Civics Quiz

[Alpha1]

You answered 29 out of 33 correctly — 87.88 %

I thought is was quite middle of the road, favoring neither right nor left....
and I'm not very pleased with the ones I answered wrong....

 

[MaggieMae]

Okay, "every PhD alive" was over the top. Yes, of course there was "opposition," but do any of them know for a fact how things would have turned out if not for government rescue? Not unless they use crystal balls. This was a potential GLOBAL Crisis (with a capital C) for all the reasons mentioned in this extensive analysis, which you can read piece by piece as your time allows:

Global Financial Crisis ? Global Issues

Opposition included at least 2 Nobel Prize winners.
Did any of them know for a fact how things would turn out? Are you asking whether a PhD in Economics confers prophetic powers? The answer is no.
But there are some things that are predictable based on laws of economics and past history. This was one of them. And the prediction was that a massive stimulus would not help the economy and simply waste tax payer dollars. And lo and behold, they were right. That is exactly what happened.

Yea right....

Except for the fact that it did help the economy. Cynics like the Rabbi will Monday Morning Quarterback and say the economy recovered by itself....the economy would have rebounded faster......everything woulda ...coulda ......shoulda

Fact is...the economy DID make a remarkable rebound and started to recover right after TARP and the Stimulus passed.

Once again....History proves the Rabbi..........WRONG

In 1929, it was the run on the banks that caused the market to crash and the depression that followed. One can only imagine if the entire GLOBAL financial industry experienced a "run on banks" which had already begun with the collapse of Bear-Stearns.

 

[The Rabbi]

Um, no. None of that is correct.
The Crash led to the Depression. It was not necessarily a cause of it. Mis-steps by the Federal Reserve led to the Depression. Actions by Roosevelt and the Democrats prolonged it.

 

[Diuretic]

No. Government cannot "pick up the slack." This is a fallacy. Government can only spend other people's money, so they are simply substituting one form of spending (almost always inefficient and wealth destroying) for another (usually more efficient and wealth creating).
In fact we would be seeing many fewer people on the dole had gov't not tried to bail out inefficient industries and bribe people to remain off the job market by extending unemployment to two years.

Of course government picks up the slack, it's necessary for government to step in where the private sector fears to tread. Government spends our money for the benefit of the nation. Sometimes that means propping up failed companies to allow people to keep their jobs and thus avoid social damage and economic damage. It's fine using an academic, textbook approach to suggest that failed companies should be allowed to fail but there are real human costs in there and there are severe repercussions for a nation if that happens.

If that were the case East Germany would be an economic powerhouse.
There are even more human costs for intervening. Imagine if the U.S. had decided to restrict farm equipment, maybe slap a big tax on it, to insure there would be enough farm jobs for all the farm laborers who were being put out of work by mechanization. We would have the least efficient most expensive food supply in the world.

I didn't have tariff protection in mind, we know that leads to trade wars and actual wars. As for East Germany, a socialist economy doesn't exist to be a powerhouse, that's the whole point, it exists to serve its citizens, not the other way around.

 

[JakeStarkey]

Um, no. None of that is correct.
The Crash led to the Depression. It was not necessarily a cause of it. Mis-steps by the Federal Reserve led to the Depression. Actions by Roosevelt and the Democrats prolonged it.

I have heard this before but never seen evidence for it. Post it.

 

[California Girl]

Indeed, when The Rabbi writes that, "The sad state of economics knowledge among the general run of citizens in this country is responsible for a lot of mischief", he is referring to the general run of the reactionaries wierdos on the far right, not the normal GOP.

Actually I had you specifically in mind.

As being part of the normal GOP? And you the whacko reactionary? Good. I am glad you know your place, son: far outside of the norm.

You are no more a Republican than I am a Democrat, Joke. In fact, you are the epitome of the problem with the GOP, you are unrecognizable from a Democrat.

 

[California Girl]

Um, no. None of that is correct.
The Crash led to the Depression. It was not necessarily a cause of it. Mis-steps by the Federal Reserve led to the Depression. Actions by Roosevelt and the Democrats prolonged it.

I have heard this before but never seen evidence for it. Post it.

