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Tuesday, November 11, 2008
Obama: as bad as I thought
We've heard a lot about Obama's plan to sweep into office and reverse everything. Some of his proposals I full heartily support. Such as ending the ban on stem-cell research. There is one thing, however, that is driving me crazy.
(From the Globe & Mail)
Already, talk on the Hill is that any new stimulus package, originally slated to come in at around $100-billion, could instead reach $300-billion or even $500-billion, focusing on unemployment relief, infrastructure spending and help for the auto industry.
I look at this and think to myself, what about the deficit? Then John Ibbitson was kind enough to reply;
After all, once your deficit tops $1-trillion, you might as well just keep going.
I'd like to think that this was sarcasm, but given the tone of the rest of the piece I doubt it. Canada has an economy of $1.5 -trillion. It is now not unreasonable to think that the United States could have a deficit the size of Canada's economy. I marvel that they don't see the danger of this.
Posted by Hugh MacIntyre on November 11, 2008 in U.S. politics | Permalink
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Comments
Hugh
I believe that the "ban on stem cell research" is actually a ban only on federally funded stem cell research, a position that would be consistent with libertarian principles would it not? Subjectively limiting leviathan may seem cynical but not unprincipled.
Posted by: John Chittick | 2008-11-11 10:00:51 AM
Either Obama, is really economically illiterate, or he is power hungry beyond belief.
Posted by: TM | 2008-11-11 10:10:50 AM
TM
He can be both of the above, they don't have to be mutually exclusive.
Posted by: John Chittick | 2008-11-11 10:38:22 AM
Why would anyone want to use embryos for stem cell research when it hasn't worked, but they are having lots of success with adult stem cell research? Just more support for the Planned parenthood abortion industry, apparently! It just boggles the mind.
Posted by: Markalta | 2008-11-11 10:50:10 AM
John, that's even scarier isn't it! Beware of the politician who wants to help you. I prefer the cold stern politician who will do nothing over the empathetic kind hearted politician who will help me.
Posted by: TM | 2008-11-11 10:50:29 AM
Government funded research isn't a horrible way to spend taxpayer's money. Besides we aren't talking about cutting back spending. We are just talking about how to distribute the money that is being spent. Stem-cell research is an important and interesting field that deserves government financing about as much as any other important and interesting field.
Posted by: Hugh MacIntyre | 2008-11-11 11:01:33 AM
Never mind he has advisers on the "bailouts."
Full article at:
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601039&sid=aNCFKvAMUQ6w&refer=home
Obama's Bailout Bunch Brings Us More of the Same: Jonathan Weil
Commentary by Jonathan Weil
Nov. 11 (Bloomberg) -- It's hard to believe Barack Obama would even think of calling this change.
Take a good look at some of the 17 people our nation's president-elect chose last week for his Transition Economic Advisory Board. And then try saying with a straight face that these are the leaders who should be advising him on how to navigate through the worst financial crisis in modern history.
First, there's former Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin. Not only was he chairman of Citigroup Inc.'s executive committee when the bank pushed bogus analyst research, helped Enron Corp. cook its books, and got caught baking its own. He was a director from 2000 to 2006 at Ford Motor Co., which also committed accounting fouls and now is begging Uncle Sam for Citigroup- style bailout cash.
Two other Citigroup directors received spots on the Obama board: Xerox Corp. Chief Executive Officer Anne Mulcahy and Time Warner Inc. Chairman Richard Parsons. Xerox and Time Warner got pinched years ago by the Securities and Exchange Commission for accounting frauds that occurred while Mulcahy and Parsons held lesser executive posts at their respective companies.
Mulcahy and Parsons also once were directors at Fannie Mae when that company was breaking accounting rules. So was another member of Obama's new economic board, former Commerce Secretary William Daley. He's now a member of the executive committee at JPMorgan Chase & Co., which, like Citigroup, is among the nine large banks that just got $125 billion of Treasury's bailout budget.
...
rest of article at http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601039&sid=aNCFKvAMUQ6w&refer=home
Posted by: Stephen J. Gray | 2008-11-11 11:12:38 AM
Mr. Gray,
You did not mention the choice of Rahm Emanuel as his Chief of Staff. Why ?
I would have start by mentionning his name.
Posted by: Marc | 2008-11-11 11:31:23 AM
Silly Hugh, don't you know that money grows on trees? (and that that has no effect on inflation or wealth)
Posted by: Janet | 2008-11-11 11:39:10 AM
It does if you declare a leaf as the legal currency. I guess Douglas Adams already covered that possibility
Posted by: Hugh MacIntyre | 2008-11-11 11:52:28 AM
Ontarians as a species have always believed that money grows on trees. It explains their careless attitude towards money, and why the rest of Canada is now propping them up. No more money for the rich bigots of Ontario until they clean up their act.
Posted by: Zebulon Pike | 2008-11-11 11:56:04 AM
Pike, no more money for the poor bigots, or the non-white bigots of Ontario either, until they too clean up their act!
Posted by: TM | 2008-11-11 12:15:46 PM
No, TM. White Ontario caused it all. Make them pay the most. That $347 million won't even cover white Ontario's caviar, champagne and Perrier water bill for the year. Stop their luxuries and they might start to take notice that there are others in their society who are not doing so well. Again, it's a big if.
Posted by: Zebulon Pike | 2008-11-11 12:31:54 PM
The both of you have gone of your meds again
Posted by: Hugh MacIntyre | 2008-11-11 12:36:33 PM
Hugh, I was being sarcastic.
