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Both parties have been tying down safety valves, the boiler might blow, and there is goig to be a lot of blame-throwing if it does.
I see constant ranting from trolls, usually over in Left field, thet threre is a huge pile of funds to be tapped to address their pet issues. When I attempt to go a bit deeper as to why that can't work, I'm dismissed as a rambling paranoid.
Assuning the folly of a return to the 70% to 90% top brackets of the Sixties and Seventies can be avoided, where do we go from here?
Dismissed outright...No. Dismissed as it stands...yes.
I see this is not the first time it has happened. While I don't think your point is wrong, it is largely disorganized and barely cogent. I don't see it as trolling to say that your point, and your thinking, need help before they can stand to any scrutiny at all. This has been a major point of several others as well in the same thread. The basis seems to start okay, and a little work would help it.
It is not bad to need help, things break down in the body as we get older. It is when you need help and rave at everyone who points it out. If you want to continue in this fashion, feel free...I tried. There is more then enough room on street corners and library computers to keep some one who is happy doing it occupied. It's pretty easy to find others who do it on C-D.
This is ridiculous. Even high school students write in clearer and more concise statements and ideas.
I have seen this a few times though, it's the word salad of ideas you see with the onset of paranoid schizophrenia or mania. It's that time people are still largely cogent, but the ideas come out jumbled in a stream of words like a hummingbird on crack. We even have a few examples that an older mentally ill neighbor would leave on cars around her home.
You don't need answers to your ideas, you need meds. I'm not trying to be mean, I'm trying to make sure there's not another disheveled wackjob ranting on a street corner. Get help, the sooner you do the easier it will be.
That sort of dismissal just leads me to believe that the points I've raised, while admittely not knitted together as well as I should have (due to time, space and attention span -potential readers, not mine- considerations), would parry a lot of the thrust of the resident Lefties' usual answers. (And I'm speaking mostly of younger regulars still in the "drive by" stage).
My point remains: If Obama is re-elected and the House falls back into Democratic control, I expect to see a push for higher top (and possibly intermediate brackets) with the possibility of an "engineered inflation" (by monetizing those trillion-dollar figures) used as a deliberate revenue grab.
I also expect that the conservative opposition is well aware of this and will sound a warning early and often.
Both parties have been tying down safety valves, the boiler might blow, and there is goig to be a lot of blame-throwing if it does.
I see constant ranting from trolls, usually over in Left field, thet threre is a huge pile of funds to be tapped to address their pet issues. When I attempt to go a bit deeper as to why that can't work, I'm dismissed as a rambling paranoid.
Assuning the folly of a return to the 70% to 90% top brackets of the Sixties and Seventies can be avoided, where do we go from here?
That's better. Most of the people on here are righties and most of the ranting comes from there. In fact, it's often outright lies.
Nobody on either side has put forward proposals for 70-90% tax brackets. In terms of your leftist comments, it was a Democrat who cut down those rates.
There are funds to be tapped in to for sure. The end of the Bush tax cuts, particularly on the wealthy is what has most commonly been pushed. That's a small increase on marginal income over $250k. that's not 70-90% rates.
There were efforts to bring down the deficit this year. They were looking at roughly 3-1 program cuts vs tax increases, but it failed due to people on the Republican side not wanting to look at any tax increases. They prefer deficits.
I'm not sure you should worry too much about the leftists. At least they're willing to take the political fallouts from paying for everything instead of passing the buck.
As someone said earlier, it's difficult to comment when the topic goes in all different directions, is disjointed, using word salad with the largest words you can find in the thesaurus, touching on urbanization, recent graduates, and other topics.
You also make assertions and present them as if they are facts, like your view on inflation and taxes, although they are quite debatable. Let's note that "ironclad fiscal conservatives" have been predicting hyperinflation for 3-years since the Fed tripled the money supply and have been proven dead wrong. The same with interest rates.
You also wrongly assert that the idea of class-warfare is aimed at "economic illiterates." I know two Nobel Laureates in economics and many regular Phd economic professors that would take issue with your categorization.
But the topic is "taxes revenue suggestion," which you already answered in your second paragraph, when you dismissed raising capital [I don't spell it with an "o"] gains taxes and upper income tax increases, without defending your reasoning. Some say that having the lowest rates in many decades is really the root to many of our fiscal problems.
For your education, I'd read a few competing economic views. I would start with Milton Friedman, Joseph Stiglitz, Greg Mankiw and Paul Krugman.
But, you already answered you own question, so why the fake fishing expedition? You really aren't looking for answers; you think you already know the answers. As you proclaimed, you're an ironclad fiscal conservative. You made up your mind already.
Yep, it ain't something anyone really likes. Time to take our medicine. While I prefer consumption taxes over income taxes it will take too long to sell the American people on it and the clock is ticking.
Obama put together the fiscal dream team to come up with a solution. Simpson and Bowles IS that solution. Unfortunately, the plan is based on financial reality rather than ensuring re-elect ability, and that's where Obama and fiscal responsibility part ways. You can't win votes by imposing pain on your constituents. It seems he not only intends to kick the can down the road, but into the next state.
But, you already answered you own question, so why the fake fishing expedition? You really aren't looking for answers; you think you already know the answers. As you proclaimed, you're an ironclad fiscal conservative. You made up your mind already.
Most of the people here have made up their minds on a lot of issues; it's the exchange of ideas on the fringes of the controversies that takes us in new directions. That is why I deliberately chose to draw from a number of "oblique" points for illustrational purposes in the earliest posts.
As I said in an earlier post, my personal background lies in transportation, both economics and operations management. I can show you a forum at which the issue of the necessity for public ownership of almost all our transport systems (with the exception of the vehicles and in one instance -- freight railroads -- the right-of-way) means that a different set of rules must apply. That recognotion generated a lot of intelligent discourse among people familiar with the constraints
But in another paralell from my own field of expertise, and at the same site, I can cite Obama's painfully naive embrace of High Speed Rail (HSR) as a "solution" to the fuel crunch (and a simplistic attention-getter) The site was immediately inundated with teenagers and railroad buffs who had little exposure to the underlying economic concerns. Another fantasy at a time when the call should be for retrenchment.
But very few of these constraints and exceptions find their way into any of the mainstream media -- the subject is just too specialized, too complicated, and not sufficiently "upbeat". And I believe that the delay in seeking solutions, due in large part to our increasing polarization will, as Whogo points out, both intensify the crisis, and force us to seek completely new approaches.
My economic readings have included Milton Friedman, And Thoms Friedman. And Daniel Yergin. And John Maynard Keynes. And Ayn Rand. I surely don't claim to "know it all", but the "hope and change" rationale by which the current Administration was sold to the public is a shameless example of "dumbing down" appled to the political arena.
We all have some painful learning (and unlearning) to do.
Last edited by 2nd trick op; 02-19-2012 at 05:59 PM..
Obama put together the fiscal dream team to come up with a solution. Simpson and Bowles IS that solution. Unfortunately, the plan is based on financial reality rather than ensuring re-elect ability, and that's where Obama and fiscal responsibility part ways. You can't win votes by imposing pain on your constituents. It seems he not only intends to kick the can down the road, but into the next state.
Actually, there is a good reason the Bowles Simpson (BS) Commission was nick-named the cat food commission.
The Commission was supposed to look at ways to cut spending. So, the first thing they did was decide as their "Guiding Principles and Values," to "Cap revenue at or below 21% of GDP." Why is an upper limit on taxes a recommendation from a committee charged with cutting the deficit?
Then the Tax Policy Center crunched the numbers and there is no surprise that these recommendations redistributes income upward: the bottom 80 percent of families would pay higher taxes than they did in the Clinton years, while the top 20 percent -- and especially the top 5 percent get large tax-cuts.
This should have been obvious when the President appointed a commission composed of conservative Republicans and center-right Democrats.
They recommend eliminating tax breaks, like the health benefits deductibles and mortgage interest -- deductions the middle-class uses. Hold on, it gets worse.
Then, they take that extra revenue and use it, not to reduce the deficit, but to allow sharply lower the top marginal tax rate and the corporate tax rate.
Then, they suggest raising the Social Security retirement age.
The BS plan does show a drop in the deficit, but upon not-so-careful analysis, we see why. The main factor behind deficit reduction is the magic assumption that the rate of growth in health-care costs will slow dramatically without specifically stating how this will happen.
Beyond Simpson Bowles making a pretty PowerPoint it's a worthless proposal that will not reduce the deficit but will lower upper income taxes while inflicting hardship on the middle-class.
Now, tell me why you think this proposal is serious?
Quote:
Originally Posted by 2nd trick op
My economic readings have included Milton Friedman, And Thoms Friedman. And Daniel Yergin. And John Maynard Keynes. And Ayn Rand. I surely don't claim to "know it all", but the "hope and change" rationale by which the current Administration was sold to the public is a shameless example of "dumbing down" appled to the political arena.
Well, neither Tom Friedman or Ayn Rand were/are economists. Daniel Yergin is 'almost' an economist and only holds an honorary doctorate. Rand has a following but her economics are fantasy.
For two books that have partially shaped the economic debate over the last 50 years I recommend J.K. Galbraith's "The Affluent Society" and Miton Friedman's "Capitalism and Freedom". They both are still pertinent to today's debate.
Bowles-Simpson as I said won't be loved by anyone. We have to reduce spending and increase taxes and the biggest elephant in the room is healthcare costs which both parties have fantasy proposals on reducing the costs.
For two books that have partially shaped the economic debate over the last 50 years I recommend J.K. Galbraith's "The Affluent Society" and Miton Friedman's "Capitalism and Freedom". They both are still pertinent to today's debate.
Bowles-Simpson as I said won't be loved by anyone. We have to reduce spending and increase taxes and the biggest elephant in the room is healthcare costs which both parties have fantasy proposals on reducing the costs.
The problem, as I said, with Bowles-Simpson is that it lowers taxes on the rich and raises them on the bottom 80%, while cutting programs and NOT lowering the deficit. It's smoke and mirrors, except that it really does transfer income upward.
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