A Feast of Unrepentant Wingnuts

[NWO Sentryman]

Quote:

by Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy

Egalitarian societies are more productive than societies in which a mere one percent owns more than some 90 percent of the rest of the population. Since 1980, US productivity declined with the dollar in a race to the bottom. The results may be seen quantified at the CIA's 'World Fact Book' where the US is at the bottom of a list of nations with the world's largest negative current account balance. It is not coincidental that America became the world's largest net debtor nation as it joined the ranks of the most inequitable.

American politics has been hijacked by a tiny coterie of right-wing economic extremists, some of them ideological zealots, others merely greedy, a few of them possibly insane. The scope of their triumph is breathtaking. Over the course of the last three decades, they have moved from the right-wing fringe to the commanding heights of the national agenda. Notions that would have been laughed at a generation ago--that cutting taxes for the very rich is the best response to any and every economic circumstance or that it is perfectly appropriate to turn the most rapacious and self-interested elements of the business lobby into essentially an arm of the federal government--are now so pervasive, they barely attract any notice.

The result has been a slow motion disaster. Income inequality has approached levels normally associated with Third World oligarchies, not healthy Western democracies. The federal government has grown so encrusted with business lobbyists that it can no longer meet the great public challenges of our time. Not even many conservative voters or intellectuals find the result congenial. Government is no smaller--it is simply more debt-ridden and more beholden to wealthy elites.

--Feast of the Wingnuts: How economic crackpots devoured American politics

The US won the race to the bottom begun with the ascension of Ronald Reagan to the White House.

existentialistcowboy.blogspot.com/2009/06/feast-of-unrepentant-wingnuts.html

Sorry if i am spamming. I just wanted a few things cleared up from this blog.

[madurobob]

Originally Posted by NWO Sentryman

Sorry if i am spamming. I just wanted a few things cleared up from this blog.

Which things?

[NWO Sentryman]

Originally Posted by madurobob

Which things?

Well, this blog called the existentialist cowboy was driving me insane for a while. I just wanted a few things cleared up.

I am surprised no-one heard of this guy.

[madurobob]

Originally Posted by NWO Sentryman

Well, this blog called the existentialist cowboy was driving me insane for a while. I just wanted a few things cleared up.

I am surprised no-one heard of this guy.

I'm still confused - what things are you looking to clear up?

[NWO Sentryman]

Some economic issues, although the author is clearly left wing (Why "Terrorism" is worse under GOP Regimes) posts pictures comparing bush to hitler, Idolises JFK etc.

And some of the articles he puts up, which will be for another time.

[thought_fugitive]

I think he means you should posit specific questions relevant to the article you cited.

[NWO Sentryman]

Originally Posted by thought_fugitive

I think he means you should posit specific questions relevant to the article you cited.

well, i was reading on the blog about somethign he called the L-Curve.

He was also saying about Carter's economic record was better than any post WW2 GOP President ("Evidence that Bush will cancel the elections and declare martial law"*)

And saying in General that liberals are better on the economy.

Finally, some things on JFK ("Why JFK had to die", which says EO 11110 as well as his "thousand pieces" comment got him shot)

*i am not going to give him the pleasure of linking to his blog.

[madurobob]

Yup. I don't intend to be rude, but the general idea here is to post an opinion - submit it for discussion/debate. So far all you've offered is that the blog author leans to the left (no argument here).

The blog looks to be long on opinion and short of fact. That doesn't make its conclusions wrong, but you are right to want to gain a better understading of the facts before accepting or rejecting his conclusions.

So, what particular economic points of his bug you?

[NWO Sentryman]

Is the German economic system sound?

Does government invetvention in the economy work?

And he also says that the MIC is "Murder, inc." But an MIC is inevitable in every industrialised country, am i correct.

As well as that, he says that the GOP has created a "third world america", and that reagan encouraged outsourcing.

And some of the above as well, to do with the "L-curve" that he refers to and carter's economic record.

[madurobob]

Originally Posted by NWO Sentryman

Is the German economic system sound?

"sound"? Sure. They maintain one of the worlds largest economies and export a LOT. Their economy is doing very well AFAIK. But, they experience cyclical problems just as we do.

Originally Posted by NWO Sentryman

Does government invetvention in the economy work?

In fact it is necessary. I sure as hell wouldn't want to live in a USA with no FDA and no EPA.

Originally Posted by NWO Sentryman

And he also says that the MIC is "Murder, inc." But an MIC is inevitable in every industrialised country, am i correct.

Um, "MIC"? I don't see any relevant reference to "Murder" in the blog entry.

Originally Posted by NWO Sentryman

As well as that, he says that the GOP has created a "third world america", and that reagan encouraged outsourcing.

the first bit is hyperbole. The second is somewhat true as far as I remember. he was big on free trade and privatization and pushing those also meant favoring outsourcing to some degree. I suspect his thought was more on how to fix what he saw as wrong with socialist countries than it was on internal US economic policy, though. He wasn't the sharpest tool in the shed.

