You do know that the position that government stimulus did nothing against the great depression but WWII did is internally inconsistent, don't you?

Well, besides not being supported by evidence (the evidence that is there suggests that New Deal programs weren't as big as claimed, and did help), there is the fact that from an economic perspective WWII was nothing more than government stimulus.

Besides, government "stimulus" wasn't invented in 1929. The US did plenty of it beforehand. Just look at the history of American railroads. Heck, most of the early American corporations were public-private corporations created to build canals, railroads and so on.

No.

The Panic of 1893 is similar to this recession in some ways:

Panic of 1893 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I think there are lessons that are to be learned. One lesson is

Looks like government wanted to bailout an industry the bailout failed and perhaps made things worse. There are other lessons as well.
-----Added 10/2/2009 at 12 : 43 : 24-----
I often share my conclusions with you folks. I don't have much interest in getting too detailed here because of the lack of serious discourse. I mostly like to do short "hit and run" type posts. If we ever wanted to seriously discuss an issue, I am game. What's your excuse?
-----Added 10/2/2009 at 12 : 50 : 11-----
Yes. I communicating in platitudes. But I think most get the point.

What are we talk'n here 90/10, 80/20, 99.999/.0001 private sector to government.

Rail transport in the United States - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I suppose some would give all the credit to government since the government passed legislation that allowed the industry to grow. I guess that's fair.

Do you know how the US got out of the 1893 recession? I could point you to academic articles, but wikipedia has it right there: a gold rush. Unless you think a gold rush is coming soon, then we're in for a long depression. Besides, the point is not that only governments can fix recessions, but that only government action can speed up their recovery.

Oh, and I guess you didnt read the entries for the other recessions, huh?

And I would love to see you back your claims. Even conservatives like Ben Bernanke and Milton Friedman blame a failure to properly stimulate the economy as the cause of the great depression. Of course, they dont think very highly of expansionary fiscal policy (though Bernanke has changed his tune) but they think what transformed a recession into a depression was a monetary policy that wasnt expansive enough. Well, right now we are at 0% interest rate. There is nothing more that monetary policy can do. And we are still going downhill, fast.

There is no inherent value on constant government surpluses. In fact, they'd be a bad thing, taking money away from the economy. Governments should also save for a rainy day and spend when that rainy day gets here. Unfortunately, Bush didnt save anything. In fact, he went on the greatest debt expansion during an economic recovery in history, which in turn only fed the bubble. Now, however, is not the time to turn off the faucets. Instead, it is time to really spend (but spend smart) and hope that once the recovery gets going Obama and congress are smart enough to become fiscally conservative.

Oh, and you are reading wikipedia wrong. Most railroads were privately built, but were funded with municipal bonds and supported via added legislation. Most of the early railroad company were chartered by legislation, were partially owned by the municipal or state government that chartered it, and were exempted of taxes.

you know, ace, this kind of dilletante nonsense doesn't help your case, either in particular or in general.

for a stodgy old, but comprehensive, account of 1893, have a look at this:

# Unemployment, Unrest, and Relief in the United States during the Depression of 1893-97
# Samuel Rezneck
# The Journal of Political Economy, Vol. 61, No. 4 (Aug., 1953), pp. 324-345

if you have access to jstor, it's there. if you dont, email me and i can send you a copy. i'll save it, just in case.

basically, dippin's right.
the reason the gold rush was such a big deal had to do with the monetary system of the time, which was fundamentally different than it is now. as is most everything else.

the main parallel between then and now has to do with the difficulty the american state has in formulating coherent responses to depression.

but that's it.
there's no there there, ace.

A bit off track (so to speak), but...

didnt the government use (dk would probably say abused) the power of eminent domain to the benefit of private railroads and their stockholders?

yes. just as with the limited liability provisions instituted in those charters.

A fair bit, I would say. If one had a great big house with an olympic size pool, 5 car garage and 3k sq. ft guest house, I think it stands to reason that one could afford a $19k Saturn Vue and much more. And if it were a $19k Saturn Vue in said driveway, I would surmise the family as fiscally conservative republican. On the other hand, I think it would also stand to reason that if one had a $75k Jaguar XF and lived in a 2 bedroom apartment, this person would either be Sid Barrett rich and crazy, had a trust fund, engaged in money-making activities not entirely kosher, or lived paycheck to paycheck making $1000/month car payments and raising his family on Spam. Note this isn't a judgement upon their humanity.

I used to live next door to a guy who owned a (one) corner pizza joint. This was in a middle class neighborhood where most of the houses were one story built in the 50s, so most were around $150k. While everyone else in the neighboorhood drove mostly american and swedish midsize beaters, this guy drove a new Porsche 997 Carrera every year, his wife had a new Chevy Suburban Family Transportation Road Behemoth, they had a garage-full of Harley Davidson motorcycles, a 25' fishing boat that he parked on his front lawn (lowering property values imo), added an entire second story to his house (raising property values back up a little) and moved his wife's entire extended family from Mexico into his house. This is in Detroit, not Houston. Oh, the glorious smell of bbq'd chorizo. I was saddened when they moved away.

Point being: while his pizzas were good, they weren't that good.

I just went ahead and applied this to every word you wrote.

I really don't understand why, "Oh yeah, well I know a guy who..." is considered a reasoned argument around here.

I guess the economy just has me a bit jumpy...I look back and episodes like the above return to memory and serve as reminders to save up even more and not live above my means.

as touching as these quaint tales have been powerclown, how about we move on to things that might be actually relevant?

Okay, well, I'd say that's an appropriate use of anecdotal evidence. To prod one's self into taking actions one wants to take--which is basically an emotional process anyway.

We get into serious trouble when we start painting the world the color our perceptions provide, though. You find yourself holding a hammer and surrounded by nails, and forget that the hammer AND the nails are a figment of your imagination. Not that, as human beings, we can avoid doing that to some extent, but sometimes we can wake up and notice we're doing it, you know?

The wing nuts are bringing out all the big guns to spread the word about Obama's dangerous economic stimulus package.

Limbaugh....it is a bill to socialize medicine and allow the government taking over your life!
FALSE!
That "new bureaucracy" that will take over your life, the National Coordinator of Health Information Technology, already exists. It was created by Bush.

Mike Huckabee (and Pat Robertson)...it is anti-religion!
FALSE!
The standard language in the bill simply blocks spending for on-campus buildings that are used primarily for religion (like a chapel, for example). This same language has been part of education spending bills for 46 years. It's just the law, and it's never been controversial.

March on, wing nuts! Keep throwing crap and see what sticks! Continue to be part of the problem rather than contribute to a solution!

The thing that scares the hell out of the right wingers right now is that, unlike Clinton, Obama doesn't seem to be one to fold to the pressure of the "conservative" (I will forever enclose that word in quotes, because they're anything but) way of doing business. If he succeeds, they're terrified that people will wake up and understand that the neo-con economic model of "give everything to the rich and things will be perfect!" is exactly that - a con.



They don't realize that this has already happened.

