Obama Discussion Thread

[Deanh]

This HC issue is causing people to wakeup!

dont you mean CH for Crowd Hysteria???? sincerely though Nap...all sniping aside, I do hope you are wrong.....

[RangerM]

dont you mean CH for Crowd Hysteria???? sincerely though Nap...all sniping aside, I do hope you are wrong.....

Actually I don't believe he is, Deanh. {I'm repeating another post I made}

Most Americans are looking at their personal (health insurance) situation, and although it may not be perfect, they're generally satisfied with it.

 

Then they hear what would appear to be an obvious fallacy; that you can cover more people, spend less money doing it, and improve everyone's healthcare. That falls under the "too good to be true" category, and given the level of apparent secrecy, that being NOONE seems to have a clue what any of the miriad of "bills" floating around actually says, most are left with a feeling of "I've got a lot to lose in this", and reject what they're being told.

 

Obviously for those who favor a "single-payer" system (regardless of whether the bill actually IS single-payer), ANY form or "reform" that provides a greater degree of government involvement is one step closer to achieving that goal. It scares the hell out of those of us who believe the ultimate endpoint of government involvement is "single-payer", and therefore "single-decider" or "single-rationer".

 

Put simply, the question is "What's in it for me", and when the average (insured) American looks at the fatso on one side, and the chain smoker on the other, the answer is "nothing to gain and everything to lose".

It's that "everything to lose" part that has many people so animated.

Edited August 13, 2009 by RangerM

[Deanh]

Actually I don't believe he is, Deanh. {I'm repeating another post I made}

 

It's that "everything to lose" part that has many people so animated.

call me naive...Nap calls me other names, and not as nice....but I have faith the people making the final decisions are quite familiar with the issues strengths and weakness's. People naturally repel and fear change ( hell i will fess to being a creature of habit ) and the media continually fuels the fires, holy crap, look at how they reported Wall Street, bailouts and even michael Jackson...one has to weed through the BS to find anything of a positive note...quite sickening really we get so wrapped up in the gossip, negativity and sensationalism....my hope is THIS issue is in the hands of the correct people that know more than anyone here posting that have drawn THEIR conclusion from a steaming pile of festering news articles.....

Edited August 14, 2009 by Deanh

[xr7g428]

Dean, I spent an hour and a half in my Congressman's office talking to his Energy Adviser. She was very courteous, but absolutely knew nothing about the basics of energy. She did not know what a hydrocarbon was made of. She did not know how much energy was in a gallon of gas in comparison with a kilowatt of electricity. She had not the slightest idea of how much coal is equal to a gallon of gas, or how much coal you had to burn to generate a kilowatt of electricity. She was clueless about the cost per kilowatt of wind versus solar. No technical knowledge at all. The only thing she knew was that we should all grow our food locally. But she didn't really know why. And in this congressman's office, she passes as the expert. I pray that there is a lobbiest or two that can educate the girl just a little bit. Oh, she is all for cap and trade. cuz uno, co2 is bad.

[RangerM]

call me naive...Nap calls me other names, and not as nice....but I have faith the people making the final decisions are quite familiar with the issues strengths and weakness's. People naturally repel and fear change ( hell i will fess to being a creature of habit ) and the media continually fuels the fires, holy crap, look at how they reported Wall Street, bailouts and even michael Jackson...one has to weed through the BS to find anything of a positive note...quite sickening really we get so wrapped up in the gossip, negativity and sensationalism....my hope is THIS issue is in the hands of the correct people that know more than anyone here posting that have drawn THEIR conclusion from a steaming pile of festering news articles.....

What choice do the people have, BUT to listen to what the newsies are saying?

 

You have a House Bill 3200 (easily obtainable on the internet), in which many pundits have found some questionable things (to say the least); going so far as to quote passages, and the pages where they can be found.

 

Next you have different "mini-Bills" floating around various House subcommittees. You have nearly every democratic politician (up to and including the President) who say, "There is no Bill". But you know that isn't true, because there is that H.R. 3200 again.

