Republicans for Obama and the Future of the GOP?

[DGuller]

It's good to know Berkut can fall back on a career as a comedian if his other job is ever trimmed.

I don't know.  Last time he just fell back on the Government.

:pinchL

[Admiral Yi]

He couldn't have won the Democrat primary if he said he was going to follow Bush's plan in Iraq.  Is that what you mean?  Otherwise I don't think Obama's done anything all that differently than what he pledged; at least nothing that would have stopped him from beating McCain.

Ohio might have turned out differently and the unions might have been less supportive if he had said "I promise to end the pilot project for Mexican truckers" instead of "I promise to renegociate NAFTA to include worker protections" but agree overall that he's doing what he said he'd do.  Except maybe the airy fairy stuff about changing Washington culture.

[The Minsky Moment]

I don't get the Rockefeller love.  He (and the other Rockefeller Republican who preceded him) led NYC into bankruptcy.

NYC is a basket case.  I don't see how it can ever sustain itself if the Wall Street tit runs dry.  Besides, Rockefeller wasn't even a mayor of NYC.

There is quite a lot of economic activity in NY outside of Wall Street.  Media, advertising, fashion, design, technology, and food processing are all major sectors.  The garment industry is still alive and kicking and there are several major universites within the city limits.

[grumbler]

He couldn't have won the Democrat primary if he said he was going to follow Bush's plan in Iraq.  Is that what you mean?  Otherwise I don't think Obama's done anything all that differently than what he pledged; at least nothing that would have stopped him from beating McCain.

Ohio might have turned out differently and the unions might have been less supportive if he had said "I promise to end the pilot project for Mexican truckers" instead of "I promise to renegociate NAFTA to include worker protections" but agree overall that he's doing what he said he'd do.  Except maybe the airy fairy stuff about changing Washington culture.

I agree with both of these sentiments, and even on the latter don't see that he really has been in office long enough to actually change any culture.

I don't agree with him on many issues, but knew that would be true at this point even as I voted for him.

[DGuller]

There is quite a lot of economic activity in NY outside of Wall Street.  Media, advertising, fashion, design, technology, and food processing are all major sectors.  The garment industry is still alive and kicking and there are several major universites within the city limits.

That's true.  However, every time Wall Street hiccups, NYC winds up with an enormous budget deficit, since the financial industry is such a big determinant of the city's economy.  This is usually followed by a tax hike in a city that already taxes and charges its residents into poverty.

[CountDeMoney]

However it seems they are abandoning those principals in favor of raw populism combined with kissing up to the religious fundamentalists and their ideas. 

"Abandoning"?  They've been "abandoning" their principles for the last 29 years.

[Sheilbh]

Well stimulating the economy was what needed to be done.  He shall be judged by how it turns out, pretty simple.  Of course economics is so complex who is to know if the stimuli really did anything even if the economy does turn around or is to at fault if it does not?  That is why politics is unfair I suppose.

Not only that but this crisis seems to have knocked a few holes in the theories we have.  Lord Turner, who's recently published a paper on the reforms to the regulators in this country (and just been appointed to head them), said that it's easy to see in retrospect.  Two years ago Ben Bernanke was giving speeches saying that the reason we can have such light-touch regulations of banking is because risk management was being taken a lot more seriously and was far more almost scientific in it objectivity and accuracy.  The IMF and numerous other groups produced reports arguing that derivatives had made a systemic financial failure deeply implausible.

Now, we've realised that's not quite true.  So I don't like the blame game.  I can't think of anyone who, over and above anyone else, I think deserves any blame.  I think the culture we had based on this large economic growth and free credit really exacerbated things but, basically, almost everyone got a few things wrong that had massive effect.  People who were stood at the edge shouting about this were Cassandras, whether that means posters here like DGuller or MPs like Vince Cable.  Everyone said there's a housing bubble and people have too much debt, the number of peole who thought that would then lead to global banking collapse were very few indeed.

