On February 29 2012 07:22 Gorsameth wrote: [quote]
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:
Dude, the 1921 recession happened because of inflation. That is not the modern crisis. Try and get your facts straight before asserting that others are wrong. Financial and housing implosions, meanwhile, are as old as time and far older than government fiscal stimulus. They have always taken a long time to recover from. Try the panic of 1897 for a better comparison.
On March 01 2012 07:29 Jibba wrote: 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?
Jibba, i think civil society (with the same money) would eventually provide all these things. Defense spending is monstrously too large. Our navy is entirely useless, our Airforce nearly the same. Its been 40 plus years since another country could touch us in those domains. Yet the navy is largest portion of the DoD pie.
Foreign bases are a massive expenditure for little return. Sure we can access any warzone in about 24 hours but with the money we spend... i could wait 4 days to get into a fight.
I do agree that war forces innovation, but research and development is on the smaller side of the DoD's expenditures.
On March 01 2012 07:29 Jibba wrote: 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?
Jibba, to be fair, there's a big difference between military research spending and a lot of the other spending that goes on, like having an absurd amount of different independent security organizations in this country all doing the same work, or having a ridiculous amount of overseas military bases with little purpose, in places you wouldn't think they'd still be (like in Europe, bases that were established for the Cold War), and actual military operations that we shouldn't be conducting.
On February 29 2012 07:28 gruff wrote: [quote] 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.
Dude, the 1921 recession happened because of inflation. That is not the modern crisis. Try and get your facts straight before asserting that others are wrong. Financial and housing implosions, meanwhile, are as old as time and far older than government fiscal stimulus. They have always taken a long time to recover from. Try the panic of 1897 for a better comparison.
Why so offensive? I only stated that govenrment cutted spending in 1920-1921, and that the recovery was very quick. Im not even talking about what caused them. My point is just that you can always fit the data to match your theory.
On March 01 2012 07:29 Jibba wrote: 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?
And that certainly wasn't done in a cost-effective way given the costs of like, mass producing weapons and paying soldiers who for the most part stay at home, and are overall useless.
On February 29 2012 07:34 Sofestafont wrote: [quote]
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.
Dude, the 1921 recession happened because of inflation. That is not the modern crisis. Try and get your facts straight before asserting that others are wrong. Financial and housing implosions, meanwhile, are as old as time and far older than government fiscal stimulus. They have always taken a long time to recover from. Try the panic of 1897 for a better comparison.
Why so offensive? I only stated that govenrment cutted spending in 1920-1921, and that the recovery was very quick. Im not even talking about what caused them. My point is just that you can always fit the data to match your theory.
In other words, you're saying that austerity worked for a crisis that wasn't caused by an implosion in demand. Which is exactly not the modern one. And yes, you can, if you don't apply Occam's razor. "There was too much government" and "there wasn't enough government intervention" can always be used to justify why things aren't going well now. But it's not that hard to at least try and look at the thousands of experiments across history, comparing the effects of a lack of government intervention and the effects of one with government involvement in crises brought upon by financial implosions, and then trying to reach a conclusion. It's another thing entirely to start with theory you're sure explains everything and work backwards.
You can never disprove the plum pudding model of molecular theory either. But you can show that your model of thinking actually predicts something reasonably true. Krugman was very unequivocal in 2009 that the stimulus wouldn't do very much at all, and that unemployment would go over 10 percent anyways. Which was correct, but hardly proves his line of thinking. Meanwhile, prominent voices in the austerity school of thought (Meltzer, Schiff, Fama, etc.) declared that inflation was just around the corner. They were, of course, completely wrong. Before the crisis, most austerity figures were telling you that the market always priced things just right. That a financial implosion was absurd and based on schlock economics. Of the people who declared that the crisis happened, they were Paul Krugman, Joseph Stiglitz, Kenneth Rogoff, Carmen Reinhart, and well, Peter Schiff and a few media personalities. Excluding Schiff and the media personalities (Schiff of course, is notable for a pro-austerity platform), the common thread each of these economists share is their skepticism in a purely private market approach to recovery. Hell, even John Cochrane and Eugene Fama, the kingpins of the modern neoclassical economic theory, praised the necessity of some form of stimulus to inject liquidity back into the banks.
