US Politics Mega-thread - Page 413

On July 05 2018 04:22 Introvert wrote:


Your translator needs an update.

But I'll use this post because it's such an excellent distillation of what I'm talking about.

I'm not arguing about whether either agency should exist. For the sake of this conversation I intentionally hedged on that! I'm pointing out a phenomenon the right knows well and the left perpetuates where we can take two similar starting points but go nowhere. because everyone on the right is a Bad Person, a statement like "abolish the EPA" is extrapolated to mean "there should be no environmental regulations!" while "abolish ICE" is taken to mean "get rid of the agency and replace it with the Sweet Butterfly Patrol."

We aren't arguing the merits, and we can't because the Bad Person assumption is already enforced. And that's exactly what you did! lol.

This is why I find discussions about things like "reaching out" or "civility" so hilarious from the left. When your own side is so high on this assumption, what makes you think you were actually exemplars of the virtues you are saying "got us nowhere"? Fascinating.

On July 05 2018 05:54 {CC}StealthBlue wrote:
The left has to reach out more and more to get past the Corporate Dem machine which isn't very welcoming with the left's increasing popular messages.

On July 05 2018 04:22 Introvert wrote:


Your translator needs an update.

But I'll use this post because it's such an excellent distillation of what I'm talking about.

I'm not arguing about whether either agency should exist. For the sake of this conversation I intentionally hedged on that! I'm pointing out a phenomenon the right knows well and the left perpetuates where we can take two similar starting points but go nowhere. because everyone on the right is a Bad Person, a statement like "abolish the EPA" is extrapolated to mean "there should be no environmental regulations!" while "abolish ICE" is taken to mean "get rid of the agency and replace it with the Sweet Butterfly Patrol."

We aren't arguing the merits, and we can't because the Bad Person assumption is already enforced. And that's exactly what you did! lol.

This is why I find discussions about things like "reaching out" or "civility" so hilarious from the left. When your own side is so high on this assumption, what makes you think you were actually exemplars of the virtues you are saying "got us nowhere"? Fascinating.

On July 05 2018 04:22 Introvert wrote:


Your translator needs an update.

But I'll use this post because it's such an excellent distillation of what I'm talking about.

I'm not arguing about whether either agency should exist. For the sake of this conversation I intentionally hedged on that! I'm pointing out a phenomenon the right knows well and the left perpetuates where we can take two similar starting points but go nowhere. because everyone on the right is a Bad Person, a statement like "abolish the EPA" is extrapolated to mean "there should be no environmental regulations!" while "abolish ICE" is taken to mean "get rid of the agency and replace it with the Sweet Butterfly Patrol."

We aren't arguing the merits, and we can't because the Bad Person assumption is already enforced. And that's exactly what you did! lol.

This is why I find discussions about things like "reaching out" or "civility" so hilarious from the left. When your own side is so high on this assumption, what makes you think you were actually exemplars of the virtues you are saying "got us nowhere"? Fascinating.

On July 05 2018 03:27 screamingpalm wrote:


Indeed! Democrats still to this day brag about the budget surplus of the "goldilocks economy" not understanding sectoral balances and that needs to net to zero. In other words, the surplus drained savings and created a private debt expansion bubble which led to a nasty recession. Clinton replaced deficit spending by filling the Gap with bank loans and IOU's (and filled his buddies' pockets on Wall Street). A generation that benefitted from progressive policies of FDR, Ike, LBJ...

As far as the national debt though, there is far too much fear-mongering over what is essentially safe liquid assets- savings accounts at the fed. Much Ado about nothing and not something that we have to "endure" nor is it a burden. The federal government does not need, nor benefit from revenue.

On July 05 2018 06:45 JonnyBNoHo wrote:

You can't just dump everything into safe assets and then expect safe assets to still work as if they are safe assets.

On July 05 2018 05:56 screamingpalm wrote:


This! I actually find more open-mindedness with people on the right (well, sometimes at least) than the Clintonites. Or if you are in the UK, Blairites.

On July 05 2018 08:05 Nebuchad wrote:


What you're describing isn't reaching out, it's finding out that they agree with you about some stuff. I have no problem with them adhering to the message.

On July 05 2018 07:11 screamingpalm wrote:

I wouldn't disagree with you. Most investors don't dump everything into bonds, but contain some to manage risk.

