pucho812
Well-known member
I think you need to read up more on Khizr Khan before you start to demonize trump for what he said to one person.
pucho812 said:I think you need to read up more on Khizr Khan before you start to demonize trump for what he said to one person.
living sounds said:Pucho, you need to stop reading right wing conspiracy websites and get actual news from credible outlets.
JohnRoberts said:The big lie is that POTUS can actually create real sustainable jobs, at best they can do no harm and allow the economy to prosper, something not happening now.
from http://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-economy-grew-at-a-disappointing-1-2-in-2nd-quarter-1469795649
mattiasNYC said:living sounds said:Pucho, you need to stop reading right wing conspiracy websites and get actual news from credible outlets.
Well.... Obama's a Kenyan Muslim so.....
Politics is the practice of providing vague "easy" answers, that voters "think" they understand, to solve complex difficult problems. Both candidates are guilty of this.Sammas said:JohnRoberts said:The big lie is that POTUS can actually create real sustainable jobs, at best they can do no harm and allow the economy to prosper, something not happening now.
Unfortunately that argument falls apart when you consider the fact that parts of the western world like Australia, the UK and USA have the most deregulated economies in living memory. Australia and the UK also share similar declines in GDP. If free market prosperity were ever going to happen, it would be happening right now... and not 50 or 60 years ago when Keynesianism reigned king and Governments played a much more active role in utilising all aspects of society.
It is really no coincidence that the declines starts with Ronald Reagan's term... The UK's kicks off with Thatcher too.
There is absolutely no rational justification for Trump's attack against the parents of the dead Iraqi war veteran. He is shooting himself in the foot, while that foot is in his mouth.pucho812 said:I think you need to read up more on Khizr Khan before you start to demonize trump for what he said to one person.
It wasn't a rigged federal election - it was a party primary, which the parties can administer however they want. Heck, I could start a party and select candidates anyway I wanted. If people don't like how the two parties select there candidates, then leave the party. But don't confuse a federal election with the party primaries. The parties don't even have to have primaries if they don't want to.Hell it should be sanders v trump but a rigged election....
dmp said:It wasn't a rigged federal election - it was a party primary, which the parties can administer however they want. Heck, I could start a party and select candidates anyway I wanted. If people don't like how the two parties select there candidates, then leave the party. But don't confuse a federal election with the party primaries. The parties don't even have to have primaries if they don't want to.Hell it should be sanders v trump but a rigged election....
pucho812 said:I find it bizzar we hold trump to a different standard the clinton. Why does she get a pass and he don't. Hell it should be sanders v trump but a rigged election..
When questioned recently Hillary said Smith must have misheard or remembered her wrong.pucho812 said:Hey as long as we are talking the khan's remember when smith another gold star family blamed hilary for the death of her son
Her response was to call her a liar....
In this case blame Trump for making it so easy to ignore her as he goes hyper-offensive.I find it bizzar we hold trump to a different standard the clinton.
This is not new... but for one thing Trump has actual press conferences where they ask him difficult questions/ Hillary hasn't held a press conference for over 200 days. She has given numerous friendly "interviews" where she gets mostly softball questions.Why does she get a pass and he don't.
Relax that's pretty much politics as usual.Hell it should be sanders v trump but a rigged election....
What a great thing, really puts women's rights ahead to have her get it by fraud. She is not even the first but that's a whole other story.
JohnRoberts said:Politics is the practice of providing vague "easy" answers, that voters "think" they understand, to solve complex difficult problems. Both candidates are guilty of this.Sammas said:JohnRoberts said:The big lie is that POTUS can actually create real sustainable jobs, at best they can do no harm and allow the economy to prosper, something not happening now.
Unfortunately that argument falls apart when you consider the fact that parts of the western world like Australia, the UK and USA have the most deregulated economies in living memory. Australia and the UK also share similar declines in GDP. If free market prosperity were ever going to happen, it would be happening right now... and not 50 or 60 years ago when Keynesianism reigned king and Governments played a much more active role in utilising all aspects of society.
It is really no coincidence that the declines starts with Ronald Reagan's term... The UK's kicks off with Thatcher too.
I have written about this a lot over the years, and slowing GDP growth (in the West) has numerous causes, ranging from globalization***, to slowing productivity growth, to aging demographics, falling business investment, to.... etc..
My point is that the Obama economic policy has not delivered the strong economy they claim in numerous political speeches. Hillary so far seems to be promising more of the same policy.
US tax policy used to be relatively good for business but over the decades the rest of the world has dropped their tax rates while we stayed the same or increased. Now the US is a relatively high tax region with companies maneuvering to escape by using smoke and mirrors tricks like buying a smaller foreign company and making that their new tax home (conversion). The political reaction is to call these corporations unpatriotic, but businesses are responsible to their stockholders to survive international competition and remain profitable.
