#1
I wonder if China can even control the pace of their economy with their financial structure. The Fed, screwed up as it is can turn down the flame on our economy fairly easy. Too bad we havent had the occasion to do that for the last decade.
#1
That is right - I will say it "THANK GOD FOR BARACK OBAMA". WHY?
He destroyed the Clinton Political Machine: Driving a stake thru the heart of Hillary's Presidential aspirations -something no Republican was ever able to do. Remember when a Hillary Presidency scared the daylights out of you!
He killed off the Kennedy Dynasty: No more Kennedy's trolling Washington looking for booze and women wanting rides home. American women and Freedom are safer tonight!
He is destroying the Democratic Party before our eyes!
Dennis Moore had never lost a race - quit
Evan Bayh had never lost a race - quit
Byron Dorgan - had never lost a race - quit
Harry Reed - in all probability - GONE
These are just a handful of the Democrats whose political careers Obama has destroyed! By the end of 2010 dozens more will be!
In December of 2008 the Democrats were on the rise. In the last two election cycles they had picked up 14 senate seats and 52 house seats. The press was touting the death of the Conservative Movement and the Republican Party.
In one year Obama put a stop to all of this and will probably give the house, if not the senate back to the Republicans.
He has completely exposed liberals and progressives (extremists) for what they are. Every Generation seems to need to relearn the lesson on why they should never actually put liberals in charge. He is bringing home the lesson very well!
Liberals tax, borrow and spend - check
Liberals can't bring themselves to protect America - check
Liberals want to take over the economy - check
Liberals think they know what is best for everyone - check
Liberals aren't happy till they are running YOUR life - check
He has brought more Americans back to conservatism than anyone since Reagan
In One year he rejuvenated the Conservative movement and brought out to the streets millions of Freedom Loving Americans
Name me one other time in your life that you saw your friends and neighbors this interested in taking back America !
In all honesty one year ago I was more afraid than I had ever been in my life. Not of the economy but of the direction our country was going. I thought Americans had forgotten what this country was all about. My neighbors, friends, strangers proved to me that my lack of confidence of the Greatness and Wisdom of the American people was flat out wrong.
When the American People wake up no smooth talking teleprompter reader can fool them!
Barack Obama woke up these Great Americans!
Again I want say - Thank you Barack Obama!
Posted by: 49 Pan ||
03/01/2010 11:01 Comments ||
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#7
I also love it-- a real ray of hope out of Obama. Even Emanuel is distancing himself, pointing the finger at Jarrett and Axelrod as the ones behind the radical agenda!If only somone under indictment would start spilling all the beans and tie some of them to an impeachable offense, nailing the radical coffin shut!
#8
Oh, please, Girl Thursday. Anyone from the Chicago area who starts to spill any beans that could be tied to Obama or anyone in his inner circle is very likely to have a severely fatal "accident".
And if it is a Federal charge, Attorney General Holder or one of his minions is likely to quash the investigation.
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia ||
03/01/2010 17:42 Comments ||
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#9
accident as in accidentally shooting oneself in the back of the head.... twice. Happens all the time.
And Holder has already quashed some investigation of some Obama Supporters. What we want to watch for is for him to start prosecutions - but do it so badly such that they always fail -- after jeopardy has attached. Instant immunity from prosecution from the next administration.
Besoeker: in the future, don't post unattributed articles. While it may be okay for the New York Times to do so, we at the Burg have higher standards. AoS.
Posted by: Steve White ||
03/01/2010 18:28 Comments ||
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What, Oh What, is that I hear? The name GirlThursday? Well it is better to be talked about than not talked about at all.
But I am here now dear, I have been out typing range for hours. You rang ?(and ringing my neck is not allowed even if I am a tad impertinent) I personally LOVE Besoeker's choice of rants he posted.
Well, if you must know I think Bambi is the Manchurian candidate, but a bumbling idiot at the same time. Kind of like Mr. Bean who leaves a trail of destruction in his wake, meanwhile trying to cover up his ineptitude with a napkin, or whatever is handy. Heck, Bamster probably has peed in pools or stuck gum up under a table in his adult years. Heady?? Not really. Dangerous? Very. Soros, complete shark. But missing empathy. Soros knows power plays and whats best for his game. Knows whats best for him, so if he says Obama is off the mark (fogetting partisan politics for a moment) that is an accurate assessment as much as I dispise the man.
#13
Xerxes, king of the persians, appointed a slave to remind him every morning, "Sire, remember the Athenians". ( this in the years prior to the battle at Martathon).
