I'm kind of starting to get this feeling. It's really starting to feel like this is happening. In his first two years as president, he really did get a lot of things done. However, a lot of them weren't particularly popular. Things like the stimulus bill, health care, gotten out of Iraq (kind of), turning the focus to Afghanistan, Wall Street Reform, tougher auto standards etc. The big three here are stimulus bill, health care and wall street reform and they required significant political capital to get done. They also would have been almost impossible to do without the significant Democratic majority he had in Congress. He basically blitzed the shit out of his agenda his first two years because any person with political knowledge could see that the Democrats were in for a walloping during these elections and it would be impossible to do anything extremely unpopular after 2010.

I'm not trying to take a good/bad position on any specific issues because I'm trying to discuss his overall political strategy for his first term as President. But at this point I feel like he's masterminding everything he's doing. We've already started to see him start to compromise and make deals with the Republicans pretty much the past 6 weeks and this has been the most productive (and I feel like pretty much everyone can agree with this) and mostly positive lame duck session in memory.

What are his next two years going to look like? I can already tell you 100% for sure that in September 2012 we're going to start hearing about a new tax plan because the one they just passed will be expiring. The Republicans will want to extend it and hold the entire thing hostage over getting more tax cuts for the super rich. But it will be political suicide for a lot of them to deny tax cuts to 98% of constituents. Obama wins by default. Until then, I feel like he's going to focus a lot on foreign policy, the environment and energy, and cutting spending in general domestically which are all issues with at least some bi-partisan support. All things he can get done. Basically, I think he just nicked a page from Clinton's playbook. This is all with extremely reasonable assumption that all GOP 2012 candidates are chumps and Obama basically cruises to a second term. I think that's what he's banking on right now.

12/22/2010 7:13:16 PM

If Obama can initiate a major overhaul of the tax system (not likely but i'd really love to see it), start pulling out of Afghanistan and make at least a couple majorly visible (and necessarily painful) spending cuts, I'll chalk up the second half of his first term a success. But 2012 campaigning starts in less than a year, so I don't know how much to expect will actually get done


[Edited on December 22, 2010 at 7:59 PM. Reason : .]

12/22/2010 7:58:38 PM

Nothing is more disheartening than all the effort, the commentary, and the emphasis...on the fucking political strategy. Holy fuck, just govern. Just make the god damned decisions you think are best for America...and just let the fucking chips fall. If you get voted out, just go back to your private industry job and try again the next round.

12/22/2010 9:37:12 PM

I agree with you in regards to senators and representatives, but the Presidency is a little bit different. There's definitely value in a good president playing politics to a certain extent for two terms than trying to go down in a blaze of fire after one term.

12/22/2010 9:55:45 PM

Fuck that. Seriously, fucking fuck that.

Give me a god damned leader with principles that sticks to them. It's not so much that I get pissed that politicians get all political, I'm sick of the fucking brain deadness of the main stream media and the populace that just exists in a fog like "how the President played his hand" really makes a fucking difference in my life. Whoop de do, the President got a treaty pushed through that lowers the nukes we and Russia have down from killing the planet 10 times to only killing it 7 times. Thats a real fucking win huh? Lets talk about that and either get our jollies if were Ds or talk about how it was rushed if were Rs, but lets not really talk about how it means not one fucking thing to the average American.

DADT, god bless the gays, Im glad they are finally getting more and more legitimacy, and I wish they had all the rights they deserve, but how about we deal with that shit when we stop the god damned corporate thugs from continuing to do the real damage to the nation and were back on some footing where we can deal with the lesser issues?

Hey gays, you can have the same tax breaks married couples have now, too bad you don't have a damn job.

Don't keep perpetuating this bullshit the main stream media is doing to us. Just stop. Ask yourself, how does this effect me? If you can say categorically, not much at all, then just stop buying into the damn hype.

12/22/2010 10:29:12 PM

no, hes not

12/22/2010 10:34:34 PM

Obama was smart to move to the center after the ass-kicking that the Dems took in November. Yes, it is triangulation, an old trick out of Clinton's playbook. If he continues to straddle the line between the crazies on the left and the right and manages to come up with workable compromises, like the tax break compromise, he will continue to have my support.

