John McCain: 300 Economists Support My Economic Plan...NOT!!
By SilentPatriot Saturday Jul 12, 2008 8:30amSam Graham-Felsen of myBarackObama.com writes in:
For the third time in two days, Senator McCain repeated the false claim that his economic plan has been endorsed by 300 economists.
FACT: Many of the 300 economists don't support McCain's whole economic agenda. On Monday, John McCain's campaign released a statement signed by 300 economists who "enthusiastically support" his "Jobs for America" economic plan, providing a heavyweight testimonial to the presumptive Republican nominee's "broad and powerful economic agenda." There's just one problem. Upon closer inspection, it seems a good many of those economists don't actually support the whole of McCain's economic agenda. And at least one doesn't even support McCain for president. In interviews with more than a dozen of the signatories, Politico found that, far from embracing McCain's economic plan, many were unfamiliar with - or downright opposed to - key details. [Politico, 7/9/08, http://www.politico.com/news/
stories/0708/11618.html] FALSE McCAIN CLAIM: "And by the way my economic plan has been signed on to by 5 Nobel laureates and by over 300 economists, so I have my own supporters as well and again the Congressional Budget Office and others of do their calculations on static economic conditions, i don't except that." [McCain tele-town hall, 7/10/08]
FALSE McCAIN CLAIM: "Our economic plan has been supported by 300 economists and five Nobel laureates." [McCain avail, 7/9/08]
FALSE McCAIN CLAIM: "I'm saying that there is five Nobel laureates and 300 economists who think my economic plan is a good one." [CBS Evening News, 7/9/08]
When John McCain and reality square off, reality wins. Every time.
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Only greedy evil bastards and complete morons support republican economics!
That's what happens when you join the Republican party, you loose all sense of facts and values.
But at this point in his life I think McNugget has simply lost his sense.
NoGWBpolicyleftinplace @ 1:
You need to pick up a copy of Atlas Shrugged and really read it, NoGWBpolicyleftinplace. Expand your horizons.
{ Deleted, Off Topic. Take it to an open thread. SiteMonitor}
And NO News groups are carrying this?
I don't know if you take advise from Canadians but I truly believe that Obama is the candidate of change but these blogs haven't changed one bit. There isn't even one article on the positive things that Obama has done only negative articles on McCain. Forget him and focus on the great things that Obama is going to do. Don't be the same politics of the past and be the politics of the future. Make McCain irrelevant.
A politician who is lying? Who'd a thunk it?
I don't support John McCain or his policies but I have a question. Why, if they don't support his policies, did these "5 Nobel laureates and over 300 economists" sign his release of said policies?? Sounds like these people hold the same principles and integrity as our Democratic (and Republican) nominees, Senators and representatives that say they support rule of law and the Constitution and then vote in support of ignoring the same. This country truly is F*%#^!, and needs a revolution, not an election to fix it. Anything else is just delaying it's inevitable downfall.
Damn them kids' internets. What happened to the days when a senator could lie like a gentleman and get some belief for it.
Canadian Debby -- Well, what _has_ Obama done as a senator? Didn't filibuster FISA, was AWOL for some votes, I believe he has consistently supported the Iraq war by "supporting the troops" with continued funding. He has not and is never calling for a Canadian-style universal health care. Maybe he has to run away from the image of Jesse Jackson to get elected, but, generally, he's been rather slick at playing the "middle-of-the-road" politician as "middle-of-the-road" has been defined in 21st century U.S.
But, yes, we probably should talk more about various things he has done outside the halls of congress that _might_ indicate he really has the character to change America as president. Telling the Party that lobbyist money wasn't welcome was a good start.
from the upcoming Grampa McNasty movie '300 Days of the Reagan impersonator'
'Tonight we eat caviar, tomorrow we dine on dogfood'
Many of those economistas thought the Bush economic plan, beginning in 2001, was great, too. Look where *that's* gotten us. Frankly, I say, let him have 'em. Let's get to the debates!
☻..Bangkok Bob..☻ @ 5:
only local ones, the cable news and mainstream will avoid it like the plague and go to the next McBBQ with a clear conscience.
they must put some good CIA approved meds in them there hotdogs and burgers.
Its also Bohemian grove week too, so a slow news cycle, expect Snow tears and missing white kids to dominate the news.
Yeah yeah, but will the corporate media report this? You already know the answer -- they continue to let the War Hero get away with everything, airbrush all his lies out of existence, make one quick obligatory mention of his monumental screwups and then send them down the memory hole -- and it's going to be that way right through November. It isn't going to change. You can keep preaching to the converted here all you want, but the reality of John McCain is never going to be presented on the teevee, with just enough of an exception on Countdown to keep y'all deceived about what's going on in the zeitgeist.
smchris @ 9:
In other words, he's a typical politician, right? Sigh. That's really too bad. I for one, had hoped finally a decent Prez would come along instead of some slick snake oil salesman. Guess there aren't any, anywhere on the globe.
My friends, none of this matters. It is important to remember that I am a war hero who was tortured while a POW. Also, I am a flying ace, having downed five aircraft. My friends, Barack Hussein Obama is an arab negro who wants our women. God bless America! (cue Star Spangled Banner)
I wanna see McCain's Florida and Alalabama henchmen
BobBog Allen andTroyBoy King doing a commercial for McNasty,that would be a sight to see. Crist and Lieberman get supporting roles.
McCain-Gramm economic plan lifted from Marie Antoinette. They should have read a little bit more and found out the end wasn't that great
McCain is a LIAR, CHEATER and HYPOCRITE.
He has about as much credibility as Bush. In other words, ZERO.
Why doesn't the msm ever report McShame's many, many lies? They treat him just like the old, senile man that he is and smile knowingly and say grandpa doesn't realize what he is saying. And he thinks he is a hero so just let an old man believe what he wants. The rest of us don't have to believe it. Well, anyone who knows better doesn't believe it. Sadly some don't know any better. Msm for example, Lieberman, Graham.
Reality wins logical debates, but not elections. I thought we all knew that by now?
“Make the lie big, make it simple, keep saying it, and eventually they will believe it”
“How fortunate for leaders that men do not think.”
“The victor will never be asked if he told the truth.”
As true in the early part of the 20th Century as it is today...
No worries, turns out you can fix everything, just by suing Norway.
In early 2001, the Saudi Arabian minister for oil and energy travelled the globe to gather support from oil producing nations to decrease production to get the price up from USD 10,- a gallon, (as they were seriously screwed and in national debt at the time, he actually followed our minister(secretary to you I think) to my town, from the capital in order to discuss this, as our minister was here on a visit).
Most nations agreed to a production cut, oil price went a little up, 9/11 happened, and oil production was maxed out again(not entirely sure when), and some lawyers in Florida are doing a class action suit against Norway, Mexico and Angola, because we cooperated with Opec in this matter, and floridian car owners had to pay more than necessary due to the price cooperation, back in 2001.
They are apparently not suing Opec/Saudi Arabia for some reason, hmm.
