Amerikaanse Presidentsverkiezingen #35

quote:

Op donderdag 4 september 2008 21:25 schreef pberends het volgende:

[..]

Het is vrij normaal dat de partij die regeert meer onder vuur wordt genomen dan de oppositie. En zeg nu zelf: over Bush en McCain vallen gewoon meer grappen te maken dan over Obama en Biden.

quote:

Is History Siding With Obama’s Economic Plan?

CLEARLY, there are major differences between the economic policies of Senators Barack Obama and John McCain. Mr. McCain wants more tax cuts for the rich; Mr. Obama wants tax cuts for the poor and middle class. The two men also disagree on health care, energy and many other topics.

Such differences are hardly surprising. Democrats and Republicans have followed different approaches to the economy for as long as there have been Democrats and Republicans. Longer, actually. Remember Hamilton versus Jefferson?

Many Americans know that there are characteristic policy differences between the two parties. But few are aware of two important facts about the post-World War II era, both of which are brilliantly delineated in a new book, “Unequal Democracy,” by Larry M. Bartels, a professor of political science at Princeton. Understanding them might help voters see what could be at stake, economically speaking, in November.

I call the first fact the Great Partisan Growth Divide. Simply put, the United States economy has grown faster, on average, under Democratic presidents than under Republicans.

The stark contrast between the whiz-bang Clinton years and the dreary Bush years is familiar because it is so recent. But while it is extreme, it is not atypical. Data for the whole period from 1948 to 2007, during which Republicans occupied the White House for 34 years and Democrats for 26, show average annual growth of real gross national product of 1.64 percent per capita under Republican presidents versus 2.78 percent under Democrats.

That 1.14-point difference, if maintained for eight years, would yield 9.33 percent more income per person, which is a lot more than almost anyone can expect from a tax cut.

Such a large historical gap in economic performance between the two parties is rather surprising, because presidents have limited leverage over the nation’s economy. Most economists will tell you that Federal Reserve policy and oil prices, to name just two influences, are far more powerful than fiscal policy. Furthermore, as those mutual fund prospectuses constantly warn us, past results are no guarantee of future performance. But statistical regularities, like facts, are stubborn things. You bet against them at your peril.

The second big historical fact, which might be called the Great Partisan Inequality Divide, is the focus of Professor Bartels’s work.

It is well known that income inequality in the United States has been on the rise for about 30 years now — an unsettling development that has finally touched the public consciousness. But Professor Bartels unearths a stunning statistical regularity: Over the entire 60-year period, income inequality trended substantially upward under Republican presidents but slightly downward under Democrats, thus accounting for the widening income gaps over all. And the bad news for America’s poor is that Republicans have won five of the seven elections going back to 1980.

The Great Partisan Inequality Divide is not limited to the poor. To get a more granular look, Professor Bartels studied the postwar history of income gains at five different places in the income distribution.

The 20th percentile is the income level at which 20 percent of all families have less income and 80 percent have more. It is thus a plausible dividing line between the poor and the nonpoor. Similarly, the 40th percentile is the income level at which 40 percent of the families are poorer and 60 percent are richer. And similarly for the 60th, 80th, and 95th percentiles. The 95th percentile is the best dividing line between the rich and the nonrich that the data permitted Professor Bartels to study. (That dividing line, by the way, is well below the $5 million threshold John McCain has jokingly used for defining the rich. It’s closer to $180,000.)

The accompanying table, which is adapted from the book, tells a remarkably consistent story. It shows that when Democrats were in the White House, lower-income families experienced slightly faster income growth than higher-income families — which means that incomes were equalizing. In stark contrast, it also shows much faster income growth for the better-off when Republicans were in the White House — thus widening the gap in income.

The table also shows that families at the 95th percentile fared almost as well under Republican presidents as under Democrats (1.90 percent growth per year, versus 2.12 percent), giving them little stake, economically, in election outcomes. But the stakes were enormous for the less well-to-do. Families at the 20th percentile fared much worse under Republicans than under Democrats (0.43 percent versus 2.64 percent). Eight years of growth at an annual rate of 0.43 percent increases a family’s income by just 3.5 percent, while eight years of growth at 2.64 percent raises it by 23.2 percent.

