Yep, I’ve been making a lot of typos lately. I blame Bush 
Bush’s irresponsible fiscal policy put us in a horrible position to fix this crisis.
You keep saying this, but you don’t back it up. Put up or shut up.
I don’t think it’s a question of how much is being spent so much as what it’s being spent on. Military endeavors aren’t exactly big moneymakers, while improving infrastructure might get us a return on our money.
Action McNews update: Rushbo and Newt Gangrene in fight to the death for the, ah, soul of the Republican Party. Anne Coulter impersonates Hypno-Toad (epic fail), some asshole says that conservatives who belittled Sarah Palin are traitors.
All this and more available from your friendly neighborhood lefty bloggers. I recommend ThinkProgress http://thinkprogress.org/, which has the most recent servings of crunchy, nutty goodness all kinda lumped together, like a praline but with gold nuggets in place of pecans.
I have a general sense of joyous well-being and a simple love for all sentient beings. Used to have to spend a lot of money to feel like that, but the Pubbies are giving it away free!
Well, here’s the thing, Stratocaster. During the Great Depression, Hoover did pretty much as you advise and by all accounts he made things worse. Called for balancing the budget before he helped anybody, etc. People starved. The economy did NOT get better. It took Roosevelt and the New Deal to get things fixed, and that took awhile. I think a lot of economists are thinking this is a 'pay me now or pay me later" kinda deal. We’re paying now in hopes that we can keep this from being a long-running nightmare. No one is sure that it will work. But history clearly shows that sitting on our hands fiscally speaking won’t work. If you have something that Hoover DIDN’T try as a solution, lay it on us.
Which leads to a quote from The Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism, by a certain E Goldstein:
And if it can make your buddies a billion or six, so much the better. . . .
I agree. But that’s not what people were asserting. They suggested that his deficit spending created this crisis, a curious position for people supporting a Keynesian solution. Hell, Boyo Jim said tax cuts helped to trigger the crisis. This board can be a real post hoc fallacy, Republicans-are-evil circle jerk sometimes.
Please. This is opinion, one shared by countless articles and editorials across the nation. Feel free to, I dunno, read a newspaper if you want to explore this further. This is news to you, eh? First you’re hearing of it? Stop it.
You realize there are many, many respected economists who disagree that the New Deal had the effect you seem to think it did, right? I’m not saying I have a firm opinion either way, but it is crystal clear to me that a lot of very smart guys are diametrically and irreconcilably opposed to each other in this debate.
No, I reject the notion that unless I outline a specific plan for you, that means I have to accept something potentially stupid. I realize you didn’t start this chorus, but “we have to do something” is not a logical foundation for a stimulus plan, since it seems to lead to horrors like the current one where the major virtue of the proposal was “at least it’s something.”
These are probably the same economists who pushed self regulation of the banking system. In which case any sane person has got to ask, respected by who?
Not so much the deficit spending as what the spending was for. To be specific, a ruinously expensive, futile, and self-destructive war. (“Futile” only if the actual purpose of the war is not self-destruction, but we are offering the benefit of a doubt.) That is not “Keynesian”. That is, in technical economic jargon, fucking stupid.
Are we typing too fast for you?
It’s probably even worse than that. I bet they’re the economists who kick puppies and are members of NAMBLA. They probably fart in crowded elevators and don’t replace the toilet paper roll when they use the last sheet.
In which case, why are we even dignifying such awful people by noticing them? Those bastards. You convinced me.
No, but apparently too fast for yourself. Why do you suppose I’m for the spending on the war? The straw men in this thread are being propped up fast and furious. Let me make sure I’m following you, you may have typed that just a tad fast. Because I called someone on the ridiculous notion that Bush’s tax cuts and deficit spending triggered our current crisis, you get to topple my silliness because…because why again? Because this new clusterfuck-turd of a bill is for good and virtuous stuff that we now get to conveniently put in place without the normal appropriations process, and the other stuff was for badness?
And that has to do with the point in question, how exactly? Why does that render this new tidal wave of spending an effective stimulus? Why do you seem to think, despite evidence to the contrary in this very thread, that I think the prior administration’s spending habits were beneficial and for a good cause?
Type real slow now, genius. That joke never gets old–I was so embarassed when you tossed it at me.
How far Reganonomics has fallen, to draw such comparisons from a conservative! Or are you just throwing out strawmen in an attempt at self defense?
No, I just liked your “they’re probably” argument. It’s really pretty versatile and effortless, in that you can use it to topple any point made and no research or evidence is required. In fact, you’re probably on acid right now and in no position to offer a lucid rebuttal. I win.
Well, you are the one who made the explicit comparison, claiming that it was stupid to support deficit spending in one instance, and deplore it in another. As I mentioned earlier, its pretty dumb to soak your house in water from a high-pressure hose, unless said house happens to be on fire.
Whether or not you supported that debacle is of no consequence, you simply claimed a parallel that does not exist, hence, you are hoist on your own retard.
This is pure comedy genius.
And you continue to build non sequiturs. You’re conflating points. The stimulus package will be effective, or it won’t. That could be said if it supported programs you’d like or not. Deficit spending, in your household or in government, is to be avoided at all costs, unless its use can reasonably be expected to produce a beneficial result that will ultimately pay for itself–in this case, to stimulate the economy and somehow magically avoid the Ponzi effect of $800B in T-bills coming due.
None of that has anything to do with whether or not Bush’s deficit spending and tax cuts created the current crisis, the nonsensical notion I was responding to. You keeping up? I will not respond to your “counter argument” to a position I didn’t even take. Sorry.
Really? You’ve seen no counter position to the orgiastic glee over the stimulus passing? I was the first guy to naysay, eh? Okee-dokee.
Not so effortless as your “there are many, many respected economists who…”
If you’re going to say things like that, at least provide a name, so that it is possible for someone to point out how full of shit you and your respected economists are. Anything less is just cowardice on your part.
Did it help, then? Would we have arrived at this sorry state sooner were it not for the economic genius of Phil Gramm and GeeDub?