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comm
Joined: 22 Jun 2010
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 Posted: Tue Oct 25, 2011 7:54 am Post subject: |
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| Leon wrote: |
Goverment is actually shrinking. Obama is cutting lots of government money. Did you miss the whole special committe, the end of discretionary spending, putting medicare and social security cuts on the table, etc. etc. Honestly I think that we should spend more, because when consumer spending is down the government can step in and create an increase in demand which stimulates the whole economy. This is fairly mainstream stuff, and used to be considered bi-partisan. I have lots of problems with Obama, but you are far off the mark in most of your critiques. |
I think you know that the "special committee" is just for show. Including the cuts agreed on in the recent debt ceiling increase, the committee is expected to cut spending by about $350 billion/yr, whereas our current deficit is nearly 5 times that.
Also, the Keynesian idea that the government should spend more during recessions functions well in "lab conditions", but is terrible for our current situation. As it was designed, governments would post revenue surpluses during booms which could then be spent WITHOUT DEBT during recessions to cut the tops and bottoms off of market swings. This fails completely when using an inflationary model like ours because debt becomes more attractive than the savings which is supposed to be half of that dynamic.
As to the universal agreement on the stimulus, I'll defer to the 2011 Nobel Prize winning economist, Thomas Sargent
| Thomas Sargent wrote: |
In early 2009, I recall President Obama
as having said that while there was ample
disagreement among economists about
the appropriate monetary policy and
regulatory responses to the financial crisis,
there was widespread agreement in favor
of a big fiscal stimulus among the vast
majority of informed economists. His
advisers surely knew that was not an
accurate description of the full range of
professional opinion. |
You guys are all pretty intelligent and well-educated. You don't HAVE to fall into the stupid categories which society keeps presenting you with. All people are emotional, the question is to what degree that will define you. I think George W. Bush's answer to that thoroughly defined his presidency. |
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Leon
Joined: 31 May 2010
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| Posted: Tue Oct 25, 2011 3:42 pm Post subject: |
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| comm wrote: |
| Leon wrote: |
Goverment is actually shrinking. Obama is cutting lots of government money. Did you miss the whole special committe, the end of discretionary spending, putting medicare and social security cuts on the table, etc. etc. Honestly I think that we should spend more, because when consumer spending is down the government can step in and create an increase in demand which stimulates the whole economy. This is fairly mainstream stuff, and used to be considered bi-partisan. I have lots of problems with Obama, but you are far off the mark in most of your critiques. |
I think you know that the "special committee" is just for show. Including the cuts agreed on in the recent debt ceiling increase, the committee is expected to cut spending by about $350 billion/yr, whereas our current deficit is nearly 5 times that.
Also, the Keynesian idea that the government should spend more during recessions functions well in "lab conditions", but is terrible for our current situation. As it was designed, governments would post revenue surpluses during booms which could then be spent WITHOUT DEBT during recessions to cut the tops and bottoms off of market swings. This fails completely when using an inflationary model like ours because debt becomes more attractive than the savings which is supposed to be half of that dynamic.
As to the universal agreement on the stimulus, I'll defer to the 2011 Nobel Prize winning economist, Thomas Sargent
| Thomas Sargent wrote: |
In early 2009, I recall President Obama
as having said that while there was ample
disagreement among economists about
the appropriate monetary policy and
regulatory responses to the financial crisis,
there was widespread agreement in favor
of a big fiscal stimulus among the vast
majority of informed economists. His
advisers surely knew that was not an
accurate description of the full range of
professional opinion. |
You guys are all pretty intelligent and well-educated. You don't HAVE to fall into the stupid categories which society keeps presenting you with. All people are emotional, the question is to what degree that will define you. I think George W. Bush's answer to that thoroughly defined his presidency. |
Before the Bush years we did in fact have a surplus. The tax cuts and the war destroyed that. The CBO said that the stimulus saved about 3.3 million jobs. I also said that it added to the debt. In the near term, record high unemployment is much much worse than having debt. As such austerity during a fincial downturn is a mistake, because unless the employment rolls grow it will be harder to increase consumer demand. Once consumer demand restarts the economy can grow which adds revenue, and then you pay down the debt. Under austerity, demand shrinks because of less government demand, and other stupid things like firing teachers and police and neglecting already neglected infrastructure. With the decrease in demand unemployment grows and there is less revenue, and more debt.
I hope that the super comitte cuts our "defense" spending by large amounts. That would help keep us out of wars of choice, save us money, and save lives and stop us from getting so entangled. |
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Kuros
Joined: 27 Apr 2004
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| Posted: Fri Dec 30, 2011 6:49 am Post subject: |
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Americans still blame Bush more than Obama for bad economy
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| A slight majority of Americans for the first time blame President Obama either a great deal (24%) or a moderate amount (29%) for the nation's economic problems. However, Americans continue to blame former President George W. Bush more. Nearly 7 in 10 blame Bush a great deal (36%) or a moderate amount (33%). |
I am still astounded by this thread. Steelrails is absolutely (but characteristically) on the wrong side of this one. |
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Reggie
Joined: 21 Sep 2009
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| Posted: Sun Jan 01, 2012 2:03 am Post subject: |
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I miss the early days of the Bush presidency.
