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On September 29 2012 01:42 kwizach wrote:Show nested quote +On September 29 2012 00:35 xDaunt wrote:On September 29 2012 00:00 Signet wrote:On September 28 2012 23:55 xDaunt wrote:On September 28 2012 23:49 Signet wrote:On September 28 2012 23:27 paralleluniverse wrote:
Romney is saying government spending on defense creates jobs. But government spending on infrastructure, research, and stimulus in general doesn't.
He's a Keynesian on defense spending. Yes this is very amusing  It's clear that he's just parroting right-wing talking points as a deliberate part of his strategy. Hence the 47% thing as well. As everyone knows, Romney is not a natural conservative. That is what's hold him back more than anything. He is incapable of making the sharp distinction with Obama that he should make. While that's true about Romney, it the conservative think tanks and Super PACs are also claiming that defense cuts will end up costing thousands of jobs. I don't think that that many people in politics really believe in Austrian or even neoliberal economics. They're just helpful frameworks to use to argue against specific things that people don't like. But I rarely see politicians who look at things from these perspectives consistently. I don't think anyone would argue that taking money out of the defense industry will not reduce defense industry employment. The real issue is where should the money go instead to promote employment. Conservatives generally argue that tax money maximizes employment when it is left in the private sector (ie not taxed). Funding the defense industry is justified as the government fulfilling one of its core obligations to the nation and that having a strong national defense is central to American interests. Thus, the "hypocrisy" that liberals are bitching about here is grossly overstated. Uh, no, you didn't cover that hypocrisy at all. The "strong national defense" argument has nothing to do with it. What IS hypocritical is defending the idea that the private sector is necessarily better at creating jobs than the government (both directly and indirectly), that to create jobs money taken in and spent by the government therefore does a worse job than money staying in the private sector and therefore that the smaller the government is the better, while simultaneously claiming that reducing government size (for defense matters) is bad for the economy because it will result in job losses.
Is someone doing that specifically? All I've seen so far from Romney is him pointing out that if you cut defense spending some people will lose jobs over it. That's a different argument from military spending > private sector spending.
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On September 28 2012 10:26 MinusPlus wrote:Show nested quote +On September 28 2012 10:21 Darknat wrote:
I think after the first debate Romney is going to jump ahead and will never lose the lead. Obama was a terrible choice in 2008 and is an even worse choice now. I agree. I mean, look at this picture of Romney. ![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/afEMe.jpg) He is literally glowing with the righteous power of Christ. This is our SIGN, America! Don't reelect obongo! Romney/Ryan 2012!
I don't really see how and why but wait is it... Oh, I'm so confused...
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On September 29 2012 00:35 xDaunt wrote:
I don't think anyone would argue that taking money out of the defense industry will not reduce defense industry employment. The real issue is where should the money go instead to promote employment. Conservatives generally argue that tax money maximizes employment when it is left in the private sector (ie not taxed). Funding the defense industry is justified as the government fulfilling one of its core obligations to the nation and that having a strong national defense is central to American interests. Thus, the "hypocrisy" that liberals are bitching about here is grossly overstated.
EDIT: I shouldn't limit the issue strictly to employment. It's about maximizing the welfare of the private sector.
I'd say that more an issue of consistency than hypocrisy when these ads imply that reducing defense spending will add to our nation's unemployment woes. They're not saying one thing and doing another. They're just not applying the same analysis across all types of government spending.
The "Keynesian" aspect of it relates more to your statement "The real issue is where should the money go instead to promote employment." That's assuming a balanced budget, or assuming tax cuts to offset the spending cuts and remain budget-neutral. Keynesian economics is largely about how deficits can be run to boost the economy / employment. This is money that's borrowed against future tax revenue, so lowering spending now without changing current taxes reduces future taxes.
Keynesians would argue that this will reduce GDP and therefore reduce aggregate employment. (GDP and employment are closely tied, ie Okun's Law. Okun's itself isn't a Keynesian thing, more of an empirical observation that most economists agree is a useful rule of thumb.) Neoliberals and Austrians would argue that reducing government spending does not reduce GDP, because the private sector treats this as an effective tax cut since this is a reduction in the future tax burden. That's the counterargument against expansionary deficit spending using Rational Expectations and the Lucas Critique.
