Objectively intelligent.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

It's OK to admit you don't recall the '90s. Was it the alcohol? Head injuries from taking too many charges in pick-up basketball? You're among friends here -- we won't judge you.

Dunno. I did have to google when Gingrich took over: 1995. You posted about a 1993 budget where Clinton was king of the world. Did you had any class in how laws are passed?

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

Not under any fair reading of what Adder said ("one party does the former"), but you do whatever it is you have to do.

If Paige were still here she’d say your avatar was past its sell by date. No offense.

[Ty@50]

Originally Posted by Hank Chinaski

If Paige were still here she’d say your avatar was past its sell by date. No offense.

2. Time to switch.

[Adder]

Originally Posted by Hank Chinaski

Clinton didn't get it to zero. Gingrich did. Obama didn't reduce fuck all, congress did. Stop it. I've spoken to you IRL. Your restaurant choices imply a poor sense of smell, but your senses otherwise seem fine.

You know I'm right.

You keep saying this and you keep being wrong. Once again, the ACA, as just one example, was passed with only Dems votes. It was “paid for” as best they could tell. The GOP did not make that happen.

What is wrong with the world that even you, a smart and genuinely open-minded person cannot comprehend actual facts in the face of partisan nonsense?

[Ty@50]

Originally Posted by adder

you keep saying this and you keep being wrong. Once again, the aca, as just one example, was passed with only dems votes. It was “paid for” as best they could tell. The gop did not make that happen.

What is wrong with the world that even you, a smart and genuinely open-minded person cannot comprehend actual facts in the face of partisan nonsense?

stp

[Pretty Little Flower]

If I had to pick a single artist I have listened to most consistently over the past 35 years, it would almost certainly be Toots Hibbert of Toots and the Maytals. The Maytals were pioneers in the musical transition from ska to reggae (the song "Do The Reggay" brought the term to the public consciousness). After becoming increasingly obsessed with the late-60s and early-70s Maytals releases, I finally saw him live for the first time in 1990, in an outdoor concert with Fela Kuti and Jimmy Cliff. I saw him live many times over the next few decades and his live show was always a force and a joy. If you have never listened to albums like From the Roots and Funky Kingston start-to-finish, you should do so. As my tribute, I'll link a song that is more gospel than reggae, but for me best captures the power of his music.

"I know, oh yes I know, yeah.
I'm going to live, to see,
Everyone, free, free, free."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7PyjXqwjdd8

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally Posted by Pretty Little Flower

If I had to pick a single artist I have listened to most consistently over the past 35 years, it would almost certainly be Toots Hibbert of Toots and the Maytals. The Maytals were pioneers in the musical transition from ska to reggae (the song "Do The Reggay" brought the term to the public consciousness). After becoming increasingly obsessed with the late-60s and early-70s Maytals releases, I finally saw him live for the first time in 1990, in an outdoor concert with Fela Kuti and Jimmy Cliff. I saw him live many times over the next few decades and his live show was always a force and a joy. If you have never listened to albums like From the Roots and Funky Kingston start-to-finish, you should do so. As my tribute, I'll link a song that is more gospel than reggae, but for me best captures the power of his music.

"I know, oh yes I know, yeah.
I'm going to live, to see,
Everyone, free, free, free."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7PyjXqwjdd8

I was heavy reggae in the mid-70s. Loved Toots.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by Ty@50

2. Time to switch.

Pipe down, youngster.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

Are you still living in the 70's and 80's? Tell me again about Reagan's welfare queen -- that one never gets old.

Please. You know damn well that's not what I'm saying.

My argument was not that welfare or safety net programs are sapping the treasury. Here's what I wrote:

Democrats have been more fiscally responsible -- toward obligations to the unproductive poor. The GOP has instead favored unproductive wealth. Neither is of much use.

Giving money to either has a limited multiplier effect. The poor just piss whatever they get away at big boxes, or to rentiers (landlords, student loans, etc.) perpetuating their marginalization. And the Ds and Rs generally serve the same corporate masters in the end through subsidies, etc.

