That was doubly idiotic: first of all, the democrats controlled Congress for four years, during which, they did preciously nothing. Secondly, even if it’s all the fault of poor rich Teddy boy eating pancakes at home, 14 weeks is a long time. In less than 14 weeks, the French Socialist government has passed an enormous amount of legislation, including a European financial rescue mechanism, an FDIC for Europe (that required sorting things out with 26 other Congresses!), a 75% tax on income, a financial transaction tax, and the French Socialists passed countless other laws.

Face it guys: Obama hid behind Oblahblah, also known as George W. Bush III… And plutocrat Pelosi, his prophet.

So the New York Times published my comment which mentioned just in passing “supermajority”, joined with a reply already “approved” by 108 people (!) In other words, a lot of money is deployed to cheaply twist reality. How could have these people read by stuff, reply to it, and have 108 people read the reply, and approve it? All in one nanosecond?

Are we living in Libya, under Kadafi?
PA

I know Obama personally, he is a friend, but the presidency went to his head, and I really resent the way he used my site for his electoral platform, 4 years ago, and then did the opposite. He could have passed a health care reform in 24 hours. He did not have to give 8,000 billions to a few banks, no strings attached. He did not have to triple the force in Afghanistan. And so on. I worked hard, years, with lots of treasure lost, just to have Bush III elected.

And why does he have a cult for Dimon (JP Morgan), who should have been indicted, and Warren Buffet, maybe the planet’s greatest financial criminal? See Sage of Obama.

Is it because Ted Kennedy was derelict of duty that, long after he was dead, Obama had to declare his love for mafioso Buffet?

I reproduce in another comment my supermajority reply.
PA

Any party that announces on inauguration day that they will do everything in their power to oppose ANYTHING that comes forward is a party that needs to go away.

I’ve become convinced that if Obama had announced his support for the Tea Party, then the Tea party would have disbanded themselves. You can’t negotiate with crazy.

So now they’ve backed themselves into a shrinking corner. My prediction is Obama wins and the Tea Party will convince themselves that if only they had nominated a “real” conservative they would have won. So 2016 is looking like a good year for Bachman. And when the electorate beats their brains in again maybe they will look into a mirror for once in their lives.

And the democrats keep on cheating.

Here is an anecdote. Last night the New York Times, exceptionally published one of my comments (usually these days, they censor me). In my comment, I mentioned the super majority Obama had, and Krugman does as if he never had. SIMULTANEOUSLY a “reply” appeared, already approved by 58 people, saying that Obama had a super majority for… 14 weeks only, because Ted Kennedy was “housebound“. I made a reply to the reply, pointing out plutocrat Pelosi and the democrats controlled CONGRESS for 4 years. (OK, I did not call her a plutocrat, because they would have censored that on the ground I insulted their patron saint.) The New York Times censored my observation anyway.

It is not, of course, that Obama is not from the plutocratic party. It is that many on the pseudo left want to keep on entertaining the fancy that there is a dramatic difference between Obamney and Robama. So they keep on with their kabuki theater, full of idiotic cliches. The aim being that stupidity comes out reinforced.

The entire economic program of the democrats caciques is… down with Romney. The lack of ideas is cosmic. Although the evidence is that Obama has been so much to the right that Romney has been attacking him (say on the TBTF banks)… on the left.

Krugman gives lessons about how bad Romney is, but all of Krugman’s economic policy in the last 4 years has been to send 8,000 billions to the 19 largest TBTF banks. Little of which got to the real economy, as no strings were attached.

It is hard for me to believe that Romney, actually could be that bad. (OK, I said that about Reagan, big mistake; but Carter, who started the invasion of… Afghanistan (!) was plenty bad, in all too many ways, and the fact that this was not examined, does explain plenty, and not just 9/11…)

Romney spent two years as a missionary in France. He probably got taught secularism instead. He also was fixed, free of charge, by the French health care system for the fatal head on crash (his car, below the speed limit, was hit by a certainly criminally driving priest…) that knocked him so badly the initial police report had him described as “mort” (“dead”).

As you seem to be saying, the left needs to wake up. Fanatically right wing policies (say about banksters) such as Obama’s need to be seen for what they are. People have to learn to protest again, indeed, and have new ideas.

