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Sunday, September 28. 2008
Trouble Every Day
“There’s no way to delay that trouble coming every day.” — Frank Zappa, “Trouble Every Day”Some friends and I were discussing the bailout Sunday Morning. Of course, here in Sunny Sandy Eggo, the predominant attitude is against the bailout. With good reason of course. Why should we bail out these financial institutions that gambled and lost?
The reasons are many actually. Small businesses that are in their infancy and depend on lines of credit to keep their doors open are now trying to get by without that line of credit. Some will survive, many won’t. Average Americans who have invested in some of these institutions just lost everything. In fact, one of the people in this discussion was talking about how, after three years of retirement, he was going back to work because the collapse did away with much of his retirement savings.
As the government prints more money for this bailout inflation will grow faster and the cost of everything will go up. Fast. On Saturday I was with a friend, he was driving, and he pulled into a gas station: price, $3.65 a gallon. He was glad it was down from the $4.20 it had been just a few months ago. But, with this financial crisis who knows how high the price will go.
Take a poll:
After two days of watching and listening to the debate prognosticators dissect and analyze the first debate between Senators Obama and McCain, my analysis: the prognosticators are afraid to make any definitive pronouncements, even after the polls the cite say Senator Obama won that round. The TV chatterers are overly sensitive to being labeled “left wing” and “pro-Obama,” so they contrive ways to give the conservatives something to cheer about.Wishy-washy pronouncements that McCain had some small victory; like the number of times Obama used the phrase, “John’s right …” What the analysts all fail to mention are the following phrases that then gut McCain’s remarks that prompted Obama to tell us, “John’s right …”
As in: “Well, I think Senator McCain’s absolutely right that we need more responsibility, but we need it not just when there’s a crisis. I mean, we’ve had years in which the reigning economic ideology has been what’s good for Wall Street, but not what’s good for Main Street.
And there are folks out there who've been struggling before this crisis took place. And that’s why it’s so important, as we solve this short-term problem, that we look at some of the underlying issues that have led to wages and incomes for ordinary Americans to go down, the — a health care system that is broken, energy policies that are not working, because, you know, 10 days ago, John said that the fundamentals of the economy are sound.”
Or: “Well, Senator McCain is absolutely right that the earmarks process has been abused, which is why I suspended any requests for my home state, whether it was for senior centers or what have you, until we cleaned it up.And he’s also right that oftentimes lobbyists and special interests are the ones that are introducing these kinds of requests, although that wasn’t the case with me.
But let’s be clear: Earmarks account for $18 billion in last year’s budget. Senator McCain is proposing — and this is a fundamental difference between us — $300 billion in tax cuts to some of the wealthiest corporations and individuals in the country, $300 billion.
Now, $18 billion is important; $300 billion is really important.
And in his tax plan, you would have CEOs of Fortune 500 companies getting an average of $700,000 in reduced taxes, while leaving 100 million Americans out.
So my attitude is, we’ve got to grow the economy from the bottom up. What I’ve called for is a tax cut for 95 percent of working families, 95 percent.
And that means that the ordinary American out there who’s collecting a paycheck every day, they've got a little extra money to be able to buy a computer for their kid, to fill up on this gas that is killing them.
And over time, that, I think, is going to be a better recipe for economic growth than the — the policies of President Bush that John McCain wants to — wants to follow.
Was that really any victory for John McCain? In a small sense yes, because the McCain campaign can use it in their political ads. And, if the news organizations keep pounding on how many times Obama said it, without the context of the message Senator Obama was using it in, people who didn’t watch or listen to the debate will have a completely different idea of what actually took place.
So, here is a run down of some of the major polls:
The Real Clear Politics (RCP) poll
Obama 48%
McCain 41%
Gallup
Obama 50%
McCain 42%
FoxNews.com poll (not question of the day)
Obama48%
McCain 44%
The CBS News/Knowledge Networks poll of uncommitted voters
Obama 39%
McCain 24%
46% said their opinion of Obama improved
32% for McCain
CNN/Opinion Research Corp poll
Obama won 51%, McCain won 38%
Who would better handle the economy? Obama 58%, McCain 37%
Who would better handle Iraq? Obama 52%, McCain 47%
The Zogby poll had the narrowest margin: Obama 47% and McCain 46%. But, in what is a surprise, Independent voters gave the debate to Obama by five points (44% to 39%), leading to this point: all the pollsters agree Obama-Biden is picking up steam and pulling ahead of McCain-Palin.
The McCain campaign got a big bounce after they placed Governor Palin on the ticket, but now that voters are beginning to see and hear who Sarah Palin is, the blush is beginning to bleed from the rose.It will be interesting to see where the polls go after Thursday’s debate between Joe Biden and Sarah Palin. Biden can’t assume he will automatically win. Nothing kills a candidacy like arrogance so Biden has to remember Governor Palin is a legitimate contender for the 2nd chair in the White House. She may not be a very bright one, when it comes to national and international policy, but neither is (was) George W. Bush and look where we are now.
Still, I can’t help but think listening to Palin debate will be an excruciatingly painful, but entertaining embarrassment. It will be fun to watch!
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