When Will The Media, & The Left Admit Obama & The Dems Are Failures?
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110107/ap_ … us_economy
Their economic and social policies are destroying this country and our economy and yet they get a pass! The unemployment results today are just further PROOF Keynesian economics is a farce, an illusion, a fairy tale, and BS in plain English, but this has been shown to be the case before and yet the democrats KEEP insisting on reverting to these foolish and failed policies that lack common sense!The media will never admit he is a failure, they propped him up and will continue to do so as long as they can.
Did you hear the woman who fired Juan Williams at NPR was fired yesterday?
Of course one of the progressives on HP will correct me with "she resigned".
After an independent investigation into NPR she resigned, her boss won't receive a scheduled bonus.
De-funding NPR is on the Congressional to-do list.For anyone who needs an example how irrational the American wingnut is... Unemployment for Dec. DECREASED from 9.8 to 9.4 percent.
But that's good except to a wingnut. Good news like that must be discredited at once.
Wignuts are unhappy that Obama's approval rate is climbing. So they crank up the noise machine.Don't forget that we're all supposed to hate Nancy Pelosi, because...um...yeah, we just need to hate Nancy Pelosi. She's a monster!
The main reason for the decrease? People gave up looking for work and they aren't counted! Worse private sector job creation grew only 103K that's less then the 200K economists expected and far below the 125K needed EVERY MONTH in order to keep the unemployment rate stable, IE just to keep up with population growth.... to get the rate down we'll need upwards of 200K jobs per month. Granted, things aren't getting worse but after 5 trillion in spending you'd think they'd be getting better... but of course to you liberals we didn't spend enough! Well how much debt is enough? How much money does the government have to print? According to you and other Keynesian economists like Pelosi unemployment is stimulus, so why not have the government just hire everyone and pay us all over 250,000 so that they could tax us all as rich? Wouldn't we then be the most prosperous country on the planet? Think about it, that's pretty much an extension of what you liberals are advocating! Can you see how ridiculous that sounds?
you might want to realize here that 125,000 jobs is going to stop jobs disappearing elsewhere, there is more money flowing, more money to support other businesses and that means less redundancies, less companies going under. If you had actually read my last post and grasped teh theory of economics that you keep arguing against you might have not gone ahead with this argument.
But since you seem to be so knowledgeable about your economic standpoint, regardless of the fact that you have not given any real argument other than repeat the word 'Economy' without connecting it to an actual valid link about your argument, maybe you could go ahead and tell us how you aquired a knowledge of economics, Did you study it at university, did you work as an economic consultant, or even in an economic projection career?Oli, how many times do you need telling that the best way to stimulate the economy is to give people less money to spend, not more!
Well,that's what I keep getting told so it must be right.
Conservative presidents will always have an uphill battle thanks to the largely liberal mainstream media.
The media practically fell all over themselves (no doubt due to those thrills and tingles running up their legs) to get Obama elected. Obviously they don't want to see him fail.
But give it time, if things continue to tank, there are certain factions that will turn on the man. It happened to Clinton...it will happen to the Community Organizer as well....>"Conservative presidents will always have an uphill battle thanks to the largely liberal mainstream media."<
Perhaps thats the problem. Conservative media is out of the mainstream. It's what we'd call extreme by any comparison. It seems as though any form of non-conservative media is by their definition "liberal mainstream" media whether they are non-partisan or not. Much of the media is neutral. Fox is decidedly right wing. Therefore by their definition all other media is liberal. Conservatives are very insistent on defining people. They are ideolgues. They're what we'd call Identity Philosophers. They do place a value on truth but it's only one of many values and not the most important one. Solidarity to the group is far more important than the truth.
I thought global recession was Prime Minister Gordon Browne's fault, not Obama's!
It's in the DNA of Dems to never give up on their perspective being right. If it fails, they do not think it is due to their principles but that something non-Dem got in their way.
I think you've got it wrong there. I can't speak for all Dems. I'm not one. But if you regard Dems as Liberals then you've definitely got it wrong. First of all liberals don't cling to principles. Conservatives do. I'm sure you find that to be a desirable trait.But is there a more important principle than Truth? So what happens when your principles conflict with Truth? Which is more important to you? Truth or your principles? You may think that your principles are the truth, but can you demonstrate that as being true? No. I doubt it. So..when it comes down to it, are you willing to compromise your principles to embrace truth thereby admitting that your principles can in fact be compromised...or, will you deny truth and cling to your principle knowing that you're living a lie? Assuming that you're a fallible human being like everyone else..what makes you think that your ideology is in-fallible since it's simply the product of fallible human thinking?
I admit that I could be wrong about a host of things. Can you?That's right! It can be said that Liberals do not cling to "principles". I've heard it put that way, too. On the other hand, one could say everyone has some kind of principles, but we can really differ contingent on our ideology and worldview. I agree, there is no principle more important than the Truth and that I am a fallible human being. I'm not sure how you took, though, that I was saying my ideology is in-fallible, or than I can never be wrong. All I was trying to say in response to lady-love is that they Dems think they are right, that they see better than non-Dems so they won't give up - that they don't see their policies as failures, but rather successes. They look through a different grid, so I don't expect them to ever come to a realization that their efforts have failed.
When did the republicans throw up their hands and say they'd got it all wrong?
They're saying it now! They're admitting under Bush they were responsible and that they heard the people and will change their ways.
So far, I'm not convinced. They should NOT have passed that Tax Cut extension with the additional 300 billion in unpaid for stimulus. Hopefully they won't be doing anymore of that or else, they will be gone in 2012!Yes, that's my sense of the situation, too, lady_love. They are being watched closely. Maybe they are trying to show good faith in that they would like to work together to accomplish some things with the Dems, but they can only do so much of that before the grassroots will give up on them come 2012.
The concervatives in the Rep party threw up their hands as lady_love says, with Bush and then after seeing the direction that the Dems have taken the country. They voted against any Rep candidates who didn't hold to conservative principles.
Did you not say this? "It's in the DNA of Dems to never give up on their perspective being right. If it fails, they do not think it is due to their principles but that something non-Dem got in their way."
That's an absolute statement that you presume to be true. You believe that it is. In fact you now add this: "I'm not sure how you took, though, that I was saying my ideology is in-fallible, or than I can never be wrong." You've made an absolute statement of what you consider to be factually true haven't you? Are you certain that what you're saying is true? Or could you be wrong? I've already told you this: "I admit that I could be wrong about a host of things. Can you?" That in itself renders your statement as false.
>"All I was trying to say in response to lady-love is that they Dems think they are right, that they see better than non-Dems so they won't give up - that they don't see their policies as failures, but rather successes. They look through a different grid, so I don't expect them to ever come to a realization that their efforts have failed." < And now you're doing the same thing again. You claim to be fallible and yet you make a statement presumed to be infallibly true. What you seem to fail to grasp is the basic difference between a conservative and a liberal is that the conservative knows that he's right ( as demonstrated by your assertion right here) and the liberal knows that he could be wrong ( as demonstrated by mine) Which one do you think might be closer to the truth?? What you're doing here is presenting yourself as an ideologue. Perhaps you could throw your critical eye on your own ideology to see if can demonstrate itself as true. That is if you agree with what you said here; "I agree, there is no principle more important than the Truth and that I am a fallible human being." So the problem for you is if you know that you are a fallible human being, and that your ideology is a product of fallible human beings than you have to conclude that the possibility exists that it could be wrong. How can an infallible idea come from fallible human beings? It's prone to error. Is it possible that YOU could be wrong? Is it possible that conservatism could be wrong? Try to answer that honestly.So what if I could be wrong? You seem to be wanting me to say either conservativism is completely right, or else it is wrong. I don't live in a black and white world like that.
Don't you? If you assume that your ideology is always right then obviously those things that oppose that ideology must be wrong. This is evidenced by your statement that >"It's in the DNA of Dems to never give up on their perspective being right. If it fails, they do not think it is due to their principles but that something non-Dem got in their way"< That's pretty black and white. It assumes that ALL Dems think a certain way because it's in their DNA, and they uniformly never give up on their perspective of being right. Yet I've already pointed out that ""I admit that I could be wrong about a host of things." That would seem to falsify your statement.
All I'm really saying here is that if truth is the most important factor in how you conduct your life, then don't you owe it to yourself for the sake of intellectual honesty to determine the truth of your very own beliefs? What happens when you find that your ideological beliefs conflict with the truth. Are you willing to compromise those principles for the sake of the truth? Which is more important to you? Truth or your principles?They aren't necessarily the same thing. You may want to believe in something, but that doesn't mean that the belief is the truth. It's simply believing something because it makes you feel good.
One of the biggest problems that I see in the absolue positions that people take is their reliance on authoritarian figures, whether they are talk show hosts or TV personalities, or politicians that generally are expert at pandering to the belief systems that people cling to. In radio and TV there are clear financial motives for creating mountains out of mole hills. Ratings translate into huge amounts of money, and for these people it's a business. I hate to sound cynical about it but the profit motive is undeniably there. What I can never understand is why people who tune into this kind of thing, never seem to ask the most basic question of "Why is what you're saying true?" What is this claim based on? And then what justifies that basis and of course what is the basis for the justification that has been given. Merely accepting what somebody says as true doesn't make it true. Even an expert can be wrong. Look at this debate over the economy. On one side there is Keynes and on the other Hayek and Freidman. All of them experts and Nobel winners, and yet each with a different take on the subject. However if what they're saying makes you feel more comfortable with the ideology that you are attached to, then it becomes real to us.
So...when you say that "You seem to be wanting me to say either conservativism is completely right, or else it is wrong. I don't live in a black and white world like that." you're accepting the fact that conservatism as an ideology could be wrong in it's thinking and it's position. That possibility exists right? I'm not suggesting that you become a liberal or anything like that. I'm merely suggesting that when you're told anything by those that you believe are telling you the truth, you take it one step further and ask...what makes that true? I think if you pursue that approach you'll find that all ideological thinking ultimately collapses on itself, because none of them can demonstrate why they are true.No, I don't.
One of the biggest problems that I see in your responses is the absolue position you take in your reliance on your own belief that you understand and so thoroughly know what I believe, assmue that I don't investigate what is said to be true, and what I would say is right or wrong in any given context.I'm not taking any absolute position. Your statements in your writing say what you believe dont they? Do you write things that you don't believe? The fact is Ms Dee that it is you that is making absolute statements. " I'm the one that has called you on it.
You said this:
"It's in the DNA of Dems to never give up on their perspective being right. If it fails, they do not think it is due to their principles but that something non-Dem got in their way." That is an absolute statement. You are stating that Dems NEVER give up on their perspective of being right. That it's in their DNA. There is no modifier here. Then you claim that I'm making an absolute statement about what you believe. Do you not believe in what you are writing?? I presume that you aren't some post-modern obscurantist that says something and then claims that you didn't say what you said, or mean what you said. You have made an absolute statement about Dems..and that they NEVER ( which is an absolute claim) give up on their perspective of being right. And furthermore that if something fails that it's because something non-Dem got in their way. You have it all figured out in absolute terms. There can be no room for error here. I'm asking you is it possible for you to be wrong about this?? Or is your ideology infallibly correct? I've already told you several times that I'm fully aware of the fact that I could be wrong about a host of things. Instead of looking at what you've said you now claim that I"m the one with a problem about absolutes and knowing what you believe when in fact you write exactly what you believe about Dems and their positions as being intractable because of their DNA. Do you not write clearly and state what you think? What is there that I've missed in what you said that is being misinterpreted??>"assmue that I don't investigate what is said to be true, "<
If you actually do that, then you should be able to demonstrate the truth of it. So do it. Demonstrate why that statement is true.
For many people, this country was destroyed long ago. Do you realize how many people have been living in poverty, and on the streets for years?Oh, gawwwwd.
What makes you think ANY political party would do any better? There is no political strategy, entity or philosophy that is going to appear as a white knight and save you. Why do you think that congress keeps bouncing back and forth from blue to red and red to blue?
Thinking one party is better than the other is complete nonsense. The American public is completely dissatisified with politics, in case you haven't noticed.Just out of interest, when are the right wingers going to stop undermining every move made to stabilize the country just to discredit the left, even when it harms the country?
From what I have seen most of Obamas attempts to get the country moving have been undermined by the republicans just so they can call obama useless.
Just so you know I am pretty unbiased about this, I only recently moved to America and will only be here for a few years. I am not invested in America and I don't particularly care what happens. But it does mean I can look objectively at the two parties and how they interact.
By the way, socialism is not a bad thing, most of America is socialist in one form or another. Did capitalism build your roads, who educates the majority of your children, 401k? Every modern society is built on socialism in one form or another, co-operation is a strength.
In most parts of the world there is no stigma attached to socialism. In America it seems that Socialism is a dirty word because of the USSR, and that was just an extreme. Maybe capitalism should be a dirty word because of all the wars started in the name of capitalism?
Just out of interest how are you calculating the meltdown of the American economy. While unemployment has not dropped hugely, it hasn't really risen either. The fact that I came to this country without a degree, or any significant work experience, and managed to get not one but two 'jobs/clients' in the space of two weeks suggests to me that maybe the problem of unemployment is not 100% down to the people in charge. In many cases unemployment is because of local policies, and it is the cities that need to change.
In the meantime the Dollar is doing significantly better against other currencies than in it's recent history, general prices have stayed fairly stable, which suggests that whatever the 5 trillion investment did, it did NOT really cause an inflation spike, and instead seems to have gone directly in to the banks pockets to fill the gaping holes that were caused by their own greed and loop-holing the system.
At least that way the banks did not collapse (boo hoo)
What I would like to see here is more reasoned arguments from the both sides, unfortunately the reason does seem to come more from the left than the right.
For instance, the word 'economy' is not an argument, it is infact a subject so broad that even the most competent economists admit that they can only calculate a fraction of the possible variables in any decision they make.
Instead maybe try going in to more details about why you think the economy is so bad, invest a few hours in to reading unbaised information on the subject.
For instance your post on Keynesian economics jsut talks about the word, not what is wrong with it.
Personally I think if you have a cyclical unemployment spiral (People lose jobs, so don't spend money, so other companies downsize, so more people lose jobs, so they no longer spend money, so even more companies downsize/collapse, etc, etc) such as that which happened in the great depression is quite nicely abated by creating more jobs, to increase the number of people who spend money, so the companies don't downsize/collapse. But that's just me. infact it would be quite worrying to consider what would have happened if the government had not saved jobs/created new ones, would the cyclical depression still be ongoing?
Anyway time for me to get back to work,got to live up to the payrise which one of my employers could apparently afford despite this floundering economy.I'd like toi respond to you but you are so wrong about all of your assumptions it would be too long of a post! I think since you are new to this country you perhaps need to take a few courses.
just because I am new to this country does not mean I am ignorant, nor does it mean I am unable to read, and nor does it mean I cannot understand statistic or economics. Maybe try responding to a reasoned argument before denouncing it 'wrong'.
