A letter to my British friends

[generulpoleaxe]

Originally posted by Avelorn
Yes the policies he\'s done sound very Marxist. The commies are all for de-regulations! De-regulation is the new Lada, spiffy!

seeing as the main UK banks are publicly owned now, then yes.
and the deregulating (which was caused by more regulations, but crap ones that couldn\'t work because of how they were put in place by brown) led to increased tax revenue which was duly spent on labour projects, all of which have failed and are still costing the public!

he is a known marxist, seeing as he is a member of a marxist society (as his most of his cabinet!)

 

[Necroghast]

Originally posted by NGArtStudios

Originally posted by Necroghast
Shouldn\'t we be more worried about what hes doing for our country?

No pun or disrespect intended here Necro, guess this is just for sake of conversation.

I am very worried what he is doing for our country. Main thing I am worried about is billions of dollars in his stimulus package going towards projects that in no way shape or form will help stabilize the economy. Also just the fact that the guy has no experience in international politics and say what you will but this problem is on a global scale. Hundreds of billions of dollars being sunk into our economy won\'t help the bigger picture.

Now to get back on topic, even though I am not \"pro Obama,\" I don\'t think he did anything wrong. If it wasn\'t for the way that the media likes to blow pointless things such as this out of proportion, we would be worrying about things that really matter such as the economy or the fact that our soldiers are still dieing in Iraq and Afghanistan. By \"our\" soldiers I don\'t only mean US troops, I mean US, UK, Australian, Canadian, Polish and whichever other country is supporting us.

Fair enough, I\'m glad that you see the bigger picture.

 

[NGArtStudios]

Cheers man. :beer:

 

[alextheartist]

Gordon Brown needs a good slapping... One of my friends met him a few months ago (because of work) and much to his dissapointment was unabled to ask any questions or make any comments about any political subjects... so much for freedom of speach....

 

[Necroghast]

lol Tony Blair stayed at a kid I know\'s house cause his parents work at Yale.

 

[Farin]

mind if i give me 2 cents ?

@All: When i see Obamas stimulus packages, i get dizzy, honestly if anyone here can imagine this amount of money, raise you hand.
But what would be the alternative ? Cooperations need money to invest and pay theyre employess, a country needs a modern infastructures to attract new coorparations and every nation needs college graduates , so we need to make universites affordable by some mean - personally, i prefer student loans that have to be paid back AFTER graduation (maybe with a buffer of 1 -2 years to give everyone time to get a decent job ). As far as i know, Obamas stimulus package aims exactly at these targets. Of cause i´m not naive, and there will likely be proplems, but has anyone here heard a realistic alternative???

i watched a scence from this republican convention a few weeks back, and i was waiting for some plan of the republicans of how they would manage the problem - instead they all participated in theyre new favorite sport obama bashing. Any ideas how to save the asses of millions of american workers? No. So much about the party that says it cares about the \"small man\". And who´s idea was it to let Rush Limbaugh speek :evil:?

@evildave: You got a point there, and i say this as someone who is more left. To much burocracy has to be avoided, but to little control , to little state, can be just as bad for a democratic system. And for your opinion about the legislative period of congess men and judges : You are absolutely right.
Power must be divided and limited as much as possible. checsk and balance. What i would like to see too is a separation of money and power ( no lobbyism and every spending shouldd be approved by an independent couciil of scintists ). But i guess , that´s just a dream.

@supervike:EXACTLY! . Nothing to add from my site , you nailed it.


Oh and before i forget, little history fact: During the recession in the 1930´s Germany (then known as the Weimar Republic) was ruled by a line of conservative cancelors who all thought the best way for the state to get through the crisis that destroyed millions of workplaces was to save money, and spend nothing at all. No investments, no money for education, and so on. In the end that non-spending policiy turned the situation so dire for many , that more and more of them started to listen to the extremists and the populists - we all know the end of that story and the economic policy of these years was one of the (many reasons)

 

[Dragon Forge Design]

Originally posted by supervike

Originally posted by tzor
It’s all fun and games until you take your international reputation to a level miles below the Bush standard.

