Big Biz Still For GOP

I think we CAN and should blame Bush and Delay for the past 8 years, and frankly, I find Wall Street's aversion to Democrats illogical and irritating. They consistently do better financially under Democrats and yet continue to support Republicans. I believe that their support is based largely on their own, personal greed. If it didn't hurt all of us on Main Street, it would do my heart good to see people like Fred the CEO suffer a bit.

Although Obama might be better for the economy, I would like to offer a more balanced viewpoint. The Clinton/Greenspan economy benefited tremendously from the dotcom bubble. When George Bush took office, stocks were still tremendously overvalued by any sane financial measurements and already starting their inevitable crash. Clinton was lucky enough to get out of office in enough time to not have to deal with that crash. George Bush and Greenspan should be blamed for re-inflating the dotcom bubble with a housing bubble but Clinton/Greenspan were responsible for the dotcom stock market crash. The "new economy" was a FRAUD since most of these companies had no profits or very little profit. Warren Buffet, a Democrat, readily acknowledges this. For example, Home Depot had a PE ratio of around 50 before the crash so it wasn't just tech stocks that were ridiculously overvalued. Given the dotcom hangover, 911 and the war in Iraq, corporate profits have done tremendously well under George Bush and stocks will rebound since they are actually tremendously undervalued right now according to PE ratios. But, Bush should be blamed for the ridiculous increase in the debt even though Clinton handed him an economy largely built on a house of cards. Bush should be blamed for not having the willpower to create a sustainable economy not build upon a bubble.

The transfer of wealth to the top 1% is much more about executive level compensation that is out of control at the vast majority of American companies. Normal shareholders need to have much more power to reduce stock based compensation of most executives. This excessive compensation needlessly dilutes normal shareholders. Congress should enact major reforms that empower shareholders to have companies start acting in the long term interests of normal shareholders and not just lining the pockets of execs.

Government spending including entitlements needs to shrink massively and taxes on the rich need to be raised. Sadly, neither party advocates the economic medicine this country needs to get its financial house in order. As a starting point, cut defense spending by 30%, NASA by 50% and the Department of Education by 90%.

Obama should help out the working class but strengthening unions is not a good way to do that since it distorts the economy and may turn a solid company like Home Depot into the next GM or Ford.

The ramifications of not stopping the deficit spending would be a disaster. What happens when China and Japan no longer want to loan money to the US... This tipping point could easily happen within the next 2-3 years since at some point both of those governments and people will realize that the US doesn't have the ability or willpower to pay them back. When that happens, it may be "game over" and Americans standard of living will not be the same for a long time since the currency will be devalued like a 3rd world country that can???t service its debt.

Why is it that the least informed commenters, the ones spouting already debunked nonsense, so enjoy repeating Barack Obama's middle name? McCain must be getting jealous. Nobody ever mentions his middle name, Sydney. Rather effeminate don't you think? You betcha.

When McCain was chairman of the International Republican Institute (IRI), he distributed several grants to the Palestinian research center co-founded by Khalidi (a respected professor at Columbia University), including one worth half a million dollars. And you wingnuts are working yourselves into a lather because Khalid and Obama attended the same party? Get real. McCain is a totally dishonorable hypocrite.

Obama is proposing to restore progressive income tax rates to what they were under that well-known socialist Ronald Reagan. Were you guys born yesterday or did you have to work at being so ignorant of history? Bush 41 was right. Reaganomics is voodoo economics. To the benefit of the rich it hollowed out the middle class and stole from the future by building a mountain of debt. Hence we have the highest disparity between rich and poor ever. Those are the stone cold facts.

Fortunately our 28-year economic and political nightmare is coming to an end. State polls show that Obama has a lock on at least 311 electoral college votes and may get 375. Meanwhile scores of Republicans will be swept from the House and Senate. Get used to it. I'm so happy I lived long enough to see the economic aberration of supply-side Reaganomics totally discredited. Good riddance.

@RagingGurrl: Ah, but is it the "Real" America they hate? Or maybe just the one full of their greatest financial benefactors? Either way they seem terrified to let America be America.

It is a very strange paradigm that these businesses follow, especially when you take into account the growth/shrinkage occurring in the two different presidential era's.

Concerned Canadian - Quite frankly I can't make head nor tail of whether you're kidding around or just plain ignorant. Barack Obama is a Christian, otherwise there wouldn't BE a Rev. Wright story for FOX to carry, but even if he were Muslim, what difference would that make? Point to any "Christian" president and you can find a dozen or more things, from secret sexual affairs to policy decisions, that are hardly Christian. Second, along with Clinton, Bush is responsible for allowing Al Qaeda to flourish and become the danger it is, while your comment that Bush fights terrorists to protect America? Please. The news is in - there were NO terrorists in Iraq until after the allied occupation started. And in Afghanistan he may have toppled Taliban rule, but the Taliban HID Al-Qaeda, they are not Al-Qaeda.

It is a very strange paradigm that these businesses follow, especially when you take into account the growth/shrinkage occurring in the two different presidential era's.

Concerned Canadian - Quite frankly I can't make head nor tail of whether you're kidding around or just plain ignorant. Barack Obama is a Christian, otherwise there wouldn't BE a Rev. Wright story for FOX to carry, but even if he were Muslim, what difference would that make? Point to any "Christian" president and you can find a dozen or more things, from secret sexual affairs to policy decisions, that are hardly Christian. Second, along with Clinton, Bush is responsible for allowing Al Qaeda to flourish and become the danger it is, while your comment that Bush fights terrorists to protect America? Please. The news is in - there were NO terrorists in Iraq until after the allied occupation started. And in Afghanistan he may have toppled Taliban rule, but the Taliban HID Al-Qaeda, they are not Al-Qaeda.