>"I'd like toi respond to you but you are so wrong about all of your assumptions it would be too long of a post!"<
I think that's a complete cop out. What you've done here is wave a white flag which any reasonable person can see. For you to simply "declare" that this person is wrong about all their assumptions doesn't demonstrate why or where they are wrong. thisisoli presented a lengthy response which you can't or won't address. You've made a declaritive statement with the posting of this Hub, and don't seem willing or capable of defending your position. In fact, it's clear that you don't like being on the defensive at all. Bomb Throwing is the order of the day and instead of a reasoned debate in which you may actually learn something that you didn't know before, you assume the position of knowing all there is to know. When taken to task, you simply resort to claiming that the other person is wrong. Why are they wrong? Why should anybody assume that you are an authority on any subject let alone this one?
"Personally I think if you have a cyclical unemployment spiral (People lose jobs, so don't spend money, so other companies downsize, so more people lose jobs, so they no longer spend money, so even more companies downsize/collapse, etc, etc) such as that which happened in the great depression is quite nicely abated by creating more jobs, to increase the number of people who spend money, so the companies don't downsize/collapse. But that's just me. in fact it would be quite worrying to consider what would have happened if the government had not saved jobs/created new ones, would the cyclical depression still be ongoing?"
Good description by thisisoli of the economic dynamic behind the recession. There's an interesting graph that shows a DIRECT relation in timing - the job loss which was severe under Bush continued by inertia under Obama until the stimulus kicked in. The stimulus was too small to get us OUT, but it clearly stopped the bleeding of jobs. As MM pointed out, the biggest failure of the administration is not communicating its success. The stimulus was a success.
thisisili - I want to echo the hubber who said welcome to America. You are educated and articulate - if only your critics could express themselves as well, but they don't have much of a message.LOL! Liberals are delusional! So the crappy economy under Obama is a matter of cyclical timing but the job loss under Bush isn't?
Liberals always try to manipulate the facts to fit their philosophy! It's laughable!I don't get the feeling you read what I said. It will take time to fix the economy that republicans flocked up.
But who would return to the policies that got us here?LOL! I read what you said and you just reiterated your invalid point.
You claiming the economy isn't better because it's cyclical and that it will take more time for Obama's policies to work.
Of course it's nonsense! It's just like FDR, in all his terms he was never able to fix unemployment, it stayed in double digits the whole time! The fact is Obama's polices are a failure and the results speak for themselves. You can spin the news as positive but clearly they aren't! Even Bernanke said it will take 5 years to get employment to acceptable levels if the current state of improvement continues...well THAT just isn't good enough my friend!Funny that you bring up FDR. When he took office after 12 years of GOP rule, the economy was a mess and unemployment at 25 percent.
When he died in office unemployment was nil and the middle class had the highest standard of living in US history.
The prosperity continued under the 'socialism' for decades. Oh, and tax rates for the very rich were very high for decades and it did not dent the prosperity of the mid 40 to mid 60s.
History gives lie to your rant.LOLOLOL! You better go back and read your history again! Unemployment under FDR NEVER fell below 12%!
"The trouble with our liberal friends is not that they are ignorant, but that they know so much that isn't so." Ronald ReganAre you seriously telling me that unemployment in the US was over 12 percent in the era of Rosie the Riveter when women worked in manufacturing becase men were at war in Europe and the Pacific?
Yup that's what I'm telling you.
http://newsroom.ucla.edu/portal/ucla/FD … -5409.aspx
http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/17 … jean-lopezErm, at the time under discussion the graph shows unemployment to be under 5%.
Thank you John H.
If you slept through US history and are unsure, I suggest you google 'unemployment in 1943' and select any source.
If you are devoted to propaganda go to the links provided by ladylies.Thank you John H.
If you slept through US history and are unsure, I suggest you google 'unemployment in 1943' and select any source.
If you are devoted to propaganda go to the links provided by ladylies.Yeah I should have siad the AVERAGE rate didn't fall below 12.5%. In any case that was because of the war and the draft, not a normal circumstance that can be used for any real comparison, unless you are advocating drafting Americans and shipping them to Afghanistan to cure the current unemployment problem. After all, that is the RIGHT war according to the left! LOL
Hm, an average average! Let me think about that.
First you tell a lie.
When challenged, you repeat the lie WITH WINGNUT WEBSITE citations.
When that becomes an obvious lie, call it an AVERAGE and hope no one notices. What a crock.
Credibility is zero.You can dismiss it if you want, but it doesn't change the truth. The ONLY reason FDR lowered unemployment was because he took the unemployed and drafted them into the military! His policies were a failure throughout his term and he took America to war against the will of the people, perhaps out of desperation to fix the economy since everything he tried prior was a FAILURE just like Obama is a failure! His economic policies have never worked and never will!
Really? What about Reagan? He came in at 6.3% and after his 2 years were up, in Jan, just like Obama is now? 10.4%. Debate that.
I don't think bush was responsible for the economic crash, but everyone knew America and several other country was on the brink of financial failure, I predicted it when I was 18, So you can be god damn sure that some of the smarter people out there saw it coming as well. In my opinion the wars that bush embarked upon (Sorry not wars, incursions)may have saved the Dollar temporarily, oil is still being sold dollars not euros, but in the long run the spending you had to throw down has crippled you at the worst possible time.
"According to you and other Keynesian economists like Pelosi unemployment is stimulus, so why not have the government just hire everyone and pay us all over 250,000 so that they could tax us all as rich? Wouldn't we then be the most prosperous country on the planet? Think about it, that's pretty much an extension of what you liberals are advocating! Can you see how ridiculous that sounds?"
That just shows you not only don't understand the economic principal, but it also shows your own poor debating skills because to make your own argument even partially make sense you have to exaggerate it completely out of the realm of reality.
It's like the old chestnut, the Mexicans are taking all our jobs. Really, the mexicans are taking ALL our jobs, Why do I see so many jobs advertised in the paper, there are several thousand jobs going online in Austin right now.
Infact my wife suffers because of cheap mexican labour, she is a chef, but she surprisingly is not bothered by the Mexican influx. Instead it is the people who are NOT affected by the mexican job market who complain about it, even though they benefit from the lower prices that come about because of it, the cheap gardeners, cleaners, and food prices.
Why doesn't she complain, because even though people can get cheap Mexican labour, they prefer trained American labour, my wife doesn't have to work in a restaurant, but she likes it. by the way, my wife decided to change to a new restaurant, it took her a grand total of three days to find a new job, again, making me question why the Unemployment figures are the governments fault.
If you actually read this post, rather than skimming it, seeing that it leaned towards the left, and then dismissing it as wrong, you may see that this is not attacking any government, bush or Obama, but rather the huge difference in opinions between the left and the right.
What worries me more than anything is that the Republicans are going against every change Obama makes, not because of what it means to the country, but because, they have said, publicly, that they are going to oppose every move that Obama makes.
Do you realise how childish this behaviour seems to non Americans, do you realise that they block every change Obama suggests until it is negotiated in to nothingness, and do you realise that they do this Not because it is what is best for America, but that they are sore losers who refuse to give even an inch of support to the left, even if they suggest a policy that they even previously agreed to when Bush is in power.
The Republicans blow a lot of hot air over every issue, they stall it in every way possible, they shout buzzwords like Economy at every change Obama suggest, without any supporting statistics (When the left has statistics showing the complete opposite of what the Republicans claim).
As I said, I don't have any political agenda or side in America, it has no impact on me at all. But what does annoy me is seeing a country where the people who are meant to be improving the country are bickering like school children, and a lot of it is coming from the right.
It has got to such a point that the Republicans have stalwarted every move Obama has made, and now they are asking why he has not made the changes he has been trying to do. These political power plays have done nothing to my estimation of their political agenda, but country wide this country-harming political play has weakened the democratic party, to the point that their best chance now is for the republicans to get Sarah Palin to represent them (A woman in politics who even after being corrected does not know the difference between south and north korea).
By the way, in England I was right, not left, I am more for the support of companies because I believe that is the right way to build a strong economy. This is not a barrage of futile angst against the Republican POLICIES, it is a tirade against their complete disregard for their country just because they do not want to support anything that Obama does.
>"Instead maybe try going in to more details about why you think the economy is so bad, invest a few hours in to reading unbaised information on the subject."<
But that would require actual study of the details. We don't do that here. We simply adopt a theory of rationality that's provided for us by some authority that we accept and that relieves us of the heavy lifting that we call...thinking. It's so much easier to simply bash opposing views.It's funny but that tactic is prevalent on this board. If you don't agree with the left, you are obviously uninformed or uneducated! Yes only the left is always right on everything, the right simply are nothing more than knuckle dragging illiterates that are incapable of understanding what's good for them. We on the right can't grasp the complicated concepts the left espouses...it's not our fault we don't understand, we're just too stupid, we don't read even if we could, we just adopt extremist views because we're genetically predisposed to do so!
Ya, I get it... I'm always amazed at how arrogant the left can be, and with Obama that arrogance is always on display.Okay then. You describe to me the state of our economy, and provide specifics in regards to Obama's economic policies and their impact. The reason you are called uninformed, is because either you are, or you are a liar. I prefer to think you are just uninformed....because, hey, I am a nice guy.
>"We on the right can't grasp the complicated concepts the left espouses...it's not our fault we don't understand, we're just too stupid, we don't read even if we could, we just adopt extremist views because we're genetically predisposed to do so!"<
You seem to have some need to prove things. To prove your ideas are right. To prove liberal ideas are wrong. To prove your ideology is always correct. The very title of this Hub shows that clearly. It's deliberately provactive. The word Pugnacious comes to mind.:(inclined to quarrel or fight readily; quarrelsome; belligerent; combative.) In other words, you're simply itching for a fight. What you really have a problem with regarding liberals is that they ask you to demonstrate why what you're saying is true. And then you use inductive reasoning to make your case and that simply doesn't work. Furthermore you dont' seem to understand why it doesn't work. It never proves what you hope to prove no matter how many examples you provide. You can't possibly know if the next one will contradict everything you're saying. That's inductive reasoning. So you aren't interested at all in truth. If you were, you wouldn't use induction to try to find it.
Many people today say that truth is relative, but most of them do not really believe what they say. When you question them, you typically find that it is not really truth that they think is relative, but our knowledge or beliefs about what is true. Indeed, if you question them long enough you may even find that what they really want to say is that our knowledge and beliefs are inherently fallible and subject to error—something that would actually be impossible were truth really relative, and something with which I certainly agreed. But I think that the so-called ‘identity philosophies’ pose a greater threat.
Identity philosophers, on the other hand, may say that ‘truth’ is meaningful and that it means correspondence to the facts. They may even acknowledge the existence of foolproof criteria by which to determine whether or not a statement is true. But they believe, and this is what makes them identity philosophers, that they owe their primary allegiance to some group to which they belong. That group could be the TeaParty, or a religious group, or identification with a rigid authoritarian ideology such as conservatism.
The thrust of their attack against truth is not that we cannot know what is true. It is that truth is but one value amongst many, and not the one that counts most for building a just society. They believe that when it comes to a choice between truth and solidarity, it is solidarity that counts—so that we are not merely justified in misrepresenting the truth, but that it may actually be our duty to do so if the solidarity of our community hangs in the balance. But no one, I hope, would accuse identity philosophers of tole-rating or respecting the views of others.Once again the arrodance of the left is on display! Inductive reasoning, inductive logic, sounds like you learned something new in class today!
When it comes to the politics of economics both sides use such logic to make their points, because policies constantly change parties switch placxes in power , thing like consumer confidence come into play and then there are lagging and leading indicators, lagging indicators are definite facts but a measure of the past leading are speculation based on current trends.
What is the truth? The truth is there has been some improvement in the economy, but that improvement has been anemic at best and the job gains are not nearly enough to effect the unemployment rate positively. But you won't accept that truth, a FACT that's born out of the numbers. We have speculation by Bernake and Obama that we are on the right path, but as you say that's based on a SNAPSHOT IN TIME of current conditions, and is in no way guaranteed.
"War-related production skyrocketed from just two percent of GNP to 40 percent in 1943"
The numbers you post clearly show an increase in defense spending through 1945. Conveniently you ignore all the previous years of FDR's policies which did nothing but extend the pain of the depression. During that "improved war economy" there were many shortages and there was rationing, and you're going to argue that FRD brought proseroity? Of course only those on the left can see that as truth.
"In economic terms - looking at the numbers and dollars only - what was World War Two? It was the biggest federal jobs program ever undertaken, not just for soldiers, but in the numbers employed in factories in private industry engaged in war production. It was almost ALL deficit spending.
It was the final proof of Keysian economics.
It was not free -taxes were high for the middle class after WWII but people had good jobs with good benefits and a high standard of living. Taxes for the top bracket were over 90% and the war debt as a percent of GDP went from over 100% to 30%.
If you want to see the graph pull size (and I recommend it) -
http://zfacts.com/p/1195.html>"Once again the arrodance of the left is on display! Inductive reasoning, inductive logic, sounds like you learned something new in class today!"<
No. I learned it a long time ago. But it does sound like this is new concept for you. There is a clear difference in the way that we think. Conservative and liberal. Our thought process is different. When we think we use reason. That's what we do. There are two forms of reasoning. Inductive and deductive. You clearly use inductive. I don't. That means that logically I must be using soething else. The only other process is deductive.
>"When it comes to the politics of economics both sides use such logic to make their points"<
Unfortunately that isn't true. The only thing that matters is what can be demonstrated as true and that goes for politicians especially. Saying that the Healthcare Bill will lead to Armegeddon is stupid. Armegeddon is the end of the world. I would call it extreme hyperbole. Again, I ask that kind of moron to demonstrate the truth of that claim. He can't so he should shut his mouth until he has something intelligent to say. I'm sick and tired of grandiose statements by politicians.
>"What is the truth?"<
I don't claim to be a Christian, but weren't those the words of Pilate. Truth is what is left over when you get rid of what is false. Finding it is a subtra ctive process not an additive one. It's like chipping away at a block of marble to find the statue hidden inside.
>"The truth is there has been some improvement in the economy, but that improvement has been anemic at best and the job gains are not nearly enough to effect the unemployment rate positively"<
However that won't remain the case. It is showing an improvement and because of it's cyclical nature it is moving in the right direction. I knew this would take several years to fix. I was prepared to accept that. So once again the jury is still out.
>" But you won't accept that truth, a FACT that's born out of the numbers"<
I just did. I just told you that I expected this to take a while. I've been hearing "where are the jobs, Obama? " since he got elected. I now ask the Repubs and John Boehner the same question. Don't read the constitution on the floor. We want jobs already. You're wasing time.
>"We have speculation by Bernake and Obama that we are on the right path, but as you say that's based on a SNAPSHOT IN TIME of current conditions, and is in no way guaranteed."<
Nobody is saying that it is. I'm simply saying that the jury is still out. You on the otherhand claim that the verdict is already in. That's a false claim. His term isn't over and the indicators are showing that it's moving in the right direction. There are no guarentees.
