American Politics during the Obama Presidency

[Tiny12]

Fascists and libertarians are about as far apart as you can get on the political spectrum.

[Rev BS]

Michael Hiltzik, Los Angeles Times, November 22,2013.(selected).

"House Speaker John Boehner tried to make a public spectacle out of his own experience signing for a health plan. Things didn't turn out quite the way he'd hoped for. In other words, he succeeded. Boehner did pretty well with ObamaCare. He was eligible for a bronze plan (among others) with a $6,000 annual deductible for $372.14 which is just 2% of Boehner's salary.

And so it goes, we are 7 weeks into the transition, it's been crazy. You mean you expected it to be clockwork, how naive can you be. Ever try to go to the airport on a holiday weekend? One Monday, I couldn't even return my rental car for over an hour. Frustration abound. But in the GOP camp, they are dancing with joy and predicting disaster. We shall see, in another 2 months, in another 10 months. Will the dancing continue to be frantic, drug induced body jerking or to a mere shuffling of the feet. Very interesting times.

[WorldTravel69]

How do you feel about the Tea Party?

Shouldn't the Tea Party be a third Party?

It seems like they are too conservative for the Sane Republicans.

Hey Rock,

Apparently you missed an important day in civics class, so let me educate you.

According to the Webster dictionary, fascism is "a way of organizing a society in which a government ruled by a dictator controls the lives of the people and in which people are not allowed to disagree with the government, very harsh control or authority.

The word "fascist" much more accurately describes your hero Obama that it does me.

Thanks,

Jax

==============================================

For the record, I am NOT a Republican, and I am NOT a conservative.

- I am against the death penalty.
- I am against any government support of religious organizations.
- I am for the legalization of recreational drugs.
- I am for the legalization of commercial sex.
- I am for a woman's right to choose.
- I am for comprehensive sex education.
- I am for a foreign guest worker program.
- I am for a universal flat tax on EVERYONE'S income.
- I am for health INSURANCE reform.
- I am for health JUSTICE reform.

I am a member of the Libertarian Party, registered as an Independent.

[Daddy Rulz]

I am for health JUSTICE reform.

I've never heard the term "health justice". I googled it but came up empty. What does it mean if you don't mind me asking?

[Jackson]

Mongers-.

The clock is ticking for Jackson and his slithery fascist brethren.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-1...ety-frays.html

Hey Rock,

Apparently you missed an important day in civics class, so let me educate you.

According to the Webster dictionary, fascism is "a way of organizing a society in which a government ruled by a dictator controls the lives of the people and in which people are not allowed to disagree with the government, very harsh control or authority.

The word "fascist" much more accurately describes your hero Obama than it does me.

Thanks,

Jax

==============================================

For the record, I am NOT a Republican, and I am NOT a conservative.

- I am against the death penalty.
- I am against any government support of religious organizations.
- I am for the legalization of recreational drugs.
- I am for the legalization of commercial sex.
- I am for a woman's right to choose.
- I am for comprehensive sex education.
- I am for a foreign guest worker program.
- I am for a universal flat tax on EVERYONE'S income.
- I am for health INSURANCE reform.
- I am for health JUSTICE reform.

I am a member of the Libertarian Party, registered as an Independent.

[Jackson]

Surely you jest. There are no Republicans on this board, only 'Libertarians.

That's because in the view of many fiscally conservative members of this forum the Republican Party is on the wrong side of a number of social issues including recreational drugs, contractual sex, right to choose, etc.

Thus if you are fiscally conservative but socially liberal, you have embraced the basic tenants of the Libertarian philosophy.

Thanks,

Jax.

==============================================

For the record, I am NOT a Republican, and I am NOT a conservative.

- I am against the death penalty.
- I am against any government support of religious organizations.
- I am for the legalization of recreational drugs.
- I am for the legalization of commercial sex.
- I am for a woman's right to choose.
- I am for comprehensive sex education.
- I am for a foreign guest worker program.
- I am for a universal flat tax on EVERYONE'S income.
- I am for health INSURANCE reform.
- I am for health JUSTICE reform.

I am a member of the Libertarian Party, registered as an Independent.

[Jackson]

Bondholders don't have equity. They are creditors. And THAT is a fact.

And as creditors, they were in line before any stockholders to be repaid from any equity that may have remained after a legal bankrupacy, and THAT is a fact.

In this case, the Obama administration ignored the country's bankrupacy laws and instead gave $25 billion in GM stock to the UAW while simultaneously telling the legitimate GM bondholders to go pound sand, and THAT is a fact.

Of course, the most important thing to liberals is that we're not talking about the ObamaCare diaster!

[El Queso]

From the NY Times, Timothy Egan, November 21,2013.(selected).

"The South is once again committed to take a backward path. By refusing to expand health care to the working poor through Medicaid, most of the Confederacy is keeping millions of its own citizens in poverty and poor health. They are dooming themselves further, as the Left Behind States.

And they are doing it out spite(can you believe that, just because of Obama). Most of the South is defiant--their own Lost Cause of the 21st century.

And so the South continue their incestous and self destructive ways. In a world of their own making. But there will be an awakening one day, hope it won't be too late.

That sounds a lot to me more like a passive-aggressive way of saying "you're either with us or against us", much like a lot of progressives accused Bush of when he was inciting war with Iraq. God forbid should people have their own reasons for doing things without all the guilt-tripping that goes along with it. On either side.

I'm sure they are doing all that "just to spite Obama."

[Rock Harders]

Mongers-.

The clock is ticking for Jackson and his slithery fascist brethren.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-1...ety-frays.html

[Dickhead]

Notice how Republicans never cite their own poll numbers, which are absolutely in the toilet. Lower than approval ratings for Congressional Democrats, and less than half of Obama.

