Debate Oct 20^th

No, I didn’t watch the debate; I thought I’d hear about the relevant high and low points from the commentariate today, and I was right.

The primary loser was CNBC the “moderator” who didn’t manage to moderate anything. They found themselves the target of these conservatives who thrive on media bashing and in this case the consensus was that this particular branch of the media deserved it. Rubio was asked “Why don’t you resign.” Trump was asked, “Are you a comic book villain.” Then Carson, the current poll leader, got very little time. Of course the candidates immediately began ranting about these inept (and they were inept) moderators.

We’ll look at Ben Carson, the current popular leader. Dr. Carson was asked about his association with Mannatech, a company marketing a nutritional supplement. It seems that Carson has endorsed this product and has been doing promotional material for the company for about ten years. The problem is that the company has had some serious legal issues involving deceptive advertising and a variety of other no-no’s. Beginning about the time Carson decided to run for the nomination he cut ties with Mannatech and now claims that he was just a very occasional paid spokesperson for them. This was reminiscent of Carly Fiorina settling most of her outstanding 2010 Senatorial campaign debt years after incurring them when she decided on a Presidential run. Amazing how a run for the Presidency can clean up the ethically challenged!

There was Governor Christie pushing public paranoia about Social Security running out of money. He claims that SS will run out of money in seven years and have to depend on a pile of IOU’s. These “IOU’s” that Christie dismisses so quickly are, in fact, United States Treasury Bonds in the sum of 2.8 trillion dollars, enough to bay SS obligations until 2034. But hay, what do we expect from Christie?

Cruz claimed that women’s wages declined under Obama but the fact is they increased from an average of 647 dollars a week to 728 dollars a week; that’s an increase of 81 dollars a week.

Then here is Fiorina: She tells us that 92 percent of job losses in Obama’s first term were by women. These were the identical discredited figures used by Romney in his campaign. If this miss-lead was good enough for Romney it is surely good enough for Fiorina. Actually both men and women gained jobs during President Obama’s first term Then Fiorina talks about firms closing because of the burdens placed on them by the Affordable Care Act. But more firms closed in 2009 before the ACA ever came into being.

So who won? Of all the hoodwinkers I believe Governor Kasich did best. He pointed out that these tax scams advocated by Trump, Carson and others would cost the treasury billions in lost revenue. Of course Trump jumped right in to claim that Kasich had been a managing partner at Lehman Brothers before it went belly up costing him and some of his friend much money. The trouble with that is that that Kasich at the time was in Ohio, a very minor player in Lehman Brother’s structure. Since when did Trump have any regard for the truth if a lie served him better?