Obama telegraphing some hits on Romney for debate 3. Abortion thanks to Des Moines register interview yesterday IS BACK ON THE MENU!
This'll be good. Another issue where Romney being a flip-flopping moderate could potentially blow up in his face.
Well this one is worse, because again the majority is against his hard core right wing AND his running mate has signed on with Akin legislation that again the majority of America find abhorent. Its one thing to tack to the middle on the economy when the good ole boys will snort and go "Oh he's just lying to those dumb 47%'s" Its another thing to do it with Abortion where the right wing goes nuts when you give any concessions.
I would like some money because these are artisanal nuggets of wisdom philistine.
Yo Eljeffe, is this free market discussion allowed in this thread?
Because I've already been infracted without warning once today for responding to something off-topic, I'd prefer to avoid boning myself twice by responding to it.
A trap is for fish: when you've got the fish, you can forget the trap. A snare is for rabbits: when you've got the rabbit, you can forget the snare. Words are for meaning: when you've got the meaning, you can forget the words.
And thanks for Romney putting that foot into his mouth when a big celebrity campaign is being launched to remind people about the abortion issue. So thanks Mitt.
I would like some money because these are artisanal nuggets of wisdom philistine.
Rachel brought up the SEAL again tonight and Romney looks really craven again. Also she had a tape from one of his friends that mentioned Romney continually introduced himself to that guy like 4 times over 30 minutes and the guy thought he was stale and pathetic.
"If Mitt Romney met him and was so moved by him, I'm just wondering why someone from his office never called to see what they could do and I have never received a note of condolence from anybody in that party," she said.
Preacher on
I would like some money because these are artisanal nuggets of wisdom philistine.
I've got some bad news guys... Mitt Romney got over 8,000,000,000 "Likes" on Facebook after the first debate. If this trend keeps up, he'll have 24,000,000,000 supporters after the third debate going into the election, making his victory literally unparalleled in US history.
Romney knows Obama's position and policy, Obama knows nothing about Romney's.
Not entirely true. It's possible to speculate a little on what direction's he'd go in with foreign policy. That said, you're right it's tough to nail down what he wants with most subjects.
I've got some bad news guys... Mitt Romney got over 8,000,000,000 "Likes" on Facebook after the first debate. If this trend keeps up, he'll have 24,000,000,000 supporters after the third debate going into the election, making his victory literally unparalleled in US history.
That's sadly a fake website.
However, the real Mitt Romney facebook page prominently features a quote from Herman Cain that says, ". . . . stupid people are ruining America!"
0
Options
AtomikaLive fast and get fucked or whateverRegistered Userregular
Subhuman, I'm going to go ahead and ask you to define the term 'free market', because I do not think it means what you think it means.
I think he is talking about "free-market" as meaning roughly the same thing as "laissez faire", as the government being as totally hands off as they can get away with. In those terms, then being against the "free-market" is totally sensible, since "laissez faire" economics is stupid and has been discredited a long time ago. Even Milton Friedman's monetarism isn't free market in that sense, as it depends upon a central banking authority to pull the levers on monetary policy to affect the economy on behalf of the public. This is where a lot of the "end the fed" folks are coming from, they want an "laissez faire" approach towards banking and to remove the government propping up a central bank over the monetary system. The thing is that there is historical precedent for that sort of system, but the results of it were far less beneficial or stable than the free-market absolutionists would like you to believe.
4 years into a recovery and we have declining GDP growth and a real unemployment rate of around 11% with a U6 around 16.7%. Our $16 trillion national debt has increased largely due to the massive explosion of government spending.
Ahhhh yesss, delicious half truths and removal of context. Yes, this has been an anemic recovery, but that has often been the case after a massive financial meltdown. And a lot of the debt run up was due to large unfunded spending before the crash, followed by a massive contraction in tax revenues due to the crash while increases in automatic stabilization spending in the face of that economic crash.
And the most important distraction is the pure focus on government debt while ignoring the private debt situation. Looking at the full picture gives you a much better idea of what is going on. In particular, there was a large private debt bubble central to the housing crisis, and in the aftermath the private sector has been forced to deleverage and draw down on that debt. The result of that means that there have to be a large amount of write downs and defaults on debt mixed with a contraction of spending by the debt constrained players in the economy. Since everyone's income is someone else's spending, without an increase in spending by the previous savers and lenders in this situation, the economy will necessarily contract.
The normal way to try to deal with this imbalance in the Friedman style is to lower interest rates, as that makes it less attractive for the hoarders to keep hoarding and go out and spend some of their savings. However, there is a big problem with this in certain circumstances, namely ours, that interest rates can only realistically go down to zero. At that point, you might as well just put the money under your mattress rather than lending it out. But even with the rates at zero, you can still have the private debt imbalance left unsolved, leading to economic contraction. That is the condition where it makes the most sense for the government to step in and start spending, aka stimulus, even if it is debt fueled spending. The government doesn't have the same constraints as the private parties in the economy, and even better in this situation it doesn't cost the government much in the way of interest to service this debt since interest rates are at rock bottom levels.
You can't just focus on the size of the federal debt in isolation and get a full picture of what it means. The context of that debt and those deficits is of crucial importance. Of course the Republicans and Romney absolutely do not want to look deeper into those details, as then you might realize how much responsibility their policies and ideology are responsible for this mess.
Interesting points about private debt vs public debt. Check this link when you get some time paecon.net/PAEReview/issue58/Koo58.pdf Tokyo research on balance sheet recession in regards to the economic crisis in Japan and how it has so much to do with what is happening to America.
At any rate, Romney will likely spend trillions on stimulus as well, so I don't see much of a real difference between the two in that aspect.
"Never ascribe to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence"- Napoleon Bonaparte
0
Options
AstaerethIn the belly of the beastRegistered Userregular
At any rate, Romney will likely spend trillions on stimulus as well, so I don't see much of a real difference between the two in that aspect.
There is absolutely no information that could lead you logically to the notion that Romney is "likely" to do anything.
Especially not that.
Like.
You would have to have just come out of a coma and not really know what a "Romney" is in order to say that with a straight face.
