Primaries

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The price of oil is primarily being caused by the fall of the dollar -- the falling dollar is Bush's fault, the price of oil is just a symptom. I have yet to hear a good plan for fixing the dollar.

While I did not support going into the war, I will cast my vote for fixing the region rather than pulling out and making a vacuum out of Iraq. We broke it, it is out responsibility to make things right before we pull out. This is both parties fault -- the democrats also voted for the war.

 

Yes, that's a good point and one I'm sure will haunt them again in 2008, as it did in 2004.

Martaug - The oil companies knew that the downturn in refining oil into gasoline would drive up prices. But how could they lose? They get the profit without the capital investment as a reslut of having to pay for the new refining capablilty.

 

reslut? isnt that picking up the same 1 night stand twice?

 

- There you go, talking about my ex-wife....

 

First, regarding T2B: He's spot on with the price of oil. Since the value of the dollar has fallen precipitously, you need more dollars for the same barrel of oil. The problem is not in the refineries. The ones we have are currently at 85% capacity. The only time the refineries become a limiting factor is when you get something like Katrina, which damages several refineries and forces them to reduce production while repairs are being made.

Drilling in ANWR actually WOULD lower the price of gas, but not by much, and not for a long time. It would take about 12 years for the drills and pipelines to start flowing from there. Assuming a 1 million barrel per day output (that sounds like a lot, but according to the oil companies that actually seems like a reasonable, and not extremely optimistic estimate), it would reduce the price of oil on the world market a couple percent. To the consumer, it would reduce gas prices by about 5-10 cents per gallon. So drilling in ANWR would not provide a huge savings, and even if we started working on it today, we wouldn't see any tangible benefits before 2020.

What do you mean that you don't believe my $250K number? It's not my number, it's the one BO and HRC have been trumpeting as what income level they would allow the Bush tax cuts to expire. It certainly would be foolish for me to argue tax brackets with an accountant, but my point wasn't to argue who's paying what percentage of income. My point was only that in order to pay for the stuff BO is proposing, he would collect an additional 2% in taxes from people making over $250,000 per year. Regardless of what tax bracket that happens to be, they'll have to pay more, while the tax rate for those making less than $250,000 will remain what it is now.

I also cannot believe the arguement you are making regarding Bear Stearns. The government funded a sweetheart deal for JPMorgan to buy Bear Stearns. Technically, JPMorgan was loaned to money and not given it. However, JPMorgan is only paying 2.5% interest on that loan, which is less than the interest rate the government is paying on the money it borrowed to loan to JPMorgan. In other words, it's costing the government more to acquire the loan for JPMorgan than it will profit from the loan to JPMorgan. It's costing the government money, which means it is costing you and I money.

 

The Federal Government saved Bear Stearns to save the entire banking system. This was something that had to be done and something every government would or at the very least should have done. The entire banking system is based on trust and that trust leans upon the government ensuring that banks don't go bust, because let's face it individual companies are not capable enough to guarantee the system and I think that a stable banking system benefits the society in general when you are not forced to take into consideration what would happen to everything you own if your bank went bankrupt.

 

We're getting WAY so this is the last I'm going to say on this unless we start a new thread. All banks are insured by the federal government, up to $100,000 per person. If the bank goes bust, the Federal Government repays you whatever you lost, up to $100,000. Most people do not have over $100,000 in the bank, so for the average person, they lose nothing if a bank goes bankrupt.

I guess the problem I have is everyone loves capitalism when it makes them money, but when it doesn't work, we turn to socialism to handle the losses. We want all the benefits from capitalism, but we want to simultaneously eliminate all possible risks which are inherent in such an economy.

 

A bank going bust has a lot more than just individual damages and causes mistrust in the entire financial markets, especially since we are talking about a major investment bank here. Needless to say that mistrust freezes down investments and that is not a good thing for stable growth.

This is of course true and the system with banks is everything but perfect. In the end they are free to make their own investments and it has been argued that the practical government guarantees that they have make them more prone to risk investments that might very well backfire and bust the joint if the government weren't there to guarantee it.

