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Post by AW O'Reilly on Nov 7, 2011 21:28:37 GMT
I will attempt to clarify: I was paying, now i am paying even more with less added value than the cost would indicate - we now have a new layer of federal administration which places a larger burden on the tax paying earners in our society.
The liberals owned the exec and both houses for two years. In that time their approval rating was south of 15%. They bulldozed over the oposition and instituted sweeping changes that while popular with their constituents, alienated a huge portion of the population. Results: split legislature which has an approval rating south of 15%. They are all making sausage and none of us enjoy watching them butcher even the simplest tasks. As to Obama's popularity... I am sure that the liberals love him, the rest of us disagree with his social policies, are disenchanted with his unsucessful attempt to stimulate the economy by further indebting us, and are disgusted with his chicago croneyism. His job approval is less than 50%, unemployment is ~10% and he has a snowballs chance if the countries course does not change dramatically. As far as your complaint that Republicans are out to get him... yes, so? Think back to how openly opposed to Bush 2 the lib and the lib media were. Try applying a little Sun Tzu here - clearly, conservatives see the far left ideology as a serious threat and are openly and unabashedly trying to throw sticks under the left's skates. I remember when Clinton was re-elected, I was baffled. It was clear to me that the electorate votes with their mind on their pocketbooks and that I was not with the majority. It was an eye opening experience for a soldier 10 years into a career. It would be like you working for DOJ with a staunch conservative running the place. Alienating. I digress. My point is, of course opposing ideologies oppose - to not do so would be to slack.
The analysis by United Health treats Doctors and Hospitals as black boxes. I totally agree with your assessment of the demand vs. supply effect that aging baby boomers has on cost, but I am going to see what I can find on cost drivers within those black boxes. I suspect that we will find that while doctors are rich, they are not getting richer proportionate to the increases in costs. As far as the magic fix being oversold, "mischaracterized" would be a stronger term, "sold a bill of goods" even better. It cannot stand as long as it is not applied fairly and equally across the population. The last thing we need is another line to divide ourselves with. Lord knows organized religion, race preferential treatment and Class warfare are doing enough of that already.
Bush and Obama are wartime presidents. To not address the astronomical cost of keeping 500k servicemen deployed on two fronts for ten years is a little myopic. The sooner we get ourselves out of there the better. Cheney's comment was that a secure society faces less uncertainty and will therefore prosper, increasing revenues, yada yada. Do folks feel safer than they did on 9/12 sure, but safe, no. Folks that lived through the great depression still don't trust banks. Some things stick with you. Obama's postulizing that pumping another trillion into public programs will have any more effect than the last is also ludicrous. Reduce uncertainty where you can. As uncertainty goes down, investment will go up. Simple in concept, apparently difficult to codify. The other alternative would be to just take the wealth - I don't think either of us want to see that happen. As far as to what caused the recession, it was not soley Bush's big govt spending. Post-911 congress leaned on lenders to make mortgage money more readilly available. They poured money into lending institutions and allowed big packages of home loans to be traded regardless of quality. Folks were buying houses that they could not afford with interest only loans planning to resell them in 4 to 6 years for a tidy profit at no little to no risk to themselves. The economy had been given a nice little shot of adrenaline post-911. Like a cafeinne bump, it wore out and and all of a sudden folks were upside down on houses that they could not afford across the country. The securities based on these questionable mortgages were of dubious value, you know the rest. To simply say they did "a" and it caused a recession is a bit simplistic - you seem to agree with me on this. The 1-2 Trillion that Obama wants to inject is just a snickers when we need the full meal deal. Reduce uncertainty. Folks sitting on all that money really want to make more, its in their nature.
Going to skip down a bit as we seem to agree on quite alot in the middle.
Ron Paul is a nut.
We have little leverage with China as we are their junkie. They are devaluing their currency giving themselves quite the advantage. We need them to keep buying our debt. The best thing we can do in the short term is try to live within our means and avoid creating more debt. Focus on quality and intellectual advances. We should be going after piracy world wide. I totally agree with you on the dangers of protectionism but also agree that allowing our economic adversary to manipulate the playing field while we eat what they are dishing up is unsustainable and unfair. Tough nut to crack though, since we seem to have formed a bit of a habit.
As far as unions go, my wife is an involuntary member of AFSCME. Has to pay dues so that she can work in her profession as a state social worker. Here is what her union has done for her so far: Donated 2 million to a gubernatorial candidate that she is ideologically opposed to. Provided a safe haven for lazy and uncaring workers while negotiating furlough days and pay decreases for state employees rather than trimming the fat in the bureacracy that is DSHS in order to maintain the dues that the union receives - in other words, everyone took a 3 to 5% cut except the union administration. Self serving leeches and parasites. It is clear to me that Unions were and in some cases still are vital to protecting the labor class. At the rise of industrialization, folks rarely moved 10 miles from the place they were born during the course of their life. Communications were limited and localized. Up to the point that Al Gore invented the internet it could be argued that most people were extremely isolated and fed whatever information the media saw fit. Today we are interconnected to such a degree that Unions are far less necessary. Here are two examples: Netflix decided to double its revenues by splitting their digital and physical media provisions, consumers responded instantly and virtually destroyed Netflix in a matter of days. In response to the dodd-frank act, numerous banks levied debit card fees on consumers. Consumers responded by moving their deposits to local credit unions across the US. My point is, people vote with their pocket books. Many of us buy fair trade goods from our local Trader Joe's store. Some drive Priuses. Some don't wear furs/animal skins. Some boycott Walmart because they are an open shop. Choices. Choices backed up with expansive social media (Arab Summer anyone?) Does my wife want or need big daddy AFSCME skimming her check and acting contrary to her beliefs? It is an outrage. Shouldn't we all have a choice as to how we are represented with our employers? The idea that you have to pay the "man" to get a job is ludicrous, another freedom impinged upon.
If we each looked at our perspective target through a 10x optical sight I think we would do the palm to forehead together and see that clearly, we have the same target. The question is how to get there. Travelling around the country from 2001 till my retirement in 2009 it is clear that our country's infrastructure could use a serious going over. Unfortunately that has not been the only focus of stimulus one. You would be hard pressed to find 10 cents on the dollar of tangible value for the money that has been spent so far, im afraid. If folks are dubious on stimulus 2, can you blame them?
Hard work and ingenuity got us to the top. We should look very critically at anything we do that impinges on that ingenuity, and on that entrepeneurial spirit. Regulate what is NECESSARY to protect the citizenry. Stop mickey mousing with extending the tax-breaks etc... Just suspend them or make them permanent, in the end it really won't matter as long as someone makes a binding and semi-permanent decision. Reduce uncertainty and let the greedy little bastards get back to making money and paying taxes. Do I want them to get rich? Richer than me? They already are and I don't care - seriously, i don't. Everyone has the same chance - starts at about age 14 these days, you make a decision on how you want to live your life - then you live it.
I thoroughly enjoy the way you manage HG. Not heavy handed, you try to code misbehavior and exploitation out of our gaming experience - no small task considering how devious and ingenious some of our players are. An interesting exercise in regulation. What a fascinating Laboratory HG is I'm sure. My hat is off to you.
