Obama vs. Romney: The Second Debate

So, who won?

Obama.

I am an unchangeable Obama supporter but I have to say the debates are shabby. I hate the interrupting each other. I hate the attempt to spin the reaction to the Ambassador's death into some sort of issue. No one knew everything immediately after the attack. And it would not have been materially different had there been a different person in the Office of the President.

I do think President Obama was more of a contender and Gov. Romney did not fare as well as he did in #1, so I judge #2 to be a Draw. More shall be revealed, no doubt.

Obama

Although Fox News claimed that Romney clearly won the debate because Obama has no vision for our future. I wonder what they are "hearing" when they listen to the President. OR Romney. I have no doubt that Romney is good with finances but he is not a middle class advocate.....he will fix our finacial problems, he will protect the bottom line but that does not equate to middle class growth.....he will concentrate the wealth of America by investing in what is doing well, which is, at this point in time, corporate America. Is that what we want for our country ?
Romney is a money guy......I'm sure he has binders of material to prove it but, being a leader means more than that. I just don't see that Romney has much knowledge or foresight when it comes to science, math, technology or anything other than maximizing profit and eliminating expense. If this is America's future, good-by to the expensive middle class.

>3 maggie1944:
At first I thought it was a draw but after considering the total substance of the ideas presented by both of them, I found Romney to be one dimensional. If we go on performance, they were close but again, Romney is talking about money...he is good at that. He brings the conversation back to money when ever he can. Obama is about ideas.....too bad they couldn't work together and reach a compromise. Isn't that a novel idea !

Obama won it. Obama came off as personable, Romney got rattled too often.

A factoid for what it's worth. Romney kept trying to talk more, and getting cut off. He came off as someone unwilling to accept a fair share of time. However, in all three debates the Republicans have been shortchanged on time:

First
42:40 Obama
38:14 Romney

Second
41:32 Biden (and constant interruptions)
40:12 Ryan

Third
44:04 Obama
40:50 Romney

>6 timspalding:
"Romney kept trying to talk more, and getting cut off. "

Perhaps if Romney had been true to himself and consistant he would be able to make a point without someone pointing out that he has changed his stance. He used his health care plan again last night as a positive and claims to want to repeal Obama's plan. This stuff invites people to interrupt for clarification. Putting the Left on the defense at all times is going to result in this type of verbal gridlock.
Romney also did something that the Right has been doing since the Clinton debacle. He used something Obama said and tried to twist it to his advantage, which resulted in the lowest point of the debate for him.
Romney and the rest of his Party would do better to find a positive stance , focus on that and stop attacking everything the Left does. If Romney had gone out on that stage and said what he was going to do and how he was going to do it, in a way that people could understand....ignored what Obama had said in the Rose Garden, told the audience what HE would have done in the same situation, he would be better for it today.
He says he can "fix" things and as I said before, I believe he can, however the fact that he is not specific as to how exactly he would do it and what it would mean to the average citizen is troubling. My guess is that he can't, most people won't like his answers and hence the constant hammering on Obama's policies.

I know you are a Republican, as is my husband, will say the same thing to you as I did to him. If you want a good candidate....a true leader, you have to stop accepting the current people who are running for leadership. They are not being themselves, they are being told what to say and where to stand on so many issues that they lose credibility. Holding your nose and voting is only perpetuating the problem. Bush should not have gotten a second term. Before the election my husband said "I can't stand Cheney.....he is a snake but I am voting for Bush anyway" The message to his Party was this : I will vote for whoever because I am a Republican.

I am a firm believer that we need BOTH Parties and we need them to work together. Some how the Right got the notion that working together is not an option. Who signs contracts with someone like Norquist and then heads off to a job that is all about compromise ? A good leader knows how to compromise, the Right is putting in people who will follow a fractured noncompromising agenda. They can't even compromise amongst themselves. Any body they put forth is going to look like a flip flopper, so they harp on Obama about everything from his birth place to his words in the Rose Garden, it is the one constant they can always go back to. Doesn't make any sense to me at all.

Really wish the Republican Party would stand up...take a stance and be true to it. Stop targeting someone else's mistakes, personality, and/or personal life as their Party platform.

6: Given that the more Romney talks, the more he says really silly (and false) things like his "binders of women" comment, perhaps it is better for him if he doesn't speak for as long as his opponent.

Am not remotely in the Romney camp but the time issue is worth mentioning. If it were a one-off, no big deal. But a string of shorter times is definitely sloppy, and will feed into the imaginations of the paranoid types. Who really wants to go there?

9> The moderators have failed to moderate. The candidates don't respect the moderators' authority. And in the absence of clinical treatment, paranoid types will always be paranoid.

I thought Obama had a good grasp of the facts pertaining to the questions. Romney at times seemed like a petulant child, arguing with the moderator, trying to bully the President, exposing his basic aggressive personality. His grasp of facts was not the best.

What amazes me more than anything is this idea Americans seem to have that the Republicans, and Romney, will do better on the economy. If they do what they say they will do the economy will be right back in the tank.

>11 geneg:

"What amazes me more than anything is this idea Americans seem to have that the Republicans, and Romney, will do better on the economy. If they do what they say they will do the economy will be right back in the tank."

That is a trillion dollar statement ! But, you see.....some people got very very rich since 2000 and they want to continue to do so. If the Republican's are in charge, maybe then we can all get very very rich. No doubt they know how to do it. They did it without balancing the budget (2000 - 2008).....if they do it AND balance the budget, who is going to pay for it ? That is the question.

Well, they did it by rigging the economy like a vacuum cleaner from my pocket to theirs. How many wealthy people and businesses are subsidized by the middle class? How many people have had their livelihoods ripped away by the rapaciousness of companies like Bain Capital and then told they were lazy and didn't take responsibility for themselves? How much of my taxes are necessary to provide the Carbon Pollution industry with their huge subsidies? Or the Military Industrial Complex? Most of the really sweet deals, such as capital gains taxes and that deal hedge fund managers get on their earnings, the name escapes me at the moment, are only available to the wealthy to begin with. Every time someone takes advantage of those opportunities they are stealing directly from me and the next generation. That's how they did it, and they want to double down on it.

