BF2S Forums Do the Republicans want Obama to fail?

Turquoise wrote:

FEOS wrote:

And that's absurd. The Dems weren't divided on how much to obstruct...they obstructed as much as they possibly could. You don't think the Dems were completely obstructionist during Bush's Administration? If not, you've got some rose-colored glasses on....

With only a year into Bush's first term, no.  With the invasion of Afghanistan, no.  With the invasion of Iraq, no.

It's not rose-colored glasses, FEOS.  Look back at all of the things the GOP pushed through with relatively little resistance from moderate Dems.

Compare that to the current situation where the GOP automatically resists just about anything Obama does.

And the Dems didn't resist everything Bush tried to do from 2003 on?

If Obama had an event like 9/11 early in his administration (cue Dilbert's tinfoil hat), he wouldn't be getting pushback from the GOP, either.

Could it be that Bush didn't try shit half as radical as Obama has? Or that he didn't try to push it through with so little debate, which engendered so much pushback? The most radical thing Bush tried was Social Security reform, and the Dems fought that tooth and nail...just like the GOP is fighting health care reform.

Turquoise wrote:

FEOS wrote:

I would argue that obstructionism is defined not by strategy, but by results. If you can't obstruct, you can't be obstructionist. You can have all the strategy in the world, but if you are incapable of executing that strategy, it's worthless.

Well, going by that analogy, our strategy in Afghanistan has been mostly worthless.

How so? The central government is slowly gaining the ability to govern effectively. The ANP/ANA is gaining the ability to operate autonomously. The people aren't backing the insurgency, they want the elected government to work, they don't want the Taliban back. Seems to be somewhat better than worthless.

FEOS wrote:

And the Dems didn't resist everything Bush tried to do from 2003 on?

If Obama had an event like 9/11 early in his administration (cue Dilbert's tinfoil hat), he wouldn't be getting pushback from the GOP, either.

Could it be that Bush didn't try shit half as radical as Obama has? Or that he didn't try to push it through with so little debate, which engendered so much pushback? The most radical thing Bush tried was Social Security reform, and the Dems fought that tooth and nail...just like the GOP is fighting health care reform.

It is kind of sad that socialized healthcare is considered radical when the majority of the First World considers it common sense.

FEOS wrote:

How so? The central government is slowly gaining the ability to govern effectively. The ANP/ANA is gaining the ability to operate autonomously. The people aren't backing the insurgency, they want the elected government to work, they don't want the Taliban back. Seems to be somewhat better than worthless.

Afghanistan has admittedly never been known for its ethics or stable governmental structures, but with the most recent "election", I'd say we've got quite a mess of a system in place.  Add in the opium production, and it's a clusterfuck of epic proportions.

Turquoise wrote:

FEOS wrote:

And the Dems didn't resist everything Bush tried to do from 2003 on?

If Obama had an event like 9/11 early in his administration (cue Dilbert's tinfoil hat), he wouldn't be getting pushback from the GOP, either.

Could it be that Bush didn't try shit half as radical as Obama has? Or that he didn't try to push it through with so little debate, which engendered so much pushback? The most radical thing Bush tried was Social Security reform, and the Dems fought that tooth and nail...just like the GOP is fighting health care reform.

It is kind of sad that socialized healthcare is considered radical when the majority of the First World considers it common sense.

In terms of the rest of the way the US runs things, it is most certainly considered radical. We're different. Deal with it.

Turquoise wrote:

FEOS wrote:

How so? The central government is slowly gaining the ability to govern effectively. The ANP/ANA is gaining the ability to operate autonomously. The people aren't backing the insurgency, they want the elected government to work, they don't want the Taliban back. Seems to be somewhat better than worthless.

Afghanistan has admittedly never been known for its ethics or stable governmental structures, but with the most recent "election", I'd say we've got quite a mess of a system in place.  Add in the opium production, and it's a clusterfuck of epic proportions.

The most recent "election" is better than any other "election" than has ever occurred there.

