The ‘magic button’ of economics doesn’t work
Growing up in the ’60s, William Beach knew it was a good idea to show up to caddy at the local country club on Thursdays. The future economist knew that on Thursdays, most of the rich men in town skipped work and met at the course to play golf, and they would usually be good for healthy tips.
Today, Beach works as head of data analysis at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative Washington think tank. Looking back, he told a Georgia Public Policy Foundation conference last week, he believes that those high-earning men worked just four days a week because at the time, high marginal tax rates of 90 percent to 70 percent didn’t make it worth their time to work a full schedule.
In other words, marginal tax rates drive the availability of country club tee times.
Beach didn’t seem to be joking in those remarks, and his audience certainly didn’t take it that way. His story offers a wonderful example of what I call “magic-button economics,” the tendency to explain almost anything that happens in economics and human life through the factor of tax rates on the wealthy.
Christine Ries, an economics professor at Georgia Tech who served on a state tax-reform commission last year, also subscribes to magic-button economics. In her own presentation at the GPPF conference, Ries bemoaned the Legislature’s failure to adopt the commission’s recommendations earlier this year, but predicted the setback would be temporary.
The commission’s recommendations, she reminded her listeners, would have reduced the tax burden on the wealthiest of Georgians — the “job creators,” she called them — by cutting the state income tax rate in half. To her credit, Ries also acknowledged that cutting taxes on the wealthy would mean putting more of the tax burden on the lower and middle classes, mainly by broadening the sales tax to apply to items such as food. But that’s a burden they should be willing to bear, she said.
“If you’re going to put a good tax reform proposal together, it’s going to be regressive,” she said. “People are going to have to accept that.”
Georgia already has a very low tax burden on business, she acknowledged. But it’s essential to Georgia’s future that taxes on the wealthy be made lower still, especially since the state is trying to compete with states such as Florida, South Carolina and Tennessee, with even lower taxes on job creators.
If Georgia enacts such reform, she predicted “growth beyond what any of us imagine, in a shorter time than any of us imagine.”
In other words, magic-button economics.
Unfortunately, the magic button hasn’t seemed to work for Florida, with a 10.7 percent unemployment rate; or for Tennessee, with a 9.7 percent unemployment rate; or for South Carolina, which has an unemployment rate of 11.1 percent, all well above the national average of 9.1 percent.
It also hasn’t worked at the national level. President Bush hit the magic button hard, enacting major tax cuts in 2001 and 2003. Yet even before the recession hit, gross domestic product and the number of jobs had both grown more slowly in the 2000s than they had since World War II.
In their comments, Ries and Beach talked about computerized economic models that Heritage Foundation is creating to help legislators and citizens project the impact of tax reform in Georgia. Those models will assume that tax reform inspires considerable growth, Ries confirmed in emails after the conference.
In other words, those models will project “magic-button” economic growth that is likely to be much too optimistic, putting the state budget at great risk. In fact, such models are so notoriously inaccurate that the Congressional Budget Office refuses to use them to project revenue.
Earlier this year, for example, Heritage used such assumptions to model the impact of a GOP proposal to cut a variety of taxes at the national level, with most again accruing to the wealthy. According to the model, the proposal would lower unemployment to 6.4 percent by next year, and to an unheard-of 2.8 percent by 2021.
After howls of disbelief from other economists, Heritage was forced to withdraw those projections as unrealistic. But that same approach is now coming to Georgia.
– Jay Bookman
Tell us what you think about the site
Customer Care »
Vacation stops, manage subscriptions and more
AJC Services
Sections
Other Editions
Visitor Agreement | Privacy Statement
© 2013 The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
752 comments Add your comment
Keep Up the Good Fight!
October 5th, 2011
11:54 am
Joe Mama, Doom loves those broad sweeping generalizations and then when you point out the nuances, he falls back to the “prove I said that”. For all his assertions about his great critical thinking and “winning”, the poster certainly is a very sloppy communicator of nuanced analysis….. well or just good at backtracking denials and spinning when he gets caught.
mm
October 5th, 2011
11:55 am
I don’t understand why the wingnuts on this blog continue to defend millionaires. The ones crying the loudest are not and will never be millionaires. Taxes are a slow as they’ve been in 50 years, and no jobs have been created in the last 10 years. When are you going to start believing your eyes instead of Rush Limbaugh?
Demand creates jobs, not tax breaks for millionaires. Until the middle class gets help, this country is screwed.
