for a town hall type meeting on the economy. I say back because he's visited NC several times, and specifically started his economic tour in Raleigh.

What question would you ask about the economy if given a chance. My mother, a public school teacher for 30+ years, is going and may get a chance to ask a question as is my brother I believe. The best I could come up with is to suggest she ask something personal like a question on teacher pay for North Carolinians. But if anyone can come up with something better I'd be glad to pass the suggestion along.

8/19/2008 3:18:03 PM

i heard about this yesterday...where is it at and can ncsu students get in?

8/19/2008 3:23:01 PM

Ask him who he thinks is a better song writer: Peter Gabriel or Phil Collins.

It's an important question and a lot of people get it wrong.

8/19/2008 3:48:17 PM

http://my.barackobama.com/page/community/post/mericivinton/gG5YsH

Here is some info about it. You can watch it streaming there and leave comments on the obama website about it. I've heard news carolina 14 might be covering it too, I don't know who else. I'm not sure just yet where it is going to be located exactly, I'll post when I find out.

8/19/2008 3:55:18 PM

Ask him if he is going to push for the Colombia free trade agreement or if his goal as president will be to maintain the grinding poverty in South America which helps fuel both the illegal drug trade and the flow of illegal immigrants.

A second question would be if he is going to order the DEA to stop prosecuting medical marijuana patients in states that have legallized the practice.

[Edited on August 19, 2008 at 4:02 PM. Reason : .,.]

8/19/2008 4:00:38 PM

^ Has Obama ever seen a free-trade agreement that he liked? He'll just start talking that "fair-trade" shit, which is a bunch of normative nonsense.

And it strikes me as damned peculiar that Obama can come to a town-hall meeting attended by throngs of adoring fans, but he can't accept McCain's challenge of town-hall-style debates. The One doesn't do well when he's off prompter and not the rock star.

Obama: favored candidate of nonvoting European socialists.

8/19/2008 4:09:56 PM

someone ask him if he is pro-Jesus and pro-America? I'm not convinced he's either sadly..

8/19/2008 4:10:05 PM

i think it would be best for the country and everyone if he was not pro-jesus. of course, he would never get elected if he said that, but we can only hope.....

8/19/2008 4:12:32 PM

Quote :

"i think it would be best for the country and everyone if he was were not pro-jesus."

Fixed.

8/19/2008 4:13:42 PM

to the rescue!!!!

8/19/2008 4:15:40 PM

Quote :

"Ask him if he is going to push for the Colombia free trade agreement or if his goal as president will be to maintain the grinding poverty in South America which helps fuel both the illegal drug trade and the flow of illegal immigrants."

Actually, I would be curious as well, not just for the Columbia FTA but for the South Korean FTA as well. The former because Columbia has finally made a lot of progress in stabilizing their nation and need the formalization of current trade privileges to help grow their economy. The latter because despite the rhetoric out of Detroit, the Korea FTA opens up the Korean market to American automobile exports as well as service industries; it's probably one of the more equal FTA's in a long time with two economies that are more peers than anything.

8/19/2008 4:22:17 PM

My brothers girlfriend is going as well, so thats one more chance at a question. I think so far they are leaning towards questions of teachers pay and questions about national debt. In all likelihood none of them will be asked anyways. I'll still be tuning in either way though.

And to get back to the earlier question of location, they are at the fairgrounds.

8/19/2008 4:50:55 PM

Considering teacher's pay is more of a state's issue, that doesn't seem like a relevant question.

National debt is more relevant, but fairly uninteresting, considering even if Obama did want to eliminate the debt, it'd be well out of his presidency before it would actually happen.

A question related to trade in an increasingly globalized economy would be better, you would just have to phrase it properly to get a meaningful response.

8/19/2008 4:55:50 PM

Can anyone come?

And what does teacher pay have to do with a federal election?

If you want higher teacher pay then lobby to have all those administrators in the education department fired. You could double teacher pay were it not for the $100k a year salaries of the bureaucrats.

8/19/2008 4:58:16 PM

tickets were handed out yesterday

8/19/2008 5:10:55 PM

hide your wallets.

