Republicans have a poor understanding of economics. They should have no place in making policy

[Dad2three]

Spare change assumes that those of us on the left want government spending and lots of it. That is what we call a "false premise". There were a lot of them in his post.

What is needed is government investment in infrastructure and education. And not education that views science as witchery and teaches that the Earth is 6000 years old. U.S. Education starting lagging behind other countries when parents starting deciding what they wanted their children to learn.

It's long past the time for this experimental patchwork quilt of education with public, charter and religious schools competing for students, to end. It's been an unmitigated disaster, creating one of the most expensive education systems in the world, but with the result that U.S. students are falling behind Europe and Asia in terms of quality of education. And they fall further behind each year.

.

You have your own fallacies.
Government does not "invest" in anything. Government spends money. Your call for a federal takeowver of the education system is a call for spending more money. So SpareChange was right on that count.
The Founders set up a system of a limited federal government, with most functions properly left to the states. They wanted the states to be laboratories of policy. And it works. Vermont just demonstrated that single payer won't work. At least that's out of the way.

Really? Why not keep the Articles of Confederation IF that's what the Founders wanted? lol

Vermont? lol YOU MEAN WHEN THE POOR AND SENIORS ARE ALREADY COVERED? AND A SMALL STATE WITH MANY ISSUES FACING IT? WELL THAT DOOMS IT IN THE US, RIGHT? THE MOST EXPENSIVE H/C NATION IN THE WORLD, BY A LOT!!!



Care to point to ANY UHC nation that wants US style H/C? ANY POLL? EVER?

Okay .... you're allowed your own opinion, but not your own facts.

You brought up healthcare .... how much did the US spend on health care? Not on medical research, on healthcare. Now factor that against the standard of living in any two countries you wish ... let me know what you find out.

US spends WAY to much, especially considering the results. AND? Dummy, NO other industrialized nation wants US style H/C whats that tell you?

 

[Dad2three]

Yes, oh low info one, we ALL know the economy turns on a dime, and the consequences felt 2009-2011 were blamed on Obama *shaking head*

'Progressives' controlled the Congress? Obama, the second best conservative Prez since Ike (only BJ Bill was better) is a progressive? lol

BTW, Dems had a super majority 24 days TOTAL in 2009, AS the GOP put defeating Obama as their #1 priority.

It's simply an economic FACT...Barack Obama has overseen the worst recovery from a recession since the Great Depression. Historically the economy rebounds rather dramatically from recessions...however this time due to the agenda pushed by Barack Obama, Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi there hasn't been a rebound. As a matter of fact if you factored out the growth in the economy due to the low price of oil and gas (something Obama did his best to prevent) and the creation of jobs in States governed by Republican Governors promoting a pro-jobs agenda...the numbers for this Administration on both the economy and on job creation would go from poor to absolutely pathetic.

OK, So 'new metrics' get used, lol

Go away wing nutter. THE DUBYA/GOP 'JOB CREATOR POLICIES HAD 8 YEARS. WHAT HAPPENED? Yes, those states with NATURAL RESOURCES are doing well. AND? lol.

I THOUGHT AFTER 8 YEARS OF THE DUBYA, JOBS WOULD'VE BEEN EVERYWHERE? WHAT HAPPENED? Now you ***** that Obama and comp haven't fixed the mess the GOP handed him fast enough, AS they worked against EVERYTHING he presented???

I keep hearing the same refrain from you Obama enthusiasts, Dad and it always makes me smile. I mean I guess you could make a case for the whole "give Barry some time to fix things" mantra at year two of his first term...but when you were four years into that term and the economy was still languishing and people simply weren't finding the jobs they so desperately wanted...don't you think that excuse starts to become a bit weak? When you pass year two of Barry's SECOND term that excuse begins to border on farce!

Tell me this, Dad...what plan has Barack Obama put forward to create jobs in the past four years? I bet you can't even tell me who Barack Obama's Chief Economic Adviser is at this point. You know why that is? Because this Administration hasn't had a viable plan to grow the economy in so long that NOBODY knows who took over after Larry Summers and Christina Romer both tucked tail and ran back to their tenured jobs in academia.

So AGAIN, you can't explain why after 8 years of Dubya/GOP 'job creator' policies, why the US went into the biggest recession since the first GOP great depression. Instead you want to know why Obama/Dems haven't fixed it faster, AS the conservatives/GOP has refused to help US out of the hole they dug. Got it!

Actually, I can explain it ... you just don't want to hear it.

Sure Bubba, sure

 

[Dad2three]

When government spends money on infrastructure, that's an investment to improve conditions for both the people and for business.

When government invests one education, that helps prepare the next generation for the jobs they will hold. If the current generation doesn't have the skills needed the that's a direct result of 30 years of cost cutting by Republican administrations both at the federal and state level. Cuts to public education are shortsighted at best, and a total abdication of a basic government responsibility.

The income gap has widened under Obama because the overhaul of the tax system begun under Reagan had never been reversed, and since Congress has been controlled by Republicans since 2 years into Obama's administration, there was no opportunity to do it. The party of "No" wouldn't hear of a tax restructuring which would result in reversing the transfer of wealth to their richest constituents.

Let me get this straight, Dragonlady...over the past 30 years the American education system has been taken over by progressives...yet you want to blame the lack of "skills" on Republicans? We spend more per student than any of the countries we compete against yet you want to put the blame on Republicans not giving enough money to the educational system?

Is that REALLY what you want to go with?

TAKEN OVER BY PROGRESSIVES???/ lmaorog


I wish I could live in fantasyland like the GOP. Sadly, I have to live with facts and reality.


The problem with the conservative movement in America is that it is based on bigotry, hatred, and, greed. Above all, greed. Money is their god. They worship money and the holders of it and despise those who don't have it.

Is THIS the best you got? IS this it???

This isn't a contribution to an adult discussion ... this is a childish little temper tantrum just because you didn't picked to play dodgeball.

Grow the hell up ....

Says the K/K/Klown who apparently agrees Obama is a 'Progressive', lol

Reagan adviser Bruce Bartlett: Face it, Obama is a conservative
Just look at the president's record, Bartlett says. This is no progressive

Reagan adviser Bruce Bartlett Face it Obama is a conservative - Salon.com



Obama Is a Republican
He’s the heir to Richard Nixon, not Saul Alinsky.
By Bruce Bartlett

Obama Is a Republican The American Conservative

 

[Dad2three]

We spend more per student than any of the countries we compete against yet you want to put the blame on Republicans not giving enough money to the educational system?

People want to blame the teachers and their unions for poor student performance. Some claim we are not spending enough money on students and that's why they perform poorly.

The fact is, until the students putting their asses in a chair, come to school ready, willing and able to learn, there is no solution to our education problem.

But rather than politicians telling parents that they are sending an inferior product (poorly prepared students) to the school system, we will throw money at it and blame the teachers and whoever else can be blamed.

But we won't be fixing the problem any time soon You better hope YOUR kids and grand-kids are in the prepared and willing to learn group. No education or skills in this world today and you are screwed. But there is really no one who should be blamed but the kids parents.

What's the biggest difference between a super successful school system and a poor performing one? The importance given kids about being educated and the preparation and willingness of the kid to be educated.

Quality education starts at home.

AND conservatives HATE the poor. Help create a living wage so we don't have to subsidize McD's or Walmarts? How dare we do that. HALF OF US MAKE LESS THAN $15,000 PER FAMILY. Those making enough to even file income taxes!!!

We don't hate the poor at all. We just detest fulfilling their responsibilities for them.
We got an education. We didn't have multiple babies by multiple mates. We went to work every day with the purpose of becoming good at what we do so our labor would be worth more. We saved money and bought homes. We raised our kids to be responsible adults. We didn't let drugs rule our lives. we didn't steal to get what we wanted or felt we deserved.
WE played the games by the rules and are sick and tired of being penalized in order to support those that didn't

We would much rather you played by the same rules and enjoyed the same success because frankly, there's no profit to be made off poor people.
I have a product to sell. If you're poor, you can't afford it and some of those that should be able to, can't because they are paying exorbitant taxes to support those that think they are entitled to the fruits of the labor of others while they sit on their asses and collect checks.

A "living wage" is bullshit. You have no right to expect to support a family by asking people if they want fries with that. If you're making 9 bucks an hour flipping burgers, you're overpaid. Get yourself marketable skills, make yourself worth more to an employer than a burger flipper.

Got it, you'll stick to right wing MYTHS on how the US middle class was created (hint PROGRESSIVE POLICIES). If left up to conservatives the US will look like a 3rd world nation in another 30 years!

 

[Dad2three]

Ernie, you are so out of touch with the current economic realities, you might as well be living on another planet. In this day and age, it is possible live your life exactly have you did and still be financially screwed by the current economy.

Ronald Reagan completely restructured the US economy using many, but not all of the free market ideas touted by the Chicago School of economics, and until the worst of the damage he did is undone, nothing will change. The rich will continue to get richer, the poor will get poorer, and the middle class will continue to lose ground.

Everyone should read the Forbes article that Dad posted upthread. The bipartisan Congressional Report, which the GOP tried to bury, concludes that cutting taxes does not create jobs. All is does is facilitate the transfer of wealth from the poor and middle class, to the wealthy. This isn't the Huffington Post or MSNBC telling you this, this is Forbes, one of the most right wing, business friendly publications out there.

Prior to Reagan's economic re-structuring, every strata benefitted from growth of the GNP, and economic boom. Since the re-structuring, only the wealthy have benefitted. In addition to the tax cuts, Reagan's administration went on a spending spree the likes of which had not previously been seen, all of it on borrowed money. It gave the country the appearance of prosperity, but it was an illusion. It's like your neighbor buying a new car, new furniture and a designer wardrobe. Your think he's doing really well to be able to afford all of this stuff, but he bought everything on credit. Supposedly, the increase in tax revenues from the increased income from all of this spending, would pay for the tax cuts, but it never happened.

The next thing that Reagan did, which was straight out of the Chicago School playbook, was to declare war on the unions. His 1983 attack on the air traffic controllers union was just the opening salvo. His administratin stopped prosecuting union busting activities, and cut the Department of Labour's budget by 10%.

I'm not a huge fan of unions, personally, and I've never been a union member, but I have come to understand and appreciate that without unions, employers are free to run roughshod over their employees and there's little individuals can do to protect themselves, if the company they work for choses to ignor labour laws or even treat employees with a modicum of decency. Unions helped build a strong and resilient middle class (which is a necessity for a healthy, bibrant economy). Without them, wages, have stagnated, and the gains won through hard fought negotiations have withered away. The PR job the right has done on unions has convinced the general public that unions are the tools of Satan, and should be destroyed. They're not and they should be thanked, not vilified.

The last point I will raise in this post is that Reagan gutted the Anti-Trust Legislation. Conservatives will remind me that Reagan used anti-trust legislate to breakup AT&T early in his first administration but from that time forward, he introduced legislation which authorized the president to order an exemption for industries determined to be hurt by foreign competition. Reagan used Chicago School principles that "bigger is better" to undermine the Sherman Act, and other anti-trust laws. This set off a wave of mergers and acquisitions, which continue unabated.

With each big merger, there are job losses. Not low income job losses, but good middle class jobs. When Pfizer and Wyeth merged, and then merged with Astro-Zeneca, over 30,000 people lost their jobs among these three firms. With corporations awash with cash, they're not hiring or expanding, they're merging. Large mergers and acquisitions are slowing the recovery of jobs lost in the recession, and help to explain why there are fewer and fewer middle class jobs.

Walmart has become so large, that it can dictate wages and employment practices across the entire retail sector. And not just the retail sector, but amongst their suppliers as well. Many American companies have been forced to move manufacturing offshore to meet Walmart's price demands. Walmart's use of food stamps and Medicaid to subsidize wages are now costing every US taxpayer $2500 per year, whether you shop there or not.

