Where's The Proof LibOffice of Mendocino Country Sheriff doubled their mrulism Works?

mame

Well-Known Member
So, the question remains, if socialism works so well in Copenhagen, why doesn't it work here? Surely the answer isn't that we have returned to our founding ideas and Austrian economic principles ... or is it? Is the FED's policy of flooding the nation with new money the policy of Keynes and FDR ... or is it the policy of Friedman, Mises and Hayek?
Freidman? We're already "dropping money out of a helicopter". ;)
 

jcannons

Active Member
Well there's your first problem....believing anything that Al Franken has to say... that guy is a walking contradiction..... He argues against his own arguements when ever it suits his needs....
If you want to see a perfect example, in the US, of what pure liberal Democratic control will get us..... just check out Louisiana....New Orleans in particular..... 50 years of Democratic leadership and promises of "prosperity" lol....
Funny thing is the poor bastards keep voting for them because they still want to believe that you can get something for nothing......

it's funny because your OP sites poverty differences since 1980.

Well, my good sir, the early 1980's is when we first saw the Neo-classicals take hold in American politics. The rest of the world stuck with Kaynesian economic principles (the same ones who got us out of depression in the 30's). Inequality in America has sharply risen in this time frame, not due to liberals, but due to movement conservatism and a bunch of jackasses who thought they could rewrite how economics work based of the premise that they disproved Kaynesianism (they didn't).

Look it up. It's all there.
- Sen. Al Franken
 

jcannons

Active Member
Suppose that every day, ten men go out for beer and the bill for all ten comes to $100. If they paid their bill the way we pay our taxes,it would go something like this:
The first four men (the poorest) would pay nothing.
The fifth would pay $1.
The sixth would pay $3.
The seventh would pay $7.
The eighth would pay $12.
The ninth would pay $18.
The tenth man (the richest) would pay $59.
So, that’s what they decided to do.
The ten men drank in the bar every day and seemed quite happy with the arrangement, until one day, the owner threw them a curve. ‘Since you are all such good customers,’ he said, ‘I’m going to reduce the cost of your daily beer by $20.’ Drinks for the ten now cost just $80.
The group still wanted to pay their bill the way we pay our taxes so the first four men were unaffected. They would still drink for free.
But what about the other six men – the paying customers? How could they divide the $20 windfall so that everyone would get his ‘fair share?’
They realized that $20 divided by six is $3.33. But if they subtracted that from everybody’s share, then the fifth man and the sixth man would each end up being paid to drink his beer. So, the bar owner suggested that it would be fair to reduce each man’s bill by roughly the same amount, and he proceeded to work out the amounts each should pay.
And so:
The fifth man, like the first four, now paid nothing (100%savings).
The sixth now paid $2 instead of $3 (33%savings).
The seventh now pay $5 instead of $7 (28%savings).
The eighth now paid $9 instead of $12 (25% savings).
The ninth now paid $14 instead of $18 (22% savings).
The tenth now paid $49 instead of $59 (16% savings).
Each of the six was better off than before. And the first four continued to drink for free. But once outside the restaurant, the men began to compare their savings.
‘I only got a dollar out of the $20,’ declared the sixth man. He pointed to the tenth man, ‘but he got $10!’
‘Yeah, that’s right,’ exclaimed the fifth man. ‘I only saved a dollar, too. It’s unfair that he got ten times more than I got!’
‘That’s true!!’ shouted the seventh man. ‘Why should he get $10 back when I got only two? The wealthy get all the breaks!’
‘Wait a minute,’ yelled the first four men in unison. ‘We didn’t get anything at all. The system exploits the poor!’
The nine men surrounded the tenth and beat him up.
The next night the tenth man didn’t show up for drinks so the nine sat down and had beers without him. But when it came time to pay the bill, they discovered something important. They didn’t have enough money between all of them for even half of the bill!
And that, ladies and gentlemen, journalists and college professors, is how our tax system works!!
The people who pay the highest taxes get the most benefit from a tax reduction. Tax them too much, attack them for being wealthy, and they just may not show up anymore. In fact, they might start drinking overseas where the atmosphere is somewhat friendlier.
 

mame

Well-Known Member


Uhhh ... that was Milton Freidman the economist, not Freidman the NY Times columnist. :)


I see, I was thinking of the economist cuz you said Kaynes right before. At least you seem to know a little about economic theory (knowing who Kaynes, Milton Freidman are), I couldn't say the same for many others on these boards... lol.
 

