Re: My God, you are an idiot.
 

Because the political process seems to be working so well lately? Huh.

eta: Since you asked, sort of, I agree with Brad Delong that we need different Cossacks. Obama has been listening to people who think we don't need to do more, and who think they've been unlucky. As you say, it's not working.

Re: My God, you are an idiot.
 

I actually skimmed that. Can you tell me how it's different than the Texas Governor's "pray for America's future?"

I'm in the middle. i don't think the answer is "the demise of the republican party." i think the HCR law fucked you guys so completely that you won't know how much for at least until after the next election. And once the changes kick in, you'll lose more seats. Tough love ty, tough love.

Re: My God, you are an idiot.
 

ggg's mentor, George Soros bet the US's credit rating would be reduced and he won a huge amount of money. so now his devil windfall will impact even more elections? and Ty's blogger is praying for the R party to die? SMH

Re: My God, you are an idiot.
 

Didn't read it, did you?

That's easy. You avoid thinking or having to make choices.

Neither does he, really, since they will continue to be elected.

That's crazy talk.

The problem is the economy. But then you think it's all just a matter of consumer confidence, which is also crazy talk.

Re: My God, you are an idiot.
 

Well, this is a basic disconnect here, because I don't think you've made choices ever.

I would contend that years ago you made 1 choice, maybe not even 1 if your parents made you a liberal, but at most you've made 1 true choice politically in your life. Since making that choice, all you've done is "choose" which argument will be the one you mouth when explaining why you once again will vote Dem, why once again you'll support every Dem position and why you seldom find any dem politician did wrong. Those aren't choices.

On the other hand I decide whether to vote Dem or R each election. For issues I care about I decide which side I support. And I frequently decide that R politicians are being bad.

What choices have you truly made politically? Serious question.

Re: My God, you are an idiot.
 

lolz

Re: My God, you are an idiot.
 

What color singlet do you wear when you're wrestling with your conscience every November?

Re: My God, you are an idiot.
 

if one follows ones conscience one need not wrestle it.

Re: My God, you are an idiot.
 

Of course that's pretty. The Rs took over, and seven months later the joy and rapture have set in.

Re: My God, you are an idiot.
 

When people lose their jobs, or see many friends and relatives losing their jobs, they lose confidence.

Therefore, the problem is consumer confidence. Hank wins.

Tomorrow I'm going to prove that a government body that considers whether the benefits of specific medical treatments are worth the cost is a Death Panel. Another point for Hank.

Re: My God, you are an idiot.
 

I hope it doesn't get crazier. If the elections go the way they're looking I could see snake handling being enacted as a requirement to be allowed to vote, and I'm scary afraid of those things.

Re: My God, you are an idiot.
 

Like you, I decide whether to vote D or R each election, and I have voted in a way that apparently would surprise you.

If placing yourself in the "middle" means deciding how to vote as you describe, then that's wonderful. But we weren't talking about voting. We were talking about economic policy, where what one thinks should have something to do with the substance, and shouldn't just be a function of positioning yourself between the political parties. On that question, just saying that you're in the "middle" is a cop-out. You're the one who made this a partisan discussion -- I was talking about disagreements about policy within the Obama Administration, and whom I thought was right (hint re "you'll support every Dem position": I was saying that Obama has gotten it wrong). Apparently you have nothing at all to say about those issues, because you'd rather talk about political positioning and that single aside in Delong's post about the GOP.

Re: My God, you are an idiot.
 

did you take posting lessons from Thurgreed or were you born with this condition?

Re: The reddest states??
 

I'll be on your side for a while Hank.

Just spent a few days reading this whole thread, so that I'd be caught up and my brain would be numb enough to engage.

We're all getting mellow in our old age.

S_A_M

Re: The reddest states??
 

I thought we told you to feck off ;)

Re: The reddest states??
 

I think that was Ironweed.

S_A_M

Re: The reddest states??
 

Wait, club left? So he couldn't even find a breitbart cite for his lies? Score one for me!

Re: My God, you are an idiot.
 

Why you cited 1000 words proving my point I have no idea, but thank you.