I guess we are forced to produce all out oil at a loss when oil price is at 10 USD a barrel, and the cost for drilling out on the open sea is higher. Especially since we are indeed responsible for keeping all american motorists with cheap gas, when we pay USD 8 a gallon of gasoline. (10 $/gallon now)
What is a little extortion among friends anyway.
dennis @ 3:
I don't need to read propoganda from anyone, least of all republican imbeciles!
I have lived the republican experience far beyond what your single digit I.Q. could ever comprehend! The fact that you are so cluelessly stupid and hopelessly ignorant after the latest republican assault on America, tells me everything I need to know about you!
Expand all of our horizons on C & L, and STFU! I am tired of morons like you trying to defend the indefensible as though you have something of value to say.
My first post says it all! If you have any disagreement with it, you are a clueless, nonperceptive idiot. You are the type who could walk into a snow blizzard, and be convinced by republicans to buy a bathing suit because its really hot outside. Don't think for yourself, read what the republican said; its hot outside.
Go condescend to someone lower on the evolutionary scale than you are. Like Red State.
USD 10 a barrel for oil of course.
It Ain't Half Hot (in Alabama and Florida) log cabins
a sneak peak at the RNC lineup for September when the Repugs finally proudly come out of the closet.
theWalrus @ 11:
I'm sure Larry "Nostradamus" Kudlow signed it too!
I never took an economics class in college, but I have been consistently more correct in my predictions over recent years than almost everyone of the so-called economists on T.V. They don't know their ass from a hole in the ground! Getting an economics degree, is like getting a degree in reading fortune telling!
This is very similar to the Intelligent Design proponents' claims that over "700 scientists" agree with them. Then, you talk to different scientists and find that they don't actually agree. Seems to be a rightwing way of arguing.
CujoInNC @ 8:
I'm sure, in a nation of 300,000,000, they could find 300 repugnantcants who would want to lower taxes and balance the budget.
It really sounds like McCains letter was very general in it's content. Some of the recipients didn't even read it but liked McCain.
Okay DampFOX, you have convinced us! We're all going to sit at home reading "Atlas Shrugged" on election day, let McInsane win the election. Then we'll read the BuyBull until McNero flips out and pushes the button. We'll be
rupturedraptured to Gloryland and live happily ever after, worldwithout endoops... amen.Another day for MC Bullshit and the Crooked Crap Express.
☻..Bangkok Bob..☻ @ 5:
No, it appears that Angelina Jolie's and Brad Pitt's new baby was more important. The MSM---what a joke.
What ever McCain is offering it will be far better than the massive tax hike Obama and Rangel will push though...
Time for... an appropriate picture!
What's to report? These 300 clowns signed on to a statement supporting McCain's economic plan, many of them without having read the whole thing. Of course McCain is going to hold this up as an endorsement of his plan, even if many of the economists express reservations when pressed about it after the fact.
In my eyes, the folks who signed the statement without really thinking about what they were signing is the sad part. (You're an Obama supported, and now you think maybe you shouldn't have rushed to sign on?? Schmuck.) But who can blame McCain for taking advantage of it?
liberAL @ 19:
I wish we would see MSM covering some of this, but I'm not holding my breath. In my small town I've been watching the McCain signs go up in the yards of our local lawyers and business owners - upper middle class republicans, every one. Mr. G and I like to refer to them as the local royals. They're lawyers, accountants, and second generation owners of businesses. Most came from upper middle class backgrounds in this town. Unbearable snobs and bastards, every one. They don't really care what happens to this country as long as they can still drive the Escalade and spend summers at the lake house.
Unfortunately we live in a neighborhood of older homes and are surrounded by local royalty. In 2004 we proudly put our democratic candidate's signs in our front yard only to have them stolen on a weekly basis. We caught the kids who did it (daddy owns an insurance agency) and the police refused to do anything with it even though they were trespassing and stealing according to city ordinance. Maybe MSM coverage of the lies would help if they kept reporting and didn't give McCain a pass, but I'm pretty sure my neighbors still think Bush is one heck of a guy....
the "300", the courageous, the patriotic: the "300"
i bet the fictitious (and hunky!) "300" could also kick ass too!
i see the persian forces (or, iranians, or mccain critics, whichever) trying to force their unholy, ungodly, barbarous and evil ways (see, regulations, see oversight, see reform) on the poor people of sparta (or america, whichever), with only the brave "300", with the 6-packed, stout and determined mccain at their lead. fight 'em in the shade general mccain!!!!
how could you guys NOT be inspired by this? i am pumped enough to go out and privatize the street in front of my house. toll please! *grabby hand*
/snark off
redwhite&blue @ 31:
Gosh, how well you back up that position. What intensive research. What an irrefutable conclusion you draw. Are you the reincarnation of Chanakya? You are, aren't you. Come on, admit it.
I can see why the economists have reservations about some points in McCain's plan. This is the second time I have read it and the plan still has no substance to it. Its just vague promises followed the Government stepping to cover losses. I mean, here are just a few of the questions I have:
McCain feels that by simply telling oil speculators and oil exporting nations that our dependance on oil will come end that this will somehow bring prices down. How? At the end of the day Americans are still going to drive their vehicles to work and so on while the U.S. still imports that same oil. Everyone knows that. That is not a plan.
Then, you have McCain's comprehensive spending controls that really are a joke. He says he is going to reserve all savings from the Iraq and Afghanistan "victories" to reducing the deficit. What reserves!? Define victory!?
Then, McCain wants to cut all non-defense non-discretionary spending for an entire year? Yea, like that one is going fly!
McCain's plan was a joke when I first read it and it remains so today.
dennis @ 3:
Even John Galt would give up on laissez-faire capitalism if he could see the destruction wrought by the unbridled greed and shortsightedness of our financial community. Ben Bernanke recently said that more regulation and oversight is needed in their industry. No kidding, genius. Guess that anti regulation Reagan "Revolution" paradigm is just another failed Republican pipe dream. When you guys have another idea like this one you want to try out---do us a favor. Keep it to yourself. We don't need any more of your mind expanding adventures.
It would have been paying attention you would have heared Obama promising everything under sun to the American people, healthcare, education, tax breaks. Rangel has already staetd he wants to raise taxes!!! Its the main problem with the Democratic party, its all they know, just alittle bit more money and one more government program and everything will be okay!
Loonie @ 36:
dennis @ 3:
ah, yes, the suggestion from dennis to read a work of fiction as a way to understand the economic devastation that is so real to those suffering from the economic ideology espoused in this, again, work of fiction.
and, to understand terrorism: watch 24, bwhahahaha
suggestion for you, dennis: read something non-fictional about the economy and the condition the 'cult of the individual' has left us in. that is, if you aren't scared to.
sorry, but greed is not something i worship like the object from LedZep's Presence....
Joe O. @ 37:
There's a saying that an idea without a plan is probably a hallucination. Welcome to the Mc Cain economic idea for paying off the national debt. Pay off our debt by winning the Iraq war that has cost us over a trillion and a half dollars already? John, you better lay off the LSD.
McCain seems to me to always talk as if he has no idea what he is talking about. Even at his town hall events McCain seems to ramble on and when he does state a fact it is often proven to be false later.
Gretchen @ 34:
LiberAl@ 19 That is not what the corporate sponsors of the MSM pay them for. Everything is blacked out unless it supports the Military/Corporate/ProfitMedia.
