Wednesday, August 25, 2010

Wait and See

I generally don't blog or Vlog about political things until something really gets my goat, and right now it seems that it's smooth sailing. Well, 'smooth' is a slippery slope; but it seems that the waters are decently calm right now.

Recently I been thinking about making a video, and I just might do that when I get back from Greece. About what, you ask? Check the title. I'm pretty much in a 'wait and see' mode right now. I've heard all the fuss, listened to many of the pundits, and watched legislation pass; now I want to see what good it's all going to do.

Yes, I believe Pres. Obama has been inching us back towards prosperity. Yes, I think that what he's done so far has been in the interest of each and every American. Yes, I subscribe to his policy of trying new, and different, things to shake up our situation a little bit. I just think it's time to let him do his work and see what happens in the next few months to years.

When I think about it, he hasn't even been in office 2 years as yet. Wow! It does seem like longer. Not even 2 years? No, he hasn't.

So let's Wait and See, people. I don't think it can get any worse than it's been. It's onward and upward from here.

19 comments:

Anonymous said...

Inching back? Interesting perspective! Unemployment is on the rise, we have tripled our debt in one year and no one in the world will buy debt from us any longer (BTW, that means bankruptcy or massive inflation) insurance premiums going up 30-35% to pay for healthcare for 5% of the population that was already getting healthcare for free, more payoffs, kickbacks, slush funs, pork barreling then ever in our history, more racially divided than in the previous 50 years, taxes increasing meaning more job losses, higher insurance rates mean less spending by consumers meaning more job losses, all government employees getting raises with the private sector pays more and more with less and less.
If you call that inching back, I'd hate to see what you consider no movement.
BTW, do you realize that the last time the economy was this slow was right after 911? Yes, that's right, But those horrible Bush policies starting with the tax cuts that are about to expire brought us back from economic collapse in about 9 months. Isn't that interesting that Obama keeps criticizing the policies that brought us back from the brink, yet under his policies we are dying a slow death. I know, the housing bubble was his fault even though it was caused by Clinton policies and Dodd and Frank lied to Congress 7 years ago to hide the mess it was becoming.
BTW I have a new post up you might enjoy.

robertanton said...

Jimmy, I think you're simply a pessimist. What's all the hullabaloo. The backlash from 8 years of failed Bush policies is keeping us tied at the knees and Congressional Republicans are not giving a hoot about fixing it; all they want to do is make sure Obama doesn't get things done so he doesn't get re-elected.
Well, He is getting some things done and will continue to get said things done.
"Wait and See". Oftentimes, it's gets darkest before the dawn. Now who said that? Two people I know are buying houses at the moment, and one is using the first as a rental income; jobs are beginning to come back; those very Bush policies that supposedly "brought us back" after 911 have also added to the national debt (as opposed to the surplus Bush inherited); and things are flatlining.
With all the ranting and raving, I'd think that you'd be homeless by now. How's your personal situation? Are you prospering?

Anonymous said...

Boy Robert, if you truly believe that were headed in the wright dirction, I've got some south Florida land you'll love.
Please explain to me exactly what failed pollicies of which you speak. BTW, Clinto only had a Surplus because he had a Republican Congress. Infact historically 80% of the national debt was created when Democrats held the majority. BTW, Bush ran up less debt id 8 years then Obama did in one year.
Oh and in case you didn't pay attention and obviously you didn't, unemployment is rising again. I'm OK, however I went through some tough times because the idiots in Washington (both sides) were handing out free money to banks, creating difficulties for small businesses to get loans. I had to lay people off and thanks to the idiot-in-chiefs Healthcare, insurance premiums went up 35%. I was forced to go to a lesser policy and I still may have to let someone go. I noticed you didn't respond to that. Aren't you glad we're all paying more for less to pay for smething we already were paying for?
It's funny, before he got elected i kept hearing how smart he is. From everything I've seen I'd bee surprised if he has a tree digit IQ. The good news is tha the hasn't got a chance in hell to be re-elected.
If all you're worried about is having a black person in the White House, how about Condoleezza Rice? She's much smarter, has far more expierience in every area, and isn't a Washington insider or a Chitcago hoodlum scumbag and most important, she not a pathological liar.

robertanton said...

