CBO: Trillion dollar deficits through 2017.

[fskimospy]

In US politics? Bullshit.



First of all, it wasn't the austerity that fucked them it was the increased cost of their debt, both existing and new. It is a classic example of what I was talking about in a previous post, borrowing fucktons of money with an adjustable interest rate that you never intend on actually paying off.

Frankly, you should be on your knees thanking the heavens that Europe is in the way it is right now because that, and nothing else, is what is allowing us to continue our absurd borrowing. They are the hooker with aids and we are the hooker with herpes and there ain't no clean hookers out there.

I do agree that it is never a good idea to give up sovereign control of your money supply and I have stated that numerous times here. However, what you are truly implying is that every last nation on Earth can eat a hamburger today on credit and pay it back with 3/4 of a hamburger at some point in the future and we never ever run out of hamburgers.

You are implying a mathematical impossibility. That every nation and person on this planet can simultaneously grow their economy with borrowed money, pay interest with inflated currency, and never run out of resources. It might work for the next 10 years but eventually it must come to an end, it is a mathematical fact. Or is it only us and Europe you wish this for and we accomplish it on the backs of the rest of the Earth? That has worked so far but it is also running out of steam, perhaps you have an idea to stroke the flames a bit?

Math always wins.

I'm implying nothing of the sort, I think you just have a fundamental misunderstanding of sovereign debt. European debt woes stem from euro problems. Not from borrowing. (Greece excepted)

Math always does win, and math clearly shows that we should run deficits in the short term. Math's inescapable conclusion is to run deficits, anyone who is denying this is substituting ideology for mathematical inference. The sooner we can convince America to embrace math in its fiscal policy as opposed to emotional appeals, the sooner we will right our fiscal ship. Europe is showing us the foolishness of austerity in the face of a depression, and so I hope that America learns from this and continues to embrace expansionary fiscal policy.

When you look at it, America was ground zero for the housing crash. After the meltdown the US undertook expansionary fiscal policy, and Europe undertook contractionary policy. They are headed back into recession with no improvement in their budgetary outlook, and we are expanding. It's as close to a perfect natural experiment as anyone could hope for, and the expansionary policies of Keynesian economics are being proven as we speak.

 

[senseamp]

Not to mention, who does he think is earning that interest? The poor and middle class with their massive investment portofolios? Or the wealthy?

Government borrowing is just another way to shift wealth to the top, and here we have eskimospy defending it.

Of course he doesn't even seem to understand basic English, so I can't say I'm surprised at his complete lack of understanding that the system he hates is the same one he loves.

Check interest rates lately? Middle class benefits more from not having a recession than the e wealthy benefit from the interest.

 

[1prophet]

Agreed 100%.

The only way out of this I can see is some new technological develop, like PC's and the internet were, that greatly increased productivity and wealth/GDP. But I know of nothing on the horizon. Computers were in development decades before blossoming. I know of nothing comparable.

Fern

Oh it's happening it just isn't going to happen here.

 

[Doppel]

Math always does win, and math clearly shows that we should run deficits in the short term.

It's been decades now, this is no short term, it's a systemic debt addiction. Speaking of math, the only reason the US is ostensibly expanding is because it's including debt as part of its GDP. It is not growing; the US economy is contracting as well, it simply is using more deficit to cover the difference and pretending it's growth. It's an inherent failing of looking at GDP as a measure of economic expansion because it does not include deficit in its calculation.

 

[sonicdrummer20]

Nnnno. The principal black-hole of our expenditures are entitlements.

True story

 

[fskimospy]

It's been decades now, this is no short term, it's a systemic debt addiction. Speaking of math, the only reason the US is ostensibly expanding is because it's including debt as part of its GDP. It is not growing; the US economy is contracting as well, it simply is using more deficit to cover the difference and pretending it's growth. It's an inherent failing of looking at GDP as a measure of economic expansion because it does not include deficit in its calculation.

Why would we subtract money we mostly lend to ourselves from GDP?

 

[PokerGuy]

Math always does win, and math clearly shows that we should run deficits in the short term.

Except that there isn't a "short term", we've been running deficits for a long time and will continue to run deficits, especially when you start figuring in the accounting flim flam that can lead to apparent surpluses when there are none.

Math's inescapable conclusion is to run deficits, anyone who is denying this is substituting ideology for mathematical inference. Europe is showing us the foolishness of austerity in the face of a depression, and so I hope that America learns from this and continues to embrace expansionary fiscal policy.

