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Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 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.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.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!"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 ParteiI 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
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!"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
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!"
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.
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.
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!"‘Anti-Bloomberg Bill’ in Mississippi Bars Local Restrictions on Food and Drink
Poll: Fiscal fights take toll on Obama approval
edited 13th Mar '13 7:56:15 PM by DeviantBraeburn
Everything is Possible. But some things are more Probable than others. JEBAGEDDON 2016"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!"
We call it "coke" down here, thank you very much.
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!"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."

The Justice Department’s independent inspector general on Tuesday portrayed its voting rights section as torn by “deep ideological polarization” and “the harassment and marginalization of employees and managers” by both liberal and conservative factions dating to the Bush administration and continuing into the Obama era.
Everything is Possible. But some things are more Probable than others. JEBAGEDDON 2016