Bookworm on Sep 24 2008 at 11:09 am | Filed under: Uncategorized
Bald-Headed Geek spells out a depressing scenario. How likely do you think it is that his prediction will come true?
Email This Post To A Friend
You must be logged in to post a comment.
SADIE on Victor Davis Hanson on the President’s and the Dem’s conduct with regard to the health care vote
Mike Devx on Victor Davis Hanson on the President’s and the Dem’s conduct with regard to the health care voteMike Devx on If you don’t have time to read anything else today, read this stuff….
Richard Johnston on Victor Davis Hanson on the President’s and the Dem’s conduct with regard to the health care vote
Oldflyer on Tom Hanks shows stunning ignorance when he claims Americans were engaged in racial genocide against the Japanese during WWII
Ymarsakar on The Republican Governors Alliance on America’s risk and her ability still to triumphYmarsakar on Tom Hanks shows stunning ignorance when he claims Americans were engaged in racial genocide against the Japanese during WWIIYmarsakar on Tom Hanks shows stunning ignorance when he claims Americans were engaged in racial genocide against the Japanese during WWIISADIE on Victor Davis Hanson on the President’s and the Dem’s conduct with regard to the health care vote
Caped Crusader on Tom Hanks shows stunning ignorance when he claims Americans were engaged in racial genocide against the Japanese during WWII
1)If large international investors were expecting a catastropic decline in the value of the dollar, the rate on the 10-year Treasury would be considerably higher than the 3.79% it is trading at right now. Of course, they could be wrong…
2)Modest declines in the dollar are actually of benefit to certain sectors in the economy, specifically export-oriented manufacturers.
3)The greatest threats to the economy, IMNSHO, are fundamental matters which do not (yet) lend themselves to headlines, such as the war being conducted by the Democrats on all practical forms of electrical power production.
Complete collapse of the $ is hard to do. Possible, but very hard. The only reason it would “completely” collapse is if the entire world does not want to hold $ in the form of T-Bills, T-notes, etc.
We buy all the stuff that the rest of the world makes. Especially China, and the rest of Asia. They want us alive and well and will prop us up to keep buying.
These countries do not have the domestic consumption to buy their goods.
China has 250 million farmers headed to the big city in the next five to ten years. They have to be absorbed by the urban manufacturing base and only exporting to the US is going to do the job.
WE will have significant inflation, because the only way that US gov’t can reduce debt in the future will be to monitize the bonds issued to pay for the deficit. To monitize the debt is to just print paper money from the Fed to buy the bonds issued to pay for the deficit. This will cause inflation (how much?, who knows) which is the killer of democracies.
It is going to be tough economic environment, but a complete collapse of the $ is unlikely.
Hello Bookworm,
Back in June and July of last year when gas was oscillating around $4.50 a gallon, people asked me what’s the outlook of things to come. I told me them what I honestly thought would happen. This is what I told them:
Well, since the gas prices started lowering into the $3.60 range, my prediction seemed a bit premature and unnecessarily alarmist to lots of folks. But it would seem that many people don’t understand the nature of the problem, now or then.
I think this entire crisis has been manufactured by the central banks of the world against the American dollar. We are witnessing the collapse of the American dollar as we speak, and it’s sad to say but I don’t think the election of McCain or Obama will make much of difference on this score.
And if you think my assessment is a bit too conspiratorial, when gas skyrocketed to $4.50 within a few weeks time, OPEC was the one who blew the whistle and said that the central banks of Europe and Asia are artificially driving up prices. Oil prices should have been around $60-70ish a barrel, not $138.
Right now, everything, almost all monetary considerations worldwide, is pegged to the American dollar. This also means that we receive an automatic roughly 10% discount on a whole host of resources because if oil was peg to, let’s say, the Euro, there would be that currency exchange factor. Which I think is roughly 10%.
I believe that President Bush is attempting a economic “bear hug” on the central banks concocting this whole mess (i.e. sell high, buy low, bring things back up to status quo ante), and what we’re seeing now are the countermoves of those banks.
