Nov 06 2008
How To Lose Support And Elections
This was to be a post on how Liberals could turn 2008 into 1992 (or worse, 1928) by proceeding down policy paths sure to get them booted from power in 2 years. But before I get into the checklist of things to watch for over the next two years, I cannot help but note the insanity coming from some on the right. I will bring up only one instance because of how it made me cringe in how much the ranting winger sounded like someone from Kos Kids or Democrat Underground or one of the other liberal cesspools of immature anger.
Yesterday Monica Crowley made it to my ‘won’t be listening to that crap anymore’ list when she noted (paraphrasing here) that 55 million voters rejected the Obama “Dictatorship”. This analogy is repulsive and as self destructive as it comes. Apparently Monica is just a blonde Michael Savage who wants to foment a civil war because she and her kind cannot figure out how to attract voters with better ideas. This is how the far right lost respect and power and left the door open for Obama to step in with a positive (if not false) message.
Obama was elected President by the best country on the planet, the best in all of mankind’s history. Our great nation exercised it’s unique beacon of democracy and Obama was the result. There was no dictatorship established (anymore than Bush and Cheney ran one). I really cannot fathom what kind of idiot yells fire in a theatre like this. If there ever is a fire, or even actual signs of smoke, I’ll be there. But this is just ridiculous. It left me realizing I am not a conservative or with the GOP if that is quality of the debate they bring to the table.
Now, onto the other side of the rabid political spectrum. Here is a list of actions the liberals should not embark on, but I doubt they have the foresight or understanding to heed the warning.
- Don’t raise taxes on small business or let the Bush tax cuts expire – as the stock market showed yesterday (and probably all through the months of September and October) liberal policies really hurt our economy. All those people who bought the “Nirvana is coming” BS from Obama and his cronies are going to want to see well paying jobs and more spending money. Raising taxes on small businesses will slow an already slowed economy. The land mine is reality vs rhetoric. Lofty rhetoric fooled a lot of people, now comes the cold hard economic reality. Either way the libs are screwed here. If they don’t redistribute some serious wealth the voters are going to feel (rightfully) like they were conned. If they do there goes the job creation. Remember, when the neophyte Clinton came on board he had robust economy that took him 8 years to screw up (Bush inherited a recession and immediately enacted tax cuts and a stimulus package). Obama has no such safety net.
- Don’t Go On Witch Hunts – While America is waiting for all the milk and honey promised with this new ‘change’ Democrats will not want to be seen as wasting time on partisan witch hunts. The do nothing Congress will be seen wasting their time going after the GOP while the economic hurt continues. “Change” needs to mean more positive actions for the people, not personal or partisan vendettas.
- Domestic National Security Force – We don’t need a domestic federal security force running around our streets. Hollywood is replete with over the top fascism by government goons, the liberals will not be immune to the comparisons in people’s minds. And too many times individuals use these kinds of ideas for personal payback. Nirvana will look pretty much like a communist state if we get some thugs (even with just night sticks) running rampant for the government. Especially in tandem with the next item.
- Do Not Cut The Military – The face of military in DC is one of politically savvy generals and bureaucrats who are playing the DC political power game. To liberals on Congress they may represent an entrenched opposition, a threat. But the face of the military across the nation is citizen soldier, many times one who has been wounded. To cut the military is symbolically to cut support for soldiers and their efforts. They are suffering economically too. The liberals talk about throwing the poor in the street, the GOP can talk about throwing those who sacrificed into the street. It will look even worse if the defenders of this nation are replaced by national security forces playing Big Brother on our nation’s streets.
- Stay Away From Green House Taxes – The liberals enjoyed the hell out of $4 a gallon gasoline. It is not enough that they will not exploit our energy reserves. As Obama once hinted his plans to battle the mythical man-made, CO2 driven Global Warming is to raise the cost of energy through various schemes which – at the bottom line – are taxes on energy. He will try and run the coal industry into the ground. The Global Warming period for now has stopped and we will be seeing a decade of Global Cooling (even the IPCC/Church of Al Gore says this). Energy will be at a premium and it will be those economically hurting Americans who will feel the most pain of foolish Green House taxes.
