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I'd object if I were you also. |
nice to see a continued churn through here of rightwing talking points of the moment. not a single autonomous idea, not a single autonomous argument--everything everything culled from the conservative talking heads on cnn or the conservative talking heads on cnbc or the conservative talking heads on faux news.
get a grip folks. try thinking for yourselves. |
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Another promise broken, signing a bill with about 8500 earmarks in it. Wasn't it just a few months ago Obama promised to never do this?
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he's the first President in history to break a promise. clearly the time to impeach is now |
It is getting far to easy to point out the inconsistencies and critiques of the Obama Presidency along with the Democratic Party control of Congress. But I am curious.
Do Obama supporters actually see these issues and are simply making a choice to ignoring them? Are Obama supporters getting concerned about what going on in Washington? Are you disappointed in any way? How is it that about 53% of the people according to Rasmussen ( Rasmussen Reports: The Most Comprehensive Public Opinion Data Anywhere ) think we are going into a depression similar to 1930, but 62% approve of Obama's performance according to Gallup ( Gallup.Com - Daily News, Polls, Public Opinion on Government, Politics, Economics, Management )? More and more I am becoming a spectator with jawdropping amazement. http://flairforthedramatic.mlblogs.c...mb-310x313.jpg |
I don't ignore what's going on. I don't agree with everything he does by any stretch.
That said, I feel like every waking moment of Obama's presidency has been dissected and criticized so far and it's growing really, really tiresome. |
there was some pseudo-discussion of this on one or another of the cable "news" outlets this past week--the argument was that this budget was negociated this past fall, which explains the earmarking. the claim that accompanied it was that there would be no such earmarks on next years budget, which would be negociated under the present administration.
it's obvious that thinking all the way back to, say, september is alot to ask of conservatives, who seem to confuse slicing time into narrow slivers and then yelling about "inconsistencies" that result from their slicing of time into little slivers with meaningful critique. but it doesn't matter: the right is so mired in a brand identity problem that they're functionally irrelevant. and even if that were not the case, the ENTIRETY of this economic fiasco originated with them--neoliberalism since reagan, 30 years of conservative control---no wonder they have a Problem with thinking in more than tiny slivers of time. |
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I find it much more troubling that "conservatives" are now pulling their "conservative" heads out of their "conservative" asses and criticizing something. Where the FUCK were these people (including several MAJOR Bush-apologists right here on TFP) for the last eight years???
Congratulations on having a Democrat patsy to blame everything on. That must feel good. Sorry about your party being in shambles, but at least you've got a place to point your finger so you can keep it pointed away from yourself. |
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I suspect many of his supporters would also be in favor of him vetoing this bill. |
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From what I understand, the budget bill was structured under the previous Congress, and as such, Obama has allowed it to be voted on "as is". We'll see if he keeps his promise of no earmarks on next year's budget |
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/12/us...rmarks.html?hp
from the ny times this afternoon, obama on the earmark question. it's basically the same argument that i cited above. this bit of reality will no doubt have no effect on the right. |
I am baffled by people who expect a magic wand to fix the failed strategy of Reaganomics and "trickle down." Obama has been in office less than 60 days, and some nuts are calling for his head because he can't snap his fingers and erase the last 30 years? I never heard Obama say the fix would be easy or instant. Republicans are the only ones imposing such unrealistic expectations, and only in an attempt to discredit Obama.
