2012 Elections in the USA

[QUOTE=Tiny12;427458]this is a big time waster.[/QUOTE]We have found the common ground. This discussion, in this particular venue, most assuredly is a big time waster.

I dunno who's going to win the presidential election but my local congress race is sure interesting. Both guys are poli sci graduates of my alma mater. How those two apples fell so far apart from the same tree is a mystery. One could not be farther right and the other is well left of center. I wonder how many times two guys that graduated from the same school majoring in the same thing ever ran against each other for public office. They are a generation apart so they didn't study from the same people, but it is still pretty interesting.

Political "science", except one in China or Soviet Union, does not advocate, if explain, particular values or policy solutions. How could you teach that a dollar spent for soda is more valuable than a dollar spent for a donut. It is just a preference (ideology). Poli sci teaches how to analize and assess policy solutions, and how governmental institutions interact.

[QUOTE=Dickhead;427474]I dunno who's going to win the presidential election but my local congress race is sure interesting. Both guys are poli sci graduates of my alma mater. How those two apples fell so far apart from the same tree is a mystery. One could not be farther right and the other is well left of center. I wonder how many times two guys that graduated from the same school majoring in the same thing ever ran against each other for public office. They are a generation apart so they didn't study from the same people, but it is still pretty interesting.[/QUOTE]

[QUOTE=Member #2041;427431]My experience is as a director of marketing and business development for a couple of high tech companies, one of which I cashed out my stock options from, and retired circa 2005.[/quote]No offense to marketeers, but weren't you making some quip about the HBS program? I took my first company public in '96, sold my next one to a group out of LA in '01. I'd like to say it was because I am so f'cking smart, however, the truth of the matter is that you could make money falling off a bar stool, in those days (I'm not opining on the validity of your personal experience, of which I have no knowledge).

[quote=]I am also a graduate of the Economics Department and the MBA program at the highly conservative University of Chicago.[/quote]Poor uncle Milty must be turning in his grave. What a waste of money seeing that you missed out on some of the finest that institution has to offer.

[quote=]I am a rare moderate to emerge from there,[/quote]I'd say that you are more rare than you think (and less moderate).

[quote=]and while there, I studied under Gary Becker, George Stigler, Merton Miller, Eugene Fama, and several other notable folks. I am also somewhat of a student of Economic history over the past century.[/quote]Please stop. You are like fingernails on a chalkboard. The thought of a close-minded Keynesian academic like yourself and the SOE are completely incongruous (that means the two things don't go together that well).

[quote=]First of all, I am NOT a rabid supporter of Obama. What I am is a person who is convinced that the laissez-faire, de-minimus regulatory policies, and the only recipe for growth being cutting taxes to the wealthy and to businesses that Mitt Romney espouses have been thoroughly discredited over the course of the past couple of decades, and if we were return to them, we will be well on the way to a trajectory toward becoming a failed state. I consider Romney and in particular, the agenda espoused by Paul Ryan, to be an unmitigated disaster for this nation if it were to take hold.[/quote]Tres bien "laissez-faire" vous êtes si drôle. Only a complete buffoon would suggest that any business (in the US) in 2012 (or 2000, for that matter) is unregulated or free of the hand of the federal govt.

Do you have any idea how this:

[quote=]I am also somewhat of a student of Economic history over the past century.[/quote]And this:

[quote=]and the only recipe for growth being cutting taxes to the wealthy and to businesses[/quote]Are somewhat mutually exclusive (unless you're a really poor student)?

I don't care if you love Obama or hate him. It is his policies that are the problem. Very simply put, removing wealth from the private sector has cyclical effect of reducing economic activity, which negatively impacts federal revenues, which causes politicians to try to squeeze more out of the golden goose, only to find that they kill it. If you, as a self-proclaimed economic expert, can't accurately read the economic foibles of the past 100 years, there isn't much hope for you. It's like reading Barney stories (I. E. Pretty simple and straight forward).

