Confused

For you President Obama fans, maybe you can clear up something for me because I'm a little confused. As I see it and this is only my view, the US has 3 important issues in front of them; economy, the oil problem in the gulf, and illegal immigration.President Obama took office when the economy was heading down hill. It's way to late to fix blame on any one individual or party. Instead of trying to fix the economy problem Mr. Obama took on complex issues like trying to reform health care. When the country was short of dollars he has gone wild spending dollars the US doesn't have to create jobs. The individual states have abused the money by putting it to pet projects instead of things needed and productive.Three days after the oil rig explosion and the start of the massive oil flow in the gulf, the Dutch offered equipment to clean the oil from the ocean. Mr. Obama declined because the return water had small amounts of oil that would go back into the gulf (obviously influenced by the naturalists).The Kevin Costner & associates offered to sell cleanup equipment to BP a few weeks later and hopefully this equipment will help solve some of the problem. While other countries and private parties have been offering assistance the Obama administration has been sitting on their hands letting the fox mend the fence in the hen house for almost 2 months while the oil still flows and threatens the US coast and the lively hood of the fishermen and common folk alike. My thoughts are that a 1,000 gallons/day of oil return to the ocean is better than 100,000 gallons/day. Many national parks and natural areas on the US border are being closed because they are unsafe for humans which was brought on by the large influx of illegal immigrants and drug/arms dealers. The illegals and dealers use the national natural parks because they know they can't be used by enforcement personnel (brought on again by the naturalists). Obama and gov. won't let the Border Patrol officers and other enforcement officers in these natural areas because they would disrupt the natural setting (like thousands of illegal immigrants and drug people trapezing through the woods don't do damage to the country side). The federal gov. wonders why Arizona developed a new immigration law, it's because they (the US gov.) has shown no signs of enforcing federal immigration laws over the years and now the federal gov. is ready to sue, why? The US gov. has ceased to be a effective governing body because they have fallen prey to lobbyists, greed, and power. I am not a Dem., Rep, of Ind. but I can't help thinking that's would be better off without the federal gov. to dictate their greedy needs and let individual states converse to create a united group.The founding fathers initially had a great idea and true hope but greed and the enterprising man took over. So please President Obsms fans explain to me what on earth is going through this mans mind. Does he really want to improve things in the US or just be the worst president the US has ever had?

ALL politicians are corrupt. there is nothing that you can do!

HouseSitMexico

Politics is the oldest profession in the world

Only three important problems? Did you forget 2 WARS?

Most of the offers for assistance in the gulf, 14 out of the 17 countries, were to SELL us equipment and supplies we can readily supply ourselves. With unemployment up around 9.2%, who you going to buy from.

Skimmers in open ocean waters, at best, can only hope to capture 10-15% of what floating around,

The Dutch booms are in the gulf now, free, but transportation costs had to be paid, by BP I think.

Obama negotiated a 20B escrow deposit from BP

The economy is improving, we're not in a depression, was that just luck?

Obama is not God, for sure, but I for one am glad he's in charge.

From my point of view, ObamaRamas job is like that of a "shovel brigade". For the uniformed a "shovel brigade" consist of that crew that picks up lthe droppings of the elephants when the circus leaves town...just saying.

Blah blah blah. The last 32 letters of Spidermans post is all that needs reiterating. Obama will have the opportunity to achieve the title of the best black ex-president in the history of the U.S. He may qualify for Bud Lite commercials during the Super Bowl.

buzz/ i cant believe your statement,,, politics is the oldest profession in the world,,,, a learnred person like you know that is not true,, the ladys of the night are the truest oldest profession, or buzz is that you may think what??????????????????p.m. me or put it on the board,,,,

No Eddy, even a DMF like me know that "ladies of the night" were created by politicians to suave their egos!





BTW, sheets and rocks were created for invertabrate racial bigots

unless a poltican came out your ass a women made them ,, so women came before a poltircan

RU you calling my Daddy a politician?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/19/2010 02:53AM by buzzardwest.

Buzz, Why do imagine everything has racial overtones?

One might just pose that question here..... [wiki.answers.com]; .....the next time you crawl out from beneath your rock.

What flyby said! The only politician I thought I could trust was Jimmy Stewart in Mr. ....goes to washington.

