...skin* to believe he will be different. There are myriad reasons to believe he will be different founded on other attributes the man possesses.

“The absence of any US-Iran bilateral channel...may have the perverse effect of reinforcing Iranian interest in progressing in the nuclear realm so that the US will be forced to take it seriously and engage it directly." ~ Richard Haass

and people expected that he'd be a different sort of president since he was a smart guy.

with the Iraq War, we had "smart bombs" but ultimately learned that "dumb politicians" controlled them; with Hillary, we have "smart power" but will ultimately find out that "dumb politicians" control it.

history will repeat itself.

All I'm hearing is generalized discontent based on perceptions of the past. What specifically can you point to about Barack Obama to indicate that his performance as president will be bad? Or is it that large parts of the electorate have made the naive assumption - in the sense that there's not a huge track record to back it up - that his performance will be good?

“The absence of any US-Iran bilateral channel...may have the perverse effect of reinforcing Iranian interest in progressing in the nuclear realm so that the US will be forced to take it seriously and engage it directly." ~ Richard Haass

Obama Says Recession Requires Scaling Back Promises

Jan. 11 (Bloomberg) -- President-elect Barack Obama said reviving the U.S. economy will require scaling back on his campaign promises and personal sacrifice from all Americans.

“I want to be realistic here, not everything that we talked about during the campaign are we going to be able to do on the pace we had hoped,” Obama said in an interview on ABC’s “This Week” program broadcast this morning. “Everybody’s going to have to give.” [Source: Bloomberg

So he's certainly not the type of guy who thinks before he talks or he simply told us what we want to hear; the only thing he knows about is how to flatter people with that smile and personality of his. The story of the Pied Piper of Hamlin is a classic for a reason.

MLK was a historic figure; MLK actually did something besides flashing his nice smile around.

Karl Marx noted that religion is an opiate; It took me a while to understand that one. I really do hope that Obama's rhetoric rises above the level of moral entertainment.

think he is a little slick and well packaged but I don't think it is fair to hold him to campaign promises when the economic picture has changed so drastically. It wouldn't be right no matter who was elected. It would be like holding Bush to campaign promises made if the Towers went down in Nov 2000.

I've been following the economic situation for years. It's not something that's new.

Take this book, for example:

The Great 401(k) Hoax: What You Need to Know to Protect Your Family and Your Future

That book was published in 2002 and I'm sure that there were many others like that.

If we go back further, Ross Perot told Americans: "I hear the sucking sound."

So, IMO, Obama has been a fraud since day #1. He's telling people what they want to hear. In the end, they'll be flushed down the toilet.

Of course we're going to learn if Obama has what it takes over the next 4 years but unless human nature changes, he'll continue the destruction of the middle class while sporting a big grin.

And, as you've seen me blog before, I believe that Bush did what Americans wanted him to do since, unconsciously, we're all addicted to spoils that came from being an empire. Sadly, though, Americans have a personality disorder and Bush became the fall guy.

that even you could withhold your decison he is the worst ever until at least he was president. lol I'm not holding Obama responsible for for not seeing all of the mess either, tho his push for the bailout pissed me off and I don't like his new bailout. I am willing to wait and see what he says and does after he is sworn in but I'm not very patient. I am pretty tired of spineless politicians who fill my inbox begging for money.

As for Bush, there are no excuses and "the people made me do it" is pretty lame and as usual lets him deny responsibility for any of his failings. It doesn't say much for his intelligence or character either.

If Obama was worth his money, he would have helped clean it up months ago. Instead didn't "mr. change" vote for FISA.

Hillary is in there and wants to raid Africa for its resources.

They'll have a good party.

I asked my dentist about tarter control versus whitening toothpaste and was told "tarter control" should be your choice since "whitening toothpaste" only masks discolored teeth while "tarter control" can sometimes reverse discolored teeth.

so I'd say that Obama has marketed himself as a tooth whitening paste; for whatever reasons, folks like buying lousy products and his marketers know that.

Madoff a modern Ponzi scheme? I'd say so. I have a book about how the government creates public/private revenue streams. Hence, military bases are put in states based on tax & spend schemes.

I think what Story is trying to say about Madoff is that the ponzi scheme was still part of the overall covert shadow finance world - where all the money laundering / drug / terrorism stuff gets financed. Story is rather obsessed with something called "the settlements" which are apparently some zillions of dollars that was initially left over from bankrupting the Soviet Union, an effort led by former ambassador Leo Wanta.

It is all really serpentine and only makes some sense to me because I've read books about the weird true nature of the Savings and Loan scandal and its intersection with the Iran Contra players and the drug money laundering. Another element would be the rehypothecation of loans based on dodgy collateral - Story says that when the UK police sacked a ton of safe deposit boxes full of collateral, they removed the ability of the nasty shadow elite to keep generating the bad money. This in turn led a lot of them to count upon Madoff's rotating carousel of cash flows -- all the 'missing' money is merely the "IN" side of the scam, not the obfuscated outflows.

It's all pretty weird - there is also this thing going around that the Mossad gave someone (i think conspiracy theorist Tom Heneghan? Or possibly some informant/white supremacist Hal Turner?) a ton of data about payoffs into congressional bank accounts. it's referenced in the link above.

This shadow finance stuff is fascinating, but of course there is so much chaff in the wheat, it is hard to follow. However, at this point, it is very important we get a grip on how the system happens; someone like Story can have something valuable to add, but it is so far removed from normal financial news I have a very hard time integrating it (believing it?).
--
Hongpong.com

Worse than intellectual laziness is generic lazy apathy. I had to smile at this response

I can count on is your posts dissing the site or members here, and as usual I'm not disappointed, but the upside is I didn't have to edit out any insults...this time.

And give the guy a chance.

civil rights, ethics, homeland security, additional issues -none of these pages spoke of restoring the constitution or or spoke against unbounded executive powers or spoke the patriot acts, the homegrown terrorist act or the military commissions act or spoke of whatever state of whatever war we're in that congress never declared -no, what speaking was done shored up more blowback, more alienation to the core. the core. yes, the bark of the tree will be scraped clean again, but the core rot is protected, affirmed, validated.