patrick.net

6. I don't like the Obama foreign policy of being critical of the US when he travels the world. That might seem like a good idea in the liberal mindset to show how reasonable and kind we are, but that is extrapolating our culture naively onto others. I travel a lot and these negative comments are viewed as weak, give opponents fresh ammo, and reopen old wounds while gaining us nothing. A weak president cannot accomplish much and so we see that Obama is getting increasingly ignored worldwide. And an ignored American president is very dangerous for our interests and allies.

7. Obama promised many things - Gitmo would close. I'm glad he didn't close it, but his promise and then subsequent realization that the Bush policy was actually pretty good really showed how naive he was when entering the office. I'm glad Obama made the decision to go after OBL and his general conduct in killing terrorists.

8. Obama really lost a lot of support on Obamacare. I really wish the Government would fix the things they are responsible for rather than continue to try to grab more responsibility. Medicare is going broke. Fix it first, and show the citizens how great of job you are doing before grabbing even more the private economy. And while you are at it, fix Social Security, the Post Office, Freddie Mac, Fannie Mae, SSI, the Federal Employee Pension Plan, and get an SEC that actually does their job, etc. Why aren't mortgage fraud executives in Gitmo :-). Obama has done essentially nothing to bring anyone in the meltdown to justice.

9. Smoke and Mirrors. This is a problem with both parties. The whole debate over raising the debt limit vs. cutting spending and the super committee was all nonsense on both sides. Voters are really tired of meaningless political theater. $1.2T in cuts are basically nothing when spread over 10 years, and all back loaded so the next Congress can rescind them. Yet, the voters were lied to by Obama and the Democrats that the US could default, and lied to by the Republicans that they were actually fighting for cuts. Both parties got what they wanted an increase in the debt limit, political points to get their base fired up, and no change in the status quo.

John McDonald says

Obama has done nothing to lower the cost of energy. In fact, the environmentalist under Obama hurt energy production, delay production, etc.

I wouldn't exactly call him an environmentalist but at the same point the government generally should be neutral with prices.

Natural gas is how most people heat their homes (outside of the northeast)
It has tanked over the past few years. I'm not saying Obama is responsible but the prices have dropped to the point where the USA might switch from being a net importer to net exporter pretty soon

This is probably one of the most underreported pieces of news in the past few years
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/health-science/energy-future-lurks-where-sun-dont-shine/story-e6frg8y6-1226206430096

http://markets.financialcontent.com/pennwell.ogj/news/read/20047451/u.s._shale_boom_reduces_russian_influence_over_european_gas_market

"In 2009, the US surpassed Russia as the largest producer of natural gas, while shale gas production in the US has increased from almost nothing a decade ago to about 30 per cent of its natural-gas supply, and likely to be 50 per cent in the next few years. This has created more than 200,000 jobs, no small boost at a time of mass unemployment in the US. More importantly, it has kept gas prices down while other energy prices are rising."

If anyone owns property in the northeast I'd highly recommend they convert to natural gas.

John McDonald says

For Obama to Golf 30+ times this year, plus basketball, plus vacations all over, taking vacations on the Spanish Rivera, taking his and her jets to Martha's vineyard ... sends the wrong message.

You have some good points, but this one is classic Fox News bullshit. Obama took less than half as much vacation as Bush:

http://www.factcheck.org/2010/01/president-obamas-vacation-days/

No, I take that back. Obama toook about one third as much vacation as Bush:

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2011/08/17/eveningnews/main20093801.shtml

John McDonald says

I don't like the Obama foreign policy of being critical of the US when he travels the world.

More spin and bullshit. Example quotes please, with places and dates.

John McDonald says

Obama really lost a lot of support on Obamacare. I really wish the Government would fix the things they are responsible for rather than continue to try to grab more responsibility.

Obama GAINED a lot of support because of Obamacare too. We have a desperately bad health insurance system in America (notice I said "insurance", not "care") and he's the only president who has gotten any kind of universal coverage laws passed.

