"The private sector is doing fine."

[RandFan]

Originally Posted by Ziggurat

Yes, it's logically possible, it's just not true. The private sector of the economy is still suffering badly. Worse than the public sector, as those sector-specific unemployment numbers I posted before indicate.

I commented on those numbers. I understand Obama's statement from the context of the trend of unemployment, public vs private and whether there is a net increase or a net decrease.

Originally Posted by ThinksProgress

source Private sector job creation returned in February of 2010, the 13th month of President Obama’s term. Since then, the economy has added 4.3 million private sector jobs, a 4 percent increase....

Public sector employment is now down 608,000 workers since January 2009, a 2.7 percent decline.

1. The trend for private sector is good, jobs are up.
2. The trend for public sector isn't good, job are down.

Please to tell me if either or both of those two propositions are false.

[Dymanic]

Originally Posted by Ziggurat

That might be relevant if your position is that wealthy individuals are the only part (or even the largest part) of the private sector.

Unless I'm mischaracterizing current Republican thinking, it is that the best approach to revitalizing our economy is to regard these wealthy individuals as the most significant part of the private sector, as these are purported to be the "job creators". Was that not the entire justification for the generous Bush tax breaks in the first place, as well as the justification for their continuation even in the face of obvious failure? Do you dispute that "trickle-down economics" remains at the core of Republican economic policy?

Quote:

I've never claimed to know what the President actually thinks. Nor do I particularly care.

That's interesting. President Obama is a very articulate man, and has consistently made his position on this quite clear, so I don't understand your confusion, but taking what you just said at face value, I find myself wondering: Do you often find yourself involved in discussions on matters you neither know nor care much about? Also: do you feel that you have a better understanding of what Romney is thinking? Personally, I find that rather hard to nail down considering how often he flips and flops, but maybe that's just me.

Quote:

What he said was wrong. I'm not of the opinion that it's a huge deal (politicians make gaffes, it's seemingly unavoidable), but it's strange to see people trying desperately to defend what Obama himself already disowned.

What he disowned is the strawman. It was never his to begin with, and his statement is only a "gaffe" if taken out of context. I've seen creationists perform the same trick with mined quotes by Darwin or Gould (examples on request). I would hope that you at least understand that the context was his attempt to get Congress to act on his jobs bill. Do you agree that it was indeed taken out of context?

[Ziggurat]

Originally Posted by RandFan

1. The trend for private sector is good, jobs are up.
2. The trend for public sector isn't good, job are down.

Please to tell me if either or both of those two propositions are false.

I disagree with the highlighted portion of both statements. You can argue that they aren't false since those parts are subjective evaluations, but I disagree with them.

For the private sector, I think that while a positive rate of job growth is better than zero or negative, it's not good enough, given both the magnitude of the decrease which happened at the start of the recession and the fact that positive job growth is required to merely stand still due to population growth.

In fact, if you look at the employment to population ratio, we've been basically flat since Feb '10. You can see yourself by going to the Bureau of Labor Statistics here and entering series ID LNS12300000. The site uses Java, and I can't remember how I got direct links to work in the past. Flat isn't enough to qualify as "good" for me.

As for public sector employment I think the public sector is too large right now, a decrease in public sector employment isn't a bad thing. The public sector is in many ways overhead for our economy. It's necessary overhead, but making it bigger just to make it bigger doesn't help. Making it smaller could.

[BenBurch]

Ah! White is Black. Evil is Good.

I get it, Zigg.

And we have always been at war with Eurasia.

[Dymanic]

Originally Posted by Ziggurat

That "statistic" is crap.

You know, I always find that that sort of thing always comes off so much stronger if you at least try to back it up with facts.

Quote:

It involves severe mischaracterizations of a whole bunch of spending to attribute growth Obama is responsible for to Bush.

Does it? Let's look:



So if we define "presently" as: the year 2012...

Quote:

But even lying with statistics, you can only claim that growth in spending, and not actual spending itself, is low, and that only because it attributes so much growth to Bush in 2009.

