College Newspapers On The Presidential Race

Wm_James_from_Missouri

How deep is the analysis provided by College Newspapers? Do they just reflect the same talking points that the “big boys” force us to hear ? Example: on the subject of the Medicare and Social Security’s financial problems. Have they looked twenty years down the road to realize that these funds will be flowing in cash, after the wave of baby-boomers dies off ? Also, most of these youngsters will be richer than we could ever hope to be, especially if you figure in all the advancements in technology. Do they consider these simple facts when they talk about the candidates and who’s platform they will support ?

Tyranipocrit

please explain. No jobs. MOre specialization. more free trade. More china. Risng nations around the world competing for same pie. What jobs? What money? Do mean a very small minority of those lucky enough to win the lottery in .dots? This is a question as much as it is criticism. baby boomers were rich because america was the only country in the world with a post-war economy we bombed anyone who talked back. i dont see a future with democrts or republicans. Something has to give. To me the future looks like a world of serfdom.
- Wm_James_from_Missouri
  
  To Tyranipocrit and adks12020,
  
  Where to begin ? — First off, yes all things are not super great for young people at this time, true, but then again you are young, aren’t you ? You will find that what is true today, will not be so, in the future. This is just a rule of thumb but, in general, is true.
  
  Picture this, I went to a grade school that had a playground that was ½ dirt ! The school could not afford, at that time, to pave the lot ! Today, in my neighborhood the school is constantly getting money for the “kids”. My goodness, they have an Olympic sized swimming pool ! Why do you think it cost so much to educate people. Answer, people over spend on things that they don’t really need. This is not a joke or exaggeration ;
  my brother and I were so poor that we had to put playing cards in our shoes to fill in the holes ! There were times we were actually hungry, that’s right, NO FOOD ! And yet today, I am writing on my laptop to someone, somewhere, over an almost free internet system !
  
  I could ramble on about all the things that will probably happen in your lifetime, but you wouldn’t believe it, so why bother. I’ll just say that, if you accept what “they” dish, they will continue to “ dish” you the same ole garbage. The future is what you and I make it, nothing else ! There are probably tens, hundreds, thousands, millions… of things we could do to make our economy explode in growth !
  
  Again, don’t let, this moment in history define YOUR history ! I could tell you stories about some of the people that I have met and the success that they found, just by working hard.
  Right now I am thinking about a man I worked with, “John”, some years ago. He witnessed, as a boy, his father being murdered by Tito’s army, under Nazi rule, because his father defied “orders” and went to a well to fill a bucket of water for his family. John came to this country with nothing more than a suitcase. Much later, his wife died of cancer, leaving him three children to raise on his own. This man worked THREE jobs, at one point. Cutting to the chase… he retired some years ago, with over a quarter of a million dollars in cash, in the bank, a very nice home that was paid for, a pension, and children that grew up to be just fine. If he can succeed, YOU CAN TOO !
adks12020

I don’t know about you but when I was in college I had more intelligent conversations about politics than I’ve ever had as an adult. Adults stomp their feet and won’t budge on positions; I’ve found that is because adults have a greater stake in things and change can disrupt that. Also, college student often haven’t solidified their views on many things so they are more likely to listen to both sides of an argument rather than just shutting down when they hear something they disagree with. Obviously that isn’t always the case but it was for me.

Also, how do you come up with “youngsters being richer than we could hope to be”? Young people are graduating with more debt than ever before and coming out of college to an economy with a lack of jobs. People my age (30) and younger are struggling to cath up to where we would have been had we graduated from college back in the 90s when there were jobs available. I think your view is completely unfounded.
- Don_B1
  
  @adks12020:disqus @Tyranipocrit:disqus @Wm_James_from_Missouri:disqus
  
  I think William was making the assumption that, as Churchill said, Americans, after making all the wrong choices get around to making the right one [paraphrase, unfortunately], and that this correct choice will be made in time.
  
  1) There is a vast misunderstanding of economics (macroeconomics) that I would hope the College Paper editors can say is being corrected.
  
  a) Have any of them read the Reinhart and Rogoff book, “It’s Different This Time”?
  
  b) Do they understand that this Recession [Contraction] IS DIFFERENT than the recessions that Americans remember? (Few remember the Great Depression!]
  
  c) Do they understand that Keynes’s theory APPLIES in the current economy? Why the Federal Reserve has lost its great power, using the discount rate to create growth? What being up against the Zero Lower Bound, in a Liquidity Trap mean to restarting the economy?
  
  2) Do the editors know the huge effects of cliamte change?
  
  These big questions, when answered correctly, will allow the economy to regrow with a stimulus that generates aggregate demand, which is what is holding back the generation of jobs: what business is going to invest in equipment or jobs if it cannot sell more of its goods and services?
- Wm_James_from_Missouri
  
  To Tyranipocrit and adks12020,
  
  Where to begin ? — First off, yes all things are not super great for young people at this time, true, but then again you are young, aren’t you ? You will find that what is true today, will not be so, in the future. This is just a rule of thumb but, in general, is true.
  
  Picture this, I went to a grade school that had a playground that was ½ dirt ! The school could not afford, at that time, to pave the lot ! Today, in my neighborhood the school is constantly getting money for the “kids”. My goodness, they have an Olympic sized swimming pool ! Why do you think it cost so much to educate people. Answer, people over spend on things that they don’t really need. This is not a joke or exaggeration ;
  my brother and I were so poor that we had to put playing cards in our shoes to fill in the holes ! There were times we were actually hungry, that’s right, NO FOOD ! And yet today, I am writing on my laptop to someone, somewhere, over an almost free internet system !
  
  I could ramble on about all the things that will probably happen in your lifetime, but you wouldn’t believe it, so why bother. I’ll just say that, if you accept what “they” dish, they will continue to “ dish” you the same ole garbage. The future is what you and I make it, nothing else ! There are probably tens, hundreds, thousands, millions… of things we could do to make our economy explode in growth !
  
  Again, don’t let, this moment in history define YOUR history ! I could tell you stories about some of the people that I have met and the success that they found, just by working hard.
  Right now I am thinking about a man I worked with, “John”, some years ago. He witnessed, as a boy, his father being murdered by Tito’s army, under Nazi rule, because his father defied “orders” and went to a well to fill a bucket of water for his family. John came to this country with nothing more than a suitcase. Much later, his wife died of cancer, leaving him three children to raise on his own. This man worked THREE jobs, at one point. Cutting to the chase… he retired some years ago, with over a quarter of a million dollars in cash, in the bank, a very nice home that was paid for, a pension, and children that grew up to be just fine. If he can succeed, YOU CAN TOO !
http://profile.yahoo.com/JXSANCUDPIKQSPID5KT2U4XK5Y TF

I’ll go with adks below: As a professional journo on the way up, how many folks are going to make their way to bigger markets pissing off their sources and angering their publishers, who have to make nice with their editors?

Even with little resources, today’s collegians have more research ability thanks to the internet. And separating the wheat from the chaff hones one’s research skills, almost for free.

(Disclaimer: The internet wasn’t really a public-open thing when I was in college. Our college paper/radio had a big clacking AP machine and thought it was the living end, unless it was one’s turn to change the ribbon.)

http://twitter.com/ipswichjonesy jonesp

I just want to make sure that these college editors get their readers to VOTE. I’m hearing too much about apathy with the youth vote.
Also, do these editors believe there will still be jobs in “print news”? I wish them the best.

OnpointListener

If people are not motivated to vote, then they are ignorant of the critical issues affecting this country and how the different candidates would handle the issues.

In that regard, we should not urge people to vote who are mentally lazy or too indifferent to vote wisely.
- Ray in VT
  
  I don’t think that they are ignorant of the issues. Many whom I have met either don’t like their choices of candidates or don’t think that their vote will make a difference.
  - Don_B1
    
    I have mixed feelings about having everyone vote when some do not; but then I also think that it is the civic DUTY of each citizen to study the issues and try their best to come to a decision on who would “solve” the issues in the best way for everyone, not just themselves.
    
    While I recognize the attraction of saying the more speech is the solution to deceptive speech, I also am aware of the lack of time so many hard-working people in the lower income brackets have to check the claims out and find that “more speech” that sets the record straight.
    
    The old saying, often attributed to Mark Twain, applies here: “A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes,” though it appeared earlier but in slightly different form.
    
    People are so willing to accept a falsehood when it agrees with their preconceptions, and, while I am sure that people today think things are bad in this area, there is probably data that they have ever been so.
    
    The problem with all this is the nature of the problems the country, and even the whole world, face:
    
    1) Economic stability in the face of a huge economic shock, which puts a large part of the citizens/electorate in fear for their economic future when they do not understand the nature of that shock or the actions necessary to effect a strong recovery. When one party or influential block sees that they can benefit from not providing that recovery, it takes an educated pubic, but more than an educated public in normal conditions, one that has an ability to analyze what is different in one shock from another.
    
    2) Climate stability in the face of a human decision to use fossil fuels for energy that have a “byproduct” of CO2 that causes the earth’s atmosphere to warm and its oceans to become toxically acidic, first for shellfish and then for all fish in the procreation process. To say our current major energy source is fouling our nest is a terrible understatement. Over a billion people depend on food harvested from the ocean today. The rest of us depend on food from crops grown in rich topsoil in areas where the atmosphere is heating up and drying out, drying out the soil and reducing its productivity. The soils in more northern (or southern in the Southern Hemisphere) have not had the millennia of top soil creation to make them an equally productive replacement for the areas that are being lost.
    
    These are problems whose solution must begin NOW and Republicans have an ideological obsession to ignore the correct solutions and double down on the false solutions that will dig the hole deeper.
- Shag_Wevera
  
  Have+n-’t you just described many Romney supporters?
  - Tyranipocrit
    
    NO. may progressives do not like the choices either. Nobody wants to vote for two sides of the same coin. The two party system is a fraud and people are finally waking up to that. its time for the third party candidates to get equal air time.
    
    progressives are afraid to vote green or whatever because they dont want Romney the chauvinist war god, and Obama just hasnt shown enough big balls in the fight against corruption, the thugs in the war machine and thugs on wallstreet. He has has ridiculous opposition, but what shoudl one expect of an establishment controlled absolutley by greedy heartless rich entities, often without head or soul, and a electorate that worships them.
    
    But a part of me thinks obama deserves 4 more years to finish what he started–you cant do anything in 4 years. his actions have not been completely wrong–just not nearly enough. And four years in office for a republican is enough to do irreversible damage.
    
    But people know the system is rigged and that’s why they dont vote. others just dont care about democracy and dont know what it is–yet love to march around the world chanting freedom and democracy–idiots!
- DrewInGeorgia
  
  What if we’re all mentally lazy and too indifferent to vote wisely? You obviously feel that your vote carries more weight than the vote of others and should therefore bare greater consideration. We’re all too indifferent to some degree to “vote wisely”. We don’t need perfection, we need Democracy.
  
  Everyone should vote.
  - http://profile.yahoo.com/JXSANCUDPIKQSPID5KT2U4XK5Y TF
    
    Have you noticed how “working class rural white males” never comes up in the proverbial “too uninformed to deserve to vote” talks?
    
    It’s always “naive college kids” or some variant of “the other”.
    - Tyranipocrit
      
      my step father is 80 something, and hasn’t voted once in his life but likes to complain about the democrats and doesnt like romney but usually the things falling out of his mouth are ignorant blowhard republican talking points. We nearly went to blows in 2004. he loved Bush, like many blowhards.

http://twitter.com/ipswichjonesy jonesp

Can we allow young people to tweet their votes?

Don_B1

Currently no; ask the banks about security. They keep the number of “break-ins” to their systems quiet but they lose $ millions each year in online payments and credit card purchases but absorb the losses because it is still cheaper than building and staffing more offices.

Two computer specialists have a book out on “Broken Ballots:

http://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/distributed/B/bo13383590.html

which discusses maintaining system integrity for voting.

Note that losing money, even lots of money, is one thing, a lost vote is irreplaceable.

J__o__h__n

Young voters need to vote in the non presidential elections too or they won’t have an impact. The didn’t vote in 2010 and the Teabaggers took over congress.

http://pulse.yahoo.com/_Y6CO5C2HE4WM2OYGCDVWGPRXXM oldman

Getting excited about voting is hard when your choices are between bad and worse. But that’s when it’s even more important.

adks12020

I’m 30 and I was trying to explain that to a 25 year old this past weekend. He was adament that both choices are so bad that he didn’t care. It was sad and frustrating to try to explain that things like having the opportunity to choose two supreme court justices is very important and could have a big impact on his life in the future.
Don_B1

Part of it has to be the lack of education in how our political system works (or not) for everyone or just those that vote.

It is terribly frustrating to see cynicism anytime, but particularly in the young. But this country is so oriented to “getting things done” that when something worthy still takes longer than people think it should, their frustration leads them to look for other things, which usually do not solve the problem.

Real examples are the “slow” recovery (which is really a faster than “normal” one for the type of crisis) from the 2007-2009 Great Recession [Contraction] which are leaving people lashing out and many making decisions that will only prolong the recovery and the even more dramatic recovery that we want to have from the devastation wrought by Hurricane Sandy.

In both cases the country has not done the preparation, educational, regulations, and structural, needed to allow quicker recoveries or prevent the worst aspects of the disaster from happening (which would be the best though getting people to make the investment is hard).

toc1234

here we go… enthusiasm among young Obama supporters is no where what it was in 2008 so On Point will at least try to give it a boost. will Tom delve into why it has ebbed? perhaps raise a couple of Obama’s broken promises? the most glaring/over-arching failure (or nonsense from the get-go) being that he would usher in a new style of hope/change/positive politics?

toc1234

but who know maybe Tom will play it straight for a change… we’ll see..
http://profile.yahoo.com/JXSANCUDPIKQSPID5KT2U4XK5Y TF

Another right-winger whining that Obama didn’t compromise enough. You’re so cute at that intellectual age!

http://profile.yahoo.com/JXSANCUDPIKQSPID5KT2U4XK5Y TF

Not one mention in the header for the “Keep Out The Vote” efforts aimed at students?

I guess we’ll have to wait for one of the collegians to bring it up.

http://www.facebook.com/kyle.rose Kyle Rose

Remember that the only way to force the two major parties to accommodate your views is to actually cause them to lose a major election: it’s critical for libertarians *especially in swing states* to vote for Gary Johnson instead of voting for the lesser of two evils. Otherwise, the major parties will take your vote for granted and you’ll never get more than lip service from them.

WorriedfortheCountry

By your argument, progressives and liberals should vote for Jill Stein to send a message.
- Shag_Wevera
  
  Just can’t shake the partisanship, can ya?
  - WorriedfortheCountry
    
    My point is valid.
    
    Can you shake your partisanship?
- http://www.facebook.com/kyle.rose Kyle Rose
  
  Considering Obama has governed mostly to the right of George W. Bush, what is gained by voting for him? Pretty but empty rhetoric? More babies and brown people dead from drone strikes? More marijuana dispensary raids? I don’t understand the Team Blue love for Obama.
  - Don_B1
    
    Because he does have an understanding of macroeconomics (though not perfect) he has tried to stimulate the economy but faced overwhelming OBSTRUCTION from the Republicans.
    
    Obama’s efforts to help businesses were not the strongest, but Republicans (and some Democrats) opposed even them, preventing them from being implemented.

J__o__h__n

Shouldn’t colleges teach students to not say incentivize?

J__o__h__n

especially an editor

Annie Tye

I’m a grad student and I’m voting for Obama. He’s the candidate who has the entire nation’s best interest at heart. I’m surprised by the number of people who blame job losses and economic woes directly on to Obama, and who somehow think Romney will magically whip up 12 million jobs. Doing what?? Cutting his grass and feeding his million dollar horse?

Shag_Wevera

I love your post, but Romney’s wife’s horse is only worth a quarter of a million dollars.
- Ray in VT
  
  That’s probably Obama’s fault somehow. Part of his war on dancing horses.
WorriedfortheCountry

A recent study has calculated the Obama instituted regulations have reduced economic output by $1.8T per year. Policies have consequences.

Your snide comment shows you don’t understand what is holding back economic growth.
- Eric Herot
  
  Even the recession didn’t cut US economic output by $1.8 trillion. And economic output has definitely gone up under Obama. What study would this be exactly? Is this a conservative think-tank funded study by any chance?
  - WorriedfortheCountry
    
    Didn’t you know that conservatives can’t think.
    
    I guess I wasn’t clear. These regulations are impeding growth so the economy would be $1.8T larger. However, there are many regulations that predate Obama that are killing growth. It is crazy that our tax code is 74,000 pages. SarBox was an overreaction to the Enron scandal and is hurting business.
    
    http://washingtonexaminer.com/1.8-trillion-shock-obama-regs-cost-20-times-estimate/article/2508466#.UJBkHob9V8H
    - Eric Herot
      
      So when I speculated that this “study” was done by a conservative think-tank, it turns out that I was spot on. It was funded by the Competitive Enterprise Institute, described by Wikipedia as:
      
      a non-profit American think tank founded on March 9, 1984 in Washington, D.C. by lobbyist Fred L. Smith, Jr to advance economic liberty and fight over-regulation by big government.
      
      Yes, I’m sure there’s absolutely no bias or fudging of the data in this study at all. Do you really think this group has the public’s best interests at heart when publishing this stuff?
    - WorriedfortheCountry
      
      The Small Business Administration has an estimate that come up with a $1.7T figure. They are not a ‘conservative’ think tank.
      
      Can you seriously defend the 74,000 page tax code?
    - Don_B1
      
      It is WHAT conservatives think about that is the problem:
      
      #1: How to make it easier to make money for myself
      
      #2: How to convince others that my making more money is in their interest
      
      That means that they will twist data to imply things that it doesn’t and when that fails, they just make things up, which is highly likely in your case from past performance.
- Ray in VT
  
  Is that the one from the Competitive Enterprise Institute that the Washington Examiner wrote about?
  - WorriedfortheCountry
    
    Yes. The Small Business Admin has another estimate of $1.7T.
    
    Further, once Obamacare kicks in I believe we will be hit with a double whammy. Any employer who wants to evade Obamacare penalties will move employees to part time status. This hurts the lower paid employees the most and will balloon subsidy requirements. It will quickly become a budget buster. Plus the excise tax on medical devise manufacturers is insane.
    - Ray in VT
      
      I do not think that one can honestly present that piece as 1.8 trillion due to Obama administration activities.
      
      I was looking at some of the numbers, and let’s take Social Regulations Costs estimate: $406 billion. That number appears to be a part of the 1.8 trillion figure, and as I read it, here is what they are saying:
      
      2001 cost: 277 billion 2001 dollars or 341 billion in 2010 dollars.
      2012 estimated cost: 406 billion 2012 dollars.
      
      By those numbers, with inflation, then we could only attribute less than 60 billion to Obama.
      
      Given just that, I think that 1.8 trillion in Obama institution regulations is flat out false.
      
      Now, regulations and policies do have consequences and costs. I think that we need to ask the question what are those costs and benefits? Food safety laws may cost, but the benefits are good. As are many others. Are there some regulations that we can get rid of and many that we should question? Sure, but deregulation or a lack of regulation also costs, and sometimes those are calculated in lives.
sam liu

welfare state
Tyranipocrit

i like what your saying, but did you ever wonder why JIll Stein of the Green party was arrested twice recently?
- Denis
  
  No
sam liu

“nation’s best interest at heart”

heart feel and execution are different
Obama’s 1st term– the intern president

ccbard

Yikes, this kid is spouting the Romney platitudes. Sounds like she needs a better education…

Ray in VT

Now, now. There are plenty of intelligent, well-informed people who support Mitt Romney. Granted, there are nuts who are supporting him as well, but still, let’s not disparage her views unfairly, although I don’t agree with them either.
- Don_B1
  
  That depends on how you define “well-informed.”
  
  1) Is it “well-informed” to believe that Romney can invigorate the economy just by being a successful businessman? Don’t you have to have examples of where that has worked?
  
  2) Is it “well-informed” to believe that Obama’s policies have made the economy worse? If you read Reinhard and Rogoff (see:
  
  http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-10-15/sorry-u-s-recoveries-really-aren-t-different.html
  
  http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-10-16/reinhart-rogoff-say-romney-advisers-understate-crisis-severity.html
  
  and
  
  http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-10-17/reinhart-rogoff-reply-to-team-romney.html
  
  for starters) do you understand that Clinton was absolutely right that NO PRESIDENT could have undone the things that had been allowed to take place in the previous administration and get a great recovery completed.
  
  3) Is it “well-informed” to not be aware of the destructive obstruction that was the Republican’s total obsession for all of Obama’s term? Just reading Michael Grunwald’s book, “The New New Deal,” will disabuse anyone of how so many of Obama’s attempts to do what should be done to get a better economy were derailed (sometimes with the help of “Blue Dog” Democrats. The ARRA (Stimulus) got done only because Sen. Arlen Specter was willing to cross the line and Sens. Snow and Collins joined him for “cover.” Even he would not go alone.
  