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Post by shardelay on Nov 7, 2011 22:13:55 GMT
No, it isn't ludicrous, nor dangerous. A recession is the SINGLE BEST time for the government to spend money. One cannot draw an analogy between borrowing by an individual and borrowing by a government. They are fundamentally different acts. Individuals do not hold the obligation of currency - i.e. they do not print money. That mistake, along with the deceptive desire to cling to % of GDP as a measuring stick account for a huge amount of recent misinformation and misunderstanding. There's nothing magically inefficient about government vis a vis business, despite the conservative talking points. I'd challenge that statement. Our government is designed to be inefficient at some level. That is part and parcel of the checks and balances of power, by definition the process of law is innefficient in it's necessary requirement to safeguard rights. It -CAN- be efficient, but I believe it starts out at a disadvantage to a business all things equal (and of course all things are not equal - some times the government can be more efficient). Eh, no offense, but I don't really see the problem there. If anything, advocating against your own interests lends you additional credibility. There's even a hearsay exception for it in the Federal Rules - an admission against interest. Don't get me wrong - I think Moore is an overstuffed baffoon who sets honest debate back nearly as much as clowns like Limbaugh on the right. Sure, I agree in principal, but in this partical case Moore is definitely acting in his own best interest. He is getting in good with his primary customer base.
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Post by FunkySwerve on Nov 7, 2011 23:48:48 GMT
One cannot draw an analogy between borrowing by an individual and borrowing by a government. They are fundamentally different acts. Individuals do not hold the obligation of currency - i.e. they do not print money. That mistake, along with the deceptive desire to cling to % of GDP as a measuring stick account for a huge amount of recent misinformation and misunderstanding. I don't have time to respond to either of you in full just yet - I'm pushing a sumons hotpatch - but could you elaborate on this? The phrase 'obligation of currency' makes me think you look at the ability to print money - and the power and obligation that go with it - somewhat differently than I do (as mostly power, when you are the world's exchange currency). I'm aware that some people think the dollar is about to lose that status as a result of the way we've been tossing them out to foreign banks, which is of course where the obligation comes in. I agree, of course, that the analogies you see to running the country like a business or your personal finances are absurd, but I'm not quite sure I see your full point. Thanks, Funky
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Post by gandoron on Nov 8, 2011 3:50:58 GMT
Even after the US bond rating was reduced by one of the agencies, the borrowing actually went up, not down. US bonds are about the safest debt product in the world (at scale).
-G
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Post by Deleted on Nov 8, 2011 5:38:36 GMT
Eh, fair enough. I wasn't particularly offended - just taking issue with how you arrive at your opinions. I'm still in the middle of posting a Moneo tutorial on the bioboards, and then I'll respond, as politely as possible. I responded to wollstonecraft more quickly because he seemed much more persuadable, and less actively hostile, which makes responses far less time-consuming. lol I offended myself then. The fact that you think the republican party dove off the right end of the cliff and moved the goalposts says a lot. It sets a frame of reference. If I see the republican party as being fairly "liberal" or having started (prior to the abrupt dive) to the left of center then to me the Republicans have simply moved back to the center. A far left perspective would see that move back to the center as a dive off the right end of the cliff- and that is precisely what you said. Well people do want to believe they are reasonable people, I think it is a tendency towards conformity which is probably nescessary for society but which I personally find repugnant. I will be honest and say that I am an extremist, that most people would not agree with most of my positions, and that I am politically agnostic. I think of my political views also as pragmatic, but probably wayyyy more like a Friedrich Hielscher, or Ernst Jünger type pragmatism than the kind of pragmatism you are talking about. It is interesting and revealing (to me anyways) that while you see the far left as being pretty much dead, I see the far right as being pretty much dead. But what we see as "right" and "left" could be entirely different things. I see "the far right" as being classical-liberalism in a fairly strict sense and "the far left" as being "enlightened despotism"- that last in the sense that there is or could possibly be some over-arching benevolent entity that will make everything ok if only we empower it to do so. I don't see either right or left really ruling or having an affect on anything other than as the method by which the elite class keeps the lower classes divided against themselves. I think the case is, and has always been, that individuals will act in their own best interests and this transcends all political ideology. So you give them power and they use it to advance their own best interests, applying it to the good of The People only enough to ensure their re-election. I think this has done us great harm. That you *seem* to think that ideology still plays an important role (aside from dividing the people) in politics makes me think that, as a pragmatist, you MUST take one side or the other because as a pragmatist, you would necessarily take the side you think is most pragmatic. I do not think it pragmatic to increase the ability of leaders to increase the means with which they may advance their self-interest. Any such policy assumes that with increased power, leaders will increase the good of the people, when in reality such increased power serves primarily to increase the leaders self-interest. That you appear to advocate for increased power of major institutions places you, at least in my mind, firmly on the left. The "left" being the position that when more power is placed in fewer hands, those hands will use that power to work for the betterment of the people, the economy, the world in general. You are cheesed-off at my notions because you feel they are not pragmatic then? Note the political bit at the end of your paragraph. The context is incredibly personal and offensive: calling a woman a whore. Putting a leftist label in the middle of that context (socialist) is curious at best.
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Post by bazukar on Nov 8, 2011 6:23:51 GMT
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Post by Deleted on Nov 8, 2011 11:53:13 GMT
I agree entirely. Any time I take those tests I end up on the libertarian right though I disagree with some core libertarian principles. It is easy enough through a kind of "greedy reductionism" to look at an idea and categorize it as belonging to/stemming from the left or the right wing. IMO religion and politics are so similar. Two poles: on one end is the belief in an all-powerful entity that is inherently benevolent and can solve the problems of man if man only chooses to accept it. On the other end the belief that all sentient beings are inherently self-oriented and that the only true good is the good one can do for ones self. I think that paradigm is ridiculous, but is fairly accurate in describing popular perspective. It makes historical sense also. I think the "left wing" and the "right wing" are both evolved from ancient times as part of the same paradigm which humanity really has yet to overcome. The histories and evolution of law of those who were heavily romanized and those who were not so heavily romanized in the past 2000 years, is also a history of the evolution of the "left wing" and "the right wing". Note how virtually untouched the Saxons and Angles were by Rome or Romes culturally assimilated foederati, how those same Saxons were the last hold-outs against the heavily romanized Charlemagne, and how British Anglo-Saxon law evolved on its own, as a separate thread until their conquest by the Normans and the eventual re-emergence of a much more refined Anglo-Saxon system as expressed in the Magna Carta. One look at how The Enlightenment played out in formerly heavily romanized lands vs how it played out in dominantly Anglo lands tells you all you need to know. On one hand you have the Jacobins Reign of Terror, the Rise of Napoleon and the continuance of that ancient roman notion that a good, all powerful State is the answer to everything. On the other hand you have the US Bill of Rights, the American Revolution, and, at the time, a Nation and Government literally constituted around the principle of the Sovereignty of the Individual. I mentioned Marx in a different post. Marx was a student of Hegel and Hegel had some good points. One of them was that in history (and essentially everything else), things develop along polar lines becoming so dramatically different and so opposed to each other that they paradoxically synthesize: like Man and Woman, the opposites join to conceive something entirely new and distinct from either. I think we are starting to go through that process in terms of "right" and "left". But hangers on to the old system of "right and left" do not want to see that happen. There fortunes are founded on things the way they have been. But like it or not, it is, and will happen.