Only time will tell what will happen. But make no mistake about it. What we are seeing are serious powerplays on the part of the Europeans and the Chinese to wreck America economically, and if they succeed, the center of gravity in the financial world would move to London, NOT New York.
I think this article is the opening bell on what’s to come…
http://www.reuters.com/article/ousiv/idUSPEK4365020080917?sp=true
If I understand this, our choices are:
A. Devalue the dollar by bailing out bad investments and take a 10-20% hit on commodity prices. Prop up the banks and in exchange China will keep buying our paper. Then pass the cost on to our children’s, children’s children.
B. Let investment banks fail, move commodity prices to another exchange medium, and pay a 10% hit in the exchange rate. Cut spending and raise taxes, and allow the market to work (which would put a lot of people out of work).
I vote for B.
Either way, we’re all going to have to get used to getting by on less. Our trump card, we have the food.
Thomas,
Are you saying that the governments of all of these nations are conspiring against us? Or are the power plays being coordinated solely by powerful financial market heads, totally ignoring their heads of states and their administrations?
I’m not a fan of large-scale conspiracy theories myself. Certainly there are powerful economic entities in the world that do want to move away from the dollar, and they’ve made no secret of it. But a coordinated assault…
In my attempts over the last week and half to understand this market emergency – and I was starting nearly from zero – I ran across a number of sites that claimed Cheney was running the US Government right now, and *he* instituted this market collapse purely as a foreign policy instrument to bludgeon Russia, and to seize more power for himself. Everything else was illusion designed to confuse and conceal. These sites were not your usual Daily Kos and Dem Underground rant sites. Their economic analyses were rich and complex even if wrong because of their Cheney axiom.
Stupidity and incompetence can lead to collapse as easily as nefarious conspiracy. I’m going with stupidity and incompetence (and short-term greed at the expense of long-term wisdom), myself.
Ran across this:
As the politician slowly came out of the anesthesia after surgery, he said, “Why are all the blinds drawn, doc?”
“There’s a big fire across the street,” the doctor replied. “We didn’t want you to think the operation was a failure.”
One of the more interesting things I stumbled upon this week was an op-ed shamed Gov. Eliot Spitzer wrote for the Washington Post in Feb. 2008, soon before he was outted for his hooker addiction.
It’s a real jaw-dropper:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/13/AR2008021302783.html
How about this for doom and gloom:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article4810644.ece
Ozzie,
Replying to #7,
Why wouldn’t this be a reasonable reply:
No one is forcing the borrowers to sign on to those terms. They are simply among the available options. If I am planning my own future, and I think I can cover unusual mortgage terms, why shouldn’t I have the opportunity to sign it?
I might be foreseeing a unique opportunity that saves me money, and this would make me very intelligent. On the other hand, I might be just going for the cheapest loan possible *as of right now*, and that would make me very stupid.
But why should the option, really, be disallowed by the law itself? What you’re saying is that people must be protected from themselves.
———-
As an example, suppose I’m offered a credit card with an 80% interest rate on the blaance if I don’t pay the full balance due. However, I get a $50 rebate each month in a row that I pay the full balance.
Would that be predatory? What if I’ve paid on time every month for the last two years and I see no reason I can’t keep paying the balance every month. For me myself… I’d take that credit card.
———-
So, I would have to say, it was *reasonable* for President Bush to have refused to allow the states to restrict those available options. There’s no legal reason to enact the restriction.
However, based on what has happened, I do agree that it would have been *perhaps wiser* to allow the restrictions. This would have violated Bush’s principles, because he would be restricting human choices based on… what? Based on the fact that the borrowers are stupid and need to be protected. That’s hard for a conservative to do, but perhaps he should have.
But I don’t see his decision as nefarious. Just very unfortunate. And I think that defines the difference between conservatives and liberals.
I, being a conservative, am going to allow you to make what I think are incredibly stupid decisions even if I think you’re very likely to harm yourself. You might very well know what you’re doing, and if it’s legal right now, who am I to judge? I leave the decisions and the consequences up to each free individual.
