"Obamaquester"?

[Dr. Zaus]

No, that's just your irrationally spewing your bias, not more accurate.

replace with:
"No, that seems much more like you providing a diference based on emotion, not logic, and thus..."


And I think you're right; because

Stockholders can view the paying of raises as 'negatives' the same way you do spending.

is accurate.

 

[chucky2]

No, that's just your irrationally expressing your bias, not more accurate.

It does illustrate some of the problem though, the level of 'hate' involved, where some people just hate government spending so much viewing it as that 'negative'.

So, of course those votes are going to reflect that - things like cheering the shutdown of the government and not paying our bills, just to 'mess with the system'.

I don't hate Gov spending, I hate out of control Gov spending. There will always have to be some level of Gov spending because there are things that the Gov will just have to do that the private sector cannot or will not handle. I'd turn it around and say you have irrational bias, but all it will be is I'm right no I'm right no I'm right type of situation.

Stockholders can view the paying of raises as 'negatives' the same way you do spending.

This right here could be one of the most ironic things posted, although I'm sure you did not mean it that way. Tax paying (the ones that actually pay a net positive of taxes) Americans are stockholders in America. Using this example what you're saying is that tax paying Americans should be happy that the company they own has decided to pay out raises - any raises - when the company is tanking, having to borrow large sums of money to keep solvent, and jacking up fees on their customers to cover their largeness. Usually companies such as this have their stock prices hammered and what gets them out of the decline is restructuring and cost reduction, along with desperately searching for some new product line to generate much needed profits.

Since there is no boom on the horizon to give the shot in the arm Clinton enjoyed, going after the always (for various legit and non-legit reasons) despised 1% will have to do.

Just curious here: At what point does our Fed and State(s) get a restructuring and cost reduction program to bring cost inline with income? It's not been in the past 30 years (can't really count the Clinton economy, that only met for 1 year because of a boom not anything the Pols did that was positive in this regard), so when will it be? 10 years? 20? At what point in the future will we be at parity?

Chuck

 

[ivwshane]

Flip the mirror. If B were there, there'd be a firestorm.

Subject to the "news" agency reporting.

How many times was raising the debt ceiling fillibustered under bush? How many times was it raised at the very last minute?

The usual thing that happens is that the minority party voices faux outrage that the debt ceiling is being raised and that government spending is out of control but enough of the minority party vote for it to be raised.

 

[Dr. Zaus]

Usually companies such as this

are under the burdin of competition and do not control the money supply of a nation, thus invalidating your metaphor.

At what point does our Fed and State(s) get a restructuring and cost reduction program to bring cost inline with income?

If we are in a state of perpetual industrial decline, then the answer is: once the perpetual decline ends.

The past is not the future my friend; marxist socialism was not just a normative argument, it was an observation of where an ever-advancing industrialized society must logically eventually end.

 

[chucky2]

are under the burdin of competition and do not control the money supply of a nation, thus invalidating your metaphor.

I don't view the Fed gov not having competition, I view it in constant competition, less so with other large entities that compete on buying/selling power, but rather, in competition with the banking and finance industry and others who are willing to lend/park their money so we can continue down our happy little path. They're all related, and it's all a big - but serious - game. If Craigs side is indeed right, then instead of having the yearly stimulus we've been having for like 30 years (that is, deficit spending) on these "small" scales, if we'd spend say $4T, our economy would truly ignite. Then, the next year, we could spend $6T! The year after, $8T! Remember, the deficit ceiling doesn't matter, which means, no need to raise taxes to cover this spending. Following this, Craigs side would also have to agree that the credit rating agencies would give us like InfiniteASuperWowie credit rating, rather than going apeshit over the spending levels. This is the problem with the Spenders: It's never enough, until they say it's enough, and they'll let you know sometime in the future what that amount is...in the meantime, just keep spending - don't think, just spend!

If we are in a state of perpetual industrial decline, then the answer is: once the perpetual decline ends.

The past is not the future my friend; marxist socialism was not just a normative argument, it was an observation of where an ever-advancing industrialized society must logically eventually end.

Even if this is the case, the phrase 'check yoself befo you wreck yoself' comes to mind.