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Post by shardelay on Nov 8, 2011 14:36:31 GMT
I don't have time to respond to either of you in full just yet - I'm pushing a sumons hotpatch - but could you elaborate on this? The phrase 'obligation of currency' makes me think you look at the ability to print money - and the power and obligation that go with it - somewhat differently than I do (as mostly power, when you are the world's exchange currency). I'm aware that some people think the dollar is about to lose that status as a result of the way we've been tossing them out to foreign banks, which is of course where the obligation comes in. I agree, of course, that the analogies you see to running the country like a business or your personal finances are absurd, but I'm not quite sure I see your full point. By obligation I am harkening back to the idea of an actual backing to a currency. As we all know the gvt. originally had the obligation to redeem currency with gold (it could just as well be any widget - whatever backs any currency). Since the gold standard is defunct and the greenback is only backed up by the US government's promise, this obligation is more smoke and mirrors, but it is still an obligation. The obligation is, in a sense, a promise to not print too many dollars and water down the debt overly much. However, since a central bank is always printing dollars, that obligation is a promise to not print TOO MANY, and this gives a huge amount of room to maneuver. What is too many? That's the tricky question, but it's not 0 by a long shot. Real wealth grows in the world and currency needs to keep up or deflate (that's why a gold standard wont work, btw, because you cant generate more gold and there just simply isn't enough - we'd be backing our currency with microscopic slices of gold). So, a government has a lever on their debt that an individual doesnt, and that lever is not some sort of great evil, it is necessary. An individual has exposure to inflation and currency default when they borrow or lend. A government does not have that exposure in the same way; in fact they actually own that exposure (as you say it's a power) and have the ability to inflate at will to pay of a debt. I do not beieve that the dollar will loose it's status as a reserve currency. I see no reason for that to be the case. What will replace it? China is not viable - the government is too volatile in it's authoritarian actions. The euro is in a FAR FAR FAR worse state than the dollar. What's left? There are no other sufficiently large currencies to replace it. The dollar is toast, no doubt, but the whole world is toast, so on average, it's a wash. We have two grand possible solutions to the financial crisis today. 1) We inflate our way out in 1-3 years. 2) We avoid inflation, put real negative pressure on the real economy, reduce production and slowly over 20-50 years produce our way out. Inflation will be FAR cleaner and easier in my view, especially since most retirement plans ahve moved away from inflation exposed plans and into 401ks and other market plans, which are not exposed to inflation in the same way (though they have other real exposures). And, in the mean time, when we are inflating to pay off china, we might as well inflate to pay our unemployed citizens to do things, like build roads and dams and bridges. We shouldnt ahve ended up here, in a state where the amount of dollars in the world doesnt match the amount of wealth, but we did. So let's print. Even after the US bond rating was reduced by one of the agencies, the borrowing actually went up, not down. US bonds are about the safest debt product in the world (at scale). That's becaese the rating agencies are a joke and the world gets that now. The reduction was a last ditch effort by 1 of the three agencies to add credibility, but was poorly timed and transparent. Yields dropped after the decline because the dollar was the only even close to stable place to put money as european sovereign debt and world wide equity markets continued it's implosion.
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Post by tomaan on Nov 8, 2011 21:41:05 GMT
In case anybody missed it...another appeals court upheld the law, making it 3-1 in favor and brining us one step closer to a Supreme Court review.
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Post by FunkySwerve on Nov 10, 2011 6:09:00 GMT
Finally, I have time to address this thread. I'll say at the outset, that my goal here is to persuade you, not make you feel stupid. I cannot, however, control how you feel about having mistakes pointed out, so I'll apologize in advance if you take umbrage. There is a good reason why wikipedia is not considered, by any means, authoritative. You REALLY need to read that wikipedia entry on weasel words. You're still rapid-firing them. Wikipedia 'is not considered' - BY WHOM? This is simply not the intellectual honesty you paid lip service to. I simply pasted Wikipedia as an example of something you were doing. It wasn't my 'thesis', as you claim, merely a remark on your forensic tactics, and I didn't simply appeal to the authority of Wikipedia - I explained WHY what you were doing was problematic: 'because they attempt to legitimize a position by means of unspecified authority'. Now, at minimum, you could've at least cited a competing authority, if you could've found one, but you didn't even do that - you simply relied on weasel words again, using them to leap to the completely unsupported assertion that Wikipedia is 'the least intellectually rigorous source possible': This kind of legitimization by unspecified authority isn't intellectually honest OR rigorous - appeals to authority are logical fallicies, and you aren't even specifying the authority you're appealing to, leaving the reader to wonder if it exists at all. If you REALLY think weasel words are NOT a problem for someone who wants to lay claim to intellectual honesty, you need to EXPLAIN WHY, instead of relying on the subjective tense of mystery authority. Futhermore, I have always found Wikipedia to be quite reliable. They have extensive experience in fending off vandals of all stripes - as when, for example, Palin supporters attempted to rewrite history on the Wiki with regard to Paul Revere, when she mistakenly claimed he rode to warn the British. Lastly, it is NOT AT ALL ironic that I cite wikipedia when talking about intellectual rigor. Had I done what you did, and simply said 'weasel words are considered to be intellectually dishonest', THAT would be ironic. I didn't, though. I cited a source, and then went a step further, explaining myself what the problem was. This kind of 'I'm rubber, you're glue' tactic has no place in honest discourse. And here we have ANOTHER example of 'I'm rubber, you're glue' false leveling. Either that, or you don't understand what hyperbolic means. It doesn't mean simply 'bigger', it means exaggerated - as in, nonliteral. What I was saying was literally true - the VAST majority of economists will tell you the same things I am. How assertively I say it isn't relevant to its truth or falseness, or its literalness. And no, it isn't as intellectually non-rigorous, because AGAIN, I don't simply rest my case on that abstract group of authorities - I explain WHY - in great detail, over many paragraphs, which you almost completely disregarded in your response. And what I say is more accurate, but yes. You're attmepting to turn a fact-based discussion into a semantic debate - a common tactic for someone when the facts on not on their side, but a very curious tactic for someone who claims to value intellectual honesty. I could write on essay on this paragraph. I'll break it down. First, the vast majority of economists had NOTHING to do with getting us into this financial mess. The two largest factors are the Bush tax cuts (60% of the deficit), and the recession caused by the deregulation of the financial markets. The economists were screaming bloody murder the whole way. See, for example, what the Government Accountability Office was saying in 06: thinkprogress.org/politics/2006/09/15/7503/bush-deficits/Then there's what you say next: First you say they're at fault, and then you say 'if they aren't'. You're literally speaking out of both sides of your mouth here - another EXTREMELY curious tactic for someone who purports to value intellectual honesty. Then, of course, there's the issue of your seeming ignorance of the role of economists, or the notion of advisors in general. Your claim that if economists are not responsible for our fiscal woes, that their profession is pointless, is comical. It's akin to the claim that if evolutionary biologists don't control evolution, that their field of study is pointless. The study of a field does not yeild magical control over the things studied. I'm somewhat amazed that I really have to explain that. Economists can lead