Michael Moore wants Matt Damon to run for Obama's chair in the White House

[MarchHare]

The Republicans dont even call the shots in their party anymore. The tea party does. Basically a small group of corporate pupets who can't be negotiated or reasoned with.

The Tea Party aren't even corporate puppets -- Wall Street was screaming for the debt ceiling limit to be increased, and the sane Republicans were on side. The only people opposed were the Tea Party morons who either a) don't understand economics AT ALL or b) are hell-bent on purposely driving the country off a cliff.

[Stay Golden]

It is quite predictable how the media and Americans convieniently forget what a messed up situation Bush left his post in. Bush and the Republicans knowingly left the cupboards fully bare for Obama to deal with and take the fall for.

[CaptainCrunch]

Golden you could say the same thing about every president.

but the financial problems with the states have been building since the Carter Administration.

These problems became unfixable and most of the presidents after the fact merely ignored them.

From my understanding the medicare/cade inefficiencies were considered to be the third rail of American Politics by all Presidents, touch it and you die.

So while Bush was certainly not a great president, the blame doesn't rest solely on him, and even Obama himself hasn't exactly proved to be the strong president that the country needed.

[OldDutch]

Originally Posted by MarchHare

The Tea Party aren't even corporate puppets -- Wall Street was screaming for the debt ceiling limit to be increased, and the sane Republicans were on side. The only people opposed were the Tea Party morons who either a) don't understand economics AT ALL or b) are hell-bent on purposely driving the country off a cliff.

You are right on A, but the are morons tha are being controlled for an agenda none the less. They may or may not know, but The ultra rich are backng them in droves. There is a reason for that, less tax at all costs. Even if it means killing the golden goose in the process.

[Yasa]

Remember when this thread was about Matt Damon and Michael Moore? I miss those days.

[MarchHare]

Originally Posted by Yasa

Remember when this thread was about Matt Damon and Michael Moore? I miss those days.

Somehow this thread will eventually produce a rant about Matt Stajan.

[VladtheImpaler]

Originally Posted by MarchHare

Somehow this thread will eventually produce a rant about Matt Stajan.

If Michael Moore ate him, would he still count against our cap?

[Erick Estrada]

Originally Posted by Bertuzzied

Can anyone seriously be worse than Bush?

Michael Moore that's who. Given by the amount of fiction he tries to pass as fact and mislead the masses in his films, I would shudder to think about what he could be capable of in a real position of power. Bush was an idiot but Moore lives in an alternate reality and that's scary.

[HPLovecraft]

Originally Posted by Erick Estrada

Michael Moore that's who. Given by the amount of fiction he tries to pass as fact and mislead the masses in his films, I would shudder to think about what he could be capable of in a real position of power. Bush was an idiot but Moore lives in an alternate reality and that's scary.

Isn't this what people in positions of power do in order to get in those positions of power in the first place? You make Michael Moore sound like a pretty good politician!

[Erick Estrada]

Originally Posted by HPLovecraft

Isn't this what people in positions of power do in order to get in those positions of power in the first place? You make Michael Moore sound like a pretty good politician!

Without a doubt but most people are skeptical of even the parties they support usually supporting the lesser of two evils in their eyes. Moore's a master manipulator as show by the popularity of his films. It's crazy how many believe they are factual. Would be pretty scary for him to put his skills of turning fiction into fact into real politics.

[V]

Originally Posted by Yasa

Remember when this thread was about Matt Damon and Michael Moore? I miss those days.

I'm waiting for a Hitler reference before I fully give up on this thread.

[VladtheImpaler]

Originally Posted by V

I'm waiting for a Hitler reference before I fully give up on this thread.

Alright. Moore is what Hitler would have been if he wasn't a vegetarian, didn't mind Jews too much, and his concept of lebensraum was focused on Flint, Michigan...

[Flash Walken]

Originally Posted by Erick Estrada

Without a doubt but most people are skeptical of even the parties they support usually supporting the lesser of two evils in their eyes. Moore's a master manipulator as show by the popularity of his films. It's crazy how many believe they are factual. Would be pretty scary for him to put his skills of turning fiction into fact into real politics.

It would be like saying there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and people actually believing it.

I shudder to think...

[Vulcan]

Originally Posted by Flame Of Liberty

fyp

Obviously, you should do some more reading on the topic.

[MarchHare]

Originally Posted by V

I'm waiting for a Hitler reference before I fully give up on this thread.

If he had been alive at the time, Hitler would have commissioned Michael Moore to create Triumph of the Will instead of Leni Riefenstahl.

[Calgaryborn]

[QUOTE=pepper24;3240376]Link? I am sure it's some 'unbiased' conservative link. [\QUOTE]

To be unbiased you would have to have no opinion. The site documents the distortions with links to the original speeches on Youtube. I think they provide plenty information to make the case.

Originally Posted by pepper24

What are you thoughts on Bush cutting taxes while increasing spending contributing to half of the current deficit? You continue to avoid these questions.

I'm not avoiding anything. Bush came into power just as the Tech bubble burst. He saw a across the board tax cut as a way to keep the economy perking. It worked and America sat at full employment even through the dark times. Remember 9/11 and what that did to the economy. A recession was predicted then but, never happened.

