I really am going to have to write an article on what happens when a bear is chasing someone and they decide they don’t want to run fast enough to escape. Americans still don’t seem to get that the bear is about to rip them to shreds.

Or, as Cap’n Jack Sparrow once said “all that matters is what a man can do and what a man can’t do”. If the US can’t do the things that are necessary, and at least some of these “politically infeasible” things are going to be necessary, then that’s fine. The consequences of not doing them will then ensue.

That will be a blockbuster of an essay, I dare-say. When the people style themselves sovereign as they do in a democracy, they take upon themselves the responsibility to obtain and maintain the education required of sovereigns. The last time this has been met was in response to Sputnik and the ensuing call for excellence in education to meet the challenge. What passes for education since hardly holds a candle to that effort. Rarely will be heard a public discourse concerning those subjects required to be known by sovereigns, law, polity, diplomacy, economics, policy, history – just for starters. In all, the American people fail to even carry on an intelligent conversation let alone arrive at a considered opinion on anything more complex than sport trivia. Anywhere else, they have failed carpe diem and the sun sets on such ambitions most rapidly. I hope your efforts are not more pearls to pigs.

back to reading responses…..

from the left because he isn’t living up to every single thing we each think he should do.

no one does. and i don’t hammer on everyone – jeeze i’d have to be hammering on myself every day – the big reason imo to hammer on obama from the left is to provide a counter to hammering he’s getting from the right.

those people attacking Obama can’t dismiss that Clinton did well and they failed utterly.

Well, they definitely ARE doing just that. And they are all crying that it was the liberals who caused the financial meltdown because Barney Frank had an affair with some guy at Freddie Mac and he’s been in charge of the Banking Committee for a whole year and a half. And it was the liberals who forced those poor banks to make all those sub-prime loans and by the way they forced the government to give money to those radicals at ACORN. And those liberals are just shrieking about global warming so they can make some money off of it – it’s not real dontcha know. And those tax and spend liberals are always at fault for every single thing that goes wrong in this country – whether they are in power or not.

I don’t see that Obama has any kind of window at all. He’s starting to work on the worst mess in history and will be hammered on all sides by everyone no matter what he does. From the left and the right. From the right because of all the above, and from the left because he isn’t living up to every single thing we each think he should do.

Yes, and remember that Clinton was attacked from the day he took office until…well it has never really stopped.

Obama is being attacked already – and he has not even taken office yet.

Yep. But the political discussion has moved on and those people attacking Obama can’t dismiss that Clinton did well and they failed utterly. Obama has a window of opportunity to show his stuff.

Would you resent people like Wozniak and Jobs making a lot of money for having created (what essentially was) a new industry for personal computers?

I’ve heard variations on this before. What do Wozniak and Jobs owe the society which provided them with the education, work force, political stability, roads, electricity, and markets which made their industry and fortunes possible?

“owe”? Why should they owe anything? Don’t we create a society so all of us can benefit? I don’t recall anything in the Constitution about ‘paying back’ or ‘owing’. Besides, don’t we all benefit from our ‘investments’ in education and such when we get to use those new computers and ipods and such?

I really don’t get ‘paying back’.

Oddly enough, most of us are not rock musicians so the whole making money off concerts thing doesn’t work. Executives are not going to quit after they make their first $200,000 and wait until the following year to start working again.

Still, it’s important to precisely nail down the ideas and principles behind your policy. If you begin with punishing the Rich, then you can get to a 90% tax rate and create great disharmony in society. If you begin with minimum taxation to keep everything running properly, then you will have more rich, but so long as they’re not hurting everybody else…

With regard to a high tax rate the debate about wealth redistribution is very important. I don’t tend to like it except that our current system of giving EVERY SINGLE dollar of new prosperity to the already rich is crazy and leading us to disaster. To remedy that financial problem is not a moral issue, though solutions might include the technically socialistic wealth redistribution. The EITC, progressive taxation, a safety net and many other things are in existence and aren’t really solving the problem. We need a better set of policies to address the issue. I think improved unionization, a safety net, wealth redistribution during times like these are good, but must be watched to see if they’re working. Just chanting ‘wealth redistribution’ doesn’t get it.

There is also the Laffer curve idea that a relatively low tax rate allows more business profit and growth and wealth creation. I like that except it doesn’t trickle down.

So, I favor a flat income tax and some wealth redistribution during times like these. I also think that if a corporation is NOT a person, then it becomes very difficult to justify taxing it.

In the shorter-run if we’re shifting from our current system then raising the EITC makes sense and adjusting toward one rate for all incomes (over some time) AND making sure corporate tax rates are no higher (preferably lower) than individual rates helps ensure people use their wealth in business instead of sitting on it.

Political debate and reality often take a while to work out.

Yes, and remember that Clinton was attacked from the day he took office until…well it has never really stopped.

Obama is being attacked already – and he has not even taken office yet. He will be attacked and even more viciously than Clinton ever was. Here we have a President-elect who is going to take office having one of the worst messes on his plate than any previous president in our 221-year history. And rather than help – since they created most of the messes – the Rethugs are already geared up to make his job twice as hard by trying to obstruct everything he wants to do. Then add the same vile smears and lies that were used against him in the campaign – yes they are continuing – to try and hide what the Rethugs are doing and convince the sheeple that they need to tell Congress NOT to act because everyone knows each bill Obama wants is ‘just the first step down the road to an Islamunofascistcommieterrorist society.

To be realistic, Obama will be lucky to simply slow the destruction (like Clinton did – mostly).

Clinton could have tried to aggressively solve more problems, but at that time the political discussion didn’t even consider that possible. At that time to even vote for sound taxes and budgeting got Republicans snickering and laughing…and politically they won in ‘94. But, that argument has moved on and though they won politically they showed they didn’t have any answers (and in fact made things much worse), so now we’re back to the smart sensible people trying to fix things. It took the American people a while to get it, but now we’re back on track..or at least will be in January.

Political debate and reality often take a while to work out.