Lois & Clark Forums Forums General Discussion Fun with Polls Poll: Which US presidential candidate do you like best?

Oops - major error I shall go back and edit that post!

c.

Other than that, Carol, I see your point. I read a column in Slate (I think) the other day talking about candidates in terms of Bugs Bunny & Daffy Duck. Bugs is cool, calm, collected. Daffy is excitable, angry, impulsive. According to this columnist, the American people always pick Bugs over Daffy. In the 2000 election, Algore was definitely more of a Daffy type, whereas Bush -- as you say -- was much more laid back, so he was Bugs. It was a famously close election, of course, but still. Obama, also, is the Bugs Bunny type, while Hilary is much more Daffy Duck. Also a very close election, but Obama has the lead. John McCain, I'm not so sure about. I suspect he's more of a Daffy. FWIW.


quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Glad to see you got my point about hockey. It's hugely violent, thuggish - allows fans to subliminate all their inner violent tendencies and hostilities. It's all out there on the ice - and then they go home and do no harm. Think the same thing probably holds true for soccer, football etc.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Um, have you ever been to a World Cup game? I'm pretty sure riots are routine...

Ann, I'm certain Roger will explain this better than I will, but it is actually a proven fact that *lower* tax rates produce *more* tax revenue. Counter-intuitive, but true. The Bush tax cuts averted a recession. The deficit's because spending rose faster than revenue -- the US gov't is really really good at spending other people's money.

On a bit of a tangent -- PJ O'Rourke discussed spending, etc, a while back. There's four types of spending.

You can spend your own money on yourself. Quality is important, but you also want the best price.

You can spend your own money on other people. Price is still important, quality not so much.

You can spend other people's money on yourself. Quality is important here, but who cares whether it's overpriced.

Then there's spending other people's money on other people. There's much less incentive to care about either price or quality.

All government spending is the fourth type. (He also observed that giving Congress control over spending is like giving a teenaged boy whiskey and car keys.) It's astonishing that we get anything of value, really.

PJ

Love the Bugs and Daffy theory! It works.

c.

Pam, I realize that there are economists who argue that lower taxes mean higher tax revenue. And I even agree with you that there are special situations where this is true.

But I'm sure that the majority of international economists - not U.S. ones - will say that cutting taxes while you are waging a war is counter-productive and will increase your country's economic problems. And for that matter, I'm sure that there are American economists who say the same thing.

So you don't need to convince me that there are economists who do say that cutting taxes is always the right thing to do, and it is the right thing to do when a country is undertaking a major new economic burden, such as waging a war. But the fact that some economists say that tax-cutting always works doesn't in itself make it true, and the fact that America has run up a huge budget deficit and that the dollar has been weakened doesn't make those economists wrong who said that cutting taxes while fighting a war would produce exactly this result.

Ann

Hmmm. I said, about ten posts or so ago, that that would be my last post. Now I'm posting two in a row. :rolleyes:

Anyway. Roger, you explained why all those things that looked so strange about the election of 2000 were really fair and square and perfectly constitutional. All right. And I'll keep insisting that the election of 2000 still looks bad and unfair to a foreigner - or at the very, very least, it looks bad to me. It is not any one of the little "irregularities" in themselves that makes the the election look bad. It is all the little irregularities added up together.

To make you see what I mean, I'll have to ask you to imagine a non-existing country, which I will call, for no reason at all, Irelia. I imagine it to be a little bit like Hugo Chavez' Venezuela, but really far more democratic. But the country is also a bit like one of those "new" nations that used to belong to the former Soviet Union, and I imagine it is situated there, too. But even though this country is religiously mixed, and even though there are strong Muslim groups there, this country does not have militant Islamism. And there are large groups of Christians there as well, who co-exist relatively peacefully with the Muslims.

Anyway. I imagined that this country is anxious to be a democracy. To achieve that end, it has copied large parts of the American voting system and the American elections! So, for example, is it unconstitutional for a President of Irelia to be reelected more than once. Each term he (or very possibly she) serves lasts for four years. Just as is the case in the United States, it is possible in Irelia to win the popular vote and yet lose the election. That is because the country is divided into districts, each with its own governor, and it is the votes from the districts that counts, just like the case is in the United States.

