OK...a question about politics for those smarter than me(in other words...most of you).

[Jazzy J]

Republican Presidents Eisenhower and Nixon both capitulated to the other side in the Democrat started Korean and Vietnam conflicts. So let's not say that from a historical point of view that the Democrats are the only ones to 'start' wars and Republican 'finish' wars. They seem to walk away without strategy to win.
Last two presidents to submit a balanced budget and leave surpluses for sucessors, Johnson an Clinton for Nixon and Bush respectively. Results, double dip recessions under both presidents in their two terms. Loss of jobs and increased deficits, Reagan, Bush and Bush from 1981-2010.
Even with all Democratic Congress, Obama has increased debt, but what did Bush do in similar situation, ran up record deficits. With unemployment up, income taxes are obviously down since you can pay on what you are not making. Keyesnian, Supply Side (Galbreathian) or any economic theory doesn't work if people aren't working in low tech, high tech, white collar or blue collar jobs.
If you look at fees for hobbying, the ladies are back at 2001-2002 prices for GFE so not inflation or cost of living adjustments even in this stuff? Supply side is saying over abundance of providers demand is way off therefore discounting. The girls at the Pirate Ship were getting $500 for cbjs in the late '90s and early 2000s but now you can go there or the Church and get one for $50! You mean to tell me that they just feel like working for pennies on the dollar?
Guys can't 'trickle' down economics as Reagan or Bush would have prescribed. Please explain this point using trickle down economics?

[gnadfly]

Originally Posted by lizardking

. . .

2. Impose an immediate and confiscatory tax on anything that can be reasonable construed and "outsourcing" jobs that could/would/should otherwise be performed by Americans in America, thus incentivising US companies to IMMEDIATELY move those jobs back home. Of course, particularly in the case of manufacturing jobs, this would necessitate a counter-balancing tax or duty on imported goods that compete with domestically produced goods. Such a counter-balancing penalty would be less of a concern in connections with services such a call centers and similar activities. Generally speaking, protectionism is not a good thing, but this would be a temporary emergency measure to address a (hopefully) temporary emergency.

BHO made a promised to stop outsourcing American jobs overseas. He's done nothing. The Demomedia has not held him accountable. Why are jobs going overseas? Because the cost having those jobs performed by Americans are too high. Why is the cost too high? The taxes, regulation and liability by the US govt.

And the US govt knows it.

[LexusLover]

Originally Posted by Rambro Creed

Don't forget, wars cost money...something your boy Bush started (two of them, in fact).
What is it, $10 billion (with a B) a month??

And we've been over in both places HOW LONG now?

As for the first erroneous statement, Bush did not "start" either one. That is like saying "we" started the war with Germany and Japan. If I recall correctly, Iraq attacked Kuwait, and was given an option to withdraw. The folks hiding in Afghanistan attacked the U.S. and the Taliban were given an option to give them up.

Clinton was "squeezed" in there for 8 years and I think he did some "attacking" in Iraq ... although killing goats and destroying milk factories was not effective, apparently.

As for the second curious question .. how long have we been in Germany?
Korea?

[LexusLover]

Originally Posted by gnadfly

Why are jobs going overseas?

And the US govt knows it.

You forgot the unions, ... "And the US govt knows it"!

Speaking of "the President" ...

.... does he really have a 38% approval rating? That seems awfully high!

[LexusLover]

Originally Posted by Jazzy J

Republican Presidents Eisenhower and Nixon both capitulated to the other side in the Democrat started Korean and Vietnam conflicts.

The U.S. involvement in SE Asia was on going when Kennedy took office, and the French were there before the U.S. became involved. As for Korea, I do believe that history will show that it was a "U.N." action by "U.N." resolutions, although, as is normal, the U.S. did most of the "heavy lifting"! I think the U.N. was responding to activity already ongoing ..

... kinda like Iraq!

But some folks want to either rewrite history or forget it to make a point!

[beerman]

Cousin Dupree, thankyou for your wise observation. Neither side is perfect but I'd much rather have Obama watching over this mess than Bush and the Republicans who really are responsible for allowing us to fall this far and starting Iraq.

[enderwiggin]

Originally Posted by timpage

I have no idea Heather. I wish I was as smart as some of these folks. Or, are they making ideological choices here rather than offering truly informed content? Hmmmm, let me think.

I am always just a bit astonished at the Republicans who continue to advocate nothing at all or, the exact same policies that got us into our current situation.....Bush cut taxes....Bush rolled back government regulation of finance and the market (Clinton too) and look where we are. It really doesn't seem like a largely unregulated free market worked too well, does it? We're in the middle of an economic catastrophe because of something called a derivative that no one can explain but that made a shit-load of money for a very few people and a grossly unrealistic real estate bubble.

As for TARP, etc. I just don't know. And neither does anybody else. The real wild card is that nobody knows what would have happened if the government hadn't acted in the way they did. There are many reputable mainstream economists who believe the economy would have lapsed into a full-blown depression without the bailouts. But...that's crystal-ball gazing.

As for those who denounce Obama's competence....that's just echo-chamber talking points from Limbaugh and Hannity. It makes not one bit of difference what he does to some of these folks. It's ideology, not reality. He inherited the worst economic situation for a president since FDR. He's been in office 18 months. It's not a fixable situation in that amount of time.

We'll see.

This is simple-minded bullshit, the politics of the average leftist in a nutshell. The Bush's policies are not what got us into this mess, or are you mush-headed enough to believe that the causes can only immediately precede the effects? The causes of our current slump are rooted in policies enacted as far back as the New Deal and as recently as the lending policies dictated under Clinton, specifically requiring Fannie and Freddie to lend to underqualified borrowers for the sake of racial diversity and to artificially inflate minority home-ownership statistics.

