Now this is what you call an effective attack ad
October 23rd, 2010 at 4:00 pm by David FarrarThis ad was produced by Citizens Against Government Waste. The chinese language with english sub-titles makes it very effective, as you really tune into it.
Also they mention no politician by name, yet you know whom it is effectively blaming.
The CAGW also produce an annual “Congressional Pig Book” which details all the pork-barrel spending.
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October 23rd, 2010 at 4:07 pm
“Stop the spending that is bankrupting America”.
This is one scary ad.
How can the Democrats counter such an effective message with an equally simplistic concept?
Far too complicated to explain the cost of fighting wars, over-consumption and speculation debt, and protectionism.
Vote:October 23rd, 2010 at 4:28 pm
“How can the Democrats counter such an effective message with an equally simplistic concept?”
Vote fraud. They’re doing it in spades all across America.
Vote:October 23rd, 2010 at 4:42 pm
wow, dog-whistle racism at its finest. no rational agruments, just scary looking ethnics, if that’s political discourse then i’m out
[DPF: It's xenophobia more than racism]
Vote:October 23rd, 2010 at 5:09 pm
I seem to remember debt levels rising under the Republicans.
Interesting – it the USA it’s all the fault of the current administration, but in NZ it’s all the fault of the previous administration. Not much consistency with that argument.
Vote:October 23rd, 2010 at 5:18 pm
“in the USA it’s all the fault of the current administration”
That’s what the ad says, but the real story is, it goes back to Clinton. People don’t seem to get the fact that in the US, it’s not the Congress but the President who makes or breaks an economy and in the US, Clinton, Bush 43 and Obama are all shockers. Who’s the next Republican candidate? That’s the only question US voters should be asking themselves.
Speaking of candidates, I’ve often wondered why Bill Frist resigned. He was a huge prospect and then he resigned, for no apparent reason. Anyone have any background on that, beyond the usual MSM reports?
[DPF: To be fair to Clinton he did achieve a surplus. I blame Bush 43 and Obama more - plus associated Congresses]
Vote:October 23rd, 2010 at 5:32 pm
“That’s what the ad says, but the real story is, it goes back to Clinton.”
It goes back a hell of a lot further than that. 1940-1950 was the kickoff, and then after that it spiralled.
Check this chart.
Vote:October 23rd, 2010 at 5:37 pm
P.S. If people wonder why I call Clinton an economic shocker, it’s because under his watch Greenspan dealt with the dot-bomb meltdown by dropping interest rates to almost zero, which prevented those losses from working themselves out of the system. ARMs and then derivatives in the CDO format started soon after and then it was successive WH advisors who allowed the regulatory environment to lapse against these new products. All of this was elementary and it’s the President’s job to marshal economic advisors who provide the most astute analysis available covering both optimistic and pessimistic viewpoints and they should get it right given they have instant access to any information whatsoever that they need to look at.
And we found that apparently, nobody in the WH, not a one, had seen this coming, over all these years. Apparently, not once, had it ever occurred to any of these people that the market was in any danger whatsoever.
These are people whose job it is to do this. The rest of us just enjoy the exuberance and live in it but these guys do it for a living and apparently, not one of them spotted it.
Now that’s not true, in that many many people spotted it and I was reading those people many years before it happened. However no-one with capacity to do anything about it physically, like regulating the CDO market, actually did anything.
BTW, the off-shoring that has gutted the US employment market was conducted during Clinton-Bush as well. Don’t under-estimate that. You think Detroit’s bad?
The US is not of course irrevocable I’m not saying that, but it’s not in good shape and she doesn’t have the resources she used to have, in order to manufacture herself out of this, so where’s the engine she has to have? At the mo, many industries are surviving only upon the domestic market which is shrinking. It’s hard to see where next but the point is, politicians have led her into this, and the reality is, if there were less partisan-for-the-sake-of-it and more pull-together-to-fix-this within the nation, it wouldn’t be a bad thing, at all.
Vote:October 23rd, 2010 at 5:37 pm
“That’s what the ad says, but the real story is, it goes back to Clinton. “- reid is quite true. It was Bill Clinton who championed free trade and globalization that made China what it is today.
Vote:October 23rd, 2010 at 5:40 pm
“It goes back a hell of a lot further than that. 1940-1950 was the kickoff, and then after that it spiralled.”
RB that’s very interesting, thanks for that.
Vote:October 23rd, 2010 at 5:46 pm
“It was Bill Clinton who championed free trade and globalization that made China what it is today.”