I am sure there are many other land mines out there – feel free to add them in the comments. These kinds of previously stated idiotic policies from the liberals have some common factors which make them highly explosive with the public, and therefore potentially very self destructive to Democrats.
First, the GOP and McCain-Palin our on record saying these are bad ideas. They are bad ideas. The problem is that the longer the economic down turn is (and it will be months) the more impatient all those gullible voters will be for their milk and honey to arrive. Heck, these people are so ignorant of how government works they will be getting really frustrated and agitated before spring is over. They expect immediate government handouts. They won’t be getting them. And if they do they will be a couple hundred bucks. The natives will be getting increasingly restless and the Dems will be looking for anything to give them.
So they will try some of these other efforts. Their energy/Green House policies will slow the economy. Their tax policies will slow the economy. Their military cuts will slow the economy. There never has been enough wealth to spread around to make a big difference to people. That is why they need to make their own wealth, because you could bankrupt the entire top 1% and it would not run this nation for a year or two. And then we would be back where we were, without the large corporations which tower over the world economy.
So the items listed above have been warned about by the GOP and will make the current economic situation worse (which is why this could be more like 1928 before the Great Depression). And now, in the minds of too many unsophisticated voters, the Democrats are in charge. There is no Bush to blame, no GOP to blame. If they try that the backlash will be immense. They promised Nirvana and the voters want payment for their vote (that’s how they see this game, payments for votes – right corrupt DC?).
The only way for the Democrats to survive these next two years is to reject liberal policies and follow a more conservative path. Will they do it? I seriously doubt it. I think too many believe the Kool-Aid induced fantasies about redistribution. What worries me is there may be ones who know their policies are about to bring some serious pain.
This scary scenario (which I am just speculating about, not claiming is true) is where the US military is cut and a national defense force is created in its place. And the national defense force is there to make sure no one loses power over these hard times about to come. That’s the worst case scenario. No sign of that happening right now.
But if you want to look for what will drive the direction of this country (not the efforts of those trying to drive it, but how the country will drive itself in reaction) watch the economy. If it struggles the Dems are out. They promised the promised land, those of us who are not so easily duped know they cannot deliver, and they will be struggling to minimize the damage for the next year at least.
Clinton inherited a strong economy he let implode over the dot.com debacle, and a strong national security position less than a year after Bush Senior liberated Kuwait with a Muslim Arab alliance. Within less than a year of leaving office (after having lost both the House and Senate to the GOP in 1994) we were in a recession and were attacked by al-Qaeda on 9/11. As Osama noted it was Clinton’s actions in Somalia and WTC I in 1993 which gave him his vision that America was weak and would cower if attacked.
Obama and the Dems have no such cushions to compensate for their errors. It will not take 8 years to discover how bad liberal policies are in this competitive and dangerous world. We are about to learn a very harsh lesson about reality vs fantasy.
Update: Another word of caution to the conservatives – pick spokespeople and leaders who don’t repulse the middle of America but attract it (and that doesn’t mean giving up principles, it means moderating them back into reality and acceptable steps towards a goal):
First, and probably most important, the ideological composition of the electorate this year was virtually identical to that of 2004. This year, 22% of voters were liberals, 44% were moderates and 34% were conservatives. In 2004, 21% were liberals, 45% were moderates and 34% were conservatives.
In the voting booth, it was moderates who made the difference. They had given John Kerry a 9-point advantage in 2004; in 2008, they gave Obama a 21-point advantage. That change, in and of itself, is worth most of the swing from Kerry’s narrow loss to Obama’s big victory.
Yes, moderating the speed of reform is frustrating, but it has the benefit of at least going in the right direction. Impatience (as we saw with Bush and the backstabbers) is not a virtue – it is a path to defeat and minority status. Next time forget about deporting illegal aliens and accept a step towards sanity that brings the nation along with us.
