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GOP Presidential candidates MIA in debt ceiling talks

Is there anyway we could make Lula be President? He brought Brazil out of the third world pretty quickly. Maybe he could bring us out of it too?
 
NUMBERICA said:
Talk about undermining your own credibility.
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If I was not aware of the mechanics of default in this regard, how is that not a valid question? It is obvious how it affects companies and individuals, but it is anything but intuitive when it comes to an entity the size of a national government. If you default on your auto loan, they repossess your auto. If you default on your mortgage, the bank takes ownership of it. China holds the lion's share of our debt, so if we default I wondered if they would somehow "own" America, to drastically over-simplify.
 
LogGrad98 said:
China holds the lion's share of our debt
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This isn't even true. It's a pretty massively shared misconception for some reason. Right up there with "The United States doesn't make anything anymore."

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Sirkickyass said:
True story that some may find shocking given my board reputation as some kind of super-liberal:

I am so dissatisfied with Obama that I would consider voting for the right GOP candidate in the 2012 election at this point. It wouldn't be Palin/Bachmann/Newt/Paul or anyone of that ilk. But I might be persuadable in the instance the GOP candidate was Romney or Huntsman.
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saw this over the weekend, and I think she makes some good points, and I agree with much of what she writes - - maybe it'll strike a chord or two for you.

They've Lost That Lovin' Feeling
Obama still has supporters, but theirs is a grim support.

https://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111904800304576474620336602248.html

...I want to talk about something that started to become apparent to me during the debt negotiations. It's something I've never seen in national politics.

It is that nobody loves Obama. This is amazing because every president has people who love him, who feel deep personal affection or connection, who have a stubborn, even beautiful refusal to let what they know are just criticisms affect their feelings of regard. At the height of Bill Clinton's troubles there were always people who'd say, "Look, I love the guy." They'd often be smiling—a wry smile, a shrugging smile. Nobody smiles when they talk about Mr. Obama. There were people who loved George W. Bush when he was at his most unpopular, and they meant it and would say it. But people aren't that way about Mr. Obama. He has supporters and bundlers and contributors, he has voters, he may win. But his support is grim support. And surely this has implications.

The past few weeks I've asked Democrats who supported him how they feel about him. I got back nothing that showed personal investment....

...Why is Mr. Obama different from Messrs. Clinton and Bush? "Clinton radiated personality. As angry as folks got with him about Nafta or Monica, there was always a sense of genuine, generous caring." With Bush, "if folks were upset with him, he still had this goofy kind of personality that folks could relate to. You might think he was totally misguided but he seemed genuinely so. . . . Maybe the most important word that described Clinton and Bush but not Obama is 'genuine.'" He "doesn't exude any feeling that what he says and does is genuine."

...Mr. Obama seemed brilliant at politics when he first emerged in 2004. He understood the nation's longing for unity. We're not divided into red states and blue, he said, we're Big Purple, we can solve our problems together. Four years later he read the lay of the land perfectly—really, perfectly...

The fact is, he's good at dismantling. He's good at critiquing. He's good at not being the last guy, the one you didn't like. But he's not good at building, creating, calling into being. He was good at summoning hope, but he's not good at directing it and turning it into something concrete that answers a broad public desire.
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maybe something in his unusual upbringing makes it seem that he lacks a more human touch or something, I don't know.

I voted for a Republican for President once - Bush in '88 against Michael Dukakis. Unfortunately, I didn't realize he'd be such a wimpy wuss that he'd allow the Religious Right take over the way they did.
 
We wouldn't stopaying those we are in debt to, we'd stop paying those who we support locally. The first fear was socially security, then other public sector entities including potentially police officers, fire fighters etc.

It is very important that this deal passes, whether anyone likes it or not. The alternative is not an option and the white house knows it. Having a bunch of kamikaze congressmen in the tea party willing to risk the paychecks of everyone in the public sector makes it extremely difficult to negotiate when you are up against a wall. Considering how fragile most families income is, withholding financial support could have been dire.
 
moevillini said:
saw this over the weekend, and I think she makes some good points, and I agree with much of what she writes - - maybe it'll strike a chord or two for you.
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I don't think that's quite right, and to be honest it (when I say "it" I mean the whole article) reads as more "otherization" of the President of a type I've generally had a toxic reaction to.

To be honest I just don't think he's actually a Progressive. He sold us down the river on too many issues. I legitimately and honestly would vote for Eliot Spitzer over Barack Obama in a democratic primary election right now even though he could never win a general election (it also helps that I just generally don't care about sex scandals, apart from how amusing they are).
 
Sirkickyass said:
This isn't even true. It's a pretty massively shared misconception for some reason. Right up there with "The United States doesn't make anything anymore."

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I was thinking of debt held by foreign nations, which is true. China holds the most debt of any single foreign nation.

So in this case, I guess we can all foreclose on America. I say we do it!
 
LogGrad98 said:
I was thinking of debt held by foreign nations, which is true. China holds the most debt of any single foreign nation.
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That may be what you were thinking, but many many people believe that what you originally said is literally true. You hear it repeated ad nauseum as if China is some great boogie man that will come and turn all our baseball parks into Panda Express'.
 
But even "China" in terms of owning debt is not really an accurate description. It's just a bank when it boils down to it. As are most of those other slices of the debt ownership pie.
 
China holds some of our debt as an investment. They are invested because they believe that we can turn this around. That is a smart investment. It isn't like Goldmans, Leiman Brothers, and company that would buy up credit default swaps and then cross their fingers hoping we fail.
 
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