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Jonnan001:
I think you understand what I'm talking about, but you didn't get my point.
Whether or not insurance premiums for legal protections are financially justified is immaterial. Each minor case you file against MDs increases the collective fear of MDs that their own number is up. It's not the fiscal sense of it that drives the premiums up - it's the fear and annoyance, and those are hardly ever consoled by reason.
If the entire populace wasn't so quick on the legal gun, MDs wouldn't even be paying for legal protection.
Psychoak - for the most part you make cogent arguments, or at least seem to think outside Fox News talking points.
That said, blaiming Broosbee for his "stupid" insurance is kinda brutal. Remove yourself from the angry internet for a moment and recognize that his experience says something about our health system beyond his inability to pick a product.
Peace
Oh, come on. The vast majority of the reading that fed my *avowedly sloppy* talk was by comfy, white academics. Lincoln's use of epithets plays no part in my view of him. It is part of my larger devotion to taking down US presidential hagiography, and a natural reaction to modern Republicans claiming some kind of bloody-shirt karma when they indeed became the new home of the billious spirit that Robert Byrd embraced and then *rejected* in substantive ways (NAACP recently gave him a 100% rating on their issues report card).
No president is a saint, or a demon. They're people, with strengths and weaknesses, who occupy the top seat in an increasingly dysfunctional part of our political system. I'm just as happy to see people take sloppy pot-shots at FDR as I am to take my own at Lincoln. All 43.5 of them need to be taken down quite a few damn notches.
Not quite. The attention grabbing fictions are just one technique in a toolkit for both art forms, and the techniques are useless without their real-world underpinnings. Games also rely on software design and/or a rules system. Politics also relies on physical force (cops & armies) and economic power (throwing around resources and/or funds).
Jonnan, you're flat wrong. Bush really isn't a conservative. All he did is claim he was. Then he got elected and it became apparent he was anything but.
The Democrats are going to claim this is result of conservatism and lack of regulation, when it is exactly the opposite. The Republicans have been worse than Democrats the last eight years. The financial sector has been more regulated than ever before, even before the bailouts. Ever since Clinton the government has been telling banks to make unsound loans so that 'every American family can own a house.' Even those with terrible credit who can't pay the loans back.
If you'd like, I'll go in to my real long spiel about what exactly the government did to cause this crisis. The fact remains that it is government's fault, not the free market's.
And still, I'm clueless as to how decreasing taxes for the rich hurts the poor at all. Even if you don't buy trickle down theory, it can't hurt others. It can only help the economy at large, the job market, and all those in it. People would argue that protectionist policies are good for the working man, but this is again another myth. I don't know who's idea it was that manufacturing jobs are the only source of good blue collar work. The fact is that countries both become more prosperous if they trade goods they make efficiently for goods others make more efficiently than they can. That way they produce, and therefore gain in trade, more net wealth than they would if they tried to make goods they're relatively poor at making at home.
So prices at home come down with more goods being traded for. Or more wealth enters the country. So the same worker has a different job in the service industry (salesman, let's say, or perhaps an insurance agent). Let's say his company can get staplers cheaper from overseas due to the fact that they're produced more efficiently there. That reduces their costs of business, and they're the company insuring the facilities of the stapler manufacturer (for our example). These cheaper supplies allow them to expand their operation and hire more people. So the loss of a stapler manufacturer allows for the expansion of the insurance company. There is no net loss of jobs. Just DIFFERENT jobs. And while our worker may not start out at the same pay rate as he had at the plant, he has far more opportunity for pay raise here due to the very high profit margins in his new business.
And then there's the New Deal fallacy. The idea the building unneeded infrastructure is somehow good for the job market. This leads to the broken window parable. A man's window breaks. He has to buy a new one. The argument is that this is good for the economy as it creates business for the glass company. What about the suit he could have bought with that money? The tailor has lost business. So the net loss in wealth is the window itself. Doing work on projects that aren't needed prevents workers from doing work on projects that are needed (those investment made by the free market). Additionally, it prevents companies from hiring workers as the equilibrium wage is artificially pushed up by government employment. And this all ignores the fact that these unnecessary projects are paid for by the tax payers in the first place. Remember that government doesn't produce anything, and can't really boost the economy at all. All they can do is shift and redistribute wealth, trying to give people the illusion that the economy is doing things it actually isn't.
