Who will win, Obama or McCain?

[pacfan]

Kirkland never disappoint us, does he? This is as bad as it can be...when Kirkland is in a sober mood.

That isn't remotely as bad as it can be. That's close to a best-case scenario. If nothing unfortunate happens, we can expect a slow-motion slowdown with a bunch of banks going bust (it's already nearly double figures in terms of bank insolvencies since this started) with the Fed printing huge quantities of dollars to bail everybody out that then cause quite high inflation over the next decade or so. But that's if we're lucky. It's impossible to overstate the stresses on the global financial system right now.

Fixed...

Actually, I was expecting a little bit more fireworks from you, Kirkland, - but - on a more realistic level, given the situation, this is as bad as it can get...

[pacfan]

Economic Update:

I said a couple of weeks ago that it looks like the economy is now on a tipping point stage - it will either go worse or it will start to plod real slowly into recovery, and it seems like it's tipping towards a slow recovery, though still little early to say for sure. We'll have to see next month's housing sales data to know where the market is heading towards, at least in the short run.

It looks like the oil market bubble is collapsing a bit, succumbing to it's own bitter medicine - increase the price and you bring down the demand, and the price collapses. The funds that fed the oil market bubble, as well as that of the commodity market, seem to be moving towards the currency market and the stock market, as the dollar is starting to gain after a long decline, and the stock market also is on the rise again. Now, the regulators' job is the try to bring the interest rate down to bring back the confidence into the housing market because the rising interest was the direct cause of the subprime mortgage crisis. With the decline of oil and commodity prices, there should be more leeway for lowering the interest rate; but of course, inflationary pressure is what finally rules the interest rate. Given the slack in economy, I think if the oil and commodity prices continue to decline, the inflation rate should go down. If the feds can bring the interest rate substantially down, I think the housing market will start to stabilize, and with it, the economy as well. We shall see...

[Kirkland Laing]

Economic Update:

I said a couple of weeks ago that it looks like the economy is now on a tipping point stage - it will either go worse or it will start to plod real slowly into recovery, and it seems like it's tipping towards a slow recovery, though still little early to say for sure. We'll have to see next month's housing sales data to know where the market is heading towards, at least in the short run.

It looks like the oil market bubble is collapsing a bit, succumbing to it's own bitter medicine - increase the price and you bring down the demand, and the price collapses. The funds that fed the oil market bubble, as well as that of the commodity market, seem to be moving towards the currency market and the stock market, as the dollar is starting to gain after a long decline, and the stock market also is on the rise again. Now, the regulators' job is the try to bring the interest rate down to bring back the confidence into the housing market because the rising interest was the direct cause of the subprime mortgage crisis. With the decline of oil and commodity prices, there should be more leeway for lowering the interest rate; but of course, inflationary pressure is what finally rules the interest rate. Given the slack in economy, I think if the oil and commodity prices continue to decline, the inflation rate should go down. If the feds can bring the interest rate substantially down, I think the housing market will start to stabilize, and with it, the economy as well. We shall see...

I'll bet you a dollar house prices continue to fall for at least another year. It'll probably be closer to two.

[Kirkland Laing]

Kirkland never disappoint us, does he? This is as bad as it can be...when Kirkland is in a sober mood.

That isn't remotely as bad as it can be. That's close to a best-case scenario. If nothing unfortunate happens, we can expect a slow-motion slowdown with a bunch of banks going bust (it's already nearly double figures in terms of bank insolvencies since this started) with the Fed printing huge quantities of dollars to bail everybody out that then cause quite high inflation over the next decade or so. But that's if we're lucky. It's impossible to overstate the stresses on the global financial system right now.

Fixed...

Actually, I was expecting a little bit more fireworks from you, Kirkland, - but - on a more realistic level, given the situation, this is as bad as it can get...

We're currently in the second or third inning or this game, and it may go to extra innings. We should be able to see the rough outline of how bad it will be by the end of the year.

[El Kabong]

Kirkland I tell you this almost every day but once again you're full of shit.


