Comment from timr
Time: March 14, 2008, 11:37 am

LC, the dollar took another hit going $1.55=1Euro, and $.97=1 yen. When will OPEC go off the american $$ and go to the Euro? Given that the $$ is so weak worldwide, will the price of oil, now at $110 a barrel, go down if OPEC goes Euro-something that I think I remember someone on BoB writing about several months ago.
Also, on the same general subject-price of oil-check out what the fair haired boy has to say about “Da Surge”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/03/13/AR2008031303793.html

Comment from Max
Time: March 14, 2008, 5:33 pm

Well in Tokyo, I am not a salaried company employee, but I am freelance. I am a Christian wedding Minister, and on TV. My income varies from month to month. Frankly it works out that I can just squeak by.

But economically speaking, it is certainly not the time to move back the US right now.

Wow! Georgie is going to give every American a few hundred bucks! What a help!

Comment from suzanne
Time: March 15, 2008, 9:28 am

Leftcoast - where is your post from last night? Did Bob (the blog with no agenda) delete it? Well that’s it then - this blog has lost all of it’s credibility. Maybe Amos N. Handy was really on to something. I would really like to know what Josh Hammond and Sasha and the other Obama supporters think of Reverend Wright (Obama’s longtime friend, mentor and spiritual adviser). Do you believe that Obama really didn’t know about Wright’s inflammatory and anti-American sermons? And if so, why did he disinvite him to his announcement that he was running for president? Do you believe he displayed good judgement in bringing his small daughters to hear sermons by this man? The same man who made an obscene sexual gesture when talking about Bill Cliinton? The same man who preaches anything but unity, and in fact, spews hate filled sermons to his congregation. The same man who awarded Louis Farrakhan a lifetime achievement award in December of last year. Obviously Mr. Obama would not choose to belong to this church and seek Reverend Wright’s advice if he did not support his views. Most Americans would get up and walk out if their preacher spewed such vitriol - particularly if you have two small children. Barack and Michelle are adults who can make their own flawed choices but children rely on the judgement of their parents - just as Americans rely on their President. For shame, Barack Obama. For shame Best of the Blogs for continuing “the agenda” by deleting LC’s post.

Comment from timr
Time: March 15, 2008, 9:39 am

LC, gwb spoke on the Afghanistan war, called it a “romantic adventure” and that they were doing it for the “glory” of it all, said that what the troops were doing there was “a historical mission” backing a “young democracy” that is even as we speak turning into a “great stable democracy” I don’t know, I read that BS and I think to myself, there is an a**hole who never was in a war, but maybe he stayed in a holiday inn express while reading(gwb, reading??) some of papa Hemingways stories about the “glory” of war

Comment from Pat
Time: March 15, 2008, 9:42 am

The following is excerpted from an article by Paul Craig Roberts, former associate Editor of The Wall Street Journal:

“When money is created faster than goods and services, it drives up prices, thus driving down the value of the money. If freely traded currencies are excessively printed or if the inflation, budget deficits, and trade deficits drive currencies off their fixed exchange rates, prices of imports rise as the foreign exchange value of the currency fails.

Today the US, heavily dependent on imports, is subject to double-barrel inflation from both domestic money creation and decline in the dollars exchange value.”

This is the part that pissed me off. It is typical bushwhacking.

“The US inflation rate is about twice as high as the governments inflation measures report. In order to hold down Social Security payments, the government changed the way it measures inflation. In the old measure, inflation measured the nominal cost of a defined standard of living. If the price of steak rose, up went the inflation rate. Today, if the price of steak rises, the government assumes that people switch to hamburger. Inflation doesn’t go up. Instead the standard of living goes down.”

Comment from Pat
Time: March 15, 2008, 10:13 am

Here’s another interesting item:

“This week, Bernanke’s Fed, for the first time in its history, loaned a selected coterie of banks one-fifth of a trillion dollars to guarantee these banks mortgaged-backed junk bonds. The deluge of public loot was an eye-popping windfall to the very banking predators who have brought two million families to the brink of foreclosure.

Up until Wednesday, there was one single, lonely politician who stood in the way of this creepy little assignation at the bankers bordello; Elliot Spitzer.

http://www.gregpalast.com/elliot-spitzer-gets-nailed/

Comment from Sasha
Time: March 15, 2008, 12:16 pm

Suzanne I know nothing of LCs post, however I am willing to discuss Senator Obama’s spiritual/religious attachments only in the context of the religious attachments of all of the candidates. Oh, and as long as we remember the “no religious test” part of the Constitution.

Comment from Leftcoast
Time: March 15, 2008, 1:19 pm

Suzanne: I took it down myself an hour of two after posting it and thinking that because there was no commentary, it hadn’t really been read–no conspiracy here, no censorship or editing by anyone. I realized in rereading there was a lot more to say than what I had posted and that the story needed more time to develop. My apologies to you and to any of the readers for the confusion. I’ll write a post saying as much later today.

I did know about Wright and his inflammatory speeches and said as much in a post on Feb 27. I thought it was a deal killer for Obama and still do.

Comment from Max
Time: March 15, 2008, 6:19 pm

Suzanne,

Reverend Wright is at least partially correct. The US did cause 9/11. I would not say by spreading terrorism, but by stationing troops in the Middle East, and bombing people. Things do not happen out of a vacuum, or for no reason. So many people believe Japan attacked Pearl Harbor out of the blue. This is not true at all. America provoked it, and Christian missionaries were in a large part responsible. America had troops in China (the flying Tigers) fighting Japan before Pearl Harbor, the Chinese government of Chiang Kai Shek allowed Christian missionaries to believe they could Christianize China, in return for support against Japan. Japanese had never accepted Christianity beyond 1% of the population. Americans, with their usual ignorance, believed this, and supported China, with a dream of that huge China market, pressured Japan until Japan struck.

