Coggins7,
I’m not generally responding to copy & pasted websites. (I’ll address this one later without reposting all the previous dialogue.)
My comments were directly to you. So if you’re unable to respond, I quite understand. You’re on the wrong side of all issues when you actually address an issue. That appears to be rare.
Thus far, you have addressed none of the points by directly quoting me and responding to analysis
in context.
Given the present mortgage crisis, the 2,000 point drop in the Dow, the hundreds of thousands of jobs
lost under Bush II,
your contention that: “The economy's in pretty good shape. The numbers aren't telling us recession's around the corner, at least not yet” is an unsustainable position.
The
evidence is against your position. You have made NO refutation nor have you supported your contentions. You just assert
absent facts to support.
Ad hominem has gained you nothing regarding
issues.
Who is your pick for President of the US in 2008?
You are silent to the question. Why? Evasion is no response, Coggins7.
No response to Bush I: “Read my lips, no new taxes.”
It was to make political points with those who oppose tax, but it was wrong. Bush I raised taxes to pay for
services and
programs people wanted. He, like you now, was poorly informed or simply lied about what he would do in order to gain votes.
You have made
no refutation or even response to that point.
Americans
want services which only the federal government can provide.
Bush II is now proposing tax cuts in the face of
a trillion dollar debt. We
owe China hundreds of billions of dollars.
Now, when Bill Clinton ended his 8 year term, we had seen the greatest period of prosperity in American history. AND, we had a
surplus. The notion that we can
borrow and spend (the Republican view) and just pass the debt on down to others is
irresponsible and
morally bankrupt.
Let’s see you address the
issues. As you will see later, the prosperity of the Clinton Presidency and the reduction of the Reagan debt is historical fact.
Vice President Gore understood the visionary enthusiasm regarding the new order brought on by technology and sparkling minds. He was right on
global warming while the conservative-right denied the undeniable evidence. Today, there is nearly universal scientific consensus that
humans are major contributors to
global warming.
The Democratic leadership
was correct. The Bush administration has been
wrong.
Wrong on the Iraq war, wrong on the economy, wrong on the rights of individuals has been the Rove, Cheney, Bush mind-set. With the exception of Rice and Cheney, the rest of the Bush entourage
is gone.
Remember C. Powell on
We know they have weapons of mass destruction?
If your memory is selective, review the history of that
lie perpetuated by all in the Bush II administration. And they
invaded Iraq bombing from the air killing and maiming innocent Iraqis. Hans Blitz (the leader in the UN search for WMDs) stated: “I think the inspector should be objective, and we should answer and tell the world only what we have seen, and not tell the world that, yes, they positively have weapons of mass destruction.”
But the Bush II administration rejected the findings of the UN inspection team and ordered them out of Iraq. Blitz asked that the UN team continue its search. Their findings would have embarrassed the Bush II administration.
Dropping bombs from 30,000 feet in the night does
not kill selectively. Bush lost moral respect for the USA in a preemptive attack on Iraq. And, his
playbook was misinformed.
Cheney:
They will welcome us with open arms.
Wrong
There were
no weapons of mass destruction. Hence, the Bush administration either
lied or was
grossly misninformed.
Neither is a compliment to the Bush II administration, Coggins7.
Given your track record in these few exchanges, I don’t expect you to respond to these points.
Thus far, you demonstrate you’ve been indoctrinated by extreme right-wing propaganda. That you imply that NBC is linked to the DNC is another example that you’re misinformed.
You did admit that you could not demonstrate that with
objective evidence. That’s correct, you cannot. It’s false.
You have failed to refute that all the mainstream news organizations are
in competition with one another for the
best, most accurate information. That includes magazines like Newsweek, Time, US News & World Report along with some others.
Their credibility lies with getting the information correct to the largest extent possible. They work under great pressure to be first and to be right. They intend to be right (that is
correct).
Compared with Bush II, the Clinton administration was a success as peacemaker ending the two-term Presidency with the US as least at peace generally around the world
and respected around the world in a way which has been lost by Bush II.
In fact, after 12 years of Republican control of the Presidency, Clinton came to office amid high expectations for fundamental policy change. Early in his administration he reversed a number of Republican policies. He ended the federal prohibition on the use of fetal tissue for medical research, repealed rules restricting abortion counseling in federally funded health clinics, and used his appointment power to fulfill a promise to place many women and minorities in prominent government positions.
Bush II set back the leadership role of the US by his right-wing pandering to the likes of Jerry Falwell and James Dobson.
Now, Coggins7, how many current Republicans seeking the Presidency are quoting Bush II in complimentary terms as they campaign? The most hawkish John McCain has charged Bush II with
incompetence regarding the Iraq War.
So that question again for you, Coggins7:
Whom do you favor for the next President of the US? (You could still run yourself. Perhaps you could push for Ann Coulter or Rush Limbaugh.)