Today the Dow is UP and OIL is DOWN

[Kirkland Laing]

Kirkland I tell you this almost every day but once again you're full of shit.


Today the Dow is UP and OIL is DOWN

You're wrong about everything as much as I'm right about everything. It's uncanny. It's like you're my defective-brained mini-me. The Dow is down almost 20% from its previous high and at the height of the current bear market will be 30-50% down. Oil is up 72% from this time last year.

It's amazing that so many people are conditioned to see the stock market as indicative of their personal wealth. The median working US household has $20 000 in personal savings, roughly enough to pay for a few nights in hospital for a family member should the family lose its health insurance. In New York, one out of five people needs to be given charitable food donations regularly. But somehow the Dow presses peoples' buttons, it's like they're all millionaire investors or something. The real indicator of wealth is median income, the income Joe 150 Million out of 300 million Americans earns, and that's down slightly from how much he was earning in 1970.

This is why things are so out of whack right now, with so much wealth going to a tiny bunch of people at the top that there isn't enough being spent in the economy, it's all being invested. Until a bigger share of the wealth is given to low/middle income earners, where it gets spent instead of invested (71% of US GDP is consumer spending) then economic growth is going to remain as rubbish as it has so far this century.

[VictorCharlie]

As a US Infantryman that has one combat tour in Afghanistan and is half way through a combat tour in Iraq I have strong feelings about these wars. Obama's early claims of large troop withdrawals 16 months into his presidency astounded me. But it made sense. Bring the troops home is a great PR statement. Plus he knew once he took office he could simply blaim the Bush Admin's bungling of the war as reason to keep troops. I expect more from my president. I want a plan to WIN not just to leave. I have dodged way to many bullets and had far to many IEDs blow up near me to leave this place only to have to come back. A quick brief on Iraq is that most of its current Shia politicians were living in Iran during Sadaams rule. They returned here after the US invasion and are widely disliked by most Iraqis. A swift US withdrawal will cause to certainties. The Kurds will push for the autonomous nation they have always wanted. And Iran will bolster its support for the Shia majority. The Sunni controlled land has little to no oil and will leave them marginalized to say the least. The sectarian violence will return at a scale we haven't seen yet. It quite possibly could pull the entire Middle East into a conflict with Iran/Syria/Iraqi Shias pitted against Iraqi Sunnis/Gulf States and The Kurds somewhere in the middle. We are winning this war but its progress is measured in inches not miles. I fought the Jaysh Al Mahdi for 72 hours straight in March. We fought them on the streets and in the buildings of northern Baghdad and blead them dry until they didn't want to fight anymore. This thing is real close to turning around. I won't argue that we should have come here or that the planning for the invasion or post invasion Iraq were anything less than criminal but this is the winnable war not Afghanistan. The Afghan people have no sense of nationality and can't even fathom ideas like deomacracy. Most Afghans are hoping to simply not starve or freeze to death. I've seen whole company sized Taliban units salughtered only to see another group just as big show up a month later. The building blocks of government/infrastructure/nationalism are present in Iraq but barely exist in Afghanistan. As much as I wish we were not entangled in Iraq we are. And Obama needs to have a comprehensive plan to win not just blaim the previous admin and quit.
On the economic side of the house I think presidents either gets too much blaim or credit for it. Economies are cyclic and at best a president can help ease the downturns and boost the upturns. I like that McCain is a moderate and not afraid of bipartisanship. I think he will bring less party politics and more solutions. I like that he hates pork barrel spending. I like that he will fight the Lobby machine in DC as shown with his Campaign Finance Reform. I believe that he will place the needs of the American worker over Big Business. I'll say this I wish McCain had stayed more true to his 04 campaign but I understand his need to embrace more conservative aspects of the GOP to secure his nomination.
In all honesty I like Obama and think eventually he will be a good President. I think people do him a disservice likening him to Kennedy. The reality is Kennedy passed almost no meaningful legistlation and if you take away the Cuban Missile Crisis had a disaster of a foriegn policy. At the juncture that our country finds ourselves in I'll take experience and realism over idealism and charm.

