Between Memorial Day weekend and my general laziness, we went a long time sans an open thread from the end of last week (From Friday morning to the DL Thread put up early on Tuesday). By the end of that time conversation generally dried up in the previous open thread, and people started writing off topic in other threads.
Those off topic comments got deleted, and it naturally caused some anger. It’s one thing to say “post that in an open thread” when there’s an open thread from today or yesterday. It’s another thing to say, “post that in an open thread, um from a week ago.” Darryl and I discussed it at Drinking Liberally, and I’m not sure we came up with an answer, but we had some thoughts. I’d like to explain what I usually do and what I did the rest of this week, and then I’ll discuss some possible things going forward.
Normally, I try to do 2 or 3 open threads a week, spaced out, but it’s more when I have enough things that I find interesting to link to than a specific amount of time. I try to have at least one local link and one thing that doesn’t involve politics (sports, science, music, etc.) in every open thread. I’ve been making an effort to link to some Eastern WA content with not that much success, and to link to women and people of color with more success, but neither of those has been a hard and fast rule. Also, if someone else does an open thread, I’ll wait until the next day to do one, even if mine is ready.
This week, on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday I changed that up a bit. I posted open threads all three of those days (and tried to post all in the morning, but didn’t have the time on Thursday). I don’t think the quality of the links was as good in general, and there was a pretty major fuck up in one of those links on Thursday (from me scanning the headlines instead of reading the post). I think that looking for stuff for more open threads took away time for writing other posts.
So, going forward, I don’t really want to manually do an open thread with links every day. But here’s some thoughts that Darryl and I discussed:
- Just keep doing what we’re doing. We usually have them every few days, and so what if nothing comes up because of long weekend or one of us is on vacation, well that’s not the end of the world.
- Creating an open thread user that the rest of us can edit. Everyone add links as we find them. There’s some possibility that we can step on each other’s toes, and it might be annoying to do it from the back end. We’d have some problems deciding when it’s ready to go.
- There’s no inherent need to have links. I think they add a place to start the discussion and in general I like most of the blogs I link to. I think there’s some responsibility for higher traffic blogs to link to other blogs, especially in my case where my place at a high traffic blog isn’t really from my own hard work, but from being given the spot. But I imagine people will find something to talk about even without a link.
- We could do some sort of hybrid where, for example, on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday we just have an open thread and on Tuesday and Thursday we have an open thread with links.
I’m sure I’ve forgotten something since I discussed with Darryl on Tuesday, but those are my thoughts. I’d like to hear your thoughts and suggestions.
just do what you want without asking for input. too much process. try to be more succinct and write shorter posts. there’s an infinite set of pros and cons about everything though but please, it’s so seattley process-y to “ask your readership” what THEY would do. this is yours, own it, do what you want.
now to commence a debate. Obama said “if you got hit by a truck, it’s going to take a while for you to mend. And that’s what’s happened to our economy. It’s taking a while to mend.”
Is this not a false and lame account of what happened to the eeconomy? It’s rather odd that Obama doesn’t fault anyone in particular….any policies in particular….any groups of people in particular who might for example have captured the GOP turned it inot a big lie machine have captured part of the dems also turned them them gotten huge tax cuts wrecking our finances shifting wealth to the rich and then deregulation coorrupting both parties and turning wall street into I dunno, a giant squid sucking up all available cash in america aided by ….oh I dunno, cost free bailouts so that wall street makes fantastic rpofits the socializes the risk turning our entire nation into….oh I dunno another finance bubble scam machine…….I guess that would be too partisan, no it’s far better to just say “golly gee whilikers this ehre economy SOMEHOW just got hit by a truck and it takes a long time to mend!”
cuz then you don’t actually take responsiblity and don’t have to you know, have a jobs program or anything. And you can continue to pretend that your mini stimulus was adequate, the real priority is coming together to balance the budget and attack the deficit, etc….and not ….
fixing the kitchen table deficit of the 25 million out of work and underemployed…..
I mean do the unemployed even matter to the democrats any more?
do they, the democrats, now know how we got out of the great depression?
hint: not thru balanced budgets or smaller gummint that’s for sure.
double hint: why do we have no monument to FDR and Big Government since that is exactly what got us out of the depression leading to sustained growth for a few decades and solving a fiscal impabalance way worse than the one we got now, also including higher taxes on the rich?
have we just forgotten it. I mean all you hear today is this NONSENSE that the rich are too unconfident to create jobs but if we give them more money then they use that money to create jobs, see? totally ignoring the truth which is they invest to create jobs for one reason only: um…they think this will make them money. And in that calculus the money they pay is a “cost” — the job salaries and wages — and there has to be a “profit” ….so say they can make $100K in profit why would taxing that profit 36% rather than 33% make one whit of difference to the decision to create that job and garner the $100K in profit?
