Would Scandinavia please take Obama?

[lord of flies]

*sigh*

 

Not this again. I know I won't change your mind but it has to be said: Government spending can kickstart an economy. Didn't Roosevelt prove that back in the day?

Actually no. WW2 ended the depression, the New Deal really just extended it in an attempt to prvent it from getting worse. Some interesting (at least I thought so) reading if you ever have the time: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Forgotten_Man

Bad luck today, comrade. I know this isn't true.

 

 

I mean, this isn't the whole story (e.g. unemployment, while it declined under FDR, did not "go away" until 1942), I'm sure you believe that GDP is the sole arbiter of a nation's economic well-being.

[Walsingham]

Are you saying you'd rather have a dem congress and a republican president than a completely republican government?

 

Without a doubt. And vice versa.

 

My ideal US government is:

 

House: Republican Majority by 20-30 seats

Senate: Democrat Majority by 2-5 seats ( enough so the Vice President will probably never be a factor).

Supreme Court: Constructionist majority by at least 5-4, 6-3 is better, but not more than that.

 

Give me all that and I would not care who is in the White House. Remember Awesomeness, the Executive does not wield very much power. Influence yes, but not much power. The real power in the US is in Congress, the Executive was meant to be a check on them. When you get one political party running everything the results are almost always all bad.

 

I think one of our key differences is that you appear to believe that governmental power resides with the government even under a system which removes power from that government. But power doesn't work that way _in my opinion_. It flows like water. I agree with you that the US govt is often remarkably powerless and ineffectual. But all that has happened is power has devolved to other centres. Centres which are far more remote from the people than their democratically elected government.

 

But unusually for me I'm prepared to concede this is a matter of opinion.

[Guard Dog]

I agree with you that the US govt is often remarkably powerless and ineffectual. But all that has happened is power has devolved to other centres. Centres which are far more remote from the people than their democratically elected government.

 

But unusually for me I'm prepared to concede this is a matter of opinion.

 

Are you referring to the influnece of lobbyists and big money "campaign doners"? I'm not necassarily trying to spake a debate but I am curious what you're driving at. I guess I missed it.

 

@LoF, I am not going to make the argument that the New Deal was all bad or entirely ineffective. It created many important labor laws and employee and consumer safeguards we still rely on today. It also did ease the misery to a small degree. But as a means of generating economic growth it did more harm than good by limiting business expansion and punishing succesful investing. The US has a market economy, I know your thoughts on that, but it will never change. In simplest terms if people are not buying and selling the economy shrinks, jobs are lost. WW2 put everyone to work and the war effort became the largest consumer of that. That is one of the arguments constantly trotted out by conspiracy theorists who believe FDR knowingly allowed Parl Harbor to happen. I seriously doubt that one myself.

 

I could go into much more detail here, this era of US history is one I've always been facinated with and read a lot about but I am just not in the mood for long posts today, and I doubt you want to read them.

Edited December 12, 2009 by Guard Dog

[Walsingham]

Not so much, GD. I think power has gone to the 'advisers' and the bureaucracy, and above all the courts. I mean the SC appoints for life? WTF, America?

 

From the little I know, the Bush regime was a fascinating example of both sides of the coin. On the one hand he ruthlessly hammered a number of heads of department, re-emphasising executive supremacy by firing people who dared execute legislation he didn't like (viz the environment). On the other hand he had a coterie of mandarins around him who trussed him up on defence and foreign policy.

 

Lobbyists/big business. are a big deal to the elected reps, but from my perspective that woudn't matter much, would it?

Edited December 12, 2009 by Walsingham

[Guard Dog]

Not so much, GD. I think power has gone to the 'advisers' and the bureaucracy, and above all the courts. I mean the SC appoints for life? WTF, America?

 

From the little I know, the Bush regime was a fascinating example of both sides of the coin. On the one hand he ruthlessly hammered a number of heads of department, re-emphasising executive supremacy by firing people who dared execute legislation he didn't like (viz the environment). On the other hand he had a coterie of mandarins around him who trussed him up on defence and foreign policy.

 

Lobbyists/big business. are a big deal to the elected reps, but from my perspective that woudn't matter much, would it?

 

Enoch won't like me saying this but I agree every time I think of John Paul Stevens. Jeez did that SOB make the most out of his "lifetime" appointment. But seriously I understand the rationale behind it. The founders wanted the judiciary to be above the fray of passions and politics of the day.

