OT: 2008 Elections/Politics thread, Part 2

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wco81
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Post by wco81 »

Actually the only part of the coverage I watched was with the panel discussion, not the anchors nor the actual speeches.

And I haven't watched network coverage or news in years and years.

Brokaw, Williams are going to do everything they can to avoid controversy.
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Post by Jackdog »

pk500 wrote:
webdanzer wrote:Olbermann and Matthews out as anchors for election:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/08/busin ... nted=print

I guess someone realized Olbermann is “probably not appropriate to be shown” in that role.
Good call on Gregory, although I'd rather see my boy Chuck Todd in that role. Chuck's not a Ken Doll, though.

Take care,
PK
Mr. Olbermann was concerned about his safety in St. Paul, given the loud crowds at MSNBC’s set in Denver.
:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

I was working near that set everyday. The idiots on that set we're his fans. They raised hell when Republican pundits spoke. Olbermann would have been proud.
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Post by fsquid »

wco81 wrote:
fsquid wrote:Big picture. Our economy is in trouble because we consume a higher percentage of our income, and therefore by definition save less, than any other country. The money that doesn't get saved then doesn't get invested so our production capacity doesn't grow, and we end up importing more and more and more. We now have an annual trade deficit of 800 billion dollars. Add that to our 400 billion dollar federal budget deficit, and we as a country are now borrowing over a trillion dollars a year.

Obama's plan is to tax investements (cap gains, dividends, corporate income tax, windfall profits tax) and transfer to people who will consume more. That just drives the savings/investment/supply side even more out of balance with the consumption side. Dollars go flying out of the country to purchase goods and to service our existing debts, and we borrow even more from overseas to cover it. One day, the dollar starts slipping. In a few months, it's worth about ten cents. This process could start any time. If we p*$$ China off, they hold enough debt to make it happen in 24 hours.
70% of the economy is consumption.

If American companies could sell more stuff overseas, because the Chinese and other countries start to consume like Americans, they'd still keep the production overseas.

The factories aren't coming back.

Why would the Chinese try to drive down the value of the dollar? First of all, they tie their currency to the dollar to keep their goods cheap for Americans to buy. Secondly, they have one of the highest reserves of dollars in the world. It would be like trying to make the bank which holds your savings fail, knowing it would decimate the value of your holdings.

Consumption held up this decade because of the real estate boom. People took out equity or borrowed against it. That ethos, borrowing against the future, is just mimicking what the Federal govt. was doing.

It would be good if Americans saved more like the Chinese. But for American companies, the Chinese aren't consuming enough.

The current tax policy encouraged consumption by those in the highest tax brackets. They certainly weren't investing in creating new jobs, because that hasn't happened.

McCain hasn't even pretended to hide the fact that he's adopting Bush's tax policy as-is. Didn't even try to make some minor tweaks and call it his own plan.

Why is there such faith that the status quo will bring about a different result than the one it has already? Is adhering to ideology more important than adapting to facts on the ground?
The answer may well be that there is no solution and we are headed for disaster no matter what. I'd give that about a 50% chance of being right.

Some production will invariably go overseas, some won't. We probably aren't going to get back the $3/day jobs sewing up Nikes. Nor do we want them. The jobs paying $65,000/year assembling robots that went to Ireland because they have a 12% corporate tax rate are the kinds of jobs we want. We have to decide what jobs we want to compete for, and how to go about competing for them. If we cannot restore some value-added components to our economy, then we're dead--just a question of time.

China does not want to crater the dollar if it's just an economic decision. They lose a lot of money too. But suppose they threaten an attack on Taiwan and we move to oppose it. Might they be ready to crater the dollar for political reasons at that point?

