Fundamentally Speaking

My concern is that McCain speaks too quickly just to get a sound bit out. I did not like his response during the recent Georgia problems and do not like his "the economy is strong " comments. I want a President who thinks deeply and reacts maturely. And it ain't McCain.

"The Fundamentals of our economy" that McCain mentioned I understood to be analogous to the general immanent health of the body of a man:

The health of a person suffering from an untreatable cancer is intrinsically weak, whereas a normally healthy man in his 30s, who suffers from say, a bout of pneumonia, but is otherwise in good (even if not ideal) health, is nonetheless FUNDAMELNTALLY strong, DESPITE the fact that during his ailment he does not function in a regular and sound way.

In contrast to a terminally ill patient, or a person very far advanced in age, this man WILL (in all probability) recover his strength back to normal. Of course that is not a 100 % certainty since some patients (even otherwise healthy) do suffer complications and in fact die but such rare cases are exceptions which do NOT alter the initial claim that our patient is FUNDAMENTALLY STRONG.

I guess I would just call this article about John McCain commiting a gaffe on the condition of the economy...partisan support. Apparently, Mr. Gross, believes that John McCain made a mistake when he said that the economy is fundamentally sound. The fact is John McCain has no idea of how to handle the economy and was stating what he believed to be true, and , all who saw McCain make the statement knew he was saying what he believed to be true.

Later, McCain corrected himself with a LIE, which is what his campaign has come to be known for. Lying, cover-up, half-truths, and personally attacking people is the Republican way. The Bush Administration has taught us that lying, covering-up and targeting people in order to destroy their reputations is normal. To elect John McCain as our President would be a fatal mistake. He believes that if he talks tough, like a fighter, that we are stupid enough to fall in line. He is running as a soldier whom he believes should be rewarded with the Presidency for serving in the military. Let us not forget that McCain came in 489th in a military class of 460. Simply put, he ain't the brightest bulb in the hallway.

John McCain has been the biggest advocate of deregulation and has taken money TIME AFTER TIME from the deregulation lobbyists - the very same "fat cats" he's now criticizing! NOW McCain is calling for change, when his deregulation in part has created this mess?

As a public high school teacher, the current state of our public institutions reflect our values as a society, from my point of view. I ask Newsweek readers to PLEASE consider the following comparison of our institutions: our pubic schools and our private financial "powerhouses" that have been deregulated and are now being bailed out with our taxpayer dollars.

We are bailing out these failing institutions with taxpayer dollars while the state of our public school system continues to decline. Think about this, voters PLEASE! Not just for the sake of your own personal interests, but for the sake of our country.

Good teachers are being laid off and class sizes are growing. No child left behind is a law that requires improvements without the promised funding to implement these improvements. And our schools are listed as "failing schools" because of unrealistic goals that are never supported or funded by the federal government in the first place. What is left in our public schools is often a stressed out skeleton staff that does not have the ability to properly educate our students, which we would hope will lead us someday to more effective ways of running this country.

Meanwhile, these corporate lobbyists that effectively secured deregulation and what they consider "optimal" conditions for their financial success (deregulation). And a few well-connected people have lined their pockets with enormous amounts of other peoples' money.

This sort of short-term gain at the expense of long-term growth way of thinking have really infected our entire way of running our society.

Unfortunately middle and lower class young people (the MAJORITY) of our future do not have the money or the resources to hire corporate lobbyists. Their teachers and their schools have very limited resources. And there is little to NO organized efforts to effectively support the reform and progress to lead our public schools to educate and prepare our future. In every other developed and developing country we compare our students' progress with, there is a clear and dedicated effort to improve, fund, and prioritize education. In America, we are starving our schools while bailing out reckless fat cats who've thrived on greed. Is this the American Way? Or have we lost our way?

Let this be a lesson. Hopefully (as we say in class) we will learn from all of this and use it to improve, grow, and succeed.

First, can we please keep this discussion on topic? The article is about economic facts and figures, so these comments should be about the same. It should be a place to help people make voting decisions based on proven economic concepts and data, NOT a place to yap about polls. I want to vote based on what's best for the country; this is not a high school popularity contest.

Second, I want to correct a couple of poorly thought out posts in case there are any open minded readers out there who are confused by them. Please read my following posts for this.

rightwingcrazy said this:

"Let me explain it to you. Obama is going to lower income taxes for 95 % of americans. He is going to send rebate checks for $1000 to 95% of americans. He is going to give college money to 95 % of americans. He is going to give free healthcare to all americans. Etc. Etc. How? By simply raising taxes on the top 5 % of americans. If you believe that this makies sense mathematically, then you need to repeat elementary school arithmetic. Obama is a liar and will end up raising everyone's taxes, either directly or through increased corporate taxes. What's wrong with that you say? Simple. Corporations don't really pay taxes. They simply raise their prices on their products to conver the tax bill. YOU, the consumer of their products, actually pay all of those increased taxes."


