On February 29 2012 13:27 ampson wrote: The White House must be partying over this whole race. Republicans are split between an unelectable candidate and a candidate who is making himself unelectable to beat the other one.
Whilst the Democrats might win from this, ultimately the country loses. The whole point of the primary race is produce a credible alternative to Obama. He has real failings and there are aspects of his presidency that deserve scrutiny. This squabble just detracts from that task and provides him with ammunition. Whether you support the Democrats or Republicans, a strong candidate is what serves the country best as it forces Obama to work his ass off for re-election. Competition is good and right now it looks like a potential whitewash.
Of course things change and there is still plenty of time before November. What could be really tricky is if none of the candidates pick up the required number of delegates before the convention in August. You then end up with a brokered candidacy which is canon fodder for Obama. Is it likely? Probably not, but the longer this goes on, the better for him.
How many delegates are required to secure a nomination? Could a strong showing on Super Tuesday secure enough delegates for any of the candidates at this point?
i dont know the number but its over 1 thousand. I cant remember the last time the republicans actually went to someone winning enough instead of eveyrone else just droping out
On February 29 2012 13:03 Jibba wrote: Ahahhaha Jon Stewart is so fucking brilliant.
The Daily Show has several clips of Romney talking about how he registered as an Independent in MA so he could vote against leading democrats in their primaries.
Stewart is usually on point but I found that segment to be pretty dumb. Romney said it was dirty for a Republican to try to get Democrats to turnout in a Republican primary is a dirty thing to do. The logical "hypocrisy" or "flip-flop" would be if Romney had also campaigned to get Democrats to vote in a Republican primary. Romney voting in a Democratic primary doesn't make a hypocrite or flip flopper at all for calling Santorum out. Jon Stewart's over giddyness for finding a flip-flop that wasn't even a flip-flop was somewhat lame, imo.
On February 29 2012 13:03 Jibba wrote: Ahahhaha Jon Stewart is so fucking brilliant.
The Daily Show has several clips of Romney talking about how he registered as an Independent in MA so he could vote against leading democrats in their primaries.
Stewart is usually on point but I found that segment to be pretty dumb. Romney said it was dirty for a Republican to try to get Democrats to turnout in a Republican primary is a dirty thing to do. The logical "hypocrisy" or "flip-flop" would be if Romney had also campaigned to get Democrats to vote in a Republican primary. Romney voting in a Democratic primary doesn't make a hypocrite or flip flopper at all for calling Santorum out. Jon Stewart's over giddyness for finding a flip-flop that wasn't even a flip-flop was somewhat lame, imo.
You have a point. Each of Romney's actions here could follow consistently from a single principle of always trying to help the conservative platform advance. That means sabotaging the democratic candidates when you vote in primaries, and preventing the same from happening to Republican candidates. There's not necessarily a flip-flop here.
On February 29 2012 07:08 Haemonculus wrote: It's my understanding that WWII *did* do wonders for the US economy. Especially the aftermath of the war.
Europe had been completely fucking ravaged by the war, and the US mainland was relatively untouched. We simply had no industrial rivals for a while. There was no competition while Europe rebuilt their shattered cities.
Even the buildup of the war helped the economie. How did Germany drag itself up after the end of WW1. With the nazi industrial warmachine.
Yes, we need to build more planes, bombs, tanks, and submarines to raise our standard of living! All those resources need to be used in destroying property and consume the resources in sights and sounds of explosions, death, and destruction. All we need to do is have the Government pay people to run around and destroy everyone's homes, and then we would all become much more wealthy!
Your avoiding the point because it happends to comflict with your views. Its not about building weapons of war. Its about giving all your unemployed a job so they make money and can actualy spend it.
Unless the people you bomb give you money for it, his point is better than yours. Sure it's more complicated than that but saying it's about employing people is silly. You didn't even touch where they money comes from and how it actually would create wealth.