So. I want you to imagine a President of Irelia, called Asaf Ashkov. Ashkov is sharply critical of many U.S. policies, accusing the United States of acting like an international bully. Therefore, Ashkov refuses to sell any of Irelia's oil to the United States. Instead, President Ashkov sells oil at reduced prices to countries that could be regarded as enemies of the United States, such as Cuba.

After four years in office, Ashkov is sensationally defeated in the next election by a man called Konstantin Yusuf. Yusuf is much more of a friend of the United States than Ashkov had been. Yusuf normalizes Irelia's relations with the United States and starts selling oil to it. Irelia's economy improves very noticably during Yusuf's Presidency.

However, Ashkov's political party resents the new course that Yusuf has charted for his country. Ashkov's party controls many important media in Irelia. These media start smearing Yusuf, printing various stories about his private life that make large parts of the Irelian people more and more disgusted with Yusuf. Unfortunately some of the accusations regarding Yusuf's sex life appear to be true, and Yusuf makes a bad situation worse by foolishly denying some of the accusations. Yusuf just barely manages to ride out his second term without being impeached.

Most Irealians are sufficently disgusted and embarrassed by the whole situation that they are happy to see Yusuf go. Now a new President will be elected. The candidate running for former President Ashkov's party is none other than President Ashkov's own son, Asaf V. Ashkov. He is up against the candidate for Konstantin Yusuf's party, a man named Christos Christov.

In spite of all the embarrassment and bad feelings surrounding former President Yusuf because of the sex scandals ascribed to him, many Irelians still want his policies to continue. They like the improved relations with the United States, for example. On the other hand, other Irelians want to return to former President Ashkov's policies. It is touch and go which of the candidates will win.

It was Christos Christov who won the popular vote. But the election was decided in a province called Firia, where Asaf V. Ashkov's own brother, Bilal Ashkov, was governor and somewhat responsible for the voting process.

Later the voting ballots were sharply criticized. They were constructed so that people who wanted to vote for Chistov could be fooled into voting for another candidate, Piotr Babov, instead. Presumably Christov lost important votes that way.

The vote in Firia was very close. In the end, Asaf V. Ashkov was declared the winner by a margin of about a hundred votes. Christov's party protested and wanted a recount. A recount started, but the Irelian Supreme Court, where seven of the nine jurors had been appointed by Ashkov's party, stepped in and stopped the recount, deeming it unconstitutional.

Asaf V. Ashkov was thereby declared the winner. He immediately lashed out at the United States and put an immediate stop to his country's oil export to the United States.

And now I'm just wondering if you, Roger, would have said that Asaf V. Ashkov's win was fair and square and a fine tribute to the democratic system of Irelia.

Ann

Can't speak for Roger, but, if there's no actual provable vote fraud, I'd have to respect their system. Especially if it's been working for over 200 years. Doesn't matter whether I like the result or not.

And really, "Christos Christov"?? Subtle. :rolleyes: Well, they do say environmentalism is turning into a religion.

Political systems sometimes look very strange from the outside. Or inside, for that matter. Personally, I've never understood why people like the parliamentary system. Nobody votes for Prime Minister. You get some weird coalition governments sometimes. Not to mention the myriad of parties. And calling elections just whenever? Okay, fine...

PJ

The two are independent.

We don't have proportional rep in Canada, although there has been some advocacy for making some changes in our constitution to add in prop. rep.

Our federal system is like yours - a combination of rep by pop (our House of Commons which parallels your House of Reps) and rep by region (our Senate). What's different is that our HoC is more powerful, while your Senate is.

What I don't get is the caucus system of selecting a candidate. I know how it operates, but it strikes me that it violates the principle of the secret ballot, making voters more susceptible to peer pressure etc.

I think our systems are probably equally dysfunctional, just in a different way.

c.