I don't know what definition of conservative you use, but increasing spending and the size of government is not in my book conservative. It's unfortunate that the Republican congress let him loose like that, and more unfortunate that congress didn't hold him in check (seems they mostly gave up some of their duties granted to them by the constitution). As far as having a Republican congress, I do wish it had been Democrat controled for Bush as well. Though in my opinion the parties differ very little, they (congress and the president) would have made each other more ineffective.
Democrat, Republican, I don't care at this point they all need to wake up and realize that dumping dollars into this system is going to hurt us in the end. They need to be more responsible and stop spending dollars like they're going out of style (which they if we continue on the current pace).
Dozer, you're kinda stupid.
Actual defense spending isn't the majority of government spending. It's barely larger than discretionary spending, and dwarfed by medicare and social security types. The only way you could get the idea that defense spending is the reason we have debt is by buying into the idiocy. Entitlements don't get to be removed from the budget for non-military personal and added to defense spending for veterans. It's fiction. Even counting veteran costs, which are an entitlement program, the other entitlements still outspend the military. Entitlements are OVER half the budget, period. Believe pie charts that state they've left a third of the budget out a little less, ok?
Voting yourself interest is what all these idiots have done this time around. Obama's gonna give me money! Woohoo! Tax breaks on people that don't even pay an income tax...
What is it with Fox news? I'm tired of being teased continuously with this idea of a right wing news network.
I watch the shit, and I say shit seriously. O'Rielly, that evil right wing bastard, is a fucking liberal. Yes, I said liberal. He's socially moderate, and fiscally liberal. Every time that idiot starts harping about the US oil companies and their evil price fixing, the companies that only control a few percent of the world supply, I have this urge to take a baseball bat to his empty head. They've barely mentioned the exculpatory evidence in the Stevens case. The coverage on the bailout shit has been almost entirely favorable, and it's as liberal an idea as it gets. They harp on Bush's approval rating daily, and only occasionally mention that congress is even further in the shitter!
They're less useless than the other networks, but they are not a right wing news network. I know because I cuss at the dumb fucks even more often than I do here.
Yes, I just admitted to being one of those dumb shits that swears at his TV.
Not to nitpick or anything, but I asked why he had stupid insurance. There is an option, which is the method a significant percentage of the population is covered through, where he's not to blame for his insurance personally. In such a case it's his union/state/federal government's fault, depending on which monkey's ass of an organization run by idiots made the choice for him.
That said, if telling someone their insurance is stupid classifies as brutal, what does not telling them their insurance is stupid classify as? If he's at all honest with himself, he'd wish someone had called him on such idiocy and saved him all that trouble before he got cancer and went through hell.
Since it's futile, I'll pretend the NAACP isn't led by a bunch of racists using their people for their own power and keeping as many of them as possible dependant on them. I'll also pretend they aren't obscenely biased towards the democrats and give them flying colors while crucifying black republicans as race traitors. I'll even ignore the reality that equal hiring practices are demanded by democrats, but actually practiced by republicans. Hell, lets even pretend that the black guy who just happens to dress like a gang banger and talk like a neanderthal because it's his "culture" is being discriminated against when someone who actually wants to stay in business wont hire him as a sales rep in a country that speaks english.
You win the Byrd argument, the democrats really are the party of progress on race relations, and I'm a magic fairy. Kiss my ass and I'll give you three wishes.
This isn't new idiocy. Every generation looks back at the last one and calls them names, those backwards, bigoted people. Lincoln was one of the more foreward thinking, equal rights people in his time. He had a long stated belief that all men should be free. It's in transcripts from debates, speeches, papers he wrote. It didn't magically appear after the civil war started, it didn't even appear after he became president. The claims that he was some hate filled racist that wanted to end slavery because he just couldn't stand the sight of all them damn niggers and wanted to send them all back to Africa is bullshit. The worst you can possibly say about the man without being a liar, is that he was a man of his time and did hold certain views that were common as dirt even among the abolitionists. Some of them are still common today, but you're also pretending the southern democrats are republicans so we'll just ignore that too.
