Who will take on Obama in 2012?

It's really only "eventually" in the sense that it isn't completely immediate. But a free economy can adapt very quickly to these things. Certainly much quicker than some bloated stimulus bill, which, as Obama has since admitted, "created" jobs that weren't "shovel-ready."

There's a long history of people assuming the economy can't respond fast enough to major changes, but it often has. There was a huge influx of workers after World War II, and many economists were terrified about the economy's ability to absorb them. But it did, because with those returning people seeking employment, there was also increased opportunity, and increased demand.

So, I don't see any reason to think government programs are really any quicker at providing employment, and to the degree they are, it probably has to do with the climate of uncertainty such intervention has created in the first place.

You are completely ignoring my point and it appears deliberately so by selectively quoting me and not responding to the main point.

Bachamann said and repeated it the ecconomy would improve under her noticeably in four months when she slashes government spending.

That is impossoble. It will create more unemployment at least in the short term, any economist even a supplysider would say it would be at least two years for all those laid off federal employees to be absorbed in the workforce and it is more likely it would take longer than that.

I didn't say anything about the value of creating job growth in the private sector. We are not talking about creating new government jobs. We are talking abput her desire to eliminate huge number of public sector jobs immediately. She is the one being myophic by being unable to recognize that would create an immediate negative drag on the ecconomy.

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It reminds me of a toilet paper on the trees
- Paula

Yoda, I think you are just blatantly, factually wrong about the "long history" part. I mean, it's one thing to say that the theory is right. It's another thing to say that it has been shown. For example, I would never cite history to argue for communism except in a "negative theology" manner. Maybe I will try to find some data in support of that, but I fear that's a losing battle, because you can just interpret it in some alternate way. Data says almost nothing when dealing with such a complex assemblage. You can always find some contingent phenomenon that will invalid what I say and vice versa.

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Anyways, here are the choices available.

1) Cut government (Neoliberal).

2) Spend more (Keynesian).

3) Cut a little bit of government and spend a little more (Obama).

Do y'all think this is accurate? There isn't really a polyphony of generic strategies available. The economy is what it is.

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"Loves them? They need them, like they need the air."

How about all the money spent on unelected Czars - lets start there, free up a few milions. Oh and another vaction for congress and the prez at this time? Tax payer money spent well. Yes, that does include those politicians with the (R) next to their name.

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“The gladdest moment in human life, methinks, is a departure into unknown lands.” – Sir Richard Burton

I am all for depriving all those jokers from both parties vacations, but you are not going to balance the budget on that stuff. I am also for slashing their salaries. I am sure Bachmann would approve. They spend in campaign contributions like a hundred times more to get the job than they get paid by taxpayers. I say pay them minimum wage. None of them are worth more than that.

Sorry about the confusing edits, Yoda. Next time I'll make sure to finish the post properly or notify you if I'll be coming back to add more. With that said, I intend to get back to you - including to the post about taxes - but this past weekend and this present week are mad here. And I'm expecting these post to take quite some time... Hope that's ok. See you!

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The novelist does not long to see the lion eat grass. He realizes that one and the same God created the wolf and the lamb, then smiled, "seeing that his work was good".

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They had temporarily escaped the factories, the warehouses, the slaughterhouses, the car washes - they'd be back in captivity the next day but now they were out - they were wild with freedom. They weren't thinking about the slavery of poverty. Or the slavery of welfare and food stamps. The rest of us would be all right until the poor learned how to make atom bombs in their basements.

Hmmm. If I have, it certainly isn't intentional. Which I would hope would be obvious. You can probably say many things about me, but I wouldn't think one of them would be that I'm in the habit of ignoring arguments.

Well, firstly, you're using the words "economy" and "unemployment" interchangably, but they're not the same thing.

Regardless, I think we're talking past each other. The "at least in the short term" bit above is a pretty major caveat that wasn't explicit in the last post. If you're merely saying that you think her plans will involve growth at the very short-term expense of unemployment, that's a bit different. If that's all you were saying, that's fine, though given your general defense of government spending in the past it seemed to me that you were defending it as an engine of growth and/or job creation.

My memory of her claim was that she promised growth in short order, not jobs. If I'm misremebering or if she said both, then she's wrong, but I don't remember it that way. And it's not too optimistic to say that about growth, specifically. When Bush signed his "tax cuts for the rich" in 2003 we saw a ridiculous 7.2% GDP annualized growth rate the very next quarter (it was a big event at the time in my house, because we predicted it would happen based on those cuts), and several years of solid growth after that (which everyone forgets about when measuring Bush's economic performance, I might add). So jobs? Yeah, they can take awhile (though only because of other government factors), but growth can show up pretty quick.

No worries man; hope it didn't sound scolding, just wanted to avoid it in the future. You know the drill; no rush. I've enjoyed the conversation so far.

I didn't mean to imply that we have some kind of empirical proof on the matter. As you say, every situation is different, and I wouldn't dream of suggesting otherwise. However, it is both true and relevant that we have, in the past, seen major shifts in the economy in very short periods of times, and vastly underestimated the ability of a free economy to adapt. The error has far, far more often been in the direction of underestimating the speed of such adaptation, rather than overestimating it.

