Now this is a powerful ad

[White Knight 42]

Response to washunut’s post:

A few points regarding to my "long-winded" post: You say that you don't know what I really know about economics. Well, I don't know what you know about economics either! I've pretty well ascertained that you're not holding a Nobel Prize for economics and your economic understanding is pretty much on the same level as the others who post opinions on this forum, so let's spare all of us the implication that you know ever so much more than the rest of us.

As for the video that you seem to think is so great, the idea that you can't spend yourself out of a recession is false. That's exactly how we ended the Great Depression! In 1940 we began to rearm for World War II. It was government spending on a massive scale (a stimulus) unhindered by concerns about deficits, economic orthodoxy, or ideological correctness. We had to do it and we did it. We put the unemployed back to work including women (aka Rosie the Riveter).

The video also refers to the "massive takeover" of health care by the government. What massive takeover? The health care reforms enacted by the Democrats required citizens to get health care. This was a Republican concept from 1993! Private insurance companies, private doctors and private hospitals provide the health care, not the government. The government's role is in establishing exchanges within the states where people can go to find adequate health care policies. When my wife worked in the U.W. Hospital's admissions department, she was appalled at the number of patients who arrived with insurance policies so pathetically small, that they were of little value. This was just another insurance company scam. It’s no wonder that prior to the Great Recession the majority of bankruptcies were caused by the inability to pay for the medical expenses resulting from catastrophic illness.

And as for the takeover of private businesses by the government, it should have become clear by now that bailing out the banks, financial institutions and GM and Chrysler was not motivated by some deep-seated socialistic agenda to take over the means of production. It was motivated by a desire to stem the tide of massive job losses (700,000+ per month in the closing days of the Bush administration and the opening days of the Obama administration). Would conservatives have sat by and watched while an additional several million workers lost their jobs?

Personally, I think that avoiding a world-wide depression, saving millions of auto-related jobs, helping state and local governments avoid massive layoffs of their employees which would have heightened panic, reduced consumption and led to even more private company layoffs, and helping tens of millions to have a chance of getting adequate health care are pretty positive accomplishments.

And frankly I'm a little tired of conservatives blasting the Democrats for the deficits. From 2001 thru the end of 2008 Republicans added 5.8 trillion to the national debt, more than doubling the debt in 8 years and with far less justification. They started 2 wars (poorly executed) without raising taxes to pay for them. They enacted a prescription drug benefit for Medicare without providing the funds to pay for the new benefit. They instead enacted a large tax cut which they did not pay for with corresponding cuts in spending. Judging by the deficits of Reagan, G.H.W. and G.W. Bush, you can't tax cut your way out of big deficits. And to top it off, their policy of "de-regulation" was a major factor in the financial sector meltdown which necessitated the bailouts and stimulus.

The current generations, having been traumatized by the Great Recession are unlikely to resume their free spending consumption of the past any time soon. Thus the recovery will be slow.
I’m sorry for the “long-winded” posts, but its always easier to make assertions, than rebut them.
White Knight 42

 

[washunut]

washnut, et al,

Yeah, it seems to be in conflict, but it's not.

​

(COMMENT)

My father was opposed to the "Credit Card" - because he foresaw me spending more than I earned, and getting into trouble. I remember him, visiting me at Ft Bragg, and telling me not to deal with the Used Car Salesman that said – “we sell to E-3s.” He told me to go to jump-school and save my pay. Then buy it outright.

His view on social security went along the lines of: “we pay for it” and we earn it. It is a retirement fund where the government gets the interest.

It seemed that most of my older family members were very (very) apprehensive of banks. They actually had more faith in the government (hard to believe). The stock market was an investment schemes for only those that could afford to loose it all. It’s not for the average person. I’m sure he would have been opposed to retirement systems that invest money in the market (remembering the crash) and (if he had lived) seen the bailouts that we just went through.

A home mortgage was OK – but an honor project. And a man’s word to repay a debt was absolute.

Most Respectfully,
R

If the country acted just like your dad we would have a much stronger economy.

 

[washunut]

Response to washunut’s post:

A few points regarding to my "long-winded" post: You say that you don't know what I really know about economics. Well, I don't know what you know about economics either! I've pretty well ascertained that you're not holding a Nobel Prize for economics and your economic understanding is pretty much on the same level as the others who post opinions on this forum, so let's spare all of us the implication that you know ever so much more than the rest of us.