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Ditto. Hey we did the borrow and spend thing and cut tax and spend for the past and eight years and things didn't work out so well. We'd now like to express our sincere hatred of spending. Seriously who buys that crap load? I watched one show the other day where some jack-ass detailed that since Obama began running for POTUS the market down huge. Like his running for the office caused the markets to crash. Yeah, that makes sense. I think he may have also been the second shooter on the grassy knoll too. |
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Unless you are excluding me, your search of my posts will show I strongly supported the administration's foreign policy, the war, Bush's straight talk and my defense of his intellect. When it came to fiscal policy, other than tax cuts, I was not in support of all of his spending initiatives or those acted on by Republicans in Congress. When it came to issues like executive power I was very clear on my positions, indicating that Bush was basically giving Congress the finger. When it came to issues like the Valerie Plame issue, I clearly acknowledged that I thought the Bush administration had an agenda with Plame. When it came to issues like the intel used for war, I clearly stated that Bush "sold" his case for war, and that anyone who supported the war based on his speeches, or his people on talk shows, either did not do their homework or are foolish. On issues the the "politicization" of the AG office, my position was that the AG office has always been political and used by the office of the President for his agenda. I think there is a big difference between what you will find in my posts relative to those who post in support of Obama. Quote:
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that's nice, ace. but none of it stops you from being like a repetition machine when it comes to conservative talking points of the moment. and the "criticisms" coming from the right are transparently about a desperate attempt to salvage their brand and not much at all about coherence...particularly when you start factoring in that old "personal responsibility" nonsense that the right was once on about endlessly (when it applied to people not on the right of course)--you absolutely refuse to acknowledge the obvious in the simple fact that your economic and political views are largely responsible for the disaster that's being visited upon all of us.
but i've long since given up on expecting anything but such inconsistent self-righteous nonsense from conservatives. ==== fistf: we'll have to wait and see. i don't think that the motivations for not taking on congress over the budget which was negociated last fall as are you state them, nor do i think that the next budget will be subject to the considerations you claim--but on the second point, time will tell. there's surely no basis for saying more than that now. |
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ace what the hell are you talking about? you're imputing to me your own delusions concerning what a "typical obama supporter" as constructed by the balthering classes on the right would prefer to think.
i'm not particularly a supporter of obama--i think he pays too much attention to fools like you, wastes too much energy trying to take the nitwit worldview you inhabit seriously. i would prefer that obama were quite a lot more aggressive in marginalizing conservatives and would have a clearer, stronger plan for what he's going to do moving forward. but you believe whatever nonsense floats your boat, whatever helps you preserve the seal on that jar you live in that enables you to pretend that there's no economic crisis, that neoliberalism makes sense, and that your "arguments" are coherent. maybe find more interesting conservative talking heads to repeat messages from. that'd help. |
No need for name calling.
I find it absolutely hilarious that Obama jammed a bunch of lower taxes in his plan because he thought it would appease the right. I like Obama, but he's naive. |
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When I used the word "you", I was not referring to you, but "us" collectively, I just had difficulty with the thought that "I" am a part of the "us", getting screwed. I apologize for the confusion. But my point is that we had a man saying everything the nation wanted to hear to get elected and now there is reality to deal with. |
i understand the gist of your problem, ace.
it's abundantly clear. what you do not seem to understand are the myriad reasons for not bothering with most of them--they aren't serious as critiques--they're based on some arbitrary standard for action that no president has lived up to, least of all republicans. what conservatives arrogate to themselves--probably out of habit given the extent to which conservative language has been dominant over the past decades--is the ability to set those standards. but that doesn't come from anywhere, isn't based on anything--it's a best a collective verbal tic. so far, i think obama's been pretty consistent in doing what he said he would do--as consistent as any reasonable person might expect--a bit more so even in some areas. not all. on the earmark thing that the right is trying to make hay about: the claim that the budget was negociated last fall is not really open to debate. if that's the case, then it hardly makes sense to thrash about concerning it's content, now does it? maybe for conservatives it does, but that has more to do with the sorry position the last 8 years of conservative power has left them in than it does with anything about the obama administration. but i'll say that i would prefer fewer earmarks, mostly because even as i understand them to be a way in which congress does horsetrading in order to broker deals that enable stuff to get done, they seem an end-around insofar as an actual democratic process is concerned, shallow though it may be. so next year, we'll all see. in the immediate run, the debacle left behind by neoliberalism is a far greater concern to me. i can't imagine why it isn't to you. |
I think maybe the earmark critics are under the impression that the president personally writes legislation, or that the president has line item veto power.
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I don't understand the complaints about earmarks. First, to the best of my recollection, Obama never promised to get rid of earmarks. And second, he shouldn't get rid of them. They're simply how Congress makes sure the money it's spending is being spent how it wants. Sure, there are sometimes silly things that the money gets spent on, but getting rid of earmarks altogether just throws the baby out with the bathwater. Moreover, most of what sounds silly is often not. Consider volcano monitoring, a vital technology proven to save lives -- this is what the Republican party chooses to criticize, just because they think it might sound silly.
