gdp's Comments

Liberty's Life Line : Coons vs O’Donnell. Are You Kidding Me?

Tue, 28 Sep 2010 21:02:52 +0000

Sorry for the comments being out of order. I had to break them up to fit.

Liberty's Life Line : Coons vs O’Donnell. Are You Kidding Me?

Tue, 28 Sep 2010 21:02:17 +0000

9) "The stimulus was not big enough" The simulus didn't do diddly-squat. The recession was over before the money hit the street. Obama promised unemploment which at that time was below 8% would not rise above 8% and threatened that if we did nothing it would climb to 9%. Well, he got his way and unemployment is worse than he said it would be if we did nothing, and we are $1 trillion deeper in debt, and you say that wasn't enough? 10) Your answer is more government and higher education employment? Who's going to pay those salaries? They don't produce anything at a profit. We need private sector jobs. We just went through the housing bubble. Next up is the bubble in higher education, because the cost of tuition cannot continue to climb. As far as putting millions of govenment workers out of work, I am reminded of a story about someone asking Pope John XXIII how many people worked in the vatican. He said, "about half." Thanks for commenting.

Liberty's Life Line : Coons vs O’Donnell. Are You Kidding Me?

Tue, 28 Sep 2010 21:01:43 +0000

8) Reagan boom and then hard crash. Okay, take out your calendar and lets' review. Reagan took over a disastrous economy from Jimmy Carter. He turned it into the longest peace time expansion in history with, you are correct, deregulation, tax cuts, and spending reduction. He served from 1980 to 1988. He was succeeded by George H. W. Bush (1988-1992) during whose term there was a mild recession. In came Bill Clinton for a lackluster two years until the Republicans took over Congress and then we had balanced budgets and a continued boom due to tax cuts and spending reduction, both of which Clinton reluctantly went along. The dot.com bubble was on Clinton's watch. George W. Bush inherited a recession from Clinton. He cut taxes and the economy took off again. Then all the govenment programs that put people into mortgages they couldn't afford brought the collapse. Any questions? Reagan was no where in site in the early 90s. Unlike Clinton, Carter and Gore, he retired quietly to California.

Liberty's Life Line : Coons vs O’Donnell. Are You Kidding Me?

Tue, 28 Sep 2010 21:00:48 +0000

3) "The Tea Party views are not compatible with our present society." According to a Rasmussen poll, 46% say Tea Party is good for America, 31% disagree. Again, you bring no facts to the table. 4) "Clearly when there is less regulation on business our economy falters." Again, no facts. The financial meltdown was triggered by the housing bubble which was the culmination of government program on top of government program going back to FDR (Fannie Mae). Where are your facts? 5) "Our situation is the result of Bush's deregulation." Again, no facts. What did Bush deregulate that caused the financial meltdown? 6) You are right about Bush starting the stimulus ball rolling with TARP. He was wrong. He was also not acting conservatively and he was helped, if you care to recall, by Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid. 7) Ah, the race card. What principled discusssion could we have without you bringing that up, because there is no where that I mentioned anyone's race. I'm colorblind on these issues. It sounds like you have a race problem.

Liberty's Life Line : Coons vs O’Donnell. Are You Kidding Me?

Tue, 28 Sep 2010 21:00:21 +0000

Gee rachel, you gave me so much meat, I don't know where to start,so let me take it point by point. 1) I have a complete lack of understanding of our "complex society and government work." That is a typical liberal/statist/progressive attack of making a charge without backing it up with any facts. 2) A criminal complaint has been filed by CREW. I didn't know that, but since it was filed only about a week ago and it appeared that CREW was more interested in getting the charges in the media that they forgot to serve any papers on O'Donnell. According to the Washington Times, her attorney was going to visit the CREW website to see what the charges were. I went to the CREW site and did a search on the word Democrat. Not much turned up. Hmmm... fair and balanced? I found a list of the 22 most corrupt politicians in Washington and surprise! It had eighteen Republicans and only four Democrats. There was no mention of Charlie Rangel, Maxine Waters; no mention of the 41 Obama White House aids who owe $831,000 in back taxes, so since this is just about a week old, I'll let it play out, but it smells fishy to me, particularly considering the timing.

Liberty's Life Line : Coons vs O’Donnell. Are You Kidding Me?

Sun, 26 Sep 2010 18:19:51 +0000

Nice try, Blake, but you failed to mention any facts or any matchups. Why are you asking me to come up with the list? The point of the post was O'Donnell vs. Coons. If you have a match you'd like to analyze, be my guest. Perhaps Harry Reid vs. Sharon Angle?