AmVet
October 5th, 2011
11:55 am
“…when large numbers of hard working people live in poverty and the middle class is shrinking, it is a systemic, not an individual problem.”
Word.
Joe Mama
October 5th, 2011
11:59 am
Keep Up — “For all his assertions about his great critical thinking and “winning”, the poster certainly is a very sloppy communicator of nuanced analysis….”
I’d probably treat Mr. Doom and his posts more charitably if he wasn’t so prone to toss out nuggets like ‘Doom’s here to help you’ and ‘this is just too easy.’ Given his disdainful treatment of other posters, I don’t see where he can credibly believe that he deserves polite treatment from others.
I about busted a gut laughing last week when he tried to call me out for being mean and condescending to others. (giggling)
Jm
October 5th, 2011
11:59 am
Amvet I now u don’t get this. But
The American dream is not a GUARANTEE of prosperity
Merely the opportunity
getalife
October 5th, 2011
11:59 am
mm,
Brainwashed.
JohnnyReb
October 5th, 2011
12:00 pm
mm – you have a misconception of who will create the jobs. For example, even if Obama’s job bill were to pass intact, it would only fund teacher pay for one year. Who will pay teachers after that? No one unless tax revenues increase. In one year, we would be back to where we are today (as far as teachers are concerned). His job bill is not the answer, and therein lies the reason it is not zipping through Congress.
Mick
October 5th, 2011
12:00 pm
The number one reason why this economy is in the dumper can be traced to the real estate scam in 05 & 06. Some were either smart or lucky if they liquidated all real estate for maximum profit. People used to get equity lines of credit, that’s gone. People used to sell their houses for a profit, that’s gone. People used to be able to refinance for a better rate, try that lately? This stench is going to last another five to eight years before inventory evens out. Of course the banks could solve the problem tomorrow by refinancing loans at 3% for 50 years, at least that would leave people with lower mortgage payments and more money to spend, plus more interest paid to the banksters. Why not?
Butch Cassidy
October 5th, 2011
12:01 pm
I’m just curious how long these “job creators” would last if the taxpayer supported government protections were taken out of the equation. I’m all for letting these poor put upon “achievers” self fund everything from roads, to police and fire services to military intervention. Afterall, THEY PAY THE MAJORITY OF THE TAXES IN THIS COUNTRY. So stop taxing them, and let them fend for themselves if they’re so inclined.
Kamchak
October 5th, 2011
12:01 pm
I don’t understand why the wingnuts on this blog continue to defend millionaires.
I call it the “don’t tax my dreams” syndrome.
They do believe that if they vote and support the same things as rich people, then that will make them rich.
AmVet
October 5th, 2011
12:03 pm
Jm, please contribute something relevant, factual and of value, or sit this one out.
As long as the political right wing is not willing to acknowledge the calamitous effects of hyper-concentrated wealth and power, we are screwed.
Our distribution of income has become so badly skewed that the number of dollars going into the purchase of consumer goods and services, as opposed to secondary financial assets, is permanently depressed and damaged. Middle and lower class American spend a much higher percentage of their income on consumer goods and services than rich Americans do. But relative income has been redistributed from them to the rich.
Ours is a consumer driven economy. With most income in the hands of the rich, as a nation, we consume less and too little. The rich spend a much lower percentage of their income on consumer goods and services and more on stocks and bonds than those who are not rich. This problem is serious and it is bound up with the key failing of capitalism that most economists understand, but dare not speak out about.”
As noted last night by Brocephus.
http://seekingalpha.com/article/290809-how-income-redistribution-could-help-stabilize-the-economy
getalife
October 5th, 2011
12:03 pm
14% approve corrupt congress.
A record low
Now is the time for real change.
Joe Mama
October 5th, 2011
12:03 pm
Jm — “The American dream is not a GUARANTEE of prosperity”
Nor is it a guarantee that, having attained it, you’ll get to keep it.
In addition, the American dream is not and has never been warranted as applicable to corporations. Just individuals.
ragnar danneskjold
October 5th, 2011
12:03 pm
Dear Jay @ 11:39, President Clinton signed the tax increase on August 10, 1993. The stock market on August 18, 1993 was 3,710.77. On December 30, 1994 the stock market was 3,834.44. I suppose I can agree with you, that the 120 point increase in the dow in the 15 months after the tax increase is proof that investors had great confidence in Clintonomics. LOL.