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I think earmarks are possibly a useful tool, but have unfortunately been abused in the past. I think it's great that congresspeople can single out individual projects and needs in their districts, and put some federal dollars towards them. In the ideal case, this makes government more responsive to local needs, instead of vast, one size fits all 'programs'. At worst, it lets congresspeople play politics and line the pockets of their donors. With proper regulation and controls, I think earmarks could be a great thing. Say if each and every congressperson got $x (maybe based on the # of people in their district) to spend on discretionary projects, with 100% transparency, and perhaps other controls. They should be able to say 'we need a library in our district, here's $1mil for it...but shouldn't be able to select which contractor gets to build the library. |
President Barack Obama signed a $410 billion spending bill Wednesday that includes thousands of pet projects inserted by lawmakers, even as he unveiled new rules to restrict such so-called earmarks.
At the same time, after Democrats criticized former President George W. Bush's signing statements, Mr. Obama issued one of his own, declaring five provisions in the spending bill to be unconstitutional and nonbinding, including one aimed at preventing punishment of whistleblowers. Here's Obama during the campaign talking about the unconstitutionality of signing statements: |
I have to say I'm enjoying the convoluted ways in which certain people are attempting to bring fanatical Obama supporters to task.
I was going to respond to Mr. Sane, but then I realized that I'm probably not an Obama "disciple" even though I voted for him. I then wondered if such disciples actually exist, given the overly simplistic naivete attributed to them. Then, assuming that they do exist, I wondered whether they constitute a significant enough portion of the American populace to warrant the desperate attempts by folks like Mr. Sane to hold them accountable for every discrepancy between Obama the president from Obama the candidate. Clearly, many of the folks like Mr. Sane (I don't know specifically about him/her) don't actually have problems with the things Obama is doing, because they didn't seem to speak up while the last president was doing them. And it can't be that a president breaking campaign promises is that interesting: is anyone really surprised when it happens? So what is the deal with this psychological need to take mythical Obama disciples to task? I guess in other words: Who fucking cares? |
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I'll remove the offending comment since it seems to have gotten you so far off task. |
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And in any case, your post is actually more about implicitly playing up the significance of Obama fanatics for the purpose of calling them out than it is about how Obama is doing. The content of our posts are practically identical in their proximity to how Obama is doing. Quote:
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You are right. Good bye.
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Do you really suppose Obama supporters were primarily motivated by his stance against earmarking?
Why do Democrats have to be portrayed as zealots for voting for the frigging Democratic candidate for president? Let me put forth a challenge here: Can someone name five issues that Obama supporters were motivated by that don't include earmarking? I'll even make it easier and put out the first one. WAR. (That's a pretty important one for me personally.) Let's see how difficult it is to come up with just four more important issues that contrast dramatically with the Bush presidency that may have motivated people to be enthusiastic about the Obama presidency. Actually, I unwittingly gave away another important, motivational issue: THE BUSH PRESIDENCY. The enthusiasm about Obama was directly proportional to the repugnance people were feeling for the previous administration. I think it's a law of physics or something. |
The pendulum swing, Ms. Mixed.
Mr..Obama I believe is doing the best performance, (in the theatre sense), he possibly could. I wouldn't be able to stand before the nation at this point without visible knee-knocking. |
ace, darling, you just go right ahead and make up whatever you like that keeps your boat afloat.