President Romney will likely endorse the House Republican budget, which I imagine will be European Austerity in a big American sized bucket.
0
Options
spacekungfumanPoor and minority-filledRegistered User, __BANNED USERSregular
This Libya thing is looking bad for Obama and seems to be getting a lot of play. That plus the debate worries me. I know w always say the debates can't decide the presidency, but I'm starting to wonder if Romney could actually win if he keeps this momentum.
0
Options
HachfaceNot the Minister Farrakhan you're thinking ofDammit, Shepard!Registered Userregular
This Libya thing is looking bad for Obama and seems to be getting a lot of play. That plus the debate worries me. I know w always say the debates can't decide the presidency, but I'm starting to wonder if Romney could actually win if he keeps this momentum.
"Momentum" isn't a real thing.
0
Options
AstaerethIn the belly of the beastRegistered Userregular
At any rate, Romney will likely spend trillions on stimulus as well, so I don't see much of a real difference between the two in that aspect.
There is absolutely no information that could lead you logically to the notion that Romney is "likely" to do anything.
Especially not that.
Like.
You would have to have just come out of a coma and not really know what a "Romney" is in order to say that with a straight face.
President Romney will likely endorse the House Republican budget, which I imagine will be European Austerity in a big American sized bucket.
Yeah. Honestly that issue kind of overrides everything else: the man isn't trustworthy. He could come out tomorrow for gay marriage, Keynesian economics, a sane foreign policy, closing Guantanamo, ending the War on Drugs and jailing the bankers responsible for the collapse. I still wouldn't vote for him. Because at the end of the day, he could come out tomorrow for those things, it is equally fucking likely that the game of Twister going on in his brain could land on "left wing blue" as it is that he'll come out tomorrow for forced abortions, nuclear war, and the Dark Lord Satan. He's a motherfucking Wildcard two steps away from the nuclear football and the veto pen and the fact that half the voting population isn't terrified of this is goddamn mystifying.
B. Increasing taxes on the wealthy seems like a good idea, but eventually the lower and middle classes will pay it back anyway in consumption costs. Lowering taxes on small business and increasing it on big business is completely pointless. If anything, it justifies more layoffs and spikes in other costs that will be passed down to good ol' working class joe.
This is one of those truisms that gets tossed around to convince people who know nothing about economics. But it is absolutely ridiculous in almost every possible way. That's not how markets work. That's not how supply and demand works. That's not how real life history of corporate and top margin taxes have worked, nor corporate profits. It's not how layoffs work either. It ignores where the money from the taxes is going and the affect it has on the lower and middle class. It ignores how the cost of production works.
It's hard to write a concise refutation, and it's not worth responding against in-depth, because it's almost completely divorced from reality we actually live in. It's faith-based economics.
I'll do my best.
Currently "the wealthy" are maximizing their profits. They are charging the most the market can bare and paying the least they possibly can in order to generate goods and/or services.
A tax on the wealthy would not allow them to charge more. If they could they would already be charging more. A tax would reduce their profit margin, which absolutely and in terms of real money is higher than any time in recorded history. The only way they would be able to charge more is if their customers is if their customers became more prosperous. If this occurs, the economy is doing better, the middle class is beginning to thrive and it fucking worked.
4 years into a recovery and we have declining GDP growth and a real unemployment rate of around 11% with a U6 around 16.7%. Our $16 trillion national debt has increased largely due to the massive explosion of government spending.
Quite literally none of that is true. You are certainly free to interpret data and argue for your interpretation however you like, but you cannot just make up your own data sets.
GDP:
Real GDP:
Unemployment:
(If that is hard to read, currently it is 7.6 unadjusted, 7.8 seasonally adjusted)
Unemployment 6:
(If that is hard to read, currently it is 14.2 unadjusted, 14.7 seasonally adjusted)
Cyclical Causes of the Federal Deficit as a % of GDP:
Well, for one anything divided by GDP will grow when GDP shrinks by 9 points. (See char #1) For two, increased structural outlays to the increased number of people that fell into the safety net due to the downturn.
Utilize more effective fiscal and monetary policy to get these people back to work and suddenly you're not only not paying an unnecessarily large number of unemployment benefits, Medicaid recipients, and SNAP recipients (couldn't find a data set for them in FRED) but you are receiving higher tax returns from those very people. In other words, there hasn't been a massive increase in Federal spending.
+19
Options
spacekungfumanPoor and minority-filledRegistered User, __BANNED USERSregular
This Libya thing is looking bad for Obama and seems to be getting a lot of play. That plus the debate worries me. I know w always say the debates can't decide the presidency, but I'm starting to wonder if Romney could actually win if he keeps this momentum.
"Momentum" isn't a real thing.
Are you saying that a perception that Romney is consistenly looking better than Obama cannot impact the election?
0
Options
AManFromEarthLet's get to twerk!The King in the SwampRegistered Userregular
This Libya thing is looking bad for Obama and seems to be getting a lot of play. That plus the debate worries me. I know w always say the debates can't decide the presidency, but I'm starting to wonder if Romney could actually win if he keeps this momentum.
While I don't think Romney has the momentum he seems to (I think the polls over the next few days are going to normalize to pre-conventions and we'll get a closer election-just as I was saying in August and early September than we had hoped over the last couple weeks), I do worry about people who don't pay attention taking this Libya shit at face value.
A competent candidate could absolutely cream the president. Romney is not that candidate. Everything he talks about Libya he shits the bed, so I'm not as worried as I might be with literally any other Republican.
This Libya thing is looking bad for Obama and seems to be getting a lot of play. That plus the debate worries me. I know w always say the debates can't decide the presidency, but I'm starting to wonder if Romney could actually win if he keeps this momentum.
Romney could win all the debates and not win the presidency. Remember how fucked up his campaign was? How he's alienated your PE friends by being an incompetent fuck-up? That's going to influence the election more then the debates. It's far too late for Romney to court the moderates. Libya is another subject that could impact the election more than the debates. The man couldn't even "win" a debate properly without pissing on Sesame Street. Don't count Obama out yet.
B. Increasing taxes on the wealthy seems like a good idea, but eventually the lower and middle classes will pay it back anyway in consumption costs. Lowering taxes on small business and increasing it on big business is completely pointless. If anything, it justifies more layoffs and spikes in other costs that will be passed down to good ol' working class joe.