Absolutely wrong, as usual. You're letting ideology trump rational analysis. Comparing Europe to the US is foolish for many reasons. For starters, they are not the same entity, they operate in vastly different environments and face different challenges. Then you start making wild simplistic assumptions as to what are the fundamental causes of problems, and you're assuming short term results are valid over the long term. Sometimes short term pain is what is needed for long term gain.

Also, looking at the US "expansion" it's pretty clear that it's really just more smoke and mirrors, growth in GDP propped up by spending borrowed money.

We continue down this foolish short term gratification path because as a voting public we punish any politician who wants to take the steps needed to right the ship. We reward idiots who tell all the constituents that they can have everything they want without having to pay for it.

eskimospy and others like him remind me of a fat person, rationalizing why eating more is not really the problem. In reality, the bottom line is very simple: input-output = net gain or loss. Actually changing your eating/spending habits might not be as easy as rationalizing failure, but it's the only thing that's going to save you in the long run.

 

[Wreckem]

Nnnno. The principal black-hole of our expenditures are entitlements.

Ummmm...

Long term yes. Medicare is a huge problem with its $40-60trillion in unfunded liabilities.

Short term, entitlements aren't whats causing these massive deficits, SS still funds itself and will continue to because technically the govt borrowed all the surpluses and unless they change the law will be required to pay it back. And the Govt keeps cutting medicare and medicad payments.

FYI Military spending for FY2011 was close to $1trillion, it was "only" ~$280billion a decade ago. The next nearest country(China) spends less than $120billion a year. The Military Spending in this country needs to be cut by at least half. Really it should be cut down to $300billion a year. Military spending has merely become welfare for defense contractors.

 

[Wreckem]

It's been decades now, this is no short term, it's a systemic debt addiction. Speaking of math, the only reason the US is ostensibly expanding is because it's including debt as part of its GDP. It is not growing; the US economy is contracting as well, it simply is using more deficit to cover the difference and pretending it's growth. It's an inherent failing of looking at GDP as a measure of economic expansion because it does not include deficit in its calculation.

If Bush didn't cut taxes and our military spending didn't increase by ~350% over the last decade the yearly deficits would be small to non existent.

 

[OneOfTheseDays]

Unless you are willing to put our gargantuan defense budget on the table, you cannot consider yourself a fiscal conservative.

 

[fskimospy]

Except that there isn't a "short term", we've been running deficits for a long time and will continue to run deficits, especially when you start figuring in the accounting flim flam that can lead to apparent surpluses when there are none.



Absolutely wrong, as usual. You're letting ideology trump rational analysis. Comparing Europe to the US is foolish for many reasons. For starters, they are not the same entity, they operate in vastly different environments and face different challenges. Then you start making wild simplistic assumptions as to what are the fundamental causes of problems, and you're assuming short term results are valid over the long term. Sometimes short term pain is what is needed for long term gain.

Also, looking at the US "expansion" it's pretty clear that it's really just more smoke and mirrors, growth in GDP propped up by spending borrowed money.

We continue down this foolish short term gratification path because as a voting public we punish any politician who wants to take the steps needed to right the ship. We reward idiots who tell all the constituents that they can have everything they want without having to pay for it.

eskimospy and others like him remind me of a fat person, rationalizing why eating more is not really the problem. In reality, the bottom line is very simple: input-output = net gain or loss. Actually changing your eating/spending habits might not be as easy as rationalizing failure, but it's the only thing that's going to save you in the long run.

By all means please tell me what the differences are between Europe and the US are that change the outcomes of fiscal policy so that the two cant be compared.

Be specific.

 

[Darwin333]

I'm implying nothing of the sort, I think you just have a fundamental misunderstanding of sovereign debt. European debt woes stem from euro problems. Not from borrowing. (Greece excepted)

No, I have a very sound understanding of sovereign debt as well as debt in general. I also have a very solid understanding of the difference between "good debt" and "bad debt" and how debt for something that has the potential to be "good" can be bad.

Lets use the old tractor example. A farmer borrows money to purchase a tractor. He pays $500 a month on the loan for the tractor which will be paid off in 5 years but he makes an extra $600 a month with the tractor and it has a 10 year life expectancy. This is good debt. Now take the same exact tractor but he never pays towards the principal of the loan and instead pays only interest. He takes the extra money and blows it on a swimming pool. Eventually the tractor breaks and is no longer of use but he still owes the entire principal and continues to pay nothing but interest payments on the tractor. Our debt is much the same way, we never actually pay it off.

