WorldTraveller

Jonathan Chait says the president’s "you didn't build that" speech revived racial resentments about redistributive fiscal policy, partly because the president was speaking in a “black dialect.” Maybe this was a problem with the speech, but the key problem was much simpler: The president was needlessly insulting. He wasn’t just calling on successful people to pay more in tax but was being dismissive of their accomplishments. The point that we've been making over and over, not just the words, but the tone. Andd you know it's bad when you have David Frum "conservative" fraud piling on. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-07-30/why-you-didn-t-build-that-resonates.html - I agree with David Frum that the most toxic part of the speech is Barack Obama talking about the sources of success: "I’m always struck by people who think, well, it must be because I was just so smart. There are a lot of smart people out there. It must be because I worked harder than everybody else. Let me tell you something -- there are a whole bunch of hardworking people out there." Really? The president is always struck by people who take credit for their own successes? Obviously, every successful outcome in life -- and every failed one -- arises from a combination of internal and external factors. But the president’s tone when he said this, amused by the very idea of people taking credit for their achievements, was off-putting. Frum mostly talks about why this statement irks rich people, but I believe it resonates badly with people at all income levels. Lots of people -- most, I hope -- are proud of something they’ve achieved in their lives and feel like that achievement owes much to their own hard work and talents. You don’t have to make over $250,000 a year to be annoyed when the president mocks people for taking credit for their achievements. And it’s an especially jarring statement because of what it’s used to justify -- higher taxes, with the implication being that they are called for because people do not deserve their own pre-tax wealth. People are rightly unnerved by an argument that amounts to “we can tax you because you didn’t deserve this anyway.” Faced with such an argument, defending your own contribution to your success isn’t just a point of pride -- it’s an argument you must make to defend the principle that you are entitled to your own private property. - This is the other point that I've made, that the whole point of this speech from Obama was a way to justify higher taxes, and that successful people owe it to society, not because they worked hard or were smart, but because it was government that was a driving factor in helping pave their way for the success they have. - he president’s speech calls to mind a second-season West Wing episode, in which speechwriter Sam Seaborn (Rob Lowe) explains to the staff of some liberal house members why he won’t insert a line in President Bartlet’s upcoming speech. They want the president to attack Republican tax cut proposals as financing “private jets and swimming pools” for the wealthy. As Seaborn argues: Henry, last fall, every time your boss got on the stump and said, "It's time for the rich to pay their fair share," I hid under a couch and changed my name. I left Gage Whitney making $400,000 a year, which means I paid twenty-seven times the national average in income tax. I paid my fair share, and the fair share of twenty-six other people. And I'm happy to 'cause that's the only way it's gonna work, and it's in my best interest that everybody be able to go to schools and drive on roads, but I don't get twenty-seven votes on Election Day. The fire department doesn't come to my house twenty-seven times faster and the water doesn't come out of my faucet twenty-seven times hotter. The top one percent of wage earners in this country pay for twenty-two percent of this country. Let's not call them names while they're doing it, is all I'm saying. When Barack Obama has made an argument for progressive taxation that even Aaron Sorkin finds distasteful, he has erred. That’s not a problem that has anything to do with the president being black. Chait seems taken aback by how much his post offended conservative writers. But when Chait argues the “real reason” attacks on the president are working is racial resentment (and, for good measure, that racial resentment is “the entire key to the rise of the Republican Party” since the 1960s), the implication is that complaints about the “you didn’t build that” speech are per se invalid. Chait didn’t directly accuse anybody of being a racist, but that doesn’t mean people shouldn’t be annoyed about his post. It’s true that racial undertones are everywhere in American discourse. But not everything that has a racial component is principally about race. Scott Brown’s campaign mashed up “you didn’t build that” with Elizabeth Warren’s similar remarks, which share the president’s derisive tone but of course lack any African-American speaking rhythms. The Brown hit is effective -- and it shows that the president’s speech would have been problematic from the mouth of a white politician, too. - The tone matters