You, being a liberal, want to enforce new laws to restrict human activity because it’s likely to result in harm and you assume I don’t know what I’m doing. You leave the decisions in the hands of a powerful few in government, based not on what is right or wrong, but on what they think would be good or bad for us.
>>Their economic analyses were rich and complex even if wrong because of their Cheney axiom.>>
You’re probably right about the stupidity and incompetence, but…how about if you substitute “Soros” for “Cheney”?
I, being a conservative, am going to allow you to make what I think are incredibly stupid decisions even if I think you’re very likely to harm yourself. You might very well know what you’re doing, and if it’s legal right now, who am I to judge? – Mike
Some of the practices were illegal, (such as accepting” illegal kickbacks”) and attorney generals from all 50 states tried to stop them. The Bush Administration, in turn, fought against all 50 states which enacted laws to try to curb predatory lending practices. As Spitzer pit it, the Bush administration “used the power of the federal government in an unprecedented assault on state legislatures, as well as on state attorneys general and anyone else on the side of consumers.”
He also explained how they did it, and said it was “the frist time in its history, the OCC was used as a tool against consumers.”
And individuals were not just harming themselves, as this crisis has proven. As Spizer warned in Feb. 2008: ” In addition, the widespread nature of these practices, if left unchecked, threatened our financial markets. . . “
Eliot Spitzer simply re-cast the facts to fit his agenda. Anyone who knows anything about this knows whose fingerprints are all over this, and it’s not George Bush’s.
This is a new style though, not quite astroturfing, but similar. Take any tidbit said by anyone, and deflect the blame. Oh, and I liked the faux, “take me serious because I put in that part about shamed.” My jaw dropped too.
Eliot Spitzer simply re-cast the facts to fit his agenda- Allen
He wrote this op-ed last Feb, Allen.
Don’t know anything about this situation, so did a bit of searching. Found this:
http://www.naca.net/_assets/shared/633081887250364580.pdf
Still don’t understand what was going on, but the file told me a couple of things – one of which is that OCC is subject to Congressional oversight. This pdf file is a letter requesting Congressional members to support HR4236 and HR4237 which are supposed to overturn the OCC ruling that Spitzer protests. I haven’t researched those house actions yet.
It seems to me – on the surface – that Spitzer et al were correct, and that possibly they were throwing a monkey wrench into Congress’ plans at playing the diversity game and adhering to sound economic principles. Just as Dodd has managed to prevent changes to the system, this may have been another place where he was able to leave the financial institutions unhampered by allowing them to take risks that weren’t risks, since they had assurance that they’d be covered by the Government.
Just tried to find the HR4236 and HR4237. No luck. Don’t know why not…
Ozzie, you said,
“Some of the practices were illegal, (such as accepting” illegal kickbacks”) and attorney generals from all 50 states tried to stop them.”
If they were illegal, how hard would it be already to stop them? They’re illegal! Prosecute it!
Then you switch immediately back to your original argument, which leads to my original response, which you didn’t answer. Therefore Bush’s decision was not, by my argument, “a tool against consumers”. And that means you haven’t answered me. (Of course, I realize you don’t have to answer me at all. But you did reply, indicating a desire to answer, so I thought I’d point this out.)
If they were illegal, how hard would it be already to stop them? They’re illegal! Prosecute it!
- Mike
Read the Op-ed again, Mike…The kick-backs were always illegal (but most likely difficult to prove). In time, all 50 states enacted legislation to make predatory lending practices illegal and the Bush White House then blocked the states.
“Therefore Bush’s decision was not, by my argument, “a tool against consumers”.- Mike
He used the OCC as a tool against consumers by overturing legislation the states had passed.
He made it impossible for the states to stop predatory lending practices, which, as Spitzer predicted, led to the financial crisis.
“And that means you haven’t answered me. ” – Mike
I havent answered you because your premise is wrong. It isn’t a matter of “Home-buyers were stupid, so home buyers have to pay the price..”
The Federal government aggresively intervened after the states passed legislation to stop predatory lending.