What the fuck is the matter with you? You have 'heard it before but never seen the evidence'? How much of a moron can one person be. Don't sit there waiting to be spoon fed..... Go find evidence for yourself. Learn something, you fool. Don't sit there and wait for someone else to provide stuff so that you can dismiss it. READ. LEARN. EDUCATE YOURSELF.


Damn, people are fucking bone idle.

 

[MaggieMae]

Actually I had you specifically in mind.

As being part of the normal GOP? And you the whacko reactionary? Good. I am glad you know your place, son: far outside of the norm.

You are no more a Republican than I am a Democrat, Joke. In fact, you are the epitome of the problem with the GOP, you are unrecognizable from a Democrat.

I think, like me, Jake doesn't see any recognition in the Grand Old Party anymore. Lots of people still WANT to be "Republicans" but they will NOT be a part of the fringe elements who have hijacked it. They believe, as do thinking Democrats, that the only way to solve our national problems is by giving and taking, bending on party ideology to get things DONE. What we have now are two parties more interested in fighting over each battle with no eye toward victory.

 

[MaggieMae]

Um, no. None of that is correct.
The Crash led to the Depression. It was not necessarily a cause of it. Mis-steps by the Federal Reserve led to the Depression. Actions by Roosevelt and the Democrats prolonged it.

I have heard this before but never seen evidence for it. Post it.

What the fuck is the matter with you? You have 'heard it before but never seen the evidence'? How much of a moron can one person be. Don't sit there waiting to be spoon fed..... Go find evidence for yourself. Learn something, you fool. Don't sit there and wait for someone else to provide stuff so that you can dismiss it. READ. LEARN. EDUCATE YOURSELF.


Damn, people are fucking bone idle.

Nothing here about the Feds, Roosevelt or the Democrats being the primary cause. I was going to post the Wikipedia entry, but I know you guys all think that's an evil commie website.

Great Depression - Top Five Causes of the Great Depression

 

[JakeStarkey]

Thanks, Maggie Mae. CG is a smoozer, lozer, and right wing cruiser who is not a Republican, so nobody who thinks critically truly cares what she has to say. I hope she is better at her job than her opining and whining.

You hit on an important point. I am not going to be identified with far rightwing hacks and whacks who are attempting to redefine their wierdness as a core component of the Republican Party. That will not be permitted to happen. They will cost us elections, such as McCain and NY 23rd, and the mainstream Republicans will kick their lozer asses out, out, out.

 

[JakeStarkey]

I have heard this before but never seen evidence for it. Post it.

What the fuck is the matter with you? You have 'heard it before but never seen the evidence'? How much of a moron can one person be. Don't sit there waiting to be spoon fed..... Go find evidence for yourself. Learn something, you fool. Don't sit there and wait for someone else to provide stuff so that you can dismiss it. READ. LEARN. EDUCATE YOURSELF.


Damn, people are fucking bone idle.

Nothing here about the Feds, Roosevelt or the Democrats being the primary cause. I was going to post the Wikipedia entry, but I know you guys all think that's an evil commie website.

Great Depression - Top Five Causes of the Great Depression

CG, who has never posted any evidence in her life on the Board, has pined and whined consistently about being a rightwinger. She is not. She is a reactionary loon, whose opinion is simply not worth being concerned about. I will respond when the person who made the charge supports it. As if I am going to help them support their loony case. Bunch of whackos and whackoffs.

 

[MaggieMae]

Thanks, Maggie Mae. CG is a smoozer, lozer, and right wing cruiser who is not a Republican, so nobody who thinks critically truly cares what she has to say. I hope she is better at her job than her opining and whining.

You hit on an important point. I am not going to be identified with far rightwing hacks and whacks who are attempting to redefine their wierdness as a core component of the Republican Party. That will not be permitted to happen. They will cost us elections, such as McCain and NY 23rd, and the mainstream Republicans will kick their lozer asses out, out, out.

I don't think middle America Republicans speak out enough about this. Not every Republican religiously follows Glenn Beck, et al., and is even aware that their traditional values are now defined by the label of RHINO.

 

[JakeStarkey]

During the President's state of the union address to Congress, the watcher easily could tell who in the Republican caucus that were clearly uncomfortable with McConnell's and Boehner's nonsense. Quite a number of them.

