Obama General Discussion

[melon]

Originally Posted by U2387

The proposed changes, however, do not avoid market forces anymore than they do now.

Except the price of avoiding market forces has been to allow universities to charge whatever they want, enjoying the benefit of inelastic demand.

Is it no wonder that universities, health care, real estate, and to a lesser extent, automobiles suffer from the same affliction? Loans/insurance have not made any of these things more affordable. Instead, we've reached a point where even the loans are too expensive.

And now "the answer" is to just make the loans cheaper through the government. A band-aid solution to be sure, since these loans are just barely affordable at low interest rates, but let's be realistic here. Even if we set the loans at zero percent for the entire life of the loans, universities will still max this out until even this is unaffordable, because they can.

I'm not sure what the answer is here, because I'm not sure that there is a precedent for taking a highly inefficient market and then banning all the loans/insurance that keep it bloated to force it to its actual equlibrium price. I imagine that it is not pretty. Ultimately, though, we have to ask ourselves where we want our educational system to go from here.

[U2387]

Just my point. Who would have seen an America 2 years ago where taxpayers control the pay of nationalized banks and companies.

The odd person who saw it coming, they existed. Mostly dismissed as crackpots. You are missing the point here. I already went through this with you. We are not here because of Obama, but because of the crisis that hit in 2008. We are not in this position because Obama wanted, as a matter of ideological preference, to be in this position. Tell me how the banks are not paying back and the government is not selling its ownership stake. Did you see the front page of Politico.com today? GM paying back all its TARP money, government looking for the right time to sell their shares. 2 years ago, hell, during the primary campaign, no one running for office on either side was talking about this. So tell me again, how does Obama get tagged as a raging socialist when Bush nationalized these banks and companies after we almost fell off a cliff one day in September 2008?

He has no intention, listen closely, no intention of continuing to control these industries going forward.

It is conservatives who have screamed the loudest for limitations on pay and bonuses at taxpayer owned companies, at least for the time they are taxpayer owned. I agree with them.

And that takes a 2,500 page bill? No one believes that and you can read the healthcare thread to see the reasons why.

Like Irving said, legislation routinely takes more pages than that. Have you ever read legislation? There are all kinds of old english type parliamentary clauses, language, "be it enacted," etc. They have to set up the exchange, deal with how to compensate states, make changes in Medicare, raise revenue, appropriate money, reconcile with previous statutes, put in place funding mechanisms, numerous other things that require alot of written legislation. This is nothing out of the ordinary, but thank you for continuing to prove your ignorance.

It is a fact that no one is forced to drop their current coverage under this bill, and that most Americans will choose to keep the coverage they have now. Independent sources like the CBO have confirmed this. The only thing that will change is the costs will be lower for most people.

Capping the release of a pollutant that makes up a fraction of the emission like SO2 does not compare to capping carbon which IS MOST of the emission. That would be like comparing a faucet filter that removes iron in the water to one that removes hydrogen. And don't get me started on John McCain.

I never claimed that it was of comparable size, just that the concept is in existence and has already worked quite successfully. This is why it should be expanded. I don't have to start you on John McCain, seeing as about 75% of Republicans were on board with this very centrist, market oriented idea in that long ago year of 2008! Lindsay Graham is partnering with John Kerry and Joe Lieberman on a compromise version of cap and trade as we speak.

Pick another Republican more to your liking, and odds are pretty damn good that they were for cap and trade not too long ago. It wasn't socialist until Obama embraced it.

Do I really have to lecture a self-proclaimed expert in economics on this. Ronald Reagan was a believer in supply side economics. Keynesian economics is demand side. Reagan was in the camp of Milton Friedman of limited governmental intervention. This was all in response to the failed stagflation of the 70's. And the results of his policies speak for themselves.

