What happened to all of the doom and gloom economic threads?

[Frisco_Slug_Esq]

Simply look to those European countries today that have adopted such a “balanced” approach to debt reduction. Britain, Greece, Portugal, and Spain have all included major tax hikes as part of their austerity packages. The result across the board has been anemic economic growth and scant progress toward debt reduction. Britain, for instance, imposed a new 50 percent top income-tax rate, hiked the capital-gains tax rate from 18 percent to 28 percent, and increased the VAT rate from 17.5 percent to 20 percent. The result: During the first quarter of 2011, the British economy grew at just 0.5 percent, barely enough to offset the 0.5 percent decline during the last quarter of 2010.

http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/print/274171

 

[Frisco_Slug_Esq]

They're still trying to follow the democrat marching orders from the day after the downgrade that said something like "I know that our redistributionist policies and intransiegence on spending reductions has screwed the economy and resulted in a downgrade to our government's ability to repay the debt, but we'll never get elected on our record so we need a coordinated policy to try to blame this on the Republicans so maybe we can convince a few of the weak-minded that democrats leading government isn't a complete disaster."

Of course, there were a few like Kerry who carried the water the next day, but within hours they were widely and thoroughly discredited, including by many in left-leaning media who started to realize that this outrageous claim was going a little bit too far, even for their warped sense of integrity.

Since then, being thoroughly discredited, the left hasn't brought it up agan. The only place that these laughable claims are being made are on this websight by the honorable group of well-meaning but Gilliganesque group of UD, Merc, IZ and a few others.

Gilliganesque is a great word...

 

[Ulaven_Demorte]

I see The "right" is still trying to spin the downgrade into the somehow being the Democrats fault when S&P stated explicitly that they revised their opinion and downgraded our credit rating in part because of the expected refusal of Republicans to let the Bush tax cuts expire and the political brinkmanship associated with raising the debt ceiling..

"We lowered our long-term rating on the U.S. because we believe that the
prolonged controversy over raising the statutory debt ceiling and the related
fiscal policy debate indicate that further near-term progress containing the
growth in public spending, especially on entitlements, or on reaching an
agreement on raising revenues is less likely than we previously assumed and
will remain a contentious and fitful process.
[..]
The political brinksmanship of recent months highlights what we see as
America's governance and policymaking becoming less stable, less effective,
and less predictable than what we previously believed. The statutory debt
ceiling and the threat of default have become political bargaining chips in
the debate over fiscal policy. Despite this year's wide-ranging debate, in our
view, the differences between political parties have proven to be
extraordinarily difficult to bridge, and, as we see it, the resulting
agreement fell well short of the comprehensive fiscal consolidation program
that some proponents had envisaged until quite recently.
[..]
Compared with previous projections, our revised base case scenario now
assumes that the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts, due to expire by the end of 2012,
remain in place. We have changed our assumption on this because the
majority of Republicans in Congress continue to resist any measure that
would raise revenues, a position we believe Congress reinforced by passing the act."

But if Congress gets it's act together...

"Our revised upside scenario--which, other things being equal, we view as
consistent with the outlook on the 'AA+' long-term rating being revised to
stable--retains these same macroeconomic assumptions. In addition, it incorporates
$950 -billion of new revenues on the assumption that the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts
for high earners lapse from 2013 onwards, as the Administration is advocating."

- Standard and Poors

 

[NeverEndingMe]

hey fucktard, your kind lost last night in Wisc!

I see The "right" is still trying to spin the downgrade into the somehow being the Democrats fault when S&P stated explicitly that they revised their opinion and downgraded our credit rating in part because of the expected refusal of Republicans to let the Bush tax cuts expire and the political brinkmanship associated with raising the debt ceiling..