Republicans lost the future when we chased the Hispanics out of the tent…
What I find laughable and pathetic at the same time is the idea of Joe Biden guiding foreign policy. I saw on one of those IQ tests advertisements that claimed this guy had an IQ of 146. If that is true then IQ test should be thrown out the window. They are useless. This guy is a joke. I will wish Obama good health if only because Joe Biden as president would be worse. And can’t you just see this guy presiding over the senate? This is going to be a laugh a minute.
Coleman 750 point lead
recount 550 point lead
recount 337 point lead
let’s see, about 2 more recounts should do it before Franken gets the lead and that’ll be the last recount. Same as Washington governors race a couple years ago
why is it that on each recount, it gets closer, why do they only find more Democrat votes? Did no Repub votes get lost? only Dems?
wonder who’s doing the counting?
Want to guess?
If you’ve noticed the stock market the last 2 days, you’ll see I’m not the only one who sees this economy headed into the toilet faster than you can spit.
Watch for the bankruptcy of Chrysler, then GM, then Ford. Without some kind of federal bailout, this happens within 3 months. Of course, with a bailout, which of course will not be a onetime thing, we’re back to $1 – $2 trillion deficits every year for the forseeable future.
We have a couple of choices about the specific manner in which this economy will be destroyed. We no longer have a choice about the destruction itself.
Welcome to the Democrat Depression. Use the phrase. NEVER let people forget that the Democrat Depression is the change that Obama and his party brought.
Strategic goal for the 2012 election: create a more effective fraudulent vote operation than the Dems. I see no reason we should not seek to energize the silent majority of non-existent voters. Why should the Democrats have a monopoly on this increasingly important demographic?
I heard that Pelosi and Reid are already scaling back expectations.
Reality bites.
There was something I wondered about..when in 2010 do the Bush tax cuts run out? Will it be before the midterms? I know most people think those tax cuts were for the rich, but they were not, they included all sorts of people. I wonder what impact that might have on the elections that year.
Also, I know that Bush took millions of lower income people off the tax roles. Do they have to start paying taxes again when the tax cuts expire or were the tax changes related to them made permanent.
WWS:
Yeah, but those Wall Street people gave a lot of money to Obama. What were they thinkiing?
AJ,
I agree with on a great deal, and the heart of your post is on the money, I disagree with you on one key thing. Its not our job to defend the President-Elect from provocative attacks, let Obama supporters do that. Keep banging away with facts and good arguments cause thats what I am going to do.
my new blog:
http://46in08.blogspot.com/
I agree that negativism isn’t the answer. But going soft is just plain suicide.
The problem isn’t that there are serious fallacies in N-OTUS’s agenda, highly immature fallacies, questionable fallacies, even dangerous fallacies. The problem is those fallacies have all been elected to the highest office of the land and will be shepherded by the least competent candidate America has ever witnessed, one that is more than likely to have the most strings attached.
The duty of the right is to stay vigilant. The fires will come and the fires will rage. The key is to let them roar through the Democrats house at will while safeguarding America’s, the military’s, and our own house.
N-OTUS loves to play with matches. His entire history is nothing but playing with matches to the point of being OCD. We just need to keep kicking those matches back at him or punt them to his cronies.
____________________________
I mean no offense with these revisions but I felt compelled to offer what I feel are necessary corrections.
“Obama was elected President by the best country on the planet, the best in all of mankind’s history.”
**Re-direct: Obama was elected President. America is the best country on the planet, the best in all mankind’s history.
Confounding the two realities into some obligatory higher purpose is disingenuous and frankly unworthy of such a fine supporter and support site.
The one is a matter of fact. The latter is an assertion of truth based on principles and convictions. “Never the twain shall meet”. Never.
“Our great nation exercised it’s unique beacon of democracy and Obama was the result.”
