"What we have here is a form of looting."

[TOAD6147]

"The worst government the US has ever had"

SPIEGEL ONLINE reached George A. Akerlof, co-winner of the 2001 Nobel Prize in economics, on the phone while he was vacationing in New England. Following are excerpts of the conversation.

George A. Akerlof is a 2001 Nobel prize laureate who teaches economics at the University of California in Berkeley.
Read the full interview here.

[Atomic Rooster]

teaches economics at the University of California in Berkeley

That's all I need to know.

[Chuckiechan]

Didn't IdI Amin get the Nobel Peach Prize when he taught at Berkeley, too?

Please... "Do we have a barfing smiley?"

[MTAtech]

Originally posted by Atomic Rooster

That's all I need to know.

You can't tarnish his credentials by 'guilt by association.' He won the Nobel Prize.

What specifically do you disagree with? That the debt/deficit IS managable? Even conservatives are balking at the President's fiscal policies.

[Atomic Rooster]

Originally posted by MTAtech
You can't tarnish his credentials by 'guilt by association.' He won the Nobel Prize.

Well, so did Yasser Arafat.

[daveleau]

The deficit is not Pres Bush's. Actually, the balanced budget bill is a Republican creation. Every President since Jonh Adams has added to the deficit. (Adams actually had a surpluss for an entire term, not just one year like Clinton had).

This sort of ignorant bashing and the quoting of those who prey on the ignorance of others by stating incomplete facts to further an agenda (either by Dems or Reps) is really getting out of hand here. I really hope you guys don't truly believe all the crap that is said because most of it (both sides) are half truths based on the idea that most people are ignorant of all the facts.

For instance, that whole anti-Bush military quotation is based ont he idea that most do not know how the military works and that there are programs that allow all of the things said to tarnish Pres. Bush's military service.
This thread is another in a long line of predation on the ignorance of others. Pres. Bush did not create the deficit. That has been done by a conglomeration of Republicans, Democrats, Democratic-Republicans, Whigs and Federalists.

*disclaimer* Ignorance is not an attack- it is not synonymous with stupid. It simply means that all the facts are not known.

[hijack] A surprising outcropping from Berkeley: http://www.calpatriot.org/ [/hijack]

[MTAtech]

I know so many are willing to be Bush apologists but the Bush problems are even alarming to conservatives. Among them are the Heritage Foundation, the Club for Growth, a political action committee, and The Wall Street Journal's editorial page (perhaps these are the 'ignorant bashing and the quoting of those who prey on the ignorance,' that you were thinking of.)

"The president used the State of the Union to defend past spending increases, and he made eight specific calls for new spending increases," said Brian M. Riedl, a budget analyst at the Heritage Foundation [a conservative think tank]. "But he made zero calls for spending cuts. He merely said focus on priorities, cut wasteful spending and be wise with the people's money. That's not specific enough."

Mr. Bush had long attributed the sharp swing from budget surpluses to deficits to the recession and the war on terror. Now, he faces political pressure not just from small-government conservatives in Congress and Democrats who say his tax cuts have plunged the government into a sea of red ink, but also from voters.

"The government ran a deficit of $374 billion in the fiscal year ended Sept. 30, and the deficit is expected to be around $500 billion for the current fiscal year. When Mr. Bush took office three years ago, the Congressional Budget Office forecast a surplus of $5.6 trillion for the following decade."

"You're going to have someone upset with you if you do the right thing," said Representative Sue Myrick of North Carolina, chairman of the Republican Study Committee, the group whose members were meeting to agree on ways to hold down spending and address the deficit. "That's what we've got to find out: Are our members willing to stand up and do the right thing?"
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/22/politics/22FISC.html

At the current rate, the debt will get to Mars before any people.