Capitalism: a Love Story

[Rhinox]

It's not hypocrisy, there's a difference b/w increasing elected representatives and increasing unelected unaccountable to the people bureaucrats. And liberals didn't put a man on the moon. If JFK were alive today he would be laughed out of the Democratic party.

And if the post office is required by law to be financially self sufficient how does it lose billions of dollars every year and stay in business?

wrong

[Solefald]

It's not hypocrisy, there's a difference b/w increasing elected representatives and increasing unelected unaccountable to the people bureaucrats. And liberals didn't put a man on the moon. If JFK were alive today he would be laughed out of the Democratic party.

And if the post office is required by law to be financially self sufficient how does it lose billions of dollars every year and stay in business?

Savings.

[Day]

Between this thread and watching Lions and Lambs last night, I'm about ready to just blow my brains out or move into the moutains off the grid.

[ZarakiKujata]

It's not hypocrisy, there's a difference b/w increasing elected representatives and increasing unelected unaccountable to the people bureaucrats. And liberals didn't put a man on the moon. If JFK were alive today he would be laughed out of the Democratic party.

And if the post office is required by law to be financially self sufficient how does it lose billions of dollars every year and stay in business?

You could make the same arguments for Nixon/Reagan.

[SwampdonkeyPLD]

Nixon definitely, but how so for Reagan?

[Dimmauk]

????????

Three words

Surplus to Debt.

Its like you completely forgot about how bad Bush was for America.

[ZarakiKujata]

Nixon definitely, but how so for Reagan?

He raised taxes, let our deficit grow, increased spending on inefficient government programs thereby increasing the size of the federal government, had friendly relations with our enemies (Iran/Contra), gave a speech to school children, increased the power of the federal government over states by tying highway funds to the drinking age, etc.

All a matter of perspective dawg.

[SwampdonkeyPLD]

Reagan raised taxes? And I thought Clinton started the highway funds/drinking age relationship.

[Olo401]

He raised taxes, let our deficit grow, increased spending on inefficient government programs thereby increasing the size of the federal government, had friendly relations with our enemies (Iran/Contra), gave a speech to school children, increased the power of the federal government over states by tying highway funds to the drinking age, etc.

All a matter of perspective dawg.

That speech was about the magical myths of the laffer curve and tax breaks for millionaires btw. I know, I was subjected to it in 7th grade.

And don't forget unilaterally breaking collective bargaining agreements (Air traffic controllers) and completely ignoring a major public health crisis (AIDS).

[ZarakiKujata]

Reagan raised taxes? And I thought Clinton started the highway funds/drinking age relationship.

Reagan raised taxes during the recession at the start of his first term in like 1981 or 1982.. (so much for conservatism saying you dont raise taxes in a recession?) Highway funds/drinking age started also in the early 1980s, I want to say 1984 but it could be earlier.

[ZarakiKujata]

That speech was about the magical myths of the laffer curve and tax breaks for millionaires btw. I know, I was subjected to it in 7th grade.

Yeah I was making a joek, since its okay with kids are indoctrinated with laissez-faire economics but not SOCIALISM

And don't forget unilaterally breaking collective bargaining agreements (Air traffic controllers) and completely ignoring a major public health crisis (AIDS).

I don't think the modern Republican party would give a fuck about his actions in either of those instances.. maybe they wouldn't like AIDS since its currently unchristian to not do shit about it in the developing world and back then only fags got AIDS so fuck them?

[Sirrus_Asura]

Reagan raised taxes during the recession at the start of his first term in like 1981 or 1982.. (so much for conservatism saying you dont raise taxes in a recession?) Highway funds/drinking age started also in the early 1980s, I want to say 1984 but it could be earlier.

This. As much as Repubtards beat off to Reagan, he didn't really change anything. Government still grew a fuckton while he was in office.

[Beckwin]

lol at conservatives trying to claim JFK. really now.

[Kuya]

I don't get it.

He says that democracy is the solution to capitalism, but free-market capitalism and modern democracy pretty much go hand-in-hand.

Or is he referring to the fact that we are not a true direct democracy, but rather a democratic republic? But if he is calling for a direct democracy as the solution, that makes no sense either, since its never gonna work on our scale.

I don't understand what he is trying to say.

I think he is trying to say that capitalism is anti democratic, either that or he subscribes to form definition of democracy we're not aware of.