Liberty's Life Line : Control of Congress and the Economy

Tue, 27 Jul 2010 19:04:03 +0000

Thanks, David. Are you sure it wouldn't be blue donkeys dancing under that arch?

Liberty's Life Line : The Regulators are Dead, Long Live the Regulators

Mon, 28 Jun 2010 16:18:40 +0000

As companies grow larger, they become unwieldy. Think about the conglomerate rage in the 1970s, the idea being the company itself would be a portfolio maximizing return and minimizing risk. Michael Milken and company saw the opportunities in those firms and bought, broke them apart and made a fortune in the process. That was all done privately. As companies become large, they should reassess what they are good at, focus on that and divest the rest. Then if they fail, they do it with their own money not ours. Independent auditors should provide a risk profile of a financial institution and depending on where they fall on a scale of risk, they should be required to have a set percentage of their capital on hand to offset the risk. If they carry more risk, they should have greater reserves, less risk, less reserves. Think about an individual getting a mortgage. If your down payment is too small the bank may require mortgage insurance on the borrower. If you get the level of equity up, you can drop the insurance.

Liberty's Life Line : The Truth Deficit

Thu, 20 May 2010 18:28:46 +0000

President Obama should have waited a few days before speaking. The unemployment figures released today showed a surprising increase and included upward adjustments to prior months numbers. The Dow Jones Industrial average is down about 250 points now. I can't wait to hear how the president spins this one.

Liberty's Life Line : Comedian Lewis Black Doesn't Understand the Tea Partiers

Wed, 19 May 2010 22:52:54 +0000

And what facts are you bringing to the table? It never ceases to amaze me how those on the left believe a reasoned debate consists of shouting and name calling and little else.

Liberty's Life Line : Alinsky Threatens Democrats

Fri, 26 Mar 2010 13:06:18 +0000

"...but facts are lost when mired in mysticism and superstition." It seems that you brought your opinions, and that's fine, but left your facts at home since you don't mention any. Let's see, the Teaparty crowd are "haters not debaters", can you back that up with some facts? Show me a case where a Democrat actually debated someone either in the Tea Party movement or a politician the Tea Party supports, rather hiding under their desks in Washington. Were you out of the country when Democrats went home to their districts and withered under the questioning of the people they are supposed to be representing, finally deciding not to hold meetings at all. You say the Tea Party has no clout? How about Scott Brown? Ask Dede Scozzafava in New York's 23rd. Ask Charlie Crist in Florida. You list what you say are the so-called leaders of the Tea Party. Bill O'Reilly? While others point out Obama's socialist proclivities, O'Reilly remains a skeptic, so he is not a Tea Party leader but is trying to be balanced. "Use government a little," a little????? The way that the government uses the "General Welfare" verbiage in the Constitution steamrolls what Hamilton believed. Roosevelt started the ball rolling to the mess we are in. Social Security will pay out more than it takes in this year and has trillions in unfunded liabilities. You say the world is complicated, but you believe that it's not too complicated for 535 members of Congress to figure it all out and tell us in detailed 2,000 page laws exactly how to behave. Interesting. 535 members of Congress are smarter than the collective wisdom of 300 million people acting in their own best interests. They must be really, really smart. When passed in 1965, Congress told us that Medicare hospital spending would reach $9 billion by 1990. It actuall hit $66 billion. That's an over 700% oops! So when President Obama, Speaker Pelosi, Leader Reid tells us that it will only cost $1 trillion, what are we supposed to do when this becomes a 700% oops? The only thing you say that comes close to a fact is a tax increase under Reagan, conveniently omitting that the Constitution says that all revenue bills are to originate in the House of Representatives which was controlled by whom? That's right, the Democrats! And you take that increase and somehow directly link it to an increase in government employment. Sorry, I thought you said the world was complicated. This is typically the way statists debate. Ignore facts, when challenged on their opinions, jump to another opinion. When all else fails, use Saul Alinsky's tactical Rule No. 5.

5. "Ridicule is man's most potent weapon. It is almost impossible to counteract ridicule. Also it infuriates the opposition, which then reacts to your advantage."

Liberty's Life Line : The Decline and Fall of America

Mon, 22 Mar 2010 01:58:40 +0000

You summed it up pretty well. But we cannot afford to dispair. We need to take this moment to get fired up. Find the member of Congress in your district and if they voted for this bill, find them an opponent and support them with everything you have got. Then we need to convince America the free lunch is over. We need to start shrinking government. Get rid of any departments not expressly called for in the Constitution (e.g., Agriculture, Education, Health and Human Services, Energy, Transportation, etc.) and send those function back to the states. We need to get very serious about Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid and come November, repeal this monstrosity and start fresh.