That's why Keynesians are always trying to point out examples of economic/behavioral inefficiencies, because if that's the case then economic actors don't fully anticipate the future impacts of current budget policies, and said policies can be stimulative. Whereas neoliberals/etc argue that these deviations from perfectly rational behavior are too small to have practical consequence.
But if this counterargument holds in the case of increasing deficits, then it should also hold in the case of reducing deficits. That's why it's "Keynesian" to argue that reducing the deficit through defense cuts will lower GDP / aggregate employment.
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On September 28 2012 22:40 Signet wrote:Show nested quote +On September 28 2012 22:28 DoubleReed wrote:
Basically, no one wants to ever look to cut defense spending because people like BluePanther are against cuts to military spending under any circumstances, regardless of corruption. Any cuts makes you look weak, even if it's making things more efficient. It doesn't help that defense contractors are a big lobby in congress.
That being said, defense spending is a lot more than just the military. There's a lot of really awesome general R&D happening in there. I think he was just saying that defense cuts aren't the #1 thing we need. In my opinion, insufficient tax revenue and spiraling health care costs are two larger concerns. Social Security can be fixed by upping the eligibility age and/or reducing the monthly payments by a percentage amount. Means-testing would be helpful too. Military spending (in real terms) should, at worst, flatline over the next decade, which will bring its spending as a percent of GDP down. Yes, I think it's still too high (and I do wonder how much of that is needlessly lining the pockets of arms manufacturers... only something like 20% goes towards personnel expenses), but it's been at that level for much of the last 50 years and we've gotten by. But if health care costs continue to increase at a rate much, much faster than GDP growth, it'll put enormous pressure on any program looking to help even just some people afford the care. It's not like you can pay for half a heart transplant - the costs themselves have to level out for these programs to remain affordable while still being useful. Likewise, with taxes at the levels they're at right now, we can pay for Defense + Social Sec + Medicare/caid, and that's it. Interest on the debt + everything else the federal government does is all unpaid. We need to make cuts, but I don't see something on the order of a 40% reduction in federal spending as actually happening, especially when the Big 3 are political minefields. Eventually, getting our federal expenses and revenues (as % of GDP) back to where they were in 2000 seems like the most practical and achievable way to balance the budget, imo.
It's a bit disingenuous to talk about FICA entitlements and discretionary spending the same way. You tautologically can't pay off the debt by, say, raiding the Social Security Trust--most of the debt is money owed by the government to SS in the first place!
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Samuel L. Jackson In Obama Ad: ‘Wake The F**k Up’
Obama Ad
Is it appropriate, or is it too vulgar?
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Cayman Islands24199 Posts
you can type fuck it's ok
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On September 29 2012 01:49 JonnyBNoHo wrote:Show nested quote +On September 29 2012 01:42 kwizach wrote:On September 29 2012 00:35 xDaunt wrote:On September 29 2012 00:00 Signet wrote:On September 28 2012 23:55 xDaunt wrote:On September 28 2012 23:49 Signet wrote:On September 28 2012 23:27 paralleluniverse wrote:
Romney is saying government spending on defense creates jobs. But government spending on infrastructure, research, and stimulus in general doesn't.
He's a Keynesian on defense spending. Yes this is very amusing It's clear that he's just parroting right-wing talking points as a deliberate part of his strategy. Hence the 47% thing as well. As everyone knows, Romney is not a natural conservative. That is what's hold him back more than anything. He is incapable of making the sharp distinction with Obama that he should make. While that's true about Romney, it the conservative think tanks and Super PACs are also claiming that defense cuts will end up costing thousands of jobs. I don't think that that many people in politics really believe in Austrian or even neoliberal economics. They're just helpful frameworks to use to argue against specific things that people don't like. But I rarely see politicians who look at things from these perspectives consistently. I don't think anyone would argue that taking money out of the defense industry will not reduce defense industry employment. The real issue is where should the money go instead to promote employment. Conservatives generally argue that tax money maximizes employment when it is left in the private sector (ie not taxed). Funding the defense industry is justified as the government fulfilling one of its core obligations to the nation and that having a strong national defense is central to American interests. Thus, the "hypocrisy" that liberals are bitching about here is grossly overstated. Uh, no, you didn't cover that hypocrisy at all. The "strong national defense" argument has nothing to do with it. What IS hypocritical is defending the idea that the private sector is necessarily better at creating jobs than the government (both directly and indirectly), that to create jobs money taken in and spent by the government therefore does a worse job than money staying in the private sector and therefore that the smaller the government is the better, while simultaneously claiming that reducing government size (for defense matters) is bad for the economy because it will result in job losses. Is someone doing that specifically? All I've seen so far from Romney is him pointing out that if you cut defense spending some people will lose jobs over it. That's a different argument from military spending > private sector spending.