WW2 brought America out of the Great Depression because it employed a huge amount of people with largely low-paying jobs, created huge demand for goods and services for the war effort, and eliminated any private products, so people just saved their money. America was also the world's biggest lender so it had huge liquidity. After the war there was a slight recession because of the loss of wartime production, but the citizens had a large amount of money and were demanding products.
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.
The thing about fiscal policiy is that the economy (according to austrian logic) is supposed to save more and consume less. Prices need to go down (to get closer to the sustainable equilibrium), and some people need to get fired and find jobs in other sectors. Fiscal policiy creates and unsustainable "equilibrium", which only prolonged the "recession".
On February 28 2012 23:50 SerpentFlame wrote: Consider that in 2009, basically every Austrian economist warned us that inflation was coming, and coming in a big way. They were unequivocal about this; it was not a "in the long run" prediction, but a "this is going to happen in the coming months, possibly the next year at the latest". Meanwhile, inflation is at the lowest rate its been in years. Until that school gets its big claims not-spectacularly-wrong, I'm not sure that using their 'expertise' to justify arguments is a wise decision.
That being said, I'm personally still a little wary about inflation since so much money was infused. However, that will only play a role if the velocity of money rapidly picks up. If it slowly makes gains, like many economists believe, we might see periods of slightly higher inflation, but the Fed can counteract that with a raising of interest rates.
What interest rate do they rise? Interest rate on excess reserves of the banks?
On February 29 2012 13:03 Jibba wrote: Ahahhaha Jon Stewart is so fucking brilliant.
The Daily Show has several clips of Romney talking about how he registered as an Independent in MA so he could vote against leading democrats in their primaries.
Stewart is usually on point but I found that segment to be pretty dumb. Romney said it was dirty for a Republican to try to get Democrats to turnout in a Republican primary is a dirty thing to do. The logical "hypocrisy" or "flip-flop" would be if Romney had also campaigned to get Democrats to vote in a Republican primary. Romney voting in a Democratic primary doesn't make a hypocrite or flip flopper at all for calling Santorum out. Jon Stewart's over giddyness for finding a flip-flop that wasn't even a flip-flop was somewhat lame, imo.
Romney said if you're a Republican voter, you should register as Independent so you can vote in both primaries. The party configuration is irrelevant. It's the vote raiding that's important.
On February 29 2012 07:08 Haemonculus wrote: It's my understanding that WWII *did* do wonders for the US economy. Especially the aftermath of the war.
Europe had been completely fucking ravaged by the war, and the US mainland was relatively untouched. We simply had no industrial rivals for a while. There was no competition while Europe rebuilt their shattered cities.
Even the buildup of the war helped the economie. How did Germany drag itself up after the end of WW1. With the nazi industrial warmachine.
Yes, we need to build more planes, bombs, tanks, and submarines to raise our standard of living! All those resources need to be used in destroying property and consume the resources in sights and sounds of explosions, death, and destruction. All we need to do is have the Government pay people to run around and destroy everyone's homes, and then we would all become much more wealthy!
Your avoiding the point because it happends to comflict with your views. Its not about building weapons of war. Its about giving all your unemployed a job so they make money and can actualy spend it.
Unless the people you bomb give you money for it, his point is better than yours. Sure it's more complicated than that but saying it's about employing people is silly. You didn't even touch where they money comes from and how it actually would create wealth.
WW2 brought America out of the Great Depression because it employed a huge amount of people with largely low-paying jobs, created huge demand for goods and services for the war effort, and eliminated any private products, so people just saved their money. America was also the world's biggest lender so it had huge liquidity. After the war there was a slight recession because of the loss of wartime production, but the citizens had a large amount of money and were demanding products.
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.
Yes, you are technically correct, but that's more a reason why GDP and macroeconomics is worthless. Nobody should use GDP seriously, and increases or decreases in GDP don't matter when that spending comes from debt, or is spent uselessly. It's a horrible metric and the fact that the entirety of macroeconomics is based on it should only serve to invalidate anything these macroeconomists say.
On February 29 2012 07:08 Haemonculus wrote: It's my understanding that WWII *did* do wonders for the US economy. Especially the aftermath of the war.
