Somebody has to explain the logic of certain Republican values to me. Introducing something called the "Middle Class Job Protection Act" (which is actually, of course, nothing but a massive corporate tax cut), our own Little Miss Chipper Crazypants, Michele Bachmann, thinks this is good news:
I am so proud to be from the state of Minnesota. We're the workingest state in the country, and the reason why we are, we have more people that are working longer hours, we have people that are working two jobs.
Once upon a time, we had this thing called the 40 hour work week — the idea was that it was good for the middle class to be able to get a living wage from a reasonable amount of effort. Now we've got Republicans handing out corporate welfare and getting excited because the working class has to labor for longer hours in order to make ends meet. I don't get it. Do they think their local mechanic likes having to put in longer hours grubbing in grease and barking their knuckles and wrenching their backs?
I remember a few rough years when my father had to work two jobs, a day job reading water meters for the city and then doing custodial work in the evenings. It wasn't because this was a fantastic opportunity to achieve prosperity — it was because he was desperate to pay the rent and keep food on the table. When people are having to work harder, it's not a sign that the middle class is thriving.
I'll have to remember this one for when Bachmann tries to run for reelection.
(Hat tip to John McKay)
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Yes, it is good to remember that people died for the 40 hour work week. It took somewhere around 50 years, more really. And it was for the working class more than the middle-class. If anything it was the unions that gave us a middle class the size we have now.
She's yours! Wow. She's got a miss-crazypants reputation around the whole country!
It is bizarre; sometimes they act as if they believe that getting something without working for it is the height of evil, as with Ronnie Raygun and his despicable (if imaginary) "welfare queens".
On the other hand, they see absolutely nothing wrong with the CEOs of Enron, Worldcom and other white collar crooks bilking shareholders and pensioners of millions of dollars.
I don't pretend to understand it either, the best I can explain it is they are extremely gullible, and believe the self-serving lies of the corporatists because they desperately want to be accepted by their idols.
I always think the same thing when I hear Lou Dobbs-types proclaim with pride that "the American worker is the most productive in the world" based on some corporate productivity statistics that have come out.
Seems to me that since that measurement is based on the corporation's point of view, it really means Americans are overworked and underpaid.
They never seem to measure the productivity of the worker from the worker's standpoint. How much food/insurance/housing do that worker's efforts get for them?
It is bizarre; sometimes they act as if they believe that getting something without working for it is the height of evil, as with Ronnie Raygun and his despicable (if imaginary) "welfare queens".
Unless you are born in the right place to the right people, then it is your God given right to have whatever money your parents might have accumulated.
Look at it this way, if you have a large percentage of people working two jobs, they will have less time to go out and be immoral. It is a win situation. Also, if people are working that long and hard for so many years, perhaps those people will die off sooner then their less hard working neighbors. Less money to pay out in social security and pensions.
They were mention Bush said that to the face of some woman working three jobs. I am amazed politicians can say this kind of nonsense to people without being attacked.
As the punchline to the old joke goes, "I didn't say she was having sex, I said she's f**king goofy."
I think they just don't have a single solitary clue what it's like to not be rich.
How many times have we heard a Republican politician say that he thought $100,000 a year was the average middle class salary? They never get out of their bubble, don't know anyone who's not mega-wealthy, have no inkling that everyone else isn't as rich as they are.
Every congresscritter should be required to spend a month or two every year living on minimum wage.
Per hour worked, which is the actually meaningful comparison (remember that Americans work ridiculously longer hours than workers in civilized countries), the latest ILO statistics show Norwegian workers are more productive than US workers and are the most productive in the world. In other recent years France (gasp!) has been the leader. As usual, Lou Dobbs is full of it.
Actually, there are some Republican platforms that make sense -- or at least, used to be. Republicans were supposed to stand for fiscal responsibility, smaller federal government, and more power to the states. Conservatives are correct that the Constitution's use has been broadened to ludicrous levels in some cases -- you know what the power of Congress to punish having handguns within 100 yards of schools is based on? Like to guess? It's based on the authority to "regulate commerce in the several states".
Of course, recent Republicans have thrown most of those values out the window.
But, I agree with you on the job thing. That's caused by the unholy alliance of Republicans to corporate interests.
Jim Hightower has a great anecdote about this.
He was talking to a frazzled waitress once day in a coffee shop, about the touted creation of 'millions of new jobs'.
"I know all about those new jobs, mister. I'm working three of them..."
Every congresscritter should be required to spend a month or two every year living on minimum wage.
Tory politician did this years ago in the UK to show how great the working class had it; he and his family moved into a little council house and agreed to live on the average working wage, all to much fanfare in the press. From what I remember, his wife didn't last the week and took the kids back to their million-pound home in Richmond(?); he lasted another week or so and gave up too. Not much coverage of that last bit. There's also another great Thatcher-era story of new transport minister taking public transport for the first time ever, who wanted to wait for the dining car on the London underground.
Clueless, out of touch, and fucking us over since time immemorial.
Bachmann reminds me of Katherine Harris.
Someone referred to Bush and the lady with 3 jobs - he said her situation was "uniquely American," and everyone applauded. Oh yes, how wonderful! Because sleeping is only for the people in other countries.
If the Republicans really were for family values, they should be appalled that people have to work so much that they don't get any time to spend with their loved ones. But of course we all know that "family values" is just code for "get rid of abortion and teh gays" and not some genuine concern for the quality of life of families.
I always think the same thing when I hear Lou Dobbs-types proclaim with pride that "the American worker is the most productive in the world" based on some corporate productivity statistics that have come out.
Seems to me that since that measurement is based on the corporation's point of view, it really means Americans are overworked and underpaid.
Exactly. I'm always like, "Yay, the rates of exploitation have increased! We're number 1!"
oops...second paragraph should also be italicized.
Remember G.(Hirum Walker) Bush's astonishment when he saw his first laser scanner at a cash register- and Bush Lite is even further removed from reality. I have never worked as few as 40 hours a week since before grad school. I am not now nor have I ever been 'rich.'
#11, smaller federal government is just doublespeak for "keep your filthy regulations away from my corporate profit machine." It's a way of talking about trying to reverse the New Deal without admitting you want to fuck over the middle and working classes to put even more cash in the pockets of the rich. The sad thing is that many lower on the socioeconomic scale buy the rhetoric and actually vote for the GOP. we used to call these working class tories, typified by Alf Garnet (I think they modelled Archie Bunker on him, not sure).
Here is how to envision Hucksters new Constitution. Thanks to Darksyde at Dkos
http://www.dailykos.com/hotlist/add/2008/1/16/53526/7779/displaystory//
Fantastic. Enjoy.
Bizarre and sad. Who could present the fact that people are working 60, 70 hours or more a week just to get by as a triumph? Only someone who doesn't have to, who doesn't know anyone who has to, or care enough to even try to imagine what it's like.
#11, smaller federal government is just doublespeak for "keep your filthy regulations away from my corporate profit machine."
Okay, #19 -- then why was a historical position of the Republicans the elimination of the Department of Education?
I think you're absolutely right that it can be that kind of doublespeak. Or, it can mean something.
The rethugs have never (within my lifetime, at least) felt there was anything objectionable about getting something without working for it. Witness the attempts to repeal the estate tax, for starters...
"workingest"? I think Ms. Bachmann needs to go back and retake elementary school English. Logic would help too.
Remember that 'States Rights' are not human rights. Repugnacans are for corruption at the local level. I do wish at the next 'family values' speech someone would yell 'Get the f***k out of my bedroom!" This may be dangerous, Robert Kennedy said a sanitized version of this once during a campaign speech, one stop before California.
My employer gets 40h from me. That's it. And I'm salaried.
I remember hearing some time ago that, on average, the money you make working more than 40 hours a week is more than offset by health costs due to increased stress. So working overtime ultimately actually puts you deeper in the hole.
I don't know that I'd trust that, seeing as how I'm not even close to being able to cite a source. But it sure sounds a lot more sensible than what Bachmann's spewing.
then why was a historical position of the Republicans the elimination of the Department of Education?
Because corporations don't profit from the Department of Education. And if they really wanted to get rid of the Department of Education they had their chance.
The truly disturbing part that is the background tapestry of all this is that the repugnican party thinks the Democratic Party was this crazy. I'm sorry, but I'll take the worst Democratic Party over the best repugnican one. The Democrats never approached this level of stupidity.
Repugnicans these days can't help themselves. They have bought into their platform so wholesale they don't realize how illogical they sound, think and act.
I should hope that Ms. Bachmann's challenger has already begun a campaign against her. Bachmann needs to be dumped yesterday.
Of course the Republican response to someone who doesn't like working 70 hours a week at two jobs would be, "Why don't you get a better job?" in much the same way that they don't understand why people would work at a job that doesn't provide benefits like health insurance. To them it's simply the worker's fault for not having the smarts, ambition, initiative, or whatever to make a better life for themselves.
Of course, when president Huckabee amends the constitution to put women back in the kitchen where they belong, men will have to work four jobs to make ends meet. And Michele Bachmann will squeee with delight at America having the workingest men this side of an Indonesian sweatshop.
IT IS ONLY A TRIUMPH FOR THE MEN BEHIND THE CURTAINS... they grin and laugh as they enjoy their oligarchy filled with greed and lust for money and laugh at those who are convinced that they have to work harder and harder for less and less real benefits.
#25, Mentioning the bedroom made me think of the famous Pierre Trudeau quote
"We take the position that there is no place for the state in the bedrooms of the nation."
He might not have been perfect but I like Trudeau in many ways and he was certainly a very quotable man.
* Disclaimer: I am not at all a republican, but some of my friends are.
For at least some people, eliminating the federal department of education comes from a desire for decentralizing control of the educational system. If you think that local people know how to run schools better than distant congresscritters, then this idea makes sense.
The motive is absolutely not to reduce or eliminate education for children, it's just a disagreement about who knows how to do it better.
The Department is a federal agency. Eliminating it would not make local schools pop out of existence, it would just impact where they get some of their money and who gets to control policy. You may or may not agree whether eliminating it is a good idea, but please try not to impute evil motives to well-meaning people who simply disagree with you.
And coathangrr, it has nothing to do with whether corporations profit from the DOE. And *lots* of corporations do profit from schools, independent of whether the schools involve federal money and federal control. Think of all the books, office supplies, furniture, food, buildings, buses, gasoline, water, electricity, etc. that a school uses.
And for the record, I do think Bachmann is pretty nutty, and her commentary here about jobs is deeply wrong-headed. Economic progress consists of having an improving standard of living for a decreasing amount of effort.
With all due respect, Nathan @ #34, horsefeathers. Attacking the Department of Education has only one purpose in Rethuglican circles. Dismantling the entire public education system. End of story. This is not even slightly secret. They have made very little effort to hide what they want to do. Eliminate federal aid to public schools, and you will eliminate public schools. Every twit that can get his buddies to elect him to the school board will be able to push whatever tripe he wants taught... parents will get sick of their children being saddled with creationist crap and pull them out. Rich kids will go to private schools, religious kids will go to church schools, and everyone else will just be screwed.
That's the real story. Investigate it for yourself.
If I own a widget factory and i am not selling any widgets all the tax cuts on earth won't help me and I will not need to hire more people. The biggest lie the repugnacans tell is that business tax cuts stimulate job growth, only sales do that.
It's those working the two jobs who are ipso facto paying for this fricken corporate welfare. In turn, those corporations then make massive contributions to the re-pukians to get them re-elected. It's called tyranny and it's alive and well in Minnesota.
We need a R-E-V-O-L-U-T-I-O-N! Or better yet re-evolution!
Of course it could never be the fault of the majority of the middle class living beyond their means. Oh fucking no. Look at all the dumbasses leasing a new car every 32 months, sales of HD TVs, and piss poor financial choices (ARMs, credit card debt, etc).
While I recognize that the average middle class worker is no more wealthy now than in 1970 (obviously inflation adjusted), personal fucking responsiblity has more to do with it than being underpaid. /rant
mxracer652, read the work of Juliet Schor.
"Workingest"
...Holy Hell.
"We're the workingest state in the country, and the reason why we are, we have more people that are working longer hours"
Why is it that representatives of the people of the United States of America cannot speak English to save their lives? It rather fails to make a good impression...
I would like to see Barbara Ehrenreich hand Michele Bachmann her head on a platter. The smackdown would be sweet indeed.
(Ehrenreich is the author of "Nickel and Dimed: On not getting by in America", which everyone should read. Especially mxracer652.)
Nothing will change until the powerful start dying.
I'm sorry, I'm in despair mode at the moment. But at least what I've said is true.
I am a Republican. (Hoots from the gallery!)
Here's why:
1. Government programs designed to help people often instead destroy the motivation to work. (Payments to those disabled by drug addiction strike me as a bad idea, for instance.)
2. Recidivist criminals hurt society. They should go to jail for long periods of time. (Commit four robberies, get out, commit more robberies: I want people protected from you.)
3. Confiscating money from people should be done for good cause. More government does not mean good government; government, like most organisms, attempts to take over the things around it. (In California, for instance, the government has a legal monopoly on running a lottery.)
4. Optimizing taxes is complicated, but there are certainly times where lowering corporate taxes can help employees. Low taxes are good for all working people, including those people making smaller amounts of money.
5. The U.S. is a pretty nice place to live. I like it here. I'm ready to wave that flag.
6. Strong business is, long-term, good for employees.
7. Unions are not an unmitigated good, though they have certainly done many good things.
8. The government's continual messing with market forces (money for everyone - farmers for not farming, proposed bailouts for automakers) substantially hurts the overall economy in the long run. This isn't a rant against centralized banking, just continuing porky subsidies for everyone.
And I'm well aware that the Bush administration has radically raised all sorts of spending; I'm arguing that a guy like McCain is for far less spending than any of the Democrats.
9. Mike Huckabee will round up all the heathens and put them into camps, where the hand of God can smite them. Woo-hoo!
Wait. Crap. I'll explain the reason why non-Paul, non-Huckabee Republicans are good when I see you at the camps.
--JRM
so, uh, you don't understand republicans either, huh?
I hope the people of Minnesota will give her the opportunity to get two real jobs real soon now.
JRM:
1. Statistics showing that people on government assistance don't want to work, please. The assistance that most people get is small enough to only provide substandard living, and there is an awful lot of recurring red tape that has to be gone through to get it (that is also often demeaning to deal with).
2. How does longer sentences reduce recidivism? What a longer sentence does is to atrophy skills, reduce personal and professional contacts, and create an even larger gap since last employment that will make it more difficult to easily reenter society. Education and reentry programs reduce recidivism, not longer sentencing.
3. I agree on the lottery, but since when is running a lottery part of any political platform? I don't see how being a Republican has anything to do with whether states should run lotteries. Most government programs do have some benefit.
4. Republicans don't lower taxes on poorer people, they lower taxes only on the most wealthy and make up the slack by taxing the lower brackets more.
5. I like the US too. Republicans aren't the only patriots. In fact, I'd say that they are in some ways the worst type of patriot, because they only want to love the US if everyone is like them. No tired, poor, huddled immigrant masses are allowed in the Republican US, if their policies are used as guidelines for their views.
6. Employee protection is also good for employees. Ask a sweatshop worker in China. They have strong employers, too.
7. Unions are not an unmitigated bad, and in fact have done many good things.
8. Republicans are just like Democrats when it comes to pork. They're both bad.
#8 that totally cracked me up. That should be the anti-Bachmann slogan.
"I'll have to remember this one for when Bachmann tries to run for reelection."
Be better if you remember to run a candidate against her this time that can actually win. :)
I think they just don't have a single solitary clue what it's like to not be rich.
How many times have we heard a Republican politician say that he thought $100,000 a year was the average middle class salary?
That's a funny thing to say given a recent event:
http://uff.ourusf.org/biweekly/Spring08.html
Actually, there are some Republican platforms that make sense -- or at least, used to be. Republicans were supposed to stand for fiscal responsibility, smaller federal government, and more power to the states.
And we're "supposed to" be bringing Democracy to Iraq. The fact is that Republicans have never actually implemented such a platform -- historically, Republican governments have been less fiscally responsible and more expansive then Democratic ones. And "more power to the states" has been code for Jim Crow.
A while back, someone offered up the phrase "cheap labor conservatives" as a nice pejorative that sums up and explains most of their policies. It hasn't caught on as much as it should. (Google it.)
JRM,
Were you actually serious about those points? Sorry, but I'm not sure if you're being sarcastic or not. I mean, sure, those are the Republican talking points (except you missed the one about bearing arms), but they're all really based on ignorance or lies. Even my Father-in-law who used to cast one of the Republican electoral votes in MI will admit to that now days. Sarcasm...right?
* Disclaimer: I am not at all a republican, but some of my friends are.
For at least some people, eliminating the federal department of education comes from a desire for decentralizing control of the educational system. If you think that local people know how to run schools better than distant congresscritters, then this idea makes sense.
The motive is absolutely not to reduce or eliminate education for children, it's just a disagreement about who knows how to do it better.
Republicans are either corrupt or stupid. Your friends who believe this malarkey are of the latter sort. The motivation is the same as for vouchers -- to destroy John Dewey's project of public education, which the ideologues consider a form of evil socialism.
PZ- I am a huge fan of your blog, having found it through ebonmusings, and this is the first time I've commented.
In regard to "nothing more than a corporate tax cut". Are you aware that corporations NEVER AND CANNOT pay taxes? Only PEOPLE pay taxes. If you are a homeowner, think of your property tax. Does your "property" write the check twice a year? No, you do. Only people pay taxes. You, through the 1040...or the add-on at the cash register... or the higher price you pay for the good or service when the "corporate" tax rate is increased. I fear there are too many folks who really believe that when the corporation who makes a $1 widget has to pay more taxes, they simply say, "OK, we'll just reach into the giant pile of cash we sit on, and continue to sell the widget for $1.
MAJeff:
I find Schor's work entertaining (and true), but that still does not change the fact that people CHOOSE to live above their means.
What she's describing is a sociological/psychological problem, not an income one.
Nothing will change until the powerful start dying.
That makes even less sense than thinking that you can end terrorism by killing terrorists. "the powerful" is not a static set.
I find Schor's work entertaining (and true), but that still does not change the fact that people CHOOSE to live above their means.
What she's describing is a sociological/psychological problem, not an income one.
Our entire economy is based on consumption. Whether that's ok or not is different. The overspending, and overworking, she's describing are social phenomenon driven by the larger processes of consumer capitalism. Funny, we can't talk about the roots of any problems as lying in that system itself. We have state policies that provide incentives to consume rather than save.
Shit, when I hear that stuff, I want people to come and take a look at my apartment and the little I have, and tell me that my student loan debt (not credit cards--don't have any) is funding some sort of extravagant lifestyle. Fuck, I live in a $750 studio in the city of Boston, and if you know about Boston housing prices, you know what kind of conditions I'm talking.
Income for those at the bottom two quintiles has stagnated. The middle one is about breaking even, the next one doing pretty well, and the top one doing phenomenally. But we also can't talk about income distribution issues. These are all linked.
I am a Republican. (Hoots from the gallery!)
Here's why:
[intellectually dishonest cherry picking]
Even if all your claims were valid, I don't understand why that would be a reason to be a member of the party of institutionalized corruption, stupidity, ignorance, short sightedness, and authoritarianism.
In regard to "nothing more than a corporate tax cut". Are you aware that corporations NEVER AND CANNOT pay taxes? Only PEOPLE pay taxes.
Are you aware that you're an ignorant and arrogant git? The law treats corporations in many respects as persons.
If you are a homeowner, think of your property tax. Does your "property" write the check twice a year? No, you do.
Corporations own property and pay tax on it; no human does.
Before you start berating others for what they aren't aware of, take the time to get the most basic education in the subject matter.
Well, sure. Didn't you know that Bachmann's core constituency is Doozers?
In regard to "nothing more than a corporate tax cut". Are you aware that corporations NEVER AND CANNOT pay taxes? Only PEOPLE pay taxes.
http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2004/04/b45142.html
never let ignorance stand in the way of a rant, right?
Doozers
I'll bite.
what's a Doozer?
*clutches heart* Surely you jest!
or the higher price you pay for the good or service when the "corporate" tax rate is increased
In addition to not understanding the basics of corporations, you don't understand the basics of economics. Why doesn't the corporation just charge a higher price even if its tax rate isn't raised? Why not just charge a trillion dollars for everything?
You left out some possible sources of the increased corporate tax -- lower profits (affecting stockholders) or lower salaries; maybe the CEO only gets 250 times as much as the average worker rather than 500 times as much.
There's a reason that corporations lobby for lowering corporate tax rates, a reason they wouldn't have if they could simply jack up the price of goods and services at will. Corporate taxes are eventually paid by people, but those are largely the people who are "stakeholders" in the company. Lowering corporate taxes redistributes wealth ... to the wealthy from the less wealthy.
sorry, I was busy getting my undergrad degree during the time that show aired.
never saw a single episode.
JRM,
One more thing. You state "I'm arguing that a guy like McCain is for far less spending than any of the Democrats."
You are aware that McCane is a hawk who has said we should attack Iran right? You're aware of the costs of war, right? Then how could you ever believe something like that?
Quick bit o math for ya. If our current war has cost one trillion dollars (a fair estimate. There are higher and lower ones out there). Then if we divide it up evenly per state, each state's bill would come to 10 billion dollars. Or, $3333.00 for every man woman and child here. Please note, most children don't pay taxes. Perhaps you should compare that with the 37 cents a year each American pays to have the National Endowent for the Art around. And yet, yes, that's the sort of thing McCain would like to stop funding to lower taxes. Yeah, makes lots of sense to me.
LanceR #35, I'm glad that you pay me all due respect. :-)
Attacking the Department of Education has only one purpose in Rethuglican circles. Dismantling the entire public education system. End of story.
Yes, some republicans want to dismantle all public schooling. Sometimes this is because they want to teach creationism and other superstitions.
In other cases, it's because they think market-based schools would be better (for varying notions of "better"). Likely most people here would disagree with that, but I don't think that believing that more people could get better schooling on the market makes one evil. It's a very contentious factual and empirical issue, and I don't think the forces of good and evil are all lined up on one side of it or the other.
And in a lot of other cases, really IMHO the majority case, actual average-joe republicans would not seek to do away with the DoE at all. Opposition to the DoE is an old-skool republican stance, and I don't think you'd find support for it among a majority of modern republicans. The DoE is now status quo, and abolishing at this point is too radical.
Eliminate federal aid to public schools, and you will eliminate public schools.
I must disagree with you here. There were public schools long before the federal DoE. If the DoE went away, local taxes would have to be increased to make up for the shortfall, or school spending would have to be decreased. Probably both. IMHO it wouldn't be pretty to directly experience as a teacher, public school student, or parent of same.
I'm not endorsing the plan, remember, I'm just arguing that it's not borne of evil motives. You can take some solace from the fact that it will never happen, though.
Every twit that can get his buddies to elect him to the school board will be able to push whatever tripe he wants taught... parents will get sick of their children being saddled with creationist crap and pull them out.
Wouldn't they just vote out the creationists, as has happened before? And then there's the supreme court to worry about, with or without a DoE. Teaching religion in a government school is pretty clearly unconstitutional. I don't think the IDiots/creationists are really winning the battle on this.
And if the Wall of Separation should fall, and the schools somehow get jebusified, would you really expect mass pullouts? I suspect most people would just silently go along with it. Alas.
http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2004/04/b45142.html
never let ignorance stand in the way of a rant, right?
Fools like Terrence seem to actually believe that corporate taxes all get passed along, as if every human being on the planet contributes equally to those taxes. His comment is particularly stupid in this particular thread, which is about proposed legislation to lower corporate taxes. Why would anyone bother, if it just gets passed along? Terrence has drunk deeply of the corporate Koolaid, and he's paying for it along with the rest of us.
Upton Sinclair's "The Jungle" should be required reading in every high school in the USA. Just to provide a perspective on how wonderful it is to work yourself into an early grave.
Just for the record, I don't entirely agree with Sinclair's solution. I summarized the book for a Chinese friend and she laughed and laughed at the thought that Sinclair's version of socialism is the answer to corporatism.
All those in favor of felonizing politicos caught working more than 30 hours a week, raise your tentacles .
truth machine said in #53:
Republicans are either corrupt or stupid. Your friends who believe this malarkey are of the latter sort. The motivation is the same as for vouchers -- to destroy John Dewey's project of public education, which the ideologues consider a form of evil socialism.
I must again defend my republican friends here. :-) I have some very, very intelligent republican friends. They neither corrupt nor stupid*, they just disagree with your vision of what is good. My friends who want to dismantle public schooling are as passionate that doing so would be for the greater good as you are passionate that it would be a disaster. Some of them are even atheists.
As for vouchers, I can't see how that's opposition to socialism -- it's still tax money going to schools, it's just a change in the details of how the money gets spent. And in any realistic policy scenario, the vouchers would come with so many strings attached about what and how you can teach that it is unlikely the hardcore types would really like it.
Incidentally, I spend a lot of time explaining to my republican friends why democrats are not all evil and crazy. It's kind of fun to do the opposite for once. :-)
It is important to remember that it is possible for reasonable people of good will to disagree. I did not really grok this until I got exposed to a wider diversity of ideas.
(* OK, some of them are stupid. But not all, I promise.)
My friends who want to dismantle public schooling are as passionate that doing so would be for the greater good as you are passionate that it would be a disaster
so?
passion for a position doesn't make it any more correct.
rather than sitting on the fence, trying to make all nice-nice, why not research the relevant issues yourself, and stop playing the apologizer for either side.
here. here.