Butch Cassidy
October 5th, 2011
12:04 pm
Kamchak – “They do believe that if they vote and support the same things as rich people, then that will make them rich.”
Yes, and planting Skittles makes candy grow.
mm
October 5th, 2011
12:05 pm
“His job bill is not the answer, and therein lies the reason it is not zipping through Congress.”
It will create a hell of a lot more jobs than tax cuts for millionaires.
Joe Mama
October 5th, 2011
12:07 pm
Mick — “Of course the banks could solve the problem tomorrow by refinancing loans at 3% for 50 years, at least that would leave people with lower mortgage payments and more money to spend, plus more interest paid to the banksters. Why not?”
I said at the time that it would have been better — rather than giving banks TARP money — to use the stimulus funds to pay off existing consumer mortgages on questionable loans where the homebuyer was in a precarious position, then place the bank under the obligation to work out a mutually satisfactory mortgage arrangement for the home with the buyer — and place the buyer under the obligation to either accede to a new mortgage or lose the home. That way, the banks would have gotten funds, questionable mortgages would have been resolved and responsible buyers would have gotten a reprieve and a new set of terms.
Many more winners that way, and Wall Street wouldn’t get to hog all the TARP pie.
ragnar danneskjold
October 5th, 2011
12:07 pm
Dear Jay, more to the point of your essay, I agree with your core argument that there is no “magic button” in economics. We disagree when you extend your argument into one that “leftist big government politics have no adverse effect on the economy.” Your guys have regulated the economy to death, and it will not recover soon, unless we massively cut the large Obama-era increase in bureaucratic spending.
Brosephus™ - A rising tide lifts all boats, and a Rolling Tide lifts the Coaches Trophy on 1/9/12
October 5th, 2011
12:08 pm
Stop lying. If you have to lie to defend your position, change your damn position.
Jay
Not to burst your pipe dream, but frogs will find a way to keep from bumping their asses everytime they hop before he stops lying. Just sayin’…
ragnar danneskjold
October 5th, 2011
12:08 pm
And if you want to cut the almost-as-large Bush-era increase in bureaucratic spending, that would also help.
Butch Cassidy
October 5th, 2011
12:09 pm
mm – “It will create a hell of a lot more jobs than tax cuts for millionaires.”
Not true, with all those new found savings, they might be able to finally get their own personal “ball” washers to scrub their testicales for them. After all, these guys are the masters of “job creation”.
Don't Forget
October 5th, 2011
12:10 pm
Supply side economics sacrifices the wealth and power of the nation to enhance the wealth and power of the elite. Nothing trickles down. If it did, we would see middle class wages rise and we haven’t for the last 30 years.
ragnar danneskjold
October 5th, 2011
12:10 pm
Dear Brosephus @ 12:08, you must have missed my “apology” to Jay, where I agree that the almost 10 points per month rise in the Dow proved the investor confidence in Clinton-era tax increases.
ragnar danneskjold
October 5th, 2011
12:11 pm
Why that was almost 2 points per week growth in the dow. Impressive.
Brosephus™ - A rising tide lifts all boats, and a Rolling Tide lifts the Coaches Trophy on 1/9/12
October 5th, 2011
12:12 pm
AmVet @ 12:03
Most people will continue to fail to grasp the fact that we’re headed towards financial “checkmate” where we won’t be able to recover no matter what. Jobs are gone, and the money supply in the lower 80% is steadily drying up. Once we pass the point of no return, it’s 3rd World America.
Jack
October 5th, 2011
12:12 pm
Close all the golf courses and vote for Obama. That’ll fix everything and everybody will live happily ever after.
Butch Cassidy
October 5th, 2011
12:13 pm
Don’t Forget – “If it did, we would see middle class wages rise and we haven’t for the last 30 years.”
Didn’t you know, the Middle Class just hasn’t “applied” themselves enough. They keep making “poor decisions” while waiting for the Government to bail them out. Just ask RB, Kayaker, Woodstock mike, jm, and the many others who believe that simply “trying harder” will elevate you to the ivory tower.
Trotsky Foxtrot
October 5th, 2011
12:13 pm
Jm: “Not you … you’re a commie”
Congratulations. You have a hundred so far on today’s political quiz.
