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  1. #241
    The Patient
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    Quote Originally Posted by gruyaka View Post
    For the record, I'm not Republican nor did I write this. It's an article from The Guardian.

    I just find it hard to stomach that a lobbyist can have more power and influence than elected officials.
    That just isn't right and points to the system being screwed up in a major way.
    I am going to give you 5 million dollars to get elected this midterm.

    Next midterm I am going to give you 8 million if you do my bidding.

    Who are you going to listen to??? (btw... you get great benefits, connections to wonderful investments, and a salary of around 200k a year in your current position)

  2. #242
    Merely a Setback Sunseeker's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Puzzlebox View Post
    I am going to give you 5 million dollars to get elected this midterm.

    Next midterm I am going to give you 8 million if you do my bidding.

    Who are you going to listen to??? (btw... you get great benefits, connections to wonderful investments, and a salary of around 200k a year in your current position)
    Yes, we get that, they listen to money but that isn't the point. Money shouldn't have that kind of sway in political office. Will it have a sway? Always, I'm not stupid. But there need to be proper limits(which there aren't) to ensure that elected officials are accountable to their constituents; their voters, not rich businesses and rich people alone.
    Human progress isn't measured by industry. It's measured by the value you place on a life.

    Just, be kind.

  3. #243
    Deleted
    Quote Originally Posted by absynthe7 View Post
    I know this is old, but I can't let this slide. This is, literally, the exact thing I was talking about. QE was Friedman's idea. If you are against QE as being government overreach, you are going against decades of conservative economics. Monetary easing is what conservatives have called for from the Great Depression to 2008 instead of fiscal stimulus.
    I quite frankly have no clue what the conservatives have been calling for the last 40 years, and I'm not very concerned about that. I'm not a conservative and most conservative politicians are as crooked as they come. I do however know that while Friedman blamed the Great Depression on too big monetary contraction, he is very much against QE when there already is inflation like there is now.

    There is no macroeconomic model which says that the government should do nothing that can explain the existence of the current recession.
    Except the Austrian Business cycle is one example. Harvard's Jeffrey Miron takes it on from another angle, but still very much says government should do nothing.


    I understand that this flies in the face of everything you've been told by sources of information that you trust. That is because the sources of information that you trust are blatantly lying straight to your face, while assuming that you are either too lazy or too incapable of admitting fault to actually research the issues at hand. And you are justifying their complete lack of respect for you by blindly reciting the party line while having no understanding whatsoever of what has been tried in the past and present and what the results of those efforts have been. This isn't a difference of opinion - you're simply wrong. Your positions do not match the actual data, therefore your positions are wrong.
    That's rather arrogant of you. I could say the same about you and whatever voodoo "Politicians can take care of the economy" cult you follow. It's all setup to give the power of printing money to the banking cartel as well as giving politicians an expanded excuse to spend more money.

    I love it when you just conclude with "you're simply wrong" without any accompanying argument.
    Last edited by mmoc43ae88f2b9; 2011-11-28 at 08:02 PM.

  4. #244
    Quote Originally Posted by Diurdi View Post
    I quite frankly have no clue what the conservatives have been calling for the last 40 years, and I'm not very concerned about that. I'm not a conservative and most conservative politicians are as crooked as they come. I do however know that while Friedman blamed the Great Depression on too big monetary contraction, he is very much against QE when there already is inflation like there is now.

    Except the Austrian Business cycle is one example. Harvard's Jeffrey Miron takes it on from another angle, but still very much says government should do nothing.


    That's rather arrogant of you. I could say the same about you and whatever voodoo "Politicians can take care of the economy" cult you follow. It's all setup to give the power of printing money to the banking cartel as well as giving politicians an expanded excuse to spend more money.

    I love it when you just conclude with "you're simply wrong" without any accompanying argument.
    The Austrian business cycle is one of the most disproven concepts in the entire field of economics. It's the "sun revolves around the earth" of economics.

