Democrats more patriotic than Republicans

Without Romney's recent gaffe, I suspect the situation in the middle east would have sent Obama into the low 40s. The Democrats probably have a video tape library of "surprises" they plan to use like "get out of jail free cards" until election day. For christ's sake, they've been sitting on this video since May 17th.

No matter. All the polling between today and election day is pretty meaningless. This election will be much more about Obama's success as a president than Romney's qualification to replace him. It'll be close, but if things look like they do right now, Obama will be out the door.

 

That's probably true. On that basis, Romney has a decent chance at winning.

Edit: Not insinuating Romney is not qualified.

Also, I think many people that are not happy with the way it's going, will be looking for a change.

 

With your sister only charging 100 Euros for the whole night, who needs a home?

 

As so that's why you hate bums so much . You're bum yourself . Well Julian just because you're homeless and impotent doesn't mean it's the end of the world. You can always kill yourself LOL

 

If you call being on top of your sister homeless then so be it. You should stop this before damaging your sister business. Just think that if I chose another Romanian girl instead of your sister tonight, she might not have the money in the end of the month to send you so you can live.

 

You choosing a girl ? What to do with her ? Show her your micro soft ?

 

Ooh look, something relevant, then followed by another stupid little picture.

Take note of most other DP members actions, you don't have to post in every thread just for the hell of it.

I wish moderators here would do something about their worst ever troll, permanently. I believe you bring down the tone of this place something chronic. I think most here would agree you have no meaningful input to most conversations, you steal people's money (apparently), troll almost everybody here. Almost 6,000 posts and maybe as many as 20 that were 'slightly' worthwhile or relevant to the thread yet you have posted hundreds of stupid off-topic images...made hundreds of stupid off-topic comments...can't spell for shit, and you're just so soooo fuckin stupid!

I bet everyone you have ever been out with wears an 'I'm with stupid' t-shirt. I much prefer Mikael's input over yours, any day.

/rant

Now I guess you're just going to change my words around a little and repost them back with a snigger and a sneer or go off looking for some stupid little picture thinking to yourself 'well that was really clever', rather than think about what i'm saying, or heavens forbid, think of something meaningful you might add to this conversation.

 

Wait , a little troll complains about me not being respectful when replying to the posts made by another troll with ?

Now that one stellar joke .

Since you miss Solar Product so much let me replicate his input : "Crazy stuff ,crazy stuff ,crazy stuff "

Happy now ?

 

That is a tough question to answer as it is posed. There will always be the argument that the fact the great depression effectively lasted until the outbreak of war that the Roosevelt administration's policies were ineffective in hastening the end of the depression. However, that view ignores the complete focus of those policies which are often described as the 3 R's (relief, recovery and reform). The success of relief programs during a time when social safety nets were rudimentary if they existed at all, cannot be denied. Reforms implemented during his time, if viewed within the historical context were successful as well. That leaves recovery as the one debatable aspect of policies implemented during that time.

As I have alluded to previously in this thread; the only policy an administration can have that will actually prolong a recession is to do nothing. That is not to say that stimulus packages always have a positive or even a measurable effect. Historically, the contrary is actually true. Stimulus packages have most often ranged from ineffective to marginally effective, with successes (measured by cost versus return) being very rare. What they do accomplish quite often is a softening of a recession while providing some relief, albeit unevenly from sector to sector.

The one sentiment I see recurring by opponents of the current administration that I view as ridiculous, is the assertion that recent jobs programs and stimulus packages have increased unemployment. My only question to those people is how? . . . as in how do the dynamics of injecting an economy with stimulus money (regardless of how ineffective those programs may ultimately turn out to be) result in job losses?

 

In keeping with the topic of the opening thread, here is some recent news about very current GOP filibustering, blocking and denying movement on legislation to assist primarily post 9/11 veterans in getting work once they leave the military.

Is this not the most common sense patriotic type of legislation? Its like apple pie.

Apparently the GOP doesn't believe that to be the case. Despite the fact that post 9/11 veterans have suffered with among the highest unemployment rates after leaving the service, GOP senators have come up with the most ridiculous reasons to block this legislation.

What is astounding is that the legislation, which reflects a goal of the Obama administration completely incorporates GOP proposals.

GOP Senator Richard Burr added a variety of proposals to legislation originally provided by Dem Senator Patty Murray.

All of his proposals were incorporated into the legislation. The bill is entirely bi-partisan with contributions from both political parties.

