Originally Posted by JustPassingThrough

The Republicans were sent there by [approximately 22% of] the American people for the specific purpose of hampering his efforts.

Fixed. You're welcome.

Originally Posted by James50

I agree that Obama is the likely winner. I also am coming to believe your prediction that the extreme right wing is vulnerable. On the other hand, I think you are too quick to dismiss the polling data that JPT has recently posted about millineals. It is very fluid. I would not rule out some blockbuster event that changes everything. This is the 4T after all.

Let me put it this way, James. Millennials don't have any commitment to a party. But they do, as a generation, have a commitment to an ideology, and by and large that ideology is progressive. They will support a party that:

1) Offers to narrow income gaps and restore the American Dream for most people.
2) Reduces the cost of education for the average student, and makes education more widely available and affordable. (Because of their age-location, this is a big issue right now.)
3) Supports gender equality, marriage equality, and social justice in general.
4) Is strongly environmentalist in a pragmatic way.
5) Ceases to involve the U.S. in pointless foreign wars, while maintaining a strong defense of the country itself.
6) Supports improvement and repair of the nation's infrastructure and investment in scientific research.

There are other things, too, but those are what come to mind at the moment.

Support for the Democrats among Millennials is eroding for a simple reason. In 2008, young voters naively believed Obama and the Democrats that they were a party fitting the above description, but events since then have shown them otherwise.

Now, you mentioned a "blockbuster event." It's true, that can't be ruled out. For example, if the Republican Party were to suffer an internal revolution and become something as described above (in other words, if it were to become, as it originally was, the nation's progressive party), then I have no doubt it would gain massive Millennial support. And, given that we be 4T, I agree that the probability of such an event, which in more normal times would be laughable, is greater than zero.

Just the same, I'm not going to hold my breath waiting for it.

EDIT: considering point #4 above, I'm going to predict that Obama will gain some support among Millies as a result of his recent decision to raise CAFE standards.

As Ive stated before, FDR won in 36' because the perception was the economy was getting better. It indeed was better as the unemployment numbers were much lower than in 1932. (Of course, Keynesian economics can give some superficial help to an economy by priming the pump of govt spending and artificially putting moneyinto the system. It is however a house of cards which collapses when the govt money ends, thus leading to more money needed.) But thats beside the point. In 36' we seemed to be in recovery and FDR was re-elected. 1940 was different altogether. It was a national security election and of course because we were drafting men and building weapons the economy was prosperous and unemployment falling rapidly.

For Obama to win he needs the perception of recovery. He needs good jobs reports each month, he needs the unemployment rate to be dropping. He needs to be seen as in charge. At this point he is failing that. Things seem to be getting worse not better. He doesnt appear to be in command and he is getting a reputation for being weak. This will not get him re-elected. He has over 15 mos. to get it right. He may be able to eek out a small victory with some success and a weak Repub. Or he could win a big victory with a robust recovery meaning 400,000 jobs a month, rapidly falling unemployment rate etc that we saw in 84'.


At this point Obama is lsoing most of the battleground states http://hotair.com/archives/2011/07/2...rim-for-obama/
Fro an incumbent this is not good news.....

Originally Posted by Weave

As Ive stated before, FDR won in 36' because the perception was the economy was getting better.

We have the same perception today, and the same reality, right down to the fact that the underlying problem isn't being cured.

Of course, Keynesian economics can give some superficial help to an economy by priming the pump of govt spending and artificially putting moneyinto the system. It is however a house of cards which collapses when the govt money ends

That's not what happened in 1945. It's funny how people who dislike demand-side economics focus on the pitiful and inadequate stimulus the government provided in the 1930s (not unlike the stimulus of Obama's first year in office, actually), and completely ignore the much larger and more successful stimulus achieved in the early 1940s. The fact that the spending was done to fight a war and not deliberately to stimulate the economy doesn't change the fact that it DID stimulate the economy and, together with the changed rules of the economic game -- the unionization of the workplace and the steeply graduated tax system -- narrowed income gaps, put the economy on a sounder footing, and ended the Depression once and for all.

