Why 2012 is different to 2004 (and why that could mean a Romney win)

[Democratic Hawk]

Not only that, but the Occupy stuff hasn't even hit its full stride yet. Once that happens, that's the end of the Romney campaign.

That Occupy stuff is a BIG loser for the Democrats. Populism never works in a national campaign. Go ask Walter Mondale.

Yeah, and go talk to Truman about it too.

Newsflash: He's dead and so are most of the people who voted for him. We might as well talk about Andrew Jackson next. The New Deal era died in the late 1970s. Stagflation was the legacy of naive Keynesianism. Why anybody thought things would turn out differently this time is beyond me.

The hilarious part: Romney, and people like me, want America to progress economically and technologically as we did over the past thirty years prior to the financial crisis. So-called "progressives" want America to simply stagnate until it withers into a wimpy shade of its former self (like most of Europe).

The progress of the 90's just created an artificial bubble and an inevitable bust.  High prosperity creates deep recessions, while steady growth means weaker recessions. You should know that.

Really? The recession of 2001 saw an economic contraction of 0.3%. Seems to me that the 'Great Recession' followed a period that saw wealth become increasingly concentrated at the top as opposed to prosperity being more broad-based; while the recession of early 1980s was caused by some rigid dogmatic adherence to a contractionary monetary policy

[Democratic Hawk]

Oh, I forgot to mention: "High prosperity" is rarely so when you look below the surface. You're right. I prefer growth that is steadier and more even.

Your support of Obama indicates that you prefer growth/unemployment more in line with Europe than America. Apparently you're fine with young Americans having difficulty finding quality jobs. Is the new Obama youth mantra the following: Yes, we can (live in our parents' basement forever)?

Northern Europe headed into the 'Crash of 2008' in, fiscally, stronger shape than either the US or UK, which enabled them to ride out the Great Recession more effectively

Quality of life in the Nordic and social market economies are nothing to be sniffed at. Austria, meanwhile, has managed to reduce their deficit to 2.6% of GDP, while maintaining the lowest rate of unemployment at 4.2% in the EU. The UK's is currently 8.3% (atrocious given the lack of an 'adequate' let alone 'generous' welfare safety net)

Southern Europe ... well they've got problems, while the 'Celtic Tiger', spectacularly, came down with a bang! It seems to link in with the extent to which European economies rode the 'housing bubble' or not

[Democratic Hawk]

The EU is a confederation; the United States is a federation. North Dakota and West Virginia may have different conditions and policies, but they have much less leeway than Germany and Greece do.

The point is moot. You can check out the unemployment rate in Scandinavia (excluding Norway, which gets a boon from natural resources just like North Dakota, for example), and you will see that my comment about you generally preferring European-style growth/unemployment, which traditionally lags behind America, as being valid. Scandinavia is not paradise on earth. No nation our size is even able to compare to our quality of life and traditional levels of economic growth.

It can be bloody cold there I know that much

[Democratic Hawk]

A couple of weeks ago you apologized for being such a Romney hack. You said yourself that you were trolling around but that you were finished now.

And now you are doing the same thing again. That is annoying because it shows how much your words are worth.

I do not believe I am being hackish right now. I am not attacking Obama in the way that I attacked Santorum and Gingrich, in particular, back when I was being undeniably hackish.

Believe it or not, I fully support Romney and believe in his message of economic freedom. I strongly believe it is in America's best interests for Romney to become the 45th POTUS.

You've got that already