I would say that direct popular vote would work better And don't say that it wouldn't work because larger states would always "choose" the president because that's not true. Not everyone in the same state would vote for the same person/party. A democrat state still would have independents (who can vote either way) and republicans specially the way sociaty is right now where people move from one state to the other. At least with a direct popular vote you just have your own people to blame for the guy that is your President And trust me, I still blame the stupid Brazilians that voted for Lula twice even after all the corruption and scandal in his first government :rolleyes: But at least it was the people's choice... it wasn't an electoral college making that decision. Electoral college used to make sense back when the country wasn't as big as it is now but I don't think it works anymore.

Raquel

Raquel,

True. But the electoral college is also useful in making the candidates try to appeal to the largest cross-section of people. The US is very large and very diverse -- Massachusetts and Mississippi don't have very much in common, for instance. When candidates have to win states and not just individual voters, they have to try to woo voters in both Mass. and Miss., instead of appealling solely to, say, big city dwellers and ignoring the rural parts of the country. That's the theory, anyway.

Caucuses...yeah, those are weird. And definitely not compatible with the secret vote idea. I think it's the state political parties that are in control of how those things are arranged, though.

In general, no matter what the system is, I'd be very cautious about changing it. Changes always bring unforeseen consequences. Although I'm open to looking at how the primaries/caucuses are scheduled, since my state is always too late in the process to matter. I've heard a proposal to organize the country into "regions" and each election cycle, one of the states in each region would have the earliest voting, with it rotating on each cycle. Get Iowa and New Hampshire and South Carolina out of the spotlight, and spread the influence around. So I'd be (cautiously, of course) interested in seeing that arranged. It'd be really tough to get everyone to agree, I think, and like I said, a lot of this is at the discretion of the state parties. The national party has some influence but states can challenge that. Like Florida & Michigan this year. As it stands, since those states had earlier primaries than the national party wanted, none of their delegates will count at the convention. But is it fair to disenfranchise two whole states' worth of voters? There's already a movement to get those delegates "seated" -- to make their votes count. It'll be interesting to watch.

Actually, I'm getting kind of excited. With Hilary & Obama running so neck-and-neck, they might have to actually campaign in NC! We never get that...

PJ

We'll take this one at a time. On the issue of tax cuts, it's universally accepted among economists that the absolute worst thing you can possibly do is to raise taxes at the beginning of an economic slowdown or recession. That would merely exacerbate the problem. Even Keynesians would not advocate a tax hike and John Maynard Keynes was a socialist.

Tax cuts do not universally create higher revenue. It's tough to explain without the use of pictures, but I can explain the theory of the Laffer Curve, named after the economist, Arthur Laffer, the father of supply-side economics. The Laffer curve looks like a graph with an upside-down U with the X-axis labeled as tax rate in percentages and the Y-axis labeled as total tax revenue collected. At a 0% tax rate, you'll obviously have 0 revenue, so the left side of the inverted U touches at 0,0. At 100% tax rate, you'll also have 0 tax revenue so the right side of the inverted U touches at 100,0. Somewhere at the top of the U is a tax rate that obtains the maximum amount of revenue.

Now to explain why the curve is shaped the way it is, the theory breaks the convention that as you raise taxes, you get higher revenue proportionally and vice versa if you cut taxes. The reason why the curve is inverted-U shaped is because of how people react to taxes. If taxes are low, people don't pay a whole lot of attention to the rate and go about their business, relatively unaffected by low tax. As the rate rises, people begin to take notice that it's taking chunks out of their disposable income. They suddenly begin protecting themselves by behaving differently. Either that's from sheltering income or spending on alternative goods or just not spending. The curve begins to flatten and eventually levels off. At a certain point, you reach a level of taxation where people will do just about anything to avoid paying taxes at which time the curve is now headed downward. You can raise tax rates all you want but all you'll get is less money. Clearly at 100%, nobody's going to bother working. If nobody works or performs any kind of economic activity, revenue goes to zero. Nobody's going to sit there and let the government take all their money.

At one point Sweden had a marginal 103% tax rate where people paid more than they took in. Lots of people who made that kind of money just left the country to go elsewhere where tax rates aren't so punitive.

