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On Tue, 6 Apr 2010 10:31:24 -0700, "nom=de=plume"
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. ..

When did your interest change? Before or after the election? Did you
vote
for him?
About March of 2008 when he started quibbling on "change" and decided
Bush was right on *some* of the wars.

So, you think we should have just let bygones be bygones and not gone
after
bin laden? He was in Afg. and Bush never followed through there.

Bin Laden was in Pakistan by the time Obama came along. We have no
reason to be there.

My understanding is that if we aren't in that area, and Pakistan pushes him,
he'll return. There are plenty of supporters of his on both sides of the
border.



By July it was clear he was on Bush's schedule in Iraq and
Afghanistan, even pushing it out a few years.

Bush's schedule? More like Iraq's schedule for us to leave, which we're on
track to do.

I will be shocked if we ever leave Iraq.

Depends on your definition of "leave." I think we'll be there in some
capacity for a long time. I think we'll be honoring our agreement with the
Iraqi gov't to leave in the next year or so.


I still say we will be there when Obama leaves ... unless we have a
Vietnam moment and leave off the roof in a helicopter.

By there, you're talking about Afg? I suppose we may have a presence there
for a while. I doubt it'll be heavy duty military.


That is more dangerous than Iraq.

Afg. is definitely more dangerous for a number of reasons.



I disagree that he's loaded his administration as you suggest. He picked
great people for tough jobs, without regard (mostly) for politics.


If you hire all the same people and do the same thing, why would you
expect change?

He didn't hire "all the same people" and he isn't "do(ing) the same
thing."

The financial people are the same.

Many of the financial people are the same. Many are not. I don't think he
can be condemned for this.




The US did end up following most of his advice and did make a dent in
the deficit for a few months.

Well, if you're talking about doing some common-sense things, ok. But, you
can't really claim he was the author of them.

Perot and his charts were what focused people on why the deficit was
bad, we need that again.

But deficits are only bad if we ignore them. We are certainly not doing
that. A deep recession requires deficit spending to stimulate the economy.
It's an economic fact (and there aren't really too many of those).



We may say we are in a recovery but we will need about a 170% growth
rate, just to stay even. We are no where near that and we certainly
can't do it within a carbon cap.

You're just making up numbers. The recession is officially over.
Unemployment has stablized. Things are mending, Iraq is winding down...
all
seems pretty good to me. Sure, there are issues, but the sky isn't
falling... sorry, but it isn't.

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Which number? We borrow 40 cents of every dollar we spend, that is a
fact that you can find many places.
The rest are just what happens when you turn that over. If you make 60
and spend 100 you are spending 166.% of your revenue. 170% is really
not enough growth to cover the interest and stay even.
The reality is, the various ponzi schemes we have in the entitlements
will require unbelievable growth in GDP to remain sustainable.

You're acting like there will never be any reform or readjustment in
anything... that's highly unlikely.

I sure haven't seen any indication that the government is willing to
address this problem. They keep kicking the can down the road and
hoping they will be out of office before the system crashes.
Unfortunately the only real answer is to cut back on entitlements or
raise taxes to an intolerable level. I am starting to hear rumblings
of the VAT tax again.

Reform is coming, assuming there are enough sensible Republicans around. I
think ultimately some taxes will need to be raised and some entitlements
cut. It depends on which and for whom. VAT is likely DOA for a number of
reasons.

--
Nom=de=Plume