It was gamed by the insurance companies to prevent the necessary government insurance option, and we should not be forced to pay private insurers (the Republican wet dream is enslaved customers by law), but it's still better than what we had.

John McDonald says

Obama has done nothing to lower the cost of energy. In fact, the environmentalist under Obama hurt energy production, delay production, etc. in their pursuit of a green job pipe dream. This policy mistake is cost America millions of Jobs.

No it hasn't.

I agree though that Obama hasn't done much to address one of the most pressing issues we face this century.

There's nothing we can do to lower the cost of oil (on the supply side). That's going to be set by the market, and we done pumped most of our oil already. The price of oil is going to be determined by what Saudi Arabia, Canada, and Venezuela can produce, not us.

Obama was actually making a push for nuclear investment, then Fukushima happened.

John McDonald says

Voters are really tired of meaningless political theater.

So why are you blaming Obama for this?

It's the Republicans doing the song & dances. The Bush tax cuts were obviously a colossal mistake, but they don't want to reverse them, since it's going to be a painful shock to the economy (which has grown increasingly reliant on free money).

Obama proposed a compromise that only the top 2% of the country go back to the Clinton rates. I think this is much too weak but it was a start on the road to fiscal sanity.

The bottom line though is that this country is going to have to decide whether it wants guns or butter, socialism or corporatism.

This is a bitterly divided country, and I doubt we're going to be able to get our shit together this decade or next.

and we should not be forced to pay private insurers

This is just an extension of car insurance mandates.

By getting more people into paying their insurance we can reverse the cost of hospitalization, which is the long pole in the tent wrt costs.

Theoretically.

John McDonald says

the voters were lied to by Obama and the Democrats that the US could default

No, the debt limit is a very hard limit in law, rightfully so since Congress has the power of the purse, not the Executive.

Without sufficient tax revenue coming in, bills won't get paid. If debt isn't repaid, that's default.

Whether or not Geithner could do some shuffling with the trust funds to keep Congress' game going is neither here nor there. The Republicans were playing with some very dangerous fire May - August, and the Administration danced to their insane tune long enough.

John McDonald says

Medicare is going broke. Fix it first, and show the citizens how great of job you are doing before grabbing even more the private economy

PPACA is not "grabbing the private economy". It's main problem is that it is not doing so, it's trying to patch the inefficiencies and rent-seeking in the private economy with tax subsidies, not that great idea but it's all that the 40th least progressive senator would let pass in 2009.

John McDonald says

And while you are at it, fix Social Security, the Post Office, Freddie Mac, Fannie Mae, SSI,

Social Security is not broken, thanks to the Greenspan Commission it's got enough money to last up to two decades as it is.

The Executive can't "save" the Post Office, since it is a creature of the Constitution and its operations are regulated by law and thus Congress.

Congress makes the law in this country, not the Executive.

The GSEs are beyond fixing. They were destroyed 2005-2007 when pushed themselves into the maw of the housing bubble just before it collapsed.

http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/HHMSDODNS

John McDonald says

Obama has done essentially nothing to bring anyone in the meltdown to justice.

In 2009 the optics on this were bad. Wall Street has some very powerful rich friends in this country -- and money controls the mass media after all. If the Obama team had demonized Wall Street, conservative like you would have slimed the administration for attacking capitalism and thus preventing the recovery from happening.

What conservatives like yourself fail to understand though is that the pump & dump of 2002-2007 was entirely legal. Unethical, but legal.

Asking for more government involvement now -- after the $5T of the bubble has been burned -- but wanting government out of the enforcement business while the actual market insanity is occurring is why I don't like conservatives.

You guys are all talk and no action. Well, no action that actually improves anything, you guys are really good at making problems worse.

mdovell says

Huh? Can't?

The Constitution has to say what powers the government has. Logically you cannot disprove a negative..that's like saying (like southpark said) that there was no evidence that there were no aliens at Thanksgiving so that means there were.

