Who will win, Obama or McCain?

[pacfan]

...just wanted to stir some hornets' nests or behives...

It looks like Obama, but not sure; it can go either way...

Personally, I'd prefer Obama, but because of his Iraq stance, I'm forced to go with McCaine. Americans can't just get into a country, make a mess out of it and leave just like that - just as they did in Vietnam. They have a moral obligation to finish what they've started, or else, they'll lose whatever credibility they have, and whatever right they have to interfere in future world affairs. But don't get me wrong, I've always been for US and for them to intervene in any conflict around the world needing resolution. But not in the case of Iraq; there was simply no justifiable reason for that. But since the US invaded it, I believe they are obliged to stay there until their job is done. If you're American and believe that you should leave from Iraq, you can forgive yourself for electing Bush but you had no business re-electing him. And since you've done just that, re-electing Bush that is, it's your obligation to see to it that Iraq is taken care of. Now if you're really troubled by that, then you should blame Bush for the mess he has put all of you into, and if you think that's not enough, you should have him tried for whatever crime he is liable for. I don't see why American president is exempt from war crime charges while others are not, it's just not right nor fair...

Hope my American friends understand this because I believe this is how most people around the world generally think about the situation..

Cheers.

[BoxingGorilla]

I have a feeling that many of the voters who say they are voting for Obama to keep from appearing racist will do the right thing and vote for McCain once they get in the booth.

GOP!

[Gandalf]

Hopefully Obama. Bush has been a truly atrocious President. The guy cannot even string together a lucid sentence. Its time for a change. But unfortunately the Democrats are going to inherit an economy in a precarious state. I like Obama and hope he is given the chance.

McCain looks like an old Steve Martin and is ancient. He probably wont even survive a single term in office without succumbing to death.

Obama. However, I think what BG said above may have some swing.

[spade]

Well religion is an issue for me.

I don't know if Obama is muslim having an African Father.



If he is, he should not win for a country who suffered many terrorist attacks.


In Singapore, muslims and christians, buddhist live side by side, but never a muslim heads this country.

[spade]

i have no issues with the peaceful muslims


I got lots of muslim friends



only the hardcore ideologist is what i'm afraid off.


If only Daniel Pearl could talk

[CountryBoy]

Voting McCain to cut off Affirmative Action, That is reverse discrimination and the white folks burden, No pun intended.

Both my brothers have not been able to advance in Rate/Rank even though they scored higher and had more Exp/Time with the WaterWorks about 30 years between them(close to 15 each) but have minorities with much less time,Exp and lower test scores get the job.


This is not a racist rant, But todays whites are paying for shit we had no control over, Enough is Enough

[Dark Lord Al]

To be honest voting for Obama or McCain is a bit like voting for Labour or Conservative in the UK . Its very difficult to put your name down for either as they are both " TURDS IN A PUNCH BOWL " , but thats the choice you get , so usually you dont bother to vote or you vote for the lesser of 2 evils.

Here ends the lesson from Dark Lord.

[Wayne]

Well religion is an issue for me.

I don't know if Obama is muslim having an African Father.



If he is, he should not win for a country who suffered many terrorist attacks.


In Singapore, muslims and christians, buddhist live side by side, but never a muslim heads this country.

Are you still falling into that Obama-is-a-Muslim crap? That's negative spin to try to discredit Obama and isn't true. Having an African father is the only criteria for being a Muslim? What about the fact his father abandoned his family, leaving Obama to be raised by his white mother? There is no real cause to believe Obama is anything other than he says he is. He doesn't wear his religion on his sleeve, so it's not like he can claim any members of the Religious Right. And he's for abortion rights, also rubbing against the grain of hardcore Christians. Obama being Muslim just doesn't make sense at all.

[Wayne]

...just wanted to stir some hornets' nests or behives...

It looks like Obama, but not sure; it can go either way...

Personally, I'd prefer Obama, but because of his Iraq stance, I'm forced to go with McCaine. Americans can't just get into a country, make a mess out of it and leave just like that - just as they did in Vietnam. They have a moral obligation to finish what they've started, or else, they'll lose whatever credibility they have, and whatever right they have to interfere in future world affairs. But don't get me wrong, I've always been for US and for them to intervene in any conflict around the world needing resolution. But not in the case of Iraq; there was simply no justifiable reason for that. But since the US invaded it, I believe they are obliged to stay there until their job is done. If you're American and believe that you should leave from Iraq, you can forgive yourself for electing Bush but you had no business re-electing him. And since you've done just that, re-electing Bush that is, it's your obligation to see to it that Iraq is taken care of. Now if you're really troubled by that, then you should blame Bush for the mess he has put all of you into, and if you think that's not enough, you should have him tried for whatever crime he is liable for. I don't see why American president is exempt from war crime charges while others are not, it's just not right nor fair...

