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economic policy for example if i say that i don t like a particular painting then using this thought process i am against painting as an art form and trying to engineer its demise if i don t like a particular book then i am obviously crusading against all of literature if i eat brussels sprouts and say yuck then i am really saying down with vegetables in every other context this line of pseudo reasoning is quickly and easily identifiable as a heap of bullfunky but apparently if you re talking about how big money people make big money when one of them want to be president such talk is apparently tantamount to heresy in this country and particularly in this country s republican party there is nothing wrong with examining our economic system to see if it is working effectively and doing a little routine maintenance when it s needed to keep the country moving you can have vibrant and competitive capitalism without allowing it to become predatory it s all in how the game is played and what the rules are many people have a problem with the practice of outsourcing for example and it has been stripping the country of jobs since the eighties yet there are tax incentives for companies that outsource and business organizations support this practice and lobby to keep it as an accepted way to do business in america but not really in america until the incentives to send jobs overseas are eliminated and perhaps there are even incentives set up to bring jobs back here we will continue to be bled of every job it is possible to outsource because that makes these companies the greatest profit that s not a criticism or a compliment it s math that brings me to another point corporations are not people the best analogy i can come up with is that corporations are like robots they have a few things in common with people they can be sued etc but they are basically computers running on a yes no system hello binary which analyzes whether or not a given circumstance is profitable if the answer is yes that options chosen that s it there are no emotions involved workers don t matter beyond their productivity to cost ratio you can t be angry about it not having feelings or empathy it s just a machine after all so if you want to change its behavior you have to alter the program it runs on we have a minimum wage so even though it would be more profitable to pay american workers a dollar an hour the robot of an american business let s call it robocorp won t do that because the program it runs on tell s it that it can t robocorps large and small run off of the same basic program the rules our economy runs on we have to engage in a national discussion about the economy to decide if changing laws is necessary and if so then what needs to be changed that is the discussion that is being derided as anti business by mitt romney and his surrogates in that video mr romney says that talk of the economy should take place in quiet rooms and that brings to mind images of the gilded age when the titans of industry would meet in private clubs and decide what the rules were among themselves and far away from the little people who worked for them those workers could vote well as long as they were male citizens over the age of 21 and in some places they kind of had to be white too but voters or not they couldn t be part of any serious economic dialogue because they didn t have enough power or money they didn t know the right people in the right context they didn t belong to the right clubs etc that s not how things are supposed to work now a century later i m not naive enough to think that power and money don t buy influence in this day and age but everyone should be able and is able to discuss economic policy just as they do foreign policy and social issues no quiet rooms required the rachel maddow show thursday night brought up another point last night and i thought it was worth a mention the video is long it wouldn t embed and there is a somewhat related story about a dog and his bodily functions sorry http www msnbc msn com id 32545640 visit msnbc com for breaking news world news and news about the economy as mentioned in the clip in 1992 times were tough and george h w bush had an image problem he was seen as an out of touch rich guy who just couldn t understand what kind of problems the country was facing and he lost the election at least in part because of that somebody needs to knock on the door of the quiet room mr romney likes to work on economic issues in and remind of that comments leave a comment tags 2012 2012 elections class warfare economics elections envy jealousy mitt romney political politics the politics of perception vilifying and demonizing for dummies categories elections mental wanderings mitt romney my own brand of liberalism on a serious note politics the noble nobody humor political style 12 01 2012 it s an election year and that means that there are a ton of people whom i can no longer discuss politics with at what is possibly the best time to discuss politics because they are now too infatuated with a particular candidate to debate sensibly everything is a shouting match or in all caps if the conversation is online because their chosen one is 100 right all of the time and if you disagree then you are not a true american end of story sigh i ve said before that political fandom is not my thing so this level of devotion to someone whom they build up to be more myth than human makes no sense to me these people always end up disappointed even if their candidate is elected because sooner or later something makes them realize that the one they believed to be flawless is merely human like the rest of us and has to compromise and is occasionally wrong just like the rest of us this political possession process has begun again and i needed a laugh so i ve found some campaign signs for fandoms which i do support rupaul not to be confused with ron paul very very different maybe one day i will be so taken by a candidate that i will fall into fandom myself but for now this is as close as i get comments leave a comment tags childishness in politics political political fandom politics categories great moments in modern politics elections funny just for fun laughing at those with power my own brand of liberalism politics the noble nobody the logic behind the vice president clinton meme 11 01 2012 happy new year now let s talk politics specifically that long forgotten subject democratic politics ok maybe forgotten is pushing it a bit too far but with the republican primary process well and truly underway and the incumbent democratic president running unchallenged there s not much for us on the left to do politically except remark on the dog and pony show of ultra conservatism that s bumbling its way around the country i suppose that it s that kind of party boredom that s mostly to blame for this kind of story but there might just be more to it the latest incarnation of the hillary for vp meme comes from a new york times opinion piece by bill keller published monday and another in the washington post by suzi parker from yesterday the points they makes are much the same as in most of the other renditions of this tune that s been playing off and on almost since this administration began but there has been a decidedly different reaction to the notion of secretary clinton and vice president biden switching places this time around it s no longer treated as some crazy idea being floated by clinton diehards