They apparently don't need more power. They just need to enforce the regulations consistently. But our fucked up, extremely polarized and cynical 2 party system prevents that.Quote:
Originally Posted by CitizenCain
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They apparently don't need more power. They just need to enforce the regulations consistently. But our fucked up, extremely polarized and cynical 2 party system prevents that.Quote:
Originally Posted by CitizenCain
I agree. Damn that conservative Obama. :mad:Quote:
Originally Posted by EyeKhan
Is irony another word you need the definition of? Because it sure seems that way.Quote:
Originally Posted by GGT
:haha:Quote:
Originally Posted by GGT
Wait, weren't you just complaining about Loki attaching a socialist label to you?
And then you say that?
Yeah, there's some irony for you.
You're clearly never gonna get it, so stop straining your brain. Yes, all big business is evil, and clearly life would be better if the government came in, broke up big corporations and split everything up fairly among the people. Also, this is not socialist.Quote:
Originally Posted by GGT
No, democracy prevents that.Quote:
Originally Posted by EyeKhan
You must be out there with Stalin and Soros if you think that. :huh:Quote:
Originally Posted by Loki
Not sure how you *really* feel about that, but I've been giving it a lot of thought lately (like in the blog entry I wrote). I'm not sure human civilization can survive our current brand of 'democracy.'Quote:
Originally Posted by CitizenCain
American Exceptionalism. On display for the whole world.
Can we fuck anything else up besides several states being bankrupt, a global financial system tied to monetizing debt, false pensions and healthcare, the Gulf Coast ecosystem, the War on Terrorism, the War on Drugs, the War on Illegal Immigration? Did I leave anything out?
Go go USA #1! :cheerleader:
You really can't tell?Quote:
Originally Posted by EyeKhan
Democracy is the doctrine that every opinion, no matter how stupid and uninformed is equal in value to every other opinion. It's like communism, applied to ideas. But that whole communism thing worked out great when applied to the economy, right?
No brand of democracy works, because fundamentally, it assumes popularity is an indicator of worth, despite the inescapable reality that the correlation between popularity and an idea's value is usually inversely proportional. And exponential.Quote:
Originally Posted by EyeKhan
For fuck's sake, you want proof of why democracy can never work, all you need to do is look at GeeGee's post above mine.
For fuck's sake, you want proof of why democracy can never work, all you need to do is look at GeeGee's post above mine.
He's whining he can't be King. Or malevolent Dicktater. He hates people and wants to nuke Florida and California. Or something.
He's mad that the US is the last whistle stop on the freeeedom train, and there's nowhere else to go. He hasn't saved enough to buy his own island-country, with a natural moat complete with sharks. Plus, he's addicted to electricity and technology. As long as other countries make the satellites and computers, guns and ammo, which he loves....well, he can't have it both ways, have his cake and eat it, too.
Even calling everyone else moronic has lost its flavor. Poor Cain.
Thanks GeeGee.
If I have any other points I need you to prove for me, I'll be sure to prod you into posting against them. :downcast:
No problem. You like this place because of people like me. Makes you feel all warm and tingly, dunnit. :)Quote:
Originally Posted by CitizenCain
What you don't/won't admit is that I'm also sympathetic to your woes and share much of your anger. But your ego won't let you have stupid, ignorant, uneducated morons as allies. Your energy is wrapped up in the anger itself, and making everyone an enemy or foe just makes it easier to protect yourself.
I suppose that's what well indoctrinated soldiers do, after all.
No skin off my nose if you wanna think that...Quote:
Originally Posted by GGT
Yeah, that's not "ego."Quote:
Originally Posted by GGT
When you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to stop and reconsider.
If you can figure out why that is, I think you should be able to figure out why I won't give you a pass on being ignorant about whatever, even if you manage to come to a similar conclusion as I do.
No, not at all. You kind of learn to work with others to make the Drill Sargent stop yelling at you, and later, in the field, to not die.Quote:
Originally Posted by GGT
Again, this is another example of a GeeGee face palm - "here's a topic I don't actually know anything about, so I may as well express an opinion about it, why not?" :bored:
Considering the post you opened the thread with? You've also got a consistency problem, you've blamed three different Presidents so far, using three different reasons.Quote:
Originally Posted by EyeKhan
Fine (Cain), it's your Id. :bored:
I have enough knowledge about human behavior to know I don't know it all.