>"Conveniently you ignore all the previous years of FDR's policies which did nothing but extend the pain of the depression"<
Then you missed the point. The thing that was needed in the New Deal was far more spending then FDR put forth. It took spending on the scale of WWII to make it happen. But it was without question spending vast amounts of money that got us out of the Depresssion. Something else to understand is that this kind of remedy is something to use in extreme circumstances. The shortages that you may be referring to had no effect on the moral of the nation because we were all in it together. We made sacrifices for our country. It was a common effort that the whole country accepted and believed in. Something that this generation could never understand. Today it's all about ME! The prosperity that resulted is undeniable accept to those such as yourself. The figures don't lie. We also had a 90% tax rate on the rich and 22% on the rest, and the country exploded as the worlds greatestest economic power.
>"Ya, I get it... "<
No. I don't think you do at all. You see everything as a battle between right and left. It isn't. Its reason and non-reason. I'm not the one clinging to some identity politics. In fact, I'm an Independent. If something is irrational and the person presenting it is not making a reasoned argument for it, then it's worth examining the idea to see where the flaws are and then weigh the pros and cons to see who stands to benefit from the idea. Or possibly they've gotten some historical facts wrong. You don't seem the least bit interested in that process. You have an "us against them" attitude which of course is divisive. That makes life simple for you. Everyone that disagrees with you is the enemy. Simple.
For the "correct answer" just reference the 3234343543356 other forum discussions about this exact topic.
You gotta admit wee weed up is kinda of a witty catchphrase !
LOL and sooo apropo since Obama and his buddies are pissing into the wind when it comes to their economic policies.
Wake up people! The democratic and republican party serve the same masters.
Go back and look at the administration of both parties and you will soon realize, Americans are on the hook for a giant mess!
So, please do not blame Obama, he his serving the same people that put Bush in office!Why are you and the right trying to turn the rest of us into the same kind of ravin lunatics that you've become. Admit it, the only thing that Obama could do that might be seen as being good for the country is to leave it and go back to his homeland. (BTW, have you at least agreed upon which country or planet he's from?) You migh try purchasing a new tv set. They have a brand new systems for sale that picks up more than the Faux News Channel. Of course the fact that most of you receive everything you need to know about science and history from one book, it makes sense you would be incapable of changing the channel on your tv.
Well, let's take a look. When Obama took office we were losing 750,000 jobs a month, consecutively, then it went down to 400,000 per month. The market had tanked. In a year, the banks and financial institutions were backed and the market was above where it was beforehand. We are growing at a rate of 2.4%, whereas in the last 100 years, we grown on average of 2.2%. We have had 8 straight quarters of record aggregate corporate profits. These are facts, easily looked up. We have enacted a health care plan that according to the Congressional Budget Office will take more than $180 billion off of the deficit, so it actually saves money. Again, these are facts. Considering that we were experiencing the worst recession in over 80 years, and the second worst in our nation's history, we are in pretty good shape for a 2 year shift, actually quicker than most. What is bad? Unemployment. Unemployment was at 7.8% when he took office. Right now, it is at 9.4%. When Obama took office, we were 2 months into the recession, so jobs had JUST started dropping in mass numbers...that went on into the beginning of Obama's Presidency. Let's take a look at say...Reagan. When Reagan took office, unemployment was at 6.3%. Let us compare...in 2 years, what was Reagan's unemployment rate? 10.4%. The month before, it was at 10.8%. Get real people! Your right wing rhetoric holds no water. Ever.
>"Their economic and social policies are destroying this country and our economy and yet they get a pass! The unemployment results today are just further PROOF Keynesian economics is a farce, an illusion, a fairy tale, and BS in plain English, but this has been shown to be the case before and yet the democrats KEEP insisting on reverting to these foolish and failed policies that lack common sense!"<
Theres a problem with your reasoning. The figures you are talking about PROVE nothing. They are merely a snapshot of a moment. They could likely change next month. In other words you're using inductive reasoning to attempt to PROVE something that you cannot prove, no matter how many things you present to support your argument..it doesnt' PROVE your argument. Inductive reasoning NEVER does. Because you can never exhaust all the possiblities that can exist. You can't predict what those figures will show next week, month or year. So...you have proven nothing but your own ignorance. If you could prove something you wouldn't require "further" proof. If something is proved, thats the end of it. Do you think that you can grasp that?I hope I'm not the only one who noticed things weren't going that well before Obama took office. Republicans and democrats have both failed the American people.
Hmmmm, your question kinda sparks this one from me, hope you don't mind too much
When will the media, the left and the right admit that All Politicians Are Self Serving Liars Who Will Do Anything We Let Them Get Away With
Obama might have started out with good intentions but the whole system is f*ed up and he is way over his head here. I bet he is thinking twice about running again and is just trying to 'make his mark' before getting the hell out of that political madhouse.
As the song goes, the lunatics really have taken over the asylum.I think we're on the same page, Kirsten. Not surprised by that at all.
They'll admit it once they admit government is a failure.
"Obama might have started out with good intentions but the whole system is f*ed up and he is way over his head here."
Community organizing doesn't get you ready to be President?
You mean experience is important?
Whodathunkit.Well I don't know about everyone but I can say for myself that community organizing would not come close to preparing me for the office of president! Not that I would want that job
I lack the required level of insanity to qualify for the job
Too bad 55 Million Americans felt he was qualified.
Just goes to show that the media has a great deal of influence.
The plumber I use is very articulate but I wouldn't vote for him for President.Your plumber wouldn't want to be POTUS, He would have to take a pay cut. He should be making a fortune just keeping the plumbing cleared of all the partisan B.S. you put out.
Oh darn a partisan.
I'm sure my plumber would love to be President.
He is amazingly liberal, he told me he would have voted for Obama twice if it was legal.
I think he may have.
>"Community organizing doesn't get you ready to be President?"<
Why not? Aside from the fact that the president actually held other positions such as teacher, state senator, and US Senator. What is it about community organizaing that is wrong? Does it not in fact engage the grass roots elements of the community to take an active role in how their community functions? How is that not a positive thing?
Well, first two years it was "too early to judge", now he got a republican congress, so this will be used as an excuse from now on. So, to answer your question - never.
This does not mean I think McCain would have been any better
I think the title of this thread says it all.
"When will the MEDIA, the LEFT, OBAMA, the DEMS are FAILURES..."
The MEDIA (and that includes the Internet) present an image that too many voters accept at face value. It's all about sound bites and ratings, not truth or even fairness. Shame on the MEDIA.
The LEFT.Who are they? Given the margin by which Obama won the presidency, there are some CENTRISTS and even some RIGHTIES who voted him in. Let's be fir here.
OBAMA -- has actually done a lot but is a dismal failure in self-branding. I'm actually pretty shocked. Where is the Obama of "Hope" and "Yes we can!"???
The DEMS -- It's ridiculous to give full blame or full credit to either party in Congress. No matter which is in the majority, they don't have a blank page or a blank check.
Same goes for the GOP now in control. They'll have exactly 2 years before the fickle American public gets distracted and bored and petulant and swings back to the DEMS.
In short, I totally agree with those who say the system is the problem. But I also feel that shows like American Idol and Dancing with the Stars have infiltrated our culture to the point that people truly think anyone can be a cultural icon and POTUS. Insanity!Spot on, MM.
The Republicans are far better at trotting out the PR machine. The Dems could learn a few things from them, and they don't even need to know how to make stuff up--they just need to learn the techniques.
http://www.amazon.com/Dont-Think-Elepha … 1931498822
I remember being turned onto this book before the 2004 election. It's all in there. Unfortunately, "we" continue to try to use the logic argument and neglect to claim valid/valuable emotional arguments that rally people. The GOP and especially the Tea Baggers are masters at the non-logical argument.
For supposedly smart people, "we" are pretty dumb when it comes to framing. Arrggghhh!The Title of the book says it all! And you post re-enforces the truth about the left! Only the left uses logic, only the left is smart enough to run the country only the left knows what is right, how to put people to work etc. Only the left knows how to interpret the constitution, only the left is educated! Only the left....
The left is arrogant, narcissistic, and evil! They claim to use the logic argument, well where is the logic for why your economic polices continue to fail? Where is the logic that shows after spending 5 trillion dollars unemployment is still at 9.4% and actually worse if you count the people that have given up? The left will argue we need to spend more! They'll point to their favorite economist Keynes and they'll site the Nobel Prize winning Krugman, both idiots in my opinion, who tout spending and borrowing produces wealth because we can simply print money! The same people that badgered Bush and Reagan for THEIR spending! Even Obama voted against raising the debt ceiling as senator, but now of course says it's necessary and it's partisan politics to vote against doing so! LOL Yes, that's the "logic" of the left, the "progressives" that are fighting to move us "forward"! Oh? Progress, moving forward, to the liberals is to enslave America with their socialist system of government which THEY are only smart enough to run!To be fair, it more or less equally refers to rights
True... the modern politicians are all about themselves, but I hope to see more conservatives with backrounds other than politics getting elected and instituting term limits. I believe we the people can turn things around if we can elect others that feel a duty to change the system!
But the left, is far, far worse than the right!Again, I think that evidence will prove the one side is just as "bad" as the other. The reason both parties are constantly at each other's throats is simply because neither of them is better than the other. What you are trying to do is imply that all evil people support democrats and liberal agenda. There isn't a shred of credible evidence to that.
The left is no more worse than the right. Your constant denouncements of others shows that you are as much a problem as anyone else. Until change for the better happens on a person level, you can't expect it anywhere else. There no point in wishing for someone to save you or anyone else from your woes and sorrows when we are the ones who caused them.I don't "denounce" others, just progressives, liberal, left wing socialists as a group... not that they're bad people! I really don't care what you believe, if you believe socialism is the best political system, that's fine with me really! What I detest with a passion is when you try to IMPOSE your views on me! Don't like America or the constitution? Fine, get out! Go somewhere else nothing's stopping you! Why do you feel the need to "transform" her into something else?
You just denounced a whole lot of other people by your response because you simply have nothing good to say about most people, from what I've read. And anyone who disagrees with you, you attack and tell them they are unpatriotic and to leave America and live somewhere else. It appears you are prone to make careless assessments and assumptions about others based on your responses. Every person becomes a part of the problem or a part of the solution. The more you marginalize others, the more you are a part of the problem by making your "America" exclusive to special interest groups. That's not very appealing, nor is it helpful.
Gee, you sound like you're attacking me! I thought I was pretty clear, I'm for freedom, I view freedom as something good, something precsious, something worthy of protection, and if someone believes otherwise, fine, that's their right, but as I mentioned there are places for such people to go rather than staying here to impose their will on me because they believe they know what's best for me. Sorry if I offended the socialists here.
You view freedom as something good, worthy of protection!
No, you see oppression as a good thing as long as you are on the side of the oppressors.But it's okay for you to force your will on others, right? You know what's best for everyone or else they should leave? LOL!
Where do I espouse forcing My will upon others? I don't!
Yes you do. Anyone with a differing view from yours is wrong, unpatriotic and needs to leave America. Those were your words to me, and to many others. And yet I'm not a liberal, nor a socialist as you claim. And yes, I agree with Randy. You seem to know what's best for everyone and you want to force it on them. It's written all through this thread, and most any of the others you've commented on.
Newsflash! That isn't imposing my will, that's just giving my opinion. I don't advocate for laws that outlaw socialists from living as they wish, but for some reason the socialists that have co-opted the democrat party INSIST on confiscating my property so they can do for me what's for my good!
I'm sorry, but I prefer deciding for myself what's for my good and using my hard earned income to pursue. If that insults you, so be it, but then, that's YOUR problem not mine.
You don't win allies and make friends in life with the kind of techniques you use against everyone. And from what I can see it is everyone.
Just so you know.Thanks, but I'm not interested in making friends just interested in keeping my freedom.
"there are places for such people to go rather than staying here to impose their will on me because they believe they know what's best for me."
Since you disagree with some who have different ideas than you on how this country could be, you suggest they leave. This isn't the first time you have said this on these forums.
Unfortunately for you, these same people have just as much say so as you. Even though you know what's best for all of us. By the way, you don't like the president or his policies, so why don't YOU leave? LOL!LOL. What's the title of this thread and what message OP is trying to put across ? yeah right
>" Don't like America or the constitution? Fine, get out! Go somewhere else nothing's stopping you! Why do you feel the need to "transform" her into something else?"<
You say this while stating openly that you want to repeal the 14th, 15th, and 17th Amendment???? Do you want somebody to purchase a one way ticket out of the country for you? You hate our system of governement and you want to alter the constitution by removing protections to citizens in the Amendments. And you have the gall to tell others to leave? You clearly want to transform the country into something else. Do you want everyone to wear tri-corner hats as well?
Lady - Yes, yes yes...we use logic and you are ignorant. Jobs are driven by consumer demand, not Presidential policy. Did you ever go to school? Is school liberal too? Is the Dictionary too? How about the mirror? Is the mirror liberal too?
>" Is the mirror liberal too?"<
Yes. Because a mirror doesn't tell you what you want to hear. It tells you what is real. It has no ideology to defend. It has no principle to cling to. It has no theory of rationality to tell you what to believe. It's simply the truth. And your image will constantly change because change is inevitable.Really? If I look into the mirror and tell myself that I can fly...is it telling the truth? What if I look into the mirror and tell it that I am President? What about if I look into the mirror and tell it that I know where the Smurfs live? Is it telling me the truth? NO, it is an inverted reflection of myself, stating whatever comes out of my mouth. REALITY is the key here, not allegory. IT IS A MIRROR! Seriously, get a clue. Juvenile logic won't cut it on the big boy board.
Sorry - I am out of Dr Pepper and have a headache. Bad time to get on these things...I get cranky and jerkish.
Suppose you just look into the mirror and shut your big bazoo junior? Nobody said you have to open your trap. What you see is what you get. And if you think this is a big board you obviously haven't been around much.
>"NO, it is an inverted reflection of myself, stating whatever comes out of my mouth."<
WRONG. It's a reflection of your image. Not what you have to say. The purpose of a mirror is to see what you look like, not what you sound like or a reflection of what kind of crap is going through your mind. You look into a mirror when you shave, when you comb your hair, when you get dressed. None of that requires a word. It's purpose isn't a reflection on some abstract idea. It's your physical presence. If you feel you need to talk to a mirror maybe you should see a shrink.
Sounds like you're going through caffiene withdrawl.
>"They claim to use the logic argument, well where is the logic for why your economic polices continue to fail? "<
They haven't. The Clinton Administration provided a great example of that. We had a surplus at the end, and millions of jobs were created. The policies of the next adminstration turned that surplus into a massive deficit and as we all know the economy was virtually destroyed by bone headed policies such as cutting taxes and going to war. Those two things alone are totally incompatable and evidence of irresponsible economic policies.
As for logic, your argument is illogical. You say a lot of things but everything you say is based on a snapshop of the moment and can never be a predictor of what is yet to come. You use inductive reasoning and that never proves your case. Bush had 8 years to wreck the economy. He's gone now, so the jury can make it's call. Obama has been in office for two years, so we don't yet know what the outcome of these policies will be. You choose to pass judgment after two years. That's not logic. That's partisan BS.
