[Al_U_Card]

Any bets on when (if?) the recovery gets here?

[Winstonm]

jdonn, on Jan 18 2010, 08:11 PM, said:

One election will get a party to change its ways? I guess you have really bought into Obama's whole idea of hope.

One has to be either incredibly naive or blindingly biased not to understand the significance of this election for the Democratic Party. In Massachusetts, there are 3 times as many Democrats as Republicans, but the largest group is independents. who have no machinery to get them out to vote.

This is a state that has had a Democratic Senate seat for 50 years and a state in which Obama obliterated McCain just over a year ago.

When you combine the amount required of disgruntled independents mad enough to vote along with the number of disillusioned Democrats not going to vote in order for the Republican candidate to win, then you have to be a political blind deaf-mute not to be able to read the writing on the wall or hear the murmurs of dissatisfaction echoing from the polling booths.

This type thinking is on many minds, I am sure.

Quote

Though he wasn't on the ballot, the president was on many voters' minds.

"I voted for Obama because I wanted change. ... I thought he'd bring it to us, but I just don't like the direction that he's heading," said John Triolo, 38, a registered independent who voted in Fitchburg.

[mike777]

Winstonm, on Jan 19 2010, 08:59 PM, said:

jdonn, on Jan 18 2010, 08:11 PM, said:

One election will get a party to change its ways? I guess you have really bought into Obama's whole idea of hope.

One has to be either incredibly naive or blindingly biased not to understand the significance of this election for the Democratic Party. In Massachusetts, there are 3 times as many Democrats as Republicans, but the largest group is independents. who have no machinery to get them out to vote.

This is a state that has had a Democratic Senate seat for 50 years and a state in which Obama obliterated McCain just over a year ago.

When you combine the amount required of disgruntled independents mad enough to vote along with the number of disillusioned Democrats not going to vote in order for the Republican candidate to win, then you have to be a political blind deaf-mute not to be able to read the writing on the wall or hear the murmurs of dissatisfaction echoing from the polling booths.

This type thinking is on many minds, I am sure.

Quote

Though he wasn't on the ballot, the president was on many voters' minds.

"I voted for Obama because I wanted change. ... I thought he'd bring it to us, but I just don't like the direction that he's heading," said John Triolo, 38, a registered independent who voted in Fitchburg.

Winston clearly you have not been listening to Keith's comments about just how awful Brown is.

I am a shocked anyone voted for him.

http://www.msnbc.msn...36677/#34927839

[y66]

Ezra Klein's take on the election seems right to me.

Quote

In February 2008, I wrote a cover story for The American Prospect setting up the choice between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. "The Manager or The Visionary," I called it. The idea was that Clinton promised a presidency familiar with the ways of Washington and based atop an unending series of discrete, measurable policy achievements. Obama promised something less quantifiable but potentially more lasting: A persuasive presidency that changed the way Americans thought about government. A presidency based more on the transformative template of Ronald Reagan than the ameliorative approach that came to define Bill Clinton.

It was a distinction Obama drew many times during the campaign. "I think Ronald Reagan changed the trajectory of America in a way that Richard Nixon did not and in a way that Bill Clinton did not," he famously said. In another lauded speech, Obama went to the New York Stock Exchange and echoed Franklin Delano Roosevelt's call for "a reappraisal of values."

But that candidate bears little relation to this president. The speeches are over, for one thing. Obama's use of the bully pulpit has been rare and restrained. He gave a major address on health-care reform when he needed to save the legislation in the Senate, but he didn't begin health-care reform with a big speech meant to explain the issue and his approach to voters. He talked up the passage of stimulus at his first press conference, but he never did what FDR did with the banks and explained clearly and slowly why stimulus was needed. A president who promised persuasion has instead offered legislation. And his speeches have been timed to affect the legislative process, not to convince the country of his cause and leverage popular support in his negotiations with Congress. It's been all inside game, pretty much all the time.

Similarly, the legislation itself has been built to pass rather than built to convince. Financial regulation, for instance, has never been about what should be done to the banks, but has instead focused on what Congress can find the votes to do the banks (though Obama's apparent insistence on the Consumer Financial Products Agency is a welcome surprise, even if it's only being communicated in private meetings with Chris Dodd). Health-care reform was compromised to begin with and then cleaved of its most popular elements as the process wore on. The administration knew the stimulus was too small when they sold it, but they never argued for a bigger package, and have resisted calling for a follow-up.