 

You are a little off here. Bush certainly expanded the power of the executive and that is a bad thing. He was a terrible president and that is only one reason why. But he did not have the ability to fire anyone who can actually write or vote on legislation. And the executive alone can enact it once passed. If there was legislation he did not like he could have stopped it from becoming law himself. And he could not fire anyone for refusing to write or vote one something he wanted done. The only people he could fire (or hire) are Cabinet members and the people that report to them. He fired a bunch of US Attorneys for, well I don't remember why but that was his perrogative to do so.

 

As far as how much power advisors have, that depends on the administration. Popular convention had it that Cheney and Rove had the real power and Bush was just a figurehead. But most of the books I've read, most noteably Bob Woodwards says that was not the case at all. I tend to believe that. Obama's administration appears so controlled by his Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel that it would almost be fair to call Obama a robot. Reagan was a strong believer in delegation. He would tell his Cabinet and staff what he wanted in general terms and then get out of their way and let them handle the details. That is actually a model of behaviour for an executive leader. Clinton, Bush 41, and Carter were control freaks. Especially Clinton. I read it was not uncommon for him to call staffers all hours of the night with ideas for tasks he set them to.

[Walsingham]

I did not assert that he fired anyone with control over legislation. But implementation is the key. A couple of examples I dug up in a few seconds:

 

Ignoring scientists is nothing new for Bush, but in this case he also ignored the U.S. Supreme Court. The EPA wanted to include a tougher secondary standard during growing seasons, designed to protect forests, crops and other plants from ozone, which retards plant growth and depletes soil moisture. Alarmed at the costs this would exact on polluters, the White House Office of Management and Budget sent a letter to EPA Administrator Stephen L. Johnson saying the EPA couldn't impose such limits without considering their economic effect. This is flatly untrue; a unanimous decision by the Supreme Court in 2001 held that the EPA did not have to consider the costs of its clean-air regulations, only their scientific basis. When the EPA still refused to back down, the White House sent a curt letter saying the agency had been overruled by the president: The secondary standard was out.

 

http://articles.latimes.com/2008/mar/17/opinion/ed-epa17

 

And in case it looks like I'm only picking on Bush, here's a Clinton example which illustrates how bureaucratic management of priorities and manning overrides legislation.

 

<new source rules> Congress updated the act in 1977, introducing a regulation called new-source review to bring older plants into compliance. Under N.S.R., a company could operate an old factory as long as it wasn't substantially modified. Eventually, it was assumed, the company would have to update its equipment, at which point new-source rules required the company to install the best available pollution-control technology. It was a way to let companies phase in the switch to cleaner factories over a number of years instead of all at once.

...

Oddly, while industry and government haggled fruitlessly over potential rule changes, nobody was making sure that companies were complying with the existing law. Mostly the E.P.A. was leaving them alone. ''There were other things that had to be done first,'' Browner explained. ''We looked at where we could get the biggest bang for the buck in terms of pollution reduction.'' Coal-fired power plants didn't move to the top of the agency's list until late 1996, when Bruce Buckheit, a former Justice Department lawyer who had recently joined the E.P.A. as director of its air-enforcement division, happened to notice an article in The Washington Post about proposed changes to the ownership rules that govern the power industry. ''The story predicted that deregulation would increase the use of coal-fired power generation in the Midwest,'' Buckheit recalled. ''So we thought, If they're going to have all that expansion, they're going to have to pay attention to new-source review rules.'' That led him to wonder, he said, whether utilities had been paying attention to the rules at all.

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/04/magazine...t&position=

[Wrath of Dagon]

*sigh*

 

Not this again. I know I won't change your mind but it has to be said: Government spending can kickstart an economy. Didn't Roosevelt prove that back in the day?

I'm not against stimulus when it makes sense. The problem with Obama's stimulus is it's way too big and most of the spending takes place over the next few years instead of this year, while the recovery has already started. All it's going to do is take money out of the private economy and thus make it worse, not better. In addition to that, huge budget deficits are projected for at least the next decade, which could lead to a true economic catastorphe if left unchecked.

 

So we're supposed to dislike him for not being enough of a commie? Actually I think he handled the economic crisis pretty well, at least we didn't go into a depression. I didn't like the stimulus though, and if he continues spending like a drunken sailor we'll have an even bigger crisis down the road.

 

The article isn't about that. Read it. It is about blatant corporatism, which should be your greatest consern with him.