600 trillion dollars later ....Barack Hussein Obama still can't beat McCain who's running his campaign from the back of his pickup truck...Obama is just "plastic".

Did NBC offer Barack Hussein Obama a sitcom deal yet? ....Little Mosque in the Midwest!

Gross is not being honest. He is a partisan. To see how corporate America actually views Obama and the Democrats,and how much dough he and they have raked in from the LEHMANS,AIGs and others,go here:

The Center for Responsive Politics www.opensecrets.org Obama,Barack. Campaign Donor Lists By/Individuals.Corporations,Sectors.[other leading Democrats including Joe Biden,Harry Reid,Nancy Pelosi,Chuck Schumer,Kent Conrad,and others may be also looked up].

Here is another thing Gross does not bother to mention. Democrats in a majority are actually moving to ''reform''[eliminate] provisions of the TAFT-HARTLEY Act in order to favour unions by ending state ''right to work''laws. [Pelosi,Hoyer],eliminate private 401k plans [Miller,McDermott], ''reform''the 1872 Mining Act by wrecking American mining companies [ Costa,Scharkowsky],and initiate the union ''Card Check''program.[Miller,Pelosi,Frank,et al] These are all actively pursued Democrat platforms that may be viewed here:

The United States House of Representatives www.house.gov [esp. House Education and Labor Committee,House Energy Committee].

gvillagran3, a tax break to the so called Fat Cats is not wealth redistribution. No money is being given to them, only less money taken from them. Taking money from someone and GIVING it to someone else is wealth redistribution.

Ravi Batra describes the symptom in one of his books: Imagine a graph depicting gains to both capital (management & shareholders) plotted alongside gains to labor. Over decades of time these curves should run parallel if labor gets its fair share; unfortunately, as we can clearly see now, gains to labor have declined for at least 10 years. Now, ask the question about consumer spending being 70% of our economy. Just how can this continue in the present GOP political-economy? The answer: It cannot. As a retired corporate manager, now retired, I strongly support massive unionization. It is one of the answers to a future vibrant economy.

Vypurr.

A few observations about your "informed" comments.

1) Fan/Fred are not the cause of the financial meltdown in Wall Street and the spread to the rest of the world. If you care to inform yourself RESEARCH Credit Derivatives, Hedge Funds investment strategies, and Sub-Prime Mortgages derivatives. And do please understand them before you talk. This collapse of the financial markets has at it's roots the excesive risk taking of financial institutions acting (as Alan Greenspan put it) "Against their best interest and that of their share holders". Therefore please stop listening to the Republican talking points, DO RESEARCH THE SUBJECT and use your brain.

2) Your "Socialist" comment. Again talking points is all you have. First of all my friend the only transfer of wealth I see is the one going from my 401 K to the Big shots in Wall Street , another transfer of wealth is the 10 billion Dollars that go to Irak every month while they have surpuses, and another transfer of wealth is the one that Ronald Regan made when he was President of the U.S. to ..... The poor !!! OH My God!! He most have been a ...... Socialist!!!!

RESEARCH . I know is not the Republican's strong subject but it comes handy some times not to look to foolish you know.

"The people who shop at Wal-Mart, Home Depot, and Target are basically making the same amount of money they were in 1999. There are a host of reasons why wages failed to rise in this expansion, among them: globalization, outsourcing, and a decline in the educational attainment of workers. But unions aren't one of them. "

Are you sure about that? You don't think the deindustrialization of this country has anything to do with assemlers demanding $40/hr plus full benefits. All those laid off people in Michigan and Ohio are certainly effecting the median income in this country and consequently Walmart's revenue, and yes it is in large part their (and their overdemanding union's) fault. Well except for all the non-union guys who get screwed out of a job when their plant closes.

If you really want to examine the impact of unions on the economy in the last decade and a half, take a look at the economies of a union shop state (Michigan, Ohio...) and compare how it's fared to an open shop state (Texas, most of the south and mountain west... ). I'll agree that most republican economic policies have historically been inferior to democratic ones, but their policy on unions isn't one of them.
Also, with regard to stagnating wages: your colleague Bob Samuelson seems to think that's due in large part to the mass influx of unskilled hispanics to this country in recent years. I tend to agree with him.

This is one of the most simplistic and decidedly biased columns I have read in quite some time. First, to pretend that things were wonderful under Clinton and horrible under Bush due to their policies is disingenuous at best. Clinton rode the wave of the Internet boom that had absolutely nothing to do with his policies. Bush has been faced with 9/11 and a crumbling housing market that it largely the result of past Democratic policies of forcing lenders to make bad loans to Democratic constituents who were not credit worthy. There is no doubt that Bush has made tremendous mistakes, mainly the war in Iraq, but let's not pretend that things were great under Clinton and bad under Bush simply due to their economic policies. Remember also that Clinton pushed NAFTA, which Obama now opposes. Could it be that business leaders are concerned now about Obama's protectionist tendencies? Second, to suggest that a group tends to vote with one party blindly is ridiculous. It couldn't possibly be that on the issues they tend to agree with one set of policies as a matter of principle over the other, right? This is the same line of thinking that leads narrow minded people to proclaim that if someone votes against Obama it is due to racism. It couldn't possibly be that people disagree with him on the issues and his philosophies.