i see how YOU people fight psst...i talk more when sleepy

We know,,,,,

Fanta, the "glimmers of hope" have nothing to do with economy. They have everything to do with stupidity of those who believe all we need to do is hope, and wish Obama well. Those who believe nothing needs to actually be done.

If anything, his abysmal performance has injured use economy so much, that I would not be surprised if the US market crashed again, this time in earnest, pretty soon.

I have not seen a president with so little knowledge of anything, and even incapability to memorize a short speech, yet.

This president truly is the first. In weakness.

(May-be he knows that internally, and thus he bows so savagely deep to kings?)

I'm starting to believe that he knows exactly the outcome of his administration's actions - and it frankly scares the living sh*t out of me.

The worst part about all this is that even if this does "fix" the economy right now, we are in a world of hurt the next downswing because (1) much like how the housing market and economy was artificially being held up the last 7 years, this "stimulus" is trying to artificially prop up the economy; and (2) we are now the furthest in debt than we ever have been and keep getting deeper in. At the planned rate, by the end of Obama's first term, we will be around 80-90% debt to GDP ratio.

We're in a hole and digging fast.

The idea is, according to Keynes, to dig faster and faster. To dig as fast as is required to escape the crumbling roof above. Like you said, the thing is, when we can't dig fast enough, we will have that much more free falling ground to crush on top of us.

This is the race of dumb. This is the way of those who do not think. This is the way of a killer for hire, who thinks he will do it "just once". Then he discovers that the "employer" has regrets, so he has to do it again. Then he finds out that the "employer's" relative knew about it. He puts one more down. By this time he realizes that he didn't want to go this deep. But he has no choice. Now, he thinks the neighbor saw him. Then he makes a mistake in haste and has to do the detective.

This path, ends in race against chance, race with diminishing marginal results. This path gives less and less, but ends up having progressively more and more risk stacked up on one little possible mistake.

The weakness of Obama (and Bush), is in not having any manhood at all. It is in inability to stop earlier rather than later. It is in his weakness to stop even if to save the others.

How pathetic.

I appreciate y'all opinions, but that is all they are and I disagree.
Me and more than half the nation!

Let me elaborate.
You call this man, who graduated from Harvard with honors, a president with so little knowledge of anything.
What an extreme contradiction to facts. Its wrong, distasteful, and an extremely arrogant statement.
You say his policies wont work when most of the top economist in the world advise him this is the right approach. The signs also show that in fact it is working.
You say it might work at first but then soon it will all come tumbling down around him.
Yet, he has once again been advised by the top economist about the measures he should put in place to ensure the economy is rebuilt on a strong base that will prevent this very thing from happening.

Nothing is guaranteed of course, but Obama is trying and he has surrounded his self with qualified advisers and taking their advise in his efforts to correct the terrible mess he inherited!

I do appreciate and respect y'alls opinions though, and am very glad to hear them!
Thanks!

You can discard all my personal bias, as it has no relation to the reality, it is only my opinion. I am not going to apologize, but neither am I expecting this to have any weight, of course.

However, with that being said, the fact that half of the country might or not agree with Obama, means nothing. Those are just as personal opinions as mine.

Top economists? Let us talk about that for a second. Let us find something that could be examined beyond our subjective opinions, something that can be looked at independently and that can be determined to be true or not true.

Are these the same "economists" that did not see this crisis coming?

If yes, then even though these people have all impressive and scary degrees, the self-evident fact that they did not see the crisis approaching, shows us beyond the reasonable doubt, that they don't worth the chairs they are sitting in, as economists.

I take it, that as a reasonable and experienced man, you don't believe just titles and degrees. If yes, then you should agree with me in discounting ALL economists, who were not able to forecast this crisis, as incompetent in their profession.

Yes, no?


If not, then would you not agree that since competence does not allow one to know what results will be achieved by given acts (policies), then we can not trust these economists when they say that this or that policy will work. They can not forecast, remember?

On the opposing side, we have unrecognized economists. I would say that these ones are not unlike Galileo who saw what the established science was not able to see.

Do these people agree with what Obama is doing? No! Everyone, who predicted this crisis, are laughing or crying at his actions and policies.

Finally, I'd like to touch on the subject Obama's intelligence, in a way more respectful and reasonable than my own human biased opinion.

If Obama is indeed an intelligent man, then which group of economists should he listen to? He isn't an expert in economics, his profession is organizer and politician. But, shouldn't we expect at least a sound judgment from an intelligent man?

Well said, Fanta.

