Very good Nate Silver piece on Debt Ceiling negotiations.

[babe]

I'm not sure why anybody would argue with your general point - the arguments start when we try to define "responsible spending"


at any rate, I'd like to keep this on topic so I apologize for my next statement, but I somehow can't help but see parallels between the gov't debt situation and the NBA contract situation...

both seem to have elements of one side thinking the other side isn't being truthful and thinking (hoping?) the other side is going to blink first

somehow it seems there could be an interesting poll question made out of that!




I've certainly heard the "in name only" phrase before, but never seen the acronym put so amusingly!!! RINO - DINO is pretty good

I hope the species will become extinct in favor of sheerly responsible leadership.

the one element of Keynsian economics I consider worthy of our leaders is the impact spending can have in "unfreezing" productive capabilities and just gettings things working again. By the time "leaders" start spending the money to prop up buddies in business instead. Sometimes business has such bad leadership it's a public service to let them fail.

But I'm hopeful because I see so many especially younger folks now functioning with an attitude of responsibility in their own affairs. I hope these sorts will become our next wave of leadership.

I am somewhat impressed with those bailout recipients who have made an effort to repay the money they took and re-establish their management of their businesses.

 

[The Thriller]

I'm probably going to get railed for this, but I see no problem with asking the federal government to be more responsible with how they spend our money.

And you honestly should be railed, because you obviously have no idea what the hell is going on.

If you truly believe that the "disagreement" in DC is between those who want the gov to be more responsible and those who don't, then you need to turn off the AM radio and become informed. EVERYONE in DC is talking about fiscal responsibility (which is funny, because for 8 years deficits didn't matter. Now, once a black D became President, they're the only thing one side talks about).

Also, if you truly cared about the deficit, then you and the tea baggers would be endorsing Obama's plan and rioting in the streets against the GOP plan. Obama's plan features $4 trillion off the deficit while the GOP's only $2.

The truth is, the disagreement isn't over the deficit. It's over POWER. It's over ideology. The repubs just a few months ago were fighting over Planned Parenthood. PLANNED PARENTHOOD FOR HELLS SAKES??????????????!!!!!!!!

That contributed for perhaps .000008 % of the deficit. Yet, they argued over it because of this arm wrestle for political power.

Today, we're seeing one side fighting tooth and nail to maintain the tax cuts NOT because they're necessary to our country. But because their party line says that tax cuts are good (even though this isn't always true).

I'm not a fan of either party. But as the first post in this thread showed, one side is willing to compromise. While the other side is concentrated on making the President look bad and winning this arm wrestle. To hell with the rest of America...

IMO, no one should be allowed take "oaths" or "pledges." Those who do, should be kicked out of office.

 

[Mission Accomplished]

These tax reforms that Dems want are for the rich. I'm sorry but I doubt anyone that reads this board or contributes to this board are making enough to be effected. What is it going to hurt GM to pay taxes? They are making a lot of money. Republicans got voted in due to the ignorance of the American people. They want to reduce government and while they try to turn a blind eye to companies that are ruining this country.

The quickest way to reduce our debt is to get rid of the big dogs. The big dogs are Social Security, Medicare, Medicad, and defense now if politicians aren't going to cut Medicad and Social Security because those affect the elderly. So, they are more than likely going to cut unemployment, Medicare, and defense. This is going to suck for the poor underemployed that rarely vote. This is why let those companies that are making money pay to keep this country what it should be. Or we can continue to have Republicans cut all of our public servants jobs to keep their budgets balanced.

 

[Surely]

And you honestly should be railed, because you obviously have no idea what the hell is going on.

If you truly believe that the "disagreement" in DC is between those who want the gov to be more responsible and those who don't, then you need to turn off the AM radio and become informed. EVERYONE in DC is talking about fiscal responsibility (which is funny, because for 8 years deficits didn't matter. Now, once a black D became President, they're the only thing one side talks about).

Also, if you truly cared about the deficit, then you and the tea baggers would be endorsing Obama's plan and rioting in the streets against the GOP plan. Obama's plan features $4 trillion off the deficit while the GOP's only $2.

The truth is, the disagreement isn't over the deficit. It's over POWER. It's over ideology. The repubs just a few months ago were fighting over Planned Parenthood. PLANNED PARENTHOOD FOR HELLS SAKES??????????????!!!!!!!!

That contributed for perhaps .000008 % of the deficit. Yet, they argued over it because of this arm wrestle for political power.

Today, we're seeing one side fighting tooth and nail to maintain the tax cuts NOT because they're necessary to our country. But because their party line says that tax cuts are good (even though this isn't always true).

I'm not a fan of either party. But as the first post in this thread showed, one side is willing to compromise. While the other side is concentrated on making the President look bad and winning this arm wrestle. To hell with the rest of America...