NoDrama

Well-Known Member
It's a simple spelling error, sue me... It doesn't change anything (including my understanding of the subject).
It wasn't a spelling error, you have spelled it that way time and time again, and on more than one thread. If you had spelled it correctly even one time it could be construed as a error, but since you have spelled it that way in multiple threads its not a mistake, you truly did not know how it was spelled. And how you were unable to discern that the Friedman being referred to MUST have been an economist especially since his name was in the middle of a bunch of other well known Economists. I actually think you don't know as much about economics as you think you do.
 

mame

Well-Known Member
It wasn't a spelling error, you have spelled it that way time and time again, and on more than one thread. If you had spelled it correctly even one time it could be construed as a error, but since you have spelled it that way in multiple threads its not a mistake, you truly did not know how it was spelled. And how you were unable to discern that the Friedman being referred to MUST have been an economist especially since his name was in the middle of a bunch of other well known Economists. I actually think you don't know as much about economics as you think you do.
I never said I know everything about economics(I'm a student not a professor), but even with my admittedly limited knowledge of the subject it is clear that many people on these boards lack even this basic knowledge.

And what are you talking about me not being able to discern Friedman as an economist? I quoted Milton Friedman, the economist. You know, the professor of economics at Chicago?

Listen, it is obvious that I was spelling Keynes incorrectly, but do you claim that someone who incorrectly spells "restaurant" has never been to a restaurant? no. So it doesn't matter. Pointing out someone's spelling is a horrible argument on any level.

this is the man I was quoting: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milton_Friedman
 

NoDrama

Well-Known Member
My Mistake on the Friedman bit. Apologies in the mail. As a current student you will be taught nothing but Keynesian theory and will be taught that it is correct. Wait til you get in the real world and see what a mess it really is.
 

mame

Well-Known Member
ive been in the real world bud, I've been working for a few years (I'll be 22 in a couple of months and left home a month after I finished HS). I pay the same bills you do, I build credit, vote, drink, smoke, think critically, and fight my own battles just as you do.

So far, all evidence I've seen whether on my own or in class points towards Keynesianism as being the answer to governments role in depression periods. I dont think there are any pure practicing Keynesians left anymore either btw, most if not all credible sources of neo-keynesianism(for example, because he's already been mentioned... Paul Krugman) acknowledge many elements of new classical theory, blah blah.

I am convinced of one thing: The Republican agenda of Expansionary Austerity is bad news. Convince me otherwise.
 

NoDrama

Well-Known Member
Austerity is unavoidable no matter who's theory you choose to believe, no matter who is in the "Bully Pulpit"and no matter what our Congress people do. Its either official austerity or unofficial austerity which is known as inflation. Either way, the system must balance. Sooner or later everything must revert to the mean.
 

mame

Well-Known Member
WHAT AND HOW TO CUT. Certain kinds of government spending reductions generate significantly larger pro-growth effects than others. For the “non-Keynesian” effects to be significant, government spending reductions must be viewed as large, credible, and politically difficult to reverse once made. Some examples are:

 Decreasing the number and compensation of government workers. A smaller government workforce increases the available supply of educated, skilled workers for private firms, thus lowering labor costs.

 Eliminating agencies and programs.

 Eliminating transfer payments to firms. Since government transfer payments entice firms to engage in otherwise unprofitable and unproductive activities, eliminating transfer payments will increase efficiency as firms cease these activities.

