Official Buyers Remorse Thread

[dude1394]

I thought that possibly there was a thread needed for those whom felt like they've purchased a lemon.

Here's the place for all of the folks feeling buyers remorse. Those that said "just wait to see what he does in office...ignore what he's done before".

Those that said "Having an elected black President will do more to energize this country than any economic or social policy ever could"

Those that said ignore the man behind the curtain...

Talk and walk

Higher taxes will tend to depress entrepreneurship, as they reduce the payout from a successful company exit. One effect of huge deficits is the rational expectation of higher future taxes. So, one effect of stimulus is likely to be fewer start-ups.

During the campaign, presumably thinking of his Silicon Valley support, Obama proposed the elimination of capital gains taxes on start-ups in order to partially offset some of the impact of his tax proposals on company formation. This idea was always make-believe. As I predicted last July, this proposal has been "delayed" until 2014 in the budget that the President has just released (i.e., it isn't going to happen).

Like the college students who stayed up late to be inspired by his campaign rallies only to find Obama's first significant action to be a stimulus program that will transfer about a trillion dollars from them to the Baby Boomers, Silicon Valley Obama supporters are likely to find that a government-dominated economic era will not a great one in which to start companies that threaten big incumbent corporations that have juice with the government. I hope they appreciate the irony.

Jim Cramer, an over-the-top, entertaining, self-aggrandizing blowhard, but a good capitalist all the same...dared to recant his previously stated belief that a President Obama would be the lesser of two evils when it came to the economy...


THEN:
Oct '08: "And while any president will be an improvement over the current one, there is a growing belief on Wall Street that Barack Obama has the capacity to lead us out of this wilderness while John McCain does not. I’ll go a step further: Obama is a recession. McCain is a depression."

NOW:
Mar '09: "‘Hey, it’s amateur hour at our darkest moment.’ It’s the feeling of capitalism vanishing, businesses capsizing under their own weight - thanks to an administration that doesn’t seem to know or maybe doesn’t care." and "This is the most, greatest wealth destruction I've seen by a president."

[92bDad]

Obama is no doubt a good person...Democrats are for the most good people...They have good hearts with good intentions...

But as the saying goes, the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

I hate to see America hurting as it is and to see that so far there is no end in sight. Having said that, perhaps the pain will be enough to wake Americans up so that they will elect better leaders and thus remove the failed ones that are currently in office.

Democrats have made promises for decades...they have filled people with hope for decades...yet they have failed every step of the way to do anything for their consituents, but they have done a dam good job of winning and abusing their power.

The people gave up the power to the Government and now they are seeing the negative results...perhaps now the people will rally and take back that power.

Yes it's painful to watch and to go through...but there is hope, that is why we have elections every 2 years and in 2010, the people will once again have the opportunity to bring some sanity to D.C. thus slowing down the misguided efforts of the Democrats...and then in 2012 we can regain the freedom for the people.

[TheMaverick]

Originally Posted by 92bDad

Obama is no doubt a good person...Democrats are for the most good people...They have good hearts with good intentions...

But as the saying goes, the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

I hate to see America hurting as it is and to see that so far there is no end in sight. Having said that, perhaps the pain will be enough to wake Americans up so that they will elect better leaders and thus remove the failed ones that are currently in office.

Democrats have made promises for decades...they have filled people with hope for decades...yet they have failed every step of the way to do anything for their consituents, but they have done a dam good job of winning and abusing their power.

The people gave up the power to the Government and now they are seeing the negative results...perhaps now the people will rally and take back that power.

Yes it's painful to watch and to go through...but there is hope, that is why we have elections every 2 years and in 2010, the people will once again have the opportunity to bring some sanity to D.C. thus slowing down the misguided efforts of the Democrats...and then in 2012 we can regain the freedom for the people.

Yes, yes, and yes.