But being a contrarian rebel means some of teh zomg ignorant morons you hate just might share the same spaces. But you'd rather cut your nose off to spite your face.
I might as well just go to choobie's thread about cannibalism at this point. Principles can kill you, or they can keep you alive. Other people are always part of the gamble. :bored:
Things change over time. I don't think its necessarily appropriate to blame a particular president, to tell the truth. The real culprit is the conservative notion that less regulation is always better, and its ugly step child that "self-regulation" is somehow something more than no regulation. And the Bush Administration seemed to take the approach that the best way to implement these notions is to have the various agencies just not enforce the regulations (wink wink, nod). I don't know for sure but at first or second glance I would guess that may be behind how some of the variety of screw ups occurred to pull off this wonderfully unfolding disaster. Now, the modern idea of less regulation = better seemed to start with Reagan, but I'm not sure. It would be odd to say it's always been a Republican deal when you consider the EPA was created in the Nixon Administration. On the other hand, the Clinton Administration seemed to have swallowed a little of that poison as well, considering the financial system deregulation that went on then. But I'd be very surprised if any fossil industry deretulation, above or below board, went on then. Or intentionally under Obama. If there's ever been a presidency in bed with the oil business in modern history, its the Bush Administration.Quote:
Originally Posted by LittleFuzzy
Self regulation IS worse than no regulation. Because at least with no regulation you know where you stand, and can assess the risks. Self-regulation is like the financial instruments that took down the markets: nobody could assess their risk accurately, so it resulted in catastrophe. With no regulation at least you know where you stand. But yes, self-regulation is a BS smoke and mirrors game. The fox watching the hen house.Quote:
Originally Posted by EyeKhan
Edit 1: Ever heard of "starve the beast?" The idea was implicit in Reaganomics. The idea was to induce deficits to force cutting of government expenditures. A corollary is that one can then point to the inefficiency of hamstrung government agencies as a post hoc justification of one's agenda. It's how some conservatives justify their positions: I've heard people (including family) point to the Katrina fiasco as evidence that everything government does being inefficient. Well, there's a reason for that!
Don't get me wrong, I have no illusions that government is efficient. I just think that any bureaucracy is inefficient, and that bureaucracies are the inevitable consequence of size. Thus, any company that is large enough also grows an impenetrable thicket of bureaucracy, as anybody who has dealt with an insurance company knows. As a corollary, I'd argue that small companies and small agencies are the most efficient. But that's a whole 'nother thread, ain't it? The point just being that as usual, I think that the truth lies in the middle, between the extreme positions.
Edit 2: The Bush administration wasn't in bed with petroindustry. They WERE petroindustry. Can you get more petro than Halliburton, of which Cheney was CEO? It would be like electing the commissioner of a pro sports league as president, have him still getting paychecks, and then saying that he's "in bed" with that sport.
Nixon also started the war on cancer, and greatly expanded biomed research, ushering American dominance of biotech. The definition of "conservative" has changed a lot over the years. Nixon is obviously a complex bag of issues, but his take on public investment in future "infrastructure" was like that of Eisenhower and that type of conservative. Very different than Reagan's.
BTW, I've always found it amusing that the poor Reagan was a union organizer and dirty liberal, and the rich and famous Reagan was a union busting, conservative politico. The guy's entire life could be couched as self-interest.
It's pretty sad for a political party when you can rightly look back to one of the nation's most notorious political villains and honestly say "yeah, that's when the party was capable of governing." This starve the beast (I.e destroy the infrastructure that made this a great nation) thinking is national suicide.
Gee, I didn't realize that this country became great by having the government run a double digit deficit and spending well over 40% of GDP.
There's almost certainly a hell of a lot you still don't realize.Quote:
Originally Posted by Loki
Trying to mimic Being?