 

[Dr. Zaus]

less so with other large entities that compete on buying/selling power, but rather, in competition with the banking and finance industry and others who are willing to lend/park their money so we can continue down our happy little path.

That's reasonable, so far as it goes; but your metaphor was predicated on the ability of the organization to fail and the investors to lose their equity as tied up in shares.

emember, the deficit ceiling doesn't matter, which means, no need to raise taxes to cover this spending.

This is exactly right; we should cut taxes and increase spending.

Following this, Craigs side would also have to agree that the credit rating agencies would give us like InfiniteASuperWowie credit rating, rather than going apeshit over the spending levels.

Indeed they would; as long as our spending was tempored by reductions in the private sector. Government is the only job-creator remaining.

It's never enough, until they say it's enough, and they'll let you know sometime in the future what that amount is...in the meantime, just keep spending - don't think, just spend!

Actually, the federal reserve could control this through monetary policy, in the case that we go too far. So it's a fairly safe system.

Even if this is the case, the phrase 'check yoself befo you wreck yoself' comes to mind.

It is important to descend into our socialist inevitability in a slow manner, so as not to get in the way of what productive potential is left in the private sector. I'm afraid that Obama and the democrats have no earthly idea what they are actually a part of, and no ability to comprehend the economic changes that are the eventual end of their policies.

Which is quite scary, because this transition should be managed very carefully, and it feels more like children bickering over who owns what marbles as those marbles are swallowed up by a sink-hole opening up underneath them. Thank GOD we have an independent federal reserve that can change the money multiplier if things go too far.

 

[Craig234]

I don't hate Gov spending, I hate out of control Gov spending. There will always have to be some level of Gov spending because there are things that the Gov will just have to do that the private sector cannot or will not handle. I'd turn it around and say you have irrational bias, but all it will be is I'm right no I'm right no I'm right type of situation.

Your comments in your later post are much more reasonable - and you defeat your own earlier argument.

Earlier you equated ALL government spending to some terrible thing - none was 'good'.

Which makes my analogy of raises the one that fits. Sure, I'm for some 'reasonable' raises, it's only when they're OUT OF CONTROL raises I object. See, that's the better analogy.

We can debate how much government spending is too much, but not that any is bad - but you have agreed some is good now.

This right here could be one of the most ironic things posted, although I'm sure you did not mean it that way. Tax paying (the ones that actually pay a net positive of taxes) Americans are stockholders in America. Using this example what you're saying is that tax paying Americans should be happy that the company they own has decided to pay out raises - any raises - when the company is tanking, having to borrow large sums of money to keep solvent, and jacking up fees on their customers to cover their largeness. Usually companies such as this have their stock prices hammered and what gets them out of the decline is restructuring and cost reduction, along with desperately searching for some new product line to generate much needed profits.

You can't go too far with the 'government as a business' analogy. There are things they have in common and things they don't.

It makes sense for a lot of struggling businesses to keep paying raises - because not doing so could cost them their best employees and prevent the business from improving.

Businesses often go into debt - in order to invest and make more money.

The issue of debt for a business and a government are not the same thing. This is an area of economics to understand the things that are different about a government.

The government has in ways a parodoxical role to what a simple 'treat it like a business' approach would offer.

At the height of our great depression, a right-wing view might have said it was the time to slash government spending to match the economic downturn. What we actually did was to spend massively, on jobs programs - building the sidewalks that benefit the nation for decades to come, taking on new, massive government works projects that benefit the society - the Hoover and other big dams, the Golden Gate Bridge, the Tennessee Valley Authority - right when you might scream 'dont spend that money!'

Even more ironically, the economy recovered MORE when the government did the opposite of what you would suggest - it increased borrowing even further going into record debt and effectively burned the money - using it to build usless products, economically speaking, product that were made and then destroyed without any use for the economy - the war costs of WWII. And that massive economic 'stimulus', creating employment and factories, is what led the economy out of the huge downturn.

All credible economists agree the stimulus Obama did was a big help - the better ones say it was too small.