I'll say it again. "Wait and See". What failed policies? You said you do a lot of research and know what's going on.
The biggest failed policy is that of a little war in Iraq that cost us billions of dollars a month. A war based on a false claim and some very dubious intelligence.
Many of the spending measures, like the bank bailout, were already in the pipeline before Obama stepped into his position. Now who do we hold accountable for that part of the national debt?
Like I said, things will pick up and start to even out.
Come back after the 2012 election and let's have a powwow on what's gone down.
Oh, I'm glad you're taking the time to stop by and 'correct' things that I put in print. Obviously I'm striking exactly the chord that I should be.
I may not be the most involved political person, but I do believe that I stand where most Americans stand and have just as many questions as there are answers.
My natural state is one of optimism though, and I just don't think you can much understand that.
So be it. I'll continue to post what I wish just as you do on your blog, but you lost me with the "Mr. and Mrs. Marxist" comments.
It's just plain hogwash.

Anonymous said...

Actually I'm very happy to see you posting. Debate is good for the soul. The more we read each others thoughts the more we understand each other. I certainly don't think bad of you in any way or I wouldn't be here and I would never want you to think that. BTW, you still haven't been by my Blog of late, but I must warn you, there is much truth there and that often is rejected by liberals.
I too am a very optimistic person. In spite of what the media tells you conservatives aren't racist, we're not evil, the fact that I don't like Obama's politics has nothing to do with his skin color. in fact nothing pisses me off worse than seeing so many black people in this country in dependent on the government. I would much rather see them making lots of money, paying taxes, accumulating person wealth and living the American dream! The American dream is not collecting welfare, ADC, section 8 housing, food stamps, getting divorces, raising children in a broken home and bailing your children out of jail. My person belief is that the welfare system has done more harm then good. I also believe that Obama wants more of the same. The plan is to have the government run our lives because we're to stupid to make choices. They are already trying to force us into a government run healthcare system, similar to the ones failing in Canada and the UK. They're trying to tell us what to eat, what kind of car to drive (have you seen the volt?)and taxing us to death in the process.
Oh and did you know that the intelligence that Bush used was from Clinton?
Even if you take the bank bailout and put that on Bush, Obama has out spent Bush in the first year and a half. For what, unemployment is up, mortgages are still failing at an alarming rate, and the deficit has tripled in less then 2 years. BTW Robert, are you familiar with Cloward and Pivon? you should be.
I'll be happy to have the 2012 pow wow, you know he has lost most of the country. There are a great many Americans that detest a liar. Obama has lied to us on many occasions and has demonstrated a habitual pattern of doing so. He lied on many topics on healthcare, on taxes, on BP, about his cabinet, about the stimulus bill, about the credit card bill, about the banking bill, and the list goes on and on. the healthcare bill is a great example, the only people I know that are for it never read it. Everyone I know of that read it are against it. Did you read it? I did, and so far the things that everyone who read it predicted will happen are happening, insurance rates have already gone up 30-35%. Obama promised that wouldn't happen...Remember?
As to Obama, the Marxist. His father was a Marxist (did you read "Dreams of my Father"?) his pseudo (Uncle Frank, AKA Frank Marshall) father and mentor was a Marxist, many of his college associates were Marxist, many of his appointment were Marxist/Socialist and even the ones that don't admit they are Marxist (remember Anita Dunn) have made comments like, (My favorite Philosopher, Mao Tze Tung (you know, communist mass murderer). When you add it all up, its hard to deny.

Anonymous said...

