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On November 04 2012 03:23 xDaunt wrote:Show nested quote +On November 04 2012 03:21 oneofthem wrote:
ahahaha so it shouldn't have mattered that romney is a flawed candidate? do you think a monkey should have beaten obama? A plywood board should beat Obama.
What an [in]advertently violent and hostile statement, and obviously completely detached from reality. But then again, the right-wing has convinced itself that Obama is so terrible (even though his presidency was extremely mild in terms of policy changes) that they're actually voting for Mitt Romney en masse.
If you can't see that Obama has more leadership, personality, and integrity than Mitt Romney, then you're trying really hard to not see the obvious. Mitt Romney's campaign was "flawed", your primaries were "flawed".
Since Day 1 of Obama's presidency, the GOP has campaigned against Obama. Romney has been campaigning since before 2008. This was the best you could do.
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On November 04 2012 03:32 paralleluniverse wrote:Show nested quote +On November 04 2012 03:30 Adila wrote:
If Romney loses, I'd blame the far-right in the Republican party that forced him to morph into severe conservative Mitt. I'd also blame them for driving away any of the more pragmatic Republicans from running this year.
The Republican primary was a huge joke. I would say that this is quite a sensible assessment.
Of course you think it's a sensible assessment. Anyone who disagree with the right wing would love to think "he lost because he's right wing." It's really funny to me when Democrats make arguments like "he lost because he wasn't Democrat enough." They can't help but see from their own paradigm.
Presidential politics is a popularity contest. Obama isn't going to lose a popularity contest no matter what his record is, despite people thinking this country is filled with white racists.
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Cayman Islands24199 Posts
yes, continue to move to the right. that's what we all want to see. :D
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On November 04 2012 03:39 johny23 wrote:
When the economic stakes are so high for the ENTIRE WORLD, no other issue matters. It's like a company who is on the verge of closing down and filing bankruptcy, yet they have a meeting discussing if workers should get 15 minute or 20 minute breaks.
There's pro's for both.
Pros for Obama: Will let the Fed continue low interest rates, QE, easy money policies and allow us to basically buy our own debt to push the financial disaster down the road( who knows for how long Japan did it for along time).
Pros for Romney: By some huge stroke of luck if he actually tries to change things maybe it will work (I doubt it). But the other Pro to Romney is that the economy would crash a lot faster, allowing us to at least have hope for the future and start to rebuild. The crash will be a lot worst when it comes if we keep doing what we have (as I explained in previous post).
Anyone who thinks we can continue down this path without having a correction knows nothing about economics or cycles of life. There are Ups and Downs in almost everything, that includes the economy. You can't have never ending growth and never ending debt( That's what the American economy has been based on for a long time now). We needed a crash in order to correct this so that we could rebuild. All the policies were doing now are to stop this natural correction, but it EVENTUALLY HAS TO HAPPEN. How can you argue that growth and debt can go on forever without a NATURAL correction?
To give an example imagine the stock price of a company going up and when it starts to correct, the company constantly buys every single share that is sold holding the stock price up. It obviously cannot do that forever, eventually the price has to correct before real buyers come in.
Another example. Imagine the price of bread going up $2.00 a loaf every day. Eventually it must correct or no one can afford bread, therefore either everyone dies, the price of bread comes down or no one sells bread.
Thinking that the worlds economy is going to move forward and expand at this point without a huge correction is the same thing as arguing against the two examples I just gave. So many countries are doing everything possible to keep the debt and growth cycle going, the longer we go on without a true correction, the bigger and bolder the actions and policies will have to be to keep this thing going.
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On November 04 2012 03:39 johny23 wrote:
When the economic stakes are so high for the ENTIRE WORLD, no other issue matters. It's like a company who is on the verge of closing down and filing bankruptcy, yet they have a meeting discussing if workers should get 15 minute or 20 minute breaks.
There's pro's for both.
Pros for Obama: Will let the Fed continue low interest rates, QE, easy money policies and allow us to basically buy our own debt to push the financial disaster down the road( who knows for how long Japan did it for along time).
