for what it's worth. biLL |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: Donuel Date: 03 Mar 09 - 03:19 PM Yes the banks will be nationalized. Right now the delay is allowing all bank shareholders to get as much of their money out as possible. The current stress test of banks is minimal but revealing enough to nationalize target banks as soon as possible. The longer we wait the worse it gets. We need to bring back the seperation of investment banks and holding banks forever. Check out the IMF or the Peterson Institute for more info. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: Donuel Date: 03 Mar 09 - 04:16 PM Japan's failure to nationalize its banks extended their depression for 10 years !!!!!!!! They called them zombie banks. Too weak to function but propped up to mimic being alive. Rush Limbaugh is the crude mouthpiece of the 1% ruling class to dupe the unwashed masses to allow the super rich to have a working majority in areas where money alone won;t buy influence. Lets paint a picture of what the failure Limbaugh speaks of would look like. The empty homes we see today would triple in number. For those who still own the empty delapited homes they would burn them to the ground rather than pay fines to the State. The people who lived in those homes would seek relatives to stay with. Doemstic violence understandably would double. The tidal wave of homeless children now attending California schools would be seen coast to coast with small exceptions in Conn. and elsewhere. Hunger and the failure of transportation of food and resources would create new gangs of organized crime and shanty towns. The migration of city folk would be seen as invasion by many of the gun worshipping Chritians enclaves in the country. The charity one would hope for would not be as ubiquitous as one would hope. Without the stimulous plan it would be difficult to live on our present crumbling infrastructure. It would be hard to keep schools and govement buildings open for a multitude of civic uses during times of coming natural disasters and tending to varying migrations of a new class of well to do homeless people. Its not a pretty picture. The BANKS have misbehaved and gambled on a criminal form of super capitalism fow which we must pay. They arrogantly pay bonuses toi the crooks who failed us all. Banks have always had that unique property of being both private and national institutions because they will always get bailed out by the country they are in. Sweden had to nationalize and take these banks away from their well intentioned but failed owners. Our brand of banking families were much less well intentioned. I have little doubt that Limbaugh will be able to foment a violence against nationalizing the banks who sponsor his "conservative" crusade at the cost of many lives and fortunes. On one hand the longer we wait to natioanlize banks the worse it gets. And if if we don;t we will be in a 10 to 15 year hole like Japan suffered. No growth, no capital, no doemstic innovation on any large scale... No one who apologizes to Rush for any critisism is apologizing to Limbaugh...they are apologizing to the banks. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: Donuel Date: 03 Mar 09 - 04:21 PM btw, As one could research, I predicted the Dow will bottom out at or near 4500 and not the 7000 that thetalking heads a year ago tried to sell. Don;t misunderstand me, The free market is great and valuable to us all. THe way to get it back is a bitter pill for the swindling rich to swallow. They Re not used to not getting their way, let alone punishment and losing their banks. Rest assured that ownership of some banks by the goverment would only be several days, long einugh to seperate the commercially viable parts to be sold privately and the toxic parts to be quarantined. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: akenaton Date: 03 Mar 09 - 04:32 PM hmmm.....I'm afraid most of us were swingers when the good times rolled. In the UK we watched the price of our houses double in a couple of years, nobody but the anarchists and commies cared about anything but gettin' rich, so don't blame it all on a few fat cats. The hard part, is in convincing people that it is inevitable and desirable that we become less prosperous, less wasteful, less envious, we must become "non consumers" Our lifestyle has become a sick wasteful joke, but we continue to live it because the system says we must....that there is no alternative. Well for you and I there is an alternative, but for the system there is none....Ake |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: GUEST,heric Date: 03 Mar 09 - 04:46 PM FWlittleIW I believe everything on Donuel's three-poster, above (and akenaton's too.) |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: DougR Date: 03 Mar 09 - 04:59 PM Let's check back a year from now and see who is the better predictor. DougR |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: Sawzaw Date: 03 Mar 09 - 05:24 PM "Dow will bottom out at or near 4500" But Obama said that the market is down so low that it's near the point where buying some stock "is potentially a good deal." |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: Amos Date: 03 Mar 09 - 05:32 PM Potentially, yes; but a lot of burned chilluns is shunning the fire. A |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: Q (Frank Staplin) Date: 03 Mar 09 - 05:41 PM Beginning to look like a swing to the Republicans in 2012. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: CarolC Date: 03 Mar 09 - 05:52 PM I think the people who are putting the word out to their followers that Obama's approval numbers are going to tank worse than W's by the end of the year are planning to try to make that happen by sabotaging Obama every step of the way. I think such tactics will backfire. I'll put a tracer on this thread and we can all meet here at the end of the year and see if anyone shows up to admit they were wrong. I predict that the one who is predicting such low approval numbers for Obama will not come back to this thread to eat crow if they turn out to be wrong in their prediction. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: CarolC Date: 03 Mar 09 - 06:07 PM PRINCETON, NJ -- In the days immediately after Barack Obama's nationally televised address to Congress on Tuesday night, his public support has increased significantly to 67% in Feb. 24-26 Gallup Daily polling, and is now just two points below his term high. This comes on the heels of a term-low 59% reported by Gallup on Tuesday. Obama's speech was well-received, and appears to have won him back support he had been losing in prior days, and then some. The speech certainly came at an opportune time for Obama, but a recovery was easily achievable because the decline in his approval rating was accompanied by an increase in the percentage of Americans expressing no opinion, rather than an increase in the proportion disapproving of his performance in office. Since the speech, the percentage having no opinion of Obama has fallen back to 11% from 16%, while his approval rating has increased eight points. There has been a slight drop in his disapproval rating as well, from 25% to 21%. Obama's approval rebound is due to increased support from all political groups, but especially from independents and Republicans, whose support had been waning. Over the past week, independents' approval of Obama dropped from 62% to 54%, but is now back to 62%. There has been a sharp increase in support among Republicans, from 27% to 42%. Democrats' support for Obama was already extremely high at 86%, but even this has climbed slightly, to 90% in the latest polling. http://www.gallup.com/poll/116224/Obama-Approval-Rating-Increases.aspx |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: Don Firth Date: 03 Mar 09 - 06:24 PM Sawz, you can quote armchair and ivory tower economists until hell freezes over, but I'm a fairly old geezer and I was there at the time. Yes, I was a kid, and there was a lot going on around me that I didn't understand, but there was a lot I did understand, and understood even better later on. I do know that a lot of people—friends of the family, relatives, neighbors—were out of work, including my father. The WPA (Works Projects Administration) put a lot of those people to work building roads, bridges, and infrastructure in general (which we are still using today), including my father, who was supporting a wife and three kids. That "pick and shovel" job that my father was able to get because of the WPA paid the rent and fed the family. Like I say, I was there. The CCC (The Civilian Conservation Corp, another New Deal program) put a lot of college age people with no job prospects to work developing national and local parks (which we are still enjoying today) and allowed them to earn enough money to go on to college if they chose to. I remember a lot of Republicans were pissing and moaning about Roosevelt "wasting money on these 'make work' programs," but these programs did make work for a large segment of the people who, otherwise, would be standing in bread lines. 