In reply to this comment by ghark:
>> ^bobknight33:

dystopianfuturetoday does not know what he is talking about.


Um...
In terms of his comments on Reagan:
"During his first term in office, President Reagan cut the real budget of the Department of Education by 18.6 percent"
http://www.aei.org/papers/economics/fiscal-policy/pr
esident-reagan-champion-budget-cutter/

And as for Ron Paul:
"The Paul plan would also lower the corporate tax rate to 15% from 35%"
Ron Paul also wants to ABOLISH personal income tax and extend all Bush tax cuts.
http://runr
onpaul.com/campaign-trail/ron-paul%E2%80%99s-economic-plan-cut-5-cabinet-agencies-cut-taxes-cut-president%E2%80%99s-pay/

So dystopianfuturetoday's comments seem to be accurate, yours seem to be opinion which you haven't even bothered backing up.

>> ^bobknight33:

dystopianfuturetoday does not know what he is talking about.


Um...
In terms of his comments on Reagan:
"During his first term in office, President Reagan cut the real budget of the Department of Education by 18.6 percent"
http://www.aei.org/papers/economics/fiscal-policy/president-reagan-champion-budget-cutter/

And as for Ron Paul:
"The Paul plan would also lower the corporate tax rate to 15% from 35%"
Ron Paul also wants to ABOLISH personal income tax and extend all Bush tax cuts.
http://runronpaul.com/campaign-trail/ron-paul%E2%80%99s-economic-plan-cut-5-cabinet-agencies-cut-taxes-cut-president%E2%80%99s-pay/

So dystopianfuturetoday's comments seem to be accurate, yours seem to be opinion which you haven't even bothered backing up.

9/11 Motivated Excessive Fiscal Spending

The wars are a tiny portion of the debt.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/05/02/osama-bin-laden-dead-war-on-terror-costs_n_856390.html

"If Congress also approves the president’s FY2012 war-funding request, the cumulative cost of post-9/11 operations would reach $1.415 trillion"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_public_debt

"As of October 22, 2011, the gross debt was $14.94 trillion."

This is not even addressing the point that the Iraq war had nothing to do with 9/11. You're going to have to explain your lack of conservative bona fides when Bush was in power another way.

Banks should have been allowed to fail

Not bailing out the banks would have trashed the economy. When banks fail, financing dries up, businesses can't meet their short term cash flow requirements and they default. The economy collapses. The end. It doesn't matter how you're ideologically attuned to government assistance in times of crisis, that this would have happened is simply a fact.

Better yet follow it through further. When banks collapse, without federal deposit insurance, individuals lose their personal savings. How far would you follow through your rigid and impractical ideological principles? Would you say free markets dictate they lose their savings for the bad judgement of those in the financial services industry.

Keynesian Fiscal Policy Works

Every other major economy is doing it. Take a look at how much China spent and how it's barely sputtered in growth. Every economist worth a damn is saying the US is not spending enough to prop up the economy. That whatever you're reading is drawing a comparison FDR rather than you know, something in the last 50 years should tell you they're full of the BS.

If you go back and read forecasts for unemployment before Obama was inaugurated, none of them expected to fall significantly or quickly in a short period of it. The prolonged European debt crisis has exacerbated that. Unemployment falling marginally is not evidence that stimulus spending does not work.

Look, what is it about fiscal spending that you don't understand? Economic uncertainty in Europe. Businesses don't know what demand will be like, so they sit on their money instead of investing or hiring more workers. Countries face that risk that as they wait, short term unemployed become long term unemployed because they've been out of the workforce and skills atrophy. So they spend in the short term to keep people employed or incentive through deductions for companies to hire. Tax cuts improve returns marginally. Spending to keep people employed reduces the cost of social services in the long-long term from people being shunned out of the workforce. You spend but you make your money back over time.

It's simple. And it makes perfect logical sense.

How is it that hard to understand?

The rest

I'll be honest, your writing manner makes you look stupid when you're trying to make factual arguments. Have you seen a newspaper article or dissertation written like this? No. Exactly.