Sure I can. And again, I'm not gonna let you attempt to put this aside, THEY DID NOT SELL IT AS A SUGAR HIGH! They sold it as a sustaining stimulus act that would lead us to a recovery. Their projections was that we would be on a downward trajectory with our Unemployment rate of under 6%. Also The Majority of Americans disapprove of the Stimulus Bill, and the fact that it was so poorly crafted, outsourced to Pelosi and Crew did more than just blow a trillion dollars down the drain, it eroded public confidence in any bold future action from government. If you were going to have a big Stimulus Bill, (which I could be for if crafted correctly) for !@#$s sakes, at least implement some long-term structural solutions to the bill. What do we have to show for it? We have an economy that is now in it's third year of decline. Its a crappy economy, and Obama doesn't have the slightest clue to reinvigorate it again. He has got to be the most economically incompetent president in Modern history. He's an ideologue that cares more about redistributing the wealth than anything else. His idea of economic prosperity is derived from RobinHood which is to take away money from the rich and give to the poor.

The money given to local/State governments was the biggest waste of all. First off, the basic premise of bailing out state/local governments that was crafted in such a corrupt fashion between Public Sectors and Politicians at the expense of local/state taxpayers is disgusting. But that is the moral argument, the fiscal argument is that local/state government jobs are funded by their taxes, so all the bailout did was give a short life line for those jobs. Once the money ran out, they still had their budgets to deal with, so those layoffs happened irregardless of the short-term payoff to his Public Union constituency, simply because local/state tax receipts weren't high enough to keep these workers. Second, the "tax cuts" are keynesian short-term tax cuts, that did nothing other than provide temporary relief to US consumers. It's one thing to structurally change the dynamics by overhauling the US tax code, it's another to give short-term tax cuts that do nothing other than provide a little sugar high.

/Debbie Wasserman Schultz

No, all you have are faith based arguments, and then to back up your claim you bring up the standard parroted DNC talking point of "It was meant to stop a Depression from occurring", yet this argument was never presented beforehand, simply because we all know that it failed on every single reasonable objective, which are 1) It's intended forecasts 2) And the direction the economy is moving. But go ahead, just spout off another talking point or an "independent" study from economists that supported the Stimulus Bill, who have a stake in the game to desperately prove that it wasn't the sham that we all know it was.

No, what's retarded is your defense.

No, TARP is not relevant, and the idea that TARP funds were able to get repaid because of Stimulus is a faith based argument, that has no basis in fact. And who cares that TARP was Bush, what does that have to do with the Stimulus Bill being a failure? Nothing Also, GDP Growth for 2010 2.4% , 2011 1.8% And now 2012, on pace to be around 1.5% We are moving in the wrong direction

No, that is the revisionist history version of what it was suppose to do. What it was suppose to do was not have the economy reach over 8% unemployment and have us below 6% unemployment by this point and time. What matters are the projections beforehand, not afterwards Oh and TARP, not the same thing

Says who? Mark Zandi? Some other proponent of the Stimulus Bill? And by what metrics? The only answer you ever hear is "The economy was about to head into a Depression if it wasn't for the Stimulus" That's the only BS answer you ever hear, and its the only answer that they can give because it's not measurably quantifiable. It's not plain and simple, the best way we can measure it is by looking at what the W.H promised and where we are today. They said we would be under 6% unemployment today, is that where we are? No, the economy is getting worse by just about every economic measure, "plain and simple".

That pretty much sums it up.

As I've said before, it was a defining moment of the campaign. Obama helped crystalize the stark contrast of this election, the more you listen to his comments, the worse it is. In context, he's telling us, that it's not just a matter of hard work or intelligence, but an equal collective effort, and without government, you wouldn't have the success you do. And since government has contributed to your success, it is your duty as a successful business person to pay more in taxes. Finally we got a true substantive moment, and as a result of it, it's gonna get played over and over and over all the way till the elections.

If a fat kid says, "mmmm I like icecream" , Immediately I know I'm thinking to myself "You're fat because you eat so much damn icrecream" But if a skinny kid says "mmmm I like icecream" I think to myself "Damn I wish I had his metabolism"

I know that my friends and I probably throughout my life participated in some level of cheating in high school and grade school, I would safely say at least 50 different times, and we never were caught a single time.

