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On August 12 2012 16:01 Shiragaku wrote:
I see all these conservatives constantly praise Ayn Rand, but do you think she would be pleased with how the Republican Party is doing?
To be honest, she'd probably be upset the Republican Party hasn't gone far enough. More than anything, she was ruthlessly partisan. Although she would LOATHE the social conservatism in the party (she was also ruthlessly atheist) and would probably go closest along the lines to Ron Paul.
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With Ryan getting added as VP, let's all hope that senior citizens, while slow and dangerous behind the wheel, can still see through massive piles of horse shit.
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Ryan is a smart guy, a person who understands policy and can create policy (something that the Romney campaign has been doing poorly). He's young and energetic, which should hype up the conservative base. A fiscal conservative, but not one of those crazy social conservatives (looking at you Santorum).
Problem is, his budget is going to get hammered. Americans love talking about reducing the deficit and the size of government, but they are even less willing to give up Social Security and Medicare, and if Obama can play this right, the senior vote in Florida should be his, and with it, Florida's crucial electoral votes.
Another big problem is that neither Romney nor Ryan have any foreign policy experience. That is not a balanced ticket, and this could be problematic. Right now the focus is on the economy, but if something happens between now and election day that shifts public attention to foreign policy and this event doesn't kill Obama's credibility, the Republicans will probably also lose.
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So we have the guy who made RomneyCare trying to deny what he did for the righties and the other guy who made a plan to gut Medicare trying to deny what he did for the moderates running together.
Guessing the GOP are throwing this one?
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On August 12 2012 16:18 RenSC2 wrote:Show nested quote +On August 12 2012 13:46 CajunMan wrote:On August 12 2012 11:53 RenSC2 wrote:On August 12 2012 10:27 coverpunch wrote:
The most important thing is that there's common sense to this - if taxes are reduced, then people have more disposable income to invest or consume, which is how the economy grows. People can get more disposable income in other ways but reducing taxes is the something the government can control. It can't miracle new technology or anoint successful companies.
You call it common sense, but it only creates a very short term effect while hurting the future. Taxing stuff doesn't just make the money disappear. Instead, it goes to the government who then spends that money on other things. The money that the government spends puts a lot of people to work, both directly (government employees) and indirectly (doctors/nurses/receptionists/administrators who help medicare/medicaid people or entire corporate structures of private companies who have contracts with the government). Then those people all get paid and they have money to spend. Part of that money goes back into the government system as taxes and part of it goes into other businesses and people and the cycle continues. GDP is really a measure of how well the money is flowing. If the money is constantly flowing around in and out of people's pockets, then the GDP will be high. Taxes legally force outflows. If the tax money is spent even remotely wisely by the government, it creates personal inflows. And yeah, I know our government doesn't exactly spend wisely (handing out money all over the world, paying debt to foreign debtors), but still most of the tax revenue goes back into US citizens pockets in one way or another. So what happens as you reduce taxes? Initially, people have extra money to spend as you noted, and the extra money gets spent in a more efficient way and everything seems good (GDP goes up). However, this process has reduced the forced outflows other than basic living expenses. For someone making millions of dollars in a year, basic living expenses account for only a small fraction of his expeditures. That means that the millionaire (I use the word "millionaire", but it could actually be anyone whose income exceeds his expenses) can sit on his money. We call this "savings". While we generally think savings are a good thing because it protects a person's future, it does hurt GDP (money isn't being spent). The only way the millionaire will put that money back into the economy is if he sees an opportunity to make a return on his money (investment). Hopefully, for the sake of the economy, he makes a bad investment and loses his excess money and it goes back into the system. However, many investments are good ones, and they serve the purpose of pooling even more money in a single person's hands and out of the economic flow. In a lower tax situation, the money slowly gets concentrated into fewer peoples hands. And while those people might want to invest that money, there's no opportunity for investment because the market's ability to buy is slowly crippled since the money is more and more concentrated. That equals