The constitution says plenty of things that the government CAN'T do. They CAN'T establish a state religion, they CAN'T force a person to condemn themselves, etc.

The constitution establishes up powers and limits, it does not set up laws.

Since there's no article barring forced purchase of a service, you're left with the framework that establishes laws.

mdovell says

Obviously the supreme court makes the decisions. But necessary and proper have limits. To have something be open ended frankly won't make sense.

And yet the Supreme Court has ruled repeatedly on the issues, and past rulings argue strongly that the insurance mandate is well within the federal government's rights.

mdovell says

More importantly the obamacare system (it is really romneycare..I've lived in mass all my life) makes a bit of an assumption that people will pay.

Uh, yeah, dude, that's what "mandate" means.

mdovell says

If they don't pay what's the recourse? Jail? A fine? it is one thing to suggest that the payment of taxes requires someone to keep records..ok fine since the government collects it as a source of revenue. But with this what is the argument...there are plenty of people that cannot legally work so how does that work for them? Children under 18, people in jail, people that are mentally disabled etc.

Why are you making this issue up? The law clearly establishes who is required to have insurance, and the penalties for not having it.

"Children under 18" are covered by their parents policies (also a part of "Obamacare"), or by state programs in the event that they have no parental coverage.

"People in jail" are covered by the prison's medical system.

"People that are mentally disabled": See "Children under 18".

You're making up an issue instead of having an actual argument. There are literally hundreds of pages explaining this. Is all you know of "Obamacare" what you hear on TV and radio?

mdovell says

It isn't that hard to see as to how this would work out given how some have ruled in the past. I'd bet this just doesn't pass. There is nothing within the context of the plan (or in mass) that increase the number of nurses and doctors so waiting times will increase. That's what happened in Mass.

What do you mean "will not pass"? It's already passed, and becomes effective in a few years. The only thing that might change is if the supreme court rules that the mandata is unconstitutional, at which point only that specific part of the legislation becomes invalid. There's no "passing" to be done.

Kevin says

within the federal government's rights.

powers. Governments don't have rights, people do.

adultsupervision says

Why can"t the obots get over Bush. It's not about him he is gone. We are talking about what we have right now.

The negative consequences of a president's policies do not suddenly end when that president leaves office. The effects of an administration can and do last over a century. It will be a long time before we repair all the damage the Bush/Cheney administration has done.

Furthermore, the current set of Republican presidential candidates (except Ron Paul) are pretty much Bush clones. Rick Perry is so much like Bush it's like a sad joke.

Egomaniacal assholes like Bush become president so that they can become immortal by getting their name in history. It's fitting that he should be immortalized as a jackass, fool king with no ethics.

mdovell says

On what charge(s) though?

Oh, I think we can find quite a few national and international laws that Bush has violated. Here's someone who started that research and came up with this preliminary list of charges. If you don't like those charges, I'm sure we can find others. Everything we tried Saddam for, could in some form or another, apply to Bush.

Janine says

Most of my republican friends hate Obama because they think he spends all of their tax dollars on "welfare for lazy blacks". That pretty much sums up the theme that I've heard from everyone.

Agreed. However, as I've stated, there are plenty of reasons to hate Obama that have nothing to do with welfare for blacks. However, accepting my reasons require also hating Bush, and no Republican is capable of that.

No, I take that back. Obama toook about one third as much vacation as Bush:

When Bush was president, I wanted him to take as many vacation days as possible. I also sent him gifts of hard pretzels every week.

"We are talking about what we have right now."

We're still reliant on $100 oil since Bush didn't do anything to get the country started on alternative energy.

We've got a $300B/yr trade deficit with China since Bush didn't do anything to reverse our reliance on the charity of our trading partners.

We've got $700B/yr+ military expense burden entirely thanks to Bush building up that sector much more than we need.

We've got a $10.3T national debt, up from the $3.3T that Bush inherited, thanks to him unwisely getting his tax cuts while also massively expanding government spending in all areas.