Originally Posted by NWO Sentryman

And some of the above as well, to do with the "L-curve" that he refers to and carter's economic record.

I saw no mention of Carter in the blog post. What about the Laffer Curve interests you?

[NWO Sentryman]

The Carter comments were in 2time to stick a fork in reagan's ass", the Murder Inc. comments were in previous entries, the L-curve as from www.lcurve.org

[balrog666]

Originally Posted by NWO Sentryman

The Carter comments were in 2time to stick a fork in reagan's ass", the Murder Inc. comments were in previous entries, the L-curve as from www.lcurve.org

Only someone who had yet to be born at the time could write such leftist drivel with a straight face.

The author is a pig-ignorant fool.


So, anything else you need to have cleared up?

[I Ratant]

There's every chance the referred-to L-curve is the Laffer Curve..
Probably bastardized to suit.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laffer_curve

[egslim]

Originally Posted by NWO Sentryman

Is the German economic system sound?

A little too export-orientated, but large, prosperous and with solid public finances. And a strong social safety net.

Quote:

Does government invetvention in the economy work?

If the government is competent about it. It seems to me in the US many people are so convinced government intervention is bad, that if the government screws it up, instead of being angry at incompetent politicians and voting them out, they actually feel happy because it vindicates their beliefs.

Quote:

And he also says that the MIC is "Murder, inc." But an MIC is inevitable in every industrialised country, am i correct.

Military Industrial Congressional Complex?

The problem is not so much its existence, but the influence it exercises on government policy.
Fact is that many members of Congress love to bring jobs to their district by purchasing new military equipment and keeping military bases open, regardless of their benefits to the country as a whole. The US is quite unique in that regard, and wastes a lot money.
In addition, this abundance of unused military power also tempts people and politicians to find new uses, in other words, to increase its military interventions. Much like a salary-increase tempts people to spend more.

[leftysergeant]

Originally Posted by balrog666

Only someone who had yet to be born at the time could write such leftist drivel with a straight face.

The author is a pig-ignorant fool.

Pig-ignorant is thinking Reagan had a clue what he was doing, if he actually wanted to help keep America strong, healthy and prosperous.

If his actual intentions were to steal everything he could and sell it to his owners in corporate America, he was a genius.

(Actually, I am convinced his brain sprang a leak some time prior to 1970.)

[billydkid]

My two cents. Surely it is very bad for a society to have things skewed to the point where some tiny fraction owns the vast majority of the wealth, but the real questions are how and why it got that way and how to balance things into something that is reasonable. People are inclined to blame the disparity in wealth on free market capitalism when in fact a large part of this disparity is the result of collusion between industry and government. Much of the regulation that has been put in place was put in place to discourage and eliminate genuine competition.

Government erects barriers to entry to serve the interests of those already entrenched, typically under the guise of some sort of consumer protection. This is sometimes called crony capitalism. We see it in the military industrial complex. We saw it with the development of the railroads and in mining and in oil. We have seen it in the financial industry and in banking. Those with money and influence use their access to power to eliminate real competition and the real role most regulation has played for the most part is to protect the interests of those already entrenched. This is not free market capitalism. It is a kind of national corporatism which is a form of facism. This happens not only on a grand scale with giant corporations, but also at other levels of government - regulation of taxis and hotdog vendors and everything else.

[realpaladin]

Invent a system, it get's abused. Get over it.

[corplinx]

Typical loonie hippes confuse the laffer curve and the tax theories based on it with the policies of the last president.

Its an intentional act of ignorance that helps solidify their world view.

Reagan accepted supply side economics. Reagan was actually an intellectual (shocker).

Bush believed in tax cuts. He believed that taxes in general were too high.

Those are two stances which are not the same.

Taxes:
Under Reagan they went down
Up under Bush I
Up under Clinton
Down under Bush II
Will go up under Obama

I say that the author's basic premise that the country is ruled by a few right wing radical economists is plain silly and deserves no serious attention.

Of the two presidents who did cut taxes, only one actually implemented a Laffer cut. So even between those two you cannot make the case that their economic ideas were the same.

[Beerina]

Bush, Sr. didn't agree with Reaganomics, so to speak, at all. He was the one who invented the term "voodoo economics" in the 1980 or '76 GOP primaries.

He had no problem enjoying Reagan's popularity, and when he had his chance as president, strayed from it, and suffered the consequences.

[mhaze]

Originally Posted by NWO Sentryman

existentialistcowboy.blogspot.com/2009/06/feast-of-unrepentant-wingnuts.html

Sorry if i am spamming. I just wanted a few things cleared up from this blog.

Sure. I'll clear something up for you.

Your apology in advance for spamming is not accepted, except insofar as it verifies your level of selfawareness of spambotness.

[dudalb]

Originally Posted by realpaladin

Invent a system, it get's abused. Get over it.

Agreed. Someone will always find a way to screw other people over.

