OT: Higher taxes..

...

rs

nd

These guys estimate the "cost" of the tax cut at around ~$129B a year:

Compare that with adding Obama's ~$800B a year to the baseline budget.

Whatever the actual effect of the cut, Obama agreed to extend it, so he gets some credit for that. Also, Obama does not want to reverse the whole thing, only about ~$40B(*) worth a year, to scalp employers.

Any which way you figure, the idea that Obama's trying hard to pay off, reduce, or balance anything just doesn't add up.

(*) Non-Obama estimate. First Obama said $700B over ten years; now he's saying $900B.

James

troy

The Oscars do direct the attention at politicans with some element of sex appeal.

Nobody is going to try to parody the Republican clown car - it's not got enough content to be worth ridiculing.

In any event the theme was done to death back in the days of the Keystone Cops.

When you've got a pathetic idiot like Rick Santorum telling the Republican voters that the Dutch go around murdering their elderly - as opposed to providing closely regulated euthanasia to those terminal patients who ask for it - and nobody seems to notice that he's spouting fatuous nonsense, you've got to recognise that nobody is paying any serous attention to the farce.

Tina Fey at least took Sarah Palin seriously enough to parody her (though she didn't actually have to bother to write any speeches for her version of Sarah Palin - repeating Sarah Palin's own words with rather better comic timing was all that was required).

None of the current Republican candidates has got even that much charisma. It's difficult to see how even registered Republicans can get interested enough in the difference between the fleas and the lice (to paraphrase Dr. Johnson) to go out there and vote for one or another of them. I suppose that there must be enough James Arthur non- think-alike's out there to provide some cannon-fodder for the selection process, but it's a depressing thought.

The US is notorious for it's high levels of income inequality (higher than any other advanced industrial country) but nobody talks much about its intellectual inequality, where the knuckle-dragging low end of the spectrum supports the Tea Party and thinks that Darwin got it wrong.

-- Bill Sloman, Nijmegen

the

al

they

regular

drop

o-...

;ind...

He actually says that she pays out a higher proportion of her income in tax - he doesn't really have to spell out that one of the richest men in America is going to end up paying more tax than his secretary, even if he is paying out a slightly smaller proportion of his income, though a mentally retarded right-wing nitwit might take a while to work this out for himself.

-- Bill Sloman, Nijmegen

es...

wars

not

nt

cond

oy

p://

Scarcely. The Republicans in congress didn't give him a lot of choice

When the economy still needs deficit-financed stimulus spending to keep it out of recession, balancing the budget is not going to get a lot of attention from anybody in their right mind. James Arthur isn't clinically insane, but he's firmly convinced the Keynesian economics is wrong, which is to say he's suffering from right-wing delusions, and can be described in terms of a far-right mind-set.

The US economy has been doing better recently ... which James Arthur attributes to the influence of the Tea Party nitwits, when they've been doing their level best to sabotage the US economy in the hope of making Obama less electable. It's amazing what political prejudice can do to a partisan's comprehension of cause and effect.

-- Bill Sloman, Nijmegen

estroy

ed

The Democrats are in the worst position of all: they've got Obama, and his malaise. Hope and Change morphed into something failed and bitter. They should've run Hillary.

James

Pres...

e wars

D not

went

second

and

e,

troy

ttp://

I admit the whole Keynesian thing is horribly confusing to a simpleton like me. Maybe you could explain it?

Let's describe it as a closed system, with 'John' representing the awful people who make things, and a two-dollar 'Bill,' representing the exploited masses whose benefit checks are too stingy.

Figure 1. - Unfair, exploitative system

.--------------------. | .------. .------. | | | $2 | | $5 | | | | Bill | | John | | | '------' '------' | '--------------------'

Now let's redistribute the wealth...

Figure 2. - Keynesian Stimulus .--------------------. | .------. .------. | | | $3 | | $4 | | | | Bill | | John | | | '------' '------' | '--------------------'

Okay, Keynes says everyone prospers because this policy fires up John, who works harder and makes more stuff. That's the part that always fools me--how does this encourage John? Or Bill to work harder, for that matter?

Post script: Figure 3. - Snapshot, 30 seconds after Fig. 2. .--------------------. | .------. .------. | | | $2 | | $4 | | | | Bill | | John | | | '------' '------' | '--------------------'

I know that's better because you've said so, but I still don't quite see why. It's more 'equal'--is that the point?

James

e-Pres...

the wars

t D not

n went

a second

p and

ore,

y.

estroy

:

Why should I? It's mainstream economic orthodoxy.

Here's where you start going wrong. Keynesian deficit-financed spending stimulus doesn't redistribute wealth. It involves the government borrowing wealth from people with money, but no immediate inclination to invest it in anything as risky as business, and giving it to people who can be relied on to spend it, to tempt other people with money to invest to provide the goods and services that the fortunate recipients can now buy.

The people who got the money shouldn't "accumulate wealth" - if they aren't going to spend it, giving it to them doesn't stimulate the economy, and the people who've lent the money to the government haven't had it "taken from them", and can expect to eventually get it back with interest. Admittedly, a proper depression deflates the currency, so that if the lenders had been able to keep their money under the bed, and not spend any of it on staying alive, their wealth would eventually buy more stuff when they finally recovered the courage to spend it.

There are costs involved in Keynesian deficit-financed stimulus, which do have to be paid off in the long term, but there are larger costs involved in allowing a significant recession to run it's course. Sound businesses fail, productive factories shut down and the value - usually labelled "goodwill" - implicit in a going concern is lost forever.

You aren't a simpleton, but you do have depressing tendency to simplify relevant details out of the scenarios you sketch.