If all of the European nations had similar monetary policies and a central bank like ours and they were taking identical steps, where would the money come from? Would our bond rates still be so low? What if Asia joined in? How about South America and the rest of the world?

YOUR policies are the reason the middle and lower class are getting boned. We have been playing the game you are supporting for 30 years and it is catching up with us. As a perfect example, a normal man will see his dollar lost 75% of its value over the course of his work life (45 years) due to the inflationary policy that a debt driven economy demands. If he put his first dollar he made under his mattress and spent it 45 years later it would purchase a quarter of what it would when he earned it. Sure that same man may make more due to the inflation and GDP gains but he has not, is not, and will not make quadruple what he was making.

Math always does win, and math clearly shows that we should run deficits in the short term. Math's inescapable conclusion is to run deficits, anyone who is denying this is substituting ideology for mathematical inference.

Bullshit. We have not ran short term deficits and we will not run short term deficits. We have spent more than we made for decades and will continue to do so for as far out as anyone wants to project it. There is literally no end in sight to our deficits so it is anything but short term.

We are already at "long term", we have been artificially increasing GDP via borrowed dollars for a long time and we have been increasing the amount we borrow faster than our GDP growth. That is something that you should have learned in 5th grade called exponential growth and its not pretty in the context we are speaking about.

Now you are absolutely correct that without the deficit spending our GDP would contract. This was true 20 years ago, it is true today, and it will be true in another 20 years. That is because .gov spending is included in the GDP numbers. That necessarily means that for decades a significant portion of our GDP "growth" has not been actual growth but borrowed growth.

The sooner we can convince America to embrace math in its fiscal policy as opposed to emotional appeals, the sooner we will right our fiscal ship. Europe is showing us the foolishness of austerity in the face of a depression, and so I hope that America learns from this and continues to embrace expansionary fiscal policy.

When you look at it, America was ground zero for the housing crash. After the meltdown the US undertook expansionary fiscal policy, and Europe undertook contractionary policy.

If we found enough people to loan us money we could add 20% to our GDP this year. The following year when no one has anymore money to lend us we would likely see a greater than 20% contraction in GDP. I am sorry but your claims that we are successfully borrowing our way to prosperity over the long term and it will continue to be successful is simply false.

I have stated this many times in my replies to you and you never seem to acknowledge it. You continue to imply that austerity is the main driver behind Europes decline and that is patently and mathematically false. It is the huge increase in the cost of refinancing existing debt and borrowing new money that they must borrow, because like us if they can not live within their means, that is the driving force. Austerity measures did not cause the bond market to more than double Portugal's bond rates in the last few months. If our bond rates were as high as Portugal's we wouldn't even be able to print our way out of it.

Of course you will bring up the fact that our bond rates are at historical lows, perhaps because we are not introducing austerity measures? The reason our bond rates are so low and have remained that low is in a big part due to Europe. Purchasing their bonds is a crap shoot and the serious money wants safety in .gov bonds, as I keep saying they have aids and we have herpes and while getting herpes sucks it sure as hell beats aids.

They are headed back into recession with no improvement in their budgetary outlook, and we are expanding. It's as close to a perfect natural experiment as anyone could hope for, and the expansionary policies of Keynesian economics are being proven as we speak.

As close to a perfect experiment as you could get...... except for the part that you yourself continually bring up and that is we can print and they can not. I would say that is a pretty significant difference.

You nor anyone else has came up with a reasonable and politically feasible plan to stop borrowing money at some distant point in the future yet you continue to claim that we can grow out of or inflate away our debt? We can't even figure out how to stop adding to it in the future!

We will see a contraction at some point, it is a mathematical impossibility to avoid it, and that contraction that we must endure (either by our own choosing or by someone elses) has easily tripled (probably more) over just the last 10 years. The more we borrow the more we must pull out at some point in the future.

 

[Darwin333]

By all means please tell me what the differences are between Europe and the US are that change the outcomes of fiscal policy so that the two cant be compared.

Be specific.

We can print money and they can not.

 

[fskimospy]

We can print money and they can not.

The UK can print money. Speaking of the UK, they are an excellent natural experiment for expansionist vs. austerity policies.

