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Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM

RadicalTaoist scratching at .8, just hopin' from the #GUniverse Since: Jan, 2001
scratching at .8, just hopin'
#51102: Mar 13th 2013 at 7:03:40 AM

I apologize for being the guy who flogs Charles Pierce and just links editorials. I really do. But on the topic of the government's relationship with the financial industry, Pierce hits it so far out of the park that the ball was caught by a shortstop in Japan.

edited 13th Mar '13 7:03:54 AM by RadicalTaoist

Share it so that people can get into this conversation, 'cause we're not the only ones who think like this.
Sledgesaul Since: Oct, 2011
#51103: Mar 13th 2013 at 9:16:32 AM

Yeah, Ryan is a dumbass. Like a slightly smarter male Bachmann.

Let him talk more and it'll kill his career.

PotatoesRock Since: Oct, 2012
#51104: Mar 13th 2013 at 10:12:24 AM

It also looks like more critics aren't buying the Very Serious Budget this time around either. A good sign?

RadicalTaoist scratching at .8, just hopin' from the #GUniverse Since: Jan, 2001
scratching at .8, just hopin'
#51105: Mar 13th 2013 at 10:32:45 AM

Wouldn't say that he is a dumbass, more like he's so ideologically blinkered that it doesn't really matter whether he's intelligent or not.

Share it so that people can get into this conversation, 'cause we're not the only ones who think like this.
Fighteer Lost in Space from The Time Vortex (Time Abyss) Relationship Status: TV Tropes ruined my love life
Lost in Space
#51106: Mar 13th 2013 at 10:37:12 AM

Ryan is a person who is (or was) lauded for his intelligence but acts like someone who rides through life on people telling him that he's smart.

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
Achaemenid HGW XX/7 from Ruschestraße 103, Haus 1 Since: Dec, 2011 Relationship Status: Giving love a bad name
HGW XX/7
#51107: Mar 13th 2013 at 10:43:31 AM

The GOP Budget and its monumental disconnect with the reality of poverty in America reminds me so much of the Billy Bragg song "Between the Wars":

  • Mine is the green field and the factory floor
  • Theirs are the skies all dark with bombers
  • And mine is the peace we knew between the wars

  • Call up the craftsmen, bring me the draftsmen
  • Build me a path from cradle to grave
  • And I'll give my consent to any government
  • That does not deny a man a living wage."

edited 13th Mar '13 10:45:34 AM by Achaemenid

Schild und Schwert der Partei
Kostya (Unlucky Thirteen)
#51108: Mar 13th 2013 at 4:07:31 PM

I was doing Budget Hero and I couldn't reduce the deficit without gutting social programs, the military, or both. Strange, I thought I would be able to do it.

Part of it might be because I wasn't allowed to raise taxes on the wealthy, just enact the already proposed repeals of the Bush Cuts.

edit: I did manage to reduce the from 14.4 trillion to 10.9 trillion over the next ten years though. I also pushed the bust back from 2033 to 2036 and shrank the government from 22.1% of the GDP to 20.4%.

edited 13th Mar '13 4:17:06 PM by Kostya

Fighteer Lost in Space from The Time Vortex (Time Abyss) Relationship Status: TV Tropes ruined my love life
Lost in Space
#51109: Mar 13th 2013 at 4:28:33 PM

Not allowed to raise taxes on the wealthy... gee, now I know who sponsors that "game".

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
Kostya (Unlucky Thirteen)
#51110: Mar 13th 2013 at 4:32:52 PM

I don't think there's an agenda behind that. You can't raise taxes on the poor either unless you choose to repeal all of Bush's cuts.

It does let you remove certain other tax breaks and allows you to implement the public option Obama proposed to reduce the deficit by 100 billion. It seems like it only lets you act on measures that are currently being proposed. Since no one in Washington supports raising the percentage for the top income people to 60-70 it doesn't give you that option.

edit: Did it again.

I got the debt down to 9.4 trillion by 2019(the average is 12.9), pushed the budget bust back from 2035 to 2038(most have it in 2034), and decreased the size of the government to 20.1% of the GDP(most have it at 21%).

That tax thing still bothers me though but there probably isn't a simulator out there that's that in depth.

If you're bored and want to try it out here it is.

edited 13th Mar '13 4:35:26 PM by Kostya

Fighteer Lost in Space from The Time Vortex (Time Abyss) Relationship Status: TV Tropes ruined my love life
Lost in Space
#51111: Mar 13th 2013 at 4:36:38 PM

Meh. Cutting the deficit is the last thing we need to be doing right now. I'd like to see how much I can increase it to push stimulus.

edited 13th Mar '13 4:36:54 PM by Fighteer

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
Kostya (Unlucky Thirteen)
#51112: Mar 13th 2013 at 4:42:23 PM

Well the stated goal of it is to prevent the deficit from growing too large. It also has reducing the debt overall as a goal which is important.