FYI, I live in Australia. We have free hospital visits, virtually no government debt, almost record low unemployment and we never went into a recession. Funnily enough Keynesian fiscal policy works over here, must be an anomaly though.

>> ^quantumushroom:

The question that can't be answered is whether Bush would've spent like the amateur liberal he is without 9-11. There was plenty of criticism leveled at Bush by the right during his tenure. The left was so focused on ensuring America lost in Iraq it didn't have time to thank Bush for rubber stamping all of their usual failed social "programs".
The failouts and scamulus sealed Bush 43's legacy as a failure. Everyone should've been "allowed" to fail.
Now enter His Earness. Questionable background, no experience, gets shunted through by obeisant media fawns. Tries the same Keynesian BS that FDR did with predictable results. As FDR's antics prolonged the Depression by a decade, so His Earness has spent and spent with nothing to show for it but enormous new debt (and no WW2 to save his bacon). Now this regime's media says with a straight face that the scamuli "prevented even worse unemployment". Hippie PLEASE.
We've now had six years of Taxocrats running Congress...what's better now than before?
You are going to have to defend the indefensible next year. Be sure to vote November 3rd.




>> ^RedSky:
@quantumushroom
QM, my problem with your point of view is throughout Bush's term, you didn't appear to have any issues with his profligacy as he (and the Republican congress at the time) pushed through bill after a bill that took the country massively into debt. Now your concerns are presumably that in the worst economic crisis in 60 years, the Democrat government is spending too much to prop up the economy and prevent the skills of the short term unemployment stagnating and turning into the long term unemployed dependent on social benefits.
Where are your standards here?
Or your consistency?

http://videosift.com/video/Herman-Cains-9-9-9-plan-Occupy-Wall-Street

@~1:15 "If you take a look at a wealthy person, ALL of the money that is earned... is ultimately going to be spent."

This trickles down how? Be either spending/investing in consumer goods or publicly traded ventures/securities? That's such a weak correlation and yet he makes it sound like it's a foregone conclusion. What about overseas tax shelters and foreign investments? What about the knee-jerk reaction of Wall Street investors to see stock and hold onto cash when the market dips? He does not provide a complete explanation.

. . .


@~2:30 "That money is used to grow the economy, to produce goods, to provide services, to create jobs... they're not using it to benefit themselves, they're using it to benefit society."

Sarcasm -> So when rich people buy things, they aren't doing enjoying it. That's why we say "money can't buy happiness." When they buy that 12th sports car, they're taking on that hardship for their country. Weep. <- end sarcasm. The rest of us need to buy stuff too, and as wages for the middle and lower income majority stagnate or worse, the top tier has enjoyed a boom.
. . .

@~4:10 "Any money that is diverted from savings [read as equities and bond investments in the domestic market] to government is money that would have been used to produce private sector jobs and grow the economy and instead the money goes to the government."

He states that liberals miss the bigger picture when they argue that the top should pay more taxes. He goes on here to describe the government is a black hole, where all taxes are simply wasted. What about social security, medicare and the damn debt? Honestly, it astounds me that he doesn't make the connection between the generally accepted idea that the debt needs to be paid but instead of taxing from more from the most successful individuals, he seems to side with the Republican fiscal policy of accomplishing this through budget cuts alone. This is a contributing factor to global perception America's quality of life: it doesn't even make the top 10 anymore in the Nation Ranking Quality of Life Index.

. . .

@~10:30 "The protesters [OWS] should be protesting the White House. Capital Hill... That's what's failed them. It's not Captialism, but the lack of Capitalism."

So the government is too big, and we need to cut spending and stop over regulating so Capitalism can frolic freely in the forest. Sounds so me like hasty Obama blaming. I think the mortgage-backed securities practices and resulting global crisis are a perfect example of unfettered Capitalism at work. Republicans can't have it both ways, no matter how matter-of-fact you say it. This fallacy is a major sticking point for me and a major contributor to my personal ideological opposition to the Republican viewpoint. All allegations of racism aside, ignoring the shocking gun toting and violent rhetoric of hard-line Tea Party demonstrators, saving all the ridiculous comments made by the GOP candidates recently, I just see the party trying to hide their allegiance to corporations. They do this by forming ludicrous allusions to "the State-run death camps" and distracting people from the real issue of wealth disparity by talking about inflammatory topics like "Don't Ask Don't Tell."