No, you don't have to lecture me, but feel free to prove yourself wrong. I know, Keynesian economics is demand side. Supply side, the idea that taxation is the only factor in economic performance, holds that if we just expand supply, we will have unlimited economic growth with low inflation. We expand supply by cutting taxes, which they claim, expands investment in capital, which in turn increases productivity and economic growth and jobs for all follow. Little problem: the promised investment as a result of the tax cuts never happened, it was actually lower compared to the 1970s. Only problem is that supply side has never worked, and is not taken seriously in any academic circles as a legitimate theory.

Now, what was the cause of the low inflation economic expansion of the Reagan years? Keynesianism, yes, Keynesianism, a focus on the demand side! We had demand pull inflation, too many dollars chasing too few goods, which led to cost push inflation as costs were passed on through the economy. How do we handle this? The fed reserve Chairman, Paul Volcker, raises interest rates, which increases the cost of money, reduces the level of investment in capital, which reduces the level of consumption and we have a crippling 1981-82 recession. So we have a classic Keynesian view of the equation Output=C+I+G+(X-M) reducing inflation by REDUCING DEMAND FOR GOODS AND SERVICES.

Now, Reagan must have engineered that spectacular expansion with low inflation through some kind of supply side genius, right? Not exactly. It was Keynesianism on steroids in every way. The money supply is expanded once more, putting more money into the economy for consumption and investment, which increases demand. Reagan borrows massive amounts of money to infuse into the economy, and pumps a shitload more into it through his defense build up. Tax increases in 1981, 82, 83 and 84, larger than the total amount of the Kemp-Roth tax cuts, are put in place to insure the government can keep from defaulting on this Keynesian binge. So there was no massive increase in supply that magically reduced inflation like Reagan claimed. It was good old fashioned Keynesian demand cutting to kill inflation and then good old fashioned Keynesian borrowing and spending(on steroids) that kept the expansion going. In fact, Summers, Geithner, etc are less Keynesian than Reagan because they have pushed for balanced budgets and paying off debt as a way to stimulate investment(Rubinomics). It worked better in the 1990s than Reagan's 80s Keynesian binge.

So we are left with your claim that Reagan was a monetarist, in the mold of Milton Friedman. You are hilarious. Lets look at monetary theory, summarized as the idea that, looking at the quantity of money(M) in the economy, and given constant velocity, that is turnover of money(V), we can predict the level of price(P) and quantity of output, (Q) in a given year. Only problem is velocity is not stable, and MV=PQ has never, ever predicted the level of price or output accurately in any year. That is all monetarism is. Completely different than supply side. Its simply a prediction model that does not work. Reagan never, to my knowledge, used this equation when trying to predict economic growth, though if he did, it may explain alot about why he left us that much debt.

Reagan may have claimed the Milton Friedman legacy by talking about small government, but as you should understand, talk is cheap when the supply is unlimited! Reagan's actions are what matters, and they show otherwise re: limiting government. Reagan spent more than Clinton, asked a liberal Congress for $27 billion more spending than it passed into law,borrowed massively, ran huge deficits, etc. The list of regulations expanded rather than shrunk, and he was a more protectionist President than many before him.

The results speak for themselves indeed: A pretty tepid economic expansion when compared with some other ones.

How about a critique from the right flank of economic thought on what I just mentioned?:The Myths of Reaganomics - Murray N. Rothbard - Mises Institute

How the Government Dealt With Past Recessions - Interactive Feature - NYTimes.com

Here is what monetarism is:http://www.britannica.com/nobelprize...9053341(Reagan never advocated this in public, it was largely discredited by the time he took office, and even if he secretly liked it, he never proposed it be official policy, nor did his advisers)

Here are his ratings by other groups:

Obama had a 95 percent liberal rating from Americans for Democratic Reform, THE liberal advocacy group that ranks all members of Congress.
The American Conservative Union gave Senator Obama a lifetime score of 10 out of 100.



Really?, you're gonna link me to a media matters study to point out my flawed and biased thinking?