Successfully simplifying the tax code over the next few years would be a masterstroke, IMO. He could actually manage to reduce tax rates across the board and still balance the budget if he can just convince Congress to do away with the tax breaks that allow about half of all households and countless corporations to avoid paying any federal taxes. That would require sacrificing some sacred cows, however, such as the home mortgage interest deduction, charitable contribution deduction and the fuzzy corporate accounting laws that allow large companies to report zero profits year after year.

[Edited on December 23, 2010 at 12:11 AM. Reason : 2]

12/23/2010 12:10:34 AM

^^^ how can you recognize the enormous influence of corporations and the financial industry, but call for a president to just stick by an ideology? that's completely paradoxical.

You are ignoring the fact that we have 3 branches, and it doesn't matter how ideological the president is, if congress is still in the pocket of the 5th estates.

We don't yet have the right political/societal substrate to have presidents that can rule just by ideology.

Obama definitely though hasn't played his hand perfectly, but he hasn't played it badly either. He has achieved an enormous amount, but he's faced very organized opposition at the same time. Now that the opposition has some power, they can't quite attack as vigorously as they have been.

12/23/2010 1:31:42 AM

Quote :

"Now that the opposition has some power, they can't quite attack as vigorously as they have been he has to compromise and work with them if he wants to get anything done."

FTFY

The Republicans would be perfectly content to "stand their ground" and filibuster the govt to a complete halt if Obama had remained defiant and/or moved left in response to their midterm gains. They made that perfectly clear when they forced the issue of extending tax breaks for high-earners as virtually their first order of business, threatening to halt all other bills until the tax deal was forged. Obama showed that he had no interest in going to battle with the GOP at this time, and compromised on that and a few other issues. In response, the GOP has made some good faith moves to support Obama's agenda, such as the START treaty, DADT, etc.


[Edited on December 23, 2010 at 1:51 AM. Reason : 2]

12/23/2010 1:48:50 AM

If you want a highly principled but politically incompetent President, Chance, then you are encouraged to convince Jimmy Carter to run again. That worked out real well the first time.

In keeping with the OP's idea of not judging his goals as good or bad, I think Obama's done a remarkably good job of achieving them, especially in light of the opposition's strength and his own party's lack of unity. Like qntmfred said, 2012 campaigning starts soon and that's gonna be the usual wall-to-all fuck all. So ramming everything he could through the legislature in the first two years was a smart move, at least in terms of getting things done (less smart if his main goal was to get re-elected, though I think he'll do that as well).

Quote :

"Ask yourself, how does this effect me? If you can say categorically, not much at all, then just stop buying into the damn hype."

Brilliant. Civil rights legislation didn't affect white people much at all. What does it matter to me if black guys have to shit in a different public bathroom?

Likewise, gay rights really only matter to the 10% or so of the population that's gay. Even if everything else in the country were hunky-fucking-dory, it wouldn't affect me for shit. So fuck 'em, I guess.

12/23/2010 1:53:56 AM

Quote :

"You are ignoring the fact that we have 3 branches, and it doesn't matter how ideological the president is, if congress is still in the pocket of the 5th estates."

I'm not ignoring them at all, my rant applies to them in the same way. I guess I should have made that clearer.

Quote :

"Likewise, gay rights really only matter to the 10% or so of the population that's gay. Even if everything else in the country were hunky-fucking-dory, it wouldn't affect me for shit. So fuck 'em, I guess."

Not to derail the thread, but the blacks were being harmed in a far greater way than the gays are. Gays can vote, sit anywhere they want on the bus, and so on. It's really shitty that the fuckheads in Washington won't give them similiar standing as married couples regarding tax breaks and I hope that will change, but gays not having a state recognized marriage doesn't harm them other than perhaps mentally. My overriding point was, how about we work on fixing the crumbling foundation of the house rather than worry about what color we want to paint the bathroom. Ones we know the house isn't going to fall over, then we can pretty it up. It would be great if we could do them both at the same time, but the guys we hired to do the job haven't ever shown us they could do that.

12/23/2010 7:09:39 AM

Quote :

"any person with political knowledge could see that the Democrats were in for a walloping during these elections and it would be impossible to do anything extremely unpopular after 2010."

