Words of advice for the president

Hey George --

Please address how any of the below claims are sane.

"Concerning international matters, Obama should get tough on Iran and put our bloated defense budget to some use by blowing up their nuclear facilities, to show them we're not letting an unpopular, weak, Holocaust denier think he has a say in global affairs."

That's what we need! ANOTHER WAR! YAY! Explain how bombing Iran and starting another war we can't afford equates to "common sense", or that Iran is even producing viable nuclear material.

"Give us your bums, your illiterates... your people with bad attitudes and ill will."

Funny, I wonder if Ian Nelson's grandparents were millionaires! Because I can assure you the great majority of European immigrants were probably a) illiterate and b) quite poor! But forget these brown people, let's keep America The Way It Is, I mean, "productive." Remember, kids, the only people who matter are the ones who start with money!

Also, "bad attitudes"? Seriously? "Uh-oh, that immigrant has a frowny face, stick him in a detention center!"

"Put a tax on Japanese and Korean cars. When was the last time they bought one of our products?"

Damn, could you please tone down the xenophobia please? I can only handle so much uninformed ignorance at a time. Did you get possessed by the ghost of an 80s movie character where the American economy is gonna be brought down when the Japanese buy our precious American auto plant? Because that's what you sound like.

Please, cite ANY figures in any economics publication that proves that Japan and Korea have NONEXISTENT TRADE with us and do not contribute to our economy. PLEASE.

"Obama should also send a message to Venezuela by putting a 100 percent tax on every CITGO station in America."

Because that's what we need: more tariffs! Tell me, did any conservative President even attempt to curtail Saudi oil profits in this country? Did George Bush put enormous blocks against Saudi business after 9/11? No? So the logic is this: providing oil revenue unimpeded to a nation that materially supports terrorists is okay, but we need to tax the hell out of a nation that disagrees with us, gosh darnit!

"And he should just stay out of the Israeli-Palestinian issue altogether. If they're as 'rational' as they say they are then they can solve their own problems. We don't need to butt in."

Seriously, you sound like a schizophrenic Henry Kissinger. You want a policy of uninvolvement in Israel/Palestine but it's a moral imperative to START A WAR WITH IRAN? Pick a policy position!

Honestly, this editorial reads like a laundry list of "Crazy Things Your Aging Father Thinks America Should Do." The only thing that has any semblance of sense in it is the legalization of marijuana. That's it.

Oh, and seriously screw you for your incredibly ignorant comment about Korea and Japan not buying anything from us.

So they don't use Windows OS, Intel chips, Boeing Airplanes, Apple computers, Fender guitars, Google, or a million other American products? Maybe they should put a 100% tax on those things to pay for the universal health care and transnational bullet trains they already have. Quit learning your economic theories from Herbert Hoover and read an Intro to Macro textbook when you have some free time.

Microsoft and Google products are definitely made in the US, though increasingly they've been forced to open offices in other countries, like Canada, due to restrictive immigration laws preventing qualified workers/engineers from coming here. Boeing also makes all its airplanes in the US in literally the largest building in the world. All of those things are irrelevant though because even if other countries bought zero goods manufactured in the US, the dollars we give them come back into our economy, usually in the form of investment. They don't just shove the dollars under a mattress after rubbing all the cocaine off it, though if that were the case did the US would be getting the best possible deal: expensive goods in exchange for pieces of paper that don't have any real value.

Do you honestly believe that Iran and NK wouldn't have fired those missiles if John McCain or Tom Tancredo or Sean Hannity were president? North Korea tested a NUCLEAR BOMB for the first time while George Bush was president! Iran armed Iraqi insurgents and gave them bombs, which were used to kill Americans. Both those countries were also testing missiles throughout the Bush administration and while right-wing lunatic John Bolton was UN ambassador. It has nothing to do with Obama needing to "man up", though if he did do that and start bombing NK or Iran I'm sure they would stop "testing" missiles and start using them.

The Japanese and Koreans DO purchase something useful: US debt, one of our greatest exports! Q.E.D. Furthermore, you can't solve a trade imbalance by taxing the hell out of their products, but, you know, maybe innovate and create better products so people buy THEM by choice. Man, it's almost like we were once known for innovation in this country, or something. Any measure like that or with Venezuela would first be disastrous for our economy on a local level, since companies like Hyundai and CITGO employ workers IN America, but also launch us into a disastrous, pointless trade war with two of our closest allies - Japan and South Korea. You know, those two countries where we have two military bases that are responsible for overseeing all of our interests in Asia/the Pacific. Hm, it's almost like doing anything like what the author recommends is COMPLETELY CRAZY.

Here I thought the Republicans wanted the free market, but according to the author, somehow, we should revert to some schizophrenic model of neoconservatism. Because God knows we have to pay American farmers to NOT grow corn and tax the hell out of Brazilian sugar because, goshdarnit....uhhh, look, a tiny American flag!

"Hey andrew, do you think any of those things are manufactured in the US, except Fender guitars of course. Just look at our huge trade deficit with those countries"

What is your point, Alex? It is not their fault that we now labor beneath decades of capital depreciation and that our central bank constantly breeds business cycles. It is not their fault that we the strong armed Post-WWII world into using the dollar as the international reserve currency (thus leaving it tremendously overvalued and spurring our consumption-based, import economy). You should be sending thank-you letters to China for building all the things that you enjoy instead of keeping their growing wealth at home.

Tariffs enrich no one but the lobbyists they are meant to favor. As a consumer, you should oppose them entirely!

I suppose you should also send the Chinese hatemail as well, for the reasons that the above poster points out. They do buy our greatest export: debt! This, unfortunately, allows our government to further grow, to inflate our currency, to divvy up spoils to its favored sons and to finance the draconian controls of our lives.

"Finally, decriminalize marijuana, and tax the living daylights out of it — even if it's temporary. In my opinion we're not a country that can handle legalized marijuana long-term."

Not sure if anyone who doesn't know the different between decriminalization and legalization should be espousing drug policy. First of all, small amounts of marijuana has been decriminalized in New York (since 1977), and also 12 other states. Second, marijuana possession that has been decriminalized already has a tax -- it is called a fine. In New York, it is a $100 fine. And what revenue that is collected is canceled out, or really just is dwarfed, by the amount of police and criminal justice resources taken up enforcing decriminalization and other possession and sale amounts of marijuana not within the decriminalized penal code. What monies you don't capture in a decrim fine is any tax revenue collected from producing, cultivating, wholesale, or retail in a black market. Decrim only focuses on possession, not sale -- which is where the real revenue and concomitant tax generator is.

Now, anyone who actually talks about marijuana reform policy knows that legalization, and not decriminalization, is the legal umbrella to collect tax revenue -- a drug or marijuana tax stamp has been tried in several states, but has been struck down, for example in Tennessee, because it violates double jeopardy.

Your second point: you want to make legalization for tax revenue only temporary. Three things here: 1) any cursory review of alcohol prohibition can tell you this will go horribly awry complex networks that are established under legalization that will become even more sophisticated black market operations; 2) this idea is pretty dumb and hopefully NYU will develop your critical thinking skills; and 3) jesus WSN, you should stop letting anyone who has 2 thumbs and the ability to type become a contributing columnist; it undermines your journalistic integrity, and wastes everyone's time.