The Republican party has staked out such a fantasy based position on Health Care that it has allowed Obama to occupy the middle of the road where one can make decisions based on facts and data rather than having to cater to ideology.
This is a bit of a problem for Romney, who is a pragmatic guy, as far as I can see. He really wants Obama's job but has to be very careful about what he says to avoid irritating either his base who believe a fairy tale view of how good healthcare works, or the middle of the road voters who pay at least some attention to facts and data.
So the formula he has hit on is to avoid direct discussion of the realities of Health Care in favor calling Obama the "government" health care guy, and himself the "private sector" health care guy, and then piling up platitudes about how wonderful the private sector is at health care, and how bad government is at health care.
If this turns out to be politically the best thing Romney can do, it will be because voters are to busy to realize how wrong this approach is, and it will limit Romney's ability to actually move the countries creaking health care system to a better place. The historical evidence shows pretty clearly the private sector is pretty bad at doing Health Care. At the end of WW II, when many Western industrialized countries were moving toward Government health care, Congress pushed the US into a system based on employers providing private insurance for their employee's. Ever since we have maintained one of the most privatized health care systems in the industrialized world.
60 years down the road our health care system is a mess. For decades, the cost of healthcare has inflated far more rapidly that inflation in general, to the point we now pay twice as much for healthcare per person as do citizens of any other country in the world ($15,000 a year in the US as against about $7,000 per year in the next most expensive countries). Yet there are 30 or 40 countries where people live longer, another 30 or 40 where they have lower infant mortality rates. And employers, the backbone around which our system was designed, are scrambling to get out from under the constantly inflating health insurance premiums.
The flaw in Romney's theory of healthcare is simple to spot. A fundemental requirement to make a free market work efficiently is buyers who are not acting under compulsion. When we go out to buy a car, if it is too expensive we just walk away, or go buy a used car, or a bike, or take a bus. When enough of us just walk away the industry has to find a way to lower costs to survive.
We don't have those options with healthcare. If we have a child with cancer, we can't just walk away until the price comes down. In the purchase of medical services (by $ amount - healthy people don't use much health care - sick people use almost all of it) most of the buyers are acting under compulsion - the threat of serious debilitation or death. So a key market force that controls costs is missing in a private medical marketplace.
Contradicting Romneys "Government is bad" position, we have an example of a government run health care system here in the United States that is far more efficient than the private sector medical providers, both in terms of cost per patient, and overall health outcomes. The Veterans Adminstration Hospital system has no private component.
Many of those countries who spend less than half of what we spend per person per year have government run systems that their voters are very happy with, (England, Canada and Sweden come to mind immediately) and their citizens live longer than we do and have lower infant mortality rates.
The Fairy Tale Romney is selling will have serious consequences if he is elected. Even if he is just saying what he needs to say to get elected, he is boxing himself in. The fundemental rule for Doctors is to "first, do no harm." Romney will have a hard time even meeting this standard if he becomes President.
Friday, October 5, 2012
Tuesday, October 2, 2012
What history says about Romney Ryan economics
The Republican party claims cutting taxes, regulations and the size of government will bring back prosperity. Here are some easily documented historical facts useful in evaluating the Romney/Ryan plan:
The formula of cutting taxes, cutting regulations and cutting the size of government as an economic growth tool has has been widely advocated by Conservatives in most democratic countries for the last 100 years, and from time to time a Conservative government gains sufficient control to implement the policies. The results have not been good.
In the United States it is the formula the Republican party in the United States rode into power in 1919. Republicans controlled both houses of Congress from 1919 to 1933 and we had Republican Presidents from 1921 to 1933. Their business friendly, low tax policies produced bubbles in stocks and housing, followed by a financial crash in 1929 and the Great Depression. By the time Republicans were ushered out of power in 1933 unemployment was around 25%, millions of Americans had lost their life savings as thousands of banks collapsed, millions more had lost their homes to foreclosure and the Government had gone from a balanced budget with no debt to large federal deficits.