Turquoise wrote:

FEOS wrote:

In terms of the rest of the way the US runs things, it is most certainly considered radical. We're different. Deal with it.

Not really...  We have a large social safety net like most of the First World.  We have socialized pre-collegiate education and semi-socialized collegiate education.  We have a lot of the same social systems as the rest of the First World, but for some reason, we opted out of the medical part of it for the most part.  So we're not really that different except in that one respect.

I guess the only other major difference is how large our military is as a part of the overall budget.

And the reduced amount of governmental regulation of our production/economy...until recently. But that's all changing, too. You should be happy about that.

Of course, we could let the market that made our production capacity essentially the fourth or fifth largest GDP-equivalent in the world also fix our health care system, drive down costs and increase competition (which would also drive down the costs the government pays for the same goods and services, btw). But we'll go ahead and let the government, which was designed for inefficiency, take care of it. Makes perfect sense.

Turquoise wrote:

FEOS wrote:

The most recent "election" is better than any other "election" than has ever occurred there.

True, but democracy doesn't exactly work in a culture like theirs.  It would be like trying to bring Zimbabwe a true democracy.  It just wouldn't work.

Which is why they don't have a Western-style democracy, but a representative form of government that melds their tribal culture into it.

Turquoise wrote:

FEOS wrote:

And the reduced amount of governmental regulation of our production/economy...until recently. But that's all changing, too. You should be happy about that.

Well, if the alternative is letting more Enron-style failures occur, then yeah, I'll go with regulation.

You're confusing criminal activity with free enterprise. There is a difference.

Turquoise wrote:

FEOS wrote:

Of course, we could let the market that made our production capacity essentially the fourth or fifth largest GDP-equivalent in the world also fix our health care system, drive down costs and increase competition (which would also drive down the costs the government pays for the same goods and services, btw). But we'll go ahead and let the government, which was designed for inefficiency, take care of it. Makes perfect sense.

The single biggest factor of why our healthcare costs more is specifically because of the costs of corporate bureaucracy.  Having a myriad of healthcare companies provide care incurs much more bureaucracy in total than having one governmental one.

That is a fallacy. Do you know where they get the costs quoted for overhead? From the costs incurred by processing Medicare claims, primarily. That's right, it's the cost incurred by government programs that drives it. Additionally, the costs imposed by not allowing competition across state lines due to federal laws passed in 1945. Again, government regulation limiting free enterprise artificially keeping costs up and stifling competition.

Turquoise wrote:

FEOS wrote:

Which is why they don't have a Western-style democracy, but a representative form of government that melds their tribal culture into it.

True, but do you think that it's going to hold without our presence?  It seems that the only reason Afghanistan can even progress at all as a country is through having a First World country hold its hand the whole time.  It's like a lot of Africa in that respect.   When most of Africa gained its independence, most of it fell apart afterwards.  I don't see Afghanistan faring any better.

I think so. The people have had a taste of self-determination, with the bitter taste of the opposite still lingering on their palates. I think they will fight like hell to keep it.

Turquoise wrote:

FEOS wrote:

You're confusing criminal activity with free enterprise. There is a difference.

Not apparently for Wall Street.

Wall Street =/= free enterprise writ large. It is a small piece of it. You are extrapolating a small sample and painting an entire economic model with that brush. tsk tsk.

Turquoise wrote:

FEOS wrote:

That is a fallacy. Do you know where they get the costs quoted for overhead? From the costs incurred by processing Medicare claims, primarily. That's right, it's the cost incurred by government programs that drives it. Additionally, the costs imposed by not allowing competition across state lines due to federal laws passed in 1945. Again, government regulation limiting free enterprise artificially keeping costs up and stifling competition.

Wrong...

