Who will take on Obama in 2012?

Tools    





will.15's Avatar
Semper Fooey
Originally Posted by will.15
She was pissed she was being ignored.
Ah. So, voting against the Most Improtant Bill Ever because you're pissed at being ignored = harmless. Voting against it because you're pissed that we're spending trillions of dollars we do't have = you're a terrorist. Got it.

What are you talking about? Pelosi may have been pissed, but she voted for it. She wasn't like crazy Michelle Bachamnn. And you are wrong not voting for the debt celing would not have led to defaut even though it wouldn't have happened immediately. It would have had an immediate and devestating impact on interest rates. To say there was a middle ground if the debt ceiling wasn't passed is laughable.
__________________
It reminds me of a toilet paper on the trees
- Paula



I am having a nervous breakdance
Sadly, cartoonists don't usually study economics. People really need to understand that we don't have generally have an adversarial relationship with the wealthy. And when it comes to economic growth and jobs, it's the exact opposite. And it's a real pity that class warfare passes for political discourse.
Hmm, I wonder if the fact that conservatives want to abolish politics altogether has anything to do their aversion against political ideologies that point out the absurdities and obsolesence of conservative pseudo politics.

I fail to understand that conservatives can't see what the rest of the world, including all the stock exchanges and Standard & Poor, can see: that spending cuts aren't enough. If it's true that Warren Buffett is paying 18 % in taxes while his secretary pays 30 %, it's telling me and everybody else - including cartoonists and economists - that the American tax system is not only unfair, it is also dysfunctional and ruining the entire American macro economy.

This compromise is about spending less with money you don't have, while the debt continues to grow. And explain to me how tax raising is "hurting" someone who's paying 18 % in income taxes.
__________________
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".

--------

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.



will.15's Avatar
Semper Fooey
Well, firstly, I was responding to a cartoon there. While it's entirely possible the cartoonist is knowledgeable about economics and simply has a different view, I think it more likely that he's just reflecting a basic, unquestioned assumption. Perhaps the medium is obscuring the cartoonists' education, but even so, it's fair game when it presents such a simplistic argument. Actually, scratch that, it's not even an argument.

Second, sure, I think "neo-classical economics" is superior. I don't think Keynesianism really has answers for it, I think it's sold under multiple false pretenses, I don't think it explains or accounts for basic human motivation, and I think it thrives because of perverse political incentives, not because of merit. Absolutely.

But, to actually answer your main question: why do I just say "economics"? Because when I do I'm almost invariably arguing with someone or something who is not presenting a serious, nuanced economic argument. I almost always say it when I'm responding to something simplistic. I almost always say it when someone who has made no attempt to understand economics is nevertheless issuing some opinion on it.

I don't say it to people (or to cartoons) that I just disagree with it. I say it to people and things that show a complete lack of interest in even addressing the arguments between the two schools of thought you mention. Which is pretty much most people who have opinions about economics.
What is neo classical economics? Adam Smith don't do nothing, just let the capitalist market system work itself out? That is almost as big a bust as Marxism. The proof of failure is it no longer exists in any place in the world and hasn't since the early part of the 20th century. Pure unregulated capitalism leads to exploitation of workers and great inequality of wealth. Liberalism and mild regulation saved capitalism. Marx may have been right about inevitable class warfare and revolution if it wasn't for the ability of democratic government to make corrections without violence.



will.15's Avatar
Semper Fooey
Originally Posted by will.15
What about the fiscal irresponsibility of cutting taxes then running up more deficit spending? In previous wars taxes were usually raised to support the added cost. Taxes certainly were not cut. It is very interesting you only find Democratic spending irresponsible. I suspect it is more because they spend it on things you don't like.

Yoda
Of course it's because they spend it on things I don't like! Good grief, has this discussion become so muddled that you think this is supposed to make me look bad? Yes, WHAT you go into debt for matters. Of course it does.

But, also (and this is the argument I see you've chosen not to address), it's not as big as Obama's deficit. It's not even that close. So, yeah, I might find one deficit run for an understandable reason far more tolerable than a deficit TWICE the size for a policy I think is wasteful. Guilty as charged.

At least the stimulus money went where it was suppose to go and I think irregardless of if it did a sufficient job of stimulating the economy did a lot of good, helped people who were out of work, helped the states, build roads and gave people incentives to purchase cars.