As it relates to our current economic condition my point is that government spending did not trigger the recovery from the 1893 depression. In the case of the gold rush, that was a trigger. When you look at most economic recoveries we can point to some kind of "trigger" that is not government spending. If you give government the credit for the "gold rush", I can see how we differ on this point.
-----Added 11/2/2009 at 11 : 15 : 09-----
I think the biggest impact the government can have in stimulating economic growth is through sound monetary policy, low/fair tax policy, reasonable regulation and basically staying out of the way of innovation. The recovery from the 1893 depression had nothing to do with government spending.

OBama's plan today is basically; blame Bush, spend a trillion dollars, and "hope" everything works out. They even admit they don't know when and if their plan will work, they just know they have to do something.
-----Added 11/2/2009 at 11 : 20 : 21-----
Read what I posted. One of my questions was related to what the mix was: 80/20, 90/10, etc. I acknowledged government had involvement. I even stated that it may be fair to conclude that government was responsible due to legislation passed. However, legislation is not spending.

Why do you continually set up straw-men arguments?

The fact that you insist on focusing solely on 1893, the fact that you somehow fail to understand the point of how that recession was ended by a gold rush, and the fact that you think my point has anything to do with government intervention ending that recession all point to the fruitlessness of continuing this discussion with you.

Because if you think that a recession that was cut short by an exogenous event provides the example of how to act, then we have nothing to do except pray for a big giant comet made of diamonds to fall out of the sky.

There is a reason why every responsible conservative economist supports fiscal stimulus, even if they disagree about the make up of the fiscal stimulus. They might support fiscal stimulus mostly through tax cuts, but even they support these tax coming from deficit spending.

deus ex machina is not an unreasonable expectation for folk who believe that markets are guided by an "invisible hand"---the distance between adam-smith metaphysics and a god is pretty small. so personally, i think ace referenced 1893 mostly because it is a reassuring parable concerning the past, which is reassuring in the way most such are, in that by the time the story was written, the outcomes were already in place.

contingency is scary. the present is scary. chances have to be taken without any assurance that elements x y or z will produce the desired outcomes.

most of what i read from ace is conditioned by an aversion to the present, and this not at the level of not supporting obama, but more at the level of not being able to cope with the fact of contingency, or open-endedness. it's a central appeal of most metaphysics, this emptying out of the present, replacing it with a transcendent frame that contains it yadda yadda yadda.

"solely"???

No. What we need is the next "big thing" or the next combination of "little things" to spark consumer spending. Consumer spending was up last month.

Retail Sales Rose 1% in January - WSJ.com

Business inventories dropped in December, meaning adjustments are filtering through the system.

Bloomberg.com: News

Auto manufacturers are saying they are seeing sales stabalize.

Ford, GM executives see auto sales stabilizing - Los Angeles Times

But, who am I to point these little tidbits of information out. Our President sees things getting a lot worse, and if not for spending close to a trillion dollars, the world as we know it will come to an end and we will forever be in a shrinking economy.

A tax cut is very different than spending in my view. Tax cuts have a demonstrated record of having a positive affect on economic growth.

Also, to be clear my position is not that the government should not spend money. In some cases there is a need for money to be spent by the government. The problem I have is with the pretense that the "stimulus bill" is mostly designed to spur economic growth, that is simply not true. The bill is mostly a spending bill. Obama's goal is to "save or create 4 million jobs", and to do it he wants to spend $800 billion. Doing the math that is $200,000 per job. If I had $800 billion could could promise a lot more than 4 million jobs. If you got a 10% annual return on $800 billion you could create 1.6 million jobs paying $50,000 per year on that 10% return alone. then if you actually have those people do something productive you could apply that Keynesian multiplier your favorite economist love so much.

But on an annual basis, these sales are down nearly 10% compared to January 2008. And we should mention that much of this 1% increase is due to the New Year's deep discounting we've seen as a result of the recession and the weak holiday sales. And this is after a 3% drop in December. I'd like to see the retail sector's profit reports.

BBC NEWS | Business | US retail sales unexpectedly rise
U.S. retail sales revive - International Herald Tribune
Discounting Contributes To Unexpected Increase In January Retail Sales

[/QUOTE]

Thanks.:rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes: I was feeling good all day, planning on avoiding any negative news. Are you working in the Obama administration?

No, they wouldn't have me because I'm a socialist.

Right...Obama is alone in that assessment?

Lets look at the numbers now...about 1/3 of the $790 billion is tax cuts and 2/3 or about $530 billion is spending.

So $530 billion is spending close to a trillion dollars?

Now that is fuzzy math in the best Reagan/G Bush tradition!

Can we stop comparing this recession to every other recession please? When was the last time the rate of foreclosure was this high? The rate of personal savings is the lowest it's been in years (or ever, don't remember).

I can't, in good faith, sit and tell the millions of people who have lost their jobs in the last 6 months to just sit there and wait for it all to blow over. It's a very easy POV to take when you're in no danger of losing your own job.

http://www.cleanmpg.com/photos/data/...Recessions.gif

Now, at first this one might look on par with 74 and 81. But look at it closely: in other post-ww2 recessions, at this point in the recession employment either had started to rebound (like the 1974 recession) or at least job loss was declining (that is, job loss increasing at a decreasing rate). In our current recession, job loss only started to pick up over the last 4 months. If February is anything like January (and given seasonal adjustments, it is likely to be worse), it will officially become the worst recession in 70 years.

Now, this is only looking at the employment data. If we couple that to the monetary policy data, we see how we are in such a deep mess. 1981 came about when Volcker really stepped on the breaks, significantly raising interest rates in order to reign in inflation. Once inflation was under control, it was a matter of lowering interest rates and things improved.

Currently, we are already at the dreaded liquidity trap. There is no interest rate to cut to create the rebound...

No doubt the economy is doing badly, however President Obama, as our newly elected President on a massive wave of hope and optimism, had an opportunity to help the nation focus on what is good and what is working in our economy through words alone. That is not to say that you can not work on "fixes", but President Obama words are not in the tradition of exceptional leaders like FDR, Churchill, Reagan or even a leader like MLK - who spoke about the need for change in a manner that motivated people to respond to the opportunity of making a great nation greater. It is not easy for any leader to live up to the standards set by our greatest leaders, but it is sad that President Obama has missed his first opportunity for greatness. If you have any clout in Washington, sincerely, tell the folks to stop being so negative, people outside the beltway are ready to turn the corner, focus on the future and achieve our next round of greatness.

P.S. - Don't worry I'll go back to being an a$$ tomorrow.:thumbsup:
-----Added 12/2/2009 at 04 : 58 : 48-----
Anecdotal - I own a business and after Obama's win in November, his rhetoric combined with the Democrats in Congress caused my moral as a business owner go to an all time low. I started asking myself the question - what is the point? I have updated my resume and I would even work for the government. I feel that under the current climate if I excel, I won't reap the rewards of years of sacrifice and hard work and I can simply find a 9 to 5 job with a few weeks vacation each year, a retirement plan of some type and health care. I have not been putting effort into growing my business. If I am unique, so be it. If I am one of thousands or millions, it is having an impact on the economy and more specifically jobs. In my view that explains the deep accelerating decline in employment in the past 3 months.

