As opposed to trusting the government with it?

The only person you ought to be trusting with your life (or more generally looking after your well being as priority one) is yourself. Anything else is just going to Vegas.

No no no. What don't you understand? Government is always inefficient and wasteful. Examples to the contrary are not helpful.

disagreed as it's not an all or nothing equation IMO

Yes!

The required priority of government action is the best interest of the American people. The required priority of private enterprise is company profits.

If the first fails then you can rightfully complain and throw them out in 4 years time. There is an opportunity to demand better.

The second will never do anything for public interest unless there is a secondary self interest involved and you simply have no right to complain if the community interests are ignored. I also find not buying its products less satisfying than voting against a politician I dislike and seldom carry it through.

Like most Europeans I'm puzzled by Americans who have this healthy and justified scepticism about government but do seem incredibly naive about private enterprise.


Sometimes the situation is far too big for the individual. One reason the human race is king of the animal rat race is that it recognises that communal action is far more powerful than anything even the most talented individual can manage.

And Vegas isn't a bad place to be anyway ;)

Yes indeed. But there is also corruption, manipulation of markets etc - all sorts of activity that can never be described as "excellent". The trick is to develop a regulatory system that encourages your characterisations and punishes mine.

Like in the insurance industry?

In a normal situation, you are correct. But when companies are so big that their failure puts the whole country at huge risk, things change. The people at AIG didn't care about AIG, they cared about their bonuses and share price. Perhaps 50 years ago when people took pride in their companies and stayed with them for a long time this would be the case, but it's a different environment now. These guys were nothing more than pirates coming in, raiding the loot, and then moving on

Broad ideologies just don't cut it in this day in age.

The largest companies in the world rely heavily on the middle class. Take a look at this list and you'd be hard pressed to find anyone that relies exclusively on high income people.

List of companies by revenue - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

It would be theft if the people deciding your tax weren't democratically elected officials. There are people out there who don't like the war in Iraq and didn't like seeing their tax dollars going to fight what they consider an immoral war of choice. But it's hardly theft that their tax dollars were being used in it.

And while you may not like the system, the rich didn't seem to have a problem with Obama as they voted in favor of him.

In fairness, where you live is ultimately a matter of choice. Cost of living goes up and down based on the desirability of the location. Compensating that with tax benefits would simply make that cost of living go up even higher as more people would be able to afford it. It would also dramatically lower other areas that don't receive the tax benefits.

Rainmaker - I think you misunderstood my use of the phrase "taxing me". I was being literal, I meant me, I didn't mean "me" as in "everybody". I've really only had one client that had anything like a middle class base and even they were looking to escape that upward to some extent.


Useful idiots have never seemed to be limited to a single economic class and the higher incomes are indeed well represented there. There's no shortage of self-loathing individuals nor of weak-minded people who have been brainwashed into various sorts of guilt complexes.

Do you really think John McCain would be much different? I mean this belief that if John McCain had been voted in that we'd suddenly not be spending and merrily rising from economic hardship seems a bit far fetched. Both candidates were very similar with the exception that Obama was against the war in Iraq from the start and McCain was a big supporter of it.

While the economy had other issues had a role, the war in Iraq was still the theme to that election. People may have felt guilty for voting in a President who got us into that mistake in Iraq, but I don't know how large that percent would be. Ultimately it came down to not trusting a guy who made a collasal mistake in his views on foreign policy.

I'm pretty sure my feelings about McCain were clear before & during the campaign, they haven't changed afterwards. He would have been an upgrade from what we ended up with but that ain't saying much.

I don't think we're ever going to be happy with a President until the system is changed. We can't have two parties dominate the politics. Unfortunately though, the two parties have made it so that no one else has a shot.

Woooooooooo! I see what you're doing here.

Well I voted third party and don't recall the two parties holding a gun to my head and telling me to do otherwise. It's up to the voters to change the system by voting third or fourth party but instead they are more interested in the lesser of two evils system. Just because people are weak minded and don't want to make another choice can't really be blamed on Washington.

Well, in some cases the third parties can't even get on the ballot. There is also the issue of getting them invited to debates; I voted Libertarian in the prior governor election here in NC because both candidates sucked and I wanted to help them get the necessary voter percentage so they'd be included in the governor debates in the next election. That's where we have major issues with the 2 party system, the two parties are doing their best to make sure the other parties can't gain a foothold.

I gotta tell you that it really grates on me when Obama uses the phrase "by the end of my first term". He just did it again.