">we" continue to try to use the logic argument and neglect to claim valid/valuable emotional arguments that rally people."<
I disagree. I don't think you win anything by adopting an illogical position. You're simply replicating the very thing you're arguing against. You'll never win a debate by using their rules. You can't play their game and expect to win anything. Their ideology prohibits them from dealing with truth. Solidarity to the ideology is everything to them. No ideology can prove itself as true, therefore when the ideology conflicts with truth, which do you think they opt for? They'll never reject the ideology, so truth is expendable.
>The GOP and especially the Tea Baggers are masters at the non-logical argument.<
That's true. They never make any sense and rely on emotionalism to make their case. But that doesn't make their case true does it?
>"For supposedly smart people, "we" are pretty dumb when it comes to framing. "<
There is another way of dealing with them. One which they have no answer to. Don't argue with them. Use their argument against them. Make them demonstrate why what they are saying is true.
Seems to me Obama deserves credit for quite a lot of positive accomplishments in his two years in office, in contrast to his predecessor whose accomplishments were nearly all negative--lied us into a foolish, needless, costly war in Iraq, cut taxes for the richest Americans, spied on American citizens in violation of the law, sanctioned the torture of prisoners in violation of international law and American traditions, and left his successor with a huge deficit and the worst recession since the 1930s.
I love the way you find it easier to list Bush's accomplishments as opposed to Obama's....
I've already supplied a long list of Obama's accomplishments in this forum several times, and I've pointed to my disagreement with his policies in Afghanistan.
That he does, Ralph.
Perhaps with Gibbs gone as communications director and Daley in as chief of staff, Obama will start utilizing some "spin" which is the only way to counter the (false) impression that he's in over his head and a miserable failure.
There's a lot more in the plus column than the minus.
BTW, I just read the unemployment rate is down. Let's hope it continues in this direction!Depends on how you define "accomplishments". True Obama has done a lot of things in his first 2 years, more than most presidents, the problem is I don't view them as "accomplishments" unless you think the destruction of the American economy and constitution are "accomplishments".
Obama, despite opposition from the GOP, has been repairing the damage to the economy caused by Bush and he has taken steps to prevent another banking meltdown in the future.
>"I don't view them as "accomplishments" unless you think the destruction of the American economy and constitution are "accomplishments""<
No. Of course you don't. You can't demonstrate how it's true that the economy has been destroyed or the constitution but that really isn't important is it? Lets be honest ok? If you actually cared about the constitution then you wouldn't be advocating the repeal of things like the 14th Amendment, or the 17th Amendment. The Teabaggers want repeal of both. So much for being the constitutionalists that they claim to be. The fact of the matter is that the constitution was trashed under Bush. You lost your 4th, 6th, and 8th Amendment rights under Bush. Habeas Corpus was illegally suspended under Bush. And you never uttered a word. Now you make a claim which you can't substantiate as true. But that doesn't really matter either does it? Demonstrate how anything that you're saying is true, because that's the only thing that will get my attention as being valid.The destruction of the economy is self evident, one need only read the newspapers. The destruction of the constitution has been an on-going process over many administrations, the latest examples are Obama's health care bill which has already been found to be unconstitutional by a federal judge and many states AG's which have challenged the law. Again, someone so informed and educated as yourself should be aware of this, especially if a stupid knuckle dragging conservative like myself is!
The Constitution isn't perfect which is why there are "amendments" to begin with! The 14th amendment had a purpose, to protect newly freed slaves from being denied citizenship. There's nothing wrong with repealing that at this time given how it's being abused by illegal aliens. The 17th amendment is one that perhaps more than any other damaged our republic, by taking the power of the states away from representation in the federal government. This amendment moved power further away from the people and closer to Washington DC.
While we're at it, let's get rid of the 16th amendment too!>"The destruction of the economy is self evident, one need only read the newspapers."<
So you base your theory of rationality on what you read in the newspapers? Which newspapers. And what is that information based on? So you make your judgement based on what your told by newspapers? But you would admit that the media is biased, so which newspapers are you reading that aren't biased? A theory cannot be self-evident? It cannot use itself to prove itself. It must be based on something. You're basing this theory of yours, on what you read in Newspapers? lol. Ok. We get it. But you dismiss the writings of Krugman and he's a teacher at Princeton and writes for the NY Times and has a Nobel to boot. I doubt that you have those kind of credentials. So aren't you actually being selective in what newspapers you are referring to?
>"the latest examples are Obama's health care bill which has already been found to be unconstitutional by a federal judge"<
The Federal judge you're referring to is a conservative that hates the bill anyway. How does that not qualify as judicial activism?
>"The Constitution isn't perfect which is why there are "amendments" to begin with! "<
I see. So it isn't the sacred document that the "constitutionalist TeaBaggers claim that it is. They'll lecture somebody like me on what is constitutional while attempting to repeal some of the most important aspects of it. The document that is so sacred to them. Right.
>"The 14th amendment had a purpose, to protect newly freed slaves from being denied citizenship."<
It does more than that. It provides equal protection under the law of all people born here. If it's repealed none of that applies. It's as if it never existed, and has a direct bearing on the Civil Rights Act.
>"There's nothing wrong with repealing that at this time given how it's being abused by illegal aliens."<
Of course there is. Since equal protection is guarenteed by the Federal Government, it would no longer exist and the states would then have the power to invoke any form of discrimination that they saw fit. Had it not been for the Federal protection of individual rights, we'd still be segregated in the south. States rights would be invoked as it was then. You don't fix a problem by eliminating a right provided by our constitution. We don't take rights away. You would actually remove rights from the people because you have an issue over immigration. That isn't going to happen.
The 17th Amendment is direct election of US Senators by the people rather then a state legislature. The power is in the hands of the people . By removing that right, there is little doubt that the amount of money through campaign contributions would corrupt the process of representation of the people, and turn it into the representation of special interests.
This is from Forbes Magazine:
Repealing the 17th Amendment would not remove this pervasive influence of money in the process. Candidates would still spend a ton of it (both personal and fundraised) to win office--only this time it would be directed at one specific interest group: state legislators. The senators and assembly representatives would be showered with campaign funds and other potential benefits (after all, many of the part-time legislators hold outside jobs). Avoiding bribery and corruption in the selection process was one of the stated impetuses for the 17th Amendment in the first place. Despite a century of campaign finance reform debates and better investigative techniques, nothing has really changed with the state legislature. We may quickly find that enough legislators are still susceptible to financial inducements.
But that is not the only problem. State legislative elections would be instantly nationalized. We would quickly see massive amounts of campaign money spent to influence key local races. The issues that state legislators ran on would be further nationalized, turning local races on local issues into a national fever pitch environment, with the election decided on topics that have nothing to do with an average legislator's job. This already happens, of course, but it will become the norm. We can also expect recall elections run specifically to try and gain the majority in a closely divided legislature. This has also already happened, but may be a regular occurrence under the new system.
Maybe the worst result is one that is already being threatened--the growth in importance of gerrymandering. Redistricting is already overwhelmingly important. After the census is taken each decade, state legislatures redraw district lines. The law requires that each district contain an equal population. But even with this limitation, political leaders are able to slice the maps to maximize political benefit. Elected officials are aware that, with careful crafting skills, they can give themselves and nearly everybody in their party virtually unbeatable districts. The value is so great that former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay basically gambled his career on doing a controversial mid-term redistricting to score a few more seats for the Republicans in Texas.
( Delay is now serving a three year sentance in prison)
The argument to get rid of the direct election of senators is a tough sell. It goes against the strong current in America favor of increased democracy. Though they claim it would benefit the populace by restoring the federal-state balance and presumably limit government, proponents would have to overcome the argument that they, in effect, do not trust the American people to properly select their own officials.
These are high hurdles to jump. Just as bad, though, is if voters are asked to take a look at the modern record of state legislatures throughout the country. While they may decide that repealing the 17th Amendment is not the worst idea in the world, they'll certainly realize it's up there.
Don't attempt to pass yourself off as a constitutionalist when what you're after is the tearing up of the very document that you profess to revere. It's phoney and it won't happen anyway.
Here is an easy one: What indicates the destruction of the American economy as you so claim? What?! You have written over and over and have yet to state a single example...in this entire thing! How about it? Got anything?
That's a very good question Tex. I'm still waiting to hear the answer. I've aksed her to demonstrate the truth of her claim but I don't think we're going to get it.
The Federal Reserve has DOUBLED the money supply in the last 2 years, tripled the it in the last ten years,, and hectupled it (x6) in the last twenty years.
When you increase the supply of any good, service, commodity, etc. the value of it decreases. When this happens to money, it is known as "inflation" to mainstream economists.
Austrian Economists acknowledge that this will have dire results. It's hard not to agree with them.I ran across a panel of statistics this week. One of them is on money in circulation - December 2007 vs December 2010.
The currency in circulation under Bush's last year - 819 Billion
The Currency in circulation as of last month - 977 Billion
Looks like a 5 or 6 % increase per year.
Source - http://assets.theatlantic.com/static/co … umbers.jpg
I don't have inside information about how the Atlantic gathered their numbers, but I haven't run across an Austrian Economist yet who wasn't in la-la land. The major concern now isn't inflation, which fuels libertarians paranoia. The Austrian doctrine has been screaming hyperinflation for years and they have no idea how to back away from that.
The problem to worry about is DEFLATION. We saw that last in the USA in the great depression. We are seeing signs of it now. The effects of deflation fall hardest on the poor. Wages and prices fall, but wages fall further - buying power decreases for the poor and middle class, wealth goes up dramatically for the rich and ultra-rich.Currency in circulation and money supply are two different things.
The money supply is wealth in two parts - currency in circulation and bank deposits including CDs and other financial instruments. In other words the total cash in everybody's pocket and everything 'in the bank' .
You get half credit for your answer - they are not the same thing, but they are not two different things. In order for Evan to be right about the flood of money there has to have been a doubling of wealth in bank deposits - private wealth doubling - or there had to be a flooding of the market of currency printed. There's no evidence of the first circumstance, so I only addressed the second.
Well, gee, maybe you should have a chat with Bernanke and give him your great economic thoughts of wisdom, I do belive he is concerned about inflation, perhaps those concerned about DeFlation are having waking dreams, or maybe I am hallucinating the rise in commodities prices for......a damn long time now, yep must be a waking dream, a farce, and the real booger is Deflation, who would have thought!
Captain America!!! Where ya' been, sweeetie???
The prediction for real estate prices is in the next year is falling values - minus7% this year in my area. This from the PittsburgPost Gazette...
"The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported yesterday that the Consumer Price Index, a measure of a theoretical basket of goods consumed in the U.S., rose at an annual rate of 2.7 percent with the core rate, in which food and energy are removed from the mix, rising 1.8 percent.
It wasn't inflation, however, that hurt consumers; instead, it was falling wages.
When adjusted for inflation, average weekly earnings fell in December from December 2008, the first year-over-year decrease since 2003, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported. While average weekly earnings were up 1.9 percent over December 2008, the real wage, which is adjusted for inflation, showed that buying power had dropped over the year by 1.6 percent for workers."
Read more: http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/10016/10 … z1Ame3SKR9
Core inflation of 1.8% is VERY low. I know you are smart enough to find the Bureau of Labor Statistics web site & look up the history. Always a pleasure teaching you.So, just what is your theory about the reduction in real wages for Americans? Is it deflation, or inflation, or employers readying for rising cost of employeeing folks, like the very real rise in health care prems? Perhaps Congress should have given the employer the payroll tax break? Hmmmm, it is all so puzzling, a real brain strain for me, Im officially knocked back to Private America. . .
"So, just what is your theory about the reduction in real wages for Americans? "
Despite growth in productivity, employers are depressing wages because they can get away with it. Unemployment is at 9.4 and people with a job are afraid of loosing it. Business is taking advantage and pocketing the profits.
Sorry about the brain strain. I do try to use small words for you, and type
s l o w l y.Well, you are quite the gentleman, thanks so much for typing slowly, as well for your conflicting posts, oh, sorry, I meant informative posts, clearly the employers, the drivers of our economy (or is it the Fed, the Pres, Congress, or Snookie?), have all joined together to keep unemployment high and wages low, it has not one thing to do with the economic climate of alarming left wing idiots like Whoopie ^fueling the fire^ for their own purposes, or those now clearly of the same mind ilk in Congress.
Thanks for clarifying, it is the employer, the job creator, that is responsible for unemployment in America, new lower wages, rising commodity prices, etc............ for no good reason beyond greed. Uh Huh.
I always love your line by line 8th grade economics understanding of things. Like I have shown SO many times to you...Austrian economists' don't provide ANY scientific or documented effort. It is like the Republicans last year submitting a budget that had no numbers in it. They throw out bold claims but provide NOTHING to back it up. They do not provide any mathematical support for their arguments and base everything in what they refer to as "self evident axioms." The fact that you can't get that economists who don't use numbers are nothing more than philosophers who can't add is astounding. THERE IS NO EMPIRICAL DATA! In fact, the rockstar of Austrian economics, Hayek, when questioned about this very belief stated: "his belief that social science theories can 'never be verified or falsified by reference to facts." Professors of economics laugh at this economic school. It is a joke! When they try to elaborate on their differences with modern economics, they show they don't understand it. Face it man, you are a Ron Paul guy, and nothing more. You spout Ron Paul, and nothing more. The Fed, the gold standard, and Austrian economics...plain and simple. Oddly, I saw another person who appeared to have that exact same political perspective recently...just can't remember where. Hmm...on tv somewhere I think, maybe in one of the southern states in the West somewhere.
By the way - when you go to the gold standard, monetary policy essentially is controlled by gold mining, which some major economic figures believe contributed to the Great Depression.
Welcome to America, thisisoli. Glad to have you here and it would be GREAT if you chronicle your work experiences in the US.
MMI am hurt *sigh* by this thread because I am a fan of Obama. Last time I read the statistics on economic indicators they are all positively increasing.
Depends on which "indicators" you look at and how they are spun. For example the unemployment rate dropped to 9.4% from last month's 9.8%... that's good right? Well it might be if it wasn't a result of so many people having given up on looking and the gov doesn't count those people. Granted the economy is getting better but even the Fed chairman has said at this rate it will take 5 years to get back to where we were. That just isn't acceptable. Obama and the dem's policies are the cause for this and they simply MUST take responsibility for it! Blaming the republicans and Bush after 2 years a 3.7 trillion in spending just doesn't cut it anymore!
Are you sure it's all Obama's fault?
No chance that the US has got caught up in the global recession?Don't you think that the continued creditcard spending and taking out mortgages over 10 times annual earnings might have caused some of the economic problems which require such funding? A goverment is rarely teh cause or the solution to an economic crises, they can only mitigate the effects and help cushion the fall.
The new laws Obama is trying to bring in will at least help prevent a huge amount of the artificial wealth that the banks create.>"A goverment is rarely teh cause or the solution to an economic crises, they can only mitigate the effects and help cushion the fall."<
I'm not sure that I agree with that entirely. Normally I would, but the 8 years of Bush were anything but normal. Several things happened that never happened before. Bush cut taxes by 1.3 Trillion in 01, and then did it again in 03. But we were attacked on 9/11 of 01 and went to war in 03.
