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Thank you UltraBob for teaching me how to post!!

WTG Jessica!!!

“in a round-about way, he is going to increase the total amount of taxes that Americans pay”—I don’t think that was any big secret.  At no time has Obama claimed that he was trying to decrease overall tax revenue.  The national debt just reached 10 trillion dollars for the first time ever, reducing revenue is not going to help with that.

The SEC is a government agency, and I’m sure that they employ a fair number of lawyers.  I don’t know a whole lot about FASB and won’t try to pretend like I do.  we have been going through a systematic process of deregulation and putting the fox in charge of regulating henhouse predatory practices for many years now and this is where it has gotten us.  Even if we say that regulation wouldn’t have stopped us from getting to this point, which I haven’t heard anyone claiming, deregulation has exacerbated things in a big way.  Because there is no regulation there is no requirement for these institutions to report their positions with regard to how many bad derivatives they are holding, and how bad the ones they are holding are.  Not knowing these positions makes it riskier for another financial institution to provide a loan or do a buyout.  Not even your candidate is arguing against regulation anymore.  Though his record and past statements demonstrate that he is almost always in favor of deregulation.

The mortgage companies specifically sought out risky loans so that they would have more to pack into derivatives and sell on and make money on.  There was no desire to help out the common man involved as you suggest, and again your position is not that of the candidate you are trying to argue in favor of.

Without an understanding of the whole subprime mortgage issue and how it led into the financial crisis, and then further how that would lead to widespread problems in the larger economy it is pretty much impossible to grasp what policies may take us out of it and what is unlikely to work.  I wouldn’t claim that I am an expert by any means, I’m certainly not motivated by a core interest in the subject at hand, but I’ve taken the time to go through things and try to get a rudimentary understanding of all of it.  I don’t think McCain has bothered.  He has stated himself that he doesn’t understand economics very well, and he has proved it on many occasions, not least the most recent debate.

On the issue of embryonic stem cell research I’m not sure if you read my argument?  When human life begins has nothing to do with it.  If you believe that these embryonic stem cells are human life then that is fine, for the purposes of this argument anyway, I’ll cede that point to you.  Still, those human lives exist and are not going to become human beings.  Our choice is from there.  Would we rather throw these human lives away or at least have them do some good for the rest of humanity?  To say you don’t support embryonic stem cell research because you don’t believe in destroying human life is a false equivalency.  These human lives will be destroyed, should they be destroyed in vain or be allowed to help us further our knowledge and find a way to help human lives that we have a choice about?

In it’s use in politics, family farm is generally understood to mean small farms.  You can disagree with the terminology and that is fine.  Let’s call them large farms and small farms then.  The small farms in this country need help, that is why, as you said in an earlier post, there aren’t as many of them around any more.

2-8% of all gun crime seems fairly substantial to me.  Handguns have legitimate at least some legitimate civilian uses, more so in rural than in urban areas.  The fatty foods and soda argument is another false equivalence.  If people commonly used fatty foods and soda to intentionally give others diabetes then you’d have a point.

OK, so it sounds as though you are in favor of tighter restrictions on who can purchase a gun.  I’m all for that, and your candidate is not.  You also appear to be in favor of universal background checks prior to gun purchases.  Both McCain and Obama agree with you on that.

I’m not specifically familiar with the Finland case you are talking about here, but there was recently a horrific incident in Akihaba Japan where a man drove a truck into a crowd of people, hopped from the truck and started stabbing.  He also posted what he was going to do on the Internet the day before and in the hours leading up to it.  The problem is that a lot of people write a lot of threats in a lot of places that are not carried out.  You can’t really go investigate everyone who makes an idle Internet threat without increasing the rolls of law enforcement and diverting focus from other important issues.  I know it seems in retrospect like a killer who posted on the Internet what he was going to do, should have been easily apprehended ahead of time, but first it is impossible to know what threats are legitimate and which aren’t, second it is hard to find the threats in the first place, third if no crime has been committed there isn’t much you can do about it.

