What Would The Anti-Stimulus-ers Have Preferred?

[Mr_Smashy]

@Lobohan

@Mr_Smashy

The private sector is always, ALWAYS, more effective at allocating capital than the public sector. Always.

This is a statement of faith, not a fact.

Or, put another way, if the USPS was all that great/effective/efficient, would FedEx and UPS even exist? Would private schools exist?

You obviously believe this is a good argument, but it really does nothing to demonstrate your point. FedEx and UPS choose not to do things that USPS does. Can you FedEx a letter for under a 50 cents? So your comparison doesn’t make any sense.

As for private schools, they also aren’t playing the same game. Public schools have to take all comers. Private schools can kick out anyone who isn’t smart, causes trouble or can’t meet the tuition.

Yeah, I figured you’d show up eventually with a content-free post.

[begbert2]

@Mr_Smashy

@foolsguinea

I notice you don’t claim that W Bush was all about the little guy.

I claim that the Bush tax cuts helped all taxpaying Americans. I’m waiting to see someone, anyone, provide evidence to the contrary.

Operating on the assumption that there are no costs whatsoever to defunding the government? Operating on the assumption that all of society is benefited by a huge deficit?

You’re absolutely right. Of course, you’d still be right even if every taxpayer in the bottom brackets only got one penny and the ones in the top 1% got a trillion dollars each, so the next question would be whether you expect us to be impressed by this magically costless and vastly disbalanced ‘help’.

[aruvqan]

@Little_Nemo

They would have preferred John McCain won the election.

No, actually I voted against him.

What I would have preferred is to let those jackasses who got us into this fucking mess to go down the shitter, get jail time, no freaking bonuses to the little people in the financial industry who didnt get fired or jail time.

Look, we picked out a house we could afford on one salary [despite the realtors urging to go for something in the $200K range, we bought a $91K property] which we have paid the utilities, mortgage payments and taxes on steadily. Why cant WE fucking get a reach around? How about forgiving us some debt or tax or ANYTHING. how about a job for me? I got laid off thanks to those fucking greedy bastards fucking the economy over. Nothing the stimulus did benefitted either of us.

[Dick_Dastardly]

[quote=“Mr_Smashy, post:52, topic:554443”]

@Voyager

Look, if a tax cut for the rich had X benefit to the economy, and removing that cut and spending the money on stimulus instead had a 2X benefit, what should we do?
QUOTE]

Do you have evidence (not opinions from the hardcore uberlefties on this board like… like… well this is GD, but you know who they are), hard evidence that cash injections into the economy in the form of tax cuts are only half as effective at stimulating it as the spending side? If not, I’m afraid I can’t answer your question because I don’t agree with the premise upon which it is based.

The private sector is always, ALWAYS, more effective at allocating capital than the public sector. Always. Now, before the mentally challenged here start suggesting that I am for anarchy, then why don’t we just cut all gov spending period, etc, of course that’s not what I’m saying.

The public sector has few incentives for achievement, they have political ramifications driving decisions (like when Barney Frank wanted Obama to change some process at GM because it was good for union jobs), and… of course they have more unions, which distort the supply/demand curve of the price of labor. All of this means that public spending isn’t as good.

Or, put another way, if the USPS was all that great/effective/efficient, would FedEx and UPS even exist? Would private schools exist?

I’d suggest that the time to do that was decades ago. Now… not in a fragile economy, no, but adding to the entitlement burden is definitely digging the hole much much bigger (as the healthcare law did). And the ARRA spending didn’t provide nearly the economic jolt for the cost we will end up paying in the form of greater debt and interest payments.

It depends on the tax cuts. If you’re giving tax cuts to the top 1%, people who generally already spend what they want and save the excess, all they’re going to do is save the tax cut. Here are some actual numbers for you if you click through. Give that money away in, say, a payroll tax holiday instead of tax cuts for top earners and it’ll all get spent by people mainly living from paycheck to paycheck. Give it to top earners and it’ll get tucked away in an investment account somewhere, not stimulating the economy.
Barney Frank may well have been lobbying for GM’s unions. But how about the deluge of private money lobbying for private interests in Washington? How about the financial industry, the biggest lobbyist of all. Over the past few decades they lobbied for less and less regulation and, by not regulating derivatives or mortgages we ended up with trillions of dollars of losses which have to be backstopped by the taxpayer. So that’s at least one instance where the private sector was most definitely not always, ALWAYS, more effective at allocating capital than the public sector.

