What the Russians are Saying about Obama's USA

Off Topic Politics & World Issues
161

[quote]SexMachine wrote:

[quote]smh23 wrote:

You didn’t list Communists and radicals, you listed a couple of Keynesians–

[/quote]

No I’m talking about the list before that: Axelrod, Van Jones, Valerie Jarrett etc. You know, before you told me I’m only allowed to list economists.

[/quote]

It seems reasonable that we’d focus on economic advisers in this particular discussion. None of his major economic advisers have been radicals. That’s my simple point.

For the record I’m no great admirer of Keynes. But I also don’t believe that a Keynesian is ipso facto a socialist or communist. One can easily believe in the need for government to step into the market with monetary and fiscal measures during financial crises without pining for permanent burdensome tax rates and constant wealth redistribution.

I also think that terms like “socialist” have relatively fluid definitions, so this discussion is at least to some degree subjective. I don’t think it’s a good idea to let the Bush-era tax cuts expire on anyone right now. But do I think that Obama deserves to be branded a socialist for wanting top rates to rise by three mere percentage points? No. I reserve that moniker for people like Francois Hollande, who is miles left of Obama and damn near everyone else in this country.

162

[quote]SexMachine wrote:

[quote]smh23 wrote:
More simply (and because it seems that you think he deserves not only to be called a socialist but also a Red): Communists abolish private property. Has Barack Obama abolished private property? Has he tried to?[/quote]

Has China? Has Hugo Chavez? Poor argument. You’re really just playing a semantic game and avoiding the indisputable fact that Obama is a radical leftist.[/quote]

No, China has not, because just like Barack Obama (and Mitt Romney and Ronald Reagan and George Washington and on and on), Xi Jinping is not a communist.

He is a Communist though. Monumental difference.

Obama is neither a communist nor a Communist.

163

[quote]smh23 wrote:

[quote]SexMachine wrote:

[quote]smh23 wrote:
More simply (and because it seems that you think he deserves not only to be called a socialist but also a Red): Communists abolish private property. Has Barack Obama abolished private property? Has he tried to?[/quote]

Has China? Has Hugo Chavez? Poor argument. You’re really just playing a semantic game and avoiding the indisputable fact that Obama is a radical leftist.[/quote]

No, China has not, because just like Barack Obama (and Mitt Romney and Ronald Reagan and George Washington and on and on), Xi Jinping is not a communist.

He is a Communist though. Monumental difference.

Obama is neither a communist nor a Communist.[/quote]

I don’t get it. Is this like Catholic and catholic (which has zero difference besides someone did or did not hit their shift tab?

165

Hmmm

Cult of personnality
“Unity in diversity” rhetoric
Political activism, voluntarism, and messianic statism (“Hope and Change”)
systematic confusion of State, Nation and Society" (“We all belong to the State”)
Cynical instrumentalization of class (and race) warfare
“Mixed economy” with selective usage of interventionism and protectionism, biased toward big corporations, big unions, big etc.
quasi-nationalization of key sector of the industry
“Patriot act” and other surveillance policies

Sound quite… fascist
actually.

A castrated, post-feminist, post-colonial fascism. But fascism nonetheless.

166

[quote]smh23 wrote:

[quote]SexMachine wrote:

[quote]smh23 wrote:
More simply (and because it seems that you think he deserves not only to be called a socialist but also a Red): Communists abolish private property. Has Barack Obama abolished private property? Has he tried to?[/quote]

Has China? Has Hugo Chavez? Poor argument. You’re really just playing a semantic game and avoiding the indisputable fact that Obama is a radical leftist.[/quote]

No, China has not, because just like Barack Obama (and Mitt Romney and Ronald Reagan and George Washington and on and on), Xi Jinping is not a communist.

He is a Communist though. Monumental difference.

Obama is neither a communist nor a Communist.[/quote]

Don’t bother arguing with him, waste of time.

At the end of the day, what’s the general, non-politicised goal of Obama’s economic policies? A: To help lower income people but creating an environment that is “fair.” People interpret that how they want - you clearly know how those on the right see it (they’ve been saying the same thing since he was elected).

Liberals labelled Bush an idiot and Cheney a crook. Now conservatives are calling Obama a socialist. It’s predictable and natural.

But Obama isn’t a bad guy, stop making him sound like he’s evil or something. Geez.

167

[quote]pushharder wrote:
The Democratic Party is the party of the KKK, folks.

Know Your History.[/quote]

Know your history. Even most middle schoolers have learned about the differences between Democrats of old and Democrats of modern era vs. Republicans of old and Republicans of modern era. Go watch Lincoln. Which side is advocating for social justice and advanced federal power? Which side is fighting against it? Spoiler alert, the Republicans are the first answer and Democrats the second.

