President Obama News Thread

[blackgang]

Here is what Russia think of the OLD NEW DEAL..

Obama's Rescue Plan Is Doomed to Fail
22 January 2009 By Boris Kagarlitsky


President Barack Obama's plan to save the U.S. economy is so ambitious that it surpasses even Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal and Lyndon B. Johnson's Great Society. Obama's stimulus program offers an entirely new strategy for creating jobs and increasing production while at the same time addressing other longstanding issues, such as the environment, alternative energy sources and education.
The president promised to lower taxes and hand over a large part of the bailout funds to private corporations, leaving the government to manage health care, law enforcement, education and other public services.
In short, Obama's plan is exactly what the United States -- and the rest of the world -- needs right now. The only problem with it is that it will never work. Obama's proposal is an attempt to save the flawed U.S. system from itself without instituting any fundamental changes, and therefore his economic recovery program is doomed to fail.
Even a schoolchild can see the contradictions in the president's stimulus plan. Obama proposes huge increases in government spending while at the same time lowering taxes. Where is he going to find the money to fund his expanded version of the old New Deal? At some point, Obama will step into fiscal quicksand when it turns out that runaway inflation and an enormous national deficit have caused the U.S. government to default on its debt obligations, much like what happened in Russia in 1998 and Argentina in 2001.
Obama patiently explains to his listeners that only the government can solve the economic crisis, but in the same breath he promises to hand over a large part of the bailout funds to the private sector. However innovative Obama's plan might be, it will be based on the same flawed principles that led the United States and the world into this crisis in the first place. Losses are socialized and profits are privatized in a program where the government bears the expenses while favored companies pocket the profits.
It is commonly believed that the government is less efficient than the private sector, regardless of what country you are talking about. But in recent years, the private sector in the United States has been more corrupt and inefficient than even the worst of Soviet bureaucrats.
If Obama believes that only the government can pull the United States and the world out of the crisis, then he should place all of his bets in that camp. But his plan will be successful only if the public sector can make enough money to pay for the cost of the bailout without resorting to irresponsible borrowing, excessively high taxes and printing money.
The people and Congress should evaluate the results of Obama's programs with the same scrutiny that shareholders do in a publicly traded company. Unfortunately, Washington's ruling elite is unlikely to embrace this appeal for transparency and accountability.
If Obama wants to go down in history as having saved his country from the economic crisis, it will not be enough to simply spend enormous sums of money. It will be necessary to radically change the government's role in the economy by making it capable of not only spending money, but of making it too.
Boris Kagarlitsky is the director of the Institute of Globalization Studies

[Norton]

Boris makes some good points but maybe he should be talking to Putin about how to get out of the economic disaster in Russia rather than worrying about the US.

It is commonly believed that the government is less efficient than the private sector, regardless of what country you are talking about. But in recent years, the private sector in the United States has been more corrupt and inefficient than even the worst of Soviet bureaucrats.

It will be necessary to radically change the government's role in the economy by making it capable of not only spending money, but of making it too.

Is Boris, good Russian that he is, suggesting the US socialize it's entire economy?

[panama hat]

^ Russia is going one way and the US the other . . . how the world is changing

[Boon Mee]

Not too off-topic...make your own Obamicon here . Cool

[spiff]

Well, in light of BO taking from the rich to give to the poor, the reference above to evils of Socialism is right on target. Do try to keep the thread, eh?

"Obama News Thread", Boner, not "wingnut blog regurgitation".

Any comments on the news I posted, oldtimer?

[Boon Mee]

Well, in reference to the post on lobby-ists, seem to recall a news report recently that BO hired a former one for some high office? Did some serious lobbying for Raytheon or some such? As far as interrogation methods? Heh...do you really think if we have someone of KSM's level and he can provide information to save 'merkin lives - BO won't H2Oboard him?

[blackgang]

Boris makes some good points but maybe he should be talking to Putin about how to get out of the economic disaster in Russia rather than worrying about the US.

From what I have heard of Putin, you do not tell him shit, but you listen. I never did like that prick.
But on both my cruising sail boats I did have good big radios with ham, and upper/lower sideband and liked to listen to Radio News Moscow as well as other news Bcasts from around the world when still awake at night, and did like the take on different things from different places.

[Bugs]

Well, in reference to the post on lobby-ists, seem to recall a news report recently that BO hired a former one for some high office? Did some serious lobbying for Raytheon or some such? As far as interrogation methods? Heh...do you really think if we have someone of KSM's level and he can provide information to save 'merkin lives - BO won't H2Oboard him?

The lobbiest is William Lynn III, once the top lobbiest for Raytheon, now the number 2 guy in the defense department (dep def sec). But as I posted in an earlier post, I actually don't have a major issue with this appointment. I agree with the line of thinking that says they need to have high standards when it comes to lobbiest, but there is the need to allow the best candidate to serve, and thus some past lobbiests should still be allowed to serve.

As for the torture bit - during a press breifing last week one reporter asked what happens if one of the big dogs or someone like Bin Ladin is caught; do the new high standards hold for someone on that scale? Surprisingly enoght the response was not "Yes, absolutely, the standard are the same for all". The response was, like many during that particular press briefing - I'll have to check and get back to you on that one.

[blackgang]

I agree with the line of thinking that says they need to have high standards when it comes to lobbiest

OH I do agree with that and I do know that everyone who works in the Demo side of govt of The Unites States Of America in the capitol city of Washington DC is of the highest Standards possible for anyone to have or they would not be there, it is only those low life bastards who are Republican that have such thieving ideas and are capable of such lowlife skulduggery..

