3 minutes ago, bristolboy said:

You agree that sound economic policy is countercyclical but you also agree with that economist from the St. Louis Fed? How does that work?

It works when your baseline is a balanced budget. But if it's deficits all the time, what's the counter cyclicality of that? It's just deficits on deficits.

24 minutes ago, bristolboy said:

You're citing one outlier economist who happens to work at the St. Louis Fed. So no, it's not what the St. Louis Fed says at all. Just the opinion of one economist. (And in the future, don't ask others to look up what you assert.) And it's certainly not what the world's leading economists say. IGM, which is connected the University of Chicago, a redoubt of conservative economic theory, polled these economists. Here's  a link to the results.:

 https://research.chicagobooth.edu/igm/economic-experts-panels

 

And I don't understand your reasoning. Why would averting massive layoffs in government not be effective? Did you know that Milton Friedman's idea to stop a financial recession/depression was just having helicopters shower money on the populace? This is just a slightly more targeted version of that.

C'mon man, we've had this conversation multiple times and I've always posted the links in the past and you've just acknowledged that you've read them so why shoud I keep doing that?.

7 minutes ago, bendejo said:

There is also some unpleasantness about McConnell making a deal with Rusal to build an aluminum plant in his state to bring up his cred for his own 2020 re-election.

The US press has turned a deaf ear to this scandal.

https://www.politicususa.com/2019/04/15/mitch-mcconnell-gets-his-russia-payoff-as-oligarch-to-invest-200-million-in-kentucky.html

 

Is there any question as to why he is so open to foreign interference in US elections?  I thought they hang people for this this kind of stuff.  The US is hitting bottom: corrupt WH, corrupt Senate, compromised Justice Dept, and treason with foreign actors all around.  And during the Cold War it was the GOP saying it would be the Dems/left who would sell out the country.  Well, surprise surprise!  The US is going full-fascist, and selling out to a bigger fascist.  Great again, baby!

 

 

Sayin' and doin' aren't really the same thing. Yeah, they'd love to invest in these places if they could be sure the EPA would roll over, but that ain't necessarily so. Most John Grisham novels are instructive here. And of course the tort lawyers will be all lined up.

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/07/25/joe-manchin-questions-chinas-84-billion-investment-in-west-virginia.html

10 minutes ago, candide said:

Sound economic policy is countercyclical.

It is as stupid for Trump to increase budget deficit during a period of natural growth as it was for the EU to reduce budget deficit during a period of quasi recession.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/annemarieknott/2019/02/21/why-the-tax-cuts-and-jobs-act-tcja-led-to-buybacks-rather-than-investment/#6ef4291137fb

I agree with you.

On 7/25/2019 at 6:09 AM, bristolboy said:

No. Not correct. For lots of reasons. If you're in a severe recession or depression, demand is way down. That's because everyone is cutting back on spending. Eventually after x number of years, things will finally start to recover. But as we learned from the EU's experiment with the so called "expansionary austerity, you actually lose more in total from lost tax receipts due to downward pressure on the economy  by practicing austerity in a recession/depression, than if you had engaged in purposeful deficit spending."

 

Why would Keynes only be effective from a balanced budget baseline?

 

As I've mentioned many times before, the so called stimulus from the federal government during the past recession was not really stimulus at all. The bulk of it was grants to states, counties and cities, which were not directed to spend the money in any stimulative fashion at all and were thus fungible. Given that, the money was spent in large part just to maintain their already approved budgetary spending, the bulk of which was payroll. The St. Louis Fed has written extensively on this. They're takeaway is that the stimulative affect was negligible, and that the debt created only robbed from future demand. You can look it up.

If I was 20 years old, I'd probably stick 20% of my future retirement money in the Mexican stock market. But things are kinda bumpy now.

All red meat, all the time.

The irony of course, is, that not only is the US not the Black Hands here but that the US president would gladly betray these brave people if it could somehow change the news cycle away from his own ongoing despicable behaviour.

12 minutes ago, bristolboy said:

Yes, great jobs for the 10 percent. What's your point?

Well, that was my point.

6 minutes ago, candide said:

 

Nice try!

Obama applied a sound budget policy: increase budget deficit to fight a crisis and then reduce budget deficit. During his last term the debt increase was 1.5 trillion less than Trump.

 

During a period of worldwide growth, Trump has increased debt as much as (likely more than) Obama did during his first term in order to fight a crisis. Around 5 trillion.

There are couple of things one can point to when considering the decline of America. One would be when they stopped calling us citizens in favor of calling us consumers. The other was when they tried to confuse people by saying the deficit was declining or the rate at which it was expanding was declining, instead of speaking about a non existant decrease (expansion) of the national debt. It's getting to be a pretty significant budget items these days, even with the historically low interest rates.

5 minutes ago, bristolboy said:

I wouldn't know what makes a Democrat? I guess that puts me in the company of most Democrats then. For example: Majorities of Democrats favor raising taxes on those making over $250,000 (56 percent), $1 million (81 percent), and $10 million (85 percent).
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/fox-news-poll-voters-favor-taxing-the-wealthy-increasing-domestic-spending
And what even funnier, as far as taxes go, it even puts me in the company of a majority of Republicans in one case and a plurality in another:
"A majority of 59 percent opposes tax hikes on incomes over $250,000, while a 54 percent majority favors increases on incomes over $10 million.  For incomes over $1 million, GOP views split:  47 favor vs. 43 oppose."
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/fox-news-poll-voters-favor-taxing-the-wealthy-increasing-domestic-spending
Are those Republicans also supporters of communism and socialism?

And Democrats overwhelmingly continues to support that rise in taxes. Kennedy cut the top tax rate from 91% to 70% and others by 20% across the board. And that's pretty much where it stayed until Ronald Reagan began slashing taxes on the richest.
And then Bush slashed them some more, and then Trump.

And you are clearly ignorant of the fact that Democrats always strongly supported a progressive income tax. Which it isn't anymore. As Warren Buffet pointed out something's wrong when he's paying a lower percentage of his income in taxes than is his secretary?

 
And I noticed you completely avoided the question of deficit spending in the face of an economic crisis.  You know, Keynes and such. So who is it who doesn't know what he's talking about.
And there's a reason that moderators don't like it when you make allegations about other posters' nationalities. It says nothing about what those allegedly foreign posters know.. Same kind of mindset that tells people to go back where they came from. Not surprising coming from you. It is after all, what the ignorant commonly resort to when reasoning fails them.
 

 

 

 

Deficit spending in the face of an economic crisis only means something if the government is otherwise balancing the budget. It doesn't mean a GD thing if every single year, regardless of the condition of the economy it engages in deficit spending. Keynes is only relevant if you start from a balanced budget baseline, and if you do then sure, deficit spending in times of economic contraction makes a lot of sense. But if it's just deficits upon deficits all you're really doing is stealing from future demand. That's Econ. 101. Maybe 102 if you took Micro first.

4 minutes ago, bristolboy said:

 

What an asinine and irrelevant thing to say.  I guess when you've got nothing try to make it personal. And well paying jobs are abundant in America?

Well paying jobs seem to be abundant in those fields that seek to make other people jobless in the future. Still there's plenty of other jobs at point of sale. You know, like Europe, where they have 60 year old busboys. Unfortunately America doesn't have all the other "socialist" programs that allow someone to work at a job like that and still survive for long.

3 minutes ago, bristolboy said:

The 10% speaks. 

As for the rest...

The Great Recession Is Still With Us

"All together, the effect was that the Great Recession hastened the economy toward rewarding better-educated workers and robots, to the detriment of people without an advanced degree.

These changes in the demand for work and the jobs available have caused income inequality to be worse now than it would have been otherwise. Indeed, the rich have rebounded completely from the recession in terms ofunemployment, earnings, and total job count—they did so quickly, in fact, and have flourished through much of the recovery."

https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2017/12/great-recession-still-with-us/547268/

I'm not sure why you still can't find a job. There's a HELP WANTED sign in practically every business in America. If all you can find is minimum wage we will subsidize both you and your employer.

19 minutes ago, Srikcir said:

No, it's REAL history.

• The Great Recession began in December 2007 and ended in June 2009, which makes it the longest recession since World War II. Beyond its duration, the Great Recession was notably severe in several respects. Real gross domestic product (GDP) fell 4.3 percent from its peak in 2007Q4 to its trough in 2009Q2, the largest decline in the postwar era (based on data as of October 2013). The unemployment rate, which was 5 percent in December 2007, rose to 9.5 percent in June 2009, and peaked at 10 percent in October 2009.
• Home prices fell approximately 30 percent, on average, from their mid-2006 peak to mid-2009, while the S&P 500 index fell 57 percent from its October 2007 peak to its trough in March 2009. The net worth of US households and nonprofit organizations fell from a peak of approximately $69 trillion in 2007 to a trough of $55 trillion in 2009.