No king or dictator or potentate of any stripe in all of history has ever cut taxes and then taken his country to war. Bush and Cheney were the first. When a country goes to war it raises taxes on the public to pay for it, and for a very good reason. The don't want to bankrupt the country. We didn't do that. We borrowed the money. All of it. We financed the tax cuts and the money for the war on loans from China. None of it was payed for. So not only did we cut revenues to the government through the tax cuts, but we spent around a trillion on two wars. When the economy collapsed we weren't in a position to take that kind of a hit. China however was, since they were showing a surplus. Bush ran up deficits unheared of. There unfortunately seems to be only two ways to go. One is to let the entire US economy collapse thereby dragging the world down along with it and probably igniting wars and revolutions around the world which is unacceptable. Our national security is put at risk. Or we increase the deficits and inflation in order to hold off that kind of economic collapse, and bite the bullet and strive to pull the economy back into some semblance of stability through some form of stimulous to get the wheels of the economy back on track. That is the approach we are taking, and the only one in my view that is sane.
Seems the new Repub mind-control mantra is "Job Killing".
As IF they cared about creating jobs. What happened to America circa 2000-2008?
So now, the Healthcare bill is job killing. Extending unemployment again will be job killing. Giving kids healthcare will be job killing. Funding public schools will be job killing. Paying off the debt will be job killing. Preventing more pollution will be job killing. Dam, if I still drank, I'd have one every time I heard that!
Meanwhile, Gingrich's plan has worked. Memo: "Say not to everything Obama proposes, and we will come in in November as the saviors.".....Bingo. It worked!
So now the "job-killing" mind-control mantra is in force.
And watch for what they do to distract your attention from the real damage they're about to inflict.
Extending Bushco cuts was #1. Making them permanent would be a death blow.
And I heard they are not using the CBO, but their own Republican analysts. And that Paul Ryan (I think) will have sole power over budget expenditures. He alone will decide how much money to allot.
This is a complete repeat of Bushco. Total dominance and stranglehold on America.
And of course, it's worse now, because "You wanted it".
Here's the only way to ward off the mind-control: Every time they speak, it's a LIE. Don't believe them, not for a minute.
You are handing your children a police-state, life of serf-dom reality unless we get rid of this scourge on America.
It's a scourge, and they are after it all. Kill the planet, along with all the useless eaters.What have you done to help this nation? Don't answer; I know nothing but watch TV and judge.
When 43,000 manufacturing jobs have been sent overseas, we will never have unemployment rate raise sufficiently until we develop another industry that ordinary people can be hired to do.
Do you realize those manufacturing jobs we lost, hired hundreds of thousands of people with with no college and not other skill. Factory work was were these folks could buy homes,care for their families and live a little piece of the dream.
Now they have to compete with teens for fast food jobs.The quick answer to your question is because the jury isn't in yet on passing judgment such as that. We are two years into an administration. The public will make that decision two years from now when we can evaluate the state of the Union. What the media has to say regarding this doesn't matter. They aren't in a position to predict the outcome of an administration anymore than you are. What the voters have to say is all that matters.
You say this: "Their economic and social policies are destroying this country and our economy and yet they get a pass!"
My question to you is demonstrate that truth of what you've just said. Unemployment has dropped from almost 10% to 9.3. Clearly we have a way's to go, however it appears that something is working.
You say this: " The unemployment results today are just further PROOF Keynesian economics is a farce, an illusion, a fairy tale, and BS in plain English, but this has been shown to be the case before and yet the democrats KEEP insisting on reverting to these foolish and failed policies that lack common sense!"
As I said, the unemployment figure has dropped. Bernanke has publicly stated that the recovery is now in full swing. Keynesian economics actually does work. Spending money is the only solution to getting out of a depression or near depression such as we had. For those that claim that it didn't work in the Great Depression and that it was WWII that got us out, overlook the fact that WWII required more spending than anything we'd seen before hand in the New Deal. The entire economy was geared toward the war. The war forced spending on an unheared of way, and the rate of unemployment went from 14% in 1940 to 1.9% in 1943. That's nearly 100% employment. If nobody has any money to spend, then no goods or services are purchased and that means more people laid off. Somebody has to spend money or the entire economy collapses. That somebody in this case is the Federal Government which can and should spend money on rebuilding our infrastructure. It puts people to work, and we actually get something tangible in return that will be used for many years to come. We all benefit from that kind of spending.>"Well how much debt is enough? How much money does the government have to print?"<
Why don't you tell us? You've just added $900 Billion to the debt with extended tax cuts for the top 2% of the population. We're all going to pay for that in raised taxes in a few years. So..in order to give this tax cut to the wealthiest of us, we increase the national debt by almost a trillion. How can you be concerned about the debt and support this kind of thing at the same time??>"LOLOLOL! You better go back and read your history again! Unemployment under FDR NEVER fell below 12%!"<
That's because he died before the war ended. Had he lived, it would have been clear that the amount of spending that was done to support WWII not only ended the depression but it brought unemployment down to around 1.9%. That's virtually total employment. We also emerged from that as the worlds most powerful economy. That's historical fact.Nice to see my arguments were completely ignored again, I love it when somebody goes in to a debate, but then refuses to change their standpoint.
A debate is meant to be a cyclical series of counterpoints. It doesnt go too well when the debate goes point -> counterpoint -> ignore.They weren't completely ignored. I did skim over them but then what's the point of debating you, as you said, I don't make a valid argument because I don't understand economics. You've already reached your conclusion even though you didn't provide a shred of evidence to prove that Keynesian economics works.
But you argue that the only thing that saved the FDR economy was the war effort!
The war effort stimulated spending and investment and generated work.
Pure Keynesian economics!Yet the left will complain about all of our debt problems are a result of the wars we're fighting now! So which is it? Does war create weatlh or destroy it? Under FRD the national debt went from 22 to 236 billion, over 1000% increase!
It only works if the population, not the rich, gets a share of the money being spent to furnish support for the war. Outsourcing, such as using No-Bid contractors, only benefits those in high places and doesn't help the economy. Simple as that. Look who got rich on these wars. Your guys, no? LOL!
Who do you think is getting all that money?
Who got the no-bid contract? Follow the trail. During the hearings about these contracts a few years ago it was revealed Haliburton charged $1200 a day for private experienced security guards.
After 5 subcontractors took their cut and passed on the contract, the final sub-contractor hired dubiously experienced African guards for $200 a day. $1000 was spent each day merely paying the sub-contractors to pass along the contract.
This is merely one small example. Another is paying $50 a six-pack for cokes made in the middle east. Your guys did this, Lady Love. Care to make an excuse for them? Of course you do! LOL!I don't understand, isn't that the "stimulus" you are espousing? It's government spending, putting people to work! We did it for the banks, for AIG, for GM, so why not for Haliburton?
I'm not making excuses for it, I don't agree with the wars and the expenditures are more than we can afford and the mission has changed into nation building... I'm not in favor of a 700 billion dollar defense budget or the 840 billion of discretionary spending most of which went to defense.
Let's face it, this is essentially welfare spending the Keynesian philosophy of economics and all we're getting for it is debt! But that might actually be Obama's plan! Remember, never let a crisis go to waste!
http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/02/ … _of_e.htmlHaliburton moved its headquarters out of the US. Why do you suppose? How do you think hiring private individuals, and waiving taxes on this income, helps defray the cost of the war?
During WWII people HERE were hired to work in factories making wartime supplies. They in turn paid taxes on this money which went back into the government coffers. Can you not see the difference in the way the present wars have been handled?"Let's face it, this is essentially welfare spending the Keynesian philosophy of economics and all we're getting for it is debt! But that might actually be Obama's plan! Remember, never let a crisis go to waste!"
PLease read a book about Keynesian economics. Even the source you quote completely fails to recognise the basic principals behind it (Which is why they give a completely useless rebutal as to what is wrong with the Keynesian principals).
Investment in spending creates and saves a huge amount of jobs, much more than the jobs created by the money itself, remember that money flows, and a dollor is worth as many times as it is spent.If what you say is true than why isn't the economy booming? With all that has been spent, not just in America but around the globe, we should be awash in cash, in jobs and in prosperity....so where is it?
Whoa, your knowledge of economics astounds me, let me think, The Japanese raised interest rates from 0% to 0.5% basically leading a lot of western banks to suddenly face the real issue that they might have to pay interest on their foreign borrowings.
This was not helped by the fact that banks have this great system where they are by law only allowed lend (request prints from the Federal bank) or 90% of their funds, unfortunately if they lend $1,000,000, and the person saves it in the same bank, they can lend out a further $900,000 of that, creating even further 'false wealth' in the economy. This is yet another cyclical event which creates a huge amount of money in the system
Credit cards have been given out to everyone with little significant control. This has lead to an inflated spending economy which was only heightened by consolidated loans, which allowed people to take out even more money at a slightly lower interest rate, throwing people in to even more debt.
On top of that people have been taking out mortgages on houses they could barely afford, with mortgages over 10 times annual earnings, with an annual interest rate larger than payments.
In times of prosperity when people should have been saving they were given easy credit. They spent and accumulated debt while interest rates were low. Then all of a sudden the easy credit disappeared, people couldn't get anymore easy credit, people began to panic.
So people began to stop buying so many things, companies asked banks for loans to help keep them solvent through the hard times. Unfortunately banks were in trouble too, so the companies went under, people lost their jobs, and more people stopped spending, which meant even more companies went under, more people lost their jobs, and even more people stopped spending.
Meanwhile over in the middle east the oil bearing countries began talks to remove a 50 year old deal with the US guaranteeing sale of oil in dollars, instead preferencing the sale of oil in Euros. The risk of this would be a loss of strength which would have severely reduced the value of the dollar. Making imports from foreign countries such as China impossible, which would have heavily increased prices of nearly every day to day goods, electronic or otherwise than people use, while reducing profits from Americas corn cash crop. To solve this America spent an immense amount of money to protect their currency.
This was combined with growing food prices causing increased strains on American households as nearly a fifth of all food crops worldwide were converted to bio-fuel farms after government incentives.
Just a thought.
>"Yet the left will complain about all of our debt problems are a result of the wars we're fighting now! So which is it? Does war create weatlh or destroy it? "<
Wrong. Our debt problems aren't simply the wars but the tax cuts that accompanied them. The answer to your question is that you don't cut taxes and go to war. You raise taxes when you go to warThat's how you pay for it. Look through your history and you'll see that every king that took his country to war raised taxes on his people to pay for it. We didn't do that. We did raise taxes in WWII to pay for the war. This time around we cut taxes and then borrowed the money from China to pay for the war. Why is this so hard for you to see. Something very different has taken place this time. The results speak volumes. There is a very good reason why nobody in history has ever done that. They didn't want to bankrupt their country.well, if we're going to use history...
every country that's ever left the gold standard has collapsed, crashed, and burned. But your main man Keynes considered Gold a barbarous relic.There's a 22 year old kid in Tucson who agrees with your gold standard foolishness. Most people however know better.
Wow, Ron, that's really your best argument?
Some guy who agreed with me shot someone, and thus my ideology is wrong?
I could easily use this logic to prove that Government is wrong, Christianity is wrong, Judaism, Anarchy, Statism, Capitalism, Socialism, eating hamburgers, Carnivorism...
ugh... why am I even responding to such an obvious troll post?"every country that's ever left the gold standard has collapsed, crashed, and burned."
Evan - please list for us the countries who stayed on the gold standard, how long they have been in around, and where they stand compared to other countries.I guess you're bored. You think the Tucson shooter is the only nutball that agrees with your paper money is evil foolishness? He's only the most visible example.
"You think the Tucson shooter is the only nutball that agrees with your paper money is evil foolishness?"
Thought you lefties determined he was with the Tea Party.
Really?All countries who have abandoned the gold standard have collapsed, crashed and burned huh? When did we crash and burn? When did Britain? When did France? When did Australia collapse? What about Canada and Newfoundland? What about New Zealand? What about India? What a joke! There is a reason that the entire planet WAS on the gold standard and now ARE NOT. It didn't work when things got bigger. Period. Grow out of it dude.
The real problem comes when you try to buy an isolated shack in Montana. None of the owners or potential buyers believes in paper currency, so you need to keep some gold on hand for the day that you finally check out of society.
BTW, I wonder if the Tucson shooter bought his weapon with Maple Leafs or Krugerrands?I'm waiting to see how long it is before our libertarian buddy resumes his calls for anarchy. The word has negative overtones in terms of turning children and old people into bloody corpses. I'm sure it's a matter of time.
You misunderstood my meaning John. I was trying to point out that the Keynesian approach to spending worked exactly as it was intended, and that the amount of spending done for the war proves that. Money doesn't care what it's spent on. In this case it was massive amounts going to the war effort. That approach pulled us out of the Depression and launched the strongest economy in the world. We continued that spending under the Marshall Plan. After the war, America emerged as the strongest economy in the world proving Keynes correct and we reduced unemployment to practically zero. The war itself was simply the catalyst for spending huge amounts of money. It could have been something else.The point is that it took spending money by the government to pull us out of the Depression.
Sure well why isn't it working now? Look at our defense budget it's about 1/3 of government expenditures, and discretionary spending, half of that is for defense, then ther's social security and medicare all of that is government spending and now add in the trillions of bailouts, and stimulus poured into the economy.... how much more spending is necessary to kickstart the economy?
>"Sure well why isn't it working now?"<
Who say's it isn't? As far as I can tell, it stopped a complete collapse of the US economy and according to the Fed Chairman is starting to take hold right now as we speak. Consdering that it took 8 years to get us to this point, expecting us to be turned around in two is absurd. If that's the case then I have to ask John Boehner why hasn't he done anything about jobs? The House is the the body that handles the appropriations of funds. Why was he spending hours reciting the constitution when he should have been tackling the problems of unemployment and the economy? Where are the Jobs?? If you think I'm going to cut him any slack on this you're mistaken. So far I see no results. What's taking him so long?
>"how much more spending is necessary to kickstart the economy?"<
Probably a lot. However, extending tax cuts for the top 2% of the population does NOTHING to improve the economy. It only adds a trillion to the deficit. Many of these people don't even want them. Gates and Buffet are examples. They don't need them. They'll all still be millionaires and billionaires whether their tax rate is 35% or 39%. They aren't going to the poor house. That is borrowed money in order to provide a tax cut for these people. You have an issue with bailouts, but no issue with this?? How come? At least when we bailed out GM we saved jobs and an entire industry and they are paying it all back with interest. What are these tax cuts for the wealthiest 2% going to do for us? That money could go toward improving the infrastructure of the nation which puts people to work and gives us something tangible for years to come. This kind of thing does nothing but place the burden of that tax cut on the middle class.
