 sj |
||
|
||
BS: Tea Party = Flawed Economic Model
|
|
|
Subject: BS: Tea Party = Flawed Economic Model From: Bobert Date: 05 Oct 10 - 09:07 PM The Tea Party has been preachin' more "indiviual responsiblity" and less "societial responsbility" but there are some major problems with their economic theories... First, they assume that there is a level playing field between the monied class and the working class... That is wrong as the monied class, especially afetr the "Citizens" ruling by the Supremes can buy whatever government they want and therefore get exactly what they want in the way of tax lo9opholes, regs, government contracts, etc... But secondly, if the model is to privatize everything down to fire and olice protection there is a pojnt where there isn't enough money left, fater Boss Hog has scooped it all up, for the working class to be able to afford police and fire protection... Not to mention that the monied class controls employement... So, yeah, on paper the Tea Party folks may think this can work out but in reality, with no decent paying jobs left and no money left in the working class then we are heading for... ...Amerika, after the Thunder Dome... I find it incredulous that so many people who will be hurt the most by this "Atlas Shugged" corpoarte move to take all the marbles are out there campaigning for their own demise??? This economic model has no chance of being sucessfull... Zero... Zilch...Nada... Yet millions of uneducated people are out there fighting for the privatization of everything??? I guess this is what we get when a society decides that what it needs is more epsilons and less folks who can actaully, ahhhh, think??? B~ |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Tea Party = Flawed Economic Model From: John on the Sunset Coast Date: 05 Oct 10 - 10:23 PM It certainly is less flawed than the Obama model which is following the postwar European model at the same time that much of Europe is returning to a more Capitalist system, away from a failing and failed Socialist system. I'll take our American capitalist system with its flaws any day. The current Administration and Congress could have done so much more good by doing less. I probably will not live long enough to see the mal-effect of Obamaism, but my son and other family most certainly will. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Tea Party = Flawed Economic Model From: The Fooles Troupe Date: 05 Oct 10 - 10:25 PM Don;t worry, Bobert, it's all part of the cunning plan - those epsilons who are being noticed by shouting the loudest campaigning (thus proving their intellectual status), after Thunderdome, will be on the top of the list to be sent to the Soylent Green plant.... |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Tea Party = Flawed Economic Model From: Bobert Date: 05 Oct 10 - 10:40 PM Well, gol danged, F-troupe... That does gbring it into a new perspective... BTW, John... How about privitizing yer street where if you have to drive anywhere on it that when you back out of your driveway and you credit card gets wacked every 1/4 mile??? How about air??? Privatize it??? *Clean* drinking water??? Privatize... Use of sidewalks??? I mean, we allready have privatized fire departments... A man's house burned down this week and the fire department watched it becuase the guy hadn't given then $75... What next, protection money to take yer dog or kids to the park??? Park?!?!?!? Waht am I thinking??? No parks unless you pay... I mean, there is a point where those of you on the right even have to say, enough of corporate profits to the rich is enough... Guess you must either be so dumbed own that you have no idea how you are being robbed or you are one of the robbers... No other choices left... Ayn Rand for Nutball of the 1900s... But I'm sure all you right winged, Lyndon LaRouchers just loving this, John... B~ |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Tea Party = Flawed Economic Model From: The Fooles Troupe Date: 05 Oct 10 - 10:45 PM No Bobert, you still don't get it - you see they will have all that they need - private park kiddie play area inside the gated community, all that stuff, who NEEDS all that wasteful 'public infrastructure'? The hardest part they will have to endure will be having to volunteer on the roster to man tailgunner position on the armored bus to be able to visit other centers of culture and refinement .... |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Tea Party = Flawed Economic Model From: The Fooles Troupe Date: 06 Oct 10 - 12:38 AM Hmm I see the first US house has burnt down while the firefighters stood around and watched, cause the family could not afford the %75 'standover fee' to subscribe to the service. They probably also could not afford insurance too... Now once enough of them are burnt out, they will happily go to the 'Soylent Shelters' .... problem solved ... all part of 'the plan' .... Many years ago, Fire Brigades WERE private subscription, and you put a shield on your patch to show them they could fight your fire, cause you had paid. It was those bloody trouble making 'bleeding heart liberal left wingers' that insisted that the fire fighting was a 'Public Service' to stop the whole damn city burning down. At least we're not back in earlier times (yet), the only way to stop a fire spreading was to pull down th ehouses surroundins it... Trust me my friends, what with the imminent decline of Civilization, God will punish us all for our sins and those times will return! :-) |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Tea Party = Flawed Economic Model From: GUEST,Ebbie, housesitting Date: 06 Oct 10 - 01:02 AM That deplorable business of standing by and watching a house burn down for lack of pre-payment could have been easily handled, imo. I can see their point that if the fire department saved every house without payment more people wouldn't pay up but why not charge a hefty fee for it? A person who could have gotten fire protection for an annual $75 but 'forgot' to pay it then found he had to turn around and pay $1000 after the house was saved would quickly see that neglecting the $75 was counter-productive. In addition, the fire district would have a revenue enhancer! |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Tea Party = Flawed Economic Model From: LadyJean Date: 06 Oct 10 - 01:55 AM I had the privelege of visiting Smokey Mountains National park a few weeks ago. The Federal government and the citizens of the region raised money to buy the land to preserve it for future generations, including me. The Civilian Conservation Corps built the overlook, where I stood to admire the magnificent scenery and the rest room we used before hitting the road. They were young men who learned job skills and essential values while earning money to help