CNN/Fox Projection: Obama wins presidential election.
:)
Oh, I'm sorry, did I stumble into the wrong party?
Where's the party for people that support an open country with strong privacy rights and a dynamic business environment?
And its not entirely clear he'll fix those, but there's hope.
I don't trust Obama on those issues at all, given his record. Bringing sanity to the war on terror isn't that important to him.
McCain also said he would close Guantanamo and end torture.
I'm sorry, but this party looks like a bunch of folks obsessing over a pretty politician who is moderately awful on the issues after 8 years of one who was completely awful on the issues, and not nearly as pretty.
And you should care about unionism. The 94% of Americans who aren't in unions are going to be fleeced by protectionist bills to pad the pockets of the powerful unions that support the Democratic Party.
I agree that for me, torture trumps unions. I don't like unions, but they are fading. Torture is just unacceptable.
When anti-China tariffs come down the line, you can thank the unions. Obama will not deny them. You can also nix the idea of school choice under an Obama administration, since the National Teacher's Union is a strong supporter of the Democratic Party. It's no wonder that Obama's plan for education is basically "more money! more money!". The unions couldn't have written a more favorable plan themselves.
I'd rather have weak, declining unions than strong anti-science conservatives like Ms. Palin running loose.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michelle_Rhee
PS, I think you are right about "card check", which seems to me like one of the most important issues in this election which has gotten approximately zero public debate.
- Social Democrats (Democrats)
- Christian Democrats (Republicans)
- Liberals (Libertarians)
- Greens
Here the Greens and the Liberals (note that "liberal" outside of the US implies classical liberalism) grew up a lot as being a part of main-stream politics. I really wish that were possible in the US because it forces the other points in the political spectrum to actually deal with reality and softens their rhetoric in a pragmatic, but effective way. German Greens nearly as crack-potted as American ones as a result.
And so far as protectionism goes. This is just another feeling that I am certain _most_ Americans will start swinging in the other direction on. The next year will see China<->U.S. sentiments on both sides growing very tense.
And high taxes? Get this straight: When the FED/Treasury "prints" money, that is a tax!!! And the last 8 years we've seen massive amounts this form of debt.
In addition, unions have many legal rights outside of a normal, voluntary gathering of people. In many states, they can force new employees of a company to join. Democrats are currently pushing for legislation to eliminate secret ballots for the formation of unions. When employee preferences are no longer secret, they can be coerced and threatened into supporting the union, which should enable Democrats to increase their union base. In addition, unions can force their employers to bargain with them by law, instead of by voluntary agreement by both parties. Federal law prohibits its agencies from paying contractors less than the union price, which is often high above the market price of similar services.
It is no coincidence that heavily unionized sectors of our economy tend to be failing, bloated, and stagnant. The big ones are undoubtedly a negative influence on American society. And they undoubtedly run the economic program of the Democratic Party; it surely isn't run by any coherent economic school of thought that I can recognize.
I'm not a Democrat. I have never been a member of any political party and hopefully never will. You do seem to have in for the Democrats though. Yes, they are in bed with Union officials and people that abuse the intents of a union. And yes, the Republicans are a bunch of rat bastards as well ;).
I really think that in lieu of the recent Wall Street bailouts and given who benefited, you should go "hawking" your "Democrats give too many handouts" somewhere else. Its falling on deaf ears. I have never heard either party provide a coherent economic plan. And that goes back to Reagonmics. They've have 20++ years to show that "trickle down" does anything but further stretch the socio-economic fabric.
I vote for my perceived integrity of the person. I don't much care whether they swing right or left, as long as they get stuff done and do so with integrity.
As to your assertion that the rich live in 70% tax brackets, this is quite untrue. The 70% bracket is unfair but few Americans actually find themselves in this bracket. Those in this bracket are high-wage earners, mostly doctors and lawyers, that don't have much outlets for tax reduction. This group is unfairly punished at the moment and it would be wise to fix this problem.
If you as an entrepreneur find yourself even remotely close to a 70% tax bracket, I highly encourage you to post something to HN like "Ask HN: Please help me find a tax planner with two brain cells to rub together" ;).
There are lots of risks entrepreneurs take. But one reward is great opportunity to reduce tax both as you go and after a big payoff.
