Voters who actually read party platforms and plans

• I have noticed that the closer we get to Tuesday - - Amanda
  • I have been hearing that O plan - middle class
  • This is the reason - Hmm
    • Yeah, and if he wins, I will be pulling my 401K - Backwards typist
      • We will also be trashing our 401K if the O gets in....sm - ms
    • I also believe Obama is going to win - TTMT
    • I read only the first 10 lines........... - chris
      • That's exactly your problem - sbMT
        • This is why I don't (see message) - Kaydie
          • With the exception of GP - sbMT
            • Good post - sm - Kaydie
              • oops meant someone not sometime (nm) - Kaydie
        • Obama's supporters only hear what they want - TTMT
          • Hail Obama - Kaydie
            • You compare Obama to Hitler but you... - Stardustst
  • I am listening to Obama right now - TTMT
    • Yes, but he is comparing policies and emphasizing - 90%'s shared W philosophy,...sm
    • whoops, he just said 250,000 again - TTMT
      • Voters who actually read party platforms and plans - are not the least bit confused about....sm
        • Have you seen where they interview people on the - streets? O voters want "change" -clueless.nm

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who had no clue what they were voting for and did no research at all and just voted for the celeb candidate.  How many people did interviewers stop and question about Obama and McCain and they had no clue who was for what or who their VPs were, etc......but they were voting for Obama. 

I know that all people have a right to vote but I think sometimes we should really restrict that.  LOL!  Too may ignorant people not knowing who they are voting for but they are voting just to vote.

It should be very troubling that the mainstream media has been in the tank for Obama since day one.  Ask Hillary Clinton or anyone else who ran (again, R, D, or I).

With that in mind, who gave them the right to choose our next President? 

Incidentally, the media (left-wing, of course) actually selected McCain, too.  They were absolutely certain that he would be the weakest candidate.  Mitt scared the holy hanna out of them.  I personally hoped for a Rudy-Fred ticket, in no particular order.

It should be interesting as to how many honest people there are reading this stuff to see how they'll react.  Based on what I've read since Palin's speech, she's certainly changed quite a few minds.

The thing that surprises me the most is that the bulk of people on this board is women, yet so many of them put party above the person.  I personally don't vote by genitalia.  I think it's foolish.

I never believed that BO's plans would work to benefit our country, but now he can't even start his plans if he is elected.  This economy is too out of wack and the government has NO money.  So how does Barry expect to keep his promises he has made during his campaign?  We can't afford more government programs.  It just is not possible.  So much for that hope he keeps talking about.

I admit that the promise of change is an attractive idea, but I have yet to hear any "plan" of Barry's that will actually bring change worth voting for.  Voting for him initially would have raised government spending and taxes.  Now that the country is in deep financial crisis....what does he propose now?  I haven't heard much of significance out of him to suggest he really will bring about change....or I should say change for the better.

CHANGE WE CAN FEAR.....Barrack Hussein Obama

Congress has looked at the Big 3's plans to cut costs in order to "qualify" for a bailout, the amount of which has now grown to $34B.  Nancy Pelosi seems to be in favor, so my bet is they will get it. 

Some of the concessions the auto makers are ready to make is slashing the executive pay, getting rid of executive bonuses, postponing employee merit raises for next year, suspending health care payments into a union health care plan, and possibly getting rid of the controversial job banks. 

Ford said they only wanted a standby line of credit with the government in case the other two go belly up.  GM seems to be the one hurting the most. 

I really have to wonder, will a bailout REALLY help or will it just postpone the inevitable with the rest of the economy dying the way it is???? 

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=97737508&ft=1&f=1001

the fact that this is a real "crisis".  Don't want to allow Bush to force congress into another debacle like the funding for the war before he is dragged from the WH kicking and screaming.  McCain is asking for time out so he can rest and catch his breath.

NEITHER candidate would have a chance. 

VOTING BY WRITE-IN VOTE FOR LOU DOBBS!!!!!!!!!

.

$250,000 or more who are voting for Obama.  These are the same folks who will pay more taxes under Obama's tax plan.  It goes to show even the wealthy who will be taxed more by Obama's tax plan, still want him to be President.  I hear JTP complain but he is not making much money and he owes back taxes.  There must be something right about Obama if the wealthy who are going to get a tax increase, are voting for him.

I've been researching other candidates and their plans.

On the Dem side - Kucinich has a plan for only one insurance provider to everyone.  Sends all the bloodsucking insurance companies and their "preexisting conditions" and "not medically necessary" straight out of business.  I kinda like that plan, as I used to do billing and it would sure cut through a ton of red tape for doctors, hospitals, their staff and the patients.

On the Rep side - Huckabee has a plan that does away with employers providing insurance.  That's kind of scary, as "pooling" to get better insurance rates has always been the cheaper way to go.