World War II is (among other things) a complete vindication of Keynes' theory and of demand-side economics in general. The fact that for several years we had full employment at good wages (with not all that much to spend money on) meant that demand accumulated, demand being desire to buy plus ability to buy. With lots of money in people's bank accounts, and lots of pent-up desire, demand was very high at the end of World War II, so that, when the government money for war purchases declined, the factories had plenty of incentive to tool up to make cars, radios, clothes, and other consumer goods instead of tanks and fighter planes and uniforms. And so the Depression didn't recur.

He needs to be seen as in charge. At this point he is failing that.

Here, unfortunately, I have to agree. He would have done much better to be more combative and less conciliatory. He is losing the support of progressive voters, and that is not going to help him.

But once again, a lot depends on what happens with the other party. "None of the above" remains not an option on the ballot. If the voters have to choose between Obama and Michelle Bachmann, the fact that Obama doesn't seem all that great may not prevent his reelection.

Indeed, voters may percieve that they have to choose the lesser of two evils.

Originally Posted by TimWalker

Indeed, voters may percieve that they have to choose the lesser of two evils.

How is that different from every election in the US since at least the 70s?

Originally Posted by Justin '77

How is that different from every election in the US since at least the 70s?

Voting for something would be a sign of a Regeneracy.

Originally Posted by TimWalker

Indeed, voters may percieve that they have to choose the lesser of two evils.

Democratic Politics In A Nutshell

Mark Mellman, a Democratic pollster, said polling data showed that at this point in his term, Mr. Obama, compared with past Democratic presidents, was doing as well or better with Democratic voters. "Whatever qualms or questions they may have about this policy or that policy, at the end of the day the one thing they're absolutely certain of -- they're going to hate these Republican candidates," Mr. Mellman said. "So I'm not honestly all that worried about a solid or enthusiastic base.”
In other words: it makes no difference to us how much we stomp on liberals' beliefs or how much they squawk, because we'll just wave around enough pictures of Michele Bachmann and scare them into unconditional submission. That's the Democratic Party's core calculation: from "hope" in 2008 to a rank fear-mongering campaign in 2012. Will it work? The ones who will determine if it will are the intended victims of that tactic: angry, impotent liberals whom the White House expects will snap dutifully into line no matter what else happens (even, as seems likely, massive Social Security and Medicare cuts) between now and next November.

More: http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/gl...um%29_7_30_110

Still waiting for those supply-side economics to kick in. Taxes on the top are the lowest since 1930's and Wall Street is making huge profits. Yet no trickle-down.

To have to keep lowering taxes to prove supply-side in fact proves they are false.

I'm still waiting on those Bush tax cuts to pay for themselves along with Medicare Part D and the Bush Republican war in Iraq.

Voodoo.

After a night's sleep I feel like. . .well, have you ever been in a long, dysfunctional relationship, and you were on the point of breaking up, and then you made up at the last minute? And the next morning. . .you think. . .what have I done?

In my opinion Mitt Romney could probably beat Obama. Palin, Bachman, or some one else of that ilk probably could not. But the Republicans will almost surely get the Senate. They might not keep the House.

I'm afraid that the words of Harry Truman have never been more appropriate: "When the people have to choose between a Republican and a Republican, they'll take the Republican every time."

Originally Posted by 85turtle

Still waiting for those supply-side economics to kick in. Taxes on the top are the lowest since 1930's and Wall Street is making huge profits. Yet no trickle-down.

It has all been a squeeze of the non-rich with the "trickle-down" as a vague and utopian promise. Basically, people with complete power to decide ho gets what (as is the norm for an economic elite free from all responsibility) assure us that if we give them what they demand so that we deserve better, then they might wax sentimental and give us some of the scraps as rewards for our acquiescence with their demands. It just doesn't happen that way! Just because people deserve better doesn;t mean that they get better treatment (including pay).

