Presidential Campaign 2008

[Kanada Kev]

2012 eh? We are all dead... the end IS near.

Yup. Palin is going to prepare the "Real" Americans for the Rapture during that term

Obama's 30mins on network TV tonight should be very very interesting. This campaign has been run sooo well, I just can't see this as being anything but beneficial and help make those undecideds DECIDED!

Still hoping that he's on The Daily Show tonight too.

[phishtaper]

[color:purple]jeesh Kev, you actually have the nerve to show your face around here so soon after "the post"

[Kanada Kev]

[Kanada Kev]

Wow! Watching this last night sent chills up my spine. I don't care what people say, this man is inspiring and a beacon of hope for the future. I wish there were more people like this in politics. Imagine what it would be like to have a leader like this in Canada.

[bradm]

I had an interesting idea last night, similar to the "Which candidate would you like to have a beer with?" question: with which candidate would you like to have and discuss (over a beer or a coffee or whatever) an ideological difference or disagreement?

For me, it'd be Barack Obama, because I think he's open-minded enough (and reasonable, in the sense of being able to reason) to possibly be persuaded to change his mind by a valid argument, while at the same time being wide-minded enough to bring a valid and expressive argument to back up his side.

I don't sense anything remotely like that from John McCain or Sarah Palin. It seems to me as if they're very much close-minded (both in the sense of their minds being closed, and in the sense of their minds having edges or limits that are close in); I think a discussion or disagreement with them would involve them simply spouting their side, without taking into account any counter argument I might make.

Aloha,

Brad

[Kanada Kev]

Agreed. I would totally love to hang out with Obama. Not even talking politics, but just chillin'. He seems so much more "in touch" with people. He'd be comfortable in a McDonald's as well as a high-class restaurant. He could be cool at a monster truck rally and at the ballet.

McCain? Nope. I don't think so.

[phishtaper]

i could totally see Palin at a monster truck rally

[Kanada Kev]

true ... very true.

She'd be cheering for this one

http://www.gluck.net/jesus/

[Kanada Kev]

interseting:

[phishtaper]

sure looks like wealth redistribution to me ...

[Kanada Kev]

You betcha! And Palin does it up in Alaska already ferchrissakes!

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5hgSOF08EZJrEAB34f2kJkANBWguAD9454PNG0

Fact Check: Palin's Alaska spreads its wealth

By RITA BEAMISH – 16 hours ago

Republicans John McCain and Sarah Palin summon antidemocratic images of a communist state to attack Democrat Barack Obama's tax plan and his comment about spreading the wealth around. But in her home state, Palin embraces Alaska's own version of doing just that.

Palin and McCain seized on a comment Obama made to Ohio plumber Joe Wurzelbacher, who asked about his tax plans.

Obama wants to raise taxes on families earning $250,000 to pay for cutting taxes for the 95 percent of workers and their families making less than $200,000. "I think when you spread the wealth around, it's good for everybody," he told Wurzelbacher.

McCain said that sounds "a lot like socialism" to many Americans. Palin has derided the Illinois senator as "Barack the Wealth Spreader."

But in Alaska, Palin is the envy of governors nationwide for the annual checks the state doles out to nearly every resident, representing their share of the revenues from the state's oil riches. She boosted those checks this year by raising taxes on oil.

McCain campaign spokesman Taylor Griffin said Thursday that spreading wealth through Obama's tax plan and doing it through Alaska's oil-profit distribution are not comparable because Alaska requires the state's resource wealth to be shared with residents, but it's not taxing personal income.

"It's how the revenue is shared between the oil companies and the state."

A look at Palin's and McCain's comments and the record in Alaska:

THE SPIN:

"Barack Obama calls it spreading the wealth. Joe Biden calls higher taxes patriotic," Palin told a crowd in Roswell, N.M., and elsewhere. "But Joe the Plumber and Ed the Dairyman, I believe they think it sounds more like socialism.

"Friends, now is no time to experiment with socialism."

In Ohio, she asked, "Are there any Joe the Plumbers in the house?" To cheers, she said, "It doesn't sound like you're supporting Barack the Wealth Spreader."

McCain told a radio audience that Obama's plan "would convert the IRS into a giant welfare agency, redistributing massive amounts of wealth at the direction of politicians in Washington."

"Raising taxes on some in order to give checks to others is not a tax cut; it's just another government giveaway."

THE FACTS:

In Alaska, residents pay no income tax or state sales tax. They receive a yearly dividend check from a $30 billion state investment account built largely from royalties on its oil. When home fuel and gas costs soared last year, Palin raised taxes on big oil and used some of the money to boost residents' checks by $1,200. Thus every eligible man, woman and child got a record $3,269 this fall.

She also suspended the 8-cent tax on gas.

"We can afford to share resource wealth with Alaskans and to temporarily suspend the state fuel tax," she said at the time.

