The 'stimulus' isn't going to work, and why.

[KingOrfeo]

... and they have the promise of Social Security, FDR's "temporary" Ponzi scheme. Right???

When did FDR ever pitch Social Security as "temporary"?

 

[KingOrfeo]

They become retirees for a while, then they become inmates of adult assisted living facilities hooked up to tubes, oxygen tanks, and IV drips, costing more money to keep alive in the last few years of their lives than their entire health costs up to that point.

And every dime spent on all of that ends up in the pocket of some younger working person.

Your president . . .

Yours too, never forget.

 

[KingOrfeo]

On the other hand, they're finally admitting Obama is moving us toward Socialism.

Where did you hear that? What liberal is describing it that way?

They're also admitting that they want Socialism.

Again, who? I say I want (some form of democratic non-Marxist mixed-economy) socialism (or, failing that, European-style social democracy), but I know I'm in a definite minority among liberals there.

 

[TurdFergeson]

Government dollars do not "come out of the economy." Government itself is as much a part of the economy as is the private sector. It is not directly economically productive the way the private sector is, but the relationship between the two is symbiotic, not parasitic.

The only reason most of the DOW 30 corporations exist to this day is...you guessed it. Tax dollars at work.

All these mega-corps got so large because of wars. With the exception of some of the newer ones like Wal-Mart.

Even Intel and Microsoft must owe a huge debt of gratitude to the US taxpayer and government.

And it's not just large caps, but a lot of small specialized companies that owe their very existence to Tax dollars.

The problem with the US economy is apparent: Of all sectors, including manufacturing, service, raw materials, etc...the financial sector has grown to be an uncontrollable monster?

Meanwhile education is dead last:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...ith_payrolls_-_sales_vs_employees_in_2002.gif

 

[KingOrfeo]

Oh yeah, I will purchase hot coffee and spill it on my self, that would earn me another 10 million.

Not if it went like it did last time. Don't get your hopes up.

 

[unregistered]

 

[unregistered]

 

[KingOrfeo]

Doesn't the left contend that we are in today's situation because people borrowed money today to fund capital projects (like building huge houses), on the assumption that they'd be able to pay it off in the future?

No. The credit crisis is really just a blip, like the dot-com bubble, not a systemic disease of our economy. "The left" of course does not speak with one voice, but generally speaking contends we are in today's situation because letting business do anything and everything adjudged to enhance profitability and shareholder value led to runaway outsourcing and erosion of America's manufacturing base and the many high-wage, low-skill jobs it used to provide. Which is as much the fault of neoliberals as conservatives.

 

[Sharon_]

Get your head out of the 1970s. At this juncture, the great threatening danger is not inflation but deflation.

Then clearly, raising taxes is the exact wrong thing to do, no?

As I understand it, deflation is when people stop spending as in, they don't have money to spend.

My taxes are up $9/week coming April 1....that's $36 less a month that I have less to spend on just that one embedded tax. How about you?

Cap and trade is going to cause my propane and electric to go up, no?
(and probably water/sewage bill, garbage collection, gasoline since they all use carbon fuels somehow).

And I keep hearing rumors of an increase on gasoline tax.

Seems to me us 'po folks are going to be seeing a whopping big raise in our taxes....and the cost of food. As is, not taking into account whatever the percentage of feed corn has to go ethanol *this* year (or the elimination of the farm subsidies for those farms making over $500,000), just as is the dairy farmers are going to slaughter an estimated 100,000 cows this year cuz they can't afford to feed them. So there goes up all our dairy products.

Between that and all the new state & city taxes, that's a whole lot less money folks are going to have to combat deflation; and for the 'po folks who are already stretched, I just don't know how they're going to make it.

 

[HeavyStick]

I'm moving to Switzerland after I retire.

 

[TurdFergeson]

Between that and all the new state & city taxes, that's a whole lot less money folks are going to have to combat deflation; and for the 'po folks who are already stretched, I just don't know how they're going to make it.

?

Deflation means prices will be cheaper. A gallon of milk will only cost 1 dollar. (extreme example)

Poor people will have it easier. And deflation is expected, NOT inflation.

 

[KingOrfeo]

I love it when a a congressional communist . . ..

Actually, there are none, not even small-c; not even Bernie Sanders. Why do you keep hammering on such ridiculous memes?! There is a difference between hyperbole and idiocy. The above is not hyperbole.

 

[KingOrfeo]

?

Deflation means prices will be cheaper. A gallon of milk will only cost 1 dollar. (extreme example)

Poor people will have it easier.

Well, yeah, but there's more than one side to that.