I grew up working class poor and having parents who work hard (physically hard) all day and night is no picnic. They work like that because they have to to survive. Trust me, they wanted to earn more and work less -- more like a typical work week.
they just disagree with your vision of what is good. My friends who want to dismantle public schooling
You said they didn't, you lying ass, they just wanted it decentralized.
In any case, anyone who truly thinks that dismantling public schooling is good is stupid, as stupid as someone who thinks that ripping up state highways is good.
here. here.
I grew up working class poor and having parents who work hard (physically hard) all day and night is no picnic. They work like that because they have to to survive. Trust me, they wanted to earn more and work less -- more like a typical work week.
As for vouchers, I can't see how that's opposition to socialism -- it's still tax money going to schools, it's just a change in the details of how the money gets spent.
You really are dim, aren't you? I said that the ideologues view public education as socialism, and vouchers are a way to destroy public education. Shrinking the vouchers down to nothing comes later.
Incidentally, I spend a lot of time explaining to my republican friends why democrats are not all evil and crazy.
That you need to do so shows that these people are either not reasonable or not of good will.
It's kind of fun to do the opposite for once. :-)
You have failed to do so.
It is important to remember that it is possible for reasonable people of good will to disagree.
Yes, it is. But as I said, Republicans are either corrupt (not of good will) or stupid (not reasonable). Pointing to Republicans who want to dismantle public schooling supports the point.
I've always favored dubbing this group the "Let Them Eat Cake Republicans," personally. Whatever issues of historical accuracy, it accurately captures their outlook.
Ichthyic said in #72:
passion for a position doesn't make it any more correct.
I fully agree that passion for a position is entirely uncorrelated with correctness. I didn't mention it as evidence that they are correct, but rather to rebut the idea that they are just cynically and knowingly advancing false arguments with a hidden and malevolent agenda. See #19 for a particularly bad example of attributing false motives.
E.g., saying you want to reduce the scope of the federal government does not mean you secretly want children to go uneducated and puppies to get kicked in the face, etc. It is possible to genuinely think that reducing the power of the federal government would lead to less human suffering and better outcomes for more people.
Likewise, calling for deregulation does not mean you are automatically a corporate shill who wants to fuck the little guy. It is possible to sincerely believe that a given bundle of regulations on net harm human welfare by privileging a few corporations at everyone else's expense. For some clear cases of this, see the history of the Interstate Commerce Commission or the Civil Aeronautics Board. I believe even Noam Chomsky agrees with deregulation in cases like that.
And I myself would call for a complete deregulation of, for example, marijuana. Am I then a shill for the large-scale marijuana producers ("corporate profit machines") who would surely arise in that case? Am I out to exploit the middle class? I think not.
Ichthyic also said:
rather than sitting on the fence, trying to make all nice-nice, why not research the relevant issues yourself, and stop playing the apologizer for either side.
I have in fact researched these issues at length -- I find it a fascinating topic. And it's forty billion kinds of complicated. Our school system pretty obviously fails a lot of our kids, and I do not have any great ideas on how to fix the situation. Neither, I suspect, do you. (Though I'm all ears if you have some!)
And as for apologizing for either side -- I'm trying to get each group to understand the other better. Just demonizing people you disagree with as "either corrupt or stupid", as some here have done, precludes reasonable discussion. I want to facilitate mutual understanding rather than choke it off with vitriolic generalizations.
I am disgusted by petty tribalism, even if it comes from what I nominally consider my tribe.
And I actually have a side -- I am a hard-core godless liberal. And I have always voted for democrats (Gore, Kerry, Obama for IL Senator), and I intend to vote for Obama if the primaries aren't de facto over by the time it gets to my state.
Alas, to JRM:
1. The motivation to work is not destroyed except in the small number of cases republicans use to make their lame point. I know people who are or have been on unemployment, and they cannot live off of it. It doesn't even make up half of their previous income nor pay the mortgage. Reagan's "welfare queen" never existed.
2. You are making false assumptions, i.e. that Democrats presumably aren't good on crime. The opposite is true if you dare to educate yourself. Your party saying things about how evil Democrats are doesn't make those statements true. You however seem to believe simply voicing something makes it true.
3. What specific confiscation do you refer to? To your other statement, the people of California made that decision. It's their bed and they seem to be happy sleeping in it. State's rights, no?
4. This is false in that it assumes Democrats don't raise the incomes of low-wage workers. Democrats in fact do, making the taxes more bareable
5. Again your assumptions cloud better judgement. Your statement implies others do not wave it or respect it. This assumption is disrespectful of your fellow citizens who disagree with you, and in some cases can be taken as fightin' words.
6. Chalk this up to the "duh" statement of the week. What great point did you think you were making again?
7. Nobody I know or have known ever said they were, including union members. Your assumptive ways continue unabated. No good thing in life is perpetually so in extreme amounts. This includes tax cutting.
8. Market forces are not free. they never have been. They are human constructs entirely corruptible by said humans. Government observation of them is not bad, and our past history shows it indeed served a very good function, helping to produce this nation's greatest economic hours.
To the McCain point, you completely blow whatever fiscal point you were trying to make by saying McCain would heavily underspend Democrats. This is excessively poor thinking when one considers the fact that McCain publicly said he'd keep us in Iraq indefinitely no matter the cost. This by default and by definition means he would eventually outspend even Bush II. McCain would have unwavering support from the biggest lobby man has yet known, the military industrial complex, and would cast this country further into the depths of ignominious historical footnotes, all because of vain, self-interested and forthright incorrectness.
9. This we agree on, and you seem mildly sarcastic about this eventuality should the Huckster's ass ever touch the seat behind the desk in the Oval Office.
@nathan
I've been reading this comment thread and I have to say I appreciate your moderation. That is all.
"For at least some people, eliminating the federal department of education comes from a desire for decentralizing control of the educational system. If you think that local people know how to run schools better than distant congresscritters, then this idea makes sense.
The motive is absolutely not to reduce or eliminate education for children, it's just a disagreement about who knows how to do it better."
You forgot to mention that for most of those people "run better" means eliminate bussing and reintroduce school prayer.
I'm trying to get each group to understand the other better.
but all you are doing is pointing that not all people are horrible evil monsters.
*shrug*
if you want someone to understand WHY there is legitimacy to the position of say, supporting school vouchers within your republican friends, you need to be clear on that.
as they say, the road to hell is paved with good intentions.
i've certainly met a lot of republicans full of "good intentions", but that doesn't mean some of the zany shit they come up with is any better for society as a whole.
like most, I too have very close friends that are die-hard republicans. I still call them out on their shit when they take a dump of an idea in my presence.
here's one:
republican friends of mine often claim that:
"throwing money at public education has done nothing to fix the problems with it"
which is utter BS, considering that there really HASN'T been a lot of money "thrown" at the problems inherent in overcrowded school systems.
certainly, I don't think my friends evil incarnate for posing such a ridiculous arguement, but I'm certainly going to attack them for it, and accuse them of being horribly ignorant and claiming to have solutions based on ignorance.
sorry, but while not INTENTIONALLY destructive, "solutions" based on ignorance end up being just that.
so do we not accuse the fool of causing harm, simply because that wasn't his intent?
The Republican party is undergoing a period of change now, as they did in the late 60s / Early 70s.
The "cheap labor conservatives" (Excellent phrase!) now mostly in power are neo-conservatives, who have usurped the power of the paleo-conservatives, (populism) while leaving some of their rhetoric in place, and cynically exploiting religion, as a distraction and a mask to accumulate power to themselves. (See Adam Curtis' BBC documentary "The Power of Nightmares" about the neo-conservatives, beginning with Professor Leo Strauss and his students such as Donald Rumsfeld.)
The republican base today does consist of good people who have been duped by propaganda efforts into thinking that the goals of large corporations that profit from war are the same as their goals of making a better world for the common folk. But as the war drags on and the abuses become more obvious their membership shrinks.
You need only look at the topsy-turvy results of the early republican primaries to see that there isn't anyone they can all get behind. Not that there is much difference between most of them, or enough difference on the issues of war, foreign policy or the influence of the corporations on politics between most of them and most of the democrats for my taste.
republican friends of mine often claim that:
"throwing money at public education has done nothing to fix the problems with it"
which is utter BS, considering that there really HASN'T been a lot of money "thrown" at the problems inherent in overcrowded school systems.
certainly, I don't think my friends evil incarnate for posing such a ridiculous arguement, but I'm certainly going to attack them for it, and accuse them of being horribly ignorant and claiming to have solutions based on ignorance.
sorry, but while not INTENTIONALLY destructive, "solutions" based on ignorance end up being just that.
One of the courses I teach occassionally is your basic Power and Inequality class. We deal with education, but place it in the context of an entire economic and political system that is rigged to fuck over the people at the bottom. Thats not the fault of public education, but of relations based in race and class (for instance, white flight accompanying deindustrialization resulting in the destruction of the funding base for urban schools, as well as the destruction of the economic base of employment for many poor folks living in urban areas).
This is basic stuff.
WRT that stupid "there's no difference" canard which you may or may not have actually drunk the Kool-aid on...
I agree that none of the democratic candidates are perfect. But let's put it this way: your choices are "be kicked in the shin", "be skinned alive", "ask for something else and get one of the first two anyway, with a bias toward the second", or "sit on your ass, pick your nose, eat what you find, and wind up with one of the first two anyway, with a bias toward the second." Which do you pick?
but place it in the context of an entire economic and political system that is rigged to fuck over the people at the bottom. Thats not the fault of public education,
nor, I am sure, do the contributors to the economic system that has become so rigged consider themselves to be evil incarnate, or have desires (for the most part) to see people fucked over at the bottom.
indeed, it's hardly the point, since I have to consider myself as a (willing or unwilling) contributor to the very system that has become so rigged.
This is basic stuff.
yes, but a great many people never hear the arguments that make it seem so basic. or they have, but are too enamored with their personal rationalizations of whatever makes life work for them to accept it.
I'm sure slaveowners had plenty of rationalizations that made them feel owning slaves was perfectly acceptable, for example.
I'd bet I could even dig a few up with a quick google search, for that matter.
and, of course, I'm sure there were plenty of people who had slaveowners as friends/family at the time, while they themselves thought the practice destructive and abhorent.
Wasn't she part of the last republican Congress (the 109th) that decided on a 3 day workweek for themselves, because they "needed to spend more time with their families"?
nor, I am sure, do the contributors to the economic system that has become so rigged consider themselves to be evil incarnate, or have desires (for the most part) to see people fucked over at the bottom.
indeed, it's hardly the point, since I have to consider myself as a (willing or unwilling) contributor to the very system that has become so rigged.
Agreed--it's the social system. We're part of it. That's why I also point out that while we may be participants, we participate at different levels, and that sociological analysis of the processes involved can help us to find where we are in that system, where there are points of potential intervention, and which points are probably better than others, as well as highlighting the importance of collective action in challenging/changing said social systems (christ that's a long sentence)...
I hope that makes sense. My sleep schedule is all fucked up and I'm feeling incoherent and exhausted but can't sleep (even with the sedative).
E.g., saying you want to reduce the scope of the federal government does not mean you secretly want children to go uneducated and puppies to get kicked in the face, etc.
Right; it could just mean you're stupid. Corrupt or stupid, take your pick. And if you continue to ignore the "stupid" option and claim that plainly stupid things like wanting to dismantle public education aren't stupid, then you too are corrupt or stupid.
Our school system pretty obviously fails a lot of our kids, and I do not have any great ideas on how to fix the situation. Neither, I suspect, do you. (Though I'm all ears if you have some!)
Stop spending education money on weaponry; duh. If you really have studied the issue at length but haven't stumbled upon the effect of underfunding public education, especially teachers, then you're quite the idiot.
The "cheap labor conservatives" (Excellent phrase!) now mostly in power are neo-conservatives, who have usurped the power of the paleo-conservatives, (populism) while leaving some of their rhetoric in place, and cynically exploiting religion, as a distraction and a mask to accumulate power to themselves. (See Adam Curtis' BBC documentary "The Power of Nightmares" about the neo-conservatives, beginning with Professor Leo Strauss and his students such as Donald Rumsfeld.)
you nailed that one.
I'd like to add to that by saying that it's quite obvious that the entire modern Neocon philosophy, while owing it's impetus in part to the writings of Strauss, is in large part nothing but a rationalization of the rich that enables them to feel good about projecting exploitative economics as somehow good for everybody, since it was good for them.
you see this very clearly with a lot of the things Rummy and Cheney and Wolfowitz have said over the past couple of decades.
they took a single instance of supply side economics working in the late 70's/early 80's and basically extrapolated that to an entire philosophy of life.
It's quite remarkable.
It's very much like watching a con artist try to rationalize his own cons to himself.
I've been reading this comment thread and I have to say I appreciate your moderation. That is all.
But it's not enough.
"My friends who want to dismantle public schooling are as passionate that doing so would be for the greater good as you are passionate that it would be a disaster."
Really? I used to have a friend who had a similar view about having sex with underage male prostitutes. (Which I only found out about after his death.)
Our school system pretty obviously fails a lot of our kids, and I do not have any great ideas on how to fix the situation. Neither, I suspect, do you. (Though I'm all ears if you have some!)
What's funny is that my own students who are education majors and work in the public schools of Boston, Somerville, and Cambridge could give you a lot of solutions. Some ideas:
scrap NCLB. It has failed, in particular because it doesn't use tests as a means of deciding who needs help but of punishment;
fund infrastructure improvements. The conditions in which many of our students are "being educated" is disgraceful. There's no incentive for students to work when they know that school is nothing more than warehouse.
Pay teachers. If we're going to demand expertise--and we should--in fields being taught, we also ought to work to attract qualified, talented people. Pay them.
Maintain and improve nutrition and health programs in the schools, particularly the poorest schools. Kids are living in unsafe conditions (lead paint, chemical waste, etc). Many don't get adequate nutrition. Feed them. It helps them be better students.
Improve living conditions. Provide assistance for getting rid of lead paint. Clean up toxic waste sites in poor communities. Provide better access to medical care. These will all improve the educational opportunities for kids.
Improve adult education opportunities. Kids do better when they come from better educated homes. If they're raised in homes with larger vocabularies, they develop them, and they do better in school. If we can help parents who don't have an education--and make it more than vocational, make it relevant and enjoyable--to gain one, we help their kids.
Invest in up-to-date textbooks and technologies.
Many of these will require more spending than is currently going to suburban schools, much less what the poorest urban schools are getting. That's because these schools need more funds to catch up to the educational climates produced in those other atmospheres.
Just a few ideas...
My friends who want to dismantle public schooling are as passionate that doing so would be for the greater good as you are passionate that it would be a disaster.
People like that are clearly both stupid and corrupt. If they aren't lying to you, they are certainly lying to themselves. They are like those who say (passionately!) both that anyone who opposes the invasion of Iraq is against bringing democracy to the region, and that Muslims are evil and we would be better off nuking them all.
Many of these will require more spending than is currently going to suburban schools, much less what the poorest urban schools are getting. That's because these schools need more funds to catch up to the educational climates produced in those other atmospheres.
Shorter me (elaborated): the solutions require redistributive programs which are anathema to republicans...unless they redistribute upward.
"redistributive programs which are anathema to republicans...unless they redistribute upward.'
About 90% of Republicans appear to believe that if only they could get the mean ol' gubmint off their backs they'd ascend to their rightful position in the richest 10% of the population.
Funnily enough, most of them can see how lots of OTHER Republicans are fooling themselves on that score.
we participate at different levels, and that sociological analysis of the processes involved can help us to find where we are in that system, where there are points of potential intervention, and which points are probably better than others
yes, this makes sense. I'd suggest you might try pointing to some good analyses that you would use to figure out where the relevant points of potential intervention are that would effect change on a large scale.
it's not so basic, on that level.
Frankly, and I might be just speaking for myself, I don't think we were well educated for the most part on how to effectively intervene in the system.
In fact, if the 60's and 70's were any educator, I'd say most of us are more than a bit gun-shy at this point.
Things seem more obvious on a smaller level.
for example, if one wants to have a measurable effect on keeping creationism out of schools, the easiest and most effective place to start is with your local school board.
most of the districts where creationism abounds on the school boards are districts where there simply aren't any interested community members who know better spending time on the boards themselves.
I'm sure this can be likewise extended to politics in general, but the problem is that most of us (myself included) don't have the time or the energy to spend entwining themselves in local politics.
It seems that those that do, often are the ones with the worst ideas unfortunately.
so, given that this IS essentially the MO for politics in the US, how does one effectively push the right button to change what ends up being produced by the machine?
I don't find it realistic to change how the machine itself works in the US any more.
If you have managed to synthesize a workable method for figuring out which is the best button to push on a given part of the machine, I'd sure love to see it.
let me also add, increase funding for early childhood education. Head Start works. It shouldn't be cut, it should be expanded. As should Jump Start.
I don't find it realistic to change how the machine itself works in the US any more.
If you have managed to synthesize a workable method for figuring out which is the best button to push on a given part of the machine, I'd sure love to see it.
I have a colleague working on a book. I don't want to say too much because she's starting to shop it around. But, she talks about, with numbers and everything, the practices adopted by an organization she worked with and how, over a several year period, they were able to change both media coverage and public policy. (I hope that's vague and specific enough--It's early in process).
I think there are great diagnoses: Anything by Kozol, MacLeod's "Ain't No Makin' It" ed policy researchers have great ideas. A lot is simply political will (see my comment re: redistribution).
It's a loss in the belief that government does anything worthwhile (Repubs have been pushing that one for a while). People don't want to be involved. I mean, I'm not going to run for school board--it's not my area of expertise and I don't have kids. (I am likely to be involved on public policy committees for community groups tho.) I often talk to my students about the notion of active citizenship. I raise the topic, and let it fester for the semester--it comes out in interesting ways (like young men doing anti-sexual assault organizing in their fraternities).
And, this is getting to be too much for one comment thread, I fear.
The truth is, progressive social movements usually lose. That's what makes victory so sweet.
it's not so basic, on that level.
I deal more with discourse--especially political discourse--than anything else in my own research (well, discourse and its production). I think one of the things that really needs serious attention is the issue of redistribution. It's a necessity. We need to remove the taboo on class and political economy. I really think that's one of the biggest base issues. The historic compromise between labor and capital has pretty much collapsed, and we need a renewed critical analysis of contemporary capitalism as a political-economic system; and we need folks to translate that into everyday language. (I love being a queer theorist who talks about discourse getting all materialist and shit.)
There's no magic bullet. But, I think political economy is a huge issue that simply gets obscured.
Frankly, and I might be just speaking for myself, I don't think we were well educated for the most part on how to effectively intervene in the system.
In fact, if the 60's and 70's were any educator, I'd say most of us are more than a bit gun-shy at this point
OK, one last rambling comment.
One of the things that saddens me is the loss of status of sociology. some of that we brought on ourselves. Shit, I read some folks and I think "You've gone batshit" folks that are "names." However, a bigger part of that is what Durkheim called the American "cult of the individual." Our national political culture is ideologically opposed to looking at social causes or processes.
(That's why I love when I can see the moment when students first "get it." Such a cute face they get when that "eureka" moment arrives.)
OK, sorry about the rambling. It's almost 3:30 and today is the first day of class. I need to get some sleep.
nighty night all.
A lot is simply political will (see my comment re: redistribution).
indeed, but that is a given and pretty much has to be taken into account at this point in any effort to change the end result of the political machine.
I worked for a couple of years with an NGO that had congressional support for funding a new federal agency to research and provide support for research into long term ecological issues (would have been called the National Institute for the Environment).
15 years later, the level of support in congress is exactly the same, and two bills have been introduced, only to basically be completely ignored once they actually hit the floor.
they have a spiffy website, though.
:P
OK, now for my last comment, re: hopelessness.
I've taught at Boston College, and institution that was not fully co-educational until the 1970s. The majority of my students there were female.
Jim Crow fell. Sure, there are still huge issues. But getting rid of Jim Crow was no small accomplishment. I have students coming from schools that would have been legally segregated when I was born. That's not nothing.
I live in a state where it's actually legal for me to marry (should I so desire....lol). That was unimaginable to me when I came out a decade and a half ago.
Yeah, we lost a lot. But not always. These are not small changes.
#99 and #100
My God, truer words was never spoke (to quote an elderly relative.
Every damn Rethug millionaire wannabe I know . . . and that's ALL my family . . . is convinced that they would ascend to dizzy heights of wealth if only they didn't have to pay so much in taxes.
And in the meantime, their standard of living, health care (for most, nonexistent), and kids' schools are in a death spiral toward the ground.
Only my husband and I, by far the best-educated, self-identify as "working class." All the rest, including the ones toting chain saws for a living, think they're too good for that label.
I have students coming from schools that would have been legally segregated when I was born
Well, not legally, but still resisting deseg, often violently.
Every damn Rethug millionaire wannabe I know . . . and that's ALL my family
uh, can I borrow some cash, friend? I've got research that needs a fundin'!
oh, wait, you said wannabe.
damn.
;)
Conservatives opposed the Fair Labor Standards Act - aka Wages and Hours Act - of 1938 too.
http://www.answers.com/wages+and+hours+act?cat=biz-fin&gwp=13
- What was so horrible about this New Deal law?
"At the beginning of his administration in 1933, President Franklin D. Roosevelt wished to propose legislation to guarantee minimum wages and maximum hours and to restrict child labor, but he feared constitutional challenges. In addition, he was aware that such legislation faced opposition by conservatives in Congress.
Some conservatives objected to the creation of another New Deal agency. Many southern conservatives feared that the bill's requirements of minimum wages and maximum hours and abolition of child labor would eliminate the competitive advantage that the region possessed because of its generally lower wage rates. Finally, some southern congressmen did not wish to pass legislation that required that black workers receive the same wages as white workers."
- But that isn't all. Some had even a libertarian outlook.
"When first proposed the bill created controversy for a number of reasons. First, some legislators feared it would violate workers' "liberty of contract." From the 1890s through the 1930s, the Supreme Court carefully evaluated all wages and hours legislation to ensure that such laws did not infringe upon this constitutional guarantee. The liberty of contract doctrine held that in general the government should not be able to set the terms of contracts freely entered into by private parties.
The Court allowed statutes designed to protect groups it considered either dependent or vulnerable but invalidated any other wages or hours legislation. For example, in Holden v. Hardy (1898), the Court upheld a state law limiting the working hours of miners. In Lochner v. New York (1905), however, the Court struck down similar legislation regulating bakers' hours on the grounds that bakers were not engaged in an inherently dangerous occupation."
- So, with "liberty of contract" one had the constitutional right to work for slave wages. Bachmann seems to want to bring back these good old days.
I've always been awed by the mental gymnastics presumably required to equate "terms you'll get from any employer you apply to, and thus must agree to or watch your children starve to death before succumbing yourself" with "contracts freely entered into."
I've always been awed by the mental gymnastics presumably required to equate "terms you'll get from any employer you apply to, and thus must agree to or watch your children starve to death before succumbing yourself" with "contracts freely entered into."
From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_contract#Exclusion_clauses
Problems in public education are symptomatic of problems in society, and those problems largely relate to socioeconomics, i.e. the gap between the rich and the poor. Schools filled with predominately poor students are not good schools, and schools filled with predominately rich students are. The solution is to close that gap, i.e. make the poor less poor. The only way to do that is to radically change the way our country functions, largely in favor of socialism.
To claim that the solution to the problem with American public schools is to dismantle them or to allow the moderately rich to escape from them through vouchers is about as retarded as the conclusion that the way to cure your baby's cold is to decapitate it.
Americans are effectively being taxed twice. Once via income and sales taxes, and a second time through the extra costs that corporations and retailers charge to pass their tax on to the consumer. I myself am for getting rid of taxes all together, which might seem a little extreme, but I don't think of absolute insanity when I here republicans are doing this.
- thoughts from a fiscal conservative atheist
The Repugnicans stopped trying to get rid of the Dept of Education when they passed No Child Left Behind and figured out there's money to be made in testing and tutoring. Neil Bush, IIRC, has made multiple millions from selling stuff schools need for compliance with NCLB.
Was listening to the news last night and heard more blather from the right wing about lowering taxes on the wealthy and businesses as a way to stimulate the economy because they'd "save" more. Lots of rationalizations as to why it wouldn't be a good idea to help out those folks on the bottom of the income scale who are having to make choices between buying fuel oil or groceries. Unbelievable. The way to stimulate the economy is to get more money into the hands of people who will spend it immediately -- i.e., the poor and lower middle class. Is there some sort of reverse IQ test required to be a so-called "fiscal conservative"?
It's not just casual spin. Fraudulent and mis-framed arguments are stock in trade from Republican/conservative commentators. For example, in evaluating how well off the middle class are, they will show you the increase in "family income" so you don't notice that results from more hours worked on average between spouses at low rates of hourly (or equivalent) pay. There's lots of good takedown and exposure of such at quality liberal/ish sites like http://www.washingtonmonthly.com and http://www.delong.typepad.com.
(Thank God I can agree on something, now that we aren't talking about God! Well, the quasi-theistic values-expressing First Cause ... ;-) )
PS:
Notice her pearl necklace and that sort of wild expression? Both are typical of Republican plutocrat shill-ladies.
Leigh @ 108- a certain school of thought, currently very unfashionable (probably justifiably due to its horrendous real-world implementations), used to refer to that phenomenon as "false consciousness". Maybe they were on to something after all?
[This got held up a bit earlier perhaps from having a certain word, I'm not complaining just reposting with slight change, ignore the similar if still floating around.]
It's not just casual spin. Fraudulent and mis-framed arguments are stock in trade from Republican/conservative commentators. For example, in evaluating how well off the middle class are, they will show you the increase in "family income" so you don't notice that results from more hours worked on average between spouses at low rates of hourly (or equivalent) pay. There's lots of good takedown and exposure of such at quality liberal/ish sites like http://www.washingtonmonthly.com and http://www.delong.typepad.com.