I don't even blindly follow the Democratic dogma. They can't come out of this squeaky clean either. I'd wager they're just about as pampered and subsequently influenced by lobbyists as their Republican counterparts, although they seem to maintain their "just and true, pro-underdog" image to a large extent. I hope OWS results in the end of this corporate crony-ism.

@bmacs27 I've been wanting to come back and reply for a couple days now, but didn't have the time. Now I hesitate to messing with the good conversation that followed, so I'll just touch on the points I'm interested in from the whole conversation. If I skip something you really wanted me to answer, let me know!

For one, I do tend to have an odd mix of pro-market and anti-market beliefs. On unemployment, my answer is that in an ideal world, I would want people entitled to some sort of minimum guaranteed income, no matter whether what they do. I like unemployment insurance because it's kinda like that, only with pragmatic real-world strings attached (it's limited in duration, and you've gotta be looking for work and not finding anything, and it stops when you get a new job...).

heropsycho already gave the more economics-minded answer I would've given about unemployment benefits helping prop up demand, and keep the economy from shedding even more jobs. I'd go along with your "you get unemployment, but we're going to make it contingent on you attending free job retraining", but I'd also go along with a WPA-style "we won't pay you unemployment, we'll just directly hire you" sort of arrangement, especially in a jobs market full of laid off construction workers.

heropsycho also gave the succinct answer I was going to give about hoarding labor -- worker salaries and benefits are always on the "cost" side of the company's ledger, and people often get fired long before they become an outright loss to the business. Usually it's because you've become less profitable than what they think they could make by replacing you with someone else (or by just by making other workers work more hours).

And no, I'm not a protectionist who wants to see unions and/or government forcing companies to employ people who're losing them money, I'm in favor of having a social safety net so there's no moral issue with companies laying people off (that's why I like the idea of a minimum guaranteed income).

On the topic of whose economic theories we've followed post-Volcker, for the most part, it's been Monetarist-style monetary policy, coupled with ideological right-wing fiscal policy. Namely, a targeted package of policies aimed at redistributing wealth from the poor and middle classes to the rich. That still leaves things a bit blurry, because the only economic justifications for debt-fueled tax cuts are Keynesian, and modern (New) Keynesians have largely adopted monetarist notions of monetary policy.

But the big disagreement between modern Monetarists and modern Keynesians is about fiscal policy -- Monetarists say it can't work, Keynesians say it can. Part of what confuses people a bit, is that Republicans adopt whatever economic theory justifies what they started out wanting to do. Keynes is right when they want to borrow money to cut taxes, Monetarists are right when Obama wants to pass a stimulus program, and Austrians are right when the Fed tries to help the economy by printing money when a Democrat is in the White House.

So far, the 112th congress--which is GOP/Tea Party--is the least productive congress in history

Pht - not to put too fine a point on it - but the LESS PRODUCTIVE government is, the better off the American people are. Clinton got saddled with a GOP congress in 1992 that put the brakes on his agenda. And America BENEFITED. President Reagan and Bush1 had Democrat congresses to put the brakes on them. And America BENEFITED.

Who are the two worst presidents in American history. Bush2 and Barak Obama. Why? Because under both of them government spending has skyrocketed, fiscal policy has deteriorated, and government has increased in size, scope, lack of transparency, and lack of accountability. And what is the common thread to both of these presidents? The Congress was the SAME PARTY as the President, and thier administrations were "highly productive" (in the sense that they passed a ton of legislation).

So you guys should be praising the Tea Party for slamming the brakes on a lousy government, because when thin-skinned, tin-plated self-deluded dictator-wannabes like Obama take office we NEED a 'do nothing' Congress shutting them down. Problem with Obama is he is such a crazy dictator that he just keeps doing what he wants with czars and cabinets. In a sane world, every American would demand he be thrown out of office, pilloried in town square, and then run out of town on a rail to be dumped in Cuba, or Venezuala, Iran, or some other communist dictatorship where he could feel more at home.

