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Economists seem to think Obama is considerably more qualified:
"Eighty per cent of respondents and no fewer than 71% of those who do not cleave to either main party say Mr Obama has a better grasp of economics. Even among Republicans Mr Obama has the edge: 46% versus 23% say Mr Obama has the better grasp of the subject."
Just wondering if you bothered to read the article you cited backing up your headline assertion that economists back Obama? In the early part of the article it states that their poll is based on 142 respondents of whom 46% were Dems and only 10% were Republicans and the entire pool were from academia who are overwhelmingly Democrats and MOST damning is the statement that 530 economists have signed off their support of McCain's plan which dwarfs the mere 142 respondents to this poll. So you apparently read that 142 economists respond to the poll of whom 71% think Obama is better qualified, also read that 530 other economists endorse McCain and come up with "Economists think Obama is more qualified"? I would in closing point to a quote that seems to support the idea that this poll was totally partisan "On his plans to fix the financial crisis, Mr Obama averages 3.1, a point higher than Mr McCain. Still, some said they didn’t quite know what they were rating—reasonably enough, since neither candidate has produced clear plans of his own." So these fools don't know what the plans are but still think that Obama's plan is better? That is all i need to read, thank you.
Allow me to highlight key parts of my previous argument, since you evidently have trouble with reading comprehension:
"...71% of those who do not cleave to either main party say Obama... Even among Republicans Mr Obama has the edge: 46% versus 23%."
You mention 530 economists have expressed support for McCain. Do I have to explain to you the difference between a raw number and a percentage? Your number is meaningless.
The respondents to this survey are people who have dedicated their lives to the study of economics. They know what they're talking about.
Small point. Why is Academia overwhelmingly Democratic? You really think they came to arbitrary conclusions, and base their professional opinions blindly thereon? Come on, now.
Maybe I misunderstood what Inkwell said but it appeared to me that he was saying that the pool of academics polled was overwhelmingly Democrats. But the sentence was slightly ambiguous. As for why most academics are Democrats, simply answer is academics in general believe in anti-religious policies and Utopian societies where things like communism actually work the way they are envisioned.
sorry if I was not clear. I was indeed pointing out the wide gap in affiliation of the specific group who responded and thus whose views were represented in the poll.
Interesting question on which I have some ideas (of course! You by now knew I would have an opinion, didn't you? lol) but I think I disagree with the last part of what you said. You used the term "professional opinions". I am not sure I understand the reference. What does their democratic party leanings have to do with professional opinions? In the case at hand, they teach. That is their profession. They happen to be an association of econ teachers but they are not professional economists, they are professional teachers/professors. I am not sure if it matters but you introduced the issue so I just wanted to point that out.
I suspect that in our current times, many of today's more radical teachers came from the "turbulent sixties" and that frankly they had great times in college and like the open environment with a lack of real responsibility. Academia is a protected environment where you have an easy schedule and limited responsibilities. You can strive for advancement, writing and getting published or you can just float along giving lectures that barely change from year to year and there is no real risk taking or judgment of performance. You can either be a Milton Friedman who affects whole generations or just a nameless faceless guy who gives the same boring lecture from rote year after year and never rock the boat. I think those who do little to advance are all either writing the great American novel or are convinced they are "finding themselves" or are otherwise in a transitory state before actually "doing something" with their lives. I think the world of academia attracts dreamers and the brilliant but lazy/unmotivated. I think many feel a sense of entitlement due to their actual or imagined intelligence. I think the Abby Hoffmans and Jerry Rubins and more specifically those they attract are drawn to academia while the ROTC crowd and FFA crowd and the ones who went to college to learn a profession went out and worked and raised families and weren't about revolution and overthrowing things or bombing things.
Of course it could be more nefarious than that. Alinsky, Marx, they all give their plans for overthrow of the powers that be. You might as well ask me why NYCC or U of Chicago developed their reputations as hotbeds of socialism decades ago or Berkley is known for radicals for social change. Or why radicals of all stripes hide behind tenure and liberal administrations to espouse radical thoughts that most find reprehensible like holocaust denial or that America is itself to blame for the attacks on 9/11. What is it about academia that someone who said "Kill all the rich people. Break up their cars and apartments. Bring the revolution home, kill your parents, that’s where it’s really at" and who now believes no different is not only allowed to teach young adults but is a celebrity to Chicago liberals or even a hero to them as claimed by Sam Ackerman, Chicago activist for liberal causes. Where else but on the Berkeley campus could you have protesters carrying anti censorship messages screaming obscenity to interrupt a speaker and then storm the stage and burn books and then defend themselves by citing their right to free speech? Where but Columbia University, in the center of the greatest concentration of Jews outside of Israel could you have the college president officially invite Ahmadinijad who is a holocaust denier and wants to wipe out all of Israel and calls Judaism a gutter religion.
Forget academia for a minute. Why is the Democrat Party so comfortable with violent leftists and anarchists that Bill Clinton can pardon Puerto Rican separatist terrorists in order to court the Puerto Rican vote for his wife? Why did Hillary Clinton offer to monitor the trial of Black Panthers who murdered civilians and police in order to assist Bobby Seales? Why is it OK that Obama's Houston campaign headquarters displayed prominently a Cuban flag emblazoned with Che Guevara's profile on it? After all Che was merely a murderer who claimed that “the U.S. is the great enemy of mankind”.
Now . . . there are exceptions as with any rule. Thomas W. Jones, a leader in the armed takeover of Cornell University’s student union in 1969, rose to the top of Citigroup and once ran TIAA-CREF, the pension fund of some of the very academics he threatened. So it happens in the business world too.
Specifically in answer to your question, I think Academia attracts a certain type, not that once in academia they become liberal.
Let's see- there's McCain, who wants to tax existing Health Care plans as part of people's income, or Obama, who wants to cut taxes for people who make less than $250,000. McCain, the de-regulating buddy of Charles Keating, and Obama- community organizer. For the common man and woman, the economic plan that will help them the most is Obama's, no two ways about it.
Do you make over $250,000 a year Joe? If not, Obama is not going to raise your taxes. In fact, Obama's plan cuts taxes three times more for the middle class than McCain's. McCain's tax plan massively favors the rich.
Actually I don't have a problem with Obama. I have a problem with people that put him on a pedestal. He's just one man, and a human at that. The Republicans aren't going to let him do everything that he wants to do. If we vote a Democratic Congress and Senate, he's still not going to get everything he wants. I think a lot of people are going to be a little disappointed.
do you really believe anything he says? Do you honestly believe he can implement all of these social programs while really cutting taxes for 95% of all working Americans?? Just how much can he raise taxes on the richest 5% of Americans to compensate for reducing taxes for the rest AND pay for all of his expensive programs? And do you really think the richest 5% will allow him to just rob them at gunpoint without them pulling money from productive investments that help our economy grow and creates jobs or do you think the rich will put their money in gold or send it offshore to help other economies grow? Joe Biden can call me unpatriotic all he wants but I won't allow some radical socialist to make a mockery of this nation, the traditions and principles we were established and grew strong on and play Robin Hood at my expense. He has not yet admitted that in our current environment he simply cannot play his tax games with us. The nations economy is not a set of lincoln legs he can play with. Rich investment class Americans are already going defensive. Kill them with capital gains taxes and watch more investment flee to gold or other shores. It was patriotic in 1776 to throw tea into Boston Harbor to protest bad tax policy and it will be just as patriotic to move money to gold or offshore in the face of equally oppressive tax policy from Obama.
If we believe the numbers on the chart in Jessald's link, the lowest paid 60% will get a total reduction in their tax bills of up to 5.5%. 63% of American households own stock, usually in retirement accounts. If capital gains taxes and redistribution of wealth causes productive investing to flee for safer less productive shores, those accounts will shrink by more than that same 5%. They have already shrunk and now we are looking at someone who will drive investments down even further. Redistribution of wealth will just be another bad law that has disastrous ramifications down the road. Kills jobs, kills growth, kills retirement plans, just plain bad news
He will be able to pay for his programs by taxing the rich and closing loopholes so that they will not be able to weasel out of it.
This isn't anything new, and I think you're being a bit of a drama queen about it. He's simply rolling back the Bush tax cuts. Companies won't be paying any more than they did under Ronald Regan.
It seems to me that the trickle down economics you advocate haven't been working very well. By cutting taxes for the poor, you allow them consume more, which will help the economy more than leaving it with the wealthiest. Just ask the economists who responded to that survey I mentioned.
tax the rich and close loopholes. hmmm I have never heard a politician run on that platform before lol At least not since 1875 when Marx first said it as "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need". I am glad that at least you recognize Obama for the radical Marxist he is.
Drama Queen? EVERY Democrat has played the same lying horseshit. They never deliver on any of it Thank God. But the masses keep eating it up. Fool me once, shame on you, fool me for the 30th time, shame on me. This is a capitalist country in what is largely a capitalist world. You want to reverse the trend of history and turn us into a Marxist nation, fine. Just wait until I die first. I don't want to live drunk on potato vodka. I don't want to ride the bus looking down and not meeting anyone's eyes. I don't want to wait in line at the store when they have shoes for the first time in 6 months. I don't want to drive car models 40 years behind the rest of the world. I don't want to be forced to work hard instead of working smart. I don't want to live in a nation robbed of the incentive and reward for excellence or entrepreneurial effort. That can be YOUR America, not mine. If that sounds like drama to you, who cares?
