Pat Oliphant for September 01, 2010

Following Republicans to your death is not a good idea.

He hit this one on the head!!

Human, don’t forget that TARP began under the Bush administration. Secondly, I don’t think that even they had much enthusiasm for giving the money to the banks and wall street. I think that they, along with the Democrats in congress, believed that allowing the financial system in the US to collapse was unthinkable. I’m not an economist, but, had that happened, I think a lot of people would have been pining for the good old days of 1930.

While I strongly believe that Glass-Steagal should be restored, Obama could not have done that alone. Congress has to do it. The Republicans in the Senate would have filibustered that until h**l froze over.

Raising tariffs is a tricky proposition. While it sounds good, and may make some people feel good, we need exports as much, if not more than we need imports. If we raised tariffs, those countries would retalaliate in kind. I’m not saying that it shouldn’t be considered, but you’ve got to be very careful about it.

You’ve nailed it, “human.” Glass-Steagal was a classic lab experiment, and no one in power seems to have learned from it. Soon after the Phil Gramm brigade got it repealed, the investment bankers were freed to run rampant, and we can see what that got us into. But restoring Glass-Steagal seems beyond the meager minds of our Congresscritters.

The Republicans are totally incompetent and should never be given power to run this country.

The Democrats are totally incompetent and should never be given power to run this country.

Yet we Americans keep voting for bigger and bigger government. We give them more and more power. Than every 8 years we realize we made a tragic error and elect the outs expecting things to change.

Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. Albert Einstein

Libertarian has hit the nail on the head. We elect one party and get one set of problems. We get fed up with those problems and elect the other one. Then we get another set of problems. We get tired of those and then elect the other party again and wonder why things don’t change.

If we want a government that is worth a bleeep, we should first be electing people that are worth a bleeep!

No, there isn’t any difference in the politicians. What aspect of fascism is not clear?

I think both Clinton and Obama started out with high hopes – which were quickly dashed by Republicans who refused to go along with anything they tried to do and Democrats who refused to support them – to the point of being turncoats.

That said, neither have exactly had their priorities straight. Clinton was overly concerned with where his next bimbo was coming from and Obama doesn’t seem to understand that folks need jobs more than they need peace (fat chance) in the Middle East right now (9 weeks or so from election day).

this is the first time i’ve seen ALMOST everyone agree - and it’s about all politicians being the same…

think about it…

It is amazing to see so many comments from people with their heads screwed on right. It would be nice if the media would recognize the importance of independent voters. What we need is a few decades of politicians that put America first in all things regardless of their political party.

A tariff is not a bad idea in the sense that it goes after the root cause of our jobs problem. It is too blunt though and would result in trade issues. I have been talking about an exemption based VAT. Please see Lisa Benson 8/26/10. It would be a new tool. I don’t believe any of the tools we have now will address the problem.

Ultimately my idea may be worthless but its merits do not alter the fact that we need to bring jobs back to America. We need politicians that recognize this need and we need voters to realize that we may have to endure some pain to restore our economy.