Obama’s serving on a board with Bill Ayer’s is not equivalent to McCain being investigated and reprimanded by congree for abuse of power on behalf of a friend and campaign contributor.  We are not even on that, the Ayer’s thing is a non-issue and the Keating 5 thing is part of the congressional record.  If it stopped there we could say that Keating 5 is in McCain’s past, but most of his campaign is run by lobbyists.  His campaign manager was being paid up to a couple months ago by Fannie Mae.  Another lobbyist on his campaign (if I remember right, this could possibly have also been Rick Davis) was a registered lobbyist for the nation of Georgia.  No wonder we are all Georgians now.  If we look at his running mate and investigation on her has just come back stating unequivocally that she abused her power in pressuring subordinates to have Trooper Wooten fired because of a personal issue she had with the man.  What is her response, to lie about it.  Blatantly.  She said that the report had cleared her of all charges of abuses of power and unlawful behaviour.  The report did say that she was within her rights to fire the commissioner, but nowhere did it say that it wasn’t an ethical violation and abuse of power for her to pressure him to have Mark Wooten fired.

I’ve noticed that Jessica is the only McCain supporter here who has the guts to stand up for her positions.  As much as I disagree with her I admire her for it.

Heather why are you cheering against your best interests?

Since my statement about the lobbyist for the nation of Georgia was a little light on facts I decided to go back and find a source for you:

Sen. John McCain’s top foreign policy adviser prepped his boss for an April 17 phone call with the president of Georgia and then helped the presumptive Republican presidential nominee prepare a strong statement of support for the fledgling republic.

The day of the call, a lobbying firm partly owned by the adviser, Randy Scheunemann, signed a $200,000 contract to continue providing strategic advice to the Georgian government in Washington.

This has been an interesting series of posts. I rarely get to talk politics with Americans who live there, so thatnks for sharing your views, Jessica. I haven’t yet decided who will get my vote, and I need to study up on each candidates platform (soon!) so it is fascinating to see you both

The subprime crisis is more complex than simply homeowners and mortgage lenders. Mortgages became financial instruments (by lumping them together into a commodity, as UB explained before) that were sold to investment groups and foreign countries. There was duplicity all along the path from down-and-out homebuyer to institutional CDO purchasers. Every step of the journey was enabled someone who wanted something (a house, a profit, an investment) and another party who was willing to be flexible (by bending the rules or the truth) to satisfy that desire. It seems that the world economy fed right into the American dream of owning a home. McMansions and bad mortgages ensued. Can this be regulated? Not likely.

But if the government were to try to regulate this (or anything) they will likely draw upon scores of expert people to develop the legislation. The President, whoever it is, is not going to be personally drafting legislation. His team of experts might, though. And even if the Legislative branch drafts a bill, it gets changed by Congress before it ever gets passed. The office of President is actually not all that powerful. Presidents are influential spokesmen but as the Consitution lays it out they can’t do anything much on their own steam.

I don’t understand why so many people pin everything on the President. I would love to read what you both think about the importance of the President and why he gets credit/blame for so many things that aren’t solely his actions.

Thanks for the comment Kristen.  I think it can absolutely be regulated.  Perhaps it can’t be regulated so that every single instance of wrong doing is covered in the regulation, but it seems that just a little bit of openness, IOW a requirement that the organizations report what they are doing in a more detailed manner, would have prevented a lot of this. 

I don’t think anyone here is pinning everything on the President, but it IS an extremely important position, especially this term.  First Bush has usurped more power than he is actually allowed under the constitution through his signing statements (by refusing to hold impeachment hearings the democratic congress is failing in their duties), the presidential candidate this time will most likely appoint at least one supreme court justice, he has veto power, he is in charge of the military, and he has control over the details and priorities of federal law enforcement where there is any legislative or judicial wiggle room.

Thanks for all the great comments and arguments to my position. I’m going to reply to this in the morning when I actually have some brain power…

I don’t think that increasing taxes is going to help reduce the national debt. Obama is planning to increase overall taxes, so why are people in the media portraying him as a major tax-reducer when he really isn’t? The only thing that will reduce the national debt is to take control of spending. Obama really isn’t talking much about reducing spending, which I’m sure you will all agree with me on. However, neither candidate specifically addresses the issue of how to reduce the national debt.