The best policy is to find a way to create non-rent economic activity. This is done by relaxing taxation on the $150k-1.0k crowd. These folks drive the smaller economic events that power the economy in aggregate.

My point was that the parties focus on groups that have poor multipliers. The rich save it all, the poor spend it all in businesses (increasingly monopolies) that are harming the broader economy like Wal Mart and Amazon.

Neither party caters to the people who run smaller businesses, which create more economic events (multipliers). The Democrats' signature legislation was the ACA, which creates more economic events in health care, a parasitic sector with miserable multiplier effects outside itself. The GOP's signature legislation was tax cuts for the wealthy, an utterly mindless policy with no multiplier effect. (They claimed it was all about corporate taxes, but if that were the case, then why was it not exclusive to corporate taxes, as many wealthy individuals who didn't need the money argued it should have been?)

The parties talk a big game about wanting to create growth, and to the extent the corporate tax cut created some growth, it was a decent idea. To the extent it sought to the decouple HC from employment, the ACA was a decent idea. But neither was directly focused on growth. They catered ultimately, most significantly, to groups that don't create much growth (the .001% and the desperately poor who can't afford health insurance).

I assume the ACA has pared the rate the of HC cost growth, but the premiums are still going up at a robust rate. And while my wealthiest friends are loving the Trump tax cuts, they're not plugging that money into business expansion. They're putting it in the market and making a fortune sitting on their asses, and saving their gains.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

My point was that the parties focus on groups that have poor multipliers. The rich save it all, the poor spend it all in businesses (increasingly monopolies) that are harming the broader economy like Wal Mart and Amazon.

I don't think that the Democrats "focus on" the poor. Since Clinton and welfare reform, the opposite is true.

Neither party caters to the people who run smaller businesses, which create more economic events (multipliers). The Democrats' signature legislation was the ACA, which creates more economic events in health care, a parasitic sector with miserable multiplier effects outside itself. The GOP's signature legislation was tax cuts for the wealthy, an utterly mindless policy with no multiplier effect. (They claimed it was all about corporate taxes, but if that were the case, then why was it not exclusive to corporate taxes, as many wealthy individuals who didn't need the money argued it should have been?)

The parties talk a big game about wanting to create growth, and to the extent the corporate tax cut created some growth, it was a decent idea. To the extent it sought to the decouple HC from employment, the ACA was a decent idea. But neither was directly focused on growth. They catered ultimately, most significantly, to groups that don't create much growth (the .001% and the desperately poor who can't afford health insurance).

I assume the ACA has pared the rate the of HC cost growth, but the premiums are still going up at a robust rate. And while my wealthiest friends are loving the Trump tax cuts, they're not plugging that money into business expansion. They're putting it in the market and making a fortune sitting on their asses, and saving their gains.

Small businesses tend to be Republican, fwiw. But the ACA helped small businesses, which have less leverage to negotiate for health care than large business. Health care is a middle-class problem too. The GOP has no health-care agenda at all. The Democrats have one. Which is better for average Americans and small businesses?

eta
Shorter Sebby: 'The major political parties are really the same, if you ignore the major domestic political accomplishment of the last Democratic President and don't think about the most important domestic policy issue of the last twelve years.'

[Tyrone Slothrop]

One of my blackshirt cousins in Colorado is on Facebook with a post that says:

MEN
IN THE COMING
MONTHS YOU MAY
NEED TO SACRIFICE
YOUR LIFE TO PROTECT
THOSE YOU LOVE

ARE YOU READY?

This from someone who regularly rails against the tyranny of having to wear a face mask.

The comments are full of blowhard patriots talking about their guns.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

I don't think that the Democrats "focus on" the poor. Since Clinton and welfare reform, the opposite is true.

The ACA was aimed primarily at the poor, focusing most on giving people without insurance a form of insurance. That covered some of the middle as well, but they weren't the target. As we heard a lot of times, the aim was to get the uninsured "on the rolls." Many of them had no money to pay at all, so they were subsidized in various ways.

Small businesses tend to be Republican, fwiw. But the ACA helped small businesses, which have less leverage to negotiate for health care than large business.