Stupid or hateful, take your pick.
Eviliron, the OT forum is common to all boards. Stardock has them all networked together. The only posts specific to these forums are the ones in the actual sins topics. You can go to any other portal and access this post.
If anybody wants to check out the budget figures (unless Obama changes them, which he is likely to do), they are here:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/fy2009/budget.html
Wow - people are actually saying that about Lincoln ?
So these days we are filling our books with hatred for our historical figures?
This is a good post. Your last line is similar to what I've been saying since the election, which is that the republicans deserve the Obama victory but America does not.
The truth is that the republicans betrayed their conservative base and killed once and for all any hope of a limited government in the United States. Republicans were supposed to be our protection against the statist, socialistic zeal of the democrats and the left. When the republicans themselves become statists, and practice some form of quasi corporate socialism(which the democrats have heartily endorsed themselves), they leave close to half of America with nobody to represent them. Roughly half of America does want mommy government to wipe their noses for them, and half of America does not. Right now the former half is represented by both parties and the latter half is left to pay the bills.
Socialistic health care is going to be a reality in America very soon, and when it winds up costing us 5 or 10 times more than the government tells us it will, and when it turns out to be just as dysfunctional as the current system is, we will not be able to get rid of it, because it will be an entitlement. Wars end eventually, entitlements just grow and grow. Who will stand up and tell the voters that they can't get free viagra anymore and still expect to get elected? No matter how broken a socialistic healthcare system becomes, you are stuck with it. You think our deficits are large now? Wait until healthcare becomes a subsidized right that not only every citizen is entitled to, but every illegal immigrant as well.
The sad reality is that until a (truly)conservative third party becomes viable enough to win elections on a national scale, independent and self sufficient Americans are going to have no voice in our political debate, and the masses demanding their bread and circuses are going to have a monopoly on political power in our nation. Even when republicans win again(and they will).
Obama ran on a platform of Hope and Change, but ironically his election, while inevitable, actually may signal an end to all hope of true freedom and independence for the American people.
Who needs it to cost more, just the estimates on his medicare reforms are a fucking nightmare.
Umm - yeah - Reagan far outstripped the Republican congress.
That's the definition of the term "No coat tails" Psychoak - when the Presidential winner doesn't carry any congressional seats with him.
On the otherhand, if you pull a lot of congressional seats in over the hump too, then you have coat tails, suitable for riding upon.
As for the rest - yeah he got the top rate cut - the deficit went through the roof, from ~2.5% of GDP from 1976-1980 to a high in 1983 of 6% of GDP
It's worth noting that the average increase in GDP over those years? Well that's probably not fair to assk, I mean Jimmy Carter had the worst economic record of any Democrat since the 30's, while Ronald Reagan still has the best among republicans, so it won't surprise you to know that they measure . . . identically.
Almost literally - Carter was dragged down by stagflation in his last year which it took Paul Volker time to fix, an Reagan bnefitted from it's being fixed, and after doubling the national debt, shifting taxes from rich to poor, and increasing the difference between rich and poor, Reagan *still* only did as well as Jimmy Carter.
So yeah - since I'm not rich, and the wealthy did much better under Reagonomics than anyone else did, and he was giving the largest percentage of the GDP to the wealthy of anyone except Eisenhower and Bush I, and that GDP he was giving away was lower than any Democrat except Jimmy Carter - yeah, I think his borrowing money on everyones credit card, then saying the rich shouldn't have to pay as much of the borrowed money as the poor was kinda adding insult to injury don't you think?
Jonnan
I guess I'm very confused by how one can be confused by that.
Umm, if there was a way of lowering taxes on the rich without either
A: Raising taxes on the, ah 'not rich'
B: Incurring heavier debt, or
C: Cutting government spending,
Then your statement would make sense. But economics being a zero sum game, there's not.