So there's an easy way to test if certain economic models work; check their predictions hold up. Peter Schiff, along with every Austrian economist in the world, told you that inflation was going to be a big short-term danger in 2009. Meanwhile, Krugman asserted that basic Keynesian theory tells you that inflation would stay low as long as the economy remains depressed. Austrian economists are either busy backwalking their old claims, or changing their time frames for inflation on the fly. But it's pretty clear who turned out to be more correct. If you want to compare to 1921, inflation was going way up in the post-war era then. Now, the three year average is lower than it has been in years. So of course the perscription is going to be different.
So yes, economics is not a very certain science, and no one can every say definitively which model is absolutely correct. But it really helps when you try and look at what people have been predicting, acknowledging that yes, predictions will never be close to 100 percent correct,
The Obama stimulus faded out nearly one and a half years ago, and budget cuts have been going down in Europe, and individual states budgets, and so forth. Not a soul on the market is actually concerned about the US debt situation, as seen by the fact the US can borrow at 10 years for only 2 percent. Private markets are sitting on tons of capital (Apple is sitting on more cash than the houses of gold in the US treasury), and are, by all polls taken on businesses and employers, not expanding because there isn't demand.
The primary argument in economic circles that government spending doesn't work is that the debt has to be paid off eventually, and markets will look at the long-term debt and scale back their own investments in the short-term. Not an Austrian economist alive will argue that government spending, if some how magically done for free, will hold back recovery. But if you want to examine these claims, just poll businesses about the effect of the deficit on their investments. This has been done with Bruce Bartlett, Gallup, etc. The business's answer does not hold up the Austrian argument.
On February 29 2012 07:22 Gorsameth wrote: [quote]
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.
I'm not really sure what you're trying to say. How exactly is there a negative correlation between keynesian spending and prosperity? The late 40s-late 60s were one of the most prosperous times in U.S. history, and that entire era was dominated by keynesian economics(since keynesian economics was a direct response to the Great Depression)
And having watched the first part of that video, it's clear that that guy has no idea what he's talking about. He claims that the economy got worse after keynesian policy was applied in the 30s and in the recent recession, and both of those claims are completely false. After Roosevelt's New Deal, the economy began to recover(slowly, admittedly) and when the massive amount of government spending came in WWII, the economy improved dramatically. The one time in the Depression after 1932 where the economy got worse was in I believe 1937-38, and that's because Roosevelt listened to all the people that were screaming about the deficit getting too high, and he responded with spending cuts. Likewise, the economy has been slowly recovering after Obama's stimulus package(keep in mind that Obama's stimulus got cut down significantly by Republicans).Obviously, the Government can't just spend spend spend all the time, but in a recession, it's obvious that government spending has a positive affect in stimulating the economy. It's not just that I disagree with his opinion, he makes claims that are factually inaccurate.
On March 01 2012 07:29 Jibba wrote: 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?
And that certainly wasn't done in a cost-effective way given the costs of like, mass producing weapons and paying soldiers who for the most part stay at home, and are overall useless.
Weapon production is an industry of its own and the US has one of the worlds largest and most powerful weapon-industries in the world. They produce clusterbombs, apms et al. and the value of the export is enough to keep the US government away from signing treaties against it. Anti Personel Mines are hitting a lot more civil targets than soldiers and clusterbombs has an ability to avoid exploding untill a child picks them up. Another fact: Blank bullets are, as far as I recall, quite a bit more expensive than live rounds even though live rounds are more expensive to manufacture. The reason being that they are the more used type of ammunition and peacetime sales is slow compared to wartime. If you wanna be anti-Vietnam today, the industry is a much more legitimate target than the military. The only problem is that the weapon-industry is private. Makes it a lot harder to hit them!
On February 29 2012 07:34 Sofestafont wrote: [quote]
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.
Dude, the 1921 recession happened because of inflation. That is not the modern crisis. Try and get your facts straight before asserting that others are wrong. Financial and housing implosions, meanwhile, are as old as time and far older than government fiscal stimulus. They have always taken a long time to recover from. Try the panic of 1897 for a better comparison.
Why so offensive? I only stated that govenrment cutted spending in 1920-1921, and that the recovery was very quick. Im not even talking about what caused them. My point is just that you can always fit the data to match your theory.
This is the kind of logic that has permeated our political process, and it freaking terrifies me. It's not a liberal/conservative thing, it's an empirical/gut feeling thing.
