Debate

[patrickaa317]

Seriously guys? Where is the thread for the debate tonight?

I expected to see the Obama-bots to talk about how Obama won the debate tonight and then back to where the anti-Obama folk to mention how Romney stuck it to him?

[Army of GOD]

Where is the thread for the debate tonight?

nobody gives a shit?

[Funkyterrance]

Seriously guys? Where is the thread for the debate tonight?

I expected to see the Obama-bots to talk about how Obama won the debate tonight and then back to where the anti-Obama folk to mention how Romney stuck it to him?

Everyone has run out of hot air.

[IcePack]

Seriously guys? Where is the thread for the debate tonight?

I expected to see the Obama-bots to talk about how Obama won the debate tonight and then back to where the anti-Obama folk to mention how Romney stuck it to him?

Everyone has run out of hot air.

Not in CC, plenty of hot air to go around!

[MegaProphet]

It was alright, not much new. Obama attacked more than he did in the first debate. Romney went out on a weird tangent about marriage before sex when answering the question about gun control. I didn't like the moderator as much as the one from the vp debate.

[Ray Rider]

I thought the debate went really well, and both candidates did a good job of defending their positions and going on the offensive. Romney's performance was the same great caliber as last time, but Obama noticeably put more effort into the debate tonight and was "with it;" he was active, engaging, and presidential. In fact, I can hardly remember any of his characteristic ahh's and umm's. As far as performance goes, Obama won tonight's debate, although it wasn't by a large margin. Romney seemed to spend a lot of time attacking Obama and his dismal record in the past 4 years (and good for him; there should be more pointed criticism of that); however he didn't passionately share his own vision of the US for the Americans to seize onto and identify with...that was severely lacking. Obama can share a great vision for the US and get people fired up about it, but his record betrays his inability to follow through on that vision.

I will say that I was annoyed with the moderator at times, specifically in the Libya section. Now it wasn't smart for Romney to insinuate that the government/Obama may have misled the public regarding the cause of the Benghazi attack; I don't see how anyone would intentionally do that. However what Obama claimed to have said, and the moderator unfairly backed him up on, was not true. In his speech in the rose garden after the attack, he did not state, as he claimed, that "this was an act of terror." In a general blanket statement, he said "No acts of terror will ever shake the resolve of this nation..." That is very different than what was being talked about in the debate, and when the moderator sided with Obama on that and tried to make Romney look like a liar, she was way out of her ballgame. Unfortunately only those who check the facts will find out the truth of the matter. Realistically the statement itself was a minor detail, especially in light of the rest of lies & half truths that were flying from both sides throughout the night; but the thing that stands out about that specific one was that the "unbiased" moderator erroneously sided with one candidate to portray the other as a liar, and as evidenced by the audience clapping, it resonated with the viewers.

As far as the actual content and substance of their messages is concerned, they said a lot of conflicting facts and opinions which I think will result in a lot of viewers dismissing both of their statements equally. And even if a person were to claim that one or both of them is a stellar, honest person who never tells a lie, that would be entirely negated by both of their records on flip-flopping. Vote 3rd party, folks!

[BigBallinStalin]

I thought the debate went really well, and both candidates did a good job of defending their positions and going on the offensive. Romney's performance was the same great caliber as last time, but Obama noticeably put more effort into the debate tonight and was "with it;" he was active, engaging, and presidential. In fact, I can hardly remember any of his characteristic ahh's and umm's. As far as performance goes, Obama won tonight's debate, although it wasn't by a large margin. Romney seemed to spend a lot of time attacking Obama and his dismal record in the past 4 years (and good for him; there should be more pointed criticism of that); however he didn't passionately share his own vision of the US for the Americans to seize onto and identify with...that was severely lacking. Obama can share a great vision for the US and get people fired up about it, but his record betrays his inability to follow through on that vision.

Well, he just needs another four years!