It's time to break up the mega-corporations, re-write the tax code, and undo the economic damage visited upon the US economy by Saint Ronnie and the Chicago School of business, before the middle class is completely destroyed.

Who Broke America rsquo s Jobs Machine - Barry C. Lynn and Phillip Longman

Ronald Reagan completely restructured the US economy using many, but not all of the free market ideas touted by the Chicago School of economics, and until the worst of the damage he did is undone, nothing will change.

I wish he had totally restructured the economy, but despite your colorful imagination, he did not.

What do you feel we have to do to "fix the damage"?
Raise the top rate back to 70%?

The next thing that Reagan did, which was straight out of the Chicago School playbook, was to declare war on the unions. His 1983 attack on the air traffic controllers union was just the opening salvo.

His attack? LOL!
They broke the law in 1981 when they went on strike.
He fired their asses and rightly so.

I'm not a huge fan of unions, personally, and I've never been a union member, but I have come to understand and appreciate that without unions, employers are free to run roughshod over their employees and there's little individuals can do to protect themselves,

Exactly, I mean just look at what the Steel Workers union has done. I mean besides drive US steel makes into bankruptcy.

there's little individuals can do to protect themselves, if the company they work for choses to ignor labour laws or even treat employees with a modicum of decency.

BS. DOL lawyers would crawl up their asses, especially under this president.

Yeah the economy was in the dumps when the top rate was 70% right? lol

 

[Dad2three]

Ernie, you are so out of touch with the current economic realities, you might as well be living on another planet. In this day and age, it is possible live your life exactly have you did and still be financially screwed by the current economy.

Ronald Reagan completely restructured the US economy using many, but not all of the free market ideas touted by the Chicago School of economics, and until the worst of the damage he did is undone, nothing will change. The rich will continue to get richer, the poor will get poorer, and the middle class will continue to lose ground.

Everyone should read the Forbes article that Dad posted upthread. The bipartisan Congressional Report, which the GOP tried to bury, concludes that cutting taxes does not create jobs. All is does is facilitate the transfer of wealth from the poor and middle class, to the wealthy. This isn't the Huffington Post or MSNBC telling you this, this is Forbes, one of the most right wing, business friendly publications out there.

Prior to Reagan's economic re-structuring, every strata benefitted from growth of the GNP, and economic boom. Since the re-structuring, only the wealthy have benefitted. In addition to the tax cuts, Reagan's administration went on a spending spree the likes of which had not previously been seen, all of it on borrowed money. It gave the country the appearance of prosperity, but it was an illusion. It's like your neighbor buying a new car, new furniture and a designer wardrobe. Your think he's doing really well to be able to afford all of this stuff, but he bought everything on credit. Supposedly, the increase in tax revenues from the increased income from all of this spending, would pay for the tax cuts, but it never happened.

The next thing that Reagan did, which was straight out of the Chicago School playbook, was to declare war on the unions. His 1983 attack on the air traffic controllers union was just the opening salvo. His administratin stopped prosecuting union busting activities, and cut the Department of Labour's budget by 10%.

I'm not a huge fan of unions, personally, and I've never been a union member, but I have come to understand and appreciate that without unions, employers are free to run roughshod over their employees and there's little individuals can do to protect themselves, if the company they work for choses to ignor labour laws or even treat employees with a modicum of decency. Unions helped build a strong and resilient middle class (which is a necessity for a healthy, bibrant economy). Without them, wages, have stagnated, and the gains won through hard fought negotiations have withered away. The PR job the right has done on unions has convinced the general public that unions are the tools of Satan, and should be destroyed. They're not and they should be thanked, not vilified.

The last point I will raise in this post is that Reagan gutted the Anti-Trust Legislation. Conservatives will remind me that Reagan used anti-trust legislate to breakup AT&T early in his first administration but from that time forward, he introduced legislation which authorized the president to order an exemption for industries determined to be hurt by foreign competition. Reagan used Chicago School principles that "bigger is better" to undermine the Sherman Act, and other anti-trust laws. This set off a wave of mergers and acquisitions, which continue unabated.

With each big merger, there are job losses. Not low income job losses, but good middle class jobs. When Pfizer and Wyeth merged, and then merged with Astro-Zeneca, over 30,000 people lost their jobs among these three firms. With corporations awash with cash, they're not hiring or expanding, they're merging. Large mergers and acquisitions are slowing the recovery of jobs lost in the recession, and help to explain why there are fewer and fewer middle class jobs.

Walmart has become so large, that it can dictate wages and employment practices across the entire retail sector. And not just the retail sector, but amongst their suppliers as well. Many American companies have been forced to move manufacturing offshore to meet Walmart's price demands. Walmart's use of food stamps and Medicaid to subsidize wages are now costing every US taxpayer $2500 per year, whether you shop there or not.

It's time to break up the mega-corporations, re-write the tax code, and undo the economic damage visited upon the US economy by Saint Ronnie and the Chicago School of business, before the middle class is completely destroyed.

Who Broke America rsquo s Jobs Machine - Barry C. Lynn and Phillip Longman

Who's more responsible for losing American jobs...Reagan with his supply side economics or Clinton with NAFTA?

You realize Reagan gave US NAFTA the day he announced his run for Prez in 1979, it was a conservative (Heritage Foundation) plan? Reagan admin started negotiating in 1986. Poppy Bush got it signed and Clinton pushed it through Congress? BJ Bill the best conservative Prez since Ike

 

[Dad2three]

Ernie, you are so out of touch with the current economic realities, you might as well be living on another planet. In this day and age, it is possible live your life exactly have you did and still be financially screwed by the current economy.

Ronald Reagan completely restructured the US economy using many, but not all of the free market ideas touted by the Chicago School of economics, and until the worst of the damage he did is undone, nothing will change. The rich will continue to get richer, the poor will get poorer, and the middle class will continue to lose ground.

Everyone should read the Forbes article that Dad posted upthread. The bipartisan Congressional Report, which the GOP tried to bury, concludes that cutting taxes does not create jobs. All is does is facilitate the transfer of wealth from the poor and middle class, to the wealthy. This isn't the Huffington Post or MSNBC telling you this, this is Forbes, one of the most right wing, business friendly publications out there.

Prior to Reagan's economic re-structuring, every strata benefitted from growth of the GNP, and economic boom. Since the re-structuring, only the wealthy have benefitted. In addition to the tax cuts, Reagan's administration went on a spending spree the likes of which had not previously been seen, all of it on borrowed money. It gave the country the appearance of prosperity, but it was an illusion. It's like your neighbor buying a new car, new furniture and a designer wardrobe. Your think he's doing really well to be able to afford all of this stuff, but he bought everything on credit. Supposedly, the increase in tax revenues from the increased income from all of this spending, would pay for the tax cuts, but it never happened.

The next thing that Reagan did, which was straight out of the Chicago School playbook, was to declare war on the unions. His 1983 attack on the air traffic controllers union was just the opening salvo. His administratin stopped prosecuting union busting activities, and cut the Department of Labour's budget by 10%.

I'm not a huge fan of unions, personally, and I've never been a union member, but I have come to understand and appreciate that without unions, employers are free to run roughshod over their employees and there's little individuals can do to protect themselves, if the company they work for choses to ignor labour laws or even treat employees with a modicum of decency. Unions helped build a strong and resilient middle class (which is a necessity for a healthy, bibrant economy). Without them, wages, have stagnated, and the gains won through hard fought negotiations have withered away. The PR job the right has done on unions has convinced the general public that unions are the tools of Satan, and should be destroyed. They're not and they should be thanked, not vilified.

The last point I will raise in this post is that Reagan gutted the Anti-Trust Legislation. Conservatives will remind me that Reagan used anti-trust legislate to breakup AT&T early in his first administration but from that time forward, he introduced legislation which authorized the president to order an exemption for industries determined to be hurt by foreign competition. Reagan used Chicago School principles that "bigger is better" to undermine the Sherman Act, and other anti-trust laws. This set off a wave of mergers and acquisitions, which continue unabated.

With each big merger, there are job losses. Not low income job losses, but good middle class jobs. When Pfizer and Wyeth merged, and then merged with Astro-Zeneca, over 30,000 people lost their jobs among these three firms. With corporations awash with cash, they're not hiring or expanding, they're merging. Large mergers and acquisitions are slowing the recovery of jobs lost in the recession, and help to explain why there are fewer and fewer middle class jobs.

Walmart has become so large, that it can dictate wages and employment practices across the entire retail sector. And not just the retail sector, but amongst their suppliers as well. Many American companies have been forced to move manufacturing offshore to meet Walmart's price demands. Walmart's use of food stamps and Medicaid to subsidize wages are now costing every US taxpayer $2500 per year, whether you shop there or not.

It's time to break up the mega-corporations, re-write the tax code, and undo the economic damage visited upon the US economy by Saint Ronnie and the Chicago School of business, before the middle class is completely destroyed.

Who Broke America rsquo s Jobs Machine - Barry C. Lynn and Phillip Longman

Walmart's use of food stamps and Medicaid to subsidize wages are now costing every US taxpayer $2500 per year, whether you shop there or not.

If WalMart fired every employee, would food stamps and Medicaid spend more or less?

People are productive. Corporations are on welfare because they're taking all the profit that the the people's not-lazy productivity is generating.

Minimum wage employees are not welfare queens. Their employers are



The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness.

John Kenneth Galbraith

 

[Dad2three]

Yes, oh low info one, we ALL know the economy turns on a dime, and the consequences felt 2009-2011 were blamed on Obama *shaking head*

'Progressives' controlled the Congress? Obama, the second best conservative Prez since Ike (only BJ Bill was better) is a progressive? lol

BTW, Dems had a super majority 24 days TOTAL in 2009, AS the GOP put defeating Obama as their #1 priority.

It's simply an economic FACT...Barack Obama has overseen the worst recovery from a recession since the Great Depression. Historically the economy rebounds rather dramatically from recessions...however this time due to the agenda pushed by Barack Obama, Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi there hasn't been a rebound. As a matter of fact if you factored out the growth in the economy due to the low price of oil and gas (something Obama did his best to prevent) and the creation of jobs in States governed by Republican Governors promoting a pro-jobs agenda...the numbers for this Administration on both the economy and on job creation would go from poor to absolutely pathetic.

OK, So 'new metrics' get used, lol

Go away wing nutter. THE DUBYA/GOP 'JOB CREATOR POLICIES HAD 8 YEARS. WHAT HAPPENED? Yes, those states with NATURAL RESOURCES are doing well. AND? lol.

I THOUGHT AFTER 8 YEARS OF THE DUBYA, JOBS WOULD'VE BEEN EVERYWHERE? WHAT HAPPENED? Now you ***** that Obama and comp haven't fixed the mess the GOP handed him fast enough, AS they worked against EVERYTHING he presented???

I keep hearing the same refrain from you Obama enthusiasts, Dad and it always makes me smile. I mean I guess you could make a case for the whole "give Barry some time to fix things" mantra at year two of his first term...but when you were four years into that term and the economy was still languishing and people simply weren't finding the jobs they so desperately wanted...don't you think that excuse starts to become a bit weak? When you pass year two of Barry's SECOND term that excuse begins to border on farce!

Tell me this, Dad...what plan has Barack Obama put forward to create jobs in the past four years? I bet you can't even tell me who Barack Obama's Chief Economic Adviser is at this point. You know why that is? Because this Administration hasn't had a viable plan to grow the economy in so long that NOBODY knows who took over after Larry Summers and Christina Romer both tucked tail and ran back to their tenured jobs in academia.

So AGAIN, you can't explain why after 8 years of Dubya/GOP 'job creator' policies, why the US went into the biggest recession since the first GOP great depression. Instead you want to know why Obama/Dems haven't fixed it faster, AS the conservatives/GOP has refused to help US out of the hole they dug. Got it!

