Magical Thinkers in Washington

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   AnnCeeposted 14 years ago

   Ha!  GREAT article at American Thinker.
   
   
   
   http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/07/ … ton_1.html

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2. 61

   Jim Hunterposted 14 years ago

   Evidence, they don't need no stinking evidence.
   
   Say something is free and pretty soon people think it is.
   
   Democrat Congress members and the President are as guilty of doing this slight of hand marketing as Camel cigarettes was guilty of enticing teenagers to smoke.
   
   Maybe they should pay for the entitlement out of pocket like the Tobacco companies were and still are forced to do.

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3. 67

   AnnCeeposted 14 years ago

   Hi Jim.   I like that idea.   Be nice to see liberals pay for something with their own money.   They are the stingiest when it comes to common charity. 
   
   
   Funny news today though.   Now Obama is saying that "for profit" universities, which as you know are making massive profits, will lose federal funding if they can't prove that they are graduating "employment ready" productive humanoids.  That is funny on SOOOOO many levels.
   
   First, the Obama administration was going around campuses in June encouraging graduates to eschew the profit motive, forswear Wall Street, shun capitalism and instead go into public service and live lives of sacrifice for the greater good like good little Communists.   
   
   NOW ALL OF A SUDDEN THEY ARE SUPPOSED TO BE PRODUCTIVE CITIZENS!!!!!!!
   
   
   
   Then you consider how Barack and Michelle whined about their student loans and how they were too pure and too good and too Socialist to work in the private sector.  Ha!  These people are killing me!

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4. 67

   AnnCeeposted 14 years ago

   Ahh Crud!   That new law is just for career colleges and training programs.   Never mind. . . .

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5. 61

   Ohmaposted 14 years ago

   The power of preposterous er um positive thinking right?

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6. 67

   AnnCeeposted 14 years ago

   Obama's Magical Thinking
   Monday, 29 Mar 2010 10:40 AM
   Article Font Size   
   
   By: Ben Stein
   
   Just to me, Mr. Obama’s 2010 State of the Union address was jarring in many ways.
   
   He did not promise to maintain a sound dollar. He did not repeat the decades-long promises to help keep Israel alive. He did not offer any hope of a balanced budget at any time. These used to be standards of a SOTU address, but somehow in the world of Barack Obama, they are gone.
   
   However, what really stunned me and made my “reality-check meter” start racing was his promise that he was going to double American exports in the next five years.
   
   This promise, alas, shows just how far out in the world of “magical thinking” Mr. Obama and his staff are. “Magical thinking” is the psychological disorder in which a human believes that a thing will come true because he said it will or because he wishes it would or because of any kind of non-causal, nonrational thinking.
   
   We see this a lot in small children, who believe, just as an example, that they will get a pony or a Schwinn because they want one or just because they saw a photo of a pony or a bicycle when they were eating their breakfast on their birthdays.
   
   The sad truth on the export front is that never in the history of the United States in the postwar period have exports increased by 100 percent over a five-year period — except in the 1970s when exports did rise by way over 100 percent in nominal terms — fueled almost entirely by a wild worldwide inflation in commodities and manufactures.
   
   In a period of even modest price stability, a doubling of exports in five years in dollar terms would be unheard of. (Or is Mr. Obama forecasting wild price inflation? Is that the subtext?)
   
   In any event, what would be the mechanism by which the United States would achieve a doubling of exports, as my pal Phil DeMuth shrewdly asked during the speech? We obviously cannot compete with the Far East in many manufactures. We face extreme competition in agriculture and extractive products.
   
   Would Mr. Obama plan on debasing the currency to get to that level of growth? The rest of the world would start dumping U.S. bonds like mad insanity and prices for imports here would soar, fueling inflation. Plus, the rest of the world would just debase their currencies to keep pace in a devastating game of “beggar thy neighbor.” So, maybe that might not be a great idea.
   
   Or is he just shrewdly guessing that, if he chooses 2008 as the start year, because that was such a bad year for exports, we might possibly get lucky in five years and double it? It has never happened, but maybe if Mr. Obama wishes enough . . .
   
   And here is the crux of what scares me so much about Mr. Obama. He seems to me to have a fairly loose purchase on reality.
   
   He seemed (and I emphasize “seem” because like all politicians, Mr. Obama is a skilled thespian) to really believe he could pull the U.S. out of recession with a “stimulus” plan that never made any sense. He seemed to believe that just by the sheer force of his charm and his smile, he could bring peace to the Mideast. He seemed to believe he could improve schools in areas where the children just have a very hard time learning by smiling and saying, “Yes, we can.”
   
   He seemed to believe himself when he said he was going to read every line of the budget to root out waste, fraud, and corruption, as if any one man could read the whole budget with its millions of lines — and as if he would know from reading a line for a dam in Idaho whether or not that money was spent wastefully.
   
   He seemed to believe he was being “bipartisan” when he kept the GOP in Congress locked out of plans to pass Obamacare. He seemed to believe he was presiding over a “post-racial” America when he won entirely by getting spectacular majorities of the black vote.
   
   Mind you, I don’t blame Mr. Obama for magical thinking. Mr. George W. Bush engaged in it when he said he would bring democracy to the Mideast (which would be a disaster for us since most of the votes would be for the jihadists). Mr. Bush engaged in it when he said he would bring in more revenue by cutting taxes. Mr. Clinton was deep in magical thinking land when he believed Yasser Arafat would help bring peace to the Mideast. FDR believed he could bait the Japanese and the Germans and still stay out of war.
   
   But Mr. Obama’s magical thinking has a personal quality — i.e., a belief that he in particular as an individual can do superhuman feats — i.e., read the whole budget — that I have not seen before, and that scares me. We need a chief magistrate in this country — not a chief huckster or a chief self-deluder.
   
   http://www.newsmax.com/BenStein/Stein-O … /id/354106

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7. 60

   tobey100posted 14 years ago

   The first problem I spot right off is that you have 'Thinkers' and 'Washington' in the same sentence.  You've got me totally confused. 

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      wildernessposted 14 years agoin reply to this

      

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   2. 67

      AnnCeeposted 14 years agoin reply to this

      I think the magical modifies the 'thinkers' adequately.
      
      

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