As for the video that you seem to think is so great, the idea that you can't spend yourself out of a recession is false. That's exactly how we ended the Great Depression! In 1940 we began to rearm for World War II. It was government spending on a massive scale (a stimulus) unhindered by concerns about deficits, economic orthodoxy, or ideological correctness. We had to do it and we did it. We put the unemployed back to work including women (aka Rosie the Riveter).

The video also refers to the "massive takeover" of health care by the government. What massive takeover? The health care reforms enacted by the Democrats required citizens to get health care. This was a Republican concept from 1993! Private insurance companies, private doctors and private hospitals provide the health care, not the government. The government's role is in establishing exchanges within the states where people can go to find adequate health care policies. When my wife worked in the U.W. Hospital's admissions department, she was appalled at the number of patients who arrived with insurance policies so pathetically small, that they were of little value. This was just another insurance company scam. It’s no wonder that prior to the Great Recession the majority of bankruptcies were caused by the inability to pay for the medical expenses resulting from catastrophic illness.

And as for the takeover of private businesses by the government, it should have become clear by now that bailing out the banks, financial institutions and GM and Chrysler was not motivated by some deep-seated socialistic agenda to take over the means of production. It was motivated by a desire to stem the tide of massive job losses (700,000+ per month in the closing days of the Bush administration and the opening days of the Obama administration). Would conservatives have sat by and watched while an additional several million workers lost their jobs?

Personally, I think that avoiding a world-wide depression, saving millions of auto-related jobs, helping state and local governments avoid massive layoffs of their employees which would have heightened panic, reduced consumption and led to even more private company layoffs, and helping tens of millions to have a chance of getting adequate health care are pretty positive accomplishments.

And frankly I'm a little tired of conservatives blasting the Democrats for the deficits. From 2001 thru the end of 2008 Republicans added 5.8 trillion to the national debt, more than doubling the debt in 8 years and with far less justification. They started 2 wars (poorly executed) without raising taxes to pay for them. They enacted a prescription drug benefit for Medicare without providing the funds to pay for the new benefit. They instead enacted a large tax cut which they did not pay for with corresponding cuts in spending. Judging by the deficits of Reagan, G.H.W. and G.W. Bush, you can't tax cut your way out of big deficits. And to top it off, their policy of "de-regulation" was a major factor in the financial sector meltdown which necessitated the bailouts and stimulus.

The current generations, having been traumatized by the Great Recession are unlikely to resume their free spending consumption of the past any time soon. Thus the recovery will be slow.
I’m sorry for the “long-winded” posts, but its always easier to make assertions, than rebut them.
White Knight 42

What the heck are you referring to??? What video did I mention. As far as the bailouts, I mentioned that they originated under republican rule.

You are also a joke for calling me a conservative as I have been a lifelong democrat but am able to look above partisan hackery and think about what is best for the country.

Reread my post, if you have something relavent to discuss get back to me.

 

[Your Star]

Okay, how is this a powerful ad for conservative values when a communist China rules the world? If anything it's saying be more like China. Which you know, would be bad.

 

[Harshaw]

Conservatives didn't seem to care when corporations like Wal Mart forced our manufacturing industry to outsource into China in order to keep prices low. They didn't care when we amassed a growing trade deficit. They didn't care when we borrowed money from them to pay for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. They didn't mind all that much when money was borrowed from them to push through a stimulus under Bush. But oh my, once midterm elections roll around, now they are suddenly afraid. This ad is a testament to the fact that conservatives are ignorant of their own history of fiscal policy.

Even if all that were 100% true, it still wouldn't make the ad invalid.

 

[White Knight 42]

Washunut:

I apologize. It’s apparent you haven’t even seen the video that started this entire thread. Given the generally nasty and condescending tone of your response to my first post, I thought you had and agreed with its message. Do you?

Taking your concerns in the order of your first response to me:

The relevance of my parents’ Great Depression experience is that traumatic events like the Great Depression and the Great Recession tend to create more or less permanent changes in behavior and attitudes in those who experienced them. Therefore, regardless of what economic dance we do, consumer demand is likely to be slow because people have found out how financially insecure they really are and they are afraid. Blaming Democrats for a slow recovery is blaming them for things that neither Democrats nor Republicans can control.

I’m concerned about the debt too. But I was concerned from 2001 thru 2008 as well. Were you? If not, why not?