[El Kabong]

So you're saying we need some kind of wealth redistribustion? Some sort of Communist solution to our problem That's shocking Kirkland, I never would have guessed something like that would come from you

They have this thing called The Lottery...that gives poor people the chance to be rich and blow millions of dollars.

The problem with you is you compare last year's numbers to this year and even then you would have admitted the numbers were blown up due to what was going on with subprime loans and the housing market.

[Kirkland Laing]

So you're saying we need some kind of wealth redistribustion? Some sort of Communist solution to our problem That's shocking Kirkland, I never would have guessed something like that would come from you

They have this thing called The Lottery...that gives poor people the chance to be rich and blow millions of dollars.

The problem with you is you compare last year's numbers to this year and even then you would have admitted the numbers were blown up due to what was going on with subprime loans and the housing market.

Yes, we definitely need a little bit of wealth distribution. And I want to make sure you really understand why so that, in ten or twenty years when you look back on the 2000s with the benefit of hindsight, you realise that you were wrong again and I was right again. In fact I'd like you to print this post out and keep it in a safe place just so I know for certain that in the future you'll be reminded at least once of my Infallibility.

US economic policy is insane. For 30 years now huge tax cuts for the top 1% have created huge national debt and ongoing deficits that are a drag on the economy. Huge tax increases on low/middle income earners over the same period haven't brought in enough revenue to cver the debt, but have stripped 90% of Americans of most of their excess cash. So for a decade Americans have borrowed against the rising value of their homes to maintain their standard of living -- a trillion dollars a year, or as the total worth of the US is about fifty trillion, effectively a State a year is currently being sold off to foreign creditors to maintain current standards of living. Now that people can't borrow so easily, there's going to be an eventual drop in spending and this will affect economic growth, as 71% of US GDP is consumr spending.

Median wages that are barely higher than they were in 1970, adjusted for inflation. Male wages today are in lower than they were then -- the income of a young man in his 30s is now 12 per cent below that of a man his age three decades ago. So if low/middle income people are all tapped out and their wages aren't going up any, where is the spending/economic growth coming from? The only way to do it is to distribute more of the wealth to the bottom 99% of the population, so that the money is spent in the economy and pinballs around from person to person, business to business, enriching everybody. The good old Keynesian multiplier. Probably the besy way to do this is taxation. The top half or one percent really wouldn't noticea 10 or 20% increase in their taxes, they own half of the country's wealth, they already spend all they want and due to the explosion of wealth to the top that the Bush tax cuts/policies have created most aree earning 5-10 times what they were making even in 2000. And that money is being exported as fast as possible to be invested in emerging economys like China where it makes more money than in the US because of the f'd up economic situation there. It's difficult to be a capitalist country with no capital.

So somehow more of the wealth that the top earners are creaming off has to be spread through the economy for conomic growth to continue to be robust. Whether it's empowering unions again or just tax manipulation it needs to happen.

[El Kabong]

Yes, we definitely need a little bit of wealth distribution.

You are a fucking moron you have made a case AGAINST yourself...you have no understanding of capitalism AT ALL.....I now wonder if you are infact retarded and I'm leaning towards yes....yes you are a retard and I now emplore you to seek help.

[Kirkland Laing]

Yes, we definitely need a little bit of wealth distribution.

You are a fucking moron you have made a case AGAINST yourself...you have no understanding of capitalism AT ALL.....I now wonder if you are infact retarded and I'm leaning towards yes....yes you are a retard and I now emplore you to seek help.

What part of the post don't you understand? Let me know so that I can explain this to you well enough so that it sinks in and thus at some point in the future you're forced to bow to my Infallibility.

[El Kabong]

You may very well be infallible.....but it ain't on this planet brother

[amat]

I really am no political guy and am shit with numbers but a few things.

I think it's pretty funny that McCain wants to get NATO involved with Russia and Georgia, when the primary reason Russia is in there right now is because Georgia wants to join NATO. There are some wild fires burning a few miles away, maybe I should go empty my gas tank onto them. And the fact that everyone else in the world laughed off UN intervention definitely isn't a good sign. I can't see how McCain is going to have any pull with the rest of the world as they are going to see him as just another George Bush. May or may not be but that's how he's being treated now.