There are valid arguments on both sides of this issue, but that in no way makes it ok to say "well you can prove anything with fact, so facts are irrelevent." That implies the modern way of thinking, that all opinions are equally valid and deserve to be heard. Some oppinions are researched, supported by facts, and presented in a clear and rational way. Others are merely ravings of someone upset with the current system. Yet both of these get treated equally in the political sphere.
If you want to argue that cutting spending is the best way out of a recession, that's fine. You just can't do that and also claim that the data related to your argument is irrelevent, because that in turn makes your argument irrelevent, since you've removed the facts from it. It shows that your entire stance isn't based on data or logic, but simply how you feel about the issue. Feelings are not an acceptable way to debate, let alone govern a society.
On March 01 2012 07:29 Jibba wrote: 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?
And that certainly wasn't done in a cost-effective way given the costs of like, mass producing weapons and paying soldiers who for the most part stay at home, and are overall useless.
Rarely is it cost effective but cutting edge research is very rarely cost effective, which is why governments forced it through. If turning a profit were a singular goal and the government didn't step in, our pharmaceutical industry would be entirely based around diabetes, blood pressure and boner medicine, and many of them would not have been developed yet because much of the underlying research came from them. I'm not saying militarism is a good thing or that ours are spent well, but i don't agree with complaining about military development spending.
If you wait for it to be cost effective before starting, you'll be waiting a long time. Efficiency is not always the best priority. As for wasteful spending like 500 dollar toilets, the money usually doesn't just disappear or go into someone's pockets. It's getting reappropriated to something else that was underfunded and they're hoping people don't notice. Occasionally there's something terrible like the Osprey but other times, in the budget analysts mind, they're compensating for a mistake Congress made somewhere else.
Does anyone else pine for an America where political debates have a level of discourse even 1/10th as substantive as you fine gentlemen have created in this thread?
On March 01 2012 07:29 Jibba wrote: 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?
And that certainly wasn't done in a cost-effective way given the costs of like, mass producing weapons and paying soldiers who for the most part stay at home, and are overall useless.
Rarely is it cost effective but cutting edge research is very rarely cost effective, which is why governments forced it through. If turning a profit were a singular goal and the government didn't step in, our pharmaceutical industry would be entirely based around diabetes, blood pressure and boner medicine, and many of them would not have been developed yet because much of the underlying research came from them. I'm not saying militarism is a good thing or that ours are spent well, but i don't agree with complaining about military development spending.
If you wait for it to be cost effective before starting, you'll be waiting a long time. Efficiency is not always the best priority. As for wasteful spending like 500 dollar toilets, the money usually doesn't just disappear or go into someone's pockets. It's getting reappropriated to something else that was underfunded and they're hoping people don't notice. Occasionally there's something terrible like the Osprey but other times, in the budget analysts mind, they're compensating for a mistake Congress made somewhere else.
I'm not saying I want things to be cost effective necessarily, profit is not a concern to me in those matters. These inventions however don't have to be THAT cost ineffective. My point is, the military is a huge expense, and its occasional (albeit significant) contributions to society don't justify the entire cost. NASA's budget over the last 50 years is a fraction of the yearly military budget.
Seriously, the US wouldn't crumble if you were to fire a handful of logistics officers (experienced truck drivers).
On March 01 2012 09:15 DamnCats wrote: Does anyone else pine for an America where political debates have a level of discourse even 1/10th as substantive as you fine gentlemen have created in this thread?
Most politicians don't even understand their own stated positions well enough to even participate in such a debate. For example, I cringe whenever I see John Boehner (Speaker of the House) appear for an interview because he is so obviously uninformed whenever he attempts to explain policies with any degree of specificity.
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.
Ah, the common socialist strawman that if we say we don't want the government to do it, we think that it shouldn't be done at all...
Social Security is not a service, even. It's a ponzi scheme. It's criminal. The fact that anyone TRIES to defend the system is ridiculous. People would be better off actually just burying that money in the ground than giving it to the government. At least it'd be there on demand. The "trust fund' is just full of treasury IOUs. We have no savings - it's all been thrown away by the government and replaced with debt.
Roads were built long before the government got involved in them. That being said, if the government wants to build roads, I don't really care, because it's a TINY fraction of the federal budget.