Quote:
Originally Posted by will.15
We didn't have to invade Iraq. It was not a necessary war like WW II. Hussein was not an immediate threat to us at the time or the rest of the world. He had no weapons of mass destruction. 911 was used as cover by the neocons to take care of what they regarded as unfinished business. And the war for many years was badly mismanaged and billions of dollars was wasted or stolen. The stimulus money went to the states who needed it and roads were built and other things. It may not have sufficiently stimulated the economy. It was spent on useful things. it didn't disappear into a black hole like so much money spent on the Iraq War.

First, you said this (about roads and such) before, and I already cited you the numbers that show that very little went to infrastructure, and that the biggest chunks when to entitlements (which, whether you realize it or not, is actually what you mean when you say "the states." A huge chunk of it went to propping up Medicare).

And I think it's more than a little haughty to say that the money in Iraq has "disappeared into a black hole." Perhaps I lack the tremendous historical vision you possess, but to my mortal eyes it seems like these things are judged on a much larger time scale, and that it's still far from unthinkable that Iraq will be a relatively free country in the coming decades, and if it is, such complaints will look often petty in the broad sweep of history.

Maybe it'll look foolish, and maybe it won't. But you don't get to assume the former any more than I get to assume the latter.

Oh, what a terrible thing, to use money to pop up Medicare, which so many people depend on. It is so much better to invade another country under false pretenses and, according to you, it will be all worthwhile if the people there are free. Since when do we go to war for that? Why are we not invading Syria and Libya if that is what we should be doing? And the odds are no better than fifty/fifty there will not be another dictator there in that time. And the odds are even greater once we leave even if there is some kind of representative government they will be allied with Iran and will not be our friend. That is already happening with the Iraqi government refusing so far to ask us to stay beyond our allotted time even though sectarian violence is flaring up. If I had a choice on either spending money in this country for Medicare and unemployment benefits or going into a country to search for weapons of mass destruction that don't exist and freeing people who mostly hate us, I prefer to spend the money here. The difference is the stimulus money was well managed and went where it was supposed to go. Not so the Iraq War. Billions were lost or stolen. It was bungled for years. But Republicans don't care when Republican administrations waste money and spend foolishly as long as the money doesn't go to help working class and poor people. If it goes to feed the industrial military complex it is a fine thing even if the money goes to unnecessary wars and expensive weapon systems that are no longer relevant once they are completed. And on top of this, while Bush ran up huge debt, eliminating a surplus left behind by his Democratic predecessor, he also cut taxes and made no attempt to cut spending even before 911. He was already running up debt. Republicans when they are in control of the executuve branch and Congress increased spending and cut taxes. They are even more irresponsible than Democrats. And they spent more money than Democrats did when they were in power on earmarks. That had nothing to do with the war on terrorism and that unnecessary war in Iraq. They talk now about a balanced budget amendment but were drunk with public money when they controlled the purse strings.



Obama disassociated himself from his church.
Heh. Yes, after he said "I can no more disown him than I can disown the black community." Then he bowed to political pressure. Which means it's not possible for him to say he disassociated himself from it in any meaningful way. The value of disassociating himself from the church is supposed to be that he doesn't believe it, or doesn't believe it any more. When someone refuses to say either and is then essentially forced to do so, it doesn't really change anything. Or shouldn't.

And Ayers was such a remote connection to be laughable and was in the past. What does Perry do just before he announces he is running for the presidency? He organizes an event with these extremists!
But of course, what Ayers did is fifty times worse than what the people are The Response said, so the distance from the event (as if that's supposed to make it better? How? Is there a satute of limitations on judgment?) is mitigated by the severity of the person being associated with. Insensitive or even bigoted preachers are not in the same league as domestic terrorists. Yes, terrorists; they may not have done anything as awful as oppose a debt limit increase, but they were still terrorists. And he didn't just share a stage with them briefly, he held a fundraiser at their house. It's a worse association, and it's a more direct one. Inarguably.

We can argue about whether or not this is significant, but my point is the same: you're being incredibly selective in what things you think come back to bite politicians, and what things you think won't. People tried the same line with McCain because he'd had some rough association with John Hagee (who is one of the extremists you're referring to now, by the way), and that didn't stick at all.

