So Kansas, how's the trickle tasting?

[breadisfunny]

Bring it. We will just feed you and you wont move for hours. And then the gators get fed.

scott walker eats gators for breakfast and poor people for dessert.

[alexw]

Well, loans are pretty much investment no?

No they are not. An investment is generally considered to be something that increases the capital stock, productivity, or economic output of the nation. So roads are an investment, robots to produce cars are an investment, etc, etc. A loan is simply one way of funding investment. However loans can be made for non-productive uses. So someone borrowing money to go on a holiday is still a loan but not an investment. Investments can also be funded by capital (e.g. share placings) or by taxation. And investment is not always productive. So investing building apartments in the middle of nowhere to sell off-plan to foolish investors is an investment but is certainly not going to be a productive investment.

[Pangean]

scott walker eats gators for breakfast and poor people for dessert.

Nah those are Hot Pockets his mother tells him are Gators and the poor people are go-gurts.

[SodiumChloride]

That is not how it works.

Savings held by banks form a part of its base capital. That then is the buffer they use to make loans against. More capital held means they can make more loans (subject to regulatory requirements). Interest rates play a part too, lower interest rates mean banks can make more loans as the cost of loans fall as interest rates fall.

Investments and loans are not the same thing. Loans can be investments but not necessarily so. Also not all investments are economically beneficial (see housing bubble). Currently there is way too much saving and not enough spending to drive the economy via consumer demand. The main reason for this is that there is too much saving by the super-rich who now take that income instead of it going to the average working family who would spend it. To make up for this lack of spending power for households, interest rates are being held down near zero to encourage them to borrow to spend that instead. The same thing happened in the early 2000's. The system needs to be brought back into balance with lower savings rates by the rich and higher incomes and consumption spending by the masses. Brownback is doing the complete exact opposite of what is needed economically.

I don't get it. How can you say there is too much saving when more saving means more bank capital, means more loans. Cheap and easy loans mean it's easier to get capital to start businesses and what not - i.e. investment.

Either way the money re-enters the economy.

If you are worried about debt burden ... lower interest rates help a ton because the bad thing about debt is the interest payments.

If you are worried about people being enslaved by debt, that's not a problem with bankruptcy laws.

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No they are not. An investment is generally considered to be something that increases the capital stock, productivity, or economic output of the nation. So roads are an investment, robots to produce cars are an investment, etc, etc. A loan is simply one way of funding investment. However loans can be made for non-productive uses. So someone borrowing money to go on a holiday is still a loan but not an investment. Investments can also be funded by capital (e.g. share placings) or by taxation. And investment is not always productive. So investing building apartments in the middle of nowhere to sell off-plan to foolish investors is an investment but is certainly not going to be a productive investment.

Loans can be used for investment. Cheap loans normally results in more investment.

[breadisfunny]

Nah those are Hot Pockets his mother tells him are Gators and the poor people are go-gurts.

you insulting scott walkers mother? OH NO YOU DIDN'T! now he's gonna eat us all!

[Pangean]

you insulting scott walkers mother? OH NO YOU DIDN'T! now he's gonna eat us all!

Not insulting her just explaining her burden.

[Wells]

Any idiot could look at Kansas's financial planning and see it was doomed to fail. Brownback is the exceptional idiot who would implement it anyway.

[breadisfunny]

Not insulting her just explaining her burden.

speaking of mothers scott walker wants to take away their child support payments. because obviously women don't deserve them according to our governor. he also just tightened the requirements for medicaid last year. and as of 2015 you are required to have a state government issued id to vote at all.

[Smauldy]

Yeah. Imagine for a second if all of that required the generosity of the 1% to function.

Rofl! I'd rather not.

[breadisfunny]

Rofl! I'd rather not.

well thanks to kansas NOW YOU CAN! wouldn't that be ironic if all those poor farmers end up starving in a land full of corn?

[Cthulhu 2020]

But guys, if we tax the rich they'll move away from Kansas!

...

Well since they weren't doing jack shit with their money anyway, sounds like a solid plan.

[alexw]

I don't get it. How can you say there is too much saving when more saving means more bank capital, means more loans. Cheap and easy loans mean it's easier to get capital to start businesses and what not - i.e. investment.

Either way the money re-enters the economy.

If you are worried about debt burden ... lower interest rates help a ton because the bad thing about debt is the interest payments.

If you are worried about people being enslaved by debt, that's not a problem with bankruptcy laws.

You are not understanding the process.

Saving is not the same as investment. Saving allows loans to be made which can potentially be used to to create productive investment. However productive investment by its very nature is one that meets some end user (consumer) demand. The whole point of why we want investment is to create something that will in some way be consumed that improves peoples lives. That can be a couch to sit on, the laptop I'm typing on, or robots building cars, that someone will buy to drive.

Now when you think of money it can be used in two ways. Either to be spent and so to drive consumption, or to be saved and so drive investment. You can think of them as the two sides of a set of scales. However moving money from one to the other effects the other too. So if more money is saved then that means there is less money being spent so consumption must fall (some of the increased savings is however can be used to drive up the number of loans to consumers so they consume more using debt instead of income). What the US has been doing over the last 30 years is moving income from average people who would spend and consume to the wealthy who save. That has caused a fall in income based consumption relative to where it should be. Some of that deficit in consumption has been made up by encouraging households to borrow to consume. However there is still lower consumption than there should be for the system to be in proper balance. That means there is an excess of saving relative to consumption.

Now this bit is key - that in turn means there is more saving than the system needs to fund productive investments. That then in turn means there is lots of money looking for a home to earn a return but which it cannot get from productive investments, and if it cannot do that then it flows into unproductive ones. The term we use for unproductive investments is bubbles. This is the underlying cause of the 2008 mess and is also what is driving the problems in china.

[Cthulhu 2020]

I don't get it. How can you say there is too much saving when more saving means more bank capital, means more loans. Cheap and easy loans mean it's easier to get capital to start businesses and what not - i.e. investment.

Either way the money re-enters the economy.

If you are worried about debt burden ... lower interest rates help a ton because the bad thing about debt is the interest payments.

If you are worried about people being enslaved by debt, that's not a problem with bankruptcy laws.

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Loans can be used for investment. Cheap loans normally results in more investment.

Loans let people use other people's money that they eventually have to pay back. That's a voodoo economics. Sure, loans have their place, but pretending that letting the rich have all the money and then pretending that them loaning out that money somehow makes things better is... lol.

[alexw]

I don't get it. How can you say there is too much saving when more saving means more bank capital, means more loans. Cheap and easy loans mean it's easier to get capital to start businesses and what not - i.e. investment.

Either way the money re-enters the economy.

If you are worried about debt burden ... lower interest rates help a ton because the bad thing about debt is the interest payments.

If you are worried about people being enslaved by debt, that's not a problem with bankruptcy laws.

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Loans can be used for investment. Cheap loans normally results in more investment.

No. Investments, or at least productive ones require consumer demand to exist. Cheap loans without the necessary consumer demand to create productive investment opportunities just inflates economic bubbles.

[Vurdah]

Wait? Are you telling me that if a person gets more money they will just keep it and not invest it in others? This simply cannot be.

[Pangean]

speaking of mothers scott walker wants to take away their child support payments. because obviously women don't deserve them according to our governor. he also just tightened the requirements for medicaid last year. and as of 2015 you are required to have a state government issued id to vote at all.

Yeah he is a douche. I think Charles P Pierce's description of him says it all:

Scott Walker, the goggle-eyed homunculus hired by Koch Industries to manage their midwest subsidiary formerly known as the state of Wisconsin.

[Wells]

Trickle down is yet ANOTHER policy the democrats are totally two faced on. The PRAISE Obama as a genius and great president for employing trickle-down economics in 2009. And then in the very next sentence they will mock trickle down as a failed policy and a reason to hate republicans. They simply omit facts when inconvenient. They START with the premise that Obama and the democrats are great, and then erase anything that might contradict that and their attacks on the right.

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Oh bullcrap. Obama came into office with the biggest mandate in decades. He swept into power with a supermajority in congress. If ANYONE had carte blanche to do what he wanted, it was Obama. And he chose to defend trickle down. if you think trickle down is so awful, come up with something else in that moment. OR.....stop lying about much you hate it.

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Democrats are QUICK to come out and give Obama credit for a "great recovery" from 2008. But he used trickle down. So they blame Bush for the trickle down and say Obama had no choice.

So.....you are giving George W. Bush credit for the recovery! Bush forced Obama's hand and made him! Niiiiiice!

A) Bailouts aren't exclusive to supply side economics.
B) Apparently Obama is a time traveler?

[Spraxle]

It's amazing... Wait no it feels the same as usual. The reality for me as someone living in Kansas is that nothing has changed. Or appears to have changed. The biggest issue is that the state wouldn't expand Medicaid/Medicare under the ACA ('Obamacare'). This directly impacts me in several drastic ways. That and the crazy over the top religious based stuff that gets passed by our government in the state. The majority of people who live in Kansas are good people who aren't full of hate and bigotry, but our elected officials are hell bent on pushing that image. What with the two bathroom bills, the 'Religious Freedom in Schools' bill (that is law and goes into effect July 1), and the like. But these bills don't represent what the people of the state want.

Elections this fall in Kansas will be really interesting to watch as a lot of the people in power now are at risk of getting dethroned just because the populace is sick of being a joke because of them. We have a movement in state to remove Brownback that would catch more steam if his power base in the House and Senate were cut down in the fall.

[breadisfunny]

Yeah he is a douche. I think Charles P Pierce's description of him says it all:

Scott Walker, the goggle-eyed homunculus hired by Koch Industries to manage their midwest subsidiary formerly known as the state of Wisconsin.

and wisconsin (my state) is dumb enough to vote him in THREE FUCKING TIMES. they even did a documentary on it on netflix (can't remember the name.) and interviewed some of the people who voted for him and it basically boiled down to: "well he screwed up this time but i'm sure he'll do better this next time" thats right wisconsin if at first your canidate doesn't succeed JUST KEEP GIVING HIM MORE TRIES. maybe one day he won't screw up.

[Pangean]

and wisconsin (my state) is dumb enough to vote him in THREE FUCKING TIMES. they even did a documentary on it on netflix (can't remember the name.) and interviewed some of the people who voted for him and it basically boiled down to: "well he screwed up this time but i'm sure he'll do better this next time" thats right wisconsin if at first your canidate doesn't succeed JUST KEEP GIVING HIM MORE TRIES. maybe one day he won't screw up.

You know what the definition of insanity is.