Welcome to the Shroomery Message Board! You are experiencing a small sample of what the site has to offer. Please login or register to post messages and view our exclusive members-only content. You'll gain access to additional forums, file attachments, board customizations, encrypted private messages, and much more!
|
 lonestar2004
Live to party,work to affordit.
Registered: 10/03/04
Posts: 8,978
Loc: South Texas
Last seen: 2 years, 1 month
|
 How Obama lost the election 
#8872421 - 09/03/08 05:57 PM (4 years, 8 months ago) |
|
|
How Obama lost the election
DENVER - Senator Barack Obama's acceptance speech last week seemed vastly different from the stands of this city's Invesco Stadium than it did to the 40 million who saw it on television. Melancholy hung like thick smog over the reserved seats where I sat with Democratic Party staffers. The crowd, of course, cheered mechanically at the tag lines, flourished placards, and even rose for the obligatory wave around the stadium. But its mood was sour. The air carried the acrid smell of defeat, and the crowd took shallow breaths. Even the appearance of R&B great Stevie Wonder failed to get the blood pumping.
The speech itself dragged on for three-quarters of an hour. As David S Broder wrote in the Washington Post: "[Obama's] recital of a long list of domestic promises could have been delivered by
any Democratic nominee from Walter Mondale to John Kerry. There was no theme music to the speech and really no phrase or sentence that is likely to linger in the memory of any listener. The thing I never expected did in fact occur: Al Gore, the famously wooden former vice president, gave a more lively and convincing speech than Obama did."
On television, Obama's spectacle might have looked like The Ten Commandments, but inside the stadium it felt like Night of the Living Dead. The longer the candidate spoke, and the more money he promised to spend on alternative energy, preschool education, universal health care, and other components of the Democratic pinata, the lower the party professionals slouched into their seats. The professionals I sat with were Hillary Clinton people, to be sure, and had reason to sulk, for an Obama victory might do them little good in any event.
The Democrats were watching the brightest and most articulate presidential candidate they have fielded since John F Kennedy snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. And this was before John McCain, in a maneuver worthy of Admiral Chester Nimitz at the Battle of Midway, turned tables on the Democrats' strategy with the choice of Alaska governor Sarah Palin as his running mate.
Speaking to Obama supporters on the periphery of the big event, I was startled by the rapturous devotion elicited by the junior senator from Illinois. He is no symbol for identity politics, no sacrifice on the altar of white guilt, but the most gifted persuader of individuals that I have encountered in any country's politics, as well as a powerful orator on the grand stage. This is not a crowd phenomenon nor a fad, but the response of hundreds of people to an individual.
I sat in on a session with three leaders of Veterans for Obama, a group of retired young officers who had served in Iraq and Afghanistan, courtesy of the New Republic's writer on the scene, David Samuels. With passion and enthusiasm, these young people spoke of their hopes for nation-building in Iraq. The George W Bush administration should have put twice the resources into the beleaguered country, they harangued me - not just soldiers, but agronomists, traffic cops, lawyers, judges, and physicians. The Department of Agriculture should have mobilized, along with the Department of Justice.
Nation-building? Doubling down on the US commitment to Iraq? Isn't that trying to out-Bush the Bush administration, while Obama campaigned on getting out of Iraq and spending the money on programs at home? Unblinking, one of the soldiers said, "That's what we think Barack will do." They believed in a more expensive version of the administration's program, and faulted Bush for half measures - and somehow they believed that Obama really agreed with them, all the public evidence to the contrary. And they believed in Barack with perfect faith.
Gandalf's warnings about the irresistible voice of the wizard Saruman in J R R Tolkien's Lord of the Rings come to mind. If these battle-hardened veterans of America's wars fell so easily under the spell of Obama's voice, who can withstand it? Obama's persuasive powers, though, are strongest when channeled through the empathy of his interlocutor. Everyone believes that Obama feels his pain, shares his dream, and will fight his fight and heal his ills. But that is everyone as an individual. Add all the individuals up into a campaign platform, and it turns into three-quarters of an hour worth of promises that echo all the ghosts of conventions past.