"The biggest failed policy is that of a little war in Iraq that cost us billions of dollars a month. A war based on a false claim and some very dubious intelligence."
Far be it for me to question your research, but did that war start over UN violation? And wasn't that intelligence the exact same intelligence that Clinton was quoting? I believe it was. However, if you are implying that the war is what tanked the economy, the $700 Billion over 6 years, then that would explain how Obama, criminal payoff aka Stimulus bill totally tanked the economy as that was twice as much in one year.
Oh, and forgive me, just because he was educated in schools run by Marxist, his mentor (Uncle Frank) who he says in his book he was greatly influenced by was a Marxist, many of his know associates are Marxist, he appointed Marxist or Marxist worshipers in many high positions, and the fact that he's pushing socialist/Marxist agendas I guess it's not fair to make the assumption. Of course if I told you my Mentor was a KKK member, I told you I was greatly influenced by KKK members, I hired a bunch of KKK members or people that praised KKK members and I practiced racist policies, you'd call me a racist, but I guess that's different.
I'm glad you post what you feel, I love good debate.
BTW, I think the majority are with me, the independents realize now that he lied to them, that he wasn't really a moderate, that he is a radical leftist and the yare done with him. I do realize that they plan to blame Republicans for the disaster that the economy is in by saying that the Republicans blocked everything in the second half of his term, just like they did in the first half (even though there was no way they could) but it won't work, he'll go down as the One Term Blunder. I anxiously await the 2012 pow wow.

robertanton said...

Well Hello there, I guess you thought better of your previous comment. It still came to my inbox, but I can keep it between the two of us.
Let me ask you a question? If someone told you something was true, would you just take it as an absolute or would you research it for yourself? Now I can see that you are a reasonably intelligent person, so I know the answer. Please tell me how you can possibly, then, claim that Bush went to war with Iraq because of intelligence from Clinton? You mean he didnt bother to do his own research and find out for himself? Hm...
The stimulus bill is constantly being blamed on Obama when it was already approved before he took the oath. Yes, he continued with it because he believed it was the best course of action (and there is a study showing that it helped the economy: http://factcheck.org/2010/09/did-the-stimulus-create-jobs/).
The majority of Pres. Obama's candidacy is still ahead of him; so I wouldn't count him out just yet. We will see in 2012 if he will be here for more than one term. I guess that all depends on how well he completes his job up to that point; but he is still less that 1/2 way through his 'contract'.

Anonymous said...

Now Robert, you need to Be fair to Bush if you're a honest person which I believe you are. Of course Bush's inteeligence community research it for themselves, and they came up with the same results as Clinton's people as well as British intelligence (considered to be the best in the world). So of course they believed it, would you expect them not to?
Actually you are incorrect about the stimulas bill. TARP was in before Obama, but the stimulus bill was not although a lot of it was pork projects that had been proposed before and voted down or vetoed. His people took all of these pork projects plus some new ones and put them together and passed them. You see he thought the economy would come back on it's own and then he could credit the economy coming back to his Stimulius. He guessed wrong the damage done by the housing bubble combined with the damage done by the power brokers (his boss, Soros) did too much damage for the economy just to spring back and adding the ObamaCare to it made things far worse (if you think Obamacare has done damage now, just wait, it will get worse).
BTW factcheck.org is a left leaning organization that has repeated tilted their"Facts" to the left. Citing the CBO who have been wrong on so many things since Obama has been in office, i.e. they admitted and revided the numbers on ObamaCare, in fact their track record has been horrible being incorrect far more then correct.
BTW, if you do the math, bt the CBOs numbers, it cost $282,000.00 per job created and according to CBO 80% of the jobs they are claiming are government jobs. If they are going to fix unemployment by hiring more people to work for the government, how are we going to pay for it? More taxes? More corporate taxes to drive more private sector jobs overseas? Wouldn't that create more unemployment? How would we fix that, more government jobs?
In closing, I will do everything I can to stop this insane movement to destroy America, you should that there are a LOT of Velma Harts out there tha tare sick of the lies and deception. More and more everyday people in this country are saying, gee, Rush Limbaugh was right, I want Obama to fail, I like the American and I don't want to see it replaces by Socialism.