i voted for obama because of his opposition to the iraq debacle. i voted for him because of his support for health care system overhaul. i voted for him because i figured that another republican administration after 8 years of the bush people would indicate that the united states had lost it's collective mind and could not be trusted to act in anyone's best interest any more. this became more a factor as neoliberal-land started to come undone in a serious way. and while i don't support everything he's done, and do not imagine that i will support everything he'll do---i find it a good thing that he's intelligent and curious about the world. and articulate. and the general outline of his policies so far have been a welcome dose of sanity after years of conservative ineptitude. |
Roachboy's post reminds me that I was also wanting to add that most of the people who voted for Obama, didn't have illusions about what he would be able to accomplish. This idea that we're all Pollyannas one spending bill away from total disillusionment is bullshit. More distraction. Distraction that serves to diminish the REAL reasons people voted for Obama. I know that many of us here in the TFP politics forum expressed these same thoughts long before the election. Obama is a politician and in politics someone always loses...and it's only sharply demarcated down party lines at election time. In fact, in the last few years I've become more of the mind that partisan politics is about theater - drama that keeps voters motivated - while the real power lies with those skilled in networking, sales and marketing. Oh my, just like big business.
I have been disappointed by choices made by the Obama administration thus far and I am positive I will be disappointed by their choices in the future. Thus is politics. And all this nitpicking and finger-pointing is childish. You want to ask folks about the disappointment of campaign promises? Try the pro-lifers. Right now I'm going to go back to watching Project Runway and finish my beer. Guess that makes me a good American. A good American that can rest easier tonight knowing there's not a war-mongering dunderhead in the White House. |
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I love how people mind fuck themselves into believing something is horrible, without actually knowing what they're on about. |
I am not defending earmarks in any way. But the republican fetish over earmarks is relatively easy to understand.
How can you run as the party of "small government" when most of the population, rightly or wrongly, loves big government programs? Now, in concept most of the population claim to like small government. But when they are actually asked about programs and spending items, most of them actually support a bigger government. The biggest item in the US budget is the military, and cutting spending on defense is incredibly unpopular. So where would a small government party cut spending? Well, they could cut it in entitlements, but the fact is that social security remains highly popular. Healthcare? Most support more govt. spending, not less. So what does that leave a party of small government that wants to remain politically competitive? Now, I am not making a value judgment about whether or not these programs are good or big govt is good. But the point remains that most people who say they are for small government are actually against cutting spending on the biggest items on the budget. So for a party to campaign on a small govt. they have to either expect defeat and campaign on cutting social security benefits and defense spending, or they have to try to blow small unpopular programs out of proportion. |
Find me a quote where Obama said he would eliminate earmarks?
Here is a video that includes what Obama said during the debates. Conservative media claim Obama broke earmarks pledge he never made - Daily Kos TV (beta) He never once said he would eliminate them. |
I guess I am confused. After watching the debates it seemed like McCain and Obama were going at it for quite some time over who would be toughest at eliminating earmarks. I got the impression that both men would never sign a bill with earmarks again. In my defense I bet the majority of people watching the debates got the same impression.
Now I see that what he really said was “We need earmark reform. And when I’m president, I will go line by line to make sure that we are not spending money unwisely.” I guess I thought that meant he would go over it line by line and veto any bill unless the earmarks tacked on were eliminated. I guess his line by line analysis of the latest spending bill means he either agrees with all the 8500 earmarks or has decided to not pick a fight with congress at this time. It should be noted that Republicans account for something like 40 to 45% of the earmarks added to this spending bill. |
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taken out of context?
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In fact, in the speeches included in this montage, he says that the earmark process has been "abused' and needs to be "reformed." So he clearly does not promise to eliminate earmarks. Now, what he does say again and again during the video is that the stimulus bill does not contain earmarks. And according to the specific definition of earmarks, it really doesnt. Now, this is of course disingenuous, as it relies on a technicality. It is a bit of politicking on his part, but I am not partisan enough to throw my hands in the air about politicking from the president at the same time the republicans do quite a bit of politicking themselves over this issue. In fact, it is no worse than trying to pass off speeches as president as part of campaign promises. |
Yeah he didn't promise anywhere in that video to never have earmarks. Besides the president can't decide if a bill has earmarks or not short of vetoing every single bill that congress passes.
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I didnt hear or read that he made a promise, however he does state "We passed a recovery plan free of earmarks". Whatever, politicians should start saying what they mean, and mean what they say. Does breaking promises weigh any more or less over straight forward bullshiting? |
They did pass a recovery plan without earmarks....
