COLLECTIVE MADNESS
“Soft despotism is a term coined by Alexis de Tocqueville describing the state into which a country overrun by "a network of small complicated rules" might degrade. Soft despotism is different from despotism (also called 'hard despotism') in the sense that it is not obvious to the people."
Yep, those both seem to be correct.
ReplyDeleteUnintended consequences, all around.
Doubt that $15bn USD would have been enough, 10 months ago. Citigroup and AIG have already eaten up 6 times that amount.
So the rot on Wall Stret was much deeper than anyone in DC thought, all that was left was the veneer.
The Federals have guarenteed $306bn USD of Citigroups' potential loses, which is 60 times what JFKerry proposes was an adequate piece of preemption.
The Republicans, as usual, are a day late and a dollar short. Back in November, when they had the White House juice, they could have made HOUSING the core value of the TARP, but they demurred. Had their shot at guiding the course of the economic recovery, and punted.
Each will include a resort-style swimming pool, 24-hour gym, fire pit, tanning booths and clubhouse.
ReplyDeleteI just wonder what we are talking about, sometimes. When I went to the U of Washington, I lived in a motel.
A run down motel.
Does a person have a Constitutional Right to a four bedroom, three bath suburban home?
There are some votes to be gotten for that proposition.
When I was down at Albertson's just a few minutes ago, there was a couple, the lady, who obviously had an IQ of about 85, very big face, fat, and her man, maybe a little more intelligent, the kind of folk my wife worked with for years.
ReplyDeleteSo what do we do with them, really.
You answer me.
I'm just asking.
Housing and Health Care, bob.
ReplyDeleteBasic human needs.
Like food.
“People have no idea what to do or who to turn to. They can’t pay their bills and they’ve stopped spending money,”
the president said in his opening statement.
“Local TV stations have started running public service announcements that tell people where to find food banks, even as the food banks don’t have enough to meet the demand….Breaking that cycle is exactly what the plan that’s moving through Congress is designed to do.”
...
“A failure to act will only deepen this crisis as well as the pain felt by millions of Americans,”
the president said.
“Doing too little or nothing at all will result in even greater deficits of jobs, incomes and confidence. Those are deficits that could turn a crisis into a catastrophe and I refuse to let that happen.”
...
“When I hear that from folks who presided over the doubling of the national debt, I just want them not to be engaged in some revisionist history,”
he said.
“I inherited the economic crisis that we have right now and the debt that we have right now…. The most important thing we can do for our budget crisis right now is to make sure that our economy doesn’t tank.”
“My expectation is in the coming month we will be looking for openings that can be created where we can start stting across the table, face-to-face diplomatic overtures that will allow us to move our policy in a new direction,”
ReplyDeletehe said.
“There has been a lot of distrust built up over the years so it’s not going to happen overnight.”
Obama did not say whether he foresaw, as he suggested in the campaign, face-to-face meetings soon between himself and Iranian leaders, or if he was referring to a dialogue at a lower level.
“Now, it’s time for Iran to send some signals that it wants to act differently, as well,” Obama added.
To be blunt about it, to be really blunt, they were the kind of folk our Cro-Magnon ancestors would have kicked out of the cave.
ReplyDeleteGet out of here, you moron.
So, what do we do?
And yet, my wife tells me, many of them have a very good sense of humor, and might be easier to get along with than my cousin Sally.
So what do we do? I ask.
But they are unable to pay for their own homes.
I quess my answer is, pay for them, as we have been doing.
On Monday, White House economic adviser Larry Summers also criticized some proposals afloat in Congress to jump start the housing market by offering low-interest loans to new homebuyers.
ReplyDelete“I think we’ve got to be very skeptical of any government administered price,”
Summers told CNN.
“Some of the suggestions that have been made would involve, literally, the issuance of trillions of dollars of new federal debt, and that’s probably a step further than is responsible for us to go to.”
Maybe our Cro-Magnon ancestors wouuln't have kicked them out of the cave. I'm not sure.
ReplyDeleteAh, well I quess, they have their love for one anothter, and that is enough.
ReplyDeleteWhat is it to me?
They should be taken care of in our society as best we can.
Eugenics, bob.
ReplyDeleteSterilize 'em so they do not reproduce.
Just as the SOP insists upon, imposing an Internationally accepted solution, upon unwilling participents, for the greater good, is more than acceptable, it is the Standard.
wiki, that wonderfully unimpeachable source says ...