I will say that I was annoyed with the moderator at times, specifically in the Libya section. Now it wasn't smart for Romney to insinuate that the government/Obama may have misled the public regarding the cause of the Benghazi attack; I don't see how anyone would intentionally do that. However what Obama claimed to have said, and the moderator unfairly backed him up on, was not true. In his speech in the rose garden after the attack, he did not state, as he claimed, that "this was an act of terror." In a general blanket statement, he said "No acts of terror will ever shake the resolve of this nation..." That is very different than what was being talked about in the debate, and when the moderator sided with Obama on that and tried to make Romney look like a liar, she was way out of her ballgame. Unfortunately only those who check the facts will find out the truth of the matter. Realistically the statement itself was a minor detail, especially in light of the rest of lies & half truths that were flying from both sides throughout the night; but the thing that stands out about that specific one was that the "unbiased" moderator erroneously sided with one candidate to portray the other as a liar, and as evidenced by the audience clapping, it resonated with the viewers.

As far as the actual content and substance of their messages is concerned, they said a lot of conflicting facts and opinions which I think will result in a lot of viewers dismissing both of their statements equally. And even if a person were to claim that one or both of them is a stellar, honest person who never tells a lie, that would be entirely negated by both of their records on flip-flopping. Vote 3rd party, folks!

Oh, but their rhetoric was beautiful!

[muy_thaiguy]

http://news.yahoo.com/fact-check-stumbl ... ction.html

I'll just leave that right there.

[bedub1]

http://news.yahoo.com/fact-check-stumbles-latest-presidential-debate-015330844--election.html

I'll just leave that right there.

I think it would be much better if during the debates there were live fact-checkers. This way when a candidate says something, you will see a board of their head say "truth" or "liar". Make it easy to call them on their bullshit.

[Woodruff]

http://news.yahoo.com/fact-check-stumbles-latest-presidential-debate-015330844--election.html

I'll just leave that right there.

SOROS!!!!!

[thegreekdog]

Here, in a nutshell, is the problem with the United States right now:

Question: Mr. President, Governor Romney, as a 20-year-old college student, all I hear from professors, neighbors and others is that when I graduate, I will have little chance to get employment. What can you say to reassure me, but more importantly my parents, that I will be able to sufficiently support myself after I graduate?

This was a question (that was answered seriously, we'll get to those later) from the audience. Essentially, this kid is asking what the president can do to make sure he has a job. Would this have been a serious question 200 years ago or 100 years ago or 50 years ago or even 20 years ago? Would this person have been ridiculed?

Romney's Answer: Your question -- your question is one that's being asked by college kids all over this country. I was in Pennsylvania with someone who had just graduated -- this was in Philadelphia -- and she said, "I've got my degree. I can't find a job. I've got three part-time jobs. They're just barely enough to pay for my food and pay for an apartment. I can't begin to pay back my student loans." So what we have to do is two things. We have to make sure that we make it easier for kids to afford college. And also make sure that when they get out of college, there's a job.

Let's stop there for a second. The government's job is to make sure college is affordable and to make sure that students have a job when they graduate? f*ck no! It's the student's job to make sure college is affordable and that he/she has a job when he/she graduates.

Romney's Answer (continued): When I was governor of Massachusetts, to get a high school degree, you had to pass an exam. If you graduated in the top quarter of your airlines (what?), we gave you a John and Abigail Adams scholarship, four years tuition free in the college of your choice in Massachusetts, it's a public institution. I want to make sure we keep our Pell grant program growing. We're also going to have our loan program, so that people are able to afford schol. But the key thing is to make sure that you can get a job when you get out of schol. And what's happened over the last four years (ha!) has been very, very hard for America's young people. I want you to be able to get a job.

Let's stop again. The things he mentioned are all fine. But I suspect that a top 25% high school graduate going to a public college in Massachusetts or someone getting a Pell grant is not going to have a problem getting a job when he/she graduates. And I also suspect that 100% of students aren't getting those monies anyway.

