On December 21 2011 13:22 xDaunt wrote: So you still have no clue who the CBO is? Let me explain: The Congressional Budget Office (which is always reported as being the "NON-PARTISAN Congressional Budget Office" is the agency that scores the fiscal impact of all proposed legislation from Congress. Feel free to explain why you still believe that the CBO is still inadequate as a non-partisan source of information regarding the effectiveness of the stimulus package. It's been a long day, and I could use a good laugh.
I... I know what the CBO is... stop twisting things. Just because the CBO says it doesn't mean it's true O_O...
The truth would frighten you. I am probably more educated than you'll ever be, but that's besides the point. Degrees don't mean shit in terms of base of knowledge or even intelligence. Anyone who has been through any type of graduate school knows this. I'm guessing that you haven't gotten there yet given that you only have a bachelor's in political science.
Coming from a guy who puts that much faith on the evidently fallible CBO, I think the truth would make me chuckle.
...and here is where you demonstrate that you have absolutely no idea what's going on and what my beef with your posts is. Do you really think that I care that you're a foreigner? Did you completely miss the second part of the sentence? It went something like this: [...] Would it make you feel better if I said that "You're just one more person commenting on American politics with an adequate base of knowledge to do so?"
If I gave you an intention that you didn't have, I apologize.
LOL this is like the basis for all his "ideas" on economic policy and he doesn't even understand his own over-simplified example.
Paul Krugman's "ideas" are an insult to the ideas that children have.
No, they're not. Calling you an idiot would, however, be an insult to idiots.
On December 21 2011 09:30 Kiarip wrote:
On December 21 2011 09:01 kwizach wrote:
On December 21 2011 02:38 allecto wrote: Getting back to the main point: in my opinion, none of these bailouts and stimulus packages worked, and I don't see any data backing up why they would've worked, especially in the long run.
Your opinion is wrong. Countless non-partisan studies have shown the stimulus had a very positive impact on the economy - it simply wasn't big enough to suffice.
right, and countless others have shown that it doesn't...
No, that claim is factually incorrect. But be my guest and provide me with several serious non-partisan studies showing the stimulus did not have a positive impact on the economy if you can.
User was temp banned for this post.
Here I brought you some link-flowers for your ban-grave.
The Congressional Budget Office on Tuesday downgraded its estimate of the benefits of President Obama’s 2009 stimulus package, saying it may have sustained as few as 700,000 jobs at its peak last year and that over the long run it will actually be a net drag on the economy.
CBO said that while the Recovery Act boosted the economy in the short run, the extra debt that the stimulus piled up “crowds out” private investment and “will reduce output slightly in the long run — by between 0 and 0.2 percent after 2016.”
I love that all them sources either didn't qualify as non-partisan or simply sucked.
Regardless, you've got a handful of cute papers and articles. You can get those to prove that there is no global warming too.
This kind of comment makes me very confused. Partisanship isn't the problem, it's a matter of economics. "Proving global warming doesn't exist" is something I personally despise as well. Global warming is a huge problem just as faith in Keynesianism is. They both have a common denominator--infinite growth. Keynesianism functions well with infinite growth and no externalities (just as the large energy producers would be fine without those same externalities). Deficit spending would be fine if that debt created could realistically be covered by future generations. Unfortunately, this is not the reality. The environment is one thing hurt by over-reliance on oil; however, so is the economy. You can pump stimulus into the world all you want, but one day, it will have to be answered by our children, which unfortunately most Keynesians and other economists don't account for in their predictions of the future economy, Solow growth model and other growth models.
As for a shorter term argument, I'd still be genuinely interested in seeing a "more stimulus would have worked" study that isn't just postulation.
Edit:
As for Djzapz....didn't you use a CBO source for backing up your claims? Although I personally am skeptical as to what they say, it is kind of weak for you to make ad hominem attacks against others based on them relying on the CBO as source when you originally did so as well.
Edit 2:
Read "liberals" post for a more succinct version (previous page) of what I am trying to say. He sums it up well enough.
I didn't use a CBO source for backing up my "claims", a CBO source (conflicting with xDaunt's) was in my link, but I didn't endorse it anyway - although it does show that economists are all over the place.
I think you'd be hard pressed to say what my "claims" are anyway, you probably don't even understand the point I'm trying to make.
As for a shorter term argument, I'd still be genuinely interested in seeing a "more stimulus would have worked" study that isn't just postulation.
If you read CBO's paper, it's "just postulation" too. It's all economists can do, and some do it better than others. Ceteris paribus, remember? Even the best research will ignore some variables and give too much importance to unimportant ones.
Even after the fact, the stimulus is only one variable (albeit a big one) - early researches didn't know exactly what would happen, hence the conflicts between present and old research. We therefore can't know exactly what would happen WITHOUT it. So how can research figure out the difference with "US with stimulus" and "US without stimulus". We'll only ever know one of these two dimensions - everything else is speculation based on a soft-science bad enough that PhDs will always be positioned on both sides of the argument.
Then, little citizens make their uneducated decision based on which idea they like.