Pros for Romney: By some huge stroke of luck if he actually tries to change things maybe it will work (I doubt it). But the other Pro to Romney is that the economy would crash a lot faster, allowing us to at least have hope for the future and start to rebuild. The crash will be a lot worst when it comes if we keep doing what we have (as I explained in previous post).
Anyone who thinks we can continue down this path without having a correction knows nothing about economics or cycles of life. There are Ups and Downs in almost everything, that includes the economy. You can't have never ending growth and never ending debt( That's what the American economy has been based on for a long time now). We needed a crash in order to correct this so that we could rebuild. All the policies were doing now are to stop this natural correction, but it EVENTUALLY HAS TO HAPPEN. How can you argue that growth and debt can go on forever without a NATURAL correction?
Are you an Austrian economist? This is a popular Austrian theory, just let the entire economy crash and hit rock bottom, and somehow, inflicting this massive pain will fix everything. It's like Germany's masochistic obsession that economic pain is the solution to the Eurozone 's woes, meanwhile unemployment in Spain and Greece hits 25%. Enough pain yet?
But why should we believe any of it is true? What's so wrong with the economy that nothing short of destroying it, so that it can be rebuilt, can fix it? After all, the Great Depression wasn't fixed because people had suffered enough economic pain, it was WW2.
There is no reason why we can't have endless growth and endless debt as long as babies are born, technology improves and people work. Maybe endless growth won't be so endless when all the resources on the planet are depleted., but no one expects that to happen anytime soon.
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Cayman Islands24199 Posts
the u.s. has been in debt literally since its founding. the creditworthiness of the govt is not that bad. the important debt figure is percentage of gdp, with high growth economy able to sustain more debt
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There is no reason why we can't have endless growth and endless debt as long as babies are born, technology improves and people work.
If this is really what you believe, then you must think there are millions of Austrian economists out there. Keynes himself would say this notion is nuts.
On November 04 2012 03:51 oneofthem wrote:
the u.s. has been in debt literally since its founding. the creditworthiness of the govt is not that bad. the important debt figure is percentage of gdp, with high growth economy able to sustain more debt
Yes, debt to GDP is what matters, and for the US, it's currently over 100%, and growing.
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On November 04 2012 03:46 jdseemoreglass wrote:Show nested quote +On November 04 2012 03:32 paralleluniverse wrote:On November 04 2012 03:30 Adila wrote:
If Romney loses, I'd blame the far-right in the Republican party that forced him to morph into severe conservative Mitt. I'd also blame them for driving away any of the more pragmatic Republicans from running this year.
The Republican primary was a huge joke. I would say that this is quite a sensible assessment. Of course you think it's a sensible assessment. Anyone who disagree with the right wing would love to think "he lost because he's right wing." It's really funny to me when Democrats make arguments like "he lost because he wasn't Democrat enough." They can't help but see from their own paradigm. Presidential politics is a popularity contest. Obama isn't going to lose a popularity contest no matter what his record is, despite people thinking this country is filled with white racists.
I'm sorry but almost all issues, Americans are generally quite leftist. The myth is that we are a center-right country. But really, it's just that corporatism and corruption has shifted our politics to the right.
The wealthy are hailed as infinitely wonderful and angelic job creators who deserve all the money, and the poor have been degraded as moochers and freeloaders who we should treat with contempt. Any sensible discussion of wealth disparity and economic instability is declared to be 'class warfare.' Consumer Protections are declared to be 'unnecessary regulation.' Trying to prevent Conflicts of Interest in Wall Street is seen as putting them chains. When companies are competing on who can screw over their customers the most, we call this the 'free market.'
And I'm not whining about Republicans here. Democrats are guilty of this crap too.
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On November 04 2012 03:52 jdseemoreglass wrote:Show nested quote +There is no reason why we can't have endless growth and endless debt as long as babies are born, technology improves and people work. If this is really what you believe, then you must think there are millions of Austrian economists out there. Keynes himself would say this notion is nuts.