I’m sure the SEC and FASB employ lawyers, but their purpose is to create regulation on businesses and that is the only thing that they do. There will not be any special interest groups or lobbyists’ getting in on the action like what happens so often in politics. The SEC and FASB are the epitome of bi-partisanship when it comes to regulation because there are no political party distinctions in those organizations. Let’s face it, it is highly unlikely that democrats and republicans will agree on regulation that is best for the nation. Some regulation is necessary. I just think that it needs to come from the SEC and FASB.

I’d have to agree with Kristen’s argument about the mortgage companies. It was everybody being selfish. Not just the corporations on Wall Street. I am still going to stick to my position that if the people on “main street” were more knowledgeable about credit, then we wouldn’t have such a huge mess. Educating high schools students about personal finance is essential.

I don’t agree with your argument that we should do something with those embryos to improve other human lives. It may be better than just destroying them without a purpose, but somewhere there will be companies that create embryos for the sole purpose of stem cell research/use. It would require copious amounts of regulation to prevent that, and I don’t think that it would be completely affective. In addition, if we allow the research to happen, then in the future people will push to have embryos created solely for medicinal purposes. In my opinion, nothing good can come from embryonic stem cell research. People may have improved lives because of it, but it is not worth it in the terms of how much human life will be destroyed. I also disagree with this statement that you made: “find a way to help human lives that we have a choice about.”
We have a choice about all human lives; even the ones that are still embryos.

The reason that small farms need help is because they lack the efficiency that the larger farms have, and in the free market efficiency is rewarded. Small farms will always be in need of help. I’d rather spend the money on other issues than providing subsidies for small farms. If the owners of small farms want to remain in business, they will have to grow. Growth is very possible. I can tell you about people I know who have built up a large farming business from nothing. All it takes is hard work.

I’m not sure what all the restrictions are on gun purchases, and I know that we already have background checks. I just think that mental illnesses need to be reported on the background checks even if the person was never hospitalized because of their mental illness. I agree that it would be hard to find every person who had made threats on the internet, but the school shooter in Finland had been in police custody because of his violent behavior.

My argument about banning sugary and fatty foods was from the perspective of banning the substance/item that causes the most deaths. I don’t think that being responsible for 2-8% of gun crimes is substantial enough to warrant banning assault weapons. I’m all for letting people own whatever guns they want. I agree that there is no practical purpose that I can see for owning assault weapons. However, there are a lot of things that I see no practical purpose for owning and yet people own them.

McCain was investigated by a congressional committee, and was acquitted of the charges. The only thing they found was poor judgment. That is from the report made by the committee. What I would really like to know is how Bill Ayers was appointed to a school board in light of his terrorist activities. If you think that hanging out with Bill Ayers is a non-issue, then what do you think about Obama being member of a church whose pastor made anti-American comments and strongly supports a man who called Judaism a “gutter religion” and said that Hitler was a great man. Jeremiah Wright has said that America deserved 9/11 and said that African-Americans should say “God #### America” instead of “God bless America.” Wright also gave a lifetime achievement award to Louis Farrakhan who is the man who made the anti-Jewish comments. Farrakhan also supported Mugabe when he took control over the farms owned by whites in Zimbabwe. Mugabe completely destroyed the farming industry and the entire country of Zimbabwe, and Farrakhan supports him in it, and then Wright gives Farrakhan a lifetime achievement award. I don’t think that’s a non-issue. You can say that Obama denounced both Wright and Farrakhan, but Obama was a member of Wright’s church for twenty years. He and Michelle were married by Wright, and Wright baptized their daughters. Obama even prayed privately with Wright before announcing his candidacy for President. Obama can play down his relationship with Wright all he wants, but if he really disagreed with Wright, he should not have spent the last twenty years as a member of his church. Obama only denounced Wright because it was politically expedient to do so.

