Werthless wrote:

Philly the Kid wrote:good read on fiscal cliff hysteria

This is a pretty classic ad hominem. I mean, what did anyone learn about the fiscal cliff?

Werthless wrote:

Werthless wrote:

bleh wrote:And as a friendly reminder

Non-Partisan Congressional Tax Report Debunks Core Conservative Economic Theory-GOP Suppresses Study

I probably didn't read this as closely as you, but can you explain this:

A rise in the capital gains top rate could increase
investment because of reduced risk.

This seems ludicrous on its face, that higher cap gains rates increase investment because it reduces the variability of the returns. I was skimming through the study when I saw this, and I have no idea how anyone can type such a thing with a straight face (unless I'm misinterpreting at this late hour).

That confusion aside, it's clear to many people that follow this stuff closely that the highest economic growth in the last 50 years or so has occurred in Democratic administrations. Most of us have probably seen the charts. We're also aware that the pace of economic growth has been slowly declining since the 1950s (obviously in a cyclical manner, with the business cycles). I'm not exactly sure what a "study" of these data was supposed to find, considering that the study found that all of these relationships were not statistically significant. After all, there are numerous international studies with more robust data that suggest that low government spending, stable political systems devoid of market interruptions, existence of financial stock markets, and low, steady inflation are all statistically significant drivers of economic growth. My first google hit shows this. Or this. And this.

Basically, this study's findings did nothing to "debunk conservative economic theory." But I'm interested in hearing why you (or others) think otherwise.

Anyone?

td11, these posts get ignored I guess. I read through this thread, and half the posts are trolling stuff like this. I respond in depth.... Nothing. Or, someone quotes the author's qualification instead of my argument. Even docsmooth, for all his lovable abrasiveness, puts effort into his posts and occassionally engages in the substance.

I really am sorry I make you feel sad.

CalvinBall wrote:

dajafi wrote:

Werthless wrote:

Philly the Kid wrote:good read on fiscal cliff hysteria

This is a pretty classic ad hominem. I mean, what did anyone learn about the fiscal cliff?

It's true. I can credit that the gambling magnate is a jackass, and that as a winner in the rigged game of deformed pseudo-capitalism who created no real value, he was a particularly bad advocate for the position he represented. But there wasn't a hell of a lot about that position, or its counterargument. Mostly I'm just irked at all you people for making me curious enough to violate my usual position of not bothering with any of ptk's useless #$!&@.

I will admit to getting a lot of my analysis on the "fiscal cliff" from Krugman, who is pretty close to the "go over it and call the bastards' bluff" position. I don't share this view. My contention is that the major entitlements should be reformed anyway--

jamiethekiller wrote:pretty sure dafaji has articulated his plan on here several times.

jerseyhoya wrote:They aren't even the authors credentials really. It's just a list of names. One of the cofounders, Mark Weisbrot, appears to be a professional Hugo Chavez apologist.

JUburton wrote:http://www.theonion.com/articles/america-ends-love-affair-with-mckayla-maroney-afte,29933/

dajafi wrote:
But I enjoy Krugman's pointing out the incoherence of the alarmists: the deficits are an existential threat! But the immediate and somehow even existential-er threat is shrinking them too fast! So keep the tax cuts for the rich! And let's achieve "reform" only by taking from programs that support low- and middle-income retirees! Almost like they don't really care about the structural budget issues at all...

The Democrats lost majority status in 1968 — they would lose five of six presidential elections from that year through 1988, and win one by a hair — but Republicans did not gain it. They never held the House and rarely held the Senate during that streak of presidential wins. Why didn’t Republicans become the dominant party then? It wasn’t because of foreign policy: That boosted them during the second half of the Cold War, when the Democrats became the relatively dovish party. That’s a big reason Republicans did better at the presidential than at the congressional level. It wasn’t because of social issues: The hippies and McGovernites helped make Republicans the party of middle-class values.

What they did not do is make the Republicans the party of middle-class economic interests. Most Americans associated the party with big business and the country club, and did not agree with its impulses on the minimum wage, entitlement programs, and other forms of government activism designed to protect ordinary people from cold markets. Americans came to be skeptical of government activism mainly when they thought it was undermining middle-class values (as they thought welfare undermined the work ethic). And even when voters thought Republicans were better managers of the economy in general, they thought the GOP looked out for the rich rather than the common man.
...
The absence of a middle-class message was the biggest failure of the Romney campaign, and it was not its failure alone. Down-ticket Republican candidates weren’t offering anything more — not the established Republicans, not the tea-partiers, not the social conservatives. Conservative activists weren’t demanding that Romney or any of these other Republicans do anything more. Some of them were complaining that Romney wasn’t “taking the fight to Obama”; few of them were urging him to outline a health-care plan that would reassure voters that replacing Obamacare wouldn’t mean taking health insurance away from millions of people.
...
The Republican story about how societies prosper — not just the Romney story — dwelt on the heroic entrepreneur stifled by taxes and regulations: an important story with which most people do not identify. The ordinary person does not see himself as a great innovator. He, or she, is trying to make a living and support or maybe start a family. A conservative reform of our health-care system and tax code, among other institutions, might help with these goals. About this person, however, Republicans have had little to say.

@rupertmurdoch Why Is Jewish owned press so consistently anti- Israel in every crisis?