isn't there something fundamentally wrong?

[birdog1960]

I don't envy you. If anything I pity you. You're the one that's been steeped for a lifetime in a leftist philosophical marinade and find yourself, unsatisfied, unhappy, self-centered, self-righteous, and driven by avarice and jealousy of people whose condition is loftier than yours. Yet you condemn them and wish for the opulence they enjoy as though its a birthright of everyone. Well, maybe not everyone, but certainly yourself because, well because you're special. You're YOU.

 

You're never going to be happy. You'll die a bitter old man because you're delusional.

read my post again...the envy card was what you played against my argument. you've since done it again.

[GG]

read my post again...the envy card was what you played against my argument. you've since done it again.

 

Actually no, classic Marxism is born out of the economics of envy, and you've fallen for it hook line & sinker. You refuse to recognize that economies and capital formation are not a zero sum game, and that taking away from the top does not rebalance the pot. Keynesiasm still exists unfortunately, despite mounting evidence that the multiplier is a bunch of crap. You'll find some defense to the notion that propping up government spending in a down cycle smooths out the trough, but the evidence is also pretty damning that if you think that government spending will stimulate the economy on its own, then you're an idiot.

 

To rinse lather repeat, the main reason that the income inequality persists right now is because your dear leader hasn't figured out that the private economy is still sucking wind and he's doing his damnest to make sure that it continues to suck, while blaming everybody else for it. Kind of like your arguments in this thread.

[birdog1960]

Actually no, classic Marxism is born out of the economics of envy, and you've fallen for it hook line & sinker. You refuse to recognize that economies and capital formation are not a zero sum game, and that taking away from the top does not rebalance the pot. Keynesiasm still exists unfortunately, despite mounting evidence that the multiplier is a bunch of crap. You'll find some defense to the notion that propping up government spending in a down cycle smooths out the trough, but the evidence is also pretty damning that if you think that government spending will stimulate the economy on its own, then you're an idiot.

 

To rinse lather repeat, the main reason that the income inequality persists right now is because your dear leader hasn't figured out that the private economy is still sucking wind and he's doing his damnest to make sure that it continues to suck, while blaming everybody else for it. Kind of like your arguments in this thread.

in your next life you're going to bae a psychoanalyst?

[GG]

in your next life you're going to bae a psychoanalyst?

 

May as well. It seems like I can pick up a medical skill just by reading some online articles & newspapers.

[Nanker]

I don't envy you. If anything I pity you. You're the one that's been steeped for a lifetime in a leftist philosophical marinade and find yourself, unsatisfied, unhappy, self-centered, self-righteous, and driven by avarice and jealousy of people whose condition is loftier than yours. Yet you condemn them and wish for the opulence they enjoy as though its a birthright of everyone. Well, maybe not everyone, but certainly yourself because, well because you're special. You're YOU.

 

You're never going to be happy. You'll die a bitter old man because you're delusional.

read my post again...the envy card was what you played against my argument. you've since done it again.

Hey Birdbrain, pot meet kettle. YOU play the envy card constantly. Read MY post again, especially the bolded part. You're spoiled and vindictive which are perfect liberal virtues. You must feel so smug.

[birdog1960]

Hey Birdbrain, pot meet kettle. YOU play the envy card constantly. Read MY post again, especially the bolded part. You're spoiled and vindictive which are perfect liberal virtues. You must feel so smug.

the thought that you envied me never crossed my mind. i apparently, rightfully assumed that you despised me or at least my views, who cares?

 

May as well. It seems like I can pick up a medical skill just by reading some online articles & newspapers.

the difference being that i see many facets of my field in various shades of gray. there are few absolutes. there is not only one way to approach a given problem most times. the posts here imply that economics is different when in fact most would argue that the solutions are even more nebulous.

[Jauronimo]

how bout the link between the name of the author's endowed faculty position and the existence of a concept that he attempts to discredit? why would he link friedman and the concept in a piece whose purpose is to negate the connection? i'm thinking that's not none and is therefore some.

 

i've yet to meet a typical liberal. most i know find atypia desirable. conservatives, not so much.

