Who's to blame for the slow recovery?

[mmi]

looking at the results forces the issue. The economy was booming and there were imbalances building on the boom.

I'd like to respond in a useful way, but that post strikes me as simply confused gibberish. Can you offer some specifics?

cherry picking.

Every time you use that expression, you automatically lose and lose big. You need to show how the data I pointed to is somehow misleading. Joe talked about "excess credit." I described the relevant history of the 1990s related to the funds rate and the money supply. What "cherries" have I left out?

 

[Moderate Right]

I'd like to respond in a useful way, but that post strikes me as simply confused gibberish. Can you offer some specifics?



Every time you use that expression, you automatically lose and lose big. You need to show how the data I pointed to is somehow misleading. Joe talked about "excess credit." I described the relevant history of the 1990s related to the funds rate and the money supply. What "cherries" have I left out?

As long as you believe that facts are just facts I will never be able to convince you that facts can be manipulated (cherry picked) to prove whatever a particular side wants, which is exactly what you guys do. The far right does it too. As an example I gave you the fact that factual graphs show a correlation between the amount of the national debt and rising income inequality. Therefore, it's reasonable to assume that as you cut the national debt you will also cut income inequality. The facts I presented are facts. You can't dispute the fact that the higher the national debt goes, the more income inequality there has been. Facts are just facts. In this case, I used my own cherry picked facts but, as you say, facts are just facts.

Doesn't all that sound kind of ridiculous and cherry picked? Of course it does, just as your side's cherry picked facts do, such as the graph showing how many lies candidates tell and then compares only 4 Democrats and 16 Republicans. That's also cherry picked. They should have showed 10 Democrats and 10 Republicans and, even at that, whoever chooses which 10 to use on each side could cherry pick the results to lean one way or the other.

Another example I gave is as corn production in the US increases, so does income inequality. So, therefore, there is a correlation to the fact that increasing US corn production increases income inequality so the solution to income inequality is to decrease US corn production. Again, facts are just facts. You can't deny these facts. Actually, I could make an argument that this analogy is actually true. I could argue that the more corn that is produced in the US the more money Monsanto and Big Oil makes. Certainly you wouldn't deny that Monsanto and Big Oil are some of the companies (and their CEO's) that you rail against as being in the one percent. Therefore, if we pass government regulations limiting the production of the US corn supply, income inequality will be reduced.

 

[mmi]

As long as you believe that facts are just facts

I am and will surely remain convinced that facts are facts. Do you see them as, I dunno, canteloupes?

>>I will never be able to convince you that facts can be manipulated (cherry picked)

Statistical evidence can surely be presented in a misleading fashion, but you never even try to show that ours is, so how can you say you'll never be able to. You just say "cherry-picked" and leave it at that. That's a big loss.

>>The far right does it

Yes they do, all the time. Limpblow, Handjob, and Blech have made careers out of it. ZipHedge is famous for it. And the point is that it's often easy to expose it.

>>I gave you the fact that factual graphs show a correlation between the amount of the national debt and rising income inequality.

Gee, I missed that. Can you remind me of where you gave us that fact?

I did a quick comparison of the percentage change in national debt and the GINI coefficient in the US 1967-2015. I don't see much of a positive relationship.



The rate of growth in debt increased rapidly in the first half of the 1980s, and inequality did increase, but I figure the latter was the result of the severe June 1981 - November 1982 recession and it associated very high unemployment, not the large deficits piling up.

In 1990, debt jumped fourteen percent while inequality went up only marginally. Then debt grew more slowly for a few years, but inequality spiked.

Debt soared 2008-10, but inequality grew at more or less the average pace for the period of about six percent annually.

Now that's a very simple analysis that may not be worth anything. There may be some lag involved or some other factors. I would expect upper-income households to perhaps benefit disproportionately from increasing debt, so I can see where there may be a theoretical basis for yer claim.

>>it's reasonable to assume that as you cut the national debt you will also cut income inequality.

I'd say there needs to be a lot more detail added there, like how is the debt being cut and what else is going on.

>>The facts I presented are facts. You can't dispute the fact that the higher the national debt goes, the more income inequality there has been. Facts are just facts.

Can you show me yer evidence again?

