patrick.net

curious2 says

forewarned PatNetters will have an Uzi for each arm to bring home dinner for the entire PatNet floating island.

I thought PatNetters would go for Ingram Mac-10:

"Daddy would have gotten us Uzis!"

Curious2, What liberals tend to do is 'project' the average republican as God-fearing and Pro Life which is not accurate. Do they exist in the GOP? Definitely. Are they the majority? (as in, counting all independents/Republicans/libertarian/anyone who votes for the GOP?) Definitely not. I don't have #'s to back up or links to provide (as I'm at work). I do think liberal media tends to project Tea Party supporters as Pro-Life and God-Christ cheerleaders, and that would be inaccurate as well. I went to the Tea Party rally in Boston awhile ago, and didn't get the 'Religious Vibe' at all. (I happened to run into a VERY libreal friend of mine. I asked if he saw any racism that day. He said no, but could 'feel it'. .....I do think the GOP should marginalize or downplay the religious of our ranks? I think Tea Party should be advertised as folks who spend within their means, don't have debt actually expect the gov't to do the same.
As heads of households to do these things (no debt/live within our means), we (ie, GOP/Dem/anyone) are seen as smart and sensible. But when we expect our elected gov't officials to have these same traits that we live by, and admire, we (GOP) are called extreme? Liberal media perpetuates this fallacy, and you eat it up like an ice-cream sundae....One should always remember that the Tea Party is not about religion, but about fiscal sanity.... And speaking of fiscal sanity, I leave you w/ one question. Can you name me a fiscally conservative Democrat Congressman or governor? I'm hoping to find one, and if so would like to read up on him/her....

APOCALYPSEFUCK is Shostakovich says

Koch Brothers are probably buying cheap Chinese AKs in bulk to deliver to teabaggers and militias to start skirmishing in the provinces and provoke full-bore civil war.
There's nothing left for the middle class to do. They might as well provide entertainment for their overlords.

--------------------------
For every Koch Bro, there's a Soros. For every Limbaugh, there's a Chris Matthews...and on and on and on....What a boring topic of conversation. Next....
Why do liberals fall back on the fallacy of Tea Party folks 'clinging to guns and religion'? It's getting tedious to say the least. The majority of us who are fiscally conservative don't own a gun, and most likely are Pro-Choice. You eat up the liberal media shite sandwich, as if it were a sundae. Give it a rest. Fiscally conservative GOPers and Independents are more 'normal' than you think, or will admit. I'd vote for fiscally conservative Democrat, but I haven't found one in quite some time....

AverageBear says

Can you name me a fiscally conservative Democrat Congressman or governor?

http://bluedogdems.ngpvanhost.com/content/blue-dog-membership-1

Can you name a fiscally responsible Republican President? The last times we had a balanced budget were during the Clinton administration. The Reagan deficits were enormous despite the tax increases that he signed, and then each Bush broke all deficit records. (Bush the elder raised both taxes and deficits, Bush the Younger "cut" taxes while increasing spending, shifting the cost onto future taxpayers.) BTW, since your avatar says Boston, how's that RomneyCare working out for you?

If Republicans had nominated a secular candidate like Ron Paul, who actually outpolled Barack Obama nationally, or former Governor Gary Johnson, we could have had a real debate about the role of government and fiscal responsibility. Former Governor Bill Weld would have been a fine candidate, or Mayor Bloomberg if he had been encouraged. Instead Republicans chose multiple-choice Romnesia, and their runner-up was "frothy" Santorum.

Typical Liberals. Nasty when they lose, even nastier when they win. This is why there is so much contempt.

To quote Democrat Hillary Clinton:

"I am sick and tired of people who say that if you debate and you disagree with this administration somehow you're not patriotic. We should stand up and say we are Americans and we have a right to debate and disagree with any administration."

Well?

tdr says

Well?

What are you even talking about?

curious2 says

Can you name a fiscally responsible Republican President?

--------------------------
I asked you first. Can you name me any current Democrat who is fiscally conservative. For the record, I wasn't happy voting for W, as he wasn't conservative. (SCHIP, no child left behind, etc). But the alternative to me, was alot worse...I'll play the 'history game' with you another day, but please stick to the question I posed. I'm not trying to be a dick; i'm honestly interested in knowing if a fiscally conservative democrat currently exists, who at the same time, won't get chastizes by the DNC. I think Liebermann comes to mind, but he got thrown under the bus by the DNC. People of CT 'get it'.... I'd vote for him, and anyone like him. Can you give me the name of someone like Lieberman? Thanks.

AverageBear says

I asked you first.

And I replied with a list. You still haven't named any.