The modern field and term were first formulated by Sir Francis Galton in 1883, drawing on the recent work of his cousin Charles Darwin. From its inception eugenics was supported by prominent people, including H. G. Wells, Woodrow Wilson, Theodore Roosevelt, Emile Zola, George Bernard Shaw, John Maynard Keynes, William Keith Kellogg, Margaret Sanger, Winston Churchill, and Sidney Webb
Then it seems that eugenics, when taken to an extreme is exemplified by
Its most infamous proponent and practitioner was however Adolf Hitler who praised and incorporated Eugenic ideas in Mein Kampf, and emulated Eugenic legislation for the sterilization of "defectives" that had been pioneered in the United States
Kind of puts a fog of negativity around the phrase "Eugenics".
So now it's marketed as 'Choice' and the women volunteer to bleed out their DNA, actually paying for the privilage.
Where does that sort or repugnace, that I felt, deep down, and you have felt too, when confronted with stupidity, where does that come from? When you are confronted with a human being that you really feel isn't a human being? Is that a good healthy feeling, or bad, or what?
ReplyDeleteRat, these two were just a couple of idiots.
ReplyDeleteWhat to do?
And yet, they may well be morally superior to my cousin Sal, or to myself.
ReplyDeleteWhat to do?
ReplyDelete==
If they cause harm, apply the usual rules. Otherwise, do nothing.
Let's understand the situation.
ReplyDeleteMassive government spending, rising debt and excessive consumer spending got us into the mess. The Republicans, under the magnificent leadership of GWB so discredited themselves and everything that they stood for, that the American people turned the US government lock, stock and barrel over to the Democrats.
The Democrats solution is massive government spending, rising debt and renewed consumer spending.
The Republicans are unhappy, because they could have done a better job?
____________________
The US public favors Obama by 67% and approves of the Republicans by 37%
Which puts Obama squarely into the "Center" of the body politic.
ReplyDeleteOkay, here's the "New" plan: We're going to "incentivise" the Private Sector to buy assets that they don't want, and the banks don't want to sell.
ReplyDeleteHow could THAT fail?
Nobody "likes" the damned Republicans. We elected them because they convinced us they were the grown-ups, and we "Needed" them to keep the Democrats in line.
ReplyDeleteBut, they didn't keep the Dems in line. They joined the Dems in the madness.
So, piss on it. We elect the Dems. We get the same results without having to put up with the old, sourpuss assholes cluttering up our tv screens.
I just hear recently that a LARGE number of folks were sterilized IN THIS COUNTRY back in the Eugenics days.
ReplyDeleteWondered why the practicioners here got such a bad rep.
What would White, Intelligent, Bob say?
back in the day, al-bob, as you'll recall, we had places to put folks that couldn't take care of themselves.
ReplyDelete...then we got enlightened, and put them all out on the street.
What if we had put all that enlightenment into improving the places, the treatment, and the environment of those places we had for them, and left them there?
Makes sense to me, but I'm just your average White Guy.
"heard"
ReplyDelete...wouldn't want to give al-boh any excuses to lock me up!
"sourpuss assholes "
ReplyDelete---
Yeah, Pelosi, Libermann, Byrde, Biden, and Kennedy cut a hip young profile in the pics.
...not mention di fi and babs boxer.
... and that fat little b..... from Maryland, or wherever.
What if all the guys at the Bar buy wigs like that dumb fuck Mississippi guy that used to be "our" senate leader.
ReplyDelete...finally remembered:
TRENT LOTT
...unfrozen cave man senator.
They didn't used to all be geriatric assholes, did they?
ReplyDeleteYou'll be proud of me, 'Rat.
ReplyDeleteI can't force myself to watch Kyl.
a-hole
Insurgency vs counterinsurgency
ReplyDeleteBill Roggio describe’s al-Qaeda’s shadow army in Pakistan. They are mobilizing locals to fight for them.
off topic....
ReplyDeleteI see it clearly now...
I see what BHO is trying to do...
He is re-aligning america DOWN from being a super power into a regional power...
He's allowing Iran, russia, china, europe et al to RISE up as regional powers and america will not BE responsible any more for anything....
Thus Iran and russia? build your nukes, threaten israel, who cares... When Israel attacks Iran america will not to be blamed...
Thus when India fights pakistan, america will be on record that india should have just given the paki's Kashmir....
america is no longer going to be anything special...
america should not consume more than its 4% footprint of population
america needs to redistribute it's wealth to it's poor and undocumented populations...
america needs to stop being arrogant and listen to the world's complaints....
as a result?
look for regional wars breaking out everywhere....
look for china to get MORE aggressive
look for russia to get hungry for ex-ussr colonies.
look for the arab world to nastier.... (forget being a christian in egypt)
yep bho is saving us by destroying USA power around the globe...
