President Barack Obama

[Witchiepoo]

how will they react should he feel the need to do a bush and invade a foreign country without UN approval?

By lining up and marching.

Seriously.

[John]

how will they react should he feel the need to do a bush and invade a foreign country without UN approval?

By lining up and marching.

Seriously.

Only if there's been a regeneracy event.

John

[Witchiepoo]

Only if there's been a regeneracy event.

John

I hope so.

But can you explain exactly what a "regeneracy event" is? Sorry to sound like a kid who hasn't done her homework ... but that's pretty much what I am!

[Matt1989]

Only if there's been a regeneracy event.

John

I hope so.

But can you explain exactly what a "regeneracy event" is? Sorry to sound like a kid who hasn't done her homework ... but that's pretty much what I am!

Rani, I think he's just saying an event that sparks the regeneracy (like Pearl Harbor), not one that happens during a regeneracy.

[John]

> But can you explain exactly what a "regeneracy event" is? Sorry
> to sound like a kid who hasn't done her homework ... but that's
> pretty much what I am!

It's like Pearl Harbor or the Bataan Death March at the beginning of
World War II, events that unified the country behind FDR. It's an
event that "regenerates civic unity" for the first time since the end
of the preceding crisis war.

Of course it's impossible to predict what events will occur in our
future, but we can guess that it might be a new terrorist attack on
American soil, or a major military defeat overseas. It will cause
tremendous controversy at first, and President Obama will be blamed
as being worse and less competent than President Bush. But it will
regenerate civic unity for the first time since the end of World War
II, and will allow President Obama to lead the country into the Clash
of Civilizations World War.

Sincerely,

John

[Witchiepoo]

Hmm ... You know, I don't think that 911 was the catalyst. I think that a lot of people confused it with a regeneracy event, and they forgot all about the actual 4T that has to happen before the recovery.

I think the housing market crash will eventually be seen as the catalyst, and the next few years will be really ugly, as everyone blames everyone else for their woes. We've already seen increased bigotry since the election ... blacks, gays, Mormons, Mexicans ... nobody is safe.

In other words, we've got a long way to go down before we start going up again.

[John]

- President Obama's plans to save the world

I've been listening to pundits discuss what President Obama is going
to be doing to save the economy and the world.

More and more, we're hearing that Obama is planning to follow the path
of FDR in 1933-34. The idea is to duplicate FDR's success in creating
jobs through a stimulus package.

• The credit markets are getting much worse.
• There's a leadership vacuum in the Bush administration.
• This lack of leadership is causing a panic.
• Barack Obama needs to pressure the Bush administration to take
  steps now. [Not sure what those steps would be, since the enormous
  historical steps taken so far have failed.]
• When Obama takes office in January, he'll immediately implement a
  "big bang" - a fiscal stimulus package that will put unemployed
  people back to work right away.

The pundits quoted Paul Krugman's Friday column on the subject:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/21/opini ... ugman.html

It was just a couple of weeks ago that Krugman declared the problem
solved by the huge bailout. Today, there's widespread public
opposition to any more bailouts, and even the Democrats can't agree
on a bailout of the Detroit auto makers.

And so Nobel Prize Winner Krugman was wrong again. Has Krugman ever
been right about anything? I doubt it. But he hates George Bush,
and that qualifies him to be a Nobel Prize Winner, even if he's wrong
every time.

The reason that these steps are all failing and will continue to fail
is because it's too early. When FDR took office in 1933, the
deflationary spiral had already been going on for four years, and was
already largely spent and deflated. But today, the deflationary
spiral is still accelerating and getting worse. It will not be
deflated for several years to come.

This past week, Citibank announced a layoff of 50,000 workers. Those
kinds of layoffs are going to continue, and accelerate. The Obama
administration's fiscal stimulus plans cannot possibly create jobs
fast enough to keep up with the accelerating layoffs.

I think that Krugman and other Democratic party "thinkers" are
beginning to realize that, and they're laying the groundwork to blame
everything on Bush, which is what all new administrations do. That
will work for a few months, but the economy is going to be worsening
for at least 3-4 years, and people are going to be wondering why
Barack Obama is able to walk on water, but can't cure the economy.

Obama's bragging is digging himself into quite a hole.

Sincerely,

John

[malleni]

"...
There is, in the end, a simple and sobering truth: these people have to be brought to justice if the rule of law is to survive in America.
..."

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/commen ... 257597.ece

[ridgel]

John, the financial crisis already happened. The banks were already insolvent with bad mortgage debt when Obama took office. The national debt already doubled during the previous administration. That's a much better analogy between the office of the president and the generations. Maybe Generation X is bitter because they have to pick up the pieces of everything wrecked by the boomers. It's hard to name much that's better about the country 40 years after baby boomers came of age. Air and water quality come to mind - those are real accomplishments. But any indicator of middle class well being or national finance or industrial activity or even scientific productivity is just dismal compared to 40 years ago. I'm no Obama fan, but to blame him for needing to make hard choices now is just silly.

[malleni]

... I'm no Obama fan, but to blame him for needing to make hard choices now is just silly.

Change... What Change?

"...The Pentagon is prepared to leave fighting forces in Iraq for as long as a decade despite an agreement between the United States and Iraq that would bring all American troops home by 2012, the top U.S. Army officer said Tuesday.
..."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090526/ap_ ... us_us_iraq