[Mavdog]

Higher taxes will tend to depress entrepreneurship, as they reduce the payout from a successful company exit. One effect of huge deficits is the rational expectation of higher future taxes. So, one effect of stimulus is likely to be fewer start-ups.

are you serious?

how in the world can anyone say with a straight face, not laughing, that people will choose to NOT seek a greater income/wealth due to having to pay a higher marginal tax rate if they do?

an attempt to have anyone believe that an individual will forego increased wealth simply because they have to pay out an additional 3% of that wealth- in other words, they keep .61 of every $1 in additional income, as opposed to .64 of every $1 as it is today- borders on the absurd.

no, take that back, it doesn't border on the absurd it IS absurd.

[Flacolaco]

It's a little early for anyone to say anything one way or the other, imo.

I love all the "approval ratings soar" for Obama articles right now, though.

It's a lot like polling people about their movie going experience when they're in line to get their ticket torn and enter the lobby. Nothing's happened yet.

[dude1394]

New member. Maureen Dowd..
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/04/op...dowd.html?_r=2

Before the Senate resoundingly defeated a McCain amendment on Tuesday that would have shorn 9,000 earmarks worth $7.7 billion from the $410 billion spending bill, the Arizona senator twittered lists of offensive bipartisan pork, including:

• $2.1 million for the Center for Grape Genetics in New York. “quick peel me a grape,” McCain twittered.

• $1.7 million for a honey bee factory in Weslaco, Tex.

• $1.7 million for pig odor research in Iowa.

• $1 million for Mormon cricket control in Utah. “Is that the species of cricket or a game played by the brits?” McCain tweeted.

• $819,000 for catfish genetics research in Alabama.

• $650,000 for beaver management in North Carolina and Mississippi.

• $951,500 for Sustainable Las Vegas. (McCain, a devotee of Vegas and gambling, must really be against earmarks if he doesn’t want to “sustain” Vegas.)

• $2 million “for the promotion of astronomy” in Hawaii, as McCain twittered, “because nothing says new jobs for average Americans like investing in astronomy.”

• $167,000 for the Autry National Center for the American West in Los Angeles. “Hopefully for a Back in the Saddle Again exhibit,” McCain tweeted sarcastically.

• $238,000 for the Polynesian Voyaging Society in Hawaii. “During these tough economic times with Americans out of work,” McCain twittered.

• $200,000 for a tattoo removal violence outreach program to help gang members or others shed visible signs of their past. “REALLY?” McCain twittered.

• $209,000 to improve blueberry production and efficiency in Georgia.

“When do we turn off the spigots?” Senator McCain said in his cri de coeur on the Senate floor. “Haven’t we learned anything? Bills like this jeopardize our future.”

In one of his disturbing spells of passivity, President Obama decided not to fight Congress and live up to his own no-earmark pledge from the campaign.

He’s been lecturing us on the need to prune away frills while the economy fizzles. He was slated to make a speech on “wasteful spending” on Wednesday.

“You know, there are times where you can afford to redecorate your house and there are times where you need to focus on rebuilding its foundation,” he said recently about the “hard choices” we must make. Yet he did not ask Congress to sacrifice and make hard choices; he let it do a lot of frivolous redecorating in its budget.

He reckons he’ll need Congress for more ambitious projects, like health care, and when he goes back to wheedle more bailout billions, given that A.I.G. and G.M. and our other corporate protectorates are burning through our money faster than we can print it and borrow it from the ever-more-alarmed Chinese.

Team Obama sounds hollow, chanting that “the status quo is not acceptable,” even while conceding that the president is accepting the status quo by signing a budget festooned with pork.

Obama spinners insist it was “a leftover budget.” But Iraq was leftover, too, and the president’s trying to end that. This is the first pork-filled budget from a new president who promised to go through the budget “line by line” and cut pork.

On “Face the Nation” on Sunday, Obama’s chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, dismissed the bill as “last year’s business,” because most of it was written last year.

But given how angry Americans are, watching their future go up in smoke, the bloated bill counts as this year’s business.

It includes $38.4 million of earmarks sponsored or co-sponsored by President Obama’s labor secretary, Hilda Solis; $109 million Hillary Clinton signed on to; and $31.2 million in earmarks sought by Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood with colleagues.

(Even Barack Obama was listed as one of the co-sponsors of a $7.7 million pet project for Tribally Controlled Postsecondary Vocational Institutions until he got his name taken off last week.)