I know exactly why we when into the recession...we had a massive real estate "bubble" with millions of people who should never have qualified for mortgages owning property through liar loans driving home prices to ridiculous levels. We had lending institutions that were bundling all those bad loans and selling them to other banks as "secure" investments. The combination of the two led to a real estate "crash" and subsequent defaults by millions of people who were underwater on loans they had taken out which threatened to bankrupt a large number of our largest financial institutions.

THAT was something George W. Bush addressed with TARP.

So tell me what Barack Obama has done over the last six years to address the economy? You keep making vague references about it being the GOP's fault that things aren't better with the economy...yet it was the GOP that kept Barry from passing Cap & Trade legislation that would have crippled what little economic growth we have had in the past six years. It's nonstop quantitative easing by the Fed that's created another massive stock market bubble that will at some point correct causing yet another recession. Obama can't claim the present boom due to cheap oil and gas as his...God knows he did everything that he could to prevent that from happening! Oil and gas production on Federally controlled lands went down...it's only on land controlled privately or by the States that production went up dramatically. He can't even claim the deficit reductions as "his" because those came about not because of spending cuts Obama wanted but because of sequestration that he didn't want and has been trying to get free from ever since it kicked in.

So what HAS Barry done in six plus years, Dad?

"THAT was something George W. Bush addressed with TARP."


THAT was what Dubya did??? lol

Right-wingers Want To Erase How George Bush's "Homeowner Society" Helped Cause The Economic Collapse


2004 Republican Convention:

Another priority for a new term is to build an ownership society, because ownership brings security and dignity and independence.
...

Thanks to our policies, home ownership in America is at an all- time high.

(APPLAUSE)

Tonight we set a new goal: 7 million more affordable homes in the next 10 years, so more American families will be able to open the door and say, "Welcome to my home."


June 17, 2004


Builders to fight Bush's low-income plan


NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - Home builders, realtors and others are preparing to fight a Bush administration plan that would require Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to increase financing of homes for low-income people, a home builder group said Thursday.


Home builders fight Bush's low-income housing - Jun. 17, 2004


Predatory Lenders' Partner in Crime

Predatory lending was widely understood to present a looming national crisis.

What did the Bush administration do in response? Did it reverse course and decide to take action to halt this burgeoning scourge?

Not only did the Bush administration do nothing to protect consumers, it embarked on an aggressive and unprecedented campaign to prevent states from protecting their residents from the very problems to which the federal government was turning a blind eye

In 2003, during the height of the predatory lending crisis, the OCC invoked a clause from the 1863 National Bank Act to issue formal opinions preempting all state predatory lending laws, thereby rendering them inoperative


Eliot Spitzer - Predatory Lenders' Partner in Crime


Bushs documented policies and statements in timeframe leading up to the start of the Bush Mortgage Bubble include (but not limited to)

Wanting 5.5 million more minority homeowners
Tells congress there is nothing wrong with GSEs
Pledging to use federal policy to increase home ownership
Routinely taking credit for the housing market
Forcing GSEs to buy more low income home loans by raising their Housing Goals
Lowering Invesntment banks capital requirements, Net Capital rule
Reversing the Clinton rule that restricted GSEs purchases of subprime loans
Lowering down payment requirements to 0%
Forcing GSEs to spend an additional $440 billion in the secondary markets
Giving away 40,000 free down payments
PREEMPTING ALL STATE LAWS AGAINST PREDATORY LENDING


But the biggest policy was regulators not enforcing lending standards.



Q When did the Bush Mortgage Bubble start?

A The general timeframe is it started late 2004.

From Bush’s President’s Working Group on Financial Markets October 2008

“The Presidents Working Group’s March policy statement acknowledged that turmoil in financial markets clearly was triggered by a dramatic weakening of underwriting standards for U.S. subprime mortgages, beginning in late 2004 and extending into 2007.”

MUCH MORE HERE:


FACTS on Dubya s great recession US Message Board - Political Discussion Forum


SPENDING CUTS CREATED LOWER DEFICITS? LOL. TELL THAT TO ECONOMIST WHO SAY TAKING US FROM LESS THAN 15% OF GDP IN TAXES TO 17%+ THIS YEAR DID IT, LOL, AND HOPEFULLY BACK TO CARTER/CLINTON'S NEARLY 20% WINGNUTTER

Historical Source of Revenue as Share of GDP

 

[Dad2three]

And I studied the Chicago School in college, Dragonlady...I don't recall it espousing a "bigger is better" philosophy as you've claimed. Care to refresh my memory as to that tenet of the Chicago School? Perhaps I dozed off in class and "missed" it!

YOU SHOULD TRY STAYING AWAKE NEXT TIME


Chicago School



A group of economists and lawyers, who are largely associated with the University of Chicago, advocate an approach to competition law guided by the proposition that some actions that were originally considered to be anticompetitive could actually promote competition.


The U.S. Supreme Court has used the Chicago School approach in several recent cases. One view of the Chicago School approach to antitrust is found in United States Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Richard Posner's books Antitrust Law[55] and Economic Analysis of Law.

Robert Bork was highly critical of court decisions on United States antitrust law in a series of law review articles and his book The Antitrust Paradox. Bork argued that both the original intention of antitrust laws and economic efficiency was the pursuit only of consumer welfare, the protection of competition rather than competitors. Furthermore, only a few acts should be prohibited, namely cartels that fix prices and divide markets, mergers that create monopolies, and dominant firms pricing predatorily, while allowing such practices as vertical agreements and price discrimination on the grounds that it did not harm consumers

Competition law - Wikipedia the free encyclopedia




How Milton Friedman and Chicago Economics Undermined America

...That was essentially a Jeffersonian notion of the market. The market would regulate itself if everybody was a farmer, a yeoman farmer, a small businessman.”

“They thought it would be automatic.”

“By the time Friedman wrote his book – Capitalism and Freedom – in 1962, they had totally changed their minds.”

“The problem was not big business. The problem was government.”

Henry Simons thought the market had to be pretty rigidly controlled. It was bad to allow companies to keep their profits. The profits should be given back to the shareholders every year. And the businesses should have to sell the market every year on whatever their development plans are and raise new capital.”

“Friedman just swept that away. The government could not make a decision that would be correct. He and Stigler were adamant on the fact that the government was not only incompetent to make these decisions, but that whatever regulatory organizations were created would inevitably be dominated by big businesses.”

“So, it was better to let the businesses fight it out themselves in a survival of the fittest mode.”


How Milton Friedman and Chicago Economics Undermined America Common Dreams Breaking News Views for the Progressive Community

 

[Spare_change]

So no, the usual right wing crap, you can't defend conservative policy either!

Let me help you --- it's time for your US economy tutorial. If you could, ask Dragonlady to sit in, because both of you have demonstrated a very shallow understanding.

It is your pronouncement that the way out of our current economic malaise is to "increase demand". Of course, you haven't talked about HOW you are going to "increase demand", but that's okay. Frankly, you gave yourself away when you said "increase demand", since that is a microeconomic concept that has no place in macroeconomic management. You are thinking of the classic 'supply and demand' model popular in microeconomics, rather than the aggregate demand-aggregate supply model of macroeconomics. Most assuredly, they are two completely different theories and bear little or no relationship to each other.

For purposes of this discussion, we are going to use Real GDP as a measure of economic health. We know Real GDP is defined as today's GDP when measured in some past year's dollars. GDP is made up of consumption (C), investment (I), government spending (G), and net exports (NX), so the formula is Y=C+I+G+NX. Increasing any one of those will drive up the GDP. I'm going to assume that you are following the classic Keynesian model and proposing to increase consumption by increasing government spending.

Here's the problem - increasing consumption by pouring more money into the economy is self-defeating. It has a short-term positive impact that is quickly overridden by the consequences of such a move, as you shall see. First, while the left claims to believe in the Keynesian model, they, in fact, don't follow it. The classic Keynesian model proposes to 1) increase in-pocket money for the citizens by cutting taxes, and 2) further increase money availability by spending tax money on government projects. So, one at a time ...

Increase in-pocket money for the citizens by cutting taxes - given that 47% of the citizenry doesn't pay any taxes, this obviously won't work. You end up giving tax breaks to only those who actually pay taxes (thus, the hue and cry about tax cuts for the rich --- hell, they are the only ones who pay taxes, so, logically, any tax cut is for them!).

Increase money availability by spending tax money on government projects. Logic says - lower taxes, increased spending - makes no sense. There's less money to spend. I will agree that increased government spending can have a short term positive impact, if it is held under control. When the economy starts to heat back up, the spending has to stopped (or funded by revenue only). However, when is the last time you saw our government slow down spending? Neither the Republicans nor the Democrats are able to rein in spending - they have too many votes to buy! They don't - so, this has to, necessarily, be a non-starter. If it doesn't, you end up with an $18 trillion national debt.

So, if that model doesn't work - and we have plenty of historical proof to say it doesn't (the most classic example is LBJ's sabotage of an effective and working economy, though Bush, aided by Democratic congressional interference with the market methodologies did a pretty damn good job, too) - what can we do? We need to kick start it somehow.

The GDP is driven by aggregate prices. Simply, the lower the price of an item, the more that will be bought, thus, the more that will need to be produced. Since we know price controls don't work (Nixon tried it), the answer is to incentivize the producer. Create more shirts, the price of shirts go down. The price of shirts go down, the more money in the pocket of the consumer. the more money in the consumer's pocket, the more he is likely to buy something else (this is called the wealth effect - the consumer feels 'wealthier). The more money the consumer has, the more he will invest. The money he invests, the cheaper it is to borrow money and increase production (this is called the Interest effect). The more money there is to invest, the cheaper the interest rates. The cheaper the interest rates, the great potential for us to have foreign investment, where the return on investment is higher (called the Foreign Exchange effect) You increase C (go back to the formula - consumption). Increased consumption puts more people to work, and drives up the GDP.

The RIGHT answer is a carefully orchestrated combination of the two --- with the ABSOLUTE caveat that government spending has to be funded by revenue whenever possible. Keynesian economics, when applied during a time of recession, can be very effective. Supply side management of a recovering and boisterous economy is equally effective. The government borrowing money is ALWAYS bad - but a necessary evil sometimes to stimulate a moribund economy.

Now, the first thing I'm going to hear is "You didn't give a reference!!!" You're right, I didn't - this is simple level one hundred macroeconomic theory. This is already longer than War and Peace - references would have made it harder to follow. There are probably a thousand books out there that will tell you all this. I'm particularly fond of the Khan Academy course on macroeconomics - it's short, concise, and covers all the salient points. Failing that, simply go to the local library and pick up any macroeconomics 101 textbook. If you think I said something wrong, find a reference, and we'll discuss it.

Oh ... BTW -- there ARE Republicans who do understand economics.

A FUKKING LIAR. SHOCKING. $18 TRILLION DEBT? Oh I guess starve the beast policies like UNFUNDED tax cuts and UNFUNDED wars and Medicare expansions do that?


RECORD CORP PROFITS? ARE THE 1%ERS HURTING? IS THE US ECONOMY TO SMALL OR SHRINKING? OR IS THE MONEY IN THE WRONG FUKKING HANDS?



In 1980 the top 1% earned 8.5% of total income. In 2007 they earned 23%.

In 1980 the bottom 90% earned 68% of total income. In 2007 they earned 53%.

Summary of Latest Federal Income Tax Data Tax Foundation

GOV'T POLICY MATTERS !!!

"So, if that model doesn't work - and we have plenty of historical proof to say it doesn't (the most classic example is LBJ's sabotage of an effective and working economy, though Bush, aided by Democratic congressional interference with the market methodologies did a pretty damn good job, too) - what can we do? We need to kick start it somehow."