(Thank God I can agree on something, now that we aren't talking about G-a-w-d! Well, the quasi-the-istic values-expressing Frist (sic) Cause ... ;-) )
Another answer to why poor and middle-class people fall for the lines the Republicans sell can be found in a poll done a couple years ago. In it, the researches found that 20% of Americans believed they were in the top 1% of earners. More than 50% thought they would be in their lives. So these people can't be swayed by the fact that the tax cuts, etc are going to go to the top 1%. They think they're it, or will be soon.
Right, and if corporate and retail taxes were eliminated in a way that was revenue-neutral, what would happen to income and/or sales taxes?
I presume you are also for getting rid of national defense, public roads, public fire and police protection, etc. etc. etc. You should get together with Robert from the earlier thread and live together in a perfect libertarian Road Warrior world.
Samuel "I myself am for getting rid of taxes all together"
Taxes are what we pay for the civilization we live in. I'm sure you know that. Without taxes, what pays for our military? Education of our children? Roads, bridges and other infrastructure? Police? Are you willing to go without a financial safety net? Will you be OK with the situation if others do so also and end upbecoming criminals in their later lives to avoid starving to death, to pay for medication, or fear of loosing their homes? What pays for the oversight on drug companies and the people who ship, package, and sell the food you eat? How do we Like using the internet? like watching tv? Using the phone? All regulated by our taxdollars to keep monopolies from forming. It goes on and on. I don't get people like you. Sure, paying taxes isn't fun, but neither are obeying traffic rules. I'm still glad most people do both. You want to live someplace with low taxes here in America, check out Mississippi and their phenomenal economy and quality of life compared to some "high tax" states like Minnesota. It's not about taxes, it's about what's done with them.
I've spent some time arguing with people at work about bringing back the 70% (or even 90%) tax brackets we enjoyed until Regean.
The biggest miss-understanding I've found is a poor comprehension of the nature of a progressive tax.
It often takes a concrete example of how our progressive taxation system works before they understand that the higher bracket taxes only apply to the additional money made above the previous bracket.
For example, they think that if their $200,000 income is subjected to 70% taxation, then 70% ($140,000) of their income will be lost.
Once I demonstrate that (strictly as an example) that it's possible that the first $10,000 is not taxed at all. Amounts earned above $10,000 and below $50,000 are taxed at 10% ($40,000 * 0.10 = $4,000). The income earned above $50,000 and below $100,000 is taxed at 30% ($50,000 * 0.30 = $15,000). The income earned above $100,000 and below $150,000 is taxed at 50% ($50,000 * 0.50 = $25,000). And the income earned between the levels of $150,000 and $200,000 is taxed at 70% ($50,000 * 0.70 = $35,000).
The result is that they pay ($4,000 + $15,000 + $25,000 + $35,000) = $79,000 in taxes, retaining $121,000.
Once they compare this to their previous (miss-)understanding that they would be paying $140,000 in taxes and keeping $60,000, they are much more open to the idea of a higher rate for the very rich under a progressive taxation scheme.
Part of the problem is that people don't understand how their tax rates are calculated. Which was not helped by the fact that our taxation rates are not particularly progressive any longer.
We're the workingest state in the country....
translation..
uh, Let them eat the cake. A lot of cake.
I guess this is like when GWB had some woman on stage with him and was congratulating her for working three jobs. People! NO ONE WANTS TO WORK THREE JOBS!!!!! Believe me - I've tried it, I've seen it done, it SUCKS and no one who could possibly avoid it would want to work so much! It's not like we/they are doing it for fun. Temping + waitressing + tutoring does not = good times. It = just about paying all the bills and debts and then falling down dead at the end of the day.
Are rich politicians just really that stupid or are they mocking us? Seriously.
Flex, I'm not surprised, and this is a good example of the way that the remarkable ignorance of even the "educated" American public is making it almost impossible to maintain a functioning democracy. And big-D Democratic politicians, who could and should be doing a lot of public education on how the tax system actually works, have been (suicidally) unwilling to undertake that task.
Terrence at #56:
Your comment expresses the commonplace fallacy of presuming zero tax incidence for corporations (look up that phrase). It is ironically a violation of market pricing by supply and demand to think that corporations or whomever can just pass on their taxes or all other expenses to the buyer. Consider that supposedly, that $1 widget price reflects how many buyers are willing to pay up to that much for the number of widgets the company is willing to make (sure, how many they will or want to make is itself in feedback with other things like price, but you get the idea.) Now, if the government imposes a higher tax than before, or just the very fact of levying a tax at all, how could they just raise the price to get the money back? What about the buyers' demand would allow that? Do you really think there's a certain profit margin that every company is entitled to or is a consistent logical outcome of economics as such?
No, they can only pass on a portion of the tax (again, look up "tax incidence". I must admit I don't know just what the TI is on average preceding from corporation taxes, but it certainly is a fallacy to think it falls completely or nearly so on the consumer, especially on average v. some special case. Wikipedia says:
Where the tax incidence falls depends on the price elasticity of demand and price elasticity of supply. Tax incidence falls mostly upon the group that responds least to price (the group that has the most inelastic price-quantity curve).
I assume you're sincere but mislead. I am not sure why conservative disinformationists spin that yarn out, because then they can't gripe about how corporate taxes are a burden specifically on those hard-working (i.e., mostly investors sitting around doing nothing productive at all after the initial start-up investment) righteous capitalist wealthy folk.
Here's some more, at risk of repeating some of a "held" comment, likely from having the Gee-word:
Fraudulent and mis-framed arguments are stock in trade from Republican/conservative commentators. For example, in evaluating how well off the middle class are, they will show you the increase in "family income" so you don't notice that results from more hours worked on average between spouses at low rates of hourly (or equivalent) pay. There's lots of good takedown and exposure of such at quality liberal/ish sites like http://www.washingtonmonthly.com and http://www.delong.typepad.com.
BTW: Thank G-a-w-d I can agree on something, now that we aren't talking about G-a-w-d! (Well, the quasi-the-istic values-expressing Frist (sic) Cause ... ;-) )
Seriously, it is a joy to be able to agree with TM, Tulse and others I disagree with on the big G. We can at least all dump together on the dextrohacks. BTW TM, I still want to communicate about modal realism which I find a fascinating (yet unprovable?) concept.
Her comments were pretty sad. No wonder they hate the european 'socialist' state, where they only work 1 job, 35 hours a week, and they have many free public services paid for via taxes.
I guess she would prefer they work two jobs, 40+ hours a week, and get rid of the free public services but instead pay for them themselves. It's pretty disturbing when you think about it.
Just in case anyone is still reading the comments on this thread...
Here's an unworkable, utopian idea that I thought of this morning, that's nevertheless fun to think about.
I think the salary of each member of each legislative body in the country (congress, state legislature, county board of commissioners, etc.) should should be set in the following way:
*Conduct a census to determine what the annual income of the constituents of each.
*Divide those incomes into brackets, such as $0 - $5,000, $5,001 - $10,000, etc.
*Determine which of those brackets has the largest number of people.
*Set the legislator's salary at something within that bracket. (Where in the bracket is an unimportant detail.)
Notice that this isn't at all the same thing as setting the salary as that of the "average" constituent. So, raising the income of the wealthiest of the constituents wouldn't help the legislator unless that was the bracket that had the largest number of members.
Now, further stipulate that the legislator *must* live on his/her government salary only. And make his/her health benefits only those available to a constituent on public assistance. Any other benefits (like a retirement fund) should be those available to be purchased by a self-employed constituent (and must be purchased out the legislator's salary).
Feel free to pick apart (beside the fact that it will never happen). It's just something I thought up this morning. But it seems like it would be a heck of a better system than most legislative bodies in the U.S. have now. And it might even result in some legislation that would actually benefit the most vulnerable members of society in tangible ways.
Chris
then why was a historical position of the Republicans the elimination of the Department of Education?
Because the largest Republican political base can be briefly described as "ignorant people". (Not the only base, of course. But the largest.)
No, really, it's that simple. Education makes people less likely to vote Republican. So Republicans want to eliminate it. Self-interest uber alles, that's the Republican way.
In its majesty, our economy allows both janitors and hedge fund managers equal opportunities to work a second job running the fryer at McDonalds. Isn't this a great country?
"Education makes people less likely to vote Republican. So Republicans want to eliminate it. Self-interest uber alles, that's the Republican way."
Economic success makes people less likely to vote Democratic. So Democrats want to eliminate it. Self-interest uber alles, that's the Democratic way.
So, um, how exactly do you expect national defense or road maintenance are going to happen?
...and your evidence that Democrats are trying to eliminate economic success would be...?
By the same "logic": Ignorance makes people more likely to vote Republican, therefore Republicans have a vested interest in keeping the public uninformed. And there's acutally evidence for that one, eg. Faux News.
And yet, the richest of the rich tend to be Democrats, and seven years of Republican rule has resulted in the worst economy in my lifetime. Can you reconcile these facts with your claim, Sinbad?
One can only hope that this is irony, sensu stricto. However, one suspects that one's hopes are about to be cruelly dashed.
On Conan, Bill Maher described it accurately, "The xian hillbillies who make up the base of the Republican Party".
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5MyfLmLROHQ
With reference to education and political affiliation, the bulk of the positive correlation is for the Republicans. High school graduation, some college and an undergrad degree all increasingly trend the individual to vote Republican. Something appears to happen in postdoc programs to strongly switch this in the opposite direction.
"I fear there are too many folks who really believe that when the corporation who makes a $1 widget has to pay more taxes, they simply say, "OK, we'll just reach into the giant pile of cash we sit on, and continue to sell the widget for $1."
Let me correct that for you:
I fear there are too many folks who really believe that when the corporation who makes a $1 widget has to pay fewer taxes, they simply say, "OK, we'll just sell the widget for less, and not greedily amass a larger pile of cash to sit on."
The basic problem with your assumption is that a corporation sets it's prices based on the amount it takes to produce it's widgit. The reality of supply demand, however, is that a corporation sets it's prices based the market price it can garner. In our current brand conscious society, very few things made by a large corporation sell for anything near what it cost to make them.
Or did you really think it took $6 to make that plastic toothbrush you bought from when there were dozens of others for <$1?
Eh, yeah. But reasonable people of good will who are equally well informed disagreeing... that happens a lot less often.
Third choice: ignorant.
That said, to be ignorant without noticing it is itself stupid...
Which is why it's called "No Child's Behind Left".
I'll never forget how right after Captain Unelected's first tax cut a poll was published that said 19 (nineteen) % of Americans believed they were among the richest 1 (one) % of Americans (the ones who profited from that tax cut).
Oops, that must be the one comment 121 talks about.
Two words: Somalia, moron.
LOL! No, it got hold up from containing two links. Every ScienceBlogs comment with more than one link is considered spam until manually proven innocent by the blog owner.
Hasn't even reached 300 comments yet :-)
So it's true then: Bill Clinton was the best Republican president you've ever had.
"...and your evidence that Democrats are trying to eliminate economic success would be...?"
In any number of ways, including seeking higher taxes on the more economically successful while pandering to the working class about providing more programs for their alleged benefit without cost to them -- "the rich" will be made to pay for it after all since the evil Republicans tax only the poor donchano. Of course, the actual statistics belie such a claim. As I read them (and for example), in 2004 the wealthiest 1% of taxpayers paid 37% of the total income taxes received and the wealthiest 5% of taxpayers paid 59% of the total income taxes received by the federal government. Despite these numbers, Democrats want to increase taxes on the more economically successful even further. One can of course reasonably debate the priorities of both government expenditures and tax policies. One can even argue that our tax structure isn't progressive enough (though why I'd want to work to create another dollar of income with a marginal tax rate of -- say -- 75% is beyond me). But the numbers make it clear that the populist technique of claiming that the rich don't pay taxes is not just silly, it's a lie, as is the idea that Democrats don't want to tax success out of business.
For example re the numbers: http://www.taxfoundation.org/press/show/22652.html
"And yet, the richest of the rich tend to be Democrats...."
They can afford to be. Plus, the sterotypical limousine liberal is notoriously out-of-touch with reality. Heard a movie star wax eloquent on politics lately?
"...and seven years of Republican rule has resulted in the worst economy in my lifetime. Can you reconcile these facts with your claim, Sinbad?"
I don't think the numbers remotely support the idea that the economy is in terrible shape, despite the real estate correction and dope though I concede the current CIC is.
P.S. The worst economy in my lifetime came when Jimmy Carter was president.
"So it's true then: Bill Clinton was the best Republican president you've ever had.
The combination of Bill Clinton, a Republican Congress and a favorable business cycle resulted in a healthy economy for most of his two terms. You may recall that Wall Street didn't have much to fight with Bubba over.
Minor quibble. The top 1% had the largest percentage drop in effective taxes. The top 60% all profited to one degree or another.
I did my taxes in 2004 and then run the numbers real quick with the charts from 2000. Those numbers said I had about $1200 more in my pocket.
Wait, you're surprised that the people who make more money pay more total dollars in taxes?
The statistics you cite say nothing about the issue you raise, since you're mixing proportion of people with total taxes received. Any sensible person would expect that those who earn more money would pay more taxes in absolute terms. If the wealthiest 1% of taxpayers made 37% of the total income in the country, then paying 37% of the income taxes received would be expected under a completely flat tax system where every citizen, no matter their income, paid the same income percentage in taxes. As it is, you left out the key statistic of total income -- from your link the wealthiest 1% (with an annual income above $364,657), earned 21% of the total US income. So yes, in terms of percentage of income taxed they do pay proportionally somewhat more (as expected in a mildly progressive tax system), but it doesn't seem to me to be as hugely out of whack as you suggest.
According to the IRS, the top 1% of tax returns represent 21% of all income reported. The top 5% represent 36% of all income reported. IOW the figures you quote only show the US tax scheme barely avoids being regressive.
Sinbad wrote, "though why I'd want to work to create another dollar of income with a marginal tax rate of -- say -- 75% is beyond me."
Saaaay. Good point. Maybe, just maybe, those CEO's will settle for a $1,000,000/yr income and invest the rest of the money back into the company. Or pass it out as dividends to the shareholders. And maybe, just maybe, the more popular sports figures and movie stars won't demand a eight-digit income either. Maybe the benefit of not being bombarded with the opinions of clueless, but wealthy, liberal movie stars will offset the cost of a applying disincentive on executive boards willing to destroy a company for personal gain.
You know what? I don't care if the government saw a dime of increased income by putting in a high tax bracket. Just getting the money which is tied up in executive salaries and market accounts flowing again would in itself be a good thing. (Although the Fed would have to monitor the money supply verrry carefully to avoid inflation.)
An economy grows as the number of transactions grow. Right now most of the expansion in the American economy is through increased debt. Debt can only take expansion so far before the debt comes due and spending drops to nothing. We've been in a liquidity trap before, we're heading that way again.
But to those people who argue that a progressivly high income tax on the rich will destroy business, consider this: the post-WWII expansion of the American economy had many factors, but it also had a 90% income tax bracket. Who's to say how much of the expansion was driven by companies finding other ways to use their income rather than paying the executive boards?
But of course, increasing the motivation to re-invest in a business, and creating a disincentive to pillage a healthy business for personal gain is the Democrat's subtle plan to "tax success out of business". Possibly you are confusing business taxes with personal income taxes. A high personal income tax is more likely to result in money being put back into a business then destroy it.
It's the old slaveowner bragging rights. My slaves work harderer than yourn.
Democrats want to increase taxes on the more economically successful even further.
Calling it 'success' makes it sound like the majority of the rich got there purely on their own hard labor, which is nonsense. Having lots of money doesn't mean you work harder than someone who doesn't have a lot of money, it means you were lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time.
Thinking about this reminds me of an position I took a couple of years ago, simply for arguments sake, of putting a 100% inheritance tax in place.
After all, in a fiat money system like our own, the ultimate ownership of all currancy is the issuing authority, i.e. the Fed. So why shouldn't the Fed just zero your accounts when you stop using it? They've only lent it to you anyway.
This way, everyone starts on an equal (somewhat) footing, and accidents of birth are reduced significantly. The wealth you acquire is mainly based on your own exertions.
I know that practically it is an unthinkable proposition. There are cultural, anthropological and psychological reasons why goods are handed down through generations. But it's amazing how many screams you can get by simply suggesting such an idea at a party.
Do they think their local mechanic likes having to put in longer hours grubbing in grease and barking their knuckles and wrenching their backs?
At over $40/hr.? Damn straight he does. And his customers are willing to pay the higher rate rather than have to wait two weeks to get their cars repaired and pay fifty bucks a day for a rental.
Calling it 'success' makes it sound like the majority of the rich got there purely on their own hard labor, which is nonsense. Having lots of money doesn't mean you work harder than someone who doesn't have a lot of money, it means you were lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time.
Oh, that's right. The guy who started the small business by investing all of his savings, working seven days a week, making good decisions, taking advantage of his educational opportunities, not using drugs, was just lucky. If someone spends his high school years tripping out on acid, fails to develop marketable job skills, takes whatever dead-end job that comes along, produces a kid he can't afford to raise and spends his money on cigarettes, beer, lottery tickets, fancy cars and other bling, this individual was merely less fortunate. It wasn't really his fault. It was the society's fault, or his parents' fault, or George Bush's fault, or the fault of the evil, hated rich (the ones who create the jobs).
At least in the alleged minds of those who spend their days repeating moveon.org talking points.
The guy who started the small business by investing all of his savings, working seven days a week, making good decisions, taking advantage of his educational opportunities, not using drugs, was just lucky.
if all small businesses owners that worked hard ended up with a successful business that made them rich, you might have a point.
that is hardly the case (I'm sure that must come as a shock to you). Indeed luck DOES have a lot to do with whether a given business is successful or not.
go blow, Joe.
you haven't the slightest clue what you're talking about.
The guy who started the small business by investing all of his savings, working seven days a week, making good decisions, taking advantage of his educational opportunities, not using drugs, was just lucky.
So the majority of people who do all those things have economic success? And the majority of people with economic success have done those things? I think not. The best way to determine if someone is going to be well off is to look at whether their parents are well off. If their parents are then the chance is that they will be.
I never claimed that the rich are to blame or Bush, it's a structural problem, and it is people like you who want someone to blame. I want to fix the problem.
At over $40/hr.? Damn straight he does.
how many mechanics are you personally familiar with that actually pull down that rate on a regular basis for themselves?
something tells me you only know mechanics from the end of complaining about how long they take to fix your car, though.
strangely enough, I myself know a few mechanics, one who owns his own transmission shop.
go figure, his wife who teaches elementary school makes more money annually than he does.
please don't try to tell us you think that elementary school teachers are getting paid so much they are all rich.
moron.
if all small businesses owners that worked hard ended up with a successful business that made them rich, you might have a point.
I never claimed that all hard-working business owners were successful, only that these two things are positively correlated. You seem to have a reading comprehension problem.
that is hardly the case (I'm sure that must come as a shock to you). Indeed luck DOES have a lot to do with whether a given business is successful or not.
And indeed that is why one needs to have contingency plans, not to mention a workable, fully researched business plan in the first place. Lack of same is the number one reason businesses fail. Ever heard of saving for a rainy day?
go blow, Joe.
you haven't the slightest clue what you're talking about.
Nice personal attack. Yet you offer no evidence to indicate that you do know what you're talking about. Typical.
I never claimed that all hard-working business owners were successful, only that these two things are positively correlated. You seem to have a reading comprehension problem.
you seem to have a reality comprehension problem.
Yet you offer no evidence to indicate that you do know what you're talking about. Typical.
nice projection.
typical.
So the majority of people who do all those things have economic success? And the majority of people with economic success have done those things?
Absolutely. Education and income are positively correlated. Work ethic and income are positively correlated. Spending on lottery tickets and income are negatively correlated.
I think not. The best way to determine if someone is going to be well off is to look at whether their parents are well off. If their parents are then the chance is that they will be.
Based on what? Wealth envy? How do you explain immigrants who have come to North America virtually penniless and have built successful businesses?
I never claimed that the rich are to blame or Bush, it's a structural problem, and it is people like you who want someone to blame. I want to fix the problem.
...by taxing the successful to the point where they leave the country and take their jobs with them.
you seem to have a reality comprehension problem.
Whatever that means. Again no evidence presented.
nice projection.
typical.
You simply repeated what I said, changing a couple of words in true "I know you are but what am I?" style. Tell me, did you come up with that yourself or did Mommy and Daddy help you?
When you get to high school, you'll learn something about making a coherent argument by addressing the substance of the subject at hand. Then again, maybe not.
Joe,
"Do they think their local mechanic likes having to put in longer hours grubbing in grease and barking their knuckles and wrenching their backs?
At over $40/hr.? Damn straight he does."
No, he doesn't. You don't know any mechanics do you. I was one for over four years, go talk to them. You obviously are clueless to the state of people who work for a living. There are people like you out there that only care about money. Most don't. If that was all I cared about I'd just go fuck other guys for a couple hundred bucks an hour and wish for more holes and time.
Explain to me what you find so appealing about 18th century France, etc. That's what you seem to want. Lotsa rich folk creating jobs for the masses. One of the things America was set up to do was get rid of the blueblood ownership society, to move wealth amoung the people. Don't think so? spend some time doing a little research. God your an idiot.
Education and income are positively correlated.
Yep, those in wealthier families are more likely to get better educations.
Work ethic and income are positively correlated.
Only in comparable cases. i.e. a janitor that works twice as much as a janitor paid the same will make twice as much, if not more, but no matter how hard he works he will never make as much as the son of a millionaire get for simply being born.
Spending on lottery tickets and income are negatively correlated.
Do you have any data to actually back this up, or are you just making shit up? Because, if you do have data it would be great to see it.
How do you explain immigrants who have come to North America virtually penniless and have built successful businesses?
And I suppose all of the ones who haven't, the vast majority, are lazy, stupid good for nothings. Stop putting words in my mouth. I never said that no one could make it with hard work. Obviously hard work has helped those who get to the top get there, if they weren't born there like half of the ten richest Americans. The people you are talking about are statistical outliers. Having money means you get a better education, you know more people with money and you have a better chance of earning more money. If you are disputing that then you are being willfully ignorant.
by taxing the successful to the point where they leave the country and take their jobs with them.
Yes, there is just a massive influx of emigration by the rich every time the tax rates go up. Nonsense.
how many mechanics are you personally familiar with that actually pull down that rate on a regular basis for themselves?
Several. I know one who had a six-figure income, sold his shop at age 50, and used much of the proceeds to put his daughter through medical school. I know another who made enough to buy several collector cars.
something tells me you only know mechanics from the end of complaining about how long they take to fix your car, though.
That would be the voices in your head. You might want to get help with that, since said voices are providing you with inaccurate information.
strangely enough, I myself know a few mechanics, one who owns his own transmission shop.go figure, his wife who teaches elementary school makes more money annually than he does.
Certainly there are exceptions. The reasons could be many: over-saturation of the market, over-charging customers, a reputation for poor workmanship, etc. In the area where I live, auto shops are perpetually hiring, as well as petitioning the government to provide subsidies for colleges with auto mechanics programs. This will drive wages in only one direction, and it isn't down!
please don't try to tell us you think that elementary school teachers are getting paid so much they are all rich.
I never said they were. Then again, comparing people in different industries who do different jobs under different conditions doesn't really lead to any useful conclusions.
moron.
Once again with the juvenile name-calling. By the way, you may want to have your keyboard examined. The shift key doesn't seem to be working.
Sinbad:
Heard a country music star was eloquently on the just war in Iraq lately?
The fact that you buy into (or even invoke) the stereotypes illustrates the problem nicely. Aren't the stereotypes exactly what you're trying to puncture, here? You can't have it both ways.
In the area where I live, auto shops are perpetually hiring, as well as petitioning the government to provide subsidies for colleges with auto mechanics programs. This will drive wages in only one direction, and it isn't down!
Is that sarcasm? How will more trained mechanics not drive prices down?
Joe,
OK, let me try to explain. First, if you're making a good wage as a mechanic or whatever, let's say $40 an hour (good work if you can get it, I'm a master woodworker and when I left to go back to school I was making $17 an hour, top in my shop), you're not going to get rich, but you can be comfortable. If you work 55 hours a week instead of 40, you still won't get rich, you'll be somewhat more comfortable, but won't have any time to enjoy it. Still with me? It's pretty easy so far. Most of the laborers I know are working about 50 - 55 hours a week. They don't want any more time. They want time off to relax, hunt, fish, be with their families, etc more than they want another couple hundred bucks. Does this mean they're lazy? Nope, just that they see life as being more than just a "I got the most cash" sort of thing. They still manage to put their families through school, etc, but it IS becoming harder since most of them now have to pay their own benefits. As far as the name calling...you're an idiot, most people here are gonna call it like it is.
By the way, if you didn't quite understand, the reason they work 45 hours a week instead of 40 even when they don't want to is because they'll be fired if they refuse.
No, he doesn't. You don't know any mechanics do you. I was one for over four years, go talk to them.
As I pointed out in an earlier comment, I have. I know people who have been practising the trade for over 30 years, are damn good at it and love the work. Yes, they are financially successful, but would probably do the same work even without said rewards.
The fact that you left the trade after four years means that it was not the career for you, and this very likely has coloured your perception of the industry. Or maybe you just weren't very good at it. Whatever the case, you exercised your right to vote with your feet and do something else with your life. That's what happens in a free society.
You obviously are clueless to the state of people who work for a living. There are people like you out there that only care about money.
