The Democrat Thread

[southsider2k5]

If Obama had instead kicked 15 puppies, this comparison would make sense.

 

He exaggerated the numbers in a larger point. He made a mistake, no doubt. That's not comparable to making things up or distorted numbers/facts being crucial to your argument, which is what Fox routinely gets called out on.

 

Which is exactly what was done here.

[Rex Kickass]

Which is exactly what was done here.

 

That stuff goes on all the time, and its called out a lot less than you would think, believe it or not.

[StrangeSox]

Which is exactly what was done here.

 

No. You said yourself that he could make the same point with 10%. What Fox routinely gets called out on is for making arguments that completely fall apart without their distorted or misleading numbers.

[southsider2k5]

That stuff goes on all the time, and its called out a lot less than you would think, believe it or not.

 

That's the problem. It doesn't get done enough across the spectrum.

[StrangeSox]

That's the problem. It doesn't get done enough across the spectrum.

 

Attacks on media rivals for minor, inconsequential mistakes in a statement doesn't happen enough?

[Balta1701]

Wait, WTF, I come back and the Democrats are defending crappy, made up numbers from Joe Scarborough?

[StrangeSox]

No I'm rejecting the victimization of Fox News

[southsider2k5]

No. You said yourself that he could make the same point with 10%. What Fox routinely gets called out on is for making arguments that completely fall apart without their distorted or misleading numbers.

 

 

Wait, WTF, I come back and the Democrats are defending crappy, made up numbers from Joe Scarborough?

 

I'll take it.

[Balta1701]

Last year, conservative economist Douglas Holtz-Eakin presented the graph on the left to Congress, showing that based on the size of the downturn, the stimulus bill had a multiplier of 1, and that was about it, thus clearly places like the CBO were overestimating the number of jobs it created.

 

If you take the new numbers for how fast GDP was really collapsing in 2008/2009, it doubles that mark or more.

 

[StrangeSox]

I already posted that in the financial thread. How dare you.

[Balta1701]

I already posted that in the financial thread. How dare you.

 

I scrolled back through half a dozen posts of 2k5 insisting that there is plenty of oil, and that was the only post out of the whole set that I didn't see.

[Balta1701]

Newt Gingrich had one of those moments of honesty that the Conservatives at this site don't allow themselves. No wonder they don't like him.

KEYES: There’s been a lot of discussion on the number of people who aren’t paying income taxes. Do you think people are paying enough in taxes?

 

GINGRICH: Well, first of all, virtually everybody pays taxes, ’cause if you go to work, you pay into Social Security and Medicare taxes. We have property taxes. Most states if you buy something, you pay a sales tax. So I don’t find too many Americans who think that they are under, or they are not being taxed enough. [...]

 

It’s technically true of the income tax. It’s not true of taxes in general.

[kapkomet]

So the only thing that can grow jobs is the government? Wrong. That's the problem, you think the only thing that will solve it is bigger government (or more government control). Meanwhile, that straw man who's walking back into the house here is that only the rich get richer. The only thing that can solve this problem is that the rich get taxed and the "good government" will pass it back out to the poor. If it were that simple, every government would be communist/socialist, and I'm not saying that as a dirty word, it simply is.

 

If the duplicity of regulations and real protections from things that matter were in place (sure, 100% pure market capitalism cannot work), things might get moving again. The problem is bigger then government, though. The real problem is that our country is too mature in the growth cycle at this point.

[Balta1701]

You could get rid of every regulation out there right now and it wouldn't change the reality...$10 trillion in household wealth vaporized in 2008, households had spent 5 years making purchases based on the assumption that they had that wealth, and now, they're trying to recover from that debt load. Government policy has hurt in some cases (the HAMP program), helped in others (The stimulus), but the private sector simply cannot grow right now. It needs time for household budgets to recover.

[southsider2k5]

Newt Gingrich had one of those moments of honesty that the Conservatives at this site don't allow themselves. No wonder they don't like him.

You missed his point totally.

 

 

[southsider2k5]

You could get rid of every regulation out there right now and it wouldn't change the reality...$10 trillion in household wealth vaporized in 2008, households had spent 5 years making purchases based on the assumption that they had that wealth, and now, they're trying to recover from that debt load. Government policy has hurt in some cases (the HAMP program), helped in others (The stimulus), but the private sector simply cannot grow right now. It needs time for household budgets to recover.

And how do you help them recover? By taxing them more of course!

