remorse

[2minkey]

you get that mind reading certificate in a cracker jack box or from an online college?

no. i only have three real university degrees. they help me discern between evil and stupid. we've ventured into the latter here.

 

[jimpeel]

You know jimpeel, if you continue to make wild accusations, you will be cursed in eternity with the fleas of one thousand camels.
But, everybody knows President Bush did not cause a hurricane. The hurricane to which you refer was created by Karl Rove or Dick Cheney. President Bush never thought of anything on his own and who created the hurricane depends on whose knee President Bush was sitting on the day in question.

Are you then saying that all of the left wing people who have accused Bush of causing Katrina were utterly mistaken? Say it ain't so!

 

[spike]

Nobody accused him of that. You are the one that is utterly mistaken.

 

[jimpeel]

http://www.businessweek.com/investo...chan=top+news_top+news+index+-+temp_top+story

Did Obama Cause the Stock Slide?
Wall Street has soured on the new Administration's policy moves. Can this relationship be saved?

By Ben Steverman

At least on Wall Street, the honeymoon is over for President Barack Obama.

Polls still show the President has strong popularity among the general U.S. population, and Obama continues to command power in Congress. But among investors, fairly or unfairly, there is griping that the new Obama Administration is at least partly to blame for the recent slide in stocks. Since Nov. 4, Election Day, the broad Standard & Poor's 500-stock index is off about 25%, and since Jan. 20, when Obama took office, the "500" is down 15%.

It's never easy to determine exactly why the stock market moves in a particular direction. Plenty of other factors have influenced stock prices since November. For example, the global economy has slowed further and the outlook for corporate profits has worsened.

But BusinessWeek interviewed a wide array of investment professionals, and many said the first six weeks of the Obama Administration have soured their outlook on the stock market.

Bar Was Too High

It wasn't always so. On Nov. 21, word arrived that Timothy Geithner would be tapped as Obama's Treasury Secretary and markets rallied immediately. The S&P 500 rocketed 15% higher that day and the following trading session.

Stocks continued to climb into January, and even rallied in the week after the inauguration. "Hopes were too high," says independent market strategist Doug Peta. Too many were hoping the new Administration would have "this magic potion to solve our problems," he says. "That was unrealistic."

Proposals for a stimulus bill pushed infrastructure stocks to unsustainable heights. Caterpillar (CAT) surged 39% from the market lows in November to early January. Since then, shares in the maker of construction equipment have tumbled back down again, falling 43%.

Charges of Bungling

Many investors hoped Obama could start to solve the stock market's—and the economy's—biggest problem: the credit crisis. "It was a false hope," says Brian Reynolds, chief market strategist at WJB Capital Group, who believes there is "nothing the government can do to stop the crisis."

Others are more hopeful the government can ease credit conditions, but say the Obama Administration has bungled the operation so far. A Feb. 10 presentation of a financial-sector relief plan by Geithner was widely criticized. Stocks fell almost 5% that day.

Geithner was a "particularly poor salesperson back on Feb. 10," says Marc Chandler of Brown Brothers Harriman, who says he voted for Obama. "The Obama Administration has failed to get ahead of the curve."

Uncertainty Leaves Room for Rumors

A lack of details from Geithner disturbed investors, says Quincy Krosby, chief investment strategist at the Hartford (HIG). "Markets need certainty," she says. "The market has been sitting here waiting, waiting, waiting. That allows rumors and conspiracy theories to dominate."

Jerry Webman, chief economist at OppenheimerFunds (OPY), defends the Administration. "I would like to see Administration people more visible" on the issue, he says. But, "the problem is: What do we expect them to say? 'This is a big complicated problem and we don't know where we're going to get the money to solve it'? That would be the truth," Webman says, but it wouldn't make market participants very happy.

Credit issues may be the chief complaint about Obama among investors. But they're hardly the only gripe. In recent weeks, Obama has made clear he intends to keep campaign promises on health-care reform, climate change regulation, and higher taxes for Americans who earn more than $250,000.

