House GOP has manuevered itself into a dead end

Oh I see, you mean non-partisan like Paul Krugman.

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You know it’s time to go to TMZ when the thread descends into an argument about Reagan.

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“Alaso note that the Carter recession had ended in 1981…because the economy was RECOVERING….but Volcker triggered the ‘82 recession so that supply side would be invoked!! We’re still PAYING for that with endless budget deficits!!”

HDB,

Economic history. As for “we’re still paying for it with endless economic budget deficits”. that statement is just a bunch of baseless gobbldeegook. Clinton and the Republican house balanced the budget and we’ve had deficits ever since due to out of control spending- not Reaganomics. Or would you prefer going back to the Carter era of staglfation of the 70s. the problem is spending by govt- not supply side economics ma’am

Volcker’s Fed is widely credited with ending the United States’ stagflation crisis of the 1970s. Inflation, which peaked at 13.5% in 1981, was successfully lowered to 3.2% by 1983.[12]

Volcker raised the federal funds rate, which had averaged 11.2% in 1979, to a peak of 20% in June 1981. The prime rate rose to 21.5% in 1981 as well.

Volcker was committed to eradicating stagflation by giving the nation some bitter medicine: an intentional recession. In 1980, Volcker tightened the money supply, which stopped job growth in the economy. In response to hard times, businesses began cutting their prices, and workers their wage demands, to stay in business. Volcker argued that eventually this would wring inflationary expectations out of the system.

The recovery of 1981 was unintentional, and with inflation still high, Volcker tightened the money supply even more severely in 1982. This resulted in the worst recession since the Great Depression. Unemployment in the final quarter of 1982 soared to over 10 percent, and Volcker was accused of the “cold-blooded murder of millions of jobs.” Even high-ranking members of Reagan’s staff were vehemently opposed to his actions. Congress actually considered bringing the independent Fed under the government’s direct control, to avoid such economic pain in the future. Today, economists calculate that the cost of Volcker’s anti-inflation medicine was $1 trillion — an astounding sum.

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Adam,

“Something that will take me a while to read.”

You can’t escape family…no matter how impressive the book looks.

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You know things are truly effed up in this country when you read something like this…

As owner of A-Z Outlet in Holland, Bryan Vandenbosch has purchased a lot of electronics, jewelry, and tools, but after almost 19 years in business, he bought something he never expected — a Purple Heart, a medal awarded to U.S. troops wounded in battle. This one was earned in Afghanistan in May 2010.

Vandenbosch says the active-duty Soldier, on leave from Afghanistan, was reluctant to sell the medal at first, but like a lot of people, he needed a little extra cash for the holiday season. So, the Soldier gave up one of his two Purple Hearts — something he almost gave his life to get.

http://www.military.com/news/article/soldier-pawns-purple-heart-for-christmas-cash.html?ESRC=topstories.RSS

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MPercy: If all you can do is offer up a short, signed statement then you haven’t shown what I am looking for, even if it was non-partisan.

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…..but it seems as though recessions under Republican administrations affect people that I know the harder……I know it did ME!!- HDB

HDB that is your anecdotal opinion and is fostered by your bias. How else do you explain the staggering black unemployment rate under Obama which is substantially higher than it was under W? Yet to hear granny tell it everyone in her family has great jobs and is doing well under O. Sure. Uh huh.

“If this is such an anti-business climate, then why are businesses more profitable….and the stock value increasing??”- HDB

Simple. Companies are cutting fat and excess employees and becoming cash cows. They aren’t spending costly money on new plant, equipment, new hiring and training, new R&D which are all huge cash drainers. That is why profits are up so substantially. Growth costs a lot of cash flow.

“You forget that OFFSHORING was begun under Reagan/Bush……THAT’S why employment has been eroding…..the lower-skilled jobs that were the pathway for the lower classes to progress were taken away…..”- HDB

Offshoring has been going on forever. Its just catchy to use the phrase in the past decade or so. Its nothing new and textile workers who started losing their jobs 20-30 years ago will tell you so. And this happened under Clinton as well. The world is becoming more global.