168

[quote]Brother Chris wrote:

I don’t get it. Is this like Catholic and catholic (which has zero difference besides someone did or did not hit their shift tab?[/quote]

A communist is so because he espouses a particular set of beliefs. A Communist is so because he is a member of a particular political party (in the case of Xi Jinping, the CPC, whose ideology has in practice very little to do with Marx’s prescriptions). The CPC is essentially a practitioner of state capitalism, using public resources and iron fists to play favorites and effect artificial changes in the global market.

So Xi Jinping is a Communist. But he is expected (and just this week basically telegraphed his intention) to move his country further away from communism than ever before, as has nearly every Chinese leader since Deng Xiaoping in 1978.

169

[quote]pushharder wrote:
Oh good grief, smh. I mean for cryin’ out loud, you are torturing reason and logic like…like…like a Spanish inquisitor.[/quote]

And you, sir, are on a Crusade against truth. You are setting fire to fact-based analysis like it’s the Library of Constantinople.

Points for inter-thread allusions.

170

[quote]SexMachine wrote:

[quote]smh23 wrote:
By the way, Sexmachine, I recall you saying fairly recently that it is not exactly accurate to call Obama a socialist. Please don’t let a response to this post preclude one to the post before it, which was more important.[/quote]

Pres. Obama Appoints Non-Economists to Key Economic Positions

http://www.idealtaxes.com/post3506.shtml

Keynesian = socialist for all intents and purposes. That was easy.[/quote]

This debate has slowed down, but I serendipitously came across something relevant and decided to drop it here:

Sexmachine posted the above article, which singled out Romer as a Keynesian, with the addendum that “Keynesian = socialist for all intents and purposes.” The implication of this is that Barack Obama has surrounded himself with socialists and is therefore a socialist himself.

Well, I stumbled by chance upon this today:

http://www.nber.org/papers/w13264.pdf?new_window=1

“In short, tax increases appear to have a very large, sustained, and highly significant negative impact on output. Since most of our exogenous tax changes are in fact reductions, the more intuitive way to express this result is that tax cuts have very large and persistent positive output effects.”

–Christina D. Romer

A socialist doesn’t write this sentence. A socialist doesn’t publish that paper. Christina Romer is not a socialist. This highlights the need to look beyond the simplistic and unsubstantiated right-wing talking point about Obama surrounding himself with economists hellbent on abolishing private property and establishing a politburo. It also spits in the face of the tendentious revisionism which claims Keynesians to necessarily be socialists.

171

[quote]smh23 wrote:

[quote]SexMachine wrote:

[quote]smh23 wrote:
By the way, Sexmachine, I recall you saying fairly recently that it is not exactly accurate to call Obama a socialist. Please don’t let a response to this post preclude one to the post before it, which was more important.[/quote]

Pres. Obama Appoints Non-Economists to Key Economic Positions

http://www.idealtaxes.com/post3506.shtml

Keynesian = socialist for all intents and purposes. That was easy.[/quote]

This debate has slowed down, but I serendipitously came across something relevant and decided to drop it here:

Sexmachine posted the above article, which singled out Romer as a Keynesian, with the addendum that “Keynesian = socialist for all intents and purposes.” The implication of this is that Barack Obama has surrounded himself with socialists and is therefore a socialist himself.

Well, I stumbled by chance upon this today:

http://www.nber.org/papers/w13264.pdf?new_window=1

“In short, tax increases appear to have a very large, sustained, and highly significant negative impact on output. Since most of our exogenous tax changes are in fact reductions, the more intuitive way to express this result is that tax cuts have very large and persistent positive output effects.”

–Christina D. Romer

A socialist doesn’t write this sentence. A socialist doesn’t publish that paper. Christina Romer is not a socialist. This highlights the need to look beyond the simplistic and unsubstantiated right-wing talking point about Obama surrounding himself with economists hellbent on abolishing private property and establishing a politburo. It also spits in the face of the tendentious revisionism which claims Keynesians to necessarily be socialists.[/quote]

That was written in 2007 and she didn’t follow her own advice did she? She planned Obama’s stimulus ‘recovery’ and then:

‘President Obama’s former head of the Council of Economic Advisers has taken to the pages of the New York Times to warn us against pursuing “fiscal austerity just now,” particularly not spending cuts.’

Christina Romer’s Naive Keynesianism

“Economics has numerous schools of thought, but Romer’s writing reflects nothing but the most simplistic Keynesian framework.”

http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/christina-romer’s-naive-keynesianism/

172

[quote]SexMachine wrote:

That was written in 2007 and she didn’t follow her own advice did she? She planned Obama’s stimulus ‘recovery’ and then:

‘President Obama’s former head of the Council of Economic Advisers has taken to the pages of the New York Times to warn us against pursuing “fiscal austerity just now,” particularly not spending cuts.’