"We lowered our long-term rating on the U.S. because we believe that the
prolonged controversy over raising the statutory debt ceiling and the related
fiscal policy debate indicate that further near-term progress containing the
growth in public spending, especially on entitlements, or on reaching an
agreement on raising revenues is less likely than we previously assumed and
will remain a contentious and fitful process.
[..]
The political brinksmanship of recent months highlights what we see as
America's governance and policymaking becoming less stable, less effective,
and less predictable than what we previously believed. The statutory debt
ceiling and the threat of default have become political bargaining chips in
the debate over fiscal policy. Despite this year's wide-ranging debate, in our
view, the differences between political parties have proven to be
extraordinarily difficult to bridge, and, as we see it, the resulting
agreement fell well short of the comprehensive fiscal consolidation program
that some proponents had envisaged until quite recently.
[..]
Compared with previous projections, our revised base case scenario now assumes that the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts, due to expire by the end of 2012, remain in place. We have changed our assumption on this because the majority of Republicans in Congress continue to resist any measure that would raise revenues, a position we believe Congress reinforced by passing the act."

But if Congress gets it's act together...

"Our revised upside scenario--which, other things being equal, we view as consistent with the outlook on the 'AA+' long-term rating being revised to stable--retains these same macroeconomic assumptions. In addition, it incorporates $950 -billion of new revenues on the assumption that the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts for high earners lapse from 2013 onwards, as the Administration is advocating."

- Standard and Poors

 

[Frisco_Slug_Esq]

Again, patiently, show us where it says TAXES...

Because we HIGHLIGHTED where that said they were NOT calling for taxes.

But the body of evidence from outside the current economic crisis tends to confirm the hypothesis that additional taxes would slow economic growth, making it harder to reduce the debt. For example, a study by Harvard economists Alberto Alesina and Silvia Ardagna looked at more than 100 debt-reduction efforts in 21 countries between 1970 and 2007. They found that a combination of spending cuts and revenue reductions was actually more likely to result in debt reduction than a combination of spending cuts and revenue increases.

History shows us that countries as divergent as Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, and Slovenia successfully reduced the size of their governments relative to their economies and lowered their debt burden substantially. They did so by controlling spending, not by raising taxes.

In this country, look to the end of World War II. The U.S. government cut spending by nearly two-thirds, from $84 billion in 1945 to just $39 billion in 1946. While the country ran a budget deficit of nearly 21 percent of GDP in 1945, it was running a surplus by 1947. At the time, many economists predicted that cuts of that magnitude would destroy the U.S. economy and bring about Depression-era levels of unemployment. Instead, civilian employment actually grew, and an era of economic expansion began that would last throughout the 1950s.

All this implies that we should find a way to cut spending. And that brings us back to President Obama’s press briefing. At the end of his remarks, the president once again laid out his plans for the future, and called for more spending: more spending on education, more spending on unemployment insurance, more spending for an infrastructure bank, more, more, more.

Michael Tanner
NRO

 

[Frisco_Slug_Esq]

"We know that the number of government jobs has been increasing steadily, and that the number of applicants is increasing still more rapidly than the number of jobs. … Is this scourge about to come to an end? How can we believe it, when we see that public opinion itself wants to have everything done by that fictitious being, the state, which signifies a collection of salaried bureaucrats? … Very soon there will be two or three of these bureaucrats around every Frenchman, one to prevent him from working too much, another to give him an education, a third to furnish him credit, a fourth to interfere with his business transactions, etc., etc. Where will we be led by the illusion that impels us to believe that the state is a person who has an inexhaustible fortune independent of ours?

What class does not solicit the favors of the state? It would seem as if the principle of life resided in it. Aside from the innumerable horde of its own agents, agriculture, manufacturing, commerce, the arts, the theatre, the colonies, and the shipping industry expect everything from it. They want it to clear and irrigate land, to colonize, to teach, and even to amuse. Each begs a bounty, a subsidy, an incentive, and especially the gratuitous gift of certain services, such as education and credit. And why not ask the state for the gratuitous gift of all services? Why not require the state to provide all the citizens with food, drink, clothing, and shelter free of charge?
Frédéric Bastiat

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

RINOs and NEOCONs believe UDs blabbering cuz they believe in BIG government and BIG corporations.

But real conservatives believe in limited government with low taxes, low spending, and too few workers to harass people.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

"We know that the number of government jobs has been increasing steadily, and that the number of applicants is increasing still more rapidly than the number of jobs. … Is this scourge about to come to an end? How can we believe it, when we see that public opinion itself wants to have everything done by that fictitious being, the state, which signifies a collection of salaried bureaucrats? … Very soon there will be two or three of these bureaucrats around every Frenchman, one to prevent him from working too much, another to give him an education, a third to furnish him credit, a fourth to interfere with his business transactions, etc., etc. Where will we be led by the illusion that impels us to believe that the state is a person who has an inexhaustible fortune independent of ours?