one dead economy (hello recession!). If you want a healthy economy, I'm quite convinced that you need to brutalize the very rich with taxes and keep moderate taxes for the middle class. Then just hand that money out to the poor to cover basic living expenses... you can do it through subsidized/free housing, food stamps, and free health insurance rather than actually handing out money. Or you can do it through massive public works/infrastructure projects to create jobs and consumers which increases demand and opens up opportunities for investment and allows the skilled rich to continue to be very rich despite the taxes while the less skilled rich fall back into the middle class. When you have all of this, you have massive flows of money (massive GDP) and you also have a high tax rate to take advantage of that high GDP. In turn, the government might actually be able to balance a budget or even ::gasp:: get a surplus (which should be the goal while we have such a massive deficit). Unfortunately, this will likely never happen. Since the tax hikes would only be as permanent as whoever is in office, there'd always be uncertainty. If someone did come in and raise taxes, the rich would sit on their money and complain about how it destroyed the economy (while they destroy the economy by sitting on their money). They'd then put all the blame on the president and support the opponent's cadidacy who promises to lower taxes. Since they only have to wait it out for 4 years, this long term plan would never get the traction it needed. Instead, we keep getting candidates promising quick fixes (yaya tax cuts for the rich) which continues the cycle of long term economic problems for the US. So you basically admitted the goernment spends money badly but you are willing to raise taxes so long as the numbers look better? And you also blame people for sitting in their money when it is not fiscally wise what kind of backwards logic is this? You ask that people invest more, pay more, and accept more risk for the sake of the rest of us for no reason. There is literally no reason. If the US budget was balanced and taxes were low money would move much easier. Other than the last sentence (which is wrong), yes. - Yes, the government spends money poorly quite often, but it still spends money whether the economy is good or bad and that money still creates jobs directly and indirectly. It has a stimulative effect. Could the government spend the money better to stimulate better and waste less? Definitely. Still, this is better for the economy than sitting in a rich man's bank account. - Yes, I blame a bad economy on people who sit on their money even when it is not fiscally wise to invest it. They would lose money investing, but that money is lost back into the economy where it would create jobs and stimulate the economy. In turn, that presents opportunities to invest wisely and retain or increase their wealth. If everyone sat on their money in unison and nobody was willing to take the first shot, the economy would screech to a halt and we'd see a depression unlike we've ever seen before. - Yep, invest more, pay more, and accept more risk for the sake of the rest of us. And you are correct, they have no reason to do so, which is precisely the problem of pooling the money in the hands of the few. If they play by the same rules, they are almost guaranteed to come out further and further ahead, which cripples the economy. The government needs to force them to take more risk with money above a certain amount. I'd even suggest taxing liquid assets above X dollars (where X is probably somewhere in the 10s of millions). Is it fair? No. Could it even be called government oppression of the rich? Yep, I think so. But would it help create a better economy? I believe so. And I do realize that this idea has never been done before and would be immediately rejected by the voting public. It's radical. I don't plan on ever winning the presidency with my policies. As for your last point, completely wrong in the long term. Low taxes would help money move easily for a short period of time as it slides into the hands of the few... completely unrestrained capitalism has the effect of creating near monopolies. And then you get a situation where the rich have money and are ready to spend it, but have nothing to spend it on because there is no market left.
You are ignoring that bad investments hurt the economy. We're in the mess we are in now largely due to bad investments in housing.
If you want to gouge the rich (really, really gouge them) you'll either wind up with a lot of bad investments or the money will be blown on frivolous consumption and we'll all be poorer for it.
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On August 13 2012 02:01 JonnyBNoHo wrote:Show nested quote +On August 12 2012 16:18 RenSC2 wrote:On August 12 2012 13:46 CajunMan wrote:On August 12 2012 11:53 RenSC2 wrote:On August 12 2012 10:27 coverpunch wrote:
The most important thing is that there's common sense to this - if taxes are reduced, then people have more disposable income to invest or consume, which is how the economy grows. People can get more disposable income in other ways but reducing taxes is the something the government can control. It can't miracle new technology or anoint successful companies.