But any plan I've seen doesn't worry me as much as Hillary's!

Anybody else who has heard of a candidate with a good plan, please chime in!

will be the one to further hurt our country.  However, if I am wrong (and if O wins I hope I am wrong), I will give Obama credit if and when it is due.  Until then, I stand by what I believe.  Raising taxes during a financial crisis like this will ruin us.  Taxing businesses more will only make our products and services cost more which WE will pay for.  And as much money as Obama is wanting the government to spend on his programs, he will have to tax more than the rich to cover his expenses.

Cut taxes and cut government spending!!!!  Not the other way around.

http://exposingliberallies.blogspot.com/2008/10/obama-has-played-voters-for-fools.html 

To think that conservatives have viewed Bill and Hillary Clinton as unethical politicians who would do anything to get elected. When we are as disgusted as we think we possibly can be, on to the political stage steps Barack Obama. The senator from Illinois makes Bill and Hillary look “not quite so bad”.
     Though they enjoyed paling around with Yasser Arafat, we didn’t have the all-consuming fear that they would completely sell-out Israel, nor did we have to worry about them supporting infanticide, though they saw nothing wrong with partial-birth abortion.
     Yes, Obama keeps his pants on when away from his “bitter-half,“ Michelle, but that’s not much comfort when he has campaigned for Kenyan Prime Minister Raila Odinga who made a pact with Kenyan Muslims to institute Sharia law.
http://exposingliberallies.blogspot.com/2008/10/obama-funds-odinga-who-promises-sharia.html
     Thomas Sowell has written an article in National Review describing how Obama has played the American people for fools.
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=ZTQ5YTM3M2UzMjY3N2M3YWRiMDI0NzNmMTNhNjJlNTc=

     “Although Senator Barack Obama has been allied with a succession of far-Left individuals over the years, that is only half the story. There are, after all, some honest and decent people on the Left. But these have not been the ones that Obama has been allied with — allied, not merely ‘associated’ with.
     ACORN is not just an organization on the left. In addition to the voter frauds that ACORN has been involved in over the years, it is an organization with a history of thuggery, including going to bankers’ homes to harass them and their families, in order to force banks to lend to people with low credit ratings.
     Nor was Barack Obama’s relationship with ACORN just a matter of once being their attorney long ago. More recently, he has directed hundreds of thousands of dollars their way. Money talks — and what it says is more important than a politician’s rhetoric in an election year.
     Jeremiah Wright and Michael Pfleger are not just people with left-wing opinions. They are reckless demagogues preaching hatred of the lowest sort — and both are recipients of money from Obama.
     Bill Ayers is not just ‘an education professor’ who has some left-wing views. He is a confessed and unrepentant terrorist, who more recently has put his message of resentment into the schools — an effort using money from a foundation that Obama headed.
     Nor has the help all been one way. During the last debate between John McCain and Barack Obama, Senator McCain mentioned that Sen. Obama’s political campaign began in Bill Ayers’s home. Obama immediately denied it and McCain had no real follow-up.
     It was not this year’s political campaign that Obama began in Bill Ayers’s home but an earlier campaign for the Illinois state legislature. Barack Obama can match Bill Clinton in slickness at parsing words to evade accusations.
     That is one way to get to the White House. But slickness with words is not going to help a president deal with either domestic economic crises or the looming dangers of a nuclear Iran.
     People who think that talking points on this or that problem constitute ‘the real issues’ that we should be talking about, instead of Obama’s track record, ignore a very fundamental fact about representative government.
     Representative government exists, in the first place, because we the voters cannot possibly have all the information necessary to make rational decisions on all the things that the government does. We cannot rule through polls or referendums. We must trust someone to represent us, especially as President of the United States.
     Once we recognize this basic fact of representative government, then the question of how trustworthy a candidate is becomes a more urgent question than any of the so-called ‘real issues.’
     A candidate who spends two decades promoting polarization and then runs as a healer and uniter, rather than a divider, forfeits all trust by that fact alone.
     If Ronald Reagan had attempted to run for president of the United States as a liberal, the media would have been all over him. His support for Barry Goldwater would have been in the headlines and in editorial denunciations across the country.
     No way would he have been able to get away with using soothing words to suggest that he and Barry Goldwater were like ships that passed in the night.
     If Barack Obama had run as what he has always been, rather than as what he has never been, then we could simply cast our votes based on whether or not we agree with what he has always stood for.
     Some people take solace from the fact that Senator Obama has verbally shifted position on some issues, like drilling for oil or gun control, since this is supposed to show that he is ‘pragmatic’ rather than ideological.
     But political zigzags show no such moderation as some seem to assume. Lenin zigzagged and so did Hitler. Zigzags may show no more than that someone is playing the public for fools.
     Some people who see the fraud in what Obama is saying are amazed that others do not. But Obama knows what con men have long known, that their job is not to convince skeptics but to enable the gullible to continue to believe what they want to believe. He does that very well.”