What class does not solicit the favors of the state? It would seem as if the principle of life resided in it. Aside from the innumerable horde of its own agents, agriculture, manufacturing, commerce, the arts, the theatre, the colonies, and the shipping industry expect everything from it. They want it to clear and irrigate land, to colonize, to teach, and even to amuse. Each begs a bounty, a subsidy, an incentive, and especially the gratuitous gift of certain services, such as education and credit. And why not ask the state for the gratuitous gift of all services? Why not require the state to provide all the citizens with food, drink, clothing, and shelter free of charge?
Frédéric Bastiat

'Nigger Counters' is the popular term for intrusive government observation and supervision.

 

[Ulaven_Demorte]

Again, patiently, show us where it says TAXES...

Because we HIGHLIGHTED where that said they were NOT calling for taxes.

Reading comprehension is, well obviously, not your friend.
S&P stated one of the reasons for the downgrade was a lack of faith that republicans would allow the Bush Tax Cuts to expire (Which *gasp* would be an increase in revenue).
From the link above, perhaps you can get someone to sound out the larger words, or read it slowly for you.

"Our revised upside scenario--which, other things being equal, we view as consistent with the outlook on the 'AA+' long-term rating being revised to stable--retains these same macroeconomic assumptions. In addition, it incorporates $950 -billion of new revenues on the assumption that the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts for high earners lapse from 2013 onwards, as the Administration is advocating."

Or are you now trying to claim that letting the Bush Tax cuts expire is now NOT a tax increase? Because that hasn't been the position of the "right" until now. Pretty much the opposite in fact.

The fact of the matter is the S&P specifically mentions playing politics with the statutory debt ceiling AND notes a failure to raise revenues.

 

[Frisco_Slug_Esq]

RINOs and NEOCONs believe UDs blabbering cuz they believe in BIG government and BIG corporations.

But real conservatives believe in limited government with low taxes, low spending, and too few workers to harass people.

... under the name of the state the citizens taken collectively are considered as a real being, having its own life, its own wealth, independently of the lives and the wealth of the citizens themselves; and then each addresses this fictitious being, some to obtain from it education, others employment, others credit, others food, etc., etc. Now the state can give nothing to the citizens that it has not first taken from them.
Frédéric Bastiat

__________________
Why can't Liberals (, Blue Dogs and Republican moderates) stomach the Tea Party?
Because it requires a strong Constitution!
A_J, the Stupid

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

... under the name of the state the citizens taken collectively are considered as a real being, having its own life, its own wealth, independently of the lives and the wealth of the citizens themselves; and then each addresses this fictitious being, some to obtain from it education, others employment, others credit, others food, etc., etc. Now the state can give nothing to the citizens that it has not first taken from them.
Frédéric Bastiat

__________________
Why can't Liberals (, Blue Dogs and Republican moderates) stomach the Tea Party?
Because it requires a strong Constitution!
A_J, the Stupid

I believe the political class is for itself and cant care less about citizens. The real struggle tween the parties is for control of the loot.

 

[koalabear]

Reading comprehension is, well obviously, not your friend.
S&P stated one of the reasons for the downgrade was a lack of faith that republicans would allow the Bush Tax Cuts to expire (Which *gasp* would be an increase in revenue).
From the link above, perhaps you can get someone to sound out the larger words, or read it slowly for you.

"Our revised upside scenario--which, other things being equal, we view as consistent with the outlook on the 'AA+' long-term rating being revised to stable--retains these same macroeconomic assumptions. In addition, it incorporates $950 -billion of new revenues on the assumption that the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts for high earners lapse from 2013 onwards, as the Administration is advocating."

Or are you now trying to claim that letting the Bush Tax cuts expire is now NOT a tax increase? Because that hasn't been the position of the "right" until now. Pretty much the opposite in fact.

The fact of the matter is the S&P specifically mentions playing politics with the statutory debt ceiling AND notes a failure to raise revenues.

I see you still haven't sought counseling, pity.