Much as Obama explains his tax hike on the rich as a way to help people who are struggling, Palin's statement talked about the energy costs burdening Alaskans:

"While the unique fiscal circumstances the state finds itself in at the end of this fiscal year warrant a special one-time payment to share some of the state's wealth, the payment comes at a time when Alaskans are facing rising energy prices. High prices for oil are a double-edged sword for Alaskans. While public coffers fill, prices for heating fuel and gasoline have skyrocketed over the last six months and are now running into the $5- to $9-a-gallon range for heating fuel and gasoline across several areas of the state."

In an interview with The New Yorker last summer Palin explained that she would make demands of a new gas pipeline "to maximize benefits for Alaskans":

"And Alaska we're set up, unlike other states in the union, where it's collectively Alaskans own the resources. So we share in the wealth when the development of these resources occurs."

[phishtaper]

i have no idea if it's true or not ... but this reminds me of a story i heard during my undergrad about a politician who beat his opponent when he said the other guy "matriculated when he was away at college" and that the guy's wife was a "thespian".

"redistribution of wealth" sounds just as horrible, you know, that is, until you actually know what it means.

[Big Wooly Mammoth]

they have socialism for the rich corporations in the states. when they want to spread some of the wealth to the actual people that need it they start to fucking cry. joe the moron plumber will actually pay more in taxes under mccain. is he too stupid to understand that? or is he afraid that obama is the anti-christ?

and obama's plan is not even close to socialism.

and...the only way the country is gonna get out of this massive recession that is underway will be by massive gov't spending.

October 31, 2008

Op-Ed Columnist

When Consumers Capitulate

By PAUL KRUGMAN

The long-feared capitulation of American consumers has arrived. According to Thursday’s G.D.P. report, real consumer spending fell at an annual rate of 3.1 percent in the third quarter; real spending on durable goods (stuff like cars and TVs) fell at an annual rate of 14 percent.

To appreciate the significance of these numbers, you need to know that American consumers almost never cut spending. Consumer demand kept rising right through the 2001 recession; the last time it fell even for a single quarter was in 1991, and there hasn’t been a decline this steep since 1980, when the economy was suffering from a severe recession combined with double-digit inflation.

Also, these numbers are from the third quarter — the months of July, August, and September. So these data are basically telling us what happened before confidence collapsed after the fall of Lehman Brothers in mid-September, not to mention before the Dow plunged below 10,000. Nor do the data show the full effects of the sharp cutback in the availability of consumer credit, which is still under way.

So this looks like the beginning of a very big change in consumer behavior. And it couldn’t have come at a worse time.

It’s true that American consumers have long been living beyond their means. In the mid-1980s Americans saved about 10 percent of their income. Lately, however, the savings rate has generally been below 2 percent — sometimes it has even been negative — and consumer debt has risen to 98 percent of G.D.P., twice its level a quarter-century ago.

Some economists told us not to worry because Americans were offsetting their growing debt with the ever-rising values of their homes and stock portfolios. Somehow, though, we’re not hearing that argument much lately.

Sooner or later, then, consumers were going to have to pull in their belts. But the timing of the new sobriety is deeply unfortunate. One is tempted to echo St. Augustine’s plea: “Grant me chastity and continence, but not yet.†For consumers are cutting back just as the U.S. economy has fallen into a liquidity trap — a situation in which the Federal Reserve has lost its grip on the economy.

Some background: one of the high points of the semester, if you’re a teacher of introductory macroeconomics, comes when you explain how individual virtue can be public vice, how attempts by consumers to do the right thing by saving more can leave everyone worse off. The point is that if consumers cut their spending, and nothing else takes the place of that spending, the economy will slide into a recession, reducing everyone’s income.

In fact, consumers’ income may actually fall more than their spending, so that their attempt to save more backfires — a possibility known as the paradox of thrift.

At this point, however, the instructor hastens to explain that virtue isn’t really vice: in practice, if consumers were to cut back, the Fed would respond by slashing interest rates, which would help the economy avoid recession and lead to a rise in investment. So virtue is virtue after all, unless for some reason the Fed can’t offset the fall in consumer spending.

I’ll bet you can guess what’s coming next.

For the fact is that we are in a liquidity trap right now: Fed policy has lost most of its traction. It’s true that Ben Bernanke hasn’t yet reduced interest rates all the way to zero, as the Japanese did in the 1990s. But it’s hard to believe that cutting the federal funds rate from 1 percent to nothing would have much positive effect on the economy. In particular, the financial crisis has made Fed policy largely irrelevant for much of the private sector: The Fed has been steadily cutting away, yet mortgage rates and the interest rates many businesses pay are higher than they were early this year.

The capitulation of the American consumer, then, is coming at a particularly bad time. But it’s no use whining. What we need is a policy response.

The ongoing efforts to bail out the financial system, even if they work, won’t do more than slightly mitigate the problem. Maybe some consumers will be able to keep their credit cards, but as we’ve seen, Americans were overextended even before banks started cutting them off.

