Drill Now for oil

here is the "hockey stick" curve of money

martin

Kennedy closed a lot of loop holes while he cut the rate. His cuts weren't biased towards the rich in the theory that the rich would boost the economy. There are enough differences that the two cases can't be considered together.

Also he accepted a decrease in income to the government and deficits would result. He didn't claim like Bush etc do that if you cut taxes the money fairy will arrive and get rid of the deficits.

I agree somewhat with your point but I want you to consider these two situations.

(A) If you move your factory to China I will give you a billion dollars

(B) If you move your factory to China I will give you 900 million dollars.

The advantage of moving in case (B) is much smaller. 100 million is a large amount of money. In both cases, though, the move to China is likely.

You could do the same by putting tariffs on imports equal to the business tax rate. If you don't like tariffs you could just call it a business income tax and tax the attempt to take the money out.

He and his party ran up the debt and did many other evil things that I won't go into here but you are very right in that Bush didn't do much of this stuff on his own. He needed help from an idiot congress

That was going to be just a little down turn. A whole new industry was created under Clinton. Google and Amazon and a dozen others didn't exist before the "internet bubble". There were excesses but there usually are when there are large changes in the economy like that.

drag

y

is

You are smearing neocons together with the left. They are really neither left nor right. The left and the right are about what theories you believe. Neocons are about believing in fairytales. They don't really have a political theory as most would recognize one.

BTW: Check out the results of the "conservatives" in many other places. You will find many who should be called "neocon" not conservative.

Yes there is a lot of waste in the government spending. This has gotten a lot worse in the last few years because the bushies have been putting people into jobs based on their political and religious beliefs and not their ability.

The private sector is very efficient at local optimization. It is very poor are doing global optimization because businesses will always try to externalize costs. On large projects like an interstate highway system you are forced to use government because a huge number of people must work together.

Very large companies are about as inefficient as government. This is part of why IBM has shrunk so much and GM and Ford make lower profit than some smaller companies.

Clinton tried to go right down the middle and for the most part it worked for him. The republicans hated and still hate him for it. He is the latest and starkest example of how people do better when the democrats are in charge. All politicians lie. Everyone seems to agree to this but they will always vote for the one who lies about cutting your taxes over the one who lies about increasing them.

The first step towards spending less is to spend more efficiently. This means that you need to employ people who can do things not people who merely agree with you.

He didn't just "let it go through". You are assuming that he was somehow opposed to all the pork. There is no evidence that he is. He only dislikes pork when it is suggested by democrats, but since he dislikes everything suggested by democrats we can't count that.

Less incentive makes it less likely.

Tariffs are dicey, in many cases forbidden by treaties. If we do it, they'll do it. But they can't object to a sales tax. Give cash sunsidies to poor people to compensate them; it still discourages them from buying a lot of junk.

John

A lot of things happened "under Clinton", few of which are associated with the word "responsible."

But it was Al Gore who invented the Internet when he was still just a Senator. The trillion dollars or so of stock market/pension fund losses are just a footnote to the wonders of Amazon and DrKoop and Webvan [1].

John

[1] we note the passing of the last Cody's Books, in Berkeley, along with tens of thousands of other bookstores and video stores. At least Powell's is hanging on in Portland, and Green Apple out on Clement street in San Francisco.

Woods

another."

"A Neocon is a liberal who has been mugged by reality."

John

Your argument here, and the analogy you present are both EXTREMELY weak. I could accept the money without being greedy. For example, I could turn around and give the money to charity. - or a whole host of other possibilities.

Making a prudent business decision does not necessarily equate to greed. Greed is more like an emotional state of being.

Using your premise, a greedy person might holdout for two million, and then want continued rights to use the vehicle post-sale, and might also want first right of refusal if you tried to sell it to someone else (at half the original purchase price). That's greed.

The statement that comptition moderates greed is false. Swap the words "'66 Beelte" for something that truly is one of a kind (say, the Mona Lisa), and run through your 'argument' again. You will then see that you have only one opportunity to profit, so it would be a prudent business decision to maximize your return, not necessarily greed!

To use your way of thinking, all prudent business decisions would have to be based on greed - which is an obviously ridiculous position. The counter argument (as I mentioned before and which evidently fell on deaf ears - as did the definition of 'greed') is that the high dollar sale is justified by A) uniqueness of the item, B) lack of future opportunity to profit on the sale - i.e., you only have one to sell, and C) the alternative of selling the '66 Beelte at $700 to some other prospective purchaser would also fail to satisfy the proposition that competition "moderates" greed and profits.

You're going down in flames on this one.... Best to quit now.

Bye-bye.

-mpm

I've yet to see Congress hammer a nail or solder a wire. Or the DMV change a tire.

All they can do is make rules, and take money from one person and give it to someone else.

They are not us, working together, Their incentive is to spend, regardless of results. Spending is always rewarded-- some voter is always happy to get the money--whereas cutting a nickel always makes someone hopping mad.

Indeed, outcomes and efficiency are unimportant, irrelevant, often not even tracked. Useless spending is expected and tolerated. (e.g., ethanol, e.g., federalizing the TSA, ...)

So spending is good. And what's the best kind of spending? Why, new spending of course. Old spending is expected. New money pleases new people and buys new votes.

Since more people get taxes than pay them, spending works, politically.

So that's what politicians do: spend other people's money, as much as possible, ideally taking it from as few patrons as possible and redistributing it to as many recipients as they can.

Cheers, James Arthur

No, it's precisely how life works.

The point is moot. You inclination to be greedy is dampened by the market. In fact, it would never occurr to you that the rustbucket was worth much, so the competition kept you from getting greedy in the first place.

That's how it works.

A business has to maximize profit to survive. Use whatever word you like to describe that process.

No, that stupidity if the best offer is one million.

Which offer would you take, the $1M or the better one?

Playing with words again. The result is the same.

I run a business that profits and survives; I design things, price things, build them, and sell them. I know how this game works.

John

We can't win on labor. But making it harder and more expensive to employ people still doesn't help us.

There are lots of people who'd prefer to make stuff here, at home. Like me.

Ever looked at the paperwork, mechanisms, and reporting needed to employ someone?

It's horrendous.

Best, James Arthur

If you 'hire' someone through an agency, they'll take care of all that for you, and you just pay one B2B bill. The challenge is coming up with high-value work for people to do (and make a profit on).

Best regards, Spehro Pefhany

--
"it\'s the network..."                          "The Journey is the reward"
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No, neither the bubble nor the collapse were Mr. Clinton's doing.

The claim was, AIUI, that Mr. C's tax increases improved the economy. But, that theory doesn't explain the events.

Cheers, James Arthur

Poetry.

Cheers, James Arthur

Nahh, HERE's the hockey stick:

Cheers, James Arthur

Why? Congress spends every penny it gets, and then some. We run deficits. Hence 106%.

Cheers, James Arthur

That's pretty much how I see it.

To the extent money is usefully spent, it's grossly inefficient. For example: the federal highway work rules that require flagmen be paid something like $50 / hr. Which also raises the price of private roads; citizens have to compete with the federal government--and its payscale--for contractors.

And much of the money is spent on things that are positively harmful to society, e.g. ethanol to fight agw , and tobacco subsidies.

Cheers, James Arthur