Solutions for Conservativ...":
This Blog caught my attention some time ago because I'm opposed to “thinking outside the box.”
I read you commentary with interest but have to admit I disagree most of it. It is quit diverse and I am limited with 'comment’ space. However, I'll start with this.
The only reason Mr. Krugman could refer to the Republican party as "stupid" is he just hasn’t looked in the mirror lately. His point that “know-nothingism” results when “there are simple, brute-force, instant-gratification answers to every problem” isn’t unique to the GOP. They way I see it, the Democrats are champions at it.
The problem: The economy and unemployment
Simple Solution: Spend $787 billion to fix it
Brute-force: Economist from across the ‘spectrum’ agree this is the only way to fix Bush’s mess
Instant-gratification: It must be passed immediately or unemployment will go into double digits
Results: The money couldn’t be controlled, no jobs have been created, the economy still faltering and the Administration is spending trillions a day.
Simple Solution: Spend $787 billion to fix it
Brute-force: Economist from across the ‘spectrum’ agree this is the only way to fix Bush’s mess
Instant-gratification: It must be passed immediately or unemployment will go into double digits
Results: The money couldn’t be controlled, no jobs have been created, the economy still faltering and the Administration is spending trillions a day.
Problem: Failure of the American Automobile Industry
Simple Solution: Buy them out and turn over 15% to the Union
Brute-force: Cash for Clunkers – we must get gas guzzling autos off the road for more environmentally friendly autos.
Instant-gratification: Attach $4 billion ‘Cash for Clunkers’ onto a bill to fund troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. (No one can oppose it without denying funds to our troops).
Results: Any idiot who wants to buy a double-cab Ford, Chevrolet, Dodge or GMC pickup truck that gets an average of 15mpg can get $4,500 from the tax payers towards the purchase. It's no help to the environment.
Problem: Collapse of the Housing Market
Simple Solution: Bail out the banks
Brute-force: Confuse everyone about sub-prime loans. Deny MAC and MAE were the cause.
Instant-gratification: Give BOA, Wells Fargo, Chase & etc. tens-of-billions each so they can lend money again and help the economy.
Result: Qualified home buyers (20% down group) can’t get loans. With no buyers there are no sales. There are predictions that 50% of all home owners will be underwater by 2011. Money given to the banks is getting passed out to welfare children to buy school supplies.
Problem: Fossil Fuels and the environment
Simple Solution: Get energy from the Wind and Sun. Sideline nuclear plans.
Brute-force: Tax the utilities through a cap-and-trade program. It will create millions of jobs.
Instant-gratification: Introduce Cap-and-Trade program
Results: Impractical if not impossible idea. It takes 421 wind turbines or 4,500 acres of solar panels to generate up to 735 megawatts. Ignore the fact
that we get over 26 trillion megawatts from a single nuclear plant.
Simple Solution: Get energy from the Wind and Sun. Sideline nuclear plans.
Brute-force: Tax the utilities through a cap-and-trade program. It will create millions of jobs.
Instant-gratification: Introduce Cap-and-Trade program
Results: Impractical if not impossible idea. It takes 421 wind turbines or 4,500 acres of solar panels to generate up to 735 megawatts. Ignore the fact
that we get over 26 trillion megawatts from a single nuclear plant.
Problem: Cutting Health Care Costs
Simple Solution: Introduce H.R. 3200
Brute-force: Every American is entitled to have health care. The opponents to it are un-American
Instant-gratification: It must be passed before the August recess
Results: See my Blog “Who’s Kidding Who About Health Care?”
So, applying Krugman’s policy, the Democrats are the “know-nothings.” For every problem they have a Simple solution, Used brute force tactics and sought instant gratification. As for their results, well maybe they just
don’t think things through.
Rightardia Response: Thinking Outside the Box
The Krugman comment came right after the 2008 election. He makes some good points that the GOP is anti-intellectual and highly ideological. It is very possible if the Obama administration had not taken some draconian steps, the US could have ended in another depression. Forty per cent of the world's wealth disappeared because of the Wall Street meltdown.
The meltdown was caused by years of pig headed deregulation, the repeal of the Great Depression's Glass-Steagal Act and some SEC rules changes in 2004 that allowed the five banks that failed to hold minimal reserves. Freddy Mac and Fannie Mae were effects, not causes. Wall Street greed caused the meltdown coupled with the Bush administration looking the other way. Keep in mind too that Nancy Pelosi didn't become the Speaker of the House until 2007.