The government isn't a business. I like the metaphor of the three-legged stool for the economy: consumer spending, business spending, and government spending. With a downturn in consumer and business spending, which are linked and tend to pull each other down, the only thing to prevent more decline in the economy - causing long-term to permanent shrinkage of the economy with the closing of infracstructure - is government spending until the economy turns around.

You might not agree, but that's the reason for my position.

Since there is no boom on the horizon to give the shot in the arm Clinton enjoyed, going after the always (for various legit and non-legit reasons) despised 1% will have to do.

Just curious here: At what point does our Fed and State(s) get a restructuring and cost reduction program to bring cost inline with income? It's not been in the past 30 years (can't really count the Clinton economy, that only met for 1 year because of a boom not anything the Pols did that was positive in this regard), so when will it be? 10 years? 20? At what point in the future will we be at parity?

Chuck

You get the history wrong. It's true Clinton had a 'boom' as one factor in economic growth - but the 'boom' of the internet hasn't disappeared, it's increased, and Clinton and the Congress did a lot more than 'one year', they steadily reduced the deficit every year of the eight years he was in office. The deficit that had been skyrocketed like never before in peacetime under Reagan/Bush and shot right back up immediately with George W.

Your question misses the austerity myth, that 'cutting' is the fix for the economy - when rather the wrong cuts shrink the economy.

If a business has $100 million income and $150 spending, there's a problem (put aside the fac tthe government does best with some amount of deficts usually). If they slash their spending to $100 million the wrong way, they don't find they fixed their budget - they might find they have reduced their income to $50 million, solving nothing and making things worse.

The phrase is, 'you can't cut your way to prosperity'.

Now, there is spending we could but - but political problems where bad spending is often the most protected, which is a different issue.

The solutions are more complicated and harder to do than the simple 'just cut spending'.

Doing that can hurt the economy, not help it and do nothing for the deficit.

Generally, the way out of the problem is to spend MORE to grow the economy allowing the debt to be paid off - while preventing new wasteful spending (like more on the military).

 

[Craig234]

I don't view the Fed gov not having competition, I view it in constant competition, less so with other large entities that compete on buying/selling power, but rather, in competition with the banking and finance industry and others who are willing to lend/park their money so we can continue down our happy little path. They're all related, and it's all a big - but serious - game. If Craigs side is indeed right, then instead of having the yearly stimulus we've been having for like 30 years (that is, deficit spending) on these "small" scales, if we'd spend say $4T, our economy would truly ignite. Then, the next year, we could spend $6T! The year after, $8T! Remember, the deficit ceiling doesn't matter, which means, no need to raise taxes to cover this spending. Following this, Craigs side would also have to agree that the credit rating agencies would give us like InfiniteASuperWowie credit rating, rather than going apeshit over the spending levels. This is the problem with the Spenders: It's never enough, until they say it's enough, and they'll let you know sometime in the future what that amount is...in the meantime, just keep spending - don't think, just spend!

I laughed out loud - in a good way - at your version of my position.

But it's quite incorrect.

Let me use this analogy to show the mistake you make.

Let's say that I advocate that the government should pay for all essential vaccinations for everyone... in the country... no, in the world.

Let's sayI make a case that spending $100 billion to do that is a good envestment on both moral and economic grounds, increasing the labor pool, reducing healthcare costs.

Now, YOUR version of my position would be that we should spend infinite money to give people every little healthcare item possible! After vaccinations, we should buy everyone nice shoes! And we should buy everyone in the world central air conditining and heating! And daily massages! And it'll always have a great payback!!!

Now, that might be funny, but it's not my position and it's ridiculous and incorrect.

I think you were right up to the point you said MORE stimulus, despite it being borrowed, would have been a good idea.

But that's not without limit. It's up to the point it makes sense, and when the economy recovers, you cut back on the government piece.

Much more reasonable.

Again, I'd point you to the far higher 'stimulus' done in the Great Depression and WWII for historical support.

But your version that doesn't understand my position helps explain why you are so against it.

 

[Craig234]

How many times was raising the debt ceiling fillibustered under bush? How many times was it raised at the very last minute?

The usual thing that happens is that the minority party voices faux outrage that the debt ceiling is being raised and that government spending is out of control but enough of the minority party vote for it to be raised.

I don't have firm facts for the following but I think there's a good chance it's correct.

