The key to an argument is have more than one side, dude. I was responding to your post because of the post you responded to. Once again, you have chosen not to debate a perfectly rational argument. Instead, you choose to blow things totally out of proportion in order to avoid have to talk about what was actually said. This is a typical tactic on both sides, and, if I may speak scientifically, is totally fucking retarded.
I don't want to read this whole thread, and I may be covering something too old but anyhoo. Using an analogy based upon my job. If I see a bodyman trying to weld an aluminum suspension component with a mig welder designed for steel, I would want him to fail miserably. Why? Because if he somehow managed to get it to stay together long enough to install on the car, someone would die on the freeway when the suspension piece literally falls apart. If I told him that it was a bad idea and he didn't believe me, what should I do? He is the one working on that car, he is the one responsible for it. However, when the customer dies and my shop goes under due to a lawsuit or bad press, then what should I have done? Wanting him to fail doesn't mean I want someone to die. It means I want things to be done right.
Wow, your brilliance and ability to rise above things like facts and logic are almost equal to The Messiah himself. Or, in the words of Ron Burgundy, hoojacks, you're so wise...like a miniature Buddah, covered in hair.
Sure. But what if you, being an expert bodyman, walked into a hospital. Would you want the surgeon to fail because he wasn't operating the way you expected? barfo
I'd want another surgeon who wouldn't kill the patient, or I'd like the surgeon to accept that he has no idea what he's doing.
Exactly my point. You think you can tell whether a surgeon knows what he's doing. But being an expert in one field doesn't make you an expert in everything. barfo
In your world, "facts" are subjective statements like "Obama disincentivizes the achievers in this society" and "rewards the freeriders of society" while "logic" is using those two arguments to debate something entirely unrelated (barfo's thoughts on the meaning of "to fail" while used in the context teabaggers.) Blah blah blah Messiah socialism tax party road to serfdom blahhhhhh
So if you have $100 charged on your charge card, it makes sense to go charge it up to the $25K limit? Or do you think borrowing our way out of debt is going to work? Back to the subject. Schuster's piece full of innuendo was a pretty good example of why I am a former fan of MSNBC. One of the claims made was that these same republicans didn't care about Bush's spending but somehow now do care about the spending when it's Obama doing it. Look at Bush's approval ratings in office. They don't get that low if republicans blindly agree with anything he does, good or bad. One of the primary reasons republicans bailed on him was the spending. Go figure.
They only work for a while. I recently read a story about a college professor and his class. I may not get this entirely right, but the gist is right. One of the students stood up and asked him why Socialism was a bad thing. So the prof suggested an experiment: he'd give the students all the same grade, the average score of all the students. When the first test came around, the folks scraping by with D's were pleased with their B's. By the end of the course, everyone was getting D's. I'd leave it up to the reader to figure out why, but I probably have to spell it out. The people who got the A's that raised everyone's grades figured out that they were working their asses off to get a lesser grade and to benefit people who didn't work very hard at it at all and were satisfied with the D's.
Then why does President Obama feel that his background in community organizing makes him an economic expert? Also, using your surgeon analogy, it doesn't take an expert to know that a medieval bloodletting isn't the proper course of action for a broken bone. Edit: I should have read Denny's post before I responded. He and I arrived at the same conclusion.
Fact: If you raise capital gains taxes the volume of transactions will decrease. The data verifies it. Fact: If you raise the marginal tax rates along the upper bounds of the income spectrum, you provide a disincentive for those who may attempt to make more money. Fact: If you increase the amount of benefits those already caught in the social safety net receive, you disincentivize them to exit the system. Even Bill Clinton realized this dynamic. And you don't think President Obama is treated as a Messiah among his followers? The folks in Jonestown were less taken with Jim Jones than many of his weeping minions. Even on this board, the personal animus for President Bush has largely been displaced with a faith in President Obama that surpasses the level of faith the College of Cardinals has for Jesus. I haven't seen one post of someone who was strongly for Obama that criticizes him on ANY issue. He can do no wrong.
I don't guess he does. He has a bunch of economists working for him to provide the expertise. Maybe you think it is only a broken bone. Maybe the patient is also suffering from Blahblah-Goombah Syndrome, which will kill him if the leeches aren't applied right away. The broken arm can wait. Back to the non-analogy - I recognize that you actually do have some training in economics, and I certainly respect your education. However, that isn't sufficient to convince me that you are correct on this, because I've noticed that there are a great number of also-well-trained economists who disagree with you completely. There are, of course, also a great number that agree with you. I don't know the exact breakdown, and I realize there are many more positions than "maxiep is right" and "maxiep is wrong", but it appears to me that the distribution along the maxiep axis is much closer to 50/50 than, say, climate change, where folks on this board regularly trumpet the dissenters as relevant even though the split is probably more like 99/1. So, which economists should we believe in a case where there is wide disagreement on a fundamental question? I say none of them - it means either they don't know the right answer, or there are multiple right answers, or that many economists are corrupt or stupid. Probably it's not the latter. I have no significant training in economics and this is just my opinion posted on a message board. Which was kind of my point - there are a lot of posters here who like to pretend that the problem is real simple and they know the answer. They really don't. barfo
Barfo, Straight-up, knowing what you know right now, do you feel that it is good for the country to quadruple the deficit and run our debt to 85% of GDP, with the largest lender being communist China? Regardless of what we spend it on?