Obama will spend the rest of his life wondering why he rejected the obvious road to victory, that is, choosing Hillary Clinton as his vice presidential nominee. However reluctantly, Clinton would have had to accept. McCain's choice of vice presidential candidate made obvious after the fact what the party professionals felt in their fingertips at the stadium extravaganza yesterday: rejecting Clinton in favor of the colorless, unpopular, tangle-tongued Washington perennial Joe Biden was a statement of weakness. McCain's selection was a statement of strength. America's voters will forgive many things in a politician, including sexual misconduct, but they will not forgive weakness.
That is why McCain will win in November, and by a landslide, barring some unforeseen event. Obama is the most talented and persuasive politician of his generation, the intellectual superior of all his competitors, but a fatally insecure personality. American voters are not intellectual, but they are shrewd, like animals. They can smell insecurity, and the convention stank of it. Obama's prospective defeat is entirely of its own making. No one is more surprised than Republican strategists, who were convinced just weeks ago that a weakening economy ensured a Democratic victory.
Biden, who won 3% of the popular vote in the Democratic presidential primary in his home state of Delaware, and 1% or less in every other contest he entered, is ballot-box poison. Obama evidently chose him to assuage critics who point to his lack of foreign policy credentials. That was a deadly error, for by appearing to concede the critics' claim that he knows little about foreign policy, Obama raised questions about whether he is qualified to be president in the first place. He had a winning alternative, which was to pick Clinton. That would have sent a double message: first, that Obama is tough enough to make the slippery Clintons into his subordinates, and second, that he is generous enough to extend a hand to his toughest adversary in the cause of unity.
Why didn't Obama choose Hillary? The most credible explanation came from veteran columnist Robert Novak May 10, who reports that Michelle Obama vetoed Hillary's candidacy. "The Democratic front-runner's wife did not comment on other rival candidates for the party's nomination, but she has been sniping at Clinton since last summer. According to Obama sources, those public utterances do not reveal the extent of her hostility," Novak wrote. If that is true, then Obama succumbed to the character weakness I described in a February 26 profile of (Obama's women reveal his secret). His peculiar dependency on an assertive and often rancorous spouse, I argued, made him vulnerable, and predicted that Obama "will destroy himself before he destroys the country".
Alternately, Obama might have chosen a rising Democratic star like Virginia's 50-year-old governor Tim Kaine. A weaker choice than Hillary, Kaine (or someone like him) would have made a bold statement of self-confidence. Obama could have said with credibility that he would bring to Washington a new generation of outsiders who would change the old system. Instead, Obama saddled an old and unpopular Washington warhorse.
Curiously, Obama ignored the rising stars of his own party, offering the prime time speaking slots to familiar faces, including Senator Edward Kennedy and Bill and Hillary Clinton, as well as his own wife, the first prospective First Lady to take the keynote spot in the history of American party conventions.
McCain doesn't have a tenth of Obama's synaptic fire-power, but he is a nasty old sailor who knows when to come about for a broadside. Given Obama's defensive, even wimpy selection of a running-mate, McCain's choice was obvious. He picked the available candidate most like himself: a maverick with impeccable reform credentials, a risk-seeking commercial fisherwoman and huntress married to a marathon snowmobile racer who carries a steelworkers union card. The Democratic order of battle was to tie McCain to the Bush administration and attack McCain by attacking Bush. With Palin on the ticket, McCain has re-emerged as the maverick he really is.
The young Alaskan governor, to be sure, hasn't any business running for vice president of the United States with her thin resume. McCain and his people know this perfectly well, and that is precisely why they put her on the ticket. If Palin is unqualified to be vice president, all the less so is Obama qualified to be president.
McCain has certified his authenticity for the voters. He's now the outsider, the reformer, the maverick, the war hero running next to the Alaskan amazon with a union steelworker spouse. Obama, who styled himself an agent of change, took his image for granted, and attempted to ensure himself victory by doing the cautious thing. He is trapped in a losing position, and there is nothing he can do to get out of it.
Obama, in short, is long on brains and short on guts. A Shibboleth of American politics holds that different tactics are required to win the party primaries as opposed to the general election, that is, by pandering to fringe groups with disproportionate influence in the primaries. But Obama did not compromise himself with extreme positions. He did not have to, for younger voters who greeted him with near-religious fervor did not require that he take any position other than his promise to change everything. Obama could have allied with the old guard, through an Obama-Clinton ticket, or he could have rejected the old guard by choosing the closest thing the Democrats had to a Sarah Palin. But fear paralyzed him, and he did neither.
