Obama reelection 2012

[Mithrandir]

This is a true as cartoon renderings ever are. The irony is that the one major "party" that is not sucking up to or beholden to corporate money is the Tea Party.

J

Let's see how long that lasts..or if they ever accomplish anything..

[Erik]

The GOP was 100% beholden to the corporatocracy until the emergence of the Tea Party. And the corporatocracy has done its best to get the Tea Party to adopt its message -- in this case, that big government is the problem and big business has nothing to do with it.

The Democrats began to follow suit in the '80s, after getting their asses handed to them in 1980 and 1984. Read Honest Graft (1988) by Brooks Jackson for a good account of how they made this transformation, which was completed after Clinton won the 1992 election and his "centrist" Democratic Leadership Council took over the party.

[onejayhawk]

The GOP was 100% beholden to the corporatocracy until the emergence of the Tea Party. And the corporatocracy has done its best to get the Tea Party to adopt its message -- in this case, that big government is the problem and big business has nothing to do with it.

The Democrats began to follow suit in the '80s, after getting their asses handed to them in 1980 and 1984. Read Honest Graft (1988) by Brooks Jackson for a good account of how they made this transformation, which was completed after Clinton won the 1992 election and his "centrist" Democratic Leadership Council took over the party.

This is a clichéd over simplification. The bulk of the conservative bloc is otherwise, and you can trace it back through Reagan to Goldwater at the least. At best it had a enough truth to make some mud stick. If you said that the GOP leadership was beholden, you would have been closer. But both parties have their Lear Jet set.

J

[onejayhawk]

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

Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

I would not care to join a club that would have me as a member.

Mark Twain

J

[chancellor]

The GOP was 100% beholden to the corporatocracy until the emergence of the Tea Party. And the corporatocracy has done its best to get the Tea Party to adopt its message -- in this case, that big government is the problem and big business has nothing to do with it.

Those two sentences really contradict one another. If the corporates own the GOP and directed their movements, and big government is the problem, why did every GOP president significantly increase the size of government? Even Reagan, who mysteriously was heralded as a budget slasher (and still is today) increased not only defense spending, but non-defense spending relative to GDP every single year he was in office.

Reality, as supported by the numbers, is that both the GOP of years past and the Dems grew government greatly, and finally a segment of the population figured out that big government IS the problem.

[Erik]

I never said "and direct their movements." Politicians of both parties have rarely ever been able to curb their lust for spending. They just disagree about what to spend it on, and in many cases, when they say "we need spending cuts," what they really mean is "we need to cut spending on what the other side likes to spend on."

Big government AND big business is the problem.

[onejayhawk]

I'd say the fact that they're pretty much one and the same is the problem.

Hardly. In fact there is little overlap.

J

[dslaw]

Hardly. In fact there is little overlap.

J

Tell that to all the businesses that 'donate' to congressmen and then get huge tax breaks, etc.

[Mithrandir]

Or no bid contracts, or buddy deals, or any number of other things that make our country the crony capitalistic state it currently is.

Seriously, J, to say that there is hardly any overlap between big government and big business is ludicrous.

Is One Jayhawk a serious poster or just someone who throws out nonsense now and then? Hard for me to tell.

[Erik]

Is One Jayhawk a serious poster or just someone who throws out nonsense now and then? Hard for me to tell.

Both.

[Judge Jude]

Sneak preview?

Romney's latest misleading job claims:

http://factcheck.org/2012/01/romneys-shaky-job-claims/

Obama overstating his "kept promises" from 2008:

http://factcheck.org/2012/01/promises-promises/

[onejayhawk]

Tell that to all the businesses that 'donate' to congressmen and then get huge tax breaks, etc.

Which is one interacting with other, not overlap.

Where there is overlap is when Government acts like a business, and vice versa. Governments do act as large businesses: hiring, contracting, producing, etc. However this is incidental to its primary function of controlling and regulating. likewise businesses also control and regulate to some extent.

I can see the confusion from this and other responses. It is matter of definitions. The interaction between government and business is problematic. However this is not the same thing as saying that is substantially the same as the other.

J

[Wonderboy]

Unemployment at a three year low. That's good news for Obama and even better, good news for our country.

[nots]

Unemployment at a three year low. That's good news for Obama and even better, good news for our country.

Its certainly better than the alternative but I'm not sure 8.5% should be characterized as 'good news'. Car czar Steve Rattner had some great charts on Morning Joe the other day about how long its going to take to return us to pre-crash levels of unemployment.
If I knew how to link them here, I would. Suffice it to say, by adding jobs at the best yearly levels we saw in the 2000s, it will take more than a decade to fix this.
FWIW--Steve Rattner is an impressive individual. Good pick by Pres Obama.

[Wonderboy]

Its certainly better than the alternative but I'm not sure 8.5% should be characterized as 'good news'. Car czar Steve Rattner had some great charts on Morning Joe the other day about how long its going to take to return us to pre-crash levels of unemployment.
If I knew how to link them here, I would. Suffice it to say, by adding jobs at the best yearly levels we saw in the 2000s, it will take more than a decade to fix this.
FWIW--Steve Rattner is an impressive individual. Good pick by Pres Obama.

I think a decade isn't a bad estimate. I don't think people realize how close we came to a complete meltdown. So I don't argue with your comments and agree that we are just barely near the halfway point to full recovery.

On the other hand, going from 9.2 to 8.9 to 8.5 is a good trend. Certainly better than the trends we saw previously. It's certainly good for Obama who can make a legitimate argument to voters that we are headed in the right direction, slowly but surely. And it's good news for the country that it's going down rather than staying the same or going up. (Especially and obviously for those now employed.)

So overall, being at the lowest rate in three years is a good thing. Not a great thing, but a good thing. It's not a full recovery, but it's a step closer to a full recovery.