the politician-horses to water, but they cannot make them drink. You complain about rhetoircal discussion, but I'm the one offering up all the non-rhetorical, concrete examples, while you play word games. This is not ideology vs ideology any more than Communism vs. free market was. Communism was an ideology based on the incorrect assumption that human nature - specifically self-interest - could be changed by societal forces. Free market advocates OPPOSED this ideology, but their opposition was based in REALITY, NOT IDEOLOGY - specifically the reality that human self-interest must be accounted for by market forces. Likewise, my opposition to the right's claims that lowering taxes and slashing regulations is a magic panacea is not based in ideology, but on the realities of the last 30 years. If, by contrast, I were advocating the position that raising taxes is always good, or that regulatoin is always benefiticial, THAT would be a competing ideology - a set of opposing views based on belief rather than facts. Not so good for the supply siders, if you insist on challenging only the authority, rather than the paragraphs worth of other points I set out above. And, once again, you're engaging in false leveling. I'll indulge you for a moment, however. Here, for example, we can compare open letters directly: www.freedomworks.org/publications/economists-send-open-letter-to-the-united-states-cEven the political machine of freedomworks was only able to scour up 40 economists in the entire country to advance this view. And here, they netted only 23 or so: blogs.wsj.com/economics/2010/11/15/open-letter-to-ben-bernanke/By contrast, even without an ideologically-driven political action commitee scraping up every single person they can find, the opposing Keynesian view yeilds between 20 to 40 times the economists: www.cepr.net/index.php/publications/reports/economists-letter-to-congress-in-support-of-a-new-economic-stimulus-package/In an age when a 60-40% victory in the polls is considered a landslide, 90-95% seems like a pretty VAST majority to me. Still, though, these are appeals to authority - logical fallacies. If you really valued intellectual honesty, you would focus on the multiple paragraphs I spent laying out WHY supply side economics is bogus, instead of the sentence I spent correcting your factual inaccuracy relating to weight of authority on the subject. Fantastic! Now tell me WHAT you're still unconvinced about, instead of expressing vague, inadressable doubts. Ah, yes, that old saw. You're now advancing the republican lie that the stimulus package 'failed' - that it didn't produce new jobs. The truth is it produced millions of jobs - between 1.4 and 3.3 million, according to the Congressional Budge Office. Here's a debunking by FactCheck: www.factcheck.org/2010/09/did-the-stimulus-create-jobs/The stimulus WAS woefully inadequate - far more needed to be spent - again, something economists were saying all along, including myself (earlier in this thread, even, if I recall correctly): www.upi.com/Top_News/2009/02/15/Experts-warn-stimulus-package-not-enough/UPI-49741234729108/My interest, as I said at the outset of this reply, is entirely in convincing you of the error of your opinions. I certainly don't think you're stupid - the republican party has managed to mislead an enormous segment of the electorate. Even brilliant people can make mistakes - Einstein believed in a static universe, for example. Some of your views are very clearly based on talking points rather than rigorous investigation, but not everyone has time to study politics. I'm sorry if having factual inaccuracies pointed out makes you feel stupid, but this is one of the reasons that ideology finds such broad-based appeal - it gives its adherents a nice, warm, fuzzy feeling of rightness - a comfort that cold, hard facts are often lacking. My use of Zod the pink gorilla was simply to point out the invalidity of your reasoning - it's called a reductio al absurdium - reduction to the absurd. I'm sorry if you were offended by it, but it's certainly not evidence of ulterior motive on my part, as you seem to think. Likewise, my labelling your paragraph a giant turd was metaphorically apt - it lacked any intellectually nuitritional substance. I'm sorry if you find scatalogical metaphors offensive - I'l avoid them in future discussions. Further, the notion that I'm writing this to make myself feel clever is absurd. No offense, but I think you're forgetting that I argue for a living, professionally. You would have to be doing a MUCH better job of it in order for me to feel at all clever for smacking your arguments down. Lastly, you resort to another traditional republican saw - edukashuns R teh bad. Setting aside the baseless ad hominem attack on my motives - yet ANOTHER intellectually dishonest tactic - you provide not a scrap of explanation or evidence linking my education to the motives you ascribe to me. This reflexive, unthinking, fact-free attack is precisely the sort of thing you see with ideologues - it's one of the tactics they've developed to disguise the fact that their claims are not based in fact. Stop and think about that for a minute - the notion that education is bad, that it somehow inspires 'bias'. It's been a necessary claim for the right to make, as the people who study FACTS and formulate and test theories based on those facts, consistently refute the claims they make. Since they cannot offer up convincing fact-based arguments in response, they resort to ad-hominem attacks, attributing their disagreement to some devious ulterior motive. Do you really believe that education makes you stupider, more suggestible, more prone to error? If so, can I safely assume that you treat yourself, rather than going to a doctor? I mean, all those years in medical school have doubtless warped the poor doctor's fragile little mind...right? I understand the appeal this attack has to those without advanced degrees - they want to participate in discussions, and want to feel informed and active in political discourse. The problem, of course, is that facts actually matter - there is a difference between feeling informed and being informed. The attack on education allows those with less of it to feel like their opinions are of equal validity - without having to invest all the time in actual education - who wouldn't love that? This, of course, is the same phenomenon we see when it comes to the media, and it's putative 'liberal bias' - a complete myth. The actual media, aside from the #1 network, Fox, which I will disregard since it has a very plain, and occasionally-admitted-to (despite their Orwellian 'Fair and Balanced' byline), pro-republican bias, has, if anything, a slightly conservative, corporatist bias. This is not a matter of he-said, she-said, rhetorical contest - it is measurable. Consider, for example, climategate - a couple years back, when emails from climate scientists indicated they had cooked some of the numbers (even though it appeared insignificant to the larger picture): www.factcheck.org/2009/12/climategate/This was spun by conservatives as conclusive proof of the falsehood of global warming. See, e.g., www.climategate.com/and blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100017393/climategate-the-final-nail-in-the-coffin-of-anthropogenic-global-warming/This was on all the networks, with Fox driving the news cycle, for weeks, despite complaints from the right about (justifiably) sparse coverage. Then, recently - week before last, I think? the results of a new study were published. It was funded by the Koch brothers (think Americans for Prosperity, Herman Cain, pro-segregation, etc. - they've provided millions to myriad conservative causes, and have EVERY incentive to oppose global warming, as they make their billions from fossil fuels), and done by global warming skeptics. Their conclusion? Anthropogenic Climate Change is real, and proceeding at nearly exactly the pace the other scientists are saying: www.theblaze.com/stories/koch-funded-study-changes-prominent-global-warming-skeptic-to-a-believer/ In legal circles, this kind of evidence is treated with special regard - admissions against interest are an example to the hearsay rule, because they are viewed as especially credible. So, how did this bombshell get covered by the 'liberal' media? I'm pretty sure the McRib's reintroduction got more airtime, as Jon Stewart observed: www.newser.com/story/131962/climategate-debunked-media-pounces-on-mcrib.htmlOn that note, he had a hilarious bit on 'liberal bias' at NPR earlier this week (note the second Fox guy's use of weasel words, 'known to be' ): www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/08/jon-stewart-npr-occupy-conservative_n_1081611.htmlLiberal media bias is as real as our giant pink friend Zod. The charge is nebulous and difficult to combat, but utterly lacking in substance. Do you REALLY think you'd be hearing about liberal media bias all the time if there actually was one? In closing, if you want to participate meaningfully in this thread, please lay off the weasel words, appeals to authority, and ad hominem attacks, and focus on facts to make your case. Funky