The only thing I hate worse than lying with statistics is lying without statistics -- you know, like Romney's been doing with his blathering about the Obama spending "inferno". If you look closely at my post, you'll see that I specifically referred to the annualized growth of federal spending. To suggest that I was either saying or implying that actual spending was at its lowest point in decades would be, you know, one of them there strawman thingies, so I guess I'm glad you weren't claiming that I was claiming that.

[Ziggurat]

Originally Posted by Dymanic

Unless I'm mischaracterizing current Republican thinking

You're responding to my posts, not the posts of "current Republican thinking". So my thinking is the standard by which I will evaluate your responses to me.

Quote:

it is that the best approach to revitalizing our economy is to regard these wealthy individuals as the most significant part of the private sector, as these are purported to be the "job creators". Was that not the entire justification for the generous Bush tax breaks in the first place, as well as the justification for their continuation even in the face of obvious failure?

Most of the Bush tax cuts don't go to the wealthy, they go to the middle class. Didn't you know that?

Quote:

That's interesting. President Obama is a very articulate man

No he isn't.

Quote:

and has consistently made his position on this quite clear, so I don't understand your confusion

I'm not confused. I'm just not a sucker: I know that what a politician says and what he thinks aren't necessarily the same. And I don't pretend to be able to mind read.

Quote:

but taking what you just said at face value, I find myself wondering: Do you often find yourself involved in discussions on matters you neither know nor care much about?

I'm not discussing what Obama thinks. I'm discussing what he said, and what's actually happening in the economy. You are the one appealing to what you think he thinks.

Quote:

Also: do you feel that you have a better understanding of what Romney is thinking?

Nope. The only people I claim to have a better understanding of what they're thinking are people I know well personally.

Quote:

I've seen creationists perform the same trick with mined quotes by Darwin or Gould (examples on request). I would hope that you at least understand that the context was his attempt to get Congress to act on his jobs bill. Do you agree that it was indeed taken out of context?

No, I don't agree that it was taken out of context, and yes, I'm well aware that he was talking about a jobs bill. But the private sector needs more jobs a lot more than the public sector does. So his claim is wrong in context.

[Ziggurat]

Originally Posted by Dymanic

You know, I always find that that sort of thing always comes off so much stronger if you at least try to back it up with facts.

Does it? Let's look:

Look at what? An unsourced graph?

Presumably this is some variation on Rex Nutting's claim. His analysis was garbage. For example, the TARP funds get attributed as Bush spending, even though those funds were always supposed to be recovered. And when some of those funds were recovered, they were counted as a budget cut attributed to Obama. The recovered funds which Obama respent (which were originally never supposed to be respent) were thus counted not as an increase in spending by Obama, but essentially as no spending at all.

So you've got this massive surge in 2009 attributed to Bush which was supposed to be one-time, and then Obama makes that spending effectively permanent, and he wants to claim that Obama isn't a big spender. It's just not credible.

Oh, and then Nutting decides to use 2013 OMB baseline projections which include cuts that Obama is working to prevent, and which aren't included in the president's own budget.

The start point for his analysis is wrong, the end point for his analysis is wrong, the number he derives is nonsense.

You can read up about some of these criticisms here.

[Ziggurat]

Originally Posted by BenBurch

Ah! White is Black. Evil is Good.

I get it, Zigg.

And we have always been at war with Eurasia.

I present facts and an argument. You respond with... well, nothing, really. OK, that's not fair. You've got a literary reference. One that doesn't actually address my argument, but hey, it shows that you've read a book! And it's an important book!

But I think you might want to reconsider what that book was actually about, because it wasn't about the dangers of smaller government. Oops.

[Dymanic]

Originally Posted by Ziggurat

You're responding to my posts, not the posts of "current Republican thinking". So my thinking is the standard by which I will evaluate your responses to me.

As far as I can see, you're mostly just parroting GOP talking points, so until you clarify how your thinking represents a deviation from that, I don't see the distinction.

Quote:

Most of the Bush tax cuts don't go to the wealthy, they go to the middle class. Didn't you know that?

Does your thinking deviate from current Republican thinking in that you see tax cuts for the wealthy as failed policy insofar as job creation is concerned, and that you are not opposed to allowing those tax cuts to expire?