Europe had been completely fucking ravaged by the war, and the US mainland was relatively untouched. We simply had no industrial rivals for a while. There was no competition while Europe rebuilt their shattered cities.
Even the buildup of the war helped the economie. How did Germany drag itself up after the end of WW1. With the nazi industrial warmachine.
Yes, we need to build more planes, bombs, tanks, and submarines to raise our standard of living! All those resources need to be used in destroying property and consume the resources in sights and sounds of explosions, death, and destruction. All we need to do is have the Government pay people to run around and destroy everyone's homes, and then we would all become much more wealthy!
Your avoiding the point because it happends to comflict with your views. Its not about building weapons of war. Its about giving all your unemployed a job so they make money and can actualy spend it.
Unless the people you bomb give you money for it, his point is better than yours. Sure it's more complicated than that but saying it's about employing people is silly. You didn't even touch where they money comes from and how it actually would create wealth.
WW2 brought America out of the Great Depression because it employed a huge amount of people with largely low-paying jobs, created huge demand for goods and services for the war effort, and eliminated any private products, so people just saved their money. America was also the world's biggest lender so it had huge liquidity. After the war there was a slight recession because of the loss of wartime production, but the citizens had a large amount of money and were demanding products.
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.
I feel so sorry for you. Deficits are future taxes. Cutting spending allows taxes to go down permanently. Cutting taxes only increases future taxes. Cutting spending is the only way to actually return money to the private sector in the long run. You Keynesians are only concerned about getting through the next election cycle which is why the politicians love you, but you have no clue how the economy works.
On February 29 2012 13:03 Jibba wrote: Ahahhaha Jon Stewart is so fucking brilliant.
The Daily Show has several clips of Romney talking about how he registered as an Independent in MA so he could vote against leading democrats in their primaries.
Stewart is usually on point but I found that segment to be pretty dumb. Romney said it was dirty for a Republican to try to get Democrats to turnout in a Republican primary is a dirty thing to do. The logical "hypocrisy" or "flip-flop" would be if Romney had also campaigned to get Democrats to vote in a Republican primary. Romney voting in a Democratic primary doesn't make a hypocrite or flip flopper at all for calling Santorum out. Jon Stewart's over giddyness for finding a flip-flop that wasn't even a flip-flop was somewhat lame, imo.
I think there's definitely hypocrisy there. It's okay for Romney to go and purposefully interfere with the democratic nomination, but it's not okay for democrats + Santorum to interefere with the Republican process when he's on the recieving end of it?
On February 29 2012 13:03 Jibba wrote: Ahahhaha Jon Stewart is so fucking brilliant.
The Daily Show has several clips of Romney talking about how he registered as an Independent in MA so he could vote against leading democrats in their primaries.
Stewart is usually on point but I found that segment to be pretty dumb. Romney said it was dirty for a Republican to try to get Democrats to turnout in a Republican primary is a dirty thing to do. The logical "hypocrisy" or "flip-flop" would be if Romney had also campaigned to get Democrats to vote in a Republican primary. Romney voting in a Democratic primary doesn't make a hypocrite or flip flopper at all for calling Santorum out. Jon Stewart's over giddyness for finding a flip-flop that wasn't even a flip-flop was somewhat lame, imo.
I think there's definitely hypocrisy there. It's okay for Romney to go and purposefully interfere with the democratic nomination, but it's not okay for democrats + Santorum to interefere with the Republican process when he's on the recieving end of it?
How is that not hypocrisy?
This is the American election. There telling strait up lies that can easily be fact checked. Hypocrisy is the least of its problems.
On February 29 2012 13:03 Jibba wrote: Ahahhaha Jon Stewart is so fucking brilliant.
The Daily Show has several clips of Romney talking about how he registered as an Independent in MA so he could vote against leading democrats in their primaries.