The thing that always worries me about government run industries is the lack of accountability. Take 2 recent examples - defense contracts and Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac. Let's compare the accountability of those to some highly visible private companies in Enron and Lehman Brothers. The mostly republican senators who went along with terrible defense purchases and the democratic senators who helped make Fannie and Freddie a disaster are still in congress and will face no accountability unless they are voted out. And, the sad reality is, there's no way any of these guys will get voted out.

Enron, on the other hands, has had numerous executives in jail and Lehman Brothers filed for Chapter 11. None of the people that made the bad decisions in these companies will be making future decisions. In congress, guys like Frank and Dodd will face no accountability for their actions in the housing issue. And it took a federal indictment to get the "King of Pork" Ted Stevens (rep) out of office. If he wasn't as careless as he was, he would still be dishing out defense spending pork like crazy.

If the US government runs some of these companies into the ground by poor management/strings, they will simply tar and feather the current CEO and move on to the next poor sap in private industry.

Until we can come up with a practical way to hold these house and senate members accountable for terrible legislation, letting them run a chunk of American business is a recipe for disaster, IMO.

Fixed that for you.

Bottom line, half of us will lean to the left when it comes to taxes/regulation/government role, and the other half (myself included) will lean to the right. You won't be able to change that, correct?

I think the country leans left on regulation, especially after recent events. Taxes and other issues more to the right.

I have come to the conclusion that the one person in government that I would like to smash the face of is whomever is the current White House Press Secetary. Has there been any in this position in the last 25 years that wasn't worth hitting with a blunt object?

I don't share the anger, but I don't see why reporters pay it any attention. It's just a way for the current admin to get out their spin.

No. Most leaning will depend in which part of the affluence spectrum you sit. That's the problem with economic theory - it's severely corrupted by self interest. While I have no doubt that the likes of Adam Smith and Karl Marx were genuinely trying to understand the underlining mechanics of economics, most people attach themselves and promote the theory that coincides with their self interest.

It is no coincidence that the rich prefer conservative/small government/low taxes and the poor radical/big government/income redistribution or that free markets are preferred by those with the economic power to fend for themselves while government control is for those who need someone to fend for them. The economic argument is often little more than a battle of the economic classes.

The current situation is no exception.

Unless you are on the same side as the spin then they're douchebags, right?

I always liked Dee Dee Myers.

I would hit Dana Perino.......

I think the reaction was against those Press Secretary that gets up there starts acting arrogant, smug and condenscending. I believe that all did not act like this but there are/were douchebags like Stephenapolous, McClellan and now Gibbs.

I'm not sure why that doesn't disagree with me.

Half of the country leans to the left, and half tends to lean to the right. The views might shift a little bit depending on the situation on both a personal level and the state of the economy, but I think we are a rather spilt country when it comes to economic policies (just look at state vs. state when it comes to taxes and business environments).

I do agree with Rain that we have shifted to the left on more regulation.

Third parties have a real tough time getting on ballots. They don't have the opportunities to get into debates or receive the same funding as the major parties.

It could happen someday if both parties continue to destroy their image in the public's eye. But it will take someone special, preferably one with a lot of money in his pocket. Bloomberg would have been an interesting choice had Hillary won the Democratic nomination.

I would love to see a system where 5 or 6 major parties are running every election ending in run-offs.

What? I think the daily press briefing is a useless anachronism. A modern administration can get the same message out electronically and the press would be less likely to simply report the WH spin if they weren't sitting listening to it everyday as if it were news. I'd much prefer WH reporters had a less cozy relationship with the press operation of the WH.

It would also have the bonus of making the WH reporters less important as they wouldn't spend all their time trying to make themselves look good during the press briefing. If they wanted to report a story they'd actually have to get off their asses and do some reporting.

Don't know why you want to make this a partisan thing.

Do you think Bloomberg would consider a run if Obama, provided that he loses his luster and support, in 2012 (looking at the re-allocation of votes as well).

Even if it meant having to cut a deal with an extremist party to form a governing coalition like what has happened in Israel?

I probably prefer a parliamentary system, but it's certainly got it's own faults.

I just don't think Bloomberg has any chance of winning. What's his base? How does he pull enough Republicans and Democrats to get the 40% or more it would take to win?

I swear the first time I read this I saw "paramilitary" not "parliamentary".

That's not necessarily true. The rich voted heavily in favor of Obama in the last election (despite his promises to tax them higher). The wealthiest states almost all vote Democrat too.

There are a lot of studies on the psychology behind it. It's just not as simple as rich vote one way and poor the other. For instance, rich people in rich states vote Democrat. Rich people in poor states vote Republican. There are social aspects that you aren't factoring in.