Federal government involvement in education has educated a grand total of 0 people. They exist to do two things: bid up the price of higher education through guaranteed loans (sound familiar?) and create rules and regulations that expand the bureaucracy. Federal education spending has increased massively over the last few decades, but student performance has flatlined. We're not doing anyone a service by continuing to spend that money, except the bureaucrats and unions.
As for defense, I believe that defense is certainly worth spending on, but if you look at our defense spending (not even counting overseas appropriations for the wars) we have ballooned over the last decade. Ron Paul wants to bring it back to 2006 levels, which is still way more than I think we'd ever need if we had a lean and intelligent defense dept. What most people don't realize is that contractors and bureaucracies try to spend as much money as inefficiently as possible, so they can whine about being underfunded and get more money next year. That's how the game is played, and it's so destructive. Politicians don't care, because they're not on the hook for overspending. Instead they strawman the hell out of anyone who talks about cuts and reforms as "wanting the terrorists to strike again." It's all crap.
And what you don't seem to understand about the private sector is that it's subject to market forces. That means competition. That means the laws of supply and demand. Government is a monopoly, and monopolies produce inefficiencies, have no incentive to cut costs or be efficient, and no reason to deliver a quality product. We've seen it over and over again. Look at the telecomm industry and how much we've advanced since the government monopoly was broken up. Look at private package delivery vs government. The private sector is always going to provide a better service at a lower cost.
On March 01 2012 07:29 Jibba wrote: 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?
And that certainly wasn't done in a cost-effective way given the costs of like, mass producing weapons and paying soldiers who for the most part stay at home, and are overall useless.
Rarely is it cost effective but cutting edge research is very rarely cost effective, which is why governments forced it through. If turning a profit were a singular goal and the government didn't step in, our pharmaceutical industry would be entirely based around diabetes, blood pressure and boner medicine, and many of them would not have been developed yet because much of the underlying research came from them. I'm not saying militarism is a good thing or that ours are spent well, but i don't agree with complaining about military development spending.
If you wait for it to be cost effective before starting, you'll be waiting a long time. Efficiency is not always the best priority. As for wasteful spending like 500 dollar toilets, the money usually doesn't just disappear or go into someone's pockets. It's getting reappropriated to something else that was underfunded and they're hoping people don't notice. Occasionally there's something terrible like the Osprey but other times, in the budget analysts mind, they're compensating for a mistake Congress made somewhere else.
I'm not saying I want things to be cost effective necessarily, profit is not a concern to me in those matters. These inventions however don't have to be THAT cost ineffective. My point is, the military is a huge expense, and its occasional (albeit significant) contributions to society don't justify the entire cost. NASA's budget over the last 50 years is a fraction of the yearly military budget.
Seriously, the US wouldn't crumble if you were to fire a handful of logistics officers (experienced truck drivers).
I agree with you. There's a lot of unnecessary expenditures and programs, I just don't think R&D is as much of a problem as people have made it out to be lately. It's a lot but it covers a lot of ground, including medical and aerospace, and is something like 1/8th of the DoD budget and 1/15th of the entire military budget.
Ah, the common socialist strawman that if we say we don't want the government to do it, we think that it shouldn't be done at all...
Pretty sure that's not what I said. I said that it's simply not beneficial for the people to have the public sector do certain tasks, such as education. In many other things, the public sector does a fine job, but when it comes to bare essentials that everyone needs but not everyone can afford, the government has to step in, because businesses sure as hell aren't gonna do it if there's nothing in it for them.
Social Security is not a service, even. It's a ponzi scheme. It's criminal. The fact that anyone TRIES to defend the system is ridiculous. People would be better off actually just burying that money in the ground than giving it to the government. At least it'd be there on demand. The "trust fund' is just full of treasury IOUs. We have no savings - it's all been thrown away by the government and replaced with debt.
Lol, what? Do you have any evidence supporting that statement? No sane person would claim that the Social Security system is perfect, but it's hardly a Ponzi scheme-it provides help for those who need it. And again, you're making a big deal out of government debt when it really isn't. Governments being in debt is normal. Hell, the average person being in debt from time to time is normal.
Roads were built long before the government got involved in them. That being said, if the government wants to build roads, I don't really care, because it's a TINY fraction of the federal budget.
Roads also didn't need to be as complex and expensive before the government got involved in them. We didn't need a massive highway system in the 1800s. The already complicated highway system would be much more complicated if there were a ton of different private companies competing for dominance.