This is Perry's problem. He apparently thinks he can get the Republican nomination the way he won elections in Texas. He can't. He can be conservative, very conservative. but he can't openly embrace the extreme fringe nut job right, which works in Texas and parts of the South, and win the nomination. The only way a Southern politician can become President is by by being "new South" in style like Carter, Clinton, and Bush, not be evoking George Wallace and Lester Maddox. The only Republican candidate that campaigned from the hard right and won was Ronald Reagan and he was still to the left of Rick Perry. Reagan didn't associate with the John Birch Society. He didn't repeat Barry Goldwater's mistakes. The religious right are not as popular as they once were and have become a problem even among Republicans. Even Michelle Bachmann emphasizes her fiscal credentials and deemphasizes her evangelical ties. What does Perry do? Holds an old time revival prayer sounding like Elmer Gentry that excluded non Christians. His phony prayer was obviously a thinly disguised plea for his own candidacy to save the country from Obama. And his pipeline to God doesn't seem to be very effective. Earlier this year he prayed for rain and the predictions are now the Texas drought could go on for another two years. A sign from the heavens God doesn't listen to and disapproves of Rick Perry? Now it is clear that Rick Perry is going to run like Rick Perry there is no way he can win in primaries in the big Northern states including New York, California, Ohio, and, yes, Pennsylvania. He may win Iowa, but will be a big bust in New Hampshire, may get some traction in parts of the South, and then he will flame out. He didn't have to change who he is and what he stands for, but he had to understand Texas political strategy doesn't work outside of the deep south and clearly he doesn't. If the Republicans are so stupid to nominate Perry the negative campaign against him will be tremendous. But Republicans will vote for Romney. They have no choice now.
At this point, I have zero interest in these speculative rants, dude. You've contradicted yourself about special elections, you've found every piece of news to be bad for Republicans, you've contradicted things you then revealed you were completely unable to contradict (and wouldn't just admit it), you were wrong about Tea Partiers' on the debt ceiling, and you called them "terrorists" for daring to suggest they might actually enforce it. And now you're accusing this guy of faking a prayer. This is not a discussion about politics, this is just cynical rambling, and I can't come up with a single reason I should listen to it.

Please spare me any "argument" in the future that is just a chain of assertions, a flat contradiction you either can't or don't explain or defend, a shifting standard, selective reasoning, or anything that likens people who want to cut spending with suicide bombers. I'd rather not pollute my thoughts with that stuff.



And you are wrong not voting for the debt celing would not have led to defaut even though it wouldn't have happened immediately. It would have had an immediate and devestating impact on interest rates. To say there was a middle ground if the debt ceiling wasn't passed is laughable.
My statement was: we don't go right from debt ceiling limit to default. We simply have to choose what to pay and/or slash spending dramatically or sell assets off to meet the obligations. You haven't explained why any of this is wrong. If you want to respond to an argument, you have to actually respond to it.



will.15's Avatar
Semper Fooey
You end up with unvoidable default because you can't slash enough spending and sell off enough assets to avoid default for very long. To say we don't immediately default is absurd because it is inevitable and in the meantime the country can't borrow, interst rates go sky high, and the credit rating is destroyed.



Okay then.

Sure, it might. Whatever. I don't want it. I would rather just spend and worry about that later, yahmeen?
I would kind of rather think about what we're spending it all on before we spend it. That should not be a controversial statement.

Still, you make it sound like raising taxes is a much, much worse idea that cutting spending. But what about the people the government employs? Are they somehow not part of the economy? Furthermore, what about the people who actually need government programs? Not only is it ethically wrong to let them suffer when we have the power to prevent it, it is also detrimental to the economy, since their purchasing power is only increased when part of their expenses are subsidized by the government.
It's not detrimental to the economy at all, because while their purchasing power increased, someone else's decreased.

Also, the idea that it's ethically wrong to stop giving money to anyone on a government program applies to the future, too: it becomes ethically wrong not to keep expanding government, too, right? But to what point? Give me a stopping point between when it is acceptable to let people fend for themselves, and when it becomes an ethical imperative that we forcibly take money from some citizens and give it to others.

Either way we have flows being redirected from one place to another. You can't escape that. Capital always has to come from somewhere (unless the state creates it). Just because the movement is termed a "cut" does not mean you are somehow avoiding a redirection of money away from group A and toward group B.
Correct: but you're taking the money from "flows" being directed by people who stand to have skin in the game to "flows" being directed by politicians, who have knowledge of, incentive for, and proximity to what they're using it for.

The argument you're using here also contradicts the argument you used above. Above, you said that taking people off of government programs was detrminental to the economy. But here you say (rightly) that you're really just moving the money elsewhere, which is closer to the truth, but still fails to distinguish between money used efficiently and money used inefficiently.

Word.

Let me explain this again fully.

Our debt is theoretically infinite (the predictably minimal impact of S&P's demotion makes this even more clear). Essentially each dollar from spending contributes to the debt. The only thing that makes the unsustainable is the debt ceiling.
Gotta stop you right there. This is not true. I explained why it wasn't in my earlier reply to you. There are several practical effects of ever-increasing debt. The debt ceiling is just there to check things, and because Congress technically has to authorize all borrowing. But there are actual consequences and effects apart from it.