PLEASE LIST THESE THINGS YOU SPEAK OF, ESPECIALLY DEMS 'CONGRESSIONAL INTERFERENCE'? LOL

Examining the big lie: How the facts of the economic crisis stack up

•The boom and bust was global. Proponents of the Big Lie ignore the worldwide nature of the housing boom and bust.

•Nonbank mortgage underwriting exploded from 2001 to 2007, along with the private label securitization market, which eclipsed Fannie and Freddie during the boom.

Private lenders not subject to congressional regulations collapsed lending standards.



Examining the big lie How the facts of the economic crisis stack up The Big Picture


June 16, 2005

The worldwide rise in house prices is the biggest bubble in history. Prepare for the economic pain when it pops

The global housing boom In come the waves The Economist

BUT YES, DUBYA DID CHEER-LEAD FOR THE BANKSTERS AND PULL REGULATORS OFF THE BEAT AS HE FOUGHT ALL 50 STATES WHO WANTED TO REIGN THE BANKSTERS

FACTS on Dubya s great recession US Message Board - Political Discussion Forum

Absolute nonsense ... accompanied by the expected name calling, vulgarities, and BIG PRINT.

Get a grip ....

So instead of acknowledging you were full of shit, you use ad homs and whine and cry. Got it

The vast majority of your posts are vicious attacks on those who dare to have the temerity to disagree with your liberal talking points ... and you expect us to answer them??

You win ... you're the best name caller on USMB. (Make you feel better??)

 

[Spare_change]

It's simply an economic FACT...Barack Obama has overseen the worst recovery from a recession since the Great Depression. Historically the economy rebounds rather dramatically from recessions...however this time due to the agenda pushed by Barack Obama, Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi there hasn't been a rebound. As a matter of fact if you factored out the growth in the economy due to the low price of oil and gas (something Obama did his best to prevent) and the creation of jobs in States governed by Republican Governors promoting a pro-jobs agenda...the numbers for this Administration on both the economy and on job creation would go from poor to absolutely pathetic.

OK, So 'new metrics' get used, lol

Go away wing nutter. THE DUBYA/GOP 'JOB CREATOR POLICIES HAD 8 YEARS. WHAT HAPPENED? Yes, those states with NATURAL RESOURCES are doing well. AND? lol.

I THOUGHT AFTER 8 YEARS OF THE DUBYA, JOBS WOULD'VE BEEN EVERYWHERE? WHAT HAPPENED? Now you ***** that Obama and comp haven't fixed the mess the GOP handed him fast enough, AS they worked against EVERYTHING he presented???

I keep hearing the same refrain from you Obama enthusiasts, Dad and it always makes me smile. I mean I guess you could make a case for the whole "give Barry some time to fix things" mantra at year two of his first term...but when you were four years into that term and the economy was still languishing and people simply weren't finding the jobs they so desperately wanted...don't you think that excuse starts to become a bit weak? When you pass year two of Barry's SECOND term that excuse begins to border on farce!

Tell me this, Dad...what plan has Barack Obama put forward to create jobs in the past four years? I bet you can't even tell me who Barack Obama's Chief Economic Adviser is at this point. You know why that is? Because this Administration hasn't had a viable plan to grow the economy in so long that NOBODY knows who took over after Larry Summers and Christina Romer both tucked tail and ran back to their tenured jobs in academia.

So AGAIN, you can't explain why after 8 years of Dubya/GOP 'job creator' policies, why the US went into the biggest recession since the first GOP great depression. Instead you want to know why Obama/Dems haven't fixed it faster, AS the conservatives/GOP has refused to help US out of the hole they dug. Got it!

I know exactly why we when into the recession...we had a massive real estate "bubble" with millions of people who should never have qualified for mortgages owning property through liar loans driving home prices to ridiculous levels. We had lending institutions that were bundling all those bad loans and selling them to other banks as "secure" investments. The combination of the two led to a real estate "crash" and subsequent defaults by millions of people who were underwater on loans they had taken out which threatened to bankrupt a large number of our largest financial institutions.

THAT was something George W. Bush addressed with TARP.

So tell me what Barack Obama has done over the last six years to address the economy? You keep making vague references about it being the GOP's fault that things aren't better with the economy...yet it was the GOP that kept Barry from passing Cap & Trade legislation that would have crippled what little economic growth we have had in the past six years. It's nonstop quantitative easing by the Fed that's created another massive stock market bubble that will at some point correct causing yet another recession. Obama can't claim the present boom due to cheap oil and gas as his...God knows he did everything that he could to prevent that from happening! Oil and gas production on Federally controlled lands went down...it's only on land controlled privately or by the States that production went up dramatically. He can't even claim the deficit reductions as "his" because those came about not because of spending cuts Obama wanted but because of sequestration that he didn't want and has been trying to get free from ever since it kicked in.

So what HAS Barry done in six plus years, Dad?

"THAT was something George W. Bush addressed with TARP."


THAT was what Dubya did??? lol

Right-wingers Want To Erase How George Bush's "Homeowner Society" Helped Cause The Economic Collapse


2004 Republican Convention:

Another priority for a new term is to build an ownership society, because ownership brings security and dignity and independence.
...

Thanks to our policies, home ownership in America is at an all- time high.

(APPLAUSE)

Tonight we set a new goal: 7 million more affordable homes in the next 10 years, so more American families will be able to open the door and say, "Welcome to my home."


June 17, 2004


Builders to fight Bush's low-income plan


NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - Home builders, realtors and others are preparing to fight a Bush administration plan that would require Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to increase financing of homes for low-income people, a home builder group said Thursday.


Home builders fight Bush's low-income housing - Jun. 17, 2004


Predatory Lenders' Partner in Crime

Predatory lending was widely understood to present a looming national crisis.

What did the Bush administration do in response? Did it reverse course and decide to take action to halt this burgeoning scourge?

Not only did the Bush administration do nothing to protect consumers, it embarked on an aggressive and unprecedented campaign to prevent states from protecting their residents from the very problems to which the federal government was turning a blind eye

In 2003, during the height of the predatory lending crisis, the OCC invoked a clause from the 1863 National Bank Act to issue formal opinions preempting all state predatory lending laws, thereby rendering them inoperative


Eliot Spitzer - Predatory Lenders' Partner in Crime


Bushs documented policies and statements in timeframe leading up to the start of the Bush Mortgage Bubble include (but not limited to)

Wanting 5.5 million more minority homeowners
Tells congress there is nothing wrong with GSEs
Pledging to use federal policy to increase home ownership
Routinely taking credit for the housing market
Forcing GSEs to buy more low income home loans by raising their Housing Goals
Lowering Invesntment banks capital requirements, Net Capital rule
Reversing the Clinton rule that restricted GSEs purchases of subprime loans
Lowering down payment requirements to 0%
Forcing GSEs to spend an additional $440 billion in the secondary markets
Giving away 40,000 free down payments
PREEMPTING ALL STATE LAWS AGAINST PREDATORY LENDING


But the biggest policy was regulators not enforcing lending standards.



Q When did the Bush Mortgage Bubble start?

A The general timeframe is it started late 2004.

From Bush’s President’s Working Group on Financial Markets October 2008

“The Presidents Working Group’s March policy statement acknowledged that turmoil in financial markets clearly was triggered by a dramatic weakening of underwriting standards for U.S. subprime mortgages, beginning in late 2004 and extending into 2007.”

MUCH MORE HERE:


FACTS on Dubya s great recession US Message Board - Political Discussion Forum


SPENDING CUTS CREATED LOWER DEFICITS? LOL. TELL THAT TO ECONOMIST WHO SAY TAKING US FROM LESS THAN 15% OF GDP IN TAXES TO 17%+ THIS YEAR DID IT, LOL, AND HOPEFULLY BACK TO CARTER/CLINTON'S NEARLY 20% WINGNUTTER

Historical Source of Revenue as Share of GDP

"What did the Bush administration do in response? Did it reverse course and decide to take action to halt this burgeoning scourge?

Not only did the Bush administration do nothing to protect consumers, it embarked on an aggressive and unprecedented campaign to prevent states from protecting their residents from the very problems to which the federal government was turning a blind eye"

Do you mean the 13 times that the Bush administration briefed the Democrat Congress that something had to be done about the subprime mortgage situation? Or, are we talking about the 13 times that the Democratic Congress refused to take action? Are we talking about the Democratic Congressional leaders who announced to the world that "... Fannie Mae, and Freddie Mac, are creative and outstanding examples of government involvement in assisting the poor ... ", and then, when they collapsed less than six months later, blamed the Bush administration?

Maybe we are talking about 2003, for example, when the Bush administration proposed much tighter regulation of the two companies, Barney Frank was adamant that "these two entities, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, are not facing any kind of financial crisis." When the White House warned of "systemic risk for our financial system" unless the mortgage giants were curbed, Frank complained that the administration was more concerned about financial safety than about housing.
Frank s fingerprints are all over the financial fiasco - The Boston Globe

Look ---- we can talk history all you want. You can blame Bush, and I can blame the Democratic Congress. But, in the end, it will do nothing to fix the problems of today. History is for history books ... let's worry about the future.

If it is so important to your self esteem that you blame Republicans for the current condition, go ahead - lie to yourself. If it makes you feel better to blame Bush, then blame him ... because, in the end, it doesn't mean a damn thing. But, don't waste our time.

We are where we are ... we need to figure out how we are going to get out of the mess we have today, not about how the mess was created.

 

[Spare_change]

Spare change assumes that those of us on the left want government spending and lots of it. That is what we call a "false premise". There were a lot of them in his post.

What is needed is government investment in infrastructure and education. And not education that views science as witchery and teaches that the Earth is 6000 years old. U.S. Education starting lagging behind other countries when parents starting deciding what they wanted their children to learn.

It's long past the time for this experimental patchwork quilt of education with public, charter and religious schools competing for students, to end. It's been an unmitigated disaster, creating one of the most expensive education systems in the world, but with the result that U.S. students are falling behind Europe and Asia in terms of quality of education. And they fall further behind each year.

.

You have your own fallacies.
Government does not "invest" in anything. Government spends money. Your call for a federal takeowver of the education system is a call for spending more money. So SpareChange was right on that count.
The Founders set up a system of a limited federal government, with most functions properly left to the states. They wanted the states to be laboratories of policy. And it works. Vermont just demonstrated that single payer won't work. At least that's out of the way.

Really? Why not keep the Articles of Confederation IF that's what the Founders wanted? lol

Vermont? lol YOU MEAN WHEN THE POOR AND SENIORS ARE ALREADY COVERED? AND A SMALL STATE WITH MANY ISSUES FACING IT? WELL THAT DOOMS IT IN THE US, RIGHT? THE MOST EXPENSIVE H/C NATION IN THE WORLD, BY A LOT!!!



Care to point to ANY UHC nation that wants US style H/C? ANY POLL? EVER?

Okay .... you're allowed your own opinion, but not your own facts.

You brought up healthcare .... how much did the US spend on health care? Not on medical research, on healthcare. Now factor that against the standard of living in any two countries you wish ... let me know what you find out.

US spends WAY to much, especially considering the results. AND? Dummy, NO other industrialized nation wants US style H/C whats that tell you?

Answer the damn question .... how much did the US spend on health care? Not on medical research, on healthcare. Now factor that against the standard of living in any two countries you wish ... let me know what you find out.

 

[Spare_change]

Ernie, you are so out of touch with the current economic realities, you might as well be living on another planet. In this day and age, it is possible live your life exactly have you did and still be financially screwed by the current economy.

Ronald Reagan completely restructured the US economy using many, but not all of the free market ideas touted by the Chicago School of economics, and until the worst of the damage he did is undone, nothing will change. The rich will continue to get richer, the poor will get poorer, and the middle class will continue to lose ground.