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{added} And I find this interesting as people get bent over about $100 million in bonuses, what about the billions sent to other institutions including overseas? Quote:
To me this illustrates a fundamental problem with government trying to micro-manage the private sector. They simply don't know what they are doing. So, after the first $85 billion, they throw more and more money at the problem, and now there is still another $30 billion infusion on the table and still no accounting for the money or controls, when will it end? |
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Now notice the date ace, notice the date Quote:
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it's kinda funny the extent to which folk like ace have to shave so much of reality off in order to make room for their obsolete conservative viewpoints to make sense.
aig--in the hall of mirrors on the right, this is something that was engineered during the obama administration. empirically, of course, it wasn't--but hey, why let facts get in the way? the bailout of a.i.g. was entirely reactive, done with extreme speed during the endgame of an administration that was ideologically opposed to regulation and so was ideologically opposed to the type of competences required and the type of planning required to be coherent once the need came--but this is of course obama's fault. on and on this drivel goes from the right. o and i oppose what obama's doing in afghanistan. but that, too, is yet another bush administration mess that the right would love to pretend somehow is obama's fault. |
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I don't care |
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Please, let me know how much effort it takes? I think even the average 5th grader can clearly understand my views. ---------- Post added at 10:50 PM ---------- Previous post was at 10:45 PM ---------- Quote:
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people confuse morality tales with economics. Letting aig and the banks "fail" might feel good, but would be a disaster that would still be paid by the tax payers. It would completely freeze credit markets even more, disrupt the economy and with all certainty push us into a great depression. And the tax payers would either pay it all by losing all their savings, or pay it all through the fdic, or both.
It is very easy to say "let it fail" when one does not comprehend the consequences well enough. We are talking about the vast majority of the banking industry collapsing and taking any industry that needs credit in any way with them. Now, I don't agree with what Obama is doing, because that is indirectly helping the shareholders instead of the clients. But the solution to that, which is to temporarily nationalize these institutions and resell them, is considered even worse by conservatives. |
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Now after their policies failed the GOP needs a few new talking points and earmarks is high on that list. They're just betting a large % of the US voting population to be dumb enough not to notice they're adding earmarks too. Sadly they'll likely win that bet. One of the other sad parts is , as I said, not all earmarks are bad. People bitch and moan because the federal government want to spend money on things like honey bee research. What a dumb idea... until you realize bees are disappearing and they just happen to pollinate crops... crops that feed us. Yeah let's not spend money on that stupid research. Maybe we could spend a few billion on Iraqi bee research. |
basically, what dippin said is a good response to you, ace.
i don't think you understand what's going on. if you remember--and i expect you don't---the bush people's move relative to a.i.g. was forced on it because of the magnitude of the asset pool it insured, the fact that national governments stood to loose enormous amounts if it went under--a.i.g. was a danger to the financial system as a system. talking about allowing institutions to fail as if they're in any meaningful way a collection of buildings separated from other collections of buildings and not nodes within very complex, very high=speed capital flows is absurd. the obama administration probably should have already nationalized a significant portion of the banking sector, including aig. i think paul krugman's been consistently on this topic and has been consistently correct about it. part of the explanation for these half-assed half-way gestures appears to be political--obama seems to think it important to keep the republicans on the same basic page, when the situation militates for leaving them in the ash-heap of the past, where their economic ideology is already burning. i don't think you understand what the situation is, ace, and i think that you've also drunk the koolaid (an expression i detest, but there's no better on this point that is anywhere near as polite) concerning what regulation is, what it can do and cannot do. regulation is a means to an end. what's required to use it effectively is a set of political goals. what obama's been stuck doing is trying to control the many many fires that the lunacy of free marketeer ideology have left burning. you advocate that ideology still, ace, so i don't see what you have to say that's of any interest. your way of thinking is what enabled this mess, what set it on fire, what paralyzed attempts to deal with it, and is what stays in the way of a coherent approach to this transformation in capitalist ideology that's under way. and i dont recognize your attempts to shape what is and is not a correct way to approach afghanistan as a question. |
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Even got a video Psssst ace, even your buddy dubya said he was wrong to say that in front of the banner, it's alright, you don't need to aegue semantics. Mission, war whatever the fuck you want to call it, it was far from over when shrub made that 'great speech'. Here I'll even show you he regretted it, just so you don't feel bad that the mission was never actually accomplished. Quote:
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Obama's plan to charge veterans for some of their post-combat medical care is not something I support. Nor is his plan to tax health benefits