That has not stopped the GOP obstructionists. Senator Rand Paul has filibustered moving the bill forward injecting legislative elements that have ZERO to do with veterans. In Senator's unique vision a bi-partisan piece of legislation about assisting veterans, was being blocked so he could change it to reflect his views on Pakistan.

Republican Senator Tom Coburn, has fought the bill.

His reasonings include and I quote from his comments:

"It is dishonerable and cowardly to help veterans find jobs when there are more important things to do.

He called the legislation "political exercise" and a waste of time since the House wasn't going to pass the legislation".

He expressed...."Where is our honor, Where is our valor, Where is our sacrifice??"

Besides making no sense at all, and simply working to block assistance to veterans, whose unemployment rate is higher than that of the population at large....Mr Coburn apparently has inside knowledge about how the House will treat legislation. I suppose its all part of being a member of the obstructionist party.

Meanwhile the veterans represent 1% of the current population that actually served in active duty during the past year. Veterans don't represent millionaires or hedge fund operators. Some gave their lives. Some gave their health to the service of the nation.

It appears the GOP has no use for them once the veterans return to the US.

Hence the topic of the thread. It appears that the GOP isn't very patriotic at all.

 

If I am reading your opinion correctly, you believe FDR acheived relief and reform at the cost of recovery. I tend to agree. The great depresion was the single most prolonged period of poverty this nation has experienced in the last century. Had it not been for WWII, we may never have come out of it. While there are few who disparage the social reforms put in place in the light of history, I am constantly amazed at the many on our left who look at FDR as some kind of savior who single handedly saved this country's financial system from the greedy bankers of the roaring twenties. What the man nearly succeeded in doing was making the USA into a third world nation.

Barack Obama is like a 2 bit version of FDR, with poorly executed reforms and relief for his political supporters with recovery the element that suffers.

I agree. It is very difficult to spend a trillion dollars and at the same time increase unemployment. Damn near impossible really. Then again, I haven;t heard anyone make that charge.

What I have heard, however, is the idea that a trillion dollars of stimulus sent nearly entirely to your political supporters in the public employee unions and your campaign bundlers who run green energy companies like Solyndra is corruption at it's finest. Obama has paid rougly USD$500,000 of our taxpayer dollars for every job he has created.

Perhaps the charge you heard was that the President's policies have prolonged high unemployment. That seems an easy case to make.

The government is borrowing/printing and giving away money to it's political supporters and talking about the tax hikes to come to pay for the whole mess. The too big to fail banks are bigger than ever, occupying a larger portion of our GDP than ever, as small businesses struggle under the regulatory burden created to supposedly keep those big businesses in check. In the meantime, the country has fallen to #7 on the global competitive index(from #1 when Obama took office), and now to #24 on the preceived corruption index. These are not good numbers.

I suspect most entreprenuers are keeping their powder dry, waiting to see where the chips land once we get some predicitability/stability in our government. Meanwhile, the president is MIA on the recovery front, and really not all that front and center on the other two Rs either.

 

O-nation: You have an uncanny ability to take information and twist it into an extremist Right Wing GOP political diatribe that misstates the obvious. I looked at Gomeza's comments. They reflect nothing of what you describe.

But, frankly lets ultimately hear from Gomeza:

.

Gomeza simply did not write that. Political twisting at its ugliest.

His statement:

If one were to only measure Recovery as a cost benefit analysis...as he said, recovery efforts often fall short. But a government recovery process is not a business Profit and Loss Statement. Its entirely different.

A recovery is an effort to stem a disaster, mitigate the crisis and put a nation back on its feet.

I lived through one. I continuously print out descriptions of a national commercial real estate industry depression with extraordinarily descriptive graphs.

Not one of the political mouthpieces for the extremist Right Wing have ever or will ever comments on it. Its demand and supply...basic business stuff.

Current extremist GOP politics ignores demand and supply and the basics of business. GOP rhetoric on business is solely focused on taxes....the deep after effect of successfully meeting demand and supply and making a profit. Its an incredible twisting of business logic.

I read Gomeza's measured statements to describe evaluating recovery. He describes the process as difficult and difficult to measure with regard to Cost and Return on Investment. That is true.

I'll give an example.

The Resolution Trust Corporation (RTC) was established in 1989 during the Bush 1 administration. It was a federal funded program to resolve the national liquidity/ savings and loan institution fiasco/ and an overwhelming volume of privately funded commercial office buildings going into debt.