No, that would be the system you would prefer. :)

You had already done this

I don't know. From what I've read, Bloomberg likes Obama a lot and didn't feel he had a shot against him in 2008. Many reports stated he would have ran if Hillary got the nomination.

But if the economy is in shambles in 2012 and Palin gets the Republican nomination, I could see him running and winning. Those are two big ifs though.

I think all of them are douchebags to some degree. All the daily press briefing is nothing more than spin session for whomever controls the WH. How is it partisan for me to think reporters should boycott the daily press briefing regardless of which party holds the WH?

Which states do you consider the rich ones?

This is the best post I've read in a while. Good job and I agree 5000%, Arles.

Isn't that the purpose of elections?

The ones with the highest incomes.

http://finance.yahoo.com/real-estate....?mod=oneclick

9 of the top 10 wealthiest states voted Democrat.

10 of the top 10 poorest states voted Republican.

Another ironic part in the discussion about parties and voting is that conservatives push for smaller government and less welfare. Yet the red states are the ones that typically leech off the blue states for money. California would have no problem balancing their budget if they received back dollar for dollar what they put into the federal government.

The Tax Foundation - Federal Spending Received Per Dollar of Taxes Paid by State, 2005

Unfortunately, the practical answer is no. Once your senator/rep becomes a chairperson, they are pretty much in there for as long as they want. There are exceptions (ie, Tom Daschle, but he was a left-leaning democrat in a very right-driven state), but you are rarely going to see that happen.

Here's some seniority numbers for democrats:

Harry Reid - US senator from 1987 to 2009
Chris Dodd - senator from 1981 to 2009
Barney Frank - rep from 1981 to 2009
Nancy Pelosi - rep from 1987 to 2009

and republicans:

Arlen Specter - senator from 1980 to 2009
Chuck Grassley - senator from 1981 to 2009
Kay Bailey Hutchison - senator from 1993 to 2009

Outside of taking an axe to an opponent in Congressional debate, I'm not sure there's anyway the people of Mass or Connecticut will remove Frank or Dodd. These two basically presided over the complete implosion of Freddy Mac and Fannie May and there will never be any repercussions. Same goes for some of the high-level republicans who have made mistakes while the Bush administration was in office.

Expecting elections to police the actions of high-tenured congressmen is like expecting NBA coaches to police the actions of NBA players. There's just no fear or accountability in this current system for long-standing senators/reps.

It's even worse for Congressman. They are in heavily gerrymandered districts where no one dares to challenge in the primaries. If you get elected in a blue or red district, you basically have a lifetime tenure in front of you.

Makes you wonder if term limits would be beneficial. Add on a tag that doesn't allow them to work for a lobbying firm for 5 years after their term is up. I'd love to see Senators only given 1 term and Representatives having 6 years. End these career politicians.

Hooray to Bucc for keeping those dirty partisan liberals in line. We should all praise him for his superior ability to avoid partisanship. He really gives me hope that one day I can switch to a third party and then shield myself from partisan criticism even if I focus almost all of my attacks on one side of the aisle, because I'm so obviously above partisanship by belonging to said third party.

Arles is exactly right about accountability - that has always been one of my points. Why did we allow the federal govt to get so much power and authority with so little accountability and emphasis on incumbency? I know about 1994 and 2006 but in my view that was just swapping one for the other, esp. when a two-party system is quite entrenched. To me, one of the worst things is the caucuses - kind throws representative govt right out the window. No only do we elect a representative that at times do not represent and discourages independent thinking, but the system is biased in favor of dualithic parties that are constantly in re-election mode - much like a hereditary peer. It is good to have a stable govt but in a country where we have pride ourselves on democracy, shouldn't we have give more power to those a little closer to our local/regional interests?

:confused: One side of the aisle has all the power now, in the form of a one-party government. Plus I do not belong to a third-party, never have. I just don't like any parties. You accused people of being sheep during the awful Bush one-party years, so now it's ok to be like that?

I'm not even talking about criticisms of Obama or the government. You went after JPhillips here (for calling Scott McClellan a douchebag, which I think even conservatives would agree with), but I hardly ever see you go after right wing posters, even before the power change. You probably have done it, but it's certainly a very small percentage.

And your holier than thou attitude about how you're so obviously superior to the lowly partisan idiots is getting pretty tired. And it kinda rings hollow when you focus most of your venom against one side.

Well, of course... as long as its sheep to the party he likes.