We made a major mistake this last time by not calling these people to account. I know some of you remember heads on pikes. Well, that would fix this problem lickety-split.

According to Maria Bartiromo this man quit his business because Obama was mean to him. She didn't mention that during his tenure as CEO the business had lost more than eighty percent of its value. My heart goes out to these whiny-assed little children.

Romney's going to bring jobs back to America?

Bartiromo has never met a fraud she hasn't embraced (e.g. AIG's Hank Greenberg).

Romney's money will stay overseas, doing the work of job creation.

The thing I can't get over is the fact that Romney made a fortune going into companies and cutting fat--eliminating jobs, basically. And NOW I'm expected to believe that he cares about the common man going up against big business?--that he's going to do what helps the middle class by standing up to the rich?

A dog doesn't change his spots; if Romney wins he"s gonna drop the middle class like a bad habit.

If cutting fat was all he did who could blame him. No. He went into businesses and gutted them. He borrowed heavily against the business, pocketed the money and sold it off piecemeal to pay the borrowed debt. Most of the businesses he did this way were forced to file for bankruptcy and close, paying Romney's creditors pennies on the dollar, taking tens to thousands of jobs with them. That's just a tad more than "cutting fat". As the President said last night Romney was a member of the predatory class.

I was so delighted when Romney asked the President if he looked at his pension, and the President said "no". Obviously, the President has more important things on his mind. He is not "all about the money". He, and many Presidents before him, has a job of balancing economic national self-interest with other issues such as Climate Change and the "clash of civilizations in the middle east". I really do not want to see what Romney would do in negotiating with the Chinese he is so busy attacking. As they hold a good many pieces of our paper, do you really think he could all out attack on the financial platform?

I'm tired of the oversimplification of slogan slinging.

I particularly liked Obama's answer to the question presented by the moderator when she pointed out that paying American's the same wages that American companies pay in China or India is unrealistic. Obama's answer was spot on and I don't think many people have figured this out. There are some jobs we are not going to get back. America needs to look in a new direction. It would seem that many of Romney supporters are envisioning what "used to be" rather than trying to picture a future where we have to be inovative enough to come up with new and different types of jobs. Obama is correct...it will take an investment in education to accomplish this. There really is no other way unless American's learn how to live on the average income of the Chinese worker.

Yeah, it was rather interesting to see him talk about bringing manufacturing back. I doubt most Americans would take the work at the wage. And free market/comparative advantage shit is pretty standard Neoliberal/Conservative philosophy.

Romney's financial acumen was accurately described in The Outfit by Gus Russo; "...it is far easier to muscle in on established businesses than to build them from scratch."

He borrowed heavily against the business, pocketed the money and sold it off piecemeal to pay the borrowed debt.

Isn't that what Gordon Gecko ("Greed is Good") did in the movie Wall Street?

I really didn't understand Romney's question about Obama's pension: the presidential pension is set by law (I think it's tied to the top of the GS- series...), appropriated directly by Congress, administered by the Sec. of the Treasury. So

a) what the hell is there to "look at"? A candidate knows from the day they win the election how much their pension will be. Nothing changes, by law.

and

b) how can a candidate for the presidency be completely unaware of this? Romney claims to be a financial wonk, and has that little understanding of our government?

http://bindersfullofwomen.tumblr.com/post/33750544241/nobody-puts-baby-in-a-bind...

He will be getting at least a week of this stuff.

>23 AsYouKnow_Bob:

Maybe he was referring to Obama's 401k from one of his private sector jobs.

Which is probably in a blind trust, in any case. The fact that we all probably have something which is partially invested in China is very largely besides the point! Romney can not take after China they way he suggests he would, and most informed people know that.

>20 Jesse_wiedinmyer:

You don't believe in comparative advantage, I'm guessing.

#25: Maybe he was referring to Obama's 401k from one of his private sector jobs.

I guess that's it - - but when I hear somebody ask a public servant about their "pension", I first think of their "pension", not their "retirement savings from their various faculty gigs". And while the books have made Obama wealthy, I'd still guess his presidential pension will be bigger than whatever he has socked away in a 401k.

To most Americans, a presidential pension would be like hitting the lottery. Rmoney discounted it completely.

Tagg Team

Bill LuMaye Show
Host:

“What is it like for you to hear the president of the United States call your dad a liar? How do you react to that?”

Tagg Romney:

“Well jump out of your seat and you want to rush down to the debate stage and take a swing at him.”

Hmm, Tagg might be focused on the wrong problem:

Doesn't anybody else recall the point in the first debate when Romney himself told the entire world that his own children were liars?

If I were Tagg Romney, that might bother me more.

28>

I read a few weeks ago that Obama is worth around $6 million and Romney is worth around $230 million. I don't know how old that statistic is but it's probably pretty close.

You would I suspect be hard put to find an economist that does not think that the free markets are not good for countries. The problem is the rewards for participating in a free market tend to be distributed amongst few people, the capitalists who own the means of production. The fewer the restrictions to trade, the less economic power a state has and the more the capitalist investor has.

edited to ad the word good

30> Yes he's forgotten. It must be his mental Etch A Sketch.

Presidents have been receiving a pension per the Former President's Act, passed in 1958 under Eisenhower (notorious liberal and Democra...oh wait, he wasn't either of those).

Granted, it was passed primarily to assist Harry Truman, arguably the last President who actually required a pension.

34: Quirky fact: one of my sundry responsibilities is providing legal advice to the Offices of the Former Presidents.

35> I knew there was something presidential about you . . .

The problem is the rewards for participating in a free market tend to be distributed amongst few people, the capitalists who own the means of production.

Let's go back to command economies!

What a quaint old fashioned idea Tim.

You would I suspect be hard put to find an economist that does not think that the free markets are not for countries.

I'm not even sure what you are trying to say here. Do you think that economists would oppose the idea of free trade between nations? Because I think you are dead wrong on that.

The problem is the rewards for participating in a free market tend to be distributed amongst few people, the capitalists who own the means of production.

Most economists regard the problem of free trade between nations to be that the rewards for it are too diffuse, spread out over many people in small increments resulting from very slightly lower prices. They don't regard that as an economic problem, but rather a political one.