This is one of those truisms that gets tossed around to convince people who know nothing about economics. But it is absolutely ridiculous in almost every possible way. That's not how markets work. That's not how supply and demand works. That's not how real life history of corporate and top margin taxes have worked, nor corporate profits. It's not how layoffs work either. It ignores where the money from the taxes is going and the affect it has on the lower and middle class. It ignores how the cost of production works.
It's hard to write a concise refutation, and it's not worth responding against in-depth, because it's almost completely divorced from reality we actually live in. It's faith-based economics.
I'll do my best.
Currently "the wealthy" are maximizing their profits. They are charging the most the market can bare and paying the least they possibly can in order to generate goods and/or services.
A tax on the wealthy would not allow them to charge more. If they could they would already be charging more. A tax would reduce their profit margin, which absolutely and in terms of real money is higher than any time in recorded history. The only way they would be able to charge more is if their customers is if their customers became more prosperous. If this occurs, the economy is doing better, the middle class is beginning to thrive and it fucking worked.
4 years into a recovery and we have declining GDP growth and a real unemployment rate of around 11% with a U6 around 16.7%. Our $16 trillion national debt has increased largely due to the massive explosion of government spending.
Quite literally none of that is true. You are certainly free to interpret data and argue for your interpretation however you like, but you cannot just make up your own data sets.
GDP:
Real GDP:
Unemployment:
(If that is hard to read, currently it is 7.6 unadjusted, 7.8 seasonally adjusted)
Unemployment 6:
(If that is hard to read, currently it is 14.2 unadjusted, 14.7 seasonally adjusted)
Cyclical Causes of the Federal Deficit as a % of GDP:
Well, for one anything divided by GDP will grow when GDP shrinks by 9 points. (See char #1) For two, increased structural outlays to the increased number of people that fell into the safety net due to the downturn.
Utilize more effective fiscal and monetary policy to get these people back to work and suddenly you're not only not paying an unnecessarily large number of unemployment benefits, Medicaid recipients, and SNAP recipients (couldn't find a data set for them in FRED) but you are receiving higher tax returns from those very people. In other words, there hasn't been a massive increase in Federal spending.
This is the sort of post I generally don't have the endurance to make, thank god someone else made it for me
At any rate, Romney will likely spend trillions on stimulus as well, so I don't see much of a real difference between the two in that aspect.
There is a difference between spending $5t on reducing Government revenues through lower rates on top earners and spending $5t on reducing the maintenance backlog of structurally deficient bridges. Only one of them gets you new bridges.
This Libya thing is looking bad for Obama and seems to be getting a lot of play. That plus the debate worries me. I know w always say the debates can't decide the presidency, but I'm starting to wonder if Romney could actually win if he keeps this momentum.
While I don't think Romney has the momentum he seems to (I think the polls over the next few days are going to normalize to pre-conventions and we'll get a closer election-just as I was saying in August and early September than we had hoped over the last couple weeks), I do worry about people who don't pay attention taking this Libya shit at face value.
A competent candidate could absolutely cream the president. Romney is not that candidate. Everything he talks about Libya he shits the bed, so I'm not as worried as I might be with literally any sane person.
FTFY. "Any other Republican" includes Santorum, Palin, Bachmann and a beastiary of madmen and ne'er-do-wells.
He's a motherfucking Wildcard two steps away from the nuclear football and the veto pen and the fact that half the voting population isn't terrified of this is goddamn mystifying.
This Libya thing is looking bad for Obama and seems to be getting a lot of play. That plus the debate worries me. I know w always say the debates can't decide the presidency, but I'm starting to wonder if Romney could actually win if he keeps this momentum.
While I don't think Romney has the momentum he seems to (I think the polls over the next few days are going to normalize to pre-conventions and we'll get a closer election-just as I was saying in August and early September than we had hoped over the last couple weeks), I do worry about people who don't pay attention taking this Libya shit at face value.
A competent candidate could absolutely cream the president. Romney is not that candidate. Everything he talks about Libya he shits the bed, so I'm not as worried as I might be with literally any sane person.
FTFY. "Any other Republican" includes Santorum, Palin, Bachmann and a beastiary of madmen and ne'er-do-wells.
I know, and I think that they'd all be better at this than Romney.
I have absolutely no respect for that man or anything he does.
This Libya thing is looking bad for Obama and seems to be getting a lot of play. That plus the debate worries me. I know w always say the debates can't decide the presidency, but I'm starting to wonder if Romney could actually win if he keeps this momentum.
While I don't think Romney has the momentum he seems to (I think the polls over the next few days are going to normalize to pre-conventions and we'll get a closer election-just as I was saying in August and early September than we had hoped over the last couple weeks), I do worry about people who don't pay attention taking this Libya shit at face value.
A competent candidate could absolutely cream the president. Romney is not that candidate. Everything he talks about Libya he shits the bed, so I'm not as worried as I might be with literally any sane person.
FTFY. "Any other Republican" includes Santorum, Palin, Bachmann and a beastiary of madmen and ne'er-do-wells.
I know, and I think that they'd all be better at this than Romney.
I have absolutely no respect for that man or anything he does.
God dammit, AMFE. You're making me defend Romney, of all people. He's better at this than any other opponent he had at the primaries. Obviously, this is like a one-legged man saying he can play soccer better than a double amputee, but the point still stands
This Libya thing is looking bad for Obama and seems to be getting a lot of play. That plus the debate worries me. I know w always say the debates can't decide the presidency, but I'm starting to wonder if Romney could actually win if he keeps this momentum.
While I don't think Romney has the momentum he seems to (I think the polls over the next few days are going to normalize to pre-conventions and we'll get a closer election-just as I was saying in August and early September than we had hoped over the last couple weeks), I do worry about people who don't pay attention taking this Libya shit at face value.
A competent candidate could absolutely cream the president. Romney is not that candidate. Everything he talks about Libya he shits the bed, so I'm not as worried as I might be with literally any sane person.
FTFY. "Any other Republican" includes Santorum, Palin, Bachmann and a beastiary of madmen and ne'er-do-wells.