  5. #245
    Quote Originally Posted by Diurdi View Post
    I don't believe this for a second. Seeing how the overall regulatory burden has increased on society within the last 20 years
    Given you've never proved this it would be nice to see you stop claiming it.

  6. #246
    Deleted
    Quote Originally Posted by NineSpine View Post
    The Austrian business cycle is one of the most disproven concepts in the entire field of economics. It's the "sun revolves around the earth" of economics.
    I love this when people just come with these claims without even presenting an argument on why it is like this.

  7. #247
    Quote Originally Posted by Diurdi View Post
    I love this when people just come with these claims without even presenting an argument on why it is like this.
    Seriously dude. Its a half ass theory that hasn't changed substantially in almost 100 years. It fails to explain much of the real world events we see around us today.

    http://johnquiggin.com/2009/05/03/au...-cycle-theory/

    But let's be honest here, Austrian Economics fails so frequently on empirical grounds its barely worth mentioning anymore.

    Hell even Friedman thinks its a load of shit.

  8. #248
    Quote Originally Posted by Diurdi View Post
    I quite frankly have no clue what the conservatives have been calling for the last 40 years, and I'm not very concerned about that. I do however know that while Friedman blamed the Great Depression on too big monetary contraction, he is very much against QE when there already is inflation like there is now.
    He definitely would have supported QE1 and QE2 based on the inflation numbers of that time and claims that he would not have - like your earlier claims - are strictly wrong. Another round would depend on what metrics you're using - Core inflation and a recently-flattening M2 would imply there's room for growth, while headline inflation shows that we can't do anything. During the Great Depression, headline inflation surged upwards while Core inflation lagged, and governments tightened early, leading to a very preventable double-dip. This is not new. We've been here before. It'd all be a lot cleaner if we weren't at the zero bound, so we could just adjust interest rates and call it a day, but we've got to play the hand we've dealt.

    Also, Friedman wouldn't say that "too tight" contraction caused the Depression. Contraction was already coming from the private banking sector and reduced private spending. Tightening at all was what brought us from a recession to a full-blown Depression.

    Quote Originally Posted by Diurdi View Post
    Except the Austrian Business cycle is one example. Harvard's Jeffrey Miron takes it on from another angle, but still very much says government should do nothing.
    Yeah, because if there's a school of economics we should trust, it should be the one that explicitly rejects data and presumes its assumptions as fact. There's a reason that the only people who are fully invested in the Austrian school are pundits and glibertarians. It does, however, remind me of my favorite Milton Friedman quote: "The Hayek-Mises explanation of the business cycle is contradicted by the evidence. It is, I believe, false."

    Quote Originally Posted by Diurdi View Post
    That's rather arrogant of you. I could say the same about you and whatever voodoo "Politicians can take care of the economy" cult you follow. It's all setup to give the power of printing money to the banking cartel as well as giving politicians an expanded excuse to spend more money.

    I love it when you just conclude with "you're simply wrong" without any accompanying argument.
    Because your arguments are identical to those parroted by others who know nothing about economics. Your arguments are the same as those being made when inflation was below 1%, and I'm assuming that you were also making those same arguments against QE1 and QE2 (if this assumption is incorrect, I apologize). Once again, with emphasis: if you do not believe governments are justified in 'printing money' (or crediting accounts, in what we like to refer to as the "real world") under literally any circumstances, you reject every form of Monetarism (and literally every other data-driven economic model) as left-wing nonsense.

  9. #249
    Deleted
    Quote Originally Posted by Wells View Post
    Seriously dude. Its a half ass theory that hasn't changed substantially in almost 100 years. It fails to explain much of the real world events we see around us today.
    Yeah but surprisingly it was good enough to predict the housing crisis and the following recession.