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And, why can't we have government officials to take some time and study an issue before committing billions? Why didn't they know about the bonuses on day one? Why didn't they make rescinding the bonus agreements as a condition of getting the money on day one? They did that for the top auto execs. Most of the folks in Washington are simply in over their heads, and guys like Paulson may have had an agenda. We needed people to probe, study the issue, ask questions and do all the things we were told they did. Just admit that Obama's rhetoric during his campaign and as a Senator about controls and conditions was bullshit. why is that o.k. with you? |
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the reason it's ridiculous is that in order to make this silly analysis happen, you have to pretend that aig is just another insurance firm. so we're back in that tiny, blinkered world of econ 101 modelling applied in a diletante manner to real-world situations--conservative economic theory in other words. you can't get to the premise of an actual conversation about aig, but you talk anyway. same problem obtains for your pseudo-analysis of the aig bailout. and a big reason that people like paulsen were in over their heads is because they're conservatives appointed by a conservative administration BECAUSE they do not and seemingly can not think in other than neoliberal terms. so when neoliberalism crumbled OF COURSE they're in over their heads. |
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If probing into that is ridiculous, I am guilty. I need someone to explain why AIG was too big for bankruptcy. Seems to me, that people like you actually could have used a few people like me in Washington before committing billions into a failed corporation. |
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yeah, I just came back to update that. He wants to move the veterans' primary insurers to their private companies, with the government picking up the rest (while it's currently the other way around). still, seems like something that doesn't need to be messed with, especially since the critics can spin it into a very anti-veteran move on the infotainment channels |
In order for any of this "dented halo" attack to work, Obama has to have been viewed as perfect and infallible. This "See? He's letting down your idealized image of him!" thing only holds water if there WAS an idealized image of him.
Problem is, the only place that image EVER existed was in the minds of the right-wingers, accusing Obama supporters of feeling that way. So now they're pointing one fiction at another fiction, and they think they're scoring points. Fortunately, the rest of the world got sick of fictions when it was the White House peddling them, and isn't buying... |
ace--the case for aig being "too big to fail" came in part from the fact that its activities were intertwined with investements held by european and asian governments---this point was made from the outset---typically, when people not blinded by conservative economic mythologies rehearse the sequence of steps of the devolution of the neoliberal order, they point to aig as the point at which it became clear, even to the blind, that this was a crisis of the global financial system and not of the american financial system--which you might have been able to pretend was the case through the bear-stearns and lehmann phase of things. and in fact, your brilliant idea about letting firms fail was tried out on those first two, remember? what it produced was an acceleration into a more generalized crisis. so it wasn't a functional idea.
the problem here really, ace, is that you're not looking into anything. you do no research, you bring no data to speak of--what you're interested in doing is maintaining a sense of coherence for your own economic a priori at the expense of data about the world---when you're challenged on it, you compound the disengenousness of the way you handle information with disengenuousness about what you're doing and why. |
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They underwrite insurance, do "corporate insurance," and actually insure financial instruments used by other banks and funds. If they go broke, not only will everyone who's invested in AIG lose money, but insurance companies, banks and funds will go under as well. If they go under, not only will the "zombie" banks lose money, but also many other healthy banks. That would make the current situation seem like nothing. |
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However, your premise is false. AIG bet big in the area of credit default swaps and they started having problems in 2005. After Greenberg was forced out by NY AG, Sptizer, AIG lost its AAA rating. During this process there was political pressures to adjust and restate earnings, which further added to the growing lack of confidence in the company. This lead to the need to post more collateral in a environment where their bets on real estate assets was declining. The spiral started and then began to accelerate. The management team, instead of managing the new environment bet bigger on real estate causing the collapse of the company. They bet big. They bet wrong. They bet bigger. And they were still wrong. The only people at risk, were those who went along for the ride. If AIG's bets had paid off this would not be an issue and you can bet they would have done everything possible to minimize the taxes due on the profits. So, you can believe that they had to be bailed-out and buy into the superficial garbage being fed to the public, I don't. If you want to describe me as ridiculous, blind, etc., for my view feel free - but that won't change reality. ---------- Post added at 05:56 PM ---------- Previous post was at 05:49 PM ---------- Quote:
Here is a link to their latest 10K filing with the SEC: http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/da...74794e10vk.htm |
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Additionally, if it's so very vital to our economy that AIG survive, why were they just handed money without any requirements as to how they spend it. Personally I think it's more important to keep a company afloat than to pay a boatload of executives millions of dollars each in bonuses, but apparently Vital Financial Backbone AIG doesn't see it that way. |
that you wouldn't be concerned about endangering other national governments by allowing aig to fail because of their role in backing mortgage securities is a good bit of evidence for the proposition that it's a good thing you're far from power, ace.