#1
Fed chairman Ben Bernanke told us in his 2002 speech "Deflation: Making Sure It Doesn't Happen Here" that: ... 2) "Sustained deflation can be highly destructive to a modern economy and should be strongly resisted";
Nonsense.
Deflation is disasterous for government revenues and accumulated debts, but it's great for individuals. Taxes and prices go down. The wealth of the average Japanese has increased dramatically during the deflation years.
3) that a "determined government" has the means to stop deflation, if necessary by use of the "printing press".
#3
Stability is best. Inflation benefits debtors and builds a culture of spending. Deflation benefits creditors and builds a culture of saving. Neither is beneficial when taken to an extreme.
We have had a lifetime of spending, extreme spending. In many ways paid for by the blood of our fallen heros in WWII. A little saving won't harm for a while, though it may hurt. It's a no pain, no gain moment.
#4
It was not uncommon in the 50's or 60's to learn of some old farmer or hermit depression era survivor in the hinterlands passing away and familiy members discovering a Mason jar or two stuffed with ten or twenty thousand dollars. As youth, we laughed and shook our heads at the time. I no longer see it as a topic of humour.
#5
Deflation is bad, as it means not using money makes you wealthier and is risk free
Deflation makes saving more beneficial and debt less beneficial. Money is still invested, albeit less money, but relatively more money goes to more productive investments and less to marginal and speculative investments (say real estate bubbles). At the same time business costs decline and profitable businesses become more profitable.
If you save more than you borrow and don't work for the government, deflation is good for you.
Bernanke is being disengenous when he says deflation is disasterous for the economy. It's not. It's disasterous for government finances.
Even if deflation didn't benefit individuals, I'd still be in favor of it because it progressively constrains the capacity of governments to raise and spend money.
#6
phil_b,
Steve Keen has an excellent pedagogical post up today dealing with debt-deflation in Australia and the USA. Why Debt-Deflation Causes Depressions
Steve Keen thinks government and private debt levels and the deflation of that debt causes depressions. And he's almost certainly right.
During deflation the real value of debt increases.
He concludes,
A debt-dependent economy has no choice but to record rising levels of debt to GDP every year to avoid a recession. Unfortunately, this makes a debt-servicing crisis inevitable at some point, especially when a large fraction of the increase in debt is financing Ponzi-speculation on asset prices, since this adds to debt without increasing societys capacity to finance that debt.
Keen's only prescription is to crank up the printing presses, and its not clear to me whether he thinks inflating debts away is a permanent or temporary solution.
I'll also point out that deliberately creating inflation is a massive undeserved bailout of the Ponzi-speculators he refers to (as is the worldwide financial stimulus).
#8
Keen's only prescription is to crank up the printing presses, and its not clear to me whether he thinks inflating debts away is a permanent or temporary solution.
phil_b,
Can't speak for the guy, but I think he has come to the conclusion the "Japanese way" is the only option. Remember he is dealing with a crises caused by excessive debt i.e > GDP just like Japan.
Many people assume that the options for removing excessive debt as inflate or default. Japan has been carving a third option for the last two decades reduce nominal interest rates to very low levels to reduce the debt servicing burden while leaving the debt in place in an attempt to grow out of it, even if doing so is accompanied by economic stagnation. Note that this approach does not seem to cure insolvency, except perhaps through the long and slow process of using earnings for balance sheet repair. No doubt demographics are different in Japan compared to other countries and this has some impact, but the US and Europe are also increasingly facing aging populations. Also Japan had two decades of a booming world economy in which they chalked up massive current a/c surpluses. They were therefore in an ideal position to try the Third/Japanese way. I don't think Australia or the US have that luxury.
...Great orators get better in their rhetoric, not worse. It turns out that the people risked a blank slate in Obama in part because in his teleprompted hope and change orations, he sounded fresh and mellifluous. Voters assumed he would wear well.
But in nonstop interviews, press conferences, and conversations, the impromptu president seems no more comfortable than was an ad hoc George Bush. And just as liberals were turned off by Bush's cowboyisms, so too conservatives are tired of Obama's professorial, condescending sermons. After a year, the people are tired of all the "let me be perfectly clear" psycho-drama, the "make no mistake about" pseudo-tough man pose, the straw man "I reject the false choice that some would...," and the narcissistic "I have ordered.....my team...to."
The boilerplate is now recognizable even to the Washington press corps. But as important, it dovetails with more disturbing propensities: there are the periodic signs of inanity like "Cinco de Cuatro" and "corpse-man;" the constant fudging on the truth of multibillion dollar new programs really "saving" money; and the surreal bowing to dictators and emperors, with the relish of turning our misdemeanors into felonies and our enemies' felonies into benefactions....