So I'm relatively sanguine about politicans trying to forge some way ahead (unless they're Tories).  I think they're in crisis mode and it's not clearly understood how to get out of it.  I think Paulson did as good a job as could be expected given the horrible choices that needed to be made and the difficult politics of it all.  I think Obama and Geithner are doing about as well as can be expected - I have some issues but, more importantly, their political opponents haven't proposed anything better.  I think Bernanke's done a pretty good job, as has Brown.  Sarko's been mercurial and a bit hyperactive but that's to be expected.

But overall I'm not terribly hopeful.  Martin Wolf asked who, in the late 70s, would have predicted that that economic crisis would unleash mass unemployment, the taming of inflation and, within a decade, the collapse of communism?  Who know's what we'll get out of those but my concern is that we're at the late 60s-early 70s point.

Cardinal Hume split people into alpha, beta and gamma.  The alphas are brilliant and rare, they see all the problems and all the solutions.  The betas are most of us, they see all the problems but none of the solutions.  The gammas are highly successful, they don't see the problems but forge on regardless, occassionally hitting on the solutions.  I think we're all betas at the minute.  We don't have elegant theories to try out (a la Keynes or Friedman) that seem to explain the problem.  We just see it and its enormity, which is why I think it may be that we're in for a decade or so of sputtering growth.

Could Obama have been elected if he honestly said prior to the election what he was going to do?

To answer with two political platitudes: 'a week's a long time in politics' and 'events, dear boy, events' got in the way.  I think in October the scale still wasn't known.  And the precedent, I suppose, is FDR who campaigned against government spending and Hoover's 'huge deficits'.

[Berkut]

It's good to know Berkut can fall back on a career as a comedian if his other job is ever trimmed.

I don't know.  Last time he just fell back on the Government.

How so?

[derspiess]

Republicans for Obama should be drowned.

Only if we drown the Log Cabin Republicans, too.

Figures you'd say that.  They are the best your kind has to offer.

[Razgovory]

I have a secret for everyone here.  Fiscal restraint isn't an issue, it's a political tactic.  You want the budget cut when you aren't in power because the money is going for things you don't support.  Both sides call for fiscal restraint and cutting budgets when they are in the minority.  It's simply a tactic like calling for political investigations.  You don't call for investigations when you are running stuff.  Just the other guy.  Political investigations aren't a political issue either.  It's an effective tactic but just don't confuse it with a principle.

[Razgovory]

It's good to know Berkut can fall back on a career as a comedian if his other job is ever trimmed.

I don't know.  Last time he just fell back on the Government.

How so?

Wait do you mean you lost your job again?  Jeez.

[DontSayBanana]

I have a secret for everyone here.  Fiscal restraint isn't an issue, it's a political tactic.  You want the budget cut when you aren't in power because the money is going for things you don't support.  Both sides call for fiscal restraint and cutting budgets when they are in the minority.  It's simply a tactic like calling for political investigations.  You don't call for investigations when you are running stuff.  Just the other guy.  Political investigations aren't a political issue either.  It's an effective tactic but just don't confuse it with a principle.

Yeah, but it's also not the same thing as fiscal conservatism. Any fiscal conservative can make up their own mind, grudgingly admitting when spending is actually needed. Once you cry "fiscal restraint," you more or less have to blackball.

[Admiral Yi]

I have a secret for everyone here.  Fiscal restraint isn't an issue, it's a political tactic.  You want the budget cut when you aren't in power because the money is going for things you don't support.  Both sides call for fiscal restraint and cutting budgets when they are in the minority.  It's simply a tactic like calling for political investigations.  You don't call for investigations when you are running stuff.  Just the other guy.  Political investigations aren't a political issue either.  It's an effective tactic but just don't confuse it with a principle.

Your theory doesn't account for Clinton's surplus, Republican criticism of Bush's deficits, and Blue Dog criticism of Obama's proposals.

[DontSayBanana]

Your theory doesn't account for Clinton's surplus, Republican criticism of Bush's deficits, and Blue Dog criticism of Obama's proposals.

See above. I think Raz is having difficulty differentiating between fiscal conservatism as an ideology and fiscal restraint as a political maneuver.

[Admiral Yi]

See above. I think Raz is having difficulty differentiating between fiscal conservatism as an ideology and fiscal restraint as a political maneuver.

I thought his whole point was that the ideology was a pose, that it's all opportunism.