Tax Day Tea Parties

[Johan]

Please remove your tin foil conspiracy hats, thank you. It's tax day, and people are pissed. (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123975867505519363.html)

The movement grew so fast that some bloggers at the Playboy Web site -- apparently unaware that we've entered the 21st century -- suggested that some secret organization must be behind all of this. But, in fact, today's technology means you don't need an organization, secret or otherwise, to get organized. After considerable ridicule, the claim was withdrawn, but that hasn't stopped other media outlets from echoing it.

It's not a Republican ploy.
It's not a Fox New stunt.
It's not a nefarious plot to weaken Obama.

People are pissed off at our political leadership, of all party and ideological persuasions, and want to express their outrage as we piss away a generation's worth of future tax money in the interest of propping up the powerful and wealthy. I'm pissed myself. The average American works until April of each year to pay off all the taxes we are burdened with. A third of the year. (http://www.taxfoundation.org/taxfreedomday/) The stimulus package shortened the wait this year, but at the expense of lower GDP growth for the future, and higher taxes for the future to pay the debt, or higher inflation and a watered-down currency.

Ridiculous. We had a revolution over this shit once.

[Slack3r78]

I'm actually planning on dropping by the local one, mostly out of curiosity. Brought my DSLR into work with me today, so I may have some photos up some time tomorrow.

Personally, I think the idea is a little bit silly especially given exactly what these things are supposed to be protesting is a little muddy, but it's something to do on an otherwise boring Wednesday night.

[Panthera]

Ridiculous. We had a revolution over this shit once.

No, you didn't.

And by the way, this is definitely astroturfed.

[DoctorFinger]

No, you didn't.

And by the way, this is definitely astroturfed.How do you know that? Or are liberals the only ones allowed to do anything without corporate oversight?

[Deadend]

Ridiculous. We had a revolution over this shit once.

lolololol.
I didn't realize we had taxation without representation. You drive on roads, you support the idea of war in Iraq, you have kids in school. These things cost money. TARP was a bad idea, but America likes holding the status quo instead of redistributing wealth around.

[ShivaX]

Ridiculous. We had a revolution over this shit once.

Do you live in DC?

Cause they're the only people that could reasonably make that claim.

[Bandango]

Buy stock in Lipton!

[Johan]

And by the way, this is definitely astroturfed.

Amusingly enough, YOUR OPINION is astroturfed. (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/13/opinion/13krugman.html)

Glad to see you can think for yourself, however! Kudos!

You drive on roads, you support the idea of war in Iraq, you have kids in school. These things cost money.

Red herring. Of course some taxation is required. What we have isn't just taxation; it's becoming wholesale governmental control of the economy (financial sector, automotive sector, salary levels, CEOs, sales taxes, income taxes, and on and on and on).

[Ink Asylum]

How do you know that? Or are liberals the only ones allowed to do anything without corporate oversight?

When liberals have protests, though, they don't get hours of pre-protest promotion on a major news network.

[Panthera]

Amusingly enough, YOUR OPINION is astroturfed. (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/13/opinion/13krugman.html)

I'm starting to think you don't know what 'astroturfed' means.

[Johan]

I'm starting to think you don't know what 'astroturfed' means.

Your opinion is "fake grass roots" because it's based upon somebody else's analysis and even their VERBIAGE.

Your opinion is astroturfed. It's fake grass roots outrage.

Try again. Take the tin foil hat off and the words of others out of your mouth first, though.

[ShivaX]

Amusingly enough, YOUR OPINION is astroturfed. (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/13/opinion/13krugman.html)

Glad to see you can think for yourself, however! Kudos!



Red herring. Of course some taxation is required. What we have isn't just taxation; it's becoming wholesale governmental control of the economy (financial sector, automotive sector, salary levels, CEOs, sales taxes, income taxes, and on and on and on).

Where were these protests when Bush was in office? Last I looked the taxes for just about everyone didn't change. In fact the only people its going to change for are the rich. And now theres suddenly a grassroots uprising? I don't buy it for one second.

[Johan]

I don't buy it for one second.

You don't have to. That's the beauty of it.

Do you live in DC?

Cause they're the only people that could reasonably make that claim.

The people I voted for are not in office. My representatives of my state are in a powerless minority as well.

I'm not represented, nor are my views, at the table of government.

[Slack3r78]

I'm just unclear on what the point of this is. Taxes are bad? There's just not a clear workable agenda, and I really don't see anything impactful coming out of these things. It'd be one thing if these were based around some kind of clear plan, but from what I've seen, it's just been about a vague idea.

[Voodoo]

Where were these protests when Bush was in office? Last I looked the taxes for just about everyone didn't change. In fact the only people its going to change for are the rich. And now theres suddenly a grassroots uprising? I don't buy it for one second.

I attended the one here in Orlando and when I walked around asking various obvious questions about the Federal government, I got mostly incorrect answers. There were many anti-Obama signs around but none of their opinions made any sense to me. Also present were the '911 Was An Inside Job' with police standing near them.

They also added insult to injury by invoking the name of Thomas Paine which was really pissing me off. Oh, and the majority of flags they handed out were 'Made In China' plastic ones often given to me by a person that had a "America is #1" shirt on.

While the 'tea parties' are interesting, they are going about it in the entirely incorrect way.

[DoctorFinger]

When liberals have protests, though, they don't get hours of pre-protest promotion on a major news network.No, they get hours of pre-protest promotion on all major news network, a la the G20 protests a couple weeks ago, or the anti war protests a few years back. I'm not defending Fox News in this case, their promotion of this is just wrong, but it's not unique either.

[Kelegacy]

I'm all for a revolution. Unless it turns out to be like the Wii.

[Johan]

...it's just been about a vague idea.

That's the point. It's not a politically driven, ideological platform. It's regular folks, pissed off at what's happening regarding government spending and the taxes that are going up all around the country, at the state level in particular, but also federally, to pay for all the massive borrowing/spending.

There's no definitive platform. It's a myriad of different people who are just pissed and want the political leadership to know it.

[ShivaX]

You don't have to. That's the beauty of it.

Thats true. I mean if people want to protest or whatever, more power to them, its a free country. I do think its all been organized by people like Beck and the like, though. I just don't see what is being protested that shouldn't have been protested 5 or 6 years ago other than taxes might get raised on the rich.

Plus it bugs the shit out of me that they're going with the Boston Tea Party as a concept when its so flatly wrong. The American Revolution didn't come about because their side lost a vote, it came about because they didn't have a fucking vote.

Its "No taxation without representation" not "No taxation without the representation that I voted for."

[Typical Michael]

http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a247/phenom1223/ackbar_its_a_trap.jpg?t=1239809687

[Panthera]

Your opinion is "fake grass roots" because it's based upon somebody else's analysis and even their VERBIAGE.

Your opinion is astroturfed. It's fake grass roots outrage.

Try again. Take the tin foil hat off and the words of others out of your mouth first, though.

I'm stunned. Honestly. The lack of rational thought in here is astounding. I've said so little, yet the extrapolation is exponential. I've never seen someone quite so excited to box at shadows. It's like you've created an entire narrative here and trounced it with an excited grin, while I just raise an eyebrow and stand back a little and remind myself that I should know better than to engage you in any sort of conversation.

Perhaps you could tell me exactly why some opinion columnist who happens to also state that this is astroturfed means that my opinion is "astroturfed"? I don't even read this guy. Is it the word astroturf? Is that what you mean by verbiage? Because, really, it's a pretty common word, and it doesn't really apply to what you're accusing me of.

If you'd like to show that the Teabag party isn't astroturf, linking to an opinion columnist you probably don't agree with doesn't really cut it.

[Superman's Dead]

The people I voted for are not in office. My representatives of my state are in a powerless minority as well.

I'm not represented, nor are my views, at the table of government.

That sounds like a problem with the system of government itself, though. By default, when you have an election, about half of the population doesn't get the representation it wants. So are you saying our governing bodies themselves should change?

I've always found alternative methods of government interesting; I'm just curious.

[Johan]

I'm stunned. Honestly.

Breathe deeply. You'll feel better.

Also, for someone who says so little, say less. :D

By default, when you have an election, about half of the population doesn't get the representation it wants.

We have separation of powers for a reason in this nation, and there's far too much power coagulated in one branch of it (executive, which was something Bush is primarily to blame for but which Obama is actually taking further, if you look at his DOJ arguments regarding Bush-era disclosure policies and the like), and the Congress is decidedly in the hands of one party...entirely so.

I'm unrepresented. I'm not in the minority...I'm not even in the room. My views are not represented. Not even by my own representatives.

[Deadend]

The people I voted for are not in office. My representatives of my state are in a powerless minority as well.

I'm not represented, nor are my views, at the table of government.

Welcome to the last 8 years for the liberals. We are also being nicer to the conservatives than they were to us.

[Slack3r78]

That's the point. It's not a politically driven, ideological platform. It's regular folks, pissed off at what's happening regarding government spending and the taxes that are going up all around the country, at the state level in particular, but also federally, to pay for all the massive borrowing/spending.

There's no definitive platform. It's a myriad of different people who are just pissed and want the political leadership to know it.
I suppose what I'm getting at is that getting a bunch of people to just bitch in general with no clear goal doesn't seem particularly constructive to me. So far as activism goes, it just seems kind of weak to me.

Which is part of why I don't understand why the idea's been promoted so heavily.

[Ox]

I'm just unclear on what the point of this is. Taxes are bad? There's just not a clear workable agenda, and I really don't see anything impactful coming out of these things. It'd be one thing if these were based around some kind of clear plan, but from what I've seen, it's just been about a vague idea.
Protestors are incoherently angry and don't have a clear, comprehensive alternate agenda? Color me shocked.

I mean, don't get me wrong: I'm glad people are annoyed at the prospect of increased taxes (yes, even on the Morlocks known as the "rich") and are upset about major increases in entitlement funding. And public protest is an ancient tradition. But I'm scornful of protests as a general rule for exactly the reasons Slack mentioned: they're always filled with a bunch of people who all agree they're angry, but either can't agree on what else to do or their plans are decidedly half-baked. It's early days, and I'm hoping some leaders arise who can put together workable plans based on this anger. Unless that happens, these guys will just be a less-offensive version of the Code Pink nutjobs.

EDIT: I'm not certain I understand the "astroturf" accusation, so perhaps someone can fill me in. The allegation is that certain financial interests have subsidized various aspects of the demonstrations, yes? This is pretty common: all those anti-Iraq War protests were subsidized by fellows like George Soros and International ANSWER. You can criticize people as fellow travelers, I suppose, through a guilt-by-association theory, but the fact that the anti-Iraq War protests were "astroturfed" isn't really relevant to the question of whether they reflected genuine anger with the war. The people showing up for these protests are US citizens, right? They're genuinely angry and not actors, right? It's not the same twelve guys getting bused around the country to give the illusion of being more than twelve guys, right? What relevance is it who paid for the permits and the catering?

[Voodoo]

That's the point. It's not a politically driven, ideological platform. It's regular folks, pissed off at what's happening regarding government spending and the taxes that are going up all around the country, at the state level in particular, but also federally, to pay for all the massive borrowing/spending.

There's no definitive platform. It's a myriad of different people who are just pissed and want the political leadership to know it.

I'd venture to say that the vast majority of them have never visited their federal or state representative's office nor have taken the time to sit down and hand write a letter to either of them. Hell, if they even know whom are their representatives I'd be surprised. The pamphlets that are handed out suggested having meetings for discussion and signing onto very long protest sheets, not nobody ever mentioned the correct process by which you get attention and things done.

[TrackZero]

Please remove your tin foil conspiracy hats, thank you. It's tax day, and people are pissed. (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123975867505519363.html)



It's not a Republican ploy.
It's not a Fox New stunt.
It's not a nefarious plot to weaken Obama.

People are pissed off at our political leadership, of all party and ideological persuasions, and want to express their outrage as we piss away a generation's worth of future tax money in the interest of propping up the powerful and wealthy. I'm pissed myself. The average American works until April of each year to pay off all the taxes we are burdened with. A third of the year. (http://www.taxfoundation.org/taxfreedomday/) The stimulus package shortened the wait this year, but at the expense of lower GDP growth for the future, and higher taxes for the future to pay the debt, or higher inflation and a watered-down currency.

Ridiculous. We had a revolution over this shit once.

It's called higher taxes to pay off all the money wasted by the previous Republican administration. But I suppose you'd like to have your cake and eat it too.

[Ink Asylum]

No, they get hours of pre-protest promotion on all major news network, a la the G20 protests a couple weeks ago, or the anti war protests a few years back. I'm not defending Fox News in this case, their promotion of this is just wrong, but it's not unique either.

Hours of pre-promotion? Really? Care to point any of that out? Coverage of a protest in progress doesn't count. Show me major news anchors promoting the anti-war protests or the G-20 the way Fox has been promoting the Tea Parties.

[Johan]

It's called higher taxes to pay off all the money wasted by the previous Republican administration. But I suppose you'd like to have your cake and eat it too.

Quadrupling Bush's largest deficit is not being done in the interest of paying a previous bill, but thanks for playing.

Oh, but Obama promises to halve the deficit by the time he leaves office, to just DOUBLE Bush's worst year. :D

Bush was an idiot. Comparing a monkey to Bush insults the monkey. He has nothing to do with Obama's choices, which are being made by Obama, not Bush.

[Slack3r78]

Protestors are incoherently angry and don't have a clear, comprehensive alternate agenda? Color me shocked.
Well, I mean, I can kind of understand protesting if there's something you're actually trying to accomplish. For example, every year here, a bunch of people show up to protest the School of Americas (or whatever the Army's renamed it now to make it harder to talk about) on Ft. Benning and generally make a mess of things. While I think they're a little bit nuts, at least they have a specific goal in mind -- shutting down the SoA.

Getting a bunch of people together because they're angry that Uncle Sam takes part of their paycheck? Just seems a bit masturbatory to me.

[Johan]

Getting a bunch of people together because they're angry that Uncle Sam takes part of their paycheck? Just seems a bit masturbatory to me.

There's a point to masturbation, you know. Don't you? :D

That's the point. There IS a point. It may not be a political platform, but people need to express their outrage. It's entirely justifiable.

Welcome to the last 8 years for the liberals. We are also being nicer to the conservatives than they were to us.

The Democrats have been running Congress for two-and-a-half years, and were not so far removed from power as the Republicans are now...not since 1994, in fact. This is far different. Also, you'll always have the Ninth Circuit Court. :D

[Slack3r78]

There's a point to masturbation, you know. Don't you? :D
I am suddenly reconsidering my attendance at this evening's event.

[Voodoo]

By now it is becoming increasingly obvious that there are those that read posts and formulate a meaningful response and then those which simply respond in an obfuscatory and/or reactionary manner.

[OldeWolf]

http://www.colonyofgamers.com/cogforums/showthread.php?t=702 http://www.xentales.com/images/smilies/icon_scratch.gif

:p

[Johan]

The pamphlets that are handed out

Would vary from event to event, because of the diffuse nature of the 'leadership.'

[TrackZero]

Bush was an idiot. Comparing a monkey to Bush insults the monkey. He has nothing to do with Obama's choices, which are being made by Obama, not Bush.

http://img105.imageshack.us/img105/3237/fryseewhatyoudidthere.jpg

[Voodoo]

Would vary from event to event, because of the diffuse nature of the 'leadership.'

The idea that there is a diffuse nature to their leadership is not accurate.