The sources of such large differences make for a slightly complicated story. In the early part of the period — say, the pre-Reagan years — the Great Partisan Growth Divide accounted for most of the Great Partisan Inequality divide, because the poor do relatively better in a high-growth economy.

Beginning with the Reagan presidency, however, growth differences are smaller and tax and transfer policies have played a larger role. We know, for example, that Republicans have typically favored large tax cuts for upper-income groups while Democrats have opposed them. In addition, Democrats have been more willing to raise the minimum wage, and Republicans have been more hostile toward unions.

The two Great Partisan Divides combine to suggest that, if history is a guide, an Obama victory in November would lead to faster economic growth with less inequality, while a McCain victory would lead to slower economic growth with more inequality. Which part of the Obama menu don’t you like?

Alan S. Blinder is a professor of economics and public affairs at Princeton and former vice chairman of the Federal Reserve. He has advised many Democratic politicians.

quote:

Op donderdag 4 september 2008 21:40 schreef BB-boy het volgende:
Die O'Reilly is toch zo rechts als de neten? Zal wel geen slijminterview worden (mag ik hopen).

quote:

Democraten doen het zowel beter op pure economische groei als op het verkleinen van de inkomensongelijkheid.

quote:

Op donderdag 4 september 2008 21:37 schreef Lyrebird het volgende:
Ik voorspel dat het een heel aardig interview gaat worden bij O'Reilly.

quote:

Op donderdag 4 september 2008 21:53 schreef Caesu het volgende:
bio Sarah Palin van de Republikeinen

Sarah Palin RNC Convention Bio

quote:

Op donderdag 4 september 2008 22:08 schreef ub40_bboy het volgende:
Wat zijn de kijkcijfers van de dailyshow? Heel Amerika zou dat stukje moeten zien.

quote:

Op donderdag 4 september 2008 22:08 schreef ub40_bboy het volgende:
Wat zijn de kijkcijfers van de dailyshow? Heel Amerika zou dat stukje moeten zien.

quote:

Op donderdag 4 september 2008 22:17 schreef Caesu het volgende:
[ afbeelding ]
fear mongering

quote:

Op donderdag 4 september 2008 22:17 schreef Caesu het volgende:
[ afbeelding ]
fear mongering

quote:

Op donderdag 4 september 2008 22:17 schreef Caesu het volgende:
[ afbeelding ]
fear mongering

Giuliani Gets Exposed As Fraud by Firefighters

quote:

Op donderdag 4 september 2008 22:21 schreef Caesu het volgende:
Palin droeg geen flag pin gister. daar hoor je ook niemand over.

quote:

Op donderdag 4 september 2008 22:36 schreef Lyrebird het volgende:
Obama zit wat dat betreft op een erg streng dieet, alhoewel daar de meningen natuurlijk weer over verdeeld zijn.

quote:

Op donderdag 4 september 2008 21:46 schreef maartena het volgende:
Tjonge deze topicreeks gaat snel met die conventies.

Nog twee maanden te gaan, dus ik zal over een paar weken wel de stembiljetten en bijbehorende boekjes etc krijgen.

Deze keer ook weer 12 Propositions in California.... moeten we weer eens goed gaan nadenken.

quote:

CBS Poll: McCain, Obama Tied

McCain Closes Eight-Point Gap From Poll Taken Last Weekend

quote:

Op donderdag 4 september 2008 22:40 schreef waht het volgende:

[..]

Dat heb ik nou nooit gesnapt. Hoe kun je in godsnaam zeggen dat Obama niet van de VS houdt? Dat hij dat minder zou doen dan McCain & Palin? Daarna concluderen dat Obama dan maar een vlaggenpin moet dragen is nog onzinniger, het is allemaal uiterlijk vertoon; waardeloos.

quote:

Op donderdag 4 september 2008 22:40 schreef waht het volgende:

[..]