By 1999 when the active operating elements of the RTC were wrapped up...total cost to tax payers and loss on government investment was approximately $120 billion.

By the way..from 1989 to 1999 the Right Wing political engine never screamed about the RTC, its costs and the amount of debt it incurred. Its always a function of the party in power and how they want to play the game.

In the midst of that crisis, approximately 1600 Savings and Loans closed or folded or were merged into other institutions and. Of that total almost one half simply closed. The institutions failed.

Additionally but not included in the RTC costs...from 1980 to about 1995 about 1500 banks were closed due to commercial real estate loans going bad. Huge additional costs to tax payers.

Meanwhile...what did the RTC do to create recovery? How is it measurable?

When the RTC was established it was a reaction to immense value of loans to buildings having been recalled. Simply the buildings, their nominal owners, had no money to pay vendors, meet payrolls, purchase fuel for heating and ventilation, build out space for new tenants, operate to maintain the buildings, pay for security or any common place activity.

All liquidity had vanished. I have not seen a total published for that, but from my experience in the big DC market place...possibly 25% or more of the buildings had absolutely no or virtually no cash. Essentially all business stopped.

Within the commercial real estate industry it was a depression.

Initially the RTC supplied liquidity. It probably took about 6 months or longer for commercial buildings suffering the worst to refinance.

Ultimately the RTC owned these financial instruments that represented the commercial loans. Ultimately they sold off everything. It took 10 years from 1989 to 1999 when the active ownership of properties and the loans was ended.

10 years to effect recovery. A measurable $120 billion loss to tax payers. A fiasco which evolved during Republican Administrations (Reagan and Bush I)..with a recovery mechanism established under the Bush I administration.

No Right Wing politicians ever attacked it.

The recovery itself would be measured in buildings/ their nominal owners having the ability to conduct business, meet payrolls, pay vendors, effect new leases to fill empty space over time.

The partial payback of the full value of those mortgages was the ability of the RTC and its privately established partnerships to sell off the entire value of those mortgages over the 10 year period.

The net cost to tax payers was again about $120 billion. I've cited sources for all this information previously.

Does one evaluate the $120 billion tax payer loss as a success? It doesn't pan out on that basis in terms of "cost versus return" using Gomeza's words (not your politically motivated interpretation of his words).

Recovery is historically an effort to stem the bleeding and try and help get things back to a successful operating basis.

With regard to your second set of assertions attacking Obama, its simply more Right Wing rhetoric twisting what occurred with regard to the $800 billion Obama stimulus package.

After we re read your political attack lets re look at what occurred with the Obama stimulus which was added to an earlier Bush stimulus and then the TARP package...all of which was effected to try and break the back of the 2nd largest financial disaster in US history...after the Great Recession.

Of the $800 billion Obama stimulus package it included the following elements:

$237 billion in individual tax cuts virtually all occurring in the first 2 years
$51 billion in business tax cuts virtually all occurring in the first 2 years
$87 billion in medicaid That is health care for the poor and newly unemployed fired by businesses.
$25 billion for Cobra that is insurance coverage for people fired by businesses
$16 billion in Pell Grants. Those are government loans for education. It enables people to get an education
$74 billion for unemployment, food stamps, social security. Again money to help the disadvantaged, the newly poor and the newly fired.
$6 billion in energy loan guarantees. Money that ensures financial institutions can make loans
$6 billion in housing benefits. That kept the newly fired and unemployed from going homeless.

That takes out about $500 billion of the Obama stimulus...basically to feed money into individuals, businesses and the newly poor and unemployed fired by private enterprise.

That leaves $300 billion.

Along with that best estimates for jobs created and saved is about 2.5 million people. Now that was widely disbursed into many places with heavy money spent toward education jobs and construction jobs. Additionally some monies went to extending government studies on things like mass transit and other projects. About $125,000/job.

Frankly, having spent a year working for a transit oriented govt contractor that can direct cover the costs of an engineering contractor give or take something. I'm sure the direct payments to most construction workers and teachers was far less.

Rough estimates for GDP recovery as a result of the Obama stimulus are about 3.8% to national GDP. Additional estimates suggest the Obama stimulus kept the unemployment rate at its worst from escalating an additional 2%.

The above information comes from a breakdown of the Obama stimulus package and this intensive research into its impact

The Obama stimulus should be added to the Bush tax rebate program of early 2008 which rebated about $152 billion plus the $700 billion TARP program passed in Autumn 2008.