I know, and I think that they'd all be better at this than Romney.
I have absolutely no respect for that man or anything he does.
They'd be more consistent then Romney. Not sure whether they'd do better against Obama. Romney's bullshit is working in his favor at the moment, the true believers won't have that option. They'd also bring up controversial topics that'd anger the mainstream much quicker and constantly, like abortion & women's rights, which the media wouldn't be able to spin so easily.
Harry Dresden on
0
Options
AManFromEarthLet's get to twerk!The King in the SwampRegistered Userregular
This Libya thing is looking bad for Obama and seems to be getting a lot of play. That plus the debate worries me. I know w always say the debates can't decide the presidency, but I'm starting to wonder if Romney could actually win if he keeps this momentum.
While I don't think Romney has the momentum he seems to (I think the polls over the next few days are going to normalize to pre-conventions and we'll get a closer election-just as I was saying in August and early September than we had hoped over the last couple weeks), I do worry about people who don't pay attention taking this Libya shit at face value.
A competent candidate could absolutely cream the president. Romney is not that candidate. Everything he talks about Libya he shits the bed, so I'm not as worried as I might be with literally any sane person.
FTFY. "Any other Republican" includes Santorum, Palin, Bachmann and a beastiary of madmen and ne'er-do-wells.
I know, and I think that they'd all be better at this than Romney.
I have absolutely no respect for that man or anything he does.
God dammit, AMFE. You're making me defend Romney, of all people. He's better at this than any other opponent he had at the primaries. Obviously, this is like a one-legged man saying he can play soccer better than a double amputee, but the point still stands
Respectfully I disagree. He was not better at this than any of them. He simply had more money and was more palatable for the party elders than the rest of them.
This Libya thing is looking bad for Obama and seems to be getting a lot of play. That plus the debate worries me. I know w always say the debates can't decide the presidency, but I'm starting to wonder if Romney could actually win if he keeps this momentum.
While I don't think Romney has the momentum he seems to (I think the polls over the next few days are going to normalize to pre-conventions and we'll get a closer election-just as I was saying in August and early September than we had hoped over the last couple weeks), I do worry about people who don't pay attention taking this Libya shit at face value.
A competent candidate could absolutely cream the president. Romney is not that candidate. Everything he talks about Libya he shits the bed, so I'm not as worried as I might be with literally any sane person.
FTFY. "Any other Republican" includes Santorum, Palin, Bachmann and a beastiary of madmen and ne'er-do-wells.
I know, and I think that they'd all be better at this than Romney.
I have absolutely no respect for that man or anything he does.
God dammit, AMFE. You're making me defend Romney, of all people. He's better at this than any other opponent he had at the primaries. Obviously, this is like a one-legged man saying he can play soccer better than a double amputee, but the point still stands
Respectfully I disagree. He was not better at this than any of them. He simply had more money and was more palatable for the party elders than the rest of them.
Ok, we'll agree to disagree, but I had the worst of this exchange. I defended Mitt Romney, someone please shoot me .
B. Increasing taxes on the wealthy seems like a good idea, but eventually the lower and middle classes will pay it back anyway in consumption costs. Lowering taxes on small business and increasing it on big business is completely pointless. If anything, it justifies more layoffs and spikes in other costs that will be passed down to good ol' working class joe.
This is one of those truisms that gets tossed around to convince people who know nothing about economics. But it is absolutely ridiculous in almost every possible way. That's not how markets work. That's not how supply and demand works. That's not how real life history of corporate and top margin taxes have worked, nor corporate profits. It's not how layoffs work either. It ignores where the money from the taxes is going and the affect it has on the lower and middle class. It ignores how the cost of production works.
It's hard to write a concise refutation, and it's not worth responding against in-depth, because it's almost completely divorced from reality we actually live in. It's faith-based economics.
I'll do my best.
Currently "the wealthy" are maximizing their profits. They are charging the most the market can bare and paying the least they possibly can in order to generate goods and/or services.
A tax on the wealthy would not allow them to charge more. If they could they would already be charging more. A tax would reduce their profit margin, which absolutely and in terms of real money is higher than any time in recorded history. The only way they would be able to charge more is if their customers is if their customers became more prosperous. If this occurs, the economy is doing better, the middle class is beginning to thrive and it fucking worked.
4 years into a recovery and we have declining GDP growth and a real unemployment rate of around 11% with a U6 around 16.7%. Our $16 trillion national debt has increased largely due to the massive explosion of government spending.
Quite literally none of that is true. You are certainly free to interpret data and argue for your interpretation however you like, but you cannot just make up your own data sets.
GDP:
Real GDP:
Unemployment:
(If that is hard to read, currently it is 7.6 unadjusted, 7.8 seasonally adjusted)
Unemployment 6:
(If that is hard to read, currently it is 14.2 unadjusted, 14.7 seasonally adjusted)
Cyclical Causes of the Federal Deficit as a % of GDP:
Well, for one anything divided by GDP will grow when GDP shrinks by 9 points. (See char #1) For two, increased structural outlays to the increased number of people that fell into the safety net due to the downturn.
Utilize more effective fiscal and monetary policy to get these people back to work and suddenly you're not only not paying an unnecessarily large number of unemployment benefits, Medicaid recipients, and SNAP recipients (couldn't find a data set for them in FRED) but you are receiving higher tax returns from those very people. In other words, there hasn't been a massive increase in Federal spending.
This is the sort of post I generally don't have the endurance to make, thank god someone else made it for me
Fiddling with FRED really doesn't take all that long once you get used to its quirks. Its just a matter of knowing the relevant data series names in order to pull them up and tweak the graph to show an appropriate time horizon.
...wait, no, I mean, I spent hours laboring over this post.
This Libya thing is looking bad for Obama and seems to be getting a lot of play. That plus the debate worries me. I know w always say the debates can't decide the presidency, but I'm starting to wonder if Romney could actually win if he keeps this momentum.
"Momentum" isn't a real thing.
Are you saying that a perception that Romney is consistenly looking better than Obama cannot impact the election?