“plus the importing of undocumented labor which was really unleashed under Reagan (note: Reagan’s “amnesty”)…….”-HDB

And which party is for the most party for illegal immigration and which party is for the most part against it? I think we both know the answer to that one.

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They BOTH suck,

No. It doesn’t. But combining the 2 plus the bevy of state and local tax rates may mean that the overall tax burden is actually higher than its ever been or close to it. I’ld have to check and see since I’m not sure. But I did see a stat that combining federal, state, and local govt spending means that total govt is consuming something like 40-50% of every dollar spent in the U.S. I find that number hard to believe and honestly I can’t remember what the figure was but I would like to research it and know exactly how much of the economy total govt expenditures are eating into.

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Thulsa @ 345,

Which party today is for suing the state’s efforts to enforce federal immigration laws?

Yes, that answers your question nicely about which party is “for illegal immigration”.

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Strawman: They are akin to weathermen who can speak accurately to isolated events in narrow time frames, but cannot tell you with ANY certainty how things are going to be in one year.

Except I’m not asking for predictions. I’m asking for an honest approach to the subject of supply side and Keynesian economics, with a conclusion that supply side works and Keynesian economics doesn’t, in an article written by an economist who has studied all this.

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Thulsa: Then he won’t mind discussing it further. Simply throwing out a statement and going “You are going to claim this is partisan!” isn’t going to stop me from saying, yes, it IS partisan, and no, you haven’t proven your point.

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“The available empirical evidence does not support the idea that spending multipliers typically exceed one, and thus spending stimulus programs will likely raise GDP by less than the increase in government spending. Defense-spending multipliers exceeding one likely apply only at very high unemployment rates, and nondefense multipliers are probably smaller. However, there is empirical support for the proposition that tax rate reductions will increase real GDP.

Mr. Barro is a professor of economics at Harvard and a senior fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution. Mr. Redlick is a recent Harvard graduate.
—————-

Nobel laureate Edward Prescott of Arizona State University’s W.P. Carey School of Business, argued that “no respectable macroeconomist” believes stimulus works.

————————

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/feb/25/primer-on-the-great-debate/

Do you understand why well-known economists, including Nobel Prize winners, are on opposite sides of the debate about the stimulus package and what should be done about the recession? Not only Americans, but people everywhere are confused, largely because the economists who are writing and speaking about what should be done have such fundamental disagreements.

There are two main schools of thought. One group is under the broad umbrella of the Chicago or Austrian school economists who are heavily influenced by the teachings of F.A. Hayek (1899-1992) and Milton Friedman (1903-2007). The members of the other group are commonly known as Keynesians, who accept many of the teachings of John Maynard Keynes (1883-1946) and his disciples

In theory, if the increased government spending is only utilized on projects where the benefits of the venture exceed the costs of the additional inflation and net tax burden, the Keynesians’ call for more spending could have merit. (In the 1930s, it was argued by many that even if the government only employed people to dig holes and then fill them in, the economy would be better off. Most modern Keynesians no longer advocate such wasted effort, which clearly did not work.)

The Keynesians have several problems translating their theory into practical policy, particularly in democratic countries. They need to determine the correct amount of additional spending (how much “stimulus”) and then have it spent in the early stages of the recession. Experience has shown that most additional government spending arrives in the later parts of the recession, or even after the recession is over.

This merely adds to the inflationary pressures, which are often building as economic activity picks up. Another problem is what the economists consider desired increases in spending – those areas which meet a reasonable cost benefitstandard. These are often quite different from those projects on which the politicians often want to spend money (rebuilding soccer fields and increasing wages for unionized workers – both of which are in the new stimulus bill).

Many economists who accept the basic Keynesian argument of the utilization of labor and capital resources, nevertheless, were against the stimulus bill just passed by the U.S. Congress, because much of the spending would be wasteful or even destructive, by reducing the incentives for productive economic activity.