As for the allegations against Sarah Palin, Trooper Wooten poached moose, tasered Palin’s eleven year old nephew, drove his patrol car while drunk, and threatened to kill Palin’s family. I think that those are justifiable reasons to try to get a trooper fired. The trooper was only given a few days suspension for his actions. I can understand why the Palins were frustrated because the police commissioner did not seem to be taking them really seriously. The report found that Sarah Palin was justified in firing the commissioner, but should not have pressured the commissioner to fire the trooper. It makes me wonder, if the trooper had not been married to Sarah Palin’s sister, would this have still been unethical?

Chenoa said I should comment and I always do as I am told. I’m with Bob on most of this, and I agree that we can of course agree to disagree.

The whole culture of personal attacks as legitimate political discourse is disheartening to me. That said, on the Ayers and Wright topics, I don’t think anyone really wants to have everything their pastor, preacher, friends or acquaintances say or do attributed to them. I know I don’t. Neither Wright nor Ayers are employed by Obama and the amount of attention they have received seems digressionary at best.

As to Palin’s “troopergate”, if this had not been her ex-brother in-law, would she have even cared seems the more appropriate question and the one that makes it an abuse of power issue in the first place.

I am refraining from commenting on Jessica’s writings because although I commend her for taking up the torch and putting her views out there I just have fundamental disagreements with many of her positions.  I am just chiming in here to thank Mike for the excellent comment and voice my agreement that the personal attacks are kidnapping the legitimate political discourse.

I do think that personal attacks should not be made in a political race, and I agree with Mike that Obama and McCain are not responsible for the statements that their friends and acquaintances make. However, Wright has made some really horrific comments and Obama was a member of his church for twenty years. The types of statements that Wright was making is not something that you can just brush off, and Obama, by remaining a member of Wright’s church, supports them. If Obama disagreed with Wright, he should have left the church earlier.

No it doesn’t.  How is it that you agree with Mike and then immediately come to the opposite conclusion?  I have many friends, professors, and mentors that have beliefs that differ from mine.  I have a future sister-in-law who espouses beliefs very different than mine.  I don’t disassociate from those people because I find worth in those people apart from our disagreements.  I don’t feel that I have to distance myself from everyone who has contrary beliefs.  Insulating yourself from anyone who disagrees with you does not lead to a very rounded person.  Obama loved his pastor’s spirituality and his opinions on some issues.  He disagreed on the radical positions you are referring to.  It is that simple, it isn’t all or nothing.  It is foolish to advance an absolutist position based on a person’s associations.  Palin’s husband advocated Alaskan independence, and leaving the U.S. in his participation in the Alaskan Independence Party. Sarah married him, does that make her a secessionist?  She certainly knew about it for years, should she have divorced him?  Jesus associated with prostitutes, tax collectors, criminals, and the outcasts of society.  Does that mean he shared their values?  I think we can all see the absurdity of these conclusions.  Your associations are not you.

Well put, John. Your associations are not you.

This is the problem with blogs and commenting thereon, first you think it is so innocent and the next thing you know it consumes all your time, you lose your license and job because you forget to pay your dues, your wife thinks you are looking at free internet porn all the time, your daughter thinks your the random homeless guy who drops in occasionally because of your poor personal hygiene and you can no longer go outside because you have developed hyper-solar sensitivity (wait, my laptop has a battery and I am now outside so scratch the last one).

For the sake of my real life I will be brief. I like Obama more than any politician in quite some time because he comes out and says Republican laissez-faire, trickle down economic just don’t “work”. Ok they work if insuring that the gap between the top 1% and the rest of the population in income and wealth distribution continues to grow at a steady and unabated pace regardless of general economic circumstances, but to me that is “not working”. And I do not want to hear about any of that “all boats rising” nonsense, the middle and lower class have been bailing water fast for the last 30 years in terms of real income and any gains have been due to increases in women joining the work force according to majority of the research on the topic I have seen. The last 30 years is significant because trickle-down economic philosophy has dominated for about that long now. And, as a pre-emptive strike, I also do not want to hear anything about Pres. Clinton here because while he may have been a bit more moderate in his approach he pretty much held the line. It could have had something to do with the Congress he was dealing with but, I think Greenspan said that Clinton was the best Republican president we have had in a long time when it came to economic policy, and if he did not say that he should have.

p.s. I will admit that the current economic crisis has made it more “acceptable” for Obama to state his economic position, but nonetheless, he should get credit for actually stating it.

