Cynical Nation

Ok Barry,
I have a proposition. Wanna bet a case of beers that Obama will win in November? If you agree, I will even let you pick the kind of beer :-) Wanna go for it if you feel so confident? Case of beers? Let me know.

I wouldn't bet the farm, but I guess I'm in for a case of beer. BO can win, of course, but he has a lot of work to do over the following months to sell himself to middle America. Is that possible? Yes. Likely? No, I don't think so. We'll see, I guess.

Problem is that if Obama wins, not only will I be bummed out about that, but I'll also be down a case of beer.

This has become a fairly common argument -- Obama loses to Clinton in must-win areas in the general election, therefore he will lose those same areas to McCain in the general election. On the surface it kind of makes sense, and Clinton has encouraged this line of thought (and so have Republicans in an early attempt to label him as a loser, but that's to be expected). But it strikes me as a non sequitur: Obama loses to Clinton among certain voters, therefore he will also lose to McCain. Really? Maybe, but I don't think it's necessarily reliable to extrapolate the general election outcome from primaries.

So .. Barry.. if McCain loses in 2008, will you be supporting Jeb Bush in 2012?

I wouldn't bet the farm, but I guess I'm in for a case of beer.

Ok, deal. Get ready :-)

>So .. Barry.. if McCain loses in 2008, will you be supporting Jeb Bush in 2012?

Lol. Not bloody likely. Although I do remember back in 2000 saying something like, "For Christ's sake, if we have to nominate another Bush, can't it at least be his brother?"

Obama has a comfortable lead and electoral victory against McCain if the election were held today.

Of course, that means nothing. Americans are stupid. The Rove Smear Machine has yet to go into coordinated action with Fox, and the radio propogandists (Limbaugh, Hannity, etc...).

In the end, McCain will win.

As JMK correctly states, Americans think they are conservative. Actually, they are just stupid, but they identify with phonies like Bush and any other rich guy with a decent good ol' boy schtick.

More importantly, America is racist. Blacks are the most racist, but they don't have the numbers. Mexicans are racist, but they don't have a candidate. Whites are the least racist, but Reverend Wright poked his finger beneath the thin veneer of political correctness and awoke the natural and correct racism of Whites.

When it comes time to choose, white people will be almost as racist as black people. McCain wins.

Is that Barely Hanging or Tom Metzger?

Kind of hard to tell.

Most Americans are pretty intelligent. It's just that truly dumb people tend to underestimate them.

And it's not that most Americans "think" they're Conservative, it's that "the facts of life," as Maggie Thatcher so eloquently put it, "are Conservative."

Too much will happen between now and November (I expect at least six to possibly eight major events) that will help shape the coming election. Which way they'll break is impossible to tell right now.

There are two relatively grim possibilities as I see it, the first is a McCain win and with a Dem Congress expiring the tax cuts (the resulting LOWER revenues and higher government expenditures = economic havoc). While McCain uses Blue Dog Dems to push through a SC nomination or two, and to keep Congress from overriding a few of his vetoes, while he cooperates with Libs on another "Shamnesty" Bill and watches a Carter-like economic implosion, which incredibly enough SOME in the MSM will call "the McCain economy" - thereby sharing some of the blame for the economic disaster with the Congressional Liberals!

That, on the whole, is a horrific scenario from my perspective!

The other scenario is an Obama win, the tax cuts sunset, resulting in LOWER revenues, which coupled with increased Democratic spending = an "economic tsunami" (my cousin and my NYMEX pals will be very happy shorting the American economy) and Obama starts making enemies among those Blue Dog (Conservative) Dems very early, stymieing much of his agenda and setting the table for a Conservative re-conquest of Congress in 2010.

To me, it's a virtual "pick your poison," and aside from the very real possibility that a naive "negotiated settlement" on the WoT may bring about a second, perhaps even more devastating attack on U.S. soil, I'd think the latter scenario might be the bitter tonic that a spoiled America needs.

A scenario with a McCain allowing the GOP to share the blame for an imploding economy is, to me, probably the most frightening, given how little most people seem to understand economics.

Oh Geez! Those tax cuts have been working out so well! Thank GOD for those tax cuts!

JMK, do you have any idea how stupid you sound? This country has gone to shit under Bush, ESPECIALLY the economy.

The economy went to hell under FULL REPUG CONTROL.

The econony crashed with HUGE TAX CUTS FOR THE RICH in place.

If you were even awake in the last decade, with a single neuron firing, you could say one thing for certain: CUTTING TAXES FOR THE RICH DOESN'T HELP THE ECONOMY.

McCain will win. The Rove Repug machine will make the Willie Horton ad look like a Hallmark Card. It will be an ugly, racist victory for the Repugs, and probably the last for a long time. McCain will continue the failed policies of Bush, vetoing everything from congress, and then the congress will become even more Democratic mid-term.