Answer: it wouldn’t. It’s all a big like. So the real question is this. We know the GOP l;eadres lie, and why — they do it out of greed and their own self interest. And we know why many like puddyfool and all the right wingers follow them — they’re both stupid, and desperate for connection, easily played and used. But the real question is this:
why doesn’t obama tell us the real reason we’re not seeing more jobs?
Answer: e’d have to admit he was wrong in making the stimulus too small, and he was wrong in not fighting the gop more, and he was wrong in his entire bipartisan above it all approach and the most basic keynesian economics (fully validated in a real world experiment in say…..1937 through 1945) tells us this and more,
always told us this even in 2009…and
so he’d have to admit being wrong. In shooting too low. In his whole approach.
now discuss y’all.
And if you disagree, please tell me how you think we got out of the depression, can’t wait to hear hwo it was thru the magic of lowering taxes to induce the rich job creators to create jobs cuz the gummint got outa the way blah blah blah ….
You should program your software so it’ll automatically post a new open thread at 6 a.m. every day.
Don’t worry about links, we have plenty of pompous assholes to provide topics to argue about.
@1 Most economists agree the stimulus was too small.
Real world experience has demonstrated that Keynes was right and the supply-siders are full of shit.
Obama is a typical spineless Democrat who lacks the guts to stand up to Republican bullies and we’d unquestionably be better off if he did.
Hitler and Tojo — and tons of debt — pulled us out of the Great Depression.
Obama’s “getting hit by truck” analogy isn’t all that bad, but the current economic crisis is more analogous to a slowly unfolding train wreck. It was 25 years in the making. Its roots lie in the wage stagnation that began in 1970. But even though real incomes stopped going up for most Americans 40 years ago, the standard of living kept going up and up and up. Here’s how. First people stopped saving. Then they spent their savings. Then they borrowed against their home equity. Then they borrowed on credit cards. Government economic policy facilitiated this process through Federal Reserve policies that assured cheap and plentiful credit. So American consumers splurged beyond their means. This spending spree, of course, was unsustainable and had to, and did, hit a wall.
Has anyone noticed that financial panics, recessions, depressions, and systemic abuses are, far from being unusual, regularly and frequently occurring features of a capitalist system? And the more unregulated the system is, the more frequently and violently these meltdowns occur.
Depressions are not acts of God or nature. They are a man-made phenomenon and they happen because someone profits from them. Want to guess who? Here’s a hint: Depressions are tremendous wealth-concentrators.
An Island County judge has dismissed a crackpot lawsuit brought against county officials by property rights fanatics who think a code inspector violated their Fourth Amendment rights against unreasonable search and seizure by posting a “Stop Work” order on their property.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/43277569
“Building permit? What building permit? I don’t need no frikken building permit!”
Same advice as @2. I know at least one blogger who pre-loads content and then adds their own daily thoughts as a second post, most days.
I also agree with @1, so far as it’s your own blog so do what you want. But if having an automatic post cuts down on moderation headache, win-win.
The Grand Coulee Dam big enough for ya!
We, also, don’t have a monument to Eisenhower and the national highway system which cost a fortune and added to the size and power of the federal government.
The Friday Night Link Fest is enough of that sort of thing for me.
An open thread every other day or so would be fine. Any more than that and things really do start getting stupid.
@3
Yup! The more heavily regulated credit union system has barely had a hiccup during the banking melt down.
@1,6
Both Ike and FDR saw that people were out of work and that there was work the nation needed done, so they hired the out of work folks to do the work that needed doing. It’s pretty simple really.
I have a few qualms about Bush/Obama have done.
The first being that they spent very little of their money on the ground floor. We needed and still need more money and work for actual workers. Republicans like block grants and they would have been a good way to get money out to the people.
Second, you need to spend the money on things we actually need and I’m having a hard time seeing this with a lot of the loans we gave to banks. We could have put new roofs on schools and trained more nurses with that money.
Third, they not only let bad actors get away with breaking the laws those bad actors made money. We should have seen more firms go belly up (we could retrain the math whizzes to teach math to junior high kids) and we should have seen finical sector folks in perp walks. We should have seen a lot of perp walks.
