Anyone but Obama

[bartock]

I don't recall anything NEAR the obstructionism the republicans have conducted during dubya's administration, or his father's, or reagan's. The repubs didn't go anywhere near this far during clinton's

That would have been hard to do with Clinton. The economy was far different when Clinton was in office. Everything was humming along, and the Republicans were far too busy trying to take credit for everything positive going on to restrict it from happening.

Aside from that, Repubs have typically been better organized and less fractured than the Dems, and Dems did not have enough numbers during the Repub administrations you pointed out to do anything more than bellyache. But that didn't stop most votes from being along party lines, they just didn't have the numbers.

[firstandten]

That would have been hard to do with Clinton. The economy was far different when Clinton was in office. Everything was humming along, and the Republicans were far too busy trying to take credit for everything positive going on to restrict it from happening.

Aside from that, Repubs have typically been better organized and less fractured than the Dems, and Dems did not have enough numbers during the Repub administrations you pointed out to do anything more than bellyache. But that didn't stop most votes from being along party lines, they just didn't have the numbers.

Agreed, and also when you decide to govern as a wartime president you get less opposition because Americans tend to come together during times of war [[at least in the beginning and so soon after 9-11), and its not good politics to be seen opposing the President during those types of times.

[oladub]

THey have zero standing to say "boo" about the chinese plants, thanks to the MFN status of China, first bestowed by Reagan, made permanent by Clinton

Ron Paul will kill NAFTA and GATT if he became President. You get what you vote for. We need a President who looks after the interests of American workers instead of bankers and other corporate interests who finance their campaigns. Hiding behind treaties and agreements that can be changed or eliminated is disingenuous. Meanwhile, GP would rather keep unemployment at 9.9% in South Carolina even if it meant offshoring jobs to Chinese non-union factories. Why US labor puts up with Democrats is beyond me. Unions almost only work when there is a demand for US labor. Democrats pretending to be the working man's friend while offshoring jobs and other wise creating a lack of demand for US workers isn't doing the trick.

[rb336]

Ron Paul will kill NAFTA and GATT if he became President. You get what you vote for.

I'd offer a bet there, but that would be like betting on the Pistons to win the NBA championship this year

We need a President who looks after the interests of American workers instead of bankers and other corporate interests who finance their campaigns. .

and this, as I've pointed out ad nauseum, is the great blind spot of Paul supporters. Name one thing Paul would do, besides NAFTA and GATT, that would benefit working people's rights in this country over the rights of the bigwigs

[firstandten]

Ron Paul will kill NAFTA and GATT if he became President.

As rb said saying you will get rid of it and actually killing a bi-partisian treaty agreement are two totally different things. Maybe when Paul becomes dictator he can make that happen !

[oladub]

rb336: I'd offer a bet there, but that would be like betting on the Pistons to win the NBA championship this year
and this, as I've pointed out ad nauseum, is the great blind spot of Paul supporters. Name one thing Paul would do, besides NAFTA and GATT, that would benefit working people's rights in this country over the rights of the bigwigs.

I doubt that Ron Paul will win the Republican nomination. I expect Obama to win the general election. He has a huge financial advantage to start with. I'm more in it [[1) to get the message out. Ron Paul has double and tripled his numbers in the first three primary states since 2008. I was surprised to see that Ron Paul had increased his women's vote in SC 600% in four years. Also, I think that Senator Rand Paul is positioned to pick up the pieces of the Republican Party in 2016 in order to pick up the pieces of the country after 8 years of Obamanomics.

Ron Paul is the only presidential candidate of either party to list the end of NAFTA on his website. Candidate Obama said he was going to correct NAFTA but has instead created more free trade agreements. But you asked for one other thing that Paul would do to " benefit working people's rights in this country over the rights of the bigwigs."

1) end the mega-bank owned Federal Reserve
2) end corporate bailouts
3) bring our troops home who are working people's kids after all.
4) the troops could defend our own borders from drugs, illegal workers who take American jobs, and maybe prevent the immigration of a WMD or two.
5) end corporate welfare subsidies
6) reduce regulations favoring large monopolistic corporations
7) reduce federal impediments to people starting or operating their own businesses
8) let bankers go bankrupt and see to it that some are jailed instead of subsidized with bonuses
9) Back the dollar with gold and silver to prevent politicians from diluting its value with a printing press
10) Setting money saved by reducing foreign interventionism to literally fill Social Security coffers instead of IOUs.
11) reduce the income tax working people pay
12) reduce the deficits working people will eventually have to repay.

