Some shorts work better than others.
Russia push for rouble trading no cure for short-term
Reuters, Friday November 14 2008
By Toni Vorobyova and Dmitry Zhdannikov Guardian
MOSCOW, Nov 14 (Reuters) - Russia's campaign to do more international trade in roubles, spurred by persistent pressure on its currency, is likely to prove a long haul with the chances slim of persuading any major players to sign up soon. Moscow spent tens of billions of its hard currency reserves in recent weeks to defend the rouble from falling oil and stock prices and a broad-based flight from emerging markets, prompting policymakers to cast around for new ideas.(Additional reporting by Gleb Bryanski; writing by Toni Vorobyova; editing by Patrick Graham)
Belarus on Tuesday pledged to discuss settling oil and gas trades with Russia in roubles, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin talked about the possibility of bilateral trade with China in national currencies, and the use of the rouble is expected to be discussed at the G20 meeting at the weekend.
"We need to take practical steps to strengthen the role of the rouble as a currency for international settlements. And to move to settlement in roubles ... for oil and gas," President Dmitry Medvedev said in an address to parliament last week. The world's second largest oil exporter has accumulated reserves of nearly $600 billion during an oil and gas boom, but those reserves have fallen by a fifth in the last three months and falling oil prices may make them hard to replenish.
For the trade scheme to help, however, it will need bigger buyers of the rouble than Belarus and Kazakhstan, who account for 4.9 percent and 3.4 percent of Russia's exports respectively. Analysts say in the short-term further devaluations of the rouble are likely after the central bank gave in and let the currency ease 1 percent this week.
"It (rouble-denominated trade) would be a good idea if it could be realised, especially because now there is a lot of concern in the world about the stability of the dollar," said Natalya Orlova, chief economist at Alfa Bank. "But we don't have sufficiently large political partners who would agree to trade in roubles, and hold roubles as a reserve currency. Those who would agree, like Belarus, are too small."
The European Union is Russia's largest trade partner. But Russia's relations with the West have been soured by a summer war with Georgia, and some Western countries are already worried about Russia's dominance in oil and gas which could potentially make them even less keen to switch to roubles.
Most other energy producers are sticking with the dollar and the status quo, though Iran has said it gets most of its oil income in euros and yen, and Venezuela has also opened some oil contracts in euros during the dollar's fall earlier this year.
COMPANIES PRESSURED
Russia's resource-dependent economy means the rouble's fortunes are closely tied with those of the oil price, potentially a big negative for its aspirations as an international currency. "Our trading partners should understand what the rouble is and what its risks are," said Stanislav Ponomarenko, head of Russia research at ING.
On the flip side, oil and gas also give Russia some muscle, and there are signs that the state is putting pressure on local companies to boost the role of the rouble.
"You cannot imagine how much pressure we have been facing recently to switch to roubles. We are being told it must happen at least with all of our term deals with foreign majors," said a trader with a major Russian oil firm.
"The first step will be with the neighbours, at least Belarus and Kazakhstan. That could happen as soon as next year."
Ironically, doing trades in roubles could make life harder for the companies which have to pay back large chunks of dollar-denominated debt and are unable to refinance it abroad due to the global credit crunch.
Oil firms also traditionally push the government toward weakening the rouble as the biggest chunk of their costs is home-based while revenues come in hard currency. In the short-term, the Belarus news seemed to have little impact on the rouble, which traded around 30.70 versus the basket seen as the central bank's new support level.
Even if Russia succeeds in persuading some partners to trade in roubles, analysts said this may not be enough to over-ride downward pressure on the currency.
"I think that the drivers of the rouble -- oil and capital flows -- will not change, even if the denomination of some of the flow is changed" said Roderick Ngotho, FX strategist at UBS, which does not rule out a 20 percent depreciation of the rouble against the basket in the next 12 months.
A daughter of Margaretta Large Harrison and her first husband, William Wonderly Fitler, Jr., an heir to a cordage fortune, Rockefeller is known by her nickname, "Happy", given to her for her childhood disposition. She is a great-great-granddaughter of Union general George Gordon Meade, the commander at the Battle of Gettysburg.