Forth, money exists to pay for this stuff, we’re just spending it on the wrong things like the Iraq war and a lot of it is tied up by the richest couple of % of people the planet has ever known. We should have ditched the Bush tax cuts the day after Obama took the oath. The Dem’s should have ditched the tax cuts and the giveaways to companies like ADM and the Big Oil fuckers and announced that from here on out we’re bringing back paygo. Heh, if nothing else they would have stolen some thunder from the Republicans.
About 10.4% of the entire African-American male population in the United States aged 25 to 29 was incarcerated, by far the largest racial or ethnic group—by comparison, 2.4% of Hispanic men and 1.2% of white men in that same age group were incarcerated. According to a report by the Justice Policy Institute in 2002, the number of black men in prison has grown to five times the rate it was twenty years ago. Today, more African-American men are in jail than in college. In 2000 there were 791,600 black men in prison and 603,032 enrolled in college. In 1980, there were 143,000 black men in prison and 463,700 enrolled in college.
putting aside the fact that in itself this
statistic is catastrophic for our future, the real problem is that liberals blame republicans for cutting social programs and conservatives blame liberals for enabling a culture of irresponsibility. we are in big trouble.
i should have mentioned that if im not mistaken that statistic is 10 years old. im guessing it didnt get any better.
@2. Roger Rabbit spews
Don’t worry about links, we have plenty of pompous assholes to provide topics to argue about.
———————
right
@3. Roger Rabbit spews:
Most economists agree the stimulus was too small.
————————-
what a bunch of shit, how many economists are there and how many have you spoken to, or even read about. Speak for yourself, you are often correct.
Hitler and Tojo — and tons of debt — pulled us out of the Great Depression.
——————–
debt your rodent ass, European rearmament pulled us out, and they paid cash until they ran out.
Has anyone noticed that financial panics, recessions, depressions, and systemic abuses are, far from being unusual, regularly and frequently occurring features of a capitalist system? And the more unregulated the system is, the more frequently and violently these meltdowns occur.
————————–
true, in a free market investors try to predict the future, when enough guess wrong, very bad things can happen. The problem is that eliminating free exchange makes things worse; I suppose South Korea has had its share of booms and busts yet I doubt you’ll argue that the people of North Korea are better off without a market system than their southern neighbors.
Depressions are not acts of God or nature. They are a man-made phenomenon and they happen because someone profits from them.
————————————-
of course depressions are a man-made phenomenon, as are booms; it is an inevitable byproduct of a market system. And yes, when some investors guess wrong and others guess right someone profits, that is also the natural result of a market system.
Want to guess who? Here’s a hint: Depressions are tremendous wealth-concentrators.
————————————-
thanks for pointing that out. There is a real danger that inflation will push us over the cliff into depression, wiping out the savings of the middle class and further concentrating wealth. Democrats I suspect are quite eager to see a self-reliant middle-class destroyed (too Republican) and welcome a huge increase in the poor (who depend upon government welfare programs and thus are reliable Democrat voters). But before you Democrats celebrate, recall the Weimar Republic.
Hmm… Interesting news from John Huntsman’s camp:
Since Goldy’s erzatz departure for Strangerland, content (of the topical variety) has largely dried up, or at least down to a trickle.
Want more on-topic conversation? Worry less about “open thread” posts and lay down some more regular, topical content. Where are the rants? The challenges? The troublemaking? Where are the Snowdens of yesteryear?
Less kvetching. More FUCK. That’s what I say. Start some shit. Post some challenges. Poke a public figure or two in the eye.
Pretty please?
Fuck, Jeff nailed it!
But, watch yourself the Governor or Lisa Brown might call out the state patrol on your ass.
I add my voice.
There is a need for more and divers content in the posts.
Uh. That’s a point in his favor with me.
The ethanol subsidies are a freaking crime.
There used to be a blog at this site that was interesting to read, that had a variety of topics on local politics, that challenged the establishment, and so forth. Now we have a blog by the same name that fights to be relevant. The current writers seem to struggle to come up with an occasional post that isn’t just a restatement of their own single issue.
Clearly, that is a huge struggle when the bloggers have so little passion for their topics and for their blog, to the point that they want to just mail it in and automate it.
Hey! You committed to babysit Goldy’s blog for him. Either do it properly, or get out of the way and find someone with more interest in the issues to take over for you.
If I want to see the the unintelligent rantings of the same dozen posters over and over, I can go the website of any major metropolitan newspaper and read comments there. What a waste! You can’t even be bothered to come up with a topic for them to discuss.
Either man-up and have some varied opinions and write some real content, or just take the blog down. As long as it is here, I keep my hopes up that someday there will be some actual regular content on this link.