The first two were continuations of Clinton miscues, but the latter two were reversals of Clinton policy.

This country is in serious shit, and if we don't understand how we got here we won't be able to get ourselves out this mess.

To Patrick in reference to my comment "I don't like the Obama foreign policy of being critical of the US when he travels the world."

Let's look at Obama's Cairo speech in 2009.
A. US Colonialism denied Muslims rights and opportunities. The reality is: the US did a lot to free the Muslim world from European Colonialism.
B. US Cold War hurt the aspiration of Muslims. The reality is the US stopped communism from spreading into the Muslim world and with few exceptions has pushed for human rights and pumped trillions of dollars into Middle East economies as we bought their oil instead of easily stealing it.
C. Credits Islam for paving the way for Europe's Renaissance and Enlightenment. Reality, the Renaissance began in Florence and I don't know any credible scholar that has Obama's reading of history.
D. Implies the US was unwise to go into Iraq. Quoting Thomas Jefferson. Remember this is to a foreign audience.
E. 9/11 Caused America to act contrary to our ideals. Implies that America tortures people. Appropriate for an American debate, total inappropriate for a foreign audience. Apparently, Obama did not get the message about not taking foreign policy debates into foreign countries.
F. Has a very weird view of the civil rights struggle in the USA. Leaves out that thing called the Civil War and President Lincoln and the hundreds of thousands of white guys who died to free their black brothers to show how effective non-violence is in achieving full and equal rights.
G. Says that our ally Israel is creating a humanitarian crisis in Gaza, forgetting to mention that Israel allows tons and tons of aid to flow into Gaza and is simply trying to keep weapons out.
H. Reminds everyone that the US played a role in the overthrow of a regime in Iran 1953.
I. Says that rules in America make it hard for Muslims to give to Charity.
J. Equates the struggle for woman's equality in the Muslim world to the continued effort for woman's equality in America. Really? Last time I check our woman get to vote, drive, uncover their face in public, and shop by themselves.

That's just 1 speech.

To Patrick,

On Obamacare: I don't want the US government to take over more responsibility when they have already proved they cannot financially manage Medicare today. Any new insurance program will just become another entitlement with politicians promising more than can be delivered to get elected. Everyone will love it to start with, then it will go the same way as all government programs - red ink as far as the eye can see. Nothing is free, my friend. And has bad as a private sector decision maker can be -- a government decision maker even less efficient and friendly.

To Patrick,

Two guys taking excessive vacation does not make it okay.

I really did not like Bush's Supreme Court pick of Harriet Meyers, that doesn't mean that Obama is now okay to pick incompetent judges.

This business that someone how one party's failure is cover for another party's failure is poor logic and bad for America.

To Bellingham Bill

You repeated one of the common statements on the phony budget battle. The USA was always taking in enough money to cover the debt payments thus their would be no default. This lie was shouted far and wide by the Obama Administration to panic their supporters and paint the Republicans as extremists. Even some of the big government Republicans were spouting the same thing. All political theater. http://www.foxbusiness.com/markets/2011/07/25/obama-to-banks-were-not-defaulting/

Here is one more reason to not re-elect Obama. S&P warned very clearly that if the US did not cut at least $4 Trillion over 10 years it would lose it's AAA rating. We didn't and we lost the rating. Losing a credit rating having been warned is a serious event for an executive like Obama and is a bad mark on his record. Then all the Democrats acted surprised and wanted S&P investigated. Unbelievable. Other rating agencies are going to cut in the next 12 months as our deficit and debt simply are not sustainable. Imagine our budget deficit if interest rates kicked up to historically average levels of 6 to 8% or higher. Folks we be screwed, Republican or Democrat. Hold on tight.