Now go back to what Gomeza actually wrote versus your Right Wing oratorical spin on things.

Under both Bush and Obama about $1.7 trillion was spent by the Feds from early 2008 through 2009 and beyond.

We still have the miserable effects of a vicious overwhelmingly brutal recession that has severely damaged the economy, caused widespread unemployment and primarily seen the middle and lower classes, plus small business damaged while large corporation have enjoyed both record profits and record levels of cash holdings never before experienced.

I still see Gomeza making measured efforts to discuss economics without blasting into politically charged misinformation from the Right Wing.

Ultimately one returns to Gomeza's statement in response to your question: I quote

Government stimulus or recovery packages don't equate to measurements of cost versus return. Cost versus return or cost benefit analysis, or rate of return analyses equate to businesses.

Businesses don't do recoveries. Governments do recoveries after businesses f*ck up on a grand scale and cause widespread disasters among the population.

I still enjoy Gomeza's measured comments and await his own commentary with regard to your interpretation (misstatements) of his response.

 

Christ Earlpearl, another novella. The highlights:

"That takes out about $500 billion of the Obama stimulus...basically to feed money into individuals, businesses and the newly poor and unemployed fired by private enterprise."

Yet RecoveryTracker has more than $500 bn dollars going to the states. If the feds were so busy directly feeding the poor and handing out tax incentives, how could that be possible?

Its pretty simple really. You bundle up the money with these labels and you hand it to the states to do the heavy lifting. What happened next?

Obama pays the states, the states pay their unions. Obama gets to label the money as having helped the poor, but what he really did is kept the states from having to address their fiscal crisis for three years. Of course the money is gone, so now the states are laying off and the unions are renegotiating. It still hasn't hit California, but when Nov. comes and goes and we don't vote ourselves a massive tax increase, it will.


"The Obama stimulus should be added to the Bush tax rebate program of early 2008 which rebated about $152 billion plus the $700 billion TARP program passed in Autumn 2008."

And you accuse me of twisting the truth. Perhaps you should read the actual numbers at treasury.gov. Only $411bn of TARP ever went out the door, of which $287bn has been recovered. What is still outstanding you might wonder? GM will be somewhere between $20-$40bn. At least they aren't Obama campaign contributors :rollseyes:.

I especially loved how you went into a discussion of the whole SNL bailout as if the stimulus dollars were even slightly analogous. TARP would have been analogous, but certainly not the stimulus. I also appreciated the use of an article as gospel by a guy (Michael GreenWuld) who soiled Time magazine's reputation by printing factually incorrect information in a hit piece on Paul Ryan. People like Michael are why people no longer have any faith in the so-called fourth estate.

Anyway, you got one thing right. The government does not consider profit and loss. Gomeza agrees. These things rarely pencil out. When the government redistributes wealth, it is invariably to political supporters. That is the nature of politics. It is for this very reason that vigilant citizens need to be constantly reigning the government in. Without such vigilance, government is like a leviathan, growing uncontrollably no matter which political party is in power.

 

Thank you for picking up the gauntlet on my behalf. It is always annoying when words written in plain English are misinterpreted (intentionally or otherwise) to align with the reader's agenda. You are correct in your interpretations of what I was attempting to say. During times of severe economic downturn, relief is as equally important as stimulating recovery, if not more so depending on the circumstances of the downturn.

I really don't know what some people expect the recovery to look like. Do they really believe that a head of state can push a few buttons and voila, all is well again with the economy? A great number of people (quite often the most vocal on these issues, go figure) have no idea what took place worldwide in 2008 and 2009. The only thing that is abundantly clear to those attempting to understand what happened and deal with it, is that recovering from this mess will take years.

Regardless of which party is in office in the US.

 

Ya , keep having a trade deficit and keep bleeding out money out of your economy . Then print out more and hope that you'll ever get to see that money again .

That's the way to do it , also don't forget to create an assload of propaganda so that the average Joe doesn't have a clue about economy . Bull people with financial terms until even the population believes the crisis is purely financial . Totally ignore the vanishing primary and secondary sector . You guys will create prosperity out of thing air . Why because you're democratic Americans

 

Funny, I went back and reread your post. Your words:

I must have imagined you put those words to print. Am I still imagining it? Perhaps what you are getting at in your recantation is this. You were trying your best to be objective and impartial, so you included those words as fluff content to allow your focus on the discussion of the great "Reform" and "Relief" elements of FDR's policy. If so, let me bring you back to the original question. Did FDR's policies shorten or prolong the Great Deression?