Yes there are interesting stories about Clinton and Chinese people aren’t there.
Vote:October 23rd, 2010 at 5:52 pm
Disagree, the ad is rubbish. It is playing off xenophobia, and is downright illogical too many times in one minute to be taken seriously.
Are we supposed to believe that the Chinese of 20 years time will be against government control of industry, or Keynesian style stimulus? Thats a bit of a leap of faith given the current degree of control.
So is the idea that America would work for China just because China holds American debt. Remember, if I owe the bank $1million its my problem, if I owe the bank $1trillion, its the banks problem.
Vote:October 23rd, 2010 at 5:55 pm
Kimble, it’s an ad, not a doco.
Vote:October 23rd, 2010 at 5:56 pm
“Yes there are interesting stories about Clinton and Chinese people aren’t there.”
But there are even more interesting stories about Billy and non-Chinese people
“After Clinton’s autobiography My Life appeared in 2004, Lewinsky said in an interview with the British tabloid Daily Mail:[31]
He could have made it right with the book, but he hasn’t. He is a revisionist of history. He has lied. [...] I really didn’t expect him to go into detail about our relationship. [...] But if he had and he’d done it honestly, I wouldn’t have minded. [...] I did, though, at least expect him to correct the false statements he made when he was trying to protect the Presidency. Instead, he talked about it as though I had laid it all out there for the taking. I was the buffet and he just couldn’t resist the dessert. [...] This was a mutual relationship, mutual on all levels, right from the way it started and all the way through. [...] I don’t accept that he had to completely desecrate my character.”
Vote:October 23rd, 2010 at 6:06 pm
That’s brilliantly effective.
Vote:October 23rd, 2010 at 6:30 pm
Once it was Jap Crap that we bought, and it was crap. But it aint crap anymore is it?
Vote:Now there is Chinese crap at the $2 shop, Te Wharehouse, 123. China is the next Empire, face it.
China could build an 8 lane expressway from Auckland to Wellington in 8 months. NZ digs a hole under the harbour in 3 – 5 years, fucking joke.
In NZ the Asians work, create bussiness, employ, pay tax unlike the indigenous people who think the taxpayer owes them a lifestyle. The cuzzy bro wants you to work to help him to be lazy.
And that goes for all of you white trash arseholes who claim 1/128th Maori
October 23rd, 2010 at 6:30 pm
SWTF, I’m so glad you’re out. Please don’t come back.
Vote:October 23rd, 2010 at 6:40 pm
What happens when the lenders call in the debts when the next melt down happens? Great stuff to look forward to. And it doesn’t mean inflation.
Vote:October 23rd, 2010 at 6:51 pm
Speaking of attack ads, David Zucker (one of the brains behind Airplane!) has done one against Senator Barbara “Ma’am” Boxer. His way of atoning for backing her in her first run twenty years ago. It’s wicked funny.
Vote:October 23rd, 2010 at 7:02 pm
Wow, the ad is correct. To see it on screen scares the heck out of me! The US has been running a deficit for 30 years or so. It is a debtor nation with 12 trillion, probably more now. The greenback is a loan note and when the countries start to collect, especially China, the US economy will fall. This is one reason Bush invaded Iraq, because Sadam Hussein was trading oil for Euros and the dollar was dropping in value. Opec countries started to look at the euro and this scared the shit out of oil companies and the states. As soon as Iraq was seized, that was the first thing Bush did, change back to the greenback. It’s the fault of democrats and republicans, Reagan was a disaster. Actually Carter was the only president to ask everyone to start saving and stop spending. He didn’t last long.
Vote:October 23rd, 2010 at 7:14 pm
Hurf Durf – your right, it’s wickedly Funny
Vote:October 23rd, 2010 at 7:25 pm
Pete it’s more like:..
…embrace her, work with her, study her and keep your eyes open all at the same time.
If we did this really very seriously indeed consistently over the coming several decades, we could potentially with absolutely no downside to anyone become better industrially positioned per head of capita, than even Australia, with the world’s new and only SuperSuperPower.
Will we do this?
Let’s wait and see.
Vote:October 23rd, 2010 at 10:02 pm
i love how only the leftists see racism in that ad!
the fact is, if the US falls, china becomes the super power.
Vote:October 23rd, 2010 at 10:44 pm
Yes, raw numbers are nice to look at, but very much meaningless if not put in context. Unless, of course, it somehow suits the fairy tale that you are trying to tell.
Change the chart to show spending as a percent of GDP and suddenly it doesn’t look quite that scary. Try this
But, of course, who cares about facts when you have such a good story to tell, red?