Quote:

I'm not confused. I'm just not a sucker: I know that what a politician says and what he thinks aren't necessarily the same. And I don't pretend to be able to mind read.

"I'm not a mind reader, but as some degree of that ability is vital to understanding language, here's me doing a bit of mind reading anyway". I suggest you Google the phrase "pragmatic competence".

Quote:

I'm not discussing what Obama thinks. I'm discussing what he said.

I find you to be a truly insightful individual; perhaps even a genuine deep thinker.

Quote:

The only people I claim to have a better understanding of what they're thinking are people I know well personally.

Do you find this to be a drawback when attempting to decide between political candidates?

Quote:

No, I don't agree that it was taken out of context, and yes, I'm well aware that he was talking about a jobs bill.

Another Google assignment then: "Cognitive dissonance".

[BenBurch]

Originally Posted by Ziggurat

I present facts and an argument. You respond with... well, nothing, really. OK, that's not fair. You've got a literary reference. One that doesn't actually address my argument, but hey, it shows that you've read a book! And it's an important book!

But I think you might want to reconsider what that book was actually about, because it wasn't about the dangers of smaller government. Oops.

It was about the dangers of a huge repressive government such as your party attempts to create every time it is in power. And your party uses newspeak, it absolutely does, and tells everybody that government is getting smaller when that really means you doubled it.

And you are no more honest in your argumentation than your party.

The numbers bear me out; GOP governments increase the size of government.

[RandFan]

Originally Posted by Ziggurat

I disagree with the highlighted portion of both statements. You can argue that they aren't false since those parts are subjective evaluations, but I disagree with them.

Could one reasonably come to the subjective conclusions based on the propositions sans subjective value?

1. Private sector jobs are trending up. Jobs are up.
2. Public sector jobs are trending down, job are down.

Quote:

For the private sector, I think that while a positive rate of job growth is better than zero or negative, it's not good enough, given both the magnitude of the decrease which happened at the start of the recession and the fact that positive job growth is required to merely stand still due to population growth.

In fact, if you look at the employment to population ratio, we've been basically flat since Feb '10. You can see yourself by going to the Bureau of Labor Statistics here and entering series ID LNS12300000. The site uses Java, and I can't remember how I got direct links to work in the past. Flat isn't enough to qualify as "good" for me.

As for public sector employment I think the public sector is too large right now, a decrease in public sector employment isn't a bad thing. The public sector is in many ways overhead for our economy. It's necessary overhead, but making it bigger just to make it bigger doesn't help. Making it smaller could.

All well and good but not at issue IMO. The objective facts could reasonably be argued to satisfy the subjective conclusions. Obama can reasonably disagree with you and so do I.

[Dymanic]

Originally Posted by Ziggurat

Look at what? An unsourced graph?

Presumably this is some variation on Rex Nutting's claim.

Did you miss the references to the sources of the data? Did you take Rex's advice to "Check the official numbers at the Office of Management and Budget" and "Read the CBO’s latest budget outlook"?

Quote:

So you've got this massive surge in 2009 attributed to Bush...
Oh, and then Nutting decides to use 2013 OMB baseline projections...

Tell ya what. As far as 2009 is concerned, we could go back and forth forever on who deserves to get stuck with that tab; the guy who made the mess, or the guy who cleaned it up. So let's split the difference there. As for 2013, well, that's not here yet.

But what about THIS year, 2012. If you think the CBO has it wrong at a 0.7% rise, can you defend your claim?

[Peephole]

Originally Posted by Ziggurat

By that page's own admission, federal worker employment has actually been increasing, and that's what Obama has direct control over. State worker employment has dropped because a lot of states dug themselves into financial holes through profligate and unsustainable spending

Nowhere on that page does it say that, because that isn't what happened. It's basically been flat with the exception of the census:



And the reduction in state employees occurred as a result of the recession, not some other reason:

Originally Posted by randman

What he laments is despite his expansion of federal government and federal employees, the states have to balance their budget and so they have had to lay some people off.

As shown above, there's been no expansion of federal employees. That is a Republican lie. Nor has there been any other kind of expansion, with the exception of the stimulus but that's gone already. The only thing that's bigger now on the federal level, is social expenditures (social security, medicaid,...) because of the depression.