Stewart is usually on point but I found that segment to be pretty dumb. Romney said it was dirty for a Republican to try to get Democrats to turnout in a Republican primary is a dirty thing to do. The logical "hypocrisy" or "flip-flop" would be if Romney had also campaigned to get Democrats to vote in a Republican primary. Romney voting in a Democratic primary doesn't make a hypocrite or flip flopper at all for calling Santorum out. Jon Stewart's over giddyness for finding a flip-flop that wasn't even a flip-flop was somewhat lame, imo.
I think there's definitely hypocrisy there. It's okay for Romney to go and purposefully interfere with the democratic nomination, but it's not okay for democrats + Santorum to interefere with the Republican process when he's on the recieving end of it?
How is that not hypocrisy?
Romney and Santorum are supposed to be allies in the grand scheme of things. Romney and Kennedy are supposed to be enemies. Sabotaging your ally is dirty and sabotaging your enemy is heroic. There's nothing hypocritical about that, unless you hold the belief that you should treat your friends the same as your enemies.
Imagine if a back-up quaterback told his team's opponents' fans to show up for home games and root against his team so they would be more likely to lose. That way after enough losses the starting quarterback will be benched and the traitor back-up quarterback will get his shot at starting. That's obviously a very dirty thing to do. That's not the same as telling your home team fans to show up at away games to root for your team.
It's very simple, one is hurting your team for the benefit of a single person, and the other is hurting the opponent's team for the benefit of your team.
What if you believe you're the better quarterback, therefore you think you're actually improving your team's chances by taking over the role. Plus this is more like preseason than a regular game.
On February 29 2012 07:08 Haemonculus wrote: It's my understanding that WWII *did* do wonders for the US economy. Especially the aftermath of the war.
Europe had been completely fucking ravaged by the war, and the US mainland was relatively untouched. We simply had no industrial rivals for a while. There was no competition while Europe rebuilt their shattered cities.
Even the buildup of the war helped the economie. How did Germany drag itself up after the end of WW1. With the nazi industrial warmachine.
Yes, we need to build more planes, bombs, tanks, and submarines to raise our standard of living! All those resources need to be used in destroying property and consume the resources in sights and sounds of explosions, death, and destruction. All we need to do is have the Government pay people to run around and destroy everyone's homes, and then we would all become much more wealthy!
Your avoiding the point because it happends to comflict with your views. Its not about building weapons of war. Its about giving all your unemployed a job so they make money and can actualy spend it.
Unless the people you bomb give you money for it, his point is better than yours. Sure it's more complicated than that but saying it's about employing people is silly. You didn't even touch where they money comes from and how it actually would create wealth.
WW2 brought America out of the Great Depression because it employed a huge amount of people with largely low-paying jobs, created huge demand for goods and services for the war effort, and eliminated any private products, so people just saved their money. America was also the world's biggest lender so it had huge liquidity. After the war there was a slight recession because of the loss of wartime production, but the citizens had a large amount of money and were demanding products.
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.
I feel so sorry for you. Deficits are future taxes. Cutting spending allows taxes to go down permanently. Cutting taxes only increases future taxes. Cutting spending is the only way to actually return money to the private sector in the long run. You Keynesians are only concerned about getting through the next election cycle which is why the politicians love you, but you have no clue how the economy works.
And by cutting spending you impair essential services like Social Security, road construction, education, defense etc... The private sector can't handle everything well. If the private sector had total control over education, for example, there wouldn't be anywhere near as many educated people. If you cut government spending, you might pay less taxes, sure, but you'll be paying the same money to the private sector(unless you cut something like defense, which is something that I think should be cut) instead for essential services, and chances are the private sector will charge more. A business has one goal: to make money. Taxes might go down, but you'll still be paying just as much, if not more.
On March 01 2012 06:36 Jibba wrote: What if you believe you're the better quarterback, therefore you think you're actually improving your team's chances by taking over the role. Plus this is more like preseason than a regular game.
Shrug, I'm not even sure how I feel about the ethics of it. Politics is a game meant to be played dirty, imo. But Stewart has had tons of better examples of hypocrisy and flip-flops and he's never showed half the amount of enthusiasm as he did last night for what was a pretty weak example of hypocrisy.