Liberty's Life Line : Health Care Cost Control – It’s Hard But Can Be Done

Tue, 2 Mar 2010 00:33:04 +0000

Dave,

You may want to check your link. It doesn’t seem to go to your post, which I am sure many folks would like to see.

Bill O’Connell

Liberty's Life Line : Good Government, Bad Government

Mon, 1 Feb 2010 01:23:47 +0000

I think the best reform for the government would be to get out of the way. Much of this crisis was caused by the government forcing banks, through threats of racism and interference with any growth plans, unless they lent money to people who, under normal credit criteria, could not get a loan. This worked as long as housing prices kept climbing and their equity grew with the house price. But the law of leverage says that it magnifies your gains as prices rise, but it also magnifies your losses when prices fall. When was the last time you heard President Obama blame Fannie Mae and Freddi Mac, HUD, and the Community Reinvestment Act? It's a year into his term and he's still blaming Bush. When does he take responsibility?

Liberty's Life Line : Economic Malpractice

Sun, 27 Dec 2009 14:46:42 +0000

I have a hard time grasping your world view when you make a comment that Reagan was one of the worst things to ever happen to our country. Let see, he began a 25 year run of unprecendented economic growth, he ended the cold war without firing a shot, he made Americans, yourself excluded, proud to be Americans again. Ending Research and Development on alternative energy resources? Do you mean like Jimmy Carter's Synfuels Project? The project where we spent billions of dollars trying to convert coal into oil, only to have the project crash and burn when oil prices, once again, came down as they tend to do in a free market. Government predictions of a permanently high level in the price of oil proved (surprise!) not to be prescient. I didn't know that Jimmy Carter had a magic machine that could control solar activity and thereby control global warming. The current fiscal crisis was caused by a chain of related events. How you can say that two government related entities Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac becoming insolvent were not a factor in the financial meltdown, is simply putting your head in the sand. It is even more ridiculuous when Barney Frank says six months beforehand that there is no problem with Fannie and Freddie, and he heads the committee that writes the laws regulating them, and your pet peeve is not enough regulation. Ayn Rand wrote, as you say, about Conservative economic thought. I never read any of her books on religion. On the other hand I don't know that she every killed anyone, let alone tens of millions to enforce her economic views, a la, Stalin, Mao, Castro and other proponents of the "worker's paradise." Remember, the Berlin Wall was put up to keep people IN not keep Westerners OUT

Liberty's Life Line : Economic Malpractice

Wed, 23 Dec 2009 15:35:32 +0000

Don, it's nice to see you finally identified some policies of Bush that you dislike. So let me address those points. First, let me address your comment about the unemployment rate. You are absolutely correct about the lagging nature of unemployment as well as the history with Reagan. However, Reagan attacked the problem by cutting tax rates and shrinking government. The results are in and they worked. Reagan never promised that any given program would cap the unemployment rate at a specific level nor did he offer a "do nothing" scenario that ultimately turned out to be better than the action. Instead of following this success formula, Obama is choosing the path of FDR, which is to spend his way out of the problem and that is proved to have failed according to Henry Morganthau, FDR's Treasury Secretary. Most rational people would choose the formula that worked over the one that didn't, but if you real goal is to pay off you backers with pork projects and expand the scope and control of the government, perhaps not.

Tax Cuts -- Kennedy cut taxes and the economy grew. Reagan cut taxes and the economy grew. Clinton cut taxes in 1997 and the last years of his administration were his best economically. Clinton handed Bush a recession after the dot.com bubble burst and then 9/11 hit. Bush cut taxes and GDP growth in 2004 and 2005 topped any year under Clinton. You opinion is that tax cuts are reckless. The facts are that they work for both Democrats and Republicans.

Foolish war spending. That's interesting coming from a liberal. Woodrow Wilson (D) World War I; FDR (D) World War II; Truman (D) Korea; Kennedy/Johnson (D/D) Viet Nam. To provide for the national defense is explicit in the Constitution. I may argue that we may have avoided some of these conflicts with tougher diplomacy. You call it foolish, I call it keeping us safe, which Bush did. We were safe for seven years. Now that Obama is in office, there are brush fires breaking out around the world and in Fort Hood we once again have a terrorist attack on our soil. Obama is going to put the 9/11 terrorists on trial in a civil court in Manhattan, which is insane and unprecedented in American history, and this upstanding administration says it was Attorney General Holder's decision alone and Obama had nothing to do with it. Now that's leadership.

