God Bless America

[ricky_id]

I didn't say Obama was demonic. Your point is lost?

Well you said "demonise is not inaccurate"....

[Howie]

Let's face it. Both major strength parties are to blame for our current financial mess. Bush starts out by basically helping out his family's financial deals with helping the Federal reserve banks. Obama follows with the other banking conglomerates, the auto industries, and dozens of other places. Neither one of the Presidents caused a flicker with-in the economic recovery with their doings. Every school kid knows that the only thing that spurs the economy is spending buy the masses. The place the parties forgot about. I'm sure everyone has heard how if every family in the US received $50G the economy would have taken off and there would have also been savings. The total cost would have been much less then what it cost us. Fix the auto business? Sure, give every family a voucher for $25,000.00 towards a new US Car. That would have cost less and gotten the auto industry up and running again. Of course, if they didn't use the voucher for your cars, you lose and that is just. If you can't make it and continue to make mistake after mistake, why should you even be in business? Same for the financial institutions. Too big to fail? They did fail their investors. Not themselves of course. Hey, how about this? Since the oil companies were making record profits mainly from the auto consumption of fuels, why not had them bail out the auto companies? They work hand in had for profits any way.

Our current problems are in the Congress and Senate. In the fact they refuse to work together. Everyone blames the other side all the time for not cooperating. No, they don't. That is the problem. The US government hasn't worked for the people for a long long time. There is no improvement coming up in the future either. Won't matter who is president, the other party will try to block whatever they can. They think their job is to make sure he/she isn't reelected. What a waste of 4 years. The entire House and Senate needs to have a do over. A place on the ballet that says none of the above and then more start over for the position.

Make pork illegal and has to go through proper government channels for approvals. Stop spending all the money on worthless projects. Don't toss out Obama's health care but tweak it so it isn't going to be so costly for all Americans now that we are at a point we need to start paying for it. Everyone knows and proclaims there won"t be enough for Social Security too long into the future. At the same time government reduces the percentage of what's taken out for your SS contribution. Who was the mastermind of that stupidity? We really need to seriously look at a flat tax if we want to get things in line. Get's rid of all those loopholes and everyone pays their fair share. Get people back to work.

Thanks for allowing me this rant. I normally don't go on like this and happily because there is so much more I could say, I will stop.

A+ fastpitch!

[Howie]

Well you said "demonise is not inaccurate"....

I said he is unjustly demonizing others to further his political agenda. I did not say HE was demonic.

[jstar]

You've learned well grasshopper! Blame Bush.
When did we decide to accept whimps who forgot that the buck stops with them?

Eh, read again please: Unlike you I did not blame anyone in that post.

I also wonder why you are so concerned Obama will show his real 'left side' in a second term? Don't know if you realize this but in many other countries the Democrats would still be considered right of center. And a liberal is not a lefty but a political moderate right wing current which stands for freedom (in religion, markets, etc.). I don't see what's wrong with a government which is involved in fighting unemployment, making sure health care is available for everyone, as well as education.

_________________________________________________

To make the discussion somewhat wider and less person oriented: what about the hobby horses economic and social freedom? There are the discrepancies between Republicans (+economic freedom, -social freedom) and Democrats (-economic freedom, +social freedom).

The last couple of years have taught us (again) that too much economic freedom can do a lot of harm. Look at mortgage/banking and the euro crisis. More control does not have to lead to communism btw, and it's okay for a CEO to earn more than an office clerk. It's more about making sure the corporations (e.g. banks) play by the rules and to regulate more to avoid problems. In hindsight it is very wise the European governments did not let their banks go bankrupt (cf. Lehman) and that governments forced the banking industry to take measures; doing nothing would have been a real disaster for everyone.

Personally speaking, I think there can hardly be enough social freedom. Examples of hot potatoes are abortion (after rape) and gay marriage. People should get a choice.

And asking for more God in society? Are those the same people who whine about having to choose a religion if they want to be married in Indonesia? Or those that complain about the mosques? There is the 'more god in society' for you...

[DanInAceh]

I also wonder why you are so concerned Obama will show his real 'left side' in a second term? Don't know if you realize this but in many other countries the Democrats would still be considered right of center. And a liberal is not a lefty but a political moderate right wing current which stands for freedom (in religion, markets, etc.). I don't see what's wrong with a government which is involved in fighting unemployment, making sure health care is available for everyone, as well as education.