Democrats controlled Congess for most of the next next 62 years. Then in 1995 Republicans again advocating cutting taxes, regulations and the size of Government took control of both houses of Congess. They held control until 2007. We also had a Republican President from 2001 through 2007. The period of Republican domination started with a growing economy and a shrinking National Debt. By the time voters brought Democratic majorities back in 2007 the national debt was skyrocketing, and the economy was caught up in the downward spiral that culminated in the Financial collapse of 2008 and the Great Recession, and once again lots of people lost big chunks of their savings, lost homes to foreclosure, and lost their job.
Comparing these two Republican orchastrated financial collapses is instructive. Unlike 2007, when the Republicans were being shown the door by the voters just as the collapse began, the Republicans continued to control both houses of Congress and the Presidency between 1929 and January of 1933. President Herbert Hoover was convinced that the private sector would pull us out of the downturn, so continued with the Republican polices that reduced the influence of government, lowered taxes and eliminated regulations. It didn't work. The circumstantial case is strong that a big part of the reason the recession that followed the 1929 crash turned to a depression rather than a bad recession was because of the Republican policies. It appears voters made the connection - for the 47 years from 1933 to 1980 Democrats controlled both houses on Congress for 38 of those years out of 47 years.
Beyond the historical evidence from US history, the Romney/Ryan plan ignores economic studies that have looked at the effect of cutting government. The International Monetary Fund commissioned a study that looked at 173 times in the last couple decades where developed countries cut government spending. They found that in a situation like we are currently in, with very low interest rates, cutting government spending causes a drop in GDP and a rise in unemployment.
Britain, the country whose economic system is most like ours, bought into something very like the Romney-Ryan plan when they elected a Conservative government in May of 2010. The Conservative governing philosophy, like Herbert Hoovers in the 1930's, has been to rely on the private sector to drive economic recovery through lowering taxes, and cutting government and regulations. Instead of recovery, GDP growth has turned negative and Britain has been in recession for the last three quarters (the last quarter was surprisingly bad according to the BBC).
Supporters of the Romney/Ryan campaign cite the "Reagan" recession in the early 1980's as evidence their plan will work. It is a false comparison. Unlike our current economy, the slowdown in the early 1980's was not a product of a private sector financial collapses, it was caused by high interest rates. The Federal funds rate, which is currently effectively 0%, was 20% in June of 1981. The recession was a product of the fact neither business nor consumers could afford to borrow money at rates above 20%. When inflation cooled off, the Fed lowered interest rates and suddenly business and consumers could afford to borrow and expand and the economy took off.
In short the recovery in the early 1980's was in an environment of interest rates falling from historically high levels coupled with low consumer debt. That recipe is not available to us right how. We have historically high consumer debt and interest rates have hovered at near zero for a couple years. The current conditions could not be more different.
If Mr. Romney and Mr. Ryan get elected, and do what they say they are going to do, history is pretty clear there is a high likelyhood we will be back in recession within a year, and at risk of a serious depression.
The formula of cutting taxes, cutting regulations and cutting the size of government as an economic growth tool has has been widely advocated by Conservatives in most democratic countries for the last 100 years, and from time to time a Conservative government gains sufficient control to implement the policies. The results have not been good.
In the United States it is the formula the Republican party in the United States rode into power in 1919. Republicans controlled both houses of Congress from 1919 to 1933 and we had Republican Presidents from 1921 to 1933. Their business friendly, low tax policies produced bubbles in stocks and housing, followed by a financial crash in 1929 and the Great Depression. By the time Republicans were ushered out of power in 1933 unemployment was around 25%, millions of Americans had lost their life savings as thousands of banks collapsed, millions more had lost their homes to foreclosure and the Government had gone from a balanced budget with no debt to large federal deficits.
