Some whacky ideas
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Sure, now that they've scared the Congress out of another $700B from the taxpayers bottomless pocket, they're beginning to worry about that old self-fulfilling prophecy thing. But you heard not one bit of that before it was signed, sealed and delivered.
Rob Graham wrote:
they've scared the Congress out of another $700B from the taxpayers bottomless pocket
well ... mine's not bottomless, but it has a hole in it and guess what Congress is squeezing now.
Mike - typical white guy. The USA does have universal healthcare, but you have to pay for it. D'oh. Thomas Mann - "Tolerance becomes a crime when applied to evil." The NYT - my leftist brochure. Calling an illegal alien an “undocumented immigrant” is like calling a drug dealer an “unlicensed pharmacist”. God doesn't believe in atheists, therefore they don't exist.
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I think a small part of what is going on is "normal" - after 8 years of republican domination things were likely to move left a bit, particularly with an increasingly unpopular war. The 2nd Bush term was full of blunders, staring with the waste of political capital on SS reform, katrina, and corruption problems. All of these would have resulted in a change of direction (as the 2006 election showed). The incredible economic mess that began to be obvious in 2007 with the collapse of Countrywide, that was either missed or ignored by the administration, leading to the October 2008 collapse - just sealed the outcome (and made it sufficiently one-sided to insure that in the early going the winners could claim and exercise a "mandate"). Add to that the "prophsies of impending economic calamity" started by Paulson, and gleefully picked up by Obama, and you have what we see. The "New World Order" conspiracy stuff still seems a very big stretch, but it is not a surprise to see conservatives adopting it, it serves as a convenient way to avoid having to admit that they bungled the last 4 years (at least) and threw away their access to power for the foreseeable future.
Rob Graham wrote:
after 8 years of republican domination things were likely to move left a bit, particularly with an increasingly unpopular war.
On the other hand, the last 8 years hardly represented a normal presidential term - a devastating terrorist attack on the US, a hurricane that drowned an entire city, weapons of mass destruction that weren't there, and a collapse of the banking system. I refuse to blame Bush for not handling all of that as perfectly as it might have been handled. Which president ever has done so? Why so much vitriolic criticism? An overt demonization of conservatism. How fucking convenient. Even if all those crisis were exactly what they appeared to be, they were still manipulated by people who had everything to gain from any degree of failure of a Republican administration.
Rob Graham wrote:
The "New World Order" conspiracy stuff still seems a very big stretch,
Its more than a bit of a stretch. I acknowledge that. I obviously have no idea whats really going on. But the timeing of it all is certainly more than a bit curious.
Chaining ourselves to the moral high ground does not make us good guys. Aside from making us easy targets, it merely makes us idiotic prisoners of our own self loathing.
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Rob Graham wrote:
they've scared the Congress out of another $700B from the taxpayers bottomless pocket
well ... mine's not bottomless, but it has a hole in it and guess what Congress is squeezing now.
Mike - typical white guy. The USA does have universal healthcare, but you have to pay for it. D'oh. Thomas Mann - "Tolerance becomes a crime when applied to evil." The NYT - my leftist brochure. Calling an illegal alien an “undocumented immigrant” is like calling a drug dealer an “unlicensed pharmacist”. God doesn't believe in atheists, therefore they don't exist.
I heard that! :rolleyes:
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That would only be true if what we are being told about the extent of the financial crisis is not true. If it is true, we are in a completely different ball game. The old historic cycles are completely useless as predictors. But certainly, if the crisis is not nearly as bad as defined, if Obama can get control of it, than absolutely, they will have control for the next seveal decades, if not permanently. Conservatism will have been entirely invalidated as a viable political option. The pendulum might swing back in some direction, but it will never swing back towards anything resembling traditional American civilization.
Chaining ourselves to the moral high ground does not make us good guys. Aside from making us easy targets, it merely makes us idiotic prisoners of our own self loathing.
Stan Shannon wrote:
That would only be true if what we are being told about the extent of the financial crisis is not true. If it is true, we are in a completely different ball game. The old historic cycles are completely useless as predictors. But certainly, if the crisis is not nearly as bad as defined, if Obama can get control of it, than absolutely, they will have control for the next seveal decades, if not permanently. Conservatism will have been entirely invalidated as a viable political option. The pendulum might swing back in some direction, but it will never swing back towards anything resembling traditional American civilization.