Those are a few things off the top of my head. Liberty involves a different paradigm than that of a feudal lord or slave master handing out crumbs from his table to the masses.

Your support of the Federal Reserve and the Wall Street bailouts is support for the 1%. Your support for crony capitalism [[GM bailout, bank bailouts) is similar to that of Roosevelt and his mentor Mussolini. I watched the following tonight on Bill Moyers. He addresses the crony capitalism beginning with Reagan and continuing through Obama as it grows. Mostly it's about the cozy relationship between the banksters and the Obama administration. David Stockman, one of his guests does not exactly take a Ron Paul position but pretty well explains how Dodd-Frank and other legislation supposedly designed to clean things up often create monopolies. It is 57min long but a good program. http://vimeo.com/35372114

[rb336]

Your support of the Federal Reserve and the Wall Street bailouts is support for the 1%.

What do you suggest to replace the Fed? What do YOU think would have happened economically if the big banks had failed and if GM had failed? Seriously. how would we NOT be in a depression that would make the 30s look like a hiccup? and how would you suggest we get out of it?

[maxx]

RE: Offshoring of jobs

http://www.aflcio.org/issues/jobseco...bsoverseas.pdf

[maxx]

What do you suggest to replace the Fed? What do YOU think would have happened economically if the big banks had failed and if GM had failed? Seriously. how would we NOT be in a depression that would make the 30s look like a hiccup? and how would you suggest we get out of it?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ANuvccHM_M

[oladub]

What do you suggest to replace the Fed? What do YOU think would have happened economically if the big banks had failed and if GM had failed? Seriously. how would we NOT be in a depression that would make the 30s look like a hiccup? and how would you suggest we get out of it?

First, I would like to add to my last post that Senator Rand Paul, whom I mentioned in my last post as a possible 2016 presidential candidate, was held by TSA for at least five hour. It seems that the TSA X-ray detected metal on his leg. He pulled up his pant leg to show there was nothing there but they wanted him to go through a full body groping session. He refused and offered to go though another X-ray scan. We will see how this goes but being held for five hours amounts to an arrest. he was taken away by local police but was released although he missed his flight.

Back to your questions. We have been through this before. When unemployment skyrocketed to over 11% under Harding, he did the opposite and reduced government spending and allowed banks to go bankrupt. Debts liquidated, the economy got on its feet again and unemployment was reduced to 3.8% [[if my memory holds) two years later. Hoover/Roosevelt and Bush/Obama did the opposite and prevented the market from liquidating bad debts thus prolonging the economic malaise. If you had watched the Bill Moyers link, it was pointed out that such crony capitalism rewards the big players who operated foolishly while punishing smaller more prudent banks and businesses. In the long run, the prudent well run players are run out of business by government subsidized monstrosities like Goldman Sachs.

Jefferson and Andrew Jackson [[D) ended the federal banks of their day. Jackson's comment to the assembled leaders of the national bank before he turned them out, "Gentlemen, I have had men watching you for a long time and I am convinced that you have used the funds of the bank to speculate in the breadstuffs of the country. When you won, you divided the profits amongst you, and when you lost, you charged it to the bank. You tell me that if I take the deposits from the bank and annul its charter, I shall ruin ten thousand families. That may be true, gentlemen, but that is your sin! Should I let you go on, you will ruin fifty thousand families, and that would be my sin! You are a den of vipers and thieves".

History rhymes. The Federal Reserve is owned by the banks it gave money to when they lost their speculative bets. The Fed charged this behavior to middle class taxpayers and those bankers received bonuses when some of them should have been imprisoned for thieving.

Not only that but the Federal Reserve pumped too much money into the economy prior to 1921, 1929, and 2008 causing all sorts of bubbles. All bubbles [[Nasdaq, housing , whatever) burst. The solution according to Bush, Obama, and the banks behind the Federal Reserve is to pump more liquidity into an economy which is stumbling because of too much liquidity, It is like pouring gas on a fire to douse it. Meanwhile, banks borrow money from the fed at 0-.5% interest and use the money to buy US Treasuries at 3% interest. Taxpayers pay the difference. Voilà, the banks are solvent and the government has more money to spend; all out of thin air. The problem is that taxpayers are stuck subsidizing Wall Street and our money is diluted.

