World of Pageantry

Posted: **Fri Apr 11, 2008 2:27 pm**

Wise man once said: "Never discuss politics, religion or intonation with a musician".

Posted: **Fri Apr 11, 2008 3:00 pm**

The Aceman wrote:This must be what Mark Stone's programs and students believe as well!

Posted: **Sat Apr 12, 2008 8:26 am**

thunderdrmz wrote:
The Aceman wrote: Funny, when Clinton was in office the Economy was booming, oh well.
I'm not sure what your implication is with this one. Our major economic problem is due to greed of the comsumers and mortgage industry thinking that buying a house will make you fabulouly wealthy with a 500% increase in value over the next 6 months. When that bubble burst (we are in the splatter right now) consumers had to pay the piper, which they couldn't whick in turn has a huge hit on the lending market and the spiral begins. This is hardly a partisan issue.

I also disagree in that, at least at first, a good percentage of the US population were in favor of "getting the terrorists". Well, we have a better understanding of realities and not many people can convincingly make an arguement for the strategy used in this conflict but, as you mentioed regarding Viet Nam, in the beginning it made more sence.

Very few people are in favor of armed conflict to resolve issues. There are those who believe talking is the way to go so can all just understand each other. I am not one of those people. We have had egg on our face far too often in trying to resolve issue through negotiations only to have these "pacts" broken when they no longer benefit the other guy.

Maybe I need to sing Kumbayaa or wear less tight underwear. I don't know. Maybe I'm right about people

Well, I never said people were for the war on terrorism, just the Vietnam war when it first started. But, since you bring it up, ALOT more people (many liberals included, *cough cough* Hillary *cough*) we're for the war on terrorism when it started then are now.

Posted: **Sat Apr 12, 2008 10:00 am**

With respect to the comment that there was more support for Vietnam in the early years, there was actually very little change to public support of the Vietnam War from 1962 to 1970 percentage-wise (20-25% with a high of 40% and a low of 11%). Support for Iraq has averaged about 50%, with a high of 63% in 2003 to a low of 40% today. On the other hand, the support for Afghanistan was 88% when it began and is still over 75% today.

Using statistics, data and variables to create an ideological or political opinion or correlation typically will reflect what a person wants to see and hear in the short run versus what it actually does in the long run. There is a great ongoing discussion about this with respect to Larry Bartel's 2006 paper comparing Presidencies to the Business Cycle for those needing insomniac reading material.

Posted: **Mon Apr 14, 2008 7:51 pm**

To those who think it is about oil. I knew this but I am posting this to back myself up.

http://www.eia.doe.gov/pub/oil_gas/petr ... mport.html

Those darn Canadians! Those darn Mexicans!

Why do we have high gas prices?

http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib ... impso.html

World of Pageantry

The Liberals Were Right... Again

Corrections to the Oil Myth