That's not a bad strategy, per se. Obama's presidency has tried to show, not tell. He's not given speeches about how government can work. He's not tried to change minds about the theoretical possibility of government working. He's tried to make government work. Winning achievements, not arguments, has been at the center of the administration's agenda.

But that's meant letting the government work. And that turns out to be an ugly thing, full of deals with pharmaceutical companies and concessions to Nebraska and delays and press releases and controversy and anger and process stories and confusion. Americans don't like Washington, and they like it less when they see it more. Obama's strategy has meant they see it constantly, and there's no one really guiding them through its thickets. The country is trapped in a sausage factory, and they want out.

I think Obama gets this. And this (from The Daily Dish).

Quote

"I have two reactions to the election in Massachusetts. One, I am disappointed. Two, I feel strongly that the Democratic majority in congress must respect the process and make no effort to bypass the electoral results. If Martha Coakley had won, I believe we could have worked out a reasonable compromise between the House and Senate health care bills. But since Scott Brown has won and the Republicans now have 41 votes in the senate, that approach is no longer appropriate. I am hopeful that some Republican senators will be willing to discuss a revised version of health care reform. Because I do not think that the country would be well served by the health care status quo. But our respect for democratic procedures must rule out any effort to pass a health care bill as if the Massachusetts election had not happened. Going forward, I hope there will be a serious effort to change the senate rule which means that 59 are not enough to pass major legislation, but those are the rules by which the health care bill was considered, and it would be wrong to change them in the middle of this process," - Barney Frank.

I hope so. I love theses guys. Wish we had more like them.

[jdonn]

Winstonm, on Jan 19 2010, 08:59 PM, said:

jdonn, on Jan 18 2010, 08:11 PM, said:

One election will get a party to change its ways? I guess you have really bought into Obama's whole idea of hope.

One has to be either incredibly naive or blindingly biased not to understand the significance of this election for the Democratic Party. In Massachusetts, there are 3 times as many Democrats as Republicans, but the largest group is independents. who have no machinery to get them out to vote.

This is a state that has had a Democratic Senate seat for 50 years and a state in which Obama obliterated McCain just over a year ago.

When you combine the amount required of disgruntled independents mad enough to vote along with the number of disillusioned Democrats not going to vote in order for the Republican candidate to win, then you have to be a political blind deaf-mute not to be able to read the writing on the wall or hear the murmurs of dissatisfaction echoing from the polling booths.

This type thinking is on many minds, I am sure.

Quote

Though he wasn't on the ballot, the president was on many voters' minds.

"I voted for Obama because I wanted change. ... I thought he'd bring it to us, but I just don't like the direction that he's heading," said John Triolo, 38, a registered independent who voted in Fitchburg.

Agreed. So are you trying to imply Democratic (and Republican) politicians aren't "blindingly biased"? Because that's what it seems like, or otherwise you are just making points (which I mostly agree with) not leading to any conclusion...

[Winstonm]

I must have my sights too high - the last time I was impressed by the intelligence and character of a President was John Kennedy.

[PassedOut]

When polls showed Brown likely to be elected, most traders took short positions. Looks like they were right.

[Al_U_Card]

Perhaps the financial system's woes could be helped by a stint in Gamblers anonymous?

[Gerben42]

There seems to be no hope that anyone ever will get a 2/3 majority and change the US constitution to disallow the "filibuster". It is strange that a 59% majority can accomplish nothing...

[Al_U_Card]

In the US, the term "Commander-in-Chief" refers to the King-like powers of the President when the country is at war.

As the holder of a veto, he can block a lot of legislation that requires a big vote to over turn. That 60% majority is designed to pit the two branches against one another in a delicate balance.

Current practice is tending to go away from that but what with lobbyists running all the shows, what difference does it make?

[PassedOut]

Gerben42, on Jan 21 2010, 02:01 PM, said:

There seems to be no hope that anyone ever will get a 2/3 majority and change the US constitution to disallow the "filibuster". It is strange that a 59% majority can accomplish nothing...

Except for a few things (treaties, etc.), no 2/3 majority is required. But the US Constitution does allow the Senate and the House each to establish its own rules, and the Senate has used the 60 vote cloture rule in recent years and is resistant to change.

