waitforufo

If you wait until you know what the stimulus improves, the market has already reacted and there is no money to be made. Investors have to predict how the market will perform. For the recent past they have been predicting doom. Today was an exception do to a surprise from Citigroup. Hopefully such surprises will continue. Unfortunately, investors don't see how the stimulus will correct this downward spiral. That’s why the market is going down. I don't agree with this much. The vast majority of investment capitol is owned by institutions. The vast majority of those institutions take their investor fiduciary responsibilities seriously. Much of the problem we are having today had to do with AIG. http://abcnews.go.com/Business/story?id=7045889&page=1 One bad apple can spoil a whole bunch. I agree with much of the above. I see the new administration using a "good crisis" to reorder the economy to their liking. In the process they are destroying a lot of wealth. Wealth owned by middle class people. People like my 77 year old mother. I think that is tragic. I could not agree with the above more.

In cases like this markets don't react after the fact. Knowing that the stimulus checks will arrive should be enough. Having seen the stimulus plan markets went down. This means they were not too impressed. Having said that, Obama's stimulus plan may be more simulative than the markets have predicted. This would mean greater traction at a later date. If history is any guide however, the stimulus will not even kick in until the economy has recovered on its own. In such cases the stimulus will simply be inflationary. I do not mean this last comment to be a criticism of Obama. Many well intended stimulus packages under many former presidents have had such an effect.

I'm not quite sure how conceding your point is a strawman argument, but if you say so... The topic of this thread is "Referendum on Obama policy." The OP describes how markets have dropped since Obama seemed sure to win the election and have dropped more so after he did win. So here is an AP story discussing how markets have performed under Obama. http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gOxxrs1Wa0rtkIbYSaD6xS1UPllAD96QOBQ80 I think the article is fairly even handed but it does open with this gem… So I'm just curious if you have any opinion other than Obama inherited a mess from Bush? For example, can you explain why his policies have not calmed markets? Do you think statements from his staff like “You don’t ever want a crisis to go to waste; it’s an opportunity to do important things that you would otherwise avoid. - Rahm Emanuel" are actually making things worse?

Okay, Bush is the orgin of all things bad. Is Obama the orgin of anything good? Right now wall street doesn't think so. Perhaps his plans will gain traction with time but investors are currently betting against him. He doesn't seem as concerned about this as he is about Rush Limbaugh.

Regardless of how we got here, investors are not willing to risk their money on the American economy. This should be of great concern to everyone but of particular importance to the President of the United States. Investors don't care about how we got here. How we got here is a sunk cost. The person responsible for getting us out if this mess is the President. If he does not succeed, he will be remembered for his lack of success. His predecessor will only be a footnote in describing his failure to succeed. This is as it should be. He asked for the job.

I just can't imagine living without an automobile. The liberty that this machine provides me greatly improves my happiness. It's the American way and I hope it never changes. One advantage of buses is that they use an infrastructure created for other purposes. These purposes are personal travel and trucking. Since trains don't go everywhere, we would, at a minimum, still need highways for shipping goods. If there are highways, there will still be lots of Dean Moriarty's driving them. The problem with high speed trains is that they need an infrastructure more sophisticated than that needed for the transportation of goods by rail. Okay there would be some overnight shipping but that is just a small fraction of shipping transportation. These two items would have to justify building a new iinfrastructure. High speed rail may be economical in a few high population areas of the US. A Northwest example would be Bellingham Washington to Eugene Oregon. This area however currently has commuter rail at conventional speed. Would a high speed rail system actually be economically viable? Economic viability does not seem to be high on the list for people promoting such government funded systems. I can't imagine private companies building such a system hoping for profit. In most densely populated areas of the US today, many companies would love to be able to build toll roads. Where they are allowed to build them they make money.

Washington State in the US requires most cities and counties to have shoreline management plans. If they don't create them and get them approved by the state government, the state government imposes a plan on them. A good place to start looking is.. http://www.ecy.wa.gov/programs/sea/SMA/index.html King County (where Seattle is) might be another good google search.

Today the Treasury Department released an executive summary of the Obama's mortgage relief plan. http://www.treas.gov/press/releases/tg33.htm This executive summary, it seems to me, over uses the term "responsible homeowners." It seems to me that this term should be replaced with "irresponsible mortgage holders." This plan also includes the following. Is the purpose of the above quote to placate the dim witted? So they are saying that yes they understand that real estate values are in correction but this plan could reduce that correction on the average home by $6,000? How do they prove such a thing? Well, I guess they did say "could." Do they understand what a correction is? Do they appreciate that they strongly encouraged the real estate bubble and that no action they take now can un-pop it. Why is it that the government can never be honest? They should just say "The government is going to help your neighbor pay for his home, which is nicer than yours, because we believe that irresponsibility should be rewarded. If responsible people like you had only spent all your earnings and savings, the government would not need to stimulate the economy by paying for your neighbor's house. I hope you have learned your lesson."