I see very little reason for optimism, and I fear that Obama's "solutions" are worse than the disease. Republicans ignore problems, while democrats prescribe solutions that are worse than the problems. So the debate becomes engaged around the issue of how much do we spend on the wrong solutions.
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Post by GameSeven »

JackB1 wrote:
Teal wrote:
Haven't we had quite enough 'rumors' from the Left about Palin in the last few days? Rumors are started by dumbshits who just want something to stick, whether it's true or not. People will say anything.
Kinda like the Obama is a Muslim rumour? :wink:
http://www.suntimes.com/news/politics/o ... 08.article Image

j/k
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Post by Brando70 »

GameSeven wrote:
JackB1 wrote:
Teal wrote:
Haven't we had quite enough 'rumors' from the Left about Palin in the last few days? Rumors are started by dumbshits who just want something to stick, whether it's true or not. People will say anything.
Kinda like the Obama is a Muslim rumour? :wink:
http://www.suntimes.com/news/politics/o ... 08.article Image

j/k
The Manchurian Candidate crowd will have a field day with that one. I can hear the mouth-breathing from here.

A couple of interesting economic articles from the Commie Times. One (an op-ed from a Republican advisor) on Obama's dividend tax plan:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/07/busin ... ics&st=cse

Another discusses a recent book showing that family income has been slightly higher during Dem presidencies, and that income disparities tend to go up during Rep presidencies:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/31/busin ... ew.html?em

The thing about the Republican tax plans is, if the economic impact of low taxes is as direct and forceful as they say, we shouldn't have seen the severe slow down of the last year. The results should be so clear cut that there is no argument. Our tax policies are as friendly to businesses and investors as we've seen since WWII, and yet we're still going through a pretty rough (by modern standards) economic patch. We've also had periods of growth in times of relatively high taxation.

Also, and this is something I haven't really seen addressed, is that excessive deregulation almost always brings about some kind of abuse by the corporate sector. That's what happened with the credit crisis. Corporations are, by their very nature, amoral. Their fundamental purpose is to make profits. That is neither good or bad -- it's how they go about making money where the ethics apply. Most corporations play fair and honest, but when facing bleak economic times, the instinct to bend the rules can kick in. We saw it with the accounting scandals in the early 2000s and with the really shady credit practices of lenders. There are examples of the same type of behavior happening since the industrialization of America and the rise of modern businesses. You have to provide oversight to reign in the worst instincts of business, and that's something that both Democrats and Republicans have not done a good job of since 1980.
Last edited by Brando70 on Mon Sep 08, 2008 11:21 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by matthewk »

wco81 wrote:If American companies could sell more stuff overseas, because the Chinese and other countries start to consume like Americans, they'd still keep the production overseas.
Exactly. And the main reason for this is that it's cheaper for them to do so. This is why I am so surprised that no one on either side of the political isle is looking into why health care costs are going up so much. A large chunk of employers expenses for labor is related to health care costs. I hardly see any coverage of why our costs are going up by double digits each year.

As for factories coming back, no I don't think many will in the near future. There are some (like the robotics that was mentioned) that could come back if we made it profitable to have them here. Over time China and India will eventually rise in their own standard of living, which will (hopefully) close the gap in labor costs, (again hopefully) slowing or preventing the loss of even more US jobs. I have hard that IT jobs in India are already being sent to China as India's IT labor costs rise rapidly.

I don't think we have the time to wait for this to happen, as it could take decades to balance out the world's labor force. What I think we can do is focus on the obvious areas where we can be more competitive. Two bigges here are corporate taxes and health care costs.
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Post by pk500 »

matthewk wrote:This is why I am so surprised that no one on either side of the political isle is looking into why health care costs are going up so much.
Just look at the ridiculous boondoggle the UAW managed with GM years ago -- lifetime health care for every GM retiree? That's insane.

I've read that deal forced GM to add between $1,500 and $2,000 to the cost of every car it produced. No wonder GM is gradually shedding that swindle by transferring retiree healthcare obligations to the UAW by 2010.

Take care,
PK
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Post by FatPitcher »

matthewk wrote:
Exactly. And the main reason for this is that it's cheaper for them to do so. This is why I am so surprised that no one on either side of the political isle is looking into why health care costs are going up so much. A large chunk of employers expenses for labor is related to health care costs. I hardly see any coverage of why our costs are going up by double digits each year.
When I looked at the numbers fairly recently, oil companies had something like 7% profit margins while health care companies had something like 18%.
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Post by wco81 »

fsquid wrote: China does not want to crater the dollar if it's just an economic decision. They lose a lot of money too. But suppose they threaten an attack on Taiwan and we move to oppose it. Might they be ready to crater the dollar for political reasons at that point?
After the Olympics, there were articles saying that the only way the Party held onto power was with economic growth. If there was any kind of slowdown, there could be political upheavals. The sense seems to be that it was inevitable the Party would be toppled, that growth has only delayed the inevitable.