In 2008 this was not an inevitability. At all. Not remotely. To be fair though, it was Nancy Pelosi who cost the Democrats so dearly in 2010, not BHO. More on that later . . .

Quote :

"Nothing is more disheartening than all the effort, the commentary, and the emphasis...on the fucking political strategy. Holy fuck, just govern. Just make the god damned decisions you think are best for America"

That is governing. It is a dirty, messy business. Even in the early days of the Republic (the era of the Founding Fathers that some love to harken back to) politics was bitter. Truly good people have genuine and impassioned disagreements about what is right for the nation. Add to that fact that there are very few "truly good" people in the world, let alone congress, and what you see isn't that unexpected.

Quote :

"Give me a god damned leader with principles that sticks to them."

Then people will start crowing about obstructionism.

Quote :

"Obama was smart to move to the center after the ass-kicking that the Dems took in November."

Did he move to the center, or did Nancy Pelosi quit pulling him to the left? Recall, up until HCR passed, Pelosi was the center of attention for the Democratic Party. BHO was roundly criticized for being absent from politics. The Democrats truly thought that passing HCR would change their position in the polls. Fuck were they wrong. They took the worst pounding in the HoR since the 30s and I think they saw this in their internal polling after the bill passed, hence the dissappearance of the Speaker. They were politically exhausted until after the election when they just said, "fuck it".

Quote :

"I think Obama's done a remarkably good job of achieving them, especially in light of the opposition's strength and his own party's lack of unity."

I'm not sure Obama has achieved them . . . he will definitely get the credit.


I am not inclined to give credit to Obama for being a masterful politician. A sublime candidate? Yes. But he is uncomfortable with the actual work of governing. To me, the most damning metaphor for this is when President Obama left his own press conference in the hands of Bill Clinton and walked off. I'm not trying to make a mountain out of a molehill here and none of us sit in the Oval Office but the insider baseball of DC, the Woodward book, back room commentary and his own actions repeatedly show that Barack Obama simply isn't comfortable with the art of hard politicking. He may be an inspirational man, a powerful orator and a compelling icon, but he is not a brawler . . . and politics is a brawl.


Now, in fairness, I could be completely wrong. Part of the issue is that President Obama's base has been significantly more liberal than any Democratic President since Kennedy. People like Chance would have been calling for his head if he had tried to drag the Nancy Pelosi wing of the Democratic Party back to the center. He would have lost support from his base and he certainly wouldn't have picked up enough moderates or Republicans to make up for that absence. There is no politically graceful way for the President of one party to drag his House partisans to the center. The difficulty of this is reflected in President Obama's trouble in shifting from the language of "the era of Bush" for the first 12 - 18 months of his Presidency. He didn't have the language to shape the debate away from NP. On the other hand, with the GOP in the House . . . with a radicalized GOP in the house . . . he has back the foil every great protagonist needs.


So if we're talking about President Obama playing his hand perfectly? No, because frankly he has been played up till now, but we'll see how it goes in January. Only one President in the history of the US has been elected to two terms after his predicessor was elected to two terms, and that was GWB. A 2-2-2 term sequence would be unprecidented so Obama will have stiff political headwinds in his face come 2012, but he has faced down historical headwinds before. It will the political ones that make or break him.

[Edited on December 23, 2010 at 8:29 AM. Reason : /]

12/23/2010 8:28:04 AM

Obama does seem to be stockpiling a fair amount of political ammunition heading into 2012. Expect to hear a lot about the GOP holding middle class tax cuts hostage in order to secure tax breaks for a few thousand bazillionaires (I think Republicans really over-played their hand here).

The GOP also did themselves no favors by blocking a bill that would merely prevent some college students from being deported to countries they haven't visited since they were six months old, a move that is going to absolutely kill them with Hispanics, the fastest growing demographic in this country.

Any progressive who doesn't reward Obama for repealing DADT is a petulant little shit face.

Add to this the fact that Obama has practically none of the national security baggage that a lot of Dems have. Iraq is stabilizing; Afghanistan is still something of a quagmire, but significant gains have been made, and no one can seriously accuse Obama of being soft here.

Should he become desperate, he can always remind us of that time he ordered Navy Seals snipers to cap those Somali pirates.

And expect him to cordially replace Biden with Clinton, a move that would, in my opinion, all but seal the deal.