If you watched the Bill Moyers program, these Wall Street firms were said to spend $600M lobbying Washington. Goldman Sachs gave almost $1M to Obama in 2008 and Goldman Sachs is Romney's #1 provider this time around.

What to do about it besides hard time for leaner times for banksters? One suggestion, the the extent we need anything done, would be to establish state banks like North Dakota's which provides low interest loans to farmers and, until Obama nationalized student loans, interest free loans to students.

[maxx]

In the days before the FDIC and the Federal Reserve when your bank failed you kissed your money goodbye. People rushed the banks in panic and maybe the first ten or twenty people got some of their money out. Too big to fail means just that. So many businesses and individuals have their money in those huge banks that the economy would suffer a severe setback when they went bankrupt even with FDIC and SDIC. Just look at how people fared with the S&L scandal under Reagan. I don't know what is being done to address this, but ending the Fed is the wrong place to start. I think I recall reading that AIG has been cut down a bit.

[maxx]

RE: AIG

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/...77H0FH20110818

My irony meter just went sproink!

[maxx]

Reps and the Constitution

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/c...1599218.column

The Republican presidential candidates love the Constitution, but if they have their way, you'll barely recognize it.

[And people think things couldn't get worse.]

[rb336]

Back to your questions. We have been through this before. When unemployment skyrocketed to over 11% under Harding, he did the opposite and reduced government spending and allowed banks to go bankrupt. Debts liquidated, the economy got on its feet again and unemployment was reduced to 3.8% [[if my memory holds) two years later.

Harding came into office in 1921 -- the crisis you refer to is the 1920-21 contraction. The VAST majority of economists attribute its end to nothing the Harding administration did -- hell, it was over by July. It was Wilson's actions that ended the situation. Harding did nothing to change those policies. Except for unemployment [[numbers back then were even more slippery than today) it was not a very severe recession. According to Randall E. Parker, the downturn in the GDP was in the 1-2 % range [[reflections on the great depression). There was no major bank crisis either. According to Parker and numerous others,, it was an aggregate demand crisis, coupled with an "aggregate supply shock"

Hoover/Roosevelt and Bush/Obama did the opposite and prevented the market from liquidating bad debts thus prolonging the economic malaise.

Most researchers acknowledge that monetary policy from the Fed contributed to both the beginning and end of the contraction.

for more info, consider:

http://factsandotherstubbornthings.blogspot.com/2010/10/1920-21-depression-article-is-on-online.html

If you had watched the Bill Moyers link, it was pointed out that such crony capitalism rewards the big players who operated foolishly while punishing smaller more prudent banks and businesses. In the long run, the prudent well run players are run out of business by government subsidized monstrosities like Goldman Sachs.

Didn't see him say that last bit. How many minutes into it was that? His main argument seemed to be against derivatives -- mine too! -- not against the Fed. I'm firmly against the mega corporations, but what created them was deregulation -- not tax codes, not fed policies. It was the SEC and the courts ignoring anti-trust legislation. Same thing that led to our media being controlled by 7 or 8 megacorps. The only tax issue that facilitated the consolidation was dropping the CapGains tax to 15%


You still have not answered my questions. This was mostly just a big giant red herring.

We had a system once time where states ran the banks, and "states rights" ranked supreme -- it was called the articles of confederation, and it was, by ALL accounts, a disaster

[maxx]

They are passing out dollar for a liberal agenda.

http://www.addictinginfo.org/2011/08...nts-1935-2010/

The liberal agenda

Soc. Sec.

right to organize

Unemployment insurance

Disability insurance

Clean Water Act

TVA and REA etc.

What do today's conservatives offer? The law of the jungle and lots of prisons.

[rb336]

http://www.addictinginfo.org/2011/08...nts-1935-2010/

What do today's conservatives offer? The law of the jungle and lots of prisons.

make that privately run prisons so the wealthy can suck even more out of the system without putting anything into it

[lit joe]

You can always tell when a state government on the verge of bankruptcy it's called casino gambling. The poorest jobs with the most lie's.

[Cincinnati_Kid]

Ron Paul is wasting his time and money.

[firstandten]

You can always tell when a state government on the verge of bankruptcy it's called casino gambling. The poorest jobs with the most lie's.