Jar Cab, you bring up the subject of 2 wars that Mr. Obama inherited like war was a problem for the US. Heck, the US has been in some kind of military conflict way back to the beginning, it's our way of life, keeps the population under control. If you look at the chronology of military actions of the US you'll see there are very few years of calm. As for oil skimmers, there are many factors to determine the effectiveness of a skimmer. There are several types of skimmers, used for different applications. All skimmers effectiveness depends on the viscosity of the oil, water surface conditions, and type of skimmer used. To flat out say their effectiveness is between 10 and 15 percent is inaccurate. If the US had all this equipment before other countries offered help, why didn't they use it and why let BP continue to handle the cleanup when they have proven enable to do so? I would think that even if a skimmer collected 15% it's better than 0%. Oh and another thing, you think the economy is on the upturn? No were not in a depression but we're walking the fine line. With the unemployment rate fluctuating near an all time high, the houseing market sucking, and the stock market bouncing up and down I wouldn't say the economy is getting much better. It's way to early to say one way or the other but you can say that Mr. Obama authorized millions of stimulus $'s to put people back to work with little effect. As if putting the US in such a debt hole wasn't enough he tackles health reform (a program a majority neither want or need) which cost millions more. Our children and their children will be paying for ever to get the US back in the good. On the political side he invites Pres. Calderon to the White house to verbally abuse the US on drug, gun, and immigration, all the while not defending the US and the American people. I would have had some respect for him if would have brought out the facts that Mexico lacks deeply in enforcing the border against illegal Mexicans migrating to the US and their horrible treatment of illegal immigrants in their country. Mexico's immigration laws are very similar to the US only more severe consequences.

You Spiderman should stay away from economics because you show you don't have a very good grasp of the subject. The hole Bush put us in will be deep for a long time and there is nothing anybody can do more than what Obama is doing. It is just impossible to do better. And to say that "Mr. (sic) Obama authorized millions of stimulus $'s to put people back to work with little effect." is not accurate. By every economist's estimate the stimulus has saved millions of jobs. Do not lose sight of the fact that when President Obama took office the country was losing over 700,000 jobs a month and has been creating over 100,000 jobs a month for 4 months. The bottom line is that It takes years and years and years to turn around a bad economy. Especially one that is as bad as Bush and his cronies left. Be realistic here; If Obama could change the economy as fast as some people expect he should be able to do don’t you think he would??? I mean think about it. Don’t you think he would change it so that everything would be great and everybody would be back to work? He would be elected for 4 more terms. He has the best minds in the world working on it. If you want to learn a lot about economics and what should be done and why certain things work and other things do not work you would do yourself a favor and read Paul Krugman’s blog every day. It is like going to an economics class and way more enlightening than some idiot Republican congressperson who wants to apologize to BP for making them pay for what they have done to the livelihoods and the environment of the Gulf of Mexico.

And don't lose sight of the fact that if Obama was not President we would have McCan'tandnevercould and Palin.

You have a couple of valid points, especially your last sentence. Sorry but I still maintain that the economy isn't improving that much by reflection of the lack of jobs despite the stimulus $'s, the lack of overseeing the spending of the dollars to create new jobs, and the housing market slump. Granted it takes years but spending millions of dollars on an additional program that few people want or need isn't helping the economy or getting the US out of debt. I think Mr. Obama taking too big a bit his first term if he expects to go for another. I'll make you a deal, I'll read up more on economics if you don't always believe every inflated figure the White House puts out to try and make their case stronger.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/23/2010 09:17PM by spiderman.

Deal

Why do the Republicans want to kill the jobs bill? Because they want the president to fail!
STABENOW: REPUBLICANS 'WANT THIS ECONOMY TO FAIL'....

Quote
"It is very clear that the Republicans in the Senate want this economy to fail. They see that things are beginning to turn around.... In cynical political terms, it doesn't serve them in terms of their election interests if things are beginning to turn around."

Quote
Republicans continue to insist that the country simply can't afford this legislation, but it's already been scaled back so severely, the entire thing is paid for except for the unemployment benefits, which not only constitute emergency spending, but generally have been considered emergency spending by Congresses run by both parties.

Speaking of confused, I find this confusing...

Quote
According to McClelland, this was filmed on non-BP property in Houma last week by Drew Wheelan of the American Birding Association, who was stopped from filming by a Louisiana state police officer:
Wheelan: “Am I violating any laws or anything like that?”
Officer: “Um…not particularly. BP doesn’t want people filming.”
Wheelan: “Well, I’m not on their property so BP doesn’t have anything to say about what I do right now.”
Officer: “Let me explain: BP doesn’t want any filming. So all I can really do is strongly suggest that you not film anything right now. If that makes any sense.”