The economy has been growing since the beginning of economies, there's no reason we should expect it to stop in the near future, unless we hit some sort of physical constraint. Obviously, growth can't continue at extremely high rates, for example China's growth, which is in the ballpark of 10%, will slow to that of other advanced economies as it's catchup growth eventually fades. Also this isn't some crazy idea that I just made up: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoclassical_growth_model#Long_run_implications
When I mean endless debt, I don't mean infinite debt, I mean a finite amount of debt that continues to roll over, which is also basically what has been happening since the start of economies.
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Cayman Islands24199 Posts
On November 04 2012 03:52 jdseemoreglass wrote:Show nested quote +There is no reason why we can't have endless growth and endless debt as long as babies are born, technology improves and people work. If this is really what you believe, then you must think there are millions of Austrian economists out there. Keynes himself would say this notion is nuts. Show nested quote +On November 04 2012 03:51 oneofthem wrote:
the u.s. has been in debt literally since its founding. the creditworthiness of the govt is not that bad. the important debt figure is percentage of gdp, with high growth economy able to sustain more debt Yes, debt to GDP is what matters, and for the US, it's currently over 100%, and growing.
it's not as bad as the situation in other places. so the u.s. currency is still very safe, as well as t bonds.
you will be very hard pressed to find any modern institution connected to financial markets that do not have any debt, because debt is just anotehr way of arranging future v present spending. as long as you have savings somewhere, somewhere else will have debt.
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On November 04 2012 03:46 jdseemoreglass wrote:Show nested quote +On November 04 2012 03:32 paralleluniverse wrote:On November 04 2012 03:30 Adila wrote:
If Romney loses, I'd blame the far-right in the Republican party that forced him to morph into severe conservative Mitt. I'd also blame them for driving away any of the more pragmatic Republicans from running this year.
The Republican primary was a huge joke. I would say that this is quite a sensible assessment. Of course you think it's a sensible assessment. Anyone who disagree with the right wing would love to think "he lost because he's right wing." It's really funny to me when Democrats make arguments like "he lost because he wasn't Democrat enough." They can't help but see from their own paradigm.Presidential politics is a popularity contest. Obama isn't going to lose a popularity contest no matter what his record is, despite people thinking this country is filled with white racists.
I've noticed something similar to this too. It's as if the only solution to our problems that's recommended has to involve liberal policies, if not in whole than to some degree. Why do we always hear about how Reps and conservatives are "obstructionists" in that they'll never agree to what the Dems and liberals want, but never vice versa? What's the most right-winged thing Obama or any other Dem has done over the past four years? I'd be very interested in learning that.
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On November 04 2012 03:50 paralleluniverse wrote:Show nested quote +On November 04 2012 03:39 johny23 wrote:
When the economic stakes are so high for the ENTIRE WORLD, no other issue matters. It's like a company who is on the verge of closing down and filing bankruptcy, yet they have a meeting discussing if workers should get 15 minute or 20 minute breaks.
There's pro's for both.
Pros for Obama: Will let the Fed continue low interest rates, QE, easy money policies and allow us to basically buy our own debt to push the financial disaster down the road( who knows for how long Japan did it for along time).
Pros for Romney: By some huge stroke of luck if he actually tries to change things maybe it will work (I doubt it). But the other Pro to Romney is that the economy would crash a lot faster, allowing us to at least have hope for the future and start to rebuild. The crash will be a lot worst when it comes if we keep doing what we have (as I explained in previous post).
Anyone who thinks we can continue down this path without having a correction knows nothing about economics or cycles of life. There are Ups and Downs in almost everything, that includes the economy. You can't have never ending growth and never ending debt( That's what the American economy has been based on for a long time now). We needed a crash in order to correct this so that we could rebuild. All the policies were doing now are to stop this natural correction, but it EVENTUALLY HAS TO HAPPEN. How can you argue that growth and debt can go on forever without a NATURAL correction?