Neglect of infrastructure. Where in the Constitution does it say that infrastructure is the responsibility of the president? This is another of my pet peeves with the expansion of the government. If the people of New York need a bridge between Manhattan and Brooklyn, why should someone in Arizona pay for it? It should be paid for by the City of New York. Oh, we can't afford it! No? Well by federalizing everything as soon as the guy in Arizona pays for your bridge, you will have to pay for his sewage treatment plant, then pay for a turtle crossing in Florida, and an airport for John Murtha's "Airport for No One" (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204... Cut taxes and let people pay for their own local projects.

Increasing Wealth and Income of the Rich. This is from an analysis done on data from the Bureau of Economic Statistics by Steven Horwitz, The overall lesson is clear: lives for Americans below the poverty line continue to get better in terms of what they are able to put in their households and have to make use of everyday. And do note that the average American household in 2005 was doing much better than its 1971 counterpart. MUCH better - and this doesn't even count medical advances and the like. So whatever one hears about stagnating wages and the like, the bottom line is ultimately what we can afford to buy and have in our households to improve our lives. By those measures, life for the average American is better today than 35 years ago, life for poor Americans is much better than it was 35 years ago, and poor Americans today largely live better than the average American did 35 years ago. Hard to square with a narrative of economic stagnation or decline. It's time to put the final nail in that coffin that the rich keep getting richer and the poor keep getting poorer. It doesn't take a genius to figure out where wealth and income are concerned, there is a floor ($0), but there is no ceiling. So over time, America being the land of opportunity that it is, allows hard working creative people to, yes, get rich. It is not a zero sum game, like liberals like to think. How did Bill Gates' establishment of Microsoft impoverish anyone? On the contrary, with the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation, many more people benefit from his starting Microsoft than he himself. Does that make him evil? While we're on that subject, while the average libera'ls income is typically 6% higher than the average conservative's, why do those evil, greedy, heartless conservatives give 30% more to charity than liberals? Why don't you ask VP Joe Biden, who despite being a millionaire and being paid handsomely by we taxpayers, contributes about $1 per day to charity? Doesn't he believe in helping those less fortunate than himself or only by stealing from other people through the government and giving away their money?

So what does liberal nirvana look like. Well, Detroit has been run by liberals and the auto unions since 1961. Take a look here: (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1hhJ_49leBw)

Liberty's Life Line : Economic Malpractice

Wed, 23 Dec 2009 01:48:40 +0000

Don, the way you tap dance would put Fred Astaire and Michael Flatley to shame. Is it four or five times you generically mention "Bush ruined our economy with his stupid and reckless policies," without mentioning a single policy and how it contributed to the recession? You make it hard to rebut your claims. I don't agree with a lot of what Bush did, including increasing spending but, oops, no that's a good thing, right, because that's all Obama has been doing since taking office. It's nice you give a nod to Paul Krugman who is a Nobel Laureate. However, he won the Nobel for his work on trade, for which he is respected, but otherwise he is a shrill left wing complainer for the New York Times. You like to put forth bromides like, "By any honest reckoning Obama's stimulus has been a success." Back it up with some facts, man! Get in the arena and drop the platitudes. When Obama promised that unemployment would not rise above 8% and it would hit 9% if we did nothing, and he slams through a 1,000 page stimulus bill that no one reads and unemployment rises to 10.2%, do you really call that, "success by any honest reckoning," really? You sound like every liberal wonk who looks over the wreckage of another failed government program lamenting, "I guess we didn't spend enough." Rather than honestly saying, "Well, that didn't work, let's scrap it and try something else, like leave it alone." Or are you relying on the Obama fabrication "jobs saved"?

Here's an important note to my friends in the news media: the White House has absolutely no earthly clue how many job losses have been prevented because of the stimulus bill. None. Not Christina Romer. Not Jared Bernstein. Not Austen Goolsbee.