[DoctorFinger]

I'd venture to say that the vast majority of them have never visited their federal or state representative's office nor have taken the time to sit down and hand write a letter to either of them. Hell, if they even know whom are their representatives I'd be surprised. The pamphlets that are handed out suggested having meetings for discussion and signing onto very long protest sheets, not nobody ever mentioned the correct process by which you get attention and things done.
But is there any significant protest where the majority of the protesters can say that?

Hours of pre-promotion? Really? Care to point any of that out? Coverage of a protest in progress doesn't count. Show me major news anchors promoting the anti-war protests or the G-20 the way Fox has been promoting the Tea Parties.As I said, Fox went overboard with the promotion this time, and it was absurd. But I watch CNN/HLN a lot, and for a week to 10 days before the G20 they were talking about the protests or the protesters. Before a single protest started, there was a constant drumbeat about the.

[Johan]

The idea that there is a diffuse nature to their leadership is not accurate.

The idea that the grassroots leaders accept directives from a political leadership or centrally driven ideological origin is not accurate. Quit parroting the liberal media, please.

[Voodoo]

The idea that the grassroots leaders accept directives from a political leadership or centrally driven ideological origin is not accurate. Quit parroting the liberal media, please.

Actually, you are quite wrong. All of the Tea Parties are related. You just have to take the time to find out the details.

[Panthera]

But, that's his warm, fuzzy-feeling narrative. It can't be wrong. It's truthy!

[Voodoo]

But is there any significant protest where the majority of the protesters can say that?

Not when the vast majority of the population fails the same measures. Which is a sad state of affairs when they are the ones that choose the representatives. I suppose there is a certain flow in a system of chaos and disorder.

[Vulture]

as a history guy, them naming this a tea party is more than a bit insulting.

if these people really believed this strongly in their vague and passing outrage, they'd be doing this illegally and at the risk of death; not as some fucking social gathering.

it was called the boston tea party ironically....

[shunoshi]

I'm all for a revolution. Unless it turns out to be like the Wii.

Thanks man. I'm not one to take up political debate too often on the internet, but I occasionally pop in to check out the mud slinging. This post made reading the thread 110% worth it. :D

[Slack3r78]

http://www.colonyofgamers.com/cogforums/showthread.php?t=702 http://www.xentales.com/images/smilies/icon_scratch.gif

:p
Yeah, it turns out that relegating these threads to a ghetto on another forum just lead to discussions on that forum dying out due to a lack of traffic.

Funny enough, this is exactly what many of us said would happen.

There's clearly interest in the topics, though, so those of us that are interested in them are back in the lounge for lack of a better venue.

[Spockrocket]

I don't care if the protesters aren't entirely sure what they're protesting. I'm just a fan of public protest in general.

lulz, freedomworks.org (mentioned in the article) is overloaded. Got a too many connections error when I went to check out their Google Earth protest map. Too bad, I want to see where the nearest protest is and have a look.

[TrackZero]

Yeah, it turns out that relegating these threads to a ghetto on another forum just lead to discussions on that forum dying out due to a lack of traffic.

Funny enough, this is exactly what many of us said would happen.

There's clearly interest in the topics, though, so those of us that are interested in them are back in the lounge for lack of a better venue.

I think there's a key interest in replying just due to anger, not due to actual want for this type of topic. You'll note it's only a few key people that keep making/rapid replying to these threads.

[Panthera]

I think there's a key interest in replying just due to anger, not due to actual want for this type of topic. You'll note it's only a few key people that keep making/rapid replying to these threads.

I'd also point out that the other forum dying isn't the problem of this forum. The kind of political discourse found here isn't particularly worth preserving anyhow.

[Ox]

I'd also point out that the other forum dying isn't the problem of this forum. The kind of political discourse found here isn't particularly worth preserving anyhow.
Okay. Shall we lock threads that are, or could be, P&R-related? That might make a lot of work and be difficult to administer. I recommend temp-banning anyone who starts or replies to a P&R-style thread.

EDIT: To be clear: I said temp-banning in the interests of compromise. I am not taking a stance on whether temp-banning or perma-banning is a more approrpriate measure.

[Slack3r78]

I think there's a key interest in replying just due to anger, not due to actual want for this type of topic. You'll note it's only a few key people that keep making/rapid replying to these threads.
Gee, thanks for completely marginalizing our interests yet again.

While completely ignoring the rational debate that has been going on in these threads over the past few days.

[AgtFox]

http://www.colonyofgamers.com/cogforums/showthread.php?t=702 http://www.xentales.com/images/smilies/icon_scratch.gif

:p
Just jumping in here to reply to this. That was a vote for a separate P&R forum and many possible options stemming out of that (like not having it in the "latest threads" area and all that). There was never a "no P&R talk here" mandate, although honestly I'd be all for that.

Sorry for the threadjack.

[Slack3r78]

I'd also point out that the other forum dying isn't the problem of this forum.
It pretty much is when the entire reason traffic died on that forum is because CoG was launched. Expecting us to keep one topic of discussion on a ghetto on another forum like it was a viable plan was a complete joke from the start.

[Johan]

Actually, you are quite wrong. All of the Tea Parties are related. You just have to take the time to find out the details.

Actually, you are wrong.

The movement grew so fast that some bloggers at the Playboy Web site -- apparently unaware that we've entered the 21st century -- suggested that some secret organization must be behind all of this. But, in fact, today's technology means you don't need an organization, secret or otherwise, to get organized. After considerable ridicule, the claim was withdrawn, but that hasn't stopped other media outlets from echoing it.

Don't let that stop you from echoing the accusation, however...or others from "astroturfing" their opinions elsewhere! :D

Edit: I'd also like to add that I was gone for close to a month, bored with the threads here (honestly, with no malice intended), and it's not my doing that I noticed the lounge becoming littered with political threads. I've contributed a few since returning, but others came here, en masse, from the dying embers of another site. Send them back, if you wish, and I shall cease posting P&R threads myself, as well. Simple, really. No problem. I enjoyed my time away. Let the community, or its leaders, decide...allow P&R, or do not. I will abide either one. You might want to just make a choice, however, and quit the back-and-forth whining about it. Just a suggestion. :shrugs:

[Spockrocket]

Call me an interwebz noob, but wtf is astroturfing? Srsly, it sounds like it should mean "space sex" and as amusing as it is to see you all accusing each other of having sex in a zero-G environment, I know I'm missing something here.

[LordDon]

Call me an interwebz noob, but wtf is astroturfing? Srsly, it sounds like it should mean "space sex" and as amusing as it is to see you all accusing each other of having sex in a zero-G environment, I know I'm missing something here.

It's the idea that mass protests are manufactured by corporate sponsors rather than the general public.

[Panthera]

It pretty much is when the entire reason traffic died on that forum is because CoG was launched. Expecting us to keep one topic of discussion on a ghetto on another forum like it was a viable plan was a complete joke from the start.

Which is entirely true, but I'm not sure why that means it's CoG's problem.

[Esquilax1138]

Here is a fun game to play at the teabagging parties, play "Count the Black People" And I'll bet you don't hit double digits, oh and if they are working for some news stations covering the event or otherwise working, they don't count, they have to be there attending the event.

And if anyone needs some more teabagging I'll be on TF2 and L4D later on, I'll be happy to pop a squat on your corpse to stand up against tyranny. Lolz

[Slack3r78]

Which is entirely true, but I'm not sure why that means it's CoG's problem.
Because some of us are interested in a particular aspect of the community that was functioning rather healthily before we changed homes. It's a little bit frustrating when you've been part of a community and then are suddenly told that the discussion you're interested in is no longer welcome.

[Slack3r78]

Here is a fun game to play at the teabagging parties, play "Count the Black People" And I'll bet you don't hit double digits, oh and if they are working for some news stations covering the event or otherwise working, they don't count, they have to be there attending the event.
Part of why I'm going is that I'm curious as to just how high the percentage of pudgy, middle-aged white men will be. :D

[Johan]

Here is a fun game to play at the teabagging parties, play "Count the Black People" And I'll bet you don't hit double digits

Affirmative action in protests, now? :confused: I'm curious what point there would be to counting racial and ethnic demographic numbers at a protest. Would it disparage the genuine displeasure people feel at the current state of the political winds regarding taxes if we didn't have around 12% or so African-American participation? Or 8% Asian? Or 14% Latino?

Or whatever the percentages are now. I don't track them, as I don't really care. My cousin has a wife, not a Japanese woman who he's married to. He has three kids, not three bi-racial kids. It matters not at all to me.

I enjoy watching football. I don't count the black players, or white ones. Why would it matter? :confused:

[spcialk]

It's not a Republican ploy.
It's not a Fox New stunt.
It's not a nefarious plot to weaken Obama.



Those aren't mutually exclusive. Parts of this ARE a fox news stunt; this is the epitome of an "astro-turf" campaign, remember those from our advanced political theory and communication classes? We know fox is good at riling up the populace. Was there something to work with in terms of anger, why yes. Did they exploit it for ratings? Also yes.

[spcialk]

No, they get hours of pre-protest promotion on all major news network, a la the G20 protests a couple weeks ago, or the anti war protests a few years back. I'm not defending Fox News in this case, their promotion of this is just wrong, but it's not unique either.

It's the difference between reporting the news and manufacturing it...

[Ox]

It's the difference between reporting the news and manufacturing it...
So your thesis is that Fox News went out, organized the protests, then covered them intensively for ratings? Care to share any evidence of this?

[Johan]

I would be all for this thread being closed if it's offensive to the broader mission of the site. Consider it a grass roots campaign to stop the madness.

I wouldn't be offended. Really. Besides, even if it did offend me, offending me is fun. Try it! You might like it! :)

[zarathstra]

I'm not represented, nor are my views, at the table of government.

So....democracy is bad? Sometimes, the people you vote for don't win. The beauty of democracy is that you get to try again later. Unless we have a king somewhere that I've forgotten about, and he's decreed that only Republicans have to pay higher taxes, I'm not sure I see your point.

[Slack3r78]

I would be all for this thread being closed if it's offensive to the broader mission of the site. Consider it a grass roots campaign to stop the madness.

I wouldn't be offended. Really. Besides, even if it did offend me, offending me is fun. Try it! You might like it! :)
Hm.... I think you're a big doody head.

[torrefaction]

I would be all for this thread being closed if it's offensive to the broader mission of the site. Consider it a grass roots campaign to stop the madness.

I wouldn't be offended. Really. Besides, even if it did offend me, offending me is fun. Try it! You might like it! :)

You're ugly and your mother undresses you funny.

This is actually a reference to a joke from a game. But no one in here plays games, they only want to talk about politics, so you guys won't get it.

[Esquilax1138]

I enjoy watching football. I don't count the black players, or white ones. Why would it matter? :confused:

The only reason I brought it up is that I have seen coverage of these same events that went off prior to today's big tax day mass protests, and the first thing to come to my attention was everyone attending was white.

When I go to an event like a hockey game or football, or ride the bus, I see pretty much every shade of people there is, all mixed in together and it's a pretty average cross section of the community I live in. I see coverage of those protests and all I see is a sea of white faces, and it strikes me odd that they either live in a part of the world where there are no people of color, be them asian, black, hispanic or what have you, or that this paticular kind of event is only seeming to draw a very specific group, namely angry white people.

Sorry, but seeing crowds comprised solely of angry white people whipped into a frenzy until they start yelling things like "Off with his head", "Kill him", "Communist" scares the shit out of me, and I'm not even colored.

[Johan]

Sorry, but seeing crowds comprised solely of angry white people whipped into a frenzy until they start yelling things like "Off with his head", "Kill him", "Communist" scares the shit out of me, and I'm not even colored.

I'm going to be generous and assume that a crowd composed solely of "angry black people" or "angry Latino people" or "angry Asian people" yelling the same thing would also concern you. I hope. Your phraseology leaves that open to interpretation. :)

Also...

IN BEFORE THE LOCK! :D

[Ox]

The only reason I brought it up is that I have seen coverage of these same events that went off prior to today's big tax day mass protests, and the first thing to come to my attention was everyone attending was white.
The photographs I've seen have indicated a much more diverse assortment. Probably at least one of the photographers is biased, but which one?

When I go to an event like a hockey game or football, or ride the bus, I see pretty much every shade of people there is, all mixed in together and it's a pretty average cross section of the community I live in.
Dude, you see an average cross section of ethnically diverse folks at a hockey game?! Where the fuck do you live?

I see coverage of those protests and all I see is a sea of white faces, and it strikes me odd that they either live in a part of the world where there are no people of color, be them asian, black, hispanic or what have you, or that this paticular kind of event is only seeming to draw a very specific group, namely angry white people.
Higher taxes are predominantly affecting the upper income strata. The upper income strata are, regrettably, less ethnically diverse than the rest of the country. And, of course, blacks, hispanics, etc. tend to be more pro-Democratic than the rest of the country, so they are probably statistically less likely to protest a Democratic Administration and Congress.

Sorry, but seeing crowds comprised solely of angry white people whipped into a frenzy until they start yelling things like "Off with his head", "Kill him", "Communist" scares the shit out of me, and I'm not even colored.
Let me get this straight. If the crowd was yelling things like "Off with his head" and "Kill him," but looked like a Benetton commercial, you'd be happier? Or are you making an assumption that white people are inherently violent?

[National Kato]

Dude, you see an average cross section of ethnically diverse folks at a hockey game?! Where the fuck do you live?

It quite common in Atlanta, Georgia. You know they have NHL hockey teams all over these days, right? :p

[Ox]

It quite common in Atlanta, Georgia. You know they have NHL hockey teams all over these days, right? :p
I have no doubt they have an NHL hockey team in Atlanta. I'd be surprised, however, if the people in the stadium on any given night represented a perfectly accurate cross-section of Atlanta's demographics. I've been to a few youth hockey games, for example, and despite the ethnic diversity of the locality, the audience was as monoculture as a Monsanto farm. I guess I should have been nervous they would kill me and call me a Communist. You really can't trust those white people.

[National Kato]

I'd be surprised, however, if the people in the stadium on any given night represented a perfectly accurate cross-section of Atlanta's demographics.

Well, now if you're looking for a 'perfectly accurate' cross-section, I believe you'll be left wanting no matter what venue you attend, save for maybe a Congressman's televised announcement backdrop or a coca-Cola commercial shoot. I can tell you, however, that in hockey rinks across the southeast there's people of color all over. It's not just white folks.

Now back to the costume party!

[ShivaX]

Just out of morbid curiousity I'm watching Fox News with Cavuto. So far the people they're interviewing have been actually fairly rational.

A lot of the signs are rather disconcerting though. I know a lot of racists fucks are naturally going to show up at this sort of thing and likely bring their signs, so I wont hold it against everyone.

Oh lord Beck just came on. "Tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of people..." Sorry Glen theres a pretty massive difference between those numbers. I'm also somewhat suspect of their camera angles. I'd like an aerial shot if theres supposedly so many people, not a shot from the ground and a certain angle so it always looks like the crowd is huge.

And now Beck is going off into his realm of insanity, so I'll have to turn it.

[Ink Asylum]

Hundreds of thousands? Only in Beck's fevered mind. Reports of individual rallies are maxing in the hundreds. Around 700 is the highest number I've seen today. I wouldn't be surprised if the total number of protestors nationwide was under even 10,000.

[Esquilax1138]

I'm going to be generous and assume that a crowd composed solely of "angry black people" or "angry Latino people" or "angry Asian people" yelling the same thing would also concern you. I hope. Your phraseology leaves that open to interpretation. :)

Also...