 

[Ganesh]

So what happened after that? Time for more story telling, and I mean more story telling. I suppose that everything after Pearl Harbor was Ronald Reagan's and GW Bush's fault? Nothing better than a good bedtime story. Please finish. I'm dying to here how it all worked out.

Yes, it's quite a story. A publisher might assume his applicant was attempting science fiction, but it is actually non-fiction. Let's finish off.

The previously downtrodden workers were now on the right track: income support, progressive taxation, banking reform, union participation, and other measures meant that most could have a decent life. Even Republicans supported social programs. It was now clear to all that government's business is not just business concerns, but everyone's concerns. Heck, even lynching was going out of style in the South. Hope abounded.

An ill advised war stoked inflation, which was tamped down by Nixon's wage and price controls. He also wanted growth so as to look good for the next election though, so sought low interest rates. The effects of the expiry of wage and price controls with low rates, and the oil shock of 1973 were, to say the least, not good. Inflation was eventually wrestled down, but not before bigger problems loomed on the horizon.

All this egalitarian stuff was becoming too much for certain segments of the population, including those that had a lot of money, and those that desperately wanted to get lots of money. And they found their ideal front man. A demented movie star. Not much in the thinking department, but boy he looked good on TV, and could deliver his lines. With the right amount of spin and polish, he made it to number one, and implicitly (and not so implicitly sometimes) said that greed was good, government was bad, smash and grab whatever you can. His economic theory stated that less taxation meant more tax receipts, freeing the rich from taxation meant they would be inspired to suddenly rush out and start putting their new found wealth into pro-social projects, and the wealthy would (now their taxes were straightened out) start dripping wealth down upon the heads of the less able, just because, well, they"re nice guy (some of the sci-fi parts).

Needless to say, things didn't turn out so well. Government debt soared, inequality grew, and the public was starved of necessary funds for various programs. Not a problem to the demented actor though. His disdain for government was such that he fantasized it was something he could drown in a bath tub. He did encourage some new traditions however, of a paranoid fear of an evil government, justified personal greed and materialism, selfishness rather than community, and reckless military actions internationally. Well, I suppose those aren't really new, but now they given approval to be flaunted without shame.

Some of this is probably starting to sound familiar, as we are nearing present times. The traditions endure, under an ever more cynical and disconnected populace, so much so that a guy who had trouble stringing a few sentences together became another number one. At least the movie star was a good talker. It was the inarticulate guy who presided over the end product of the politics of selfishness, the near melt-down of the world economy. He wasn't much of a thinker either, but at least he had some drama on his watch.

No problem though, he was on his way out, back to being a cowboy in Texas, so now it was just a matter of getting someone else to clean up the mess. One of those black janitors will do.

But now that the black guy has done a half decent job of cleaning up what was left to him, the uber-right and the uber-wealthy are not happy again. They want it all dammit! And here is this guy wanting to pay for some lazy bum whose kid is dying from a preventable disease, in the richest country in the world. Who does he think he is? A communist probably. Yes, that will make good spin. And how many out there in the masses are really listening, or know what's happening anyway?

 

[JohnfrmClevelan]

As long as you believe that facts are just facts I will never be able to convince you that facts can be manipulated (cherry picked) to prove whatever a particular side wants, which is exactly what you guys do. The far right does it too. As an example I gave you the fact that factual graphs show a correlation between the amount of the national debt and rising income inequality. Therefore, it's reasonable to assume that as you cut the national debt you will also cut income inequality. The facts I presented are facts. You can't dispute the fact that the higher the national debt goes, the more income inequality there has been. Facts are just facts. In this case, I used my own cherry picked facts but, as you say, facts are just facts.

The difference is that our facts prove a rational theory. You, on the other hand, have nothing but a correlation (and a weak one); no logic as to why inequality should rise with the national debt. Your correlation is no better than a correlation with, say, our rising ages. Yours is a terribly weak argument as to why our arguments and data should not be believed, and it stems from you losing - badly - in these debates. You really aren't very good at this. Strange that you would even frequent a debate site just to be humiliated over and over.

 

[mmi]

Strange that you would even frequent a debate site just to be humiliated over and over.

I continue to hold out some measure of hope for MR. E.g., he went for Kasich and not Scruz Loose or Frumpy. Both he and jaeger seem to have at least one foot in reality. I think they're doing what they accuse us of — placing ideology ahead of evidence. You may agree that some others in this community that post in these gubmint threads are … in another category.