Part of this reflects 3T trends of inequality analogous to those that occurred in the 3Ts preceding the American Revolution, the Civil War, and the Great Depression. Such inequality itself constricts the possibilities of investment that even looks profitable to speculative bubbles that draw in the resources that don't yet belong to the elite only to waste and destroy the wealth that goes into them.

Take a good look at the 3T economy, one in which giant entities in manufacturing effectively became importers (there goes the opportunity for people to get manufacturing jobs that offered steady income for people with substandard education but a good work ethic). Unions, the only institutions that can protect the dignity of working people, weakened. Shareholders and bureaucratic elites became more powerful against working people. Opening and operating a small business? One just can't compete anymore with Wal-Mart, Wells Fargo, or McDonald's, all of which can use predatory pricing and control of the supply chain to knock out any competitor. I notice that in three towns of similar size and demographics to mine, and in my town, that what used to be a video-and-music store (sure, it was part of a large entity known as Sam Goody) went under, with the business taking over the location being a rent-to-own emporium that "services" (really, fleeces) the sorts of customers that Wal-Mart doesn't want as customers and the credit card companies don't trust as borrowers ... people with abysmal and unsteady pay who have gone through some economic calamity and now have fecal credit histories -- people who desperately want shabby furniture and glitzy electronics and will take the risk of losing them to repossession because they are paying exorbitant real prices and loan-shark interest.

Maybe Big Business acted with more humanity when it saw Marxism as a threat -- when, at least before 1985 (when the 3T was new), that the shareholders and executives recognized that if the (Marxist) socialist alternative to capitalism remained a threat that the economic elites would have to give working people a stake in the system. Now those shareholders and executives fear nothing... and they own a piece of the US government, a piece that can blackmail everyone else. America has become as pure a plutocracy as it can be, and its economic order is one of inequality characteristic of a fascist or feudal system. The top 2% of the American economy are now the only people who matter in America in our political system; everyone else is either a tool, an enforcer, or a victim.

That changes in a 4T whether through institutional reform, revolution, or military calamity.

To have to keep lowering taxes to prove supply-side in fact proves they are false.

The purpose of the tax cuts is to enrich the elites and aid their consolidation of power over anyone else that can't take advantage of market power and control of the political process. It won't be long until the inequitable realities reward people only something that nobody can control -- being born into the Right Family.

I'm still waiting on those Bush tax cuts to pay for themselves along with Medicare Part D and the Bush Republican war in Iraq.

Irony noted. In any event I might suggest a novel very popular about ten years ago -- Corelli's Mandolin -- especially the mock praise of Benito Mussolini as

1. someone who managed a wine shop only to drink up the profits
2. a journalist who plagiarized and fabricated news items
3. a school teacher known as "the tyrant", but who couldn't keep students in order
4. a poseur throughout his political career

Appropriate modifications could adapt it to George W. Bush as a hypocrite and a poseur.

Voodoo.

Elect bad leaders, and you invariably get bad results. Nothing supernatural.

I'm going to modify my expectations of the 2012 election. If the debt-ceiling deal goes through as currently designed, Obama's chances of reelection drop somewhat. He's making the same mistake here that he did over health-care reform, only worse.

What Obama and the Democrats should have done with respect to health-care reform is to start with a single-payer position. They wouldn't have gotten it, but if that was their starting point rather than ruling it out from the beginning, we'd have ended up with a better system than what we have. That's how bargaining works. You don't start with an offer that's reasonable, you start with something you'll only get if the other guy is a total rube. Then you bargain from there to something reasonable that both of you can accept. If you start with something reasonable, you end up with something that unreasonably favors the other guy.

Obama made a similar mistake by ruling out the 14th Amendment option from the beginning, or at least appearing to. By saying that he was willing, absent a deal, to go outside Congress altogether and provoke a constitutional crisis, he could have gotten a better agreement.