So now we are all worried about our international reputation?

After years of telling countries to f* off? Creating enemies where we had none, and alienating all the other NATO countries, you are \'embarassed\' by the shoddy diplomacy of a bad gift, and an inconvenient schedule change?

That\'s akin to shitting all over the neighbors yard, stealing the newspaper, and picking on their kids, and then being shocked your wife gave them Kool-aid instead of Mineral Water.

TAKE THE BLINDERS OFF!!!

That\'s almost quotable LOL

 

[darthfoley]

/popcorn

 

[lizcam]

My 2 cents;

Obama inherited the mess AND the stimulus package from Bush. He\'s trying to make the best of a bad situation. The way we got out of the depression was the government created jobs. We need to do that now. Will Obama do that? Who know\'s but after 8 years of Bush, knowing that it was going to take a couple of generations to fix the damage not only to our society but our reputation he caused when he got elected, I\'m willing to wait and see.

Was the gift in poor taste? Probably but it\'s hardly a national embarressment. Throwing up on the leader of a nation=embarrassment. A stack of dvd\'s=not so much.

It sounds like the Winston Churchill bust was on loan to the BUSH administration. If so, why would Obama insist it stay where it was? It had to go back eventually. And how does worrying about some audio visual entertainment and some statue fix what\'s wrong in the country anyway? Put that energy to working on solutions, not on pointing out stupidities.

All in all I like Obama and I think he\'ll do a good job. But, and I love you Kev and all you other right wingers, the Republicans were geared up for 8+ years of Hillary bashing and didn\'t (and still don\'t) know what to do with Obama. They can\'t attack him directly because they will come across as racist. He\'s not proved himself politically yet so attacking that is on hold. So the best they can do is nit-pick over some trinkets. That\'s almost as transparent as choosing Palin as running mate because she was a reasonably attractive chick. Screw looking at the actual politics and policies. It\'s apperances that are the most important.

I\'m not a left winger. I actually worked for the republican party at one time. But the republicans are SOOO out of touch with reality right now that they are killing themselves slowly. I think it\'s going to be at least another generation before they can look at anything clearly again.

Now, as usual, I\'ll go hide and wait for the storm of spam I always get from my fearless \"friend\" who climbs out of the woodwork on those rare occasions I actually do something other than strut around, flirt and flash my boobies at people. I\'ll be busy sending him back into my spam folder to play with the viagra adds soon so you may not see much of me for a bit. That and I\'ll be in England personally apologizing to at least one special Brit. He\'s already accepted the apology, BTW.

 

[NGArtStudios]

Again, like my last post, this is for sake of conversation and no pun intended here. I realize what a delicate issue politics can be because of affiliation and beliefs so really not trying to tick anyone off here. Just nice to be able to part take in an intelligent conversation.

Originally posted by lizcam
Obama inherited the mess AND the stimulus package from Bush. The way we got out of the depression was the government created jobs.

One can argue that yes, Obama did inherit the problem from Bush but also that Bush inherited it from Clinton, to a point of course.

Yes, we did get out of the depression by the government creating jobs, but the main factor that got us out of the depression was the war. Today on the other hand the war is just another expense to pay for with money that the country doesn\'t have.

 

[Dragonsreach]

Big Deal.
Anypody here ever been given a present by someone that they had no use for?
Ever had to say to someone \"Have you kept the receipt?\"
Hey, at least he gave Brown a present instead of \"The Finger\", a damn sight more polite than I\'d be.

And can I point something; Obama has been in office less then three months and already \"the knives are out\" from certain people.
What\'s next, complaining about him because he splashed on his shoe at the urinal?

 

[Roger Bunting]

Look people. This thread was an apology on behalf of the American people and I have accepted the apology on behalf of the British people. Now let\'s all get along and be happy.