This should be kind of obvious when one tries to imagine the consequences of what you're saying: that we can just borrow money forever and it will never matter how much. It's only theoretically possible in the sense that it's theoretically possible for us to keep making money forever. But of course, we don't be doing that if we keep doing the things that increase government spending, either.

Dig.



You end up with unvoidable default because you can't slash enough spending and sell off enough assets to avoid default for very long.
This is just plain wrong. We have, what, $1 trillion in gold reserves? That's equal to the amount that it's been increased for the time being. And that's without getting into dramatic cuts. And yes, they would have to be dramatic.

Sorry, but it's true. I think you're confusing "this isn't likely to happen" for "this isn't true." Which seems to be a common mistake.



What is neo classical economics? Adam Smith don't do nothing, just let the capitalist market system work itself out? That is almost as big a bust as Marxism. The proof of failure is it no longer exists in any place in the world and hasn't since the early part of the 20th century. Pure unregulated capitalism leads to exploitation of workers and great inequality of wealth. Liberalism and mild regulation saved capitalism. Marx may have been right about inevitable class warfare and revolution if it wasn't for the ability of democratic government to make corrections without violence.
That's not what neo-classical economics is.

I've pretty much lost count of the number of times you've tried to beat up on the straw man of "pure unregulated capitalism" or "completely unregulated capitalism." I dunno if you pummel it because you can't pummel the actual arguments being made, but it's a big waste of time for all involved. Nobody said anything of the sort--except you, when you incorrectly answered your own rhetorical question above, asking what neo-classical economics is.

When Ron Paul strolls in here and actually suggests we have a completely unregulated market, then you can go ahead and unleash all this stuff on him. Until then, I have no idea who you think you're arguing with.



At least the stimulus money went where it was suppose to go and I think irregardless of if it did a sufficient job of stimulating the economy did a lot of good, helped people who were out of work, helped the states, build roads and gave people incentives to purchase cars.
Correct, it did not do exactly nothing. Quite a low bar we're clearing for almost $1 trillion. I really, really hope Obama defends it the way you are now.

Oh, what a terrible thing, to use money to pop up Medicare, which so many people depend on.
Your sarcasm is a cover for the fact that I was (again) correcting you. You (again) said it went to roads and bridges, and I (again) pointed out that very little of it went to that, and that a huge chunk of it went to Medicare. So responding sarcastically means you've either forgotten or are ignoring the point I was making.

It is so much better to invade another country under false pretenses and, according to you, it will be all worthwhile if the people there are free. Since when do we go to war for that? Why are we not invading Syria and Libya if that is what we should be doing?
1) It's impossible to do this everywhere simultaneously, making this "argument" fallacious.

2) They believed Iraq to be a threat. Right or wrong, that's what they thought.

3) You're really, really blatantly changing the subject. We were talking about economics, and you just randomly pivoted with some sarcastic, stock-liberal response that had literally nothing to do with the topic. Worse still, not only is it a shift in topic for no reason (other than to give you something you feel more comfortable arguing about, I suppose), but even if it were completely valid, you'd only be trying to demonstrate some double standard from myself. Which doesn't exist here, but even if it did, it wouldn't change any of the economic arguments at all.



Hmm, I wonder if the fact that conservatives want to abolish politics altogether has anything to do their aversion against political ideologies that point out the absurdities and obsolesence of conservative pseudo politics.
Conservatives want to "abolish politics altogether"? What?

I fail to understand that conservatives can't see what the rest of the world, including all the stock exchanges and Standard & Poor, can see: that spending cuts aren't enough. If it's true that Warren Buffett is paying 18 % in taxes while his secretary pays 30 %, it's telling me and everybody else - including cartoonists and economists - that the American tax system is not only unfair, it is also dysfunctional and ruining the entire American macro economy.
1) Buffet pays less than his secretary because he makes the overwhelming majority of his money from capital gains. Capital gains tax rates are lower than income taxes because we want to encourage investment, obviously. Surely we agree that investment is good, and that taxing it more discourages it.

2) Because of point #1, Buffet is a lousy stand-in for the majority of rich people. Not everyone is a maverick investor, and the ones that have regular incomes (even if they're very high) don't get off as easy as Buffet does (though the dude's still paying millions of dollars in taxes a year). Most rich people don't pay 12% less of their income than their secretaries.

3) What you're saying is as much an argument for lowering the secretary's taxes as it is for raising Buffet's. Which I would be fine with.