And then there are the 16 earmarks worth $8.5 million that Emanuel put into the bill when he was a congressman, including money for streets in Chicago suburbs and a Chicago planetarium.

Blame it on the stars, Rahm, or on old business. But as Shakespeare wrote in “Lear”: “This is the excellent foppery of the world, that, when we are sick in fortune — often the surfeits of our own behavior — we make guilty of our own disasters, the sun, the moon, and the stars.”

[dude1394]

Heh...

[dude1394]

These guys are too young to have an opinion yet. Plus they didn't vote for theOne but they'll be paying for him.

[dude1394]

Heh...
http://pajamasmedia.com/instapundit/72297/

March 6, 2009

“SMART” DIPLOMACY (CONT’D):

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton opened her first extended talks with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov by giving him a present meant to symbolize the Obama administration’s vow to “press the reset button” on U.S.-Russia relations.

She handed a palm-sized box wrapped with a bow. Lavrov opened it and pulled out the gift: a red button on a black base with a Russian word peregruzka printed on top.

“We worked hard to get the right Russian word. Do you think we got it?” Clinton asked.

“You got it wrong,” Lavrov said.

Instead of “reset,” Lavrov said the word on the box meant “overcharge.”

The country’s in the very best of hands.

[chumdawg]

Originally Posted by dude1394

These guys are too young to have an opinion yet. Plus they didn't vote for theOne but they'll be paying for him.

Get a grip on yourself, bro.

[Murphy3]

Obviously, Obama is a douche.. but, I suppose I'll give this douche a chance.

[Mavdog]

"won't do it next time"??? and wouldn't "oboma-cons" be people against obama?

you've got so many cute names for obama it seems you've tripped on that one.

apparently you are of the incorrect opinion that congress is subserviant to the president, and the president controls what congress does.

congress placed a stop on the program's funds in the last spending bill. to stop the ban obama would need to veto the entire bill, effectively shutting down the federal government over this issue.

anyone who would support a veto of the bill simply due to this one item is a fool.

long and short, if you believe the program is a good thing, you agree with obama, who has publically stated his intention to get it up and running again.

to do that he must get it approved by congress, who decides where the $ can be spent.

pretty simple really, at least to those with clear vision.

your vision is a bit clouded.....

[dude1394]

So he did sign it. It's his party and his law that he signed, period.

[Mavdog]

huh? "it's his party.."?? are you under the mistaken impression that there were no republican votes in favor of the bill?

if that's is what you believe, you're wrong.

like I said above, if anyone believes the president controls congress, or believes the president should veto the spending bill over this issue, they're fools.

are you in that camp?

[dude1394]

Anyone who believes a president can't veto or impact a bad bill when his party controls congress is an adoring fool. Are you in that camp?

[Mavdog]

so under that silly logic, every piece of legislation, and every item in any legislation passed during the first 6 years of bush's presidency is his, he "owns it", right?

[dude1394]

Might have to put the CBO on the list also.
http://cboblog.cbo.gov/?p=216

#
The cumulative deficit from 2010 to 2019 under the President’s proposals would total $9.3 trillion, compared with a cumulative deficit of $4.4 trillion projected under the current-law assumptions embodied in CBO’s baseline. Debt held by the public would rise, from 41 percent of GDP in 2008 to 57 percent in 2009 and then to 82 percent of GDP by 2019 (compared with 56 percent of GDP in that year under baseline assumptions).
#
Proposed changes in tax policy would reduce revenues by an estimated $2.1 trillion over the next 10 years. Proposed changes in spending programs would add $1.7 trillion (excluding debt service) to outlays over the next 10 years. Interest costs associated with greater borrowing would add another $1.0 trillion to deficits over the 2010–2019 period.
#
Our estimates of deficits under the President’s budget exceed those anticipated by the Administration by $2.3 trillion over the 2010-2019 period. The differences arise largely because of differing projections of baseline revenues and outlays. CBO’s projection of baseline deficits exceeds the Administration’s estimate (prepared on a comparable basis) by $1.6 trillion.

[dude1394]

The list seems to be getting more popular.

[Mavdog]

Originally Posted by Mavdog

so under that silly logic, every piece of legislation, and every item in any legislation passed during the first 6 years of bush's presidency is his, he "owns it", right?

