Or anywhere else where serious criticism is likely to occur. Conservative “points, thoughts or ideology” are at this point detached from reality enough that they can only survive in the Republican Anti-Fact Bubble, not the real world. The mods on the SDMB aren’t going to ban people for pointing out the flaws and falsehoods in the claims and actions of the Republicans, so the SDMB is a hostile environment for their supporters.
Ok, you seem fairly intelligent.
What’s the end game here? Taxes will get raised on the business owners and job creators and they’ve already begun to panic with talks of layoffs and cutbacks to cover Obama care and the higher taxes. The economy will slow down even more. How do you pull out of this? What good is higher taxation and fewer jobs and a slower economy at this point? I don’t think you can argue that these things aren’t going to happen. Like soon. So then exactly what happens to pull this country back together again financially speaking? Because that’s the greatest of my concerns. We’re at the fiscal cliff, the budget is screwed and sequestration is right around the corner.
I’m all ears.
We have a consumer based economy. Not crazy about that, but it is what it is. If our consumers have no money, we have no economy. When you figure out how to put money in the hands of consumers without “redistributing” the money, do let us know. Because right now a lot of it is in the hands of people who don’t spend it, but invest it expecting a profit. A profit they expect to be provided by consumers buying stuff.
Security for gated communities and for-profit prisons are our new growth industries. Joy.
Or nationalist socialism :eek:
Rebranding rich people as “job creators” does not make them job creators. That’s just cynical mumbo-jumbo from the likes of Boehner to justify their party doing what they always do, which is cater to the rich. As elucidator pointed out, we have a demand-driven economy. The real “job creators” are folks buying stuff, not rich business owners responding to the demand by hiring more workers.
Nonsense. They are not “job creators”; jobs are created by demand, not by rich guys sitting on piles of money. Nor are they going to cut back, that’s just standard scare talk. And making them pay something slightly closer to their fair share is only going to help the economy and society in general. They’ve spent decades looting the country; either we take some of the money back or the country will collapse. You can’t squeeze blood from a turnip and these people have most of the money.
Didn’t you get the memo? gamerunknown is playing Opposites Day in the Elections forum (only) for the indefinite future. Whatever he posts here is the reverse of what he thinks/means.
Can you think of another kind?!
Well, yes and no. Sometimes the rich guys create demand. Nobody knew they needed such a thing as “fabric softener” until they saw it advertised.
Then answering my question should prove to be an interesting challenge to his creative writing skills.
The Soviets had a Command Economy. But we see how well that worked out in the end.
No, it only has to be arguable.
Still, any economy whether free-market or totalitarian is at least supposed to be “consumer-based” – isn’t it? The ultimate purpose of the Soviet economy was, in theory, the production and distribution of consumer goods. (Counting the Red Army as a “consumer” too, of course; which, of course, any army is.)
Please don’t tell me you are using “job creator” with a straight face. As you should have read during the campaign, only a very small percentage of business owners clear more than $250K and would be affected, and many of them are finance people who wouldn’t hire more people no matter how much they make.
The “panic” was by radical Republicans who were trying to intimidate their workers into voting against their best interests.
There is still an amazing amount of money out there which could be invested in faster job creation if there was demand. You think changing the tax rate is going to affect that? Higher taxes on the middle class might cut consumption and would be bad. Higher taxes on the rich won’t. I’m not at the level where my taxes would go up, alas, but I am at the level where I can consume pretty much anything I want. Getting to that level, with a tax increase, would affect my consumption not at all. I was lucky enough to be in a higher bracket during the bubble. I can assure you that I did not mind paying slightly higher taxes on that extra money.
If you want to see how well austerity works, look at Spain.
Remember the Dems are in favor of a mixture of spending cuts and tax increases. The Republicans are the ones who signed the Norquist pledge about only accepting spending cuts. It is not about the economy, it is about crippling the government, starving the beast. If you open your eyes some, and read some real economics, you’ll see this is true.
“Consumer economy” is shorthand for “future production is dictated by the current demands of the populace” rather than an unaccountable central body (acting on what they see to be the demands of the consumers). There are left syndicalist consumer economies, theoretically (Amartya Sen proposed as much).
Also, there are critiques of large scale production in the US in that it resembles planned economies. Consumer desires are manufactured like products, decisions for huge operations are made by very few people, moving parts for cars around countries is called “trade”.
But they can only do that if the general populace has the money available to spend.
Sure, but you can’t give them the money to spend. It has to come from jobs. There isn’t enough money in the free world to give away to create a stimulus that would affect this country long term. Then you just end up with an entitlement mindset and a complacency problem.
How would you create jobs in this economy?
I’ll start by saying I’m in favor of crippling the beast, to some extent. Our country’s government was never meant to be this large and all encompassing.
Also, Yes, there is a lot of money out there. It’s called wealth. How do you tax wealth? In one way or another it’s already been taxed or it will soon be taxed in some form or another. Income is one thing, retirement portfolios, stocks, and real-estate are another.
Spending cuts worked in Wisconsin, with dramatic and satisfactory results. No taxes were raised, and almost every job was saved. In fact many taxes were cut and school districts had more money to hire workers if they choose due to Act 10 and its fallout. You don’t think Paul Ryan’s budget plan could be effective also? It’s time to implement conservative budget plans on a national scale, I think.
And finally, who do you consider rich? What sort of parameters are you tossing about in your head when you use that term?
Actually you could. Things like unemployment insurance and food stamps help the economy (though not as much as when these folks have jobs and enough money to eat), because they allow people to participate in the market when they otherwise would be unable. This doesn’t solve everything, of course, but it can help with the very poorest and those in the worst situations. Monitor it to minimize abuse- but I’d rather help those that need it, even though there will be a small number of people who abuse it, then eliminate programs like these and let these people starve.
Institute a very large, long term plan to modernize our infrastructure- a commitment to upgrading our old electrical power transmission system, repairing and upgrading roads and bridges and railroads, etc- jobs in every city and community. Focus education on technology, math, and sciences. Start a Manhattan project for future energy sources. Advance into the 21st century in health care, which would probably require a single payer system (Medicare-for-all), which would significantly lower costs (countries with single payer systems pay far less on health care then we do, with better service for most of the population).
And since some of this would require more revenue, raise taxes on the rich (defined as >250K income), including investment incomes (with the first 250K of investment income exempt)- this is mean to increase the contribution of the “idle rich” (rich people who’s lifestyle and wealth comes not from work but just from interest and dividends on accumulated and inherited wealth). Cut military spending- instead of 12 or so supercarriers, maybe we can make do with 8. Means-test social security. Uncap payroll taxes (which are currently regressive).
Meant by whom? Am I supposed to negate my own vision because of that of some dead guys from the 18th century? And everyone in perpetuity is supposed to buy in on principle to some poorly articulated arguments (on issues relating to life in the 21st century) that were debated by other guys at the time?
If a majority of people living today want “government to be this large and all encompassing,” then that is what this is “meant” under the Constitution. And if we’re not permitted to change our views with the times, let the revolution begin.