12/23/2010 8:47:39 AM

Quote :

"In response, the GOP has made some good faith moves to support Obama's agenda, such as the START treaty, DADT, etc."

I'd assume the GOP congressmen who supported those things did so because they wanted to. The party was not united against START and DADT.

[Edited on December 23, 2010 at 9:05 AM. Reason : .]

12/23/2010 9:04:27 AM

I don't think Republicans have made any political gains in the recent session, at least relative to the Dems. The picture that's being painted, which I agree with, is that the Dems basically just pulled a fast one on the GOP. Republicans thought they were taking advantage of a weakened party, using their recent victory to jam through tax cuts for the rich. But the perception, I think, is that the Dems just stacked up a bunch of really significant wins, and some beneficial losses, while the Republicans just folded their arms and bitched about tax cuts for billionaires.

12/23/2010 9:09:26 AM

Quote :

"I'd assume the GOP congressmen who supported those things did so because they wanted to. The party was not united against START and DADT."

Well, because they wanted to... and because McTurtle gave the go-ahead.

If you recall, START and DADT were delayed several times by the GOP leadership.

[Edited on December 23, 2010 at 9:12 AM. Reason : 2]

12/23/2010 9:11:34 AM

Quote :

"I don't think Republicans have made any political gains in the recent session"

That depends on how broad your perspective is. They won the house and could've won the Senate were it not for some seriously incompetent candidates.

More broadly, the electoral environment that the national Democratic party created was so caustic, that the GOP made significant gains in state houses and governors mansions across the US. Long term, this will be more significant than a HCR bill that is going to be slowly gutted by the courts (and it will) due to the power that the right will have in redrawing the congressional maps in the wake of the census.


Looking forward, the biggest dynamic to pay attention to is how seats are re-drawn in places like California (-1) and Texas (+4) where there are large Hispanic populations . . . but now I'm digressing from the main thread.

12/23/2010 9:19:35 AM

Key phrase being "recent session," meaning that of Congress.

12/23/2010 9:26:01 AM

Well if you're looking very specifically and narrowly at what actually happened in Congress . . . then no, they didn't, but I don't think you could expect them to given the numbers the Democratic Party had on their side. But politics doesn't occur in a vacuum.

12/23/2010 9:38:50 AM

It's impossible to say if he's playing his hand perfectly when you can't see all the past, present, and future cards in play. Truthfully, I don't know what Obama could have done in 2009-2010, or what he could do now, that would be both good for the country and popular.

Obama has said, and recently emphasized, that his administration will be focusing primarily on the economy. Some of you are bringing up the tax code, which is interesting, because I think that's the least likely thing to get touched, at least in any meaningful way. I'm not talking about lowering tax rates on certain groups and all that. I mean actually fixing the tax code where it needs it: the income tax (with all its loopholes designed by/for the power elite) and the way in which employer-provided health insurance is subsidized. Both of those things are absolutely crucial if we want to have a healthy, sustainable economy again.

Afghanistan is botched, there's no chance of winning there. I'm not sure how many years we'll keep sending troops to their deaths in that desert shithole, but if we do leave, it'll go right back to its previous state. I don't really care about that, because our problems here are massive.

I don't think Obama has the right philosophy to take us in the right direction. He's unwilling to address the core problems of this broken economy. We'll see what the new Congress does, and how the Obama administration reacts.

12/23/2010 12:30:14 PM

why would you assume that cleaning up the tax code is not on the agenda? It was one of the key components of the plan that Obama's deficit reduction committee created, and administration officials have indicated a willingness to tackle this issue down the line.

12/23/2010 1:04:52 PM

Because when you start taking on the tax code, you take on everyone who has an interest in a) keeping their tax breaks or b) maintaining the complexity of the code. The only group that falls out of those two categories is young, single, home renters with no student loans. Now how big is that demographic?

12/23/2010 1:54:15 PM

How long have politicians of various stripes talked about cleaning up or simplifying the tax code? It's an easy and popular thing to talk about, but in reality, it would be a monumental undertaking. The IRS would resist it. The ultra rich would resist it. The financial services industry would resist it. The fact is, our bloated tax code is keeping a lot of people in a job, and as I already hit on, the rich want something like the current tax code to continue, as they have a lot to lose from a fair, equitable, and properly implemented tax infrastructure. This is not an area where Congress can shit out a 2,000 page bill and solve the underlying problem. The tax code as it exists today would have to be scrapped.