Surprised by "Leftism"

Professional investors tend to be more conservative, so it's perhaps no surprise they're concerned. "The basic agenda of Obama's Administration is going to be more leftist and less centrist than I had anticipated," says John Merrill, chief investment officer at Tanglewood Wealth Management in Houston.

The impact of Obama's proposals are easy to see in particular segments of the market. In a speech to Congress on Feb. 24, Obama pledged a "substantial down payment" on health-care reform. David Chalupnick, head of equities at First American Funds, points out that, since then, stocks in the Dow Jones U.S. Health Care Providers Index (IHF) are down 16%. Health-care stocks had been a relative safe haven in the market, because medical spending tends to hold up even in recessions.

Investors aren't just expressing their political beliefs that taxes and regulations are bad for the economy. They're also making a practical calculation that they will hurt corporate bottom lines in the future. "What you're doing is lowering the profitability of these firms," says Bill Larkin of Cabot Money Management.

Short-Term Focus

There may be little right-leaning investors can do about liberal policies coming from the White House. "A majority of Americans elected this President on that platform," says Jeffrey Kleintop of LPL Financial Services. In any case, many in the market are more focused on short-term concerns—the recession and the credit crisis—than the long-term implications of Obama's policies.

"People are looking for a very quick fix," Larkin says. "It's the way the markets are. They like to have a problem resolved." Unfortunately, solutions from Obama, the Federal Reserve, or anyone else are slow in arriving. "It's going to take time," Larkin says.

On Mar. 3, Obama tried to get investors to take the long view. "You know, it bobs up and down day to day," Obama told reporters, referring to the stock market. "And if you spend all your time worrying about that, then you're probably going to get the long-term strategy wrong."

Missed Opportunities Early On

Obama and Geithner missed the chance—if they ever had such an opportunity—to "wow" the market and help restore some market confidence early in his Administration, Larkin says. So, instead, "this is going to be a long, drawn-out thing."

Investors will need to wait to see evidence that the stimulus package and measures to ease the credit crisis are really working. "The market is sitting back and saying: 'Show me the money. I'll believe it when it happens,'" Kleintop says.

Obama also tried to argue on Mar. 3 that stocks were a good buy. "Profits and earning ratios are starting to get to the point where buying stocks is a potentially good idea," Obama said, adding "if you've got a long-term perspective on it."

The problem for investors is the long-term outlook has never looked so fuzzy. With the economy deteriorating, the credit crisis continuing, and the Obama Administration still formulating a response, few feel confident enough about the future to buy stocks. It may be quite some time before investors find a change they can believe in.

Steverman is a reporter for BusinessWeek's Investing channel.

 

[Gonz]

Watch. Everytime Obama or one of his mimions speak, the market drops.

 

[jimpeel]

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hzxMIm4EJQJddvV_ZHPkN1pw8nJwD96P7RC80

Analysis: Obama recovery plans sowing some unease

By TOM RAUM

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama offered his domestic-policy proposals as a "break from a troubled past." But the economic outlook now is more troubled than it was even in January, despite Obama's bold rhetoric and commitment of more trillions of dollars.

And while his personal popularity remains high, some economists and lawmakers are beginning to question whether Obama's agenda of increased government activism is helping, or hurting, by sowing uncertainty among businesses, investors and consumers that could prolong the recession.

Although the administration likes to say it "inherited" the recession and trillion-dollar deficits, the economic wreckage has worsened on Obama's still-young watch.

Every day, the economy is becoming more and more an Obama economy.

More than 4 million jobs have been lost since the recession began in December 2007 — roughly half in the past three months.

Stocks have tumbled to levels not seen since 1997. They are down more than 50 percent from their 2007 highs and 20 percent since Obama's inauguration.

The president's suggestion that it was a good time for investors with "a long-term perspective" to buy stocks may have been intended to help lift battered markets. But a big sell-off followed.

Presidents usually don't talk about the stock market. But the dynamics are different now.