 Reforming and reducing transfer payments to households. Making major government programs, such as pension and health insurance benefits for the elderly, sustainably solvent will boost real GDP growth by (a) enhancing the credibility of fiscal consolidation plans, and (b) inducing younger workers to work more, save more, and retire later. This is true even if the reforms exempt current beneficiaries, are phased-in slowly, and any short-term spending reductions are very small.
from : http://www.speaker.gov/UploadedFiles/JEC_Jobs_Study.pdf

Meanwhile, one of the JEC's sources essentially concedes that the exansionary effect of austerity is overstated.
While the tendency for spending cuts to be more effective at driving down debt levels is widely accepted, there is a great deal more controversy concerning the impact of successful consolidation on GDP growth. Although empirical studies have found many consolidations coupled with expansion, the degree to which consolidation drives rather than merely accompanies expansion is disputed. Various mechanisms have been proposed through which consolidation may spur growth, including credibility effects on interest rates and the effects outlined under the expectational view. However, the literature has identified endogeneity issues in many of these studies that may cause them to overstate expansionary effects.
On top of this, the Republicans keep pointing to Sweden as an example and that has turned out to be incorrect. Meanwhile the U.K. who embarked on it's own program of Austerity is feeling more pain.

The fastest recovery in the history of the U.S. presided under FDR and the New Deal. Unemployment went from ~25% to 14.6% from 1933-1940 despite the recession in early 1938 that had a peak unemployment rate of 19%. Once WW2 hit, it was a done deal and unemployment fell to 1.2% but still... The pre-WW2 FDR age saw ~9% decrease in unemployment (over 4 million people).

Why are we not trying to replicate that success?
 

NoDrama

Well-Known Member
dude, almost half of all the income tax collected in the US goes to pay for the interest on all the damn treasuries we have sold. Guess how much is left over to run Government? Government could completely cease right now and every single federal employee could be on the street, every office closed, every politician on permanent vacation and the US citizen will still owe $500 Billion every year. The US needs to roll over 43% of that debt every 12 months. What would happen if the 1 and 2 year yields went to oh I don't know some ridiculously high yield like say .6% and an ungodly 1.6%? it would cost Taxpayer $1 trillion a year just to make the interest payments, mind you that isn't even making a dent into the actual principal of the debt.

Some people will espouse we soak the rich, unfortunately if you took all the money earned by everyone in the USA making over $250k a year you would still only come to $1.3 trillion, which wouldn't even run government for 6 months at the rate we are going. We have DEFICITS of 1.6 TRILLION, in other words we spent every penny in taxes collected and fines and fees and whatever nefarious taxing structure we can come up with and we are still short $1.6 trillion.

FDR didn't do jack shit, unemployment hardly budged until the fucker was nearly DEAD!! FDR was a great con man, conned everyone into believing he and government were going to save the every man.Overall his policies effect came to nil. Government cannot save anyone because in order to save one it must impoverish another. FDR would burn fields of crops, empty tanks of milk in the road and slaughter cattle and let them rot in the sun just to support price controls. FDR Confiscated all the REAL Constitutional money from the people and then devalued their paper money by 45% just as soon as he had all their gold. One of the biggest frauds on the American people if there ever was one. FDR was a banker, he enriched the rich at the expense of the poor and duped you all into thinking he was helping. His Ponzi scheme called Social Security is coming to an end, just unraveling as we speak, no longer taking in more than it pays out. What he did was create a nanny state, one in which it was ok to not be responsible for your life and retirement anymore, government was going to make sure everything was alright.

If the Great Depression was so great how come they don't call it the Great good times or something?
 

mame

Well-Known Member
dude, almost half of all the income tax collected in the US goes to pay for the interest on all the damn treasuries we have sold. Guess how much is left over to run Government? Government could completely cease right now and every single federal employee could be on the street, every office closed, every politician on permanent vacation and the US citizen will still owe $500 Billion every year. The US needs to roll over 43% of that debt every 12 months. What would happen if the 1 and 2 year yields went to oh I don't know some ridiculously high yield like say .6% and an ungodly 1.6%? it would cost Taxpayer $1 trillion a year just to make the interest payments, mind you that isn't even making a dent into the actual principal of the debt.