In my February 26 profile, I called Obama "the political equivalent of a sociopath", without any derogatory intent. A sociopath seeks the empathy of all around him while empathizing with no one. Obama has an almost magical ability to gain the confidence of those around him. Perhaps it was the adaptation of a bright and sensitive young boy who was abandoned by three parents - his Kenyan father Barack Obama Sr, who left his pregnant young bride; his Indonesian stepfather Lolo Soetero; and by his mother, Ann Dunham, who sent 10-year-old Obama to live with her parents while she pursued her career as an anthropologist.
Combine a child's response to serial abandonment with the perspective of an outsider, and Obama became an alien species against which American politics had no natural defenses. He is a Third World anthropologist profiling Americans, in but not of the American system. No country's politics depends more openly on friendships than America's, yet Obama has not a single real friend, for he rose so fast that all his acquaintances become rungs on the ladder of his ascent. One human relationship crowds the others out of his life, his marriage to Michelle, a strong, assertive and very angry woman.
If Novak's report is accurate, then Michelle's anger will have lost the election for Obama, as Achilles' anger nearly killed the Greek cause in the Trojan War. But the responsibility rests not with Michelle, but with Obama. Obama's failure of nerve at the cusp of his success is consistent with my profile of the candidate, in which I predicted that he would self-destruct. It's happening faster than I expected. As I wrote last February:
It is conceivable that Barack Obama, if elected, will destroy himself before he destroys the country. Hatred is a toxic diet even for someone with as strong a stomach as Obama ... Both Obama and the American public should be very careful of what they wish for. As the horrible example of Obama's father shows, there is nothing worse for an embittered outsider manipulating the system from within than to achieve his goals.
By all rights, the Democrats should win this election. They will lose, I predict, because of the flawed character of their candidate.
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Front_Page/JI03Aa02.html
"That is why McCain will win in November, and by a landslide, barring some unforeseen event. Obama is the most talented and persuasive politician of his generation, the intellectual superior of all his competitors, but a fatally insecure personality. American voters are not intellectual, but they are shrewd, like animals. They can smell insecurity, and the convention stank of it. Obama's prospective defeat is entirely of its own making."
Yup
IMO this guy nails it!
--------------------
America's debt problem is a "sign of leadership failure"
We have "reckless fiscal policies"
America has a debt problem and a failure of leadership.
Americans deserve better
Barack Obama
|
supernovasky
Comrade
Registered: 01/11/08
Posts: 8,982
Loc: Louisiana
Last seen: 9 days, 23 hours
|
Re: How Obama lost the election [Re: lonestar2004]
#8872452 - 09/03/08 06:04 PM (4 years, 8 months ago) |
|
|
Ohio CNN/Time McCain 45, Obama 47 Obama +2
Minnesota CNN/Time Obama 53, McCain 41 Obama +12
Iowa CNN/Time Obama 55, McCain 40 Obama +15
Wednesday, September 03
Race Poll Results Spread
National Gallup Tracking Obama 49, McCain 43 Obama +6
National Rasmussen Tracking Obama 50, McCain 45 Obama +5
Tuesday, September 02
Race Poll Results Spread
National USA Today/Gallup* Obama 50, McCain 43 Obama +7
National Hotline/FD Obama 48, McCain 39 Obama +9
National CBS News Obama 48, McCain 40 Obama +8
Quote:
"Palin said Alaska’s congressional delegation worked hard to obtain funding for the bridge as part of a package deal and that she ‘would not stand in the way of the progress toward that bridge."
Quote:
In fact, I told Congress — I told Congress, "Thanks, but no thanks," on that bridge to nowhere.
Good luck.
|
lonestar2004
Live to party,work to affordit.
Registered: 10/03/04
Posts: 8,978
Loc: South Texas
Last seen: 2 years, 1 month
|
Re: How Obama lost the election [Re: supernovasky]
#8872473 - 09/03/08 06:08 PM (4 years, 8 months ago) |
|
|
Quote:
supernovasky said:
Ohio CNN/Time McCain 45, Obama 47 Obama +2
Minnesota CNN/Time Obama 53, McCain 41 Obama +12
Iowa CNN/Time Obama 55, McCain 40 Obama +15
Wednesday, September 03
Race Poll Results Spread
National Gallup Tracking Obama 49, McCain 43 Obama +6
National Rasmussen Tracking Obama 50, McCain 45 Obama +5
Tuesday, September 02
Race Poll Results Spread
National USA Today/Gallup* Obama 50, McCain 43 Obama +7
National Hotline/FD Obama 48, McCain 39 Obama +9
National CBS News Obama 48, McCain 40 Obama +8
Good luck.
i know, lets see them polls next week.