Oh sorry as I just said in another thread I am careless.
that should have read.
You would I suspect be hard put to find an economist that does not think that the free markets are not good for countries.

40: Ah, that makes more sense.

39> There is more to free trade than lower prices,

If countries that make a variety of products finds itself in a common market with another making the same. Then in each country production of the less competitive products is reduced and the more competitive product increases. This should be to the countries economic advantage, It concentrates on what it is good at and of course pays less for what it is bad at. It earns more and pays less. even if It is not particularity good at anything it benifits it is win win.

The problem as I see it is is not that prices are insufficiently reduced. a small win is still a win. but that many national economies, do not distribute that win. The people who produced the inferior product. Are not in a position to benefit from lower prices. they have no income to spend, few chances to create a new business, a new product. while those who's incomes have increased have no reason to look for to look for new products, new markets, new businesses. The less extreme the difference between rich and poor is the greater potential there is for everyone to participate fully in the market.

Increasing the number of participants in a market inevitably increase the gap between rich and poor.

42: There's a whole bunch of assumptions in your argument there. Why do you assume that the outcompeted country has no income? Even if you assume one trading partner has an absolute advantage in production, there is no situation in which that absolute advantage will result in either party producing nothing the other wants in a free trade situation.

Your argument suggests that we would all be wealthier if we went back to being self-sufficient homesteaders who grew our own crops, wove our own cloth, sewed our own clothes, and made our own tools. This is manifestly not the case, which suggests you have a flaw in your argument.

I was not able to watch the entire debate but I was struck by the sharp comments about the Libya disaster. I know there is an uneasy "fog of war" surrounding the incident which begs many questions but the more we find out the more it would appear there may be a lot going on behind the scenes now. Like seal teams sent to the area immediately and others who could be jeopardized by released detailed information.

For example could the delayed admitting of information that is was a coordinated planned assault have been a cover to protect people inserted in Libya to find out more info? Sounds like excuse making granted but usually the republicans are a lot more sensitive to "security" issues like that and follow the "loose lips sink ships" attitude a little better. Non withstanding it should be asked was the no way to have a more defensible position given the timeline.

43> I'm confused by your response to 42 where you said Why do you assume that the outcompeted country has no income?

When Simon was talking about something with no income he was talking about people, not countries. Given that disconnect in the second sentence I couldn't make any sense of the rest of your reply.

oh no I am not assuming that the out competed country has no income.
I said "even if it is not particularity good at anything it benefits."

A country with the free market granted ability to concentrate on being world fourth best shoe industry. is far better off than a country that because of protectionism has to worry about maintaining its 20 best knitting industry and let the the shoes go hang.

but as trade barriers disappear so does the nation state, economically a nation is little more than a collection of local tariffs barriers and other perturbations in the flow of trade. as the nation states dissolve into the global market. we increase income disparity, increasing income disparity is not a good thing. Gina Rinehart was reviled for saying that Australian miners need to be competitive with African ones to survive but she was right. If they continue to mine in a free market they must be competitive. Technology is not the competitive edge it was. It is increasingly available and affordable globally Dell does not care if their production line or their design house is in Nigeria, China or Utah. Corporations wander as they will with little regard to borders. Which would be fine and dandy if there were sufficient resources to create new markets to employ the poor to spark new businesses, but there is not instead the ability to fund those new businesses and create those opportunities is concentrated into fewer and fewer hands. hands that see little in or no benefit in supporting the wider comunity or investing in anything other than proven success.

as the nation states dissolve into the global market. we increase income disparity, increasing income disparity is not a good thing.

Except we don't see that. As nation states dissolve into the global market we see reductions in income disparity.

Which would be fine and dandy if there were sufficient resources to create new markets to employ the poor to spark new businesses

As workers in poor countries gain more income, they demand more goods. I'm not sure where you are seeing vast numbers of unemployed resulting from freer markets. Most unemployment problems are exacerbated by protectionism, not aided by them.

I disagree that Republicans follow the "loose lips sink ships" ideal. Ask Valerie Plame. What the Republicans do is TALK BIG. They don't like Obama because he doesn't TALK BIG. Actions mean nothing next to BIG TALK. It's more important that we TALK BIG about America shaping the world in its own image, than actually do anything constructive toward that end. They're bullies, pure and simple.

Capitalism is like an automobile. There are the financiers, the money people, those who provide the investments to power the engine, the gas if you will. There is "management", an amorphous group consisting of different sets of responsibility, from the CEO to the lowest shop floor boss. These are the decision makers, the drivers. Third are the workers, the ones who create the products being sold, the makers if you will, the engine, the drive train, the frame and the tires. Finally, there are the customers, the people for whom the products are created. Without them, the business has no raison d'etre unless the business is a front for corruption. Consider the Republicans in Congress pushing the Defense Department to request twenty more Abrams tanks to go along with the 600 we already have stockpiled with no place to be deployed.

There are currently two problems with American Capitalism that I see. The first, and largest, is neglect of the work force. Maintenance is important, keeping your employees happy is important. The business is a cooperative endeavor between all four legs. The second problem I see, every bit as important as the first is that the financiers have replaced the customers as the drivers of the business. They have become the takers. Businesses no longer consider the customer as the focus of the business, but the financiers. As long as the business is squeezing every bit of profitability out of itself to the detriment of its employees and the quality of its products it doesn't matter as long as the financiers are kept happy. If the financiers are happy, management is happy. However without proper maintenance the brakes will fail, the engine will seize up, and the tires will go flat. Call this labor unrest, if you will. Soon, there will be no business at all. Many corporations are ignoring the maintenance in search of ever higher profits. It used to be the customers provided the income for ongoing business operations and the financiers supplied additional money for capital improvements. Now, it's just a two way game between the financiers and management. The workers don't matter, nor do the customers, much. They'll take what they can get and like it. That's why a $47 iPhone 6 costs $600. Apple doesn't care about the customer, they care about the financiers. This is true of most businesses in this country at present, it's not about providing a quality good or service, it's about maximizing the profit and minimizing the expenses. It's about cutting corners everywhere, safety, quality of product, and cheap labor.

