Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: tejek who wrote (364899)	12/31/2007 7:08:15 AM
From: Road Walker	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1574122

The Great Divide By PAUL KRUGMAN Yesterday The Times published a highly informative chart laying out the positions of the presidential candidates on major issues. It was, I’d argue, a useful reality check for those who believe that the next president can somehow usher in a new era of bipartisan cooperation. For what the chart made clear was the extent to which Democrats and Republicans live in separate moral and intellectual universes. On one side, the Democrats are all promising to get out of Iraq and offering strongly progressive policies on taxes, health care and the environment. That’s understandable: the public hates the war, and public opinion seems to be running in a progressive direction. What seems harder to understand is what’s happening on the other side — the degree to which almost all the Republicans have chosen to align themselves closely with the unpopular policies of an unpopular president. And I’m not just talking about their continuing enthusiasm for the Iraq war. The G.O.P. candidates are equally supportive of Bush economic policies. Why would politicians support Bushonomics? After all, the public is very unhappy with the state of the economy, for good reason. The “Bush boom,” such as it was, bypassed most Americans — median family income, adjusted for inflation, has stagnated in the Bush years, and so have the real earnings of the typical worker. Meanwhile, insecurity has increased, with a declining fraction of Americans receiving health insurance from their employers. And things seem likely to get worse as the election approaches. For a few years, the economy was at least creating jobs at a respectable pace — but as the housing slump and the associated credit crunch accelerate and spill over to the rest of the economy, most analysts expect employment to weaken, too. All in all, it’s an economic and political environment in which you’d expect Republican politicians, as a sheer matter of calculation, to look for ways to distance themselves from the current administration’s economic policies and record — say, by expressing some concern about rising income gaps and the fraying social safety net. In fact, however, except for Mike Huckabee — a peculiar case who’ll deserve more discussion if he stays in contention — the leading Republican contenders have gone out of their way to assure voters that they will not deviate an inch from the Bush path. Why? Because the G.O.P. is still controlled by a conservative movement that does not tolerate deviations from tax-cutting, free-market, greed-is-good orthodoxy. To see the extent to which Republican politicians still cower before the power of movement conservatism, consider the sad case of John McCain. Mr. McCain’s lingering reputation as a maverick straight talker comes largely from his opposition to the Bush tax cuts of 2001 and 2003, which he said at the time were too big and too skewed to the rich. Those objections would seem to have even more force now, with America facing the costs of an expensive war — which Mr. McCain fervently supports — and with income inequality reaching new heights. But Mr. McCain now says that he supports making the Bush tax cuts permanent. Not only that: he’s become a convert to crude supply-side economics, claiming that cutting taxes actually increases revenues. That’s an assertion even Bush administration officials concede is false. Oh, and what about his earlier opposition to tax cuts? Mr. McCain now says he opposed the Bush tax cuts only because they weren’t offset by spending cuts. Aside from the logical problem here — if tax cuts increase revenue, why do they need to be offset? — even a cursory look at what Mr. McCain said at the time shows that he’s trying to rewrite history: he actually attacked the Bush tax cuts from the left, not the right. But he has clearly decided that it’s better to fib about his record than admit that he wasn’t always a rock-solid economic conservative. So what does the conversion of Mr. McCain into an avowed believer in voodoo economics — and the comparable conversions of Mitt Romney and Rudy Giuliani — tell us? That bitter partisanship and political polarization aren’t going away anytime soon. There’s a fantasy, widely held inside the Beltway, that men and women of good will from both parties can be brought together to hammer out bipartisan solutions to the nation’s problems. If such a thing were possible, Mr. McCain, Mr. Romney and Mr. Giuliani — a self-proclaimed maverick, the former governor of a liberal state and the former mayor of an equally liberal city — would seem like the kind of men Democrats could deal with. (O.K., maybe not Mr. Giuliani.) In fact, however, it’s not possible, not given the nature of today’s Republican Party, which has turned men like Mr. McCain and Mr. Romney into hard-line ideologues. On economics, and on much else, there is no common ground between the parties.

To: tejek who wrote (364899)	12/31/2007 10:40:24 AM
From: Brumar89	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1574122

