Osama bin Laden Killed In Pakistan

That's a very good compilation of our current misery. That Alalawki guy seems like he is being groomed to be the new boogey man.

 

Tengu, are you another brainwashed watcher of FOX Lies?!?

I fully support Obama, not just for what he did in Pakistan, but because I think he's an incredibly intelligent person with a true sense of morality; in fact, I believe he's the best President we've had in this country in a long, long time. He was handed a rotten situation, created by the Republican policies and governance in action, and has been doing his best to turn the country around and repair the huge amount of damage done by the Bush administration.

The Republicans in the party of NO have done nothing for this country except damage it. In my opinion, the greatest threat to the future of this country is the modern-day Republican party. Now they threaten to hold up raising the debt ceiling, because they're understanding of cause and effect is so unbelievably limited, which could easily cause even more damage to the economy. The Republicans and the Tea Baggers have no clue what they're doing, thus they attack and attack because they have no ideas of their own.

I can't watch Faux News for even one minute without getting furious over the fact that they lie constantly and I know some of my weak minded countrymen are being fooled, maybe you included. You've said many, many stupid things on this board, but now you're crossing the line. Don't post your right-wing filth here.

 

Gerny, you need to read what Tengu wrote before you put him down as right wing.

 

I don't agree with Democrats or Republicans on the economy. Check out what Dambisa Moyo says in her book "How the West was Lost."




There is, of course, a more aggressive way for America to fight back - particularly when it comes to sorting out its financial problems; an option that goes very much against the American grain. This is to become much more closed and protectionist, even if only until America gets her economic house in order and her rates of economic growth trend higher.
Although proposals for greater US protectionism are generally met with derision from mainstream policymakers, evidence over the last thirty years suggests that Americans have not benefited that much from the US being open to globalization.

If anything, although global income inequality between developed and developing countries has improved, income inequality within the US has worsened. According to research at the University of Chicago, while the richest i per cent have seen their incomes rise three times over the past thirty years that the US has been opened, the poorest 10 per cent have seen their incomes rise by a relatively paltry 10 per cent.

Moreover, in that time American living standard improvements (measured as average per capita income) have been marginal. At z. L per cent, average US GDP growth between 1980 and 2001, when the US was largely open, is identical to growth between 1950 and 1980, when the US was largely closed.

This type of data suggests at least that closer consideration of the possible benefits of adopting more protectionist policies is warranted. There are compelling reasons why Americans (the results are similar across the major Western economies) have not benefited from globalization to a greater degree, such as the fact that economic gains over the past several decades disproportionately accrued to the holders of capital rather than to the providers of labour, and the fact that US households over-invested (at least 30 per cent of household wealth) in the domestic housing asset class, thereby remaining relatively under-invested in the globalization which registered marked gains."

In considering which direction to take - whether to remain open or become more closed from the global economy - policymakers need to be guided by long-term (twenty-year plus) thinking, as the urgent issues impacting the world's most developed economies today are precisely long-term and structural in nature. Of course, in light of the current economic circumstances, short-term, tactical considerations are important. But, unfortunately, as ever, the myopia around the political imperative in the West mitigates against long-term thinking.

This is precisely why there is an urgent need to decouple economic thinking from short term political expediency. Pull the plug and start anew. After all, 'the future doesn't belong to the fainthearted; it belongs to the brave.'

A stronger variant of this theme of protectionsim is for the US to default. An outright US government default is not something to dismiss offhand. Default sounds like a cataclysmic option-stock markets would crash, the cost of debt would soar, the dollar would suddenly turn into monopoly money, and there would undoubtedly be a deafening international uproar. Already in November zoog the derivatives market was betting on an increasing chance of the US government defaulting on its bonds. According to the Depository Trust and Clearing Corporation, the volume of US credit default swaps - the derivatives that measure the cost to insure against bond defaults - have more than doubled from US$4bn in 2008 to US$10bn in 2009. But would it really be that bad for the US to default?

Western defaults have happened before (Iceland in 2008 and the UK, in all but name, in 1976, when it was forced to go to the IMF for a bailout loan), but certainly not on such a monumental scale - this is, after all, the United States, the economic leader of the world. This is not to suggest that America should default just for defaulting's sake, in order to wipe out its obligations. The attraction would be for America to wipe its slate clean and for the government to reset its financial statement. As in the case of the UK in 1976, such a default could provide an opportunity for a much needed overhaul of the domestic policy agenda, particularly the culture of leverage, as well as recasting the 'homeownership for all' strategy, and pushing for greater investment in labour and technology.

America's current financial state has, no doubt, given its policymakers the impression that their hands are tied, bound by the strictures of the lender that is China. However, they underestimate the power they have, and the strength of the symbiotic relationship that exists between America and China as the borrower and the lender, respectively.