It didn't, as you know I've pointed out many times during the W years.Quote:
Originally Posted by Loki
But who implemented deficit spending as a governing strategy? And don't answer Obama. First, I think existential crises are the only justification for extensive deficit spending, and that's what Obama was challenged with. Edit: arguably this was the first existential crisis since WWII. Second, I do believe that he believes that tackling health care is a critical issue for both the feds and the economy as a whole. Is he going to succeed with this strategy? Maybe, maybe not. But at least he tried, which is more than the GOP can say. I think the GOP could have tried some good strategies that probably would have been very different, but they didn't, did they? They passed the buck when they had the power to do something. that's cowardice. Or just playing politics with the economic future of the US. In a situation trending towards unsustainability, he who tries and fails is to be respected above he who hides his head in the sand and passes the buck to the next guy.
Come on, man. That's lame.Quote:
Originally Posted by Loki
If you exclude the civil war and the two world wars, that would be FDR, Nixon, Reagan, Bush Jr., and Obama (though all but Bush Jr. did so with strongly Democratic Congresses). Again, if we exclude the three wars I mentioned, the current spike is by far the largest. So sure, Bush Jr. set off this binge of spending, but Obama has taken it to historic levels. Also, every president who followed a profligate president has decreased the deficit...until Obama. Truman got rid of FDR's deficit. Carter somewhat reduced Nixon's. Bush Sr. somewhat reduced Reagan's. Obama managed to increase Bush's.
1) Can we recognize that pre-20th century situations are more or less meaningless given how radically different the role of government was, and that of revenues?Quote:
Originally Posted by Loki
2) FDR's deficit was the biggest modern existential crisis. Actually, arguably two of them bundled together.
3) Nixon's deficit was minimal. What are you talking about?
4) Neither Reagan's nor W's were existential crises. Not even close.
5) Obama was/is facing an existential crisis. Plus, he can't exactly reverse some of W's actions, which haven't even expired yet. So Obama is still struggling with W's legacy.
In fact, I'd say that the situation Obama was put in is exactly why it is reprehensible to spend profligately in the absence of serious threats. You may recall that I said so through the Bush years: it's negligent to spend like this. What happens if a real crisis comes up and we need to spend more than we have? Well, it happened.
So, name a bout of unjustified deficit spending (of the magnitude we're talking, not chicken feed) followed by an existential crisis that demanded deficit spending. You can't, other than the one we're just coming out of. So you can criticize Obama, but to do so you MUST acknowledge that his ability to act was severely handicapped by his predecessor. And that, as I pointed out here in 2003,4,5,6,7,8 and 9, is why it was grossly negligent for W to run up the deficit in the absence of any substantial crisis.
That he did so primarily to provide a windfall to the wealthy is nauseating. It's why I think W will be almost universally viewed in retrospect as one of the worst presidents. Not even counting the wars, I think we almost certainly would have been MUCH better had he just sat back and done almost nothing. Reagan at least had the excuse of part of the deficit being increased Cold War spending to challenge the Soviets economically. Not necessary, given that almost all economists knew the Soviets were in deep shit economically well before Reagan even took office. But it doubtlessly did accelerate things.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi..._President.jpg
It's my belief that on this subject one should look for two things: 1) inflection points, and 2) slopes. So far, Obama's slope hasn't changed. Given that we're in the biggest crisis since WWII, this could actually be considered impressive. Second, he hasn't had the chance for the lag period from W's policies to catch up. So we can't honestly evaluate him at all, except to say that there is no inflection point: he hasn't increased the slope. Had he not inherited a horrible financial crisis, two wars, and preposterous tax cuts, altogether demanding spending literally trillions, he'd probably look like a budget hawk, relatively speaking. Or at least map close to Clinton.
Now, where are the radical inflections points? Upwards, it's Reagan and W. I said that Reagan gets some slack, but W is inexcusable. Bush I is complicated, but I see a change in the curve there. That's why I give him credit for halting the deficit. Me, I think Clinton was just very lucky in terms of cycles, and that Bush I deserves most of the credit. It's one reason I think he was a better president than most, because he had the balls to do something politically unpopular that helped the country.