BTW, I didn' know the other post didn't go up for a few days, I'd be happy for it to have gone up.

robertanton said...

and around and around we go. Where we'll stop; nobody knows.
Get this. Watch the video I posted and tell me how much of it you believe. If you believe any of it then this debate is pretty much moot.
Things have happened, so it seems, that have less to do with Who is president than Who actually holds the power.
We can talk about the stimulus all day, but where has the money gone that's been paid back already?
We can talk about the deficit, but who says how much of deficit we actually have? The Federal Reserve? Can they be trusted?
It really comes down to: Can anyone in leadership positions in our political system be trusted?
I'm backing Obama while he's in office and until I hear of, or find, something better 'to believe in'. I haven't seen a candidate step up to the plate who's worth a damn.
Also. If Obama has been groomed over the last few decades to be President, do you really think he's going to be leaving office prematurely?
During the election I read a book called, The Obamanation. It categorized all the reason why Obama couldn't, and wouldn't, be elected President. Naturally I laughed while I read it and laughed even harder when he was actually elected. It's a pretty good read.

robertanton said...

Oh! by the way, if you say that Bush had his people research the WMD for themselves then you can't turn around and state that he went to war because of Clinton intelligence. It was either one OR the other.
Yes, Obama signed the stimulus into law two weeks into his Presidency but all the groundwork had been laid before the election.
"Left-leaning", "Right-leaning", "Centrist". The terms we've come up with in the fine print are just perfect for division. Every news agency, no matter how reputable, has gone back on stories or followed up with better information.
You have to have true numbers to do math, so I don't know how you came to the numbers you put in this post. I'm sure even people on Capitol Hill don't know the true and exact numbers. You must be a prophet. I really think you should be running for office with all this perfect intelligence.
If you want the country to fail, that's fine by you. I want this country to continue to evolve and succeed. Obama is a part of that, so I naturally want him to do well as our President.

Anonymous said...

Now Robert, why do you make me repeat myself. Wasn’t the Iraq war over UN Sanctions???
I'm sorry Robert, I've had many opportunities to watch that video. I'd rather research myself and come to my own conclusions if that's OK with you. I'm pretty well traveled and educated and I don't need someone feeding me data. I don't care which direction that video goes, it seems like propaganda.
Now to the stimulus....
If you understand what caused the housing bubble (Subprime loans, loans made to people that shouldn't have gotten them, Lessening the supply of housing, driving up the prices, creating artificially high prices), than what you're about to read will make sense. TARP money allowed the banks to foreclose on properties instead of having to deal with people because of an over abundance of defaults. If they didn't have the TARP money, they would have had to cut deals with home owners and less foreclosures would have occurred. TARP allowed them to foreclose on as many homes as they could, sell some at a profit while sitting on some to drive the prices up. They sat on the more marketable houses (because they could) and are still sitting on many of them now, go into nicer middle-class neighborhoods and see how many homes are vacant. So they turned a huge profit, still have tons of property to sell later for profit and we paid for it in every way possible.

By the way, the Stimulus was written by the Apollo Group, an extreme leftist organization. It has done nothing because it wasn't intended to. It was pay off to the leftist that paid homage to George Soros, Obama's real boss. Check it out.. do your own research. I do
Oh and about Obama being groomed to be president, WHAT????
He's as incompetent as Mel Tillis at a diction academy.

Oh and as stated, the numbers came from the CBO, that's the second time I've repeated myself.

I guess we have different ideas of what the country succeeding is. I want people to be free, enjoy personal liberty, to enjoy the fruits of their labor, to have opportunity to build a better life. Obama wants social justice, he wants people to pay for being successful (well, the middle class anyway, not his Uber rich ruling class buddies.
I want a middle class in this country; he wants two classes, the ruling class and peasants.
That's where we see different.

robertanton said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
robertanton said...

Jim, You can repeat it but it doesnt make it true. The Iraq war was not about WMDs or UN sanctions. It came down to a rogue dictator who could no longer be controlled by the US and had to be taken out to stabilize the oil situation in the Middle East. Look that up.
Yes, I guess when something 'looks' like...then it must be so. It's pretty difficult to judge something without taking a look though. So many ppl do that; I thought you'd be more interested in finding out for yourself what its about.
There were many things that contributed to this stimulus, the largest being trading in derivatives; but this is not the first multi-billion dollar bailout we've had that started under a Republican administration. There seems to be a track record here that can't be denied.
I think you have Obama and GWB mixed up when you talk about who is to pay for 'being rich'. Isnt it Obama who is trying to let the Bush tax cuts expire and offer cuts to those making under 250,000/yr? Isn't it the Republicans that are fighting tooth and nail to keep their wealthy donors in the same tax bracket as their secretaries?
I'm just asking cause it seems that different signals are coming from every direction.