ReplyDeleteWith a name like that, and that background, you can't go wrong, and your husband will certainly die happy.
'Happy' Rockefeller
William Wonderly Fitler, Jr.
ReplyDeleteThat's, actually, one hell of a good name.
Beat's 'bob', that's for damn sure.
I'm not sure how the rouble can get any shorter than that, deuce, but the rouble seems to falling like the leaves on our November trees, and the price of Russian mail order brides is in the tank.
ReplyDeleteThe road to ruin is paved with roubles, over rubble.
ReplyDeleteI see you're thinking about me. Pictures are a far cry from videos.
ReplyDeleteHer husband, Vice President and one of the financial elites of the world.
ReplyDeletePromoter of a One World agenda.
Both members of the hereditory power elite.
The era of oil is coming to an end. And so is the era of the petro dollar.
ReplyDeleteLooking For The First Chapter of 'A Farewell To Arms' Which Is Absolutely Beautiful, But Hard To Find
ReplyDelete"It (rouble-denominated trade) would be a good idea if it could be realised, especially because now there is a lot of concern in the world about the stability of the dollar," said Natalya Orlova, chief economist at Alfa Bank.
ReplyDeleteIsn't that special. Here's what the Rubble has been doing against the Dollar the last three months, but they're talking shit about the Dollar?
"But we don't have sufficiently large political partners who would agree to trade in roubles, and hold roubles as a reserve currency. Those who would agree, like Belarus, are too small."
Maybe they can take over all of Georgia, and get them to use rubbles as money instead of lining their coats for insulation.
The answer is, the Hemingway family had a good lawyer, and knew to hide their income.
ReplyDeleteMetuselah: The era of oil is coming to an end. And so is the era of the petro dollar.
ReplyDeleteGas is $1.99 at ARCO in Poulsbo, in the state with the highest gas taxes in the nation. So I think the era of being fucked up the ass by big oil is over.
A Farewell to Arms:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.mininova.org/tor/910894
So I think the era of being fucked up the ass by big oil is over.
ReplyDelete==
You haven't a clue.
Mat, can you post the first chapter of 'A Farewell To Arms' for us?
ReplyDeleteIt's only about a page and a half long.
I just don't know how to do it.
But, it really is beautiful.
I'd appreciate.
Gas prices are going back up, and soon.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Mat on that.
Both members of the hereditory power elite.
ReplyDeleteAh, hell Rat, everybody dies, and some in sordid circumstances.
It's not about that, at all.
Bobal: Gas prices are going back up, and soon.
ReplyDeleteThey're going up, but not soon, and not to $4 a gallon. Because that was a bubble. Right now the economy is in reverse and it is chewing up wealth like a big shredder, and that big party of hedge funds who needed a place for their cash to land? They don't have the cash anymore.
The Rockefellers actually brought a lot of benefit to America, and the world at large.
ReplyDeleteI don't think we should ass them on that subject.
But it is kind of funny the old guy died in odd circumstances.
I think it is good to laugh about that.
But, we need some oil.
Or, some nuclear energy.
And, I don't think we should get in there and hammer the people that can actually do something about it.
There is no 'hereditary elite'.
ReplyDeleteIt's a myth, wrongly understood.
The 'heredity elite' are just a bunch of folks that have money than you, for a time, and then die.
ReplyDeleteA FAREWELL TO ARMS
ReplyDeleteBOOK ONE
1
In the late summer of that year we lived in a house in a village that looked across the river and the plain to the mountains. In the bed of the river there were pebbles and boulders, dry and white in the sun, and the water was clear and swiftly moving and blue in the channels. Troops went by the house and down the road and the dust they raised powdered the leaves of the trees. The trunks of the trees too were dusty and the leaves fell early that year and we saw the troops marching along the road and the dust rising and leaves, stirred by the breeze, falling and the soldiers marching and afterward the road bare and white except for the leaves.