And all of us are paying.
suek,
I may be mistaken, but I believe HR bills are numbered the same in different years.
http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=h108-4236
This bill never became law. This bill was proposed in a previous session of Congress. Sessions of Congress last two years, and at the end of each session all proposed bills and resolutions that haven’t passed are cleared from the books.
Last Action: May 17, 2004: Referred to the Subcommittee on Financial Institutions and Consumer Credit.
http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=h108-4237
This bill never became law. This bill was proposed in a previous session of Congress. Sessions of Congress last two years, and at the end of each session all proposed bills and resolutions that haven’t passed are cleared from the books.
Last Action: May 17, 2004: Referred to the Subcommittee on Financial Institutions and Consumer Credit.
Full text is available at the links.
New York Governor, (New York based companies.)
US Attorney in New York, (New York based companies with potential wrongdoing.)
Why it’s Bush. Of course Spitzer had nothing to do with any of that, he was too busy with the prostitutes. It’s called admitting to the lesser crime to avoid the serious one.
Nice try Ozzie.
If you want to have a serious discussion on the problems we face as a nation you might try knocking off the “jaw dropping: false premise things you’re trying to pass off as real.
Replying to Ozzie, #16:
Here’s an article from 2003 discussing what the OCC did. It is *objective*, presenting no editorial slant, as in Eliot Spitzer’s advocacy piece.
http://housing-bubble.com/news/predatory-lending-guidelines-220203.html
If the OCC language is just a fake device to deliberately conceal an attempt to harm consumers, I don’t see it.
I’m sticking with my argument and I don’t think I have anything further to provide. Others will have to pick up the debate if they wish.
Ozzie,
The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency
Office of the Comptroller of the Currency The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) charters, regulates, and supervises all national banks. It also supervises the federal branches and agencies of foreign banks. Headquartered in Washington, D.C., the OCC has four district offices plus an office in London to supervise the international activities of national banks.
The OCC was established in 1863 as a bureau of the U.S. Department of the Treasury. The OCC is headed by the Comptroller , who is appointed by the President, with the advice and consent of the Senate, for a five-year term. The Comptroller also serves as a director of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) and a director of the Neighborhood Reinvestment Corporation.
http://www.occ.treas.gov/aboutocc.htm
Spitzer was no less than a partisan opportunist.
I see no evidence to support his charge against the Bush administration.
A better link than the last one, sorry – my original link, while it suffices as to the nature of the argument, was to an earlier version of the draft. Here’s the final draft of the OCC decision.
http://www.occ.treas.gov/toolkit/newsrelease.aspx?Doc=ZN9I8H7T.xml
The crux of the argument in the release is that the OCC rules apply solely to National Banks – not regional or state – and that individual state laws regulating the behavior of National Banks cannot apply. Individual states must campaign for federal law on the issue of predatory lending practices.
A rather standard push-and-pull in the usual, constant struggle between state and national governments. Nothing nefarious there.
Now I’m done.
Ozzie,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_D._Hawke,_Jr.
John D. Hawke served as the United States Comptroller of the Currency from 1998-2004.
Yes, he was a Clinton appointee.
Mike,
Stupdiy and incompetence… well, yes, those things will definitely bring about collapse as surely as a more conspiratorial slant. I think, however, that the one doesn’t necessarily rule out the other.
You asked if it was all the governments of the world conspiring against us or the individual heads of banks. To say that all governments are conspiring to bring us down is perhaps a bit too sweeping, but I’d say a great majority of major powers are.
Can anyone look at the currently geopolitical landscape and doubt that?
The EU, Russia, China, the Mideast, even most Latin American countries would dearly love to see the downfall of America if for no other petty reason than their envy. Do I think they all conspire it together in smoke-filled rooms over brandy and wine? Probably not. But when you have these nations working toward the goal of your down fall, I suspect a synergistic effect would occur, or as some might say, a critical mass could be reached to where individual actions of individual countries when acting together (purposely or not) could have a much greater effect than the sum of their respective actions.
So, in a real sense, a conspiracy doesn’t have to exist at all for the same outcome to occur.
Secondly, I do believe that there are major high profile organizations, affluent individuals and multinational stateless powers that work against the United States. If you take two steps back and look at the world as it is current configured, a sober assessment of the situation would undoubtedly lead you to the conclusion that the world such as it currently exists cannot last.