[quote=]We only have two real choices in the present election. One of whom, Obama, I consider to be mediocre, but FAR less onerous than Romney / Ryan.[/quote]Mediocre? Clearly, you concentrated your studies on subjects other than actual business (e. G corporate finance, accounting and operations management) since you seem to be unaware of the effect of rising costs on profitability and the inexorable relationship between profitability and corporate sustainability. Further, as a student of economics, I'd expect you to have a slightly better understanding of the concept of "risk" and the role it plays in fostering and inhibiting economic activity. Check my '08-'09 postings on the subject. I predicted that Obama put loads of new regulations onto the private sector. He did. In fact, he heaped countless (more than 1600) new regulations on businesses, many of which were (and still are) impossible to fully quantify. Unquantifiable (that means you can't calculate its value with any amount of certainty) future costs are one of the most dangerous forms of risk a company can face. Judicious management doesn't roll the dice in the face of unquantifiable risk, it sticks to its knitting and hopes to whistle past the graveyard. The reason why no one has been hired, since Obama was elected, is that prospective employers can't quantify how much an additional hire will cost and therefore can't determine if it is a good business decision to add to head count. Therefore, they do more with less.

[quote=]Obama's POLICIES, BTW, I consider to be much more on the right track than Romney's.[/quote]Wait, now I know who you are. You work at BLS, don't you?

The US has lost over 3 million full-time jobs, since 2007. You can hide behind the mathematical gymnastics and play hide-the-sausage with the people who have given up on finding work but, you can't change the truth. The phony BLS numbers are a great indication of how Obama and Christina think alike.

[quote=]But I certainly will accept that Obama's personal execution of those policies, and his effectiveness in working with a hostile Congress to get things implemented, have been less than impressive.[/quote]Wow, you must have been out smokin' pot when they taught basic math. Obama had super majorities in the house and senate for the first two years of his reign of terror. Hostile congress? Really? That is all you can come up with? Since the 2010 midterms, he just waves his "Executive Order" wand and makes those things de facto laws without any Congressional participation or oversight.

Please, Mr. Economic expert, point to any major Obama economic policy that has a successful, historical precedent (don't forget to cite the precedent).

[quote=]In this regard, he's no Bill Clinton.[/quote]You mean the guy that has a hostile congress to thank, for his legacy?

[quote=]And would that we could actually vote for Clinton now, he'd DWARF both Romney and Obama as a positive choice to move this country forward.[/quote]"Oooooh, Dream Waever, I believe you can get me through the night."

[quote=]That being said, IMHO, by far the biggest threat to the future prosperity of the American state is the ever-widening gulf of empowerment between the most affluent and the dwindling middle class.[/quote]So, we'd be better off if everyone was poor?

[quote=]This trajectory was really started in earnest under Reagan, and only saw a brief respite during the Clinton years, before really kicking into gear during G. W. Bush's Presidency.[/quote]You are talking out your ass. Please, don't bother citing Gini, I can't bear to hear about that Nazi propagandist, again.

[quote=]The fact is, Obama has NOT been as ineffectual as the right wing claims.[/quote]

That's the problem is that despite being an anti-social, dim-witted, former-burn out, Marxist, he was successful in enacting some of the most harmful legislation that this country has every seen.


[quote=]It was entirely unreasonable to assume that any sort of collapse of the magnitude that Obama inherited,[/quote]

False. I lived through it at ground zero (intricately involved on Wall St and Main St when it all came down), In October '08 there was no one, no one, who didn't know what a giant f'ing whole we were in (in large part due to people that think like you being mistakenly trusted with positions of power).

I don't have the energy to go through the rest of your blather but, I wish you well. Monger on.

[QUOTE=Wild Walleye; 427477]No offense to marketeers, but weren't you making some quip about the HBS program? I took my first company public in '96, sold my next one to a group out of LA in '01. I'd like to say it was because I am so f'cking smart, however, the truth of the matter is that you could make money falling off a bar stool, in those days (I'm not opining on the validity of your personal experience, of which I have no knowledge).

Poor uncle Milty must be turning in his grave. What a waste of money seeing that you missed out on some of the finest that institution has to offer.

I'd say that you are more rare than you think (and less moderate).

Please stop. You are like fingernails on a chalkboard. The thought of a close-minded Keynesian academic like yourself and the SOE are completely incongruous (that means the two things don't go together that well).