Your assertion that the Democrats and the Fed were trying to deliberately cause inflation is highly questionable. It’s far more likely that they looked around and saw that the flood of layoffs after the meltdown was reducing consumer demand at a catastrophic pace. This rapid decline in demand caused employers to lay off more people causing more panic and consumer belt tightening. A downward death spiral to a second Great Depression was in progress. Job 1 became stop the layoffs. Their stimulus plan did that. What would you have done? Balance the budget and watch the downward job loss spiral continue? Compared with the 25-30% unemployment rate of the Great Depression, 9.7 % doesn’t look so bad.

As for Social Security payments being frozen, yearly increases in Social Security payments were the result of inflationary pressures. Right now we have been battling deflationary pressures. No inflation, no Social Security increases. It’s the law. We’re lucky they don’t cut Soc. Sec. payments in times of deflation. I’m receiving Social Security payments, so if you are, I feel your pain.

Well here’s what I know about the causes of the Great Recession. The conservative drum beat for de-regulation was an important factor. Beginning in the Reagan era Republicans pushed to deregulate the Federal Savings & Loans. Within several years the deregulated S&Ls were in trouble because their managers had been speculating with their depositors’ money. That little conservative experiment cost the taxpayers about $100 billion. In 1999 The Republican controlled Congress repealed the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933. That act had been put in place to prevent banks from speculating with their depositors’ money by drawing a line between commercial banks (the kind most of us use) and the investment banks (which are allowed to speculate). For over 60 years Glass-Steagall kept our banking system safe and stable. With the restrictions gone, banks were less careful about who they loaned money to, because they were bundling these mortgages and selling them to institutional investors (like pension funds) and foreign investors/banks (spreading the U.S. meltdown around the world).

As for TARP, that program was initiated by Bush and carried through by Obama, TARP was largely successful in preventing the collapse of America’s financial institutions and its cost appears to be far less than the $700 billion originally estimated ($50 billion?). True, these same banks and financial institutions have not behaved well since their rescue (raising fees, paying themselves hefty bonuses), but had Obama moved to stop these things, conservatives would have screamed “Socialism!”.

I am always amazed at the number of people who think that the problems that were dumped in his lap on Jan. 20, 2009, were Obama’s and the Democrats’ fault. Certainly the conservatives in both parties were of no help. The auto bailouts saved much of our domestic auto industry, and it seems to be bearing fruit. Just this morning GM announced that it’s adding 600 jobs in Michigan. It’s a start and it wouldn’t have happened, if we followed conservative “wisdom”. They seemingly have learned nothing from the meltdown. They’re still hawking the same old policies of deregulation, tax cuts for the super wealthy, and unspecified cuts in spending.

Which brings us to the “red herring” crack. I fail to see how asking the politicians of a party, which has made “Cut the deficits!” its battle cry, to identify the specific cuts they would make is unreasonable or a “red herring”. Don’t you think that advocates of spending cuts should be able to name several specific examples of what they would cut/reduce? If you are at all sophisticated about the deficits, you surely recognize that cutting earmarks, freezing government spending at 2008 levels (a big deficit year itself), cutting “fraud waste and abuse”, and the rest of the deficit hawk’s vague platitudes is not going to solve the deficit problem. Why would we want to elect a bunch of politicians who are so gutless or incapable of defending their specific proposals that they refuse to name them for fear of being attacked? I saw John Boehner and Jeff Sessions squirm when NBC’s (not MSNBC) “Meet the Press” host David Gregory asked them 3 times to name a specific spending cut they would make. They couldn't or wouldn't.

I think that halting a slide into another Great Depression, preventing a world-wide depression, saving an important segment of our beleaguered manufacturing sector, moving to curb the worst abuses by banks and financial institutions, getting rid of the “pre-existing conditions” insurance scam, moving to close the prescription drug “doughnut hole”, preventing insurance companies from dumping you when you get sick, and producing a small, but increasingly steady growth in private sector jobs are positive reasons enough to support Democrats in 2010!

Oops! Another long-winded post. But I guess that’s what you get when you present me with a laundry list of vague, unsupported assertions and innuendos.

White Knight 42

 

[MKULTRABOY]

I guess you're living under a rock. 100 seats are in play in the House. Wave election they say... don't let your partisan beliefs get in the way though. I'm sure the Democrats will be just fine. See, I even typed that without laughing out loud.

I was laughing with you...

 

[MKULTRABOY]

Okay, how is this a powerful ad for conservative values when a communist China rules the world? If anything it's saying be more like China. Which you know, would be bad.

It directly cites the bailout and healthcare reform as part of the demise of the american empire.