As to your feeling that you wouldn't want to live in a a country that never had Reaganomics...there are many great Americans (those that created what we have now) that lived before 1980 that do not share your feelings.
I'm not trying to be abusive. I'm writing this to provide additional perspective.
There is some truth to the old Republican saw that the Republican Party is a coalition of ideologies, while the Democratic Party is a coalition of interest groups. It just so happens that a particularly stupid and nasty ideology that most Republicans don't really like has been in the ascendancy since Bush brought it in by stealth. Hopefully, that will change.
Farmers get help from both sides but if you look at who votes on specific bills there is significantly more support on the Republican side.
As to old people when they where talking about privatizing social security they where going to increase SS taxes to pay for their plan and not actually reduce spending.
PS: What I think is odd about Republican support is how their support of these groups is in opposition of their stated ideals of free trade (except for sugar) etc.
With regards to Wall St., AIG has received almost $123 billion in government-backed loans. If anything, it seems like the non-union, free market insurance industry is failing, bloated, and stagnant.
You're joking, but a lot of people actually voted for him for equally trivial reasons.
Certainly, knowing the answer to that question, or knowing what a bubble sort even is, doesn't make or break a candidate. But all else being equal, wouldn't you rather a president who took at least one course on computer science?
Sure it is a little thing, but I found myself saying "all other things being equal" a lot about Obama. All those things added up: I voted for him.
Obama is smarter than McCain. He's smarter than Bush. He's smarter than me, if you can believe it.
But do I care if Obama can:
1) Fix my toilet?
2) Balance my books?
3) Remove my appendix?
4) Parge my lath?
5) Sort my integers?
No. All trivia.
Unfortunately, making the government responsible for appendix-removal is one of the things which Obama wants to do. Comparing my experiences in US hospitals ("Oh hi, here's a bed and two nurses, your surgeon and his team will be along in ten minutes") to my experiences in Australian hospitals ("Oh hi, here's a wheelchair, please wait here for six hours") I really am not keen to see the US system become more like the Australian one.
The trick would be to design a system where some minimum is guaranteed for everyone, and things are nicer for those willing to pay more.
INCONCEIVABLE!
Indeed, but have you asked that question of presidential candidates?
Senator McCain was asked the same question six months earlier. The staff, realizing the question might be asked again, prepared Obama with an answer.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/02/business/02digi.html?_r=2&...
COME ON. We all know Obama didn't come up with that answer but his on the ball staffers make him look good. And Just like a CEO has to delegate a lot of work, the president has to delegate nearly everything.
Obama might be human gold with a soft diamondy center, but unless he actually has people who can do what needs to be done then it's useless. I think it's highly illustrated by the McCain campaign that he didn't have subordinates capable of doing the job right because he looked as warn out and tired as Bush does currently. McCain looked physically flabbergasted by what he was asked, he'd have looked better just holding up the frigging piece of paper his speech writers gave him.
But won't the managerial magic prevent the guy that can't push a button from working at the till there or at least fire him quickly?
I would have been more impressed if he said the MLB instituting a hard salary cap rather than that silly luxury tax.
Did we expect him to answer like a prospective google hire? A modified quick sort thats guarded not to recurse too many levels deep to avoid any stack overflow errors? I'm impressed that he made an effort to connect at the techie-level.
I think the intent of the tech-savvy staffers who briefed him was like when a comedian makes a reference to the Yankees while performing in NYC
In any case, I wasn't aware it was a reddit meme.
Although I love Fark, sometimes I'm tempted to use the same jokes here and that's just wrong.
Save me from myself!
"But a note of caution is in order here. The hacker community has some specific, primarily defensive political interests — two of them are defending free-speech rights and fending off "intellectual-property" power grabs that would make open source illegal...But beyond that, most hackers view attempts to systematize the hacker attitude into an explicit political program with suspicion; we've learned, the hard way, that these attempts are divisive and distracting. If someone tries to recruit you to march on your capitol in the name of the hacker attitude, they've missed the point. The right response is probably “Shut up and show them the code.”
I hope that economics will be put on the back burner and "security" (also known as security theater - also known as fascism) will be the most important consideration. As in rolling back "security" in favor of "democracy."
Freedom fixes economics. And the last administration has been assaulting freedom for eight years.