Read the article. It is truly perplexing how BP can get away with this.

More confusion...

It seems that a Missouri farmer is horribly confused. He is confused about parasites. He is confused about which Party he supports. He is confused about the liberalness of Harry Truman.

The Raytown, Missouri farmer who posted a sign on a semi-truck trailer accusing Democrats of being the “Party of Parasites” received more than $1 million in federal crop subsidies since 1995. Jungerman received $1,095,101 in the past 15 years...

As is fairly typical for many Republicans, he says he is not a Republican but he contributed the maximum amount to the John McCouldn't campaign and gave $500 to Republican Doug Hoffman for congress campaign, the Republican National Committee, Bush Cheney in 2004 and to other Republicans. Why are Republicans afraid to admit they are Republicans? What is up with that?

He also said that the sign is aimed at national Democrats, not local Democrats, many of whom (he said) are “are old-fashioned Harry Truman Democrats,” who Jungerman says are “more conservative than many Republicans.”
He may think so but I don't; you see, good ole Harry was for single payer health care and vetoed income tax cuts. I don't call that more conservative than many Republicans.

Confusion. Just sayin.

Paul Krugman is a smart guy and I wouldn't want to argue economics with him. That said, almost everything he writes seems to flow from a liberal bias. Even smart guys, when biased, can be wrong. Many economists disagree with him. He has a Nobel prize in economics, so I am not going to debate him.

When does Obama start taking responsibility for the economy, etc? He has been in office almost a year and a half. He wants change but he seems to be doing much of the same: overspending.

The economy definitely isn't thriving, or the central bankers wouldn't be holding interest rates so low. I think we are in trouble unless the parties can get together an agree on how to shrink the budget. This a hard thing for a politician to do.

BP did purchase a number of oil water separation centrifuges from Kevin Costner's company.

Delmar i will comment on your post. Check back.

I agree with you about Krugman. He is a liberal. In fact his blog that I suggest reading every day is called "Conscience of a Liberal." I understand the anxiety you may have but do not forget that it was a Republican economist that was more responsible than anybody for getting us into this mess. Alan Greenspan. Even he said that he misunderstood what the free market would do to itself if given the chance. One of the reasons I like Krugman is that he explains why he says what he says. He tells you why the deficit is not as important as spending to get out of this mess we are in right now. He tells you the GDP ratios and percentages for now compared to the past and the what and why. It is difficult to understand but it seems he does not try to hide things. He doesn’t just say “This debt is good and you must trust me.”

So you wonder how long it will be before Obama will be responsible for the bad economy? Unless he does something really stupid he will not ever be responsible for the bad economy. I laugh when people ask if Obama should be responsible because he has been in office for… Well you said almost a year and a half. I give you credit. I have heard over and over recently right wingers asking the same question except they say “almost 2 years.” And this started at least a couple months ago when he was in office for about 15 months. So thank you for being honest about your time in office timetable.

The thing about Bush and his administration being responsible for the bad economy for a long time is that it takes so long to turn around a bad economy and Bush left us with an economy as bad as any we have ever seen. I suspect when history is written about this economy it will be as bad as the “great depression.” It takes an incredibly long time to turn a deep recession/depression around. In the 1930s the depression lasted until World War II (1942). They almost came out of it by 1938 but Roosevelt was forced to try to stop spending like they are trying to get Obama to do now and the economy nose dived again. Another example would be the 1970s. I am old enough to remember Nixon and price controls (I understand it was a different kind of bad economy but the turn around was just as difficult). President Ford could not get us out of it and Carter could not get us out of it. Reagan got us out of it (in his second term!) but he ran up the national debt to more than all the other administrations in the history to the country... COMBINED! Deficit spending. And Bush the Elder ran up more debt. It was Clinton who got us out of the cycle and actually had a surplus. It can be argued that he was lucky because of the internet bubble. But then Bush the Junior had a housing bubble and continued to deficit spend and didn’t use the bubble to get us out of debt.

Another example of how hard it is to get out of a bad economy is Japan. They have been struggling for close to 20 years and they had a period in there called “The lost Decade.” Fixing a bad economy is not easy. And don’t forget that if you look at it logically Obama would fix it in a heartbeat if he could. Is there any question about that???