Maybe if they see their power threatened, backed against a wall, they might do something crazy like that, even knowing it would trash them economically.
I see very little reason for optimism, and I fear that Obama's "solutions" are worse than the disease. Republicans ignore problems, while democrats prescribe solutions that are worse than the problems. So the debate becomes engaged around the issue of how much do we spend on the wrong solutions.
So the patient is sick and distrusts the new doctor, would rather stay with the old doctor, under whose care he's gotten sick.

What is the greater risk, not trying something different than what has gotten you into trouble or going with a double dose of the stuff that made you sick?

On what basis do you distrust the new prescription? Are there studies showing the new way will make things worse or is this distrust based on preconceived notions?

Obama's plan would bring some of the tax system back to where they were under Clinton, when economic health was much better. Changing the tax system alone won't turn things around (e.g. other factors such as deregulation, better oversight might have avoided some of the excesses we're suffering now). We wouldn't be delving into the unknown, as these are policies which have been employed before, without the disastrous consequences some seem to fear.
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Post by wco81 »

FatPitcher wrote: When I looked at the numbers fairly recently, oil companies had something like 7% profit margins while health care companies had something like 18%.
I think pharmaceuticals do even better than health insurers.

There is no one simple reason costs are out of control. One thing is that out of the $1.5-2 trillion we spend each year, 25% of that is administrative overhead for processing insurance claims from all the different insurers.

We're talking up to $500 billion a year here.

I know there's a great deal of fear about Obama's plan, which will be labeled as "socialized medicine."

But McCain is talking about a pretty radical plan as well. He wants to remove the tax breaks employers get for providing health coverage to employees. Currently, that's how most people get coverage, through employers.

Instead, he'll provide everyone a tax credit to purchase insurance on their own but the amount of tax credit is well under $10k if I recall correctly. Look at the cost of premiums in the individual market. Only the high-deductible ones are affordable and even with that, high double-digit increases in premiums are not unknown.

Plus, people with preexisting conditions can't get coverage. Not sure how this plan would lower costs.
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Post by wco81 »

Brando70 wrote: The thing about the Republican tax plans is, if the economic impact of low taxes is as direct and forceful as they say, we shouldn't have seen the severe slow down of the last year. The results should be so clear cut that there is no argument. Our tax policies are as friendly to businesses and investors as we've seen since WWII, and yet we're still going through a pretty rough (by modern standards) economic patch. We've also had periods of growth in times of relatively high taxation.

Also, and this is something I haven't really seen addressed, is that excessive deregulation almost always brings about some kind of abuse by the corporate sector. That's what happened with the credit crisis. Corporations are, by their very nature, amoral. There fundamental purpose is to make profits. That is neither good or bad -- it's how they go about making money where the ethics kick in. Most corporations play fair and honest, but when facing bleak economic times, the instinct to bend the rules can kick in. We saw it with the accounting scandals in the early 2000s and with the really shady credit practices of lenders. There are examples of the same type of behavior happening since the industrialization of America and the rise of modern businesses. You have to provide oversight to reign in the worst instincts of business, and that's something that both Democrats and Republicans have not done a good job of since 1980.
That's the thing, supply-side economics do not have the empirical evidence to back up the notion that they work. Of course, conservatives would claim the growth in the '90s was due to Reagan and Bush I.

Deregulation is a big mantra but ask Californians and now Texans about their electricity bills.

This administration staved off calls for environmental changes in the name of protecting the economy. So all the accommodationist policies to energy companies and we're still under an economic cloud.

The free market approach permitted some abuses and now, a free market administration has been forced to intervene several times in the financial markets, including taking over the GSEs.
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Post by Jared »

Locking this thread, just because it's really really long. New politics thread is here:

http://www.digitalsportspage.com/module ... ic&t=13225
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