<p>That's interesting. You claim that morningside's post was elegant and ironic and that we all misinterpreted it. And then without any sort of explanation or evidence, you go off into a childish rant culminating in a quite hilarious argument that President Obama only won because of his appearance. Obviously being black made it so much easier for him.</p>
<p>And as for your arguments about betraying his party, he's yet to be in office a week. What exactly did you think would happen when he got into the White House, 100 executive orders in the first two days? I find it great that he already ordered</a> interrogators to follow the Army Field Manual, something that you seem to have missed. And ordering for Gitmo to be closed within a year is not a "campaign promise," it's a realistic solution to a difficult and dangerous problem.</p>
<p>angrygoldfish, I was adding to the discussion and hence no need to give explanation and evidence at the start. You may not like what I say and you do not have to agree either but what is childish? In my own defense it was neither a rant nor childish. I am not saying Obama won only because of appearance: I mentioned youth, but I also mentioned our projection, I also mentioned money, etc. Perhaps you could reread my post?</p>
<p>As to the Army field manual stuff, I have news for you. Obama is undertaking a review of the interrogation procedures and is keeping open the option of departing from the manual. Kindly read this week's Economist magazine on the betrayal felt by his own followers. Page 40. Now, had Obama really given some substantial orders in the first 3 days would you not be crowing over what he had accomplished in just 72 hours?</p>
<p>There are many factors for his election. It was close and if the economy had not tanked the results may have been different.</p>
<p>I wish Obama well, his election sends a good message about America but I do not think he has any overarching philosophy. We can differ but try good manners and kindly refrain from ad hominem attacks because you will come off poorly to other posters.</p>
<p>The point I made that I hoped you would understand was that you took a thread about Columbia's suggested role in American politics and America's political status and used it as a medium to make an all-out rant against Obama (and yes, it is quite a rant).</p>
<p>Everything doesn't have to turn into an all-out political argument, really. Luckily I hadn't seen anything like this thread yet at CC before now.</p>
<p>angrygoldfish, the OED has the following definitions of a rant: a) behave in a boisterous manner b) use bombastic language c) scold violently or intemperately. My post does not fit these criteria. It is vehment.</p>
<p>Kindly read the title of the thread: socialism. The OP was intertwining 2 ideas, that Columbia was somehow responsible and that with Obama socialism was going to arrive. He continued in this vein in post 10. Most of you literally reacted to the Columbia-genesis aspect of his post and ignored the socialism. I took the socialism aspect and made a rather in depth contribution by alluding to the philosophical underpinnings of Obama via Soros and Popper.</p>
<p>It seems the three most ignorant posters on this site have united - seriously "ramaswami" you are a hell of judge right, Obama is not great because you say it and are you insane the creator of this thread is anything but elegant. Its important to note that these individuals are like <20% of the population and if "ramaswami" is Indian (like me) he has got to be the first Obama bashing Indian i have seen</p>
<p>Purchase of non-voting but "pay-me-first" preferred shares in financial institutions is a sort of de facto nationalization. This makes private investors leery of financial common stock and reduces private participation. This was the policy of the Republicans, continued by the Democrats.</p>
<p>Since the government is obviously the entity assuming the risks in the financial system, why shouldn't it have a significant ownership stake? </p>
<p>A popular shibboleth of the far right is that government is less efficient than private business. The excellent financial performance of LTV, GM, and other defunct or near defunct private entities certainly supports this view. As does the failure of
TVA to bring electricity to millions of rural Americans.</p>
<p>Firstly I don't think ramaswami was bashing Obama, he was just explaining how Obama making it to the white house had some capitalist underpinning. He also explains that Obama started out much more to the left than he is right now, and his inclusion of Geithner & co. make him a pretty right wing democrat, or a moderate-left politician overall. He ends by saying that Obama is not philosophically rigid, he makes many decision based on factors on the ground - whether they be the right or wrong decisions. I think ramaswami actually mildly supports Obama.</p>
<p>
[quote]
if "ramaswami" is Indian (like me) he has got to be the first Obama bashing Indian i have seen