Romney's Answer (continued): I know what it takes to get this economy going. With half of college kids graduating this year without a college -- excuse me, without a job. And without a college level job, that's just unacceptable. And likewise you've got more and more debt on your back. So more debt and less jobs. I'm going to change that. I know what it takes to create good jobs again. I know what it takes to make sure that you have the kind of opportunity you deserve. And kids across this country are going to recognize, we're bringing back an economy. It's not going to be like the last four years. The middle-class has been crushed over the last four years (ha!) and jobs have been too scarce. I know what it takes to bring them back, and I'm going to do that, and make sure that when you graduate -- when do you graduate? (he answers 2014). 2014. When you come out in 2014, I presume I'm going to be president. I'm going to make sure you get a job. Thanks Jeremy. Yeah, you bet.

Before we get to the president's answer, let's look at this. Rhetoric all over the place here and no details. And then he says he's going to make sure Jeremy gets a job. Really? Is he literally going to give him a job? If not, then how is he going to get him a job? What if Jeremy is a psyschology major or art history major? I hate this shit.

Obama's answer: Jeremy, first of all, your future is bright (unless you're an art history major). And the fact that you're making an investment in higher education is critical (just like Bill Gates). Not just to you, but to the entire nation. Now, the most important thing we can do is make sure we are creating jobs in this country. But not just jobs, good paying jobs. Ones that can support a family. And what I want to do, is build on the five million jobs we've created over the last 30 months in the private sector along (way to pick your facts Mr. President). And there are a bunch of things we can do to make sure your future is bright. Number one, I want to build manufacturing jobs in this country again. Now when Governor Romney said we should let Detroit go bankrupt. I said we're going to bet on American workers and the American auto industry and it's come surging back (picking facts again). I want to do that in industries, not just in Detroit, but all across the country and that means we change our tax codes so we're giving incentives to companies that are investing here in the United States and creating jobs here. It also means we're helping them and small businesses to export all around the world to new markets.

Okay, let's stop. Good rhetoric here, as per usual. No details on the tax incentives, but we're obviously only calling Romney out on not having details. The other thing that bothers me is the "manufacturing jobs" item. First of all, unless Jeremy is an engineering major (which he probably isn't since he can't get a job), he's probably not looking to work on the factory floor of a manufacturing facility. Sorry Mr. President.

Obama's answer (continued): Number two, we've got to make sure that we have the best education system in the world. And the fact that you're going to college is great, but I want everybody to get a great edcuation and we've worked hard to make sure that student loans are available for folks like you, but I also want to make sure that community colleges are offering slots for workers to get retrained for the jobs that are out there right now and the jobs of the future.

Stopping again. First of all, loans are available to everyone and that's part of what students and ex-students are complaining about: "Waah, I have to pay loans now. Waah." So not sure the point there. Second, Jeremy isn't going to community college so he doesn't give a shit.

Obama's answer (continued): Number three, we've got to control our own energy. Not only oil and natural gas, which we've been investing in; but also we've got to make sure we're building the energy source of the future, not just thinking about next year, but ten years from now, 20 years from now. That's why we've invested in solar and wind and biofuels, energy efficient cars. We've got to reduce our deficit, but we've got to do it in a balanced way. Asking the wealthy to pay a little bit more along with cuts so that we can invest in education like yours. And let's take the money that we've been spending on war over the last decade to rebuild America, roads, bridges, schools. We do these things, not only is your future going to be bright but America's future is going to be bright as well.

Okay, he's done now. So he's basically saying he's going to take money and give it to the industries he favors and that's better than the industries Romney favors. That's all there is here.

So Obama did not answer the specific question, he just laid out various domestic rhetoric... I mean plans... that he has. Romney at least answered the question, but in a way that is completely absurd.

I stopped reading the transcript after this. Suffice it to say, they both annoy me.

[BigBallinStalin]

Here, in a nutshell, is the problem with the United States right now:

Question: Mr. President, Governor Romney, as a 20-year-old college student, all I hear from professors, neighbors and others is that when I graduate, I will have little chance to get employment. What can you say to reassure me, but more importantly my parents, that I will be able to sufficiently support myself after I graduate?