Murder-suicide in Chimerica


A default scenario is the one China ought to fear the most. According to calculations by Standard Chartered, as much as 82 per cent of China's US$2tn in foreign reserves is in dollars, making China one of the biggest buyers of US Treasury securities, in some instances splashing out as much as US$10bn a month; in return China earns around US$50bn a year in interest from the United States, according to Brad W Setser at the Council on Foreign Relations. Half of the US Treasury bond market is owned by foreign investors.

It is true that in the event of a US default the American economy itself would suffer if foreign investors were to desert it (for example, long-term interest rates would rise sharply and this would increase the cost of mortgage financing and the corporate bond markets, to the detriment of the US economy), but a US default like this could be viewed as a necessary and temporary reset of the economy.

The US would not be the only loser. Remember that not only would China lose the value of all the American debt it held, but importantly such a US default would, at a stroke, jeopardize China's own development strategy, which counts on the US (government and individual citizens) borrowing cash to buy its goods and keep the Chinese populace employed. Perhaps anticipating this, China has, over several years, been encouraging greater domestic demand (domestic demand growth was forecast to reach 15 per cent in China, and 10 per cent in both India and Brazil) and pushing its goods towards other (non-US) international buyers.

Of course America's reputation would take a knock, but for how long? A guess is that the financial markets would be willing to lend to the US again within six months, if Russia is anything to go by. After all, just three years after it defaulted on its internal debt in 1998, the international debt markets welcomed new bond issues from Russia - the City of Moscow issued a 400m pounds (around US$600m) bond in November 2001.

Without a strategy of default, many fear America will remain locked in a stranglehold of debt and dependence from which it will be very difficult to credibly escape. Certainly, it can inflate the debt away as many countries are essentially now doing (a means of defaulting by stealth as inflation will erode the value of the debt anyway), but adopting this softly, softly approach will ultimately have the same consequences.

 

Tengu, people who rock these conspiracy theories as truth by splicing together a couple of videos and getting one primary source to agree with them worry me. You really need a lot more evidence and historical background information if you plan to sway anybody here who isn't already agreeing with you. Please stop posting these dribble videos and getting mad when we refuse to watch them. Use your own words to explain your point instead of just attacking when someone refuses to watch a fox new citing video. It loses all credibility as a source once fox news is thrown into the mix.

You've become a troll, but not the good funny kind.

 

Tricky, you are wrong about the video in question. It is the anti-Fox perspective. That's General Wesley Clark saying tht the neoconservatives were planning to invade six countries in the Middle East. Too bad for them that Iraq did not go so well.

Because of state secrecy and terrible media, our leaders can conduct foreign policy without much public scrutiny. We can try and cobble together their motives by contrasting their actions with their words, but there is always a lot of uncertainty as to what reality is. I have a fair amount of political experience, and to me the most bizarre theory of all is the government-and corporate-media-tell-the-truth theory.

 

When the Valerie Plame case broke and Joe Wilson reported the cold, hard truth that no uranium was sold by Niger to Iraq, FOX Lies relentlessly attacked Wilson's and Plame's characters to continually perpetuate the lies of the Bush administration and their false pretenses for going to war in Iraq.

Condoleezza Rice had the gall to go on Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell, just last week, and continued the lying and misdirection, even after history PROVED their pretenses for war were completely false. The endless, shameless fear mongering of the Right is so utterly disgusting and despicable it hurts me to think my fellow Americans could actually keep falling for it after 30+ years of the same old, tired trick; it's truly fucking SAD.

Stupid people are far easier to confuse, trick and mislead, thus the Republicans continually attack public school budgets and grants for college tuition. It's so see-through it's unbelievable. They twist their weak-minded, middle-class Republican voters into voting against their own interests as the Republicans attempt to destroy the middle class in any way they can. They use the lies and fear mongering to get these stupid people to vote their own futures into the toilet.

Whether it's schools, tax cuts for the ultra rich, women's health, global warming, pandering to big oil and polluters who would destroy our air and water just to increase their hollow profit margins, or spit out vile, VERY thinly-veiled racist hate; the GOP is on the absolute wrong side of every issue.

The GOP is chock full of embarassing, disgraceful people, with nothing but destructive right-wing ideas and hate. Ignorant imposters like Palin, Trump, Newt, that piece of trash Jim DeMint - who decries America as a welfare state, all while his own state is receiving $1.35 in federal assistance for every $1.00 they pay in taxes (now THAT'S a welfare state) - and worst of all, Scott Walker and his union-busting Republican governor buddies, who serve at the beck and call of the Koch brothers. These "politicians" are a disgrace and an embarrassment to this country.

 

@gernburgs, I agree with most of this dude, but I got set you straight on a couple of items. Condie really did n't lie to O'Donnell last week. She said Hussein and Iraq was a threat, and technically she was right. According to last CIA threat reports for the last 15 years or so Iraq has been considered a rogue state and a threat to the US. But the report never said immediate threat. It took Bush, Cheney, Rumi, and Condi to manufacture the immediate threat (which was bogus) but as a matter of public CIA reports IRAQ, IRAN, Syria and Korea have been considered rogue states and a threat to US and all free nations for almost 2 decades.

Where O'Donnell was a little sloppy in his interview with Condi, he should have asked what made Iraq and immediate threat, and why should we treat them any different that we treat Iran, Syria, and Korea. Her only justification on the show was that Hussein had violated no-fly zones and ignored UN resolutions, and perpetrated the Oil-for-food scandal and these
things were not enough for the invasion and regime change. Even if the Bush Admin thought Hussein had WMD, why attack, They knew Korea has WMD for sure, and havent' attacked them yet

But everything else you said is dead on my friend, The Republicans, Neo Cons who are always crying the 'Constitution' have actually done the most to destroy it and this great nation of ours.

Its a good thing That Osama Bin Laden has been caught and killed, now the Republican and Neo Cons can't use this phony war on terror to advance their diabolical agenda. They have a lot to pay for. With the fall of Bin Laden, Al-qaeda is history. I don't know who the new boogie man is gonna be, but
I do know the conservatives, Repubs, Tea Party will create
him

 

just an FYI - no matter who was in power that bailout was happening.

 

What on god's green earth are YOU smoking? Do you even know what fascism is?

 

duh. it's the BEST parts of Capitalism and Socialism.

 

moot point when you look at western "capitalism" but that's not my point. all I'm saying is that regardless of who held the reigns at that moment the bailout would have occurred.

 

About fascism: totalitarian control of economic processes and abolishment of entrepreneurship has WHAT to do with capitalism?

This is the basic premise of economic individualism, aka capitalism:
<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">
Economic individualism’s basic premise is that the pursuit of self-interest and the right to own private property are morally defensible and legally legitimate. Its major corollary is that the state exists to protect individual rights.</div></div>

source: concise encyclopedia of economics

 

Yes, because

1) both parties are owned by the banksters who also own big oil/corporate America/the media

2) The Fed, which provided most of the bailout ($13 Trillion) did so without consulting Congress


The bailouts could have been handled very differently. They could have separated the toxic assets and the legitimate commercial banking side of the banks and recapitalized only the commercial to side so that America's credit system would not collapse.

 

My reference to Korea, Iran, Iraq and Syria come from a series of annual Central Intelligence Agency reports to the President. In those reports they designate Iran, Iraq, Syria N. Korea to
be rogue nations and a threat to all free countries. I'm merely stating the official position of the CIA with respect to
N.Korea.

I do agree that democrats and republicans are both guilty in destroying the middle class although not to the same degree. But in addition to the democrats and the republicans I think the American citizen is even more to blame, because in general they don't particpate in the political process. The average citizen cannot name their state representatives, or judges or city council people. Elections are routinely held in the US with less than 50% turnout. The average citizen in the U.S. cannot even explain what the Republican platform or the Democratic platform is. The citizens are lazy apathetic. The jobs are gone now, but when Nafta, Cafta, Gatt etc were on the ballot directly or indirectly people didn't vote. I'm not going to even bring up young people those between 18 and 23 who don't know what the polls look like and have never been inside of a voting booth.

So I blame the American people more than anybody else for the problems in America, because they've taken for granted the right to vote, they are in general ignorant of what laws or policies that are being proposed at any given time, the American people remained uninformed even after 12 years of school on how the government actually works

For example, look at how many people looked for Obama to save the day! He is a president, not a king. Without the house of representatives and the senate there's a major limit to what the consistution will actually allow him to do. People didn't vote in the mid term elections because (ignorantly) they thought they were sending a message to President Obama, and consequently republicans took over many states. Well, if you don't vote for the democrats because you are ignorantly mad at Obama, then republican and the republican platform will take over, now you're really in a world of shit.

People still don't understand their state legislatures, and local governments, or the part that their Governor or secretary of state plays in their lives.

So with all this ignorance (willful ignorance) on the part of the American people, it doesn't take much for the Republican part or the Democratic party to fuck everybody.

If we don't like what the dems are doing, we can vote them out,
If we don't like what the repubs are doing, we can vote them out, if there are no decent dems or repubs anyone of us can run for office and do a better job.

Tengu, I do believe that repubs and democrats are virtually two sides to the same coin. And that coin is constantly flipped by the lobbyist, big business that own the congress and own the senate, and own the judicial branch as well, but until
the American citizen really gets involved it just doesn't matter, we might as well bend over, spread our cheeks, and take the sausage

 

One of the best Time magazine covers ever.

 

Fascist Propaganda

We may as well have state-controlled media.

I worry that there will be another attack and a new boogey man, new pretext for war...

 

Pakistan: Blasts kill 80 to avenge bin Laden death

"Police say two suicide bombers wearing explosives-Laden vests "

I like what they did there