IMO, no one should be allowed take "oaths" or "pledges." Those who do, should be kicked out of office.

Yep, I'm completely clueless here. I'm still trying to figure out where the last $800,000,000,000 went. Also I love talks about being fiscally responsible. Perhaps I can call my credit card company and ask them to up my limit so I can borrow more that I totally plan on paying back at a later date. Seems like good way to get the money I need now.

 

[One Brow]

... now if politicians aren't going to cut Medicad and Social Security because those affect the elderly. So, they are more than likely going to cut unemployment, Medicare, and defense.

Is Medicad a health insurance program for men who sleep with women and then never call them again? Once is a typo, three times is an error.

Medicare is the health isurance program for the elderly. The health access program for poor people is Medicaid.

Your posts are as smart as screen doors on battleships.

 

[One Brow]

Yep, I'm completely clueless here. I'm still trying to figure out where the last $800,000,000,000 went.

Half of it (actually, a little more) went to tax cuts. Don't you feel stimulated?

The rest went to various projects. I've seen some of it locally (various street and bridge repari projects around here).

 

[moevillini]

..the one element of Keynsian economics I consider worthy of our leaders is the impact spending can have in "unfreezing" productive capabilities and just gettings things working again....

one element we've all seemed to have forgotten is that the stimulus spending and other measures like QE & QE2 have not produced the expected results, such as creating jobs. Had this recovery taken a more expected course, tax and other revenues would have been much higher and expenses such as unemployment benefits would have been lower. And we might not be in this situation with the debt ceiling.




Sent from my iPod touch using Tapatalk

 

[Mission Accomplished]

Is Medicad a health insurance program for men who sleep with women and then never call them again? Once is a typo, three times is an error.

Medicare is the health isurance program for the elderly. The health access program for poor people is Medicaid.

Your posts are as smart as screen doors on battleships.

Sorry, looks like I only put switched the words. And miss spelled them. Good thing this isn't school. If by reading my posts you are finding that I make mistakes in my grammer or spelling Kudos to you. But, the gist of a post is the central idea. You seem to be missing my central idea. If it was because my post misspelled a word and switched two similar word that you cannot understand my post, than I have failed you. If you do understand the central idea of my post and you are trying to be and @#%, then maybe just maybe you have failed yourself.

 

[One Brow]

... that you cannot understand my post, than I have failed you.

If I were not able to understand your post, I would not have been able to offer a correction.

If you do understand the central idea of my post and you are trying to be and @#%, then maybe just maybe you have failed yourself.

My corrections were offered for your benefit, not mine.

 

[The Thriller]

one element we've all seemed to have forgotten is that the stimulus spending and other measures like QE & QE2 have not produced the expected results, such as creating jobs. Had this recovery taken a more expected course, tax and other revenues would have been much higher and expenses such as unemployment benefits would have been lower. And we might not be in this situation with the debt ceiling.




Sent from my iPod touch using Tapatalk

Haven't the stimuli been criticized for not being big enough nor directed enough at infrastructure to compensate for the jobs being lost monthly?

 

[sirkickyass]

So I now have actually read your link. Newt is articulate and might yet get his campaign off and running. As I said, I was listening to his comments on a radio program, Sean Hannity on Wednesday, and he was headed to make a speech somewhere in the midwest on Thursday, and his comments were reported in the news cycle. He referred to an outfit trying to promote specific changes/improvements along the lines of things businesses do to improve efficiency, who assert that the $500 Billion can be saved by following similar management policies.

This sounds like a way to promise cuts without saying you'll cut anything specific.

What you have is a poll done by an outfit I have known for half a century being a pusher for issues rather than an unbiased reporter. But if you look closely at how they constructed this poll, as reported, and the questions as they presented them to their sample of people, you have results that any reasonable person who just doesn't want to make a case for Keynesian policy will read as either a 2-1 voter sentiment that reduced spending is preferable to Keynesian spending policy, or a 5-1 swing that less spending is more of an answer.

Similar results came out from Gallup, Quinnipac, and the LA Times. No one is disputing that the majority of Americans believe that spending cuts should be the bulk of the solution. The problem is the GOP converting that support for making it the bulk into a mandate for the solution being entirely financed by spending cuts. There's a scope issue here you don't seem to be wrapping your head around.

Here is the LaRouche take on the debt ceiling negotiations: Obama is under pressure from foreign bankers, London, to keep trying to pump up our bubble by transferring more faux currency into the bankers' hands, ala "bailout handouts".

