Political posterizing.

[Svartalf]

Mmmh... You know that the Carter poster makes Obama look better than he really is, right?

[Ian]

Coito - you just read the NYT chart wrong, that's all. A slowdown in the increase of your profits (compared to the first year or so after the recession) does not equal a decline. The chart still showed positive growth in profits through 2012. It's the difference between taking off in an airplane and the moment when the captain says you're now free to move about the cabin. The plane is actually still climbing altitude at that point, just not as fast.

As for your other questions regarding why us blokes would continue to support Obama... well, knowing that trickle-down theory screws most people and that the Gini index keeps getting worse, at least an Obama administration provides something of a braking mechanism so the country doesn't come to the end of the Reaganomics cycle TOO quickly. And we're still in the middle of that cycle. The basic structure of the New Deal really lasted through the Carter administration; the policies they tried to correct the problems they were facing were the same ones that had been used more successfully over the past forty-plus years, but by the late 1970s that cycle had run its course and the New Deal had to be reversed with Reaganomics. As much as we can deride the trickle-down system as something which doesn't work for most people, nobody including Obama can just reverse the entire investment-driven structure of it just yet. I'd say it's got another decade or so at least before Reaganomics experiences genuine failure and we get another Hoover-like or Carter-like Presidency, trying the once-successful solutions but only making the problem worse. If we're lucky, and if we don't reach that point too quickly (hence my preference for the braking mechanism) we'll get New Deal 2.0. If we're unlucky, and if the Gini index in the US slides down too far too fast, it'll be much more unpleasant for the folks at the top (ask Louis XVI and Nicholas II about that). But whichever scenario happens, it's a mathematical inevitability that this is going to happen at some point in the next couple decades. Keep an eye on the Gini index.

That was a bit of a rambling train-of-thought, sorry.

[Coito ergo sum]

You have evidence for this alleged "breaking mechanism?" The Obama administration certainly hasn't claimed that, and there is no economist, even Krugman, who has suggested what you are suggesting.

[Ian]

I can put it much more simply by saying that, economically, we're still living in a Republican era. It should be kept in balance by Democratic Presidents from time to time. Balance is good.

Besides, when it comes to social issues, Republicans are fuckin' jerks.

[Mysturji]

I have serious doubts about many, many politicians. My view is that vitally important jobs should be given to the most competent people.

How about making entry into government limited to those with two doctorates? One in science or engineering, to make sure only rational thinkers can enter?

How about making entry into government limited to selection by lottery?
Everyone on the electoral register (or local equivalent) is eligible except:
Lunatics
Convicted felons
The mentally infirm
Politicians

Couldn't be any worse. Seriously.

Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job.

Who can possibly rule if no one who wants to do it can be allowed to?

Government is too big and too important to be left to the politicians.

[Coito ergo sum]

Ian, stating that we are in a Republican era economically requires you to ignore that Democrats have controlled Congress, the taxers and spenders, and the legislators, for much more time than the Republicans have controlled Congress. And, one has to ignore the 10s of thousands of pages of economic legislation the Democrats have forced through when they took control of Congress in 2008 through 2010. Note the correlation between the commencement of the orgy of spending in 2008 with the advent of the Democrat controlled Congress, and note the spending increases are starting to be restrained since 1/11 when the new GOP Congress took over.

Note the best period of growth -- the one all Democrats hearken back to as proof that Democrat policies work -- Bill Clinton with a solidly GOP Congress from 1994 to 1999.

Democrats act like they had nothing to do with the economy for the past 80 years, despite having controlled Congress for 2/3 of those years, and the white house for at least 1/2.

[Ian]

There are some greater trends at work than which party controls the Presidency or some/part of Congress during different times. That's just window dressing.

By "Republican Era" I mean we're still in the middle of the cycle which is commonly referred to as Reaganomics. I could've found a better phrase. Like the New Deal cycle which lasted fifty years before it (which I suppose could be called a Democrat Era), the current era is tweaked here and there by both parties, but Presidents and Congresses of either parties only adjust it, they can't really change it until the cycle runs its course. And Reaganomics will run its course in due time.

The "best period of growth" you refer to is only a partial story. A Democratic President and a Republican Congress like the mid-to-late-1990s isn't some magic formula. That period of growth was borne out of the same structure that allowed the mid-1980s boom: investment-heavy, minimal government intervention, etc. But the overall trend in depreciating wages, income inequality and so on continued as they had for the 80s and as they have since. For true Progressives, the best period of growth lasted from the 1940s until the early 1970s.

[Jason]

Why would you folks support Obama?

In short, our current system and philosophy is creating a country of a few million overlords and 300+ million serfs.

http://www.businessinsider.com/corporat ... z22rZ3nBzn

After all -- you got your health reform -- you got your comprehensive financial regulation -- you got your banking regulations -- you got your consumer finance reform -- you got your Dodd-Frank legislation (biggest banking reform legislation since the Great Depression) -- you got your National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility - all sorts of stuff.....

If all it's doing is giving us the biggest boon to corporate profits, and creating "300 million serfs" then I guess he's not our man, is he?

Wages in the U.S. have been on a long decline since the 1970s while corporate profits have been on the rise - Obama was only getting high when it started. This is not new. What I was objecting to is using corporate profits as a metric for the financial prosperity of your country's citizens. The problem is inherent in your economic system. Perhaps you'd have Obama legislate corporate policy in a move towards socialism?

[Gawdzilla Sama]

[Warren Dew]

[Ian]

402014_450031238365061_1934297329_n.jpg (41.74 KiB) Viewed 488 times

[Gawdzilla Sama]

[Svartalf]

[Coito ergo sum]

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Yep, Repugnicans are highjacking the language too.