Are you an Austrian economist? This is a popular Austrian theory, just let the entire economy crash and hit rock bottom, and somehow, inflicting this massive pain will fix everything. It's like Germany's masochistic obsession that economic pain is the solution to the Eurozone 's woes, meanwhile unemployment in Spain and Greece hits 25%. Enough pain yet? But why should we believe any of it is true? What's so wrong with the economy that nothing short of destroying it, so that it can be rebuilt, can fix it? After all, the Great Depression wasn't fixed because people had suffered enough economic pain, it was WW2. There is no reason why we can't have endless growth and endless debt as long as babies are born, technology improves and people work. Maybe endless growth won't be so endless when all the resources on the planet are depleted., but no one expects that to happen anytime soon.
Well, I highly doubt anyone here is able to understand the ramifications of everything that has happened and the possible consequences(MYSELF INCLUDED).
My opinion is that, the system were on is not sustainable. We had QE, QE2, QE3, Operation Twist and etc. The Fed is now buying MBS's and our bonds. We've done all this and we've barely kept our head above water. I am seriously interested to here how you think this can go on forever without serious ramifications. Not to mention interest rates cannot go lower. Are you saying to quadruple down and do even more stimulus?
I haven't even began to touch on the pro debt policies that other countries are starting to and have already enacted. My question to you is what are you proposing? You're saying we can do this forever?
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And yet, there is so much class warfare, there is so much unnecessary regulation, and the customers tend to flock to the companies which treat them the best.
I agree there are problems, such as with Wall Street, but that's because the system has been corrupted and government establishes laws with benefit them. If you talk about rich people, then Americans will appear leftist. But if you talk about higher taxes and more government regulations, they will appear right.
It's not about left wing or right wing, that's a completely meaningless spectrum that can't be adequately defined. People like oneofthem are stuck in this partisan mindset like politics is a sports game. But the real problem here is that the devil is in the details, you can't advocate sweeping reforms like "consumer protections" without looking at them on a case by case basis and fairly assessing the consequences.
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Cayman Islands24199 Posts
making bargaining power, which is a political arrangement in part, a politicla issue is not class warfare. nor is having a tax debate.
you need more spectres of communism in your little political theatre
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On November 04 2012 03:57 paralleluniverse wrote:Show nested quote +On November 04 2012 03:52 jdseemoreglass wrote:There is no reason why we can't have endless growth and endless debt as long as babies are born, technology improves and people work. If this is really what you believe, then you must think there are millions of Austrian economists out there. Keynes himself would say this notion is nuts. The economy has been growing since the beginning of economies, there's no reason we should expect it to stop in the near future, unless we hit some sort of physical constraint. Obviously, growth can't continue at extremely high rates, for example China's growth, which is in the ballpark of 10%, will slow to that of other advanced economies as it's catchup growth eventually fades. Also this isn't some crazy idea that I just made up: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoclassical_growth_model#Long_run_implicationslWhen I mean endless debt, I don't mean infinite debt, I mean a finite amount of debt that continues to roll over, which is also basically what has been happening since the start of economies.
I am not disagreeing with what you're saying. However, I disagree with your time frame(even you admit at some point we would peak out if for no other reason then physical resources), as I think we are starting to hit that plateau of growth that we are not ready to push past for multiple reasons.
I point to all the extreme measure we're taking to try and push ourselves over this hump and from what I see it's not working to well. Even if you want me to concede and say the economy is slightly improving (which I disagree with) it took so much debt, so many "QE's' and so many pro debt policies just to get this slight improvement. The diminishing returns should be enough alone to show you we've hit a plateau.
I am not saying the world CAN NEVER grow past the level it has now, I am simply stating it's not going to happen without a fairly substantial correction first. It's just what I see, I am no genius.
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On November 04 2012 04:06 oneofthem wrote:
making bargaining power, which is a political arrangement in part, a politicla issue is not class warfare.