 

[Legacy Account]

I\'m sooooo glad I left when I did...

Britain\'s main problem is that it\'s such a f***ing depressing, oppressive place to live. Much of this is down to the fact that there\'s never any good news!

The local radio station plays the World Service before 9am, so I listen to it on the way to work. Christ almighty it\'s enough to make you want to get the razor blades out!!

Work doesn\'t seem so bad after half an hour of the world\'s troubles...lol

 

[Evil Dave]

Originally posted by NGArtStudios
Again, like my last post, this is for sake of conversation and no pun intended here. I realize what a delicate issue politics can be because of affiliation and beliefs so really not trying to tick anyone off here. Just nice to be able to part take in an intelligent conversation.

Originally posted by lizcam
Obama inherited the mess AND the stimulus package from Bush. The way we got out of the depression was the government created jobs.

One can argue that yes, Obama did inherit the problem from Bush but also that Bush inherited it from Clinton, to a point of course.

Yes, we did get out of the depression by the government creating jobs, but the main factor that got us out of the depression was the war. Today on the other hand the war is just another expense to pay for with money that the country doesn\'t have.

One can also argue that government doesn\'t create jobs, just more burden on the taxpayers.
Ever watch state highway workers? Like 2 guys working, 5 guys sitting around watching those 2 guys work.
Just yesterday I watched some Parish Workers (that\'d be county workers to most of you) cleaning up debris on my mother\'s land (parish drainage) from Hurricane Gustav.(Remember that one? Yeah, they just got to it.) One guy in a backhoe, four guys watching him, a four hour job tops that took all day.
Most Government jobs are not efficient with our money and cost us far more than if done by the private sector. Some government jobs are plainly wasteful. I could go on for hours on just the waste I see every day just at one university.

 

[skeeve]

Originally posted by Evil Dave

Originally posted by NGArtStudios

Most Government jobs are not efficient with our money and cost us far more than if done by the private sector. Some government jobs are plainly wasteful. I could go on for hours on just the waste I see every day just at one university.

God, I am so tired of this constant panegyrics of private sector efficiency and inefficiency of public sector. Seriously, one might think you have a certain set of notions and see only what supports it while completely ignoring everything else.

Here
1) Corporate parties for upper management during the economic downturn - clear evidence of private sector efficiency
2) Multimillion dollar bonuses given to corporate executives even when their companies are clearly failing
3) Billions of dollars spent on advertising with about 30% spent on actual development.
4) Constant overcharging on most basic goods and services (in fact I, personally, went through several private contractors because of this and end up using a university\'s)
5) Constant cutting corners. You just have to read one or two clinical trial reports and then the taxpayers have to deal with the consequences (or rely on those wasteful universities to redo the job they cannot do properly)
6) Incredibly efficient USA car makers
7) Amazing in its efficiency pharmaceutical industry

I can also go on for hours about so-called efficiency of private enterprise. The idea that private enterprise is inherently efficient while government enterprise is not is simply not support by ANY evidence. In fact the worshiping of short-term results, so typical for private corporation, leads to inability to formulate strategic goals and inability to adapt. Almost all our economic problem now were easily predictable, and in fact they were predicted but to act upon these predictions would require looking at you profit over 2-5 years as opposed to a next quarter report.

I am not trying to say that private sector or the government is always efficient or inefficient. All I am saying is that there is nothing in either of them that makes them inherently more or less efficient then the other. It is always a function of a specific person at specific position of power. There are areas where Government does better, there are areas where private sector is more efficient... and there are number of areas where private sector cannot function at all.

 

[Evil Dave]

Originally posted by skeeve

Originally posted by Evil Dave

Originally posted by NGArtStudios

Most Government jobs are not efficient with our money and cost us far more than if done by the private sector. Some government jobs are plainly wasteful. I could go on for hours on just the waste I see every day just at one university.

God, I am so tired of this constant panegyrics of private sector efficiency and inefficiency of public sector. Seriously, one might think you have a certain set of notions and see only what supports it while completely ignoring everything else.