Except that job loss started to accelerate four months ago. That is, it started to pick up on October of last year. If we looked at weekly data, we'd come at the conclusion that things started to deteriorate quickly after september 15th.

You'd have to be pretty partisan and have unquestionable faith on the republicans to think this is caused by low morale due to Obama's win.

It's pretty laughable that anyone would think the recession is Obama's fault, considering the economy tanked long before he even got elected, much less took office. The recession is caused by a 30 year war on the middle class by greedy bastards who are already richer than God and who's only goal is to make even more money. It shouldn't have happened yet, but its timing was artificially accelerated because Bush, unlike the previous three presidents, managed to markedly intensify the attack.

"I don't care about the economy, I care about jobs" is a rather famous quote of his which not only demonstrates a profound lack of understanding of. . well. . anything, but also lends to an understanding of how we're in this mess at this time. Bush thought it was just fine if a well-paid middle class corporate worker lost her job and had to go work for Merry Maids for minimum wage. He either didn't understand or didn't care (IMO the latter, but we'll be nice and give him the benefit of the doubt) that people taking massive wage cuts meant they wouldn't be able to honor the financial commitments they had made. Add to this the fact that people were already getting risky mortgages and other bank loans (thanks not only to Bush, but to Clinton/Bush before him helping to deregulate the industry) and you have a very well-crafted financial disaster in the making.

This is actually good news for republicans. The rich elite have enough money to weather this economic storm, and with the economy in chaos, Obama and the congressional dems can't work toward any of the progressive (read: helping the majority of the country) ideas they have because they have to expend all their energy just trying to keep the country's head above water. By the time Obama gets us back on the road to financial recovery (4 years minimum, probably closer to 8) people will start listening to the "smaller government" crap that the republicans like to lie about and they'll be able to once again continue the raping and pillaging of the country's economy.

all this follows from the founding assumptions behind neoliberalism:
capital creates wealth
labor only enters the equation as a variable cost

so capital accumulation in the aggregate is all that matters.

if these basic conditions were not in place, the reorganization of the geography of production called "globalization" would have been impossible.

the lunacy of this viewpoint is self-evident, and was from the outset--and in many ways, the crisis that we are passing through now is the playing out of the implications of the shell game that was put into place in an ad hoc manner to address by not addressing the social consequences of this ideology.

It's makes sense if you believe Bush Jr. inherited 9-11.


Reagan?


Yep if you have the money to ride this out the opportunities on the other end will be f'ing great. If this causes you to loose your job, car, home you'll be damn glad at some point to work 14 hrs. a day just to get food for your family. China's screwed, cheap labor's going to be home grown in a few years.

If this gets played this right they can finally do away with the middle class altogether. That gap between the haves and the have nots will be so wide the middle will be completely empty.

Even Adam Smith recognized the necessary role of labour in generating wealth. This, before capitalism was even a word.

He fired the opening shots in the modern war on the middle class, but he wasn't able to quite get to the banking/investment regulations in the way that his successors did. That's why I didn't count him in that list, but don't think that because I didn't mention him with that specific act, that I hold him blameless. Quite the opposite.


Which explains why they were all for a bailout package that just gave free money to corporations, but don't want a bailout package that helps people get living-wage jobs.

neoliberal ideology took shape as a public phenomenon under the thatcher-reagan period. it's roots go further back--david harvey did a little book on it that's really useful in sorting this out historically. in the states, there's a linkage between hooverite republicans and neoliberalism by way of the hoover institution, which pioneered the mode of conservative thinktank operations that you saw proliferating during the 80s. reagan is a central player--rather his administration is a central player. the populist conservative movement that functioned as a political relay system and as a giant mystification of the actual implications of the ideology took shape more slowly, but was well in place by the clinton period. in theory, everyone involved in any way with any of this has alot to answer for.

what's curious still is the extent to which this period of neoliberal hegemony is still not understood for what it was.

well the bill passed the House today without a single Republican voting in favor of it, which makes one wonder why the Dems bent over backwards making concessions to them this whole time.

You know, after so many years of the Hastert Rule, I'm not feeling particularly bipartisan. I'm not real sure what it's good for, except that people seem to agree it's good.

Obama said it in early talks about this bill to a room full of Republican congresscritters: There's room on the train, and even room for a plurality of opinions. But get on the train, or get left behind. The bottom line is: we won this thing. And that trumps just about everything else you've got.

seems to me that the republicans decided to try to maintain brand identity on this by trying to maintain their fatuous old "wasteful government spending" mantra which of course refers to all state spending that does not directly benefit the patronage network that backs the republican party in the main (for example "national security" anyone?)...and the other factor seems to be some pissiness about not being able to determine more about the overall nature of this bill, which comes out in the various whining statements about "being frozen out." so the calculation is obvious: abstain, complain and hope that it fails, because the positioning is geared toward that...

it's been a long-standing republican/populist conservative tic to be incapable of distinguishing partisan interests from national interests. narcissism is the word, i believe.

It seems....that was simply the right thing to do. If you never try, you have no reason to complain something didn't happen, they tried, got rebuffed, and hopefully just go on with what needs to be done. The Republican party seems uninterested in helping the repair of what we must deal with (in no small part thanks to them), so they are quickly becoming irrelevant.

I have a lot of respect for conscientious conservatives and libertarians who stand firm on an issue out of principle. I have zero respect for the current republican party. So after 8 years where they added over 5 trillion dollars to the national debt, and over 32 trillion dollars in future government liabilities, they decide to go all out to block a measure that is 1/3 tax cuts 2/3s spending in what is likely to become officially the worst recession in 70 years? How about McCain using certain programs as talking points and examples of waste in this bill when these programs were actually a part of his own platform during the campaign?



Now, returning to the issue at hand:

Business Cycle Expansions and Contractions

Check the average duration of recessions pre and post the great depression and the appearance of Keynes.

it's pretty easy to label them as 'do nothings' when they don't go along with a plan they feel won't work. what i find amusing is that the liberals and republicans are mighty fine with wasteful spending to 'stimulate' an economy, even though it never works in the long run, just bicker about what the priorities for that wasteful spending should go to.

You forgot something. Remember that for nearly 8 years, when W was in office, they also said criticism of the sitting president during a time of war is unpatriotic. Yet Cheney, Rove, and Limbaugh, arguably the most visible and loudest voices of the Republican party have been having a wonderful time criticizing the hell out of Obama. The rest of the Republicans have failed utterly to accuse them of being un-Ameriacan. The only logical conclusion we can reach from these facts combined with their assertion, is that the Republican party is un-American.

Either that or they're a pack of lying bastards who say something different every week and expect us not to notice. . .

Well, there is a certain portion of the American populace who has a very strong psychological interest in not noticing. I mean, the Republicans Party is the only thing standing in between the collective throat of the American people and the boot of Socialism that is the Obama administration. Never mind that a solid majority of Americans elected to put that boot of Socialism in place.

No I think the republicans said burning effigies of sitting president during a time of war might be unpatriotic, or going to a foreign country and apologizing for being American might be unpatriotic, or insisting that the sitting president is the worlds biggest terrorist might be unpatriotic, or suggesting that the sitting president sent thousands of young Americans to war because he personally wanted their oil might be unpatriotic, or maybe comparing him to an ape in both looks and intelligence might be unpatriotic.