Those are the basic problems with capitalism. Reorient business toward the model of thirty years ago and many of our problems, social and financial will recede into the background. But greed is giving capitalism a bad name and slapping the hand that feeds it. It's not capitalism that is the problem, it's the way it is being abused.

Nearer to the "ground" comes my perspective: Yes, the workers are restless, and the workers who have no jobs are even more so. And these are the "consumers" and they are cutting back, saving more, buying less, doing OK without, talking about "simplifying" and "un-having". Think about that. Apple's iPhone does not sell well with these folks.

Unfortunately, the "financiers" who need to be made happy by the corporations include: pension funds, insurance companies, the banks who do/do not grant mortgage loans, etc. When the financiers are not happy, it is not just the rich guys, it is me, too (in the form of my government funded retirement system which is severely stressed).

Ah, ha! I am cutting back. Not buying the new iPhone, not buying real life books if I can avoid it (used books are it!). Not buying a new car. Not buying any new clothes.

There are some problems here, folks.

47> Might protectionism work in specific cases, say in the case of a new industry until it gains firm footing in the market, just as under certain circumstances monopoly is useful? Exit, Voice, and Loyalty: Responses to Decline in Firms, Organizations, and States

Generally, open markets may in fact be more beneficial to the public good than closed ones, but they are not the panacea promised in The Wealth of Nations. And, depending on one's point of view, it might seem irrational to subject one's life to, and to have one's life subjected to, the chance outcomes of the market.

Might protectionism work in specific cases, say in the case of a new industry until it gains firm footing in the market

Maybe. The problem is that protectionism becomes entrenched, and the protected industry really has no incentive to get more efficient.

47> Really? that seems to me an extraordinary assertion.
could you back that up with some citations?

If two economic systems merge then their Outliers combine. so for example the average income of the 1% in the USA is about $1.2m a year.

while the lowest income range is less than 2,500.

quite a big range.

But a well paid job in Liberia is about about 5 dollars a day and many earn far less if they are employed at all.

Does company, Firestone for example, that operates in both these countries, operate in in a environment with less income disparity than a company that operate only in the US or only in Liberia?

I think not.

48> http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/dana-milbank-letting-us-in-on-a-secret/20...

Really? that seems to me an extraordinary assertion.

You're looking at things from a bounded perspective that doesn't make sense. Yes, opening up the range of things you look at means that income disparity now seems greater, but just because you didn't look at income levels from Liberia before doesn't mean that they didn't exist. And they affected the economics of the U.S. even when you didn't look at them. The income disparity you think is "larger" is actually the same as it was, but opening the market makes that gap shrink by lifting the income of those at the bottom.

Income in Africa, for example, has been steadily rising as markets have been made freer there. As a result, the income disparity in the world has been shrinking. And the African market, which had been moribund, has begun to demand a lot of manufactured goods that it did not before.

Back to the topic, how about that "third" debate this week? I think both candidates showed a side of themselves I haven't seen before.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yBelIMrKll8 (made me laugh out loud a few times)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S6g2YkTAYQ4 (some very good observations and admissions).

I found it reassuring that both candidates are able to laugh at themselves for a good cause.

>6 timspalding:

Another debate in which the Democrats got more time. That makes four in a row. More than 11 minutes all-told.

Obama seemed genuinely upset that Romney wasn't giving him enough credit for imposing the most strict, most crippling sanctions on Iran.

No scores for civility.

Now Rafalca wants to take a swing at the POTUS.

>57 codyed:
Romney doesn't have a clue what it means to impose sanctions ! He, Romney would insure that we had a peaceful planet by increasing our military and our fighting capability.

>58 maggie1944:
Would agree...don't think they like each other much. Think about it : Half breed Black man who is intellegent enough to make it up the ranks and emotionally conditioned to all kinds of abuse meets intitled White man who is used to having the last say and has probably been treated with difference all of his life.

Not a couple destined to have much in common.

You know, Tim, if Romney had had anything intelligent to say that was different in substance from the President, then maybe the time imbalance would be an issue, but he didn't, so it's not. What, you want another eleven minutes of I agree with everything the President is doing, I would do it better? Romney wasted a good deal of the time he had trying to change the subject to domestic affairs. He's a piss-poor time manager. Among all the other things he's piss-poor at.

I only watched the debate off and on while I did other things but it seemed like Romney's answers were short much of the time. Did he use all the time he was allotted? Maybe Romney purposely used less time so that Republican spin-masters could go on TV the next day and complain about how unfair the liberal-media moderators were.

62> The default Republican position of starting more wars is unpopular, so Romney wisely said little. I will say that if last night's Romney had appeared in the Republican primaries, he never would have survived.

>61 geneg:

I am sure that if a turnip ran against a rutabaga, you'd assert that one was a turd and the other one was apple pie.

Come on, Tim. Did you actually, like, watch the "debate"?

>64 timspalding:
Fight for a better candidate !!!!!!! This country deserves better than Mitt Romney. Again, I have no doubt that Romney will work on our fiancial debacle and he most likely can fix it.....he is good at that. BUT, who is going to be giving up the most when he does it ? His record is one of top management growth while squeezing the middle class worker. If that is OK with the majority ..... so be it. He will do what he says he can do. Just be careful what you wish for. Romney has NO understanding of what it is to be middle class and like most who are as wealthy as he is, seems to feel that everyone wants to be where he is at....just not true. There actually are some individuals who are satisfied with a lot less and would rather see everyone have a fair shake than have the ability to stash money they can not possibly use. Romney would have no understanding of such a person.

I confess I am at a loss to understand people who continue working and accumulating wealth after they are already rich. What is the point. If you have a net worth of more than $25 million why do you need more? Why do you fight to protect your $25 million, and why do you resist giving a big chunk of change to the government so it can continue to subsidize food stamps, or retraining for people who have been handicapped by their previous job

I am sorry but I just do not understand why rich people think that way? Why do they turn their backs on every opportunity to do something helpful for someone who desperately needs some help?

"All this wheeling and dealing, it's not for money, it's for fun! Money is just the way we keep score."

I don't remember who said that.

Yes, that is as good an example of being out of touch as I could imagine.

#66 " Again, I have no doubt that Romney will work on our fiancial debacle and he most likely can fix it.....he is good at that."

Our financial debacle is the direct result of incompetence from BushCo. Romney will take us back to BushCo, he's got BushCo's economic team and their foreign policy team advising him. How do you see a different result this time around than under BushCo?

What makes you think Romney can fix our economic problems? Because he has lots of money? Because he was a CEO? What? If Romney follows the current Republican economic policy of austerity he'll plunge the economy back into recession headed for depression. If he just lets things limp along more or less as it is now it will eventually recover. Oh, and Romney's 12,000,000 jobs: the economy is currently on pace to produce 12,000,000 jobs if no one touches anything. (The salient quote from the article is: "But Moody’s Analytics, in an August forecast, predicts 12 million jobs will be created by 2016, no matter who is president. (See page 51.) And Macroeconomic Advisors in April also predicted a gain of 12.3 million jobs.") This is a bogus claim that he'll fix the economy. His entire economic message is to reduce taxes on the wealthy, increase government spending by $2,000,000,000,000, while decreasing tax loopholes for the middle class. Or so he says, no one has actually seen evidence of what his plan really consists of, unless you count that 59 page prospectus he published at the beginning of the campaign last year. Romney and the Republicans don't know what the hell they are doing to our economy, our government, or our society. All they know is they want to get rid of Obama and they have fought him tooth and nail every step of the way, even to the point of killing jobs, killing Obama's jobs plan, killing badly needed infrastructure maintenance, and killing any chance at real recovery, all while selling the American public a constant flow of bullshit. I'm amazed that intelligent people don't see the ruin these people are reigning down on our country just to get rid of the President because he stands in the way of selling America piecemeal to the Chinese or anyone else that will buy it. After almost thirty years of Republicanism up close, how can anyone trust these dipshits to do anything reasonable.

The only business experience Romney has is buying companies that need help, loading them up with debt, cashing in and leaving them to handle their own bankruptcies. Is this the man you say will fix the American economy? If he runs America the way he ran Bain Capital he'll sink America under huge amounts of debt, take his money and leave the country while letting the rest of us fend for ourselves. The moment he is elected the first thing the Republicans will say is, "Reagan showed that deficits don't matter" and take off from there. He's a slime.

Romney would be part two of the Republican plan to sell America to the highest bidder. We may need to close the airports yet.

I'd like geneg to explain to us how "financial debacle is the direct result of incompetence from BushCo."

Mind you, I don't think the Bush administration is blameless here, but it's hard to pin it entirely on them. The Bush administration didn't create the housing bubble, which was well on its way when Bush took over, nor can we really imagine that a different combination of bailouts or non-bailouts of financial institutions would have simply "solved" things. Nor, while I'm perfectly happy to string up some bankers, should we imagine that any particular set of greedy rich men can be responsible for such an event, when greedy rich men have been and will be always part of the picture—it's like blaming sharks for killing someone swimming off the Great Barrier Reef.

A fairer take—fairer and decidedly left-wing—would be that of the Guardian, who blamed Greenspan, certainly—although very few were standing up and shouting for higher interest rates!—but also President Clinton, for enhancing the "Community Reinvestment Act," which forced banks to lend to marginal cases.

I don't think that forcing the banks to lend to marginal cases, if in fact that is true, was the main issue. The main issue was the fancy footwork the banks then invented to sell these mortgages in their packages which somehow was supposed to eliminate the risk, and disguise the risk. The whole mess was created by people who enriched themselves inventing this nonsense and gaining income everytime they sold some poor sucker on buying some of it. These suckers included, of course, you, and me, and our pension funds, and our state governments, and other parts of the American economy.

I agree that some people were sold mortgages that they should never have bought (like the Liar Loans which required no proof of income) but the purpose of the Community Reinvestment Act was to put some money into those parts of our cities which had been redlined for decades. Because of that law many people who were completely financially worthy of mortgages were able to get them, even though they lived in minority areas, and they themselves were minorities. This after years of not being able to get mortgages because they were deemed to live in parts of an urban area which because it had minorities in residence, was inevitably in decline and the homes would be losing value, not gaining it.

I do not think simplistic analysis helps any of us in understanding the great mess which was the housing bubble; and I agree it can not be blamed solely on Bush, or Clinton, or Greenspan, or all the nameless, rich, still unpunished Wall Street financiers. But they all, and many others, do share some blame. Returning to "let's let the people who know how to make money run the government" is not a good answer. You can probably guess I do not think Mitt Romney is a good bet for a President. I'm sticking with the other guy.

>70 geneg:
Because Romney knows how to balance a bottom line and he doesn't think twice about what it takes to do it.
Unlike Bush, Romney actually worked and made himself a bundle. That didn't happen without him having a good mind for business. Bush only knew how to spend money....never had to make much on his own.

Don't get me wrong.....I think Romney would be a disaster for the bulk of this country but I do think he is good with money. He knows how to concentrate it to the top. When it comes to money I think he is ruthless enough to wipe out the middle class if that means some sort of personal reward.

I am voting for Obama. I believe that their is a "class war" taking place. Rather than dividing the pie so as to keep the middle healthy, the wealthy seem to want to settle for nothing but the entire pie. If they don't have what they need from worker bees in this country, they have the ability to move on and in some respects they have already done that. Our education system is the first indication that we are not prepared to compete globaly. I think that Obama has a very clear picture of this and is aware of what needs to be done. Whether or not he can get it done is another matter.

If you want to see my take on the incompetence of BushCo in any regard, economic, legal, foreign affairs, war, anything, dig up some of my old posts from three year ago.

I'll give you that Clinton signed the Repeal of Glass-Steagal, but I didn't hear any Republicans, especially BushCo, fight to have it reinstated. Bush and his "ownership society" just pumped up the balloon. The entire project of creating Maggie's Farm is a Republican project since the 80's. It just came to fruition under BushCo.