Federal government involvement in education has educated a grand total of 0 people. They exist to do two things: bid up the price of higher education through guaranteed loans (sound familiar?) and create rules and regulations that expand the bureaucracy. Federal education spending has increased massively over the last few decades, but student performance has flatlined. We're not doing anyone a service by continuing to spend that money, except the bureaucrats and unions.
When it comes to education, it makes most sense to talk about state government, because state governments are in charge of education. And while there's no doubt that our education system has a lot of problems, it would be far worse if the private sector had control of it because only people who had the money to pay for education would be able to get an education. Then you have poor families and the like unable to get an education for their kids because they can't pay for it, and because they're uneducated, they can't get out of their poverty, and you have an endless cycle of poverty.
As for defense, I believe that defense is certainly worth spending on, but if you look at our defense spending (not even counting overseas appropriations for the wars) we have ballooned over the last decade. Ron Paul wants to bring it back to 2006 levels, which is still way more than I think we'd ever need if we had a lean and intelligent defense dept. What most people don't realize is that contractors and bureaucracies try to spend as much money as inefficiently as possible, so they can whine about being underfunded and get more money next year. That's how the game is played, and it's so destructive. Politicians don't care, because they're not on the hook for overspending. Instead they strawman the hell out of anyone who talks about cuts and reforms as "wanting the terrorists to strike again." It's all crap.
I actually mostly agree with this paragraph. Like others have mentioned, though, defense spending can bring great innovations to the people.
And what you don't seem to understand about the private sector is that it's subject to market forces. That means competition. That means the laws of supply and demand. Government is a monopoly, and monopolies produce inefficiencies, have no incentive to cut costs or be efficient, and no reason to deliver a quality product. We've seen it over and over again. Look at the telecomm industry and how much we've advanced since the government monopoly was broken up. Look at private package delivery vs government. The private sector is always going to provide a better service at a lower cost.
I do understand this. The fact that the private sector is subject to market forces is exactly why it isn't suitable for everything. What incentive would a business have to offer benefits for impoverished families or the unemployed? Absolutely none. In a perfect world, where everyone started off with equal opportunity to get educated and become wealthy, this would make perfect sense. But we don't live in a perfect world. Not everyone starts with the same opportunities because not every family would have the money to pay for essential things like education. Even if, theoretically, the private sector charged a lower cost for college, not everyone would be able to pay that price. As it is right now, a student with good grades but no money can get federal grants, and occasionally scholarships, but in the world you describe a student would only be able to get scholarships(if that) and only a select few who get the very best grades would get them. And the few who get the very best grades probably wouldn't need it because they were able to afford education in the private sector in the first place. Sure, if the private sector ran these kinds of services, it'd be fine for some people, but for others, it would put them in an endless cycle of poverty in which there's no way of getting out.
The statement "the private sector is ALWAYS going to provide a better service at a lower cost" is inherently false. Look at your medical and health care system. Its a failure for anyone that isnt rich. Certain things, such as healthcare, should be run by the government, with 2 goals in mind, first being providing good care for EVERYONE, and second operating cost effectively (NOT FOR PROFIT). I think government and the private sector are both needed, and both are better at different things. Its not a black and white issue.
On March 01 2012 11:53 Focuspants wrote: The statement "the private sector is ALWAYS going to provide a better service at a lower cost" is inherently false. Look at your medical and health care system. Its a failure for anyone that isnt rich. Certain things, such as healthcare, should be run by the government, with 2 goals in mind, first being providing good care for EVERYONE, and second operating cost effectively (NOT FOR PROFIT). I think government and the private sector are both needed, and both are better at different things. Its not a black and white issue.
Our healthcare system isn't run by a free market.
Operating cost effectively, and "run by the government" are basically mutually exclusive, while being "for profit" and operating cost effectively aren't.
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.
He has a point here. Romney telling Republicans to vote in a democratic primary is similar to Michael Moore telling democrats to vote in the Republican one (which he did). Romney never complained about the democrats telling democrats to vote for Santorum. What he complained about was that it was an actual candidate of 1 party asking the other party to come and sabotage his own party's primary.
What Santorum did was straight up weird. Many ppl have done what Michael Moore and Romney did, but I don't know of any other example of a candidate doing it against his own party.
EPT
