As a proud member of the Ameri-marxist party, I only stay in the USA to annoy the Conserva-rapists and Republi-pedophiles.

>> ^quantumushroom:

I sincerely appreciate the correction. While the source was incorrect, the quote yet remains 100% true. You will never tax your way to prosperity and you'll achieve nothing by demonizing the wealthy.
Here's another quote you're sure to enjoy. Google it to your hearts' content.
FDR's treasury secretary, Henry Morgenthau, wrote in his diary: "We have tried spending money. We are spending more than we have ever spent before and it does not work. ... We have never made good on our promises. ... I say after eight years of this administration we have just as much unemployment as when we started ... and an enormous debt to boot!"

If only the left and Odumbo could prove me wrong with jobs and prosperity instead of empty rhetoric and blame, I'd gladly admit to being wrong. Until then, I voted the bastards out November 2nd and it felt great. Expect it again in 2012.
I really don't understand why Ameri-marxists don't vote with their feet and move to already-socialist Europe...just try to avoid Greece...they're having a bit of trouble.

>> ^quantumushroom:

I sincerely appreciate the correction. While the source was incorrect, the quote yet remains 100% true. You will never tax your way to prosperity and you'll achieve nothing by demonizing the wealthy.
Here's another quote you're sure to enjoy. Google it to your hearts' content.
FDR's treasury secretary, Henry Morgenthau, wrote in his diary: "We have tried spending money. We are spending more than we have ever spent before and it does not work. ... We have never made good on our promises. ... I say after eight years of this administration we have just as much unemployment as when we started ... and an enormous debt to boot!"

If only the left and Odumbo could prove me wrong with jobs and prosperity instead of empty rhetoric and blame, I'd gladly admit to being wrong. Until then, I voted the bastards out November 2nd and it felt great. Expect it again in 2012.
I really don't understand why Ameri-marxists don't vote with their feet and move to already-socialist Europe...just try to avoid Greece...they're having a bit of trouble.


Internet trolling is fun. GG.

I sincerely appreciate the correction. While the source was incorrect, the quote yet remains 100% true. You will never tax your way to prosperity and you'll achieve nothing by demonizing the wealthy.

Here's another quote you're sure to enjoy. Google it to your hearts' content.

FDR's treasury secretary, Henry Morgenthau, wrote in his diary: "We have tried spending money. We are spending more than we have ever spent before and it does not work. ... We have never made good on our promises. ... I say after eight years of this administration we have just as much unemployment as when we started ... and an enormous debt to boot!"


If only the left and Odumbo could prove me wrong with jobs and prosperity instead of empty rhetoric and blame, I'd gladly admit to being wrong. Until then, I voted the bastards out November 2nd and it felt great. Expect it again in 2012.

I really don't understand why Ameri-marxists don't vote with their feet and move to already-socialist Europe...just try to avoid Greece...they're having a bit of trouble.

@dystopianfuturetoday, don't try to pin the Republicans who go voted in on our ideology, brother. You're just grasping at straws at this point.

But let's talk about some of the things you're bringing up.

1. Government services. The go to argument for statists any time you attack the amount we pay in taxes and what we're taxed on (income & inheritance tax being the worst of them) is "What about the roads? The fire department? The police?!" What's important to point out here is that these cited governmental "services" are always the bare minimum offered, and never do they scream out "What about our defense budget? The unreconciled transactions each year in the Treasury Department (reaching $25 billion in 2003 alone!)? The jackbooting swat teams at the G20 summits?! The prison industrial complex?!!! Homeland Security?!"

Roads, police and firefighters are all paid for by local taxes (not Federal), mind you, and most of which can be paid for by excise taxes or other voluntary taxes. Can we put that dog to rest?

2. Social contract. I didn't sign it. You didn't either. As mentioned above, a contract is an agreement where both parties voluntarily agree to the terms. Those who believe in the social contract idea tend to think, as you do, that it's a trade for living in a 'democracy'. That's ridiculous on its face. And your 'like it or leave it' mentality on the matter has the intellectual maturity of the Republican 'this is a Christian nation' philosophy. Bravo.

3. Taxes. Offering services and goods under the threat of violence is immoral, therefore compulsory taxes are theft. If you agree with compulsory taxes, then you agree services and goods should be offered under the threat of violence, and in any other arena outside of government that would be considered sociopathic.

"Guess Who?"

by

Thomas Sowell

Guess who said the following: "We have tried spending money. We are spending more than we have ever spent before and it does not work." Was it Sarah Palin? Rush Limbaugh? Karl Rove?

Not even close. It was Henry Morgenthau, Secretary of the Treasury under Franklin D. Roosevelt and one of FDR's closest advisers. He added, "after eight years of this Administration we have just as much unemployment as when we started. . . And an enormous debt to boot!"