I supported Obama tremendously, I was wrong. Aside from the Libyan war, where Obama let France (supported by Britain), and helped France, attack, Obam’s presidency nearly accomplished nothing worthy.

Now, like Socrates, I am drinking the hemlock, but I will be reborn stronger. I hope the same happens to the entire left.

Because I am 90% sure that, barring any big mistake in the next debate, Romney is going to win. I am not even sure it’s going to be that bad: after all, Obama’s intermission was just more of Bush, complete with Bush’s tax cuts.

The base has been moved into a corner. We need a few elections that remind them of that. I’ll take the bad that comes with that for a while.

As it is I think the UK, desperate to start R&D again, is taxing it very little. But that’s not the case in France and the USA. In Germany, once again, the investment in research and teaching (apprenticeships) by companies is totally massive. Thus, I would suggest that many in the West ought to copy Germany. For banks, of course, Obama ought to have copied, say, Sweden, which copied Reagan-Bush Sr….

The last point you made is made by Romney too. And I approve this message. After giving 8,000 billions to the 19 biggest banks (differently from the small ones, which get nationalized).

Big corporations are getting more and more robotized, so they will reduce hands, while augmenting brains…
OK, no time now, but I will check numbers later, and come back to it… Thanks for the contribution!
PA

Small companies do create some jobs, but not very many. Most Americans work for very large corporations. And those corporations “deleveraged” our workforce in 2008 and 2009. The decreased costs turned into pure profits that they are now sitting on. Reducing taxes on “small” business won’t do squat, our taxes are already at historical lows.

We need to increase taxes on profits. That will force business to reinvest earnings. We can even means test it, say the first 250k is exempt from increased profits tax. That hits about 98% of “small” businesses. The reinvested earnings will turn into jobs.

It goes without saying that the environmental problems require extreme R&D. An example is to develop (through genetic engineering) the best “blue-green algae” (they are not algae) to make fuel with. The technology, pushed, rightly so, by the US Navy, is very clean and removes CO2 from the atmosphere (it’s expensive, although I am sure the Navy, that is governmental research, will solve that aspect).

I am 100% behind socially productive causes. Yet, the greatest problem in environmental science, for example, is (sustainable energy) STORAGE. There is no storage that works well, except for dams. Dams in the mountains, that is (although lagoon dams could be built next to wind farms at sea). Not dams in the plains, Brazil style… There are imaginable technologies besides air batteries (for example hydrogen storage, compressed air, fuel cells)

I have used many times the (old times) social argument. But what I tried to say this time is that the expression “developed countries” is poisonous. We are not that developed. The problem of employment, at this point is that we are all becoming, the West is becoming, India, Brazil, China, Vietnam, Indonesia.

I just bought a Samsung smart phone. Samsung. Korean. Korea: Colonized by Mongols, Chinese, Japanese. And now, thanks to general Mc Arthur and others, and tremendous research, on top of the world.

I deliberately put a very high target; 10% for R&D. But 5% should be the immediate objective. It goes without saying the jobs would be tremendous.

Take for example material science. The West reigns there: carbon fiber composites (airbus, Booeing, all their subsidiaries, and contractors), cellulose nanotubes (some from US Forest Service factories!), futuristic cements (France). So let’s rebuild everything using those, starting with earthquakes areas, by changing regulations (it will beat the enormous loss of life and treasure sure to happen on the West Coast of the USA anytime!)

A total research tax credit would not use much resources, and would pay for itself very quickly. Although I hate trickle down a la Reagan, technology is the trickle down that keeps on giving. More like a torrent, in fact.

I would say that it would be a smart way to lower corporate taxes. BTW, not only is the west empoverishing itself, as it is, by refusing to develop, but we are on a collision course with our planetary resources, shrinking fast (as Germany’s energy gymnastics demonstrate)

Germany just announced a rise in energy tax on electricity of more than 50% effective immediately. That will rise the overall cost by 10% by next year. And this is just the begining.
I do not believe the plan is well thought out. Storage is inexistent. The technology could be developed, but has not been yet.

New power lines will connect wind in the north with sun in the south. That’s the plan. But when there is neither sun nor wind, then what?
C O A L…
PA

And, Patrice, rather than high-tech R&D which requires large use of resources (human especially) why not focus on socially productive causes? Environmental, social, education… It could easily be a progression of your other arguments…

Long time reader…