News-Record.com

"Since the far right thinks it’s easy to give simple “yes-no” answers to complex questions, such as those posed by Bob Goodman (letter, Sept. 6), perhaps Goodman would like to answer the following:

If tax cuts are the answer to every economic question, why is the economy in such bad shape after seven-plus years of them?

If deficits don’t matter, why is the dollar so weak against other currencies and what is the impact on inflation?"

Damn, these ARE hard questions to answer with yes or no. I'm tempted to say yes to #1 and no to #2, but those answers don't seem right somehow. I guess L. F. has proven his point.

Funny, Brian. There is, however a valid balance between and for example, McCain's "Evil is Bad" and Obama's " __ " ... well I really do not remenber what he said.

"...why is the economy in such bad shape after seven-plus years of them [tax-cuts]?"

Economist Robert Samuelson:

"First, comparisons [using the year 2000 as the baseline] are made to an artificially high benchmark -- the late 1990s "tech bubble."

"Remember the dot-com binge. Wages rose sharply; bonuses and cash incentives mushroomed. Unemployment and poverty dropped . . . But all these gains reflected a boom that, though pleasurable, was temporary and unsustainable . . .

"Picking 1997 -- the last pre-boom year -- is more realistic. From 1997 to 2007, median household income rose $2,600, roughly 5 percent. Though hardly spectacular, that's not stagnation. The poverty rate in 2007 was slightly lower than in 1997."

* * *

Comment: Yet, the economy IS in a mess. Democrats are at the root of the problem, of course. But just how they created the mess is probably not well known by the public:

"...it was the Clinton administration, obsessed with multiculturalism, that dictated where mortgage lenders could lend, and originally helped create the market for the high-risk subprime loans now infecting like a retrovirus the balance sheets of many of Wall Street's most revered institutions.

"Tough new regulations forced lenders into high-risk areas where they had no choice but to lower lending standards to make the loans that sound business practices had previously guarded against making. It was either that or face stiff government penalties.

"The untold story in this whole national crisis is that President Clinton put on steroids the Community Redevelopment Act, a well-intended Carter-era law designed to encourage minority homeownership. And in so doing, he helped create the market for the risky subprime loans that he and Democrats now decry as not only greedy but 'predatory.'"*

*The Real Culprits In This Meltdown
INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY
September 15, 2008
http://www.ibdeditorials.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id=306370789279709

To be perfectly fair, Democrats were succeeded by a Republican president even more "obsessed with multiculturalism" so he had no capacity for recognizing the problem created by the Democrats and fixing it.

Shuford,
The ONLY thing in your tripe that was close to true, is that you admit Bush doesn't have the capacity for intellectual depth. Other than that, it was the usual "cherry picked" mishmash of right wing rhetoric.

Pitiful.

Tom, its good to see someone that can point a finger at both parties. They both had a finger in this mess. You will notice that this letter left out Obama and Clinton part of this. Obama who claims he against lobbyists, took over $125,000 form Fannie and Freddie! The heads of both of these were Clinton people. This same people now are running Obama campaign. Then the republicans came along and let this mess continue. I say we taxpayers are up a well know creek, compliments of both parties.

Does "The Buck Stops Here" ring a bell, Tom??

Who had total control of the congress and White House for 6 years? How many bills has the current congress passed that caused this mess?

It's all the Democrats fault is getting a bit silly.

"Tom, its good to see someone that can point a finger at both parties."

Oh yeah. That is laughable at best and disingenuous at the worst. If someone had asked for a plan to totally gut the military, put incompetent cronies in office, and a total moron in the White House, they would have come up with the Bush administration and the
"borrow and spend" GOP congress.

Republicans has definitively proven that they can win elections but have no clue at how to govern.