To Bellingham Bill

A. I agree with you that Bush has a beautiful opportunity to help re-direct our country away from foreign oil and accomplished almost nothing. Sad.
B. Nuclear energy is the only viable alternative in the long run. Thankfully, there is a small but growing number of left wingers starting to come to this realization. A left wing organization in CA put on a report calling for 30 new nuclear plants in CA before 2050. So I'm a little encouraged, but still doubtful that all the insane chicken little leftist propaganda about the dangers of nuclear power for the past 30 years can be overcome quickly. But for kids economic future I hope so.
C. I dropped my Republican registration because of massive overspending on the part of G. Bush. But since there are only two viable parties in the US. I rejoined once Obama made Bush look frugal.

To Bellingham Bill,

Completely agree with your last statement

To Bellingham Bill,

Social Security is an interesting issue.

If Social Security were a stand alone program, then your statement is entirely correct.

However, it is not a stand alone program ... financially it is recorded as just another part of the general budget, so it rest entirely upon the ability of the US to pay it's bills just like any other program -- thus it is in just as bad of shape as any other government program which means it is in bad shape.

I think Social Security really should be pulled out of the budget, and then most of SSI dropped, and then a guaranteed return of at least 2 to 3% applied, and then stop Congress from re-defining what a cost of living adjustment means. Today social security essentially will pay you back exactly what you put in over 40 years with 0% interest. Congress swiped the interest on all that money. The return is likely to go negative in the years to come.

No one would ever sign up for a program like Social Security in the private sector who made an average income given the choice. So we are coerced into sending nearly 13% of our income to the government for a retirement program that pays 0% interest. What a bad deal.

John McDonald says

financially it is recorded as just another part of the general budget

No it's not.

so it rest entirely upon the ability of the US to pay it's bills just like any other program

No it doesn't. Even if you conservatives succeed in hand-waving away the $2.5T+ you owe FICA payers, SS could just moderately raise FICA contributions to remain in the black going forward.

SS is not broken, and thus does not need to be fixed.

So we are coerced into sending nearly 13% of our income to the government for a retirement program that pays 0% interest. What a bad deal.

SS is genius in that it provides a baseline security. As a pay-as-you-go program, Congress has not swiped anything, yet.

Since 1957, there has been $12.8T paid into the program and $11.7T disbursed to enrollees.

"Interest" is not a free lunch -- for someone to receive interest someone else must pay it. The magic of SS is that it avoids this idea of interest altogether, relying on future productivity increases to be able to give the retired population a better standard of living than they woud get from their contributions alone.

No other modern economy worth the name doesn't have a solid social pension foundation. Other than China and Japan I guess, but the former will be hitting that wall soon and the latter's economy is moribund partially because it does not have its fiscal house in order that well.

John McDonald says

I rejoined once Obama made Bush look frugal.

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/11/27/the-obama-spending-non-surge/

John McDonald says

The USA was always taking in enough money to cover the debt payments

yes, but to pay off maturing Treasury debt somebody else would get shafted, like military contractors, granny's social security, etc.

Or we could push off debt payments and keep our military functioning and granny's checking account from going empty.

That was the choice the insane republican coalition was putting the Administration in. Obama was perfectly within his rights to warn them not to force him to whack Granny, or default on the debt.

The Republicans had no business pulling this crap to begin with. Obama played it about as well as he could.

S&P warned very clearly that if the US did not cut at least $4 Trillion over 10 years it would lose it's AAA rating. We didn't and we lost the rating.

S&P is just a private corporation. The US Government is bigger than them. It's the biggest thing on this planet, and we could get our act together if we worked together.

Since the S&P downgrade the TNX has lost 30%

S&P should keep on downgrading our debt, LOL.

Unfortunately, the ideological divide is just too great in this country.

You and me are lightyears apart. And we're going to move further apart as shit goes down.

As for the national debt, I think we need to cut the military 50% over the next 10 years, convert Medicare into Canadian-style single-payer for everyone (with Canada's ~$4000 per-capita cost structure, too), raise taxes back to pre-Reagan levels over 5 years, and tariff the shit out of China, Japan and the Eurozone.

None of these things are going to happen, so this country will continue to circle the bowl.

