Magox

I wouldn't be opposed to something like this. However this plan wouldn't directly tie the continuation of safety net benefits with job retraining.

I don't know. I'm positively sure that there are a lot of kinks to some of the generalized solutions that I mentioned. Some of the solutions I brought up are nothing new such as the drilling and tax reform. Drilling has one major road block and that is the environmental lobby and donors. Tax and regulatory reform that would produce pro growth outcomes only roadblock would be the liberals. In regards to the natural gas powered vehicles, I just see it as a no brainer. We do it in South America, so I don't see why we can't do it here. I understand that there are many logistical hurdles, but they can be overcome in time. The jobs retraining program is something that they say are doing, but obviously we don't see it. It should be tied to safety nets. That's my opinion, I don't see why you wouldn't want to attach benefits to retraining. It provides a safety net while helping produce a productive citizen who would have the job skills to enter the workforce. And if they don't decide to participate you reduce their safety net benefits. That sounds not only logical but fair to me. And you know what? It would be tremendously popular with the majority of the U.S. The only politicians who would be opposed to something like that would be those who represent the constituents that wouldn't be inclined to participate in the training for benefits program. Trade deals are being negotiated, I'm sure of it, but if I was in charge I'd make it a top priority. Aggressively seek to make deals with these fast growing trade partners. In regards to how comfortable I feel criticizing this administration. I'm extremely comfortable because I know in my heart of hearts they are a bunch economic nincompoops who care more about "fairness" than they do economic growth. Before you even got here, when they were rolling out their Stimulus bill, Dodd Frank, ACA, Cash for Clunkers, EPA hammer style regulations I spoke at great length and detail to why and where they would fail, and pretty much the negative consequences that I spoke about happened. It's one thing if I would of made a blanket statement such as "The ACA sucks and will destroy the economY" and it's another to go into great detail in where the flaws of the legislation are and the consequences we will most likely see. You don't have to be a partisan or a genius to figure out that 4 years later, 6 trillion dollars more in debt, we have a near record low participation rate with slow growth. Proof is in the pudding, we should be doing better than what we are, and we're not.

Puh leeeeseeeese Just say my bad and call it a day.

This is probably the most promising year in recent year for pass rushers... But I will go out on a limb, Ezekiel Ansah is going to end up being a Beast. Out of the list you have in order I would say 1) Moore 2) Woerner 3) Ansah 4) Mingo 5) Dion Jordan I think all these guys can play in the 3-4 as well as the hybrid LB

Don't forget the borrowing.

That is too good to not be seen. I'm gonna post most of the content...

Did I say or imply that he was?

Yikes!

That's the funniest part of all this, Carney blames the R's because of the looming sequestration cuts, but it was their idea to put it in there. Why wasn't he pressed on this point at the briefing?

Oh yes, the temperament between these two men couldn't be greater. I think anyone who has heard the two speak would attest to that. In regards to your question, it just depends on what side of the ledger you fall. I would say you can look into keynesian and austrian economics. These two are opposing views and from there you can get an idea of how they differ. If you want to hear more current straight up economic analysis that is based on numbers, not ideological, then listen to the bond guys. I pay attention to them more so, specially the guys from PIMCO, such as Mohamed El Erian, Clarida or Bill Gross.

Because Friedman won the Nobel for consumption and monetary historical patterns and theories. Krugman won his for something completely different, which was more to do with international trading patterns.

^ l i l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l Hypocrite

Talk about strawman's. So you have an economy that has been losing population for over two decades and this is all you can come up with? I'll take that as you ceding ground. From Meazza's link: When it comes to Sovereign debt, any economist worth their salt understands that Ken Rogoff is vastly more qualified and knowledgeable than the hack Krugman. The argument that tweedle dee and tweedle dum are having a hard time understanding is that no one is advocating for immediate cuts to the entitlements. That what we are talking about is enacting growth policies with reforming the entitlement programs. Again reasonable people can disagree with how soon the credit markets will show stress because of our Fiscal picture, but there are many reasonable and important people who have a lot of influence who believe we need to take care of this sooner than later. Why risk it? This is what compromise is about. It's not about holding the economy "hostage" as parrots like to say. It's about trying to avert a national disaster, and why risk it? Credit agencies have cited concern, so has the business economy, and so have very intelligent people who understand the markets. Maybe there is more time than they let on, but again, why risk it? If you are going to address it eventually, why not now? Why not just avert the risk by making the reforms now? And again, in regards to this "hostage" argument, why should the American people trust another keynesian solution, when we've racked up $6 Trillion in debt and we have near record low job participation rates and flat lining growth? Sorry, but that doesn't make sense. But that's a different topic, my point in this thread is regarding reforming the entitlements and partisan zealots such as Krugman are a destructive influence in the overall debate. Unfortunately he has a lot of looney lefty zombie disciples that follow what he spouts.