  4) Is it “well-informed” to be unaware of the fact that the “uncertainty” that most businesses fear most is the uncertainty of demand (aggregate demand) that inhibits their growth. How many businessmen who want to stay in business will buy equipment and hire workers when they don’t think anyone will buy the extra output of goods and services that spending would produce?

jpg913

I am a current college student, I am voting for Obama. I think that his economic policies will be most advantageous for students. Some of the reforms Romney is proposing could make aid less available for students like myself.
Also when you look at the U.S. economically, compared to the rest of the world, especially Europe, we are much better off.
However, some of the actions Obama has taken in the white house concerning personal liberties and the intelligence community has raised some concern for me.
-Joe from Geneva NY

Shag_Wevera

Now that’s a good American. What will benefit me directly, as opposed to what is best for all of us.
Don_B1

I applaud your choice, but to make sure it is effective, I hope you will talk to your fellow collegians and get them to vote (for Obama) also.

Many people are worried about the personal liberties, etc. and I can only say to give him more time to get them cut back because Romney and Republicans will NEVER do it. He could not fight all issues at once (he only had 14 weeks or so of a Congress in full Democratic Party control (the Senate had 60 “Democratic” votes for cloture from the June 2009 swearing in of Al Franken [D, MN] to the February 2010 swearing in of Scott Brown [R, MA]) and there were “Blue Dog” Democrats in the Senate ready to filibuster the public option, etc., so he had to pick what he considered most important.

If you feel it would help in talking to others, please look at my other posts here to get a feel of what the economy is facing. In my day, undergraduate economics did not include much macroeconomics, which is not exactly easy.

The country has had a huge economic shock, that of having a quarter or so of all homeowners go from a nice nest egg in their homes to being where they have mortgages that are larger than the value of their homes.

It is as if you and I were the economy and my spending was your income and your spending was my income. But the shock has made us both inclined to save or spend down the size of our debt (mortgages, etc.). But that means we both cut our spending so we have even less to save. In the early 1930s, Fisher made the comment that when everybody tries to save simultaneously, everybody ends up with LESS savings.

But a whole lot of economists have forgotten that, and they reject Keynes because they cannot derive his theory from basic equations that they use in microeconomics. Even though they cannot justify their microeconomic equations on a full description of the world. They have to highly simplify it, where there are no emotional responses, wages and prices are not “sticky,” etc. Note that wages are real sticky: even in the Great Depression, wages (per hour of work) only went down about 7%, while income dropped much more (the hours worked dropped). And that was good, because it meant that at least some people had enough money to spend on things other than absolute bare subsistence, which kept a few others at work. Also note that at that time the economy was much more agrarian, where food and part-time jobs were more available than currently.

When the Federal Reserve tries to restrain rampant growth (inflation) or stimulate growth, its prime tool is the discount rate (see Wikipedia). But currently, it cannot lower that rate below 0% and is right up against that now (the Zero Lower Bound). When people have money that they want to save, not spend (business is SITTING on close to $3 trillion that it will not spend because there is no aggregate demand for the goods and services that investing would generate, so tax cuts are not going to be effective in getting them to spend, just put more in savings). This is called a Liquidity Trap, where there is money to spend but no incentive. This is where we are now.

The government CAN spend right now, which would put money in people’s pockets and as soon as that takes hold, the economy will continue on without the extra government spending, though it does need to continue for a couple years.

Then YOU and your cohort WILL have JOBS. I think that can’t come soon enough, but the Republicans have wasted at least two years and giving them even more power will only delay the recovery and your job arrival.

I will entertain any questions you care to send me by replies; also, maybe first, read my other posts here.

toc1234

Tom, artificial degrees can be easily identitfied (for the most part) by comparing a college course catalogue from 1985 to a catalogue 2012.

Yar

Tom,
I have advocated for two years of public service for all youth on this blog for a couple of years, I would like to know how your guest feel about required two years of public service by all youth and if they think that would be a fair trade for federal grants to pay for college.

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=804710499 Jay Periale

How are students, or anyone actually, in New Jersey and/or New York City going to physically get to a polling place to cast their votes? Will polling stations even be operable by Tuesday?

adks12020

According to the news this morning polling places are going to be open. It will certainly be difficult, if not impossible for some people to get to them but they will be open.
adks12020

According to the news this morning polling places are going to be open. It will certainly be difficult, if not impossible for some people to get to them but they will be open.
Don_B1

I believe that all voting machines have provisions for battery backups, but that obviously does not mean that fully charged batteries will be present.

It is hard to imagine Hoboken being ready as it is still substantially underwater today.

toc1234

college costs going up inpart b/c of bloated academic staffs (see liz warren, 355k for teaching one course).

Eric Herot

This is just plain factually incorrect. Actual out of pocket cost at private universities has roughly tracked inflation (sticker price has risen steadily so that schools can brag about their “financial aid”). The reason the AVERAGE out-of-pocket costs have gone up is that there has been a massive de-funding of public universities over the last thirty years.

Mike_Card

Isn’t Nicole going to just borrow money from her parents to start a business? That’s the Romney solution…

Wahoo_wa

Regarding education:
Part of bringing manufacturing back to the United States involves having a supply of labor that is not burdened by college loan debt and expecting high paying jobs. If everyone is over-educated, unemployed and swamped with debt how is that sustainable? How does that support economic growth?

Wahoo_wa

Just to add to that, I remember growing up and hearing from people my grandparents age who survived the Great Depression and WWII state, “We need ditch diggers too!”
Eric Herot

Unemployment among college graduates is lower in virtually every sector, not just engineering. It’s hard to see how reducing the number of college graduates is ever a good idea (especially when so much of the rest of the developed world is aiming to have everyone college educated). The fix is to do something about the debt problem, not the college problem.
- Wahoo_wa
  
  Perhaps a more sustainable solution is a mixture of both?
  - Eric Herot
    
    Absolutely not. Any plan that deliberately reduces the number of college graduates is universally a bad idea. No country has ever flourished by deliberately *reducing* the number of college educated citizens. That is a “race to the bottom” approach.
    
    A college education is a powerful tool for creating wealth and innovation in any industry. It’s expensive, yes, but it is also one of the most reliable investments a country can make in its economy. Even more so than building infrastructure.
    - Wahoo_wa
      
      I think a healthy economy has a diversified work force that is well trained at every level. Technical or trade high schools are just as important as colleges…and they don’t require student loans. I don’t think college is for everyone – either for ability/talent or temperament/personality. A college education, while it does help build a career, is not a guarantee of success or even employment. Again, we need ditch diggers too. And that’s not a judgement…it just seems so obvious to me.
    - Eric Herot
      
      There will never, ever be a shortage of ditch diggers, or any other low-skill labor. And because of this they will always command the lowest possible salaries.
      
      The problem is right now there are *far* more ditch diggers than ditches needing to be dug, even in the best of times. And we have the opposite problem among fields requiring a college education. And most indicators show that while the need for ditch-diggers probably won’t even track population growth (because technological advancement tends to reduce the need for unskilled labor), the need for college graduates is going to increase dramatically over the next few decades.
      
      And while I, as someone who was a very non-conforming student myself, agree whole heartedly that college is not for everyone, college (four-year college! Plus graduate school!) must be *easily accessible* to everyone. And it shouldn’t saddle them with so much debt that they cannot afford to take risks during the point in their life where risk-taking otherwise makes the most sense.
      
      Everyone who wants to put in the work to get a degree should be able to get one. Everyone else is on their own. We’re not talking about forcing anyone to go to college.
    - Wahoo_wa
      
      “The problem is right now there are *far* more ditch diggers than ditches needing to be dug, even in the best of times. And we have the opposite problem among fields requiring a college education.” Well that is certainly not true for my profession (architecture/landscape architecture).
    - Wahoo_wa
      
      Eric you also happen to be in a professional sector that is fairly narrowly defined (computer systems if I am not mistaken). I don’t think your broad brush characterization of the labor market for all fields requiring a college degree is quite that accurate.
    - Eric Herot
      
      Even in your profession (which I know has one of the highest levels of unemployment right now amongst college graduates), you are FAR more likely to find employment if you have a college degree. And you’re still more likely to find a job as an architecture graduate than someone with only a high school diploma.
      
      The solution to the problem you’re talking about isn’t discouraging people from going to college, but instead to give colleges incentives to push people toward degrees where they are more likely to find employment (by expanding engineering programs and shrinking architecture programs), or to help graduates find jobs after leaving school. Salary-based loan repayment (where the school takes the loss if the student can’t as much) are a great way to do this.
    - Wahoo_wa
      
      One might also say the push for everyone to have a college degree is creating a much more isolated and demoralized underclass.
    - Eric Herot
      
      The lack of good jobs for non-college graduates is creating the isolated and demoralized underclass.

Jordan Davies

I am in favor of free college tuition for everyone provided they can pass the entrance qualification exam. For those who cannot, a technical school or some other kind of school should more than suffice.

Eric Herot

Since this is what other (read: competing) western economies are doing already, I think we’re going to lose this battle unless we do it, too.

http://profile.yahoo.com/6M3KMVWS7Z53MF6LNPEHEW25JQ Rob-o

It’s very dangerous to project one’s own university experience onto others. “I worked hard and put myself through college” is such a subjective statement, as many young people are oblivious to external benefits they’re receiving.

Eric Herot

Right. What’s missing from this discussion is how many of those “pull yourself up by your bootstraps” folks were able to do so because they attended a heavily subsidized state university back when they were REALLY affordable.
- http://profile.yahoo.com/JXSANCUDPIKQSPID5KT2U4XK5Y TF
  
  Yes, yes! More about the hollowing out of public higher education, please.
  
  I’m wise enough to know that today’s collegians don’t have the same thing going on as when I was there, moneywise. It’s a whole different balance sheet today v. 20 or 40 years ago, and that’s pretty undercovered.
  
  In lieu of actually going over this balance sheet, much of the coverage ends up going to folks in their 40s or later who say “I got by with a job washing dishes and paid everything off in three years” or whatever. Statistically speaking, that setup doesn’t exist any longer.
  
  (PS I keep using the word “collegians” like I was in the chorus of “Good News”. Is there a less dweeby word that doesn’t call them “kids”?)
  - Eric Herot
    
    Haha. “College students?” You are on the comment site of a news organization. Making up new meanings for words is the name of the game!
    - http://profile.yahoo.com/JXSANCUDPIKQSPID5KT2U4XK5Y TF
      
      Yeah, but I was sorta looking for one snappy word rather than four formal syllables. “College students” is accurate but seems like the kind of thing which, if repeated too often, makes prose read like fine print.
      
      Now excuse me while I put on my raccoon coat and drive off in my Stutz Bearcat.

OnpointListener

What percentage of college papers are endorsing Obama versus Romney.

It appears that for the sake of “balance”, you have chosen to equally divide the speakers.

Don_B1

Maybe I confused the women, but I thought two women were strong supporters of Romney, one woman was on the fence and only Caleb was a strong Obama supporter. Maybe I missed something.

But I was disappointed in the women’s repeating, without any justifying data or examples, that Romney would create jobs because he has been a successful businessman.

But private equity is not like a big business or even a small business (which Bain was considered, because of the number of employees, even though it STARTED with a $37 million capitalization, obtained from Europeans with hidden money in the Caymans,etc., and wealthy South Americans hiding in the U.S. while their family members funded right wing groups massacring the poor protesting their lives). How many of the students looking for jobs out of school can do that?

Also, NONE of them, NONE, mentioned that Romney has been on both, or rather, many sides of every issue. Do they really want to reward constant gross lying with the Presidency? Romney’s lies go well beyond the “normal” exaggerations of politicians, which mostly occur in their trying to simplify issues (I am sure there will be opposition examples, but they will likely be cherry-picking).
- OnpointListener
  
  I wrote my comment after he introduced the first two guests… jumped the gun.
  
  I am finding that many people assume that people with lots and lots of money are smarter and better than everyone else… but it just ain’t true.
  
  Also, many people do not understand the nature of equity firms and hedge funds.
  
  Here’s a couple of good links… check it out. UAW to bring ethics case against Romney tomorrow.
  
  http://www.thenation.com/article/170644/mitt-romneys-bailout-bonanza#
  http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277-75/14318-focus-uaw-files-charges-against-romney-for-auto-bail-out-profiteering

NewtonWhale

After you finish concern trolling over a possible decline in Obama’s youth vote, perhaps you could devote an hour to Romney’s efforts to address Republican Sen. Lindsey O. Graham’s concern that:

“We’re not generating enough angry white guys to stay in business for the long term.”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/as-republican-convention-emphasizes-diversity-racial-incidents-intrude/2012/08/29/b9023a52-f1ec-11e1-892d-bc92fee603a7_story.html

Free Holy

Regarding jobs four years ago, I was 1) unable to get utilize credit for a LARGE corporation because Wall Street was in chaos and had been for a while, 2) preparing to shut down facilities because demand was totally gone 3) got to lay off about 1,000 employees at those facilities, and 4) got laid off myself.

The US economy was burning in 2008 and the trend was STEEPLY down! Yes jobs are tough, but guess what you have an education and HOPE…

Eric Herot

I’m sorry but how is “Tax cuts will automatically create a jobs boom” not a “Kumbaya” idea?

Thinkin5

I don’t see how America’s youth (or anyone) can vote for a man who makes up lies. Mitt’s latest one, “Chrysler is shipping jobs to China”, is just flat out false. What kind of man does this?!

sam liu

Chrysler already shipped jobs to Cn. Look up AMC or Jeep in wikipedia.
- Thinkin5
  
  This started months ago when he realized that his very public 2008 stance against the successful and wildly popular government bailout of G.M. and Chrysler was hurting him in the valuable states of Ohio and Michigan. In February, he wrote an essay for The Detroit News calling the bailout “crony capitalism on a grand scale” because unions benefited and insisting that Detroit would have been better off to refuse federal money. (This ignores the well-documented reality that there was no other cash available to the carmakers.)
  
  When that tactic didn’t work, he began insisting at the debates that his plan for Detroit wasn’t really that different from President Obama’s. (Except for the niggling detail of the $80 billion federal investment.)
  
  That was quickly discredited, so Mr. Romney began telling rallies last week that Chrysler was considering moving its production to China. Chrysler loudly denounced it as “fantasies,” saying it was only considering increasing production in China for sale in China, without moving a single American job.
  
  “I feel obliged to unambiguously restate our position: Jeep production will not be moved from the United States to China,” Chrysler’s chief executive, Sergio Marchionne, said in a statement. “Jeep assembly lines will remain in operation in the United States and will constitute the backbone of the brand. It is inaccurate to suggest anything different.” In fact, 1,100 new jobs will be added in Toledo to produce a new generation of Jeep.
  
  The Romney campaign ignored the company, following up with an instantly notorious ad saying President Obama “sold Chrysler to Italians who are going to build Jeeps in China.” If the false implication wasn’t clear enough, the campaign put out a radio ad on Tuesday saying “Barack Obama says he saved the auto industry. But for who? Ohio or China?” What happened, the ad asks, “to the promises made to autoworkers in Toledo and throughout Ohio?”
  
  What happened was that those promises were kept. Nearly 1.5 million people are working as a direct result of the bailout. Ohio’s unemployment rate is well below the national average. G.M.’s American sales continue to increase, and Chrysler said this week that its third-quarter net income rose 80 percent. These companies haven’t just bounced back from the bottom; they are accelerating.
  
  http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/01/opinion/mitt-romney-versus-the-automakers.html
  - sam liu
    
    Dear Thinkin5:
    I’m just stating that Chrysler already has production there.
    
    Not taking a position, just stating facts that the Grand Cherokee was all over Cn, 17 years ago …
    
    Glad you like including references, so here is mine from wikipedia.
    
    American Motors set up the first automobile-manufacturing joint venture in the People’s Republic of China on January 15, 1984.[23] The result was Beijing Jeep Corporation, Ltd., in partnership with Beijing Automobile Industry Corporation, to produce the Jeep Cherokee (XJ) in Beijing. Manufacture continued after Chrysler’s buyout of AMC. This joint venture is now part of DaimlerChrysler and DaimlerChrysler China Invest Corporation. The original 1984 XJ model was updated and called the “Jeep 2500″ toward the end of its production that ended after 2005.[24]
    
    en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeep
    
    American Motors
    
    Beijing BJ2021, a Jeep XJ with raised roof and longer wheelbase for more rear passenger room
    Beijing Benz’s origins begin with the Beijing Jeep Corporation (Chinese: 北京吉普汽车有限公司), which became China’s first Sino-western automotive joint venture when it was established in 1984 with American Motors Corporation.[11]
    American Motors began negotiations in 1979 to sell its vehicles in China and to gain access to then low-cost Chinese labor.[12] The Chinese wanted more-modern automotive technology; Beijing Jeep suited the needs of both parties and produced the American Motors Jeep Cherokee (XJ) in Beijing.[12] Almost six years after talks on the joint venture had begun the first Jeep Cherokee rolled off the assembly line on 26 September 1985.[13] Assembly of the Cherokee continued after Chrysler’s buyout of American Motors as did production of the classic Beijing BJ212-based SUVs.[12] Beijing Jeep has since become emblematic as a case study of early FDI in China.[14][15][16]
    
    ^ a b Gao, George (17 May 2010). “Guangzhou-Fiat JV to make Chrysler Jeep in Changsha”. Automotive News (gasgoo.com). Retrieved 9 March 2011.
    ^ Schmitt, Bertel (17 May 2010). “The Jeep Returns To China”. The truth about cars. Retrieved 9 March2011.
    ^ Dunne, Timothy. “Can Chrysler Rebound in China?” Business Week, November 2, 2007. Retrieved on January 22, 2008.
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beijing_Benz

http://www.facebook.com/maureen.cotton.7 Maureen Cotton

Callers associate Romney with good business because he’s made millions. But what about the Bain Capital track record? Their method is to systematically remove full-time jobs that give good benefits so the cats on top get fatter. Where do people see “good” jobs many Americans in Romney’s plan? Over and over he proves his plan is only about the wealthiest. I’m voting for Obama because his vision is big picture and includes all income levels.

Don_B1

You are so right; where do people get the idea that Romney should be rewarded with the Presidency for being a bully in business and making outrageous lies about every issue he is running on?

There should be three issues on which to vote:

1) Preservation of health care for all (which includes Supreme Court appointments). The Republican effort is to repeal, they have NO PLAN on what they would do to replace, which will take them years. The cost of healthcare is the biggest threat to the federal budget, so Republicans just want to offload it on the individual, who is not, and cannot be, equipped to deal with the complexity of medical decisions and how to evaluate them.

2) Jobs creation, which I have posted about here a LOT (search my name).

3) Climate change, which, from a IEA report last year, will cost $4.30 after 2020 for EACH dollar not spent up to 2020 to mitigate the emission of CO2. If you want to see a storm like Sandy every year, and likely more often, in your lifetime and dozens of other equally damaging events along with crop failure, etc. in your children’s lifetime, vote Republican, because that is what the fossil fuel industry is willing to inflict on all of humanity to let them get even richer on their extraction of stored energy. See my comments on Tuesday’s program, “The Wrath of Sandy.”

http://twitter.com/dcoleman2006 David Coleman

I am working and going to school but there is still no way that I would be able to do it without help and I can not go and borrow money from my parents. I am going to get a associates for my RN and this is at a community collage. Saying that here in Iowa by 2020 you will have to have BSN to get a job as a nurse and the cost would be too much for anyone that does not have help. So for that along with other reasons I am voting again for Obama and think that he will do the best job for everyone not just students.

bacterial_sizzle

Both candidates are working to create a world where young adults are deep in debt. Debt is “good for the economy” and one can “create jobs.” The main parties are out of touch with reality. We need to look at more radical solutions, like those proposed by the Green Party. Reducing the work week and making higher education free would be a good start.

Thinkin5

Small business owners have received many tax breaks under Obama. The caller is uninformed.

IsaacWalton

Sooo, am I missing something? What has gotten so bad for small business owners in the past 4 years. Has Obama’s administration really started a war against creating and supporting small businesses?

OMA_OPINES

Please ask Nicole if she remains on her parents’ health plan and if they have helped her at all with her education. Also, what is her major? Money is not the answer to everything, little girl. Caleb is the bomb! Must have great parents!!

Don_B1

Tom!!! Ask these collegians why they believe that Romney is telling the truth when he has had a different program every other day?

Have they READ any, just one or two, or the places where Romney’s tax and job plans have been shown to be VACUOUS?

Do they know that if Romney does not veto the House Republicans’ plans to institute AUSTERITY, like Campbell and Osborne did in England, will put the economy right back into RECESSION?

Have they READ any of the pieces by Reinhart and Rogoff in Bloomberg News which DISCREDIT the Romney plans on recovery?

OnpointListener

THANK YOU. THERE ARE TOO MANY NON THINKING UNEDUCATED PEOPLE VOTING IN THIS ELECTION!

SEE STEVE BLOW’S OPINION PIECE IN TODAY’S NYTIMES

http://campaignstops.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/11/01/liberty-to-lie/?hp

http://www.facebook.com/cecebar Cindy C Barnard

Confusing and contradictory messages from Nichole… So young people should look at “reality” and choose more affordable educational opportunities. Like they haven’t already? Or that they can’t start there, and move forward with bachelor or master degrees. And last I heard, it was EMPLOYERS wanting a master degree for many positions, and often having one helped get your foot in the door.