Gretchen @ 34. Sorry to hear that. In McSame's Arizona on the westside of Phoenix I have seen only one McSame bumpersticker and 0 McSame yard signs - though it is still early in the election. So-called conservatives have HAD IT with McSame. I've seen a number of Obama bumperstickers and signs. Not scientific, just mildly interesting. Of course, I haven't been to
MormonMesa lately.redwhite&blue @ 39:
good morning Rumpelstiltskin, how was your nap?
redwhite&blue @ 39:
Bad air, I smell troll. Ugh,bad.
redwhite&blue @ 31:
Aha---another dupe who believes the Politburo propaganda that taxation is evil. If you think that's true then try Republican voodoo economics that boldly states that we can have massive spending increases, no increase in debt, and pay off any debt we have incurred today in four years---while decreasing or flat lining the amount of revenue we take in.
Republicans have gotten a lot of mileage off the anti tax mantra and look what it has brought us---record deficits that are an IOU to our future.
Try this genius model yourself and validate your own proposition. See you in Chapter 7.
Economists are one step below meteorologists on the "know-nothing-but-anything-works" scale.
Mickxotic @ 43:
Good news about Phoenix. As for us, we plan to do the same thing with our signs this fall as we did this spring with the IMPEACH sign. Attach it to the house. So far the little bastards haven't been able to do anything about that, but one did call me a "commie" last week. I doubt that he's smart enough to know that one on his own so he must have heard it from his dad.
Loonie @ 32:
hee hee, i didn't see this before my post...
good p'shoppin'!
I see no one here wants to have an intelligence debate on the issues, just attack attack attack, not surpised. Sorry guys, blaming the big bad corps is not going to cut it. We need to come together in a bi-partisian way, without all the name calling to solve Americas problem. Will you join me!?
Ron @ 45:
redwhite&blue @ 50:
No problem there RWB. We'll be waiting. However, don't expect your anti tax mantra to get any traction here.
redwhite&blue @ 39:
After the massive transfer from the public treasury to crony corporations and lobbyists, capital will be needed for legitimate projects and operations. It is called "being responsible and paying your bills," something that deadbeats and Repugnicans don't understand. Yeah, yeah; I know: why should I have to pay for anything? It is really too bad that we don't have a policy whereby deadbeats can legally refuse to pay their taxes in exchange for not accepting any services. That way, when your child gets hit by a car, you won't have to worry about getting any expensive and unwanted help from paramedics or other socialist weasels. You can have inscribed on your child's gravestone -
He died with low taxes
The idiot population dwindles - everybody wins!
Free market capitalism would have worked if we ever gave it a chance. Now it's too late since the big boys are far too big for little companies to compete. But if we didn't have corporate citizenship (can we repeal the 14th amendment yet?) and if we didn't have corporate welfare, I still believe that free market capitalism would have worked and we wouldn't have the multinational conglomerates we do today.
The downside is that smaller companies can't provide the economies of scale large one can, so one immediate example is that you would have to take several small airlines to get from one side of the country to the other, rather than one non-stop flight. But on the upside, I bet the costs would have been cheaper with more competition in the market place, even if you had to buy 5 tickets to get from NY to CA.
But even if you disagree that free market capitalism is beneficial, what other option do we have? We currently have corporate plutocracy as our economic system, socialism is not politically viable, communism is completely out of the question for the same reason, mercantilism has long been discredited and would just mean more wars of occupation to secure resources, barter and trade would be unwieldy considering the sheer number of transactions we require each day. We could try to create a new economic system, but what would it look like?
At the end of the day, we still need to get rid of the 14th amendment. It served its noble purpose at the time of its ratification, it is no longer needed and only serves to grant rights to corporations that the founders never intended.
See the following for more information as to how the 14th amendment grants corporate citizenship:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santa_Clara_County_vs._Southern_Pacific_Rai...
The cheese is slipping off his cracker (as per Reagan) and the handlers have taken control of him and his campaign. He isn't campaigning, he is being displayed and sold as a pliable corporate gateway to the biggest barrel of pork in history. Ironically, the real fraud in this year's election isn't the bullshit being passed to the voter since that is the same fraud that happens every election cycle.
No, the real fraud here is being committed against the corporation, because it's only after they buy their way to the barrel that they will discover it is pretty much empty due to the excessive criminal activity of the previous administration(s).
Maybe Obama no longer wants to be president. I wouldn't want the job, the current situation is beyond reconciliation and only a complete collapse (and rebuilding) of the system will fix it. The next president is doomed to 2 choices:
Being in charge while the country does an imitation of the U.S.S.R (total collapse and chaos), or,
Presiding over a citizen revolt against the corrupt-to-the-core government he found himself in charge of. I see it as a no-win situation for the presumptive "winner". Talk about your boobie-prizes.
The people want change, and they want it now. The prez will have to become the middle man in a war between the corporate and the person, and right there you can seen the problem.
The corporate owns the government. The person, to whom the government and corporate are constitutionally mandated to take second place, has more or less been declared an enemy of the state.
If the Prez comes out in favor of the corporate, the money laundering via the national debt and massive corporate fraud (enron, fanny, mac, etc) will not just continue but accelerate until the country is no longer solvent with total collapse being the only possible eventuality.
If he comes out for the person, he will be marginalized via the media over a blowjob (per clinton) or something equally pointless, and the money laundering via the national debt and massive corporate fraud will continue same as above.
A full public revolt against the system is the only solution here. It is time to dissolve a government that is no longer for (or by) the people and invoke the Third Congress.
Bottom line tho, whether you agree with the above or not, is that this shit is all scripted. It is taking advantage of the public addiction to "reality tv", fully aware that "reality" and "tv" are mutually exclusive...
dennis @ 3:
r u 1 of those randians?
Economic conditions for trolls must be bad, Dennis is here early with the 3rd post. Post early, post often, makes republiscum trolls wealthy with their lies.
Debby @ 6:
Maybe you can open that blog you want. Google will help.
BC @ 26:
they know they are lying and they know that the media will never call a repug on the lies.
Why are my comments not posting?
OK, well that worked... Let's try this again:
Grr, I just made a post and it disappeared...
Long story short, I was saying that Free-Market Capitalism would have worked if we ever gave it a chance, but thanks to corporate citizenship granted by the 14th Amendment and endless corporate welfare, it wouldn't work now.
So what sort of economic system should we propose if the current system of corporate plutocracy doesn't work and free market capitalism won't work (until we reduce the size of corporations)? Socialism and communism are not politically viable options, mercantilism has been long discredited and would only require more wars to secure resources. In many ways our current system is sort of like Neo-Corporate Mercantilism...
Anyway, it's time we repeal the 14th amendment as it has served its noble purpose at the time of its ratification. It's continued presence will only serve to further impoverish our nation in favor of the desires of our corporate masters.
For more information as to how the 14th amendment grants corporate citizenship, see here (links to wikipedia).
redwhite&blue @ 50:
First you should come up with something other than the dems want to raise your taxes. I don't make over $250,000, so I'm not worried.
redwhite&blue @ 50:
Intelligent debate, you say. All you did was parrot a ridiculous talking point; "Democrats will raise taxes!" Upon whom will taxes be raised?
