Time: From man of the year to Mr. Unpopular in a year and a half.

[Pens1566]

Of course you would. You are infatuated with Obama. You do not believe anything if it puts Obama in poor light. He can do no wrong.

No, actually he pisses me off quite a bit. But keep being wrong. Its what you do best.

 

[senseamp]

Doing the right things isn't always popular.

 

[Deeko]

Its laughable that A) republicans think Obama is so evil and is destroying America and that B) democrats thought the country was going to drastically change under him.

The President, in reality, does not have that much effect on your life.

 

[werepossum]

Obama has done a pretty good job fighting the war against the terrorists, even backtracking when things he promised (like civilian trials for all) became too unpopular and politically damaging. I think that if the Republicans take both chambers, then he can and will move toward the center, and the mainstream media will give him lots of cover. Americans WANT to like this guy, if only because he's the first black president. If however the Democrats keep the Senate, as I suspect they shall, then Obama may well elect to continue the fight to "fundamentally transform" the nation. In that case there aren't enough leg-thrilled "journalists" in the world to give him enough cover to win a second term.

 

[dmcowen674]

Time: From man of the year to Mr. Unpopular in a year and a half.

He was never ever popular with Republicans, in fact Rush and the rest of you blamed things on him and wished him to fail way before he even came into office.

You all hate this country, why are you still here?

 

[ProfJohn]

So will Pelosi just become the minority leader, or how does that work?

Good question and hard to answer at this point.

Most likely outcomes:

1. She becomes minority leader.
more likely
2. The Democrats throw her overboard and replace her with someone else.
or
3. She declines to run for the minority leader position and stayed a rank and file member
or
4. She decides to retire early

Remember that after losing control in 2006 a lot of Republican leaders throw in the towel and headed home. Could see something similar among older Democrat leaders such as Pelosi, especially those in very safe districts.

 

[ProfJohn]

Looks like the Germans are having their cake and eating too...

An efficient, manufacturing-based economy. Lower unemployment than the US. Higher economic growth than the US. A dual-education system, providing workers for their manufacturing-based economy. Greener urban landscapes, bolstered by a booming "green" industry. And last but not least, one of the world's best social-market economies. Not to mention, Autobahns, Oktoberfest, etc.

Not bad.

Historically the US has had lower unemployment and higher growth than Germany.

This is most likely due to the fact that all the great social programs of Germany help to create a nice life for its people, but also act as an anchor around its economy.

 

[her209]

lmao. It's going to be funny watching you be wrong for a 3rd straight election. I especially like the part about how this admin's programs will be overturned. You're a true riot PJ.

Is this going to be a "What recession?"-by-PJ -type thread?

 

[SammyJr]

Looks like the Germans are having their cake and eating too...

An efficient, manufacturing-based economy. Lower unemployment than the US. Higher economic growth than the US. A dual-education system, providing workers for their manufacturing-based economy. Greener urban landscapes, bolstered by a booming "green" industry. And last but not least, one of the world's best social-market economies. Not to mention, Autobahns, Oktoberfest, etc.

Not bad.

They also have evil, soul-crushing Universal Health Care.

 

[SammyJr]

think that if the Republicans take both chambers, then he can and will move toward the center, and the mainstream media will give him lots of cover

Obama would have to move left to move towards the center.

 

[Patranus]

What do you think happens when you add 3 trillion dollars to the national debt in 1.5 years and have NOTHING to show for it.

 

[her209]

They also have evil, soul-crushing Universal Health Care.

Check out Germany's unemployment benefits.

http://www.toytowngermany.com/wiki/Unemployment_benefits

There are two types of unemployment benefits in Germany. Unemployment insurance (UI) benefits are paid only for a limited period. The potential length of UI receipt depends positively on the work-history in insured employment in the seven years prior to a benefit claim. It also increases with the age of an unemployed person. Workers who are younger than 42 years can receive UI benefits for no longer than 12 months. When people run out of UI benefit, they may receive unemployment assistance (UA) benefits, provided that they pass a means-test. There is no time-limit for UA benefit receipt and the formal replacement rates of UA are somewhat lower than those of UI benefit.

 

[dainthomas]

Obama would have to move left to move towards the center.

This. He's so much like McCain and Bush it's ridiculous. That's why I've never gotten the outrage (other than people's lives suck and they need to blame someone other than themselves.)

We would be hearing the same thing now no matter who was elected, as no one person had the ability to instantly fix everything that was wrong.

 

[soundforbjt]

Looks like the Germans are having their cake and eating too...