 

[cAPSLOCK]

My father was opposed to the "Credit Card" - because he foresaw me spending more than I earned, and getting into trouble. I remember him, visiting me at Ft Bragg, and telling me not to deal with the Used Car Salesman that said – “we sell to E-3s.” He told me to go to jump-school and save my pay. Then buy it outright.

His view on social security went along the lines of: “we pay for it” and we earn it. It is a retirement fund where the government gets the interest.

It seemed that most of my older family members were very (very) apprehensive of banks. They actually had more faith in the government (hard to believe). The stock market was an investment schemes for only those that could afford to loose it all. It’s not for the average person. I’m sure he would have been opposed to retirement systems that invest money in the market (remembering the crash) and (if he had lived) seen the bailouts that we just went through.

A home mortgage was OK – but an honor project. And a man’s word to repay a debt was absolute.

Most Respectfully,
R

Your father is the sort of man (also like my own) I model my economic discipline and philosophy on. I am sure I would enjoy his company.

I too think he would be quite disappointed in our country's curent mess.

 

[washunut]

It directly cites the bailout and healthcare reform as part of the demise of the american empire.

Washunut:

I apologize. It’s apparent you haven’t even seen the video that started this entire thread. Given the generally nasty and condescending tone of your response to my first post, I thought you had and agreed with its message. Do you?

Correct I did not listen to the commercial and would not agree with it.
Taking your concerns in the order of your first response to me:
The relevance of my parents’ Great Depression experience is that traumatic events like the Great Depression and the Great Recession tend to create more or less permanent changes in behavior and attitudes in those who experienced them. Therefore, regardless of what economic dance we do, consumer demand is likely to be slow because people have found out how financially insecure they really are and they are afraid. Blaming Democrats for a slow recovery is blaming them for things that neither Democrats nor Republicans can control.

Who blamed democrats, where do you see that in my response.
I’m concerned about the debt too. But I was concerned from 2001 thru 2008 as well. Were you? If not, why not?

I have been concerned about debt and deficits since the 80's so I guess I was ahead of my time.

Your assertion that the Democrats and the Fed were trying to deliberately cause inflation is highly questionable. It’s far more likely that they looked around and saw that the flood of layoffs after the meltdown was reducing consumer demand at a catastrophic pace. This rapid decline in demand caused employers to lay off more people causing more panic and consumer belt tightening. A downward death spiral to a second Great Depression was in progress. Job 1 became stop the layoffs. Their stimulus plan did that. What would you have done? Balance the budget and watch the downward job loss spiral continue? Compared with the 25-30% unemployment rate of the Great Depression, 9.7 % doesn’t look so bad.

Again you are mischaracterizing what I said so I have to assume it is on purpose. I think the orininal QE that the fed did was to stop the bleeding. Their stated goal for QE2 is to reflate (inflate) our economy to their target of about 2%. The stimulus added some jobs but it was TARP and QE1 that stopped us from going into a depression. This is a reason I question your reasoning and/or knowledge of our economy. We have a GDP of about 14 trillion, stimulus added about 200 billion per year, how does that translate into the type of effect you mention??
As for Social Security payments being frozen, yearly increases in Social Security payments were the result of inflationary pressures. Right now we have been battling deflationary pressures. No inflation, no Social Security increases. It’s the law. We’re lucky they don’t cut Soc. Sec. payments in times of deflation. I’m receiving Social Security payments, so if you are, I feel your pain.

Again your knowledge seems to come from talking points. There is NO DEFLATION yet, Bernanke fears we will have it thus QE2. Unless you want to point solely to housing prices where else do you see deflation.

Well here’s what I know about the causes of the Great Recession. The conservative drum beat for de-regulation was an important factor. Beginning in the Reagan era Republicans pushed to deregulate the Federal Savings & Loans. Within several years the deregulated S&Ls were in trouble because their managers had been speculating with their depositors’ money. That little conservative experiment cost the taxpayers about $100 billion. In 1999 The Republican controlled Congress repealed the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933. That act had been put in place to prevent banks from speculating with their depositors’ money by drawing a line between commercial banks (the kind most of us use) and the investment banks (which are allowed to speculate). For over 60 years Glass-Steagall kept our banking system safe and stable. With the restrictions gone, banks were less careful about who they loaned money to, because they were bundling these mortgages and selling them to institutional investors (like pension funds) and foreign investors/banks (spreading the U.S. meltdown around the world).