To call our economy of the recent past "largely unregulated" is an exercise in sheer stubbornness. We have the opposite of a "largely unregulated" economy, or have you not tried to file federal income tax recently? Have you tried to start a business or invest your hard-earned money? Is it free and unregulated, or a mind-numbing debacle of navigating government forms, regulations and bureaucracy?

And Dems CAN'T keep saying "Well we don't know what would have happened if he hadn't pushed the stimulus through..." That's circular reasoning or petitio principii and your junior high debate coach wouldn't permit it because its spineless. In order for your statement to be true, we would have to accept the tacit assumption that the stimulus was successful on some level. I (and many, many, many others) don't accept that assumption. We believe the stimulus to be a failed policy and to have actually made things worse by deepening the deficit.

[punisher]

Originally Posted by enderwiggin

This is simple-minded bullshit, the politics of the average leftist in a nutshell. The Bush's policies are not what got us into this mess, or are you mush-headed enough to believe that the causes can only immediately precede the effects? The causes of our current slump are rooted in policies enacted as far back as the New Deal and as recently as the lending policies dictated under Clinton, specifically requiring Fannie and Freddie to lend to underqualified borrowers for the sake of racial diversity and to artificially inflate minority home-ownership statistics.

To call our economy of the recent past "largely unregulated" is an exercise in sheer stubbornness. We have the opposite of a "largely unregulated" economy, or have you not tried to file federal income tax recently? Have you tried to start a business or invest your hard-earned money? Is it free and unregulated, or a mind-numbing debacle of navigating government forms, regulations and bureaucracy?

And Dems CAN'T keep saying "Well we don't know what would have happened if he hadn't pushed the stimulus through..." That's circular reasoning or petitio principii and your junior high debate coach wouldn't permit it because its spineless. In order for your statement to be true, we would have to accept the tacit assumption that the stimulus was successful on some level. I (and many, many, many others) don't accept that assumption. We believe the stimulus to be a failed policy and to have actually made things worse by deepening the deficit.

Remember, any bill that the Congress wants to pass we need to vote on it and pass it before we can know what's in it, or as the famous saying goes, "I voted against it before I voted for it"...or some crap like that.

[boardman]

My Jr. high debates were held behind the gym.....I'm just sayin'

[Texas Contrarian]

Originally Posted by Robbie77007

Ugh.

Heather, it’s called Keynsian economics and it has worked wonders in the past and will continue to do so in the future. Deficit spending has worked in the past and will continue to work in the future. We all deficit spend in our daily lives (ever buy a house? Pay cash? No, didn't think so).

The difference between the Obama spending and the Bush spending is that the Obama spending is grounded in sound economic theory. Bush spent money in all the wrong ways and at the wrong time. Theory states you deficit spend when the economy is struggling, like Obama is doing now. Bush did it when the economy was strong. Its called counter cyclical spending and Republicans fucked it up, driving the housing market bonkers by adding spending to low rates. To keep asset bubbles in check you need to counter the weights, ie, low spending with low rates or high spending with high rates (a la Clinton in the mid 90’s or Reagan in the early 80’s).
Secondly, Bush spent money in the wrong ways. He slashed taxes on the upper 10%, starving the revenue stream but not getting the return in larger tax rolls (this is because taxes on the rich were well balanced after Bush I and Clinton made marginal increases). Tax rolls droop when income disparity increases, which is exactly what the Bush tax cuts did.
Here’s the real kicker: Obama hasn’t spent enough. The crash has wiped out untold wealth, driving the economy towards deflation. If you think inflation is scary wait till you see deflation. We need to spend more to increase the inflation rate. The asset bubble burst in real estate has burst all assets (except gold and precious metals, of course). The added benefit of inflation is that inflation lowers the real impact of the deficit. Think about this: if you bought a house for 100k 25 years ago the mortgage payment is, say, 500 a month. That 500 was a huge burden 25 years ago, probably half your salary. Today, it’s a session or so. That’s the magic of inflation and its why we need more of it.
In short, most Republicans wouldn’t know economic theory if it bit them on their asses. Grab some Keynes and get to reading and turn off Fox.

Wow.

Obama hasn't spent enough?

I thought I was viewing a page from The Onion when I read that!

I agree with the statement that Republicans acted irresponsibly when they ran up all those deficits in the early-to-mid '00s, but do you seriously think the appropriate answer to irresponsible behavior is to act even more irresponsibly?

The $862 billion "stimulus package" had nothing to do with averting a more serious recession or boosting the economy. It was a political stimulus package, not an economic one. It showered largesse on favored political constituencies such as public employee unions. (Note that a large portion of the money was sent to states with no accountability.) Most of the rest of the spending was ineffective, unaffordable, and had little to do with investment in needed infrastructure maintenance or development. This is a government growth and entitlement expansion agenda, not an economic growth agenda.

In any event, the effort to stimulate economic growth with big increases in government spending usually acts as an economic retardant, not a stimulant.

Economic doctrine undergirding arguments in favor of big "stimulus" packages should be considered thoroughly discredited by the experiences of the U.S. in the 1970s, Britain in the 1950s-'70s, and Japan over the last 20 years.

The only reason it's enjoying a renaissance today is that it gives politicians an excuse to do what they always love to do -- buy votes with other people's money.

The American middle class is going to pay a painful price for this fiscal kamikaze mission.