San Diego Housing Market News and Analysis

http://www.theatlanticwire.com/politics/...

Ron Paul in first in Iowa and now 2nd in New Hampshire. The flavor of the week, Newt is fading. Here is his Leno appearance for anyone interested and he killed it!

http://youtu.be/VMUZIVYuluc

Happy that Ron Paul is doing well.
I really want Paul or Gingrich to get the nomination.

Saw the Ron Paul video. Was very impressed.

He is liberal in all the right places: war, foreign aid, against gov in bed w/ big business.

I'm not much of a policitcs-watcher but having a California crowd eat up a Republican candidate like that seems very surprising.

I'd say watch out. A showing like that on something as popular as Leno could launch him into legitimacy.

I don't think it's childish.

Hussein is just a name. But it elicits such fears and anger in some people. Those people have some problems to deal with.

There was no Republican opposition because it was already setup by the Bush Administration before they departed office.

Dr. No

http://youtu.be/rEkAlEJ980k

Is there such a thing as stealing money from a tax payer and then spending it more efficiently then the taxpayer would have in the free market?

There are times and places where government is more efficient and situations where private industry is better. In many situations regulated markets are by far the most efficient way to create wealth and avoid monopolies.

*gasp!*
markmax, are you still there? Are you ok? poorgradstudent, what have you done?

Seriously, though, Ron Paul's problem is the same problem as the republican party's in general. Pragmatism has completely gone out the window and been replaced by idealism.

Libertarianism, applied practically, could work to a degree. As could liberalism and conservatism. The problem is that everybody wants to score points with the ideologues among their constituents. And nobody wants to come up with an actual, workable plan for our country.

Why is this? Why do pragmatists and centrists hold so little sway in our country?

The infighting on the Republican side is fascinating to watch. Fascinating.

You have McConnell pushing Boehner.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/b...

http://www.kcrw.com/news/programs/tp/tp1...

The difference being the "other" republican candidates idealism is driven by the central bank, whereas Ron Paul's idealism is driven by the Constitution.

I much prefer Ron Paul's brand of idealism.

This reminds me of Babs' line from Animal House. "If you're not going to try, I'm just going to stop." Come on, paramount. Think just a little bit before you start typing. Nobody's idealism is driven by the central bank.

And herein lies the problem. It seems most (certainly the loudest) Americans today want their brand of idealism and not what will fix the country.

You've got it all backwards, your totally wrong.

It's not Ron Paul's idealism; it's the ideals the country was founded upon that underlies Ron Paul's platform - as outlined in the Constitution.

The country is broke BECAUSE the government has trashed the constitution in the 1st place. And the central bank is guilty as sin.

It's still idealism. You can work within the constitution and still come up with pragmatic policies. Or you can work within the constitution and skew all your decisions and policies toward libertarian ideals, practical or not.

I heard someone deseibe newt Gingrich as porky pig with a bad hairpiece, and based on that alone, I say let's go w Ron Paul, just for aesthetic reasons.

haha, I totally agree. Calista could be cast as Castafiore's sister on Tintin. Can you imagine the Gingrich couple representing our country? It'd be like a freak show -- a little bit like the image of Kim Jong Il as representing North Korea.
The cartoonists would be in high heaven.

I like Obama because when I see a svelte, athletic president jogging up stage, I feel like our country is all right.

Like the cartoonists don't have fun with every president. I have seen tons of cartoons of dumbo.

Glad you feel our country is "all right" based on your physical description. Sounds more like you want to get down on your knees for him more than anything.

Back to the topic, the current batch sucks, granted anything is better than the current. I think more long term. As a classical liberal I would love to see Marco Rubio. He will be president some day. Marco my words.

Are you really a right-wing DJ?

Sorry, I'm no Monica Lewinski.

As Allan said before, demography is destiny. In that respect, Marco Rubio might well be the savior of the Republican party. That would break the power of the social conservatives of the red states.

I'm perfectly OK with Marco Rubio rising to power. That fits well with my idea of incremental progress.

It seems like Republicanism in America is like Communism in China -- in name only, and more and more detached from the general population.

That's what is so great about Ron Paul, he is the only Republican (or democrat) who transcends right and left politics.

Good point. I like Ron Paul, to a degree. Part of what I like about him is that he is not a social conservative (like most republicans) and he is not a tax and spend liberal (like most democrats). The only thing worse than a tax and spend liberal is a borrow and spend conservative. And these are our choices.

I think (and have for a long time) that it's time for a new political party in this country. Perhaps we could call it the "pragmatic libertarian party." It would be socially liberal as it would be free of the religious baggage that the right lugs around. It wouldn't think that government is a cure for everything as some on the left do. But it would be pragmatic. It would understand that some things should be publicly funded. There is a role for government, and that role should be played strongly and efficiently. Easier said than done, obviously. But to base your platform on common sense and pragmatism rather than on idealism would be a good start.

For just one instance, the free market. The free market is a powerful force. But if you let it run rampant without any oversight or regulation, there would be too much manipulation, deceit, power grabbing, monopolization, and outright thievery for it to work the way that those who idealize the free market would like to think it would work. So you use common sense and the government performs an oversight and regulatory function while letting the free market gain your economy as much as it can.