That would mean that I am clueless to the state of myself, since I work for a living. In fact, I get up at 5:30 every morning, drive a half-hour to the office, work until 5:30 or 6:00 or sometimes later in the evening, then drive home in the dark (at least this time of year). The reason I do it is that I like the job, and my colleagues. If I didn't, I wouldn't go through all of the things I just mentioned. No, I don't "only care about money". I have the job skills and experience to obtain a higher-paying job in another part of the world if I really want to.
Just the same, I really appreciate your ability to form such judgements about people whom you don't even know. You must be psychic or something.
Explain to me what you find so appealing about 18th century France, etc. That's what you seem to want.
I have never said any such thing. I suggest you go back and re-read what I wrote. You may also want to work on your reading comprehension.
Lotsa rich folk creating jobs for the masses.
And if the "rich folk" don't create jobs, who will? You? Ted Kennedy?
One of the things America was set up to do was get rid of the blueblood ownership society, to move wealth amoung the people.
This is riotous nonsense. Show me which article of the Constitution enumerates the right of the government "to move wealth among the people".
Don't think so? spend some time doing a little research.
I would suggest that you do the same. And this time use something other than Democratic Party propaganda.
God your an idiot.
(1) I am not God. I thought most everyone on here (myself included) was atheist. Was I making an incorrect assumption?
(2) This is coming from someone who doesn't know the difference between a contraction and a possessive.
(3) More name calling. Hint: it doesn't help your credibility.
Not worried about my credibility, I'm worried about the truth. You aren't interested in that, I'm not interested in you. You made many pedantic and pathetic attempts to refute my post, but none that are really worth my time since you won't be swayed by reason or anything else. "I'm not God" please, who's being juvenile?
Glad you like your job, glad you have options, wish you cared enough about others to make that happen for them too. Perhaps you do, but you're just ignorant. Like I said though, you just don't seem that interested.
Ted Kennedy reference? ROFL! Sweet Jesus on a Popsicle Stick, you really are one for the records!
Gotta go for now, got work to do...
Joe Blow wrote, "At over $40/hr...."
Reality check. $40/hr wage is roughly $80,000/yr.
Thats'a nice'a wage.
However, let's verify this claim with the Bureau of Labor Statistics....
http://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes493023.htm
Hmm. Mean hourly wage: $17.34. Median hourly wage: $16.24
90% of automotive mechanics make less than $27.22/hr. (most a lot less, as the median tells you).
90% of automotive mechanics make less than $56,620/yr.
Oh, but wait, your friend owned a repair shop. As Joe helpfully informs us, "I know one who had a six-figure income, sold his shop at age 50...."
(My bold.)
What was he paying the help?
Concern Troll Joe Blow.... Blow.
Is $56,620/yr considered a low wage?
I am curious as to what number ranges people here consider acceptable for a living wage.
Depends where you're earning it - the cost of living varies wildly in different parts of the US. In most rural areas, it'd be a pretty good wage. In, say, Manhattan, you'd be living in a closet.
No I don't think $56,620/yr is a low wage, and I doubt that most people here would think so. (Although I realize that I'm not speaking for everyone.)
But remember, one of ten auto mechanics earns this much or more. Nine out of ten earn less.
What you really want to compare to get some idea of how well the profession does as a whole is to look at median wage. At the median wage, auto mechanics earn about $33,780/yr. Over $20,000 less per year.
Again, most people wouldn't consider this a poverty wage, and maybe not even a low wage, but that's living on about $1100/month after taxes. Which means rent, food, and utilities are coming out of that $1100. That's just a ballpark estimate for the tax level, it could vary by a couple hundred. But even if it does rent alone will eat up about half of that income.
Now, if you compare the mean wage of an auto mechanic with the mean wage of, say, a middle school teacher, you will fnid that automotive machanics make quite a bit less, with middle school teachers making a median wage of $46,300. But you will also find that the distribution is a little tighter on middle school teachers. This reduced distribution to some degree reflects the reduction in elasticity for the profession. Even though both professions have just under 650,000 people working in them in the USA, middle school teachers start out at a higher wage and peak sooner. (Although the peak wage for a middle school teacher is higher than an automotive mechanic, the teachers reach that peak sooner.)
Further, as Joe does correctly indicate, an automotive mechanic may well be able to transform himself into a small businessman by buying a shop, while a middle school teacher has a lot fewer places to take his specialized knowledge. This increased opportunity is one of reasons why automotive mechanics and other skilled tradesmen are often used as examples as how hard work can lead to big bucks.
I've never seen anyone use the earning potential of a middle school teacher as an example of how hard work leads to fortunes.
Yep, those in wealthier families are more likely to get better educations.
They may have more educational opportunities, but there is no guarantee that they will take advantage of these opportunities.
During my undergraduate years, there were numerous sons and daughters of wealthy foreign government officials / diplomats who attended my university. Many of them drank, snorted and smoked their way onto academic probation and eventually expulsion, failing to graduate. I had friends who were from the same countries as these individuals, not as well off, and they were on the Dean's List. How do you explain that? What about Paris Hilton?
Work ethic and income are positively correlated.
Only in comparable cases. i.e. a janitor that works twice as much as a janitor paid the same will make twice as much, if not more, but no matter how hard he works he will never make as much as the son of a millionaire get for simply being born.
That's due to supply and demand. Because the number of people capable of doing janitorial work is much more than the demand, janitors don't make that much money.
The comparison to the "son of a millionaire" is not valid, since you are comparing wealth to income. These are not the same.
By the way, why shouldn't people be able to provide for their children out of money that they have earned?
Spending on lottery tickets and income are negatively correlated.
Do you have any data to actually back this up, or are you just making shit up? Because, if you do have data it would be great to see it.
Data? Absolutely! Try http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1541-0072.1994.tb014…
Now, how about you follow your own advice and provide some evidence to support your position?
How do you explain immigrants who have come to North America virtually penniless and have built successful businesses?
And I suppose all of the ones who haven't, the vast majority, are lazy, stupid good for nothings. Stop putting words in my mouth.
You mean, like you just did to me? I never said anything of the sort.
I never said that no one could make it with hard work. Obviously hard work has helped those who get to the top get there, if they weren't born there like half of the ten richest Americans.
Ah, now we get to the crux of the matter! You are basing your entire case on a sample of size FIVE!!!!. Let me educate you about probability theory. Generally speaking, the larger a sample is, the more representative it will be of the sample space. Why don't you look at the hundred thousand richest Americans, who would still constitute less than one-third of one per cent of the country's total population?
The people you are talking about are statistical outliers.
Which is a fancy way of saying, "There is room for anyone at the top, but not room for everyone at the top." Talent is normally distributed within any sufficiently large population.
Having money means you get a better education,
Not necessarily. See above.
you know more people with money
Whoop-dee-doo. Bernie Ebbers knew people with money; so did Conrad Black. Funny how it didn't keep them out of prison.
and you have a better chance of earning more money.
...assuming you don't squander those opportunities. I've never claimed that life was fair. One does the best one can with what one has. Many people born into wealth have failed in this area. Look at Ted Kennedy farting away his career on booze and women.
Yes, there is just a massive influx of emigration by the rich every time the tax rates go up. Nonsense.
Then please explain the thirteen trillion dollars owned by U. S. citizens and corporations currently invested off-shore.
Oh, but wait, your friend owned a repair shop. As Joe helpfully informs us, "I know one who had a six-figure income, sold his shop at age 50...."
(My bold.)
What was he paying the help?
He paid among the highest wages in town, and was always being contacted by mechanics wanting to work for him.
Concern Troll Joe Blow.... Blow.
Huh? I think your keyboard is stuttering.
Your definition of Concern Troll: anyone who disagrees with anything you say.
Is that sarcasm? How will more trained mechanics not drive prices down?
I wasn't saying that it would not. Rather, I was pointing out that a shortage of mechanics will cause wages to rise significantly.
Don't go down that road. *grin*
Their working definition actually seems to be a bit tighter than that. I think anyone who expresses the sentiment that the insults are either childish, ineffective, or counterproductive acquire the label. Just do not try to use the Wiki definition. It, apparently, is incorrect.
Of course not.
Now where's your evidence that this describes more than a small fraction of the economically disadvantaged?
Ya gotta love how trolls like Joe Blow immediately move past points where they're shown to be wrong onto something else. Someone points out you're wrong about wages? Just ignore it and go to something new. Can't answer a question? Attack their punctuation. And best yet, see how many times you can bring up someone like Ted Kennedy (a hint to you trolls, try to keep the people you reference somewhat topical. using states-people from a different era shows how old your thinking is). Twice and counting so far!
Here's a couple of questions for Joe to ask himself. Who were the main economists that came up with the trickle-down theory he seems to like so much and what did they have to say about it after it was implemented by Reagan? If you don't know, you should, being such a proponent. Give ya a hint. They realized it was of very limited help.
Not worried about my credibility, I'm worried about the truth.
That's rich. You don't care about whether or not what you say has any legitimacy, but you care about the truth. I guess it all depends on how one defines "truth", doesn't it?
You aren't interested in that, I'm not interested in you.
Well, what do you know? Another psychic who knows what I'm not interested in.
You made many pedantic and pathetic attempts to refute my post,
Please demonstrate how anything I said is "pedantic" or "pathetic". Please also show us that you know the meanings of these words.
but none that are really worth my time since you won't be swayed by reason or anything else.
Try using some reason, and maybe I'll be convinced.
"I'm not God" please, who's being juvenile?
All of the name-callers.
Glad you like your job, glad you have options, wish you cared enough about others to make that happen for them too. Perhaps you do, but you're just ignorant. Like I said though, you just don't seem that interested.
I very much do care, and the best way to "make it happen" is to convince people of the importance of taking advantage of opportunities, and to get the government out of people's lives.
I myself am for getting rid of taxes all together, which might seem a little extreme, but I don't think of absolute insanity when I here republicans are doing this.
- thoughts from a fiscal conservative atheist
Uh, right, someone proposing something absolutely insane doesn't think of absolute insanity when he hears Republicans proposing quite insane things (but not quite as insane as eliminating all taxes).
Joe Blow wrote, "Why don't you look at the hundred thousand richest Americans, who would still constitute less than one-third of one per cent of the country's total population?"
I don't know. It appears to be your claim that a large number of them worked their way up from, well, at least a middle class income level.
So, how many of the richest 100,000 Americans became rich through hard work? That is, without inheriting it, or without immigrating with it. If you have the data let's see it. Frankly, I don't have that data, and I don't even know where to find it.
Oh, and BTW, while your link to the 1994 journal article on the lottery requires payment to read the article, I luckily, have access to the text through my university library account. Maybe you would like a quote or two?
From, A model of lottery participation: Demographics, context, and attitudes. Herring, Mary, Bledsoe, Timothy. Policy Studies Journal. Urbana: Summer 1994. Vol. 22, Iss. 2; pg. 245
"The mean expenditure of the least affluent respondents is more than eight times that of the wealthiest respondents"
"Thus, like Livernois (1987), we find that, while higher-income respondents are more likely to play, they spend a significantly lower share of their income on the lottery. Like Clotfelter and Cook (1987), we find that dollar expenditure is not related linearly to income, but that expenditure as a percentage of income is related linearly to income. is finding is consistent with Friedman and Savage's (1948) argument that people are more likely to take a risk if the payoff would result in a change to their standard of living. Since winning, say, $1000 would have a much greater effect on the lifestyle of a poor person than on a wealthy one, the increased benefit from winning a lottery prize would help account for why the less affluent do not spend fewer dollars than the wealthy, and why they do spend greater portions of their income than the wealthy"
"...while black respondents are less likely than nonblacks to have played, on the average they spend $73 more per year on lottery tickets than do nonblacks. As a percent of income, their expenditure was more than two and a half times as great as that for nonblack respondents."
"Enjoyment of lottery participation is significantly higher among those with lower income and education levels,..."
Your evidence doesn't appear to support your position.
Oh, wait. Bait and switch time again. Your claim was that income and spending on lottery tickets was negatively correlated. So the fellow who earns $40,000/yr spends more on lottery tickets than the fellow who earns $10,000/yr?
Nope. wrong again. From the same paper, "However, there is no apparent relationship between income and lottery participation when measured as annual dollar expenditure."
Any more evidence?
They may have more educational opportunities, but there is no guarantee that they will take advantage of these opportunities.
Which doesn't change my point at all. Those who are born into rich families are more likely to get a good education than those who are not born into rich families. You didn't dispute this.
By the way, why shouldn't people be able to provide for their children out of money that they have earned?
I never said they shouldn't. But if anyone wants a real meritocracy then they would have to support that. You seem to be claiming that we have both a meritocracy, based on "hard-work" and that it is a good thing for money to be passed down to children. These are not compatible.
Data? Absolutely!
Thanks, looks like you're right. But are you really claiming that it i buying lottery tickets that is keeping poor people from getting rich?
Ah, now we get to the crux of the matter! You are basing your entire case on a sample of size FIVE!!!!. Let me educate you about probability theory.
That's what is called 'giving an example.' I understand what sample size is.
Talent is normally distributed within any sufficiently large population.
We aren't talking about talent, we are talking about money. How did you miss that?
Whoop-dee-doo. Bernie Ebbers knew people with money; so did Conrad Black. Funny how it didn't keep them out of prison.
Weren't you the one that just mentioned small sample size?
Then please explain the thirteen trillion dollars owned by U. S. citizens and corporations currently invested off-shore.
By that rationale we should simply reduce our tax rates to zero and let the money come rolling back in to the U.S. The problem is that there are numerous reasons for offshore investments, most of which have nothing to do with our tax law. Corporations own factories abroad because the labor is cheaper. Corporations own natural resources abroad. People own real estate abroad because they visit. They have money in accounts in countries that have taxes at a level that we could never achieve given our size.
Re: $33k turning into $1100 monthly after taxes.
Umm, was this a guessimate from a European or Canadian perspective?
I dug through some of my old tax returns for incomes ranging from the low thirties up to fifty thousand. Filing as a single with no children, I paid about twenty-five percent of my total to state, federal, social security and medicare.
Shouldn't a wage earner making $33k annual be getting around $2000 per month?
Ya gotta love how trolls like Joe Blow immediately move past points where they're shown to be wrong onto something else.
Ya gotta love how folks like Syble don't seem to have the capability to post anything without resorting to name-calling and personal attacks. They must be pretty bored.
Someone points out you're wrong about wages? Just ignore it and go to something new.
Please provide evidence to document this claim. Where was I wrong about wages?
Can't answer a question? Attack their punctuation.
If someone calls me an idiot or moron, while simultaneously failing to observe basic rules of grammar and punctuation (something that is taught in elementary school), then I am fully justified in pointing out the irony of the situation. And where is your evidence that I "can't answer a question"?
And best yet, see how many times you can bring up someone like Ted Kennedy (a hint to you trolls, try to keep the people you reference somewhat topical. using states-people from a different era shows how old your thinking is). Twice and counting so far!
Last I checked, ol' Ted was still a member of the United States Senate. For some reason, the good folks of Taxachussets keep sending him back to D. C. Therefore, by your logic, the present is a "different era". Explain.
Here's a couple of questions for Joe to ask himself. Who were the main economists that came up with the trickle-down theory he seems to like so much and what did they have to say about it after it was implemented by Reagan? If you don't know, you should, being such a proponent. Give ya a hint. They realized it was of very limited help.
Please provide evidence to document this claim. The United States enjoyed its greatest economic prosperity under Reagan.
Sorry Sean, you could be right. I was guesstimating from some assumptions I pulled out of my ass. (And as I look over them, I see I made a calculation error myself.) Thanks for the sanity check.
Let's see how your numbers work. ($33k + .75)/12 = ~2K.
Okay. I haven't earned that little in some time and while my gross pay is more than twice that now, my income is not nearly twice that. So I must be in a higher tax bracket than I assumed, my apologies.
$2k a month isn't nearly as bad as $1100. At today's interest rate, in my area, that should allow you to buy a $100k house and still live reasonably well.
Not that this makes the earner rich by any measure.
For some reason, the good folks of Taxachussets keep sending him back to D. C.
And for some reason fuckwits keep calling a state in the middle of the pack when it comes to taxes by a ridiculous bullshit name.
Now where's your evidence that this describes more than a small fraction of the economically disadvantaged?
Where's your evidence that it doesn't? And here we go again with this "disadvantaged" nonsense. Everyone is disadvantaged in some sense of the word. What counts is what we do with those talents / abilities that we do have.
Taxachussets
You know you sound like an idiot when you call it that. Right?
"Corrupt or stupid, take your pick."
Third choice: ignorant.
That said, to be ignorant without noticing it is itself stupid...
Or corrupt (intellectually dishonest, in this case). That's why I think the two choices cover it. Anyone who actually thinks that dismantling the public education system yields "the greater good" has not engaged in any sort of rational cognitive process; most likely they have simply adopted a talking point from some Republican "opinion maker", and doing so is both stupid and corrupt. And those who claim that it's for the greater good while not actually caring for the greater good (like those who blather about bringing democracy to Iraq while hating Iraqis) are obviously corrupt.
I've known Republicans who appeared to be neither stupid nor corrupt -- but they are no longer Republicans.
(Of course, there are non-Republicans who are stupid or corrupt as well.)
For some reason, the good folks of Taxachussets keep sending him back to D. C.
And for some reason fuckwits keep calling a state in the middle of the pack when it comes to taxes by a ridiculous bullshit name.
And, for some reason, you seem incapable of making a comment without resorting to name-calling and/or profanity. You might want to consider getting a vocabulary.
"According to the IRS, the top 1% of tax returns represent 21% of all income reported. The top 5% represent 36% of all income reported. IOW the figures you quote only show the US tax scheme barely avoids being regressive."
Add in sales and other indirect taxes and state incoem taxes and in a number of states the total tax burden is actually regressive - i.e. the poor pay a HIGHER percentage of their income in tax of one form or another.
Texas is one of those states.
I don't know if George Bush as governor had anything to do with that, but he sure didn't fix it.
A couple more things for Joe.
Joe wrote, "Then please explain the thirteen trillion dollars owned by U. S. citizens and corporations currently invested off-shore."
Umm, ROI, or Return On Investment if you are not familiar with the term. Nothing to do with tax law. A lot to do with how much money can be made in a rapidly expanding economy.
And Joe wrote, "He paid among the highest wages in town, and was always being contacted by mechanics wanting to work for him."
Which didn't answer the question. How much was your friend paying his mechanics as an hourly wage?
As I read them (and for example), in 2004 the wealthiest 1% of taxpayers paid 37% of the total income taxes received and the wealthiest 5% of taxpayers paid 59% of the total income taxes received by the federal government.
Thereby ending their economic success, eh?
Fucking corrupt moron.
"Having lots of money doesn't mean you work harder than someone who doesn't have a lot of money, it means you were lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time."
Don't forget that in most cases "the right place" is the maternity ward.
Joe, last time I'll comment here. You can have the last word. I'm sure that'll make you feel good. Here's my thoughts on your comments to my last ones:
Not worried about my credibility, I'm worried about the truth.
That's rich. You don't care about whether or not what you say has any legitimacy (No, I said I'm not worried about MY credibility. I said nothing about not caring about whether or not what I say is legitimate or not. Please try to pay attention), but you care about the truth. I guess it all depends on how one defines "truth" (That, what "is" is sort of thing I see. Well, truth conforms to reality, to facts. That's its definition. That's what I'm dealing with, not what I wish things were like.), doesn't it?
You aren't interested in that, I'm not interested in you.
Well, what do you know? Another psychic who knows what I'm not interested in (it has nothing to do with being psychic, it's not hard to tell, after a small amount of time conversing with someone, when someone has shown no curiousity in a topic. Their ignorance gives it away.).
You made many pedantic and pathetic attempts to refute my post,
Please demonstrate how anything I said is "pedantic" or "pathetic". Please also show us that you know the meanings of these words (the pedantic part comes because of your tiresome quarreling about minutia while ignoring the greater whole, the pathetic part comes from the same source. Arguing without knowledge is indeed the epitomy of pathos).
but none that are really worth my time since you won't be swayed by reason or anything else.
Try using some reason and maybe I'll be convinced (the "I know you are, but what am I" argument. Enough said.).
"I'm not God" please, who's being juvenile?
All of the name-callers (But certainly not yourself in acting like you're unaware of what the phrase means).
Glad you like your job, glad you have options, wish you cared enough about others to make that happen for them too. Perhaps you do, but you're just ignorant. Like I said though, you just don't seem that interested.
I very much do care, and the best way to "make it happen" is to convince people of the importance of taking advantage of opportunities, and to get the government out of people's lives (You have stated an opinion here. Great. Now we all breathlessly await the data that back this up.).
Like I said, have the last word. It doesn't matter to me. It won't make your assertations any more correct.
Taxachussets
You know you sound like an idiot when you call it that. Right?
Wrong. Project much?
though why I'd want to work to create another dollar of income with a marginal tax rate of -- say -- 75% is beyond me
You think the income that would be taxed at that rate is the result of work?
Fucking corrupt moron.
"Oh, that's right. The guy who started the small business by investing all of his savings, working seven days a week, making good decisions, taking advantage of his educational opportunities, not using drugs, was just lucky."
I did all that.
I also put myself through University by working nights carting around 60 pound mail sacks.
I think you're full of shit.
Wrong. Project much?
Um, what 'cute' little phrase did I use that makes me sound like an idiot? Am I spouting about AmeriKKKa or any other such nonsense? Do you know what 'project' means?
No, I'm not. I'm trying to have a genuine conversation and you feel the need to use abrasive little nicknames for states that do thing that you don't agree with.
"In the area where I live, auto shops are perpetually hiring, as well as petitioning the government to provide subsidies for colleges with auto mechanics programs. This will drive wages in only one direction, and it isn't down!"
Yes, increasing the supply of skilled labor through subsidised training will obviously increase wages.
Republonomics 101, people.
Next week: why tax cuts increase government revenue and tax increases decrease it (that's why the budget deficit blew out when Clinton raised taxes.)
Oh, that's right. The guy who started the small business by investing all of his savings, working seven days a week, making good decisions, taking advantage of his educational opportunities, not using drugs, was just lucky. If someone spends his high school years tripping out on acid, fails to develop marketable job skills, takes whatever dead-end job that comes along, produces a kid he can't afford to raise and spends his money on cigarettes, beer, lottery tickets, fancy cars and other bling, this individual was merely less fortunate. It wasn't really his fault.
How much money do you make at that cherry picking?
Fucking corrupt moron.
"Then please explain the thirteen trillion dollars owned by U. S. citizens and corporations currently invested off-shore."
So, foreign investment by a country's citizens is a sign of economic weakness?
More Republonomics 101 people.
Plus aren't you part of the party which keeps telling people how much better the investment climate is in the US?
All of a sudden US citizens are investing their money in Japan and the EU for tax reasons?
"I am not God. I thought most everyone on here (myself included) was atheist. Was I making an incorrect assumption?"
Yes.
The fact that you call your Gods "America" and "the free market" rather than Jesus or Allah doesn't make you any less a religious zealot.
"Oh, that's right. The guy who started the small business by investing all of his savings, working seven days a week, making good decisions, taking advantage of his educational opportunities, not using drugs, was just lucky."
I did all that.
I also put myself through University by working nights carting around 60 pound mail sacks.
And I'm willing to bet you benefitted from all of this.
I think you're full of shit.
How intelligent! Just use profanity to prove your point. Just like in the schoolyard in third grade.
"Last I checked, ol' Ted was still a member of the United States Senate. For some reason, the good folks of Taxachussets keep sending him back to D. C. Therefore, by your logic, the present is a "different era". Explain"
Because he's a dinosaur, much like good ol' Strom was before he kicked the bucket. I wouldn't be so stupid as to tailor my arguments against someone like Thurmond, wondered why you would.
"Please provide evidence to document this claim. The United States enjoyed its greatest economic prosperity under Reagan."
From 1980 to 1993, average incomes of the top 5 percent rose 62 percent, the top 20 percent rose 34 percent, and the middle was stagnant. The bottom quintile actually saw its income decline by 10 percent in real terms.
I suppose I'll need to send you the links verifying this, cross referance them for you and etc. You really do expect the folk here to do an awful lot of work for you to cure your ignorance while at the same time insluting them.
How much money do you make at that cherry picking?
I don't pick cherries.
Fucking corrupt moron.
Is that the extent of your vocabulary? No wonder you're so bitter.
Now where's your evidence that this describes more than a small fraction of the economically disadvantaged?
Where's your evidence that it doesn't?
It was your argument, fuckface, so it's your burden to provide the evidence. And all the whining in the world about calling your names you deserve will change the fact that you deserve them, you putrid piece of shit. If you don't want to engage with people who think you're scum, go back to freeperville.
The fact that you call your Gods "America" and "the free market" rather than Jesus or Allah doesn't make you any less a religious zealot.
And the fact that you call your gods "Hillary" and "government" doesn't make you any less a religious zealot either.
average incomes of the top 5 percent rose 62 percent, the top 20 percent rose 34 percent, and the middle was stagnant. The bottom quintile actually saw its income decline by 10 percent in real terms.
Exactly. The economy was great. It's only that top quintile that matters.
The only time in the past 35 or so years that the bottom quintile saw a real rise was under Clinton.
I don't pick cherries.
Moron.
"Please provide evidence to document this claim. The United States enjoyed its greatest economic prosperity under Reagan."
Is that ignorance or downright dishonesty?
To take the simplest definition of prosperity, real per capita income, it is clear Americans were more prosperous under all of Reagan's successors. (Actually thanks to the recession of 1991/92 that might not be correct for Bush Sr.)
"Now where's your evidence that this describes more than a small fraction of the economically disadvantaged?
Where's your evidence that it doesn't? And here we go again with this "disadvantaged" nonsense. "
So if I say "the overwhelming majority of Republicans are pedophiles" and you ask for evidence of this I can simply respond "where's your evidence they aren't?"