An efficient, manufacturing-based economy. Lower unemployment than the US. Higher economic growth than the US. A dual-education system, providing workers for their manufacturing-based economy. Greener urban landscapes, bolstered by a booming "green" industry. And last but not least, one of the world's best social-market economies. Not to mention, Autobahns, Oktoberfest, etc.

Not bad.

Edit: SammyJr beat me to it!

Don't forget Germany has the world's oldest universal healthcare system, gee and it's not bankrupting them...hmmm.

 

[Fern]

So will Pelosi just become the minority leader, or how does that work?

I could be wrong, but I think, technically, after the elections we will have a 'new' Congress (IIRC, the 112th). If so, they start with a clean slate as far as the elected roles of Speaker, Minority Leader etc., their terms will have expired and a re-vote is required.

Whether she will run again (for an office) is an open question.

Fern

 

[nick1985]

I could be wrong, but I think, technically, after the elections we will have a 'new' Congress (IIRC, the 112th). If so, they start with a clean slate as far as the elected roles of Speaker, Minority Leader etc., their terms will have expired and a re-vote is required.

Whether she will run again (for an office) is an open question.

Fern

It will be a great day when that stupid wise and beautiful woman is no longer the speaker.

 

[OutHouse]

i lost all respect for Obama when he called the cop who arrested the black professor "stupid"

no sitting president should ever come down on a citizen like that EVER.

 

[Carmen813]

No, it's not.

2008 GDP was higher than 2009. It's too early to speak about about 2010; but it doesn't look to be better at this point.

http://www.usgovernmentspending.com...&fy=fy11&chart=&bar=0&stack=1&size=m&title=US Gross Domestic Product GDP History&state=US&color=c&local=s

The unemployment rate was 5.4% in Jan 2008, it's now at 9.6% or thereabouts.

http://www.google.com/publicdata?ds...ate&tdim=true&dl=en&hl=en&q=unemployment+rate

Fern

Sorry, that's a typo. I meant January 2009, when Obama took office. The primary factor that is lagging behind (as always) is unemployment. Many other signs are pointing towards the economy improving (longer work weeks, ect). It's not "good" yet, but it was in utter free fall in early 09.

 

[ProfJohn]

This. He's so much like McCain and Bush it's ridiculous. That's why I've never gotten the outrage (other than people's lives suck and they need to blame someone other than themselves.)

We would be hearing the same thing now no matter who was elected, as no one person had the ability to instantly fix everything that was wrong.

Really?

So Bush or McCain would have passed a lousy ass universal healthcare bill just so they could stand up and claim victory?

And what happened to Bush's $700 billion stimulus package? And don't try claim it was the TARP program because TARP was loans that have mostly been paid back.

 

[werepossum]

I could be wrong, but I think, technically, after the elections we will have a 'new' Congress (IIRC, the 112th). If so, they start with a clean slate as far as the elected roles of Speaker, Minority Leader etc., their terms will have expired and a re-vote is required.

Whether she will run again (for an office) is an open question.

Fern

Absolutely correct. Whether for Speaker or for Minority Leader, Pelosi must stand for election again.

 

[werepossum]

Sorry, that's a typo. I meant January 2009, when Obama took office. The primary factor that is lagging behind (as always) is unemployment. Many other signs are pointing towards the economy improving (longer work weeks, ect). It's not "good" yet, but it was in utter free fall in early 09.

I know we're freakin' covered up and I just today received the last of my back paychecks - I'm up to date! Honestly I don't know how we would get the work done had we laid off anyone when work was short. Fees are down, collections suck, and I know lots of architects (and a few engineers and designers) still unemployed, but we're pretty busy. (None of which is stimulus money projects BTW.) Right now the two things holding back AEC work are the general uncertainty of the business climate - large companies are not hiring because they don't know what Obamacare, higher taxes, more regulation, and cap-n-tax are going to do to their bottom line - and lack of available loan money for new capital projects. We've had a number of projects either stillborn or aborted because profitable companies can't get more than about 50% financing, and because of the uncertainty noted above they need to hold on to their cash (not being large enough to get bailed out with taxpayer money.)

I think if the Pubbies take even just the House, thereby killing the Obama agenda of a big government centrally planned economy, then the economy and employment will spring back. The only caveat I'd put on that is how much of his agenda Obama will enact through executive action.

