Obama--the grumblings

[TheMercenary]

Originally Posted by Redux

You could have simply posted Limbaugh.

Maybe he should have just posted a poll.

[Urbane Guerrilla]

Actually, said "rigid ideology" is better called adult thinking. Being sloppy about this drives inflation more powerfully than anything else: I'll predict that the Act will cause noticeable inflation at a greater rate.

Simply put, Government debt drives inflation, and the Government is going to create dollars out of nothing. Real antiinflationary measures mean retiring at least eight tenths of that debt. Libertarians like me consider that outside of genuine emergencies like prosecuting a war, there's really nothing a government does that necessitates borrowing money to cover anyway.

You cannot, however, absolve the Democrats of fiscal blame -- not while Barney Frank yet lives and whose record is one of mandating that financial institutions make those poorly secured loans rather than erring on the side of security; nor can you with the Democrats' record of doing things that declare their economic illiteracy. I've never encountered a display of sound, conservative, anti-deficit management by Democratic Administrations in all my fifty-two years. Clinton may possibly have approached it, some argue, but we'd've needed another ten years of peacetime to actually have achieved a paydown of the national debt or a genuine surplus.

Originally Posted by TheMercenary

Maybe he should have just posted a poll.

Nah...you and Classic can keep posting your partisan editorials and claim they represent something resembling public opinion.

Originally Posted by Urbane Guerrilla

Actually, said "rigid ideology" is better called adult thinking. Being sloppy about this drives inflation more powerfully than anything else: I'll predict that the Act will cause noticeable inflation at a greater rate.

Simply put, Government debt drives inflation

Adult thinking is not limited to one economic model...unless you are a rigid ideologue.

Another equally adult economic model is that government spending gets you out of deep recession and hundreds of thousands of job losses every month.

We tried the adult thinking of deregulation and supply side trickle down economics....and it that didnt work....in fact, it contributed to the problems we're now facing.

[Urbane Guerrilla]

Why do you believe that one?! Read Hazlitt's Economics In One Lesson to repair your thinking.

Name, if you can, one example of a government EVER ONCE ANYWHERE spending a nation into prosperity: public sector spending doesn't make prosperity -- it can protect prosperity generated elsewhere. An antelope's horns don't contribute to him fattening up or increasing bone and muscle, yet they cost him some energy and materials (resources) to make. But those horns not only attract mates, they stick a lion pretty good too. The antelope benefits, but the benefits should be correctly understood.

The New Deal was recently and authoritatively deconstructed, was it not? The Depression continued right through the New Deal, altogether unaffected -- though the public works projects of the time were indisputably helpful afterwards. Only the increase of production and employment caused by the Second World War, combined with not getting those factories and producers of the sinews of both war and wealth bombed or even hardly damaged (Port Chicago's dockside explosion being perhaps the loudest exception to the trend), ended the Great Depression.

The scales have long fallen from my eyes, Redux. Should you therefore remain blinded, not quite off your road to Damascus?

Originally Posted by Urbane Guerrilla

Why do you believe that one?! Read Hazlitt's Economics In One Lesson to repair your thinking.

I'm more of a Keynesian.

Nice revisionist history on the New Deal.

The New Deal raised the GDP significantly between 32-37...until FDR slowed it down in 37 because of pressure from Republicans that it was creating deficits. Then the growth stopped until WW II.

Originally Posted by Urbane Guerrilla

Name, if you can, one example of a government EVER ONCE ANYWHERE spending a nation into prosperity: public sector spending doesn't make prosperity

The short term spending is to get out of the deep hole created by supply side economics and deregulation. It is not intended as a long term growth strategy but rather a short term fix to stabilize the economy.

Originally Posted by Urbane Guerrilla

The scales have long fallen from my eyes, Redux. Should you therefore remain blinded, not quite off your road to Damascus?

Hey..im still waiting for you to respond to my post on your claim that Republicans have more integrity....but you went silent on that one.

[TheMercenary]

Originally Posted by Redux

Nah...you and Classic can keep posting your partisan editorials and claim they represent something resembling public opinion.

And I'll just keep laughing at your polls and pointing out how weak of statistical significance they have among real number crunchers.

Originally Posted by TheMercenary

And I'll just keep laughing at your polls and pointing out how weak of statistical significance they have among real number crunchers.

Cool !

[Urbane Guerrilla]

I reckon the only thing worth doing is the longterm, and be damned to the short -- even the present batch of pols tell us "we didn't get into this overnight and we won't get out of it overnight." I see no example of spending into prosperity from anywhere or anywhen comes to mind.

Redux, dear, stick to the question at hand rather than hurriedly changing the subject. That doesn't work; only a moron will so continue having been advised of this, okay? The record speaks for itself: the Republicans think like adults. The Democrats need to. This is why no man of palpable sense supports them, until they wise up. Wisdom, in our Capitol, remains in too short supply.

[Aliantha]

UG...have you been drinking too much brandy again?