--------------------
America's debt problem is a "sign of leadership failure"
We have "reckless fiscal policies"
America has a debt problem and a failure of leadership.
Americans deserve better
Barack Obama
|
Rebirtha
I really like bread
Registered: 09/22/03
Posts: 5,584
Loc: over there
Last seen: 6 months, 5 days
|
Re: How Obama lost the election [Re: lonestar2004]
#8872494 - 09/03/08 06:13 PM (4 years, 8 months ago) |
|
|
How Obama lost the election by.. some republican
If you look at the front page of the news source you linked "asia times" and scroll down to the elections part you'll find this article next to the one you posted.
False notes for the Grand Old Party by .. some democrat
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Front_Page/JI03Aa01.html
It's all opinions and speculation. So the dems think they will win and the republicans think they will win, gee what insight.
|
 Entropymancer
Registered: 07/16/05
Posts: 10,207
|
Re: How Obama lost the election [Re: Rebirtha]
#8872524 - 09/03/08 06:20 PM (4 years, 8 months ago) |
|
|
I think lonestar believes that if he yells long enough and loud enough that Obama has lost the election, it might come true.
The rest of us will wait and see what blunders each of the candidates still have in store for us.
|
Chemy
Jesus is Lord
Registered: 10/05/07
Posts: 6,276
Loc: A Church
Last seen: 3 years, 5 months
|
Re: How Obama lost the election [Re: supernovasky]
#8872625 - 09/03/08 06:41 PM (4 years, 8 months ago) |
|
|
Quote:
supernovasky said:
Biden: "Obama, help me put all those people in jail, where they belong"
That pretty much sums it up.
|
lonestar2004
Live to party,work to affordit.
Registered: 10/03/04
Posts: 8,978
Loc: South Texas
Last seen: 2 years, 1 month
|
|
Quote:
Entropymancer said:
I think lonestar believes that if he yells long enough and loud enough that Obama has lost the election, it might come true.
The rest of us will wait and see what blunders each of the candidates still have in store for us.
no i just like the writer.
" Obama is the most talented and persuasive politician of his generation, the intellectual superior of all his competitors, but a fatally insecure personality. American voters are not intellectual, but they are shrewd, like animals. They can smell insecurity, and the convention stank of it. Obama's prospective defeat is entirely of its own making."
--------------------
America's debt problem is a "sign of leadership failure"
We have "reckless fiscal policies"
America has a debt problem and a failure of leadership.
Americans deserve better
Barack Obama
|
Gastronomicus
3-0-G
Registered: 04/01/05
Posts: 9,009
Loc: D-Town
Last seen: 16 days, 1 hour
|
Re: How Obama lost the election [Re: lonestar2004]
#8872822 - 09/03/08 07:35 PM (4 years, 8 months ago) |
|
|
Hahahhahahahaha
I just read the first paragraph, looks like the guy wasn't there at all. The mood at Invesco was electric. The crowd hung on every word of Barack's speech and roared with thunderous applause when he supported our patriotism, and jabbed at McCain. The preceding speakers, the regular Joe Americans who Barack met and picked up along the campaign trail gave wonderful speeches about how bad things have gotten in this country. We even chanted one of the speaker's name.
It was one of the more amazing experiences in my life
--------------------
Make my Funk the P Funk, I wants to get Funked up
|
lonestar2004
Live to party,work to affordit.
Registered: 10/03/04
Posts: 8,978
Loc: South Texas
Last seen: 2 years, 1 month
|
|
u must like those kill the white man and give his shit to the poor speeches.
--------------------
America's debt problem is a "sign of leadership failure"
We have "reckless fiscal policies"
America has a debt problem and a failure of leadership.
Americans deserve better
Barack Obama
|
lonestar2004
Live to party,work to affordit.