You want an intelligent debate? Then back up your claim than McCain's plan "whatever it is" will be better than Obama's plan "whatever it is". Squawking out air-headed rhetoric doesn't go very far to show that you can actually "come together in a bi-partisian[sic] way".
James @ 59:
An interesting post. I'll have to look into that one.
theWalrus @ 11:
frankly, the colleges are full of the economists who rely on the trustees for their jobs and tenure. guess who's going to tow the party line?
James @ 58:
sometimes they may take a minute to show.
When John McCain and reality square off, reality wins. Every time.
I hate to break it to you, but reality isn't being covered by the MSM. Just watch the Sunday news shows. There's Carla, repeating the falseness.
And no one corrects her.
We need to face it, folks. Obama and McSame are TIED in the polls. The message on the truthiness of this and many other McSame talking points ARE NOT getting out.
I don't know what the answer is, but we're going to lose this, folks, if we don't get over the belief that just because the Right is wrong, people will see through it THIS time.
redwhite&blue @ 50:
hhmmm.... concern troll alert!!!!!!!
CoIntelPro for Pronktastic Victory Over SCLM, DIEBOLD, ESS and SEQUOIA! @ 64:
Actually, I think it was because I posted a link without using the link function. I guess its a safeguard on this site?
BuffyFan @ 65:
remember that the same people that give you the notNews also give you the polls. Whenever they wish,
they can control the sample group to get the results they want and
they can also frame the question to skew the results or
they can create false equivalencies, which is a favorite.
redwhite&blue @ 50:
your sarcastic (and insulting) 'concern' is duly noted.
CoIntelPro for Pronktastic Victory Over SCLM, DIEBOLD, ESS and SEQUOIA! @ 68:
frank luntz is currently polling a sample of 1000 americans on whether or not bush is a great president, or the greatest president*
(*comment property of the colbert report)
Mocking people is not a constructive use of your time to see your views turned into action... From either party, mind you.
“I’m saying that there is five Nobel laureates and 300 economists who think my economic plan is a good one.”
Where the hell did this idiot learn to speak English anyway?
We need to come together in a bi-partisian way, without all the name calling to solve Americas problem. Will you join me!?
Ummm....no.
F the criminal Republican bastards.
Is our economists learning?
Terrible @ 71:
that just wasn't properly punctuatered. he meaned:
See? It all works out when you punctuater propertly.
theWalrus @ 73:
if you're teaching them supply-slide, sure!
Yeah and aAlan Greenspan thought/thinks that the subprime loan deal was a great idea too.
Economists are just like regular people and the economy. If you pay them they will say anything. An economist slogan: Show me the money baby.
John McCain and reality never seem to gel well together for some reason, I really thinking his age is showing in recent days and I even remember someone on CNN mentioning that Obama is just trying to tire him out, if so, it seems to be working.
CoIntelPro for Pronktastic Victory Over SCLM, DIEBOLD, ESS and SEQUOIA! @ 74:
See? It all works out when you punctuater propertly.
bwahahaha
reminds me of lionel hutz on a simpsons' episode where hutz's ad had bad punctuation:
work on contingency. no money down!works on contingency? no, money down!
James @ 59:
free-market capitalism is impossible! let me be the first to break it to you.
there is no basis in fact for free-market capitalism. It reads well as an ideal, but not as a practical reality.
Just like Communism and Socialism, it fails miserable in the execution of it by real humans.
Loonie @ 61:
Well said.
Misconceptions about the Liberal Ideal:
* Liberals want to redistribute the wealth, and love welfare.
Fact: Liberals believe a person who works a full time job should be able to survive on the wage as per the American Dream. If this means using taxes to supplement low-income wages to take the hit away from small business, so be it.. But there is no provision in the liberal policy to pander to slobs who want to sit on their couch doing nothing.
Repubs, on the other hand, seem happy supporting unlivable wages for the working class with no additional support cuz, dang-nab-it, they shoulda not been so fuckin lazy and got better jobs.
Liberals want to raise taxes.
ok, so they do.. spending on the country's credit card has been increased exponentially under the Republicans, while payments on said bill have decreased under the same repub rule. I don't feel I should have to explain why this policy is completely retarded. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think the liberal idea is to tax large business and millionaires more and the average joe less... so why is the average joe up in arms about this? Silliness. The top 10% in America hold or control roughly 90% of the money, yet only pay about 30% of the tax. Is this not welfare for the rich?
So tell me.... who is the welfare party?
If the liberals had their way, the lower-income people would pay no tax at all, while the people with more than they can spend in their lives would pay a lot.
I would love to pay less tax, or even to pay no tax at all.
But think about it - stop paying your property tax, see how long it takes you to be homeless.
The republicans, while spending like mad, have pretty much halted the repayments on their spending in favor of lining their own (and their corporate master's) pockets.
The democratic policy is to base tax collection on a)who has the money and b)current spending trends. In other words, on REALITY (which seems to be a foreign concept to conservatives).
Captain Bitter Whiner Husein Kangaroo @ 76:
greenspan is an AynRandian, who worked to destroy the economy for the benefit of the elite, whome he believed in over any belief in the ideal of America, Land of Opportunity. Amazing that Clinton kept him on after he presided over the Raygun S&L fiasco and provided no long-term remedy or preventative measures. I also wondered why he was kept on after repeatedly testifying before congress that he believed very little in regulation of the markets, but kept his own fortune in Treasury Notes.
Reno @ 80:
that troll has now claimed more real estate than anyone else.
James @ 59:
repeal the 14th amendment?
nah, that is a 'throw the baby out with the bath water' idea.
santa clara county v southern pacific railroad--as you indicate--is a blight on our country and its laws. that case should be overturned, indeed, but leave the 14th amendment out of this fight. some sorry-ass justices from the 9thc shouldn't invalidate an important amendment.
the idea that a corporation is the SAME as a person is grotesque (santa clara county decision). but, don't forget why we have the 14th in the first place.
redwhite&blue @ 39:
Ok smart ass. Ray Gun borrowed and borrowed and borrowed and doubled the debt. Bush the Elder did the same. Double it up. Clinton had a surplus and was ready to pay off the debt and Chimpie got the $5,000,000,000,000 debt up to almost $10,000,000,000,000. Sure he lowered taxes on his friends but what has it got us? The thing about you Republican assholes you spend and spend and spend but never pay for anything and leave it up to Democrats to clean up your messes. Every single time. Now you say that Obama wants to raise taxes. Well he does. On people making over $250,000 a year. Those people got the biggest tax beaks for the last 8 years and now it time for those assholes to start paying for everything their President bought. Tough shit. You can spin it any way you want but every time you blame it on Democrats you are lying and end up with the same amount of credibility as McBush.
redwhite&blue @ 39:
Yet, despite this meme, the republican party has bloated the government to like twice the clinton-era size while slashing all funding for it. This is promoted as "a better way"?
lol
The blinder-induced hypocrisies abound.