The problems in the housing market were created by the Bush Ownership Society. Bush wanted more Americans to own homes, but the lack of oversight of the banks and the SEC rule change in 2004 allowed banks maintain low reserves for their loans. When the financial meltdown dust cleared, fewer people owned homes than during the Clinton era. The housing collapse caused home prices to drop. This was the fault of the Bush administration and it will take years for home prices to recover.
Let's face up to the reality that the Bush administration was a huge failure and disappointment. The Obama administration is having success.
The Great Recession is over, housing prices have increased for the first time in three years, unemployment is slowing and GDP only dropped one per cent in the last quarter. The Democrats have made progress in the past seven months.
The Dems aren't using a short term instant gratification strategy, the are following the Depression play book that requires the government to intervene on a very large scale. They are using hard nose realism and pragmatism, something that has been is short supply in the GOP lately. Herbert Hoover had some good ideas when the Great Depression started, but he underspent and extended the Depression for many years because of it.
Keep in mind that the theory of supply side economics was supposed to create more jobs by cutting taxes and increasing the incomes of the affluent. Bush created about one quarter of the jobs that Clinton created. In addition, wages have been flat for the average American while American productivity has increased.
Many economists say that supply side economics are a Reagan era Trojan horse that is designed to help "the have mores." Supply side economics is an immature economic theory that doesn't work. Moody's blew supply side economics apart when a study showed that each dollar spent in tax cuts returned 30 cents to the economy while each dollar spent on food stamps returned $1.73.
CARS or Cash for Clunkers was tested in Germany and France before the US started the program and it has been effective in both of those countries. Old inefficient vehicles and some that are not road worthy are being taken off the road. The number one US seller is the Ford Focus not pickup trucks. The program has been a big success and has bi-partisan support and vehicles must get 18 mg not 15 mpg to qualify for the $4500 rebate.
Keep in mind that the TARP program for Wall Street banks started during the Bush administration and the program was not well managed. Tim Geithner is still trying to get TARP under control.
Obama is not against nuclear energy. In fact, a local power company just got approved for a nuclear plant in the county that I live in. France runs totally on nuclear power. Bush was told to lead or get out of the way when he met with with the other industrial nations of the world on green house gases because the US is one of the worst offenders. Something has to be done. Nothing happened in past eight years. Should we continue to sit on our hands like the GOP did for the past eight years?
If Congress and the Senate had got the health care job done before the recess, universal health care would now be a fact of life instead of the town hall mess the Democrats will have to overcome. Believe me, health care will be reformed.
The US system is the most expensive in the world and one in three Americans already has health care provided by the government. We are dead last in the 23 industrial nations in the world in health care according to the World Health Organization.
We are the only industrial nation that has a private health care system besides South Africa. We are the exception not the rule in health care. I believe that health care is a basic human right that does not necessarily have to be earned by working in a soulless corporation.
I will argue that the Democratic team in Washington is more distinguished than the Republicans and are more 'fact based' than 'faith-based.' I don't understand your logic in equating Cash for Clunkers to troops in Afghanistan. I think the US government is aware that a military solution in Afghanistan won't work and there is more emphasis now on community affairs and nation building. You are mixing apples with oranges.
I am inclined to believe that the Republicans are populated by 'know nothings' like Sarah Palin who attended 5 colleges in six years, John McCain who finished in the bottom one per cent of his Annapolis class, and George W. Bush who did a good imitation of Forest Gump while in office.
Former Sen. Rick Santorum has to be one on the dumbest politicians in recent history. He is going to Iowa to put his hat in the ring for a 2012 presidential run. Many of the Republicans I have met are under-educated.
We will have to agree to disagree. I have watched too many GOP administrations rattle sabres, cut taxes and run in the red. The GOP loves the box and wants to maintain the status quo. In the crises the US is going through, 'out of the box' types are needed to steer the nation through turbulent waters while the GOP box is flooding.
The GOP created this mess in eight years and now seems to expect the Democrats to have all the problems fixed before the end of the year. Talk about 'instant gratification.' It's not over until it over. And the Zen master said, "We'll see" (Charlie Wilson's War.)