 

. (Video link)

 

Basically, what you have is a failure of leadership. And in the absence of leadership, many people will seek it until they find it.

Edited August 14, 2009 by RangerM

[Ralph Greene]

In my above posts....you're read where I said I'm all in favor of HC reform....and that's true. But that doesn't necessarily mean I want HC provided by the government. I just think now our system isn't working very well for too many folks. The costs of the un insured fall unfairly on the insured, and the costs of state medicade systems fall unfairly on the citizens of the states in the form of higher real estate and sales taxes. The extreme costs of catastrophic illness is wiping out too many households, and the pricing structure of HC in this country with insurance companies paying one amount and those without insurance or the self insured paying (or being billed anyway) 3-4 times that amount is nuts.

 

To me....what would make the most sense...is for government to do what it does best...basically stay out of it except as a last resort. Instead of spending all this federal money on a single payer system, or a private option, or even the current system....I would prefer the federal government (since they seem to want to be involved) to solely provide catastrophic health insurance (maybe free) that kicks in maybe when a family's yearly costs reach a certain level....maybe $100,000 or so, and then allow private companies to provide HC coverage up to that amount and compete for the business. That should lower HC premiuns a lot for individuals, and have the government only doing what it does best...which to me is the government is only efficient doing what private business can't do. If insurance companies knew their maximun exposure to risk was a certain amount, they could more closely price their products to the risk. The government should spend less because they would be out of the day to day health care business, where they are extremely inefficient.

 

Anyway....that's my solution for a government that seems to want to get involved. I know some of you want the government out of the HC business....but that ain't happening.

Edited August 14, 2009 by Ralph Greene

[fmccap]

Watching Obama Morph Into Dick Cheney

[fmccap]

QUOTE

QUOTE (Mark B. Morrow

 

And you know the future how?

 

 

The Dow is on its way back toward 10,000. Financial companies and banks are starting to show profits again. That is a long way back from impending bankruptcy.

 

Spinning the Economic News

By spinning the financial news, the appearance of recovery is created, and this lures people back into the stock and real-estate markets where they can lose the remainder of their wealth.

[DUCKRACER]

Spinning the Economic News

 

I agree with you, fmccap. BO is spinning another lie.

 

HOWEVER. If MBM believes it, he should keep drinking the Kool-Aid and demand that the remainder of TARP and stimulus money should be returned to the treasury to be used to buy down the deficit.

 

After all, if he really believes that BO has turned the economy around. why not?

[sprinter]

The Lies and CORRUPTION continue involving the same players during the Bush administration. Until all of these people are removed, the American middle class will continue toward destruction. Where is the CHANGE Obama supporters? Have you wakened up with the realization that you have been duped?

 

Glenn Beck: What the Media Refuses to Tell You About Rahm Emanuel

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NixpfLAMQhU

 

 

JOHN PILGER: OBAMA IS A CORPORATE MARKETING CREATION

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C62KAmMzu0E

 

 

Internal Memo Confirms Big Giveaways In White House Deal With Big Pharma

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/08/13/i...i_n_258285.html

[Mark B. Morrow]

I agree with you, fmccap. BO is spinning another lie.

 

HOWEVER. If MBM believes it, he should keep drinking the Kool-Aid and demand that the remainder of TARP and stimulus money should be returned to the treasury to be used to buy down the deficit.

 

After all, if he really believes that BO has turned the economy around. why not?

 

 

Funny, I didn't say Obama has turned the econony around. In fact I did note that much of the work done last fall to keep everything from imploding was done by W and his guys. What I did say is that things are starting to move in the right direction. Things have to get less bad before that get to good.

 

fmccap and others seem to be just fine with the idea of doing nothing and letting everything go straight to hell. Try to imagine where we would be now if both GM and Chrysler went bankrupt last December. What do you think that would have done to Ford's supplier base. You may not like the stimulus plan, but I think history will show it was too small not too big. If the major financial institutuins had gone under where would the credit market be now. It is interesting to me that people whose plan was do nothing are so critical of the signs that they were wrong.

