I dont understand why Republicans just dont
say Bozo the conservative could win the 2012
election.

Especially since the economy will clearly tank as
Obama is driving this country deep into debt. The
economy will be so bad all we need is a monkey.

I dont get it.
The Republicans dont need to worry about a candidate,
they will be back in office because the economy will
fail.

Should this not be the line?

You're right. They'd become a politician ie a Bush, a Kennedy etc.

[quote=pgardn]
Especially since the economy will clearly tank as
Obama is driving this country deep into debt.
I dont get it.
QUOTE]

Ummmm...I read an article in yahoo today and it said the economy was already in the tank and had gone there way before Obama got into office. I read another one in the national enquirer that said the deficit was in the trillions before he took office as well... but im not sure whether to believe that one or not. :)

exactly. Or work as a government contractor. Those guys are going to make fortunes over the next 8 years. Heck, those guys have been making fortunes for a while.

[quote=dalakhani]yea what's a few extra Trillion anyway?

So this is how the conversation has gone:

1.) You made ANOTHER attack on doctors, this time calling them parasites in white coats who do it for all types of reasons except loving their jobs.

2.) I asked you if you really believed such nonsense.

3.) Your obvious bad experience with a physician was questioned by an actual physician, who also informed you that his is a labor of love.

4.) Rather than reply to doc you decided to cop out and say that he made it personal.

5.) Now you link to a story of a French artist who died from various causes that you claim doctors can't determine.

It's safe to say that you will continue to make gross generalizations, use stereotypes and find minutia to fit your agenda. I'm not a doctor and I'm sorry if you had a bad experience with one, but I'm even sorrier if that bad experience has led you to believe what you do about doctors. Much like people in every other profession, they're not all the same.

NT

[quote=dellinger63]exactly! joe the plumber doesnt care as long as they don't raise his taxes.

[quote=dalakhani]So the economy will be the downfall of Obama as well.
If anything the economy should get worse. Obama's drastic restructuring
and government intervention will not work.

Dont you think this should be the Republican stance?

[quote=pgardn]While the fed chairman is talking about green shoots?

The country is sick and tired of hearing how bad things are and the warnings about the boogeyman,errr, obama.

Yes, i agree the focus should be on economy for the republicans but it should be an actual vision not just that obama sucks.

[quote=dalakhani]Yes, it's true, Bush alone, in his two terms of office, tripled the American debt, well into the trillions.

Yes, the economy (mortgages, recession, banking failures, etc) was being discussed as an imminent problem three years ago.

Pardon me if I think Republican now.

Bush was a disaster. They have admitted such.
So now Obama is adding to the misdeeds. We
are still in Iraq, Afghanistan, and now even more
into Pakistan.

So Republicans should be thinking more of the
same, just a lot worse. So they get back into
office quite easily when Obama's policies fail.

There is no need to find a candidate. The presidency
should fall into their laps. Even though being good
patriots, they hope Obama's policies are successful
and the country's welfare is top priority. Republicans actually
know, just like Democrats knew Bush would make a mess,
that the country will be in big trouble so the next election
will be a Republican president cleaning up Obama's mess.

Quite a rosy picture of politics.

I think the obvious need is taking partisan politics out of it, and working towards solutions. That's something the GOP seems completely unable to get away from, although they do finally seem to be trying to damp down the campaign-trail type of hysterics.

You'd think, as the party of business and finance, the GOP would have a solution or two to offer. Obama has overtly courted the non-rabid members of the GOP into his administration as advisors, committee members. Smart as far as solution-finding, smart politically.

I guess I was getting back to the original post.

The Great GOP Hope.

My take that the Republicans
should have is they dont need one.
Obama is going way too far using
government instead of at present,
while things are looking a little more
hopeful, getting out of the way and letting
a little more capitalism step in and take over.

Kind of, "you can step away now..."

Stuff like that has been in the news of the past couple of weeks, about some banks being approved as stable enough so they will start paying back billions in TARP funds, about the G8 meeting covering exactly that ("getting out of the way").

Its such a bullshit. The stress tests were about the dumbest thing you could do. First of all, there wasn't enough stress. Second of all, the bogus results were a false signal of a bottoming out.