No, what the economy needs now is something to take the place of retrenching consumers. That means a major fiscal stimulus. And this time the stimulus should take the form of actual government spending rather than rebate checks that consumers probably wouldn’t spend.

Let’s hope, then, that Congress gets to work on a package to rescue the economy as soon as the election is behind us. And let’s also hope that the lame-duck Bush administration doesn’t get in the way.

[Jaimoe]

You know if Obama wins and he gets his wish, to re-examine and retool NAFTA, millions of Canadians will be royally fucked.

[phishtaper]

sounds like rhetorical tory-speak, jaimoe. care to provide evidence to support that? and just offering one or two examples wont suffice.

[d_rawk]

NAFTA has many faults, and is a far cry from a 'free trade agreement'. I think Obama is fundamentally correct in that it could be retooled to the benefit of all agreeing parties. However, I suspect that Jaimoe is also correct in the sense that if the deal was re-negotiated on the terms of an US administration, it would be re-negotiated in a way favourable to the US at the expense of Canada. Particularly in the current economic climate where neo-liberal economics have fallen out of favour. This isn't really about Obama (whose position is to open it up for mutually beneficial dialogue) - once the issue is opened up, other political weight begins to pour in for concessions, and the American executive is only so powerful.

My understanding, though, is that Obama has backed off on this some, and I have the sense that much of it was electioneering rather than deeply thought out policy proposal.

(A total aside - I'd posit that one or two examples ought to suffice, in the fairness of debate, if those examples are substantial. The imposed limit for burden of proof seems arbitrarily numerical.)

[Thorgnor]

You're arbitrarily numerical.

[phishtaper]

it wasnt a matter of 3 or 5 or 10 examples versus 1 or 2. it was a matter of providing the full argument behind the initial (over)statement. yes, a couple of examples are good as support for an argument, but cannot be offered in lieu of. that was all i meant.

one can also make the argument that re-opening nafta could benefit certain canadian interests. take for example, the recent nafta-based, lawsuit by dow challenging the sovereignty of the quebec govt re: banning 2,4-D.

[d_rawk]

yes, a couple of examples are good as support for an argument, but cannot be offered in lieu of. that was all i meant.

Ok, I hear ya and see where you are coming from then. Let's be totally fair and offer that to Jaimoe then - offering one or two examples would be fine: just don't make a trivial case and expect it to convince anyone.

the recent nafta-based, lawsuit by dow challenging the sovereignty of the quebec govt re: banning 2,4-D

Totally, totally. Some of the major difficulties I have with NAFTA are the sort of things that lead to these rulements. As well as the inability to close markets after they have been opened, which is sensible enough at the surface, but leads to idelogical rushing-to-privatize-because-it-can't-be-reversed without adequate possibility to reverse course when it all goes bad.

As I said, "NAFTA has many faults, and is a far cry from a 'free trade agreement'". I do feel like Jaimoe is right, though, in that if it were to be re-negotiated now, we'd be fucked.

(I almost want to read it again - it has been a whole lot of years and it is probably in a box in my parent's basement - before floating it out here, but Rick Salutin's 'Waiting for Democracy' was an excellent read where he followed around one of the election campaigns during the great NAFTA debate. Apropos to nothing, just that this conversation reminded me of it.)

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However, I suspect that Jaimoe is also correct in the sense that if the deal was re-negotiated on the terms of an US administration, it would be re-negotiated in a way favourable to the US at the expense of Canada.

if the canadian negotiators can't get a fair shake, we should hardly blame obama. we should blame the inept canadian who is supposed to be standing up for the interests of canada as a whole. that's what negotiating is.

[d_rawk]

if the canadian negotiators can't get a fair shake, we should hardly blame obama. we should blame the inept canadian who is supposed to be standing up for the interests of canada as a whole. that's what negotiating is.

I believe (which is worthless .. but I have the 'feeling' .. which is still worthless) that Obama really wants what is good. Probably primarily what is good for the US because that is the task that he will be charged with, if elected, but probably also desiring what will be good for all.

Inept Canadian negotiator(s) isn't really the end all of it. We have a lot of sway in the way of commodities; we have a lot of vulnerabilities, too. Even democratic congressional representatives would push hard for a deal favourable to US interests even at the expense of their partners, especially right now, when it would be politically popular to do so.

If we had the international political sway to negotiate a sane agreement, we wouldn't have ended up with the restrictions of NAFTA in the first place. Free trade would have suited us better. (But NAFTA is probably better than what we had .. until we lose our water ..)

[AD]

right, so there's no way to draw a direct line between Obama looking at NAFTA and millions of Canadians getting royally fucked.

[d_rawk]

Yes. I agree. (until convinced otherwise)

Edited November 3, 2008 by Guest
added the '(until convinced otherwise)' because it is conceivably possible

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And I agree with you on your agreement.

[Kanada Kev]