His proposition is another way of saying what I said. I just made the point in terms of pure dollars. He adds the argument that, in addition to merely propping things in the trough, Keynesian policies preserve the economic futures, and by extension revenue streams, of current participants in the economy. I think that's subsumed in my point, but to the extent it isn't, it's intended.

You'll have to pardon my simplicity because, unlike that author, my experience with Keynsian polcies comes from hitting a credit line when business gets rough. I understand that a quick contraction is unwise. Makes it all the more difficult to grow when conditions improve. In the same fashion, taking the Hayek approach from the gate can do grave damage to society - damage which might not be repaired so fast, and may lead to prolonged economic malaise going forward.

Why didn't he just write, "Keynesian policies keep shit the same, and that's a better thing than most people easily appreciate"? (Don't tell me his point's more complicated. The essential useful bits of it are exactly what I said. I don't want to discuss the academic elements. I don't care about them; they're for professors to consider.)

Re: My God, you are an idiot.
 

From New CNN Poll, via TPM:

Democratic Party: Favorable 47%, Unfavorable 47%

Republican Party: Favorable 33%, Unfavorable 59%

The last poll before this one was from July 20th when the numbers were

Dem: Fav: 45%, Unfav 49% GOP: Fav: 41%, Unfav 55%


Of course, the GOP is doing their best to put the country in the shitter with their party. I'd be happier about these numbers if we were AAA.

Re: The reddest states??
 

Naw, I telt ye tae get tae fuck.

;)

I'm glad you're here to hold Hank's hand in the face of the withering abuse he gets, though. We all know how fragile his sense of self-esteem is, and this Board is nothing if not all about the nurturing of rare and delicate . . . um, petunias.

Re: My God, you are an idiot.
 

He's is contradicting you in a key way that you don't seem to see. Your assumption was that it's a zero-sum game, and that Keynesian policies are simply a transfer of economic activity that would happen later to the present. The point he's making is, that's wrong. Keynes says there are different equilibria which the economy might reach, and that absent government action there is a significant policy that everyone will be worse off when the economy reaches equilibrium. Keynesian policies don't just keep shit the same. That's the point.

eta: Here's the first paragraph again:

Re: Just because you're paranoid...
 

The majority of it is structural. For instance, can you call millions of unemployed real estate and construction workers in this climate anything but mismatched? Can you call millions of unemployed manufacturing workers, with no hope of competing with foreign labor, any but mismatched?* I could go on through endless industries (including, amusingly, or perhaps not, law)... You get the point.

All unemployment in the future will include a much larger structural component than it did in the past because technology makes hands obsolete at an ever-quickening pace.

*Mismatched is used in its most literal sense for our autistic friend who will no doubt find some thin semantic hook on which to refute this. It is the actual term used in the definition of the term "structural unemployment."

Re: Just because you're paranoid...
 

It makes sense to talk about structural unemployment when one part of the economy is booming and another is contracting, and workers can't switch from one to the other. E.g., if the auto industry were on the skids and tech were booming, you would have a structural problem with auto workers not being able to retool and move to Silicon Valley. But that's not what we have. We have lack of demand everywhere. There's no mismatch -- there's no part of the economy that is strong. Calling that structural unemployment is a misnomer, because the problem has nothing to do with the structure of the economy.

Re: Just because you're paranoid...
 

First, this group is smaller than you seem to think.

Second, housing construction is now way behind household formation (which is also down due to the economy), such that with closer to normal credit conditions we would have a significant housing shortage.

These people largely stopped existing 30 years ago. Also, technology has been a greater factor in displacing them than foreign competition.

Yes, you can tell all the little stories you want.

Thanks, Dr. Mathus

Re: My God, you are an idiot.
 

I don't think it's a transfer at all. I think there is a natural business cycle and the natural tendency, in normal times, is toward growth. On the other side of the canyon there is always a wall of height roughly equivalent to the one off which the economy had fallen. Once the private sector kicks in and starts the boom/bust cycle again, the equilibrium is near what it was when the recession started, and it usually moves upward for a time from there. Then there's a recession, and the process repeats.