You have the Radical Muslims in the Mideast who’s threatening to break out of their failed civilization and use the West’s nasty toys against them (nukes, biowarfare, etc.). You have a resurgent Russia wanting to break out of their containment and dominate the Mideast and Europe. You have China wanting to take over the Western Pacific.
Then, there are all the free floating variables that can spell catastrophe at any time: stateless terror groups with WMD’s, the oil supply going bust artificially or not, China economic pongee scheme collapsing, etc.
We are sitting on the precipice of disaster and have been sitting there for the past 80 years or so. Now, these groups, rightly or wrongly, believe that a lock down global world would solve many of these insoluble problems. The problem they believe is the nation state, and it just so happens that the US is the the primary, if not the sole, nation standing in the path of a truly globalized world.
We are the sole hegemon with the most stable currency in the world and the most lethal military the world has ever seen. We have the most dynamic economy in the world and we are the most inventive nation in the world.
These facts, unfortunately, also sets us at odds with the rest of the volatile world. As many of these organizations like to point out, like CFR, a uni-polar world with one hegemon is essentially an unstable.
If you notice, all the proposals of the Left and the environmentalists et al does not attempt to bring the rest of the world to the standard of living of the United States. It is to bring the United States a few large pegs down to the standard of living of the rest of the world. (The most blatant of these proposals are the ones by Al Gore and his greenies which suggests that we live on 2 and a half tons of energy a year, which is the level of Somalia and Haiti.)
So, yes, I think there are conspiracies moving in the background, but as to who is doing what to whom? I don’t know. All I know is there is a conglomeration of powers out there who want the US to fall from its current status as hegemon, and this will have to include the destruction of the US dollar if they are to be successful.
Oz places a great amount of faith in the bottom 25% of humanity in terms of ethics and intelligence. That’s how Oz reliably ends up on the fake liberal side of things, even though Oz vehemently denies being a fake liberal or a Democrat.
He also explained how they did it, and said it was “the frist time in its history, the OCC was used as a tool against consumers.”
For any intel analyst, relying upon sources like Eliiot Spitzer without actually making your own considered judgments, Oz, is very problematic. When all it comes down to is “he explained” and “he said”, your “analysis”, Oz, is only as strong as your sources because it is nothing but a regurgitation of what your sources told you. You might as well not even be here, for we can hear the same things from them that we hear from you. Since your sources are, as I mentioned, in the bottom 25% of the entire human pool, any considered judgment on your part will be limited by such reliability factors.
Now here’s a smoking gun, possibly only of .22 caliber. This is a newsletter written in 1999 talking about President Clintons Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin:
http://lists.essential.org/corp-focus/msg00048.html
It’s all Rubin’s fault.
And the weakening of the CRA is only one element of the finance industry’s
deregulatory wish list which is included in the compromise legislation.
The bill will:
It is not all Rubin’s fault. What is happening here is the same trick the Democrats and Left used to push through any number of other anti-life, anti-American, and pro-misery policies and laws unto the American body politic.
Rubin’s only the symptom of the problem, not the cause of it.
To a certain extent, Democrats have labeled, and successfully so, Republicans as Big Business colluding, corrupt oligarchs that seek to de-regulate government oversight of key American business interests in order to enrich both the Republican party, the Republican politician, and the BIg Business conglomerates like the Military Industrial Complex.
The reality is slightly different from the narration, however. Corrupt businesses that want to cheat by using government regulations against their competition and shady businessmen that think making a profit means special considerations and support provided to them by the Biggest Fat Cat of them all, the US federal government, all prefer, by at least a 2 to 1 margin, the Democrat party over the Republicans. And the ones that provide support to Republicans? They only do so to cover their bets in case the Republicans win: at least that way, they have some influence with them rather than burning their bridges like African Americans voting past super majority for Democrats only. Then there’s local zones like Alaska and Illinois that have their own little internal Republican games going on independent of the national scene.