    But let's be honest here, Keynesianism fails so frequently on empirical grounds its barely worth mentioning anymore.
    Fixed

  10. #250
    Quote Originally Posted by Diurdi View Post
    But let's be honest here, Keynesianism fails so frequently on empirical grounds its barely worth mentioning anymore.

    Fixed
    This ain't hard, dude. I'll paint you a timeline:

    2008: Losing 500k jobs a month
    2008-2010: Stimulus!
    2010: Gaining 100k jobs a month
    Argument: It helped, but it wasn't big enough!
    Consensus: Haha, stop whining hippies!

    2010: Gaining 100k jobs a month
    2010-2011: Deficit reduction!
    2011: Gaining 100k jobs a month
    Argument: Just kidding, we don't actually hold conservatives to the same standards of evidence as anyone else

    Your claims that Keynesian economics (of which your own definition is pretty hazy - I'm presuming you're arguing against simple 70's-era Keynesianism instead of the much more popular Mankiw-style New Keynesian school) have been disproven should probably include something like evidence. You remember evidence, don't you? It's the thing you demand from other people, but never provide yourself?

  11. #251
    Yeah but surprisingly it was good enough to predict the housing crisis and the following recession.
    Everyone saw it coming if they knew what was going on.

    Running around like chicken little doesn't make you a prophet though.


    Your claims that Keynesian economics (of which your own definition is pretty hazy - I'm presuming you're arguing against simple 70's-era Keynesianism instead of the much more popular Mankiw-style New Keynesian school) have been disproven should probably include something like evidence. You remember evidence, don't you? It's the thing you demand from other people, but never provide yourself?
    You might understand in his devotion to a school that hasn't changed significantly since 1920 he might be confused that early Keynesian Economics isn't the same today.

  12. #252
    Deleted
    Quote Originally Posted by absynthe7 View Post
    Because your arguments are identical to those parroted by others who know nothing about economics. Your arguments are the same as those being made when inflation was below 1%, and I'm assuming that you were also making those same arguments against QE1 and QE2 (if this assumption is incorrect, I apologize). Once again, with emphasis: if you do not believe governments are justified in 'printing money' (or crediting accounts, in what we like to refer to as the "real world") under literally any circumstances, you reject every form of Monetarism (and literally every other data-driven economic model) as left-wing nonsense.
    Massive money printing operations simply do not help in the long run. They provide a short boost with a very shot half life. This was evident with the both QE's. This money printing is simply just a stealth tax on the people to finance more government spending.

    I'm not saying the government should never print any money, that's obviously something you can never get away with a fiat currency or any government currency for that matter. I'm just saying massive QE is not desirable.

    And what are you talking about me rejecting monetarism as left-wing nonsense? O_o?

    ---------- Post added 2011-11-28 at 08:46 PM ----------

    Quote Originally Posted by Wells View Post
    Everyone saw it coming if they knew what was going on.
    Running around like chicken little doesn't make you a prophet though.
    You mean everyone saw it coming back in 2001-2002 when Greenspan lowered interest rates to 1%? Wasn't aware of that. Now, I'm not saying all Austrians saw it coming either. The majority of economists had no clue about it at this time.

  13. #253
    Of course stimulus are short term boosts. That's the bloody point. They help the economy get back on track and to a point where it can absorb the cut back when stimulus ends.

  14. #254
    Deleted
    Quote Originally Posted by absynthe7 View Post
    This ain't hard, dude. I'll paint you a timeline:
    Ofcourse the stimulus will help in the short run. There's no doubt about that. No one here is arguing that. It's the medium to long term effects that are so disastrous and that prolong recessions.

    ---------- Post added 2011-11-28 at 08:49 PM ----------

    Quote Originally Posted by Wells View Post
    Of course stimulus are short term boosts. That's the bloody point. They help the economy get back on track and to a point where it can absorb the cut back when stimulus ends.
    But it's not just a boost that comes without cost. It's like taking some amphetamines and you're good to go in the short run but in the long run the problems you had previously are just going to be amplified.

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