Social Security should be off limits. It's an extremely popular program that is fully funded and will be for the next 40 years. Medicare is something that nobody wants to lose. Without it, those who are retired couldn't afford health care at the time they need it the most. As for "descretionary" spending...define what you think is descretionary. Some may regard your definition as proprietary.
The Republican concept seems to be run up huge deficits and then bitch about them and demand that we cut spending on social programs to balence the budget. They hate social programs to begin with, so their way of getting rid of them is to increase the deficit and then gut the programs that actually have some value to the people.>"Sure well why isn't it working now?"<
"Who say's it isn't? As far as I can tell, it stopped a complete collapse of the US economy"
Really? How can you tell?
Please enlighten us.Our economy is no longer in free fall, and unemployment has apparently peaked and appears to be moving down. The stock market was around 6,000 when Obama took office and although I haven't looked today I believe it's over 10,000 and has been for a while. We were on the very brink of a total collapse and depression. We managed to avoid that and are climbing out of a very deep hole. I don't know about you, but I never expected this mess to be solved quickly. It took 8 years of mismanagement to get us here. It isn't going to turn around instantly.
So..based on what I've seen why would I think that it isn't working? If it wasn't, we'd be in a complete depression right now. That isn't the case is it?Please explain how the market is the economy?
It is definitely a large element as well as a quantitative measure, however it does not comprise the entire thing. Now I am really curious...what exactly do you consider "the economy"? In fact, how specifically do you think Obama has wrecked the economy? How is the economy wrecked right now? What measures are you using? In fact, what planet are you living on?
It is definitely a large element as well as a quantitative measure, however it does not comprise the entire thing. Now I am really curious...what exactly do you consider "the economy"? In fact, how specifically do you think Obama has wrecked the economy? How is the economy wrecked right now? What measures are you using? In fact, what planet are you living on?
Why isn't extending tax cuts good for the economy, if it costs us money? It's federal spending of cash we don't have, so isn't that Keynesian economics, how is that different than a bank bailout, or giving auto workers union money?
BTW, Bernake say it will take another 5 years at the current rate of job growth before we're back to where we were. If that's a example of a policy that's "working" then I'd say it's time for a different policy!It is actually incredibly good, do you really think a decade is a long time, especially after 50 years of relatively good economic growth.
A bank bailout is not really keynesian economics, since keynesian economics involves supporting the economy from the bottom up. Supporting the economy by creating jobs, in the governmetn or not, means more people spending. The best way to do this is (as america has been doing) is by funding projects which have abenefit, while creating jobs, thus increasing the flow of money to businesses, which pay employees, which spend their moeny at other businesses.
I personally did not agree with the bank bailouts persay, I think if a company doesn't make money it should go out of business, not be supported by the government.
Unfortunately a financial collapse (Everybody with a mortgage either having to find a new mortgage (difficult during a financial collapse), or lose their house to the banks creditors) is not good for anyone.
Remember however that a bailout is not always just a bailout, it often gives the government control of the bank, or at least an interest in it. This ensures that the taxpayers at least get some of the cash back after time.Yeah well you're a socialist right? So of course you would think the government running the economy is good, so I don't see why you would object to the bailout of the banks.
But as I said earlier and which you poo-pooed as ridiculous, with that philosophy why not have the government employ everybody? Pay them a giant salary and collect a windfall in taxes from all the economic activity.
Naturally you couldn't provide an answer except to point out how ridiculous that notion is. Of course it's ridiculous, anyone can see that but it is an extension to the ridiculous of the Keynesian philosophy, and a reflection of Pelosi's statement that unemployment stimulates the economy.
Maybe you should read a Milton Friedman book.America IS socialist, you have public schools, public roads, public pensions and for the most part a public infrastructure, have you been to school, have you ever caught the bus? does that make you a socialist? Have you ever called the police?
Socialism in the respect of the majority of the westernized world has nothing to do with bailouts.
As I mentioned (If you had read my retorts, which you obviously didn't because you said "Naturally you couldn't provide an answer except to point out how ridiculous that notion is" after I have written about 1000 words trying to explain this to you) I am not a socialist, I am a mix between socialist and capitalist. I am against higher tax percentages for the rich, but I am for public healthcare, I am for public schooling, but I am for the ability for private schools to compete. I am actually in that bracket which a large portion of the world occupies, namely, an equilibrium.
Civilization rose because people worked together, thats just how things progress.
Your proposal was ridiculous because no one has ever suggested employing everybody, nor did anybody ever suggest giving them a giant salary, you managed to make that up all by yourself. If you start making things up to make your own arguments make sense, you have already lost.
"Please explain how the market is the economy?" argh
The Gold standard is not particularly a bad thing, however you guys got in to a fair amount of trouble when several eastern countries took all their dollars back to the US and asked for all the Gold it was worth, that was when America had to cut loose.
I do agree that each state should have the majority of control over it's laws though, they each have their own problems to deal with so decentralization is important.
When it comes to Friedman, he is a gifted economist but a highly opinionated one. He has received a lot of criticizm for his failure to adapt to globalization (He wants a free market economy, so a loaf of bread is exactly what the purchurser is willing to pay for it) however that causes issues when overseas companies can provide a loaf of bread for a tenth of the price of american companies, or when companies can outsource their jobs to other countries. Again, equilibrium is important. Going completely to socialism is frought with failure, but the other end of the spectum is just as much of a danger to an economy.
By the way, if you get this far, you might want to remember that in every post I have mentioned that I have no political agenda in this argument, I am actually more right wing. But I also completely disagree with how people start getting worked up about an agenda, without actually knowing anything about it, tell me, have you actually read any Friedman or any Keynes?I don't have the time or energy to debate every one of your points. You're new to America so maybe you don't understand the difference between the federal government and that of the states. MA has universal health care, if people like that, they can move there! You see, that's how freedom in the republic works. If the Federal government takes over health care there is no where for anyone to go to escape it, it's unconstitutional, simple as that. Schools are also financed by localities. The whole idea of our government is to keep decisions on governance as close to the people as possible, which is why the Dept of Education is also unconstitutional.
We have local roads, they are financed by local governments, state roads by the states, and of course the Interstate system which the feds created. That's not exactly socialism and to be honest there's no reason to think that couldn't have happened without government involvement.But we have state health care, we also have private health care for those who want it without having to move elsewhere. Now, isn't that freedom rather than your take on freedom that seems like no freedom at all.
All those thing that you claim aren't socialism are. The myth that they would have happened without government intervention might well be true but there was little or no evidence of this happening before the government stepped in and started building roads towards the beginning of the 20th century. You had no (or few) interstate highways before the 1920s and were still building them in the 50s!We can move there huh? How about this? If you don't like it in this country as it is, with the people in it, then GET OUT OF MY COUNTRY!
Yes it is socialism, just because a local budget is controlled by local authorities does not remove the socialist aspect of it. It is in every case governmet controlled projects providing for the society.
And just because you have state healthcare does not mean that you do not have the opportunity for private healthcare as well. Having private healthcare alongside national healthcare means that there is a huge abundance of increased competition.
America is a long way from having private healthcare, but it astounds me that anyone could be against it.I've all ready pointed out to Lady Love that here in the UK we have state provided health care and a flourishing private health care as well, but she seems not to have absorbed this.
A bit of political blindness perhaps?
>"Why isn't extending tax cuts good for the economy, if it costs us money?"<
Because it adds about a trillion dollars to the debt that you are so concerned about. So the question to you is are you concerned about the deficit OR not? You can't claim to be and then call for tax cuts that add to the very thing you are complaining about. The fact is that we get nothing in return for the tax cuts for the top 2%. It's not like they're going to start a new company. And since they already have massive wealth they already own most everything that they need or want already. That money will go into their stock portfolios. So..the question then becomes would that trillion not better serve the needs of the nation by investing it into our infrastructure that will not only provide jobs but improve our roads, rails, runways, bridges, and tunnels, and all the support jobs that go into that kind of construction and leave us with a modernized nation that we will make use of over the coming decades? We create jobs, and improve the infrastructure of the nation. All of that improves the economy of the country. Is that not what you want?"Because it adds about a trillion dollars to the debt that you are so concerned about."
First off it's you on the left that are touting deficit spending and calling it stimulus, not me! Besides, maintaining the EXISTING tax rate does nothing to the deficit. That's like saying if you make a hundred dollars a week and spend 200 dollars that your paycheck is causing you to have to borrow.
(Do you see the absurdity?) Spending causes deficits not tax rates.
"The fact is that we get nothing in return for the tax cuts for the top 2%."
The facts according to whom? What do you think they are doing with their money, burying it in their yards? They are investing it or even putting in the bank or other accounts who then put that money to work which translates into jobs! Do you think only when the government spends money that creates jobs?
"So..the question then becomes would that trillion not better serve the needs of the nation ..."
So you think it's fine for the government to confiscate people's money and decide how best to invest it? Do you think people can't decide how to invest their money better? Given the record of waste, abuse, and corruption in government I don't understand how anyone can argue the government could do thsi better than the private sector. Look at healthcare. Obama found 500 billion in waste in medicare to pay for it. That's waste that's been there for 20 years!
>"Besides, maintaining the EXISTING tax rate does nothing to the deficit"<
Yes it does. Those tax cuts were intended to expire. They aren't paid for. The continuation of the cuts for the top 2% adds 900 + Billion to the deficit. You have no grounds to complain about the deficit if you are willing to increase it's size in this irresponsible way when that very same amount of money could be used to improve the infrastructure of the country and create jobs in the process. You have a problem with the deficit and a problem with unemployment. Heres a way to kill two birds with one stone, and you refuse? Why??
The stimulous is designed to spur the economy so that we get something back for it. It's not as if it isn't there to produce something.
>"The facts according to whom? What do you think they are doing with their money, burying it in their yards? "<
What do we get??
>"They are investing it or even putting in the bank or other accounts who then put that money to work which translates into jobs! Do you think only when the government spends money that creates jobs?"<
How? What makes you think that any of that translates into jobs? Why would anybody hire anybody if there aren't people coming into a shop to buy something? This has to be one of the dumbest claims made. You don't hire people unless there is a demand for your product. If there isn't, you lay people off. When there is nobody buying anything, companies lay people off, and that adds more people to the unemployment rolls. That means they can't pay their bills, and they lose their credit, their cars, their homes go into foreclosure and the snowball effect ripples throughout the country. And No..I don't think that only the government creates jobs. In a normal economy that isn't necessary at all. But this is NOT a normal economy. If nobody is spending money, then nobody is selling anything. Is that what you want?? Somebody HAS to spend money or the entire system collapses. That is what we were facing. The only source of money was the Government. It's either that, or submit to global depression and that is not an option. So you may not like this and nobody really does, but you do what you have to do in order to keep the US economy from collapse.
>"So you think it's fine for the government to confiscate people's money and decide how best to invest it?"<
I have no problem with paying taxes. I live in a country that provides unlimited opportunity. And it provides the services that I enjoy. Nothing in life comes for free. Living here comes with a price, and I'm willing to pay it. The government invests in programs that I think are benificial to a modern society. So I don't view it as confiscation. I put good of the country first. My needs come after that. I'm an American not some isolated ego that can only look out for #1. I'm part of a society. Society is an essential element of reason. Without society reason has no reason to exist.
>"Do you think people can't decide how to invest their money better?"<
People do that everyday. We have this thing called the Stock Market. In fact, I'm sure your bank has a variety of ways for you to invest your money. Part of my money goes toward maintaining the system of government that we have and the democracy that it serves. The roads I drive on, the national parks I visit, the schools my kids went to, the libraries that I use, the municipal parks, street lights, the police, the fire dept..and on and on. I like it. I see it as investing in my country.
"Where are the Jobs?? If you think I'm going to cut him any slack on this you're mistaken. So far I see no results. What's taking him so long?"
Boehner hadn't even taken over the Speaker of the House yet and the unemployment rate fell from 9.8 to 9.4 in December just on the news that the democrats were kicked to the curb.
Question is how many more days do we have to put up with democrat incompetence?
http://flaglerlive.com/16309/december-2 … loyment-us>"Boehner hadn't even taken over the Speaker of the House yet and the unemployment rate fell from 9.8 to 9.4 in December just on the news that the democrats were kicked to the curb."<
Can you prove that was the reason?
Ah, I wasn't responding to you though, saw no need to as we are singing off the same hymn sheet so to speak.
I was giving Lady Love one example of Keynesian economics at work"Money doesn't care what it's spent on".
It's disgusting that Keynes can be taken seriously. This sentence proves the nonsense of Keynes.
IF money doesn't care what it's spent on....
... then why do I care what I spend it on?!
Indeed, if we measure how well an "economy" is doing in just aggregate GDP, then, why, we could prove that anything is beneficial!
Sure, I could steal everyone's money - that would lead to a 100% spending throughout the economy! That would sure as heck raise GDP up the wazoo!
Or we could build nothing but nuclear bombs as our population starves, and then blow ourselves up! GDP would be HUGE then! After all, as Keynes stated himself: "In long run, we're all dead."
http://thinkexist.com/quotation/in_the_ … 10498.html
Keynes couldn't wrap his head around the most basic of points: prices MEAN something. He failed to realize that INTEREST is a price, and that artificially lowering interest makes people think there are more resources for production than there really are. Keynes failed to realize that, with lower interest rates, you're trading the future for the present; you're taking 3 steps forward, 5 steps back.
Making things artificially cheap (through lower interest rates and monetary inflation) sends incorrect signals throughout the market. People begin to think that taking out loans to build luxury sky-scrapers is a good thing. But, unfortunately, people trying to use the same resources for more important projects are still competing for those resources and prices end up skyrocketing.
If you force things cheaper today, they'll naturally be more expensive tomorrow.
On top of ALL of this, Keynes has been disproven since the Stagflation of the 70s and 80s. Keynesians the world over never thought that unemployment and inflation could take place at the same time... until it happened.
Keynes is/was wrong.
------------------
Hayek vs. Keynes: Keynes lost.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d0nERTFo-Sk
The making of:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eBzXpH3Tjo0
"Prepare to get schooled in my Austrian Perspective">"It's disgusting that Keynes can be taken seriously. This sentence proves the nonsense of Keynes.IF money doesn't care what it's spent on....... then why do I care what I spend it on?!"<
Thats really a pretty stupid question. Money is in-animate. It has no conscience to concern itself with. You could use it stupidly or wisely. But it doesn't care about that. I'm pretty certain that you are human. Of course, I could be wrong. Money is a tool. You use it. A hammer doesn't care what it's used for, but I would think that you'd make the best use of it. You use money to satisfy some desire that you may have. It has no desires of it's own. Your sentence suggests that money has some emotional attachment to what it's spent on. That's what makes the question stupid. You may want to re-think what you said.> "IF money doesn't care what it's spent on....... then why do I care what I spend it on?!"< Did you really mean to say that?
>"Or we could build nothing but nuclear bombs as our population starves, and then blow ourselves up! GDP would be HUGE then! After all, as Keynes stated himself: "In long run, we're all dead.""<
But we don't. Because that isn't a wise way of using it. That doesn't negate the theory. It simply points out that it should be used in way's that are beneficial.