In the eyes of the screaming left, this is behavior can be summed up with one of the millions of their oh so clever bumper sticker:

"Dissent is the highest form of patriotism"

But now that the screaming left is in power, which I was sure would chill them out a lil bit, this is evidently no longer the case and real criticism gets them all worked up. I guess I can conclude that they are a pack of lying bastards who say something different every week and expect us not to notice.

"Never mind that a solid majority of Americans elected to put that boot of Socialism in place."

Yes, with the help of Shakran and his colleagues who are stunned at the suggestion that there might be some bias in the media.

Let me see if I got this straight: saying the president is a closet socialist who is making the US look like the USSR-> totally ok?

And where is this left "screaming" about criticisms to the president? Or where is the "real criticism" from republicans?

Im no democrat, but some people seem to live in make believe worlds with little resemblance to reality.

... oh yeah - just a couple other things that those crazy Amuuricin republicans (sorry if that's misspelled, I meant it like you guys do when you get all excited and refer to us) might have thought were unpatriotic: calling people that kidnap and behead people that are trying to help them freedom fighters, making movies about killing the sitting president, reacting to that movie as if it were a "dream come true" unpatriotic.

Shit I could go on all night.
-----Added 14/2/2009 at 11 : 30 : 38-----
Let me see if I got this straight: saying the president is a closet socialist who is making the US look like the USSR-> totally ok?

Yes

And where is this left "screaming" about criticisms to the president? Or where is the "real criticism" from republicans?

See three posts above you.

Im no democrat, but some people seem to live in make believe worlds with little resemblance to reality.

speaks for itself

You mean the criticism from Dick "Obama Likes Terrorists More Than America" Cheney, Karl "Mischaracterized Quotations" Rove, and Rush "I Hope He Fails" Limbaugh?

I hope not.

What do you mean, exactly?

You must have been too busy to notice when Michelle Bachman (R-MN) called for an investigation into certain congressional members of the Democratic Party for being anti-American. She insinuated that Obama was anti-American too. Of course she "misspoke" which is another way of saying that she accidentally didn't lie (just like Jerry Falwell "misspoke" when he blamed 9/11 on America's acceptance of homosexuals). Whoopsie!! How Embarrassing!!

Nobody is denying that the media is biased. You're naive if you think it's biased left or right-- it's biased towards the status quo, and it's biased towards making money.

But you're right, it must be the media-- it's not like the average American had any reason to question the leadership and credibility of the Republican Party that had essentially run this country into the ground during the previous 8 years.

Alas, if only the Republican Party had some way to get their message out. If only there was some way for them to completely dominate political talk radio on the AM band. If only there were a couple of 24 hour cable news networks which would repeat Republican talking points verbatim. If only they could rely on one 24 hour cable news network to consistently give them favorable coverage under nearly every circumstance.

Matthew, I can only hope (and I say this with the utmost sincerity) that the conservative viewpoint can somehow begin find its way to the masses without being tainted by those evil, Shakran-esque liberal elites.

Let's take Rush's "i hope he fails" quote that has gotten the left, yourself included, evidently all worked up:

I got a request here from a major American print publication. "Dear Rush: For the Obama [Immaculate] Inauguration we are asking a handful of very prominent politicians, statesmen, scholars, businessmen, commentators, and economists to write 400 words on their hope for the Obama presidency. We would love to include you. If you could send us 400 words on your hope for the Obama presidency, we need it by Monday night, that would be ideal." Now, we're caught in this trap again. The premise is, what is your "hope." My hope, and please understand me when I say this. I disagree fervently with the people on our side of the aisle who have caved and who say, "Well, I hope he succeeds. We've got to give him a chance." Why? They didn't give Bush a chance in 2000. Before he was inaugurated the search-and-destroy mission had begun. I'm not talking about search-and-destroy, but I've been listening to Barack Obama for a year-and-a-half. I know what his politics are. I know what his plans are, as he has stated them. I don't want them to succeed.

If I wanted Obama to succeed, I'd be happy the Republicans have laid down. And I would be encouraging Republicans to lay down and support him. Look, what he's talking about is the absorption of as much of the private sector by the US government as possible, from the banking business, to the mortgage industry, the automobile business, to health care. I do not want the government in charge of all of these things. I don't want this to work. So I'm thinking of replying to the guy, "Okay, I'll send you a response, but I don't need 400 words, I need four: I hope he fails." (interruption) What are you laughing at? See, here's the point. Everybody thinks it's outrageous to say. Look, even my staff, "Oh, you can't do that." Why not? Why is it any different, what's new, what is unfair about my saying I hope liberalism fails? Liberalism is our problem. Liberalism is what's gotten us dangerously close to the precipice here. Why do I want more of it? I don't care what the Drive-By story is. I would be honored if the Drive-By Media headlined me all day long: "Limbaugh: I Hope Obama Fails." Somebody's gotta say it.

Tell me how that critique compares even remotely to the examples i gave which you ignore.

And why does the opposition here ask me what I mean every single time? By no means am I a genious, are you all just playing stupid? The concept is not that hard to grasp, even if you disagree with it.

I didnt see any "screaming" about criticisms to the president. I saw Shakran and others in this thread noticing the double standard when it comes to criticizing the president, or when it comes to fiscal discipline.

Now, I am critical of things Obama has done, but I don't lose track of the fact that hes been there for less than a month, nor do I reverse positions when a different party is in place.

the problem for conservatives is simple. they had 8 years in power. every last aspect of their ideology has been blown to hell by their own actions. the worst thing that could have happened for conservatives, as it turned out, was to have power.

at the most optimistic, they now have a brand identity problem.
but at a more interesting level, they have a cognitive problem.

and what has the right been doing in the face of this cognitive problem?
well, faced with the implosion of their own ideology, but seemingly unable to adapt, those heroes of free thinking have ave decided to do what cognitive problems typically seem to require--they run away. they've retreated to a fantasy world in which things still make sense in the way they used to seem to make sense. this is obvious from their collective decision to simply repeat the same line as before and ignore the fact that it is that line, that ideology, that produced the realities that have pulverized their ideology.

it's called denial.

so i see no reason at all to continue taking conservatives seriously.

of course they are free to keep talking and to say what they want, just as we are all free to give names to our toasters and take those toasters to the beach with us and introduce our toasters to our friends and talk about our deep and meaningful relationships with our new toaster pals.

but sooner or later, you'd think that the right, which is all about personal responsibility when that responsibility is that of people who are not conservatives, would have to confront the disaster that their politics have created. strangely, i haven't seen that happen. there just seems to be a responsibility problem amongst conservatives. it must be the fault of "the left," whatever that is. the evil left prevents conservatives from owning up to the disaster that their politics have created. bad bad evil left. bad.
meet my new toaster pal.
his name is clyde.

Giving you the chance to show that you know more than the neo-con talking points that are disseminated amongst the ranks, but which have no actual basis in reality. Should we stop?