Thanks John and Mike for your comments.  They were very well put and non-argumentative.  It is important that we have a disagreement and not an argument here I think, and that is why I hadn’t commented thus far.  Frankly, Jessica, your insinuation that the only legitimate way to run a farm is to make it into a large corporate farm, and your further (and I’m sure unintentional) insinuation that our family didn’t work hard on our farm really offended me.  It took me some time to calm things down and bring my emotions in line with my intellectual understanding that you didn’t mean those things personally.  I still disagree strongly, but I’m not taking it personally.

Now to quickly address the argument point by point, where it hasn’t yet been amply addressed:

Regarding taxes, I don’t think anyone is claiming that Barack is going to reduce taxes overall.  The claim, and it is a true one, is that he will reduce taxes for those who need the break, and reverse the tax breaks and increase taxes on those who can afford it.  Joe Biden was ridiculed in the media for calling paying higher taxes a patriotic act, but I agree with him, if you live in a country that provides the opportunity-rich environment that allowed you to become a financial success, then you have a patriotic duty to give back so that similar opportunities will be available to your fellow citizens.

I don’t think Kristen was arguing that the borrowers are equally culpable as the lenders and the groups higher up in the chain trading in derivatives.  She was saying that greed up and down the line is what has enabled this to happen.  Of course that is true.  I think it is folly however to say that because someone would like to believe that they have the financial wherewithal to buy a house that they share equal guilt with the lender who ruins the borrower so that he’ll have more loans to sell on for a profit.

The argument that assault weapons shouldn’t be banned because they only make up 2-8% of gun crime is putting the cart before the horse.  The issue in banning something isn’t only what harm does it cause, you also must consider what legitimate uses it can be put toward.  You have already conceded that assault weapons have no legitimate uses in the civilian arena.  Therefore, what do we lose in banning assault rifles?  We lose 2-8% of gun crime.  We gain safer streets.  If you are sincere in your belief that every human right is sacred as you said in your stance on abortion, and I believe you, then you will obviously concede that saving those human lives that would otherwise be killed by assault weapons is a very important goal.

My argument with regard to the Keating 5 is that McCain seems to still be surrounded with lobbyists who’s interests he forwards whenever he can.  His campaign chairman was chief lobbyist for Fannie Mae and continued to receive payments from them up to a month ago.  His top foreign policy advisor was on the payroll of the nation of Georgia, so McCain came out hawkishly for Georgia even though it undermined the diplomatic efforts underway by the government.

Finally on TrooperGate, Palin has demonstrated an absolute willingness to lie about the findings of the investigation against her, her position on the “bridge to nowhere”, and her reforms in the Alaska Statehouse.  Forgive me if I don’t with 100% credulity believe all her allegations about Trooper Wooten.  Even if the allegations are all true, she is in a position of trust and is not allowed to violate that trust for a personal vendetta, moral as it may be.  Her family has every right to gather evidence of these crimes and pursue civil litigation and/or turn evidence over to the police that may lead to discipline or criminal charges.  She does not have the right to take advantage of her position to wield power that an ordinary civilian wouldn’t have in this kind of case.

Jessica,

I really think you should read the transcript of Colin Powell’s explanation for why he is offering his endorsement for Obama. 

http://74.125.95.104/search?q=cache:teb-ASlXyhwJ:www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27266223/+Colin+Powell+endorsement+transcript&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=2&gl=us

I also took offense to the farm comments, but chose not to take them personally.  For the most part, I agree with Jessica’s views though.

I mean, I agree with most of her views, besides the comments about the farms.  Just wanted to clarify.

Heather, thanks for commenting.  Would you care to be more specific about what you agree with?  What would it take to change your mind on who to vote for?

This may be a bit wider than our main content column, but thought it would be worthwhile to put here so that anyone who cares to can review a video of Colin Powells remarks.

I lost a great deal of respect for Colin Powell as he was Bush’s point man for selling the war.  I would guess that those reservations against him don’t apply for those of you in support of Bush, McCain, and the war.  I think his argument here is well thought out and well stated, and would hope you would give it some thought.