Tres bien "laissez-faire" vous êtes si drôle. Only a complete buffoon would suggest that any business (in the US) in 2012 (or 2000, for that matter) is unregulated or free of the hand of the federal govt.

Do you have any idea how this:

And this:

Are somewhat mutually exclusive (unless you're a really poor student)?

I don't care if you love Obama or hate him. It is his policies that are the problem. Very simply put, removing wealth from the private sector has cyclical effect of reducing economic activity, which negatively impacts federal revenues, which causes politicians to try to squeeze more out of the golden goose, only to find that they kill it. If you, as a self-proclaimed economic expert, can't accurately read the economic foibles of the past 100 years, there isn't much hope for you. It's like reading Barney stories (I. E. Pretty simple and straight forward).

Mediocre? Clearly, you concentrated your studies on subjects other than actual business (e. G corporate finance, accounting and operations management) since you seem to be unaware of the effect of rising costs on profitability and the inexorable relationship between profitability and corporate sustainability. Further, as a student of economics, I'd expect you to have a slightly better understanding of the concept of "risk" and the role it plays in fostering and inhibiting economic activity. Check my '08-'09 postings on the subject. I predicted that Obama put loads of new regulations onto the private sector. He did. In fact, he heaped countless (more than 1600) new regulations on businesses, many of which were (and still are) impossible to fully quantify. Unquantifiable (that means you can't calculate its value with any amount of certainty) future costs are one of the most dangerous forms of risk a company can face. Judicious management doesn't roll the dice in the face of unquantifiable risk, it sticks to its knitting and hopes to whistle passed the graveyard. The reason why no one has been hired, since Obama was elected, is that prospective employers can't quantify how much an additional hire will cost and therefore can't determine if it is a good business decision to add to head count. Therefore, they do more with less.

Wait, now I know who you are. You work at BLS, don't you?

Wow, you must have been out smokin' pot when they taught basic math. Obama had super majorities in the house and senate for the first two years of his reign of terror. Hostile congress? Really? That is all you can come up with?

Please, Mr. Economic expert, point to any major Obama economic policy that has a successful, historical precedent (don't forget to cite the precedent). Since the 2010 midterms, he just waves his "Executive Order" wand and makes those things de facto laws without any Congressional participation or oversight.

You mean the guy that has a hostile congress to thank, for his legacy?

"Ohhhhh, Dream Waever, I believe you can get me through the night."

So, we'd be better off if everyone was poor?

You are talking out your ass. Please, don't bother citing Gini, I can't bear to hear about that Nazi propagandist, again.

That's the problem is that despite being an anti-social, dim-witted, former-burn out, Marxist, he was successful in enacting some of the most harmful legislation that this country has every seen.

I don't have the energy to go through the rest of your blather but, I wish you well. Monger on.

It was entirely unreasonable to assume that any sort of collapse of the magnitude that Obama inherited, could be recovered from in less than 6-7 years, and we are only half way into that time span. The ONLY recession that was EVER worse than the one Obama inherited was the Great Depression, and the Great Depression took 12 years and the buildup to WWII for that recovery to really take hold. It is unreasonable to assume that THIS recovery, from a downturn that was very nearly as bad, could be accomplished in less than half of that same timeframe. And during that time, what Obama HAS accomplished is the restoration of something on the order of 70% of the lost wealth of the last recession. And this restoration of lost wealth is the most important first step in the recovery process. The second most important step was to halt the job losses. Any serious analysis of the timing of the Obama stimulus package will demonstrate that the stimulus package beginning, and it's taking effect in earnest directly correlate with the inflection points of the unemployment curve. The main flaws of the stimulus package were that it was far too SMALL, given the magnitude of the problem it was intended to cure, and that it did not have a secondary phase that was almost entirely oriented toward beefing up the nation's infrastructure, rather than the significant portions of pork that the existing package doled out, which were so popular that even blowhards like Bobby Jindal found a means of accepting them even as he mocked the very program that was gilding his lilly. In particular, the infrastructure emphasis should have been oriented to enabling delivery of alternative energy sources rather than oil. In particular, enabling natural gas and later fuel cells, from being the replacement for petroleum-based fuels for our vehicles.