I think the jury is out on Obama, but I think anybody who is reasonable would cut him slack given the multiple train wreck he inherited. Me, I expect his curve to inflect in a few years. I expect him to win in 2012 because the recession will be over, and I expect that you'll see a big improvement. Remember, the other side of the coin with deficits is revenues, which depend largely on economic cycles when you don't have a nimrod like W playing his payoff games. Obama's deficit will continue to rise in part because of the delayed great Recession hit on revenues. This will reverse.
If I'm wrong, please make sure to rub my nose in it in a few years. Seriously. Lord knows I've rubbed the nose of the W partisans in W's track record, and I'll deserve it if I'm wrong. But I won't be, and I think you know that.
Debt != deficit. Using debt makes presidents who presided over high economic growth look fiscally conservative, and those that inherited large deficits look fiscally liberal.
http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y28...66/Deficit.png
1. Sure.
2. I don't agree. The entire world faced the great depression; most of it came out of it no worse than did the US. Not only that, but the effect of FDR's "New Deal" was minimal; it was WWII that brought about economic growth. So no, I'm not going to support FDR's wasteful economic programs just because America was in a bad state.
3. My mistake. That was Ford, not Nixon. He managed to increase the deficit from virtually nothing to about 4%. At that time, this was the largest deficit since 1935.
4. Ok.
5. Again, I don't agree. Plenty of Western countries didn't run up a massive deficit during the current economic crisis, despite this crisis hitting some of them much harder than it hit the US (Estonia's GDP went down 15%, yet its deficit is under 2%). The countries that implemented reasonable stimulus packages did not suffer any more than did the US. So please don't give me the BS about the current deficit being necessary. If the US wasn't the richest and most powerful country in the world, we'd be in the same position Greece finds itself in right now.
Most people agree spending cuts are necessary. Where do you want to cut spending Loki?
I'm aware of the difference between deficit and debt, but I like debt better because it gives a better picture of the impact of deficit spending: a deficit in the context of no debt is not dangerous at all (well, not yet). Deficit spending in the context of high debt is quite dangerous. Besides, deficits can be inferred from slope of debt.
But yes, I agree that deficit is a more direct metric of a government's spending activity.
BTW, we have to recognize that Bush's TARP goes on Obama's bill wrt graphs, at it was of roughly equivalent size to the stimulus plan. Enacted at the very end of his presidency, mostly spent out while Obama was president.
Besides, if we're looking for good signs, I like what I see in your deficit chart for Obama. A spike because of exigency, trending lower once the worst is past. That's exactly what I would want from a crisis response. Look at WWII, with a much longer crisis. Same graph shape. Of course, that doesn't fit with Chicken Little "Oh noes! Socialist end of the world" hysteria, but since that's mostly propaganda we can ignore it.
Fixed that up for ya...I'm sure you'd hate to be accused of dishonesty, so I pitched in to help ya out a bit.Quote:
Originally Posted by ']['ear
OK, what particular "exigency" are you refering to - the years old weak economy, or the even older wars/terrorist attack?Quote:
Originally Posted by ']['ear
And also, through what future-divining magiks/delusion inducing drugs do you see the deficit graph trending lower?
If anything, it's going to trend up in a nearly vertical fashion once the "free" health-care for all program starts... in 2012 (?). Oh, we've locked ourselves into quite the huge deficit by electing the well-spoken negroid from Hawaii, unless we undo all his legislation to get us to where we started. Hurray!
Yeah :up:Quote:
Originally Posted by Being
Also, the input of monies needs to be re-evaluated, not just cutting spending. ie, check the royalties they should be paying to MMS (but the agency has all its legs and arms tangled together) and tax shelters or loopholes they use to avoid paying their share.
Across the board. The 2011 proposed budget increases spending by 10% over the previous one. The 2010 budget increased discretionary spending by 13%. The 2009 one increased it by 5%. There's absolutely no need for such ridiculous increases.Quote:
Originally Posted by Being
Just a little update: Scientists discovered massive oil carpets underwater. Obviously, just burning the stuff is not the answer anymore (if it ever was).
http://www.mymotherlode.com/news/nat...of-Mexico.html
I go for that. I'd also include across the board tax increases every year we run a deficit.Quote:
Originally Posted by Loki