[Peephole]

Originally Posted by Ziggurat

BTW, some more statistics: government workers have the lowest unemployment rate (just 4.2% in March) of any sector of the economy.

http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t14.htm

Why do you think this is in any way relevant? It doesn't change the fact that hundreds of thousands were fired, and that under normal conditions hundreds of thousands would have been hired:

[Peephole]

Originally Posted by AlBell

I think govt payroll is too big.

Fiction? No, but what wealth do they create?

As a share of the US population, it's the lowest in more than thirty years:

Originally Posted by Ziggurat

Uh, no. No, it wouldn't. Government spending is very high right now, government unemployment is very low.

Not on consumption, investment and employment:

[Ziggurat]

Originally Posted by Dymanic

As far as I can see, you're mostly just parroting GOP talking points

Try responding to what I actually write, not what you imagine I might think. This is, in fact, a perfect example of how you can get yourself into trouble by making assumptions about what someone believes. You keep ascribing to me positions that I never expressed.

Quote:

Does your thinking deviate from current Republican thinking in that you see tax cuts for the wealthy as failed policy insofar as job creation is concerned, and that you are not opposed to allowing those tax cuts to expire?

Whether or not tax cuts for the wealthy have produced the job growth we want isn't really the question we face. The question we face is what will happen if we raise those taxes again. And I'm not convinced that it will help.

To start with, income taxes are a necessary evil. I don't believe in using them as a means of wealth redistribution. That doesn't mean I don't believe in some progressivism in the tax structure. But I accept that on the basis of balancing effectiveness in raising needed revenues with the harm that taxes do. So the only reason to raise income taxes on anyone is to raise revenue.

But what happened when the Bush tax cuts were enacted? What happened to revenue? Well, between 2003 and 2007, income tax revenue went up from about $1.78 trillion to about $2.56 trillion, about a 44% increase. Now, obviously a lot of factors besides the tax rate enter into that increase. If the economy does better for reasons having nothing to do with tax rates, then we can expect tax revenues to increase because of that, and maybe revenues would have been much higher still without the tax cuts. Inflation also contributes a bit, and so does population growth, though that should only be a few percent each over that time span.

But you're interested specifically in tax cuts for the wealthiest. So what happened to their income tax revenues? Well, they went up. But how much? Well, the top 0.1% went up from $117 billion to $225 billion, a 92% increase. The top 1% went from $256 billion to $451 billion, a 76% increase. Income tax revenues went up across the board, but they went up more for the rich than for the poor. A lot more. Lowering taxes on the rich may not have done much to spur job growth, but on the flip side, it didn't lower revenues either, but if it had any affect on revenue, it seems to have increased it. Conversely, I don't expect raising those rates to do much to raise revenues either. And revenues are the only justification for and the only benefit provided by income taxes. Everything else they do is a harm. So no, I'm not in favor of raising taxes on the wealthiest at this point in time.

Oh, and this is the source of my numbers above.

Quote:

Do you find this to be a drawback when attempting to decide between political candidates?

Nope. I'm sufficiently comfortable with my ability to predict what they will do. Whether they do the right or wrong thing out of honest conviction or cynical power calculations is quite secondary to me, I really care about whether they do the right or wrong thing.

[Ziggurat]

Originally Posted by Dymanic

Tell ya what. As far as 2009 is concerned, we could go back and forth forever on who deserves to get stuck with that tab; the guy who made the mess, or the guy who cleaned it up. So let's split the difference there. As for 2013, well, that's not here yet.

But what about THIS year, 2012. If you think the CBO has it wrong at a 0.7% rise, can you defend your claim?

If government spending is already too high, then the right growth is negative. The fact that 2012 has a low but still positive growth number (which I never contested) is not impressive.

[Ziggurat]

Originally Posted by BenBurch

It was about the dangers of a huge repressive government such as your party attempts to create every time it is in power.

Quote:

And your party uses newspeak, it absolutely does

It's not "my party". I don't believe I have ever declared any party affiliation on this board, nor does my party registration constitute anything beyond a choice of which primary I want to vote in.