There are two ironies here. One, Japan could have never won it’s war in China. It would have eventually bankrupted Japan, and Japan would have been forced to withdraw. Even if America had done nothing. The second one is that if Japan had been forced to withdraw, Chiang Kai Shek would have then killed every Christian Chinese, as a foreign threat. And no Chinese market for America.

It is the same in the Middle East. In truth, 9/11 was not an attack on the United States, it was an attack on the Saudi monarchy. America propped them up, and based troops in Saudi Arabia. This extremely angered Moslem extremists in the form of Al Qaeda, so they struck.

When you interfere in other countries, there is blowback.

John McCain is quite close to the Reverend Hagee, I believe that is the man’s name, and that man scares me. He advocates war and and violence to spread Christianity. American’s have a way of pushing their beliefs on other people, it is the American nature. Often with violence. American’s don’t realize this, but this is how many American efforts are received and understood in other countries.

I really do not pay attention to what the pastor of the church that Senator Obama’s attends says. I pay attention to what the Senator says. What are we going to do next, dig up the Obama babysitter, and grill her on her own political views, and if we don’t like them, attack the Senator? YES! The Senator’s babysitter is a racist Fascist, and the Senator must immediately denounce her and apologize the nation for ever employing her all those years ago.

Ridiculous.

And I really do believe that as Americans, we should go back to what the founding fathers intended. We should conduct trade and cordial foreign relations with other nations, and avoid entangling foreign military alliances. ALL US troops overseas should be brought home. America should use it’s strength and power to attempt to repair America, not interfere in the internal affairs of other nations.

And when I say repair America, I mean it. It may no longer be possible, thanks to the Republican administration starting foreign wars and ignoring the real problems coming up. This post is originally about the US government bailing out a trading house. America has long run a credit economy, which has separated from reality. Something like a giant Ponzi scheme. It depended on cheap fuel to run, but a crash was inevitable.

Well, now we have Peak Oil. Oil will never again drop below $100, this year it will easily top $120. In a couple of years, $150. And on and up.

We have climate change. The American southwest will be uninhabitable in a few years. The American southeast will turn to desert and suffer the same fate of depopulation.  There is just not enough water.
THESE problems should scare us, not Obama’s pastor.

Comment from Amos N. Handy
Time: March 16, 2008, 9:14 am

Am I missing something in the translation here ? My point being, first you tell Suzanne not to pay attention to the preachings of Pastor Wright, that really they have no effect on Obama’s beliefs or that of his family. Nor do you believe Obama is in agreement with the methods and gestures displayed during Wright’s sermons.

You then go on to tell us McCorpse is very close to Rev. Hagee and that Hagee’s preachings and his acceptance of war, for the promotion of Xristianity, scares you.
Are we to take it that Obama is beyond Wright’s enhancement of hatred for non blacks or has he simply been duped ? At the same time are we to believe McCain has been influenced by Hagee and by being of the same supposed cut, is he just being truthful ? The babysitter analogy - well, we’ll leave that to you and Jim Beam.

Comment from Sasha
Time: March 16, 2008, 9:33 am

Ahh, once again we find the claim that white folks may be racist but black folks may not. Ain’t that America?

Comment from suzanne
Time: March 16, 2008, 9:42 am

Sasha and Max - thanks for your comments. We agree on many points including the separation of church and state and the fact that Reverend Wright is not too far off on some of his comments regarding US foreign policy. However, many of his ideas and sermons are hate-filled and racist in content. And that, in and of itself, would not be an issue if this man were not Obama’s chosen mentor and spiritual adviser. Obama has stated himself that he consults Wright before making political desicions. And Wright, as I stated above, recently awarded Louis Farrakhan a lifetime achievement award. Farrakhan epitomizes racism yet Wright says he epitomizes greatness. I think to ignore these connections is not wise - the Repugs won’t. Michelle Obama made an inflammatory statement about “being proud of America for the first time in her adult life” yet that seems rather odd considering she has lived, what most would agree, a privileged life. Good schools, high paying jobs, rising up the political ladder with an ambitious husband, beautiful home etc. etc. - the Obama’s are living the American dream. I think that twenty years of listening to Reverend Wright has altered her view of America (The “US..KKK of A” to quote Wright).

Despite all this, even if we give Obama the benefit of the doubt, and believe that he never heard Wright express these hateful views and/or does not take them to heart, the Republicans will not give him that same benefit. This is his chosen church of 20 years - this is his mentor and the man that he consults before making political decisions (his words). IMO, the Repugs will have a hay day with this.

Comment from suzanne
Time: March 16, 2008, 9:46 am

Sasha - None of us should be racist. Isn’t that what we’re striving for?

Comment from Sasha
Time: March 16, 2008, 10:20 am

Suzanne, as I said earlier I will discuss Senator Obama’s church only in the context of ALL of the candidates churches and spiritual advisors. And before having that discussion, perhaps you should go back an listen to a few of Dr. King’s sermons for context.

Comment from Max
Time: March 16, 2008, 11:53 am

Mr. Handy,

What I am saying is that I think Reverend Wright is correct about many of his points. 9/11, and racism in America, I think he is correct. Hagee on the other hand, does scare me.