But on the subject of hypocrisy and football analogies. It's also pretty annoying when people called Rick Perry a hypocrite for accepting stimulus money while criticizing the stimulus or Obama a hypocrite for taking super pac money while criticizing super pacs. It's not hypocritical to say that the rules should be changed, but to play by the regular rules if you don't get your way. It's like saying teams that opposed changing the kickoff to the 35 yard line have to kickoff from the 30 every game or else they are hypocrites.
On February 29 2012 07:08 Haemonculus wrote: It's my understanding that WWII *did* do wonders for the US economy. Especially the aftermath of the war.
Europe had been completely fucking ravaged by the war, and the US mainland was relatively untouched. We simply had no industrial rivals for a while. There was no competition while Europe rebuilt their shattered cities.
Even the buildup of the war helped the economie. How did Germany drag itself up after the end of WW1. With the nazi industrial warmachine.
Yes, we need to build more planes, bombs, tanks, and submarines to raise our standard of living! All those resources need to be used in destroying property and consume the resources in sights and sounds of explosions, death, and destruction. All we need to do is have the Government pay people to run around and destroy everyone's homes, and then we would all become much more wealthy!
Your avoiding the point because it happends to comflict with your views. Its not about building weapons of war. Its about giving all your unemployed a job so they make money and can actualy spend it.
Unless the people you bomb give you money for it, his point is better than yours. Sure it's more complicated than that but saying it's about employing people is silly. You didn't even touch where they money comes from and how it actually would create wealth.
WW2 brought America out of the Great Depression because it employed a huge amount of people with largely low-paying jobs, created huge demand for goods and services for the war effort, and eliminated any private products, so people just saved their money. America was also the world's biggest lender so it had huge liquidity. After the war there was a slight recession because of the loss of wartime production, but the citizens had a large amount of money and were demanding products.
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.
I feel so sorry for you. Deficits are future taxes. Cutting spending allows taxes to go down permanently. Cutting taxes only increases future taxes. Cutting spending is the only way to actually return money to the private sector in the long run. You Keynesians are only concerned about getting through the next election cycle which is why the politicians love you, but you have no clue how the economy works.
And by cutting spending you impair essential services like Social Security, road construction, education, defense etc... The private sector can't handle everything well. If the private sector had total control over education, for example, there wouldn't be anywhere near as many educated people. If you cut government spending, you might pay less taxes, sure, but you'll be paying the same money to the private sector(unless you cut something like defense, which is something that I think should be cut) instead for essential services, and chances are the private sector will charge more. A business has one goal: to make money. Taxes might go down, but you'll still be paying just as much, if not more.
Actually defence-costs in the US is a lot more than just weapons. I know at least environmental science has been helped a lot through the US army. At the same time, there are foreign bases and especially in that regard, there are costs in terms of small societies having to be funded. Talking about the US defence as just a "warmachine" and/or strategic power over the world is not completely true. The money given to the defence is spend in a lot of ways that are positive for civil society too! I think it is an important thing to remember those things too, when advocating cutting military spending.
On February 29 2012 07:15 Gorsameth wrote: [quote]
Even the buildup of the war helped the economie. How did Germany drag itself up after the end of WW1. With the nazi industrial warmachine.
Yes, we need to build more planes, bombs, tanks, and submarines to raise our standard of living! All those resources need to be used in destroying property and consume the resources in sights and sounds of explosions, death, and destruction. All we need to do is have the Government pay people to run around and destroy everyone's homes, and then we would all become much more wealthy!
Your avoiding the point because it happends to comflict with your views. Its not about building weapons of war. Its about giving all your unemployed a job so they make money and can actualy spend it.
Unless the people you bomb give you money for it, his point is better than yours. Sure it's more complicated than that but saying it's about employing people is silly. You didn't even touch where they money comes from and how it actually would create wealth.
WW2 brought America out of the Great Depression because it employed a huge amount of people with largely low-paying jobs, created huge demand for goods and services for the war effort, and eliminated any private products, so people just saved their money. America was also the world's biggest lender so it had huge liquidity. After the war there was a slight recession because of the loss of wartime production, but the citizens had a large amount of money and were demanding products.