     Right on, brother! Right on! It’s refreshing to see a black conservative who stands on principle and doesn’t support Obama just because of his dark pigment. I’m speaking of you, General Powell.

Posted by Debra Moore at 4:00 PM

On Tuesday night, If and when Barack Hussein Obama wins the 2008 United States Presidential Election, please join me in announcing that "The tribe has spoken, and that  John McCain, Sarah Palin, and the ubiquitous Sam have officially been voted off the island!"

Address poverty?  Restore the every diminishing quality of life for the middle class?  Mortgage industry?  Predatory lending/credit card practices?  Balanced budget?  Reduced debt?  Tax reform?  Create jobs?  Outsourcing?  Minimum wage?  Protect Social Security?  Workers' unions?  Small busineses?  Corporate corruption?  Free trade?  Clean up the environment?  Alternative energies?  Fuel efficiency?  Clean elections?  Special interests?  Federal contract earmarks?  Patriot Act?  Ending the War?  Restoring alliances?  Global diplomacy?  Separation of church and state?  Just curious. 

how can you ever vote for the RIGHT candidate?

The Federal Reserve (Fed) has gone beyond playing with fire, and may have indeed set the house on fire. It’s one thing to push interest rates to near zero to stimulate the economy; it’s another to “monetize the debt” by printing money to buy government debt. In recent weeks, the Fed has broken outside even those boundaries and become actively engaged in managing the private sector beyond the core banking system. Worse still, the steps taken may be difficult to reverse and as such may shape the U.S. economy for a long time. These steps are taken with the best of intentions, to “save” the economy. The only trouble is that we may be on a slippery slope to destroying capitalism on the way. In “doing whatever it takes” to get the economy back on its feet, the Fed risks destroying the foundation of why the U.S. has been able to establish itself as the world’s leading economic force. Actively participating in credit allocation within the private sector, the Federal Reserve (Fed) jeopardizes the capitalist foundation the U.S. economy is built on. As a result of these actions, the U.S. may be on its way to becoming a modern incarnation of a planned economy.

Why these harsh words? To understand what is so frightening with recent Fed activity, consider that most central banks focus on interest rates, inflation and money supply to promote price stability (and maximum employment in the Fed’s case). Generally, they all influence credit creation by managing the cost of borrowing. Central banks may employ slightly different levers and targets; and while some central banks are better than others at achieving their goals, what they have in common is that they traditionally focus on government debt, mostly short-term Treasuries, to achieve their goals. This is very much by design as good central bank policy leads to an environment of price stability fostering long-term economic prosperity. On the other hand, bad central bank policy may lead to inflation, wide swings in economic activity or unnecessarily high unemployment. However, free market forces will push the private sector to make the best of it. It’s when policy makers start subsidizing ailing sectors of the economy that distortions are created that will come back to haunt us. Traditionally, for better or worse, elected officials decide on the socio-economic fabric of society. Now, the Fed decides which areas of the economy need to be propped up.

Creating Hysteria To Pursue Policies

The hysteria that has been created by policy makers and the media has allowed the Fed to pursue its recent unorthodox policies. In late September, the world financial system looked rather dire; the government was able to play a role to avoid a disorderly collapse; but the government’s role should have been limited to allowing an orderly adjustment of the excesses of the credit bubble. Instead, the latest salvo to promote the bailouts is that payrolls have dropped by the largest amount since World War II. This may be the case in absolute numbers as the population has grown, but more jobs were lost as a percentage of the workforce in a twelve month period in each of 1982, 1961, 1958, 1954, 1948/49; in many of the cases more than twice as many. Recessions are no fun, neither are personal or corporate bankruptcies; but they may be the cure needed to weed out the excesses of the boom. In contrast, today, hedge fund managers that ran their funds into the ground are raising hundreds of millions of dollars to start anew. Some of the folks that ran Long Term Capital Management into the ground in 1998 started fresh only to have another massive failure in the current credit crisis. We don’t expect the new breed of second chances to be any better. And while the blame lies with the managers, excessively low interest rates contribute to irrational risk taking: all of the bailouts focus on those who have been over-leveraged. What about the group of responsible savers that rely on income? With interest rates near zero, many are tempted to engage in highly leveraged strategies to meet their required income objectives. Pension funds “must” return 6% per year, leaving them little leeway but to give money to hedge fund managers to magically turn 1% yields into 20% returns; the way to achieve this is with leverage. Actually, there is another way: the Swiss public pension fund system just announced that it will scale down its long-term return objective to 4% from its current 6% per annum.