**Re-direct: And in the same process and by the same virtue, many neglected, and indeed abandoned that beacon of democracy and Obama was the result.
“And now, in the minds of too many unsophisticated voters, the Democrats are in charge.”
**Re-direct: And now, because of too many unsophisticated voters, the Democrats are in charge.
“Heck, these people are so ignorant of how government works they will be getting really frustrated and agitated before spring is over.”
YES!
The key is maintaining composure and refraining from stoking that frustration and scrubbing salt and lemons on that agitation, but at the same time refrain from saving them from themselves.
The markets historic nose-dive right after N-OTUS’s win is indictment enough but saying so will fall on deaf ears and retarded minds. Handouts are coming, don’t you know.
Let the full weight fall. Let them feel the fires. The idiots will never learn until they bear the full brunt of the consequences they themselves have wrought.
And given how oh-so-sensitive the Obamabots are, the Dems will be so beside themselves trying to contain their fires from burning their own voters, they won’t have time to prepare for 2010!
But it will be the fault our fault if we give them any safe harbors to lay blame other than at the feet of their own Papa Dearest.
It’s also important not to let up on digging at all the gaping holes in N-OTUS’s checkered history. A lot of effort has been put into cleansing those holes, masking the doubts, and obliterating the evidence. They all need constant scratching and persistent digging.
Given so many “openings”, sooner or later, something must yield.
America voted for change. But it’s more than possible that what it got instead was the changeling.
____________________________
As for witch hunts:
Reason 142 to Homeschool: Obama Teachers Won’t Bully Kids Who Support McCain
http://www.belch.com/blog/2008/11/06/reason-142-to-homeschool-obama-teachers-wont-bully-kids-who-support-mccain/
Terri wrote: “Yeah, but those Wall Street people gave a lot of money to Obama. What were they thinkiing?”
Absolutely correct. These were the people who in large part caused this problem. I don’t really blame the people who took zero down ARM loans on overpriced property nearly as much as the people who gave them those loans, and even worse were the people who collateralized all of the bad loans and sold them to school districts. Why shouldn’t someone with no verifiable income live like a king as long as there’s some banker out there begging him to take the money? And Wall Street is the place where all of this nonsense was sanctified and everyone convinced themselves that the game would go on forever. Now they’ve convinced themselves that all they need is bailouts and stimulus packages and an endless number of government programs to put the gravy train back on the tracks. Obama promises more of that than anyone, so they supported him.
It won’t work. It can’t work. The “smartest guys in the room” can’t admit that to themselves yet, but there it is.
It won’t work.
And as that reality sinks in, the bottom will continue to drop out of this market and out of this economy.
I want to say this as loud as I can. The fact that John McCain has allowed his people to trash Sarah Palin after his loss, which would have been much bigger without her, is the same John McCain I didn’t want to vote for in the first place. His “Mavrick” thing is just a cover up for trashing any one he pleases, like the President. I find his behavior despicable and not deserving of being Commander in Chief.
this is a quote from dick Morris. com
“If ever there was an election that was not worth winning, it was the contest of 2008. While it was hard-fought on both sides, had McCain won, it might have spelled the end of the Republican Party. As it is, the party is well-situated to come back in 2010 and in 2012, if it learns the lessons of this year.
Simply put, all hell is about to break loose in the markets and the economy. The mortgage crisis will likely be followed by defaults in credit card debt, student loans and car loans. We will probably be set for two years of zero growth, according to economists with whom I talk. And the federal efforts to protect the nation from the worst of the recession will probably lead to huge budget deficits and resulting inflation. We are in for stagflation that could last for years.”
I can’t say that I disagree with it. Obama is in for a real headache.
Dear Mr. McCain,
To make a career out of sniping at your own party and then expecting its full support in a national election is a bit unreasonable. Oh, and having more of a campaign theme than “I am not Barack Obama” and vague themes like “Country First” would help too. Next time, get a little more specific about exactly what the differences are.