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.
I feel so sorry for you. Deficits are future taxes. Cutting spending allows taxes to go down permanently. Cutting taxes only increases future taxes. Cutting spending is the only way to actually return money to the private sector in the long run. You Keynesians are only concerned about getting through the next election cycle which is why the politicians love you, but you have no clue how the economy works.
And by cutting spending you impair essential services like Social Security, road construction, education, defense etc... The private sector can't handle everything well. If the private sector had total control over education, for example, there wouldn't be anywhere near as many educated people. If you cut government spending, you might pay less taxes, sure, but you'll be paying the same money to the private sector(unless you cut something like defense, which is something that I think should be cut) instead for essential services, and chances are the private sector will charge more. A business has one goal: to make money. Taxes might go down, but you'll still be paying just as much, if not more.
Actually defence-costs in the US is a lot more than just weapons. I know at least environmental science has been helped a lot through the US army. At the same time, there are foreign bases and especially in that regard, there are costs in terms of small societies having to be funded. Talking about the US defence as just a "warmachine" and/or strategic power over the world is not completely true. The money given to the defence is spend in a lot of ways that are positive for civil society too! I think it is an important thing to remember those things too, when advocating cutting military spending.
True, I didn't consider that. But my main point was to point out how ridiculous that guy's statements are.
What has military spending ever done for civil society besides the internet and highways and GPS and radar and internal combustion engines and jet propulsion and stirrups and mass production of penicillin and the wheel?
On February 29 2012 07:08 Haemonculus wrote: It's my understanding that WWII *did* do wonders for the US economy. Especially the aftermath of the war.
Europe had been completely fucking ravaged by the war, and the US mainland was relatively untouched. We simply had no industrial rivals for a while. There was no competition while Europe rebuilt their shattered cities.
Even the buildup of the war helped the economie. How did Germany drag itself up after the end of WW1. With the nazi industrial warmachine.
Yes, we need to build more planes, bombs, tanks, and submarines to raise our standard of living! All those resources need to be used in destroying property and consume the resources in sights and sounds of explosions, death, and destruction. All we need to do is have the Government pay people to run around and destroy everyone's homes, and then we would all become much more wealthy!
Your avoiding the point because it happends to comflict with your views. Its not about building weapons of war. Its about giving all your unemployed a job so they make money and can actualy spend it.
Unless the people you bomb give you money for it, his point is better than yours. Sure it's more complicated than that but saying it's about employing people is silly. You didn't even touch where they money comes from and how it actually would create wealth.
WW2 brought America out of the Great Depression because it employed a huge amount of people with largely low-paying jobs, created huge demand for goods and services for the war effort, and eliminated any private products, so people just saved their money. America was also the world's biggest lender so it had huge liquidity. After the war there was a slight recession because of the loss of wartime production, but the citizens had a large amount of money and were demanding products.
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.
I feel so sorry for you. Deficits are future taxes. Cutting spending allows taxes to go down permanently. Cutting taxes only increases future taxes. Cutting spending is the only way to actually return money to the private sector in the long run. You Keynesians are only concerned about getting through the next election cycle which is why the politicians love you, but you have no clue how the economy works.
And by cutting spending you impair essential services like Social Security, road construction, education, defense etc... The private sector can't handle everything well. If the private sector had total control over education, for example, there wouldn't be anywhere near as many educated people. If you cut government spending, you might pay less taxes, sure, but you'll be paying the same money to the private sector(unless you cut something like defense, which is something that I think should be cut) instead for essential services, and chances are the private sector will charge more. A business has one goal: to make money. Taxes might go down, but you'll still be paying just as much, if not more.
I think this is a discussion about whether stimulis works + consequences of deficits. Not about whether private market can deal with these things efficiently. If one actually wants to come to a conclusion in a debate, then you can't widen the discussion.