Hope my American friends understand this because I believe this is how most people around the world generally think about the situation..

Cheers.

It seems your vote would be for McCain on the sole basis of Iraq. You do know that Iraqi leaders' timetables pretty much match the one Obama has put forth? How do we determine when we're "done"? I'd say a pretty good barometer is when they're telling us to get out. And the other thing you're saying about how we never should have went- you're right, and that's always been Obama's stance. McCain wouldn't mind having us there for the next 100 years and considering it's cost us (well, money we've borrowed from China) over a trillion dollars in the few years we've been there imagine what the total, both monetarily and in human lives, would be?

If for no other reason we should leave because they want us to. But for our sakes, considering the dwindling dollar that Bush seems to have no problem making more and more of, we have to get out. We don't have enough money to begin paying the interest and we're still borrowing. Think about the dollar as being used for the world's currency and how it isn't being taken care of. When the reset finally comes it's going to hit us all.

[pacfan]

...just wanted to stir some hornets' nests or behives...

It looks like Obama, but not sure; it can go either way...

Personally, I'd prefer Obama, but because of his Iraq stance, I'm forced to go with McCaine. Americans can't just get into a country, make a mess out of it and leave just like that - just as they did in Vietnam. They have a moral obligation to finish what they've started, or else, they'll lose whatever credibility they have, and whatever right they have to interfere in future world affairs. But don't get me wrong, I've always been for US and for them to intervene in any conflict around the world needing resolution. But not in the case of Iraq; there was simply no justifiable reason for that. But since the US invaded it, I believe they are obliged to stay there until their job is done. If you're American and believe that you should leave from Iraq, you can forgive yourself for electing Bush but you had no business re-electing him. And since you've done just that, re-electing Bush that is, it's your obligation to see to it that Iraq is taken care of. Now if you're really troubled by that, then you should blame Bush for the mess he has put all of you into, and if you think that's not enough, you should have him tried for whatever crime he is liable for. I don't see why American president is exempt from war crime charges while others are not, it's just not right nor fair...

Hope my American friends understand this because I believe this is how most people around the world generally think about the situation..

Cheers.

It seems your vote would be for McCain on the sole basis of Iraq. You do know that Iraqi leaders' timetables pretty much match the one Obama has put forth? How do we determine when we're "done"? I'd say a pretty good barometer is when they're telling us to get out. And the other thing you're saying about how we never should have went- you're right, and that's always been Obama's stance. McCain wouldn't mind having us there for the next 100 years and considering it's cost us (well, money we've borrowed from China) over a trillion dollars in the few years we've been there imagine what the total, both monetarily and in human lives, would be?

If for no other reason we should leave because they want us to. But for our sakes, considering the dwindling dollar that Bush seems to have no problem making more and more of, we have to get out. We don't have enough money to begin paying the interest and we're still borrowing. Think about the dollar as being used for the world's currency and how it isn't being taken care of. When the reset finally comes it's going to hit us all.

Good points there but let me ask you some questions. How would you feel if they leave Iraq and it turns into a mess much more worst than during Sadam's time? Isn't it the responsibility of the US to take care of Iraq all the way, I mean at least until it's reasonably secure?

[PRIDE OF BOSTON]

If we left Iraq i'd be like fuckin Mogadishu with regional war lords taking over... C'mon... everyone that thinks we can leave Iraq today or in a year is a fuckin retard.

[Wayne]

If we left Iraq i'd be like fuckin Mogadishu with regional war lords taking over... C'mon... everyone that thinks we can leave Iraq today or in a year is a fuckin retard.

Ah, but there's the conundrum: how can you on the one hand say you want to establish a Democratically elected gov't but when said gov't begins to exercise its power and exert its ability to take care of itself you say, "No, we're staying." Isn't that somewhat of a dictatorship? We were not elected, we are a military presence that they do not wish to be within their borders.

[Kirkland Laing]

If we left Iraq i'd be like fuckin Mogadishu with regional war lords taking over... C'mon... everyone that thinks we can leave Iraq today or in a year is a fuckin retard.