The plain was rich with crops; there were many orchards of fruit trees and beyond the plain the mountains were brown and bare. There was fighting in the mountains and at night we could see the flashes from the artillery. In the dark it was like summer lightning,but the nights were cool and there was not the feeling of a storm coming.
Sometimes in the dark we heard the troops marching under the window and guns going past pulled by motor-tractors. There was much traffic at night and many mules on the roads with boxes of ammunition on each side of their pack-saddles and gray motor trucks that carried men, and other trucks with loads covered with canvas that moved slower in the traffic. There were big guns too that passed in the day drawn by tractors, the long barrels of the guns covered with green branches and green leafy branches and vines laid over the tractors. To the north we could look across a valley and see a forest of chestnut trees and behind it another mountain on this side of the river. There was fighting for that mountain too, but it was not successful, and in the fall when the rains came the leaves all fell from the chestnut trees and the branches were bare and the trunks black with rain. The vineyards were thin and bare-branched too and all the country wet and brown and dead with the autumn. There were mists over the river and clouds on the mountain and the trucks splashed mud on the road and the troops were muddy and wet in their capes; their rifles were wet and under their capes the two leather cartridge-boxes on the front of the belts, gray leather boxes heavy with the packs of clips of thin, long 6.5 mm. cartridges, bulged forward under the capes so that the men, passing on the road, marched as though they were six months gone with child.
There were small gray motor cars that passed going very fast; usually there was an officer on the seat with the driver and more officers in the back seat. They splashed more mud than the camions even and if one of the officers in the back was very small and sitting between two generals, he himself so small that you could not see his face but only the top of his cap and his narrow back, and if the car went especially fast it was probably the King. He lived in Udine and came out in this way nearly every day to see how things were going, and things went very badly.
At the start of the winter came the permanent rain and with the rain came the cholera. But it was checked and in the end only seven thousand died of it in the army.
The 'hereditory elite' out here were the 'head man' and his family, living along the rivers, before we came.
ReplyDeleteUp in my part of the country, none of my ancestors have ever found an arrowhead. I've never found.
When Lewis and Clark came back up the river, they met old what's his name, with a necklace of Shoshoni scalps aroug his neck.
He was the 'headman' here, for a while.
How much of this makes economic sense and how much of it is simply Russian geopolitical maneuvering? While reading the article, my thought was "peak oil." If oil is running out as Mattie, Rufus and others believe, then Putin and company are only dreaming of reestablishing themselves as the counterbalance to the US empire. Peak oil is like global warming. Those that believe in it, believe ardently. The Russians certainly do not act as if they believe their oil is running out. Maybe, like Tony Sopranos boys, they just can't help themselves.
ReplyDeleteYes, that is beautiful,
ReplyDeleteMat, thank you.
I'm not even going ask how you do it, cause I probalby couldn't understand.
Which river, Bob? Snake?
ReplyDeleteIt is not always money, bobal, that puts them in the elitist crew.
ReplyDeleteJFKerry is not amongst the spuer-rich, nor were the Bush family.
The folks that those fellows worked for, like Obama worked for Lester Crown, are the moneymen, but not always the elite.
The Princes of Power, but they don't wear the crown.
They splashed more mud than the camions even and if one of the officers in the back was very small and sitting between two generals, he himself so small that you could not see his face but only the top of his cap and his narrow back, and if the car went especially fast it was probably the King.
ReplyDeleteSocieties can break down.
Zaire, with permafrost.
ReplyDeleteHow old is their nuke arsenal now?
Going, going .....
Medvedev pointed on Friday to the lucrative trade between the EU and Russia, worth hundreds of billions of euros annually.
ReplyDelete"We should think of this when we make decisions on all cooperation," he said.
The EU-Russia talks, launched in 2007, aim for an agreement that would increase economic integration, tighten relations on justice and security and boost cooperation in education and science. U.S. diplomats warned European officials that the resumed talks could undermine Western attempts to rein in the Kremlin's aggressive foreign policy.