I’m actually rooting for you all. Do something good. Do something bold. Whining that you don’t have the time to stick up an open thread is just the proof that you have really given up.
Actually, I would like to add that I do really enjoy the lists of links to articles that I might enjoy and would otherwise miss. It’s a good thing.
It is just, at the moment, the best thing that HA has to offer. That is what needs to change.
If you want to have an Open Thread every other day and ask readers for their opinion on posting policy every week, why not just make this into a forum instead of a blog?
@18
that had a variety of topics on local politics, that challenged the establishment, and so forth
bryan, you didnt get the memo. as long as obama is president, there is no “challenging the establishment”. first, it could appear to br racist. second, as when any democrat is president, challenging the establishment gets called anti government, anf we blame things like mcvey’s bombing or the shooting of catherine gifford. if you liked to challengen you should have been here when bush was president. now those were the days.
um, rabbit dude at @3…you agree with me but you miss the main freaking point.
“Obama’s “getting hit by truck” analogy isn’t all that bad, but the current economic crisis is more analogous to a slowly unfolding train wreck” — WRONG, FAIL, MISS THE POINT.
The analogy is bad because it says in essence we are in a great recession by ACCIDENT.
In fact it is a foreseeable result of intentional wrongdoing by the gop and democratic collaborators who deregulated wall street then blocked a sufficient stimulus, all combined with intentional laffer curve policies a/k/a “lies” that say we need lower taxes therefore we are in a permanent underfunding of govt crisis disempowering us from using gummint to do the keynesian thing which, you correctly note in full agremeent with me, we did earlier on as a result of what tojo and hitler were doing.
But itn’s no accident. It’s the deliberate result the right wing is foisting on us; they are to blame; and obama’s messaging is off, and not helpful, as it does not ASSIGN BLAME nor explain this train wreck.
if you put looters on the train who got their with the connivance of the upper management …let’s call them tony soprana et famille….and systematically stripped all the trains of their safety systems, and brakes…and the result was they got obscene profits up front…then there was a big train wreck and we all bailed out the trains…well you could have some kind of a train wreck analogy.
but when you just say train wreck in the neutral accidental way, YOU ARE BUYING INTO THE RIGHT WING FRAME DUDE thus helping the gop get away with by suggesting “these things just happen.”
No. No. They don’t just happen. They are the result of the lie of “cutting taxes and smaller gummint leads to economic growth” when the opposite is provably true; that lie was told for greed and profit by actual people not nameless forces; it combined with the deregulation lie told by actual people, on both sides of the aisle, who were hungry for wall street donations; and until obama tells us the truth about the cause and who to blame….
we will continue to suffer depression level unemployment.
and perhaps the gop will win.
becuase the democrats have no plan, and unemployment is worse now than when obama took office.
and he’s wrong and you’re wrong it wasn’t a train wreck accident.
it was looting and fraud. by thieves. collaborated with by many in both parties.
NOtice how no right winger disproves my thesis? that the full on keynesianism of 1939-45 got us out of the depression, and big gummint brought us…. a big economy?
we have one saying ” I got news for ya it was european rearmenent!”
like most ignorant right wing morons, he doesn’t even realize that fully agrees with my thesis.
yes, the threat of the nazis made europe buy stuff.
oh wait, who in europe could buy stuff? oh it was england. oh wait, how did that happen?
lend fucking lease. they were broke dumbass. we gave gummint credit dumbass.
then we ourselves built a shitload of tanks and planes and that led to full employment and BINGO we got out of the depression, permanently, say for a few decades.
Now another mental midget sez this:
double hint: why do we have no monument to FDR and Big Government
The Grand Coulee Dam big enough for ya!
” why do we have no monument to FDR and Big Government
The Grand Coulee Dam big enough for ya! ”
No. It’s not. First of all you could ask 95% of all americans what it is they wouldn’t know. Becuase you know, most of america doesn’t even know what washington state is. Second, most wouldn’t know it was from a guy named Roosevelt. Third, you notice it’s called something in french, it’s not claled the Roosevelt dam? Fourth, roosevelt doesn’t have a big old monument on the mall…..he’s not on mt. rushmore….we didn’t name national airport in dc after him…..he’s not on the dime….we basically take the most successful usa president of the 20th century…..ending the depression, avoiding famine, winning world war 2 and setting up a long era of postwar peace…..
and the democratic party fails to teach his lessons day in and day out all across the land
and that’s why our democratic party is pale imitation gop
obama is sitting there agreeing the deficit is the no. 1 problem. fuck man, does he even care about 25 million unemployed? obviously putting them to work would lead to ……..