Thinkin5

Romney has “turned his back” on his own previous business sense! He has disowned Romney Care!! Throw out sound economics and go the partisan route just to take down a Dem president. How selfish!

DrewInGeorgia

“Still undecided at this point”

Ridiculous. You have too much interpretive and not enough factual information and are waiting for the Media to make up your mind for you.

OnpointListener

Why do people think Romney will help the economy when his platform is George Bush on steroids?

Giving the uber wealthy tax cuts and “deregulation” led to the great recession.

What are you thinking?????

WorriedfortheCountry

How did tax cuts lead to the great recession?

Also, the deregulation that created too big to fail was the repeal of Glass-Steagall -signed by Bill Clinton.

One dozen reforms to the banking industry (FANNIE/FREDDIE) proposed by Bush were blocked by the Democrat congress in the run up to the mortgage crisis.

What are you thinking?
- Ray in VT
  
  I think that former President Clinton should take some flak for signing the Financial Services Modernization Act of 1999, or the Graham-Leach-Bliley Act. All three of those guys were Republicans, and the initial votes in Congress had the GOP favoring it much more heavily than the Democrats, although the final Senate vote was 90-8 and 362-57 in the House. Should Clinton have vetoed it? In hindsight certainly yes, seeing what some of the consequences were. Would Congress have over-ridden that veto? Who knows.
  - WorriedfortheCountry
    
    Of course I believe both parties are culpable. Bush was promoting easy mortgages before his midterm.
    
    However, he did try to reform the abuses to the system. It would have helped because there would have been fewer liar loans in the CDS system but it might have been too late to prevent the bubble popping.
    
    The myth about ‘repeating the same policies that drove us into the ditch’ infuriates me. When ever I hear that crap I have to ask about the details but for some reason no one ever takes me up on it.

beeste

Tom, please ask your guests about for-profit colleges. Nicole has described a plan with less federal aid and more associate degree training, and we have a model for what happens there: For-profit colleges. This fast-growing segment is responsible for enormous increases in debt and yields very few degrees. It seems that Romney’s utopian vision of college will reward for-profit shareholders and punish the best actors amongst non-profit colleges.

Emily Corbett

I graduated from grad school in 2009 at the height of the recession. It took me over a year to find a job in the profession for which I went to school. I have well over $100,000 dollars in loans and pay more in loan interest a month than my rent. The last four years have been some of the most difficult of my life barely making enough to get by. However, I am terrified of Romney winning the election and going to the Republican policies that got us here. I see Obama as having put a floor under the free fall of the economy and slowly and steadily building back up the economy on a solid foundation. Even if Romney could live up to all of his lofty promises, I feel that growth that quickly will lead to another economic bubble, I never want to have to experience a situation as it was in 2008-2009.

Don_B1

The ONLY way that Romney will get that (unlikely) amount of growth will be through military Keynesianism. By that I mean his vow to raise Department of Defense spending to 4% of GDP, which would mean increasing that spending by $2 trillion (!) over the next 10 years (or less).

So, if you want a job, be an engineer (not a scientist, as basic research will be cut if Tea/REpublicans have their way; it will be interesting to see what happens as there is considerable sentiment among the Teas to cut defense spending along with all domestic spending — Ron Paul influence?)

Read my other posts on this program blog to appreciate why I think (am certain) that AUSTERITY will lead to a second recession, from which recovery will be even harder than this one, as so much of what Obama HAS done will be undone and the hole dug deeper. Read Michael Grunwald’s book, “The New New Deal,” to understand why the stimulus did work to the extent that its size allowed.

The Republicans have screamed about not passing the debt from deficits to “our children” while dumping a lot of the total costs on your cohort, a futilely shameless endeavor to try to avoid being blamed for their culpable actions that allowed the Great Recession of 2007-2009 to occur. The American public have largely accepted the Republican claim that government budgeting is the same as household budgeting, which in “normal” times is not that far from truth, but in a huge economic shock, like the collapse of the housing/mortgage bubble that created the huge debt (American households lost some $12 trillion in value of their homes!) and that does not get replaced without government action, but consumer spending does not recover without it and without the aggregate demand of that spending, businesses are not going to buy capital goods and hire new workers.

Romney’s whole campaign is based on naked ambition which he flaunts at every chance, repeating lie after lie again and again.

After the RNC, one of his campaign staff stated that the campaign would not be run by “fact checkers.” In other words, since Fox News would not “out them” they would simply blame the “liberal media” for lying about him.

Your cohort deserves better than what the Republicans are offering, and I sincerely hope you get it, because it is available if Obama is reelected and at least a few of the most radical Tea/Republicans get turned out of office.

The problem with the Tea/Republican is they are so ignorant of macroeconomics that they think that going over the Fiscal Cliff of 2 January will not significantly hurt the country and, even if it does, it will be worth it to achieve their goals of a small government with exceedingly low taxes, which are spent on (big) businesses, not for any social safety net or even a social compact that ensures an even chance for everyone to succeed.

The growth of inequality is a really complex subject with many contributors that are not fully understood. But the ability of the 1% to run off with 93% of the growth in profits from the recovery period of 2009 to 2010, is one big contributor. Romney is exceedingly unlikely to fix that because there have been no indications of his being aware of it in his whole career. That is different from the Roosevelts, both Teddy and Franklin. Theodore had always been known for a ‘populist vein” in his blood. His support of an income tax was considered the first step of the Roosevelts to be “traitors to their class.”

Romney has no such trail in his life dealings.

Sorry about the lack of coherence sometimes in this post, but speed to get it out rules over more deliberate consideration. I hope I have not put you off by my “passion,” but this election is truly a bell-weather and turning the ship back to progressive issues and a survivable economy will be nearly foreclosed with the wrong leaders in the federal government (states and locals count too, sometimes even more. (But this time the federal government direction may be really crucial.)

ttajtt

answer do not change. answer like a ticker tape machine.

IsaacWalton

Typical misguided youth. Let’s benefit from the changes Obama has put in place (helping them to stay on parent’s health care, reducing debt, better access to funds) and then vote for Romney because he’s “promising” a better economy. Sheesh…I’m starting to feel like college teaches youth nothing. Have some backbone…some integrity.

Don_B1

The fact is Romney, should he even wish to, will have trouble preventing the Tea/Republicans from cutting spending for all of Obama’s “benefits,” easily passed through the “Reconciliation Process” should the Republicans take the Senate.

adks12020

Small Business Jobs ACT of 2010. Increased incentives for both private banks and public agencies (US Small Business Administration) to lend to small businesses. It reduced rates on loans and offered a massive refinancing program for expansion of businesses and rectification of private commercial mortage debt. No one ever talks about it but it was something pushed for by President Obama and was a huge help to small businesses. I work in small business lending and I’ve seen it first hand. He has also promoted numerous tax breaks for small businesses as others have pointed out.

Thinkin5

Do any of these college kids remember the crash of 2008?! Do they know who’s policies brought the country financial disaster? Jobs and pay have been going south long before Pres. Obama became president.

IsaacWalton

Thank you caller! So many of these young woman that NEED the civil changes we have in place. Great if there are more jobs…for your husband! Okay, get a job and get PAID LESS THAN MEN doing the SAME JOB. Oh wait and if you get pregnant you can forget about having any say over your body.

MadMarkTheCodeWarrior

The youth turnout is being influenced by the Republican
mythonomics promising success through change – Cut taxes, increase military spending and simultaneously reduce the deficit? What’s wrong with this picture? Snap out of it… there’s no arithmetic that supports this magical thinking!!!

We just went through an economic crisis not seen since 1929. 4 years ago we were loosing 750,000 jobs a month. The world economy was literally on the verge of collapse. Today the US is growing and building a manufacturing resurgence. Meanwhile Europe has been teetering for 4 years going no where… so are we better off than we were 4 years ago?

Heck yeah!!!

Republicans are selling the idea that there is a magic bullet, but it’s the same bullet that we shot ourselves in both feet with under Bush.That is the epitome of naivete… sorry folks, learn from history or be doomed to repeat it.

IsaacWalton

Here! Here!
Don_B1

It is the European infatuation with AUSTERITY that has caused them to not recover from their banking crisis recession.

To listen to the Republicans, the cause of their problem is socialism, the oversupply of public benefits. With the exception of Greece (you always need one exception to prove the rule!), the debt crisis was created in the PRIVATE SECTOR.

When the Europeans adopted the euro as a common currency, without an overarching fiscal control, the stage was set for the banks (particularly the German and French banks) to lend to banks and businesses in the southern part of Europe. They lent so much money to Spanish banks, for example, to lend to people overbuilding homes, etc., which rich northern Europeans were going to buy for summer vacations (remind you of our overbuilding?) that it inflated the wages of Spanish construction workers.

The Spanish government has a LESS generous safety net than Germany and was running a SURPLUS before the September 2008 financial crisis hit. Then the workers got laid off, raising government spending for social safety net and lowering the tax revenue as housing and consumer sales plummeted, leaving the government in deficit. But because Spain is on the euro, the easy path to reverse the effect of inflation, devaluing the Spanish currency relative to the rest of Europe, where increase exports could help put those workers back to work, is unavailable.

The next thing is the European Central Bank could guarantee the debt of Spain, Portugal, Ireland and Italy so that the market would not drive the borrowing costs beyond what revenues could support. But the Germans, who had profited from exports to all these countries based on their growing wealth, refused to help out those they had led to disaster.

The ONLY way that the Spanish government could have prevented their private banks from indulging in such speculations would have been to institute capital controls on money from other countries, and the “free market” types would have gone berserk with condemnations!

Consider that the Scandinavian countries, which do have both generous social benefits but also own their own currencies, are doing just fine.

And have you noticed that the U.S. has its own currency?

http://profile.yahoo.com/SLOS772UBT5F6WVSDF7HXYIQGM Lily Canter

Nicole hasn’t done her homework. Obama’s education initiative have ALSO included policies to enhance community colleges because of their market flexibility. Also, there is plenty of work available as noted by increase in overtime hours. Corporations are withholding hiring to manipulate both job market and election. Nicole also seems to propose higher education as simply a jobs training program for business rather than a means to increase life long intellectual preparation. Obama had worked tirelessly to develop bipartisan bills to improve the economy, after 246 filibusters he finally realized that it was futile to reach across the aisle. In light of climate change and finite resources, Obama has tried to grow green programs. It’s true that not all have been immediately profitable, however, Romney would continue ill-considered subsidies to oil companies (from drilling to refinement) and coal companies.

Don_B1

So well said!

That intellectual preparation would have prevented so many of Romney’s lies, from the nature of the current recession/depression, which is more like the Liquidity Trap experienced in the Great Depression (actually the job loss in this 2007-2009 recession was initially at a FASTER rate than in the 1930 recession that initiated the Great Depression).

That intellectual preparation would also provide the knowledge of history that would keep so many of the radical right’s (particularly the fundamentalist churches) misconstruing of history from gaining traction.

The country is probably doomed to always have people who believe that aliens landed in Roswell, NM, but it does have to be the size of today’s believers

Also the Theory of Evolution should be a given, as is the fundamental science of Climate Change from human use of fossil fuels.

Not understanding these things will commit the country to turning away from the science that created most of the economic gains of the last 50 years. That will lead to a disastrous future for the young people just starting out in life and their descendants.
HaircutterRomney

Great video by Edward Norton. Every voter should watch this. Nicole Bailey, you should watch it too, even though you have cast your ballot already.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZrlYY-BPrFU&feature=youtu.be
- HaircutterRomney
  
  For Nicole Bailey, Stephanie Parra, and all those young folks who are brainwashed by Romney’s lies, please check this out. (BTW, Nicole could have Andrea Saul’s job, not bad for a 19 year old college student.)
  
  http://www.politifact.com/personalities/mitt-romney/statements/byruling/false/?page=1

Rex Henry

umm ah umm umm umm

sharlyne1

Neither candidate is discussing the problem and overwhelming debt of the PRIVATE student loan issue. I commend the President for tackling the federal student loan program, but where relief is most necessary is the private student loan sector. Also, how are students supposed to pay off loans when our first jobs net $30,000, yet we’re graduating with more than $50,000 + in debt. Add the cost of living to everything, the young adults of today (24-33 yrs old) are simply drowning in debt. We cannot move forward. This issue is not only huge current graduates, but for graduates of the last 10-12 years.

IsaacWalton

Hmm. I don’t get it. When WAS a college degree a GUARANTEE you’ll do as well or better than your parents. Hardwork, charisma, ambition, talent and maybe some connections can get you the job. Smart planning and budgeting pays off that debt. I know. I paid off my 40k in debt 4 years ago. It was one of the most REWARDING and HONEST thing I could have done.
- sharlyne1
  
  When WASN’T it? Isn’t that the reason we go to college for the better job, to do better than our parents? Isn’t that the reason American students are pushed to the point of breakdowns with overloaded classwork to compete with the world? Isn’t that why parents push their kids to go to college? Hard work, charisma, ambition, and talent look great on a resume, work well in character for a job interview or belong on stage at American Idol. Those qualities do not address the cost of the education system or the shortcomings of the repayment process. That’s the point of this discussion, addressing the rising cost of tuition and the debt to income ratio of affordable repayment plans combined with cost of living and what your post graduate salary will provide.
  
  How are we supposed to manage our debts smartly, as you so obviously stated, when we’re in upside down loans? Even doctors and lawyers are struggling. Everyone is struggling under the crippling weight of an indebted college education. Except you, you paid off $40,000 in four years. Lucky that you qualified for some type of aid or your parents helped you out and paid for most of it so you weren’t burdened with more than $10,000 per year of school. Other kids aren’t lucky, and it’s not due to lack of hard work, charisma, ambition, and talent. Everyone else is coming out averaging more than $10,000 per year in loans. Combined with a weak economy and crappy job offers, if any, is a recipe for disaster. It’s not a fault thing, or finger pointing, but coming together to find a solution.This issue is beyond smart budgeting and dedication. Current college debt is not manageable the way it was in years past. Let’s face it, the rising cost of tuition has far outpaced what current salaries are for graduates. And that’s the main issue. Both public and private institutions are rising at alarming rates. When the cost of an education is equivalent to a home mortgage that’s a problem. Great for you that you paid your debt off, but there are plenty of smart people that budget accordingly. Don’t be so patronizing on a comment when you are not looking at the individual’s budget sheet.

http://twitter.com/lobijaa Mary Jane Watson

If any of these new graduates think that Romney’s presidency would do more for their futures than Obama’s, they need to spend a few more years in school.
Unless you plan to go straight into the corporate track and have a wealthy
family to help support you if you stumble, Obama’s policies will support you.
Romney doesn’t support fair pay or ANY form of reproductive rights for women
(just their fetuses), the poor or middle class, any one who will ever need
assistance from the govt, any one who wants to avoid war with the middle east.
These kids think Romney will do better on the economy because he was born in a
sharkskin suit but his plan will indubitably hurt those with less.

skeptic150

I am concerned with what might happen to women’s rights under Romney and Ryan. The economy is going to grow no matter who is elected. The problem with students not pursuing engineering math science and technical jobs that are employable is an issue that goes far beyond Presidential powers. At the debate where the student asked what will you do to guarantee I will have a job the most appropriate response from the candidates should have been what is your major. I am an independent voter but I think Obama is definitely the better of less than optimal choices. I think all the young people should read the Democratic and Republican platforms carefully before voting.

Don_B1

Do the editors know there has NEVER been a businessman who went directly to being a successful president?

The two “businessmen” who are probably the most successful were Harry Truman and George H.W. Bush, so consider:

1) Truman was an unsuccessful businessman (his haberdashery failed) but he spent decades in politics before rising to the presidency, where he learned how to deal with governmental issues.

2) Bush made his money in the oil business, which is not like most other businesses, but then spent over a decade, working up from the House to C.i.A director, Ambassador, etc., learning the ropes of government.

Take one of the most successful businessmen who made it to the presidency, Herbert Hoover, who got there from his work saving the country after the 1927 Mississippi River floods. But he did not know macroeconomics and took the same advice as the Republicans are giving now: AUSTERITY, which gave the world the Great Depression and will do so again if they are allowed to implement Romney’s policies.

And I congratulate Caleb for his views, although they do not seem to be based on just the macro, which is all that is needed to dismiss Romney as qualified.

But I am also disturbed by the editors (and callers) not having qualms about Romney’s changing positions on everything,

Mass_Independent

Here are the facts about Romney: Romney didn’t run for re-election in Massachusetts. Do you know why? His DISAPPROVAL rating was 60%!He would have lost if he ran. Don’t say well that is because Massachusetts is so liberal- Massachusetts voted for Reagan.

WorriedfortheCountry

Myth. He announced he wasn’t running before those approval ratings tanked.

He was an excellent Governor.

Try again.
- Don_B1
  
  Provide REFERENCES!
  
  Your assertions are nothing but unfounded opinion without a link to a verifiable credible source would not push water downhill in a teflon lined pipe.
  
  The voters of Massachusetts had elected four Republicans in a row until Gov. Romney exhausted their patience with Republican incompetence and with his lack of interest in governing and fighting with the legislature.
  
  Romney did things to antagonize the members of the legislature:
  
  1) Rarely remembered a legislator’s name.
  
  2) Put the elevator to his office off limits to all but himself and his close staff, so that he could go from the garage to his office without having to talk to another person, particularly a legislator who might want to discuss an issue of importance to the voters of the state.
  
  3) Changed his mind on issues and made his decision public without notifying those who thought he would not change his mind.
  
  4) Vetoed (line-item, mostly) items in bills some of which he had previously agreed to support, to the count of 840 or so, most of which were overridden by the legislature, some unanimously, which means that he could not even get the Republicans to agree with him on quite a few vetoes.
  
  5) Spent the last two years of his term traveling around the country making fun of being a Republican in a liberal state, at the expense of the state.
  
  6) When a woman died as a result of a piece of the ceiling in a Big Dig Tunnel falling on the vehicle she was riding in, he made a grand-stand tour of the tunnel and proceded to use the incident to force the legislature to put the Mass Turnpike under the Department of Transportation in which process he forced the Mass Bay Transportation Authority, the “T” which runs the subways and busses for the Greater Boston area to take on millions of dollars of the Big Dig debt, making its future financing of maintenance and service doubtful, as has turned out to be the case today. Shades of his treatment of businesses that Bain Capital took over.
  
  The result is that Romney is going to lose in Massachusetts by around 30 percentage points this Tuesday.
  
  Do the American people really want this type of governance at the federal level?

Matt Gauthier

Tom – I find this support for Romney absurd among young people. Does anyone really think Romney will “create jobs”? He has stated himself, the government doesn’t create properity – how does that square with his 12 million jobs added plan? He is promoting a tax plan that will add to the income inequality gap. I have nothing against wealth and prosperity, and I have compassion for the poor and those in need. We need fairness in tax plans, AND be able to care for those in need – this costs money and I’m willing to have my earnings taxed to pay for that. I wish I could control where my tax dollars are spent, more would go to social programs and less would go to defense (we already spend an unsustainable amount of money on defense). I will say, Romney’s campaign team has been very effective in getting their message out. I wish Obama had done more in his first term, but I think if given a second we will see some real progress assuming we don’t have republican’s standing in the way of real change.

Don_B1

If you read Michael Grunwald’s book, “The New New Deal,” you will learn more about just how much Obama did and how impressively it was carried out; what you will also learn is how Obama failed to promote what he was doing, which left the publicity field open to Republican detractors to make their false case.

Some of that failure is due to Obama’s perception, almost certainly correct, that any publicity he promoted about his bills, just galvanized stronger Republican opposition to anything he wanted to accomplish.

See the article by Ta Nehisi Coates in the Atlantic on how racism works in today’s society, particularly for/against a Black man who has real power:

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2012/09/fear-of-a-black-president/309064/

It gives some of the pathways that Republicans are using to attack Obama.

Roy-in-Boise

In the long view our our national and global economy is in-between
economic bubbles. Humanity has not emerged from the “fossil fuel age” as
yet but these fuels are getting more and more expensive which is reflective in our great recession.
Until mankind
fully transitions to a form of energy that is fully sustainable real
economic and social progress will continue to be slow.
History has
demonstrated that prosperity leads to social advancement. Major breakthroughs are policy driven and the level of awareness
of a guys like the Romney & Ryan team are firmly imbedded in the 20th
century.
When Romney states that green energy is a myth combined with his willingness to buy into some bizarre positions on woman’s issues we can see the tip of the iceberg on his brand of regressive thinking.

elevine43

We are paying the price for forcing students (and their families) to bear the cost for increasing salaries and benefits for academic employees and extravagant physical plants for finance-based promotional brochures.If we continue along the path proposed by the Mitt Romneys of this world, we will have a society of well-educated children of the rich, poorly trained children of the middle class, and children of everyone else who are neither well educated nor well trained.Go English majors!