You call it common sense, but it only creates a very short term effect while hurting the future. Taxing stuff doesn't just make the money disappear. Instead, it goes to the government who then spends that money on other things. The money that the government spends puts a lot of people to work, both directly (government employees) and indirectly (doctors/nurses/receptionists/administrators who help medicare/medicaid people or entire corporate structures of private companies who have contracts with the government). Then those people all get paid and they have money to spend. Part of that money goes back into the government system as taxes and part of it goes into other businesses and people and the cycle continues. GDP is really a measure of how well the money is flowing. If the money is constantly flowing around in and out of people's pockets, then the GDP will be high. Taxes legally force outflows. If the tax money is spent even remotely wisely by the government, it creates personal inflows. And yeah, I know our government doesn't exactly spend wisely (handing out money all over the world, paying debt to foreign debtors), but still most of the tax revenue goes back into US citizens pockets in one way or another. So what happens as you reduce taxes? Initially, people have extra money to spend as you noted, and the extra money gets spent in a more efficient way and everything seems good (GDP goes up). However, this process has reduced the forced outflows other than basic living expenses. For someone making millions of dollars in a year, basic living expenses account for only a small fraction of his expeditures. That means that the millionaire (I use the word "millionaire", but it could actually be anyone whose income exceeds his expenses) can sit on his money. We call this "savings". While we generally think savings are a good thing because it protects a person's future, it does hurt GDP (money isn't being spent). The only way the millionaire will put that money back into the economy is if he sees an opportunity to make a return on his money (investment). Hopefully, for the sake of the economy, he makes a bad investment and loses his excess money and it goes back into the system. However, many investments are good ones, and they serve the purpose of pooling even more money in a single person's hands and out of the economic flow. In a lower tax situation, the money slowly gets concentrated into fewer peoples hands. And while those people might want to invest that money, there's no opportunity for investment because the market's ability to buy is slowly crippled since the money is more and more concentrated. That equals one dead economy (hello recession!). If you want a healthy economy, I'm quite convinced that you need to brutalize the very rich with taxes and keep moderate taxes for the middle class. Then just hand that money out to the poor to cover basic living expenses... you can do it through subsidized/free housing, food stamps, and free health insurance rather than actually handing out money. Or you can do it through massive public works/infrastructure projects to create jobs and consumers which increases demand and opens up opportunities for investment and allows the skilled rich to continue to be very rich despite the taxes while the less skilled rich fall back into the middle class. When you have all of this, you have massive flows of money (massive GDP) and you also have a high tax rate to take advantage of that high GDP. In turn, the government might actually be able to balance a budget or even ::gasp:: get a surplus (which should be the goal while we have such a massive deficit). Unfortunately, this will likely never happen. Since the tax hikes would only be as permanent as whoever is in office, there'd always be uncertainty. If someone did come in and raise taxes, the rich would sit on their money and complain about how it destroyed the economy (while they destroy the economy by sitting on their money). They'd then put all the blame on the president and support the opponent's cadidacy who promises to lower taxes. Since they only have to wait it out for 4 years, this long term plan would never get the traction it needed. Instead, we keep getting candidates promising quick fixes (yaya tax cuts for the rich) which continues the cycle of long term economic problems for the US. So you basically admitted the goernment spends money badly but you are willing to raise taxes so long as the numbers look better? And you also blame people for sitting in their money when it is not fiscally wise what kind of backwards logic is this? You ask that people invest more, pay more, and accept more risk for the sake of the rest of us for no reason. There is literally no reason. If the US budget was balanced and taxes were low money would move much easier. Other than the last sentence (which is wrong), yes. - Yes, the government spends money poorly quite often, but it still spends money whether the economy is good or bad and that money still creates jobs directly and indirectly. It has a stimulative effect. Could the government spend the money better to stimulate better and waste less? Definitely. Still, this is better for the economy than sitting in a rich man's bank account. - Yes, I blame a bad economy on people who sit on their money even when it is not fiscally wise to invest it. They would lose money investing, but that money is lost back into the economy where it would create jobs and stimulate the economy. In turn, that presents opportunities to invest wisely and retain or increase their wealth. If everyone sat on their money in unison and nobody was willing to take the first shot, the economy would screech to a halt and we'd see a depression unlike we've ever seen before. - Yep, invest more, pay more, and accept more risk for the sake of the rest of us. And you are correct, they have no reason to do so, which is precisely the problem of pooling the money in the hands of the few. If they play by the same rules, they are almost guaranteed to come out further and further ahead, which cripples the economy. The government needs to force them to take more risk with money above a certain amount. I'd even suggest taxing liquid assets above X dollars (where X is probably somewhere in the 10s of millions). Is it fair? No. Could it even be called government oppression of the rich? Yep, I think so. But would it help create a better economy? I believe so. And I do realize that this idea has never been done before and would be immediately rejected by the voting public. It's radical. I don't plan on ever winning the presidency with my policies. As for your last point, completely wrong in the long term. Low taxes would help money move easily for a short period of time as it slides into the hands of the few... completely unrestrained capitalism has the effect of creating near monopolies. And then you get a situation where the rich have money and are ready to spend it, but have nothing to spend it on because there is no market left. You are ignoring that bad investments hurt the economy. We're in the mess we are in now largely due to bad investments in housing. If you want to gouge the rich (really, really gouge them) you'll either wind up with a lot of bad investments or the money will be blown on frivolous consumption and we'll all be poorer for it.