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Post by FunkySwerve on Nov 10, 2011 9:46:22 GMT
I will attempt to clarify: I was paying, now i am paying even more with less added value than the cost would indicate - we now have a new layer of federal administration which places a larger burden on the tax paying earners in our society. That depends on how you assess the value. Of course, most of the healthcare package isn't even in place, and the increased healthcare costs don't result from it, at present. Conservatives like to depict the government as a magical black box that takes money in and puts nothing out. Nothing could be further than the truth. Tax dollars get SPENT. Even when they are spent on an absurdly overpriced toilet, they are stimulative to the economy. Likewise, they are often spent in ways that are MORE, not less, efficient than the private sector could manage, because of the special role government has, and the powers that descend from that role. I can, for example, internalize the myriad externalities creating inefficiency in the market, via regulation. The notion that that additional layer of administration is all cost and no benefit is, frankly, absurd. I'm happy to elaborate on the absurdity in great detail, if necessary. It is certainly true there there is some waste in government, but the traditional characterization by the right of governmetn as 'part of the problem' is ahistorical and destructive. First of all, that's incorrect. The 'liberals'' approval rating in the exec was almost 70% at the start of that period, and dipped to about 50%. It was Congresses' approval that was around that level. Second, you say that like it's unusual. Low numbers were the norm during the last 4 years of Bush, and they only hit a new record low (8%!) after the already-cited record obstructionism by republicans. The dots are NOT that far apart, but I'll let you connect them. Here's a historical look at Gallup approval ratings: www.gallup.com/poll/107242/congress-approval-rating-ties-lowest-gallup-records.aspxActually, the changes were popular with a large majority of the population, and they didn't do much bulldozing. It sounds like you're echoing recent republican talking points saying that Obama 'got everything he wanted for two years', which is patently absurd: www.mediaite.com/tv/david-gregory-cites-%E2%80%98resonant%E2%80%99-mitch-mcconnell-obama-%E2%80%98got-everything-he-wanted-it-didn%E2%80%99t-work%E2%80%99/Obamacare, in its individual provisions, was getting about 70% approval as long as you didn't call it by the name republicans were using to tar it. It was a moderate plan filled with republican ideas, which had seen success in Mass. So moderate, and so popular in its details, in fact, that republicans had to resort to lying about 'death panels' in order to attack it. You're confusing cause and effect. It was the unprecedented republican obstructionism resulting from their desire to defeat a very popular, history-making president, which tanked congressional approval ratings. Polls indicate that the public wants to see the parties work together to create jobs, and the republicans refuse to do so. Unfortunately, the tendency is to assign blame equally, in an electorate that isn't paying close attention, but the elections last night were a pretty clear signal that that some, at least, have been paying attention. The 'liberals' are irked that he's been so middle-of-the-road republican in his policies. Public option says what? This is another republican lie. See my response to overdriver above debunking this claim, with cites to FactCheck. You're going to have to be a lot more specific than that - I have no idea what you're talking about. I'm guessing it involves Rupert Murdoch news outlets. [/quote] His job approval is less than 50%,[/quote] Funny that. It's actually been climbing rapidly since he's been talking about his jobs bill - yet another piece of legislation filled with republican ideas - it's at 47% right now. Did you know that Reagan, during his first term, hit 35%, in January 1983? Fun fact. I guess you're saying Obama at 47% is kicking ass? Especially since Reagan didn't have to deal with a propaganda media outlet blasting him for literally everything under the sun without regard for consistency or facts. I love how the party that renamed 'french fries' 'freedom fries' is, just a few short years later, willing to thank the French for their role in ousting Khaddafi before giving credit to Obama. In the only arena in which Republicans can't stymy him - foreign affairs - he's had the most exceptional presidency in nearly half a century, and it's killing them. That's an interesting estimation. Intrade puts him at 50.9% and climbing today, which seems pessimistic to me. Were you basing that on something other than speculation? The actions of republicans - specifically, their unwillingness to run against Obama, in what is a historically weak republican field - the worst since 1940, according to a Huntsman advocate - says all you need to know about the quality of the current president, despite what their words say. Ho boy. You just had to go there, didn't you? I'll start with the 'lib media'. See my refutation of the absurd liberal media myth in my reply to Over, above. I'll even toss out another example that occurs to me as I watch the news - it is, after all, a favorite conservative bugbear. Consider Herman Cain's contention that democratic operatives are responsible for the sexual harassment claims against him. Have you paused to consider the practicality of that claim? I can't think of ANYONE who wants Cain to be the nominee more than Obama. The guy is a clown. He quotes POKEMON as poetry, for (*^()*^^ sake: www.poetryfoundation.org/harriet/2011/11/poet-quoted-by-herman-cain-in-recent-debate-turns-out-to-be-pokemon/Democrats and teh ebil liberal medias are to blame (yes, he blamed both, along with everyone else but the kitchen sink, depending on the day)? SERIOUSLY? PLEASE GOD let Cain be the nominee. Romney may not be able to stake out a consistent position on what color his magic underwear are, but at least he isn't advancing a flat tax and electrocuting illegal immigrants. And now, let me address your false leveling of the democratic opposition to Bush and the republican opposition to Obama. They are of completely different character. Democrats did not deliberately tank the country's economy in order to win an election. Republican ideology has grown so extreme that they have abandoned the good of the country in favor of the good of their party. They ran promising jobs, and have done not a single thing in order to advance that goal. Instead, they've been waging the same old culture war, which voters rejected resoundingly yesterday. An inapt comparison. Sun Tzu never advocated working against his country. Did you have a particular passage of the Art of War in mind, here? The other famous author to pen a book of that title would be FAR more apt. I DID work for the DoJ, via the US Atty's office, under a staunch conservative, Dubyah. Not sure what larger point you're making here, though Clinton's re-election wasn't much of a surprise. The economy was good, and the republicans worked with him, despite all their bluster. Everyone got something. By contrast, today, the republicans have been playing it as a zero-sum game, and after years of holding out an olive branch and getting shafted, Obama is finally responding in kind. I've seen other reports indicating that doctors are being charged more malpractice, without a matching increase in claims. Really? Are you familiar with the institution of slavery? That stood for quite a long time, if you'll recall. I think you're severely overplaying the impact of a few people getting exemptions to the mandate. I also think Obamacare will prove to be as popular as Medicare or moreso, once people actually experience it, instead of trying to make sense of it through a miasma of republican disinformation. Who's not addressing it? Did you miss the bit about 7 trillion? [qutoe] The sooner we get ourselves out of there the better.