 

[Lanyap]

I know we're freakin' covered up and I just today received the last of my back paychecks - I'm up to date! Honestly I don't know how we would get the work done had we laid off anyone when work was short. Fees are down, collections suck, and I know lots of architects (and a few engineers and designers) still unemployed, but we're pretty busy. (None of which is stimulus money projects BTW.) Right now the two things holding back AEC work are the general uncertainty of the business climate - large companies are not hiring because they don't know what Obamacare, higher taxes, more regulation, and cap-n-tax are going to do to their bottom line - and lack of available loan money for new capital projects. We've had a number of projects either stillborn or aborted because profitable companies can't get more than about 50% financing, and because of the uncertainty noted above they need to hold on to their cash (not being large enough to get bailed out with taxpayer money.)

I think if the Pubbies take even just the House, thereby killing the Obama agenda of a big government centrally planned economy, then the economy and employment will spring back. The only caveat I'd put on that is how much of his agenda Obama will enact through executive action.

Obama and the dems are seen as anti-business so it's not surprising businesses are afraid and taking a wait and see attitude. If businesses don't start hiring the unemployed soon we are going to be in deep economic shit for a long time. Up until recently the big profits referred to in the article below were from massive layoffs and not from sales, etc.

I can't help but think that it would not have been this bad if McCain had been elected. Maybe would have been the lesser of two evils.

W.H. works to flip anti-business rep
By: Ben White
July 8, 2010 12:51 PM EDT

The White House has launched a coordinated campaign to push back against the perception taking hold in corporate America and on Wall Street that President Barack Obama is promoting an anti-business agenda.

Obama has been happy to be seen by voters as cracking down on Wall Street but those efforts have had an unintended result: feeding a sense that the president and his party are indifferent or even actively hostile toward big business, whether those businesses are Silicon Valley tech companies, Midwestern manufacturers or Main Street small businesses.

And it is more than just politics: Obama’s aides believe confidence in the general direction of White House policy has an effect on the willingness of corporations to hire, invest and push the economy toward a more solid recovery.

The stakes are high. Nearly every economic report suggests that corporate America, flush with cash and generating strong profits, is waiting to unleash a wave of hiring if only they have confidence there will be no double-dip recession and that consumers will have money to spend.

So the White House has launched a campaign to help instill that confidence, highlighted by Obama’s remarks on Wednesday stressing his commitment to lifting trade barriers as a way to spur economic growth. That was followed by Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner’s interview on CNBC’s “Kudlow Report” last night — following his spot on PBS’ “NewsHour” on Tuesday. Obama talked up the economy in Missouri Thursday as well.

In a Thursday interview, White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel argued that rather than recoiling against Obama, business leaders should be grateful for his support on at least a half-dozen counts: his advocacy of greater international trade and education reform open markets despite union skepticism; his rejection of calls from some quarters to nationalize banks during the financial meltdown; the rescue of the automobile industry; the fact that the overhaul of health care preserved the private delivery system; the fact that billions in the stimulus package benefited business with lucrative new contracts, and that financial regulation reform will take away the uncertainty that existed with a broken, pre-crash regulatory apparatus.

But, in the White House view, some business leaders listen only to Obama speeches being tough on BP or on the excesses of Wall Street and assume Obama is hostile to business across the board. “Rather than respond to atmospherics, they should look at policies where we have been supportive,” Emanuel said.

Within the West Wing, there are mixed feelings about the hostility many in business feel toward Obama. In some moods, aides are disdainful of what they perceive as the whininess of many business leaders, who they feel are reacting to sensible and comparatively modest ideas as though they were an intolerable burden, and as though the massive financial meltdown would not prompt a reappraisal of the business-knows-best mindset that prevailed during the Bush years.

But these same aides also take the business backlash seriously as both a political and substantive problem. A lack of business confidence, they fear, may inhibit the recovery. Emanuel has warned colleagues of this spring’s “G factor”—a convergence of bad news from the Gulf Coast oil spill, Greece’s financial problems, Germany’s agitating for fiscal austerity at a time when demand in Europe’s economy remains weak, and a new season of political instability in Gaza—has spooked many business leaders at a time when they were otherwise ready to hire and invest.

Still, the administration has a good deal of work to do to reverse opinion among the corporate elite.

Wall Street executives feel burned mostly by the “fat cat” rhetoric employed by the White House to push financial reform. They also do not like many elements of the Dodd-Frank bill, though it did not turn out to be as bad as once feared.

Other major corporate titans have also slammed the White House recently.

At a recent dinner in Rome, Jeffrey Immelt, chairman and CEO of General Electric, said “business did not like the U.S. president and the president did not like business,” according to an account in the Financial Times. G.E. subsequently took the extraordinary step of saying said Mr. Immelt’s remarks “do not represent our views.”