Now the copout as
Coggins7 states:
You want me to respond in a substantive, critical manner to your points? The problem is only a few of your points are even worth responding to. Most of them, frankly, are, as I said, MoveOn.org talking points and convivial ideology packaged as news you've picked up on CNN.
I’ve never quoted “MoveOn.org.” It’s a straw man attack.
It’s no refutation to claim:
“…only a few of your points are even worth responding to. “ That also is a copout.
Your problem is that the points are well made and you cannot refute them. Otherwise, you would be doing that, not cut & pasting.
Your attack of CNN is without merit. You’ve offered
no objective evidence that CNN is a biased electronic news gathering organization. It’s merely more name-calling
absent evidence.
It’s a further copout to state:
I'll just respond to one of your points, and let the esteemed Dr. Thomas Sowell do my talking for me here.
As I previously stated, I’m not discussing some copy & pasted statement. What’s the matter, Coggins7, aren’t you capable of addressing issues? It appears you are not. Are you a puppet?
You much prefer ad hominem as this following line demonstrates:
Coggins7:
”OK junior, your homework is done, so you can watch the Playboy Channel for one hour before bedtime. After all, you have church tomorrow.”
Now, let’s address this:
Coggins7:
In other words, it is the government's meddling in the housing market in the name of controlling economic behavioru [sic] and ingratiating itself to yet more constituencies, distoriting [sic] those markets and skewing incentives, and leftism, in this case the environmental movement, its political supporters, and the "smart growth" zoning schemes, driving housing prices into the stratosphere, that have caused the present housing crunch, not Bush, not conservatives, and not the "religious right".
You’re mis-paraphrasing the very source you use. (You also don’t spell very well.)
When did the article state the “risky behavior” began? And who was in office at the time? Bush II was in the Presidency in 2002. Your source states that: “As of 2002, fewer than 10 percent of the new mortgages in the United States were of this type.”
Your source also states: “
While many other factors can be involved -- rising incomes, population growth, construction costs -- a scrutiny of the times and places where housing prices doubled, tripled, or quadrupled within a decade shows that restrictions on building have been the key.” (My emphasis)
Multiple factors were involved in the policies of easy money for mortgage loans.
It was the “housing market” itself which encouraged easy credit and low-cost loans. You place the blame in the wrong place. Bush II wanted the economy to look good so that he could look good since the invasion of Iraq was making him look
bad.. Hence
the government the Bush’s government was doing the bidding of Bush.
There is no escaping the law (the government) with regard to interest rates and what loan sources are permitted to do. Your statement at the end (quoted above) is flawed with regard to the very source you intended to use supporting an attack on
government. Look at the dates when the interests rates began to be lowered and continued,
continued to be lowered with the
approval of the Bush II White House.
There was nothing “leftism” about the over-reach of the Bush II administration in its effort to make the general economy look very prosperous. At the same time, Bush II was pouring hundreds of billions into a senseless, mindless
attack on Iraq.
Had the housing market looked as bad is it was becoming, it’s unlikely that the Congress (the government) would have allowed the housing market to be so become
irresponsible. You’re quite mis-reading the picture regarding the Bush II involvement in the housing-market bubble. While squandering hundreds of billions (now about 8 billion a month), Bush speeches were of
how robust the American economy was. How often did Bush II claim
robust economy while taking the country down deficit road with
spending? We cannot begin to count the times.
If you think that banks are not conservative and not pro a conservative White House, you are poorly informed. You demonstrate your poor information in your piece at the end and you misinterpret the statement of your own source.
Bush II was
scheming from the very beginning of his Presidency to distort and manipulate what he thought to be to his advantage. Because he was ignorant, arrogant, autocratic, and misinformed, his administration did nothing to curtail the false appearance of a skyrocketing economy. In fact, he encouraged it. (And we are in a recession by virtually all economists’ account)
It was the same brainless, ignorant
borrow and spend which typifies the Bush Presidency even as he did
exactly that with regard to making war on Iraq.
Thus, we went from a
surplus at the end of the Clinton administration to
a trillion dollar deficit at the end of the Bush II Presidency.
Republican mentality:
Spend what you don’t have. The latest budget projections from the Congressional Budget Office indicate that one out of every three dollars the federal government spends this year outside of the self-funded Social Security system
will be paid for by borrowing. This will be the highest share of deficit-financed spending since World War II.
Now why are we in this fix? In short the policies and politics of Bush II. President Bush’s return to huge
deficit spending represents a sharp break from the recent past. As I previously stated, during President Clinton’s second term, the government actually ran on-budget surpluses and
began paying down the national debt. The new
level of deficit spending exceeds the previous records set during the Reagan and George Herbert W. Bush administrations, when on-budget deficits averaged 25 percent and 28 percent of on-budget spending, respectively. For further detail,
read this.
In short, Coggins7, you have no idea what you’re talking about.
Further, you have failed to address the issues which I laid before you with direct quotation and response to my comments.
By contrast, I have generally quoted you directly and addressed your flawed mentality on all these points and issues.
JAK