IN BEFORE THE LOCK! :D

Yes, yes I would be just as worried about that. Didn't like seeing all the Hispanics taking over the streets a while back with the immigration protests, or the LA riots, all scary shit. I just get nervous seeing crowds getting lathered up along ethnic or religious lines, it usually leads to trouble. Maybe I will be wrong and all segments of the US will come out and protest peacefully about tax policies, thats great, and probably long overdue. I just hope things don't get too polarized along ethnic lines like the Palin rallies did.

Ox, I live in Vancouver BC, taking pretty much any bus here will expose you to about 5 to 10 different languages being spoken, and the crowds at the hockey games are fairly diverse as well.

[wyeast]

Dude, you see an average cross section of ethnically diverse folks at a hockey game?! Where the fuck do you live?


Hey, dammit. I'm not a white Canadian, and I like hockey. :p :D

[Hemalin]

"We have a million tea bags here, and we don't have a place to put them because it's not on our permit," (http://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local/1-Million-Tea-Bags-but-No-Place-to-Dump.html)
What kind of Tea Party is this? The Teabaggers didn't even dress up as Indians.

[Johan]

A journalist who peppers his news report with "Doh!" is a moron.

[Stmfuller]

I'll bite at Johan's original post: I'm pissed that easy credit and shitty loans begot economic conditions so poor that I'm concerned about being able to pay rent on a monthly basis, forget about bills and my 401k.

But our problems are a lot deeper than taxes.
Seriously, it's that this point in our history we should seriously consider where we're going. Should we consider getting rid of the powers that be completely...and not by electing more career politicians, Republicans, or Democrats.
I'm talking about starting from scratch...completely.

But that's just crazy old me talking.

[total]

I'd love to see the turnout for this tea party douchery vs the war protests.

[Johan]

I'm talking about starting from scratch...completely.

Economically, I actually agree. The ancient Israelites used to have a "Year of Jubilee" every fifty years, when all debts were wiped away. I actually think we need to do just that; reset the system and wipe it clean. However, the powers that be would never have that, because money is power, and they prefer layering on piles of more debt to prop up the piles of old debt.

It's a decrepit system. It's broken.

[Xerxes]

I attended the one here in Orlando and when I walked around asking various obvious questions about the Federal government, I got mostly incorrect answers. There were many anti-Obama signs around but none of their opinions made any sense to me. Also present were the '911 Was An Inside Job' with police standing near them.

They also added insult to injury by invoking the name of Thomas Paine which was really pissing me off. Oh, and the majority of flags they handed out were 'Made In China' plastic ones often given to me by a person that had a "America is #1" shirt on.

While the 'tea parties' are interesting, they are going about it in the entirely incorrect way.

Voodoo Walking or were you checking out the action? ;)

[Xerxes]

That sounds like a problem with the system of government itself, though. By default, when you have an election, about half of the population doesn't get the representation it wants.

More than that. It's the Republican or Democratic half, plus the other guys like the Independent, Green, and waaaaaay lower on the totem poll groups.

[Voodoo]

Voodoo Walking or were you checking out the action? ;)

I went to check out the action. Anytime there is a big public gathering of angry or semi-upset people in or near Orlando I can't help myself... I've got to go to, if it even is just to mostly observe. The human condition is one of the most interesting things to me.

[Stmfuller]

Economically, I actually agree. The ancient Israelites used to have a "Year of Jubilee" every fifty years, when all debts were wiped away. I actually think we need to do just that; reset the system and wipe it clean. However, the powers that be would never have that, because money is power, and they prefer layering on piles of more debt to prop up the piles of old debt.

It's a decrepit system. It's broken.

that works too.

[Ox]

The ancient Israelites used to have a "Year of Jubilee" every fifty years, when all debts were wiped away. I actually think we need to do just that; reset the system and wipe it clean. However, the powers that be would never have that, because money is power, and they prefer layering on piles of more debt to prop up the piles of old debt.
Is there any possibility that anyone might this this was just not a good idea for reasons unrelated to personal aggrandization?

[Slack3r78]

Drove bythe one here. Looked even sadder than I expected. Went to the bar instead.

[Johan]

Is there any possibility that anyone might this this was just not a good idea for reasons unrelated to personal aggrandization?

If you want to disagree with a mandate from God, you go right ahead! :D

[Ox]

If you want to disagree with a mandate from God, you go right ahead! :D
That would be a very ancient Israelite thing to do. And as a Gentile, I think I'm pretty safely excluded from this rule.

You forgot to mention that, during the Jubilee Year, Israelites were also forbidden from working or harvesting -- for the entire year. Do you also think that would benefit our economy? ;)

[Johan]

You forgot to mention that, during the Jubilee Year, Israelites were also forbidden from working or harvesting -- for the entire year. Do you also think that would benefit our economy? ;)

Why yes, Mr. Keynes, I do. Or...do I? (http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/02/03/paradox-of-thrift/) :D

[MagGnome]

I'd love to see the turnout for this tea party douchery vs the war protests.

I don't think it would even compare. I wouldn't have heard about this at all had I not watched a little CNN earlier today. I never go anywhere near Fox News. I hear enough crazy talk on the bus as it is.

[OldeWolf]

Tea bagging (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HHgyAFXT-IU&feature=PlayList&p=9A82356D6114E74D&index=0&playnext=1)

That's all I think of every time I see that "Tea party" or "Tea Bagging". :p

[DylonCorp]

You really can't trust those white people.

I just found the whole thing silly. Tea Party? Just because? It doesn't relate to the arguments the protesters are making, and I didn't see anyone disguised as an Native American.

The local paper did drop me this gem (http://www.idahostatesman.com/popkey/story/733470.html). Meet Nancy Kuehl.

http://media.idahostatesman.com/smedia/2009/04/15/23/867-0416_Local_Tea_3.standalone.prod_affiliate.36.jpg

It's time that the silent majority stands up and we're heard. I want what's right for America, like the Constitution states. The change we need is in Washington, D.C....No more taxes. Give states' rights back to the states. Stop trying to make us a socialist country...Let's get our country back.

Now, I'm hoping she meant "the change we need isn't in Washington D.C.", or she doesn't understand how taxes really work. But I especially enjoy how a self proclaimed States Right's-Constitutionalist(?) who fears socialist change also claims to be in the "Silent Majority" in the capitol of Idaho.

Now, some of you may not know my beloved state, but believe me, the situation is ripe with irony. Or not irony but the word I always confuse irony for.

[Deadend]

God damn the silent majority are a bunch of noisy cunts.

[mister slim]

The local paper did drop me this gem (http://www.idahostatesman.com/popkey/story/733470.html). Meet Nancy Kuehl.

This was cute: 'Renee Pirtz of Boise, who sells Mary Kay cosmetics, was attending her first political event. "We need to vote for people of good character," she said. "Really look at their character instead of their color. I would vote for Bill Cosby."'

[Xerxes]

This seems like a Borat movie.

[Esquilax1138]

http://i275.photobucket.com/albums/jj314/Esquilax1138/philly.jpg

Can't stop laughing :p

[Stmfuller]

Yeah, they should have chosen another name. This had internet hilarity written all over it from day one.

Also, John Stewart made some pretty good points last night.
1. Complaining about wasteful govt spending while buying millions of tea bags for a protest...
2. If Fox News DIDN'T astroturf this protest, then maybe they shouldn't put "FNC tea parties" on the title of their maps. It kind of implies sponsorship.

[MagGnome]

That sign is awesome!

I'm always confused when people say things like "Let's get our country back". Back from whom, and how do they propose we do this?

To me that sounds like yearning for the "good ol' days" which weren't always all that good.

[Ancalagon]

http://i275.photobucket.com/albums/jj314/Esquilax1138/philly.jpg

Can't stop laughing :p

You win the thread, and this picture deserves to appear again because of its sheer awesomeness.

Teabagging FTW!

So... let me get this straight. Obama is a commie, a federation of states is a socialist principle, taxes are bad. Is that the gist of it?

[National Kato]

1. Complaining about wasteful govt spending while buying millions of tea bags for a protest...

I loved the footage of people pouring jugs of Arizone Green Tea into the water. Nothing wrong with waste, no sir! :D

[Johan]

Protesting with a conservative basis = mockery and derision.
Protesting with a liberal basis = support and respect.

Many of you need to take a statistics class. If you want to choose to focus on "outliers" to define the entire "sample" then you go right ahead, but don't be offended when people apply the same intellectually bankrupt methodology to deride liberal-cause-protests, which have their own assortment of outlier-idiot-crazies.

:shakes head:

[ShivaX]

I usually mock all protesters cause they're almost universally stupid.
Even when the cause is just they tend to come off a raging morons.

When people were carrying signs that said "Bush is Hitler" and other horseshit I ruthlessly mocked them. Now that the left is in power those people aren't going to be protesting much, even though the scenario likely hasn't changed. Its far more about losing the election and being the minority than anything imo.

[Johan]

Interesting commentary piece. (http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/04/16/feehery.budget.questions/index.html)

First, why do we let people retire too early and then expect them to live so long without working? In 1910, the average retirement age in the United States was 74. In 2002, however, the average retirement age was 62. Average life expectancy in 1910 was around 55, while in 2002 it was 77.

Second, why do most Americans spend so much of their health care expenditures in the last three months of their life? Fully 27 percent of Medicare is devoted to spending on end-of-life health (in other words, health care that doesn't work), according to the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Third, why do so many people pay nothing in federal income taxes? According to the Tax Foundation, fully 32 percent of all Americans pay no federal income taxes while 42 percent of single Americans pay no federal income taxes. With President Obama's aggressive efforts to give more money to more Americans through tax credit refundability, many experts expect that over half of the people will owe nothing or may get back some money from the federal government.

Fourth, why is it more profitable to work in the government than to work in the private sector? According to one study, public employees earned benefits worth an average of $13.38 an hour in December 2008, while private-sector workers got benefits worth $7.98 an hour. Overall, total compensation for state and local workers was $39.25 an hour, $11.90 more than in the private sector.

He makes some very, very good points, and admittedly, I doubt many of yesterday's protesters were thinking much of these four issues.

[Hotcod]

Protesting with a conservative basis = mockery and derision.
Protesting with a liberal basis = support and respect.

protesting with a conservative basis about things that where just as true before obama takes office by people who when there side was in power claimed that it was wrong an unpatriotic to question or critersise the president for doing the things they are now protesting against = mokcery and derision

now to be fair that is more aimed at fox news and other conservative leaders but i just wanted to make the point. I shouldn't be surprised to see you talking as much rubbish as you do in this thread, people who will state that every person in a country disgusts them tend to have this kind of mind set... but still you do always seem to find ways to amaze me.

[Johan]

Interesting story. (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/16/business/economy/16pipe.html?em)

“The steel pipe behind us is a symbol of what has gone wrong in this country,” one of the speakers declared, arguing in effect that a lax Congress and greedy businesspeople, as in Wall Street, had brought three months of layoff, so far, to more than 10 percent of Granite City’s work force. The crowd cheered, and some chanted back, “No more greed.”

When it makes more financial sense to import gigantic steel pipes from India than make them down the block, something is seriously, truly wrong with the direction of our economic system.

I shouldn't be surprised to see you talking as much rubbish as you do in this thread, people who will state that every person in a country disgusts them tend to have this kind of mind set... but still you do always seem to find ways to amaze me.

This is the kind of post that CoG can do without. Really. You ought to take this stuff elsewhere. It's mindlessly inflammatory.

Also, your analysis prior to this string of insults was wrong.

[Ox]

Yeah, they should have chosen another name. This had internet hilarity written all over it from day one.
"Teabag party" isn't the name they chose. They chose "tea party." People who oppose them have taken to calling them "teabag parties" as a rather juvenile slur.

Also, John Stewart made some pretty good points last night.
1. Complaining about wasteful govt spending while buying millions of tea bags for a protest...
I thought that was a fucking idiotic point. There's a difference between me deciding to waste my own money and some government official extracting money from me by force of law, then wasting it.

2. If Fox News DIDN'T astroturf this protest, then maybe they shouldn't put "FNC tea parties" on the title of their maps. It kind of implies sponsorship.
By that standard, if I started calling these folks, "The Ox League of Justice," I'd be astroturfing it, too. Fox's behavior is certainly over the top, but I don't think trying to glom onto a popular trend necessarily says anything about the trend.

Fully 27 percent of Medicare is devoted to spending on end-of-life health (in other words, health care that doesn't work), according to the Journal of the American Medical Association.
Well, now, that's highly debatable. All medical care ultimately fails, of course. Does that spending purchase extra time? Does it relieve the pain and suffering of death? Are those people just unlucky? If we had a pill that had a 50% chance of saving your life after you have a stroke, that would seem like a good medicine. But 50% of the people who took the pill wouldn't get better. Short of inventing a more effective pill, you can't cut that "waste".

Fourth, why is it more profitable to work in the government than to work in the private sector?
This isn't necessarily a fair comparison. At least for now, the public sector and private sector do different things. A relatively large fraction of government jobs are either dangerous (e.g., cops) or highly skilled (e.g., lawyers). Jobs that are dangerous or highly skilled tend to be better paid. You'd expect the average wage to reflect the relative proportions of such well-paid jobs.

[Generation ABXY]

protesting with a conservative basis about things that where just as true before obama takes office by people who when there side was in power claimed that it was wrong an unpatriotic to question or critersise the president for doing the things they are now protesting against = mokcery and derision

now to be fair that is more aimed at fox news and other conservative leaders but i just wanted to make the point. I shouldn't be surprised to see you talking as much rubbish as you do in this thread, people who will state that every person in a country disgusts them tend to have this kind of mind set... but still you do always seem to find ways to amaze me.

I just assumed there were a fair number of people that were pushed to their breaking point, and not necessarily by Obama, but by the continued spending even after a regime change.

Also, that is the most awesome spelling of criticize I have ever seen. I'll assume it is a U.K. thing.

"Teabag party" isn't the name they chose. They chose "tea party." People who oppose them have taken to calling them "teabag parties" as a rather juvenile slur.

Agreed; sad to see it being so propagated by some serious media. Also, as far as I knew, it was an acronym for Taxed Enough Already.

[Hotcod]

This is the kind of post that CoG can do without. Really. You ought to take this stuff elsewhere. It's mindlessly inflammatory.

Also, your analysis prior to this string of insults was wrong.

Let me brake it down to you. You, a person who states disgust for a whole country of people which by it's very definition is an unreasonable idea is getting upset by people questioning these protests and the reasons behind them. I just find that amusing. You are showing exactly the kind of hypercritical thinking that i attacked fox news for. That's the reason i brought it up. Your past with this kind of political and social thread is clearly littered with this kind of hypocrisy. Don't get me wrong you seem so earnestly and honestly upset that any "libels" could take issue with these protests and that's a good thing in some sense but i wish you could do it with a bit more perspective... given that your calling for every one else to do the same,



Also, that is the most awesome spelling of criticize I have ever seen. I'll assume it is a U.K. thing.


It's what google gave me when i couldn't get the damn spell check to work. dyslexia is fun

[Ox]

Also, that is the most awesome spelling of criticize I have ever seen.
Actually, "critersise" is when you criticize someone while simultaneously engaging in Jazzercise. It strengthens your core.

[Voodoo]

protesting with a conservative basis about things that where just as true before obama takes office by people who when there side was in power claimed that it was wrong an unpatriotic to question or critersise the president for doing the things they are now protesting against = mokcery and derision

now to be fair that is more aimed at fox news and other conservative leaders but i just wanted to make the point. I shouldn't be surprised to see you talking as much rubbish as you do in this thread, people who will state that every person in a country disgusts them tend to have this kind of mind set... but still you do always seem to find ways to amaze me.