There have been minor, 'symbolic' politics played with the debt ceiling in the past. Obama voted against one increase that way when he was a Senator.

But I don't know of any time in American history a party has ever really threatened to not increase it and cause a default on our bills.

That's why the US credit rating was downgraded for the first time in history with the 2011 effort by Republicans - costing the nation at least tens of billions, plus other harms.

So, no, your version of 'this is normal partisan politics' is wrong.

 

[ivwshane]

I don't have firm facts for the following but I think there's a good chance it's correct.

There have been minor, 'symbolic' politics played with the debt ceiling in the past. Obama voted against one increase that way when he was a Senator.

But I don't know of any time in American history a party has ever really threatened to not increase it and cause a default on our bills.

That's why the US credit rating was downgraded for the first time in history with the 2011 effort by Republicans - costing the nation at least tens of billions, plus other harms.

So, no, your version of 'this is normal partisan politics' is wrong.

??? My point was that it wasn't normal and that the republicans did something extreme.

 

[Craig234]

??? My point was that it wasn't normal and that the republicans did something extreme.

OK, I misinterpreted your point. When you referred to the 'usual thing' that happens I thought you were implying that what's happened before is not very different.

 

[Lithium381]

I laughed out loud - in a good way - at your version of my position.

But that's not without limit. It's up to the point it makes sense, and when the economy recovers, you cut back on the government piece.

Much more reasonable.

Now you're making ME laugh out loud - in a good way - at your naivety.

The government is already too big and to important to SOMEONE. They couldn't even agree on where to cut 50 billion dollars. . . after injecting 4t in government spending . .. .how are we going to cut that back? We can't. If the economy takes off again as predicted, those in congress will simply say "look at all of this REVENUE, we can go on another spending spree!"
New revenue isn't used to pay back past debt, it's used to acquire more future debt.

 

[chucky2]

I laughed out loud - in a good way - at your version of my position.

But it's quite incorrect.

Let me use this analogy to show the mistake you make.

Let's say that I advocate that the government should pay for all essential vaccinations for everyone... in the country... no, in the world.

Let's sayI make a case that spending $100 billion to do that is a good envestment on both moral and economic grounds, increasing the labor pool, reducing healthcare costs.

Now, YOUR version of my position would be that we should spend infinite money to give people every little healthcare item possible! After vaccinations, we should buy everyone nice shoes! And we should buy everyone in the world central air conditining and heating! And daily massages! And it'll always have a great payback!!!

Now, that might be funny, but it's not my position and it's ridiculous and incorrect.

I think you were right up to the point you said MORE stimulus, despite it being borrowed, would have been a good idea.

But that's not without limit. It's up to the point it makes sense, and when the economy recovers, you cut back on the government piece.

Much more reasonable.

Again, I'd point you to the far higher 'stimulus' done in the Great Depression and WWII for historical support.

But your version that doesn't understand my position helps explain why you are so against it.

You sides position is quite clear and quite simple: Spend in the bad times, and cut in the good times. I will tell you what. I will proclaim you 100% correct if you can show me one example of the Fed making real total cuts to itself in the "good times". Just one. Not they cut $50B to go spend $70B. Not they were over a budget from 4 years ago by $1T and they "cut" $80B from the total future overspending instead of the $100B extra they'd planned to blow.

Show me that the total spend was say $1.5T in year x, we had good times, which is what you say is necessary for the Fed to now cut (not, "cut"), and now in year x+1, we are significantly less that $1.5T.

I'll be waiting.

Chuck

 

[chucky2]

Your comments in your later post are much more reasonable - and you defeat your own earlier argument.

Earlier you equated ALL government spending to some terrible thing - none was 'good'.

Which makes my analogy of raises the one that fits. Sure, I'm for some 'reasonable' raises, it's only when they're OUT OF CONTROL raises I object. See, that's the better analogy.

We can debate how much government spending is too much, but not that any is bad - but you have agreed some is good now.




You can't go too far with the 'government as a business' analogy. There are things they have in common and things they don't.

It makes sense for a lot of struggling businesses to keep paying raises - because not doing so could cost them their best employees and prevent the business from improving.