Republicans, conservative? What are you smoking! They increased the size of government beyond the imaginations of FDR and LBJ, but the lemmings keep following them over the cliff because they think banning abortions will make the economy hum, or stopping gay marriage will bring manufacturing jobs back.
The GOP has been turned into a circus by the cultural warriors who seek to destroy our great secular society.

(Sorry for grammatical mistakes above)

Thanks for the information. There are many factors that contributed to the financial melt down and those actions taken in the a1990s by the Clinton Administration probably were a contributor to this problem, but current foreclosures cut across all income demographics. The foreclosures are not isolated to those buying for the first time, or those of low income. While much was subprime, many were adjustable rate mortgages to individuals taking serious risk in the pursuit of making easy money.

The dot com bubble was truly a market driven fiasco created by private investor chasing a new technology without a sound understanding of its makeup. The federal government had nothing to do with this boom and bust, but the financial boom and bust of today was very much created by cheap money, slack lending policy, low interest rates, all supported by the administration, federal reserve and the banking industry. The lack of action by the administration especially early on with both Frannie and Freddie only supports this claim. These banks are full of bright people. They were too busy looking up at the sky without knowing they were at the edge of the cliff.

The Frannie and Freddie problem was known four to five years ago, yet the current administration apparently did not see the seriousness. The low interest rates were encouraged by the administration and any increase in rates would only tank a fragile lopped side economy. Lastly, the current administration had adequate time to take actions and shape a better outcome. The treasury department could never come up with much, given the revolving door of secretaries. This was another example of judgment problem with this administration.

Carol Dunn: "It's all the Democrats fault is getting a bit silly."

Carol, I take no pleasure at pointing out messes Democrats make. There's an "opportunity cost" in this. I could be doing something else.

But duty calls. Here, for example, are the top five recipients of campaign funds from Fannie and Freddie, who --- because of their gross mismanagement --- are now burdens for U. S. taxpayers. Please take note. ALL ARE DEMOCRATS:

Top Recipients of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac
Campaign Contributions, 1989-2008

1. Dodd, Christopher J
S
D-CT
$133,900

2. Kerry, John
S
D-MA
$111,000

3. Obama, Barack
S
D-IL
$105,849

4. Clinton, Hillary
S
D-NY
$75,550

5. Kanjorski, Paul E
H
D-PA
$65,500

Source: Opensecrets.org:
http://www.opensecrets.org/news/2008/07/top-senate-recipients-of-fanni.html

Comment: I've freely admitted on this board than I'm a member of the Stupid Party, the GOP. There's a lot I could say about the Stupid Party and would if I had time. But for all its craven incompetence, the Stupid Party is not as dangerous as the Evil Party (evil in the sense of philosophically embracing socialism, open borders, radical egalitarianism). That is why, with the limited time I have, I tend to target the Evil Party, the Democratic Party.

John McCain speech in May, 2006:

Mr. President,

"For years I have been concerned about the regulatory structure that governs Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac–known as Government-sponsored entities or GSEs–and the sheer magnitude of these companies and the role they play in the housing market. OFHEO’s report this week does nothing to ease these concerns. In fact, the report does quite the contrary. OFHEO’s report solidifies my view that the GSEs need to be reformed without delay."

"I join as a cosponsor of the Federal Housing Enterprise Regulatory Reform Act of 2005, S. 190, to underscore my support for quick passage of GSE regulatory reform legislation. If Congress does not act, American taxpayers will continue to be exposed to the enormous risk that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac pose to the housing market, the overall financial system, and the economy as a whole."

"I urge my colleagues to support swift action on this GSE reform legislation."

Senator McCain attempted in 2006 to stop the Freddie and Fannie Mae excesses leading to the train wreck he saw coming. The Democratic Congress would not hear of McCain's attempts to pass legislation at reforming the profligate organizations.

