boedicca
Uppity Water Nymph from the Land of Funk
- Feb 12, 2007
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First: The Cap Lock key is your friend. Try using it. Your e.e. cummings style for long posts makes them needlessly uncomfortable to read.
I trust Shadow Stats analysis far more than the governments in terms of statistical consistency. Real unemployment is 22%.
Net net: We can't solve a looming sovereign debt crisis with More Debt. We are in this crisis because government has spent far beyond its means. Before we flog the productive class even more, it makes sense to exert some fiscal sanity over government spending.
Interesting that you raise the deflation spectacle. That is a real threat - and increasing around the world right now.
The Obama tax increases are not moderate - they are enormous, especially in the areas that encourage investment. Capital gains will increase from 15% to 23.8% (including the medicare tax). The tax rate on dividends will increase from 15% to 35% (top rate) - and the double taxation continues.
Even more destructive is the VAT tax. This new tax is being heavily socialized in the media. I saw Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, and Charles Munger on FNC today - all three appeared to view the VAT as inevitable.
All of this spending and tax binging is heading the size of the federal government from the approx. 20% rate of recent decades to over 30% (more than a 50% increase).
If you consider that moderate and targeted, you need a better dictionary.
i was going on about the u-6 with pinqy earlier in the thread. you have to understand that the u-5 before 1994 was similar to the u-3 now, and that the bls in the 80s did the same deal with their 7-tier accounting as is done now with 6-tiers. before 94, the tiers above the published rate only published half of the underutilized/alternative demographics like discouraged and marginally attached. reagan's employment situation, for that reason, entailed the same accounting preference to reclassify long-term/excess unemployment. in fact, it did not account for another half of the alt unemployment that the upper rates do now. the comparison is specious on semantic grounds, or in favor of the current, more comprehensive accounting. do you subscribe to a fallacy about CPS1994?
I trust Shadow Stats analysis far more than the governments in terms of statistical consistency. Real unemployment is 22%.
on spending, i would say that the government is not leading by example in terms of credit dependency. all the same, i challenge your assertion that this spending will stunt economic and job growth on the basis that i had earlier: that you are convinced that heavy handed supply-side solutions are the only that work in an economy. that position is wrong. there are merits and pitfalls to supply-side macroeconomics and its alternatives which one must understand to speak credibly on the point. it makes real economic consideration difficult with a strong partisan bias such as yours, and such as what our politicians have.
Net net: We can't solve a looming sovereign debt crisis with More Debt. We are in this crisis because government has spent far beyond its means. Before we flog the productive class even more, it makes sense to exert some fiscal sanity over government spending.
specifically in a contraction, where deflation is indicated as robust and wide-spread in the economy, in our case to the tune of $17,000,000,000,000 or so, inflationary practices are, indeed, welcomed. they prevent stagflation in the money supply like we had in the great depression, or which japan suffered from in the 90s, when the government took insufficient or late action. conservatives (not to be confused with conservative economists) believe that the government should contract their investment in the economy, and leave deflation to work itself out. that, boe, will precipitate a depression by way of the stagflationary devices i'd mentioned. it is safe to say we would not be debating positive news in this thread with that philosophy emplaced.
yes, obama will raise taxes. i dont feel that the indications which you read into moderate and targeted rises in taxation, particularly from the stimulus rates we now have, are substantive. maybe you could elucidate.
Interesting that you raise the deflation spectacle. That is a real threat - and increasing around the world right now.
The Obama tax increases are not moderate - they are enormous, especially in the areas that encourage investment. Capital gains will increase from 15% to 23.8% (including the medicare tax). The tax rate on dividends will increase from 15% to 35% (top rate) - and the double taxation continues.
Even more destructive is the VAT tax. This new tax is being heavily socialized in the media. I saw Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, and Charles Munger on FNC today - all three appeared to view the VAT as inevitable.
All of this spending and tax binging is heading the size of the federal government from the approx. 20% rate of recent decades to over 30% (more than a 50% increase).
If you consider that moderate and targeted, you need a better dictionary.