And USPS is a good example of something the government does that is a. necessary and b. isn’t very efficient to run in terms of how much it costs. You can get the private sector to create firms like UPS to deliver parcels, because there’s a margin in that. You won’t find the private sector wanting to compete with the postal service because it’s incredibly costly to deliver tens of millions of pieces of mail to every household in America and there’s no margin in it for them.

[Dick_Dastardly]

@Mr_Smashy

I’d suggest that the time to do that was decades ago. Now… not in a fragile economy, no, but adding to the entitlement burden is definitely digging the hole much much bigger (as the healthcare law did). And the ARRA spending didn’t provide nearly the economic jolt for the cost we will end up paying in the form of greater debt and interest payments.

For years we have been regaled with scary, scary numbers about how Medicare’s projected unfunded liability was in the TENS OF TRILLIONS. But the 2010 Medicare report is out and things have changed. The CBO and the Medicare trustees both say that the recent healthcare bill has done wonders for the long term deficit. According to the Medicare trustees, our 75 year Medicare deficit is down to $6.9 trillion and the infinite number is now a $600 billion surplus.

[Lobohan]

@Mr_Smashy

@Lobohan

This is a statement of faith, not a fact.

You obviously believe this is a good argument, but it really does nothing to demonstrate your point. FedEx and UPS choose not to do things that USPS does. Can you FedEx a letter for under a 50 cents? So your comparison doesn’t make any sense.

As for private schools, they also aren’t playing the same game. Public schools have to take all comers. Private schools can kick out anyone who isn’t smart, causes trouble or can’t meet the tuition.

Yeah, I figured you’d show up eventually with a content-free post.

My post did have content. It politely showed you that you were wrong.

Personally I don’t think it’s very upstanding to ignore it when people show you that you’re mistaken. That’s how people end up living their lives believing utter rubbish.

[Ruminator]

@Dick_Dastardly

For years we have been regaled with scary, scary numbers about how Medicare’s projected unfunded liability was in the TENS OF TRILLIONS. But the 2010 Medicare report is out and things have changed. The CBO and the Medicare trustees both say that the recent healthcare bill has done wonders for the long term deficit. According to the Medicare trustees, our 75 year Medicare deficit is down to $6.9 trillion and the infinite number is now a $600 billion surplus.

LOL… those overly optimistic projections assume cuts to Medicare payments. Those cuts are politically next to impossible to implement but gosh they sure look great as talking points!

Also… you do know that Medicare trustee reports in the past have been wrong and significantly underestimated costs, right?

[foolsguinea]

@aruvqan

What I would have preferred is to let those jackasses who got us into this fucking mess to go down the shitter, get jail time, no freaking bonuses to the little people in the financial industry who didnt get fired or jail time.

TARP & the stimulus are two different things.

TARP & the stimulus are two different things.
TARP & the stimulus are two different things.
TARP & the stimulus are two different things.

TARP & the stimulus are two different things!!!

[yorick73]

@Lobohan

You obviously believe this is a good argument, but it really does nothing to demonstrate your point. FedEx and UPS choose not to do things that USPS does. Can you FedEx a letter for under a 50 cents? So your comparison doesn’t make any sense.

You should really educate yourself on the USPS monopoly of non-urgent mail. FedEx and UPS are not ALLOWED to do things that USPS does.

[Sam_Stone]

That’s correct. And I’m sure that those of you who are positive that the USPS is better at delivering mail wouldn’t mind dropping the 1st class mail monopoly power the USPS enjoys. After all, FedEx and UPS couldn’t possibly compete with those 44 cent deliveries, could they?

[magellan01]

@Lobohan

@Mr_Smashy

Yeah, I figured you’d show up eventually with a content-free post.

My post did have content. It politely showed you that you were wrong.

Personally I don’t think it’s very upstanding to ignore it when people show you that you’re mistaken. That’s how people end up living their lives believing utter rubbish.

Actually, all you did was to point out that he might be wrong. That is all. Which everyone was probably aware of anyway. But, hey, at least that some contribution for a change.

[magellan01]

[quote=“foolsguinea, post:59, topic:554443”]

@magellan01

We all live in the same society. We all have the same rights. We all have one vote. If you want more money after taxes are taken out, make more money. Find a way to become more productive. Even if the tax was flat, someone making $300,000 is paying ten times more than someone making $30,000. All for the same rights and privileges.

Are you actually arguing that I don’t make as much as Steve Forbes because of a failure of an act of will?

Here’s a word you need to know, that I’m guessing you have never heard in your life. I didn’t ever hear it growing up on the right:

Rentier. Not “renter,” but “rentier”

@Wikipedia

Rentier capitalism is a term used in Marxism and sociology which refers to a type of capitalism where a large amount of profit-income generated takes the form of property income, received as interest, rents, dividends, fees or capital gains.
The beneficiaries of this income are a property-owning social class who, it is argued, play no productive role in the economy themselves but who monopolise the access to physical assets, financial assets and technologies. They make money not from producing anything new themselves, but purely from their ownership of property (which provides a claim to a revenue stream) and dealing in that property.
The modern finance system has led to the term being contested as to its real meaning, as Marx lived in a Gold-Silver system with relativity fixed exchange rates.[ul][li]The concept is contested with respect to Mutual Funds and Hedge Funds and their place in the modern global economy.[]Since fund managers - aided by financial and administrative staff invest assets on behalf of rentiers and beneficiaries argue that they are very “productive”.[]The fund managers argue that it takes a lot of work to manage all the funds, and without that work production would rapidly collapse since producers would be starved of funds.[*]Some Mutual and Hedge Funds may work in such a way that none of their wealth is derived from Rents.[/ul]Often the term rentier capitalism is used with the connotation that it is a form of parasitism or a decadent form of capitalism.[/li][/quote]
The higher the income bracket, the greater the incidence of rentierism. Such ‘rents’ are for all intents & purposes taxes on productivity collected in the private sector rather than by the state. A rentier who objects to his income being taxed is someone who lives on a kind of taxes–or tribute if you like–& then objects to the state collecting taxes on behalf of the people.

There is not a level playing field. Some people are born with massive advantages, others gain them through guile. But in any case, for someone who benefits from the productivity of “his property”–when that “property” is others’ effort–doesn’t have a moral leg to stand on against the state levying tax.

I’m aware of the concept you describe, though I admit to not recalling the word. Yes, not everyone has the same advantages. I cant play in the NBA or NFL. I can’t sing. I’m not very mechanically inclined. Big deal. YOu figure you what you’re better at then work at that to get good at it. I’ve had white collar jobs and blue collar jobs. Everything from executive VP to laborer and janitor. And i can tell you that there is always a way to do a job better then the guy next to you, to be e better employee.

The options are that you either allow the fact that people don’t all have the same advantages or you accept that as fact and move on, doing anything and everything you can to better yourself. It’s really that simple.

Anyway, I notice that this discussion is starting to get confused (by me) with the union discussion in the other thread.

[ralph124c]

TAX CUTS!
This is the proven way to stimulate economic activity…every consumer who spends a dollar generates $7 in economic activity (multiplier effect).
The way Obama did it was to give the cash to government agencies, who used it to keep useless programs going (like the USDOE finding new ways to measure student “achievement”)- and award grants to increase student achievement.
But to a statist like Obama, people cannot be trusted to spend their own money wisely-the government is needed to do it for them.

[Der_Trihs]

@ralph124c

TAX CUTS!
This is the proven way to stimulate economic activity…every consumer who spends a dollar generates $7 in economic activity (multiplier effect).

Until the country collapses due to a disintegrating infrastructure, massive debt, and because the wealthy have all the money.