Registered: 10/03/04
Posts: 8,978
Loc: South Texas
Last seen: 2 years, 1 month
|
Re: How Obama lost the election [Re: lonestar2004]
#8872863 - 09/03/08 07:44 PM (4 years, 8 months ago) |
|
|
"rejecting Clinton in favor of the colorless, unpopular, tangle-tongued Washington perennial Joe Biden was a statement of weakness. McCain's selection was a statement of strength. America's voters will forgive many things in a politician, including sexual misconduct, but they will not forgive weakness."
i love this guy Spengler! anyone ever heard of him?
--------------------
America's debt problem is a "sign of leadership failure"
We have "reckless fiscal policies"
America has a debt problem and a failure of leadership.
Americans deserve better
Barack Obama
|
Gastronomicus
3-0-G
Registered: 04/01/05
Posts: 9,009
Loc: D-Town
Last seen: 16 days, 1 hour
|
Re: How Obama lost the election [Re: lonestar2004]
#8872872 - 09/03/08 07:45 PM (4 years, 8 months ago) |
|
|
Quote:
lonestar2004 said:
u must like those kill the white man and give his shit to the poor speeches.
Haven't heard any of those actually. I'm disinclined to believe in their existence.
--------------------
Make my Funk the P Funk, I wants to get Funked up
|
Entropymancer
Registered: 07/16/05
Posts: 10,207
|
Re: How Obama lost the election [Re: lonestar2004]
#8872877 - 09/03/08 07:46 PM (4 years, 8 months ago) |
|
|
I don't think Biden was a weak choice; I disagree with his domestic policy almost completely, but he brought the foreign policy that Obama lacked. I still think he'd make a better Secretary fo State than VP, but the decision didn't seem weak at all; it was exactly who I expected him to pick.
Picking Hillary would have been an atrocity, and would have been much more likely to hurt Obama, I think. A lot of votes for Obama in the primaries were really votes against Hillary. All those folks would've felt disenfranchised.
|
lonestar2004
Live to party,work to affordit.
Registered: 10/03/04
Posts: 8,978
Loc: South Texas
Last seen: 2 years, 1 month
|
|
Quote:
Gastronomicus said:
Quote:
lonestar2004 said:
u must like those kill the white man and give his shit to the poor speeches.
Haven't heard any of those actually. I'm disinclined to believe in their existence.
Most speeches from the Democrats sound that way to me. J/K
--------------------
America's debt problem is a "sign of leadership failure"
We have "reckless fiscal policies"
America has a debt problem and a failure of leadership.
Americans deserve better
Barack Obama
Edited by lonestar2004 (09/03/08 07:51 PM)
|
lonestar2004
Live to party,work to affordit.
Registered: 10/03/04
Posts: 8,978
Loc: South Texas
Last seen: 2 years, 1 month
|
|
so you don't believe an Obama/Clinton ticket would have won?
--------------------
America's debt problem is a "sign of leadership failure"
We have "reckless fiscal policies"
America has a debt problem and a failure of leadership.
Americans deserve better
Barack Obama
|
Entropymancer
Registered: 07/16/05
Posts: 10,207
|
Re: How Obama lost the election [Re: lonestar2004]
#8872911 - 09/03/08 07:50 PM (4 years, 8 months ago) |
|
|
Not at all. Like I implied above, I think an Obama/Clinton ticket would have been weaker than Obama/Biden.
|
lonestar2004
Live to party,work to affordit.
Registered: 10/03/04
Posts: 8,978
Loc: South Texas
Last seen: 2 years, 1 month
|
|
Obama/Clinton ticket worried me and some of my republican friends.
--------------------
America's debt problem is a "sign of leadership failure"
We have "reckless fiscal policies"
America has a debt problem and a failure of leadership.
Americans deserve better
Barack Obama
|
Luddite
cognitive dissident
Registered: 03/23/06
Posts: 2,454
|
Re: How Obama lost the election [Re: lonestar2004]
#8872983 - 09/03/08 08:05 PM (4 years, 8 months ago) |
|
|
Bush Has a Good Economic Record
By KEITH MARSDEN
September 3, 2008; Page A23
Successive speakers at the Democratic National Convention poured scorn on President Bush's economic record. The clear aim was to justify the party's call for "change," and to undermine support for Republican presidential nominee John McCain. His election would mean a "third Bush term," delegates groaned.