why would a president of the largest democracy in the world ally himself with a military dictator? Why did FDR ally with Stalin? There was a really villainous dictator. Yes, and Stalin did a nice job of stinging the West. Uh huh, but Stalin helped defeat Nazi Germany, which had declared war on us. --------------------------------------------- There aren't always angels around to choose our allies from. When will you guys learn that when you hang out with rats you get fleas. And if you insist on perfect purity for your allies, you won't have any. In the case of Mushareff, he's almost certainly better than an Islamist pro-Taliban pro-Al Qaida dictator would be. Sorry, there is very little difference in my mind. Just because Musharraf gladly accepts our billions doesn't make him any better. His helping capture Abu Zubaydah, Ramzi Yousef, Khalid Sheikh Muhammed, among others counts for something. The fact that Pakistani soldiers are fighting in the NW tribal areas is worth something even if they are being beat. -------------------------------------------------- However, you should be aware that it was the Bush administration that urged Benazir Bhutto to return to Pakistan to help restore democracy there in hopes that would strengthen the government. They also persuaded Mushareff to resign from the army and run for election. Yes, definitely a positive. Gasp, you just used the word positive to describe a Bush administration foreign policy. Watch it! ------------------------------------------------ Secondly, at one point do you begin to take stock and realize that all the billions you are sending this guy are doing little good? Liberals always say our allies are worthless. In truth, they're always flawed. But usually better than our enemies. My God, what does that matter? If we are sending billions and he stashes the money in his Swiss bank acct, why is that better than America's enemies. I've seen nothing to shows Mushareff has a Swiss bank account. The Bhutto family certainly does. The corruption of that family is well documented. ----------------------------------------------- The Taliban and al Qaida are resurgent. What the hell has Musharraf done? Mushareff has helped us capture a number of Al Qaida leaders hiding in Pakistan - Abu Zubaydah and Khalid Sheikh Muhammed, who planned the 911 attack, for instance. Yes, he had to do something so he has done the minimal. You know our relationship with India has suffered because of Bush's relationship with Musharraf. Now India is a real if flawed democracy that is quickly becoming an economic powerhouse. In my mind, a relationship with India is far more important than Pakistan. What is the real alternative to Mushareff? I don't see one. You mention India - well the Bush administration is pursuing a much closer relationship with them and our support for Mushareff hasn't hurt that - the opposition has come from the Indian leftwing parties. But pursuing a closer relationship with India doesn't mean we ought to write Pakistan. Its a nuclear power - for it to be taken over by forces that, unlike Mushareff, are really hostile to the west would be disastrous - for everyone. ------------------------------------------------ And who we choose to ally America can hurt us economically. For the last few years, Boeing has had a far superior lineup of planes to sell as compared to Airbus. In addition Airbus's new planes have suffered all kinds of design and operational problems pushing some of their delivery dates well into the future. And yet, for the past two years, Airbus continues to outsell Boeing.....not by much but still given each company's lineup Boeing should be doing much better. Why isn't it? Many of the biggest purchasers of planes are Arabs/Muslims? There biggest orders are with Airbus, not Boeing. Could that have to do with America's poor relations with the Arabs and the war in Iraq? I think so. Gee, this is a switch in direction. According to this 2005 article, "Airbus slowly but steadily overtook Boeing Co. (BA ) as the No. 1 global aircraft maker in the past decade.." businessweek.com So, Airbus's success has been gradual and shouldn't be viewed as a sudden turn due to Iraq. Apparently Airbus production problems was causing problems, leading to Boeing pulling ahead in 2006 and early 2007: "Airbus secured fewer orders for new planes last year than its rival Boeing for the first time since 2000. news.bbc.co.uk "Airbus sales slump hits five-month low There are more problems for Airbus. This time it's an apparent sales slump. Reuters writes that "new plane orders for [the] European jetmaker … fell to a five-month low of seven aircraft in February." Of those orders, none were for any of Airbus' wide-body models. That marked the first time since September that Airbus had failed to log any wide-body orders in a month. Reuters adds that "Airbus plane orders have been increasingly dominated by lower-margin single-aisle jets as it wrestles with development problems in its 200-350 seaters and its delayed superjumbo." blogs.usatoday.com Though Airbus seems to have come back in late 2007: "Airbus moves closer to winning '07 order race ....Airbus is expected to beat Boeing in this year's race for jet sales. That outcome now hinges on the European jet maker finalizing its massive Chinese order announced two weeks ago. For now, though, even after all the gains Airbus made at the Dubai Air Show last month, November firm sales figures released today by Airbus show that Boeing remains ahead of its European rival in net orders. The Airbus gross order total is larger, with 1,204 new orders compared with Boeing's gross order tally of 1,154. However, more than 100 of Airbus' new orders were finalized through canceling or substituting orders booked previously. When cancellations and substitutions are subtracted to get the net gain for the year, Boeing has a net order total of 1,144 against Airbus' 1,095. ......The Airbus tally includes most of its orders from the Dubai Air Show, though neither company includes in its total the 100-airplane order each announced in Dubai from aircraft lessor DAE Capital. .... Though industry observers anticipate that in the long run China will balance its orders between Airbus and Boeing, there is no expectation that Boeing will match Airbus' China deal this year. seattletimes.nwsource.com Seems like they're running neck and neck, with buyers in China and Dubai balancing orders between the two. I don't see any Iraq ramifications here. ------------------------------------------- His government isn't in control of its northwest provinces where Taliban and AQ. In fact, no Pakistani government ever has controlled this area. Its not for lack of trying. You can look up youtube videos of jihadis beheading captured Pakistani soldiers in this area. I've got news for you the Taliban's and AQ's sphere of influence is growing esp. in Islamabad and even to the South in Karachi. All the more reason to not undercut Mushareff and write off Pakistan - do we want the Taliban and AQ taking over Pakistan with its nukes????? ----------------------------------------------- Finally, why would you or anyone else believe that Musharraf would protect Bhutto who posed a threat to his control of Pakistan? Don't be so naive, Brumar. The Wa Post had a story recently which said Mushareff and Bhutto were going to run on a united ticket. One as President, another as Prime Minister. That doesn't mean Musharraf wanted her around. Certainly, her husband and son do not believe he's innocent in this mess. I ask again, what is the credible alternative to Musharaff? The Bhutto's of Pakistans Peoples Party? They are corrupt and weaker than Musharaff. It was during Benazir's administration, the Taliban took over Afghanistan. There is Nawaz Sharif of the Pakistan Muslim League - he has met with Osama bin Ladin three times we know of. In 1998, he imposed shariah law in the northwest tribal areas and wanted to impose it throughout Pakistan. The military overthrow of his government prevented that from succeeding.