 

on further review, it seems sowell is quixotic on this issue refuting it repeatedly against many critics http://en.wikipedia....-down_economics. inter singly, the wiki entry notes for further reading see "rising tide lifts all ships". sure seems to meet the definition of "semantics" to me http://www.merriam-w...onary/semantics

Great. You found a specious link between Sowell-Trickle Down-Friedman which still has nothing to do with the original discussion as you framed it, and you supported that specious link with articles which have nothing to do with either the link or the discussion on wealth inequality.

 

I'm prepared to concede that you've confused the !@#$ out of yourself. Happy?

 

Wow, a wiki link which connects Sowell to "Rising tide...". There's the smoking gun for your semantics argument even though you originally introduced semantics into the discussion in reference to the term "trickle down" not the phrase "rising tide...". I also found a wiki connection between George Michael Bluth and George Michael the singer song writer. Oh, and here's another wiki link between JFK and Castro. Was the cuban missile crisis all a sham? Not only do you not know what I'm talking about but you don't even know what you're saying.

 

Supply side isn't the only aggregate model. I'd love to hear you argue the demand side. Especially considering you're arguing against capitalism.

Edited November 22, 2013 by Jauronimo

[....lybob]

There are no free markets and there are no economics that are the natural order of things, it's all the will of men - It's amazing to me that when it is suggested that the middle-class or poor fight for their economic interests it's some type of class war but when corporations and rich men spend spend spend on lobbying to change Tax Law, Trade law, regulations etc. well it's just business- there is nothing Marxist about saying hey we listened to the neo-liberal economists in the 1970s and saw changes to our tax code, trade laws, labor laws, and financial regulations , saw corporations become people with no limitation of how much money they can send to Washington and this **** isn't working out for us. There is nothing Marxist about saying hey maybe we should start to push things back to how they were before all this Neo-liberal economics bull **** took hold. Of course it's going to be a long slog fighting against well organized, big moneyed interests (who spent 60 years taking apart FDR's legacy) but it's that or sitting back and passively watching the destruction of the American middle-class.

[Jauronimo]

There are no free markets and there are no economics that are the natural order of things, it's all the will of men - It's amazing to me that when it is suggested that the middle-class or poor fight for their economic interests it's some type of class war but when corporations and rich men spend spend spend on lobbying to change Tax Law, Trade law, regulations etc. well it's just business- there is nothing Marxist about saying hey we listened to the neo-liberal economists in the 1970s and saw changes to our tax code, trade laws, labor laws, and financial regulations , saw corporations become people with no limitation of how much money they can send to Washington and this **** isn't working out for us. There is nothing Marxist about saying hey maybe we should start to push things back to how they were before all this Neo-liberal economics bull **** took hold. Of course it's going to be a long slog fighting against well organized, big moneyed interests (who spent 60 years taking apart FDR's legacy) but it's that or sitting back and passively watching the destruction of the American middle-class.

And the will of men ensures that some men will have considerably more than others in any system. That much is evident.

 

Sounds more like politics to me. I don't blame businessmen for anything they do within the rules. If the rules suck, I blame the legislators.

[TakeYouToTasker]

There are no free markets and there are no economics that are the natural order of things, it's all the will of men - It's amazing to me that when it is suggested that the middle-class or poor fight for their economic interests it's some type of class war but when corporations and rich men spend spend spend on lobbying to change Tax Law, Trade law, regulations etc. well it's just business- there is nothing Marxist about saying hey we listened to the neo-liberal economists in the 1970s and saw changes to our tax code, trade laws, labor laws, and financial regulations , saw corporations become people with no limitation of how much money they can send to Washington and this **** isn't working out for us. There is nothing Marxist about saying hey maybe we should start to push things back to how they were before all this Neo-liberal economics bull **** took hold. Of course it's going to be a long slog fighting against well organized, big moneyed interests (who spent 60 years taking apart FDR's legacy) but it's that or sitting back and passively watching the destruction of the American middle-class.

While there may be no economics that reflect the natural order of things, there are economic platforms which support a structure that are condusive to capital formation, economic expansion, and long term stability. And while I agree that there are no free markets; the reasons that those markets are not free is because of government. Governments, empowered to distort markets, will always do so in a way that is favorable to the men in power. The power to distort markets is a commodity which can, and always will be, readilly purchased.