I still have a hard time believing you say this stuff when you voted for Obama. I know i have said this before, but never came back to the threads so don't know what you answered. Why the hell would you vote for a man you thought was this bad?

people's minds change

If that was for me, I know that people change their minds, my question to Nogames comes from a much earlier conversation with him and I am curious.

First, my vote doesn't count.

Second, you've got to give man a chance. Now, it is clear that he isn't using it.

Third, republicans needed to be punished for Bush.

Forth, the only way to stop socialism is to allow it, so that when it is "working", people can see what a bad idea it is. It can not be stopped by "conservatism", as logically, such tactic is a losing proposition. Socialism can not be contained either, because it creates progressively bigger problems, prompting those who don't understand it, to vote for more and more, in hopes that it will fix what it had already wrecked. Socialism, thus, is a death by thousand cuts. If you want to stop it, you must advance it to it's terminal stage.

Fifth, what does it matter? The truth is truth, it doesn't change depending on who one voted for.

Well it's obvious that lots of votes counted for Obama, don't know that one would expect everyones vote to count.

How else might it work to allow for 'everyones' vote to work? I must be missing something. Actually your vote 'did' count to help make Obama president. and it really counted if you wanted to see repulicans pay, they sure did, although that mean spirited crap they employ to win every time was about to get old and tired eventually too. One can't be that obvious for too long and expect it to eventually not sink in what is happening.

Again it would certainly piss them off but would I run the risk of getting what I thought would be worse, by voting for Obama, guess I just don't get that logic. But wait ok your logic is to force socialism to it's terminal stage. If you thought socialism was so bad, you'd risk any level of it? Some how that just doesn't register with me.

I guess it matters to me because I could not go against what I thought to be the right thing, just to piss off one party, especially when most of us agree that both parties are capable of greed and selfishness.

Thanks for responding, Nogames, guess I just don't get it quite yet.

Those who are on Obama's new economic advisory board come from all walks of life and have held many different jobs in the past. Some were in a position to know while others were in the teaching field.

I hear many who speak of their positions on various corporate boards, but upon a closer look I notice that the positions were largely honorary positions of title with no actual power and very little advisory strength.

The biggest thing to note here is that the Bush Admin spent a lot of time denying the crisis when something may have been done to ward the crisis off. He took no action and no advice from anyone. How could he when people like Phil Gramm continued to tell him the crisis was a mental one, and spent all their energy covering up the truth in hopes of putting another imbecile into power to continue the madness.

Another thing to note is that the economic advisory board is a new agency. Never before have people with these economic minds been brought together in one room on a regular basis to bounce ideas and knowledge amongst each other.

The important thing is not necessarily who the individuals are but that they are all extremely qualified, and are now discussing their individual theories, and formulating "ONE" course of action to follow as a team in order to move America forward!

not true

Bush went to Congress three times beginning in 2001 warning of a financial crisis. of course this being a FOX news report some people will dismiss it out of hand without even looking at it. and THEY are the ones accusing people of being sheeple

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cMnSp4qEXNM&NR=1

http://www.snopes.com/politics/business/easescredit.asp

FOX being FOX!
This does not add up!

1- When Clinton left office on Jan 20, 2001!
The US had a budget surplus!

2- Phil Gramm's wife was an ENRON lobbyist. Her and Phil wrote the bill that deregulated the energy and home loan industry. For their efforts Phil's wife was given a position as an ENRON executive. Unfortunately for them and us ENRON soon went under.
This is the same Phil Gramm who was in position to become the Treasury Sec had McCain won the election. He is the same McCain economic adviser who told us all last year that the recession was a mental recession and called us all whiners.

3- Cheney just said in an interview,

Jan 8, 2009,

Cheney also said that Bush has no need to apologize for not foreseeing the economic crisis.

"I don't think he needs to apologize. I think what he needed to do is take bold, aggressive action and he has," Cheney said. "I don't think anybody saw it coming."

http://wcco.com/national/cheney.economic.crisis.2.903669.html
AND here,
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uslatest/story/0,,-8220060,00.html


How many flip flops can these people make?

FOX has Zero credibility in my eyes!

Fox = The Republican News Network.... fair and balanced if your views side with theirs

Read up on Rupert Murdock the owner

Cheney = the same guy who said they didn't see 911 coming, that there was no way they could have known. MY GOD! Didn't they read anything or listen to anyone? If that doesn't sound like they were blinded by their own agenda nothing does!

3 years to figure out who was responsible for the PanAm disaster in Lockabee but 911 they had all the suspects and info in place within hours!

Remind you of Oswald and the Kennedy assination..... just a bit?

