If you follow US politics, you'll love this

Obama taking QnA from House GOP. The rhetoric is of an entirely different ilk than we find in public politics. Specific questions are asked, and he provides specific answers, emotionally and unscripted. This is ridiculously good IMO, and I'm honestly surprised that something like this is on tape. Maybe somewhere in the trenches of CSPAN this type of stuff goes on, but I haven't seen it and I doubt there's much of it

Also, it appears that in many of the points made by Obama even Democratic leaning journalists have misunderstood many actions and policies of his administration.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540#35147797

Skip the first few like 4 minutes or whatever until he starts answering the first question. Audio in the beginning is poor

wow I was thinking about this earlier today and just hoping something like this would happen soon

first thing that sticks out, man Obama has aged in a year

omfg... I want to strangle the broad that asks her question at around 30mins in.

Very nice, thanks.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=suUcq...=TL&playnext=1

Child in Chief, lies right out of his mouth hole constantly and everyone just eats it up. Typical brainwashed libs.

I read something on reddit about why Americans constantly vote against their own interests as they vote GOP. When the GOP call liberals elites, they mean elite educations. The GOP pretend to be salt of the Earth representatives of the community, a neighbor you can trust and paint liberals as saying "Well, we're smart enough to know what's best for the country."

Even though it may be true, it turns people off. So the people that hated Obama before this have no reason to change once everyone republican came out afterward with the same talking point, "We just got lectured." Voters hate being lectured, apparently.

Of course, I'm of the opinion that you want to hire the best executive to run your company or country, but not everyone thinks like me

Also, on Quinn and Rose in the morning, "In 19something something Fidel Castro lectured the U.N. for four and a half hours, Obama didn't quite hit that mark..." People eat it up, I'm sure.

Appears that the video might have loading problems at first so you may have to click the little screen on the left 'Obama Republicans spar in QnA'

China moves past Japan as world's second economy: http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id...tionid=3510213

US debt prepared to ass-rape us. (duh):
http://www.blacklistednews.com/?news_id=7005

China to open military bases world-wide:
http://www.antemedius.com/content/ga...ases-worldwide

So, soon we'll be at WW2 level debt-to-GDP but with competition this time round and we'll lose the title as only world super-power.

Fortunately, our military rocks and we already have military bases across the world. And we outspent China on military by 10-1 in 2008. (http://www.globalfirepower.com/)

Only posting this here because I don't feel like making a separate thread.

Guarantee that China lies about everything, especially GDP growth. They're communist and actually have a ton of fragility. Something as simple as the numbers not reflecting what the populous is led to believe could cause all sorts of problems.

Krugman touches a wee bit on the debt/deficit issue

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/200...causes-matter/

Also, I think people make a mistake of looking at isolated factors and applying them to the whole. Reality is that markets are global and multifaceted. On the popular issue of USD dropping in value and US debt/deficit being too high, it appears that nearly everybody forgets that the last thing that a nation such as China wants is for a weak US because their entire economy is based upon a strong US. There exists great paranoia among US citizens that we are somehow not still hugely the leader in all things economic, and this paranoia is phantom. It will take a long time for nationalistic shifts, and that shift will be more corporatocratic than anything IMO

Please expand upon China's need for a strong US economy.

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Originally Posted by a500lbgorilla

I read something on reddit about why Americans constantly vote against their own interests

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maybe this?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/8474611.stm

yarp, exact article. Thanks.

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They do it because they resent having their interests decided for them by politicians who think they know best.

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It's good stuff, read that the other day and have been talking about it with today.

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Originally Posted by bigspenda73

wow I was thinking about this earlier today and just hoping something like this would happen soon

first thing that sticks out, man Obama has aged in a year

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Yeah. Some anecdotal study pointed out that, due to stress level, presidents and other heads of state, (or otherwise people in positions of very, very high responsibility) tend to appear to age much quicker than everyone else. This is mainly an external thing - hair colour, skin tone and texture, etc (though the heart probably bears a good chunk of the burden). Pretty interesting imo. Helps to have a pres. in good shape.

Must explain why W nearly died from eating a pretzel. Damn, that would have been a sure-fire darwin award.

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Originally Posted by a500lbgorilla

Please expand upon China's need for a strong US economy.

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China purposely depresses their currency strength so that their manufacturing and exports can be strong. The whole "US = made in China" idea depends upon a strong USD and weak yuan in order for cheap production and strong overseas consumption. Any Chinese transition from this will largely rework their entire system and really encourage a strong middle class (which the communists in charge do not want that badly)

Also, a weak USD really screws up Chinese held T$ bills. They effectively lose a crapload of investment due to that investment going down in value. China would effectively be buying high and selling low. Not to mention that US foreign debt is only about 1/3rd of total US debt, and that only a fraction of that is to the Chinese. Nearly every nation holds a lot of US debt relative to their own economic strength. The US is really extremely powerful, but many citizens are told otherwise because that's good politics. We have a stranglehold on the global economy, and if we fall, most of the other first-world and developing economies fall harder. The power is at the top, and the US is not only on top, but chucks lightning bolts upon the mortals on a regular basis