All I need to read is this

What's taken place in the year since Obama won the presidency has turned out to be one of the most dramatic political about-faces in our history. Elected in the midst of a crushing economic crisis brought on by a decade of orgiastic deregulation and unchecked greed, Obama had a clear mandate to rein in Wall Street and remake the entire structure of the American economy. What he did instead was ship even his most marginally progressive campaign advisers off to various bureaucratic Siberias, while packing the key economic positions in his White House with the very people who caused the crisis in the first place. This new team of bubble-fattened ex-bankers and laissez-faire intellectuals then proceeded to sell us all out, instituting a massive, trickle-up bailout and systematically gutting regulatory reform from the inside.

to know the author is a left-wing nutter and not worth paying attention to.

 

Stockholm has a population density of 1 person per 22.2 km2 as of 1996

You're sure you're talking about Stockholm and not the North Pole?

Edited December 13, 2009 by Wrath of Dagon

[Wrath of Dagon]

Seriously, man. Let's take San Diego as comparison as Calax did (even though his numbers are a bit strange)...

 

This is central San Diego. This is central Stockholm.

 

Now, which one looks to be more densely populated? The one where people live in apartment blocks from the 19th century or the one where people live in skyscrapers? You tell me.

You do realize that American cities normally consist of the central section, the downtown, with skyscrapers, which are mostly offices, and then the rest of the city is extremely spread out being mostly single family houses? It's true some cities don't exactly follow that pattern, like New York City and San Francisco.

 

@Wals : Thank heaven when a US President steps in and tries to restrain the bureaucrats. In contrast, Obama's EPA had declared CO2 harmful to human health, and is now ready to take over every aspect of American life by executive fiat, not even waiting for Congressional authorization. In spite of this, I'm quite sanguine, as first those morons couldn't find their own ass even if you put a sign on it, and second the government relies on the consent of the governed, and if pushed enough we'll start to push back. Obama really needs to think long and hard about what happened to Gray Davis in California.

Edited December 13, 2009 by Wrath of Dagon

[Deadly_Nightshade]

.... the author is a left-wing nutter and not worth paying attention to.

 

So, according to you, a right-wing nut is relevant but a left-wing nut is not even worth listening to?

[lord of flies]

All I need to read is this

What's taken place in the year since Obama won the presidency has turned out to be one of the most dramatic political about-faces in our history. Elected in the midst of a crushing economic crisis brought on by a decade of orgiastic deregulation and unchecked greed, Obama had a clear mandate to rein in Wall Street and remake the entire structure of the American economy. What he did instead was ship even his most marginally progressive campaign advisers off to various bureaucratic Siberias, while packing the key economic positions in his White House with the very people who caused the crisis in the first place. This new team of bubble-fattened ex-bankers and laissez-faire intellectuals then proceeded to sell us all out, instituting a massive, trickle-up bailout and systematically gutting regulatory reform from the inside.

to know the author is a left-wing nutter and not worth paying attention to.

lol it's always funny to see people read some centrist vaguely progressive crap and say it's from "a left-wing nutter." Look, I'm a "left-wing nutter," I believe in the complete destruction of the present class society and the creation of a new class order. That's "nutty." This is just mild centrism that is annoyed that an American politician is, once again, a corporatist laissez-faire capitalist reformist false-leftist who lied on the campaign trail. "Surprise."

[Rostere]

Seriously, man. Let's take San Diego as comparison as Calax did (even though his numbers are a bit strange)...

 

This is central San Diego. This is central Stockholm.

 

Now, which one looks to be more densely populated? The one where people live in apartment blocks from the 19th century or the one where people live in skyscrapers? You tell me.

You do realize that American cities normally consist of the central section, the downtown, with skyscrapers, which are mostly offices, and then the rest of the city is extremely spread out being mostly single family houses? It's true some cities don't exactly follow that pattern, like New York City and San Francisco.

 

I'm pretty sure that's how cities look all around the globe, except for in Sweden where it's forbidden to build high buildings without the consent of 1 million+ bureocrats. There, cities consist of the of the central section, the downtown, with just old buildings, which are anyway mostly offices, and then the rest of the city is extremely spread out being mostly single family houses.

[Humodour]

In contrast, Obama's EPA had declared CO2 harmful to human health blah blah

 

You're probably not aware of this, but CO2 is harmful to human health.

[Meshugger]

So we're supposed to dislike him for not being enough of a commie? Actually I think he handled the economic crisis pretty well, at least we didn't go into a depression. I didn't like the stimulus though, and if he continues spending like a drunken sailor we'll have an even bigger crisis down the road.