A higher percentage of people have more direct exposure to stocks — including through 401(k) and other retirement plans — than ever.

So a tumbling stock market is adding to the national angst as households see the value of their investments and homes plunge as job losses keep rising.

Some once mighty companies such as General Motors and Citigroup are little more than penny stocks.

Many health care stocks are down because of fears of new government restrictions and mandates as part a health care overhaul. Private student loan providers were pounded because of the increased government lending role proposed by Obama. Industries that use oil and other carbon-based fuels are being shunned, apparently in part because of Obama's proposal for fees on greenhouse-gas polluters.

Makers of heavy road-building and other construction equipment have taken a hit, partly because of expectations of fewer public works jobs here and globally than first anticipated.

"We've got a lot of scared investors and business people. I think the uncertainty is a real killer here," said Chris Edwards, director of fiscal policy for the libertarian Cato Institute.

Some Democrats, worried over where Obama is headed, are suggesting he has yet to match his call for "bold action and big ideas" with deeds.

In particular, they point to bumpy efforts to fix the financial system under Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner.

Obama may have contributed to the national anxiety by first warning of "catastrophe" if his stimulus plan was not passed and in setting high expectations for Geithner. Instead, Geithner's public performance has been halting and he's been challenged by lawmakers of both parties.

Republicans and even some top Democrats, including Rep. Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, have questioned the wisdom of Obama's proposal to limit tax deductions for higher-income people on mortgage interest and charitable contributions.

Charities have strongly protested, saying times already are tough enough for them. The administration suggests it might back off that one.

Even White House claims that its policies will "create" or "save" 3.5 million jobs have been questioned by Democratic supporters.

"You created a situation where you cannot be wrong," the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, Montana Democrat Max Baucus, told Geithner last week.

"If the economy loses 2 million jobs over the next few years, you can say yes, but it would've lost 5.5 million jobs. If we create a million jobs, you can say, well, it would have lost 2.5 million jobs," Baucus said. "You've given yourself complete leverage where you cannot be wrong, because you can take any scenario and make yourself look correct."

Republicans assert that Obama's proposals, including the "cap and trade" fees on polluters to combat global warming, would raise taxes during a recession that could touch everyone. "Herbert Hoover tried it, and we all know where that led," says House Republican leader John Boehner of Ohio.

The administration argues its tax increases for the households earning over $250,000 a year and fees on carbon polluters contained in its budget won't kick in until 2011-2012, when it forecasts the economy will have fully recovered.

But even those assumptions are challenged as too rosy by many private forecasters and some Democratic lawmakers.

Many deficit hawks also worry that the trillions of federal dollars being doled out by the administration, Congress and the Federal Reserve could sow the seeds of inflation down the road, whether the measures succeed in taming the recession or not. The money includes Obama's $3.6 trillion budget and the $837 billion stimulus package he signed last month.

Polls show that Obama's personal approval ratings, generally holding in the high 60s, remain greater than support for his specific policies.

"He still has a fair amount of political capital, so the public is willing to cut him some slack and go along with him for a while," said pollster Andrew Kohut, director of the Pew Research Center. "But the public will have to get some sense that the kinds of things he's proposing are going to work, or are showing some signs that they are working."

Allan Sinai, chief global economist for Decision Economics, a Boston-area consulting firm, said the complexity and enormity of the crisis make it hard to solve.

"There's no way to get it all right, regardless of which president is making policy," Sinai said. "The problem is the sickness got too far. The actions taken, medicine applied, were mainly the wrong actions. So it's just worse, and it gets harder to deal with. At this stage, there is no easy answer, no easy way out. It's a question of how we fumble through."

EDITOR'S NOTE _ Tom Raum has covered Washington for The Associated Press since 1973, frequently reporting on the economy.

Copyright © 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved

 

[spike]

Wow, an opinion piece. Nifty.

I found an opinion piece on your author.

Associated Press writer Tom Raum knows a thing or two about "high priorities."