And as for "newspeak", umm... overseas contingency operations? Man-caused disaster? Kinetic military action? Spending reductions in the tax code? Even John Stewart calls that last one Orwellian.

Furthermore, you seem rather fixated on attacking something other than my actual argument. Nothing in your latest response addresses anything from the post you previously responded to. Again, I put forth facts and an argument. You continue to address neither.

Quote:

And you are no more honest in your argumentation than your party.

Yet you cannot say why. You cannot contest the facts I provided, you cannot counter the argument I put forth. All you can do is level accusations against me, and hope that you can tar me by attacking someone else.

Quote:

The numbers bear me out; GOP governments increase the size of government.

This is the ONLY statement in your response that constitutes anything even resembling an argument, rather than an attempted insult. Small problem: I never claimed otherwise. Congratulations, you've knocked down a straw man. Now man up and try addressing what I did write.

[DavidJames]

Originally Posted by Ziggurat

It's not "my party". I don't believe I have ever declared any party affiliation on this board...

You're fooling no one other then maybe yourself. You declare your party loyalty with every post, all 23,000 of them. indeed.

[RenaissanceBiker]

Fact: I just got my first raise in 3 years.

[Ziggurat]

Originally Posted by DavidJames

You're fooling no one other then maybe yourself. You declare your party loyalty with every post, all 23,000 of them. indeed.

And still, no response to my actual arguments. Merely more ad hominems. What do you think that declares about you?

[dc1971]

Originally Posted by Ziggurat

I present facts and an argument. You respond with... well, nothing, really. OK, that's not fair. You've got a literary reference. One that doesn't actually address my argument, but hey, it shows that you've read a book! And it's an important book!

But I think you might want to reconsider what that book was actually about, because it wasn't about the dangers of smaller government. Oops.

Take a deep breath. Find a quiet room. Breathe some more. Listen to the sound of your breath. Feel how relaxed you are now. OOOOOHMMM....

[BenBurch]

Originally Posted by RenaissanceBiker

Fact: I just got my first raise in 3 years.

Congratulations!

[RandFan]

Originally Posted by Ziggurat

The question we face is what will happen if we raise those taxes again. And I'm not convinced that it will help.

It didn't hurt when Reagan raised them. It didn't hurt when Clinton raised them.

Here's the problem as I see it. Historically tax rates have been higher and we have prospered. I think you need something more than a hunch to keep them as low as they are.

Quote:

But what happened when the Bush tax cuts were enacted? What happened to revenue? Well, between 2003 and 2007, income tax revenue went up from about $1.78 trillion to about $2.56 trillion, about a 44% increase. Now, obviously a lot of factors besides the tax rate enter into that increase. If the economy does better for reasons having nothing to do with tax rates, then we can expect tax revenues to increase because of that, and maybe revenues would have been much higher still without the tax cuts. Inflation also contributes a bit, and so does population growth, though that should only be a few percent each over that time span.

The problem here is that you are painting an incomplete picture.

Originally Posted by The New York Times

source Bruce Bartlett held senior policy roles in the administrations of Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush and served on the staffs of Representatives Jack Kemp and Ron Paul.

The Congressional Budget Office expects revenue to be just 14.8 percent of G.D.P. this year; the last year it was lower was 1950, when revenue amounted to 14.4 percent of G.D.P.

But revenue has been below 15 percent of G.D.P. since 2009, and the last time we had three years in a row when revenue as a share of G.D.P. was that low was 1941 to 1943.

...

It would have been one thing if the Bush tax cuts had at least bought the country a higher rate of economic growth, even temporarily. They did not. Real G.D.P. growth peaked at just 3.6 percent in 2004 before fading rapidly. Even before the crisis hit, real G.D.P. was growing less than 2 percent a year.

We have a revenue problem. Keeping the tax rates low doesn't appear to be helping us. It's most certainly not stimulating the economy.

[JoeTheJuggler]

Originally Posted by Ziggurat

I disagree with the highlighted portion of both statements. You can argue that they aren't false since those parts are subjective evaluations, but I disagree with them.