4) What do you put first, "fairness" (and defined by who, anyway?) or growth? If you knew that raising taxes on investments would lead to less growth and a lower standard of living (which it definitely would), would you do it anyway, out of "fairness"? What do you do when our livelihood conflicts with some arbitrary notion of fairness?


This compromise is about spending less with money you don't have, while the debt continues to grow. And explain to me how tax raising is "hurting" someone who's paying 18 % in income taxes.
I already did. In my reply to your economic post. Here's a relevant excerpt:

"I think this is a common fallacy: the idea that we have "room" to do this or that. It's a sliding scale, not a big bright line. The proportion for which we have room to raise taxes is really just the proportion we are willing to harm economic growth for some other end."

But to answer more specifically: I don't think raising Warren Buffet's taxes will hurt him (well, not in any serious sense), I think it'll hurt others. And I also fundamentally reject the idea that we should be deciding tax policy based on how much we think we can raise taxes until someone is "hurt" anyway.



By the way, as a general observation on the issue of raising taxes versus lowering them and/or cutting spending: the CBO estimates that just a 1% increase in GDP yields approximately $2.6 trillion in increased tax revenues per decade.

Growth is a perfectly viable solution to debt over time. Not always to immediate debt, that that's where the spending cuts come in.



You remember what we talked about a while back, Chris? It's clearly marked its arrival a couple of days ago and it'll be tsunami style. The casualties won't be as noticeable but hundreds of thousands will get swept away because of this.



I am having a nervous breakdance
Conservatives want to "abolish politics altogether"? What?
Class struggle isn't about politics? What?

Conservatives want to reduce the power of politicians and the influence of political decisions have on their lives and instead favor traditional institutions like the family, the church and the armed forces, whose only job is to protect private property and the borders of the nation, and the government has a solely administrative role, no?

1) Buffet pays less than his secretary because he makes the overwhelming majority of his money from capital gains. Capital gains tax rates are lower than income taxes because we want to encourage investment, obviously. Surely we agree that investment is good, and that taxing it more discourages it.
Well, either Buffett is not investing enough of the 82 % he gets to keep or you are not taxing him enough because, obviously, the cash-flow into the American economy isn't strong enough. With your logic, Buffett would loosen up on his wallet if he could keep a bit more than the meager 82 %. Since you have almost the lowest tax revenue of all the OECD countries, I doubt that more tax cuts is a very good thing right now.

Is a profit invested in something rendering growth of the economy taxed the same way as profit in the bank, btw?

2) Because of point #1, Buffet is a lousy stand-in for the majority of rich people. Not everyone is a maverick investor, and the ones that have regular incomes (even if they're very high) don't get off as easy as Buffet does (though the dude's still paying millions of dollars in taxes a year). Most rich people don't pay 12% less of their income than their secretaries.
I think he's a excellent example of a rich American man, despite - or because - he's an anomaly of capitalism let loose.

What are they paying then? Are they paying less than their secretaries, but more than Buffett?

3) What you're saying is as much an argument for lowering the secretary's taxes as it is for raising Buffet's. Which I would be fine with.
Yes, I think 25 for the secretary and 40-45 for Buffett would be more like it. 20 to 50-55, and we would really be talking. But - since conservatives are against progressive taxing, that will not happen in America - ever.

4) What do you put first, "fairness" (and defined by who, anyway?) or growth? If you knew that raising taxes on investments would lead to less growth and a lower standard of living (which it definitely would), would you do it anyway, out of "fairness"? What do you do when our livelihood conflicts with some arbitrary notion of fairness?
Fairness defined by representatives elected by the people. If Americans think it's fair that Buffett is paying 18 % of what he earns while his secretary pays 30 %, then that's fair defined by the American people. What Americans don't seem to realize is that with progressive income taxes, the low and middle classes would get more money and better social security and the rich would get healthier and happier labor and consumers with more money to spend on their products. It's fair - and it works.

I already did. In my reply to your economic post. Here's a relevant excerpt:

"I think this is a common fallacy: the idea that we have "room" to do this or that. It's a sliding scale, not a big bright line. The proportion for which we have room to raise taxes is really just the proportion we are willing to harm economic growth for some other end."