Some people will espouse we soak the rich, unfortunately if you took all the money earned by everyone in the USA making over $250k a year you would still only come to $1.3 trillion, which wouldn't even run government for 6 months at the rate we are going. We have DEFICITS of 1.6 TRILLION, in other words we spent every penny in taxes collected and fines and fees and whatever nefarious taxing structure we can come up with and we are still short $1.6 trillion
Fair enough. However, I'm not saying our debt isn't a problem... My position has always been that its a problem but a full recovery from recession needs to be tackled in the short term, with the deficit being solved shortly after (you could even tie reform and cuts to targeted spending if you really wanted to do it all at once... this happened during The New Deal as well).
FDR didn't do jack shit, unemployment hardly budged until the fucker was nearly DEAD!! FDR was a great con man, conned everyone into believing he and government were going to save the every man.Overall his policies effect came to nil.
Then how do you explain this rapid decline in unemployment numbers so quickly? When he came into office 12 million people were unemployed(near 25% unemployment). Prior to to WW2 unemployment was at 14.6% - leaving 8 million still unemployed, yes, but the other 4 million people represent the fastest (non-war induced ala WW2) economic recovery in history. You might have seen me post this before, but it supports this position seemingly flawlessly:
ROOSEVELT PRE-WWII NEW DEAL
1932 Unemployment Rate: 23.6% (12.8 million total unemployed)
1940 Unemployment Rate: 14.6% (8.1 million total unemployed)
Unemployment Rate Change: -9.0
Total unemployment percentage change: -36.7%
ROOSEVELT WWII
1941 Unemployment Rate: 9.9% (5.5 million total unemployed)
1944 Unemployment Rate: 1.2% (670,000 total unemployed)
Unemployment Rate Change: -8.7
Total unemployment percentage change: -87.9%
TRUMAN
1945 Unemployment Rate: 1.9% (1.0 million total unemployed)
1952 Unemployment Rate: 3.0% (1.8 million total unemployed)
Unemployment Rate Change: +1.1
Total unemployment percentage change: +81.0%
EISENHOWER
1953 Unemployment Rate: 2.9% (1.8 million total unemployed)
1960 Unemployment Rate: 5.5% (3.8 million total unemployed)
Unemployment Rate Change: +2.6%
Total unemployment percentage change: +110.03%
KENNEDY
1961 Unemployment Rate: 6.7% (4.7 million total unemployed)
1963 Unemployment Rate: 5.7% (4.0 million total unemployed)
Unemployment Rate Change: -1.0%
Total unemployment percentage change: -13.6%
JOHNSON
1964 Unemployment Rate: 5.2% (3.7 million total unemployed)
1968 Unemployment Rate: 3.6% (2.8 million total unemployed)
Unemployment Rate Change: -1.6%
Total unemployment percentage change: -25.6%
NIXON
1969 Unemployment Rate: 3.5% (2.8 million total unemployed)
1974 Unemployment Rate: 5.6% (5.1 million total unemployed)
Unemployment Rate Change: +2.1%
Total unemployment percentage change: +82.0%
FORD
1975 Unemployment Rate: 8.5% (7.9 million total unemployed)
1976 Unemployment Rate: 7.7% (7.4 million total unemployed)
Unemployment Rate Change: -0.8%
Total unemployment percentage change: -6.6%
CARTER
1977 Unemployment Rate: 7.1% (6.9 million total unemployed)
1980 Unemployment Rate: 7.1% (7.6 million total unemployed)
Unemployment Rate Change: 0.0
Total unemployment percentage change: +9.24%
REAGAN
1981 Unemployment Rate: 7.6% (8.2 million total unemployed)
1988 Unemployment Rate: 5.5% (6.7 million total unemployed)
Unemployment Rate Change: -2.1%
Total unemployment percentage change: -19.0%
BUSH I
1989 Unemployment Rate: 5.3% (6.5 million total unemployed)
1992 Unemployment Rate: 7.5% (9.6 million total unemployed)
Unemployment Rate Change: +2.2
Total unemployment percentage change: +47.2%
CLINTON
1993 Unemployment Rate: 6.9% (8.9 million total unemployed)
2000 Unemployment Rate: 4.0% (5.6 million total unemployed)
Unemployment Rate Change -2.9
Total unemployment percentage change: -36.3%
source

So, instead of the classic conservative tactic of denying evidence... Can you present evidence that this is not a result of the New Deal? It seems clear that there is no evidence to suggest that market forces alone could do this.
 

NoDrama

Well-Known Member
Who is David Sirota?

The population of the USA in 1940 was 132 million. the population of 1988 was 246 million. Reagan saved more actual Jobs than anyone ever. in 1982 unemployment was at 10.4%
 
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