But the argument romney is making is that military spending > all other government spending...
(which is to say, for the right, only military spending has keynesian virtue, and all other government spending has keynesian vice)
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On September 29 2012 03:14 sam!zdat wrote:Show nested quote +On September 29 2012 01:49 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On September 29 2012 01:42 kwizach wrote:On September 29 2012 00:35 xDaunt wrote:On September 29 2012 00:00 Signet wrote:On September 28 2012 23:55 xDaunt wrote:On September 28 2012 23:49 Signet wrote:On September 28 2012 23:27 paralleluniverse wrote:
Romney is saying government spending on defense creates jobs. But government spending on infrastructure, research, and stimulus in general doesn't.
He's a Keynesian on defense spending. Yes this is very amusing It's clear that he's just parroting right-wing talking points as a deliberate part of his strategy. Hence the 47% thing as well. As everyone knows, Romney is not a natural conservative. That is what's hold him back more than anything. He is incapable of making the sharp distinction with Obama that he should make. While that's true about Romney, it the conservative think tanks and Super PACs are also claiming that defense cuts will end up costing thousands of jobs. I don't think that that many people in politics really believe in Austrian or even neoliberal economics. They're just helpful frameworks to use to argue against specific things that people don't like. But I rarely see politicians who look at things from these perspectives consistently. I don't think anyone would argue that taking money out of the defense industry will not reduce defense industry employment. The real issue is where should the money go instead to promote employment. Conservatives generally argue that tax money maximizes employment when it is left in the private sector (ie not taxed). Funding the defense industry is justified as the government fulfilling one of its core obligations to the nation and that having a strong national defense is central to American interests. Thus, the "hypocrisy" that liberals are bitching about here is grossly overstated. Uh, no, you didn't cover that hypocrisy at all. The "strong national defense" argument has nothing to do with it. What IS hypocritical is defending the idea that the private sector is necessarily better at creating jobs than the government (both directly and indirectly), that to create jobs money taken in and spent by the government therefore does a worse job than money staying in the private sector and therefore that the smaller the government is the better, while simultaneously claiming that reducing government size (for defense matters) is bad for the economy because it will result in job losses. Is someone doing that specifically? All I've seen so far from Romney is him pointing out that if you cut defense spending some people will lose jobs over it. That's a different argument from military spending > private sector spending. But the argument romney is making is that military spending > all other government spending... (which is to say, for the right, only military spending has keynesian virtue, and all other government spending has keynesian vice)
It's true though, America's big dick *oh sorry cough*, I mean, America's ability to destroy all the armies all the rest of the world put together (and also the fucking planet, just in case), is much more important than educating young people, make sure that the old lady of the house at the corner of the street that is dying from cancer can get to hospital or sponsoring science (after all these people are even saying that dinosaurs really existed while our 3000 years old book says the opposite. Shocking)
This campaign is sickening.
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On September 29 2012 03:20 Biff The Understudy wrote:Show nested quote +On September 29 2012 03:14 sam!zdat wrote:On September 29 2012 01:49 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On September 29 2012 01:42 kwizach wrote:On September 29 2012 00:35 xDaunt wrote:On September 29 2012 00:00 Signet wrote:On September 28 2012 23:55 xDaunt wrote:On September 28 2012 23:49 Signet wrote:On September 28 2012 23:27 paralleluniverse wrote:
Romney is saying government spending on defense creates jobs. But government spending on infrastructure, research, and stimulus in general doesn't.