I'm with you there. If they knew and I don't doubt it. They had to know.
Why didn't they act until they could not hide it any longer?
My answer is they hoped to retain power and knew that if they admitted their incompetency they would surely lose!

Murdock is English isn't he?

Austrailian born

In recent years, Australian-born billionaire Rupert Murdoch has used the U.S. government's increasingly lax media regulations to consolidate his hold over the media and wider political debate in America. Consider Murdoch's empire: According to Businessweek, "his satellites deliver TV programs in five continents, all but dominating Britain, Italy, and wide swaths of Asia and the Middle East. He publishes 175 newspapers, including the New York Post and The Times of London. In the U.S., he owns the Twentieth Century Fox Studio, Fox Network, and 35 TV stations that reach more than 40% of the country...His cable channels include fast-growing Fox News, and 19 regional sports channels. In all, as many as one in five American homes at any given time will be tuned into a show News Corp. either produced or delivered." But who is the real Rupert Murdoch? As this report shows, he is a far-right partisan who has used his empire explicitly to pull American political debate to the right. He is also an enabler of the oppressive tactics employed by dictatorial regimes, and a man who admits to having hidden money in tax havens. In short, there more to Rupert Murdoch than meets the eye.

In 2003, Rupert Murdoch told a congressional panel that his use of "political influence in our newspapers or television" is "nonsense." But a close look at the record shows Murdoch has imparted his far-right agenda throughout his media empire.

MURDOCH THE WAR MONGER: Just after the Iraq invasion, the New York Times reported, "The war has illuminated anew the exceptional power in the hands of Murdoch, 72, the chairman of News Corp… In the last several months, the editorial policies of almost all his English-language news organizations have hewn very closely to Murdoch's own stridently hawkish political views, making his voice among the loudest in the Anglophone world in the international debate over the American-led war with Iraq." The Guardian reported before the war Murdoch gave "his full backing to war, praising George Bush as acting 'morally' and 'correctly' and describing Tony Blair as 'full of guts'" for his support of the war. Murdoch said just before the war, "We can't back down now – I think Bush is acting very morally, very correctly." [New York Times, 4/9/03; Guardian, 2/12/03]

MURDOCH THE NEOCONSERVATIVE: Murdoch owns the Weekly Standard, the neoconservative journal that employed key figures who pushed for war in Iraq. As the American Journalism Review noted, the circulation of Murdoch's Weekly Standard "hovers at only around 65,000. But its voice is much louder than those numbers suggest." Editor Bill Kristol "is particularly adept at steering Washington policy debates by inserting himself and his views into the discussion." In the early weeks of the War on Terror, Kristol "shepherded a letter to President Bush, signed by 40 D.c= opinion-makers, urging a wider military engagement." [Source: AJR, 12/01]

MURDOCH THE OIL IMPERIALIST: Murdoch has acknowledged his major rationale for supporting the Iraq invasion: oil. While both American and British politicians strenuously deny the significance of oil in the war, the Guardian of London notes, "Murdoch wasn't so reticent. He believes that deposing the Iraqi leader would lead to cheaper oil." Murdoch said before the war, "The greatest thing to come out of this for the world economy...would be $20 a barrel for oil. That's bigger than any tax cut in any country." He buttressed this statement when he later said, "Once [Iraq] is behind us, the whole world will benefit from cheaper oil which will be a bigger stimulus than anything else." [Guardian, 2/17/03]

MURDOCH THE INTIMIDATOR: According to Agence France-Press, "Rupert Murdoch's Fox News Channel threatened to sue the makers of 'The Simpsons' over a parody of the channel's right-wing political stance…In an interview this week with National Public Radio, Matt Groening recalled how the news channel had considered legal action, despite the fact that 'The Simpsons' is broadcast on sister network, Fox Entertainment. According to Groening, Fox took exception took a Simpsons' version of the Fox News rolling news ticker which parodied the channel's anti-Democrat stance with headlines like 'Do Democrats Cause Cancer?'" [Source: Agence France-Press, 10/29/03]

MURDOCH THE NEWS EDITOR: "When The New York Post tore up its front page on Monday night to trumpet an apparent exclusive that Representative Richard A. Gephardt would be Senator John Kerry's running mate, the newspaper based its decision on a very high-ranking source: Rupert Murdoch, the man who controls the company that owns The Post, an employee said yesterday. The Post employee demanded anonymity, saying senior editors had warned that those who discussed the Gephardt gaffe with other news organizations would lose their jobs." [NY Times, 7/9/04]

Just as Fox claims to be "fair and balanced," Rupert Murdoch claims to stay out of partisan politics. But he has made his views quite clear – and used his media empire to implement his wishes. As a former News Corp. executive told Fortune Magazine, Murdoch "hungered for the kind of influence in the United States that he had in England and Australia" and that meant "part of our political strategy [in the U.S.] was the New York Post and the creation of Fox News and the Weekly Standard."