And fwiw, I'd say our side will agree that it's not really certain what will work in the future or even what our socioeconomic goals should be, but we should of course be able to come to some sort of mutual understanding about what's occurred in the past. If we can't, I figure something's wrong somewhere.

 

[Moderate Right]

The difference is that our facts prove a rational theory. You, on the other hand, have nothing but a correlation (and a weak one); no logic as to why inequality should rise with the national debt. Your correlation is no better than a correlation with, say, our rising ages. Yours is a terribly weak argument as to why our arguments and data should not be believed, and it stems from you losing - badly - in these debates. You really aren't very good at this. Strange that you would even frequent a debate site just to be humiliated over and over.

Oh, so now you admit that you are operating on theory only and not facts. It took a long time for us to get you to this point.

 

[Gaea]

I would argue "who's to blame for the slow recovery" is the wrong question to be asking. Assigning blame serves only to be divisive. It's easy to find contemporary examples of the failures of divisiveness. One such example is our current president, Barrack Obama, who has consistently stood on the side of African Americans every time a cop killed one. His behavior has stoked conservative Americans' frustrations to the point that the right calls him the "divider-in-chief". Meanwhile, the African-American community has become emboldened to the point that the sister of Sylville Smith incited her community to carry out riots in the white suburbs of Milwaukee.

Instead of assigning blame, the focus should be on the causes and solutions to the lackluster economic growth since the 09 Recession.

In my opinion, our country has excess of job supply relative to demand for jobs. Globalization and technological advances are core causes of this labor supply glut. With the economy in the state it's currently in, companies (who seek to maximize profits) are integrating new technology and cheap labor whenever they can. Instead of hiring new employees, mature businesses are searching for ways to eliminate unnecessary costs (aka labor).

A couple quick examples: Wendy's recently announced that they will be replacing some of their human employees with computers that take your order. Meanwhile, UPS is looking to replace its current delivery system with drones that will deliver packages. Even though these haven't yet happened, they are illustrative of the impact new technologies are having on future hiring.

As we look forward, we must find a way to increase demand for labor. It is my view that the government is the only effective way to solve this problem. One tried & true method of accomplishing this is to institute a large jobs program to maintain, upgrade, and expand the public infrastructure in the country. Employing people with good-paying jobs will empower them to spend more money on the private economy, thereby increasing demand for private-sector goods & services. This in turn will increase private-sector labor demand.

There are plenty of other ways to achieve this as well - finding ways to reduce living expenses for Americans would give them more disposable income to put into the economy as well.

As a final note, it's important to make sure everybody in Congress is willing to work with each other towards these goals. The only way to ensure this happens is to be directly involved in the political process by contacting your representatives in Congress.

 

[Moderate Right]

I would argue "who's to blame for the slow recovery" is the wrong question to be asking. Assigning blame serves only to be divisive. It's easy to find contemporary examples of the failures of divisiveness. One such example is our current president, Barrack Obama, who has consistently stood on the side of African Americans every time a cop killed one. His behavior has stoked conservative Americans' frustrations to the point that the right calls him the "divider-in-chief". Meanwhile, the African-American community has become emboldened to the point that the sister of Sylville Smith incited her community to carry out riots in the white suburbs of Milwaukee.

Instead of assigning blame, the focus should be on the causes and solutions to the lackluster economic growth since the 09 Recession.

In my opinion, our country has excess of job supply relative to demand for jobs. Globalization and technological advances are core causes of this labor supply glut. With the economy in the state it's currently in, companies (who seek to maximize profits) are integrating new technology and cheap labor whenever they can. Instead of hiring new employees, mature businesses are searching for ways to eliminate unnecessary costs (aka labor).

A couple quick examples: Wendy's recently announced that they will be replacing some of their human employees with computers that take your order. Meanwhile, UPS is looking to replace its current delivery system with drones that will deliver packages. Even though these haven't yet happened, they are illustrative of the impact new technologies are having on future hiring.

As we look forward, we must find a way to increase demand for labor. It is my view that the government is the only effective way to solve this problem. One tried & true method of accomplishing this is to institute a large jobs program to maintain, upgrade, and expand the public infrastructure in the country. Employing people with good-paying jobs will empower them to spend more money on the private economy, thereby increasing demand for private-sector goods & services. This in turn will increase private-sector labor demand.