Due to bad investments made by the private sector...
The advantage private has over public is the speed and decisiveness at which it can invest money. One is no more fallible than the other.
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On August 13 2012 02:01 JonnyBNoHo wrote:Show nested quote +On August 12 2012 16:18 RenSC2 wrote:On August 12 2012 13:46 CajunMan wrote:On August 12 2012 11:53 RenSC2 wrote:On August 12 2012 10:27 coverpunch wrote:
The most important thing is that there's common sense to this - if taxes are reduced, then people have more disposable income to invest or consume, which is how the economy grows. People can get more disposable income in other ways but reducing taxes is the something the government can control. It can't miracle new technology or anoint successful companies.
You call it common sense, but it only creates a very short term effect while hurting the future. Taxing stuff doesn't just make the money disappear. Instead, it goes to the government who then spends that money on other things. The money that the government spends puts a lot of people to work, both directly (government employees) and indirectly (doctors/nurses/receptionists/administrators who help medicare/medicaid people or entire corporate structures of private companies who have contracts with the government). Then those people all get paid and they have money to spend. Part of that money goes back into the government system as taxes and part of it goes into other businesses and people and the cycle continues. GDP is really a measure of how well the money is flowing. If the money is constantly flowing around in and out of people's pockets, then the GDP will be high. Taxes legally force outflows. If the tax money is spent even remotely wisely by the government, it creates personal inflows. And yeah, I know our government doesn't exactly spend wisely (handing out money all over the world, paying debt to foreign debtors), but still most of the tax revenue goes back into US citizens pockets in one way or another. So what happens as you reduce taxes? Initially, people have extra money to spend as you noted, and the extra money gets spent in a more efficient way and everything seems good (GDP goes up). However, this process has reduced the forced outflows other than basic living expenses. For someone making millions of dollars in a year, basic living expenses account for only a small fraction of his expeditures. That means that the millionaire (I use the word "millionaire", but it could actually be anyone whose income exceeds his expenses) can sit on his money. We call this "savings". While we generally think savings are a good thing because it protects a person's future, it does hurt GDP (money isn't being spent). The only way the millionaire will put that money back into the economy is if he sees an opportunity to make a return on his money (investment). Hopefully, for the sake of the economy, he makes a bad investment and loses his excess money and it goes back into the system. However, many investments are good ones, and they serve the purpose of pooling even more money in a single person's hands and out of the economic flow. In a lower tax situation, the money slowly gets concentrated into fewer peoples hands. And while those people might want to invest that money, there's no opportunity for investment because the market's ability to buy is slowly crippled since the money is more and more concentrated. That equals one dead economy (hello recession!). If you want a healthy economy, I'm quite convinced that you need to brutalize the very rich with taxes and keep moderate taxes for the middle class. Then just hand that money out to the poor to cover basic living expenses... you can do it through subsidized/free housing, food stamps, and free health insurance rather than actually handing out money. Or you can do it through massive public works/infrastructure projects to create jobs and consumers which increases demand and opens up opportunities for investment and allows the skilled rich to continue to be very rich despite the taxes while the less skilled rich fall back into the middle class. When you have all of this, you have massive flows of money (massive GDP) and you also have a high tax rate to take advantage of that high GDP. In turn, the government might actually be able to balance a budget or even ::gasp:: get a surplus (which should be the goal while we have such a massive deficit). Unfortunately, this will likely never happen. Since the tax hikes would only be as permanent as whoever is in office, there'd always be uncertainty. If someone did come in and raise taxes, the rich would sit on their money and complain about how it destroyed the economy (while they destroy the economy by sitting on their money). They'd then put all the blame on the president and support the opponent's cadidacy who promises to lower taxes. Since they only have to wait it out for 4 years, this long term plan would never get the traction it needed. Instead, we keep getting candidates promising quick fixes (yaya tax cuts for the rich) which continues the cycle of long term economic problems for the US. So you basically admitted the goernment spends money badly but you are willing to raise taxes so long as the numbers look better? And you also blame people for sitting in their money when it is not fiscally wise what kind