So your objection to Obama's "fine" value judgement is the same: it's a disagreement on an evaluation rather than on some objective fact.

And I still think it's disingenuous to place his remarks into any broader context than it actually was made in. I don't think Obama was trying to give a broad evaluation of the state of everyone in the private sector. He was talking specifically about the capacity of the private sector to create jobs, in particular in the context of what the federal government should focus on to best help the recovery.

[JoeTheJuggler]

Originally Posted by Ziggurat

If government spending is already too high, then the right growth is negative.

Yes, I'm sure that's a popular political approach as long as no voters are among those adversely affected by the loss of public sector jobs (and services).

So the whole recession thing was good because it's giving us what you consider to be a necessary shrinking of government?

[Caper]

Originally Posted by RandFan

It didn't hurt when Reagan raised them. It didn't hurt when Clinton raised them.

Here's the problem as I see it. Historically tax rates have been higher and we have prospered. I think you need something more than a hunch to keep them as low as they are.

The problem here is that you are painting an incomplete picture.

We have a revenue problem. Keeping the tax rates low doesn't appear to be helping us. It's most certainly not stimulating the economy.

I think it's hard to talk about the subject without painting an incomplete picture. You may be right and I tend to agree with you that taxes can probably be raised without harming the economy. But I just think the debate should be over who is going to minimize the damage and not make the economy better. Aging work force, emerging economies, huge debt loads.....ect.

[Dymanic]

Originally Posted by Ziggurat

Try responding to what I actually write, not what you imagine I might think.

I've been responding to what I recognize as familiar GOP talking points. I imagine that you've been repeating them because they are in alignment with your own thinking, but performing that analysis seems to me an unnecessary extra step.

Quote:

Whether or not tax cuts for the wealthy have produced the job growth we want isn't really the question we face.

There certainly seem to be those who don't want to face that question, as your evasive response demonstrates. You either think those tax cuts helped create jobs or you don't.

Quote:

Whether they do the right or wrong thing out of honest conviction or cynical power calculations is quite secondary to me, I really care about whether they do the right or wrong thing.

Do you see a jobs bill -- as in: a real jobs bill, one that will actually create more jobs than it eliminates -- as a right or a wrong thing?

Quote:

If government spending is already too high, then the right growth is negative. The fact that 2012 has a low but still positive growth number (which I never contested) is not impressive.

I'd say it's fairly impressive as a refutation of Romney's claim that President is on a "spending spree".

Interestingly enough, I actually happen to sort of agree that "the right growth is negative" -- in the same sense that for a person sitting on top of a mountain, the "right direction" is down. Our government grew right along with our population, and the accompanying increase in consumption of food, water, energy, etc, and the economy that permitted all of that increase. I see us now on the threshold of the inevitable contraction which is the ultimate price of those decades of explosive growth, not the least reason being that we are at or very near the end of what we once regarded as an endless supply of cheap energy.

So, yeah, we need smaller government -- to go along with our smaller families, smaller waistlines, and smaller (or non-existent) cars. I'd love to think that we might be capable of learning to think in terms of managing that contraction in ways that would minimize the amount of human suffering it will cause, but there presently seems to be far too much collective delusion and cultural inertia to make that the remotest possibility.

[RandFan]

Originally Posted by Caper

I think it's hard to talk about the subject without painting an incomplete picture. You may be right and I tend to agree with you that taxes can probably be raised without harming the economy. But I just think the debate should be over who is going to minimize the damage and not make the economy better. Aging work force, emerging economies, huge debt loads.....ect.

Thank you. Thought provoking.

[applecorped]

Originally Posted by RandFan

Thank you. Thought provoking.

Stool provoking.

[Caper]

Originally Posted by RandFan

Thank you. Thought provoking.

Was that sarcasm?

[RandFan]

Originally Posted by Caper

Was that sarcasm?

No. Not at all. I had not even considered whether or not the debate should be about minimizing the damage as opposed to making the economy better. I found the tone of your post conciliatory and I'm always willing to consider points of view that take that approach.

[RandFan]

Originally Posted by applecorped

Stool provoking.

You don't ever seem to advance the discussion or provide anything substantive. Goodbye.