12/23/2010 2:36:22 PM

You're not telling me anything I don't know. We had comprehensive tax reform 25 years ago, and that was with a Republican President and Democratic Congress. It can and will get done, the only question is when. With deficits becoming an increasingly alarming problem, tax reform will absolutely be debated in the coming months. Don't be shocked when Obama calls for reform in his State of the Union address.

I would expect to see a full tax code overhaul in late 2012 or early 2013. It'll be a deal worked out between Obama and the GOP, with the House Dems left to bitch and moan about the poor, poor middle class.

These things don't happen overnight, but they do happen eventually. With our unsustainable deficits and the difficulties in raising tax rates, it should occur right around the time that that the extension of the Bush tax cuts is set to expire. By eliminating the biggest tax breaks, they can reduce rates AND increase revenues. That is a political winner.

[Edited on December 23, 2010 at 3:58 PM. Reason : 2]

12/23/2010 3:54:14 PM

12/23/2010 5:33:25 PM

I'm close to forgiving Obama on the Gitmo thing. It's really hard to close it down when he can't get approval for funding to move the prisoners into our regular prison/court system.

12/23/2010 6:51:51 PM

No reason not to look like a jackass in downtown DC.

12/23/2010 7:59:58 PM

^^No funding required. Release them on the streets of Washington DC.

12/23/2010 8:08:18 PM

Do submit your proposal to your local congressman.

12/23/2010 8:15:08 PM

First person ever to get a Nobel Peace Prize for making promises of peace?

Where is the peace? Palestine/Israel, Iraq, Afghanistan?

12/23/2010 8:26:55 PM

http://articles.cnn.com/2010-12-22/opinion/gergen.obama.turnaround_1_democratic-caucus-lame-duck-president-obama?_s=PM:OPINION

This guy is on the sane wave length as the OP.

12/23/2010 10:02:52 PM

Yes, we're both extremely sane.

But one thing I can't understand why people aren't talking about it more is the fact that right around election time in 2 years this tax cut deal is going to come back around. I assume it will go in much the same fashion. Democrats want cuts for bottom 98%, Republicans want it for everyone and will be willing to hold it hostage. So the Democrats will either slaughter them on it politically or get an even bigger concession in return for giving cuts to the top 2%. I don't understand how the Republicans could let that happen to themselves.

[Edited on December 23, 2010 at 10:46 PM. Reason : grammar]

12/23/2010 10:45:48 PM

aha, right, because the Dems really slaughtered the GOP on taxes this time around

The Dems put the issue off completely before the midterms. What makes you think they would have the testicular fortitude to tackle the issue prior to the elections next time? Also, I'm on record saying that tax reform will come at the expiration of the tax cuts, making it a moot point. The current tax structure is unsustainable, and that will only come more apparent over the next 2 years. Don't expect the 'Pubs to beg to extend current rates; more likely they will propose their own new tax plan.

12/23/2010 11:52:52 PM

Didn't really have anything to add to this thread, but just came across this political cartoon which made me think of this thread's title.



[Edited on December 24, 2010 at 2:51 PM. Reason : .]

12/24/2010 2:50:47 PM

12.26.10

MAN HOW YOU GET THAT CARTOON FROM THE FUTURE?

12/24/2010 3:19:42 PM

Since when did Prawn Star get so reasonable?!???

12/24/2010 3:22:00 PM

None of these minor victories will amount to shit in 2012.

If unemployment gets down to less than 6%* or so, he will be reelected. Otherwise, he is fucked.



*6% in terms of the faked unemployment statistics or the same proportional decrease in real unemployment stats.

12/24/2010 3:32:53 PM

I'd just like to point out that, for the thread title to be true, President Obama's plan from the beginning would have had to have been to loose the most seats in Congress in 70 years, then cram a bunch of shit through in a lame duck session. Seems pretty implausible.


The word around the halls of congress during HCR was Liberal bitterness at the President's absence. The DP really thought that HCR was a winning issue and rammed it through based on that. I'm sorry, no politician is principled enough to through his seat away on a shittastic compromise like the bill that was finally passed.