25% unemployment, until Roosevelt's New Deal programs kicked in. What was "reducing employment and demand for goods and services" was that those millions of unemployed didn't have any money to buy goods and services with. Once people had money to spend as a result of Roosevelt's New Deal programs, the economy started to pick up again, factories started hiring, and the Depression slid into the annals of history. Simple common sense! Until Reagan and the Right Wing-nuts thought it would be nice to renew it by turning the foxes loose again and put the regulatory agencies that Roosevelt instituted, such as the Securities and Exchange Commission, in the Dumpster by allowing it and similar agencies to staff themselves with the very people they were supposed to oversee and regulate. The idea that "the Great Depression dragged on for almost 15 years" is simply not true, as anyone old enough to remember or who has studied a bit of recent history, knows. Look up what happened when, and then do the arithmetic. Fifteen years? No way! Look it up in reliable sources, don't just take Rush Limbaugh's word for it. Or Harold L. Cole and Lee E. Ohanian. Professorships notwithstanding, they are generally regarded by other economist as the Right-Wing Beavis and Butthead of economic theory Here, Sawz, let me help. Read THIS. Don Firth |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: Ebbie Date: 03 Mar 09 - 06:32 PM Here is one video of Limbaugh saying he wants Obama to fail. Keep in mind this is not the first instance of it- in this one he is covering his spoor. By the way, I've watched several YouTubed Limbaughs now - want to bet he is not on some kind of chemically induced high? I know that is crass and cruel of me but... Take a look. Limbaugh in Action |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: Q (Frank Staplin) Date: 03 Mar 09 - 08:17 PM I was there too. The depression lasted from 1929 until at least 1940 (unemployment rate still 17 per cent.), when the build-up to WW2 started industry going again despite Roosevelt's policies. For me, that was from age six to 17. Outside of industry concentrations it lasted longer, but it was at least ten years. Roosevelt's anti-competition stance and widespread price-fixing led to stagnation, even though NIRA was declared unconstitutional. Would recovery from the current bust be more rapid without government intervention? We can only guess. EU countries, Japan and others besides the U. S. are pouring money into the hole, but the stance is protectionist and probably wasted. This release from UCLA, Cole (of Penn State) and Ohanian of UCLA, is worth reading. "FDR's Policies prolonged Depression by 7 years, UCLA economists calculate." http://newsroom.ucla.edu/portal/ucla/FDR-s-Policies-Prolonged-Depression-5409.apx |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: Peter T. Date: 03 Mar 09 - 08:27 PM Sure, and JFK was killed by the CIA. This ridiculous article has been circulating as if it meant something. If you bought it, then the whole point of the article still is that massive government spending (known as World War II) pulled America out of the recession. Either FDR spent or World War II spent. Which is it? In either case it wasn't purist capitalism. So. You believe in massive governnment intervention. yours, Peter T. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: Bobert Date: 03 Mar 09 - 08:53 PM Yeah, that sums it up... Recovery = Spending Doesn't much matter if its guns, butter or porkbellies, the money gets out there... The US is cash starpped right now... Does that mean that we are lacking for dollars??? No... It means that too many rich people are sitting on it... That takes cash outta circulation... If GNP is a based on multiplicty of dallars being spend and you take alot of dollars out of circulation then ***this*** is what you get... Ain't rocket surgery... Bobert |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: Amos Date: 03 Mar 09 - 08:58 PM WASHINGTON - After Barack Obama's first six weeks as president, the American public's attitudes about the two political parties couldn't be more different, the latest NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll finds. Despite the country's struggling economy and vocal opposition to some of his policies, President Obama's favorability rating is at an all-time high. Two-thirds feel hopeful about his leadership and six in 10 approve of the job he's doing in the White House. "What is amazing here is how much political capital Obama has spent in the first six weeks," said Democratic pollster Peter D. Hart, who conducted this survey with Republican pollster Bill McInturff. "And against that, he stands at the end of this six weeks with as much or more capital in the bank." By comparison, the Republican Party — which resisted Obama's recently passed stimulus plan and has criticized the spending in his budget — finds its favorability at an all-time low. It also receives most of the blame for the current partisanship in Washington and trails the Democrats by nearly 30 percentage points on the question of which party could best lead the nation out of recession. ...()MSNBC) |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: CarolC Date: 03 Mar 09 - 10:02 PM Here's an example of the economic stimulus bill doing what it was designed to do... http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26315908/vp/29473355#29473355 As more and more things like this happen, more and more people will benefit from the stimulus bill, and so will the economy. We are in a pivotal time right now, in which the old way of doing things is falling away, and the new way of doing things is rising up to take the place of the old way. It's scary and/or distasteful for those who are wedded to the old way of doing things, but as they used to say back in the '60s, you can't stand in the way of progress. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: CarolC Date: 03 Mar 09 - 10:05 PM By the way, if people want to know what to invest in at this time, green technology is probably one of the safer bets. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: Ref Date: 03 Mar 09 - 10:11 PM Let me point out that Obama's lowest point is way higher than Bush's average. Wealthy pundits and rich corporate media owners don't like getting their taxes raised to a fair level, so we're bombarded with dire warnings. Working Americans have a pretty good idea what's really going on. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: number 6 Date: 03 Mar 09 - 10:43 PM MSNBC is to the Democrats as FOX NEWS is to the Republicans. Of course the NBC stats will be a bit in on the upside in regards to Obama .... and Fox, well of course we know what their stats will tell ya. Anyway .... Do not put your faith in what statistics say until you have carefully considered what they do not say. ~William W. Watt biLL |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: Donuel Date: 03 Mar 09 - 11:06 PM If you have 10 years to wait there are some stock that could be bought today at what will one day be called a bargain. But for my money, which is currently 0, The ultimate bargains will be below 5,000. Beware of wooden nickels and GM stock. The companies I would like to invest in are all privately owned or in an exclusive consortium. Companies like advanced solar cell plastic roofing sheets. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: Don Firth Date: 03 Mar 09 - 11:11 PM Sitting there goggle-eyed in our living room and listening to the grown-ups talk, and comparing that with now, it all sounds a bit familiar. Those who advocated voting Republican kept talking about "wasteful spending" and predicting economic collapse (what did they think had just happened!??). The country was doomed! Those who voted for yet another term for Roosevelt had a pretty optimistic outlook, based on the fact that they were now working and making a living again as a direct result of Roosevelt's programs. Not just WPA jobs. The economy was turning around as Roosevelt said it would, and there were jobs to be had again. When I heard Obama's inaugural speech, I also heard echoes of FDR's "fireside chats." It sounded to me (and still does) that now the country has a President. Don Firth |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: Ebbie Date: 03 Mar 09 - 11:29 PM Gwen Ifill on 'Newshour with Jim Lehrer' tonight interviewed two Republican figures to explore the current divisions in the GOP. Her questions boiled down to 'Who is speaking for your party: Rush Limbaugh or Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele? (Steele yesterday disavowed Limbaugh as a voice for the Party, saying tha he was "an entertainer, incendiary, yes, ugly, yes - but an entertainer." Today he apologized to Limbaugh.) The two Republicans tonight were a former Representative and Grover Norquist, more conservaative a Republican than whom you will not find. But Norquist said an astonishing thing that expleains to me a great deal about the Republican party and Republicans in general. It may even adequately explain the Mudcat's handful of Republican Conservatives. Having been asked by Ifill what the Republican Party shoud do first to mend its tattered presence, Norquist said: Well, being free from the last 8 years and no longer having to defend the indefensible..." Does being Republican these days literally require you to lay your honesty -your very honor - aside? |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: CarolC Date: 03 Mar 09 - 11:36 PM Olbermann said tonight something along the lines of, how can they stand up to the likes of Al Qaeda if they can't even stand up to Rush Limbaugh? |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: Ebbie Date: 03 Mar 09 - 11:48 PM I suspect that it is because down deep inside they are that simplistic and they like and admire him; they feel he speaks the truth that they don't have the courage to display. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: CarolC Date: 04 Mar 09 - 12:22 AM I think he was talking about the ones who criticize him and then back down and kiss his arse when he threatens them. I laughed when he said it. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity Date: 04 Mar 09 - 12:49 AM Not that this matters, but some people on here are full of it! NYTimes. Fannie Mae Eases Credit To Aid Mortgage Lending By STEVEN A. HOLMES Published: Thursday, September 30, 1999 In a move that could help increase home ownership rates among minorities and low-income consumers, the Fannie Mae Corporation is easing the credit requirements on loans that it will purchase from banks and other lenders. The action, which will begin as a pilot program involving 24 banks in 15 markets -- including the New York metropolitan region -- will encourage those banks to extend home mortgages to individuals whose credit is generally not good enough to qualify for conventional loans. Fannie Mae officials say they hope to make it a nationwide program by next spring. Fannie Mae, the nation's biggest underwriter of home mortgages, has been under increasing pressure from the Clinton Administration to expand mortgage loans among low and moderate income people and felt pressure from stock holders to maintain its phenomenal growth in profits. In addition, banks, thrift institutions and mortgage companies have been pressing Fannie Mae to help them make more loans to so-called subprime borrowers. These borrowers whose incomes, credit ratings and savings are not good enough to qualify for conventional loans, can only get loans from finance companies that charge much higher interest rates -- anywhere from three to four percentage points higher than conventional loans. ''Fannie Mae has expanded home ownership for millions of families in the 1990's by