Stay on topic and not directed towards any person. Thanks.

[Johan]

You, a person who states disgust for a whole country of people which by it's very definition is an unreasonable idea...hypercritical thinking

Once again, you should take these kinds of posts elsewhere. You're being mindlessly inflammatory and insulting.

Also, please use spell check. It can improve the clarity of your ideas.

[Generation ABXY]

It's what google gave me when i couldn't get the damn spell check to work. dyslexia is fun

Oh, I didn't say it was wrong. Google says it is fine for me, too. I had just never seen that spelling before and it amused me (it brings strange images to mind); no personal offense meant. :)

[DangerousDaze]

Please, enough, both of you. If you object to someone's post then report it and then step away.

Attacking an argument is fine but attacking a poster isn't, whether that be an attack of their personal political stance or their spelling.

[Johan]

Please, enough, both of you.

I object to this. I haven't attacked anyone. I've respectfully reported his post, and pointed out that I believe his posts are/were unhelpful. "Both" of us aren't the problem here. "One" of us made this personal.

:shrugs:

Carry on then!

[Hotcod]

Oh, I didn't say it was wrong. Google says it is fine for me, too. I had just never seen that spelling before and it amused me (it brings strange images to mind); no personal offense meant. :)

hehe fair enough, there's only so much i can do with out having some one proof read every post.

Once again, you should take these kinds of posts elsewhere. You're being mindlessly inflammatory and insulting.

Also, please use spell check. It can improve the clarity of your ideas.

Not playing this game with you, i think the point i made was perfectly valid in the context of this thread and with in the wider issue. If you want to take it as insulting and inflammatory if it only, to me at lest, backs up the point i was trying to make about you and the current GOP leadership and fox news. Since these are exactly the kind of tactics they like to use. Which is why i'm not even going to comment on the second part of the post. I'll leave the personal part of the point be since voodoo has asked me to. Even if i feel it's relevant it's clearly outside of the bounds of the conversation and I apologise for making the point personal.

I still stand by the over all point of my post.

[Johan]

Not playing this game with you

You are trolling. Simple.

...people who will state that every person in a country disgusts them tend to have this kind of mind set.

Edit: Now, I get it. You're extrapolating from my expression of disgust with the French that I must, naturally, have a mindless hatred towards every Frenchmen/woman. That's a reach. I dislike their politics, though I approve of much of what Sarkozy stands for in an independent, strong France that also works within NATO, rather than removed from it. I also find many French people who think as I do, but the majority of the French do not, and I find their reflexively anti-American positions disgusting and vapid. I also find their kidnapping of CEOs to be disgusting, as it receives the approval of nearly half of French society as it occurs. I don't believe kidnapping AIG execs would have made our problems any less serious here.

There. Now, please don't extrapolate broad, hyperbolic views of others from short statements that obviously do not encapsulate a complete position paper of a person's views.

Thank you.

[Telefrog]

Sweet. This thread has gone into awesome mode.

[Hotcod]

Well, now, that's highly debatable. All medical care ultimately fails, of course. Does that spending purchase extra time? Does it relieve the pain and suffering of death? Are those people just unlucky? If we had a pill that had a 50% chance of saving your life after you have a stroke, that would seem like a good medicine. But 50% of the people who took the pill wouldn't get better. Short of inventing a more effective pill, you can't cut that "waste".

My dad is a doctor, my brother is a nurse, my mother is a nurse who worked a long time with terminally ill cancer suffers and has a PhD in the psychology of these kind of people. So it might not be shocking that i have a few issues with this some of which ox outlines here.

Some one who is terminally ill needs care just as much as any one else. While this care is in the end ineffective it is useful. If you want to look at it in the way the writer dose all care is ineffective, so long as you have a big enough time scale. Care is, as the name would point out, not always about results but about helping to relive suffering. The point being if you are going to look at the time of some ones life they are most likely going to need treatment (just before they die) it should come as no shock to find that's where most of there life's treatment is going to be found.

Personally i think people should be given the right to die when they are terminally ill and facing suffering. This of course is a purely moral view of mine but the piratical upshot is that the state is then not spending money on lessening that persons increasing pain. It's in effect a win win for the most part. There's still some tricky issues when dealing with people of a diminished capacity and there can't be one rule but it's a point worth thinking about.

Sweet. This thread has gone into awesome mode.

Should i be concerned that the second time i've been involved in making you say that? heh :)

[Wraith]

Unintentionally-Demotivator-formatted protest signs: the wave of the future.

http://img.timeinc.net/time/photoessays/2009/tea_party/tea_party_0415_03.jpg

I just...oh boy.

http://img.timeinc.net/time/photoessays/2009/tea_party/tea_party_0415_02b.jpg


As for the protests themselves... I don't necessarily agree with all the various opinions coming out of these events (anti-Obama, OMG COMMUNISM!, taxes = evil), but I can understand people being pissed off about this massive wave of government spending and corporate bailouts (while they may eventually help the economy, it's still a huge amount of debt). And that regardless of how these events are organized, the opinions of many of those attending are genuine. I wouldn't attend such a protest, but I don't think they should just be dismissed as simply Fox News making hay.

[Slack3r78]

Protesting with a conservative basis = mockery and derision.
Protesting with a liberal basis = support and respect.
In fairness, I tend to think G20 protesters, etc, are equally as dumb.

[Telefrog]

Really? I mean, really??

http://www.progressnowcolorado.org/page/-/teapartysign1sm.jpg

It looks like she has her head on straight about it all:

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3554/3445598539_bf5070119b_o.jpg

[Telefrog]

I can't help it. These guys are hilariously retarded.

http://img.wonkette.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/dsc02711.jpg

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/images/gallery-teaparty21.jpg

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/images/gallery-teaparty27.jpg

[Ox]

I'm going to go ahead and guess those last guys were mocking the proceedings rather than genuinely outraged.

EDIT: Also, it looks way too early for them to be wearing black tie. Disgusting.

[Hotcod]

In fairness, I tend to think G20 protesters, etc, are equally as dumb.

I hate extremists of all kinds really... i've been on a number of protests in my life and i've often ended up arguing with anarchist and communists and other such idiots as much as i would have with some one who disagreed with me over what the protest was really about. There's idiots on all sides.

I just haven't really seen much that makes me think most of the protesters in this case really understand what the core idea is in this case. With the anarchist and communists and such on a anit war march we at lest all understood the core meaning of why we where protesting and why the war was (we thought) wrong, it was just we had different ideas on how things should be done instead.

[Hotcod]

I'm going to go ahead and guess those last guys were mocking the proceedings rather than genuinely outraged.

EDIT: Also, it looks way too early for them to be wearing black tie. Disgusting.

yes the last one at lest is a clear pisstake. A very valid pisstake as i happen to see it which is why i would love to see how many people at the protest outright agreed with them heh

edit: if you can get it find the newswipe from this week, it's by the same guy who dose screenwpie and it deals with the coverage of the g20 protests and there's some very valid points that can be applied here. It's the images of the few with the racist dumb ideas that will get the most coverage even as the news will try and say that most of the protesters where not really that crazy. It dose a really good job of showing how news stations will always try and create news when it comes to protests and that most protests these days end up becoming self defeating because of it. Tony ben was annoyed with the news for trying to pimp the vilonces and suggested they might want to cover some of the speeches to show what the protests where really about... didn't happen... and i'd expect the same in this case. Which is a shame even if i disagree with the core ideas here it would be nice to see them being spelled out by the people involved.

[Sandman]

So all it took was the first tax day for Obama to loose popularity?

[Telefrog]

I'm going to go ahead and guess those last guys were mocking the proceedings rather than genuinely outraged.

EDIT: Also, it looks way too early for them to be wearing black tie. Disgusting.

I'm pretty sure those guys were boning around. There's also a picture of a woman carrying a sign that said "I hate roads" which I thought was pretty funny.

Just to be clear, I acknowledge that nutjob protesters come out for any gathering.

[National Kato]

The girl with the FEMA sign is getting her news from YouTube? :D

http://img404.imageshack.us/img404/8436/manatee2.jpg

[Esquilax1138]

There's also a picture of a woman carrying a sign that said "I hate roads" which I thought was pretty funny.


Sounds like something Francis would say! :D Would have been awesome to have a pic of him with that caption on the sign.

[DylonCorp]

I take it all back, how could I disagree with these folks?!

Besides, the arguments are much easier to make than the views I hold now.

"What do you think of the tax policy?" "Monkey see, monkey spend!" "And domestic policy?" "Concentration Camps?... and coffins?"

[Johan]

I agree that some of that stuff is genuinely idiotic. Yes, I agree. It's embarrassing, frankly...for them, since I wasn't there.

I still find a whole lot of legitimate reason to be pissed, however, at the state of our economy and the trends in borrowing/taxing at the state and federal level.

[Xerxes]

So all it took was the first tax day for Obama to loose popularity?

He was never poplar with those people to begin with.

[Voodoo]

Test Test Test

[TheFlyingOrc]

Unintentionally-Demotivator-formatted protest signs: the wave of the future.

http://img.timeinc.net/time/photoessays/2009/tea_party/tea_party_0415_03.jpg

I don't get why people don't get where our money comes from. We sell bonds (or other things) to get that money, and promise to pay it back with interest. We then take the money we got, and put it INTO THE US ECONOMY, then we pay them back later with interest (and not interest that we just hold for forever or anything, there's a set end date). We take the money and put it in our own pocket, more or less.

Think of it like a business - if I borrow $10,000 to start a business, I don't go into panic because I HAVE TO PAY THAT MONEY BACK. No, I understand that I'm using that money to make more money. And, in non-recessiion years (which SHOULD be coming soon), I make money off my borrowed money faster than my interest.

The money the government spends doesn't explode the second it enters their pocket.

[National Kato]

The money the government spends doesn't explode the second it enters their pocket.

That kind of logic don't make for good signage, TFO. :D

[National Kato]

This man was ill-informed when he attended a 'Tea-Bag Party':

http://img160.imageshack.us/img160/58/ishavedmyballsforthis71.jpg

[Telefrog]

I don't get why people don't get where our money comes from.

You can stop there. Most people don't understand a damn thing with regard to taxes or the economy. They sure as heck don't understand what happened recently or what it may mean for the future.

Figuring it out for themselves? Way too hard. Might as well let others do the groundwork and tell you what to think about it.

This goes both ways by the way.

[Johan]

This goes both ways by the way.

Taxes are bisexual? :confused:

Sorry. Couldn't resist. Should have.

[Adam Blue]

I don't get why people don't get where our money comes from. We sell bonds (or other things) to get that money, and promise to pay it back with interest. We then take the money we got, and put it INTO THE US ECONOMY, then we pay them back later with interest (and not interest that we just hold for forever or anything, there's a set end date). We take the money and put it in our own pocket, more or less.

So are you saying that we're not printing money? And that we are legitamately getting the funds from some other economic source?

[ShivaX]

Taxes are bisexual? :confused:

Sorry. Couldn't resist. Should have.

Well everyone tends to get fucked by them, so... yeah.

[DylonCorp]

So are you saying that we're not printing money? And that we are legitamately getting the funds from some other economic source?

We are printing currency. Currency is only money or funds if you can ascribe value to it. Otherwise it's just fancily printed paper. Check out the eventual fate of the Confederate dollar or the Latin America Debt Crisis in the late 70's to early 80's for what happens when currency has little to no true value.

[Shrinn]

So are you saying that we're not printing money? And that we are legitamately getting the funds from some other economic source?

Oh no, I'm pretty sure we're printing money as well. But I can't find a news story on it. Maybe I was misinformed.

Which party do I identify with if I'm just upset at the way every politician is handling everything at this point in time?

Oh, and are we talking about kwdOwgD5OsY these tea parties?

Good on them for speaking out though. I'm surprised there wasn't one on my campus since we're 16,000 large but I guess we're too complacent.

[Ox]

Oh no, I'm pretty sure we're printing money as well. But I can't find a news story on it. Maybe I was misinformed.
We don't really print paper money any more. Think about it: how much money do you have right now, if you wanted to go on a spending spree tonight? Don't look in your billfold like a six-year-old, your baby pattycake money like Jacksons and Franklins are trivial. Look at your ATM card. The vast majority of the US money supply is electronic these days. Saves on printing costs.

It's a little complicated to go into the various ways in which we're affecting this money supply, partly because not only is Obama doing it, so is the Federal Reserve, and some of these actions are designed to offset each other. But, basically, yes, we are printing money. Loose fiscal policy (i.e., running big deficits) tends to increase inflation.

[National Kato]

Shrinn, that video is crazy. Brainwashing? Burn the books? Oy, if I was there the beer sales would've been through the roof. :)

[Johan]

But, basically, yes, we are printing money. Loose fiscal policy (i.e., running big deficits) tends to increase inflation.

The Federal Reserve is buying up to a trillion dollars in Treasury bills, so we're printing that money, for one. It's a bit like someone in debt borrowing from themselves to fund more debt.

:scratches balls:

[Ox]

The Federal Reserve is buying up to a trillion dollars in Treasury bills, so we're printing that money, for one.
Another good example.
It's a bit like someone in debt borrowing from themselves to fund more debt.
I think we're actually doing it as a means of transferring money to the banks. The banks have a lot of T-bills, but there aren't a lot of buyers out there. So the price of T-bills is low. By buying them, we're raising the price of T-bills, thereby reducing their interest rate, thereby making them less attractive to hold on to, thereby making the bankers get off their fat asses and work to make money (by, e.g., extending loans).

It sounds a little down-the-rabbit-hole, I'll admit. But it makes more sense than it sounds like when you first hear it.

[Ox]

Hundreds of thousands? Only in Beck's fevered mind. Reports of individual rallies are maxing in the hundreds. Around 700 is the highest number I've seen today. I wouldn't be surprised if the total number of protestors nationwide was under even 10,000.
Given that the total number of protestors in San Antonio, alone, was estimated as 13,000 (http://www.ksat.com/news/19190512/detail.html#-), around 30% higher than organizers expected, it actually sounds like Glenn Beck might not have been wrong. Many major cities had turnouts in the thousands or tens of thousands, and a fairly reputable site (http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2009/04/tea-parties-appear-to-draw-at-least.html) says total turnout likely exceeded 250,000.

I think you owe Mr. Beck a letter of apology.

[Dr. Quasius]

Shrinn, that video is crazy.

Crazy, sad and frightening all rolled up into one nugget of stupidity. Apparently filmed by Hud as well. :)

[Xerxes]

If these people think they can do better, why aren't they running for office.

[Ox]

If these people think they can do better, why aren't they running for office.
They might have honest jobs.

[Xerxes]

They might have honest jobs.

:confused: I was think they wouldn't have a chance.

[MagGnome]

If they don't like the way things are going, why don't they leave the country?

Isn't that what those on the right told liberals for the last eight years? :confused:

[National Kato]

If they don't like the way things are going, why don't they leave the country?

I may have heard that once or a hundred times before...

[Generation ABXY]

If they don't like the way things are going, why don't they leave the country?

Isn't that what those on the right told liberals for the last eight years? :confused:

On the other hand, I heard a fair number of high-profile liberals say they were going to leave if Bush was elected again. I can't think of one who actually did - the right was just giving a gentle reminder. :p

[Hemalin]

I'm pretty sure those guys were boning around. There's also a picture of a woman carrying a sign that said "I hate roads" which I thought was pretty funny.