of backwards logic is this? You ask that people invest more, pay more, and accept more risk for the sake of the rest of us for no reason. There is literally no reason. If the US budget was balanced and taxes were low money would move much easier. Other than the last sentence (which is wrong), yes. - Yes, the government spends money poorly quite often, but it still spends money whether the economy is good or bad and that money still creates jobs directly and indirectly. It has a stimulative effect. Could the government spend the money better to stimulate better and waste less? Definitely. Still, this is better for the economy than sitting in a rich man's bank account. - Yes, I blame a bad economy on people who sit on their money even when it is not fiscally wise to invest it. They would lose money investing, but that money is lost back into the economy where it would create jobs and stimulate the economy. In turn, that presents opportunities to invest wisely and retain or increase their wealth. If everyone sat on their money in unison and nobody was willing to take the first shot, the economy would screech to a halt and we'd see a depression unlike we've ever seen before. - Yep, invest more, pay more, and accept more risk for the sake of the rest of us. And you are correct, they have no reason to do so, which is precisely the problem of pooling the money in the hands of the few. If they play by the same rules, they are almost guaranteed to come out further and further ahead, which cripples the economy. The government needs to force them to take more risk with money above a certain amount. I'd even suggest taxing liquid assets above X dollars (where X is probably somewhere in the 10s of millions). Is it fair? No. Could it even be called government oppression of the rich? Yep, I think so. But would it help create a better economy? I believe so. And I do realize that this idea has never been done before and would be immediately rejected by the voting public. It's radical. I don't plan on ever winning the presidency with my policies. As for your last point, completely wrong in the long term. Low taxes would help money move easily for a short period of time as it slides into the hands of the few... completely unrestrained capitalism has the effect of creating near monopolies. And then you get a situation where the rich have money and are ready to spend it, but have nothing to spend it on because there is no market left. If you want to gouge the rich (really, really gouge them) you'll either wind up with a lot of bad investments or the money will be blown on frivolous consumption and we'll all be poorer for it.
I feel like what private companies do is mostly promote "frivolous consumption..."
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Another interesting topic in washington right now..
Defense cuts from the Obama administration, will result in the loss of ~1 mil defense jobs. That would be the same amount of jobs we have created from the start of this year, a necessary sacrifice to stop the outrageous spending?
Secondly, The Warn Act requires the employees to be told 60 days before the jobs are removed. Since the cuts go into effect on January 2nd, The Warn Act would mean employees learning about their future job loss right before the election. Guess who that hurts? So basically the Obama administration will say the act does not apply here and wait till after the election to address the issue.
It is definitley a short term blow to lose ~ 1 mil defense jobs but ridiculous defense spending gotta stop sometime...
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On August 13 2012 04:32 biology]major wrote:
It is definitley a short term blow to lose ~ 1 mil defense jobs but ridiculous defense spending gotta stop sometime...
Does nobody see the insane contradiction here? You can't stop wasting money because then people will lose their employment in the money-wasting activity...
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On August 12 2012 22:56 DoubleReed wrote:
I keep going back and forth on whether Andrew Ryan is a good VP pick. I mean the fiscal hawk thing is advantageous because he can pretend to give a shit about the economy/spending. I mean, at least he proposed a tax plan, ludicrous as it is. On the other hand, are moderates really a fan of Ryan? Are his plans considered pretty dangerous by moderates? Won't this turn off moderate republicans even more, who are the people he's actually trying to get at this point?
I'm looking forward to the VP debates though, as I'm a huge fan of Biden. Ryan vs Biden has got to be entertaining. Though Ryan has the ability to say absolutely ridiculous things with a straight face, so he tends to look pretty good despite all the crazy. It's more of a question of how Biden can crack through that and expose the crazy.
I consider myself somewhat of a "moderate" and I'll say that regarding the Ryan budget, I think it's pretty bad, but it's got the right idea regarding Medicare, in that most of our deficit reduction should stem from there. I also think it has some good ideas regarding removing certain tax exemptions, but I don't agree that we should counterbalance that by lowering taxes, except maybe the corporate tax rate. On pretty much everything else that I've seen from it, (I'll admit I haven't read anywhere near the entirety) I disagree in some way or another.