Also, drilling for oil is so pointless I can not believe it. Does anyone really think that is a long term fix? Unless your Lyle and think oil isn't a fossil fuel? The people want drilling because they want ANYTHING, me included. But it's really going to do no good. No reason we can't power ourselves on something other then oil.

And 4:27 a gallon isn't a relief at the pump either.

[pacfan]

Yes, we definitely need a little bit of wealth distribution.

You are a fucking moron you have made a case AGAINST yourself...you have no understanding of capitalism AT ALL.....I now wonder if you are infact retarded and I'm leaning towards yes....yes you are a retard and I now emplore you to seek help.

What part of the post don't you understand? Let me know so that I can explain this to you well enough so that it sinks in and thus at some point in the future you're forced to bow to my Infallibility.

I ain't no lover of communism, nor am I a lover of capitalism as it stands now. No need to discuss the defects of communism as everyone knows 'em. But what I can say is that the form of capitalism practiced then up to now isn't working in third world country like ours, where people in the neighborhood are dying of Tuberculosis everyday not because the country doesn't have enough money but because the traditional elite businessmen, who has controlled the government ever since, have divided the nations spoils among themselves while leaving the poor perpetually impoverished. And the type of democracy that the westerners planted on us has become an effective tool to keep them in power, because it's a democracy dictated by money which only the elite has, thereby becoming a self-perpetuating tool for them. This is probably the same reason that guys like Chavez has started to become appealing to many Latin-American people. These are the things that many westerners simply don't understand. Most people in the third world are no worse off than those in Cuba. Believe me, I have seen it first hand and am still seeing it, shaking my head in dismay throughout...

...But then, I have no intention of trying to change the minds of westerners' because I know I can't, just as I can never convince the Americans that there is nothing sacred or inalienable about their right to keep and bear arms...

[El Kabong]

I really am no political guy and am shit with numbers but a few things.

I think it's pretty funny that McCain wants to get NATO involved with Russia and Georgia, when the primary reason Russia is in there right now is because Georgia wants to join NATO. There are some wild fires burning a few miles away, maybe I should go empty my gas tank onto them. And the fact that everyone else in the world laughed off UN intervention definitely isn't a good sign. I can't see how McCain is going to have any pull with the rest of the world as they are going to see him as just another George Bush. May or may not be but that's how he's being treated now.

Also, drilling for oil is so pointless I can not believe it. Does anyone really think that is a long term fix? Unless your Lyle and think oil isn't a fossil fuel? The people want drilling because they want ANYTHING, me included. But it's really going to do no good. No reason we can't power ourselves on something other then oil.

And 4:27 a gallon isn't a relief at the pump either.

#1 The US isn't going to help Georgia as we're in no position to right now. We will use rhetoric (hopefully better than Obama does...."this doesn't match the Olympic spirit" what a fucking pussy) and diplomacy but that's about all. Russia will turn Red once again and start grabbing up it's old haunts: Latvia, Estonia, etc.

#2 NATO is meant to keep events that lead to World Wars I & II from happening and to control and curb the expansion of communist Russia and everyone involved outside the US has taken that organization for granted.

#3 The UN won't do anything because it's a worthless organization built upon the fallacy that all countries carry the same weight in politics and economics. Some countries are just bigger, better, and more important than others.

#4 Well buddy the US DOES have untapped oil reserves as do most countries and if oil was running out then why would oil companies spend the majority of their money on research and development? As for long term fixes, there aren't any....it's been this way forever. Maybe it will inspire someone to make something new and better BUT until that day comes we might as well just get used to it.

#5 The price of oil is coming down slowly but surely. What's not helping is SUBSIDIZING other fuels which just plain and simple don't fucking work, if they did we wouldn't need to subsidize them....ethenol is driving the cost of fuel AND food up. And the same people bitching about the price of oil and "Man made Global Warming" are against Nuclear Energy....why? Because they are idiots!