When the republicans were in charge during the Bush administration, they did bypass the 60 vote requirement (by using reconciliation) to reinstate fiscal irresponsibility. Fiscal responsibility had been restored under Clinton, and fiscal irresponsibility was such a key republican value that they felt it warranted bypassing the normal rules.

It looks like the democrats don't consider health care reform and (as a result) starting to restore fiscal responsibility as important enough to go that route.

[Al_U_Card]

Whats this I hear about Obama threatening action against the financial institutions?

Any credence or is it all bluff and bluster?

[Winstonm]

Al_U_Card, on Jan 21 2010, 02:27 PM, said:

Whats this I hear about Obama threatening action against the financial institutions?

Any credence or is it all bluff and bluster?

Smoke and mirrors - an attempt at illusion of change.

[mike777]

Ya in Europe or a Parliamentary country, one side wins and can just about push through any laws for next 5 years.

Here in the USA we have set up competing branches of government which can block most anything.

Despite this our government/public sector somehow continues go grow and grow fast. I grant in Europe your public sector does grow faster than ours(see health care).

[mike777]

Winstonm, on Jan 21 2010, 03:26 PM, said:

Al_U_Card, on Jan 21 2010, 02:27 PM, said:

Whats this I hear about Obama threatening action against the financial institutions?

Any credence or is it all bluff and bluster?

Smoke and mirrors - an attempt at illusion of change.

Action against financial institutions? Sort of sounds like a war against some hated evil enemy. What action does he want to take against them?

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/john...ugene-fama.html

btw here is part of a wonderful New Yorker article with the economics school out of Chicago. This is the part with FAMA but if you get a chance read all the other views.

[Lobowolf]

http://www.thestreet.com/story/10664562/1/...e-of-banks.html

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Stocks-slide...126c34c&ccode=1

[mike777]

Lobowolf, on Jan 21 2010, 04:38 PM, said:

http://www.thestreet.com/story/10664562/1/...e-of-banks.html

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Stocks-slide...126c34c&ccode=1

Ya both articles pretty short in details of what sort of rules to reform.

I mean who is against reform.

Fama basically says that a recession caused the credit crises. Economics does not know what causes recessions, economic swings.

Companies are very good at finding ways around regulations when there is money to be made.

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/john...ugene-fama.html

[kenberg]

Here is my take on what happened in Massachusetts:

The Healthcare issue has two horns, individual and national.

Individual: There are many people with inadequate access to health care.
National: The costs of health care are potentially ruinous to the economy.

These two horns are potentially in conflict. At the least, they require different approaches. As time passed, and the health care bills took many twists and turns, there seemed to be far less attention paid to the second issue than to the first. This is, perhaps, inevitable. It will always be easier for politicians to talk about promised benefits than about how to deal with costs. Here, though, this was really a political problem. Many of us see little individual benefit going directly to ourselves. Sure, I would like my health insurance to be cheaper, but I don't think that this would happen under the bill. My health care would not get better under the bill. So at the individual level, the argument has to be that it is a good thing to do for others, rather than that it would benefit me.

I am open to arguments based on doing good for others. But it all got pretty tacky. In order to do good for others it became necessary to pay off a lot of people. Unions want a payoff. Senators want a payoff. Insurance companies want a payoff. You can only pay off so many people before you completely lose control of the second objective, keeping rising health care costs from wrecking the economy.

So, eventually, it came to folks thinking that just maybe they were being played, once again, by interests that tout help for others while making sure that they help themselves. Mike asks, rhetorically I expect, who can be against reform. Well, I can and often am. Reform usually means transferring some costs from somewhere to somewhere else. Well, the poor have no money to take, and the rich make sure they keep it, so guess whose money gets transferred.


Something like the above, I would guess, went through many minds as they cast their votes.

[luke warm]

add to ken's post that there was no real reform... if they wanted to actually help, they'd stop the state practice of disallowing 99% of the insurance companies into individual states... open it up, let competition work

[jdonn]

luke warm, on Jan 22 2010, 01:39 PM, said:

add to ken's post that there was no real reform... if they wanted to actually help, they'd stop the state practice of disallowing 99% of the insurance companies into individual states... open it up, let competition work

Totally disagree, unless the laws governing insurance will be uniform federal laws instead of 50 different sets of state laws, then I would agree.