 

The article isn't about that. Read it. It is about blatant corporatism, which should be your greatest consern with him.

All I need to read is this

What's taken place in the year since Obama won the presidency has turned out to be one of the most dramatic political about-faces in our history. Elected in the midst of a crushing economic crisis brought on by a decade of orgiastic deregulation and unchecked greed, Obama had a clear mandate to rein in Wall Street and remake the entire structure of the American economy. What he did instead was ship even his most marginally progressive campaign advisers off to various bureaucratic Siberias, while packing the key economic positions in his White House with the very people who caused the crisis in the first place. This new team of bubble-fattened ex-bankers and laissez-faire intellectuals then proceeded to sell us all out, instituting a massive, trickle-up bailout and systematically gutting regulatory reform from the inside.

to know the author is a left-wing nutter and not worth paying attention to.

 

You mean that this doesn't concern you at all?

 

Just look at the timeline of the Citigroup deal," says one leading Democratic consultant. "Just look at it. It's ****ing amazing. Amazing! And nobody said a thing about it."

 

Barack Obama was still just the president-elect when it happened, but the revolting and inexcusable $306 billion bailout that Citigroup received was the first major act of his presidency. In order to grasp the full horror of what took place, however, one needs to go back a few weeks before the actual bailout

[Walsingham]

An interesting article, Meshugger. However, while I agree that it smells fishier than an unsanitary mermaid US politics always has such shenanigans. It could turn out that the Citibank bailout was a good idea. I won't get really annoyed about it until it turns out that the decision on the bailout was both corrupt AND wrong.

 

For comparison, consider all the companies who appear to have corruptly inveigled themselves into the (non)reconstruction of Iraq and Afghanistan. I don't care if they were blowing GWB on the lap of the LIncoln memorial, provided they had carried out the contracts satisfactorily but they haven't.

[Wrath of Dagon]

lol it's always funny to see people read some centrist vaguely progressive crap and say it's from "a left-wing nutter." Look, I'm a "left-wing nutter," I believe in the complete destruction of the present class society and the creation of a new class order. That's "nutty." This is just mild centrism that is annoyed that an American politician is, once again, a corporatist laissez-faire capitalist reformist false-leftist who lied on the campaign trail. "Surprise."

Congratulations, you're the one nut to rule them all!

 

I'm pretty sure that's how cities look all around the globe, except for in Sweden where it's forbidden to build high buildings without the consent of 1 million+ bureocrats. There, cities consist of the of the central section, the downtown, with just old buildings, which are anyway mostly offices, and then the rest of the city is extremely spread out being mostly single family houses.

I haven't been to every city in the world, but I've been to Rome, Paris, St Petersburg, Vienna, Madrid, Naples, Seville, and none of them look like that. They predominantly all have large, multi-story buildings. Admittedly I haven't seen much of their suburbs, so I suppose it could depend on where you draw the line between the city and the suburbs. Edited December 14, 2009 by Wrath of Dagon

[Lare Kikkeli]

Are you actually arguing a swede, who's very likely been to stockholm multiple times about how it looks? I can vouch for what he says b/c I've been to stockholm it looks exactly like that.

 

Here's central helsinki:

 

 

The helsinki metropolitan area has 1 million residents at 215 resident per square kilometer. Helsinki although a bit smaller, is very comparable to Stockholm.

Edited December 14, 2009 by Lare Kikkeli

[Wrath of Dagon]

I'm not arguing about Stockholm, I've never been there, I asked a question if you look at my first reply about it. The picture you posted looks like mostly multi-story buildings though.

 

You mean that this doesn't concern you at all?

-snip

306 billion dollars, some of it your dollars, straight to his Citibank friends.

Shocking, shocking news! There's backscratching in American politics? Surely this means capitalism is pure evil, EVIL I tells you!!!

 

And $360 billion to City? The whole bailout to everyone was $700 billion, of which $200 billion was either not needed or already paid back. The point is bailout worked and we didn't go into depression or worse, which would've happened if they allowed Citi and other banks to collapse. In fact they probably could've prevented a lot of what did happen if they stepped in and saved Lehman. True, they did commit trillions in guarantees, but that would only come into play if the financial system collapsed, which it didn't, and the credit has to go to Bernanke, Bush, Obama and people who work for them, even with all the missteps and the usual political corruption.