In his speech, McCain predicted the entire collapse that has forced the government (using our taxpayers' money) to rescue Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, along with Bear Stearns and AIG. He hammered at how Fannie and Freddie falsified financial records year after year to benefit executives, including Franklin Raines and Jim Johnson, both who worked for these Wall Street disasters and personally took tens of millions of dollars and were fined and investigated in the process. Both men worked as advisers to Barack Obama this year. McCain also noted the power of their lobbying efforts to forestall oversight over their own despicable business practices.

So, yes, the Democrats own a very large part of the responsibility for this disaster. The facts show that Tom Shuford's post is accurate, even though LibCon tried to blow it off as tripe. So, if it is tripe LibCon, show us why it is, if you can. Facts are stubborn things. The Republicans have some fault in this disaster to be sure, but the main drivers in this was greed, and much of it was of the Democrat stripe.

As regards Barack Obama:

“It’s the same philosophy we’ve had for the last eight years, one that says we should give more and more to those with the most and hope that prosperity trickles down to everyone else,” Obama said. “It’s a philosophy that says even commonsense regulations are unnecessary, unwise. One that says we should just stick our heads in the sand and ignore economic problems until they spiral into crisis” [...]

Obama: Sen. McCain is implicated in the banking crisis BECAUSE he adheres to a philosophy.

Question: Is Sen. Obama therefore culpuble when he associates himself with and accepts money and advice from the very players—the bankers and financeers—who actually caused this crisis?

Mr. Shuford, the top five are not "ALL DEMOCRATS".

I guess you decided the current list didn't quite support your argument, but here it is:

http://www.opensecrets.org/news/2008/09/update-fannie-mae-and-freddie.html

By the way- these contributions came from Freddie/Fannie's employees and political action committees, not from Freddie and Fannie themselves.

In all, according to this "open secrets" website, Democrats have received 57% of employees' contributions and Republicans have received 43% since 1989.

Pragmatist,

You are correct that the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac money was spread generously around to politician's of both stripe. Which brings to mind the question why employees and PACs of quasi government businesses should be lobbying and contributing money to legislators, are supposed to be looking out for the public good.

In any event, Mr. Obama is not being honest when he implies the total fault for this disaster is the result of poor regulation by the Bush Administration. At the same time, we now see that John McCain predicted this disaster and tried to do something about it, but was stopped by Democrats and some Republicans; a partisan effort to be sure. When McCain called for a commission to review this disaster, Obama chided him by saying that we already know how it happened. But the truth is that some politician's do not want a commission to study and review how this happened, because they would be found to be complicit. Greed is a strong motivator.

It's neat to be able to use the same website to both make and refute a point.

And both links and arguments are valid and factual, and with only two months between them.

We'll soon be forced to re-google for our information before each post.

Yikes. I just had a realization.

Both lists rank the recipients of campaign contributions from F. Mae/F. Mac for the last twenty (20) years.

Obama is #2 on Pragmatist's link and #3 on Shuford's.

Obama has only been a senator for three (3) years.

Change.

Tom Shuford and ORR clearly have little insight into mortgages, MBSs and Derivatives.
And Tom cites a blog as a source, eliminating credibility. Might as well cite your cat. Notice that the fluffy opinion piece cited was never published. That's because it is political tripe, not analysis.
CBD loans are not the ones in default. In fact, CBD default rates have not risen during this crisis. True, the Republican congress DID pass the "banking reforms" DURING the Clinton administration along with a few Democrats, but it was originated, drafted and written by Republicans.
"Senator McCain attempted in 2006 to stop the Freddie and Fannie Mae excesses leading to the train wreck he saw coming. "
I think the train had left the station by 2006, considering that 90% of the loans that are now in default were already underwritten, packaged and sold to investors with Bush administration regulator complicity.
You guys can keep trying to blame Clinton, but no matter what you say I will remember 12 years of Republican Congresses that passed these laws and 7+ years of Republican administration that undermined what little regulation remained.
Anyone interested in how the Bush administration is dealing with this crisis should listen to This American Life, "The Enforcers" episode. You can download it here:
http://podcast.thisamericanlife.org/podcast/363.mp3
There are several stories in the hour long podcast, so you can slide around if you only want to hear what kind of clowns and buffoons are in this Republican administration.
Of course the Republican spin machine is trying to cast their cloud on their opponents, and I admit it is virtually impossible to sympathize with the other set of clowns and buffoons over at the Democratic party, but the truth is the truth and this mess lies squarely with the Republicans in this massive case of derivatives fraud that is the root of this problem.