McCain lied, may i get snide? His brain is fried. Elect him and it will be "McCain lied, people died." Don't and it will be "McCain lied then he cried. End of snide.
cervantes @ 13:
Well said. Damn those blogger folks on their internets. None of this mental flatulence would even still be stinking up McCranky's campaign 20 years ago, before The Google, either.
Reno @ 80:
Historically FDR did the same thing by having a strong graduated income tax that had the highest incomes taxed the heaviest. He was called "a traitor to his class" and he made no bones about it... he didn't give a shit and said so!
The end result was:
1. Economist refer to this period as "the Golden Age of Capitalism" the GDP soared between the years of 1945 and 1972, and that level has never been matched in our economic history.
2. The "Middle class" was created virtually over night and the income distribution was spread across all income bracket in our society. Millions of Americans benefited and had money to buy things with, factories hired workers to make things and the relationship between wages and productivity was strong.
Since Reagan though, we have been living in "The Bubble Economy" where the Fed dumps liquidity into the market to create a bubble by asset inflation... until the bubble goes POP!
Reagan mixed in Friedman's "Free Market" theory with Mundell's "supply side economics" into what was correctly called "voodoo economics" at the time. It was supposed to give us cheaper goods through market competition by deregulation, which it did for the early part of the cycle but in its later stages resulted in giant monopolies and elevated prices, as well as the loss of control of quality. (enjoy a nice salmonella burger with a slice of tomato... then go brush your teeth with antifreeze laced toothpaste from China)
Nixon took us off the gold standard, which effectively denied any insurance for the value of the dollar and with Bush now we have seen the dollar lose 40% of its value. The value of the dollar is linked inversely with the cost of oil and we know the result of that, not to mention the futures trading in commodities in food which has food riots in 33 countries and the UN throwing up red flares about political upheavals coming.
Reagan also gave us the 401K and took real pension dollars and dumped them into the stock market where they have been stripped by corporate stock hustles as we saw in the cases of Enron, Tyco, Global Crossings and now the subprime meltdown where "toxics" (subprime bad debt) was mixed into CDO's (collateralized debt obligations securities) and trillions of dollars of these were sold to pension funds in the last seven years... trillions of dollars of pension fund dollars... poof! Gone!
Reagan's "trickle down economics" is indeed trickling down... to jobs in China and India where the "hot investments" are and real wages for the average American family have fallen while in the last 25 years the top .01%ers have seen their incomes increase by over 294%.
The result is that the income disparity is now at the same level it was in the 1920's and a lot of Americans don't know this but this didn't happen in the other industrialized nations... only in America thanks the GOP! While they extol their resistance to "redistributing the wealth"... that is exactly what they did. The poor got poorer, the middle class in falling into poverty and the rich... are getting wealthy beyond their wildest imaginations.
A good read on the bubble economy is:
The Debt Delusion
by Economist Thomas Palley
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/feb/08/thedebtdelusion
PS. Nixon gave us the HMO for our "health care"... that worked out real well too didn't it!
81 - Reno & 89 - Rasputin :
you guys are so right on. I will look into that guardian read; thanks for the tip. It gets me as mad as a hooked trout when I see the right-wingers sqwak about how the "Dems always raise taxes" and "Obama will just raise your taxes". etc. So ? If I know my taxes are going to our schools, our roads, our hospitals, our infrastructure, our children, our people, then so ? Isn't that where you want your taxes going ? But---the rightwingers don't like that. (as you guys pointed out). They want tax breaks and corporate welfare for their buddies. Screw the little people ! Let them fend for themselves !
Argh ! That just gets me sooo annoyed. How can we repay our debt and such if we cut off revenue ? How exactly does that work ?
Argh !!
2. The “Middle class” was created virtually over night and the income distribution was spread across all income bracket in our society. Millions of Americans benefited and had money to buy things with, factories hired workers to make things and the relationship between wages and productivity was strong.
---------------
The middle class was created out of the world industrial destruction from WW2. It was an anomally in history. Never had so much industrial capacity been destroyed. The U.S. became producer to the world as a result, as our industrial capacity was in tact.
That situation no longer exists. 1.3 billion people in China are becoming industrialized. They can produce for far cheaper than Europe or the U.S. or Japan. What happened in the 1950's was not the norm and it is unrealistic to extrapolate a unique period in time out to an infinite future.
1. Economist refer to this period as “the Golden Age of Capitalism” the GDP soared between the years of 1945 and 1972, and that level has never been matched in our economic history.
-----
Again, that is because U.S. industrial capacity was not destroyed in WW2, unlike Japan and much of Europe. As those countries rebuilt, competition developed. Thus our advantage declined.
Ron.j @ 91:
And the UFO's were real, and they can just do it better with ID and throw science out the window right?
Just because you can't add 2 and 2 and come up with 4 doesn't mean that the truth changed. What he says above about FDR is true. And would be true again if those policies were implemented. It might not be in industrial sector, it could be in the technology sector if we could get our education straightened back out. But because of "no child left" behind idiot policies our people are so far behind in that sector that it seems a dream. Look at the real effects and see them for what they are, not an imaginary shimmer in the heat of the desert sun. Saying it's something else doesn't make it true. Just makes an idiot out of you.
Since Reagan though, we have been living in “The Bubble Economy” where the Fed dumps liquidity into the market to create a bubble by asset inflation… until the bubble goes POP!
---------
It takes inflation and deflation to complete a cycle. Price inflation peaked in 1980. The bubble economy brought price inflation down, through borrowing to create more industrial capacity, then to create more consumption. In 1979 a VCR cost around $1,000. today, an upvert DVD player can be bought at Costco for $80.
The Clinton era boom was part of the bubble economy, just as the roaring 20's were. "I wish we could go back to the Clinton years of peace and prosperity". You can't go back to a bubble economy, once the credit bubble has burst. Greenspan was able to extend the bubble economy, through a housing bubble, but now that bubble has burst, along with the credit bubble itself. The day of reckoning is here. Freddy Mac and IndyMac are insolvent.
Inflation and deflation complete a cycle. One does not exist without the other.
Loosely Twisted @ 93:
-------------
I said nothing about UFO's. You obviously cannot refute what i said, so you make silly comments.
If Japan had no industrial capacity, nor Europe, that defacto makes us the producer to the world. FDR did not build a middle class in the 1930's, thus it was not his policies, but the massive industrialization to fight WW2 and the lack of industrial compettion after WW2, which created teh middle class.
Ron.j @ 94:
The bubble economy was taken over the top by the Bush administration. they made it way way way too easy to borrow money for a house. The Bush administration borrowed and borrowed and borrowed and have done nothing to figure out how to pay it back. In fact they have made it harder to pay it back. Now a Democrat has to come in and fix it and the neocons are going to blame the Dems for coming up with the money. While there are boom and bust cycles Bush has made this cycle worse than it ever had to be. His daddy did the same thing and Ray Gun did it too but Ray Gun's borrowing could have been paid for by now except for the Bush dynasty. At least 20 more years to pay it off now if we don't absolutely go belly up like so many people are doing.
Reagan mixed in Friedman’s “Free Market” theory with Mundell’s “supply side economics” into what was correctly called “voodoo economics” at the time. It was supposed to give us cheaper goods through market competition by deregulation, which it did for the early part of the cycle but in its later stages resulted in giant monopolies and elevated prices...