their families and they built to last! That is what the government can do when they see themselves as our government, representing all the people, not just special interests or big corporations. Leaving that magnificence we found ourselves in Pigeon Forge, which used to be a quiet little mountain town, and is now a tourist mecca, with some of the most spectacular gridlock I have ever had the misfortune to endure. What should have been a 15 minute drive took 2 hours. We crawled past miniature golf courses, go cart tracks, motels, cheesy souvenir shops. They created that traffic nightmare, but nobody will do anything about it, because they also "create jobs". Those jobs are, mostly, poorly paid and seasonal. But in the economy we've endured since 1980, creating any sort of job is considered a public service. In due time the tax payers of Pigeon Forge will pay to fix that hellish gridlock. The local businesses will insist on it, and they won't contribute towards fixing it, because they create jobs. That is what business does when nobody watches them. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Tea Party = Flawed Economic Model From: Greg F. Date: 06 Oct 10 - 08:36 AM [TeaBagger economics] is certainly is less flawed than the Obama model What planes do you live on, John? Neo-Con Economics (now re-branded Ttea Party Economics) is what put the U.S. economy in the toilet, and you folks want MORE of the SAME? I guess the U.S. gets the government it deserves; Jefferson's "informed electorate" is apparently largely extinct. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Tea Party = Flawed Economic Model From: Bobert Date: 06 Oct 10 - 08:49 AM Yes, Pigeon Forge is a prime example of the dangers of privatization... If this culture.menatlity had existed in the 50s we wouldn't have an interstate highway system... We would have hundreds of ill-thought-out toll roads that sometimes connect and other times don't... Seems that lotta Repub governors are looking to selling off assests and parks in order to get a quick-fix for budgetary shortfalls... Here in Virgina the Repub governor wnats to sell off thew ABC (Alcoholic Beverage Control) stores which currently are producing $300M in profits for Virginia's government... He thinks the ABC store will fetch arounf $700M at auction... Hmmmmmm??? Doesn't take the Wes Ginny Slide Rule to tell ya that that just ain't smart 'cause in 2 years we'll be wondering where that $300M a year is going to come from... But nevermind them details... B~ |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Tea Party = Flawed Economic Model From: Bobert Date: 06 Oct 10 - 09:07 AM Back to the point that f-troupe made about the wealthy needing to take "protection" when leaving their armed complexes... This is something that I have been predicting going back years... The folks that are being screwed the most by the rich are those in the South and Midwest where incomes lag well behind the rest of the country... These are the folks who now are the ones front-'n-center trying to get the rich even richer... And, I might add, at the expense of the working class.. My premise is that if we don't get back to thinking "community" over "me, me, me" we will arrive at a point where the only people who can afford Pigeon Forge will be the wealthy and the only way they will be able to get there will be dangerous when Southern Man figures out the pea-under-the-shell game... I mean, very dangerous... I mean, hstory is littered with "failed states" that became so corrupt that their rich didn't realize what Henry Ford instictually knew about business when he said, "If I don't pay mjy workers enough who will buy my cars"... Seems this is lost on the current crop of Boss Hogs... B~ |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Tea Party = Flawed Economic Model From: The Fooles Troupe Date: 06 Oct 10 - 10:21 AM Actually Bobert, I got the idea from various SF mags I used to read in the 1960-70s .... doesn't mean that it's not possible to happen - barbed wire and towers and searchlights and flamethrowers and machine-gun nests, well maybe a bit over the top .... |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Tea Party = Flawed Economic Model From: Bobert Date: 06 Oct 10 - 10:28 AM Then again, f-troupe, seems that everytime a major armed conflict occurs people seem shocked that what started out as a disagreement about distribution of power/wealth turns so ugly... Our own Civil (which it wasn't) War being a good example... Seems that the greedy never learn from history... B~ |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Tea Party = Flawed Economic Model From: John on the Sunset Coast Date: 06 Oct 10 - 12:41 PM Bobert-- "Reductio ad absurdum". Not playing that game. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Tea Party = Flawed Economic Model From: Sawzaw Date: 06 Oct 10 - 02:06 PM Another stinkbomb has been hurled by someone bent on scaring others with his if then theoretical scenarios, hob goblins and non existent solutions. Bobert is trolling for an argument so he can make personal attacks on anybody that presents facts that he can't dispute. Just where is or where was there ever an example of his idea of a non-flawed economic model? Let him start his rant with a working model of the way he thinks things should be. USPS? Amtrak? Fannie Mae? Cuba? Venezuela? North Korea? Then we can discuss something of substance rather than something that "should" exist. Bobert: Please give us your idea of the correct economic model and something to support that model. No "if thens" please. |
|
Subject: My GRAND UNIFIED TEA PARTY THEORY From: Donuel Date: 06 Oct 10 - 02:29 PM Come visit MY TEA PARTY LAND http://usera.imagecave.com/donuel/don/TEAPARTYLAND1.jpg |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Tea Party = Flawed Economic Model From: Bobert Date: 06 Oct 10 - 08:18 PM Love it, Donuel... BTW, Sawz... Other than two or 3 people no one here reads any of yer posts... You have become the proverbial psycho broken record... B~ |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Tea Party = Flawed Economic Model From: The Fooles Troupe Date: 06 Oct 10 - 08:27 PM "Just where is or where was there ever an example of ... a non-flawed economic model? " No such model lasts for ever, the world changes and the assumptions on which the model is based are no longer relevant. and so the 'model' just falls apart as what people keep doing now drives the system into chaos and disaster. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Tea Party = Flawed Economic Model From: Sawzaw Date: 07 Oct 10 - 09:02 AM Rational question: Bobert: Please give us your idea of the correct economic model and something to support that model. No "if thens" please. Rational? answer: BTW, Sawz... Other than two or 3 people no one here reads any of yer posts... You have become the proverbial psycho broken record... Who is the psycho? How's this "progressive" economic model Bobert? Don't hurt your head reading these facts instead of dreaming interminably about your what ifs: Charges were filed against eight current and former Bell officials Tuesday, alleging that they misappropriated $5.5 million in public funds. Robert Boss Hogg Rizzo, Bell's former city manager, has been charged with 53 counts of misappropriation of public funds and conflict of interest. The charges come after a dramatic morning in which authorities swept through Bell and other cities, arresting former and current Bell officials. Among those arrested were Rizzo; Angela Spaccia, former assistant city manager; Mayor Oscar Hernandez; councilmembers George Mirabal, Teresa Jacobo and Luis Artiga; and former councilmembers George Cole and Victor Bello. "This is corruption on steroids," Cooley said. [Updated at 11:28 a.m.: Cooley said officials used the city's tax dollars "as their own piggy bank that they then looted at will." He said that councilmembers, who earned salaries of nearly $100,000, received $1.2 million for "phantom meetings" -- many which never occurred or lasted only a minute or two. Police Chief Randy Adams, who also stepped down after The Times reported he was earning $457,000, was not arrested. "Being paid excessive amounts is not a crime," Cooley said, noting that the investigation is ongoing. Bail for Rizzo has been set at $3.2 million. Bail for the others ranges from $130,000 to $377,500.] Rizzo, whose high salary sparked the outrage that led to the investigations of the city, was among those arrested in the sweep. At 10 a.m., officials emerged from Rizzo's luxury home in Huntington Beach. Rizzo, handcuffed, was escorted into a black SUV. In Bell, a neighbor of Hernandez said authorities used a battering ram on his front door after he failed to answer the door. "They broke the door down," said the neighbor, who only gave his name as Jose. "They knocked down the door and they brought him out in cuffs." The city of Bell released a statement about the arrests, calling it a "sad day" for the city. Given the sheer volume of charges levied against former Bell Chief Administrative Officer Robert Rizzo and former Assistant CAO Angela Spaccia by the district attorney, it is clear that Rizzo and Spaccia were at the root of the cancer that has afflicted the City of Bell. Also, it is a sad day for Bell that four current and two former members of the council also have been arrested. I am prepared to double down our efforts to continue to restore order, establish good government reforms, and to ensure that Bell is providing needed services to its residents, said Pedro Carrillo, interim city manager. Outside City Hall, about two dozen residents gathered as news of the arrests spread. One man used a bullhorn to broadcast the Queen song, "Another One Bites the Dust." Members of the crowd laughed and applauded, happy to see arrests in the scandal. For two months, the Los Angeles County district attorney's office and state and federal authorities have investigated Bell, where high salaries earned by Rizzo and other top officials have sparked widespread outrage. The L. A. Times reported last month that Rizzo was set to earn more than $1.5 million in 2010. Additionally, he gave loans totaling $1.6 million to more than 50 city officials, including himself. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Tea Party = Flawed Economic Model From: Sawzaw Date: 07 Oct 10 - 09:15 AM "no decent paying jobs left and no money left in the working class then we are heading for" Worker wages, benefits 'unsustainable,' panel tells NLV City Council Layoffs aired as possible option if unions refuse cuts North Las Vegas won't be able to fix its budget problems until it addresses "out of whack" spending on employee salaries and benefits, a committee of business leaders and community members told the City Council on Wednesday. "The current salary structure is unsustainable," said Joe Cain, chairman of the North Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce, speaking for the nine-member committee, which was appointed in June by the council. "There's no avoiding it. That's where most of the city's budget goes." The committee's recommendations, which were advisory only, included freezing spending, more aggressively recruiting new businesses, reorganizing city functions and avoiding new taxes and fees. It would be "very unfair to saddle the public that's struggling right now … with fee or tax increases to sustain salaries that are double, triple what their household incomes are," Cain said. The city's only option will be to lay off more workers if the city's employee unions don't "come to the table and offer up something," Cain said. "If you address that issue, you address every other issue." He pointed to public safety salaries, noting that city firefighters' salary and benefits packages average $162,000 and that police officers average $156,000 in salaries and benefits. "We all value the work firefighters and police do," he said. But "that's a package that in the private sector you'd have to be an executive or business owner to have." Mayor Shari Buck said that "unless our unions are willing to come along and help us, there's nothing we can do" because union employees are under contract. "As of right now, what they're due is what they're due." But Councilman William Robinson disagreed. "There is something we can do: We can lay some folks off if they don't come to the table," he said. "We as a council have to start being leaders and make those tough decisions even though they hurt." The city is engaged in talks with its three employee unions. The firefighters union agreed in June to give up cost-of-living and merit raises for a year to save the jobs of 16 firefighters. But the city's largest employee union, Teamsters Local 14, in June rejected a proposal to forgo a cost-of-living raise, saying the city could not guarantee it would save jobs long-term. The union also has argued the city could cut expenses elsewhere. North Las Vegas, which has undergone several rounds of budget cuts in the past two years, must still trim $10 million from this year's budget and $42 million from next year's. The city laid off 188 employees in June. And yet, across America, many government workers are getting rich off taxpayer-funded salaries. City managers get free luxury cars, firefighters get half-million-dollar lump payments and, in California, one city worker is being paid $500,000 annually during retirement. In New York state, $100,000 salaries can't be called rich, but at a time when unemployment remains near 10 percent, there are 99,000 state and local workers bringing home six figure salaries. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Tea Party = Flawed Economic Model From: Bobert Date: 07 Oct 10 - 07:50 PM Refreshing ignoring the mental case in the room... |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Tea Party = Flawed Economic Model From: beardedbruce Date: 07 Oct 10 - 08:11 PM Bobert, Your repeated comments attacking a PERSON who has ideas you disagree with are an indication that you have NO valid argument against his point. I would think you might have SOME reason for your opinions, and wish to present them RATHER than to attack an individual. Otherwise, it seems to a reasonable person that YOU have conceded the points that he has presented. Is THAT the case???? |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Tea Party = Flawed Economic Model From: Bobert Date: 07 Oct 10 - 08:36 PM No, bruce... I am merely counterpunching a cyber-stalker who has stalked me for years from one website to another... There is no reason on Earth why I should give him what he wants... He uses this joint as his own personal Bobert obsessive compulsive playground... He interjects stuff that has no relevence to the topics... I short, he is not worth my time because he isn't being honets with either himself or the folks here... Believe you me, I have tried to accomodate his every little obsessive compulsive thread drift and criticisms of me but he has no real job in life other that being my personal irritant... If you think he wins by me ignoring him, fine... He wins... Who the fuck cares... I have a life without having to get sucked into his little mental illness ballgame... (Oh, that sounds personal, Boberdz...) No, I worked for a couple decades with people with mental illnesses of one variety or another and it is my choice to deal with him when he is saner than what we have seen of late and to ignore him when he going thru these things... Tell ya' what, bruce... You get some asshole out there in cyber world stalk and harass you from one place to another and after awhile, for the pure sake of yer own peace, you quit playing their games... Frankly, I have complained to the powers-at-be and they say "tough it out"... If I had the dough I would hire an investigator to find out who this jerk is and pursue criminal or civil charges against him but I don't so... ...I just ignore the nutball... If you think that makes him the winner, fine... Vote for him for God... I really don't give a danged, one way or another... B~ |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Tea Party = Flawed Economic Model From: beardedbruce Date: 07 Oct 10 - 08:42 PM Your call. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Tea Party = Flawed Economic Model From: Bobert Date: 07 Oct 10 - 09:20 PM Yeah, it is... |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Tea Party = Flawed Economic Model From: Sawzaw Date: 07 Oct 10 - 09:47 PM Personal attacks? Moi? "You have become the proverbial psycho broken record..." "I just ignore the nutball" I have not called you any names like you have called me. Just wrong and I have presented that facts. But you refuse to answer any rational questions and choose to attack the person that asks rather than answer. You call that harassment? Got a question for me? |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Tea Party = Flawed Economic Model From: Sawzaw Date: 07 Oct 10 - 09:52 PM Failed Economic model: Dead people were ineligible to get the payments. But, the report said, there is no provision in the law to recover payments incorrectly sent to dead people. "Based on the failure of the SSA to properly check its records, and Congress' failure to fully think through the provisions needed to govern these payments, SSA lost $22.3 million in American tax dollars," 72,000 stimulus payments went to dead people Associated press More than 89,000 stimulus payments of $250 each went to people who were either dead or in prison, a government investigator says in a new report. The payments, which were part of last year's massive economic recovery package, were meant to increase consumer spending to help stimulate the economy. But about $18 million went to nearly 72,000 people who were dead, according to the report by the Social Security Administration's inspector general. The report estimates that a little more than half of those payments were returned. An additional $4.3 million went to more than 17,000 prison inmates, the report said. Most of the inmates, it turns out, were eligible to get the payments because they were newly incarcerated and had been receiving Social Security before they were locked up. In all, the $250 payments were sent to about 52 million people who receive either Social Security or Supplemental Security Income, at a cost of about $13 billion. Other federal retirees also received the payments, but they were not part of the inspector general's review. Social Security spokesman Mark Lassiter said, "Inaccurate payments are unacceptable. Social Security's Recovery Act payments were 99.8 percent accurate and we quickly collected the majority of the inaccurate payments. Each year we make payments to a small number of deceased recipients usually because we have not yet received reports of their deaths." The inspector general for the Social Security Administration has been performing an audit to make sure no checks went to ineligible recipients. The latest report was dated Sept. 24 but was just recently posted to the agency's website. People were eligible for payments if they were getting benefits during any one of the three months before the law was passed in February 2009. Dead people were ineligible to get the payments. But, the report said, there is no provision in the law to recover payments incorrectly sent to dead people. "Based on the failure of the SSA to properly check its records, and Congress' failure to fully think through the provisions needed to govern these payments, SSA lost $22.3 million in American tax dollars," said Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla. "These findings are yet another example of congressional stupidity and a lack of accountability." The Social Security Administration said that despite tight deadlines, workers accurately processed more than 99.8 percent of the 52 million stimulus payments. "We worked with Treasury, developed new processes, and began issuing (payments) about 30 days earlier than the legislatively mandated deadline," the agency said in a written response included in the inspector general's report. "This was a major accomplishment for our agency." The inspector general's report said that if similar payments are authorized in the future, prison inmates should be ineligible and the government should be able to recover payments made to dead people. The Social Security Administration agreed with the recommendations. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Tea Party = Flawed Economic Model From: The Fooles Troupe Date: 08 Oct 10 - 01:46 AM "Sawzaw"'s comments do not discuss any 'model', nor give any 'flaws' with that model but give examples of 'corruption' - any model cam be corrupted - this by itself is not a failure of that 'model'. Human beings can be wonderful, but as I have also been the target of genuine diagnosed psychos, I can comment that they are not part of the 'model human being' - they are just 'corruptions'. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Tea Party = Flawed Economic Model From: Slag Date: 08 Oct 10 - 02:31 AM Anybody feeling "stimulated" of late? Anyone miss "Voo-Doo" economics yet? Nice thing about facts is you don't need a degreee in Economics to know your wallet is thinner, that you're out of a job, that you 're a victim of CHANGE, and you can believe that! I have no argument to present here. Just consider your position. If you're happy with it, fine, be happy. If not, what else can I say? And that's the way it is, kiddies. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Tea Party = Flawed Economic Model From: Bobert Date: 08 Oct 10 - 07:46 AM Voodoo economics = Supply-side economics, another terrtibly flawed economic model where the lion's share of the wealth is moved to the upper 10% in the hopes that it will "trickle down" to the working/middle class... We've had 30 plus years of it and in those years the working/middle classes' real wages have been stagnant... No other industrialized nation has had such a long run of stagnatedf wages by its working/middle class... Yet, the Repubs and the Tea Party say they want to continue down that road??? Well, I can understand why the politicans want to... Means bigass donations from Boss Hog... The Tea Partiers, however, are dupes shilling for the very same people who clearly have their own agenda that has nuthin' to do with the best interests of these Tea Party dupes... B~ |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Tea Party = Flawed Economic Model From: The Fooles Troupe Date: 08 Oct 10 - 08:53 AM That's the American Way, Bobert.... |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Tea Party = Flawed Economic Model From: Bobert Date: 08 Oct 10 - 10:12 AM What??? An Epsilon society more interested in the #88 car than whether or not they'll have a home next month??? I mean, how moronic can we get??? |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Tea Party = Flawed Economic Model From: GUEST,999 Date: 08 Oct 10 - 10:51 AM Any economic model that incorporates the exploitation of people is a doomed system. Any system that has extremely wealthy people and extremely poor people is a doomed system. Just thought I`d brighten everyone`s day. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Tea Party = Flawed Economic Model From: Sawzaw Date: 08 Oct 10 - 02:12 PM "no provision in the law" "Congress' failure to fully think through the provisions needed" Corruption or an incompetent body of law following a failed economic model? "Voodoo economics = Supply-side economics, another terrtibly flawed economic model" Obama: "What do you think stimulus is?" Answer: Voodoo economics Failed Economic Policy: "if we don't do this right away unemployment will go up over 8%" |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Tea Party = Flawed Economic Model From: Sawzaw Date: 08 Oct 10 - 02:17 PM bigass donations from Boss Hog Soros : $23,581,000 to various 527 groups |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Tea Party = Flawed Economic Model From: Bobert Date: 08 Oct 10 - 02:29 PM First of all, I doubt very seriously if Obama referred to his stimulis bill as "voodoo economics"... Of course, the Repubs have shown that no matter what Obama does they are agsinst it so when the stimulis saves or creates a couple million jobs the Repubs just scream "not so" as if by6 screaming that makes it any less yet another Repub BIGASS LIE!!! Only flat earth so-called economists go along with that lie... The real economists will tell ya that the Repubs lie is just that: a lie!!! But nuthin' new 'cause the Repubs have learned that most of their base isn't concerned with, ahhhh, the truth or reality... As for the unemployement??? Yeah, back when the predictions were made there was thinking that the unemployement would cap at 8 to 9%... Reality has set in and what we are seein' is a concerted effort by the corporations to push their employees harder and harder, not make the new-hires and hope to get to November with a Repub take-over thinking that the few "changes" that have occured in terms of regs will be voided and it will ba back to the failed system that got US here... Meanwhile, looks as if these corporation are pouring cash into attack ads against Dems without having to say who they are??? Hmmmmmmm??? I mean, even an accused has the right to face the accuser... But thanks to the legislative mood of the Alito/Roberts Court we now have complete secrecy for corporations to buy up as much government as they need to keep the rich getting richer and everyone else goig backwards... BTW, over the last 30 years the candidate who spend the most wins 90% of the time... Do the math... B~ |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Tea Party = Flawed Economic Model From: beardedbruce Date: 08 Oct 10 - 02:46 PM "BTW, over the last 30 years the candidate who spend the most wins 90% of the time... Do the math... " So, you agree that Obama should not have been elected, except that he spent twice as much??? Or do you only object when the people YOU dislike are spending the money? |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Tea Party = Flawed Economic Model From: The Fooles Troupe Date: 08 Oct 10 - 06:38 PM Why get upset just because he outsmarted them at their own game? :-) |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Tea Party = Flawed Economic Model From: beardedbruce Date: 08 Oct 10 - 06:48 PM Nothing wrong with raising more funds - FOR EITHER SIDE. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Tea Party = Flawed Economic Model From: Sawzaw Date: 09 Oct 10 - 12:04 AM The Federal Election Commission has fined one of the last cycle's biggest liberal political action committees $775,000 for using unregulated soft money to boost John Kerry and other Democratic candidates during the 2004 elections. America Coming Together (ACT) raised $137 million for its get-out-the-vote effort in 2004, but the FEC found most of that cash came through contributions that violated federal limits. The group's big donors included George Soros, Progressive Corp. chairman Peter Lewis and the Service Employees International Union. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Tea Party = Flawed Economic Model From: Sawzaw Date: 09 Oct 10 - 12:12 AM A Pakistani businessman accused of illegally funnelling tens of thousands of dollars to the political campaigns of US senators Hillary Clinton and Barbara Boxer surrendered to the FBI on a year-old indictment on Tuesday, then collapsed in Los Angeles federal court, Los Angeles Times reported on Wednesday. Looking tired and disoriented, Abdul Rehman Jinnah, 56, complained of chest pains and began shaking an hour into a contentious bond hearing before US Magistrate Judge Patrick J Walsh. The judge interrupted the hearing for nearly 30 minutes while paramedics attended to Jinnah. After Jinnah's condition was stabilised and he was taken to a local hospital for an examination, Walsh set bond at $300,000. The drama unfolded shortly after Jinnah, who has a history of heart problems and diabetes, flew back to the US from Pakistan to answer charges by a grand jury that he engineered illicit donations to Ms Clinton's political action committee and Ms Boxer's 2004 re-election campaign. Officials from both campaigns have said they were unaware of the alleged wrongdoing and returned the contributions. At Tuesday's hearing, Assistant US Attorney Dennis Mitchell urged the judge to deny Jinnah bond, arguing that he was a tremendous flight risk with a long history of financial misconduct that included five bankruptcy filings that had been dismissed by the courts. Mitchell said authorities suspected that Jinnah returned to the US to face federal charges only because the government had initiated travel restrictions that made it increasingly difficult for the businessman to travel overseas. He could flee again if he believes he will be imprisoned, Mitchell said. But Jinnah's attorney, former federal prosecutor Douglas Fuchs, said that was absurd, noting that his client had voluntarily surrendered and faced only one to two years in prison if convicted. Born in Pakistan, Jinnah immigrated to the US in the late 1980s and settled in Northridge. Over the next decade, he tried his hand at a string of businesses and left a trail of angry creditors and former business partners. But by 2004, Jinnah had positioned himself as a point man who could help the Democratic Party tap the increasingly affluent Pakistani American community for campaign funds. He and his family personally contributed $122,000 to Democratic candidates and organisations that year and held events for Ms Clinton and Ms Boxer at his home. Stuart Schoenburg, 76, a Tarzana television producer charged as Jinnah's co-conspirator, has pleaded guilty to a misdemeanour count and is awaiting sentencing. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Tea Party = Flawed Economic Model From: Slag Date: 09 Oct 10 - 10:34 PM Nothing succeeds like success. So If the economy still hasn't turned around and unemployment is worse than ever, what IS the difference between "Voo-doo" economics and "Obamanomics"? Not two cents, or a plug nickle's worth of difference between them. And personally, I was better off during the Reagan administration. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Tea Party = Flawed Economic Model From: Donuel Date: 10 Oct 10 - 01:54 AM You can NOT beat sawz logic. Do not even try. Jobs in America will only return when it becomes even cheaper to employ Americans than to hire Chinese, Cambodians, Phillipnos or Indonesians. Thats why a minimum wage will always be unsustainable. The livable wage is a myth and hasn't existed for 30 years in the USA. The Commies were purged from American workforce and goverment by heros like Father Flannagan and Joe McCarthy who were pioneers to ridding America of the scourge of the Communist quote "livable wage". The minimum wage brought this country to its knees, not Wall St. financiers. The minumum wage is simply a bonus we simply can not afford. The average family of 7 working at $1.30 an hour will make more money than one person working for today's minimum wage! That is of course once those crazy self defeating liberal child labor laws get repealed. The beauty of the new wage structure is that the US will no longer attract the illegal flies from across the boreder that were eating our picnic. Then and only then, along with the abolition of all unions, will business in America return with a vengence. Don't forget, the business of America is business, its not Social Security or Medicare or Welfare or giving racist entitlements to ghetto tramps. The only patriots who understand this are the white Christians who founded this country and continue to operate all its businesses. All others are aliens or traitors to the ideals of Real Americans. The White Power structure of Christian America will take care of those who may be in true need. However if those in need are slovenly and poor due to their own laziness and indolence they deserve whatever happens to them. That is why nearly half of all those in prison are urban ghetto trash. The industrious ants will inherit the wealth this nation while the lazy grasshopper will perish in the cold of winter. So honor every man woman and CHILD who are willing to build America back to its former glory with wages comparable to the wages of 1930. This is when all our greatest modern landmarks were built like the Hoover Dam and the Empire State Building. As for other nations helping us to defeat the Socialists in this country, more power to them. In the Revolutionary war we had help from the Prussians and even France before it became a nation of fags. This is a war against the progressive communists and any help is welcome, be it from Bahrain or Saudi Arabia or India or China etc. Until this country gets its wages down to a sustainable level we need to outsource every American job possible to sustain our compassionate green corporations. Until we hear Mr. Barry Obama apologize to BP you can be assured that he is nothing more than an anti colonial Socialist redistributing your wealth to bleed our patriotic businesses dry. '''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''' With logic like that, why would you even bother trying to argue with sawz, or his ilk. Sawz right wing party line, like stupidity, can not be beaten or reasoned with. It is the bedrock of this great nation. None the less, you should never allow anyone to steal and change your history, defile your young with less education or steal everything you spent a lifetime to sustain yourself and your American family. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Tea Party = Flawed Economic Model From: Sawzaw Date: 10 Oct 10 - 02:27 AM You are putting words in my mouth. For one thing I have advocated a higher minimum wage of $10, Maybe higher. I assume you are accusing me of being against a minimum wage amongst other things but your rant is so laced with hatred and anger and dripping with sarcasm that it is difficult to determine exactly what you are saying. I have stated my opinion that we should stop buying goods made in China but you seem to indicate I think otherwise. Do you act on assumptions or do you bother to find the out facts first? |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Tea Party = Flawed Economic Model From: Sawzaw Date: 10 Oct 10 - 12:01 PM PS: I am also for letting the tax cuts for the top income earners expire. I would like to see a curve instead of the stairsteps in the rates that we have now. Did you ever get a raise only to find out your take home shrank? There should be a curve that steepens and ones income increases. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Tea Party = Flawed Economic Model From: GUEST,Bobert, on the road... Date: 10 Oct 10 - 08:47 PM Nah, Slag... The problem is that it took 30 years of supply-side, trickle down economics to get US here and any one who thinks we can get out in a year or two, or even 4 years is very naive... Kinda like going to the doctor and he say's, "Geeze, Slag... Yer purdy sick and it's gonna take a couple months to get you back health" but then after a couple weeks you quit takin' the pills he prescribes and strap on a couple leeches... Throw in 40% of the government that is so steeped in hate and desire to get back on the corporate feed bag that they are willing to sabotage the well being of the country then expecting Obama to turn a 30 year systemic problem in the basic economy is not at all fair... B~ |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Tea Party = Flawed Economic Model From: Sawzaw Date: 14 Oct 10 - 12:44 AM History starts at 30 years for Bobert. He conveniently forgets the wonderful Carter years. And he never mentions bracket creep. maybe it's over his head. But then his history picks up again at 50 years when he was in his glory. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Tea Party = Flawed Economic Model From: Sawzaw Date: 14 Oct 10 - 12:46 AM Is this a flawed economic model Bobert? "We have tried spending money. We are spending more than we have ever spent before and it does not work" -Henry Morgenthau Jr. (Secretary of the Treasury to President Franklin D. Roosevelt) |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Tea Party = Flawed Economic Model From: Bobert Date: 14 Oct 10 - 08:48 AM The wonderful Carter years were a mess, Sawz... Interest rates were driven thru the roof... The Iranian hostage situation hung over the nation like a black cloud...OPEC flexed it's muscles... Yeah. lotta bad stuff went down... But, in spite of the misery, Carter believed in fiscal responsibility and reduced the deficit every year he was in office... He also tried to get "cpnsumer nation" to change it's attitude toward a culture of "unlimited resources" to one of "limited resources" but just ran outtta time with too much negative stuff, not much of his doing, that plauged the country at the time he was in the White House... This allowed Ronald "Charge it" Reagan to enjoy a recovery that was based on the same economic theory (deficit spending) that Obama used with the "stimulis"... But more importantly, Reagan went further... He wrongly told the nation that the reason for the recovery was less government regs and greater corporate participation in government... That was where the country began down the slippery slope toward where we find ourselves today... B~ |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Tea Party = Flawed Economic Model From: pdq Date: 14 Oct 10 - 10:12 AM Stuck on 1968By Arnold Kling "Worldviews are more a mental security blanket than a serious effort to understand the world."-- Bryan Caplan, The Logic of Collective Belief Most people who were liberals in 1968 still are. Liberals. In 1968. Recently, economist Jim Miller used the term moral free riding to describe adopting a precarious ideological position when it has little personal risk. George Mason University economics professor Bryan Caplan says that such free riding is the normal state of affairs. He argues that people are insulated from the consequences of their beliefs by the fact that the typical voter has a low probability of influencing the outcome of an election. Caplan, in a book that eventually is to be published by Princeton University Press, argues that most people do not work very hard to arrive at worldviews that are logically consistent and factually supported, because the reward for rational beliefs is too small. He writes: "we should expect people to...believe whatever makes them feel best. After all, it's free. The fanatical protectionist who votes to close the borders risks virtually nothing, because the same policy wins no matter how he votes." Of course, I may be as guilty as anyone of believing whatever makes me feel best. But I believe that I have put considerable effort into examining and correcting my worldview. I am no longer a liberal (in the contemporary sense of the term), because my calendar did not get stuck on 1968. If 1968 were an influential thinker, it would have many disciples who share its folk beliefs. Those folk beliefs are the mental security blanket still being clutched by my liberal friends, even those who are not old enough to remember 1968. I want to contrast the way the world might have appeared to a reasonable liberal in 1968 with the way events have unfolded since then. Afterwards, if you still prefer the folk beliefs of 1968 to my views today, so be it. But at least you have an opportunity to reconsider. The Conventional Wisdom The Conventional Wisdom among well-educated liberals in 1968 included the following: • Anti-Communism was a greater menace than Communism. • The planet could not possibly support the population increases that would take place by the end of the twentieth century. • Conservatives stood in the way of progress for minorities. • Government programs were the best way to lift people out of poverty. • What underdeveloped countries needed were large capital investments, financed by foreign aid from the rich countries. • Inflation was a cost-push phenomenon, requiring government intervention in wage and price setting. The degree of confidence in these beliefs was so strong that liberals in 1968 came to the overriding conclusion that: • Anyone who is not a liberal must be incorrigibly stupid Given the state of knowledge in 1968, I can understand why an intelligent person might have believed in the Conventional Wisdom at that time. However, since 1968, considerable evidence has accumulated that challenges the Conventional Wisdom. In some cases, the evidence turned out to be so overwhelming that beliefs were quietly discarded from the Conventional Wisdom. A rational response to this record of powerful evidence against the Conventional Wisdom might be to reconsider one's views, as I have