My response:

Actually it does make sense mathematically. The top 5% of Americans now make and own roughly 50% of the wealth. (You can find data to support this in "Unequal Democracy" by Larry Bartels [Princeton] and "Who Rules America?" by William Domhoff [UCSC].) So what that means is that if you raise taxes on ONLY the top 5% by say, 5%, you would generate the same total revenue as you would if you raised taxes on EVERYONE by 2.5%. You could use that revenue to reduce taxes on the lower 80% of Americans and still have a lot left over because those people now make so little. Actually, Obama is proposing raising taxes only on individuals earning more than $200,000 and families earning more than $250,000 (see http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/more_tax_deceptions.html) which corresponds to roughly the top 1%. Same basic principle applies though. If you are making $200,000 and can't afford a 5% bump in your tax rate, I have no sympathy for you. It's only because you are trying to hard to look like you make $1,000,000 a year. (And BTW, my taxes would go up under the Obama plan.)

This issue of corporate taxation is more complicated. Corporate taxes are often passed on to the consumer, but what we have now is NOT an excessive corporate tax, what we have is excessive corporate financial incentives. Nowhere is this more obvious than in recent events surrounding financial institutions, oil companies, and the auto companies. When corporate taxes are held artificially low, there can be a short term boost to the economy, but in the long term it makes us less competitive. That's why US automakers are now asking for bailouts. What we have is welfare people, it's just that it has become welfare for rich people and companies. True, old school Republicans should be horrified by this.

The most dangerous thing about modern Republican neo-Cons is that they've completely subverted the original sensible party goals. Once upon a time, the Republican objective was, "Don't overly burden industrious people with taxes because you'll ruin the incentive to be productive." At one point, the country needed to be reminded of that. But now the neo-Con mantra is, "Subsidize the rich as much as you can and brainwash everyone else into thinking they will somehow benefit." More war, less taxes! What an entitlement mentality.

And one more thing, those of us trying to repair a decade of bad policy making are the TRUE patriots. We didn't say America isn't great, we just are willing to admit the direction it is headed isn't great. Pretending otherwise is the same mentality that sank the Titanic.

RavenMaven said this:

Let's not forget that this was not the choice of the republicans, We were attacked more viciously than at any time in our history on 9/11. Worse than Pearl Harbor, Oklahoma City, Beirut and the USS Cole combined. Innocent women and children and citizens just trying to go to work. That is what has shaped the last eight years . Not partisan politics. If we had not responded in all out war, then we would become as insignificant as France. Then let's not forget the natural disasters, to the tune of 100s of billions of dollars, And the real estate market crash, which was not a reuplican plocy issue, and eveything else. And you expect that we'd be sitting here today like there was no problems that would have resulted from all of those things that no President could have ever controlled, and expect that econmy should just be all rosy. You are delusional.


My response:

1. I understand that 9/11 was a huge emotional shock, but how did it help us to go after Iraq? I can understand targeting Afghanistan and maybe Pakistan, but reasons for going into Iraq were completely flawed. (Please read http://www.factcheck.org/askfactcheck/were_there_really_weapons_of_mass_destruction.html ) So Iraq - which has been incredibly costly - was the choice of a Republican president. (This point was also made by Dduellman.)

2. The cost of the Katrina disaster - just for example - would have been a tiny fraction of what it turned out to be if the Republican administration had paid attention to warnings that the levees would fail. (Please read http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/02/AR2006030202130.html ). So the Republican administration can be blamed for at least a significant part of natural disaster costs during the last several years.

3. Why did the real estate market crash? Because it was artificially inflated. Why was it artificially inflated? Well, there is plenty of blame to go around, but the ultimate conclusion is that the biggest contributor was lack of some sane regulation and oversight. (Please read http://www.newsweek.com/id/159346 ). OK, I won't go so far as to blame the Republicans exclusively for this - Alan Greenspan served several administrations, including a Democrat. But the dogmatic pursuit of NO regulation is a mostly Republican idea. Too much regulation is definitely bad for the economy, but when institutions are "too big to fail," then they are also too big to do whatever the Hell they want. Private profits with public liabilities? That's more of the "welfare for rich people" mentality.

So, in conclusion, today's Republican party, and today's Republican president need to take responsibility for most of this mess, even if not for all of it. Sadly, it is because Republicans have lost sight of their original goals; voters should hold them accountable.

He is a power whore; he'll say anything. He has no idea what he's talking about and he probably shouldn't buy green banannas.

He is out of touch and does think it is OK, it's not a gaffe in his eyes, all us regular people yeah, but not a millionaire like him. Oh yeah, he is senile too.

He is out of touch and does think it is OK, it's not a gaffe in his eyes, all us regular people yeah, but not a millionaire like him. Oh yeah, he is senile too.

Well, no serious argument of rebuttal in over an hour.

Guess if someone comes in here and starts pointing out facts, instead of just using the same, tired old finger pointing tactics of spin and slander that is the Democratic machine, then it most liberal name calling, factless, disillusioned personas just get all choked up.

Good luck trying to win on bs fellas.

This race should have been a landslide in terms of history, and Obama a sure bet given the climate; however, these same old tacticts have now closed the gap into a level of unsurity for your party.

You just never learn.