US Politics Mega-thread - Page 682

On September 08 2018 16:51 Biff The Understudy wrote:

The thing is that fascism describes primarily one political movement: Mussolini’s Italy, and by extension, Franco’s Spain, and, by stretching even a bit more, authoritarian, ultranationalists regimes with more or less similar ideologies.

The « neo » is added to talk about groups from after the second world war that can be considered the heirs of those regimes and have adapted those ideas to a different time and a different context.

Fascism is a very term that has various level of meaning, from very specific (some historian say that you should keep it for Italy in the 20’s-40’s only) to very wide. There is nothing wrong to differenciate contemporary fascists from historical ones with the prefix « neo », they have plenty of differences.

But anyway, whoever said that it was as bad a term as « cultural marxism » used by Alex Jones, Breivik and the alt right clowns made a reaaaaaaally shitty point.

On September 09 2018 06:59 JimmiC wrote:
Well the whole western world has a bit of a case of Islamphobia, China takes it to a whole new level. They are forcing Muslims into reprogramming camps to get them to love the communist party instead of Islam. Though out west we are far from perfect (in some cases very far). This is a reminder of just how shitty it is some parts of the world.

https://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/world/china-is-detaining-muslims-in-vast-numbers-the-goal-‘transformation’/ar-BBN2wVF?li=AAggNb9

A new vanguard of economists in Washington, including former Bernie Sanders staffer Stephanie Kelton, has argued that under modern monetary theory, public spending is only constrained when the economy is running at full capacity and inflation starts to rise — which is not remotely the case today. Public deficits, she points out, are just another way of talking about private surpluses. She has warned of the dangers of balanced budgets that take money from the hands of ordinary people, and has made some headway inside Washington. Kelton has been involved in strategy sessions with Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and remains close to Sanders, who would chair the Budget Committee if Democrats take the Senate. But Pelosi has been unmoved.

In a statement, Kelton said that “pay-go is a self-imposed, economically illiterate approach to budgeting.” Republicans, she said, know this, which is why “they have unabashedly used their power to expand deficits and, hence, deliver windfall gains for big corporations and the already well-to-do.”

She continued, “Instead of vowing budget chastity, Democrats should be articulating an agenda that excites voters so that they can unleash the full power of the public purse on their behalf.”

On September 10 2018 06:20 Mohdoo wrote:
I wonder what Pelosi's approval rating is right now. I don't think anyone sees her as a positive nowadays.

On September 09 2018 20:06 screamingpalm wrote:
Pretty excited to see Stephanie Kelton get a shout in a recent article by The Intercept about Pelosi's promise to undermine a progressive agenda with pay-go if/when reclaiming majority. (Vote Blue no matter who though right? lol). This outlines (for me) the core problems for the Democratic Party going forward. It will be interesting to see how far progressive excitement carries and what tricks the establishment will use to combat it to keep the donor class happy.


Edit: Also quite amazed that Schumer is even remotely receptive.



theintercept.com

On September 10 2018 07:21 mozoku wrote:

In what world are you living where the US economy is not at full capacity and inflation is not rising?

China and Turkey alone (ignoring Venezuela), in this very year, serve as examples of the issues that arise from taking on debt to make unproductive investments. The results don't look enticing.

On September 10 2018 07:31 pmh wrote:
Turkey doesn't have much debt,i think it stands around 30% of their gdp which is far and far lower then most western countries.

On September 10 2018 07:46 screamingpalm wrote:


The US is nowhere even close to being at full productive capacity. Venezuela (again? lol) is nothing like the US economy and is a fixed exchange rate regime. Japan would be a much closer comparison and their debt to GDP is something like 250%. The US national "debt" is just savings accounts and we did not collapse when Russia started dumping their bond holdings. Too much fear mongering and hyperventilating about hyperinflation.

On September 10 2018 08:49 Danglars wrote:
One primary criticism of socialism is that systems comparative inadequacy at dealing with normal human failings within the system. If they could find some angelic beings to attribute resources and run industries, I think you’d find less Venezuela-style failings of socialism.

On September 10 2018 09:27 mozoku wrote:

"Debt" was a bad word choice in Turkey's case but the core idea is fiscal irresponsibility. Turkey doesn't take on excessive debt, but Erdogan rather utilizes/overextends easy-money policies (e.g. low interest rates) to promote essentially a populist policy agenda that boosts his political standing. Xi Jinpeng employed basically the same strategy in the run-up to his abolition of term limits, and China is now encountering the headaches of unwinding the mess.

Whether you fund your irresponsible spending with debt, money-printing, or whatever else, irresponsible spending is still irresponsible spending and is harmful to the economy in the long-run. Notice the common thread here: politicians are incentivized to spend irresponsibly today because citizens generally don't properly account for long-term irresponsibility.


Yes, Japan's decades of roughly zero economic growth are certainly something we would like to emulate. I've been hankering for a lost decade for a while now.

Unemployment is the lowest it's been in 20 years (as well as below what the Fed considers target unemployment) and we're late into one of the longest economic expansions in modern US history. Please, don't hesitate to share with us where we can find all this supposed spare capacity.

As I alluded to above, there are public policies (which all cost money, obviously, and often are funded by debt) that are "debt burden positive" and "debt burden negative." Taking a lot of the latter isn't sustainable when there are already (early) concerns about the US debt burden (e.g. credit downgrades, various commentary among investors, etc). Most social policies that "progressives" are advocating fall in into the latter bucket... which doesn't necessarily mean that we shouldn't enact them (there are certainly laudable social goals that are worth absorbing the fiscal cost of), but have to be considered in line with current budget realities.

There are countless examples of countries whose politicians ignored the better advice of investors and economists in addition to the ones I mentioned (e.g. Greece). The US isn't there yet, but doesn't want to get there either. Entitlements are much politically easier to enact today than they are to repeal later (are they ever?). America's population is aging, its fertility rate isn't great (though better than other developed economies), and, against its better judgement, America looks like it's not interested in increasing immigration quotas. So those covering entitlements in the future is likely going to require tax increases.

The largest difference between the US budget and European budgets is that the US has lower taxes (albeit more progressive until perhaps 2016) and has a large military budget (basically in place of more comprehensive social programs). The rise of China and a more aggressive Russia makes it unlikely we'll be able to significantly cut military spending in the foreseeable future. The current debt burden will likely already require tax increases in the future.... so any additional spending is going to unsustainable without even more tax increases.

Keep in mind that higher taxes generally put downward pressure on growth... which is certainly undesirable.

I really don't consider myself a hardcore budget hawk. I'm generally "reluctantly in favor" of government-sponsored healthcare (can't be much worse than the current mess), though it'll require tax increases. But let's not encourage "spend-to-win" politics, high public spending without rational consideration of the consequences, and come up with a bunch of phony economics to post-hoc justify your ideological views.

On September 10 2018 09:42 Plansix wrote:

Counter point, Europe is not filled with angels and seems to hav found the balance in socialism. Their economies are not solely based on oil exports.

On September 10 2018 10:10 Danglars wrote:

More like they rope in and drag down a capitalistic market economy to build socialistic institutions on top. The examples of socialist basket cases demonstrate that you never go full socialism.