Businesses often go into debt - in order to invest and make more money.

The issue of debt for a business and a government are not the same thing. This is an area of economics to understand the things that are different about a government.

The government has in ways a parodoxical role to what a simple 'treat it like a business' approach would offer.

At the height of our great depression, a right-wing view might have said it was the time to slash government spending to match the economic downturn. What we actually did was to spend massively, on jobs programs - building the sidewalks that benefit the nation for decades to come, taking on new, massive government works projects that benefit the society - the Hoover and other big dams, the Golden Gate Bridge, the Tennessee Valley Authority - right when you might scream 'dont spend that money!'

Even more ironically, the economy recovered MORE when the government did the opposite of what you would suggest - it increased borrowing even further going into record debt and effectively burned the money - using it to build usless products, economically speaking, product that were made and then destroyed without any use for the economy - the war costs of WWII. And that massive economic 'stimulus', creating employment and factories, is what led the economy out of the huge downturn.

All credible economists agree the stimulus Obama did was a big help - the better ones say it was too small.

The government isn't a business. I like the metaphor of the three-legged stool for the economy: consumer spending, business spending, and government spending. With a downturn in consumer and business spending, which are linked and tend to pull each other down, the only thing to prevent more decline in the economy - causing long-term to permanent shrinkage of the economy with the closing of infracstructure - is government spending until the economy turns around.

You might not agree, but that's the reason for my position.



You get the history wrong. It's true Clinton had a 'boom' as one factor in economic growth - but the 'boom' of the internet hasn't disappeared, it's increased, and Clinton and the Congress did a lot more than 'one year', they steadily reduced the deficit every year of the eight years he was in office. The deficit that had been skyrocketed like never before in peacetime under Reagan/Bush and shot right back up immediately with George W.

Your question misses the austerity myth, that 'cutting' is the fix for the economy - when rather the wrong cuts shrink the economy.

If a business has $100 million income and $150 spending, there's a problem (put aside the fac tthe government does best with some amount of deficts usually). If they slash their spending to $100 million the wrong way, they don't find they fixed their budget - they might find they have reduced their income to $50 million, solving nothing and making things worse.

The phrase is, 'you can't cut your way to prosperity'.

Now, there is spending we could but - but political problems where bad spending is often the most protected, which is a different issue.

The solutions are more complicated and harder to do than the simple 'just cut spending'.

Doing that can hurt the economy, not help it and do nothing for the deficit.

Generally, the way out of the problem is to spend MORE to grow the economy allowing the debt to be paid off - while preventing new wasteful spending (like more on the military).

I don't have time today to respond to all this, although I will say one thing:

I do consider the Fed a business, the biggest business in the world. So Yes, I will treat it exactly like a business, because that's what our Gov has become. As your side said, Too big to fail means too big to exist. The 'don't treat Gov as a business' is a cop out so Gov can be allowed to spend obscene amounts of money with impunity, forever, and never be held accountable or be chopped back. I do not buy it. Ever.

 

[Dr. Zaus]

The 'don't treat Gov as a business' is a cop out so Gov can be allowed to spend obscene amounts

No; it's a recognition that control over the money supply requires a different economic perspective. It's complex, and i'm happy to teach you: but you seem to have a "I do not buy it. Ever." mentality :hmm:

Did you know: There's no way to have money in our existing system without the government first borrowing that money?

Unlike a business, every voter has no access to money unless it is borrowed. Your scale of reference is something "inside" the system: a corporation. The scale of government is outside the system: the creator and regulator of the money supply.

 

[Craig234]

You sides position is quite clear and quite simple: Spend in the bad times, and cut in the good times. I will tell you what. I will proclaim you 100% correct if you can show me one example of the Fed making real total cuts to itself in the "good times". Just one. Not they cut $50B to go spend $70B. Not they were over a budget from 4 years ago by $1T and they "cut" $80B from the total future overspending instead of the $100B extra they'd planned to blow.

Show me that the total spend was say $1.5T in year x, we had good times, which is what you say is necessary for the Fed to now cut (not, "cut"), and now in year x+1, we are significantly less that $1.5T.

I'll be waiting.