I don't understand why it is so difficult to get answers to these questions....could it possibly be due to the truthful answer not conforming to the spin the right wishes to put on the issues?

hmm....

[dude1394]

Originally Posted by Mavdog

I don't understand why it is so difficult to get answers to these questions....could it possibly be due to the truthful answer not conforming to the spin the right wishes to put on the issues?

hmm....

It's not difficult..the questions are stupid. Everything he signs is his bill...everything. It's also congress's...but he approves and signs it, end of story.

[Flacolaco]

Plus, he picked 5 of the 6 Pac-10 teams to lose in the tournament. Hey guess what B.O., the Pac-10 is 5-1.

East coast bias!!!

[MavsWiLLHaVeRinGs]

If North Carolina doesnt win it all this year, it's time for impeachment.

[Murphy3]

So, Obama not only hates whites..but he also hates the mentally challenged?

[mary]

Why do I find it so hysterical that someone quoted Jim fraking Cramer??

Ha!

[Mavdog]

so every item in every bill that bush signed from 2001 to 2006 is his, he "owns it", right?

[dude1394]

Originally Posted by Mavdog

so every item in every bill that bush signed from 2001 to 2006 is his, he "owns it", right?

Yup.

[Mavdog]

so the economic crisis that we are now experiencing is totally bush's fault, right? after all he signed all the legislation...he "owns it", correct?

[dude1394]

No...I never said it was "totally" Obama's fault, but he is the leader of the democrat party. But that he owns it because he signed it..buck stops here and all that. Congress owns this monstrosity also.

As with dubya...he allowed the Barney Frank and Chris Dodd to reduce capital requirements for home loans and he signed it. It's on him just as much. Only difference is that I know how he felt about it because he tried to not do it, but still his name is on it at the end of the day...he's done a lot of stupid financial stuff.

Obama...is right there with 'em. I haven't seen any type of leadership by him on this, he just wants to spend the money as fast as possible (get it over with) so he can spend more money on his other pet projects.

Republicans/democrats aren't blameless...but if theOne hadn't been pushing this as an emergency "stimulus" bill possibly they might have read it. The republicans were trying to improve it, but couldn't (unpatriotic you know) and they got beat. It happens.

[Mavdog]

Originally Posted by dude1394

No...I never said it was "totally" Obama's fault, but he is the leader of the democrat party. But that he owns it because he signed it..buck stops here and all that. Congress owns this monstrosity also.

As with dubya...he allowed the Barney Frank and Chris Dodd to reduce capital requirements for home loans and he signed it. It's on him just as much. Only difference is that I know how he felt about it because he tried to not do it, but still his name is on it at the end of the day...he's done a lot of stupid financial stuff.

Obama...is right there with 'em. I haven't seen any type of leadership by him on this, he just wants to spend the money as fast as possible (get it over with) so he can spend more money on his other pet projects.

Republicans/democrats aren't blameless...but if theOne hadn't been pushing this as an emergency "stimulus" bill possibly they might have read it. The republicans were trying to improve it, but couldn't (unpatriotic you know) and they got beat. It happens.

so it's a pick and choose from your viewpoint....

look, you have to read their words. if you want to lay all the onus on obama for the stimulus bill, fine, he did push for its passing.

the tarp bonus tax bill? he didn't ask for it, he didn't endorse it, and we'll see if he signs it and what he says about the bill once it (if actually) reaches his desk. it's not his to own.

the president is not held responsible for all that congress does. many times the president signs a bill for its intended focus in spite of the riders that are in it.

that is the case for the mexican truck issue. obama did not ask for it, did not endorse the action, and has asked for the funding to be restored.

criticism is fine, criticism is healthy, yet criticism should be honest and accurate.

[Robillion]

This is dude and 92bdad's playground. No matter what kind of common sense logic and coherent points can be brought in to this forum, they will always be there to flood the thread with their own opinion however warped and biased it is. I don't even bother. It is futile.

Dude has 19 of the 37 posts in this thread...and it is the same story in every other thread in this forum it seems.