Reagan raised Taxes on everyone else and incurred a heavier deficit. - Two-fe.
As for helping the economy and so on - That's one of those "Neat to believe, doesn't stand up to scrutiny" deals. It's been tried - it failed. We cut the taxes for the wealthy everytime a Reupublican gets elected, yet the economy does worse under Republicans, consistently.
Ah, no. Psychoak says there are people that say that about Lincoln.
Not at all the same thing.
quote who="Jonnan001" reply="15" id="1939551"]Umm - yeah - Reagan far outstripped the Republican congress.[/quote]
or rather the Democratic congress and Reagan. say what you will about Reagan, Clinton, Dubya, etc. The President does not really control the agenda of the federal government. If you didn't sleep through Civics I, you'd know that: the Congress passes bills, and the President then either signs them into law or vetoes them. The President can "set" the agenda by proposing bills for Congress, but that may or may not go well for him, depending on whos in the majority there.
Reagan had the dumb luck of having a tax and spend Congress, ... he was able get a compromise from them on the tax part though.
OT, another example of this would be Clinton's terms. after 1994, Republicans took control of Congress, and for the next 6 years, Clinton had to play centrist in order to get anything done. (Believe it or not, Clinton was NOT a centrist. at least at first. he's what we'd call a political opportunist.)
Reagan inherited Carter's disasterous economy. If you take a crap sandwich and after 8 years turn it into gold, don't be surprized if the average of that taken over that time is mediocre.
Sure... Volker helped eliminate stagflation.... by clamping down on the money supply and therefore bringing on a recession. In fairness, some of the recovery was the result of the Carter administration. ....that is, Carter's move to cut the capital gains rate from 40% to 25% and some deregulation, for example. IOW, whatever recovery Reagan inherited was from *conservative* policies that Carter employed, too little too late.
ahh, so how shall i go about unravelling this mess?
first off, do you understand what inflation is? by the end of Carter's term, inflation was 13.5%. unemployment was 7%. how much is your typical pay raise, every year? maybe 5%, or 10%? Imagine you weren't getting a raise this year. right now i'm sure that's a realistic feeling. now, imagine that over the same amount of time, the dollar bill that is in your pocket lost value. can you imagine how that would reak havoc on your essential expenses? every year, groceries, heating, rent, etc. would be 10% - 12% more expensive, and yet assuming you didn't get laid off your paycheck wasn't getting much bigger. how much hurt do *you* think that would do?
you see, to use your own term, that dollar in your pocket *is* "everyones credit card." this is kind of a hard concept to graps, but really, all money is ultimately debt. every dollar bill that is printed is a dollar of debt added to the national debt. this is because there is no value in the dollar bill itself. it's just ink and paper. really fancy ink and paper to be sure, but if you went to Alpha Centauri to buy something, they wouldn't except it as payment, since ink and paper is presumably worthless to them. the value ascribed to each dollar (whether it be paper or electronic) is imaginary. it's funny money. the problem is, there's only a finite amount of value in the economy, so whenever a dollar is made up of thin air, the value of that dollar has to be exacted out of the value of the rest of the dollars in the economy. hence, inflation. and you can't print money to infinity, like Zimbabwe tried to do. at one point, you couldn't buy a sandwich without a billion Zimbabwe dollars!!! and don't be suprized when this bailout package (basically $750B made up out of thin air) drives the economy absolutely batty.
anyways, i'll stop rambling. you seem to fall for relativist, and IMO fallacious, reading of poverty. if a rich guy made a $100 googleplex dollars, but everyone else made a million dollars, and assuming the costs of living were the same, would you suppose that anyone was poor? you would have to, if you took the relative view, since a millionare *would* be "impoverished" compared to the ... umm... googolplexianare? if on the other hand, we look at an objective baseline to gauge poverty, like say the poverty line (and yes I know the poverty line is itself flawed, but its useful for the sake of example), we can determine that even though there might be financial inequality, poverty may or may not be as serious an issue. if you were a millionare, why would you care if i was an octillionaire? granted, if more and more people were falling below that baseline more every year, it's easy to sympathize with all the envy leveled against the "rich." but that hasn't been the case... even after adjusting for inflation, the average poor person was better under Reagan than Carter, as they were better under Clinton than Bush Sr. and at least until recently were better under Dubya.
another vague unrelated tangent, the poor in American really ain't that poor.
so says the guy who is being mulled over and has bought into the idea of Reaganonimcs....lol...sure....and you're judging people? Oh you poor little chap.