Immelt also spoke about the generally sour mood among corporate America towards the economy and government policy: "People are in a really bad mood [in the U.S.]," he said. "We [the U.S.] are a pathetic exporter. ... We have to become an industrial powerhouse again, but you don't do this when government and entrepreneurs are not in sync."

Verizon Communications Chief Executive Ivan Seidenberg, head of the influential Business Roundtable, slammed the administration in a recent speech in Washington.

The Business Roundtable, which includes CEOs of the biggest companies in the U.S., has had ongoing contact with the White House, and Seidenberg’s comments were widely interpreted as indicating a major schism between corporate America and the West Wing.

In his speech, Seidenberg said he had been invited to the White House 16 times but that the administration was not focused on job growth and was instead “trying to micromanage industries."

He called the U.S. corporate tax code a “major impediment to international competitiveness” and described the U.S. as a “fly-over zone” on world trade. He added that financial reform went a “step too far.”

The latest themes from Geithner and the White House appear to be direct responses to the major complaints from Immelt and Seidenberg on trade policy and corporate taxation. That is no accident. And the success of the White House effort to shift the perception of corporate America could determine the direction of the economic recovery and the fate of Democrats this fall.

Obama administration officials also are quick to point out that Corporate America hasn’t done so badly under Obama -- according to the most recent data, corporate profits are up 34 percent from first quarter 2009 to first quarter 2010.

Geithner stressed on Kudlow that the administration hopes to keep the top tax rate on capital gains and dividends at 20 percent and said that the White House is generally pro-business and does not believe the government can drive the economy.

“We have a pro-growth agenda,” he said. “Part of the agenda is growing exports. They're central to our future. ... [W]e're going to be committed to making sure we're that we're expanding opportunities for American business everywhere.”

Geithner added, “Now, this president understands deeply that governments don't create jobs, businesses create jobs. And our job as government is to try to make sure we're creating the conditions that allow businesses to prosper so they can hire people back, get this economy going again.”

During Obama’s trip to Missouri, White House deputy press secretary Bill Burton defended Obama’s record, saying the White House would not relent on its agenda on financial reform, ending corporate tax “loopholes” and other issues the business community might not like.

“Are we going to agree with the business community on every single issue? No,” Burton said. “But the president came into office saying that he was going to do some very specific things, like financial regulatory reform, which he talked about repeatedly on the campaign trail. He said he was going to close loopholes for overseas investments."

Burton added, “And so maybe those things aren’t always going to be popular with business, but if you look at where we were and where we are now, the president has made progress on the economy. He has brought us to a place where the economy is growing, where jobs are being created, as opposed to losing 700,000 a month like we were when we came into office. But there are going to be times when we disagree, and that’s fine.”

Mike Allen contributed to this report.

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0710/39495.html

 

[Double Trouble]

W.H. works to flip anti-business rep

That's part of the problem. Instead of fixing the policies and anti-business rhetoric that makes businesses very nervous and unwilling to invest, the white house is busily trying to fix its reputation. It's not the reputation that's the problem, it's the actions.

 

[GodlessAstronomer]

IMO, yes. He's told us so in nearly countless ways. From telling us of his intent to fundamental transform the United States of America, to the apology tour, bowing to kings and heads of state and everything in between. His beliefs are radical compared to those of mainstream America. What's sad is that it took him being elected and serving this much of his term for the average Joe to figure it out.

He couldn't have turned out any different. For those willing to explore his background (that which has not been hidden from our view) his upbringing could have created nothing less. His vision for our country has been formed by the political and social views he garnered from absentee parents, grandparents with Socialistic views, and family "friends" that by interpretation of his very own writings appear to have molested him as a child. A key time period in his life was spent in Indonesia where it was further hammered home that the U.S. is a bad country and needed to pay the price for it. There, he was further exposed to a religion whose tenants are buried so firmly in his psyche that he proclaimed to the world that we are a Muslim nation. Delusional thinking to put it mildly.

The smartest president ever is far from it. He thought that this country was ready for his vision of the U.S. as a second class country, ready to throw aside the religious tenants on which it was formed, that its people were ready to further reduce their standard of living to raise the standard in countries that wish us all dead and so on.

That's not intelligence, that's ignorance.

So the people have woken up and are ready to throw him out on his ear. I fear it may be too late to have any affect. He's the most dangerous man in America right now. Not the most powerful, the people still hold that position. Here's to hoping they follow through and wield it.

This is why we don't smoke crack before posting, people.

 

[shortylickens]

I think that says more about the American media than the American president.