So it's not something I would look forward too, but I think it has some ideas that we need to draw on. Personally, I'm holding out for Simpson-Bowles to become a bit more rounded (and supported), since the Democrats really haven't offered anything decent either. Most of the other "moderates" I've talked to are in a similar camp.
edit; I think moderates are going to lean towards Obama, because even if they see some values in Ryan's plan they dislike it as a whole and would rather shuffle along with what we have now. Unless of course, Romney makes some considerable changes to it. (which he has hinted at, just not at what exactly >.<)
On August 13 2012 04:39 sam!zdat wrote:Show nested quote +On August 13 2012 04:32 biology]major wrote:
It is definitley a short term blow to lose ~ 1 mil defense jobs but ridiculous defense spending gotta stop sometime... Does nobody see the insane contradiction here? You can't stop wasting money because then people will lose their employment in the money-wasting activity...
It's obviously a problem that needs to be dealt with, but I think the point is that massive Defense cuts right now would not be wise, and we should probably wait until the economy is in a better shape.
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On August 13 2012 04:32 biology]major wrote:
Another interesting topic in washington right now..
Defense cuts from the Obama administration, will result in the loss of ~1 mil defense jobs. That would be the same amount of jobs we have created from the start of this year, a necessary sacrifice to stop the outrageous spending?
Secondly, The Warn Act requires the employees to be told 60 days before the jobs are removed. Since the cuts go into effect on January 2nd, The Warn Act would mean employees learning about their future job loss right before the election. Guess who that hurts? So basically the Obama administration will say the act does not apply here and wait till after the election to address the issue.
It is definitley a short term blow to lose ~ 1 mil defense jobs but ridiculous defense spending gotta stop sometime...
Whoa whoa whoa, this is all on Congress, and even moreso on Congressional Republicans. This has almost nothing to do with the Obama administration. Time and time again, Obama went to the table with everything (entitlement cuts), but Republicans refused to budge on actual tax increases. Congress instituted a mechanism to make sure they would come up with a deal in the Super Committee, and then they didn't. Now they're being forced to deal with their mistake.
As for what's going to happen, defense contractors are playing politics right along side the politicians. Most of the work they will be doing over the next year or two depends on contracts already made and money already apportioned. They won't have to lay anybody off January 2nd and they know that, but the layoffs will have to come sooner or later (probably over the course of 2013).
Hopefully, it will all work out though and a temporary agreement can be made that keeps spending levels where they are. The deficit is a long term problem that can be ultimately put off until we have more or less regular employment.
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On August 13 2012 04:32 biology]major wrote:
Defense cuts from the Obama administration, will result in the loss of ~1 mil defense jobs. That would be the same amount of jobs we have created from the start of this year, a necessary sacrifice to stop the outrageous spending?
It has nothing to do with the Administration. The scheduled defense cuts come because the "supercommittee" couldn't reach an agreement last November to cut the deficit and thus, automatic domestic and defense cuts took place instead. It has everything to do with Congress, mainly because of the GOP's refusal to budge on taxes.
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On August 13 2012 07:16 0mar wrote:Show nested quote +On August 13 2012 04:32 biology]major wrote:
Defense cuts from the Obama administration, will result in the loss of ~1 mil defense jobs. That would be the same amount of jobs we have created from the start of this year, a necessary sacrifice to stop the outrageous spending? It has nothing to do with the Administration. The scheduled defense cuts come because the "supercommittee" couldn't reach an agreement last November to cut the deficit and thus, automatic domestic and defense cuts took place instead. It has everything to do with Congress, mainly because of the GOP's refusal to budge on taxes.
I feel like this is a recurring story; Republicans refusing to budge and actually compromise on anything, hoping to hold out until they regain the Presidency and control of Congress. It's contradictory to the entire philosophy of a multi-party system.
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On August 13 2012 07:11 aksfjh wrote:Show nested quote +On August 13 2012 04:32 biology]major wrote:
Another interesting topic in washington right now..
Defense cuts from the Obama administration, will result in the loss of ~1 mil defense jobs. That would be the same amount of jobs we have created from the start of this year, a necessary sacrifice to stop the outrageous spending?