higher employment. more tax revenue. grow your way out of recesscion thru big gummint.
we did it before. why not do it again?
because we liberals pat on the back the democrats who fail to have vision. we reelect them. we barely complain. we give them enough votes to win enabling them as junior partners of tim eyman or the national gop…. the “we cut less than the gop party!” instead of the party for the people.
really the democratic party is a failure. here we were with huge majorities…a compelling president….great power base ….
and today unemployment is higher than when obama took office.
and he’s got NO PLAN FOR CREATING JOBS.
what the fuck kind of democratic party is that?
its’ a bunch of self satisfied retired state workers who got a good retirement and don’t mind if others suffer. it’s a bunch of yuppie intellectuals who love obama’s coolness and that he’s black but don’t bother to get all riled up about unemployment. it’s a party that has abandoned the working class. then they sit in wonder at why the working class would vote gop.
we have the best story in the world to tell about detroit. gm. chrysler. should be preaching that in every football stadium across the land and using it to support political programs for MORE BIG GUMMINT INTERNVENTION TO CREATE JOBS.
but no, politics is all about balancing the budget.
now come right wingers don’t be so scaredy pants.
you tell me — how did we get out of the great depression? come on tell me it was smaller government, reducing borrowing, lowering taxes on rich people a/k/a job creators?
right?
you don’t even have the guts to answer. because you know we got out of the depression thru big gummint, higher taxes, gvt. internvetion and control, and massive borrowing to create a full employment machine …ah the fear of capitalists everywhere, expensive labor….and that machine not only got us out of the depression it won world war two and it set us up for decades of prosperity.
until 1981 when the reagan laffer curve lie took hold. since then the middle class is in decline and american is in declien, except those clinton years.
now these are the basic facts. notice how the right wing puddyfudger set doesn’t even answer. they know this is the truth. but they can’t admit being wrong, so when you simply tell them the truth they run away and hide.
come on puddy fudger. how did we get out of the depression? what did we do to grow the economy and create jobs? try to tell me in 1939-45 we doubled our gdp by letting the free market do its work and lowering taxes and having gummint “get out of the way.” That’s your core belief, right? try to defend it. try. don’t be a total wuss.
We, also, don’t have a monument to Eisenhower
@22
In fact it is a foreseeable result of intentional wrongdoing by the gop and democratic collaborators who deregulated wall street then blocked a sufficient stimulus, all combined with intentional laffer curve policies a/k/a “lies” that say we need lower taxes therefore we are in a permanent underfunding of govt crisis disempowering us from using gummint to do the keynesian thing which, you correctly note in full agremeent with me, we did earlier on as a result of what tojo and hitler were doing.
thats pretty close.
intentional, yes. barney frank demanding banks lend to inner city applicants was like printing money for banks, mortgage brokers , real estate angents. but the more insidious reason was to continue the destruction of the middle class so you have the poor, voting democrat of course, and the super wealthy, running the show.
@22
“We, also, don’t have a monument to Eisenhower”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eisenhower_Monument
http://www.nassaulegion.org/Ei.....uments.htm
http://www.myfoxdfw.com/dpp/ne.....birthplace
FYI, Google is your friend.
look. that’s quibblism in the highest degree. some minor monument to eishenhower isn’t a monument to eisenhower like we got ’em for washington jefferson lincoln etc., you know, a big old marble thing on the fucking national mall or mt. rushmore.
there is monument to FDr too it’s a tiney plaque in the ground in DC somewhere. Woo hoo.
the point is this.
Democrats don’t celebrate and teach New Dealism in any way at all, much less the kind of systematic, deep, repeated, Maine to Hawwaii over and over and over and over way that the GOP mis-teaches amurka that “big gummint takes welath from the job creators” and there other lies and mischief. So even when we are right, we simply disempower ourselves. I mean the democratic party still has a jefferson jackson day dinner — not a roosevelt dinner. We should have a massve marble monument, roosevelt birthday a holiday, etc. he fucking beat the depression AND won world war 2. come on. This is on a part with lincoln. Teddy. Jefferson. This is linked to the fact that a bunch of liberal bloggers like on this site know what to do to fix the economy but stenny hoyer and obama don’t seem to know what to do.
just do the new deal all over again. it worked before. it would work again.
btw look at china, they are using big old gummint and THEY’RE growing at 6 or 9 percent year in and year out. how dumb do we have to get
to get it?
laissez faire = somalia. The gop wants us to be guatemala in the late 1950s….were’s puddyfudgy answering my questions btw…..
they are cowards at bottom. because they know they’re just tools and fools of the right wing gop lie machine.