20 days in office and we look weaker than we have in a 100 years....
there will be many who will suffer from this fools errand..
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteLuckily for him, he has plenty of allies in power that share the same goal.
ReplyDeleteCreate havoc and chaos....
ReplyDeleteCreate opportunity to seize control of America's internal power and to set up a new direction for America...
From government jobs as rewards for loyal bho supporters who could not get jobs in the private sector...
All this from a leader than NEVER actually worked in a real job...
A "community organizer"
wow...
we have 3 & 11/12 more years of this?
will we have a nation left?
UPDATE 1-GM to axe 10,000 salaried jobs, cut execs' pay
ReplyDeletehttp://www.reuters.com/article/marketsNews/idUSN1027138420090210
http://snipurl.com/bmjz4
==
Don't get your hopes up. It's a 10% cut for the execs', which is meaningless.
I'm afraid WiO is right.
ReplyDeleteDoug, I just brought up the topic to make some conversation.
My own point of view is we have a Christian duty to help the less fortunate.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteAmerica will be doing fine, wi"o", in 4 more years. But not quite as well as we could have, if ...
ReplyDeleteBut then again, just what America is, that is always a subject that is open for debate, as many a Palin supporter would tell you, no one that would vote for a Democrat could be a 'real' American.
There will still be at least 50 States, there will still be north of 20 million illegal residents in those States and more people will want to immigrate to any one of those United States than will emigrate from them.
What about this plan by a democrat from Idaho:
ReplyDeletehttp://hotair.com/archives/2009/02/10/freshman-blue-dog-offers-a-new-start/
Bobal did you vote for this guy?
Well, then there is the idea that the US cannot afford to be a hyperpower. Maintaining such a preponderance of power, able to match the rest of the world, dollar for dollar and then some.
ReplyDelete4% of the planet funding more than half of its' military power. Projecting that power to a fro', without concern for achieving a goal other than power projection, in and of itself.
So if I were ever elected to a legislature to come up with some rules to run the society I'd get together with the other elected folk and try to provide a decent living situation for everyone. There but for the grace of God go we all. I'll never be elected to the legislature though.
ReplyDeleteI'm afraid WiO has basically nailed it. He's said what I feel, though didn't have the words to put together.
Joe Buzz, I voted for Sali.
ReplyDeleteI really don't know all that much about Minnick, except that I get the feeling he is trimming his sails to get along in a district that is much more conservative than he is.
Sali has said he's going to run again in two years.
Minnick is a rich guy, mostly self made from what I hear, and put alot of his own money into the campaign, I just don't know that much about him.
What I'd like to elect is one of my farmer friends, though that's not going happen.
I'm a Sarah Palin supporter from day one, I just like her alot.
If I had the power to get somebody elected, I'd elect my lawyer, who I know is a good guy and bright as hell, who ran for the state legislature, and lost in a three way contest, by about two votes, the winner being the local Mormon prosecutor, who then had a medical problem and had to quit, the upshot being that the third place finisher, a democrat, was appointed. At that point my guy said it isn't worth it, and retired. The Mormon and my guy put on one of the better political debates that has been held here in Idaho. They both spoke well about the issues.
ReplyDeleteVoting Day In Israel
ReplyDeletedemanding that Israeli Arabs, one-fifth of Israel's population, sign a loyalty pledge or lose their citizenship.
ReplyDeleteI may be a right wing son of a bitch, but that makes some real sense to me.
Kind of like, you should not have a right to a religion that wants to overthrow the Constitution Of the United
States Of America.
Our Founders made a mistake in the religion clause, not knowing enough about islam.
Our Founders made a mistake in the religion clause, not knowing enough about islam.
ReplyDeleteOur Country Got it's start because of the concept of freedom FROM state faith....
The MOMENT we declared our independence from Great Britain the Islamic peoples of North Africa declared war on us...
We should thank those Mohammeds...
Remember the Philadelphia?
The First Barbary War (1801–1805), also known as the Barbary Coast War or the Tripolitan War, was the first of two wars fought between the United States of America (briefly joined by a small Swedish fleet) and the North African states known collectively as the Barbary States. These were the independent Sultanate of Morocco, and the three Regencies of Algiers, Tunis, and Tripoli, which were quasi-independent entities nominally belonging to the Ottoman Empire.
History is about to repeat it'self.....