Christina Romer’s Naive Keynesianism

“Economics has numerous schools of thought, but Romer’s writing reflects nothing but the most simplistic Keynesian framework.”

I don’t contend she isn’t a Keynesian. I’m saying it requires a feat of intentionally obtuse pretzel-twisting to argue that the author of the words I quoted is a socialist because the folks at Cato say she’s a Keynesian. (Or the words you quoted, for that matter. Because lets be honest: it doesn’t take V.I. Lenin to warn against “fiscal austerity just now” during an economic crisis, does it?).

173

[quote]smh23 wrote:

[quote]SexMachine wrote:

That was written in 2007 and she didn’t follow her own advice did she? She planned Obama’s stimulus ‘recovery’ and then:

‘President Obama’s former head of the Council of Economic Advisers has taken to the pages of the New York Times to warn us against pursuing “fiscal austerity just now,” particularly not spending cuts.’

Christina Romer’s Naive Keynesianism

“Economics has numerous schools of thought, but Romer’s writing reflects nothing but the most simplistic Keynesian framework.”

I don’t contend she isn’t a Keynesian. I’m saying it requires a feat of intentionally obtuse pretzel-twisting to argue that the author of the words I quoted is a socialist because the folks at Cato say she’s a Keynesian. (Or the words you quoted, for that matter. Because lets be honest: it doesn’t take V.I. Lenin to warn against “fiscal austerity just now” during an economic crisis, does it?).[/quote]

I’ve already said Keynesian economics is tantamount to socialist economics. I don’t know why you are so intent on denying that anyone in the US government could have socialist tendencies. Is the word really that dirty? The Democrats are the main left-wing party obviously. In every other country most mainstream left-wing parties aren’t afraid to admit to socialist tendencies. The former Australian PM Gough Whitlam ran on an openly socialist platform. And his supporters didn’t run around denying that he or anyone in his administration was a socialist.

174

[quote]SexMachine wrote:

I’ve already said Keynesian economics is tantamount to socialist economics. I don’t know why you are so intent on denying that anyone in the US government could have socialist tendencies. Is the word really that dirty? The Democrats are the main left-wing party obviously. In every other country most mainstream left-wing parties aren’t afraid to admit to socialist tendencies. The former Australian PM Gough Whitlam ran on an openly socialist platform. And his supporters didn’t run around denying that he or anyone in his administration was a socialist.
[/quote]

You didn’t prove your line about Keynesians necessarily being socialist. And I don’t fault you for that–you couldn’t, because it isn’t true.

I wrote this a few posts back, and you didn’t dispute it:

“For the record I’m no great admirer of Keynes. But I also don’t believe that a Keynesian is ipso facto a socialist or communist. One can easily believe in the need for government to step into the market with monetary and fiscal measures during financial crises without pining for permanent burdensome tax rates and constant wealth redistribution.”

Either that’s logically or demonstrably false, or you’ll need to abandon the claim that Keynesian economics are ipso facto socialist economics and that every Keynesian economist is necessarily a socialist.

As for your wish that I’d give up the ruse: I’m saying what I’m saying because I haven’t been presented with evidence that Romer is a socialist.

On the contrary, I’ve produced evidence that she is not. Or perhaps the paper I quoted was a forgery?

175

[quote]smh23 wrote:

[quote]SexMachine wrote:

I’ve already said Keynesian economics is tantamount to socialist economics. I don’t know why you are so intent on denying that anyone in the US government could have socialist tendencies. Is the word really that dirty? The Democrats are the main left-wing party obviously. In every other country most mainstream left-wing parties aren’t afraid to admit to socialist tendencies. The former Australian PM Gough Whitlam ran on an openly socialist platform. And his supporters didn’t run around denying that he or anyone in his administration was a socialist.
[/quote]

You didn’t prove your line about Keynesians necessarily being socialist. And I don’t fault you for that–you couldn’t, because it isn’t true.

I wrote this a few posts back, and you didn’t dispute it:

“For the record I’m no great admirer of Keynes. But I also don’t believe that a Keynesian is ipso facto a socialist or communist. One can easily believe in the need for government to step into the market with monetary and fiscal measures during financial crises without pining for permanent burdensome tax rates and constant wealth redistribution.”

Either that’s logically or demonstrably false, or you’ll need to abandon the claim that Keynesian economics are ipso facto socialist economics and that every Keynesian economist is necessarily a socialist.

As for your wish that I’d give up the ruse: I’m saying what I’m saying because I haven’t been presented with evidence that Romer is a socialist.