—————–

“There are two types of education… One should teach us how to make a living, And the other how to live.” ― John Adams

“I must study Politicks and War that my sons may have liberty to study Mathematicks and Philosophy. My sons ought to study Mathematicks and Philosophy, Geography, natural History, Naval Architecture, navigation, Commerce and Agriculture, in order to give their Children a right to study Painting, Poetry, Musick, Architecture, Statuary, Tapestry and Porcelaine. (12 May 1780)”�
― John Adams

Massachusetts Constitution of 1780, CH. 5, SEC. 2Wisdom and knowledge, as well as virtue, diffused generally among the body of the people, being necessary for the preservation of their rights and liberties; and as these depend on spreading the opportunities and advantages of education in the various parts of the country, and among the different orders of the people, it shall be the duty of legislatures and magistrates, in all future periods of this commonwealth, to cherish the interests of literature and the sciences, and all seminaries of them; especially the university at Cambridge, public schools and grammar schools in the towns; to encourage private societies and public institutions, rewards and immunities, for the promotion of agriculture, arts, sciences, commerce, trades, manufactures, and a natural history of the country; to countenance and inculcate the principles of humanity and general benevolence, public and private charity, industry and frugality, honesty and punctuality in their dealings; sincerity, good humor, and all social affections, and generous sentiments, among the people.

Don_B1

With words and actions to encourage ALL people to engage in learning with the support of the state, that made Massachusetts the FIRST state to provide public education for all children should make ALL Massachusetts residents proud of our history and willing to give John Adams at least a bit of a break for signing the Alien and Sedition Acts.

It makes it even more imperative that Romney not cast a shadow on that accomplishment by the disgraceful performance as president that he is likely to make.

It was bad enough that G.W. Bush got his MBA from Harvard and then totally mismanaged so much of the U.S. foreign policy and economic policy, but for Romney to duplicate it or basically double down on it as he has claimed he would try to do, well, how much more can one say?

BHA_in_Vermont

Would Ms. Bailey care to detail how Romney will create jobs for new college graduates?

GUARANTEE a job? She thinks that Romney will GUARANTEE a job for people getting 2 year degrees?

Blinded by the hype

What does she think of the Medicare voucher she will get from Romney?

David_from_Lowell

Maybe if you gathered random adults to discus their reasons for why they vote for whom they do, it would be as full of platitudes and unreasoned campaign slogans as the reasons put forth by these kids. But these are supposed to be college journalists who, one would assume, should be more informed than their peers. This is making me fear America’s future somewhat.

IsaacWalton

Thank you voice of reason from our great state of VIRGINIA. Although I’m not surprised. Charlottesville has always been a stronghold for the dems.

IsaacWalton

Correct. Romney reads something in the conservative blogosphere then spews it in front of a crowd in OHIO. Voting for Obama is a no-brainer…becuase, well Romney is a no-brainer.

Don_B1

Now that is a great bumper sticker!

BHA_in_Vermont

Romney’s foreign policy is make war not peace. Do those planning to vote for him want to go fight in Iran? If not them, their younger brothers and sisters?

hopeful61

It is amazing that Romney convinces these young people (e.g. Nicole) and sadly, many other voters, that he is a “job creator” when he made his gazillions at Bain Capitol doing the exact opposite.

Thank you Charlotte (caller), for making some excellent points.

WorriedfortheCountry

Tell that to all the people working at Staples and Sport Authority. I guess those aren’t real jobs.

How about all the car dealerships that were closed at the behest of the Obama car czar? 120K jobs gone — poof.
- Don_B1
  
  The automaker CEOs had become arrogant and felt that their position was unattackable, so they let their quality decline and agreed to labor demands they kicked down the road to fund.
  
  They neglected the need to run a financially efficient business, with the result that they had to cut back on the number of models and dealerships that had proliferated over several decades or go completely out of business.
  
  But with a return of building smaller, more energy efficient automobiles, they are rebuilding market share and the jobs are coming back also.
  
  Again, you have cherry-picked data to try to convey a false story about what is going on in American manufacturing. You really are a sad case.
Thinkin5

There is no deep thinking or research going on with those who are “convinced” by Romney. They are just accepting his assertions at face value. “I will create 12 million jobs!” Of course, Pres. Obama’s economy is on track to create 12 million jobs too. People need to go beyond the rhetoric and check the FACTS. Then vote.
- WorriedfortheCountry
  
  There is no deep thinking by Obama supporters who claim no one could have done better over the last 4 years.
  - Don_B1
    
    There are MANY Obama supporters who know he would have done a LOT better if the Republicans had not obstructed everything he wanted to do.

Lori Lander

Watch “11 Excellent Reasons Not To Vote?” Errol Morris’ new short minute film of his interviews with more than 50 young voters about why they vote. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/30/opinion/errol-morris-11-excellent-reasons-not-to-vote.html?hp&_r=0
and go to http://www.ourtime.org to watch seven 1 min videos of young voters talking about why they vote and for Facebook Pledge to Vote

J Gehrer

It’s beyond comprehension that someone old enough to be in college hasn’t formed their own political beliefs yet. I understand that 18 is young, but come on. Maybe they’re just not the sharpest knives in the drawer.

http://www.facebook.com/fmyers4 Franny Myers

You must understand that these are newspaper editors. In journalism, the primary goal of a newspaper is to remain as unbiased as possible. Just because they are undecided, does not mean they are not taking in both sides and considering the pros and cons of each candidate. Perhaps you should consider the fact that the undecided editors are sticking to journalistically ethical standards rather than base it on what you perceive to be their level of intelligence.

Mass_Independent

Romney is complaining about Obama’s 2% GDP growth but for each of the years Romney was in office, the economy grew 1.49 percent, 1.86 percent, 1.14 percent, and 1.43 percent, respectively (2002-2006). Romney didn’t even get to 2%! Moreover as an alleged small business grower – his record shows that Massachusetts was number 47 in the country – 47 behind Louisiana which had suffered from Hurricane Katerina!!

kmh5004

If you are apathetic about the major 2 parties, vote 3rd party. Even if they don’t win, if a 3rd party gets enough votes the main parties notice, and will try to adjust their platform. The main ones are Libertarian who essentially don’t like government, so they are against most welfare type programs, and regulations, but are also against social regulations so they end up pro choice and pro gay marriage (Basically socially liberal republicans). The green party is basically more liberal than the democrats, they are pro government regulations and welfare programs, the believe in subsidizing green energy and things like that and they are socially liberal so they are also pro choice and pro gay marriage.

MadMarkTheCodeWarrior

Was it only 4 weeks (or months) ago that Mitt Romney went on a World diplomacy trip and couldn’t open his mouth without alienating the leaders he was meeting!

Michiganjf

It’s UNREAL listening to some of these young people say they’re willing to vote for a SERIAL LIAR for President!!!
�
… and to suggest Romney’s “policies” are “reality-based??”
�
WHICH ONES AND WHAT REALITY???!!
�
Tell us, PLEASE!!

Mass_Independent

Romney will appoint at least one Supreme Court justice who will overturn Roe v. Wade and make it a crime to have an abortion. Imagine that it will be a crime in the USA to have an abortion. Your vote will decide whether the woman who is raped and impregnated by her father can have an abortion.

BHA_in_Vermont

If that actually occurs, it isn’t only pregnancy from rapists and incest (in your example also rape) that will be illegal. And the facts show that abortion rates are HIGHEST where abortion is illegal. It is typically linked with lack of women’s access to reproductive health care – ie. contraception.

If you want to increase the number of abortions (and women dying from “back alley” abortions) in the USA, make abortion illegal and shut down Planned Parenthood
- Vote Romney.

http://www.facebook.com/bethany.fitzgerald.908 Bethany Fitzgerald

Most experts are saying that the economy will improve and jobs will increase no matter who is elected. I am still astonished that people keep returning to only one issue in this election. There are many other-and possibly more important issues if the economy will improve no matter who is elected-like future Supreme Court nominations, our international relationships and preventing war, the enviroment, women and family issues, etc. Barack Obama is a thoughtful, conscientious listener who thinks deeply before making decisions that affect millions. I am reluctant to elect a businessman who is used to having the last word in a boardroom. There are a lot of issues that Romney has no experience with and the Republican platform is extreme.

J__o__h__n

Romney’s experience at Bain is relevant. He is running as a businessman.

MadMarkTheCodeWarrior

Romney knew how to load a company up with debt to finance his acquisition and from that borrowed money, pay out management fees to himself and investors. He was not a captain of industry; he was a vulture capitalist in the truest sense of the term.

Mass_Independent

Obama has elected two Supreme Court justices who were women. Today, Bain Capital only has 4 women managers. How can any woman vote with a Romney record like that?

BHA_in_Vermont

Ooooh, PIVOT. NICE JOB Ms. Bailey. Tom asks a question about Obama wanting to grow the economy from the middle out and what would Romney do – she jumps to women’s health care.

How many years before she runs for office somewhere?

MadMarkTheCodeWarrior

You have the right to be disillusioned, but you cannot expect anyone to rebuild an economy overnight after a disaster that threatened the entire world economy!

Snowing33

“Practical” 2 year degree for the hav- nots, a 4 year degree in sociology being impractical. Reminds me of the differences in WEB DuBois’ vs booker t in a museum views on education.
DuBois the sociologist, Pragmatist and idealist would be very disappointed to hear this was still being debated.

AC

please. please. please for god’s sake – stop saying “Jobs”. Be DEFINITIVE – what sorts of jobs? are they necessary given current technologies? Also, current population to openings ratios? Likely not.
typical opinionated speaking points with no real meaning. they just feel smart saying it or something….

IsaacWalton

This woman (Nicole?) is a ROMNEY-BOT! Get a clue! Romney’s record at BAIN was to analyze/optimize business and then SELL them for profit. He NEVER ran a business. He was handpicked to run BAIN…credit his pedigree and degree from Harvard. So what he’ll do is cut jobs and send them overseas. It’s what he does to MAKE MONEY. He was a financier not a small business owner. Wake up Nicole.

Oh and READ up on his track record at Bain. He had more DUDS than winners.

Mike_Card

Not that being a stockbroker is a bad thing, but that is Romney’s “business” experience. He never ran a retail operation, punched a hole in the ground, or drove a train. At the top, he was a banker who pushed other people’s money around and scraped off a commission.

Yar

We are a nation of slave owners and slaves. Call it business: healthcare, retirement, all work is trading labor over time with money as a counter. 6 billion dollars in this election cycle is mostly being paid by slave owners to keep the current system of economic slavery in place.�
Set my people free, rebel against Pharaoh,
I would rather follow the house slave than the slave owner. �
Who do you think the slave owner in this election is?Vote, every voice should be heard.

kmh5004

Its important for people who think Romney will create more jobs to understand the economy. People buy stuff and companies hire more people to make stuff. Then people have money to buy more stuff. If you give high level people money, this doesn’t spur growth, because they weren’t waiting for that extra million to buy a new car, but if you give middle class people money, they spend it and it reinforces the cycle, making the economy stronger. Despite Obama being president, not much of the recovery was liberal enough because of the blocking congress. If you elect Romney you will ruin the economy and we will be back in the gilded age with a few incredibly rich people, and everyone else lower class

Snowing33

“Practical” 2 year degree for the hav- nots, a 4 year degree in sociology being impractical. Reminds me of the differences in WEB DuBois’ vs Booker TWashington’s views on education.
DuBois the sociologist, Pragmatist and idealist would be very disappointed to hear this was still being debated.

Don_B1

The comment that Obama did not have foreign policy qualifications is deceptive; Obama had been in the Senate for four years, exposing him to the issues much more deeply than Romney has been exposed.

Also, as he proved in the debates, where he showed little respect for the moderators or President Obama, Romney tends to be a bully. Being a bully does NOT work in todays world, where each nation does not have to take a supporting role for either the U.S. or U.S.S.R.

Also, remember when the Lehman Bros. bankruptcy threatened the whole economy, and how John McCain went down to discuss the problem; Romney attended one of those meetings, where he made NO CONTRIBUTION!

http://profile.yahoo.com/QMDZ3LH5U2B4GAT7J2HS4TCP6E Jim

That quarterback analogy with President Obama is just STUPID. She is mixing apples and oranges. She does NOT even know how difficult it is to recover from a financial meltdown worse than the great depression. She is completely disillusioned.

Lastly, I believe she is desperate.

Gary Trees

No need to bite anyone’s head off. I actually find this to be an appropriate metaphor. As for the comment about this lady being desperate; desperate for what? If we’re just throwing around claims of perceived desperation; you’re desperate, the candidates are desperate, Tom Ashbrook is desperate, … AHHHHHH!

http://www.facebook.com/cecebar Cindy C Barnard

Please help me… “artificial demand for degrees…” and the “only” reason tuition fees are high is because of the gov. handing out money to young people? Again, tell me businesses haven’t also demanded such “certifications” as the glorified MBA? So often conservatives live in theory not reality.

You can’t possibly lower assistance for students and just hope that will effect universities. So many pieces need to work in tandem to fix the issue of inflated educational expenses.

Phillip Gasparotto

These young voters need to be supported and not criticized because they will be paying the bulk of social security for all the baby boomers. This will be a selfless act considering social security will be exhausted after paying out to the me first generation= baby boomers!

Mass_Independent

Government is not a business and should not be run as one.

IsaacWalton

Exactly. Do ANY of these young voters understand that business really makes most of its money for its owners and upper management. Their wages have ballooooned over the last 40 years while average worker salaries have remained stagnate? So they vote for ROMNEY in hopes he’ll make it easier for them to get jobs and a nice upper class living—and sell their civil liberties in the process.

IsaacWalton

My assumption is ROMNEY’s plan is to spur more service sector jobs. He has NO PLANS to invest in NEW technologies/industries that will hire now the smartest students. Our economy is too weighted in service sector jobs. Those are the jobs Romney will create. More of the same old low wage jobs!

Eric Herot

THIS. The Republican plan is to “grow jobs” by forcing more people to take ANY job. We are better off as a country if unemployed people stay unemployed and go back to school (read: government subsidy) rather than go to work at CVS.

http://www.facebook.com/people/David-Zuckerman/645222672 David Zuckerman

To use the foodball analogy, One does not take out the quarterback when the wide receivers and the running backs do not do their job. While I am not a huge fan of Obama, his ideas and “hope” from 4 years ago were completely stymied by the Congress. Lets remember that the Senate Republicans number one job was not to produce jobs, but was to make Obama a one term President. Come on, wake up.

BHA_in_Vermont

Do the Romney supporters NOT understand that:
- Romney personally RAN NO BUSINESSES and created NO JOBS other than within Bain when he ran Bain???
- That the purpose of Bain is ONLY to make money for the investors and the execs of Bain?
- Whether the money is made by ripping a company apart and selling it off in parts or having it grow and be successful makes NOT A WHIT OF DIFFERENCE.
- That the Bain employees and execs make money whether the investors make or lose money?

IsaacWalton

Here! Here!
Mike_Card

That this is NEVER spoken aloud speaks to extreme lack of understanding of reality that permeates the entire beltway culture.

http://openid.aol.com/ritchdume Richard Dumenu

One would expect that given the long experience of students going thru’ a lot of quizzes, tests, exams, etc… where they are marked up or down under scrutiny of their work, they will be the ones who would exercise good judgement in matters of fair play; and of course that’s why they get the education they have in the first place.
Every body knows the economy and its concomitants trump the whole political debate. But where is the fair sense here being expressed by the Romney supporters.That to them it doesn’t matter what depressive economy and grave financial crises Obama inherited, he should have used the magic wand in the White House to fix the problems which he hasn’t done and so he must go for Romney to take over; regardless of the fact that those inherited problems were more than 4yrs in the making. Clinton interpreted the Repub-Romney attitude very succinctly that to them, Obama hasn’t cleaned the mess quickly enough and so he must be let go.For political expediency, those same students have failed to look at the record and performance of Romney closely before following him to their doom.

DrewInGeorgia

Nicole and Catherine are brainwashed. I know this is harsh but these students don’t need platitudes, they need facts. “Obama hasn’t fixed things fast enough” is not an argument against the President, it is a commentary on your ignorance. Do you realize the scope and gravity of the nightmare we are just now recovering from? Try some alternate sources when obtaining your information. Also, wouldn’t all the people in the Northeastern U.S. be so much better off if there were no FEMA? If Disaster Relief were handled by states already financially underwater or better yet Privatized?
Wake up.

MadMarkTheCodeWarrior

Yay Ben!!!…. Deregulation can have consequences… like putting people’s lives at risk… from salon.com
…”state records reveal that a Massachusetts regulatory agency found that the New England Compounding Co., the pharmaceutical company tied to the epidemic, repeatedly failed to meet accepted standards in 2004 — but a reprimand was withdrawn by the Romney administration in apparent deference to the company’s business interests.”

29 are now dead and 377 injured, some severely, sentenced to a life of pain or crippled.

This was easily prevented if regulations had been enforced… What does Mitt have to say to those poor souls and their loved ones?

DrewInGeorgia

Yes! The caller asking how anyone could vote Romney into office is On Point. Thank you Andrew!

Eric Herot

What *EXACTLY* is Romney doing for Small Businesses? Can someone explain how his tax plan would do *anything* for small businesses OTHER than the 2 percent of “small” businesses that happen to already be massively profitable?

carl_christian

I just heard Barack Obama being called the “Kum Ba Ya” candidate in this
race but I wonder if any of these business students have studied any 20th
century American economic history? The correlation with jobs and growth is much
higher with Democratic administrations than with the Republicans. And the
Romney/Ryan promise of 12 million jobs is exactly the same number of jobs
projected by most economists regardless of who wins the election — thanks to an
economy carefully guided by the Obama Administration which is finally recovering
from the “no taxes” corporatism of the previous Republican President. Plus
there’s climate change, infrastructure, health care, the Supreme Court’s control
of women’s bodies — a host of issues that are extraordinarily key to a
prosperous & healthy future for all Americans — which are entirely
dismissed by Romney/Ryan as irrelevant to creating jobs. Such anti-historical,
anti-science nonsense.

IsaacWalton

To all the young women voting for ROMNEY…the ECONOMY will wax and wane. You WILL ALWAYS BE A WOMAN. If Romney goes in he will put in SUPREME court judges that will sit for 20-30 years and change America in ways that you will regret! I’m assuming you know what ROE vs WADE is?

Mass_Independent

Two days ago Romney was against FEMA. Today he is for it.
Romney is a phony who will do and say anything to get elected. He did not run for RE-ELECTION because the good people of Massachusetts know the real Romney. Phony, phony, phony.

WorriedfortheCountry

Myth. Leftist spin.
- Steve__T
  
  You don’t live in Massachusetts do you?
  - keltcrusader
    
    He says he does.
    
    Does anyone else get the impression that WFTC is a paid stooge for Romney? I see him making comments all over this website, at all hours, long after the dicsussion has ended. Anytime, anywhere, anyone says something bad (but generally true) about Romney, there is WFTC defending him. It’s just creepy. Hey are you really Eric F??? No can’t be, he would be banned for foul language. Who is paying your salary WFTC? ?

adks12020

This girl doesn’t know what she’s talking about. President Obama has done a lot for small businesses. She has witnessed one instance. Look at the overall picture and you’ll see. Her passion is for her father’s struggles which is understandable but it’s not reality. Romney’s idea of small business is a corporation with 100 or more employees. That is not a small business. My fathers sole proprietorship with him as the only employee is.

http://twitter.com/tarikjamal Tarik

Really fascinating commentary regarding the need to have a degree of wealth prior to focusing on social issues and the environment. It’s actually a very common philosophy that social and environmental issues are a luxury. There was a great line in the T.V. show “The Guardian.” “Make as much money as you can and then, if you still feel like it, make a difference.”

http://profile.yahoo.com/DUMDFGV2QQDDPZGZF57QB5DW6U gail D.

If these young women who support Romney don’t think that access and choices related to women’s reproductive health including the next Supreme Court appointments are an economic issue for women and families-well, their schools are not giving them good history lessons. I remember ‘
“the good old days” when rich women had access and poor and middle class women didn’t. Want to guess had who more economic advantages? I hope the yound women open their eyes before Tuesday.

Campus Ecofunds

I agree with the last caller from Somerville. A job is not a given when you leave college and any elected President has limited power to make jobs happen in this country. The corporations, whether regulated or not, will get cheaper labor wherever they can find it just to make more money.�
As someone who works at a college, I see the repercussions of No Child Left Behind (remember Bush!). These kids won’t get jobs handed to them because even for knowledge based jobs they lack the skills (writing, critical thinking, basic math). So sad to listen to these naive students.

Mass_Independent

If Romney is such a good politician why did he leave office (and not run for re-election) with a 60% disapproval rating? C’mon now. Bush’s was 78%.