Just to be clear, I acknowledge that nutjob protesters come out for any gathering.
http://www.shortsshortsshorts.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/photo5.jpg

[torrefaction]

On the other hand, I heard a fair number of high-profile liberals say they were going to leave if Bush was elected again. I can't think of one who actually did - the right was just giving a gentle reminder. :p

Also, every college student ever "IM MOVING TO CANADA"

[Johan]

Isn't that what those on the right told liberals for the last eight years? :confused:

Very few left. The pay is ungodly good, there's lots of serfs coming from the south to tend to your yard and bring in the food from the fields, and you can join the chorus of complainers of all political persuasions as we gobble up the world's resources like the fat-asses we are.

:(

[ShivaX]

On the other hand, I heard a fair number of high-profile liberals say they were going to leave if Bush was elected again. I can't think of one who actually did - the right was just giving a gentle reminder. :p

Actually a lot of people were saying that about Obama too, which was even funnier because where the hell were they going to go? I mean at least the pinkos can say "France" or "Canada" or something and you can just shake your head knowing they're full of shit. When a conservative starts talking about it you wonder if they have any concept of what other countries are like.

[MagGnome]

On the other hand, I heard a fair number of high-profile liberals say they were going to leave if Bush was elected again. I can't think of one who actually did - the right was just giving a gentle reminder. :p

I was just pointing out that the sentiment goes both ways. The hateful rhetoric seems to be getting louder though, which I find to be disconcerting.

I honestly didn't feel very welcome in this country during a good portion of Bush's time in office. I wouldn't have minded emigrating to Canada if I wasn't so lazy.


Very few left. The pay is ungodly good, there's lots of serfs coming from the south to tend to your yard and bring in the food from the fields, and you can join the chorus of complainers of all political persuasions as we gobble up the world's resources like the fat-asses we are.

:(

Might as well nuke it all to glass and start over, eh? I'll ready the Vault.

We don't always agree on everything, but I do understand some of your sentiment, Johan. I may not agree with the way in which you often deliver it, but I do think that we share a lot in common. Scary, isn't it? :p


Actually a lot of people were saying that about Obama too, which was even funnier because where the hell were they going to go? I mean at least the pinkos can say "France" or "Canada" or something and you can just shake your head knowing they're full of shit. When a conservative starts talking about it you wonder if they have any concept of what other countries are like.

They are just going to secede (http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5g-VdwJKOtSlH5zYBgQqstbLoPFgAD97JRB4O0).

[Generation ABXY]

Also, every college student ever "IM MOVING TO CANADA"

Indeed. Fleeing to another country seemed to be a popular “threat” on the left. On the right, a number now seem to be saying, “Fine, we'll leave, but we're taking our state with us.” Honestly, though, I'm sure this whole Tenth Amendment talk will turn out to be just as empty as the other end of the political spectrum's supposed mass migration.

EDIT: Too slow, again.

[MagGnome]

Indeed. Fleeing to another country seemed to be a popular “threat” on the left. On the right, a number now seem to be saying, “Fine, we'll leave, but we're taking our state with us.” Honestly, though, I'm sure this whole Tenth Amendment talk will turn out to be just as empty as the other end of the political spectrum's supposed mass migration.

EDIT: Too slow, again.

Yeah, you'll always follow right behind me, it's okay. ;)

(I'm just kidding by the way!!)

The talk of secession is laughable. Obviously those in states like Texas and Alaska that talk about seceding haven't put much thought into it. Even if either state was allowed to leave, there are innumerable ramifications and hurdles that the new country would face.

I'm sure Russia would love to have Alaska become it's own little country, just ripe for the taking. ;)

[Hotcod]

Printing more money in this way is called Quantitative easing. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantitative_easing) I don't pretend to really understand it but from what i can tell and be told it's a short term way to stop bank leading clamping up in times like these. In other words it's just trying to keep the economy flowing when the natural cause would be to seize up. Which is not something any one wants.

It's related in fact to why tax cuts are not hugely effective at times like this. For the same reason banks won't lend people don't spend. If you cut taxes that extra money is money people will save and sit on rather than spend in times like this. Which is why public and in your case federal spending of money is so damned important. I think independent sources have worked out that you get more of a boost to the economy from government spending than from tax cuts. Which is why the republicans arguing and half gutting the stimulus package was such a disaster.

What's really sad is that because a lot of people (like a lot at these protests) just see tax and spending as bad if the stimulus bill fails in what it tries to do they will blame it on obamas spending not on the fact that the extra taxs cuts the republicans insisted on where frankly a pointless waste of money that could have been better spent.

The simple matter is the economy sucks and the major way to get it working again is for the government to spend money. This means you will get higher taxes and there will be a rising debt but that's just life, it sucks and if you ever want it to go back to the way it was you damn well better be ready to put up with having less money for a while.

bah i'm just getting a bit ranty now but i really dislike the way, no matter what happens, fox news and the like will blame your current administration for the mess. It will either be higher taxes or government spending that will be to blame which means frankly it's impossible to "win" a debate over these issues with people who are uninformed about what is really going on.

edit, dropped behind the debate there...

I'd just like to add that I was looking in to going to university in the US for a while. Or at lest something along those lines. It was something that if i could find a place would have really been on the cards. Then bush happened and the idea of living in the US for a while became even less attractive. Its not the reason i didn't go but i wanted to go less because of it.

[Dukefrukem]

I had to pay $1700 this year. I wasn't pleased.

[Ox]

It's related in fact to why tax cuts are not hugely effective at times like this. For the same reason banks won't lend people don't spend.
In theory, yes. Oddly enough, though, empirical studies have suggested the opposite: tax cuts are significantly more effective than government spending. This doesn't jibe with any commonly-accepted economic theory, though, so a lot of economists are inclined to pretend this data doesn't exist.

bah i'm just getting a bit ranty now but i really dislike the way, no matter what happens, fox news and the like will blame your current administration for the mess. It will either be higher taxes or government spending that will be to blame which means frankly it's impossible to "win" a debate over these issues with people who are uninformed about what is really going on.
I don't really mean to laugh, but it's so awesome how everybody is getting a better perspective for how the other side felt the past eight years. I read on Slate some hippie saw a tea party and shouted, "Love it or leave it!"

Honestly, it's inclining me to think we need to switch Presidential parties more often. Like, every year.

[Johan]

I don't really mean to laugh, but it's so awesome

This sums it up for me, tremendously. I think it's hilarious, and I'm actually immensely enjoying the fact that I'm totally unrepresented at the federal level right now, considering how moronic most of our political leaders are and how much they're screwing the pooch into the ground. It makes it especially amusing to watch the shit swirl around the toilet, on its way down. :D

The simple matter is the economy sucks and the major way to get it working again is for the government to spend money.

The CBO and economists with any brains would like to inform you of lower GDP growth into the future, and inflation, because of the massive borrowing/spending to pump up the money supply.

However, since you don't live here, it's not a problem for you. That's a joy!

[Hotcod]

In theory, yes. Oddly enough, though, empirical studies have suggested the opposite: tax cuts are significantly more effective than government spending. This doesn't jibe with any commonly-accepted economic theory, though, so a lot of economists are inclined to pretend this data doesn't exist.

Links please, i've never ever seen a study that proves that tax cuts in a recession are more effective that government spending. Mainly because spending directly creates jobs where as tax cuts only give back a small amount of the income of some one who already has work.


I don't really mean to laugh, but it's so awesome how everybody is getting a better perspective for how the other side felt the past eight years. I read on Slate some hippie saw a tea party and shouted, "Love it or leave it!"

Honestly, it's inclining me to think we need to switch Presidential parties more often. Like, every year.

To be fair i can't remember something where i would swing at the right both when they are coming and going but maybe my brains just a bit fuzzy. For example i was rather pissed about the withdrawal from Iraq stuff not long after the war was "over". You where there you'd made a mess and pulling out would have ended up sending the whole region up in flames... i had a very big arguments with some anit war people about that.

In this case if the republicans had been in power and passed a bill exactly like this one and it failed the left could only point to the lack of spending where as the right could still point to the house forcing them to use less tax cuts and spending more. In this case the left wants to do 2 things the right see as wrong and want to replace those 2 things with 1 one thing the left sees as wrong... hence no matter how you look at it unless the right had it's way and made a bill mostly tax cuts then they have 2 scape goats to blame. In other words coming and going.

[Johan]

Links please, i've never ever seen a study that proves that tax cuts in a recession are more effective that government spending.

Do you read much on economics or the like? :confused:

Start here. (http://shadow.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2009/01/27/memo_to_paul_krugman_the_stimulus_plan_is_bad_news )

He [Krugman] then proceeds: “Meanwhile, it’s clear that when it comes to economic stimulus, public spending provides much more bang for the buck than tax cuts.” For those who are not well-versed in the rules of classical rhetoric, the phrase “it’s clear that…” means “I am about to make an assertion that I strongly believe but would be very hard to prove.” In fact, there is a raging debate about whether tax cuts or public spending do more to revive a troubled economy. One side of this debate -- see Greg Mankiw, especially here -- argues that tax cuts are superior, while another side -- see Brad DeLong, especially here -- argues that tax cuts and spending are roughly equal. They’re both arguing about this 2007 paper co-authored by the incoming Chair of President Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers, Christina Romer. In it, she and her husband, David Romer, conclude that “tax changes have very large effects on output.”

For a fair fight between those touting tax cuts and those supporting spending, they compare a tax cut today to a spending boost today. If one compared a tax cut now to spending years down the road, then it would be no contest -– tax cuts would win. In fact, that’s pretty much the choice we face. According to press reports of an unreleased CBO study, only $26 billion of $355 billion in new spending would occur in the current fiscal year. Another $110 billion would come in Fiscal 2010. That’s less than 40 percent of the total by September 2010. Those numbers are so low because it's very hard to find and fund that many worthwhile projects that quickly. Democrats have countered with much higher percentages, but those generally include the tax cuts and the aid to states, which are not really at issue.

:sigh:

Why do I waste my time? :confused:

[Hotcod]

The CBO and economists with any brains would like to inform you of lower GDP growth into the future, and inflation, because of the massive borrowing/spending to pump up the money supply.

However, since you don't live here, it's not a problem for you. That's a joy!

well firstly all the economic issues here are just as valid for me as they are to you. In fact my government is doing a lot of the same things.

Secondly yes it will lower the growth of the GDP in the future but the active word there is growth. At the moment we are in recession doing nothing will likely lead to a crash and depression. So a few years of lower growth to avoid many years of utter chaos seem like a useful trade off to me. In this case the accepted best way of doing that is to keep banks lending and to keep the economy turning over. The only way to keep banks lending with out taking them over is print more money and the accepted best way of getting the economy turning over is with government spending. Tax cuts are less effective and lower the spending the government can do.

As far as i can work out what you want to do is cut taxes lower government spending and not print money for the banks right? so you have the banks not lending to people who are not spending and less growth in the job market because no one has money to start up or expand there business and the government is not able to spend as much money creating jobs.

[Hotcod]

I ask for links to explain how taxes are better than spending and you supply a link that clearly states that tax cuts are better but only if spending happens years later.... In other words spending is better than tax cuts. Which is exactly what i've said

So what you have a problem with is the fact the spending isn't happening right now. And what you clearly mean by tax cuts being better is that more tax cuts now will be better than spending later. Got ya. That argument i'm already aware of, oxs post was saying tax cuts are better than spending full stop... i've not read anything to that effect which is why i asked for links.

As for the real argument if tax cuts are better done down than planed spending that won't fully take place till later it gets far to complex for me to follow. I've tended to go on the advice of more intelligent people who know more about this who say the general view is that the spending is the best and safest bet. It is money that is guaranteed to be used and will help create jobs. Where as tax cuts are not as sure to do the same. I won't get in to it because like i said i don't know enough about it to want to debate the point

[Johan]

so you have the banks not lending to people who are not spending

People already aren't spending, but it's not because there's a lack of money in the system. It's because of fear and consumers so deep in debt that the day of reckoning on that has arrived. (http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/02/03/paradox-of-thrift/)

Also, the banks are still not lending, and a part of that is that they are actually hoarding TARP money. Essentially, tax money is being buried in the bottomless well of bad banks whose books are burdened by garbage securities.

Obama and the Fed should have let AIG die, left the automobile manufacturers alone to work out their debts in chapter 11, and should have set up a nationalized "good bank" to spur lending while the dead banks get washed out to sea as their worthless assets implode on them.

What we have is sending good (borrowed) money after bad. Chasing growth by adding more to the deficit than any previous president in history is not a good approach. Having the Fed buy Treasuries to the tune of a trillion dollars, essentially inventing a trillion bucks out of thin air, is not a good approach.

GDP will suffer. Inflation will result. The news isn't getting better, either. Foreclosures last month were higher than last year at the same time, and we're entering a second wave of "job-loss-based" foreclosures. Ten states in particular, from the news I saw tonight, represent 77% of all foreclosures in the U.S., and 1 in 159 mortgages are in foreclosure currently. That's amazingly bad.

I ask for links to explain how taxes are better than spending and you supply a link that clearly states that tax cuts are better but only if spending happens years later.... In other words spending is better than tax cuts. Which is exactly what i've said

You don't read. :sigh: First of all, you didn't even know there's debate within economic circles between tax cuts and spending cuts as an approach to solving economic growth problems. That doesn't bode well for your understanding of the issue. Also, I clearly posted, in my last post, the following:

If one compared a tax cut now to spending years down the road, then it would be no contest -– tax cuts would win. In fact, that’s pretty much the choice we face. According to press reports of an unreleased CBO study, only $26 billion of $355 billion in new spending would occur in the current fiscal year. Another $110 billion would come in Fiscal 2010. That’s less than 40 percent of the total by September 2010. Those numbers are so low because it's very hard to find and fund that many worthwhile projects that quickly.

Please read the rubbish before commenting upon it. Thank you.

[Hotcod]

You don't read. :sigh: First of all, you didn't even know there's debate within economic circles between tax cuts and spending cuts as an approach to solving economic growth problems. That doesn't bode well for your understanding of the issue. Also, I clearly posted, in my last post, the following:

Please explain what is wrong with the following

government spending done at the same time as a tax cut is more effective.

The issue that is being debate is the fact the spending isn't happening as fast as it could be and if that, when everything is factored in, is the spending over this time the best thing. I edited my last post to cover that and like i said i don't enough about that side of it to comment. All that i've ever stated is that spending is better than tax cuts, not that spending 2 years from now is as effective as a tax cut now.

The simple fact is that most of them will tell you, as far as i know, that there is almost no question that if all the was spent in the next year it would be more effective that taxs cuts. That's what i was taking issue with in oxs post.

[Johan]

government spending done at the same time as a tax cut is more effective.

:sigh:

This is so elemental, Hotcod. :( You cannot spend, in an instant, money on the order of what is necessary to stimulate a $14 trillion dollar economy. As the linked quotes I already posted say, it takes time to spend that kind of scratch productively and stimulatively. You could, I suppose, just burn it in a pile in one day, but that won't employ more than a few hundred people for a few days of transportation of notes, the fires, and the clean-up.

It takes time, and what is being planned will stimulate the economy, but slowly. Some economists believe by the time most of it kicks in, the economy would already have been growing on its own again (economies are, after all, somewhat cyclical), and having borrowed such a tremendous amount of money will serve only to deflate GDP and inflate prices, not to actually provide a markedly significant stimulus.