Grassley is campaigning out in the west, and he will take credit for helping with some of BHO's programs. I notice that Chris Brown of Massachusetts cast another important vote for the administration, which is surely going to piss off the reactionary right. Then he adds to it by refusing to attend the Tea Party convention up there in his state.

The day will come when the GOP severs ties with the bozo far right. The Dems did the same thing with their lefties and won in 2006 and 2008. We have not learned that lesson, that we can win without the whackos, and carry our candidates and programs to victory as have the Dems recently.

 

[Charles Stucker]

I found the posted results - that those claiming to have held public office fared worse on the quiz, rather unsettling. Not unexpected, just unsettling.

Both questions and answers seemed rather centrist to me, leaning neither right nor left. The sole possible exception is the answer to the dichotomy of efficiency between centralized planning and free market, and that is a well established effect which is difficult to rationally dispute, though the fans of centralized control tend to do just that.

 

[The Rabbi]

Of course government picks up the slack, it's necessary for government to step in where the private sector fears to tread. Government spends our money for the benefit of the nation. Sometimes that means propping up failed companies to allow people to keep their jobs and thus avoid social damage and economic damage. It's fine using an academic, textbook approach to suggest that failed companies should be allowed to fail but there are real human costs in there and there are severe repercussions for a nation if that happens.

If that were the case East Germany would be an economic powerhouse.
There are even more human costs for intervening. Imagine if the U.S. had decided to restrict farm equipment, maybe slap a big tax on it, to insure there would be enough farm jobs for all the farm laborers who were being put out of work by mechanization. We would have the least efficient most expensive food supply in the world.

I didn't have tariff protection in mind, we know that leads to trade wars and actual wars. As for East Germany, a socialist economy doesn't exist to be a powerhouse, that's the whole point, it exists to serve its citizens, not the other way around.

And you see how well that worked out. When reunification came East Germany's factories were largely a shambles, completely outdated and totally inefficient, unable to compete in the export market, which is Germany's mainstay. That is precisely what happens when you try to "save" jobs in an economy by rescuing failing obsolete companies.

 

[The Rabbi]

I have heard this before but never seen evidence for it. Post it.

What the fuck is the matter with you? You have 'heard it before but never seen the evidence'? How much of a moron can one person be. Don't sit there waiting to be spoon fed..... Go find evidence for yourself. Learn something, you fool. Don't sit there and wait for someone else to provide stuff so that you can dismiss it. READ. LEARN. EDUCATE YOURSELF.


Damn, people are fucking bone idle.

Nothing here about the Feds, Roosevelt or the Democrats being the primary cause. I was going to post the Wikipedia entry, but I know you guys all think that's an evil commie website.

Great Depression - Top Five Causes of the Great Depression

Hey, here's a novel idea. Instead of trying to become an expert by reading 2 minute soundbytes, why not pick up a whole book on the subject or part of a book? Start with anything by Milton Friedman on the Depression. Then look at James Grant's history of banking in the U.S. on the relevant topics.
Then come back and we can have an intelligent conversation. Because this is going nowhere.

 

[JakeStarkey]

Friedman and Grant are not objective, and their bias is clear. Once again, Rabbi, opinion is not fact.

 

[The Rabbi]

Friedman and Grant are not objective, and their bias is clear. Once again, Rabbi, opinion is not fact.

Did anyone say they were objective? What does objective mean when discussing historical causes of an event?
Once again, Joke Starkey, you have no idea what the hell you're talking about.

 

[JakeStarkey]

Friedman and Grant are not objective, and their bias is clear. Once again, Rabbi, opinion is not fact.

Did anyone say they were objective? What does objective mean when discussing historical causes of an event?
Once again, Joke Starkey, you have no idea what the hell you're talking about.

You just clearly revealed why you are here for our smiles and chuckles, and not for serious.

 

[The Rabbi]

Friedman and Grant are not objective, and their bias is clear. Once again, Rabbi, opinion is not fact.

Did anyone say they were objective? What does objective mean when discussing historical causes of an event?
Once again, Joke Starkey, you have no idea what the hell you're talking about.

You just clearly revealed why you are here for our smiles and chuckles, and not for serious.

Because idiots smile and chuckle at what they don't understand? You've made that plain as day.