A good percentage of the deficit is because of Bush’s tax cuts. Do not forget that Bush Junior did his tax cuts (twice) and never paid for them. That means that we are still running a deficit right now because of those tax cuts. A big percentage of “Obama’s” deficit is actually Bush’s tax cuts. Then there is Bush’s prescription drug give a way. He did this to make bonus points from seniors. He didn’t pay for it. A trillion $$$ not paid for. The Republicans twisted arms deep into the night trying to get their own people to vote for it and they succeeded but they didn’t pay for it and a trillion $$$ of our debt is that. (My figures are not totally accurate but they are close enough for this tomzap analysis. You can Google all this stuff and if I am wrong you can correct me. Please give links because I am interested. I welcome it but if you do and I am correct you should acknowledge that too.) Also do not forget that the two wars are costing hundreds of billions $$$$ a year too. Over the years it has been well over a trillion $$$$$$$$ (2 trillion?)... again added to the national debt because it has not been paid for.

With that history said, good honest economists say that Obama is doing a good job (Again, I don’t feel like Googling all this but McCain’s economist has said that Obama is doing a good job and I have seen other Republicans say it as well.). Yes the deficit needs to be addressed but it should not be addressed for a while. Krugman explains why here. He has explained this at least several times. Please read this one. One thing he says is we should have a 5% value added tax. Months ago he was not saying this. So I guess it is new. Even Republicans say we should not leave this debt for our kids. This is one way we could pay for it. We need to pay for Bush's debt. And don’t lose sight that most (90%?) of this debt is Republican debt. Another good one is “Lost Decade Here We Come”.

What would happen if Obama tried to cut the deficit by leaving Afghanistan and Iraq? What if he cut military spending by $100 billion or $200 billion or more a year? We spend more on military than any other country by a factor of 100 or something like that. Google it. Also it is a fact that we are paying less in taxes than we have for 60 years. No matter what the rich people say. Also they say that taxes need to lowered so that people can hire more people. Ridiculous. People will hire people if they need them. And big corporations have moved 100s of thousands of jobs overseas. That should be a crime. Delmar, keep an eye on the Boxer/Fiorina senate race. Research what Fiorina did to/for Hewlett Packard. Why she was fired. How many jobs she outsourced to India. How good was she for the country when she was running HP into the ground. (I have gotten off topic haven’t I.)

It was nice that BP bought those centrifuges. I don’t know all about everything that some people are saying about Obama not doing some things about the oil spill that he could be doing but I did hear somebody say all the Right wing talking points are nonsense. Maybe some are not but I don’t know. You have to admit that no matter what Obama says or does about anything the right wing will say he is doing it wrong… no matter what it is. It is almost comical.

I would not want to debate any of the so called expert economists either. They are all way smarter than me but I can think about what they say and try to figure out if it adds up or see what others say about what they said and try to figure out who makes the most sense. Like when somebody says we need tax cuts so businesses will hire when taxes are already so low and anybody would hire somebody if they needed them to make more money no matter what their taxes were. Or when they say that we need to stop stimulating the economy and it is explained why we should not stop stimulating the economy at this precise time or when the right wing says that the stimulus has not created or saved 100s of thousands of jobs (or more really) when it is obvious that it has and it has been explained how it has. Or when they say that Obama has not created any jobs because there is still 10% unemployment but they do not say anything about how bad it would have been if Obama didn't do what he has done. Or when they say he has lost X amount of jobs on his watch when it is obvious that the reason for job loss is because of what Bush did.

Here are some stats:
Carter created 10,500,000 jobs.
Clinton created 20,000,000 jobs
Old Man Bush 2,500,000 jobs
Reagan 16,000,000 jobs
Bush the Junior 2,500,000

Sorry I rambled on but it could have been longer. ;^)

[www.nytimes.com]

PB,
Thanks for your thorough post. A couple random thoughts I had:

Alan Greenspan, the Maestro. Remember? Everyone hung on each obfuscating word he uttered. He won't be so revered historically.

Bush 2: not a great President, but not as bad as Obama(and you, even) make him out to be. Recall he inherited a recession of his own as the Internet bubble collapsed in 2000 after years of unprecedented and irrationally exuberant growth. What did he do: he spent a lot of money, and he cut taxes hoping to stimulate the economy. Combine that with Greenspan lowering the interest rates, and you get another bubble. I wonder: Did we ever really recover from the burst of the internet bubble, or did those low interest rates just keep us from realizing the truth for a few years?

