Caius, I don't think he means prophet in the religious sense. Just a prophet of "change."

Has the country not changed?

Lol I did not mean prophet in the religious sense.


The way people hyped him up, is if he was a prophet of political change. That he had a new message of hope and enthusiasm..



I think if a Republican was in charge right now, we would be calling for his head....
I do not simply think Obama is good because he is simply better then Romney.
They are both fools...

Manny suffers no fools.

There's really nothing any president can realistically do right now. Private debt relief is out of the question, WPA is out of the question. Nationalizing the banks is out of the question.

So if George Bush was still in office you would still give him a pass...

Who said I was giving Obama a pass?

Based on our high tech services economy and that fact that the west is no longer a frontier (it was at least underdeveloped in 1932), how would the WPA, or any other jobs style alphabet program, work today? I am not arguing the merits of the New Deal one way or the other. I simply wonder if there are enough Americans, en masse, who could all of the sudden build 10 new dams and 3 nuclear facilities and canals and stuff like that? Meaning skill wise.

Well, most of it would be repairing infrastructure, building a new electrical grid, rebuilding bridges, new rail infrastructure, repairing/planned shrinking certain urban areas. I would imagine if the skills aren't there, they'd need to be taught. WPA wouldn't solve unemployment permanently, it'd just get people out of misery for a while and build things that need to be built, because our infrastructure is really decrepit and dated.

Imo the Stimulus at this stage would not work...It would simply waste 100's of billions of dollars and likley just temporarily boost employment like it did last time.

The work programs from the 30's simply just stopped the problem from getting worse...

The reality is that it was the buildup to WW2 that really help turned the economy around.


However I do agree that infrastructure needs to be fixed but frankly going into deeper debt is not worth it.

Well, the economy is not going to get better unless private debt is relieved and the world economy doesn't sink. Since the first one is politically unfeasible and the second one seems inevitable, our hands are tied.

But yes, it'd be worth it. Do you realize how badly the US and Canada would be fucked if our eastern seaboard grid went bust? Energy's an even bigger issue, though.

But then, who would be paying for the WPA?
Aren't these power issues best served by the private sector?

Let's say, industry provides the jobs, building hydroelectric dams, etc. in exchange for
tax considerations, then transfer the product to Public Utilities in exchange for short-term interest payments to make it worthwhile.

But then, after the dams are built, then what of the employees? The construction workers?
We need job security.

What a terrible speech by Ryan last night.

Oh. I'm sorry reality hurts you so much.

I cant listen to political speeches anymore.

So I do usually watch the convention but skipped it this year.

Even Obama's speeches... They sounds all nice but I know he is a two face liar as well.

My attitude to this election is a pox on both their houses...

AHAHA. No.



I'm not sure where you've been, but the stimulus tried that. It turns out farming out to private contractors mostly results in them pocketing the money and they don't do much.



Job security won't go anywhere because we gutted industry, we gutted unions and private debt (which is actually important, more than public debt) is barely getting a dent put into it. This is the new reality of the capitalism we created.

Unions especially in the public sector lost a real purpose so they have suffered and now looked down upon by many these days...
Also a lot of new employment is in sectors where Unions have not gotten into such as the Office place.

Before the union fights were about real issues like workers safety and getting a decent wage...
The fights then became about trivial issues like Banking sick days.

Over time the Unions lost support from the public so Govt's and Corporations were easily able to attack and gut unions. Now after the effects of Globalization and the recent recession changed our whole economy, Unions were not in a strong position to fight.

Unions started to lose support around the 80's and it has been going downhill.

Frankly I think the attitude we should take is..
That there is a Brave New World out there and one needs to adapt or fall behind.

But Tyler, you fell into the trap of assuming that we would farm out the development at taxpayer's expense. No.
I mean the private sector develops out of pocket for tax considerations, and then the result becomes a Public Utility in exchange for reasonable interest payments on the development in proof, plus whatever industrial application can be offered for profit where applicable.

You mean give them permanent breaks if they develop certain utilities that will transfer to the public? Huh. I hadn't considered this one, but it does sound like a questionable incentive, though it sounds like something done in most corporatist societies. It'd probably take longer to get anything done. Americans have gotten very inefficient at public works.

No, not permanent breaks. Only a reasonable return for the investment.
For instance, it doesn't make sense to have a lot of money tied up when it could be used as an investment for developing hydroelectric dams in the river areas of the east, Pennsylvania, Ohio, the Mississippi.
Not to destroy the rivers, but to manage the flooding problems while maintaining the waterways by channeling off the expected overflows to the dams for power.

That it is a certain technology then means that the investment likely has no risk at all of loss, and that the result would generate renewable revenue instead of false promises and lost tax revenue for nothing.

Apparently you have the incorrect definition of 'reality'.

Wow! What's the weather like on your planet?

Even Fox said Ryan's speech was attempting to set "the world record for the greatest number of blatant lies." http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2012/08/ ... ree-words/

I mean, sure, if you like being lied to, it might not have been a bad speech.

Uh, that is like saying "even the Washington Post agrees that Obama is bad" and then citing a George Will column. The article you cited is an opinion piece by Sally Kohn and not an editorial from Fox or some sort of "fact check" column by Fox.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sally_Kohn
http://sallykohn.com/

Besides, it is "Faux News" anyway, so why would you believe them?

Meh, the point remains -- Ryan's speech was full of lies, and everyone knows it, even the columnists at Fox News.