The ratings, 95% and 10% just say how often he went with their issues. It does not tell us anything about Obama's views on an ideological spectrum. You expect him to get good marks from a conservative group?

That media matters study uses sound methodology and cites its non partisan sources. An organization can have a general bias but use facts that can be checked out. If you had read that or the other article I linked, there is no spinning in there at all. Media Matters is not Fox News or Rush Limbaugh, you know, the people who routinely get called out by fact check, Washingtpost Spin meter, et cetera. They have a pretty clean record.

Show me where what they point out about the national journal methodology is in any way wrong. The National Journal admitted they had a flawed methodology for the study that called Kerry the most liberal. Again, you call me out for using media matters, then you use interest groups, and supplement it with this junk national journal? Critical thinking here, how could you take them seriously when the only time someone gets the "most liberal" ranking is when they are the most prominent Democrat at the time?

Either way, if you think that any site with a viewpoint is automatically off limits, fine, here is some more: 110th Senate Rank Ordering

10th most liberal in 2007:Obama

Who is More Liberal, Obama or Clinton?

There are 88 Representatives and 8 Senators to Obama's left!

And guess what, they are the ones I mentioned off the top of my head in the last post.

FactCheck.org: 'Lying' About Being Liberal?

Even the joke National Journal that named Obama most liberal in 2007 had him 10th and 16th in other years!

So even by the methodology these guys use, Obama is in no way the most liberal. If you had any independent mind at all, or any common sense of politics, you would know this. How could you see Boxer or Sherrod Brown or Bernie Sanders, an avowed socialist and claim Obama is the most liberal?

Plus, all of these charts use percentage of votes with their party. It says very little about what the ideology of that party is. If Harry Reid is voting the Democratic party line, he will look very liberal, though he is actually a moderate to conservative Democrat.

I would like to see a chart that calculated political views based on legislation introduced, alternate legislation supported, stated views etc. For example, Bernie Sanders and Barbara Lee and the Congressional Progressive caucus routinely introduce legislation that never even makes it out of committee. Maybe 5 Senators and 35 Reps would support it, the left of the left people. People like Obama, Kerry, etc are never given a chance to vote against this, which would make them look more conservative. On a similar note, people like Graham, Orrin Hatch, Pete Domenici, Chuck Grassley and Dick Lugar would look alot more "liberal" if we included legislation that the likes of Ron Paul and Jim DeMint routinely introduce and get nowhere with.

It would be a much more accurate portrayal of "extremes" in views than would merely percentage of time voting with the party. The Democrats would have their views altered more here, however, as they are the centrist party while Republicans have become increasingly extremist. This is important when trying to decide who sits where on the spectrum.

Take a look at how much influence the far right, you know, Jim DeMint and Eric Cantor have over the Republican Party.(Its alot)

Then take a look at how much influence the far left has over the Democratic Party- say Barbara Lee, Bernie Sanders and the Congressional Progressive Caucus. Their agenda items are not even brought up.

So the agenda Obama is voting in line with most of the time is alot less extreme than the agenda McCain votes in line with most of the time. So Obama is far from the most extreme member of a party that is decidedly more centrist than the other major party, and both parties are right wing parties in the grand international scheme of things. So Obama and Socialism in the same sentence is the equivalent of saying "I am an idiot."

[U2387]

Originally Posted by melon

Except the price of avoiding market forces has been to allow universities to charge whatever they want, enjoying the benefit of inelastic demand.

Is it no wonder that universities, health care, real estate, and to a lesser extent, automobiles suffer from the same affliction? Loans/insurance have not made any of these things more affordable. Instead, we've reached a point where even the loans are too expensive.

And now "the answer" is to just make the loans cheaper through the government. A band-aid solution to be sure, since these loans are just barely affordable at low interest rates, but let's be realistic here. Even if we set the loans at zero percent for the entire life of the loans, universities will still max this out until even this is unaffordable, because they can.

