Fred Thompson Fat Cigar, Rich Leather Talkin' Down To Dumb Americans

[ksimons]

Run time: 08:20 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7IrR3o7x1ps   Posted on YouTube: December 02, 2008 By YouTube Member: Views on YouTube: 0   Posted on DU: December 02, 2008 By DU Member: ksimons Views on DU: 1868

 

Fred Thompson attempt to mind-meld with Sarah Palin intelligence-level Republicans, using all his acting skills to get folks to forget his luxurious, cigar smokin' environment to convince folks he's 'one of them'. Nice.

[Buzz Clik]

1. Outstanding. ScrotumFace is gearing up for 2012.

[stlsaxman]

2. Who's paying for this? Fred? I don't THINK so...

his Cuban cigar, Corinthian Leather chair and Tiffany Lamp tell me otherwise.

[Greenheron]

3. ha ha

Corinthian Leather? There is no such thing as that.Just like there is no such thing as an honest rethuglican.

[stlsaxman]

10. okay you're right- but what type of Italian leather was i thinking about?

criticism without suggestions is about as republican as it gets.

[JDPriestly]

4. I don't watch TV, so I had no idea what a bad actor Fred Thompson is.

He was obviously reading -- and had not prepared well. Well, so much for his career as a comedian.

And, how old is he? How does he know that Roosevelt's programs didn't work? My mother was a teenager during the depression, and she says they worked really, really well. She remembers how they turned things around for so many people.

Fred Thompson should look at the conservatives first before he casts blame for the whole living above our means syndrome in this country. It's mostly the Republicans who have been doing that. Most of the people who voted Democratic this time did so because of the economy -- because they are hurting and because many of them don't have enough for what they need.

[Juche]

5. You've never seen his acting?

Here he is sexually harassing Roseanne about 20 years ago. Good times.

http://www.alternet.org/blogs/video/62646/

Ironically his personality in that video seems nearly identical to his real life personality.

[JDPriestly]

6. He wasn't acting in the Roseanne clip. That's FT himself.

I know his type. I wasn't born yesterday. Good Roseanne clip.

[JDPriestly]

7. Robert Reich responds (or at least what he says on this issue)

What the hawks don’t get is what John Maynard Keynes (pictured) understood: when the economy has as much underutilized capacity as we have now, and are likely to have more of in 2009 and 2010 (in all likelihood, over 8 percent of our workforce unemployed, 13 percent underemployed, millions of houses empty, factories idled, and office space unused), government spending that pushes the economy to fuller capacity will of itself shrink future deficits.

Conservative supply-siders, meanwhile, will call for income-tax cuts rather than government spending, claiming that people with more money in their pockets will get the economy moving again more readily than can government. They’re wrong, too. Income-tax cuts go mainly to upper-income people, and they tend to save rather than spend.

Even if a rebate could be fashioned for the middle class, it wouldn’t do much good because, as we saw from the last set of rebate checks, people tend to use extra cash to pay off debts rather than buy goods and services. Besides, individual purchases wouldn’t generate nearly as many American jobs as government spending on infrastructure, social services, and green technologies, because so much of we as individuals buy comes from abroad.

So the government has to spend big time. The real challenge will be for government to spend it wisely — avoiding special-interest pleadings and pork projects such as bridges to nowhere. We’ll need a true capital budget that lays out the nation’s priorities rather than the priorities of powerful Washington lobbies. How exactly to achieve this? That’s the debate we should be having between now and January 20 or 21st.

by Robert Reich

http://www.laprogressive.com/2008/11/28/the-rebirth-of-keynes-and-the-debate-to-come/?preview=true

[bstender]

13. Reich, Keynes and stimulus

first off, Thompson in this video is dead-on 100% right, the response to our current financial crisis is ass-backwards. it seems that many DU-ers are no more immune to the fallacy of confusing the person with the message than the denizens of the Free Republic.

What is wrong with Keynesian philosophy in this situation is that the economy is sitting on trillions of dollars of bad loans and bad derivatives based on those bad loans. this means that the declared value of everything is not correct. those loans that are bad have to fail and the economics of every project has to be rethought with the present reality factored in. this is why people are retreating, saving and realigning, not because govt. isn't redistributing enough of people's money.