Every few days, Associated Press writer Tom Raum makes it a "high priority" to take five minutes to trim the crinkly, grey hairs which spurt out of his crusty ears.

Every few days, Associated Press writer Tom Raum makes it a "high priority" to take five minutes to check and make sure that he rewound his stack of pornographic video tapes before returning them to the video store.

Every few days, Associated Press writer Tom Raum makes it a "high priority" to spend five minutes to practice bending and flexing so he can one day master the art of sucking his own cock.

Every few days, Associated Press writer Tom Raum makes it a "high priority" to spend five minutes to play with the special child who is obviously responsible for writing the bullshit articles that he passes off as journalism and that his editors pass off on and allow to be published.

http://whyareweback.blogspot.com/2005/01/how-long-does-bush-spend-on-his-low.html

 

[Frodo]

Now I understand what is going on with Spike and Opinion pieces. If you read the conservative opinion piece that Jim posted, it is well articulated and thought out. If you read the liberal opinion piece that Spike posted in rebuttal, well, let's just say it falls short of any measure of debate. Since Spike reads a lot of liberal opinion pieces and avoids conservative ones like a vampire avoids daylight, he assumes that all opinion pieces have nothing to offer.

 

[spike]

Now I understand what is going on with Spike and Opinion pieces. If you read the conservative opinion piece that Jim posted, it is well articulated and thought out. If you read the liberal opinion piece that Spike posted in rebuttal, well, let's just say it falls short of any measure of debate. Since Spike reads a lot of liberal opinion pieces and avoids conservative ones like a vampire avoids daylight, he assumes that all opinion pieces have nothing to offer.

In fact I don't read many opinion pieces at all. It's pretty useless for Jim to be spending all his time hunting down some random persons opinion that agrees with him and then posting it here as if it proves something. Yet the majority of the crap he posts is just someones opinion.

It only takes a minute to find an opinion on the other side of an issue.

Mythbusting the Obama Recovery

Here it is: our moment of economic truth. We're standing at that historic fork in the road where the nation decides, now and for the foreseeable future, whether it's going to hang on to the catastrophic assumptions of the free-market fundamentalists and rely once more on the nostrums that have so far failed to fix the mess, or take a bold step down a new, more progressive path that will finally re-empower the American people to build an economy that works for us all.

As usual, the conservatives have absolutely no conscience about what they did to create this mess. If they did, they'd all be holed up in their gated communities or on their private islands, embarrassed into silence at best and terrified of peasant uprisings at worst. Instead, they're jetting into D.C. en masse in a last-ditch attempt to head the country off—or at least make sure that any money that does get spent ends up, as it always has, in their pockets.

To that end, the self-serving myths are starting to fly so thick and fast that the staff here at CAF has been working full-time to keep ahead of them. Here's some of what they're flinging in this latest B.S. storm—and what you need to know to fire back.


1. The proposed recovery package is too big.


False. Most progressive economists agree (and Paul Krugman is downright emphatic) that it's going to take a minimum of a trillion dollars of well-placed investment to pull our economy out of this ditch. This is no time for half-measures, blue-ribbon committees, pilot projects, or trial balloons: this is a life-or-death crisis that requires immediate and massive intervention.

CAF Senior Fellow Bernie Horn puts it this way: "The American economy is huge and it’s at a standstill. It’s like a motionless 100-car freight train—or one going backwards slowly. A small locomotive simply can’t pull it forward. We need an engine large enough to work, one that can create millions of jobs. If anything, a $775 billion 2-year plan may be too small rather than too big."

Dean Baker of the Center for Economic and Policy Research echoed this same thing on Rachel Maddow's show last Tuesday night. It's got to be big. And it's got to be now. Anything too small—or too late—and the American economy will be at serious risk of stagnating the same way Japan's did in the 1990s.