8/19/2008 5:11:55 PM

My mothers question will be the one on national debt if given a chance to ask, I think it was my bro or his gf (she's a teacher too) that was going to ask a teacher pay related question. (i think something along the lines of would you support a nationally mandated minimal pay rate for teachers)

I'm told News Carolina 14 will definitely be covering it.

I'll certainly suggest the free trade agreement question. What wording would be best for it? I don't think saying do you support maintaining grinding poverty in South America would work so well.

Quote :

" Obama to discuss economy in N.C. Updated 3:14 PM By: Deborah Tuff [Barack Obama] Barack Obama RALEIGH -- White House hopeful and presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama will hold a town hall meeting in Raleigh Tuesday at the North Carolina State Fairgrounds to discuss the state of the economy. About 2,000 free tickets were given out for the event, but Obama campaign officials said they were gone in less than two hours. This is the Illinois senator’s 10th visit to North Carolina. He last visited on June 9 when he spoke with working families in Charlotte. He also visited multiple times in route to winning the state’s May primary. The town hall meeting will take place at the Fairground’s exposition center at 6:30 p.m. Doors open at 4:30 p.m. Before heading to North Carolina, Obama will be speaking to the convention of the Veterans of Foreign Wars in Florida. "

-news carolina 14

It looks like the tickets are gone, I wonder if its outdoors though, you still might be able to be in hearing/sight distance it is anything like the fireworks/bleachers thing they do.

Quote :

"Obama has made nine previous campaign visits to North Carolina, his most recent on June 9. The latest visit comes in the week before the Democratic National Convention in Denver, where he will accept his party's nomination for president. The Obama campaign has targeted North Carolina as one of seven Republican-leaning states that it believes it can pull into the Democratic column in November."

Just saw this one wral saying you can watch it live on wral.com too.

[Edited on August 19, 2008 at 5:22 PM. Reason : .]

8/19/2008 5:15:17 PM

Quote :

"Ask him if he is going to push for the Colombia free trade agreement or if his goal as president will be to maintain the grinding poverty in South America which helps fuel both the illegal drug trade and the flow of illegal immigrants."

I would lol if someone asked him that.

Quote :

"Actually, I would be curious as well, not just for the Columbia FTA but for the South Korean FTA as well. The former because Columbia has finally made a lot of progress in stabilizing their nation and need the formalization of current trade privileges to help grow their economy. The latter because despite the rhetoric out of Detroit, the Korea FTA opens up the Korean market to American automobile exports as well as service industries; it's probably one of the more equal FTA's in a long time with two economies that are more peers than anything."

I think he wasn't being serious since Obama has come out pretty strongly against both the S Korean and Columbian FTA's.

http://money.cnn.com/galleries/2008/news/0806/gallery.election_issues/15.html

8/19/2008 5:30:19 PM

Nothing too fancy:
"Senator Obama, you have said that as President you would seek to renegotiate the proposed free trade agreements with Columbia and South Korea. But if you find that renegotiation is not feasible, would you support the current agreements as preferrable to no agreement at all?

8/19/2008 5:41:16 PM

The Obama website camera seems to have a better view right now. Over 400 people are watching through the Obama website and climbing.

http://my.barackobama.com/page/community/post/mericivinton/gG5YsH

8/19/2008 6:31:25 PM

Quote :

"I've heard news carolina 14 might be covering it "

Oh shit.

Obama PWNT. Raleigh stay home.

8/19/2008 6:33:14 PM

Quote :

"someone ask him if he is pro-Jesus and pro-America? I'm not convinced he's either sadly.."

so are you saying you have to be pro-Jesus to be pro-American?

8/19/2008 6:38:46 PM

about 700 viewers, i think he's going on now

8/19/2008 6:46:47 PM

Quote :

"Ask him if he is going to push for the Colombia free trade agreement or if his goal as president will be to maintain the grinding poverty in South America which helps fuel both the illegal drug trade and the flow of illegal immigrants."