done. Instead, it seems to me that liberals have become more close-minded and more dogmatic. In 1968, liberals thought that that Communism could work reasonably well for some countries. The Soviet Union was thought to be ahead of us in engineering. Many liberal intellectuals considered Communism a viable option for achieving development in the Third World. A reader of Noam Chomsky's article in the August 13, 1970 New York Review of Books would have thought that North Vietnam's regime, while not perfect, was closer to the ideal than any other existing government. Anti-Communism, on the other hand, was seen by the Conventional Wisdom as only a pretext for misbegotten wars and hysterical blacklists of Hollywood screenwriters. Since 1968, we have seen: • a mass exodus from Communist Vietnam (the boat people) • a large exodus from Cuba (the Mariel boat lift) • the collapse of Soviet Communism, revealing that the system did much broader and deeper damage than most people realized • an unmistakably large gap between North Korea and South Korea in terms of material well-being and personal freedom In 1968, the Conventional Wisdom was that we would see mass starvation in another decade or two. It was still the conventional wisdom a dozen years later, when Julian Simon wrote a contrarian book arguing that population was The Ultimate Resource. Among economists, Simon's views have gained adherents, and almost no economist believes that food scarcity is a material threat (although politically-induced famines are still possible). In 1968, we were just a few years removed from the passage of Civil Rights legislation that ended Jim Crow segregation in the South. Conservatives had opposed the Civil Rights movement, and were caught on the wrong side of history. Rather than declare victory, the Civil Rights movement declared perpetual war. Meanwhile, policies that might really help minorities, such as school vouchers to release them from the obligation to attend failed public schools, have become anathema to liberals. Another perpetual war that began in the 1960's was the War on Poverty. The programs that were enacted in the name of this war had little effect. Nonetheless, poverty had been greatly reduced over the past forty years, thanks to economic growth and the escalation of income. Arguably, government welfare programs served only to corrupt the poor. In the case of foreign aid, a consensus is in fact emerging that aid serves to entrench corrupt governments. Instead, the keys to prosperity are institutional more than material. Friedman on the Fringe In 1968, Milton Friedman was on the fringe of respectability. His Presidential Address to the American Economic Association in 1967 could not have been more defiant of the conventional wisdom. At that time, economists thought that the economy could be "fine tuned" by government to achieve any desirable unemployment rate, with a "trade-off" that allegedly involved accepting higher inflation. Inflation, in turn, could be curbed by government action to control, or at least influence, the price- and wage-setting decisions of private firms. Friedman argued instead that there is a "natural rate" of unemployment to which the economy will tend, regardless of how government manipulates aggregate demand. He warned that attempts to use monetary and fiscal policy to drive the unemployment rate lower would only result in ever-accelerating rates of inflation. Moreover, he argued that the only cure for inflation was control over the rate of growth of the money supply. In 1968, Friedman's views were far from the mainstream. When Paul Samuelson wrote an article for the Canadian Journal of Economics on "What Classical and Neoclassical Economic Theory Really Was," he sneered that for modern economists trying to understand monetarism was like being a farmer who had lost his jackass and having to ask, "If I were a jackass, where would I go?" In short, Samuelson considered Friedman a jackass. About this time, "fine tuning" began to fail, and inflation started to rise, just as Friedman had predicted. In 1971, President Nixon tried the Conventional Wisdom and adopted wage and price controls. The results proved disastrous. Finally, in 1979, President Carter in desperation allowed a new Federal Reserve Chairman, Paul Volcker, to attempt the monetarist cure for inflation. The result was successful. Today, it is Milton Friedman's views that are conventional wisdom, and the 1960's Keynesians who are the jackasses. For me, seeing this unfold (I was a freshman economics major when President Nixon tried wage-price controls in 1971, and I was a newly-minted Ph.D in economics working at the Fed in the early 1980's) was a major life experience. Somehow, many liberal economists of my generation managed to forget they ever believed in wage-price controls and hang on to the rest of their Conventional Wisdom security blanket. But I also noticed the other ways in which the Conventional Wisdom failed to match reality. Do conservatives make mistakes? Yes. Do liberals always get things wrong? No. But if I were still a liberal, I would want to be aware of -- and correct for -- a number of biases in thinking. One bias is what Caplan terms in his book "pessimistic bias." People (not just liberals) tend to underestimate recent economic progress and future prospects. Pessimistic bias can be seen in doomsday environmental scenarios, claims that middle-class incomes are stagnating, and other liberal tropes. Another bias is what Caplan calls anti-market bias. Liberals are excessively distrustful of markets and overly confident about the use of government power. The assumption is that government power will always be administered with wisdom and benevolence. I would be the first to admit that markets are not perfect. And government programs are not always failures. But liberals exaggerate market failures and overstate government successes. Anti-market bias leads people to concede government too much power, with liberals actively cheering government expansion. Another bias is the view that other people cannot be trusted to make their own decisions. Liberals who send their own children to private school believe that poor families should not be allowed to make the same choice. Liberals make their own choices regarding health care, but they believe that others should have their health care decisions made for them by government. I admit to having the opposite inclination. I do not believe that government can be trusted to make better decisions for individuals than individuals can make for themselves. It seems to me that if liberals had paid attention since 1968 rather than remaining in an ideological deep freeze, they would have seen the evidence that took me along the path to libertarianism. {Arnold Kling is author of Learning Economics.} |