So if the situation deteriorates, in the next 18 months (or by 31DEC2011) do you think Obama should stop the drawdown or begin to increase troop levels again?

Well, at least he didn't say they would be home for Christmas. A lot can happen in 18 months. Let's hope those things are good.

So you feel that the term "pullout" is appropriate for declaring a planned end of U.S. combat operations in 18 months that leaves 50,000 troops in place? Aren’t you setting the bar kind of low? http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSTRE51P0AY20090227?feedType=RSS&feedName=topNews

Perhaps it is your accounting that is faulty. How much of the cost of vehicles is based on government regulation intended to make highway travel safe? Not just the car you drive but the vehicles that are used to ship goods? What about warning signs, particularly those electronic models. Then there are those exit soft crash barriers. How about all those upgrades for jersey barriers from the old break away metal crash barriers. All of that adds up to a huge infrastructure of highway and freeway safety based items that all need constant maintenance. Then on top of that, accidents still happen. These accidents result in what one might consider casualties in the war on highway safety. Think of the medical cost and support payments that would not have occurred if this war on safety were called off by closing all of our highways and freeways. I know that last paragraph was a stretch but I'm sure you are counting casualties in the "war on terror" as part of the cost of fighting terrorism. Merged post follows: Consecutive posts mergedI forgot the mention the highway patrol. An army of people, vehicles, radios. Those people all need pensions. Then you are required to have insurance. This is like a tax, and if you are not safe you pay more than those that are safe. You know what, I think I'm only scratching the surface. We spend a huge amount of money on highway safety.

That is against the law. Golly your right! And now Obama and his Department of Justice is part of the conspiracy! Quick! Email Keith Olbermann! He'll save the day! KOlbermann@msnbc.com

I made the following prediction and post on 02-19-09 Proof to the pudding… http://onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/article_4397.shtml Now I appreciate all your passion and logically made arguments but nothing further is going to happen. Congratulations Obama won. Now move on. For those that just can't let it go…. KOlbermann@msnbc.com

In representative democracies, coalitions generally must be formed to create a majority group to govern. So where do you want these coalitions formed? Multiparty parliamentary systems do this after elections, part in public, and part in private negotiation. This system preserves more passion because each party can continue to publically push its own independent ideas, but to preserve these governing coalitions sometimes strange laws are passed. For example in Israel, during Shabbat, elevators stop on every floor. This is done so that orthodox religious observers don't have to worry about purposefully making a spark, a form of making fire, in violation of Shabbat religious rules. This law by the way is considered nonsense by a vast majority of Israelis (at least all the ones I know.). But the orthodox religious parties in Israel always align themselves at the last minute with the near majority coalition, so that their minority religious rules can be enforced as law. In two party systems like ours, coalitions are formed prior to elections within the structures of the two parties. Since both parties are coalitions, and coalitions cannot be formed without compromise, the result for both parties is often a rather unappealing washed out dispassionate one. Also much of our partisanship is a result of the way we form coalitions. Each coalition, formed in compromise, has topics that are divisive to unity. Generally they would rather not talk about these topics. So that's all the other party wants to talk about. Also I think our two parties approach how they build coalitions differently but perhaps that is too broad a topic for this post. I see pluses and minus of both systems (the multiparty system and the two party system). Both systems it seems to me fail when the coalitions formed have no true common unifying agenda.

ParanoiA understands my point completely and articulated it very well. Thank you ParanoiA. To carry the point one step further. When a politician, a president in particular, pushes the limits of their office, it is likely to raise eyebrows. Push too far or push too often and political backlash is likely. Well, now we have a new president from the opposition party. In fact now we have a congress with majorities in both houses from this same opposition party. Looks like the backlash happened. That’s just another part of our checks and balances. Those newly in power may choose to point out further overreach by the former administration for political points if they like. Perhaps it will gain them further political mileage. That is their prerogative. Personally, I think they should be careful. If the people perceive it as "little more than petty partisan revenge" there will likely be a backlash the other way. My guess is the new president and his administration will move on to other things. I believe this is the prudent course, both for his success and for the good of the country. If you are holding your breath waiting for someone to go to jail, I think you are going to be disappointed.