Voting against your own interests, keep on keepin' on.
Our economy is falling to it's knees, and it's in large part due to the hand of Conservative economics since the Reagan years, continued partly by Clinton and much further by Bush Jr.. Defense spending is big(bigger then all other Countries Combined), and needs to be cut and infused into the domestic budget, ie...infrastructure etc...That and removing foreign spending will all be needed to get this Country moving financially in the right direction. If you haven't noticed, the ship is sinking, time for ideas, new ones, which your Grand Ol' Party doesn't seem to have at all.
Next, I'll find out your a Palin supporter, thinking Dinosaurs were roaming the earth with humans 6000 years ago...lolz..I have to say, you are a sore loser, now, go do what you do better in life.
My god. Economics is ******not****** a zero-sum game. Do you understand at all what you mean by that?
here's a crash course in econ 101 for you idjuts. if the government sets the tax rate at 0%, it will get no revenue. if it's set at 100%, it will still get no revenue. this is because no one would work hard just to have all the fruits of there labor taken away. the Soviet Union fell people. you should know that by now.
just because you raise taxes doesn't mean you get more revenue, nor that lowering taxes lowers revenue. this is because people, corporations, and even community organizers anticipate the costs of work or doing business, and adjust depending on those costs. we are all speculators in a sense. and, tax is a cost. if a tax makes a business prohibitively expense, that business shuts down. you don't generate tax revenue from defunct companies. likewise, an existing tax can be so prohibitive, that lowering it actually stimilates taxable economic activity to the point where the government actually generates **more** revenue. we actually did that a couple of years under Dubya.
Reagan had to work with whatever was passed to him from Congress. you guys really need to stop treating the Presidency like it's some omnpotent god.
scrutiny? is that really what you call scrutiny? here's scrutiny. in after 9/11 and the Dot Com bust, Bush lead us out of a recession. sure the economy didn't chug along like it did under Clinton (and the Republican Congress he submitted to), but it was fair to good. then in 2006, Democrats take control of Congress, and suddenly we have scy rocketing oil prices and now this monstrosity of a mortgage/financial crisis. Obama is elected... not even President yet, and the Dow goes down 400 points. the market is voting on Obama's policy proposals with its money.
Anyone remember Clinton's first two years? anyone?
...
Really, "tax cuts for the wealthy" is liberal newspeak for a progrowth, pro-economy tax policy. sure wealthy people benefit from such tax cuts, but that's besides the point. have you ever worked for a poor man? i haven't. it takes money to pay workers. the average employee costs a company $40,000. per year. now, i don't know about you, but i don't have that kind of cash to just throw around. but investors do. rich people who privately own businesses do. and they are generous enough to give you some of that money if only you will do a fair 40 hours worth of work for them every week. you generate an income for them, and in return you get a portion of that income. sure, the government can come in, and just redistribute that money. but in so doing, the government takes wealth out of the economy that would otherwise create more jobs or fund pay raises. if a tax is so prohibitive that a company doesn't make a profit, that company has to cut expenses. remember that number i mentioned earlier? labor is the most expense cost, so guess what gets cut first. you and I. on the other hand, a probusiness tax policy frees up that wealth to be "redistributed" through the economy. in other words, the economy already does effectively what the government wrecklessly tries to do and fails.
this is economic fact. it's why the Soviet Union failed. it's why the Great Depression was such a great depression. FDR meddled in the economy, and only made it worse. Betcha your textbook never told you that.