And notice the audience reaction - laughter and clapping. Very, very unusual behavior for both Letterman and his audience.
The tide of popular opinion is turning against Obama, and frankly, I’m beginning to think Obama himself is growing tired of being president. His heart just doesn’t seem to be in it these days, and I’m beginning to get the feeling that he’s found the presidency to be a lot more of a hassle and a lot less rewarding than he thought it would be when he was running for office.
The economy is doing bad. You think the stimulus has done nothing. How does this equate to “constant-anti-business posturing”? Not that you’re obliged to defend Sam’s foolishness, but as he’s run off from his thread, perhaps you know what he’s talking about.
Cramer must have some sort of hypnotizing effect on people that they still look to him as an authority. This is a man who was shown to be a spineless poltroon on every channel on TV, whose authority - such as it ever should have existed - on matters financial was blown to smithereens and then each of the smithereens was blown to microsmithereens, and someone quotes him as an authority? Are you kidding me?
It’s like quoting Tiger Woods as an authority on remaining faithful in marriage.
If Jim Cramer told me to invest in silver I would not only not invest in silver, I would divest my portfolio of any fund or company that was in silver, I’d sell everything in my house that was made of silver, and I’d burn any books I owned that mentioned “silver” more than once or twice.
What really has surprised me is that there hasn’t been more about Obama’s broken promises regarding the patriot act and other civil liberties eroded by Bush.
For example, warrantless wiretaps:
Although Poltifact considers this “In progress”, they also note that “the Obama administration sent a letter to Congress in September 2009 urging renewal of the three expiring powers”.
I expected this thread to be about this stuff, not more ‘Obama hates business’ bullshit.
The day you start punishing posters for calling positions and statements foolish is the day I happily leave the forum, Tom. So I’ll assume you meant I’m on thin ice because my post could be interpreted to insult Sam rather than his foolish statement. If that’s not correct, please clarify.
[ul]
[li]A society can’t tax itself into prosperity?[/li]
[li]Social problems can’t be solved by throwing money at them?[/li]
[li]Pulling more and more (and still more) cash out of the private sector so Washington can redistribute it will hurt the economy and society as a whole?[/li]
[li]Being hostile to those who create create jobs and create wealth will harm the country?[/li][/ul]
Every junior high school kid paying attention to his or her social studies teacher learns these lessons.
But Barack Obama, 44th President of the United States and Harvard grad (class of '91), refuses to accept them.
I don’t think it matters to him what his former supporters say; he’s still going to refuse to accept them.
Dude, you should not have nodded off so much in class.
Obama cut taxes. Cut, cut, cut
Upgrading schools in bad areas can do that. We have a separate and inferior schools system in inner cities. The quality and opportunity are diminished partially due to that .
Bush did an extreme job of redistributing the wealth. The tax cuts for the wealthy have tipped the piggy bank in their direction on a level that has not been seen since the early 1900s. The concentration of wealth is obscene.
Job creation is a reflection of demand. If the wealthy are sitting on trillions of dollars of wealth, how does giving them more increase demand. The idea that they will build new industries and hire people in obviously wrong. Investment companies are screaming to get them to let go and invest. But, you think giving them more will do good? How?
On the one hand, what Otellini’s saying seems almost tautological: If the administration creates a beautiful and simple pro-business environment, then business will invest more than if the administration doesn’t create such an environment.
Well, duh.
OTOH, it seems, not just tremendously self-serving to offer that up as the wise analysis of a captain of industry, it seems thuggish. There’s an implied threat to with-hold investment if economic policy isn’t the way they want it to be–and damn the voters, damn the regulators, damn the economists warning that simply letting Galt be Galt isn’t the healthiest way to run the economy long-term. There’s quite a lot chutzpah in this, given how the Masters of the Universe on Wall St. nearly drove the world economy off a cliff when they got their way after the repeal of the regulatory apparatus in the 90s.
Yes. The government propping up Chrysler and General Motors, for example, is “anti-business posturing”? What the heck is “anti-business posturing” anyway? Is the OP’s position seriously that the current administration, or Congress, actually wants businesses to fail in the US? If so, that strikes me as pretty much a Rush Limbaugh level of factual distortion.
There certainly seems to be some posturing going on in this thread, but it appears to be more in the vein of right-wing political advertising.
Well, the latest charges against Intle are nothing new. They’ve had to answer to anti-competitive business practices several times in the last 2 decades.
Otellini is the first non-Engineer to be running the show at Intel (he’s a marketing guy), but Barrett and Grove before him didn’t run things much differently. If you’re talking about Moore and Noyce, maybe, but that was before Intel became a powerhouse in the microprocessor company. It was a different company and a different business environment.
You may have a point to make in your OP, but when you get some fundamental facts wrong, it has that smell of being sourced from a right-wing blog. And your argument is really nothing more than an appeal to authority. So-and-so used to support Obama, and now has some harsh words. Well, the first part is completely irrelevant, and just makes your argument look weak. If they’re points have merit, they can stand on their own. And considering the shakiness of these guys’ support of Obama in the first place, one questions why you felt the need to use them as “authorities” in the first place.
Rescuing GM and Chrysler has nothing to do with the business chaos created with the recent barrage of regulations. The government can’t begin to resuscitate each business that is wallowing right now. Beyond that, both GM and Chrysler have grossly underfunded pension funds which is going to blow up in our faces when the federal Pension Benefit Guarantee Corp. gets the bill. It’s already looking at billions in losses.
After a trillion dollars of additional debt the economy is still in serious trouble, banks are still failing and mortgage failures are rising. With all this going on the current administration is still talking about cap-and-trade which will add additional burden to the economy.
I don’t think there’s any serious doubt Obama looks and acts a lot wearier than he did two years ago. I doubt his heart isn’t in it, as SA would have us believe - Obama is a patriot and will serve out the next two to six years with dedication and duty - but it seems pretty clear the man isn’t attacking things with the alacrity he did starting with his campaign.
But who the hell could? The thing is, that happens to EVERY President. Reality is a slap in the face starting January 21. Suddenly you have to deal with Congressional jackasses, business interests, cabinet members who fuck up, and world events that don’t go your way. You can’t plan for terrorist attacks, oil wells burbling poison into the Gulf of Mexico, unexpected recessions, political crises, and Christ knows what else. All Presidents age at a rate of a month a week.
Sam Stone, who I actually like quite a lot, but who is prone to this sort of thing sometimes, comes up with three people, at least one of whom, Cramer, is both a liar and a clown (and who has been repeatedly attacking Obama almost since the day he was inaugurated) criticizing Obama. For God’s sake, he’s the President of the United States. If he doesn’t have three million people criticizing him by now, he’s doing something wrong.
The Onion’s headline said it all: “Black Man Given Nation’s Worst Job.”