I'm not sure what the answer is here, because I'm not sure that there is a precedent for taking a highly inefficient market and then banning all the loans/insurance that keep it bloated to force it to its actual equlibrium price. I imagine that it is not pretty. Ultimately, though, we have to ask ourselves where we want our educational system to go from here.

So the way I understand it, you are talking about something entirely different than what Obama is proposing?

Obama keeps the loans and that leaves them alot more affordable than they otherwise would be when left to market forces. Therefore, universities can expect to always have demand because the government and other entities will continue to finance loans. People will keep coming, so costs will still be high. Do I get you right?

Now, expand this to loans and insurance in other sectors, real estate, automobile, banking, etc.

Loans, insurance, etc have been around in some form or another for thousands and thousands of years, and I think the waste/inefficiency in industries is alot bigger than just these things.

Is the concept/usage of loans and insurance, in and of itself, a horrible market distorting, price everyone out invention? On balance, economic history suggests no. Can they have a negative effect when used or not used in certain ways? Is their usefulness as an instrument long gone? Does it create moral hazard? These are questions for a whole different day, and the material that doctoral thesis's are made of. Far beyond anything I would be willing/capable of discussing here!


You and I still agree, we do need to ask where our educational system goes from here. Our higher education system is becoming dangerously unaffordable. Maybe its tenure, maybe its bureaucracy in the schools themselves, maybe its energy and health care costs driving it like they drive everything else, maybe college has become increasingly necessary and is in greater demand compared to years ago, but we do not have the educational infrastructure to acommodate everyone?

Who knows, but we can agree the affordability of higher education is a much bigger issue than changing from one inefficient long time market distortion to a slightly more efficient market distortion.

[U2387]

Originally Posted by Irvine511

^ INDY just gave us a great example of using a tactic to dismiss an issue, rather than understanding the issue.

Of course. He knows there is nothing in the bill that makes you change your current insurance, that's why.

Just like he has not pointed me to anyplace where Obama has made it known that he wanted some kind of radical socialist takeover.

[BVS]

Why is he always catering to the far left?

Obama wants to freeze discretionary spending for 3 years - CNN.com

[Cactus Annie]

Bloody leftist librerals.

[diamond]

http://www.breitbart.tv/132-the-numb...in-one-speech/

educational and self explanatory.


<>

[Diemen]

Have anything worthwhile to contribute?

[BVS]

Originally Posted by diamond

Breitbart.tv � 132: The Number of Times Obama Refers to Himself in One Speech

educational and self explanatory.


<>

No wonder the tea parties exist and you all deny science if this bs is what you consider "educational".... you guys are in trouble.

[INDY500]

Obama aims to ax moon mission

By Robert Block and Mark K. Matthews
Orlando Sentinel

NASA's plans to return astronauts to the moon are dead. So are the rockets being designed to take them there — that is, if President Barack Obama gets his way.

When the White House releases his budget proposal Monday, there will be no money for the Constellation program that was supposed to return humans to the moon by 2020. The troubled and expensive Ares I rocket that was to replace the space shuttle to ferry humans to space will be gone, along with money for its bigger brother, the Ares V cargo rocket that was to launch the fuel and supplies needed to take humans back to the moon.

There will be no lunar landers, no moon bases, no Constellation program at all.

Boooooooo

[coolian2]

apart from pissing away money, what exactly is the point of going to the moon anyway?

[INDY500]

Awesomeness.

[sue4u2]

Originally Posted by BVS

Why is he always catering to the far left?

Obama wants to freeze discretionary spending for 3 years - CNN.com

No matter what Obama suggest, some Republicans will have something negative to say about it including John McCain who suggested discretionary spending cuts in debates during a debate with McCain in 2008.

Obama Scoffed At McCain's Spending Freeze Proposal During Campaign (VIDEO)

One particularly tough attack, however, was delivered in Obama's own words -- in the form of a video compilation showing the president scoffing at just such a proposal in three successive presidential campaign debates. The video was posted quickly on YouTube.

