As we move into 2011, David Phlouffes presence will become much clearer. Unlike Rove, he is Not looking for a Democratic controlled Monopoly of America, he's only looking to get President Obama elected to a 2nd term, so that we (America) can get out of this Funk, we were stuck in the last decade"Bush Years". Troops out of Iraq at the end of 2011, if not sooner. Continued hamering across Pakistans border, & across border attacks there.

President Obama said he'd take the Fight to Al-Queada(Taliban) & he's kept his Word. I'll continue to Support President Obama in this endeavor!

My political predictions for 2011 & 2012 are that ...

the democrats will fail in their endeavors to continually paint the republicans as the party of no to the American people

The tea party elect will learn some hard political lessons before 2012

FR liberal muck rakers will still rail against O'donnel an Palin even after they are no longer politically viable, while ignoring their own ill-informed left wing radicals and politicians. IE the right can do no right and the left can do no wrong.

Obama will swap out clinton for biden in 2012 to increase his chances for relection.

Both parties will make damaging political mistakes by not maintaining focus on the economy.

Foriegn relations will remain fragile based on the EU's economic condition and terrorist activities including war mongering by Iran and N korea.

Healthcare initiatives and financial reform will be denied/delayed by lack of funding and higher costs than what was originally presented.

Democrats will be more concerned with creating and preserving government jobs.

Republicans will be more interested in having private businesses create private sector jobs.

Politicians will think that by throwing more $$$ into education and expanding the Federal Dept of education that our k-12 can once again compete on a global basis.

The internet will be used more frequently to point out campaign rhetoric that was not followed by the politicians.

FR liberal radicals will still practise a "holier than thou attitude" towards anyone posting an opposing view.

FR moderators will remain non-existant in promoting fair dialoque between the liberal radicals and centrist conservatives.

Obama will continue to put his pants on one leg at a time regardless of how fiesty red head insists that he is just a "black man". Thought he was POTUS?

Individual income taxes will rise regardless of what the politicians say as will many of our "hidden" taxes.

The Mayan calender will reset in Dec 2012

american-2051576

My political predictions for 2011 & 2012 are that ...

the democrats will fail in their endeavors to continually paint the republicans as the party of no to the American people

Put this in your noggin, american-2051576...

Yet another study has been released proving that watching Fox News is detrimental to your intelligence. World Public Opinion, a project managed by the Program on International Policy Attitudes at the University of Maryland, conducted a survey of American voters that shows that Fox News viewers are significantly more misinformed than consumers of news from other sources. What’s more, the study shows that greater exposure to Fox News increases misinformation.

So the more you watch, the less you know. Or to be precise, the more you think you know that is actually false

• 91 percent believe the stimulus legislation lost jobs
• 72 percent believe the health reform law will increase the deficit
• 72 percent believe the economy is getting worse
• 60 percent believe climate change is not occurring
• 49 percent believe income taxes have gone up
• 63 percent believe the stimulus legislation did not include any tax cuts
• 56 percent believe Obama initiated the GM/Chrysler bailout
• 38 percent believe that most Republicans opposed TARP
• 63 percent believe Obama was not born in the U.S. (or that it is unclear)

The conclusion is inescapable. Fox News is deliberately misinforming its viewers and it is doing so for a reason. Every issue above is one in which the Republican Party had a vested interest. The GOP benefited from the ignorance that Fox News helped to proliferate. The results were apparent in the election last month as voters based their decisions on demonstrably false information fed to them by Fox News.

http://www.alternet.org/story/149193/study_confirms_that_fox_news_makes_you_stupid

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Now does that sound like Democrats? Since Fox is the Republican Headquarters I would say "NO".

To look forward and try to predict what will be, it is instructive to look back at what was, to look at the current situation and then compare the two. We should never forget that infamous saying that if we ignore the past, we are doomed to repeat it. Now, that is not always a bad thing, look at the economic growth we had from the late 1930s (when the depression was finally turned around and growth started to return) to 1974 (the first major recession since the Great Depression). But it certainly can be, look at the beginning of the 1800s to 1929, a period that experienced a major recession or depression every 14 - 22 years.

What are the similarities of the periods of the 1800s - 1929 and 1974 - 2008? Little, no, or ineffective government regulation of capital and markets, downward pressure on wages and a massive transfer of wealth from the bottom 98% to the top 2%. This is history with irrefutable facts and data to back this up but the Republican/TP Inc. Party refuses to acknowledge factual data and insist on policies that have been shown to not work . . . unless you are in that top 2%. Just take a read of the conservatives who will reply to this comment and you will see my point.

Lessons we should have learned:

1) An unregulated free market has no conscience, no humanity and no sense of fair play. The free market can not be trusted to lift everyone's boat. It must be watched and smart, targeted regulation used to ensure a flat and fair playing field for all. Some will still get rich and some will still fail but when the field is flat and fair, everyone wins.