In other words, there is actually a real debate in economic and policy circles as to whether borrowing to spend, or cutting taxes, will serve more effectively.

:sigh:

I'm tired. I need a beer for my poor teeth.

[Hotcod]

So in other words yes you agree that spending now is more effective than tax cuts now. Good. But yes, you're right, there is debate over the fact that the spending will take time and if tax cuts now would be better than spending in 2 years time. Ox stated that studies had shown tax cuts are better than spending, which is clearly wrong which is why i asked for links. I now take it he was referring to what your talking about.

Like i said i don't know much about the argument but that i've been told that spending is the reliable safe option. It will do it's job, you can argue that it might not need to by that time but there is no way to know for sure. If every one simply made huge tax cuts we can't be sure that it will do its job and when talking about things this important taking risks like that is, to paraphrase a friend of my brothers who works high up in a bank (and who is oddly enough a nice guy), a bit silly. And most other people who i've talked to who know far more about this than me agree. The point is that while there is a debate about which could be better there is little question that spending works. It still accepted by most to likely be the better way to do it too.

Even if we find out that tax cuts would have worked better in the long run the fact is that right now we don't know. To gamble on that seems to be an oddly risky thing for the consecrative. But then again tax cuts are always the rights answer so it's no surprise that even being he risky choice here they are the one that it's easier to sell to there voters... just like, i'd have to say, lefties are better sold on taxes and spending... funny really

edit:

i would just like to be clear that i'm not saying there shouldn't be tax cuts. They can and are very useful things, i'm more talking about which should be the majority of a "stimulus bill" when dealing with this kind of thing.

[Johan]

So in other words yes you agree that spending now is more effective than tax cuts now. Good.

:sigh:

No. I do not. You just don't understand the issue.

* Higher government borrowing/spending today means lower GDP growth in the future.
* Government spending takes time. It doesn't happen in an instant. Much of Obama's planned spending will occur in 2010 and beyond.
* Tax cuts take time as well.

The debate is over which will take effect more quickly to grow the economy, and which will lead to higher growth in the future. THAT debate, which you apparently are missing entirely, is a tough one for either side to win, which is why Ph.D's in economics argue rationally for EITHER policy position. Apparently, however, you're pretty sure you've got it squared away. Please contact your local Ph.D. program in economics, right away!

:sigh: You debate disingenuously, with simple pronouncements, absent supporting rationales, declaring the end to issues that have vexed far more intelligent people than either of us. :(

[Hotcod]

And you read what you want to read instead of what's there. Which means no matter what i said you've decided what my view is and that i think there isn't room for debate. Which means that there is clearly no point carrying on talking to you about this.

[Ox]

Links please, i've never ever seen a study that proves that tax cuts in a recession are more effective that government spending. Mainly because spending directly creates jobs where as tax cuts only give back a small amount of the income of some one who already has work.
Here you go. (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/11/business/economy/11view.html) The study itself is here (http://www.econ.berkeley.edu/~cromer/RomerDraft307.pdf). Multiplier for spending: 1.4. Multiplier for tax cuts: 3.

In this case if the republicans had been in power and passed a bill exactly like this one and it failed the left could only point to the lack of spending where as the right could still point to the house forcing them to use less tax cuts and spending more. In this case the left wants to do 2 things the right see as wrong and want to replace those 2 things with 1 one thing the left sees as wrong... hence no matter how you look at it unless the right had it's way and made a bill mostly tax cuts then they have 2 scape goats to blame. In other words coming and going.
I'm not really sure why the fact that the right has two objections while the left has one is somehow relevant. It's a maxim of rhetoric that the number of arguments is irrelevant; it's the quality of those arguments that matters. In any event, clearly (http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/business/taxes/more_voters_than_ever_say_tax_cuts_help_the_econom y) some Democrats believe tax cuts are actively harmful. Here (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB106330945866927000.html) (sorry, subscription) is an example of the argument. Here's (http://www.brookings.edu/opinions/2003/0509taxes_gale.aspx) a less-good version of the argument. Here's (http://www.cbpp.org/cms/?fa=view&id=547) a third.

Ox stated that studies had shown tax cuts are better than spending, which is clearly wrong
In the future, please do me the favor of giving me a chance to respond to your request for evidence before declaring me wrong.

[Johan]

Here you go. (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/11/business/economy/11view.html) The study itself is here (http://www.econ.berkeley.edu/~cromer/RomerDraft307.pdf). Multiplier for spending: 1.4. Multiplier for tax cuts: 3.

In any event, clearly (http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/business/taxes/more_voters_than_ever_say_tax_cuts_help_the_econom y) some Democrats believe tax cuts are actively harmful. Here (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB106330945866927000.html) (sorry, subscription) is an example of the argument. Here's (http://www.brookings.edu/opinions/2003/0509taxes_gale.aspx) a less-good version of the argument. Here's (http://www.cbpp.org/cms/?fa=view&id=547) a third.

I already tried. Here's wishing you better luck.

[Hotcod]

Here you go. (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/11/business/economy/11view.html) The study itself is here (http://www.econ.berkeley.edu/~cromer/RomerDraft307.pdf). Multiplier for spending: 1.4. Multiplier for tax cuts: 3.


thank you, i'll take the time to read them


I'm not really sure why the fact that the right has two objections while the left has one is somehow relevant. It's a maxim of rhetoric that the number of arguments is irrelevant; it's the quality of those arguments that matters. In any event, clearly (http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/business/taxes/more_voters_than_ever_say_tax_cuts_help_the_econom y) some Democrats believe tax cuts are actively harmful. Here (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB106330945866927000.html) (sorry, subscription) is an example of the argument. Here's (http://www.brookings.edu/opinions/2003/0509taxes_gale.aspx) a less-good version of the argument. Here's (http://www.cbpp.org/cms/?fa=view&id=547) a third.

To these protests it is relevant, no matter what happens they get to claim they where right. It's hard to argue with that.


In the future, please do me the favor of giving me a chance to respond to your request for evidence before declaring me wrong.

sorry i had presumed that Johan had answered for you. Clearly i was mistaken, it was my bad and i apologies for stating that you where clearly wrong since you are clearly not wrong that there studies that show tax cuts to be more effective than spending.

[Stmfuller]

"Teabag party" isn't the name they chose. They chose "tea party." People who oppose them have taken to calling them "teabag parties" as a rather juvenile slur.I'm completely aware of that. Also, I (apparently falsely) assumed that "internet hilarity" implied juvenile humor...last time I checked 99.9999999% of all internet humor is juvenile.
I thought that was a fucking idiotic point. There's a difference between me deciding to waste my own money and some government official extracting money from me by force of law, then wasting it.If you can't handle your own money, how are you supposed to be able to handle someone else's? Waste is waste is waste.
By that standard, if I started calling these folks, "The Ox League of Justice," I'd be astroturfing it, too. Fox's behavior is certainly over the top, but I don't think trying to glom onto a popular trend necessarily says anything about the trend.maybe...but the hype they're created certainly does imply they had a hand in it.

[Johan]

i had presumed that Johan had answered for you.

Why you presumed that, I have no idea, but I speak for myself, and myself alone.

As you can hopefully see, there is indeed division among economists and politicians as to which stimulus course to take, between tax cuts and government borrowing/spending. It's a tough issue, with no clear winning position, like so many of the tough issues we face. That's why they're tough.

[ShivaX]

Well regardless Hotcod does seem to have one point when it comes to the "unknown" factor of tax cuts vs spending:

The evidence, however, is hard to square with the theory. A recent study by Christina D. Romer and David H. Romer, then economists at the University of California, Berkeley, finds that a dollar of tax cuts raises the G.D.P. by about $3. According to the Romers, the multiplier for tax cuts is more than twice what Professor Ramey finds for spending increases.

Why this is so remains a puzzle. One can easily conjecture about what the textbook theory leaves out, but it will take more research to sort things out. And whether these results based on historical data apply to our current extraordinary circumstances is open to debate.

We know spending works. In theory tax cuts would work better, but we're not really sure. Also it seems like the theory is almost more general than just applying to recessions/depressions (I'm not going to hunt through the pdf to see for sure). So if we go with tax cuts over spending we could just as easily plunge into another Great Depression for all we know. Eventually it might even itself out, but for all we know that could be 10-20 years later.

Honestly I think the best plan is to spend now on things we need (infrastructure, etc). Then once the economy is stable cut taxes and spending to balance things out. From what I've gathered thats more or less what Obama is going for. How it all pans out is anyones guess in the end, but it certainly seems more sound than big tax cuts for the very top of the food chain and middling tax cuts for the rest with nothing else.

The economy depends on the lower and middle classes spending money, so if anyone should get tax cuts its them, because they'll spend it. If I give $1,000,000 to 1000 people who don't make a ton of money they'll likely all spend it. If I give someone who makes $10m a year a million bucks back odds are it wont be spent. Thats my impression as a layman, which is probably wrong, but there ya have it for whatever its worth.

[Hotcod]

Here you go. (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/11/business/economy/11view.html) The study itself is here (http://www.econ.berkeley.edu/~cromer/RomerDraft307.pdf). Multiplier for spending: 1.4 (can be argued to read 3). Multiplier for tax cuts: 3 (can be read as 2.1 for cuts aimed at stopping slow downs).

bold mine

Ah ok, i have read about that study before, and it's not a study that shows that tax cuts are better than spending for GDP. Which is what i asked for. You and the NY times link have taken 2 different studies that can not be compeered and put the numbers next to each other to make a point.

http://curiouscapitalist.blogs.time.com/2009/01/14/the-evidence-on-tax-cuts-vs-spending-is-confusing/

This link is good, will explain why you can't do what that NY time writer did far better than i can.

[Hotcod]

Why you presumed that, I have no idea, but I speak for myself, and myself alone.

As you can hopefully see, there is indeed division among economists and politicians as to which stimulus course to take, between tax cuts and government borrowing/spending. It's a tough issue, with no clear winning position, like so many of the tough issues we face. That's why they're tough.

And i've clearly stated that i agree about that. The only thing i've said that you've not, to do with this at lest, is that the people i know who work and deal with this stuff on the whole think that spending is the safer way to go. You've read that as me saying that spending has to be the right thing to do. Which is where i said that your reading what you want rather than what i said. Maybe i've failed to get my point across but the view i've taken from people i respect and trust is that while this debate goes the best thing to do is spend and that it's the tried and tested way of getting out of problems like these.

[Ox]

If you can't handle your own money, how are you supposed to be able to handle someone else's? Waste is waste is waste.
Well, for one thing, they clearly don't think they're wasting the tea: they're using it as a symbol to communicate a message, and using tea as a symbol is not necessarily any more wasteful than burning an American flag in protest or using up paper writing a letter to your Congressman. Second, these folks are not campaigning for different spending priorities, but for lower taxes: they want you to use your money how you like, and they'll use their money as they like.

maybe...but the hype they're created certainly does imply they had a hand in it.
Really? You want to go down that road? That means every time CNN gives unreasonable airtime to some girll who was abducted and suspected murdered, it implies Anderson Cooper has her locked in his basement.

We know spending works.
No, we don't. We know spending is supposed to work. If spending actually always worked, then Japan would be an economic powerhouse. They've spent an ungodly amount of money in the past couple of decades -- 118 trillion yen, or about $1.2 trillion, in stimulus packages. Didn't work. If spending actually always worked, the Great Depression would have ended by1936 or so. It actually got worse. The theory behind spending is fantastic, but the experience is a lot less good. If the US becomes a highly theoretical country, I'll agree that spending definitely works.

If I give $1,000,000 to 1000 people who don't make a ton of money they'll likely all spend it. If I give someone who makes $10m a year a million bucks back odds are it wont be spent. Thats my impression as a layman, which is probably wrong, but there ya have it for whatever its worth.
That's the most basic version of the theory. If I might be permitted an analogy to medicine, it's like saying eating red meat makes you sick, and not eating red meat keeps you healthy. In theory, broadly true. But as we all know, the medical effects of red meat are a lot more complicated, we're still figuring it out, and no sane doctor would "not eating red meat" is a good one-size-fits-all policy. The same with spending and tax cuts: it's just not a good idea to try to set economic policy based on Op-Ed articles.

[Johan]

http://curiouscapitalist.blogs.time.com/2009/01/14/the-evidence-on-tax-cuts-vs-spending-is-confusing/

Did you read your own link? :confused: Even they state the issue comes down to a theoretical one which can be argued from either side.

I don't get how you can miss that so easily.

The reality here is that there is simply no clear answer in the data—especially since we only have really good data for the post-World War II era and the U.S. has not experienced a recession quite like this one in the post-World War II era. Which forces us to fall back on theory, and not just economic theory. If you believe that government is capable of spending money intelligently—or at least more intelligently than the currently paralyzed private sector—then more spending is the ticket. If you don't, you're going to lean toward tax cuts or no action at all.

You've read that as me saying that spending has to be the right thing to do.

You know, you really, truly do debate incredibly dishonestly. Here's a sampling of what I responded to in your posts:

The simple matter is the economy sucks and the major way to get it working again is for the government to spend money.

You're saying government spending is the right thing to do.

i've never ever seen a study that proves that tax cuts in a recession are more effective that government spending.

You're saying government spending is the right thing to do.

The only way to keep banks lending with out taking them over is print more money and the accepted best way of getting the economy turning over is with government spending. Tax cuts are less effective and lower the spending the government can do.

You're saying government spending is the right thing to do.

In other words spending is better than tax cuts. Which is exactly what i've saidt

You're saying government spending is the right thing to do.

So in other words yes you agree that spending now is more effective than tax cuts now. Good.

You're saying government spending is the right thing to do.

And you read what you want to read instead of what's there.

No. When I responded to you, correctly identifying that you are saying that government spending is so assuredly the right thing to do, which I believe is much less clear than you seem to think, you somehow denied your own words. You either don't read your own posts, or you don't understand them, or you're intentionally trying to troll. I'm not sure which of those it is. :confused:

[Ox]

To these protests it is relevant, no matter what happens they get to claim they where right. It's hard to argue with that.
Sure, but every opposition party does that. Think about terrorism during the Bush years. Every time Bush so much as got uncomfortable around a Muslim, there were screams of violating civil rights. And if another terrorist attack had occurred in the US, Democrats would have said Bush didn't do enough to keep us safe. It's called "the luxury of the opposition," and it's a common issue in all electoral democracies.

[Hotcod]

to use your wonderful little phrase

:sigh:

As far as i've been told by people who know better than me spending right now is better than tax cuts right now. Which is what the link you posted states. As far as i've been told by the people who know better than me while tax cuts now may be better than spending over 3 or 4 years. As far as i've been told by people who know better than me the spending will likely do the job it has to do where as tax cuts are up in the air. As far as i've been told by people who know better than me the best thing we can do until the debate is settled is to spend. In other words right now the 'right' (note: not better) thing to do is spend, in the view of the people i trust.

In other words there is a debate over if tax cuts are better than spending but in the view of people i trust spending is the safest thing to do at the moment. If some one could prove that tax cuts are better tomorrow i'm sure every one would change there minds. But they can't and they won't and the people who know better about these things than me are saying that spending is the safer root and as such in there view what should be done.

What you seem to think that means is that they, and by so me, think spending IS better than tax cuts. Which is not in fact the issue. your logic is that since they are debating which is better no one can hold a view about which is the best thing to do right now. And in fact there can't be any kind of right thing to do since we don't know which is better. For some one saying i'm making simple arguments that is a very... shallow... way of looking at what we've been debating.