[/quote] Totally agree. No, he quite literally meant that deficits don't matter. His line was that 'Regan proved it' - that Reagan didn't pay a political price for the record deficits created by his supply-side policy. You're right, that would be ludicrous. If we were to pump the same amount in, would would expect to see the same effect, not a greater one. Of course, your implication that the last trillion did nothing is equally ludicrous - again, I'll point you to my debunking in my last reply to Over. The problem is not uncertainty. Businessness aren't uncertain about demand - they KNOW it's low. It is for this reason that they are sitting on records amounts of wealth, which is of course why cutting taxes and regulations as all the republican presidential candidates are advocating will do exactly nothing. Don't take my word for it, though, ask the companies what the problem is. Take a recent example, Whirlpool, who just cut 5000 jobs, citing weak demand: www.freep.com/article/20111029/BUSINESS06/110290330/Whirlpool-cut-5-000-jobs-amid-weak-demand Nope, we agree there. However, the opposite is currently happening, via the mortgage crisis. We agree on all of that, save for one thing. If you want to talk about ways Bush was not responsible for the crash, I would NOT bring up the Ownership Society. Preach it, brother! I'm going to skip over the remaning sections I agree with in order to focus on those I don't. I don't really see the relevance to any of those things to the inbalance in sophistication and bargaining power between industry and employee. The recognition of that imbalance is still critical in our understanding of contract law, as well. In fact, employers have more leverage than ever in recent history, with employment being as high as it is and jobs heading overseas. None of those bears on employer vs employee power imbalance, either. Employees often wind up as price takers...just as in Smith's day. Even highly sophisticated eployees, like first year lawyers, have prices dictated to them by industry norms. Many industries have consolidated, increasing market share and decreasing employee options, and further magnifying the differing in sophistication between the parties. Middle class employees are being pressed to surrender more and more benefits in order to preserve corporate profits during the recession. And politicians are clamoring for cuts in regulations, with those designed to protect labor being natural targets in the race the the bottom they're rooting for. Most of the changes I can think of seem to indicate unions to be more essential than ever, not less. This is akin to saying, 'shouldn't we all be free to swing our fists as we please?', or, 'why shouldn't I be able to own any gun I like?' The anser is simple enough - to preserve some rights and freedoms we must necessarily sacrifice others - this is what it means for an individual to exist in a society with other individuals. In this case, employees sacrifice some measure of freedom in order to overcome collective action costs that might otherwise result in market failures - preventing artifically low labor rates. This is completely incorrect. It isn't uncertainty, it's lack of demand. Raising taxes to balance the budget and fund infrastructure projects would make a massive difference. I'm happy to elaborate on this point at length, if you like, but I'm getting sleepy, so I'm going to pass for now. At any rate, thanks for the compliments about the way I run HG - it's very reflective of my political education and views, which include a deep-seated regard for individual freedoms. It is also, however, ALSO a highly-regulated environment... government in its proper role...just food for thought. Funky
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Post by FunkySwerve on Nov 10, 2011 9:56:14 GMT
No, it isn't ludicrous, nor dangerous. A recession is the SINGLE BEST time for the government to spend money. One cannot draw an analogy between borrowing by an individual and borrowing by a government. They are fundamentally different acts. Individuals do not hold the obligation of currency - i.e. they do not print money. That mistake, along with the deceptive desire to cling to % of GDP as a measuring stick account for a huge amount of recent misinformation and misunderstanding. We agree on that point. As we discussed on IMs, this confuses the role of government as political actor and government as market actor. The government as market actor is handled by the executive in most cases, and no checks and balances come into play. You rightly pointed out that political wrangling can enter into the equation, to screw things up - the rediculous requirement Congress forcing onto the postal service being an excellent example - but ANY industry, public or private in character, is subject to that kind of interference, for better or worse. Funky
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Post by FunkySwerve on Nov 10, 2011 10:09:52 GMT
The fact that you think the republican party dove off the right end of the cliff and moved the goalposts says a lot. It sets a frame of reference. If I see the republican party as being fairly "liberal" or having started (prior to the abrupt dive) to the left of center then to me the Republicans have simply moved back to the center. A far left perspective would see that move back to the center as a dive off the right end of the cliff- and that is precisely what you said. No, what I think doesn't do the speaking, the facts do. You can sit around comparing our various opinions to each other, weighing and measuring them against the malleable metric of other opinions, but it is THE FACTS that set the frame of reference - something which you seem assiduously focused on avoiding discussion of. You mean the far right that just tried to to make the use of the pill manslaughter in mississippi? Or the far right that engages in global warming denial? Again, comparing opinions without reference to fact gets you nowhere, and is a sort of curious preocupation for someone who claims to detest semantic arguments. Try this as an exercise. Compare today's republican party to Nixon's platform, and then tell me they haven't moved radically to the right. Oh, I do take a side. Your mistake is the flawed assumption that the opposition to ideology must be ideology. I addressed that in my last response to you, though, by comparing communists to market advocates. I'll let you read and respond to that before I harp on it any more here. That's vague enough to be meaningless. Please be much more specific, and make claims that can be compared to facts and thereby be realistically assessed. Where did I advocate for that? I advocate for government in its proper role. This in no way necessitates magical means of self-advancement for our political overlords. Again, actual, concrete examples would serve you - and the discussion - better. No, because they're not based in reality - they lack basis in fact. What exactly am I supposed to be noting here? As with the rest of this post, I'm left with the distinct impression that you're trying to bludgeon me to death with ambiguity. Funky
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Post by AW O'Reilly on Nov 10, 2011 13:51:56 GMT
Well it's clear that we will agree on very little. I remember being frustrated by Pelosi and the gang during the Bush years - once the post 9/11 political capital was spent. I guess that's the natural response to obstruction. Consider this: If you thought that the country was headed for rocky shoals, would you not advocate the defeat of the misguided leadership so that the course could be righted. Representatives are responsible for advocating for their constituents - even if you deem in obstructive. Perhaps you misconstrued my tone - I said that it was the same ... south of 15%. Not unusual as it has been ~20% or less since the economy started south. Sometimes I feel like we are arguing just for the sake of it. Might as well say "pie in the sky" has 70% approval. The ugly reality is what is driving down its popularity. Would you like me to quote Bill Ayers as an authority on Democratic views? Death Panels? Honestly, views of extremist don't interest me - not from either extreme. To suggest that the health care plan was Romney's totally disregards that the state legislature was so overwhelmingly Dem that it could barely be called bipartisan. As far as the plans "moderation," growing government is a burdensome slippery slope - it produces inn efficiently and provides debt as an added "feature." As far as cronyism, the union health care sweetheart deal is the tip of the iceberg - the crooked crap going on is so obvious that i really didn't think it needed further examples: "Nearly 80 percent of the people who raised more than $500,000 for the Obama campaign wound up in “key administration posts,” according to an investigation by iWatch News, a website devoted to investigative journalism launched two months ago by the Center for Public Integrity. [Politico]." To claim that conservatives are trying to drag the country down to further their ideology is ridiculous. As much as I abhor liberal viewpoints I wouldn't suggest that about them. This is the kind of thinking that cued my Sun Tzu comment - totally appropriate. "Hence the saying: If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle." -Sun Tzu as translated by Lionel Giles Your enemy need not be your mortal