MURDOCH THE BUSH SUPPORTER: Murdoch told Newsweek before the war, Bush "will either go down in history as a very great president or he'll crash and burn. I'm optimistic it will be the former by a ratio of 2 to 1…One senses he is a man of great character and deep humility." [Newsweek, 2/17/03]

MURDOCH THE BUSH FAMILY EMPLOYER: As Slate reports, Murdoch "put George W. Bush cousin John Ellis in charge of [Fox's] Election Night vote-counting operation: Ellis made Fox the first network to declare Bush the victor" even as the New Yorker reported that Ellis spent the evening discussing the election with George W. and Jeb Bush. After the election, Fox bragged that it attracted 6.8 million viewers on Election Night, meaning Ellis was in a key position to tilt the election for President Bush. [Source: Slate, 11/22/00; New Yorker, 11/20/00]

MURDOCH THE MIXER OF BUSINESS AND POLITICS: James Fallows of the Atlantic Monthly points out that most of Murdoch's actions "are consistent with the use of political influence for corporate advantage." In other words, he uses his publications to advance a political agenda that will make him money. The New York Times reports that in 2001, for example, The Sun, Britain's most widely read newspaper, followed Murdoch's lead in dropping its traditional conservative affiliation to endorse Tony Blair, the New Labor candidate. News Corp.'s other British papers, The Times of London, The Sunday Times and the tabloid News of the World, all concurred. The papers account for about 35% of the newspaper market in Britain. Blair backed "a communications bill in the British Parliament that would loosen restrictions on foreign media ownership and allow a major newspaper publisher to own a broadcast television station as well a provision its critics call the 'Murdoch clause' because it seems to apply mainly to News Corp." [Atlantic Monthly, 9/03; New York Times, 4/9/03]

MURDOCH THE NEW YORK CITY POLITICAL BOSS: The Columbia Journalism Review reported that during New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani's first term "News Corp. received a $20.7 million tax break for the mid-Manhattan office building that houses the Post, Fox News Channel, TV Guide and other operations. During Giuliani's 1997 reelection campaign, News Corp. was also angling for hefty city tax breaks and other incentives to set up a new printing plant in New York City. Most dramatically, Giuliani jumped in to aggressively champion News Corp. when it battled Time Warner over a slot for the Fox News Channel on Time Warner's local cable system…Three years into Giuliani's first term, veteran Village Voice political reporter Wayne Barrett asked Post editorial page editor Eric Breindel if the paper had run a single editorial critical of the administration; Breindel, he says, admitted it had not. According to Barrett, the paper pulled off a perfect four-year streak" of not one critical editorial. [Columbia Journalism Review, 6/98]

Rupert Murdoch thinks of himself as a staunch anti-communist. But a look at the record shows that when his own profits are on the line, he is willing to do favors for the most repressive regimes on the planet.

MURDOCH THE DEFENDER OF REPRESSIVE REGIMES: The last governor of Hong Kong before it was handed back to China, Chris Patten, signed a contract to write his memoirs with Murdoch's publishing company, HarperCollins. But according to the Evening Standard, when "Murdoch heard that the book, East and West, would say unflattering things about the Chinese leadership, with whom he was doing satellite TV business, the contract was cancelled. It caused a furor in the press - except, of course, in the Murdoch papers, which barely mentioned the story." According to BusinessWeek, internal memos surfaced suggesting the canceling of the contract was motivated by "corporate worries about friction with China, where HarperCollins' boss, Rupert Murdoch, has many business interests." [Evening Standard, 8/13/03; BusinessWeek, 9/15/98]

MURDOCH THE APOLOGIST FOR DICTATORSHIPS: Time Magazine reported that while Murdoch is supposedly "a devout anti-Soviet and anti-communist" he "became bewitched by China in the early '90s." In an effort to persuade Chinese dictators that he would never challenge their behavior, Murdoch "threw the BBC off Star TV" (his satellite network operating in China) after BBC aired reports about Chinese human rights violations. Murdoch argued the BBC "was gratuitously attacking the regime, playing film of the massacre in Tiananmen Square over and over again." In 1998 Chinese President Jiang Zemin praised Murdoch for the "objective" way in which his papers and television covered China. [Source: Time Magazine, 10/25/99]