On February 29 2012 07:15 Gorsameth wrote: [quote]
Even the buildup of the war helped the economie. How did Germany drag itself up after the end of WW1. With the nazi industrial warmachine.
Yes, we need to build more planes, bombs, tanks, and submarines to raise our standard of living! All those resources need to be used in destroying property and consume the resources in sights and sounds of explosions, death, and destruction. All we need to do is have the Government pay people to run around and destroy everyone's homes, and then we would all become much more wealthy!
Your avoiding the point because it happends to comflict with your views. Its not about building weapons of war. Its about giving all your unemployed a job so they make money and can actualy spend it.
Unless the people you bomb give you money for it, his point is better than yours. Sure it's more complicated than that but saying it's about employing people is silly. You didn't even touch where they money comes from and how it actually would create wealth.
WW2 brought America out of the Great Depression because it employed a huge amount of people with largely low-paying jobs, created huge demand for goods and services for the war effort, and eliminated any private products, so people just saved their money. America was also the world's biggest lender so it had huge liquidity. After the war there was a slight recession because of the loss of wartime production, but the citizens had a large amount of money and were demanding products.
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.
I feel so sorry for you. Deficits are future taxes. Cutting spending allows taxes to go down permanently. Cutting taxes only increases future taxes. Cutting spending is the only way to actually return money to the private sector in the long run. You Keynesians are only concerned about getting through the next election cycle which is why the politicians love you, but you have no clue how the economy works.
And by cutting spending you impair essential services like Social Security, road construction, education, defense etc... The private sector can't handle everything well. If the private sector had total control over education, for example, there wouldn't be anywhere near as many educated people. If you cut government spending, you might pay less taxes, sure, but you'll be paying the same money to the private sector(unless you cut something like defense, which is something that I think should be cut) instead for essential services, and chances are the private sector will charge more. A business has one goal: to make money. Taxes might go down, but you'll still be paying just as much, if not more.
I think this is a discussion about whether stimulis works + consequences of deficits. Not about whether private market can deal with these things efficiently. If one actually wants to come to a conclusion in a debate, then you can't widen the discussion.
Well, he's suggesting that cutting government spending=prosperity, and I'm talking about the consequences of cutting government spending. In any case, one only needs to look at historical evidence(post WWII time period) to see that stimulating the economy via government spending works in a recession. Many economists would argue that the stimulus put forward by Obama's administration prevented us from going into a depression. As for the consequences of deficits, they're not anywhere near as extreme as Republicans and the media make it out to be, and again, you can look at the post WWII time period for evidence of this.
Yes, we need to build more planes, bombs, tanks, and submarines to raise our standard of living! All those resources need to be used in destroying property and consume the resources in sights and sounds of explosions, death, and destruction. All we need to do is have the Government pay people to run around and destroy everyone's homes, and then we would all become much more wealthy!
Your avoiding the point because it happends to comflict with your views. Its not about building weapons of war. Its about giving all your unemployed a job so they make money and can actualy spend it.
Unless the people you bomb give you money for it, his point is better than yours. Sure it's more complicated than that but saying it's about employing people is silly. You didn't even touch where they money comes from and how it actually would create wealth.
WW2 brought America out of the Great Depression because it employed a huge amount of people with largely low-paying jobs, created huge demand for goods and services for the war effort, and eliminated any private products, so people just saved their money. America was also the world's biggest lender so it had huge liquidity. After the war there was a slight recession because of the loss of wartime production, but the citizens had a large amount of money and were demanding products.
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.
I feel so sorry for you. Deficits are future taxes. Cutting spending allows taxes to go down permanently. Cutting taxes only increases future taxes. Cutting spending is the only way to actually return money to the private sector in the long run. You Keynesians are only concerned about getting through the next election cycle which is why the politicians love you, but you have no clue how the economy works.
And by cutting spending you impair essential services like Social Security, road construction, education, defense etc... The private sector can't handle everything well. If the private sector had total control over education, for example, there wouldn't be anywhere near as many educated people. If you cut government spending, you might pay less taxes, sure, but you'll be paying the same money to the private sector(unless you cut something like defense, which is something that I think should be cut) instead for essential services, and chances are the private sector will charge more. A business has one goal: to make money. Taxes might go down, but you'll still be paying just as much, if not more.