Secondly, The Warn Act requires the employees to be told 60 days before the jobs are removed. Since the cuts go into effect on January 2nd, The Warn Act would mean employees learning about their future job loss right before the election. Guess who that hurts? So basically the Obama administration will say the act does not apply here and wait till after the election to address the issue.
It is definitley a short term blow to lose ~ 1 mil defense jobs but ridiculous defense spending gotta stop sometime... Whoa whoa whoa, this is all on Congress, and even moreso on Congressional Republicans. This has almost nothing to do with the Obama administration. Time and time again, Obama went to the table with everything (entitlement cuts), but Republicans refused to budge on actual tax increases. Congress instituted a mechanism to make sure they would come up with a deal in the Super Committee, and then they didn't. Now they're being forced to deal with their mistake. As for what's going to happen, defense contractors are playing politics right along side the politicians. Most of the work they will be doing over the next year or two depends on contracts already made and money already apportioned. They won't have to lay anybody off January 2nd and they know that, but the layoffs will have to come sooner or later (probably over the course of 2013). Hopefully, it will all work out though and a temporary agreement can be made that keeps spending levels where they are. The deficit is a long term problem that can be ultimately put off until we have more or less regular employment.
Oh well never mind then haha xD
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On August 13 2012 07:43 Stratos_speAr wrote:Show nested quote +On August 13 2012 07:16 0mar wrote:On August 13 2012 04:32 biology]major wrote:
Defense cuts from the Obama administration, will result in the loss of ~1 mil defense jobs. That would be the same amount of jobs we have created from the start of this year, a necessary sacrifice to stop the outrageous spending? It has nothing to do with the Administration. The scheduled defense cuts come because the "supercommittee" couldn't reach an agreement last November to cut the deficit and thus, automatic domestic and defense cuts took place instead. It has everything to do with Congress, mainly because of the GOP's refusal to budge on taxes. I feel like this is a recurring story; Republicans refusing to budge and actually compromise on anything, hoping to hold out until they regain the Presidency and control of Congress. It's contradictory to the entire philosophy of a multi-party system.
Probably because Republicans have learned that future congresses can't be obligated to follow through with promises of reductions, while tax increases always take place today. This happenend with Reagan, and it happened with the debt increase last year. Democrats say future spending cuts for taxes increases, taxes go up, spending cuts never happen because they don't apply to congress elected sometime in the future. Saying it's Republicans faults for not continuing to make the same mistake seems a little daft.
The truth is Republicans have been compromising for years, and Democrats refuse to cut spending, even when they get tax increases. The only exception to this was Clinton/Gingrich shutting down the government in 96 I think it was.
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On August 13 2012 02:01 JonnyBNoHo wrote:
You are ignoring that bad investments hurt the economy. We're in the mess we are in now largely due to bad investments in housing.
If you want to gouge the rich (really, really gouge them) you'll either wind up with a lot of bad investments or the money will be blown on frivolous consumption and we'll all be poorer for it.
You are right, some bad investments do hurt the economy. For example, if a bank uses its customers money then leverages it multiple times in order to invest in subprime mortgages which are piles of garbage that have been mis-rated by the major rating agencies. Then yes, poor investments can be devastating. I guess I didn't think of the scale of trillions of dollars in leveraged money when I said that bad investments are actually good for the overall economy. Unfortunately, in those cases you end up with money that never actually existed being owed to people and since the money never actually existed, it's impossible to pay that money out. So people don't get paid and yes, that's bad for the economy.
Leveraged failures can be very dangerous.
Normal failures are not bad for the economy. If you have extra cash and you start a restaurant, you rent a building (or have one built) - people get paid. You hire employees - people get paid. You purchase furniture and food - people get paid. If in the end you fail, everyone around you still got paid for quite awhile and they can help create a market in other areas or even try their own hand at the restaurant business. Would it be better if your business made enough money to give yourself a small living expense and all the rest of the money went back into the business? Yep, that's the best case scenario. But the worst case scenario is that you hold onto your money and it does nothing for the economy. A failed business falls somewhere in the middle and creates opportunities for other people.
As for frivolous consumption - people get paid. The engineers and mechanics for that ridiculously expensive car get paid. The architects, builders, interior designers, furniture studios, and more all get paid for the ridiculously expensive house (and there's still property taxes on top of that so the government gets yearly paydays too). Those tens of thousands of dollar bottles of wine - people get paid. Prostitutes - people get paid. Name your frivolous consumption - people get paid.
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On August 13 2012 08:33 RenSC2 wrote:
As for frivolous consumption - people get paid. The engineers and mechanics for that ridiculously expensive car get paid. The architects, builders, interior designers, furniture studios, and more all get paid for the ridiculously expensive house (and there's still property taxes on top of that so the government gets yearly paydays too). Those tens of thousands of dollar bottles of wine - people get paid. Prostitutes - people get paid. Name your frivolous consumption - people get paid.
And externalities get ignored.
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I find it amusing comparing the situation of VP with that of four years ago.
People were turned away from McCain because they said to themselves 'what if something happened to mccain.'
Now you have the opposite situation for the republican base: people saying to themselves 'what if something happened to romney.'
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On August 13 2012 08:33 RenSC2 wrote:Show nested quote +On August 13 2012 02:01 JonnyBNoHo wrote:
You are ignoring that bad investments hurt the economy. We're in the mess we are in now largely due to bad investments in housing.
If you want to gouge the rich (really, really gouge them) you'll either wind up with a lot of bad investments or the money will be blown on frivolous consumption and we'll all be poorer for it. You are right, some bad investments do hurt the economy. For example, if a bank uses its customers money then leverages it multiple times in order to invest in subprime mortgages which are piles of garbage that have been mis-rated by the major rating agencies. Then yes, poor investments can be devastating. I guess I didn't think of the scale of trillions of dollars in leveraged money when I said that bad investments are actually good for the overall economy. Unfortunately, in those cases you end up with money that never actually existed being owed to people and since the money never actually existed, it's impossible to pay that money out. So people don't get paid and yes, that's bad for the economy. Leveraged failures can be very dangerous. Normal failures are not bad for the economy. If you have extra cash and you start a restaurant, you rent a building (or have one built) - people get paid. You hire employees - people get paid. You purchase furniture and food - people get paid. If in the end you fail, everyone around you still got paid for quite awhile and they can help create a market in other areas or even try their own hand at the restaurant business. Would it be better if your business made enough money to give yourself a small living expense and all the rest of the money went back into the business? Yep, that's the best case scenario. But the worst case scenario is that you hold onto your money and it does nothing for the economy. A failed business falls somewhere in the middle and creates opportunities for other people. As for frivolous consumption - people get paid. The engineers and mechanics for that ridiculously expensive car get paid. The architects, builders, interior designers, furniture studios, and more all get paid for the ridiculously expensive house (and there's still property taxes on top of that so the government gets yearly paydays too). Those tens of thousands of dollar bottles of wine - people get paid. Prostitutes - people get paid. Name your frivolous consumption - people get paid.
'Normal failures' are just as bad for the economy. When you build a failed restaurant, yes, people get paid. But once the business fails all the income that comes from it disappears. So now to replace that business (and the income it provides) you need to save up money to make a new investment - which pulls money out of the economy.
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As someone not in America, i think Ryan as VP has basically ended the election for Romney.
The real swing voters don't fall for the lies / rhetoric from both sides. They will see a big debt problem and are probably not those that would greatly benefit from either Obama's or Romney's plans.
They might want Obamacare or not. They might want Romney's tax cuts or not.
For their vote the main thing is whether their slightly preferred policy is achievable / believable?
Ryan's / Romney's policy is too vague. He has just signed up to have a hole in his books. Whether you agree with the goal or not, you can not accept that the plans are concrete without a lot more budget / policy detail. Their only hope is to make a believable set of budget books, but this won't happen and Obama can hammer it all election.
Obama's policy still has question marks, but those question marks aren't near as scary as Romney's. The books balance better and at least he has stated who is paying for some of his policies (wealthy).
I expect that the damage done by the hardcore opposing of Obama's spending / tax plan in previous years would also scare a few voters. Do you want Obama to win by a small amount again, or do you want Obama to have a big enough majority so he has the power to balance the books a bit better?
Myself? I think Romney's plan always sounds great when you are cutting taxes and closing loopholes, but I think it's not realistically possible. I also hope that Obama can make the tougher choices in his 2nd term when he is on the way out, though I don't think the will have much more success at passing laws. It could be interesting to see what this forces Obama to do. I think that with Obamacare founded and America not at war, that getting on top of the debt problem would be how Obama wants to go out.
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EPT