[Jet Gorgon]

This Jimmy Kimmel snip on Obama's transparency (courtesy his WH press sec) is rather enlightenening.
Politico.com: Videos

[Mr Earl]

We can see clearly now how the Messiah is simply going to spend his time in office as another puppet of the military industrial complex. Murderous bastards all of them.

[Boon Mee]

Not everyone in the European press is drinking the Obamania Kool-Aid. Gerald Warner on the Moonbat Messiah's Ascension:

To anyone who kept his head, the string of Christmas cracker mottoes booming through the public address system on Washington's National Mall can only excite scepticism. It is crucial to recall the reality that lies behind the rhetoric. Denouncing "those who seek to advance their aims by inducing terror and slaughtering innocents" comes ill from a man whose flagship legislation, the Freedom of Choice Act, will impose abortion, including partial-birth abortion, on every state in the Union. It seems the era of Hope is to be inaugurated with a slaughter of the innocents.

Obama's American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan is like one of those toxic packages traded by bankers: it camouflages many unaffordable gifts to his client state. With a federal deficit already at $1.2 trillion, Obama wants to squander $825 billion (which will undoubtedly mushroom to more than $1 trillion) on creating 600,000 more government jobs and a further 459,000 in "green energy" (useless wind turbines and other Heath-Robinson contraptions favoured by Beltway environmentalists).

It is frightening to think there is a real possibility that the entire world economy could go into complete meltdown and famine kill millions. Yet Western — and British — commentators are cocooned in a warm comfort zone of infatuation with America's answer to Neil Kinnock. We should be long past applauding politicians of any hue: they got us into this mess. The best deserve a probationary opportunity to prove themselves, the worst should be in jail.

It is questionable whether the present political system can survive the coming crisis. Whatever the solution, teenage swooning sentimentality over a celebrity cult has no part in it. The most powerful nation on earth is confronting its worst economic crisis under the leadership of its most extremely liberal politician, who has virtually no experience of federal politics. That is not an opportunity but a catastrophe.

Heh..the honeymoon is well and truly over...

[spiff]

Heh..the honeymoon is well and truly over...

It must be so, if you read it on the telegraph's blog.

[Boon Mee]

Heh..the honeymoon is well and truly over...

It must be so, if you read it on the telegraph's blog.

Don't matter...Warner is spot-on...

[spiff]

yeah, any source will do, as long as you don't need to try and write more than a sentence expressing your own "opinion", eh?

[Jet Gorgon]

I think unemployed Americans will work for the US govt now. 555555

[raycarey]

yes, jet. many unemployed americans will soon be working for the US govt because republicans ran the economy into the ditch.

[panama hat]

I think unemployed Americans will work for the US govt now. 555555

If they're working for the government they are not unemployed . . .

Does the police force come under government employee? The army/navy/air force? Firemen? Homeland security?

Yes, a lot of people work for the government


(edited for sp . . . still getting used to my new laptop! )

[raycarey]

I think unemployed Americans will work for the US govt now. 555555

If they're working for the government they are not unemployed . . .

Does the police force come under government employee? The army/navy/air force? Firemen? Homeland security?

Yes, a lot of people work for the government
\

and if it turns out that bernanke bungled this thing worse than we already know, and the obama admin is forced to nationalize the banks, then even the people who work for banks will be working for the federal govt.

[Texpat]

yes, jet. many unemployed americans will soon be working for the US govt because republicans ran the economy into the ditch.

Dem Congress (purse strings) for past two years.

Economic troubles began surfacing ... when?

Asleep at the switch?

[raycarey]

yes, jet. many unemployed americans will soon be working for the US govt because republicans ran the economy into the ditch.

Dem Congress (purse strings) for past two years.

Economic troubles began surfacing ... when?

Asleep at the switch?

you're quite the 'independent' aren't you?

anyway, remind me again how many spending bills bush vetoed when republicans controlled congress?

here, i'll help you out....none. zero. zip. nada.

and putting aside the 700 billion extortion play by paulson and bernanke late last year, would you care to compare the spending that took place before/after 2006? didn't think so.

and there's a big difference between when economic problems 'surface' and when/why/how those problems started in the first place

no matter how much you attempt to deceive or obfuscate, the fact remains that this economic crisis is the direct result of the deregulation policies advanced by the republican congress and the bush administration.

[Panda]

Dem Congress (purse strings) for past two years.

Economic troubles began surfacing ... when?

The root of the problem goes way back before that and the current crisis would have occurred no matter which side was in power. The US economy has been parasitic on the rest of the world for decades. Now we all go down together.

[DrivingForce]

Dem Congress (purse strings) for past two years.

Economic troubles began surfacing ... when?

The US economy has been parasitic on the rest of the world for decades. Now we all go down together.

Hows that again?? if the US economy was parasitic on the world it would have been the other way around.. It's because the world is parasitic on the US economy that this happened globally..

[Boon Mee]

BO's great for Fox News!

OBAMA BOOM AT FOXNEWS... RATINGS SOAR... NIGHT OF 1/28/09... VIEWERS...

FOXNEWS OREILLY 3,891,000
FOXNEWS HANNITY 3,034,000
FOXNEWS BECK 2,306,000
FOXNEWS SHEP 2,299,000
FOXNEWS GRETA 2,155,000
MSNBC OLBERMANN 1,581,000
CNN COOPER 1,559,000
CNN BLITZER 1,490,000
CNNHN GRACE 1,435,000
CNN KING 1,420,000
MSNBC MADDOW 1,398,000

Source = Drudge

[Lily]

It's because the world is parasitic on the US economy that this happened globally.. __________________

You cannot be that stupid!

You have to be taking the piss!