I must say, on the re-read, one sentence you put to print had escaped me which is worth taking the time to debunk.

Would you like to cite some evidence to back that claim? Is it your intention to imply that uncertainty over tax law, regulation, and entitlements could not possibly delay investment and the birth of a new business cycle?

If you think the action of deficit spending can help shorten a recession, as most Keynsians do, why would you not believe doing the opposite would prolong a recession? The argument suggests the government is only capable of helping, which is absurd at face value.

Nobody is suggesting that. What is being suggested is that the President has been pressing the wrong buttons. That opinion seems to be gaining popularity among those on the right, and the left. Perhaps if the guy had spent the first two years actively focused on the economic crisis rather than pushing through an unpopular new entitlement.

Another suggestion that our elected leaders have no effect on the process. Again, completely absurd.

 

No you didn't read it correctly, I didn't say anything even close to that.

I've left out the rest of your original response and your most recent post because I simply cannot be bothered being dragged back into another one of your acidic exchanges.

I tried getting along with you but if you can't read English and are going to continue grossly misinterpreting what I have said, there is simply no point in continuing dialog with you.

Others on this forum have told you the exact same thing and we all know what comes next . . . run, Forrest run . . . oh, how clever.

 

Gomeza: Your use of language is far more polite than mine. And I don't go to the extremes of the Right Wing in use of language.

As far as I can tell when it comes to recoveries from US recessions or the depression, no one previously tried to evaluate recovery like a bean counter, as is the case these days with the Extremist Right Wing establishing numbers and blaming everything on Obama every day. Simply that kind of process wasn't done in the past.

This particular recession has been deep and extraordinary; simply the second largest deepest recession since the great depression and clearly the worst since the depression. The most recent in depth analyses suggest that overall US household wealth dropped almost 40%

That is extraordinary. It destroys an economy. Recovery is not magic. It takes years.

While my political leanings on social issues lean left, my international perspective on particularly the mideast is probably closest to the right, and on economic issues it simply leans to what works.

Here is what the data provides in a vivid picture from 2000 to 2006 before the huge recession hit:

That is an extraordinary view of what has been occurring in the US. Essentially all wealth accumulation is flowing to a tiny tiny percentage of Americans--roughly the top 0.01 %. Not even the top 1%.

What that does is destroy growth in native demand. The vast majority of Americans are not able to share in any type of prosperity or growth. On the other hand a teeny tiny number of crazily wealthy families cannot distribute wealth in a way that expands demand across a nation.

On a nationwide basis if 90% of households aren't seeing measurable growth in income while housing, gas, insurance, health care, and education costs are going up faster than overall inflation...the huge majority of Americans are stagnating. Demand is crushed.

Alternatively it could lead to an explosion of debt. Gomeza: You referenced the explosion of household debt prior to the recession. It was a fact.

Here is a grim picture of US total debt over time relative to the GDP source

financial institutional debt started to explode in the 1990's relative to everything else and continued to grow into the 2000's. Household debt exploded in the early part of the 2000's. That coincided with the residential real estate bubble.

The result was the recession.

Households have been crushed, the vast majority of US citizens have flat incomes, overall household debt has been going through a cleansing....and the recession is the result.

My take is that the economy doesn't recover until the vast majority of Americans have some reflection of economic prosperity....and it doesn't occur with most wealth flowing to the tiny percentage of the already rich.

In any case, Gomeza, thanks for affecting a moderate tone that makes an effort to stick to real facts.

 

@Gomeza: No skin off my back if you can't or won't defend your own words.

Most intelligent people hone their ideas and beliefs through open dialogue. Others listen only to the echo of their own voice and never learn a thing. It is a trait shared by many people from all walks of life, including religious cults and the highly educated.

You believe government action can only help an economic recovery. Fine.
Earlpearl parrots your ideas back at you making them feel more "truthy". Fine.
You think Creationists are huge threat to the quality of education while ignoring teachers unions. Fine.
You think propaganda and religious fervor are the reasons the US supports Israel. Fine.
You don't want to have your ideas challenged. Fine.

Childish snickers take the place of meaningful dialogue. At least be man enough to live with the product of your own behavior.

 

O_Nation:

A person writes something. You twist the writers meaning. The original writer says your interpretation is not he meant or wrote.

You twist it some more to fit your political agenda. Regardless of what the original writer puts down.

.....and that is how the Right Wing operates.