Politics

http://news.cnet.com/8301-11128_3-10150716-54.html Denmark has enlisted the help of California company "Better Place" to set up an electric car network based around a battery swapping program. Customers will be able to go to a number of charging stations deployed throughout the country and have their battery pack instantly swapped for a new one. This will allow the charging stations to charge batteries at non-peak hours, reducing peak demand the program would otherwise place on the electrical grid. Charging stations can work directly with utility companies to coordinate the system. While I'm a big fan of electric cars I'm curious how they'll handle issues like …

Right now, in the midst of one of the single greatest economic challenges our country and our planet has ever faced, the United States is trying to "win the battle" with just "one guy on a horse." http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/19/business/economy/19geithner.html Mr. Geithner is shouldering more crises on his slight frame than most Treasury secretaries ever have. And he is doing so without the usual complement of Treasury assistants because of administration delays in vetting potential nominees — a consequence in part of its efforts to avoid embarrassments like the disclosures of Mr. Geithner’s past tax lapses, which nearly doomed his nomination. Since befo…

Couldn't resist the subject line. Obama and Gates are ending the practice of extending tours beyond the service agreements promised to the troopers. I'm sure he's doing this because, as the right keeps telling us, Obama hates the troops and can't stand to support them in any way. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/18/AR2009031802504.html

Thomas Friedman of the New York Times gives us a little preview of what's likely to happen when the toxic assets bailout plan is unveiled (possibly next week). http://www.iht.com/articles/2009/03/18/opinion/edfriedman.php I don't like it, but my gut feeling is that we can't let the banks fail. Letting businesses fail is something we should be doing in general, but if we let the banks fail, with THAT much leverage and impact, we lose the whole shooting match -- we ALL get to stand in the line at the soup kitchen, sooner or later. But I'm trying to keep an open mind about it. The real problem of course is that nobody knows the exact answer t…

That zany Ron Paul is at it again, introducing yet another in a series of acts intended to abolish the Federal Reserve: http://www.house.gov/apps/list/speech/tx14_paul/AbolishtheFed.shtml Some choice quotes from Dr. Paul and my responses to them: Seems like a bit of a post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy. Dr. Paul's statement implies we did not see a boom-and-bust monetary policy prior to the creation of the Federal Reserve. I wonder what Ron Paul makes of this list, namely: The Panic of 1797, the Depression of 1807, the Panic of 1819, the Panic of 1837, the Panic of 1857, the Panic of 1873, the Long Depression, the Panic of 1893, Panic of 1907. If…

Possibly a legendary, historic television interview took place last night on The Daily Show, when Jon Stewart took on CNBC's Jim Cramer. It was one of the best interview take-downs I've ever seen, and Cramer's excellent defense only heightened the sense of drama and the amazing depth to which the issue was explored. In a nutshell, Stewart was taking Cramer and CNBC to task for participating in the problem -- for accentuating it, misleading people and knowing full well that it was an untenable problem, due for collapse. For his part, Cramer defended the financial networks, saying they do expose problems and admitting that they could do a better job of it. I h…

Well here we go. So far only the right-wing press is latching on to this, because the left-wing and mainstream press sees ACORN as a harmless and positive influence, but they're clearly partisan-left and take many positions on political issues. Even setting aside the accusations of voter fraud that plague ACORN, why would you want an organization that has a clear, stated position on social issues organizing and training census workers? How does that even make sense? http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/03/17/lawmakers-concerned-role-acorn-census/ Here's a link to ACORN's web site, which is chock full of positions on social issues: http://www.acorn.org/index.ph…

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2009/03/goodbye-yucca-obama-budget-nuclear.php Okay, this is just retarded. We need Yucca Mountain anyway to store existing spent nuclear fuel which has no permanent resting place. I understand Obama isn't a fan of nuclear power, but that doesn't change the fact that we do have nuclear reactors which have been producing waste and right now we have nowhere to permanently store that waste.

Some waves are being made today by pollster Scott Rasmussen, whose new polling data suggests that Obama's approval rating is lower than Gallup says it is. Rasmussen defends his poll in a Wall Street Journal op/ed piece today, and there will no doubt be a lot of talk about it hither and yon amongst the bloggers and pundits. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123690358175013837.html It's an interesting piece and worth checking out, but what I thought was most interesting about his analysis about the underlying concerns that Americans have right now. These numbers are pretty staggering, and it's not hard to see the truth in them, either. Americans also do…

Every Wednesday CSPAN runs a little 30-minute program that most Americans have never even heard of. Even when they do hear about it, it doesn't sound like a big deal. But to British citizens it's actually quite a large deal. Since roughly WW2, a new constitutional practice has been adopted (now used in most parliamentary systems) in which the opposition party gets 30 minutes to ask the Prime Minister any question it wants. By law he HAS to answer, standing at the Dispatch Box on the floor, as if called to task, but in fact it's considered an honor and a responsibility to answer these questions. An important democratic process. Having the Prime Minister on record on …

I asked this question in another, rather US-centric thread, and it didn't receive any responses, so I figured I'd give the question its own thread to see what the responses are. There's a school of thought in America which suggests "every economic downturn suffered by this country over the past century" can be traced to our central banking system, and furthermore that America's central banking system has lead us to be "victimized by a boom-and-bust monetary policy". Is there similar sentiment about the Bank of England? What is the general opinion on it? A good thing? A bad thing? An unnecessary thing?