Coincidentally, look what i found on the news today lol:

UN Panel Calls for New Global Currency

The UN is warning the global economic meltdown should prompt a major regulatory overhaul and the advent of a new global currency to replace the US dollar as the world standard. The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, or UNCTAD, says the dollar’s preeminence worsens existing imbalances and further burdens debt-ridden countries. UNCTAD Director Heiner Flassbeck said the world’s leading economies have failed to introduce regulation that could take on the financial instruments that caused the meltdown.

Heiner Flassbeck: “The world, as everybody knows, is in deep economic crisis, and there is no clear signal that the world can go out very quickly. And secondly, what is the second message is that, in terms of financial regulation, not much has been achieved.”

Flassbeck also said new regulation would curb the capital flights and speculation that have devastated economies while driving up commodity prices.

Heiner Flassbeck: “The closest correlation between financialization and the movement of prices you see in agricultural commodities. Can the international community allow that, due to financial speculation, rice or wheat is driven—the price of rice or wheat is driven to a level where people are starving or people are dying of hunger? Is that acceptable?”

[Correction]

????????

I just had to quote this because it made me laugh, it's so poetic. First good laugh of the morning, yay.

[Dimmauk]

I just had to quote this because it made me laugh, it's so poetic. First good laugh of the morning, yay.

When Lief isnt pasting fail from right wing blogs, all he can post is

????????

[ZarakiKujata]

Liberals should seriously start to claim Reagan (He was a democrat first anyways) if the GOP is gonna try and steal Harry Truman/JFK.

They can keep Nixon though.

[ZarakiKujata]

I think it's awesome how your avatar illustrates that the majority of more populated districts voted for Obama.

McCain got more landmass, nobody cares about all the 3/5ths people and octoroons that voted for Nobama.

[Rhinox]

The revisionist history in this thread is funny. When Reagan left office in 88 he was already being shoved out the door by his precious GOP. After his initial tax cuts when he came into office he raised taxes the rest of the time he was in office. It wasn't til the late 90's when the RLP (Reagan legacy project) came about that he was protrayed as this messiah. I wouldn't want to claim him because he was essentially an embarrassment.

Funny how dubya is Now looking to start his own legacy project to save him the embarrasment of being know as the dumbest man to ever sit in the oval office.


You can make the case that every republican president up until Reagan was liber compared to todays conservatives.

Gerald ford, Nixon, Eisenhower would probably all be called socialists. This says alot about our country

[Solefald]

The GOP vs Fiscal Conservatism

Charlie Cook and others are predicting a sea-change in public mood, with support for the GOP rising because of deficits. This strikes me as an amazing thing. It makes Charlie Brown, the football and Lucy look like the model of intelligent interaction. If you believe in fiscal conservatism, the last place on earth you should look for salvation is the GOP. They have single-handedly destroyed America's finances since the 1980s, with the sole exception of George H W Bush, who was rejected by his own party precisely because of his fiscal sobriety. The current debt is overwhelmingly inherited by Obama, and it would have been nuts to enter office in the downdraft of the sharp recession and set about cutting spending. Bush had eight years to restrain it and he didn't. He let it rip. Think of the GOP's phony concerns about the cost of the current healthcare bill and compare it with the GOP's prescription drug entitlement that Rove rammed through the Congress when the GOP held total power. The costs then were about eight times as great as the proposed costs now. But that was a Republican measure and so it doesn't somehow count as evidence of fiscal irresponsibility. But Nancy Pelosi only has to raise an eye-brow and the alarms go off.
Somehow - thanks in part to dishonest partisan hacks like Glenn Reynolds and Sean Hannity - the Bush-Cheney debt is all Obama's fault and you need to get Republicans back to fix it. A commenter on Bruce Bartlett's Forbes column has the best response to that:

The last Republican who left the office of the presidency with the federal public debt as a percentage of GDP less than when he entered was Richard Nixon (FY 1975). The last Republican who left the office of the presidency with a federal deficit less than 2.7% of GDP was Dwight Eisenhower (FY 1961). Since WW II no Democratic president has ever left office with the federal public debt as a percentage of GDP more than when he entered. And since WW II no Democratic president has ever left office with a federal deficit more than 2.6% of GDP.
We already have at least one party of fiscal responsibility. It's called the Democratic Party.

Which, of course, is still a problem. But nothing like the fiscal lunacy of the GOP.
The Daily Dish | By Andrew Sullivan