There are plenty of other ways to achieve this as well - finding ways to reduce living expenses for Americans would give them more disposable income to put into the economy as well.

As a final note, it's important to make sure everybody in Congress is willing to work with each other towards these goals. The only way to ensure this happens is to be directly involved in the political process by contacting your representatives in Congress.

A noble post but inaccurate in many ways and unrealistic in others. Don't have the time to go into it now.

 

[joG]

I'd like to respond in a useful way, but that post strikes me as simply confused gibberish. Can you offer some specifics?


...

I do not see how you could not understand it in the context of the discussion. If you do not, I really do not think I can help you, unless you specify a question.

 

[Moderate Right]

I am and will surely remain convinced that facts are facts. Do you see them as, I dunno, canteloupes?

>>I will never be able to convince you that facts can be manipulated (cherry picked)

Statistical evidence can surely be presented in a misleading fashion, but you never even try to show that ours is, so how can you say you'll never be able to. You just say "cherry-picked" and leave it at that. That's a big loss.

>>The far right does it

Yes they do, all the time. Limpblow, Handjob, and Blech have made careers out of it. ZipHedge is famous for it. And the point is that it's often easy to expose it.

>>I gave you the fact that factual graphs show a correlation between the amount of the national debt and rising income inequality.

Gee, I missed that. Can you remind me of where you gave us that fact?

I did a quick comparison of the percentage change in national debt and the GINI coefficient in the US 1967-2015. I don't see much of a positive relationship.

View attachment 67206079

The rate of growth in debt increased rapidly in the first half of the 1980s, and inequality did increase, but I figure the latter was the result of the severe June 1981 - November 1982 recession and it associated very high unemployment, not the large deficits piling up.

In 1990, debt jumped fourteen percent while inequality went up only marginally. Then debt grew more slowly for a few years, but inequality spiked.

Debt soared 2008-10, but inequality grew at more or less the average pace for the period of about six percent annually.

Now that's a very simple analysis that may not be worth anything. There may be some lag involved or some other factors. I would expect upper-income households to perhaps benefit disproportionately from increasing debt, so I can see where there may be a theoretical basis for yer claim.

>>it's reasonable to assume that as you cut the national debt you will also cut income inequality.

I'd say there needs to be a lot more detail added there, like how is the debt being cut and what else is going on.

>>The facts I presented are facts. You can't dispute the fact that the higher the national debt goes, the more income inequality there has been. Facts are just facts.

Can you show me yer evidence again?

https://images.search.yahoo.com/sea...ploads/2014/11/National-Debt.png&action=click

https://images.search.yahoo.com/sea...e-Inequality-Current-Dollars.jpg&action=click


Proof that the ever increasing national debt has caused income inequality. The solution is simple. Cut the national debt and you will cut income inequality. Facts are facts.

 

[mmi]

I do not see how you could not understand it in the context of the discussion.

OK, I'll keep trying to understand.

In #293, you said:

Without the liquidity it would have been a rally and not a bubble. It is when the rally is fed excess credit, when you should be removing the punch-bowel that the thing gets wild.​

In #297, I said:

Monetary policy was somewhat accommodative at times during the period. The funds rate dipped a bit in the second half of 1998 but began tightening after that, and the money supply grew at a moderately faster pace Q1 2001 … but that's when the recession, if there really was one, started. I can't see what yer referring to.​

I reread yer #320, and again, I just can't see what it is yer referring to in speaking of a "whole matrix that goes into fiscal and monetary policy in all their aspects" and how "looking at the results forces the issue." You say "the economy was booming and there were imbalances building on the boom." What does that refer to?

>>If you do not, I really do not think I can help you, unless you specify a question.

Yer argument is that "the economy was running too hot" in the 1990s and that "Clinton created a bubble." How should fiscal and/or monetary policy have been different? I've made a brief reference to the monetary side. Do you think gubmint spending should have expanding more slowly?

It increased at a little more than three percent annually 1993-2000. It grew at five percent in 2001 under his last budget, but those were the months leading up to the recession, and so I'd say that was likely a positive counter-cyclical development.