He's a Keynesian on defense spending. Yes this is very amusing It's clear that he's just parroting right-wing talking points as a deliberate part of his strategy. Hence the 47% thing as well. As everyone knows, Romney is not a natural conservative. That is what's hold him back more than anything. He is incapable of making the sharp distinction with Obama that he should make. While that's true about Romney, it the conservative think tanks and Super PACs are also claiming that defense cuts will end up costing thousands of jobs. I don't think that that many people in politics really believe in Austrian or even neoliberal economics. They're just helpful frameworks to use to argue against specific things that people don't like. But I rarely see politicians who look at things from these perspectives consistently. I don't think anyone would argue that taking money out of the defense industry will not reduce defense industry employment. The real issue is where should the money go instead to promote employment. Conservatives generally argue that tax money maximizes employment when it is left in the private sector (ie not taxed). Funding the defense industry is justified as the government fulfilling one of its core obligations to the nation and that having a strong national defense is central to American interests. Thus, the "hypocrisy" that liberals are bitching about here is grossly overstated. Uh, no, you didn't cover that hypocrisy at all. The "strong national defense" argument has nothing to do with it. What IS hypocritical is defending the idea that the private sector is necessarily better at creating jobs than the government (both directly and indirectly), that to create jobs money taken in and spent by the government therefore does a worse job than money staying in the private sector and therefore that the smaller the government is the better, while simultaneously claiming that reducing government size (for defense matters) is bad for the economy because it will result in job losses. Is someone doing that specifically? All I've seen so far from Romney is him pointing out that if you cut defense spending some people will lose jobs over it. That's a different argument from military spending > private sector spending. But the argument romney is making is that military spending > all other government spending... (which is to say, for the right, only military spending has keynesian virtue, and all other government spending has keynesian vice) It's true though, America's big dick *oh sorry cough*, I mean, America's ability to destroy all the armies all the rest of the world put together (and also the fucking planet, just in case), is much more important than educating young people, make sure that the old lady of the house at the corner of the street that is dying from cancer can get to hospital or sponsoring science (after all these people are even saying that dinosaurs really existed while our 3000 years old book says the opposite. Shocking) This campaign is sickening.
We spend a retarded amount of money on education already. Money's not the issue with regards to why our schools suck.
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Cayman Islands24199 Posts
if only that money were more equitably distributed. as with everything else in america, it's not that there is not good education, it's that those who do not have it have literally nothing at all.
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On September 29 2012 03:25 xDaunt wrote:Show nested quote +On September 29 2012 03:20 Biff The Understudy wrote:On September 29 2012 03:14 sam!zdat wrote:On September 29 2012 01:49 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On September 29 2012 01:42 kwizach wrote:On September 29 2012 00:35 xDaunt wrote:On September 29 2012 00:00 Signet wrote:On September 28 2012 23:55 xDaunt wrote:On September 28 2012 23:49 Signet wrote:On September 28 2012 23:27 paralleluniverse wrote:
Romney is saying government spending on defense creates jobs. But government spending on infrastructure, research, and stimulus in general doesn't.
He's a Keynesian on defense spending. Yes this is very amusing It's clear that he's just parroting right-wing talking points as a deliberate part of his strategy. Hence the 47% thing as well. As everyone knows, Romney is not a natural conservative. That is what's hold him back more than anything. He is incapable of making the sharp distinction with Obama that he should make. While that's true about Romney, it the conservative think tanks and Super PACs are also claiming that defense cuts will end up costing thousands of jobs. I don't think that that many people in politics really believe in Austrian or even neoliberal economics. They're just helpful frameworks to use to argue against specific things that people don't like. But I rarely see politicians who look at things from these perspectives consistently. I don't think anyone would argue that taking money out of the defense industry will not reduce defense industry employment. The real issue is where should the money go instead to promote employment. Conservatives generally argue that tax money maximizes employment when it is left in the private sector (ie not taxed). Funding the defense industry is justified as the government fulfilling one of its core obligations to the nation and that having a strong national defense is central to American interests. Thus, the "hypocrisy" that liberals are bitching about here is grossly overstated. Uh, no, you didn't cover that hypocrisy at all. The "strong national defense" argument has nothing to do with it. What IS hypocritical is defending the idea that the private sector is necessarily better at creating jobs than the government (both directly and indirectly), that to create jobs money taken in and spent by the government therefore does a worse job than money staying in the private sector and therefore that the smaller the government is the better, while simultaneously claiming that reducing government size (for defense matters) is bad for the economy because it will result in job losses. Is someone doing that specifically? All I've seen so far from Romney is him pointing out that if you cut defense spending some people will lose jobs over it. That's a different argument from military spending > private sector spending. But the argument romney is making is that military spending > all other government spending... (which is to say, for the right, only military spending has keynesian virtue, and all other government spending has keynesian vice) It's true though, America's big dick *oh sorry cough*, I mean, America's ability to destroy all the armies all the rest of the world put together (and also the fucking planet, just in case), is much more important than educating young people, make sure that the old lady of the house at the corner of the street that is dying from cancer can get to hospital or sponsoring science (after all these people are even saying that dinosaurs really existed while our 3000 years old book says the opposite. Shocking) This campaign is sickening. We spend a retarded amount of money on education already. Money's not the issue with regards to why our schools suck.
