Letters to the Editor
i_like_tuesday
Published Letters: 32 Editor's Choice: 4
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An impossible standard
[Read the article: FactCheck.org: Obama statement "a little too slick"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I work for a lobbying organization - they're not all big oil or big tobacco, btw - but I don't lobby. Should Obama be held to a standard where he refuses my $10, $100, or $1000 donation if I support him as a candidate on a purely personal level? Employees of these types of organizations are often among those most interested in politics and therefore among those most likely to donate to a political campaign. Moreover, the employees of organizations like mine often have surprisingly varied political viewpoints on the personal level. There are many shades of gray here.
Specific types of fundraising efforts exemplified by the $1000-per-head pay-to-play PAC dinners, are what Obama has rejected. There is a list of registered lobbyists the campaign can consult to decide whose money would need to be rejected. Any higher standard would be simply impossible to meet since there is no list of all relatives of all registered lobbyists or of all non-lobbying employees of lobbying organizations. The campaign would spend all their time researching the source of each and every donation, so they would simply have to cease raising funds.
Obama already meets a higher standard than the other candidates - let's not judge his campaign for being unable to meet an impossible one.
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@AKA Smith
[Read the article: FactCheck.org: Obama statement "a little too slick"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]"The point here is that Obama claims higher ground than he can actually stand on. This is the truthiness problem that he has that I have pointed out over and over again. Obama is constantly being disingenuous."
I wasn't writing to you because I hadn't read your post but I think you have an exagerated view of what Obama has claimed. He will not take money from a PAC, while Clinton will. He has not claimed to be the messiah, invent the internet, or be good at bowling, however, there is clear blue water between their positions on this issue.
Do some research into PACs and you'll find that since corporations can't make direct donations, they make them through indirectly through PACs instead. However, the level of seperation between a PAC and its sponsoring company is usually laughable at best - ours is hardly existent - it simply comes down to the source of the PAC's funds. The crux is that an employee seeking to help their employer gain political influence would likely donate money to the employer's PAC, not directly to a candidates campaign. A PAC may simply make a direct donation to the campaign up to the maximum, but can gain further influence by sponsoring a fundraiser to solicit further donations on behalf of the candidate. That's what makes Clinton's stance cleraly more open to influence than Obama's.
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Depends on what the definition of is is...
[Read the article: FactCheck.org: Obama statement "a little too slick"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]"He is splitting semantic hairs, like any savvy politican does. The problem is Obama claims to be different than other politicians."
Do you seriously think his supporters have somehow forgotten he was a politician? Clinton supporters core argument against him now seems to be that he's such a good politician and makes it look so easy that one can sometimes forget he's a politician. That's an endorsement, not a criticism! Their candidate on the other hand never lets you forget she's a politician - let's face it, you wouldn't mistake her for a stand up comedian.
I'm sorry folks, in most cycles Hilary would be a runaway winner but Obama has the whole package. Whatever concerns about him you may harbor, please begin to accept that the whole package is a winning combination.
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Punchdrunk...
[Read the article: Rocky is not running for president]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Of course they're alike - All the sniper fire left Hillary punchdrunk too!
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Actions, not words
[Read the article: How to translate Fedspeak]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Bernanke gets that the markets are hanging on his every word - so he plays it close to the chest. While I disagree with the monetary policy he has chosen to pursue in response to the crisis, I believe the unprecedented actions taken by the Fed in recent days speak far louder than anything Bernanke said before Congress. This factor, along with the increased frequency of communications seems to have succesfully eased the tendancy for the market to try to "read the tea-leaves" and react strongly the Chairman's every word. Perhaps we're begging to see a "decoupling" (to use a buzz-word of the day).
And thanks Andrew - While the rest of Salon seems to be happily turning itself into a content-free echo-chamber, your column is still thoughtful, informative and factual...
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Clinton/Tourettes 2008
[Read the article: "Richardson has never questioned Senator Obama's electability"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]It's a tic people - mental illness - you don't want to discriminate against a mentally ill woman running for present do you? Please move on to more relevant discussions, like how Obama is a closet islamofascist bent on world domination and bilateral free-trade agreements allowing the unhindered exportation of american babies.
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Recycling...
[Read the article: Bear Stearns: "Too interlinked to fail"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I hated the Fed Bailout of Bear Stearns. The deal only happened because the fed bought assets that were supposed to be $30B which no one else had any interest in buying... This cash went directly to JPMorgan and ultimately it amounts to a $30B bribe to take on the company no one wanted to touch.
At the hearing Dodd concluded "JPMorgan isn't really putting any money in" to the deal. None of the panelists had a response before Bernanke chimed in that JP is taking on $1B of risk and that the fed could theoretically turn a profit on the deal.
Frankly, I'm outraged at how it all played out, and especially the sweetened deal for Bear shareholders. But we'd just given JP a $30B cash advance so what's another billion dollars of taxpayer money? Newsflash BS shareholders and employees - your company was worthless except for an infusion of $30B worth of taxpayers cash - you bastards should have got nothing and just shut up - that's how the capitalism game you so enthusiastically embrace is supposed to work, remember?
Still, in the fed's defense we're talking about $516 TRILLION of notional derivatives exposures worldwide here a figure 1,000 times the estimates of subprime related losses - $500B. Something definitely needed to be done about Bear.