Wells fargo, b of A and citi are in no better position now than they wee 120 days ago.

so this is Republican fodder...
They supposedly have to do another round
of stress tests. So Obama's people, some of
whom were with the Republicans with Bush,
have not solved anything in the banking sector
or might have even made things worse by "hiding" failure.

I thought the Democrats were going to be
more transparent.

What exactly is non partisan about Obama's plans, agenda, nominees, etc.? Remember the comment,"I won, get over it"? What exactly was that about? There have been plenty of plans and ideas offered yet the current administration has no use for any of them. Trying to paint this administration as non partisan is ridiculous.

actually, the dumbest thing was changing accounting rules away from mark to market so that bank balance sheets can now be what they imagine an asset will be worth when things are all better vs. what the market tells you it's worth.

i'm not an accountant and i don't have a fully developed grasp of the issue but other than "it's a category 5 sh*t storm if we don't do this", i haven't seen a good explanation for why imaginary numbers are better than real ones.

i don't know how anyone can have any faith in the numbers coming out of financial institutions after this. they're basically made up.

I can see both sides of the issue. Let me give you an example of where mark to market accounting can put unfair stress on a financial institution. Lets say we have 80 million dollars of AAA loans marked "held for sale" in our warehouse line and we value the assets that are backing those PERFORMING loans at 100 million. ABC bank down the street just had a builder default on a big loan and they need money NOW. They sell a similar book of assets as the ones we have on our line except there is no demand right now for even AAA loans. They have no choice but to sell the 100 million dollars worth of assets off 70 million dollars. Now a new market has been set for 70 million dollars over night. Sucks doesnt it?

Whats worse? Our warehouse lender will call us the next morning for whats called an "equity call". We have to have skin in the game and our 80 million dollars in loans on the warehouse is now being backed by assets valued at 70 million dollars. We have to pay down our line until its 80% of 70 million. Thats a 24 million dollar check. On top of that, we have to have a certain amount of cash on hand. So now we need money. So what do we do? We have to sell assets QUICKLY to raise the cash and the cycle repeats.

It really is not this simple but Im trying to give you a basic understanding of what happens during a credit crunch, why banks horde cash and how mark to market can be devastating to the system.

Seriously - when you read, try reading what the person actually wrote - no more, no less.

I'm not talking about the stress tests.

Edit: and I'm waiting for the personal credit card crash yet to come, and a friend reminded me of the pending commercial real estate crash

Commercial is so incredibly screwed...trust me on this. People that are going long on financials right now need to seriously have their heads examined.

On the subject of stress tests, they needed to be done with some REAL stress. Stress like 15% unemployment.

Do people ever wonder if the FED could pass a stress test with 15% unemployment?

That's scary. Thanks! :eek: :D

that was good.

it's an unending cycle with no circuit breaker. i hadn't completely understood that. makes sense.

i'm less doctrinaire now.

i still have a huge problem with believing a profit/loss statement where the cfo has wiggle room deciding what the assets are worth but i can see why people smarter than i am might see this was needed.

[quote=Riot]OMG put some facts there and once you do compare where we are now in DEBT and multiply by 8. Giving you the benefit of the doubt because this is only a 1/4 of a year with healthcare for all screw the dr.s (human) unless pet care is in the budget.

you seriously cant blame partisan politics on the GOP... ever heard of Nancy Pelosi?? the GOP is bad but the Dems are JUST as bad. Just because Obama talks about bipartisanship... doesnt mean the other guys and gals in his party go along with it.

When the GOP does come up with an alternate plan the response they hear is "well, we won"

no doubt the democratic party is far from perfect. I think what riot was saying was just in regards to what the Republican party needs to do going forward.

Right now, an objective moderate has no idea what the republican vision is for this country. The average american knows the following republicans: Bush, Cheney, Rush, Palin. The ones that actually watch a little TV know hannity and Oreilly. Beyond that?

What do we associate with the republican party? Guns? No abortion? Obama sucks? Security?

What about the things that people want to hear? Small government, low taxes. Deficit reduction. Spending control. This is the classic conservatism we havent seen in over thirty years.

I completely agree Dala. (dont get used to this) Posted something very similar to this in that other big thread. The only voices you hear from the Repub camp are the extreme right voices. The hateful voices. The "Obama is a Muslim, Sotomayer is a racist, gays and lesbians are going to ruin the moral structure of America" voices.