The gridlock will be good for the country, our economy will recover somewhat, and you will be squawking that it was all due to McCain's great "conservative" policies. Anything that doesn't go well will be because the president is a limp noodle and the congress runs everything.

You're such a tard.

I guess this is as good a time as any to repeat an economic lesson:

The current economy's bad???

What's the current inflation rate?

Under 3%?

What's the current unemployment rate?

Just under 5%?

What about economic growth?

Yikes! That's not very good (0.6% last quarter...they say could be revised "all the way up" to 0.9%)....STILL, despite the current slugggish growth, where are the 2 consecutive quarters of NEGATIVE economic growth (the accepted definition of a recession)???

Hmmmm, we haven't had even one, since those Bush ACROSS-the-BOARD tax cuts halved dug us out of an inherited "Tech Bubble Bust) recession and halved the deficit in less than three years!

What was the inflation rate under Carter again?

YIKES!!! A whopping 11.22% in 1979 and 13.58 in 1980!

http://www.miseryindex.us/iRbyyear.asp?StartYear=1976&EndYear=2006

Uhhhh, even the CURRENT, according to you "bad economy's" inflation rate (of near 3%) is far LESS and thus far BETTER than the Carter years.

What was the unemployment rate under Carter?

Oh yeah, it hovered around 6% until it went over 7.5% in 1980.

Again under 5% is LOWER and thus BETTER than 7.5% Barely.

How about interest rate?

Still very low (the federal rate is around 2%) and mortgages can be had for under 6%.

Under Carter?

Double digit interest rates!

Double digit interest rates are BAD Barely.

With about 85% of the jobs being private sector jobs, we NEED a government that caters to "the founder of the feast" - business and industry.

The reason why across the board income taxes and Cap Gains tax increases DECREASE tax revenues is very simple - people RESPOND TO INCETIVES.

Since the top 10% iof income earners pay about 80% of the income taxes.

When tax rates go down, those people defer LESS of their income and take more of it upfront...and tax revenues actually INCREASE (with tax rates down to about the 20% level, according to Arthur Laffer), likewise, when tax rates go up, those people tend to defer more of their income/compensation in tax deferred vehicles...and THAT is both patriotic and self-preserving.

But when those folks defer more of that income, the income that provides 80% of the income taxes paid, tax revenues go down.

The only suckers who can't do that are those who earn below $100,000/year and have a lot less disposable income - thus those tax hikes can't be avoided by those lower income earners.

One small positive is that higher income tax rates result in lower income earners paying a slightly higher percentage of the income taxes.

Keynesian (big government Liberalism) policies led us to an economic meltdown (Carter's stagflation).

Supply Side policies that took hold in the wake of that "worst economy since the Great Depression" have delivered over a quarter century of unprecedented prosperity.

The evidence is irrefutable on that.

JMK, you are beyond ridiculous. Let's ask Ronald Reagan's famous question. Are you better off than you were 7.5 years ago?

The overwhelming majority of Americans are shouting NO NO NO!

You apparently think they just need to be educated. If only they would stop and think about it, they would realize that they really are better off! Yeah, stop whining!

Like all true liberals, you think that people are just too stupid to understand whether or not they are better off than they were 7.5 years ago, back when they made more money, had more purchasing power, had a house worth more than what they paid for it, had 75% lower health care, had some civil rights left ... yeah, you go Liberal JMK!

Explain to America how they are all just plain wrong!

Oh, before you squawk yourself to death, that should have been 25% lower health care costs. That's only an estimation, it is probably closer to 50% -- but 75% would be an exaggeration.

7.5 years ago?!

We were in the midst of a dismal recession brought on by the Tech Bubble BUST in the Spring of 2000.

That Tech Bubble (that NEVER should've existed) wiped out thousands of small internet start-ups and tens of thousands of jobs!

Individual (that's personal) INCOME has risen every year since Bush's tax cuts dug us out of that recession. Individual or personal income/earnings has risen 12.4% since 2000 or about 1.6% per year, on average.

My house, like most homes is worth more than the owner (I) paid for it. The ONLY exception to that is for those poor devils who bought homes between 2003 and 2005 (less than 2% of our housing stock) is worth less today than what most owner's paid.

Ironically enough, you named every number BUT the actual one for the rise in healthcare costs. In fact, it's actually insurance costs that have risen most dramatically - nationwide, workers' costs for health insurance have risen by 36 percent since 2000.

Again, in a market-based economy the government cannot unilaterally freeze or control prices (Wage & Price Controls...see what they've done to Zimbabwe's economy under Mugabe) and no sane person would advocate that.

For one thing, it would make healthcare workers "slaves to the state," as ONLY an "owner" can control another's compensation and that would seem to violate the 13th Amendment's stricture against "involuntary servitude."

Healthcare costs have risen as new and more expensive procedures have become more routinely used and more healthcare professionals have seen their compensation/incomes rise.