[dude1394]

It's your opinion mavie. I happen to lay it on the top man. Sure I have more faith in dubya than theOne, because dubya isn't a dyed in the wool populist liberal.

But dubya signs it, he's culpable, no matter how much of it he doesn't like. The problem with theOne is that his fellowship will allow him to do the sidestep dance like in Best Little Whorehose in Texas..

He can do anything (and does) but all he has to say is that he didn't mean it and that's okay by his flock.

He'll do the same thing here.. He'll demagogue the bonues...sign the bill and then say that he really doesn't like it much. But he'll sign it. His flock will say "oh he really doesn't mean it" and give him a pass. Much like he's gotten for the last year.

[92bDad]

call it a playground...reality is not something that liberals understand.

Hopefully we can hang until we have a change in leadership...especially within the Congress!!!

Now that I'm back from a chilled vacation, I'll weed through the mess and get back to posting comments...great to see that folks like Robillion missed my input.

[dude1394]

Uh Oh another member. This bus is getting full..
http://www.economist.com/opinion/dis...ry_id=13362895

Despite his resounding electoral victory, his solid majorities in both chambers of Congress and the obvious goodwill of the bulk of the electorate, Mr Obama has seemed curiously feeble.
Empty posts, weak policies

There are two main reasons for this. The first is Mr Obama’s failure to grapple as fast and as single-mindedly with the economy as he should have done. His stimulus package, though huge, was subcontracted to Congress, which did a mediocre job: too much of the money will arrive too late to be of help in the current crisis. His budget, though in some ways more honest than his predecessor’s, is wildly optimistic. And he has taken too long to produce his plan for dealing with the trillions of dollars of toxic assets which fester on banks’ balance-sheets.

The failure to staff the Treasury is a shocking illustration of administrative drift. There are 23 slots at the department that need confirmation by the Senate, and only two have been filled. This is not the Senate’s fault. Mr Obama has made a series of bad picks of people who have chosen or been forced to withdraw; and it was only this week that he announced his candidates for two of the department’s four most senior posts. Filling such jobs is always a tortuous business in America, but Mr Obama has made it harder by insisting on a level of scrutiny far beyond anything previously attempted. Getting the Treasury team in place ought to have been his first priority.

Second, Mr Obama has mishandled his relations with both sides in Congress. Though he campaigned as a centrist and promised an era of post-partisan government, that’s not how he has behaved. His stimulus bill attracted only three Republican votes in the Senate and none in the House. This bodes ill for the passage of more difficult projects, such as his big plans for carbon-emissions control and health-care reform. Keeping those promises will soon start to bedevil the administration. The Republicans must take their share of the blame for the breakdown. But if Mr Obama had done a better job of selling his package, and had worked harder at making sure that Republicans were included in drafting it, they would have found it more difficult to oppose his plans.

If Mr Obama cannot work with the Republicans, he needs to be certain that he controls his own party. Unfortunately, he seems unable to. Put bluntly, the Democrats are messing him around. They are pushing pro-trade-union legislation (notably a measure to get rid of secret ballots) even though he doesn’t want them to do so; they have been roughing up the bankers even though it makes his task of fixing the economy much harder; they have stuffed his stimulus package and his appropriations bill with pork, even though this damages him and his party in the eyes of the electorate. Worst of all, he is letting them get away with it.
Lead, dammit

There are some signs that Mr Obama’s administration is learning. This week the battered treasury secretary, Tim Geithner, has at last come up with a detailed plan to rescue the banks (see article and article). Its success is far from guaranteed, and the mood of Congress and the public has soured to the point where, should this plan fail, getting another one off the drawing-board will be exceedingly hard. But the plan at least demonstrates the administration’s acceptance that it must work with the bankers, instead of riding the wave of popular opinion against them, if it is to repair America’s economy. And it’s not just in the domestic arena that Mr Obama has demonstrated his willingness to learn: on Iraq, he has intelligently recalibrated his views, coming up with a plan for withdrawal that seeks to consolidate the gains in Iraq while limiting the costs to America.