Posted by: Mike ||
03/01/2010 09:30 ||
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#1
I don't have Obama fatigue because I never listen to that empty suit...
But the fact remain that Hillary was shunned for the job because of Clinton Fatigue due to
slick Willie's extreme exposure,
so Hussein Melon Head's career is already destroyed, by his own over inflated ego.
Even for demon rats, it will be "Anybody but
the Joker"...
Doug Ross has a useful and concise history of public sector unions that demonstrates with undeniable clarity why public sector unions should never have been allowed to organize in the first place.
Unions can make sense in the private sector where the purpose of an enterprise is to provide products and services needed by people who can pay for them and in the process allow the firm to generate a profit to be shared in mutually agreeable proportions among owner and employees. The profit is the essential measure of whether the enterprise is viable.
But in the public sector, there is no such measure because the state can only tax wealth created by others. So in order for public sector employees to gain a bigger share of tax revenues, either the taxes must be increased or spending on some other public activity - police protection, public schools, regulation of prescription drug safety - must be decreased.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/01/2010 00:00 ||
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US President Barack Obama is making final decisions on a broad new nuclear strategy for the US that will permanently reduce the US nuclear arsenal by thousands of weapons, The New York Times reported.
But citing unnamed senior presidential aides, the newspaper said the administration had rejected proposals that the US declare it would never be the first to use nuclear weapons.
Mr Obama's new strategy - which would cancel or reverse several initiatives undertaken by the administration of former president George W Bush - will be contained in a nearly completed document called the Nuclear Posture Review, the report said.
Aides said Secretary of Defense Robert Gates will present Mr Obama with several options.
Mr Obama's critics argue that his embrace of a new movement to eliminate nuclear weapons around the world is naive and dangerous, especially at a time of new nuclear threats, particularly from Iran and North Korea, the paper said.
But many of his supporters fear that over the past year he has moved too cautiously, and worry that he will retain the existing US policy by leaving open the possibility that the US might use nuclear weapons in response to a biological or chemical attack, perhaps against a nation that does not possess a nuclear arsenal, the paper noted.
That is one of the central debates Obama must resolve in the next few weeks, according to his aides.
Many elements of the new strategy have already been completed. As described by senior administration and military officials, the strategy commits the US to developing no new nuclear weapons, including the nuclear bunker-busters advocated by the Bush administration, The Timessaid.
Mr Obama has already announced that he will spend billions of dollars more on updating America's weapons laboratories to assure the reliability of what he intends to be a much smaller arsenal, the paper recalled.
Other officials say that in back-channel discussions with allies, the administration has also been quietly broaching the question of whether to withdraw American tactical nuclear weapons from Europe, where they provide more political reassurance than actual defence, The Times said.
Those weapons are believed to be in Germany, Italy, Belgium, Turkey and The Netherlands.
At the same time, the new document will steer the US towards more non-nuclear defences, according to the report.
It relies more heavily on missile defence, much of it arrayed within striking distance of the Gulf, focused on the emerging threat from Iran.
Mr Obama's recently published Quadrennial Defense Review also includes support for a new class of non-nuclear weapons, called "Prompt Global Strike'', that could be fired from the US and hit a target anywhere in less than an hour, The Times said.
The idea would be to give the president a non-nuclear option for, say, a large strike on the leadership of al-Qaeda in the mountains of Pakistan, or a pre-emptive attack on an impending missile launch from North Korea, the report pointed out.
But under Obama's strategy, the missiles would be based at new sites around the US that might even be open to inspection, so that Russia and China would know that a missile launched from those sites was not nuclear, The Times said.
#1
It relies more heavily on missile defence, much of it arrayed within striking distance of the Gulf, focused on the emerging threat from Iran.
Ummmm, didn't he just back down on this 'cause Pooty Poot got his knickers twisted? This buffoon of a Pres. is dangerous in the extreme. I expect a major conflagration, probably WMD based, somewhere in the world before 2013.
#2
I understand that putting a warhead rod or whatnot into space will give it some more oomph, but somehow I doubt that Russia/China/etc will be very pleased about a warhead package traveling across their airspace even if they believe and trust it to be non-NCB.
Once launched, can these warhead be recalled or otherwise scuttled if, for example, the target moves out or the collateral damage assessment changes?
Missile defense, great idea...are they talking the previous idea of land systems or the halfway suggestion of more missile ships? The author of the article does not seem to think there is much value to a political commitment.
