If we cut through the surface images of the two presidential
debates – aggressive confident Romney, subdued and passive Obama, jeering
Biden, and polite Ryan – the Obama/Biden team has little chance of winning any
of the four debates. Despite recent
improvements in survey numbers, the vast majority of Americans think the
country “is headed in the wrong direction” and almost eighty percent are
“dissatisfied with the way things are going in the United States.”
Reduced to fundamentals, Obama and Biden must defend the
status quo, which voters believe is a disaster. They cannot offer major
makeovers because that would amount to admitting policy mistakes, and they must
somehow make voters believe that they have done a good job or that the sorry
state of the country is not their fault. It goes without saying that this is a tough
and almost impossible sell after three and a half years in office.
Romney and Ryan have their hands free to blast the status
quo, focus on the policy errors of the past three and a half years, and explain
what they would do to fix the mess we are in.
When the current team manager is having a losing season,
fans decide it is time for a new one. Romney and Ryan can play the role of the
new manager with new ideas which can turn the season around if given the
chance. Obama and Biden are left with explaining why, due to weather, injuries,
and other things beyond their control, they have lost so many games. Fans don’t
want excuses. They want wins.
no comment
ReplyDeleteI believe that you feel that no worker deserves to benefit from the product of their labor at least equivalent to an owner of the enterprise. You believe people who are employed should be exploited up to the point that they have the opportunity to leave to an employer who will not exploit them as much. Without the power that a union provides a worker is at the mercy of the free market. You think because there isn't an employer willing to pay more to employ a person that person's labor has no greater value than that of their current wage. The benefit that an employer receives from the product of someone's labor shouldn't be greater than the benefit the worker receives. It is a moral question about how businesses should street people. An owner should not be able to take from someone the surplus of their labor in an ever increasing proportion. You sit in your academic ivory tower attempting to discredit and belittle the working man on an assembly line with a high school education. You are so high and mighty because you think your degree entitles you to benefit from a days work many more times over that of the common man. I submit for your approval the that you are either ignorant if the benefits of working men banding together or plainly stupid while the benefits stare you in the face. I believe it is more likely that you are in fact not ignorant or stupid, just a gutless, manipulative liar. The only arguments that dont hold water are ones that come from your loose and ancient bowel, spraying forth filth and pestilence not only when you walk but when you sit down to master bate, spewing your shit all over Forbes. If you loved the free market as much as you claim you would leave be unions to do what they can as capitalist entities as much as corporations. Enjoy dying slowly. It is clear twenty or so years from now when the rot has eaten through the last of your intellectualism you will end existence as a brain dead vegetable. My only wish is that wen that day comes some ironic, free market loving god, plucks you from your death bed and deposits your body amongst a hundred desperate capitalists charged with dismantling you slowly and painfully. I hope you watch as they sell your organs to the highest bidder.
ReplyDeleteDoesn't a historical downward trend in the Union membership indicative of their loss of usefulness to the workers (or working class)?
ReplyDeleteDidn't the mess that the Soviet created for their own people serve to enlighten us? That is, didn't the fall of the Soviet Union show that the dictatorship of the proletariat (where, the working class has the ultimate political power)is not the answer?
Who owns the big capital? Doesn't every retirement plan (especially, for every union worker) invest in the jewels of capitalism (Exxon-Mobile, Google,...), that is take share in ownership of the capital?
What system/methodology grows the pie is the true question for the 21st century? The answer to many of the 19th and the early 20th century questions will not provide a safety-net when the capital (retirement funds, ...technology & productivity) moves at the speed of light across the globe.
In a growing economy---what a free market has proven to do well---workers have more choices than any union boss would like them to have.
ReplyDeleteRE: "Anonymous October 15, 2012 12:26 AM"
ReplyDeleteI do not know about Professor Paul R. Gregory's view on this, but I for one hope to see my organs to go to the highest bidders; since, the highest bidders values my organs the most. Would the Anonymous prefer the lowest bidder?
My impression of the CNN Candy Crowley, the moderator for the Tuesday’s second presidential debate, was that she is a pro-active left democrat. Any of her interviews, when she asserts her views freely and frequently reflect this.
ReplyDeleteA Prediction: on the Tuesday night, she will come out.