The US is creating a fairly large number of jobs and our GDP is growing at a decent, if not great rate, but deficits remain high. In the UK more jobs are being lost, and the economy appears to be returning to recession.

At least they are getting their deficit under control though, right? Wrong. Stagnant growth, and lower government revenues due to that stagnation will actually push the UK's debt to GDP ratio to become higher than the US's in the very near future. That's right, not only is austerity screwing up their economy, but it's failing to even accomplish its intended purpose.

 

[fskimospy]

YOUR policies are the reason the middle and lower class are getting boned. We have been playing the game you are supporting for 30 years and it is catching up with us. As a perfect example, a normal man will see his dollar lost 75% of its value over the course of his work life (45 years) due to the inflationary policy that a debt driven economy demands. If he put his first dollar he made under his mattress and spent it 45 years later it would purchase a quarter of what it would when he earned it. Sure that same man may make more due to the inflation and GDP gains but he has not, is not, and will not make quadruple what he was making.

Actually inflation hurts the investor class far more than the middle and lower classes, for obvious reasons. (they save their money instead of spend it) The US dollar experienced more inflation in the 20 years after world war 2 than we have experienced in the last 20 years and this was met with widespread rising income and prosperity. Inflation is not the cause of wage stagnation.

Bullshit. We have not ran short term deficits and we will not run short term deficits. We have spent more than we made for decades and will continue to do so for as far out as anyone wants to project it. There is literally no end in sight to our deficits so it is anything but short term.

We are already at "long term", we have been artificially increasing GDP via borrowed dollars for a long time and we have been increasing the amount we borrow faster than our GDP growth. That is something that you should have learned in 5th grade called exponential growth and its not pretty in the context we are speaking about.

Whether or not someone engaged in foolish policy in the past makes no difference as to what the correct policy is now.

Now you are absolutely correct that without the deficit spending our GDP would contract. This was true 20 years ago, it is true today, and it will be true in another 20 years. That is because .gov spending is included in the GDP numbers. That necessarily means that for decades a significant portion of our GDP "growth" has not been actual growth but borrowed growth.

If we found enough people to loan us money we could add 20% to our GDP this year. The following year when no one has anymore money to lend us we would likely see a greater than 20% contraction in GDP. I am sorry but your claims that we are successfully borrowing our way to prosperity over the long term and it will continue to be successful is simply false.

It is overwhelmingly money borrowed from ourselves, therefore it is not borrowed growth.

I have stated this many times in my replies to you and you never seem to acknowledge it. You continue to imply that austerity is the main driver behind Europes decline and that is patently and mathematically false. It is the huge increase in the cost of refinancing existing debt and borrowing new money that they must borrow, because like us if they can not live within their means, that is the driving force. Austerity measures did not cause the bond market to more than double Portugal's bond rates in the last few months. If our bond rates were as high as Portugal's we wouldn't even be able to print our way out of it.

As has been shown in previous threads, the driver of those higher interest rates was not the rate of european borrowing, but the fact that they could not control their own currencies. Poor currency management has caused the European debt crisis, but foolish austerity measures are now making it worse.

Of course you will bring up the fact that our bond rates are at historical lows, perhaps because we are not introducing austerity measures? The reason our bond rates are so low and have remained that low is in a big part due to Europe. Purchasing their bonds is a crap shoot and the serious money wants safety in .gov bonds, as I keep saying they have aids and we have herpes and while getting herpes sucks it sure as hell beats aids.

I have never said our bond rates were low because of our lack of austerity measures. They are low because we control our own currency. We can take advantage of these low rates to pursue expansionist fiscal policy that will yield far greater gains than the rates we are paying on these bonds, and so we should.

You nor anyone else has came up with a reasonable and politically feasible plan to stop borrowing money at some distant point in the future yet you continue to claim that we can grow out of or inflate away our debt? We can't even figure out how to stop adding to it in the future!

We will see a contraction at some point, it is a mathematical impossibility to avoid it, and that contraction that we must endure (either by our own choosing or by someone elses) has easily tripled (probably more) over just the last 10 years. The more we borrow the more we must pull out at some point in the future.

Stopping borrowing in the future is not nearly as important as decreasing our debt to GDP ratio. We have done this many times in the past, and we can do it again.

 

[momeNt]

Actually inflation hurts the investor class far more than the middle and lower classes, for obvious reasons. (they save their money instead of spend it) The US dollar experienced more inflation in the 20 years after world war 2 than we have experienced in the last 20 years and this was met with widespread rising income and prosperity. Inflation is not the cause of wage stagnation.