These ***holes won't even debate an unbelievably important ... jobs bill,"

Good, because it isn't important. It's a disaster. And you are allowed to whine about the GOP 'not debating it' only after it makes it out of the SENATE, which is controlled by the Democrats. The fact that even the Democrats can't stand this loser piece of crap should tell you a lot about how awful it is.

I think Obama's message of unity and equality (gay rights/DADT) was the message of his election campaign. Fiscal policy didn't really make the news until the Wall Street collapse, as Bush's wars and tax cuts heaped layers of fat onto the tub of lard that is the federal debt. I don't think he's gone any further left.

At the same time, I don't think he's gone to the right. As the prospect of unifying the house became more and more unlikely, with Dem's giving up almost every concession the Rep's wanted in the debt bill it's easy to conclude that he's shifted to the right. I don't think it's a matter of him selling out to the Rep's. I think it's the crappy hand he was dealt and forced to play with, while keeping his face fearless and confident for his people.

I think it's a symptom of a broken system, and this is what the OWS movement is all about.

>> ^xxovercastxx:

>> ^volumptuous:
Obama's gone further to the left? HAHAHAHAHAH. Who is he, Newt Gingrich?

Yeah, that's a confusing statement. Obama is practically a Republican at this point.

"A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the majority discovers it can vote itself largess out of the public treasury. After that, the majority always votes for the candidate promising the most benefits with the result the democracy collapses because of the loose fiscal policy ensuing, always to be followed by a dictatorship"

This is the inevitable future. The federal government is not going to self-correct. It will simply keep coming up with scam after scheme for as long as it is abetted by voters who refuse to hold the politicians responsible for thier decisions. The problem is not Wall Street. It is a corrupt political system which panders to a variety of corrupt audiences. Really, the OWS guys should be joining the Tea Party if they really want to accomplish something positive. Sadly, the OWS crowd has been coopted by so many fringe kook groups that it is no more than a clown car at this point.

Just so people aren't confused, Fiscal policy ≠ Monetary policy.

Fiscal policy = Congress = taxation, spending, and regulation.
Monetary policy = Federal Reserve = interest rates and credit availability.

This is stupid. The point of the Fed's actions is to try to spark inflation, because inflation helps people deleverage.

Since debts are measured in fixed numbers of dollars, devaluing the dollar makes the real value of your debts shrink.

It's not as effective as the government using fiscal policy to put people back to work, but it's certainly not causing the recession by trying to get more money into the economy.

If you read the full post, it's pretty obvious that it's not written by an economist, but some right-wing political hack.

The US's debt is only about 80% of GDP, I say only because Japan's is 200%. The fact of the matter is, even if the US does nothing, being the reserve currency and the most widely used currency for transactions means that yields on bonds are unlikely to spike so much as gradually creep up if nothing is done. It is going to cause an apocalypse tomorrow or even in 2 years time, but it will continue to hurt the economy more and more until something is done about it.

What's needed is a commitment now to moderate reduction in discrentionary/compulsory spending and moderate increases in taxes that will kick in 3 maybe 6 years down the track. It undoubtedly should be reduced in the long term but in the short term what the economy needs is fiscal stimulus.

The spending needed particularly right now is investment in retraining of workers to needed roles or subsidising apprenticeships/on the job training, because fact is the GFC created masses amounts of structural unemployment, people who with their skills, do not have the capacity to enter available employment. Infrastructure and R&D would also help to prop up a bearish economy.

The economy may return to growth with continued austerity but the cost would be an increase in the permanently unemployed as it has been clearly shown that substantial portions of people who stay unemployed for prolonged periods of time essentially become unemployable.

http://swampland.time.com/2011/08/29/ben-bernanke-embraces-obamas-reality-based-presidency/

This isn't a particularly good article but read the lines that he quotes from Bernanke. This is a concise, frank and objective opinion by an individual not bound to populist dogma or partisan slogans.