Democrats controlled Congess for most of the next next 62 years. Then in 1995 Republicans again advocating cutting taxes, regulations and the size of Government took control of both houses of Congess. They held control until 2007. We also had a Republican President from 2001 through 2007. The period of Republican domination started with a growing economy and a shrinking National Debt. By the time voters brought Democratic majorities back in 2007 the national debt was skyrocketing, and the economy was caught up in the downward spiral that culminated in the Financial collapse of 2008 and the Great Recession, and once again lots of people lost big chunks of their savings, lost homes to foreclosure, and lost their job.
Comparing these two Republican orchastrated financial collapses is instructive. Unlike 2007, when the Republicans were being shown the door by the voters just as the collapse began, the Republicans continued to control both houses of Congress and the Presidency between 1929 and January of 1933. President Herbert Hoover was convinced that the private sector would pull us out of the downturn, so continued with the Republican polices that reduced the influence of government, lowered taxes and eliminated regulations. It didn't work. The circumstantial case is strong that a big part of the reason the recession that followed the 1929 crash turned to a depression rather than a bad recession was because of the Republican policies. It appears voters made the connection - for the 47 years from 1933 to 1980 Democrats controlled both houses on Congress for 38 of those years out of 47 years.
Beyond the historical evidence from US history, the Romney/Ryan plan ignores economic studies that have looked at the effect of cutting government. The International Monetary Fund commissioned a study that looked at 173 times in the last couple decades where developed countries cut government spending. They found that in a situation like we are currently in, with very low interest rates, cutting government spending causes a drop in GDP and a rise in unemployment.
Britain, the country whose economic system is most like ours, bought into something very like the Romney-Ryan plan when they elected a Conservative government in May of 2010. The Conservative governing philosophy, like Herbert Hoovers in the 1930's, has been to rely on the private sector to drive economic recovery through lowering taxes, and cutting government and regulations. Instead of recovery, GDP growth has turned negative and Britain has been in recession for the last three quarters (the last quarter was surprisingly bad according to the BBC).
Supporters of the Romney/Ryan campaign cite the "Reagan" recession in the early 1980's as evidence their plan will work. It is a false comparison. Unlike our current economy, the slowdown in the early 1980's was not a product of a private sector financial collapses, it was caused by high interest rates. The Federal funds rate, which is currently effectively 0%, was 20% in June of 1981. The recession was a product of the fact neither business nor consumers could afford to borrow money at rates above 20%. When inflation cooled off, the Fed lowered interest rates and suddenly business and consumers could afford to borrow and expand and the economy took off.
In short the recovery in the early 1980's was in an environment of interest rates falling from historically high levels coupled with low consumer debt. That recipe is not available to us right how. We have historically high consumer debt and interest rates have hovered at near zero for a couple years. The current conditions could not be more different.
If Mr. Romney and Mr. Ryan get elected, and do what they say they are going to do, history is pretty clear there is a high likelyhood we will be back in recession within a year, and at risk of a serious depression.
Friday, September 28, 2012
The Fundamental Fiscal Weakness in Democracy - the fiction of Public Service
California is in a fiscal mess. The roots of the problem are a problem fundamental to all governments. How to fairly compensate public employee's. Private sector compensation is controlled by consumer's voting with their dollars. If your product is inferior, or too expensive, people stop buying it, so you have no income stream to overpay yourself and your associates. No business can claim a right to force people to buy what they are selling.
But Government can force people to buy what they are selling. In any government where voters have no real power Government employees can go on for decades living a good life at the expense of everyone else, as happened in the Soviet Union. But even in a true democratic government, government has an inherent power that is hard for voters to control. In addition to California's current problems with employee compensation, the whole problem in the Euro zone rests on public employee compensation levels that exceed taxpayer willingness to fund.
The problem is built into the ways voters interact. California is a good example. In the late 1970's Republicans in the state started trying to restrain the growth of Government spending by limiting governments ability to tax. The problem with this approach is it aimed at the wrong target. Instead of aiming at limiting employee compensation, it just cut revenue to the state. In essence it treated a symptom, not the underlying disease. What that accomplished was to cut lots of lower end employee's and public services without touching the way public employee compensation was determined. In fact it set up a situation where programs began competing for public money, so the whole process became less about what served the public, and more about who could generate political clout.