Chuck

Well, here's one chart that claims to show what you asked.

http://brickcityblog.com/2011/12/23/10-charts-of-the-year-federal-spending-and-revenues/

Other charts do not show that decline in spending, I'd need to check more on it.

Now you show me the last Republican President who did not create or run huge deficits.

Reagan created precedent-setting record-breaking peacetime deficits, Bush 41 continued them, and Bush 43 went from no deficit to a massive one again almost immediately.

Suggesting what the right policy is isn't changed if the government isn't doing it.

 

[chucky2]

Well, here's one chart that claims to show what you asked.

http://brickcityblog.com/2011/12/23/10-charts-of-the-year-federal-spending-and-revenues/

Other charts do not show that decline in spending, I'd need to check more on it.

Now you show me the last Republican President who did not create or run huge deficits.

Reagan created precedent-setting record-breaking peacetime deficits, Bush 41 continued them, and Bush 43 went from no deficit to a massive one again almost immediately.

Suggesting what the right policy is isn't changed if the government isn't doing it.

No, sorry, no % of GDP BS. Actual Fed revenue and dollars spent please. % of GDP is another copout. It basically says that if a family is completely living within their means and happy making $100k a year, that if that family then makes $120k a year, they must spend another $20k a year. I do not accept that. They can save that $20k they're up for those bad times when they'll make $80k a year and need it.

I do not care about Reagan, Bush 1, etc. I simply want to see the chart in real dollars where in the "good times" (which seems like the last one we had was during the Clinton POTUS period) we slashed actual Fed spending because times were good: This is exactly the carrot in the carrot and stick reasoning of 'Spend during bad cut during good'. We will know if this is true and can be trusted when we see the significant Fed cuts during the chart you're going to provide showing that.

Chuck

 

[chucky2]

No; it's a recognition that control over the money supply requires a different economic perspective. It's complex, and i'm happy to teach you: but you seem to have a "I do not buy it. Ever." mentality :hmm:

Did you know: There's no way to have money in our existing system without the government first borrowing that money?

Unlike a business, every voter has no access to money unless it is borrowed. Your scale of reference is something "inside" the system: a corporation. The scale of government is outside the system: the creator and regulator of the money supply.

None of that matters. None. If it did, the Fed could easily have just printed off $10T and called it a day. No Great Recession to be found. It is this exact reasoning that gets us into so much trouble with Fed spending. If you run the Fed like a business in respect to actual expenditures vs. real income, you don't get us into the problems we're getting into now. It's when we start making excuses saying the Fed has to play by different rules than other businesses and therefore can just spend whatever because it can always create more InstaIncome for itself by printing.

Clearly that is not the case, as I don't remember the Fed declaring it was going to print a few $T and hand it out to everyone+itself to stem the economic bubble that just burst.

I'm happy to be told why the Fed gov can't be run like a business, maybe I will learn something, but please don't tell me because the Fed can print money it doesn't have to play by normal business rules.

Chuck

 

[fskimospy]

You sides position is quite clear and quite simple: Spend in the bad times, and cut in the good times. I will tell you what. I will proclaim you 100% correct if you can show me one example of the Fed making real total cuts to itself in the "good times". Just one. Not they cut $50B to go spend $70B. Not they were over a budget from 4 years ago by $1T and they "cut" $80B from the total future overspending instead of the $100B extra they'd planned to blow.

Show me that the total spend was say $1.5T in year x, we had good times, which is what you say is necessary for the Fed to now cut (not, "cut"), and now in year x+1, we are significantly less that $1.5T.

I'll be waiting.

Chuck

That is not actually the position, so no offense, but you clearly don't understand it. Total government spending is utterly irrelevant to Keynesian economics. Government spending levels are simply a function of what society wants for itself. Keynesian economics deals with deficits and government debt, you run up deficits and debt in bad times and reduce it in good times.

If you are looking for examples of that there are not only quite a few in US history, but a lot more from around the globe. With that in mind, are you going to follow through on what you said? No offense, but my guess is no.

 

[chucky2]

That is not actually the position, so no offense, but you clearly don't understand it. Total government spending is utterly irrelevant to Keynesian economics. Government spending levels are simply a function of what society wants for itself. Keynesian economics deals with deficits and government debt, you run up deficits and debt in bad times and reduce it in good times.