So unless you're going to give him credit for laying back in the cut and letting congress take the fall while he took the credit 4 years later (which is an arguably brilliant - if risky - strategy) then blathering along about how well he played his hand is premature.

12/25/2010 1:43:40 AM

I think this thread is referring to post-Teabagger Revolution maneuverings.

12/25/2010 8:24:57 AM

Well, I mean not perfect. That's just a bit of hyperbole. But honestly, it would have been extremely easy to predict that the economy would not have recovered a great deal by this time and the ruling party would suffer heavy losses. So it's possible they all said, "Fuck it, let's get a ton of shit done and be damned with it because we will be anyway."

Honestly, I think it's good that the economy is back on somewhat solid ground and we're showing some growth. Seeing where we were two years ago and where we are now, whether it's politicians' fault or not is good enough for me. A lot of other people who don't understand how economics work, however, expect miracles that obviously are not going to happen.

12/25/2010 11:14:28 AM

Miracles can happen, it’s just that a few powerful groups don’t want them to.

12/25/2010 11:36:44 AM

Quote :

"Honestly, I think it's good that the economy is back on somewhat solid ground and we're showing some growth. Seeing where we were two years ago and where we are now, whether it's politicians' fault or not is good enough for me. A lot of other people who don't understand how economics work, however, expect miracles that obviously are not going to happen."

I literally laughed out loud at this. What's funny to me, if a little disturbing, is that you've accepted the exact opposite of truth as reality. The economy is in no way back on solid ground. In fact, I can't remember a time when the global economy as a whole was on shakier ground. Revised GDP numbers are at less than 3%, and we know for a fact that a lot of that is military spending and shuffling paper wealth around to set up the illusion of economic growth. We're still losing jobs, and we're certainly not seeing robust job growth that we need. We're much worse off than we were two years ago, and we will be much worse off two years from now. With all that said, you accuse others of not understanding economics, but you are absolutely expecting a miracle here. All of this debt floating around has to be liquidated. Expecting that it won't be, and that we can just go back to a healthy economy without addressing any of the underlying issues, is expecting a miracle.

Appropriately said on Christmas, of all days, there are no miracles. Human civilization has been down this road before, though never with this degree of global interconnectedness, and it's not pretty. You view public policy like a sports rivalry, cheering your side on, hoping that reality will unfold in a way that is good for your team. Here's the real scoop, though. The administration and Congress have a very limited ability to keep the current crisis from escalating. Republican, Democrat, it doesn't matter that much. True power lies with those who control the money and the flow of money. Monetary policy is not a concern to be kept on the periphery, decided by clandestine councils of bankers vested in the continuation of a corrupt system. The majority of politicians are not interested in touching the Federal Reserve, but the people are starting to learn how they are being fleeced by corporate interests.

12/25/2010 12:19:02 PM

Quote :

"So it's possible they all said, "Fuck it, let's get a ton of shit done and be damned with it because we will be anyway.""

Could've, but they didn't . . . until after they lost.

The Democratic Party seriously misjudged the US electorate. The election results in 2006 and 2008 were not any more an endorsement of the Pelosi wing of the party than this year is an endorsement of the DeMint wing of the GOP.

Again, I hate to beat up on HCR but they really believed it was a winning issue. The reason they had so much trouble shaping the debate is that they simply didn't understand how it could be opposed. They didn't have the language to counter criticism of the bill (remember Pelosi refusing to answer if the bill was even constitutional?) When it passed and their numbers got worse, they didn't really have a political answer, which is why congress largely went underground until after the election when, well yeah, they said, "Fuck it".

Quote :

"A lot of other people who I don't understand how economics work, however, expect miracles that obviously are not going to happen."

Fixed it for you.

12/25/2010 12:59:26 PM

What exactly would libertarians like to see in the economy? Personally, I think we need more regulation in the part of the economy where nothing is actually created and paper is moved around. Shit like derivatives trading shouldn't even exist. You guys seem to just think "the market," left unhindered, will work everything out. Well, I disagree with that. Vehemently. Left to its own devices, the people who control the market will extract as much wealth out of it as they possibly can to the detriment of many innocent people. The only entity possibly powerful enough to stop this from happening is the government but libertarians would have you believe that anything the government does is inherently bad. I don't believe that. I believe that the government, especially recently, has made lots of mistakes. But I still believe that it has an important role to play to protect certain aspects of society from being manipulated by a few powerful individuals.