Surely you jest. There are no Republicans on this board, only 'Libertarians.

[Esten]

Notice how Republicans never cite their own poll numbers, which are absolutely in the toilet. Lower than approval ratings for Congressional Democrats, and less than half of Obama.

[Dickhead]

Of course, Obama wouldn't have had the opportunity to strip the GM bondholders of their equity

Bondholders don't have equity. They are creditors. And THAT is a fact.

[Punter 127]

The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Friday shows that 45% of Likely U.S. Voters approve of President Obama's job performance. Fifty-four percent (54%) disapprove.

The latest figures include 22% who Strongly Approve of the way Obama is performing as president and 44% who Strongly Disapprove. This gives him a Presidential Approval Index rating of -22.

The only thing dropping faster than Obamas poll numbers is the number of insured people.

[Rev BS]

From the NY Times, Timothy Egan, November 21,2013.(selected).

"The South is once again committed to take a backward path. By refusing to expand health care to the working poor through Medicaid, most of the Confederacy is keeping millions of its own citizens in poverty and poor health. They are dooming themselves further, as the Left Behind States.

And they are doing it out spite(can you believe that, just because of Obama). Most of the South is defiant--their own Lost Cause of the 21st century.

And so the South continue their incestous and self destructive ways. In a world of their own making. But there will be an awakening one day, hope it won't be too late.

[El Queso]

You are the only one here lacking facts; you are speculating about what a possible outcome MIGHT have been and have no actual empirical evidence to back up anything you are claiming. The FACT is that both GM and Chrysler were BANKRUPT, were saved from liquidation (meaning EXISTING jobs and EXISTING factories continued to EXIST) and today are earning BILLIONS. The most likely outcome of allowing GM and Chrysler to implode is that Japanese automakers would have absorbed the additional demand for cars through their own factories and employees. Regarding what was "legally correct", the entire TARP program was with no precedent and on dubious legal ground before it was invented on the fly and implemented to stop the US economy from grinding to a halt.

Far from being a right-wing fascist myself, I am rather a true Libertarian who has some grounding in a whole lot of activities ranging from ditch digging to designing / drafting buildings, to erecting large buildings as a superintendent, to being a programmer, to managing software development for the world's largest offshore drilling company and finally running my own businesses, and having had a failure am in the middle of rebuilding. For the last few years I have been studying economic concepts of both the Austrian and Keynesian schools. While not a highly-learned student of economics, I do see in this point about the distribution of resources what seems to me to be a typical misunderstanding of what all this means.

If there is a demand for something, the resources WILL be recovered in some fashion. This isn't some might-have-been; even Keynesians believe this to some extent, they simply think it's a good idea to encourage the economy to do it quicker than natural, and in the direction they want (which, of course, almost always leads to bubbles).

Austrians believe that you will always pay for your tampering of the market. They believe that the resources will be naturally recovered and redistributed by market forces and less damage will be done as a result, both because an artificial bubble made by politician's whimsical desires doesn't lead a lot of consumers or investors into the wrong sort of thing (I.e., reduces risk to begin with) and doesn't leave the economy weak as a result of messing with chaotic forces that no one has yet been able to predict and really plan for, limiting future growth until everything is in harmony again.

The reason free market believers have problems with bailing out private industry is because it is only making a bad position worse and will never get better. The auto-industry has been hampered long past necessity by unions. The demands made by collective bargaining have distorted that market in the US and made it very vulnerable to competition from the outside. There are certainly other issues, such as bad management and in some cases bad quality, etc. But at the end of the day, the government propping up private industry is doing nothing but taking money from the economy and using it to continue to prop up bad business and keep resources locked up in poorly-performing economic situations.

If the businesses failed, they would certainly have been redistributed back into the economy and eventually recovered. No might-have-been. I don't think any real economists actually doubt that. But the problem is, those resources may not have been redistributed back into Detroit and other places that have high labor and other costs due to the high influence of collective bargaining. That is where everyone freaks out. My god, all those people may not have had jobs!

But it was their choice! In this day and age, collective bargaining is ridiculous. A job is worth what a job is worth. I don't have a problem if a particular state has a belief that collective bargaining is cool and gets great salaries, but don't expect me, as a taxpayer, to want to contribute to that because the only way they can survive long term with ridiculous salaries and benefits is for the government to help them out at some point. It's not my problem that in my opinion they are way overpaid, and how dare anyone tell me that I should support their artificially-high prices.

If the resources are released and Japanese and German automakers want to by up tools and equipment and other such things and move to other states where collective bargaining is not a problem (considering that foreign automakers already have a number of factories in the US, I can't imagine why they would try to export cars at a higher price than consumers want to pay), I say more power to them. The people in other states will get the benefit of the new jobs, I won't have to bail out a bunch of people who think they are entitled to artificial wage rates, and maybe it will force those people where the jobs were to innovate in some fashion to bring jobs back into their state instead of depending on the other taxpayers of the same country to keep them in their little idealic fantasy.

Let the resources go to those who deserve them by taking care of the resources and increasing their value by using labor and the ingenuity of those workers and not expecting everyone else to suffer for their artificially high demands.

Unfortunately, propping them up has extended the problem and it will just get even worse the next time.

Propping up ANYTHING (be it banks, Wall Street, the auto industry, or the restaurant around the corner) is doing nothing more than delaying the problem.

I think politicians should adopt an item from the Hippocratic Oath: First, do no harm.

Don't just read the words, understand why the Hippocratic Oath contains those words and how they apply to a doctor meddling with his patient.