Dat heb ik nou nooit gesnapt. Hoe kun je in godsnaam zeggen dat Obama niet van de VS houdt? Dat hij dat minder zou doen dan McCain & Palin? Daarna concluderen dat Obama dan maar een vlaggenpin moet dragen is nog onzinniger, het is allemaal uiterlijk vertoon; waardeloos.

quote:

WHAT DOES HE LIKE ABOUT AMERICA?
Candidate Obama claims that “throughout my life, I have always taken my deep and abiding love for this country as a given.” He tells us his “heart swells with pride at the sight of our flag.”

In Dreams, his heart swells at many things but sight of the flag certainly isn’t one of them. There he presents a warts-only history of the U.S., a story of evil and suffering. U.S. society is a “racial caste system” where “color and money” determine where you end up in life. He tells us of white children’s stoning black children, Jim Crow, and heatless Harlem housing projects. He describes “Japanese families interned behind barbed wire; young Russian Jews cutting patterns in Lower East Side sweatshops; dust-bowl farmers loading up their trucks with the remains of shattered lives.”

Obama says the Hawaiian islands, where he grew up, are beautiful, but quickly reminds us that behind the beauty lurks the “ugly conquest of the native Hawaiians . . . crippling disease brought by missionaries . . . the indenturing system that kept Japanese, Chinese, and Filipino immigrants stooped sunup to sunset in [the fields].”

Candidate Obama proudly tells audiences that his white grandparents were raised in the American heartland. But in Dreams he describes this heartland as the “landlocked center of the country, a place where decency and endurance and the pioneer spirit were joined at the hip with conformity and suspicion and the potential for unblinking cruelty.”

Candidate Obama fondly tells audiences that one of his earliest memories is of sitting on his grandfather’s shoulders proudly watching the Apollo astronauts return to Hawaii after their splashdown in the Pacific. But in Dreams, even this event is an occasion for outrage, as Obama asks: “How could America send men into space and still keep its black citizens in bondage?”

American affluence offends Obama. The vast upper-middle class lives in a land of isolation and sterility. As a teenager, he envies the white homes in the suburbs but senses that the big pretty houses contain “quiet depression” and “loneliness,” represented by “a mother sneaking a tumbler of gin in the afternoon.” American consumer culture is comforting but mentally and spiritually numbing, yielding a “long hibernation.”

Studying U.S. law at Harvard, Obama concludes it is mainly about “expediency or greed.” Working in a large modern corporation, he sees himself as a “spy behind enemy lines.” Even science and technology draw his disdain as he warns of “technology that spits out goods from its robot mouth.”

Finishing Dreams, I could not recall a single positive sentence about the United States or European society. I reread the book specifically looking for positive remarks. The pickings were lean. Obama does write glowingly of JFK’s Camelot and its promise of a “bright new world,” but concludes this promise was a mere illusion quickly transformed into “war, riot, and famine.” At the end of the book, Obama acknowledges that “faith in other people” can be found everywhere: among Christians as well as Muslims and in Kansas as well as his beloved Kenya. If you’re looking for rousing patriotism, that’s about as good as Obama gets.

Earlier this year, Michelle Obama made headlines by declaring that her husband’s primary victories were the first time she had ever been “proud of my country.” Michelle’s remark simply echoes the assessment Barack presents in his 442-page autobiography: Aside from a few comments about what he regards as the largely unsuccessful struggle for civil rights in the Sixties, Obama has nothing positive to say about his country. Even his hopes for the future are modest and “sometimes hard to sustain.”

quote:

Op donderdag 4 september 2008 22:51 schreef Caesu het volgende:
"Republicans love America, they just hate half the people living in it." - Jon Stewart.

quote:

Op donderdag 4 september 2008 22:55 schreef Lyrebird het volgende:
"Democrats say they love America

quote:

Everyone I talk to seems to think the president of the United States right now is stupid.

The Bush presidency is stupid speeches, stupid high gas prices, stupid bad economy, stupid war on terrorism, stupid war on drugs, stupid hurricane fixing, stupid global warming, stupid war -- stupid, stupid, stupid.

They all seem to think we need to get a smarter guy in the White House fast, and Bush is so stupid, that task shouldn't be too hard.

Not me.

I'd like to say that I believe every president in United States history, including the stupid one we have now, is smarter than me. My alma mater is Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Greatest Show on Earth Clown College, so I'm damning with faint praise, but I'm stupider than this here stupid president.

