Originally Posted by Copperfield

Watch TV lately?

or read the news?

or watch youtube?

Want some more?

Of course it's hard to see how people would ever learn to value picking on the weak in this country.

I feel sorry for Saddam Hussein too. And your logic makes total sense.

Originally Posted by Wallace 88

Social Security is something you pay into, but the payback is fuzzy. I would not call it welfare, but it's a little hinky.

Social security "works" as long as there's more people paying into it than receiving it... it makes one wonder what possibly was the "real reason" GIs had so many kids.

~Chas'88

Originally Posted by JustPassingThrough

This is a prime example of a central left wing, statistic-based article of faith that is completely false. They pound it over and over again: wages are stagnant. They don't tell you that total compensation has risen steadily, and the reason take-home pay has not risen comes down to one overriding factor: health care costs. Specifically, the cost of health insurance. So they fixed that when they launched a massive health care takeover in the middle of a depression, right? Wrong. They ignored costs. All they cared about was making sure everyone had insurance, whether they wanted it or not.

They didn't just not fix it, they made it worse. Once Obamacare goes into effect, it will be even more expensive for employers to pay for health insurance than it was before.

They're smarter than everybody else, and morally superior. But somehow they're stupid enough not to know the truth about it. They actually blame all of it on Scrooge McDuck (R) trying to "stifle wages", while rubbing his hands together and cackling with glee. It's delusional.

Ok, where you watching when the Republicans gutted any part of healthcare reform that might have effected the costs? Where you watching when they fought tooth and nail to stop the proposed payroll tax cut that effects all working people equally?

Tax cuts for the workers are bad, but tax cuts for the owners are essential to a healthy economy. If you work for a living and think the GOP has your financial interests at heart, you haven't been paying attention. If you inherited a coal mine, you might personally benefit from a Romney administration.

Originally Posted by Wallace 88

It is relevant to whose is footing the bill for the gravy train.

You're not footing the bill for anyone, including yourself. Federal taxes, whether income or payroll, serve only to reduce money in the economy as a means to control demand-pull inflation.

At best, one can view federal taxes as providing "space" in the economy for the federal govt to buy goods and services (or provide money to beneficiaries to buy goods and services) without putting undue pressure on prices (i.e. inflation).

Originally Posted by Wallace 88

Go back to the number of people suddenly on disability. You think getting something for nothing is not attractive? Then stop the SSI right now. Prove it.

The people getting those govt benefits take that money and spend it on goods and services. That provides income to those who provide those goods and services.

For example, imagine if 47% of the people that go to the restaurant, where you work as a busboy, no longer had the money to go there. How long do you think it would be before you were laid off?

Anyone, like yourself, that survives on wages and votes GOP is essentially clueless sheeple being lead around by the nose.

Originally Posted by JustPassingThrough

This is a prime example of a central left wing, statistic-based article of faith that is completely false. They pound it over and over again: wages are stagnant. They don't tell you that total compensation has risen steadily, and the reason take-home pay has not risen comes down to one overriding factor: health care costs. Specifically, the cost of health insurance.

BUT the fact of the matter is wages have been stagnant, and that is what is keeping the economy from doing anything more than muddling through. Why can't the 99% have BOTH health insurance and rising wages?

Originally Posted by JustPassingThrough

So they fixed that when they launched a massive health care takeover in the middle of a depression, right? Wrong. They ignored costs. All they cared about was making sure everyone had insurance, whether they wanted it or not.

They didn't just not fix it, they made it worse. Once Obamacare goes into effect, it will be even more expensive for employers to pay for health insurance than it was before.

They're smarter than everybody else, and morally superior. But somehow they're stupid enough not to know the truth about it. They actually blame all of it on Scrooge McDuck (R) trying to "stifle wages", while rubbing his hands together and cackling with glee. It's delusional.

Pure magic pony horseshit.

Originally Posted by JohnMc82

Ok, where you watching when the Republicans gutted any part of healthcare reform that might have effected the costs?