But to answer more specifically: I don't think raising Warren Buffet's taxes will hurt him (well, not in any serious sense), I think it'll hurt others. And I also fundamentally reject the idea that we should be deciding tax policy based on how much we think we can raise taxes until someone is "hurt" anyway.
What you are saying is that if Buffett can't invest $ 87 million instead of just $ 82 million, someone will be affected in the same way as when you make the holes in the social safety net bigger? If the purpose of big business was primarily to create new jobs and to stimulate the American economy, you would have a point. But it's not, their number one priority is to generate profit for their stock holders, i.e. themselves. And that would almost be okay if it, at the same time, created jobs for the economy that they are holding back tax money from. But it doesn't. Capitalism is about accumulating capital as fast and as effective as possible - and the american market isn't the most profitable market for that right now. So, the lost tax money that was supposed to be invested back in the economy - and trickle down on the lower levels of society, Reagan style - is instead invested in new factories with cheap labor in southeast Asia. So, more tax cuts leads to more capital for the corporations to invest in other markets than the American.

And by the way, our blind faith in infinite economic growth is what brought you and all of us into this mess. We have to figure out other ways to create prosperity without economic growth. Read Tim Jackson.



I am having a nervous breakdance
By the way, as a general observation on the issue of raising taxes versus lowering them and/or cutting spending: the CBO estimates that just a 1% increase in GDP yields approximately $2.6 trillion in increased tax revenues per decade.

Growth is a perfectly viable solution to debt over time. Not always to immediate debt, that that's where the spending cuts come in.
If all the world consumed as much and in the same way as the average Swede, we would need three planet earths for the resources to be enough for everybody. Switch "Swede" for "American" and we would need even more resources.

Growth is always created at someone else's expense; someone in another part of the world or members of future generations.



will.15's Avatar
Semper Fooey
Hehe. Yes, after he said "I can no more disown him than I can disown the black community." Then he bowed to political pressure. Which means it's not possible for him to say he disassociated himself from it in any meaningful way. The value of disassociating himself from the church is supposed to be that he doesn't believe it, or doesn't believe it any more. When someone refuses to say either and is then essentially forced to do so, it doesn't really change anything. Or shouldn't.


But of course, what Ayers did is fifty times worse than what the people are The Response said, so the distance from the event (as if that's supposed to make it better? How? Is there a statue of limitations on judgment?) is mitigated by the severity of the person being associated with. Insensitive or even bigoted preachers are not in the same league as domestic terrorists. Yes, terrorists; they may not have done anything as awful as oppose a debt limit increase, but they were still terrorists. And he didn't just share a stage with them briefly, he held a fundraiser at their house. It's a worse association, and it's a more direct one. Inarguably.

We can argue about whether or not this is significant, but my point is the same: you're being incredibly selective in what things you think come back to bite politicians, and what things you think won't. People tried the same line with McCain because he'd had some rough association with John Hagee (who is one of the extremists you're referring to now, by the way), and that didn't stick at all.


At this point, I have zero interest in these speculative rants, dude. You've contradicted yourself about special elections, you've found every piece of news to be bad for Republicans, you've contradicted things you then revealed you were completely unable to contradict (and wouldn't just admit it), you were wrong about Tea Partiers' on the debt ceiling, and you called them "terrorists" for daring to suggest they might actually enforce it. And now you're accusing this guy of faking a prayer. This is not a discussion about politics, this is just cynical rambling, and I can't come up with a single reason I should listen to it.

Please spare me any "argument" in the future that is just a chain of assertions, a flat contradiction you either can't or don't explain or defend, a shifting standard, selective reasoning, or anything that likens people who want to cut spending with suicide bombers. I'd rather not pollute my thoughts with that stuff.
I'll prove it when he doesn't get the nomination. You can call it ramblings, but after I made these comments much of it I found are observations made by others on the web. I am amazed you cannot see the difference between Obama's situation and also McCain's to Perry's. McCain separated himself from the guy, just one, and Perry has a whole bunch of them he embraces publicly. That is a big difference. Obama said about the minister he never heard him make those comments and got out of the church when he made comments during the election. Ayers who as far as I am concerned should have received a life sentence quietly entered the mainstream and was not close to Obama in any way. Perry's problem is this: Obama never evoked the hated rhetoric of his minister, Perry has made troubling comments of his own like talking about Texas succession and openly supports a boatload of right wing nuts who talk about gays were responsible for the Holocaust and support laws in other countries for executing them because of their sexual preference and a whole bunch of other horrible things. Makes Obama's minister look like an angel in comparison. Perry doesn't have just one or two guys to worry about, he has a bunch of them in an organization that he openly embraces and just recently organized an event with. There is absolutely no way he can win the Republican nomination with that kind of baggage. If he does, Republicans have handed the election to Democrats. Swing voters will support someone to the right of George W. Bush from Texas who makes no pretense like Bush did that he is a uniter not a divider? No frigging way. All Perry is going to do is doom Pawlenty's chances and hand the nomination to Romney, who is now the only Republican who can beat Obama, so maybe from the Republican Party's standpoint that is a good thing.