Giving Credit Where No Credit is Due

In late December, the Fed Board of Governors approved GMAC’s application to become a bank. The vote was 4-1, and the one board member with experience as a bank regulator, Elizabeth Duke, dissented. There was another hurdle: GMAC, General Motors’ finance arm, did not have sufficient capital to be a bank. That problem was solved, too, in early January, as the Treasury injected $5 billion into GMAC; the Treasury also GM $1 billion, so that GM could inject that money into GMAC. Equipped now with a minimum capital base, GMAC is able to operate as a bank, go to the Fed to access the TARP program, as well as other regular and emergency Fed windows.

In December, car sales fell off the cliff. But it wasn’t only GM that had problems; even Toyota that had access to credit and introduced zero percent financing, recorded a 37% plunge in sales (unlike other car makers, Toyota has traditionally not offered zero percent financing). Shell-shocked consumers are worried about their jobs and have lost a substantial amount of their net worth in 2008; further, incentive programs prior to the bursting of the credit bubble lured consumers into 6-year loans with zero percent financing. Consumers simply don’t want or need a car right now. Policy makers take this as a reason to provide money to GMAC that pursues a business model proven to be ruinous: it simply doesn’t make sense to offer cars at 0% if interest rates are above that, even if they are “close to zero” as they are now. GMAC takes money from the Treasury to be able to request more from the Fed. And the first course of business for GMAC is to extend zero percent financing to consumers with lower credit ratings than had traditionally qualified.

Difficult to Unwind: Long Term Inflation Likely

The Fed is only ramping up its mission to allocate credit where the Fed – rather than the free market - deems it appropriate. A major program announced in the fourth quarter, but rolled out in early January consists of a $500 billion program to buy mortgage-backed securities (MBS). The perceived positive is the plummeting of mortgage rates. Consumers with superb credit now qualify for 30-year mortgages at less than 5%. One problem with such programs is that the Fed intentionally inflates prices (lowers the yields) on these securities; in turn, rational market participants may abstain from buying them. As a result the Fed risks replacing private sector activity, rather than encouraging it. Furthermore, the Fed jeopardizes the dollar as foreigners may be discouraged from buying U.S. government and agency security debt; given that the U.S. has become dependent on foreigners to finance its spending needs as well as the unprecedented debt that will be financed in 2009. This is a very dangerous road to be on.

The Fed may be able to phase out its commercial paper subsidy program or drain liquidity from the TARP program over time; however, the $500 billion MBS program may be difficult, if not impossible to unwind. Indeed, the design of the MBS program calls for holding of the securities until maturity. For practical purposes, this means that the Fed’s balance sheet is not just “temporarily” inflated, but that the Fed will permanently keep more money in the economy. Traditionally, the Fed’s balance sheet is $900 billion. Therefore, even if one gives the Fed the benefit of the doubt that the current escalation to over $2 trillion is temporary, there will be a significant hangover as not all additions can easily be removed. This doesn’t even consider that, quite likely, the MBS purchase program may need to be extended beyond the 6-month period it was put in place for. Watch for bond manager Bill Gross this June, calling for the Fed to continue buying MBS, preferably the ones he has on the books, to save the economy from collapse. Incidentally, his firm, PIMCO, is one of the firms managing the Fed program.

To counter the effects of this added money in the economy, the Fed would need to keep interest rates permanently higher. One realistic alternative, however, is that the additional money will stay in the economy as draining it would cause too much economic hardship. This may well embed inflation into the U.S. economy for years to come. Importantly, note that there is little, if any, accountability at the Fed monitoring its actions; no one is there to ensure that the Fed will, at some point, phase out its programs or added powers.

Live Free Or Die

By engaging in credit allocation to specific sectors of the economy, the U.S. is stepping into a territory traditionally left to governments with a socialist or communist brand. Communism has shown us that planned economies don’t work. New Hampshire in 1945 added the slogan “Live Free or Die” to its state emblem, a quote stemming from a general in the Revolutionary war. Translated to the economic crisis, this should mean that a severe recession ought to be the lesser evil than a planned economy. And to continue the parallel, when communism swept Eastern Europe, the standard of living for everyone dropped. In today’s world, we already see that the “re-failure” rate of those who defaulted, then renegotiated their teaser rate loans, is above 50%. Yet all taxpayers have to pay the price for the bailouts.

To be sure, we are a far cry from communism. But we must keep our eyes open and not be blinded by the perceived “help” of money printed by the Fed. Debt is the origin, not the solution to the problems we face. The Declaration of Independence’s “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” may be difficult to achieve when drowned in debt; building sustainable wealth without the shackles of debt may be the more appropriate path. It’s not by mistake that the Founding Fathers be backed by a precious metal that cannot be inflated to give in to the temptation of the day.