This makes for an interesting democratic debate across America. If the Republicans are seen as in the interests of big corporations, then any regulation or de-regulation by Republicans will be seen by Americans as out to exploit and hurt the poor. But if Democrat initiatives are seen as helping all of America get better, what is the actual reality of these policy trends? The actual reality is that good regulation and good de-regulation on the part of Republicans are destroyed while bad regulation and corrupt de-regulation on the part of Democrats go forth.
THus we get what we got.
It’s all Rubin’s fault.- Brian
Once again, Kevin Phillips was at the fore, warning us about what would occur..
I watched a interview with him and he pointed to Rubin and said that if Rubin were a Hindu and died, he’d come back as a pail due to his many bailouts.
But Phillips says that both parties are at fault, and the troubles go back at least 25 years.
Oh, and he also says that it’s going to get much, much worse.
A lot of people may wonder why I don’t worry particularly overmuch about Bush’s spending deficit.
Two reasons. 1. Bush isn’t ruthless to the extent that he’d purge the kind of people i’d like to see purged. THis ramps up the deficit since it decreases the authority, power, and fear to which the US President’s veto is held. Without a strong Executive around, Congress will go ballistic on spending regardless of who is in power. Heck, they even got the Supreme Court to go pro-Congress on KELO. Now Congress can grab any land they want for private development. Sweet deal.
2. Second reason is pretty simple. The budget deficit is predictable on a by the numbers basis. You know what it is and you know what it means. THis is nothing compared to the kind of disasters that will result with Democrats steering the ship.
It’s not just financial disasters like this one, either. IT’s the economic robber barons that will come into power by riding on the coat tails of Democrats. It is the blood lost by American on failed and forlorn hopes like Somalia and Mogadishu. It’s all jam packed into this one little philosophy called Leftism and social justice/utopia.
When you lose your people in Democrat useless wars, when you lose your next generation cause the Democrats aborted them and left them out to die in the cold, and when you have your entire financial networks disrupted by greed, corruption, stupidity, and malicious planning, what makes people think the deficit is even going to matter? America will be too busy trying to save itself to worry about any damn deficit in such situations.
Oh, and he also says that it’s going to get much, much worse.
Again, Oz doesn’t have any opinion except the opinion people have told Oz that Oz should have.
Again, Oz doesn’t have any opinion except the opinion people have told Oz that Oz should have- Ymar
If I want to know about heart surgery, I’m going to listen to a heart surgeon.
Kevin Phillips has been writing aabout this for a long time, predicting this would occur.
He’s got a good track record and I tend to respect him more than the pundits and political operatives who are pointing fingers, without even trying to consider the bigger picture.
Oz, you should love this newsletter by Robert Weissman. It is very anti-corporation.
This written in January, 08.
Interesting.
http://lists.essential.org/pipermail/corp-focus/2008/000273.html
Oz, you should love this newsletter by Robert Weissman. It is very anti-corporation- Brian
I’m not anti-corporation, Brian.
It’s the politicians and the fact that citizens view it all as some sort of football game, only looking at the sins of the opossing team, while completely missing the bigger picture.
This is part of the interview I mentioned.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=syuSHElKjmE
If I want to know about heart surgery, I’m going to listen to a heart surgeon.
Not a very good analogy. If you want to do heart surgery, I don’t want you to be talking about “the real heart surgeon told me to cut here and there, at this particular time” when the nurse makes a valid objection based upon unforseen variables that the real heart surgeon hadn’t briefed Oz on.
If you want to just talk about heart surgery and what the heart surgeon said should be done, that’s one. But to then claim it is your own conclusions based upon what the heart surgeon said about something else, is copying, not learning.
Kevin Phillips has been writing aabout this for a long time, predicting this would occur.
Kevin thinks he predicted it. You think so as well. But your thoughts have no value in this respect, for it is simply copying the “writ” and “dogma” of Kevin.
Not a very good analogy. If you want to do heart surgery,- ymar
Nobody listens these days. I said if I want to know about it, not “do.”
I’ve read books by Phillips, who predicted this would happen, so I naturally turned to him to see what he had to say.
Others turn to politicians. .