——————————————-

Surely somewhere out there among the “well-known economists, including Nobel Prize winners, are on opposite sides of the debate about the stimulus package” will be someone Adam can accept as “non-partisan economist” who believes that “ridiculous nonsense”. But I repeat my opinion that Adam will simply label anyone who does not subscribe to his point of view is a partisan clinging to “ridiculous nonsense”.

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Fast and Furious,

yes. It do. I just find it fascinating that given the Dem’s well known support for illegal immigration that a liberal can actually find a way to blame reagan for illegal immigration. Its fascinating really.

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“brosephus model”

Interrogate all Brazilian models.

That’s the bro model

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“What have you got against being socially liberal? Is there something Un-American about minding our own business when it comes to what people do in the privacy of their own homes, and keeping the government OUT of decisions that should be private?”

I simply do not believe in legalized abortion (which I consider homicide) or gay marriage. These are not, in my view, “privacy” issues since they can affect society at large. And I am not going to get into a discussion of this at length here today.

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MPercy: Can’t say for sure whether the person is partisan or not, considering he is from the Cato Institute. But since the arguments being made are a reasonable approach, I see no reason to say anything particularly partisan about the article. I do not think this particular aspect is correct, though:

a bubble that developed because too much money was flowing into housing along with a loosening of credit standards.

I think that puts too much of the focus on the bubble cause being people who couldn’t pay, when that is actually a much smaller cause than some other causes. Since the article doesn’t deal with that aspect further, that’s all I will say about that.

The article doesn’t seem to come to a conclusion that Keynesian economics doesn’t work, just that it doesn’t cover all the bases. No school of economics does. I’m not sure the case was sufficiently made for the Keynesian solution being wrong in the case of stagflation, however.

Please do send more.

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TD

“I just find it fascinating that given the Dem’s well known support for illegal immigration that a liberal can actually find a way to blame reagan for illegal immigration”

Now, now ,now

Are you telling me that all the business owners and investors who have knowlingly utilized illegal labor all vote Dem?

You know that is a lie…. many are Repubs who utilized and have been and in many cases still utilize illegal labor………

Deal had to be drugged by his own party to sign the last immigration bill in the GA….. If you do not believe so….. Go look at his statements before he was elected and now….. There was a change. Those chicken farmers and plant owners in the Gainsville area were none to please with Daddy Deal……… You think they are all Dem and support Obama?

Really?

Bush had a Repub Congress for six years…. he did what?

Granted the Dems are no better… It is just that Repubs talk a better game, but in the end for the most part do nothing more….

Yes TD….. illegals still work and live in Arizonia……. and are getting hired by those same local Repub and Dem business owners

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Strawman

How does two people of the same sex impact society at large?

Does it make others gay or want to marry those of the same sex when they were straight before? Really?

Will it change how you believe?

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The so-called conservatives in the House and the Senate, long ago, painted themselves into a corner because they thought the electorate would believe the “bumper sticker pejoratives” about President Obama while hoping that most who disagreed with them would not understand basic economics concepts.

The sad thing is, the so-called conservatives continue to paint themselves into that proverbial corner.

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Jackie,

“The sad thing is, the so-called conservatives continue to paint themselves into that proverbial corner.”

The sadder fact is their jacknob supporters keep buying those bumper stickers. Especially the shiny ones…they like those best.

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I do not think I can satisfy Adam’s request, as it is impossible. He labeled a short simple disagreement statement as partisan. His opinion appears to mirror the President’s

“There is no disagreement that we need action by our government, a recovery plan that will help to jumpstart the economy.” — PRESIDENT-ELECT BARACK OBAMA

“There is no disagreement” is an absolute statement. Logically, the existence of even a single point of contradictory evidence refutes the absolute. Some 350 economists made a simple statement in response:

“With all due respect Mr. President, that is not true.

