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Permalink Like (2) Dislike Most excellent video regarding the Straw Man argument. Full of great points.
If a person honestly misunderstands another's argument, that's easy to fix. But people who deliberately misrepresents other people's arguments deserve no respect. I would submit the use of a Straw Man is a form of trolling.
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It's a common disease around these parts and used almost exclusively by the right.
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iwog says
I wouldn't say almost exclusively, but yes it is the go to tool for the right.
The Eastwood v. Chair bit of the RNC perfectly illustrates that the right completely embraces Straw Man arguments, even to the point of bragging about it. They don't get how stupid it looks from the outside.
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Dan8267 says
How dare you call people who use strawman arguments stupid!
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balls and honesty
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Gee, strawman is an awful lot of trouble and requires some sneaky thought and treachery.
Why not just lie, like everybody else?
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Dan8267 says
Whooosh!...
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Ceffer says
I assure you there's not any thought behind all the Straw Man arguments made on this site.
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Rush Limbaugh is a master of this.
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Its Bush's fault.
What we need instead is equality of results in every aspect of out lives. Equal test results in schools, equal results in all sporting events, equal results in income, equal results in housing, equal results in intelligence, equal results in strength. Its only fair!
End the Bush Era, vote obama OUT.
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Honest Abe says
Perfect Abe!!! You demonstrated the straw man through sarcasm and killed it with resolve.
Outstanding!
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iwog says
So true. The left wants an equal playing field where your status in life isn't determined by birth.
The aristocratic right want to make sure that the existing wealth isn't threatened by any upstarts. The middle class was always a threat to aristocracy, and now they've crushed it.
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Problem is, much of the middle class is wannabe aristocrats. Hence, the endless push from Dems and their supporters to prop up underwater homeowners without regard to the effects on people who support themselves with paychecks alone.
The language of the so-called left in support of QE3 is chilling in its disregard for people who live modestly with minimal debt and none of the assets backed by debt (read: real estate.)
"We need to force people to spend their money, and rising assets costs will make them stop hoarding cash. They will also reduce the value if debt and help struggling homeowners."
There is something of a strawman hidden in that comment. Every hoarder is presumed to be someone who can afford to spend down savings, or more likely, someone sitting on a pile of borrowed cash. Likewise, every underwater homeowner is not struggling and everyone who opposes bailouts for homeowners is not a right-winger. Some of us simply believe that the emphasis on homeownership smacks of cruel elitism, because it burdens the working class with the ownership society's problems.
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Isn't the Flying Spaghetti Monster / Russell's Teapot argument a kind of Straw Man argument?
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freak80 says
No, they are not misrepresentations of an argument per-say. They are designed to illustrate the point that there is no evidence supporting the existence of god(s).
Evidence in support of any god(s) = zero
Evidence in support of pastafarianism = zero
Evidence in support of Russell's Teapot = zero
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Molly K says
The macroeconomy isn't a mystery to economists, at least since the Great Depression. It is all about the velocity of money and wealth disparity.
The trick to ending a recession is to get spending cash into the hands of consumers. QE1 and QE2 were complete failures in that regard. QE3 on the other hand has the potential to do this. Yes there are going to be circumstances when it doesn't seem fair, but it's a damn sight more fair then giving cash to billionaires and the Chinese like the first two did.
There no longer any doubt. Bernanke is trying to re-inflate the housing bubble. It will probably work, and we'll get another 5-10 years of a decent economy. No one wants the alternative.
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freak80 says
I think that's Reductio ad Absurdum, which is a perfectly valid form of argument. You are arguing that the same "reasoning" which supposedly proves the existence of God also proves the existence of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, an absurdity. Therefore, the reasoning that supposedly proves God's existence must not be valid.
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leo707 says
The Flying Spaghetti Monster illustrates that all the "reasoning" for a god is false because such reasoning apply equally well to the Flying Spaghetti Monster. If you cannot accept all logical conclusions of a premise, then you must reject the premise.
As such, any argument that demonstrates a logical conclusion of a premise submitted by a protagonist that the protagonist rejects is not a Straw Man argument but rather a valid argument that demonstrates the hypocrisy of the protagonist's position.
For example, if a protagonist submits that all things must have a creator, then it's perfectly valid for an antagonist to point out that any god must also have a creator then. Or if a protagonist states that the universe is so complex and orderly, it must be intelligently designed by a god, an antagonist can point out that by that logic, there's just as likely many gods working together to create the universe, ergo the protagonist must accept polytheism as equally valid as monotheism or he is in contradiction.