[napfirst]

Funny, I didn't say Obama has turned the econony around. In fact I did note that much of the work done last fall to keep everything from imploding was done by W and his guys. What I did say is that things are starting to move in the right direction. Things have to get less bad before that get to good.

 

fmccap and others seem to be just fine with the idea of doing nothing and letting everything go straight to hell. Try to imagine where we would be now if both GM and Chrysler went bankrupt last December. What do you think that would have done to Ford's supplier base. You may not like the stimulus plan, but I think history will show it was too small not too big. If the major financial institutuins had gone under where would the credit market be now. It is interesting to me that people whose plan was do nothing are so critical of the signs that they were wrong.

Govt. spending has never brought us out of a recession...what makes you think it will now.....?

[Mark B. Morrow]

Govt. spending has never brought us out of a recession...what makes you think it will now.....?

 

 

Several Nobel Prize winning economists and the Chairman of the Fed.

[suv_guy_19]

It seems to have brought France, Germany and apparently us (though not yet official) out of recession.

Edited August 17, 2009 by suv_guy_19

[stephenhawkings]

Govt. spending has never brought us out of a recession...what makes you think it will now.....?

well the recession has to end eventually, and if it does after gov. spending then you have the evidence! or coincidence!

[macattak1]

well the recession has to end eventually, and if it does after gov. spending then you have the evidence! or coincidence!

 

Women get 95% of breast cancer.

95% of women wear a braw.

 

Thus, braws cause breast cancer AND 5% of men wear braws?

 

Peace and Blessings

[napfirst]

Several Nobel Prize winning economists and the Chairman of the Fed.

when did it work before?

[grbeck]

GM and Chrysler have been through bankruptcy without taking down the whole U.S. auto industry and Ford (credit which must be shared with W), The financial markets have averted a complete meltdown and are now moving back up (Dow @ 9300), we are wraping up in Iraq and moving forward in Afghanistan, The Russians are giving us flyover rights to supply our troops and the Chinese are putting more pressure on North Korea, We are using Diplomacy again instead of threats and bribes. America is more respected in the world as a good friend to have.

 

Despite some mis-steps things are moving in the right direction. Overall I'm pleased with him so far.

 

Only problem is that, so far, most of those initiatives were started by Bush. We can only begin to think about "wrapping up" Iraq, for example, because the heavy lifting was done during the Bush Administration. It was the Bush Administration that prevented the complete meltdown of the financial markets with its actions of last fall, including the much-criticized assistance to AIG, etc.

 

And both GM and Chrysler are from out of the woods. One problem I see with GM - ironically, in view of the wailing over the (deserved) sacking of Rick Wagoner and the (necessary) euthanasia of Pontiac and divestiture of Saturn - is that not enough changes were forced by the Adminstration when it had the chance to do so. No one was fired for the corporation's product misfires, or failure to define its brands. The UAW can pretend that it's still business as usual.

 

The product plans of the "new" GM have been laid out in detail on other sites, and let's just say that the new GM and the old GM don't look all that much different. Nor do the old and the new look that different when one examines the statements of its respective executive teams. There has been no real culture change - either in the union hall, or in the executive suites - and that is what GM needed more than anything.

 

Ironically, handing off Chrysler to the Italians may be the better strategy here, as the Italians look to be really cleaning out the rot of the old Chrysler.

[Mark B. Morrow]

Only problem is that, so far, most of those initiatives were started by Bush. We can only begin to think about "wrapping up" Iraq, for example, because the heavy lifting was done during the Bush Administration. It was the Bush Administration that prevented the complete meltdown of the financial markets with its actions of last fall, including the much-criticized assistance to AIG, etc.

 

And both GM and Chrysler are from out of the woods. One problem I see with GM - ironically, in view of the wailing over the (deserved) sacking of Rick Wagoner and the (necessary) euthanasia of Pontiac and divestiture of Saturn - is that not enough changes were forced by the Adminstration when it had the chance to do so. No one was fired for the corporation's product misfires, or failure to define its brands. The UAW can pretend that it's still business as usual.