Brosephus™ - A rising tide lifts all boats, and a Rolling Tide lifts the Coaches Trophy on 1/9/12
October 5th, 2011
12:14 pm
ragnar
I’m getting caught up in the reading, and I just caught it. I applaud you and tip my hat to you because it’s not everyday that a conservative here appologizes in any form. Before I stir up a hornet’s nest, that’s not to mean that liberals appologize all the time either. Just pointing out the conservative thing since you are a conservative and you offered an appology.
travelingman141
October 5th, 2011
12:15 pm
It’s amazing how quickly every topic devolves into “Oh yeah, well Obama sucks!”
Jay the truth hurts, don’t it!
Trotsky Foxtrot
October 5th, 2011
12:15 pm
Jm: “You have a hundred so far on today’s political quiz.”
But don’t screw up the next question, or you’ll have an F.
Joe Mama
October 5th, 2011
12:16 pm
R. Danneskjold — “Why that was almost 2 points per week growth in the dow. Impressive.”
Hey, if you have any spare growth in your portfolio lying around that you don’t want any more, I’ll take it off your hands.
Trotsky Foxtrot
October 5th, 2011
12:17 pm
travelingman141: “It’s amazing how quickly every topic devolves into “Oh yeah, well Obama sucks!” / Jay the truth hurts, don’t it!”
Not as much apparently as the truth that was quickly evaded using the knee-jerk charge “Well Obama sucks” now does it?
Butch Cassidy
October 5th, 2011
12:18 pm
travelingman141 – “Jay the truth hurts, don’t it!”
Then this is really going to sting you. Unless you are currently in the 1-2% of the wealth holders in this country, you are basically supporting a position that requires you to bend over the counter and be gang raped by the aforementioned elite all the while smiling and saying “thank you sir, may I have another?”
Obama is over
October 5th, 2011
12:20 pm
The U.S. tax system is grotesquely complex, often arbitrary, and corrupted by mutual back scratching between members of Congress and influential lobbyists. The reason Obama is having a hard time with his Jobs bill (aka Stimulus 2) is that his administration has failed miserably in proving that they can be responsible stewards for the money. The real scandal is not increasing the level of taxation in the middle of a recession, it is that Americans are tired of paying taxes only to see Washington squander the proceeds on Government sponsored boondoggles like solar energy and ethanol. Seriously, who in their right mind would use food for human consumption as a raw material for an energy program that is not cost effective and then force American consumer’s to buy the product- particularly when people are starving. Rather than focus on taxing the evil rich ad nauseam, how about reforming the tax code, protectionist tariffs, and Government subsidy programs (like sugar, corn, and alternative energy) that penalize citizens for the benefit of a few special interest groups.
Kamchak
October 5th, 2011
12:20 pm
Nothing trickles down. If it did, we would see middle class wages rise and we haven’t for the last 30 years.
Which is why Econ 101, trickle-on, neo-classical alchemy, supply-side, laissez-faire, phlogiston economics had an expiration date. Demand was fueled by low interest rates and easy credit.
When consumers started using their domiciles as ATM cards, it was the beginning of the end.
AmVet
October 5th, 2011
12:20 pm
getalife,
Congress at 14% approval ratings?
I’ll have to check anew, but I believe that is the exact same number for BIG business and CEOs…
Bro, can you believe that apparently a sizable segment of the Republican Party thinks that flat-lined wages for 4 out of 5 Americans for forty years is a good thing???
I know that only a couple of right wingers have admitted this, but who here has refuted it?
Capitalism and our American system of governance has been completely compromised and corporatized.
Welcome the United States of America! A Wholly Owned Subsidiary of the New York Stock Exchange.
ragnar danneskjold
October 5th, 2011
12:20 pm
Dear Joe @ 12:16, agree, if you want some real growth let’s borrow from the Clinton tax cuts of 1997 – see some real stimulation of the economy.
Darwin
October 5th, 2011
12:22 pm
I don’t get it. The right wing is trying to recapture the Carter moment. Even though Carter inherited an economic mess, and inflation, he had to sacrifice his presidency to bring it under control (see Paul Volcker and the Federal Reserve). Understandable – because inflation affects everyone. Those working, unemployed and retired. Today, we do have higher than usual unemployment, but we have very little inflation. I have a job. If I follow the Republican mantra, my attitude is if you work hard enough, get a skill, you will find a job. If not, well then, who cares? Don’t the Republicans say, “I got mine, to heck with you!” I can understand why the unemployed won’t vote for Obama next year. But why do the employed consider him a failure? Government spending? Well, you’re coming kind of late to that party. It would be more credible if you would speak up with the Republicans are running things.
ragnar danneskjold
October 5th, 2011
12:22 pm
Time to lobby the office of harry Reid, to make him go along with the Republican proposal to vote on the President’s “jobs” bill, so we can see the real effects of the plan before the election.