All in all, Obama is trying to be conciliatory, reasonable, and compromise-prone at a time that calls for the political equivalent of civil war. The other side is shooting and he is not. That means he ends up negotiating from a position of weakness.

If this doesn't change -- and the time remaining to change it is growing short -- he runs a very strong risk of a primary challenge. There's never been a case of a sitting president being denied the nomination, but this is a Fourth Turning and there's always a first time.

I now have the opinion that, to be very effective during a 4T, a Nomad president would have to be a scrapper.

Originally Posted by TimWalker

I now have the opinion that, to be effective during a 4T, a Nomad president would have to be a scrapper.

In other words, one would have to be more like Harry Truman and less like Eisenhower.

Originally Posted by Wes84

In other words, one would have to be more like Harry Truman and less like Eisenhower.

Harry did have a "I'm an old rouge who is down to earth, for the people and can't be chained to this system," vibe. Palin and Bachman are trying to play that card.

Originally Posted by Brian Rush

That's how bargaining works. You don't start with an offer that's reasonable, you start with something you'll only get if the other guy is a total rube. Then you bargain from there to something reasonable that both of you can accept. If you start with something reasonable, you end up with something that unreasonably favors the other guy.

So the Democrats would need to propose something similar to a European welfare state?

Originally Posted by TimWalker

So the Democrats would need to propose something similar to a European welfare state?

Yeah, something like that. They won't get it, but if they raise the ire of the GOP over that, then by comparison their next offer might not look so bad.

Originally Posted by 85turtle

Still waiting for those supply-side economics to kick in. Taxes on the top are the lowest since 1930's and Wall Street is making huge profits. Yet no trickle-down.

There is no such theory as "trickle down economics." Neither conservative nor liberal economists have such a theory and you will not find a theory of this name in any economic textbook. The name itself is (and always was) simply an attempt by liberal politicians to mischaracterize conservative thought. Liberals would have the world believe the conservatives claim that giving the rich a larger slice of the economic pie somehow magically makes the poor richer. In fact, this is not what conservative economists believe... and it never was. However, this characterization does provide a politically convenient (for liberals) counterpoint to the liberal assertion that taking pie by force from the wealthy is the only way to help the less affluent.

Conservative economics, however, is not primarily concerned with what percentage of the pie anybody gets. It's primarily concerned with the overall size of the pie. If you can double the size of the entire economy, you not only make the rich richer, you double the amount of tax revenue available for worthy social programs. (Do you really think we'd be bickering this much about entitlements if the government was awash in cash?) More importantly, you rapidly lower unemployment. (A job, not a handout, is what most honest folks REALLY want.) And, when unemployment is low, employers have to work much harder to hire new employees and to retain old ones. Often, this means better salaries and better working conditions.

So, the reality is that conservative economists are simply endorsing policies that they believe will foster rapid growth. In other words, they like "pro-business" policies. That usually means keeping taxes on business and on the investment class low. But, it also means keeping regulation on business low, protecting businesses from frivolous lawsuits, etc. There are many, many factors that make an economy either friendly to business or unfriendly to business. An economic environment can be truly bad for business even if taxation appears to be low. Right now, businesses are terrified. They are largely keeping their money out of the market and putting it in tax shelters rather than investing it in their own future growth. Does that sound like a pro-business environment to you?

Just because conservatives have been able to hold the line on taxation doesn't mean that they've been able to foster the kind of pro-business reforms that they would normally like to have in place. They haven't been able to. (Tort reform anyone?) They lost control of congress 5 years ago. Your assertion that current economic policy is what conservatives would want is patently false.

And BTW, don't lump Wall Street in with other businesses. Yes, the investment banking industry is making obscene profits. Yes, it's because they're corrupt and have bought out politicians on BOTH sides of the aisle. Conservatives are just as concerned about that as anyone else. But, investment banking is ONE industry. Most of the rest of our business are hurting.