Yet Democrats cited no good evidence for their claims that the administration has produced a stagnant economy, widening disparities of income and wealth, high unemployment, and a heavy burden of government debt (supposedly resulting from an unwise military intervention in Iraq).
How does the performance of the U.S. economy really compare with other advanced economies over the eight years of George Bush's presidency? Data published by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the World Bank, the International Comparison Program (ICP) (a cooperative venture coordinated by the World Bank) and the U.S. Census Bureau allow a nonpartisan, factual assessment. Here are some of the findings:
- Economic growth. U.S. output has expanded faster than in most advanced economies since 2000. The IMF reports that real U.S. gross domestic product (GDP) grew at an average annual rate of 2.2% over the period 2001-2008 (including its forecast for the current year). President Bush will leave to his successor an economy 19% larger than the one he inherited from President Clinton. This U.S. expansion compares with 14% by France, 13% by Japan and just 8% by Italy and Germany over the same period.
The latest ICP findings, published by the World Bank in its World Development Indicators 2008, also show that GDP per capita in the U.S. reached $41,813 (in purchasing power parity dollars) in 2005. This was a third higher than the United Kingdom's, 37% above Germany's and 38% more than Japan's.
- Household consumption. The ICP study found that the average per-capita consumption of the U.S. population (citizens and illegal immigrants combined) was second only to Luxembourg's, out of 146 countries covered in 2005. The U.S. average was $32,045. This was well above the levels in the UK ($25,155), Canada ($23,526), France ($23,027) and Germany ($21,742). China stood at $1,751.
- Health services. The U.S. spends easily the highest amount per capita ($6,657 in 2005) on health, more than double that in Britain. But because of private funding (55% of the total) the burden on the U.S. taxpayer (9.1% of GDP) is kept to similar levels as France and Germany. The U.S. Census Bureau reports that 84.7% of the U.S. population was covered by health insurance in 2007, an increase of 3.6 million people over 2006. The uninsured can receive treatment in hospitals at the expense of private insurance holders.
While life expectancy is influenced by lifestyles and not just access to health services, the World Bank nevertheless reports that average life expectancy in the U.S. rose to 78 years in 2006 (the same as Germany's), from 77 in 2000.
- Income and wealth distribution. The latest World Bank estimates show that the richest 20% of U.S. households had a 45.8% share of total income in 2000, similar to the levels in the U.K. (44.0%) and Israel (44.9%). In 65 other countries the richest quintile had a larger share than in the U.S.
Investment has been buoyant under President Bush. According to the ICP, outlays on additions to the fixed assets (machinery and buildings, etc.) of the U.S. economy amounted to $8,018 per capita in 2005 compared to $4,963 in Germany and $4,937 in the U.K. Higher taxes on the upper-income Americans, as proposed by Mr. Obama, are likely to result in lower saving and investment, less entrepreneurial activity and reduced availability of bank credit. Lower-income Americans would be among the losers.
When considering the distribution of income and wealth in the U.S., another factor that should be taken into account is the sharp rise in the number of immigrants. The stock of international migrants (those born in other countries) in the U.S. grew by nearly 10 million from 1995 to 2005, reaching a total of 38.5 million according to the World Bank.
The inflow of migrants may have restrained the growth of average income levels in the bottom quintiles. Nevertheless, their earnings still allowed immigrants to remit $42 billion to their families abroad in 2006, double the level in 1995. So the benefits are widely spread among the families of immigrants remaining abroad -- an important U.S. contribution to the reduction of poverty in these countries.
- Employment. The U.S. employment rate, measured by the percentage of people of working age (16-65 years) in jobs, has remained high by international standards. The latest OECD figures show a rate of 71.7% in 2006. This was more than five percentage points above the average for the euro area.
The U.S. unemployment rate averaged 4.7% from 2001-2007. This compares with a 5.2% average rate during President Clinton's term of office, and is well below the euro zone average of 8.3% since 2000.
- Debt interest payments. The IMF reports that the interest cost of servicing general government debt in the U.S. has averaged 2.0% of GDP annually from 2001-2008, compared with 2.7% in the euro zone. It averaged 3.2% annually when President Clinton was in office.
The cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan has been largely absorbed in a relatively small increase in the defense budget (to 4.1% of GDP in 2006 from 3.8% in 1995). A much higher proportion of U.S. income was devoted to the military during World War II and the Korean War.
