Pangloss

And how do you think it got to be so "diversified and flexible"?

I'm so used to buying from Amazon that I can't remember the last time I paid sales tax. In answer to the OP I think people are okay with "redistribution" so long as it's for investment in the country's future and keeping the playing field level. Education, health care, food and product safety regulations, etc. These things are important.

He wasn't convicted by the state of Alaska. He's a federal criminal. That's why he was tried in D.C.

To be blunt, I'm not sure Bush knew what a neoconservative was before he came to office and asked Dick Cheney to hire some people to run the country. SFN Politics Quote of the Week.

Phi and bascule, is it true you guys had 53 ballot initiatives to decide when you went to the polls in Colorado? That's what somebody told me but I thought surely they were exaggerating.

The answer to your question is that it's not worrying everybody else because we're not abandoning the basic two-directional balance and throwing our lot in with the socialists. Just look at bascule above talking about the importance of fractional banking and earlier about the benefits of the credit-driven society -- hardly socialistic principles! I understand your concern and it's not an entirely unreasonable one -- we do have to remember that too much regulation is a bad thing. But that's exactly what Obama has been talking about, for example -- the importance of balance in regulation, finding the right amount of it. If the left takes that to mean "socialism, yay!" and the right takes that to mean "socialism, oh no!", is that really our problem? Let's take the man at his word. My two bits on it, anyway.

I believe Will also made the point that 639,000 people who donated to Obama in September were first-time donors. (That's off the top of my head, as it's not letting me past the gate again and I can't remember my password, lol.)

...is the basis of free market economics. And that assumption hasn't been disproved. But I suppose it's possible that we have reached a point of diminishing returns in the quest to find that answer -- you may have a point there. Just as we reached a point of such diminishing returns in the similar question about socialism in 1989. I certainly hope we can move past the question. But good luck convincing my cousin, a tenured professor of economics at a major American university, who considers any kind of government economic regulation to be anathema. (And Barack Obama to be a communist.) (There's also a Socialist Party candidate for President this year. Go figure.)

Taking a cue from George Will's new column posted just half an hour ago, I ran down this interesting article from OpenSecrets (Web site of the Center for Responsive Politics): http://www.opensecrets.org/news/2008/10/us-election-will-cost-53-billi.html Note that that's including all the primaries as well as Congressional races. But their total for the presidential races, including primaries is about $2.4 billion, which is about double the 2004 amount and triple the 2000 amount. Yow. According to George Will, though, that's about a billion less than Americans will spend this year on potato chips. Hmm. I guess that does put things into perspective a bit, but potato chips don't rent half an hour of prime time television on every network in order to tell us how to vote. What do you all think? A sign of the times? Too much money being spent on political campaigns? Too little? Are more regulations in order, or fewer? My personal opinion is undecided, but I'm leaning towards fewer -- let people spend what they want. Will's column, btw, is at the link below but a subscription may be required. They usually archive them after a few days and then you can get in without a signup. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/10/29/AR2008102903199.html

We've never had free market economics. It's fair to say that regulation has to be carefully measured -- THAT we know from experience.

THAT sentiment I share. When it comes to trust that Obama will create more change than McCain, it's something like a 1% belief versus a 0% belief on my part. Ultimately what happens next Tuesday doesn't really matter -- what matters is that we wake the sleeping giant and get people to pay more attention. We had the luxury of not worrying about things because the deficit was trivial (or for a while nonexistent) and the debt was only a fraction of GDP. Not anymore -- we're in trouble, and we need to fix it. BTW Joe the Plumber made his first appearance on the campaign trail today. Now the gloves can come off, IMO.

The only Republican politician I know of who won't be voting for McCain next week is Ted Stevens.

So far as I know there's no evidence that any vote rigging is taking place, just vote registration. When Mickey Mouse shows up to vote, he will have to have more than large ears to get into a voting booth.

It isn't. Regardless of his personal motivations, the case can be made that lower taxes for the middle and lower economic classes will help the economy (and it's a strong case -- in fact it's just trickle-down in another set of clothes; is it any wonder Obama frequently identifies and empathizes with Ronald Reagan? You didn't think that was just show for the moderates, did you?). When it would become socialism would be if it became directed that everyone makes the same amount of money. And while people obviously draw the line between what they like and don't like at some point in between, the point here is that the majority of Americans have a general aversion to socialism, but are okay with a certain degree of "income redistribution" that's done for the purpose of investment in something that helps everyone and keeps the opportunity playing field equal.