Federal expenditures increased at an average annual rate of 7.25% 1981-92. So they grew at less than half that rate under Clinton. The fed funds rate under Reagan/Bush41 was tighter, averaging around 7.5% compared to Clinton's five percent. Are you saying five was too loose? The money supply did expand at a fairly rapid pace in the late 1990s, but I figure that's a reflection of strong economic growth.

I will agree that Clinton was fortunate to have a lot of the Information Revolution take place during his tenure, but I don't see how he did anything to create a bubble in tech stocks or to bring about the brief and mild 2001 recession.

Proof that the ever increasing national debt has caused income inequality.

No, that doesn't prove a damn thing. You need to take a basic course in statistics. The fact that two measures move in the same direction doesn't mean there's a causal relationship. Income inequality has increased as more and more cell phones have been sold. Does that mean that it would diminish if those sales fell off?

>>The solution is simple. Cut the national debt and you will cut income inequality.

That's what I'd call simple-minded. How would you propose that the debt be cut?

>>Facts are facts.

A useless tautology that you keep repeating. "Useless" is a description that fits many of yer comments.

 

[David_N]

A noble post but inaccurate in many ways and unrealistic in others. Don't have the time to go into it now.

You never have time to go into anything.

 

[mmi]

You never have time to go into anything.

Otoh, is there a benefit conferred when he does?

 

[joG]

OK, I'll keep trying to understand.

In #293, you said:

Without the liquidity it would have been a rally and not a bubble. It is when the rally is fed excess credit, when you should be removing the punch-bowel that the thing gets wild.​

In #297, I said:

Monetary policy was somewhat accommodative at times during the period. The funds rate dipped a bit in the second half of 1998 but began tightening after that, and the money supply grew at a moderately faster pace Q1 2001 … but that's when the recession, if there really was one, started. I can't see what yer referring to.​

I reread yer #320, and again, I just can't see what it is yer referring to in speaking of a "whole matrix that goes into fiscal and monetary policy in all their aspects" and how "looking at the results forces the issue." You say "the economy was booming and there were imbalances building on the boom." What does that refer to?

>>If you do not, I really do not think I can help you, unless you specify a question.

Yer argument is that "the economy was running too hot" in the 1990s and that "Clinton created a bubble." How should fiscal and/or monetary policy have been different? I've made a brief reference to the monetary side. Do you think gubmint spending should have expanding more slowly?

It increased at a little more than three percent annually 1993-2000. It grew at five percent in 2001 under his last budget, but those were the months leading up to the recession, and so I'd say that was likely a positive counter-cyclical development.

View attachment 67206112

Federal expenditures increased at an average annual rate of 7.25% 1981-92. So they grew at less than half that rate under Clinton. The fed funds rate under Reagan/Bush41 was tighter, averaging around 7.5% compared to Clinton's five percent. Are you saying five was too loose? The money supply did expand at a fairly rapid pace in the late 1990s, but I figure that's a reflection of strong economic growth.

I will agree that Clinton was fortunate to have a lot of the Information Revolution take place during his tenure, but I don't see how he did anything to create a bubble in tech stocks or to bring about the brief and mild 2001 recession.



No, that doesn't prove a damn thing. You need to take a basic course in statistics. The fact that two measures move in the same direction doesn't mean there's a causal relationship. Income inequality has increased as more and more cell phones have been sold. Does that mean that it would diminish if those sales fell off?

>>The solution is simple. Cut the national debt and you will cut income inequality.

That's what I'd call simple-minded. How would you propose that the debt be cut?

>>Facts are facts.

A useless tautology that you keep repeating. "Useless" is a description that fits many of yer comments.

You are looking at a small number of factors. Each and many more could have been set differently with corresponding adjustments to economic behavior. Each fiscal, regulatory or monetary measure and each process making up the economic development had and has its own profile of impacts on other variables in size and time line. At this level of debate it is hardly possible track all of these, but it is to see the results and see that the mistakes were initiated in the early 1990s. By the mid '90s Greenspan was already mentioning the signs of the building bubble.
The administration and central bank were the two entities with the power to effect a more beneficial path for the economy. They didn't.

 

[Moderate Right]

No, that doesn't prove a damn thing. You need to take a basic course in statistics. The fact that two measures move in the same direction doesn't mean there's a causal relationship. Income inequality has increased as more and more cell phones have been sold. Does that mean that it would diminish if those sales fell off?

>>The solution is simple. Cut the national debt and you will cut income inequality.