Larouche is a nutcake conspiracy theorist and a felon. Anyone who seriously cites him as an authority for anything can't be taken seriously.

one element we've all seemed to have forgotten is that the stimulus spending and other measures like QE & QE2 have not produced the expected results, such as creating jobs. Had this recovery taken a more expected course, tax and other revenues would have been much higher and expenses such as unemployment benefits would have been lower. And we might not be in this situation with the debt ceiling.

Half the stimulus was tax cuts. The other half was more than offset by parallel state budget cuts. Keynesian stimulus "failed" because it was never tried.

 

[moevillini]

one element we've all seemed to have forgotten is that the stimulus spending and other measures like QE & QE2 have not produced the expected results, such as creating jobs. Had this recovery taken a more expected course, tax and other revenues would have been much higher and expenses such as unemployment benefits would have been lower. And we might not be in this situation with the debt ceiling.

Half the stimulus was tax cuts. The other half was more than offset by parallel state budget cuts. Keynesian stimulus "failed" because it was never tried.

where in my post did I mention Keynes? I'm not trying to parse the specifics of whether its origins were Keynesian, faux-Keynesian, pseudo-Keynesian or any other variant - - I was simply trying to say that if the stimulus had produced results somewhat closer to what was expected, we probably would not be running up against the Aug. 2 deadline for reaching the debt ceiling limit.

The recent downturn, which appears to have ended in the third quarter of 2009, will likely be the longest since 1945. It is also already associated with the largest drop in payroll employment of any U.S. recession and the biggest jump in the unemployment rate.... From the beginning of the recession in December 2007 to the end of February 2010, total nonfarm payroll employment has declined about 8.4 million, or 6.1 percent. In the same period, the unemployment rate jumped from 5 percent to 10.1 percent (in October) before coming down to 9.7 percent today, which amounts to more than 7.1 million additional unemployed workers. By all these measures, the deterioration in labor market conditions has been particularly stark.

https://www.clevelandfed.org/research/commentary/2010/2010-1.cfm

granted, very little of the stimulus funding went towards job creation, and what little that did went more towards temporary "public works" types of jobs, with the idea that the stimulus funding would stabilize the economy until the private sector was able to get back on its historical track.

https://www.minneapolisfed.org/publications_papers/studies/recession_perspective/index.cfm
the Minneapolis Fed also has some interesting charts comparing recessions and recoveries at that link.

 

[moevillini]

also, I'll have to try and find the link but it's interesting that the apparent compromise includes reducing the top tax bracket - - I was just reading somewhere that the greatest growth in the U.S. economy has occurred when marginal tax rates are higher, something about the high tax rates spurring investment

edit: found it, https://uneasymoney.com/2011/07/12/why-is-this-recovery-different-from-all-others/

the top marginal tax rate, having started at about 90% percent in the late 1940s, falling to 70% in the 1964 and to 50% in 1982, 39.6% in 1993 and 35% in 2003, clearly tends to be positively correlated with the strength of a recovery, the weakest recoveries having all been registered when the top marginal rate was lowest and the strongest recovery (to the 1948-49 downturn) when the top marginal rate was at its maximum. Hardly anyone would believe that there is a causal link between high tax rates and strong recoveries, so the observed correlation is, somehow or other, either purely random or coincidental, with some other, as yet unspecified, variable. Nevertheless, the strong apparent correlation between high marginal tax rates and strong recoveries ought to suggest to those who argue that low taxes will solve any problem, that they may be overstating the miracle-working powers of low marginal tax rates, at least as a method of promoting cyclical recoveries. Even the powerful recovery from the 1981-82 recession, when that famous tax-cutter Ronald Reagan was President, coincided with a top marginal rate of 50%, a rate that would now trigger howls of outrage from Reagan’s present-day acolytes.

 

[green]

I am pretty conservative, but I would be ok with tax increases as long as it is across the board. I would have no problem upping my taxes to 40% as long as everybody's taxes went up 5%. Only half the country pays taxes. Instead of blaming me for all our problems, lets all take some of the blame and lets all work through this together. I AM paying my share (throw in tithing and state taxes and employee taxes and I pay almost half the money I earn in taxes). I am not the problem. Let's all pitch in to fix this. That is the problem. Nobody wants to take the blame, and nobody actually wants to do anything to fix this.

 

[The Thriller]

cut... the..... military....

close half our bases, cut our defense budget in half, cut foreign aid in half, pull out of Afghanistan, Libya, and Iraq. Raise taxes to Clinton-era levels.

Problem easily solved.

Of course, many politicians, especially those in southern states who help produce jets that the pentagon doesn't want, engines, bombs, and other crap we don't need would be pissed...

 

[green]

cut... the..... military....

close half our bases, cut our defense budget in half, cut foreign aid in half, pull out of Afghanistan, Libya, and Iraq. Raise taxes to Clinton-era levels.