Vote:October 23rd, 2010 at 10:55 pm
- “it goes back to Clinton”
He was the President that agreed to repeal the Glass–Steagall Act. Some say the regulations it provided could have helped avoid (or at least minimise) the subprime lending/credit default swaps fuck ups.
Vote:October 23rd, 2010 at 10:55 pm
For simplistic morons like Redbaiter a truly effective ad.
The problem is the premise that America collapsed because, in the midst of a recession, it relied on (a) government stimulus spending, (b) big changes in its health care systems, and (c) public intervention in major industries — all of which of course, have been crucial parts of China’s (successful) anti-recession policy.
Vote:October 23rd, 2010 at 11:06 pm
Because I take the opinion on economics of a Massey University grad with a history degree very seriously.
Vote:October 24th, 2010 at 12:55 am
@lloydois Can you expand on your argument? China is a creditor nation, USA is a debtor nation. a,b & c are things the USA are doing that they can’t afford. China can afford a,b,c,d,e,… …,n
Vote:October 24th, 2010 at 1:37 am
“But, of course, who cares about facts when you have such a good story to tell, red?”
Not you apparently. Spending as a per centage of GDP is a totally inaccurate real measurement and really only useful for inter-country comparisons rather than over any period in one country. Mainly because government spending is always going to be included in the total. Spending in real dollar terms per person is at least faithful to GNP and as long as that same dollar term (in this case $2005) is used across the measured period, it provides the most accurate picture.
This is the best chart, because it gives a cost per head. Anyone with a brain can see how socialists have plainly fucked everything over the second half of the last 100 years.
You’ll never admit it though, because it is a religion with you ideologically blinded socialists. Anyone not embracing that religion can clearly see what the problem is. You though will continue here in NZ on the same destructive path you have followed in Europe, and all the while blaming someone else.
The chart though makes it clear that socialism is a parasitical disease that must by simple logic eventually kill off the host.
Vote:October 24th, 2010 at 5:24 am
Follow the Socialist Mantra. Spend like a bastard. The money will always be there!!
Except of course when it won’t. Just watch the Big Government approach fail when the credit dries up early-ish next Calendar year.
Already there is tinkering around the edges in attempts to rein back spending. Government departments do NOT contribute to the wealth of a nation.
Sad fact is the self fulfilling red tape machine stifles free enterprise, whilst justifying more Government jobs.
All along the chiefs of the many Government departments are only interested in leveraging their Pension entitlements. They have fuck all else to worry about. In doing so, they need more workers to increase their responsibilities, and get a bigger salary.
Vote:October 24th, 2010 at 6:52 am
Cool. I look forward to seeing executions of corrupt politicians and captains of industry rather than a slap on the wrist with a wet bus ticket.
Vote:October 24th, 2010 at 8:35 am
When china is more powerful than the USA they will teach revisionist history (that which suits them some of which will be true some not so much) – America will have failed as a result of their excessive individualism and inability to plan ahead and because of partisan politics. that’s almost 100% guaranteed.
I do like the ad but factually the republicans spend too much on wars and seem to love pork as much as the next guy. So its a bit of a farce to hint that either of the parties will fix that issue.
Vote:October 24th, 2010 at 8:38 am
The Triumph Of The Will emerges in the USA
Vote:October 24th, 2010 at 8:43 am
“This is the best chart, because it gives a cost per head. Anyone with a brain can see how socialists have plainly fucked everything over the second half of the last 100 years. ”
switch it over to % GDP – otherwise you aren’t adjusting for inflation. If you leave spending the same in dollar values since 1790 or so the entire government budget would probably allow you to hire one policeman per state to prevent Billy-bob down the road stealing your stuff to buy crack.
Vote:October 24th, 2010 at 9:43 am
I love the ‘ad although I suspect it is a bit late.
What confuses me is some of the comments.
Only an outright racist would see anything racist in this production.
It ain’t even xenophobic, just a very realistic look at the near future.
Vote:October 24th, 2010 at 10:09 am
If the Republicans/Tea Party were so concerned about the massive deficit that the US is running then perhaps they should start campaigning to make some big cuts to the US defence budget
Anyway, China will not come to own the US through it’s debt. That’s not how Government bonds work. And while the US is slowly losing it’s position as the sole superpower, it is unlikely that it will be replaced by one nation (China) but rather a handful of strong countries.
