…and there’s gonna be some changes around here!
Did you just feel that wave of hopey-changey just now? I felt it!
Archive for the ‘Economy’ Category
These People Are in Charge!
Friday, February 6th, 2009Stimulus Watch
Wednesday, February 4th, 2009Senate version worse than the House version?
Based on economic and legal analysis, the authors conclude that the Buy American provisions would violate US trade obligations and damage the United States’ reputation, with very little impact on US jobs. They estimate that the additional US steel production fostered by the Buy American provisions will amount to around 0.5 million metric tons. This in turn translates into a gain in steel industry employment equal to roughly 1,000 jobs. The job impact is small because steel is very capital intensive. In the giant US economy, with a labor force of roughly 140 million people, 1,000 jobs more or less is a rounding error. On balance the Buy American provisions could well cost jobs if other countries emulate US policies or retaliate against them. Most importantly, the Buy American provisions contradict the G-20 commitment not to implement new protectionist measures–a commitment that was designed to forestall a rush of “beggar-thy-neighbor” policies.
Now, I thought this was a new era in which America would be earning all kinds of respect from her “allies” and her “neighbors” by not going around being “arrogant” and thinking she was all that & a bag o’chips. That whole humble-humble-humble argument, again.
We had a debate last year about whether people respect those who stand for nothing, and just work like the dickens at being luuuuved by others. It ended with a dead-even split; history says the suck-ups aren’t liked very well at all, but the American electorate decided America should go ahead and be a suck-up, and surely it’ll work out for the best.
So where’s the sucking-up? Going all isolationist doesn’t seem to have an awful lot to do with those fawning displays of obsequiousness that the “majority” voted in.
Don’t look at me. I’m a big believer in the Syndrome “That’s How It Works” Paradigm.
See? Now you respect me, because I’m a threat. That’s the way it works.
All men, who are honest, believe in the Syndrome Paradigm. That’s because all men were once boys. And in the world of boys, when the girls and grown-ups are gone…Syndrome’s got it nailed, brother. You’re a threat, you get respect — you aren’t, you don’t.
And I see this thing called the “international community” as just one big locker room. I didn’t start seeing that way because I’d been in a locker room — I started seeing things this way after I’d been reading the news for awhile.
But I’m willing to be proven wrong. So prove me wrong. This doesn’t seem like the right way to go about it. In addition to which…if you must so thoroughly screw up domestic things like the economy, and it’s really that unavoidable, I’d like to respectfully request a little more — focus? Don’t go messing up the foreign-relations stuff as well. Obama’s got four years to be our modern Jimmy Carter, and that involves a lot of screwing-up, at home, and abroad.
Those are big shoes to fill, but forty-eight months is a long time. Pace yourself. Baby steps.
Keynesian
Tuesday, February 3rd, 2009He even quotes him at the end.
As John Maynard Keynes said, “In the long run we are all dead.”
I realize economic concepts can’t really be debated…we’d just end up vectoring off to see what the ekspurts say, and then becoming horribly confused when we discover that not all of the ekspurts agree on these things.
But I wonder if there is such a thing as a “shot in the arm” for an economy? Can you do something that would be reckless over a longer term, and see some “pump-priming” benefit in a shorter term — then real quick reach over and shut it off?
…tax cuts can be enacted quickly, but they won’t result in much new spending. Government spending would spur the economy sooner, but it’s hard to ramp up — and even harder to shut down.
What are needed are programs that will stem the decline in jobs, boost spending and restore confidence to consumers and business as quickly as possible. In other words, address the short run needs of the economy.
Seems to me short-term benefits are cosmetic, by definition. The American economy has shown a marked tedency to build up “bubbles”…stock market bubbles, housing bubbles, dot-com bubbles. Things that are blossoming in appearance, but in reality, are ultimately revealed to have had massive invisible sinkholes building under them. We don’t like bubbles. But aren’t they the very picture of “address[ing] short run needs”?
Gods & angels, it seems to me, would be perplexed to be watching us right now. We spent the last year hollering “change is comin’, change is comin’!” Now the change is here. Nobody thought the change had anything to do with allowing business, transactions, hiring, manufacturing, contracting…transpire any more easily or quickly. So yeah, the economy’s in the shitter. That’s exactly where we wanted it to be. An economy is people buying stuff and selling stuff, and we’ve sent an unmistakable signal to the folks who are responsible for doing it, that we’re about to put our government in charge of making it a whole lot tougher. We’ve not yet wavered in that approach.
The economy’s doing precisely what we asked it to do. Why, the Gods-n-angels would wonder, are we so unhappy with it? We sent it a signal and it responded, just like a faithful horse, the kind of horse you’d want to keep for a long time. Why’d we tell it to go where we didn’t want it to go?
With Peeling Removed, How Long Does an Orange Last?
Friday, January 30th, 2009I agree with Fat in Indiana. It’s like the folks writing this nonsense, don’t want the country to succeed — difficult to see how anyone could deny or question it, and remain intellectually diligent and honest about the matter.
You wanted change. Looks like you’re getting it. Suckers.