Talk about delusional

Johnathan capehart opinion columnist for WAPO and msnbc contributor just yesterday said that the RNC ad that says "it's ok to make a change", soothes racists concerns that they can make a change and not thought of, of being a racist.

This isn't really a fluff piece, but none the less it illustrates some of Mitt's strengths when he was working with the Salt Lake City Olympic games. Sort of baffling to me that there hasn't been many articles or television stories that talked up his tremendous success. You would think that if the media truly wanted to vet the candidates, that they wouldn't be only chasing the negative hit pieces, but would seek and report some of his successes as well. http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-romney-olympics-20120727-1,0,2043111.story WASHINGTON — Mitt Romney wanted to send a message when he took over as chief executive of the Salt Lake Olympic Games. So he moved the organization's Washington office from a well-appointed K Street law firm to a barren third-floor walk-up, wedged between a burrito shop and hair salon near the U.S. Capitol. It was furnished with broken desks cast off by federal agencies. Its stairs were so steep that Cindy Gillespie, the head of federal relations for the Olympic committee, refused to have guests visit. "It was a nightmare — I couldn't stand it," Gillespie recalled. "But Mitt just adored it. He thought it was totally appropriate." The message, of course, was that frugality was the new watchword of the organization, which had been battered by revelations that Salt Lake officials had showered more than $1 million in gifts on International Olympic Committee members in their effort to land the 2002 Winter Games. Scaling down the Washington office was one of the many moves that Romney made to wipe out the scars of profligate spending. Recruited in February 1999 to take over the beleaguered Olympic committee, Romney deferred his $280,000-a-year salary until the Games were over and its finances secure, then donated it to charity. (He had taken a leave from Bain Capital, but was still receiving substantial payments from it.) He got rid of catered food for board meetings and instead offered pizza at $1 a slice. Romney frequently touts his success running the Olympics as an example of his strength as a chief executive. The experience also demonstrated his skills as an agile politician — one who touted the committee's new frugality and deftly parried questions about the role the Mormon Church would play in putting on the Games. For some of those who worked with him then, it is an image at odds with what they've seen emerging from the 2012 campaign. "The Mitt on the campaign trail is not the Mitt I knew as the leader of the Olympics," said Randy Dryer, a Democratic lawyer who served on the 53-member Salt Lake Olympic Committee board of trustees. "I chuckle when I hear news reports about Mitt being stiff and standoffish and having handlers who insulate him. He was accessible, he was personable, he was inclusive." Former Democratic Salt Lake Mayor Rocky Anderson, who is now running his own independent presidential bid, agreed: "It surprised me that during the course of this campaign that he's come off so out-of-touch and rather aloof; that's not the guy I ever dealt with." The contrast speaks to how much in his element Romney felt as he worked to right the Games — an experience that propelled him into a successful run for governor of Massachusetts and his bids for the presidency — and to the inevitable constraints on a candidate waging a hard-fought national campaign. "The difference is between someone who is day-to-day running something and someone who is out literally campaigning for a job," Gillespie said. "He's not one of those slap-you-on-the-back politicians. What he is is a leader." Others argue that the path was smoothed for Romney's success at the Games. "The Olympics was a controlled environment," said Ken Bullock, a member of the board who was one of Romney's few vocal critics. "Everyone wanted the Games to be successful. No one really challenged him." From the start, Romney was cast by Salt Lake leaders as the "white knight" who would put the Olympics back on track. The scandal had deeply demoralized the local staff and threatened to sour sponsors as the committee sought to raise the final $400 million needed to meet its original $1.45 billion budget. Romney demonstrated a canny understanding of how to maximize his role as Mr. Fix-It. "One of the masterful things Mitt did early on was that he lowered everyone's expectations," Dryer said, noting that Romney regularly joked that Salt Lake's Olympic caldron was on track to be a Weber grill. When it came to sorting out the organization's complex finances, he did it "the Bain way," said Fraser Bullock, a former Bain Capital partner whom Romney persuaded to come aboard as chief operating officer. "He went through the budget, line by line." Once fully versed in the committee's finances, Romney sought to win over wary public officials with a barrage of information. Washington lawmakers he met with were subjected to "a 40-page PowerPoint," Gillespie recalled. "He was treating them like executives." The tactic worked, she said: "They respected him and knew he wasn't hiding anything." Romney frequently cited the committee's transparency in an effort to bolster its image. As part of a reform effort that began before his hiring, board meetings were opened to the public and a reading room was created where lists of vendor contracts and top donors could be perused. There's another page to read, gotta click the link