[Patrick_R]

1) The Current Account Balance doesn't matter
2) The American standard of living has been rising
3) It takes us less time to work today to purchase even more goods than decades ago
4) Income inequality doesn't matter if the distribution occured because of voluntary transactions

Here is a good article pwning the idea of "Nostalgianomics" or the idea that life was some how better and more just when we had higher taxes etc. http://www.reason.com/news/show/133222.html

And here is a video on "Living Large" why the "War on the Middle class" is just a myth http://reason.tv/video/show/living-large

[HansMustermann]

Originally Posted by NWO Sentryman

Does government invetvention in the economy work?

The fact that you don't have the boom and crash economic cycles that plagued the world before the Great Depression any more, or that America recovered quite gracefully from the previous crises provoked by banking numbnuts, would seem to suggest that it works.

_All_ western world governments intervene in the economy, one way or the other. It's not just Germany or generally Europe. For better or worse we're all Keynesian now, and that includes the USA. That does include doing this or that when a recession hits.

It's still government intervention in the economy, even if most people don't see it.

Heck, even having a fiscal policy at all, and constantly tweaking unemployment-vs-inflation to an acceptable point, _is_ intervention in the economy. The USA does it too. That's what made the economy run smoothly for so many decades, so, yes, it works.

The economy of Germany isn't really all that different from that of the USA. There is more social protection, and IMHO a better healthcare system, but in the end the government doesn't really intervene in the economy more than the USA government does. It's not like the government tells factories what to produce or anything. At its heart, it's still a free market system, just with a different tax and social-protection structure on top of it.

The political system, now that's the bigger difference. There isn't much of a military-industrial lobby around here, or at least doesn't have all that much influence.

The German election system never resulted in two parties, but in many smaller parties, and practically there's never one who has over 50% of the votes. Elections are won by uneasy coalitions, and often that small party you co-opted to get a 51% total for your coalition, has quite a bit of say in what the coalition does.

The threat is always there that if you make yourself really unpopular, a coalition could form the other way around, moving you from the head of the winning coalition to the opposition party. So politicians... well, are still politicians, but are rather careful about what they say or do. Any kind of overt corruption or overt toadying to a corporation, could get one dropped by his own party like a hot potato.

Which, of course isn't to say that corruption doesn't exist, just that it's the covert kind

At any rate, lobbies have a _lot_ less overt influence, and everyone is very careful to not look like they're the muppet of a lobby. Again, it doesn't mean it doesn't happen, but it does put a lot of a limit to how much a lobby can do. Military-industrial or otherwise, the winning kind of position is to go populist, not to side with a lobby.

And probably any lobby that includes the military would actually be very unpopular to side with. Most of Germany learned its lesson in WW2, and doesn't want another war, nor anything to do with macho military posturing. There was a lot of opposition to getting German soldiers anywhere outside Germany, even as part of some "peacekeeping" force. So a military-industrial lobby would have a harder time selling itself.

But it's not the perfect system either. One flaw I've already hinted at is that smaller parties do often exert more of an influence on politics than their number of votes would entitle them to.

But, still, I'm just saying, being led by the military-industrial complex doesn't automatically happen everywhere in the world.

[NWO Sentryman]

Well, here is another rant that i do not have the constitution to deal with.

http://existentialistcowboy.blogspot...xecutions.html

[leftysergeant]

Originally Posted by Patrick_R

1) The Current Account Balance doesn't matter
2) The American standard of living has been rising
3) It takes us less time to work today to purchase even more goods than decades ago
4) Income inequality doesn't matter if the distribution occured because of voluntary transactions

There is nothing voluntary about the transaction if some capitalist pig convinces your airheaded governor to sell all the public infrastruture to you and you charge anyone who wants to use it five times what it is worth.

Privatization of our health care system is costing everyone except vultures like Bill Frist their future.

[Patrick_R]

Originally Posted by leftysergeant

There is nothing voluntary about the transaction if some capitalist pig convinces your airheaded governor to sell all the public infrastruture to you and you charge anyone who wants to use it five times what it is worth.

Privatization of our health care system is costing everyone except vultures like Bill Frist their future.

Yes there is, you could purchase it, a group of friends could purchase it. But the public infrastructure (wether it was legite or not) was forced on all others. If it was an illegitimate use of government power to create that public infrastructure then privatizing it would be the appropriate thing. The proceeds of the sale should be returned to the taxpayer as a rebate.

And so long as your government isn't greating a regulatory or tax framework that protects that now privatized business, there is a very strong likelyhood that someone will come along and create some competition.

But likely, you've been using the force of government to make other people subsidize your enjoyment of X commodity. The privatization would be a social justice and the higher price would end up reflecting its true value.

We don't have a truly private health care system in America we have a semi socialist heavily regulated system that doesn't work. Going from our current overly regulated third party payer system to a third party payer system run by bureaucrats won't be any better.

[elbe]

Originally Posted by Patrick_R

We don't have a truly private health care system in America we have a semi socialist heavily regulated system that doesn't work. Going from our current overly regulated third party payer system to a third party payer system run by bureaucrats won't be any better.

Who runs it now? Who would run it if it were entirely private?