Michiganjf

If you are mainly concerned about the yearly deficit and the cumulative national debt, you may like to know how Democrats fare historically compared to Republicans… even how President Obama has fared.
�
I’ll start with this premise:
�
The U.S. economy, under President Obama, has performed better than almost every other advanced economy in the world, despite the mess he inherited from Bush… despite intentional Republican obstructionism… despite the suffering economies of other nations continually threatening the U.S recovery… despite the gutting of the American middle-class by short-sighted corporatism and policies destructive to the middle-class (I would argue primarily Republican policies)… etc., etc…
�
… and yet President Obama STILL has managed to bring the Bush deficit down from 1.7 trillion/yr to 1.1 trillion/yr (keep reading), despite reduced government revenues from the recession and the need for stimulus to stem the economic downturn.
�
But here are some facts regarding the debt and deficit, SUBSTANTIATED by links to the source material:
�
Of the 16 trillion we now owe, Bush added 5 trillion to the debt during his eight years… then the “final Bush year deficit” of 1.7 trillion per year has added another 5 trillion to the debt during Obama’s first term.
�
President Obama has REDUCED Bush’s 1.7 trillion yearly deficit by an average 300 billion/yr, EVERY YEAR HE HAS BEEN IN OFFICE, despite the reduced government revenues caused by the recession, and despite the need to stimulate economic and job growth from the Bush “job-loss spiral,” which was costing America 800,000 jobs a month at the time Obama took office. Take a look at this AWESOME chart, remembering that the U.S operated under Bush’s final budget through 2009 (Google “Obama’s first budget” for plenty of proof that the first Obama budget took effect in 2010, not 2009 as some Republican’s want you to believe):
�
http://home.adelphi.edu/sbloch…
�
LOOK AT HOW THE DEFICIT HAS GONE DOWN EACH YEAR UNDER OBAMA, FROM BUSH’S HORRENDOUS FINAL YEAR’S 1.7 TRILLION DEFICIT BUDGET!!!
�
I LOVE this web page because the guy who created it links to sources… but he also put in some teriffic data, including marginal top-bracket tax rates, party in control of both bodies of Congress and the Presidency, etc…
�
Look over the whole page and all the charts… this site is truly illuminating, WITH FULLY VERIFIABLE DATA!
�
ALL of the debt added during Obama’s term is due primarily to Bush taking Clinton’s budgetary surplus and turning it into an absurdly huge, 1.7 trillion/yr deficit… Obama STILL managed to reduce the absurd Bush deficit, DESPITE reduced government revenues and the need for stimulus, WHILE NEVER INCREASING TAXES!!!
�
Here’s an interesting editorial showing how some people read the Bush deficit situation BEFORE OBAMA”S FIRST BUDGET TOOK EFFECT, back in December of 2009:
�
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02…
�
As you can see, Bush already had full credit for the awful deficit situation plaguing America, as well as the debt it was creating every year, BEFORE OBAMA’S FIRST BUDGET TOOK EFFECT!
�
Finally, to prove not only Bush, BUT ALL REPUBLICANS have screwed the debt and deficit whenever they get into the presidency, here’s another nice little chart showing debt under the last several presidents:
�
Carter (D) – started debt/GDP 35.8% ended debt/GDP 32.5%Reagan (R) – started debt/GDP 32.5% ended debt/GDP 53.1%Bush I (R) – started debt/GDP 51.1% ended debt/GDP 66.1%Clinton (D) – started debt/GDP 66.1% ended debt/GDP 56.4%Bush II (R) – started debt/GDP 56.4% ended debt/GDP 84.2% !!!!
�
Check this data for yourself:
�
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N…
�
This entire wiki page
�
I know WIKI data can be faked, but it is correct and reliable over long term periods as it is revised and scrutinized by many…that is what makes WIKI work.
�
I have been linking to this Wiki page for years now, and this data has held up under more than three years of scrutiny!!!Surprised?
�
I think most Americans would be, if only this VERY IMPORTANT data was covered more thoroughly by the mainstream media, which caters primarily to short attention spans and quickie talking points. Republicans have consistently gotten away with lying about who is REALLY responsible for the deficit!
�
I’ve heard this data covered on ON POINT, one of my favorite radio shows, and on MS-NBC… Rachel Maddow even covered it last night, but the coverage is simply NOT sufficient to get to enough of the public.
�
The fact is, we have a terrific president who has done EXTREMELY WELL for America and Americans, EVEN WITH REGARD TO THE DEBT AND DEFICIT!!! is Awesome and worth looking over carefully!!! It has LOTS of great info!

Michiganjf

Discuss SUCKS!

Here are the above links again:

http://home.adelphi.edu/sbloch/deficits.html
Michiganjf

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/27/opinion/27iht-edbudget.1.20481672.html?_r=1
Michiganjf

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_debt_by_U.S._presidential_terms#Changes_in_debt_by_political_affiliation
Thinkin5

The GOP are good at rhetoric but very poor on delivery of the assertions. Thanks for posting this info. It should be on billboards all around the country!

Dugg Antocicco

There is a major concern that I believe has been overlooked. There is a little known part of the affordable care act that calls 30 hours a week full time employment. In response, many companies that depend on hourly employees that do not have benefits will be cutting hours to less than 30 a week in order to avoid paying for insurance, or the fines associated with not providing those benefits. Although I would rather not have either of these candidates, I’m left hoping that Romney wins just so we can begin the repeal of the affordable care act. Lower income citizens that can barely survive on 40 hours a week cannot afford to only work 30 hours. This will only cause more problems for the economy. While I believe this law was written with good intentions, we know what they say about good intentions.

BHA_in_Vermont

Generally speaking, 30 hours a week is already the floor for benefits. That is why most of the employees you see at WalMart work no more than 29 hours a week. They have no health care, no retirement benefits. And they don’t get them from their second part time job either.
- Thinkin5
  
  And this is how Romney/GOP keeps everything cheap for business and the poor and middle class from moving up and from spending more and getting the economy moving faster.
J__o__h__n

Why are you blaming the government and not the companies that are trying to screw their workers?
- http://profile.yahoo.com/JXSANCUDPIKQSPID5KT2U4XK5Y TF
  
  Yep. Until someone proves otherwise, it’s on WalMart.
  
  Hey, does their new worker orientation still include a slide on how new employees should apply for healthcare for the indigent?
http://profile.yahoo.com/SLOS772UBT5F6WVSDF7HXYIQGM Lily Canter

Got some info for you. Companies already do that! Many personnel policies include benefits for 30 hours or more, but they already deliberately reduce or manipulate hours so no one is eligible. Walmart is the biggest player in this game, but not the only one. I very much want to increase hours in my shop for several excellent workers, but management won’t let me because it will make them eligible for benefits. Better that all individuals have access to health care. By the way, health care through out life span is much cheaper than just getting it at age 65. This is why France and other European countries spend FAR less than we do on health and have much BETTER health outcomes.

Renata Simone

This is terrifying. These smart, young people are asking themselves the wrong question, as are many Americans.

The question is not “Has Obama done enough?”�
but rather,
“Do we want the changes Romney will make – to the Supreme Court, (!) to access to contraception, (!) to environmental regulations, (!) to tax equity, (!) to the power of corporations, (!) to care for women, poor people and our elderly, and many more facets of public and private life ?” (Romney has pledged to dismantle FEMA too!)

This election is Not a referendum on the past. It is our choice of whether or not America wants the changes ROMNEY WILL MAKE to the systems, laws and regulations that determine our quality of life and the issues that effect everyone.

http://profile.yahoo.com/SLOS772UBT5F6WVSDF7HXYIQGM Lily Canter

Great questions! I’d add, do we want the changes Romney will make to the environment as renewable energy research is stopped? Do we want increasing incarceration as private entities take over the “penal business?” Do we want multi-front wars?

hopeful61

OK Nicole, regarding young women getting a good job so the government won’t have to pay for your birth control pills? Ideally, conservatives would prefer you STAY HOME – in the kitchen, barefoot preferably – and have many, many children. As many as God will send. This is God’s will. Since birth control and abortion won’t be readily available to you, it’s best if you not worry your pretty little head, just stay home honey, don’t work, have tons of kids and let your billionaire businessman husband take care of everything. Besides, you’ll never make what a man makes for the same job, so why bother working? That my dear, is God’s will.

IsaacWalton

I’ll sum it up for the young voters. The jobs will come, the economy is on the mend (and it will wane over the rest of your life). Shut out all of the ads flying around now. Be clear about ONE THING—NOTHING is more important than your civil liberties. It goes beyond ANY SALARY you can get. And don’t think that mainstream, conservative Republicans won’t make the changes to the progress women have made. You have been warned.

Take a look at the families of the presidents. I’m certain Ann Romney has never had a job. She married a wealthy business man soon after college. Then raised a family. Oh she sat as director of charities..but she didn’t work her way up. Michelle Obama, law degree, had a job and raised a family.

http://profile.yahoo.com/JXSANCUDPIKQSPID5KT2U4XK5Y TF

If only Ann Romney could give me the slightest vibe of caring about people below her station, then her privilege wouldn’t make me worry. Privilege in itself is not a bad thing, but if one wants to be President (or First Lady), a whiff of nobless oblige should come with the territory.

In that lack, she married the perfect man for her. Next to Ann Romney, Laura (onetime schoolteacher) Bush is Eleanor Roosevelt or Mamie Eisenhower.
- BHA_in_Vermont
  
  “noblesse oblige”
  
  Romney doesn’t know what that means and I doubt his wife does either.
  
  If they did they would:
  - stop making all their money in the lowest possible tax rate areas in favor of investments that improve the lot of the 99% even if it meant they paid more tax.
  - give all their annual income after living expenses away to the 47% US population, the “entitled victims”.
  - start businesses that will create jobs (Romney says HE knows how to create jobs) of value for the 47%.

Mass_Independent

From the right leaning Washington Post. Here is an interactive calculator……See if YOU can get Romney/Ryan’s tax plan to work! http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/wp/2012/10/31/interactive-make-mitt-romneys-tax-plan-add-up/

WorriedfortheCountry

LOL. Right leaning WaPO.

They must have endorsed Moderate Mitt, right?
- jimino
  
  You still can not identify even ONE of the deductions/loophole that Romney’s so-called plan would close and without which it is nothing but a $5 trillion tax cut for the wealthiest Americans. Not even ONE!. Which, of course, ties you with your candidate.
  
  Will it be the home mortgage deduction? Or will he require employees to pay income tax on the value of their employer-provided health insurance? Or will he eliminate deductability of 401(k) contributions? Which one(s) do you predict?
  - WorriedfortheCountry
    
    He answered this question specifically in the debate. He said one option would be to simply cap deductions but that he would work with congress on the tax reform.
    
    Guess what. Obama’s corporate tax reform takes the EXACT same approach as Romney. They outline principles and give no specific loopholes to close but defer to congress.
    - Human898
      
      Would you consider that more “talk” or a “do”?
      
      Mr. Romney “worked” with a majority Democratic legislature in Massachusetts to pass health care reform they introduced and wanted.
      
      Obama has stated at the very least, taxes on people making more that $250,000 would go up, the same thing he said when he campaigned and in 2010, but was blocked on. When he said, let the Republicans have their way and we have seen where that has led, Mr. Obama is saying, we’ve tried that approach, do you see it worked? No it hasn’t because Romney and his supporters are whining about the economy, if the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts had worked, what’s to complain about?
      
      Obama has a point, Romney’s trying to suggest without details how his Bush policies will work when they didn’t work for Bush. In additon, “revenue neutral” is also revenue shifting. If the way it is said to be done could work mathematically, which no one has yet figured out how, (except some in their fantasies) and how loopholes will be closed without raising the effective burden on the middle and lower class, it does nothing to reduce debt directly. Also removing the capital gains tax is not closing a loophole, but adding one. It does nothing to add to revenue especially in the short term and adds to debt if defense spending is not cut as it is in the Obama plan.
BHA_in_Vermont

It was reported yesterday that Ryan’s tax plan would eliminate the deficit (NOT the debt, the deficit) by 2050. Yes, 38 years from now. And every penny of the deficit not erased in each of the next 38 years will be added to the National Debt.

Human898

Very interesting to hear some students thoughts on what’s driving what and how some seem to believe the economy should be back to normal after the second worst financial disaster on record for this nation. In addtion, there is no mention of the for-profit “universities” that have cashed in on the government loan program. I think what needs to be addressed is the cost of education and the thought of simply fulfilling the cost, regardless of what it is, but working to reduce costs so the debt students are left with is not enormous and debilitating, especially after a deep financial crisis which was NOT caused by Mr. Obama, but is slowly being recovered from. Romney wants to essentially return to the policies of the administration before the current one and Romney’s “experience” is making huge personal wealth regardless of whether their clients were successful or failed. I don’t believe some students realize the depth of the “Great Recession” or have a decent grasp of what contributed to it. It is also interesting to hear how some seem to believe that government will create jobs and Mr. Romney will create jobs for them from a government positon, even though Mr. Romney keeps repeating, government does not create jobs. Where have the jobs been and why blame Mr. Obama if “goverment does not create jobs” (What Mr. Romney repeated in the debates even as he is running for a government job)?

In addition, putting money above all else seems to be the thing that gets us into the most trouble. Compare the economy the Bush admin was handed to the one they handed off with the one the Obama adminsitration was handed and what they have done. No, things are not super great, but they are stablized and aren’t in a full nose dive like they were in 2008 which took through 2009, just to halt, much less begin to rebuild from.

Lastly, as one caller pointed out, where is the historical evidence that a business background or experience for a U.S. president is really beneficial to the overall national economy?

WorriedfortheCountry

The government doesn’t create jobs but it does impede economic growth. There have been several studies that have shown Obama admin regulations have cost the economy between $1.7T-$1.8T in economic output. This results in few jobs. Further, the regulations that pre-date Obama like SarBox and the 74,000 page tax code reduce economic output. The bloat of Federal regulations are more pronounced during a weak economy. We would do ourselves a huge favor to clean out the bloat.

Why does it take 5 years to approve a pipeline? We defeated the Axis in WWII in 3.5 years.
- Human898
  
  The problem with your premise is that it immediately condemns 8 years of the Bush MBA presidency which culminated in worst financial crisis since the worst.
  
  A pipeline for what? To carry someone else’s oil to refineries on the Gulf Coast where the products will be shipped to the nation where the highest bidders are?
  - hopeful61
    
    Right on, Human898.
  - WorriedfortheCountry
    
    I prefer Gulf Coast refinery jobs instead of Chinese refinery jobs.
    
    Bush did try and reform FREDDIE/FANNIE — way too late and blocked by the Dems.
    
    Don’t ask me to defend Bush but his policies were not the cause of the financial crisis. You could argue that his TARP program — despite the many warts — was successful in ending the recession.
    - Human898
      
      Fannie and Freddie are private entities and there is nothing in the law that says skip “safe and sound” business practices, but rather to adhere to them, so the FM/FM excuse is a lame one. Do you also prefer $6.00 a gallon gasoline, because that’s what other nations are paying and more and oil is sold to those who pay the most and that is not always to the nation that it’s extracted from. In addition, we’ve seen the destruction and the cost of spills and damage to the environment all so a few can profit.
      
      You’re blaming one president’s policies, yet giving another a free pass, why?
    - WorriedfortheCountry
      
      I don’t give Bush a ‘pass’. However, Bush isn’t on the ballot in 5 days. Obama is.
      
      You need to research the FM/FM culpability in the housing crisis. Also, it isn’t a truly ‘private’ entity. Do you consider the federal reserve a private entity?
      
      Also, FM/FM officers are a revolving door for politicians enriching themselves. The list of FM/FM millionaires is a who’s who from the Clinton admin.
    - Thinkin5
      
      W. Bush’s policies are on the ballot thanks to Romney and his Neocon “advisors”. No difference.
    - WorriedfortheCountry
      
      BS.
    - Human898
      
      So your blaming Obama is OK, but no one can compare the relativity of Obama to what Obama was handed to work with?   Romney has never been POTUS, so there is nothing to compare his say so to what would be so. In addition he is blaming Obama as if Obama dropped from the sky into a clean slate and healthy economy and was never handed anyything like the worst crisis since the worst and in order to measure someone’s performance, it has to be compared to something.
      
      Compared to the previous adminsitration, Obama’s, while not stellar, is positive from the direction it was in when he inheritied it.
      
      Bush’s culminated in the second worst negative this nation has experienced and Mr. Bush had an MBA.
      
      If you’re going to blame presidents you need to keep the comparison apples to apples.
      
      Romney only has talk to compare himself to Obama since Romney has no presidential experience, but his party does in the White House, the eight years before Obama.
      
      Romney can claim all the things he’ll do till the cows come home, but as he says, the proof is in the pudding.
      
      Yes it is, the policies of the Bush adminsitration and the policies of the Obama administration and where the economy was when they started and as evidenced in the material offered, what the overall effect was or has been.
      
      Mr. Obama’s administration did not exist in a vacuum and was not isolated and unrelated from what came before it.
    - Human898
      
      You need to research what a GSE is and regarding FM/FM and what a publicly traded entity is with regard to the “private sector” and also see what the law says about “safe and sound business operations”�
      There is also this:
      http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/04/us/politics/gingrichs-deep-ties-to-fannie-mae-and-freddie-mac.html?pagewanted=all
      
      Would we like to see who’s on the who’s who of Romney and Bush’s admins and their connections to oil and Wall Street? Who do you think you’re fooling?
      
      The FED? This will explain for those that don’t already know.
      
      http://www.federalreserve.gov/faqs/about_14986.htm
    - sam liu
      
      “Don’t ask me to defend Bush but his policies were not the cause of the financial crisis.”
      
      W’s lack of intervention and regulation resulted in the financial crisis.
      
      Just like his lack of attention that resulted in 09/11/01.
      
      Not his policies, but it happened under his watch, his less than capable ability.
- BHA_in_Vermont
  
  Really bad analogy Worried.
  
  How did GWB not quickly mop up in Afghanistan and Iraq? He had 7 years to do so. He had “shock and awe”. Not long out of Iraq and still in Afghanistan. We defeated the Axis in WWII in 3.5 years.
  - WorriedfortheCountry
    
    I disagree. We are a country of red tape. It is killing us. Could we build the Hoover dam today? I doubt it.
    - Human898
      
      Mr. Romeny seems to have no trouble building his many multi-million dollar homes. Why red tape? Try inviting 100 people into your home to stay and live and see if you do not develop some additional rules in your household.
      
      Most people use their brain for what it was designed for, to think.
    - WorriedfortheCountry
      
      I hope he builds more homes. Why? It creates more jobs.
      
      Get back to me on which part of the 74,000 page tax code are critical for the success of the nation.
    - Human898
      
      Mathematics:�
      10 wealthy people purchase 5 widgets apiece at a cost of $1 apiece. The don’t need more than one apiece, but they are wealthy and have the money so they buy 5, one for each of their homes. 90 people buy one apiece of the same widget for $1 apiece.
      
      The 10 wealthy people bought how many widgets total?
      
      The 90 people bought how many total widgets?
      
      Now, cut the income of the 90 people to the point they can no longer afford 1 widget and increase the income of the wealthy people. They don’t need more than 5 widgets apiece and won’t buy more than 5.
      
      How many widgets are sold in the second scenario?
      
      If the wealthy people’s income is reduced by half and they still have enough money to buy 5 widgets and they do, but money that does not go to them, goes to pay the 90 more for their work and 25% of that number buy 2 widgets instead of just one, what are the total number of widgets sold?
      
      For the CEO of the widget company, which scenario makes the bigger profit and allows them to pay themselves more?
      
      Employees aren’t just expenses, they are consumers and customers.
    - JGC
      
      Oh boy, the Hoover Dam? Come on, you know we have to rebuild the entire New Jersey coastline, and figure out some kind of levee system around NYC. We will figure it out and build it. That’s what we do.
  - hennorama
    
    The “We defeated the Axis in WWII in 3.5 years” comparison also fails miserably in that it fails to take into account the fact that virtually every able-bodied American adult was somehow involved in the WWII war efforts. Lots of kids too, for that matter.
    
    Approving international pipeline construction has just a wee bit less significance and urgency than fighting a global war against multiple totalitarian enemies.
    - http://profile.yahoo.com/JXSANCUDPIKQSPID5KT2U4XK5Y TF
      
      Yep. WWII was “we’re all in this together” and “don’t you know there’s a war on”. Post 9/11, for various reasons including an all-volunteer Armed Forces, it’s “a military at war, not a nation at war.”
      
      Plus, in Afghanistan (and a bit in Iraq) there is the question of having someone there to surrender to you. Think of what it was like after WWII in Europe: They surrendered. End of war. Start rebuilding, start the Marshall Plan.
      
      I don’t want to sound fatalist, but there was no such luck in this arena.
- hennorama
  
  “There have been several studies that have shown Obama admin regulations have cost the economy between $1.7T-$1.8T in economic output.”
  
  Please cite these “several studies” if you can. You appear to be parroting the same nonsense that Fox and various other entities have been bandying about, which parroted an article by the obviously rightwardly biased CNSNews.com.
  
  Three problems with your statement:
  
  1. These studies have been widely discredited for their methodology (one even used opinion polls as part of their data collection).
  
  see:http://mediamatters.org/research/2012/09/12/fox-revives-widely-discredited-research-to-atta/189852
  
  2. This figure of $1.7 Trillion is not for “Obama admin regulations” but rather ALL Federal regulations. One of these discredited studies dates back to the pre-Obama admin Bush II year of 2008.
  
  3. Citing only the cost of regulations ignores their economic benefits. It’s a bit like saying “employee compensation costs the economy 43.5% of GDP ($7 to $8 Trillion!) so it’s obvious that we need to get rid of employees.”
  