Each of these distinguished economists would have failed Statistics 101 for making such a laughable claim. But we see them now repeating these assertions to reporters who have seemingly abandoned all skepticism. -- Tony Fratto, CNBC, 2 June 2009

I should be supporting his efforts? I think I have demonstrated to you through quotes from FDR's own Treasury Secretary that what Obama is doing, following the model of FDR does not work. I will do everything in my power to stop these insane policies before he bankrupts the country. Wake up, Don. If Obama's policies are so wonderful, why is his approval ratings lower than any president in history at the same point in their presidency? Why does he continue to support and push legislation that a majority of Americans oppose? This is hubris, the likes of which we have never seen. It's time to get your head out in the fresh air, Don. I support the principles on which this country was based, not on government running every aspect of our lives. If you want to have an honest debate, come prepared to defend your position with hard facts. I think we can both pick and choose our favorite times during the S&P 500s history and have some fun with those numbers, but what does that have to do with Barack Obama's inexperience and incompetence?

Liberty's Life Line : Economic Malpractice

Tue, 22 Dec 2009 01:13:01 +0000

Don, looking backward anyone can be a successful investor. In your 80 year scenario, with the exception of Bill Clinton, investing during the term of any Democratic president would have yielded returns below the historical average. What does that prove? You can slice the stock market's performace any number of way to make it look the way you want. Take a 10 year average that looks impressive and slip it two years and it can look bad. Do you long for the days of Jimmy Carter when he left office with inflation at 12%, and mortgage rates of 17.5%? I give him credit for some of his deregulation moves regarding airlines and trucking, but his economic policies were not good. FDR was president for eight years, spent boatloads of money and still couldn't end the Great Depression causing his Treasury Secretary Morganthau to lament in May 1939

"We have tried spending money. We are spending more than we have ever spent before and it does not work. {emphasis added} And I have just one interest, and if I am wrong ... somebody else can have my job. I want to see this country prosperous. I want to see people get a job. I want to see people get enough to eat. We have never made good on our promises ... I say after eight years of this Administration we have just as much unemployment as when we started ... And an enormous debt to boot!"*

And yet this is the very failed model that Barack Obama is following. I give Clinton credit for negotiating NAFTA, and he would probably get a lot more credit if he kept his eyes on the ball and his hands off the help. But you refuse to answer my biggest beef and that is why is the government involved in these things that the Constitution gives them no power to do? Take the $787 billion stimulus bill, most of the money went to the Department of Education, the Department of Labor and the Department of Health and Human Services. Only about $4 billion went to the Department of Transportation for "shovel ready" projects. When 70%-80% of jobs in this country are created by small businesses, even if the stimulus was a good idea, why is spending most of the money in three departments that shouldn't even exist, going to end the rise in unemployment? The proof is in, it didn't. The federal government took $2,314 of wealth from every man, woman and child in this country and wasted it on a false promise that it would cap unemployment at 8% and it did not. Someone should be held accountable. Instead this administration is doubling down, and tripling down, on more and more spending on empty promises that an overwhelming majority of Americans are against, according to most polls. And the arrogant life time politicians in Washington say, "too bad, you are too stupid to manage your own affairs, you need we Harvard educated elites to tell you what to do, for your own good."

Liberty's Life Line : Economic Malpractice

Mon, 21 Dec 2009 22:53:08 +0000

Don, if we really want to make it fun, let's compare your New York Times data with to conservative presidents and in that group I'll include Harding/Coolidge, Eisenhower and Reagan, each serving eight years. Your $10,000 investment would have grown to $42,940 under Harding/Coolidge. Put that under the mattress and take it out in 1952 at the beginning of the Eisenhower administration. When Ike left office, it would be worth $150,880. Back under the matterss until Reagan takes office. Invest your $150,880 and when Reagan turns the reins over to Bush (41), your original $10,000 investment would be worth $523,350. Aren't numbers fun?

Liberty's Life Line : Economic Malpractice

Mon, 21 Dec 2009 22:10:10 +0000

You know what they say Don, about lies, damned lies and statistics. Okay, the New York Times (hmmmm, I wonder what their point of view is), produces a nice study that says investments were better under selective Democratic presidents than Republicans. Let's look at your numbers this way. The historical average rate of return for the S&P 500 from 1871 to 2008 is 10.4%. Looking at your list of Presidents, on the Republican side, G.H.W Bush, Eisenhower, Reagan and Ford all beat that average; on the Democrats bench Bill Clinton is the only one to do so. If you look more closely at Clinton's record, and on the economic front it's pretty good, it was pretty weak his first two years in office and rather strong the last six. What happend in those last six years? The Republicans took control of Congress and turned Bill Clinton into a moderate. It's nice of the Times to start with Herbert Hoover, who by the way was no free market conservative. Hoover believed in government intervention and made things decidedly worse by doing so. Also notice, the Times conveniently left out the Roaring 20s a period of tremendous economic growth with the stock market averaging 19.98% per year from 1920 to 1928, all under Republican administrations.