The optimal level of taxation from the point of view of the government is the very top of the inverted-U. Obviously nobody knows exactly where that point is but taxes are high enough that the cutting of income tax rates will ironically give you more money if you're on the right side of that inverted-U. People will believe that taxes aren't so high that they can skip their tax shelters and be more free with spending as rates go down. So far, every time tax rates have been cut, revenue has increased, so we are still on the right side of that curve. Eventually we'll reach the point where revenue falls, but we've not seen that point yet. Europeans, who want to fund their incredibly expensive welfare states, could take a lesson from the Laffer Curve. Instead, they maintain ridiculously high tax rates at the expense of high unemployment and almost non-existent growth.

Keynesian theory believes that higher rates will always get you higher tax revenue and lower tax rates will give you lower revenue every time. However, Keynesian theory says that if an economy is growing quickly, that's the time to raise taxes and reap revenue increases. If an economy begins to slide, Keynesians believe taxes should be cut. Strangely, Keynesian theory is contradictory. It advocates cutting taxes to spur economic growth but yet continues to believe in the straight line relationship between tax rates and revenue, which is impossible if changing rates does indeed change people's behavior.

So with either theory, supply-side or Keynesian, the conditions right now would advocate the cutting of taxes. Anything else and both theories would believe that the economy would tank.

I am personally a supply-sider. I believe that the levels of taxation affect people's behavior.

Now why is supply-side theory called supply-side? There are two theories on how we can affect people's behavior. There's demand-side economics and supply-side economics. Demand-side is more traditional economic theory where spurring the economy should require concentrating tax and spending policy on consumers, those who demand goods and services. Give consumers back more money and they'll spend it, increasing economic growth. On the supply-side, those are the people who provide the goods and services. To spur investment and promote higher supply, supply-side economics says to stimulate that, you reduce the tax burden on the producers.

Now why is one better than the other, I hear you ask? Why do supply-siders believe that it's more beneficial to influence the supply side of the equation? On the demand side, having more money in the pockets of consumers allows them to buy more of the available goods and services. That boosts the bottom line of the producers and increases the standard of living of the consumers. There's this interesting concept in economics called the Multiplier Effect, though. You can think of it as money begetting more money. An investment of a dollar provides more than a dollar in benefits. With demand-side theory, the multiplier effect is minimal, roughly 1:1. One dollar spent increases the GDP by roughly one dollar. On the supply-side, though, it's been demonstrated that the multiplier effect can be enormous. Companies think in terms of ROI, or Return on Investment, or basically the total sales minus cost of capital. With a higher return on investment caused by a lower cost of capital, and the lower cost of capital is the big key, companies are far more willing to invest in new and better things and more capital. More capital means you can produce more goods and services. It means another factory or a new computer center. More capital also begets more hiring of employees. In the end, a dollar spent on additional capital means that more than a dollar eventually ends up being added to the GDP. If the ROI is prohibitive, companies won't invest and nobody benefits. A lower cost of capital means a directly higher ROI and more jobs and more money for everybody. It's the optimal way of creating wealth.

Why doesn't consumption help as much as investment? Every dollar spent by the consumer adds pennies to the bottom line of a company after expenses and therefore has minimal effect on the ROI decision. Meanwhile a dollar in the form of tax cuts directly adds a dollar to ROI, a very powerful way of stimulating investment. And it is investment, not consumption, that increases the economic base and increases jobs. That is why the multiplier effect is so much higher on investment. Higher investment and more jobs means increasing the tax base and that results in higher revenue in the form of taxes. The government reaps more in revenue when taking pennies from many than a dollar from a few.

Oops, I'm getting a bit ahead of myself. The GDP is the Gross Domestic Product, or the total value of all goods and services output by a country. The equation is GDP=C+I+G where C is consumption, I is investment, and G is government (spending minus taxes). Demand side ignores I and G and focuses entirely on C. Supply side affects both C and I with its multiplier effect. Hiring caused by additional expense on capital means that consumers have more to spend. As I mentioned, money begets money. Note that lowering taxes will also increase the size of G, which is why Keynesians also support tax cuts in a downturn and advocate running deficits. G gets bigger as taxes go down.

