Socialistic health care goal of the traitors in power

[ccbatson]

Pay closer attention, I am very direct in what I say...."his market and business unfriendly policies". With 100% support from the legislature, spending more than anyone can even contemplate...yes.

[mjs]

Deficit spending is terrible on the economy? You don't say. You must be listening to all of the economists. Seeing how Clinton lowered deficit spending and the Dow went up 250% and then Bush increased deficit spending for his programs and tax cuts and the Dow went down 30%, you may be right. Now, Obama is showing he's willing to raise taxes so he can avoid deficit spending on his programs. Lets see what happens.

[gibran]

Pay closer attention, I am very direct in what I say...."his market and business unfriendly policies". With 100% support from the legislature, spending more than anyone can even contemplate...yes.

thanks to the last eight years.

[ccbatson]

He [[Obama) was incapable of quadrupling the debt and spending at historically unprecedented rates and amounts prior to his term in office. Sorry to break the news to you Gibran.

[mjs]

And so was my dog. What are you trying to say? Can you at least acknowledge that Bush raised expenditures after 9/11 and then cut federal revenue? Can you acknowledge that a higher debt puts us in a worse position relative to negotiting with China on anything, but especially North Korea?

[Sstashmoo]

Quote: "Are you saying the largest influence on the stock market is the sitting President? I think its one of the biggest American fallacies out there,"

Because you know absolutely nothing about what you are talking about. Everything effects the stock market. Traders hang and decide their purchases upon every little giblet of news that comes across the wire. If someone is elected that is neglectful of a certain industry, watch what the stocks in that arena do.

[mjs]

Did you just say that every little thing affects it, but nothing matters if the politicians don't carry it every step of the way?

Neglectful politicians? We are talking about companies here, not mentally ill people. Only bad companies need government intervention to save them. A bad industry is simply one where a mixture of market concentration, barriers to entry, and government interference made it so the bad companies stick around when they should be loosing market share.

Yes, if a noncompetitive industry or company has to deal with a new innovative player, they will lose market share unless government acts to handicap the innovator and return everything back to its noncompetitive position. There was a time when government kept foreign products out and stopped new products from upsetting the balance. They call it the dark ages.

[ccbatson]

Revenue did, always has, and always will go up with universal tax cuts. A measure of the accuracy of the predictions of supply side economics [[Mellen in the 30s, later the Laffer curve).

[mjs]

The data doesn't support your hypothesis. As a percent of GDP, the deficit increased under Ford from 1974 to 1977, decreased under Carter from 1977 to 1981, increased under Reagan and Bush from 1981 to 1993, decreased under Clinton from 1993 to 2001, and then increased under Bush from 2001 to 2009.

Receipts as a percent of GDP did the same thing. Despite the tax and spend labeling, even outlays as a percent of GDP saw its lowest point in thirty years under Clinton and highest point in fifty years under Reagan. Welfare and government entitlement programs don't work. It takes away these people's incentive to pull themselves up through hard work. Of course, I'm talking about corporate welfare and entitlement programs.
http://www.marktaw.com/culture_and_m...ionalDebt.html

[mjs]

Its an economic fact that a group will spend less and less as they get more and more. For example, a group spends 98% of the first $25,000, 90% of the second $25,000, and 85% of the third $25,000. So, if you want people to spend more faster, do you give $300 to those making over $75,000 or $300 to those making less than $25,000?

[ccbatson]

REVENUE...not deficits [[government spending). The data of government revenue vis a vis the Laffer curve supports this basic economic principle completely.

Regarding spending MJS...also not the point here...government REVENUE from taxes is the subject. Repeat after me....REVENUE.

You need to be on the right page to credibly participate in a discussion.

[ccbatson]

REVENUE...not deficits [[government spending). The data of government revenue vis a vis the Laffer curve supports this basic economic principle completely.

Regarding spending MJS...also not the point here...government REVENUE from taxes is the subject. Repeat after me....REVENUE.

You need to be on the right page to credibly participate in a discussion.

[mjs]

The blue line is receipts which is revenue. Look at the line. As I stated in the first line of the second paragraph, it trends up during Democratic administrations and down during Republican administrations.

A deficit is not the same as government spending. That is why the deficit line is red and the spending line is green. The deficit is the difference between receipts and outlays. See how the red line [[surplus) is positive in 2000 when the blue line [[receipts) is higher than the green line [[outlays)? Blue above green- Good. Green above blue- Bad. Now, I'm understanding why you don't make sense when you talk about the deficit.

[ccbatson]

It is revenue AS A PERCENT OF GDP. You can't be missing this key element from a chart that you posted, can you?

[mjs]

The fact I used "as a percent of GDP" three times when I introduced the graph kind of answers your question. I quit including the term when I realized I had to explain things to you like you were four years old. Yes, all three lines are a percent of GDP. Very good. You can have a cookie now. Your reading comprehension is getting better already.

Now, here comes a harder one. Read it slowly and sound it out. Use more math examples if you need to. You keep claiming that lowering taxes increases GDP and that Republicans cut wasteful spending. If every single program in the entire Federal budget spent the same amount from one year to the next, but GDP went up, the green line would go down because its spending divided by GDP.

Try to think of it with this example. If you spend two dollars and have three dollars, you have spent 66% of your money. 2 divided by 3. If you spend two dollars and have four dollars, you have spent 50% of your money. 2 divided by 4.

The data shows that cutting the tax rate by 10% doesn't increase GDP by more than 10%. If it did, the blue line would go up and the green line would go down making the red line go down.

[mjs]

The Laffer curve. Once again you take a theory of vigorous debate between the experts in the field and act like its a fact. Its not. Even David Stockman, Reagan's budget director said you're not properly understanding it.