What could be a more important thing to spend money on than education?
I'll agree that our system is structured badly from the ground up.
(edit: but one main problem is that being a teacher is an entirely unrewarding career and our society doesn't value it - in fact, we scorn teachers. Why would talented people want to become teachers? Only idiots like me who are basically sociopaths and don't care about what society thinks, that's who)
(and we can derive a general principle from this, which is that if you want any organization to work well - business, government, education - you need to make it attractive for talented people. Currently, only business is this way - and people wonder why government and education are dysfunctional organizations. well fuck me I don't know why...)
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Her at Emory, I can honestly say money is not an issue. It seems that the school's way of doing things is just to throw money at things and make it better. It works, but its also incredibly wasteful. There's a lot of Offices/ Departments which I think could be eliminated, slimmed down or combined. The only benefit is that if you need money for a club or some event you want to do, you can always find it if you look hard enough... but there's still way too much waste IMO.
Yes I know that its a private school, but I think schools have quite a bit of money, but they don't allocate it the best. My high school was consistently in the red while I was there. What they ended up doing was firing a lot of the "good" teachers who'd been there for a decent amount of time. Meanwhile, they decided to remodel the gym (even though it'd been more or less rebuilt after Hurricane Katrina). Someone also ended up buying a lot of really nice cardstock paper which just got used for regular old copies.
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Emory has nothing to do with what we are talking about.
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2nd Worst City in CA8938 Posts
Major problems with education are socioeconomic. Parents of low-income families can't afford to be as attentive to their child's studies when they're working hard just to make ends meet. Likewise, parents who were born into poverty and had kids while in poverty are highly uneducated themselves, causing an endless cycle. Then factor in other environmental factors like high-crime rates, gangs, etc. and it's no wonder kids are doing bad in school. One of the major factors of a kid's education is not just schools/teachers but parents. When social mobility is so low and poverty is high, families suffer and consequentially education suffers. Of course, not only low-income families suffer, but even parents of middle-class families pay less attention to their kids' studies these days. When mom and dad are not teaching you, you learn from other sources: television, peers, the internet, etc.
Of course, we still need good education reform. But there's a limit as to how effective reform can be without addressing other underlying causes.
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On September 29 2012 03:25 xDaunt wrote:Show nested quote +On September 29 2012 03:20 Biff The Understudy wrote:On September 29 2012 03:14 sam!zdat wrote:On September 29 2012 01:49 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On September 29 2012 01:42 kwizach wrote:On September 29 2012 00:35 xDaunt wrote:On September 29 2012 00:00 Signet wrote:On September 28 2012 23:55 xDaunt wrote:On September 28 2012 23:49 Signet wrote:On September 28 2012 23:27 paralleluniverse wrote:
Romney is saying government spending on defense creates jobs. But government spending on infrastructure, research, and stimulus in general doesn't.