you could say "well you governments went into that market at your peril, so fuck you" but the political consequences of that would have far outweighed any fleeting sense of vindication that you could have derived from the action. i have a pretty good idea of how aig got into trouble, ace. the problem is that you have only the segment of the story repeated above that enables your interpretation to operate. you leave out the parts that triggered the bush people to act. since that's what is at play here, it hardly makes sense for you to claim some superior insight when you can't even keep your data organized so it speaks to the question you're responding to. and it was the bush administration that acted. remember? your boys in the bush administration pulled the trigger. ======== edit: you'd think that anti-trust would still matter, wouldn't you? not in republican land, apparently. concentration is proof of their social-darwinist ideological worldview. until it screws up, in which case other criteria arbitrarily enter the evaluation process. |
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The problem is that right now is not exactly the time to let a company like that fail. I would be too hard a landing. I disagree with how the Obama team is handling it. I think a short term nationalization is actually in the tax payer's best interest, as we would not simply be spending the money, but actually buying equity. Unfortunately, that is not how things are going. But letting it fail is not an option, in my opinion. Specially since the taxpayer would end up picking up the tab anyways, through the FDIC. |
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http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/0d55351a-0...077b07658.html
have a look at this from the future of capitalism series in the financial times. it explains quite a bit about the rise of derivatives, what they were, how they were possible, what they meant. the article "looting" from 1993, which i referenced in the thread in economic (based on an ny times summary that appeared last week) is more detailed in it;s analysis, but shows very similar types of thinking, bureaucratic rationalization and consequences coming out of the savings & loan farce of the late 1980s... i had posted something earlier about ace's revisionist pseudo-history of aig and the bush administration's actions with respect to it--but i'm bored by that. so this instead. |
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Seems comical though you just can't admit that nothing was accomplished after just 3 weeks, and shrub fucked up with that banner, hell even dubya admitted that. Must be tough though to be trying to make your point by just arguing semantics, tomato, tomatoe, mission, war, conflict, it's all the same, the mission nor the was was accomplished by that time 3 weeks in. |
The mission could not have been accomplished because the mission was not defined, and the only mentioned part of the mission at the outset (go get the WMD's) was impossible to accomplish because the WMD's weren't there, and they knew it.
However, this thread is about Obama. Bush was a horrid president, and probably will go down as the worst in history, but his idiotic butt is finally out of the oval office. We can't change what he did. We can only look at how Obama is trying to fix the mess he made. |
I'll also note: the stock market has been rallying for five days straight. By the logic employed in this thread early last week, this means Obama is doing a GREAT GREAT GREAT job.