Originally Posted by KaiserD2

In my opinion Mitt Romney could probably beat Obama. Palin, Bachman, or some one else of that ilk probably could not. But the Republicans will almost surely get the Senate. They might not keep the House.

This much is probably fairly close to being true. A few comments, though:

* Be careful not to underestimate Obama's capacity to rapidly lose popularity. I've never in my lifetime seen a president so good at it. By the election next year, he may be vulnerable to ANYONE running against him.

* You're forgetting Perry. Perry's narrative of being governor of the state that created half of the new jobs in the country in the last couple of years may be very, very compelling if the national jobs situation remains bad. Moreover, he's attractive to both conservatives and moderates, which is not true of any other potential Republican nominee. The other candidates get the support of one or the other, but not both.

* Despite the hits in popularity that Republicans in congress have taken, some polls still show the generic congressional vote as high as Republican +6. Considering the advantage incumbents usually have in elections, I doubt the swing in the House will be large enough to return control to the Democrats.

Perry is a lunatic. The American people are not going to elect some one with his views.

Obama's chances just went up today.

Originally Posted by stilltim

There is no such theory as "trickle down economics." Neither conservative nor liberal economists have such a theory and you will not find a theory of this name in any economic textbook. The name itself is (and always was) simply an attempt by liberal politicians to mischaracterize conservative thought. Liberals would have the world believe the conservatives claim that giving the rich a larger slice of the economic pie somehow magically makes the poor richer. In fact, this is not what conservative economists believe... and it never was. . . .

Conservative economics, however, is not primarily concerned with what percentage of the pie anybody gets. It's primarily concerned with the overall size of the pie. If you can double the size of the entire economy, you not only make the rich richer, you double the amount of tax revenue available for worthy social programs.

You have just contradicted yourself here. The second paragraph is the mechanism whereby the idea that making the rich richer benefits the rest of us as well is supposed to operate. The only sense in which your first paragraph is true is that the name "trickle-down economics" is (of course) a pejorative name applied to the idea by its opponents, rather than one employed by its advocates. The essence of the idea remains the same, however, whether you call it "trickle-down" or "supply-side," and although in the interest of being serious more or less I prefer the latter, the former is actually not a bad description.

The problem with the idea is that it is based on a false premise: that the economy will grow better if income gaps are wider and the rules of the economic gain favor the rich and the accumulation of personal fortunes. If that were true, then the poor and middle class would stand to benefit because, although they would be receiving a smaller slice of the pie, it would be a slice of a bigger pie.

In reality -- and this is historically demonstrable fact -- an economy run according to demand-side principles, with narrow income gaps, rules that favor high wages, and rules that discourage the accumulation of private fortunes, grows faster per capita than one run according to supply-side principles by more than two to one. We can see this by comparing the rate of annual per capita GDP growth from 1940 to 1980, when demand-side economics was in place, to the same measure for the years 1900 to 1940 or 1980 to the present, both of those periods being governed by supply-side rules. U.S. economic history since industrialization looks like a sandwich with two supply-side bread slices surrounding demand-side meat.

What this means is that, under supply-side rules, the poor and middle class get, not a smaller slice of a bigger pie, but a smaller slice of a smaller one, and so get screwed six ways from Sunday. That "trickle-down economics" is a sarcastic pejorative is of course true. It is also, in my opinion, fully justified.

Originally Posted by Brian Rush

I'm going to modify my expectations of the 2012 election. If the debt-ceiling deal goes through as currently designed, Obama's chances of reelection drop somewhat. He's making the same mistake here that he did over health-care reform, only worse.

What Obama and the Democrats should have done with respect to health-care reform is to start with a single-payer position. They wouldn't have gotten it, but if that was their starting point rather than ruling it out from the beginning, we'd have ended up with a better system than what we have. That's how bargaining works. You don't start with an offer that's reasonable, you start with something you'll only get if the other guy is a total rube. Then you bargain from there to something reasonable that both of you can accept. If you start with something reasonable, you end up with something that unreasonably favors the other guy.