[T]he whole California gang had taken [the Laffer curve] literally [[and primitively). The way they talked, they seemed to expect that once the supply-side tax cut was in effect, additional revenue would start to fall, manna-like, from the heavens. Since January, I had been explaining that there is no literal Laffer curve.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laffer_curve

[Sstashmoo]

Quote: "There was a time when government kept foreign products out and stopped new products from upsetting the balance. They call it the dark ages."

Or how I see it, ten years ago when you were like 12.

The point I was trying to make and you countered in your own self-contradictory manner. The actions of government have a profound affect on market activity. For you to think anything else, shows how naive you are. Now go do a Google search.

[ccbatson]

The Laffer curve is a graph showing the correlation of individual tax rate to revenue....no controversy there.

[mjs]

Yes, batts, that is what the Laffer curve is. No controversy. The controversy is in regards to whether the theory that theoretical curve represents actually works in the real world. Just as there is no controversy what the Trickle Down Theory is. The controversy is whether it actually works considering lower income people spend the money they get faster and the economy is measured by the rate that money is spent.

From now on, I'll be responding to both you and Sstashmoo's questions on how the data matches your theories in the thread on the recession rather than the thread on Health care.

[Gistok]

Quote: "global economy."

I always laugh a bit when I read that phrase. What it really means and the folks that spout it trying to sound smart don't understand. It is codespeak for a condition [[or plan) to destroy the middle class leaving an handful of mega-wealthy and legions of mega-poor. I've been saying it for years, we can not go toe-to-toe with the Asian countries and maintain our standard of living, or the one we had anyway.

It's a perfect plan for the capitalists in power. Cheap wages, no labor unions. The people at their finger tips.

Sstashmoo, wow... I don't agree with you all that often... but you've hit the nail on the head on that one...

[Lorax]

I, too, agree.

Sstashmoo is regularly on my hit list of propagandizers, but had a moment of clarity here.

We are at the point where we are about to see what sort of nation we're going to be a century from now.

If the private sector can rebound in any measurable way, it will mean fascism, if government can get it's act together and start providing for it's people what is expected of foreign socialized democracies, as in Europe, we will have a middle class that will survive, and may even get a little jolt of nationalist pride in how well run our system is.

The unfettered greed and persecution by the private sector against the people of this nation is at the heart of what is wrong with America.

The right keeps up this phony outrage against government, when all they know how do is try to destroy it at every turn. Underfunded programs, half-measures, neglect, all have contributed to government's image under Rethuglican rule. Tossing sand into the gears of this machinery is what they do best. Privatization of all aspects of government has always been their goal, since they never have gotten away from the idea of CEO worship, which really is the religion of the right.

Why do you think Goldman Sachs paid back the TARP monies so quickly? They didn't want the government having any oversight over how much they could pay their employees. They feel an average salary of 800,000.00 bucks per year is OK and justified, and doesn't have any appearance of impropriety.

The business as usual mantra will no doubt return, since the Bush generated TARP program was really designed as a final gift/bank heist designed to reward friends and colleagues on the way out the door.

Unfortunately, unless stiff regulation of private enterprise combined with bedrock government health reform, nationalization of the largest banks, and a return to a tariff based trade policy, we are doomed to repeat the last bubble over and over, until it appears as though we are permanently stuck in a depression we can never dig out of.

[oladub]

Lorax, Goldman Sachs is as much a part of this administration as the last. In fact, Goldman Sachs lobbied for President Obama's regressive middle class cap and trade tax. Why? Because it has already taken steps to be a primary player as a Wall Street middleman in the buying and selling of Carbon credits.

"The collective message of all of this — the AIG bailout, the swift approval for its bank-holding conversion, the TARP funds — is that when it comes to Goldman Sachs, there isn't a free market at all. The government might let other players on the market die, but it simply will not allow Goldman to fail under any circumstances. Its edge in the market has suddenly become an open declaration of supreme privilege."
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics...bble_machine/4

[mjs]

The right keeps up this phony outrage against government, when all they know how do is try to destroy it at every turn.

If they are outraged that government is too large, shouldn't they be trying to weaken, or as you once again exaggerate as destroy, its larger programs? Your sentence contradicts itself. Keep the rhetoric down and you may be able to communicate a lucid idea.

Anyone that has Geithner in their administration can't be too opposed to a rampant free for all of big bankers. Listen to what the bankers and executives you hate have to say on CNBC and then see how many hours it takes for Geithner to use almost the exact same words in a press conference. In some instances, it is the exact same words. He even looks like someone Hollywood would cast as an unscrupulous greedy character.

[ghettopalmetto]

If they are outraged that government is too large, shouldn't they be trying to weaken, or as you once again exaggerate as destroy, its larger programs? Your sentence contradicts itself. Keep the rhetoric down and you may be able to communicate a lucid idea.

The inherent flaw in the "government is too large" argument is the ambiguity of the phrase "too large". How large is sufficient? By how much is our government "too large"? If the government is too large, then where do you propose we make cuts, attaching dollar amounts to each figure?

Disingenuously cutting taxes and then hoping to scale back the scope of government is a reckless, and some would say purely ideological, exercise that has no attached mechanism of practicality or pragmatism. Let's see some objective rationale before we start impulsively hacking off limbs to spite our faces.

[mjs]

I'm not opposed to more government spending. I'm opposed to spending increases when we're not willing to raise taxes the same amount. I'm also opposed to cutting taxes when we're in debt. If people want something, they need to be willing to sacrifice for it.

Government is only too large when its spending more than its bringing in.