"The health care system in the U.S. has a vast number of players. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of insurance companies in the U.S. This system has considerable administrative overhead, far greater than in nationalized, single-payer systems, such as Canada's. An oft-cited study by Harvard Medical School and the Canadian Institute for Health Information determined that some 31% of U.S. health care dollars, or more than $1,000 per person per year, went to health care administrative costs, nearly double the administrative overhead in Canada, on a percentage basis."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_car … ted_States

Here is a link to the Harvard study: http://www.pnhp.org/publications/nejmadmin.pdf

The irony of this is that local markets don't have much competition in most cases, despite the vast number of providers on a national level.

In fact, the oligopolistic nature of local healthcare markets is specifically because of the barriers to entry of entering things like the hospital market, which exist mostly without government regulation.  Simple facts like how expensive it is to start a hospital naturally limit competition in local markets.

The oligopolistic nature of most local markets is a pretty big problem for our system.

http://www.commonwealthfund.org/Content … ecard.aspx

For most states, the trend is toward less competition.  Most of this is not the government's fault but rather the nature of the market itself.

And the reason that competition does not exist in the insurance market is because of a 1945 law that prohibits interstate health insurance plans, thus limiting competition and creating local monopolies, raising rates to unsustainable levels...which the government then has to pay, as well. If you look at the administrative costs for submitting a Medicare claim vs a non-Medicare/Medicaid claim, they are usually higher for the government claim because the government claim normally has to be submitted multiple times since the first answer is usually "no" due to any number of reasons: misentered codes, govt deemed excessive charges, etc. Then the admin staff and the consumer have to go back and forth with the government office to get it straightened out. Happens far less with non-government run insurance.

Source: nearly ten years of personal experience with both, dealing with pediatric sub-specialists multiple times per month, both for appointments and routine and non-routine services and prescriptions.

Turquoise wrote:

FEOS wrote:

I think so. The people have had a taste of self-determination, with the bitter taste of the opposite still lingering on their palates. I think they will fight like hell to keep it.

I hope you're right, but I also hope they can do it without us staying too much longer.

I hope we stay just long enough for the ANA and ANP to be able to stand on their own and deal with the militants who would take them back to the stone age they have just emerged from.

Turquoise wrote:

FEOS wrote:

Wall Street =/= free enterprise writ large. It is a small piece of it. You are extrapolating a small sample and painting an entire economic model with that brush. tsk tsk.

It may not be the whole of capitalism, but as the recent crash showed, it certainly affects the market to a massive degree.

When you consider how much the economy depends upon the whims of bankers, it doesn't paint a pretty picture of what capitalism has become

The whims of bankers? That's a laugher. You've clearly bought into too much of the 'capitalism is evil' rhetoric. You really are all over the map. One day you're pro-capitalism and the next day you're vilifying it over the excesses of a few. It's much better to place all that power and responsibility in the hands of a few unelected officials, no? That's worked out fantastic for Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the Fed. Considering that most of the problems faced by the banks stemmed from Fannie and Freddie... well you really don't have much of an argument now do you?

Turquoise wrote:

JohnG@lt wrote:

Turquoise wrote:

It may not be the whole of capitalism, but as the recent crash showed, it certainly affects the market to a massive degree.

When you consider how much the economy depends upon the whims of bankers, it doesn't paint a pretty picture of what capitalism has become

The whims of bankers? That's a laugher. You've clearly bought into too much of the 'capitalism is evil' rhetoric. You really are all over the map. One day you're pro-capitalism and the next day you're vilifying it over the excesses of a few. It's much better to place all that power and responsibility in the hands of a few unelected officials, no? That's worked out fantastic for Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the Fed. Considering that most of the problems faced by the banks stemmed from Fannie and Freddie... well you really don't have much of an argument now do you?

The only thing that seems to be vilified by you is the idea of moderation.  I realize some government institutions fail and should either be amended or disbanded.  Still, I don't put all my faith in the market either.

What I've been trying to get across is that what capitalism has become is a problem.  It's not the concept of capitalism itself that is the problem.

Modern banking and the Federal Reserve in contingency seem to be a great way to make the market vulnerable to speculation, leveraging, and shortsighted actions by shareholders.