Just to clarify: our situation as Americans is such that we are being farmed for our labor by business in this country while they receive all the benefit. Do you know why so many people are/were in debt? Because they don't get paid enough to live a decent lifestyle, the life they lived back in the sixties and seventies. Why? Because we are chattel to the financial-industrial complex. Americans spent 30 years getting raises at 2% or less a year while our labor was turning huge profits for corporate America. That wasn't enough to beat inflation and we had to use more and more credit card debt just to keep up with where we were a year ago. The harder we worked the behinder we got. That's Maggie's Farm.

73> That didn't happen without him having a good mind for business.

Having a good mind for business has exactly zero relevance for being able to run a country.

MOved this to the other thread.

A fairer take—fairer and decidedly left-wing—would be that of the Guardian, who blamed Greenspan, certainly—although very few were standing up and shouting for higher interest rates!—but also President Clinton, for enhancing the "Community Reinvestment Act," which forced banks to lend to marginal cases.

to be really fair, you have to also include the liquidity "crisis" that banks were undergoing. They were too liquid, and were doing anything they could to get money out the door, and into investments. Anything. Perhaps that is because of the surplus under Clinton. It is worth looking into, since many people are going bonkers over the deficit.

The default Republican position of starting more wars is unpopular, so Romney wisely said little. I will say that if last night's Romney had appeared in the Republican primaries, he never would have survived.

And if Romney said what he said in the primaries last night, he will not survive November. Does this man have ANY convictions?

>77 Arctic-Stranger:

Well, right. Between 2000 and 2006 the "global pool of money" available to invest DOUBLED. This was partially American economic growth, but the main one was the "rise of the rest." As NPR's Planet Money put it:

"But right before our story starts, something happened to that global pool of money; it got a lot bigger. In fact, it doubled between 2000 and 2006. In other words, several centuries to get to about 35 trillion, and then over the course of six years, it got another 35 trillion.

And there are a lot of reasons for this growth, but the main one was that a lot of countries that used to be poor, that used to have no real savings, suddenly became rich. Brazil, India, of course China started making things that the rich countries wanted. And those countries banked their profits and looked around the world for ways to invest them.

So suddenly there's twice as much money scouring the world for investments, but the world wasn't ready. There weren't twice as many good investments. And so this global money looked around and found one investment that it liked in particular - the U.S. housing market, and a special bond created by Wall Street." ( http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=90327686 )

This sort of stuff gets ignored by those whose idea of economics is a crude conspiracy theory held together by hatred and slogans, and those who are merely seeking to score some points against one or another administration.

Interesting. I appreciate that this discussion has evolved into some exploration of commonly ignored or misunderstood elements in this economically challenging times. Please, let us continue to eschew "crude conspiracy theories" here.

>75 jjwilson61:
"Having a good mind for business has exactly zero relevance for being able to run a country."

I agree 100% I don't think he would be a good leader.....I think he would be good with finances. His idea of "being good with finances" is condencing the money to the top and showing a tidy profit. This comes at a cost to someone....usually the middle class worker.
He doesn't lead companies either....he moves money around. When he is done there are no debts, only profits...BUT, there is a loss to someone. Just saying that those who are voting for him ought to take that into consideration.

I don't think he would be a good leader.....I think he would be good with finances.

What about Romney makes you think he'd be good with finances? He god his kick start in life by being born wealthy. He used that wealth to buy companies, break them apart, and sell off the pieces. He doesn't seem to have much experience actually managing a failing company and turning it around. No, he left that job to the people who bought the shards of the companies he hacked up. He is, essentially, Gordon Gecko.

Some facts to consider when you think about whether Romney will be better with the finances than Obama:

The federal government has gotten smaller, not bigger, under Obama. There are now fewer Federal employees than there were in 2009.

Obama’s healthcare plan will purportedly save money and provide insurance for more Americans including millions of children. Romney's proposal isn't actually to repeal Obama's health care plan, but to keep the parts that everyone likes and only to repeal the portion that pay for it. That's being good with finances?

Obama put in place fewer regulations on businesses than George Bush did in his first term. If we are measuring business friendliness by the number of regulations one imposes, Obama has been very friendly to business.

We are now drilling more and producing more domestic oil than before Obama became President. Much of the increase has indeed been on public lands not just on private lands. If Romney wants "energy independence" it is hard to see how he would do this in a different way. He says "more coal", but the problem with the coal industry isn't anything the government can do much about. The problem with the coal industry is that most of the easily accessible coal has been mined out during the last hundred plus years.

Obama lowered taxes. He retained the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy and lowered taxes for the middle class as well.

China owns less than 10% of our national debt. Every time Romney talks about "borrowing more money from China" he's either (a) too dim to understand that most of the money the U.S. government borrows does not come from China, or (b) lying to you because he thinks he can get away with it.

The federal government has gotten smaller, not bigger, under Obama. There are now fewer Federal employees than there were in 2009.

This is the equivalent of bayonets and horses. Nobody argues that the threat to the budget is from Federal employees.

At present 31 cents of every dollar we pay in taxes goes to debt and deficit, with no end in sight. Our debt-to-GDP level is now higher than it was after waging a world war against Germany and Japan. Citing a smaller workforce as if that addressed the problem is insincere misdirection.

83: You may think of it as insincere misdirection, but the fact remains that the operations of the Federal government are leaner than it was under Bush, and leaner than it has been for many decades. (To the point where it is often difficult for Federal employees to actually get done what they are mandated by law to do).

Perhaps I was unclear with my point: The problem with the deficit is not the Federal government. It is the ravenous appetite for entitlements, which consume about 60% of the total Federal budget, and which Romney has set off limits for any reductions. Romney is decidedly nonserious about fixing the federal deficit, so citing him as being good for the "finances" is simply ludicrous.

Tim, you say, "At present 31 cents of every dollar we pay in taxes goes to debt and deficit, with no end in sight."