I agree that Clinton's budget balanced because of the economic gains from the Internet bubble. So Bush added a lot of spending and cut taxes, and where did he ultimately get us?

Obama is spending a lot, and he hasn't raised taxes yet. The VAT is a common tax in Europe; many of those countries aren't doing so well in terms of their debt to GDP. Taxes will increase next year; it might help some, but with the number of baby boomers coming up to receive Medicare and SS, can the tax increases come close to shrinking the debt?

Can a country be the world's greatest military power, it's policeman; offer top of the line health care to every citizen; educate all it's children as well as other's children; provide pensions for a large and growing number of public workers; provide a pension to all its senior citizens, and still be financially solvent? I don't know, what do you think?

Carly: I was an HP stockholder during her tenure and when she went down. Not a great fan of hers, but I don't like Boxer. Could be a non-vote.

Last, and seemingly unrelated, I think about the book "The Big Short" by Michael Lewis which is about the housing bubble burst. The Ivy league trained Wall Street wizards with their fancy mathematical models didn't see it coming, but a few people did. I thought about this because many economists talk about the 'Paradox of Thrift", and how you need to spend money to get the economy going. We have seen recently how excess debt destroyed our economy. People who don't spend their money usually invest it somewhere, so it's out there in the economy. All these genius economists tell us and the government to spend, even when we have big debt. It doesn't make sense to me, just like the housing bubble didn't make sense to a few guys who went against the grain of the Wall Street gang.

xxx



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/26/2013 12:18PM by Pedro.

re: " it all adds up to a snowball rolling to hell."

[www.sanpanchomusicfest.com]

Pedro the U.S. should demand that U.S. corporations not offshore jobs. Huge incentives should be given for manufacturing within the country. That is actually happening with the renewable energy programs but a lot of the stuff is being made in China. If it were made in the U.S. it would employ more people. But then giant corporations like Hewlett Packard would not be making the profits that they are making so their stock prices would go down (BFD is what I say).

Al Qaeda got what it wanted when we went into Iraq and by going back into Afghanistan.

More later.

To pay for a lot of the debt think "inflation." That is how a lot of it will be paid for.
I remember when Bush was president before the second term a Republican cheerleader guy I know said that Bush's debt could just be paid for by printing money. Yup, he said it and he was serious.

A "protectionist" scheme in a competitive Global economy is complete economic suicide. The "huge incentive" strategy boils down to taxpayers subsidizing industries that cannot compete in the Global economy, artificially raising the price of labor (L), and ultimately creating bubbles that burst once consumers seek out cheaper substitutes. Consumers, no matter how patriotic are never loyal to higher prices for substitute goods. And who would decide which industries to provide such "huge incentives?" Today the Dems would get to chose...at some point the Reps will have their day. Keeping us in this quagmire forever.

In all recognized "Cost of Production" models, Capital (K) and Labor (L) costs are the principle factors, and the formula falls apart (Economists use the term distortion) when one or the other is manipulated via "subsidies" or other artificial measures. A distortion currently taking place is the artificially low cost of K. It will hurt the US economy more in the long run (K costs will be artificially high at some point in the future).

Instead of playing the political blame game, the US should concentrate on specialization and exchange models. All, yes all, economists agree on this simple idea/model that Smith explained some 150 years ago. Simply put, specialize in competitive industries (meaning the industries where the US can compete), and exchange (or trade) in industries where we cannot compete. Some examples were the US excels: Agriculture, bio-tech, super conductors, mining, water purification, and the movie industry.

The reason the US is in a world of hurt these days has nothing to do with Republicans and/or Democrats and everything to do with our dismal education system (specialization). Every graduate today wants to be a boss, no one wants to be a worker. How many MBA's versus Electrical Engineering degrees? How many Lawyers versus Medical Doctors? Both are rhetorical questions. If the Fed should do anything (another debate), they should provide incentives for education and not propping up uncompetitive industries...the US needs engineers, doctors, nurses, mechanics, horticulturalists, Biologists etc etc. Yet our youth is one of the least educated in math and science. Shame on us for allowing education to slip to the bottom of our priorites...not on the Reps or Dems.

In conclusion, if the Fed should do anything, it should limit the MBA's Harvard and others hand out like candy, and provide "huge incentives" for Engineers, Doctors and scientists!