The bill passed without a single Republican vote. They didn't have enough power to influence the legislation at all, much less "gut" anything from it. The Democrats wanted universal coverage. That's all they cared about. Cost-savings will theoretically be achieved through rationing, but the corresponding shortages it's going to create will offset the savings from the "death panels" and so forth.

Where you watching when they fought tooth and nail to stop the proposed payroll tax cut that effects all working people equally?

They did? Or did they oppose the bill for other reasons?

Tax cuts for the workers are bad, but tax cuts for the owners are essential to a healthy economy. If you work for a living and think the GOP has your financial interests at heart, you haven't been paying attention. If you inherited a coal mine, you might personally benefit from a Romney administration.

A growing economy is the only thing that improves anyone's financial interests.

Originally Posted by Chas'88

Social security "works" as long as there's more people paying into it than receiving it... it makes one wonder what possibly was the "real reason" GIs had so many kids.

~Chas'88

Actually that notion of not enough workers to support future retirees is supply-side horseshit.

SS is just a claim (i.e. demand) on future production. If that claim (demand), when added to all other demand, exceeds the economy's ability to produce, then that would put upward pressure on prices (i.e. demand pull inflation). On the other hand, if that claim, when added to all other demand, is below the economy's ability to produce that puts downward pressure on prices (i.e. demand-starved deflation).

The baloney about not enough workers assumes that economic production will remain at least as dependent on workers as it does today. That is not the trend.

Today, we have millions of people unemployed and millions more underemployed; demand-starved deflation was mitigated by increased federal deficit spending and now being masked by the FED doing all kinds of crazy things. Why would anyone believe that is going to change in the future?

Originally Posted by JustPassingThrough

The bill passed without a single Republican vote. They didn't have enough power to influence the legislation at all, much less "gut" anything from it. The Democrats wanted universal coverage. That's all they cared about. Cost-savings will theoretically be achieved through rationing, but the corresponding shortages it's going to create will offset the savings from the "death panels" and so forth.



They did? Or did they oppose the bill for other reasons?



A growing economy is the only thing that improves anyone's financial interests.

And how do you grow the economy, numbskull, by giving tax breaks to the top 2% so they can go stash it in T-bills or commodities??? Because they sure as hell are not going to invest it in anything that produces more when there is no demand.

Gawd, you GOP sheeple are gawd awful clueless.

Originally Posted by JustPassingThrough

This is a prime example of a central left wing, statistic-based article of faith that is completely false.

"Statistic-based" and "article of faith" create an oxymoron. Sure, statistics can deceive and can be manipulated to deceive, but as a rule someone reasonably sophisticated can ordinarily refute suspect, manipulate, or fraudulent statistics.

This of course is very different from the Hard-Right understanding of economics which depends upon a mystical reverence for the ability of the super-rich and the bureaucratic elites paid exceedingly well to treat people exceedingly badly to radiate the benefice of their prosperity upon the rest of us more effectively than we could do ourselves with living wages for honest work.

They pound it over and over again: wages are stagnant. They don't tell you that total compensation has risen steadily, and the reason take-home pay has not risen comes down to one overriding factor: health care costs. Specifically, the cost of health insurance. So they fixed that when they launched a massive health care takeover in the middle of a depression, right? Wrong. They ignored costs. All they cared about was making sure everyone had insurance, whether they wanted it or not.

Wages are stagnant despite rising productivity and higher efficiency in the workplace. Big Business uses market power to squeeze wages even more by threatening those who still have work with job loss. Take another pay cut and hold onto your job, says Dr. Tycoon. Profits rise as real wages fall.

As for medical costs rising -- such looks like crony capitalism at work. The pharmaceutical industry reaps the bounty of monopoly pricing that would never be tolerated in any other country. The medical insurance business has become a for-profit bureaucracy that enjoys a near lack of competition. The American Medical Association arranges things so that few people can become physicians. Restraint of trade and cost-plus arrangements upon a captive market are great for profits but horrible for customers. Because American physicians face the lowest net taxes on high incomes in the world one would expect America to be a magnet for physicians trying to leave the 'socialized medicine' that the American Hard Right so abhors. OK, so tell me about all the Swedish physicians taking flight from the horrors of 'socialized medicine' . (The problem is that American physicians do much that is not medicine, like negotiating their way through the bureaucratic hoops of private insurance).