@22 Sorry, we disagree, I really don’t think GOPers are smart enough to have created this train wreck on purpose.
The FDR memorial is actually quite grand in an understated way. I’ve been there a number of times and it always makes me well up a bit.
Here’s some pictures:
FDR Memorial Pics
@27.
What they did on purpose was this:
1. continually lie for years since 1981 that lowering taxes leads to economic growth and job creation. As a result, we, the D side, are too scared to do a real stimulus.
2. deregulation…the GOP lead the way the D’s also are to blame, but they deliberately did this knowing full well that
actions that don’t have consequences tend to
be free in economic theory thus if you are AIG executive you are a fool not to grab the moolah and run upt he risk and wereck the company and the economy. They knew it could happen.
You think this is all one big mistake? their plan is out there in the open. they want to starve the beast knowign full well this gummint beast is the only one we can tame…the only one that can tame THEM….
but hey if you want to give the gop credit, believe in their good faith, basically adopt their line, go right ahead.
“WASHINGTON — Democratic economist Alice Rivlin said Sunday the debt ceiling increase should be paired with a long-term plan for dealing with the deficit, a strategy currently being pushed by congressional Republicans.”
Guess she believes in the gop line, too.
FDR had a different line, he said outright there are malefactors of great wealth. Was he wrong, too?
why doens’t rivlin insist on a jobs deficit cure plan before raising the debt ceiling?
because base democrats like you give them a pass.
@28 thanks for the info but….
“grand in an understated way” is 100% nonsensical.
Not one person in 100 has ever heard of this memorial. It’s out of the way and it’s not grand and if you’re trying to say it’s as grand as the lincoln or jefferson ones, um, you’d be wrong.
there is a great tendency to quibble on the internet. my point remains: we have no big old monument to FDR [okay okay, “on a scale comparable to jefferson lincoln and washington” satisfied now? jeez. So literal. I give in! We DO have an FDR monument on a scale comparable to that of Grant or someone. There. Now, my point remains…we have no democratic party systemic teachinf of the lesson of ww2 economically that full on keynesianism was tried and it worked wonderfully; we have democrats like rivlin focusing on deficit like they’re members of the gop; this is the problem; the solution is to get off the “it was an accidental train wreck” like rabbit says” as if you thik that you won’t focus on the solution which is regulation and government induced demand neither of which was really tried and that’s because the gop stopped it and that’s why they are to blame. The point is they are to blame, they want lower taxes NOT becuase they truly belive this creates jobs, and they are acting in good fiath but are mistaken, whoopsie, they KNOW it’s horse puckey and they’re just greedy and evil. But go ahead, think they are folks of good faith with whom we should compromise…..that’s sure done us a lot of good hasn’t it? I mean come on, unemploymet is HIGHER NOW THAN WHEN OBAMA TOOK OFFICE.
Seriously you think that Ailes and Norquist and their ilk can’t know that their line on job creation is total bullshit? you think they honestly think “oh well if the gummint takes my money, I can’t use that money to create jobs”? as if the money they spend on wages is taxable? you know it isn’t right, it’s a cost of business so the tax rate has zero to do with how much money they have “available” to create jobs with? this is the simplest math. Costs are exlcuded from profit, only profit is taxed, every dollar spent creating jobs is cost and is pretax and the $100 profit you make you still want to make whether the tax rate is 33% or 36%. Because you come out ahead by 67 dollars, or 64 dollars. And that teeny diff. makes no diff. at all and the entire $1,000 you spent on labor doesn’t enter into it. The entire argument they make is a base simple lie, and you all think they’re just mistaken.
No wonder we lose so much. We’re simply too stupid to see what’s plainly going on.
“Oh thta NOrquist! He is just mistaken, he honestly believes that cutting taxes gives the rich more money to create jobs.”
This is like believing in the easter bunny.
No this is wrong. Norquist believes that cutting taxes starves the beast.
He hates big government with every fiber of his being. He’s dedicated his life to doing whatever he can to cause it to crumble into ruins.
Everything else is secondary. It doesn’t matter if some people get too stinking rich and create a stifling oligarchy. You can always pick up a gun and get to those people or become an oligarch yourself.
That’s the way he likes it.
@23 “because we liberals pat on the back the democrats who fail to have vision.”
No we don’t. We bash them. We also bash them for not being Republican enough when they need to be. For example, Wisconsin could use a Democratic county clerk who “finds” 14,000 more ballots in canvas bags with holes in them.
“we reelect them”
And our choice is what? Vote for Republicans?