The meltdown was caused by years of pig headed deregulation, the repeal of the Great Depression's Glass-Steagal Act and some SEC rules changes in 2004 that allowed the five banks that failed to hold minimal reserves. Freddy Mac and Fannie Mae were effects, not causes. Wall Street greed caused the meltdown coupled with the Bush administration looking the other way. Keep in mind too that Nancy Pelosi didn't become the Speaker of the House until 2007.
The problems in the housing market were created by the Bush Ownership Society. Bush wanted more Americans to own homes, but the lack of oversight of the banks and the SEC rule change in 2004 allowed banks maintain low reserves for their loans. When the financial meltdown dust cleared, fewer people owned homes than during the Clinton era. The housing collapse caused home prices to drop. This was the fault of the Bush administration and it will take years for home prices to recover.
Let's face up to the reality that the Bush administration was a huge failure and disappointment. The Obama administration is having success.
The Great Recession is over, housing prices have increased for the first time in three years, unemployment is slowing and GDP only dropped one per cent in the last quarter. The Democrats have made progress in the past seven months.
The Dems aren't using a short term instant gratification strategy, the are following the Depression play book that requires the government to intervene on a very large scale. They are using hard nose realism and pragmatism, something that has been is short supply in the GOP lately. Herbert Hoover had some good ideas when the Great Depression started, but he underspent and extended the Depression for many years because of it.
Keep in mind that the theory of supply side economics was supposed to create more jobs by cutting taxes and increasing the incomes of the affluent. Bush created about one quarter of the jobs that Clinton created. In addition, wages have been flat for the average American while American productivity has increased.
Many economists say that supply side economics are a Reagan era Trojan horse that is designed to help "the have mores." Supply side economics is an immature economic theory that doesn't work. Moody's blew supply side economics apart when a study showed that each dollar spent in tax cuts returned 30 cents to the economy while each dollar spent on food stamps returned $1.73.
CARS or Cash for Clunkers was tested in Germany and France before the US started the program and it has been effective in both of those countries. Old inefficient vehicles and some that are not road worthy are being taken off the road. The number one US seller is the Ford Focus not pickup trucks. The program has been a big success and has bi-partisan support and vehicles must get 18 mg not 15 mpg to qualify for the $4500 rebate.
Keep in mind that the TARP program for Wall Street banks started during the Bush administration and the program was not well managed. Tim Geithner is still trying to get TARP under control.
Obama is not against nuclear energy. In fact, a local power company just got approved for a nuclear plant in the county that I live in. France runs totally on nuclear power. Bush was told to lead or get out of the way when he met with with the other industrial nations of the world on green house gases because the US is one of the worst offenders. Something has to be done. Nothing happened in past eight years. Should we continue to sit on our hands like the GOP did for the past eight years?
If Congress and the Senate had got the health care job done before the recess, universal health care would now be a fact of life instead of the town hall mess the Democrats will have to overcome. Believe me, health care will be reformed.
The US system is the most expensive in the world and one in three Americans already has health care provided by the government. We are dead last in the 23 industrial nations in the world in health care according to the World Health Organization.
We are the only industrial nation that has a private health care system besides South Africa. We are the exception not the rule in health care. I believe that health care is a basic human right that does not necessarily have to be earned by working in a soulless corporation.
I will argue that the Democratic team in Washington is more distinguished than the Republicans and are more 'fact based' than 'faith-based.' I don't understand your logic in equating Cash for Clunkers to troops in Afghanistan. I think the US government is aware that a military solution in Afghanistan won't work and there is more emphasis now on community affairs and nation building. You are mixing apples with oranges.
I am inclined to believe that the Republicans are populated by 'know nothings' like Sarah Palin who attended 5 colleges in six years, John McCain who finished in the bottom one per cent of his Annapolis class, and George W. Bush who did a good imitation of Forest Gump while in office.
Former Sen. Rick Santorum has to be one on the dumbest politicians in recent history. He is going to Iowa to put his hat in the ring for a 2012 presidential run. Many of the Republicans I have met are under-educated.
We will have to agree to disagree. I have watched too many GOP administrations rattle sabres, cut taxes and run in the red. The GOP loves the box and wants to maintain the status quo. In the crises the US is going through, 'out of the box' types are needed to steer the nation through turbulent waters while the GOP box is flooding.
The GOP created this mess in eight years and now seems to expect the Democrats to have all the problems fixed before the end of the year. Talk about 'instant gratification.' It's not over until it over. And the Zen master said, "We'll see" (Charlie Wilson's War.)
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