Drop the “faith-based” belief in “Global Warming”. The climate of Earth has not warmed in seven years and has rapidly cooled in the last two years; the state of arctic ice notwithstanding due to unusual wind currents in 2007 that blew it out into the Atlantic. As of today, arctic ice area is within one standard deviation from the average since 1979. In other words, at normal levels. Global ice coverage is today almost exactly at the average level since 1979 (antarctic ice a little above normal, arctic ice about the same amount below). Expose the phony science for what it is. But you would need access to science staff, not lawyers to do that.
Stop the sniping at Palin. Picking Palin was your smartest move. The way she was “handled” has been a disgrace.
No more voters showed up this time than showed up in 2004. The “Archie Bunker” Republicans stayed home and wouldn’t vote for you. Loyalty works both ways. The “South Park” Republicans apparently voted for Obama.
Redteam – Dick Morris is wildly optimistic. 2 years of zero growth? Would to god we could be so lucky. We’re looking at
negative 10% “growth” next year. That’s what happens in deflationary depressions.
I have a good friend who runs an auto dealership – we exchange e-mails a lot. Here’s a bit of analysis I did for him earlier today which you may find interesting. What’s happening in the auto industry is a microcosm of american industry in general. This is long, but worth the read if you want to understand the kind of business headlines you’ll be reading in the next few weeks.
Begin:
I ran across a small article from Reuters that may not seem like much at first, but when you connect the dots as to who owns who, it looks like it could be the trigger for the reorganization of the American automobile industry over the next 6 months.
(I say 6 months to be conservative; this trigger looks like it will be pulled within 60 days)
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20081106.RGMAC06/TPStory/TPBusiness/America/
NEW YORK — The Residential Capital LLC affiliate of auto maker General Motors Corp. may soon join the ranks of U.S. mortgage lenders that failed to navigate the deepening housing crisis.
“Given market conditions, and given that collateral values are still falling in markets where they lent, I think a bankruptcy is imminent, within the next 60 days,” Mr. Lykken said.
End Quote – you have to know ResCap’s ownership structure to understand
the significance of this imminent bankruptcy filing. (And once stories like this hit the press, it usually means the papers have already been prepared and are simply awaiting the filing date) ResCap is a wholly owned subsidiary of GMAC, which is now owned 49% by GM and 51% by Cerberus Capital Management who owns – you know it – Chrysler. GMAC owns several billions of dollars worth of ResCap corporate paper.
When ResCap files bankruptcy, it will precipiate a crisis at GMAC. Now, one
possible “good” outcome is an outright government takeover of GMAC,
combined with tens of billions of dollars of support for Cerberus and GM.
Now that this election is passed, the administration may just say “screw
it” and start passing out the billions like day old halloween candy.
Why do I say that’s a “good” outcome? Because it keeps the entities
involved in the game for a few more months, at least until the end of
this administration. They will all be on life support, but things will continue
kind of as they are for a while.
Now here’s how this will play out if Paulson chooses *not* to save GMAC
after the ResCap bankruptcy filling.
A ResCap bankruptcy without support should necessitate a GMAC bankruptcy
filing, if for no other reason than to protect itself from the tens of billions of
dollars worth of lawsuits that will be filed. This in turn will almost certainly
necessitate a bankruptcy filing by Cerberus, AKA Chrysler. They will have lost
the capital they need to continue operations. However, this will not be the
only casualty; GM itself could also be pulled under by the ResCap filing, since
I can not see how they are in position to survive a one day multi-billion dollar loss, which is what the bankruptcy of GMAC will mean to them.
As I said, I conservatively give this 6 months, but it could happen by the end
of this year. GMAC may find it advantageous to try to hang on until Jan 20th,
when the new Congress will be desperate to do anything to keep them from
collapse.
If they survive that long (they probably will) then I see all of the Detroit
automakers becoming arms of a GSE structured along the lines of Airbus.