 

The product plans of the "new" GM have been laid out in detail on other sites, and let's just say that the new GM and the old GM don't look all that much different. Nor do the old and the new look that different when one examines the statements of its respective executive teams. There has been no real culture change - either in the union hall, or in the executive suites - and that is what GM needed more than anything.

 

Ironically, handing off Chrysler to the Italians may be the better strategy here, as the Italians look to be really cleaning out the rot of the old Chrysler.

 

I agree with you Grbeck on the credit to W for starting the recovery process. Of course this stuff happened after 7 years of his policies. The problem with people who criticize Obama for not having everything fixed after 7 1/2 months is that they don't criticize W for being responsible for the mess in the first place. We are winding down in Iraq because W took us there in the first place when we should have been doing the job in Afghanistan. We are getting more cooperation from Russia and China now.

 

I have no problem with Wagoner's removal as the price for continued government support. If he had been doing his job GM would never have had to beg for funding. I hope Fiat can do better with Chrysler than Daimler did. It is certainly clear that Cerberus was ill equipped to run Chrysler as a long term owner.

 

As I pointed out, things would be much worse off without the orderly bankruptcy of GM and Chrysler. The "do nothing" crowd has no answers. They just don't like Obama. They have yet to state how things would be better with McCain in office.

[DUCKRACER]

well the recession has to end eventually, and if it does after gov. spending then you have the evidence! or coincidence!

 

Wrong. Recessions go in cycles. The economy will recover on its own. BO will take credit when in fact, he has lengthened it by running up the deficiet.

[grbeck]

I agree with you Grbeck on the credit to W for starting the recovery process. Of course this stuff happened after 7 years of his policies. The problem with people who criticize Obama for not having everything fixed after 7 1/2 months is that they don't criticize W for being responsible for the mess in the first place. We are winding down in Iraq because W took us there in the first place when we should have been doing the job in Afghanistan. We are getting more cooperation from Russia and China now.

 

I have no problem with Wagoner's removal as the price for continued government support. If he had been doing his job GM would never have had to beg for funding. I hope Fiat can do better with Chrysler than Daimler did. It is certainly clear that Cerberus was ill equipped to run Chrysler as a long term owner.

 

As I pointed out, things would be much worse off without the orderly bankruptcy of GM and Chrysler. The "do nothing" crowd has no answers. They just don't like Obama. They have yet to state how things would be better with McCain in office.

 

At this point, it looks as though Iraq is stable, so, in the end, we may have planted a democracy in the Middle East. Whether it is our business to do this is a discussion that neither side really wants to have, because President Obama certainly isn't going to hem himself in to the extent that the hard left wants (and Hillary Clinton favors a more activist foreign policy, in the tradition of progressives dating back to the early 20th century).

 

I doubt that John McCain's actions would have been drastically different than President Obama's in regard to GM and Chrysler. He wouldn't have let them simply collapse - he was never a pure free-market believer. He may have delivered terms less favorable to the UAW and more favorable to stockholders, but this is more of a debate about whose ox ends up being gored, not whether to rescue the companies in the first place. McCain also may not have been quite as aggressive with the dealer cull.

 

I have the feeling that Wagoner would have ended up leaving regardless of which party won in November. Like Ricardo at Chrysler in the 1970s, he was identified with the old regime, and thus had little, if any credibility. Couple that with his disastrous performance before Congress in December, and lots of people just wanted him "gone" by the time the rescue was necessary, just to get him out of the picture. He was the equivalent of the Chevette by 1980 - he was old, tired, worn-out, not up to the job and people were just sick of looking at him.

 

Lutz should have been canned, too, but I doubt that McCain would have forced that issue, either. I also doubt that McCain would have been any more aggressive in eliminating brands, or forcing cultural change on GM. The new GM will still have three versions of the small SUV (Equinox, Terrain, etc.) and several Epsilon sedans (Malibu, LaCrosse, new Regal), all of which will compete as much with each other as with Honda, Toyota, Hyundai and Ford. I doubt that McCain's team would have had sufficient experience with automotive branding and marketing to realize that this is a continuation of the problem that plagued the old GM.