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sooner or later you'd think that the nightly televisual infotainment would stop treating the stock market as if its activities reflected the general state of the economy. that started under nixon--around 1972---which is strange because it was about the same time that the series of moves were being implemented that severed the movements of capital from that of the real economy--the ideological component came in the early 1980s--it wasn't inevitable--but by that point, the separation was pretty radical.
it are deep dysfunctions that have to be addressed--people keep acting as though this transition or crisis is a blip in the normal run of things--but they're wrong. in saner parts of the world, there's a pretty broad recognition of the fact that the collapse of the neoliberal order has opened onto a need for very basic changes, basic reorientations not only in what folk do and how they do about it but also in the ways they think about them and their relation to the broader systems they're part of and relations between or amongst systems. there is no option but to deal with these basic issues. it's strange reading the intellectual paralysis that seems to be abroad in this microcosm, which repeats in a way some of the intellectual paralysis that's out there in 3-d america. i think it's a function of living in an authoritarian ideological context. that is not changing. if anything prevents a collective change of direction, it'll be that the ideological relay system is now entirely out of phase with what is required. there's nothing inevitable about a positive outcome to any of this.... |
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Actually about the best way to define the mission was when shrub said ‘Remember, this man tried to kill my dad’, that's what it was all about shrubs revenge......hell good name for a comic book. I know this thread is about Obama, but ace brought up the Iraq war winding down in its own time, just wanted to show him the last person to say that was so wrong. |
there are many reasons the bush people won't quite go away...partly they condition so much about what the obama administration is up against (both directly and as a kind of fucked up culmination of longer-term processes) that to invoke the latter is also to invoke the former---and partly because the bush people are a gift that keeps on giving on other, even more foul grounds. read the following--it's not pleasant, but it's better to know:
US Torture: Voices from the Black Sites - The New York Review of Books |
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The Bush people, Paulson, was not concerned about the bonuses. The Obama people are. The Bush people were concerned about the big dollars. It seems the Obama people are concerned about the trivial dollars. ---------- Post added at 03:07 PM ---------- Previous post was at 03:04 PM ---------- Quote:
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Funny, but I was ridiculed to no end when I suggested that the economy was fundamentally sound. I guess a lot has changed in the past few months. |
ace, your memory is faulty. either that or you're resorting to simply making stuff up. there was extensive international pressure for the united states to act to salvage aig. at this point, i am so tired to going through your misrepresentations and flights into fantasy that i'm not wasting my time researching this. it happened, and for the reasons i noted. there is no debate about it.
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Before ground troops went into Iraq, the Air Force had the responsibility to make strategic military strikes to disrupt communications, Iraq command and control, and Iraq's ability to wage war. They did that without loss of life or the loss of aircraft. These men performed exceptionally well as did their support teams. These men made the ground invasion 100% easier. These men earned recognition from their Commander in Chief, the President. These men deserve the recognition of the American people. These men deserve the recognition of freedom loving Iraqi people and freedom loving people all over the world. They did their job, they did it well. "Mission Accomplished"!:thumbsup: ---------- Post added at 03:37 PM ---------- Previous post was at 03:32 PM ---------- Quote:
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I must have missed a memo, aren't carriers host to Navy pilots, not Air Force?
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against my better judgment. if you look at the list of the latest institutions which got payouts from aig, it'll become obvious where the pressure came from any why:
http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/aig-details-105-billion-payouts/story.aspx?guid={74DD6FC0-D2D8-4925-8B84-F8E4BEBEEADB}&dist=morenews_ts |
FYI: Calling Bush "shrub" isn't strengthening your argument. Name calling is a pretty weak debate tool (and I happen to agree with a lot of what you're saying)
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Here is how to handle the bonuses. Tell the CEO to meet with all the people contractually entitled to a bonus. Have the CEO tell them, they can either be fired or we can re-negotiate the agreement so that no bonus will be paid until after the bailout money is returned. Obama, needs to act like he owns AIG and controls the check book. And, regarding the checkbook, he should tell the CEO about this new thing called an Excel Spreadsheet. Mr. CEO, in one column put the money we give you and in another list all outgoing payments - and send me a copy every day - and make sure it balances to what you have in your accounts. We don't need hearings. We don't need legislation. We just need someone with business sense. |
ace---i directed you at the list of banks that were paid by AIG in this last round in order to put to bed your silly claim that there was no pressure from other governments on the united states to act to salvage the firm. please try to stay on point. moving to an entirely different section of the article, biting a couple sentences and then launching into a repeat of the sort of nonsense you can hear any weeknight coming from the talking heads on cnbc really is not of any interest. sorry to break it to you.
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I've edited my post to remove the "shrub" reference. I stand by my shit sandwich remark. |
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