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Politics : Liberalism: Do You Agree We've Had Enough of It? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Kenneth E. Phillipps who wrote (110068)	8/8/2011 12:54:06 AM
From: puborectalis	2 Recommendations Respond to of 224729

You would think that in the wake of the trillions of dollars spent bailing out Wall Street, a measure of contrition would be forthcoming. You would be wrong. While the rest of the country continued to suffer genuine economic hardship in 2010, bankers and traders and executives received about $150 billion in compensation. Is it any wonder then that we are repulsed when we come across the gloating of a banker at JPMorgan Chase, who upon being congratulated by a colleague for being hired to restructure the debt of one of the worst deals of the past decade -- the $8.5 billion leverage-larded acquisition of the Tribune Co. by the Chicago investor Sam Zellin December 2007 - - replied: “Tnx dude. Can you say ka-ching?” This decay of Wall Street mores hasn’t gone unnoticed -- at least not by Bharara, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York. In a speech in June to a group of financial journalists, a few weeks after his office won the high-profile conviction of the hedge-fund manager Raj Rajaratnam on 14 charges of insider trading, he wondered about the implications of widespread illegal behavior. Rampant Corruption“The bigger and better question may not be whether insider trading is rampant, but whether corporate corruption in general is rampant, whether ethical bankruptcy is on the rise, whether corrupt business models are becoming more common?” “Some of the most egregious securities frauds,” he added, have occurred “in some of the most prominent and powerful, publicly traded companies, consulting firms, accounting firms, and even law firms.” These crimes are being committed, he said, by people who “have already made more money than could ever be spent in one lifetime and achieved more impressive success than could ever be chronicled in one obituary. And it begs the question, is corporate culture becoming increasingly corrupt?” Yes, it certainly does raise that question. In a subsequent column, I will propose some measures to restore public confidence in Wall Street. (William D. Cohan, a former investment banker and the author of “Money and Power: How Goldman Sachs Came to Rule the World,” is a Bloomberg View columnist. The opinions expressed are his own.)

To: Kenneth E. Phillipps who wrote (110068)	8/8/2011 12:54:44 AM
From: TopCat	8 Recommendations Respond to of 224729

"The partisan bickering and brinksmanship was not being practiced by Democrats. It all came from the Tea Party. They should be ashamed of the damage they have done to the US economy." A 73 year old attorney as naive as a 16 year old.......hard to believe, Kenneth.

To: Kenneth E. Phillipps who wrote (110068)	8/8/2011 7:23:12 AM
From: TideGlider	4 Recommendations Respond to of 224729

The House passed a bill that would have been acceptable by S&P to retain the triple A rating. The Senate and Obama ignored it. Reid/Pelosi politicized the entire procedure by not passing a budget and not raising the debt ceiling intentionally to drop it in the lap of the new congress.

To: Kenneth E. Phillipps who wrote (110068)	8/8/2011 8:37:33 AM
From: JakeStraw	5 Recommendations Respond to of 224729

Since President Obama took office in January 2009, the United States has embarked on the most ambitious failed experiment in Washington meddling in US history. Huge increases in government spending, massive federal bailouts, growing regulations on businesses, thinly veiled protectionism, and the launch of a vastly expensive and deeply unpopular health care reform plan, have all combined to instill fear and uncertainty in the markets. Free enterprise has taken a backseat to continental European-style interventionism, as an intensely ideological left wing administration has sought to dramatically increase the role of the state in shaping the US economy. The end result has been a dramatic fall in economic freedom, sluggish growth, poor consumer confidence, high unemployment, a collapsing housing market, and an overall decline in US prosperity, with more than 45 million Americans now reliant on food stamps – that’s over one seventh of the entire country. blogs.telegraph.co.uk

To: Kenneth E. Phillipps who wrote (110068)	8/8/2011 11:15:05 AM
From: Paul V.	Read Replies (4) \| Respond to of 224729

Kenneth, I agree with you that the TEA PARTY made a big mistake by not coming to a mutual agreement to raise revenues and budget restraints in the area of 4.1 - 4.7 reductions. If the parties do not come to an agreement then the equal across the board cuts in Defense and Discretionary cuts can be destructive to all the parties. We will just see how the extremist right will hold together to their extremism. Hopefully, more sane minds come into the discussions.

To: Kenneth E. Phillipps who wrote (110068)	8/8/2011 11:32:47 AM
From: TideGlider	2 Recommendations Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 224729