[Meshugger]

So you are ok with it? Fair enough then.

[Meshugger]

An interesting article, Meshugger. However, while I agree that it smells fishier than an unsanitary mermaid US politics always has such shenanigans. It could turn out that the Citibank bailout was a good idea. I won't get really annoyed about it until it turns out that the decision on the bailout was both corrupt AND wrong.

 

For comparison, consider all the companies who appear to have corruptly inveigled themselves into the (non)reconstruction of Iraq and Afghanistan. I don't care if they were blowing GWB on the lap of the LIncoln memorial, provided they had carried out the contracts satisfactorily but they haven't.

 

Well first, that has a different perspective to it, since the coalition is more or less morally obligated to do it. Second, the whole deal with Citi has little to with any moral imperative at all, it is just patting friends on the back with the taxpayer's money.

 

"Too big to fail", my ass. The whole damn Soviet Union crashed utterly and completely, but they(Russia and others) never came close to become a post-apocalyptical fallout society in any way. Many of them are enjoying a higher standard of living in this day to boot. Petty politicians afraid of their own careers, played right into the hands of the bankers (hey, they had one of their own in the very top seats of government for pete's sake).

 

Meh.

[Wrath of Dagon]

So you are ok with it? Fair enough then.

I'm OK with the bailout, I'm not OK with political corruption. So far we haven't found a solution to it though.

 

And wow, you don't want to go through what the Soviets went through with the collapse. You white bread Western ninnies would never be able to handle it.

[Calax]

So you are ok with it? Fair enough then.

I'm OK with the bailout, I'm not OK with political corruption. So far we haven't found a solution to it though.

 

And wow, you don't want to go through what the Soviets went through with the collapse. You white bread Western ninnies would never be able to handle it.

Nor would you I'm guessing.

[Guard Dog]

I could get through it. If we had a 1929 style crash, I am certain I will be fine. Once they started pumping non existant money (yes TARP money was "printed" so to speak) into the banks to keep them solvent I was absolutely certain an economic crash was inevitable. I'm still not convinced it's not. Think about it, the two TARP bailouts and the so called "stimulus" literally doubled the amount of US currency in existance. So now we have twice the dollars chasing the same amount of assets. Does anyone see a problem with that? No, inflation has remined steady because the bank have not been loaning any of this money out. The have been holding it. But just this week the White House held a meeting with CEOs of the six largets banks to take TARP to insist they begin loaning money again. At the same time has anyone priced out gold, silver, copper, and other real commodities lately? The dots are there, once you connect them the picture becomes clear. Thats why I divested ALL of my stocks once it became clear Obama was going to be elected. That may end up being the smartest thing I've ever done. It may not. I'm hoping for the latter. Instead I've bought Gold, Real Estate, Guns & lots of ammunition. Thats my investment portfolio these days.

[Gorth]

I somehow imagine Guard Dog sitting in his home made Fort Knox, armoured bunker, hoarding gold bars and surrounded by angry rotweilers and loaded shotguns >_

 

It sounds like a wise decision though. If it wasn't so unwieldy and prone to get stolen, I would love to have a growing collection of gold bars stashed away at home. The tax man might complain a bit about the annual brick that gets send to him in gift wrap paper.

[Lare Kikkeli]

Instead I've bought Gold, Real Estate, Guns & lots of ammunition. Thats my investment portfolio these days.

 

 

hahahahahaha

[Humodour]

I could get through it. If we had a 1929 style crash, I am certain I will be fine. Once they started pumping non existant money (yes TARP money was "printed" so to speak) into the banks to keep them solvent I was absolutely certain an economic crash was inevitable. I'm still not convinced it's not. Think about it, the two TARP bailouts and the so called "stimulus" literally doubled the amount of US currency in existance. So now we have twice the dollars chasing the same amount of assets. Does anyone see a problem with that? No, inflation has remined steady because the bank have not been loaning any of this money out. The have been holding it. But just this week the White House held a meeting with CEOs of the six largets banks to take TARP to insist they begin loaning money again. At the same time has anyone priced out gold, silver, copper, and other real commodities lately? The dots are there, once you connect them the picture becomes clear. Thats why I divested ALL of my stocks once it became clear Obama was going to be elected. That may end up being the smartest thing I've ever done. It may not. I'm hoping for the latter. Instead I've bought Gold, Real Estate, Guns & lots of ammunition. Thats my investment portfolio these days.

 

lol.