>> ^Lawdeedaw:

>> ^Boise_Lib:
Previous comments notwithstanding, I actually believe that Ron Paul is a stand-up guy who says what he sees as the truth--and won't change what he says because of a poll. I could really get behind him if he would just embrace a rational, twenty-first century fiscal policy.

Problem Boise, who has had a sound fiscal policy?
We have how much in debt, 20 trillion? 30? 50? I don't know because they have hidden debt so well that it scares the fuck out of me. The fed could borrow and loan unlimited amounts, which is part of what we would owe...not to mention liabilities and such... Plus rotten infrastructure, half-assed programs that accomplish little, and so much more...
Is RP's policies worse than what has happened? I doubt it... But we will elect the same guys, just with different faces, who do this every time; because we vote on platform, not on actual people.
Here is a saying I made the other day while daydreaming about becoming a tyrant, I mean Congressman. "If you vote for an honest man you won't get everything you want. But if you vote for a liar you get what you deserve."

>> ^Boise_Lib:

Previous comments notwithstanding, I actually believe that Ron Paul is a stand-up guy who says what he sees as the truth--and won't change what he says because of a poll. I could really get behind him if he would just embrace a rational, twenty-first century fiscal policy.


Problem Boise, who has had a sound fiscal policy?

We have how much in debt, 20 trillion? 30? 50? I don't know because they have hidden debt so well that it scares the fuck out of me. The fed could borrow and loan unlimited amounts, which is part of what we would owe...not to mention liabilities and such... Plus rotten infrastructure, half-assed programs that accomplish little, and so much more...

Is RP's policies worse than what has happened? I doubt it... But we will elect the same guys, just with different faces, who do this every time; because we vote on platform, not on actual people.

Here is a saying I made the other day while daydreaming about becoming a tyrant, I mean Congressman. "If you vote for an honest man you won't get everything you want. But if you vote for a liar you get what you deserve."

Previous comments notwithstanding, I actually believe that Ron Paul is a stand-up guy who says what he sees as the truth--and won't change what he says because of a poll. I could really get behind him if he would just embrace a rational, twenty-first century fiscal policy.

>> ^snoozedoctor:

"poor people" pay no taxes in the US. If the bottom 50% of US income earners pay no federal income tax, how are the "poor" burdened with an excessive tax load?

According to Romney, they're paying the corporate tax, because business owners just pass those costs on to the poor by raising prices on products, or slashing wages and jobs.

Also income taxes aren't the only taxes. Low income wage earners also pay payroll taxes for Medicare and Social Security, plus sales tax, property tax, etc.

>> ^snoozedoctor:
True that the top 10% of wage earners in the US take in slightly less than 50% of gross income, and pay about 70% of federal income taxes. So, the real argument is not that the rich aren't paying the taxes, they are, it's that the rich are rich, damn them.


Whose argument?

I think the general position of the left is that if we're going to make changes to government policy to close the deficit, someone's gotta give up something. The left doesn't see the past 30 years as being a period where the poor have been milking the rich dry -- on the contrary, it appears to have been the reverse. So if we're gonna change something about our fiscal policy, it should be the people at the top giving up the massive tax cuts they've enjoyed over the last 3 decades, not the people who're already struggling giving up the meager benefits they've been promised.

Hmmmmm.....so liberalism in America has spawned Teabaggers and right wing republicans? 'Cause those lines would describe their profile and behavior very well.

Quite to the contrary. The Tea Party is certainly not shy about its objectives - but they are not violent. That particular dubious honor is held by liberals or the various stooges of liberal groups.

Let us bury this myth about Tea Parties being some sort of radical fringe group. They are not. The Tea Party and Tea Party sympathizers are the mainstream of the United States.

http://www.gallup.com/poll/127181/tea-partiers-fairly-mainstream-demographics.aspx

However - there is one thing that the Tea Party is conspicuously NOT - and that is a bunch of violent liberals. The Tea Party is generally comprised of educated, working citizens who are sick of the government's impossible fiscal policies. By definition that means they trend away from the Democrats and liberalism.

However - that does not in any way mean they are anything like these rioting yobs who are disgruntled largely over nothing, and who use violence as a means of alleviating their ennui.