If by "many" other countries you mean Scandinavia, ok.

I'm personally "with you" on the concept that government should be deeply involved in correcting poverty, universal healthcare and of course providing education for everyone. All of that makes perfect sense to you and I, but many Americans (and I'm not included in this demographic) are also concerned with whether or not these are actually battles that government can win and if government is actually responsible for any of it. There is certainly a class of people who deem themselves as being classical liberals in terms of desiring maximum personal freedom from government interference while arguing that government has no business advancing the cause of a greater good.

Are those people liberals or are they conservatives? Some people in the above category want to do away with nearly all government services, they're nearly anarchists (most of those fit in the "Libertarian Party" as closet anarchists). They want to abandon gun control but abortion is ok. They want to end public education (lol, morons) but they also want to end foreign aid. Such an attitudeis becoming immense in the United States (see Tea Party), and I think it's hard to qualify most Americans as truly liberal or conservative.

To make the discussion somewhat wider and less person oriented: what about the hobby horses economic and social freedom? There are the discrepancies between Republicans (+economic freedom, -social freedom) and Democrats (-economic freedom, +social freedom).

The last couple of years have taught us (again) that too much economic freedom can do a lot of harm. Look at mortgage/banking and the euro crisis. More control does not have to lead to communism btw, and it's okay for a CEO to earn more than an office clerk. It's more about making sure the corporations (e.g. banks) play by the rules and to regulate more to avoid problems. In hindsight it is very wise the European governments did not let their banks go bankrupt (cf. Lehman) and that governments forced the banking industry to take measures; doing nothing would have been a real disaster for everyone.

Personally speaking, I think there can hardly be enough social freedom. Examples of hot potatoes are abortion (after rape) and gay marriage. People should get a choice.

And asking for more God in society? Are those the same people who whine about having to choose a religion if they want to be married in Indonesia? Or those that complain about the mosques? There is the 'more god in society' for you...

Deregulation is certainly a problem, but I think that some of the financial products that are available today are essentially the most complicated scams ever conceived of in human history. Neither Democrats nor Republicans are actually willing to break the cycle of limitless, invented wealth. Consider the concept of leverage in banking. Banks have a small amount of liquid assets which can be given out to investors who want their money back, but almost all of their supposed value is tied up in various investments which are themselves invested in by others (securities, for example)... anyway, they generally have about 1/100th of their actual value as cash assets on hand to give to depositors. So, if you have invested $100 in Bank XYZ, only $1 of that is actually on hand and the rest is tied up in a lot of numbers understood by only a few accountants and financial advisers who know that the bank doesn't actually have that money. In truth, the banks are virtually inventing money for themselves. You may as well consider them to be like little baronies of a larger central banking reserve system, they may as well be printing their own currency.

If for some reason the bank collapses then sure, your money may be "protected" by government agencies insuring the value of the depositor's funds. However, the way the system is going there are larger and larger financial institutions and quite frankly there's no chance that world governments can reimburse everyone and even doing so will require printing more money (inflation, textbook inflation).

It's usury that's the problem (there, I said it) here, and until THAT is candidly dealt with we all live in a financial house of cards that exists purely at the whim of a few very smart, very powerful people (not saying this conspiratorially here, they just realize that if it DOES fail we're all screwed so the only answer is to pretend there's no problem). We've enjoyed such "prosperity" precisely because wealth can literally be made from nothing.

As to more/less God in society, I think it depends on the country. America is a settler society where religious intolerance was a major motivating factor in our earliest national ancestors. Keeping religion out of government is bad for our cohesion, but we have classically made up for that with a nationalist cult (patriotism) and a sense that we're a pluralist nation founded on such values. I don't think the same holds completely true here in Indonesia. There's lip service to pluralism here, but I don't actually see much of it in action.

[ricky_id]

I said he is unjustly demonizing others to further his political agenda. I did not say HE was demonic.

Ah my bad. I thought you're talking about something nasty democracy-wise in 2016.

[Nimbus]

What is funny about praising eastwood quote stating that those who didn't do the job should be fired? Do we need to keep those that we know that their performance will not give any progress in the future? I say no! Replace them with new set of people that have different approach. It probably better. obama had his chance. Everyone thought he
would be the saviour after the suffer under Bush Administration. But, where America
stand now? Just right when it was before 4 years ago if it is not worse.