  (check out the “Benefits and Costs of Major Rules by Fiscal Year” chart in the mediamatters.org site above)
  
  BTW, in searching for the percent of GDP taken up by employee compensation, I found this fun graph. If you want a single visual of why most people feel they aren’t doing well, check out this chart, and how it drops sharply during and after recessions:
  
  http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/graph/?g=2Xa
  - Ray in VT
    
    I also looked at that 1.8 trillion number a bit, and some do seem to bill it as all being from Obama rather than the cumulative affect. I looked at one area in particular, and I came away thinking that it attributed some 60 billion/year to Obama’s term, but upon further looking it’s really more like 40. An increase yes, but it’s really only 10%ish of the total. I think that the billing that goes along with some of these numbers is highly misleading.
    
    Also, do you mind if I ask your general background or field of work? I only ask because it seems that very often you cite a lot of data and figures from respected sources, and your posts often strike me as very well thought out, worded and reasoned.
    - hennorama
      
      Thank you for your response and your kind words.
      As to your question – my work is somewhat sensitive and I therefore prefer to keep that private, especially in an open forum such as this. As to my background – I have similar desires. I will say that I long ago left behind my modest upbringing and have been both fortunate and smart in my personal, educatonal, and economic activities. I grew up in
      an area of the U.S. that was impacted by Superstorm Sandy, but no longer live anywhere near there. I’ve traveled far and wide and have friends and associates around the world. My interests and tastes have grown over time, and I have been fortunate enough to have both the time and resources to be able to indulge them. These widely varied experiences have lent me some perspective, which I try to use to persuasive effect in this forum.
      
      Not always successfully, of course.
      ——————————————-
      The conflation of the supposed $1.7/1.8 trillion economic cost of regulation and Pres. Obama is an old trick. It’s similar to the “The debt is $16 trillion and it’s all Obama’s fault!” line of reasoning and is of course both nonsensical and hypocritical. It’s as if history does not exist.
      
      I’ve frequently pointed out the hypocrisy of many Republicans and others suddenly “getting religion” about the debt and deficit, especially in light of their actions during the Bush II years. It’s a joke and an embarrassment, but they seem to be paying little political price, which I partly attribute to shorter attention spans and memories.
      
      Of course, satirists like Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert are far better at illustrating this hypocrisy than am I, as I’m also fond of pointing out.
      ——————————————–
      As a complete non sequitor – one current area of interest is the use of color as a manipulative device on cable TV “news” programs.
      
      The contrast between the Fox News shows and the MSNBC shows is striking.
      
      Visually, Fox News is dark and foreboding, using lots of red, (which stimulates anger and hostility), and black (to project power and authority, and symbolizing evil, according to some). The combination tends to make one anxious. They constantly have yellow NEWS ALERT popups, even in the absence of actual news. Yellow is an attention grabber, and tends to speed metabolism. Fox also uses the scrolling
      “ticker” at the bottom of their sceens. Their screen borders are usually black and red.
      All in all, this tends to leave one anxious, excited, and angry.
      
      MSNBC is the opposite. Their sets tend to use lighter and brighter colors, such as blue and white. Blue is thought of as tranquil and calming. White is perceived to be neutral and innocent. They don’t use the scrolling “ticker” at the
      bottom of their screens, and their screen borders tend to be blue and white.
      
      This tends to leave one calm and perhaps thoughtful as well.
      
      They’re both manipulating you, simply by their choices and uses of color. Check it out the next time you watch either network. Watch one for a bit, note how you feel, then switch to the other. I find it quite jarring, especially when going from MSNBC to Fox.
      I’d cite the research on the psychology of colors, but it’s quite easily found and I’m feeling lazy just now.
      Thanks again for your response, and your kind words.
    - Ray in VT
      
      Hello Hennorama,
      Thank you for your response, and I certainly respect your wish to keep your background anonymous. My background is history, and I often come at positions with that training in mind. I work with data in various capacities, and I found the bit of the show that I heard yesterday on perfectionism to be very interesting, because, as with so much coding and database work, small errors can have great impacts, and I have been cleaning up for years after the sloppy work that a former employee did years ago. With that in mind, I try to be as specific as possilbe with many of my arguments, although I will acknowledge that I do have my biases and such that affect my outlook.
      
      Also with that in mind, I find the citing of questionable sources and the use of what are sometimes wildly inaccurate or misreprented figures to be highly annoying.
      
      I tend not to watch tv news, although this week I’ve been watching more of the local news for school closings and local storm coverage, although we didn’t get much of anything where I am in Vermont.

WorriedfortheCountry

I wonder if the Libyan scandal is getting any traction on college campuses.

BHA_in_Vermont

That “scandal” exists ONLY because it is a Presidential Election year. I doubt it is a hot topic at the student centers.
- WorriedfortheCountry
  
  I disagree. The media is tamping it down BECAUSE it is election season.
  - Human898
    
    Students are capable of looking up other attacks on diplomatic posts and the deaths that have occurred as a result in past years and are able to find that no such obsession was made regarding those by those obsessed about Benghazi now.
    
    In additon, there is little mention from the obsessors of the Seal whose mother asked Romney to stop using his meeting her son for political gain and the friend of the same Seal who had to set the record straight on what Romney’s meeting was really like as opposed to what Romney made it sound like.
    - WorriedfortheCountry
      
      The Seal’s sister went on TV to thank Governor Romney for the kind words he had about her brother. She said her mothers comments were out of line and she excused them because she was very emotional.
      
      Nice try with your spin.
      
      However, the other Seal’s father has been very vocal about his meeting with Biden, Hillary and Obama and he is very disappointed that he feels they have lied to him.
      
      Finally, David Ignatius (no Romney backer) in the WaPO has come out with an article chastising both the admin and the media for not chasing this story. There are many questions that need answering.
    - Human898
      
      Well, it’s hard to compete with someone paid to sit here all day and spread misinformation by a party willing to do anything to win an election, but here is more than just my say so.
      
      http://www.buzzfeed.com/mckaycoppins/mother-of-slain-seal-tells-romney-to-stop-talking.
      
      http://mynorthwest.com/108/1353861/Romney-story-doesnt-jibe-with-fallen-SEALs-accoun
      
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrorist_attacks_on_U.S._diplomatic_facilities
    - WorriedfortheCountry
      
      Personal attacks will get you nowhere.
    - JGC
      
      I am happy that Governor Christie has also gone on TV to thank President Obama for support and action for the people of New Jersey (including some of my own family) who are affected by this tragic storm Sandy. And that President Obama nods to Governor Christie that the governor is doing his absolute best to rebuild NJ’s future.
    - Steve__T
      
      I think that by now you realize that you are arguing with a knuckle head that puts his fingers in his ears squeezes his eyes shut and screams NANANANA as long as you have something of substance to bring to the conversation, he then twists what you said to try to make his point seem superior or all knowing.
      Its useless to try to get him to stop telling half truths or outright lies.
      He hates Obama so much he would vote for a skunk if it were running.
    - Human898
      
      I think the guy is paid to be here and push a misinformation campaign.
JGC

No.

WorriedfortheCountry

I can’t believe it. Bill Clinton just endorsed Romney.

At the end of his speech in Iowa he went off teleprompter and said the following:

“So you’ve got a choice here between a doer and a talker. And I like the doer.”

Sure sounds like a Romney endorsement.

Thanks Bubba.

Human898

Romney is all talk. He has no presidential experience, Obama does. If one investigates all the credit Romney claims as his own, one finds it wasn’t all his own and in fact, some people have had to come forward and set the record straight, but Romney keeps repeating it, even after the record has been set straight.
- WorriedfortheCountry
  
  OK. His resume is that of a doer. Starting with valedictorian of his class at BYU.
  
  He volunteered to take over the corrupt and bankrupt Olympics and turned that around. I guess he didn’t do that either. And don’t give me the lame ‘government bailout’ crap. You know very well they received an infusion of security funds because of the 9/11/2001 attack.
  
  He has been successful in EVERY endeavor, public and private, including volunteering his time.
  - Human898
    
    Why do you skip over what Obama has done?
    
    Also look into the 2002 Olympics and what John McCain (the guy Romney lost the nomination to in 2008) calls the 2002 Olympics in terms of a disgraceful pork barrel fund. Once again, Mitt Romney claims to be the “hero”, once again the whole truth is it would have been a much different picture without all the federal funds pumped into those games.
    
    One does also not have to look far for Romney’s failures while at Bain Capital or how he profited, even when the businesses Bain Capital got involved in failed. One more example of the “talker” taking credit for the winners, not talking about the losers.
    
    Romney being successful and claiming success for himself does not translate into success for the entire nation. If more people like Romney made less, more people at the opposite end of the scale might be able to make a little bit more and buy more which would feed into more transaction, more jobs and more taxpayers more tax revenue, but the short term thinking Romney likes it the other way, the less most people make, the more he makes.
    
    Mr. Obama sees the more that most people make, the better off and more stable the entire economy in the longer term. Mr. Romney is worried about how many million dollar plus homes he can own. Mr. Obama is worried about how many people might be able to afford even one modest and reasonably priced home.
    - WorriedfortheCountry
      
      What has Obama done?
      
      My observation is Obama has been a horrible leader.
      
      He ceded responsibility on healthcare to Pelosi and Reid and we got a disaster.
      
      The stimulus was horribly managed.
      
      After the midterms almost everything he has done is political – small ball stuff.
      
      He hasn’t lead on getting a budget passed on his watch. It appears he hasn’t even tried.
      
      On foreign policy he is mostly continuing Bush policies (with a few exceptions).
      
      And most importantly he didn’t lead on getting a version of Simpson-Bowles passed.
      
      I’m not surprised Obama is a horrible leader since he’s had no leadership experience but he could have at least hired some competent people to help guide him.
    - Human898
      
      Some things you might be interested in from sources other than FOX News and The Blaze.
      
      http://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/data-chart-center/Documents/20120229_EssentialEcon.PDF
      
      http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-06-26/one-president-s-economic-legacy-is-his-successor-s-burden.html
      
      http://www.nytimes.com/2003/06/08/magazine/08WWLN.html?pagewanted=all
      
      http://www.jec.senate.gov/archive/Documents/Reports/debtandtaxes2006.pdf
      
      http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/14/opinion/paul-ryans-fairy-tale-budget-plan.html
      
      BTW, I was once a Republican, grew up in a Republican family, have lots of Republican friends, many of them, like me, are no longer Republican because of just the attitude you’re pushing and the “new” philosophy. We liked the Old Party when it was a bit Grander and not so self-absorbed and focused or willing to do anything to win elections, including lose its integrity in exchange for personal profit and wealth.
    - WorriedfortheCountry
      
      I’m an independent, Perot voter who is most interested in the economy, jobs and the deficit.
      
      Cut, cap and balance seems a reasonable approach to tackle the deficit.
    - Human898
      
      I’m a business owner who is interested in NOT going back to the same sort of “leadership” in the White House that culminated in the second worst financial crisis this nation has on record. Nor do I want to support all the people that want to act as if it never occurred or was just a minor dip, didn’t see it coming, didn’t stop it from coming and don’t want to blame a Republican president in the White House for it or recognize how it affected and still affects the economy.
    - WorriedfortheCountry
      
      Romney is not Bush. And your strawman argument isn’t grounded in reality.
      
      Obama’s leadership over the worst recovery since the great depression is pathetic.
      
      The recession ended in June 2009. We had ‘recovery summer’ in 2010.
    - Human898
      
      No, Romeny is not Bush, he has b=never been president like Bush, so the best way to compare apples to apples is to look at presidents, no? In addition, why do you keep wanting to disconnect the worst crisit since the worst one with regard to how to gauge Obama’s performance? What’s to fear if Mr. Bush and the policies Mr. Romeny will be going back to worked so well?
    - WorriedfortheCountry
      
      Look at the Democrat career politicians who have become millionaires. Let’s start with Harry Reid.
      
      Nancy Pelosi’s net worth increased 62% in 2011 to $58M.
      
      Don’t tell me that Democrats are ethical and pure.
      
      There is corruption on both sides. Obama did NOTHING to clean it out. You could argue he made things worse. I’m hoping Romney cleans it up. I’ll be watching.
    - Human898
      
      A couple of things:
      Democrats are not selling themselves as ethical and pure and offer no more corruption than their counterparts that seem to feel “right” translates into or equates with righteousness.
      
      In addition, Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi are not advocating for tax cuts for themselves, but for the opposite.
    - WorriedfortheCountry
      
      Wrong. Pelosi and Reid are advocating keeping loopholes for themselves while tinkering with the rates.
    - Human898
      
      Pelosi and Reaid will pay whatever they ask others to pay and they aren’t looking for a tax rate cut for their income level. Can you deny that?
    - WorriedfortheCountry
      
      ” Mr. Romney is worried about how many million dollar plus homes he can
      own. Mr. Obama is worried about how many people might be able to afford
      even one modest and reasonably priced home.”
      
      That is just silly.
    - Human898
      
      You’re silly, does my saying so make it so? How about telling us why it is silly?
    - WorriedfortheCountry
      
      No. I’ll let my comment stand for the objective observer.
    - Human898
      
      Why would I be different? My guess is objective observers like to have more than mere opinion.
  - Denis
    
    I guess that depends on your definition of successful… is “saving” the Olympics with millions and millions of $ in fed aid what you are talking about? Is the 34% approval rating he had as governor when he left office what you call successful? Is the 48th in the nation ranking in jobs creation he had as Governor what you call successful? Is the fact that he will lose Massachusetts {his claim to successful public service} by huge margins what you call successful? As the old saying goes it is all in the eye of the beholder. My eye does not see success – only a rich kid that thinks he deserves to be president – America owes him.
    - WorriedfortheCountry
      
      The stat that Romney’s MA was 47th in job creation is misleading.
      
      When he entered office it was 50th in job creation and when he left office it was 22nd.
      
      More importantly, the unemployment rate was 4.7% which most economists rate as FULL employment.
      
      Only in bizarro world do you spin Romney’s leadership on the Olympics as anything but positive. I guess the wackos come out in election season and try and spin everything.
      
      When Romney came in as governor he faced a $3B deficit. All the pundits and the Dem leadership in the legislature said the only way out was massive tax INCREASES. He was able to streamline government — without massive service cuts — and turn that deficit into a $2B rainy day fund and all without raising broad based taxes or fees. I would classify that as a success.
      
      It was only when it became clear that he was interested in Presidential politics that the Globe and Dems starting attacking him — driving down his approval ratings. This is the worst kind of partisan politics.
    - Human898
      
      Can you please offer some facts and figures to clear up what you call misleading?
      
      Also please tell us how claiming to have “saved” the 2002 Olympics, without happening to also mention what John McCain (the guy Romney lost the nomination to in 2008) called a disgraceful pork barrel is not misleading?
      
      Lastly, how does Mr. Romney keep repeating government does not create jobs, then goes on to claim credit for jobs created under “his” government?
    - WorriedfortheCountry
      
      I recommend “Basic Economics” by Dr. Thomas Sowell It is 654 pages but the lessons are invaluable.
    - Human898
      
      Yes, they proved so “invaluable” we got the second worst crisis since the first while the first U.S. president with a Masters in Busness Administration, a Republican, was in the White House.
    - WorriedfortheCountry
      
      Keep going back to ‘blame Bush’ . You could try “blame Hoover”.
    - Human898
      
      You’re “not” blaming whom? You’re cpomparing Obama to what?
    - Human898
      
      Why do you all want to deny the relevance of what occurred under Bush?
    - Denis
      
      I would agree that your posts and responses are the worst kind of partisan politics…. To not challenge the Facts of Romney’s Olympic leadership is Bizzaro. To think Romney was some sort of “folk hero” governor simply if bizzaro. If he was so good why is he not revered in MA? It is alright to blame all the problems of his admin on the past, what he inherited when entering office but President Obama is responsible for all of the world’s ills all on his own?
    - WorriedfortheCountry
      
      No. President Obama is not responsible for all the worlds ills. However, he is responsible for his actions and inactions.
      
      I have outlined his failures in leadership.
      
      The two primary examples are his failure to lead on getting a budget passed in each of the last 3 years while running up $6T in new debt.
      
      The other is his failure to lead on getting a form of the Simpson-Bowles debt reforms passed. He did NOTHING. Why? I can speculate that he didn’t want fingerprints on any ‘tough’ decisions before the 2012 but that is just speculation.
    - Human898
      
      What generally happens when disasters occur, does debt go down or up? The worst financial disaster since the first meant what for the national debt? Who was firing American workers and not hiring them back? Who has been sitting on record amounts of cash, not doing what they say they’ll do with it? Not Mr. Obama. If one looks at the worst financial crisis recorded for this nation one sees double dips in part because people pull too far back the other way after being too wild and irresponsible in one way. Fewer jobs in this nation and lower pay for the larger part of the population do not translate into paying down debt. Neither does increased military spending combined with “revenue neutral” tax schemes that as of yet, has no math formulas to prove it can work.
    - Human898
      
      Please offer some sources of your information.
  - J__o__h__n
    
    How does his resume report the three years where he may or may not have been CEO of Bain?
- WorriedfortheCountry
  
  “Romney is all talk.”
  Romney turned the state of MA around when it was under a financial crisis. He put in place real government reforms. He worked with the 85% Dem legislature to put these reforms in place.
  He met with the Dem leaders for 2 hours every week working on State issues. The Dem leaders admit that Romney was a very hard worker and they had a good working relationship.
  
  Actions speak louder than words. During election season there is a lot of partisan spin.
Steve__T

I can’t believe you are still twisting peoples statements, when are you going to stop being an ass you don’t help the situation at all, you are a real piece of work.
harverdphd

Well after all, he had a doer…
hennorama

I can’t believe it. Mr. Romney said he himself is not only not someone you want as a candidate for President, he’s also not qualified to BECOME President.

Mr. Romney said this in January:

“I pay all the taxes that are legally required and not a dollar more. I don’t think you want someone as the candidate for president who pays more taxes than he owes. I’d think people would want me to follow the law and pay only what the tax code requires.”

And during an ABC News interview, these were his exact words:

“I don’t pay more than are legally due and frankly if I had paid more than are legally due I don’t think I’d be qualified to become president.”

In September, the Romneys’ 2011 tax return was released. Lo and behold … the Romneys overpaid their Federal taxes, FOR POLITICAL PURPOSES, to ensure he could still say that he always paid at least 13%. His overpayment apparently disqualifies him to become President, according to Mr. Romney.

Thanks Mittie.

Poor Willard Mitt Romney – he can’t seem to comply with his own words, no matter how hard he tries. He breaks his word in order to keep his word.

Not surprising really, since it’s difficult even for Mr. Romney to keep track of his words about his current opinion on a great variety to topics.

wbelly

I was disappointed to see the discussion eliminate an inclusion of the Libertarian candidate, Gary Johnson from the discussion. There is a third person running for the Presidency!! Are there not libertarian efforts on campuses voting for Johnson? If the college community really wants to make a stand for their future, you need to look at what this man offers.

Human898

My personal opinion? Most students see libertarianism for what it is, another party wanting to be free to promote what it thinks is good and block anyone that gets in the way of that.

Nothing new there and most people are for liberty, their own, but intelligent people realize they also live in a society of people and the general health of that society affects their own health, not unlike how most or all parts of the human body work toward keeping the other parts in operation.

Sure it can work without an arm or a leg, but not as efficiently or as designed and if blood is all pooled in a foot or a hand, all the other parts of the body are starved while the place the blood is pooled in has more than it can use and because circulation is needed to keep the whole body alive, the body dies when most parts are choked off even if one part has far more than it can use. When the body dies, not only those parts starved for blood die, so do those parts that have an overabundance.

wbelly

I was disappointed that the discussion did not include any inclusion of the third party candidate running for the Presidency, Gary Johnson. Are there no students on college campuses looking at this man for the office? If the college community really wants to make a stand for their future, then the students should be giving the Libertarian Party a look.

JGC

I have to wonder if liberalism and openness to thinking is a virtue of the collegiate world anymore. Are they not thinking about other political candidacies because they are too involved in college sports, or because they are too worried about their grade for life, or something else?

ttajtt

founding, sounds like Buy out of vote$, less Gov. go out and Vote talk (for jobs…) of what was taut, doughnated.

