"Exponential economic growth is physically impossible. Almost every move that the Obama administration is making is to support this unsustainable model of living."

I assume you meant continued economic growth. What evidence do you have to support this?

"4. Agriculture grown by petroleum-based fertilizers. Another future-less model. " Uh... that's jumping the gun a little. I am fairly sure there are technological innovations capable of addressing this issue in the long term and it is not an immediate concern.

"Trying to sustain an artificially inflated suburban housing market. The truth is, not everyone can own a house." I agree with this, but I think we'll see urbanization of older suburbs in the coming years and a decline of "deep suburbs," increased density overall, and increased public transit networks. The market seems to be taking care of our sprawl problem for us.

"
5. Flooding zombie banks and financial instutions with zero accountability with open-ended cash. These Ponzi-scheme models of financial architecture are totally fucked." Yeah are you paying attention to any of the regulatory measures being proposed? Krugman writes with extreme lucidity about this.

3: Failure to reduce the military budget and using those funds in more socially productive ways.

Like buying more paint for the VW bus?

I know, maaaaan. Check it out, I made a pair of hemp pants out of my Berkley degree!

Nations can do this "shit" perpetually as long as the at times pay down their debt. In the 1950s the percent of US debt to GDP was 90%, today its mid 60% give or take. And in fact it is borrowing that allows economies to grow, new money must injected at times.

Using the term "bankrupt" is dishonest, countries do not go bankrupt the way individuals and corporations do, and the result is not the same either. The IMF/World Bank were setup specifically after WWII to prevent bankruptcies and depressions, reasons then seen as causing the war.

With that said, voodoo pork, what the hell does it mean when you say roads and highways are "future-less"? Road building provides work (job creation), maintaining roads does the same, more overall road more man power needed to maintain them.

Your point on the suburban housing bubble mischaracterizes the actions of the administration. What is trying to be done is to shore up current threats to the banking system. No one is suggesting going back to a time when people who cannot afford homes are able to buy them on credit they will never be able to pay back. Furthermore, while not everyone can own a home, a lot more people should be able to own them, that is how markets grow. A tenant of our society is that an individual can work hard and increase their wealth and quality of living. If the individual is not enabled through the mechanics of that society, then it is failing to live up to its own standards of success.

Your 3rd point is basically a moral one, arguing reducing spending on the military is "not worth it" when the money would instead go to quality of life institutions. A strong military is worthwhile, we agree on that point, however, as a moral person I cannot justify spending money unnecessarily on an institution whose job it is is to decrease the quality of life for others. And I ask you how to reconcile how, in times of peace, the military is no more than a socialist institution? People are given jobs and job training, places to live, and education in trade for their time.

How long, I wonder, until they think we've forgotten all of that and start to publicly disown Bush as a re-election tactic?

They've already started the disowning process. You can hear it in their mating cries of "Bush wasn't a REAL conservative" or "I'm not a Republican, I'm a Libertarian."

First, I am not a Libertarian. Second, the point I was making in mentioning the "tenant of our society" was that regardless of how accurate that is in play, it is a belief that is commonly held, and because it is such, it is a great starting point for conversation. Third, as someone who is working class, that is to say I've had a job since I was 14, my parents worked wage jobs their entire lives, never able to own a home or new car, I have a very good understanding of social privilege. Basically you're setting up a straw-man to knock down. In my response to your initial posting I criticized your ideas, not assumptions about your character.

However, as it reads, your second post seems to prescribe spending our time now reassessing how we approach economics as a society. While that is a valid position in a vacuum, at the moment it ignores nuance. The type of discussion you are suggesting needs to take place in parallel with policy that makes use of our current economic framework to produce steadied transition, and I would argue that is generally what this administration is doing.

You're making the mistake of responding to a troll post in a sensible, thought-out manner.

You know better than this!