When Kerry was running for president, we were told that it was unpatriotic of him to criticize Bush. He never advocated killing Bush. He never advocated kidnapping anyone (though, funny you should bring that up in light of Cheney/Rumsfeld's extraordinary rendition program which kidnapped American and Canadian citizens and sent them to Syria to have electrical shocks applied to their genitals). He simply said that Bush was wrong. And we were told that it was unpatriotic to say that the President is wrong. We were also, incidentally, told that the terrorists were trying their best to get Kerry elected, and that Kerry was helping to advance their cause.

The simple fact is that the Republicans will say anything to scare the American people into letting them rule. They don't care if it's true, false, unpatriotic, libelous, illegal, or immoral. They'll do it. And then when they get into power, they continue to lie through their teeth about everything under the sun, because when you get right down to it the Republican agenda is to widen as much as possible the gap between the ultra-rich elite and everyone else. They know that as soon as the public figures this out, their party is sunk, and therefore they have to spin fabrications left and right to cover it up.

"When Kerry was running for president, we were told that it was unpatriotic of him to criticize Bush."

Page number please.
-----Added 15/2/2009 at 01 : 40 : 43-----
oh and roach, were you responding to me, or was that just another random mini-pulpit conservativeland preaching thing that I was a step for, but had nothing really to do with anything in particular? My post might not have been directly related to the OP, but it was at least directly related to another post in here

Ann Coulter? Zell Miller's keynote speech at the RNC? Swiftboat Veterans for truth? And way to ignore the Bachman reference above.

Not to forget Saxby Chambliss attacks on Max Cleland in 2002, as well...

First - I wasn't asking you, so if you're gonna step in and speak for someone else, at least answer the question. When were you told it was unpatriotic to criticize bush?
Everything I've said has been ignored or answered with, "But bachman..." I don't know who she is, and that little discription was completely unimpressive, so don't get bent that I didn't respond directly to it.

....and I apologize for not responding to someone's fetish with religion and homosexuals, but i've heard it all before, it's also irrelevant and unimpressive. No point in berating me for not responding directly to that either

I wasnt told I was unpatriotic personally because the people that I hang out with are not that sort of people.
I've given you a list of several examples of people being called unpatriotic for going against Bush, and you still claim that the question wasn't answered?
Start prior to 2004, with Saxby Chambliss campaign against Max Cleland in 2002.
Then read pretty much everything written by Ann Coulter and Sean Hannitty
Then listen to Zell Miller's keynote speech at the RNC in 2004.
Then you come back and tell me that no one was accused of being unpatriotic for criticizing Bush or his policies. And this is just the list of more visible events. If we read the national review, the weekly standard of the writings of Bill Kristol we can find several more examples.

I'm sorry; I guess I was mistaken. By "real criticism," I thought you were referring to something outside the realm of pop rhetoric.

Or are you referring to something further back than page 7 in the thread?

Seriously, I am not satisfied by anything you've posted recently. I don't see any criticism worth of political, intellectual, and logical consideration. Is it about the stimulus package? Is it about Obama's platform? Is it about Democratic or otherwise American liberalism in the backdrop of the current global economic and political climate? I don't know, because I don't see it. What I see is several people grasping at straws.

Now don't jump on me about this. Remember that I'm a Canadian, and I may not have been exposed to enough American media to have seen it. I asked you about this criticism because I've yet to see a reasonable measure and a reasonable tack. We are governed by a parliamentary tradition that thrives on political criticism, both inside and outside the government system itself. I have yet to see the Republicans do any such thing regarding the Obama administration yet.

Would you point me to or list some highlights?

Hint: I'm unconcerned about patriotism, if that's what your on about when it comes to "real criticism."

matthew: american conservatism is more interested in brand triage than in addressing the consequences of their own ideology implemented.

this is a significant aspect of reality:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/15/bu...l.html?_r=1&hp

in the face of this, what does the republican party and it's political/media apparatus offer?
more of the same horseshit that got us into this mess in the first place, combined with a delightful return to form from the clinton period.

faced with this, what does the right offer?
brand identity triage around the "stimulus package."

what is the content of this brand identity triage more broadly?
"this is stinky" and "i hope everything breaks".

what is your position in this thread?
you want to score a cheap rhetorical point. it's "content": WHO ARE YOU "LEFTISTS" TO TELL US THAT OUR EFFORTS TO SALVAGE OUR CONSERVATIVE BRAND ARE UNPATRIOTIC?

yeah, that's quite the triage operation you guys are doing.
keep it up.

Bakara, lets go back to the beginning - I was challenging this fucking retarded statement made by a poster here

"The only logical conclusion we can reach from these facts combined with their assertion, is that the Republican party is un-American.Either that or they're a pack of lying bastards who say something different every week and expect us not to notice. . ."

and guess what. You're not the one who said it, so I don't really care whether or not you're satisfied with it. Im unsatisfied with the responses of those who have chosen to respond directly to me. Let's summarize:

1. What do you mean? I don't get it, I don't get it, I don't get it. (This was you Bakara)
2. But republicans and preists and homosexuals, blah blah blah....
3. Way to skirt the issue and not respond to what I think is important.
4. Excuse me sir, you're responses are not worthy. (oh look, this was you too BAkara)
5. Matthew, you see conservativeland, this strange place that occupies this gap between your ears, is a cognitive effort in blah blah blah blah blah.
6. ANN COULTER! RUSH LIMBAUGH!


Dippin, where were you, the collective you - please don't be simpleminded, I never really thought anyone called you on the telephone and told you it was unpatriotic to criticize bush, where were you told it was unpatriotic to criticize bush.

Give me one quote where any of these people you mention said anything like this.

I've given you plenty of examples, but if you want to play dumb, let's go:
- zell miller during the 2004 rnc key note speech said that Kerry's criticisms of the Iraq war equated to letting France decide American foreign policy
- Ann Coulter has a book called treason. Before you say she is a fringe figure, she was a speaker at the last meeting of the RNC.
- Michelle Bachman, which I am sure you will ignore again.
- How about Bill O'reilly list of "un american" professors?

Of course, I am sure you are going to once again dismiss it all, say that they didnt really say what they said, blahblahblah...

Congresswoman Heather Wilson (R-NM) - Obama criticizing Bush and/or American policy is unpatriotic

YouTube - Wilson: Criticizing 'American Policy' Is Unpatriotic

YouTube - Wilson: Criticizing 'American Policy' Is Unpatriotic

Congresswoman Michelle Bachmann (R-MN) - liberals in Congress should be investigated for being un-American

YouTube - Michelle Bachmann accuses Congress of being un-American

YouTube - Michelle Bachmann accuses Congress of being un-American

It is the standard republican mantra.....wrap the flag around yourself and repeat..."dissent is unpatriotic"

THank you, so noone can give an example of a republican saying its unpatriotic to criticize the president. Which is obvious because the left has certainly not felt the need to hold back over the last 8 years, as evidenced by my previous examples.

This is also an appropriate time to remind you, dippin, of another of Ann Coulters books - GUilty: Liberal "victims" and their assault America.

Do you have dc dux on ignore or something? He posted, an hour before your reply, a video of a republican congresswoman saying that Obama's criticism of Bush was unpatriotic. She is a republican. Your entire last post is therefore invalid based on actual facts which have been presented to you, and which you have ignored.

lets clear something up first and foremost. conservatives did not have 'power' the last 8 years....neocons, or faux republicans, had power while conservatives were left wondering what the hell happened to the unnoticed co-opting of their party.

And Democrats have an interest in trying to label these faux republicans as conservatives so that they can dishonestly tie the failings of the Bush Presidency to Conservatism.

Wow.

Those 'X' were not enough pure in their hearts and deeds to be excused their failings... The only pure X are the X who agree with me 100%, nothing else counts.

I think we need a lighter moment.

Live...its the Republican stimulus response

http://www.nbc.com/Saturday_Night_Li...-open/1018742/

The underlying point - at least to me - is that the Bush years are far from a definitive conviction of conservativism as a whole. In and of itself, that's not an elitist stance. You can't really point to the Bush years and say, "see? this is what happens when small government ideology gets its way" or "see? this is what happens when you greatly curtail government interference in the free market".

And that's not even including a discussion of how many failings were due to poor implementation rather than flawed objectives.

Clearly.

If Obama fails, and we spin further into an economic crevasse (as Rush Limbaugh and various folk of his persuasion seem to hope), then we can take comfort in knowing that Obama only failed out of a lack of commitment to liberal socialism...

I find the Wall Street Journal's recent attacks on Obama for "fear mongering" are richly ironic.

i can understand why conservatives would want to disassociate themselves from the glorious legacy of the bush administration, but it seems more than a little--o i dunno---counterfactual.

whatever....conservative brand triage is not my problem.

more generally, though, i wonder if this thread's reached the point of diminishing returns.

Well, we're going to have to give Obama more time. It hasn't even been a month.

Not this democrat. I fully acknowledge that the neo-cons are not in line with true conservative thought.

That said, they /have/ taken over the Republican party and thus far, the "true Republicans" aren't doing anything about it. So. . . -shrug- If the shoe fits. . .

I do find it funny in a very sad way that those who speak out against Obama and/or the "stimulus" package are being branded and cajoled, meanwhile Bush was called "shrub" from day one and attacked mercilessly the whole f'n time. I was one who did this.

While I do wish Obama the best and seriously doubt the Dems will allow him to fail, they will do whatever they possibly can to make his term successful, I find it less than heartening and more partisan politics when the very people who attacked Bush from day one are not allowing the same to be done to Obama.

Is Obama so weak and fragile that people cannot speak out against him? What happened to the Democrat cry when they were attacking Bush "it's patriotic to criticize the president and we have a right to."?

We do, even Republicans have that right. So what if someone wants to criticize Obama? Last time I checked they had every right to. They do not need to be told "wait, give him time..." or called names, cajoled or not listened to. Just as those of us who criticized Bush had the same right.

I so hoped when the Dems won they would show more grace and class than what they are in this case. But alas, this shows me that they are as guilty as the neo-cons in that they don't give a damn about the people, their rights or the country, all they care about is power and pushing through their agenda.

So much for "change" and truly wanting a better America, eh guys?

Seems to me Obama has done more to include the GOP in the last few weeks then Bush did in his entire eight years. The fact that they've locked arms and shouted "no way, no how" doesn't mean he hasn't tried to get them involved. The GOP is really putting itself in a great position. If the stimulus fails they can say "I told you so." Hell many are publicly stating they hope it does fail. Great! The country's in a economic crisis and they're hoping for failure. Wouldn't want their ideas to turn out to be wrong. I mean tax cuts have really stimulated the economy so far, let's keep adding more. If it succeeds they can claim it did so only slowly and only because they held out and got in some minor points they wanted. Hell, I don't think anyone thinks it's going to succeed quickly. The GOP's main idea seems to be cut taxes and spending. Well, now it's to cut spending, when they had utter and complete control spending was a freaking brilliant idea. Not spending in the USA per se, but spending in Iraq that was always a good idea. How much money has been spent there? How many schools have we (at least tried) to build? Bush's legacy became so tied to Iraq- success at any cost became the plan, with the US tax payers footing the bill. The employment rate is in a nose dive, housing prices have tanked and continue down, the major stock indexes have gone south so far many have lost nearly 50% of their saving and retirement plans. Personally I'd like to start building new schools in the US. But the stimulus bill was trimmed of 14B for new school construction because the Dems refused to even try to be bi-partisan. Oh, wait that was what the GOP wanted.

Well, the real tragedy is, for the last 8+ years, they're the ones claiming to be "true Republicans". They've so tainted the whole notion of True Republicanhood, it's almost impossible to hear it as anything but "Support our war in Iraq! Waterboard some towelheads! 9/11!!" Which is a shame, because a true meeting of diverse political minds is exactly what America needs.

It's also what Obama tried to have happen on the Stimulus bill, and was roundly rebuffed by the Republicans. I think he learned a lesson on that--he said about it, roughly, "I'm an optimist, but I'm not a sap." Guy's got the political will and the public mandate to take action, and I think those who would oppose it on flat political grounds will be utterly marginalized and irrelevant, no matter how histrionic Fox News gets about it.

What is needed is the return of confidence and a capital market through which credit will flow in the thousand rills with its result of employment and increased prices. That confidence will be only destroyed by action in these directions. These channels will continue clogged by fears if we continue attempts to issue large amounts of Government bonds for purposes of non-productive works.

Such a program as these huge Federal loans for “public works” is a fearful price to pay in putting a few thousand men temporarily at work and dismissing many more thousands of others from their present employment. There is vivid proof of this since these proposals of public works financed by Government bonds were seriously advanced a few days ago. Since then United States Government bonds have shown marked weakness on the mere threat. And it is followed at once by curtailment of the ability of states, municipalities and industry to issue bonds and thus a curtailment of activities which translate themselves into decreased employment.

It will serve no good purpose and will fool no one to try to cover appearances by resorting to a so-called “extraordinary budget.” That device is well known. It brought the governments of certain foreign countries to the brink of financial disaster. It means a breach of faith to holders of all Government securities, an unsound financial program and a severe blow to returning confidence and further contraction of economic activities in the country.

What you want and what I want is to restore normal employment. I am confident that if the program I have proposed to the Congress is expeditiously completed and we have the cooperation of the whole community, we will attain the objective for which we have been searching so long.

Yours faithfully,
Herbert Hoover

I did not say it was his fault, however, there has been a clear acceleration in job loss since his election. In my opinion Obama's rhetoric may play a role. Since I shared my opinion on this I have noticed more and more are picking up on the possible impact and errors in Obama's words. Here is an article in today's WSJ:

Bradley Schiller Says Barack Obama Should Stop Comparing Our Financial Crisis With the Great Depression - WSJ.com

I think a President can have an impact on behavior through his words.
-----Added 16/2/2009 at 11 : 18 : 57-----
Republican's are unified on the facts that the stimulus bill is "snake oil", was rushed, and full of pet projects. Many reasonable people disagree on what is best to do and some feel Washington doing nothing is better than the stimulus bill.

Small business owners are not laughing today, and won't be anytime soon.

what the right is arguing is a return to systematic denial of reality.
if "confidence" in markets can be collapsed into "confidence" that you look like a movie star today so head out there into the world and be perky, then this brilliant piece of logic follows:
if the latter is lying to yourself on a small scale, then the former is lying to yourself on a big scale.
so the important "idea" that the right is floating amounts to: lie to us so we can feel better.


as if that was not stupid enough, they have the audacity to tack on these fatuous claims of "fearmongering"---that obama is "fearmongering"----this from the same people who supported the bush people's "war on terror."


how on earth do they expect anyone to take this seriously?

what kind of degenerate condition is conservativeland in these days?
i think they'd be better off tearing it down rather than trying to rebuild on top of ruins.

Laissez faillir = Andrew Mellon's hugely successful response to the crash of 1929.

Mellon's tuff-luv leadership saved the country from depression.

Don't let the Dems scare you, everything is OK = Herbert Hoover's take.

People were so enthusiastic about Hoover's response to the crisis that they showered him with fruit and vegetables on the campaign trail in 1932. And they named everything from blankets to boxcars after him! If it had not been for fear-mongering by FDR, groovy Hoovy probably would have won by a landslide.

I'll take all the "pet projects" that spend money domestically over all the money being sent overseas right now. Cutting school construction spending in half in this bill while spending millions to build schools in Iraq makes zero sense to me.

That is because of the crash on september 15th. To try to make the Obama election the culprit when the situation was deteriorating rapidly since september is at least dishonest.

Especially since the way unemployment is calculated, and the time it takes for someone to be fired, mean that a lot of what went on on the november figure actually took place in october.

ace...I agree that business community is not laughing......it does appear that they are applauding a good first step.

The US Chamber of Commerce (more than 96% of U.S. Chamber members are small businesses with 100 employees or fewer) while noting that the bill is not perfect, supports it.
Many, including Obama, agree its not a perfect bill and that the "whole is more important than the individual parts."

The National Association of Manufactures supports the bill as well....as does the Business Roundtable.

Reasonable people dont expect perfection....they expect an honest and sincere effort to address a national problem.

I do appreciate the Governor of my state, going out of his way to criticize the stimulus bill on national television, and then deciding that despite all the "pork", and the fact that the bill isn't going to work because it doesn't cut enough taxes, he's going to go ahead and take the money on behalf of all Minnesotans to help out with our budget deficit.

What a douchebag.

There isn't going to be an easy way out of this economic mess. Just think of the huge public works initiative called WWII whereby the government spent its way out of the last depression.

There is no magic solution. It is going to take time, money and everyone changing their attitudes on saving, spending and perceived ideas of wealth (and their entitlement to it) to get out of this.

OMG! There has also been a clear acceleration in job losses since the Lions lost to the Bears in week 9 of the 2008 football season. I think there's something there.

that's the main issue, really--that this is a very large-scale multi-variate crisis.
folk seem to want a single magic bullet, a simple solution because they're used to being told that capitalism is a single simple machine that operates on the basis of a single type of simple motivation. this has the effect of reducing a complex social system to a matter of lots of individuals wishing the same thing at the same time. that's infantile--what they call magical thinking.

fact is that there are systemic changes that have to happen and that it is not at all clear that the administration has it's collective head (if you like) around what exactly those changes should be. and they're being covered by a media apparatus with the attention span of a gnat, with the memory of a gnat which is in no way able in its present form to assemble longer trajectories of activity into a coherent narrative--everything that's real in television land is happening now and reality as a whole is little more than a sequence of disconnected now now now points that unfold against a context that is entirely naturalized. this is a real fucking problem because it is not obvious how systemic change can possibly be presented as such unless you can talk about the rationale behind that change in the space of a series of disconnected now now now points. such is the problem with the ideological relay apparatus and one of the central reasons why, no matter what the right says, the medium is in itself conservative--the naturalizing of context is conservative--the disconnecting of trajectories into sequences of instants plays to an ideology that operates on the same assumptions (context=nature, action-instantanious decision such that the state is reduced to the figure of the leader and history to individual memory and action to individual attention spans)....

so not only is there a problem of working out what policy directions make sense given an actual analysis of the empirical state of the economy (not something that has mattered terribly to the neoliberal set, which understood basic statistical indices as an extension of ideology) but also how to present those directions to a media apparatus that atomizes everything it touches.

you can't blame the administration for being circumspect.
and i am not entirely a fan of the administration so far, simply because i don't think they're going far enough fast enough in leaving consigning neoliberalism to the ash-heap of history.
but i have a sense of the constraints at play.
this is difficult--and it is so without even starting to consider the actual socio-economic environment that neoliberalism has left behind in the united states.
i shudder to think of what's there once the dreamscapes neoliberals preferred to traffic in are stripped away.
you should too.

I find it less than heartening that you don't understand what we're saying. We aren't saying you can't criticize the President. We're saying it's pretty ironic/amusing/sad/pathetic that these idiots are criticizing Obama when THEY are the ones who so fervently informed us that we were traitorous and un-American for criticizing the President. If one is going to inform me that I am a bad and immoral person who wants our troops to die because I criticize the President, then I would expect one to stifle one's own criticism of the President.


Well. . . No shit!

The economy tanked 2 months before his election. Of course job losses are going to accelerate after the economy tanks. What exactly did you think would normally happen when the economy crashes and burns? Unemployment would drop to 0?



This.

whatever the WSJ may say on it, history has shown us that any changeover in the executive branch inevitably leads to 'uncertainty' in the job market. It happened with bush sr., clinton, bush jr, and now obama. it's almost natural until big business gets to see where policy is going to lead them.

Question: is there any hotlist where I can see a list of actions Obama has taken? It's been rather difficult to find a simple listing of actions he's done to the news-uninformed like myself at college >.< (I'm much better about it at home, I swear). I'm just curious as to what he's done. Please and thanks!

Have you ever been in a position where you did any business planning? Business owners have short, intermediate, and long-term plans. Businesses that manage inventory and people have to make judgments based on the information available today regarding the future. If it is going to take 6 months to a year to hire and train an employee you have to make a hiring decision 6 months to a year before the need or have an alternative plan. If you anticipate revenue will be lower in 6 to twelve months, not only do you stop hiring, but you start planning to lay people off.

One of the inputs in your decision is going to be subjective. A president can influence this subjective component. Stop the pretense, that a President can not have an impact on employment. Stop the pretense that anyone is arguing that is the only factor.


For the record I supported the war in Iraq and the "war on terror", if you revist the many threads on the subject you will find that I ready acknowledged that Bush "sold" the case for war. In order to "sell" the case he used rhetoric to make people fearful of inaction. I understood this, and I think most others did as well. Even Democrats used fear rhetoric when they gave speeches in advance of their votes supporting military action in Iraq. The Bush strategy was clear, he did not have a hidden agenda. Anyone who supported the war simply because of Bush's words did not do their homework.

In this situation what is Obama doing? What is the value? Can you be honest about it?


I don't. I know where most posters stand and I know that most don't have an open mind.

