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As the economy touches cloth(please excuse the Mr. Hankey reference), I find myself chuckling once again about the game we call politics. During the last election cycle, Obama swore he would be the most leftist president ever during the primaries and, of course, did an about face during the general election, disavowing his leftist ideals and promising to govern from the center. All in all, standard operating procedure for a typical candidate.
It left us wondering, what would he be like when he really took office. So here we are. I have to admit I'm still impressed, but not for the same reason those who faint in Obama's presence are. Here is a guy who just doubled the deficit in his first four weeks in office to give us dog parks and a bunch of other useless cr*p, who swears he will cut the deficit in half by the end of his term by raising taxes on businesses(yeh, the people who truly create jobs). Net "change": 0.
Granted, there are some businessmen that need to be shot(not joking) for taking enormous bonuses at the expense of their stockholders right before bad news was made public. That equates to theft, and their thousands of stock holders should all get a turn issuing a paper cut to those idiots, letting them die from a thousand small wounds. Topic for another thread I suppose.
I guess what I'm getting at is that I can admire the genious in marketing of someone who will call success the restoration of the budget to the levels at which he received it a scant few weeks ago. Frankly, I'm amazed he decided to fund the 17k troops headed to Afghanistan. Pakistan has obviously recongnized help will not be forthcoming, so they gave the border regions governance by Sharia law. It smacks of an LBJ token gesture, as he promises to make some of his "balanced budget" by winding up Afghanistan. Does he really think the mission in Afghanistan will be ready for those types of cuts in 30 months or so?
I guess when you have favorable numbers over 60%, and control over the house and the senate, you can do whatever suits you. It will be very interesting to see where this thing goes. The DOW retesting its low of 7100 and the Nasdaq down to the mid 1300s, levels not seen since Clinton's internet bubble burst. California just passed in the most cr*p *ss peice of legislation in its history making it possibly the least desirable place on the planet to do business. How low will the DOW go? My guess - 5000(or more). Will he still have 60% popularity then?
Maybe the strategy is to grow government to the size where everyone works for it. That too would be genious. Lets face it, if the majority works for the government, someone running on the idea of cutting the size of government would have a very difficult time getting elected.
Another thing struck me as both sad and funny the other day. While talking to a english speaking person of french decent, I was told that the U.S. is no longer the "navel of the planet" and the air of glee in this person's demeanor was inescapable. I'm not France bashing here, but it was interesting to see part of the demographic that went 80-90% for Obama in the last election almost gleeful at the state of disarray in the U.S. economy. I guess there in lies part of the reason you have to be a U.S. citizen to vote.
Last edited by cbwm; 02-24-2009 at 09:50 AM..
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