And I never said the economy was doing impressive things. I simply said that based on historical measures, the economy is on better ground than we were two years ago... ya know, when the entire financial system was on the brink of collapse. I know you guys wanted those banks to fail, and at the time I did too. I watched the damn bailout bill live on C-Span the first time it got voted and turned down. But that's not how shit played out. That's not the world we're living in. If you look at some numbers objectively, housing prices are stagnant but not dropping. Same with jobs. Corporate profits are rising. GDP is rising. I know you guys think all government jobs are bad, but we have to show some growth before private companies start hiring, which they are starting to do. Considering we seem to have avoided another Great Depression, I'd say we're better off than we were two years ago. And if it's all an illusion then the government should get even more props because half of the economy is psychological anyway. The point is, we're doing better now than we were several years ago. I'm not crazy about how much the government is spending either but we need growth to come from somewhere right now.

And I'm not "rooting my team on" you smarmy asshole. I just realize that Obama might be doing a better job than everyone is giving him credit for. He inherited the worst Presidency since FDR and he's gotten a lot of things done. Some things that are controversial, but a lot of actually, hard to debate against, good things. There haven't been a whole lot of negative events that have happened on his watch as of yet and until there are, you need to reserve judgment.

12/25/2010 5:18:07 PM

gonna be harder to get all those votes back out again for re-election... i mean unless he radically does something (highly unlikely) I don't see him being able to rally the kind of support he did in '08, even more so with the economy the way it is right now.

12/26/2010 2:27:11 AM

Quote :

"The only entity possibly powerful enough to stop this from happening is the government but libertarians would have you believe that anything the government does is inherently bad."

Not at all. Libertarians just believe that anything the government does is being done to make Wallstreet rich. The people who control the market are the people that install the loopholes, exceptions, regulations, and bailouts. It is just not possible for Goldman Sachs to place bad bets and then profit a shit-ton of money without first having their former employees running the treasury department.

12/26/2010 3:48:05 AM

destroyer, I really hope you don't invest your own money on your continuing thesis that the world is going to end any minute now. The data simply doesn't support it. In a nutshell, the data as of now says we're going to see a continued sluggish but growing economy. But to address (likely again) a couple of your points:

Quote :

"Revised GDP numbers are at less than 3%"

Look at it going back to 1980, http://tinyurl.com/2v5qqys even in the bubble years of 04,05, and 06 it wasn't much above what we have now. No, the number isn't impressive and we aren't seeing the high prints like we normally would post recession, but it is growth.

Quote :

"and shuffling paper wealth around to set up the illusion of economic growth"

Eh?

Quote :

"We're still losing jobs, and we're certainly not seeing robust job growth that we need"

Amazing huh, despite the job loss the economy is still growing. Can you imagine what growth will be like when hiring really does pick back up?

Quote :

"All of this debt floating around has to be liquidated"

The private sector debt IS being liquidated. Its just that the elites are doing it in a way that the TBTFs don't have to liquidate themselves to do it. This is being done by the TALF, TARP, low interest rates, and time. The banks get the cheap money, gain returns in the stock market, then write down the debt, slowly. It sucks, I hate it, you hate it, but it's allowing them to repair their balance sheet.

12/26/2010 10:50:40 AM

Quote :

"destroyer, I really hope you don't invest your own money on your continuing thesis that the world is going to end any minute now. The data simply doesn't support it. In a nutshell, the data as of now says we're going to see a continued sluggish but growing economy. But to address (likely again) a couple of your points:"

I graduated in '09 with a B.A. in Political Science. The cash isn't exactly rolling in, I make enough to put away a little bit. I'm not sure what data you're referring to specifically, but if you aren't buying silver right now, even with intent of selling it a year or two down the line, I don't know what you're doing. We've been over this, and I'm not convinced that a crash is right around the corner. It could be, or it could be another 5 years, it could be another 10 years. It depends entirely on global actors, and neither you or I can claim to have perfect knowledge of upcoming events. We're not on solid ground, though, which is what I was disputing. There's too much up in the air.