John McDonald says

To mdovell,

Natural Gas production is way up because of Fracking Technology not because of Obama policies. And in fact, Obama's EPA and Environmentalists are all over the issue now working on new regulations to slow down the production improvements and hurt our economy further.

But nice try.

I wasn't trying to say that Obama was responsible for it but to ignore natural gas as being part of energy is like saying that steroids should be ignored in professional sports. Here's your asterisk.

To bellingham. How would tarrifs sell to the lower class though? They are the ones that would pay more of any regressive form of taxation.

The funny thing about SS is that I've actually done the math on it, comparing putting FICA in treasuries vs. the expected payout from SS after I hit retirement age.

Also comparing market performance vs. treasuries.

Someone making the FICA cap 1990-2011 would have contributed $215,000 to FICA on $1.7M in income.

If they had been buying an S&P index fund they'd have ~$400,000 today and ~$350,000 if they'd been buying 10-year treasuries.

Extrapolating out another 20 years, this will be $4M in earnings, $500,000 in FICA payments, the index fund would have $1M while the treasury fund would have $800,000.

Now, yes, at age 65 people would naturally choose to have $1M in SPY or $800,000 in treasuries vs. the ~$2300/mo for life maximum that SS pays.

But few us magically teleport from age 21 to retirement age without dips and disasters. SS isn't designed to give a maximum payout to all retirees, it's designed to establish guaranteed minimums.

Giving every retiree that maximal interest return is mathematically impossible, if you think about it enough.

This is not to say that SS is optimal; Germans actually pay 20% of their wages to social pensions. Wonder how their system works.

adultsupervision says

Kevin what does being rich have to do with an understanding of economics?..Obama gets support from people in these positions because they will get something in return.

E C O N O M I S T S and C O R P O R A T E C E O S.

You know, people who's entire job it is is to understand macro or micro economic trends, create jobs, and generally do business.

You have failed to provide any argument for how Obama doesn't understand economics, and people who really, deeply, truly understand Economics, along with the princes of capitalism, all support the man. Your definition of "doesn't understand economics" is apparently "does not agree with my view of the economy, which is that nothing at all should be different compared to 1850".

John McDonald says

Let's look at Obama's Cairo speech in 2009.

Holy fucking shit balls, you have an entire list of outright lies. Here's the complete text of the actual speech: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/04/us/politics/04obama.text.html?pagewanted=all

Let me guess: You've never actually read the transcript, and didn't watch it when it was actually on TV? Every thing in your list is either a gross distortion of what was said, is something that was never even implied, or is just an outright lie. Did you get this list from a republican chain letter or something?

John McDonald says

Any new insurance program will just become another entitlement with politicians promising more than can be delivered to get elected.

You apparently don't know what "Obamacare" is either! It's not a "new insurance program!" Jesus fucking christ, how can anyone be so misinformed when you could just google this shit?

Hi Kevin,

I read his entire speech twice before I posted that. Here are the exact quotes.

A. "fed by colonialism that denied rights and opportunities to many Muslims" -- lumping the US in with accused.
B. "a Cold War in which Muslim-majority countries were too often treated as proxies without regard to their own aspirations"
C. " It was Islam -- at places like Al-Azhar -- that carried the light of learning through so many centuries, paving the way for Europe's Renaissance and Enlightenment." -- I don't know of any credible historian that agrees.
D. "I also believe that events in Iraq have reminded America of the need to use diplomacy and build international consensus to resolve our problems whenever possible. (Applause.) Indeed, we can recall the words of Thomas Jefferson, who said: "I hope that our wisdom will grow with our power, and teach us that the less we use our power the greater it will be.""
E. "Nine-eleven was an enormous trauma to our country. The fear and anger that it provoked was understandable, but in some cases, it led us to act contrary to our traditions and our ideals." -- a completely inappropriate comment in a foreign country.
F. "For centuries, black people in America suffered the lash of the whip as slaves and the humiliation of segregation. But it was not violence that won full and equal rights. It was a peaceful and determined insistence upon the ideals at the center of America's founding." -- forgot the Civil War.
G. "And Israel must also live up to its obligation to ensure that Palestinians can live and work and develop their society. Just as it devastates Palestinian families, the continuing humanitarian crisis in Gaza does not serve Israel's security;"
H. " In the middle of the Cold War, the United States played a role in the overthrow of a democratically elected Iranian government." -- by the way it was not in the middle of the cold war, it was right at the beginning in 1953. But why bring it up at all, except to make the US look bad, the coop happened before most in the audience were alive 58 years ago?
I. "For instance, in the United States, rules on charitable giving have made it harder for Muslims to fulfill their religious obligation. That's why I'm committed to working with American Muslims to ensure that they can fulfill zakat." -- What rules?
J. "Meanwhile the struggle for women's equality continues in many aspects of American life" -- equating American women's rights with Muslim women's rights seems like a major stretch.