Why wouldn't such a party get a substantial portion of the vote? Why couldn't it win congressional seats and the presidency? (Not a rhetorical question).

delete

What, this came out and no one is commenting on it?

In early book, Rep. Ron Paul criticized AIDS patients, minority rights and sexual harassment victims

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/201...

In his 1987 manifesto "Freedom Under Siege: The U.S. Constitution after 200-Plus Years," Paul wrote that AIDS patients were victims of their own lifestyle, questioned the rights of minorities and argued that people who are sexually harassed at work should quit their jobs.

Game over Ron Paul... You can run, but you can't hide from your past..... I'd say Perry for the win at this point. (I'm surprised. I really thought it would have been Newt)...

Suggest you adjust your definition of a "free market"

Most think a free market is one where participants are free to do whatever they want. This is incorrect.

A free market is one in which participants are free from others infringing upon their rights. Theft, for example, is not allowed in a free market.

A free market is not an unregulated market.

Yes, there are regulations in a free market. They are necessary to keep the market free.

However, the regulations are not in place to direct the market towards a result. The regulations in a free market are there to ensure the transactions that take place are legal, voluntary and devoid of rights violations.

A "free market" in this sense is the most efficient way to allocate funds. When you try to regulate a market with a purpose other than keeping the transactions "clean" is when you lose efficiency.

A "free market" such as the one you describe - where there is no regulation at all - is not efficient. A market where nobody is tracking titles and ensuring all transactions are voluntary and punishing those who breach contracts is not free and not efficient. But, when people who understand "free markets" talk about "free markets" this is not what they mean.

Keeping all that in mind, I think a party as you describe could do well as long as it educated people on what a free market really is.

I think alot of people hear Ron Paul talk about the free market and they immediately think he is going to be all about supporting big corporations but I don't see it that way at all.

He understands that big government = big business. The more money the gov has at their disposal, the more big business will lobby to win contract funds and lobby to influence regulations to steer markets to their favor. And the corps grow more powerful because they can lobby and bribe more successfully than the little guy. The liberals love big government but hate big business. Sadly, they don't realize that increasing gov power directly results in more powerful corporations.

Flu,
You can keep taking things out of context but it won't work. Go crawl back under your rock. Give it up already. You can't discredit the good Doctor.

This is the same CNN that said he was rude to a reporter and edited together 20 seconds and made news out of it. Game over CNN, FoxNews and the mainstream media.

From Wikipedia:

"A free market is a competitive market where prices are determined by supply and demand. It is primarily found in countries where economic intervention and regulation by the state is limited to tax collection, and enforcement of private ownership and contracts. Free markets differs from situations encountered in controlled markets or a monopoly, which can introduce price deviations without any changes to supply and demand. Advocates of a free market traditionally consider the term to imply that the means of production is under private, and not state control or co-operative ownership. This is the contemporary use of the term "free market" by economists and in popular culture; the term has had other uses historically.

A free-market economy is one within which all markets are unregulated by any parties other than market participants. In its purest form, the government plays a neutral role in its administration and legislation of economic activity, neither limiting it (by regulating industries or protecting them from internal/external market pressures) nor actively promoting it (by owning economic interests or offering subsidies to businesses or R&D)."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_market

Of course a "free market" is predicated on the assumption that a market system is some sort of natural state. Anthropological record shows that the "market exchange" as opposed to reciprocity or redistribution was an extreme minority social relation up until about 400 years ago. Markets first showed up around Aristotle's Greece. Though - at that point it was a very tiny part of society.

Capitalism was the institutionalization of the market system as dominant social relationship. Paradoxically free markets were forced on people for centuries. Meaning, people were forced into the capitalist money market for survival.

In modern market economies the needs of the market determine social behaviour, whereas in pre-industrial and primitive economies the needs of society determine economic behaviour.

I read George Will's interesting description of the Republican base.

White voters without college education — economically anxious and culturally conservative — were called “Reagan Democrats” when they were considered only seasonal Republicans because of Ronald Reagan. Today they are called the Republican base.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/s...

I wonder what "culturally conservative" means exactly. Trying to imagine the lifestyles of those culturally conservative folks, I see "economically anxious" versions of the Sarah Palin family.

The republicans' main objective seems to be to defeat Obama. So I don't understand why Jon Huntsman isn't getting more votes. He and Romney are the only two, in my opinion, who have a chance in hell of beating Obama. Heck, I'd consider voting for Huntsman, and I think a lot of moderates would.

It's only a matter of time before the religious right holds less power. Kids these days are more enlightened about social matters than their grandparents. If the republicans want to win in '12, I think they're going to have to get ahead of the game and get behind a social moderate. If they eschew a candidate like Huntsman because he's socially moderate, they're in for a disappointment.

Romney has gotten more socially conservative, and I think that would hurt his chances in the general election. And besides, he really does seem like quite a dick to me. Not sure how good a reason not to vote for him that is. But it probably won't help his chances in the general election.

I'm not sure how good a chance Romney would have in a general election. But I think, despite what any current polls may say, that Huntsman would have a shot at winning.