“Notwithstanding reports that all economists are now Keynesians and that we all support a big increase in the burden of government, we do not believe that more government spending is a way to improve economic performance. More government spending by Hoover and Roosevelt did not pull the United States economy out of the Great Depression in the 1930s. More government spending did not solve Japan’s “lost decade” in the 1990s. As such, it is a triumph of hope over experience to believe that more government spending will help the U.S. today. To improve the economy, policy makers should focus on reforms that remove impediments to work, saving, investment and production. Lower tax rates and a reduction in the burden of government are the best ways of using fiscal policy to boost growth.

350 economists, reportedly including some Nobel Prize winners, signed this statement.

Clearly, at least some of them disagree with the President’s contention, refuting his absolute.

Clearly, at least some of them subscribe to the alternative premise: that tax cuts and smaller government would be better.

But they are all labeled partisan, apparently only because they signed onto this statement. Voicing their disagreement with the absolute used by the President is ipso facto proof of their partisanship. Thus their opinions are discounted immediately.

I am apparently supposed to find a well-known and respected Austrian/Chicago/Hayek/Friedman economist who will have never expressed disagreement with the political machine but who will have clearly articulated the premise so that Adam can peruse it at length.

I was initially just trying to contradict Adam’s absolute “You make it really difficult to take you seriously when you quote articles from a clearly partisan source, full of “facts” that contradict every other economist who has had a say on the subject.”

“Every other economist” is again an absolute, and the existence of even one should suffice to refute the absolute. But the qualifier was there “partisan”. Given the qualifier, I expected that no such refutation would be acceptable, as it would be dismissed as partisan.

This predication was borne out in the initial 350. Subsequent counter examples have been deemed not meaty enough.

Thus, I accept my failure to produce the contradictory evidence for Adam, which simply convinces me my point that there was never a way to do so was prescient.

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Adam “I’m asking for an honest approach to the subject of supply side and Keynesian economics, with a conclusion that supply side works and Keynesian economics doesn’t, in an article written by an economist who has studied all this.”

What about “non-partisan”? I remain firm in my assertion that any such evidence would be rejected as partisan screed–you cannot be placated on the subject. The names of 300+ economists, any of whom you could look up yourself to access their scholarly writings, were dismissed by you as partisan because they took the time to disagree with the President in a simple statement.

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gm

December 21st, 2011
3:07 pm
josef

gm

“More people are on welfare that look like you then me, 30% of people are on f/s in ks, co, mt, wv, ut, mn, now remind you that minorities only make up less then 2% in those state.
Cut off fake fox news and reseach””

Whew! L-rdy! Just what DO I look like? How many minority labels would you like?

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“By the way I’m straight as an arrow, but love to belly laugh when people like you post the BS you post.”

Do you support MAMBLA, genius? Before you answer: you do realize that sort of thing was practiced in ancient Greece (often said to be the birthplace of democracy), don’t you?. Where do YOU draw the line? Just because I draw it in a different place doesn’t mean you wouldn’t, in other circumstances, turn out to be just the sort of bigot you imagine me to be.

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Strawman

Still waiting for the impacts to society based on facts…

YOU made the statement……. waiting

No deflection about what I support or do not support….

back up your assertions

waiting

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Republicans in Congress have been caught in a pickle of their own making, and as usual Republican voters on here have no defense to offer. Like a broken record or a doll with the string recoiling back into it’s neck, they mouth the same limited phrases “Obama socialist’”, “Obama Marxist”, “Libs this and that” with an occasional Atlanta thug or Muslim thrown in for good measure.

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“Believe in them or not, they do exist.”

So did genocide in Nazi Germany. Your point is?

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MPercy: The names of 300+ economists, any of whom you could look up yourself to access their scholarly writings,

This is on my list of things to do, but like you said: 300+ names. It’s gonna take a while to look up each, filter through to find relevant topic writings, etc. But the statement itself does nothing to indicate WHY they signed it. And it only refers to the stimulus, indicates stimulus bad, tax cuts good, and references a couple of events like everyone is supposed to know all about them.

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@jewcowboy

It is instructive how you reacted to my post. I would venture that you helped the so-called conservatives out by supplying the paint.