We aren't in a completely different ball game. We are in the same ball game as in the Great Depression: the need for government to save capitalism's arse. Government succeeded in doing that in the Great Depression. This time around it will do it more quickly and with less pain because of what was learned then and subsequently. So Obama will "get control of it" and we apparently agree on what will follow from that. I know you don't agree with the economic diagnosis. After all, "government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem". It was, at best, a very partial truth when Reagan said it and now people are going to realise it.
John Carson
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Stan Shannon wrote:
That would only be true if what we are being told about the extent of the financial crisis is not true. If it is true, we are in a completely different ball game. The old historic cycles are completely useless as predictors. But certainly, if the crisis is not nearly as bad as defined, if Obama can get control of it, than absolutely, they will have control for the next seveal decades, if not permanently. Conservatism will have been entirely invalidated as a viable political option. The pendulum might swing back in some direction, but it will never swing back towards anything resembling traditional American civilization.
We aren't in a completely different ball game. We are in the same ball game as in the Great Depression: the need for government to save capitalism's arse. Government succeeded in doing that in the Great Depression. This time around it will do it more quickly and with less pain because of what was learned then and subsequently. So Obama will "get control of it" and we apparently agree on what will follow from that. I know you don't agree with the economic diagnosis. After all, "government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem". It was, at best, a very partial truth when Reagan said it and now people are going to realise it.
John Carson
John Carson wrote:
We are in the same ball game as in the Great Depression
Not according to Soros.
John Carson wrote:
Government succeeded in doing that in the Great Depression
Actually, it didn't, and the belief that it did actually makes the current problems (if they are real) all the more dangerous. Capitalism ultimately saved the government after 10 years of the government trying to beat it to death.
John Carson wrote:
So Obama will "get control of it" and we apparently agree on what will follow from that.
Not if he follows FDR's lead. FDR had control of nothing. The undelieing social integrity of the US is what really held society together until the aftermath of WWII left American capitalism as the savior of the world. If this crisis is actually as bad as it is being characterized, and Obama tries to deal with it as FDR did, we are fucking doomed. It won't work.
John Carson wrote:
I know you don't agree with the economic diagnosis. After all, "government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem". It was, at best, a very partial truth when Reagan said it and now people are going to realise it.
The kind of government you promote is most certainly the problem. And will continue to be until it is finally destroyed.
Chaining ourselves to the moral high ground does not make us good guys. Aside from making us easy targets, it merely makes us idiotic prisoners of our own self loathing.
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Oakman wrote:
It was really the socialists who snuck in on September 10th and mined the twin towers, wasn't it?
No, I think 9/11 was exactly what it appeared to be. But that doesn't mean that it wasn't a conspiracy.
Chaining ourselves to the moral high ground does not make us good guys. Aside from making us easy targets, it merely makes us idiotic prisoners of our own self loathing.
Stan Shannon wrote:
No, I think 9/11 was exactly what it appeared to be. But that doesn't mean that it wasn't a conspiracy
Whenever two or more people plan a crime together it's a conspiracy. So why bother talking about it?
Jon Smith & Wesson: The original point and click interface Algoraphobia: An exaggerated fear of the outside world rooted in the belief that one might spontaneously combust due to global warming.
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Stan Shannon wrote:
No, I think 9/11 was exactly what it appeared to be. But that doesn't mean that it wasn't a conspiracy
Whenever two or more people plan a crime together it's a conspiracy. So why bother talking about it?
Jon Smith & Wesson: The original point and click interface Algoraphobia: An exaggerated fear of the outside world rooted in the belief that one might spontaneously combust due to global warming.
Oakman wrote:
Whenever two or more people plan a crime together it's a conspiracy. So why bother talking about it?
Because 3000 people died as a result.
Chaining ourselves to the moral high ground does not make us good guys. Aside from making us easy targets, it merely makes us idiotic prisoners of our own self loathing.
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Rob Graham wrote:
after 8 years of republican domination things were likely to move left a bit, particularly with an increasingly unpopular war.
On the other hand, the last 8 years hardly represented a normal presidential term - a devastating terrorist attack on the US, a hurricane that drowned an entire city, weapons of mass destruction that weren't there, and a collapse of the banking system. I refuse to blame Bush for not handling all of that as perfectly as it might have been handled. Which president ever has done so? Why so much vitriolic criticism? An overt demonization of conservatism. How fucking convenient. Even if all those crisis were exactly what they appeared to be, they were still manipulated by people who had everything to gain from any degree of failure of a Republican administration.
