Sunday, September 14, 2008

Should I...?

Farhad MooJuice, with whom I have sparred before, thinks that McCain is a big fat liar, and that Barack Obama has to do a lot more lying to catch up. I'm thinking of offering Fahrad a challenge: $100 if he can name three major areas of national debate in which Obama has neither lied nor changed positions. If I do make that offer, and if Farhad accepts, do you think I'll have to pay up? At this moment, I'm honestly not sure. Can you think of three topics -- real topics, not piddling stuff -- on which Barack Obama has consistently talked straight and true?

I'm certainly covered when it comes to FISA, NAFTA, campaign finance, the surge, Iraq, gay marriage, gun control, equal pay for women and taxes: The Lightbringer has double-talked his way through all of those controversies.

12 comments:

katiebird said...

I think he's said that his Health Care Plan is universal. But, don't they say that it's not?

Is that a lie? I don't think he's changed it to broaden the coverage. Has he?

Anonymous said...

He said he believed in the draft the other day.Has he took that back yet.Funding no child left behind or some thing about education.

Joseph Cannon said...

Paul Krugman says Obi's health care plan is not universal.

Anonymous said...

And for that apostasy, Krug was blasted as a Hillary hack by the O bots.

Joseph Cannon said...

You know what's cute? Obots blast me with silly insults every day. Yet not one of them has offered three suggestions.

Anonymous said...

Joseph,

If what Anon at 10:46 said is true, about Obama's "call to service" includes conscription, I hope you'll finally see he's no libertarian. I know of your distaste for Friedman, but I think even you'd admit that he was instrumental in ending the draft in the U.S.

Joseph Cannon said...

It is always the way with Libertarians and Friedmanites. Whenever I try to deal with those terms in a purely economic sense, they try to switch to NON-economic issues.

I"m talking about blinkered laissez-faire versus regulated capitalism, okay?

Anonymous said...

Austan Goolsbee, an economics professor at the University of Chicago and one of Sen. Obama's closest advisers on economic issues, said the senator believed strongly in enhanced regulation of any financial institution that has access to the Fed's discount window.

"If you can borrow money from the U.S. taxpayer at a moment of crisis, that is a very sacred insurance policy underwritten by the U.S. taxpayer," said Mr. Goolsbee in an interview last week with Dow Jones Newswires. "We have the right to oversee anyone who is accessing that insurance policy."...

Mr. Goolsbee said that an Obama presidency would ensure that investment banks are regulated as closely as commercial banks.

_________________________

Austin Goolsbee, a behavioural economist at the University of Chicago, who agrees with the liberal consensus on the need to address concerns such as income inequality, disparate educational opportunities and, of course, disparate access to healthcare, but breaks sharply from liberal orthodoxy on both the causes of these social ills and the optimal strategy for ameliorating them.

Instead of recommending traditional welfare-state liberalism as a solvent for socioeconomic inequalities and dislocations, Goolsbee promotes programmes to essentially democratise the market, protecting and where possible expanding freedom of choice, while simultaneously creating rational, self-interested incentives for individuals to participate in solving collective problems.
____________________
Using his 20/20 hindsight, Goolsbee tells us that the mortgage market should have been better regulated. I do not recall reading any op-eds by Goolsbee in 2005 calling for tighter mortgage market regulation.

To his credit, so to speak, Goolsbee is saying right now that credit card markets need more regulation, because they could end up like the mortgage market.
_______________________
Goolsbee tells Institutional Investor. Increased regulation “is not bad for the financial industry — it’s good. The lack of oversight allowed a small group of people to threaten some of the foundations of the financial system.”


Yep - no regulation there.

Joseph Cannon said...

I just received a comment instructing me to "look into issues" rather than express my personal resentment.

THAT'S WHAT I ASKED FOR!

Issues.

Three of 'em. Name three issues on which Obama has not lied or switched.

I asked politely and what happened? The Obots sent lots of insults. But they could not name three issues!

Anonymous said...

Hi here is alittle bit of him talking about the military .wsws.org the title is Obama calls for US military mobilizaton./from anon 10: 46

Anonymous said...

Let's try the same test for McCain - just to be fair....

Anonymous said...

hey scott

we'll do the same for McCain, later. this post is for obama. In math class you don't get to ask to take an English test! When the subkect here is McCain. Joseph doe not have to be fair here he is asking a critical question regarding the trustworthiness of a man who wants the job of POTUS. Joseph has been critical of McCain in the past, but at least with McCain there is no Unknown inkblot element.

clayton