They didn't just not fix it, they made it worse. Once Obamacare goes into effect, it will be even more expensive for employers to pay for health insurance than it was before.

It would work well if Americans got full employment at living wages. There need to be some major reforms of the medical industry so that we don't have the highest costs in the world.

They're smarter than everybody else, and morally superior. But somehow they're stupid enough not to know the truth about it. They actually blame all of it on Scrooge McDuck (R) trying to "stifle wages", while rubbing his hands together and cackling with glee. It's delusional.

Stereotype made for children from 1947... probably based on Andrew Carnegie, who now gets mixed reviews. Gilded-Age plutocrats were objects of parody in the late 1940s... when American capitalism was far more benign than it is now. But I know well what you have to say about Boomers, and I look at Boomer executives as a group and I see little more than cruel enforcement of personal greed.

The one thing that saves Boomer executives from being cardboard stereotypes is their complete lack of style. Much unlike the Gilded villain as a stock in trade of the Silent film era with his cape the Boomer executive has no outward shows of eccentricity.

Originally Posted by Copperfield

Watch TV lately?

Yeah, but he's British isn't he?

Seriously, that was a fine exchange between you Copperman, and Mr. Mc82. Strange to say, I found nothing to disagree with by either of you in those posts above about America.

Originally Posted by Wallace 88

It is mostly insurance against old age, which is sort of a given.


The disability part is the part that givews out first.

Most people over insure their house for fire. Is the fire really going to burn the ground?

All the social programs are insurance, even those we pay for through income taxes rather than payroll taxes. At least if you live in some blue states, welfare is available to any of us, if and when we need it. When you pay taxes to support it, you are not just giving handouts to people who "don't work," you are providing for help for yourself in a rainy day. And we've had some rainy days lately; enough that it should have reminded us all of that fact. Yet most conservatives and libertarians in this country are still comatose and can't see the facts.

Originally Posted by princeofcats67

That's really funny(and true IMO), JPT.
I'm going to have to trademark it!

Prince

PS: "Scrooge McDuck-(R)^TM" Love it!

Who in the hell was Scrooge McDuck??

Or should I have said, who the fuck is Scrooge McDuck?

Originally Posted by princeofcats67

Prince

PS:

Didn't anyone ever tell you that manure is good fertilizer?

PS Elephant dung is just as good.

PPS Your donkey is not as cute as your cats.

Mitt Romney and the tea party gops treason knows no bounds. Critics correctly assume that romney will spout out outragous lies against obama in the debate. What these critics foolishly don't grasp is that romney will not attack obama based on his handling on benghazi or on any percieved lack of aggressiveness toward iran on obama's part. Instead Romney will most likely advance or at least claim to advance a "bring the troops home" policy. Ironically this may be one of the few times romney is not lying.
The Reason I state this is because the evil russian/iranian alliance and the GOP have common interests in the 2012 election. Both the axis powers and the GOP desire the destruction of NATO and the UN. The soviets desire this because without US membership in nato the road would be clear for them to reveal their secret armies and invade europe and the middle east. This invasion would be accompanied by mass carpet bombings of civilians by nuclear and chemical weapons by russian and iranian troops followed by forced population "reductions" and "recalibrations" carried out by soviet "special operations unit detachments". The GOP also desires the destruction of liberal "fornicators" in europe as well as the subjection of america into an orwellian "christian" fascist state, for this reason they are actually willing to betray the forces of freedom and democracy that are nessesary for the defense of the world against the evil neo-axis in order to secure their shaky ideology. Contrary to the myths of simpletons both conservative and liberal alike, it is obama, not romney who desires a preemptive war against iran (and by extension russia). To this end a romney administration would likely further this treason to america by seeking a non-aggression friendship pact with iran, the dissolution of nato and the betrayal of NATO via alliance with the eastern bloc against what would be left of nato and against the EU.
Many Liberals refuse to admit that despite his faults the problem with George W Bush was his incompetence and the disorderly manner he conducted the war on terror, not the war on terror itself. The problem with the war is that we have not been taking the war to the enemy enough, if bush had ordered us to total war after 9/11 he would have a much better reputation right now. However one of his best moments was when he said that if the world did not act we would one day find ourselves in a similar position as the people of world did when they saw german tanks roll into poland in 1939.
The threat posed by the evil alliance that has assembled itself in moscow, tehran, and damascus has made numerous signals of its true intentions. They plan a world that is "cleansed" of jews, blacks, asians, middle easterners, indians, native americans, westerners, liberals, conservatives, and anyone who is "non-aryan" and non-nazi on behalf of their god "amolek". This is a threat even more dangerous to the world than the threat posed by germany and japan in 1939. The question is do we elect leaders who are capable of weathering the storm and confronting evil, or will we elect leaders who are lying self-serving men who are the modern day charles lindberghs, who would betray the free world and allow the free peoples of the world be swallowed up by enemies a thousand times worse than hitler just to get back at their political opponents. will we elect a leadership who would make the hard sacrifices regarding the economy and confronting the unremitting evil that resides in russia and iran or do we elect self-serving men who would promise an easy way out at the expense of the less fortunate. These are the choices we have in november.