According to Jay Carney, W.H press secretary "tax cuts represent spending"

I agree, but it's still a missed opportunity for Mitt to have burnished his Olympic accomplishments. I didn't even see Krauthammer's rant until just this morning and I had a similar opinion as his. http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2012/07/26/krauthammer_slams_romneys_comment_on_olympics_unbelievable_incomprehensible.html'>http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2012/07/26/krauthammer_slams_romneys_comment_on_olympics_unbelievable_incomprehensible.html CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER: What Romney answered in that question was unbelievable, it's beyond human understanding. It's incomprehensible. I'm out of adjectives. All the man has to do is say nothing. Nothing. The statement of the trip is simply the places he's going to. England, Poland and Israel, all of which have been treated roughly and badly by Obama. All he has to do is show up and say wonderful stuff about his hosts, imply we're going to be strong allies and everybody in those countries and around the world will understand it's a rebuke without saying so. A silent rebuke to Obama, who treated the Brits, the Poles and the Israelis pretty shabbily, particularly the Brits. Remember when he came to the Oval Office, he removed the bust of Churchill. There was a State Department spokesman who said there is no special relationship, etc., etc. A long list of stuff. The gifts and the Falklands Islands in which we have a steady neutrality between the Argentineans and the Brits, when we should be solidly on the British side of this. The list is long. All Romney has to do [is] say nothing. It's like a guy in the 100-meter dash. All he has to do is to finish, he doesn't have to win. And instead, he tackles the guy in the lane next to him and ends up disqualified. I don’t get it. http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2012/07/26/krauthammer_slams_romneys_comment_on_olympics_unbelievable_incomprehensible.html

I've been reading some economic confidence indicators and they've all been heading south, and I came across an article that came to the same conclusion and it just reminded me of my own personal situation. I was in a business that provided me an excellent career, and federal regulations poo poo'd all over it for me and many other of my co workers. I decided I needed to go in a different direction, and since the licenses I have don't really offer me any other opportunities that I can see, I ventured into a new field. To go back on topic, we have an office of about 40-50 employees, and the first few weeks things seemed to be ok. Over the past month, business has come to a crawl, somehow as a newby in the industry, I'm tops in production but that really isn't saying much because business is practically dead. So the CEO/Owner of the company had a meeting today, and he literally apologized for how slow things are and he had been doing some calling asking other businesses in the field how they've been doing, and they've been reporting the same thing. The mood in the office I can see is quite low, and I can see the owner of the company attempting to put on his best face, so yeah, it's pretty tough. I guess what I'm wanting to know from other people, how are things out there for you and your business? I know that consumer confidence numbers nationwide are reaching new lows for the year and that for me and the people close to me things are difficult, but is it something that is happening more so on my own personal level, maybe it's just more profound on the new industry I've ventured in to, or is it something broader that maybe some of you are seeing as well.

Substantively I agree, but optics do matter, and if we had a Brit come here and questioned our enthusiasm before a major even such as the Olympics, then its quite natural that there would be some resentment.