Anonymous said...

I repeat it because the CBO is what the liberals pointed at as justification to shove all of this down our throats. Seven reports came out saying ObamaCare ould loose money before one came out that said it wouldn't. That's when they pounced. The next two also said it would loose money, but too late, they passed it. Or is it too late?
You know I always get a huge laugh from people calling Republicans the party of the rich. Did you know that 65% of billionaires are Democrats? And in fact you have to go down to incomes below 5 million before Republicans are in the majority. Did you also realize that billionairs only account for 2% of all jobs? 80% of all jobs are created by people making btween $250,000.00 and $5,000,000.00 a year. Looky there, the people that create most of the jobs are the ones getting hammered. that makes total sense with unemployment at about 17% (U-6 numbers) or the more realistic numbers http://www.njfac.org/jobnews.html
And you do realize that people in that tax bracket already pay 95% of ALL taxes in this country? Just think how prosperous the country would be if the ydidn't have to support everything. Thye could pay higher wages, hire more people, invest more in R&D manufacture things in THIS country. But no, instead we want to eliminate the middle class so that we have social and economic justice. So there will only be two classes, the billionaires and their subjects. Hey, that's socialism, isn't it?
Oh and I never said the bail-out was Obamas, Bush should have been dog whipped for backing that. Anytime the governmnet gets involved with running or regulating business, bad things happen, that what strted the whole mess in the first place; government making banks take bad loans.
The Stimulas was ALL Obama and that was a failure because it was nothing but pay-offs, kick backs, bribes, pork barreling and what ever else you want to call it. Now we're stuck with the debt.
Wanna see the economy turn around? Big time!!!? Cut the government by 30%, the economy will boom. And it can be done.

robertanton said...

Jim, I believe you jumped over my comment to something totally unrelated. You keep "repeating we went to war on Clintons intelligence" when Bush, and Cheney, used their own reasons for going to war.
If govt didnt regulate business then they'd run roughshod over the workers and community. Have you forgotten that the reason for the banker bailouts (both of them) were deregulation in the industry? The Gulf Oil spill was also partially due to that deregulation.
You say that businesses will hire more ppl and invest in R&D "in this country" if they had less taxes but it didnt happen with the Bush tax cuts; did it? and in the interim we lost hundreds of billions of dollars in tax revenue that started us down this economic road from a surplus to our biggest deficit yet.
Bussinesses are about making profit and rarely do they pay higher wages and hire more people unless they can't get it for cheap. They have even been farming out more jobs to third world countries under Bush's tax cuts to turn a bigger profit which only the highest levels end up pocketing.

robertanton said...

The bailouts seem to have slowed the economic downturn and kept us from a major depression. Now I don't know if that's a failure but it seems that things would have been a lot worse without them. Also much of the money paid to the banks has already been repaid: tens billions of dollars. Where did that money go should be the question. It seems to have disappeared and no one really talks about it whether Democrat or Republican.
Republicans now want to extend the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest americans, at the peril of the middle class, for a loss of about 160 billion dollars in tax revenue per year. They say they want to decrease the deficit but it seems that they can't take this major step. It's all such a game at the expense of the American people. One-upmanship in order to seize power and keep doing the same old thing.

Anonymous said...

"Have you forgotten that the reason for the banker bailouts (both of them) were deregulation in the industry?"
This is totally incorrect Robert, you're believing the propaganda. The financial crisis was caused by subprime loans, not by banking deregulation. If the government hadn't forced banks to take bad loans there would never have been a banking crisis. The deregulation just moved the debt from local banks to central banks. It didn't create the situation at all, but it was a good victim to point fingers at. The big rich evil central banks got deregulated and got greedy. The headline should have been Government regulations wreck the economy.