Even if we find out in the future that tax cuts are better right now in mine and the people i trust who know far more about this than me view is that spending is the right thing to do. It may not be best but it's likely safest.

You can argue and debate with that all you want, it's my view, but don't sit there and tell me i'm doing something i'm not because you are seeing the argument here in a very flat way. In other words your shoe horning my point of view that is in fact rather grey in to a black and white idea of what we are talking about we are reading what you want to read.

[Hotcod]

Sure, but every opposition party does that. Think about terrorism during the Bush years. Every time Bush so much as got uncomfortable around a Muslim, there were screams of violating civil rights. And if another terrorist attack had occurred in the US, Democrats would have said Bush didn't do enough to keep us safe. It's called "the luxury of the opposition," and it's a common issue in all electoral democracies.

Ah fair enough i get you. In your example i would have violently disagreed with any one attacking him for not doing more in those terms but i can't say that there wouldn't be people who would do that. This is just the first time i've seen it really happen as far as i can remember.

[Johan]

As far as i've been told by people who know better than me spending right now is better than tax cuts right now.

That is perfectly fine, but please...when I'm reading that, over and over and over and over from you, and I state that I'm reading that from you, repeatedly, and I point out, with some basis outside of myself in the actual professional realm of economics, that the issue is actually more complex that that...don't deny you've been saying that government spending is the way to go, state this:

And you read what you want to read instead of what's there.

And pretend you're actually having an honest discussion. That's just ridiculously disingenuous and frustrating. And I'm being very, very restrained and kind in my phraseology, I think, all things considered. :) You have no idea how hard I'm trying, after having a few beers, to be kind when I feel, legitimately, that you're playing me.

[Stmfuller]

Well, for one thing, they clearly don't think they're wasting the tea: they're using it as a symbol to communicate a message, and using tea as a symbol is not necessarily any more wasteful than burning an American flag in protest or using up paper writing a letter to your Congressman. Second, these folks are not campaigning for different spending priorities, but for lower taxes: they want you to use your money how you like, and they'll use their money as they like.But the mess they left afterward certainly drains money that they're complaining is being spent. It ends up being wasteful either way. A letter to your congressman is only wasteful if it doesn't get it's point across.
As for what they're campaigning for call it what you will, but they want "their" people in charge. Wouldn't it be nice if those people were good enough to lead by example?


Really? You want to go down that road? That means every time CNN gives unreasonable airtime to some girll who was abducted and suspected murdered, it implies Anderson Cooper has her locked in his basement.
If CNN at any point in time puts up a graphic that says "CNN abducted and suspected murdered girl" like Fox did with the "FNC tea parties" graphic, I will probably be at least a little suspicious.

[Ox]

If some one could prove that tax cuts are better tomorrow i'm sure every one would change there minds.
That's so sweet and hopelessly naive. Did the Civil War, including the valiant service of colored regiments, change everyone's attitudes toward black people? Did Pearl Harbor forever demonstrate to all the importance of America's engagement with the world? Did Stalin prove conclusively to the world the inherent evil of Communism? Some people change their minds when evidence comes to light. Most don't.

This is just the first time i've seen it really happen as far as i can remember.
Then let me be the first to welcome you to adulthood. You only get more jaded from here.

[Ox]

But the mess they left afterward certainly drains money that they're complaining is being spent.
Assembly permits include fees to pay for, inter alia, cleanup services. They paid to clean it up, not you.

As for what they're campaigning for call it what you will, but they want "their" people in charge. Wouldn't it be nice if those people were good enough to lead by example?
By what, becoming ascetics? They want the government to cut taxes. Unless those folks have recently raised someone's taxes, I'm not sure how they're failing to live up to their demands. And while it would be nice if people led by example, it would also be nice if people stopped having premarital sex. Neither is particularly likely.

If CNN at any point in time puts up a graphic that says "CNN abducted and suspected murdered girl" like Fox did with the "FNC tea parties" graphic, I will probably be at least a little suspicious.
So your theory is that FNC's corporate code of ethics would prevent it from trying to exploit the tea parties by associating itself with them? You have an unusually high regard for the standards for FNC's ethics.

[Hotcod]

That is perfectly fine, but please...when I'm reading that, over and over and over and over from you, and I state that I'm reading that from you, repeatedly, and I point out, with some basis outside of myself in the actual professional realm of economics, that the issue is actually more complex that that...don't deny you've been saying that government spending is the way to go, state this.

:sigh:

I have not denied that i think spending is the right thing to do. What i've denied is that thinking that means i think spending must be better than tax cuts in terms of this debate. Which is what you said in the post that made me say you only read what you want to read.

In other words i won't deny i think government spending is the right thing to do. Which will be easy since that's not what i've been doing. And you don't tell me that i'm telling people with PhD's that they are wrong. Which i also never did.

The point i'm making is that you say that me thinking that spending is the right thing to do right now is the same thing as me saying that spending (in terms of this debate) is better than tax cuts. It's twisting my words to fit your view of the argument we are having.

[Johan]

I have not denied that i think spending is the right thing to do. What i've denied is that thinking that means i think spending must be better than tax cuts in terms of this debate.

Why in the world would you advocate something and then readily admit that you don't even know if it's better than the alternative? You've clearly stated you find government spending the better choice. Why in the world would you advocate that if you don't think it's the better option? :confused:

In other words, I find your position disingenuous again. You argue that government spending is the way to go, then deny taking the stance, then deny seeing it as better between the two alternatives. :confused:

Damn. I'm out.

[Ox]

Bear in mind that doing both spending and tax cuts may well be worse than doing either one; it may even be worse than doing neither. And either one of them might be worse than doing nothing. There really isn't an obvious safe answer or obvious bad answer.

[Hotcod]

That's so sweet and hopelessly naive. Did the Civil War, including the valiant service of colored regiments, change everyone's attitudes toward black people? Did Pearl Harbor forever demonstrate to all the importance of America's engagement with the world? Did Stalin prove conclusively to the world the inherent evil of Communism? Some people change their minds when evidence comes to light. Most don't.


Then let me be the first to welcome you to adulthood. You only get more jaded from here.

Well ok, in reality yes but for the point i was trying to make in that bit of my post it worked... i hope... and oddly enough i'm already very jaded despite what it may seem like i don't think obama will save the world and less said about any political party over here the better... i've been rather actively involved in protests and politics since i was 17 and by 18 i was rather damn sure it was all junk.

You had a chance to read over that link i posted dealing with the study? i'd be interested in what you make of it.

[Telefrog]

Damn! Another thread just went into awesome overdrive!

[Hotcod]

Why in the world would you advocate something and then readily admit that you don't even know if it's better than the alternative? You've clearly stated you find government spending the better choice. Why in the world would you advocate that if you don't think it's the better option? :confused:

Well then this is the source of the confusion and i'm not sure to explain to you how i see it.

The only thing i can think to say is that there are 2 issues here.

If tax cuts are better than spending and what we should be doing right now.

The first issue dose of course impact on the second but the second dose not have to have the same answer as the first

Why? Because we have to make a choice about the second issue with out knowing the answer to the first issue. So how do we make that choice? We have to look at other things other than the pure idea that one is better than the other. And there's a lot of other thing to think about but an easy one to pick out is what one is safest. Given that we don't know which is best which is less risky become a more important factor. As far as i know from the people i've talked to spending is less risky than the tax cuts. There for spending is the right thing to do while we work out if it was in fact the best thing.

In other words spending can at the same time be the right thing to do but worse at what it dose than tax cuts. Odd i know.

Now if you want to debate if spending is less risky feel free to do so, it's also a open topic and like i said my views are basted on what i've been told and not a deep personal understanding of the stuff involved. So it may very well be wrong but that dose not change the fact that its a secondary issue of if spending is better than tax that we are only dealing with because we can't answer the primary one.

As you've kept on saying, this isn't a simple matter. There is simply more to picking what is the right thing to do right now because we don't know which is provably the best thing we should be doing.

We don't know which is best but we still have to make a choice and there is a right choice to be made based on what we know now. I happen to think that right choice is spending, you may not, but it is a different issue to if it's the best choice.

edit

What ox just said is right but it also hugely complicates what is already a complex topic. I'm working on the idea that both are useful rather than harmful since thats what those nice people (yes them again) have told me they think that to be true.

edit 2

You know whats funny this may all just be an be an issue semantics. I use right and better to mean different things in my posts and other may not be reading it the way it's intended. Either that or we just have very different ideas about what we've been debating which is never a good mix.

[Johan]

Well then this is the source of the confusion and i'm not sure to explain to you how i see it.

Actually, totally off the topic, this exchange has me legitimately reevaluating my presence in the forum. I really felt at the time, with no disrespect intended, honestly, like you were dicking me around. Now, someone reported me in my responses to you, and I honestly thought I was being reasonable in my responses. :confused:

What this tells me is that either I'm terribly, horribly wrong in the way I'm reading things (i.e. you weren't messing with me like I thought, and I was actually being very rude in my responses when I thought I was polite, which is why someone reported me), or I was right on one or the other, but it still went horribly wrong.

Either one seems to be telling me to GTFO, honestly. It seems irresistible. I spent nearly a month away, and it was quite fine. Perhaps I'm so wrong, or so wrongly perceived, that being here is just a gigantic waste of time and a big-ass frustration I don't need.

:scratches head:

It's got me thinking. Take care. I'm sorry for offending you or others.

[Hotcod]

Johan we don't really get along, but i honestly wasn't trying to troll you with this debate. I think we've just either got a fundamental difference of opinion on what we are debating let alone the views we hold about those debates or we are simply not understanding the point the other is making. Given that i have in the past got frustrated with you and turned to trolling i can understand why you may feel i was doing the same here. When i got warned i was honestly a little surprised too. Given how our, erm, talks have gone in the past i felt this was a very good one. A little heated of course but i didn't think we had been irrelevantly personal in what little personal stuff there was. Clearly others feel other wise.

Despite what it may seem i've enjoy the debate, i never intended you to feel i was jerking you around. You've forced me to evaluate and strengthen my view point and you've made me, if not change my view, become much more understanding of the other side of it.

So honestly, oddly, i tend to agree with you. I wasn't trolling you and i didn't think your response to me was over the line. Other disagree, so i hope that helps you make a choice. We may not be friends but i'd hate to me responable for driving you away from the forum.

We should get this back on topic before it gets locked too. I just wanted this to be a public reply rather than a PM

[Johan]

We may not be friends but i'd hate to me responable for driving you away from the forum.

No, no, no. If I leave, or get tossed out; either way, it's on myself alone. I didn't at all mean to put anything off on you.

I just found myself having a total "What the hell did I miss and how was I so wrong?" moment, and it's got me thinking this isn't a great method for me to communicate with people, if I can't trust my instincts in communicating...and it appears I can't. I've never quite had that weird feeling before on the boards, and I've posted a LOT. It's like I have no idea what just happened, or what I missed, and I'm thinking that's not good. :confused:

Also, you're right...back on topic. I'm sorry for the derail. That's on me. :( No worries here. We may not get along like buddies, but it's okay. The world is a big place, and if we were all like-minded, it would be a helluva boring place. :) Anyway, enough of my drama. I'm too old to be acting like a fool. Sorry.

[Ox]

You had a chance to read over that link i posted dealing with the study? i'd be interested in what you make of it.
I glanced at it. It makes some decent arguments, but I'm not sure they're really dispositive. This stimulus program, for example, isn't going to be spent on stuff like improving education, simply because (a) you can't suddenly build a better academic system in a few months and (b) the whole point of a stimulus package is that it's temporary spending. You don't want to hire a bunch of teachers or cops for six months, then fire them (this was the argument the governor of South Carolina used for not taking the stimulus money and putting it into teacher hiring). It's more like defense spending than education spending, because it's probably not going to have longterm positive effects.

And Krugman once again confirmed my opinion of him. The marginal tax rate is 1/3? Maybe for him. But 33% of Americans pay no income taxes at all, and most of the ones above those folks pay far lower rates than that. And in any event, I notice he doesn't bother to calculate the budgetary recoup for tax cuts at all -- it would presumably be less unless the tax cuts were temporary, but it would be above zero. Thanks, Mr. Krugman. Your contribution to the debate has done so very much to destroy any glimmer of hope I might have that Hotcod was right and people could look at evidence that might contradict their political biases.

[ShivaX]

No, we don't. We know spending is supposed to work. If spending actually always worked, then Japan would be an economic powerhouse. They've spent an ungodly amount of money in the past couple of decades -- 118 trillion yen, or about $1.2 trillion, in stimulus packages. Didn't work. If spending actually always worked, the Great Depression would have ended by1936 or so. It actually got worse. The theory behind spending is fantastic, but the experience is a lot less good. If the US becomes a highly theoretical country, I'll agree that spending definitely works.


Japan just proves that we shouldn't give free money to the banks, it completely failed, yet we're basically doing it anyway. As far as that goes I wont disagree that just spending money doesn't equal success.

Theres a whole Daily Show skit and interview that goes against this logic (well the Depression and it getting worse). In the final analysis it was basically: FDR's actions improved the situation, then the extra spending caused a dip in his success (it was still better than before he did anything) and finally the spending of WW2 pulled us out of the depression.

If I get bored I'll try to look up the clips and especially the interview. Actually I think the interview might have been Colbert now that I think of it.

Heres the Colbert interview:
http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/221837/march-16-2009/the-new-deal---jonathan-chait

[Ravenlock]

Actually, "critersise" is when you criticize someone while simultaneously engaging in Jazzercise. It strengthens your core.

I'm catching up in this thread and goddammit this is hilarious. Bravo, sir. Five stars.

[Ravenlock]

Annnd done. Hotcod and Johan, +respect for the amicable wrapup.

[Ox]

Japan just proves that we shouldn't give free money to the banks, it completely failed, yet we're basically doing it anyway. As far as that goes I wont disagree that just spending money doesn't equal success.
Japan also did a lot of stupid and wasteful construction projects as well. Oh, I'm sorry, I meant "repairing our crucial national infrastructure."

As for the Colbert interview: Chait is not an economist of any stripe. And one of the big reasons World War II improved the economy isn't simply the government spending, but also the tremendous labor shortage at home (hey, take out millions of men from the labor pool by putting them in uniform, and suddenly unemployment drops. What a shock!). I'm not saying the New Deal didn't have any beneficial effects. But there were a lot of factors at work during the New Deal period, and it's hard to clearly identify how much any one factor influenced the economy in one way or another. If government spending was this wonderful super-reliable method of improving the economy, one would expect the past 70+ years of experience with Keynesian stimulus to have come up with tons of examples in which government spending at least plausibly improved demand-side recessions -- especially without stimulating inflation, which is what the theory predicts. There aren't actually a ton of examples in which this happened.

I will say this: there is one, absolutely certain, way of reducing unemployment to virtually zero through government spending. It's quite efficient and has other beneficial effects. Just institute a universal draft. Voila. It's even cheaper if you then figure out a way to get a whole shitload of those guys killed off, so you don't have to keep paying their salaries.

[Esquilax1138]

I will say this: there is one, absolutely certain, way of reducing unemployment to virtually zero through government spending. It's quite efficient and has other beneficial effects. Just institute a universal draft. Voila. It's even cheaper if you then figure out a way to get a whole shitload of those guys killed off, so you don't have to keep paying their salaries.