Ford will get pulled in because even though they’re not involved with ResCap,
they’ve still got plenty of problems of their own. The automakers will
have some nominal independance, but their budgets and priorities will all
be set by their new Congressional overlords. And once they
become governmental entities, there will be no turning back. It will be
interesting, to say the least, for the dealers, since they will still need you
to move product. However, you will become relegated to the status of
Government subcontractors, not independant businesses.
I know the dealers all have very detailed and binding legal agreements
between them and the automakers. This is why the problem will be
handled by a government takeover – part of any legislation authorizing
this will be a clause voiding all lawsuits over previous contractual
obligations. Can Congress do that? Yes, they can.
As I said earlier, the art of investment is the trick of figuring out how all
the dominoes are going to fall, and they always start with a trigger.
Just as the creditanstalt was small in itself but a trigger for the debacle
of the 30’s, ResCap could be the trigger for the end of the Detroit automakers
as independant entities.
This trigger looks like it will be pulled within 60 days. Interesting,
to say the least.
I think the point was made that McCain didn’t get as many votes as Kerry did in 2004 and Obama didn’t get to Bush’s count. This is not a center/left country and we don’t need to pander to that constituency to win elections.
We need a candidate that reflects the principles of this country and is able to articulate that argument. Reagan was like that…he didn’t think it was necessary, not could he in good conscience, compromise his principles and he could very artfully explain his position and why it was the right position to have.
Sort of hard to passionately defend something you are not passionate about (see McCain, bailout, e.g.)
Any candidate that espouses a Federalism platform, fiscal responsibility, small government, strict constructionalist, strong national defense and is able to articulate that position will win elections. I personally am an Independent, social liberal, fiscal conservative, small government advocate.
Whether he/she is pro-life/pro-choice, the correct answer is that Roe v Wade is a bad decision and should be overturned and the question returned to the states for whatever legislative action they desire.
Government can’t ensure economic equality, the proper role of government is to ensure equal opportunity and to do that government must not hinder achievement by getting in the way.
The proper role of government is to protect the citizenry from enemies foreign and domestic and restricting taxes to that which is necessary to provide that protection.
I know it is hard to “put the Genie back in the bottle”, but someone has to start somewhere. Social programs are not the governments purview and everyone of them needs to be looked at with a discerning eye.
We don’t need to change direction to win elections. We shouldn’t be trying to win votes….we should be trying to change minds…educate. That being said, there is no profit in demonizing the very people that you want to convince. Inform…educate, and use history to do so.
“If ever there was an election that was not worth winning, it was the contest of 2008. While it was hard-fought on both sides, had McCain won, it might have spelled the end of the Republican Party. As it is, the party is well-situated to come back in 2010 and in 2012, if it learns the lessons of this year.”
And if ever there was an Administration that so deserved to have its feet held firmly to the fire, it’s this one.
This is all the more reason why now is NOT the time to be reaching across the divide, but to stress focus on internal bedrock and hard-wired compass bearings.
Holding NOTUS and his Admin’s feet to the fire is all the opposition is duty bound to do. Offering solutions and guidance to the enemy is naive at the best of times. It’s downright suicidal while navigating such a volatile sea of troubles, knowing full well the helm has been commandeered by a man who’s fixated on the manual from the coffee grinder that’s failed even Nader’s test.
The trap of seeking neutral ground is this.
There’s no denying that any and all successes from now to 2010 and 2012 will be claimed by NOTUS and the Dems as entirely their making. Guess who’ll pick up seats in 2010 and re-election in 2012?
Any and all failures, especially with No-Banana and his Dems Pollyanna agenda, will be desperately wanting a Republican, or all Republicans, to scapegoat. Guess who’ll lose more seats in 2010, and lose the election in 2012?
When big game hunting was still in vogue, this was called the Burmese Tiger Pit. With modern big game hunters, aka top level politicians, it’s called “reaching across the divide”.
As of Nov. 5th, the bridge across the divide was instantly re-engineered as Dem-built.
Make them cross first.