"How intelligent! Just use profanity to prove your point. Just like in the schoolyard in third grade."
Actually I've spent the past hour explaining in detail WHY I think you're full of shit.
Sometimes, brevity is a virtue.
Moron.
Well, ladies and gentlemen, what we have here is a frustrated liberal. The species is notable for its fake anger, juvenile name-calling, endless repetition of meaningless catch-phrases and frequent use of profanity resulting from a lack of vocabulary.
It also has an over-inflated sense of its own importance, usually demonstrated by its choice of name (truth machine indeed!).
Don't expect it to actually make a coherent argument; rather, insults are its stock in trade.
These traits of the species tend to disappear after the organism passes through puberty, and gains some real-world experience dealing with other organisms.
Joe Blow established what sort of dishonest asshole he is right out of the gate with such idiotic garbage as claiming that successful people make good decisions, unsuccessful people make bad ones, no luck involved. Nothing of value can be had from any further exchange with him; certainly no one will change his views and he will change no one's views. The only fact of relevance is that he's contemptible.
Don't expect it to actually make a coherent argument
Noting your cherry picking was a coherent argument; your retort that you don't pick cherries was moronic; noting that it was moronic was also coherent. The fact is that I'm well known in these parts for making coherent arguments, while you appear to be a troll who wandered in from the Free Republic.
To take the simplest definition of prosperity, real per capita income, it is clear Americans were more prosperous under all of Reagan's successors. (Actually thanks to the recession of 1991/92 that might not be correct for Bush Sr.)
His successors were merely long-term beneficiaries of Reagan's policies. The best that can be said is that they didn't screw up a winning formula.
Actually the main reason the US has $13 billion in overseas investment is because after World War II the dollar was strong and the US government actively encouraged US firms to invest in rebuilding the economics of Europe and Japan. With the passage of decades some quite modest investments (such as GM's European carmaking operations have become extremely valuable.)
For the past couple of decades the US has been financing its current account deficit by selling assets to foreigners and borrowing from them.
Americans long ago ceased to be net offshore investors and foreigners are increasingly large investors in the US.
Joe, You've gotta let us all know. Are you around 65 or 70 years old and still base your knowledge of how the world works on what you learned 35 or 40 years ago, or are you a 12 year old play-acting a 65 year old man that's that out of touch. I, personally, am DYING to know. I've got a bet on with my friend. I'm going with the actual old ignoramus theory myself.
Ian Gould wrote, "Is that ignorance or downright dishonesty?"
Which why I still call 'troll' for poor Mr. Blow. I'll drop the concern label.
Every bit of evidence he's provided to support any position he's taken has fallen to pieces, and he ignores it. Not that he tries to use the same evidence twice, I'll give him that.
But every imagined slight upon his character is repaid with another insult. Classic troll behavior.
On the other hand, it's like arguing with my uncle, who did manage to work his way from a middle-class level up to a middle-class level over the period of his life. My uncle believes that because he earned enough to send his children to college, build his own home (with a pool even!), and have a cabin up north he can go hunting at, he must be better off than his parents.
Well, I know my uncle's parents (our family has been long-lived and middle-class for several generations). They were not interested in hunting, they offered to help pay for his college and since he was getting free tuition through work he declined their offer, and his parents never wanted a pool.
Because he worked hard and got what he wanted, while his parents didn't have what he wanted, he considers himself as being better off than his parents.
I'm reminded of a quote I can't be bothered right now to look up. It's not that important, but it's something about how we see ourselves only as through a glass darkly.
:His successors were merely long-term beneficiaries of Reagan's policies"
So the US' current economic woes are the result of the tax increases of the early 90'S?
And if the US economy recovers some time in the future it'll undoubtedly be due to the Bush tax cuts of 2001 (you know the one's that were going to pay for themselves through higher tax receipts),
Remember when I mentioned that University course I took? It was in economics. Standard economic theory says that changes in fiscal and monetary policy take effect after a lag of about 1-2 years. There's nothing in there about multidecadal variable effects depending on the party affiliation of the guy who was President at the time.
See the fact I actually studied this stuff and worked in the field for about a decade are why:
a. I think you're full of shit; and
b. I think your opinions are essentially irrational and religious while my own are largely rational and based on objective fact.
"His successors were merely long-term beneficiaries of Reagan's policies. The best that can be said is that they didn't screw up a winning formula."
So the fact that it didn't work during his own 12 year term in office (please refer back to where I give actual figures on this in #206) was just poor Ronnie's luck I guess. Amazing how that works! Reagan's policies worked for everyone else who didn't actually employ them, but didn't for him, and yet are somehow proven to be correct to you. Man, you have got one crazy sense of reality. Come on, old ignoramus or 12 year old?
The thing that irks me about supposed "republicans" (the word is meaningless any more) is they believe that people deserve what they get no matter what they do, how well educated they are, or where they come from. Certain people say if only people would save and quit buying all that junk, what would happen to our country if we actually quit buying flatscreens and cars every two years (I know few people, wealthy or not, who actually do that)? Not that buying less would be a bad thing...
It's a schizophrenic way of thinking, and not realistic at all, and points to a bigger question? What the hell kind of economy do we want? And is it time for a revolution again?
But this is a consumer economy, and every effort is made to make sure those pricey products get sold. Our economic policy is based on that--number of houses sold, cars bought, pricey computer gadgetry with nassssty new software distributed...Unfortunately, the only answers anyone in government seen counter intuitive...When are we going to get rid of "trickle down" economics?
This is a goofy way of thinking, and denies how things actually operate.
I'm glad I read through this whole thread. I got a good list of reading to start on, and some of the posters (esp. MAJeff) verbalized what I think in a much more eloguent way than I have been able to.
Oh, after reading that, I suppose I should put a point in there. (More beer, bartender!)
My uncle thinks that he was able to do better than his folks because of his hard work and personal commitment to his goals, and the the only thing the government did was slow him down.
When I bring up the fact that when his schooling was paid for by work it was due in part to government tax codes which allow companies to write off employee tuition from their taxable income, he ignores it.
When I bring up that the reason pools are so cheap are in part because of technological advances funded by government research out of the public purse, he ignores it.
When I point out that it's only due to a strong government (local in this case) which allows him to own a cabin 600 miles away which is not vandalized because he only spends about fifteen days a year there, he ignores it.
Benefits provided by a reasonable government investment from the public purse into the improvement of all society are ignored because it's not just for him.
However, in his view, income taxes are personal.
However, in his view, income taxes are personal.
As are bridges falling into the Mississippi River.
Noting your cherry picking was a coherent argument;
You implied that I pick cherries for a living. I don't; this makes your argument neither correct nor coherent. Comical maybe.
your retort that you don't pick cherries was moronic;
It was truthful, Lie Machine.
noting that it was moronic was also coherent.
Absolutely hilarious!!! You have a future as a comedian.
The fact is that I'm well known in these parts for making coherent arguments,
By whom? Your mother? Your imaginary friends? Yourself?
while you appear to be a troll who wandered in from the Free Republic.
Nice try, but I live in a constitutional monarchy, not a republic.
Lie Machine's definition of troll: "anyone who is not in complete agreement with the bile that spews from my mouth".
MAJeff wrote,"As are bridges falling into the Mississippi River."
Ramen, brother.
Joe, You've gotta let us all know. Are you around 65 or 70 years old and still base your knowledge of how the world works on what you learned 35 or 40 years ago, or are you a 12 year old play-acting a 65 year old man that's that out of touch. I, personally, am DYING to know. I've got a bet on with my friend. I'm going with the actual old ignoramus theory myself.
I'm 40, which makes me about 25 years older than you are.
Don't worry; you'll understand once you pass through puberty.
You ARE 12! I win! All for me today. Tired of feeding the troll at this point. Best to ya all.
sweet plastic Jesus on my dashboard, I thought we had a simple troll, but instead here we have the very epitome of the "let them eat cake rethuglican" in front of us.
instead of playing paddycake with him, go on and ask questions to get a better sense of how he came to his "conclusions".
it's like all the talk about rationalized rethuglicans actually attracted one like a mouse to cheese.
so, uh, "Joe", tell us all about your background - where did you grow up?
were your parents rich or poor?
level of education?
seriously, scroll up and you might get some idea of why some of us want to know.
Blow wrote, "I'm 40,...."
Crap, that's my age. And I thought the public schools during my era weren't too bad.
However, that does give me a quick yardstick to measure another claim of yours.
If you are 40, then you did not join the workforce until after you graduated high school in either 1985 or 1986. Which means that Regean was already in his second term by the time you joined the workforce. Cracky, if you went straight to college, you might not have been part of the workforce until after Regean was long gone. But I'll give you the benefit of the doubt on that one.
This also explains why you don't recall the 1981 Regean tax cuts, followed by the 1982 largest income tax increase in American history. (Up until that time. There's been greater tax increases since, in part at least to pay for servicing the debt Regean saddled us with.)
Or you don't recall the 1982 de-regulation of American business which has created this boom-and-bust business cycle for the last twenty-five, including an incredible stock market bubble. (FWIW, after the South Sea Bubble, the English economy didn't completely recover for IIRC, 14 years. Let's hope our recovery doesn't take that long.) We haven't seen business cycles like this since before the regulations were put in place during the period from 1935 to 1950.
Maybe you have made a special study of tax policy and economics during the Regean years and after. But considering the arguments you've put forward, and the lack of knowledge you've shown about it, I doubt it.
For what it's worth, I haven't made a special study of that era, I don't claim expertise and I don't claim to have lived through it. But I have taken a few graduate courses in economic theory recently and I've picked up a few things about that period. The big thing to teach these days is case studies, and there are a lot of them about that era.
Flex you forgot to mention the 87 stock market crash (which I'm sure Joe Blow blames on Carter).
Ian Gould wrote, "Flex you forgot to mention the 87 stock market crash (which I'm sure Joe Blow blames on Carter)."
Heh! Cripes! It hurts to laugh with lungs sore from coughing with a cold!
It's worth it though. Thanks.
MAJeff wrote,"As are bridges falling into the Mississippi River."
Ramen, brother.
If you want to read some great writing, filled with exactly the right amount of anger and analysis, go back and check Nick Coleman's writing in the STrib from the aftermath.
The collapse was the foreseeable result of Republican attitudes toward governance. What we have seen from the Goldwater/Reagan wings (as opposed to the Cheney/K-Street approach of government as profit center) is a constant demonization of government, the rhetoric of "government can do no right"--and then setting out to prove that maxim true.
The constant attempts to "starve the beast" are a large part of the reason we have crumbling infrastructure, a decline in workplace safety enforcement, a lack of adequate food inspection, a lack of consumer safety investigation, a lack of regulation of fanancial markets....
Flex,
I'm 38, yeah, it is kinda depressing to see a 40 year old spouting such nonsense, but he never said he went to public schools. Home schooled perhaps?
Wouldn't be a very accurate estimate even for that perspective.
Windy wrote, "Wouldn't be a very accurate estimate even for that perspective."
Nope it wouldn't be. I was flat wrong and I apologise for it.
instead of playing paddycake with him, go on and ask questions to get a better sense of how he came to his "conclusions".
I tried that. Eventually you hit a point where he can't back up his ideology and simply stops responding to questions and starts calling people names. And accuses them of 'projecting,' though I think he doesn't actually understand what it means.
#238: no worries, just a clarification...
Eventually you hit a point where he can't back up his ideology
eventually?
seems he started that way.
still, I notice he shut right the fuck up.
Joe?
Joe?
seriously, I have met quite a lot of folks who claim the same "position" as Joe, and think of Reagan as god-like (you will of course find that quite common in Southern California).
it's really spooky, and even though I grew in Orange County, the very heart of the Reagan machine, I actually am still curious as to how they got that way.
you're probably right that it's a waste of time to ask this one, but I was hoping he might be more than just a driveby troll. He did "engage" to some extent, anyway.
The so-called "conservatives" may say they're against big government, especially since 1980, but what they're really against is government social services. They never reduce the size of the government; they just shovel money that used to be in social services and education into prisons, the military, and corporations, in the process making the government bigger than ever and causing untold suffering among the population.
Joe Blow:
Okay, I stayed in until I read this one:
"The United States enjoyed its greatest economic prosperity under Reagan."
Too bad that people who actually had to work for a living never saw a goddamned dime of it. Were you alive in the eighties? Steel workers' salaries-down. Auto and many other heavy manufacturing wages-down. Unskilled laborers' wages didn't go down, because there was no "down" to go to, but their tax burden still increased, and low-end wages have never again risen to the purchasing power they had in the 1960 and 70's. If you weren't at or near the top of a large corporation, you lost money to help the super-rich get super-richer.
If the best you can do is distort a few sad facts in your pathetic attempts to re-write reality, then fuck off! The one thing I have no time for is people who are not only so willfully ignorant that they can't tell grape-nuts from gooseshit, but actually try to convince me that I'm the one eating the wrong cereal.
I think it's time for Joe Blow to go masturbate to his Alex P. Keaton posters again. Spank one out for Ronnie or yer a communist!
Spank one out for Ronnie or yer a communist!
LOL
Spank one out for Ronnie or yer a communist!
And make sure to do so while bowing toward Philadelphia, MS.
ok, no more booze. I'm seeing double.
Joe Blow:
A) Disingenuous
B) Douchebag
C) A & B
BTW, that comment by Bachmann got her the bronze on "Worst Person in the the World" tonight on Countdown w/ Keith Olbermann. Respectable, considering she was up against Glenn Beck and Huckabilly.
Ah, yes, the Reagan years! Greed was good, ketchup was a vegetable for the purposes of federally subsidized school lunches, and savings-and-loans were run as personal piggybanks until cleaning up the industry's gross malfeasance cost the US taxpayer $125 billion dollars (a figure perhaps only to be topped by the Bush-era subprime meltdown).
Good times...
Ah, yes, the Reagan years! Greed was good, ketchup was a vegetable for the purposes of federally subsidized school lunches, and savings-and-loans were run as personal piggybanks until cleaning up the industry's gross malfeasance cost the US taxpayer $125 billion dollars (a figure perhaps only to be topped by the Bush-era subprime meltdown).
Good times...
And my personal favorite, the "let the faggots die" approach to AIDS.
Good times...
was already in reruns by then.
:p
You implied that I pick cherries for a living.
No I didn't, MORON.
#243: "'The United States enjoyed its greatest economic prosperity under Reagan.'
Too bad that people who actually had to work for a living never saw a goddamned dime of it."
Unfortunately, the data doesn't support that claim. For example (and using readily available numbers):
1. The average annual growth rate of real GDP from 1981 to 1989 was 3.2%/year, compared with 2.8% from 1974-1981 and 2.1% from 1989-1995. By the end of the Reagan years, the American economy was almost one-third larger than it had been prior.
2. Real median household income rose by $4,000 in the Reagan years--from $37,868 in 1981 to $42,049 in 1989. Some want to say that's because spouses went to work at low paying jobs, but the improvement is in stark contrast to the income trends in the late 1970s and the 1990s: median family income was unchanged in the eight pre-Reagan years, and fell in the 1990s.
3. From 1981-1989 the U.S. economy produced 17 million new jobs, or roughly 2 million new jobs each year.
4. When Reagan took office in 1981, the unemployment rate was 7.6%. When Reagan left office, the unemployment rate was 5.5%.
5. The central economic problem (and probably the single biggest problem for the working poor) inherited by Reagan was runaway inflation. In 1980 the CPI rose to 13.5%. In 1988, Reagan's last year in office, the CPI had fallen to 4.1%.
Each of these economic facts impacted folks who "work for a living" quite dramatically. That's why Reagan could famously ask "Are you better off than you were four years ago?" and win two presidential elections easily, earning the votes of millions of traditional Democrats in the process.
> Explain to me what you find so appealing about
> 18th century France, etc. That's what you seem
> to want. Lotsa rich folk creating jobs for the
> masses. One of the things America was set up to
> do was get rid of the blueblood ownership society,
> to move wealth amoung the people. Don't think so?
#161,
bourgoise revolutions - or enlightening era revolutions, if 'bourgoise revolutions' sounds to marxist - were not mediaval peasants uprisings or hunger revolts. Revolutions are made by classes on their way up, by new elites who want to get rid of old elites (napoleonic generals, bureaucrats and tax farmers replacing royalist ones) or obsolete tools of goverment that have become inefficient or unnecessary (the British army when there was no longer a serious French or Indian treat to cope with, absolutism when there no longer was a danger of feudal or sectarian conflict), not by poor people driven to desperation. Both the revolutionary and the reactionary side might use or abuse the poor as tools or pawns in their struggle, but the upper and middle classes were the force behind such revolutions, searching better conditions to accumulate wealth and a more rational, efficient state to protect the accumulated wealth. When the new system worked better than the old one, everybody (except the defeated old elite), including the poor, was expected to profit from this (those expectations were not always realistic). The idea of a direct redistribution of wealth, however, was anathema to 18th century liberals. Private property was sacrosanct to them.
Sinbad, I don't have time today to give you a lesson on real world economics, so I'll just address a couple things you said and then let you have your say.
1.Having a larger economy doesn't mean that working class people are necessarily better off. That's kinda what most of this discussion has been about. Clinton and Reagan both had an average GDP raise of 3.5% over their terms, btw.
2.Real average hourly earnings fell 4.3 percent under Presidents Reagan and Bush (the first, obviously). This is more important than the median household income you mention. Real average wages increased by 6.5% under President Clinton. The first increase since the 1960's.
3.A decent figure. However, during the Clinton years, 22 million jobs were created. More importantly, over 19 million were in the private sector.
4.I've seen a lot of numbers tossed about on this, but the fact is that when Reagan came into office, unemployment stood at 7.5%, and that's what it averaged over his 8 year term. There where highs and lows, but that was the average.
1980 7.0
1981 7.5
1982 9.5
1983 9.5
1984 7.4
1985 7.1
1986 6.9
1987 6.1
1988 5.4
1989 5.2
These numbers were taken from the Reagan Foundation, just in case you think I'm pulling shit out of my ass or that I go to Moveon.org to get all my info.
5.You are correct that there was a real drop in the CPI, however, you need to pay attention to why that happened. To a large degree it came about because of a drop in oil prices, following the Iran hostage situation, and other changes in the Gulf's political arena. The other thing that caused the lowering of the CPI is that the trade deficit tripled from 1980 to 1986, to more than $150 billion, and the annual budget deficit went up five times, to $200 billion (or 4% of gross domestic product) in 1986. Running an economy like this will certainly lower inflation, but how good is it for the economy? Not particularily. Some adjustment was needed. Reagan, like usual, took things to an extreme.
I'm not going to say Reagan was the worst president ever (current one gets that nod), but ya gotta understand, he's more myth than reality. You talk about readily available numbers. You may want to check those closer. Also, what those numbers actually mean.
Well, I've wasted enough of my time already on this, since you probably won't believe me anyways. If you do decide to look past the spin a bit, good on ya, though. later.
johannes,
Actually I agree with you on about everything. I didn't mean to imply that a idea of a DIRECT redistribution of wealth was what the revolution was after. Actually, what I was trying to say was that our trolling friend sounded like someone who would have been very happy to be living in a society like mid 18th century France where you had an aristocracy who ran everything and therefore were the creator's of jobs. I never mentioned the poor being a driving force in this. However, our founding fathers certainly did give some thought to, and make decisions based on, an idea of keeping the United States from eventually becoming a society like pre-revolutionary France. Perhaps I didn't make myself very clear.
@Dahan
I should be more specific, and state that I want to get rid of the income tax altogether. State taxes are necessarily the decision of the state, so I wouldn't regulate their choice.
Now, the objection of getting rid of the income tax which follows: "then how will we pay for (as much of) X" It reminds me of the qualms of Abiogenesis, where the IDer mistakingly imagines a highly evolved, complex cell, as opposed to a collection of proteins as they should. Obviously if we are going to get rid of tax, we have to get rid of proportionate spending (or cellular complexity), and right now, income tax doesn't even amount for the majority of the governments revenue. In point of fact, if we got rid of the income tax now, the amount of money pouring into the Federal government would be the same as it was in 1998 WITH the income tax. There is obvious inflation (which theoretically would even be counter acted by the tax relief) that has to be considered, but even if inflation doesn't go down, it is not as if we won't cut spending as well.
Nevertheless, there would still be much more than enough to pay for the essentials like police, as well as superfluous and auxiliary items. It's simple math, and right now high tax rates are meant to pay for the government hand outs and formally privatized or state controlled luxuries- not to mention the occasional peanut museum.
I do have two jobs... 1) Pretend to serve the people who elected me and 2) Suck up to Bush and corporations for kickbacks.
Obviously if we are going to get rid of tax, we have to get rid of proportionate spending (or cellular complexity), and right now, income tax doesn't even amount for the majority of the governments revenue.
Yeah, and I can quit my job now that I have all these credit cards. Where do you think the majority of revenue comes from if not from taxes?
Every good thing that ever happened to America is because of Ronald Reagan, and you Libruls are all wrong, because, hey: Hillary!
He said he lives in a constitutional monarchy...
Reaganomics-Bushonomics: Capitalism for the poor, socialism for the rich.
-------------
Considering population growth, how many jobs must be created in the USA per year just to keep the unemployment rate constant?
Ronald Reagan is one of the reasons I sometimes regret there isn't a hell. He appealed to the worst in us, opening his campaign in Philadelphia and drawing on the southern strategy to foster a sense of white resentment ('welfare queens" etc), he drew the theocrats into Republican politics (we can thank Ronnie for Shrub and Huckabee), and he made us a crueler nation (AIDS).
The problem with him having Alzheimers was the same as the problem with his policies--everyone around him suffered while he was unconscious of the whole thing.
"Sinbad, I don't have time today to give you a lesson on real world economics, so I'll just address a couple things you said and then let you have your say."
Save the lessons and the condescension for somebody else. If you want to have a discussion, good.
"Having a larger economy doesn't mean that working class people are necessarily better off. That's kinda what most of this discussion has been about. Clinton and Reagan both had an average GDP raise of 3.5% over their terms, btw."
I agree. I am far less critical of Clinton than you assume I'll be. He (wisely) ignored the economic advice of his more leftish advisers and saw considerable economic growth and success. I'd further note that, in my view, presidents get far too much credit (and blame) for the economic health of the country while they are in office, but that's another story and another thread.
"Real average hourly earnings fell 4.3 percent under Presidents Reagan and Bush (the first, obviously). This is more important than the median household income you mention. Real average wages increased by 6.5% under President Clinton."
This is the typical criticism of Reagan from the Left, the interpretation of which depends largely on how to deal with part-time workers. The leftish view says spouses were forced to take these part-time jobs to make ends meet while the Reagan apologists say that many more students and young mothers were able to find part-time jobs than in the past due to the stronger economy, diluting the "average" wage. In support of the Reaganites is that (a) only 10% of these part-time workers said they couldn't find full-time work; (b) wives had 34% of below poverty level jobs in 1979, but fewer than 28% in 1990, reflecting that the median income of women rose by 31% in real terms from 1979-1990; (c) from 1982-1989, real after-tax income per person rose by 15.5% and real median income of families, before taxes, went up 12.5%; and (d) the mean average of real income rose by 15.2% from 1980-1989, compared with a 0.8% decline from 1970-1980. As an aside, note too that median real income among black families fell 15% from 1973-1980, then rose 16% from 1982-1990.
My personal view is that both sides have a point, but that's not a popular view among zealots of either side.
"I've seen a lot of numbers tossed about on this, but the fact is that when Reagan came into office, unemployment stood at 7.5%, and that's what it averaged over his 8 year term."
Trying to spin the average unemployment rate as somehow meaningful despite, by your own chart, a steady and significant decline of that figure over the last 6 years is data mining of the worst order.
"You are correct that there was a real drop in the CPI....
You're right that Reagan's foreign policy helped as did some other factors not entirely in his control or which had other impacts, not all good. The bottom line is that the CPI drop was huge and tremendously beneficial to everyone and particularly to the working poor.
It's not condescending to say I don't have time for a full discussion on this today. I don't.
I will point out one thing though. You accuse me of employing data mining at its worst. This is obviously ridiculous. I was the one who actually brought out all the numbers, from slightly before the Reagan years, till after. You were the one who just picked the first and last years, ignoring what happened throughout. Data mining, my ass.
Yes, there was a general shift from higher to lower unemployment. We should look at what actually happened during that time period. Notice that the highest unemployment happened after Reagan's famous tax cuts were put in place. When it became apparent even to the administration that Reaganomics didn't work, they shifted strategy. They had lost the '82 Midterms, deficits were growing rapidly, and knew they were in trouble. One year after his massive tax cuts, Reagan agreed to a tax increase to reduce the deficit that restored one-third of the previous year's reduction. He raised taxes again in 1983 with a gasoline tax and once more in 1984, this time by $50 billion over three years. All in all, he raised taxes four times between '82 and '84.
While I'm not saying raising taxes was what helped drop the unemployment rate, it's obvious that Reaganomics was a failure, and that even he was aware of that. He just couldn't admit it. Not many politicians have the balls to do that, he was no different.
Reagan became, in the last few years of his time in office, something approaching a good liberal in my eyes, economically speaking. Obviously, socially he was still a complete disaster, but he did come around on the idea of economics. Raise taxes when you need too, lower them when you can.
Reagan's foreign policy didn't help end the Iran hostage situation. The hostages were released on the day of his inauguration. (I know you didn't say he did, but many people are confused over this)
It was your argument, fuckface,
How intellectual! Tell me, Lie Machine, did you overhear the older boys saying that out in the schoolyard this week?
so it's your burden to provide the evidence.