 

Now, I'm not entirely certain of what the solution is; but I am 100% certain that it's not a conficatory and graduated tax system which disincentives hard work, ingenuity, productivity, and investment. I'm also 100% certain that trade laws and business regulations should not be written by indivuals who don't understand international business or the market sectors which they are attempting to regulate; as that's a recipe for total disaster.

 

Lastly, "middle class" is a term that has been distorted politically to mean something it was never intended to mean. When the term was coined it was used to represent individuals making the equivelent of 250k - 1m per year; while the working class was anything under 250k. And you're correct in that that group of individuals is being destroyed. It now represents less than 1% of the population, as regulation favors the truely wealthy, while the tax code favors the working and government class. The middle class fights a war on two fronts.

Edited November 22, 2013 by TakeYouToTasker

[GG]

There are no free markets and there are no economics that are the natural order of things, it's all the will of men - It's amazing to me that when it is suggested that the middle-class or poor fight for their economic interests it's some type of class war but when corporations and rich men spend spend spend on lobbying to change Tax Law, Trade law, regulations etc. well it's just business- there is nothing Marxist about saying hey we listened to the neo-liberal economists in the 1970s and saw changes to our tax code, trade laws, labor laws, and financial regulations , saw corporations become people with no limitation of how much money they can send to Washington and this **** isn't working out for us. There is nothing Marxist about saying hey maybe we should start to push things back to how they were before all this Neo-liberal economics bull **** took hold. Of course it's going to be a long slog fighting against well organized, big moneyed interests (who spent 60 years taking apart FDR's legacy) but it's that or sitting back and passively watching the destruction of the American middle-class.

 

Why is there the reflexive nostalgia for FDR's economic policies? Ignore for the moment the economic disaster that was looming for the US if the rest of the global industry wasn't blown up between 1940 & 1945. Ignore the leg up that the US manufacturing base had when the rest of the world was rebuilding. Ignore the effect that globalization has on capital markets, on manufacturing and distribution. Ignore that the great unwashed in other countries may also aspire to have clean water and ample food and shelter. Ignore that US has 5% of the global population but accounts for over 20% of the economic output, and the difficulty in keeping that proportion which supports the economy and wages. Only then can you pine for the good old days and pretend that it's the corporate lobbyists that are killing the US middle class.

[4merper4mer]

Why is there the reflexive nostalgia for FDR's economic policies? Ignore for the moment the economic disaster that was looming for the US if the rest of the global industry wasn't blown up between 1940 & 1945. Ignore the leg up that the US manufacturing base had when the rest of the world was rebuilding. Ignore the effect that globalization has on capital markets, on manufacturing and distribution. Ignore that the great unwashed in other countries may also aspire to have clean water and ample food and shelter. Ignore that US has 5% of the global population but accounts for over 20% of the economic output, and the difficulty in keeping that proportion which supports the economy and wages. Only then can you pine for the good old days and pretend that it's the corporate lobbyists that are killing the US middle class.

 

He already ignored all that stuff so he should be good to go to blame lobbyists.

[birdog1960]

And the will of men ensures that some men will have considerably more than others in any system. That much is evident.

 

Sounds more like politics to me. I don't blame businessmen for anything they do within the rules. If the rules suck, I blame the legislators.

interesting that in the first two sentences of his post, you leave unbolded the one section that i would first embolden.

Edited November 22, 2013 by birdog1960

[Jauronimo]

interesting that in the first two sentences of his post, you leave unbolded the one section that i would first embolden.

Well then go ahead and embolden that which I left unbolded and share with us all your righteous wisdom.

[DC Tom]

Well then go ahead and embolden that which I left unbolded and share with us all your righteous wisdom.

 

I don't think he's bold enough to.

[OCinBuffalo]

ya know, someone reading exclusively yall's posts would logically arrive at the conclusion that supply side economics was the only accepted economic theory and the keynsians disappeared with the dinosaurs. i'm beginning to think there are some business schools with curriculum akin to creationist "science" institutes.

birdog, from the time you've arrived here it's been clear that you've never understood any of my posts RE economics.