@23 “a bunch of self satisfied retired state workers who got a good retirement and don’t mind if others suffer.”
I dare you to live on my state pension. I can’t. Last year 75% of my before-tax pension went for medical insurance premiums, deductibles, and copays. It’s a good thing I can live on grass.
All the state retirees I know have extremely modest lifestyles. They had very modest lifestyles while they were working, too. Taxpayers have a great deal with the education, talent, and skills in the state workforce for what they’re paying.
@29 “You think this is all one big mistake?”
I didn’t say that. I didn’t even say it was all one big greed binge, although that’s a major part of it. Throw in a huge dollop of criminal dishonesty and you’re most of the way there. There’s some dogmatic ideology involved, but that part is fairly uncomplicated — they hate paying taxes, and they hate being regulated. Their thinking didn’t really go much beyond grab-everything-you-can and every-man-for-himself.
@30 “unemploymet is HIGHER NOW THAN WHEN OBAMA TOOK OFFICE”
That’s true but unemployment peaked in the summer of 2009 because of events that occurred before Obama took office and has been falling (by fits and starts) since then as a result of Obama’s policies.
http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS14000000
@30 “Costs are exlcuded from profit, only profit is taxed, every dollar spent creating jobs is cost and is pretax”
Actually, that isn’t true. New capital is usually after-tax money. The argument is that reducing taxes on the rich leaves them with more money they can add to the pool of capital. There are times when it works that way, but not when — as now — there’s already surplus capital and idle productive capacity in the economy. The problem is lack of demand, not lack of capital, so even if raising taxes on the rich reduces the pool of capital available for investment in new enterprises or expanding existing enterprises, that will have zilch effect on economic output.
Plus, why should the rich get all the tax breaks to create more capital? Why not give those tax breaks to workers so they can own some of the capital? If the argument is they’ll just spend it, you can target those tax breaks by giving tax credits to people earning under $50,000 a year who purchase stocks or corporate bonds.
@34
Taxpayers have a great deal with the education, talent, and skills in the state workforce for what they’re paying.
for pete’s sake rog, you could supplement your pension by doing standup.
@39 Thanks for the suggestion. I need the money.
http://www.eschatonblog.com/20.....ad_05.html
Example: Eschaton
http://www.dailykos.com/story/.....via=blog_1
Example: Daily Kos
Maybe all you libs could stand on the street corner with cups marked national debt with Roger doing standup.. You might then be able to pay for all the socialism you desire.
Here is where we are headed because of the Obama Deficit machine
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/201...../us_greece
Like they do in Canada?
if anyone can explain the following to me, i’d be grateful. as you all know, advertisers go to great pains to have diverse commercial advertisements. if, say, there is a half dozen people in an ad, you’s have a black male, black female, one hispanic, white female, and last , and certainly least, white male. also lately, there has been a lost of asians. so how come, given the approx 5 to 1 everyone else to white male statistic, whenever the commercial calls for someome to act retarded, its always the white male who has to play that part?
anyone? anyone?
YLB, Canada pays for all its socialism, but is not doing so with a 14.4 trillion dollar debt, looking for an additional 2.4 trillion dollar Hike. They have a strong dollar, not a 33% home foreclosure rate, not a nervous stock market, and damn good savings account rates.
Get a clue what this debt bender OWEbama is doing, before the damage is too great to be undone. DEBT DOES MATTER
And By the way YLB,
Portugal election: Socialists admit defeat
The new government must implement a demanding austerity programme as a condition for an EU bail-out.
All the main parties are backing the 78bn euro ($116bn; £70bn) bail-out, which requires tough austerity measures amid a faltering economy and a DEBT crisis.
46 – Oh but Canada has a debt LD, 17 grand for every man, woman and child in an economy the tenth of the size of the U.S. No not as much as the U.S.’ 47k or Japan’s 80k but still a debt that has to be serviced year in, year out to maintain the full faith and credit of the Canadian treasury.
You keep bragging that you can escape to Canada but YOU ARE FULL OF SHIT LD. And any schoolboy can figure out why.
When the U.S. catches a cold, Canada gets a pneumonia. The two economies are as tightly integrated as any in the world. So if your beloved nightmare scenarios that you hock every day here like snake oil come to pass then Canada’s debt can only go through the roof.
If the U.S. really tanks, as is your fantasy, no one’s going to rush to take up the slack in cedar shingle exports – they’re all in the same boat dependent on the U.S. as an importer of last resort.
You’re trapped with your beloved Koch-caine fueled reveries FOR GOOD. Couldn’t happen to nicer fellow.