Trickle down economics DOES work. You just use the wrong yardstick just like all liberals. You believe that if we can find the right pill and pay enough for it, we can "cure" poverty. The fact is that our poor have a very high standard of living compared to the poor of the world. THAT is how economics work. Poverty cannot be "cured" and if you liberals would ever get that through your head, maybe ANYTHING coming out of your mouths on economics wouldn't sound like Robin Hood. Our current disaster is NOT a failure of economic theories. It is the failure of liberal mommy staters who idiots voted into congress. I am tired of saying their names. It is a failure of partisans who scream bloody murder about Republican lobbyists but are silent or defend Dems on the FredFan or ACORN money buying voted. It is a failure of voters who want to blame Wall Street instead of Congress. What is going on today has NOTHING to do with any failure of trickle down economics.
"Drama Queen? EVERY Democrat has played the same lying horseshit."
Because republicans don't lie, right? Every politician lies. It doesn't matter if you're conservative or liberal.
"Trickle down economics DOES work. You just use the wrong yardstick just like all liberals."
And which yard-stick should we use? the one created by conservatives?
Trickle-down does work - but only to an extent. It's obvious that it didn't work too well over the last 8 years, though. The average household earnings have stayed flat that entire time.
I don't believe in a cure for poverty, because there is no cure for human nature. But i believe that we can take more care of middle-class Americans then we currently do. we just went through an administration that helped the rich a great deal. Whats the problem with helping the middle-class go to college for free? or having a little more money left-over in their paychecks?
I agree - thinking that Obama will do everything he's promised is foolish, especially considering what has happened over the last two to three months.
But I bet Obama will do more for the middle-class in this country then any president has in a long time. That's because democrats are expected to gain a 60 member majority in the senate... and a huge one in the house too.
Think about - who is hurting most right now: the rich or the middle class? The answer should be obvious.
I'm getting tired of conservatives bringing out the communist straw-man every time somebody says "tax the rich."
Democrats are not communists, they are capitalists.
In communism you take from the wealthy and give to the poor for the purpose of making everyone equal.
This is not why Democrats want to tax the rich. Democrats just want to provide a minimum standard of living for everyone, and that money comes from the wealthy because they are the ones who can afford to pay. Achieving a classless society is not the intent.
Look, capitalism is a machine. It can produce wonderful things. But like any machine, it has side-effects. Left unchecked, capitalism will ravage the planet and steamroll all but the wealthiest in the name of profit. Democrats recognize and seek to address the problems caused by uncontrolled capitalism.
Trickle down economics does seem to make sense, I'll give you that. But trickle up makes sense too, as it allows people to consume more, which creates more profits for companies and ends up benefiting everyone. The fact is the economy is heinously complicated. There are many approaches one can take. I think we should constantly struggle to find ways of improving the quality of life for all Americans rather than simply saying, "The poor will always be poor and there's nothing we can do about it."
meant to add that you forgot to say "cut the fat". All candidates also promise to cut the fat from the budget. Of course like their other promises, they never keep this one either. But as Fleetwood Mac sang "Don't stop believing". Once you stop believing your candidates lies, there wont be much left so by all means, just keep right on believing the lies he is feeding you. I sure hope they are low cal lies because there sure are a lot of them to swallow.
You would never vote to raise your taxes. That's probably the most selfish comment I've ever heard. I'm voting to raise my taxes. You know why? Because I care. I care about the 95% of hard working middle class, and working class Americans. I am willing to sacrifice to help millions of people. If you think you are more important then millions of others then thats just selfish.
Do you also care about the billions being wasted on programs that don't work? How about the billions spent on earmarks?
Or the $147 billion tacked onto an already expensive $700 billion bailout package?
The government spends too much. And while i do think the rich should pay a little more in taxes, i also believe the federal government has ALOT of fat it needs to cut.
"You would never vote to raise your taxes. That's probably the most selfish comment I've ever heard. I'm voting to raise my taxes."
Now thats just dumb. Your not only raising taxes for your self, your raising taxes for the wealthy 5%, the people who support the entire nation. Do you know anyone employed by a poor person? No. No one ever has, and no one ever will. In stead of stealing from the rich and giving to the poor you should steal less from the rich, so they can employ the poor. Then the poor won't be poor very much longer, and they will have earned it.