Hi Bellingham Bill,

Great... Here's the deal. I did not say privatize it etc. you extrapolated that from your bias onto me. I said SS should pay at least 2 to 3% interest. Today SS pays ~0% after paying in for 40 years. That is a total ripoff. The reason is: Social Security pays for all the SSI fraud and massive government management overhead, etc.

This is why I think the US Government should pay into SS and ensure the retirees get an average 2 to 3% on their money. This would double the average Social Security payout. Any investment strategy should pay at least 2 to 3% interest which is still ridiculously low after 40 years. Even that minor change would nearly double the benefit to the average retiree.

mdovell,

The Obama Administration has done virtually nothing in ACTUAL energy production since they took office. The made a huge deal out of green energy plans and pumped billions of loan guarantees into dozens of green energy companies most of which are now in serious trouble having a net negative impact on electricity cost while producing very little energy. My energy bill went up 20% last month in the annual rate increase.

Anyone with even a small mind for mathematics, physics, or chemistry can quickly figure out that wind, solar, ethanol, etc. are fringe technologies that will not have a serious impact on CO2 production, energy costs, or energy MWH production.

Even worse, Obama's buddies in the enviro movement are aggressively trying to blow up dams on the west coast (just did the Condit dam), working the lower 4 on the Snake River, and working on the Klamath dam. It's sort of like the Great Depression Democrats in reverse ... let's all the possible negative things we can do for the economy as opposed to help things along. They even argue that blowing up dams and reducing the electricity production will create 1700 jobs in the case of the Klamath dam. These folks are just insane.

Hi Bellingham Bill,

Krugman's argument is not valid because it is not right to arbitrary exclude spending items and then conclude spending is low. Greece sort of did that --- ah let's not count this spending and hide that spending. Stimulus spending is Obama spending. In fact, that is another major problem with how the US is financing items (some are on-budget, some are off-budget). That kind of thinking is very dangerous financially speaking. Everything should be on-budget and counted including 1 time stimulus payments and payments that are higher than normal due to a bad economy.

One of the reasons to insist on this is because I don't see the catalyst to get this economy moving anytime soon. Therefore, government needs to downsize to the new normal.

Hi Bellingham Bill,

On the issue of default, I'm glad you agree with me. We had no chance of defaulting because by law we had to pay our debts first and we had money coming in to do that.

So you switched your point to -- other folks who work for the government not getting paid. I agree some of those folks would not have been paid. But that wasn't your original point. You were spouting the "We are going to default" line which was not true and that's what I mean by Political theater -- we need to start telling the truth accurately and not just working on talking points to make a Democrat look bad or a Republican look bad.

Anyways, thanks

John McDonald says

"fed by colonialism that denied rights and opportunities to many Muslims" -- lumping the US in with accused.

WHERE? He does not use the word "US" "United States" "America" AT ALL when discussing colonialism. He's clearly referring to the legacy of European and Asian colonialism. Why do you feel the need to lie?