I hope it does too. Again, our system at work. I just don't think anyone will or should go to jail.

Lincoln as a Monkey, holding a copy of the Emancipation Proclamation]

Maybe it started with "Bedtime for Bonzo." Sometimes a chimp is just a chimp. Merged post follows: Consecutive posts mergedAbraham Lincoln was often referred to as an ape.

Google "George W. Bush chimp" and see what you find.

In a similar vain, if you have ever purchased a home built before the civil rights movement and have read the deed for the property you will likely find covenant requirements that forbid you from selling your home to "colored people." The fair housing act makes these covenant agreements unenforceable. You do occasionally hear about people attempting to have their property deeds changed to remove these racist covenant requirements but I have never heard of any one succeeding.

No, I am concerned about the president signing orders explicitly circumventing a check by the judicial branch. When that order was discovered, the courts and congress pointed out that the president had overstepped his authority and the situation was corrected. In other words the president was checked and the overstepping was balanced by the other branches of government. That is how the checks and balances of our system works. You think that this process should include people or a person going to jail. Well, I disagree, and I don't think you can find historical precedents to support your opinion. Perhaps I am the only person who remembers the whole 9-ll happened because our intelligence agencies were not connecting the dots. The NSA, CIA, FBI could not talk to each other because we had to make double or triple sure the government was not violating constitutional protections. Thank you very much Janet Reno and her cronies. In my opinion this lead Bush to go the other route. He did what he thought was necessary until the other branches of government corrected him. He trusted our checks and balances to correct his overstepping. This enabled him to act with speed to prevent further 9-11s. Now I personally have no problem with what the president did and how his steps were properly corrected. I see this history as our system working properly. Others exploited it for political advantage. I think that is a shame. I don't understand how you can say "it never happened." If it never happened how do we even know about it and why did it stop? Again on the accountable issue, please read my comments above. I believe I have been consistent in saying no further investigations are needed and that no prosecutions will be forthcoming. --------------------Edit------------------------------ I could not remember the name of Janet Reno's cronie. It was Jamie Gorelick. What did she do after 9/11. Well she went to work for Fannie Mae. She is now known as the Mistress of Disaster . http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamie_Gorelick

Perhaps I see our legal system, the creation of law, and the enforcement of law differently than you do. We have our constitution. Congress is supposed to write laws which respect the constitution. Often the laws they write are found to be unconstitutional. We then have our executive branches of government. They are to enforce or put in place the mechanisms by which the law is enforced. For the president this includes executive orders. Often times, upon review by courts or congress these executive orders are found to go beyond the scope of written law even when you assume the law by itself is constitutional. (Similarly laws are also often not enforced adequately by executive orders, but perhaps that’s a different matter.) The checks and balances of our system make sure this over stepping is caught and corrected. If a person is a victim of this overstepping they may have recourse against the government. No one in government ever goes to jail. Executives at city, county, state, and federal level overstep their authority through such orders all the time. Our system corrects this overstepping, the executive says "woops I'm sorry" and life goes on. With regard to Scott McClellan, I seem to recall that we had a special prosecutor (Fitzgerald) that looked into the Plame mater. He did convict Scooter Libby for lying about a crime that he did not choose to prosecute the admitted offender. Other than that the case is closed. Do I seriously think we should just ignore all of this and pretend it never happened? No, these things were not ignored and something did happen. Do I really think none of this warrants further investigation or criminal proceedings? Yes, I really do think that.

"…Judge Walker ruled, effectively, that President George W. Bush is a felon." From your link. Perhaps I see a difference between the words "effectively" and "legally." With regard to your treason claim in the OP, well Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage publicly admitted outing Valerie Plame. (http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/09/08/leak.armitage/index.html) I don't see him behind bars. I don't see him getting prosecuted. Why? Well I guess it is either some big conspiracy or no prosecutor with legal jurisdiction thinks they can get a conviction. Last I checked the difference between "no prosecutor with legal jurisdiction thinks they can get a conviction" and "no crime committed" is "effectively" nothing.

My prediction is that there will be no meaningful investigations and certainly no prosecutions. This will leave two camps. Those in the "great miscarriage of justice" camp most likely lead by Keith Olbermann who will talk about this ad infinitum until the topic eventually joins other great conspiracy advocacy followings similar to the JFK assassination conspiracy. (Come on get over it Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone.) The other group will think no prosecutions happened because no crimes were committed. Count me in the latter group.