Richard Nixon used to joke about hiring only one handed economists. He was tired of hearing from them, "On the other hand..." The Dismal Science is also an imperfect one because there's no perfect solution for the biggest variable in the field--human behavior. For ease of analysis, the rational actor has to be assumed, but the field of behavioral finance has shown that people don't always act in their best interests. My problem is that I believe in certain rock solid principles with no regard for politics. One of them is that people are responsible for the consequences of their actions. The woman asking President Obama for a house a few months back? If it were me, I would have likely asked her how she got into that position and then said, "too bad" if she would have made some bad choices. The Presidency is a political position, where truth is too often sacrificed to enhance popularity. As for the advice he's getting, I know a few of those people, and they run rings around me in terms of the knowledge and application of economics. My problem is that I've seen the one of the people to whom I'm closest sell out what I know he knows to be economic truth, to further a party line. I also happen to know hundreds of other economists--equally as credentialed and qualified--who are horrified at the economic implications of President Obama's policies, especially in the long run. So much of the application of economics comes down to emphasis and heirarchy of importance. Here is a nice blog entry from a pretty decent economist who breaks down the differences between the two major schools of political econ: http://gregmankiw.blogspot.com/2007/12/how-do-right-and-left-differ.html Clearly, I'm far to the right in my beliefs. I can respect those that are on the left, as long as their disagreements are principled and they acknowledge the tradeoffs required to hold their position (as I do mine). For example, Paul Krugman makes me question everything I've ever learned by the time I reach the end of one of his articles until I remember that he and I disagree completely on First Principles. What I can't respect is the selective use of economics to falsely buttress a political point.
Regardless of what we spend it on? That sort of makes the question meaningless. If we spend it on hookers and cocaine, probably not. If we spend it defending ourselves against an armed invasion by the Canadian/Russian alliance, probably yes. Global financial meltdown is probably somewhere in the middle. barfo
Thanks for that link - I've run across Mankiw's blog a couple times in the past and found him a pretty good read. Your points on the effects of political necessity on Obama and his advisors are well-taken; I'll just point out that Krugman makes the same point, but from the opposite direction (saying that Obama hasn't gone far enough because of political concerns). barfo
Sure, okay. Calling those "disincentivizing the achievers" and "rewarding the freeriders" are not facts, those are judgments. Facts tend to be viewed as universally accepted. Your snide labels are not. No, I don't. I don't get it. Are we just supposed to hate the president in this day and age? When the majority of people like the president, does it make you feel uncomfortable, or just jealous? You keep affixing Obama with labels pertaining to faith: Messiah, Jim Jones, Jesus. I would suspect that it's much easier to accept that the ones who voted for Obama (the majority of people in the country) are just zealots and are blinded by their unprecedented faith rather than accept that the majority of people disagree with your opinions. You can't be wrong! They must be crazy! Then you either haven't been paying attention or your definition of "criticize" is much different than mine.
A tax IS universally accepted as a form of a disincentive. In fact, there have been attempts to use a tax as a disincentive for things like smoking, and driving gas-guzzlers. Obviously those that achieve more, are taxed more, and thus, disincentivized more. Raising taxes on those that achieve the most, is disincentivizing those that achieve the most. You will be hard pressed to find many people that don't accept this as a fact. Really? Can you point out some posts made here by strong Obama supporters that criticize him?
There's a difference. Taxing smoking and gas-guzzlers brings in tax money and is meant to curb those behaviors at the same time. Taxing people that make a ton of money is meant only to bring in tax money. Anyone who thinks liberals are trying to curb economic success through taxation needs to seriously reexamine the pills they take in the morning. You know, if I wasn't extremely busy, I might go scouring. I will acknowledge there are some posters who make excuses for things Obama has done wrong because they are so tied to the cause. However, "strong" support for Obama is pretty subjective, so I don't feel comfortable making that judgment call. I would count myself, barfo and Minstrel at least in the category of Obama supporters that have criticized him a couple of times. Beyond that, I cannot say for certain. Another thing that you need to consider is that what is criticizing? Is it disagreeing with his policies or how he has conducted his presidency? Is criticizing his bow to the Saudi King enough or do I have to join a tea party?
