It's Our Economy...

"The president has tried, but his policies haven't worked. He's great as a -- as a -- as a speaker and describing his plans and his vision. That's wonderful, except we have a record to look at. And that record shows he just hasn't been able to cut the deficit, to put in place reforms for Medicare and Social Security to preserve them, to get us the rising incomes we need. Median income is down $4,300 a family and 23 million Americans out of work. That's what this election is about. It's about who can get the middle class in this country a bright and prosperous future and assure our kids the kind of hope and optimism they deserve."

-- Mitt Romney, 16 October 2016

Ref: http://www.npr.org/2012/10/16/163050988/transcript-obama-romney-2nd-presidential-debate

There Are No 47 Percent Ads

47 Percent Ads are now irrelevant, as if they never happened. Neither protagonist nor antagonist for those advertisements showed up in person last night at the first debate. Mr. Romney came across as likable; at least as likable as one might need in a President. On the other side, Mr. Obama was void in bringing the 47 Percent issue up. It simply is not important to him. If the 47 Percent Ads continue to play, it's only because of a large -- and odd -- disconnect between the campaign and its candidate. The only reasons for continuing to show the 47 Percent Ads are the disingenuous reasons.

Camping on a Lie

"Overall, FactCheck.org found, there is no clear evidence that Romney, during Bain’s management of this company, shipped U.S. jobs to China." "Three Pinocchios = Significant factual error and/or obvious contradictions." -- Washington Post, 18 September 2012

President Obama’s jab at Mitt Romney: ‘All you’ve done is send [China] our jobs’

President Obama continues to campaign on this significant political lie. Further, sit back for a second. It makes no sense. Why would Mr. Romney as future President want to send jobs overseas? And why is something done in the 1990s so important to Mr. Obama? Creating jobs in the USA is a carefully watched metric. Mr. Obama cannot lie about the jobs he hasn't made as President, so his campaign does lie about the lesser known history of Mr. Romney at Bain Capital.

President Obama's record is 43 consecutive months of over 8% unemployment, while at the same time, the labor force participation rate has fallen to a 30 year low. These are the facts at the end of August 2012 from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Ref:

• http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm
• http://economistsview.typepad.com/economistsview/2012/09/where-have-all-the-workers-gone.html

How I remember it...

It was the delicately cool and quiet part of the morning here in Arizona, when via the television news I was suddenly in a place -- that was always just a simple head toss East or West in the persistent geography of my youth -- with fainting powerful thoughts on my mind.

16 Trillion US dollars

I was upset when we, the United States, crossed $2 trillion in debt. It felt wrong twice over. The nation is now at $16 trillion. We continue adding to that debt as you read this.

I've found a clean, easy to read excerpt from Bob Woodward's book,

Inside story of Obama’s struggle to keep Congress from controlling outcome of debt ceiling crisis

Republican, Democrat, Libertarian, Socialist, ... I don't care what your political bent is, you need to read this. It wont take all that long, but I did have trouble breathing while reading it. You've been warned. Pedantic comments aside, seriously. Read it.

The debt now fundamentally (not just theoretically) breaks the checks and balances the country was formed upon.

The scary thought I'm trying to talk myself out of is that it may not matter who is elected. There maybe no vested interest by any key politician to reduce the debt.

Canada reacts to Iran

So, I read a Canadian news report on today's closing of the Iranian embassy and it boils down to this:

"The calls were sparked by a July news report that said Iran's cultural counsellor in Ottawa, Hamid Mohammadi, suggested Iranian expatriates should be nurtured to be of service to Iran."

http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/story/2012/09/07/pol-baird-canada-iran-embassy.html

I doubt this is a policy isolated to Canada, rather this is Iran's global policy.

Experimenting with the economy

"And the truth is, it will take more than a few years for us to solve challenges that have built up over decades. It'll require common effort, shared responsibility, and the kind of bold, persistent experimentation that Franklin Roosevelt pursued during the only crisis worse than this one." - President Obama, 7 Sep 2012

The massive recovery effort to save the Too Big To Fail started months before he was even elected; it's now 3 1/2 years since he took office and he proposes experimenting with the economy!

A global marketplace with hundreds of billions of dollars sitting on the sidelines, praying for stability, and he wants to engage in century defining liberal economic policies.

They didn't even work for FDR. The 2nd World War made his failing policies moot.