I'm a big Ron Paul fan. The biggest part of the appeal is that he's the same guy today as he was back in the 80s. He's still on message, not flip flopping around like our current president and rest of the republican candidates. It's also been interesting how the MSM does their best to either ignore him, or downplay his chances . . . which is becoming increasingly difficult to do (heh).
Right now we're all on a bus that is called the "american experiment" and it's on fire and heading straight for the edge of a cliff due to short-sighted, and largely well meaning at best, and malignant at worst policies started in the time of Woodrow Wilson and continued by essentially every other president up until today (mostly corporate control of the government and foreign wars). Just having his as president wouldn't necessarily stop the bus, but at least then I'd think we might, maybe, have a small chance.
There is just simply no way he'd be able to stop government programs, even if he's against them in principle. He couldn't for instance get into office and stop social security the next day. So arguments to that end are strawmen and irrelevant.
You want to end foreign wars? Ron Paul. You tired of fiscal and monetary policy coming form the FED and the treasury (some banks got in trouble and all I got was this lousy t-shirt inflation) Ron Paul.
Yeah, I'm really coming around to Ron Paul. I started to take note of him 4 years ago and I'm really struck by his sincerity.
My pops has this blind allegiance to Obama that I just don't understand...his biggest reason seems to be how much he hated to "GW Bush era" and by extension the entire Republican party.
I am so disappointed with Obama and his handling of the financial crisis...but before you say the economy is out of the president's hands...let me explain. When the crisis hit, it wasn't entirely clear how far reaching the crisis would be. But over time it became clear that the smoking gun was the unregulated practices of Wall street. When the government bail out became much more likely, we really only heard about the big 3 in Detroit...but they comprised a very small portion of the eventual "$700 billion" that was to be distributed. Some of the biggest borrowers ended up being the banks...the f@ck!ng banks!!! Bank of America, Citibank (each took almost $100 billion), and all the other too big to fail banks. This kept funds from reaching the smaller banks and the rest of the economy.
My biggest frustration though, was that Wall street was bailed out and none of the money was distributed to help the rest of the economy. $700 could have rebuilt our crumbling infrastructure (roads, bridges, ports, water lines, etc) and we could have let the markets and capitalism sort out Chrysler, GM, and the big banks...I mean isn't that the point of a free market? LOL.
Lastly, no serious investigation or regulation of Wall street has followed what is in my opionion the greatest organized crime of the last 30 years. WTF??? There more investigations of Enron than there were into the "Great Recession." Possibly because what we learn would be much more shocking than what we know?
I think whoever the Republican nominee turns out to be is going to give a "pink sock" to Obama once the presidential debates start re: the handling of the financial crisis.
I love vimeo but searching the site for the good stuff is a little cumbersome.