At a point years ago California's legislature started creating "compensation" committee's to determine fair compensation for government officials. The committee's have three problems. 1. They are composed mostly of politically connected people who generally anticipate spending part of their working life as government employee's, so it is hard to be completely objective.
2. They tried to compete with the private sector on salary. What they end up doing is competing with the most successful private sector enterprises who pay the most money for any particular skill, even though that enterprise may pay much lower for other skills not as important. In short the public sectors salaries tend to reflect cherry picking the highest salaries paid for a particular skill across all industries.
3. But most crucially, 80 years ago or so public employers bought into the notion they should set an example for the private sector with a guarantee to all employees of a comfortable retirement. The system has evolved to a point where public sector retirement is vastly more expensive than taxpayers are willing to fund.
The result in California is a state where the obligations greatly exceed it's income, and taxpayers are unwilling to approve higher taxes. Why should they? When the average California probably makes $45,000 to $50,000 a year, what are they to think when 50 employees of the State Department of Corrections make 10 times as much, and will continue to make as much when the retire? When literally millions of State employees will draw more in retirement than the average taxpayer makes? When tuition at the State's Universities is so expensive the average Californian can no longer afford to attend.
Republican's on the National level have taken the same tack - seeking to limit government by limiting income, while not doing much to limit government salary and benefits. They have managed to cover up the fundamental weakness of their strategy for 30 years by pumping up the US economy for 30 years with deficit spending on defense, at the expense of programs that actually impact peoples daily lives. Defense spending does produce a boost to the economy, as it puts people to work, but in the end it doesn't produce wealth, it produces a big military that is probably going to cost us a lot more money as we try to put all that military might to some useful purpose (although it unequivocally makes a lot of defense contractors very rich) and then as we care for physically and emotionally crippled veterans for the rest of their lives.
Our Democracy needs provisions built into the Constitution to create a direct link between the level of public sector compensation and the average private sector compensation.
But Government can force people to buy what they are selling. In any government where voters have no real power Government employees can go on for decades living a good life at the expense of everyone else, as happened in the Soviet Union. But even in a true democratic government, government has an inherent power that is hard for voters to control. In addition to California's current problems with employee compensation, the whole problem in the Euro zone rests on public employee compensation levels that exceed taxpayer willingness to fund.
The problem is built into the ways voters interact. California is a good example. In the late 1970's Republicans in the state started trying to restrain the growth of Government spending by limiting governments ability to tax. The problem with this approach is it aimed at the wrong target. Instead of aiming at limiting employee compensation, it just cut revenue to the state. In essence it treated a symptom, not the underlying disease. What that accomplished was to cut lots of lower end employee's and public services without touching the way public employee compensation was determined. In fact it set up a situation where programs began competing for public money, so the whole process became less about what served the public, and more about who could generate political clout.
At a point years ago California's legislature started creating "compensation" committee's to determine fair compensation for government officials. The committee's have three problems. 1. They are composed mostly of politically connected people who generally anticipate spending part of their working life as government employee's, so it is hard to be completely objective.
2. They tried to compete with the private sector on salary. What they end up doing is competing with the most successful private sector enterprises who pay the most money for any particular skill, even though that enterprise may pay much lower for other skills not as important. In short the public sectors salaries tend to reflect cherry picking the highest salaries paid for a particular skill across all industries.
3. But most crucially, 80 years ago or so public employers bought into the notion they should set an example for the private sector with a guarantee to all employees of a comfortable retirement. The system has evolved to a point where public sector retirement is vastly more expensive than taxpayers are willing to fund.
The result in California is a state where the obligations greatly exceed it's income, and taxpayers are unwilling to approve higher taxes. Why should they? When the average California probably makes $45,000 to $50,000 a year, what are they to think when 50 employees of the State Department of Corrections make 10 times as much, and will continue to make as much when the retire? When literally millions of State employees will draw more in retirement than the average taxpayer makes? When tuition at the State's Universities is so expensive the average Californian can no longer afford to attend.