2. If we can't afford (insert pet project here), we certainly can't afford this.


Yes, we can. What we really can't afford is a huge recession that undercuts the tax base. That's a vicious cycle that will make it increasingly harder to dig out the longer this goes on. The Congressional Budget Office projects that the current slowdown will cost the federal government $166 billion in lost tax revenues in 2009—a number that could easily get even larger in coming years if we fall into a real depression. If we get on that trendline, we could lose a trillion dollars in government revenues by the end of Obama's first term. We need to invest what we have while we still have it if we hope to have a strong economy going forward.

This argument is based on the limited view that wealth is mainly generated by loaning or borrowing at interest—a common enough assumption among financial people over the past 30 years. A more progressive view is that real wealth is generated by labor, combined with access to resources required for production. Putting people to work creates wealth. So does ensuring that our current failing energy regime is replaced as rapidly as possible with one that's infinitely renewable and that we will finally be in full control of. And so do other kinds of infrastructure investments, which form the footing on which a new round of businesses can rise and thrive.

Businesses have always invested their capital to create more capital. The best parts of Obama's proposal involve getting the government to do the same thing. Conservatives are resisting this because don't believe that there's such a thing as the common wealth—which is how they've rationalized their plundering of our common assets. We need to make it absolutely clear that we do believe in the common wealth—and that their assaults on everything that allows America to generate national wealth are going stop, right here and right now.



3. It's more important to balance the budget. Fix that, and the rest will take care of itself.


Read history much? Herbert Hoover is history's poster boy for the idea that balancing the budget during a recession is the best way known to turn it into a full-on depression. And that wasn't a one-off: FDR repeated the lesson in 1937, when he succumbed to the pleas of budget-hawk conservatives and tried to balance the budget—a move that put the brakes on what had, until then, been a solid recovery.

Looking forward, this year's numbers also show the case clearly. Economists are already estimating that spending by individuals and businesses will be off by $300 to $500 billion in 2009. The upshot of this will be millions of lost jobs, which in turn will mean even lower spending and more job losses next year as the country accelerates toward depression.

The only way to halt this slide is for the government to step in and fill the hole with an additional $300 billion-$500 billion of its own spending—and to spend that money on investments that will create as many jobs as possible. The longer we wait, the more government spending it will ultimately take to pull us out of this—and the less able we'll be to muster that much cash.

Balanced budgets are important, but not as important right now as making sure every American has a paycheck they can count on. We can't afford to sacrifice the fate of the entire country to this one economic ideal.



4. The worst thing we can possibly do is raise taxes. Or borrow the money, God forbid.


More misplaced priorities.

As for taxes: Obama's already told us, without apologies to anyone, that he plans to raise taxes on people making over $250,000 a year—the people who've profited most from our current high levels of inequality. Practically, it makes sense to raise taxes on the affluent, since they're increasingly the only ones left who actually have any money. And morally, it's only fair that those who've gained the most from conservative mismanagement of the economy (regardless of their own political leanings) should be the first to pay the bills for it.

As for borrowing: Don't look now, but the whole planet is reeling from financial problems as least as big as ours. Even in the midst of this colossal fiscal mess we're in, if you're an individual, business, or government with excess capital to store somewhere, the USA is still the safest place on earth to park it.

They're so eager for our American brand of low-risk investment that they're even willing to lend their cash to us at interest rates that are very close to zero (and may actually turn out to be less than zero, once you add in inflation). If someone offered you the chance to borrow massive amounts of money without paying interest, you'd do it, right? Well, that money's already sitting on the table, just waiting for us to put it to work jump-starting our economy again. We'd be fools not to take it.


5. When you want to stimulate the economy, tax cuts always beat government spending hands-down.


Another conservative fantasy that disintegrates on contact with reality.

The chart that shows the effectiveness of various forms of government stimulus, based on recent attempts, is here. (Conservatives will be infuriated to learn that food stamps come out on top, generating $1.73 for every dollar spent. Infrastructure investments come in a respectable third. The bottom half of the chart is wall-to-wall tax cut schemes.)