The govt. response, "Keynesian" according to Reich in this piece, is to try and force everyone to believe that this situation isn't really happening, the thinking is that we should all go back to spending money and believing that everything is fine....and then it will be fine! that strategy has worked several times in the past but it keeps pushing the inevitable rebalancing of accounts off to a future day...with interest. this latest govt.-created bubble has again burst, and it is predictably bigger than the last one and so they are throwing the kitchen sink at it. Thompson is making fun of that simple stupidity.

in other words, that previous govt. intervention did not _really_ work. it is safe to assume that this latest intervention will not work, even if it staves off the rebalancing for another few years. it is also a fact that our economy is highly Keynesian, the Federal Reserve prevents any attempt to allow free market forces to balance the economy.

Reich covers his ass by acknowledging the classic rebuttal to Keynesian theory: "The real challenge will be for government to spend it wisely — avoiding special-interest pleadings and pork projects such as bridges to nowhere. We’ll need a true capital budget that lays out the nation’s priorities rather than the priorities of powerful Washington lobbies. How exactly to achieve this?"

We're waiting Robert, anytime you want to solve that conundrum, the world is all ears.

--- an aside, spending on infrastructure is a wise investment, but considering it only as 'economic stimulus' points directly to the whole problem of central govt. planning.and to why so much resource has gone elsewhere.

[lib2DaBone]

16. You have a point there.... but

..wasn't it Fred Thompson and his Republican buddies who loaded up on the pork and sent us to war?

I don't see how Fred can sit there all innocent and proclaim answers. I think Fred would only tell the truth to get elected and the it's back to Republican theft and mismanagement.

[bstender]

18. connected?

Make no mistake, I am not cheering for Fred or his Repugnican buddies. (Nor am i cheering for the Dems who lockstep sent us to war)

He is just delivering a message that is not really Dem or Repug, it's two economic theories; Central Planning (which got us in this mess) vs. free market.

[lostnotforgotten]

17. And It Seems Republicans And Republican Sympathizers Don't Want To Lay

Blame were it belongs - Supply Side economics.

Some of us might be interested in what you have to say when the Republicans that enabled this mess are put in prison.

Let's start with Bush and Cheney!

[bstender]

19. blame the Fed

I blame the Federal Reserve and their creation of a bubble economy which has now burst. just like the time before, and the time before that. this central planning has immense power and effect on our economy and both dems and repugs have zero interest in changing it. they lap up the contributions from wall st, and vote however they are told.

[lostnotforgotten]

20. And Who Are The Biggest Fed Sympathizers - Fat Cat Republicans

eom

[pam4water]

8. OK I tried. I can't listen to this crap. made it to 3:47. Fuck Freddie Boy. Idoits on YouTube are

lapping it up like they were Archie Bunker. Man I hated that show! Please go vote it a 1 star. Please!

[Libertas1776]

9. ...

What Show? Not All in the Family!

[pam4water]

11. That might have beenthe name.

[dothemath]

12. Where are you trying to go with your post?

ksimons, what is your point?

This was Fred's opinion. Other than one little dig at the incoming administration, I didn't hear one thing that was not the truth. As for Americans being dumb, duh.

So what if he is looking ahead to 2012? Would you like to see a law that says he cannot just because you don't like his politics?

Well, here is just a little more 'talking down to a dumb American'. That's you, ksimons, and millions and millions of the democratic version of 'my way or the highway' ideologues that relate meaningless background noise to the Howard Cosell School of I Am Right, I Am Right, ignoring the message. If you don't know what that means, here is one you might understand. "Everyone has an opinion, including me. In my opinion, you are not entitled to your opinion".

I am a liberal democrat. I watch a few minutes of the Fox Network (as much as I can stomach) to see and hear for myself where they are coming from. I probably have as much free time as you do. I do not however, subscribe to the notion that means I must, repeat must, not pass up an opportunity to denigrate every one that does not agree with me.

Lighten up, take a break.

[bstender]

14. Thompson is 100% spot-on

(in this case)

[Agent William]

15. Shit, there's 8:20 of my life I'm not getting back...

Fuck Fred!