enemy for this to apply, a faction in opposition is fine - the concepts translate very well to politics. Can you really, with a straight face, suggest that the mainstream media doesn't have a liberal bias? Most moderates I know are convinced and most liberals I debate with over a beer or two concede the point. Hell, even Andy Rooney recognized Media Liberalism. If the mainstream media outlets were so "balanced" they would have a Majority of the viewers. They don't. They aren't. It's so amusing and at the same time a tad disgusting how liberals seem to think the vast majority of the electorate are just a bunch of ignorant hicks. Look at how they mis-characterize the Tea Party activists, yet give the 99% folks a complete pass though the former is completely law abiding and the latter has a active lawless / anarchist component. The mindset seems to be, "If you dint agree with us, you must be a mindless minion of the right, spewing talking points." Patronizing and oddly ignorant coming from folks who claim to be educated. If we assume a normal distribution lets use a bell curve as an example www.dennis-greenwood.co.uk/restoration/glossary.html You and I are probably on the high side of the bell near the middle (shoulder). Each of us has a perspective based on our "normal". Mine has some right bias(my earlier comment about Clinton's reelection -my awakening to where i fall out), yet most on the right would see me the way they seem to see Huntsman. I think you would probably be on the opposite shoulder moderate left. The nut-jobs and extremists are the fringe operators and can be found on the lip of the bell. I have no idea where a pragmatist falls - think they are like the tooth fairy. I will be the first to declare that many of the folks on Fox News are Right (not the correct kind). Hannity makes my hair stand on end, can't stand him. Not a rush fan either. As far as your asertion that the mainstream media is right on top at the Argent of the bell, here is how the mainstream media see themselves, in their own words: www.mrc.org/biasbasics/biasbasics2admissions.aspNot sure what your Cain comment has to do with what i was talking about. Perhaps it was in support of your assessment of the current REP candidates - no argument here, only one that I was mildly interested in was Huntsman. I'm convinced that he (Cain) is getting the Axe from the right. He's weak on foreign policy, not electable. Frankly, I'm not all excited by any of the candidates. Marco Rubio (R-FL) would be my choice, but hell, he's younger than I am, and not running. I guess we haven't the basis to discuss this, since we don't share the same perception of reality. Have you heard Nancy Pelosi speak? I'm not sure how to make my perspective clearer. I do not agree with the concept of either taxing or increasing debt to pump cash into the economy. It didn't work when Bush did it, It hasn't worked under Obama. The definition of insanity is to do something over and over again, each time expecting a different result. It couldn't be clearer. The unemployment rate remains steady an just shy of 10%. Ineffective. Totally. When Obama and the dem majority were just jamming legislation through in the first two years? Come on! If there was a branch involved, it was being applied by the Dems (no pun intended) and without the benefit of lubrication - likely from a locust tree or a rose bush. As far as the French go, they are the major importer of Libyan oil and were acting in their self-interest - noble? Slavery? Really? I'm not going to go over industrialization in the north and the agrarian south. I'm sure we can come up with a better comparison - perhaps social security - a vastly popular and successful, if folks were still living 70 years max. 14% of the workforce is unionized. That's not "a few people" and that's part of Obamas base which fits the definition of "appearance of impropriety". If you can't see that many Americans will have heartburn over unfair application of the law, time will tell. "Miasma of republican disinformation", he he, really. Here we go again, Facts are Facts. Characterizing Facts as "misinformation" IS misinformation. Interesting comparison, violence and ownership of instruments of violence to seeking employment. sigh. There is no right or freedom guaranteed in the constitution protected by involuntary membership to a union. Arguably, mandatory membership is an impingement on Liberty. Since you brought it up, I agree with the constraint on the right to bear arms in environments where that right would necessarily jeopardize the rights of others - in other words, if you are on your 1500 acre ranch in MT with your Barret Arms .50cal rifle, using it lawfully, have at it. If you are in downtown phoenix toting a .38cal revolver - why? Snake protection? Buy some CS spray. Personally, I have had my fill of weapons and violence. Once there is a constitutional amendment that requires union membership for employment, I will concede - it will be a cold day in hell. Sacrifice is usually voluntary, unless you are into picking volunteers too - a mis-characterization of the relationship. Artificially low labor rates? What? In a free market Labor rates are where the wages and benefits workers are willing to work for meet the demand for labor. Unions create artificially high labor rates through limited extortion. "Don't cross our line, scab!" "If you want to work here you got to pony up to the local." I'm not pulling this stuff from Hollywood, my dad dealt with this crap in NY in the 60s and 70s. We moved, dad was never happier than when he went to work for Nissan in TN, well paid, nice 401k, worked for a company that was and is successful and union free. Completely incorrect, huh? I will buy incomplete, but not incorrect. Look, this isn't rocket science, its basic human nature. We are naturally greedy and risk adverse. On the supply side, reduced uncertainty would WOULD stimulate investment, be it in production or R&D (innovation). You might be surprised that I am for suspending the tax cuts that were recently extended. As it is now, they are hovering over the head of industry - better to treat them like a well adhered band aid ... "riiiipppp" On the demand side, reducing fuel costs would have a far reaching impact on disposable income for most consumers. Driving fuel prices up as is the current administrations energy plan for economic recovery places burden on the consumer at every turn, transportation, shelter, food, clothing - any and everything consumed costs more. If you live in a metropolitan area, perhaps the impact is not great. If on the other hand, you commute 60 miles each way to work and are living in middle America on a wage that wouldn't get you a studio apt in NYC for your family of five, it has a significant impact. It is going to take some time for the housing glut to clear. Home construction is another great demand driver - uncertainty impacts this endeavor as well - whether it be uncertainty about future demand or a buyers uncertainty about future ability to deduct interest, or even future employment. As far as your suggestion that taking money from industry and growing government will get us out of this mess... history doesn't have an example to support this, It didn't work for FDR - took WWII to fix us. In the short term, we would be wise to increase energy availability and simultaneously fund R&D on alternative fuel sources. The current energy plan is necessarily negatively impacting economic recovery. I agree that infrastructure spending would be very appropriate. There are a lot of examples of how businesses in times of economic contraction, invest heavily in innovation and infrastructure to great eventual benefit (CISCO in the early 90s). Frankly I don't trust the current administration to apply this spending fairly or accurately. I caught a Huntsman comment somewhere in your post. He is the most palatable of the ugly ducklings currently presented. Unfortunately, he is too direct and honest about his moderate views to ever attract the far right bible belt folks. Too bad really. If Obama is re-elected, conservatives will have no one to blame but themselves. I guess they could get a poser to come off as a moderate and then come full on Right wing anti abortion nut... too bad there aren't many conservatives in Chicago. "There was a time when in the course of gaining an education, students learned how to think. I fear that too many are learning what to think instead." paraphrased. -Dr. Stewart, My undergrad Phys Chem Prof. I will give you the last word - its obvious that we won't agree on much, so I'm going back to gaming, he he
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Post by shardelay on Nov 10, 2011 17:39:56 GMT