Obama made a similar mistake by ruling out the 14th Amendment option from the beginning, or at least appearing to. By saying that he was willing, absent a deal, to go outside Congress altogether and provoke a constitutional crisis, he could have gotten a better agreement.

All in all, Obama is trying to be conciliatory, reasonable, and compromise-prone at a time that calls for the political equivalent of civil war. The other side is shooting and he is not. That means he ends up negotiating from a position of weakness.

If this doesn't change -- and the time remaining to change it is growing short -- he runs a very strong risk of a primary challenge. There's never been a case of a sitting president being denied the nomination, but this is a Fourth Turning and there's always a first time.

If I were in Obama's spot I would notify congress that if there is no reasonable deal by tomorrow I would tell the treasury to simply create the money to pay our debt obligations. Wall Street will go into a panic over inflation fears and would give the GOP a kick in the *ss.

Originally Posted by millennialX

Harry did have a "I'm an old rouge who is down to earth, for the people and can't be chained to this system," vibe. Palin and Bachman are trying to play that card.

My favorite Truman quote:

"If people are given a choice between Republican and Republican-Lite people will always go for the authentic article."

Originally Posted by stilltim

There is no such theory as "trickle down economics." Neither conservative nor liberal economists have such a theory and you will not find a theory of this name in any economic textbook. The name itself is (and always was) simply an attempt by liberal politicians to mischaracterize conservative thought. Liberals would have the world believe the conservatives claim that giving the rich a larger slice of the economic pie somehow magically makes the poor richer. In fact, this is not what conservative economists believe... and it never was. However, this characterization does provide a politically convenient (for liberals) counterpoint to the liberal assertion that taking pie by force from the wealthy is the only way to help the less affluent.

Conservative economics, however, is not primarily concerned with what percentage of the pie anybody gets. It's primarily concerned with the overall size of the pie. If you can double the size of the entire economy, you not only make the rich richer, you double the amount of tax revenue available for worthy social programs. (Do you really think we'd be bickering this much about entitlements if the government was awash in cash?) More importantly, you rapidly lower unemployment. (A job, not a handout, is what most honest folks REALLY want.) And, when unemployment is low, employers have to work much harder to hire new employees and to retain old ones. Often, this means better salaries and better working conditions.

So, the reality is that conservative economists are simply endorsing policies that they believe will foster rapid growth. In other words, they like "pro-business" policies. That usually means keeping taxes on business and on the investment class low. But, it also means keeping regulation on business low, protecting businesses from frivolous lawsuits, etc. There are many, many factors that make an economy either friendly to business or unfriendly to business. An economic environment can be truly bad for business even if taxation appears to be low. Right now, businesses are terrified. They are largely keeping their money out of the market and putting it in tax shelters rather than investing it in their own future growth. Does that sound like a pro-business environment to you?

Just because conservatives have been able to hold the line on taxation doesn't mean that they've been able to foster the kind of pro-business reforms that they would normally like to have in place. They haven't been able to. (Tort reform anyone?) They lost control of congress 5 years ago. Your assertion that current economic policy is what conservatives would want is patently false.

And BTW, don't lump Wall Street in with other businesses. Yes, the investment banking industry is making obscene profits. Yes, it's because they're corrupt and have bought out politicians on BOTH sides of the aisle. Conservatives are just as concerned about that as anyone else. But, investment banking is ONE industry. Most of the rest of our business are hurting.

But the size of the pie is now running into physical constraints imposed by Nature, so now the only way to eliminate poverty is to even out income inequalities.

Anyone who thinks infinite exponential growth is possible and a good thing is either insane, or an economist.

I recall one bargaining tactic - require the other side to make two concessions for every one you make.