Shield Won't Help Security
NP, Bob. Send me an email and I'll mail you the whole Hemingway collection. You'll need MS Reader to read the files.
ReplyDeleteWhich river, Bob? Snake?
ReplyDeleteThat would have been around Asotin, on the Snake, I think Sam.
They used to fight with the Blackfoot, over in Montana, when they invaded their buffalo grounds, for some buffalo.
And the Indians to the south.
There were two languages, but I can never get them right in mind. Sahaptin and something else. Salish, maybe. There is a Japanese guy here who is trying to keep the old Nez Perce language alive. He has created a dictionary.
The old Indian languages had a lot of wawa, waawaa sounds.
Up on the Snake there are some really good petroglyphs, and they look much like the ones in Africa, or old Europe, or anywhere else.
Walla Walla = water water in the old langauge, for instance.
ReplyDeleteT -:23
ReplyDeleteIf the Russians trade in rubles what will happen to $$$?
ReplyDeleteT -:19
ReplyDeleteThere's some cool petroglyphs on the cliffside near Vantage, also. Just below Ginkgo.
T -:18
ReplyDeletehttp://www.foxnews.com/video2/live.html?chanId=5
ReplyDeleteBuffalo Eddy Petroglyphs
ReplyDeleteDead link.
ReplyDeleteT -:13:45
ReplyDeleteI'll try again.
ReplyDeleteBuffalo Eddy Petroglyphs
T -:09
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteOr the aliens.
ReplyDeleteThere, and, if you look really closely you will see a circle, surrounded by another circle, and and a circle after that.
ReplyDeleteI am not certain what this means, but I think it might be the beginning of an understanding of the eternal.
Trying to grasp it, which is damned hard to do.
There are also dotted lines going out, dotted lines going out, which may be just the sign of time, I don't really know.
There are more to these petroglyphs than is geneally know.
Read Joseph
Campbell.
He thought, for instance, that they might, underline might, which he insisted on, he thought they might have had a little deeper understanding of reality than our comsumer soceiety.
1 ruble = 4 US cents
ReplyDeletePresident Bush still has two months in office, and you are gloating that he has left the cupboards bare for Obama?
ReplyDeleteSorry, didn't mean to come across as gloating. Actually I was thinking that a left leaning, black man finally gets elected President and the country can't afford the long sought redistributionist policies.
There will be plenty of blame and recrimination.
There were mists over the river and clouds on the mountain and the trucks splashed mud on the road and the troops were muddy and wet in their capes; their rifles were wet and under their capes the two leather cartridge-boxes on the front of the belts, gray leather boxes heavy with the packs of clips of thin, long 6.5 mm. cartridges, bulged forward under the capes so that the men, passing on the road, marched as though they were six months gone with child..
ReplyDeleteThank you, Mat.
We can't afford it whit, it's all going to come down.
ReplyDeleteIt sad, but true.
What will happen next, I have no idea.
Over at BC:
ReplyDeleteNov 14, 2008 - 4:19 pm
96. Eggplant:
Peterike said:
“The MSM is not a business, which is to say it is not run like one. Ideology clearly rules over business practices…. They see it, they know it, they don’t care.”
They don’t care because the people paying their bills aren’t in it for the money. The puppet master behind the curtain is keeping the MSM alive to pursue a political agenda. Who is the puppet master?
==
I guess they missed the oil and car ads.
What will happen next, I have no idea.
ReplyDelete==
The world's economy will decouple from the dollar. Probably switch to a BRICplus currency.
Drudge has a story on the State of Ohio's check into citizen Joe the Plumber. Get on the wrong radar and the States instruments "light up". Scary stuff.
ReplyDeleteAlso on Drudge, Mayors of Philadelphia and Phoenix want a bailout.
Scathing. Hank Paulsen, Naked Emperor by Michelle Malkin.
ReplyDeleteAmerican Jews need to realize that the threat to Israel is coming from the left.