While this is rather a geeky explanation, the bottom line of it is that more money in the hand of producers will end up benefitting all, far more than simply giving money back to consumers. More money and a lower cost of capital that spurs investment will lead to more jobs and higher pay. That's why this whole tax rebate the Congress passed and the president signed is not going to work. It's an entirely demand-side solution. People who provide the jobs get nothing while many who get the rebates will simply sock it away without spending it. The real solution to get more revenue and to expand the economy is a tax rate reduction for everyone. That's why supply-siders insist on tax cuts for everyone, not just those at the bottom of the income rungs. There's very little bang for the buck on the demand-side.

That politician who advocates soaking the rich, i.e. the job producers, and wants "targeted tax cuts" really does not help the economy in the least. Politically it sounds the best because, after all, it always sounds good to give those poorer amongst us more money. But ironically, targeted tax cuts end up benefitting those lowest on the economic ladder less than the lowering of taxes for all.

It's not the rich getting greedy, but merely capitalism producing the best results for all. As President John F. Kennedy put it when he proposed lowering the top marginal tax rate of 93% to 70% and cutting all other marginal rates as well, "a rising tide lifts all boats." John Kennedy, the brother of arch-liberal Ted Kennedy, was a supply-sider. In a speech to the Economic Club of New York on December 14, 1962, President Kennedy said, "The most direct and significant kind of federal action aiding economic growth is... to cut the fetters which hold back private spending... Our present tax system exerts too heavy a drag on growth, siphons out of the private economy too large a share of personal and business purchasing power, and reduces the financial incentives for personal effort, investment, and risk-taking... In short it is a paradoxical truth that tax rates are too high today and tax revenues are too low - and the soundest way to raise revenues in the long run is to cut rates now."

So Ann, that's why supply-siders advocate tax cuts so much. Because they are the best way to help the most people, with the side effect that tax revenue rises. With across-the-board tax cuts you are essentially tackling C and I together and they end up feeding on each other with both growing faster than they would if tackled individually.

And next week, class, the lesson will be on the effect of monetary policy.

Since I have no interest in discussing the finer points of economic theory (about which no two economists agree), I thought I'd jump back a few posts...

Ann, you're not alone in your beliefs about Bush's beliefs.

From here :

From here :

(The article referred to in the last paragraph is here .)

And from here :

There's more, but I think that covers the essentials.

So, yes. It seems that, on some level, Bush believes that he was chosen by God to lead the country, and that the Iraq war is part of what is in his mind a religious crusade.

A couple of side notes:

He's also spoken out in favor of teaching Intelligent design .

At the beginning of his presidency, he created the Faith-Based Community Initiative , a government program specifically designed to give aid (monetary and otherwise) to faith-based non-profit organizations (and thus promote them over secular ones).

I'll refrain from adding own personal feelings about all of this (which are probably clear enough anyway), but I thought it worth mentioning for consideration.

Even if one candidate's own brother was governor of the province where the decisive voting was taking place? Even if the ballots were oddly designed, so that they seemed to favor the candidate whose brother was the governor of that province? Even if the recount was stopped by a Supreme Court where seven of the nine jurors had been appointed by the party which fielded the candidate with the brother? Even if a previous President representing the other party had been badly smeared by media siding with the party with the brother, so that the previous President had almost been impeached over a sex scandal? So that the sex scandal made a lot of people disgusted with that President and distrustful of that party, so that they wanted a President from the party with the brother instead instead?

So that the election, because of all this, produced a President who was really hostile to the United States and who stopped all oil exports to it? And who sold oil at a reduced price to Cuba instead?

You wouldn't have had any objections to that election, with in spite of its lack of real vote fraud had all those little "irregularities" favoring one candidate over the other one, and which gave the victory to the candidate who got all those little extra favors, even if the other candidate won the popular vote?

You wouldn't have had any objection to the fact that it seemingly took all those little extra favors to the candidate who was hostile to the United States to get him elected?