Republican's on the National level have taken the same tack - seeking to limit government by limiting income, while not doing much to limit government salary and benefits. They have managed to cover up the fundamental weakness of their strategy for 30 years by pumping up the US economy for 30 years with deficit spending on defense, at the expense of programs that actually impact peoples daily lives. Defense spending does produce a boost to the economy, as it puts people to work, but in the end it doesn't produce wealth, it produces a big military that is probably going to cost us a lot more money as we try to put all that military might to some useful purpose (although it unequivocally makes a lot of defense contractors very rich) and then as we care for physically and emotionally crippled veterans for the rest of their lives.
Our Democracy needs provisions built into the Constitution to create a direct link between the level of public sector compensation and the average private sector compensation.
Tuesday, September 25, 2012
Nattering Nabob of Negativism
This delightful phrase was coined by Spiro Agnew, Nixon's first vice President. I am old enough to remember Spiro. My impression of him at the time was he was one of those big jovial guys who build their career around networking and platitudes while avoiding actual hard work. As Vice President he seemed to spend all his time playing golf and conjuring up clever phrases. Of course history remembers Agnew as the only vice President in history forced to resign for taking bribes.
Agnew coined the phrase "Nattering Nabobs of Negativism" to refer to the media who dared to criticize the administrations policies, particularly in regard to the Viet-nam war. In one of those odd reversals that happen in history, now the person most deserving of being called a Nattering Nabob of Negativism is - Mitt Romney, the Republican nominee for President.
Romney has not had much positive to say about anything, probably because he tends to insert foot in mouth when he does. His economic plan has never consisted of anything more than vague generalities designed to sound good without actually risking offending anyone with facts. To show off his wise approach to foreign policy he took a trip a month or two ago in which he managed to insult the Brits by (wrongly) informing them they were disorganized and their Olympic's were going to have major problems, he said our number one enemy was Russia (evidently forgetting about folks like Al-Queda, North Korea and Iran) and irritated most of the middle east by placing the blame for the Palestinians plight entirely on the shoulders of the Palestinians. (He seems to particularly like to pick on the Palestinians)
So his campaign has come to consist entirely of sitting back, waiting for Obama to do something, or say something, then criticizing him vociferously. I am beginning to think if a video of Obama tying his shoelace made its way onto U-Tube within hours sound bites from Romney would be on all the networks passionately explaining why the way Obama ties his shoelace is wrong and puts the United States at risk.
Agnew coined the phrase "Nattering Nabobs of Negativism" to refer to the media who dared to criticize the administrations policies, particularly in regard to the Viet-nam war. In one of those odd reversals that happen in history, now the person most deserving of being called a Nattering Nabob of Negativism is - Mitt Romney, the Republican nominee for President.
Romney has not had much positive to say about anything, probably because he tends to insert foot in mouth when he does. His economic plan has never consisted of anything more than vague generalities designed to sound good without actually risking offending anyone with facts. To show off his wise approach to foreign policy he took a trip a month or two ago in which he managed to insult the Brits by (wrongly) informing them they were disorganized and their Olympic's were going to have major problems, he said our number one enemy was Russia (evidently forgetting about folks like Al-Queda, North Korea and Iran) and irritated most of the middle east by placing the blame for the Palestinians plight entirely on the shoulders of the Palestinians. (He seems to particularly like to pick on the Palestinians)
So his campaign has come to consist entirely of sitting back, waiting for Obama to do something, or say something, then criticizing him vociferously. I am beginning to think if a video of Obama tying his shoelace made its way onto U-Tube within hours sound bites from Romney would be on all the networks passionately explaining why the way Obama ties his shoelace is wrong and puts the United States at risk.
Thursday, September 20, 2012
Convention logic
I try to avoid watching political conventions, they are about as useful to good political decision making as watching 20 hours of car commercials is to wise auto shopping. The primary goal of a convention is not to let facts get in the way of building a fan base.