That's what I'd call simple-minded. How would you propose that the debt be cut?

>>Facts are facts.

But this is EXACTLY what you guys do, pull facts out of your ass and then claim that they prove something. My examples were just examples of the same exact kind of cherry picking that you do and then you turn around and say that you presented facts and you can't dispute the facts. Well, I say the same thing. I presented facts and you can't dispute the fact that the national debt has risen during the same time period as income inequality has risen. You're exactly right, my cherry picked facts don't prove a damn thing and neither do your cherry picked facts that don't show the whole picture. Same thing with Obamacare. The left presents facts about how successful it has been while the right presents facts about how much of a failure it is. They're all facts, cherry picked facts on both sides. Then your side presents a graph showing candidates' lies, which they all do, and compares only 4 Democrats to 16 Republicans, making it appear as Republicans lie more than Democrats do. Even if they presented it as 10 Democrats and 10 Republicans, you can still skew the results by cherry picking which candidates on each side you want to use and which statements of theirs you are going to use in order to chart the graph.

 

[Moderate Right]

You never have time to go into anything.

That's not true. Sometimes I do and sometimes I don't. If you look at the time of that post, it was in the middle of the night and I wanted to go back to sleep.

 

[JohnfrmClevelan]

But this is EXACTLY what you guys do, pull facts out of your ass and then claim that they prove something. My examples were just examples of the same exact kind of cherry picking that you do and then you turn around and say that you presented facts and you can't dispute the facts. Well, I say the same thing. I presented facts and you can't dispute the fact that the national debt has risen during the same time period as income inequality has risen. You're exactly right, my cherry picked facts don't prove a damn thing and neither do your cherry picked facts that don't show the whole picture. Same thing with Obamacare. The left presents facts about how successful it has been while the right presents facts about how much of a failure it is. They're all facts, cherry picked facts on both sides. Then your side presents a graph showing candidates' lies, which they all do, and compares only 4 Democrats to 16 Republicans, making it appear as Republicans lie more than Democrats do. Even if they presented it as 10 Democrats and 10 Republicans, you can still skew the results by cherry picking which candidates on each side you want to use and which statements of theirs you are going to use in order to chart the graph.

No, that is NOT what we do. We put forth logical arguments that are based in legitimate study. What you do is take a side based on partisan politics - if it says "liberal" under our name, you assume that we are wrong. What you never do is put forth a reasonable alternative argument. And that, I believe, is because when it comes to economics, you don't know your fanny from a hole in the ground. You have no ammunition with which to fight the correct fight, so you resort to being a P.I.T.A.

If you had one scintilla of knowledge in this field, your arguments would look totally different. But you couldn't cobble together a coherent economic argument if your life depended on it. So it's always dumb stuff - like this cherry-picking crapola. And you don't even get that right.

 

[JohnfrmClevelan]

You never have time to go into anything.

I'd say he has way too much time to spend on this board.

 

[mmi]

You are looking at a small number of factors. Each and many more could have been set differently with corresponding adjustments to economic behavior.

Can you offer any examples of the "many more"? Do you agree with my description of the trend in federal expenditures, the fed funds rate, and the money supply? Are those not the major relevant factors?

>>Each fiscal, regulatory or monetary measure and each process making up the economic development had and has its own profile of impacts on other variables in size and time line. At this level of debate it is hardly possible track all of these

Can you mention even one?

>>it is to see the results and see that the mistakes were initiated in the early 1990s.

That doesn't strike me as a useful analysis. I don't know what yer referring to.

>>By the mid '90s Greenspan was already mentioning the signs of the building bubble.

Ans what did you want done? Do you think the gubmint should have precipitated a recession sometime earlier than 2001? I'll remind you that the downturn that year was brief and mild, and arguably wasn't even a recession.

>>The administration and central bank were the two entities with the power to effect a more beneficial path for the economy. They didn't.

Again, what would you have had them do? And how would those actions have made things any better?

But this is EXACTLY what you guys do, pull facts out of your ass and then claim that they prove something.

If that's they way it seems to you, then present credible counterarguments. I don't see them.

>>My examples were just examples of the same exact kind of cherry picking that you do and then you turn around and say that you presented facts and you can't dispute the facts.

No, yer examples don't make any sense, while ours do. If you disagree, tell us why.

