Tuesday, July 31, 2012

Obama is a moderate Republican, and other stories

Obama and the polarisation of US politics: According to Dave Roberts, the left's gone left but the right's gone nuts. US politics has become more polarised, but not equally so. By the standards of just a decade or two ago, Obama truly is a moderate Republican. As one illustration of Obama's centre-right approach, consider the fact that his recent attacks on Romney over rapacious capitalism are quite hypocritical from a President who has done very little other than to encourage such behaviour. Some may be interested in a comparison of Obama vs. Romney on environmental policy. Of course, Romney and Obama are not the only candidates.

Who drinks the most soft drink? The answer may surprise you. OK, maybe not.

Assessing Australian climate action: David Spratt offers a sober assessment of our situation. This is the first in a series: part two and three. I have a lot of sympathy for most of his account.

What's in a name? We should stop calling them "mobile phones" and start calling them "trackers", according to this piece. The little electronic devices in our pockets reveal much about our behaviour to all kind of people you probably didn't realise.

Food in Australia: The draft National Food Plan, set up at the urging of corporate interests and tailored to their perspective assumes business as usual is a smart idea for Australia's food production. Instead, the goal is not simply more food at whatever cost.

The End Game: Raoul Pal offers some tips for traders wishing to maximise their profits during these last few months before catastrophic global economic collapse. Cheery stuff: make sure you get yours before we all what's coming to us. That kind of thing.

A history of democracy: Noam Chomsky takes us on a whirlwind tour from the signing of Magna Carta through the US Constitution, Civil War and into drones, rendition of terror suspects and climate change. Compulsory reading for US exceptionalists.

12 comments:

Anonymous said...

Sorry Byron, I've only read raoul pal so far.

on that, he seems to be basing his scenario on two pillars: pessimism about the current eu situation, and technical analysis of the graphs of major indices. how confident are we that two shoulders around a head always presages doom?

is there something else I'm missing?

Alan Wood

Anonymous said...

Hey, yeah, how much soda do we drink in... oh, never mind.

Alan Wood

byron smith said...

Alan - Yes, you're right that a single presentation is hardly sufficient evidence for thinking there are very serious remaining problems in the global financial system and that another (worse) crash could well be imminent. To be clear (and I could have been clearer in my post), the point of including the link wasn't so much to make this case, but to illustrate a classic "trader" mindset. This guy apparently believes that the global economic system is within years or possibly months of the largest meltdown ever seen, and he's offering advice on how to profit from it.

byron smith said...

Or rather, the slides of a single presentation, since these are just his images without the accompanying text.

byron smith said...

Obama loves coal. Campaign ad in a coal state.

byron smith said...

Obama's stimulus has done some good things (NB stimulus ≠ TARP).

byron smith said...

Parody: Obama that I used to know.

byron smith said...

Double tap drone strikes: terrorism and a war crime.

byron smith said...

NYT: Republicans move to the right, comparing the platforms of 1980 and 2012.

byron smith said...

In case there was any way that someone might mistakenly assume that I am a fan of Obama, let me say that this disgusts me. His weaker than diluted water "support" for climate action is a grave failure. But his total and inexcusable backflip on torture and secrecy is betrayal of his voters of the first order.

byron smith said...

Greenwald: Obama administration's record on whistleblowers.

byron smith said...

Guardian: Increasing polarisation of US politics is not symmetrical. Guess which side is more to blame?