Quote :

"Look at it going back to 1980, http://tinyurl.com/2v5qqys even in the bubble years of 04,05, and 06 it wasn't much above what we have now. No, the number isn't impressive and we aren't seeing the high prints like we normally would post recession, but it is growth."

It seems like you've bought into the myth that GDP = sustainable growth. Why don't we take some tips from China and start blowing up 5 year old buildings so we can build new ones? Should we ramp up our military spending? Maybe we need a few more trillion in stimulus. All of those things would result in higher GDP, but I don't think we could call it true economic growth.

Quote :

"Amazing huh, despite the job loss the economy is still growing. Can you imagine what growth will be like when hiring really does pick back up?"

This sounds like something right out of Kris's playbook, which makes me think you're trolling. I still haven't conceded that the economy is growing. When are you expecting hiring to pick back up?

Quote :

"The private sector debt IS being liquidated. Its just that the elites are doing it in a way that the TBTFs don't have to liquidate themselves to do it. This is being done by the TALF, TARP, low interest rates, and time. The banks get the cheap money, gain returns in the stock market, then write down the debt, slowly. It sucks, I hate it, you hate it, but it's allowing them to repair their balance sheet."

Some of it has been, but plenty still exists. The Fed has not purchased all the bad assets out there. There's still plenty of worthless mortgages about, with the banks doing anything they can to at least get some of their money back. I'm much more worried about the public sector debt.

12/26/2010 12:47:08 PM

people need to go ahead and start expecting a 2nd term, because he's going to win again

12/26/2010 1:17:50 PM

Quote :

"but if you aren't buying silver right now, even with intent of selling it a year or two down the line, I don't know what you're doing"

Yes, all the big economies are to an extent attempting to devalue their currencies, but the world isn't going to collectively shift to a commodity based reserve currency overnight even if it does. It's something that will take a generation to happen.

Quote :

"and I'm not convinced that a crash is right around the corner. It could be, or it could be another 5 years, it could be another 10 years."

So in other words, you believe we will suffer another black swan event, which by its very definition is unpredictable, and because of this fact, we have no good idea when it will happen? Great...which markets should I invest in in preparation of the unpredictable?

Quote :

"It depends entirely on global actors, and neither you or I can claim to have perfect knowledge of upcoming events. "

I'm talking about right now. The data right now points to a sluggish recovery. I'm asking you to tell me what could happen to abort that recovery?

Quote :

"We're not on solid ground, though, which is what I was disputing. "

When are we ever? It's called the business cycle.

Quote :

"It seems like you've bought into the myth that GDP = sustainable growth."

In that case, lets just not even use the number because it has no bearing with reality. Post early 80s high inflation it meant nothing, post early 90s recession it meant nothing, post dot com blow up it meant nothing, the GDP is clearly not at all connected with reality.

Quote :

"All of those things would result in higher GDP, but I don't think we could call it true economic growth"

Again, you simply aren't thinking about what I am saying. What specific components of the current GDP are so troubling? Sure, a bulk of it is transfer payments from the Fed via unemployment that ends up in the number. That is being borrowed from abroad and the Fed and isn't sustainable long term, but no one really expect it to be continued long term either. The military spending you're citing I'm not aware that the budget has been increased for that during the recession.

Quote :

"When are you expecting hiring to pick back up?"

We misallocated resources to housing for a half decade or more. It's going to take time for those skills to be reallocated to some other industry. In the bubble, companies were affording some slack/waste. Post recession they are now making due with less (which also helps them to rebuild their balance sheet). Lack of new jobs isn't sustainable long term either, but that isn't the only component to look at to determine "growth". I keep bringing up slow growth Japan, which btw had/has low unemployment, and all I get are a litany of "they are different from us and they forced their citizens to buy their debt"....and thats it. No real assessment on why we couldn't (note, I'm not saying we will) follow their path.

Quote :

"I'm much more worried about the public sector debt."

Why? Private companies can't run their own printing press as a last resort.

I held many of your same viewpoints for a long long time (thanks to reading too much zerohedge). It's when I stopped eating that crap up that I actually started making money in the market.

12/26/2010 3:32:36 PM