He's a Keynesian on defense spending. Yes this is very amusing It's clear that he's just parroting right-wing talking points as a deliberate part of his strategy. Hence the 47% thing as well. As everyone knows, Romney is not a natural conservative. That is what's hold him back more than anything. He is incapable of making the sharp distinction with Obama that he should make. While that's true about Romney, it the conservative think tanks and Super PACs are also claiming that defense cuts will end up costing thousands of jobs. I don't think that that many people in politics really believe in Austrian or even neoliberal economics. They're just helpful frameworks to use to argue against specific things that people don't like. But I rarely see politicians who look at things from these perspectives consistently. I don't think anyone would argue that taking money out of the defense industry will not reduce defense industry employment. The real issue is where should the money go instead to promote employment. Conservatives generally argue that tax money maximizes employment when it is left in the private sector (ie not taxed). Funding the defense industry is justified as the government fulfilling one of its core obligations to the nation and that having a strong national defense is central to American interests. Thus, the "hypocrisy" that liberals are bitching about here is grossly overstated. Uh, no, you didn't cover that hypocrisy at all. The "strong national defense" argument has nothing to do with it. What IS hypocritical is defending the idea that the private sector is necessarily better at creating jobs than the government (both directly and indirectly), that to create jobs money taken in and spent by the government therefore does a worse job than money staying in the private sector and therefore that the smaller the government is the better, while simultaneously claiming that reducing government size (for defense matters) is bad for the economy because it will result in job losses. Is someone doing that specifically? All I've seen so far from Romney is him pointing out that if you cut defense spending some people will lose jobs over it. That's a different argument from military spending > private sector spending. But the argument romney is making is that military spending > all other government spending... (which is to say, for the right, only military spending has keynesian virtue, and all other government spending has keynesian vice) It's true though, America's big dick *oh sorry cough*, I mean, America's ability to destroy all the armies all the rest of the world put together (and also the fucking planet, just in case), is much more important than educating young people, make sure that the old lady of the house at the corner of the street that is dying from cancer can get to hospital or sponsoring science (after all these people are even saying that dinosaurs really existed while our 3000 years old book says the opposite. Shocking) This campaign is sickening. We spend a retarded amount of money on education already. Money's not the issue with regards to why our schools suck.
Of course not! It's like going on Mars, it has nothing to do with money.
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On September 29 2012 03:27 sam!zdat wrote:Show nested quote +On September 29 2012 03:25 xDaunt wrote:On September 29 2012 03:20 Biff The Understudy wrote:On September 29 2012 03:14 sam!zdat wrote:On September 29 2012 01:49 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On September 29 2012 01:42 kwizach wrote:On September 29 2012 00:35 xDaunt wrote:On September 29 2012 00:00 Signet wrote:On September 28 2012 23:55 xDaunt wrote:On September 28 2012 23:49 Signet wrote:[quote] Yes this is very amusing It's clear that he's just parroting right-wing talking points as a deliberate part of his strategy. Hence the 47% thing as well. As everyone knows, Romney is not a natural conservative. That is what's hold him back more than anything. He is incapable of making the sharp distinction with Obama that he should make. While that's true about Romney, it the conservative think tanks and Super PACs are also claiming that defense cuts will end up costing thousands of jobs. I don't think that that many people in politics really believe in Austrian or even neoliberal economics. They're just helpful frameworks to use to argue against specific things that people don't like. But I rarely see politicians who look at things from these perspectives consistently. I don't think anyone would argue that taking money out of the defense industry will not reduce defense industry employment. The real issue is where should the money go instead to promote employment. Conservatives generally argue that tax money maximizes employment when it is left in the private sector (ie not taxed). Funding the defense industry is justified as the government fulfilling one of its core obligations to the nation and that having a strong national defense is central to American interests. Thus, the "hypocrisy" that liberals are bitching about here is grossly overstated. Uh, no, you didn't cover that hypocrisy at all. The "strong national defense" argument has nothing to do with it. What IS hypocritical is defending the idea that the private sector is necessarily better at creating jobs than the government (both directly and indirectly), that to create jobs money taken in and spent by the government therefore does a worse job than money staying in the private sector and therefore that the smaller the government is the better, while simultaneously claiming that reducing government size (for defense matters) is bad for the economy because it will result in job losses. Is someone doing that specifically? All I've seen so far from Romney is him pointing out that if you cut defense spending some people will lose jobs over it. That's a different argument from military spending > private sector spending. But the argument romney is making is that military spending > all other government spending... (which is to say, for the right, only military spending has keynesian virtue, and all other government spending has keynesian vice) It's true though, America's big dick *oh sorry cough*, I mean, America's ability to destroy all the armies all the rest of the world put together (and also the fucking planet, just in case), is much more important than educating young people, make sure that the old lady of the house at the corner of the street that is dying from cancer can get to hospital or sponsoring science (after all these people are even saying that dinosaurs really existed while our 3000 years old book says the opposite. Shocking) This campaign is sickening. We spend a retarded amount of money on education already. Money's not the issue with regards to why our schools suck. What could be a more important thing to spend money on than education? I'll agree that our system is structured badly from the ground up. (edit: but one main problem is that being a teacher is an entirely unrewarding career and our society doesn't value it - in fact, we scorn teachers. Why would talented people want to become teachers? Only idiots like me who are basically sociopaths and don't care about what society thinks, that's who) (and we can derive a general principle from this, which is that if you want any organization to work well - business, government, education - you need to make it attractive for talented people. Currently, only business is this way - and people wonder why government and education are dysfunctional organizations. well fuck me I don't know why...)