John McDonald says

B. "a Cold War in which Muslim-majority countries were too often treated as proxies without regard to their own aspirations"

Yes, this ACTUALLY HAPPENED. Are you going to claim that the U.S. stuck around to help out after we used Afghanistan to fight the soviets? It wasn't just muslim countries either. Vietnam and Korea also got to be victims of a war between two big countries.

John McDonald says

" It was Islam -- at places like Al-Azhar -- that carried the light of learning through so many centuries, paving the way for Europe's Renaissance and Enlightenment." -- I don't know of any credible historian that agrees.

I'm willing to bet you don't know any credible historians.

John McDonald says

"I also believe that events in Iraq have reminded America of the need to use diplomacy and build international consensus to resolve our problems whenever possible. (Applause.) Indeed, we can recall the words of Thomas Jefferson, who said: "I hope that our wisdom will grow with our power, and teach us that the less we use our power the greater it will be.""

That's probably because it was unwise to go into Iraq, something the majority of the United States population agrees with. It was a mistake, period, end of story. There is absolutely nothing wrong with admitting to a mistake, even to a foreign audience.

[ditto for E]

F is unequivocally a true statement. If you're actually going to suggest that Black people had "full and equal rights" after the Civil war, you clearly know nothing about American history (even recent history).

G. I really don't understand your argument. Because he didn't mention aid to Gaza it somehow makes the factually correct statement about the humanitarian crisis in Gaza wrong?

H. Nice way to remove context from that one. Obama was clearly reciting the history of U.S. / Iranian conflict. He also talked about Iranian hostages. He then said that we need to move on from past mistakes. Learn to read entire paragraphs maybe?

J. There's no "equating American women's rights with Mulsim women's rights" here. Again, read the actual statements.

If I apply the same standards that you did, here's what I'd get out of the speech:

"I reject...the West"

I can totally find those words in that order in the speech, and therefore Obama obviously hates America.

Kevin says

I'm willing to bet you don't know any credible historians.

yeah, James Burke's _The Day the Universe Changed_ had a great episode on how western knowledge was kept in use by the Islamic world after our forebears fell to tribal and then feudal rule of the post-Roman ages.

John McDonald says

We had no chance of defaulting because by law we had to pay our debts first

No we don't. The 14th Amendment is exceedingly vague on this point.

John McDonald says

Stimulus spending is Obama spending

Stimulus spending is included in Krugman's graph. Read it again -- the bulk of increases since 2009 have nothing to do with Obama.

Oh, who the hell am I kidding. You're welded to your Republican ideology and you're not budging -- you've got your bullshit stories and you're sticking to them.

As for Obama's use of default, doing some more research I see what he was saying at the time:

"If that happens, and we default, we would not have enough money to pay all of our bills – bills that include monthly Social Security checks, veterans’ benefits, and the government contracts we’ve signed with thousands of businesses."

He did not threaten default on the debt.

http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2011/07/25/obamas-address-to-the-nation-on-debt-talks/

You can't even find the right things to complain about.

John McDonald says

I said SS should pay at least 2 to 3% interest. Today SS pays ~0% after paying in for 40 years.

SS is not an investment program. It is insurance to guarantee ALL retirees have a basic standard of living upon retirement.

12.4% was determined in the 1980s to be the magic number to get the baby boom through retirement.

Congress is actually paying interest on excess FICA collections over what the pay-as-you-go requires.

Well, actually, they're just printing more treasury notes as promises to pay.

John McDonald says

The reason is: Social Security pays for all the SSI fraud and massive government management overhead, etc.

There is no massive government overhead in SS. This is just more of your bullshit conservative stories.

As for SSI fraud, it is exceedingly difficult to qualify for SSI, and the benefits are minimal anyway.

There are 8 million SSI beneficiaries, ~$80B/yr. Even if half of them are fraudulent this waste is an order of magnitude smaller than the waste of the DOD.

But like I said above, I don't want to assert that the SS structure is a good deal for anyone. I like its goals and mechanisms, but I don't doubt we could devise a better program.

But the problem is that it's so wide-ranging in its mission, it's hard comparing it to even a plain defined-benefit pension.