"At the same time, we now see that John McCain predicted this disaster and tried to do something about it, but was stopped by Democrats and some Republicans;"
Are you suggesting that McCain has ANY clue what the problem is? If he does then why did he wait TWENTY YEARS to speak up? I would suggest that McCain is and was a PART of the problem. Can you refer us to one source that shows "he tried to stop it" such as a bill admitted to the Senate? My best guess is he smelled the stink and was trying to distance himself from it, but to no avail.

Here's a simple answer as to where McCain stands on corruption: let's all remember that McCain was part of the Keating Five that created the S&L crisis.
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/politics/2008157607_mckeating04.html
Now we know that Democratic buffoons were in charge back then, but McCain showed that he could "reach across the aisle" and into people's pockets in order to join in fraud and corruption. Is that the kind of "maverick" we need? I think not.
Here is some more on the Keating Five:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keating_Five

"Democrats are at the root of the problem, of course."

Suggestion, Mr Shuford. Since this is the point of everything you write, why don't you just copy and paste this sentence as your only reply. It's neat, succinct, and not susceptible to fact-checking.

ORR:
"Question: Is Sen. Obama therefore culpuble when he associates himself with and accepts money and advice from the very players—the bankers and financeers—who actually caused this crisis?"

YES

verelse: Same question about Sen, McCain, then, I assume gets the same answer?

vrelese: "Tom cites a blog as a source, eliminating credibility. Might as well cite your cat. Notice that the fluffy opinion piece cited was never published."

Which source was not published, vrelese?

Please be specific:

Robert Samuelson?

He's an economist with a regular column for the Washington Post. Those excerpts were certainly published.

The Investors Business Daily editorial?

As for the the OpenSecrets.org data on campaign conbributions, If you feel they have no credibility, how about the same same --- but with dramatic new details on the tens of millions Democrat operatives have raked in from these quasi-government companies --- in this two-minute Fox News report --- citing data from the Center for Responsive Politics:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H-_HlpZ8azA

Must viewing for the those wishing to understand Democratic Party responsibility for the Fannie-Freddie disaster.

Shuford, you partisan hack.

John Gibson, the reporter in your Fox News link, has written books called 'Hating America' and 'The War on Christmas'. He makes Anne Colter seem like Mother Teresa.

Fox News and John Gibson. There are some non-partisan news gurus for you.

Howie,
absolutely he gets the same answer.

"He's an economist with a regular column for the Washington Post. Those excerpts were certainly published." I just scanned Lexus Nexus at NC State -- the "excerpts" are web only opinion pieces...his blog.

But don't expect me to defend the Democrats--can't be done. I am simply stating that the Republicans are trying to run away from their responsibility and culpability in this mess. I hear NOTHING from them on solving the issue---in fact I keep hearing them want to perpetuate it by continuing to NOT enforce and FASB rules, any banking regulations or putting a stop to illegal trading. Nope, their party line is simply "It's the Democrats' fault!" or "Don't blame us!". A party of whiners is what they are.
I think they are a threat to American democracy as they stand now.
And I never quote the Republican News Channel - Fox - and expect credibility. Their own reporters have stated that they get their orders directly from the RNC.

For a little more detail, I should say that the Wall Street Journal sniffed a rat very early on in this Democrat-created disaster.