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Nope, I personally know many Indians who supported McCain for his economic policies, all it takes is an education in basic economics, a little wealth and a little selfishness. Many people, especially indians and asians, will support Obama in public while voting and privately wishing for McCain, thinking about their taxes / effects of protectionism. To be clear, Obama still has significant majority support with Indians and Asians.</p>
<p>I stopped reading all of ramaswami's rants when I came across this gem: "He has not closed Gitmo"</p>
<p>Now I know you are clearly not listening to the news, because he started that process immediately. His first day in office he forced a stop on activities for 120 days. Both republicans and democrats agree it is the first nail in the coffin for "gitmo."</p>
<p>hr35, yes I am Indian. I am infinitely grateful to confidentialcoll for very smartly summarizing what I was trying to say. I am not at all Obama bashing. I am trying to understand his success so far.</p>
<p>Lukedavis, I regret very much your lack of understanding of what I said about Gitmo. President Bush also proclaimed Gitmo will be closed exactly as Obama did. With one difference: Bush did not set a date. Proclamation to close and closing are two different matters, a proclamation to close in a year is akin to a campaign pledge.</p>
<p>I hope Gitmo is closed eventually but Obama HAS NOT CLOSED GITMO.</p>
<p>BigG, hard to see how the government purchase of preferred shares is "de facto nationalization" or caused private investors to be "leery of financial common stock" and otherwise "reduced private participation". In fact, it occurs to me that private participation, at least as measured by the willingness of banks to lend to one another, was increased as a result of the Treasury's actions. Take a look at the TED spreads immediately prior to the actions and their relative normalization in the subsequent days, weeks and months thereafter. </p>
<p>This is not to say that the government's response to the current crisis has been wholly appropriate or adequate. However, government passivity risked the collapse of the banking system as liquidity was on the verge of drying up. Hindsight is a wonderful thing and it clearly serves the interest of the political parties to assign blame after the fact. The Treasury was making it up on the fly, using all tools available to deal with an unprecedented situation. As I recall, the only serious opposition at the time came from House Republicans. I don't remember Obama, or anyone else, proffering a meaningful alternative.</p>
<p>The current crisis is a result of the over-consumption by consumers fueled by the over-levering afforded them by our financial institutions. The bursting of the subsequent (and inevitable) bubble, turbocharged by the far-reaching impact of esoteric derivatives, created the mess we are in today. Greed is a bi-partisan attribute.</p>
<p>Closing Guantanamo is a terrible idea. Where is the US going to put these detainees- Club Fed? Christopher Bond wants to reopen Alcatraz while Feinstein, Levin, Murtha, etc. believe the Supermax system would suffice. The remaining 245 include Khalid Sheikh Mohammed who was a mastermind of 9/11 and may well have beheaded Daniel Pearl with his own hands. I understnad Gitmo has some symbolic value but operationally, the alternatives are all "imperfect" to quote Dennis Blair.</p>
<p>Cheney gets knocked around a lot and is a favorite target of the extreme left, but it is possible that history will judge him as one of the greatest patriots to hold high office in recent years. The man harbored no ambitions for the presidency- indeed for eight years he had a laser-like focus on enemy surveillance- to the point that he was directly listening to foreign surveillance calls from his office in the West Wing.</p>
<p>As for the intervention in the financial markets, it is evident in retrospect that Citigroup and Bank of America are insolvent institutions without government emergency funds; by Basel capital adequacy standards, if one took the marks for the traded values of ABS and MBS debt still on balance sheet, the tier I critical values would be breached. It brings up the point as to whether FASB should insist on marked-to-market or hold-to-maturity in terms of fair value accounting- when there is a buyers' strike and general illiquidity in the structured products market today. </p>
<p>The main issue is locating the underlying loans in securitization deals- they've been pooled and tranched out, maybe with some worthless monoline insurance added- and the underlying documentation for a standard subprime deal is probably a couple hundred thousand pages. So it is impossible to restructure a CDO deal at the mortgage level because of the administrative complexity. This is perhaps the greatest weakness of the securitization mechanism (in addition to disintermediating credit risk from origination).</p>
<p>Fastfood- thanks for the advice. Don't be so quick to marginalize people and project your views on others. By the way, you aren't even in college yet. Remember that.</p>