Keynesian policies are the bridge. Nothing more, nothing less. His point and mine don't clash. Ours is a disagreement in terms of degree. He says Keynesianism ensures the other side of the recession is at the same level. I don't think that's true. Keynsianism just speeds up the end of the recession, and picks winners. It keeps the status quo where if Hayek had the wheel, new winners buying the assets of losers would take over on a slower time table.

Re: Just because you're paranoid...
 

The only jobs in the country are information, tech, finance, or medical care based. We've countless workers who have no skill set in these areas. These people are mismatched, and as Rain Man wisely even agreed in his reply, technology is going to wring many more of them out of the job market going forward.

The lack of demand is not evenly distributed. Not even close.

Re: Just because you're paranoid...
 

Services??

Re: My God, you are an idiot.
 

This is wrong. The point of Keynesian policies is that they're not just a bridge to where you would get to eventually. They help you get to a better place than you would otherwise. More like a subway than a bridge.

No no no. The first paragraph of that post again:

Keynes says you may reach equilibrium at less than full production. That's the point. You need Keynesian policies to get to full production instead of an inferior equilibrium.

Re: Just because you're paranoid...
 

When demand is down everywhere, you're not talking about structural employment, because there's no mismatch. I'm not saying there's no structural employment at all, but to look at our current situation and to call it structural employment is to see some trees and miss the forest.

A little Googling pulls up this -- a year old, but still sound.

Couldn't have (rumored to) happened to a nicer guy
 

So the Dow, S&P and NASDAQ all recouped yesterday's losses today. Maybe there was some credence to the margin call theory??

ETA: Or, yeah, so could be the Fed statement ("we could do stuff, and the economy sucks and all, but we ain't gonna just now, maybe later") could have inexplicably cheered some folks.

Re: My God, you are an idiot.
 

More from Delong re the need for new Cossacks:

Re: Couldn't have (rumored to) happened to a nicer guy
 

Or maybe the ECB effectively playing the intervention game in Europe with their cute little weapons combined with the feds acknowledgement that they might pull up their big guns and really play the game (after their people got back from vacation).... After all, isn't Europe still the bigger recession threat (thanks no doubt in part to the extended austerity)?

Also, the really incredibly wretched polling numbers for the Rs precededed the market rise. Maybe the market is thinking sanity has some leverage on the crazies, because people seem to be noticing that they're crazies?

Re: My God, you are an idiot.
 

I've decided to be nice to some of the idiot Rs who post here for a while, as long as you don't talk about caddies.

Re: My God, you are an idiot.
 

I don't think anyone who posts here will admit to being a R.

Re: My God, you are an idiot.
 

Sorry, I meant idiot tea partiers. Thanks for the correction.

Re: My God, you are an idiot.
 

What's really funny is that you honestly think you are both smart and funny.

Re: My God, you are an idiot.
 

I offer to be nice for a while, maybe not even ask you for some support for the idea that the Dems had a no-negotiation posture on entitlements, and see what I get?


Really, we have the market coming back today, even if debt is doing odd things, we have an evening in London without too much on fire, the Red Sox are in first place - maybe the world's not so bad, despite the best efforts to the contrary by that-party-the-tea-party-ate. Sit back and have a scotch with me, clubby.

Re: Just because you're paranoid...
 

This is all the same thing. The leveraging increased the amount of "money" in the system. People felt rich. They bought houses they couldn't afford, thus creating a mismatch of real estate to construction workers when the money contracted.

But, the "money" ain't coming back unless the leverage returns. We are in money detox, and further "stimulus"/deficit spending is nothing but a last short bump of the cocaine lining the baggie. The problem is permanent, and will require recalibration over time, or austerity.

As the Fed admitted today, there is nothing more they can do. We have to take our money detox lumps like the end of any coke binge - with the shakes, night sweats, and itchy eyeballs.

Re: Just because you're paranoid...
 

No, it's not the same thing. The mismatch in structural unemployment is the mismatch between industries that are hiring and workers who need jobs. Right now, no one is hiring. That's not structural unemployment.

You said it before. It's deleveraging. Once we work through it the economy will start to grow again, but there are still a lot of people with mortgages they can't pay, etc.

Re: My God, you are an idiot.
 

Haven't had time to post the last couple of days, but rest assured, I will free up soon. Have one for me, I'm definitely parched.