This is just one of the remarkable and eye-opening facts in a must-read book titled "New Deal or Raw Deal?" by Professor Burton W. Folsom, Jr., of Hillsdale College.

Ordinarily, what happened in the 1930s might be something to be left for historians to be concerned about. But the very same kinds of policies that were tried-- and failed-- during the 1930s are being carried out in Washington today, with the advocates of such policies often invoking FDR's New Deal as a model.

Franklin D. Roosevelt blamed the country's woes on the problems he inherited from his predecessor, much as Barack Obama does today. But unemployment was 20 percent in the spring of 1939, six long years after Herbert Hoover had left the White House.

Whole generations have been "educated" to believe that the Roosevelt administration is what got this country out of the Great Depression. History text books by famous scholars like Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., of Harvard and Henry Steele Commager of Columbia have enshrined FDR as a historic savior of this country, and lesser lights in the media and elsewhere have perpetuated the legend.

Although Professor Schlesinger admitted that he had little interest in economics, that did not stop him from making sweeping statements about what a great economic achievement the New Deal was.

Professors Commager and Morris of Columbia likewise declared: "The character of the Republican ascendancy of the twenties had been pervasively negative; the character of the New Deal was overwhelmingly positive." Anyone unfamiliar with the history of that era might never suspect from such statements that the 1920s were a decade of unprecedented prosperity and the 1930s were a decade of the deepest and longest-lasting depression in American history. But facts have taken a back seat to rhetoric.

In more recent years, there have been both academic studies and popular books debunking some of the myths about the New Deal. Nevertheless, Professor Folsom's book "New Deal or Raw Deal?" breaks new ground. Although written by an academic scholar and based on years of documented research, it is as readable as a newspaper-- and a lot more informative than most.

There are few historic events whose legends are more grossly different from the reality than the New Deal administration of Franklin D. Roosevelt. And there are few men whose image has been more radically different from the man himself.

Some of the most devastating things that were said about FDR were not said by his political enemies but by people who worked closely with him for years-- Secretary of the Treasury Henry Morgenthau being just one. Morgenthau saw not only the utter failure of Roosevelt's policies, but also the failure of Roosevelt himself, who didn't even know enough economics to realize how little he knew.

Far from pulling the country out of the Great Depression by following Keynesian policies, FDR created policies that prolonged the depression until it was more than twice as long as any other depression in American history. Moreover, Roosevelt's ad hoc improvisations followed nothing as coherent as Keynesian economics. To the extent that FDR followed the ideas of any economist, it was an obscure economist at the University of Wisconsin, who was disdained by other economists and who was regarded with contempt by John Maynard Keynes.

President Roosevelt's strong suit was politics, not economics. He played the political game both cleverly and ruthlessly, including using both the FBI and the Internal Revenue Service to harass and intimidate his critics and opponents.

It is not a pretty story. But we need to understand it if we want to avoid the ugly consequences of very similar policies today.

>> ^HadouKen24:

This video makes it seem like there are no good reasons to want to avoid deflation. But the vast majority of economists recognize that it's a bad thing. And they're probably right.
The lower costs of deflation are good for consumers in the short term, for certain. But lower prices means less production--companies just aren't going to be able to afford to pump out as many goods or provide as many services. That means companies can't afford to hire as many people. There will probably be layoffs.
The result of this would likely be that, since people have less money, companies will yet again have to lower prices in order to sell their goods. Which means more layoffs, which means lower prices, and so on. A downward spiral as deflation increases.

I wish the people who make these kinds of videos would at least take Economics 101 at their local college--heck, a community college would probably do.


Mild inflation and deflation aren't really cause for alarm though. More over, the entire point of the video was that the prices for almost everything, except houses, are on the rise. Food inflation is the most drastic area it can affect. You can live anywhere, but if you can't eat, it's over. And so, to form an entire economic position around housing instead of food is a bit off the mark. You can look back to the depression for statistics one spending trends. The percent people spend towards housing is so marginal, it isn't even a full percent.

And lower prices don't mean lower production per say. If you are getting 1 dollar of profit instead of 100, but the dollar buys more it balances out. The problem is when things inflate or deflate rapidly. The total money supply dictates the price of things in conjunction with their demand. If the money supply shifts to rapidly, it becomes either to risky to save(inflation), or to risky to consume(deflation). Both have meltdown thresholds. Most assuredly, we are running a greater risk of a hyper inflation. Hyper inflation is par for course on a fiat central banking model, it has hit the world hundreds of times. Hyper deflation is more rare, and the only real famous case is our own depression...most depressions are hyper inflation.