"The problem with a spending freeze is you're using a hatchet where you need a scalpel. There are some programs that are very important that are underfunded," Obama says in his first debate against Republican candidate John McCain, who was pushing a spending freeze.

"That is an example of an unfair burden sharing," Obama says of McCain's proposal in the second debate. "That's using a hatchet to cut the federal budget. I want to use a scalpel so that people who need help are getting help and those of us like myself and Senator McCain who don't need help aren't getting it. That is how we make sure that everybody is willing to make a few sacrifices."

[sue4u2]

Originally Posted by diamond

Breitbart.tv � 132: The Number of Times Obama Refers to Himself in One Speech

educational and self explanatory.


<>

I didn't have time for this drivel last year and I sure as hell won't spend anymore time on it this year.
I want my 2 minutes back and a warning next time you plan to waste any more of my time.

[U2387]

Originally Posted by sue4u2

No matter what Obama suggest, some Republicans will have something negative to say about it including John McCain who suggested discretionary spending cuts in debates during a debate with McCain in 2008.

Obama Scoffed At McCain's Spending Freeze Proposal During Campaign (VIDEO)

Good Point!

A lot of people are really pushing this out as some kind of Obama flip flop.

In 2008, when we were falling off a cliff, we had only one lever to pull to put money into the economy: government spending. A spending freeze would have been ill advised then, as it would have been in 2009 or this year.

However, Obama proposing to do it starting in FY 2011 and on for 3 years is a good policy and perfectly consistent with what he and outside economists said would need to happen. First, they would have to look to fiscal stimulus, and a lot of it, and then once a recovery gets going, go right to tackling the deficit. I remember telling people we are going to get whip lash watching the turnaround!

The recovery started in July, and will have been going on 15 months by the time the freeze goes into effect. The private sector will continue to pick up more and more of the economic growth, as was intended all along. Same thing with the stimulus- all of the stimulus spending will hit the economy by this December.

This is not flip flopping any more than the Fed is flip flopping when they look at economic conditions and decide what to do with interest rates.

The freeze is good, and I like it, but it is certainly not going to do more than make a slight dent in the deficit. Its more about sounding good to an economically ignorant public than it is anything else. It excludes defense and entitlements, which make up the vast majority of the budget.

What will really make a dent in the deficit is exactly what Obama is getting criticized for focusing on instead: health care.

Health care costs drive the cost of entitlements, and that is what is bankrupting the country. The wars are a part of it too, and drawing down in Iraq will help.

Has he gone about it right? NO Should we have bought Nebraska in place of good old fashioned arm twisting? NO Did Congress waste too much time on a useless and unnecessary public option? Yes Should Obama have focused on the cost cutting measures first and then passed the expanded coverage provisions in 2011 or 2012(still his 1st term)? Yes.

All that being said, the health care bill will be the biggest deficit reduction by far; $500 billion over 10 years.

Domestic discretionary spending freezes, while welcome, should not serve to take their eye off the ball.

[PhilsFan]

Originally Posted by INDY500

Awesomeness.

I do like that you can poke fun at yourself now and again.

[Vincent Vega]

Originally Posted by INDY500

Boooooooo

What is it that you want? Always complaining that Obama is not driving the States out of the crisis, and that the left is reckless with taxpayer's money, but when they start to cut costs by cancelling such very expensive endeavours, with very questionable value to anyone, all you have is a boo?

[BVS]

Originally Posted by INDY500

Boooooooo

And the tea party remains consistent

[anitram]

Booooo indeed. CBS poll:

• 83% of speech watchers approve of the proposals the president made in his speech tonight. 17% Disapprove.

• 70% of speech watchers think Barack Obama shares the same priorities for the country as they do. 57% thought so before the speech.

[coolian2]

cbs! bah, part of the rabid liberal media.