Provide some evidence defending that statement. Even uncle Milton in his later years acknowledged that he underestimated the effects of inflation with regards to how its effects were distributed throughout the economy. Banks being able to lend increasing amounts of money and profit just by essentially dealing out inflation, then investor class being invested into those banks doesn't help the investor class? That's pretty insane.

Also sustaining trade deficits with how current money system works with no deflationary pressures (think gold drains) allows an increasing amount of importing of products from overseas and lower class loses its competitiveness just by virtue of an unrealistically strong dollar. Inflation and irredeemable currency does that too.

 

[fskimospy]

Provide some evidence defending that statement. Even uncle Milton in his later years acknowledged that he underestimated the effects of inflation with regards to how its effects were distributed throughout the economy. Banks being able to lend increasing amounts of money and profit just by essentially dealing out inflation, then investor class being invested into those banks doesn't help the investor class? That's pretty insane.

Also sustaining trade deficits with how current money system works with no deflationary pressures (think gold drains) allows an increasing amount of importing of products from overseas and lower class loses its competitiveness just by virtue of an unrealistically strong dollar. Inflation and irredeemable currency does that too.

Anyone who owes anyone money benefits from inflation as your debts become less valuable. Anyone who is loaning money out is hurt by inflation as their debtors owe them less 'stuff' than they did before.

Additionally a lot of the conditions that create inflation can actually help the poor much more than the increase in prices hurts them. I can't search for it now, but there have been some good economics papers on this in recent years.

 

[PokerGuy]

By all means please tell me what the differences are between Europe and the US are that change the outcomes of fiscal policy so that the two cant be compared.

Be specific.

For starters, they are not comprised of a single government with a single federal reserve. Policies can't be enacted the same way and don't necessarily work the same way because of differing mechanisms. They don't have the ability to print the currency that is used throughout the world as a trading and hedge currency. They have a variety of different legal, socioeconomic, fiscal and regulatory environments throughout the euro zone. They have a different distribution of wealth and income. They have different economies and economic drivers. And on and on and on.

Only a fool would assume that the US and Europe are perfectly the same so you can compare things easily and make broad judgments about what does and doesn't work. Then again, you've already repeatedly proven yourself to be a fool, so your continued failure to grasp the obvious is not surprising.

 

[Griffinhart]

If Bush didn't cut taxes and our military spending didn't increase by ~350% over the last decade the yearly deficits would be small to non existent.

All bush tax cuts cost an estimated 1.3 trio over 10 years. That's 130 bill a year. TOTAL military spending in 2010 was 689 bil. that's a 389 bill increase over 1999. That's a total of 499 bill more for the year. the deficit for 2010 was 1.7 tril. If there were no bush tax cuts and military spending were at 1999 levels, we would still have a deficit of 1.2 tril for that year, and 2011's deficit was higher.

1.2 trillion in 2010 still represents the highest deficit in the US up to that point and is nowhere near small. Bush did spend money like a drunken sailor, but let's not pretend that repealing the bush Tax cuts would even put a dent in the deficit.

 

[fskimospy]

For starters, they are not comprised of a single government with a single federal reserve. Policies can't be enacted the same way and don't necessarily work the same way because of differing mechanisms. They don't have the ability to print the currency that is used throughout the world as a trading and hedge currency. They have a variety of different legal, socioeconomic, fiscal and regulatory environments throughout the euro zone. They have a different distribution of wealth and income. They have different economies and economic drivers. And on and on and on.

Only a fool would assume that the US and Europe are perfectly the same so you can compare things easily and make broad judgments about what does and doesn't work. Then again, you've already repeatedly proven yourself to be a fool, so your continued failure to grasp the obvious is not surprising.

I'm talking about individual European countries, not the US. What about our currency alters the effects of fiscal policy and in what way? What about our different legal and regulatory environment alters the effects of fiscal policy, and in what way? Etc, etc. You can't just point out differences, you have to point out why they matter to the subject under discussion. Feel free to do so any time.

I have no idea where you got the bizarre idea that someone would believe that Europe and the US are 'perfectly the same', but two things don't need to be perfectly the same to serve as a valid basis for comparison and in this case the two serve as a very useful comparison.

You just don't like it because it tells you that conservative fiscal policy is a failure, so you're desperately trying to find reasons why you can ignore it.