 

We probably still would have ended up with a "rescued and restructured" GM and Chrysler under McCain, but without any more concrete guarantee of the long-term viability of either one.

Edited August 17, 2009 by grbeck

[napfirst]

Where are the promised jobs?

 

 

Job Market Could Lag Behind for Years, Study Forecasts

 

Even as the economy shows signs of modest improvement, a new report projects that the job market could take years to recover from the beating it's taken during the recession.

 

An assessment by an economist and a researcher at the Federal Reserve Bank in Kansas City paints a grim picture of the country's economic future.

 

Link

[V8 Ford]

Several Nobel Prize winning economists and the Chairman of the Fed.

I'd be very interested to see how they support this. Half of Bernenke's job is to put a smiley face on economic conditions, so I can understand it from him. The literature put out by the administration that suggests a stimulus effect from spending uses a Closed Economy model; IE, it's crap since the real world (Open Economy) isn't affected by government spending.

 

The bailout of the auto companies was a waste of time and money: they went bankrupt anyway. The effect on suppliers won't be felt until October when all the plants get shut down.

 

The bailout of financial institutions probably would have been necessary 50 years ago. The effects from before the bailout were a lot less than would have been expected- I suspect that computerized transactions minimized the damage. Since the bailout already happened there's no way to tell it's effects without tons of data I don't have.

 

Bush didn't do anything to destroy the economy and Obama isn't doing much to stimulate it. The biggest effect they both had was racking up national debt and Obama's doing his best to outdo Bush by the time his first term ends

 

well the recession has to end eventually, and if it does after gov. spending then you have the evidence! or coincidence!

The only evidence of government spending affecting output is WWII, and it still has no bearing on the current economy. Labor Supply increased in WWII because people that never would have been working before (Rosie the Riveter) joined the war effort. That increases output regardless of government spending and won't happen today. The other problem is that the US Economy in WWII can't be described as an Open Economy. Uncertainty about the War and massive debts racked up by the government prevented foreigners from buying US bonds (which is why the US had to run massive war bonds campaigns). When that happens, you no longer live in an Open Economy and Government Spending can increase output.

[fmccap]

Several Nobel Prize winning economists and the Chairman of the Fed.

And who may these economists be?

 

LOL, the FED chairman, LOL, you are joking right?

Bernanke is a Total Failure Unsuited for Role as Fed Chairman

Ten Qualifications

 

1) Bernanke is either a liar or has a memory problem. I believe the former. Either way, there is a problem when a Fed chairman cannot recall a conversation with another Fed governor over something as critical as the Bank of America/Merrill Lynch merger. See Bernanke Suffers From Selective Memory Loss; Paulson Calls Bank of America "Turd in the Punchbowl" for my take.

 

2) Bernanke claims to be a student of the great depression yet amazingly concludes the cause was misguided Fed policy after the stock market crash. This is nonsense. The cause of the great depression and the cause of the current depression (yes we are in a depression), is the massive expansion of credit and debt fostered by the Fed itself. Bernanke is no student of history, he is a dunce.

 

3) Bernanke has on many occasions promised transparency. This is an outright lie. There is no transparency and Bloomberg has filed freedom of information lawsuits requesting information that should have been disclosed. Moreover, Congress had to subpoena the Fed in regards to the Bank of America / Merrill Lynch shotgun wedding which is how we know about Bernanke's selective memory loss. What else is Bernanke hiding?

 

4) Bernanke is creative. Some might think creativity is a positive attribute. It is, for a design engineer. Unfortunately creativity is not a good attribute for a Fed chairman. This whole mess was sponsored by the Fed when Greenspan got creative with interest rate policy. Bernanke is light-years more creative than Greenspan as witnessed by an amazing array of Fed lending facilities and the ballooning of the Fed's balance sheet swapped for garbage collateral. The unintended consequences of Bernanke's extraordinary actions are coming down the road. We do not even know what those consequences are. However, we do know that the Fed has no exit policy, and will come up with one by the seat of Bernanke's pants on the fly. Given there is no need for the Fed at all, the last thing we need is for a creative Fed.