1-6th, maybe 8th. starts at six of age, goes all year for like the eight years. PTA and home/student/teacher rules.

raichelmann

I can’t believe what I’m hearing on this program. Are these really college students? The analysis and ideas expressed (especially by the Romney supporters) are so simplistic and limited it seems they haven’t learned enough to be admitted to the average high school, never mind college. The idea that Romney’s policies would help small business is ludicrous! The editor who lamented her father’s business being in trouble because banks won’t help him (presumably by making loans at favorable terms) is so misguided in her analysis – that is not an issue of government hurting small business; it’s an issue of BIG BUSINESS hurting small business! I’ve made a point over the last several year of asking business owners who were going out of business why they were down, specifically, what government regulations were driving them out of business. In variably they respond (after looking at like I have three heads) that they can’t compete with the big box stores (one example in my home town, a family owned stationary store that has operated for more than 100 years told me it was Staples – remember them, a Romney “success” story? – that drove them out of business). The idea that Romney’s business experience is anything but remotely, minimally relevant to running the country is absurd, especially the specific kind of businesses he was involved with. You can’t govern by spreadsheet! Don’t these students understand that we live in a capitalistic democracy? The president just doesn’t have the power that they imagine he has to influence the economy and “create jobs” – Romney/Ryan policies would end up in even greater job losses because of all of the federal budget cuts that they advocate (which would trickle down to cuts in federal aid to state and local governments) would cause millions of public jobs to be eliminated and it would take years, if not decades to create enough public sector jobs to get all those people back to work. I’ll take a risk here and use a metaphor in hopes that high schools and colleges are still at least teaching students what a metaphor is; steering an aircraft carrier takes time. The Obama administration inherited a mess worse than anything this country has seen in over a century and an economy about to collapse into a state worse than what brought on the great depression, and to expect him to fix it in 4 years, especially when the entire opposition party (in addition to most of the business community) vowed from day one that their sole priority was to obstruct any effort he made, is so naive that it is hard to believe any adult – never mind a college educated person – could be so clueless as to hold that position. To be disappointed in the accomplishments of the Obama administration is understandable, but to think that turning over the leadership of this country to Mitt Romney, a man who believes reverting to the misguided policies that created that mess will fix the economy borders on insanity. Add to that the man’s hypocrisy and total lack of trustworthiness (can anyone tell me what Mitt Romney really believes or stands for?) the idea that any supposedly intelligent person could support him for any elected position is so mind boggling that I truly fear for the future of humankind.

http://www.facebook.com/nichole.m.denlinger Nickie Oliver

I’m a 25 year old nontraditional college student in Columbus, Ohio. No one has mentioned that Gov. Romney is a coward who used his family’s wealth and his religion to dodge the draft in his youth. My husband is a soldier in the U.S. Army. While there are many issues that I feel extremely passionate about, when it boils down to it, I’m going to vote for the candidate with the best foreign policy. The question for me is, “Who values the lives of our servicemen and women the most?” I believe President Obama will avoid sacrificing American lives whenever possible and cares for and values our veterans returning from war.

WorriedfortheCountry

Coward? Really? A bit over the top, don’t you think.

Thank you for your husband’s service. You are too young to remember Ronald Reagan but the left painted him as a war monger. Nothing could be further from the truth. His philosophy was peace through strength and his policies were successful in ending the cold war. Romney is advocating the same peace through strength policies of Reagan. Also, the military overwhelmingly supports Governor Romney. It is hard to predict the future but I believe both Obama and Romney will do their best to avoid war.
- Steve__T
  
  Not over the top she called just the way she sees it and shes not blind as you are or as manipulative.
- Human898
  
  Overwhelmingly?
  �
  http://www.kpbs.org/news/2012/nov/01/military-dating-website-poll-shows-single-romney/
- Human898
  
  Military support for Obama:
  
  http://www.barackobama.com/veterans
  
  http://www.armytimes.com/news/2012/09/military-army-former-ranger-stumps-obama-dnc-090612/
  
  http://www.republicansforobama.org/node/10288
  
  http://www.theroot.com/buzz/former-powell-chief-staff-gop-full-racists
  
  http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-505263_162-57539893/colin-powell-endorses-barack-obama-for-president/
  - William
    
    ” All service members and veterans deserve four more years of a president who has their back,” Crow said.”
    
    Obama did not “have the back” of those people that got killed in Libya.
    - Human898
      
      According to whom and what final evidence?
      
      http://www.inquisitr.com/376608/condoleezza-rice-backs-obama-on-libya-response-says-we-dont-have-all-the-pieces/
      
      Did this president have the back of these people?
      
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrorist_attacks_on_U.S._diplomatic_facilities
      
      How about the Americans killed in Iraq? You seem to defy all the links provided that disagree with your opinion.
- Mike_Card
  
  Willard acted absolutely cowardly. He will exercise no hesitance whatsoever to wage war with other peoples’ children–he’s already said so. And no, I’m not giving you any cites–google them yourself.
William

How do you explain Obama’s actions with regard to the terrorist attack in Libya?
- Human898
  
  Where were you and others attacking presidents when these other terrorist attacks occurred?
  
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrorist_attacks_on_U.S._diplomatic_facilities
  - William
    
    Which of those attacks did the President lie to the American people has to the cause of the attack?
    - Human898
      
      When was there a trial that convicted someone of what you have? What evidence was Mr. Romney using when he made a comment about the incident? Where were you, Mr. Romney and others calling for an investigation of any one of those incidents? Oh yes, there was a Republican in office and no election a month and a half away, right?
- JGC
  
  Oh Libya, Libya, Libya…I am waiting, like most Americans, for the definitive Congressman Daryl Issa panel on the Libyan question. Congressman Issa has had a good track record of bringing to light the dark corners of a variety of topics (except maybe to those that involved arson in his own dark past).

Greg Squires

As a college student and Green Party supporter, I find I have mixed feelings on the show today. I think one perspective that is highly ignored is for young people to have information and education in what it means to study the job market before even attending college. Many people have a vague idea of what they truly want out of their after-college experience, the large majority are chasing money. If you have no plan or perspective of what and where your job placement will happen, you are just adding to the debt that seems to be all the fault of some omnipresent administration.

People will say that I am a fool hardy person for saying this, but it is the truth, if you are targeting a job that will not be present and in demand in your immediate area within 4-6 years, than your post-graduation will be a struggle. Granted many colleges have recruiting programs, they often fall short of actually helping graduates realize their full use of their degree. There, is where the problem for many graduates is that there are not enough jobs specific enough to just one degree, at entry level and can compensate well enough to pay for our loans.

Romney nor Obama, can change the means by which our economy and culture is changing, especially not in 4-8 years. Marketing has become more of an activity, than a function. Manufacturing has fallen by the way side due to CONSUMERS’ demands for cheaper product, more reliable services and better quality materials. Only we, the consumer, worker and voter can change that. Instead of Villainizing each other over being Democratic or Republican, charging half truth and false claims over which candidates have done what, remember that 90% of the actions of our government take place in the hands of individuals that are far below the president or potential president.

Look at out current administration’s cabinet, look at our former administration’s cabinet, look at Romney’s potential cabinet, if you have no idea or choose to not research the open book history of these people you have failed as an intelligent member of our society Stop pleading for the problems of America to be solved by one man or woman and realize the consensus of all of our needs are being fought for by those that ignore the two main parties and challenge that Lobbying should be illegal, then maybe we can start to find new structure in the nation my generation has to carry the ball in.

Steve__T

Well said Greg, I hope wish and pray their are more who understand our Nation as you do, this two party fighting is driving us farther apart instead of uniting us on our common goals.

http://profile.yahoo.com/W4XX6WFQ6JVMLTZVJ2M4TAXICM Pat

http://www.westernjournalism.com/teenager-gives-report-cards-to-obama-and-romney/?utm_source=Western+Journalism&utm_campaign=d689e7efc2-RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN&utm_medium=email
This young lady is smarter than those college kids you had on your program today. They could learn a thing or two about the truth in this election just by watching and listening to a 13 year old.

Human898

Sad to see a 13 year old used to read a script put up by a political party.

See what John McCain called the 2002 Olympics.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6LVKJjA_VxU

McCain lost to GW Bush in 2000, Mitt Romney lost to John McCain in 2008
Steve__T

Somebody should be ashamed to actually have a child read a script and act as if she personally was cumming off the top of her head with all she said. Don’t we have child labor laws against this?

Sad truly sad
- harverdphd
  
  you’re naughty
  - Steve__T
    
    typo

Ashley Foley

This forum is so awesome and I’m truly inspired by some of the posts on here. We must continue to go forward as a nation and Obama is the man for that job. We need to focus on the future and realize that this isn’t 1950 and the policies of yesteryear are no more. Please all, know the facts before casting your vote on Tuesday. �
I, a 31 year old woman, refuse to allow a rich, gray-faced man tell me what I can and cannot not do not only to my body but in my everyday decisions and career.As one woman said in this thread, Be clear about ONE THING—NOTHING is more important than your civil liberties. It goes beyond ANY SALARY you can get. And don’t think that mainstream, conservative Republicans won’t make the changes to the progress women have made. You have been warned. She is absolutely correct. Peace to all! #forward2012

pete18

Does that mean you would have never voted for Ted Kennedy, also a rich, gray-faced man?
- harverdphd
  
  doh!
- Human898
  
  Kennedy voted for taxes on rich people like himself. Mitt Romney?
  - pete18
    
    Then I guess Ashley should be discussing the tax policies of those she won’t support rather than their income or the saturation of their skin color, which obviously has nothing to do with her decisions.
    - Human898
      
      How about you pete? What was your response talking about? No need to get angry pete, just educate yourself.

Human898

College students might also study the backgrounds of the nation’s presidents and discover what the backgrounds of those presidents consistently considered the best in history were as opposed to those considered some of the worst in history.

I noted a lot of discussion about what Mr. Romney will do based on his business background, while a lot of effort is made to try to keep what sort of shape the first president in this nation’s history to have an MBA degree left the economy in after 8 years.

WorriedfortheCountry

George Washington was the wealthiest President in real terms.

You misinterpret the emphasis on Mr. Romney’s business background. Mr. Romney has a successful record in leadership of enterprises in the private and public sector. His business experience is important because he understand how government regulation can both hinder and help job creation and economic growth. The nature of his business (both as a consultant and in private equity) gave him visibility in a diverse sample of businesses.
- Human898
  
  Mr. Romney likes to take full credit and say things that people involved end up having to come out in public and set the record straight.
  
  Health care reform in Massachusetts was introduced by Democrats. Romney added to it then asked Democrats to approve it. The way he puts it, he was suggesting something no one in Masschusetts wanted and he got it through against a tough Democratic legislature.
  
  Binders on Women?   Not his request, but a request from a women’s group. Why didn’t Romney know any qualified women off the top of his head?
  
  Bain Capital? When did Romney officially leave? Why not at least equal his father’s lead in release of tax returns? What’s to hide?
  
  Jeep jobs moving to China?   Why did Fiat/Chrysler head have to e-mail his employees to assure them this contention was not accurate?
  
  2002 Olympics?   Don’t take my word for it, hear how John McCain, the guy that beat Romney for the 2008 GOP nomination characterize Mr. Romney’s purported “rescue” of those games.
  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6LVKJjA_VxU
  
  BTW, I was a Republican, I grew up in a Republican family, I am a business owner. I was taught that a business is also part of a community and that the community’s health affects the health of my business, I also understand times change and some people are not so honest or virtuous and they will capitalize any way they can, from parents in places like India selling their daughters into prostitution for money to GWB’s “Kenny Boy” Lay selling his employees down the tubes so Ken Lay could live the good life or people like Bernie Madoff. All “business people” with “business experience”.
  
  George Washington also led this nation in a war and helped to found a nation that was opposed by that war to monarchy and the power and influence of wealth over the common man.
  
  Mr. Romney has shown his biggest care is his personal wealth and power.
  - WorriedfortheCountry
    
    “Mr. Romney has shown his biggest care is his personal wealth and power.”
    
    Mr. Romney would be a billionaire like his business partners if he didn’t leave his business and enter public service. All you offer is tripe.
    - Human898
      
      As people can see, Romney is taking credit where credit is not due, yet you call pointing that out “tripe”
      
      Romney’s “public service” has amounted to how many years and what’s his “profession” now? What has it been since deciding to not run for another term as governor of Massachusetts?
      
      In 2008 Romney lost the nomination to the guy that lost the nomination in 2000 and they both lost to Barack Obama. Now Romney is trying to get someone to believe he has more “presidential experience” than the guy that beat the guy that beat him and was handed an economic disaster from the guy that beat McCain in 2000 who then beat Romney in 2008.
      
      Romney has only his “I will”, no less than Obama did in 2008. For those that think Obama was not as good as he promised to be, how do they believe the guy that lost to the guy that lost to Obama is going to do better? Because he says “I will” do this, “I will” do that?
    - WorriedfortheCountry
      
      McCain retracted his attacks on Romney and called it ‘politics’. McCain now endorses Romney as a clear choice for President.
    - Human898
      
      Yes, have you seen what Colin Powell has done? How about what Condelezza Rice has said regarding the Benghazi obsession?
      
      Can you offer evidence that McCain retracted his comments about the Olympics? McCain endorsed GWB, even after robo calls in South Carolina.
      
      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kFPddnQOhME
  - Mike_Card
    
    This is a particularly insightful and informative comment. Thank you for posting it.
  - JGC
    
    I am disgusted that Romney tried to throw a Chinese curveball about purported domestic manufacturing jobs being thrown overseas, when every player involved says that is not the case; and yet the Romney campaign stands by their false and misleading Ohio cable advertisement.

Human898

Students might also be interested in studying more than simply how to become wealthy and something about the character of the founders of this nation and what their concerns were with regard to the character of humans and the influence and power of wealth and the wealthy with regard to their use of wealth to bribe and maintain their own wealth and artbitrary power.

“I cannot help commending the zeal that appears in my countrymen against the power of a King or a House of Lords. I concur with them in all their prejudices against hereditary titles, honour and power. History is little else than a recital of the follies and vices of kings and noblemen, and it is because I dread so much from them, that I wish to exclude them forever from Pennsylvania, for notwithstanding our government has been called a simple democracy, I maintain, that a foundation is laid in it for the most complete aristocracy that ever existed in the world.”

“In order to prove this assertion, I shall premise two propositions, which have never been controverted: First, where there is wealth, there will be power; and, secondly, the rich have always been an over-match for the poor in all contests for power.”

“These truths being admitted, I desire to know what can prevent our single representation being filled, in the course of a few years, with a majority of rich men? Say not, the people will not choose such men to represent them. The influence of wealth at elections is irresistible. It has been seen and felt in Pennsylvania, and I am obliged in justice to my subject to say, that there are poor men among us as prepared to be influenced, as the rich are prepared to influence them. The fault must be laid in both cases upon human nature. The consequence of a majority of rich men getting into the legislature is plain. Their wealth will administer fuel to the love of arbitrary power that is common to all men. The present Assembly have furnished them with precedents for breaking the Constitution. Farewell now to annual elections Public emergencies will sanctify the most daring measures. The clamours of their constituents will be silenced with offices, bribes or punishments. An aristocracy will be established, and Pennsylvania will be inhabited like most of the countries in Europe, with only two sorts of animals, tyrants and slaves.”

-Benjamin Rush – 1777 – Bicameralism

http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/

Rush is speaking about how to deal with the influence of wealth in the Pennsylvania legislature and the use of several chambers to mitigate that influence, but it recognizes the overall influence of wealth in all aspects of our lives. There is less wrong with wealth itself than there is with the way some people use or abuse it or seek to obtain and keep it.

Michael Shea

umm audio not working

listener111

These students (even the ones for Obama) keep saying that Romney will
create new jobs. But his record as governor proves that he can’t
deliver on this promise. Remember that besides being a businessman,
Romney was governor of Massachusetts. As a Massachusetts resident, I
heard all the promises Romney made when running for governor: “I know
how to make new jobs, I know how to attract business to our state,” all
the same things he is saying now. And yet, he didn’t succeed. When he
left office as governor, Massachusetts was 47th in the country in job
growth. Wages dropped 5% in his first two years. He raised all kinds
of fees on middle class citizens in lieu of taxes. Romney is now
polling at 20-30 points behind Obama in Massachusetts, the only state
that has actually experienced his leadership.

See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PlnaYOv0DZY

pete18

Unemployment dropped a full point under Romney while he was governor. Unemployment under Obama hasn’t budged. Seems to me the comparison clearly favors Romney.

The fact (talking point) that Obama is ahead in Massachusetts the state where Romney is best known is demonstrative of nothing. Massachusetts
almost never votes for Republicans for President, it is genetically predisposed to pull the Democratic lever.
- BLewis6
  
  pete18, where have you been? The unemployment rate peaked at around 10.3% under Obama and is now down to 7%. Here, see for yourself: http://www.gallup.com/poll/125639/Gallup-Daily-Workforce.aspx. He came into office near the beginning of a recession and the economy is rebounding. I have plenty to criticize Obama about, but I don’t have to make up or lie about his record to oppose him.
  - Human898
    
    You’re not alone and most Obama supporters will admit Mr. Obama is not perfect, nor was he ever and if we really thought about it, where is there a comparison to what Mr. Obama was handed and what he has had to deal with in terms of depth of recession and how long it should take to recover from and to what strength. On September 18, 2008, the Wall Street Journal headline and article under it read “Worst Crisis Since 30′s, No End Yet in Sight”. If one reads the article through, one of the predictions for what followed was “painfully slow economy growth”
  - pete18
    
    I’ve been right here. The unemployment rate was 7.8% when Obama took office, it’s still 7.8%. Them’s the facts, I’ve made nothing up.
    - BLewis6
      
      I just linked to show you it’s lower now. Also, you’re completely ignoring the depths of the recession. Yes, when Obama took office, unemployment was at 7.8% and rising. Nine months later, the trend peaked and reversed. It’s difficult to reverse a recession immediately upon entering office. No one else has ever done it, especially a recession that is the largest since the Great Depression. Now, since it peaked at 10.3%, it’s been going down ever since. Now it stands at around 7% and the trend is going down. Whoever takes office January of next year will have an unemployment rate that is declining despite any and all plans he has for addressing the economy. Nine months later, the unemployment rate will likely be lower than when they took office regardless what steps they take. This is how economic policy works. You should do a little research and a little thinking for yourself.
    - pete18
      
      Now that I’ve had some time to think for myself, thanks to your sage advice, I realize that I was indeed wrong about the unemployment number. It hasn’t stood still, it’s gone UP.
      Now at 7.9% http://www.cnbc.com/id/49657529
    - Human898
      
      Please educate yourself pete or stop acting ignorant of what you know hurts the partial truths you’re trying to push.
      
      http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-06-26/one-president-s-economic-legacy-is-his-successor-s-burden.html
    - pete18
      
      I didn’t realize that the posting of op-eds by economists who agree with one’s position is an indicator of being more informed.
    - Human898
      
      And what do you have to offer Pete, your informed “opinion” as an indicator?
- Human898
  
  You might be interested in this pete18
  
  http://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/data-chart-center/Documents/20120229_EssentialEcon.PDF
SomMom

I also live in Massachusetts — voters elsewhere need to realize that there’s a reason we’re not supporting Romney in his bid for president, and never have.
WorriedfortheCountry

Romney left office with 4.7% unemployment. That is full employment by economic standards. I think Mr. Obama would trade that record with Mr. Romney any day of the week.
- Human898
  
  Yes and one of the students this afternoon said that gasoline prices were below $2.00 when Obama took office, but she conveniently or mistakenly failed to mention why they were that price and what they were in July of 2008. Romney and his supporters appear to have a nagging problem with the whole truth, especially when it totally changes the portrait of the partial truths they seem so fond of puttting forth, leaving out the most important details.
  
  http://www.randomuseless.info/gasprice/gasprice.html
  
  Romney in Massachusetts
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Governorship_of_Mitt_Romney

SomMom

To Pete18:
If Romney HAD been so wonderful for our state, the majority of Mass. residents would be supporting him. After all, the majority voted him into office as governor even though he was Republican. Clearly we were not happy with his performance as governor. And we know that he’s not to be trusted, as he’s shown this fall by switching positions on every major issue, exactly as he did for us. Just watch Romney’s debate with Ted Kennedy on youtube.

WorriedfortheCountry

Romney was a good Gov. He turned around a fiscal crisis into a robut rainy day fund by streamlining governemnt without cutting services. Toward the end of the Romney’s tenure (after he announced he wasn’t running) the Globe and the Dem partisans turned on him with false attacks. He never responded and that is why his numbers went down. When the Dems were working with him on problems they praised him as a hard worker.
- Human898
  
  People might be interested in reading more detail about Mr. Romney’s “success” as governor and why Massachusetts ended a string of Republican governorships with Romney.
  
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Governorship_of_Mitt_Romney
William

Why did you guys keep voting Ted Kennedy back into office?
- harverdphd
  
  See above
harverdphd

Look at it this way: your judgement was wrong then, it’s probably still wrong. Face it: your state is chaotic.
pete18

As I said before, Massachusetts voters think differently about who they vote for governor and President. For whatever reason they almost never vote for Republicans for President.