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leo707 says
Evidence in support of everything said in Paul Ryan's RNC speech = zero
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iwog says
How does re-inflating the housing bubble encourage me to spend? Deflating the housing bubble encourages me to buy a house, and then buy furniture and all the other things I've been putting off for a decade.
Think off all the people stuck in saving mode, not eating out or going on vacations etc., who would be released if housing prices fell to pre-bubble levels adjusted for inflation. That's a far bigger stimulus than anything the government could do.
Low prices do not prohibit spending. The slow decline of prices do. The best thing for the economy would be a rapid drop in prices of three essentials: housing, health care, and schooling. Eliminate these three chokeholds on the economy and people will have discretionary spending again.
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Dan8267 says
The same way as it did before. Equity loans, contractors back at work, real estate "professionals" taking their piece of the pie. Furthermore by lowering interest rates on people who are happily paying down a house they own, it will free up cash to go shopping with.
Remember that most people already own a house. This subsidy is for them. It will help the lower 50% who generally rent by creating jobs, but the biggest benefit will be for the next 49% who already are paying on a mortgage and can now refinance or move up.
It's not ideal and I can think of better ways to accomplish this, but it's pretty damn creative and will almost certainly work. Unfortunately like all debt solutions, it is temporary and the money will eventually be returned to the fed.
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iwog says
How about we reinflate the Dot Com bubble instead. I make money off of that.
However, I have doubts that the Housing Bubble increased real GDP. It resulted in a lot of shabby houses being built, but at the expense of other productivity. Money flowed from other enterprises to housing.
iwog says
By that same logic, lowering the house prices will free up cash of buyers to not only purchase houses but also to go shopping for other things.
iwog says
People who already own their houses don't need subsidies as much as those who don't, and house owners have already been given excessive subsidies. Sounds like this would increase the rich-poor gap.
Also, from http://www.infoplease.com/us/statistics/us-population-owners-vs-renters.html
That does not mean that 66% own their houses. There are over 300 million Americans, so the average occupancy should be 2.86, higher than the figures above, which suggests they aren't including children. Children do not own the houses; their parents do. If you count all people including both adult and minor children living with their parents, most people don't own.
Hence, more people would benefit from lower prices than higher ones.
iwog says
So can I. Instead of propping up existing shitholes, we could rebuild New Orleans and all of New York City. That would create tons of construction jobs and actually improve life. Why make people pay more for less when they can pay more for more? Isn't that better?
If I'm going to be forced to spend twice as much adjusted for inflation for a house as the Baby Boomers, then I should get twice as much house and half the taxes. Let that be my subsidy. Rather than paying $400k for a $200k crap 1970s house, I should pay the $400k for a modern house that's much bigger, has better insulation, fiber optic to a tier 2 provider, and enough solar panels to be sell excess electricity to the electric company.
If I have to take the fall and spend twice or more working hours slaving away for a house than the Boomers did, I should get more house and more benefits for my hard work. The entire problem with our economy is that it revolves around letting old people fuck over young people. That's not sustainable and it's going to lead to blowback.
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Dan8267 says
In the big scheme of things, the old folks are the ones fucked for they are so much closer to the grave. No financial engineering will reverse this fact.
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Dan8267 says
It's not sustainable.
You'll get your chance when you're old.
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Growing old is not sustainable
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Squatting in East CoCo says
I don't want that chance when I'm old.
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Dan8267 says
You're correct, but we're talking actions that are possible by the federal reserve. If I was emperor, I'd do things a lot differently.
It isn't going to increase the rich-poor gap because the middle class will spend most or all of the money. Wealth disparity is only a problem if people hoard assets. Unfortunately the ultra rich will ALWAYS hoard assets so wealth disparity can be described as always bad. It's a useful shortcut.
However things change somewhat when we're talking about the people who spend most of their income. They will increase the demand side which is the biggest problem in our economy right now.
Dan8267 says
This is not within the realm of possible futures. Republicans are serious about bringing down the government and they will not relent until forcibly removed from office, as in 1932.
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The universe and everything in it can be argued as evidence of some superior being...as the existance of such also cannot be factually explained, only theorized, like god(s).
leo707 says
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It doesn't.
This "iwog" character doesn't seem to know what he is talking about....
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SoftShell says
Then who created the Superior Being? Such a complex Being must have had a Creator.
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SoftShell says
This "iwog" character... Nice touch, Dennis.
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It's all unknown, all of it, and at this point without any supporting facts.
For all we know we are just gnats on a rhino's hairy ass..
thunderlips11 says
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And don't bring up the 'purple unicorn' argument....
on some far off planet the little muthafuckas could exist, y'know....
