 are getting the GDP maximized without even having to work.
And I cannot agree more that a goal has to be measurable, otherwise it’s not a goal, it’s a wish!
Mercy! Maybe the majority of Americans who approve of Obama’s performance are idiots, but if so, let us now praise idiots. The fundamentals under this slump are such that if Obama weren’t bolstering confidence, we’d be deep in the soup by now. The fact that a bottom might be found is largely attributable to confidence, and that confidence is not, I’m certain, coming from banks or Detroit.
I think the bigger problem is expecting a politician (R or D) to create jobs in the first place.
Productive (<— key word) jobs cannot be created by a politician.
Well, deliberate stupidity has always been part of a political game. Deliberate servility of the environment perfectly complements it.
They call it ‘the ‘realisation of interests’. I don’t presume they think we are all idiots; they just want to make political capital on the fact that many people have no idea how economic policies work.
Either they think we’re idiots, or they’re idiotic themselves. I really can’t understand putting for talking points that are so easily torpedoed, except for one thing: the people who embraced Tea Party memes, decrying taxation while demonstrating on taxpayer-funded locations, will buy this hook, line and sinker. To use a common internet diss, their logic is not earth logic.
Ah, the Republicans. “You take the high road, and we’ll take the low road.”
They do think we’re idiots.
I think they’re projecting.
The scary part is that the stupidity might not be deliberate.
They’re children, the lot of them. And we can expect this for the next four, or, deity willing, eight years.
My only reassurance is to look at the results of the last few elections and realize that the Republicans have, in fact, gone broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public.
You point is well made, sir, but at the same time I think it was tasteless of Obama to prate about “150,000 jobs have been created in 100 days since the stimulus bill” when statistically some 2,000,000 jobs were lost during the same 100 days. That little jewel was better left unsaid.
Did it not get to you when liberals like yourself criticized Bush for his “jobless recovery” after 2001, knowing that unemployment always lags growth?
But I agree with you, the political rhetoric is mind-boggling.
You are not an idiot, just partisan.
I appreciate your sudden pulse of disgust. It happens to me every once in awhile, too. Let’s not forget, though, as we both know, it’s depressingly easy at times to find a quorum of Americans who, while they may not actually *be* stupid, they do act like it. This “Big Lie” strategy has worked distressingly well for the Repubs in the recent past and they aren’t the type of people who can turn on a dime, if you know what I’m sayin’. It’s sooo exhausting to have to keep pointing at the transparent lies and patiently spelling out what should be the obvious truth, but we have to do it. (Actually, *you* have to do it; it’s literally your job.)
I too think it is unrealistic to expect that the President’s stimulus package should have already worked. That is why I winced when I read this last month:
Credit where credit is due: President Obama and his economic advisers seem to have steered the economy away from the abyss.
I considered myself a Republican for most of my adult life. While I think my thinking has shifted somewhat, thanks in part to reading your columns, mostly I felt like they could not represent me any more.
I’m left wondering if it really was this bad back when I belonged to the party or if the sane people leaving has left the truly stupid members in charge.
Grasping at straws. Their plans for economic resuscitation were retarded by a dogmatic commitment to an unadulterated free market; an avenue which most certainly would have been worse on the labor market. Without presenting an adequate alternative, Republicans are left with no grounds to criticize Obama’s stimulus.
The perverted logic employed is akin to the entire Republican car dealer fiasco: Republican dealerships are closed down, prompting claims that the Obama administration was insidiously attacking various Republican supporters — the supports who would all be subject to being closed on if there was auto bailout.
You can’t stand on the sidelines watching somebody bleed to death and then criticize one who desperately, attempts to stop the bleeding (be it successfully or unsuccessfully).
Do the jobs numbers really mean anything at this point? They are probably to some degree irrelevant.
The important number to look for now is whether the trend is a continuing climb. With three hundred to six hundred thousand jobs per month going out the window, the only important number is the trend line of the percentage of increase or decrease.
I don’t see any trends yet. And there is no reason to believe that we are going to come out of this soon. How many jobs are you going to create in six months while the economy is dropping like a stone….100,000 plus, maybe, in one month?
That would be a huge turnaround, from minus 300K to plus 100K. And yet it would not make a small dent in the unemployment figures. This is a long process and we are not even sure we are at or close to the bottom. I don’t think we are. I think we could have another drop and a market drop back to the low 7000s. I don’t see any real indication that we are there yet.
Remember that Reagan pulled the rug out from under manufacturing through his political alchemy. But it didn’t happen during the period in which we recovered, from 1980 to 1983-84. Now, thanks to our Neocon Reagan-follower buddies, we have no domestic manufacturing. Even if the consumer confidence levels went through the roof, we have only service jobs to stimulate the private economy. That’s not enough to build a quick or a solid turnaround.
Of course it is not Obama’s fault. Not even a whirling dervish like Obama can keep up with the 24-hour talking bobble heads. No one could catch up to the pace of the media and the Internet. Communications now move about three times faster than reality.
If we hear of a political appointment in the morning, by the following morning the media has already projected the person in the office, evaluated the person’s competence or incompetence and declared them a success or a failure and may call for their removal before noon…based on their typically unlearned projections!. And the nominee hasn’t set foot in a government building yet.
They all have the same government re-treads talking the same Washington nonsense, shouting over another government re-tread. They say the same things to the same people and get the same result. I am waiting for another phone hoax from a fake prime minister, only this time not on Sara Palin but on some dunderhead like Lou Dobbs or (fill in the blank) at Fox News.
Obama is so far ahead of the curve that the talking heads are talking to their belly buttons. He has only one thing to worry about. He had better set some Democratic buns on fire about a real–not phony–universal, public health care program. The Democrats have less to fear from the health care lobby than they do from the organized Left Wing of the Democratic Party.
Money did not buy the last election and money will not buy this issue. There will be retribution at the polls for anyone siding with the private health care industry. Anyone who thinks that money talks in Washington on this issue will be out of government and back in private practice by January 2011.
Promises were made and the People anticipate a system that will solve their problems. This will be the big fight of this Administration and Obama I, York, Gloucester, Pelosi and Baucus had better be in front, all risking their seats on St. Crispin’s Day. If not, the Republicans will be the least of their problems.
If we do not get real, substantive change in the health care system, there will be some new Senators in Congress. They’ll be Democrats, but not necessarily the the incumbents.
The Republicans are irrelevant and the Democrats should be afraid…very afraid. The People are mad as hell and they’re not going to take it any more.How has cycling changed my life? Let me count the ways...
Thread: How has cycling changed my life? Let me count the ways...
As we're about to set the clocks forward for daylight savings it occurred to me, before cycling this would have been a reason to complain, "One hour of lost sleep! *grumble, grumble*" but now I'm like, "More hours of daylight to ride in!"
Fall and Winter used to be my favorite seasons...now I mark the days till it they're over.
Farmer tans used to be taboo, now they're a source of pride.
Cars are now the enemy!
I now categorize my friends as "cyclists" and "non-cyclists"...and all my "non-cyclist" friends think I've gone a little loopy in the head because of my bike obsession.
I wear spandex...in public!
The