The national debt was less than $6 trillion.
A friend from high school who died in Iraq was still alive.
40,000 American factories hadn't been shipped to China, Mexico, and elsewhere yet.
Our military was still considered capable of winning wars in Iraq and Afghanistan in a matter of weeks, perhaps even days.
We hadn't yet changed the name of french fries to freedom fries.
$1000 could buy me nearly four ounces of gold.
$1.50 could buy me a gallon of gasoline.
Our phones weren't yet tapped with federal agents listening to us having phone sex with our girlfriends.
Yes, the first few months of the Bush administration were the good old days... |
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pkang0202
Joined: 09 Mar 2007
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| Posted: Sun Jan 01, 2012 4:03 am Post subject: |
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| Reggie wrote: |
Our military was still considered capable of winning wars in Iraq and Afghanistan in a matter of weeks, perhaps even days. |
I think you are forgetting WHY it was our humvees were under armored and our soldiers ill-equipped (*cough* Clinton military spending cuts *cough*) |
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Kuros
Joined: 27 Apr 2004
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| Posted: Sun Jan 01, 2012 11:05 am Post subject: |
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| pkang0202 wrote: |
| Reggie wrote: |
Our military was still considered capable of winning wars in Iraq and Afghanistan in a matter of weeks, perhaps even days. |
I think you are forgetting WHY it was our humvees were under armored and our soldiers ill-equipped (*cough* Clinton military spending cuts *cough*) |
Oh, good one. Sure, Clinton is to blame for underfunding the war Bush declared. |
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Steelrails
Joined: 12 Mar 2009
Location: Earth, Solar System
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| Posted: Sun Jan 01, 2012 3:17 pm Post subject: |
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| Kuros wrote: |
| pkang0202 wrote: |
| Reggie wrote: |
Our military was still considered capable of winning wars in Iraq and Afghanistan in a matter of weeks, perhaps even days. |
I think you are forgetting WHY it was our humvees were under armored and our soldiers ill-equipped (*cough* Clinton military spending cuts *cough*) |
Oh, good one. Sure, Clinton is to blame for underfunding the war Bush declared. |
Well, the DoD under Clinton is to blame for the Humvee fiasco. After Somalia it should have been understood that in high-intensity peacekeeping missions that unarmored humvees were rather dangerous to their occupants.
But that's more of a failure of oversight in the Army procuring, and upgrading things. Not really something to blame Clinton himself for. |
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Reggie
Joined: 21 Sep 2009
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| Posted: Sat Jan 07, 2012 8:18 am Post subject: |
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| pkang0202 wrote: |
| Reggie wrote: |
Our military was still considered capable of winning wars in Iraq and Afghanistan in a matter of weeks, perhaps even days. |
I think you are forgetting WHY it was our humvees were under armored and our soldiers ill-equipped (*cough* Clinton military spending cuts *cough*) |
If you want to see ill-equipped, look at the guys defeating us. How many tanks, Humvees, helicopters, fighter planes, bomber planes, and drones do they have? I've seen pictures of a lot of them who don't even have shoes.
The problem goes beyond one man. The Pentagon, both major political parties, and most Americans miscalculated bigtime.
The worst part is how our three week war in Afghanistan is now in its second decade, but that doesn't stop us from talking about how we're going to kick Iran's ass in three weeks.  |
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comm
Joined: 22 Jun 2010
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| Posted: Sat Jan 07, 2012 9:44 am Post subject: |
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| Reggie wrote: |
The problem goes beyond one man. The Pentagon, both major political parties, and most Americans miscalculated bigtime.
The worst part is how our three week war in Afghanistan is now in its second decade, but that doesn't stop us from talking about how we're going to kick Iran's ass in three weeks. |
Hahaha
I'm sure it had nothing to do with the massive lobbying that surrounds multi-billion dollar R&D and "advanced" weapons systems. Sure we spend more on our military than the next ten countries combined... but that has to go toward military-industrial pork jobs that congressmen can brag about.
Nobody would make any money off of putting stupid armor on humvees! Now, designing an automated humvee that's invisible to radar and can fire off the Jericho Missile from Iron Man... now THAT'S something we could spend a few billion on (and then ask Iran to give back when it gets lost).
You're right about Iran though. It's a proven fact that we can forcibly change Iranian leadership and that the population will only like us more. As liberators I say! No doubt the outpouring of joy for America's army under the Arc de Triomphe in August, 1944 will PALE in comparison to our reception in Tahrir Square, 2012!
And when our armies return home in a few short weeks, we'll have left a pristine democratic republic which will never seek WMDs or consider harming Americans ever again. I mean, if it would just cause Iran to fall into sectarian violence and hate us even more, there'd be no point, right? |
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