reducing down payment requirements,'' said Franklin D. Raines, Fannie Mae's chairman and chief executive officer. ''Yet there remain too many borrowers whose credit is just a notch below what our underwriting has required who have been relegated to paying significantly higher mortgage rates in the so-called subprime market.'' Demographic information on these borrowers is sketchy. But at least one study indicates that 18 percent of the loans in the subprime market went to black borrowers, compared to 5 per cent of loans in the conventional loan market. In moving, even tentatively, into this new area of lending, Fannie Mae is taking on significantly more risk, which may not pose any difficulties during flush economic times. But the government-subsidized corporation may run into trouble in an economic downturn, prompting a government rescue similar to that of the savings and loan industry in the 1980's. ''From the perspective of many people, including me, this is another thrift industry growing up around us,'' said Peter Wallison a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. ''If they fail, the government will have to step up and bail them out the way it stepped up and bailed out the thrift industry.'' Under Fannie Mae's pilot program, consumers who qualify can secure a mortgage with an interest rate one percentage point above that of a conventional, 30-year fixed rate mortgage of less than $240,000 -- a rate that currently averages about 7.76 per cent. If the borrower makes his or her monthly payments on time for two years, the one percentage point premium is dropped. Fannie Mae, the nation's biggest underwriter of home mortgages, does not lend money directly to consumers. Instead, it purchases loans that banks make on what is called the secondary market. By expanding the type of loans that it will buy, Fannie Mae is hoping to spur banks to make more loans to people with less-than-stellar credit ratings. Fannie Mae officials stress that the new mortgages will be extended to all potential borrowers who can qualify for a mortgage. But they add that the move is intended in part to increase the number of minority and low income home owners who tend to have worse credit ratings than non-Hispanic whites. Home ownership has, in fact, exploded among minorities during the economic boom of the 1990's. The number of mortgages extended to Hispanic applicants jumped by 87.2 per cent from 1993 to 1998, according to Harvard University's Joint Center for Housing Studies. During that same period the number of African Americans who got mortgages to buy a home increased by 71.9 per cent and the number of Asian Americans by 46.3 per cent. In contrast, the number of non-Hispanic whites who received loans for homes increased by 31.2 per cent. Despite these gains, home ownership rates for minorities continue to lag behind non-Hispanic whites, in part because blacks and Hispanics in particular tend to have on average worse credit ratings. In July, the Department of Housing and Urban Development proposed that by the year 2001, 50 percent of Fannie Mae's and Freddie Mac's portfolio be made up of loans to low and moderate-income borrowers. Last year, 44 percent of the loans Fannie Mae purchased were from these groups. The change in policy also comes at the same time that HUD is investigating allegations of racial discrimination in the automated underwriting systems used by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to determine the credit-worthiness of credit applicants. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: bald headed step child Date: 04 Mar 09 - 12:54 AM Thank you Don, and Carol for those links. One of the big Republican myths is that WW2 got us going again. In reality, the economy was growing at a slow but steady rate in the mid to late 30's. GDP increased at an average of about 6% during those years. Yes, when we entered the war, unemployment went down due to those entering military service, but all of our manufacturing went to war production. Consumerism fell to record lows, because everything had to go to the boys at the front. New cars weren't bought because they weren't available. Everything went into the war. Munitions manufacturers made out fine, but a sustainable economy can't be built on things you blow up. Overall, the economy as measured by GDP dropped during the war, and dropped further when the war ended. Incidentally, the nominal tax rate, for the top 1% at that time, and thru Eisenhower's Republican administration was at 90%. And the Repubs are bitching now about 36%? Of course most don't even understand what the nominal tax rate means. Studies like the one Q, and Sawzaw linked are easy to find, and easy to make. All you have to do is decide what you want the results to be, and then cherry pick and twist the facts to show what you want. Hardly scientific, but hey, you can convince yourself of anything that way, even that global warming doesn't exist, or that the Republican party really gives a shit about anybody that makes less than $10 million a year. That's been a trademark of theirs for years, can't expect them to change now. Of course this is just my opinion, formed through time spent looking at facts, and not listening to some drug addled gas bag. BHSC |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: Peter T. Date: 04 Mar 09 - 04:14 AM I'm not surprised by the polls. The smartest thing Obama has done has been to push transparency and the truth in budgeting, etc. Defending the indefensible gets very tiring after a while: any psychiatrist knows that lying and covering up take a psychic toll -- and it is a great relief to be able to look at what is going on honestly. That is why the cult of secrecy (and which, alas, the Obama administration is still piddling around with in the justice system) is so dreadful in a democracy, and needs to be disentangled from the military needs. A related piece of smartness is allowing photographs of returning coffins. That was another example of hiding the truth. In Canada, this has not for a moment altered anyone's views of the war, but it gave the weight of the burden dignity. The arguments pro and con suddenly became adult. Our beloved Prime Minister, who I despise, nevertheless has decided that honesty about our goals in Afghanistan is the best policy, and he is right. The opposition howls, but he is right. It makes no sense in a democracy to lie about war. yours, Peter T. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: DougR Date: 04 Mar 09 - 11:24 AM Great, Carol C., we will meet back here in one year to compare predictions. I have no idea how "tasty" crow might be, but for you sake, I hope it is delicious. And to you folks quoting Olberman and his ilk, that has about as much impact on conservatives as conservatives quoting Limbaugh. DougR |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: Q (Frank Staplin) Date: 04 Mar 09 - 11:51 AM Speaking of eating, in the NY Times today, Thomas Friedman worries that Obama's whole first term "could be eaten by Citigroup, A. I. G., Bank of America, Merrill Lynch and the whole housing/subprime credit bubble..." Payments so far are just a start- no one knows how much will be needed, but it is trillions. Crows- wasn't there a rhyme about blackbirds in a pie? Could be that the crows would be the only sufferers in the eating. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: Amos Date: 04 Mar 09 - 12:12 PM SO, lemme see--DougR's man has left such a profound, deepseated cocksup that it may be impossible to improve things because the clean-up will take all our resources? Nice work, oh Ye of Blinde Faythe. A |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: Q (Frank Staplin) Date: 04 Mar 09 - 01:35 PM Time to consult the orishas? Will Obama be the sacrificial goat? -------------- HSBC reports a paltry $18 billion profit for the last quarter of 2008 (One of the more careful banks), and is looking to raise money. Their assets are something like $3.4 trillion. Haven't looked it up, but A. I. G. was probably larger. The bailout so far looks like a token amount. ------------ A report on CNN today suggests one in 4-5 mortgages is 'underwater.' ------------------- Perhaps the orishas aren't strong enough. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: Q (Frank Staplin) Date: 04 Mar 09 - 02:21 PM The $75 billion loan modification and refinancing program details, released today, looks good. I am afraid I must give the Obama administration a plus on this. Real property is involved here, unlike some of the bank bailout money; this program is an investment in the future and gives mortgage holders some stability. House prices are depressed, but any turnaround will increase their value. One of the most worrying features of the foreclosures was that a perfectly good house would be left vacant and would deteriorate over time. (I got the above from a CNN online summary; better coverage will appear in the better newspapers tomorrow). |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: CarolC Date: 04 Mar 09 - 03:53 PM In one year? The deal was "by the year's end". That would be December 31, 2009. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: Greg F. Date: 04 Mar 09 - 04:14 PM Sayeth DougR? Pay no attention to the irrelevancy behindg the curtain. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: DougR Date: 04 Mar 09 - 04:20 PM December 31, 2009? No problemo! Bring your bib. Amos: So Obama inherited a Recession on Bush's watch. So what? Bush inherited one on Clinton's watch. Obama can no longer point the finger at Bush (Oh he can, and I'm sure he will) but Obama is spending all the money now, not Bush. DougR |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: DougR Date: 04 Mar 09 - 04:21 PM P.S.: Let me know when you personally feel the positive effects of all of Obama's spending, por favor. DougR |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: Don Firth Date: 04 Mar 09 - 04:26 PM ???? It was my understanding that Clinton left a budget surplus at the end of his term. Would you car to document your assertion, Doug? Don Firth |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: Greg F. Date: 04 Mar 09 - 05:13 PM Would you car to document your assertion, Doug? Never has, never will. Don't try to change his mind with facts. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: Amos Date: 04 Mar 09 - 05:33 PM Aw, JEsus, Doug, wake up and smell the numbers. The budget and general economic picture in 2000 was a HELL of a lot better than it was in 2004 or 2008; you'd have to be stone blind or half-crazed not to see that. A |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: Greg F. Date: 04 Mar 09 - 05:53 PM Only HALF crazed? I think you're underestimating the depths of his psychosis. He still doesn't get it - and never will- that its his kind of thinking that got the U.S. in the $hithole its currently in. Unbelievable. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity Date: 04 Mar 09 - 06:24 PM Sorry, forgot my name, again Compare this paragraph in the New york, Times, that i posted in its entirety:....... "Fannie Mae, the nation's biggest underwriter of home mortgages, has been under increasing pressure from the Clinton Administration to expand mortgage loans among low and moderate income people and felt pressure from stock holders to maintain its phenomenal growth in profits." To this blind opinion:..........From: Don Firth Date: 04 Mar 09 - 04:26 PM It was my understanding that Clinton left a budget surplus at the end of his term. Would you car to document your assertion, Doug? Isn't this a cause of what is happening now??....Denial Denial!! |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: Donuel Date: 04 Mar 09 - 06:37 PM One of the biggest wastes of money I have seen was all the out sourcing and private contractors being given goverment work. Obama today has decreed that the private slush fund for private contractors is going to end. Wow |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: Peter T. Date: 04 Mar 09 - 06:41 PM That was all part of the "any free market capitalist is more efficient than any government" nonsense. It is fairly clear that a large part of the Iraq debacle was due to private contractors. The Medicare situation is similar. Complete ignorance about how to orchestrate public - private partnerships. yours, Peter T. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: CarolC Date: 04 Mar 09 - 06:45 PM Fannie Mae wasn't the cause of the problem, it was only a part of the problem. Other banks were engaging in predatory lending practices with no external pressure other than the desire/need to be competitive with other banks. And none of those bad loans would have had the kind of devastating effect on the world economy that we see now had they not been bundled into derivatives and sold as the best of the best for investment purposes, and had the banks been using open and honest bookkeeping and evaluation of assets. This is where having Obama in the White House will help to correct these kinds of problems, if, as he promised, he helps to strengthen the way banks and the market are regulated. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: Bobert Date: 04 Mar 09 - 08:32 PM Well, Dougie... Seems that a senior moment has set in upon you yet again... Awww, jus' funnin'... But really... If ya recall back to 2000 it was Bush who was going out of his way to talk down the economy... Everything he said on the subject was negative... But bottom line, Clinton handed him a surplus... But Bush's people (campaign donors) wanted a big tax cut... So Bush dialed 'um up the rest is well known history... It didn't quite work out for our economy and in not working for our economy has meesed up everyone elses... Real nice, Dougie... Real nice... B~ |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: Don Firth Date: 04 Mar 09 - 08:57 PM Nevertheless, GfS, Clinton did leave a budget surplus at the end of his term. I was answering Doug's erroneous assertion. I am fascinated at how the Right-Wing-nuts try to blame Bush's eight years worth of serial blunders and general bad judgment, both foreign and domestic, on one Democrat or another. It's a bit like watching a whole pack of bewildered dogs trying to bite their own tails. Don Firth |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: GUEST,heric Date: 04 Mar 09 - 11:30 PM Continued (or new) investigations, documentation and possibly prosecution of the Bush/Cheney actions are worthwhile expenditures of time and money. It may seem backward looking, but it could help point up future indiscretions when they occur, and prevent a lot of harm. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: DougR Date: 05 Mar 09 - 12:13 AM Don Firth (and other misguided "lefties") The country was in a recession when Bush became president. That is a fact. Check it out. DougR |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: DougR Date: 05 Mar 09 - 12:24 AM Oops! Didn't supply a source. Google Clinton Recession. Lots' of info there about the Recession Bush inherited from Ole' Bill. DougR |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: Amos Date: 05 Mar 09 - 12:57 AM IT was a pissant recession; the market had been climbing regularly for eight solid years and the national budget had a surplus. A |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: Don Firth Date: 05 Mar 09 - 01:00 AM Yes, Doug, according to "The National Review." (Surprise surprise) But "Business Week" says that's a crock, and they have the figures. Past my bedtime right now. I'll provide you with links tomorrow. Don Firth |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: pdq Date: 05 Mar 09 - 11:12 AM The US National Debt is the result of the US government spending more money than it takes in: overspending. The current US National Debt is the result of overspending by the US government for the last 100+ years. Politicians are able to confuse many people by talking about an annual "budget deficit" which refers to the amount of money authorized for a given year. The problem seems to be that the executive branch spends what it wants, regardless of the budget. Don't be fooled by the tricks. In a year when the US government takes in less than it spends, the US National Debt goes up. In a year when the US government takes in more money than it spends (rare), the National Debt goes down. Here the raw numbers from 1900 on. No spin, no BS, no "blame game". Here are "just the facts, m'am": raw data: US National Debt 1900-2005 Note the National Debt change between 1959 and 1960. Also note the change between 1999 and 2000. Another interesting figure is the revenue that came into the federal government in 1995-2005. The annual debt will change equally do to lower revenue or increased spending. Usually it is from a spending increase, other times a drop in revenue (rare). |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: number 6 Date: 05 Mar 09 - 11:15 AM Phone call ... U.S. to China ... "the cheque's in the mail" biLL |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: Q (Frank Staplin) Date: 05 Mar 09 - 11:29 AM pdq- try the debt link again (doesn't work). Sounds interesting. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: pdq Date: 05 Mar 09 - 11:38 AM US National Debt (raw data): http://www.marktaw.com/culture_and_media/TheNationalDebtImages/TheNationalDebt.htm or...here |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: Q (Frank Staplin) Date: 05 Mar 09 - 11:54 AM Looks like the debt was decreased only from 1926-1930, and sSome slight decreases in the 1950s. Thanks for posting the figures. Up, up and away! |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: pdq Date: 05 Mar 09 - 12:08 PM The last time the US National Debt decreased (slightly) was between 1959 and 1960. Clinton's best year was 2000 when he had an $18 billion deficit. This good show was caused by a huge boom in federal revenue from "dot.com" stock value explosion (to a large extent). What followed was a serious drop in federal revenue: $2,025 trillion total federal revenue ~ 2000 $1,798 trillion total federal revenue ~ 2004 That drop in revenue would increase the National Debt by $227 billion (annually) even if spending did not go up. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: DougR Date: 05 Mar 09 - 12:58 PM Don Firth: Let me get this straight. You don't accept the posting by National Review because it is more associated with conservative policies than Liberal ones, and you are going to provide us with information from Liberal sources to support your POV. Is that correct? DougR |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: Ebbie Date: 05 Mar 09 - 01:11 PM pdq, she asks mildly, Isn't there a difference between the US National Debt and a given year's Budget? |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: pdq Date: 05 Mar 09 - 01:29 PM I believe the problem is this: the "budget" in a piece of paper that directs next year's spending. The actual spending does not seem to always follow the "plan". In any case, by definition, if the federal government spends more than it takes in, the National Debt will rise. If the federal government spends less than it takes in, the National Debt (which is about 235 years old by now) will get smaller. That last time that happened about 1950-1960. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: Don Firth Date: 05 Mar 09 - 01:58 PM Patience, Doug, patience. I was doing a bit of research. I highly recommend reading widely rather that limiting yourself to material that supports your viewpoint.. The first article I encountered in searching "Clinton recession" was by a contributing editor to "The National Review," the Conservative organ of the late William F. Buckley. Buckley was one of the few people who was able to give an intellectual spin to some of the principles of the conservative movement. Some years ago, there were some great debates on television between Buckley and Liberal advocate Gore Vidal. Would that we could hear intelligent debates like those these days, instead of self-styled conservative television personalities whose idea of an intelligent debate is to tell their liberal guests or anyone else who doesn't share their prejudices to "SHUT UP!!" But how low the mighty have fallen! I don't know who's running the store at "The National Review" these days, but Buckley would never have allowed a story as patently refutable as THIS to be published in his magazine. One of the points about Buckley that I appreciated was that he considered his readers to be intelligent, not fools. The NR article linked to is put in more measured terms, but it's the same sort of revisionist history that someone like Rush Limbaugh might come up with if he had the necessary verbal skills and emotional restraint. This tells the real story: CLICKY. And before you start, I don't really believe that "Business Week" can be accused of being a member of the "liberal media." Here's another on the same subject: CLICKY #2 And there are heaps more where that came from. Revisionist history is quite easy to blow to bits. Don Firth |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: Amos Date: 05 Mar 09 - 02:06 PM "Business Week" is a liberal mouthpiece? What???? Where was I when this happened? Maybe the Wall Street Journal would be an acceptable source... A |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: number 6 Date: 05 Mar 09 - 02:10 PM I always thought the "People's Friend" (UK mag) was a commie mouthpiece. ok ... I'm outta here. biLL |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: Peter T. Date: 05 Mar 09 - 03:15 PM we've talked about this on numerous threads. Economics 100: national debt is not like household debt. It is made up of many things, including long term infrastructure costs. The budgets that are talked about as "budget surplus" etc., are the rolling budgets of governments. My country (Canada) has been running budget surpluses for a number of years, but hardly any of the national debt has been paid down -- people talk about it from time to time (it has to do with whether longterm interest rates on government bonds etc, are flexible enough), but no one worries about it much in a reasonable country with some prospects of a future with a return on bonds. The US is not in that state yet. yours, Peter T. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: Amos Date: 05 Mar 09 - 03:36 PM " In March 2001, the U.S. economy went into recession for the first time in ten years, according to the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER.) NBER -- the private, nonpartisan organization whose business cycle announcements have long been considered the definitive word on the topic -- announced its determination on November 26, 2001: The NBER's Business Cycle Dating Committee has determined that a peak in business activity occurred in the U.S. economy in March 2001. A peak marks the end of an expansion and the beginning of a recession. The determination of a peak date in March is thus a determination that the expansion that began in March 1991 ended in March 2001 and a recession began. The expansion lasted exactly 10 years, the longest in the NBER's chronology. NBER's president, Martin Feldstein, was a Bush campaign adviser who has long been close to the Bush family, as the National Review's Lawrence Kudlow recently noted" (From Don's link up thread). I thought as much--the whole "inherited recession" line was a black PR stunt engineered by the Cheney-Rove Axis of Malpractice. A |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: Amos Date: 05 Mar 09 - 03:39 PM The view that the 2001 recession was caused by Clinton, even if it didn't start until after Bush took office, is equally absurd; Obama has inherited a Force 10 recession/depression from the Bush administration. The Bushites inherited a light breeze at worst. A |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: Don Firth Date: 05 Mar 09 - 03:43 PM Exactly so, Peter. I had to remind someone who PMed me that the National Debt and the budget surplus/deficit are two different things. Let's get straight what it is we're talking about. Don Firth |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: bald headed step child Date: 05 Mar 09 - 07:06 PM And it don't get any easier to figure when you have 10-12 billion a month that is off the books. BHSC |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: number 6 Date: 05 Mar 09 - 07:34 PM Here's an interesting site ... lots of info .. graphs, pie charts, faqs etc regarding the national debt, deficit etc. .... to mull over when one has nothing better to do on a Thursday evening in the month March. U.S. National Debt Clock biLL |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: number 6 Date: 05 Mar 09 - 07:57 PM here's the actual clock BTW ... for those who are interested and maybe missed the link on that other page ..... debt clock |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: Don Firth Date: 05 Mar 09 - 08:53 PM Fascinating stuff, biLL. Lots of information there. Thanks for posting the links. Don Firth |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: Bobert Date: 06 Mar 09 - 07:53 AM Yeah, thanks for the Econ 201 refresher course... Lotta folks here seem clueless about this stuff when it comes to their defense of George Bush's lack of understanding on just what is what when it comes to the economy... Is it any wonder that revenues dropped after the Bush tax cuts to the wealthy??? This ain't rocket suregry here, folks... B~ |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: GUEST,number 6 Date: 06 Mar 09 - 08:32 AM This is not the time to stand around and point fingers of blame back in history, or standing on the sidelines screaming go team, go and boo to the other team .... there are serious problems with the economy ... econ 101, 201 basics point out the dangers of continuous spending when you don't have the money, let alone already having a debt that is beyond reason .... the country can't afford to keep on borrowing, and it just can't go and print paper money to solve the problem ... at this rate it will be in the same situation as GM ... and there won't be any big sugar daddy around to hand out the cash. biLL |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: Peter T. Date: 06 Mar 09 - 09:49 AM Well, the economics textbooks, such as they are, are only working from past history and models (which are deeply flawed). The theory is that governments should be working counter-cyclically (straight Keynes) and taking over the role that private financial institutions are unable to take over in periods when trust in the institutions and their capacity for lending is crippled (like now). The gamble, and the danger, as remarked over and over again -- even by Keynes -- is inflation with the injection of new money. The gamble is that the deflation of the economy is worse temporarily than the inflation that will come later -- and will somehow have to be paid for. The United States is in a weird position in that its currency is the cornerstone of the international market, so it has been able to do all this fantastic borrowing without paying too much of a cost. But the day will come. The question is: will the economy be around to cope with that? The part that no one knows. yours, Peter T. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: Amos Date: 06 Mar 09 - 10:17 AM The core engine gets overheated because the capacity for injecting new money is shared by lenders (>90%) and government (<10%). This potential for rapacious lending is built in to the system and reinforced by the media used to enhance commercial sales. To fix the system, the capability of generating new money must be dramatically shifted so that banks can only lend, say, 125% of what they have, dampening their inflationary drive, and government controls >90% of money supply additions. A |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: Sawzaw Date: 06 Mar 09 - 10:22 AM "Is it any wonder that revenues dropped after the Bush tax cuts to the wealthy???" I respectfully and politely request the source of your information Bobert. My information shows otherwise. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: Sawzaw Date: 06 Mar 09 - 10:25 AM The Wall Street Journal "...What happens if we instead raise tax rates? Economists of all persuasions accept that a tax rate hike will reduce GDP, in which case Hauser's Law says it will also lower tax revenue. That's a highly inconvenient truth for redistributive tax policy, and it flies in the face of deeply felt beliefs about social justice...." |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: CarolC Date: 06 Mar 09 - 10:54 AM I was just listening to this video a little while ago... http://fora.tv/2009/02/24/Dan_Roam_Back_of_the_Napkin#chapter_01 (It may be necessary to click on "Full Program" and then on "Introduction" in order to hear the whole thing.) The guy talks about how people come up with ideas using pictures. He described how some guys were in a bar and one of them drew a primitive sort of a curve on a napkin and explained that it showed how tax revenues could increase if taxes were cut. The other two guys that were with him were Rumsfeld and Cheney. They took the napkin to Gerald Ford, and the rest is history. Figures it would be an idea someone came up with while drinking in a bar. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: Peter T. Date: 06 Mar 09 - 11:12 AM The extraordinary job loss figures in the US, and the contracting economy, are basically going to blow away all the fiddling around over whether tax revenues are going to go up or down. That kind of discussion only matters in a normal economy. This economy is in a crisis: in a crisis the normal economic rules, clearing markets, etc., disappear. The whole point of Keynes, which has nothing to do with the details, is that an economic crisis wrecks the standard rules for a variety of reasons (including human behaviour, e.g. normal saving rates and so on falter). Oh yes, and "economists of all persuasions" are not remotely convinced that increasing taxes on the rich cuts back on revenue. Certainly the opposite is wrong: that has been proved twice, both in the Reagan years and in the Bush years. Way higher taxation rates on the rich in the 1950's seem to have done nothing to stall the economy. yours, Peter T. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: pdq Date: 06 Mar 09 - 11:15 AM People seem to like leaving out the Kennedy Tax Cuts...read more here: http://www.taxfoundation.org/news/show/323.html "Tax Cuts and National Income Contrasting the size of the tax cuts with national income shows that the Kennedy tax cut, representing 1.9 percent of income, was the single largest first-year tax-cut of the post-WW II era. The Reagan tax cuts represented 1.4 percent of income while none of the Bush tax cut even breaks 1 percent of income. The Kennedy tax cuts would only have been surpassed in size by combining all three Bush tax cuts into a single package. Tax Cuts and Budget Resources Comparing the size of these tax cuts with the federal budget shows that the Kennedy's tax cuts represented 8.8 percent of the budget. In 1981, Reagan's tax cuts represented 5.3 percent of the budget. Each of Bush's tax cuts are smaller than Reagan's—EGTRRA (3.8 percent), JCWA (2.5 percent) and the 2003 Tax Cut (1.8 percent). When the Bush tax cuts are combined (8.1 percent), they would be larger than Reagan's tax cut, yet smaller than Kennedy's tax cut. Tax Cuts and Defense Costs When the Kennedy tax cuts were enacted, defense spending constituted a whopping 42.1 percent of the federal budget. When President Reagan pushed though his tax cuts, the Pentagon consumed 22 percent of the budget. Today, defense spending consumes just 17.1 percent of the budget—25 percentage points below Kennedy's defense spending. Tax Cuts and Deficits President Kennedy passed his tax cuts as he ran a deficit equaling 1 percent of national income. In 1981, Reagan cut taxes while running a deficit of 2.8 percent of national income. In contrast, Bush passed the largest of his three tax cuts, EGTRAA, in 2001 with a budget surplus of 1.5 percent of income." |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: Amos Date: 06 Mar 09 - 11:52 AM Cleverly omitted the other two, and the fact that the surplus was Clinton''s accomplishment. A |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: Ebbie Date: 06 Mar 09 - 01:43 PM Good grief - I had no idea the man said so many memorable, insightful things. No wonder he garnered so many devotees. I went looking only for the quote: "We will do something. If it doesn't work we will try something else, but above all we will do something." As Wolfgang and some others would happily point out, my quote is not accurate. OTH, that's why I checked on it. So there. Here are some applicable lines- it's hard to stop - These statements were made at different times and on separate occasions but they are things we are saying today. * Here is my principle: Taxes shall be levied according to ability to pay. That is the only American principle. * I'm not the smartest fellow in the world, but I can sure pick smart colleagues. * In our personal ambitions we are individualists. But in our seeking for economic and political progress as a nation, we all go up or else all go down as one people. * In politics, nothing happens by accident. If it happens, you can bet it was planned that way. * It is common sense to take a method and try it. If it fails, admit it frankly and try another. But above all, try something. * It is the duty of the President to propose and it is the privilege of the Congress to dispose. * Let us never forget that government is ourselves and not an alien power over us. The ultimate rulers of our democracy are not a President and senators and congressmen and government officials, but the voters of this country. * More than an end to war, we want an end to the beginning of all wars - yes, an end to this brutal, inhuman and thoroughly impractical method of settling the differences between governments. I love this one. Eb * Nobody will ever deprive the American people of the right to vote except the American people themselves and the only way they could do this is by not voting. * One thing is sure. We have to do something. We have to do the best we know how at the moment... If it doesn't turn out right, we can modify it as we go along. (Restated, amplified) " The point in history at which we stand is full of promise and danger. The world will either move forward toward unity and widely shared prosperity - or it will move apart. * There is a mysterious cycle in human events. To some generations much is given. Of other generations much is expected. This generation of Americans has a rendezvous with destiny. * Those newspapers of the nation which most loudly cried dictatorship against me would have been the first to justify the beginnings of dictatorship by somebody else. * We must lay hold of the fact that economic laws are not made by nature. They are made by human beings. Franklin Delano Roosevelt |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: number 6 Date: 06 Mar 09 - 01:55 PM Great quotes! As I was reading them the peeple in congress and the Senate, the bankers on wall street where munchin down their free lunches while the stock market continues to fall, the national debt continues to spiral upward, the unemployment figrues keep edging upward, the war continues to war .. And the snow continues to fall outside. HELP !! biLL |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: Stringsinger Date: 06 Mar 09 - 03:34 PM How beholden is Obama to the financial sector and the health insurance industry? How beholden is he to the Pentagon? Why are the CEOs walking around free and not in jail? Why are the criminal pundits on MSM? |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: number 6 Date: 06 Mar 09 - 03:47 PM "Why are the CEOs walking around free and not in jail?" maybe it has something to do with him having Jeffrey Immelt as one of his advisers. biLL |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: Peter T. Date: 06 Mar 09 - 05:32 PM have they done anything illegal? I thought making money was the American way. yours, Peter T. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: Ebbie Date: 06 Mar 09 - 08:43 PM It certainly has not - yet - been established legally that they broke the law but ethically they're right down there. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: Sawzaw Date: 07 Mar 09 - 12:00 AM "Is it any wonder that revenues dropped after the Bush tax cuts to the wealthy???" As per the CBO Historical Data
|
|
Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: Amos Date: 07 Mar 09 - 12:21 AM Revenues Outlays Budget Security Service Total PublicDebt |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: pdq Date: 07 Mar 09 - 10:54 AM Assuming that the question asked a couple of days back really needs an answer... --- "Budget Deficit" vs. "National Debt"--- "Suppose you want to spend more money this month than your income. This situation is called a "budget deficit". So you borrow. The amount you borrowed (and now owe) is called your debt. You have to pay interest on your debt. If next month you don't have enough money to cover your spending (another deficit), you must borrow some more, and you'll still have to pay the interest on the loan. If you have a deficit every month, you keep borrowing and your debt grows. Soon the interest payment on your loan is bigger than any other item in your budget. Eventually, all you can do is pay the interest payment, and you don't have any money left over for anything else. This situation is known as bankruptcy. Each year since 1969, Congress has spent more money than its income. The Treasury Department has to borrow money to meet Congress's appropriations. The total borrowed is more than $10,000,000,000,000 and growing. Even when government officials claim to have a surplus, they still spend more than they get in. We pay interest on that huge debt." ...from a great website...HERE |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: Q (Frank Staplin) Date: 07 Mar 09 - 12:44 PM The authorized debt limit was increased to $12.1 trillion in the stimulus plan. Another increase next year? Information on Gene Simmons? |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: CarolC Date: 07 Mar 09 - 12:57 PM Why is it that budget deficits are only an issue when Democrats are responsible for them but never when Republican are responsible for them? |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: Sawzaw Date: 07 Mar 09 - 03:18 PM "Is it any wonder that revenues dropped after the Bush tax cuts to the wealthy???"
|
|
Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: Amos Date: 07 Mar 09 - 04:19 PM Sawz: Cut it out, would you? The revenue increase you cite is not matched by balanced fiscally responsible management; it is accompanied by record-breaking deficit spending and national debt galloping towards the quadrillion mark. If revenue were the only criterion of success it would be a different story. But it would not be a story of "tax cuts increase taxes". That doesn't work. A |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: pdq Date: 07 Mar 09 - 04:52 PM People are not going to find the Truth when they are not looking for it. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: Don Firth Date: 07 Mar 09 - 04:56 PM How true!! Don Firth |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: Amos Date: 07 Mar 09 - 06:04 PM A true bold statement, and a double-edged porposition, pal... A |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: Peter T. Date: 08 Mar 09 - 10:30 AM The real problem is having to deal with an adult in charge after the children have run amok for so long. Adultism is something new in contemporary life. yours, Peter T. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: CarolC Date: 08 Mar 09 - 12:23 PM The main problem with the idea that the solution to the problem is to cut taxes is that even with Bush's large tax cuts for the rich (the ones who are supposedly going to create more jobs making it possible for the government to collect more taxes), we still ended up with a rapidly shrinking economy. In a shrinking economy, tax revenues also shrink. If the existing tax cuts didn't prevent the economy from shrinking, there is no reason to expect that more tax cuts would prevent it from shrinking further, or cause it to grow. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: Don Firth Date: 08 Mar 09 - 03:15 PM The reason that tax cuts for the rich and for the corporations will not solve the country's economic woes is that "trickle down" simply doesn't work (which, by now, we should have figured out). The idea is that with less taxes to pay, businesses can create more jobs and hire more workers to fill them. But–even with the workers they have now, production is down. This is not the fault of the workers. In this "consumer society," people are not consuming. There is no point in making more super-duper widgets if the widgets are not selling and are just sitting on the showroom floor or being stacked up in warehouses. So factories are making few widgets. So, to save money, the company lays off employees who, through no fault of their own, have little or nothing to do. The result of this is that there are fewer people out there who have enough money to buy widgets. So they lay off more people, and– You get the picture. Read up a bit on the New Deal and the programs that FDR initiated to get money into the hands of people will buy widgets if they have money to buy them with. The WPA and the CCC and a number of other "alphabet soup" agencies put people to work on needed infrastructure (roads, bridges, various construction projects). This put money directly into the hands of people who needed it and would spend it right away. In addition to this, Roosevelt instituted regulatory agencies such as the Securities and Exchange Commission (and others) to put the brakes on runaway speculation and other excesses that brought the Depression about. Those who say that it wasn't Roosevelt's New Deal that ended the Depression, it was World War II, don't know from Shinola about what was really going on back then. The U. S. didn't get into the war until 1941. The Depression was not over, but it was well on the wane by the mid-1930s as a result of Roosevelt's common sense programs. When Obama talks about putting people to work on needed infrastructure and renewable energy projects, this sound kind of familiar. The Repubs chafed and snarled under the regulations that FDR started because they put curbs on what amounted to rampant greed (not unlike today). Along comes Reagan and his creeping de-regulation. It took a few decades to do things like replace the regulators on the SEC with financial industry flaks and the Food and Drug Administration with pharmaceutical company executives, but look where the lack of regulation got us. Right back in the same sink-hole. Yet the Repubs want more de-regulation and more tax cuts for the wealthy. But the way out is clear. When you find yourself in a hole, the first thing you need to do is stop digging. Don Firth |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: Peter T. Date: 08 Mar 09 - 04:10 PM Beyond all this is the historic problem of how to move from a system based on growth from pillaging the natural world to one that lives within the planetary means. My feeling is that Obama gets this (a bit), but it complicates things (or simplifies them). An infrastructure programme that builds more roads is not exactly the future. yours, Peter T. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: akenaton Date: 08 Mar 09 - 05:30 PM Bingo! Peter.....can't be done within the present system. Is it possible that the leaders of Capitalism will walk off into the sunset like their Eastern European counterparts....I dont think so, there are many horrors yet to be exhausted. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: Don Firth Date: 08 Mar 09 - 08:31 PM Infrastructure can (should) include light rail systems in municipal areas and nationwide rapid rail systems like those in some European countries. I've talked to travelers who say with some delight and admiration that one can travel swiftly and easily around most of Europe on public transportation alone. Repair and update existing roads, but build transportation systems that don't depend on fossil fuels. It can be done. It HAS been done elsewhere. Get people out of their cars and into public transportation. Don Firth |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: Don Firth Date: 08 Mar 09 - 09:03 PM One must be a bit careful in judging what we call "earmarks." A lot of them are pure pork, but at the same time, there are ones that may look like pork, but they can mean a lot to the target area. Louisiana governor "Bobby" Jindal's mocking of money spent on volcano monitoring would possibly have him laughing on the other side of his face if one were to cut funds for weather forecasting and hurricane monitoring. Years ago, Senator Proxmire gave out his annual "Golden Fleece" awards to what he considered government funds spent on stupid projects. One year his "Golden Fleece" award went to the massive sum of $150,000 earmarked for setting up a program to study the dangers of earth orbit crossing asteroids. He thought it was the stupidest waste of money he'd ever heard of. We have since learned that this is a real danger. There are earth orbit crossing asteroids that wiped out most life on this planet in the past–several times, in fact–and those rocks are still out there. As more than one astronomer has said, "It's not a matter of 'if,' it's a matter of 'when.' And how big. With enough advanced warning, and if the technology is on line, it's possible to divert a planet killer. But we have to know about it far enough in advance. $150,000 isn't much to invest in a project like that. Like I say above, before you start honking about what appears to be a stupid or pork-barrel "earmark," put your brain in gear and take another look. Don Firth |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: Ebbie Date: 08 Mar 09 - 09:07 PM Don, since Juneau, Alaska, is a long, narrow town (nowhere wider than three miles, I believe, but 46 miles long) bringing in light rail has been the passion of several people. A few years back, one devotee brought in a 'down south' expert to study the situation. He said that to make it cost effective a community needs about 300,000 in population, including outlying areas. We have only 30,000 people and we don't have outlying areas to draw on. What I keep espousing is park-and-ride, which is eminently doable. A few miles out of downtown (where most of the state workers and government trek to) is a perfect spot for park and ride. But we haven't done that either, although our land mass is very limited and parking downtown is a big headache. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: Q (Frank Staplin) Date: 08 Mar 09 - 09:19 PM The electricity for the German trains comes from power generated by coal (40%),gas (15%), nuclear (30%), hydro (10%), oil (5%). French trains have a higher percentage of power from nuclear. The uranium that is refined for nuclear fuel also is a fossil fuel, although its dangers are from radioactivity and toxic associates in the ores, thus are different in nature from those of coal and oil. Transportation that doesn't depend on fossil fuels has not been done there or elsewhere. The electricity is mostly from coal, which is a fossil fuel. The statement "It Has been done elsewhere" is false. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: CarolC Date: 08 Mar 09 - 09:47 PM But even if it had been the war machine that brought us out of the depression, it's still massive government spending that would have brought us out of it and not the free market or tax cuts. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: CarolC Date: 08 Mar 09 - 09:54 PM Obama's not just putting money into infrastructure. He's also giving a leg up to private enterprise that will start building the green economy. The green economy is the future of capitalism in the United States. That's where most of the growth is going to be for several decades. After that, there will be new technologies that will drive the engine of growth. We haven't reached an economic cul-de-sac by any stretch of the imagination. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: Don Firth Date: 08 Mar 09 - 10:11 PM Q, the infrastructure is in, but it's the power source that's the problem. It doesn't have to be coal or nuclear. The Pacific Northwest, for example, gets most of its electricity from hydropower. This, however, has problems of its own. Damming rivers, reducing salmon runs, etc. But there are good sources of electrical power that have only been piddled with so far. Solar, wind power, tidal power (several ways of harnessing that), plus a couple of systems that haven't even been experimented with yet. The potential sources of non-polluting, renewable (green) electricity have hardly been plumbed yet. #### Ebbie, I recall the light rail system that was in place in the Los Angeles area when I lived there as a kid. One could travel all over the area on the "streetcars" and the "interurban rail" system. One could zip pretty easily around Pasadena and environs, or the whole Los Angeles area, and it wasn't really necessary to own a car to get places. That all changed when the automobile companies, the oil companies, and the tire manufacturers talked the Powers That Be (Were) into dismantling the perfectly good light-rail system and building a system of "speedways" (now called "freeways"). "Modernizing," they called it. Now, you can't go anywhere around there without a car. I can see a system like the one I remember in Pasadena (before smog) working quite well in an area like Juneau. And I don't think it would cost all that much. For an area with not all that much population, it needn't be elaborate, just functional. Don Firth |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: CarolC Date: 08 Mar 09 - 10:16 PM Morgantown, West Virginia has fewer than 30,000 people, and it has a very good monorail system. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: CarolC Date: 08 Mar 09 - 11:12 PM I misspoke. Ever since I lived close enough to Morgantown to visit there a few times a year, I always called the PRT there a "monorail". That's what other people I knew called it, and that's what it looks like when you're not in one of the cars. Turns out, it operates on a heated paved surface and the cars run on rubber tires. But it is powered by electricity. So I guess it's technically not a light rail system, but it is a Personal Rapid Transit system (the only operating one in the world, according to what I've read). |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: CarolC Date: 08 Mar 09 - 11:30 PM Here's a cool video of the Morgantown PRT... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3BMnmyPKYQE Here's a new PRT that's supposed to service Heathrow Airport, starting in April... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B7hgipbHBK8 |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: Don Firth Date: 08 Mar 09 - 11:45 PM The Seattle monorail actually runs on rubber tires on concrete "rails." The original idea when the mile and a half of monorail was built prior to the Seattle World's Fair in 1962 was to extend the system to cover the entire Puget Sound area. They never did. Since then, the voters have voted to do exactly that, but for some reason the local "Twits in Charge" have ignored the voters and are planning a light rail system that involves boring tunnels all over the city for about ten times the cost of extending the monorail. Bloody morons!! I think someone will probably make more money off the tunnels than they would off the monorail. As the blue alien told Spock on an early episode of Star Trek TOS, "Don't waste time questioning a folly. Just ask what it accomplishes." Don Firth |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: Ebbie Date: 09 Mar 09 - 12:42 AM Interesting site. However, Morgantown's situation is much different from ours. I only checked its county and three neighboring counties - those four counties (Monongalia, Marion, Preston and Weizel) and they hold about 185,000 in population (I didn't check across the border). In other words, as I said before, Juneau is unique; we have only 30,000 people and don't have outlying areas to draw from. Except for our town proper, the only other populations in the villages within 500 miles number only in the hundreds; if one counts Sitka (about 10 hours by ferry, 20 minutes by jet) that adds about 8,000 people. In reading the Morgantown RT system, I didn't see how it is funded. Do they use a subscriber system or is it with tickets like a subway? But it sure looks good! |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: CarolC Date: 09 Mar 09 - 12:49 AM Morgantown's PRT system doesn't really draw from outlying areas. People who come in from outlying areas (with the possible exception of University faculty) just use their own vehicles to get around, as I did when I used to visit there from neighboring Garret County (Maryland). I don't know how it's funded now, but it was built with federal money. My guess is that it is funded by both the municipality and the university. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: CarolC Date: 09 Mar 09 - 12:51 AM (People who are not students or faculty at the university have to pay, but I don't know what the method of collecting money is.) |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: bald headed step child Date: 09 Mar 09 - 01:20 AM Ebbie, your "down south expert" is probably going on the theory that a normal town of 300,000 would be needed to get the number of riders needed, but I think the unique situation of Juneau would allow it with much fewer people. This would of course depend on peoples commitment to the system, and the systems commitment to service. A trolley type system might be more effective there, and could easily be powered by electric. There are many difficulties ahead, but if we have the vision to see that things can be made better, the problems have solutions. We just have to remember that solutions aren't always universal, and may require adjustments to different situations. The hardest part is getting enough people to see the problems as they are, as problems that have solutions. BHSC |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: Peter T. Date: 09 Mar 09 - 10:16 AM No one disputes that revenues went up, what they dispute is revenues as a percentage of GNP. The economy did well -- which was probably due to the spending going all to hell, but maybe a fraction of it due to tax cuts -- but revenues did not match the growth, and the spending went all to hell, hence the burgeoning deficit. Meanwhile, back in today, I think it is getting clearer that Obama is not remotely going to be radical enough for this economy. Paul Krugman in today's New York Times has it pretty right. It has been getting obvious that in spite of the screaming about socialism, Obama has been caught by the private-sector guys in his midst. On health care and the banking disaster, he's going to go for some other private-sector run scheme, neither of which will do the real job. yours, Peter T. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: Don Firth Date: 09 Mar 09 - 02:55 PM Ebbie, how would a system like THIS work for Juneau (note the poles and overhead wires)? For years, Seattle's public transportation system consisted almost entirely of electric trolley buses, a sort of hybrid. Worked very well. Then, as in Southern California (and probably urban areas all over the country), the manufacturers of gas and diesel buses, along with the oil companies, talked the Metro council into "modernizing." These trolley buses were retired in favor of gasoline and diesel buses, and now the pervading aroma around downtown Seattle is diesel fumes. Thank God for frequent breezes off Puget Sound! However, more and more, the electric trolley buses are coming back (the photo shows one of the new ones going into service). Stringing overhead wires over selected roads and streets that already exist would be nowhere near as costly as putting in light rail, and getting electric trolley buses instead of rail cars should be pretty much of a wash. And any potential increase in traffic congesting caused by the ETBs should be more than compensated for by the number of cars taken off the roads because the drivers of those cars are now riding the ETBs. Just an thought. Don Firth |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: Q (Frank Staplin) Date: 09 Mar 09 - 04:00 PM Looking at my current city of residence- Calgary elected a light rail transit system (Siemens) over 20 years ago. To date, essentially there is one N-S line and an E to N line connected to the east side of that one. Although daily ridership is approaching 300,000, most of the city is served by buses (service slow and frustrating, with transfers, from many districts). There are plans for light rail expansion but costs are killing. Car transport is necessary in a city that has spread over a very large area, and includes suburban developments outside of city limits. The metro area is roughly 1,970 sq. mi. and the metro population 1,200,000. The roadway and the car will be predominant for the forseeable future. Taxpayers will not authorize the money necessary to move light-rail to a dominant position. The trolley system was dismantled some 50 years ago, and overhead lines aesthetically are no longer acceptable. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: Don Firth Date: 09 Mar 09 - 05:55 PM Q, "overhead lines aesthetically are no longer acceptable" was one of the arguments used by the oil companies in trying to talk cities into gas and diesel powered buses. I don't think most people had paid much attention to it until those in favor of dismantling a perfectly functional and relatively economical system brought it up and made an issue of it. To lots of people, gasoline and diesel fumes are not only aesthetically unacceptable, they are unhealthy and they add to the growing problems of air pollution. Don Firth |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: Ebbie Date: 09 Mar 09 - 07:48 PM As far as I can see, Don F, trolleys would be a step up for us only because the trolley system doesn't use fossil fuels, instead using electricity which we have plenty of because of our hydropower. (On the other hand, when an avalanche takes out our power lines we go onto diesel which is almost 5 times more expensive, as we discovered last winter, when it happened twice. Our rates went from 9 kwh to 53kwh. Juneau made the national news those 6 weeks or so because we cut our usage by a third, both residences and the city.) We already have half-hour bus service and there is heavy usage of it, often SRO. They are talking of instating short-run routes to the state offices and to the hospital area while leaving the longer runs in place. Having such a smallland mass we don't need many transfers- only a transfer to the island across the bridge and another transfer to an express route to the valley which takes only 15 minutes rather than the stop and go route that takes 45 minutes to get to the same place. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: DougR Date: 10 Mar 09 - 01:45 PM Nothing like a little thread drift, right? DougR |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: Don Firth Date: 10 Mar 09 - 02:29 PM You can't see that it's all within the subject of this thread, Doug? It's just going into a bit of detail. It comes under the heading of putting people to work on such things as updating amd improving infrastructure and the development of energy independence without causing environmental damage. Things that Obama has called for. Forest and trees, Doug, forest and trees. Don Firth |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: Don Firth Date: 10 Mar 09 - 02:37 PM Oh, wotthehell! As long as I'm here. . . . 200 Don Firth |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: GUEST,kp Date: 10 Mar 09 - 02:48 PM Interesting article in Slate Magazine here. As a Brit I don't know whether it would be considered left or right wing, but the thesis of the article is that rich people have done worse to each other than ever the president can.... Park Avenue Marauding Through SoHo! KP |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: CarolC Date: 10 Mar 09 - 02:54 PM I've been wondering about that. I've been wondering how it is that rich people aren't themselves at the forefront of calling for strict regulations that ultimately would protect them the most. I've also been wondering why rich people who have been hurt by other rich people aren't calling the loudest for slapping some consequences on the people in the financial industry who have behaved so irresponsibly. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: bald headed step child Date: 10 Mar 09 - 03:13 PM Two reasons. 1: Many of them are too embarrassed to come out and say they were taken in. 2: They probably intend to take advantage of the system to make their money back and get back at those who "screwed" them. They didn't seem to realise there really is no honor among thieves, until it was too late. Once all the little fish are gone, sharks will start to eat each other. Of course they lost a lot of money, but most did not lose all of it, so they just start over. How many times has Trump filed bankruptcy only to end up back at the top? They don't want the regulation because if the recovery plans work there will be more small fish to eat so they can rebuild their bank accounts easier. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: Greg F. Date: 10 Mar 09 - 06:25 PM You can't see that it's all within the subject of this thread, Doug? Doug's been legally blind for years. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: akenaton Date: 10 Mar 09 - 07:23 PM |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: Q (Frank Staplin) Date: 10 Mar 09 - 08:57 PM Most of the stuff posted here, including mine, has nothing to do with Obama's programs and proposals, or Congressional actions on them. But that's typical of below the line. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: Don Firth Date: 11 Mar 09 - 03:50 PM Uh . . . how was that again? Don Firth |