On July 05 2018 05:59 TheTenthDoc wrote:


I think this is just a human trait. Everyone on both sides loves a strawman. After all, Doug Jones become a radical abortionist with a history of supporting full-birth abortion with one terrible response to a question about specific legislation in front of congress pushing forward the trimester date, and Hillary Clinton became a hater of all Trump supporters because of a quote from a speech specifically about how some Trump supporters have legitimate opinions and grievances we should care about.

Neither side takes the other side uniformly figuratively or literally, but that being the burden of "the left" and "the right" seems odd. Everyone perpetuates it become simplicity and strawmanning are tremendously potent weapons in politics, which the right realized even before the left.

We'd be better off if neither side does it, but it's pretty hard for either side to disarm unilaterally. Especially when the current de facto leader of one side (Trump) will go so far as to completely fabricate things the other side supports.

On July 05 2018 06:00 Howie_Dewitt wrote:

Despite most of this being true when applied to "the left," I don't feel like this is a political phenomenon only limited to one side of the aisle; in fact, I would say that the Republican Party's grande strategy revolves around assuming that the other side is made up of "bad" or "misguided" individuals.

There are not a lot of attempts that I remember (my bad memory might play a part in this, but I'm reasonably comfortable with my statement here) where Republicans reached out to Democrats for an attempt at legislation instead of using brute force and only red votes to pass laws. I would also say that people like Joe Manchin should not be counted as reaching out by Republicans; he changed in response to the views of his constituents, and he always switched without Republican action targeted at him (although, they certainly approve of this shift).

The assumption that "the right" is the victim here is quite concerning, as it allows you to brush off "calls for civility" instead of saying that both sides need to work on their attitudes (our current president is a symptom of this); why was "If you'll be civil, we will too. Stop assuming we're willing to destroy the country to advance the interests of the capital class and we'll start considering what you say and drafting more moderate legislation" not the Republicans' response to this? Essentially, where is your high ground? You created one for yourself, but I see it crumbling away.

In short, I understand the thrust of your argument, but disagree with the statement that this is perpetuated solely by "the left."

Edit: the tea party does make it very difficult to reach out, considering that they have much more of a visible impact on Congress than the "hard leftists."

On July 05 2018 08:39 JonnyBNoHo wrote:

Not talking about portfolio management.
If we're dumping lots of economic risk into treasuries (lots of borrowing) than they cease to be safe assets.

I believe BIS was advocating a few years back for lots of borrowing to make safe assets available, but that was paired with large primary surpluses to maintain safe asset status. That is, not a gov. financing scheme.

On July 05 2018 08:39 JonnyBNoHo wrote:

Not talking about portfolio management.
If we're dumping lots of economic risk into treasuries (lots of borrowing) than they cease to be safe assets.

I believe BIS was advocating a few years back for lots of borrowing to make safe assets available, but that was paired with large primary surpluses to maintain safe asset status. That is, not a gov. financing scheme.

On July 05 2018 08:43 kollin wrote:

If the government has unlimited potential to repay whatever is borrowed, doesn't that negate the risk? Genuine question cos my understanding of this sort of thing is v limited

On July 05 2018 08:51 screamingpalm wrote:


I'd be interested in what you mean by dumping risk into treasuries. As our debt in denominated in our same unit of account, I see no risk involved.

Or from the St. Louis Federal Reserve:

As the sole manufacturer of dollars, whose debt is denominated in dollars, the U.S. government can never become insolvent, i.e., unable to pay its bills. In this sense, the government is not dependent on credit markets to remain operational. Moreover, there will always be a market for U.S. government debt at home because the U.S. government has the only means of creating risk-free dollar-denominated assets (by virtue of never facing insolvency and paying interest rates over the inflation rate, e.g., TIPS—Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities).

On July 05 2018 09:08 JonnyBNoHo wrote:
People actually have to want the safe assets the government is creating so there's a limit there. If you exceed it, what happens if everyone wants to redeem those safe assets for goods and services?

On July 05 2018 09:12 screamingpalm wrote:



Yes, now if this happened all at once, it could be an issue. It would need to be offset through taxes or some other drain.

On July 05 2018 09:21 kollin wrote:

Isn't preventing this the whole point of taxation? By ensuring some constant demand for money you limit the demand for goods and services because there is always a need to pay tax?