Hey man don't talk down Bush Sr. : ) He and his team bit the bullet going with the Dem's major tax rise, totally breaking his "Read My Lips. . ." campaign promise.

http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/graph/?g=cCu

When the 1990 recession hit, revenues tanked, but they were trying:

http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/graph/?g=cCv

red is outlays, green is revenue

AverageBear says

Can you name me any current Democrat who is fiscally conservative

All of 'em who want to raise taxes.

None of them are conservative enough, but the bottom line is that taxes have to double in this country.

http://patrick.net/?p=1218608&c=895053#comment-895053

for the math behind that.

Now, if you'd like to cut spending to replace these tax increases, I'm all for that, too. Name your cuts!

Being a "fiscal conservative" without actually making the policy to get you to a balanced budget is just living on Conservative Bullshit Mountain.

Vicente says

I thought PatNetters would go for Ingram Mac-10:

"Daddy would have gotten us Uzis!"

Great reference to Night of the Comet :)

How about some of each? That way, PatNetters will have something to argue about, while carrying compatible ammunition in case of real(tor) Zombie attacks.

APOCALYPSEFUCK is Shostakovich says

The GOP is going to go into Full-Bore Crazee from here on out:

Here is the 2016 platform:

RAPE is a SACRAMENT!

-RNC will propose a Rape Amendment that will repeal all rape laws in the US.

The 13th and 14th Amendments are unconstitutional.

-RNC will propose returning the progeny of runaway slaves to their rightful owners - or to those who can prove to a court or sheriff they will make good use of their labor.

JESUS is Lord and God.

-Fire trucks will be dispatched with ministers to mass baptize everyone encountered outside in a municipality.

SUFFRAGE is SATANIC:

-Women's eligibility to vote will be outlawed in the name of God.

Epic!

Sad that the GOP in mostly unvotable which is sad because there is a real niche for a fiscally conservative and socially liberal party that would put an end to the fiscal destruction of the nation being orchestrated since bush and continued unabated by Obummer.

mell says

continued unabated by Obummer.

When you're handed a bag of flaming dog poo all you can really do is just put out the fire.

Taxes need to double from here. Nobody who tries to do that will be reelected.

We're going to be living in "interesting times" this decade.

AverageBear says

What liberals tend to do is 'project' the average republican as God-fearing and Pro Life which is not accurate. Do they exist in the GOP? Definitely. Are they the majority? (as in, counting all independents/Republicans/libertarian/anyone who votes for the GOP?) Definitely not.

If you think God-Fearing Pro-Life are NOT the majority, it's curious that the Party Platform clearly was written for them:

- We support a human life amendment to the Constitution, and we endorse legislation to make clear that the Fourteenth Amendment’s protections apply to unborn children.

- We affirm every citizen’s right to apply religious values to public policy and the right of faith-based organizations to participate fully in public programs without renouncing their beliefs, removing religious objects or symbols, or becoming subject to government-imposed hiring practices.

I went back and looked at the GOP 1980 platform, they felt no need to include religious language. Abortion was there but at least the language recognized that there was internal division. There's no question that the current GOP does not believe in the Big Tent only in useful fools, which is among the reasons I left.

Bellingham Bill says

mell says

continued unabated by Obummer.

When you're handed a bag of flaming dog poo all you can really do is just put out the fire.

Taxes need to double from here. Nobody who tries to do that will be reelected.

We're going to be living in "interesting times" this decade.

This cannot be solved with taxes alone even if you tax at 90%. It can be a part of it, but the majority has to come from cuts to spending across the board, math doesn't lie. Sure, they all need to lie to get (re-)elected, but he has now free reign in his second term and there won't be a third and cut finally become serious about cutting the deficit.

Vicente says

if you think God-Fearing Pro-Life are NOT the majority,

There's no need to engage in hypotheticals. We have the exit polling data now.

http://elections.msnbc.msn.com/ns/politics/2012/all/house

Should your state legally recognize same-sex marriage?
No: (D): 26% -- (R): 71%

Abortion should be Illegal
Yes: (D): 18% -- (R): 57%

There you have it.

Curiously, the white evangelical bloc broke 78% Republican. This is the same result from 2004.

http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2004/pages/results/states/US/P/00/epolls.0.html

They were 23% of the electorate then and 26% now. Interesting, in a bad way.

Vicente says

There's no question that the current GOP does not believe in the Big Tent only in useful fools, which is among the reasons I left.

The Robertson Republican coalition depended on useful fools voting against their own interests, frightened and deluded into redistributing wealth upwards to the top 1%. I've edited the OP to put "winning" in quotes, as in Charlie Sheen, because even when Republicans were "winning" most of them were losing. The Republican record deficit spending results partly from faith-based voting: use fear to divide and misrule people, then rob them blind in the name of protecting them. Its antecedents go back to Nixon's southern strategy and the drug war, but the "family values" crusade became even more invasive, thus more distracting.

mell says

but the majority has to come from cuts to spending across the board, math doesn't lie

Thing is, government spending doesn't actually go into a black hole. Every dollar goes to somebody, who then buys something, keeping the economy going.