Ha. Our supposed free trade agreements don't help reduce povery in developing countries. They aren't even really free trade agreements. They reduce some restrictions while increasing others.

http://www.cepr.net/index.php/op-eds-&-columns/op-eds-&-columns/free-trade,-why-free-matters/

8/19/2008 6:50:38 PM

They do increase some restrictions, but they reduce far more than they increase.

I've always wondered why factory workers didn't offer to take pay cuts if they really had no other options in the event of a closure.

I suspect the factory owners tried all that before hand, but too many workers did or would quit to keep the factories operating, because some of the workers do have better jobs available to them.

As such, it seems she is not upset at the government or the factory owners, but at her fellow workers which refused to keep her job competitive.

8/19/2008 6:55:27 PM

aha someone in the audience is wearing a dunder mifflin (sp) shirt from the office

[Edited on August 19, 2008 at 7:11 PM. Reason : over a thousand online viewers now]

8/19/2008 6:58:03 PM

Quote :

"They do increase some restrictions, but they reduce far more than they increase."

Because of intellectual property rights, I strongly doubt this. That part of the agreement alone would cost Colombians millions and millions. There's no reason to believe such a one-sided treaty will help Colombia's economy. NAFTA's hardly been a glowing success for Mexico.

Considering Colombia's human rights record, you can be sure the agreement would harm workers. They kill union members down there. Our companies most likely use paramilitaries to bully and oppress. This change would only make the exploitation easier.

To continue a fine Latin American tradition, the agreement would threaten Amerindian groups, possibly forcing them privatize communal land.

I think I've heard this song before. Why should I expect it to end better than the last time?

8/19/2008 7:19:05 PM

It is still unclear to me whether intellectual property rights are a net loss for a society. I seriously doubt they are, although it is clear that they are overly enforced. But, if you are right and they are a net loss then the solution is not to exclude Columbia, but to eliminate them from everywhere.

As for the rest of it, I don't see how having tarriffs on U.S. exports and Columbian exports would suppress the paramilitaries or help the indians. Afterall, you point out that they already kill union members down there, how can things possibly get any worse than they already are?

It would strike me that having access to a wider product market would be beneficial by itself to the average columbian, indian or otherwise.

And how has NAFTA not been a glowing success? Mexico as a state has never been more stable, never been more prosperous, and never been wealthier. Mexico has achieved a per-capita income about 1/4th that of the U.S., which makes it a middle income country, an unheard of achievement just a little while ago.

8/19/2008 7:30:22 PM

Is the thing he just said about McCain being against drilling until he met with oil execs in Houston and they gave him money correct?

8/19/2008 7:37:32 PM

Quote :

"But, if you are right and they are a net loss then the solution is not to exclude Columbia, but to eliminate them from everywhere."

I'm down with that. Until it happens, Colombians should protect themselves and reject our intellectual property laws. Capital should flow into developing countries, not out of them. The agreement would make Colombians pay millions and millions to American companies.

Quote :

"As for the rest of it, I don't see how having tarriffs on U.S. exports and Columbian exports would suppress the paramilitaries or help the indians."

The agreement involves more than lowering tariffs and you know it. It would mandate changes to Colombian Constitution that would hurt Amerindian and Afro-Colombian communities.

http://blog.thehill.com/2008/02/07/why-afro-colombians-oppose-the-colombia-fta/

Quote :

"Afterall, you point out that they already kill union members down there, how can things possibly get any worse than they already are?"

Mexican unionists say NAFTA made their life more difficult. Things can always get worse.

Quote :

"Mexico as a state has never been more stable, never been more prosperous, and never been wealthier."

That's how economic growth typically works. If you've become poorer over the years, you're in serious trouble. (Yes, this has happened in some countries.) Positive economic growth isn't an amazing victory. The growth rate since NAFTA has been mediocre at best. It was higher in the past.

8/19/2008 7:49:12 PM

I'm not going to get into a more specific argument (b/c that's what it will end up being) but I can't see how signing an FTA with a country whose exports are mostly agricultural products are going to help the country out of poverty when we subsidize those same product's domestic production so heavily.