If switching positions and having a failed record was truely your measuring stick then Obama would be a glowing toxic waste dump that you wouldn’t go near with a three-layered hazmat suit. No matter how bad Romney was in those areas he would still be a clean, green recyclable fruit land in comparison.
- Human898
  
  Why do you all totally ignore what Obama was handed and how is it you know how long what Obama was handed should take to recover from when the only thing worse was the Great Depression?
  - pete18
    
    That comparison makes Obama even MORE unimpressive. The unemployment rate was
    24.9% when FDR took office in 1933 and it was down to 14.3 % at the end of his first term. Obama, handed an economy, which according to you, was better than the great depression, hasn’t moved the dial AT ALL. But he has managed to increase the debt by 4.9 trillion dollars (more in four years than Bush did in eight). Now that’s a record of accomplishment.
    - BLewis6
      
      pete18, are you really as uninformed as you seem or are you simply pretending in order to win an argument? Again I point to trends. How can you blame Obama for not immediately stopping a trend that has been moving along for over 30 years? The debt continues to rise dramatically for a variety of reasons, including dramatic defense spending over the last 30 years, a recession that results in less tax revenue, spending on two wars, tax cuts over the last 30 years that have decreased tax revenue, health care costs that have risen dramatically over the last 30 years, etc. Obama doesn’t control any of these trends/expenditures. The recession began before he took office. Military spending had increased prior to him taking office. The two wars began prior to him taking office. The Reagan-era and Bush-era tax breaks took place prior to Obama’s term. Health care costs have been increasing since long before Obama’s term. Again, you really ought to do a little research. Either that or stop pretending you’re so ignorant.
    - Human898
      
      So you would agree with FDR’s approach to putting people back to work? Did FDR face an opposition in Congress that stated their “Top Priority” was not to recover from the Great Depression, but to ensure FDR did not get re-elected? Plus why do you also not talk about the recessions within the Great Depression?
    - pete18
      
      No, I don’t agree with FDR’s approach but I’m just pointing out the obvious that if we are measuring a President’s affect on an economy and Obama’s supporters keep holding up the idea that poor Obama was
      the first President in history outside of FDR to face less than ideal circumstances as President (bad economy, opposition party), and that we shouldn’t have expected him to be able to do much but spend four years blaming ATM machines and President Bush, then it’s fair to compare him to Roosevelt’s accomplishments in the first term. And while the depression went through more dips after 1937, the unemployment rate never went back to 24.9%. The highest it got to was 19% in 1938, horrible but still an improvement from where Roosevelt started.
      
      I think the FDR comparison over unemployment renders the “worst economy since the depression ” excuse rather moot.
      
      Also, as I’m sure you haven’t forgotten, Obama had Democrat majorities for his first two years and pushed through all the major programs that he wanted.

harverdphd

See above.

harverdphd

I love disqus

WorriedfortheCountry

Jay Carney hasn’t held a full press briefing since October 12th.

So much for transparency.

harverdphd

Welcome Cory to the dark side

jimino

Here’s what college students and everyone else with the ability to read a graph and understand statistics should know about how the economic policies of the Republican party have worked, and will continue to work, to destroy the working and middle class at the expense of corporate profits:

http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/PRS85006173

http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/graph/?g=QQ

BLewis6

Could they have at least found some young people that actually know something about politics, policy, the economy, the budget deficit/debt, etc.? I heard a lot of rhetoric from both campaigns. Even the decision to choose neither was simply based on the rhetoric from both campaigns. They took Romney’s attacks on Obama seriously and Obama’s attacks on Romney seriously, but there was no real understanding about any of it. There was no concern with fact checking anything. Next time, don’t go to those running student newspapers to find those knowledgeable about politics.

Mike_Card

And what was the reasoning behind selecting J-students in so-called swing states? It’s not like kids there are any more insightful than college students anywhere else.
- BLewis6
  
  True. Most college students, along with most Americans, don’t know jack about politics or anything else important in life. However, some students do know a thing or two. The goal should be to find them and interview them, rather than those with a mouthpiece where they can spout their ignorance in print.
Human898

I have to implicate myself to say this, but have you taken a look at this board and others like it all over the internet?

I would say the students sounded no less informed or misinformed than a lot of what one sees here, but as with some of the students, there are some people here who offer more than just the latest circulated e-mail talking points and are able to articulate they understand what they are talking about and back it up with some level of credible evidence. Others seem to be throwing mud and misinformation (partial truths if not falsehoods) as furiously as they can, hoping it might stick to a few people.
http://profile.yahoo.com/JXSANCUDPIKQSPID5KT2U4XK5Y TF

Maybe having the college journos interview poly-sci or business-school majors would have given a fuller picture of what collegians think.

http://profile.yahoo.com/XPRH3PBJGPO6VPIBH3QIT6MY4Q Jerry

Romney’s supporters even need to be fact checked: “Gillespie said the “number of single-mother families living in poverty” is now the highest “in recorded history.” But poverty statistics date only to 1959, and the poverty rate for single mothers — which is a better indicator than the total number — is still relatively low, despite a recent rise. It was 31.6 percent in 2010, the 37th highest rate in 52 years. The highest rate was 42.9 percent in 1962.He also said there has been a 14 percent increase in the number of single mothers living in poverty under Obama, relying again on the number rather than the poverty rate. The rate has increased 2.9 percentage points under Obama. By comparison, the rate rose 3.3 percentage points under Bush.”

http://pulse.yahoo.com/_W4XJB2YWFAQ6PPK4XKX55ZDGVU s-black

JOB CREATOR

You know I have worked in private industry for 25 years and I have never thought to measure the performance of any company I have worked for by counting the number of jobs created in a given period.

According to Romney I am a job creator. I know how to create jobs. I really do not. If sales go up and we absolutely need someone to fill a gap then we will consider hiring someone. But first we make sure that someone already working for the company cant do that job in addition to their own. We make sure that the customers really want whatever it is done.

The rest of the time good and bad we are always lookinig to cut jobs. Every BOD meeting the first thing on the list is our staffing optimized? We are never happier than when sales are uneffected by the laying off of a few employees. This is my job. If you own a business this is your job too. I am not evil and neither are you for doing what has to be done to improve profits.

Now…GOVERNMENT DOESNT CREATE JOBS is a great bumper sticker but it isnt true…not even a little. Our customers run the entire spectrum of personal income…we have some guys that are filthy rich and others that merely make a living…Give the people at the top of the heap a tax break and I promise you I will not see them more or less than I already have been. Give the guys in the middle and down that same break and I will likely have to hire some help from the volume we will pick up. Demand creates jobs. Not me. Disposable income in THE RIGHT HANDS leads to demand.

Call it a tax break or call it infrastructure spending or stimulus….But every dollar you send floating to the top will remain there….The dollars that stay a little closer to the ground will eventually cause me and you to hire someone.

Please dont be fooled again by the trickle down or the notion that Romney “knows the economy” his knowledge of MICROECONOMICS is no greater than yours or the Presidents. The difference is that the president is more likely to give the money to the RIGHT HANDS…

vote

WorriedfortheCountry

The average government spending per family in poverty in 2011 was $61,194 . Something isn’t working to create that demand.
- hennorama
  
  Don’t fall for this deliberately misleading “statistic”, which is further proof that Mark Twain was right in saying “There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.”
  
  It is meant to convey the impression that every family living below the poverty line gets $61,194 annually from “the government.” This is obviously untrue.
  
  Worried, you notably fail to cite a source, per your habit. I suspect you got this figure from “THE BLOG” in the Weekly Standard (Headline: Over $60,000 in Welfare Spent Per Household in Poverty). At least the Weekly Standard blog, unlike yourself, uses the following disclaimer:
  
  “To be clear, not all households living below the poverty line receive 61,194 worth of assistance per year. After all, many above the poverty line also receive benefits from social welfare programs (e.g. pell grants).”
  
  Source:http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/over-60000-welfare-spentper-household-poverty_657889.html
  
  “Many above the poverty line…” perhaps many of the “47 million Americans now on ‘food stamps’ ” Mr. Romney loves to go on and on about?
  
  Do those “researchers,” led by Sen. Jeff Sessions, use the figure of 47 million for their analysis? Not by a LONG shot. They use ONLY the number of households with incomes “below the poverty line” in 2011 – 16,807,795. Perhaps just a tad misleading, no?
  
  The data used to compile this figure are indeed from reliable sources, but the use of the term “welfare” is deliberately misleading. The way these particular Republicans use this term expands it to include health programs, “STATE contributions to Federal Welfare” (whatever this means), direct cash aid, food assistance, housing and social services, and “Other” (again, whatever that means).
  
  Do they cite or use the total number of households who receive one or more of these types of assistance? Once again, NO they do not.
  
  How does the general populace perceive of the word “welfare?” They perceive of it as the cash assistance and/or other basic assistance provided to the needy, mostly the way Merriam Webster’s online dictionary defines it:
  
  “Definition of WELFARE
  2a : aid in the form of money or necessities for those in need”
  
  Again, these Republicans are using data to deliberately mislead in order to create a false impression. Don’t fall for it.
  - Human898
    
    I’d be interested to see how they define “promote the general welfare”, one of the charges laid out in the Preamble of the Constitution of the United States. I see it as meaning to do what is necessary to promote the general welfare as in do things like help those who need temporary assistance when the economy has been devastated by irresponsible behavior. greater mass of people make up the larger cumulative sum of buying power in small transactions than the few with large transactions.
    
    While the wealthy few possess a large portion of the world or nation’s wealth, it is only as good as it can be liquidated (sold) and if one spends all their wealth they are no longer wealthy. The masses of population only need spend a little per capita to create a huge cumulative sum, which the wealthy few cannot match without spending a great deal more per capita.
    - hennorama
      
      Thank you for your response and your perspective.
      
      I must admit I never even considered the use of the word “welfare” in regard to the Constitution’s Preamble, and appreciate you bringing it up for consideration.
      
      I suspect that you would get considerable disagreement with your interpretation, however. Most will view the term “general welfare” as meaning the welfare of the group and not of the individual, especially as it is “We the people” who are “speaking” in the Preamble.
      
      Regardless, I respect your views and appreciate the expansion of ideas that you provide.
      
      Thanks again for your response.
    - Human898
      
      I respect your views as well hennorama, but I may have not expressed my thoughts well enough as I fear you mistook my interpretation of “general welfare” to mean something other than welfare of the group. Welfare of the group or the whole is exactly what I meant. The healthier the “group” the healthier the individual. I meant to ask whether some who seem to believe the world could not exist without their type, see the same. “We the people” have more power than “we the wealthy”, but some of “we the people” can be influenced (bribed) by “we the wealthy” to place “we the wealthy” above “we the people”. The general welfare is directed toward “we the people”, not “we the wealthy”, “we the poor”, we the anything….aside from “we the people” or the whole of society, if not of humanity.
      
      Very best to you!
- ttajtt
  
  more then i make.
- Human898
  
  You might be interested to see who’s paying the least into the system, who’s benefitting most.
  
  http://taxfoundation.org/sites/taxfoundation.org/files/docs/non_payers_large.png
  
  http://taxfoundation.org/sites/taxfoundation.org/files/docs/eitc_2010_large.png
  
  http://247wallst.com/2012/08/03/states-that-get-the-most-federal-money/2/
Human898

Very well said:

If we work in trade for something, be it money, a good or a service, we are not just employed or an employee, we are a consumer and customer. The term “money in circulation” means something, just like the blood circulation in our circulatory systems feeding that which feeds the blood. It’s interdependency.   Our whole bodies will die if all our blood pools in one spot offering more than that location can use, choking off the other parts which support one another.

It’s not about trickle in any one direction it’s about transactions and trade, circulation and recirculation. Also, as you pointed out there is value expenditure (borrowing too) and dead end expenditure.   If one spends (or borrows money) to buy tools and do something that grows value exponentially it is different than someone who spends (or borrows) to go out and purchase beer which they then literally piss away.

Lastly, it takes much longer to recover from being critically injured in a head on collision than it does from falling and scraping one’s knee.   The critical care costs money, artifical life support, medicines and procedures are needed to keep the patient alive until their body heals enough to take over the remainder of the healing process without additional outside aid.

How economists, much less people on the street think or claim to know where our economy should be and to what level of strength at this moment in time or in the last several years (when the rhetoric began) is a mystery considering so many of the same people said they didn’t see the “Great Recession” coming, nor, even for those that did, could not stop it and now discuss the economy as if year one for the U.S. began like a game of Monopoly and Barack Obama started with the same amount of cash everyone else had and lost most of it when the reality is, Mr. Obama took over for a player that had lost most of his money and property in an ongoing game of Monopoly.   Mr. Obama lost even more because of the circumstances left to him, but slowly and steadily, even with the other players trying to trip him up, has made some positive motion, even if not in all things and even with some setbacks.

It’s not time to pull the plug on the head-on collision patient just because they’re not recoverying fast enough, even if there is no doubt they are recoverying.   In this instant gratification world we live in, there are some things that cannot be solved instantly. In the grand scheme of things, four years is very little time and most people, including college students and grads, can remember four years earlier quite well, even if some would like to forget or not talk about it because of what four years ago today looked like with regard to this nation’s economy and who was in the White House at the time.

Timothy Kurtz

URGHH Why can I not hear the podcast of this yet?

KNotroh

This week Buisnessweek.com posted an article discussing how “Harbus” the school newspaper for the Harvard’s MBA program recently polled currently enrolled students within the MBA program and found they leaned toward Obama. Given this is Romney’s Alma Mater and the cornerstone to his business credentials attained within academia one would assume this to be the opposite. The article provides avg salary and career placement post grad from it’s alumni association. These statistics would signify An assertion of selflessness in regard to tax rate and self-interest. Another discussion point can be found within being aware to report dividends, growth, and profits for shareholders these future leaders are aware less sanctions and government within the markets is favorable. Thoughts? enrollhttp://www.businessweek.com/aerticles/2012-10-30/harvard-business-students-are-in-obamas-corner-dot-huh

Terrence Lynch

Here in the St Louis area, your program does not air until 8pm central. Just finished listening to your college student guests and callers. No one pointed out that Obama has been up against the opposition Republican party, members of which have publicly proclaimed that their goal is ensure that Obama is a one-term president. How much legislation that might have moved the economy along has been held up in the Republican controlled house? And how much opposition to Obama is simply veiled racism? I take solace in the knowledge that whatever the outcome of this election, the demographics of the US are changing and the Republican party and its entitled white male members will soon go the way of the dinosaurs

JGC

Except that Jeb Bush is waiting in the wings to return to the Republican Party as their Great White 2016 Hope who will garnish some of the minority vote, just enough, to bring us a President Bush III…

Ray in VT

Not really anything in this that is a surprise to me, but it was interesting to watch. The Governor does make it entirely clear somewhere are 3:20, I think, that he supports a societal prohibition of abortion. It also has some interesting tidbits about the Mormon faith.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TxMD02zU9SE

cc1972

I don’t understand this emphasis on Rommey’s business experience. You can segment businesses in any number of ways, but when it comes to Romney, I think it is useful to use two categories – those that are engaged in value creation/innovation and those that are engaged in value recapture. Romney was engaged in value recapture.

Value creators start a business based on a new idea. As an example – You are a software engineer and you recognize am unmet need. You put together some code and the thing takes off. You hire a bunch of engineers, some marketing folks and whatever else you need… good for you AND the economy.

Fast forward 10-20 years and you have grown to 100+ employees and the business is humming along. You hit a little setback-One of your employees kids’ got leukemia and a couple of the folks that have been there from day 1 had heart attacks. The premiums are through the roof but you are going to do whatever you need to make sure your people are taken care of…they helped you get where you are after all.

Out of nowhere, Bain Capital comes along and offers you $50 million for the business. You’re in your late 50′s and no kids who want to take it over so you sell thinking it’s a win-win.

Bain comes in and triples employees contributions to their health care, d/c’s matching to 401k’s and lays off 70 of your employees, sending the bulk of development to Mumbai. Within 3 years, your company is sold to Google for $400 million. Good for Bain but disaster for the economy.

Value recapture is easy – you have a huge universe of projects to pick from and even if you don’t pick the top firm to invest in, you’re still going to make a good buck…a long as you had the money to invest in the first place. Value creation is much, much riskier and more difficult…and is much better for the economy.

Applying Romney’s value recapture experience may lead to short-term gains in terms of fiscal spending, but rest assured there will be a whopping price to pay for under investment in things like education and research in the long-term.

Dee

“Absolutely Obama” is my college age students response,�
too. In addition, they feel he is on their wave length and recognize their age related challenges: access to afford-
able education, equal opportunity in the market place, healthcare coverage and concern for individual and civil�
rights.�
�
I should add here also-I find the same kind of enthusiasm�
for Obama among High school students I work with also.

Many say ” Obama is cool” and when I have pressed them�
be-yond this they say Obama is clear headed and feel he�
would never place the nation or them at unnecessary risks.

Whereas Mitt Romney is seen as unpredictable and out of�
touch with their every day needs and with others around�
him–and would put party before the country.

HotMessNSeattle

For the kids commenting about wanting jobs after they graduate, I say to them:

SUCK IT UP.

I am 32 years old with a few college degrees and I am a manager with our local government. Previously, I worked for a well-known tech company in an office full of recent graduates who spent much of their day complaining about their work and their pay (they were making between 52-57K). Having met many of their “unemployed” peers, I find that many of them expect to graduate from college and land a job that pays 65K and has a prestigious title.The reality is that the issue isn’t about finding jobs; it is about finding jobs that will afford them a flashy lifestyle that allows them to compete with their friends. Nothing wrong with that – but expect to put some time in doing the lower paying jobs first. No one forced any of them to go to college. No one forced them to take out student loans. Perhaps they should have did a bit more planning for their future, because if they were concerned about finding a well-paid gig, they probably should have considered a job in trade. We don’t need any more college graduates with bachelor degrees in Fine Arts or English, but we do need more plumbers, electricians, and mechanics. A barista with a BA making 8.75 an hour (plus tips) or a plumber with a trade education making 90 an hour… yeah.

ttajtt

heard GED’s are frowned upon, soon high school diplomas. attributes of a Personal Survival Kit.

JGC

As a person with a B.S., and two kids who are now on the path to higher education, I have to wonder if the regular degree with an on-site 4-year living situation is necessary anymore. It might even be a hindrance. I think the future will have a melding of a brief on-site traditional experience combined with off-site (international?) study and on-line course work. This would be financially preferable for many students. The traditional , on-campus 4-year degree is dead. Administrators better prepare for this now. They are the only ones who want to cling to the old system.

JGC

Sorry, I was really supposed to comment on college and the presidential election.

Vote Obama 2012.

BDSpin

It seems strange that On Point found 4 college-aged panelists who accept the old idea that national leaders can and should “fix” our economic paradigm of perpetual growth. Some young people I know are coming to see that perpetual growth on a finite planet is the very definition of unsustainability. They are aware that, like it or not, we are going to have to replace the growth paradigm with a paradigm that recognizes limits. As a result, these young people are questioning the path of getting jobs in industries committed to growth (that is, unthinking resource depletion). They are looking at farming on a small scale, permaculture, communal living, self-employment, and helping others as life paths. These people have the same issues with loans and living expenses as others do, and they work in part time and full time jobs when necessary. But they can see that such jobs may not be anyone’s future, because we are hitting some very real limits. Wish we could hear more from these alternative voices.

Disappointed_Disgusted

I must make one comment about this particular show. Putting all the bitter partisanship aside, I was EXTREMELY disappointed in how poorly a couple of the guests on the show spoke. In fact, I became so disgusted, I had to turn it off. The use of fillers such as “like” and “um” every 3 or 4 words spoken is a travesty on the speaking skills of a large number of our youth. We can talk government all we want, but if one cannot get an inciteful message across because listeners are so distracted with the filler words, then what’s the point?! If kids today want jobs, then they had better learn to present themselves in a more professional manner and learn the foundational basics of speaking clearly and eloquently.

Disappointed_Disgusted

I must make one comment about this particular show. Putting all the bitter partisanship aside, I was EXTREMELY disappointed in how poorly a couple of the guests on the show spoke. In fact, I became so disgusted, I had to turn it off. The use of fillers such as “like” and “um” every 3 or 4 words spoken is a travesty on the speaking skills of a large number of our youth. We can talk government all we want, but if one cannot get an inciteful message across because listeners are so distracted with the filler words, then what’s the point?! If kids today want jobs, then they had better learn to present themselves in a more professional manner and learn the foundational basics of speaking clearly and eloquently.

http://profile.yahoo.com/RY5E6OX7OG4RD56G437E6OMUUI Joshua

If you are so concerned about proper speech, be watchful of your own. You mean “insightful” not “inciteful”, unless you intend a message designed to provoke anger.
- Disappointed_Disgusted
  
  Very good, way to catch the pun in my point! Very insightful of you.

http://www.facebook.com/sam.fuchs.7 Sam Fuchs

If you think limiting Gov grants is going to bring down cost of college, its not. Faculty and colleges receive less Gov grants so they put the cost on students, I know I work as one. Besides professors makes 4 times what they used to make, that money come from tuition, and states have given colleges the free rein to increase cost at will. They are the one to complain or protest too, not the students on loans or grants.
And if you think reducing the number of students going to college will bring down cost, Professors will NOT take less pay. And it also seems like a really bad way to not educate kids, including valuable trade schools.

http://www.facebook.com/sam.fuchs.7 Sam Fuchs

In addition to my last comment, NO president will do much to reduce costs of colleges, they have no control over tuition rates! Colleges have become one the most vicious money making businesses in the U.S. Its a complete disgrace to see how training our kids for future has become a money making ponnzi scheme. Kids should be outraged at states.

ttajtt

solar – soil covering better?, high raises vs coastal wall walk. cheaper LONG TERM is the FUN Sway to do it.

Guests

From Tom’s Reading List