The evidence shows that much of the Democratic Party's criticism of President Bush's economic record is wide of the mark. True, the economic slowdown now affecting most advanced countries will likely result in rising unemployment over the coming months. But thanks to sensible policies pursued by the Bush administration (not always with adequate support from a Democratic-controlled Congress), the U.S. economy is sufficiently flexible to keep unemployment below the 7.7% peak reached in the last postrecession year of 1992.
The main risk is that, if elected, Barack Obama will pursue a "social justice" strategy. This would encompass higher taxes on entrepreneurs, savers and investors, more direct government intervention in the economy, and protectionist policies (including revoking existing trade agreements) aimed at safeguarding the jobs of his union backers in "old" industries and public services. If so, the pain is likely to be more widespread and prolonged.
Mr. Marsden, a fellow of the Centre for Policy Studies, was formerly an adviser at the World Bank and a senior economist in the International Labor Organization.
See all of today's editorials and op-eds, plus video commentary, on Opinion Journal.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122039890722392873.html?mod=opinion_main_commentaries
|
Gastronomicus
3-0-G
Registered: 04/01/05
Posts: 9,009
Loc: D-Town
Last seen: 16 days, 1 hour
|
Re: How Obama lost the election [Re: Luddite]
#8873013 - 09/03/08 08:13 PM (4 years, 8 months ago) |
|
|
Quote:
Luddite said:
Bush Has a Good Economic Record
AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
have you ever considered stand-up comedy Luddite?
--------------------
Make my Funk the P Funk, I wants to get Funked up
|
Luddite
cognitive dissident
Registered: 03/23/06
Posts: 2,454
|
|
It comes from the WSJ. If you're a failure then its not Bush's fault. You're just lazy and incompetent.
|
Gastronomicus
3-0-G
Registered: 04/01/05
Posts: 9,009
Loc: D-Town
Last seen: 16 days, 1 hour
|
Re: How Obama lost the election [Re: Luddite]
#8873056 - 09/03/08 08:21 PM (4 years, 8 months ago) |
|
|
I'm not a failure actually. But the economy is on the way there. But Mr. Bush is probably blameless right? He doesn't have an important job to do or anything. Certainly nothing to do with the economy
--------------------
Make my Funk the P Funk, I wants to get Funked up
| |
|
|
 |
|
Obama Holds Press Conference - - Stock Markets Rally
(  1 2 3 4 5 6 all ) |
 Madtowntripper |
1,961 |
100 |
11/16/08 02:13 AM
by zorbman | |
|
Obama Leads Mccain in OH, PA, FL
( 1 2 all ) |
Madtowntripper |
1,054 |
21 |
10/28/08 04:22 PM
by pinkfloydms | |
|
Obama's pick for EPA deputy administrator withdraws |
 lonestar2004 |
301 |
19 |
03/27/09 08:27 PM
by Icelander | |
|
Why do you support Obama
( 1 2 3 4 5 6 all ) |
 Prisoner#1 |
1,927 |
111 |
10/26/08 08:05 PM
by Prisoner#1 | |
|
Obama To Rural Pennsylvanians: Vote For Me, You Corncob-Smokin', Banjo-Strokin' Chicken-Chokin' ...
( 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 all ) |
 Phred |
6,165 |
144 |
04/16/08 01:35 PM
by Icelander | |
|
Obama quashes Iran's hopes for change
( 1 2 3 4 5 all ) |
 downforpot |
1,326 |
99 |
11/12/08 06:36 AM
by Seuss | |
 |
obamas' supreme dis-appointment...
( 1 2 3 4 ... 13 14 all ) |
Annapurna1 |
4,527 |
265 |
06/04/09 07:58 PM
by THC Titan | |
|
Obama Comes Out Unscathed |
 dill705 |
338 |
1 |
03/27/08 05:24 PM
by Baeosistine |
|
|
You cannot start new topics / You cannot reply to topics
HTML is disabled / BBCode is enabled
Moderator: Phred, Prisoner#1
1,173 topic views. 1 members, 0 guests and 0 web crawlers are browsing this forum.
[ Toggle Favorite | Print Topic ]
| | |
|
|
|
Images only 
Threaded
Previous
Index
Next
Edit 
Reply 