In short, what I'm vilifying is the instant gratification mindset of Wall Street, whose risky actions lead to periodic crashes that affect millions of people who had no personal connection to said riskiness.

Banking really does need more scrutiny to prevent such massive falls in the future, and the only way that scrutiny can be implemented is via government.  The Federal Reserve is only quasi-governmental.  It's basically a board of bankers with governmental powers -- so in effect, it's a reckless attempt at self-regulation.  It just doesn't work.

What did work in the past was a public central bank.  Unfortunately, Andrew Jackson killed it.

That has much less to do with Wall Street and more to do with society as a whole. Mutual funds etc are all forced to put out quarterly reports for those that buy into them. Any short term losses and they lose market share. So, they end up investing poorly and gambling on short term gains in order to attract business. It's not the proper way to invest and they know it, but it's what their customers want. Blame the citizens of the good ol' USA for wanting everything NOW NOW NOW instead of those who are providing them with a service.

What you're doing is akin to blaming McDonald's for making people fat when the government was handing out coupons for the dollar menu.

Last edited by JohnG@lt (2010-01-03 22:45:45)

Turquoise wrote:

FEOS wrote:

Wall Street =/= free enterprise writ large. It is a small piece of it. You are extrapolating a small sample and painting an entire economic model with that brush. tsk tsk.

It may not be the whole of capitalism, but as the recent crash showed, it certainly affects the market to a massive degree.

When you consider how much the economy depends upon the whims of bankers, it doesn't paint a pretty picture of what capitalism has become.

So instead of moving capitalism (a model that has worked exceedingly well) back to what it could/should be, we should keep trying socialism (one that has not worked so well)?



This is what capitalism gives you: one sector of our economy ties for fourth (behind the US, Japan, and China) if it were a separate economy in comparison to all those other "better" models. We don't need a new economic model. We need better governance and stewardship of what that economic model provides.

Turquoise wrote:

FEOS wrote:

And the reason that competition does not exist in the insurance market is because of a 1945 law that prohibits interstate health insurance plans, thus limiting competition and creating local monopolies, raising rates to unsustainable levels...which the government then has to pay, as well. If you look at the administrative costs for submitting a Medicare claim vs a non-Medicare/Medicaid claim, they are usually higher for the government claim because the government claim normally has to be submitted multiple times since the first answer is usually "no" due to any number of reasons: misentered codes, govt deemed excessive charges, etc. Then the admin staff and the consumer have to go back and forth with the government office to get it straightened out. Happens far less with non-government run insurance.

Source: nearly ten years of personal experience with both, dealing with pediatric sub-specialists multiple times per month, both for appointments and routine and non-routine services and prescriptions.

If you're suggesting that we should remove regulations that block interstate health plans, then I have no disagreement with that.

However, having a national health plan unhindered by differences in state governments is another good way to fix that.

And you would essentially have that if you removed the regulations that block interstate health plans and let the market handle the majority of the coverage, with the government handling those who are unable to cover themselves--as is its function. With reduced overall costs and more selection due to increased competition in the market, the government's costs would be reduced, as well.

Turquoise wrote:

FEOS wrote:

I hope we stay just long enough for the ANA and ANP to be able to stand on their own and deal with the militants who would take them back to the stone age they have just emerged from.

I can support that, but what kind of timetable are we talking here?

That's the problem with your thinking: that you must establish a timetable now. The timetable is circumstantial, not temporal. You establish thresholds--when those thresholds are met, you withdraw certain types/numbers of forces commensurate to the ANA/ANP's capabilities. Rinse and repeat. Regardless of what happens, our AF and Navy (to a far lesser extent) will be there for a very, very long time in a supporting and training capacity.

Question: what effect would the European Union (in terms of economic stuff) have on those figures for European countries such as Germany?