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Strawman,

“Do you support MAMBLA, genius?”

Who is MAMBLA?

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“No legalized abortion? Rape? Incest? The mother’s health?”

No, J, the kind of abortion which attempts to avoid responsibility for the consequences of a choice made earlier. Euthanasia is really not that different and may one day be as acceptable as abortion is now.

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Boehner and the House Republicans want to force Congress and the President to stay in DC and work right through Christmas instead of taking this most Christian of holidays off to be with family and demonstrate a true and meaningful support of “In God We Trust”. House Republicans must not be Christians. This is horrible.

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“Who is MAMBLA?”

Typo…NAMBLA. Not an everyday word for me.

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You know that is a lie…. many are Repubs who utilized and have been and in many cases still utilize illegal labor………They BOTH suck

They BOTH suck,

What can I say? You got me there pardner. I wouldn’t quite imply that I lied though. Nevertheless you are certainly correct. Many Repubs want a stop to illegal immigration or at least to get it under control but the dirty truth is indeed that a lot of bidness men, many of them Republican, loves that cheap illegal labor. You’ll not get an argument from me on that. Personally I am pro immigration since I am fond of Hispanic culture. But I would just like for it to be done in an orderly, organized fashion with a guest worker program where immigrants are welcomed, where they pay a set tax or surcharge to cover their costs to our social svcs, judicial, and health care system. And that’s it. And possibly something to give preference to Americans first in hiring although I’m not really sure how to go about this. The people hurt the most by illegal are our non skilled laborers, principally African Americans. That is the only downside that I see.

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TD @ 4:42

On that we can agree…. no doubt

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How about Henry Hazlitt’s ‘The Failure of the “New Economics”: An Analysis of the Keynesian Fallacies.’

Or Friedrich A. Hayek, “Reflections on the Pure Theory of
Money of Mr. J. M. Keynes,” Economica, August 1931,

Those predates the current situation by several decades though.

Perhaps this http://econjwatch.org/file_download/475/HorwitzJanuary2011.pdf
by Steven Horwitz, who is a Professor of Economics
at St. Lawrence University in Canton, NY.

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I thought it was the black mamba. Truly one of the most venomous and nastiest snakes in the world. Not sure that its a tree dweller though.

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NAMBLA: North American Marlon Brando Look-alike Association

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The animal is the black mamba.

But the black NAMBLA is probably worse.

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Strawman,

“Not an everyday word for me.”

And not for gay people either. It’s usually only used by homophobes trying to slander gay men by saying they are all pedophiles.

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MPercy

Good one! Could you have been a con-ten-duh?

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So enlighten me, F&F, who exactly is this solid candidate of yours?

I’ve lost track of how many clowns have all squeezed into that tiny car, but so far I believe you’re “team’ is zero for nine on the “solid candidate” front. (With apologies to Mitt “I was Obamacare before Obamacare was Cool” Romney.)

And I believe Joseph McCarthy is still dead.

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A snake well deserving of its reputation.

The black mamba (Dendroaspis polylepis), also called the common black mamba or black-mouthed mamba,[4] is the longest venomous snake in Africa, averaging around 2.5 to 3.2 meters (8.2 to 10 ft) in length, and sometimes growing to lengths of 4.45 meters (14.6 ft).[5] Its name is derived from the black colouration inside the mouth rather than the actual colour of its scales which varies from dull yellowish-green to a gun-metal grey. It is the fastest snake in the world, capable of moving at 4.32 to 5.4 metres per second (16–20 km/h, 10–12 mph).[1] It is a notorious snake that’s feared throughout the world. It has a reputation for being very aggressive, explosive and highly venomous. Many snake experts have cited this species as both the world’s deadliest and most aggressive, noting a tendency to actively attack without provocation.[6][7] One expert even calls this species “death incarnate”.[8] They are among the world’s ten most venomous land snakes,[9] and when threatened or cornered they often become very explosive[7] and fiercely aggressive, which is why they are given mythical status and many myths, legends, and stories about this species abound.