In other words, you can have the spiral either way, which you correctly point out. But fiat hyper inflation is more common and the current direction of financial policy. A time will come, however, when we can no longer finance the purchase of new bonds to drive down interest rates. Interests rates on bonds will rise rapidly. This will cause the interest rate on the national debt to rise, most likely it will have to go up to 20% to make up for all the 0% we have had. At that time, the government budget of today will be the same value as needed to pay the interest on the national debt, alone. At that moment, people will find American bonds and treasuries a weak investment. This will cause a sell off of bonds, which has an effect of raising interests rates even more. This will force the government to print more money to buy more bonds from itself to lower rates so the debt can be payed off. This causes a massive devaluation of the currency (hyper inflation), which is the death of that currency.

This is our path, it has been walked by many. Only drastic and serious actions can whip out of a hyper inflation once it starts, and it is very painful indeed.

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)

There's a big difference between GDP and a government budget QM.>> ^quantumushroom:


Kymbos: The thing I never get about QM is that he never does any research but continually uses statistics that he just makes up. This it the internet - we all have access to the numbers, for chrissakes!
Dag: He follows the Fox doctrine- say something enough times and it must be true.
Ah, and yet we're all supposed to believe the numbers from 'The War Resisters League'.
US Military spending as a Share of GDP 1946-2009
If socialism "worked"--and it works for a short while until one runs out of other peoples' money--Greece wouldn't be bankrupt, there'd still be a soviet union and the scamulus would've "created" jobs.
"We are spending more money than we have ever spent before and it does not work. I want to see this country prosperous. I want to see people get a job. We have never made good on our promises. I say after eight years of this administration we have just as much unemployment as when we started and an enormous debt to boot."
--FDR’s Secretary of the Treasury, Henry Morgenthau, Jr. in 1939

I'm merely observing results, Dag & Friends. I don't expect different results from the same doomed social experiments.

Kymbos: The thing I never get about QM is that he never does any research but continually uses statistics that he just makes up. This it the internet - we all have access to the numbers, for chrissakes!

Dag: He follows the Fox doctrine- say something enough times and it must be true.

Ah, and yet we're all supposed to believe the numbers from 'The War Resisters League'.

US Military spending as a Share of GDP 1946-2009

If socialism "worked"--and it works for a short while until one runs out of other peoples' money--Greece wouldn't be bankrupt, there'd still be a soviet union and the scamulus would've "created" jobs.

"We are spending more money than we have ever spent before and it does not work. I want to see this country prosperous. I want to see people get a job. We have never made good on our promises. I say after eight years of this administration we have just as much unemployment as when we started and an enormous debt to boot."

--FDR’s Secretary of the Treasury, Henry Morgenthau, Jr. in 1939


I'm merely observing results, Dag & Friends. I don't expect different results from the same doomed social experiments.

>> ^dystopianfuturetoday:

It isn't really all that hard to follow, Jesus. I've put it in talking points style bullets to make it easier for you to understand.
-Obama to not renew Bush tax giveaway to the mega rich.
-The mega rich gives money to think tanks that know how to manipulate people like you.
-Manipulated people like you vote corporate lapdogs into office.
-Tax giveaway back on the table.
Getting it yet?


Hahahha your funny, because your party isn't corporate lap dogs...and I don't have a party. And I am for tax cuts all across the board hand in hand with cutting spending. But I can break it down it bullet points for you to understand.

-Obama has spent billions trillions handing out money to private corporations on a magnitude the world has never seen
-Big business sold the lie to your party saying to was what we needed
-Manipulate you to somehow have connotative dissidence on the matter of taxes and handouts

I thought my reply was rather short and without teeth, why all the random hate?

Random bit of trivia time. Roughly 45% of US Treasury Securities are owned by China and Japan.

quantumushroom do you really believe Obama would have made a move at trying to buy the banks if they were not about to go bankrupt and potentially put the nation into a great depression. He is not a socialist, he is a realist, and Republicans love to victimize him for it, and convince people like you he is 'Socialist' 'Muslim'. It's silly and I feel bad for Obama he probably thought our country was better than that.

Forget for a moment that Obama grew up around and among angry leftist radicals and his past is well-hidden by compliant MSM.

Why would anyone think nationalization is going to save anything? The soviet union--with natural resources far greater than the US--was 100% nationalized and failed. Yes we were told that only by thugverment spending money would we all be saved from another Great Depression (which was actually prolonged by thugverment spending).

"Franklin Delano Roosevelt. FDR's treasury secretary, Henry Morgenthau, wrote in his diary: 'We have tried spending money. We are spending more than we have ever spent before and it does not work. ... We have never made good on our promises. ... I say after eight years of this administration we have just as much unemployment as when we started ... and an enormous debt to boot!'"


Yes, Bush the half-servative was responsible for the first round of failouts. Obama just greatly expanded on his predecessors' failure.