The problem with tax cuts is that people don't spend them in ways that get the economy moving. The Wall Street Journal reports that only 10 to 20 percent of the money remanded to taxpayers in the 2008 tax rebate actually got spent. The other 80 to 90 percent ended up in people's personal savings, were used to pay off creditors, or were simply absorbed by inflation and higher living costs.

Knowing this, we're a bit dismayed Obama is proposing to sink as much as 40 percent of his stimulus package into tax cuts. That's too much, if you ask us. But at least they're targeted at the middle class—people who are more likely to spend that money here in the U.S., rather than ship it off to investments abroad.



6. Large-scale government investment would inevitably turn into an orgy of waste, fraud and abuse.


True—but only if we let conservatives run the show.

The fact is that all human endeavors—from running a household to running a nation—entail a fair amount of waste, fraud and abuse. Bad decisions get made. Greed gets the better of people. Not everybody is as honest as we'd wish them to be.

But in spite of that truth, nobody in history can top the Americans when it comes to planning and executing successful large-scale investment projects. (A thousand years from now, that's what they'll be saying about us: Not always smart about foreign policy, but man, could those people think big—and they usually pulled it off, too.) In our happier past, good management, careful oversight, and clear accountability have always gone a long way toward preventing really big problems, and ensured that we got the most for our collective buck.

Unfortunately, if we've learned anything about conservatives at this late date, it's that they'll defang or dismantle these mechanisms every chance they get. They think rules are for lesser mortals, oversight is a form of Big Brother-style oppression, and accountability is for people who can't afford lobbyists and lawyers. I don't think anyone would even try argue any more that when it comes to waste, fraud, and abuse, conservatives are the hands-down experts.

What's ironic is that they're now offering edifying moral guidance to the rest of us on the subject. All you can do is point and giggle at the stupefying hypocrisy of it all.



7. We need stimulus now—and tax cuts are the only way to get the money out there fast enough.



Not really, no. Much of the infrastructure spending in the recovery package will be targeted at projects that are “shovel ready”—the ones that are planned, approved, and sitting on the shelf ready to go as soon as there's money to fund them. Some of these could start generating jobs as early as April or May.

Some of this money will also be aimed at covering state budget deficits. That money will also be spent immediately on things like health care, child-care programs and other underfunded state services that employ large numbers of people.

That's a lot of direct funding that will put people to work quickly—quite likely, faster than giving people tax cuts and letting them trickle out through the economy.



8. It’s wrong to bail out spend-thrift states. Let them stimulate their own damned economies.


Please. Haven't we all had a lifetime bellyfull of tax revolutionaries and drown-the-government-in-the-bathtub crazies? I swear...can't live with 'em, can't just shoot 'em....

States aren't in trouble because they overspent their allowances. Almost every state constitution in the country requires that the government balance its budget every single year. You want fiscal sanity? Anybody who's put in their time in state government knows all about it. They've made the hard choices, and faced the consequences, too.

The problem is that the recession has undercut state tax revenues to the point where these governments can no longer afford to cover their obligations—some of which (like bonds) were taken on years ago, when times were better. Commitments that were fiscally prudent by any measure back then are wiping them out now. Budgets that were balanced and sound when they were first outlined a couple years ago are impossible monsters today.

And, unlike the federal government, the states can't deficit spend their way out of it. That's why they need federal help.


9. This whole Keynesian thing has been totally disproved. It didn’t work during the Depression. It didn’t work for Japan in the 1980s.


Say what? We know that rewriting history is a favorite conservative pastime. America is Christian country. Slavery was good for black people. Bush was never a real conservative. Saddam was in cahoots with al-Qaida. And on it goes.

The campaign to discredit Keynes (which is directly traceable to the Heritage Foundation) is a new and rather audacious fiction—one that leaves both progressive and conservative economists as gobsmacked and sputtering as scientists get when you bring up "intelligent design." And the factual basis for it is, if anything, even more specious.