Okay, Pam. If you say so. If you really, really say so, and you would have been comfortable with such an election in another country producing such an "unfortunate" President, then I understand that you have no objections whatsoever to the U.S. election of 2000.

Ann

Ann, I guess you didn't bother to read what I said about all those points you brought up since you seem to think that your accusations of unfairness were still true. Just because Jeb Bush was governor didn't mean a thing towards the ballot. I even identified the person who created the butterfly ballot that you think cost Al Gore the election. It was the Democratic Supervisor of Elections for Palm Beach County, Theresa Lapore. It was unlikely Jeb Bush ever saw the ballot because it isn't his job according to Florida law. Every single county is different and each supervisor of each county is responsible for drawing up its own ballots. The ballot is then voted on by the county elections board, of which two were Democrats and one was a Republican in Palm Beach. On top of that, each and every county was responsible for its own voting equipment. Did you know that some Florida counties used optical scanners? Others used the old tried and true punch card ballots. Some even used those old fashion levers. Florida did not have a uniform method of voting. My own state used punch cards in 2000. Jeb must have been very busy going around Florida's sixty-seven counties, trying to make sure each and every ballot favored his brother.

Did you also know state law decreed that the first ballot slot of any ballot had to be the candidate from the party of the state governor? If a Democrat had been governor, Gore's name would have been in the top slot and Bush would have been in Gore's slot. That's about as close as Jeb Bush ever got to influencing the ballot design through his voter registration card.

Falsely accusing Jeb Bush of favoritism without a shred of evidence isn't being very fair to him, is it? And when it came to the recount, he recused himself from being on the three-person Florida State Elections board. He wanted to stay as far away as he could.

There were no irregularities in the voting, except for accusations from the Gore camp that held no water and could never be proven, such as people keeping blacks from voting. The press never could find anyone who didn't vote who wanted to and they interviewed a lot of people. If you want any kind of irregularity, they favored Gore. He tried to keep the ballots of overseas military personnel from being counted since the military always votes heavily Republican. He tried to cherry pick counties that had mostly Democrats because he figured if he needed to manufacture a few votes, those were the places to do it. He wanted no part in recounts of Republican counties. Just look at what happened in the Washington State governor's election four years later. Despite all deadlines having passed, the Republican Dino Rossi led the whole way. Yet, King County kept coming up with new ballots that unsurprisingly favored the Democrat, Christine Gregoire. Long after the election, by state law, should have been settled, King County still kept finding new ballots, some of them in unprotected areas where there were no guarantees they had not been tampered with. Eventually, Gregoire was declared the winner. Talk about stealing an election.

You'll talk about hanging chads. Studies have shown that Palm Beach's hanging chads were no different than those used in the rest of the country. All ballots, even optically scanned ones, have a rate of failure. It's when the election is very close that candidates can ask for recounts. But do you think it was fair to ask for recounts in only Palm Beach, Broward, Miami-Dade, and Volusia Counties? Who was really trying to break the rules of the election?

Then you still go and accuse the Supreme Court of trying to crown a king. Talk to Stephen Breyer, a Clinton appointee, who voted to say that Gore's recount was unconstitutional and a violation of the equal protection clause for trying to cherry pick counties (I know liberals love that phrase, "cherry pick," especially when it comes to war intelligence). I know Clinton and Gore were never really best buddies, but you think Clinton called up Breyer to tell him to vote for Bush?

Then there's the vote to stop the recount. If the recount had gone forward, Florida in all likelihood would have lost its electors since the vote could not start until after the safe harbor day. If the election had gone to the House of Representatives, Gore would have lost anyway.

Then the press went to try and recount the vote to see if Gore could have won. The conclusion: Bush would have still been president. Any way you look at it, Gore was a loser. There wasn't any chance of him becoming president when playing by the rules.

What's your complaint? That you don't like the electoral college? Nobody on the Bush team did anything untoward but defend their right to a fair election played by the rules set down before election day. Gore was trying to change the rules along the way to favor himself in any way he could. Picture yourself as an Army soldier sitting in the Balkans casting a vote for George Bush only to find out Al Gore tried to have your vote thrown out. Is that fair?