Actually, you are among those who want to take from me money that I have earned and give it to those who did not earn it. Since no individual has a constitutional claim on the person, property or time of another, it is up to you to provide a compelling case to the contrary. You are the one doing the taking; I'm the one doing the (involuntary) giving. Got it? No? Oh well...
(Memo to self: in future remember to speak only in monosyllabics when addressing "truth" machine--or anyone else under the age of five.)
And all the whining in the world about calling your names you deserve will change the fact that you deserve them,
Okay, so I'll get everyone I know to whine for the next ten years, then I won't deserve them at all...or maybe deserve them a negative amount.
Speaking of whining, when are we going to stop hearing whining from the left about "those less fortunate"?
you putrid piece of shit.
Now now Lie Machine. You know what Mommy said about using foul language. If you keep it up I might have to call her, then your mouth will be washed out with soap.
If you don't want to engage with people who think you're scum, go back to freeperville.
I'm happy to correct people's misconceptions and misinformation. By the way, where's "freeperville"? Is it anywhere near Maragaritaville?
Actually, you are among those who want to take from me money that I have earned
yes, I am.
give me your bank account number and password.
right now, or your ideology gets it!
btw, it's hard not to notice that the only things you DID respond to were the insults.
what do you think that says?
Actually, you are among those who want to take from me money that I have earned
yes, I am.
give me your bank account number and password.
666, password is password
right now, or your ideology gets it!
I don't have an ideology. Do they sell them on e-bay?
btw, it's hard not to notice that the only things you DID respond to were the insults.
what do you think that says?
That there are many immature people posting here?
(raises hand)
Ichthyic, I think it means that Joe is completely devoid of rational arguments and works off of emotion which is why he is so easily swayed by arguments like "Them lazy folk wanna take what yew werked so hard for."
Go on, ask another one.
(sits down)
Reagan's foreign policy didn't help end the Iran hostage situation. The hostages were released on the day of his inauguration. (I know you didn't say he did, but many people are confused over this)
Oh please!!! Why do you think the Ayatollah didn't wait until after Reagan had been in power for a few months? Could it be the threat of having to deal with his foreign policy? Nah, couldn't be. Khomeini was just being a nice guy!
Your perception of foreign policy is almost as comical as your misunderstanding of economic theory. Man, so many budding comedians posting here. Who knew?
Ichthyic, I think it means that Joe is completely devoid of rational arguments and works off of emotion which is why he is so easily swayed by arguments like "Them lazy folk wanna take what yew werked so hard for."
you get an A.
I don't have an ideology.
LOL tell us another one, Joe! another like that, and I might suggest you try stand-up comedy for a living.
LOL tell us another one, Joe! another like that, and I might suggest you try stand-up comedy for a living.
Sad-funny isn't the kind that makes a good stand-up.
Man, so many budding comedians posting here.
oh, my bad, i didn't realize you already were working on being a comedian.
meh, your routine still needs a bit of work.
you should try using all caps in addition to excessive bolding.
more exclamation marks, too.
only three is insufficient, except for sentences where you don't actually want to stress something.
4.I've seen a lot of numbers tossed about on this, but the fact is that when Reagan came into office, unemployment stood at 7.5%, and that's what it averaged over his 8 year term. There where highs and lows, but that was the average.
1980 7.0
1981 7.5
1982 9.5
1983 9.5
1984 7.4
1985 7.1
1986 6.9
1987 6.1
1988 5.4
1989 5.2
Hmm...I wonder what happened in 1983. Oh, that's right: Reagan's tax cut. And looky there, unemployment went down by more than two percentage points a year later. That's called a positive correlation, for the innumerates out there.
You don't have an ideology? You admit to not having an organized collection of ideas? I mean, it's kinda obvious from the way you blather, but I just didn't expect you to admit it. Fair enough. No wonder it's hard to have a discussion with you. No guidlines to your way of thinking. No phylosophy. Wow. Must suck to be you.
Sad-funny isn't the kind that makes a good stand-up.
if you meant sad=pathetic, you should tell that to Tom Cruise. I sure as hell found his routine funny this week.
what? you mean it wasn't a routine?
Joe, Please refer back to #264. The tax cuts came in '81. The result was two years of growth in unemployment. Reagan raised taxes in '82 and '83. Unemployment went down.
Positive correlation.
You're making yourself look more foolish with every post.
You don't have an ideology? You admit to not having an organized collection of ideas? I mean, it's kinda obvious from the way you blather, but I just didn't expect you to admit it. Fair enough. No wonder it's hard to have a discussion with you. No guidlines to your way of thinking. No phylosophy.
I was referring to the following definition from Merriam-Webster online, which you disingenuously omitted:
the integrated assertions, theories and aims that constitute a sociopolitical program
What's a "phylosophy"? A set of beliefs about phyla?
Well, I've had enough of watching this car wreck. It was kind of fun for a while, but now I'm starting to feel really sorry for Joe. It has to be a very sad life to live in such ignorance. Hopefully he'll continue to vent his rage and stupidity on the net and won't channel it into physical violence anywhere. See ya all on another post soon, I'm sure.
It has to be a very sad life to live in such ignorance.
so, um, do we understand republicans yet?
Every good thing that ever happened to America is because of Ronald Reagan, and you Libruls are all wrong, because, hey: Hillary!
"That's called a positive correlation, for the innumerates out there."
Actually is called the post hoc ergo proctor hoc logical fallacy.
And the awards are:
Gold- Icthyic for continued responding to such irrationality as Joe. Silver- Truth Machine- for that especial slice & dice technique so unique to these posts. Bronze- (but all awards are VERY close) to MAJeff for an in-the-trenches-look at the educational system and life in the world of education.
Finally (drum roll) The Norwegian Blue award to
(wait for it)
(wait for it)
Joe
(confetti falling on Wall street)
oh, my bad, i didn't realize you already were working on being a comedian.
meh, your routine still needs a bit of work.
you should try using all caps in addition to excessive bolding.
I'll leave that to Lie Machine.
more exclamation marks, too.
only three is insufficient, except for sentences where you don't actually want to stress something.
Your shift key is still malfunctioning.
but now I'm starting to feel really sorry for Joe. It has to be a very sad life to live in such ignorance. Hopefully he'll continue to vent his rage and stupidity on the net and won't channel it into physical violence anywhere.
Nice projection. For the record, I have a university degree (one more than you probably have), and I'm living a happy life working for a living and not leeching off the society.
I don't know what "rage" you are referring to. I've had some pretty good belly laughs the past couple of days reading the liberal claptrap in these comments. If anyone is likely to resort to violence, it's life's losers: the criminals and welfare cheats, some of whom seem to be pretty frequent "contributors" (term used loosely) to the comments on this blog.
Your shift key is still malfunctioning.
why, so it is.
therefore you are a moron?
I'm not getting the joke, future stand-up guy.
what's the punchline?
Nice projection.
you can't call projection when you are projecting and expect anyone to take it as anything more than a continued attempt at humor, stand-up guy.
liberal claptrap
see?
now that's good projection on your part.
*sigh*
your routine is getting boring, I was kinda interested in your background yesterday, but now you just bore me.
I'm sure being only one data point, it wouldn't have been of much interest, anyway.
I don't know what "rage" you are referring to.
If anyone is likely to resort to violence, it's life's losers: the criminals and welfare cheats, some of whom seem to be pretty frequent "contributors" (term used loosely) to the comments on this blog.
that rage.
we're coming to take your job away from you, btw.
Oh, my. You know, I have to manage these comment threads. Could you please tell me which of the commenters you have determined to be criminals, and which are the welfare cheats? I do have their IP addresses, and can assist the police in tracking them down.
Also, I'm sure it would expedite the court cases if you'd also give me the evidence of their criminal status.
Also, I'm sure it would expedite the court cases if you'd also give me the evidence of their criminal status.
*raising hand* I committed sodomy in Minnesota while it was still illegal to do so. Then again, not to assume too much, but I'm guessing almost all of the Minnesotans here over the age of 30 or 35 did.
And the award for most ill-informed comment in this thread goes to---this little gem:
If you want to read some great writing, filled with exactly the right amount of anger and analysis, go back and check Nick Coleman's writing in the STrib from the aftermath.
The collapse was the foreseeable result of Republican attitudes toward governance. What we have seen from the Goldwater/Reagan wings (as opposed to the Cheney/K-Street approach of government as profit center) is a constant demonization of government, the rhetoric of "government can do no right"--and then setting out to prove that maxim true.
The constant attempts to "starve the beast" are a large part of the reason we have crumbling infrastructure, a decline in workplace safety enforcement, a lack of adequate food inspection, a lack of consumer safety investigation, a lack of regulation of fanancial markets....
Let's see...the bridge in question was built in 1967, meaning the design work would have been done sometime in '66. The collapse has been determined to have been caused by undersized gusset plates due to calculation errors by the engineers involved in the project.
Ronald Reagan at this time had not yet been sworn in as governor of California. Barry Goldwater was between stints in the U. S. Senate. Somehow, though, they are to blame for the collapse of this bridge.
Liberal logic. I love it!!!!
Hey Joe, I'm an unemployed welfare cheat who has 7 kids, doesn't pay taxes, hates America, and I think you're great! You're my hero. Thanks for working so hard for me. I'm getting high right on money you paid into taxes. Isn't that cool? Yes, I'm typical of the people here. Just thought I'd verify what you already know. I just wish I could find a way to take down America even faster.
ugh, i've got newt slime on my ankles now.
I don't know what "rage" you are referring to.
If anyone is likely to resort to violence, it's life's losers: the criminals and welfare cheats, some of whom seem to be pretty frequent "contributors" (term used loosely) to the comments on this blog.
that rage.
Rage? Okay, whatever. I haven't laughed this hard since I heard the Palm Beach Democrats whining about the butterfly ballot.
we're coming to take your job away from you, btw.
I doubt you have the job skills or work ethic to do that.
Your shift key is still malfunctioning.
why, so it is.
therefore you are a moron?
I'm not getting the joke, future stand-up guy.
what's the punchline?
That you post a screed about me using bold and exclamation marks when you don't seem to know how the shift key works.
For the record, I'm a leech. A recovering leech. It all started when my mother died unexpectedly when I was 19, leaving my dad, me, and my two younger brothers. I took a leave of absence from school to help keep the household going, and six months later that leave was extended when my dad was laid off, leaving me at 20 being the only full-time wage earner in my family of four. But running the register at the local Crap-Mart didn't bring in quite enough to cover the mortgage, so my dad was forced to file for unemployment. I'd like to apologize to Joe on his behalf for leeching off society for eight months. I think I should also apologize for taking out that subsidized student loan. I'm sorry, Joe. If only were as productive a member of society as you. Maybe after a few years of Limbaugh-inspired attitude-adjustment therapy I'll be able to pay for all my family's transgressions against all the good, hard-working people of the United States of America.
I'm so very sorry,
Большая пиявка.
Let's see...the bridge in question was built in 1967,
*ahem*:
What we have seen from the Goldwater/Reagan wings
you seem to have missed that, even as you quoted it.
he obviously was speaking of the general pattern of thought promoted by the people Goldwater and Reagan identified with (and were the political front for) at the time.
in short, you might want to learn more about Goldwater:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barry_Goldwater
do you know what a neocon is?
do you know who Leo Strauss is?
what's really interesting is the fact that even Goldwater could see what was going to happen as the neocons began to embrace the fundies as a voting block.
where were you during all of that?
oh that's right, you're 40.
something tells me most of what you learned early on about conservatives came from familial sources, and their "intuition" stuck with you to this day.
am i right?
That you post a screed about me using bold and exclamation marks when you don't seem to know how the shift key works.
hey, can you teach me how to use the shift key as well as you use the bold and exclamation mark keys?
LOL
you really are dense.
Maybe after a few years of Limbaugh-inspired attitude-adjustment therapy I'll be able to pay for all my family's transgressions against all the good, hard-working people of the United States of America.
no chance, you already have ruined america for poor joe, and took his job away from him.
you will have to pay reparations.
:p
Okay, whatever. I haven't laughed this hard since I heard the Palm Beach Democrats whining about the butterfly ballot.
ah, in the state where the projected whole state recount actually showed Gore the winner?
that one?
damn, what a retard.
http://www.bushwatch.com/gorebush.htm
funny, i thought you didn't like criminals?
speaking of the WPE (worst president ever), I suppose you supported his faith based initiative programs?
I mean, there's nothing socialistic about giving money to religious institutions to do the government's job, now is there?
you don't get just how much funnier you are than we are.
you don't get just how much funnier you are than we are.
It's because of his smug contempt. The only human he's not above is St. Ronnie, and he'd still make use of the presidential knee-pads on that rotting corpse.
yeah, I see little point in continuing.
like i said, at some point I was curious about how joe came to his current set of political ideologies (oh wait, he doesn't have any :p )and Reagan worship, but he was more amusing as a chew toy, but this chew toy has lost its whistle, and I've lost interest in it at this point.
I'm off for some kibbles and bits.
cheers
ah, in the state where the projected whole state recount actually showed Gore the winner?
No. I mean the state where every state-wide recount confirmed the victory for Bush.
damn, what a retard.
Project much?
http://www.bushwatch.com/gorebush.htm
Ah, yes. A far-left, moonbat web site gives us its spin on the 2000 presidential election.
funny, i thought you didn't like criminals?
I don't. This includes the Democrites who attempted to have absentee military ballots disqualified.
speaking of the WPE (worst president ever), I suppose you supported his faith based initiative programs?
Wrong again, honey! I would not have cast my ballot for Georgie-boy were I eligible to vote (a little thing called citizenship). Aside from the tax cuts, he has been an unmitigated failure.
I mean, there's nothing socialistic about giving money to religious institutions to do the government's job, now is there?
Actually it is very socialistic. But there you go again making assumptions about what I think.
It's because of his smug contempt. The only human he's not above is St. Ronnie, and he'd still make use of the presidential knee-pads on that rotting corpse.
Please spare us from your sexual fantasies.
no chance, you already have ruined america for poor joe, and took his job away from him.
Except that I'm not in America, and I'm still working. I guess in your world 0=1 and all birds are the same colour.
hey, can you teach me how to use the shift key as well as you use the bold and exclamation mark keys?
They'll learn ya that when you get to high school (in about five years' time).
you really are dense.
What does my molecular density have to do with anything?
he obviously was speaking of the general pattern of thought promoted by the people Goldwater and Reagan identified with (and were the political front for) at the time.
Let's see...that would be engineers who make calculation errors in their designs. Yes sir, those engineers get so nervous when they hear about reduced government that they can't do basic arithmetic. Quite a theory. May I nominate you for the Noble Peach Prize (that's the one where noble people throw rotten peaches at the recipient)?
No actually it'd be the Republican-controlled congress in the 90's that slashed funds for programs monitoring the safety of bridges and other infrastructure.
You've made a specific accusation, Joe: that there are criminals posting here. Name them and give your evidence. Or at least maybe you should call the police and get them arrested.
It's a small thing, but it seems to be symptomatic of your approach -- fact-free and obnoxious.
Well Joe? PZ asked you a question. Your statements of what mechanics make per hour were proven to be lies. Your statements of when the Reagan tax cuts took place and their effect were shown as lies. In fact, all you've done is lie and show off your ignorance and hatred toward those in positions less advantaged than yours. What proof do you have of the accusations of criminality of posters here (besides my wife, Syble's rather fatuous admission)? About the same as everything else you've stated, I'd guess. None. I'm feeling less sorry for you now than before. Checking back I see you aren't just ignorant, you're willfully ignorant.
Oh, an idiot troll and I missed all the fun.
Wow, a conservlodyte spouting numbers without any fucking idea of what they mean and accusing others of innumeracy. Who'd've thunk it?
Actually Mr. Digits, if you're looking at a time series of data, correlation is what you'd do if you'd taken one freshman stats class and was trying to impress a barfly from a community college.
Tell us again about your myriad degrees there, Doc. Intellectuals are so sexy.
Well Joe? PZ asked you a question. Your statements of what mechanics make per hour were proven to be lies.
Really? I don't recall seeing a mathematical proof that I lied. Perhaps you could point it out to me, O Omnipotent One.
Your statements of when the Reagan tax cuts took place and their effect were shown as lies.
You want the truth about Reaganomics? Check out http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=1120.
In fact, all you've done is lie and show off your ignorance and hatred toward those in positions less advantaged than yours.
This from someone who "doesn't care about his own credibility". And again with the "less advantaged" nonsense. Tell me, what "advantages" did I have (other than a superior work ethic)?
What proof do you have of the accusations of criminality of posters here (besides my wife, Syble's rather fatuous admission)? About the same as everything else you've stated, I'd guess. None.
Proof is for mathematicians and alcoholic beverages. However, it stands to reason that anyone who would defend the "right" of government to unconstitutionally take wealth from those who earned it and redistribute it to those who did not earn it with such passion as I have seen here is very likely to be (or have been) a beneficiary of said pork-barreling. It's simple logic, really. Benefitting from criminal activity makes one a criminal. End of story.
I'm feeling less sorry for you now than before. Checking back I see you aren't just ignorant, you're willfully ignorant.
I don't need you to feel sorry for me, but I do feel sorry for those who accuse others of being ignorant, yet don't care about their own credibility. Hypocrisy, anyone?
Oh, an idiot troll and I missed all the fun.
Wow, a conservlodyte spouting numbers without any fucking idea of what they mean and accusing others of innumeracy. Who'd've thunk it?
Projecting, are we?
Actually Mr. Digits, if you're looking at a time series of data, correlation is what you'd do if you'd taken one freshman stats class and was trying to impress a barfly from a community college.
Someone like yourself, for instance?
Tell us again about your myriad degrees there, Doc. Intellectuals are so sexy.
I have a degree in computer science and statistics from one of the world's leading universities. Perhaps you should take your own advice. Nah, you would rather simply employ schoolyard insults and name-calling against those who justifiably disagree with you. Typical.
No actually it'd be the Republican-controlled congress in the 90's that slashed funds for programs monitoring the safety of bridges and other infrastructure.
Which had absolutely nothing to do with the collapse of the bridge in question. It was caused by a design flaw. That means it happened at design time. Unless you believe that said Congresspeople somehow were able to travel back in time and bribe or otherwise convince the engineer(s) involved to make calculation errors.
I always find it strange that some deluded people like Joe Blow keep affirming that atheism breeds criminality, when evidence shows the contrary :
religious statistics
http://www.harrisinteractive.com/news/allnewsbydate.asp?NewsID=1131
crime rates
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cri_tot_cri_percap-crime-total-crimes…
Non Believers Crime rate /1000
USA 18% 80
I 27% 38
Sp 41% 23
D 45% 76
UK 52% 85
F 64% 62
Not exactly a positive correlation !
Ah. Joe Blow is so stupid he has never thought through what taxes exist for. All he can see is his money being taken away.
Look, Joe: there are things that can only be done on a very large scale if they're supposed to work or to ever be finished, but of which everyone can profit. The textbook example are roads... I'm sure you can think of more.
Probably you also (pathologically) lack empathy, so I need to explain in utilitarian terms why we shouldn't just let people starve. No problem, I can: Why should we let all that potential go to waste? All that workforce, all that talent for invention and discovery?
Are you really dumber than Henry Ford, who figured out who was going to buy his products?
You are a beneficiary of all that "pork-barreling".
The Cato Institute is a "conservative" stink tank. Why should we assume it has any more credibility than the "far-left, moonbat web site" bushwatch.org? See, I can make ad hominem "arguments", too.
Incidentally, the bushwatch.org link doesn't work. You might prefer spending a few hours at this site and those it links to. Where I come from, the owners of that site would be considered pretty average conservatives with a few bizarre idiosyncracies... the site links to the dreaded mainstream media.
"Unless you believe that said Congresspeople somehow were able to travel back in time and bribe or otherwise convince the engineer(s) involved to make calculation errors."
No I believe that a competent check of the bridge would have found the design flaw before the bridge collapsed.
I always find it strange that some deluded people like Joe Blow keep affirming that atheism breeds criminality,
I always find it strange that some deluded people like "negentropyeater" keep affirming that I said things that I never, in fact, said. I am an atheist, despite not being in lock-step with the Democratic agenda. Please work on your reading comprehension. Remedial classes may be available at your local elementary school.
However, it stands to reason that anyone who would defend the "right" of government to unconstitutionally take wealth from those who earned it and redistribute it to those who did not earn it with such passion as I have seen here is very likely to be (or have been) a beneficiary of said pork-barreling.
Unconstitutionally? Did they leave the Sixteenth Amendment out of your copy of the U.S. Constitution?
Cato?
bzzzt! How about something not produced by idiological hacks and idiots.
Most people who are neither citizens nor residents of the US tend not to assume that everyone who disagrees with them is a Ted Kennedy-loving moonbat Democrat, or god forbid, a liberal. I'm not saying that he's not what he says he is, but for such an educated and wordly man, Joe Blow's vision and terminology is strangely limited to the US. Aren't there any Commies to chase where he lives?
Jesus christ, do you even know anything about how tax monies are spent and who reaps the benefits? Just a clue, the biggest beneficiaries of government are those with the most money. Sorry, it's being redistributed upward. While you may hate the poor folks, they're not the leeches.
shit, sorry, first part of comment about taxes, pork and the like got cut off
Ah. Joe Blow is so stupid he has never thought through what taxes exist for. All he can see is his money being taken away.
That's right: I disagree with you; therefore, I'm stupid. That's the extent of your argument. I have spent a great deal of time over the past decade or so "thinking through" taxation policy, and the idiotic things on which politicians spend our money (like peanut museums, raw meat sculptures, bridges to nowhere in Alaska, a "comfort station" for an arts council, the failed war on drugs, welfare brood mares, "job training" programs that don't lead to meaningful employment, subsidies for agri-business, etc., etc., etc., ad nauseum, ad infinitum). By the way, Republicans, Democrats, Conservatives and Liberals are equally delinquent in this fiasco, which is why I would never vote for any of the existing parties.
Look, Joe: there are things that can only be done on a very large scale if they're supposed to work or to ever be finished, but of which everyone can profit. The textbook example are roads... I'm sure you can think of more.
National defense, law enforcement and civil justice come to mind. However, this list is much shorter than the list of "earmarks" in government spending bills. Most of them are excessive, benefit only a local or special interest, and/or were not subject to competitive bidding.
Probably you also (pathologically) lack empathy,
Amazing!!! You have the ability to make psychological/psychiatric diagnoses without ever having met me. It must be nice to have such well-developed telepathic abilities.
By the way, I've done charitable work since I was ten years old and give a significant amount of my income to non-profits annually. What has been your contribution?
so I need to explain in utilitarian terms why we shouldn't just let people starve.
I'm not advocating "letting people starve". I merely believe that at some point we all must accept the consequences of our actions and decisions.
No problem, I can: Why should we let all that potential go to waste? All that workforce, all that talent for invention and discovery?
Much of which talent has been frittered away on drugs, booze, sex, cigarettes and bling. How is it my responsibility to care for people who refuse to care for themselves?
You are a beneficiary of all that "pork-barreling".
What? I received welfare payments? How come they never showed up in my bank account?
This guys a flat out racist "welfare brood-mares" all those fucked up poor people worrying about "bling."
There's that good Reaganite for you. He doesn't know shit about poverty or poor people. Nor does he care to.
"Just a clue, the biggest beneficiaries of government are those with the most money. Sorry, it's being redistributed upward. While you may hate the poor folks, they're not the leeches."
I'm as opposed to corporate welfare as you, but that's not the same as saying that, say, a salesman making $250k (and I know several) is having money redistributed to her/him. Indirect benefits? Maybe, but what check is s/he receiving?
Fair enough Joe Blow, I retract my accusation, but you said so many silly things in this thread, with no evidence, that it's hard to keep track...
Also, my reading comprehension is greatly impaired when I read this kind of comment :
"If anyone is likely to resort to violence, it's life's losers: the criminals and welfare cheats, some of whom seem to be pretty frequent "contributors" (term used loosely) to the comments on this blog." Joe Blow #284
I give you one chance to retract this statement. There is nothing wrong in admitting that you didn't mean what you wrote.
No I believe that a competent check of the bridge would have found the design flaw before the bridge collapsed.
And you accuse me of being religious!!! What a hoot!!! What? You're being serious? Oh. Okay.
Tell us again where you obtained your degree in civil engineering and how many years' experience you have in the field. Or did you actually conduct a "competent inspection" yourself and provide your conclusions to the appropriate authorities?
Both indirect and direct (look at the loopholes available only to those with certain forms of wealth or income). Government policy, both direct and indirect, redistributes wealth upward.
That Joe Blow and the Cato institute think it's fostering some kind of inner city black breeding factories is so fucking pathetic--and Reaganite. That's the Southern Strategy right there. Conservatives might want to disclaim it, but it's exactly that coded racist language that the right has been using since Nixon, and it's about covering up their racism, making it a little more acceptable and appealing to the politics of resentment, to those who are pissed that the niggers and bitches and whores and spics and faggots won't stay in our places anymore.
This guys a flat out racist "welfare brood-mares" all those fucked up poor people worrying about "bling."
Please provide evidence to indicate that I believe that one race is inherently genetically inferior to another. Wait, don't bother. There isn't any. I haven't mentioned race anywhere. Try reading what I wrote before opening your mouth and letting your gums flap in the breeze.
There's that good Reaganite for you. He doesn't know shit about poverty or poor people. Nor does he care to.
There's that good statist for you. He doen't address your arguments, but instead calls you a racist. He hasn't called me a Nazi yet, but that's probably coming pretty soon. It's straight out of the Democrats' playbook.
Joe Blow, strange that you are no comming back on your accusation made in #284...
Try reading what I wrote before opening your mouth and letting your gums flap in the breeze.