No, but permanently harboring an ideology in which bargaining power should always expand to favor the workers and oppose the taxpayers or corporations is founded upon a deeply ingrained sense of classes at war. I'd say it goes beyond that, into a deeply ingrained psychological dichotomy of Victim vs. Oppressor. There comes a point at which workers are being paid more than they should.
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On November 04 2012 04:04 jdseemoreglass wrote:
And yet, there is so much class warfare, there is so much unnecessary regulation, and the customers tend to flock to the companies which treat them the best.
I agree there are problems, such as with Wall Street, but that's because the system has been corrupted and government establishes laws with benefit them. If you talk about rich people, then Americans will appear leftist. But if you talk about higher taxes and more government regulations, they will appear right.
It's not about left wing or right wing, that's a completely meaningless spectrum that can't be adequately defined. People like oneofthem are stuck in this partisan mindset like politics is a sports game. But the real problem here is that the devil is in the details, you can't advocate sweeping reforms like "consumer protections" without looking at them on a case by case basis and fairly assessing the consequences.
Yea, I pretty much agree, except with customers tending to flock to the companies which treat them the best. I don't know where you got that idea, and it's a bit of a meaningless statement as if 'treat them the best' means 'treat them well.'
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Cayman Islands24199 Posts
show me the data that shows workers are being overpaid.
or a defense of some rigorous analytical marginal productivity theory of the price of capital and labor. (which would, if it exists at all, run into the problem of 20 years of divergence in the empirical data)
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On November 04 2012 04:12 DoubleReed wrote:Show nested quote +On November 04 2012 04:04 jdseemoreglass wrote:
And yet, there is so much class warfare, there is so much unnecessary regulation, and the customers tend to flock to the companies which treat them the best.
I agree there are problems, such as with Wall Street, but that's because the system has been corrupted and government establishes laws with benefit them. If you talk about rich people, then Americans will appear leftist. But if you talk about higher taxes and more government regulations, they will appear right.
It's not about left wing or right wing, that's a completely meaningless spectrum that can't be adequately defined. People like oneofthem are stuck in this partisan mindset like politics is a sports game. But the real problem here is that the devil is in the details, you can't advocate sweeping reforms like "consumer protections" without looking at them on a case by case basis and fairly assessing the consequences. Yea, I pretty much agree, except with customers tending to flock to the companies which treat them the best. I don't know where you got that idea, and it's a bit of a meaningless statement as if 'treat them the best' means 'treat them well.'
When I say "treat them well," note that I include "charging them lower prices" as a potential factor. For most people, it is the most important factor.
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2nd Worst City in CA8938 Posts
On November 04 2012 04:11 jdseemoreglass wrote:Show nested quote +On November 04 2012 04:06 oneofthem wrote:
making bargaining power, which is a political arrangement in part, a politicla issue is not class warfare. No, but permanently harboring an ideology in which bargaining power should always expand to favor the workers and oppose the taxpayers or corporations is founded upon a deeply ingrained sense of classes at war. I'd say it goes beyond that, into a deeply ingrained psychological dichotomy of Victim vs. Oppressor. There comes a point at which workers are being paid more than they should.
Where do people get this class warfare shit? Do they not realize there are a ton of rich Democrats voting for the very same economic policies these "victims" are for?
On November 04 2012 04:11 jdseemoreglass wrote:Show nested quote +On November 04 2012 04:06 oneofthem wrote:
making bargaining power, which is a political arrangement in part, a politicla issue is not class warfare. No, but permanently harboring an ideology in which bargaining power should always expand to favor the workers and oppose the taxpayers or corporations is founded upon a deeply ingrained sense of classes at war. I'd say it goes beyond that, into a deeply ingrained psychological dichotomy of Victim vs. Oppressor. There comes a point at which workers are being paid more than they should.
By the way, this is so black and white. Who's "permanently harboring an ideology"? The things most of us advocate are predicated upon existing conditions and not future conditions. You can hardly call it permanent.
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EPT
