• Guest: Dick Patten. The Estate Tax and Joe The Plumber.


• Economic meltdown rant.


• Guest: "Advertiser of the week": Gary Ptak, Gary Ptak, LLC - fine jewelry manufacturing and custom design.


• Guest: Brad Friedman, BradBlog. Electile Dysfunction.


• Guest: David Horowitz. McCain can still win. Diid critics of the war go too far?


• Guest: Christy Harvey, Director of Strategic Communications at the Center for American Progress.

Topics, guests, upcoming events, quotes, links to articles, audio clips, books & bumper music.

Thursday 30 October '08 show

• Thom has voted. Vote early.
  
• Book: An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith, 1776.
  
• Guest: Dick Patten. The Estate Tax and Joe The Plumber.
  
  "The American Family Business Institute (AFBI) is a 501(c)(6) trade association of family business-owners and farmers who are committed to permanent repeal of the Death Tax (a.k.a., federal estate tax). We believe that the death tax is fundamentally immoral, and an economically disastrous form of taxation."
  
  Here to oppose the Paris Hilton tax? Adam Smith, "There is no point more difficult to account for than the right we conceive men to have to dispose of their goods after death." He said inheritance was clearly justified only when it was necessary to provide for dependent children. Thomas Jefferson, "the earth belongs in usufruct to the living."

  John Locke, "if a man can work hard, save, gather and invest, he should be able to give or bequeath whatever he's gathered to whomever he wants". Family businesses - Thom said increase limit. Family farms. a lot went under under Reagan, not because of estate tax. Paris Hilton tax - the really rich have lawyers to protect their money. He said the estate tax costs more to collect than it brings in as there are lots of lawsuits over valuations, 10,000 at any given time, families are guilty until proved innocent.
  

• Bumper Music: No Sugar Tonight, The Guess Who.
  
• Article: Bill Clinton's Speech at Obama's Florida Rally, October 29, 2008 (video).
  "OK, then you got to see the reaction to the financial crisis in America nearly coming off the wheels. Having the wheels nearly run off. I saw this up close. You know what he did? First he took a little heat for not saying much.
  
  I knew what he was doing. He talked to his advisers, he talked to my economic advisers. He called Hillary. He called me. He called Warren Buffett and he called Paul Volcker. He called all those people and you know why, because he knew it was complicated and before he said anything he wanted to understand.
  
  Folks, if we have not learned anything, we have learned that we need a president who wants to understand and who can understand. Who can understand; yes, he can.
  
  Now, wait a minute.
  
  The second thing and this meant more to me than anything else and I haven't cleared this with him. And he may even be mad at me for saying this so closest to the election but I know what else he said to his economic advisers. He said tell me what the right thing to do is. What's the right thing for America, and don't tell me what's popular. You tell me what's right and I'll figure out how to sell it. That's what a president does in a crisis, what is right for America. And you know after this election there are going to be a lot of rough times ahead and you know it as well as I do. You have got to have a president who can understand and then has the fortitude to stand up and tell you, you hired me to win for America. I've got to make this decision now. This is the very best I can do. And I'm prepared to be held accountable.
  
  I'm going to tell you something the way he handled this crisis and the way you saw him talk about it in the second and third debate showed that he will be a very, very fine decision maker working for the American people."
  
• Clip:
  "I've always felt the nine most terrifying words in the English language are, 'I'm from the government and I'm here to help'." Ronald W. Reagan.
  
• Article: McCain advisers sense victory despite Obama lead in polls.
  "Advisers to John McCain yesterday spelled out why they think he can still win Tuesday's election, even as senior Republicans prepared for civil war within the party if Barack Obama becomes president.
  
  Seizing on signs of tightening in some national polls, the McCain campaign gave details on how it could spring the biggest upset since Harry Truman came from behind to win the 1948 election. But Mr Obama retains strong leads in several battleground states.
  
  In a bullish memo released to the press, Bill McInturff, Mr McCain's top pollster, claimed the Arizona senator was gaining traction from his attacks on Mr Obama's tax and spending plans.
  
  "All the signs say we are heading to an election that may easily be too close to call by next Tuesday," he wrote.
  
  Republican strategists are hoping that undecided voters - thought to represent up to 9 per cent of the likely electorate - will go their way.
  
  McCain supporters say that such voters are concentrated among groups they stand a good chance of winning over, such as working class whites.
  
  But the message has failed to lift the gloom hanging over the Republican party."
  
• Obama infomercial, presentation and speech. Bill Clinton saying Obama took advice, rather than Obama made decision. Opening salvo in battle for Obama presidency, Bill pushing him to be a conservative Democrat. Reagan's nine most terrifying words. Clinton campaign was not how he ruled. LBJ cut poverty 1/3 to 1/2. McCain sensing victory? Gaining traction. Spending plans. The US does not have the highest corporate taxes actually paid.
  
• Bumper Music: The Good, The Bad And The Ugly, Ennio Morricone.
  
• Article: Obama Mocks Socialist Attacks: "I Shared My Toys".
  
• Book: The Fourth Turning: an American Prophecy by William Strauss and Neil Howe, published in 1997, which was Thom's "Independent Thinker" Book of the Month a while ago.
  
• Obama could be a transformational president. The Fourth Turning.
  
• Obama gave Bill Clinton credit, kept referring to him. FDR got reelected from a left position 4 times, and had Father McCaughlin against him. Thom wants Obama to have a landslide.
  
• Bumper Music: Lily, Rosemary and the Jack of Hearts, Bob Dylan.
  
• Bumper Music: If George Only Had a Brain, Bill Jacobs.
  
• Article: Cunningham: "[P]eople are poor in America ... because they lack values, morals, and ethics".
  
• "Remember remember the fifth of November
  Gunpowder, treason and plot.
  I see no reason why gunpowder, treason
  Should ever be forgot"
  quoted in "V for Vendetta"
• Clip:
  "People should not be afraid of their governments, governments should be afraid of their people."
  V for Vendetta. Thomas Jefferson.
  
• Article: A Rise in Kidney Stones Is Seen in U.S. Children. Melamine.
  
• Article: Wary diners ask: Is fish from China?
  
• Economic meltdown rant. Economy in Crisis. More than 16,000 companies sold. List from Steve of chains closing stores. Explosion of kidney stones in kids due to melamine. Imported fish. The economy failing because of economics. It's like a game with no rules, let teams, predators decide. The market is up - plunge protection team ? Economy contracted. Exxon record profits. Feeding frenzy, all the small fish get hurt.
  
• "Al Franken is poised to follow in Minnesota