Let's see, Bill Clinton balanced the budget, Obama increased the deficit massively to stop the greatest financial meltdown since the Great Depression, which he did, now who was the guy in between? Reagan ran up the deficit, BushCo nearly destroyed the country economically and ran up the deficit substantially. Between 2001 and 2007 BushCo increased the deficit by $400,000,000,000. In 2008 alone he increased the deficit by more than 100%, remember TARP, that was a BushCo effort. Obama on the other hand, has in his four years reduced the deficit by $300,000,000,000. Federal Deficits by President. Now, want to tell me how Republicans are better on the deficit, again. Remember Dick Cheney? "Reagan proved that deficits don't matter". I can guarantee you if Romney is elected we will pivot from deficits to deficit financed growth as a long term strategy. Obama wants to do this, too, but as an interim measure to get back to near full employment and then start cutting back. This is a first-things-first approach, not unbridled greed.

There is a myth out there that Republicans are better on the economy than Democrats, but Republican economics destroyed the country's economy once, and nearly destroyed it again. Both times the country was saved by Democrats. How this zombie myth keeps coming up is beyond me. I guess more than anything it speaks to the comfort of myths.

As most of you know, I see nothing that recommends the Republican party for anything. Not even dogcatcher.

>82 StormRaven:
First of all....I did not say he would be "better" than Obama......he would be "different" than Obama. He made $230 million somehow and it came from knowing something about how to condense money. He was fortunate enough to come from wealth in that he had the opportunity to be set up to do something he was good at.
Romney would be good at concentrating wealth. His history shows that he is effective when it comes to that. This does not make him a "good" leader, nor does it mean that he is good at looking at the "big picture". It means he looks at a potential to make money, get rid of debt and consolidate.....Isn't that what the Republican party has been doing for a couple of decades ? Romney is really a mascot for big business in America today.

Have to give credit where credit is due I guess......this does NOT mean that what is good for big business is good for the majority of American's. Obviously it is not. Big business has done very well for itself in the past decade while the rest of us are sinking fast.....

#86, You say, "It means he looks at a potential to make money, get rid of debt and consolidate.....Isn't that what the Republican party has been doing for a couple of decades ? "

The answer to this is an unequivocal NO.

See the chart in my post at #85.

Giving what credit where credit is due? Do you know how Romney made his money? He bought companies on margin, leveraged them to the hilt, pulled his money out, and sold the companies off piecemeal for pennies on the dollar. Of course the people who worked at those companies are all just part of the lazy 47%. Who cares about them or their lives.

Oh, and he didn't get his seed money from his family, or the back of the turnip truck, he got it from Central and South American Death Squads. Bain Capital has been an immoral cesspool from the very beginning. As I said Romney is slime.

It means he looks at a potential to make money, get rid of debt and consolidate.....

Actually, Romney usually added debt to the companies he bought. He just broke them up and sold the pieces before the bill came due. Nothing Romney did in business was technically illegal, or even unusual. But none of these experiences seem to indicate that he has any skills at all that would make him suitable for running a government that he cannot leverage, break up, and then sell to the highest bidder piecemeal.

I'd agree with you here. The government workforce is leaner. (We should expect this, however. Technology means the Pentagon doesn't need as many secretaries and the IRS doesn't need as many filing clerks.) That's good but, as you say, entitlements are exploding.

I disagree that Romney has put entitlements off limits. On the contrary, they are somewhat bravely proposing doing something about Social Security, with some sort of voluntary, phased privatization. That's a step in the right direction. That it's not enough, that they obfuscate just what and that they aren't tackling the rest, and that they refuse absolutely all taxes to help pay pay for it is all true. But proposing to do even this has been a huge liability for Romney and Ryan.

The sad truth is that entitlement reform is impossible under the current political configuration. The only acceptable politics today is to commit absolutely and unquestionably to stealing from our children and grandchildren on a massive scale—surely the definition of immoral public policy! We can only hope for a debt shock soon that is large enough to creates the public will to do something about this but small enough to avoid becoming Greece, or worse.

>88 StormRaven:

The people who bought these companies were all dupes, right? Because it's unclear to me how Bain sold companies, or pieces of companies, for a lot of money, systematically setting them up to fail, and yet continued to be able to sell companies.

There's not going to be a debt shock anytime soon. Tim. Foreign countries and businesses are buying American debt hand over fist. We are still the safest place to put ones money in the world. One thing that would help would be for the government to tax the money held for corporations by the Fed. This would get that money into the market place instead of gathering dust, waiting for the confidence fairies to show up.

That it's not enough, that they obfuscate just what and that they aren't tackling the rest, and that they refuse absolutely all taxes to help pay pay for it is all true. But proposing to do even this has been a huge liability for Romney and Ryan.

The thing is, whether being fiscally responsible is a political lodestone or not (and it probably is), they cannot dodge the hard questions on the federal budget, as they have, and then turn around and call themselves "fiscally responsible" in comparison with their competition. Voting for Romney because he's a better option fiscally is simply untenable given his stances (proposing among other things, as Romney has, to build a flotilla of new naval ships is anything but fiscally responsible).

>90 geneg:

No, I agree. We're the cleanest dirty dog.

More info on the debt.

Now, admittedly this is from a "Liberal" organization, but that just means it's closer to reality than Romney/Ryan stuff.

Please tell me how proposing to "privatize" social security does not put the money intended to provide for people when they are old and unable to work at risk in a market which does not always stay on an inflexible, conservative upward trajectory?

When I saw my Retirement Money Melt Away in the big mess early in the 2000s I was very upset. I did however have a small amount with the State government which provides a small pension, and a pension from Social Security. I did not have to jump out of a building window. I was just at the age of retirement. I had no options for recovering from the big stock market decline.

I realize that if I'd been able to leave my money in there, and not use it for housing, clothing, food, gasoline, etc. I might have about the same amount today; but I could not afford that choice.

So.... how would privatizing save me from that mess?

It would make you more responsible with your money.

>87 geneg:
That is what I am saying ! Exactly what I mean. His business went well....did it not ? A growing American business "Bain Capital." Romney may be slime, in your estimation, but he made himself some money and it would benefit those who are going to vote for him due to his "business" experience, AND his success at making himself a pile of money, to take a look at how he did it. That is ALL I am saying. Geez, as much as I dislike Bush for what he did to this country, I can't seem to have the desire rip apart every aspect of his being. He probably was a "fun" guy.....who knows ?
I don't know Romney personally.....all I know is what I see on television. Do not like his business practices because they are indicitive of where our big businesses are going. I UNDERSTAND that he doesn't care about the 47% He has no clue what it is to live like the 47%.......
Once one starts to "hate" there is no reasoning at all going on. IF you want to understand why someone would vote for him than read my posts without the film of anger and hate you've been looking through. What potental voters see is a man who appears to be good with finances. And we are in a financial crisis.