Here's Wall Street Journal editorial page editor, Paul Gigot's dramatic account:

The Fannie Mae Gang
By PAUL A. GIGOT
Wall Street Journal
July 23, 2008
http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB121677050160675397.html

Here's a delicious excerpt --- hoping to tempt you to read the full article:

"My battles with Fan and Fred began with no great expectations. In late 2001, I got a tip that Fannie's derivatives accounting might be suspect. I asked Susan Lee to investigate, and the editorial she wrote in February 2002, 'Fannie Mae Enron?', sent Fannie's shares down nearly 4% in a day. In retrospect, my only regret is the question mark.

"Mr. [Democrat operative Franklin] Raines reacted with immediate fury, denouncing us in a letter to the editor as "glib, disingenuous, contorted, even irresponsible," and that was the subtle part. He turned up on CNBC to say, in essence, that we had made it all up because we didn't want poor people to own houses, while Freddie issued its own denunciation."

* * *

Who is Franklin Raines? Don't miss ---

First three paragraphs from Wikipedia bio:

Franklin Delano Raines (born January 14, 1949 in Seattle, Washington) is the former chairman and chief executive officer of Fannie Mae who served as White House budget director under President Bill Clinton. He is currently employed by Barack Obama's Presidential Campaign as an economic adviser.

The son of a Seattle janitor [1], Raines graduated from Harvard University, Harvard Law School; and Magdalen College, Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar. Raines was of age during the Vietnam War, but performed no military service. He served in the Carter Administration as associate director for economics and government in the Office of Management and Budget and assistant director of the White House Domestic Policy Staff from 1977 to 1979. Then he joined Lazard Freres and Co., where he worked for 11 years and became a general partner. In 1991 he became Fannie's Mae's Vice Chairman, a post he left in 1996 in order to join the Clinton Administration as the Director of the U.S. Office of Management and Budget, where he served until 1998. In 1999, he returned to Fannie Mae as CEO, "the first black man to head a Fortune 500 company."[1]

On December 21, 2004 Raines accepted what he called "early retirement" [2] from his position as CEO while U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission investigators continued to investigate alleged accounting irregularities. He is accused by The Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight (OFHEO), the regulating body of Fannie Mae, of abetting widespread accounting errors, which included the shifting of losses so senior executives, such as himself, could earn large bonuses [3].

"I just scanned Lexus Nexus at NC State -- the [Robert Samuelson] 'excerpts' are web only opinion pieces...his blog."

Wrong, as usual. (This is getting tedious.)

The Samuelson excerpts came from a piece published in the Charlotte Observer which is delivered daily in print form to my home. By the way, you may not know this: Columnists, including economics columnists, write opinion pieces.

Here is the link to the Samuelson piece as it appeared in the hardcover edition of the Washington Post:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/02/AR2008090202437.html

Tom Shuford :
Still can't find it Tom. not saying your wrong, just can't find it. I will take your word that it was published and stand corrected.

The link you last posted does not appear to point to the article you intend. It says nothing to support your assertions that Democrats caused this problem. The articles names many Republicans and notes that proper Federal oversight got rid of Raines as it should.

There is a lot of blame to go around, to be sure. But the Administration has been run by Republicans for more than 7 years...ample time, if competent, to discover and clean up any corruption. Clearly, the Republican administration aided, abetted, ignored and assisted the corruption instead,

The title of this LTE is: No Simple Answers for Tough Questions.

I think that's mistaken, at least as far as the economy goes.

I think there are simple answers to fix the economy, so here goes:

There is one reason why Freddie and Fannie, Lehman and AIG collapsed; why other financial institutions in rapid succession will collapse or merge; why the housing market is so troubled, and why gas prices are so high:

Free, unregulated speculation.

When a group of highly capitalized investors controls an unnaturally large segment of any commodities market- be it credit, housing or oil- supply shrinks and prices go up. As prices go up, more money flows to the speculators who buy even more of the commodities, driving prices up still further, as supply to the marketplace gets choked off.