This was a question (that was answered seriously, we'll get to those later) from the audience. Essentially, this kid is asking what the president can do to make sure he has a job. Would this have been a serious question 200 years ago or 100 years ago or 50 years ago or even 20 years ago? Would this person have been ridiculed?

[...]

I stopped reading the transcript after this. Suffice it to say, they both annoy me.

(response in general to what's going on here)


If you subsidize access to college, then you'll get more college students, which in turn creates more college (under)graduates looking for jobs. If the job market is not good, then it would be counter-productive to continue flooding that market.

Of course, I'm speaking in aggregates, so the surplus and shortages of jobs across particular fields of study do vary; however, the fact remains that if you subsidize something, you'll get more of it. And, in general, this appears to be the case.


But that's the economist's response. This would be politically suicidal for Romney or Obama to say this because they'd expect to lose student votes (on those margins). So, we end up subsidizing college tuition and gee-willickers we wonder why it's difficult for students to find a job (5% unemployment for college degree holders) or to find a full-time job that's relevant to their education (unknown).


If you lower the price of something (tuition), then one's value of that price need not be as significant. If one is willing to pay $10,000 for X, then their intensity of preference is much higher than someone who pays $2,000 (or $whatever.00 per month for 30 years @ a subsidized interest rate)--for the same X. Those who value a college education yet have that lower preference shouldn't be in college in the first place. In other words, the price one pays does not reflect their total preference for it. This in turn leads to a misallocation of resources--especially as more students will find it more profitable to default on their loans.

[BigBallinStalin]

Here, in a nutshell, is the problem with the United States right now:

Question: Mr. President, Governor Romney, as a 20-year-old college student, all I hear from professors, neighbors and others is that when I graduate, I will have little chance to get employment. What can you say to reassure me, but more importantly my parents, that I will be able to sufficiently support myself after I graduate?

This was a question (that was answered seriously, we'll get to those later) from the audience. Essentially, this kid is asking what the president can do to make sure he has a job. Would this have been a serious question 200 years ago or 100 years ago or 50 years ago or even 20 years ago? Would this person have been ridiculed?

Those are excellent questions, and the need to ask them hearkens back to the days of Classical Liberalism. As I've posted above, many students should not be students.

The government subsidy, which is supported by well-intended voters and maybe well-intended politicians and maybe the well-intended interest groups, has led and will continue to lead to unintended consequences (unemployment, waste of effort and time, loan defaults).

The role of highlighting unintended consequences should correct some people's expected benefits from a certain plain. Insert the explanations about spontaneous order and the market process, and we get what F. A. Hayek means when he says:

The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men what little they know about what they imagine they can design.

[BigBallinStalin]

So, let's apply my previous two posts to explain some of what I'm talking about:

Here, in a nutshell, is the problem with the United States right now:

Question: Mr. President, Governor Romney, as a 20-year-old college student, all I hear from professors, neighbors and others is that when I graduate, I will have little chance to get employment. What can you say to reassure me, but more importantly my parents, that I will be able to sufficiently support myself after I graduate?

This was a question (that was answered seriously, we'll get to those later) from the audience. Essentially, this kid is asking what the president can do to make sure he has a job. Would this have been a serious question 200 years ago or 100 years ago or 50 years ago or even 20 years ago? Would this person have been ridiculed?


Romney's Answer:

show

Let's stop there for a second. The government's job is to make sure college is affordable and to make sure that students have a job when they graduate? f*ck no! It's the student's job to make sure college is affordable and that he/she has a job when he/she graduates.

This is true, nevertheless, the valuation of the expected benefits of college are distorted because the prices are distorted from the government subsidies. It is true to blame some individuals for failing to make sure college is affordable in the long-term (I guess they should've estimated the present discount value of a college education and college-job for 40+ years when they were 18 years old?).

Either way, these students should not have been students to begin with. But since the prices were distorted, they were enticed into getting a college degree (yes, other factors do matter like the cultural, etc., but prices reflect that intensity of preference).

show

Let's stop again. The things he mentioned are all fine. But I suspect that a top 25% high school graduate going to a public college in Massachusetts or someone getting a Pell grant is not going to have a problem getting a job when he/she graduates. And I also suspect that 100% of students aren't getting those monies anyway.

