Two conclusions for the night:
1) Obama is a smooth talker, but what he’s selling is nothing more than pure old-fashioned socialism, just barely warmed over. It’s unfair for CEOs to make more than schoolteachers? It’s unfair for Fortune 500 companies to make billions of dollars a year? That sounds good to middle and lower class Americans – if only we could get our hands on some of that money – but it’s economically wrong. Those CEOs and companies create jobs. Their wealth is not harming the rest of us. Economics is not a zero-sum game: one person making more money doesn’t necessarily take anything away from me.
Two places to look for more facts about McCain: an NRO piece about Obama’s ties to communists and terrorists, and another piece documenting Obama’s radical support for abortion through the end of the third trimester, and his opposition even to protecting babies who survive an abortion (for a survivor’s story, and her take on Obama, check out this WSJ article).
2) McCain’s catering to the global warming crowd is ridiculous; but at least he manages to act as though increasing drilling and nuclear energy is green. I like his solution, even though I think he’s got the problem a bit mislabeled.
Oh, and Obama just said something along the lines of, electronic medical records would decrease medical errors. For one, I bet this is going to be an unfunded mandate. For another, all electronic records do is perpetuate errors: if it once gets into that computer that a patient is allergic to penicillin, or carries MRSA, even when it’s completely false, it would take an act of Parliament to get that unfounded statement out. . .
But there, McCain wants medical records online – open to hackers and identity thieves. Thanks guys, try thinking before talking! . . .
That’s better: McCain opted away from calling healthcare a right. One thing he’s got right. . .
Good job, McCain, pushing Obama on his mistaken opposition to the surge in Iraq, which turned out so successfully. . . “No time for on-the-job training.” Good line.
That’s all the talking heads I can stand for one night.
October 8, 2008 at 12:05 am
Thank goodness I’m not the only one who seems to understand that Obama is a beautiful speaker, and not much else. Refreshing to know that I don’t stand alone in this opinion.
And it’s ABOUT TIME someone else realizes that socialism isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. People aren’t hopping inner-tubes into shark infested waters because it’s worked so well for Cuba.
October 8, 2008 at 4:44 pm
EMR is already an unfunded mandate from JCAHO. They’ve been expressing their displeasure over hospitals having more than one record system (i.e. some things on paper, some things electronic, and multiple computer systems that don’t share data) for nearly a decade now. Hospitals are getting dinged on their accreditation (although it’s not being denied) if they aren’t making some sort of progress toward a unified electronic EMR.
October 8, 2008 at 4:46 pm
Ugh. “electronic EMR.” How redundant of me.
October 8, 2008 at 7:35 pm
Ronald Reagan summed up the issue nicely almost 50 years ago. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fRdLpem-AAs
October 13, 2008 at 12:50 pm
kelly
socialism seems to be doing at least ok for sweden. how’s capitalism working for america at this moment then?
October 13, 2008 at 8:48 pm
Ditto with comment above. We the Americans seem to have grown allergic to the word “socialism”; it’s a part of the cold war mentality, i guess. Socializing a portion of the running-wild (at times, predatory) industry can’t possibly spell “the end of capitalism,” as some fear. On the contrary, it will bring more regulation and accountability (and perhaps even social equality) to the system, or so we hope.
If we really don’t like the word socialism, perhaps “federalization” sounds better!
October 14, 2008 at 7:53 am
Bongi -What we’re practicing in America right now is not capitalism, it’s a bastard mix of capitalism and socialism, and it’s the socialist part – government interference with the economy through bad housing loans – which has primarily led to the current disaster.
Robert – If the government would keep its hands off, we would have had natural accountability: if you don’t handle your money wisely, your company goes bankrupt. Instead the government is pouring my money into rescuing unfit corporations. And how do you support that baseless hope, “socializing a portion of the industry can’t possibly spell the end of capitalism”? This is the perfect use for a slippery-slope: the government takes part; if their interference works (which I don’t expect), that’s an excuse for them to take more; if it doesn’t work, their excuse will be that they didn’t have enough. Either way, once we’ve started letting the government control financial institutions, we’ve started on the slippery slope towards the government handling all of the economy. . . which is not doing that great in Europe right now, either.
October 14, 2008 at 6:46 pm
Perhaps it helps to understand what caused the subprime mortgage crisis and the subsequent banking crisis: it’s corporate greed, irresponsible lending practice and lack of proper oversight. Accountability rarely comes naturally when greed is in the picture; that’s what caused the recent crisis that rippled across the globe, Dr. Alice.