 

5) Bernanke supports policies of theft. Proof of this is easy to establish. Bernanke favors a policy of 2% inflation, and inflation is theft. How so? Inflation benefits those with first access to money: governments, banks, and the wealthy. Government benefits when property taxes rise more than wages, banks benefit by borrowing money into existence, and the already wealthy benefit by being next in line for access to cheap money. By the time those low on the totem pole have access to cheap money, asset prices are already through the moon. Moreover, those with enough common sense to avoid the bubbles, get nothing for their money sitting in the bank. The middle class has been ravished by inflation, and Bernanke supports that inflation.

 

Please note that Bernanke cannot even follow his own mandate. Where was Bernanke when property and commodity prices were soaring? The answer is he was ignoring them. Thus we see the one sided nature of Bernanke's policies. He let home prices soar, and now that they are crashing looks to support them. By the way, this is not just Bernanke, this is a symptom of central bankers in general.

 

6) Bernanke cannot dissent. As a member of the Greenspan Fed, Bernanke went along with everything Greenspan did. It is clear Greenspan failed. Thus it is clear that Bernanke failed by supporting Greenspan's policies.

 

7) Bernanke supports policies of outright fraud. Fractional reserve lending is a fraud. Please consider Murray N. Rothbard and the Case for a 100 Percent Gold Dollar in which Rothbard condemned fractional reserve banking as a violation of contract. "In my view, issuing promises to pay on demand in excess of the amount of the goods on hand is simply fraud, and should be so considered by the legal system. For this means that a bank issues "fake" warehouse receipts — warehouse receipts, for example, for ounces of gold that do not actually exist in the vaults. This is legalized counterfeiting; this is the creation of money without the necessity of production, to compete for resources against those who have produced. In short, I believe that fractional-reserve banking is disastrous both for the morality and for the fundamental bases and institutions of the market economy...."

 

8) Bernanke could not spot the housing bubble. Amazingly Bernanke thought the housing bubble was "well contained" right before it exploded in his face. Of course there is another possibility: Bernanke is a liar and knew it was not contained but did not want to say so.

 

9) Bernanke has no idea where interest rates should be. Of course no one else does either. But Bernanke thinks he does. The result is overshooting interest rate policy in both directions, just as Greenspan did. This is the Fed Uncertainty Principle Corollary Number One in action: The Fed has no idea where interest rates should be. Only a free market does. The Fed will be disingenuous about what it knows (nothing of use) and doesn't know (much more than it wants to admit), particularly in times of economic stress.

 

10) Bernanke is a power grabbing hack. This is the Fed Uncertainty Principle Corollary Number Two in action: The government/quasi-government body most responsible for creating this mess (the Fed), will attempt a big power grab, purportedly to fix whatever problems it creates. The bigger the mess it creates, the more power it will attempt to grab. Over time this leads to dangerously concentrated power into the hands of those who have already proven they do not know what they are doing.

 

Summary:

 

Bernanke is a disingenuous liar with a memory problem. He is also an economic dunce who does not understand the cause of great depression nor could he spot a housing/credit bubble visible to nearly every blogger in the country. However, like his mentor Greenspan, Bernanke believes that every problem can be cured by throwing money at it. Finally, he is a creative, political power grabbing hack who gives memorable speeches about throwing money out of helicopters.

 

I have to hand it to Caroline. That is indeed a unique set of qualifications.

 

Bernanke’s four-year term ends in February, let us hope he is gone. Better yet, it's time to Audit the Fed Then End It!

Edited August 18, 2009 by fmccap

[Mark B. Morrow]

Mish's again? Come on fmccap, that nutjob has less credibility than Glenn Beck.

 

Bernanke's re-appointment to the fed has been supported by anyone who matters.

 

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122660195494825105.html