I don't have any issue with the notion of voting out a nonperforming president, if that's your opinion of him. I do have an Issue with an unfounded statement that America is becoming Afghanistan, and another strange statement that a country should be run like a corporation. Running a corporation is not just about firing non performers.

According to the statistics USA was losing 800,000 jobs a month, while last month it was adding 96,000 (it's been adding jobs for 30 straight months). Republicans left him an economy in free fall, yet Obama is a failure because he is not fixing it fast enough.

I remember very well last year that Obama was trying to create more jobs by passing a job bill, which was shot down by Republicans. You would expect that Republicans would come up with their own version of a job creation bill. Well, they didn't. Their primary goal when they retook the House was not to create jobs, it was to kick Obama out, so they couldn't risk making him look good. Oh, and then there's all the idiocy with the debt ceiling stunt that resulted in the downgrading of USA's credit rating, which is NOT good for the economy.

Romney's plan for the economy is basically to take money out of middle class programs (approximately $2000 per person) and giving it to the rich (about $250,000 per person). The logic is that more money in the hands of the rich will push them to open or expand businesses and thus employ more people. Well, the problem is that in a down economy they can't justify expanding their businesses UNTIL people start spending more, and people aren't gonna start spending more until they have jobs (duh). Businesses are in it for profit, not to create jobs, so they will not increase capacity until there's a demand for it, I wouldn't. Obama's plan is to spend money on projects that directly create jobs, which in turn would increase spending, expand businesses, which in turn create more jobs. The stimulus that he managed to secure before Republicans took office did create jobs (reflected by today's numbers), the only criticism that Republicans can level to him is that it wasn't quick enough. To say the policy doesn't work is very inaccurate, or worse, a lie.

Why did you mention charity? A country isn't a charity organizations. It purpose to make
it's shareholder to be happy and prosperous. A country must developed brand for themselves, to build image of the country and its citizen. See.. No different than a company. Only company that have heart for it's employee and shareholder that can go big.

I don't know of any functioning country (failed states and dictatorships are not included) in the world that doesn't have a social program to help the poor. Even USA has food stamps and Medicaid. If you have no money hospitals here can't refuse you and let you die. Giving free treatment is not business, it's charity.

Are you sugesting the Americans are the employees of the country?

If everybody is a shareholder only, who are the workers? Chinese and Indians?

[jstar]

Had my share of CEO's in life. Not surprisingly, most were Republicans like Romney (amicable people though) so that made nice dinner discussions.

The general feeling was always; Washington should let us be, we know what's best and we will create jobs. The next day the decision to close a plant in the US and open one in Ireland because of favorable tax rates was made in a one hour meeting...

Of course you could argue the government should create a more enterprise friendly environment to avoid this but it also shows the (required) difference in mindset between a CEO and President.

[DanInAceh]

According to the statistics USA was losing 800,000 jobs a month, while last month it was adding 96,000 (it's been adding jobs for 30 straight months). Republicans left him an economy in free fall, yet Obama is a failure because he is not fixing it fast enough.

Careful about those job numbers as they are nearly always manipulated by both the press and political parties. They don't take into account how many people joined the workforce in the same time period (young people/immigrants). There's also the question of what kind of jobs have been added. An article on the gains...

http://www.suntimes.com/business/149...ops-to-81.html

"The unemployment rate fell to 8.1 percent from 8.3 percent in July, the Labor Department said Friday. But that was only because more people gave up looking for work. The government only counts people as unemployed if they are actively searching."

Keep in mind also that more than 96,000 people last month joined the work force. If our population remained the same or even declined, ok I could see that as a positive gain, but the reality is that every month it must increase so long as our population continues to increase.

"The biggest national employment increases month-over-month came in bars and restaurants, up 28,000; health care, up 17,000; computer systems design, up 11,000; finance and insurance, up 11,000; utilities, up 9,000; management and technical consulting services, up 9,000; and engineering and architectural services, up 4,000."

I agree that Obama is unfairly singled out and I don't think he's awful (though I do dislike him), but job reports (no matter who touts them) are invariably manipulated.

[Donkk]

Yep, let's go for the Afghanistan and Iraq solution. Third time lucky.

Seem some guy in the past said that too, come to think of it many men have said that, just before a new war and then we found it was all a lie but its ok we can let it ride ya