[applecorped]

Originally Posted by RandFan

You don't ever seem to advance the discussion or provide anything substantive. Goodbye.

Not surprisingly, neither do you. Hmmm....

[BenBurch]

Originally Posted by Caper

I think it's hard to talk about the subject without painting an incomplete picture. You may be right and I tend to agree with you that taxes can probably be raised without harming the economy. But I just think the debate should be over who is going to minimize the damage and not make the economy better. Aging work force, emerging economies, huge debt loads.....ect.

Solvable problems all. If I were dictator, I'd investigate doing something along these lines;

If you look at how Japan is dealing with an aging population, or trying to; They are looking to robots to be care-givers. Much, much cheaper in the long run, once developed.

I'd start something like NASA - we need this anyway - a National Mobile Cybernetics Administration. Remit is research, co-development with industry, establishing standards for safety certification. We already have robot automobiles driving on the same highway as humans. For now with an engineer ready to kill it and take over instantly. But some day there will be no human on board, and we will need to have a body competent to pass on safe practice.

And that will employ a lot of people, and pump a lot of money through industry. Unlike NASA, no huge project is getting fed by this, it is all on a small scale, and industry is expected to take things over after development. Unlike NASA, Industry will be expected to pay a fee for use of the patents developed, and this can eventually become a revenue stream rather than a budget item.

Debt loads will handle themselves if we have no more disasters like Bush created and we ask the fed to allow a bit more inflation to cheapen the existing debt over time.

Economics; All economics is energy. Period. Wasn't always like this, but it is as you say "emerging" - actually fully emerged already.

To the first order you can predict the standard of living of a country if you know the number of kilojoules the average citizen consumes per year. Cost of energy is what is driving both the problems in Europe and the recovery here in the USA. It is also what stuck the pin in Bush's bubble. (A few months too early to pin any of the blame on Obama, though some try.)

So, combined with robotics, we also need to ressurect ERDA - Energy Research and Development Agency. NRC would be under ERDA. Goal would be fusion long term, and anything that will work short term. Research will say what that "anything" is. Except for mid-scale pilot plants, no build-out at all would be done. Industry is expected to license the designs and will do so if they make economic sense.

[Caper]

Originally Posted by BenBurch

Solvable problems all. If I were dictator, I'd investigate doing something along these lines;

If you look at how Japan is dealing with an aging population, or trying to; They are looking to robots to be care-givers. Much, much cheaper in the long run, once developed.

I'd start something like NASA - we need this anyway - a National Mobile Cybernetics Administration. Remit is research, co-development with industry, establishing standards for safety certification. We already have robot automobiles driving on the same highway as humans. For now with an engineer ready to kill it and take over instantly. But some day there will be no human on board, and we will need to have a body competent to pass on safe practice.

And that will employ a lot of people, and pump a lot of money through industry. Unlike NASA, no huge project is getting fed by this, it is all on a small scale, and industry is expected to take things over after development. Unlike NASA, Industry will be expected to pay a fee for use of the patents developed, and this can eventually become a revenue stream rather than a budget item.

Debt loads will handle themselves if we have no more disasters like Bush created and we ask the fed to allow a bit more inflation to cheapen the existing debt over time.

Economics; All economics is energy. Period. Wasn't always like this, but it is as you say "emerging" - actually fully emerged already.

To the first order you can predict the standard of living of a country if you know the number of kilojoules the average citizen consumes per year. Cost of energy is what is driving both the problems in Europe and the recovery here in the USA. It is also what stuck the pin in Bush's bubble. (A few months too early to pin any of the blame on Obama, though some try.)

So, combined with robotics, we also need to ressurect ERDA - Energy Research and Development Agency. NRC would be under ERDA. Goal would be fusion long term, and anything that will work short term. Research will say what that "anything" is. Except for mid-scale pilot plants, no build-out at all would be done. Industry is expected to license the designs and will do so if they make economic sense.