highly unlikely or desperate obama fans also ridiculous that has no basis in reality let alone fact monday night this opinion piece was discussed all over the place on cable news in spite of it being the day before the new hampshire primary and discussed with some degree of seriousness albeit prefaced by numerous this will never happen type comments the truth is that no matter how unlikely the scenario you never know i mean did you think that the question of whether or no states can ban contraception would be a question in this year s presidential primary debates at this time four years ago ok so it s a thing but why and how would it work you ask well even though i m in no way involved in national politics or punditry not that i wouldn t like to be in case anyone in those fields is looking to hire i have just as good an imagination as the rest of them so if you would like let s take a stroll around speculationville we ll start with the why 2008 was the year of hope and change the nation was weary of war and increasingly unnerved by the steepening decline in our economy people were looking for something fresh and optimistic a feel good candidate and they found that in the calm persona of no drama obama there is however a downside to being seen as mr cool and that s running the risk of looking too on point and scripted obama needed a foil that brought a more approachable down to earth average joe quality to the ticket and they got just that in an ever likable if chronically gaffe prone senator from delaware by the name of joe biden the rest as they say is history in the past four years the mood of the country has shifted our idealistic search for something new has given way to old cries from the eighties and even earlier of fat cats and corporate greed versus a shrinking middle class and growing number of people on some form of government assistance leading some candidates to insinuate that these lower income people are lazy it s all remarkably similar to the reagan era arguments about welfare queens and the financial culture of hostile takeovers and gordon gekko types running the show on wall st at the same time we have seen the rise of the tea party culminating in the great butt kicking of 2010 which flipped the balance of power in the house of representatives and shifted the political dialogue of the entire country well to the right of anywhere i ve ever seen it the moderates republican and democrat alike were excised in favor of more partisan candidates and the resulting congress has been deadlocked ever since i ve lost count of how many times we ve almost but not quite shut down the government is it four times now six i don t remember so this year is shaping up to be a smackdown election worthy of a pay per view cage match and the respective political parties are looking for prize fighters the republicans are looking for a defender of tax cuts and a champion of smaller government and business interests the democrats are looking for fighter for workers and the middle class and a protector of programs that they see as vital what democrats have is a very mellow professorial president with an affable everyman as his vp the republicans are searching and re searching their candidate field in the vain hope that one of their potential nominees is the much longed for second coming of ronald reagan and democrats are kind of left to pine for their second coming of fdr the democratic presidential candidate is decided by default or should i say incumbency but there is still that unfulfilled desire for a fighter someone who will have no problem going a couple of rounds with the republicans on the hill conservative pundits or maybe both at once without flinching joe biden as likable as he is doesn t strike most people as a tough guy so regardless of the good job he s done he s not necessarily what a lot of democrats are looking for this time around if there is one thing that hillary clinton is known for it is her strength and her tenacity and throughout her time as both a political spouse and a political figure in her own right she has never ever had any problems with taking it to republicans at all there was one instance during one of her husband s gubernatorial races when she crashed a press conference his opponent was holding to criticize the then governor for being out of state and mrs governor clinton took him on herself i don t think anyone has any doubt that she d know how to handle these tea folk and that s why i think this rumor never quite goes away the fact that she s the most popular government figure in the country right now doesn t hurt either the mechanics of how a biden clinton switch would happen takes us deeper into the realm of completely unsubstantiated guessing games it s worth noting that removing biden from the ticket does have some serious drawbacks just look at the coverage the replacement of white house chief of staff bill daley got even though it was primary time in new hampshire that would increase exponentially if it were joe biden that was on his way out even if it was just to head down to foggy bottom coverage like that is rarely a net positive it would look bad to demote someone who has been such a loyal and hardworking member of the administration it could also be spun out as a sort of hail mary play by a desperate candidate and put the new obama clinton campaign on the defensive from the get go for the sake of argument let s pretend that the administration had weighed their options and decided that the switch was both possible and worth the risk hillary clinton would have to leave the state department before the swap was announced because by law a secretary of state can not play a role in domestic politics her pretext for doing so is anyone s guess but it would not be due to any difference of opinion between her and the white house obviously she s mentioned retirement enough that an announcement to that effect might be the way she d go take a couple of months off to rally her people and then on some beautiful afternoon in the rose garden there she d be as barack obama s new running mate immediately the question would be raised the question that is always raised where hillary clinton is concerned what about bill in the years since he left office bill clinton has become an elder statesman par excellence his foundation is involved in numerous charitable endeavors the world over and his annual clinton global initiative event is such a big deal that he has to hold it on the same week as the un general assembly so as to be more convenient for his international attendees who are going to the un anyway he also has a global initiative specifically for undergrad and graduate students interested in ngo work which his daughter play a significant role in he was named the obama administration s special envoy to haiti after that country was decimated by an earthquake he has appeared several times in support of the president s economic agenda and has proven to be a rather good surrogate seeming to have learned from his mistakes in his wife s presidential bid he has also written two books in short he s got a lot going on and some of that work might present a conflict of interest if his wife was the vice presidential nominee he had to make significant changes in order for her to become secretary of state and i imagine that he would have to make more if she was second in line to run the country my feeling is that he d leave most of the foundation s opera...
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