If you want to know who many of the undocumented immigrants are coming into this country in the past couple decades, just look for the abandoned farms in Mexico that couldn't compete with the sweet deal we've given Archer-Midland, Cargil, etc.

I remember when I used to be intimidated by some of the economic arguments put forth by libertarians on here. Then I started studying econ. and woke the fuck up.

[Edited on August 19, 2008 at 8:00 PM. Reason : .]

8/19/2008 7:59:30 PM

That military guy did not look disabled. No wonder he was having trouble getting his disability. I wonder if the other 200 guys at the homeless shelter would have no trouble bounding down to the podium to ask for money.

8/19/2008 7:59:58 PM

top banner on cnn right now

Quote :

"Sen. Barack Obama holds town hall meeting in North Carolina Watch Now: Live on CNN.com »"

Bet a lot of people watched it there in addition to the 2 k people at that event, 1.5k + people watching online through Obama's site, and all those others watching elsewhere online and on tv.


My family never got a chance to ask questions, but Obama did a good job responding to every question across the board with the economic ramifications of how to address said problems.

8/19/2008 8:03:10 PM

PinkandBlack, a high proportion of a nations population being engaged in farming is a product of extreme poverty. To be blunt, if tomorrow Columbia enjoyed a per capita income equivalent to Spain then it would no longer be a primarily agricultural economy, as 90+% of its economy would be industrial goods, finance, consumer services, and all the other activities which make a country rich.

8/19/2008 8:03:22 PM

he was also working out at PEAK fitness in downtown raleigh today. around 4pm

8/19/2008 8:08:56 PM

Quote :

"Mexican unionists say NAFTA made their life more difficult."

And American unionists say it make their life more difficult; nevermind that Americans have enjoyed substantial prosperity since NAFTA's enactment. Unions do not care about the people, they only care about their bottom line.

Quote :

"The agreement would make Colombians pay millions and millions to American companies."

In exchange for using their technology. Better to pay for technology than go without. Paying for it hasn't hurt the Chinese much, after-all. Of course, it is much better for technology to be introduced through foreign ownership of the means of production, which is difficult without some form of protection, even if it is just trade secrecy laws.

8/19/2008 8:09:05 PM

i hate obama sooo much

8/19/2008 8:09:26 PM

All 3 of my family members there got to shake his hand and were pretty excited about that. I had asked them to listen for any clues about VP choice since Obama is likely to announce that this week. The only thing they pointed out was he used masculine pronouns whenever referring to what he would want in a VP.

8/19/2008 8:31:25 PM

Quote :

"And American unionists say it make their life more difficult; nevermind that Americans have enjoyed substantial prosperity since NAFTA's enactment."

It probably has. Your pronouncement after the semicolon hardly contradicts the unionists' assertions. Americans enjoyed substantial prosperity before NAFTA as well. We've been enjoying substantial prosperity for a while.

Quote :

"In exchange for using their technology."

What do you think they're using now? Intellectual property rights laws restrict access to technology. (That's the explicit purpose.) They don't increase it. If the FTA goes through, Colombians would have to pay more for the same products. That's rarely a good deal.

8/19/2008 8:39:33 PM

As anyone that has read the history knows, most forms of technology cannot be replicated without the express assistance of those currently using it. While it is true that Columbians have access to written U.S. patent documents, that is usually insufficient, especially for modern technology. This is because there are lots of small pieces of information that those filling out the patent application fail to include, either because they didn't realize it was important or because they are protecting trade secrets.

Either way, in the current environment if U.S. companies are awash with technology but cannot be sure in their ability to make Columbians pay for its use, or to prevent Columbians from flooding the world with it once they have it, then U.S. companies will not put technology up for sale in Columbia, and thus Columbia is deprived of technology which the Columbian people would happily pay for but are prevented from doing so due to their governments unwillingness to enforce the relevant agreements.

The trade-off is that while such laws make it possible for Columbians to buy technology, it makes it difficult for Columbians to steal the technology that can be replicated without the assistance of its owners.

[Edited on August 19, 2008 at 11:25 PM. Reason : .,.]