Everyone should read the Forbes article that Dad posted upthread. The bipartisan Congressional Report, which the GOP tried to bury, concludes that cutting taxes does not create jobs. All is does is facilitate the transfer of wealth from the poor and middle class, to the wealthy. This isn't the Huffington Post or MSNBC telling you this, this is Forbes, one of the most right wing, business friendly publications out there.

Prior to Reagan's economic re-structuring, every strata benefitted from growth of the GNP, and economic boom. Since the re-structuring, only the wealthy have benefitted. In addition to the tax cuts, Reagan's administration went on a spending spree the likes of which had not previously been seen, all of it on borrowed money. It gave the country the appearance of prosperity, but it was an illusion. It's like your neighbor buying a new car, new furniture and a designer wardrobe. Your think he's doing really well to be able to afford all of this stuff, but he bought everything on credit. Supposedly, the increase in tax revenues from the increased income from all of this spending, would pay for the tax cuts, but it never happened.

The next thing that Reagan did, which was straight out of the Chicago School playbook, was to declare war on the unions. His 1983 attack on the air traffic controllers union was just the opening salvo. His administratin stopped prosecuting union busting activities, and cut the Department of Labour's budget by 10%.

I'm not a huge fan of unions, personally, and I've never been a union member, but I have come to understand and appreciate that without unions, employers are free to run roughshod over their employees and there's little individuals can do to protect themselves, if the company they work for choses to ignor labour laws or even treat employees with a modicum of decency. Unions helped build a strong and resilient middle class (which is a necessity for a healthy, bibrant economy). Without them, wages, have stagnated, and the gains won through hard fought negotiations have withered away. The PR job the right has done on unions has convinced the general public that unions are the tools of Satan, and should be destroyed. They're not and they should be thanked, not vilified.

The last point I will raise in this post is that Reagan gutted the Anti-Trust Legislation. Conservatives will remind me that Reagan used anti-trust legislate to breakup AT&T early in his first administration but from that time forward, he introduced legislation which authorized the president to order an exemption for industries determined to be hurt by foreign competition. Reagan used Chicago School principles that "bigger is better" to undermine the Sherman Act, and other anti-trust laws. This set off a wave of mergers and acquisitions, which continue unabated.

With each big merger, there are job losses. Not low income job losses, but good middle class jobs. When Pfizer and Wyeth merged, and then merged with Astro-Zeneca, over 30,000 people lost their jobs among these three firms. With corporations awash with cash, they're not hiring or expanding, they're merging. Large mergers and acquisitions are slowing the recovery of jobs lost in the recession, and help to explain why there are fewer and fewer middle class jobs.

Walmart has become so large, that it can dictate wages and employment practices across the entire retail sector. And not just the retail sector, but amongst their suppliers as well. Many American companies have been forced to move manufacturing offshore to meet Walmart's price demands. Walmart's use of food stamps and Medicaid to subsidize wages are now costing every US taxpayer $2500 per year, whether you shop there or not.

It's time to break up the mega-corporations, re-write the tax code, and undo the economic damage visited upon the US economy by Saint Ronnie and the Chicago School of business, before the middle class is completely destroyed.

Who Broke America rsquo s Jobs Machine - Barry C. Lynn and Phillip Longman

Walmart's use of food stamps and Medicaid to subsidize wages are now costing every US taxpayer $2500 per year, whether you shop there or not.

If WalMart fired every employee, would food stamps and Medicaid spend more or less?

People are productive. Corporations are on welfare because they're taking all the profit that the the people's not-lazy productivity is generating.

Minimum wage employees are not welfare queens. Their employers are



The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness.

John Kenneth Galbraith

Do you always rant nonsense like this?

You said it ... prove it.

 

[Dad2three]

So no, the usual right wing crap, you can't defend conservative policy either!

Let me help you --- it's time for your US economy tutorial. If you could, ask Dragonlady to sit in, because both of you have demonstrated a very shallow understanding.

It is your pronouncement that the way out of our current economic malaise is to "increase demand". Of course, you haven't talked about HOW you are going to "increase demand", but that's okay. Frankly, you gave yourself away when you said "increase demand", since that is a microeconomic concept that has no place in macroeconomic management. You are thinking of the classic 'supply and demand' model popular in microeconomics, rather than the aggregate demand-aggregate supply model of macroeconomics. Most assuredly, they are two completely different theories and bear little or no relationship to each other.

For purposes of this discussion, we are going to use Real GDP as a measure of economic health. We know Real GDP is defined as today's GDP when measured in some past year's dollars. GDP is made up of consumption (C), investment (I), government spending (G), and net exports (NX), so the formula is Y=C+I+G+NX. Increasing any one of those will drive up the GDP. I'm going to assume that you are following the classic Keynesian model and proposing to increase consumption by increasing government spending.

Here's the problem - increasing consumption by pouring more money into the economy is self-defeating. It has a short-term positive impact that is quickly overridden by the consequences of such a move, as you shall see. First, while the left claims to believe in the Keynesian model, they, in fact, don't follow it. The classic Keynesian model proposes to 1) increase in-pocket money for the citizens by cutting taxes, and 2) further increase money availability by spending tax money on government projects. So, one at a time ...

Increase in-pocket money for the citizens by cutting taxes - given that 47% of the citizenry doesn't pay any taxes, this obviously won't work. You end up giving tax breaks to only those who actually pay taxes (thus, the hue and cry about tax cuts for the rich --- hell, they are the only ones who pay taxes, so, logically, any tax cut is for them!).

Increase money availability by spending tax money on government projects. Logic says - lower taxes, increased spending - makes no sense. There's less money to spend. I will agree that increased government spending can have a short term positive impact, if it is held under control. When the economy starts to heat back up, the spending has to stopped (or funded by revenue only). However, when is the last time you saw our government slow down spending? Neither the Republicans nor the Democrats are able to rein in spending - they have too many votes to buy! They don't - so, this has to, necessarily, be a non-starter. If it doesn't, you end up with an $18 trillion national debt.

So, if that model doesn't work - and we have plenty of historical proof to say it doesn't (the most classic example is LBJ's sabotage of an effective and working economy, though Bush, aided by Democratic congressional interference with the market methodologies did a pretty damn good job, too) - what can we do? We need to kick start it somehow.

The GDP is driven by aggregate prices. Simply, the lower the price of an item, the more that will be bought, thus, the more that will need to be produced. Since we know price controls don't work (Nixon tried it), the answer is to incentivize the producer. Create more shirts, the price of shirts go down. The price of shirts go down, the more money in the pocket of the consumer. the more money in the consumer's pocket, the more he is likely to buy something else (this is called the wealth effect - the consumer feels 'wealthier). The more money the consumer has, the more he will invest. The money he invests, the cheaper it is to borrow money and increase production (this is called the Interest effect). The more money there is to invest, the cheaper the interest rates. The cheaper the interest rates, the great potential for us to have foreign investment, where the return on investment is higher (called the Foreign Exchange effect) You increase C (go back to the formula - consumption). Increased consumption puts more people to work, and drives up the GDP.

The RIGHT answer is a carefully orchestrated combination of the two --- with the ABSOLUTE caveat that government spending has to be funded by revenue whenever possible. Keynesian economics, when applied during a time of recession, can be very effective. Supply side management of a recovering and boisterous economy is equally effective. The government borrowing money is ALWAYS bad - but a necessary evil sometimes to stimulate a moribund economy.

Now, the first thing I'm going to hear is "You didn't give a reference!!!" You're right, I didn't - this is simple level one hundred macroeconomic theory. This is already longer than War and Peace - references would have made it harder to follow. There are probably a thousand books out there that will tell you all this. I'm particularly fond of the Khan Academy course on macroeconomics - it's short, concise, and covers all the salient points. Failing that, simply go to the local library and pick up any macroeconomics 101 textbook. If you think I said something wrong, find a reference, and we'll discuss it.

Oh ... BTW -- there ARE Republicans who do understand economics.

A FUKKING LIAR. SHOCKING. $18 TRILLION DEBT? Oh I guess starve the beast policies like UNFUNDED tax cuts and UNFUNDED wars and Medicare expansions do that?


RECORD CORP PROFITS? ARE THE 1%ERS HURTING? IS THE US ECONOMY TO SMALL OR SHRINKING? OR IS THE MONEY IN THE WRONG FUKKING HANDS?



In 1980 the top 1% earned 8.5% of total income. In 2007 they earned 23%.

In 1980 the bottom 90% earned 68% of total income. In 2007 they earned 53%.

Summary of Latest Federal Income Tax Data Tax Foundation

GOV'T POLICY MATTERS !!!

"So, if that model doesn't work - and we have plenty of historical proof to say it doesn't (the most classic example is LBJ's sabotage of an effective and working economy, though Bush, aided by Democratic congressional interference with the market methodologies did a pretty damn good job, too) - what can we do? We need to kick start it somehow."



PLEASE LIST THESE THINGS YOU SPEAK OF, ESPECIALLY DEMS 'CONGRESSIONAL INTERFERENCE'? LOL

Examining the big lie: How the facts of the economic crisis stack up

•The boom and bust was global. Proponents of the Big Lie ignore the worldwide nature of the housing boom and bust.

•Nonbank mortgage underwriting exploded from 2001 to 2007, along with the private label securitization market, which eclipsed Fannie and Freddie during the boom.

Private lenders not subject to congressional regulations collapsed lending standards.



Examining the big lie How the facts of the economic crisis stack up The Big Picture


June 16, 2005

The worldwide rise in house prices is the biggest bubble in history. Prepare for the economic pain when it pops

The global housing boom In come the waves The Economist

BUT YES, DUBYA DID CHEER-LEAD FOR THE BANKSTERS AND PULL REGULATORS OFF THE BEAT AS HE FOUGHT ALL 50 STATES WHO WANTED TO REIGN THE BANKSTERS

FACTS on Dubya s great recession US Message Board - Political Discussion Forum

Absolute nonsense ... accompanied by the expected name calling, vulgarities, and BIG PRINT.

Get a grip ....

So instead of acknowledging you were full of shit, you use ad homs and whine and cry. Got it

The vast majority of your posts are vicious attacks on those who dare to have the temerity to disagree with your liberal talking points ... and you expect us to answer them??

You win ... you're the best name caller on USMB. (Make you feel better??)

lol, Vicious attacks? Grow a pair Bubba, if you low info types want to spout right wing talking points from the drug addict, learn to take criticism. Tell you what ONE POLICY CONS HAVE EVER BEEN ON THE CORRECT SIDE OF HISTORY ON IN THE US?

 

[Dad2three]

OK, So 'new metrics' get used, lol

Go away wing nutter. THE DUBYA/GOP 'JOB CREATOR POLICIES HAD 8 YEARS. WHAT HAPPENED? Yes, those states with NATURAL RESOURCES are doing well. AND? lol.

I THOUGHT AFTER 8 YEARS OF THE DUBYA, JOBS WOULD'VE BEEN EVERYWHERE? WHAT HAPPENED? Now you ***** that Obama and comp haven't fixed the mess the GOP handed him fast enough, AS they worked against EVERYTHING he presented???

I keep hearing the same refrain from you Obama enthusiasts, Dad and it always makes me smile. I mean I guess you could make a case for the whole "give Barry some time to fix things" mantra at year two of his first term...but when you were four years into that term and the economy was still languishing and people simply weren't finding the jobs they so desperately wanted...don't you think that excuse starts to become a bit weak? When you pass year two of Barry's SECOND term that excuse begins to border on farce!

Tell me this, Dad...what plan has Barack Obama put forward to create jobs in the past four years? I bet you can't even tell me who Barack Obama's Chief Economic Adviser is at this point. You know why that is? Because this Administration hasn't had a viable plan to grow the economy in so long that NOBODY knows who took over after Larry Summers and Christina Romer both tucked tail and ran back to their tenured jobs in academia.