Iraq is already run by regional warlords. The US is currently fighting and dying to keep them in power. The two main parties in the government are Iranian-backed Islamic fundamentalist groups whose militias are now trained and armed by us and make up the Iraqi secuity forces. A large number of these forces actually fought for Iran against Iraq in the Iran-Iraq war and are still recieving pensions from the Iranian Revolutionary Guards. The group the Iraqi Prime Minister Al-Maliki comes from have a long democratic tradition of car bombing, hijacking airliners and notably blowing up the US embassy in Kuwait in 1982. Meanwhile Iran, who controls these groups are pissing themselves laughing at how they've got their greatest enemy to fight and die to hand over to them efective control of the world's second-largest oil reserve and Bush has humiliated and weakened America for all to see in the Middle East. Now they're going to kick the US out so they can take full control of the oil-bearing Shiite part of Iraq, leaving Kurdistan to the two terrorist-harbouring warlords that run it and the Sunni region to Saddam's heirs.

[pacfan]

Whoever wins will be inheriting one of the worst problems the US has had in a long, long time. The Iraq quagmire and the worsening economy - feel sorry for the guy. If I were them, I wouldn't be so eager take it... but then, that's how politicians are everywhere, always harboring unsatiable ambition... let 'em have it and eat 'em too.

Seriously, untangling the Iraq web will be the most difficult... but walking away from it will not be the solution as it involves the pride and credibility of the Americans and the well-being of another nation. So here, I'm going with McCain...but as miles said, the man looks pretty old, so the question is will he be able to stand the rigors of the office during these exceptionally tough times? Hmmm...

The economy is another. It was clearly a case of gross mismanagement of the financial sector which up to now, nobody has been held responsible for... (Strange how the western credit agencies scrutinize banks of small countries like ours with a microscope and show absolutely no mercy in giving out their ratings, to utter dissappointment of our banks...but...giving out A+ ratings on their own that were about to go bankrupt. That just not right.) The US will definitely be feeling the effects the crisis for some years to come. At the best, a mild to moderate recession will drag along in the coming years. At the worst...maybe Kirkland Laing can answer that.

[Kirkland Laing]

Whoever wins will be inheriting one of the worst problems the US has had in a long, long time. The Iraq quagmire and the worsening economy - feel sorry for the guy. If I were them, I wouldn't be so eager take it... but then, that's how politicians are everywhere, always harboring unsatiable ambition... let 'em have it and eat 'em too.

Seriously, untangling the Iraq web will be the most difficult... but walking away from it will not be the solution as it involves the pride and credibility of the Americans and the well-being of another nation. So here, I'm going with McCain...but as miles said, the man looks pretty old, so the question is will he be able to stand the rigors of the office during these exceptionally tough times? Hmmm...

The economy is another. It was clearly a case of gross mismanagement of the financial sector which up to now, nobody has been held responsible for... (Strange how the western credit agencies scrutinize banks of small countries like ours with a microscope and show absolutely no mercy in giving out their ratings, to utter dissappointment of our banks...but...giving out A+ ratings on their own that were about to go bankrupt. That just not right.) The US will definitely be feeling the effects the crisis for some years to come. At the best, a mild to moderate recession will drag along in the coming years. At the worst...maybe Kirkland Laing can answer that.

My Infallibility tells me that there's a lot more bad news to come. What we're currently facing is always described as a credit crisis but that's bs, it's actually a solvency crisis. The Fed can produce (and are doing) untold billions of new dollars with the click of a mouse so there's no shortage of credit, the financial system is swimming in the stuff. The problem is that no banks want to lend each other money (short-term interbank loans being the oil that lubricates the economy) because they don't know if the other bank will end up insolvent and unable to pay them back. So the system is gummed up right now and everybody is sitting on their hands waiting to see where the bodies are buried before business can get back to normal again (the reason I have 1500 posts since this thing started. )

When the media finally start calling this a solvency crisis we should be getting a rough idea of how bad things are. Probably pretty bad though. Subprime we know about but prime loans (you're going to start hearing a lot about Alt-A loans, mezzanine tranches etc.) are going to start causing problems soon. The banks have trillions of mortgage-backed debt securities that were issued when house prices were much higher. Now that house prices are falling the value of a lot of those securities is falling too. Banks that looked solvent with (say) $200 billion of mortgage-backed securities in the safe are hit by falling house prices and those securities fall to maybe 50-70% of their original value, so all of a sudden they're insolvent ( like Bear Stearns). And house prices will continue to fall for at least another year, so banks that appear to be solvent now are going to go bust as house prices continue to fall.