And just what the heck does oil have to do with the Florida elections?

What does Bill Clinton have to do with the Florida election? As a technicality, you say he was smeared and almost impeached. Umm, it isn't a smear if it's true and he admitted to lying in court and lost his law license. He wasn't convicted but he was impeached, btw. Impeachment is the accusation. Conviction on impeachment is removal. It wasn't the sex that lost him his law license. It was that little matter of perjury. You don't mind if a president lies under oath? But what did Bush have to do with Bill Clinton? Why was oil or Bill Clinton a part of your story? Too much oil on the ballots spoiled them?

I did read your answer, Roger. And I still believe that if the things that happened in the United States had happened in another country, and if the outcome in that other country had been that a President was elected who was hostile to the United States, then I still think that very many Americans would have grumbled that the election in that other country wasn't fair.

Then again, if these Americans recalled the US election of 2000, I agree that they might have stopped grumbling.

Ann

There are a lot of unfair elections around the world, the Hugo Chavez election being one of them. I didn't see anything beyond a grumble or two. The rest of us just take it for granted that fraud takes place in some countries like Venezuela. But it's none of our business. I do recall some Americans refusing to buy gasoline from some gas stations owned by Venezuela.

Just one question about the American economy. If Bush Jr. really did manage the economy well, where did the huge budget deficit and the weak dollar come from? He sure didn't inherit them from the Clinton administration.

Ann

Ah, that will be covered when I get the inspiration to cover the economics lesson on monetary policy and trade deficits. It'll be a fascinating discussion of the famous IS-LM curves.

Do I take this to mean that if the things that happened in the United States had happened in another country, a country that is generally hostile to you, and if it produced a President that was hostile to you, then it would probably have been fraud? But when it happens in your country, then it is not fraud?

Ann

We know the specifics of our election. It was clearly not fraud. In the case of Venezuela, and I take it that's the country you were referring to in your analogy, there were documented cases of fraud. If it's true, then it's par for the course and nobody blinks an eye. If it's false, it still isn't our business who some other country votes on to be their leader. The United States has a reputation for fair elections. True or not, it takes a lot of evidence to prove it wasn't. There wasn't any. If the foreign press tried to paint it as a stolen election for Bush and that somehow fraud occurred, then the foreign press was irresponsible given the available evidence by the US press. The US press didn't think there were any irregularities and everyone knows the US government has no say over what the press says. Just look at the New York Times which tries to expose a secret government program seemingly every other week. Why would the foreign press think there was fraud?

In a country like Venezuela that isn't entirely free, fraud is expected. If it happens, then it happens. If it doesn't, it doesn't. If the press had said there were no irregularities, then I would have no proof of fraud and would have nothing further to say. A country like Mexico is famous for fraud. If it happens, nobody's surprised or upset about it, except for the losing opposition parties.

Now point me to another country like Great Britain, Canada, France, or Japan. If somebody alleges fraud, I wouldn't believe it unless it was incontrovertible since those countries have reputations for fair and honest elections.

And to the very best of my knowledge, Great Britain, Canada, France and Japan have never had an election that was remotely like the US election of 2000. Or at least, none of them have had such an election after World War II. So of course there has been no need to question the outcome of any of their elections.

As for the fictional country of Irelia, it wasn't meant to be exactly like Venezuela. It was meant to be more democratic than Venezuela, and not as taken over by its President as Venezuela is taken over by Chavez. But if Irelia had an election much like the US election of 2000, and if it produced a President like Asaf V. Ashkov, who in many ways would act much like Hugo Chavez in his dealings with the United States, then it wouldn't have surprised me too much if the United States had tried to bring about an uprising towards President Ashkov. If there was a coup against President Ashkov, and there was strong evidence that the United States was involved, I guess you could always say that you were only trying to depose a President who hadn't been fairly elected anyway.

I seem to remember that there was indeed such an attempted coup against Hugo Chavez of Venezuela some years ago, but the coup failed.

Ann