US Presidential Candidates

thinkstoomuch wrote:

Tenshinai wrote:...snippped due to stupid mti embed ...

So that money spent by President Obama on the American Recovery And Reinvestment Act-that was over half that debt- is all Bush's fault.

Novel concept.

How exactly is it even remotely novel? The economy imploded under Bush's watch, and the cleanup COST MONEY.

That's about as novel a concept as saying that the arsonist is responsible for the cost of putting out the fire and rebuilding the house.

Of course showing your blatant ignorance of the American Federal Budget actually works. Of course you have a much better understanding of it than I do of 5he Swedish process. But then I don't make comments on it do I.

FYI. Congress is much more resposible than the President. Which is why 94, 06 and 10 showed where trends changed. Vice 92 and 08.

Ummm, nope. Trends changed on the deficit in 92, not 94. when Clinton came into office, NOT when the GOP took the majority in Congress.

Clinton and the Democrats *immediately* began reducing the deficits run up under Reagan and Bush Sr. And the the GOP lost their shit because their whole bullshit narrative of being the "fiscally responsible" party was going to get blown up, so when they managed to grab the majority in 94 they put on a massive show about how they were" forcing" that tax and spend liberal in the white House to be responsible and reduce the deficit.

But the numbers are the numbers. In the first 2 years of Clinton's term the deficit had *already* been slashed by 30%, from the 290 billion per year in the Fiscal 92 budget (Which was Bush Sr's last budget) to 203 billion in the fiscal 94 budget (the last budget before the GOP took over Congress)


And the reason the budget deficit exploded in the first place wasn't Congress, it was Reagan putting on a full court press to get HIS massive tax cuts enacted. You can hold Congress jointly responsible for going along with him, but he was the driving force. It was his policy. HE insisted on slashing the revenue stream and the entirely predictable outcome happened.


Same goes for the wiping out of the surplus when Bush Jr came in before 9/11 ever even happened. That wasn't the Democrats big tax cut bill that got pushed through that tanked the government's revenues now was it? No, that was Bush's baby. Screw paying down the debt, refund checks! Now everyone likes me! Who needs fiscal responsibility?


Oh, and as for the size of the government shrinking? you know another way to say that is JOBS LOST right? In the middle of tying to recover from the worst economic catastrophe in 70 years? Yeah, brag about that, it was brilliant economic policy on behalf of the GOP to enact widespread government layoffs when the unemployment rate was flirting with double digits and push more people into the unemployment ranks... of course that was at least partially deliberate. Can't have Obama lowering the unemployment rate too fast and getting credit for that now can we? Wouldn't exactly help in the next election... horrible economic policy, terrible for the country, but GREAT political strategy if you can rely on enough voters not comprehending that you're screwing the country on purpose to try to make the guy you don't like in the White House look bad.

An interesting article a friend forwarded to me on the psychology of narcissistic leaders aka Trump (although many of the others fit this to a lesser degree.) Very interesting psychological description of the pro/cons of the personality type.

https://hbr.org/2004/01/narcissistic-le ... table-cons

gcomeau wrote:Oh, and as for the size of the government shrinking? you know another way to say that is JOBS LOST right? In the middle of tying to recover from the worst economic catastrophe in 70 years?

Which means that this is the most important time to cut back. Government jobs, like everything else it does, cost more than they are worth. Every government job is a net loss to the economy. Proof: you can't run the government by taxing government employees. Every dollar paid to them has to be taken from somebody doing productive work. Every government job eliminates more than one private job.
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Why do so many idiots believe that the way to solve our problems is to keep voting for the same shitheads that caused them in the first place?

Imaginos1892 wrote:

gcomeau wrote:Oh, and as for the size of the government shrinking? you know another way to say that is JOBS LOST right? In the middle of tying to recover from the worst economic catastrophe in 70 years?

Which means that this is the most important time to cut back. Government jobs, like everything else it does, cost more than they are worth. Every government job is a net loss to the economy.

Oh good grief...

Look, I know it's popular conservative mythology that somehow magically the entity paying the salary for a job alters whether it is good or bad for the economy, but that's horseshit. Jobs are jobs. People performing work and receiving payment in compensation which they an then go out and spend to support themselves and their families... said spending re-circulating that money back through the economy and resulting in a multiplicative stimulus effect.

Putting a government entity as the name on the paycheck alters that not one single teeny tiny little bit.

Proof: you can't run the government by taxing government employees.

Not entirely, of course not.

And you can't run a business by only having your employees as customers either. What the hell is your point?

Every dollar paid to them has to be taken from somebody doing productive work. Every government job eliminates more than one private job.

No. It. Does. Not. Anymore than every dollar businesses pay to their employees having to come from their customers who also do other productive work magically makes their customers jobs disappear somehow.