Try doing the same fuckwit.
Try reading what I wrote before opening your mouth and letting your gums flap in the breeze.
Try doing the same fuckwit.
Wow!!! How profound!!! As the old saying goes, hell hath no fury like a liberal who has just seen one of his sacred cows shot down.
For an intellectual, you seem to have an unhealthy reliance on profanity and name-calling.
What did you shoot down? I noted that your discourse was directly in line with the Republican southern strategy as well as the politics of resentment, and drew a reasonable conclusion from that. You made a snarky comment about that. There's no dead cow around here.
Ta ta now. I'm finished. It's as though an even dumber Rush Limbaugh has cursed us with his feculence.
"If anyone is likely to resort to violence, it's life's losers: the criminals and welfare cheats, some of whom seem to be pretty frequent "contributors" (term used loosely) to the comments on this blog." Joe Blow #284
I give you one chance to retract this statement. There is nothing wrong in admitting that you didn't mean what you wrote.
You're right. Here's how I should have phrased it:
If anyone is likely to resort to violence, it's life's losers: the criminals and welfare cheats, some of whose enablers seem to be pretty frequent "contributors" (term used loosely) to the comments on this blog.
Problem solved. Next.
Joe Blow,
if we did play the "my net worth is bigger than yours" game within the commentators on this blog, you might realize that liberals, or socio-democrats as I rather call them, are not necessarily the financial losers.
It's just that some people who've made money consider that it's only fair that they give back a bigger part of what they've made, because they recognize that, in a way, they have benefited the most of the system.
Others want to keep a much bigger share of what they've made, because they "think" that they don't owe it to anybody. And to justify this belief, they want to minimize government and wish for free-markets for any type of activity.
This old debate about who's right or wrong, who is just, who is selfish, has been going since the industrial revolution. It's nothing new.
The point is, there is no right or wrong, we just can't reach an optimum and stick with it. For that, we've proceeded with itterations. There are, simply put, periods when one economic model works better. There are others when the other works better. They alternate.
And now, we're going to enter into a social democratic model in the USA. Because it is needed, and it is time. And later, we'll go back to a tax declining period. Because it will be needed, and it will be time.
I have a degree in computer science and statistics from one of the world's leading universities.
I call bullshit. Sorry, but you've patently demonstrated that you either don't know much about statistics, or you're being dishonest.
Either way, you're a douche. (I save the polysyllabic words for those that might understand them.)
"Both indirect and direct (look at the loopholes available only to those with certain forms of wealth or income)."
The major "loopholes" are the mortgage interest deduction (to foster home ownership), the charitable contribution deduction (to foster -- duh -- charity), and the 401(k) pre-tax contribution allowance (to foster retirement savings). The mortgage interest deduction helps the middle class most (the rich could afford homes anyway, and the deduction is limited), but the working poor benefit as well. The charitable deduction is likely redistributively neutral, despite some transfer payments to the poor. Plus, the amounts are limited. 401(k)s help the middle class the most since (again) the rich can afford to retire anyway and contributions are capped.
"Government policy, both direct and indirect, redistributes wealth upward."
I know you take that as an article of faith, but you haven't shown it.
"I noted that your discourse was directly in line with the Republican southern strategy as well as the politics of resentment...."
The politics of resentment is well-played on all sides (e.g., the lies that the rich don't pay taxes or that new entitlement programs will be paid for by "somebody else").
I'm having a bit of trouble reconciling the following two statements, as well as JoeBlow's numerous other claims to not being a born or naturalized U.S. citizen:
I have spent a great deal of time over the past decade or so "thinking through" taxation policy, and the idiotic things on which politicians spend our money (like peanut museums, raw meat sculptures, bridges to nowhere in Alaska, a "comfort station" for an arts council, the failed war on drugs, welfare brood mares, "job training" programs that don't lead to meaningful employment, subsidies for agri-business, etc., etc., etc., ad nauseum, ad infinitum).
Wrong again, honey! I would not have cast my ballot for Georgie-boy were I eligible to vote (a little thing called citizenship).
Alaska was purchased from Russia in 1867, so unless you're a Russian who's over 150 years old and still pissed at Tsar Aleksandr II Nikolaevich, you have no cause to be complaining about your money--implicit as it is in the use of the first person plural possessive--going to pork-barrel projects in Alaska.
I know you take that as an article of faith, but you haven't shown it
Read Kerbo's work, as a starting point.
Oh, but Jeff - why would and ideology-free individual like Joe Blow link of a site espousing the opinions of ideologues? I'm sure the Cato Institute offers "fair and balanced" views.
Joe Blow:
Please define "much"? Can you support this claim? What percentage of the people you refer to waste their talent on drugs etc.? Are you talking about "the poor"? Or "the disadvantaged"? Or those who aren't named "Hilton"? Are you arguing that the primary indication of success is work ethic? I do believe you're right. So where do all these successful hard-working, not-born-rich people come from? We already know that the majority of successful people do NOT come from the ranks of those who are born rich. And yet "much" of the potential of the not-rich is frittered away on drugs.
Hey - are you white?
Have you ever known a schizophrenic?
Jeff:
Yes! The politics of resentment, the ideological core of the Limbaugh conservative: the belief that the lazy are reaping benefits from the public treasury funded by the hard-working. Never once to they notice - nor, more importantly, give a flying fuck - that when the GOP takes over, the people at the very bottom of the ladder, those who are unable to care for themselves, suffer the most.
I hope you're enjoying your stay in your selfish little world, Joe. Apparently hard work, and IQ over 100, and even a habit of supporting charitable causes aren't enough to guarantee the development of empathy.
What did you shoot down?
Your assumption that I believe that one race is inerently genetically superior to another. I asked for evidence, and you didn't provide any.
I noted that your discourse was directly in line with the Republican southern strategy as well as the politics of resentment
Politics of resentment: a left-wing strawman used to justify the wealth envy of statists.
and drew a reasonable conclusion from that.
Was that bit of comedy intentional?
You made a snarky comment about that.
So I suppose I'm the one who wrote all of the following:
Cato?
bzzzt! How about something not produced by idiological hacks and idiots.
Try doing the same fuckwit.
He doesn't know shit about poverty or poor people.
those who are pissed that the niggers and bitches and whores and spics and faggots won't stay in our places anymore
Yep, that's reasonable debate. At least in your alleged mind.
There's no dead cow around here.
Ta ta now. I'm finished. It's as though an even dumber Rush Limbaugh has cursed us with his feculence.
I call bullshit. Sorry, but you've patently demonstrated that you either don't know much about statistics, or you're being dishonest.
Then you have wilfully demonstrated your ignorance. That's all right, though. You can always go back to the mastubatory fantasies of your parents' basement, and let the adults do the work.
Either way, you're a douche. (I save the polysyllabic words for those that might understand them.)
That would include yourself, since you have yet to acquire a vocabulary (hence the profanity and obsession with feminine hygiene products). Help is available.
BTW, Kseniya,
what is an "ideology-free individual" ?
Is it, someone who doesn't see any value in ideologies, or someone who is free to alternate between ideologies ?
The first I'd call an Ideologist. The second an ideology-free individual.
Then you have wilfully demonstrated your ignorance. That's all right, though. You can always go back to the mastubatory fantasies of your parents' basement, and let the adults do the work.
Schoolyard tactics? Joe, I'm so disappointed. Anyways, anytime you want to really talk stats, just let me know. I'm sure I'll see you at a conference one of these days.
Joe, you realize that having a fiat reserve system which uses monetization of debt to inflate the currency cannot even support a "free economy" in principle? The new money has to be allocated according to how the system works, it can't be from transactions between buyers and sellers of goods (who only trade existing money for goods unless some outside force can create legal money etc.) Therefore the economy is already a "welfare system" for the investing class which reaps the major benefits from that "funny money" system. (At least Ron Paul picks on that racket, but remember: if we didn't increase money to support credit, the economy wouldn't grow, but having that system should entail obligations thereby to the public supposedly being served by the currency system.)
Another way that works out is how the Fed fiddles interest rates up and down to "fine-tune" the economy. Well, that throws millions of people out of work when rates go up, etc. and we can be suspicious of who and what the FR Board really wants to help. The government's artificializing of the economy actually mandates that they provide support services for the impact of this "management" of the economy. It is more like relief for people whose yards are flooded by a dam than it is required to be justified by pure humanitarian arguments (but that too.) All this is glossed over by conservative/libertarian commentators, who pretend that the economy is "natural" to begin with, and is only "interfered with" when specific overt regulations are imposed.
And just a shot at corps, note that the pay of CEOs is decided by Boards which are not *using their own money to pay for the salary*, hence their choices are not true market economics (where one must use up his/her own scarce income in zero-sum purchasing decisions.) They use up instead, the money that mostly should have gone to either shareholders or in savings to customers.
(Heh, some of you may not be so irritated to see my arguments now that I'm on your side and you don't have to get hissy fits about anthropic design etc, that's ironic life right?)
"tyrannogenius"
I can only judge you based on the evidence, that is, your comments. You act as if you had never thought it through, so...
Isn't it obvious that I was talking about the principle, not about the practice of the US Congress?
Again, you act as if you actually hated everyone who are poorer than you, as if they deserved being poorer than you, and as if you wanted to additionally punish them instead of help them. What can I conclude from this?
Case in point: this quote from your comment:
See? Instead of demonstrating you have ever thought about the subject, you just repeat yourself.
What is more, you implicitly advocate collective punishment: some of those who are poorer than you have behaved in criminal or irresponsible ways, so all of them should be punished...? I mean, if "welfare brood mares" really exist, they're an argument for the existence of police, not an argument against the existence of the welfare state. As for addicts, don't you think they should be helped out of their addiction by therapy instead of being even further punished than they are already punishing themselves? (If not, I can't see where your empathy is. That's why I supposed you don't have any and were born without one. Such people are said to exist.)
You seem very agitated!!! Calm down and think (in this order).
As a 25-year-old university student, I don't have an income and can only click at www.therainforestsite.com and the related sites every day.
That's not what I said. You are an indirect beneficiary of living in a state, as opposed to living in Somalia.
Let's put it this way... this time you make convincing arguments to my modest level of knowledge. When you talk about the anthropic principle, you occasionally make unjustified assumptions that I can notice. :-)
Negent:
I was referring to Joe's claim that he does not have an ideology. (Joe, I don't think they sell on eBay, but considering people have auctioned off their own souls online, nothing would surprise me!)
Joe:
Wow, you're hitting ALL the Limbaugh talking points! Congratulations!
Wealth envy - a rightist strawman used to justify rightist selfishness, greed and discompassion.
By the way, gentle readers, have you noticed how Joe persistently complains about being insulted, yet he peppers his commentary with the usual rightist tactics of pathologizing and infantilizing his ideological opponents? Well, I suppose he's entitled to throw some mud - he's been roundly insulted from many directions. Still, it's kinda hard to claim the high ground when you characterize your opponents as mentally ill, juvenile, overweight, lazy freeloading masterbators who live in their parents' basements (now THERE's an original idea - it's amazing that hasn't become some kind of stereotype by now!)
Too much government is a bad thing, yes. As is too little.
Are we done yet?
"No I believe that a competent check of the bridge would have found the design flaw before the bridge collapsed.
And you accuse me of being religious!!! What a hoot!!! What? You're being serious? Oh. Okay."
So you insist it's impossible to detect faults in bridges before they collapse?
That goes straight past "religious" to "insane".
"Unconstitutionally? Did they leave the Sixteenth Amendment out of your copy of the U.S. Constitution?"
I think he may have torn it out by accident while removing the 14th and 15th amendments.
"Then you have wilfully demonstrated your ignorance. That's all right, though. You can always go back to the mastubatory fantasies of your parents' basement, and let the adults do the work."
I note that Jos hasn't actually responded substantively to any of the inconsistencies in his blather which have been points out (e.g. "not a US citizen" "Didn't vote for Bush wen I had the chance".)
Tell me Joe, what's the difference between red noise and white noise?
"Read Kerbo's work, as a starting point."
It's interesting that you point me to a sociologist's work for an issue regarding economics, but maybe he makes the case you claim. However, I've never read him and I didn't find anything of his available on-line. Moreover, and more importantly, you haven't responded to what I wrote and still haven't supported your claim (your purported argument from authority doesn't cut it). I had thought better of you, but maybe you're under time pressure or more interested in feeding trolls. Try again, perhaps?
Try again, perhaps?
not the least bit interested in you, and not going to do your dance.
"not the least bit interested in you, and not going to do your dance."
Won't is often a mask for can't, especially because I haven't engaged in any sort of "dancing" other than disagreeing with you and asking that you support your claims. Pity that (fundy attitude).
Won't is not interested in making the one-hour one-way commute to my office to dig through books I haven't looked at in two years for someone I don't respect.
fuck off.
"Won't is not interested in making the one-hour one-way commute to my office to dig through books I haven't looked at in two years...."
Then don't make claims you can't support.
If you need a crib sheet, you might be wise (metaphorically) to keep your mouth shut.
"...to dig through books I haven't looked at in two years for someone I don't respect."
Translation: I want everyone to agree with me and tell me I'm wonderful or I'll take my ball and go home.
"fuck off."
With this attitude, so much for your students (you say you're a prof, right?) feeling empowered to challenge what you say and assign and to think for themselves. It's the fundy way -- keep 'em marching in lockstep and if they don't agree, they're stupid, delusional, mentally ill....
You miss the primary difference. I respect my students; they're worthy of my time and effort. You're not.
You miss the primary difference. I respect my students; they're worthy of my time and effort. You're not.
As long as they agree with you, of course.
David Marjanović, you have a point when you say, "When you talk about the anthropic principle, you occasionally make unjustified assumptions that I can notice. :-)"
Sure, it is hard to justify the assumptions or claims in this case, the subject matter (why are the laws the way they are) is inherently not accessible in the same way as the laws are etc. But note, that is a problem for anyone arguing about the subject at all, not an opprobrium that should attach particularly to those on the "pro" anthropic side of the argument. As for assumptions in general, you realize I suppose that moral claims about what is right in governance etc. are not "science" and not literally provable that way, and yet many of you accept that it is "right" or "wrong" to do this or that etc. (And I am not any more "sure" of being right about AD then you are about that.)
BTW, pls. tell me about the (presumed)"Order of Merit" you were awarded.
"You miss the primary difference. I respect my students; they're worthy of my time and effort. You're not.
Pul-eeze. Save the histrionic hissy fit for someone who cares. Respect has nothing to do with it. It's all about control.
I note that Mr "Statistics Degree" isn't answering a relatively simple question about statistics.
I dealt with statistics and statisticians quite a bit while working as an economist, oddly I don;t think I've ever even heard of a statistics degree before. Most statisticians have degrees in either one of the physical or social sciences with a MA/MSc in quantitative methods or a Mathematics degree (usually Applied).
Anyone ever actually heard of a degree in statistics?
Meantime, maybe Joe would like to describe the renormalisation process typically applied to polling results.
"I note that Mr "Statistics Degree" isn't answering a relatively simple question about statistics."
Why the hypocritical double standard?
Joe is dogpiled yet criticized for certain alleged failures to respond while "professor" Jeff makes a bold, didactic claim but, when questioned, storms off without even trying to respond to nary a criticism from the sycophantic choir.
Pot...kettle...introductions.
UVA (my alma mater) offers degrees in "statistics" FWIW:
http://www.stat.virginia.edu/degrees.html
Graduate Degree Programs
The department offers a Master of Science degree in Statistics and a Doctor of Philosophy degree in Statistics. Both degrees are offered with the cooperation of the Division of Biostatistics and Epidemiology, Department of Public Health Sciences and can be structured for students interested in Biostatistics.
Sinbad,
"Joe is dogpiled yet criticized for certain alleged failures to respond"
See, now using Joe's favorite method of arguing, I would say "Isn't that dogpiled AND criticized? What an idiot you must be. I don't need to listen to what you say." But of course, I won't sink to that level or think like that. That sort of thing really doesn't matter in an argument. Facts do.
Joe is an unknown who has spent half a week here making outrageous claims with no supporting evidence. MAJeff is a known entity who has over and over during his time as a poster here shown he is to be trusted. As you know, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Joe makes some extraordinary claims. You'll have to forgive us here if we're a bit more skeptical of the onerous Joe than we are of someone who has, time and time again, been proven to be someone who can back up his claims.
Joe,
I'm back to pitying you, even if you think you don't need it. You do deserve it.
"MAJeff is a known entity who has over and over during his time as a poster here shown he is to be trusted."
It's possible that our alleged professor is merely having a bad day. But that he can back up claims generally or that he has in the past (if true) is hardly the same as being able to back up any specific claim. Moreover, his refusal even to try to support a very broad and extraordinary claim ("Government policy, both direct and indirect, redistributes wealth upward") and telling me to f*** off for simply asking that he support it is hardly the response of someone who deserves trust or respect (imagine the dogpile had a Christian acted similarly). Indeed, one would think that an academic who deals with this subject professionally could readily lay out the basics of his claim without having to resort to additional research, particularly a claim so central to his worldview and so passionately asserted. Frankly, it looks to me like the skepticism you so value is only seen as appropriate when directed towards those who don't sing with the sycophantic choir.
"Why the hypocritical double standard?"
Has MaJeff made a bunch of contradictory statements such as not being a resident of the US and being wildly indignant about the US wasting "our" tax money?
Also it's not like it'd take him more than about two sentences a piece to answer the questions I asked.
366 posts, and I still don't understand republicans.
evidently, they can both complain about their jobs being taken away while they still have them
can complain about taxes, yet the corporations they work for don't have to pay.
can complain about social issues they themselves rarely have to face
can even complain about countries they don't apparently live in as if they did.
and can complain about people who point these inconsistencies out to them.
my only conclusion:
what a bunch of wankers.
"366 posts, and I still don't understand republicans."
Maybe that's because you extrapolate to a class of millions of voters based on a sample size of one.
Since we've been talking economics, as a guide to understanding this sorta Republican, you might consider that, almost two-and-a-half centuries on, Adam Smith got it right when he opined that economic progress depends upon three individual prerogatives: the pursuit of self-interest, division of labor and freedom of trade. On the other hand, those (most typically Democrats) who see the government as the best answer to economic problems shouldn't be surprised when the attempted cure is no better than the disease since the government typically works about as well across-the-board as your local DMV.
"Government policy, both direct and indirect, redistributes wealth upward."
NPR headline: World to End -- Poor and Minorities Hardest Hit.
Thanks, P.J.
Ichthyic says, "366 posts, and I still don't understand republicans.
evidently, they can both complain about their jobs being taken away while they still have them
can complain about taxes, yet the corporations they work for don't have to pay."
Your implication that corporations don't pay taxes is demonstrably false. Besides income taxes, which is probably what you're getting at, corporations pay payroll taxes on every employee. The corporation I work for also pays property taxes, sales and use taxes and state income taxes.
Are they paying an increasingly smaller share of total income tax revenue? Yes. Do I think this is fair? No. Are they not paying any income taxes as you have implied? No.
There is an explanation for part of this trend. More corporations, now, are forming as Subchapter S corporations. These corporations pay taxes at the stockholder level only. These taxes show up as individual taxes and not corporate taxes.
Since the 'awards' (#282) the thread has amassed nearly another 100 posts. The last point to possibly make, as an observer more than a direct contributor to this discussion: Joe and to a lesser extent Sinbad (has not posted as much drivel) have had each and every argument surgically dismembered. Since this place is 'the world wide web,' How do each of you feel about the prospect of having created international reputations for yourselves as mindbogglingly ignorant fools.
Wow, Sinbad--if that's an example of your "Christian" charity and love of your fellow man, you can keep it.
First of all, taking a 3sigma+ case and implying that it's representative is cherry-picking of the finest kind.
But I dispute your premise that your corner case is necessarily the great equalizer you and PJ are making it out to be. I'd bet my left ovary that, with any warning at all of an end to the world with any reasonable certainty, wealthy kids would be provided endless distractions to shield them from the reality until the bitter end, and euthanasia centers would spring up to provide a good death for those who didn't want to wait around, and who could afford it.
Poor kids, as always, would be left to suck it up, except as for such ad hoc charity efforts that could be mustered in the face of the emergency, and if you couldn't afford a good death, then too bad for you--you should have been rich, after all.
So even in your outlier scenario, there's an excellent chance that suffering would be anisotropically distributed, hitting those without resources even worse than those who had the resources to choose what to do about it in the face of disaster. Your headline would actually be true, despite your implications.
So as I said, if that's your "Christian" regard for your fellow man, I don't want any part of it. But as long as you and PJ get to snigger at the poor folks who died because they were too lazy to get out of New Orleans without cars, it's all good, isn't it?
Ichthyic - Glad I can agree with you sometimes, even if you are a troll!
"Since the 'awards' (#282) the thread has amassed nearly another 100 posts."
And I'm so disappointed I didn't win.
"The last point to possibly make, as an observer more than a direct contributor to this discussion: Joe and to a lesser extent Sinbad (has not posted as much drivel) have had each and every argument surgically dismembered."
I hate to break this to you, but the great bulk of my argument hasn't even been addressed, much less dismembered. And new Molly winner MAJeff won't even show up to defend his position that "the system" is rigged to screw the poor, apparently because he would have to go and do research to do so despite his prior claim that it's "basic stuff" (#87). And he says he's a professor in the field for Heaven's sake. That said, I could be wrong. Would you kindly point out where in this thread Adam Smith was dismembered, surgically or otherwise?
"Since this place is 'the world wide web,' How do each of you feel about the prospect of having created international reputations for yourselves as mindbogglingly ignorant fools."
Your question inappropriately assumes a fact not evidenced, but thanks for the kind words nonetheless.
"Wow, Sinbad--if that's an example of your "Christian" charity and love of your fellow man, you can keep it."
Why does the Left come across so often as humorless prigs? And are you irony-impared? Not to put too fine a point on it, but PJ's point is that we'll all -- rich and poor alike -- be a-hem dead.
"But as long as you and PJ get to snigger at the poor folks who died because they were too lazy to get out of New Orleans without cars, it's all good, isn't it?"
Stop embarrassing yourself, please. As it happens, my church and my family are still making regular trips to do post-Katrina relief (though in our case it's in Mississippi rather than New Orleans) and in the areas I'm familiar with, only religious organizations are still doing anything. I don't mean to suggest that only religious people have helped or are helping, but to say that I "sniggered" in any way at their misfortune is a bald-faced lie. I would be pleased to accept your apology and retraction, however.
Only if you define "humor" as gratuitously mocking other peoples' misfortune. Among people whose opinion is worth respecting, I'll put my sense of humor up against yours anytime.
I wouldn't recommend holding your breath waiting.
Sinbad,
"On the other hand, those (most typically Democrats) who see the government as the best answer to economic problems shouldn't be surprised when the attempted cure is no better than the disease since the government typically works about as well across-the-board as your local DMV"
Funny, Ive never actually met any of these "typical Democrats" you speak of. The typical Dems I know believe that government has a place in our lives (it is government for and by the people remember) and that in some things (but obviously not all) it works better to consolidate our resources and work together. However, I don't know anyone like you're talking about, the mythological folk who think that government is the best answer for everything, including our economic well being.
I do know a lot of republicans though, that think that government shouldn't have any say in our lives and have a faith in "the market" that would put the pope's in god to shame.
"Only if you define "humor" as gratuitously mocking other peoples' misfortune."
That is just plain silly. It's equal opportunity misfortune in PJ's quip -- everyone (rich and poor, you and I alike) is d-e-a-d.
"I wouldn't recommend holding your breath waiting."
I'm not. I don't expect any of the regulars to call you on your fabrications either, because lying for "the cause" is a good thing, right? So much for the idea (advocated by some) that atheists are somehow more moral than Christians....
Why does the Left come across so often as humorless prigs?
Have you said something funny that we should all know about? I'll be sure to buy a ticket the next time you headline at Yuk-Yuk's.
Find us a moral Christian, Sinbad, and I'll do the statistical analysis.
Yes, you can't make that outcome better. Unlike the implication in the quip, however, you can make it worse in an "adding insult to injury" kind of way. And you can bet your ass that the poor and minorities will absorb the brunt of that. So despite the implication, poor and minorities *would* suffer worse, and you call that "humor".
I guess to someone who can't think in any other way than binary, the idea that there can be no "good outcome" but multiple flavors of "worse outcome" *would* look like a lie.
This demonstrated trait of reveling in kicking someone while they're down and laughing about it is why *I'll* never understand Republicans.
"I do know a lot of republicans though, that think that government shouldn't have any say in our lives and have a faith in 'the market' that would put the pope's in god to shame."
I think these Republicans are as mythical as the Democrats who believe that government is the answer to everything (which I didn't state or imply). I think Republicans and Democrats alike (in your words) generally "believe that government has a place in our lives (it is government for and by the people remember) and that in some things (but obviously not all) it works better to consolidate our resources and work together." In my view, the question often seems to turn on which direction one tends to look first for a solution, the market or the government. I have much more faith in the market, but that faith isn't blind.
Looking back I realize I should have said
"I do know a lot of republicans though, that think that government shouldn't have any say in our lives except for who we can sleep with and what church we should have to attend, oh and pretty much everything else about our private lives..."
I have much more faith in the market, but that faith
isn't blind.
That's good to hear, because the Republicans you alluded to earlier in that comment aren't at all mythical. I've met and spoken with lots of them.
Now, it's possible that they truly think and feel much more like you, but you'd never know it from what they say.
"Have you said something funny that we should all know about?"
I didn't, but O'Rourke did.
"Find us a moral Christian, Sinbad, and I'll do the statistical analysis."
There is none righteous, no not one.
"Unlike the implication in the quip, however, you can make it worse in an 'adding insult to injury' kind of way. And you can bet your ass that the poor and minorities will absorb the brunt of that."