I think this is a discussion about whether stimulis works + consequences of deficits. Not about whether private market can deal with these things efficiently. If one actually wants to come to a conclusion in a debate, then you can't widen the discussion.
Well, he's suggesting that cutting government spending=prosperity, and I'm talking about the consequences of cutting government spending. In any case, one only needs to look at historical evidence(post WWII time period) to see that stimulating the economy via government spending works in a recession. Many economists would argue that the stimulus put forward by Obama's administration prevented us from going into a depression. As for the consequences of deficits, they're not anywhere near as extreme as Republicans and the media make it out to be, and again, you can look at the post WWII time period for evidence of this.
Yes many economists argue that, but that doesn't nessacary mean they are correct. Sure if you go look at the work of Krugman he has certainly been incorrect in analysing the effect of the obama plan. If you try to analyse the stimulis effect empirical you will find a clear negative correlation between keynesian spending and prosperity (1920-1921 recession as a great example of the austerity approach, and great depression and today as great examples of big spending approach). But of course Keynesians will argue that because of XX these comparsions arent' releevant, and that it would just be even worse without that government spendings.
Of course these arguments are impossible to disproof, but that only shows that proofing the effects of government policies empirically is an impossible task. Empirical data can always be interpreted in different ways to fit the theories of the economist.
Robert Murphy talks about it in the first part of this video:
On February 29 2012 13:03 Jibba wrote: Ahahhaha Jon Stewart is so fucking brilliant.
The Daily Show has several clips of Romney talking about how he registered as an Independent in MA so he could vote against leading democrats in their primaries.
Correct me if I am wrong but didn't he recently say he was at a car rally that happened before he was born? Honestly how a potential president can talk such bullshit; not expect to be called on it and when he is people just dismiss it, is beyond me. It is either an indictment of the woeful candidates he is up against or an indictment of the people voting him in. Maybe it is both.
nobody cares about people being wrong nowadays. Something else just happens and it gets left in the dust.
In fact, just by saying something, you will find that people quote it as truth because the fallout for what they say is rarely ever as publicized as them saying it in the first place.
Surely it is not unreasonable to expect that the possible future president of the United States of America has at least the courtesy to pretend to care about being honest? It's a sad state of affairs when your leaders can celebrate blatant lies. I guess that is politics these days. Down here we have our own shit to deal with so I am not throwing stones.
I don't think many americans would feel offended if you say our politics and news cycle is a joke so don't worry about that.
I think the crux of the issue is 24 hour cable news channels (24 hour sports channels as well, but thats another discussion) and the internet have ruined journalism. Headlines change every 10 minutes and because people are rushing to get headlines, there is no fact checking and "journalists" do their best to manufacture headlines/news by being sensationalist as fuck.
Yeah we have the same issue. My biggest problem isn't necessarily that he doesn't get hawled over the coals for it, it is that he can blatantly expect not to receive any real damage from it. I mean either he has a terrible memory which includes him being places he cannot be; or he knew he was lying. If we believe he knew he was lying, then he counted on the fact that his speech would have more power with that anecdote and would be sufficient to drown out any ensuing bad press. That kind of blatantly obvious cynicism towards truth and honesty is breathtaking. Especially for someone who may one day lead the US. It's scary to think he is considered to be the most normal of the candidates currently running.
Think of it this way, it's like me saying "Tony Abbott could easily become PM of Australia one day". At the end of the day we both know Tony Abbott isn't going anywhere except in a niche role. What I'm trying to say is anyone relatively literate in politics knows Santorum has no chance to "may one day lead the US".
Whilst that may be true of Santorum, I was talking about Romney. As for Tony Abbot, he is leading the polls by a country mile. Every man and their horse is betting he will get in at the next election. The stupid thing is that most people can't stand the guy, they just hate Labor more. Urgh, thanks for reminding me >_>
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