There are an insane number of variables each time, and history cannot tell us for certain how such things will go the next time. But I do think it shows us that we consistently overestimate how long these shifts take when not interfered with. And it's not hard to see why this might be true: the variables you mention make it almost unthinkable for us, as individuals, to comprehend how such a massive structure could be reorganized so quickly. But it's happened.

So, no, I can't prove that we definitely will. I can only show that people have a history of underestimating the speed of a free economy to absorb change. That is, after all, its strength.

In a very broad sense, sure, though there are a billion sub-sets of each category. If we cut government, which government. If we spend, what do we spend on, etc.

It's the best choice if you've payed attention to anything

Back to the campaign: anyone, Obama supporter or not, think him blaming our economic problems on "bad luck" is a good idea?

He must be that naive that he doesn't know how ridiculous the things he says actually are. When you encourage corporate leading, earmarks, tax-payed campaigning, the war on drugs, blah blah blah it's impossible to blame it on luck. Bad luck is stepping in poo with no shoes, not putting poo in someone's mouth.

I'm pretty excited to hear some responses from his peers

Oh yes, I forgot to mention that: the taxpayers are paying for Obama's bus tour, as if it's not part of his campaign. Even though he's obviously campaigning in it, and it has "OBAMA 2012" written on the side. How is this not unethical?

I just wanted to add that the economic downturn Bush faced was very mild compared to this one and what is happening over there in Europe with countries in danger of defaulting also affects us. The idea anything Bachmann does will change it dramatically in a few months irregardless of what happens over there I think is very dubious.

Perhaps. But then again, 7.2% is massive. The economy wouldn't have to grow anywhere near that fast for her to have kept her promise. Half that would be phenomenal right now.

Except what do these things -- other than corporate lending -- have to do with the economy?

And the idea is that we should have put in even more stimulus, i.e. lent even more and in more diverse ways. Like I said, Obama is in a kind of no-man's-land where nothing he did was good enough for anyone. I liked a headline I saw a while ago "Ron Paul and Krugman Agree..."

If you remember his campaign though, he spoke most of unity, and this I would be willing to claim, is the source of his relentless compromises to the right. Yet a compromise is a compromise. It is not a step in any particular direction but a balance between opposites. Either way he was not radical enough, and 2008 presented us with a radical set of problems.

Yeah, like that period just before your oft-used example of post-war troop integration -- the Great Depression. What a fantastically quick and painless recovery that was!

All economists agree that, as long as the logic of global capital is sustained in some way, any market meltdown will eventually recover by itself. It's just a matter of how much suffering you're willing to allow in the interim while you wait around and, well, do nothing (and it truly is do nothing, because we're talking about economic policy).

You claim the suffering will be either nonexistent or minimal to the point of being ignorable. I claim otherwise.

No, you can't even show that. How do you isolate what effects are from the market and what effects rise from externalities, i.e. including the state?

Another big problem in presenting data is the direction of causation. You have two axes producing a certain relation. Which is the dependent variable and which is the independent or are both somehow conflated in a constant give and take? Since nothing is controlled in any raw economic data, I would be highly dubious of even a strong correlation. What we need is real theory.

You're missing the point then. Selectively cutting some government and selectively spending some money is precisely what we have been doing for the last four years. The idea is to do something major in one direction or another. You cut some, you spend some, you ultimately end up with the same situation.

It also makes me curious as to which parts of the government you would want kept around? I have a funny feeling that they're precisely not the kind of programs that help lower-class people.

Corporate-run countries don't allow small business to exist and the economy tilts even more skewed than it already is towards the upper class. The war on drugs has a lot to do with the economy because if we just legalized and taxed what is costing the war endless money, it would be another stepping stone across the ocean of debt. Anything that is politically skewed monetary wise is contradicting the original idea of a free market.

He is still learning about policies and politics, he can't make up his mind what's good or bad between what he's told is good or bad, and can't comprehend that ultra extreme actions like universalizing everything isn't what anyone wants except those exempt from the reaction of his decisions. He compromises with the right partly for face value and because in his mind they might be right about certain things. You're right, he's just out there now, and has the balls to blame it on bad luck since he can't blame Bush anymore.

Perry has been only a candidate for a few days and he is threatening to beat someone up. Spoken like a true Christian. First he wants Texas to succeed and now he tells the Fed chairman to stay out of Texas. That sounds a lot like those Southern governors warning the federal governmnt to stay out of their state during the Civil Rights movement.

No, he didn't want Texas to secede, he said they reserve the right to if things get dramatically worse. And yeah, he's "threatening violence" against Bernanke. Like he's actually going to punch the guy if he comes to Texas. Please. Bernanke's QE programs are responsible for cheating a lot of people out of their legitimate savings; we heard a lot worse over Wall St. scandals, and I don't recall anyone questioning people's Christianity or decency over that. Some moral outrage is completely justified.

This Perry stuff is wearing unbelievably thin. It'd be a waste of time even if you were recounting it in accurate, neutral ways, and you're a far sight from doing even that. Particularly with the cynical stuff where you openly, and with precious little basis given how serious the charge is, question the validity of his faith.

Everyone else is trying to have serious conversations. These constant interruptions of blatant partisanship and cynicism are a waste of time, and they sure aren't persuading anyone, anyway.