>>you can't dispute the fact that the national debt has risen during the same time period as income inequality has risen.

Unless you can argue that there's a causal relationship, I don't need to give it any attention.

>>my cherry picked facts don't prove a damn thing and neither do your cherry picked facts that don't show the whole picture.

Tell us what part of the "whole picture" is left out.

>>Same thing with Obamacare. The left presents facts about how successful it has been while the right presents facts about how much of a failure it is.

What "facts" are presented by the Right? Lies about premiums going through the roof? About people being forced into part-time employment? About the number of newly insured being less than what's reported? About out-of-control costs? About many millions of Americans losing their existing plans and being forced to change physicians?

>>They're all facts, cherry picked facts on both sides.

No, the crap coming from the Right is a mountain of lies. This is what they do.

>>your side presents a graph showing candidates' lies, which they all do, and compares only 4 Democrats to 16 Republicans, making it appear as Republicans lie more than Democrats do.

No, not making it "appear" that way. Frumpy, Scruz Loose, Caribou Barbie, Bachmann, Gingrinch, Santorum, Perry, Walker, etc, lie and lie and lie. Experienced, professional political reporters raise questions about those lies. They get fact-checked. See how that works?

>>Even if they presented it as 10 Democrats and 10 Republicans, you can still skew the results by cherry picking which candidates on each side you want to use and which statements of theirs you are going to use in order to chart the graph.

If you don't like the people chosen or the statements evaluated, do yer own analysis. Find a RW site that puts together a list. Or continue to whine and deflect, yer choice.

That's not true. Sometimes I do and sometimes I don't.

Well, there's always time to respond later. We'll wait for yer insightful analysis of Gaea's post.

 

[Moderate Right]

No, that is NOT what we do. We put forth logical arguments that are based in legitimate study. What you do is take a side based on partisan politics - if it says "liberal" under our name, you assume that we are wrong. What you never do is put forth a reasonable alternative argument. And that, I believe, is because when it comes to economics, you don't know your fanny from a hole in the ground. You have no ammunition with which to fight the correct fight, so you resort to being a P.I.T.A.

If you had one scintilla of knowledge in this field, your arguments would look totally different. But you couldn't cobble together a coherent economic argument if your life depended on it. So it's always dumb stuff - like this cherry-picking crapola. And you don't even get that right.

You make arguments based on cherry picked facts which purposely don't show the whole picture and then you claim facts are just facts that can't be disputed. In your other post you finally admitted that you argue theories and not facts.

 

[Moderate Right]

What "facts" are presented by the Right? Lies about premiums going through the roof? About people being forced into part-time employment? About the number of newly insured being less than what's reported? About out-of-control costs? About many millions of Americans losing their existing plans and being forced to change physicians?

Are you that blatantly partisan? There is no sense in debating with you because your your mind is closed to everything that is not left wing propaganda. Actually, even most of the left wing realizes that most of the things you mentioned here are true. And, you are going to look at me with a straight face and say that it is fair to compare the lies of just 4 Democrats to the lies of 16 Republicans, with some of these Republicans not even being in the news for years?

 

[mmi]

You make arguments based on cherry picked facts which purposely don't show the whole picture

AGAIN, unless you at least make an effort to describe what's being left out of "the whole picture," why should anyone pay attention to this empty criticism?

>>you claim facts are just facts that can't be disputed.

If you dispute something we say, then tell us what's wrong with it. Otherwise, yer simply wasting everyone's time.

>>you finally admitted that you argue theories and not facts.

Well, I was gonna let John deal with this cuz he's more grounded in theory, but it's not very complicated.

The problem is that, as John has observed, you … don't … know … ANYTHING … about economics. Or about social science for that matter.

Let's say you have a hypothesis, an explanation of how/why something happens that makes sense to you but has not been widely accepted. E.g., you might think that there's a causal relationship between the level of gubmint debt and the level of inequality in a national economy.

As a social scientist, you would want to test that theory. You could start by seeing if changes in one correlate with changes in the other. But that would be nothing more than a start. It might be that there really is no causal relationship, and that the two move together for a variety of other reasons. E.g, it could be that both measures simply increase over time. You would need to somehow isolate the effects that debt are supposedly having on inequality by controlling for other factors.