I wish a nice, sane, moderate would step up to the plate. (I thought that guy was McCain, but adding Palin to the mix messed things up - that and having to follow the Bush disaster)

We were talking about what it would take to get the GOP back in play as a political party, not who has the worse partisanship. I said to get back in play, the GOP would have to drop their current partisanship nonsense, and start being excecutives in charge of running our country.

Virtually their only contribution has been, "Don't do that, it won't work". Shoot, Mitch McConnell and Mit Romney on the TV political shows yesterday morning? What a waste. Did they they offer anything up but criticism and whining? No, they didn't.

If the GOP came up with a well-publicized financial alternative plan, I missed it while actively looking for it. If the GOP has an alternative health care reform plan, I missed it's rollout.

Mostly the GOP has spent the past couple of weeks, around the Cairo speech, busy accusing Obama of "apologizing", and bringing up birth certificates and Muslims. Sigh ....

Seriously - Get over it, GOP, you lost the Presidency and the last two election cycles - hint, hint - those of you who are left need to start getting involved in what we elected you do to, which is fix the mess you helped get us into (probably why they have not been able to offer any really good alternative solutions ... )

As I've said, not a fan of Pelosi, and the Dem Congress doesn't get a free pass, especially regarding partisanship. The legislative branch isn't the executive branch. Obama has plenty of GOP in his administration. He's reached across the aisle far more than many.

Seriously if you accuse the GOP of partisan politics why cant the same accusation be made about the Democrats who if anything have been shown to be even more partisan than the GOP?

[quote=dellinger63]Dell, It's well known that when Clinton left office, we had a budget surplus. Bush reversed that. The GOP is not known as being the party of fiscal conservation. Reagan wasn't either, btw. He was a pretty spendy guy.

Here's a few that all have the figures, and all you have to do is google budget bush to get thousands of hits. It's not a secret <vbg>

http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/07/...cit/index.html

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27188415/
2008 Budget deficit surges to all-time high

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/...r=HOME_3822385

2008 Budget deficit doubles 2007
http://uspolitics.about.com/b/2008/0...ouble-2007.htm

Exactly. You know what the e-mails from the local GOP to me say? Basically, "We're going to hell in a handbasket because Obama is President".

You know what the e-mails from the Obama campaign says? "Here's a link to our health-care proposal".

Sure it can be made. Go ahead.

Perhaps you dont understand that as the opposition party that is out of power it is virtually impossible for the GOP to be anything BUT partisan. In case you hadn't noticed that they arent the "executives in charge" anymore. There have been plenty of alternate plans for just about everything proposed but they get virtually no coverage or are dismissed out of hand by the Democrats. Only a few years ago people were saying the same thing about the Democrats. The policys arent the things that the politicians are judged on. It is the failed policies. And the GOP is playing politics like it is played now. That is knock the other guys idea and take credit when/if it fails. Since the vast majority of politicians on both sides are so tied up in self and special interests most of what they do propose and implement fails which leads to "change". If the country falls into a deeper recession or depression the GOP will jump right back into power simply because our country as a society loves to place blame. Obama and his minions (Pelosi/ Reid, etc) are still riding the wave of it was Bushs fault everything sucks. But in a few years when Bush has faded from the publics consciousness, it will be the Democrats who will have to face the firing squad. If the economy stabilizes and starts to grow again and people dont feel like they are being taxed at draconian rates they will remain in power. Obama may be a phony but he isnt stupid. There is a reason why he allowed this recession to worsen with his "non-stimlus" bill and plan to push the vast majority of govt aid money into 2010 and beyond. To stay in power. period. Like every other politician.

Ok. Virtually everything that Congress has done this year. Pretty easy.

And 2 years ago these roles weren't reversed?

[quote=Riot]Yet when Obama makes Bush seem like a pennypincher it is ok?

btw Dala would love your objective sources, CNN, MSNBC,CBS,...what DailyKos didnt have a link?

I hope the GOP whines even ever more loudly, that'll fix things for them.

Yes, the "plenty of alternate plans":

Plan A) Obama sucks!
Plan B) Don't do that!

Plan C) Keep "hoping" that I am not right...

[quote=Cannon Shell]LOL - The numbers are the numbers. Are you saying the numbers are false?

You can do the same google I did and get the congressional budget office, and various watchdog organizations, but the numbers are the same. Not a secret.