 

[kapkomet]

Kind of agree on the debt point (but let's tax more, right?!?!), but more then that, think about the US as a product cycle, you know, the classical ...

 

infant,

growth,

mature,

decline

 

deal that they teach you in business school?

 

The US is pretty much at the "mature" stage, and there's not really a place to absorb a lot of buying. Houses? Nope. Households have 6 cars per family. Technology? Not really, everyone has a computer. Oh, I have an idea, let's make EVERYONE buy an electric car!! Well, okay, except that won't work, either.

 

It's not like there's some big huge MANUFACTURING issue that is going to get the US going again. I know that the hope and change crowd wants environmental type of expansion to be that next big thing, but it's cost prohibitive or it would have been done already a long time ago. Now, you'd want the government to come in and subsidize this type of activity, and what would that do? Pop goes the weasel.

[Balta1701]

And how do you help them recover? By taxing them more of course!

No, you help them recover by cutting jobs, as long as they're government jobs since they don't count.

[southsider2k5]

No, you help them recover by cutting jobs, as long as they're government jobs since they don't count.

That is exactlyvwhat will happen when you start raising taxes on the people who are still spending in this country.

[Balta1701]

That is exactlyvwhat will happen when you start raising taxes on the people who are still spending in this country.

Actually, this situation is kind of remarkable...which is why the repeated tax cuts have done jack. Because people are trying to recover a $10 trillion budget hole, if you cut taxes by $300 billion, you essentially decrease the household debt burden by a whopping 3%. That's why we've cut taxes by what, $2 trillion over the past 3 years and gotten very little growth...it has all gone into savings. Especially for the upper earners, it's literally a rounding error. You want to do damage? You need to increase taxes by an amount comparable to that drop; $25 trillion over 10 years or so ought to be a big enough hit. You want to solve things via tax cuts? Needs to be $10 triillion over a year or two, and it actually has to wind up in the pockets of the people who are in debt, not the ones who have massive incomes already. You'd actually have to be right on your lie about 50% of the people not paying taxes.

 

And again...the fact that the upper classes have more and more money is an impediment to growth, not a good thing. That's part of the imbalance that feeds this. The upper class isn't going to spend us out of this unemployment hole, and they don't need to create jobs in order to make more money right now either.

[southsider2k5]

25 trillion in taxes? You wont have an economy left.

[Balta1701]

25 trillion in taxes? You wont have an economy left.

That's what, only about 3 times the size of the Bush tax cuts over the next decade, right?

 

I bet that's still a lower tax rate than we had during the 70's.

 

And anyway, that's what it would take to make a real dent. I'm sure there'd be a "panic" move if a $2 trillion a year tax increase was passed, but things would adapt right afterwards. No need to do that anyway, but again, that's the size of increase you'd need to actually make the household debt situation worse.

[southsider2k5]

That's what, only about 3 times the size of the Bush tax cuts over the next decade, right?

 

I bet that's still a lower tax rate than we had during the 70's.

 

And anyway, that's what it would take to make a real dent. I'm sure there'd be a "panic" move if a $2 trillion a year tax increase was passed, but things would adapt right afterwards. No need to do that anyway, but again, that's the size of increase you'd need to actually make the household debt situation worse.

 

So we have a demand problem now. Your plan is to take $25 billion from the people who are able to spend and hire and still expect them to spend and hire. Sure, OK. Because there won't be massive layoffs and firings after that.

[Balta1701]

So we have a demand problem now. Your plan is to take $25 billion from the people who are able to spend and hire and still expect them to spend and hire. Sure, OK. Because there won't be massive layoffs and firings after that.

No, that's not my "plan" nor my point. My point is that a much smaller increase would make no difference.

 

And anyway, anything done towards balancing the budget right now is a drag on the economy, you know that's my opinion. If we had no lost any government jobs over the last 2 years, unemployment would be at about 8.3% instead of >9%. The problem is that for some reason, both political parties have decided that the budget deficit is the problem and that now is a good time for the economy to take another beating.

[southsider2k5]

No, that's not my "plan" nor my point. My point is that a much smaller increase would make no difference.

 

And anyway, anything done towards balancing the budget right now is a drag on the economy, you know that's my opinion. If we had no lost any government jobs over the last 2 years, unemployment would be at about 8.3% instead of >9%. The problem is that for some reason, both political parties have decided that the budget deficit is the problem and that now is a good time for the economy to take another beating.

 

And if the stimulus had actually done what it was supposed to do, you know spur a recovery... We wouldn't be at 9% unemployment with a few trillion down the toilet.