And finally, there is the age-old question, are you better off than you were 4 years ago? In my personal situation, the answer is unambiguously YES. 4 years ago, my personal wealth had been utterly gutted by the Bush financial collapse. Under Obama (with serious help from another student of economic history, Ben Bernanke) the lost value of my personal wealth has been roughly 80% restored.

It's ludicrous for Romney to claim that he understands how to create jobs, and how taxes disincentivize otherwise optimal business decisions, because he personally has only created jobs in OTHER countries, by outsourcing those from the USA, and all he understands about taxes is how to maximize his avoidance of them. And finally, the SINGULAR impressive accomplishment on Romney's record as it would relate to being President, would be the implementation of a universal health-care system in Massachussetts. But Romney has bowed to the politically craven winds of the Republican party, and disavowed his own principles and run away from his own accomplishment as far and as fast as he can, when in fact, the ONLY thing that would recommend him as a potential President would be were he to implement a nearly identical universal health-care plan nation-wide. Which, BTW, is exactly what Obama actually did, and what Romney has made clear he would NOT do as President, and in fact, would dis-assemble it.[/QUOTE] Yadda Yadda Yadda. I'd say more, but the post doesn't warrant any more, other than to point out that anyone who genuinely believes that Obama is a Marxist is, quite simply, a blithering idiot, who really has no business opining on anything related to Finance or Economics.

[QUOTE=Member #2041;427478]Yadda Yadda Yadda. I'd say more, but the post doesn't warrant any more, other than to point out that anyone who genuinely believes that Obama is a Marxist is, quite simply, a blithering idiot, who really has no business opining on anything related to Finance or Economics.[/QUOTE]Clearly, you do not know what a Marxist is. Did you ever manage to attend any classes while at the SOE?

[QUOTE=Member #2041;427478]Yadda Yadda Yadda. I'd say more, but the post doesn't warrant any more, other than to point out that anyone who genuinely believes that Obama is a Marxist is, quite simply, a blithering idiot, who really has no business opining on anything related to Finance or Economics.[/QUOTE]You are correct.

Some people are simply incapable of understanding the concept of responsible Capitalism.

[QUOTE=Esten; 427481]You are correct.

Some people are simply incapable of understanding the concept of responsible Capitalism.[/QUOTE]Some people don't know what capitalism is.

'The US has lost over 3 million full-time jobs, since 2007. '

Who was president in 2007 and 2008? Might want to do a better job of data mining.

[QUOTE=Dickhead; 427485]

Who was president in 2007 and 2008? [snip][/QUOTE]That guy is NOT running for office.

[QUOTE=Punter 127;427486]That guy is NOT running for office.[/QUOTE]Right, but he IS the guy who is overwhelmingly responsible for the job losses since 2007, since the vast preponderance of those took place in 2007 and 2008, when he WAS President, and the first half of 2009, before the next guy's policies could kick in to ameliorate the crisis that occurred on the first guy's watch.

The simple truth is that anyone who quotes a jobs statistic that starts in 2007 and tries to hang it on Obama is either simply a disingenuous liar, or so stupid and ill-informed about economics that he doesn't understand that unemployment is actually a lagging indicator, to the tune of about 9 months. I'd agree that Obama owns the jobs number from 2H 2009 on. In any case, this sort of deception and misrepresentation of reality by righties is what we've come to expect from a bunch of folks who recognize that they can't make their case on the merits and reality, and so resort to outright deceptions like these, and stupid batshit crazy stuff like Obama being a Kenyan-born Muslim Marxist who didn't legitimately get his degrees from Columbia and Harvard. It's all cut from the same cloth.

As my lawyer friend says, when you have the facts, you argue the facts, when you have the law, you argue the law. When you have neither, you baffle them with bullshit. The degree to which the right has had to resort to baffling with bullshit is quite telling.