Vote:October 24th, 2010 at 12:30 pm
Lloydois
I’ve just got back from my first business trip to China and, as usual, you’re way off the mark. China’s consistent growth comes from a variety of factors including:
* An undervalued currency deliberately held there to hold down the cost of Chinese imports
* This enables China to import growth and jobs from the west
* An artificially stimulated housing market that has led to massive overbuilding but whose impact is blunted by direct government manipulation of the banking system such as allowing Chinese banks to bolster their balance sheets by quarantening bad debts into ‘bad bank’ vehicles and overnight banning any mortgages on investment properties
* Chinese health care provision has gone the opposite to what the US is doing from cradle to grave coverage as offered by Mao to very little state support (also little state retirement income is offered now) – this leads the Chinese to save in record numbers to cover health and retirement provisions now no longet covered by the state and the Chinese phenomenal savings rate has led to the mountains of cash that pour into US Treasury notes and bonds so in that regard, the ad is not too far off in terms of China ‘owing’ America.
* The command and control aspect of Chinese government economic policies enables the Chinese to build any large infrastructure or private partnership projects (huge hotels and office developments) in record time because they can squash any dissent and commandeer the necessary land and property almost at will
* Massive internal migration from the crowded countryside to the big cities provides a vast underpinning to China’s huge comstruction industry in a way that only the high growth sun belt states in the US come close to replicating.
* Private sector partnerships are going in the opposite direction to the Obama Administration’s nationlaising of key industries
The Chinese are patient long term planners. They see themselves as the rising super power not necessarily to dominate America but to balance America. The Chinese uniformly like and admire America and willingly learn SOME of the techniques of capitalism that they wish to use and discard what they see is a needlessly messy political and legal system.
These approaches have been used by the Chinese for decades with the result being year on year 10% + GDP growth. There was no special stimulus as you suggest – they’ve operated in that mode for decades. So on all three points you’re dead wrong.
Vote:October 24th, 2010 at 12:47 pm
No special stimulus? Hmmm, I guess $US586 billion ‘stimulus package’ announced on 9 November 2008 was completely unrelated to external factors such as the GFC.
Vote:October 24th, 2010 at 12:49 pm
“Kimble, it’s an ad, not a doco.” – Reid
WTF? Its a shit ad. It doesnt make any sense.
The ad is trying to say, “If we dont stop government waste, then this will happen” and every part of their doomsday scenario is bullshit. “If we dont stop government waste, we will end up being slave to evil foreigners”.
They might as well have said, if we dont stop the debt and waste, the Chinese will eat your children because they are all muslims.
“It ain’t even xenophobic, just a very realistic look at the near future.” – MR_Tinman
If you think that then you are retarded. It is not realistic, and the unrealism only works by feeding off certain Americans ignorance and fear of an imagined (specifically) Chinese threat.
Vote:October 24th, 2010 at 1:19 pm
Interestingly, during the 1980s the fear was all about Japan’s rising economic and cultural influence. Fear of this was reflected in the success of fiction by writers such as James Clavell (Shogun) and Eric van Lustbader; and of films such as Black Rain.
Now I see a remake of the so-bad-it’s-good movie “Red Dawn” is being made – only the invaders are now Chinese, not Soviet.
Vote:October 24th, 2010 at 1:37 pm
The ad is wrong as far as who is the blame for the deficits. To rush to the Republicans is like throwing karosene on a fire to put it out. Republicans have always ran deficits because of their strong military contracts. It can’t afford it. I can remember about 20 years ago when a bill came up on the Senate floor for debate to balance the federal budget. It would allow excess spending if the government’s books allowed it, similiar to any family or business. It was debated for 15 minutes and voted out. That is how serious the US was about balancing the budget. What ever happens to the states, they deserve it. China is looking for another means of money to bargain with. The dollar is too inflated. Maybe the Euro. When that happens, kiss the US goodbye.
Vote:October 24th, 2010 at 1:37 pm
Lloydois
That package merely brought forward and hurried up a bunch of planned projects such as those for Expo 2010 in Shanghai. I note you fail to acknowledge the fact about health care spending. America moves to a massive new trillion entitllement at the same time China has rejected that aspect of cradle to grave socialism.
China also spent its ‘stimulus’ money on an actual stimilus whilst the Obama Administration touted so-called shovel ready projects (that Obama now admits didnt really exist) while spending the near trillion stimulus on a liberal wishlist of postponed projects and pouring money into state, county and city coffers to prevent those governments from trimming their budgets and staffs to meet economic reality – all done to keep the public sector unions happy. Had the US stimulus been properly targetted on real job creation methods proven to work in previous recessions, the unemployment rate would’ve gone down not up as it has.