Maybe I'm less stupider than Bush than I'm stupider than Jefferson. But I'm stupider than all the stupid in both of them put together.

The idea, especially from the Democrats that I know, is, we just get a smarter guy in the White House, and all the problems will go away. We'll have smart speeches, smart high gas prices, smart bad economy, smart war on terrorism, smart war on drugs, smart hurricanes, smart global warming, smart war in Georgia -- smart, smart, smart.

Barack Obama is way smarter than Bush -- so way, way smarter than me. Obama is way more charismatic than me. He did his big speech for about 80,000 people; I'll do my show tonight in Vegas for about 1,000 people. He's more ambitious than I; he's going to be the next president of the United States, and I couldn't even get to week three of "Dancing with the Stars."

Obama is a great leader. He can fire people up and get them to do what he wants. He does smart speeches that promise everyone everything they need and make us feel good about our country and how much greater our government could be.

But I don't think our next president being a great leader is a good thing.

I'm worried about someone smarter than Bush taking over that tremendous power. Charisma and ambition increase my fear exponentially, and a great leader scares me to death.

We need someone stupid enough to understand that the president of the United States can't solve many problems without taking away freedom and therefore shouldn't try. The only reason John McCain scares me a little less is because I think he's a little less likely to win. They both promise a government that will watch over us, and I don't like that.

I don't want anyone as president who promises to take care of me. I may be stupid, but I want a chance to try to be a grown-up and take care of my family. Freedom means the freedom to be stupid, and that's what I want. I don't want anyone to feel my pain or tell me to ask what we can do for our country, or give us all money and take care of us.

Gene Healy at the Cato Institute explains that the Founding Fathers wanted the president "to faithfully execute the laws, defend the country from attack and check Congress with the veto power whenever it exceeded its constitutional bounds."

That sounds like plenty to me. You gotta be smarter than me to do all that, but you don't have to be as smart as Obama, and you sure don't have to be a great leader.

Our first seven presidents averaged a bit more than three public speeches a year, and they didn't promise jobs for everyone, day care, dental exams and free stuff.

It's really hard to find someone who trusts Americans to take care of themselves and each other without government force. It's hard to find someone running for president who would be content to be what George Washington humbly called the "chief magistrate."

I think Ron Paul and Bob Barr mean it when they say they want much smaller government. But the government is already big enough, powerful enough and bipartisan enough (and "bi" means exactly two and no more) that Ron and/or Bob won't even be in the debates. People won't even hear someone suggesting that our president should do less and individual citizens should do more for themselves.

The choice shouldn't be which lesser of two evils should have the enormous power of our modern presidents. The question should be, who would do less as president? Who would leave us alone?

If we could find a lazier, less charismatic, stupider person than me to be president, I'd be all for it. But, it's not going to be easy; stupider than me is rare breed.

So remember, the only way to waste your vote is to vote!

quote:

Op donderdag 4 september 2008 22:51 schreef Caesu het volgende:
"Republicans love America, they just hate half the people living in it." - Jon Stewart.

quote:

Op donderdag 4 september 2008 22:17 schreef Caesu het volgende:
[ afbeelding ]
fear mongering

quote:

Op donderdag 4 september 2008 21:59 schreef NorthernStar het volgende:
Priceless stukje van de Daily Show

quote:

Op donderdag 4 september 2008 21:59 schreef NorthernStar het volgende:
Priceless stukje van de Daily Show

quote:

SHANNYN MOORE: I grew up in rural, small-town Alaska. And she, you know, went through the ranks there, city council, and became mayor. And, you know, her record is pretty clear. And there are some people that are, you know, sort of pointing out, wow, well, when Sarah became the mayor of Wasilla, we didn’t have a budget. And then she pushed through some projects that were, you know, pretty irresponsible. And when she left, they were at a $22 million budget deficit. So that happened in a six-year time under her mayorialship, and that’s a large budget for a town, you know, as small as Wasilla.

quote:

SHANNYN MOORE: Yeah, that was—that wasn’t a statewide issue but certainly came up during the campaign with—when she was running for governor, and this whole censorship and this fundamentalism. I mean, when you’re running for mayor in a town in Alaska and one of your platform issues as a nonpartisan mayor is your pro-life stance, that tells you a lot about the town you’re in. And it is a pretty fundamentalist type of town, and—you know, and that plays very well in those towns. You know, this sort of censorship, this sort of “vote for me is a vote for Jesus,” it’s very George Bushian, and it’s very Sarah Palin.

quote:

SHANNYN MOORE: Sure. And, you know, when she was campaigning for governor, which is when I started asking questions of her, I asked her—you know, sadly, Alaska is a state with the highest amount of incest, the highest amount of rape. This isn’t a statistic we’re proud of. We don’t—we’ve had studies done. Amnesty International certainly has done studies on the First People of Alaska and their statistics. I mean, it’s a devastating statistic.

So I asked her, certainly, you know, “In the case of incest and rape, do you still hold this stance? Is this still something you want for Alaska?” And she said yes. And she said, even if it were her own daughter who was raped, she would still choose life.

And I think, you know, if she wants to choose that for her daughter in any instance of being pregnant, that’s OK with me. That’s something that their families, they have the resources, they can handle. But many families in Alaska do not have—do not have the adequate funds to raise an additional grandchild or deal with a twelve-year-old who has been raped by someone within their family. I mean, this isn’t all lollipop land up here, certainly. And, you know, the fact that she can take that really no-choice—it’s not even pro-life, it’s zero-choice—stance has always been, you know, something that she and I have talked about, but certainly not something that I want to see picking out Supreme Court justices.

quote:

SHANNYN MOORE: Yeah. Doesn’t that—don’t you think you’ve heard that before, Amy? This is a very—you know, in the same speech, she talked about praying to bring the people of Alaska and companies together to build a pipeline, and we needed to pray for a pipeline; that was God’s will. I find this sort of fundamentalism—the thing is, about Sarah Palin, I don’t think that she does this to get votes. I think she’s the real deal. You know, she has a life similar to many Alaskans. She subsistence hunts. She fishes. All these things are very, very real. And this whole—she’s the real deal. And I think she really believes that she’s been chosen to be this onward Christian soldier. And we’ve had eight years of that.

quote:

Op donderdag 4 september 2008 22:57 schreef Boze_Appel het volgende:

[..]

Aldus, Penn Gilette

quote:

Op donderdag 4 september 2008 23:07 schreef Caesu het volgende:
vorige week bij de DNC pakten ze ook wel de democraten aan hoor.
met die Lion King vergelijking met Obama bijvoorbeeld.
en dat hele Hillary/Bill gedoe.

quote:

Op donderdag 4 september 2008 18:31 schreef pberends het volgende:
Daily Show van gister was grappig. Jon Stewart zei iets van, in combinatie met John McCain als een jarenlange POW, dat Guantanamo Bay een kweekvijver voor echte leiders was later .

quote:

It was a video that was supposed to elicit soaring patriotism and real emotions about the Pledge of Allegiance. But to do that, it used fake soldiers and a staged military funeral instead of the real thing.

On Tuesday night, 15-year-old Victoria Blackstone, a sophomore at the St. Agnes School in St. Paul, led the crowd at the Xcel Energy Center in the Pledge of Allegiance. The audience heard her 434-word essay, “Pledging myself to the Flag of the United States of America,” an essay she’d entered in the “Wave the Stars & Stripes” essay contest and won. The RNC turned that essay into a three and a half minute video, a visually stirring montage rolling over Victoria’s words about sharing the Pledge with Americans who have stood at important moments in history.

There’s the Continental Congress…A real WWII vet…Photos of workers at Ground Zero. A close-up of a folded flag presented to a grieving widow at a military funeral… profiles of soldiers swelling with pride in slo-motion.

But CBS News found that the footage of the ‘funeral’ and soldiers is what is called ‘stock’ footage. The soldiers were actors and the funeral scene was from a one-day film shoot, produced in June. No real soldiers were used during production.

quote:

Op donderdag 4 september 2008 20:45 schreef Wheelgunner het volgende:

[..]

Bewijzen dat hij onafhankelijk kan denken en niet alleen op een kandidaat gaat stemmen omdat hij dezelfde kleur heeft.