I am predicting that liberalland will collapse before any more deterioration in conservativeland. The seeds of the liberal collapse have been sown. Enjoy the next couple of years while you can, if you can. Obama will be a one term President.
-----Added 17/2/2009 at 11 : 28 : 08-----
Pretty funny.

But on the other hand there has been the TARP legislation (Democratic Party legislation), designed to do something. There has been the Auto industry bailout (Democratic Part legislation. And there has been the Bailout (Democratic Party legislation). Not to mention the numerous hearings and investigation (Democratic Party control) We have people actively trying to fix things, spending billions and the net result has been an acceleration in job loss. The only quarter of negative GDP growth was the fourth quarter.

If my theory is wrong what is yours?

the only place where we agree, ace, is that there is not enough of a plan in the "stimulus package" and in the announcements concerning the banking sector.
we agree on that statement alone, but from entirely opposed positions.
i think obama has to break harder and faster with the outmoded logic of neoliberalism and formulate a clearer vision of exactly what the state is now going to do, how it is going to go about it, how the process is going to be benchmarked, etc.
and i think that the time is passing during which it makes any sense to waste time thinking and speaking in neoliberal terms--simply because those terms tend to preclude exactly the directions the administration needs to move in, and quickly.

maybe that explains the growing impatience in my posts with respect to the american right--i have never been a fan--but i see it now as not only incoherent but also ineffectual--and this at a point where the shit that's hitting the fan is such that there's no more time to waste on incoherence and ineffectualness.

i'll agree that Obama is likely to be a 1 term president. Americans are by and large conditioned to expect a happy ending within 30 minutes. . . 2 hours tops, if they're watching a movie. They're gonna be mad that Obama can't fix things in 4 years, even though it took over 30 years to break it to this degree.

That said, I find it . . Cute. . that the republicans, who not only failed to grow the economy, but who caused it to implode, have the chutzpah to bitch about Obama's plan. Your plan failed. Spectacularly. You clearly don't know what you're doing, so why not sit down, shut up, and let someone else have a go?

They're posturing for their base. They're all going to take the money, because despite the way that they like to portray themselves, they're just as inclined to suck at the government's teat as the most cadillac drivinest welfare queen. They're a party that favors words over action.

Let's be clear on a couple of things. First, recessions are normal, they are a part of our normal business cycle. During periods of accelerated economic growth excesses develop and the excesses need to be removed, hence in simple terms, you will get a recession. Also you can get a recession after a period of above normal innovation, when innovation goes back to normal or below normal, this can trigger a recession. The bottom line is that the causes of a normal recession does not have to be related to government actions although it could.

Second, government actions during a normal recession can make the recession worse or last longer. I think this is the case we have now and I think the rhetoric from the President is not helping and most likely is having a negative impact.

Third, I know what has an impact on me and my business. Government regulation, taxation, along with the threats of more taxation and regulation has an impact on the decisions I make. Again, if I am the only one, there is no concern - if I am one of millions or ten's of millions of small business owners, it should be a concern for you and the President.

acee....I'm curious why you think the US Chamber of Commerce supported the bill on behalf of its members (96% of which are small business of less than 100 employees) as a "good first step but not enough"...rather than "hey..its just a normal recession, stay the fuck of our lives!"

I know exactly what you are saying, I just do not agree with it. It is far more gracious and less hypocritical to just shake your head and walk away when they spout what ever they want.

Yeah, Pan, that's the typical democratic response, while the typical republican response is to rub the Dem's faces in everything they said (or that the Republicans made up that they said) back to the dawn of time. And in general, the republicans win elections because of it. Only after the Republicans have been in office for awhile and have screwed everything up royally do people get pissed enough to elect a democrat.

Pan...IMO, the recent Republican hypocrisy is just one element of a larger, well conceived, misinformation campaign.

When you walk away from lies and misrepresentations that are not just honest differences of opinion, you enable them to be perpetuated.

One only need look at the Obama's Seven Broken Campaign Promises thread. A right wing attack page, completely false or at the very least, a gross misrepresentation of the facts, makes its way here (and probably dozens of political discussion boards) with the hope of the person who created it initially of spreading it further.

Do you believe the best response is to ignore it and walk away? I dont see how you separate the hypocrisy from the other bullshit.

How does being "more gracious" contribute to honest discourse?

I don't know. I don't belong to the US Chamber of Commerce. I don't know much about who does belong. I have given my reasons why I don't support the Stimulus Legislation.

Also, here are comments from an ad endorsed by some of those "economists" that Obama referenced:

Here is a link to the full ad, showing the long list of names.

http://www.cato.org/special/stimulus...o_stimulus.pdf
-----Added 18/2/2009 at 02 : 57 : 38-----
A wonderful opportunity to set the record straight.

Was the Stimulus legislation bill read by members of Congress before they voted for it?
Did Obama read the legislation before he signed it?
Who wrote most of the legislation?
Were lobbyist involved in writing some of the legislation? If so, how much?
Did Obama violate any of his campaign promises as this legislation was drafted and passed?

Yeah, and Lincoln didn't sign the Emancipation Proclamation, and the Revolutionary War never happened - England just gave up their claim on us. Oh, and Kennedy was never shot, and Nixon didn't do it.

As long as we're rewriting history, why not do it in more than just economic areas?

Lets talk about misrespresentations. When Shakran says that he was informed that he was:

"a bad and immoral person who wants our troops to die because I criticize the President"

I would like to know who told him that, and what he said that elicited that reaction. Certainly it wasn't the quote that had no context posted by DC_dux, from some noname congresswoman in 2007 or 8 (notice whatever she was reacting to wasn't included). If you are a liberal who engages in anything close to the behaviors I had referenced earlier, I'll go one step further - not only are you a bad and immoral person who wants our troops (and former president) to die, you are a rabid ideological lunatic.

So if you're gonna suggest that republicans have said that it is unpatriotic (or slightly more dramatic "a bad and immoral person") to simply criticize the president......prove it. Don't misrepresent reaction to your everyday juvenile liberal behavior as some sort of overall republican conspiracy to quiet the opposition.

I'm gonna say you're just playing the victim...agian.

matthew, i really don't see the utility of these posts of yours. your claim that conservatives did not claim that criticism of the bush administration was treasonous is simply false...think about 2003 for example, in the early phases of the iraq debacle.

the claim that conservatives have not argued that criticism of the office of the president is treasonous is so vague as to be meaningless in any event--we all know from long experience that when a republican is in office, there's one set of standards, but when a democrat is in office, there's an entirely different set of standards. on this, of late, the right has been true to form.

there's been clips that refute your claims posted by dc above.
there's been more than ample information posted elsewhere that refutes your claim.
so i don't see you have a leg to stand on as a point of fact.

but then there's the slightly broader question of what exactly you're hoping to accomplish by sticking with this line of argumentation, even if you put aside the fact that it's already been shown repeatedly to be false.

Matthew, aren't you the same guy who previously claimed that people who act overtly racist are just liberals trying to make conservatives look bad? Because if you are that same guy, I'm impressed by how quickly you've transitioned into the kind of guy who calls people out for seeing conspiracies where they don't exist.