I think he's arguing against a self feeding "he's doing better because he's doing better" notion, as opposed to a "he's doing better because X" where X is something due to his actual performance or something caused by outside events.
I could see there being a bit of momentum in that sense due to psychological factors of formerly disaffected Romney supporters being more likely to show up and back him now that he doesn't look entirely like a lost cause, but there are limits. You can't just do a straight linear extrapolation on his movement in the polls, like what was going on with some goosery earlier.
0
Options
ShadowenSnores in the morningLoserdomRegistered Userregular
"Mitt Romney Still Hasn't Actually Released His Tax Records"
"Paul Ryan Hasn't Informed Romney He Actually Sponsored A Bill That Outlawed Abortion"
"Jim Leher Hasn't Told Anyone That He Was Drunk As Hell Last Wednesday, And On Vicodin"
Lehrer would've performed better had he been drunk, on ecstasy and on painkillers.
I'm serious. I'm really not joking. That's the sad part.
"Hey. Hey. Hey. Hey. Mr. Romney. Tell the other fuggin prick named Mitt Romney, the one who looksh jusht like you but keepsh interu--int--bein a doosh, to shtop bein sush a fuckhead. Thnksh. I lub you. Can ah tuj ya hairrrrrrr...'s prettty....zzz...MISHTER OBAMA! Why are your eyesh glowin' like the edges of a black hole, no rashizm intended?!"
Pres. Obama and Nancy Pelosi both claim that they embrace the free-market, support entrepreneurial endeavors and small business entering into the market, yet somehow simultaneously believe that more regulations, more stimulus, more price control, more taxation will have zero negative impact on job growth.
That's nonsense, not because of the underlying facts* but because the two halves of your statement do not intersect or contradict one another. Obama and Pelosi are pro-business (check), favor policy X (check), believe policy X won't hurt businesses (check). There's no contradiction there. To show double-think, you'd have to say that Obama and Pelosi are anti-business but support policies they believe will help business, or you'd have to say that Obama and Pelosi are pro-business but support policies they believe will hurt business.
Instead you're saying that Obama and Pelosi are pro-business but support polices that you believe will hurt business. That's a fair statement to make but it's disingenuous to couch that statement in accusations of hypocrisy.
*(Well, it's nonsense on those too, let's be clear.)
I'm not saying they're hypocrites, I'm saying that it would make more sense for a pro-free market president to avoid government stimulus, and lift taxes so that families and businesses on lower parts of the economic latter can reinvest and spend more of their own money, which grows the economy organically and freely. Government stimulus is a good way to display a short lived "growth", but it is inevitably doomed to plummet. Obviously the solution is to tax more and spend more on stimulus so they can boast of another 3.3 million job growth that costs billions and will not last. Government stimulus fails in the long run.
You keep saying Obama is pro-free market as if that means he is anti-any-other-solution. Obama has time and again said that he's in favor of a balance between regulation and freedom in the marketplace; it makes sense that he is for some forms of regulation but not others, that he wants to lower taxes on some businesses while raising taxes on others.
Government stimulus is only short-term growth if you hire people to break windows and then keep them from spending their wages. Otherwise you're spending on investments (infrastructure, green energy, education) and pumping up demand (that thing what the economy needs right now).
Obama's plan was and continues to be:
1. Lower taxes on middle and lower class people; increase taxes on the wealthy.
2. Use that revenue (and deficit spending) to stimulate the economy.
3. The stimulated economy grows us out of our debt and unemployment problems.
Romney's plan, on the other hand, is:
1. Lower taxes on everybody.
2. Close all loopholes, plus ones that don't exist, minus all the loopholes = revenue neutral (no deficit spending).
3. The economy grows because I said so.
Which one of those is more pro-free market? Hint: it's the one that funnels government money to people and businesses so that people buy things so that the free market can work. Hint 2: it's not the one that's made of wishes and fairydust. Hint 3: if the answer remains unclear, please reboot your computer and try again.
A. I'm don't support Romney.
B. Increasing taxes on the wealthy seems like a good idea, but eventually the lower and middle classes will pay it back anyway in consumption costs. Lowering taxes on small business and increasing it on big business is completely pointless. If anything, it justifies more layoffs and spikes in other costs that will be passed down to good ol' working class joe.
America really needs to find a method to curtail whenever companies punish their customers by increasing prices from government regulation. They shouldn't be able to hold their customers hostage when they feel "threatened" whenever the government refuses to give them a sloppy blowjob.
Which would entail even more government and costs.. perhaps even the government owning the top producing industries in the country and setting price controls on everybody else below them.
True. Except for how it wouldn't. In the slightest. Like, at all.
Increase top marginal rates and bring capital gains equivalent to wages and suddenly the marginal dollar is better spent reinvested into the company's future growth rather than cashed out as a dividend payment. Other things, too, but that alone would have a significant impact without nationalizing anybody.
If the government imposes a regulation or a tax that costs the industry more revenue, what U.S law prevents them from raising the prices of the commodities they sell to other businesses or ordinary consumers?
None. Their competition in a market economy does that.
Exactly. When the industries are all unanimously affected, they can unanimously increase the cost of their commodities. To prevent companies from being able to do that would require more government. Responding to many posts, so I apologize if I don't get to all of yours, but it was suggested that there has to be a way in America to stop companies from being able to pass on costs of regulations to consumers. One guess off the top of my head would be to install price controls.
No, they can't. I knew why this was bullshit after the second week of my high school econ class (before I started reading about econ on my own time). You are literally failing the most basic tests of economic knowledge.
0
Options
spacekungfumanPoor and minority-filledRegistered User, __BANNED USERSregular
This Libya thing is looking bad for Obama and seems to be getting a lot of play. That plus the debate worries me. I know w always say the debates can't decide the presidency, but I'm starting to wonder if Romney could actually win if he keeps this momentum.
"Momentum" isn't a real thing.
Are you saying that a perception that Romney is consistenly looking better than Obama cannot impact the election?
I think he's arguing against a self feeding "he's doing better because he's doing better" notion, as opposed to a "he's doing better because X" where X is something due to his actual performance or something caused by outside events.