On the contrary, I’ve produced evidence that she is not. Or perhaps the paper I quoted was a forgery?[/quote]

You’re playing a semantic game and distorting my words. I said Keynesian economics is tantamount to socialist economics. There are plenty of people who would agree with that including Hayek who correctly identified FDR’s New Deal policies as “creeping socialism.” And I didn’t say Romer was a socialist I said she is a Keynesian and that Keynesian economics is tantamount to socialist economics. However we’re paddling with one oar. You dispute that Keynesian economics is tantamount to socialist economics and I don’t.

176

It really is a silly game. If a socialist came to power who would he place in key economic positions? Keynesians or free market economists? The answer is obvious.

177

[quote]H factor wrote:

[quote]pushharder wrote:
The Democratic Party is the party of the KKK, folks.

Know Your History.[/quote]

Know your history. Even most middle schoolers have learned about the differences between Democrats of old and Democrats of modern era vs. Republicans of old and Republicans of modern era. Go watch Lincoln. Which side is advocating for social justice and advanced federal power? Which side is fighting against it? Spoiler alert, the Republicans are the first answer and Democrats the second.
[/quote]

GTFO with your education, boy.

That sorta thing ain’t welcome in these parts.

178

[quote]Makavali wrote:

[quote]H factor wrote:

[quote]pushharder wrote:
The Democratic Party is the party of the KKK, folks.

Know Your History.[/quote]

Know your history. Even most middle schoolers have learned about the differences between Democrats of old and Democrats of modern era vs. Republicans of old and Republicans of modern era. Go watch Lincoln. Which side is advocating for social justice and advanced federal power? Which side is fighting against it? Spoiler alert, the Republicans are the first answer and Democrats the second.
[/quote]

GTFO with your education, boy.

That sorta thing ain’t welcome in these parts.[/quote]

He’s wrong. He’s spouting revisionist nonsense that the educated here are already familiar with. However he doesn’t appear to be familiar with the truth. It’s a worn out hackneyed story about how the Democrats suddenly became the good guys in the 60’s and the Republicans suddenly became the bad guys. The evidence he proffers is a Steven Spielberg film for Christ’s sake! Lincoln advanced federal power because he had an insurrection on his hands.

179

[quote]SexMachine wrote:

You’re playing a semantic game and distorting my words. I said Keynesian economics is tantamount to socialist economics. There are plenty of people who would agree with that including Hayek who correctly identified FDR’s New Deal policies as “creeping socialism.” And I didn’t say Romer was a socialist I said she is a Keynesian and that Keynesian economics is tantamount to socialist economics. However we’re paddling with one oar. You dispute that Keynesian economics is tantamount to socialist economics and I don’t.[/quote]

Unfortunately, the whole “Obama is/is not a socialist” debate rests upon little more than a semantic game. So that’s sort of the arena we’re in at this point.

I don’t mean to misquote you, but “tantamount” does mean “virtually the same as,” so you’re basically calling Romer a socialist (albeit with some hedging).

Still: a person can believe that government should step into the market during financial crises without espousing the nastier elements of socialist policy (permanently high taxes, significant downward redistribution, etc.). It seems to me that Romer would fall into this category of economist, given her clear understanding that tax cuts foster growth and tax hikes do just the opposite. I’ll put it this way: it’s doubtful that Francois Hollande would appoint the author of the paper I cited. And if he did, it would come as a pleasant surprise to European conservatives.

180

[quote]SexMachine wrote:

[quote]Makavali wrote:

[quote]H factor wrote:

[quote]pushharder wrote:
The Democratic Party is the party of the KKK, folks.

Know Your History.[/quote]

Know your history. Even most middle schoolers have learned about the differences between Democrats of old and Democrats of modern era vs. Republicans of old and Republicans of modern era. Go watch Lincoln. Which side is advocating for social justice and advanced federal power? Which side is fighting against it? Spoiler alert, the Republicans are the first answer and Democrats the second.
[/quote]

GTFO with your education, boy.

That sorta thing ain’t welcome in these parts.[/quote]

He’s wrong. He’s spouting revisionist nonsense that the educated here are already familiar with. However he doesn’t appear to be familiar with the truth. It’s a worn out hackneyed story about how the Democrats suddenly became the good guys in the 60’s and the Republicans suddenly became the bad guys. The evidence he proffers is a Steven Spielberg film for Christ’s sake! Lincoln advanced federal power because he had an insurrection on his hands. [/quote]

Haha, WHAT? You’re really going to ignore history? This is a pretty well established fact, but I don’t have time to teach you history. Essentially the modern Republican Party has much more in common with Democrats of older eras and vice versea. I thought everyone knew this.

Here, this will help since you missed it in school: