Uncle_Vanya said:
I kind of agree, neither politician seems to be bound on doing what the nation seems to want as far as Iraq is concerned, but then again I don't think you can say that the nation really knows what it wants to do. The problem with Iraq is that right now US is paying off a lot of the local warlords to fight AQI and other groups that are still anti-US, if US leaves and the paychecks stop coming those warlords will start cutting each other's heads off again to regain control of the country. I highly doubt that the Iraqie military can handle a return of escalated violence, their performance at Basra was substandard with many Iraqie soldiers deserting once the fighting started. You also have to take into account the appeal of many religious crazies to the Iraqie public. In addition Syria will most certainly start exporting their own religious crazies again to Iraq if US leaves. Basically there is no simple solution to this and the outcome will most likely end up with US loosing its face. But McCain seems to be more arrogant in his ignorant perspective on what is going on in Iraq although Obama is yet to show any substance on the issue either, at least Obama voted against the war to begin with though.
I think we come from two different perspectives on this. You're looking at this in terms of leaving the Middle East with the best possible result while I'm looking at trying to save the United States economy from our massive deficit spending funded by inflating the dollar. In leaving the Middle East the best possible, there is no simple solution; for saving spending in the Middle East there is. Also, Obama wasn't in Congress when the vote to authorize military force against Iraq was issued, he was still in the Illinois State Senate.
Uncle_Vanya said:
I heard some things about taxes that suggests that in capitalist economies lowering taxes is actually a good thing because people have more money to contribute to the economy through investment, which in turn creates more jobs, which in turn creates more tax payers. Now Im not sure of how accurate this perspective is, perhaps you can enlighten me on the issue. As for the candidates, once again I agree, neither one has anything solid to add.
Tax cuts/raises in and of themselves do nothing, economically speaking. The idea is to shift aggregate demand (AD) along aggregate supply (AS) because AS is vertical and represents potential GDP. AD is defined by Consumption + Investment + Government Spending + Net Exports. By raising taxes you lower consumption and investment, but all of that is just shifted over to government spending. What taxes do is decides who gets to pick what money is spent on - whether the individual is allowed to maximize his or her utility or whether the government can decide based largely on the work of special interest groups. Generally speaking, the less the government has control over the money spent in the economy the more efficient the economy is, however that is a long term plan that seeks to move potential GDP through the improvement of technology and so forth. To throw my opinion into all that theory, I'm generally for any tax cut for any reason because the more money available for individuals to spend, the more freedom a society has (as it also is another check on government power), the more individuals are able to maximize their utility.
Economically speaking, what is important is the marginal tax rate. A high marginal tax rate provides a disincentive to work. For example, countries moving towards a flat tax have had massive success (Estonia is a good example). Even Russia is moving towards one. Obama is trying to raise the marginal tax rate by making our system even more progressively based while McCain is lowering the marginal tax rate.
Uncle_Vanya said:
There is a way of making ethanol out of barley that could be a relatively quick renewable solution to the energy crisis. McCain did say something about building 45 new nuclear power plants in US, I don't remember Obama saying anything about how is actually going to solve the issue with harm to environment or without.
Obama's plan is basically 'you're screwed until alternatives are developed', but we'll provide incentives to develop them, though the price of oil where it is is a much bigger incentive than probably anything government could provide.
Uncle_Vanya said:
Lets add overall foreign policy to the table, in relation to Iran, Russia, North Korea, etc. The broader the topic the more of a chance we have to get more people on board. So what would be your perspective on the two candidates in relation to their overall foreign policy agendas?
Though both are trying to portray each other as having a bad policy, there really isn't too broad of a difference. They both state they want to rely much more on diplomacy, in contrast to Bush, though Obama tries to paint McCain as Bush's third term and McCain tries to paint Obama as pandering to our allies. Though in my opinion McCain is more hawkish, I don't think he is so much so that it would make much of a difference. Like with Iran, Obama wants to meet with their leaders unconditionally and McCain wants to have diplomats sent and they make this a massive policy dispute. That tells you how close their positions really are. Though Obama did talk about wanting to get more involved in the UN, especially in funding, something I disagree with very much. Though McCain also has his faults, such as the missile shield being built in Europe, a terrible waste of money (and it also pisses off Russia).
To emphasize, their major differences tend to be in the details, not the actual policy.