This is what's happening now with oil and also what's happened in the housing market, although that was more perception than anything else: home buyers eager to join the equity-building parade became speculators as interest rates dropped, making homes more affordable, especially at low adjustable rates.

Until recently, mortgages and mortgage-backed securities have been the bedrock of American finance. The more billions and trillions were locked away into supposedly-safe mortgages, the more mortgage-backed securities financial institutions could sell.

Mortgages became the gold standard of American business.

The meltdown happened after speculators artificially boosted the prices of real estate and banks, eager to generate more mortgage backed securities, granted loans to less and less qualified borrowers. When housing prices abruptly plummeted and people defaulted on those mortgages, and homes could not be sold for anywhere near the value of their mortgages, it not only killed Freddie and Fannie, it also nailed everyone else in the mortgage-backed securities pipeline. Billions evaporated.

In order to get out of this mess, we must do two things:

1) Re-regulate the commodities and housing markets, preventing rampant speculation, and

2) Find some way of reducing housing inventories so homes have real, sustainable value again. We might find it's in our best interest to subsidize existing mortgages to keep those homes viable and restore value and confidence to the housing market.

Oh- or option 3:

Go back on the gold standard.

But first- take care of option number one above.

/vrelese: "There is a lot of blame to go around, to be sure. But the Administration has been run by Republicans for more than 7 years...ample time, if competent, to discover and clean up any corruption. Clearly, the Republican administration aided, abetted, ignored and assisted the corruption instead."

That's all true.

But there is only so time I can give this debate so I'm forced to be selective as to what facts/ideas to bring forth.

For the record, Robert Samuelson is as straight-down-the-middle an economic columnist as there is--as opposed to a Paul Krugman on the left or a Larry Kudlow on the right. And he generally finds both parties about equally as inept in facing economic issues squarely.

Brian,

I may be wrong but Larry Kudlow is not an economist. Krugman is an economist, no doubt on the social left side. Krugman does provide many great arguments, but he is not of the Chicago school. Obama maybe one the first politicians ever to embrace a market driven economic theory.

ORR,

Publishing of facts are not the same as journalism, once in a while journalists publish facts. Shuford's copy and paste is of an article written by who knows, in a national published magazine, but not that respected. Please, just because an article is published does not in any way provide factual evidence or is based on any economic research. Opinion is not synonymous with truth. Perhaps balony, yes!

Hey we agree again, Tom [assuming we’re talking the same detail (*1)]

The Clinton administration is, at least partially responsible. But what did he do? He DEREGULATED part of the Banking industry.

Here's ORR’s (*2) so called “stubborn fact”:

Clinton signed the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act which “allow[ed] banks to enter the securities business, becoming what some term ‘whole banks’.”

Here’s a link from some pissed-off Lieburals – steamed over what smokin’ Bill did – acting like a Republican of all things:
http://thestrangedeathofliberalamerica.com/foreclosed-blame-bill-clintons-repeal-of-glass-steagall.html

“The repeal of [portions(*3) of the Glass-Steagall Act, officially known as the Banking Act of 1933, a crown jewel of the New Deal and one of the most important pieces of legislation in this nation’s history] ... sign[ed] the death warrant of Liberal America and its core belief in the level playing field that had guided the Democratic Party.”

==

Clinton DEREGULATED - a solid conservative millstone – and you are upset?
Please explain the connection between an act of deregulation that freed financial companies to construct more “business friendly arrangements” opposite the risky actions those financial companies took upon themselves.

Please show the “mandate” for the creation of Credit Default Swaps (CDS) a.k.a. “insurance on debt” which is apparently the reason AIG fell so far so fast.
Please show the “mandate” for banks to use financial derivatives “for quick financial gain”.
Please show the “mandate” for banks to loan huge piles of cash to folks who have no money and not even a job.
Please show the mandate for financial institutions to act stupid.