Since "Subpar" is a subjective term, I think it's important to note that not all similar GDP growth rates aren't created equal. What do I mean by that? Well, it normally takes a GDP growth rate north of 2- 2.5% to lower the unemployment rate. Anything above that normally shows net job creation relative to population increase, anything below, shows stagnant to net job losses. If you have an economy that is moving at 2-2.5% job growth with an economy that is fully employed with below 5% unemployment, then you have an economy that is relatively healthy, generally with enough slack to absorb a typical shock to the economy. An economy at this GDP growth rate fully employed is not only a mildly positive development domestically, but for abroad as well, meaning there are enough employed Americans to continue the cycle of American's buying foreign products. If you have a 2-2.5% GDP Economy that has a very high unemployment rate of 8%, and you get that growth, well again, you aren't adding jobs relative to population increase, which means the economy isn't really improving all that much. When you are in a hole as deep as we are, it's important to have meaningful growth to get that unemployment rate down. And when I say down, not down in the sense where people leave the labor market which therefore artificially lowers the unemployment rate. Having said that, here is a list of some previous presidents growth rates: http://www.davemanuel.com/2010/08/03/us-gdp-growth-by-president-1948-2009/ 1981-1988 (Ronald Reagan, Republican), 3.4% 1989-1992 (George H. W. Bush, Republican), 2.17% 1993-2000 (Bill Clinton, Democrat), 3.88% 2001-2008 (George W. Bush, Republican), +2.09% Obama's first term was at 1.2% Reagan and Clinton both inherited weak economies, which gave them an inherent advantage in being able to produce higher GDP growth rates. Typically the larger the hole, the more opportunity for subsequent growth. Both Bush's inherited fully employed economies. It's a little more difficult to produce higher growth rates when the economy is fully employed. You were responding to this : So, I think it's important to understand what it is that I mean when I say "structural labor market woes". Structural from my perspective are fundamental solutions that have long-term impacts. When the president offered bailouts for State and Local governments so that they could stem the job losses from these states. That wasn't structural. The problem with the states is that they had budgets based off baselines that were from the housing bubble booms. It was unsustainable, unfortunately the only sane way to solve this dilemma is to allow the steep cuts to occur. Now that those funds have exhausted, what happened to those state budgets and jobs? They were eventually cut and let go, hence the job losses from these state and local governments. Now reasonable people can argue that it was needed in 2009 so that the economy wouldn't continue to fall at the precipitous rate it was when the President entered into the job. But it still wasn't a fundamental structural solution. What about all the temporary tax credits and pay roll tax deductions he had? Again, they were all short-term, all it did was give a temporary boost to the economy, now that they have expired, guess what has been happening to Consumer confidence? Dropping. So what are the solutions that would be considered "structural". I've spoken about this at great length, but I''ll go over it again. 1) A tremendous investment in jobs training. We have plenty of jobs here in the U.S that can't be filled because there aren't enough qualified prospects to fill the jobs. We can do this by reforming some of the "safety nets". I believe there should be strings attached for people who are unemployed that are receiving food stamps and for people who request extended unemployment benefits. What I mean is that there should be a huge investment in getting these people trained so that they can enter the work force. The government from my view should help identify where demand is for these jobs, offer job training programs and have people retrain. When people remain unemployed for too long they develop atrophy in their former job skills. Not to mention some of those skills aren't needed nearly as much as they use to, such as construction jobs. 2) We are blessed with Energy here in the U.S Look at the Dakotas, experiencing near sub 3% unemployment. There is so much energy here in the U.S, we should open up territories for drilling. This alone would add many jobs throughout the U.S. This is a twofold structural development, because one it adds jobs, and two it would reduce or help mitigate the rise of energy prices. This is not only a great development for the U.S consumer who will have more money to spend, but also on manufacturers who will have lower input costs. 3) We should look to build vehicles that run off of Natural gas. We have the natural resources here in the U.S to make it happen. Obviously there are many logistical hurdles, but we could begin to incrementally increase production of these vehicles by giving incentives for State/local and Federal vehicles to run off of Natural gas. Once the logistics take care of itself, in time, we can look to produce more of these vehicles for the open market. Again, this would lead to job creation and lower energy prices, specially for gasoline. 4) Tax reform. Reasonable people can argue what tax reform should look like, but reforms are structural by nature. We have the highest corporate tax rate in the world, and yes I know there are many loopholes that Giant companies evade, but they aren't keeping that money home. We are losing out, many of these companies have gone on record saying that if we lowered the rates and allowed some sort of forgiveness that they would repatriate those funds back home. Obviously I'm a little skeptical of some of their claims, but let's put it this way, it would end being a net plus. 5) An aggressive push create trade deals with our trading partners, primarily the faster developing nations. We should tirelessly be looking to see how we can enter these markets, you know, make deals. I hardly hear anything from this administration on that front, and I keep up. 6) Regulatory Reform, one can argue that is precisely what this administration is doing, but the reforms by in large from the business community both at the corporate and small business level do not approve. I for one lost my job because of the Dodd Frank Regulations. I can go on and on with examples in how this has, is and will continue to be the case. I've got many more ideas in what would constitute as structural reforms. But these are a few examples.