 

Each approach to economics = just tools in a toolbox. There is no universal tool that serves as the Swiss Army Knife of Fixing Everything. Events, and what you are trying to accomplish, dictate what tools need to be used when. Thus, saying "supply side is dead" or "Keynesian is dead" are equally dumb. Both tools have gotten results in the real world. It all depends on how you use them.

 

However, one thing we know for sure, if we know our history: Socialism sucks. It's sucked everywhere it's been tried. Churchill was right when he said "Indeed it has been said that Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others that have been tried".

 

You can say the same thing about free market capitalism.

 

IF you knew anything of the real history of the New Deal, you'd know that 80% of it destroyed itself, long before we even got to the 1940s. So I ask you to tell us, what ever happened to the:

1. National Recovery Administration

2. Civilian Conservation Corps

3. Agricultural Adjustment Administration

4. Works Progress Administration

?

 

These things represent the bulk of the New Deal. Where are they? You said Republicans have been dismantling them for 60 years. That = 1950s. I didn't realize that the NRA or WPA was still around in the 1950s, and that we've been dismantling them for 60 years. (Hint: both declared unconstitutional...20 years before the 1950s).

 

You want to "defend the New Deal"? You go right ahead. Start now...please...do it....

the difference being that i see many facets of my field in various shades of gray. there are few absolutes. there is not only one way to approach a given problem most times. the posts here imply that economics is different when in fact most would argue that the solutions are even more nebulous.

Nebulous isn't the right word. Obvious is the right word.

 

For example: it was Obvious to those of us who know the material, that the Stimulus was doomed to fail. To use your dopey liberal parlance: "What if they gave a stimulus, but nobody got a multiplier?". If you do the coursework I gave you? You'd know it too.

 

Don't want to? Then suffer a long post!

 

Let me explain how we knew. This is just the straight up truth of the matter:

 

We knew it was going to fail, because there wasn't anything in it from "Keynesian Stimulus 101". Did we "invest" in any "machine tool"-like operations? No we "invested" in contrived green startups. The whole point of a multiplier = You manufacture demand in an already established market. You don't act as venture capital, which by definition, has a 10% success rate. You do the opposite: you are looking to maximize the multiplicative effect, not have it die when the startup dies.

 

Example: buy new computers from Dell, buy software projects for government outfits. Dell hires new people, and the projects need new people. Add new computers to new software projects. Viola! You have new demand for goods and services, and what happens? The Hotels, restaurants, and pizza joints all suddenly see an uptick in their demand. So, they hire some people. The airlines, the rental car places, and especially airport bars, all either need new people, or now have a reason not to lay off who they have.

 

All these new hires pay taxes, and if this can be sustained(here's right about the time that GG tells us both to F off) they will pay you back for your investment, via those taxes. EDIT:(here's where I tell GG to...consider: Keynesian stimulus can at the very least serve as a holding action in some industries, giving the other damaged industries, like housing, time to hit bottom and recover.)

 

Now, was any of that in the stimulus?

No. What wasn't wasted on green nothing, were payoffs for failing city governments, who promptly spent the money, and still went bankrupt.

 

Did that stimulate anything?

No. Hence, why are we still where we are, despite a trillion wasted? Bad tactical application of a tool. Nothing more.

 

Paul Krugman distorted this. He said the stimulus needs to be bigger. What he didn't say: "the "bigger" part is a real Keynesian stimulus, to go along with the not-Keysian political pay-off money we are going to waste on Democratic strongholds and Green Douchebaggery."

 

See? To those of us who are educated? This isn't nebulous at all. It's obvious.

 

If it's nebulous for you: that's your problem, and, I've already posted a link for you to solve your problem.

Edited November 23, 2013 by OCinBuffalo

[birdog1960]

saw this http://www.businessinsider.com/wealth-and-income-inequality-in-america-2013-4?op=1 posted on facebook in vieod form. iwas a bit skeptical based on the fact that no references were given for the source. while i don't completely agree with blodgett's reasaoning as to why this is a bad thing, at least his conclusion is correct.