Vote:October 24th, 2010 at 1:37 pm
“Now I see a remake of the so-bad-it’s-good movie “Red Dawn” is being made…”
Yay! Finally a movie that can combine the talents of Shia Lebouf and Justin Beiber!
Vote:October 24th, 2010 at 1:52 pm
Look at the bright side. I saw a Yamaha motorcycle built in the US. Maybe this will be a new trend.
Vote:October 24th, 2010 at 1:54 pm
“China also spent its ‘stimulus’ money on an actual stimilus…”
So China did have a stimulus package?
“Had the US stimulus been properly targetted on real job creation methods proven to work in previous recessions,…”
Like? And be warned, any examples you bring up will have to be solid. There are a lot of counter-factuals to Keynesian job creating stimulus ideals. (And although it isnt very likely, if you bring up WW2, you instantly lose. Just FYI.)
Vote:October 24th, 2010 at 2:20 pm
The difference between now and what Roosevelt did during the Great Depression was that the money that was printed had gold backing back in the 30′s. Ever hear of Fort Knox? That use to be a common term in the fifties and sixties. Nixon took the dollar off the gold backing and made the reserve notes. Basically now what is happening is notes are being printed without any substance. Anything Obama tries isn’t going to work, just like the bailing out of the banks.. only prolonged what will happen. Look at the exchange rate. .75 Kiwi to 1 dollar when it usually hovers around .50. Obviously I am not an authority on economics but my guess is all the US is doing is printing money to pay its debts. You might say it is a free loan but it is starting to come back and haunt them.
Vote:October 24th, 2010 at 5:52 pm
That’s assuming Obama’s healthcare reform will do what you suggest. All it did was push a hideously warped system in a slightly more rational direction, providing more comprehensive coverage to a larger fraction of the population, while tackling a few of the massive inefficiencies that push the cost of American health way above that of other developed countries.
Vote:October 24th, 2010 at 7:25 pm
Wrong again lloyd – Obama promised it would bend the cost curve downwards but even Medicare and other GOVERNMENT actuaries (you know the people who assess risk based on the REAL numbers) all say it does the opposite. Its what you get when you jamb through a 2,500 page law with the minimum of scrutiny and NO bipartisan feedback. Republicans had NO say whatsoever in writing this law – the first time in US history that a massive new entitlement and such a major reform has been rammed through Congress without bi-partisan support.
People in the US are now getting larger than normal premium increase notices becasue of all the new mandates that now have to be paid for, 5 million seniors who were promise no change in their coverage are getting notice of curtailments in Medicare Advantage coverage and the middle class know about the tax increases they must wear despite being promised there wouldn’t be any to pay for this boodoggle. The ugly way the Democrats used a measure that is only ever used to pass tax bills and other budget matters to bypass the Senate filibuster is one of the reasons the Dems will be wiped out in 10 days.
Vote:October 24th, 2010 at 7:27 pm
Oh and of course you fail to acknowledge that you told us China enacted big health care changes like America when even the Communists know open ended health care entitlement will bankrupt a country.
Vote:October 24th, 2010 at 11:45 pm
Republicans weren’t interested in even discussing it.
What a frigging joke “open ended health care entitlement will bankrupt a country”.
Try telling that to Australians. I’ve lived here for 30 years most of those years with Medicare. I mean we’re completely bankrupt right, all these years with ‘socialised medicine!’
You really need to get out more kiwi or at least travel a bit to widen your horizons otherwise you’ll stay stuck in that retarded tea party mindset and never grow out of it.
Vote:October 25th, 2010 at 8:26 am
The GOP had dozens of excellent ideas for reform many well signalled and publicized such as tort reform to cap runaway liability law suits (a major adder to costs of health care) but the trial lawyers are huge donors to the Democrats and they dont want their gravy train to come to an end so they lobbied to ensure that GOP reform idea never sees the light of day.
You’re the one who needs to get out more. For the record, I have business interests in Australia, NZ, Canada, the US and now hopefully China so my horizons are pretty good I believe.
You’re clearly ignorant of what Obama’s health reform does. Its a mish mash of messy mandates trying to layer a pathway to wider coverage on an already messed up system – a system messed up by the refusal of Democrats to ever allow meaningful reform that can both reduce costs and widen coverage because both outcomes are possible and yet will never happen under Obamacare.
There is no comparison with the Australian system where, if costs rise as they are, the goverment can simply ration by waiting list which is what happens.
Vote: