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On August 21 2012 11:31 sunprince wrote:
Short of mobilizing enough of the vote to justifiably screw them back
They ARE the vote.
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2nd Worst City in CA8938 Posts
Or, you know, we can just reform the tax code so that we don't lose over a trillion dollars in revenue every year, a stance both Obama and Romney are leaning towards (except Obama wants to raise taxes on top of that while Romney wants to lower taxes, and both have different ways in mind to go about reforming it... In any case, I'd prefer to just keep marginal tax rates the same while we manage the after-effects if reform were to ever happen).
It's hilarious that we fight amongst ourselves when one of the biggest reasons why we're having this debate in the first place is because some people try their hardest to not pay taxes. It's like if a guy was trying to punch your friend but your friend ducks and you end up getting punched in the face, and instead of both of you guys going after the guy who threw the punch in the first place, you blame your friend for ducking.
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On August 21 2012 11:42 Souma wrote:
Or, you know, we can just reform the tax code so that we don't lose over a trillion dollars in revenue every year, a stance both Obama and Romney are leaning towards (except Obama wants to raise taxes on top of that while Romney wants to lower taxes, and both have different ways in mind to go about reforming it... In any case, I'd prefer to just keep marginal tax rates the same while we manage the after-effects if reform were to ever happen).
It's hilarious that we fight amongst ourselves when one of the biggest reasons why we're having this debate in the first place is because some people try their hardest to not pay taxes. It's like if a guy was trying to punch your friend but your friend ducks and you end up getting punched in the face, and instead of both of you guys going after the guy who threw the punch in the first place, you blame your friend for ducking.
Eh, the fighting amongst ourselves is 11-dimensional chess that you play in your life. Lots of people start off young and naive and think everybody should pay taxes, usually because they pay nothing. Then you start to pick up an income and obligations like a house and kids and a car and as you start counting up the money you need, you suddenly start wondering how to get out of paying taxes. When you jump from the 15% to 25% bracket (and above) or the first time you get slapped in the face with the AMT, that's when people usually decide to start playing the game.
And of course Congress always dances around the estate tax. That's where you should be complaining about legacies and inequality. Poor people stay poor because they leave their children with nothing. As opposed to Steve Jobs who left his family with $6 billion, which they barely paid any taxes because it's mostly tied up in stock in Apple and Disney (and Jobs was excellent at playing the tax game). Nancy Pelosi is 72 and is worth something like $30 million. The estate tax is the difference between her three kids getting $7 million each (as it is now) and potentially getting knocked down to $3 million each if we went back to the 70s. Nobody is principled enough to let their kids take a hit like that.
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On August 21 2012 11:31 sunprince wrote:Show nested quote +On August 21 2012 10:53 Signet wrote:On August 21 2012 10:26 aksfjh wrote:On August 21 2012 10:20 Signet wrote:On August 21 2012 10:10 xDaunt wrote:Here's a good article from The Weekly Standard about why republicans like the Medicare debate that goes into considerable detail about the lay of the battlefield. Here's the most interesting part: Meanwhile, in the race to fill an open seat in Nevada’s second congressional district in September 2011, Republicans had a perfect test case for their Medicare argument. Democrat Kate Marshall attacked Republican Mark Amodei for his support of the Ryan reforms, and Amodei answered with a series of ads pressing home two points that Republican polling had discovered to be powerfully effective: The Republican proposal would never affect any current seniors, and the Democrats had actually cut half a trillion dollars from Medicare. Amodei not only won the election, he won the senior vote comfortably and was deemed a more reliable protector of Medicare than Marshall in the final pre-election polls. His standing on Medicare was better after the campaign than it had been before his opponent ever told voters about the Ryan plan in the first place. Source. While I understand the strategic aspects of this proposal for the Republican Party, it really infuriates me. So basically senior citizens believe my generation should pay the payroll tax while we work but then not have those programs around anymore when we retire. The honorable thing to do would be to start the cuts with themselves, not their kids/grandkids. Raise the retirement age to 70 for us or something but don't make us pay for the program then never have that part of the safety net there when we might need it. You can't just cut/reform programs like Medicare, Medicaid, and SS. There are quite a few people who have planned for decades on having those benefits in place. To change them suddenly would be catastrophic for possibly hundreds of thousands of people. I'm totally fine with phasing the changes in. But, if I'm understanding the proposal correctly, it's basically no changes for anyone currently 55 and older, then the rest of us are all expected to have private plans -- while still paying for SS for the older people. Kinda sucks... If we don't, then with the projected collapse of those entitlement programs we'd be expected to have private plans anyway. It sucks, but the boomers mortgaged our futures a long time ago. Short of mobilizing enough of the vote to justifiably screw them back, there's nothing we can do about that now except try and live with it the best we can.
They didn't do anything to our future in terms of debt, entitlements, etc. The only thing you can fault them with is requiring us to get an education, stay out of jail, and then continuing to not pay us competitive wages or give us good jobs. If there is anything that's going to ruin our future, it's the thousands in debt we owe individually with no way reasonable to pay it back while saving for our own future. The government debt and programs are pittance compared to the output we're losing by being slighted professionally.
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Anyone who has been working for a few years knows that some of their paycheck has gone to SS etc.
So if it ends the Government better start sending out refunds.
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2nd Worst City in CA8938 Posts
On August 21 2012 12:09 coverpunch wrote:Show nested quote +On August 21 2012 11:42 Souma wrote:
Or, you know, we can just reform the tax code so that we don't lose over a trillion dollars in revenue every year, a stance both Obama and Romney are leaning towards (except Obama wants to raise taxes on top of that while Romney wants to lower taxes, and both have different ways in mind to go about reforming it... In any case, I'd prefer to just keep marginal tax rates the same while we manage the after-effects if reform were to ever happen).
It's hilarious that we fight amongst ourselves when one of the biggest reasons why we're having this debate in the first place is because some people try their hardest to not pay taxes. It's like if a guy was trying to punch your friend but your friend ducks and you end up getting punched in the face, and instead of both of you guys going after the guy who threw the punch in the first place, you blame your friend for ducking. Eh, the fighting amongst ourselves is 11-dimensional chess that you play in your life. Lots of people start off young and naive and think everybody should pay taxes, usually because they pay nothing. Then you start to pick up an income and obligations like a house and kids and a car and as you start counting up the money you need, you suddenly start wondering how to get out of paying taxes. When you jump from the 15% to 25% bracket (and above) or the first time you get slapped in the face with the AMT, that's when people usually decide to start playing the game. And of course Congress always dances around the estate tax. That's where you should be complaining about legacies and inequality. Poor people stay poor because they leave their children with nothing. As opposed to Steve Jobs who left his family with $6 billion, which they barely paid any taxes because it's mostly tied up in stock in Apple and Disney (and Jobs was excellent at playing the tax game). Nancy Pelosi is 72 and is worth something like $30 million. The estate tax is the difference between her three kids getting $7 million each (as it is now) and potentially getting knocked down to $3 million each if we went back to the 70s. Nobody is principled enough to let their kids take a hit like that.
Yeah, definitely. Though your first point still doesn't address the problem with those who have well more than enough to live off of and support their family for their entire lives, yet still like to shove their money into tax havens or take advantage of tax expenditures/loopholes. You do bring up a great point with the estate tax though.
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On August 21 2012 12:17 {CC}StealthBlue wrote:
Anyone who has been working for a few years knows that some of their paycheck has gone to SS etc.
So if it ends the Government better start sending out refunds.
SS was a retarded system anyway. If they Govt had taken that money and invested it in any of the large diversified funds out there, the majority of retirees in American would be Millionaires (I don't have a source for that other than my brother who has PhD in Finance)
As it is, it guarantees us all a pittance at the biggest loss you can imagine, because we lost the opportunity to invest that money.
imo, SS is basically the stupidest government program ever created.
EDIT: I just realized I wrote that SS "was" a retarded system. That shows how much confidence I have that it will continue working "as we know it" for the rest of my life.
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Just lower taxes tt I don't care who does it I'd rather not be giving out so much zzz
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On August 21 2012 11:04 Bigtony wrote:Show nested quote +On August 21 2012 11:01 BluePanther wrote:On August 21 2012 10:53 Signet wrote:On August 21 2012 10:26 aksfjh wrote:On August 21 2012 10:20 Signet wrote:On August 21 2012 10:10 xDaunt wrote:Here's a good article from The Weekly Standard about why republicans like the Medicare debate that goes into considerable detail about the lay of the battlefield. Here's the most interesting part: Meanwhile, in the race to fill an open seat in Nevada’s second congressional district in September 2011, Republicans had a perfect test case for their Medicare argument. Democrat Kate Marshall attacked Republican Mark Amodei for his support of the Ryan reforms, and Amodei answered with a series of ads pressing home two points that Republican polling had discovered to be powerfully effective: The Republican proposal would never affect any current seniors, and the Democrats had actually cut half a trillion dollars from Medicare. Amodei not only won the election, he won the senior vote comfortably and was deemed a more reliable protector of Medicare than Marshall in the final pre-election polls. His standing on Medicare was better after the campaign than it had been before his opponent ever told voters about the Ryan plan in the first place. Source. While I understand the strategic aspects of this proposal for the Republican Party, it really infuriates me. So basically senior citizens believe my generation should pay the payroll tax while we work but then not have those programs around anymore when we retire. The honorable thing to do would be to start the cuts with themselves, not their kids/grandkids. Raise the retirement age to 70 for us or something but don't make us pay for the program then never have that part of the safety net there when we might need it. You can't just cut/reform programs like Medicare, Medicaid, and SS. There are quite a few people who have planned for decades on having those benefits in place. To change them suddenly would be catastrophic for possibly hundreds of thousands of people. I'm totally fine with phasing the changes in. But, if I'm understanding the proposal correctly, it's basically no changes for anyone currently 55 and older, then the rest of us are all expected to have private plans -- while still paying for SS for the older people. Kinda sucks... pretty much, yep. you have a better idea? Screw everyone instead of only screwing some people?
That sounds more like a "worse" idea. A "better" idea would be not to screw anyone, as Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid are perfectly fine except for deliberate attempts to undermine them.
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On August 21 2012 16:15 HunterX11 wrote:Show nested quote +On August 21 2012 11:04 Bigtony wrote:On August 21 2012 11:01 BluePanther wrote:On August 21 2012 10:53 Signet wrote:On August 21 2012 10:26 aksfjh wrote:On August 21 2012 10:20 Signet wrote:On August 21 2012 10:10 xDaunt wrote:Here's a good article from The Weekly Standard about why republicans like the Medicare debate that goes into considerable detail about the lay of the battlefield. Here's the most interesting part: Meanwhile, in the race to fill an open seat in Nevada’s second congressional district in September 2011, Republicans had a perfect test case for their Medicare argument. Democrat Kate Marshall attacked Republican Mark Amodei for his support of the Ryan reforms, and Amodei answered with a series of ads pressing home two points that Republican polling had discovered to be powerfully effective: The Republican proposal would never affect any current seniors, and the Democrats had actually cut half a trillion dollars from Medicare. Amodei not only won the election, he won the senior vote comfortably and was deemed a more reliable protector of Medicare than Marshall in the final pre-election polls. His standing on Medicare was better after the campaign than it had been before his opponent ever told voters about the Ryan plan in the first place. Source. While I understand the strategic aspects of this proposal for the Republican Party, it really infuriates me. So basically senior citizens believe my generation should pay the payroll tax while we work but then not have those programs around anymore when we retire. The honorable thing to do would be to start the cuts with themselves, not their kids/grandkids. Raise the retirement age to 70 for us or something but don't make us pay for the program then never have that part of the safety net there when we might need it. You can't just cut/reform programs like Medicare, Medicaid, and SS. There are quite a few people who have planned for decades on having those benefits in place. To change them suddenly would be catastrophic for possibly hundreds of thousands of people. I'm totally fine with phasing the changes in. But, if I'm understanding the proposal correctly, it's basically no changes for anyone currently 55 and older, then the rest of us are all expected to have private plans -- while still paying for SS for the older people. Kinda sucks... pretty much, yep. you have a better idea? Screw everyone instead of only screwing some people? That sounds more like a "worse" idea. A "better" idea would be not to screw anyone, as Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid are perfectly fine except for deliberate attempts to undermine them.
Strange considering the administrators of both Medicare and Social Security released reports describing how it would collapse and estimating when. I'd like to hear more about this conspiracy where the guys running medicare are completely snookered into believing everything's fine.
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Did that isidewith test. Got 88% Jill Stein.
+ Show Spoiler +Brack Obama 86%
Gary Johnson 77%
Ron Paul 65%
Mitt Romney 33%
Anyway wanna give me a heads up on her?
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On August 21 2012 17:41 Danglars wrote:Show nested quote +On August 21 2012 16:15 HunterX11 wrote:On August 21 2012 11:04 Bigtony wrote:On August 21 2012 11:01 BluePanther wrote:On August 21 2012 10:53 Signet wrote:On August 21 2012 10:26 aksfjh wrote:On August 21 2012 10:20 Signet wrote:On August 21 2012 10:10 xDaunt wrote:Here's a good article from The Weekly Standard about why republicans like the Medicare debate that goes into considerable detail about the lay of the battlefield. Here's the most interesting part: Meanwhile, in the race to fill an open seat in Nevada’s second congressional district in September 2011, Republicans had a perfect test case for their Medicare argument. Democrat Kate Marshall attacked Republican Mark Amodei for his support of the Ryan reforms, and Amodei answered with a series of ads pressing home two points that Republican polling had discovered to be powerfully effective: The Republican proposal would never affect any current seniors, and the Democrats had actually cut half a trillion dollars from Medicare. Amodei not only won the election, he won the senior vote comfortably and was deemed a more reliable protector of Medicare than Marshall in the final pre-election polls. His standing on Medicare was better after the campaign than it had been before his opponent ever told voters about the Ryan plan in the first place. Source. While I understand the strategic aspects of this proposal for the Republican Party, it really infuriates me. So basically senior citizens believe my generation should pay the payroll tax while we work but then not have those programs around anymore when we retire. The honorable thing to do would be to start the cuts with themselves, not their kids/grandkids. Raise the retirement age to 70 for us or something but don't make us pay for the program then never have that part of the safety net there when we might need it. You can't just cut/reform programs like Medicare, Medicaid, and SS. There are quite a few people who have planned for decades on having those benefits in place. To change them suddenly would be catastrophic for possibly hundreds of thousands of people. I'm totally fine with phasing the changes in. But, if I'm understanding the proposal correctly, it's basically no changes for anyone currently 55 and older, then the rest of us are all expected to have private plans -- while still paying for SS for the older people. Kinda sucks... pretty much, yep. you have a better idea? Screw everyone instead of only screwing some people? That sounds more like a "worse" idea. A "better" idea would be not to screw anyone, as Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid are perfectly fine except for deliberate attempts to undermine them. Strange considering the administrators of both Medicare and Social Security released reports describing how it would collapse and estimating when. I'd like to hear more about this conspiracy where the guys running medicare are completely snookered into believing everything's fine.
It would be trivial to keep them solvent past 2036 (well not from a political perspective of course) simply by slightly raising the cap on FICA. But of course that would socialism, etc. etc.
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On August 21 2012 18:06 ShadeR wrote:Did that isidewith test. Got 88% Jill Stein. + Show Spoiler +Brack Obama 86%
Gary Johnson 77%
Ron Paul 65%
Mitt Romney 33% Anyway wanna give me a heads up on her?
Never heard of her.
That quiz didn't help me very much. I got 80% for Obama and 75% for Romney. Stein woman right behind them.
Although that entire quiz is pretty suspect. I messed around with it and tested some stuff. By just switching the importance on the one space exploration question gave like a 10+% point swing overall between candidates. That's stupid
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On August 21 2012 01:40 JonnyBNoHo wrote:Show nested quote +On August 20 2012 21:03 paralleluniverse wrote:
I'm definitely not opposed to redirecting "poor quality government spending" to better uses. You say that this is the main thing you're advocating for, but it's not obvious from any of your writings that that's your view. The standard Republican view is to gut all spending (apart from tax cuts to the rich, of course).
The "making stuff up" comment was directed at your factoid that stimulus is ineffective when debt is high. I can't accuse you of making stuff up now that you have given a source (probably the most random and no-name source that's been linked this thread). However, I still don't agree with the content in your link. If it seems random and no-name it was mentioned on CNBC a few weeks back (randomly) and so I took a look at it then. It is also reflective of the views and opinions of quite a few guests they have had on the channel over the last couple years. It is not wise to ignore what market participants are telling you. Plenty are saying that the high level of government debt and deficits are leading to less investment - that's not a good thing and it needs to be noted. Show nested quote +Now, while you're source is quite no-name, it does cite some more reputable studies (in the "Recent Academic Evidence" section) to come to the view quoted above, that being Reinhart, Reinhart, Rogoff. But your source has misinterpreted the finding of this paper, which is that recessions caused by debt overhangs are long, and that high debt (the magical 90% number) is correlated with slow economic growth. It even calls it a "corollary", because it's the implication they drew from the evidence. But it does not follow from the Reinhart, Reinhart, Rogoff paper that was cited, that even higher debt, in the form of stimulus, will cause even slower economic growth. This Hoisington paper confuses correlation with causation. The original source says that prolonged levels of high debt is correlated with slow economic growth. Now there has been some criticism of the Reinhart, Rogoff work, such as the 90% number being arbitrary and hand-picked, and also this from Krugman: http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/07/21/notes-on-rogoff-wonkish/ They are not arguing that stimulus is causing slow growth. The argument is that government stimulus is far less effective following a debt overhang than normal and that high levels of government debt (in general) leads to slower growth. Because of that higher and higher levels of stimulus will not lead to added growth (or very little of it) because the added growth from stimulus will be offset by the private sector reacting negatively towards it. We know that excessive debt is an issue for both households and businesses and leads to lower economic growth. Now, government debt is a bit different but not exceedingly so. Ultimately the cost of that debt will be paid for by households and businesses through higher taxes or lower government spending or a prolonged period of negative real rates. So it is not a huge leap in logic to say that a huge pile of government debt will have a similar impact as private debt. Maybe the 90% number isn't a good number. But according to usgovernmentspending.com we'll be at 122% of GDP this year. To a lot of people in the economy that's a scary number, and because of that many have already pared back their spending and investment plans... which has slowed growth. Show nested quote +But, let's see what Reinhart and Rogoff actually have to say about stimulus: The U.S. must reduce its debt or suffer economic stagnation, they said in interviews with McClatchy, but in the short term they also favor more government stimulus to boost the economy, even if that raises the debt a bit more. "We may need another stimulus bill just to decompress from the previous one, a smaller one to cushion the landing," said Kenneth Rogoff, a Harvard University economist and a co-author of the book. Added his fellow co-author, Carmen Reinhart, a University of Maryland economist: "I'm not one of those deficit hawks. ... I'm not saying you run out and pull the plug and have an adjustment that could derail what fragile recovery we do have." However, she cautioned, "the whole thing that we can disregard debt because we're the U.S. is really grasping at straws. Taxpayers need to understand the tradeoff, and that is, we're going to be paying for this in terms of lower growth in the future." Source: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2010/08/17/99285/what-should-we-do-about-national.htmlAnd then there's this from Reinhart (again): This seems to be a very reasonable economic position: stimulus now, cut spending later. In fact, it's pretty much the position of Barrack Obama. Note that the first link is from 2010, these days I believe Rogoff has become a typical "cut everything, now, now, now!!" Republican. Sure they praise the stimulus back during the recession and at first into the recovery. But that was years ago. We're now talking about continued stimulus, and even added stimulus years after growth resumed and government debt has piled up to higher levels. We're getting to the point where perpetual stimulus is being called for as has happened in Japan over the past few decades. I think Obama's plan is to spend more now, and cut more later. He wants additional stimulus like the American Jobs Act. I don't think the cost of new stimulus like that is worth the benefits. We might get a bit more growth now, but it will just set us up for a new fiscal cliff in the future and then need a new stimulus plan to offset it. Now, maybe additional stimulus is the best plan out there. But there's no 100% certainty to that. There's a risk that the added stimulus won't be very effective and will just make the future more painful. In light of that risk the prudent thing to do is redirect the garbage spending.
They are arguing that when there's high debt (for the record: Bush's fault), then stimulus, which increases debt would "perpetuate the period of slow economic growth". And this is a misinterpretation of the cited work of Reinhart, Reinhart and Rogoff, which finds that high debt is correlated with slow growth. This does not imply that even higher debt will cause even slower growth. In fact, where in the Reinhart, Reinhart and Rogoff paper does it say that stimulus is bad when debt is high? It doesn't. It's a invalid inference made my this no-name paper. It fails to understand the most simplistic mantra of statistical inference: correlation does not imply causation.
In the very last paragraph of the Reinhart, Reinhart and Rogoff paper it says:Finally, this paper should not be interpreted as a manifesto for rapid public debt deleveraging in an environment of extremely weak growth and high unemployment. However, our read of the evidence certainly casts doubt on the view that soaring government debt is a non-issue simply because markets are presently happy to absorb it. Source: http://www.nber.org/papers/w18015.pdf?new_window=1
Why was this statement ignored? The finding that high debt is correlated with low growth doesn't imply that even higher debt will cause even lower growth. If the government doesn't spend, then who will? Why would the private sector spend when there is a lack of aggregate demand?
I generally don't dispute that in the long run, high debt is bad for growth. High government debt isn't cost-free. But this is a correlation, it can run both ways, maybe low growth causes high debt. In the short run, trying to cut government spending now would be doing exactly what Reinhart, Reinhart and Rogoff cautions us to not do. The idea that when government spending is cut, people would be inspired by the confidence fairy to spend more is exactly the flawed logic behind Europe's disastrous austerity. Cutting spending in a recession further depresses the economy, making it even harder to pay down government debt in the long run. Having high debt is not a sustainable long run policy, but in the short run, it is self-defeating to make the recession worse by cutting spending which makes the debt problem worse.
Also, that quote from Reinhart in the Washington Times, essentially saying that stimulus saved the economy, wasn't from many years ago. It's from November 2011, which is quite recent. Where does she say that stimulus is a waste of money?
The fact that people are somehow spooked out of investing my high government debt is laughable. Government debt should only factor into investment decisions to the extend that rational agents anticipate higher future taxes because the government would need to pay down the debt later. The argument that this stops stimulus from working is known as Ricardian Equivalence. Krugman got into a long debate with Chicago economists on why this is completely wrong: http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/12/26/a-note-on-the-ricardian-equivalence-argument-against-stimulus-slightly-wonkish/
They've since backed down from the claim.
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On August 21 2012 06:25 JonnyBNoHo wrote:Show nested quote +On August 21 2012 05:25 aksfjh wrote:On August 21 2012 05:03 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On August 21 2012 04:17 aksfjh wrote:On August 21 2012 03:44 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On August 21 2012 02:49 aksfjh wrote:On August 21 2012 01:40 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On August 20 2012 21:03 paralleluniverse wrote:
I'm definitely not opposed to redirecting "poor quality government spending" to better uses. You say that this is the main thing you're advocating for, but it's not obvious from any of your writings that that's your view. The standard Republican view is to gut all spending (apart from tax cuts to the rich, of course).
The "making stuff up" comment was directed at your factoid that stimulus is ineffective when debt is high. I can't accuse you of making stuff up now that you have given a source (probably the most random and no-name source that's been linked this thread). However, I still don't agree with the content in your link. If it seems random and no-name it was mentioned on CNBC a few weeks back (randomly) and so I took a look at it then. It is also reflective of the views and opinions of quite a few guests they have had on the channel over the last couple years. It is not wise to ignore what market participants are telling you. Plenty are saying that the high level of government debt and deficits are leading to less investment - that's not a good thing and it needs to be noted. Now, while you're source is quite no-name, it does cite some more reputable studies (in the "Recent Academic Evidence" section) to come to the view quoted above, that being Reinhart, Reinhart, Rogoff. But your source has misinterpreted the finding of this paper, which is that recessions caused by debt overhangs are long, and that high debt (the magical 90% number) is correlated with slow economic growth. It even calls it a "corollary", because it's the implication they drew from the evidence. But it does not follow from the Reinhart, Reinhart, Rogoff paper that was cited, that even higher debt, in the form of stimulus, will cause even slower economic growth. This Hoisington paper confuses correlation with causation. The original source says that prolonged levels of high debt is correlated with slow economic growth. Now there has been some criticism of the Reinhart, Rogoff work, such as the 90% number being arbitrary and hand-picked, and also this from Krugman: http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/07/21/notes-on-rogoff-wonkish/They are not arguing that stimulus is causing slow growth. The argument is that government stimulus is far less effective following a debt overhang than normal and that high levels of government debt (in general) leads to slower growth. Because of that higher and higher levels of stimulus will not lead to added growth (or very little of it) because the added growth from stimulus will be offset by the private sector reacting negatively towards it. We know that excessive debt is an issue for both households and businesses and leads to lower economic growth. Now, government debt is a bit different but not exceedingly so. Ultimately the cost of that debt will be paid for by households and businesses through higher taxes or lower government spending or a prolonged period of negative real rates. So it is not a huge leap in logic to say that a huge pile of government debt will have a similar impact as private debt. Maybe the 90% number isn't a good number. But according to usgovernmentspending.com we'll be at 122% of GDP this year. To a lot of people in the economy that's a scary number, and because of that many have already pared back their spending and investment plans... which has slowed growth. But, let's see what Reinhart and Rogoff actually have to say about stimulus: The U.S. must reduce its debt or suffer economic stagnation, they said in interviews with McClatchy, but in the short term they also favor more government stimulus to boost the economy, even if that raises the debt a bit more. "We may need another stimulus bill just to decompress from the previous one, a smaller one to cushion the landing," said Kenneth Rogoff, a Harvard University economist and a co-author of the book. Added his fellow co-author, Carmen Reinhart, a University of Maryland economist: "I'm not one of those deficit hawks. ... I'm not saying you run out and pull the plug and have an adjustment that could derail what fragile recovery we do have." However, she cautioned, "the whole thing that we can disregard debt because we're the U.S. is really grasping at straws. Taxpayers need to understand the tradeoff, and that is, we're going to be paying for this in terms of lower growth in the future." Source: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2010/08/17/99285/what-should-we-do-about-national.htmlAnd then there's this from Reinhart (again): This seems to be a very reasonable economic position: stimulus now, cut spending later. In fact, it's pretty much the position of Barrack Obama. Note that the first link is from 2010, these days I believe Rogoff has become a typical "cut everything, now, now, now!!" Republican. Sure they praise the stimulus back during the recession and at first into the recovery. But that was years ago. We're now talking about continued stimulus, and even added stimulus years after growth resumed and government debt has piled up to higher levels. We're getting to the point where perpetual stimulus is being called for as has happened in Japan over the past few decades. I think Obama's plan is to spend more now, and cut more later. He wants additional stimulus like the American Jobs Act. I don't think the cost of new stimulus like that is worth the benefits. We might get a bit more growth now, but it will just set us up for a new fiscal cliff in the future and then need a new stimulus plan to offset it. Now, maybe additional stimulus is the best plan out there. But there's no 100% certainty to that. There's a risk that the added stimulus won't be very effective and will just make the future more painful. In light of that risk the prudent thing to do is redirect the garbage spending. People are cutting back their investments because there is little to invest in. Consumers stopped trying to borrow money while they attempt to lower their debt levels. Businesses don't want to invest in increasing output because people are using their income to pay off debt, meaning there isn't rising demand. Then, there's no strong economy out there to carry the torch. EU has touched into another recession, China's growth has slowed tremendously (since its exports have slowed), and South America is being South America. The result? Shove your money into countries that can't or won't realistically default. AKA, countries that print their own money and have a diversified economy. Or shove your money into gold and "safe" businesses. If we use government borrowing to put idle private sector workers back to work, we're investing in a better chance to pay off any extra debt. By sitting on high unemployment and an unvoluntary mass exodus from the workforce, we're eroding worker skills and experience and lowering the potential for growth in the long run, which takes a dump over any plan to repay debt we have. There are many reasons why people aren't investing. Fear of government debt and deficits is just one them. But just because it is one of many factors doesn't mean you get to ignore it. Using government money to put idle workers to work is only worthwhile if it is spent on useful things. China is struggling with bad loans from its stimulus program and Japan is trapped in perpetual stimulus mode (government debt 230% of GDP and counting!) in part due to wasteful spending. So no, just because we have idle workers doesn't mean that the government gets a blank check and a free pass to blow money on whatever the heck it wants. Nobody is asking for a blank check. You're trying to paint stabilizer spending as stimulus investment. It's funny, because the article you linked even stated that the proposals being made in the U.S. DO learn from Japan's mistakes by making investments that are more needed. We have good data stating what the government could invest in. Stabilizer spending is stimulative. There's plenty of government spending that is wasteful. I don't know why you want to argue with these two points. So, you want to stop stabilization spending? What government spending do you find wasteful right now? No, I don't want to stop stabilization spending. Never said I did. Ethanol subsidies are wasteful. A lot of agriculture subsidies are wasteful. The military has complained about getting equipment it doesn't want. The government owns a bunch of buildings and land it doesn't use or under-utilizes. There's a lot of government waste out there. Redirecting it to useful endeavors is the low hanging fruit we should be after.
I don't know enough about these programs to decide whether they're a waste or not. The first one seems OK. But, yes, government waste is bad. The US should eliminate government waste.
But it would be delusional to think that you can make any difference to government debt by eliminating "government waste".
The major drivers of government debt is Social Security, medical costs, and Defense. But this... this is peanuts. Immaterial in the grand scheme of things.
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On August 21 2012 12:26 Savio wrote:Show nested quote +On August 21 2012 12:17 {CC}StealthBlue wrote:
Anyone who has been working for a few years knows that some of their paycheck has gone to SS etc.
So if it ends the Government better start sending out refunds. SS was a retarded system anyway. If they Govt had taken that money and invested it in any of the large diversified funds out there, the majority of retirees in American would be Millionaires (I don't have a source for that other than my brother who has PhD in Finance) As it is, it guarantees us all a pittance at the biggest loss you can imagine, because we lost the opportunity to invest that money. imo, SS is basically the stupidest government program ever created. EDIT: I just realized I wrote that SS "was" a retarded system. That shows how much confidence I have that it will continue working "as we know it" for the rest of my life.
SS is not a hedge fund.
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On August 21 2012 12:26 Savio wrote:Show nested quote +On August 21 2012 12:17 {CC}StealthBlue wrote:
Anyone who has been working for a few years knows that some of their paycheck has gone to SS etc.
So if it ends the Government better start sending out refunds. SS was a retarded system anyway. If they Govt had taken that money and invested it in any of the large diversified funds out there, the majority of retirees in American would be Millionaires (I don't have a source for that other than my brother who has PhD in Finance) As it is, it guarantees us all a pittance at the biggest loss you can imagine, because we lost the opportunity to invest that money. imo, SS is basically the stupidest government program ever created. EDIT: I just realized I wrote that SS "was" a retarded system. That shows how much confidence I have that it will continue working "as we know it" for the rest of my life.
You understand that the point of SS was not to provide luxury life, but to guarantee that people would not live in abject poverty when old ? Investments are risky (no matter what some "experts" say) and thus would run against the point of SS, which is to provide guaranteed security, not possible riches. Of course with time role of SS changed from this secure minimum to providing comfortable life to retired, but the point is still the guaranteed part and no investment with high return is risk-free. That is not to say that SS could not have been managed better.
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So, how about Mr. Akin? This whole shpiel is putting even more of a highlight on how bad the GOP is right now on women's issues.
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On August 21 2012 18:06 ShadeR wrote:Did that isidewith test. Got 88% Jill Stein. + Show Spoiler +Brack Obama 86%
Gary Johnson 77%
Ron Paul 65%
Mitt Romney 33% Anyway wanna give me a heads up on her?
Tried that, I got:
91% Gary Johnson
83% Paul
77% Romney
42%Obama
Said I was 83% Libertarian and 80% Republican... Seems like I'm working for the wrong team.
edit: Stein is Green Party, one of the larger 3rd parties, generally considered to be to the left of the Democratic Party.
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On August 21 2012 19:25 paralleluniverse wrote:Show nested quote +On August 21 2012 12:26 Savio wrote:On August 21 2012 12:17 {CC}StealthBlue wrote:
Anyone who has been working for a few years knows that some of their paycheck has gone to SS etc.
So if it ends the Government better start sending out refunds. SS was a retarded system anyway. If they Govt had taken that money and invested it in any of the large diversified funds out there, the majority of retirees in American would be Millionaires (I don't have a source for that other than my brother who has PhD in Finance) As it is, it guarantees us all a pittance at the biggest loss you can imagine, because we lost the opportunity to invest that money. imo, SS is basically the stupidest government program ever created. EDIT: I just realized I wrote that SS "was" a retarded system. That shows how much confidence I have that it will continue working "as we know it" for the rest of my life. SS is not a hedge fund.
SS isn't a terrible idea in theory, it's just the baby boomers have thrown the population balance out of whack and it's terribly mismanaged by Congress.
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EPT