USMC
October 5th, 2011
12:25 pm
“GLL, the front nine at Yates is very well done. Back nine, not so much.”–JAY BOOKMAN
Does someone need to tell the local soviet Commissar that Comrade Bookman has been participating in that bourgeois game of golf???
(Jay, please tell me you hold your clubs better than Comrade Obama and don’t wear blue jeans on the golf course… unless of course you are playing the “Goat Track” at Candler Park)
AmVet
October 5th, 2011
12:27 pm
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all corporate personhoods are created equal. That they are endowed by the their creator – the US Supreme Court – with certain inalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of the people’s sovereignty…
ragnar danneskjold
October 5th, 2011
12:27 pm
Dear Darwin @ 12:22, we agree that President Carter forfeited his presidency by his appointment of a Fed chairman, but it was the appointment of G. William Miller that destroyed his presidency, led to the hyperinflation of the late 1970s. While Volker’s constraint led directly to the recession – seemingly a violation of law, the leftist-inspired Humphrey-Hawkins Act – that infected the early Reagan years, we give him credit for ending inflation.
Joe Mama
October 5th, 2011
12:27 pm
R. Danneskjold — “agree, if you want some real growth let’s borrow from the Clinton tax cuts of 1997 – see some real stimulation of the economy.”
Given that the Bush/Obama tax cuts are still in place and that they haven’t been doing much in the last few years, I hope you’ll understand when I say that I’m pretty disinterested in any further ‘hey, let’s cut taxes’ proposals.
Don't Forget
October 5th, 2011
12:29 pm
It’s amazing how quickly every topic devolves into “Oh yeah, well Obama sucks!”
And they are not ashamed.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5E3vDO5eYRw
Joe Mama
October 5th, 2011
12:29 pm
R. Danneskjold — “While Volker’s constraint led directly to the recession – seemingly a violation of law, the leftist-inspired Humphrey-Hawkins Act – that infected the early Reagan years, we give him credit for ending inflation.”
Whereupon President Reagan thanked Mr. Volker by promptly tossing him out of his job and installing some scalawag named Greenspan.
ragnar danneskjold
October 5th, 2011
12:32 pm
Dear Joe @ 12:27, agree with you and with Jay, there is no magic button to cure the economy. However, there is a self-destruct button, labeled “tax increase.”
Re: 12:29, for me Paul Volcker – apologies for earlier misspelling – was indistinguishable from Mr. Greenspan. Volckernomics would have allowed the economic blossoming of the late 1980s.
Don't Forget
October 5th, 2011
12:37 pm
OIO
Seriously, who in their right mind would use food for human consumption as a raw material for an energy program that is not cost effective and then force American consumer’s to buy the product- particularly when people are starving.
Apparently you are talking about the republicans since they are the ones who have refused to repeal this.
hobby
October 5th, 2011
12:37 pm
Kammy@12:01
“They do believe that if they vote and support the same things as rich people, then that will make them rich.”
Do you think voting for liberals, on their promise to give you more free stuff, is going to make you rich?
How’s that workin’ for ya?
USMC
October 5th, 2011
12:38 pm
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all corporate personhoods are created equal. That they are endowed by the their creator – the US Supreme Court – with certain inalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of the people’s sovereignty…”–AMVET
Amvet, I will DONATE my time, knowledge and transportation to take you downtown and help you fill out the required documentation to incorporate you. AMVET Inc.
We can even ask Jay if you can accept donations from fellow comrade bloggers for the $100 you will have to pay the state to INCORPORATE.
Granny Godzilla
October 5th, 2011
12:38 pm
From the latest ABC News/Washington Post poll:
Barack Obama has jumped to a 15-point lead over the Republicans in Congress in trust to handle job creation, a sign the beleaguered president’s $450 billion jobs package has hit its mark in public opinion. Fifty-two percent support the plan – and most say it just might work.
Overall approval of the U.S. Congress, meanwhile, has dropped to its lowest in polls dating back to the mid-1970s. And of the eight in 10 Americans who are dissatisfied with the way the country’s political system is working, more blame the Republicans in Washington than the president.
no surprise
AmVet
October 5th, 2011
12:40 pm
Jarhead, why the hell would I use some one like you to do that?