>"Keynes couldn't wrap his head around the most basic of points: prices MEAN something."<
Price is arbitrary. The price of all things fluctuates. The value of anything is subjective. Ultimately something is only worth what people are willing to pay for it. The "basic point" you're trying to make that you think Keynes can't wrap his head around actually has no point.
>"Keynes failed to realize that, with lower interest rates, you're trading the future for the present; you're taking 3 steps forward, 5 steps back."<
Not at all. You may in fact be trading the future for the present, but if the present means you are facing total destruction, then you make the trade. It's the lesser of two evils. As was proven, the amount of spending that was done by virtue of WWII, ended the Depression and reduced unemployment to almost zero. Does that increase the deficit? Yes. But you don't care about that anyway since you're willing to add almost a trillion to the deficit by cutting taxes for the top 2% of the income bracket. So don't begin to complain about deficits when the fact is that you don't actually care about them and are more than willing to increase them. In my view Keynesian economics is something to use when the economy is in peril. It was in the 30's, and it is today.
>"If you force things cheaper today, they'll naturally be more expensive tomorrow. "<
Well...no shit Sherlock. Prices have always gone up on everything. Bread used to be a nickel. Cigs were $.35. Gas was under a buck. A newspaper was $.25. When haven't prices gone up. Wages have gone up as well. A Corvette used to cost around $6K.
>"On top of ALL of this, Keynes has been disproven since the Stagflation of the 70s and 80s. Keynesians the world over never thought that unemployment and inflation could take place at the same time... until it happened. Keynes is/was wrong."<
You need to understand that economic theory is exactly that. You haven't disproven a theory when it has been shown to work ie: WWII. It's a theory. It is not science, and no theory can be proven. I would think you already knew that much. Attempts to prove any theory as true are always futile since it requires inductive reasoning to do it, and induction never proves anything. Hume presented that in the 1700's. But I'm sure you must know that. You seem to be implying however, that it is and that it meets a very neat formula.
You also do seem to be taken with Hayek and the Austrian School, and are preparing to school me in it? I'm already pretty familiar with it. I wonder however just how familiar you actually are? Being a conservative I'm wondering why you would lean to Hayek who was not? He explains why he isn't in his essay, "Why I'm not a Conservative". It appears that you believe that the course of history is predetermined by scientific laws. I wonder if you're aware of the fact that that was the view of Karl Marx. It was referred to as economism. Marx contended that the clue to history, even to the history of ideas, is to be found in the development of the relations between man and his natural environment, the material world; that is to say, in his economic life, and not in his spiritual life. Karl Popper of the Vienna School ( thats in Austria by the way ) said, “it is very easy to overrate the importance of the economic conditions in any particular case”—and he went on to criticize Marx for trying to reduce all thoughts and ideas to economic conditions.
Economism, thus understood, is not a theory in economics. It is the
philosophical stance that economic facts, interests, and goals are the facts, interests, and goals that should matter most when it comes to policy decisions. This philosophical stance is often bolstered by the claim that economics is a science, and that its theories and predictions have the cognitive authority that only a science can have.
The most obvious proponents of economism are economic reductionists, such as yourself who believe that all facts, interests, and goals can ultimately be defined in economic terms—or, in other words, that economic facts, interests, and goals are the only ones that really exist. Marx is probably the best-known proponent of this view, and the prevalence of economism in contemporary thought such as yours, is undoubtedly due to his influence. But Hayek, was ultimately a proponent of economism as well—and so is Friedman. So it seems that you share the economic theories of Karl Marx of all people.
Hayek argued that scientific study has shown that socialist economic
theories and aims are both empirically and logically mistaken,
and he said that the fact that the socialists were wrong about the economic facts was crucial to his critique of socialism. But what is, perhaps, more to the point is that Hayek held that freedom is important first and foremost for its economic consequences. Whereas Popper thought that it was wrong to base the rejection of tyranny on economic arguments, Hayek was ready to sacrifice individual freedom—and to adopt a form of totalitarianism—if his analysis of the economic consequences of socialism proved wrong.
Hayek thus writes, in the opening pages of his last book, The Fatal Conceit, that he is prepared to admit that if socialist analyses of the operation of the existing economic order, and of possible alternatives, were factually correct, we might be obliged to ensure that the distribution of incomes conform to certain moral principles, and that this distribution might be possible only by giving a central authority the power to direct the use of available resources, and might presuppose the abolition of individual ownership of means of production. If it were for instance true that central direction of the means of production could effect a collective product of at least the same magnitude as that which we now
produce, it would indeed prove a grave moral problem how this could
be done justly. This, however, is not the position in which we find ourselves.
But the difference in their priorities (Popper and Hayek) is striking. What is at issue between them is the relative value of freedom and economic prosperity. It is a matter of priority, or what comes first. The question is whether we should value freedom because freedom is valuable or because it is profitable—whether we should regard it as an end in itself that is valuable for its own sake, or as a means to economic prosperity that we may dispense with if and when it no longer works to achieve its
end.
Personally I regard freedom as a value and an end in itself and valuable for it's own sake. You see it as a means to economic prosperity, which can be disposed of once that goal is acheived. Therein lies the difference between the liberal and the conservative view.
I think school is out.Of course money is a tool. YOU were the one who said "money doesn't care what it's spent on"!! YOU were the one who gave it a consciousness! I was pointing out the foolishness of such a statement to YOU!!
I was stating that MONEY doesn't care how it's spent (because it's non-sentient), but *I* do care how to spend it because I have a list of ways to spend that money to make my life better - it's called Marginal Utility, thought up by Carl Menger (Austrian Economist).
Keynes never understood this. This is why he ended up with ludicrous statements like "bombing foreign countries is good for society!" (well, not specifically that. But Keynesians still uphold that WWII - bombing cities - was how we got out of a depression)
*
Of course prices are nothing more than 'what X will give Y for Z'. I have made this argument numerous times in other posts.
But!! THIS STATEMENT MEANS SOMETHING!! The fact that "X is willing to give Y his A in exchange for Z" MEANS something! When I say that I'll trade you an egg for $5 (or whatever), that means that I value that egg more than $5!! It MEANS something to trade!
And in this fashion, prices not only MEAN something, but they also provide a systematic way of allocating scarce resources to their most valuable-to-society use. If I want an egg for no more than $5 but you're willing to buy the egg for $6, then that means that you likely have a more urgent "need", or a more profitable use for that egg.
Going even further, Keynes couldn't realize that Interest rates ARE prices!!!! He couldn't understand that "money today" is a separate commodity as "money tomorrow".
Keynes never understood this. This is why he thinks that bombing a city leads to economic prosperity for humanity.
*
Talking about 'WWII proving that spending ends depressions'... then why was it that the FIRST US depression to last longer than 3 years -- the WORST depression in all of US history -- just HAPPENED to be the same one where the government spent money like a drunken sailor?
If anything, WWII proves that Keynes was wrong. Dead wrong. Horribly wrong. God-awfully wrong: The first longer-than-a-decade recession/depression was ALSO the first time the government spent money like a madman.
Go figure...
*
Your quote: "Prices have always gone up on everything."
This is incorrect. Prices have only been going up during this last century - there are NUMEROUS examples of prices actually GOING DOWN throughout history. These examples always coincide with gold-backed money.
The reason prices go up is because we print money out of thin air. Supply of money goes up it's value -just like everything else in the world - goes down. IF you have 8 billion eggs, then one egg will only cost a little bit. If you have 3 eggs, then one is worth a lot.
Supply and demand works on money as well.
*
Economics is NOT a theory. It can't be- there are simply TOO many variables and it is UNtestable. We agree here, somehow.
Theory = Science. A theory is an non-disproven hypothesis.
I think you were looking for the term "Praxeology". Economics needs to be deduced through truths, like geometric laws.
Keynes, on the other hand, thought that economics could be scientific.
So, oddly enough, you think that Keynes was right, but then you disagree with him... We agree that Economics is NOT a science, but ... why do you like Keynes if you feel this way?
I'm ACTUALLY confused on this one: you're arguing that economics is NOT scientific (which I agree with), but then you defend Keynes who believed that economics could be a scientific endeavor....
...?
*
Freedom indeed needs to be preserved.
Not just because freedom is freedom! But because it actually IS the most efficient way to reach progress for humanity.
Luckily for humanity, freedom is not only moral, but it's efficient.
We agree here as well.
*
I'm not a conservative, I'm an Anarchist.
Did you at least watch the video?>"Of course money is a tool. YOU were the one who said "money doesn't care what it's spent on"!! YOU were the one who gave it a consciousness! I was pointing out the foolishness of such a statement to YOU!!"<
Do you understand the meaning of the word, "faceteous?. Of course I stated that money doesn't care what it's spent on, for the very reason that I stated. It's an inanimate object. It isn't living. It has no concience to care about. It's not human. I explained that. I was not giving it a concience. I was in fact illustrating the stupidity of your comment in that if money doesn't care, then why should you. >"IF money doesn't care what it's spent on....... then why do I care what I spend it on?!"< You should care because you are a human being. Money is not. It doesn't have human charactoristics. Do you think that you understand this now??
>" The first longer-than-a-decade recession/depression was ALSO the first time the government spent money like a madman. Go figure..."<
I'm sorry but you're dead wrong. Horribly wrong. Devestatingly wrong. The amount of money spent during the period of the New Deal pales compared to the amount of money spent on the War. As I said before..Money doesnt' care what it's spent on. You can spend it on roads, you can spend on social programs, or you spend on tanks and bombers and battleships. The figures simply don't lie my friend. The problem with the period of the New Deal was not spending, but the fact that they didn't spend enough. That is born out by the figures that are irrefutable from 1940-45. The unemployment figures went from 14% in 1940 to 1.9% in 1943. And the GDP was staggering. We emerged from WWII as the economic super power in the world. So your argument ignores completely the massive spending that took place during the war. It was in fact that spending which ended the Depression. And the Depression started in 1929. FDR didn't take office until March of 1933.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt entered office on the heels of the 1932 collapse of the American Financial system. The floor fell out of the economy. At the time of the November election, unemployment stood at 31% and the GDP fell from $104 billion in 1929 to 76$ billion, and agriculture prices fell 61% from 1929 to 1933. Over 5,000 banks closed their doors in 1933 taking $3.4 billion with them.
The situation when FDR took office, was perilous. Unemployment rates were astonishing: 50% in Cleveland, 60% in Akron, 80% in Toledo, and 90% in Gary (Indiana). The suffering was nation wide, New York City reported 95 people starved to death in 1932.
For some bizarre reason conservatives and others of your persuasion seem to focus on the New Deal as an argument against spending. Claiming that spending didn't work. Then you acknowledge that it was the War that ended the Depression but ignore the fact that the war cost money. We spent money. Lots and lots of money on the war effort. Tons of money. So obviously spending huge amounts of money is in fact what ended the Depression and established almost 100% full employment. You seem to have some blinders on that don't allow to recognize that a large amount of money was spent. Instead you say, Oh well..it was the war that ended it...as if the war was waged without any cost involved. It didn't matter what the money was spent on, but that it was spent. The problem with the New Deal was that we didn't spend enough to end the Depression sooner. Go Figure indeed.
>"Economics is NOT a theory. It can't be- there are simply TOO many variables and it is UNtestable. We agree here, somehow. Theory = Science. A theory is an non-disproven hypothesis."<
I disagree. You can have a theory on virtually anything. Political theory for example. Music theory. What you can't do is prove a theory. There is no way. Even Einsteing pointed that out. Actually David Hume pointed that out in the 1700's when he introduced the Problem of Induction. He showed that there was no way to use induction to rationally prove our science. Attempting to prove anything required inductive reasoning, so the problem had to be addressed from a different angle. That angle was through falsification ( Modus Tollens...deduction) which has become the foundation of the scientific method.
>"I think you were looking for the term "Praxeology". Economics needs to be deduced through truths, like geometric laws."<
Again I disagree. You appear to be arguing against yourself by saying one thing and practicing it's opposite. What your stating here is the view of Karl Marx. I'm not sure if you know that or not. I pointed that out earlier. Marx believed in economism. Eoonomism is the basis of Free Marketeers today. In other words, the claim that the economic organization of society, the organization of our exchange of matter with nature, is fundamental for all social institutions and especially for their historical development. He contended that the clue to history, even to the history of ideas, is to be found in the development of the relations between man and his natural environment, the material world; that is to say, in his economic life, and not in his spiritual life.”
Economism, thus understood, is not a theory in economics. It is the
philosophical stance that economic facts, interests, and goals are the facts, interests, and goals that should matter most when it comes to policy decisions. This philosophical stance is often bolstered by the claim that economics is a science, and that its theories and predictions have the cognitive authority that only a science can have.
Marx was also an historicist. I doubt that Glen Beck realizes that he is a historicist as well. I find it amusing that Beck adheres to Marxist theory.
I stated this above but I guess it bears repeating. Maybe you didn't read it.
The most obvious proponents of economism are economic reductionists, such as yourself who believe that all facts, interests, and goals can ultimately be defined in economic terms—or, in other words, that economic facts, interests, and goals are the only ones that really exist. Marx is probably the best-known proponent of this view, and the prevalence of economism in contemporary thought such as yours, is undoubtedly due to his influence. But Hayek, was ultimately a proponent of economism as well—and so is Friedman. So it seems that you share the economic theories of Karl Marx of all people.
Hayek argued that scientific study has shown that socialist economic
theories and aims are both empirically and logically mistaken,
and he said that the fact that the socialists were wrong about the economic facts was crucial to his critique of socialism. But what is, perhaps, more to the point is that Hayek held that freedom is important first and foremost for its economic consequences. Whereas Popper thought that it was wrong to base the rejection of tyranny on economic arguments, Hayek was ready to sacrifice individual freedom—and to adopt a form of totalitarianism—if his analysis of the economic consequences of socialism proved wrong.
Hayek thus writes, in the opening pages of his last book, The Fatal Conceit, that he is prepared to admit that if socialist analyses of the operation of the existing economic order, and of possible alternatives, were factually correct, we might be obliged to ensure that the distribution of incomes conform to certain moral principles, and that this distribution might be possible only by giving a central authority the power to direct the use of available resources, and might presuppose the abolition of individual ownership of means of production. If it were for instance true that central direction of the means of production could effect a collective product of at least the same magnitude as that which we now
produce, it would indeed prove a grave moral problem how this could
be done justly. This, however, is not the position in which we find ourselves.
But the difference in their priorities (Popper and Hayek) is striking. What is at issue between them is the relative value of freedom and economic prosperity. It is a matter of priority, or what comes first. The question is whether we should value freedom because freedom is valuable or because it is profitable—whether we should regard it as an end in itself that is valuable for its own sake, or as a means to economic prosperity that we may dispense with if and when it no longer works to achieve its
end.
So oddly enough you call yourself a conservative but lean to Hayek who was not a conservative and stated exactly why he wasn't in a lengthy essay. In the essay he points out the conservatives are so bankrupt from ideas that they constantly appeal to liberal writers to make their case. You also agree with the theories of Marx, but would never admit to being a Marxist.