If someone says something is going to happen and then it actually happens, I trust them more than Bush or Paulsion, who a couple months ago, were saying that the economy was A-OK.
Nobody listens these days. I said if I want to know about it, not “do.”
So all your protestations about what people should or should not have done on matters grim and gray, were non-serious?
while completely missing the bigger picture.
Certainly you could not claim to know the “bigger picture” while at the same time saying that you only want to know about things, rather than to learn how to do them.
Theory without application lacks many things, wisdom amongst them.
I trust them more than Bush
I see. You trust somebody who said something about the future more than you trust Bush, who actually tried to do something about preventing that future.
And then there’s McCain with Petraeus. THey said the surge would work. You said the surge was kaput. You trust your Leftist sources more than you trust Petraeus and McCain combined.
I can go on, you know. There’s plenty of more inconsistencies in your logic, Oz.
You’re wasting your time, Y…except as it serves your purpose, Oz prefers the contrarian position – no matter what it is. I wonder if Oz comments on any blogs which agree with her positions…???
You said the surge was kaput.” – Ymar
You’re confusing me with someone else. I never commented on the surge, Ymar.
“You trust your Leftist sources more than you trust Petraeus and McCain combined – Ymar
Kevin Phillips isnt a leftist. And yes, I trust him more than John McCain or ANY politician.
“I wonder if Oz comments on any blogs which agree with her positions…???” Suek
When I find someone who sees through the partisan nonsense, I jump for joy, suek.. But, I disagree with Democrats, too. I tried to tell my sister, just last night, that Obama isnt the savior she thinks he is.
Partisans only see what they want to see, though. Which is good for politicians, but bad for the country.
“Oz prefers the contrarian position – no matter what it is.” – suek
I’d like people to see through the partisan divides, but that is asking too much, I think.
If you are of the opinion that you alone see the “truth”, then I think you really do have a problem.
How do you define “partisan divides”?
>>Partisans only see what they want to see, though. >>
This strikes me as a description of you – although I don’t exactly see where you’re coming from or going to.
In the end, your choice of candidates for president are limited. You will have to choose from two people you apparently disagree with. Will you be able to do this?
How do you define “partisan divides”?- suek
People who are partisan view the “other side” with a jaundiced eye, while making heroes and heroines of the policians within their own party.
If they looked for the truth, they’d not think of politicians as heroes, saviors, etc. and realize that rooting for anyone, and not holding them accountable , is bad for the country.
“In the end, your choice of candidates for president are limited. You will have to choose from two people you apparently disagree with. Will you be able to do this?” – suek
I’m not voting for any candidate, I’m voting against the one who caters the the special interests I find most distasteful. I don’t like the neoons and I don’t like the Religious Right.
I thought both were D.O.A and, after McCain picked Palin, I realized how wrong I was.
McCain’s choice of Palin clinched it for me.
>>If they looked for the truth, they’d not think of politicians as heroes, saviors, etc. and realize that rooting for anyone, and not holding them accountable , is bad for the country.>>
>>I don’t like the neoons and I don’t like the Religious Right.>>
So you’ll vote for the communist??
Great plan.
So you’ll vote for the communist??
Great plan- suek
You honestly believe that Obama is a Communist?
He, like most American politicians, are ranked on the authoritarian right (though Biden and Obama are much closer to the center than McCain/Palin). The only polticians that are on considered “left” on a global scale are Dennis Kucinich and Ralph Nader.
There will never be Communism in the U.S. (Though, thanks to recent bailouts, we now appear to be a socialist country).
The more I learn about Palin, (and the more YouTubes crop up about her and her crazy preachers), the more I feel compelled to vote against her.
>>You honestly believe that Obama is a Communist?>>
Yes. I’m not sure he identifies himself as a _C_ommunist, but I believe he is in fact somewhere between socialism and _c_ommunism. Whichever, I don’t want his philosophy as president of the USA.
http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/09/barack_obama_and_alinskys_rule.html
Ozzie,
You’re so funny. Obama is closer to the center than McCain? That would put the center somewhere in the Atlantic Ocean.