Originally Posted by Urbane Guerrilla

Redux, dear, stick to the question at hand. The record speaks for itself: the Republicans think like adults. The Democrats need to. This is why no man of palpable sense supports them, until they wise up. Wisdom, in our Capitol, remains in too short supply.

UG...I'm not surprised you dont want to respond to links I posted on the Republican corruption of the 109th Congress (and the influence peddling of the K Street Crowd)...or the internal DOJ reports on illegal politicizing of the DoJ.

Adult thinking and behavior?

Keeps those blinders on.

I just might keep raising those issues every time you sling the "republicans think like adults" or have more "integrity" bullshit.

[TheMercenary]

Originally Posted by Redux

UG...I'm not surprised you dont want to respond to links I posted on the Republican corruption of the 109th Congress (and the influence peddling of the K Street Crowd)...or the internal DOJ reports on illegal politicizing of the DoJ.

Adult thinking and behavior?

Keeps those blinders on.

I just might keep raising those issues every time you sling the "republicans think like adults" or have more "integrity" bullshit.

I understand your point here but you do realize that the one department criticized in the report is only One of Sixty-One Divisions in the DOJ. You are heaping the bad behavior in one department and basically punishing another 60 departments by your sensationalism over the improper activities of one. The DOJ is filled with good people who do good hard work for all the right reasons. Keep things in perspective will you so you don't sound like a mouth piece for MoveOnDotOrg. I am not criticizing the factual statements of the report, things were defiantly amiss in the organization. Those guys just happened to get caught IMHO.

http://www.usdoj.gov/02organizations/02_1.html

[classicman]

Originally Posted by Redux

I'm not sure I get your point?
You could have simply posted Limbaugh.
Obama--the grumblings?

That’s what this thread is for – to post grumblings about Obama.
Who else do you think they are going to come from other than the R’s?

Originally Posted by Redux

look at your own record and policies that contributed to the mess we're in before you start throwing stones.

The R’s have a lot of culpability for their actions – AGREED!
Repeating the R’s mistakes will not help. Obama ran his campaign on “Change.” I’m still hopeful that this is what we are going to get.

Originally Posted by Redux

Suck it up...you're the minority. You have to give a little. In fact, you have to give alot to get a little. That's what it means to be the minority.

Agreed. The R’s need to deal with it and stop whining. Whining isn’t going to accomplish anything.

Originally Posted by Redux

But I honestly don't believe the Republicans want to compromise or build consensus. I think they have chosen the strategy of putting all their eggs in the basket that if Obama fails, it will be to their advantage in 2010.

I am not really blaming Obama as much as those involved in the congressional war that is taking place. This is where real change needs to take place. The D’s are doing what the R’s did when they were in power. Nothing has changed at all. The R’s are going to do NOTHING for the next two years and play everything off, as it was the D’s plans and programs. That is bullshit on both sides. I think the R's really believe that the public is stupid enough to believe that. Well good – then those idiots won’t get elected either. The party needs to be purged of those people anyway. They are delusional. The D's want some R's to sign on so that they can claim bipartisanship and not be solely responsible for the success or failure of Pelosi's plan. I think there is plenty of culpability on both sides. This is the same old shit - not change at all.

Additionally, I do not see a rebalancing in the 2010 elections where the R’s regain lost seats. If anything I think they will lose more. If Obama's programs don’t work the D’s still have the “We didn’t create this mess” or “It takes time” to respond with. Both of which are relatively reasonable.

I hope the natural cycle of the economy combined with whatever measures the Gov’t has done so far will enable that to happen.

That’s my grumble for the moment with a ray of sunshine - perhaps.

Originally Posted by TheMercenary

I understand your point here but you do realize that the one department criticized in the report is only One of Sixty-One Divisions in the DOJ. You are heaping the bad behavior in one department and basically punishing another 60 departments by your sensationalism over the improper activities of one. The DOJ is filled with good people who do good hard work for all the right reasons. Keep things in perspective will you so you don't sound like a mouth piece for MoveOnDotOrg. I am not criticizing the factual statements of the report, things were defiantly amiss in the organization. Those guys just happened to get caught IMHO.

http://www.usdoj.gov/02organizations/02_1.html

Lets see:

We have the former AG Gonzales facing possible obstruction of justice and perjury charges for lying to Congress about the firing of the US Attorneys. (link)

We have the former head of the Civil Rights Divisions action of politicizing the department as described in the above investigation, including blocking the work of hard working DoJ attorneys. (link)

W have several DoJ attorneys DoJ attorneys who may have "deliberately slanted their legal advice to provide the White House with the conclusions it wanted to justify torture." (link)

We have a former top aid to the AG who stated under oath that she violated the Civil Service Act as many as 40 times by basing hiring on political affiliation and a DOJ report found the same (link)

We have another internal investigation of the firing of the US attorneys that concluded that it severely damaged the credibility of the Department and raised doubts about the integrity of Department prosecutive decisions. (link)

I would say that is the worst politicization of the DoJ, the one department that is supposed to enforce the law and be above politics, in our lifetime.