But, to some extent you can't avoid them. The snippits I caught of speeches from the Republican convention were, as with all convention speeches, a continuing string of vague and misleading factual assertions mixed with glittering generalities.
But, I guess I did get a sense of the Republican argument that Mitt and Paul should be elected. What it comes down to is the Republican's whose screwball policy ideas implemented when they controlled Congress from 1995 to 2007 effectively shot our country in the foot are now trying to blame Obama for the limp - so they can get back into power and continue with the same policies.
But, to some extent you can't avoid them. The snippits I caught of speeches from the Republican convention were, as with all convention speeches, a continuing string of vague and misleading factual assertions mixed with glittering generalities.
But, I guess I did get a sense of the Republican argument that Mitt and Paul should be elected. What it comes down to is the Republican's whose screwball policy ideas implemented when they controlled Congress from 1995 to 2007 effectively shot our country in the foot are now trying to blame Obama for the limp - so they can get back into power and continue with the same policies.
Sunday, September 16, 2012
Republican objections to QE3
The Fed's decision to begin another round of creating money to buy assets (QE3) brought howls of protest from Republicans even though the Stock market leaped up to new highs in response. Normally one thinks anything that makes the stock market happy will make Republican's happy.
I am frequently critical of Republican's, but I share at least some of their doubts about QE3.
I am frequently critical of Republican's, but I share at least some of their doubts about QE3.
While QE3 is a bit of an opportunity for stock traders, I don't think the stock market leaping up in response to QE3 is really something to celebrate for the country. The stock market uptick in response to QE3 may turn out to be largely fake money.
Trading in stocks and bonds falls within the generic term "investing". But, although some investments produce jobs by investing in people creating food, shelter or other things necessary or useful, trading on stock markets is also often just gamblers shuffling money back and forth (with the more sophisticated picking the pockets of the unsuspecting) and producing nothing.
The hope is QE3 will produce the jobs kind of investment, but based on the initial stock market response I suspect the outcome will be a lot more of the gambling than production. To the extent investment turns out to be gambling it does long term damage to the economy by creating instability and uncertainty.
However, I am not critical about the Fed's choice. I think it was a tough call. I read a blog yesterday by a commentator arguing the Fed was doing QE3 because Congress has been unwilling to do anything and QE3 was the only tool available to the Fed to try to juice up the economy. Lot of truth in that I believe.
The hope is QE3 will produce the jobs kind of investment, but based on the initial stock market response I suspect the outcome will be a lot more of the gambling than production. To the extent investment turns out to be gambling it does long term damage to the economy by creating instability and uncertainty.
However, I am not critical about the Fed's choice. I think it was a tough call. I read a blog yesterday by a commentator arguing the Fed was doing QE3 because Congress has been unwilling to do anything and QE3 was the only tool available to the Fed to try to juice up the economy. Lot of truth in that I believe.
Thursday, September 13, 2012
CNN - The Epitome of Lame Stream Media
Conservatives have for the last decade or so derisively referred to traditional news networks as the "lame stream media". The phrase began life as an effort to undermine the ability of the media to question Conservative ideology with facts. Rather than challenging the media's facts, Conservatives focused on undermining their credibility. The phrase "lame stream media" was a brilliant propaganda ploy that built on decades of Conservative assertions the media had a liberal bias.
This tool of political propaganda has been wildly successful. Managed Conservative propaganda on Fox news started attracting more and more viewers at the expense of traditional news networks. In response the traditional networks began focusing on ratings and have become obsessed with presenting all views rather than testing views with facts. They bite their tongue to avoid offending Conservatives, while going out of their way to offend liberals to prove they are "unbiased".
