Thoughts on Obama SO FAR?

[yodajazz]

Two wings of the same bird, my friends...

If you want to know exactly what is wrong with Government today, revisit Dwight D Eisenhower's farewell speech.


Only I would say today it's the military-financial-political complex. The military has won, as they have an perpetual open checkbook. I'm thinking about how corporations can not only control government policy, but in many cases is the same as the government; as people go back and forth being employed by the private sector, who they were supposed to be overseeing.

Here's a classic example of what I am talking about. Wendy Gramm is the wife of former Republican Senator, Phil Gramm:

"In an apparent response to a 1992 plea from Enron, Dr. Wendy Gramm, then chair of the federal Commodity Futures Trading Commission, moved to exempt the company's energy-swap operation from government oversight. By then, the Houston-based Enron was a major contributor to Senator Gramm's campaign.

A few days after she got the ball rolling on the exemption, Wendy Gramm resigned from the commission. Enron soon appointed her to its board of directors, where she served on the audit committee, which oversees the inner financial workings of the corporation. For this, the company paid her between $915,000 and $1.85 million in stocks and dividends, as much as $50,000 in annual salary, and $176,000 in attendance fees, according to a report by Public Citizen, a group that has relentlessly tracked Enron, which in turn has called the report unfair.

Meanwhile Enron had become Phil Gramm's largest corporate contributor—and according to Public Citizen, the largest across-the board donor in its industry. Between 1989 and 2001, the company tossed Gramm just under $100,000."

http://www.selectsmart.com/DISCUSS/r...,654671,654711

And there's a lot more to the story, here. They basically ripped off the California public, as well as their own employees, and investors. The ironic thing was that it was government intervention of re-inserting price controls that brought their house down. This points out what is the true purpose of government; to protect the general interests of the people.

My conclusion, is that I believe the real reason behind the Republican mantra of small government, and diminished oversight, is in order to let corporations/money take comeplete control. Republican in Congress are talking about trying to repeal the new financial reform law. I read in another article, that the same Phill Graham, fought successfully to keep the financial instrument, credit default swaps, free from government oversight. The practice only become legal in the 1999-2000 bill that Graham co-sponsored. Now there are reported to be multi-trillions of dollars of these instruments out there. Many say that, they greatly increase market volitility, and was the main cause of the collapse of Bear Stearns.

[badpreston577]

Lets say that i am a Obama supporter but I caution you that i was Hillary supporter first so a Demorcratic loyalist i supported the partys candidate. I see him as a strong willed, smart man who has 8 years of Bush's pollicies to overcome. Its very hard to do anything concrete in four years. I have a few points to make fisrt on the war front, it was Bush's war planned and executed by him the war would go on with whoever was in the white house. There are contractors in place doing the dirty work along with our fighting men and women there. Besides I still question the reasoning of executing the war in the first place. Alot of political capital was spent convincing us that the war was just, I digress we are there now lets finish what we got ourselves into and exit gracefully. The private sector is making a ton of money on war lets not kid ourselves. Any political candidate promising a quick end to this quagmire got bad advice, I falt Obama for that and I fault the liberals on unrealistic expectations. One the war I give Obama a INC-incomplete

The Ecomony, this was inherited from Bush and made worse by Obama and ill concieved deficeit spending. It will be 2 more years before we recover and make gains on the jobs front but I think washington must hold spending down and let the private sector create the jobs, govenment jobs are a dead end and the govenment cant really create jobs. grade C

I firmly agree that the conservatives have an agenda had one to unseat Obama since election night, anything i hear from them i have to say are they for the good of the nation or a personal vendetta?

[yodajazz]

@Badpreston577
The reason for the war in Iraq, short version; oil. Iraq has the second largest supply of oil reserves. 2. A group of Conservatives, felt that since the Soviet Union had fallen, the US had no real challenger for power and had the ability, to "reshape the world" to suit American interests. The US is the world's biggest user of oil. Look at the ideas of this think tank, calling itself, Project for a New American Century, sometimes referred to as PNAC.