 

[momeNt]

Anyone who owes anyone money benefits from inflation as your debts become less valuable. Anyone who is loaning money out is hurt by inflation as their debtors owe them less 'stuff' than they did before.

Additionally a lot of the conditions that create inflation can actually help the poor much more than the increase in prices hurts them. I can't search for it now, but there have been some good economics papers on this in recent years.

That's true, but inflation has to hit debtors income before their other costs rise in order to benefit from that. Not all income is tied to increases in the money supply the way that the Fed increases money supply via QE and monetizing bond sales. The reason IS/LM models with these stimulus packages don't return us to equilibrium and simply a higher price level is because there needs to be private debt deleveraging which is not as easy because it's more difficult to fix private balance sheets - think TARP for everybody, or steve keen's debt jubilee.

TARP wiped clean large bank's balance sheets pretty quickly but that caused a rebound in prices and presumably wages affiliated with those prices, but wages and prices affiliated with private debt - housing for one, remained in a deflationary spiral, causing all income earners more associated with private debt to be hurt by the inflation caused by QE/Tarp.

I think the focus on public deficits needs to be readjusted, too many are using archaic ways of thinking about these deficits as if it was a hard currency, and deficits are literally IOUs held either by countries or individuals and must be paid with a transfer of wealth that is taken via taxes or net exporting in world trade. It doesn't work that way anymore, deficits are funded via printing and they are paid in further devalued dollars. I'm not agreeing with how our current monetary and fiscal system works, but the meaning of the terminology is different with the way our currency works and how our government is funded. Before the great depression the USA LITERALLY gave Great Britain loans in order to give businesses access to credit to provide cheap export products that could help stop gold drains from causing a deflation in their money stock. Now, China just sends us a bunch of crap and we increase their account at the Fed and doesn't lower our money stock held domestically, we lose no money to pay China, we only lose value.

 

[PokerGuy]

I'm talking about individual European countries, not the US.

That doesn't change anything, my points are all equally valid for a single country or for all of Europe.

You can't just point out differences, you have to point out why they matter to the subject under discussion. Feel free to do so any time.

You're the one arguing that you can simply look at results between different countries and make broad assumptions about the reasons for those results. If you're going to argue that, then the onus is on you to demonstrate how the comparison is valid and how the results can be specifically isolated and demonstrated to stem from the policies you espouse. Obviously that can't be done because there are too many differences between countries to isolate the effects of a specific policy. Hence, such comparisons are only done by ideologues and fools. It's the same stupidity that results in the fallacy that a health care system that works in one place will work somewhere else.

You just don't like it because it tells you that conservative fiscal policy is a failure, so you're desperately trying to find reasons why you can ignore it.

I've already explained to you several reasons why you're jumping to conclusions not supported by evidence. In other words, you're doing exactly what you accuse the other side of doing - elevating ideology over rational analysis. Failure as usual.

 

[fskimospy]

That doesn't change anything, my points are all equally valid for a single country or for all of Europe.

Well that's clearly untrue, even if you just look at the currency issue, the UK issues its own currency while the rest of Europe is on the Euro.

You're the one arguing that you can simply look at results between different countries and make broad assumptions about the reasons for those results. If you're going to argue that, then the onus is on you to demonstrate how the comparison is valid and how the results can be specifically isolated and demonstrated to stem from the policies you espouse. Obviously that can't be done because there are too many differences between countries to isolate the effects of a specific policy. Hence, such comparisons are only done by ideologues and fools. It's the same stupidity that results in the fallacy that a health care system that works in one place will work somewhere else.

That case has been made a long time ago, it's why economists and other policymakers constantly use Europe and America as test cases against one another. Both areas are home to industrialized, high income economies, educated populations, and a robust social welfare and regulatory state.

Comparisons of just the sort that I am making are made constantly by professional economists and policy analysts the world over, it's nothing new. It's called 'comparative economics'. If they are all 'ideologues and fools' in your opinion, that just makes your opinion absurd. Your argument is basically that it's impossible to know anything, and while you are welcome to wallow in ignorance, don't try to make me do it too.

I've already explained to you several reasons why you're jumping to conclusions not supported by evidence. In other words, you're doing exactly what you accuse the other side of doing - elevating ideology over rational analysis. Failure as usual.

My posts are explicitly rational analysis. You have just thrown your hands in the air and declared nobody can ever know anything. Failure indeed.