I saw a classic example on CNN last night. Wolf Blitzer was interviewing Bob Woodward about his new book. The interview highlighted an assertion Woodward makes in the book that, essentially, Obama is an ineffective leader, unlike Reagan, Clinton or Bush Jr. Blitzer focused on this assertion which is essentially the kind of character assassination common in no holds barred politics - make some ambiguous and unprovable allegation about some character defect that will appeal to a segment of the audience outside your normal audience. You don't need to have actual data to back it up. I believe in this case it served both Woodward and CNN to indulge in this bit of slander, Woodward trying to sell his book to Conservatives (since the left worships Woodward for his role in Watergate they are already going to buy the book) and CNN trying to hold onto Conservative's by talking trash about Obama.
A good, serious journalist would have challenged Woodward with some facts. (See below for some of the questions that occurred to me almost immediately). Instead he threw out a couple softball questions to allow Woodward to make some vague supporting arguments for his thesis. Basically Woodward's judgment was based on the failed debt deal of last summer saying Obama "could have done..."... this, or that. Woodward's reasoning was about as compelling as that of a couple fan's sitting in a bar downing beers complaining about what their teams coach should have done. Classic couch potato armchair quarterbacking, not even remotely related to serious journalism.
The fact is CNN is no longer about serious journalism, they are about entertainment. Once they started losing viewers to Fox News serious factual investigation took a back seat to market share. Their first priority now is not offending anyone - or more accurately, offending everyone equally to counter the claim they are biased.
We now have in this country a partisan right wing media (most prominently Fox news), a useless lamestream media who focus on representing all opinions regardless of how lacking in factual support, and a partisan left wing media (most prominently MSNBC).
It is a sad day for american journalism when the two fellows, John Stewart and Steven Colbert, who are best at puncturing political posturing are on a comedy channel.
Questions a serious journalist might have asked Bob Woodward about his assertion Obama has not made things happen:
What about Obama care, the most contentious piece of legislation passed in recent memory.
Don't incontrovertible basic facts demonstrate Obama been swimming against the tide for his entire administration? He started with an economy collapsing like a house of cards, which has been aggravated by a Republican house dedicated to preventing him from accomplishing anything? Isn't the only President one can really compare Obama to FDR, the only other President to face anything like the circumstances Obama faced?
What did Bush do to show such superior leadership? How is it you regard him as a better President when on simple, objective facts Bush started with a balanced budget, a healthy economy and had a Republican Congress to work with from 2001 to 2007, the period when he was supposedly showing such leadership, On top of that when 9/11 happened the nation rallied behind Bush in the face of an external threat. Wasn't Bush swimming with the tide?
What did Clinton do domestically that showed such great leadership? His health care effort was a disaster and thereafter he got things done by co-opting Republican (stupid) ideas and making them his. The 1996 Capital Gains cuts that triggered the bubbles in stocks, the housing market and anything else people could invest in over the next decade had Clinton's signature on it, and he crowed about his role in the legislation. The 1998 repeal of Glass-Steagal that allowed Banks to make stupid bets that blew up the world economy had Clinton's signature on it, and he crowed about his role in the legislation. Wasn't Clinton's success in domestic policy a function of the fact he was very adept at turning around and swimming with the tide to keep his popularity up? Is that good leadership - adopting bad ideas, moderating them a little bit, then claiming the credit?
Wasn't Reagan the ultimate swimming with the tide guy? Didn't he start with a weak economy due to the Fed's high interest rates imposed to fight inflation, that was going to get better no matter what Reagan did once the Fed began bringing interest rates down? He had spent much of his life on Television hosting "Death Valley Days", he was a master performer who knew how to use TV. Didn't the fact there were only three networks at that time give him a captive audience every time he went on TV (which was often) to sell his ideas?
Isn't your effort to compare Obama's leadership ability just a transparent attempt to generate buzz about your books and maybe get some conservatives to buy your book by trashing Obama?
This tool of political propaganda has been wildly successful. Managed Conservative propaganda on Fox news started attracting more and more viewers at the expense of traditional news networks. In response the traditional networks began focusing on ratings and have become obsessed with presenting all views rather than testing views with facts. They bite their tongue to avoid offending Conservatives, while going out of their way to offend liberals to prove they are "unbiased".