will.15's Avatar
Semper Fooey

2) They believed Iraq to be a threat. Right or wrong, that's what they thought.
And they were wrong and wouldn't let the UN inspectors finish their job to find out if weaons of mass destruction were there, the supposed reason for invasion, and comments and memos made by neocons early in the Bush Administration makes clear they were itching to get in there before 911 and used it as their excuse to invade.



will.15's Avatar
Semper Fooey

3) You're really, really blatantly changing the subject. We were talking about economics, and you just randomly pivoted with some sarcastic, stock-liberal response that had literally nothing to do with the topic. Worse still, not only is it a shift in topic for no reason (other than to give you something you feel more comfortable arguing about, I suppose), but even if it were completely valid, you'd only be trying to demonstrate some double standard from myself. Which doesn't exist here, but even if it did, it wouldn't change any of the economic arguments at all.
Here is exactly what I was responding to and I didn't change the subject at all. it was a direct a respponse to your comments and there are no obvious discussion of ecconomic theory in them:

Originally Posted by will.15
We didn't have to invade Iraq. It was not a necessary war like WW II. Hussein was not an immediate threat to us at the time or the rest of the world. He had no weapons of mass destruction. 911 was used as cover by the neocons to take care of what they regarded as unfinished business. And the war for many years was badly mismanaged and billions of dollars was wasted or stolen. The stimulus money went to the states who needed it and roads were built and other things. It may not have sufficiently stimulated the economy. It was spent on useful things. it didn't disappear into a black hole like so much money spent on the Iraq War.

First, you said this (about roads and such) before, and I already cited you the numbers that show that very little went to infrastructure, and that the biggest chunks when to entitlements (which, whether you realize it or not, is actually what you mean when you say "the states." A huge chunk of it went to propping up Medicare).

And I think it's more than a little haughty to say that the money in Iraq has "disappeared into a black hole." Perhaps I lack the tremendous historical vision you possess, but to my mortal eyes it seems like these things are judged on a much larger time scale, and that it's still far from unthinkable that Iraq will be a relatively free country in the coming decades, and if it is, such complaints will look often petty in the broad sweep of history.

Maybe it'll look foolish, and maybe it won't. But you don't get to assume the former any more than I get to assume the latter.



Conservatives want to reduce the power of politicians and the influence of political decisions on their lives and instead favor traditional institutions like the family, the church and the armed forces, whose only job is to protect private property and the borders of the nation, and the government has a solely administrative role, no?
Ah, so when you say conservatives want to "get rid of politics," you mean they want to reduce the role of government. Strikes me as an odd (and extreme) way to say it. It's about as accurate as saying that liberals want to make EVERYTHING the purview of government simply because they want it to do more.

Well, either Buffett is not investing enough of the 82 % he gets to keep or you are not taxing him enough because, obviously, the cash-flow into the American economy isn't strong enough. With your logic, Buffett would loosen up on his wallet if he could a bit more than the meager 82 %. Since you have almost the lowest tax revenue of all the OECD countries, I doubt that more tax cuts is a very good thing right now.
Your claim carries with it the assumption that there's a special, ideal tax rate that somehow "fits" a country. Or that you can tell what a good tax rate is by looking at an average of other countries. I don't see much support for either idea.

As I said before, it's not that there's a special line of taxation, and that if we're below it we can "afford" to raise taxes. If we raise taxes, we will get less growth. To say we have "room" to raise taxes is to phrase the issue incorrectly, because it implies some sort of optimal level which we're below. We have "room" insofar as we are willing to accept lower levels of growth to provide some other service. Which means that any suggestion that we raise taxes should be about the growth we lose versus the service provided as a result; the average of other countries, or some other such arbitrary comparison, has nothing to do with it.

And I find it very interesting that, when you notice that we have the lowest tax revenue as a percentage of GDP among that group, you DON'T make the connection that this fact might explain our $14 trillion GDP. You cite it as an argument for raising taxes, but it seems like a better argument for keeping them low.

Is a profit invested in something rendering growth of the economy taxed the same way as profit in the bank, btw?
You mean like interest, from a savings account? If so, all forms of income are taxed in different ways.

What are they paying then? Are they paying less than their secretaries, but more than Buffett?
It depends on many, many variables. But income is taxed higher than capital gains, especially for the wealthy.

Yes, I think 25 for the secretary and 40-45 for Buffett would be more like it. 20 to 50-55, and we would really be talking. But - since conservatives are against progressive taxing, that will not happen in America - ever.
Some conservatives are. Some aren't. And some, like myself, accept that it's probably inevitable whether it's good or not.