------------
In 1979 a VCR cost around $1,000. Today a DVD player can be bought for under $100.
How many cell phone makers are there? How many phone companies?
Only Apple makes the IPOD, but you can buy any one of a number of other MP3 players.
Commodity prices have jumped- there is an economic boom in China.
Any economics is voodoo, due to the fact of the business cycle and the inflation/deflation cycle.
You complain about supply side, but demand side has oil at 140 a barrel. You can't have it both ways.
The early part of any cycle is different than later in a cycle- that is why it is called a cycle.
One factory produces an HD DVD player- the cost is $1,000. This is early in the cycle. Then one or two more companies produce them, the price drops as supply increases. $750.
Then five are producing and it drops to $500. Then off brand companies produce them and the market is flooded. The price drops to $100 at the end of the cycle. Then a new product replacement cycle begins as a new device is created.
Super high definition television already exists.
If there was any economics that actually worked 100% of the time, we would already be using it. Every boom ends in a bust. Every bust creates the conditions for the next boom.
Just look at China.
Captain Bitter Whiner Husein Kangaroo @ 96:
---------------
A bubble must continue to grow or it bursts. The credit bubble would have burst in 2000, along with the stock bubble, except for the creation of a housing bubble. Maybe you forget how much democrats complained about a mild recession in 2001. You want to have your cake and eat it too.
The 2001 recession would have been much worse without Bush borrowing and consumers borowing from their homes. But you want to have your cake and eat it too. The fact is that we should have taken the economic medicine for the 1990's boom after the stock bubble burst.
But you wouldn't have liked it.
A debt bubble can't be paid back, which is why it is deflationary. The FED can monetize the debt, but that is extremely inflationary.
If you think the price of oil is expensive now, wait until the FED monetizes the debt.
Who is Ray Gun? Peter Gunn was a TV show.
"BUYBULL." That's great. I hadn't heard that term before.
"I'll show you politics in America. Here it is, right here. "I think the puppet on the right shares my beliefs." "I think the puppet on the left is more to my liking." "Hey, wait a minute, there's one guy holding out both puppets!" "Shut up! Go back to bed, America. Your government is in control. Here's Love Connection. Watch this and get fat and stupid. By the way, keep drinking beer, you fucking morons."
- BILL HICKS
Ron.j @ 97:
Yes... do look at China...
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/17/world/asia/17china.html?_r=6&hp&oref=s...
The Saudi's and OPEC see it a bit differently than being a demand issue:
http://www.startribune.com/business/20737164.html?location_refer=Business
The Supply Siders need to keep the Fed pumping money at low rates into the market in an effort to start the next bubble, but that causes the value of the dollar to go down and under Bush it has lost 40% of it's value and that pushes the price of oil up... remembering that all oil deals are tied to the US Dollar.
Another factor that is also driving the price per barrel up to artificially high levels is speculation on the commodities futures exchange:
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/natural_...
And its not just oil... its food!
http://www.foodnavigator-usa.com/news/ng.asp?id=85584-fao-prices
You complain about supply side, but demand side has oil at 140 a barrel. You can’t have it both ways.
—Ron.j @ 97:
The Saudi’s and OPEC see it a bit differently than being a demand issue:
OPEC president blames oil price spike on weak dollar; says there is no reason to boost output
How much have oil prices risen? How much has the dollar dropped? Prices have risen much farther than the dollar has dropped. Thus the decline in the dollar is not THE reason for rising prices. Demand has reached 87 million barrels a day, while supply has peaked at 85 million barrles a day. Demand is outstripping supply.
I have seen a story in which the Saudis are looking to get a new oil field on line, that would allegedly increase output by over a million barrels a day. Hardly something Saudi would be doing if there was sufficient supply.
Ron.j @ 102:
As usual... cherry picking what you want and blinders to the rest.
As I also pointed out the devaluation of the dollar is not the only factor... commodities futures speculation is also impacting the price of oil:
So much for your argument that oil prices are simply a result of supply and demand bullshit.
The Supply Siders need to keep the Fed pumping money at low rates into the market in an effort to start the next bubble, but that causes the value of the dollar to go down and under Bush it has lost 40% of it’s value and that pushes the price of oil up… remembering that all oil deals are tied to the US Dollar.
-------------
Oil went from 12 in 1999 to 145, now. A 40% decline in the dollar is not going to cause anything close to well over a 10 fold increase in the price of oil. China is becoming an industrialized nation of 1.3 billion people. Chinese consumption of oil has increased dramaticly, along with many other commodities- steel, copper, coal, concrete. The Chinese middle class is bigger than the entire population of the U.S. A Chinese company is planning on building millions of cars for 4,000 bucks apiece.
Oil production has fallen short 2 million barrels a day.
You complain about supply side, but demand side has oil at 140 a barrel. You can’t have it both ways.
—Ron.j @ 97:
The Saudi’s and OPEC see it a bit differently than being a demand issue:
OPEC president blames oil price spike on weak dollar; says there is no reason to boost output
How much have oil prices risen? How much has the dollar dropped? Prices have risen much farther than the dollar has dropped. Thus the decline in the dollar is not THE reason for rising prices. Demand has reached 87 million barrels a day, while supply has peaked at 85 million barrles a day. Demand is outstripping supply.
I have seen a story in which the Saudis are looking to get a new oil field on line, that would allegedly increase output by over a million barrels a day. Hardly something Saudi would be doing if there was sufficient supply.
As usual… cherry picking what you want and blinders to the rest.
--------------
Cherry picking? You cherry picked the Saudi's remarks. Oil analyst Gerge Blake has noted we are past Peak Oil. Thus supply is not sufficient, especially with China planning to put millions of cars on their roads.
The Uk was a net exporter of oil. It is now an importer. The North Sea is depleting.
Mexico is our third bigest supplier. Blake and other analysts say that Mexico's giant field is depleting at such a rate that by about 2014, Mexico will no longer be exporting oil to the U.S.
Mexico was 10% of imports.
Ron.j @ 94:
Please don't pretend you know anything about economics when you don't. These are not "natural cycles" and FYI Clinton triangulated with the GOP congress and he was also part of the problem... and it was a tech bubble (.com) during the Clinton years.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/feb/08/thedebtdelusion
As former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volker put it, "No economy that I know of can continue to consume 6% more a year than it produces."
As I also pointed out the devaluation of the dollar is not the only factor… commodities futures speculation is also impacting the price of oil:
--------------
That is another myth. The speculator is guessing at future demand at the time the future contract will be the present. The speculator is not taking delivery of oil, but speculating on the future price. The future price is not the current price, which is based on current supply and demand picture. As each contract ends, it must be reconcilled with the current price. As market observer Karl Denninger put it, it is a zero sum game.
Ron.j @ 105:
Yeah Cherry picking because you left off my second remark that said speculation was also a serious factor.
As to "peak oil" there is wide spread disagreement as to whether we have reached that point or not among the experts and the sudden spike in oil prices is not related to that at all.
Ron.j @ 107:
The UN doesn't think so, neither does congress or the manager of one of the largest hedge funds who testified before congress.