I don't mind spending a lot of money on education as long as it works. We spend more money per child for education than any other country in the world other than Switzerland, and we get shit results for it. Before we spend any additional funds on education, we need to figure out and fix what is wrong with the current system.
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On September 29 2012 03:39 xDaunt wrote:Show nested quote +On September 29 2012 03:27 sam!zdat wrote:On September 29 2012 03:25 xDaunt wrote:On September 29 2012 03:20 Biff The Understudy wrote:On September 29 2012 03:14 sam!zdat wrote:On September 29 2012 01:49 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On September 29 2012 01:42 kwizach wrote:On September 29 2012 00:35 xDaunt wrote:On September 29 2012 00:00 Signet wrote:On September 28 2012 23:55 xDaunt wrote:
[quote]
As everyone knows, Romney is not a natural conservative. That is what's hold him back more than anything. He is incapable of making the sharp distinction with Obama that he should make. While that's true about Romney, it the conservative think tanks and Super PACs are also claiming that defense cuts will end up costing thousands of jobs. I don't think that that many people in politics really believe in Austrian or even neoliberal economics. They're just helpful frameworks to use to argue against specific things that people don't like. But I rarely see politicians who look at things from these perspectives consistently. I don't think anyone would argue that taking money out of the defense industry will not reduce defense industry employment. The real issue is where should the money go instead to promote employment. Conservatives generally argue that tax money maximizes employment when it is left in the private sector (ie not taxed). Funding the defense industry is justified as the government fulfilling one of its core obligations to the nation and that having a strong national defense is central to American interests. Thus, the "hypocrisy" that liberals are bitching about here is grossly overstated. Uh, no, you didn't cover that hypocrisy at all. The "strong national defense" argument has nothing to do with it. What IS hypocritical is defending the idea that the private sector is necessarily better at creating jobs than the government (both directly and indirectly), that to create jobs money taken in and spent by the government therefore does a worse job than money staying in the private sector and therefore that the smaller the government is the better, while simultaneously claiming that reducing government size (for defense matters) is bad for the economy because it will result in job losses. Is someone doing that specifically? All I've seen so far from Romney is him pointing out that if you cut defense spending some people will lose jobs over it. That's a different argument from military spending > private sector spending. But the argument romney is making is that military spending > all other government spending... (which is to say, for the right, only military spending has keynesian virtue, and all other government spending has keynesian vice) It's true though, America's big dick *oh sorry cough*, I mean, America's ability to destroy all the armies all the rest of the world put together (and also the fucking planet, just in case), is much more important than educating young people, make sure that the old lady of the house at the corner of the street that is dying from cancer can get to hospital or sponsoring science (after all these people are even saying that dinosaurs really existed while our 3000 years old book says the opposite. Shocking) This campaign is sickening. We spend a retarded amount of money on education already. Money's not the issue with regards to why our schools suck. What could be a more important thing to spend money on than education? I'll agree that our system is structured badly from the ground up. (edit: but one main problem is that being a teacher is an entirely unrewarding career and our society doesn't value it - in fact, we scorn teachers. Why would talented people want to become teachers? Only idiots like me who are basically sociopaths and don't care about what society thinks, that's who) (and we can derive a general principle from this, which is that if you want any organization to work well - business, government, education - you need to make it attractive for talented people. Currently, only business is this way - and people wonder why government and education are dysfunctional organizations. well fuck me I don't know why...) I don't mind spending a lot of money on education as long as it works. We spend more money per child for education than any other country in the world other than Switzerland, and we get shit results for it. Before we spend any additional funds on education, we need to figure out and fix what is wrong with the current system.
Yeah, well, we can agree on this at least. Somebody break out the champagne.