Here
1) Corporate parties for upper management during the economic downturn - clear evidence of private sector efficiency
2) Multimillion dollar bonuses given to corporate executives even when their companies are clearly failing
3) Billions of dollars spent on advertising with about 30% spent on actual development.
4) Constant overcharging on most basic goods and services (in fact I, personally, went through several private contractors because of this and end up using a university\'s)
5) Constant cutting corners. You just have to read one or two clinical trial reports and then the taxpayers have to deal with the consequences (or rely on those wasteful universities to redo the job they cannot do properly)
6) Incredibly efficient USA car makers
7) Amazing in its efficiency pharmaceutical industry

I can also go on for hours about so-called efficiency of private enterprise. The idea that private enterprise is inherently efficient while government enterprise is not is simply not support by ANY evidence. In fact the worshiping of short-term results, so typical for private corporation, leads to inability to formulate strategic goals and inability to adapt. Almost all our economic problem now were easily predictable, and in fact they were predicted but to act upon these predictions would require looking at you profit over 2-5 years as opposed to a next quarter report.

I am not trying to say that private sector or the government is always efficient or inefficient. All I am saying is that there is nothing in either of them that makes them inherently more or less efficient then the other. It is always a function of a specific person at specific position of power. There are areas where Government does better, there are areas where private sector is more efficient... and there are number of areas where private sector cannot function at all.

Notice, I said \"Most Government jobs.\"
But then again, I am an anti-federalist, seeing the Federal government subservient to the State Governments, and see much of the Government work (say for example, Louisiana\'s Levees*) as the individual States responsibilities. Much of this work, I believe, should be done using local labor, with very little input or bureaucracy from DC.
I believe the closer you get to the local level the easier it is for the people to recognize the waste and respond accordingly to how their hard earned money is spent. IE: If Bobby Jindal is wasting my money I can vote him out. There isn\'t a hell of a lot I can do about Nancy Pelosi though. Therefore, I believe we should limit the Federal Government\'s powers and give them the money needed to carry out those powers, nothing more.
Amazingly enough, just as the Constitution says.
The more the people have an input on how their money is spent the better.

*Yes, I believe the Levees are our responsibility and do not think the rest of the nation should pay for their upkeep. If you choose to live in an area that will flood if you do not have these dirt walls, then you should be prepared to have to pay to upkeep those walls.

 

[supervike]

Might not look it from some of our comments Dave, but our politics are often very similar.

A return of individual states rights would be absolutely right thing to do. We have become so beholden to the Federal government that we\'ve lost almost all of our say as states.

Worse yet, the Feds will blackmail the states by holding back funding, unless we agree to whatever Federal mandate they decide.

And, like you say, our voice counts for little, especially us in smaller populated areas.

I never have figured out what my political stance really is, but Libertarian seems pretty darn close.

 

[uberdark]

dave,

i know you like these types of threads, but do you ever have something nice to say about government, religion, life or anything.... i dont know but i feel many times you play devils advocate for the sake of playing devils advocate.

 

[Evil Dave]

Believe me Vike, I don\'t nearly have a problem with Obama as I do with Obama and this congress.

 

[Evil Dave]

Originally posted by uberdark
dave,

i know you like these types of threads, but do you ever have something nice to say about government, religion, life or anything.... i dont know but i feel many times you play devils advocate for the sake of playing devils advocate.

Actually, you will find that I\'m often one of the few that defend people\'s rights to religion. Others here...well.
If the government actually does something good, believe me, I will applaud it.
For example, I actually like the idea of Obama\'s that we need to fund local clinics more in order to take the burden off of local hospital\'s emergency rooms.
If he would spend more on charity hospitals (or make better tax reductions for those that do donate to charity hospitals) I\'d also applaud him for that.
The problem is that there are few innovative ideas coming from DC these days, and most of them seem to hamper someone\'s freedoms.

I like puppies if that\'s any consolation.