Project for the New American Century - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia@@AMEPARAM@@/wiki/File:PNAC.png" class="image"><img alt="" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/a/a3/PNAC.png/300px-PNAC.png"@@AMEPARAM@@en/thumb/a/a3/PNAC.png/300px-PNAC.png

They called for the ouster of Saddam Hussein publicly in 1998. Some key people from this group joined the Bush administration. Read the article and you will see that their ideas prevailed in the Bush II, adminstration. Look a the list of people who urged "regime change" in Iraq in 1998, in an open letter, who later had key positions within the Bush Administration: Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle, John Bolton, Richard Armitage, and Elliott Abrams.[26][34][37][48]
Former Secretary of the Treasury, John W Simon, after a controversial departure, stated that the invasion of Iraq was discussed at the very first cabinet meeting of George W Bush. This was before 9/11 as Bush took office in January 2001. The adminstration said, "he wasn't reliable." However, his name is on a lot of money. Check for his name, on bills in your wallet with the old format.

One position paper, issued by PNAC, said that the process of changing the world was likely to be a slow unless, their was a "new Pearl Harbor". Here is the paragraph in the Wiki article that states this:

Section V of Rebuilding America's Defenses, entitled "Creating Tomorrow's Dominant Force", includes the sentence: "Further, the process of transformation, even if it brings revolutionary change, is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event––like a new Pearl Harbor" (51).[13]
Though not arguing that Bush administration PNAC members were complicit in those attacks, other social critics such as commentator Manuel Valenzuela and journalist Mark Danner,[37][38][39] investigative journalist John Pilger, in New Statesman,[40] and former editor of The San Francisco ChronicleBernard Weiner, in CounterPunch,[41] all argue that PNAC members used the events of 9/11 as the "Pearl Harbor" that they needed––that is, as an "opportunity" to "capitalize on" (in Pilger's words), in order to enact long-desired plans.

By the way, welcome to the board, BadPreston577.

[Niccolo]

[south ov da border]

http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stori...083758/1/.html

http://www.upi.com/Business_News/201...9911288101528/






I don't hear people talking about things like China and Russia have an energy agreement. Russia supplies the most crude oil in the world and that means bad news for our economy. I think they are bumping out the dollar as the standard, which in my eyes is the start of something very ugly. Get ready for prices to rise rise rise and a possible middle east conflict. Is it gold time???

[hippifried]

Is it gold time???

No it's not. The only value of gold, other than its properties as a conductor, is mystique. It's scattered all over, in private hands. There's no gold reserve. Ergo, you can't have a gold standard. The gold standard was a myth to start with anyway. There was never enough in reserve. The peg to gold was the flaw of Bretton Woods. The attack on the dollar in the late '60s was merely an offer of more than $32 an oz for gold on the world markets by big European banks, especially the bank of England. The Nixon shock of '71 abrogated the treaty, ended 25 years of stable worldwide growth, & began the inflationary spiral that's still screwing with us. Think gold has value? Take a krugerrand, libertad, or gold eagle down to the grocery store & see what you can buy with it.

I think the worry over Russia & China is misplaced. What're the chances of the ruble becoming the world reserve currency, or the default petroleum exchange medium? I'm thinking somewhere between slim & none on a good day for them. As big a producer as they are, they're not OPEC. Russia's an economic basket case. Yeltsin's fascist policies screwed them good for a long time.

The yuan is pegged to the dollar, & the Chinese have no desire to change that, despite the Euro-American pressure to float their currency. They don't want to deal with hyperinflation. They have energy aggreements with everbody who produces fuels. Nigeria, Sudan, all the OPECers including Venezuela & Iran, Ecuador, Mexico, UK, Russia, VietNam, & even the US, etc... Everybody has their own agenda. Anybody can cut their own deals. If, somehow, that's not allowed, then we might as well capitulate to the commies, or fascists, or whatever fringe nutcase ideologues, stop lying to ourselves about free market capitalism, & toss the whole system in the round file. Personally, I'd rather not at this point in time.

If you're really worried about the dollar losing its clout & status as the default reserve through currency manipulation, you should be looking at Europe, & especially the UK. Irrespective of the daily or quarterly currency exchange sillies & gambling odds, the euro isn't going anywhere & will continue as relatively strong & stable. The weakness of the EU right now is its structure as a confederacy. I really don't think they can handle the responsibility of being the world's reserve, or want to at this point. The pound is propped up by mystique & hubris. That's a little scary since monetary power is the only way left to hold on to any semblance of the British empire. They can afford to gamble too, becase they're the only ones who actually use the pound as money, & the option of shifting to the euro is still open to them.

Everybody's nationalistic to an extent, but nobody's as stupid about it as the Europeans, eurocentric (including much of the common thought process in the US), & Japanese. So here's my prediction:

In the next few decades, 2 generations tops, there will be a common currency, similar to the euro, throughout southern Asia, sans Japan. This may pave the way for Korean reunification too. Same goes for South America. They may even do it quicker. Last holdouts there will be Columbia (US pressure) & Suriname (still under Dutch rule).

