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Old 04-01-2009, 09:30 PM
 
5,524 posts, read 9,908,640 times
Reputation: 1867

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Commentary: Is Obama skidding or crashing? - CNN.com

Quote:
Obama tells us that we can spend our way out of debt. He tells us that even though the government had control over the banks and did nothing to stop the bad that's going on, if we give them more control over more other bank-like things, then they can make sure bad stuff doesn't happen ever again. He says we can get out of all those big wars President Bush caused by sending more troops into Afghanistan. And I don't know. I really don't know.
Quote:
But there are some things that are just intuitive. Did you know, that if you're going 100 mph, directly at a very, very thick, reinforced concrete wall, and you speed up, so you're accelerating right when you hit the wall that the accident you have is going to be much worse than if you'd jammed on the brakes as soon as you saw the wall at the end of the street? Did you know that? It's exactly what everything you know and feel would tell you, and it's exactly true. Most times when you're driving, or playing with fire, or handling money, the thing that makes sense to you is also true.
Just some funny commentary from Penn Jillette
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Old 04-01-2009, 09:49 PM
 
Location: Idaho Falls
5,041 posts, read 6,194,538 times
Reputation: 1483
Quote:
But there are some things that are just intuitive. Did you know, that if you're going 100 mph, directly at a very, very thick, reinforced concrete wall, and you speed up, so you're accelerating right when you hit the wall that the accident you have is going to be much worse than if you'd jammed on the brakes as soon as you saw the wall at the end of the street? Did you know that? It's exactly what everything you know and feel would tell you, and it's exactly true. Most times when you're driving, or playing with fire, or handling money, the thing that makes sense to you is also true.
This quote makes almost no sense whatsoever. I like P&T, but Penn's libertarianism is a bit much sometimes.

He equates government spending with vehicle speed, and asks why it makes sense to speed up when we're heading for a wall. The stupid thing about that quote is that it wasn't us speeding towards a wall that got us into trouble.

A better analogy would be that there's a problem in the fuel supply of our car. And Obama is advocating training more mechanics and investing in new fuels.

This wingnut obsession with not spending money is just silly. Plenty of people go into debt to invest in their future. We take loans to go to college, in the hope that we can pay back the loan with increased earnings. Good, sound investment, done through borrowing, is fine.

To complete the analogy, we have a fuel problem in our car. And conservatives think the problem can be solved by letting our foot off the gas. Their solution is unrelated to the problem.
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