-- Bill Sloman, Nijmegen

destroy

ore

hat

rted

ial

Why? She'd have been just a crippled by the consequences of the sub- prime mortgage crisis.

I'm sure you imagine that if McCain and Palin had been elected, the consequences of the sub-prime mortgage crisis would all have magically vanished, but that's the right-wing imagination for you.

-- Bill Sloman, Nijmegen

The-Pres...

f the wars

art D not

ion went

l a second

up and

more,

re.

ney.

destroy

ar:

et.

rs.

They borrow it, then say stuff like "fair share," and raise taxes on whom? = Gee, that sure seems like redistribution.

Anyway, the scenario you laid out is the same as illustrated, with possibly= a phase delay or two to fool the fools. (Spend then take instead of take, = then spend.)

=20

Once the fast food and beer are gone, nothing lasting was created. Consump= tion has simply been accelerated in time, in the absence of any ability to = pay. Payment comes later,in tax from the producers.

(That is, the people who consumed the free stuff didn't work harder to crea= te anything to trade with, it was simply given to them. They made no extra= value. The people who'll have to pay for it two years hence, the producer= s, didn't make anything extra either. It's a shell game.)

Saving businesses that should fail--failed businesses--is the most expensiv= e course of all. GM, for example. They got an ENORMOUS handout that'll ti= de them over a while, but only at our expense. ($47B tax break, pension bai= led out, etc.)

--=20 Cheers, James Arthur

destroy

ore

hat

rted

ial

I don't think so James. The market closed today above 13000. If the market continues to climb into the election, Obama is a sure winner, and he knows it. Everybody votes their pocketbooks.

-Bill

destroy

The unemployed pocket is pretty dry. Everyone else is scared.

om

to destroy

d more

s that

started

Social

le.

Well, you know what Warren Buffet said about fear. "Be fearful when others are greedy, and be greedy when others are fearful."

-Bill

wars

not

second

They could not keep them without Demoncrat cooperation.

That doesn't even make sense. Read what you wrote.

With Obummer saying he is going to confiscate everything to pay for = income redistribution they are really scared, and hiring now still smells a lot like barrel bottom scraping. Overtime is a much better deal for = employers right now.

Can't be done. Deficit reduction is the only thing that can prevent bankruptcy.

=20

No, they want to destroy Obummer, but the mm'asses are easily swayed by promises and bullshit. =20 They are missing their target.

to destroy

more

that

started

Social

scale.

??? Running the embittered wife of Bill? Couldn't have won against any semi-reasonable opponent. The republicans failed to present one.

?-/

are

in the

capital

Hunh? The bond rates are fixed at the market rate when the bonds are sold. If the market rate changes the present value of the bonds are reassessed and resold at values reflecting the rate difference. What is the difference? -- not much.

?-)

s/The-Pres...

of the wars

part D not

ation went

eal a second

ck up and

pire.

in 2008,

at

money.

to destroy

year:

dget.

so

ce

yers.

't

? =A0Gee, that sure seems like redistribution.

Most things sound like redistribution to you. People whose business is ripping off other people do interpret everybody else's actions in that light.

ly a phase delay or two to fool the fools. (Spend then take instead of take= , then spend.)

I'm sure that you see it that way. You don't notice that the tax take after you've fixed the recession is bigger than the tax take if you let the recession take care of itself, probably because your theology doesn't admit the concept of "fixing a recession".

sumption has simply been accelerated in time, in the absence of any ability= to pay. =A0Payment comes later,in tax from the producers.

But the brewery and the fast food chain are still functioning businesses, as opposed to a series of padlocked sites full of machinery that nobody wants to buy. Keynesian stimulus spending isn't about creating things, it's about preventing existing value from being destroyed.

eate anything to trade with, it was simply given to them. =A0They made no e= xtra value. =A0The people who'll have to pay for it two years hence, the pr= oducers, didn't make anything extra either. =A0It's a shell game.)

But if if you don't play it, you destroy existing value. The people who consumed the free stuff may not have created anything with it, but they remained well-fed and active, as opposed to malnourished and apathetic (if not downright sick).

ive course of all. =A0GM, for example. =A0They got an ENORMOUS handout that= 'll tide them over a while, but only at our expense. ($47B tax break, pensi= on bailed out, etc.)

Recession don't just destroy businesses that should fail - that sort of business keeps on failing all the time, even in at the peak of a boom - but they also destroy long established businesses that ought not to have failed, and firms that borrowed to expand to serve a market that suddenly shrank.

The US GNP dropped 25% between 1929 and 1933, and the winnowing process didn't leave a core of super-fit firms who promptly expanded to exploit the markets created by Roosvelts's New Deal - it just left too few businesses to cope with the recovering demand. Recovery took ages.

-- Bill Sloman, Nijmegen

...

rs

nd

ers

There's a big gap between raising the income tax rate on incomes over $200,000 per year and "confiscating everything". The people who are hoarding their money aren't primarily scared of Obama, they are scared of recession, and have been since the sub-prime mortgage crisis hit, back on 2008. The unemployment statistics suggest that they are finally starting to recover some of their courage and entrepreneurial spirit

Or economic recovery. Once you can afford to stop stimulus spending, the budget suddenly looks a lot more balanced.

Obviously.That's deficit-financed stimulus spending for you.

The Republican clown car is long on promises and bullshit - their target, at the moment, is the Republican voter who has to select between the collection of losers on offer to choose which candidate can lose against Obama in November and the Republican voter is unduly susceptible to promises and bullshit.

-- Bill Sloman, Nijmegen