I think you left out Bernie Sanders. And Kucinich isn’t just just on the left, he’s just left of Pluto.
I never commented on the surge, Ymar.
If I recall, you were the one that portrayed Iraq as a failure or waste of time/resources. That is a comment on the surge, even if you didn’t use anybody as a source that directly addressed that issue.
Kevin Phillips isnt a leftist.
I haven’t analyzed his work so I wouldn’t say whether he is or isn’t one.
You honestly believe that Obama is a Communist?
That doesn’t seem to matter much, given that regardless of what Obama is believed to be, what Obama will do is quite clear and objective.
The more I learn about Palin, (and the more YouTubes crop up about her and her crazy preachers), the more I feel compelled to vote against her.
So you bought into the Democrat propaganda-astroturfing and irregular warfare cadres, did ya?
You’re wasting your time, Y…except as it serves your purpose
I keep it short and pared down, compared to what I could do. I don’t lose too much time on that score.
Obama is closer to the center than McCain?
If your world is dominated by the EU or China, then probably yes.
I think you left out Bernie Sanders.- BrianE
I was going by a global scale while answering suek, since Communism doesnt exist in the U.S. http://www.politicalcompass.org/
(Though, with the recent — and pending –bailouts, it appears that socialism does)
I should have made it clear that the only candidates charted on this global measuring scale were presidential candidates, which is why I left out Bernie Sanders.
America is pretty right wing compared to other countries. I think now that the decline has accelerated, it will become more authortarian, too.
Ozzie,
This Kevin Phillips?
http://www.slate.com/id/2138947/
From 2006.
If your world is dominated by the EU or China, then probably yes- _Ymar
Once again, I said on a global scale, which means the entire world.
But now that you mention it, I believe that China is eventually going to dominate.
becoming one of our most ubiquitous political commentators and one of the most left-wing.- slate, via rock
Well, I can show you plenty of other sources that “Kevin Phillips is no lefty.”
What matters to be that he’s been both prescient and correct.
He called this a long time ago. As did former Cold Warrior Chalmers Johnson.
A quick comment on Ozzie’s #16 and my #22,
Ozzie, I think we would agree that Democrats did not foresee the end results of their various actions concerning Fannie Mae, mark-to-market, the Housing Community Act forcing investment firms and banks to have to participate at quota levels in the sub-prime market, blocking regulation reforms on Fannie Mae. This was not nefarious; this was simply politics. (I think you would agree with me, even though you might not be able to actually admit it in print.)
I have thought about the OCC and the Jan 2004 decision to refute all 50 attorneys general. Again, it was not nefarious, but as with the Democrats, these things have consequences. This was a case where the Bush Administration could have behaved differently and helped mitigate the crisis. It was push-pull on State rights vs National rights: Just politics, as the Fannie Mae efforts were with the Democrats.
And investment firms’ use of the opaque debt asset instruments, and their slicing and repackaging and resell-resell-resell cycle, gaining 0.5% profit on each resell as the housing market speculation spun wildly upward… not nefarious, just short-term and extraordinarily stupid. Again, plenty of blame.
There’s blame enough to go around, and we can all point fingers. I prefer to look at the broader picture. It’s sickening to watch the entire set of Democrat leadership blame solely Bush and Wall Street. It’s sickening to watch Obama do the same and, of course, blame McCain solely. What disgusting hypocrisy, at a level no Republican leaders are engaging in! I hope you can agree with that as well.
The Democrat leadership is behaving the way the conservative talk show hosts are behaving, criticising only one side – other other side. Talk show hosts aren’t leaders;the Democrats in Congress are supposed to be. It’s a shameful week for them.
Communism is still alive and well in the USA. In fact, most of the demonstrations we see are organized by and populated by various communistic groups, whose primary goal is the downfall of the USA, whether through socialism, globalism – any means. They share that goal with the islamicists, and if they suceed, it’s anyone’s guess who will kill whom. They’re both amoral when it comes to human life.
http://www.cpusa.org/
http://www.onenewsnow.com/Election2008/Default.aspx?id=210820
http://rwor.org/