Gee. Well, as you know, what George Will says on Stephanopoulos every Sunday is generally a reflection of his column for the week in the Washington Post. Not surprisingly, this week's column touches on the same subject. He makes the same kind of statement, saying that this is basically socialism, and then goes on to make it clear that he doesn't like it at all. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/story/2008/09/23/ST2008092301500.html line[/hr] Like what? Equivocation with communism, particularly the Russian brand of communism? Which the New Yorker article also mentioned was silly... case in point being someone like George Orwell who liked socialism but hated totalitarianism and wrote Animal Farm as an allegory about the failure of Russian communism and how it lead to totalitarian regime taking over the country which was little better than the Czars. Or did you have something else in mind? With the number of angry McCain supporters I see calling Obama a communist, I can't help but feel this is the main argument. Socialism = communism = USSR/China = evil. Oh there's no question that the far right is making THAT argument. But Obama is winning because he's brought in the moderates, and they don't buy that line any more than you do. But just because they're on board with Obama doesn't mean they favor socially-motivated income redistribution. They believe in highway infrastructure, education, health care, and retirement. Not Robin Hood. And Obama speaks the same way, bascule. He talks about personal responsibility. He talks about motivation. He talks about getting ahead. He talks about working your way to the top. These things fly directly in the face of socialism, and they speak directly to American motivations and mainstream mentalities. The truth of the matter is that the only extent to which Americans care about "the gap between the haves and the have-nots" is the extent to which everyone is playing on the same, level field. Tilt it one direction or another and we start to get really wary, and maybe even take some of our pieces off the board. That's why things like progressive taxation (or, for example, affirmative action) have always been uneasy, make-shift fits in this country. That's also why health care is starting to skew left. It's not because they want everyone covered for humanitarian reasons. It's because they want everyone to have the same opportunities.

I think you're being too harsh on Obama as well, P. I realize he comes from that background and has a generally-liberal bent, but he also talks night and day about the importance of self-motivation, personal responsibility, and the need for a strong, conservative hand at the regulatory wheel.

rofl

Just to follow up on this a bit more, here're a couple articles citing the rental of Invesco Field (for Obama's acceptance speech on the last night of the convention) as costing $5.3 million and putting the columned podium at 140k. http://www.bizjournals.com/denver/stories/2008/10/13/daily43.html http://www.weeklystandard.com/weblogs/TWSFP/2008/10/140000_spent_on_for_dncc_podiu_1.asp To paraphrase Mr Skeptic above, "Does this speak about Obama's policies for cutting spending? Could he not have made his speech in the convention center? If he can't cut unnecessary costs and spending in his own campaign, how can he do it with a whole country?" Just to clarify so nobody will think I'm actually supporting this (George Will-style?), I'm saying that this is not relevant material. I just don't think it matters.

I support it by pointing out that you yourself called him a "right winger", so it seems unlikely to me that you believe he actually supports socialism, and wasn't just expressing an obvious sort of intellectual sarcasm, as he commonly does.

I'm not sure that that's wrong. There shouldn't be a lot of restrictions on elections, and I can see a reasonable distinction between whether or not you want a felon in office and the issue of whether felons should be allowed to vote. Still, it does give one pause.

I'm sorry my comments bothered you so much. Obviously I thought they were fair, reflective of reality, and non-partisan. You're more than welcome to think otherwise.

He was making the same point that I've been making in drawing a distinction between income redistribution for the purpose of wealth-sharing and income redistribution for the purpose of investment, he just came at it from a different angle. George Will does not think we have socialism in this country, nor does he think socialism is a good idea.

I haven't seen an article on this yet but what I'm hearing is that Obama's columns at his acceptance speech cost about the same as Palin's wardrobe. And they were torn down afterwords, whereas much of her wardrobe has already been donated to charity. Just like ParanoiA warned you guys earlier. But oh no, it demonstrates inability to deal with money or whatever. Sure, sure. You play partisan games, you get to deal with the aftermath.

Just a week before he comes up for re-election, Alaskan Senator Ted Stevens has been found guilty of bribery. http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-10076855-38.html http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=am_l8kAQbIXw&refer=us He was convicted by the Bush Justice Department -- the greatest prosecutor of white-collar criminals and elected officials in the history of this country (which followed a Clinton/Reno JD that didn't prosecute a single one, and deliberately avoided Democratic contributors!). This is the same department which was tragically unable to find sufficient evidence to convict Louisiana Senator and Democrat William Jefferson after the FBI found $90,000 in his freezer. (I wonder if the left will give Bush some credit here. Probably not.) To amusingly follow-up on another recent thread of ours, Senator Stevens is now apparently unable to vote for himself next week. (grin) Not that he's likely to be elected at this point, having been thrown under the bus even by state-mate Sarah Palin today, who said he got what he deserved. This will likely solidify Democratic control over the Senate and help them achieve the 60 vote majority needed to break filibusters. I'm starting to wonder if they may reach the level of veto override, which I believe is 67 votes. I'm not sure enough seats are up for that to happen, but the ones running for re-election this year are the same ones that were voted in in 2002, right after 9/11, and the country is in a much different mood today. What do you all think?

Saying that it's just about Republicans beating up Democrats over it is a dodge. There is very real substance behind the American antipathy towards socialism.