29% Say Tea Party Members Are Terrorists, 55% Disagree Monday, August 08, 2011 Email to a Friend ShareThis Advertisement &lt SCRIPT language='JavaScript1.1' SRC="http://ad.doubleclick.net/adj/N3828.247RealMedia/B5504974.14;abr=!ie;sz=300x250;click0=http://network.realmedia.com/RealMedia/ads/click_lx.ads/rasmussenreports/ros/300x250/jx/ss/a/L36/1051174831/x15/USNetwork/BCN2011020670_021_ArborMist/ArborMist_CC_300.html/59743349454535414157634144615874?;ord=1051174831?"&gt&lt /SCRIPT&gt&lt NOSCRIPT&gt&lt A HREF="http://network.realmedia.com/RealMedia/ads/click_lx.ads/rasmussenreports/ros/300x250/jx/ss/a/L36/1051174831/x15/USNetwork/BCN2011020670_021_ArborMist/ArborMist_CC_300.html/59743349454535414157634144615874?http://ad.doubleclick.net/jump/N3828.247RealMedia/B5504974.14;abr=!ie4;abr=!ie5;sz=300x250;ord=1051174831?"&gt&lt IMG SRC="http://ad.doubleclick.net/ad/N3828.247RealMedia/B5504974.14;abr=!ie4;abr=!ie5;sz=300x250;ord=1051174831?" BORDER=0 WIDTH=300 HEIGHT=250 ALT="Advertisement"&gt&lt/A&gt&lt /NOSCRIPT&gt Several prominent Democrats and their media friends have charged the Tea Party with being economic terrorists during the congressional budget debates, but most voters don’t see it that way. Fifty-five percent (55%) of Likely U.S. Voters, in fact, say members of the Tea Party are not economic terrorists. A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that just 29% believe Tea Party members have been terrorists during the budget debates, while another 16% are undecided. (To see survey question wording, click here.) Perhaps tellingly, while 53% of Democrats view Tea Party members as terrorists, 57% of voters not affiliated with either major party disagree, as do 74% of Republicans. Still, a plurality (43%) of all voters think the Tea Party has made things worse of the country in the budget debates in Congress. Thirty-two percent (32%) say the Tea Party has made things better for America, and 14% say it’s had no impact. Eleven percent (11%) are undecided. Again, there’s a noticeable partisan divide: 53% of Republicans believe the Tea Party has made things better, while 73% of Democrats feel it has made things worse. Unaffiliated voters are evenly divided with 37% saying the Tea Party made things better and 37% worse. Just 34% of all voters in separate polling favored tax hikes as part of the deal to raise the debt ceiling. Fifty-five percent (55%) opposed including tax increases of any kind in the deal. (Want a free daily e-mail update ? If it's in the news, it's in our polls). Rasmussen Reports updates are also available on Twitter or Facebook. The survey of 1,000 Likely Voters was conducted on August 5-6, 2011 by Rasmussen Reports. The margin of sampling error is +/- 3 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence. Field work for all Rasmussen Reports surveys is conducted by Pulse Opinion Research, LLC. See methodology. The Tea Party’s critics have focused on the group’s refusal to tolerate tax increase during the recent congressional negotiations over raising the federal debt ceiling. President Obama and prominent Democrats have called for tax hikes on higher-income Americans as part of a balanced approach to cutting the federal debt, as opposed to nothing but spending cuts which most Republicans and Tea Party members advocate. Most voters disapprove of the debt ceiling agreement reached by the president and Congress and doubt it will actually reduce government spending. Voters now are almost evenly divided over whether they would vote for a congressional candidate in the next election who would reduce the federal debt with spending cuts only or opt for a mix of spending cuts and tax increases. Among those who consider themselves part of the Tea Party movement, 92% feel they are not economic terrorists, and 76% think they’ve made things better for the country in terms of the budget debate. Those who are not members of the movement are narrowly divided over the terrorist question, and 58% of this group think the Tea Party has made things worse for the country. There’s a sharp difference of opinion between the Political Class and Mainstream voters over the impact of the Tea Party. Eighty-five percent (85%) of the Political Class feel the Tea Party has made things worse for the country in terms of the budget debate. Mainstream voters by a 40% to 33% margin tend to think the Tea Party has made things better. But then 60% of those in the Mainstream don’t see members of the Tea Party as economic terrorists. The Political Class is almost evenly divided on the question. Voters feel more strongly than ever that decreasing government spending is good for the economy and think tax increases of any kind are bad economic medicine. The president and Congress agreed to cut a trillion dollars in federal spending over the next decade as part of the recently concluded debt ceiling deal, but most voters doubt that will actually happen. As part of the deal, a special congressional committee will be named to find another $1.5 trillion in cuts to recommend to the full Congress by the end of the year. If the committee fails to agree on enough spending cuts to recommend, automatic across-the-board cuts will kick in, but just 29% favor cuts of that nature. At the beginning of the year, 31% of voters viewed being a “Tea Party” candidate as a positive, while 32% felt it was a negative political label. Thirty-three percent (33%) put it somewhere in between. Still, it was seen more positively than being called “a liberal” or “a progressive.” “Conservative” remains the most popular political label. Thirty-nine percent (39%) of Likely Republican Primary Voters say they are members of the Tea Party. Forty-three percent (43%) say they are not members, but another 17% are not sure.

To: Kenneth E. Phillipps who wrote (110068)	8/8/2011 1:12:32 PM
From: joefromspringfield	4 Recommendations Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 224729

Say whatever you want about the "Tea Party". They are a minority block of voters that are big enough to decide a national election. Their goals are limited government, low taxes and a balanced budget. They have no allegiance to any political party. This country is split fairly evenly without including the people in the tea party. The tea party voters will decide who controls congress and the Whitehouse in the 2012 election.