If you are looking for examples of that there are not only quite a few in US history, but a lot more from around the globe. With that in mind, are you going to follow through on what you said? No offense, but my guess is no.

Sure I will. Just find me an example of when the US spending in actual dollars went down by a significant amount (relative to total US spending) when the economy was "doing good". We're not talking about extreme one offs like ending WWII, we're talking during normal times. I know we've had more than one 'good time' other than Clinton, so there really should be multiple examples. I'd love to see them, if nothing for we could maybe look at what they did then as a mirror of what we can do now/soon.

Those examples do exist right?

 

[fskimospy]

Sure I will. Just find me an example of when the US spending in actual dollars went down by a significant amount (relative to total US spending) when the economy was "doing good". We're not talking about extreme one offs like ending WWII, we're talking during normal times. I know we've had more than one 'good time' other than Clinton, so there really should be multiple examples. I'd love to see them, if nothing for we could maybe look at what they did then as a mirror of what we can do now/soon.

Those examples do exist right?

I don't believe you read my post. Keynesian economics does not speak to whether or not you should increase or decrease spending in absolute terms.

Full stop.

Keynesian economics speaks to government debt and deficit spending, usually measured by a country's debt/GDP ratio. There are in fact many many cases of countries decreasing this ratio during good times, including the US on a number of occasions.

That's it.

If you are going to argue about Keynesian and liberal economics you at least need to argue on what they actually say, which at the moment you are not. If you are genuinely open to rethinking your position on economics however, countries have behaved in the general sense of what you are asking for in the past. (running up debt ratio in bad times, running it down in good)

Does that make you more open to changing your mind? Not only does the theory seem to be correct, but countries can operate by it. Seems like a winner to me.

 

[Charles Kozierok]

Yes, we're like the bible story of Joseph interpreting Pharaoh's dream of the cows and Pharaoah setting aside food during seven good years to feed the people during the seven bad years.

Only in our case, Pharaoh spends seven years wasting all the food, then borrows food from China to feed his people during the seven lean years, and gets used to borrowing it and keeps doing it forever.

 

[Craig234]

Yes, we're like the bible story of Joseph interpreting Pharaoh's dream of the cows and Pharaoah setting aside food during seven good years to feed the people during the seven bad years.

Only in our case, Pharaoh spends seven years wasting all the food, then borrows food from China to feed his people during the seven lean years, and gets used to borrowing it and keeps doing it forever.

Things would be very different, if we didn't have the steadily growing economy the last many years, and instead we'd had some major economic crash a few years ago.

Your platitudes are like expressing generalizations demanding we keep military spending down to pacifist levels in 1942 ignoring the threats.

There's a time for fixing the deficits, after economic recovery.

Sorry to put a partisan reminder, but when that time comes, which party has been the only one to skyrocket our deficits for the last 30 years, when the practics began?

People need a reminder that a party TALKING against debt doesn't mean they are.

 

[Dr. Zaus]

There's a time for fixing the deficits, after economic recovery.

I think the rhetoric of 'recovery' is based on the idea that we have to have ever growing consumption in order to 'recover'. What if we found out we just didn't need so much work done? What if it turns out that not everyone needs to be employed in order to produce more than enough for everyone?

In this case deficient spending should never be fixed; only limited to levels that allow what little productivity is left in the private sector to continue to be obtained.

 

[Craig234]

I think the rhetoric of 'recovery' is based on the idea that we have to have ever growing consumption in order to 'recover'. What if we found out we just didn't need so much work done? What if it turns out that not everyone needs to be employed in order to produce more than enough for everyone?

In this case deficient spending should never be fixed; only limited to levels that allow what little productivity is left in the private sector to continue to be obtained.

Thing is, it's pretty straightforward that the recovery is from the massive crash in 2008, and that there's plenty of room for recovery, rather than their being 'overconsumption'.

It is unfortunate, though, that 93% of the recovery has gone to the top 1%.

Oh, wait, a number, so I need a link for it like every number posted no matter if all agree with it.

https://www.commondreams.org/headline/2012/03/06-5