So AGAIN, you can't explain why after 8 years of Dubya/GOP 'job creator' policies, why the US went into the biggest recession since the first GOP great depression. Instead you want to know why Obama/Dems haven't fixed it faster, AS the conservatives/GOP has refused to help US out of the hole they dug. Got it!

I know exactly why we when into the recession...we had a massive real estate "bubble" with millions of people who should never have qualified for mortgages owning property through liar loans driving home prices to ridiculous levels. We had lending institutions that were bundling all those bad loans and selling them to other banks as "secure" investments. The combination of the two led to a real estate "crash" and subsequent defaults by millions of people who were underwater on loans they had taken out which threatened to bankrupt a large number of our largest financial institutions.

THAT was something George W. Bush addressed with TARP.

So tell me what Barack Obama has done over the last six years to address the economy? You keep making vague references about it being the GOP's fault that things aren't better with the economy...yet it was the GOP that kept Barry from passing Cap & Trade legislation that would have crippled what little economic growth we have had in the past six years. It's nonstop quantitative easing by the Fed that's created another massive stock market bubble that will at some point correct causing yet another recession. Obama can't claim the present boom due to cheap oil and gas as his...God knows he did everything that he could to prevent that from happening! Oil and gas production on Federally controlled lands went down...it's only on land controlled privately or by the States that production went up dramatically. He can't even claim the deficit reductions as "his" because those came about not because of spending cuts Obama wanted but because of sequestration that he didn't want and has been trying to get free from ever since it kicked in.

So what HAS Barry done in six plus years, Dad?

"THAT was something George W. Bush addressed with TARP."


THAT was what Dubya did??? lol

Right-wingers Want To Erase How George Bush's "Homeowner Society" Helped Cause The Economic Collapse


2004 Republican Convention:

Another priority for a new term is to build an ownership society, because ownership brings security and dignity and independence.
...

Thanks to our policies, home ownership in America is at an all- time high.

(APPLAUSE)

Tonight we set a new goal: 7 million more affordable homes in the next 10 years, so more American families will be able to open the door and say, "Welcome to my home."


June 17, 2004


Builders to fight Bush's low-income plan


NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - Home builders, realtors and others are preparing to fight a Bush administration plan that would require Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to increase financing of homes for low-income people, a home builder group said Thursday.


Home builders fight Bush's low-income housing - Jun. 17, 2004


Predatory Lenders' Partner in Crime

Predatory lending was widely understood to present a looming national crisis.

What did the Bush administration do in response? Did it reverse course and decide to take action to halt this burgeoning scourge?

Not only did the Bush administration do nothing to protect consumers, it embarked on an aggressive and unprecedented campaign to prevent states from protecting their residents from the very problems to which the federal government was turning a blind eye

In 2003, during the height of the predatory lending crisis, the OCC invoked a clause from the 1863 National Bank Act to issue formal opinions preempting all state predatory lending laws, thereby rendering them inoperative


Eliot Spitzer - Predatory Lenders' Partner in Crime


Bushs documented policies and statements in timeframe leading up to the start of the Bush Mortgage Bubble include (but not limited to)

Wanting 5.5 million more minority homeowners
Tells congress there is nothing wrong with GSEs
Pledging to use federal policy to increase home ownership
Routinely taking credit for the housing market
Forcing GSEs to buy more low income home loans by raising their Housing Goals
Lowering Invesntment banks capital requirements, Net Capital rule
Reversing the Clinton rule that restricted GSEs purchases of subprime loans
Lowering down payment requirements to 0%
Forcing GSEs to spend an additional $440 billion in the secondary markets
Giving away 40,000 free down payments
PREEMPTING ALL STATE LAWS AGAINST PREDATORY LENDING


But the biggest policy was regulators not enforcing lending standards.



Q When did the Bush Mortgage Bubble start?

A The general timeframe is it started late 2004.

From Bush’s President’s Working Group on Financial Markets October 2008

“The Presidents Working Group’s March policy statement acknowledged that turmoil in financial markets clearly was triggered by a dramatic weakening of underwriting standards for U.S. subprime mortgages, beginning in late 2004 and extending into 2007.”

MUCH MORE HERE:


FACTS on Dubya s great recession US Message Board - Political Discussion Forum


SPENDING CUTS CREATED LOWER DEFICITS? LOL. TELL THAT TO ECONOMIST WHO SAY TAKING US FROM LESS THAN 15% OF GDP IN TAXES TO 17%+ THIS YEAR DID IT, LOL, AND HOPEFULLY BACK TO CARTER/CLINTON'S NEARLY 20% WINGNUTTER

Historical Source of Revenue as Share of GDP

"What did the Bush administration do in response? Did it reverse course and decide to take action to halt this burgeoning scourge?

Not only did the Bush administration do nothing to protect consumers, it embarked on an aggressive and unprecedented campaign to prevent states from protecting their residents from the very problems to which the federal government was turning a blind eye"

Do you mean the 13 times that the Bush administration briefed the Democrat Congress that something had to be done about the subprime mortgage situation? Or, are we talking about the 13 times that the Democratic Congress refused to take action? Are we talking about the Democratic Congressional leaders who announced to the world that "... Fannie Mae, and Freddie Mac, are creative and outstanding examples of government involvement in assisting the poor ... ", and then, when they collapsed less than six months later, blamed the Bush administration?

Maybe we are talking about 2003, for example, when the Bush administration proposed much tighter regulation of the two companies, Barney Frank was adamant that "these two entities, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, are not facing any kind of financial crisis." When the White House warned of "systemic risk for our financial system" unless the mortgage giants were curbed, Frank complained that the administration was more concerned about financial safety than about housing.
Frank s fingerprints are all over the financial fiasco - The Boston Globe

Look ---- we can talk history all you want. You can blame Bush, and I can blame the Democratic Congress. But, in the end, it will do nothing to fix the problems of today. History is for history books ... let's worry about the future.

If it is so important to your self esteem that you blame Republicans for the current condition, go ahead - lie to yourself. If it makes you feel better to blame Bush, then blame him ... because, in the end, it doesn't mean a damn thing. But, don't waste our time.

We are where we are ... we need to figure out how we are going to get out of the mess we have today, not about how the mess was created.

DUBYA TOLD CONGRESS ABOUT GSE (F/F) REFORM 13 times? WHY DIDN'T THE GOP CONGRESS (2001-JAN 2007) DO ANYTHING ABOUT IT???? LOL

Bush talked about reform. He talked and he talked. And then he stopped reform. (read that as many times as necessary. Bush stopped reform). And then he stopped it again

Testimony from W’s Treasury Secretary John Snow to the REPUBLICAN CONGRESS concerning the 'regulation’ of the GSE’s 2003
“
“
Mr. BARNEY Frank: ...Are we in a crisis now with these entities?

Secretary Snow. No, that is a fair characterization, Congressman Frank, of our position. We are not putting this proposal before you because of some concern over some imminent danger to the financial system for housing; far from it.“


THE TREASURY DEPARTMENT'S VIEWS ON THE REGULATION OF GOVERNMENT SPONSORED ENTERPRISES

- THE TREASURY DEPARTMENT S VIEWS ON THE REGULATION OF GOVERNMENT SPONSORED ENTERPRISES


Bush told Barney and democrats there was nothing wrong with Freddie and Fannie in 2003

Bush stopped GSE reform in 2003

Bush’s toxic housing and GSE policies from 2004

Bush said there was no housing bubble in 2005 ( Bernanke, Bush ' guy , in testimony to Congress's Joint Economic Committee)

Bernanke There s No Housing Bubble to Go Bust


Q When did the Bush Mortgage Bubble start?

A The general timeframe is it started late 2004.

From Bush’s President’s Working Group on Financial Markets October 2008

“The Presidents Working Group’s March policy statement acknowledged that turmoil in financial markets clearly was triggered by a dramatic weakening of underwriting standards for U.S. subprime mortgages, beginning in late 2004 and extending into 2007.”
http://www.treasury.gov/resource-cen...s update.pdf


One president controlled the regulators that not only let banks stop checking income but cheered them on. And as president Bush could enact the very policies that caused the Bush Mortgage Bubble and he did. And his party controlled congress.


June 17, 2004

Builders to fight Bush's low-income plan
Groups ask HUD to rethink plan that would increase financing of homes to low-income people.


Home builders, realtors and others are preparing to fight a Bush administration plan that would require Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to increase financing of homes for low-income people, a home builder group said Thursday.

Home builders fight Bush s low-income housing - Jun. 17 2004

HOLY COW! Bush forced them to lower their standards. If only somebody had warned us that Bush's policies would hurt Freddie and Fannie. Wait, somebody did.

Fannie, Freddie to Suffer Under New Rule, Frank Says

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac would suffer financially under a Bush administration requirement that they channel more mortgage financing to people with low incomes, said the senior Democrat on a congressional panel that sets regulations for the companies.


So if your narrative is "GSEs are to blame" then you have to blame bush


http://democrats.financialservices....s/112/06-17-04-new-Fannie-goals-Bloomberg.pdf


STATEMENT OF ADMINISTRATION POLICY

The Administration strongly believes that the housing GSEs should be focused on their core housing mission, particularly with respect to low-income Americans and first-time homebuyers. Instead, provisions of H.R. 1461 that expand mortgage purchasing authority would lessen the housing GSEs' commitment to low-income homebuyers.

George W. Bush: Statement of Administration Policy: H.R. 1461 - Federal Housing Finance Reform Act of 2005

Yes, he said he was against it because it "would lessen the housing GSEs' commitment to low-income homebuyers".



DEMS HUH? LOL

Right-wingers Want To Erase How George Bush's "Homeowner Society" Helped Cause The Economic Collapse
FACTS on Dubya s great recession US Message Board - Political Discussion Forum


Wall Street, Not Fannie and Freddie, Led Mortgage Meltdown

Wall Street Not Fannie and Freddie Led Mortgage Meltdown - The Daily Beast



No, the GSEs Did Not Cause the Financial Meltdown (but thats just according to the data)

1. Private markets caused the shady mortgage boom:

2. The government’s affordability mission didn’t cause the crisis:

3. There is a lot of research to back this up and little against it: This is not exactly an obscure corner of the wonk world — it is one of the most studied capital markets in the world.


4. Conservatives sang a different tune before the crash: Conservative think tanks spent the 2000s saying the exact opposite of what they are saying now


MY FAVE AEI'S Peter Wallison in 2004 (THE LONE DISSENTER ON DUBYA'S WORKING GROUP WHO IS BLAMING GOV'T AND SPECIFICALLY FREDDIE/FANNIE TODAY, LOL): “In recent years, study after study has shown that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are failing to do even as much as banks and S&Ls in providing financing for affordable housing, including minority and low income housing.”

 

[Dad2three]

Spare change assumes that those of us on the left want government spending and lots of it. That is what we call a "false premise". There were a lot of them in his post.

What is needed is government investment in infrastructure and education. And not education that views science as witchery and teaches that the Earth is 6000 years old. U.S. Education starting lagging behind other countries when parents starting deciding what they wanted their children to learn.

It's long past the time for this experimental patchwork quilt of education with public, charter and religious schools competing for students, to end. It's been an unmitigated disaster, creating one of the most expensive education systems in the world, but with the result that U.S. students are falling behind Europe and Asia in terms of quality of education. And they fall further behind each year.

.

You have your own fallacies.
Government does not "invest" in anything. Government spends money. Your call for a federal takeowver of the education system is a call for spending more money. So SpareChange was right on that count.
The Founders set up a system of a limited federal government, with most functions properly left to the states. They wanted the states to be laboratories of policy. And it works. Vermont just demonstrated that single payer won't work. At least that's out of the way.