During the Finnish banking crisis in 1990-1992 the Bank of Finland (our former central bank, today we are of course under the ECB) had to take control of several of the private banks because they were practically headed towards bankrupcy and the entire system completely collapsed during the credit crisis. The Bank of Finland reacted too late to the emerging storm and was a great contributor to the biggest banking crisis and decrease of growth ever within the OECD. There are actually quite a few similarities between Finland then and the US now, even that crisis started with so called "trash loans" where just about anyone could get loans from banks and they were aggressively marketed to the people who could not afford them.

 

At least the Swedish media is making a real effort to ressurrect HRC now after she won West Virginia. The website of the biggest paper here top with: "Won West Virginia, now the wind is turning!" They also rambled about that she is in the race now, that the victory had a psychological impact and that all the experts are talking about how she can win the "swing states". This is from Swedish media, if they put this much effort into trying to keep the primary going for a long as possible what are the American media doing?

 

Pretty much ignoring her at this point. Obama gave an interesting talk this evening at a townhall meeting which drew more attention than the primary in WV. It was quite interesting; it was sort of Obama throwing down the gauntlet at John Mac.

I think HRC is just annoying at this point. But it's clear that she's hanging on for something - there's something she hopes to get out of all this pointless political posturing....

 

Our media reports it without that much of an interest. The Clinton win in WV was considered "expected" and she is quoted as saying she's more determined than ever (well, her chances are less than ever, so I guess it evens out). However, one newspaper notes that she recently used "he" in refering to what the future president should do, and says the media present at the occasion considered this a sign of insecurity.

 

She did win big in WV, but WV is a rather small state with a small populatoin. In fact, WV only has 28 delegates (plus a few superdelegates) out of 4,050 total delegates naitonwide. So this win won't have much of an impact.

 

Now that I feel confident (finally) in an Obama victory, I've decided to relax a little and take a 2-week vacation from all things politics. Not going anywhere, just no blogs, no news - ah, it sounds refreshing already. I'll start paying attention again after June 3. And if you guys don't hear from me on the 4th, it means that Hillary has somehow found a way rat-f*ck herself into the top spot and I will have hung myself with bungee cord. Twice.

Tootles.

 

Go, Hillary, go!

 

I just saw a report that said 20% of West Viginians stated that race was a major factor in the decision, and they overwhelming voted for Hillary. Let me emphasize this point a bit. It means that 1 in 5 people ADMITTED that they wouldn't vote for Barack because he's black.

Some interesting and telling facts about WV:

The state has 1.8 million people living in it. However, Charleston, the largest city, has a population of just over 51,000 people. In all of WV, there are just 5 cities with 20,000 or more people living it, and those 5 cities have a combined population of just 190,000. That means there are an astounding 1.6 million people living in the wooded mountains and hills of the state.

Some presumptions on my part regarding the 1.6 million hillbillies: The ONLY thing half of them know about BO is that he is black, and the other half "know" that he is Muslim. As humorous as it is sad.

 

From my experiences in Texas (and Southern Illinois for that matter), conservative rednecks are not kindly disposed toward minorities.

 

Not necessarily. It might mean they think Obama's a racist (due to Wright, say). It might mean they think Obama will do less than Hillary to heal the racial divide (ah, metaphors). It might mean....

Assuming your wording is close to how the poll was worded, at any rate.

 

Is this any surprise?

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24628804/

I'm glad he broke O's way. But another defeat, and a big one, IMO, for the Hill.

 

While it would have been nice to get the endorsement before North Carolina voted, it turned out that Obama managed to win big there anyway. This is well timed nonetheless, as it gets the news off of Hillary's win.

@AMaster - the exact question was: "Was race a major factor in your decision?" While it certainly can be interpreted in the ways you describe, I think it was quite implicit that the question was asking: "Was the race [of the candidate] a major factor in your decision?" I am inclined to think that most of the respondents answered the question in this context.

 

That's not a safe assumption. The NYT article
notes that half of those polled thought that Obama shares Wright's views. So half of WVians think Wright = Obama; 20% said that race was a major factor in their decision.

The problem with the poll is that there's no there there. The questions, at least so far as I've seen, were superficial. That superficiality prevents us from drawing any sort of firm conclusions about the results of the poll.