Unfortunately, the "greatest" economic minds believe that we should pump the primer and continue to spend to add more demand, and it doesn't matter really how we spend it, as long as it adds demand, no matter what the long-term benefits are. You have influential guys like Krugman who advocate not just more deficit spending but what I find to be more ironic is tremendously loose monetary policy. He hoots and hollers about how Bernanke should continue to print more money and raise the fed's inflationary preferred target, but what is lost in his ramblings are the effects of these policies on low to lower income Americans. Doesn't he understand that as a result of these policies, that the price of oil, gasoline and food have all gone higher? Doesn't he realize that this is a tremendously hidden regressive tax on the very same people that supposedly advocates for? Doesn't he see that these policies have hurt older retired folks who are risk averse and that largely park their money in fixed income investments, bonds, CD's and savings accounts? Obviously Krugman isn't in charge of the FED, but Ben Bernanke is, and he's not much better. After all, he is "helicopter Ben", and the president recently appointed two more voting members that advocate even more loose monetary policy than Bernanke. I'm not optimistic.

Or Friedrich Hayek

Very well written article: Mitt Romney is running a cautious presidential campaign, so fearful of making political blunders that he hasn't offered much more beyond broad conservative outlines of how he would govern as president. So it comes as a surprise that he let his guard down in London at the outset of his overseas trip, critiquing the British preparation for the Olympics in a nationally-televised interview, and then accidentally letting slip that he met with the head of MI6. For that effort, he was slammed mercilessly in the British tabloids and was tweaked by Prime Minister Cameron, and more loudly rebuked by the (Conservative) mayor of London in front of thousands at a rally for the Olympics. Romney's trip wasn't getting much attention in the British press; he's made it above the fold for all the wrong reasons. No, a few blunders across the pond won't change the trajectory of the presidential campaign. But for a candidate who still is largely undefined to many voters, the trip was designed to make him look presidential. Get a few well-timed photo-ops with foreign leaders, say nothing controversial, and voters could very well see Romney living in the White House in a year. But Thursday's blunders prevented him from scoring a controversy-free photo op with one of our closest allies. Call it another missed opportunity for a campaign that's gotten most of the big-picture strategy right, but too often sweats the small stuff. Romney hesitated to tout his personal biography early on in the campaign for fear it would draw attention away from Obama's handling of the economy, but it allowed the president to define his record at Bain first, and as negatively as possible. He's hesitated to offer much red-meat rhetoric, fearing he'd alienate independents, but now he's (belatedly) finding that an aggressively ideological contrast with Obama on economic worldview is scoring him major political points - and playing to his personal strengths. And for a candidate who should be in his comfort zone - his political career was made thanks to the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympics - his lack of message led to the politically tone-deaf comments he made to Brian Williams. Romney's blunders aren't going to make or break the election, but they very well could prevent him from taking advantage of golden opportunities to define the race to his advantage. http://decoded.nationaljournal.com/2012/07/romneys-missed-opportunities.php I was telling my father the exact same thing yesterday, it's nothing that changes the trajectory of the race, but it's a missed opportunity for Mitt, an opportunity to show his Olympic creds, rather than that happen in England, the headlines were for all the wrong reasons. From what I've read, the Pro Romney PAC has reserved $7.2M worth of ads touting his Olympic accomplishments and he is planning on doing more interviews (like the one we saw on CNN) where he will get an opportunity to speak more about it, while the Olympics are going on. But, without a doubt, a big whiff for Romney on day one

She didn't see that herself, somebody else did

This discussiin is an extension of the "deficit spending" thread. Krugman dangerously makes this argument, he points at the interest rates as proof positive of the security of the bond markets. It's such an utterly absurd argument to make, I don't even know where to begin. Let's begin with a recent historical reference, all one has to do is look and see where Greek and Spanish bonds were trading at three to four years ago. They were near record low rates with no signs of stress. Once growth slowed, the bond investors began to take a closer look and concluded that based on their debt and ability to repay it, they slowly began to sell, and once that occurred rates went higher and as rates got higher, more bond investors doubted their ability to repay that debt because of the higher borrowing costs, which caused even more selling and it's now a virtuous never ending circle, sort of like a negative feedback loop. By krugmans standards, we would of never have seen this this coming. There is a great research paper written by Carmen Reinhardt and ken rogoff about sovereign debt. I highly recommend you read it, it's an excellent piece and you can finish reading it in 20 minutes. also there is a saying, in regards to the bond markets " everything is fine till its not"