Paul Krugman addresses both the Depression and the example of Japan in his new book, "The Return of Depression Economics." According to his telling of the tale, in both cases the affected economies strengthened as long as the government continued to infuse capital into them; but bobbled when there was enough improvement that the budget hawks could get some political traction. When the spending flagged, so did the recovery. In Japan, bold steps alternating with repeated failures of nerve created a liquidity trap that stagnated the country's economy through most of the 1990s.

Keynes' prescription has worked everywhere it's been tried—as long as governments acted boldly and quickly enough. It's not medicine that works if you take it in half-doses, or quit before the course of treatment is finished. In fact, doing it with less than full commitment can actually make the situation worse.



10. This is a partisan program that's designed to promote the Democratic agenda.


No. Almost every businessperson in America—including the conservative ones—are stepping forward in support of the stimulus package. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is on board with it. So (unsurprisingly) are most of the building trades and engineering groups who stand to prosper with a new round of infrastructure spending. The current economy is hurting everyone, regardless of political affiliation—and most Americans agree that it's time for the government to step in and get things going again.

 TAKE ACTION 

Write your member of Congress to ask for passage of a bold economic recovery plan now.
And Yes. I've written before about the way this kind of investment in the health and well-being of the middle class can, in the end, transform long-held conservative beliefs about how the economy should work. A stimulus package that works will prove that government can do important things that no other entity can do; that it can act effectively in the public interest; and that there's actually such a thing as a national common good that deserves to be protected. In short, it will reaffirm progressive values in a way that's irrefutable, and will earn the enduring respect of the country.

http://www.ourfuture.org/blog-entry/2009010208/firing-back-mythbusting-obama-recovery-package

 

[randomJACKASS]

You know what's funny, is that if 60%+ approve of him and not even 60% voted for him, I think it's a bit bizzare to come to a conclusion that there is any remorse.

Well not that bizzare considering the source I guess....

 

[Cerise]

And while his personal popularity remains high, some economists and lawmakers are beginning to question whether Obama's agenda of increased government activism is helping, or hurting, by sowing uncertainty among businesses, investors and consumers that could prolong the recession.

Look for Mr. Popularity to take a plunge in the polls as more and more of the country wakes up to his Socialist plans for the nation.

 

[spike]

I'll look for you to be wrong just like you are about everything else.

Remember when you embarrassed yourself repeatedly talking about what a sure thing a McCain win was?

 

[randomJACKASS]

Look for Cerise to keep whining about this until 2012 to possibly 2016.

 

[2minkey]

Look for Mr. Popularity to take a plunge in the polls as more and more of the country wakes up to his Socialist plans for the nation.

and also look for forces of rebellion consisting largely of moronic flag waving and smallminds clinging guns, religion, and "people like us!"

 

[Cerise]

Hate to disappoint you:

Obama Approval Index History



1/21/09 Strongly disapprove - 16%

3/9/09 Strongly disapprove - 32%


1/21/09 Strongly approve - 44%

3/9/09 Strongly approve - 38%

 

[catocom]

 

[Gato_Solo]

and you're still not fooling anyone.

So...just so I can say it...what is your middle name, and why are you upset if anyone says it?

 

[H2O boy]

people making over $250,000 a year—the people who've profited most from our current high levels of inequality.

you say unequal. I say deserved

are you personally willing to subsidize someone else? are you willing to take your money and let someone with a lesser job have it just because they work at mcdonalds and you work at where ever you work? is the fact that this person earns a smaller income than you enough in and of itself to compel you to make up the difference?

i like most people would prefer to bring home more than i do. but to penalize those who do simply BECAUSE they do is twisted. thats the primary reason i support the flat tax. everyone pays the same tax rate period

whats so difficult about that? rich people pay in more dollars, nonrich people pay in their equal share percentage wise. both schools of thought win

 

[H2O boy]

*looks down at banner ad*

oooooh, russian mail order brides...move over helga, daddys coming home

 

[randomJACKASS]

Personally I think this deserves a lot of consideration. It also makes the taxes "constitutional" by even Gonz's definition. It really looks like what we need to me.