Henry Morgenthau, Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s Treasury Secretary:

"We have tried spending money. We are spending more than we have ever spent before and it does not work. And I have just one interest, and if I am wrong . . . somebody else can have my job. I want to see this country prosperous. I want to see people get a job. I want to see people get enough to eat. We have never made good on our promises. . . . I say after eight years of this Administration we have just as much unemployment as when we started. . . . And an enormous debt to boot."


Those who refuse to learn from history...

So are you enjoying high unemployment?: No, as I am one of the unemployed. But I don't see how Obama is to blame for that. Please enlighten me.
a looted Treasury run by a tax cheat?: No, but when has the Federal Treasury ever been run by someone who wasn't stealing from it?
an arrogant Congress?: You mean the Republicans? Because the Democrats don't get enough shit done to be arrogant. They wouldn't know how to be arrogant.
weakened standing in the world?: That's just retarded. There is no way we're weaker in standing than we were the past eight years.
soon-to-be post-office-quality health care?: I've never had a problem with the post office. But I've had a problem with healthcare.

Also, that quote is one of the dumbest things I've ever read. The only way it would make any sense was if "George W. Bush" was substituted for "Obama."
>> ^quantumushroom:

So are you enjoying high unemployment, a looted Treasury run by a tax cheat, an arrogant Congress, weakened standing in the world and soon-to-be post-office-quality health care??
“The danger to America is not Barack Obama but a citizenry capable of entrusting a man like him with the Presidency. It will be far easier to limit and undo the follies of an Obama presidency than to restore the necessary common sense and good judgment to a depraved electorate willing to have such a man for their president.
The problem is much deeper and far more serious than Mr. Obama, who is a mere symptom of what ails America. Blaming the prince of the fools should not blind anyone to the vast confederacy of fools that made him their prince.
The Republic can survive a Barack Obama, who is, after all, merely a fool. It is less likely to survive a multitude of fools such as those who made him their president.”

So are you enjoying high unemployment, a looted Treasury run by a tax cheat, an arrogant Congress, weakened standing in the world and soon-to-be post-office-quality health care??

“The danger to America is not Barack Obama but a citizenry capable of entrusting a man like him with the Presidency. It will be far easier to limit and undo the follies of an Obama presidency than to restore the necessary common sense and good judgment to a depraved electorate willing to have such a man for their president.

The problem is much deeper and far more serious than Mr. Obama, who is a mere symptom of what ails America. Blaming the prince of the fools should not blind anyone to the vast confederacy of fools that made him their prince.

The Republic can survive a Barack Obama, who is, after all, merely a fool. It is less likely to survive a multitude of fools such as those who made him their president.” -WISE author unknown


>> ^thinker247:

I would have voted for a Kenyan witch doctor if it meant that the Maverick and his Bumbling Sidekick wouldn't have brought their ridiculous views of the ®eal Ameri©a into the White House.
<

The donkeys whose elections are on the line do not share maddow's rosy outlook. How can any of the obama regime be trusted when a @#! tax cheat still runs the Treasury?

"The CBO is required to score a bill based on the assumptions provided by the bill's authors. It's worth about as much as a report card filled out by the student himself."

Explain how as someone who is purportedly in favor of reducing the deficit, you can be against health care reform but for extending the tax cuts for the wealthy.

Two separate issues. If you can name any endeavor that government interference has made cheaper and more efficient, I'm all ears. The reality is obamacare is making health care MORE expensive and taking power away from the consumer. You don't seriously think we're going to save money with 159 new bureaucratic agencies to monitor this new zombie, do you? And the slew of new job-killing taxes will be in effect four years before any "benefits" are realized.

Tax cuts/increases on the wealthy? A moral issue. If you're not a socialist/communist then you see the money belonging to the wealthy as THEIR money, they're not just "holding it for a friend" aka government.

If there were a flat tax rate then the wealthy would still pay more than the middle class. Under our communist progressive system, the wealthy pay a LOT more and are paying the lions' share of the taxes now, while 50% of the population pays NO income tax. And only one-third of Americans are working, and support the other two-thirds.

Because the left believes in equality at any cost, it wants to especially penalize the wealthy, who, contrary to leftist opinion, do create jobs and invest, providing opportunities and lending for the "little guy". And if the wealthy aren't "giving" to the left's satisfaction, remember that government creates NOTHING, and can only use whatever it takes from the people first.

The reality the left refuses to face is that if you taxed all the wealthy at 90% nothing would be solved. Our federal mafia costs 3 trillion dollars a year to operate, and will still spend more than it takes in.

Why is this even debatable? Money won't solve this. Obamatron and friends looted the Treasury of a trillion dollars, yet even with that amount they have failed to create jobs (except government jobs, which cost taxpayers).

Let people keep more of their own EARNED money and good things happen. Blindly give money to government and they urinate it away.