[jefelump]

On the subject of Dude and Mavdog's debate over a president owning a bill that he signs... Let's go back to the War Spending billing dubya pushed for. The bill he received had a timetable for troop withdrawals, so he vetoed it. What happenend? Did the troops just lose funding and come home? No. Congress passed a new bill, which the president signed. So, if Obama didn't like the bill with the mexican trucking thing in it, he could have vetoed it and pushed for a new bill that didn't include it. But he didn't do that.

[Mavdog]

Originally Posted by jefelump

On the subject of Dude and Mavdog's debate over a president owning a bill that he signs... Let's go back to the War Spending billing dubya pushed for. The bill he received had a timetable for troop withdrawals, so he vetoed it. What happenend? Did the troops just lose funding and come home? No. Congress passed a new bill, which the president signed. So, if Obama didn't like the bill with the mexican trucking thing in it, he could have vetoed it and pushed for a new bill that didn't include it. But he didn't do that.

oh yeah, the 2nd bill bush vetoed during his entire 8 years in office..he certainly used that power effectively, didn't he.

the two bills are not comparable. the iraq funding bill was for just that...funding the war. the funds were available to keep the war going while another bill was passed.

the trucking ban was contained in the bill that kept the federal government funded for the rest of 2009, and it was already 6 months late in its passing. if obama vetoed the bill the federal government would have likely run out of funds before another bill would have been negotiated and passed.

vetoing the federal spending bill over a small item such as the trucking issue would have been a very poor decision by obama with severe political ramifications. the restoration of funds for the trucking program can be accomplished without much affect, the shutting down of the federal government would have a much larger (and dramatic) affect.

so you're analogy doesn't work. nice try tho.


don't you wonder why bush only vetoed 2 bills his entire terms? seems as though he just didn't care to take a stand on the issues and defend his position. he would never had risked an override of his veto.

[dude1394]

Originally Posted by Mavdog

oh yeah, the 2nd bill bush vetoed during his entire 8 years in office..he certainly used that power effectively, didn't he. .

No he didn't...to the detriment of his presidency and the country..

Nor does it appear that theOne will either. If he won't veto that obscened spending bill then he won't veto anything I expect.

[Mavdog]

Originally Posted by dude1394

No he didn't...to the detriment of his presidency and the country..

Nor does it appear that theOne will either. If he won't veto that obscened spending bill then he won't veto anything I expect.

"obscened"? why did you never use that phrase for the spending bills throughout this past decade, only to now hurl it out as if this spending bill is somehow different when it was just congressional business as usual?

oh, I know the answer....it's "that guy in the white house", right?

at least we can understand where your frame of reference lays, even if it is inconsistent to say the least.

btw can you share that crystal ball you appear to have that allows you to see the future? I'm going to vegas in may and could use the help.

[mary]

Originally Posted by Mavdog

"obscened"? why did you never use that phrase for the spending bills throughout this past decade, only to now hurl it out as if this spending bill is somehow different when it was just congressional business as usual?

oh, I know the answer....it's "that guy in the white house", right?

at least we can understand where your frame of reference lays, even if it is inconsistent to say the least.

btw can you share that crystal ball you appear to have that allows you to see the future? I'm going to vegas in may and could use the help.

Because building a bridge in Iraq is "military spending", but building a bridge in the U.S. is "socialism".

Get with the damn program, mavie!

[Mavdog]

it is laughable to keep reading that the obama initiatives to battle the nation's economic ills is just "buying votes".

wonder what the right would call the obama administration sitting on their hands and doing nothing about the economic mess?

something tells me it would be just as uncomplimentary, proving that obama is in a no-win situation with the right, he's going to be damned for doing something about the mess (see above) and he would be damned for not doing something about the mess.

[dude1394]

Originally Posted by Mavdog

it is laughable to keep reading that the obama initiatives to battle the nation's economic ills is just "buying votes".

wonder what the right would call the obama administration sitting on their hands and doing nothing about the economic mess?

something tells me it would be just as uncomplimentary, proving that obama is in a no-win situation with the right, he's going to be damned for doing something about the mess (see above) and he would be damned for not doing something about the mess.

If theOne were actually trying to stimulate economic activity instead of buying votes, they'd be hurrahing him and probably voting it in over the howls of pelosi. Sort of like bubba and welfare reform and balanced budgets.