 

[Frisco_Slug_Esq]

Reading comprehension is, well obviously not your friend.
S&P stated one of the reasons for the downgrade was a lack of faith that republicans would allow the Bush Tax Cuts to expire (Which *gasp* would be an increase in revenue).
From the link above, perhaps you can get someone to sound out the larger words, or read it slowly for you.

"Our revised upside scenario--which, other things being equal, we view as consistent with the outlook on the 'AA+' long-term rating being revised to stable--retains these same macroeconomic assumptions. In addition, it incorporates $950 -billion of new revenues on the assumption that the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts for high earners lapse from 2013 onwards, as the Administration is advocating."

Or are you now trying to claim that letting the Bush Tax cuts expire is now NOT a tax increase? Because that hasn't been the position of the "right" until now. Pretty much the opposite in fact.

The fact of the matter is the S&P specifically mentions playing politics with the statutory debt ceiling AND notes a failure to raise revenues.

What you are highlighting is something I have been saying for a long time, that economic models are based on assumptions, many times, FALSE (which Friedman and the Chicago school say is okay, but an opinion that the Austrian school firmly denounces as "voodoo" economics) assumptions, and if you care to read what I said this morning there are two things, one being that there is no way to PROVE their assumption, it being based on an Algebra based on the Historical Method of Economics and that two the model fails because there is no h or a in that Algebra for Human Action; you and merc consistently make the error of taking economics out of the realm of Sociology and try to place it in the pantheon of the hard sciences.

Remember, this same economic "Algebra" is the one employed to sell us the stimulus that was going to keep unemployment under 8%, launch a summer of recovery and bring GDP up over 4%...

And, again, if you want to read the whole report, just not the parts you think you like, it is explicitly stated that $&P is not calling for tax revenues and that is the argument you keep trying to make by means of indirection and inference.

Your team HAD that bite at the apple and chose to keep the tax rates, so they must have ignored this great benefit of increased revenues for a reason, and of course, unless you want to call PResident Obama a liar, the reason was that a bad economic time was no time to raise taxes, for it is counter-productive, and yet, here you are, in the midst of bad economic times, echoing your President's never-ending rhetoric about raising taxes while ignoring the fact that when given the opportunity to match his rhetoric with actual deed, he voted pres__ent with no id, uh, as to how he was going to raise those taxes short of calling for the repeal of his own selected tax-stimulus "loopholes" for the rich...

Your argument, in short, is with your own President.

He could have "raised" taxes for you, but did not and now seeks to blame someone else for his own failure to launch, to borrow a metaphor from Bill Ayers, terrorist and biographer...
__________________
"The state is that great fiction by which everyone tries to live at the expense of everyone else. ... there is only one remedy: time. People have to learn, through hard experience, the enormous disadvantage there is in plundering one another."
Frédéric Bastiat

 

[Frisco_Slug_Esq]

I believe the political class is for itself and cant care less about citizens. The real struggle tween the parties is for control of the loot.

Exactly what Hayek penned, only in much shorter form...

__________________
When the government gets powerful enough to fight over, the people will fight over it, and to the victors go the spoils, thus setting up the next fight.
A_J, the Stupid

 

[koalabear]

Updated: 08/10/2011 09:49 ET
DOW 10,982.41 -257.36

 

[koalabear]

Updated: 08/10/2011 09:59 ET

DOW 10,926.21 -313.56

nail the windows shut above the second floor.

 

[koalabear]

Updated: 08/10/2011 10:20 ET
DOW 10,854.20 -385.57

in the interest of public safety, this is the last update till the PPT kicks in.

 

[busybody..]

“Not much further we can cut” seems like a hanging curve ball, an open invitation for ongoing ridicule–the sort of naive assertion that might come easily to someone who had never worked in the federal government, who only realized after promoting his half-trillion-dollar public works-based stimulus plan that there was “no such thing as shovel-ready projects.” Or someone who doesn’t want to know. Or who wants to act as if he doesn’t know.