ReplyDeleteFrom the Telegraph.co.uk
Row over British plan for labelling 'illegal' Israeli vegetables
The new labelling scheme has been proposed by Britain to put pressure on Israel to fulfil a broken promise to stop developing settlements on occupied Palestinian land.
Consumers in supermarkets across the EU would be made aware their purchases were giving financial support to the Israeli occupation.
Israel's policy of building Jewish communities on the occupied West Bank is illegal under international law.
The plan has echoes of the labelling system for South African fruit and vegetables during apartheid which led some British consumers to deliberately shun produce from white-run South Africa
Isn't there a movement in the US to label food's origins as well? Ya know so's you can buy American instead of Mexican, or, god forbid, chinese.
ReplyDeleteFood origins are already labeled here in many grocery stores but this is not the same.
ReplyDeleteThe U.S. Dollar will reign "Supreme." In times of crisis we move in behind the "Strong" Warrior," not the weak one.
ReplyDeleteBasically, the rest of the world is shipping "Dollars by the Boatload" into U.S. Treasuries for "Safety." At a rate of interest of, essentially, zero.
The U.S. is way, way ahead of any other "Major" country in biofuels. This is "big-time" important at a time when world oil production is at "Plateau/Peak."
You want to see what ethanol is "doing?" Look at the price of Diesel, compared to Gasoline.
From, roughly, parity, to "Plus" a Buck.
Guess which fuel on which the Euros, increasingly, run their cars. They're screwed.
The Mitsubishi iMiEV
ReplyDeletehttp://www.hybridcars.com/electric-cars/miitsubishi-all-electric-car-2010-imiev.html
kewl!
Salmon carcass in Battle Creek estimated at 85 pounds
ReplyDeleteBy Dylan Darling (Contact)
Tuesday, November 4, 2008
It sounds like a typical fish story.
But the state scientists who found an estimated 85-pound chinook salmon have the photos to support their whopper.
.
.
http://www.redding.com/news/2008/nov/04/07/
Chronicling the Decline of Newspapers and the Rebirth of Journalism:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.newspaperdeathwatch.com
I hope Rufus is right, but out here
ReplyDeletethe Price Of Wheat At Portland Isn't That Great
This is nothing new, we've always had wheat prices at about break even. We did have that one big run up, but it didn't last.
That's the kind of 'fish story' my uncle might tell, Mat.
ReplyDeleteWe also have The Great Palouse Earthworm, which gives off a scent like a lily, and will spit at you:)
From five feet down.
We also have The Great Palouse Earthworm, which gives off a scent like a lily, and will spit at you:)
ReplyDelete==
Those worms better watch out, I spit back. :)
My uncle might have been the original 'fish meister' on stories like that. Even in the day without the digital camera, he was able to place a fish by the fly rod and a measuring stick in such a manner to turn a 12" incher into the biggest catch you ever saw.
ReplyDeleteI'm not buying it.
Particularily since it is dead, and stinking. :)
ReplyDelete85 pound chinook, typical Nez Perce Casino story.
ReplyDeleteSelll that to the Arabs, Mat.
Doug Killam, associate fisheries biologist in the state Department of Fish and Game's Red Bluff office, holds up a massive Chinook salmon carcass found late last week on Battle Creek near Anderson. DFG scientists estimate the fish weighed 85 pounds dead, and even more when it was alive. Courtesy of the California Department of Fish and Game.
ReplyDeleteCourtesy of the California Department of Fish and Game.
ReplyDelete==
Wasn't that already sold to the arabs? Or was it the Gambinos.
Sounds like another myth from The Idaho Fish and Game Department, if you ask me.
ReplyDeleteThe only Department with more pickup trucks than employees.
We actually had more pickup trucks than employees.
ReplyDeleteI'm not making that up.
We actually had more pickup trucks than employees.
ReplyDeleteNothin' wrong with that, Bob. It's the way of the west. Shudda had a trailbike or quad-runner for every pickup, too.
Law enforcement like their toys.
weighed 85 pounds dead, and even more when it was alive.