First, the vast majority of economists had NOTHING to do with getting us into this financial mess. The two largest factors are the Bush tax cuts (60% of the deficit), and the recession caused by the deregulation of the financial markets. The economists were screaming bloody murder the whole way. See, for example, what the Government Accountability Office was saying in 06: thinkprogress.org/politics/2006/09/15/7503/bush-deficits/The biggest driver of the financial mess was compensation structure on wall street. It was not the SIZE of the compensation that was bad (there is nothing wrong with a huge bonus for a huge impact), but it was the METHOD of determining compensation. It's tricky to explain w/out a bit of an understanding in how trading works at a firm, but the long and the short is this - People were compensated for unrealized profits. This means, essentially, that people were paid for money they hadn't yet made but rather said they would. A trade would be made and that trade would persist for say 15-30 years on the books of the bank. On day 1 of the trade the banks declared that the product was worth 1 dollar (nothing wrong with this, you have to attempt to price things as step number 1), and if it was sold for 2 dollars. The trader claimed 1 dollar of profit and got his cut of that dollar (and there's nothing wrong with that either - if there was realyl 1 dollar of profit). The problem with this was that that 30 year product was risk on the books for 30 years and that 1 dollar valuation was an estimate. What SHOULD happen is that the 1$ pnl should be risk adjusted and haircut. Essentially, that bonus should be paid to the individual over 30 years as the actual PnL associated with that trade becomes known for a fact, and it should be adjusted down for more risky trades. Unfortunately, the incentives were skewed all the way to the top in the banks. Don't be fooled, noone thought the trades were good - everyone knew they were risky, but noone cared, becasue they were good for the traders, and their bosses, and their bosses bosses, all the way up. Massive unspoken collusion. Trust me on this. I am right in the middle of it every single day. This was the underlying cause. Deregulation was a lubricant, but foolish compensation practices were the cause. I'm also not convinced that tax cuts caused this at all - though I'm not advocating for them. I think its a tightly coupled issue, but not causal. The US budget and the financial crisis are not the same issue (though once again they are tightly coupled) I'll take this one step further. Increased gvt spending (as in paying folks to do stuff) is the ONLY way the governemt can create jobs. Period. They can encourage jobs with tax breaks, they can beg for jobs, they can pray for jobs, they can promise jobs, but they can ONLY create jobs by increasing public sector spending. I find the constant rallying cry of creating jobs to be odd from politicians. It's really as simple as hiring someone to do somethign and printing or borrowing money to pay them. End of chat. Check out the public sector job stats each month versus the private sector job stats. Whos hands are the people who will spend it? I'd imagine it is folks who are unemployed right now - i.e. why I would print or borrow money to hire people who don't have jobs to build bridges (or whatever metaphorical bridges need building). To claim that conservatives are trying to drag the country down to further their ideology is ridiculous. As much as I abhor liberal viewpoints I wouldn't suggest that about them. This is the kind of thinking that cued my Sun Tzu comment - totally appropriate. Actually, it's not ridiculous. It's observed. The debt ceiling debate was the republicans holding a gun to the head of the country and making demands. The rejection of a raise on the debt ceiling was so absurd that it was nearly criminal. I think there is some argument to be made that those who voted against it were acting contrary to their oaths of office. It really was that clear cut. If you believe that the debt ceilign was absolutely necessary to raise then the republican threats were exactly what funky was talkign about. If you don't believe it was necessary then we can talk about that. I'm happy to go into this one more if you find that controversial. I'm not sure how to make my perspective clearer. I do not agree with the concept of either taxing or increasing debt to pump cash into the economy. It didn't work when Bush did it, It hasn't worked under Obama. . . . On the demand side, reducing fuel costs would have a far reaching impact on disposable income for most consumers. Driving fuel prices up as is the current administrations energy plan for economic recovery places burden on the consumer at every turn, transportation, shelter, food, clothing - any and everything consumed costs more. . . . As far as your suggestion that taking money from industry and growing government will get us out of this mess... history doesn't have an example to support this, It didn't work for FDR - took WWII to fix us. In the short term, we would be wise to increase energy availability and simultaneously fund R&D on alternative fuel sources. Where will you get the money necessary to subsidize fuel costs? Where would you get the money to fund R&D on alt sources. You'd have to either tax or increase debt. I'd also note that I think funding alternate fuel sources research is a HUGE benefit - I am in favor of it. However, I'd point out that there is a necessary inconsistency between subsidizing fuel costs and funding R&D on alternate energy. If you subsidize fuel costs you prop up the sustainability of the energy industry... i.e. you de-incentivize research by energy companies with the resources to make progress. I would remove subsidies on fuel to encourage mass transit and alternate forms of commuting and energy. Though, like everythign else, TIMING IS EVERYTHING. I certainly would not do it today when the economy is faltering. TIMING is one of my pet peves with reb/dem arguments and why I hate the "flip flop" accusations. The correct action TODAY is not necessarily the correct action TOMORROW and ideological stances get in the way of that. Finally, WWII fixed us... How? I assume you are talkign about the huge production boost as the country went into full war production mode creating planes, ammo, etc... I'll ask you a simple question about this one. Who paid for that production and how did that entity pay for it? Hint: It has to do with debt and taxation. ...living in middle America on a wage that wouldn't get you a studio apt in NYC for your family of five, it has a significant impact This is a false comparison that I constantly hear. I grew up in dairy farming county in central wisconsin on 140 acres of forest, 60 miles from a movie theater, 5 miles out of town on dirt roads. The county had the highest welfare % in the state. 30k people in a county slightly smaller than rhode island. 2680 people living in the county seat where I sent to school. I now live in lower Manhatten in a rented apartment. These comparisons are deceptive. You cant compare a middle america wage to a nyc wage. Or a NYC apartment cost to a middle america wage. You have to compare a middle america wage to a middle america cost. Anythign else is deceptive. Dollars earned in NYC are effectively different dollars than those earned in Neillsville, WI (btw, google "Chatty Belle" and you'll find out where I grew up). Sacrifice is usually voluntary I'm not sure I buy that. When applied to the sacrifice of a liberty for the greater good of a nation, it should be the case on average, but in the individual case it's certainly not true. Hopping back to the slavery examples (which I admit feel nearly Godwin in nature) - slave owners had to sacrifice when they lost their right to own slaves, but they certainly didn't do it voluntarily. Sacrifice is frequently not voluntary. Thats why we have so many check's and balances when we apply reduction of liberty and freedom. Artificially low labor rates? What? In a free market Labor rates are where the wages and benefits workers are willing to work for meet the demand for labor. Unions create artificially high labor rates through limited extortion. "Don't cross our line, scab!" "If you want to work here you got to pony up to the local. Clearly it's a pendulum - there needs to be a balance between labor and industry. It can and does swing too far in both directions. Balance. Completely incorrect, huh? I will buy incomplete, but not incorrect. Look, this isn't rocket science, its basic human nature. We are naturally greedy and risk adverse. On the supply side, reduced uncertainty would WOULD stimulate investment, be it in production or R&D (innovation). You are forgetting another lever. Return. Risk and Return move in step with each other. Uncertainty is risk, and risk is FINE if the return is sufficient. If you can reduce the uncertainty and keep the return fixed - sweet! But simply talking about changing uncertaintly is not sufficient.
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