Posted by: TM | 2008-11-11 12:44:51 PM
I had a friend whose husband beat her. He took her money, lied to her, got her into debt, broke her heart and took her from a home to a trailer park. But she just could not bring herself to leave him - even though she had plenty of opportunity. Finally she didn’t have to make the decision to find someone different; he killed her.
This election was not about Democrat or Republican, Bush or Obama, red or blue. It was about going from a budget surplus to budget deficit; it was about a 900 billion dollar bailout, it was about a needless war in Iraq, high unemployment, going from the most respected nation on the planet to the most disrespected; it was about good, honest Americans who are losing their homes.
And whoever is managing the store when that happens, get fired. It's that simple.
I'm curious, if you had to choose between 4 more years of the Bush Administration or 4 years of Obama, which would you choose? If George Bush worked for you and he managed your business the way he has managed this country over the last 4 years, what would you do?
See your response tells more about you than it does about either George or Barack.
Posted by: Allen | 2008-11-11 4:09:02 PM
I had a friend whose husband beat her. He took her money, lied to her, got her into debt, broke her heart and took her from a home to a trailer park. But she just could not bring herself to leave him - even though she had plenty of opportunity. Finally she didn’t have to make the decision to find someone different; he killed her.
This election was not about Democrat or Republican, Bush or Obama, red or blue. It was about going from a budget surplus to budget deficit; it was about a 900 billion dollar bailout, it was about a needless war in Iraq, high unemployment, going from the most respected nation on the planet to the most disrespected; it was about good, honest Americans who are losing their homes.
And whoever is managing the store when that happens, get fired. It's that simple.
I'm curious, if you had to choose between 4 more years of the Bush Administration or 4 years of Obama, which would you choose? If George Bush worked for you and he managed your business the way he has managed this country over the last 4 years, what would you do?
See your response tells more about you than it does about either George or Barack.
Posted by: Allen | 2008-11-11 4:12:54 PM
Allen, I wonder what the story about your friend has to do with this. It is a very tragic story though and I am sorry to hear it.
You covered a lot of ground in your comments. Both McCain & Obama supported the bailout. Obama promises to spend even more than McCain did.
Unemployment in America is still very low. And politicians can do very little good about this anyway. They can make it worse though. And both McCain & Obama say things that I would be worried about.
Americans who are losing their homes, by and large, should not have qualified for them in the first place. They made decisions that, as hard as they are to live with, they must live with.
Politicians say they can manage the store, but they can't. Nobody can. Not that I disagree with giving the Democrats a chance. It the best hope you may have of forcing the Republicans to be the small governemnt party.
Allen, I would have chosen neither.
Posted by: TM | 2008-11-11 5:05:13 PM
Allen, I've read your comment several times now and I can't help but feel that you are angry. Why are you angry? Is it because I dared to question Mr. Obama? Why also are you assuming that I support Bush or the Republican Party in general? I don't think you'd find that to be a fair assumption: http://westernstandard.ca/website/article.php?id=2889
Posted by: Hugh MacIntyre | 2008-11-11 9:25:13 PM
"Free lunch strategies have a habit of self-destructing. The Swiss economist
Eugene Boehler had the context of such false and unsustainable images in mind
when he noted that the 'modern economy is as much a dream factory as
Hollywood.' It is based only a small part on real needs, and for the greatest
part on fantasy and myth, he claimed. The stock exchange, far from ruling
economic life, is at the mercy of tides of collective make-believe. Depressions
come about when there is a loss of economic myth - (Eugene Boehler 'Der Mythus
in der Wirtschaft,' Industrielle Organization, XXXI, 1962.)''
-- J. Orlin Grabbe
Source: 'The Collapse of the New World Order'
Posted by: JC | 2008-11-12 5:09:57 AM
As was already mentioned, adult stem cells already offer some effective treatments, without any of the ethical and scientific problems of embryonic stem cells.
Why the obsession with embryonic stem cells? Science should not operate in a vacuum, and to create/harvest human lives (even very young ones) is deeply unethical and definitely akin to the 'research' German doctors performed on Jewish 'wasted lives'.
Scientifically, the problems with embryonic stem cells are vast and unlikely to result in any treatments soon, if ever. Adult stem cells are the solution, if we feel the need to delve into these particular types of research.
Posted by: Shane O. | 2008-11-12 11:19:08 AM
As was already mentioned, adult stem cells already offer some effective treatments, without any of the ethical and scientific problems of embryonic stem cells.
Why the obsession with embryonic stem cells? Science should not operate in a vacuum, and to create/harvest human lives (even very young ones) is deeply unethical and definitely akin to the 'research' German doctors performed on Jewish 'wasted lives'.
Scientifically, the problems with embryonic stem cells are vast and unlikely to result in any treatments soon, if ever. Adult stem cells are the solution, if we feel the need to delve into these particular types of research.
Posted by: Shane O. | 2008-11-12 11:19:11 AM
Shane I am not qualified to know what sort of research can be done with embyronic stem cells and not with adult stem cells. I do know that there are scientists that say there is a difference, and so I differ to them.
No it is not like experimenting on a minority population. The 'harvested' cells come from embryos that have already been aborted. It is far more like experimenting on corpses, which I have no ethical problem with. (feel free to do with my body whatever you like when I'm dead)
Posted by: Hugh MacIntyre | 2008-11-12 11:58:17 AM
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