Really? Why not keep the Articles of Confederation IF that's what the Founders wanted? lol

Vermont? lol YOU MEAN WHEN THE POOR AND SENIORS ARE ALREADY COVERED? AND A SMALL STATE WITH MANY ISSUES FACING IT? WELL THAT DOOMS IT IN THE US, RIGHT? THE MOST EXPENSIVE H/C NATION IN THE WORLD, BY A LOT!!!



Care to point to ANY UHC nation that wants US style H/C? ANY POLL? EVER?

Okay .... you're allowed your own opinion, but not your own facts.

You brought up healthcare .... how much did the US spend on health care? Not on medical research, on healthcare. Now factor that against the standard of living in any two countries you wish ... let me know what you find out.

US spends WAY to much, especially considering the results. AND? Dummy, NO other industrialized nation wants US style H/C whats that tell you?

Answer the damn question .... how much did the US spend on health care? Not on medical research, on healthcare. Now factor that against the standard of living in any two countries you wish ... let me know what you find out.

You want to know, YOU find out. My posit is NO OTHER NATION WANTS US STYLE H/C PERIOD! And the standard of living for EVERY industrialized nation in the world who has UHC? Germany is poor? UK? Norway? Sweden? lol

 

[Dad2three]

Ernie, you are so out of touch with the current economic realities, you might as well be living on another planet. In this day and age, it is possible live your life exactly have you did and still be financially screwed by the current economy.

Ronald Reagan completely restructured the US economy using many, but not all of the free market ideas touted by the Chicago School of economics, and until the worst of the damage he did is undone, nothing will change. The rich will continue to get richer, the poor will get poorer, and the middle class will continue to lose ground.

Everyone should read the Forbes article that Dad posted upthread. The bipartisan Congressional Report, which the GOP tried to bury, concludes that cutting taxes does not create jobs. All is does is facilitate the transfer of wealth from the poor and middle class, to the wealthy. This isn't the Huffington Post or MSNBC telling you this, this is Forbes, one of the most right wing, business friendly publications out there.

Prior to Reagan's economic re-structuring, every strata benefitted from growth of the GNP, and economic boom. Since the re-structuring, only the wealthy have benefitted. In addition to the tax cuts, Reagan's administration went on a spending spree the likes of which had not previously been seen, all of it on borrowed money. It gave the country the appearance of prosperity, but it was an illusion. It's like your neighbor buying a new car, new furniture and a designer wardrobe. Your think he's doing really well to be able to afford all of this stuff, but he bought everything on credit. Supposedly, the increase in tax revenues from the increased income from all of this spending, would pay for the tax cuts, but it never happened.

The next thing that Reagan did, which was straight out of the Chicago School playbook, was to declare war on the unions. His 1983 attack on the air traffic controllers union was just the opening salvo. His administratin stopped prosecuting union busting activities, and cut the Department of Labour's budget by 10%.

I'm not a huge fan of unions, personally, and I've never been a union member, but I have come to understand and appreciate that without unions, employers are free to run roughshod over their employees and there's little individuals can do to protect themselves, if the company they work for choses to ignor labour laws or even treat employees with a modicum of decency. Unions helped build a strong and resilient middle class (which is a necessity for a healthy, bibrant economy). Without them, wages, have stagnated, and the gains won through hard fought negotiations have withered away. The PR job the right has done on unions has convinced the general public that unions are the tools of Satan, and should be destroyed. They're not and they should be thanked, not vilified.

The last point I will raise in this post is that Reagan gutted the Anti-Trust Legislation. Conservatives will remind me that Reagan used anti-trust legislate to breakup AT&T early in his first administration but from that time forward, he introduced legislation which authorized the president to order an exemption for industries determined to be hurt by foreign competition. Reagan used Chicago School principles that "bigger is better" to undermine the Sherman Act, and other anti-trust laws. This set off a wave of mergers and acquisitions, which continue unabated.

With each big merger, there are job losses. Not low income job losses, but good middle class jobs. When Pfizer and Wyeth merged, and then merged with Astro-Zeneca, over 30,000 people lost their jobs among these three firms. With corporations awash with cash, they're not hiring or expanding, they're merging. Large mergers and acquisitions are slowing the recovery of jobs lost in the recession, and help to explain why there are fewer and fewer middle class jobs.

Walmart has become so large, that it can dictate wages and employment practices across the entire retail sector. And not just the retail sector, but amongst their suppliers as well. Many American companies have been forced to move manufacturing offshore to meet Walmart's price demands. Walmart's use of food stamps and Medicaid to subsidize wages are now costing every US taxpayer $2500 per year, whether you shop there or not.

It's time to break up the mega-corporations, re-write the tax code, and undo the economic damage visited upon the US economy by Saint Ronnie and the Chicago School of business, before the middle class is completely destroyed.

Who Broke America rsquo s Jobs Machine - Barry C. Lynn and Phillip Longman

Walmart's use of food stamps and Medicaid to subsidize wages are now costing every US taxpayer $2500 per year, whether you shop there or not.

If WalMart fired every employee, would food stamps and Medicaid spend more or less?

People are productive. Corporations are on welfare because they're taking all the profit that the the people's not-lazy productivity is generating.

Minimum wage employees are not welfare queens. Their employers are



The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness.

John Kenneth Galbraith

Do you always rant nonsense like this?

You said it ... prove it.

Prove what dummy?

 

[Dragonlady]

In regards to education, while it is true that the US has one of the highest per capita expenditures many other countries are outperforming US students in core curriculum. It should also be considered that the US has the highest average wages in the world, which means that American teachers and other workers in the education field receive a higher salary than most in the first world. That would drive the $$$ expended per student up to a higher level than most as well. That concept is o basic even a Republican should have been able to figure that out. That said, wages for US teachers, as compared to average wages for most other countries are quite low.

Teacher Pay U.S. Ranks 22nd Out Of 27 Countries Jack Jennings

This is why I said the US needs to invest in education.

Many public schools lack sufficient text books for all of their students. A teacher friend of mine in Nebraska routinely pays for classroom supplies out of her own pocket, as do most other teachers in her school. This is not a poor inner city school, but a school in a middle class neighbourhood in the mid-West. Average salaries in the US are $55K per year. Average teacher salaries in the US are $45K. Why would anyone spend money to get a degree, and a teacher's certificate - 6 years of post-secondary education, to work for $45K per year? That's the same level of education you need to be a doctor, a lawyer or an accountant, all of which pay substantially more money.

Countries which pay teachers a salary in keeping with their level of education and experience, are outperforming the US in education, and this bodes very poorly for the economic future of the country.

 

[Dad2three]

OK, So 'new metrics' get used, lol

Go away wing nutter. THE DUBYA/GOP 'JOB CREATOR POLICIES HAD 8 YEARS. WHAT HAPPENED? Yes, those states with NATURAL RESOURCES are doing well. AND? lol.

I THOUGHT AFTER 8 YEARS OF THE DUBYA, JOBS WOULD'VE BEEN EVERYWHERE? WHAT HAPPENED? Now you ***** that Obama and comp haven't fixed the mess the GOP handed him fast enough, AS they worked against EVERYTHING he presented???

I keep hearing the same refrain from you Obama enthusiasts, Dad and it always makes me smile. I mean I guess you could make a case for the whole "give Barry some time to fix things" mantra at year two of his first term...but when you were four years into that term and the economy was still languishing and people simply weren't finding the jobs they so desperately wanted...don't you think that excuse starts to become a bit weak? When you pass year two of Barry's SECOND term that excuse begins to border on farce!

Tell me this, Dad...what plan has Barack Obama put forward to create jobs in the past four years? I bet you can't even tell me who Barack Obama's Chief Economic Adviser is at this point. You know why that is? Because this Administration hasn't had a viable plan to grow the economy in so long that NOBODY knows who took over after Larry Summers and Christina Romer both tucked tail and ran back to their tenured jobs in academia.

So AGAIN, you can't explain why after 8 years of Dubya/GOP 'job creator' policies, why the US went into the biggest recession since the first GOP great depression. Instead you want to know why Obama/Dems haven't fixed it faster, AS the conservatives/GOP has refused to help US out of the hole they dug. Got it!

I know exactly why we when into the recession...we had a massive real estate "bubble" with millions of people who should never have qualified for mortgages owning property through liar loans driving home prices to ridiculous levels. We had lending institutions that were bundling all those bad loans and selling them to other banks as "secure" investments. The combination of the two led to a real estate "crash" and subsequent defaults by millions of people who were underwater on loans they had taken out which threatened to bankrupt a large number of our largest financial institutions.

THAT was something George W. Bush addressed with TARP.

So tell me what Barack Obama has done over the last six years to address the economy? You keep making vague references about it being the GOP's fault that things aren't better with the economy...yet it was the GOP that kept Barry from passing Cap & Trade legislation that would have crippled what little economic growth we have had in the past six years. It's nonstop quantitative easing by the Fed that's created another massive stock market bubble that will at some point correct causing yet another recession. Obama can't claim the present boom due to cheap oil and gas as his...God knows he did everything that he could to prevent that from happening! Oil and gas production on Federally controlled lands went down...it's only on land controlled privately or by the States that production went up dramatically. He can't even claim the deficit reductions as "his" because those came about not because of spending cuts Obama wanted but because of sequestration that he didn't want and has been trying to get free from ever since it kicked in.

So what HAS Barry done in six plus years, Dad?

"THAT was something George W. Bush addressed with TARP."


THAT was what Dubya did??? lol

Right-wingers Want To Erase How George Bush's "Homeowner Society" Helped Cause The Economic Collapse


2004 Republican Convention:

Another priority for a new term is to build an ownership society, because ownership brings security and dignity and independence.
...

Thanks to our policies, home ownership in America is at an all- time high.

(APPLAUSE)

Tonight we set a new goal: 7 million more affordable homes in the next 10 years, so more American families will be able to open the door and say, "Welcome to my home."


June 17, 2004


Builders to fight Bush's low-income plan


NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - Home builders, realtors and others are preparing to fight a Bush administration plan that would require Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to increase financing of homes for low-income people, a home builder group said Thursday.


Home builders fight Bush's low-income housing - Jun. 17, 2004


Predatory Lenders' Partner in Crime

Predatory lending was widely understood to present a looming national crisis.

What did the Bush administration do in response? Did it reverse course and decide to take action to halt this burgeoning scourge?

Not only did the Bush administration do nothing to protect consumers, it embarked on an aggressive and unprecedented campaign to prevent states from protecting their residents from the very problems to which the federal government was turning a blind eye

In 2003, during the height of the predatory lending crisis, the OCC invoked a clause from the 1863 National Bank Act to issue formal opinions preempting all state predatory lending laws, thereby rendering them inoperative


Eliot Spitzer - Predatory Lenders' Partner in Crime


Bushs documented policies and statements in timeframe leading up to the start of the Bush Mortgage Bubble include (but not limited to)

Wanting 5.5 million more minority homeowners
Tells congress there is nothing wrong with GSEs
Pledging to use federal policy to increase home ownership
Routinely taking credit for the housing market
Forcing GSEs to buy more low income home loans by raising their Housing Goals
Lowering Invesntment banks capital requirements, Net Capital rule
Reversing the Clinton rule that restricted GSEs purchases of subprime loans
Lowering down payment requirements to 0%
Forcing GSEs to spend an additional $440 billion in the secondary markets
Giving away 40,000 free down payments
PREEMPTING ALL STATE LAWS AGAINST PREDATORY LENDING


But the biggest policy was regulators not enforcing lending standards.



Q When did the Bush Mortgage Bubble start?

A The general timeframe is it started late 2004.

From Bush’s President’s Working Group on Financial Markets October 2008

“The Presidents Working Group’s March policy statement acknowledged that turmoil in financial markets clearly was triggered by a dramatic weakening of underwriting standards for U.S. subprime mortgages, beginning in late 2004 and extending into 2007.”

