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Bagration
United States18282 Posts
On February 29 2012 08:36 Signet wrote: Romney was leading by a large margin from the early/mail-in votes. He is expected to lose among people who vote today, making it very close overall. Thanks. The thought of Santorum winning Michigan would have been inconceivable 2 months ago. | ||
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Savio
United States1850 Posts
On February 29 2012 08:32 EternaLLegacy wrote: No. No. No. Stop spreading this nonsense. WWII did NOT bring us out of the Depression. Standard of living FELL DRAMATICALLY in WWII. People had to ration. Millions of Americans were drafted into the armed forces against their will. We had what amounts to slave labor for the government! What did bring us out of the Depression was the around 2/3rds cut in government spending after the war. All our troops came home, and all that capital finally became available again in the market for investment into new projects, which employed all the unemployed people. All the non-Austrians at the time were panicking and thought we'd plunge into an even worse recession in 1946. It turns out it was one of the biggest growth years in the history of the US. Cutting government spending produces prosperity. I'm a conservative and generally support cutting government spending and lowering taxes, however, I think you are wrong on a few points here. WWII did dramatically increase our GDP and government spending (which skyrocketed during the war) is a component of GDP. Recessions and depressions are measured by GDP and not by standard of living. If you've taken macroecononomics classes, you will see that government spending and taxes both feed into the economy with certain multipliers. If you oppose high government expenditures (as I do) it should be because of factors such as: 1. Government directed spending is not market-based and can therefore be innefficient. 2. People can better approximate what makes them happy than government can so letting the money be spent by people can lead to a greater increase in the country's welfare. 3. Philosophical preference for an empowered population and limited government 4. Other such arguments As for Keynsian vs Austrian economists, I generally tend to support the Austrian idea of letting the market run its course. It is certainly possible for the government to slow down a recovery by introducing innefficiencies (non-market based decisions) into the economy rather than letting wages, prices adjust quickly and correctly. For example, the Auto Industry bailout avoided a good restructuring of the companies (through a managed bancruptcy) which could have potentially fixed their underlying problems. They have gone bancrupt several times before and it has always been a good thing for them. TL:DR version--> 1. Government spending CAN increase GDP 2. Doing so is more innefficient than letting people spend their own money 3. Also increasing government spending or cutting taxes without cutting spending will both increase the government deficit which can "crowd out" investment making long term growth harder. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crowding_out_(economics) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twin_deficits_hypothesis So while Keynsians are not completely wrong, I tend to agree more with the Austrians. | ||
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SerpentFlame
415 Posts
On February 29 2012 08:32 EternaLLegacy wrote: No. No. No. Stop spreading this nonsense. WWII did NOT bring us out of the Depression. Standard of living FELL DRAMATICALLY in WWII. People had to ration. Millions of Americans were drafted into the armed forces against their will. We had what amounts to slave labor for the government! What did bring us out of the Depression was the around 2/3rds cut in government spending after the war. All our troops came home, and all that capital finally became available again in the market for investment into new projects, which employed all the unemployed people. All the non-Austrians at the time were panicking and thought we'd plunge into an even worse recession in 1946. It turns out it was one of the biggest growth years in the history of the US. Cutting government spending produces prosperity. Sigh. The whole point of government spending in a recession is to jump-start private capital, and it easily succeeded. Private investment was able to recover precisely because of government-built factories during the war and the government-financed GI Bill producing the skilled workforce the US needed. The New Deal had much, much lower government spending as a percentage of the GDP, as did the Hoover era in which the Depression started, as did 1937 when Roosevelt decided to slash spending and magically, unemployment spiked up by 7 percent. Note that the post-war era had the national debt and inflation running at far higher levels than the New Deal, or even today. As for inflation, http://inflationdata.com/inflation/inflation_rate/historicalinflation.aspx. Inflation for the last three years stands out because it's really, really low. | ||
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Josealtron
United States219 Posts
On February 29 2012 08:32 EternaLLegacy wrote: No. No. No. Stop spreading this nonsense. WWII did NOT bring us out of the Depression. Standard of living FELL DRAMATICALLY in WWII. People had to ration. Millions of Americans were drafted into the armed forces against their will. We had what amounts to slave labor for the government! What did bring us out of the Depression was the around 2/3rds cut in government spending after the war. All our troops came home, and all that capital finally became available again in the market for investment into new projects, which employed all the unemployed people. All the non-Austrians at the time were panicking and thought we'd plunge into an even worse recession in 1946. It turns out it was one of the biggest growth years in the history of the US. Cutting government spending produces prosperity. I don't think you've taken a basic macroeconomics class. Or if you have, you either didn't pay attention or you had a godawful teacher. Cutting Government spending will not stimulate the economy. Ever. It can lower deficits, yes, but it will NOT create jobs and it will NOT magically give the American people more money. Cutting Taxes, on the other hand, can, but you're arguing that the 2/3rds cut in government spending brought us out of the great depression, which is absolutely ridiculous. By the end of WWII, we were already well out of the Great Depression. And it was Keynesian policy that dominated after WWII up until the 70s. | ||
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Romantic
United States1844 Posts
You can see the 1936 recovery on the privately held debt to GDP ratio, which was just a temporary end to deleveraging. ![[image loading]](http://i40.tinypic.com/2a3p6e.png) Does the private debt buildup and bust look scary yet? | ||
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Risen
United States7927 Posts
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Signet
United States1718 Posts