Right. When a meteor the size of Saturn crashes into the earth this afternoon, the poor and minorities will absorb the brunt of that.
"I guess to someone who can't think in any other way than binary, the idea that there can be no 'good outcome' but multiple flavors of 'worse outcome' *would* look like a lie."
That's not the lie to which I referred. The lie I referenced was your (false) assertion that I sniggered at the misfortune of Katrina victims.
"I do know a lot of republicans though, that think that government shouldn't have any say in our lives except for who we can sleep with and what church we should have to attend, oh and pretty much everything else about our private lives...".
In my view, many Republicans are far too willing to cede government control in areas of personal liberty and Democrats are far too willing to cede government control over the markets.
"Now, it's possible that they truly think and feel much more like you, but you'd never know it from what they say."
Rhetoric aside, how many of them do you think really want to dismantle (for example) the military?
The only way your scenario works the way you think it does is if it is instantaneous and there is absolutely no warning that science can detect--a "miracle", in other words.
Anything else, such as a meteor the size of Saturn, which science can detect and provides advance warning, gives an opportunity for anisotropic distribution of suffering, as people with resources can control how they respond to their fate, while people without resources cannot in the same way.
So you *can* add insult to injury, and you and PZ find that funny for some reason.
You laugh at the anisotropic distribution of suffering toward the poor and minorities as a class. Katrina victims are a member of that class, so the principle applies transitively.
And there are a lot of Republicans who don't mind saying publicly that it was the Katrina victims' fault for not being able to leave, so it's not like you don't have a lot of Republican company on that score.
Rhetoric aside, how many of them do you think really want to dismantle (for example) the military?
The fact that you asked that question perhaps does demonstrate the difference between what you may think and what the others think.
I've heard the argument from a self-styled Libertarian (although I'm not suggesting that he is representative of Libertarian thought, but an American neo-con version of it) that the only purpose of government is to provide for the physical security of its people.
When I asked him why this should be the case he made some bogus historical claim for this from ancient cultures (as well as draw some inspiration from the bible), but was utterly unable to make a cogent argument.
Exactly why the military should sit in a class apart from every other conceivable service has never been clear to me, but I don't disagree with you that that's how most (if not all) of them think.
Oops! Sorry, PZ; slip of the fingers--of course, it's *PJ* O'Rourke I'm referring to, not PZ.
"The fact that you asked that question perhaps does demonstrate the difference between what you may think and what the others think."
I try to avoid assuming what others think.
"I've heard the argument from a self-styled Libertarian (although I'm not suggesting that he is representative of Libertarian thought, but an American neo-con version of it) that the only purpose of government is to provide for the physical security of its people."
So my point is made. But I'd bet that even people who claim to be that extreme (who can't rightly be called Republican I don't think) would likely, when pressed, concede other legitimate purposes as well (e.g., a justice system).
"When I asked him why this should be the case he made some bogus historical claim for this from ancient cultures (as well as draw some inspiration from the bible), but was utterly unable to make a cogent argument."
Maybe he should argue that we simply hire the Blackwater folks to do it all?
"Exactly why the military should sit in a class apart from every other conceivable service has never been clear to me...."
As usual, there's more than enough hypocrisy to go around. Why Republicans are so often willing to concede civil liberties and Democrats are so often willing to concede economic liberties is beyond me. Perhaps it merely depends upon whose ox is being gored.
I try to avoid assuming what others think.
Great. I like vanilla ice cream. Any other non sequiturs you feel like unloading on us?
So my point is made. But I'd bet that even people who claim to be that extreme (who can't rightly be called Republican I don't think) would likely, when pressed, concede other legitimate purposes as well (e.g., a justice system).
Yes, but the question is why those things and not others, such as healthcare.
Maybe he should argue that we simply hire the Blackwater folks to do it all?
No, asshole, he should be able to defend his claims, or at least try to. Oh, and if one is to invoke history in one's arguments, one should have at least a passing knowledge of it.
As usual, there's more than enough hypocrisy to go around. Why Republicans are so often willing to concede civil liberties and Democrats are so often willing to concede economic liberties is beyond me. Perhaps it merely depends upon whose ox is being gored.
This would have been an excellent place for a claim. Instead, you blather on.
Whatever.
"Great. I like vanilla ice cream. Any other non sequiturs you feel like unloading on us?"
Then I'm afraid I misunderstood you. Kindly re-phrase?
"Yes, but the question is why those things and not others, such as healthcare."
Good question. I've pretty well given up the employer-based model myself.
"No, asshole, he should be able to defend his claims, or at least try to. Oh, and if one is to invoke history in one's arguments, one should have at least a passing knowledge of it."
Clearly I shouldn't makes jokes here.
"This would have been an excellent place for a claim."
I have spent most of my energy on this thread challenging certain stated notions from the Left, but I have been unsuccessful at getting anyone (most prominently MAJeff) to explain how "the system" redistributes wealth upward. I even provided examples of the three largest "loopholes" provided by the US Tax Code and showed how they apparently do no such thing. But I'm not sure what type of affirmitive claim you think I should offer here. I generally think that the government is lousy at being efficient at anything (why the DMV is a pain, the Post Office is a disaster and the DOD comes up with $300 hammers). But we're stuck with the government in a number of areas because the service can't be readily done otherwise or because the service is so important. In terms of anti-poverty programs, I generally favor market-based incentives (e.g., enterprise zones) over entitlement programs or direct funding. I'm nervous about private/public "partnerships" (where I live folks like Goodwill are much more successful than similar government programs but I also fear that the government, if and when involved, will, overall, taint the outcome; plus I don't want the government involved in religion or vice versa). I'd like the tax code much simpler and more uniform in application (and have no problem with it being somewhat "progressive"). I'll take this wherever you like as time permits.
I try to avoid assuming what others think.
Liar:
Right. When a meteor the size of Saturn crashes into the earth this afternoon, the poor and minorities will absorb the brunt of that.
You might as well deny that disparities in availability of health care are irrelevant to quality of life because even rich people wouldn't survive such an event.
Really, folks, you're dealing with deeply dishonest people;
don't imagine that you will change their minds.
Why does the Left come across so often as humorless prigs? And are you irony-impared? Not to put too fine a point on it, but PJ's point is that we'll all -- rich and poor alike -- be a-hem dead.
Leftist humorist Anatole France had them rolling in the aisles when he once said "The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread."
Clearly I shouldn't makes jokes here.
Oh, um, I was joking too....
Okay, sorry about that. I misinterpreted and thought you were being snotty to derail the discussion (because I never do that).
I have spent most of my energy....
There's a lot here that I would need to research and consider in order to respond reasonably (for instance, I'm unfamiliar with enterprise zones and their application).
What I was asking for, and you've hinted at it, is some explanation for why certain services are considered legitimately provided for by government, and why others are seen to be best provided for by the market. You used the word 'important' as one criterion, and superficially I would agree, but I am genuinely interested in the differences between liberals (of which I consider myself to be one) and conservatives when it comes to private vs. public provision of services, so I'm not going to assume we're on the same page here.
Since you graciously offered to take this argument wherever I like, I thought I'd start off by listing off a few working criteria for why I consider some services more "important" or "essential" than others, and why they are best not left to the market (for the sake of brevity, 'services' here should include the provision of goods as well). Usually, a service has to meet two of the criteria for me to consider it essential:
1) Those services that are universally necessary to sustain human life, especially in the immediate or short-term;
2) Those that require technology or specialisation so as to make the provision of them prohibitively expensive for most individuals; and
3) Those that cannot be reasonably be provided for via alternatives that circumvent criteria 1) and 2).
My reasoning for why the market cannot provide services that meet these criteria as well as the government can largely rests on the idea that the market works best when consumers can make informed choices based upon the ability to evaluate services and either obtain reimbursement or restitution for substandard services or find alternative services, be it with another provider or a different set of services altogether. This is best accomplished when a consumer has multiple opportunities to rationally evaluate similar services over a period of time. The three criteria I listed above were all chosen because they prevent the consumer for making such rational choices (ie due to a lack of time, a lack of monetary resources, or a lack of alternatives).
Now the government, in effect acting as a proxy for a large number of consumers over time, is in the position to evaluate the provision of such services again and again.
Take, as an example, emergency healthcare. EH fails the first two, though reasonable alternative measures can be taken. Generally, EH services are needed immediately and are critical, and so make it difficult for the consumer to reasonably assess options, and they're expensive enough that the average consumer is unlikely to purchase them multiple times and thus vote with their dollars for better services over worse. Finally, death due to substandard service provision effectively ends that consumer's ability to affect market forces.
Now, as you point out, governments tend toward bloat and inefficiency (although private corporations are not immune; Scott Adams has built himself a lucrative little career pointing out the inefficiencies in private workplaces), however, their disregard for the bottom line has a silver lining: if it comes down to a constituent's death vs. economic inefficiency, a government can choose to sacrifice dollars for life. This is indeed why governments can spend billions on things like armies, which tend not to earn them much.
I'll stop there for now; these arguments involve a number of gross generalisations and are by no means conclusive (in fact, I can see some good rebuttals already), but I thought I'd come clean and throw some things out there in the interest of reducing partisanship.
Also, I am aware that I pretty much inserted myself into this thread, so I won't be offended nor hold it against you should you choose not to respond to this line of thought.
Sinbad,
"the DOD comes up with $300 hammers"
HMMmmmmm, yeah, about those. You may not be aware that, at least in the military, a lot of that is actually a cover. Two-hundred and eighty bucks of that actually goes to fund black ops and other things we (former Marine here) don't necessarily won't everyone to know about. Not saying there isn't waste, sure is, but it's not much worse than, and in some cases better than, large corporations. For instance, the largest Medicare HMO in America reported overhead of 15 per cent. Medicare is at 3 per cent. That's what happens when you have CEOs that make a quarter million a day, etc.
Just thought that should be pointed out.
Brownian -- This is a most worthy discussion topic and already looks to be a refreshing contrast to the typical pissing contests we all tend to engage in. I also confess to being happy to keep it at the discussion level (rather than a debate level) because I haven't thought all this through systematically and will therefore necessarily be doing some "thinking out loud."
I added "important" to "necessary" in part because "necessary" really means reasonably necessary (as to which the common defense applies, I think), but also because I'm sensitive to those areas which history has shown to be resistent to change without governmental intervention (e.g., racial discrimination).
I can accept your (1), at least tentatively. My immediate concern re (2) is that it's a category ideally suited to the insurance industry, due to the law of large numbers. The current healthcare system is dreadful, however, and needs overhaul. Part of the problem is deciding as a country what we want out of medical care. I have a friend who moved here from the UK and railed for months about how much better the British system is until (a) his American pediatrician noticed a cancerous condition in his son that had gone undetected there, and (b) the son got almost immediate surgery rather than having to wait weeks or months for it (note that I assume he described the UK situation accurately). Not surprisingly, we want the high level of care available here more readily than elsewhere but want the universal coverage and other benefits the UK system provides.
Thinking out loud, I'd be fine with some from of universal healthcare if we add an element of competition to the mix both with respect to insurance carriers and with doctors. We also, I think, want to make sure that doctors are well enough paid that we keep getting a significant percentage of the best students going to medical school (interesting aside: I had an interesting conversation last week with Constitutional scholar Jesse Choper -- apologies for the name-dropping -- who argued that a much too high percentage of the best students are becoming lawyers). Perhaps mandatory participation with a choice of carrier and a joint "high risk" pool? I realize that it will be difficult for consumers to make informed choices in such an event, but I also think you underestimate the effectiveness of "word of mouth" in that type of situation, particularly where everyone will be a part of the process and have an interest in it. Of course, I'm speaking about healthcare more broadly than your EH.
Re Scott Adams, I had a lot of business dealings with the old PacBell (where Adams worked) and he's largely spot-on about it. Partly, I think, because as companies get bigger they tend toward more and more bureaucracy, but also because the old regulated phone companies were very close to government -- closer, probably, to government than to private industry in practical effect.
"[H]owever, their disregard for the bottom line has a silver lining: if it comes down to a constituent's death vs. economic inefficiency, a government can choose to sacrifice dollars for life."
The law of large numbers can accomplish the same thing, but more economically. Actuaries are remarkably good.
I'll stop here for now, but am interested in continuing if you are.
"HMMmmmmm, yeah, about those. You may not be aware that, at least in the military, a lot of that is actually a cover. Two-hundred and eighty bucks of that actually goes to fund black ops and other things we (former Marine here) don't necessarily won't everyone to know about."
As I recall, Black Ops had nothing to do with it (Charlie's War gives a reasonable summary of how that's done). The excessive payments to which I refer were for specially designed military products. Under criticism for spending too much for (often over-engineered) military grade components, the military and aerospace industries started buying at least some the same hammers you and I can buy at Home Depot.
Clearly, all these arguments are invalidated by the fact that a body the size of Saturn could not by any stretch be classified as a meteor.
Ehhh... I disagree. PJ's point is that Lybryls view everything in those terms of the fairness gap between rich and poor; the point is illustrated by the fact that in this extreme case, everyone is equally dead. I'd like to point out that the extreme case itself illustrates essentially nothing about what goes on here in the real world, day to day, year to year. But it's an amusing headline.
PJ's point doesn't even seem to be that coherent; it's more like any excuse to smear liberals under the guise of calling it humor will do for him and his audience. It's not the least bit surprising that Sinbad is a fanboy, given what PJ has written about Katrina:
Real funny stuff, especially if you're working with low-resource populations facing even more budget cuts in essential medical services these days. As I said, it's no surprise that Sinbad digs the author of high-quality innuendo and smears like that.
I'm putting the link in now; let's hope ScienceBlogs doesn't gag on it as much as I did.
Of course, your friend was well-off enough to have medical insurance in the US - if he had been uninsured he wouldn't have been able to visit a pediatrician.
Approximately 16% of people in the US have no health insurance -- would your friend have been willing to come to the States if he thought he had a 16% chance of going without any coverage? The philosopher John Rawls proposed that an appropriate way to judge the justice of a system is whether one would choose that system even if you didn't know what individual you would be in that system. I get the distinct impression that many more people would be in favour of universal health coverage if they thought they might be someone who could actually end up without coverage.
Universal health coverage does not necessarily provide the best care for every individual, but it does ensure that every individual has care.
The Canadian system (or at least the Ontario system, with which I am most familar) does have competition among doctors, even more than most Americans experience, since I can go to any doctor in the province, with no HMO-like limitations. I can choose whomever I like to provide me with medical service. As for insurance carriers, they're largely the problem, the reason the US system is so terribly inefficient. You've already got competition there, and look at what has happened.
lol! Ok, "want", not "won't". Can't even begin to start to guess at the remotest possibility of where that came from.
"Since we've been talking economics, as a guide to understanding this sorta Republican, you might consider that, almost two-and-a-half centuries on, Adam Smith got it right when he opined that economic progress depends upon three individual prerogatives: the pursuit of self-interest, division of labor and freedom of trade. On the other hand, those (most typically Democrats) who see the government as the best answer to economic problems shouldn't be surprised when the attempted cure is no better than the disease since the government typically works about as well across-the-board as your local DMV."
And you might consider the meaning of the expression "false dichotomy".
Tell me do you favor legalising child labor?
If not, does that automatically make you part of the Democrat neo-Stalinist horde you fantasise about while complaining about how unfair it is to stereotype Democrats?
(For the record, I'm an Australian. I have no attachment to either the US Democrat or the US Republican Party. The difference between the two is of about as much interest as, for example, the difference between the Australian Labor and Liberal parties probably is to you.)
Funny, after God knows how many posts and much mudslinging and abuse in both directions Joe "Statistics Degree" Blow seems to have decamped immediately after my statistics questions.
After our exchange over positive correlation versus post hoc ergo proctor hoc, I hesitate to imply any causal link.
But the timing is suggestive.
Sinbad,
There is, of course, a little of both going on. While some items (hammers or whatever) were overpaid for because of no-bid contracts, some were indeed used to cover costs for black ops. I spent two of my four years in service with Surveillance Reconnaissance Intelligence Group. I had nothing at all to do with anything like black ops, but knew plenty of people who were deeper into that sort of thing than you or I will ever be. Movies...well, ya know.
Even if we do go ahead and accept that things like wasteful no-bid contracts happen, it still doesn't change the latter part of my comment. Business is still often as wasteful or more so than government.
"There is, of course, a little of both going on. While some items (hammers or whatever) were overpaid for because of no-bid contracts, some were indeed used to cover costs for black ops. I spent two of my four years in service with Surveillance Reconnaissance Intelligence Group. I had nothing at all to do with anything like black ops, but knew plenty of people who were deeper into that sort of thing than you or I will ever be. Movies...well, ya know."
I live in a military town -- Navy and Marines. As it happens, I know SEAL Commanders. They describe a funding practice for Black Ops whereby the DoD lists a number of single line items in its budget that have only a program number, code names or vague descriptions that don't refer to any weapons system known to the general public, Congressional officials or even defense analysts. Apparently these single line items are covers for the creation of a "black budget," with the approval of Congress. The extent of Congressional oversight is outlined in Charlie's War and limited on the grounds that such oversight would compromise the secrecy essential for the success of such programs. That's consistent with what was done when I worked on the Hill. The $300 hammers had nothing to do with it.
"Even if we do go ahead and accept that things like wasteful no-bid contracts happen, it still doesn't change the latter part of my comment. Business is still often as wasteful or more so than government."
Business is often wasteful indeed, which is why the markets are best when free. Market pressure is the best way to deal with waste. The old regulated AT&T was as bureaucratic an organization as you could imagine. When I worked in NYC I lived in a NJ suburb with lots of AT&T management. Community organizations were a running joke because virtually everything they were involved in took forever -- they had a lengthy process for everything. One committee I know which was charged with making a hire for a charitable organization was chaired by one of these guys, and they took a year of weekly meeting to decide what their meetings would be like. I wish I were joking! The committee took 2 1/2 years to make a simple hire. The new AT&T has any number of problems, but deregulation cut down on the redtape. Of course, corporate cultures are hard to change, which is why Dilbert (the old PacBell is now part of the new AT&T) still resonates and is still grounded in fact.
"And you might consider the meaning of the expression 'false dichotomy'"....
So you think your Australian government a model of efficiency and effectiveness?
"As for insurance carriers, they're largely the problem, the reason the US system is so terribly inefficient."
The carriers are surely part of the problem, but if you want to accuse them of being the primary problem, you might want to offer some evidence.
"Of course, your friend was well-off enough to have medical insurance in the US - if he had been uninsured he wouldn't have been able to visit a pediatrician."
Indeed. Plus, once the problem was discovered, he stopped complaining about the "exhorbitant price" he was paying for medical care and insurance.
"PJ's point...."
On what logical (or other) basis do you assume that my citing a P.J. O'Rourke quip means that I endorse his views on Katrina or any other subject?
"Ehhh... I disagree. PJ's point is that Lybryls view everything in those terms of the fairness gap between rich and poor; the point is illustrated by the fact that in this extreme case, everyone is equally dead."
You're correct.
"I'd like to point out that the extreme case itself illustrates essentially nothing about what goes on here in the real world, day to day, year to year. But it's an amusing headline."
Yup. It's simply indicative of a mindset (residue from Marx perhaps?).
"Clearly, all these arguments are invalidated by the fact that a body the size of Saturn could not by any stretch be classified as a meteor."
Thank you! I needed that.
Ah, yes, the myth of the efficiency of the free market:
Citigroup announced today that is would write off "as much as $20 billion in mortgage-related investments," according to the Wall Street Journal, while laying off as many as 20,000 employees. According to the WSJ, Charles Prince, former CEO of Citigroup, left Citigroup with "accumulated benefits" valued at more than $29 million, mostly in company stock. Prince also got a "prorated bonus for 2007.
E. Stanley O'Neal, former CEO of Merrill Lynch, did even better, walking away from Merrill Lynch with "accumulated benefits" worth more than $161 million. Merrill Lynch has lost billions of dollars due to the subprime crisis.
Angelo Mozilo, CEO of Countrywide FInancial, whose company is being bought by Bank of America for $4 billion (a fraction of its market value only a year ago), "stands to get a severance package valued at more than $110 million," reported the WSJ. That's on top of $140 million in Countrywide stock that he sold off duing 2006-07. Mozilo was also paid $48 million in 2006. As the subprime crisis worsened during the last year, Countrywide stock lost more than 80 percent of its value, according to media reports.
And generally, CEO compensation is not very correlated with indicators such as shareholder value or profit.
"Ah, yes, the myth of the efficiency of the free market...."
Your examples illustrate the law of unintended consequences. In 1993, the government decided that a CEO's salary in excess of $1 million would not be deductible from the corporate tax bill unless it was deemed incentive-based. The IRS subsequently ruled that options were incentive-based, dramatically changing how CEOs were paid. We're reaping the consequences of that decision now, though it's not to say that markets are totally efficient. They're simply the most efficient alternative. And if you think that the markets aren't relatively efficient, ask yourself why the median mutual fund underperforms the S&P by about 200bp.
Just a reminder that the current economic mudslide is largely the result of deregulation of financial services pushed by Republicans and the sort of Democrats who flack for the same interests.
"Just a reminder that the current economic mudslide is largely the result of deregulation of financial services pushed by Republicans and the sort of Democrats who flack for the same interests."
Business failures of all sorts have significant societal and personal costs, granted. But do you really think we're better off overall by artificially propping up ineffective or inefficient businesses or are we better off allowing poor businesses to fail?
Boy are you mixed up. The deregulation I refer to was about letting banks etc. offer and package various exotic tricky finance packages in non-transparent ways, package them into third party investment instruments, etc, IOW about letting them do what they want instead of having rules. What you mean is something completely different.
Those "exotic tricky finance packages" went almost exclusively to institutional investors, and to the extent that individuals purchased them, they were predominantly accredited investors. Why shouldn't caveat emptor alone apply?
P.S. They couldn't simply "do what they want" -- the securities laws apply.
PS - the securities laws have been eviscerated by conservatives and fellow travelers just so investor gamers could get away with such stuff, that horribly affects the rest of us. Silly, caveat emptor may apply to them, but what about how it affects the rest of us? You don't care, do you?
"the securities laws have been eviscerated by conservatives and fellow travelers just so investor gamers could get away with such stuff, that horribly affects the rest of us."
How, specifically (both as to changes in the law and how we are so horribly affected)?
Sinbad, it's out there.
I asked because I haven't seen it. Share a link?
Eh, yeah. But reasonable people of good will who are equally well informed disagreeing... that happens a lot less often.
Third choice: ignorant.
That said, to be ignorant without noticing it is itself stupid...
Which is why it's called "No Child's Behind Left".
I'll never forget how right after Captain Unelected's first tax cut a poll was published that said 19 (nineteen) % of Americans believed they were among the richest 1 (one) % of Americans (the ones who profited from that tax cut).
Oops, that must be the one comment 121 talks about.
Two words: Somalia, moron.
LOL! No, it got hold up from containing two links. Every ScienceBlogs comment with more than one link is considered spam until manually proven innocent by the blog owner.
Hasn't even reached 300 comments yet :-)
So it's true then: Bill Clinton was the best Republican president you've ever had.
He said he lives in a constitutional monarchy...
Reaganomics-Bushonomics: Capitalism for the poor, socialism for the rich.
-------------
Considering population growth, how many jobs must be created in the USA per year just to keep the unemployment rate constant?
Ah. Joe Blow is so stupid he has never thought through what taxes exist for. All he can see is his money being taken away.
Look, Joe: there are things that can only be done on a very large scale if they're supposed to work or to ever be finished, but of which everyone can profit. The textbook example are roads... I'm sure you can think of more.
Probably you also (pathologically) lack empathy, so I need to explain in utilitarian terms why we shouldn't just let people starve. No problem, I can: Why should we let all that potential go to waste? All that workforce, all that talent for invention and discovery?
Are you really dumber than Henry Ford, who figured out who was going to buy his products?
You are a beneficiary of all that "pork-barreling".
The Cato Institute is a "conservative" stink tank. Why should we assume it has any more credibility than the "far-left, moonbat web site" bushwatch.org? See, I can make ad hominem "arguments", too.
Incidentally, the bushwatch.org link doesn't work. You might prefer spending a few hours at this site and those it links to. Where I come from, the owners of that site would be considered pretty average conservatives with a few bizarre idiosyncracies... the site links to the dreaded mainstream media.
I can only judge you based on the evidence, that is, your comments. You act as if you had never thought it through, so...
Isn't it obvious that I was talking about the principle, not about the practice of the US Congress?
Again, you act as if you actually hated everyone who are poorer than you, as if they deserved being poorer than you, and as if you wanted to additionally punish them instead of help them. What can I conclude from this?
Case in point: this quote from your comment:
See? Instead of demonstrating you have ever thought about the subject, you just repeat yourself.
What is more, you implicitly advocate collective punishment: some of those who are poorer than you have behaved in criminal or irresponsible ways, so all of them should be punished...? I mean, if "welfare brood mares" really exist, they're an argument for the existence of police, not an argument against the existence of the welfare state. As for addicts, don't you think they should be helped out of their addiction by therapy instead of being even further punished than they are already punishing themselves? (If not, I can't see where your empathy is. That's why I supposed you don't have any and were born without one. Such people are said to exist.)
You seem very agitated!!! Calm down and think (in this order).
As a 25-year-old university student, I don't have an income and can only click at www.therainforestsite.com and the related sites every day.
That's not what I said. You are an indirect beneficiary of living in a state, as opposed to living in Somalia.
Let's put it this way... this time you make convincing arguments to my modest level of knowledge. When you talk about the anthropic principle, you occasionally make unjustified assumptions that I can notice. :-)
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