So its a myth why? Because its not on your talking points 3x5 card?
And there is another factor... political instability that has led to increased speculation in the commodities market as we saw in the down slide of oil prices to $136 per barrel which suddenly reversed when Iran test fired its missiles and threatened to interrupt the supply lines.
http://www.reuters.com/article/GCA-Oil/idUSL1327748820080613
Since Reagan though, we have been living in “The Bubble Economy” where the Fed dumps liquidity into the market to create a bubble by asset inflation… until the bubble goes POP!
———
It takes inflation and deflation to complete a cycle. Price inflation peaked in 1980. The bubble economy brought price inflation down, through borrowing to create more industrial capacity, then to create more consumption. In 1979 a VCR cost around $1,000. today, an upvert DVD player can be bought at Costco for $80.
The Clinton era boom was part of the bubble economy, just as the roaring 20’s were. “I wish we could go back to the Clinton years of peace and prosperity”. You can’t go back to a bubble economy, once the credit bubble has burst. Greenspan was able to extend the bubble economy, through a housing bubble, but now that bubble has burst, along with the credit bubble itself. The day of reckoning is here. Freddy Mac and IndyMac are insolvent.
Inflation and deflation complete a cycle. One does not exist without the other.
Please don’t pretend you know anything about economics when you don’t. These are not “natural cycles” and FYI Clinton triangulated with the GOP congress and he was also part of the problem… and it was a tech bubble (.com) during the Clinton years.
------------------
You make me laugh. I do know what i am talking about. Inflation and deflation complete a cycle. That is emminently natural. There is nothing that inflates, that will not also deflate, regardless what artificial mechanisms are involved. Once everyone who wants an IPOD has one, the market for IPODS deflates. An IPOD is an artificial device, a natural product life cycle is occuring. Inflation and deflation, completing a cycle.
Clinton triangulated- so? Inflation peaked in 1980. Disinflation brings down interest rates.
Lower rates increase borrowing. Malinvestment occurs and a consumer boom follows.
The Kondratieff cycle.
The Kress cycle. The Kress cycle is due to bottom in 2014. The bottom of the cycle is deflation. Headline after headline has said "the worst (fill in the blank) since The Great Depression. The last deflatio was The Great Depression and the Kress cycle bottoms in 6 years.
Kondratieff Winter is the deflationary phase of the Kwave cycle. Summer is when the roaring 20's occured. Summer was also the time of the roaring 90's boom.
The credit bubble is deflating. That is deflationary, just as it was in 1930.
Ron.j @ 111:
You can laugh when you answer economist Thomas Palley's observation...
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/feb/08/thedebtdelusion
Since that phenomena has never happened before in American history... there is nothing "natural" about it and you are just another bullshit artist using rather insipid rhetorical devises that don't make it!
theWalrus @ 73:
Note the Rupugs have used this line "We need to come together in a bi-partisian way" for quite a while now,
they know they are facing political collapse and future criminal court cases, they are desparate to share the blame.
ferrofluid (Obama 08) @ 113:
"We need to come together in a bi-partisian way" is the equivalent of a used car salesman saying, "trust me... would I lie to you?"
List of Scientists Rejecting Evolution: Do They Really?
You can laugh when you answer economist Thomas Palley’s observation…
-------------
I am still laughing. Thomas Palley is talking about cycles, which is exactly what i have been talking about. There is no new business cycle. He is talking about the inflation phase vs the deflation phase of the inflatin/deflation cycle. As i said, it takes both phases to complete a cycle.
One does not exist without the other. The cycle is natural. Kondratieff noted the inflation deflation cycle long ago and he is still correct. Kondratief fwas not around for the current cycle, but what he discovered still holds true.
Supporting wages- inflation, supporting assets- disinflation/deflation.
Demand side- inflatin, supply side- disinflation/deflation.
Palley is talking of mechanisms, so what? It does not change the natural nature of the inflation/deflation cycle.
The cure for higher prices is higher prices. Thus inflation naturally turns to deflation. Thus i am still laughing. I know more than you pretend i don't.
What was the end point of Weimar hyperinflation? Hyperdeflation. That part is never mentioned. 1 billion old Marks were exchanged for one new Mark. The price of everything collapsed. Deflation.
That new business cycle nonsens of Palley. The FED drops interest rates, the economy expands. The FED raises rates too high, the economy contracts. It has been that way since the FED was founded. Nothing has changed. Supporting assets or supporting wages does not prevent recessions, Thus the business cyle has not changed.
The FED raised rates in 1999-2000, to 6.5%. The stock bubble burst and a recession followed.
The 1929 FED raised rates to 6.5% and the 1929 stock bubble burst, along with the credit bubble. The 1929 FED had previously goosed the market with rate cuts to help Britain.
The 1999 FED had previously goosed the market with rate cuts in 1998, to help Asia pull out of the Asian Contagion.
The more things change, the more they stay the same.
By 1980, inflation was running in double digits. people were complaining about higher and higher prices. Supporting labor and wages was no longer possible. Palley conveniently ignores that fact.
Higher wages- higher prices. In the Weimar hyperinflation wage earners became incredibly rich, as wages changed daily in 1923. The problem was, that with everyone a millionaire, prices skyrocketed.
Thus in 1980, support naturally had to change to assets. The rate of inflation had become unacceptable. Palley doesn't mention that little inconvenient fact. Aren't you complaining about 145 dollar oil? Don't you want to stop the spiraling up of oil prices?
Supply side is what reversed the inflation spiral of the 1980's. More supply, lower prices. Wages also decline.
A cycle is natural. Gold, copper, houses, wages, prices- nothing goes up for ever. Everyone of those has a cycle. Palley can talk mechanics till he is blue in the face, but everyone of those still has a cycle, and cycles are natural. The cycles are distorted by the mechanics of human intervention, but the cycles still occur and recur time and time again, anyway, because they are natural.
republicans called for change, now democrats call for change. The phasing of cycles. The political pendulum swings from one end of the cycle to the other and back again. All cycles have 2 phases. Every bubble has 2 phases. The inflation/deflation cycle has 2 phases.
Reaganomics did not happen because of Reagan, it happened because of the peak of the inflation cycle. Change had to occur in order reverse an inflation spiral.
The reason the dollar has dropped in this decade is for the same reason that Roosevelt tanked the dollar in 1933-34. Attempting to reflate. The problem is that deflation has not taken place, yet. But with Indymac Bank and the GSE becoming insolvent last week, that process is now starting to unfold.
The government has no money to invest in Freddie and Fannie. It must borrow it.
All bubbles burst. A credit bubble cannot be prevented from deflating by borrowing more money.
The FED is a bank. It loans money. If the FED goes bankrupt, the government must borrow money to bail it out, throough creating treasury bonds.
Paulson has already proposed that congress borrow a sum of money and turn it over to the FED as a rainy day fund. The only reason to do that is because the FED is courting bankruptcy.
All these features have been present in the current economic expansion. Wages have stagnated despite strong productivity growth, while the trade deficit has set new records. Manufacturing has lost 1.8m jobs. Prior to 1980, manufacturing employment increased during every expansion and always exceeded the previous peak level. Between 1980 and 2000, manufacturing employment continued to grow in expansions, but each time it failed to recover the previous peak. This time, manufacturing employment has actually fallen during the expansion, something unprecedented in American history.