2) Capitalism is good but only when given limits. If not given limits, greed takes over and the result is a plutocracy where everyone loses. Low to no income for 98% of a population results in higher crime rates, higher health care costs due to more catastrophic illnesses that could have been prevented, less productivity and a cultural blight on a nation's character.

3) Government is not always the answer but it can be and/or also be part of the solution. Government is necessary as only a government has the power and reach to implement things like the national interstate highway system that supports commerce, the FAA that ensures safe airways for air commerce (passenger and freight), national defense, food safety, adequate health care to ensure there is a healthy population that can produce, and education to ensure there is an intelligent, innovative and more productive workforce. Big government isn't the problem, inefficient government is. As it turns out, government can run efficiently, it only cost $0.03 of every Medicare dollar spent to administer the program while private industry spends over $0.30 and the SS administration has a similar cost structure. Not to mention the Marshal services, the FBI, the Interior Department and the State Department to name a few other efficiently run operations.

4) Tax cuts to wealthy individuals do not create jobs. Never have, never will. These cuts do not generate much more, if any demand, and demand is the engine of job creation. The money that the wealthy receive in tax cuts, for the most part, goes to savings. Because virtually no demand is created, any money invested in companies goes to pay off debt, increase profits (less debt service payments = higher profit on the same productivity), purchase other companies (not a job creating purchase, usually a job killer) and bonuses for the top executives who have just cut expenses by laying off people and cutting wages and benefits (which, of course lowers demand for products).

5) Tax cuts to middle and low income people do create jobs. Always has, always will. These people take that money and make purchases. They increase their consumption which creates more demand and companies have to hire more people to meet that demand. Yes, some will put some of that money in savings and pay down debt but most will use at least some, if not all of the extra money to make purchases.

5) Targeted tax cuts to businesses can create jobs but only if demand for products exist.

6) Government spending during a recession actually does 'kick start' the economy. UI generates $1.60 of additional economic activity for every $1.00 spent, Once the economy reaches a self-sustaining level (which has not yet been reached), government spending will be cut back because fewer people will be depending on the government safety net. Data doesn't lie so you don't have to believe me, here is an article filled with actual data: http://www.cbpp.org/cms/index.cfm?fa=view&id=3252

7) When revenues start to rise after a recession, that is not the time to find more uses for that money (or give it away in the form of a 'tax rebate' as GW Bush did), that is the time to pay down the debt it was necessary to create during the crisis. We are not yet at that point.

8) When industry writes the tax laws and regulations, that is a recipe for disaster.

Well, you get the idea. All of these lessons can be gleaned by looking just at our own history. Today we have a political party, the Republican/TP Inc. Party, that is he!! bent on reversing everything that is either bringing us out of this recession, prevented recessions in the past or help soften the blow of an economic downturn.

Because of this, my prediction is that, if they succeed, there will be more poverty, more homelessness, more crime and more deaths from malnutrition than this country has ever known since the Great Depression. Let's not go back to the pre-recovery days when there were shanty towns and old people begging in the street because they had nothing to retire on. Let's not go back to labor laws that allowed child labor and wages so low that people who were working were still dying from malnutrition while the top 2% ate caviar and vacationed in Europe.

I hope my prediction does not come true. I hope that the next two years illustrates just who the Republican/TP Inc. party really represents and the American people figure out it isn't the poor nor is it the middle class. If that happens, 2012 should be a very good year for every American, not just the rich.

Matthew

Articulate and detailed, but in my opinion a little over reaching and more interpretations and theories then lessons learned in several cases. As I have heard on MSNBC more then once, you can have your own opinions, but not your own facts.

1) Your situation in now way describes a free market, but rather a social democracy with a small elite ruling class
2) See 1 above
3) See 1 above
4) Too simplistic and merely a parroting of the liberal party line, these tax cuts and other elements of the business atmosphere have and can generate business expansion and thus jobs. These tax cuts without the other needed elements of a healthy atmosphere for business expansion leads to off-shoring.
5) Hasn't seemed to work these last two years has it
6) If this were true then the economy should have grown by leaps and bounds with Stimulus #1 $850 Billion and Stimulus #2 $900 Billion over the past two years, to say nothing of the bailout of GM and AIG
7) WE are at the end of the recession, actually well past it according to experts and merely experiencing a jobless recovery, but I agree it is not the time to cut taxes for anyone (including the middle class), not time to spend money on ObamaCare or on college for illegals or other liberal giveaways) and it is time to cut spending across the board and to pay down the debt/deficit
8) When the government over regulates and writes legislation to further the interests of unions rahter then the entire business community, then business expansion and growth is overseas.

You are totally partisan in blaming the bad on the Republicans and giving credit for the perceived good to the Democrats and have no idea what they intend to do. They want to have a balanced budget, to reduce debt, increase government revenues through tax reform and improve the business atmosphere and create jobs and business expansion for all Americans. They want people to be rewarded for hard work, innovation and effort and they want to eliminate the welfare underclass that is now so prevalent in the U.S.

All of those things are laudable in my mind.