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“a bubble that developed because too much money was flowing into housing along with a loosening of credit standards.”

I think that puts too much of the focus on the bubble cause being people who couldn’t pay, when that is actually a much smaller cause than some other causes. Since the article doesn’t deal with that aspect further, that’s all I will say about that.

Geez Adam,

Look who’s partisan now.

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johnnyreb,

I dunno about that being the lie of the year. Getalife insists that the repubs tried to end Medicare. And he aint ever wrong.

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jewcowboy

So, temme, is membership in that organization required of the coaching staff of major universities?

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“Warm druid”

You don’t want to step in that…trust me.

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Did somebody say Keynes?

Quick, who knows whether it rhymes with “canes” or “queens”?

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Stop paying your taxes

Your government is robbing you blind

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Adam: “But the statement itself does nothing to indicate WHY they signed it. And it only refers to the stimulus, indicates stimulus bad, tax cuts good, and references a couple of events like everyone is supposed to know all about them.”

Um, yes, it does. They signed it because they disagree with the President’s absolute assertion, and they stated their beliefs in a brief fashion as warranted. Presumably, as economists at universities, they have a corpus with which to create a vast bibliography of scholarly essays and textbooks that are all likely to be in sync with the brief statement. That is, there *are* economists who believe in that “ridiculous nonsense”.

Now, they didn’t say why they believe what they believe. But even as an non-economist, non-historian, I am familiar with all of the cited issues: “More government spending by Hoover and Roosevelt did not pull the United States economy out of the Great Depression in the 1930s. More government spending did not solve Japan’s “lost decade” in the 1990s.”

Anyway, I provided a few references you can check out at your leisure, even if I expect you to snub them as irrelevant, insufficient, or partisan. I warn you though, economists are a boring lot, and they tend to have to prove themselves with a lot of equations that are inscrutable as if to say “Economics is a real science, see, we have equations.”

Here’s another, although not an economist, but a financial journalist at Bloomberg (UK). I note that this is recent, and written on the UK’s actions, rather than Obama’s. So not “partisan” vis-a-vis US politics.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=email_en&sid=a5t.xQdllnbo

And just as the Keynesians were wrong three decades ago, they are wrong now.

The U.K. has been in Keynes overdrive for the past 18 months. The budget deficit is already more than 12 percent of gross domestic product, on a par with Greece. And while the Greeks are cutting spending, the British deficit is widening. Figures for January showed another fiscal blowout. At the same time, interest rates have been slashed to 0.5 percent. And the pound has slumped in value, which is supposed to boost demand for British goods, and help close the trade gap.

Just about everything possible has been done to encourage consumption. The results have been miserable.

n reality, Britain has the worst of all possible worlds: a stagnant economy, a crippling budget deficit and rising prices.

The Keynesian consensus is that things would have been far worse without the stimulus provided by government. And if the economy isn’t pumped up with inflated demand, it will collapse back into recession. If it’s not working, that just proves the stimulus should be even larger.

It is the argument quacks always push: If the medicine isn’t working, increase the dosage.

And yet, reality has to intrude into this debate at some point. The deficit can’t get much bigger, interest rates can’t be cut much lower, and sterling can’t lose much more value.

Stimulating the economy isn’t working.

In fact, it’s only making it worse. Consumers and businesses don’t want rising taxes. A falling currency pushes up the cost of everything the U.K. imports, stoking inflation. Savers get decimated, and yet the banks remain reluctant to lend because they rightly believe the economy is in the doldrums.

Recipe for Recovery

What’s needed is a total change of direction. Get the deficit under control. Raise interest rates to restore confidence in the pound, and reward saving. Cut taxes to stimulate enterprise and investment.

And yet the real lesson of the U.K. in 2010 will be of wider significance. A country can’t spend its way out of a recession. And it can’t fix what was at root a problem of too much debt by just borrowing more and more.

In the country of its birth, Keynesian economics is being tested. If the economy isn’t growing at a healthy clip again by the end of 2010, its failure will be obvious to everyone.

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