bradleym

GWB has a real gift. you've got to hand it to the guy.

so what are you arguing for, prole? the directorate of stupid products that will guard the culture from doggy windows? kind of like the academie francaise, and perhaps just as successful at keeping 'le weekend' out of the language. and are you really advocating the position that amurricans should have been protected from the advertising that somehow got them to buy SUVs? egads. i'm with you on the stupid products (including SUVs), and government should be involved, but that involvement should be in the form of incentives to achieve a societal good. for example, I (voice in the wilderness, woe is me) have argued for years that the government should either phase out subsidies for fuel or implement a real gas tax (say, +.25/gal/year until it adds up to at least a 3-4 bucks a gallon). Such action would encourage certain behaviors in both producers and consumers, but would leave to the 'marketplace' how to cope. a similar example would be implementation of a carbon cap-and-trade scheme, that leaves the market free to figure it out. nationalising the auto companies so that an 'auto czar' could figure out what types of cars to build would be stupid. we don't need the old Skoda, though the new one isn't bad. providing a real safety net for the workers who are displaced (unemployment, relo, healthcare, training, etc.) is where government money should go. and hugh, get over the financial bailout. its a fact now, and it is categorically different from bailing out the automakers. i don't know where you work, but chances are better than even that your employer must dip into the money markets from time to time to make payroll (cash flow is not always even) or to buy new equipment or whatever. even government agencies need to do this to provide basic services. if that all goes to the wall, then the effect is multiplied throughout the economy, and then we have much larger problems to endure than the automakers self-inflicted plight.

And once they realize there's a problem they force a poorly constructed solution through with no oversight in record time hey, its the government--they can and will change their minds. yah know, that tarp thing we were talking about, and then we resisted all the libtards who told us our plan was shite and we needed to go with equity stakes rather than buying toxic securities. well, we now think that the idea the commie pinkos came up with wasn't so bad after all. but we weren't wrong, mind you....

So why the 700 billion - we pulled that number out of our ass because it sounded big - bank bailout? Hey, it pisses me off too, and it seems arbitrary (and probably too low), and you can already see everyone angling for their piece whether them getting some is good for the rest of us or not. Shit, part of me would like to see all the fuckers lined up and mown down, but then i remember that we're all implicated here. Perhaps they helped to supply copious amounts of highly-refined junk, but only because the rest of us stuck our faces in the bags almost before they were opened and we snorted like hell.

Redlands, CA, Northwest (Chelan, Spokane, Walla Walla, Eugene), then NYC, and now back in the northwest (PDX).

Prole: Calm down, get a grip. I think everyone recognizes society's interest in minimizing social dislocation, as well as the supposed national security implications of an entire industry shutting down. Fact is, however, there is no point in preserving a money-losing proposition. The big three have been designing and selling crap for years, with little thought for the future. They should have known that sooner rather than later, all the dumb fucks buying monster trucks were going to hit a brick wall, but they persisted in ignoring that. As for the workers in the industry, what does society really owe them? Should they be 'guaranteed' their jobs, 'cause daddy worked here and grandaddy before him'? In 2001 I was laid off one day along with 48 others from a 54-person engineering team. We were innovative, we worked hard, we had a great product. Truth be told, however, nobody really needed or wanted it, at least not at the scale of investment that was going into it. So that was that. Would it have made any difference that I was comfortable having that job, that I really wanted that job, that my 2-week-old son was really counting on me having that job? All the whingers in little timber towns, Detroit and elsewhere need to wake up, smell the coffee and realize that their way of life might have been unsustainable and will have to change. Full stop. On the other hand, all those people represent a skilled labor force and plenty of potential innovation that could and should be put to good use. So it is also in society's interest to figure out a way to make them productive. 'Bankruptcy' or 'failure' of the big three will not, and needn't, mean that it will be nothing but crickets all across the midwest. Other auto companies have demonstrated conclusively that it is possible to build cars profitably right here in north america. It might be much better for us all in the long run if the managerial and corporate bullshit centered in Detroit be swept away (or given a good, hard knock on the head), by allowing events to run their course. Fixating on the Fulds of the world is to miss the point that the finance sector is fundamental to every industry, so we have to hold our noses and plunge into that one. Letting Detroit finally die its well-deserved death and start over (or at least some level of reset) is probably a good thing. The government should act strongly to mitigate the social consequences (unemployment, retraining, healthcare, etc.), but should not preserve the stupidity that led to it in the first place.

when i was a teenager, growing up to be your typical moralistic, fire-breathing, jingoistic amurrican guy, mis-understanding Tennyson, etc., it was this poem and reading 'All Quiet...' that really turned me around. when i was in grad school I always ensured they were required reading, and i've observed the same transformation take place a few more times. it is a sad sort of gratification. Last evening we were talking about the Great War, and I explained to my son (7yrs old, pretty fascinated by war like most little boys) that if Grandpa McClelland's ammunition wagon (he was the driver) had gotten too close to the wrong thing (he related some close scrapes to me when i was a boy) none of us would be here. My son's eyes went wide, and though it perhaps had only a temporary effect, it made him think for a few minutes. Thanks all for sharing.

Sorry to change the subject slightly, but for me the real head-scratcher is around the need for 're-tooling' (could have endless fun with that). I recently spent a few weeks in Europe and the UK, and observed (for example) a lot of Ford cars that you will not see here. They were not awful to look at, and they were efficient (mostly diesel). If Ford know how to build and sell them there, why not here too? I don't know much about cars, but apparently the diesel you buy there is a higher grade than is available here. whats with that? I own a Volvo sedan that averages ~32-35mpg on the highway. The same car in the UK, in diesel, gets nearly 50mpg (UK gallons, mind you, but much better nonetheless). Ford owns Volvo, so obviously they have access to the technology and know-how, and all those Ford diesels running around over there sort of give the lie to a need to learn how to be efficient. Perhaps the billions sought by the auto companies should instead be sunk into improvements to our fueling infrastructure, and then they can build and sell the cars they already know how to build, in this country. btw, I saw two Prius in all of the UK (I drove 1500 miles there). They are sort of a joke when you compare them to all those little audi, volvo, citroen and ford diesels running around. Your average little turbo diesel there gets 55-60mpg, and is much simpler and more reliable mechanically than a hybrid.

he's a wonderful singer. inspirational.

I agree that there are some iffy assertions here, and the conclusion is a little too neat and simplistic to be taken that seriously (its the Guardian, after all), but the point that blame must be shared beyond the bushies alone is a good one. The seeds of our current plight were planted even before Clinton, and the Bush administration has adopted policies and encouraged behaviors that only made it far worse, but the 'roaring 90s' played their part as well. Clinton doesn't get a free pass with respect to 9/11, and he shouldn't get one here either. Having said that, I would like to see a Rubin or a Summers take a role in the new administration.

agreed. complete red herring. 'All I can say about this here election is that if Obama makes us all kill a kitten with a 3lb hammer every saturday morning, well, there'll be hell to pay...'

i think the example is how officers who disagreed with rummy's approach to Iraq were 'purged'. funny - that's exactly what i was thinking i know, i was just a little slower than normal this morning. sorry about that.

Will generational change bring new "hot button issues?" If there is a new electorate out there aren't they going to gravitate toward simplistic views of politics and litmus test thinking just out of a practical need to keep it simple? Good point. Humans will probably always oversimplify, and many of us (myself included) tend to want to (re)fight old wars, but I also think that even though recent generations have grown up in a polarized world (ayn rand v. the pinkos), our experience of the world has demonstrated that problems are complex, unintended consequences do exist and simplistic labels don't capture reality very well and thus don't help much in evaluating policy. For example, one of the effects of a wealthier society is that more young people have had the opportunity to participate in other cultures, an experience that in my experience destroys many preconceptions and makes you more humble in your thought. I think last week's vote signals that a significant percentage of the electorate realize that the old polarization doesn't work, and that one can take a more subtle and compromising approach to evaluating candidates. e.g. evangelicals (anti-abortion, anti-gay, etc.) who voted for Obama. Will the old wedge issues be replaced with new nonsense on which to polarize ourselves? Well, we're still human, I guess.

Sorry Matt, but I'm more interested in exchanging ideas with folks like Ivan who are actually interested in exchange. Go ahead and put me on ignore. Meanwhile, here is an article you may find interesting: http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/09/09/healthscience/09agin.php Good Lord! will you just grow up! take your b12, or whatever, and drop the insults. you consistently demonstrate a desire to talk about things that don't matter, and in the most extreme and partisan way possible. guns, socialism, nukes and your blessed right-wing radio's right to spew hatred is irrelevant just now. oh, and I doubt the officer corps is about to be 'purged'. where in hell did that come from? may we just focus on something that matters? say, for example, discussing what the electorate just voted for, in this time of financial collapse, horrendous deficits and recession?

early childhood education has been demonstrated time and again to improve the lives of those who receive it, and therefore all of our futures, and Obama has stated strong support for it many times. I agree that this was something for which the electorate expressed strong support.

How could any of us not agree with the desire to remove all nuclear weapons from the face of the planet? That said, I seriously doubt that Obama is going to do so unilaterally unless the other guys do too, in a way that can be verified. This is a non-issue.

i think the example is how officers who disagreed with rummy's approach to Iraq were 'purged'.

To extend your point about character-attack ads, I think that Obama's strongest constituencies have signaled their desire to end the tired issues and labels of the past (guns, socialism, left/right, pro-choice/pro-life (gag!), 'welfare-queens', 'deficit-hawks', etc.) that are near meaningless in the current context. In short, to minimize ideology and to focus on pragmatism, intelligence, sober and far-reaching evaluations of where we stand and what might work, and to broaden the perspective beyond our shores. To be sure, those old categories and labels still mobilize a lot of people, and many hot-button, litmus-test issues will remain in the future, but they have less hold than they once did, and generational change is helping with that. Krugman illustrates the trend in this morning's article, in which he explains how keyneysianism has gotten a bad rep from the ideological right who have glossed over certain factors in the widespread assertion that only wwII got us out of the depression. that may be true, but the reason is that wwII finally saw the implementation of true keynesianism. The electorate signalled a desire to drop those old lenses when evaluating policy, and to focus on what might work. With respect to keynesianism, we're doing it anyway, so why not embrace it comprehensively and take a longer view? anyway, my tuppence before the coffee has kicked in....

I do like it. a lot. I admit that on election night, I broke down and cried--cynical me. There is much about the election that does feel like 'redemption', and Judith Warner's article in the NYTimes yesterday (http://warner.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/11/06/title/?em) made me think about the fact that since Reagan was elected (I was fourteen) I have felt more and less amounts of shame and sadness about my country because it has been in captivity by extremists. But I quickly got a grip, and returned to the thought that whatever Obama's election means, what I was hoping for the most was a return of cool, calculating sanity to the formulation of policy. Obama's victory speech hit it pretty much just right. He didn't give into the jubilation--he realizes that there is a hard, complicated and subtle road ahead, and it will be full of compromise. We all, right and left, tend to simplistic characterizations in politics (like, for example, 'right and left'), and if anything, Obama stands for moving past those simplicities. May he have the eloquence, restraint and judgement to pull it off. The only thing that will really disappoint me is if, in a couple years, Obama is being criticised and castigated by stupid left-wingers the same say he has been lately by stupid right-wingers. The idealistic part of me hopes that all of that can go in the dustbin now, and we can just spend our time figuring out what works, for the world as well as for us.

More junk thought from Kristol, who (as expected) is now setting himself up as the loyal opposition who will claim later to support anything that works out in the Obama administration, but who will gleefully pounce on any failures. He repeats the tired sleight-of-hand that equates Iraq with the 'central front in the war on Islamic jihadism' without of course pointing out that it would not have been had we not made it so. This is part of a broader point that the american people have forsaken national security by choosing Obama over McCain. Oooh, scary! Kristol also fails to point out that the main tactic of the 'surge' has been to pay people not to fight--not likely to be a permanent solution. He repeats the lie that the Bush administration prevented another terrorist attack, and should get credit for that, without recognizing that Iraq is nothing other than a slow-motion terrorist attack in which 4000+ american soldiers (and 100s of thousands of Iraqis -- they count too in my book) have died with far less risk to the terrorists. Our gift to them, and now idiots like Kristol try to paint it as a success. So I suppose Kristol's idea is for the GOP to focus on national security and try to ride that one in the next few elections. God knows they have no credibility on the economy, social justice or the future of the planet. Even on national security they haven't a leg to stand on, as they made the world much more dangerous than it was before, but Kristol sees that as the GOP's best chance to fool everyone again. Good luck asshole. My sincerest hope is that this election signals the end of ideology as the primary motivator of policy, and a renewed focus on pragmatism. It is the stake in the heart of Reaganism. Lets leave it there. Here is the article: http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/015/776vaeyh.asp

shit! if they only had a 2nd amendment down there...

That is a very bold statement indeed! For my part, I sincerely hope that Obama IS a socialist. The social bits around here could use a bit of work.

nope, though AIG offered me a job back in 2000, so I suppose some of them might have been. glad i didn't take it, especially as the offer didn't say anything about junkets....instead i came out here for a job in a company that was run into the ground by german executives, not american ones.

I think you've put your finger on it. Whereas our leadership for the past 8 years has tended towards pure ideology in crafting policy, I expect (from what i've seen and heard so far) an Obama presidency to reflect pragmatism and intelligence, and an ability to shift as perception and understanding evolve and change. Ideology will always be around, and it has its place, but it will no longer be the one and only criterion for 'what to do'.

but again, the guns out there aren't checking or balancing a damn thing, like joe said - the 82nd airborne can probably take on every gun-nut in the country together and come out just fine, no? exactly! recall how well the somalis did -- and they were mean, desperate mofos with real weapons. if it ever comes to a real shoot-em-up, the only check there is on real soldiers with real weapons is if they simply refuse to do what the commander tells them to do. so lets put this nra fantasy to rest please, and then go on with the adult work of working to reduce the number of senseless gun deaths in this country.