The Great Recession by Robert Rich, Federal Reserve Bank of New York

https://www.federalreservehistory.org/essays/great_recession_of_200709

Right, but my point was that it didn't affect most Americans, which is true. It didn't affect me at all, except to make things that were well overpriced safe to buy. If you're going to talk about the Great Recession as an historical fact it would be honest to talk about the great stupidity and unlawfullness that preceded it. I hope some people learned their lessons, but I doubt it, since almost all of the unscrupulous benificiaries of that period went unpunished.

2 minutes ago, bristolboy said:

Well if you believe what Democrats believed going all the way back to Roosevelt, then you would be supporting much higher higher taxes on the wealthy, not complaining about it. Those Democrats believed in a strongly progressive income tax.

 

And your complaints about Obama adding 8.5 trillion to the national debt are also ludicrous. It was Roosevelt who first applied Keynesian principles and ran up a big debt. Like Obama he was faced with an economic catastrophe.

 

Yours is just more concern trolling You pretend to have once been a Democrat, to make your comments more believable. But given your stance on these issues, your claim is clearly false. 

The so called "Great Recession" was merely a marketing term. While it's true that some people suffered through this period; most especially those who overpaid for homes or acceded to predatory lending life was m/l normal for the great majority of people. Not so during the Depression which changed peoples lives over generations, both for good and for ill.

1 hour ago, zydeco said:

This sickening liar is now crawling on his fat belly to plead for a trade deal. Any deal, as long as it keeps the bubble inflated on his precious, his stock market. That is why he promised Xi not to criticize the Communist tyrant for the HK crackdown. Anywhere there's a dictator, there's a friend of Trump.

He'd throw those HK'ers under the bus in a NY minute. He should be pelted with garbage, the cocksucker.

1 hour ago, grumbleweed said:

The USA interfere and try to cause political unrest in another country? Get away!

 

I hear ya, but I don't think that's the case here. Shocking, I know.

On 7/21/2019 at 6:34 PM, heybruce said:

You brought up the travel ban when I posted the above.  My post is about hate-filled words.  Trump is full of them.

 

"Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen said at a June 18 press briefing: “The Obama administration, the Bush administration all separated families. … They did — their rate was less than ours, but they absolutely did do this. This is not new.”"  https://www.factcheck.org/2018/06/did-the-obama-administration-separate-families/

 

Trump's own people concede it is happening more under Trump than his predecessors.  However, once again, I brought up family separation with regards to the accusation that the four congresswomen were "hate filled".  Have they been advocating family separation?

I would be in favor of eliminating the Department of Homeland Security. There are more than enough agencies to deal with security matters; they just need sorting back to the correct department. That would make for much better oversight.

29 minutes ago, Bundooman said:

the video gave them the look of avarice and enthusiasm........ worrying, eh? would they do that in my house when I die?

Yes, they will.

7 hours ago, pegman said:

So like, what happened to all those tea-baggers? Their cause sure didn't go away. It's more enormous than ever. Did they just die off? Should a search party be sent out?

Here's the thing I never understood about the so called "Tea Party". They're not against spending, they're only against paying for what they have spent. They're deadbeats. That's not to say a lot of people who are in favor of spending a lot have ever paid a dime for the money they wish other people would spend, on them particularly.

Me, I paid 22% of my income in FIT and State IT last year (after a ton of write offs). I'm a member of the 10%. I get absolutely no return on the taxes I pay. No health care, which we're afraid to actually use (that's an additional $22,000 -$35,000 dollars p/a), no anything.

I would be a moderate Democrat if there were such a thing anymore. Most candidates posturing as moderate Democrats are merely moderate Republicans (anyone remember those) by another name . Instead I support the Progressive wing of the Democrat party. I figure they'll accomplish about 10% of what they may set out to do, hopefully for the benefit of all Americans and not just the particular identity niches they've carved out.

Asians love to gamble. I remember two Chinese crew members once betting their paychecks over which of two bowls of sugar at each end of a long table a fly would land on first. Once in SingaporeI I saw two Chinese gambling which of two raindrops on a window pane would make it to the bottom of the window pane first.

Quote

 

Why the GOP keeps losing the fight in budget deals

 

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/07/23/why-gop-keeps-losing-budget-deal-fights.html

 

3 minutes ago, Thainesss said:

 

 

 

And there isn't a republican candidate out there that can beat the Dems and has the support of the big money in politics. I would vote for satan himself before allowing the left to destroy the country, its constitution, and its sovereignty anymore than they already have, and openly plan to do if given the power to do so. 

Well, you know what Bob said:

"In the home of the brave, Jefferson turnin' over in his grave
Fools glorifying themselves, trying to manipulate Satan
And there's a slow, slow train comin' up around the bend"