-----------------
A cyle in action.
After WW2 the industrial production capacity of much of Europe and Asia was destroyed.
The great boom in the middle class occured, as the U.S. became industrial producer to the world. Eventually, western Europe and Japan regained their industrial capacity.
China, which sat in the dark for decades, suddenly began to industrialize. Perot's giant sucking sound was the re-emergence of economic competition by the world's most populous country.
Every industrialized country has lost manufaturing jobs to China. The re-emergence of China was very deflationary. China has built modern cities and modern factories, which has created manufacturing over capacity. The world is awash in goods. We have come full circle- full cycle from WW2, which created great industrial undercapacity.
1980 was when price inflation peaked. Thus what held true before the peak of inflation would no longer hold true as inflation declined.
Unprecidented occurances happen at the exteme of the phase of a cycle. Thus the unprecidented contraction of U.S. manufacturing jobs during an economic expansion.
Ron.j @ 116:
And again you laugh with a fool's confidence and evade the point that he makes about this never has happened in Americas economic history before...
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/feb/08/thedebtdelusion
In short you can't have a healthy economy by having people selling houses to each other at vastly inflated prices.
Further... as former Fed Chairman Paul Volker pointed out... you can not sustain an economy that consumes 6% more a year than it produces.
Your current arguments are as vacuous and hollow as your claim that oil prices were simply "supply and demand." Never mind that the Saudis and Opec, the UN, The G-8 ministers in Osaka, and one of the largest hedge fund managers testified to this is congressional hearings...
Your current "laughing" is more a kin to a lunatic in an asylum!
Slight revision...
-------------
I am still laughing. Thomas Palley is talking about cycles, which is exactly what i have been talking about. There is no new business cycle. He is talking about the inflation phase vs the deflation phase of the inflatin/deflation cycle. As i said, it takes both phases to complete a cycle.
One does not exist without the other. The cycle is natural. Kondratieff noted the inflation deflation cycle long ago and he is still correct. Kondratief fwas not around for the current cycle, but what he discovered still holds true.
Supporting wages- inflation, supporting assets- disinflation/deflation.
Demand side- inflatin, supply side- disinflation/deflation.
Palley is talking of mechanisms, so what? It does not change the natural nature of the inflation/deflation cycle.
The cure for higher prices is higher prices. Thus inflation naturally turns to deflation. Thus i am still laughing. I know more than you pretend i don't.
What was the end point of Weimar hyperinflation? Hyperdeflation. That part is never mentioned. 1 billion old Marks were exchanged for one new Mark. The price of everything collapsed. Deflation.
And again you laugh with a fool's confidence and evade the point that he makes about this never has happened in Americas economic history before...
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/feb/08/thedebtdelusion
In short you can't have a healthy economy by having people selling houses to each other at vastly inflated prices.
Further... as former Fed Chairman Paul Volker pointed out... you can not sustain an economy that consumes 6% more a year than it produces.
Your current arguments are as vacuous and hollow as your claim that oil prices were simply "supply and demand."
Never mind that the Saudis and Opec, the UN, The G-8 ministers in Osaka, and one of the largest hedge fund managers in his congressional testimony... all agreed that the rapid spike in oil prices was not due to inadequate supply but due to the falling dollar and speculators in the commodities futures market.
Your current "laughing" is more a kin to a lunatic in an asylum!
I just love the BS these guys throw out...
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/03/24/business/supply.php
And again you laugh with a fool’s confidence and evade the point that he makes about this never has happened in Americas economic history before…
--------------
Not a fools confidence at all. A credit bubble occured in the 1920's. What is happening now is hardly unprecidented. I did not evade anything. A stock bubble, a property bubble and a credit bubble all occured in the 1920's and have happened now. Credit was a big thing in the 1920's and as been in this credit bubble as well. The tech boom in the 1920's was radio. In the 1990's it was computers. You will probrably find that taxes were cut in the 1920's. The more things change, the more they stay the same. The one real difference between now and the 1920's is that the U.S. was a creditor nation in the 1920's and a debtor nation now. The U.S. was a debtor nation in 1783, after the Revolutonary War.
There was no jobless recovery. The birth/death model distorts the uemployment numbers at inflection points in the economy. Last month the birth/death model showed an increase in construction jobs. The actual job numbers showed a loss of construction jobs. At the bottom of the 2001 recession, the birth/death model showed less jobs being created than were actually created. Thus there was not a jobless recovery, just the illusion of one created by birth/death model distortions in the unemployment numbers as the economy turned up.
Last month the birth/death model added a hypothetical 177,000 jobs, which cut the jobs lost to 62,000.
Wages have stagnated despite productivity gains, because China and India produce for less.
China and India are deflationary pressure on wages. China is the mechanism, but the deflation phase of the inflation/deflation cycle, is the cause. The mechanism may change from one cycle to the next, but the cause is always the same.
Reaganomics was the mechanism by which the inflation phase peaked and turned toward deflation.
Palley talks of symptoms while i talk of causes. The cause is the reason for the symptom, not the other way around.
If not Reaganomics, some other mechanism would have been the symptom of the peaking of inflation and the turn toward deflation, to complete the inflation/deflation cycle.
In short you can’t have a healthy economy by having people selling houses to each other at vastly inflated prices.
Further… as former Fed Chairman Paul Volker pointed out… you can not sustain an economy that consumes 6% more a year than it produces.
Your current arguments are as vacuous and hollow as your claim that oil prices were simply “supply and demand.”
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It is amazing just how you distort the truth.
First off, NOTHING is sustainable. Thus quoting Volker means nothing. Once the market for IPODS is saturated nothing will sustain it, even if you produce more IPODS than you consume.
China is a producer nation. China's boom will end in a bust, even though they are producing more than they consume. It is you that is making the vaccuuous argument. The U.S. produced more than it consumed in the 1920's. What followed? A depression. Nothing is sustainable in the face of cycles.
Supply and demand are all that exist. If demand exceeds supply, the price rises. If supply exceeds demand, price falls. It is that simple. you can throw in all the verbiage about manipulating supply, but what i said still holds. All supply and demand are manipulated to some degree or another.
When the price of gold drops too low, mines close down. Supply declines, then price goes up.
mines reopen and supply increases. Eventually the price drops again. Cycle repeats.
Never mind that the Saudis and Opec, the UN, The G-8 ministers in Osaka, and one of the largest hedge fund managers in his congressional testimony… all agreed that the rapid spike in oil prices was not due to inadequate supply but due to the falling dollar and speculators in the commodities futures market.
Your current “laughing” is more a kin to a lunatic in an asylum!
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The cigartte manufactureers all appeard before congress and testified that cigarette smoking did not cause cancer. What was that you were saying again?
Futures trading is a zero sum game. The speculation is on the future price.
Demand has exceeded supply by upwards of 2 million barrels a day.
No lunatic there, just supply falling behind demand.
Wanna see what happens when democrats raise taxes with promises of great results....Call Michigan and ask them how thats going.
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