I mean, we're engaged in two fucking wars because we tell the rest of the world that's what's gonna happen. Obviously there are some barriers, but imagine what would happen if France wanted to invade Saudi Arabia like we did Iraq. Big Brother USA would definitely put a stop to it unless it served our interests best. The US is the patriarch of the globe. While other nations are doing their best to rise up, I would not be surprised if the US is still rising even higher. Just like how the rich get richer simply because they're rich, the powerful seem to be in a perpetually better position to get even more powerful. This is done in part by 'outsourcing weakness'. It's common to further prop up a dominant economy by suppressing an already weaker economy. I mean, just look at the history or Haiti or Germany post WWI; more powerful economies imposed debts and sanctions on them which perpetually propped up those powerful economies and perpetually depressed the weak ones. In the case of Germany, the Weimar lost to the Third Reich, and in the case of Haiti, they're so poor that an earthquake destroys their entire nation's infrastructure. Whether we want to admit it or not, wealth is partly a product of stealing from the poor, and we find that in times of trouble, that thievery increases

Krugman thinks that China selling off on a weak dollar would actually benefit the US

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/200...-dollar-panic/

Also, I can't find it, but Krug has posted much on the status of USD as reserve currency and overall very powerful being very solid and built into the system. Panic over US going down relative to other nations is unfounded. This will happen, but over decades, not months or years. I remember watching a panel discussion from economists across the globe during the Wall Street meltdown, and one of the important points made was that the root of the problem of the global economy is global inequality i.e. US over consumes and China over produces, and that if the developed nations were to have more balanced personal economies then the relationships of these nations would not be so intricately dependent upon each other like it is now. Some developed economies are not super dependent on the US/China relationship, but only to a small degree, and as we have seen, the entire globe is literally subservient to the actions of the US financial markets. Not a good paradigm for anybody other than the US bankers IMO, and we've seen this quite clearly over the last year (Wall Street back to making huge profits at the expense of taxpayers while employment continues to decline)

Ironically, Krug's Nobel Prize was awarded for his analysis of the efficiencies of concentrated inequalities.

Makes sense, but on the lowest level, surface understanding, it sounds like China is built to be number 2. Which does not quite ring right in my ears.

Someone was telling me today that in 50 years the U.S. will be right back in the seat of the world-leader in production (for reasons I didn't quite understand and can not recall) and that the U.S. is home to many of the strongest companies and brands in the world. A lot of companies that will simply not relent. A fact which I know is true.

Honestly, I'm not that worried about the U.S. and it's position in the world. Even if we forfeit a bit of our lead over the rest of those non-american flag wavers or share a roll as the world's top dog.

I just consistently find more and more bad news about the state of the union, and increasingly meaningless political rabble babble, it so easy to slip to the opinion of throwing your hands in the air saying "fuck it." Even when we elect someone to supposedly clear the air of this bullshit, 50% of our country decides to http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/image...y_90093451.jpg

And I constantly find my arms cheating towards the heavens and my mouth forming the words, "fuck it."

In the end, I'm just hoping to take my interests away from politics. The entire domain is just so irritating.

Honestly, I think that I'm only going to get more and more involved in politics. I do believe what I said previously about POTUS elections being super important due to SCOTUS nominations (and moderating extremism and setting the direction for non-hot button issues which in the long run will turn out highly valuable). I will probably be very involved in the 2016 elections because I think that's when the nation will be extremely vulnerable to some kind of repeat Bush 2.0

As for direction of the country with regards to things like manufacturing, I think that if we keep retards from getting back in charge, then we will progress. But if we allow the retards to get back in power we will end up seeing this all repeat. We've already lost an entire decade due to Bush policies; put the GOP back in there for another two terms and we lose another decade.

The progress that we will make from here on out will be very slow though, and that's a scary thing because of how stupid voters are.

http://www.princeton.edu/~pkrugman/unemp-projected.png

Who could the repubs possibly bring up to ever touch Obama in debates? Obama still has 100mil in his campaign coffers (based on him raising 500mil plus and spending 400mil on his 2008 campaign) and the left wing will be energized following the balance of power coming from the possible 2010 repub retake of congress. The only knock against Obama is that the right refuses to let him win but I'd bet money today that he'll win re-election.

Yeah he'll most likely win reelection. Only if the jobs market is awful enough will he not win. But 2016 is when the money is going to either 1) pour into the GOP nomination, or 2) pour into a corporate friendly Dem nomination. IMO, we need to keep the liberals in the Dem Party as powerful as we can so the latter won't happen, and keep fervor up enough that the former won't matter.

Traditionally, it takes a helluva lot to beat an incumbent president, and Obama is gonna be one of the hardest. It's after his 8 years that I think we're really gonna have to step it up to keep a retard from snatching the reigns and buttfucking the middle class like Darth Jar Jar did.

Here's a pretty great report on the behemoth problems that China may be creating for themselves

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0h7V3Twb-Qk

Basically, in order to keep GDP up, they've built an entire city (ghost town) purely on investment for the future. Wouldn't be surprised if China creates their own ginormous bubbles just like US has

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Originally Posted by wufwugy

Here's a pretty great report on the behemoth problems that China may be creating for themselves

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0h7V3Twb-Qk

Basically, in order to keep GDP up, they've built an entire city (ghost town) purely on investment for the future. Wouldn't be surprised if China creates their own ginormous bubbles just like US has

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Building on speculation is right out of the 80's S&L Meltdown. You will be able to superimpose China's eventual demoliton of all these structures with old video of Bulldozers in Texas tearing down whole subdivisions built in the 80's on borrowed funds expecting eventual owners.

This is also good. Obama QnA with youtube questions

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0pqzN...layer_embedded

Interesting to note, at one point he used the word genocide. I think I recall that during the Rwandan Genocide, it was very un-PC to actually claim genocide

China prepares to buy up oil companies.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/n...companies.html