Deflation, the continuous drop of prices--the exact opposite of inflation--sounds on first acquaintance like a walk in the park on a fine spring day, but in fact it is perniciously destructive. The Journal explains that deflation "would raise real borrowing costs for individuals and businesses. That's because both must repay fixed amounts of debt, along with interest, even as underlying prices and their own earning power are falling. It could also give households and businesses an incentive to hoard cash, since the value of having cash on hand rises as prices fall. The process can feed on itself: Consumers and businesses delay spending, worsening a downturn and leading to more debt defaults."

A few months of falling prices may be welcome. After that we have cause to worry. Most economists are saying that the chance of a full-blown deflation is remote if it exists at all, but most economists have been mistaken in their predictions about everything these last few years.

They said the price of housing would not go down; they said that the only place to put your retirement money was in the stock market and that, while things might go slack for a while, there would be no recession. As for the chances of a full-blown depression, perish the thought. A disconcerting number of economists, analysts and prestigious commentators on matters economic have turned out to be woolly-headed professional optimists, stock market shills or house whores for the financial institutions that have brought the country to the edge of ruin.

No matter what these people say, the chances of a major deflation are anything but remote. If history is any guide, curing a deflation will be a more difficult and chancy operation than correcting an inflation. Though it may be painful, we know how to stop inflation. We have no such handy recipes for dealing with deflation.

The last major deflation was one of the hallmarks of the Great Depression. Correcting it was one of President Franklin Roosevelt's most intractable problems. His first attempt was to take the country off the gold standard and devalue the dollar.

That worked for a while, but cheapening the dollar as a means of stopping deflation is not a path open to President Obama. In 1933 the United States was the world's largest creditor nation--as China is today; in 2009, it is the world's largest debtor nation, and as such it dare not devalue its currency, which would be the same thing as cheating the nations and people to whom it owes money. The consequences would be horrific as panicked creditors would sell their US securities in the run to dump dollars.

The New Deal also tried to stop falling prices by suspending antitrust laws so that competing companies were allowed to enter into price-fixing agreements. Such an arrangement can work only if all competitors abide by the agreed-upon prices, and that is not possible without coercion, which was attempted but ruled illegal by the Supreme Court.

The threat of deflation is the result of twenty years of inflationary policies, which made the credit bubbles possible. Their puncture has brought on the price collapse we now suffer through. Such are the wages of governments' manipulating the values of their currencies instead of making sure they have a steady store of value that neither swells nor shrinks.

Whether or not we fall into a prolonged painful period of deflation depends on the imponderables of a storm-tossed economy. If wholesale wage cuts and layoffs occur over the next five or six months, that will be a sign that deflation is upon us. If, however, incomes and jobs remain steady, we may not get back to prosperity--but at least we will have avoided the disaster of a full-scale fall.

 

[KingOrfeo]

KO, you KO yourself with shit like the above. So deeply steeped in collectivist bullshit you remind me of a swizzle stick in a Marxist Martini.

When come back, bring content.

 

[unregistered]

 

[unregistered]

 

[TurdFergeson]

Well, yeah, but there's more than one side to that.

In other words deflation is inevitable due to 20+ years of supply side inflationary practices.

I haven't seen any predictions of major deflation, but it's obvious the inflation bubble had to burst sometime.

Bad for old investors, but good for new.

 

[KingOrfeo]

Ok Chief, how bout I bring wampum?

Or pie.

 

[Sharon_]

?

Deflation means prices will be cheaper. A gallon of milk will only cost 1 dollar. (extreme example)

Poor people will have it easier. And deflation is expected, NOT inflation.

...and the reason prices drop is....

People have money and *won't* spend it

~or~

People don't have money and *can't* spend it.

Guess which group the poor people will fall in.

When you embed taxes in crap, in *everything*, those poor people have to pay them, too.

So again I ask, isn't raising taxes the exact wrong thing to do?

 

[TurdFergeson]

...and the reason prices drop is....

People have money and *won't* spend it

~or~

People don't have money and *can't* spend it.

Guess which group the poor people will fall in.

When you embed taxes in crap, in *everything*, those poor people have to pay them, too.

So again I ask, isn't raising taxes the exact wrong thing to do?

OR...overproduction.

Which you conveniently leave out...the reason the government used to pay farmers to NOT grow food. To artificially increase prices.

And, Obama did specifically say anyone making less than $250,000/year will not see their taxes raised.

But this is really about Cigarette taxes, right? EVERY administration has riased taxes on them. For good reason, they KILL people and put a HUGE drain on the medical system.

 

[unregistered]

 

[KingOrfeo]

What about our freedom?

I hope you can think of a better example of "freedom" than untaxed cigarettes.

 

[unregistered]

 

[TurdFergeson]

What about our freedom?

You are totally free to grow your own tobacco and not pay one dime in taxes.

 

[unregistered]