Don't be naive and try to blame this economic situation on some other bullshit about freedom from the "last administration". Many of us Americans (for the most part) have been spending out the ass using credit and the bills are coming due. Americans' personal money management habits have _nothing_ to do with the party in office.
It's our own aggregate greed and desire for more that has left us with a shell of an economy stuck with trillions of debt. Now point to yourself and say it with me: "My personal choices affect the economy. Not the current administration or the next administration, not anyone else, but how I choose to manage my budget and debt as an individual."
I'm all for blaming others when things go wrong, but this one's pretty simple buddy. We're in a metric ton of debt and the fault belongs to each one of us.
The problem, though, is that the banks let them do this. It is very easy for the credit card company to start declining transactions, and it's very easy for a loan officer to say, "sorry, you can't afford this house".
Nobody did that, though, and here we are.
"...I am absolutely certain that generations from now, we will be able to look back and tell our children that this was the moment when we began to provide care for the sick and good jobs to the jobless; this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal..."
which at the very least suggests "humility" isn't necessarily deeply ingrained.
Can it do that?
No, they couldn't rig it this time instead decided to go 51%-49% to leave with honor...
...and loaded pockets.
For the first time in weeks I saw a story critical of obama on digg.
[deleted]
(FISA, PATRIOT II, Bailout, war funding, VP wrote the PATRIOT Act and invented the "Drug Czar", etc.)
I voted for McCain. There's plenty that I don't agree with Obama about, but seeing as the media hasn't touched Barack Obama very much (including the internet which is currently in exuberant joy) regarding any..."mistakes", it doesn't look likely that it will change until he does anything substantial.
How do you criticize a guy who isn't even in the office yet? Lets hope he does a good job.
Congratulations, Barack.
It's awfully hard to be cool while blindly supporting the President. Let's hope it remains that way, because the alternative would be bad -- not just for politics, but for coolness.
A couple of sources called it (really) once Ohio flipped.
Now it gets interesting. I would beg Obama voters to follow along and read multiple sources as things go forward.
I love politics.
Watching the way the rest of the world sees the US makes it a little easier to see the inanity of so much US political news coverage. (And likewise that of any other country's local political news, as covered by outside sources).
Here's a good site I brought up a while back. It covers hundreds of foreign-language media and translates some of their material into English.
Seeing recent female and minority leaders being elected across the world shows we finally are moving towards reducing discrimination.
In so many ways, the U.S has shown how agile it is, and why it's number 1.
About a month ago, it became apparent to me that it was going to be a blowout. I've been confident Obama would win for several months...but it wasn't until the desperation in the McCain campaign began to show through so clearly (Palin, in particular), that I realized how badly he was going to lose. As of a few days ago, I was expecting a Reagan-style landslide, and I wasn't disappointed.
And, I question the "America is number 1" assertion. Number 1 in what competition? We're behind in several areas I consider vitally important: economic freedom, freedom of speech, per-capita income, education, and the list goes on...
Hopefully his policies will live up to the talk, but if nothing else I believe that his message alone will go a long way towards helping improve things. It seems all too rare these days for a politician to say that yes, things will be difficult and dirty, and there are going to need to be sacrifices from everyone, but despite all the hardships we really can work to build a better future.
Never forget: the unintended consequences of any government policy almost always wind up being far more significant than the intended consequences.
This is what I fear most.
Seatbelt laws? Yeah, I can't think of much there, though I'm sure there's somebody out there who'll argue that seatbelt laws promote worse driving, and there have probably been some particular crashes in which seatbelts have led to rather than prevented injuries.
The GI Bill? Actually in my limited understanding that probably wound up having consequences well beyond what was originally intended, and it's likely that most of those consequences were on balance good rather than bad. But it doesn't make them any less unintended. It wrought major changes in higher education and in the demographics of cities vs suburbs, which were probably not on the minds of those who originally proposed the bill.
Govern it well, Barack Obama.
We did have a few celebratory beers however.
Please, let's keep it to computing and startups and other infrequent topics.
America is defineately not nr 1 anymore but maybe now you can get back to being so!
I'm also not concerned what it will do for innovation (whatever that means) because historically the economy and stock market do better under Democrats than under Republicans. George W. Bush has yet to create one single net job, and he has a mere 75 days to do.