MUCH MORE HERE:


FACTS on Dubya s great recession US Message Board - Political Discussion Forum


SPENDING CUTS CREATED LOWER DEFICITS? LOL. TELL THAT TO ECONOMIST WHO SAY TAKING US FROM LESS THAN 15% OF GDP IN TAXES TO 17%+ THIS YEAR DID IT, LOL, AND HOPEFULLY BACK TO CARTER/CLINTON'S NEARLY 20% WINGNUTTER

Historical Source of Revenue as Share of GDP

"What did the Bush administration do in response? Did it reverse course and decide to take action to halt this burgeoning scourge?

Not only did the Bush administration do nothing to protect consumers, it embarked on an aggressive and unprecedented campaign to prevent states from protecting their residents from the very problems to which the federal government was turning a blind eye"

Do you mean the 13 times that the Bush administration briefed the Democrat Congress that something had to be done about the subprime mortgage situation? Or, are we talking about the 13 times that the Democratic Congress refused to take action? Are we talking about the Democratic Congressional leaders who announced to the world that "... Fannie Mae, and Freddie Mac, are creative and outstanding examples of government involvement in assisting the poor ... ", and then, when they collapsed less than six months later, blamed the Bush administration?

Maybe we are talking about 2003, for example, when the Bush administration proposed much tighter regulation of the two companies, Barney Frank was adamant that "these two entities, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, are not facing any kind of financial crisis." When the White House warned of "systemic risk for our financial system" unless the mortgage giants were curbed, Frank complained that the administration was more concerned about financial safety than about housing.
Frank s fingerprints are all over the financial fiasco - The Boston Globe

Look ---- we can talk history all you want. You can blame Bush, and I can blame the Democratic Congress. But, in the end, it will do nothing to fix the problems of today. History is for history books ... let's worry about the future.

If it is so important to your self esteem that you blame Republicans for the current condition, go ahead - lie to yourself. If it makes you feel better to blame Bush, then blame him ... because, in the end, it doesn't mean a damn thing. But, don't waste our time.

We are where we are ... we need to figure out how we are going to get out of the mess we have today, not about how the mess was created.

BARNEY FRANK? MINORITY MEMBER OF THE GOP HOUSE WHERE SIMPLE MAJORITY RULED 1995-JAN 2007? PLEASE tell me the super powers Barney had? lol

The Myth of Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Barney Frank, the Housing Bubble and the Recession

Start with the most basic fact of all: virtually none of the $1.5 trillion of cratering subprime mortgages were backed by Fannie or Freddie. That’s right — most subprime mortgages did not meet Fannie or Freddie’s strict lending standards. All those no money down, no interest for a year, low teaser rate loans? All the loans made without checking a borrower’s income or employment history? All made in the private sector, without any support from Fannie and Freddie.

...Once again lots of words by Frank and possibly misguided, but no link between Frank and any action he took to stop regulation. He literally would have to have super powers to stop Republicans. Is the Big Government writer suggested that the Republican majority did not have the moral will power to to withstand Frank’s words. The Republican Congress of 2003 passed any bill it wanted with simple majority votes. If Fannie or Freddie were out of control they could have reigned them in. As a matter of fact the NYT article BG links to does not say Freddie or Fannie were in trouble over leading practices such as being extended beyond their collateral, but because of accounting shenanigans,

...Republicans controlled Congress. They held the committee chairs. Republicans made no objection to guaranteeing Freddie or Fannie against failure or against continuing to subsidize both entities. But based on the crackerjack evidence supplied by BG, Barney Frank is singularly responsible for the Great Recession because of some words that he uttered while in the minority party. In 2003 neither Fannie or Freddie looked like they were in much trouble. AIG, Goldman-Sachs and Merrill-Lynch all looked like they were in good shape too.

The Myth of Fannie Mae Freddie Mac Barney Frank the Housing Bubble and the Recession The Long Goodbye

 

[Dad2three]

OK, So 'new metrics' get used, lol

Go away wing nutter. THE DUBYA/GOP 'JOB CREATOR POLICIES HAD 8 YEARS. WHAT HAPPENED? Yes, those states with NATURAL RESOURCES are doing well. AND? lol.

I THOUGHT AFTER 8 YEARS OF THE DUBYA, JOBS WOULD'VE BEEN EVERYWHERE? WHAT HAPPENED? Now you ***** that Obama and comp haven't fixed the mess the GOP handed him fast enough, AS they worked against EVERYTHING he presented???

I keep hearing the same refrain from you Obama enthusiasts, Dad and it always makes me smile. I mean I guess you could make a case for the whole "give Barry some time to fix things" mantra at year two of his first term...but when you were four years into that term and the economy was still languishing and people simply weren't finding the jobs they so desperately wanted...don't you think that excuse starts to become a bit weak? When you pass year two of Barry's SECOND term that excuse begins to border on farce!

Tell me this, Dad...what plan has Barack Obama put forward to create jobs in the past four years? I bet you can't even tell me who Barack Obama's Chief Economic Adviser is at this point. You know why that is? Because this Administration hasn't had a viable plan to grow the economy in so long that NOBODY knows who took over after Larry Summers and Christina Romer both tucked tail and ran back to their tenured jobs in academia.

So AGAIN, you can't explain why after 8 years of Dubya/GOP 'job creator' policies, why the US went into the biggest recession since the first GOP great depression. Instead you want to know why Obama/Dems haven't fixed it faster, AS the conservatives/GOP has refused to help US out of the hole they dug. Got it!

I know exactly why we when into the recession...we had a massive real estate "bubble" with millions of people who should never have qualified for mortgages owning property through liar loans driving home prices to ridiculous levels. We had lending institutions that were bundling all those bad loans and selling them to other banks as "secure" investments. The combination of the two led to a real estate "crash" and subsequent defaults by millions of people who were underwater on loans they had taken out which threatened to bankrupt a large number of our largest financial institutions.

THAT was something George W. Bush addressed with TARP.

So tell me what Barack Obama has done over the last six years to address the economy? You keep making vague references about it being the GOP's fault that things aren't better with the economy...yet it was the GOP that kept Barry from passing Cap & Trade legislation that would have crippled what little economic growth we have had in the past six years. It's nonstop quantitative easing by the Fed that's created another massive stock market bubble that will at some point correct causing yet another recession. Obama can't claim the present boom due to cheap oil and gas as his...God knows he did everything that he could to prevent that from happening! Oil and gas production on Federally controlled lands went down...it's only on land controlled privately or by the States that production went up dramatically. He can't even claim the deficit reductions as "his" because those came about not because of spending cuts Obama wanted but because of sequestration that he didn't want and has been trying to get free from ever since it kicked in.

So what HAS Barry done in six plus years, Dad?

"THAT was something George W. Bush addressed with TARP."


THAT was what Dubya did??? lol

Right-wingers Want To Erase How George Bush's "Homeowner Society" Helped Cause The Economic Collapse


2004 Republican Convention:

Another priority for a new term is to build an ownership society, because ownership brings security and dignity and independence.
...

Thanks to our policies, home ownership in America is at an all- time high.

(APPLAUSE)

Tonight we set a new goal: 7 million more affordable homes in the next 10 years, so more American families will be able to open the door and say, "Welcome to my home."


June 17, 2004


Builders to fight Bush's low-income plan


NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - Home builders, realtors and others are preparing to fight a Bush administration plan that would require Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to increase financing of homes for low-income people, a home builder group said Thursday.


Home builders fight Bush's low-income housing - Jun. 17, 2004


Predatory Lenders' Partner in Crime

Predatory lending was widely understood to present a looming national crisis.

What did the Bush administration do in response? Did it reverse course and decide to take action to halt this burgeoning scourge?

Not only did the Bush administration do nothing to protect consumers, it embarked on an aggressive and unprecedented campaign to prevent states from protecting their residents from the very problems to which the federal government was turning a blind eye

In 2003, during the height of the predatory lending crisis, the OCC invoked a clause from the 1863 National Bank Act to issue formal opinions preempting all state predatory lending laws, thereby rendering them inoperative


Eliot Spitzer - Predatory Lenders' Partner in Crime


Bushs documented policies and statements in timeframe leading up to the start of the Bush Mortgage Bubble include (but not limited to)

Wanting 5.5 million more minority homeowners
Tells congress there is nothing wrong with GSEs
Pledging to use federal policy to increase home ownership
Routinely taking credit for the housing market
Forcing GSEs to buy more low income home loans by raising their Housing Goals
Lowering Invesntment banks capital requirements, Net Capital rule
Reversing the Clinton rule that restricted GSEs purchases of subprime loans
Lowering down payment requirements to 0%
Forcing GSEs to spend an additional $440 billion in the secondary markets
Giving away 40,000 free down payments
PREEMPTING ALL STATE LAWS AGAINST PREDATORY LENDING


But the biggest policy was regulators not enforcing lending standards.



Q When did the Bush Mortgage Bubble start?

A The general timeframe is it started late 2004.

From Bush’s President’s Working Group on Financial Markets October 2008

“The Presidents Working Group’s March policy statement acknowledged that turmoil in financial markets clearly was triggered by a dramatic weakening of underwriting standards for U.S. subprime mortgages, beginning in late 2004 and extending into 2007.”

MUCH MORE HERE:


FACTS on Dubya s great recession US Message Board - Political Discussion Forum


SPENDING CUTS CREATED LOWER DEFICITS? LOL. TELL THAT TO ECONOMIST WHO SAY TAKING US FROM LESS THAN 15% OF GDP IN TAXES TO 17%+ THIS YEAR DID IT, LOL, AND HOPEFULLY BACK TO CARTER/CLINTON'S NEARLY 20% WINGNUTTER

Historical Source of Revenue as Share of GDP

"What did the Bush administration do in response? Did it reverse course and decide to take action to halt this burgeoning scourge?

Not only did the Bush administration do nothing to protect consumers, it embarked on an aggressive and unprecedented campaign to prevent states from protecting their residents from the very problems to which the federal government was turning a blind eye"

Do you mean the 13 times that the Bush administration briefed the Democrat Congress that something had to be done about the subprime mortgage situation? Or, are we talking about the 13 times that the Democratic Congress refused to take action? Are we talking about the Democratic Congressional leaders who announced to the world that "... Fannie Mae, and Freddie Mac, are creative and outstanding examples of government involvement in assisting the poor ... ", and then, when they collapsed less than six months later, blamed the Bush administration?

Maybe we are talking about 2003, for example, when the Bush administration proposed much tighter regulation of the two companies, Barney Frank was adamant that "these two entities, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, are not facing any kind of financial crisis." When the White House warned of "systemic risk for our financial system" unless the mortgage giants were curbed, Frank complained that the administration was more concerned about financial safety than about housing.
Frank s fingerprints are all over the financial fiasco - The Boston Globe

Look ---- we can talk history all you want. You can blame Bush, and I can blame the Democratic Congress. But, in the end, it will do nothing to fix the problems of today. History is for history books ... let's worry about the future.

If it is so important to your self esteem that you blame Republicans for the current condition, go ahead - lie to yourself. If it makes you feel better to blame Bush, then blame him ... because, in the end, it doesn't mean a damn thing. But, don't waste our time.

We are where we are ... we need to figure out how we are going to get out of the mess we have today, not about how the mess was created.

House Republican Mike Oxley, Chairman of the House Financial Services committee said

“Instead, the Ohio Republican who headed the House financial services committee until his retirement after mid-term elections last year, blames the mess on ideologues within the White House as well as Alan Greenspan, former chairman of the Federal Reserve.


The critics have forgotten that the House passed a GSE reform bill in 2005 that could well have prevented the current crisis, says Mr Oxley 9R), now vice-chairman of Nasdaq.”

“What did we get from the White House? We got a one-finger salute.”