I did it myself eight years ago last month.
Grow up and offer soemthing relevant to the discourse.
Or don’t.
getalife
October 5th, 2011
12:41 pm
AmVet,
I think the protests are a great way for the 98% of real Americans to be heard like the tea party.
Very encouraging to change corporate power in government.
The sleeping giant of the majority of the American people are awake.
Good little liberal
October 5th, 2011
12:41 pm
hobby
““They do believe that if they vote and support the same things as rich people, then that will make them rich.””
So when you vote for the democrats, do you do that so you will be poor? So far, i must admit, your vote is really working.
Good little liberal
October 5th, 2011
12:42 pm
getalife
98% of Americans don’t have jobs or bathe. It’s worst than I thought.
USMC
October 5th, 2011
12:43 pm
GRANNY@12:38
HI GRANNY! I hope you are having a great day.
The unfortunate aspect of your statement is that Comrade Obama won’t be running for POTUS against the Repugs in Congress… “Solly Challie’!… I’ mean Granny.
Darwin
October 5th, 2011
12:45 pm
9.1% unemployment. So, 91% should vote for Obama since there is no inflation and they have jobs. We tossed out Jimmy Carter because of inflation. Not for low unemployment. See basic Economics 101 – inflation and employment are inversed (meaning one goes up and the other goes down).
USMC
October 5th, 2011
12:46 pm
Ruh Roh!
Election 2012: Generic Republican 47%, Obama 41%
http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/elections/election_2012/election_2012_presidential_election/generic_presidential_ballot/election_2012_generic_presidential_ballot
Don't Forget
October 5th, 2011
12:47 pm
USMC,
you don’t really believe that do you?
hobby
October 5th, 2011
12:48 pm
little lib,
I was quoting Kamchack! —- but I like the way your thinkin’
getalife
October 5th, 2011
12:49 pm
lil lib,
“98% of Americans don’t have jobs or bathe. It’s worst than I thought”
Why post that crap?
Joe Mama
October 5th, 2011
12:50 pm
R. Danneskjold — “Volckernomics would have allowed the economic blossoming of the late 1980s.”
On this we are agreed. Mr. Volcker’s brand of tough love would certainly have stood us in better long-term stead than Mr. Greenspan’s version of drunkard-passed-out-behind-the-wheel stewardship.
Keep Up the Good Fight!
October 5th, 2011
12:50 pm
USMC… sorry, the unfortunate aspect of your statement is that there is no “generic Republican”. When you identify an actual republican, they don’t do nearly as well and as the election date grows closer, your dreams will be shattered.
Good little liberal
October 5th, 2011
12:50 pm
hobby
Sorry Buddy. I try not to read Kamchaks post. They make me lose all faith in mankind.
Don't Forget
October 5th, 2011
12:51 pm
GLL, you can blame Obama for not getting us out of this mess but you can’t blame him for putting us there.
Brosephus™ - A rising tide lifts all boats, and a Rolling Tide lifts the Coaches Trophy on 1/9/12
October 5th, 2011
12:51 pm
AmVet: Bro, can you believe that apparently a sizable segment of the Republican Party thinks that flat-lined wages for 4 out of 5 Americans for forty years is a good thing???
Yep. This installment of simple answers for simple questions has been brought to you by Brosephus™ Inc.
Good little liberal
October 5th, 2011
12:51 pm
getalife
I was just responding to your post. I know, a crazy thing to do.
Kamchak
October 5th, 2011
12:52 pm
Do you think voting for liberals, on their promise to give you more free stuff, is going to make you rich?
You seem to be laboring under the misapprehension that I want the same things as you.
Good little liberal
October 5th, 2011
12:53 pm
Don’t Forget
“GLL, you can blame Obama for not getting us out of this mess but you can’t blame him for putting us there.”
No. That would be Pelosi and Reid, and yes with GW folding to them and the media.
getalife
October 5th, 2011
12:54 pm
lil lib,
You cons get more pathetic everyday.
You lose every argument but never admit it.
Intellectual dishonesty is all we get from you cons.
Good little liberal
October 5th, 2011
12:56 pm
getalife
“Intellectual dishonesty is all we get from you cons.”
Why post that crap?
getalife
October 5th, 2011
12:57 pm
“Why post that crap?”
Because it is the truth.
ragnar danneskjold
October 5th, 2011
12:57 pm
Dear Darwin @ 12:45, with all due respect, the Phillips Curve manifestly failed during the Carter administration. However, the Milton Friedman “correction” to the curve holds sound.