YMMV, but it's still like popcorn at the movie theater. The prices are still high. Only difference is they're not going up quite as much YOY.

Health care is a middle-class problem too. The GOP has no health-care agenda at all. The Democrats have one. Which is better for average Americans and small businesses?

If the aim of ACA were primarily making it cheaper for those who could pay something, rather than making it available to all, I'd agree the ACA was aimed at the middle class. But because it was aimed at making HC available to all, it had to focus most on getting money to pay for people who couldn't afford to pay much of anything. The dollars that went to them could have gone to the middle class person who could pay something but was struggling to do so.

There are of course social reasons to take that approach. But as I stated, you can't say the ACA benefited the middle class first or most.

I agree that the GOP has no plan for HC. It prefers to spend its deficit fueled dollars on the non-multiplying project of Tax Cuts for the Uber-Rich.

eta
Shorter Sebby: 'The major political parties are really the same, if you ignore the major domestic political accomplishment of the last Democratic President and don't think about the most important domestic policy issue of the last twelve years.'

I don't think HC was the most important domestic policy issue. I think the most important domestic policy issue is the shrinking need for labor going forward and what we're going to do about it which only Trump and Yang have addressed. Trump by attempting to undo globalization and bring back manufacturing jobs, Yang by pushing forward universal basic income. I also have to give a shout-out to Bernie Sanders for at least highlighting that labor market reckoning, but of course, he didn't really have a plan. (Nor does Trump, really, but via his trade war, and now an unwelcome assist from Covid, there is some attempt to re-domesticate jobs that had gone elsewhere.)

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by tyrone slothrop

men
in the coming
months you may
need to sacrifice
your life to protect
those you love

are you ready?

"Wolverines!!!"

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

The ACA was aimed primarily at the poor, focusing most on giving people without insurance a form of insurance.

No, that's wrong. Please re-evaluate your views.

If the aim of ACA were primarily making it cheaper for those who could pay something, rather than making it available to all, I'd agree the ACA was aimed at the middle class.

It was both.

Many of us can chew gum and walk at the same time.

I don't think HC was the most important domestic policy issue. I think the most important domestic policy issue is the shrinking need for labor going forward and what we're going to do about it which only Trump and Yang have addressed. Trump by attempting to undo globalization and bring back manufacturing jobs, Yang by pushing forward universal basic income. I also have to give a shout-out to Bernie Sanders for at least highlighting that labor market reckoning, but of course, he didn't really have a plan. (Nor does Trump, really, but via his trade war, and now an unwelcome assist from Covid, there is some attempt to re-domesticate jobs that had gone elsewhere.)

In other words, you are ignoring the biggest domestic policy issue of the Obama years because it's not what you want to talk about. Got it.

Reading your posts is like reading a book review that doesn't talk about the book, but is instead a diatribe about how the author should have written about something else.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

No, that's wrong. Please re-evaluate your views.

Bending the cost curve was part of it. But since the days of Ted Kennedy seeking a HC bill, the primary aim was getting HC to those who couldn't afford it. A huge percentage of that category is people who could not make any meaningful payment toward it. So they were near entirely subsidized.

Many of us can chew gum and walk at the same time.

If we could have focused primarily on lowering premiums for people able to pay something and willing or already doing so, without using those dollars to subsidize care for people paying nothing, you could have put a lot of money back in working middle class peoples' pockets or given them far more bang for their HC dollar.

Now, of course, there are social reasons not to do this. But the question at hand was whether the ACA was primarily aimed at helping the middle class. I think it was secondarily aimed at helping them.

In other words, you are ignoring the biggest domestic policy issue of the Obama years because it's not what you want to talk about. Got it.

That's your view. I think the labor market changes afoot, which I mentioned, were #1, then the economic crisis was #2, then inequality caused by policy reactions to the financial crisis was #3, then the environment was #4, then HC was #5.

Reading your posts is like reading a book review that doesn't talk about the book, but is instead a diatribe about how the author should have written about something else.

You don't get to dictate what is the most important policy issue at any given time. People disagree about that endlessly. You may think HC was in Obama's term. Others, like me, think different issues were more important.