But, more importantly: we do have a progressive tax system. Higher income brackets pay more.

Fairness defined by representatives elected by the people. If Americans think it's fair that Buffett is paying 18 % of what he earns while his secretary pays 30 %, then that's fair to the American people. What Americans don't realize is that with progressive income taxes, the low and middle classes would get more money and better social security and the rich would get healthier and happier labor and consumers with more money to spend on their products. It's fair - and it works.
But what of my question? Which do you choose if growth and the arbitrary idea of "fairness" conflict?

But again, we do have progressive income taxes. This is why something like a third of all income taxes are paid by the top 1%. People can argue (and they do) that it should be even higher, but the wealthy pay the overwhelming majority of taxes in this country.

The idea that higher taxes means consumers have more to spend on their products is completely circular. Either the employees and consumers are PAYING those taxes, in which case they're "receiving" their own money (minus government overhead, of course), or else the people employing them are paying for it, in which case it doesn't make sense to say it benefits the employers as well. There might be a worthwhile discussion among reasonable people as to whether or not progressive taxes are good, and you know I'm glad to discuss that. But I don't see how someone can possibly claim that simply transferring money from one party to another is going to make everyone better off.

What you are saying is that if Buffett can't invest $ 87 million instead of just $ 82 million, someone will be affected in the same way as when you make the holes in the social safety net bigger?
Never in the exact same way, but it will undeniably have an effect. That $5 million in lost investment would have been invested in a business, and that business will inevitably hire people and possible increase productivity in general. Every dollar that goes to tht social safety net is a dollar not going to help employ someone in another industry.

Basically: nothing is free. There is no way you can take from businesses or investors without somehow dispersing that cost throughout the rest of the economy. People miss this because they think wealth is only money, but it isn't. Wealth can come from both more money and better/cheaper/more available products. If the government just hands you a check that doubles your income, you're twice as well off (and someone else is worse off). If businesses and investors get to invest more, and the corresponding productivity causes prices to be cut in half, you're also twice as well off.

If the purpose of big business was primarily to create new jobs and to stimulate the American economy, you would have a point. But it's not, their number one priority is to generate profit for their stock holders, i.e. themselves.
Well, firstly, what matters are the effects, not whichever idea is foremost in their mind. But the distinction between employment and profit is largely a false one, anyway. You say businesses are first concerned with generating profit, but why do you think that drive just suddenly stops? The drive for ever-higher profits can only be satiated by expanding, which requires a larger workforce. In instances in which it doesn't, that profit is taxed and then either invested into some other business which is just starting up, and will hire people, or else it is saved, and then loaned out for said investment.

Basically, the only way that profit does NOT go towards expansion, employment, and growth, is if the wealthy person takes their profits and hides them under their floorboards. That is, seriously, the only way.

And that would almost be okay if it, at the same time, created jobs for the economy that they are holding back tax money from. But it doesn't. Capitalism is about accumulating capital as fast and as effective as possible - and the american market isn't the most profitable market for that right now. So, the lost tax money that was supposed to be invested back in the economy - and trickle down on the lower levels of society, Reagan style - is instead invested in new factories with cheap labor in southeast Asia. So, more tax cuts leads to more capital for the corporations to invest in other markets than the American.
This misses two very important things:

1) If American investors are investing elsewhere, it's because taxes and penalties are too high here. You say if we lower taxes the investment will simply go elsewhere, but the higher taxes or penalties are the reason it's going elsewhere in the first place.

2) What do these other markets do, if not produce for less, thus driving prices down? Remember, wealth is increased in both ways. Just as there is no way to take from business without hurting consumers in total, there is no way to benefit them without it also benefitting consumers. Unless you think American investors are going to invest overseas AND refuse to sell the cheaper or better products here. And if that's the case, then it must be for some other, unspecified reason, like excessive tariffs. Which means the realy problem is not taxes, but other economic policies that are so heavily discouraging people from doing business here.


And by the way, our blind faith in infinite economic growth
It's not blind, it is observable and empirical. And nothing is infinite.

...is what brought you and all of us into this mess.
No it isn't.

We have to figure out other ways to create prosperity without economic growth.
This is a contradiction in terms. If you define prosperity as access to technology, food, shelter, etc., for increasingly lower amounts of labor, then you're just describing economic growth with a different word.

Read Tim Jackson.
Just a modern-day Malthus, I'm afraid. But I'll watch his TED talk on checking growth if you agree to read some Henry Hazlitt. Whaddya say? His stuff is freely available only and written simply and concisely for both the expert and laymen alike.