I know one thing, OWEBama cannot spend twice what the government takes in, 3.7 Trillion in the first 2 years 3700 Billion in deficit spending, while now demanding another 2.4 Trillion to piss away on BS social programs, without the cards tumbling in on America.
There are many economists and one hell of a lot of the population who feel the same way!
Do you watch the news at all YLB
Social Security is Broke
Medicare is Broke
Obama is now raiding the Federal Pension Plan
States are Broke
Debt DOES Matter!
Record Foreclosures
Record Unemployment
Record Gas Prices
Record Debt and Deficit
If this is what you are hanging your pride on, god save you, because Americans won’t.
Get the hell off vacation and the golf course and get the hell to work on this economy!
Stock market is DOWN yet again today
But enough about the Bush administration. . .
It’s your children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren who will look back at this Massive Debt and deficit spree and make decisions on your care for not reigning it in.
TAX FURY IN ATHENS AS GOV’T FACES DEBT
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/201...../us_greece
Portugal election: Socialists admit defeat
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-13658998
What makes you think your Debt / Deficit position isn’t pissing people off?
How corrupt is Seattle? Here is yet another example. http://seattletimes.nwsource.c.....lk06m.html
So the hurting Seattle SD sells the MLK Elementary School to the LOW Bidder? LOW by $7.3 million??
Offered $9.7 million by Bush School and sell it to the AME Church for $2.4 million?
No one ever pays for this kind of corruption.
They’ll blame it all on Goodloe-Johnson who is long gone.
But what about other staff and especially School Board members?
@49,50, 51, 53, 54…
…it’s just too much fun for this dickhead to pitch a fit like a one year old on a high chair.
HIS fucking poltical party…HIS monkey-brain Preznit got us into this ugly mess. He conventiently forgets the Clinton SURPLUS that the chimp squandered on tax cuts for the haves and have mores and an illegal and immoral war in Iraq.
Just make the rich and the corporations pay their fair share in taxes. Get out of the middle east. Putr Americans to work rebuilding THIS country.
That’s the Progressive Plan. That’s what will work…
So when did you stop beating your wife?
# 45: Somebody said we need for someone to play the fool, and immidiately your image popped into everyone’s head at the same time.
The seattle SD is a joke. Its run by unqualified crooks who are only hired based on gender and race….and the results prove it.
@57
and then we get the usual idiocy posted by the out of work, wannabe failed musician.
@49
We’ve been over how to fix that problem and yet you continue to post your nonsense.
So when DID you stop beating your wife?
I haven’t stopped beating her yet…..at golf………although her short game is getting better.
Has your man-partner stopped beating you yet?
The last president to be reelected with unemploymnet over 7.2 was teddy r. Good luck. Carvel even thinks with this economy in the mess it is in that reelection is not likely, and civil unrest could be the norm
The unemployment rate was 7.2% in December 2008 – when Bush was still President.
the chances of unemployment even getting below 8% by the time the election comes around are about zero.
About 6.2 Million Americans, 45.1% of all unemployed workers in this country, have been jobless for more than six months – a higher percentage than during the great depression.
Carville is right, this will sink Obama in 2012
I just read where yet another of Obama’s trusted Economic Advisers is resigning.
None of these assholes have a clue about the long-term damage their policies are doing to this country. And the short-term “boosts” haven’t been much to brag about either.
R U Nutz what?
R U smoking crack what?
Preznit Obummer has reminded the American public six dozen times he inherited the economic malaise we’re in. Did you forget the 75+ times he blamed GWBush in speech after speech, over and over? He used that argument to excuse his useless theoretical academic economic team for the high unemployment rate, budget crisis, the debt problem, the economic GDP crawl, and the housing mess that persists today? He’s been doing that for the last 30 months.
Search Google for terms like:
“an economic mess” + in Obama speech
“a terrible mess” + in Obama speech
“a fiscal disaster” + in Obama speech
“a real significant problem” + in Obama speech
“an economic mess and a fiscal mess” + in Obama speech
“a big mess” + in Obama speech
Joe Biden, Christina Romer, leading House and Senate DUMMOCRAPTS, Obummer, and HA moronic fools each called it:
“the worst recession since the Great Depression”
“an economic crisis as deep and as dire as any since the Great Depression”
“the most profound economic emergency since the Great Depression.”
Remember the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) – is the official arbiter of recession cycles. They claim this “Great Recession” began December 2007 and ended June 2009. Yet Obummer has continued to use those terms in 2011. I chose Romer to highlight cuz she long gone, after her test tube theoretical economic theories have destroyed this economy even more and left us with a very high unemployment rate.