#4
Did Obama think the job description bulletin by OPM read like this:
'If you love helping people, I mean, our enemies, enjoy cooperative teamwork, and thrive in a busy denial infested workplace, the oval office may be for you.'
We owe Ralph Nader and Cynthia McKinney an apology. They were right about Barack Obama. They were right about the corporate state....
He is shoving a health care bill down our throats that would give hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars to the private health insurance industry in the form of subsidies, and force millions of uninsured Americans to buy insurers' defective products. ... Obama did nothing to halt the collapse of the Copenhagen climate conference, after promising meaningful environmental reform, and has left us at the mercy of corporations such as ExxonMobil. He empowers Israel's brutal apartheid state. He has expanded the war in Afghanistan and Pakistan, where hundreds of civilians, including entire families, have been slaughtered by sophisticated weapons systems such as the Hellfire missile, which sucks the air out of victims' lungs. WTF? "...sucks the air out of victims' lungs?" As opposed to humanely subjecting them to the blunt-force trauma of explosive shockwaves, or gently shredding them with jagged metal shrapnel? Idontgetthis?
And he is delivering war and death to Yemen, Somalia and perhaps Iran....
The timidity of the left exposes its cowardice, lack of a moral compass and mounting political impotence. The left stands for nothing. The damage Obama and the Democrats have done is immense. But the damage liberals do the longer they beg Obama and the Democrats for a few scraps is worse. It is time to walk out on the Democrats. It is time to back alternative third-party candidates and grass-roots movements, no matter how marginal such support may be. If we do not take a stand soon we must prepare for the rise of a frightening protofascist movement, one that is already gaining huge ground among the permanently unemployed, a frightened middle class and frustrated low-wage workers. We are, even more than Glenn Beck or tea party protesters, responsible for the gusts fanning the flames of right-wing revolt because we have failed to articulate a credible alternative.
A shift to the Green Party, McKinney and Nader, along with genuine grass-roots movements, will not be a quick fix. It will require years in the wilderness. We will again be told by the Democrats that the least-worse candidate they select for office is better than the Republican troll trotted out as an alternative. We will be bombarded with slick commercials about hope and change and spoken to in a cloying feel-your-pain language. He called that one right.
We will be made afraid. But if we again acquiesce we will be reduced to sad and pathetic footnotes in our accelerating transformation from a democracy to a totalitarian corporate state. Isolation and ridiculeask Nader or McKinneyis the cost of defying power, speaking truth and building movements. Anger at injustice, as Martin Luther King wrote, is the political expression of love. And it is vital that this anger become our own. We have historical precedents to fall back upon....
Social change does not come through voting. It is delivered through activism, organizing and mobilization that empower groups to confront the hegemony of the corporate state and the power elite. Revolution now, man! Off the pigs! Expropriate the bourgeoisie! Free silver! Acid, amnesty, and abortion!
The longer socialism is identified with the corporatist policies of the Democratic Party, the longer we allow the right wing to tag Obama as a socialist, the more absurd and ineffectual we become. The right-wing mantra of Obama the socialist,' repeated a few days ago to a room full of Georgia Republicans, by Newt Gingrich, the former U.S. speaker of the House, is discrediting socialism itself. Actually, it was socialism's track record in practice that discredited socialism.
Gingrich, who looks set to run for president, called Obama the most radical president' the country had seen in decades. By any standard of government control of the economy, he is a socialist,' Gingrich said. If only the critique was true....
Posted by: Mike ||
03/01/2010 08:37 ||
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#1
Sheesh! It's that Stalin-Trotsky spat all over again. Hedges and his ilk could end up with an ACORN icepick.
#2
They do not disagree with Bammo. They are merely frustrated that he has been unable to deliver.
Then again, when you elect as president someone with no professional background, no executive experience, whose never held a real job in his entire life and whose only qualifications for the job are ideological purity and some talent with a teleprompter you have to anticipate a learning curve.
#7
" He empowers Israel's brutal apartheid state."
Where does that nazi crap come from?
Ah, yes, Ralph Nader's political partner Cindy Sheehan,
who is bed partner of Llew Rockwell(RonPaulista)
Gross out of the week:
http://saberpoint.blogspot.com/2006/08/gross-out-of-week-lew-rockwell-cindy.html
and Jamie Kelsoe of the Aryan Nation...
Shabby yesterday, shabby today, shabby forever...
Imagine the rancid armpit, garlic and rotten teeth
smell emanating from these two scumbags...
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
Doug Ross has a useful and concise history of public sector unions that demonstrates with undeniable clarity why public sector unions should never have been allowed to organize in the first place.
Chris Hedges, TruthDig.org