ReplyDeleteWell, hell, Mat, you wouldn't expect it to gain weight once it had died!
That would be like peddling a bike downhill to get energy.
:)
.
ReplyDelete.
Like co-dependent substance abusers, the question for the AP and its members is who needs the other more. Alan Mutter published a cogent analysis last month concluding that the AP would have a hard time getting by without its largest members. Many newspapers are experimenting with innovative arrangements for sharing stories that end-run the wire, perhaps in preparation for an AP-less existence. Meanwhile, there are reports that the AP is shoring up its broadcast and Internet businesses in case its newspaper members start quitting en masse.
One of the big problems facing newspapers is that information is becoming free. It’s not surprising that they might be wondering why they still need to pay the AP so much to get it.
.
.
http://www.newspaperdeathwatch.com/page/4/
Well, hell, Mat, you wouldn't expect it to gain weight once it had died!
ReplyDelete==
It's a fish. It could become hydrated.
g'Nite Bob.
ReplyDeleteGot an early date to keep tomorrow.
Good night, Mat, teller of big fish stories.
ReplyDeleteDamn! That is one phyne ass!
ReplyDeleteTalk about fish stories, look what that fish net caught.
ReplyDeleteThe Israel and England story fits Mr Olmert's scenario for painting Israel a racial pariah, like South Africa was.
ReplyDeleteHe painted the scenario, well, and was derided for it amongst many posters, here, there, everywhere... But now, the evidence is mounting that he was correct in his assessment of that particular reality.
Even South Africa, rich in natural resources, could not buck the tide of economic boycott that ensued after the consumers of the world rejected South African participation in the global marketplace, because of their percieved racism.
ReplyDeleteBoycotts are such irrational tools of political persuasion. They have little to no effect, until they do.
We always fish for the proper angle and perspective of a story. We may not always get them first, Butt we always get to the bottom of the facts.
ReplyDeleteWe know an ass when we see one at the EB.
ReplyDeleteBy the way, I posted this one, well, poster or screen saver size, only a double click away.
ReplyDeleteCHANGING OF THE GUARD
ReplyDelete'Constitutional crisis' looming over Obama's birth location
Alan Keyes lawsuit warns America may see 'usurper' in Oval Office
Posted: November 14, 2008
8:40 pm Eastern
By Bob Unruh
© 2008 WorldNetDaily
Alan Keyes
The California secretary of state should refuse to allow the state's 55 Electoral College votes to be cast in the 2008 presidential election until President-elect Barack Obama verifies his eligibility to hold the office, alleges a California court petition filed on behalf of former presidential candidate Alan Keyes and others.
The legal action today is just the latest is a series of challenges, some of which have gone as high as the U.S. Supreme Court, over the issue of Obama's status as a "natural-born citizen," a requirement set by the U.S. Constitution.
WND senior reporter Jerome Corsi even traveled to Kenya and Hawaii prior to the election to investigate issues surrounding Obama's birth. But his research and discoveries only raised more questions.
The biggest question is why Obama, if a Hawaii birth certificate exists, simply hasn't ordered it made available to settle the rumors.
(Story continues below)
The governor's office in Hawaii said there is a valid certificate but rejected requests for access and left ambiguous its origin: Does the certificate on file with the Department of Health indicate a Hawaii birth or was it generated after the Obama family registered a Kenyan birth in Hawaii?
Crisis?
or was it generated after the Obama family registered a Kenyan birth in Hawaii?
ReplyDeleteWhich is what I think happened. I can well imagine Obama's mother registering him somehow in Hawaii.
What I can't understand is why Obama wouldn't just put the documents on the table. If he doesn't have anything to hide.
Which he does.
We have a perfect usurper and shyster as President, I think.
There's a conspiracy theory, for you, Rat.
ReplyDeleteWhich might be true.
Why hasn't he put the documents on the table?
Why is he hiding behind the Hawaii Secretary of State?