Now we are talking! That is a great idea, what if all the countries with big unemployment problems made a secret deal to start off a big war but not really mean it? Like none of the main players would actually get invaded or bombed, we'd just pick some remote, isolated third world place, say Australia :p for instance, and use that as the battlefield/killing grounds.

Kind of like that Star Trek episode (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Taste_of_Armageddon) where two planets had a simulated war and sent the 'casualties' off to be killed.

*note to the Aussies, just kidding, I'd be happy to offer up Manitoba to be used for the battlefield as well, you could blow up 90% of it and no one would notice :D

[mister slim]

We could just collect all the ocean debris together to form a new continent in the middle of the Pacific. Call it Trashland. It is of EXTREME STRATEGIC IMPORTANCE we capture Trashland immediately. Orange Star has always been at war with Blue Moon.

[Hotcod]

I will say this: there is one, absolutely certain, way of reducing unemployment to virtually zero through government spending. It's quite efficient and has other beneficial effects. Just institute a universal draft. Voila. It's even cheaper if you then figure out a way to get a whole shitload of those guys killed off, so you don't have to keep paying their salaries.

This is one thing we do agree on oddly enough, a term of service of a few years is one the most effective ways to spend a hell of a lot of money quickly in a temporary way. I'm just not sure people would like it that much.

[BlackPete]

Bill Maher says the GOP is divorced from reality. (http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-maher24-2009apr24,0,927819.story)

Here are the big issues for normal people: the war, the economy, the environment, mending fences with our enemies and allies, and the rule of law.

And here's the list of Republican obsessions since President Obama took office: that his birth certificate is supposedly fake, he uses a teleprompter too much, he bowed to a Saudi guy, Europeans like him, he gives inappropriate gifts, his wife shamelessly flaunts her upper arms, and he shook hands with Hugo Chavez and slipped him the nuclear launch codes.

Yeah this whole article is pretty flamebait-worthy, but I do agree with him on one point: What the hell were the teabag parties were all about anyway?

[mister slim]

That taxes were the product of the muslin antichrist (Obama). Before him there were no taxes.

[MagGnome]

The whole Hugo Chavez "controversy" is ridiculously. Anyone who watches the FULL CLIP, and not just that ridiculous shot that Fox and other right-wing networks and blogs love to show, knows that Chavez basically ambushed Obama.

What was he supposed to do, punch Chavez in the face? Maybe it's best to just be as rude as possible?

[ShivaX]

Maybe it's best to just be as rude as possible?

vTHxkIfnxTA

[MagGnome]

Right on ShivaX. ;)

[Generation ABXY]

Yeah this whole article is pretty flamebait-worthy...

Good thing you posted it then. :p

...but I do agree with him on one point: What the hell were the teabag parties were all about anyway?

I swear to God, I'll pistol-whip the next guy that says teabag.

What was he supposed to do, punch Chavez in the face?

Joking or not, I have to say that would be awesome to see. :D

[Slack3r78]

God forbid American leaders engage in diplomacy.

[Ox]

Too bad it wasn't raining. Obama could have held the umbrella. ;)

[Slack3r78]

Too bad it wasn't raining. Obama could have held the umbrella. ;)
Plus they could have had a totally hot commie makeout session in the rain like in the movies.

[torrefaction]

What was he supposed to do, punch Chavez in the face? Maybe it's best to just be as rude as possible?

No. Absolutely not. That would be ridiculous.

He should've pimp slapped him instead. Way more fitting.

[Ox]

Just for my edification: who here was scandalized by the photo of Rumsfeld smiling and shaking hands with Saddam Hussein?

[torrefaction]

Just for my edification: who here was scandalized by the photo of Rumsfeld smiling and shaking hands with Saddam Hussein?

Scandalized would be the wrong word. I didn't like it, but I understood the need.

Just like right now.

[TheFlyingOrc]

Bill Maher says the GOP is divorced from reality. (http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-maher24-2009apr24,0,927819.story)

Anyone on PETA's advisory board does not get a say in who is and isn't divorced from reality.

[torrefaction]

You know? Fuck Bill Maher. He latched on two of the weakest examples he possibly could.

I don't know a single conservative who doesn't think Bachmann is batshit, and Gov. Perry had to apologize and recall his calls for concessions because his base thought he was insane.

Shitty research, shitty article.

[TheFlyingOrc]

You know? Fuck Bill Maher. He latched on two of the weakest examples he possibly could.

Bill Maher honestly feels like a funnier Bill O'Reilly to me.

[Ink Asylum]

Just for my edification: who here was scandalized by the photo of Rumsfeld smiling and shaking hands with Saddam Hussein?

I believe the scandal wasn't because the photo involved a US leader shaking hands with a dictator, but that it was a visual reminder of how the US actively supported said dictator before declaring him an enemy. (http://www.famouspictures.org/mag/index.php?title=Donald_Rumsfeld_Shakes_Hands_With_ Saddam_Hussein)

President Regan saw disaster if Iran's revolutionary government overran Iraq and created the National Security Decision Directive 114 on Nov. 26, 1983 that changed US policy from neutral observer to active supplier of military supplies, battle field intelligence, and most controversially dual-use technology that allowed Saddam to create WMDs.

[MagGnome]

You know? Fuck Bill Maher. He latched on two of the weakest examples he possibly could.

I don't know a single conservative who doesn't think Bachmann is batshit, and Gov. Perry had to apologize and recall his calls for concessions because his base thought he was insane.

Shitty research, shitty article.


Bachman's reelection was a travesty for Minnesota. She is absolutely fucking crazy. Possibly even crazier than Ann Coulter.

Come to think of it, she's almost certainly crazier than Coulter. I doubt that Coulter believes half the shit she spews out of her mouth, but I have little doubt that Bachman is anything but totally delusional.

[BlackPete]

Bachman's reelection was a travesty for Minnesota. She is absolutely fucking crazy. Possibly even crazier than Ann Coulter.

Come to think of it, she's almost certainly crazier than Coulter. I doubt that Coulter believes half the shit she spews out of her mouth, but I have little doubt that Bachman is anything but totally delusional.

I don't know about Coulter not believing half the shit she spews... recently she used her mother's death as a chance for some more Lib-bashing. That either takes a disgusting level of trolling most sane people wouldn't stoop to, or she is seriously insane.

[DylonCorp]

What was he supposed to do, punch Chavez in the face? Maybe it's best to just be as rude as possible?

Could've teabagged him... Just for you, ABXY!

I don't know about Coulter not believing half the shit she spews... recently she used her mother's death as a chance for some more Lib-bashing.

Ann Coulter had a mother? I thought the skeletal forces of the dead were raised by loathsome rituals?

[MagGnome]

Ann Coulter is one of the one most hateful, bile creatures on Earth. Her death will be a day to celebrate as one less evil walks the world.

[Ox]

Ann Coulter is one of the one most hateful, bile creatures on Earth. Her death will be a day to celebrate as one less evil walks the world.
Yeah, it's pretty evil to say incredibly offensive and hateful things about a person because you disagree with the person's politics.

[Hawkzombie]

I'm sorely disappointed at the utter lack of tea at these parties.

[DylonCorp]

Yeah, it's pretty evil to say incredibly offensive and hateful things about a person because you disagree with the person's politics.

Eh, if she wants me to pull my punches she can register a username.

[ShivaX]

Yeah, it's pretty evil to say incredibly offensive and hateful things about a person because you disagree with the person's politics.

To be fair, Coulter is pretty deserving of the hate (though probably not to the extent I'd celebrate her death persay).

Huckabee, as an example, has the same politics but I'd wish nothing but good things for the guy. Coulter could be saying the same thing as Huckabee and I'd smile if a truck hit her.

I think my dislike of her comes from her being a living caricature of an ideology. The same goes for Beck, Hannity, Franken or Olbermann (sorry can't think of as many lefty people - insert every random hippy protester there is). These people decide how they feel about everything based on talking points from their respective parties. If Obama does something, Hannity says it wrong. When Bush was around everything he did was wrong to Olbermann no matter the scenario.

Then you have people like Bill Maher and Mike Huckabee. I don't agree with them on most issues, they'll have a point here and there, but ultimately you get why they feel the way they do and where they are coming from. They're willing to discuss things and make their case and while they tend to tow the party line they aren't neccessarily out to get the "other guy" above all else (well Maher tends to be anti-GOP more than Huckabee is anti-Dem by a long shot).

Basically anytime your argument begins or involves a statement like "Liberals/Conservatives want to..." odds are you're full of shit and worthy of disdain. O'Reilly lost me when he started labelling everything as "liberal" and "leftist". Prior to that he was a guy that typically made a good case, even if you didn't agree with it. Then he got too full of his own shit and he lost me completely.

[MagGnome]

Yeah, it's pretty evil to say incredibly offensive and hateful things about a person because you disagree with the person's politics.

I'm assuming you were referring to me and not Coulter herself. She is a hateful, vile creature, period. Much of what comes out of her mouth is absolutely abhorrent.

[Ox]

I'm assuming you were referring to me and not Coulter herself. She is a hateful, vile creature, period. Much of what comes out of her mouth is absolutely abhorrent.
Why on Earth would I refer to you? She's the one who is hateful and vile, right? And if she is hateful and vile, you should wish for her to die and dance on her grave.

After all, she says really mean things about people who disagree with her. And that's a terribly evil thing to do. It is right and just to pray for her death.

EDIT: Perhaps we should pray for her to be raped and mutilated before dying. She deserves it, right?

[Johan]

Ox, you sound flustered. Might I suggest some Air America? ;) Perhaps some Faux News? ;)

[rifter]

I think my dislike of her comes from her being a living caricature of an ideology. The same goes for Beck, Hannity, Franken or Olbermann (sorry can't think of as many lefty people - insert every random hippy protester there is). These people decide how they feel about everything based on talking points from their respective parties. If Obama does something, Hannity says it wrong. When Bush was around everything he did was wrong to Olbermann no matter the scenario.


I am going to defend Hannity here, because I like to listen to him on the Radio. The problem I see with most people, is that they see he is on Fox News, and make up in their mind that he follows these mysterious "talking points" that every news commentator magically gets assigned depending on their party affiliation.

Anyhow, you ever listen to him rail, day after day about Bush, and how he was screwing things up? If you didn't, it means you never EVER listened to Hannity for anything more than dropping by on the way to another station. Hannity is a small-business, fiscal conservative. He is an ardent follower of Reagan conservatism, which the current GOP left behind a good decade plus ago. It always annoys men, when I see him lumped up in with the links of Franken. Franken and Coulter can be compared together, since they are kind of the extremes of their respective parties. Olberman, what I have seen of him, seems like a moron, kind of like the flip side Savage. I know nothing about Beck.

[Ink Asylum]

I challenge you to find some quotes from Franken that come anywhere near what Coulter regularly writes.

[rifter]

I challenge you to find some quotes from Franken that come anywhere near what Coulter regularly writes.


“No Child Left Behind is the most ironically named piece
of legislation since the 1942 Japanese Family Leave Act.”

– Al Franken in a speech at the University
of Missouri-Columbia, Nov 19, 2003

Because you know... legislation that is meant to help kids do better in school is so similar to putting Japanese Americans in internment camps.


“What must it be like to live in Rush Limbaugh’s world? A world where when anyone other than conservative, white men attempts to do anything or enter any profession, be it business, politics, art or sports, the only reason they’re allowed entry or, incredibly, attain excellence is because the standard was lowered. Be they liberals, people of color, women, the poor or anyone with an accent. … Edgy, controversial, brilliant. What a way to shake up intelligent sports commentary. Hitler would have killed in talk radio. He was edgy, too.” – CBS Sunday Morning contributor Nancy Giles, 10/5/03.

[MagGnome]

Why on Earth would I refer to you? She's the one who is hateful and vile, right? And if she is hateful and vile, you should wish for her to die and dance on her grave.

After all, she says really mean things about people who disagree with her. And that's a terribly evil thing to do. It is right and just to pray for her death.

EDIT: Perhaps we should pray for her to be raped and mutilated before dying. She deserves it, right?

Apparently I hit a nerve. You do realize that I wouldn't actually dance on her grave, right?

[Johan]

Franken is going to do nothing but bring more poisonous rancor and partisan blindness and idiocy to Washington. He's an embarrassment. I'd be disgusted to be represented by him, as I would feel if Coulter were a senator from my state. What a joke. Literally.

[MagGnome]

Franken is going to do nothing but bring more poisonous rancor and partisan blindness and idiocy to Washington. He's an embarrassment. I'd be disgusted to be represented by him, as I would feel if Coulter were a senator from my state. What a joke. Literally.

I'm not the biggest fan of Al Franken, but I voted for him because he'll be a hell of a lot better than Norm Coleman, or at least I hope he will be.

Minnesota has some pretty shitty representatives. Bachmann alone makes me question the intelligence of Minnesotans.

[Ox]

Apparently I hit a nerve. You do realize that I wouldn't actually dance on her grave, right?
I'm not really offended. And I'm sure Ann Coulter isn't planning to literally piss on Ted Kennedy's grave, either.

But this is exactly the mindset Ann Coulter has. One person says something offensive. The other side gets offended and takes it to the next level. And we go back and forth until Ann Coulter is calling all Democrats traitors and you are openly wishing for her to die. What makes you even a fraction of a hair's-breadth better than her?

Seriously, I'm curious. You obviously think she's a contemptible person, and you obviously don't think the same applies to you. What is the difference? Because you know you're really a good person who just says mean things sometimes? What makes you so sure she's any different?

[Johan]

Bachmann alone makes me question the intelligence of Minnesotans.

I don't know who that is, but that's probably because I don't watch cable news and I try to avoid crazies.

[MagGnome]

She casts a very wide net, and makes it a point to say things that are ridiculously hateful and over the top. You can compare me to her when I'm out in public spewing hate about everyone who doesn't agree with me 100%.

Calling out one particular person and saying that I think she is a waste of space isn't quite the same as what Coulter does, but apparently you feel otherwise.

I'd really like to hear why you think I'm as "contemptible" as she is? Because I think we'd be better off without her? Should I have instead said that I wish she would just go away? Next time I'll avoid coming to the boards when I'm drunk and making a stupid statement about Ms. Coulter.

[MagGnome]

I don't know who that is, but that's probably because I don't watch cable news and I try to avoid crazies.

Suffice it to say she is nuts. You're better off not knowing. :p


Before anyone brings it up, I don't think Bachmann is crazy because I disagree with her politically, although I do not share most of her views. I think she is nuts because of her behavior and the MANY nutty things she has said and done in the past.

[Ox]

She casts a very wide net, and makes it a point to say things that are ridiculously hateful and over the top. You can compare me to her when I'm out in public spewing hate about everyone who doesn't agree with me 100%.
So you're better because you are filled with hate and bile about fewer people?

Calling out one particular person and saying that I think she is a waste of space isn't quite the same as what Coulter does
It's also not the same as what you said.

I'd really like to hear why you think I'm as "contemptible" as she is? Because I think we'd be better off without her? Should I have instead said that I wish she would just go away? Next time I'll avoid coming to the boards when I'm drunk and making a stupid statement about Ms. Coulter.
I don't think you are contemptible, apart from the sense in which all human beings are contemptible. I think you said something that was both obnoxious and over-the-top. Most of us do that from time to time. What I'm struck by is the fact that, rather than admitting you have trespassed against Coulter just as she has trespassed against you, you maintain that there is some important difference between the two of you.

I assumed that you simply were angry and said something bad, which we all do from time to time. But your explanation seems to be that you are really filled with a burning hatred, but it's OK because you only hate a few people.