Just to add to the economic argument, "cost push" and "demand pull" inflation are both propaganda terms for what people used to call a change in price. Which is to say, they are not inflation at all. The definition of inflation is simply an increase in the money supply.

This is the result of Keynes' conscription of the entirety of economics to his own use and the subsequent creation of "macroeconomics", which replaced the concept of economics in the main.

I think we are about to see a seismic shift in the acceptance and deployment of economics as public policy.

Originally Posted by JustPassingThrough

The bill passed without a single Republican vote. They didn't have enough power to influence the legislation at all, much less "gut" anything from it. The Democrats wanted universal coverage. That's all they cared about. Cost-savings will theoretically be achieved through rationing, but the corresponding shortages it's going to create will offset the savings from the "death panels" and so forth.

The Republicans didn't have enough power to influence the legislation at all?

Have you ever heard of something called a filibuster?

Indeed, this was the reason that even a public option, let alone single-payer, was never even introduced.

And if Romney gets elected, the same thing is going to happen on tax reform: Any attempt by the Tea Party to get a national sales tax (the spectacularly-misnamed FairTax) or even a flat tax passed will be assumed to be dead on arrival in the Senate, so they won't even try; and to even get Romney's 20% across-the-board rate reduction passed, at least two major concessions will need to be made to evade a filibuster; namely, the 2% payroll tax cut will have to be extended, and the personal exemption cannot be touched either (some articles have claimed that the personal exemption would have to be eliminated to make the math add up; they will have to find another way).

Originally Posted by Seattleblue

Just to add to the economic argument, "cost push" and "demand pull" inflation are both propaganda terms for what people used to call a change in price. Which is to say, they are not inflation at all. The definition of inflation is simply an increase in the money supply.

This is the result of Keynes' conscription of the entirety of economics to his own use and the subsequent creation of "macroeconomics", which replaced the concept of economics in the main.

I think we are about to see a seismic shift in the acceptance and deployment of economics as public policy.

It is possible to have inflation without an increase in the money supply. Let people think that the money will soon be useless, let us say through the overthrow of the political system, and prices skyrocket. Cut off cheap imports necessary for the appearance of prosperity, and inflation appears in the form of a black market and bartering.

A prime example of cost-push relates to the energy shock of the 1970s. Energy was cheap until then, and all of a sudden, people who commanded the supply of oil could take a bigger cut of about everything in the economy that used oil -- from a government that fuels its police cars and patches roads with tar to energy-using businesses. Everyone becomes a bigger spender without getting more.

Demand-pull? Look to the late 1970s and early 1980s when a bunch of young adults entered the workforce and, even if they had jobs that paid a pittance, still needed cars for commuting and good clothes so that they could impress people while working near-minimum-wage jobs as waiters or retail sales clerks because that was about all one could get with an unspecialized college degree.