I saw a classic example on CNN last night. Wolf Blitzer was interviewing Bob Woodward about his new book. The interview highlighted an assertion Woodward makes in the book that, essentially, Obama is an ineffective leader, unlike Reagan, Clinton or Bush Jr. Blitzer focused on this assertion which is essentially the kind of character assassination common in no holds barred politics - make some ambiguous and unprovable allegation about some character defect that will appeal to a segment of the audience outside your normal audience. You don't need to have actual data to back it up. I believe in this case it served both Woodward and CNN to indulge in this bit of slander, Woodward trying to sell his book to Conservatives (since the left worships Woodward for his role in Watergate they are already going to buy the book) and CNN trying to hold onto Conservative's by talking trash about Obama.
A good, serious journalist would have challenged Woodward with some facts. (See below for some of the questions that occurred to me almost immediately). Instead he threw out a couple softball questions to allow Woodward to make some vague supporting arguments for his thesis. Basically Woodward's judgment was based on the failed debt deal of last summer saying Obama "could have done..."... this, or that. Woodward's reasoning was about as compelling as that of a couple fan's sitting in a bar downing beers complaining about what their teams coach should have done. Classic couch potato armchair quarterbacking, not even remotely related to serious journalism.
The fact is CNN is no longer about serious journalism, they are about entertainment. Once they started losing viewers to Fox News serious factual investigation took a back seat to market share. Their first priority now is not offending anyone - or more accurately, offending everyone equally to counter the claim they are biased.
We now have in this country a partisan right wing media (most prominently Fox news), a useless lamestream media who focus on representing all opinions regardless of how lacking in factual support, and a partisan left wing media (most prominently MSNBC).
It is a sad day for american journalism when the two fellows, John Stewart and Steven Colbert, who are best at puncturing political posturing are on a comedy channel.
Questions a serious journalist might have asked Bob Woodward about his assertion Obama has not made things happen:
What about Obama care, the most contentious piece of legislation passed in recent memory.
Don't incontrovertible basic facts demonstrate Obama been swimming against the tide for his entire administration? He started with an economy collapsing like a house of cards, which has been aggravated by a Republican house dedicated to preventing him from accomplishing anything? Isn't the only President one can really compare Obama to FDR, the only other President to face anything like the circumstances Obama faced?
What did Bush do to show such superior leadership? How is it you regard him as a better President when on simple, objective facts Bush started with a balanced budget, a healthy economy and had a Republican Congress to work with from 2001 to 2007, the period when he was supposedly showing such leadership, On top of that when 9/11 happened the nation rallied behind Bush in the face of an external threat. Wasn't Bush swimming with the tide?
What did Clinton do domestically that showed such great leadership? His health care effort was a disaster and thereafter he got things done by co-opting Republican (stupid) ideas and making them his. The 1996 Capital Gains cuts that triggered the bubbles in stocks, the housing market and anything else people could invest in over the next decade had Clinton's signature on it, and he crowed about his role in the legislation. The 1998 repeal of Glass-Steagal that allowed Banks to make stupid bets that blew up the world economy had Clinton's signature on it, and he crowed about his role in the legislation. Wasn't Clinton's success in domestic policy a function of the fact he was very adept at turning around and swimming with the tide to keep his popularity up? Is that good leadership - adopting bad ideas, moderating them a little bit, then claiming the credit?
Wasn't Reagan the ultimate swimming with the tide guy? Didn't he start with a weak economy due to the Fed's high interest rates imposed to fight inflation, that was going to get better no matter what Reagan did once the Fed began bringing interest rates down? He had spent much of his life on Television hosting "Death Valley Days", he was a master performer who knew how to use TV. Didn't the fact there were only three networks at that time give him a captive audience every time he went on TV (which was often) to sell his ideas?
Isn't your effort to compare Obama's leadership ability just a transparent attempt to generate buzz about your books and maybe get some conservatives to buy your book by trashing Obama?
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