So much of the discussion on todays economy is based on the premise, everything Obama has planned is acceptable by some majority. In my little world, markets are the precursor to what will be in 6-12 months and thats not looking so good. http://moneycentral.msn.com/investor/charts/chartdl.aspx?PT=4&compsyms=&CA=1&D4=1&DD=1&D5=0&DCS=2&MA0=0&MA1=0&CP=1&C5=11&C5D=1&C6=2008&C7=3&C7D=5&C8=2009&C9=0&CF=1&DB=1&DC=1&D7=&D6=&showchartbt=Redraw+chart&symbol=%24INDU&nocookie=1&SZ=0 Forget the DOW was at 14,000, when it became apparent Obama was going to defeat Ms. Clinton, but…

I'm man enough that I can admit when I'm wrong. In an earlier thread, I expressed frustration that Obama would attach so many strings to the TARP money. Now, I see, however, it was his clever way of pretending to bail-out the financial sector, but make it so undesirable for the banks to have the money that they'd refuse it/ try to give it back! http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/11/business/economy/11bailout.html?hp Here's why I'm so impressed: As bad as the recession is, Obama created a way for private banks to realize for themselves, that government intervention is a worse fate than not getting bailout money and risk collapsing from their own bad judgments. …

This is what I don't get... the only people I've seen claiming that Limbaugh is the "leader" of a political party is liberals. Secondly, he spoke at CPAC, a conference that's not officially aligned with the GOP. Exactly which political party is El Rushbo leading here? None that I can tell. Sorry I know it's off topic (contemplating a split)

Jon Stewart has probably done the best job of pointing this out that I've seen so far with some pretty hilarious juxtaposition of "before and after" clips showing Republicans staunchly defending spending under Bush, talking about how invaluable Iraqi democracy is that we really can't put a price on it (of billions), then turning around and ranting and raving about the stimulus bill and the multigenerational debt we're engendering: http://www.thedailyshow.com/full-episodes/index.jhtml?episodeId=217691 I think it's clear Republicans are opposed to deficit spending, but only when Democrats are in power. McCain, who suspended his campaign to spend a day lollygaggi…

http://www.reuters.com/article/CHMMFG/idUSN0936136620090309 It's about time. We have no money now, but at least our heads are in the right place.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/first100days/2009/03/09/obama-says-government-open-door-human-cloning/ Interesting. If Bush had said that (and I think he did!), this board would have been all over him for stupidity in the face of science. Other countries are already exploring cloning, right? So is Obama just another stupid religious zealot? I don't agree with his decision here, but I think he's walking a fine line between religious objections and legitimate ethical concerns. This has the feel of a statement that's just meant to appease people about embryonic stem cell research, doesn't it?

It's Fox News, but is it really that hard to believe that 51% of Democrats "wanted Bush to fail"? I don't think it is at all. Seems like fair play, following the chastisement of Rush Limbaugh for wanting Obama to fail. And now I have to shower. http://www.foxnews.com/politics/first100days/2009/03/09/flashback-poll-showed-democrats-wanted-bush-fail/

I wasn't expecting this so soon, but: http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/03/05/health.care.summit/index.html?eref=rss_topstories Very interested to see where this is going... I certainly support a move towards a universal healthcare system and have thought of America as somewhat backwards in that respect.

I read in the newspaper the other day that at ING (a big Dutch bank), thousands of employees will get a bonus regardless of the facts that (1) the bank has received massive government support, and (2) they have suffered losses which were pretty significant imho. These bonuses are in total 950 million euro according to some sources. ING denies that it's this much, but admits that bonuses are given. This made me a bit upset actually. Are these bankers really so arrogant? They just work at the bank, like any employee. The majority of the bankers didn't invest a penny in the company where they work. I know what happens if you leave a kid and a cookie jar in one room a…

The most important thing that you should realize about terrorists: they're insignificant. Airplanes are considered incredibly safe, yet in the Western countries more people die in aircrashes than from terrorism. So stop being so paranoid, and stop investing so much money in prevention, and in stead invest it in things that DO matter. Don't worry and ignore the media (or at least, when you see how many people die in this-and-this attack - realize that there are almost 7 billion people on earth). In numbers: total deaths in Western countries from terrorism: about 5000 in the last 10 years? That's 3000 in the twin towers, some in Madrid, some in London, and another 1000…

Today the Treasury Department released an executive summary of the Obama's mortgage relief plan. http://www.treas.gov/press/releases/tg33.htm This executive summary, it seems to me, over uses the term "responsible homeowners." It seems to me that this term should be replaced with "irresponsible mortgage holders." This plan also includes the following. Is the purpose of the above quote to placate the dim witted? So they are saying that yes they understand that real estate values are in correction but this plan could reduce that correction on the average home by $6,000? How do they prove such a thing? Well, I guess they did say "could." …

I've been criticizing the Republicans for years for being "borrow and spend", and now it seems like the Democrats are no better: http://edition.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/03/04/spending.earmarks/index.html?eref=rss_topstories I really hope Obama starts taking a stand and reducing spending or raising taxes, but maybe I'm just hoping too much that Obama will be (Bill) Clinton.

What did you all think of the President's pullout schedule, announced today? It apparently calls for a pull out of major forces by mid-2010, which is a bit longer than the 16 months he promised (but in direct response to input from commanders on the ground, which he pledged to listen to). I thought it was interesting that the plan seemed to get support from the right and criticism from the left. McCain was "cautiously optimistic", for example, but many House Democrats were critical of the plan not being fast enough and still leaving troops in the country after that time (supposedly all would not be removed until something like 2013). I've seen several articl…