Here is the official list of federal job openings. They are still hiring. Sure, big enterprises keep hiring essential employees even in tough times. But these aren’t essential jobs. Many of them seem like the sort of job a private firm, in a financial crisis like the feds are in, would consolidate with another job or leave unfilled. (The first one that jumps out is the “Associate Administrator for Administration” at the Department of Transportation, which pays $119,554 to $179,700. It seems that this person will do administrative work to maintain the layer of bureaucracy that “coordinates” the DOTs research programs. The new hire will also give “advice and assistance in directing, coordinating, controlling” etc. this little fiefdom. You don’t have to be Peter Drucker to realize that this position does not have to exist.)

Part of the problem, of course, is that since it is virtually impossible to fire an actual underperforming federal employee, conscientious administrators have to hire new people (or consultants) to actually do the work the unfireable employees aren’t doing.

But there’s no sense, reading through this list, that the federal bureaucracy knows it is in crisis–a crisis that might one day cause a GS-12 or GS-15 somewhere in the D.C. metro area to actually lose his or her job in the sort of streamlining layoff private firms routinely go through.


For the country, it’s an economic crisis. For Washington, it’s more like an opportunity.

For Republicans, my advice is to propose 5% real cuts — not “rate of growth” cuts but real cuts from last year’s budgets — across the board, and allow layoffs. There’s nothing sacred about the civil service rules, after all. They’re just statutes, statutes enacted back when the country had money. Let Obama argue that there’s not 5% of fat in the federal government. Nobody’ll believe him, especially among the majority of voters whose household budgets have been cut by a lot more than 5%.

 

[richard_daily]

Reading comprehension is, well obviously, not your friend.
S&P stated one of the reasons for the downgrade was a lack of faith that republicans would allow the Bush Tax Cuts to expire (Which *gasp* would be an increase in revenue).
From the link above, perhaps you can get someone to sound out the larger words, or read it slowly for you.

"Our revised upside scenario--which, other things being equal, we view as consistent with the outlook on the 'AA+' long-term rating being revised to stable--retains these same macroeconomic assumptions. In addition, it incorporates $950 -billion of new revenues on the assumption that the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts for high earners lapse from 2013 onwards, as the Administration is advocating."

Or are you now trying to claim that letting the Bush Tax cuts expire is now NOT a tax increase? Because that hasn't been the position of the "right" until now. Pretty much the opposite in fact.

The fact of the matter is the S&P specifically mentions playing politics with the statutory debt ceiling AND notes a failure to raise revenues.

Don't bother... he pulled the same crap with me earlier this morning, in this very thread.

If he's got issue with S&P calling the end Bush tax cuts "tax revenue", then he should take it up with them, rather than spending all day on here trying to keep his house of card fantasy world intact.

Rather than dealing with reality and fact, him, and those like him, are talking out of both sides of their mouths.

It's HORRIBLE that S&P downgraded the US from triple A, to AA+, (BLAME OBAMA!) but at the same time, their reasons for doing it (Republican grandstanding) aren't valid.

No where in the report did I see S&P mention Obama's culpability for the downgrade, only the Republican's.

 

[koalabear]

it's no longer 400 down updates resume.

Updated: 08/10/2011 02:00 ET
DOW 10,972.19 -267.58

 

[Ham Murabi]

The liberal argument seems to be that if the Democrats had embraced cut, cap and balance, S&P would have downgraded anyway.

As an aside, I am surprised one of the usual suspects hasn't chimed in that if it wasn't for Obama, the Dow would be at 8,000. That goes along with the "saved and created" statistics they clutch at.

 

[koalabear]

The liberal argument seems to be that if the Democrats had embraced cut, cap and balance, S&P would have downgraded anyway.

As an aside, I am surprised one of the usual suspects hasn't chimed in that if it wasn't for Obama, the Dow would be at 8,000. That goes along with the "saved and created" statistics they clutch at.

Dems, the party of shoulda, coulda and if.

 

[unregistered]

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Exactly what Hayek penned, only in much shorter form...

__________________
When the government gets powerful enough to fight over, the people will fight over it, and to the victors go the spoils, thus setting up the next fight.
A_J, the Stupid

I'm reading political essays by Joan Didion, and she confirms it. The political class serves itself not citizens.

 

[RobDownSouth]

The liberal argument seems to be that if the Democrats had embraced cut, cap and balance, S&P would have downgraded anyway.

Nope. Not even close.