Obama the elitiest - out of touch with Americans

[MulaMan]

This is just a great interview video from the Republican National Convention's recent strategy session. It really opened my eyes as to what Republican conservatism really means:

http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/tu...ting-in-hawaii

[Munger]

Re: Obama the elitiest - out of touch with Americans

Clueless

I’m with Simon Johnson here: how is it possible, at this late date, for Obama to be this clueless?

The lead story on Bloomberg right now contains excerpts from an interview with Business Week which tells us:

President Barack Obama said he doesn’t “begrudge” the $17 million bonus awarded to JPMorgan Chase & Co. Chief Executive Officer Jamie Dimon or the $9 million issued to Goldman Sachs Group Inc. CEO Lloyd Blankfein, noting that some athletes take home more pay.

The president, speaking in an interview, said in response to a question that while $17 million is “an extraordinary amount of money” for Main Street, “there are some baseball players who are making more than that and don’t get to the World Series either, so I’m shocked by that as well.”

“I know both those guys; they are very savvy businessmen,” Obama said in the interview yesterday in the Oval Office with Bloomberg BusinessWeek, which will appear on newsstands Friday. “I, like most of the American people, don’t begrudge people success or wealth. That is part of the free- market system.”

Obama sought to combat perceptions that his administration is anti-business and trumpeted the influence corporate leaders have had on his economic policies. He plans to reiterate that message when he speaks to the Business Roundtable, which represents the heads of many of the biggest U.S. companies, on Feb. 24 in Washington.

Oh. My. God.

First of all, to my knowledge, irresponsible behavior by baseball players hasn’t brought the world economy to the brink of collapse and cost millions of innocent Americans their jobs and/or houses.

And more specifically, not only has the financial industry has been bailed out with taxpayer commitments; it continues to rely on a taxpayer backstop for its stability. Don’t take it from me, take it from the rating agencies:

The planned overhaul of US financial rules prompted Standard & Poor’s to warn on Tuesday it might downgrade the credit ratings of Citigroup and Bank of America on concerns that the shake-up would make it less likely that the banks would be bailed out by US taxpayers if they ran into trouble again.

The point is that these bank executives are not free agents who are earning big bucks in fair competition; they run companies that are essentially wards of the state. There’s good reason to feel outraged at the growing appearance that we’re running a system of lemon socialism, in which losses are public but gains are private. And at the very least, you would think that Obama would understand the importance of acknowledging public anger over what’s happening.

But no. If the Bloomberg story is to be believed, Obama thinks his key to electoral success is to trumpet “the influence corporate leaders have had on his economic policies.”

We’re doomed.

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/02/10/clueless/

[GRG55]

Re: Obama the elitiest - out of touch with Americans

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/02/10/clueless/

I posted a link to the Bloomberg item on another thread a few moments ago, before I saw your post and link to the Krugman column.

I am currently half way around the world, in the Persian Gulf. This news item hit the Bloomberg just before I went out for a late dinner last night with some expatriate [some from the USA] and Middle East friends who live here, and I can assure it was the subject of much discussion. In short, everyone around the table was appalled...no exceptions.

When prominent hard core Democrats like Krugman start calling the President "clueless" and sign off with "We're doomed" it's truly difficult for even a habitual optimist [on the future of the USA] like me to remain so...

[Munger]

Re: Obama the elitiest - out of touch with Americans

[due_indigence]

Re: Obama the elitiest - out of touch with Americans

Professional athletes are bailed out by ticket sales. This makes them wards of capitalism, a dying breed among the multi-millionaire set. Whether Obama is cynical or naive hardly matters in practical effect. But yes, for such a smart guy, this sort of statement tends to make me think the latter and not the former.

[ThePythonicCow]

Re: Obama the elitiest - out of touch with Americans

When prominent hard core Democrats like Krugman start calling the President "clueless" and sign off with "We're doomed" it's truly difficult for even a habitual optimist [on the future of the USA] like me to remain so...

The first step to recovery is admitting you have a problem. This is good news (in the long run, if we get there :eek:.)

[GRG55]

Professional athletes are bailed out by ticket sales. This makes them wards of capitalism, a dying breed among the multi-millionaire set. Whether Obama is cynical or naive hardly matters in practical effect. But yes, for such a smart guy, this sort of statement tends to make me think the latter and not the former.

Just like the bankers, in far, far too many cases pro athletes are subsidized by the taxpayers...it happens in every instance that local politicos cave in to the blackmail of team owners and put the taxpayers on the hook for the costs of another money losing pro-sports House of Worship [stadium]. There's no way in hell the team owners or leagues could pay the players [or themselves] the current levels of compensation if they had to fund all the costs of the venues in which they operate their "businesses". Not the first time this topic has come up here on iTulip.

Free market? What free market?? The only free market left in America is the line up for food stamps...

Edit added: ...and the market to buy politicians who, apparently, are still willing and able to sell themselves off to the highest corporate bidder...

[we_are_toast]

Re: Obama the elitiest - out of touch with Americans

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/02/10/clueless/

This is nothing more than sloppy politics. Now that the Supreme Court, in one of the worst decisions ever, has given a free ticket to corporations to completely corrupt what is left of our representative government, you have to play by the rules of the game.

