Charlie Rose

robdverity  01/08/2011 04:22 PM Report

Venality obliterated. Statesmanship the norm. Re-election secondary.

IN A PIG'S ASS!!

slightly_optimistic  01/06/2011 10:32 AM Report

"I think the . . . most important challenges for this program over the next several weeks is to look ahead to what China represents. . ."

As a guide, what does China represent to the European Union? Some of the member countries, desperately in need of funds, are finding that China represents loans. China is reported to be linking its support to political involvement in the EU.

A matter for the G20?

doodah  01/06/2011 07:06 AM Report

We've seen all this hogwash before, back in 94-95. When the 'new' Republican Congress was SO NOBLE (I remember some of them sleeping on the floors of their offices, so serious a mission they were on), gonna "change" Washington, gonna save us from the evil Democrat politicians, blah blah blah. And then what happens?. They gladly let the banking and financial lobbyists into their "noble" offices and take their bribes(easyMoney for the likes of them) and screw us all(non 'financial' professionals) into oblivion.

I'll give Boehner-Brain 2 years to prove his worth (HELP the President, REAL AMERICANS), before I round up a posse. If he's only interested in blaming and taking credit (like the typical piece of shit politician that he is). Then his shit ain't gonna fly.

REMant  01/05/2011 12:36 PM Report

At first it seemed either no one wanted to talk about this, or they were not invited. That it turned out Dems were invited, made the Republican choices more understandable. I appreciated the congressman's argument for decentralization, tho you can also address that on a constitutional basis. There's nothing particularly contemporary about free trade. The biggest uncertainty in the financial sector seems to exist in the Fed, which appears from last month's minutes to have decided that it is still full steam ahead with its Kinko's expedition, as Dave Barry put it. Holders of our debt cannot be happy about that. Barry's take on the past year, incidentally, put the pundits to shame. You can find it here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/12/23/AR2010122303570.html?hpid=artslot&sid =ST2011010300278

I still think a flat-rate income tax with a high threshold, in return for a well-controlled health care plan like Japan's or the Swiss', would prove a spark for the whole country, its economy, people and politics, as well as its perception overseas. All the more if followed up by at least a plan for a balanced budget.

There is certainly no reason to suppose cooperation impossible, when you realize that libertarianism is a real alternative and the obvious middle ground.

But I believe libertarians will have to confront the whole political correctness complex, not just the financial, something made clear by the Honors business. Adm John Harvey, the US Fleet Commander, who fired Honors, is not himself combat officer. That was evident from looking at his decorations. He came out of the Nuclear Propulsion program, and was, secondarily, a personnel man. How he got where he is, is a mystery to me. Curiously, he took over as Chief of Navy Staff, his previous post, when another admiral, a career aviator like Honors, was canned in an apparent witch-hunt over an alleged "inappropriate" relationship some 18 years earlier. But I don't understand a career pilot, like Honors, who with 28 yrs service cannot be considered a rising star, becoming a carrier commander anymore than a reactor officer becoming a fleet commander, Academy grads or no. Or for that matter, an admiral, no matter how distinguished in his profession, becoming chairman of the joint chiefs with absolutely no experience in foreign affairs, nor even a graduate of one of the war colleges, and in the midst of a large land war. Despite a decade of war, I have the strong feeling the Pentagon is a sort of namby-bamby land.

On the other hand, the GOP is still riddled with so-called "chicken-hawks" like Gingrich, as well as, Reaganite monetarists. A copy of the Washington Examiner landed in my driveway this weekend and I looked it over before recycling, since it purports to be a conservative mouthpiece. I found a column by Michael Barone, said to be their senior political analyst, which so incensed me I replied:

"Mr Barone seems to be arguing that wealth disparity doesn't matter to Americans for the same lame reasons we've heard for the last 30 years: 1. the CPI did not reflect changes in technology or "volatile" items; and, 2. as Mandeville put it centuries ago, "the very poor liv'd better than the rich before," the latter due largely, of course, to the Chinese and other 3rd world countries. Jude Wanniski made the same argument in the Reagan era when he wrote that we were too rich to manufacture anymore. The CPI was subsequently fiddled by Greenspan, eliminating things like food and gas, a move which is pretty universally denounced, and I think no one in his right mind thinks we ought to be beholden to China and OPEC. This is the kind of old self-serving, supply-side/monetarist BS we can do without. The past half-century of inflation has raised not the prices of goods made overseas, or which have seen technological improvement having nothing to do with monetary policy, but the price of real estate, commodities, securities, and services like health care, which increasingly the average American cannot afford. The decline of the middle-class is very real, and only the deluded would think that this should have no impact on the fortunes of the Republican Party today. It is instructive to compare these views with the Jacksonians, who destroyed the "monster bank" only to deliver it into the hands of Wall St, and vastly increased the size of government. They were known as The Democracy, and so are Reaganites like Mr Barone."

One could probably argue that all of this cultural war nonsense is the result of the sort of irresponsible fiscal and monetary policies we have pursued since the '60s, which allows ppl to rise into positions far beyond their competence.