Granny Godzilla
October 5th, 2011
12:57 pm
USMC
Hi dude!
Correct-a-mundo he won’t be running against congress (officially) he apparently will be running against Generic T. Republican.
Now that one has a following!
Joe Mama
October 5th, 2011
12:57 pm
USMC — “Ruh Roh! Election 2012: Generic Republican 47%, Obama 41%”
Well, when you find Mr. Generic Republican, convince him to run. Because none of the jokers in y’all’s deck right now poll anywhere near as well as he does against President Obama.
Good little liberal
October 5th, 2011
12:58 pm
getalife
is not.
ragnar danneskjold
October 5th, 2011
1:00 pm
Dear Joe @ 12:50, I did not even have any problem with Greenspan until his Bush-era demonetizing. Beginning in 2001, however, he failed to protect the dollar. Bernanke is Greenspan on steroids.
Ol' Timer
October 5th, 2011
1:01 pm
I’m not a dang Georgia Tech economist, but I can tell you one thing: what businesses need to hire more folks is not lower taxes but more customers.
And, this Tea Party mantra of cut, cut, cut will just increase the number of unemployed which will reduce the number of customers and further exacerbate a very fragile economy.
What we need is to exorcize this VooDoo economic notion that doesn’t work and never did — and have a massive works/progress effort to restore our failing infrastructure funded by money borrowed at just a little more than zero percent interest which is the current interest rate at the Fed.
getalife
October 5th, 2011
1:01 pm
“However, the Milton Friedman “correction” to the curve holds sound.”
BS.
Invisible hand, laffer curve, magic button, etc…
La la land economics.
Good little liberal
October 5th, 2011
1:02 pm
Joe Mama
“Generic Republican”
Do you understand why the use that in a poll? The polls usually are about voting for a specific Republican over another Republican to run against Obama. That severely splits the vote. So now, when the vote is spread out among 7 candidates, no one has a shot.
So if in November 2012, all the Republicans candidates are running against Obama, it will look like four more years. But I don’t think that is going to happen.
Joe Mama
October 5th, 2011
1:02 pm
R. Danneskjold — “Bernanke is Greenspan on steroids.”
Indeed. It seems that each day, we are subjected to further Bernanke-panky.
Granny Godzilla
October 5th, 2011
1:02 pm
I can’t decide about Generic T. Republican…
Foghorn Leghorn?
Rufus T. Firefly?
Or (my personal favorite)
Ernest T. Bass?
Good little liberal
October 5th, 2011
1:02 pm
Ol’ Timer
It worked for Reagan.
Good little liberal
October 5th, 2011
1:03 pm
Ol’ Timer
It worked for Clinton
Good little liberal
October 5th, 2011
1:03 pm
Ol’ Timer
it worked for Bush
ragnar danneskjold
October 5th, 2011
1:05 pm
Dear Getalife @ 1:01, you surprise me, you cling to the original Phillips Curve? How do you explain the change from 1974 – 1979?
ragnar danneskjold
October 5th, 2011
1:06 pm
Dear Getalife @ 1:01, maybe even more relevant, how do you explain 2001 – 2005?
Redneck Convert (R--and proud of it)
October 5th, 2011
1:07 pm
Well, if cutting taxes for the rich and raising them for everybody else will get us to 2.6% unemployment, not to mention two chickens in every pot, I say grease me up and bend me over. I’m ready to roll! Or whatever the rich folks want to do to me.
Good little liberal
October 5th, 2011
1:07 pm
Granny Godzilla
I’ve been trying to think of the generic liberal: No leadership ability. very corrupt. Says one thing does another. anti-Semitic. Socialist.
I have only one answer: Barrack Obama.
Keep Up the Good Fight!
October 5th, 2011
1:07 pm
For those of you who “love” Brietbart, Lawrence O’Donnell showed him for the childish disappointment he is so very eloquently in this clip… http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3096434/#44765980
Why with a few minor substitutions, it fits some other little posters here too!
