When will Hillary Clinton give up her candidacy ?

Think hard about the words you wrote. Perhaps it will come to you.

A word or two on Bill Kristol.

There is a reigning cliche regarding the fellow that shows up consistently in the media (even right wing media entities/persons who support Trump) And it has filtered down to people who contribute on boards like this one. The cliche is that Kristol is notable only in that his predictions are always dead wrong.

There's good reason for people to accept this cliche because so much of what Kristol has suggested will come about or is likely to come about has proven dead wrong. The mistake people make is in imagining that Kristol was actually making predictions (even where he might preface a statement with, "I predict that...").

Kristol wears two distinct hats. One, he's a strategist operating within the modern party who forwards (often not publicly) memos and advice. The best known of these is his '93 memo advising the GOP why Hillarycare must be defeated and how to achieve this. The advice was followed and Hillarycare was defeated (he tried this again with another similar memo trying to stop Obamacare, but his time he got beat). He's not stupid, he has lots of connections, and he has a lifetime of experience working in conservative politics.

The second hat is his public pundit persona and activities on Fox, on the major networks, at Weekly Standard, newspaper op eds, etc. This is how most people know him and it's from this hat where he gets the reputation repeated in the cliche.

So, what's the mistake people are making in presuming that cliche is accurate? It is in assuming that Kristol is engaged in analysis. Of course, that is how he is normally introduced on CNN or Fox or in op eds or wherever. It is also the persona he wraps around himself in these venues. But that isn't really what he is at all. He's much better understood as a propagandist. His role is to talk down the opposition and talk up his party and it's ideology (his notion of what that ideology ought to be, usually). If you have read him as much as I have, you'll see, for example, that he functions as a cheerleader for the cause. When things are looking down, he'll try to rouse his audience. And because he seeks to fulfill this cheerleader function, he will commonly make "predictions" that aren't really predictions - they are cheers - "I think the evidence is clear that Romney is going to triumph and maybe triumph to a degree that surprises everyone".

Critics point to all these supposed predictions and wonder why Kristol can even show his face after getting so much so wrong. He can because he knows he wasn't predicting, he was doing something else. Nate Silver wouldn't be able to continue with a record as bad as Kristol's but for Kristol it doesn't matter at all. Because he's not an analyst, he's a propagandist. Propagandists don't care if they get it wrong, obviously. That's not their game.

Having said all that, let me offer a bit of evidence here. Kristol was one of the first people on the right to understand the real dangers of Trump's involvement in the GOP race and how acute those dangers would be to the GOP and the conservative coalition if Trump was to gain the nomination. And he worked feverishly (with others of like mind) to try and prevent the outcomes he saw as likely or certain.

That is Kristol as strategist. His predictions were right on the money.

Quote Blickers:


Quote georgeob1 in response:

I am thinking hard. Consider the words: For the last ten years, the first 2½ of which were under Bush 43, the inflation-adjusted median weekly pay was no higher than it is now. That means in the last ten years the inflation-adjusted median weekly pay has not exceeded what it is now. Therefore, the inflation-adjusted median weekly pay could not have been higher under Bush during that time, (the last 10 years), than it is now under Obama, could it? No it could not.

Get a grip, george. You're losing it.

That's enough fact checking for me! LOL

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2016/feb/11/hillary-clinton/debate-hillary-clinton-says-americans-havent-had-r/

According to Politifcat, Americans haven't had a raise in 15 years; just 2%. That can't be interpreted as a raise.

That is a perfect instance of the thing. Thank you.

Well, it's an inflation adjusted 1.7% under Obama and another inflation-adjusted 1.7% under Bush 43. Not much of a raise, but it does beat inflation. Obama had the added burden of digging the country out of the worst economic setback since the great Depression. 2.6 Million Full Time jobs were lost the quarter before Obama took office.

Under Bill Clinton, the raise was an inflation-adjusted 7% or eight years, which is all right.

No you aren't thinking at all.

Assange says he has Clinton connecting the pay and the play on voice.

Well it is certainly true that median wages have fallen short of even our anemic gdp growth for the past decade - again during the weakest recovery from a recession we have seen since WWII.

The 2008 recession was the result of the collapse of a real estate bubble, itself induced by foolish government policies thru Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac - both government sponsored companies lead by government appointees thst borrowed capital at cheap government ratetes pumping it into an already overpriced housing market. On top of that they forced banks to lower their credit standards to meet social goals, thereby inducing the poor to invest in already overpriced assets doomed to fall. Some benefit!!

Normally evonomic recoveries following the collapse of an asset bubble are very quick. This one was not : held back by high corporate taxes , foolish government spending on "shovel ready projects" that instead served only to sustain overinflated Federal & state bureaucracies, and expanded government regulations that further inhibited investment.

I guess the question then is just why wage growth fell so far behind gdp growth. I believe the answer is pretty clear. Job creation, particularly by small businesses (normally a major source of the increase) was abnormally low because of the exlosion of government regulations that restricted labor market flexibility and discouraged investments in new business ventures by companies holding growing cash hordes. The pea brains who run this administration were also sure that doubling the demand for medical care while at the same time reducing the supply of services by forcing the consolidation of hospitals and caregivers so the bureaucrate could more easily control prices would somehow create a panacea in which there would be more of everything at lower cost. Sadly for the people paying the premiums it didn't work (supply and demand will inexorably find their own equilibrium even if the progressive "thinkers" of this world believe otherwise.) In an analogous way they have also raised the minimum wage in the foolish belief that they can control the economic choices of others. The result of cource has been even lower job creation at the bottom of the tier and even cutback in employnmment particularly for small companies in service industries. Some benefit !

Your opinion that wages have remained sluggish because small businesses didn't create jobs as in the past is a good explanation. It's also the fact that unemployment rate has remained so low. Most economists have said that a 5% unemployment rate is full employment. Even after adding 255,000 jobs in July, the unemployment rate remained the same at 4.9%.
The middle class is being squeezed, and are decreasing at an alarming rate.
What I find interesting is the fact that our investments have done very well the past ten years. I've withdrawn 40% from our funds, and the balance is the same now as in the early 2000s.

We generally agree here. The significant decline over the last few years in the workforce participation rate takes a good deal of the glow off the current unemployment rate, which excludes those who have givern up seeking a job and the many thousands who have more than doubled the populsation getting social security disability checks. The middle class is indeed being squeezed by a regulatory climate that discourages investments in new enterprises and significant job creation. Indeed unemployment among the young is at a new high and they are the ones who chiefly filled the entry level jobs at low labor rates that are beiong systematically wiped our by a government bent, among other things, on raising the minimum wage (and thereby benefitting their labor union masters who regularly index their labor rates to the minimum wage - the unions get 1.5% of wages and a big raise themselves.

I also agree with you on stock returns. That is a result of sluggish economic return, low total employment levels, and the hoarding of cash by companies. It takes real work on the part of these idiots to screw things up so badly for everyone. But then they can bask in the virtue of their supposed good intentions while ignoring or blaming others for the harm they do.,

Governments don't create private sector jobs: lately they inhibit their creation.

Politicians always promise they will create jobs. That's a bald faced lie. Government do not create jobs, but they can hinder it.

That's really rather obviously false, ci. Government can and does create millions of jobs. Roads, bridges, dams, the space program, the vast military, etc etc. Examples are far too numerous to bother counting up at local, state and federal levels. Not quite sure how this idea got implanted in your noggin.

He was all worked up following george's talking points.

This. May. Make. You. Throw up.

I'm speechless.

By the way, which one of you added the tag 'strong vagina'? Seriously?

The GOP is bragging about voter suppression laws.

http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/35539-the-gop-is-now-bragging-about-voter-suppression

http://billmoyers.com/2014/10/24/voter-discrimination/

I just wish ya'll would change the subject, tedious in the extreme.

I did do my bit, looked up some encouraging news on gallop, since George is obsessed with work participation (never heard of it until Obama took office) rate, there is also good news on that.

U.S. Gallup Good Jobs Rate Climbs to New High Again in July

Unless we have a total job market crass again, I don't think democrats will be hurt on the economy.