Obama Is the One Only Naive Liberals Have Been Waiting For

[Headless Thompson Gunner]

I think what Paddy is trying to say is that change is bad.  He seems to think that industry and business should be able to remain the same as they've always been.  And that it's government's job to manipulate the marketplace to create unchanging circumstances that allow those businesses remain successful without changing.

It doesn't make much sense, but I can certainly understand his view.  I've met lots of people that don't do well with change.  The vitality and volatility that come from an ever changing environment can be, ah, disquieting to lots of people. 

[The Annoyed Man]

Change is good.  Accept the debt and the increased taxes it will bring you.  Oh, and keep paying into SS, because, I'm collecting beginning next month.  And there are several million behind me.

Change is good.  Small change.  Enjoy it.

[Perd Hapley]

Funny, just the other week I seem to recall you screaming bloody murder about tax breaks given to American companies...

Now finish the sentence..'American companies who outsource labor and production to third world countries'.  You don't get it.  You just don't get it. 

I think I get it.  The job of American govt. is not to protect the rights of the American businessman to do business with whoever he wants (even if he's offshore).  The job of the American govt. is to make sure that fistful has a job.  Right on, comrade!   

[Headless Thompson Gunner]

Change is good.  Accept the debt and the increased taxes it will bring you.  Oh, and keep paying into SS, because, I'm collecting beginning next month.  And there are several million behind me.

Change is good.  Small change.  Enjoy it.

As long as you get yours it doesn't matter what you do to the country, eh Riley?  You're every bit as self-serving and destructive as you claim Big Business is.

Maybe what we need isn't for government to step in and keep corporations from destroying the working classes, but for government to step in and keep selfish deadbeats from destroying the working classes.

[grampster]

Regarding the automobile:  It's nice to be old enough to remember that giant of the auto industry, the bastard CPA put in charge of GM, Roger Bonham Smith.  I read his White Paper which was published in the Detroit Free Press in 1980 or so.  The bottom line was that his plan was recognizing GM didn't need to compete with Japan in the auto business for numbers. He said GM would just raise prices and sell less cars.  Then the cash flow stays the same and GM would not have to do anything else. 

Two things occurred as a result of that bastard's plan.  1.  The Japanese could raise their prices; which they didn't need to do thus vastly improving their profits and pushing their industry ahead.  2.  Smith's decision was the beginning of the end of the world dominance of American manufacturing because as GM goes, so goes America.

The problem with Paddy's position is that he seeks to blame the politicians for everything.  At least he recognizes that the Democrats are unredeamable.  His second position is that he seems to think that a number of us on this board are blind followers of the Republican party.  I really don't think that is an accurate judgment at all. Paddy is in la la land regarding Reagan, too.  Reagan's policies were the reason that Clinton looked so good on the economy, in spite of his massive tax increases, which set the stage for some of our economic woes of today.  Most economists understand that political economic decisions made by a president that he gets implemented, bear fruit about 7 years after he is out of office.  The early impact is psychological.  The real economic impact is later.  Peggy Noonan's April 25th piece in the Wall Street Journal more accurately reflects my position, at least the last part of it, specifically as it regards the republican's today.

[Perd Hapley]

Riley's just one of those curious weirdos who fear business more than govt.  What's with those people? 

[grampster]

Here's a simple lesson in politics.
 
Democrat politicians unabashedly favor the government controlling virtually every element of society.  They use laws to control people.  Unfunded mandates and threat of withheld tax dollars to control states.  Taxation is used to redistribute wealth and you can't escape it.  If you try, you go to jail.  Witness Wesley Snipes as an example.   Income redistribution secures power.  By creating class divisions they create the oppressed and indulge them by holding them down with the very programs that were supposed to pull them up.     It's tough to let go of the cash flow teat.  Business is controlled in the same way with tax support that is provided because the government creates the problems in business.  Witness the farm subsidies because markets are closed or false markets are created such as with gasahol or over regulation.  The irony is democrats claim regulation and control is necessary, yet their own government house is in economic shambles; deficit spending, busted budgets, failed programs that do not sunset.

Republican polilticians claim to favor capitalism, low taxes, less government regulation, open markets and free trade.  Trouble is, today, republican politicians more closely identify with democrat leaders.  If Republican politicians would actually believe, behave and adhere to the above principals, there would be a major difference in not only philosophy but an economic and social reality that would be so obvious that Americans would have a legitimate choice.  With low taxes and less regulation, Americans could choose to do business with whomever they choose.  With high taxes and over regulation, Americans have no choice.  The market would weed the bad ones out, for the most part.  The government seems to encourage  bad behavior.

Riley does pose an interesting question/proposition when he declares the Democrat party as lost, but the Republican party as salvageable.  The question is how in the world do we do that?  How do we get them back to what brought them into power with the Contract With America?  Voting for McCain only brings us Democrat Light and a drift further to the Left. 

I've lived through some national shining times, and some national sad times.  Overall being an American has been a blessing and still is.  How in the name of what is noble about us, do we get us back to feeling optimistic and noble again?
All the pieces are there.  The puzzle is not unsolvable. 

My thought is that it is tied to energy and the exploitation of what we have available to us.  The possibilities are monumental.  We have oil in vast quantities. We have vast supplies of natural gas and coal.  Nuclear power is untapped.  The power of the ocean currents, waves, rivers, wind and sun are waiting to be exploited. 

Energy provides energy and opportunity.  Where is the leader that has the balls and spirit to defy the naysayers, obstructionists and worshipers of regression?
If that man or woman would step forward, maybe we'd have something to unite us.  It sure ain't Clinton, Obama or McCain.

  I'm going to drink some bourbon tonight.

[roo_ster]

Riley's just one of those curious weirdos who fear business more than govt.  What's with those people? 

They seem to think that guys with marketing degrees and advertising budgets are more dangerous than guys with guns, a monopoly on hte lawful use of force, and the authority to take money from people without giving anything in return.

[Perd Hapley]

So, hey, Paddy, did you find the spittle flying character assassination in that article yet?  Or spittle-flinging.  I would settle for that, too. 

[The Annoyed Man]

So, hey, Paddy, did you find the spittle flying character assassination in that article yet?  Or spittle-flinging.  I would settle for that, too. 

It's full of pejorative, slanderous and partisan language that attacks people rather than ideas.  Perhaps your own thinking is too subjectively like minded to recognize it, fistul.

[Perd Hapley]

Nice try.  It is filled with statistics and analysis thereof.  Yeah, there are some jibes in there, too, which in your demonizing, fear-mongering language is "character assassination."  Nothing like spittle, though, I'm afraid.  That's on your end.

[CAnnoneer]

I agree with grampster's comments. But, what I would add is that the most critical difference between Repubs and Dems is the tax policy. More taxes are inherently ruinous to private initiative and personal freedom. Taxing is power taken from individuals and given to government. Some gov is necessary but excessive taxing is easy to fall into as it is a slippery slope.

Taxation is something I am particularly annoyed about these days because as I progress in my career and earn more, I can see directly how the tax system is set up to screw me and hold me back both socially and economically. Progressive taxation is one of the most obscene and unfair practices created by men. It is bitterly ironic that the party that supposedly stands for "giving people chances, hope, and upward mobility" is exactly the one whose tax policies are the greatest impediment to that very mobility. But if you think about it, it makes perfect sense. Those who make it on their own are the least likely to be sympathetic to idiots, losers, idlers, and the usual welfare scum. A party that thrives on votes of the latter would be suicidal in allowing the success of the former.