Rob Graham wrote:
The "New World Order" conspiracy stuff still seems a very big stretch,
Its more than a bit of a stretch. I acknowledge that. I obviously have no idea whats really going on. But the timeing of it all is certainly more than a bit curious.
Chaining ourselves to the moral high ground does not make us good guys. Aside from making us easy targets, it merely makes us idiotic prisoners of our own self loathing.
Stan Shannon wrote:
On the other hand, the last 8 years hardly represented a normal presidential term - a devastating terrorist attack on the US, a hurricane that drowned an entire city, weapons of mass destruction that weren't there, and a collapse of the banking system. I refuse to blame Bush for not handling all of that as perfectly as it might have been handled. Which president ever has done so? Why so much vitriolic criticism? An overt demonization of conservatism. How f***ing convenient. Even if all those crisis were exactly what they appeared to be, they were still manipulated by people who had everything to gain from any degree of failure of a Republican administration.
Even if it were true that George Bush had a lot of bad luck, politicians almost always get blamed for what happens on their watch. That is politics.
John Carson
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Rob Graham wrote:
All bets are off if the rest of the world loses confidence in US Treasuries, and we get a bond collapse on top of everything else (this is worrisome, as the rates on the long bond keep rising, even as the FED holds the short term rates almost negative).
I made exactly these points to John Carson in a discussion we had last night and early this morning. He tried to reassure me that a national debt to GDP ratio of 60% wasn't too bad. But since thats a 50% increase in 8 years, extrapolating out, even on a straight line basis, gives us 90% in another eight. Frankly, I keep looking for reasons for the global economy not to implode by 2012 and not finding them. (I'm very involved in a startup that should go-live in late 2010 or early 2011. I love the work, but I keep asking myself if I have any reason to believe that I wouldn't be doing myself more good by fortifying my house and putting more land under cultivation.)
Rob Graham wrote:
Unfortunately, we live in "Interesting Times"...
And since this is one of those historical periods when China isn't feeling isolationist, the reference is even more appropriate. I cannot imagine that they are looking at their holdings and becoming excited by being paid back in dollars that are worth the tiniest fraction of what they were when they were loaned out. That could prove very "interesting" indeed.
Jon Smith & Wesson: The original point and click interface Algoraphobia: An exaggerated fear of the outside world rooted in the belief that one might spontaneously combust due to global warming.
Oakman wrote:
I made exactly these points to John Carson in a discussion we had last night and early this morning. He tried to reassure me that a national debt to GDP ratio of 60% wasn't too bad. But since thats a 50% increase in 8 years, extrapolating out, even on a straight line basis, gives us 90% in another eight.
The dollar value of debt has gone up from around 5.6 trillion to around 10 trillion, but the ratio of debt to GDP has only increase modestly. It was 58% at the end of the 2000 financial year and estimated at 67.5% at the end of the 2008 financial year. (Aside: a 50% increase every 8 years --- indeed, any fixed percentage increase over a fixed number of years --- is exponential growth, not straight line growth.) 90% in another 8 years is nevertheless possible. It could even get close to that in 4, based on current deficit levels. It depends on whether the economy recovers.
John Carson
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Oakman wrote:
I made exactly these points to John Carson in a discussion we had last night and early this morning. He tried to reassure me that a national debt to GDP ratio of 60% wasn't too bad. But since thats a 50% increase in 8 years, extrapolating out, even on a straight line basis, gives us 90% in another eight.
The dollar value of debt has gone up from around 5.6 trillion to around 10 trillion, but the ratio of debt to GDP has only increase modestly. It was 58% at the end of the 2000 financial year and estimated at 67.5% at the end of the 2008 financial year. (Aside: a 50% increase every 8 years --- indeed, any fixed percentage increase over a fixed number of years --- is exponential growth, not straight line growth.) 90% in another 8 years is nevertheless possible. It could even get close to that in 4, based on current deficit levels. It depends on whether the economy recovers.
John Carson
John Carson wrote:
90% in another 8 years is nevertheless possible. It could even get close to that in 4, based on current deficit levels.
See, I knew that sooner or later, you'd agree with me. ;)
Jon Smith & Wesson: The original point and click interface Algoraphobia: An exaggerated fear of the outside world rooted in the belief that one might spontaneously combust due to global warming.