The best way to stop this exodus of big business from the US is to remove that tax rate differential that motivates them to relocate overseas. Another distortion that affects US GDP growth is retained earnings held overseas to avoid tax becoming due if repatriated and reinvested in the US. I am not arguing that the US needs to be the lowest tax nation, we just need to restore a competitive tax rate with respect to other major nations.
The unnatural low interest rate environment, too low for too long, is causing perverse economic distortions. Bubbles are rarely recognized until after they burst. The stock market and several asset categories seem over-priced, but in the current environment alternatives are scarce.
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If I understand you are arguing for more government spending (and borrowing?).
You mentioned Pres Reagan, look at this graphic about government borrowing. Indeed the republicans are not innocent here,
but President Obama has increased our debt further from a significant fraction of GDP (note slowing GDP growth under President Obama makes this metric even worse).
It is also worth noting that as our sovereign debt equals 100% of our GDP interest rates paid on this debt is at historical lows (low single digit). Even a few percent increase on the interest rate for this debt will double or triple our debt service cost.
Another little discussed factoid is that over $5T of US sovereign debt is held by the US government : by Social Security, government trust funds, revolving accts, etc. The government buying their own debt can distort (suppress) the true market rate for that debt.
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I am not suggesting that there is one easy answer, but tax policy strikes me as a bleeding ulcer that causing US corporations to escape which reduces domestic business investment. Government borrowing and spending is a less than zero sum game. President Obama spent $1T and I do not like the trend lines I see.
Of course maybe I'm wrong... I have a much longer list of policy suggestions but in the spirit of political discussions I am trying to keep it simple. 8)
JR
*** Globalization looks more like a huge wealth transfer between unskilled workers in the West, to unskilled workers in developing nations, in the process raising millions out of poverty (a good thing IMO).
Sammas said:I am arguing the vagueness of criticising government spending because the result isn't all peaches and cream. A very large portion of the western world is running government budget deficits as a result of the global financial crisis - a phenomonen hugely associated with free market economics in an ever globalising world. The only way it is associated with government is through a lack of regulation, not over reach. The banks that can't fail... failing, for example. And as we now know, the government is ultimately the barer of their risk.
pucho812 said:Yet not one persons sits there and asks How did our government fail us so badly that we got guys like donald trump looking like viable candidates to a lot of people.
This is a very old debate (about Keynsian economics), I am saying that Hillary's plan for another $250B stimulus will not magically restore US business investment and private economy growth trends.Sammas said:I am arguing the vagueness of criticising government spending because the result isn't all peaches and cream.
I would distinguish between budget deficits and accumulated sovereign debt.A very large portion of the western world is running government budget deficits as a result of the global financial crisis
The financial crisis you mention was 7 or 8 years ago. Yes it was caused by poorly understood, under-regulated financial instruments (bundled sub-prime mortgages). This was also fueled by government's thumb on the scale over-promoting home ownership. A classic political mistake is to confuse correlation with causation. The politicians saw that homeowners had a better life outcome, so figured just help more people buy houses. The net result of this government "help" is we now have the lowest rate of home ownership (62.9%) since they started keeping records in 1965. (and they still haven't addressed Fannie and Freddie, IMO complicit in the crisis. )- a phenomonen hugely associated with free market economics in an ever globalising world. The only way it is associated with government is through a lack of regulation, not over reach. The banks that can't fail... failing, for example. And as we now know, the government is ultimately the barer of their risk.
I try to say what I mean. I am talking about what we need to do now from here. IMO Government spending is not a magic elixir that fixes everything. I have a list of suggestions, reforming tax policy is just the first on my list.The suggestion that stimulus didn't work seems largely associated with some kind of implication that free market economics will always result in positive growth. There has never been that guarantee. If the stimulus package turned a violent economic decline with potentially sky-rocketing unemployment (an idea that the neo-liberalism brethren would love to see) into a 5 or 10 year cushioned economic transition, is it still money poorly spent?
We are in year 7 of the weakest economic recovery in recent history. The stimulus prevented a deeper recession (depression?) but it has surely failed to return the economy to previous growth trends. After this many years I am inclined to blame current economic policy, not some event that happened several years ago. It didn't somehow "break" the economy.Even the IMF very recently said the US economy was in good shape - by international standards it is. Yet strangely, the stimulus is deemed to have failed.
Economics is not an exact science. That said I do not expect to get a different result from doing the same thing for another 4 years.Such a suggestion is nothing more than hyperbole, framed in a way as though some people have access to a parallel dimension where stimulus wasn't applied and empirical evidence exists that shows that last quarter still had the exact same GDP.
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