And what makes you think that tax cuts are going to put money in the hands of the consumers?

[Ravenman]

@Mr_Smashy

Has the CBO actually done that? I thought I’ve read in many threads that all they did was re-look at the models they used pre-passage, and reaffirmed them, with no new economic data. If not, then send over a cite please.

@CBO

Looking at recorded spending to date as well as estimates of the other effects of ARRA on spending and revenues, CBO has estimated the law’s impact on employment and economic output using evidence about the effects of previous similar policies on the economy and using various mathematical models that represent the workings of the economy. On that basis, CBO estimates that in the second quarter of calendar year 2010, ARRA’s policies:

* Raised the level of real (inflation-adjusted) gross domestic product (GDP) by between 1.7 percent and 4.5 percent,
* Lowered the unemployment rate by between 0.7 percentage points and 1.8 percentage points,
* Increased the number of people employed by between 1.4 million and 3.3 million, and
* Increased the number of full-time-equivalent (FTE) jobs by 2.0 million to 4.8 million compared with what those amounts would have been otherwise. (Increases in FTE jobs include shifts from part-time to full-time work or overtime and are thus generally larger than increases in the number of employed workers.) ... 

Although CBO has examined data on output and employment during the period since ARRA’s enactment, those data are not as helpful in determining ARRA’s economic effects as might be supposed because isolating the effects would require knowing what path the economy would have taken in the absence of the law. Because that path cannot be observed, the new data add only limited information about ARRA’s impact.

Link. I’m not quite sure if I read your comment correctly – you want CBO to compare current data to “what would have been sans stimulus” data without using modeling?

[Lobohan]

@yorick73

You should really educate yourself on the USPS monopoly of non-urgent mail. FedEx and UPS are not ALLOWED to do things that USPS does.

So you’re of the opinion that FedEx and UPS existing are evidence that the USPS is inefficient because they aren’t doing the same thing?

That’s kinda the point isn’t it? FedEx and UPS have different jobs. Their existence does nothing to support Smashy’s argument.

[Lobohan]

@magellan01

@Lobohan

My post did have content. It politely showed you that you were wrong.

Personally I don’t think it’s very upstanding to ignore it when people show you that you’re mistaken. That’s how people end up living their lives believing utter rubbish.

Actually, all you did was to point out that he might be wrong. That is all. Which everyone was probably aware of anyway. But, hey, at least that some contribution for a change.

I showed that his argument was mush. If he’s right it’ll be despite the argument. And I’m glad you’re pleased with my heightened level of contribution.

[yorick73]

@Lobohan

@yorick73

You should really educate yourself on the USPS monopoly of non-urgent mail. FedEx and UPS are not ALLOWED to do things that USPS does.

So you’re of the opinion that FedEx and UPS existing are evidence that the USPS is inefficient because they aren’t doing the same thing?

That’s kinda the point isn’t it? FedEx and UPS have different jobs. Their existence does nothing to support Smashy’s argument.

I’m of the opinion that you had no idea what you were talking about in that post. That was a nice spin though.

[Dick_Dastardly]

@Ruminator

@Dick_Dastardly

For years we have been regaled with scary, scary numbers about how Medicare’s projected unfunded liability was in the TENS OF TRILLIONS. But the 2010 Medicare report is out and things have changed. The CBO and the Medicare trustees both say that the recent healthcare bill has done wonders for the long term deficit. According to the Medicare trustees, our 75 year Medicare deficit is down to $6.9 trillion and the infinite number is now a $600 billion surplus.

LOL… those overly optimistic projections assume cuts to Medicare payments. Those cuts are politically next to impossible to implement but gosh they sure look great as talking points!

Also… you do know that Medicare trustee reports in the past have been wrong and significantly underestimated costs, right?

Last year the 2009 Medicare report forecast long term deficits in the tens of trillions. This year, not so much.

[Mr_Smashy]

So DocFix and SGR are assumed as happening, or not, in the rosy-number projections?

Not that it matters too much, we the deficit and debt aren’t just products of the Medicare numbers, you know that.