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rooemoore says
You mean SoftShell is the latest incarnation of Shrek? Damn, that guy has more reincarnations than Shiva.
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I don't think it's as simple as old people vs. young. Old people often are parents with vested interest in the affairs of their younger family members. If the situation is bad for their children in the place where Mom and Pop live, the children will move away and they'll rarely see their grand kids. As people get closer to the grave, they place more and more importance on legacy rather than current power.
This is nowhere more evident than here in SoCal. We've known so many older people whose kids moved away to other states with better opportunities. After a while, the older folks often follow, the better to keep their families together. So I argue that high housing prices also negatively affect the older generation as a whole. They become stuck in the wrong state, estranged from the ones they love, and forced to make a Sophie's choice: will I abandon my family or the friends I've known for a lifetime?
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high housing prices affect most everyone negatively all the time. A very select few parasitical entities benefit from housing,,,,governments, used house salesmen, banks, specutvesting/rent-seeking slumlords etc.
higher house prices make us collectively poorer
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errc says
But we can also argue that high housing prices are set by high rents. If the rents were lower without documented history of consistent or sudden/crushing rent increases, then house prices could not increase astronomically because renting would be a significantly better deal over a person's lifetime.
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And rents are a function of government intervention in housing. Where rents are high you see a couple of things: 1) tight controls on what housing can be built and zoning for housing. This creates a situation where it is next to impossible to create new housing without massive punishing playoffs to politicians and lawyers. Thus new housing is not available or in very small supply.
2) government programs for the poor have created zones of poverty and crime where it would be unsafe to live or raise a family. Poor schools in the area contribute to this blight and nearly mandate decent families to move elsewhere.
3) enclaves of middle class to upper class housing then emerge, based on price point to deter undesirables. Since price is the barrier, it won't drop much without compromising the integrity of the community.
Hence, an ordered society of vast swathes of urban poor zones with enclaves of more prosperous folks living cheek by jowl in cramped quarters of
"safety," all the while paying through the nose for the privilege.
A good example of this is NYC's West Village, where the neighborhood is trendy and safe and the apartments are tiny.
Vanity, vanity! All is vanity!
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Dan8267, I appreciate your countering the illogic of iwog. Well-done. I'd also add that the "life isn't supposed to be fair'' rejoinder is a strawman in that it mischaracterizes the issue I raised through trivialization.
The issue isn't simply whether QE3 is fair. It's whether the policy is dangerous. Does the lack of discussion about the effects on the non-ownership society suggest that Bernanke and, more to the point, the Krugman crowd have carefully weighed the consequences and decided that the overall good will be served? Or have they not given any thought to the effects on the non-homeowner working class? Do they ever give a thought to that cohort?
If not, then we must ponder whether they would choose this course even if it were fatal to a substantial part of the 33 percent of Americans who rent?
In other words, was "let them eat cake'' an unfair remark, or did it represent something much bigger?
Finally, I would ask you not to oversimplify the divide as older vs. younger. It's ownership society vs. working class. Older people generally fall into the former category, but those who don't are as screwed as anyone, if not more so.
At the very least, I expect government to start taxing homeownership gains to shore up Medicare and Social Security and taxing inheritances that were sustained with the entitlement programs and expanded by excessively subsidized housing wealth.
I hated the Democratic convention, because it emphasized raising taxes on people EARNING a certain amount of money while failing to ask homeownership profiteers to pay any taxes at all on their gains.
If we keep targeting workers -- yes, even those making $200,000-plus, many of whom will not be able to buy houses because they can't count on being at or near that income level for 30 years -- the result could be the same as when Marie shooed the starving off to her favorite bakery. Half-jokingly, I tell friends that substantial inflation may drive some people to pour savings into arsenals to start the revolution. But it's only half a joke.
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molly says
It's not fatal to renters and no one has offered any explanation of why this would hurt renters. Rents are entirely dependent on supply versus demand. There are no other inputs. Lower interest rates would tend to increase supply because builders can sell more units.
molly says
This is ridiculous. Democrats passed a tax increase on rental income. It's one of the few specks of policy Obama was able to accomplish in 2009 before the Republicans wrecked the legislative process. Republicans want to eliminate all taxes on passive income. Yet you hated the Democratic convention?!? Seriously WTF is wrong with Republicans?
How does a trust baby collecting a check every month "earn" money?
molly says
Oh LORD yes, if we keep targeting workers making $200,000 plus. After all, they have had so much trouble in the last 30 years. If we keep "targeting" them like we have been, do you think we can make them even richer?