White flight — to the city (Atlanta, Decatur: fit in, real estate market, apartment complexes)

[rcsteiner]

Originally Posted by BringBackCobain

You should be a kindergarten teacher, you'd be great at it.

That doesn't mean he isn't right.

[BringBackCobain]

Originally Posted by rcsteiner

That doesn't mean he isn't right.

Actually, he is not right. I would argue that the denial of benefits to someone that those benefits will only end up hurting is much more compassionate than simply coddling their bad decisions with never-ending handouts. It's called tough love. How compassionate is it for a parent to feed their morbidly obese child ice cream, McDonald's, and cookies every day, when they know the end result will be a life of heart disease and other health problems? The parent who denies overweight children fatty foods is not "callous"--he simply has the resolve to do what is right for the child, even if it may hurt them in the short-term. And so it goes with government hand outs. Denial may hurt in the short run, but it prevents dependency in the long run.

[BringBackCobain]

Originally Posted by K-SawDude

My econ prof in undergrad used to pass around faux 3 billion dollar bills with Bill Clinton's face on the front and sing the praises of supply-side (trickle down) economics--i.e., tax cuts for the wealthy make everyone richer!

That's not been working out all that well for anyone except the people already at the top. (Note how wages remain stagnant for those at the bottom after trickle down came into vogue in the early 80s, while the richest get richer over time.)

File:United States Income Distribution 1967-2003.svg - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Actually, trickle-down economics implemented in the 1980s resulted in the largest economic expansion in our nations history a decade later. The growing gap in income distribution is due to our economy's shift from a manufacturing-based economy (a nation of producers) to a service-based economy (a nation of consumers). This shift has been decimating the middle-class by shipping jobs overseas, and it has been facilitated by "free" trade agreements, such as NAFTA.

Anyways, speaking as someone actually in the academic biz, trust me when I say that there are plenty of conservative professors in econ and business departments at universities all over the country. It's commonly known that those departments tend to be the most conservative on most campuses.

All it means to be the "most conservative on a college campus" is to not be an outright Marxist.

Of course I know there are conservative professors, but it's really more about the institution of academia as a whole, including the textbooks. Any conservative professor would be hard-pressed to find an American textbook that adhered to a conservative or even centrist ideology, and that goes for every discipline.

[JPD]

Originally Posted by BringBackCobain

Actually, he is not right. I would argue that the denial of benefits to someone that those benefits will only end up hurting is much more compassionate than simply coddling their bad decisions with never-ending handouts. It's called tough love. How compassionate is it for a parent to feed their morbidly obese child ice cream, McDonald's, and cookies every day, when they know the end result will be a life of heart disease and other health problems? The parent who denies overweight children fatty foods is not "callous"--he simply has the resolve to do what is right for the child, even if it may hurt them in the short-term. And so it goes with government hand outs. Denial may hurt in the short run, but it prevents dependency in the long run.

Wow, I never would have thought you were a fan of Michelle Obama.

[AnsleyPark]

Originally Posted by rcsteiner

That doesn't mean he isn't right.

It's okay. Given the intellectual prowess he demonstrates on this board, I'm sure BBC would be one of my star students.

[muxBuppie]

Originally Posted by K-SawDude

Because it isn't simply "wealth redistribution"--i.e., as you say, simply taking wealth and moving it somewhere else. When the government spends money to create jobs, it increases the income of the individual taking that job, who in turn has increased money to spend, which increases demand for other goods, etc.

Here's a SparkNotes explanation on government spending here:

Note in that link that tax cuts also have a multiplier effect. The annoying thing is that politicians (especially conservatives) seem to not understand that both spending AND tax cuts are stimulative. If an alien dropped down from another planet and heard our recent political discourse, he would wonder why tax cuts seem to be the only proposed solution to everything.

To your main question: It of course isn't possible to keep spending infinitely. Just as it isn't possible to keep cutting taxes. We're obviously limited by our overall debt as a nation and the burden of our interest payments. Because the uberwealthy tend to horde excess wealth in recessions, I'd personally rather us lean heavier on slight tax increases on richer folks so that we can maintain some levels of government spending (which, again, is stimulative) to climb out of the recession while managing a reasonable level of debt.

That is a total waist. The government can only do what you say by doing two things; redistributing wealth it already took from somewhere else or borrowing/printing money. Why not just let people keep the money they already have if you just want them to spend it? Why go through a silly and expensive bureaucratic process to get less out? For votes? That or we can just borrow and print and then that is even worse in the long run because of the inflationary effects and what he have now with the debt crisis. You can't trust those indicators you posted in the quote for spending benefits. Otherwise the housing bubble would have never been real bubble and Keynes would not have said he economic theory that you support is unsustainable by his own words.

We don't have revenue problem man. We pay taxes out the ass no matter how much more you think we can squeeze out of people. We need responsible spending. That crap you are talking about didn't even work in Europe because they are collapsing left and right now. All that is going to happen is you tax the rich we get into another debacle and then we tax them some more and more and more because instead of controlling spending we tax until we get to the point where hardly anyone can even make the "rich" income you tax more, and then what do we do? We tax the middle and lower class more and more.

[rcsteiner]

Originally Posted by BringBackCobain

Actually, he is not right. I would argue that the denial of benefits to someone that those benefits will only end up hurting is much more compassionate than simply coddling their bad decisions with never-ending handouts. It's called tough love. How compassionate is it for a parent to feed their morbidly obese child ice cream, McDonald's, and cookies every day, when they know the end result will be a life of heart disease and other health problems? The parent who denies overweight children fatty foods is not "callous"--he simply has the resolve to do what is right for the child, even if it may hurt them in the short-term. And so it goes with government hand outs. Denial may hurt in the short run, but it prevents dependency in the long run.

You read far too much into my remark. He said:

To live responsibly requires compassion - not callousness - for your fellow human.

In my experience, he is absolutely correct.

The parent who denies a child food which is bad for them is simply being a good parent, IMO.

[arjay57]

Originally Posted by muxBuppie

We pay taxes out the ass no matter how much more you think we can squeeze out of people.

I agree. The good thing is that at least we're paying a lot less than we used to. It was brutal in the old days.

[roadtrip75]

Originally Posted by muxBuppie

That is a total waist.

No, this is a total waist:

[roadtrip75]

Originally Posted by cwlawrence

Yeah, it's the fact he lived responsibly...

Be careful you don't give yourself a concussion. BBC was indeed mocked for living responsibly:

Originally Posted by cwlawrence
Seeing it ain't experiencing it, buddy

I'm going to tell Obama he needs to clean house at the ONDCP, start giving drug tests and fire everyone who is clean.