Read "liberals" post for a more succinct version (previous page) of what I am trying to say. He sums it up well enough.
Accumulating debt doesn't directly translate to jobs lost in the future. Think about it like a business... Business isn't going well because it's too small and it needs to grow to remain competitive. It can either lose a LOT of its competitiveness OR borrow a lot of money to grow.
If it borrows money, 2 things can happen. 1: It works and the enterprise makes more money because of the momentum from all the new equipment it bought and all the people it hired. They have to pay off the debt, but it's ok because their finances are healthy. 2: It fails and the enterprise doesn't grow enough to justify the loan.
If it doesn't borrow money: 1: No momentum, enterprises die or doesn't do well. The debt may not get bigger, but it'll get harder to pay for because the enterprise doesn't have money and won't be making more.
So sure, maybe "liberals" is right and what actually happened is going to be more debt for the next generations, but maybe it was enough of a "boost" to the economy that it'll pay for itself over time, and the alternative would've had the next generations pay for older debt, but with less money of their own.
On December 22 2011 01:32 Djzapz wrote: I didn't use a CBO source for backing up my "claims", a CBO source (conflicting with xDaunt's) was in my link, but I didn't endorse it anyway - although it does show that economists are all over the place.
I think you'd be hard pressed to say what my "claims" are anyway, you probably don't even understand the point I'm trying to make.
As for a shorter term argument, I'd still be genuinely interested in seeing a "more stimulus would have worked" study that isn't just postulation.
If you read CBO's paper, it's "just postulation" too. It's all economists can do, and some do it better than others. Ceteris paribus, remember? Even the best research will ignore some variables and give too much importance to unimportant ones.
Even after the fact, the stimulus is only one variable (albeit a big one) - early researches didn't know exactly what would happen, hence the conflicts between present and old research. We therefore can't know exactly what would happen WITHOUT it. So how can research figure out the difference with "US with stimulus" and "US without stimulus". We'll only ever know one of these two dimensions - everything else is speculation based on a soft-science bad enough that PhDs will always be positioned on both sides of the argument.
Then, little citizens make their uneducated decision based on which idea they like.
I'm just going to ignore your condescending, troll comments from now on. It is becoming clear that you don't really want to add to the discussion.
As for the simplistic debt explanation you gave: it was a nice comparison except for the "business is small" and "remain competitive" parts. The US economy is not small, and remaining competitive is a question that borrowing a ton of money isn't going to solve, because the problems are fundamentally based in what the US economy actually does/does not do (i.e. lack of actual production). Borrowing money can't build infrastructure out of the air from the all-powerful government or increase productivity. Debt is what one calls a "transitory" fix to cyclical problems, and what has gotten the world into big, big trouble.
As far as I can tell, I didn't make any condescending "troll comments", but suggesting that I did is a great way to get sympathy from people who think like you. Maybe you get offended too easily. Guess it's what I get for hanging out in this thread where people will be mostly hostile.
As for the "simplistic" debt explanation I gave, it's a valid, simple analogy - although obviously it doesn't explain everything but I'm not writing a book here. Your idea that borrowing money can't help with productivity is based on thin air as far as I know - but I guess that's what some schools of economists think.
On this thread I'm wrong, on other threads I'm standard as hell!
Fox News is reporting that Ron Paul stormed out of a interview with CNN, really didn't see a storming out per se. Then again it is CNN.
Borger asked the Congressman if he had ever read the newsletters. “Did you ever object when you read them?” “Why don’t you go back and look at what I said yesterday on CNN and what I’ve said for 20 something years. 22 years ago? I didn’t write them, I disavow them, That’s it.” “But you made money off them,” “I was still practicing medicine,” Paul responded. “That’s probably why I wasn’t a very good publisher, I had to make a living.”
Yes, and CNN asked him the same question in 3 separate interviews within 48 hours, and they got the same answer each time. He didn't storm out, he simply answered the question then calmly removed the mic and gave it back to the reporter, after the meat of the interview was done anwyay
Isn't that just the news media being their usual hyperbolic selfs? At least here in Sweden this seems to be the common practise for a lot of the media. If someone say something slightly negative about something it becomes "raging," non issues becomes "disasters," slightly unexpected díscoveries is "shocking" and so on. Put it in a title and more people are likely to press the link. It's sad.
I read somewhere that Ron Paul is favorite at the moment?
I have to say, I believe he has the potential of being elected and I am genuinely scared for the future of all of us for the first time in my life. As much as Palin or Buchanan are such obvious jokes that seeing them being elected is really unlikely, I can really imagine an extremist like Ron Paul taking the power.
And then, I do believe we would all be really really screwed. Apocalypse discourse with food chains and such always make me want to facepalm, but we would be there if someone like him had had to manage the 2008 crisis. He would have left the banking system explode, and then, back to 1929.
Anyway. Good luck to you guys getting rid of that loony Ayn Rand disciple. No offense but these kind of guys make me so happy not to be American. I would spend my life raging.