[yodajazz]

Why do people make a big deal out of trival gestures. He was probably bending down in order to grab him by the balls. The meaning of the gesture has more symbolism meaning that US does not hate Muslims, that Bin Laden's msessage is wrong; That we are not at war with Islam. But we have waged war with nations that have predominate Muslim populations. But US policy should not be help radical Islam accomplish its goals. Making friends is near the top of important war strategies.

[giovanni_hotel]

Right, BHO should have handled his bidnez like Dubya!!

[giovanni_hotel]

We went through a major housing bubble in the '80s. When it burst, it crashed the entire savings & loan industry.There was an S&L on every corner, but when the smoke cleared, there probably wasn't a half dozen in the country with open doors.

There was one in the '70s too. It didn't get bad enough to crash the financials because the "stagflation" slowed it down & the oddball baloon loans were exposed early for the scam they were.

I guess my point is that this isn't a recent or 'right now' problem. It's just minor tweaks on the same crap over & over. Everybody's forced to jack up profit margins by whatever means because they're hedging against inflation. Stable margins don't work when everything's unstable. The problem isn't politics or any of the other crap that most of the bitching's about. The problem's inflation. The only ones charged with the fight against inflation are the Fed, & all they can do tighten credit. We already have tight credit, & you see what that does. The economic templates don't work because this inflation is artificial. The currency market is a skimming operation, & there's a direct corelation between the amount being skimmed & the rate of decline. Shut it down. You do that by pegging the currencies to each other & fixing the exchange rates.

Housing didn't crash the banks. It was a major factor, but they were leveraged way beyond solvency. Still are. The CDOs were a fraud, & it really needs to be prosecuted. The problem is that all this junk paper is still floating around out there & nobody knows exactly how to clear it off the books. It's going to take a while.

Excellent post, among many others posted by everyone in this thread.
Sometimes I'm still taken aback by the level of economic/political discussions being held on a tranny porn board!!

Just sayin'!

[Cuchulain]

@Badpreston577
The reason for the war in Iraq, short version; oil. Iraq has the second largest supply of oil reserves. 2. A group of Conservatives, felt that since the Soviet Union had fallen, the US had no real challenger for power and had the ability, to "reshape the world" to suit American interests.

Hello yodajazz and everyone else. I see the politics section is still on life support.

I agree with your reasoning yodajazz, but feel there's more to it. Here's a golden article from Harper's back in '04 that I always point to when discussing the reason for the occupation.

'The honey theory of Iraqi reconstruction stems from the most cherished belief of the war's ideological architects: that greed is good. Not good just for them and their friends but good for humanity, and certainly good for Iraqis. Greed creates profit, which creates growth, which creates jobs and products and services and everything else anyone could possibly need or want. The role of good government, then, is to create the optimal conditions for corporations to pursue their bottomless greed, so that they in turn can meet the needs of the society. The problem is that governments, even neoconservative governments, rarely get the chance to prove their sacred theory right: despite their enormous ideological advances, even George Bush's Republicans are, in their own minds, perennially sabotaged by meddling Democrats, intractable unions, and alarmist environmentalists.
Iraq was going to change all that. In one place on Earth, the theory would finally be put into practice in its most perfect and uncompromised form. A country of 25 million would not be rebuilt as it was before the war; it would be erased, disappeared. In its place would spring forth a gleaming showroom for laissez-faire economics, a utopia such as the world had never seen. Every policy that liberates multinational corporations to pursue their quest for profit would be put into place: a shrunken state, a flexible workforce, open borders, minimal taxes, no tariffs, no ownership restrictions. The people of Iraq would, of course, have to endure some short-term pain: assets, previously owned by the state, would have to be given up to create new opportunities for growth and investment. Jobs would have to be lost and, as foreign products flooded across the border, local businesses and family farms would, unfortunately, be unable to compete. But to the authors of this plan, these would be small prices to pay for the economic boom that would surely explode once the proper conditions were in place, a boom so powerful the country would practically rebuild itself'
http://www.harpers.org/archive/2004/09/0080197

Seems the honey plan wasn't so sweet after all.

I enjoyed the 'Ike' clip in your earlier post as well, yodajazz.

Ok, this is where hippifried jumps in and accuses me of hyperbole (although this has been a pretty tame post for me - I didn't even use the term REICHwing).