On February 29 2012 10:23 Risen wrote: Voted for Santorum... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MYtjpIwamos lol video clip. These Democrats who are voting for Santorum had better really hope the economy improves, though. The people will elect even somebody like him if the economy is below some threshold. | ||
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Sofestafont
United States83 Posts
On February 29 2012 10:53 Signet wrote: lol video clip. These Democrats who are voting for Santorum had better really hope the economy improves, though. The people will elect even somebody like him if the economy is below some threshold. I think it was the 'Daily Show' or maybe NPR that made a really good point regarding this. Santorum strategy might be to recruit Reagan Democrats. The only problem is that Reagan Democrats were old people who just inherently voted Democrat every election and now most of them have passed away now. I know my grandparents vote Democrat and probably know absolutely nothing about the politics. I recall my grandma telling me she voted for Kerry because she didn't like George W. Bush's smile. My assumption is that, that is a majority of people who vote anyway. People on the extremes, some politically involved independents and a majority of 'I don't like that color tie he wears.' | ||
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liberal
1116 Posts
On February 29 2012 10:18 Romantic wrote: Lemme clear it up for ya; deleveraging ended the Great Depression. The process was aided by the government digging itself into debt to pay private businesses for war related products. When the war ended, debt held by private business was very low despite the government's high debt and the economy was great. You can see the 1936 recovery on the privately held debt to GDP ratio, which was just a temporary end to deleveraging. Does the private debt buildup and bust look scary yet? ^ Yes, what this guy said! It is important to note that it wasn't the war itself which improved the economy, it was the deficit spending. We financed growth with debt. However, it wasn't nearly effective as it could have been, because the additional wealth was largely wasted on war, quite literally "blown up" in some cases. Those resources could have been used to create goods for society, which would actually increase the standard of living, in addition to providing liquidity to the economy. This is why it's important to not get stuck in the false mindset that any government spending is good due to "multipliers." Just because the economy has greater liquidity, does NOT mean the actual wealth or standard of living is increasing, as much as it COULD. Again, it's all about opportunity cost. The only way to increase wealth is to increase efficiency of the production of goods and services, period. This can be done through trade, specialization, comparative advantage, innovation, technological advances, etc. In most cases, the government will allocate the resources worse than the private sector will, which is why typically reduced government taxation does stimulate the economy more than government stimulus. | ||
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HardlyNever
United States1258 Posts
On February 29 2012 10:53 Signet wrote: lol video clip. These Democrats who are voting for Santorum had better really hope the economy improves, though. The people will elect even somebody like him if the economy is below some threshold. No, they really, really won't. 1. Because he is bat-shit crazy, and bat-shit crazy doesn't win general elections. 2. A midst all his rantings, he really doesn't offer much practical improvement for the economy at all. His platform is faith in the government, not economic recovery. | ||
tree.hugger
Philadelphia, PA10406 Posts
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forgottendreams
United States1771 Posts
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Deathmanbob
United States2356 Posts
On February 29 2012 11:58 forgottendreams wrote: Alright so whose gonna make a guess on who will be Romney's running mate for the presidential race? CC is what i am guessing. Which i dont think is a good idea because he comes off as a dick | ||
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1Eris1
United States5797 Posts
http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-pn-mitt-romney-wins-arizona-captures-29-delegates-20120228,0,4162718.story Hmmm. Still kinda close in Michigan from what I hear. (Romney's ahead though) | ||
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Deathmanbob
United States2356 Posts
On February 29 2012 12:13 1Eris1 wrote: Romney wins Arizona http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-pn-mitt-romney-wins-arizona-captures-29-delegates-20120228,0,4162718.story Hmmm. Still kinda close in Michigan from what I hear. (Romney's ahead though) Romney won michigan. Just got called on MSNBC | ||
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aksfjh
United States4853 Posts
On February 29 2012 10:18 Romantic wrote: Lemme clear it up for ya; deleveraging ended the Great Depression. The process was aided by the government digging itself into debt to pay private businesses for war related products. When the war ended, debt held by private business was very low despite the government's high debt and the economy was great. You can see the 1936 recovery on the privately held debt to GDP ratio, which was just a temporary end to deleveraging. Does the private debt buildup and bust look scary yet? As GDP shrinks during a recession/depression, it only makes sense that debt as a percentage of GDP would increase without a matching shrinking of government spending. While that doesn't explain all of the increase, it offers a little more context to the data. As for the recent increase, it makes sense that debt would grow so large when government income is at a record low right now, at about 15% of GDP. Unlike spending, tax as a percentage of GDP is not altered much by recession/depression, unless taxes are levied in industries which would be disproportionally affected by the specific recession/depression. | ||
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SerpentFlame
415 Posts
On February 29 2012 12:18 Deathmanbob wrote: Romney won michigan. Just got called on MSNBC And pretty much every other news network. A pretty good night for the Romney campaign, although he should never have come close to losing Michigan (and it looks like a pretty healthy 5 percent margin of victory) | ||
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don_kyuhote
3007 Posts
I wanted to see Santorum win Michigan. | ||
Jibba
United States22883 Posts
On February 29 2012 11:58 forgottendreams wrote: Alright so whose gonna make a guess on who will be Romney's running mate for the presidential race? I'm not sure. I think he's put himself in a very tenuous position for the general election, even though he'll win the primary. He's gone to so much trouble to position himself as a deep conservative, that he can't easily position himself as the moderate he is in the general, which is what he needs to do. My best guess is he picks a moderate to try and appease that vote. | ||
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Sufficiency
Canada23833 Posts
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