First of all, government work and private sector work are both productive work.

Second, ask the businesses in any town that got hit most heavily by government layoffs how many private sector jobs suddenly magically appeared as a result of all those people in their community suddenly not having money to spend at all the local businesses because they lost their jobs and had to start scraping by on unemployment... until that ran out of course...

You'll find, obviously, that the answer is a negative number.

Private sector jobs don't magically appear because the government stopped hiring people to work in the government. Jobs appears when businesses have sufficient demand for their products or services that THEY NEED TO HIRE MORE PEOPLE TO FILL THAT DEMAND.


Laying off government employee DROPS DEMAND, because you have less consumers with disposable income, which results in *more* job losses, not job gains.

So the jobs of the taxman, to collect the tax to allow the government to be run, the job of the police (govt run here), the jobs of your judges, the people who help you get unemployment and disability if you get laid off or injured, the safety inspectors to ensure you dont die on the job, jobs to force society to keep revolving, these are all jobs that cost more than they are worth? The ability to be safe from crime is not worth your taxes? the ability to go to court if someone wrongs you, and have that proven and restitution made, that is not worth your taxes?

As for running a system off only taxing govt employees, of course it wont work, you're not controlling a whole, essentially closed (ignoring the small in/outflow across borders) monetary system. Tax spread across only one small sector wont work as theres outflow to the system, but tax everyone, as we do today, and it works.


As for eliminating jobs, if the government is only working in fields that a private business wont touch, then arent they creating jobs?

Imaginos1892 wrote:Which means that this is the most important time to cut back. Government jobs, like everything else it does, cost more than they are worth. Every government job is a net loss to the economy. Proof: you can't run the government by taxing government employees. Every dollar paid to them has to be taken from somebody doing productive work. Every government job eliminates more than one private job.
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Why do so many idiots believe that the way to solve our problems is to keep voting for the same shitheads that caused them in the first place?

Imaginos1892 wrote:Proof: you can't run the government by taxing government employees.

Sheesh boy...

Actually, you CAN. Just not with how the economy is designed as it is now. And it´s certainly not likely to be optimal either. But CAN be done, sure.

Might also want to recall that my country worked quite well with almost 2/3 of the economy run by government, national or local.

And it was far more resilient against the economic ups and downs. Of course, few will admit that it was stupid to privatize as much as has been done since the 80s. Or how much less efficiency there is in far too many places because of that.

Because hey, private business is always better than public right? So any evidence to the contrary must be in error, obviously!

Imaginos1892 wrote:Which means that this is the most important time to cut back. Government jobs, like everything else it does, cost more than they are worth. Every government job is a net loss to the economy.

Please tell me you´re not actually shortsighted and stupid enough to actually believe that?

You´re not even logical even by the most basic definition.

Police is a government job, do they cost more than they are worth? Try living without them and you will find out that it´s rather the opposite!

And any nation relying solely on private business to create and maintain infrastructure is going to be a country with serious problems.

And that is before you even look at the most basic reality, no matter what the job, people doing SOMETHING means keeping the money in circulation, and the more it circulates, the more indirect value it generates.

Imaginos1892 wrote:Every dollar paid to them has to be taken from somebody doing productive work.

I can only laugh at such ignorance and lack of thought. Anything else would be taking you too seriously.

So far I had thought Trump would be no more than a footnote in the race. Someone who would liven up things a while with his queer remarks - and then drop out fast.

I may have underestimated him. He seems to be getting into serious contender mode.

Theres over a year before the elections, and he still has to win against the rest of his party. theres a big slog ahead, and time is not necessarily on his side if he keeps making gaffes. Enough of them, and he may lose support, or become unelectable by dint of the democrats just playing vids from the primaries and going: is this who you want to lead you for the next 4 years?

Bruno Behrends wrote:So far I had thought Trump would be no more than a footnote in the race. Someone who would liven up things a while with his queer remarks - and then drop out fast.

I may have underestimated him. He seems to be getting into serious contender mode.

That strategy would work if the Dems had even a mediocre candidate to run against him. It doesn't appear that they do.

Spacekiwi wrote:Theres over a year before the elections, and he still has to win against the rest of his party. theres a big slog ahead, and time is not necessarily on his side if he keeps making gaffes. Enough of them, and he may lose support, or become unelectable by dint of the democrats just playing vids from the primaries and going: is this who you want to lead you for the next 4 years?

Bruno Behrends wrote:So far I had thought Trump would be no more than a footnote in the race. Someone who would liven up things a while with his queer remarks - and then drop out fast.

I may have underestimated him. He seems to be getting into serious contender mode.

Compared to him, isnt almost any other cadidate a moderate?

PeterZ wrote:That strategy would work if the Dems had even a mediocre candidate to run against him. It doesn't appear that they do.