On December 22 2011 19:44 nebffa wrote: Have you even looked at his policies? All of them are evidence-based and he has been making all the right predictions, unlike the other candidates
What does "evidence based" policy even mean? Every time I read a word of what he says I find it so nonsensical and crazy that I want to hang myself.
Watch this video on his foreign policy, for example. I could say what's in it, but it's all contained in the video so it's much easier to watch it. You will get a real understanding after watching it
On December 22 2011 19:53 nebffa wrote: Watch this video on his foreign policy, for example. I could say what's in it, but it's all contained in the video so it's much easier to watch it. You will get a real understanding after watching it
Yeah right. I'm super interested by the foreign policy of someone who said that US shouldn't do shit in Darfur because stopping the genocide was "unrelated to US interest".
Ron Paul foreign policy are appealing because he sounds like a pacifist. But he is not. He is just a non-interventionist. We had some of them in our history. There were the ones who left Hitler take Czechoslovakia because "all Czechoslovak in the world are not worth the piss of a French soldiers".
Now, what scares me with Ron Paul is not his foreign policy, because US foreign policies are so bad since Bush that it cannot really be worse anyway. What scares me is his irrational fanatic belief in free market and non interventionism, that I find just as stupid and dangerous as people who pretend that the State alone is the solution to everything (Trotskyst, we have some in France).
Ok and what is your evidence to say that his belief in the free market is wrong? I have nothing against you for your viewpoint - in fact I used to think Ron Paul was completely wrong myself. In Australia we don't have nearly as much a free market economy and tax rates are quite high and I thought that was the way to go. It works here, but that's beside the point - I started learning more about Ron Paul's policies and they are based on sound evidence, he predicted the housing market crash in 2008, so what is your evidence to back up your claim?
EDIT: Oh and PS, link me to the quote where Ron Paul says ending the genocide is "not in America's interest". I am certain you won't find it - because he does not talk at all about "what is in U.S. interests". That would be the kind of manipulation of the world scene you have seen over the past decade, where the U.S. is pushing an agenda to serve itself. Ron Paul advocates not interfering with other countries and their business because in the long run that is what works
On December 22 2011 20:09 nebffa wrote: Ok and what is your evidence to say that his belief in the free market is wrong? I have nothing against you for your viewpoint - in fact I used to think Ron Paul was completely wrong myself. In Australia we don't have nearly as much a free market economy and tax rates are quite high and I thought that was the way to go. It works here, but that's beside the point - I started learning more about Ron Paul's policies and they are based on sound evidence, he predicted the housing market crash in 2008, so what is your evidence to back up your claim?
That deregulation of financial sector and blind belief in free market are directly responsible of the crisis we are in today? What Ron Paul suggest is very simple: throw oil to try to extinguish a fire.
On December 22 2011 20:09 nebffa wrote: Ok and what is your evidence to say that his belief in the free market is wrong? I have nothing against you for your viewpoint - in fact I used to think Ron Paul was completely wrong myself. In Australia we don't have nearly as much a free market economy and tax rates are quite high and I thought that was the way to go. It works here, but that's beside the point - I started learning more about Ron Paul's policies and they are based on sound evidence, he predicted the housing market crash in 2008, so what is your evidence to back up your claim?
That deregulation of financial sector and blind belief in free market are directly responsible of the crisis we are in today? What Ron Paul suggest is very simple: throw oil to try to extinguish a fire.
Look I completely get where you're coming from, and a LOT of people don't make a particular distinction here. This is EXACTLY why I thought Ron Paul was crazy when I was hearing about him in 2008. I only started to realise how intelligent he is when I paid more attention this year btw.
What happened with the financial crisis is governments were essentially covering corporations' backs. That's what we all saw with all the corporate bailouts. If you think about an every day person, they will be normally fairly frugal with their money, not taking much risk. But if they have their money guaranteed so even if they lose it it will be paid back to them by the government, they will naturally start taking bigger and greater risks, as they are no longer bigger and greater risks anymore. This is EXACTLY what happened with the big banks with their risky lending as they tried to skirt danger to make more money.
Ron Paul was saying for YEARS that this was going to happen, and he constantly called for government to not be protecting these corporations' backs, as this was interfering with the free market.
The big realisation came for me when I realised that the U.S. market was not nearly as free as I thought, and it was this interference by the government that allowed business to take heavy risks that lead to the situation we're in today. Ron Paul specifically advocated and advocates that Gov't should not do what it did
If you don't see what a pure free marked would create for problems you better don't go voting at all, you seem to lack common sense...
We wouldn't have the problems we have nowadays.. We would have diffrent, most probably worse ones. Inequality allready is a huge problem.. And thats with the "nanny"-state takeing somewhat care of the poor people...
Neither does Ron Paul completely advocate a completely free-market, where corporations can be allowed to commit fraud. That's the other main misconception I hear about his economic policies. He advocates strong enforcements of regulations that prevent fraud and illegal or unethical business behaviour, and at the same time advocates government getting the hell out of businesses and trying to promote growth, as they usually end up making it worse
EPT