You'd want to come up with a list of the things that seem likely to drive inequality, stuff like:

• automation that diminishes the role of skilled labor
• globalisation that leads to increased imports of manufactured goods and thereby cuts further into manufacturing employment
• a decline in the role of labor unions, weakening even more the position of labor in its efforts to maintain income share
• a higher return on expensive education

By controlling for those and other relevant variables (health and life expectancy between income groups?), you could seek to determine how changes in the level of national debt affect changes in income inequality.

This is gonna be a sketchy answer cuz it's been more than thirty years since I did any research along these lines AND I need to run an errand and don't have time to develop a more thoughtful response. John will have a better answer. He's more of an economist than I am, yer frequently expressed, obnoxious contempt for his skills notwithstanding.

There is no sense in debating with you

Then give up.

>>most of the left wing realizes that most of the things you mentioned here are true.

They're all lies, every single one of them. Let's see you back any of them up.

>>fair to compare the lies of just 4 Democrats to the lies of 16 Republicans … ?

I've explained why that list is what it is. If you don't like it, present some other evidence.

Oh, and let me ask, did you find my formatting hard to read?

 

[Ganesh]

AGAIN, unless you at least make an effort to describe what's being left out of "the whole picture," why should anyone pay attention to this empty criticism?

>>you claim facts are just facts that can't be disputed.

If you dispute something we say, then tell us what's wrong with it. Otherwise, yer simply wasting everyone's time.

>>you finally admitted that you argue theories and not facts.

Well, I was gonna let John deal with this cuz he's more grounded in theory, but it's not very complicated.

The problem is that, as John has observed, you … don't … know … ANYTHING … about economics. Or about social science for that matter.

Let's say you have a hypothesis, an explanation of how/why something happens that makes sense to you but has not been widely accepted. E.g., you might think that there's a causal relationship between the level of gubmint debt and the level of inequality in a national economy.

As a social scientist, you would want to test that theory. You could start by seeing if changes in one correlate with changes in the other. But that would be nothing more than a start. It might be that there really is no causal relationship, and that the two move together for a variety of other reasons. E.g, it could be that both measures simply increase over time. You would need to somehow isolate the effects that debt are supposedly having on inequality by controlling for other factors.

You'd want to come up with a list of the things that seem likely to drive inequality, stuff like:

• automation that diminishes the role of skilled labor
• globalisation that leads to increased imports of manufactured goods and thereby cuts further into manufacturing employment
• a decline in the role of labor unions, weakening even more the position of labor in its efforts to maintain income share
• a higher return on expensive education

By controlling for those and other relevant variables (health and life expectancy between income groups?), you could seek to determine how changes in the level of national debt affect changes in income inequality.

This is gonna be a sketchy answer cuz it's been more than thirty years since I did any research along these lines AND I need to run an errand and don't have time to develop a more thoughtful response. John will have a better answer. He's more of an economist than I am, yer frequently expressed, obnoxious contempt for his skills notwithstanding.



Then give up.

>>most of the left wing realizes that most of the things you mentioned here are true.

They're all lies, every single one of them. Let's see you back any of them up.

>>fair to compare the lies of just 4 Democrats to the lies of 16 Republicans … ?

I've explained why that list is what it is. If you don't like it, present some other evidence.

Oh, and let me ask, did you find my formatting hard to read?

You and John have such amazing patience that I am going to award you both a medal:

The Virtual Internet Medal of Patience in Economics. I'd pin it on you, but I can't reach that far. May have to FedEx it.

 

[Gaea]

What "facts" are presented by the Right? Lies about premiums going through the roof? About people being forced into part-time employment? About the number of newly insured being less than what's reported? About out-of-control costs? About many millions of Americans losing their existing plans and being forced to change physicians?

I'm not sure how it's a lie to say that premiums are going up significantly in cost.

4 Reasons Your Obamacare Healthcare Premium Is Probably Going Up by at Least 10% in 2017 -- The Motley Fool

And statements about part-time employment aren't lies either, they're easily-cited facts.
https://stats.oecd.org/Index.aspx?DataSetCode=INVPT_D
In 2008, involuntary part time employment was at 1.388 million. In 2015, it was at 2.267 million.

As for millions of Americans losing their insurance, this also has significant supporting evidence. Factcheck.org looked into this claim and arrived at the conclusion that at least 2.6 million Americans lost coverage from their plans. ‘Millions’ Lost Insurance