ReplyDeleteAn Old Nazi Tries To Tell America To Wake Up
ReplyDeleteSARAH PALIN SAVED GOP FROM LANDSLIDE DEFEAT
ReplyDeleteBy DICK MORRIS
Published on TheHill.com on November 11, 2008
Printer-Friendly Version
As Richard Nixon wrote, "history is written by liberals," but the story of the 2008 campaign is too important to cede to them the analysis of what happened. A close analysis of the returns indicates several key realities:
a) Sarah Palin made a vast difference in McCain's favor. Compared to 2004, McCain lost 11 points among white men, according to the Fox News exit poll, but only four points among white women. Obama's underperformance among white women, evident throughout the fall, may be chalked up, in large part, to the influence of Sarah Palin. She provided a rallying point for women who saw their political agenda in terms larger than abortion. She addressed the question of what it is like to be a working mother in today's economy and society and resonated with tens of millions of white women who have not responded to the more traditional, and liberal, advocates for their gender.
b) Turnout did not increase substantially. Despite predictions (by me and others) of a vastly greater voter turnout, it didn't happen. About 127 million people voted in 2008, compared to 122 million in 2004. By contrast, turnout rose by almost 20 million between 2000 and 2004. The emphasis on early voting and the heavy participation in primaries indicated the likelihood of a huge increase in turnout, but, on Election Day, the turnout was modest.
c) The black vote made a huge difference; but young people did not. Obama, as expected, generated a big increase in African-American voter turnout. Fox News's exit polls estimate that blacks constituted 13 percent of the turnout in 2008, compared with 11 percent in 2004 and 10 percent in 2000. But voters under 30 years of age were still the same 11 percent of the vote that they were in 2004. The surge of young voters, which was supposed to animate Obama's rise, failed to happen.
d) The turnout efforts of groups like ACORN made a huge difference. Ultimately, it was the difference in voter turnout among Republicans and Democrats that, in addition to the higher black vote, elected Obama. According to Curtis Gans of American University, Republican turnout dropped from 30 percent in 2004 to 28.7 percent of the electorate in 2008, while the Democratic proportion of voters rose from 28.7 percent to 31.3 percent. Much of this increase came from newly registered voters, many as a result of ACORN's efforts. Voter registration rose by 6 million in 2008, which may have accounted for virtually all the increase in turnout.
The message for conservatives is clear: The focus of Democrats on grassroots activism, begun in 1998 by MoveOn.org, was crucial to the Obama election. Instead of relying on the Republican Party to carry the message to the electorate, conservatives must organize their own grassroots movements -- like GOPTrust.com -- and boost turnout and enthusiasm among those who share their worldview. The backbreaking tasks of registering voters and getting out the vote are key to winning elections in the post-media era. Online networking and building of cyber-roots organizations is the way to go in competing in the new politics we face today.
Will the Republican Party get its act together to compete? Who knows. Will conservatives take matters into their own hands and build the kind of organization and Internet base that the liberals have over the past 15 years? They better. Unless we want to witness a fundamental change in our laws, society and culture, conservatives had better get busy and emulate their leftist brethren in building organizations to tap into their base. In the '80s, groups like the National Rifle Association and the Moral Majority filled this need. Today, new groups must move to the fore to fill the void. And they better do it fast!
I think what's going to happen in that not much is going to happen. I see the society as kind of slowly sliding down to the point where one side simply doesn't want to pay for the other side, and says the hell with it, let them work for their own.
ReplyDeleteSomebody has got to create something, or everybody is going to have nothing. Those that create finally get fed up with those that don't.
We are in 'parlous' times here.
I'd like to ask, why is it that Desert Rat, who is such a great defender of the Constitution, thinks it should not apply to Idaho. Or that Idaho is a part of 'the American Empire', or some other nonesense.
ReplyDeleteAnd that we are a part of the 'American Empire'?
This is pure bs, of course. Actually, the Idaho Constitution incorporates the Constitution of our Founders, in the very words.
Desdert Rat has always been full of shit. He just doesn't know his facts.