Joe the Plutocrat
October 5th, 2011
1:08 pm
ragnar, and your guy Herman Cain was one of their minions during the 90’s. do ypu people not realize that the Federal Reserve Bank is essentially the “central committee” of a socialist model monetary policy. the Fed (central bank) controls the means of production/distribution of the dollar (actually, the Dept of Treasury prints/mints the currency, but the Federal Reserve determines its value via interest rates and the actually money supply). who “owns” the Federal Reserve? it’s basically a co-op of banks (foxes guarding henhouse). but let’s look a bit deeper. who benefits from asset bubbles, low interest rates and a $15 trillion national debt? the answer is corporate America (Wall Street, not John Q. Public/Main Street). so, if you are not in that “top 2%” “your money is good” but you don’t have a seat at the table. there is no “magic button” because this mess is not some accident or magic trick. it is how the “gamers” roll (right over the rest of us).
kitty
October 5th, 2011
1:09 pm
The fact that the guy from Heritage thinks the high level business guys are hourly and not salary shows just how facts do not matter to the Right wingers. THey would only have lower salaries and therefore lower tax brackers if they were hourly. They weren’t hourly. Jeez, how stupid are these people???
Dan
October 5th, 2011
1:09 pm
The “magic button” is supply and demand, which is as natural a force as gravity, every governmental action impacts that in some way, some bad, some good, some necessary and some not. But make no mistake, in general government does not spur the economy, nearly every action is a drag on the economy, good policies simply do less damage than bad policies, ergo the key to government “helping” the economy is to get out of the way.
Joe Mama
October 5th, 2011
1:09 pm
GLL — “Do you understand why the use that in a poll?”
Yes, I do. I’m quite familiar with survey instrument construction, statistics and survey methodology.
“The polls usually are about voting for a specific Republican over another Republican to run against Obama. That severely splits the vote. So now, when the vote is spread out among 7 candidates, no one has a shot.”
Support for all y’all’s candidates is presently quite fungible and fluid. Support ebbs and flows day by day, and by really significant amounts. Why, one poll released over the weekend indicated that the #1 and #2 polling candidates were — not Perry or Romney — actually Gingrich and Cain.
Given that Gingrich doesn’t even HAVE a campaign any more, I think that’s HILARIOUS.
The fact of the matter is that your candidates are falling all over each other to win the nomination — which means walking a tightrope between a nuanced position and wingnuttery, or else a swan dive into the wackadoo pool. Yet if a candidate goes too far in the wingnuts’ direction, he/she isn’t going to win the general election. Yet moving too much to the center (and being electable thereby in the general) means not getting the nomination. Oh, what’s a Republican to DO???
“So if in November 2012, all the Republicans candidates are running against Obama, it will look like four more years. But I don’t think that is going to happen.”
I don’t think that your candidate is going to have a coherent, positive platform, and that means that they won’t get elected. As I keep saying, I think this is going to turn out like 2004, but with the parties reversed.
So without a positive message for folks to latch onto, y’all will either have an unexciting, moderate candidate who doesn’t fire up the base (and you’ll lose) or you’ll have Mr./Mrs. Batspit J. Crayzee headlining the ticket (and you’ll lose).
Jefferson
October 5th, 2011
1:13 pm
To be a GOP is easy, learn to eat crap and bark at the moon, that’s how they treat their flock.
Don't Forget
October 5th, 2011
1:14 pm
GLL, so you blame Pelosi and Reed for the collapse? I guess that means you think the housing bubble had nothing to do with it since Pelosi and Reed weren’t in power until the bubble was about to burst.
getalife
October 5th, 2011
1:14 pm
You cons are in denial.
Keep Up the Good Fight!
October 5th, 2011
1:15 pm
Hmmm… those generic Republicans and actual candidates who stand idly by and let American soldiers get booed, cheer for death, etc versus real President who says that “smallness” is unacceptable from a leader.
I have one answer: Barrack Obama!
Kamchak
October 5th, 2011
1:16 pm
I can’t decide about Generic T. Republican…
Foghorn Leghorn?
Rufus T. Firefly?
Or (my personal favorite)
Ernest T. Bass?
Larry?
Darryl?
Or his other brother Darryl?
ragnar danneskjold
October 5th, 2011
1:16 pm
Dear Joe @ 1:08, you raise a valid philosophical question: if a government entity inflicts damage on the economy, should rational people avoid participating, or should they endeavor to rein in the damage? While I agree with your core thesis, that a “Federal Reserve that attempts to manage the economy, via Humphrey-Hawkins style buttone-pushing, inflicts more damage than it prevents,” it does not thereafter follow that an attempt to stay the damage is wrong.
I respectfully note that the regional bank presidents are consistently opposing the Washington-New York Fed governors. Thus I praise the Cain-types, and condemn the Bernanke-types.