[QUOTE=Wild Walleye;427477]No offense to marketeers, but weren't you making some quip about the HBS program? I took my first company public in '96, sold my next one to a group out of LA in '01. I'd like to say it was because I am so f'cking smart, however, the truth of the matter is that you could make money falling off a bar stool, in those days (I'm not opining on the validity of your personal experience, of which I have no knowledge).[/QUOTE]Give up Walleye. He probably was a good man once but he drank the Kool Aid and he's not coming back. He believes marginal tax rates on corporations should be higher, which puts him to the left of mainstream Democrats. Just be thankful it's Obama and not Member #2041 that's running for president.

By the way, I have reconsidered my choice for president. As indicated in an earlier post, I was considering writing your name in. But based on the above I have determined that your success in life was largely due to luck. Ability, skill and intelligence played a larger part in Romney's success in turning around companies, a government and the Olympics. Therefore I will be voting for him. Sorry.

[QUOTE=Tiny12; 427493]Give up Walleye. He probably was a good man once but he drank the Kool Aid and he's not coming back. He believes marginal tax rates on corporations should be higher, which puts him to the left of mainstream Democrats. Just be thankful it's Obama and not Member #2041 that's running for president.

By the way, I have reconsidered my choice for president. As indicated in an earlier post, I was considering writing your name in. But based on the above I have determined that your success in life was largely due to luck. Ability, skill and intelligence played a larger part in Romney's success in turning around companies, a government and the Olympics. Therefore I will be voting for him. Sorry.[/QUOTE]That's right, I have no plans to run for President, because I fuck hookers with a high rate of frequency, and that's a disqualifier for the office. But, in any case, I certainly appreciate Tiny12 mustering all of his intellectual prowess to come up with this post.

[QUOTE=Dickhead; 427485]'The US has lost over 3 million full-time jobs, since 2007. '

Who was president in 2007 and 2008? Might want to do a better job of data mining.[/QUOTE]Why? I didn't cherry pick a number to just show Obama's ineptitude, just pointing out that the US economy has and continues to shed full-time jobs while the numbers that get published by the proletariat say that things are improving. I have never said that Obama caused the initial recession, he just turned it into the Great Recession. The weekly and monthly numbers are pure political propaganda. They have been revised, each and every period, to show that the situation was worse than reported. However, we are lead to believe that things are getting better. The only reason that things might be getting better is that Romney is looking strong (you can go back to my '08 election posts and you'll see that I'm not a life long Romney fan. In this election, I'd vote for Homer Simpson before I'd vote for the Marxist candidate, Obama).

[QUOTE=Member #2041;427490]Right, but he IS the guy who is overwhelmingly responsible for the job losses since 2007, since the vast preponderance of those took place in 2007 and 2008, when he WAS President, and the first half of 2009, before the next guy's policies could kick in to ameliorate the crisis that occurred on the first guy's watch.[/quote]Gee I thought Obama was elected to fix the problem, not just blame the other guy, I also believe he promised to do that in his first term.

BTW The Democratic Party controlled a majority in both chambers of congress between January 3, 2007, and January 3, 2009. (Yes, two independent senators caucused with the Democrats)

[QUOTE=Member #2041;427490]The simple truth is that anyone who quotes a jobs statistic that starts in 2007 and tries to hang it on Obama is either simply a disingenuous liar, or so stupid and ill-informed about economics that he doesn't understand that unemployment is actually a lagging indicator, to the tune of about 9 months. I'd agree that Obama owns the jobs number from 2H 2009 on. In any case, this sort of deception and misrepresentation of reality by righties is what we've come to expect from a bunch of folks who recognize that they can't make their case on the merits and reality, and so resort to outright deceptions like these, and stupid batshit crazy stuff like Obama being a Kenyan-born Muslim Marxist who didn't legitimately get his degrees from Columbia and Harvard. It's all cut from the same cloth.[/quote]LOL, same old tired leftwing BS, but since it looks like the wheels are starting to come off the Obama cart I understand your anxiety and the need to lash out.

[QUOTE=Member #2041;427490] As my lawyer friend says, when you have the facts, you argue the facts, when you have the law, you argue the law. When you have neither, you baffle them with bullshit. The degree to which the right has had to resort to baffling with bullshit is quite telling.[/QUOTE]I don't think 'baffling with bullshit' is limited to the right, please refer to your previous paragraphs.