9/11 changed everything. The government needed to deal with the possibility of more real security threats on their own soil while going after the organization that caused the problem. Homeland security came into being along with a war in Afganistan. Those cost a ton of money. Could he had retracted his tax cuts then? Sure but, again he didn't want to do anything to slow the expanding economy. Remember it was only 3 or 4 years after the tax cuts where the GDP grew enough to cover the lost revenue.

Iraq again cost a ton of money. The fighting was only half of it. They determined to rebuild the infrastucture they had blown up. But during this time America prospered. That was important to Bush because the 9/11 attack was designed to take out the American economy. During the height of the wars, the infrastructure spending, and the forming of Homeland security the biggest deficits Bush put forth were around half a trillion. The rest came from taxation.

Obama has almost doubled Bushes' yearly deficits. He has done this with war expenditures winding down. Iraq was won before Obama came to power. Homeland security was also long extablished in its present form.

He did put forth one TARP package but, most of that has been paid back and spent. The other big spending package Obama put foreward was a stimulus package. He mainly gave this money to States to preserve Union jobs. The unemployment rate climbed while he bailed out some States.

Originally Posted by pepper24

Historically, you should increase spending while in a recession but Bush caused such a mess in 8 years that they need to cut spending as per the bill last week. On top of that they'll eliminate the Bush tax cuts plus have to increase taxes to get out of this deficit mess.

I think you'll see an improvement in the deficit under Obama. I don't know how much you can credit to Obama though as I think any president following Bush and given this mess would have to do the same thing.

The only thing stimulus can do is preserve a portion of the economy while waiting for the recovery. It is an expensive temporary fix. Those States who recieved money last year are just going have to make the cuts this year.

Increase taxation can only hurt the economy while improving the books. That is why a shrinking of government is a better solution. This is a perfect time to fix entitlements so they don't become a burden on America's future. Government employees may need to have their benefits and possibly salaries cut. Perhaps Obama should look at some of the program cuts in Ryan's April budget along with some of his suggestions to close loop holes. Obama definately needs to trash ObamaCare. You don't make it more expensive to operate a business in the middle of a recession.

[MarchHare]

I'm not avoiding anything. Bush came into power just as the Tech bubble burst. He saw a across the board tax cut as a way to keep the economy perking.

That's revisionist history. The Bush tax cuts were a result of government surpluses leftover from the Clinton years. Bush and his administration believed that if the government had more revenue than needed, then American citizens were being taxed too much, hence the cut (Clinton wanted to use the surplus to pay down the national debt).

[Flame Of Liberty]

Originally Posted by Vulcan

Obviously, you should do some more reading on the topic.

Works of the fine gentleman Mr. Keynes, I assume?

No wonder we are in such deep ....when people STILL do not understand whats going on.

Harvard Business review blog, easy reading:

Who has been paying attention? People like Yves Smith at Naked Capitalism, Matt Stoller at the Roosevelt Institute, John Robb at Global Guerrillas, economists and management scholars and thinkers like Joe Stiglitz, Gary Hamel, John Hagel, Richard Florida, and Roger Martin, all of whom have centrally challenged the tenets of what you might call financial determinism — the idea that simply by hurling money at banks, corporations, or investors, this crisis will automagically self-correct — and have instead suggested: it's fundamentally grounded in the institutions we use to (mis)manage the economy. They're deeply broken, and throwing money at broken institutions doesn't fix them — it does the very opposite: it entrenches them, shores them up, fortifies them against the future.

http://blogs.hbr.org/haque/2011/08/m..._perma-cr.html

[Vulcan]

Originally Posted by Flame Of Liberty

Works of the fine gentleman Mr. Keynes, I assume?

No wonder we are in such deep ....when people STILL do not understand whats going on.

Harvard Business review blog, easy reading:

Who has been paying attention? People like Yves Smith at Naked Capitalism, Matt Stoller at the Roosevelt Institute, John Robb at Global Guerrillas, economists and management scholars and thinkers like Joe Stiglitz, Gary Hamel, John Hagel, Richard Florida, and Roger Martin, all of whom have centrally challenged the tenets of what you might call financial determinism — the idea that simply by hurling money at banks, corporations, or investors, this crisis will automagically self-correct — and have instead suggested: it's fundamentally grounded in the institutions we use to (mis)manage the economy. They're deeply broken, and throwing money at broken institutions doesn't fix them — it does the very opposite: it entrenches them, shores them up, fortifies them against the future.

http://blogs.hbr.org/haque/2011/08/m..._perma-cr.html

This seems to be a rant against the bank bailout and nothing to do with investing in infrastracture during a recession or a depression.

[Flame Of Liberty]

Originally Posted by Vulcan

I'm not sure but historically the accepted way to get out of a recession is to spend.

the idea that simply by hurling money at banks, corporations, or investors, this crisis will automagically self-correct

Hurling money = spending, for all intents and purposes.

We can argue if spending on infrastructure is "good" during a recession, but the main point (that I guess you were making) is that government should be spending its way out of a recession/depression.

That idea is fundamentally wrong, and arguing where the money should go is of secondary importance.