Cynical Nation

I think your personal loyalty is honorable Barry, even though I've never shared your affinity for either McCain or Lieberman.

I don't dislike McCain, I just don't particularly like his eagerness to compromise his principles away. Same for Lieberman. I've never felt the same way about him since 2000. He'd previously been a staunch opponent of race/gender-based preferences, but when tabbed for VP by Gore, one of the concessions he had to make was surrendering his opposition to those principles.

Like I've said since May, I've feared that a McCain win would only share the blame for further Pelosi-Reid damage.

I don't get the hysterics (Hannity and others) who think that an Obama win would be "the end of the world."

First, NOTHING that is done over the next couple years, can't be undone.

The last time we had the stars align this way (a Liberal triumverate in power) was 1976 - 1980 and those years ("the Carter years") constituted "the worst economy since the Great Depression." Those four years averaged a staggering 16.5 Misery Index, spiking at nearlt 21 in 1980.

While I'm certain my former instructor Gary Barandt hopes for something different this time around, I expect "SAME policies = SAME results."

Then again, maybe Barack Obama will look to lower America's Corporate Tax, as he's pledged.

That's not exactly something I want to see at this point. I'd prefer Keynesians to remain Keynesians and, like Carter, dutifully go down with the ship/economy, when those policies fail.

Supply side has failed. Conservatism has failed. JMK has failed.

On a more positive not, America isn't as racist as I thought.

Bush is a traitor, I doubt if his damage can be repaired.

>I think your personal loyalty is honorable Barry, even though I've never shared your affinity for either McCain or Lieberman.

I don't think I ever had any affinity for Lieberman, as far as I know. And you're totally right about Hannity et al. I won't be able to tolerate their apocalyptic nonsense.

I have thought for years that not only the nation but the man would be different if McCain had won in 2000.

It's frustrating to see peaks of the man I remember from then at the Al Smith dinner and last night in that very gracious concession speech and wonder where he hid himself during the last few months.

Hi Barry,
No need to send the case of Foster's. You will need them more than me now that the "socialist" candidate won and plans to redistribute your wealth :-)

But next time, lets bet something more substantial. Like our cars or something lol.

"I don't think I ever had any affinity for Lieberman, as far as I know. And you're totally right about Hannity et al. I won't be able to tolerate their apocalyptic nonsense." (Barry)


I thought you were hoping for Lieberman as McCain's VP?

On the WoT Lieberman's been fine...(he was once fine on race/gender-based preferences too) it's just on most other issues that I have a problem with him.

At any rate, my error.

Barry, I'll go one better than WF...I expect a tough 2009, very possibly a Misery Index of 11 or higher.

I personally won't judge an Obama administration's performance until the end of 2010.

If the Misery Index gets worse in 2010, then it's obvioulsy trending in the direction!

My own comparisons between the last Keynesian period (1970 thru 1981) had an average annual Misery Index (the unemployment and inflation rates combined) of 14.2, compared to a 7.6 for the most recent Supply Side period (1995 thru 2006).

http://www.miseryindex.us/indexbyyear.asp

At any rate, nothing done by the Keynesians can't be undone down the road.

The problem with Hannity is that he's as much a Republican shill as Olbermann is a shill for the Liberal wing of the Democratic Party.

Hannity is more of a Republican than he is a Conservative.

Since 2006, the BEST American political development, in my view, has been the rise of the Conservative Democrat. Today, a quarter of the Congressional Democrats are Blue Dogs...and they're not at all beholden to the Pelosi-Reid Liberal-wing of that Party.

Hannity, like a lot of Americans seems to view politics as a team sports red vs blue event, instead of an ideological battle.

After Gingrich, both DeLay and Hastert moved away from the Gingrich smaller government model that yielded some of the lowest Misery Indexes and some significant budget surpluses and became happy members of "the political class."

That move, in accordance with government's natural inertia (to grow and exapnd its scope), coupled with the Moderate-wing of that Party's adherence to Jack Kemp's "Ownership Society," predicated on the view that "Since homeowners tend to be more responsible, productive citizens, funding programs that would create more homeowners should create more productive, responsible people," were, in retrospect, major mistakes.

I KNOW Kemp and his minnions meant well, BUT the reality is that they took a sympton and saw it as the cause - "homeownership causing greater responsibility," rather than realizing that it's NOT homeownership that makes people better, but that better people naturally gravitate to the responsibilities of home and business ownership.

That mistake must be acknowledged in order for Conservatives to move forward.

As to the coming hihger tax rates and greater government intrusion, we'll have our referendum on those policies soon enough. We survived the 1970s and we have a baseline for how Keynesian policies work (or don't) compared to Supply Side policies.

While I'm not hoping for an Obama economic meltdown, I certainly EXPECT that Keynesian policies (and we've had the advent of Keynesianism since 1/2007) will deliver 1970s-era results. It has in this country, it has globally, comparing Hong Kong to Venezuela, and more Keynesian Europe to the U.S., so there's no reason to suspect that those same policies will yield different results going forward.

I'm not going to fully assess an Obama administration economy until 2010....if 2010 delivers two straight years of double digit and WORSENING Misery Indexes, than that will tell the story.

MISSING WORD: "If the Misery Index gets worse in 2010, then it's obvioulsy trending in the WRONG direction!"

>No need to send the case of Foster's...
But next time, lets bet something more substantial. Like our cars or something lol.

My car probably isn't worth more than a case of Foster's. Seriously though, I want to make good on my deal or this won't be fun anymore. Last time was a bit murky with Lieberman losing the primary but winning the Senate seat, but Obama's victory is clear cut.

That is so true, McCain time was 10 years ago. I wonder how much that played into his sweeping loss. If there was a democratic candidate who was younger and more... well like Obama do you think the same thing would have happened? The liberal illuminati should be proud of their win but we made it way easier on them by picking McCain.

My car probably isn't worth more than a case of Foster's. Seriously though, I want to make good on my deal or this won't be fun anymore. Last time was a bit murky with Lieberman losing the primary but winning the Senate seat, but Obama's victory is clear cut.

Ok, I am on my way to England now on a trip (I can be correspondent of CN if you like :-)), but when I come back I will email you. Is your email address listed somewhere in the blog?

God, you sure are European. Yes, my email is on the site (bnj at cynicalnation.com.) And by all means, feel free to file a report from the field.