As you may know the change in banking laws was something that Clinton along with his treasury secretary wanted.
As for TARP, that program was initiated by Bush and carried through by Obama, TARP was largely successful in preventing the collapse of America’s financial institutions and its cost appears to be far less than the $700 billion originally estimated ($50 billion?). True, these same banks and financial institutions have not behaved well since their rescue (raising fees, paying themselves hefty bonuses), but had Obama moved to stop these things, conservatives would have screamed “Socialism!”.

I agreed with TARP, half the money was spent before Obama took office so he could not have stopped the most beneficial part. The extra money to GM and GMAC perhaps could have been stopped.
I am always amazed at the number of people who think that the problems that were dumped in his lap on Jan. 20, 2009, were Obama’s and the Democrats’ fault. Certainly the conservatives in both parties were of no help. The auto bailouts saved much of our domestic auto industry, and it seems to be bearing fruit. Just this morning GM announced that it’s adding 600 jobs in Michigan. It’s a start and it wouldn’t have happened, if we followed conservative “wisdom”. They seemingly have learned nothing from the meltdown. They’re still hawking the same old policies of deregulation, tax cuts for the super wealthy, and unspecified cuts in spending.

Again hackery as it relates to any of my posts which call for none of the above. This is how one loses credibility. I won't call it lying becuase I have no idea why you say it.

Which brings us to the “red herring” crack. I fail to see how asking the politicians of a party, which has made “Cut the deficits!” its battle cry, to identify the specific cuts they would make is unreasonable or a “red herring”. Don’t you think that advocates of spending cuts should be able to name several specific examples of what they would cut/reduce? If you are at all sophisticated about the deficits, you surely recognize that cutting earmarks, freezing government spending at 2008 levels (a big deficit year itself), cutting “fraud waste and abuse”, and the rest of the deficit hawk’s vague platitudes is not going to solve the deficit problem. Why would we want to elect a bunch of politicians who are so gutless or incapable of defending their specific proposals that they refuse to name them for fear of being attacked? I saw John Boehner and Jeff Sessions squirm when NBC’s (not MSNBC) “Meet the Press” host David Gregory asked them 3 times to name a specific spending cut they would make. They couldn't or wouldn't.

You are not really that naive (I hope). Politicians know that ALL spending helps someone even if it is wasteful to the country. So a week before elections no politicians want to put out a sign that says don't vote for me I want to take away your pork. Again how weak is that arguement. How stupid does the media think we are.
I think that halting a slide into another Great Depression, preventing a world-wide depression, saving an important segment of our beleaguered manufacturing sector, moving to curb the worst abuses by banks and financial institutions, getting rid of the “pre-existing conditions” insurance scam, moving to close the prescription drug “doughnut hole”, preventing insurance companies from dumping you when you get sick, and producing a small, but increasingly steady growth in private sector jobs are positive reasons enough to support Democrats in 2010!

Oops! Another long-winded post. But I guess that’s what you get when you present me with a laundry list of vague, unsupported assertions and innuendos.

White Knight 42

Not sure what your ending was but you need to do more independent reading. Huffington post and MSNBC do not make for a well rounded thinker.

The more I think of your post it seems sad. That someone who seems to care about what happens in this country can blindly accept either side of a debate. But that is what our country seems to have come to.

 

[Ockham]

I was laughing with you...

And ditto ....

 

[Grim17]

I just tuned into Hannity and he had Frank Luntz on. They do this thing where their control group has these dials to measure the positive effect different political ads have on both democrats and republicans. That ad received high marks for it's effectiveness by both parties, and Luntz said it was one of the most powerful ads of the entire campaign season.

Just thought I'd pass that along to everyone.

 

[Le Marteau]

Eh, my only problem with the ad was that it claimed the British Empire fell because it turned away from its principles. As I recall, the British Empire fell because it saved the world from militarism in the First World War, and fascism in the Second World War.

But, I'm mostly joking -- I'm aware that wasn't at all the focal point of the ad, and so it's simply semantics. XD

Overall, I'm not sure I agree with the ad's message (as I would make the argument that, at least for the EU's economic-political structure, the bailout spending has worked phenomenally well, the PIGS are stabilised and reviving, and the Euro is set to be the world's most powerful currency (currently second after the British Pound) in a few decades).

However, by the same token, America's economic structure is quite different from the EU's, and I would agree that an EU-style bail-out was a bad move by Obama for the States.

Furthermore, the ad was a powerful piece of propaganda (meant in a good way -- the word has such negative connotation these days, but there's both positive and negative propaganda all around us), and well executed.

 

[MKULTRABOY]

Yet, you agree that it is the devil. Yes?


:lol: