patrick.net

bob2356 says

Sorry to say many,many people with (R) next to their names will have much to answer for when they meet the founding fathers in the next world.

You mean all of the founding fathers? Or just the ones that owned slaves?

david1 says

When has it been tried? Under Teddy Roosevelt? The progressive era was one of general prosperity

Much like the periods immediately before and after. The progressive era reforms on business was driven by the Rockefeller's and Vanderbilt's of the era. HINT: IT ONLY HELPED THEM SOLIDIFY PROFITS.

But generally speaking, the progressive ERA was a gnat on the overall, true wealth-generating economy.

Under FDR? The policies laid in place by FDR and the New Deal laid the foundation for the 1950s and 60s.

True. You can get very far when your economic model simply hands out wealth to the masses... Until your sources of supply run dry.

Only austerity (too little government intervention) prolonged the Depression and caused the caused the recession of 1937.

Total mythology.

The GD was the first economic crisis that didn't clear within 18 mos to 2 years. The primary difference between it and the ones that preceded it was that Hoover and FDR intervened in the correction of the prior bubble distortions. Granted, thanks to interventions from both the USG and the Fed, that bubble was more distorted, all those economic miscalcluations made thanks to the intervention-induced bubble were not allowed to clear. And so rather than resulting in a short, albeit painful correction (a reminder to not intervene in the first place), we instead have a decade + malaise that never clears until post WWII.

We have be living in a laissez-faire, low tax environment since the early 1980s.

Hardly laissez-faire, and low tax only by socialist and uber-taxed standards.

So if we go by history, income inequality and laissez faire policies in the Guilded Age attributed to the Panics of 1873 & 1893.

Whuut? Whose history? Those panics were caused by the banking system having loaned out more in credit than they had in deposits to actually back that credit. That's Chronie banking committing an outright fraud that, when exposed, results in panics and collapse thanks to all the economic miscalculation it's caused on one hand (thanks to the easy money such fraud implies), and the depositors left to hold the bag when the Ponzi fraud is discovered on the other side. Yet perfectly legal by law, and further enshrined systematically by backstopping such fleecing frauds with the Federal Reserve System.

Progressive policies and trust busting by TR lead to the general economic prosperity without major malaise.

The economy was so robust then, you could do all sorts of things to it and it was fine. 100 years of that compounded later is a different story.

And the "official version" of trust busting is misleading. As I've stated a dozen times now, the legislated drove the legislation and turned it into a profit guarantee by allowing for cartelization at the expense of competition.

Income Inequality and reduction in government spending post WWI lead to the roaring Twenties, a precursor to the Great Depression.

Huh??!!? Monetary policies following WWI, with the Fed monetizing heavily to support banking interests in Great Britain (people were fleeing the pound due to all the WWI debts, and the Fed helped out) flooded the U.S. with liquidity. This lead to the bubble that collapsed in the early 20s, which was not bailed out and quickly cleared. But equally lose plicies in the 1920 flooded the country with liquidity, and so you get the roaring 20s as everyone confuses more $$ (supply) with actual wealth creation, resulting in folks overextending themselves, shifting their perspectives to get-rich-quick bubble mentalities, all of which collapses in 1929. But this series of malinvestments is NOT allowed to clear. Instead, you get policies focused on fossilizing prices at their bubble levels, redirecting resources towards that support. Voilà ! The VERY FIRST Great Depression.

New Deal policies shortened and reversed this, only to be stopped short by austerity in the mid-1930s leading to the Depression of 1937.

LOL. Pumping liquidity creates activity only so long as you continue to pump liquidity. Eventually you have to stop, and that which grew on the back of the easy money policies always then fails due to lack of monetary O2. And all the while you had Hoover's and FDR's price fixing schemes, hiring to fill ditches schemes, destruction of wealth schemes, etc. Those are what prolonged the depression and made it "Great".

It took WWII and high government spending (and low income inequality) to recover from that.

Again, totally wrong. You don't increase anybody's wealth by taking capital, turning into warfare items and blowing it all up. (No doubt, it's profitable for the military industrial complex, but not for society net-on-net.) If you disagree, try it on a family scale: Blow your shit up, and see how wealthy your family economy becomes in it's wake. You do have a huge hole to dig out of after the fact, though. But you will sure be "economically VERY active"! (which will please Keynesians and their GDP and employment obsession!)

The only thing that brought an end to the Great Depression was 1) the end of the war, where massive resources could be redirected back to wealth generating activities that were kept by the people, which made the economy dramatically better than during war time when they were blowing up all the wealth for years on end; and 2) all of our foreign competition was destroyed. Europe and Asia's manufacturing was in ruins, which put the U.S. in a economic catbird seat.

No doubt the U.S. had a economic postwar honeymoon period that was comparatively very profitable. It erred, however, where it structured its economy around that reality as if it would last forever, while subsidizing increasing amounts of wealth towards a quasi-socialist and increasingly more corporatist (jobs at any cost) agenda. U.S. business was exposed increasingly in the 1960s and 1970s as it favored a culture of unrealistic benefit promises, diminished quality of production, all coddled thanks to lack of competition and fairly strong anti-free trade legislation. The honeymoon ended in the LATE 1960s (after LBJ's Great Society bills were coming due, and the Vietnam War costs piled up) when the rest of the world cried bullshit on the U.S. dollar and started cashing it in for Gold, forcing Nixon to default, furthering a chain reaction of economic problems for the U.S. that had been building since the end of the war, if not earlier. (

Social programs after WWII (where government felt like it out it citizenry something after the war, with Keynesian policies like the GI Bill) lead to a period of prolonged economic expansion lasting until the collapse of Bretton Woods, the oil shocks, and Nixon's price controls.

Keynesian policies are nothing more than an economic raiding of the economic seed-corn. Afterwards, the harvests are smaller, yet the people are kept happy because you're giving them seed corn mixed in with each harvest, so they don't notice. Meanwhile, you've restructured the economy in ways that are not sustainable, and eventually your seed corn runs lower and lower, leading to economic famine. Which is what we now are suffering exponentially.

Since then, we are back to the same laissez-faire, supply-side Austrian ideas that have never been successful.

LOL. Hardly. As well, supply-side economics and Austrian theory are not the same, other than sharing a similar respect for Say's law, which itself undermines Keynesian theory. As to their success, elements of free markets have been tried, and where markets are most free, you have more wealth and higher universal standards of living than where they are less free. Otherwise, millions would not have fled the rest of the world for U.S. shores in the 1800s, and the Soviet Communism and Maoism (and a bazillion other shades of authoritarian economics) would be great models of economic success. Keynesian theory is a shade of such, and is a free lunch promise that has exacerbated dramatically the very business cycle it proposed it would tame, and in doing so has created nothing more than a fetid, zombie economy that requires the flesh of the living in order to keep what littles is left of its head above the water.

Only Austrians reject empirical data analysis. Why? Because the empirical analysis shows government intervention and policies do have positive effect on net economic growth?

Such intervention / policies have a positive effect on activity, and that's it. Often it is activity that is horribly counterproductive. Clearly there are beneficiaries, but ignored is what would have happened in an economy had the intervention not happened, and the wealth used to fund it was left to move around those who were able to earn it by consensually exchanging value for value. (Everyone should be required to read and understand Bastiat's "What's Seen vs. What's Unseen." A great piece. A chapter is devoted to it in Hazlitt's "Economics in One Lesson". A book that belongs on everyone's bookshelf that undermines the credibility of the prevailing economic and government policies that have us where we are, screwed as we are.

Austrian's reject the prevailing data analysis because it is horribly flawed and misused, while the empirical and outright experiential evidence offered by Austrians is ignored. Don't use Krugman as your source for an Austrian critique. He is always horribly misleading / wrong in his explanations, which reflects either a painful lack of understanding of Austrian theory, or a deliberate effort to obfuscate given Austrian theory directly counters and undermines the arguments for socialism, which is the chief priority / foundation of Krugman's (and Keynes's) overall belief system. If it does not support socialism as the highest goal, Krugster rejects it. Keynes was a Fabian Socialist through and through, and his theories were designed to promote as much.

Moreover, Keynes' theories were rebutted effectively by Mises, Hayek, etc., not to mention other schools of economic thought, leaving only those in denial clinging to what's left.

Christ Butters, I could have gotten that reply simply by poking around mises.org for awhile.

I respectfuly disagree with nearly every point.
Leopold B Scotch says

Monetary policies following WWI, with the Fed monetizing heavily to support banking interests in Great Britain (people were fleeing the pound due to all the WWI debts, and the Fed helped out) flooded the U.S. with liquidity. This lead to the bubble that collapsed in the early 20s

Isn't this ignoring the economic downturn immediately after the war in 1919? Lack of demand for goods = slow down of economic activity. You say countless times that pumping liquidity creates activity - so if the Fed pumped liquidity where was the activity in 1919 and 2008, for example?

Good discussion and you are obviously a smart guy. We just see this completely differently and I doubt anything is going to change that.

I don't have to reject empirical data analysis in order to sleep at night. You label that as Krugman's critique though it is certainly not original to him. I tend to agree with it because I am a data analysis guy. I'm not smart enough to follow Hayek in the abstract but I can follow the numbers.

Leopold B Scotch says

Keynesian policies are nothing more than an economic raiding of the economic seed-corn.

Keynesian policies are the utilization of economic seed corn. Laissez-faire low tax environments prevent stockpiling of economic seed corn and encourage capital hoarding.

We have been waiting for the rising tide to raise all ships since 1980.

Leopold B Scotch says

Keynesian policies are nothing more than an economic raiding of the economic seed-corn. Afterwards, the harvests are smaller, yet the people are kept happy because you're giving them seed corn mixed in with each harvest, so they don't notice.

Not that I believe strongly in Keynes but you really need to go reread General Theory. That is not what he advocates at all. The base of his work was the countercyclical theory. Part 1: Lower taxes and raise government spending during periods of economic contraction. Part 2: RAISE TAXES and CUT BACK SPENDING during economic expansion to rapidly pay back any debt.

Every one to date has ignored part 2. Any type of spend your way to prosperity scheme has nothing to do with Keynes theories at all. So let's not call this stuff keynesian. Calling Krugman a keynesian for example is a joke.

If you actually still believe Keynes was in favor of spending your way to prosperity read his work "How to Pay for War". He strongly advocates high taxation and forced savings, not borrowing.

bob2356 says

Part 2: RAISE TAXES and CUT BACK SPENDING during economic expansion to rapidly pay back any debt.

This is what I was alluding to just above with the laissez faire low tax environment preventing the stockpiling of economic seed corn. Raising taxes in times of economic prosperity would allow the government to stockpile - save for a rainy day - instead of borrowing...

It's Keynes vs. Hayek.

Fight!

But you're perfectly OK with the 0.1% taking your money?

They do it via bank bailouts, oligopolies, giant defense contracts, and making you pay their taxes for them.

It's far more money out of your pocket than food stamp programs or fireman salaries.

Just want you to be consistent.

They do it via bank bailouts, oligopolies, giant defense contracts, and making you pay their taxes for them.

Pretty much, yes. Both parties are "socialist", but one wants socialism for the rich...

I am consistent. What makes you believe I am not?

So, your argument as you present it is: EVERYONE should be picking my pocket?
What exactly is your 1. position on the subject of taking from me to give to someone else, 2. taking from anyone to give to someone else?
You may use the following legal documents for your sources:
Declaration of indepentence, Constitution and Bill of Rights.
You may have 20 minutes, I do not allow extra time for those who claim they have difficulty taking tests.
You guys don't know any rich people. I am not one of them but I sure as hell know some of them. The vast majority of them are not the bankers who were bailed out.

clambo says

You may use the following legal documents for your sources:
Declaration of indepentence, Constitution and Bill of Rights.

Those documents mean nothing. They never have. Ask any black person about that...

No .1% gets a dime of my money.
I don't keep money in the goddam bank.
I have only vanguard money markets, bond funds, stock funds, and AAPL stock. I don't like giving my money for welfare to anyone, anywhere. If that is too unclear for you guys I can't help you because this cannot be expressed any more clearly.

they mean everything.
you have also never lived in another country, obviously.

Would any pencil necked geek here have the balls to take my money from me in the street to give to his favorite charity of the day?
No fuckin way.
They need to have guys like Obama who believe that men who used balls, brains and sweat should be forced to give money to the sec. 8 people, food stamp and SSI people, firemen, govt. worker millionaires, illegal aliens, etc.
I believe in sink or swim, make it or not, and keep what is yours.

Difference between Dems & Republicans?

One wears a condom while violently raping America. The other doesn't wear a condom while violently raping America. It's your pick as to who's who. The false partisan dichotomy is nothing more than smoke and mirrors to keep us divided while the nation is pillaged right in front of us while we squabble over largely meaningless talking points.

It's not meaningless to some of us.
Nobody is raping me, but Uncle Sam and Obama are trying to pick my pocket to support Maricela for example.
You liberals will be pleased, the illiterate Maricela had her baby girl and soon she will be getting a free place to live courtesy of taxpayers.
Oh and the sperm donor seems to be narrowed down to two whites. The black dude from her candy factory on the west side seems to be eliminated based on the tint of the baby.

While I am all for being irritated at having to subsidize the irresponsible spawning habits of illegals from the third world, they are a minor problem compared to the terrorists on Wall Street. It is safe to say that far more of my money, and that of my grandchildren someday, will be stolen and put into the possession of these psychopathic white collar criminals, than will be given to walking uteruses attached to vaginas that when observed, mimic clown cars. It's just a LOT more emotionally irritating to see the dumb masses of breeders because they are right here for us to see, while the Wall Street criminals are off in their ivory towers and out of our daily sight while they rob us blind. We need to collectively set our priorities. Welfare entitlements and such are A problem, but at the moment they are not THE problem. I see getting upset over that sort of like getting upset that you left the bathroom light on and it is costing you money...while the house is on fire.

Cloud says

Socialism gives guarantees until the money runs out. Then you have Greece.

Greece's money ran out because banksters cooked the books to siphon off public wealth and wealthy special interests carved out so many tax exemptions that the tax code is meaningless. That's not socialism. That's crony capitalism at its most extreme.

The difference between the parties?

Republican - What's yours is mine
Libertarian - What's mine is mine
Democrat - What's mine is yours

Cloud, I couldn'd have said it better myself. Here's my take:

Democrats = The overwhelming desire to force and control others. The lack of common sense, concerned only with the intention, never the (often disasterous) results of their actions. Unconcerned with unintended consequences. Offering up the illusion of utopia for the masses.

Others = Seek freedom, independence, and self reliance.

Get out of my face, leave me alone, mind your own business.
End of line.

Honest Abe says

Others = Seek freedom, independence, and self reliance.

As much as I agree with your description of Democrats, many Republicans are equally authoritarian in their disrespect for your property, rights, liberty. All of what you said can apply to many R policies.

Bluezette says

The difference between the parties?

Republican - What's yours is mine
Libertarian - What's mine is mine
Democrat - What's mine is yours

FAIL. Your view of democrats, especially, given their as expert as anyone at squandering $ trillions on pipe dreams paid for by someone else. Not defending R's, though.

Why not look at these parties through the lens of authoritarian behavior (i.e. willingness to threaten you and confiscate parts of your life and liberty, incarcerate or kill you if you don't comply when you're otherwise minding your own business / living perfectly consensually)

Republicans: Quasi-Authoritarian (for some liberty where they allow, but not if you're gay, or will run a police state so that they can carry on empire-like behavior abroad); will gladly have you incarcerated or shot if you don't contribute.

Democrats: "My view of collectivized entitlement charity is better than yours, and I will kill you or incarcerate you if you don't pay to fund my theories on social economic justice. Oh, and we like wars and banking about as much as the R's. Your right to say "no thanks"? LOL! The state owns you." The D's: "Slavery is wrong.... But confiscating 50% or more of your efforts is good so long as it's on behalf of the state!"

Libertarians: Do as you like, just please do it on your own dime and ask me for my consent before you do something that might affect my life (past, present, future) and liberty, thank you. Implied: what's mine is mine to do with as I please, charity or otherwise.

Cloud says

Obama's F'ing Chief of Staff was on retainer by Goldman Sachs at 30K a year!!! His job was to get Goldman jobs in the administration. What a joke. Where's the NY Times? CBS NBC ABC MSNBC CNN and the rest of the Obama Sachs bum kissers. No RollingStone Magazine is the ONLY outlet I see running with this outrageous corruption story. A rock and roll magazine?

Amen. A+ post.

You need to find yourself a copy of Griftopia, if you have not already read it. Matt Taibbi, the guy that writes all of the stuff for Rolling Stone, wrote the book and he details all of these perverse sweetheart deals, perpetrated by various administrations. He is particularly damning of Obama's health care "reform" and how Obama stripped out anything that sought to limit McCarran-Ferguson in order to force it through.

bmwman91 says

Obama stripped out anything that sought to limit McCarran-Ferguson in order to force it through.

"Politics is the art of the possible".

Leopold, I agree with you in the fact that politicians of both stripes are not averse to taking your liberty, property and rights.

Thats why I used the word "others" as opposed to "Republicans".

PS. I liked your post from 9:57 am

Abe

clambo says

No .1% gets a dime of my money.

You're very naive.

The 0.1% gets a cut of pretty much all the money you spend on anything.

And they get a cut of money you don't even spend, by diluting it with a printing press to create loans to bankers at 0% interest.

But since they have you looking down at the $1 that went to the poor, you don't look up to notice the $100 they took from you to give to the rich. Which of course is the whole idea behind AM radio. It's brilliant in a sick way. Your fear and hate is their wealth.

Vicente says

"Politics is the art of the possible".

I've heard that quote before too. It should terrify anyone.

wthrfrk80 says

I've heard that quote before too. It should terrify anyone.

I do not take it to mean anything sinister. Every ideology has it's zealots who think the PERFECT system can be achieved, if only the masses are tricked or beaten into submission. In point of fact compromises must be made, and the realities and hypocrisies of crowd behaviour have to be recognized.

You're very naive.

The 0.1% gets a cut of pretty much all the money you spend on anything.

And they get a cut of money you don't even spend, by diluting it with a printing press to create loans to bankers at 0% interest.

True. The 0.1% makes money

1. Through inflation. Even if you do nothing, they tax you for holding savings.
2. Through credit/debit cards. Even if you are a deadbeat who pays off your credit card before interest, or uses only a debit card, they charge the merchants for the electronic transfer and the merchants get that money from you.
3. Through obscene interest for short term loans. They make a lot of money on high interest rates and credit card fees.
4. Through bank savings/checking account fees. You loan your money to the bank for little to no interest and they charge you for it.
5. Through exploitation. Walmart’s CEO of U.S. Business Bill Simon gleefully bragged about exploiting the poor by stocking overpriced small packages when the poor or on welfare receive their checks and large, cheaper packages at other times in order to maximize the sucking of every cent from the poor including those supported by our taxpayer dollars. See http://nudges.org/the-hidden-behavioral-tax-from-a-tight-budget-lessons-from-late-night-walmart/
6. Through Congressional bribes. They bribe Congress and presidents so that the laws are written to help them exploit you.

Leopold B Scotch says

Implied: what's mine is mine to do with as I please, charity or otherwise.

Does that include the land stolen from the natives?