But Hayek ([1960] 1993, 205–6) thought that the rule of law requires
more than mere legality, or conformity to the law—and more than even constitutionalism, or the requirement that laws passed by a state are not in violation of its written constitution. He wrote that the rule of law also “requires that all laws conform to certain principles”— and that the rule of law “is not a rule of the law but a rule concerning what the law ought to be, a meta-legal doctrine or a political ideal” that provides a normative guide for the concept of proper laws. This metalegal principle is the principle of liberalism, interpreted by Hayek (1948, 110) as “a policy which deliberately adopts competition, the market, and prices as its ordering principle and uses the legal framework enforced by the state to make competition as effective and beneficial as possible.”
Even though the laws that bind us may be entirely general and publicly
accessible, they do not seem capable of providing us with that “assured
private sphere” that Hayek thought was necessary for individual freedom.
For we simply cannot foresee the legal consequences of all of our
actions clearly enough to be able to plan our lives in such a way as to
avoid the possibility of unexpected state coercion. And if our freedom
as individuals really depends upon our ability to plan our lives in this
way, then we would have little choice but to conclude that we are not
really free.
The recognition that market prices, and the competitive system upon
which they are based, are epistemological tools was a brilliant insight.
But Hayek may have been too quick to think that we would never be
able to create better ones. Hayek thus wrote that competition in the
realm of commodities means that “as much will be produced as we
know to bring about by any known method.” He said that “it will of
course not be as much as we might produce if all the knowledge anybody
possessed or can acquire were commanded by some one agency,
and fed into a computer.” But he immediately dismissed the idea, saying
“we do injustice to the achievement of the market if we judge it, as it
were, from above, by comparing it with an ideal standard which we
have no known way of achieving”
Hayek wrote these words almost four decades ago. And it is stunning
to think how far we have come since then. For we have since developed
another epistemological tool that is potentially as well-equipped
to carry out the signaling function of the market—if not actually better
equipped to do so. I am talking, of course, about the Internet.
Hayek regarded market prices as an epistemological tool because
they provide a means to signal knowledge about supply and demand
that is dispersed within societies. The problem of how to perform the
economic calculations was always a dessert question. The main problem
was how to collect all of the dispersed information. Computers alone
cannot help with that. But the Internet can.
What Hayek meant by “an ideal standard which we have no known
way of achieving” was the ability of one agency to command—or collect—
all the knowledge anybody possessed or could acquire about economic
needs, desires, supplies, and relative priorities. Whether or how
we can supply such demands is yet another question. But the idea that
we might be able to type out—on a monthly, weekly, or even daily
basis—exactly what we need to survive, in what quantities and priority,
and transmit those lists to a central calculator no longer seems such an
unachievable ideal at all.
I do not, myself, regard this as a good argument for socialism. But I
think that it should give proponents of market economism pause for
thought. For if it is true that we now have a non-price-based epistemological tool that can gather the knowledge about economic needs, desires, supplies, and relative priorities that is dispersed within societies; and if the use of such a tool could help central planners effect a collective product of at least the same magnitude as that which we now produce; then proponents of economism might be inclined—indeed, as
Hayek said, obliged—to use it despite the sacrifice of freedom that
Hayek thought it entails.
Hayek thought that individual freedom is valuable for its economic
consequences, and that its economic consequences are valuable for
human survival. Many people, since Darwin, have accepted the idea that
valuing something for the sake of survival is as close as one ever gets to
valuing it for its own sake. But this is not the reason why the patriots
shouted “Give me liberty or give me death!” And it is not the reason
why Socrates chose to drink the hemlock. The appeal of economism is
that it gives a clear rationale for defending freedom. But its rationale is
cold comfort to anyone who has to put his life on the line to protect it.
And the poverty of economism is that the value that it places upon
freedom ultimately depends upon empirical facts—upon whether the
market is more efficient, more productive, and more able to sustain the
existence of human beings “in large numbers” than other economic
systems—whose truth, like that of all empirical facts, is contingent
upon particular circumstances that may change over time.
This, in a nutshell, means that those who value freedom primarily as
a means to economic efficiency and productivity may come to repudiate
it if and when they feel that the economic benefits of freedom are
no longer so obvious—or if and when they discover how to acquire
those benefits in other ways.
>"After all, as Keynes stated himself: "In long run, we're all dead.""<
That's what Rush Limbaugh said in an argument with a nutritionist on healthy food.
>" You've already reached your conclusion even though you didn't provide a shred of evidence to prove that Keynesian economics works."<
I think that was already pointed out. WWII is the example of massive spending which ended the Depression. Perhaps you overlooked that.Actually it wasn't until the war was over that the economy turned around, because in those final years as unemployment eased the country was fraught with shortages of all kinds and rationing. It was when the men returned that they needed housing, and all the furnishings, appliances etc that industry couldn't provide because they were busy producing products for the war effort that really made the country profitable and in spite of the new deal saw our debt reduced as more of the population contributed to the tax base. In other words it was the free market that produced the great wealth not the Keynesian spending or even the war!
You're simply wrong. The war didn't end until 1945. We entered in 1941.
Expansion of Employment:
The wartime economic boom spurred and benefited from several important social trends. Foremost among these trends was the expansion of employment, which paralleled the expansion of industrial production. In 1944, unemployment dipped to 1.2 percent of the civilian labor force, a record low in American economic history and as near to "full employment" as is likely possible (Samuelson).
These are the labor figures between 1940-45.
Unemployed Total 8,120 5,560 2,660 1,070 670 1,040
% of Population 8.1% 5.6% 2.7% 1.1% 0.7% 1.1%
% of Labor Force 14.6% 9.9% 4.7% 1.9% 1.2% 1.9%
We were at 14.6% in 1940 and hit a low of 1.2% in 1944. In 45 it was 1.9%.
The War Economy at High Water
Despite the almost-continual crises of the civilian war agencies, the American economy expanded at an unprecedented (and unduplicated) rate between 1941 and 1945. The gross national product of the U.S., as measured in constant dollars, grew from $88.6 billion in 1939 — while the country was still suffering from the depression — to $135 billion in 1944. War-related production skyrocketed from just two percent of GNP to 40 percent in 1943
These are the figures on the economy during that same period:
Nominal GDP Federal Spending Defense Spending
Year total $ % increase total $ % increase % of GDP total $ % increase % of GDP % of federal spending
1940 101.4 9.47 9.34% 1.66 1.64% 17.53%
1941 120.67 19.00% 13.00 37.28% 10.77% 6.13 269.28% 5.08% 47.15%
1942 139.06 15.24% 30.18 132.15% 21.70% 22.05 259.71% 15.86% 73.06%
1943 136.44 -1.88% 63.57 110.64% 46.59% 43.98 99.46% 32.23% 69.18%
1944 174.84 28.14% 72.62 14.24% 41.54% 62.95 43.13% 36.00% 86.68%
1945 173.52 -0.75% 72.11 -0.70% 41.56% 64.53 2.51% 37.19% 89.49%
The historical facts here cannot be denied. Unless of course you're some kind of historical revisionist. Don't let your ideology stand in the way of the truth. The facts are as presented.
Your claim that the economy didn't turn around until the war had ended, is simply false.
You expect me to believe that WWII got us out of the depression, and thus was a GOOD thing...
... despite the fact that 11 million hard working young bodies went overseas to die; all the work done in the US was done by 'emergency workers' (females, elderly, and older folks who previously might not have been working); the horrific rationing of resources (no gas, no rubber, no cars...); the countless money spent on making bombs that simply exploded, boats that are miles deep in the ocean and countless bullets being shot randomly...
Only sophists could prove that something so wasteful and harmful to society was good for society.
Keynes is a mastery of Sophistry.>"You expect me to believe that WWII got us out of the depression, and thus was a GOOD thing..."<
Of course it did. There is no way of denying it. And it was a good thing. We defeated Hitler and our economy rebounded at the same time. You have a problem with that? You're actually condemning our entry into WWII? You have issues with our ridding the planet of Hitler and Nazism? Your charactorization of those who would fight a war to put an end to totalitarionism, the extermination of a race, and a madman like Hitler as sophists is absurd. My own father served in WWII, and he didn't see it that way. Nobody did back then. We knew who we were fighting and why. There were no phoney WMD. They were real. Perhaps you don't feel that there are things worth dying for. I have a son who is a Green Beret with three tours of Iraq. He's disagree with as well.
>" maybe you could go ahead and tell us how you aquired a knowledge of economics, Did you study it at university, did you work as an economic consultant, or even in an economic projection career?"<
She watches Fox News. They provide her with her theory of rationality. They have this thing called Beck University. Sort of like Yale or Oxford..but...not quite.adagio, I agree with you, certainly. I'm laughing, though, because what you've written is exactly what "they" accuse the liberals of all the time (at least here on the forums).
I am not suggesting adopting an illogical position. I am suggesting that framing a logical position in emotional terms has more universal human appeal and is a STRONGER appeal than any logical appeal. It's all about the "packaging" really.
Terms like "tax and spend liberals" and "Obamacare" and "Death Panels" and "Tax Relief" have no counterpart on the left. They become entrenched in our lexicon (or "their" lexicon) and we are then put on the defensive.
My suggestion is not to replace logic with irrational allegiance to an ideology.
My suggestion is to employ the tactics the GOP has used so successfully. To beat them at their own game, so to speak...
There are way too many Americans voting against their own self-interest because they believe the hype.
Well, we can hype, too... can't we???I tend to think that deconstructing and disecting those terms is a better approach. The problem of course is that they float terms out there that become adopted into the vernacular. It's vital to stop it in its tracks. I don't think that you can defeat that by using their tactics. I think that like any martial arts expert would tell you..use their weight or argument against them. Make them demonstrate the truth of their statements at every turn. If you notice, every comment by a conservative is an attack. Consider the title of this very Hub. The object of course is to put you on the defensive. You won't defeat the GOP by playing their game. I promise you that. They play it better then you. The simplest way is usually the best. When they make a statement, require them to demonstrate why it's true. That forces them to defend the comment. Then ask them what makes that comment true? Each statement must be based on another, which is then justified by another, and another, and yet another. It creates a dilemma called Infinite Regress vs. Dogma. There is no way out of it. The only solution to stopping the regress is to apply circular reasoning which is a logical fallacy and can be easily exposed as such. I can't do it alone. But if every person that values reason and truth took this approach and that includes those in Congress, we wouldn't have this problem.
If you go to my home page here, you'll see how to do this.You are an interesting debater. Bravo to your diligence to back your points.
Forbes 2011 forecast does not support claims that the US economy is completely collapsed. Full text link below. Some highlights...
"On a positive note, this may be one of the more optimistic forecast letters I have done in a long time."
“The good news is that the two job creation indicators, job openings and job creation plans both reached new recovery highs.
"Wrapping up for this week, I think the US grows at 2.5 – 3% GDP this year..."
http://blogs.forbes.com/investor/2011/0 … nnelforbesLOL the GOP are now admitting under Bush they were responsible and they heard the people and will change their ways!!!
How convenient.
Were they not equally responsible in 2008?
Where was the culpability then?
Why are they suddenly making such an admission? In January 2011???
Hmmm. Could the mid-term elections have anything to do with it?
Could it have anything to do with the 2012 election looming on the horizon?
Self-serving, and blatantly INSINCERE, that's what that is!Okay, maybe so, but are they any worse than the left who seem to refuse to accept responsibility for their failed policies and still two years later are blaming everything on republicans?
Of course career politicians are self serving and government itself has it's own interests to serve, which is why I still can't understand why the left espouses MORE government, More public spending, More regulation! It's completely illogical in my opinion. Lets work together for term limits in congress!>"Okay, maybe so, but are they any worse than the left who seem to refuse to accept responsibility for their failed policies and still two years later are blaming everything on republicans?"<
What failed policies specifically? You cut taxes in 01 and 03 and took us to war. That alone is enough to put us in trouble. When the economy fell we couldn't manage it. What policies are you talking about? Specifically.
>"Of course career politicians are self serving and government itself has it's own interests to serve,"
What interests does government have to serve? Government is a non-profit entity. Government by definition serves the interest of the people. Give me an example of government interest. Citi Bank has it's own interests to serve. Mobil Exon has it's own interests to serve. What interests does a non-profit like government have to serve other then the needs of the people?
The whole blame game has gone on way too long. We have seen recently that is IS possible for both sides of Congress to work together to pass legislation (which just happens to be their job).
I don't want to open a can of worms here and ask what "failed policies" are the Democrats not accepting responsibility for?
I am not sure term limits are the answer to the problem. Lobbying limits (meaning, no lobbyist influence) seems to me to be a better idea. I don't care what industry or cause they're shilling for, they pollute the process and the outcome!
But as long as the constituents keep voting their Senator or Congressperson back in, why shouldn't s/he continue to serve?The reason for term limits is simple, first, it takes money to get elected and lobbies are the way people get their candidates elected. You or I contributing 100 dollars to a campaign will never be heard, but if we're members of the NRA or AMA or even Moveon.org, our will is exercised. That's the political reality, and money wins elections. That said politicians that stay in power too long start serving the masters that give them the most money to be re-elected, so the system itself is corrupting and the longer one is in power the more money they attract because no one want to back a loser. Instituting term limits removes that certainty and prevents someone like a Charlie Rangle serving for 40 years. Ever wonder why incumbents get elected 90% of the time? Because the election rules are designed to keep challengers out! Once again, term limits solves that problem.
To me somone that runs for office does so because they have a sense of service and thinks they can help. Some one that stays for 40 years is basically there to steal.Wow!
Surely better than term limits, which would do nothing to dissuade the wealthy from buying influence and actually work against the poorer candidates would be a limit on election expenses?That's esentially a limit on free speech isn't it? Maybe if there were term limits people wouldn't spend soooo much money to get elected.
No, no limit on free speech. Unless of course you believe that money talks!
Well isn't that the saying "Money talks"... it does in a way.
I much prefer Dylan's take on it, "money doesn't talk, it swears"
But what then of the freedom of those without money? Oh of course,they don't qualify for representation do they.
"The whole blame game has gone on way too long."
I can certainly see where you would feel that way.
After all, its your side that is to blame.Yes of course. The 8 years of the Bush experiment had nothing to do with where we are today. lol. Can somebody get a shovel. It's getting deep here.
LOL - you'll need a D9 cat with a blade - a backhoe adn more.... a shovel wont do the job!
When will the conservative and Republicans get over their short term memory loss? The Republicans, conservatives, and Bush didn't exactly do a knockout job. In fact it'll take years to clean up and paying for the mess they causes for years to come.
Um, yeah, but when you've taken poison, you don't cheer yourself up by scarfing down a few arsenic laced brownies....
turn the channel to Fox. They are media, and make no bones about dem failures.
You mean Fox Noise a.k.a The Republican Fundraising Network?
Fox Noise. The Propaganda Network. I think I'll pass.
Can't say I see Republicans succeeding either, unless of course, lining their own pockets is viewed as a success. Maybe the question should be: "When will Americans wake up?"
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