Good point. But how did these students get into college in the first place? (rhetorical Q)

show

Before we get to the president's answer, let's look at this. Rhetoric all over the place here and no details. And then he says he's going to make sure Jeremy gets a job. Really? Is he literally going to give him a job? If not, then how is he going to get him a job? What if Jeremy is a psyschology major or art history major? I hate this shit.

Fiscal spending, TGD. Think like a Keynesian. If you want to provide jobs, well, you simply take taxpayers' money and invest it in areas that'll provide such jobs. Subsidize businesses' R&D and basket-weaving classes to create that demand for those college-degree jobs.

It doesn't matter that he didn't provide details because the plan for Repocrat Politicians is essentially the same: tax, borrow, and spend. Leave it to the mainstream economists to hammer out the details and provide imaginary multiplier effects in order to justify Repocratic fiscal policy--which was a foregone conclusion from the beginning.

show

Okay, let's stop. Good rhetoric here, as per usual. No details on the tax incentives, but we're obviously only calling Romney out on not having details. The other thing that bothers me is the "manufacturing jobs" item. First of all, unless Jeremy is an engineering major (which he probably isn't since he can't get a job), he's probably not looking to work on the factory floor of a manufacturing facility. Sorry Mr. President.

It's funny that he mentions "art history major." Recall that the government has been subsidizing education in many fields, but when it reduces that spending, then the people training to chase such jobs are left with only a degree in their hands. This is the misallocation of resources at play, and the culprit is the government. It subsidized education, distorted price signals, induced people to chase those perceived jobs (on the margin), cut spending, and left them unemployed or wasting their skills on irrelevant jobs.

(this is one of the reasons why I'm against government-provided/subsidized education. The government and the uninformed voters unintentionally ruin people's lives by distorting prices from what the prices would have been in a free or freer market).

show

Stopping again. First of all, loans are available to everyone and that's part of what students and ex-students are complaining about: "Waah, I have to pay loans now. Waah." So not sure the point there. Second, Jeremy isn't going to community college so he doesn't give a shit.

And the band goes marching on. Obama like Romney wants to continue exacerbating the problem by subsidizing it. Retraining programs are a joke too. If you need to be retrained, then obviously you shouldn't have been in college in the first place (recall: due to the government-created distortion of prices, you'll get more people in college who shouldn't have been in college in the first place).

show

Okay, he's done now. So he's basically saying he's going to take money and give it to the industries he favors and that's better than the industries Romney favors. That's all there is here.

So Obama did not answer the specific question, he just laid out various domestic rhetoric... I mean plans... that he has. Romney at least answered the question, but in a way that is completely absurd.

I stopped reading the transcript after this. Suffice it to say, they both annoy me.

They both annoy me too, yet this will continue because people don't understand that good intentions don't lead to good outcomes, and that the government is worse at determining the optimal amount of X (education) than the market is. But with the economic bias out there, this pattern of unintended consequences and the constant series of state intervention to correct the previous consequences of state intervention will continue.


What is the optimal amount of the supply (schools) and demand (students) for college education? The government has no idea, but politicians do know that if they subsidize it, they will get votes and they will get support from interest groups. It's democracy + interest group politics, which will never end if people continue eating the Repocratic Cake. (But it's SOO delicious and cheap!)




*(boast: rough draft essay of four pages double-spaced in 43 minutes... not bad!)

[Army of GOD]

Not that I care about the debate (nor do I ever watch them so I'm not sure how often this happens) but the third part of Obama's answer is absolutely ridiculous and so unrelated to the question that I believe pooping into his hand and throwing it at Romney would've been a more on-topic.

Anyway this shows that both candidates are fucking retarded and reaffirms (read: confirms my previous bias) that they're the same thing in which case anyone who votes for either is, transitively, fucking retarded.

[BigBallinStalin]

no ur wrong cuz [insert player's/Night Strike's/JB's/PS's argument here]