I could see there being a bit of momentum in that sense due to psychological factors of formerly disaffected Romney supporters being more likely to show up and back him now that he doesn't look entirely like a lost cause, but there are limits. You can't just do a straight linear extrapolation on his movement in the polls, like what was going on with some goosery earlier.
Agree 100%. It just seems to me that (1) some things have actually gone right for Romney (or wrong for Obama) and (2) the fact that he did things that weren't the worst seems to have primed the media (and maybe voters) to look for evidence of a comeback.
The media was always looking for evidence of a comeback. More ad revenue that way. Voters seem to be swinging back, except in the worst national poll of '08 (IBD/TIPP).
Self-righteousness is incompatible with coalition building.
This Libya thing is looking bad for Obama and seems to be getting a lot of play. That plus the debate worries me. I know w always say the debates can't decide the presidency, but I'm starting to wonder if Romney could actually win if he keeps this momentum.
"Momentum" isn't a real thing.
Are you saying that a perception that Romney is consistenly looking better than Obama cannot impact the election?
I think he's arguing against a self feeding "he's doing better because he's doing better" notion, as opposed to a "he's doing better because X" where X is something due to his actual performance or something caused by outside events.
I could see there being a bit of momentum in that sense due to psychological factors of formerly disaffected Romney supporters being more likely to show up and back him now that he doesn't look entirely like a lost cause, but there are limits. You can't just do a straight linear extrapolation on his movement in the polls, like what was going on with some goosery earlier.
Agree 100%. It just seems to me that (1) some things have actually gone right for Romney (or wrong for Obama) and (2) the fact that he did things that weren't the worst seems to have primed the media (and maybe voters) to look for evidence of a comeback.
That doesn't mean Romney will win only that he was competent for once. Romney can't have a "comeback" in the first place because until now he was losing badly.
Pres. Obama and Nancy Pelosi both claim that they embrace the free-market, support entrepreneurial endeavors and small business entering into the market, yet somehow simultaneously believe that more regulations, more stimulus, more price control, more taxation will have zero negative impact on job growth.
That's nonsense, not because of the underlying facts* but because the two halves of your statement do not intersect or contradict one another. Obama and Pelosi are pro-business (check), favor policy X (check), believe policy X won't hurt businesses (check). There's no contradiction there. To show double-think, you'd have to say that Obama and Pelosi are anti-business but support policies they believe will help business, or you'd have to say that Obama and Pelosi are pro-business but support policies they believe will hurt business.
Instead you're saying that Obama and Pelosi are pro-business but support polices that you believe will hurt business. That's a fair statement to make but it's disingenuous to couch that statement in accusations of hypocrisy.
*(Well, it's nonsense on those too, let's be clear.)
I'm not saying they're hypocrites, I'm saying that it would make more sense for a pro-free market president to avoid government stimulus, and lift taxes so that families and businesses on lower parts of the economic latter can reinvest and spend more of their own money, which grows the economy organically and freely. Government stimulus is a good way to display a short lived "growth", but it is inevitably doomed to plummet. Obviously the solution is to tax more and spend more on stimulus so they can boast of another 3.3 million job growth that costs billions and will not last. Government stimulus fails in the long run.
You keep saying Obama is pro-free market as if that means he is anti-any-other-solution. Obama has time and again said that he's in favor of a balance between regulation and freedom in the marketplace; it makes sense that he is for some forms of regulation but not others, that he wants to lower taxes on some businesses while raising taxes on others.
Government stimulus is only short-term growth if you hire people to break windows and then keep them from spending their wages. Otherwise you're spending on investments (infrastructure, green energy, education) and pumping up demand (that thing what the economy needs right now).
Obama's plan was and continues to be:
1. Lower taxes on middle and lower class people; increase taxes on the wealthy.
2. Use that revenue (and deficit spending) to stimulate the economy.
3. The stimulated economy grows us out of our debt and unemployment problems.
Romney's plan, on the other hand, is:
1. Lower taxes on everybody.
2. Close all loopholes, plus ones that don't exist, minus all the loopholes = revenue neutral (no deficit spending).
3. The economy grows because I said so.
Which one of those is more pro-free market? Hint: it's the one that funnels government money to people and businesses so that people buy things so that the free market can work. Hint 2: it's not the one that's made of wishes and fairydust. Hint 3: if the answer remains unclear, please reboot your computer and try again.
A. I'm don't support Romney.
B. Increasing taxes on the wealthy seems like a good idea, but eventually the lower and middle classes will pay it back anyway in consumption costs. Lowering taxes on small business and increasing it on big business is completely pointless. If anything, it justifies more layoffs and spikes in other costs that will be passed down to good ol' working class joe.
America really needs to find a method to curtail whenever companies punish their customers by increasing prices from government regulation. They shouldn't be able to hold their customers hostage when they feel "threatened" whenever the government refuses to give them a sloppy blowjob.
Which would entail even more government and costs.. perhaps even the government owning the top producing industries in the country and setting price controls on everybody else below them.
True. Except for how it wouldn't. In the slightest. Like, at all.
Increase top marginal rates and bring capital gains equivalent to wages and suddenly the marginal dollar is better spent reinvested into the company's future growth rather than cashed out as a dividend payment. Other things, too, but that alone would have a significant impact without nationalizing anybody.
If the government imposes a regulation or a tax that costs the industry more revenue, what U.S law prevents them from raising the prices of the commodities they sell to other businesses or ordinary consumers?
None. Their competition in a market economy does that.
Exactly. When the industries are all unanimously affected, they can unanimously increase the cost of their commodities. To prevent companies from being able to do that would require more government. Responding to many posts, so I apologize if I don't get to all of yours, but it was suggested that there has to be a way in America to stop companies from being able to pass on costs of regulations to consumers. One guess off the top of my head would be to install price controls.
No, they can't. I knew why this was bullshit after the second week of my high school econ class (before I started reading about econ on my own time). You are literally failing the most basic tests of economic knowledge.
The basic point that people always seem to ignore is that the tax code is already set up so if you DO NOT TAKE/POST THE MONEY AS PROFIT (and instead use the money on business expansion) you will not see that money taxed and in fact might even receive additional funds from the government depending on what you do with it. This is why all the talk about S-Corps (small businesses that take in profits as regular income) is bullshit.