==

I ask – is all the turmoil caused by DEREGULATION, or instead the Free Market Forces released by Deregulation?

==

(*1a) Neither of your links provide much detail beyond exposing the corruption of Clinton appointees – we ALL know Clinton appointees are universally corrupt (*1b), so I’m assuming I have the “correct bad thing” Clinton did to cause the current meltdown.

(*1b) No excuse for Franklin Raines or Jim Johnson or Jeb Bush or any others.

(*2) Not that anyone really cares about ORR, with his “bwwaaallkkk bwwaaallkkk” attitude.
For clarity see:
http://blog.news-record.com/opinion/letters/archives/2008/09/palin_more_questions_about_her.shtml#comments

(*3) “Provisions that prohibit a bank holding company from owning other financial companies were repealed on November 12, 1999 by the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act signed by President Bill Clinton”

By the way, Tom, it was very telling to read your 3:29 PM post where you admit the truth in verelse’ dressing down of the Republican administrations hand in all this. “That's all true” you said … followed by “I'm forced to be selective as to what facts/ideas to bring forth.” May we use “Cherry Picker Tom” as an informal nickname?

That was a great cherry pick, Tom! What a description, find some remote argument to support what I believe is correct and perhaps it will get by the scrutiny. I am glad he did not cite "god", which maybe even more remote and for some more convincing, but commonly used by some candidates.

"In Elko, Obama tried to anticipate his critics and called on the crowd of about 1,500 to sharpen their elbows, too.

"I need you to go out and talk to your friends and talk to your neighbors. I want you to talk to them whether they are independent or whether they are Republican. I want you to argue with them and get in their face," he said.

"And if they tell you that, 'Well, we're not sure where he stands on guns.' I want you to say, 'He believes in the Second Amendment.' If they tell you, 'Well, he's going to raise your taxes,' you say, 'No, he's not, he's going lower them.' You are my ambassadors. You guys are the ones who can make the case."

The fascist left answer to intellectual discourse. Get in their face and lie and argue. Sounds like an invitation to a broken nose.

Obama's true color is beginning to show through- and it's red.

His entire run is a lie, he is a product of Chicago mob mentality. ACORN organizer, friend of Ayers and indebted to Rezco. What has this country come to. And you criticize Palin because she doesn't disown her daughter?

Ellis,
Your last post, above, is beyond ignorant. You would vote for Osama Bin Ladin if he ran as a Republican....and that my good friend, is sad indeed.

"Obama maybe one the first politicians ever to embrace a market driven economic theory."

Er, does Obama know this yet?

Raising taxes "for the purposes of (undefined) fairness" isn't particularly in line with what you say, so I'd be glad to read where he has voted and acted for the free market since becoming a senator. His own website has him mostly giving money out (living wage mentioned by name, as is a "windfall" profit tax) and creating false-demand "green" economies. Economies that must be continually propped up by legislation lest the non-market-based jobs go away because there aren't free-market buyers for the goods and the created industries can't financially support themselves without continual new laws (see all-items recycling for the best example).

http://www.ontheissues.org/Economic/Barack_Obama_Tax_Reform.htm
http://www.barackobama.com/issues/economy/

Not to mention requiring employers to pay for health insurance and more off days. And mandated higher CAFE standards despite technology...

Honestly, I'd enjoy reading anything that demonstrates him actually embracing a free market. Let's say, in keeping with his "fairness" quote, nothing after April 17th of '08 since recent posturing speeches don't mean much. Past actions do.

Molly, you're right! You were wrong. Kudlow worked for many years as an economist and is indeed, as I said, an economic columnist--in fact, the chief one for the National Review.

As for your comment that Obama may be the first president to--what?--embrace a market driven economic theory, I simply don't know what you mean. He's got some decent economic advisers and his tax plan is reasonable, but he's hardly more "market driven" than Ronald Reagan.

Brian,

Response given, but on 9/18/07 response to another comment. Sorry but will copy.