8/19/2008 11:22:48 PM

just got back from Cartagena - had a joly good time!

you spelled it right the first time *Colombia*

8/20/2008 1:38:46 AM

Quote :

"Republican18 : i hate obama sooo much"

o really? why so serious?

i mean, as an obama supporter since i heard him in '04, i don't hate McCain ... hell, I don't even hate Bush.

you really do hate him though? I mean like a burning coal of hate filled rage that just seethes inside you, waiting to burst out? so much embedded pain and fury that you grind your teeth and clench your fists -- even in your sleep?

why, i wonder, is it like that for you?

8/20/2008 1:47:14 AM

republican18 is one of those "OH NOES, SOCIALISM!!!1" type losers, in my opinion

8/20/2008 2:15:37 AM

one too many Ayn Rand books, apparently?

8/20/2008 2:18:30 AM

^^^ my in-laws hate him too - think he's "evil", probably because they get too many email forwards about him and they actually believe them. If you've seen, and believe, all the shit that is written about Obama in email forwards, you'd hate him too

8/20/2008 8:09:02 AM

^^ If that was the case then he would similarly hate Bush, Reagan, Teddy Roosevelt, etc. etc.

8/20/2008 9:31:30 AM

yeah, because Bush's policies have been completely in line with Ayn Rand's philosophy, you beret-wearing dunce.

8/20/2008 9:50:29 AM

Quote :

"While it is true that Columbians have access to written U.S. patent documents, that is usually insufficient, especially for modern technology."

Currently, Colombians have access to generic drugs. The agreement would hinder that, costing the people millions in increase medical costs and preventing others from getting treatment altogether. The TRIPS garbage could even prevent Amerindians from using traditional medicinal plants unless they pay royalties to the patent holders. That's the type of thing I'm talking about.

8/20/2008 10:25:48 AM

hooksaw

Quote :

"Has Obama ever seen a free-trade agreement that he liked? He'll just start talking that "fair-trade" shit, which is a bunch of normative nonsense. "

All this proves is that you no idea what "fair trade" means. I'm all for free trade, but I'm not in favor of allowing free access to US markets for countries that make their products with:

1) sweatshop labor (long hours, poor working conditions)
2) poor quality control standards (see China's lead poisoning scandals)

Free trade is great up until you realize that it allows some businesses in 3rd world countries to exploit poorly enforced or non-existent labor laws to cut costs. That puts US businesses at a severe disadvantage simply by "following the rules." Try to remember that the next time you echo conservative hacks whining about all the "silly regulations" this country has that hurts our economy.

8/20/2008 1:23:08 PM

Quote :

"All this proves is that you no idea what "fair trade" means. I'm all for free trade, but I'm not in favor of allowing free access to US markets for countries that make their products with: 1) sweatshop labor (long hours, poor working conditions) 2) poor quality control standards (see China's lead poisoning scandals)"

I don't think this applies to the two specific cases of Columbia and definitely South Korea. Unless you fear that your Samsung television is going to spontaneously combust tomorrow.

Quote :

"Considering Colombia's human rights record, you can be sure the agreement would harm workers. They kill union members down there. Our companies most likely use paramilitaries to bully and oppress. This change would only make the exploitation easier."

I won't deny that Colombia has some shady issues with violence several years ago that should be addressed, but to completely kill the FTA over the issue is too much. Colombia is a nation emerging from a civil war, who may finally have brought some semblance of stability to their territory. They've benefited a lot from some temporary American trade considerations granted to them, allowing their fragile economy to start growing again. The FTA was in large part supposed to make these permanent. Killing this FTA is going to risk the progress that Colombia has made: without jobs and growth, unemployed fighters that have laid down their arms may easily take them back up.

As for the South Korean FTA, these aren't even issues to hold them up. I'm guessing that Obama's stance against the Korean FTA is simply to pacify the UAW who are trying to defend a weak American auto industry that suffers a lot from self-inflicted wounds. Of course, rejecting the Korean FTA isn't going to practically change the American auto market any, but accepting it would drastically reduce tariffs on American automobile exports to Korea.

8/20/2008 2:13:48 PM