Whatever happened to the Obama sycophants?

Let's exhume Milton Friedman so Jeddard can take it out on the one he blames the most.

That should be fun to watch.

Let the cameras roll on.
 
Let's exhume Milton Friedman so Jeddard can take it out on the one he blames the most.
The man is undead, he roams the foggy back alleys of the global village with his band of super-intelligent Chicago Boys School Club shock therapy zombies dispensing death and misery to anyone mentioning tariffs and barriers.
 
steveinbsas said:
Let's exhume Milton Friedman...

I agree with that very much.

Ever since Adam Smith introduced his theory of the invisible hand, the world has been enlightened to the marvelous mass symphony of mankind known as the "marketplace." All of the Libertarian based (Classical Liberal, to be exact) economists of the world - from the Chicago school to the von Hayek-ian Austrian school to the late great Mr. Friedman - have proven time and again that deregulation works while government control slowly grows inefficient and withers the economic vine. We need only to look at a few principles that control our lives: self-preservation, personal ability and personal responsibility. Out of self-preservation one will work to the best of their ability to provide necessities for their own life. A person's ability will determine how they can sustain themselves, which is also affected by how hard they are willing to work to attain any goal said person might set. Finally, personal responsibility is just that - faith in your fellow man that if they fail, they will try again, not blaming others for their own shortcomings., but pulling themselves up by their bootstraps.

And to make one other point... These times are not unprecedented. Banks were left with nothing but the rafters by 1930. Not only were there runs on the banks, but there were no "required reserves" in banks, so the original Wall Street scam artists would invest bank loaned money. When the market crashed, there was no way to pay back your loan (because it was lost in the NYSE), so people panicked and made runs on banks, which forced banks to call in loans, which had been lost when the market crashed, and so on, and so on...

The difference was, back then, when a company failed, IT FAILED. When the well was dry, there was no more water, PERIOD. And this is in a time where the standard of living was at the point where if you couldn't afford your home, you built a small house on some land and dug an outhouse because plumbing was too expensive. My family farmed and taught school during the Depression. My grandparents, and millions like them, carried the torch of personal responsibility throughout their entire lives, no matter how wealthy or poor they eventually became. Today, the destitute in America live better than the lower-middle class of many developed nations. When compared to the former Soviet states, Middle East, China, SE Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa - our poor live better than almost all the citizens of these countries!

Nowadays, the corporate balance sheets are wrecked, but no one in the US is hungry. When starvation is a leading cause if death in this world, it is nothing short of selfish and spoiled for an American on food stamps to buy cigarettes or US Weekly or a six-pack. The USA's poor act as if they are mistreated, when compared to the rest of the world, their standard of living index is in the 90th percentile. Even our homeless have a better chance at surviving day-to-day than many Africans and SE Asians.

I am sorry for rambling on. Even more sorry because I am new to the forum and of course don't know any of you. Regarding Pres. Obama - notwithstanding the pros and cons of his personality or past faux pas, will his policies hurt or help the US and in turn the world? History says government help hurts (See Cuba, USSR, East Germany, North Korea, etc... now introducing Venezuela). History also says less government helps (the US until ealry 20th century, 90s boom after Reagan cutbacks and tax cuts, ditto in UK after Thatcher, etc). So are Obama critics right? His proponents? History will rear its ugly predictable head and paint an incredibly similar picture, and you can bet there's an invisible had somewhere in there.

-Razorback

And to Sergio - I grew up down the highway from Clinton's hometown, in another poor rural Arkansas town with a "poor" education. While I don't agree with his politics, Clinton is an example of how self-preservation, personal ability and personal responsibility drove a man from humble means to the most powerful man in the world.
 
Recently, the President of Venezuela called the President of the United States an ignoramus (useful idiot).

Today, a smiling (if not smirking) Obama shook his hand.

There was no bow, but the international humiliation continues, nonetheless.
 
steveinbsas said:
Recently, the President of Venezuela called the President of the United States an ignoramus (useful idiot).

Today, a smiling (if not smirking) Obama shook his hand.

There was no bow, but the international humiliation continues, nonetheless.

art.obama.chavez.jpg


I'm thinking they call this "diplomacy", but I'm not sure. It's been a few years since I got my degree in Government. :cool:

I'm just worried that Cuba's communism is going to take over the USA now that Obama has CHANGED everything.


Here "44" looks less than impressed:

t1home.obama.chavez.03.jpg


Does that make it alright?
 
jedard said:
Nixon the moron came along and got rid of the Gold Standard.

Whatever else Nixon was, he wasn't a moron. He was arguably the most intellectual 20th century US president. With regard to going off the gold standard, his hand was forced: other countries were converting their dollar surpluses into gold and US gold reserves were being drained. Indeed, I recall the British ambassador to the US (Henderson?) turning up at the Fed in 1970 with $3bn. The process of converting dollars into gold probably started in the '50s but accelerated during the '60s as the USA started to run current account deficits for the first time (related to its fiscal deficits as Johnson attempted to both wage a war and pay for his "Great Society" programs).
 
To Razorback:
"I grew up down the highway from Clinton's hometown, in another poor rural Arkansas town with a "poor" education."

So did I. How odd and rare is it to find two old boys from southwest Arkansas exchanging comments on a website for Buenos Aires expats? I was born and raised in Columbia County.

As for the rest of this thread, I stopped participating in the smash and bash propensity some people have quite a long while ago, so I'll continue to stay out of this.
 
And why don't all of you who who are so sure what is going to happen go back to the US and do somethign about it? The more you sit on your butts and complain, the less credibility your arguements have. I wish that most of the expats here would post about things about Argentina. Isn't that the point of the site?

Why can't we talk about Louis Scola and how he is helping the Houston Rockets become a true force in the NBA? That is someting this site could use more of-interesting things about Argentina-not why the US is "dooming itself."
 
jtwells said:
Why can't we talk about Louis Scola and how he is helping the Houston Rockets become a true force in the NBA?

Maybe because this is the "World Politics" thread?

I'd be glad to talk about how the Rockets might actually make it out of the first round without Mcgrady, after trading their point guard to Orlando, and behind an underrated porteno power forward Scola. Unfortulately, the politics forum isn't the place for that.
 
Back
Top