The interview is with Bloomberg, and was a sloppy attempt to appease corporations in an effort to prevent them from simply buying up the congress and installing their wholly owned subsidiary ( the Republican party) to finish their previous 8 year effort to give complete control of the law making process to the corporations.

Of course, Obama should be using the bully pulpit to cry for a constitutional amendment to implement comprehensive campaign finance and election reform, but he chose the easier path of appeasement. I suspect he'll get the same results as he has gotten in the past year with his bilateral approach to the Grand Old Corporation.

With such sloppy political moves, it really makes me wonder how he ever got elected.

[Chomsky]

Re: Obama the elitiest - out of touch with Americans

Professional athletes are bailed out by ticket sales. This makes them wards of capitalism, a dying breed among the multi-millionaire set. Whether Obama is cynical or naive hardly matters in practical effect. But yes, for such a smart guy, this sort of statement tends to make me think the latter and not the former.

Well, the public "backstops" professional teams with billions of taxpayer dollars used to build them new stadiums.

Paul Krugman predictably goes nuts, arguing that unlike bankers in this day and age, ballplayers aren't beholden to taxpayers and the government. Krugman lives in New York, I presume. Guess he doesn't get up to the Bronx or over to Queens very often, because there sit a couple billion dollars worth of public largess that does indeed benefit the ballplayers and the men who employ them. And that's before you get to the government-granted antitrust exemption.

http://hardballtalk.nbcsports.com/20...aries.html.php

[Slimprofits]

Re: Obama the elitiest - out of touch with Americans

If he's for real, than he's not sloppy, he's just a wimp. He's yellow. The Republicans kicked his ass up and down the block even before they had a 41 seat super-minority in the Senate.

If he's a fraud, than he should have a few Oscars to go along with that phony Nobel Peace Prize on the mantle by the end of his single term presidency.

[DToM67]

Re: Obama the elitiest - out of touch with Americans

Just like the bankers, in far, far too many cases pro athletes are subsidized by the taxpayers...it happens in every instance that local politicos cave in to the blackmail of team owners and put the taxpayers on the hook for the costs of another money losing pro-sports House of Worship [stadium]. There's no way in hell the team owners or leagues could pay the players [or themselves] the current levels of compensation if they had to fund all the costs of the venues in which they operate their "businesses". Not the first time this topic has come up here on iTulip.

Free market? What free market?? The only free market left in America is the line up for food stamps...

Edit added: ...and the market to buy politicians who, apparently, are still willing and able to sell themselves off to the highest corporate bidder...

Faux military battle, hero making & worship. Marketing to the lowest common denominator... Beer, breasts and gambling.

Spectacle, distraction titillation, sensationalism. A great masturbatory indulgence, without the 'value' of the real thing.

[jtabeb]

Re: Obama the elitiest - out of touch with Americans

Faux military battle, hero making & worship. Marketing to the lowest common denominator... Beer, breasts and gambling.

Spectacle, distraction titillation, sensationalism. A great masturbatory indulgence, without the 'value' of the real thing.

Get married to a GOOD woman and have some kids. It is the "real deal" and lasts a lifetime. I get all the titillation I need thank you very much. (I would not trade my wife for all the gold in the world).

And for me, as you all WELL KNOW, THAT is saying something!!!!!

[DToM67]

Re: Obama the elitiest - out of touch with Americans

The interview... a sloppy attempt to appease corporations in an effort to prevent them from simply buying up the congress and installing their wholly owned subsidiary ( the Republican party) to finish their previous 8 year effort to give complete control of the law making process to the corporations.

If everyone stopped propping up the false-paradigm Republican/Democrat tomorrow it wouldn't be too soon.

This disease that blinds so completely areas of the mind (which are otherwise capable of logical thought, measurement of cause & effect) is extremely unfortunate.

I believe that real change will only occur when people begin to vote based on ACTUAL VOTING RECORD and/or results of said votes. Not label.

[DToM67]

Re: Obama the elitiest - out of touch with Americans

Get married to a GOOD woman and have some kids. It is the "real deal" and lasts a lifetime. I get all the titillation I need thank you very much. (I would not trade my wife for all the gold in the world).

And for me, as you all WELL KNOW, THAT is saying something!!!!!

Exactly! REALITY... family, community, relationships, substance... not image, hype and distraction from reality.

[BigBagel]

Re: Obama the elitiest - out of touch with Americans

If he's for real, than he's not sloppy, he's just a wimp. He's yellow. The Republicans kicked his ass up and down the block even before they had a 41 seat super-minority in the Senate.

If he's a fraud, than he should have a few Oscars to go along with that phony Nobel Peace Prize on the mantle by the end of his single term presidency.

He's a wimp. The perfect example was when Lloyd Blankfein, John Mack and Richard Parsons were no-shows at a White House meeting in December. There was "fog" in NYC and I guess they couldn't scrounge a few tickets on the Acela. Imagine doing that to Lyndon Johnson. Johnson would lay awake at night thinking up ways to screw you if you pulled that on him. Nixon would have too.