Interesting ideas. I hate being a pessimist. But I keep thinking how all new this is. It's not like we have thousands of years dealing with modern finance (I know trade has been around as long as people). We have.... like a hundred years. I look at South America, India, to some extent some middle eastern countries. I see young hungry youth that want jobs. I think they are hungrier then we are (not literally, we defiantly win there). Technology will limit the damage... maybe even negate the damage. But I see other parts of the world that want their slice of the pie... and maybe that's a good thing (for the world as a whole). There was always emerging economic powers, but America always ruled over technological innovation (Japan may not agree). I'm not sure it's accurate to bring up Clinton's tax rates or Reagan's or Bush's without talking about the other driving factors that played a role as well. Clinton benefited greatly from an internet revolution that was driven in America.... Bush had the 9/11 economy to deal with as well as the dying down of the technology industries (remember pets.com). Then Bush benefited from a housing bubble for a lot of his second term.... Obama now has to deal with the fallout from that.... while at the same time dealing with a VERY, VERY competitive world economy. I don't envy Barrack Obama. He'll get criticized for an economy, I believe he doesn't have all that much control over.... I'm not saying no control... but not near the control the avergae American thinks they have..... or the average politician leads us to believe.

[Ziggurat]

Originally Posted by RandFan

It didn't hurt when Reagan raised them. It didn't hurt when Clinton raised them.

And both of those raises occurred under different conditions than we currently face.

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Here's the problem as I see it. Historically tax rates have been higher and we have prospered.

Historically, government also spent much less money and we prospered. If past history is your guide, then significant spending cuts are in order as well.

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The problem here is that you are painting an incomplete picture.

Of course I am. As are you. As we all do here, in this limited format.

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We have a revenue problem. Keeping the tax rates low doesn't appear to be helping us. It's most certainly not stimulating the economy.

We have a deficit problem. You want to fix that by raising taxes rather than cutting spending, with the idea that government spending will stimulate the economy. But that requires that the government spending outweigh the drag of pulling money out of the economy through taxes. In other words, you think government can spend that money more productively than taxpayers can. I don't think that's true at the margins right now.

[Ziggurat]

Originally Posted by Dymanic

I've been responding to what I recognize as familiar GOP talking points. I imagine that you've been repeating them because they are in alignment with your own thinking, but performing that analysis seems to me an unnecessary extra step.

You're already taking unnecessary extra steps. Confining your responses to what I actually write takes fewer steps than trying to extrapolate to what else you think I might believe.

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There certainly seem to be those who don't want to face that question, as your evasive response demonstrates. You either think those tax cuts helped create jobs or you don't.

What I'm trying to evade is a debate which is not solvable and does little to guide us now. There is no way to definitively prove the case either way. If you think there is, you're kidding yourself.

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Do you see a jobs bill -- as in: a real jobs bill, one that will actually create more jobs than it eliminates -- as a right or a wrong thing?

That would be a good thing. I just don't think that's what's being offered, even if that's what's intended.

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I'd say it's fairly impressive as a refutation of Romney's claim that President is on a "spending spree".

If you massively jack up spending in your first year and then merely keep it high the rest of the term, that doesn't make you frugal.

[Ziggurat]

Originally Posted by JoeTheJuggler

Yes, I'm sure that's a popular political approach as long as no voters are among those adversely affected by the loss of public sector jobs (and services).

I find this argument rather ironic, given your immediately previous post:

Originally Posted by JoeTheJuggler

So your objection to Obama's "fine" value judgement is the same: it's a disagreement on an evaluation rather than on some objective fact.

What exactly do you think the typical voter's evaluation of Obama's value judgment is going to be?

[Frank Newgent]

Originally Posted by Ziggurat

What exactly do you think the typical voter's evaluation of Obama's value judgment is going to be?

How can we even begin to measure such a thing objectively given government inefficiency? Government regulations stifling election-market innovation have resulted in nothing but an ever lower-voter turnout.

In light of the stark difference in the effectiveness and competence between the private and public sectors, it mystifies me that any right-thinking person would want to transfer more power and money to the government.

How is the process of accumulating then counting individual votes any different? Though it's true there exists a vast untapped market of nonvoters, perhaps this market, instead, could be made more efficient by simply allowing it to come up with better voters. I think you know what I mean.

It's about time we privatise the election process.