When, actually, as a matter of historical fact,
ReplyDeletewe accepted the American compact.
Empire.
Bull shit
We may have made an error in doing so, but that is what we did do.
I do not think the 10th Amendment applies anywhere in the United States, bob.
ReplyDeleteLet US start there.
The 4th Amendment has been raped, everywhere.
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
Without a warrant, why must a citizen submit to an IRS audit?
Why are their papers not secure from search?
The history of the United States, post revolution, is one of expanding empire, bob.
Through a series of purchases, annexations and military conquests, the continent was taken from those that had claimed it, prior to US.
Or you'd be a frog of a Frenchie, there in Idaho.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteIdaho was a Federal territory before there was anyone of US citizenship there to "accept" any compact.
ReplyDeleteThe only folks that were on the land, in December 1803, when title transfered, were Indians. They did not join in any compact with DC.
The Calofirnios never held an election to switch their capital from Mexico City to Wshingtom DC.
There was no accpetance of a compact, there. Nor in Texas for that matter.
Force of Arms, expanded the empire, in both situations.
Marched all the way to Mexico City, we did. To the Halls of Montezuma, in the War of '47.
Your ignorance of American history, bob, is profound.
ReplyDeleteIt did not start when the family bobal hit the hemisphere of the Americas.
Tell me, bob, was Santa Fe, New Mexico, in the year 1610 an American outpost, a Mexican or Spanish one or one claimed by the United States?
ReplyDeleteOh wait, there was no United States, in 1610, but there was an America, right?
When the Confederate States of America tried to withdraw from the compact, bob, the Federal Empire did not allow it.
ReplyDeleteBy force of arms, not any agreement.
American compact, it is a military empire, established and held together by force of arms, over the past 230 years.
The Whiskey Rebellion stands in evidence of that, early on. Where the "American Compact" was rejected and then forced upon the people.
The issue of empire, ot closed after the Civil War, it'd been decided.
ReplyDeleteThe Federal Government became a body unto itself, in 1913, with the direct election of Senators.
The States disenfrachised by "progressive reform".
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteHere, bob, a nice interactive graphic map and timeline, showing the advance of Empire across the continent.
ReplyDeleteAt the expense of France, Spain and Mexico
So, in 1610 at the founding of Santa Fe, bob, who were the real Americans, anyway?
ReplyDeleteWith Mr Lincoln a staunch anti-War advocate and none other than U.S. Grant said this about the annexation of Mexican lands, according to wiki, of course.
ReplyDeleteBuilt out an Empire, in 1847.
President Ulysses S. Grant, who as a young army officer had served in Mexico under General Taylor, recalled in his Memoirs, published in 1885, that:
"Generally, the officers of the army were indifferent whether the annexation was consummated or not; but not so all of them. For myself, I was bitterly opposed to the measure, and to this day regard the war, which resulted, as one of the most unjust ever waged by a stronger against a weaker nation. It was an instance of a republic following the bad example of European monarchies, in not considering justice in their desire to acquire additional territory."
Grant also expressed the view that the war against Mexico had brought God's punishment on the United States in the form of the American Civil War:
"The Southern rebellion was largely the outgrowth of the Mexican war. Nations, like individuals, are punished for their transgressions. We got our punishment in the most sanguinary and expensive war of modern times."
In 1879, while in China during his post presidential world tour, Grant told John Russell Young:
"I had very strong opinions on the subject. I do not think there was ever a more wicked war than that waged by the United States on Mexico. I had a horror of the Mexican War, and I have always believed that it was on our part most unjust. The wickedness was not in the way our soldiers conducted it, but in the conduct of our government in declaring war. We had no claim on Mexico. Texas had no claim beyond the Nueces River, and yet we pushed on to the Rio Grande and crossed it. I am always ashamed of my country when I think of that invasion"
OMG
ReplyDeleteWho knew the EB was such wholesome, online fun?
Virtual affair lead to real life divorce.
Yeah, Laura Ingraham covered that story whit.
ReplyDelete