Keep it up and I will be defending the guy for crying out loud. I am not defending him I am trying to state why I think he has potential voters. AND, I do believe he can make money......whether I like how he does it or not.

>91 StormRaven:
"The thing is, whether being fiscally responsible is a political lodestone or not (and it probably is), they cannot dodge the hard questions on the federal budget, as they have, and then turn around and call themselves "fiscally responsible" in comparison with their competition"

They are doing so and getting away with it. This is a close race, not a watershed for Obama. I believe they will desimate the middle class.....another point I was trying to make. It will appear in the short term as doing what they said they would.....balancing the budget.....paying off the debts. Long run, not so good, but Romney doesn't look at long run......he looks at maximizing and condensing profits. He is a 2% er

Alright, Romney certainly has enough defenders already.

"It would make you more responsible with your money."

You are not remembering your psychology 101 class. Very few human beings are willing and able to be completely rational about how they manage their money. Other important factors do play into decisions. People who attempt to be all rational in decision making are usually incapable of doing it. And the opposite can not be easily labelled as "irresponsible".

I did what most people do: I listened to my peers discuss what they were doing, I read the popular press, I watched TV, and I worked my fool tail off as a teacher (way more than 40 hours a week). If I had it to do over, I would not teach. I would not take a job in those parts of the economy which are not valued (teaching, social work, librarians, psychology, child care, elderly care, cooking, cleaning, writing, art, etc. etc. etc.) This is why the middle class is disappearing. There are very few jobs which pay sufficiently to live a moderately comfortable life, and "manage money for retirement rationally".

You don't believe in comparative advantage, I'm guessing.

Sorry to take so long to post in response to this, Tim, but I've been AFK for quite a bit of time.

I believe it's a nice general principle, but the underlying principle bundles quite a few assumptions about identity states and other things (how does unemployment affect the principle? The definitions of the groups themselves are also sort of fuzzy.)

As it stands, wrt to Romney's stance on trade with China, the argument could probably be made that Romney himself isn't all that big on the principle. Then again, given Romney's stance on Bain, one could say that he loves it.

Go figure.

All of that being said, I believe that comparative advantage is correct more often than not.

I'd agree with you here. The government workforce is leaner. (We should expect this, however. Technology means the Pentagon doesn't need as many secretaries and the IRS doesn't need as many filing clerks.) That's good but, as you say, entitlements are exploding.

Given the earlier statement that the number of federal employees is not the big drain on the budget (the debt for the deficit is), then why lower the workforce? When you lay them off, you get more unemployment, more people who are uninsured, fewer tax payers, fewer people buying luxury items, etc.

In other words, stimulus spending is not the devil some made it out to be.

>99 Jesse_wiedinmyer:
Romney has handlers. Just as Bush did. Bush brought the "Born Again" contingent with him. Romney brings his ability to make the top more money. I doubt that Romney knows who Romney is by now.

Little clip, missed at the start of the campaign was of Romney on his plane,, someone asked him what he planned on doing once he arrived at his destination and his answer "Not be myself....that's for sure" Was a telling little clip that aired shortly after he won the primary.

geneg..... Do not get the idea that I am feeling sorry for him..... not the case ! He sold out. Whoever he was....whatever he stood for doesn't matter. He has a super size ego and something that his handlers need to obtain more power. Not much different than G.W.

Guess it does speak for his character or lack there of, when he repeats what ever it is he is told to say for the day.

Please tell me how proposing to "privatize" social security does not put the money intended to provide for people when they are old and unable to work at risk in a market which does not always stay on an inflexible, conservative upward trajectory?

I think that's a fair point. Some points of replies:

1. If your goal is security from the vicissitudes of the private market, there are options. You can buy guaranteed annuities from institutions that are insured and ultimately backed by the full faith and credit of the US government.

2. I wouldn't be against a Federal back-stop on investment losses in private-social-security accounts. Guaranteeing that you won't lose money on funds you invest over 30-50 years will give people peace of mind and, because long-term securities gains are virtually inevitable, involves almost no risk for the US government. (The government would guarantee only the principal or a very slight return.) Such a system would, however, get the US government out of the dangerous business of collecting payroll taxes, making far-future promises it can't deliver, and cutting fat checks to voters.

3. As far as I'm concerned, the principle problem is to get the US government out of the business of providing these entitlements. The political logic of such programs is inexorable. The sun may burn out, but politicians will always support programs that provide money to a high-voting population (old people), funded by making promises that don't come due for decades. As it stands now, social security provides you with security but risks the economic security of future generations.

4. In the short- and medium-term privatizing social security will only make matters worse. The social-security system isn't actually a saving system; past promises are paid by current taxes. In the past these taxes were enough, and the excess went to funding other aspects of our national budget. In recent years we're added the childish fiction that the money isn't going into the general fund absolutely, but that it's being stored as bonds--promises by the government to pay the government some day in the future. In about eight years the balance of flows will switch and payroll taxes won't cover current retirees, so the government will have to start "cashing in" the bonds it wrote to itself, and the program overall will take an ever-larger bite out of federal spending in excess of payroll taxes. Together with medicare, which is even more out of control, and the fact that we are already overspending and have post-WWII levels of debt, the federal budget and our fiscal security in mortal danger.

Allowing people to opt out of payroll taxes will make the situation worse, although, in fairness, it only exposes the bogus nature of the system overall. It would be more honest to raise payroll taxes, force people to keep paying them, and tell them they won't see a dime of that money—so crank up the investing!

Thank you for taking my question seriously. There is so little reasoned, thoughtful discussion these days and I miss it.

I still have some concerns but as I am only just up, at 5 am, and need to do the mundane stuff of life, I will delay my questions and concerns until after I have retired. (no, seriously, I am retired. I'll get back to this sometime later today)