Sunday, February 14, 2016

What a Weird Presidential Debate.

Apparently some guy the same exact color as the drapes in the background said that 9/11 happened on George W. Bush's watch, that Iraq had no WMD's, and that Planned Parenthood does some good stuff at a Republican presidential debate, and he is the frontrunner. Also Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio argued in awkward Spanish. Sometimes the moderators introduced facts and the audience booed. Jeb Bush really likes his family because they have wars and almost always stop terrorism except some of the time.

A+ debate. No one thinks we elect presidents based on these things, right?

3 comments:

Formerly Amherst said...

Vixen, you have more fortitude than I do. I stopped watching a few debates ago, but I do catch some exerpts and discussions.

As far as I am concerned., the campaigns are simply places where candidates and their orgs try to lie as outrageously as they can and still be persuasive. Really, this is only amplified over normal politics after the campaigns.

A famous magician now deceased (no one we've talked about)) said that in the 60s he saw a hippie poster in London, and it said,
“WEHN THE LAST SOCIOLOGIST IS STRANGLED WITH THE GUTS OF THE LAST POLITICIAN, THERE WILL STILL BE PROBLEMS, BUT IT''L BE A GOOD START ANYWAY.”

Vixen Strangely said...

I have thought that, if a scheme could be devised for real-time fact-checking during any debate, they would become less popular--with candidates, anyway.

Formerly Amherst said...

That's a very good idea, Vixen, although not likely to be anything we'll ever see, unfortunately.

It has been said that in the United States politics are romantic, but our economic system is rationalistic.

In other words, our political system is full of romantic hot air – dramatic denunciations, problems will be solved in a burst of idealism, a huge number of woulda-shoulda-couldn'ts (In the early day of the peace corps a bunch of idealistic liberal arts majors rushed to join. The Peace Corps quickly learned that what they needed were agricultural majors, engineering majors, and other whose expertise lent itself to actually doing something. Digging a well. Farming irrigation systems, etc.)

While all of this political theater is going on, the economic system continues to crawl along its inexorable path with no measure given to the hot air of our political system. In an earlier post I mentioned that the Bank of Japan had gone to negative interest. Since that comment, 3 Scandinavian countries have gone to negative interest rates. Two months ago Yellen bumped interest rates up a quarter of a point. It is well known that interest rates have been suppressed artificially for a long time to try and give the illusion that the US economy has possibilities. Yellen has now explained that bumping our rates up was a mistake. Moreover, she said that the US going to negative interest rates is not off the table.

Banks have now been charged to investigate what would happen if T-bills went to negative interest rates. Obviously, if your money is going to shrink if you put it in a bank, people will find other options, and this could mean a disaster for the banking system if they were hurt by this.

This is all going on despite the hot air occurring in the political system. I have spoken of the Kali Yuga, but it is still possible to have upward momentum like the upward spikes in a declining stock market and the right president could help a temporary upward movement for the country and the financial system.

Naturally, this happens when governments have made public sector commitments that are excessive. Too much money in government and not enough in the private sector where jobs and prosperity are created.

Happy St. Pats to Everyone but RFK Jr.

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