If the money supply increases faster than the working population then one gets inflation. Inflation is often necessary adjustments of price to fit realities of scarcity under the circumstances. One favored solution for inflation is the gold standard... but the gold standard offers only one solution to any economic change, which is economic contraction through deflation. That means financial panics that became rare after most countries left the gold standard. The gold standard also becomes messy if gold becomes an object of speculation.

If the Hard Right wins this election, then America could easily become much like Spain under Franco or Portugal under Salazar -- a nice place to visit but no place to live unless one is already super-rich or comes in with a nice retirement fund or for a cheap vacation. The middle class could be wiped out economically except for enforcers of the economic nastiness. We will still have our beaches, prime natural attractions, and night life... cheap because all but a few Americans are priced out of them due to their low pay. The Master Class will live like pharaohs, sultans, or medieval lords while life is nasty for the common man. People who want better lives will look to emigrate. In some ways it will be worse because of a different basis of religion; Spain and Portugal both had the still-medieval Roman Catholic Church which at the least recognized a division between the sacred and the profane and promoted rationalism within the 'profane', which includes science and business. Christian Protestant fundamentalism is one of the most anti-rational religious traditions to exist in modern times.

...You fail to recognize the significance of macroeconomics. Microeconomics is the theory of the separate entity -- the worker/consumer or the firm. Macroeconomics recognizes that nobody operates in a vacuum. The idea of everyone as a producer who could solve all his problems by toil and rational decisions shattered in the wake of the economic meltdown of 1929-1932. The few democratic governments that remained after the arch-demagogue took over Germany recognized that the meeting of human needs trumped economic dogma that had suddenly become futile. In essence, people eat or they die -- but become politically-restless mobs before such happens.

Originally Posted by Wallace 88

It is mostly insurance against old age, which is sort of a given.


The disability part is the part that givews out first.

Most people over insure their house for fire. Is the fire really going to burn the ground?

Like I wrote above, you don't understand the concept of insurance.

Originally Posted by Wallace 88

You are giving the welfare state credit for developements that had nothing to do with the welfare, like penicillin blood transfusions and cancer treatments. Maybe lower smoking?

When everyone died young, there was no need for SS. That we have improved longevity in parallel with improved social welfare tends to argue against a total divorce between them. Correlation is not causation, but both may share a common cause. I think they do. Not long after Darwinian ideals went out of fashion, these improvements began in earnest. That seems like a good candidate for cause and effect to me.

Originally Posted by JustPassingThrough

This is a prime example of a central left wing, statistic-based article of faith that is completely false. They pound it over and over again: wages are stagnant. They don't tell you that total compensation has risen steadily, and the reason take-home pay has not risen comes down to one overriding factor: health care costs. Specifically, the cost of health insurance. So they fixed that when they launched a massive health care takeover in the middle of a depression, right? Wrong. They ignored costs. All they cared about was making sure everyone had insurance, whether they wanted it or not.

They didn't just not fix it, they made it worse. Once Obamacare goes into effect, it will be even more expensive for employers to pay for health insurance than it was before.

They're smarter than everybody else, and morally superior. But somehow they're stupid enough not to know the truth about it. They actually blame all of it on Scrooge McDuck (R) trying to "stifle wages", while rubbing his hands together and cackling with glee. It's delusional.

So let's hear your ideas, instead of a steady drone of why Obamacare is bad. Yes, we should manage costs. How would YOU do it? So far the only ideas I'v e seen form anyone in the GOP are wishful thinking (vouchers) and throwing Grandma under the bus.

Anything else? Any good options?

Originally Posted by Chas'88

Social security "works" as long as there's more people paying into it than receiving it... it makes one wonder what possibly was the "real reason" GIs had so many kids.

~Chas'88

Try approaching this from the other side. We have a hyper-productive economy (vastly moreso than it was even 30 years ago). We can produce everything we need in the way of goods and services with roughly half the human labor it required then. Why is a large retired community a problem then? We don't need them to make things or provide services, but we need them as consumers. Without SS, how do you accomplish the latter without mandating the former? If you expect them to work anyway, then what shoudl they do? There only so many Walmart greeter jobs out there.

Originally Posted by princeofcats67

That's really funny(and true IMO), JPT.
I'm going to have to trademark it!