"The Gulf Oil spill was also partially due to that deregulation"
This is also incorrect, the regulations were there, they were not enforcing them. Funny that PB who has more violations than any other oil company, and get way with more then all the other oils companies, happens to have the most government contracts as well. They are also the founders of Global Warming and Carbon Credits. Maybe you should be asking why the government cut such a sweet deal for BP?

"You say that businesses will hire more people and invest in R&D "in this country" if they had less taxes but it didn’t happen with the Bush tax cuts; did it?"
Actually we did, when Bush took office we were in a recession (people confidently forget that). The Clinton tax hikes were delayed in their effects mostly because of Clinton's theft of money from military contractors to float his budget. But once the stolen money from the military was gone, it caused the 2000 recession. Then after 911 we were faced with what could have ended up as the worse financial disaster in history, yet Bush managed it in a manner that allowed the economy to come back strong. It wasn't until the housing bubble that the economy fell apart which was triggered by gas prices (that's to over regulation of the oil industry).
BTW, why are we forcing the oil companies to drill in 5000+' of water when there are plenty of areas in shallows they can drill?

Oh and the Surplus came from Contract with America, not from Clinton, Presidents don't spend the money, Congress does and in fact 80% of the national Debt incurred when Democrats held the majority in Congress (funny the media never reports that)
Did you know that the most profitable companies in the country also have the highest wages? Check it out for your self. 17 of the most of the top 20 most profitable companies are also on the list of the top 20 wage payers. So you see it not true, the companies sending jobs over seas are companies that can't afford to pay the wages here because of the taxes they pay. You should research this stuff before you say it, the media is feeding you propaganda.

Anonymous said...

"The bailouts seem to have slowed the economic downturn and kept us from a major depression"
What makes you assume that? Because the government told you that? Why do most recessions last 18 months, where this one is already at 30 and looking like its going to be much, much longer? Why have we spent a trillion and a half on this and we're still in a recession?
I personally believe that Obama's advisors told him that the economy would recover on its own but that it was a good excuse to pass the stimulus, and that the stimulus wouldn't hurt the economy. What they failed to understand was that TARP gave the banks the ability to foreclose on many homes that they wouldn't have been able to without that money. This kept them from having to renegotiate loans they would have been forced to without the TARP funds which changed the dynamics of the market. More foreclosures, more lost jobs as a result, and the whole accompanying chain reaction. Once again, government caused this problem in the first place and then made it worse.
Of course they repaid the TARP loans, they made billions off of properties they repossess and still have tons of properties they are sitting on. There are whole neighborhoods in Miami that are empty right now, all owned by the banks thanks to TARP, and all of those are their profits!
TARP was not only wrong, it was criminal!

"Republicans now want to extend the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans, at the peril of the middle class, for a loss of about 160 billion dollars in tax revenue per year."
Let me ask you a question Robert; who's money is that 160 billion? Isn't it there money and not the governments? Should we be allowed to say "Hey Washington, you're spending too much of our money, knock it off" Its real simple, not the governments money and if we (all of us) don't want them to waste it, then we say no! That's what this last election was, a huge NO!
Here's the next question, it's 160 billion, the government just wasted 10 times that much of bailouts and stimulus that didn't work. So now you're telling me after they acted irresponsibly with our money we should give them more? Why?

robertanton said...

I love how you continue to insist that the bailouts didn't work when the political, professional pundits are stating that it did help and kept us from a full- scale depression. comical.
Hiring is starting to happen and people are becoming more optimistic. As long as we continue to improve our lot, Obama will continue to stay in office. Voters are fickle; they stick with someone in good times and dump them in bad.
That's just the way of our lopsided Republic. I don't worry about Obama having another term or not; he'll prosper no matter what. I also don't worry about me; I'll prosper no matter what. I have so far and have no intention of letting that change in the near future.
Politics is a big game to most of the people playing it. A game of money and power. I really don't take it as serious as you, or so it seems. I'm watching and asking questions, but I don't have a vested interest cause I know that one way or the other, I'm going to come out on top and continue to live my life comfortably.
If I have to move from the U.S. to do so, then I would make that choice when the time comes.
We can go back and forth as much as you like, but I've been busy improving my skills and making things happen in my life. One regime or the other is never going to hold me back.