MURDOCH THE PROPAGANDIST FOR DICTATORS: While Murdoch justifies his global media empire as a threat to "totalitarian regimes everywhere," according to Time Magazine, Murdoch actually pays the salary of a top TV consultant working to improve the Chinese government's communist state-run television CCTV. As Time notes, "nowadays, News Corp. and CCTV International are partners of sorts," exchanging agreements to air each other's content, even though CCTV is "a key propaganda arm of the Communist Party." [Source: Time Magazine, 7/6/04]

MURDOCH THE ENABLER OF HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATORS: According to the LA Times, Murdoch had his son James, now in charge of News Corp.'s China initiative, attack the Falun Gong, the spiritual movement banned by the Chinese government after 10,000 of its followers protested in Tiananmen Square. With Rupert in attendance, James Murdoch called the movement a "dangerous" and "apocalyptic cult" and lambasted the Western press for its negative portrayal of China's awful human rights record. Murdoch "startled even China's supporters with his zealous defense of that government's harsh crackdown on Falun Gong and criticism of Hong Kong democracy supporters." Murdoch also "said Hong Kong democracy advocates should accept the reality of life under a strong-willed 'absolutist' government." It "appeared to some to be a blatant effort to curry favor" with the China's repressive government. [LA Times, 3/23/01]

MURDOCH THE HIDER OF MONEY IN COMMUNIST CUBA: Despite a U.S. embargo of communist Cuba, the Washington Post reports, "News Corp.'s organizational chart consists of no less than 789 business units incorporated in 52 countries, including Mauritius, Fiji and even Cuba." [Washington Post, 12/7/97]

From union busting to tax evading, Rupert Murdoch has established a shady business record that raises serious questions about his corporate ethics.

MURDOCH THE UNION BUSTER: The Economist reported that in 1986 Murdoch "helped smash the British print unions by transferring the production of his newspapers to a non-union plant at Wapping in East London." The move "proved to be a turning-point in Britain's dreadful industrial relations." AP reported Murdoch specifically "slashed employment levels" at the union plant and said he would "dismiss the 6,000 striking workers" who were trying to force concessions out of the media baron. The London Evening Standard called the tactics "the biggest union-busting operation in history." [Sources: The Economist, 4/18/98; AP, 1/27/86; Evening Standard, 11/12/98]

MURDOCH THE CORPORATE TAX EVADER: The BBC reported that "Mr. Murdoch's die-hard loyalty to the tax loophole has drawn wide criticism" after a report found that in the four years prior to June 30, 1998, "Murdoch's News Corporation and its subsidiaries paid only $325 million in corporate taxes worldwide. That translates as 6% of the $5.4 billion consolidated pre-tax profits for the same period…By comparison another multi-national media empire, Disney, paid 31%. The corporate tax rates for the three main countries in which News Corp. operates - Australia, the United States and the UK - are 36%, 35% and 30% respectively. Further research reveals that Mr. Murdoch's main British holding company, News Corp. Investments, has paid no net corporation tax within these shores over the past 11 years. This is despite accumulated pre-tax profits of nearly $3 billion." [Source: BBC, 3/25/99]

MURDOCH THE LOVER OF OFFSHORE TAX HAVENS: When a congressional panel asked if he was hiding money in tax havens, including communist Cuba, Murdoch responded "we might have in the past, I'm not denying that." The Washington Post reports, "through the deft use of international accounting loopholes and offshore tax havens, Murdoch has paid corporate income taxes at one-fifth the rate of his chief U.S. rivals throughout the 1990s, according to corporate documents and company officials." Murdoch "has mastered the use of the offshore tax haven." His company "reduces its annual tax bill by channeling profits through dozens of subsidiaries in low-tax or no-tax places such as the Cayman Islands and Bermuda. The overseas profits from movies made by 20th Century Fox, for instance, flow into a News Corp.-controlled company in the Caymans, where they are not taxed." [Source: Congressional Testimony, 5/8/03; Washington Post, 12/7/97]

MURDOCH THE ABUSER OF TAX LOOPHOLES: Even though Murdoch changed his citizenship in order to comply with U.S. media ownership rules, many of his companies have remained Australian, allowing them "to utilize arcane accounting rules that have pumped up reported profits and greatly aided Murdoch's periodic acquisition sprees." IRS officials point out that "U.S.-based companies face U.S. taxes on their offshore subsidiaries in the Caymans and elsewhere if more than 50 percent of the subsidiary is controlled by American shareholders. But that doesn't apply to News Corp., an Australian company." [Source: Congressional Testimony, 5/8/03; Washington Post, 12/7/97]