I mean seriously, could he have been more wrong?

I'm in the guess who said this mode: Who Predicted the ongoing Default scares of Europe over the past few years? I'll give you a hint, it wasn't the guy who I quoted up above. Who said this? He was predicting their demise, and from his perspective a near certain Sovereign Default, like what happened to Argentina in 2001. Of course he hated the Baltic nations, has written at least half a dozen blogs criticizing the Baltic nations, he despises their austerity measures, and this past year they had growth rates north of 6% GDP.... Let's put it this way, whatever Krugman advised them to do, they did the opposite. And as a result they have the best growth rates in Europe. The guy did some good work on patterns of international trade, but let's call him for what he is, an intelligent deeply divisive partisan with an agenda. He's a tool, and no one in their right mind should trust what he has to say about sovereign debt.

!@#$

Yep

Guess who said this? I thought the last line was kinda cute.

Of course it's punitive. "fairness" is a subjective term, so the justifier as you put it is determining what is fair, so in order to fulfill his policy born out of fairness, he has to impose taxation on those who he deems should pay "a little more". So from his perspective he wants to impose taxes to help even the playing field. That is punitive. It's as clear as day. Now if the taxes were in the name of deficit reduction, then you could have an argument that it isn't punitive. But he has stated clearly on a number of occasions that it's mainly about "fairness"

So when one justifies higher taxes in the name of "fairness", that isn't punitive?

Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2013/01/fbi-raids-office-of-menendez-donor-86955.html#ixzz2JUtwkx00

At this stage of the game, deficit spending will happen no matter what, and if didn't then we'd certainly fall into not just a recession but probably a depression. The problem with the president's "stimulus" bill was that it didn't address our structural labor market woes. Everything for the most part were short-term measures, that added temporary stimulus with the idea that somehow the spending was going to be enough of a boost so that the economy could reach escape velocity. Well, their calculations were wrong, it did give us a temporary boost, but once the funds exhausted, the economy came back down to earth, sorta like gravity. Krugman said we should of done a stimulus of 2 Trillion rather than the original 800B that Obama passed. Well, the problem is that we've had more "stimulus" measures that have passed, not to mention all the extraordinary measures the Fed has engaged in over the past few years. Federal Government administered stimulus has come close to that 2 Trillion dollars and 4 years later, here we are with subpar growth. Why? Again, very little has been done to structurally and sustainably improve the labor market or for that matter the economy. Many years from now, this will be a perfect case study that keynesian economics for these sort of systemic economic break downs don't work... Not to say that keynesian economics can't work, but for these sort of downturns, they aren't the answer. Krugman was wrong.

He's not trolling, he just doesn't understand.

Let's make sure we all understand this, deficit spending is stimulus. So we've have had four straight Trillion dollar years of Deficit spending. Which means four of the highest years on record of stimulus spending, and they call that austerity? Only in looney left wing circles would anyone call a year of trillion dollar deficit spending as austerity.