Greenmantle V from Greater Wessex, Britannia Since: Feb, 2010 Relationship Status: Hiding
V
#51113: Mar 13th 2013 at 4:43:05 PM

@ Fighteer: How much stimulus, globally, for you is too much? Or can there never be too much stimulus?

Keep Rolling On
Lascoden ... from Missouri, USA Since: Nov, 2012
...
#51114: Mar 13th 2013 at 4:46:47 PM

[up]I'm no expert in Keynesian, but I believe it states that stimulus is bad whenever there's a large surplus.

boop
DrunkGirlfriend from Castle Geekhaven Since: Jan, 2011
#51115: Mar 13th 2013 at 4:59:30 PM

[up] Basically, from what I understand, Keynesian economics state the the government should act as a balancing force to the economy. If times are good, more stimulus will cause a bubble and all the resultant problems that come with a bubble. If times are bad, more stimulus counteracts the lessened economic state.

"I don't know how I do it. I'm like the Mr. Bean of sex." -Drunkscriblerian
Kostya (Unlucky Thirteen)
#51116: Mar 13th 2013 at 5:01:27 PM

The main theory behind it seems to be that taxes are raised in boom times and cut during a recession while spending is cut in boom times and raised in a recession. This helps prop up the economy while it's recovering and the debt that accumulates can be paid off when times are good because tax revenue can increase without harming the economy. The reverse would be austerity which doesn't seem to be working too well for Europe.

DrunkGirlfriend from Castle Geekhaven Since: Jan, 2011
#51117: Mar 13th 2013 at 5:06:24 PM

[up] Or the US for that matter.

Then again, we're doing this funky "little bit of stimulus here... little bit of austerity there..." thing that's making me scratch my head.

"I don't know how I do it. I'm like the Mr. Bean of sex." -Drunkscriblerian
Fighteer Lost in Space from The Time Vortex (Time Abyss) Relationship Status: TV Tropes ruined my love life
Lost in Space
#51118: Mar 13th 2013 at 7:29:34 PM

In principle, government spending should act to offset the output gap: that is, stimulus should equal the difference between current GDP and potential GDP at full employment. (Edit: And we should be in a liquidity trap environment such that zero interest rates are not sufficient to restore full output.) Another way of putting it is that government should employ all the people that the private sector has laid off, until such time as the private sector is ready to hire them back.

That's a heavy simplification, of course, but it gets at the essence of the theory. One could say that the government should act as the employer of last resort, just as it acts as the lender of last resort.

edited 13th Mar '13 7:49:41 PM by Fighteer

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
Fighteer Lost in Space from The Time Vortex (Time Abyss) Relationship Status: TV Tropes ruined my love life
Lost in Space
#51120: Mar 14th 2013 at 6:21:15 AM

"Anti-Bloomberg" bill? His influence stretches far from his home city, doesn't it? Next thing you know, he'll be sneaking into Jackson at night to steal the souls of their firstborn children.

I'm imagining this in a stereotypical Southern accent: "Oh, Lawdy, don't let them rich Northern boys come down here and take our coke! Why, if they did that, I do declare that I might just faint! Hey, Jebediah! Be a darling and fetch me the lard."

edited 14th Mar '13 6:37:35 AM by Fighteer

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
OhnoaBear I'm back, baby. from Exiting, pursued by a... Since: Jan, 2011
Fighteer Lost in Space from The Time Vortex (Time Abyss) Relationship Status: TV Tropes ruined my love life
Lost in Space
#51122: Mar 14th 2013 at 6:37:26 AM

I didn't remember which it was. Sorry. Edited. Also, I Take Offense to That Last One?

edited 14th Mar '13 6:39:55 AM by Fighteer

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
OhnoaBear I'm back, baby. from Exiting, pursued by a... Since: Jan, 2011
I'm back, baby.
#51123: Mar 14th 2013 at 6:53:35 AM

Yeah. On a tablit here though, so even that up arrow was a bit of a sgrain. Never mind a pothole.

And, while I still think those food outlaws were a silly idea, I think this practise of outlawing laws is even sillier.

"The marvel is not that the Bear posts well, but that the Bear posts at all."
DrunkGirlfriend from Castle Geekhaven Since: Jan, 2011
#51124: Mar 14th 2013 at 6:54:03 AM

[up][up]Hey, don't knock the lard, man. tongue

[up] Lawinception? Silly laws banning silly laws all the way down?

edited 14th Mar '13 6:55:05 AM by DrunkGirlfriend

"I don't know how I do it. I'm like the Mr. Bean of sex." -Drunkscriblerian
Greenmantle V from Greater Wessex, Britannia Since: Feb, 2010 Relationship Status: Hiding
V
#51125: Mar 14th 2013 at 6:55:36 AM

His influence stretches far from his home city, doesn't it?

He does have a News Channel named after himself, y'know?

Keep Rolling On

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