Problem easily solved.

Of course, many politicians, especially those in southern states who help produce jets that the pentagon doesn't want, engines, bombs, and other crap we don't need would be pissed...

That's the problem. Ogden/Layton would die if Hill Air Force Base was closed. That is why marijuana will never be legal...There are too many government jobs tied up arresting, prosecuting, jailing, probating, etc. Economies would collapse if pot was legal.

 

[sirkickyass]

where in my post did I mention Keynes? I'm not trying to parse the specifics of whether its origins were Keynesian, faux-Keynesian, pseudo-Keynesian or any other variant - - I was simply trying to say that if the stimulus had produced results somewhat closer to what was expected, we probably would not be running up against the Aug. 2 deadline for reaching the debt ceiling limit.

Eliminate the word Keynesian from my sentence and the sentiment is exactly the same. You've reacted to the wrong part of the argument.

granted, very little of the stimulus funding went towards job creation, and what little that did went more towards temporary "public works" types of jobs, with the idea that the stimulus funding would stabilize the economy until the private sector was able to get back on its historical track.

The more important point is that the stimulus was more than offset by reductions in state government spending. That's why in the post-stimulus world, where Obama supposedly grew the government, public sector employment is down by over 400,000 jobs.

 

[sirkickyass]

I am pretty conservative, but I would be ok with tax increases as long as it is across the board. I would have no problem upping my taxes to 40% as long as everybody's taxes went up 5%. Only half the country pays taxes. Instead of blaming me for all our problems, lets all take some of the blame and lets all work through this together. I AM paying my share (throw in tithing and state taxes and employee taxes and I pay almost half the money I earn in taxes). I am not the problem. Let's all pitch in to fix this. That is the problem. Nobody wants to take the blame, and nobody actually wants to do anything to fix this.

First of all, throw tithing out the window. You don't get credit for that. Sorry, that's the way it is.

Second, in a budgetary sense you are the problem. I am too. This week I hit the FICA cap, meaning I'm getting a 4.2% tax break for the rest of the year. There is no sensible reason why, by sheer earning power, my payroll taxes should go down this week. But they do. I'll enjoy my extra $350 or so every two weeks. But I seriously don't need it. And you can't tell me that you need it either. That's a $50 billion increase/yr right there.

 

[Surely]

First of all, throw tithing out the window. You don't get credit for that. Sorry, that's the way it is.

Second, in a budgetary sense you are the problem. I am too. This week I hit the FICA cap, meaning I'm getting a 4.2% tax break for the rest of the year. There is no sensible reason why, by sheer earning power, my payroll taxes should go down this week. But they do. I'll enjoy my extra $350 or so every two weeks. But I seriously don't need it. And you can't tell me that you need it either. That's a $50 billion increase/yr right there.

If you need any suggestions for unloading that extra $700/month in your pocket I can pm you my bank account number.

 

[green]

First of all, throw tithing out the window. You don't get credit for that. Sorry, that's the way it is.

Second, in a budgetary sense you are the problem. I am too. This week I hit the FICA cap, meaning I'm getting a 4.2% tax break for the rest of the year. There is no sensible reason why, by sheer earning power, my payroll taxes should go down this week. But they do. I'll enjoy my extra $350 or so every two weeks. But I seriously don't need it. And you can't tell me that you need it either. That's a $50 billion increase/yr right there.

Sure, nobody needs more than $2500 a month. Everybody can get by on less than that. BUT, you decided you wanted more. YOU sacrificed YOUR time, while your friends were out living like kings, dropping out of college, building houses. YOU decided that you would do something with a little more merit, and a more stable future. As did I. Why should I/YOU be punished for that. I spent 120 hours a week for years studying and working to get to the position I am now. Why should I be punished for that? Isn't that the whole point of America? That if you work hard, you can be successful?

I am not the problem. The problem is people not willing to work hard, and therefore they are where they are now. ANYBODY can make it in the country if they put in the time. If a Mexican kid from Ohio, living with an abusive step-dad addicted to drugs and on medicaid, can study, get good grades, go to college and work during school to graduate with a B.S. (ha ha) with no debt, then get into graduate school and become a doctor, then ANYONE can. In fact, I received a lot of grants/scholarships based on my race, and in some ways, I have graduated better off than my white counterparts. It is funny when you claim I am the problem. I am the goal, as are you.

Like I said, I am more than willing to do my part, but all I require is everybody else be willing to do their share.

p.s. Fine, scratch tithing. BUT, since you are such a benevolent person, shouldn't everybody be throwing 10% to the charity of their choice. Hell, imagine if everybody threw 10% to the Red Cross/some other charity, wouldn't welfare's relevance go down significantly?