Prince

PS: "Scrooge McDuck-(R)^TM" Love it!

There's a lot of truth to that. Just the simple process of accumulation at the top and less for the rest, is always followed by a general collapse of the economy. This has been the historical norm since the concept of capitalism energed. It killed Venice as the paragon of economic accumen in the 15th century, and had been busy working its magic ever since.

Originally Posted by princeofcats67

I know, PW. They're just so stupid. Everybody knows you grow the economy by
creating millions of "green-collar jobs^TM" and "spreadin' the wealth around^TM"!

Hey everybody, grab a shovel and get $25-grand a year!

A scene from: Recovery Now

Smell that? You smell that?
(What?)
Recovery, son. Nothing else in the world smells like that.
[kneels]
I love the smell of Recovery in America. You know, one time we had a Recession, for 4 years. When it was all over, we woke up. We didn't find one of 'em, not one stinkin' green job. The smell, you know that Recovery smell, the whole Recession. Smelled like...
[sniffing, pondering]
BS! Someday this BS's gonna end...

Prince

PS:

You really can't be this stupid.


Nobody can have income without someone else spending, period. Who, on net, is spending?

We suffered the largest economic contraction since the late 1920s (i.e., the Great Depression) based on massive household debt accumulation. People are de-leveraging that debt and have become net savers; what ever income they are making in the economy, on net, it is going into paying off debt or being saved.

We are still net importers which means that some of our incomes are buying production from other countries and providing those other countries net income. That spending is not providing incomes to people here.

Businesses are sitting on tons of cash; they are retaining earnings; they are not investing or hiring because there is no demand growth because people are saving, not spending, and much of what they do spend is going overseas to others - its called "demand drain."

The only entity in the position to net spend is the federal govt. It comes at the "cost" of increased federal debt which in today's deflationary environment is costless - no tax increases (they've actually gone down) and no demand-pull inflation from that spending.

That federal deficit spending is now on a downward trajectory and that is why the economy is muddling along at best.

And the reason why is because of the ignorance shared by millions of your fellow numbskulls.

Originally Posted by Seattleblue

Just to add to the economic argument, "cost push" and "demand pull" inflation are both propaganda terms for what people used to call a change in price. Which is to say, they are not inflation at all. The definition of inflation is simply an increase in the money supply.

This is the result of Keynes' conscription of the entirety of economics to his own use and the subsequent creation of "macroeconomics", which replaced the concept of economics in the main.

I think we are about to see a seismic shift in the acceptance and deployment of economics as public policy.

Don't you even get a tinge of stupidity as you mouth those words?

Inflation is the decrease in purchasing power, period. Two ways for that to happen -

If I own all the oil in the world and decide to jack the price up, you have no option but to buy my oil at my price regardless of how many dollars you hold. That is cost-push inflation. You've got options, however, for how you spend your money. As the oil man, I can't push up your cost for you deciding to not take the car on vacation but just spend you dollars on going to the movies. Cost-push inflation is sector specific although energy prices can and do spill over into other costs, but the reason for all the costs going up is still a result of me, the oil king, in my one sector deciding to screw you as much as I can (which, as the oil cartel found out in the late 1970s/early 80s can turn around and bit them in the ass pretty hard).

On the other hand, if I'm the one printing the dollars and decide to double the amount I print, then there's going to be a lot more dollars chasing not only oil but movie prices and EVERYTHING else that is for sell in dollars. Everybody is going to raise their prices. That is demand-pull inflation.

The "problem" for demand-pull inflation is if nobody is going to the movies or driving their cars or buying much of anything, it doesn't matter how many dollars I print, prices are not going anywhere and actually may even go down to attract some demand.

These are mechanisms that lead to drops in purchasing power, i.e. inflation. The Austrians and others are so wedded to the idea of "inflation just around the corner" particularly from bad big evil govt that when the inflation didn't happen from "printing," they decided to just change the definition of inflation to be the mechanism. Instead of "a begets b" they just instead said "a is b." Pretty clever, hey? And you fell for it because, well, you're part of the sheeple that the elites manipulate.

Take the "red pill" and wake the F up.