Here’s one more thing to consider:
In the course of all the mounting catastrophes of the sub-prime, aka “affordable housing”, government-backed CRA initiative, there must have been a considerable amount of relocating.
Obama Win Propelled by Votes in Fast-Growing Suburbs
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601070&sid=amqy_RHiPVas&refer=home
READ: New housing, new loans. Fast-growing, fast loans.
It’s a hunch.
Bloomberg has made the connection that new and growing populations have re-mapped the electoral landscape. But they haven’t linked the migration to the “affordable housing” issue.
Surely if the NOTUS win was influenced by votes from “fast-growing suburbs”, it stands to reason that sub-prime loans and the “affordable housing” initiative had something to do with how all that came about.
America is now facing yet another set of “cluster” relocationing due to foreclosures, lowered incomes, and loss of income – sub-prime loans, the gift that keeps on giving. Where are these voters going? How many had their income class demoted because of the relocation? How many relocated to maintain their income class?
Where can Republicans expect these shifts and their voting perspectives to pop up in 2010? And how will those shifts and their voting perspective affect the voters they’ll have relocated to?
Historically, hard times see a return of metropolitan populations back to the city cores. This inevitably re-maps the pressures that cities and urban voters must face as well.
Also, if sub-primes did help fuel such a striking shift in the electoral landscape, how will the new restrictions to come for sub-prime loans affect the future electoral landscape?
If Republicans can’t identify these trends in time for 2010 – i.e. who these voters are, what they stand for, what they’re taking with them politically because of their need to relocate, and how they’re likely to influence the voting region they’ll have relocated to – they may find roasting their weenies over a lump of coal to be a better use of their funds and time than trying to regain lost seats.
The “financial crisis” was basically due to three factors:
A: HUD deciding to use Fannie/Freddie as a mechanism to get more low income people into housing at any cost.
B: Interest rates rising after several years of falling.
C: Sarbanes/Oxley (SOX) “mark to market” requirements.
So very creative mechanisms were created to get people affordable mortgage payments with adjustable rate mortgages. Many of these were right on the limit of what people could afford. When interest rates went up, adjustable mortgages adjusted up. This forced many of them into default and eventually foreclosure.
Foreclosure sales forced market prices down. SOX requirements meant the lenders had to mark down the value of their assets. When an asset value went under the amount owed, it became a liability on their books even if the homeowner was making payments. Without assets to borrow against, the lenders could not get money. SOX was the trigger that caused the market to fail. Rather than have to mark your assets to current market, it would have been better to mark assets to a moving average over some period of time. That would soften the blow of sudden moves. As it was, the Treasury eliminated the mark to market requirement but the huge bailout bill went through anyway. At the current time we have probably over-reacted.
Now as far as general business spending is concerned, the fastest way to get a business to stop spending money is to promise drastic “change” at some point in the relatively near future without clearly articulating what that change is going to be. Until those businesses get an idea of what the ground rules are going to be going forward, nobody is going to take any major risks with capital. Obama guaranteed a slowdown by hawking “change”. That absolutely guarantees that spending is going to come to a screeching halt.
“This is not a center/left country and we don’t need to pander to that constituency to win elections.”
Nobody wins without the center. The center decides the election. You don’t need to “pander” to them, but you can’t alienate them. Republicans are only 30-some-odd percent of the electorate. That is not enough to win an election. And you don’t get the people on board that you need by digging in your heels.
Regan got nearly 60% of the vote. He got the center and a good number of Democrats. He did it by not alienating them. He did it by promoting ideas such as eliminating barriers to trade, eliminating barriers to immigration, removing government regulations and allowing individuals and companies to innovate without government manipulation. He believed in us. He didn’t tell us that he needed to fix us or transform us or change us. He told us he needed to get the government off our backs and allow us to reach our potential. Left or right makes no difference. Prosperity improves the lot of all of us. Regulation and contrived shortages only create mechanisms for politicians to control the allocation of resources and capital. Abundance means giving up control. That is hard for politicians to do.