Subhuman, I'm going to go ahead and ask you to define the term 'free market', because I do not think it means what you think it means.
I think he is talking about "free-market" as meaning roughly the same thing as "laissez faire", as the government being as totally hands off as they can get away with. In those terms, then being against the "free-market" is totally sensible, since "laissez faire" economics is stupid and has been discredited a long time ago. Even Milton Friedman's monetarism isn't free market in that sense, as it depends upon a central banking authority to pull the levers on monetary policy to affect the economy on behalf of the public. This is where a lot of the "end the fed" folks are coming from, they want an "laissez faire" approach towards banking and to remove the government propping up a central bank over the monetary system. The thing is that there is historical precedent for that sort of system, but the results of it were far less beneficial or stable than the free-market absolutionists would like you to believe.
4 years into a recovery and we have declining GDP growth and a real unemployment rate of around 11% with a U6 around 16.7%. Our $16 trillion national debt has increased largely due to the massive explosion of government spending.
Ahhhh yesss, delicious half truths and removal of context. Yes, this has been an anemic recovery, but that has often been the case after a massive financial meltdown. And a lot of the debt run up was due to large unfunded spending before the crash, followed by a massive contraction in tax revenues due to the crash while increases in automatic stabilization spending in the face of that economic crash.
And the most important distraction is the pure focus on government debt while ignoring the private debt situation. Looking at the full picture gives you a much better idea of what is going on. In particular, there was a large private debt bubble central to the housing crisis, and in the aftermath the private sector has been forced to deleverage and draw down on that debt. The result of that means that there have to be a large amount of write downs and defaults on debt mixed with a contraction of spending by the debt constrained players in the economy. Since everyone's income is someone else's spending, without an increase in spending by the previous savers and lenders in this situation, the economy will necessarily contract.
The normal way to try to deal with this imbalance in the Friedman style is to lower interest rates, as that makes it less attractive for the hoarders to keep hoarding and go out and spend some of their savings. However, there is a big problem with this in certain circumstances, namely ours, that interest rates can only realistically go down to zero. At that point, you might as well just put the money under your mattress rather than lending it out. But even with the rates at zero, you can still have the private debt imbalance left unsolved, leading to economic contraction. That is the condition where it makes the most sense for the government to step in and start spending, aka stimulus, even if it is debt fueled spending. The government doesn't have the same constraints as the private parties in the economy, and even better in this situation it doesn't cost the government much in the way of interest to service this debt since interest rates are at rock bottom levels.
You can't just focus on the size of the federal debt in isolation and get a full picture of what it means. The context of that debt and those deficits is of crucial importance. Of course the Republicans and Romney absolutely do not want to look deeper into those details, as then you might realize how much responsibility their policies and ideology are responsible for this mess.
Interesting points about private debt vs public debt. Check this link when you get some time paecon.net/PAEReview/issue58/Koo58.pdf Tokyo research on balance sheet recession in regards to the economic crisis in Japan and how it has so much to do with what is happening to America.
At any rate, Romney will likely spend trillions on stimulus as well, so I don't see much of a real difference between the two in that aspect.
Uh, huh? That article you link advocates huge government burrowing from private sectors (taxes) in times of recessions after bubble bursts. What you cited advocates the huge government spending you are so against. Why did you link it?
It is laudable for policy makers to shun fiscal profligacy and aim for self-reliance on
the part of the private sector. But every several decades, the private sector loses its self control
in a bubble and sustains heavy financial injuries when the bubble bursts. That forces
the private sector to pay down debt in spite of zero interest rates, triggering a deflationary
spiral. At such times and at such times only, the government must borrow and spend the
private sector’s excess savings, not only because monetary policy is impotent at such times
but also because the government cannot tell the private sector not to repair its balance sheet.
Although anyone can push for fiscal consolidation in the form of higher taxes and
lower spending, whether such efforts actually succeed in reducing the budget deficit is
another matter entirely. When the private sector is both willing and able to borrow money,
fiscal consolidation efforts by the government will lead to a smaller deficit and higher growth
as resources are released to the more efficient private sector. But when the financial health
of the private sector is so impaired that it is forced to deleverage even with interest rates at
zero, a premature withdrawal of fiscal stimulus will both increase the deficit and weaken the
economy. Key differences between the textbook world and the world of balance sheet
recessions are summarized in Exhibit 17.
Posts
This'll be good. Another issue where Romney being a flip-flopping moderate could potentially blow up in his face.
Well this one is worse, because again the majority is against his hard core right wing AND his running mate has signed on with Akin legislation that again the majority of America find abhorent. Its one thing to tack to the middle on the economy when the good ole boys will snort and go "Oh he's just lying to those dumb 47%'s" Its another thing to do it with Abortion where the right wing goes nuts when you give any concessions.
pleasepaypreacher.net
It’s not a very important country most of the time
http://steamcommunity.com/id/mortious
Because I've already been infracted without warning once today for responding to something off-topic, I'd prefer to avoid boning myself twice by responding to it.
pleasepaypreacher.net
http://mynorthwest.com/75/1375049/Mother-questions-Romneys-account-of-meeting-former-SEAL-killed-in-Libya
pleasepaypreacher.net
pleasepaypreacher.net
Not entirely true. It's possible to speculate a little on what direction's he'd go in with foreign policy. That said, you're right it's tough to nail down what he wants with most subjects.
Whether or not he prefers it cut in half laterally or diagonally remains to be seen.
3DS FC: 4699-5714-8940 Playing Pokemon, add me! Ho, SATAN!
That's sadly a fake website.
However, the real Mitt Romney facebook page prominently features a quote from Herman Cain that says, ". . . . stupid people are ruining America!"
Mitt Romney's favorite sandwich is probably pimento and mayonaise on slightly-damp white bread with a slice of plain celery and a glass of 1% milk.
Interesting points about private debt vs public debt. Check this link when you get some time paecon.net/PAEReview/issue58/Koo58.pdf Tokyo research on balance sheet recession in regards to the economic crisis in Japan and how it has so much to do with what is happening to America.
At any rate, Romney will likely spend trillions on stimulus as well, so I don't see much of a real difference between the two in that aspect.
There is absolutely no information that could lead you logically to the notion that Romney is "likely" to do anything.
Especially not that.
Like.
You would have to have just come out of a coma and not really know what a "Romney" is in order to say that with a straight face.
President Romney will likely endorse the House Republican budget, which I imagine will be European Austerity in a big American sized bucket.
"Momentum" isn't a real thing.
Yeah. Honestly that issue kind of overrides everything else: the man isn't trustworthy. He could come out tomorrow for gay marriage, Keynesian economics, a sane foreign policy, closing Guantanamo, ending the War on Drugs and jailing the bankers responsible for the collapse. I still wouldn't vote for him. Because at the end of the day, he could come out tomorrow for those things, it is equally fucking likely that the game of Twister going on in his brain could land on "left wing blue" as it is that he'll come out tomorrow for forced abortions, nuclear war, and the Dark Lord Satan. He's a motherfucking Wildcard two steps away from the nuclear football and the veto pen and the fact that half the voting population isn't terrified of this is goddamn mystifying.
Quite literally none of that is true. You are certainly free to interpret data and argue for your interpretation however you like, but you cannot just make up your own data sets.
GDP:
Real GDP:
Unemployment:
(If that is hard to read, currently it is 7.6 unadjusted, 7.8 seasonally adjusted)
Unemployment 6:
(If that is hard to read, currently it is 14.2 unadjusted, 14.7 seasonally adjusted)
Cyclical Causes of the Federal Deficit as a % of GDP:
Well, for one anything divided by GDP will grow when GDP shrinks by 9 points. (See char #1) For two, increased structural outlays to the increased number of people that fell into the safety net due to the downturn.
Utilize more effective fiscal and monetary policy to get these people back to work and suddenly you're not only not paying an unnecessarily large number of unemployment benefits, Medicaid recipients, and SNAP recipients (couldn't find a data set for them in FRED) but you are receiving higher tax returns from those very people. In other words, there hasn't been a massive increase in Federal spending.
Are you saying that a perception that Romney is consistenly looking better than Obama cannot impact the election?
While I don't think Romney has the momentum he seems to (I think the polls over the next few days are going to normalize to pre-conventions and we'll get a closer election-just as I was saying in August and early September than we had hoped over the last couple weeks), I do worry about people who don't pay attention taking this Libya shit at face value.
A competent candidate could absolutely cream the president. Romney is not that candidate. Everything he talks about Libya he shits the bed, so I'm not as worried as I might be with literally any other Republican.
Romney could win all the debates and not win the presidency. Remember how fucked up his campaign was? How he's alienated your PE friends by being an incompetent fuck-up? That's going to influence the election more then the debates. It's far too late for Romney to court the moderates. Libya is another subject that could impact the election more than the debates. The man couldn't even "win" a debate properly without pissing on Sesame Street. Don't count Obama out yet.
This is the sort of post I generally don't have the endurance to make, thank god someone else made it for me
There is a difference between spending $5t on reducing Government revenues through lower rates on top earners and spending $5t on reducing the maintenance backlog of structurally deficient bridges. Only one of them gets you new bridges.
FTFY. "Any other Republican" includes Santorum, Palin, Bachmann and a beastiary of madmen and ne'er-do-wells.
I know, and I think that they'd all be better at this than Romney.
I have absolutely no respect for that man or anything he does.
God dammit, AMFE. You're making me defend Romney, of all people. He's better at this than any other opponent he had at the primaries. Obviously, this is like a one-legged man saying he can play soccer better than a double amputee, but the point still stands
They'd be more consistent then Romney. Not sure whether they'd do better against Obama. Romney's bullshit is working in his favor at the moment, the true believers won't have that option. They'd also bring up controversial topics that'd anger the mainstream much quicker and constantly, like abortion & women's rights, which the media wouldn't be able to spin so easily.
Respectfully I disagree. He was not better at this than any of them. He simply had more money and was more palatable for the party elders than the rest of them.
Ok, we'll agree to disagree, but I had the worst of this exchange. I defended Mitt Romney, someone please shoot me .
Fiddling with FRED really doesn't take all that long once you get used to its quirks. Its just a matter of knowing the relevant data series names in order to pull them up and tweak the graph to show an appropriate time horizon.
...wait, no, I mean, I spent hours laboring over this post.
I think he's arguing against a self feeding "he's doing better because he's doing better" notion, as opposed to a "he's doing better because X" where X is something due to his actual performance or something caused by outside events.
I could see there being a bit of momentum in that sense due to psychological factors of formerly disaffected Romney supporters being more likely to show up and back him now that he doesn't look entirely like a lost cause, but there are limits. You can't just do a straight linear extrapolation on his movement in the polls, like what was going on with some goosery earlier.
"Hey. Hey. Hey. Hey. Mr. Romney. Tell the other fuggin prick named Mitt Romney, the one who looksh jusht like you but keepsh interu--int--bein a doosh, to shtop bein sush a fuckhead. Thnksh. I lub you. Can ah tuj ya hairrrrrrr...'s prettty....zzz...MISHTER OBAMA! Why are your eyesh glowin' like the edges of a black hole, no rashizm intended?!"
No, they can't. I knew why this was bullshit after the second week of my high school econ class (before I started reading about econ on my own time). You are literally failing the most basic tests of economic knowledge.
Agree 100%. It just seems to me that (1) some things have actually gone right for Romney (or wrong for Obama) and (2) the fact that he did things that weren't the worst seems to have primed the media (and maybe voters) to look for evidence of a comeback.
That doesn't mean Romney will win only that he was competent for once. Romney can't have a "comeback" in the first place because until now he was losing badly.
The basic point that people always seem to ignore is that the tax code is already set up so if you DO NOT TAKE/POST THE MONEY AS PROFIT (and instead use the money on business expansion) you will not see that money taxed and in fact might even receive additional funds from the government depending on what you do with it. This is why all the talk about S-Corps (small businesses that take in profits as regular income) is bullshit.
Uh, huh? That article you link advocates huge government burrowing from private sectors (taxes) in times of recessions after bubble bursts. What you cited advocates the huge government spending you are so against. Why did you link it?