Turquoise wrote:

JohnG@lt wrote:

That has much less to do with Wall Street and more to do with society as a whole. Mutual funds etc are all forced to put out quarterly reports for those that buy into them. Any short term losses and they lose market share. So, they end up investing poorly and gambling on short term gains in order to attract business. It's not the proper way to invest and they know it, but it's what their customers want. Blame the citizens of the good ol' USA for wanting everything NOW NOW NOW instead of those who are providing them with a service.

What you're doing is akin to blaming McDonald's for making people fat when the government was handing out coupons for the dollar menu.

While I'll agree with you that the behavior of shareholders is a separate issue unrelated to capitalism as a system, that doesn't absolve management of corporations from doing what is responsible.

Keep in mind that this is a 2-way street.  In the beginning, shareholders didn't act this way, and management was more fiscally conservative.  When management changed, shareholders did as well.  I would argue that the change began at the top, not with shareholders themselves.

Much of that has to do with loyalty. There is none. People that work in any place where there are concentrated businesses and choices to change jobs without completely uprooting their life (house wife kids etc) are more than likely to act like a mercenary and change companies every few years in order to gain a higher salary. Can you blame them? Of course not. If you work at company X and company Y will give you a 10% increase on your salary of course you'll take it. You'd be foolish not to.

Now, the problem with this scenario is with company Y itself. Instead of promoting from within and/or retaining said person at a higher rate, it chooses to go for the allure of the unknown quantity instead. People do this all the time. If presented with a choice between mystery box and and a known, useful quantity, many people would choose the mystery box instead. These are the same people that will draft a rookie in fantasy sports instead of a solid veteran with known production values in the hopes of catching 'lightning in a bottle'. They're also the same people that will cheat on their wife in the hopes of finding someone better.

Loyalty is bred from within. If your company takes care of you, you're more likely to do what's in the best interest of the company. When you have a mercenary culture there is no loyalty and people won't think twice about abandoning ship at the first sign of trouble in the company. This extends all the way up to the board room and the CEO's office. How many times do you see a company hire a 'Rock Star CEO' instead of promoting from within? The vast majority of the time. Nevermind that it almost never works. The boring route is 99% of the time the correct path but people will roll the dice anyway. I don't see this changing anytime soon.

FEOS wrote:

So instead of moving capitalism (a model that has worked exceedingly well) back to what it could/should be, we should keep trying socialism (one that has not worked so well)?
http://freemarketmojo.files.wordpress.c … &h=406

This is what capitalism gives you: one sector of our economy ties for fourth (behind the US, Japan, and China) if it were a separate economy in comparison to all those other "better" models. We don't need a new economic model. We need better governance and stewardship of what that economic model provides.

You're looking at total GDP, not GDP per capita.  Total GDP is less reflective of economic policy and more reflective of the size of a country.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_co … per_capita

It is true that we are near the top of the list for GDP per capita, but one very socialized country is ahead of us -- Norway.  They pretty much defy your assumption about socialism.  So do a lot of other socialized countries that are near us in GDP per capita.

Socialism has not held us back, but Social Darwinism certainly would.

FEOS wrote:

And you would essentially have that if you removed the regulations that block interstate health plans and let the market handle the majority of the coverage, with the government handling those who are unable to cover themselves--as is its function. With reduced overall costs and more selection due to increased competition in the market, the government's costs would be reduced, as well.

Why not do both?  In most national healthcare systems, there aren't barriers between provinces for coverage, and there is usually a flourishing private market for more advanced care.

FEOS wrote:

That's the problem with your thinking: that you must establish a timetable now. The timetable is circumstantial, not temporal. You establish thresholds--when those thresholds are met, you withdraw certain types/numbers of forces commensurate to the ANA/ANP's capabilities. Rinse and repeat. Regardless of what happens, our AF and Navy (to a far lesser extent) will be there for a very, very long time in a supporting and training capacity.

Considering the permanent installations we're putting into place, I'm not surprised.  What I'm most concerned about is how long we're going to maintain massive levels of troops there.  Staying for the long term with 30,000 troops is one thing.  Staying with over 100,000 is quite another.

Last edited by Turquoise (2010-01-04 20:21:40)