If President Obama and the Democrats are truly willing to give and take and work for the common good of debt reduction and deficit erasure then things will get better.

The key dynamic in Washington right now is that in order for anything to get done, the two sides have to work together.

Otherwise both parties are the party of No.

Happy New Year to all

And now let the abuse begin.

Robert in Ohio

1) Your analysis is incorrect and what I wrote is based on historical precedent and empirical data.

2) See #1

3) See #1

4) You are wrong, empirical data backs me up and this was based on independent reading, including a book by conservative economist Bruce Bartlett.

5) Again, you are wrong, empirical data backs me up again.

6) Wrong again, as real economists, both left and right, have pointed out, the stimulus was too small and the ratio of spending to tax breaks was slanted way too much toward tax breaks. The stimulus has also been confirmed to have helped some, but not nearly enough due to its small size, by empirical data. You can deny it all that you want but you will still be wrong.

7) Wrong again, Robert. I did not say that there should be no tax cuts, I said that there should be no tax cuts for the top 2% as they do nothing to stimulate the economy, all they do is create more debt without benefit to the economy. And this is absolutely the time that the government should be spending money to create demand that this jobless recovery is not creating. As both left and right wing economists have said, this is exactly not the time for the government to stop spending. Read it again, I address the reasons as based on my reading of books by trained economists and empirical data. I chose to believe trained economists and empirical data.

8) You actually got one part of this correct and I agree that over regulation is not good. However, the rest of your statement is way off base. Industry has had a huge influence in writing and removing regulations since Nixon came in office and have been only having more influence since then. How has that worked out? Well, from 1929 until 1974 there was no major recession with almost 50 years of uninterrupted growth. Since the first major downturn in 1974 there has been a recession every 7 - 10 years and they have only been deeper and harder on the middle class with each following recession.

Hard on the Republican/TP Inc. Party? You betcha since all of the policies that have brought about every single recession and depression our country has ever experienced since 1817 has been implemented by either the Republican/TP Inc. Party or their like minded predecessors. But to be fair, there have been Democrats that have backed these same policies and I also blame them. On the whole, however, the Republican/TP Inc. people and their like minded sycophants, Democrat, Independent or other are to blame. Let me lay out a metaphor for you:

A murder has occurred and the police are called. The uniformed police arrive and call for a detective to come to the scene. The detective arrives, looks at the dead bodies and confirms that a murder has occurred. After coming to that conclusion, the detective arrests the uniform cops on the scene. Why? Well, a murder has been committed, the uniformed cops are on the scene when the detective arrives so they must have committed the murder. Upon further investigation, it is determined that the cops obviously did not commit the crime and absolutely airtight proof indicates it was another person who committed the crime. In fact, there is film of someone else committing the murder. But that does not dissuade the detective, despite the incontrovertible evidence he still insists that it is the uniformed cops who committed the murders.

Now, replace the uniformed cops for Democrats and President Obama, replace the detective with the supporters of the Republican/TP Inc. Party (and, evidently from your post, this includes you) and replace the murderer with the Republican policies supported and passed over the last 40+ years and you have our current political and economic situation.

I disagree that the Republican/TP Inc. Party wants all of those laudable things you say. Their very actions and political policies create quite the opposite. Their policies result in the redistribution of wealth from the poor and middle class to the top 2%. Their policies and policy statements reveal a total lack of respect for anyone who is poor or disagrees with them. Karl Rove, Tom DeLay and Frank Luntz have specifically tried to implement a permanent Republican/TP Inc. Party majority. When anyone dares to question the Republican/TP Inc. Party, they are immediately called unAmerican, socialist, communists, Nazis, fascists, etc. Granted, the left has thrown some of those same epithets at the right but I have not participated in that.

So your proposition that the Republican/TP inc. people are such angles that only want the best for everybody fails under close scrutiny. Their very actions run counter to that proposition rendering the premise false. As to cooperating, just saying 'No' to everything, including your own proposals and bills you co-wrote, is not exactly fostering an atmosphere of cooperation. The 111th Congress's Senate had to deal with 136 cloture votes, every single one of them from the Republican/TP Inc. Party. When cloture was finally passed, most of those bills had bipartisan support and were unchanged from when they were being blocked.

So, again, yes, it isthe Republican/TP Inc. Party's fault.

Matthew, Houston, TX

the top 2% is slowly killing off their way of life. Why, they are destroying the very class (whether it's Middle or Lower) who buys their products and services.

People are overextended. There is less and less of expendable income whether it’s because of higher taxes, higher medical premiums or bills, higher gas, food or anything associated with daily living prices.

What happened when people stopped buying houses or even clothing. How did retailers like that?

These were things we were reading about in 2008:

The fate of thousands of struggling high street stores will turn on how wide cash-strapped shoppers are prepared to open their purses this weekend and next - some of the busiest days in the retail calendar.

You cannot argue with these people. They will tell you that it’s Obama’s or Clinton’s fault.