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On September 29 2012 03:39 xDaunt wrote:Show nested quote +On September 29 2012 03:27 sam!zdat wrote:On September 29 2012 03:25 xDaunt wrote:On September 29 2012 03:20 Biff The Understudy wrote:On September 29 2012 03:14 sam!zdat wrote:On September 29 2012 01:49 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On September 29 2012 01:42 kwizach wrote:On September 29 2012 00:35 xDaunt wrote:On September 29 2012 00:00 Signet wrote:On September 28 2012 23:55 xDaunt wrote:
[quote]
As everyone knows, Romney is not a natural conservative. That is what's hold him back more than anything. He is incapable of making the sharp distinction with Obama that he should make. While that's true about Romney, it the conservative think tanks and Super PACs are also claiming that defense cuts will end up costing thousands of jobs. I don't think that that many people in politics really believe in Austrian or even neoliberal economics. They're just helpful frameworks to use to argue against specific things that people don't like. But I rarely see politicians who look at things from these perspectives consistently. I don't think anyone would argue that taking money out of the defense industry will not reduce defense industry employment. The real issue is where should the money go instead to promote employment. Conservatives generally argue that tax money maximizes employment when it is left in the private sector (ie not taxed). Funding the defense industry is justified as the government fulfilling one of its core obligations to the nation and that having a strong national defense is central to American interests. Thus, the "hypocrisy" that liberals are bitching about here is grossly overstated. Uh, no, you didn't cover that hypocrisy at all. The "strong national defense" argument has nothing to do with it. What IS hypocritical is defending the idea that the private sector is necessarily better at creating jobs than the government (both directly and indirectly), that to create jobs money taken in and spent by the government therefore does a worse job than money staying in the private sector and therefore that the smaller the government is the better, while simultaneously claiming that reducing government size (for defense matters) is bad for the economy because it will result in job losses. Is someone doing that specifically? All I've seen so far from Romney is him pointing out that if you cut defense spending some people will lose jobs over it. That's a different argument from military spending > private sector spending. But the argument romney is making is that military spending > all other government spending... (which is to say, for the right, only military spending has keynesian virtue, and all other government spending has keynesian vice) It's true though, America's big dick *oh sorry cough*, I mean, America's ability to destroy all the armies all the rest of the world put together (and also the fucking planet, just in case), is much more important than educating young people, make sure that the old lady of the house at the corner of the street that is dying from cancer can get to hospital or sponsoring science (after all these people are even saying that dinosaurs really existed while our 3000 years old book says the opposite. Shocking) This campaign is sickening. We spend a retarded amount of money on education already. Money's not the issue with regards to why our schools suck. What could be a more important thing to spend money on than education? I'll agree that our system is structured badly from the ground up. (edit: but one main problem is that being a teacher is an entirely unrewarding career and our society doesn't value it - in fact, we scorn teachers. Why would talented people want to become teachers? Only idiots like me who are basically sociopaths and don't care about what society thinks, that's who) (and we can derive a general principle from this, which is that if you want any organization to work well - business, government, education - you need to make it attractive for talented people. Currently, only business is this way - and people wonder why government and education are dysfunctional organizations. well fuck me I don't know why...) I don't mind spending a lot of money on education as long as it works. We spend more money per child for education than any other country in the world other than Switzerland, and we get shit results for it. Before we spend any additional funds on education, we need to figure out and fix what is wrong with the current system.
You spend 5,7% of your GPD. Cuba is at 14% and countrie such as Norway are around 8. Where did you get that figure?
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On September 29 2012 02:55 HunterX11 wrote:
It's a bit disingenuous to talk about FICA entitlements and discretionary spending the same way. You tautologically can't pay off the debt by, say, raiding the Social Security Trust--most of the debt is money owed by the government to SS in the first place!
I know that's how they portray the accounting, but in the end it's all the federal government. The government can say that program X "owes" program Y so many dollars, but that is little more than accounting tricks. Current spending minus current taxes equals the deficit. They could just as easily use dollar ABCD brought in through income taxes to send to a retiree or dollar EFGH brought in through the payroll tax to pay some airman's salary, it makes no actual difference. I think it's more accurate to consider "income tax" plus "payroll tax" to be the aggregate federal tax on your income, which is used (along with corporate taxes) to pay for federal spending.
Think about it - where did the first social security payments under FDR come from? There wasn't a FICA tax in place before these payments started; the government simply started giving seniors a supplemental income.
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EPT