Ah ! do your research Connecticut is doing ok with its casino's

[lit joe]

They over hire at frist then after the new wears off out comes the pink slips. Waitress make a whopping 2.65 per hour. Dealers minimun wage. They may look clean but its what you don't see, like the air filters not high on list of things to do. The food service you don't want to eat their, mostly work release program they don't pay or treat them nice. They passed a law so you can't cash paycheck in L.a, due to families running to chtholic charities to feed kids and pay utitles bills. Daddy got drunk and loss all his money. They cost the states a lot more than they pay them. It alway find its way back to the taxpayers.

[rb336]

They over hire at frist then after the new wears off out comes the pink slips. Waitress make a whopping 2.65 per hour. Dealers minimun wage. They may look clean but its what you don't see, like the air filters not high on list of things to do. The food service you don't want to eat their, mostly work release program they don't pay or treat them nice. They passed a law so you can't cash paycheck in L.a, due to families running to chtholic charities to feed kids and pay utitles bills. Daddy got drunk and loss all his money. They cost the states a lot more than they pay them. It alway find its way back to the taxpayers.

Your ignorance knows no bounds, does it? Nor does your lack of English language skills. If you are an example of what Texas produces, you are yourself the strongest anti-Texas argument I've seen

[lit joe]

I work at one five years I seen there working inside out. What do you know what you read in the paper. Have you ever worked anywhere? Been in the armed forces? English language skills what a libby jerk uses then they got nothing to say or don't know crap'

[Zacha341]

True but he [[Ron Paul) has scaled the wall higher than previous runs. Recall years back when he was in the corner margins of the ballot. Just a few indies [[and a few straying repubs and dems) voting for him often as a protest vote when they could not stomach the two major party offerings. Been there, done that.

It's about perspective regarding this presidential run. Because president Obama runs unopposed from the Dem side it will be easy for him to get back in as all criticism of his presidency can be summed up as the repubs doing their thing to get in.

So president Obama will be insulated from an objective read regarding on his policies heretofore and upcoming. Are the dems so happy with him that they have no questions? Or is it just enough to have him endorse full out and let the crazy repubs OWN all criticism that will be dismissed?

After all he is running unopposed on the dem side so all must be ok? Just the repubs complaining. So the reasoning goes. Ok...........

There's alot of power and money backing this. Paul cannot match Obama's war chest!

Oh wait! Only the republicans have the big money backing in politics I forgot! ---- President Obama is being backed only by benevolent hope and charity!

Ron Paul is wasting his time and money.

[firstandten]

It's about perspective regarding this presidential run. Because president Obama runs unopposed from the Dem side it will be easy for him to get back in as all criticism of his presidency can be summed up as the repubs doing their thing to get in.

So president Obama will be insulated from an objective read regarding on his policies heretofore and upcoming. Are the dems so happy with him that they have no questions? Or is it just enough to have him endorse full out and let the crazy repubs OWN all criticism that will be dismissed?

After all he is running unopposed on the dem side so all must be ok? Just the repubs complaining. So the reasoning goes. Ok...........

There's alot of power and money backing this. Paul cannot match Obama's war chest!

Oh wait! Only the republicans have the big money backing in politics I forgot! ---- President Obama is being backed only by benevolent hope and charity!

I guess my take on this is that while running unopposed on the Dems side the president's general election overall vote totals from the blue states and toss up states will give him his read on his policies. They will most likely be lower and the race closer than in 08. I don't believe the Dems are totally happy with him nor should they. History has shown that the most successful presidents have been able to not only say no to the opposition but also to their base at times. That is a tightrope presidents looking for a second term must walk. Carter couldn't do it. Clinton was able to.

The reality that Dems face is that Obama is there best choice period for remaining in the white house and there is no sense in muddling the waters with a challenge, just like the Repubs will realize Mitt is their best shot.

Because Obama governs from a long term perpective he invites criticism, especially from the base because the short term drastic changes that the base wants to see just can't happen.


Now if you want to take short cuts like Bush and start wars in order to appeal to the safety and security of the american people in order to get your agenda thru congress, I guess thats a political model you can use as well.

[HistoryNotHisStory]

As a Reminder to all the Michigan Republican Primary occurs in a few days.

Remember to vote for the only Republican candidate that believes in the Constitution. VOTE RON PAUL!