The irony is still appetising. He did appoint the guy, after all.
True, but Mankiw has consistently supported higher taxes on gasoline for, well, as long as I can remember. It is not as if he just changed his mind on this matter recently.
Just keep on pricking my bubble until it bursts, why don’t you?
The irony is still… edible.
I really liked Thomas Friedman’s opinion piece in the NYT, quite scathing and goes on to make some other telling points about this country’s energy policy–or more accurately, its complete lack thereof. Way to go!
5-4-Fighting, I can’t tell if you’re being sarcastic or deadpan. I apologize for not being able to pick up very well on your meaning. Might you clarify?
To be clear, I don’t know if she’s lying. I don’t know what her intent is (beyond getting nominated), although I think she’d actually like to make life better for Americans. While I think both her and McCain’s proposals are worse than useless (something along the lines of Friedman’s Op-Ed), this is a separate point from my issue, on which I may not have been clear.
My issue, as it was poorly worded in the last sentence of my post, is that ElvisL1ves – who has, in other threads: admittedly overstated his case, requested cites for obvious opinion, and even demanded cites for Hillary’s “intent” when they cast her in an unflattering light* – now admits that it doesn’t really matter what policies Clinton proposes…they’re easily waved away as a kind of politician’s Tourette’s syndrome. It doesn’t even rise to the level of “pay no attention to the man behind the curtain”, as he accepts (and expects) that she’ll lie openly for political gain; rather, it’s a case of “tell me what I want to hear, baby…and the reach-around is optional”.
As 9thFloor so eloquently put it:
Yes, indeed. It’s a race to the bottom by some ardent Hillary supporters. “Pander away, mon cherie”; just so long as we can view ourselves as “grown-ups”.
*I can dig up cites for each of these, if you really want. Without links: the first is from the “Does HRC want McCain Elected?” thread, the second is when he asked for a cite that SDMB posters were generally more knowledgable than the average voting public, the third refers to the Politico.com reportage that Hillary was attempting to “poach” Obama’s pledged delegates. Of course, that last has since been proven, by her own words, to be accurate.
They’re dumbasses who think we’re all dumbasses just like they are. Good thing not everyone’s as big a dumbass as they’d like to think. . .
P.S. Hi 5! 
All very true. He seems to be the only one with actual experience in this area. During the suspension of the tax, the NBER studied the effects and concluded that the lost of $175m of revenue to IL did not reduce the price at the pump. He was demonstrably wrong at the time for supporting it, so I am quite pleased that he seems to have learned from the experience.
Fortunately, I live in Queens and work in Manhattan (that’s NYC for the one person in the back afraid to ask what that means). I have reliable, frequent public transportation options.
This is good, because my work day may always start on or near the same time, but it ends either (a)whenever I finish immediate items for the day or (b)when I get so frustrated hitting a bar is better than hitting my monitor. I couldn’t use a carpool, because I can’t commit to leaving at 6:00pm every day, and what to do if I miss the carpool.
Carpooling can work if you can find people traveling the same route every day on a fixed schedule. There are quite a few of us without that luxury.
It’s okay if you didn’t get my meaning, given that a lot of my inside jokes end up being “inside” between me, myself and I.
I was simply piggybacking on your quite valid comment regarding the acknowledgment and acceptance of Hillary’s lying for political expediency and using that as a setup to obliquely take ElvisL1ves to task for implying elsewhere that Obama is the only candidate who has to always remain “above-it-all” and be disallowed, not only to lie (saints don’t lie), but even unable to do anything that’s remotely expedient or even strategic if it’s helpful to himself. or his campaign. Otherwise, he’s a fakir and the different way of doing things message is completely invalidated.
You, of course, take DART to work after biking to the station, right?
Public transport in the suburbs of Dallas is a joke.
Thanks, that’s the interpretation I would’ve made if I were forced to do so. And the one I was hoping for…but sometimes, I just can’t tell.
You might want to pay some attention to the title that Obama, McCain, and Hillary have in common.
That is, Senator, they are all in Congress, and will be in Congress for the duration of this summer. So they do actually have some influence on legislation.
Good point.
Not very much influence, unless you can cast a senatorial vote by mail.
Well, as far as I can tell, Obama and Clinton, at least, do come back for crucial votes. They both came back to vote on the torture ban (McCain ducked), and for the pay discrimination act aimed at overturning Ledbetter (McCan ducked again).
FWIW, on NPR the other day, there was this expert (can’t remember who he was exactly) who said that the current gas prices are not the result of low supply and/or high demand, but of speculators running up the price of oil.
He cited some evidence for this. Two of his points that I remember are:
- demand for gas in the US is going down for the first time in many years, due to increased prices, but that is not stopping gas prices from continuing to inch up
- oil refineries in the US are cutting down on production due to the lowered demand, so the issue is not shortage of supply.
Anyway, I’m not sure if what he is saying is correct (I don’t have time to research this), but I think the point is that we should not automatically think that prices always have to follow the ECON101 model of “supply and demand”, without taking into account the role of speculators on the oil markets.
Slightly off-topic, but how did McCain not get roasted for skipping the vote on the torture ban?
It is being talked about.
Last night on Countdown, Keith reported on it, naming McCain Worst Person in the World for blaming Sen. Jim Webb for holding up the bill that Webb is sponsoring, saying Webb has not been eager to negotiate. McCain is reported to be intending to introduce his on bill, says his staff has been trying to contact Webb to discuss the bill.
Webb’s reply was basically “He’s so full of it.”
That about says it all.
The McCain-Webb conflict is about the new GI Bill, not the torture ban.
You’re correct, my mistake. I went looking for information for the torture ban and got sidetracked.
Damn, I wish a mod could delete this type of post.