Here’s some more change you said you wanted…
Well … at least the Republicans stood fast yesterday in the House. They were joined by several Democrats in opposing this $825 billion government growth bill. Now it’s off to the Senate…I love what House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer said yesterday in response to criticism of the government growth plan. “Americans voted for change.” There you go. The Democrat’s answer for every objection to a Democrat atrocity? Does Obama’s focus group created slogan give Democrats a clear field to destroy our free market economy and burden your children and grandchildren with a bill they may never be able to repay? Oh yeah…we did all of this because Americans voted for change. What a jerk. What an asinine and arrogant response to the valid concerns of many Americans.
Just think about this stuff for a minute or two. We imagine this as a discourse between the weak and the strong, who in turn are positioned oppositionally…what benefits one side automatically injures the other side. We imagine it that way not because reality counsels us to, but because the democrat party counsels us to.
Even those who say they are championing the cause of the weak…the voiceless (hah!) weak…acknowledge the weak are dependent on the strong. Hell, they’re the ones making it that way.
Now, how would you destroy a civilized country? I really can’t think of a better way. Make the degenerates dependent on the functional, pump up the ranks of the degenerates to the point where they outnumber the functional, then use those votes to see to it the functional can no longer function.
You couldn’t do this kind of damage to a country in an entire century — overthrowing Saddam Hussein over and over again, every five years.
The 2003 Tax Cuts Worked
Tuesday, January 27th, 2009You shouldn’t have been wondering about it anyway. Republicans and capital-L Libertarians agree on it (and where those two agree, you’ll notice, nobody else is really arguing, they’re just rushing to change the subject): You want less of something, you tax it. You want more of something, subsidize it.
If we were to tax income at a hundred percent, the revenues from such a tax would be next to nothing. We don’t need to start doing it to find out for sure, do we. It’s something that simply is. If you have zero tax receipts at zero percent, and zero tax receipts at a hundred percent…there is a Laffer Curve. There is. Stop wondering about it. Stop deliberating. Some things are simple.
The only question that remains is whether we’re past the apex of the Laffer Curve. Well, after you descend past a certain depth in the House of Eratosthenes BOHICA Cycle, and California and the nation are certainly past that critical event horizon…it’s time to reckon you’re probably past the apex of the Laffer Curve. If the 2003 tax cuts worked, then that is further evidence.
Hat tip: Boortz.
State Deficits Looking Bad, Bad, Bad
Tuesday, January 27th, 2009Government spending! It’s what’s in style! Our problems are so bad, that nothing else will do.
But it doesn’t seem to work well (in addition to, maybe, just maybe, that’s the cause of the problems)…
State and local governments are facing even greater budget deficits than were expected a few months ago, according to a new study released Monday by the Government Accountability Office (GAO).
GAO estimates that state and local governments will face a cumulative operating deficit of $131 billion in 2009. Deficits are set to mount in 2010, with the GAO predicting a cumulative deficit that year of $181 billion.
“The current results represent a significant deterioration from our November 2008 update,” according to a GAO letter to Sens. Max Baucus (D-Mont.) and Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa). “In November, our model depicted an operating deficit in the $100-$200 billion range.”
But the Golden State is looking better than average, right? Right?
Oh, dear…
Golf course owners and some of their customers are teed off at Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. So are veterinarians, auto mechanics and amusement park operators.
Their anger is directed at the Republican governor’s proposal to extend the state sales tax to cover more services, an idea that has surfaced in other states as they race to plug crippling budget deficits. The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a research clearinghouse, predicts such deficits nationwide could reach $350 billion by 2011.
In California, Schwarzenegger wants to help close a nearly $42 billion budget deficit by taxing rounds of golf, auto repairs, veterinary care, amusement park and sporting event admissions and appliance and furniture repairs.
Democratic Gov. David Paterson in New York has proposed levies on MP3 downloads, taxi rides, movies, concerts, sporting events, and personal services such as haircuts, manicures and massages.
Best-comment-award in that thread, goes to Thomas Paine (#8) —
One of the dirty little secrets of social welfare agencies is that they are under NO incentive to reign in the number of people or the scope of services that they provide. You have a classic positive feedback loop. The more people on the dole, the more kids with an ADD diagnosis, the more illegals they can give a Medicaid Tax ID number to so they can get free medical care for life, and the more crackheads who can get signed up for SSI benefits, the more social workers get hired, with larger and larger budgets.
And don’t forget the biggest scam of all: if you’re pregnant, you come to the good ol’ USA illegally, get free prenatal care, get your baby delivered for free, and to top it all off, your baby is set for life with guaranteed Social Security benefits! Then you, your spouse and all of your relatives apply for citizenship to help with raising your baby, and YOU ALL can get benefits, too!
There are PLENTY of goodies to go around, ,even for older kids who missed out on citizenship. Just come to America and get free K-through-12 education! And when it’s time for college, don’t worry. The liberal legislators of many states allow you to get the lower in-state tuition rate! To think, not even an American citizen war veteran from the next state can qualify to get the same perk for his or her kids!
You don’t even have to be smart to figure this out. You just need a decent memory.
You get to wallow hip-deep, shoulders-deep, neck-deep, in news about how bad your state’s treasury is doing. Budgets late, state workers furloughed, deficits forecast…
…and then you read some more news about your government spending money to make sure people who are eligible for a program, know about their eligibility, so they can cost the state some more money. Yeah. Just like the way you balance your household budget. Spend money to spend money. Of course you’re doing something like that, right? When you have more outgo than income? You call the phone company or cable company and complain they forgot to include a past-due balance in your bill?
Alarm bells ought to be going off. There’s something wrong with you if they aren’t.