The math here is actually rather hard to understand. This is how the satanic socialist nordic countries are still keeping their economies together. Their big secret is trade surpluses, after that, it's just a matter of keeping the money moving to everyone, and not wasting money on stupid crap so actual capital concentration -- wealth accretion -- can continue.

We did in fact throw ~$1T of wealth into a hole in the ground, 2003-2010.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Financial_cost_of_the_Iraq_War

mell says

but he has now free reign in his second term

Obama's main power is vetoing legislation that hits his desk, actually.

This is, constitutionally and mechanically, the House's job to tackle.

Obama does have some power in the "public enlightenment" sphere, given that people will actually listen to him more, but his megaphone has to compete with the vast array of conservative media propaganda mills, from AEI, USCOC, Reason, etc etc etc etc through the actual media outlets like Fox and talk radio.

Bellingham Bill says

Thing is, government spending doesn't actually go into a black hole. Every dollar goes to somebody, who then buys something.... We did in fact throw ~$1T into a hole in the ground, 2003-2010.

The policies of 2001-2012 have wasted a lot more than $1T. In addition to the Iraq costs detailed in the article, there were the "aid" payments to our "allies" in the "coalition of the bribed," e.g. Pakistan. How much of that went into building a nice house for Osama and sheltering others from al Qaeda? And, we bought a huge amount of overpriced oil, to the Saudis' delight. (The Bush tax shift giving special deductions for 3-ton Escalades helped the Saudis more than GM. Note that GM went bankrupt after selling more Escalades, while the Saudis didn't go bankrupt after selling more oil.) And the relentlessly increasing medical spending, butchering and poisoning Americans for power and profit, soon to increase even further with ObamaCare.

I understand the multiplier effect as a valid theoretical argument. The problem is, it assumes ceteris paribus, which is never true. To borrow an old phrase, "to err is human, but to really foul things up requires a computer." Government spending has unrivaled ability to waste huge amounts of money, literally thousands of times more than Webvan.

Military spending has a special multiplier all its own, as our military-industrial complex creates enemies all over the world, resulting in more wars and more military spending. Medicaid can be similar, as our medical-industrial complex puts Medicaid kids on so many pills that many develop lifelong side effects by their teens.

This is why I think the Republicans might actually have won with a candidate like Ron Paul.

Bleach Curious2, your arguments are a tangled mess confusing things that can't realistically be done(amending the Constitution) and then citing stuff that has nothing to do with the point I made(that presidential candidates discussing social legislation is irrelevant).

Then again, you do very well prove my point as to the merits of using such conversation and promises in order to stir emotional people into a frenzy so that they will vote,

curious2 says

Government spending has unrivaled ability to waste huge amounts of money, literally thousands of times more than Webvan

while I agree with most of what you wrote, waste is a tricky word. I think the main problem here is that we don't really have an economy of scarcity.

We have a fake economy of scarcity -- productivity has doubled since 1960 IIRC, anyway:

http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/graph/?g=cD1

is per-capita real GDP. This is double the wealth output of 1970. Thing is, we have a distribution problem, too much of this surplus is either going off to money heaven overseas or being siphoned off by rent-seekers here at home.

Housing is a massive rent-suck. Health care, $5000 per capita of economic rents, easily (Israel's socialistic system provides service for $6000 less than ours).

Prosperity is only limited by hard -- physical -- wealth consumption. Stuff we have to dig up and burn, or throw away and not recycle. We actually don't consume all that much hard wealth each day!

The problem is our structure, and how much attritive rents pull hundreds if not thousands of dollars out of everyone's pockets each month.

This is what the 99% movement was on about, but few of them could figure it out.

Btw, government waste is epic.

Must be some reason the division I work in lost 20% of its staff over the last 4 years, yet has increased output.

I know we're not supposed to call names here, but the situation warrants it.

If you truly beleive the local, state, and Fedeal governments in the US are not wasteful, you're an idiot.

dodgerfanjohn says

If you truly beleive the local, state, and Fedeal governments in the US are not wasteful, you're an idiot.

I only see waste where hard wealth, or existing capital, is lost.

People need jobs. Problem is the 1% have all the money now and are only willing to lend it back to the 99%.

http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/TCMDODNS

"It's the money, stupid" : )

Bellingham Bill says

We did in fact throw ~$1T of wealth into a hole in the ground, 2003-2010.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Financial_cost_of_the_Iraq_War

Agree, that and much more as curious points out. Cuts need to be made everywhere, and that would include the the military sector and stop going into useless and unconstitutional wars. We may be able to learn from the nordic countries, but their population is far more homogenous, smaller, and some do have natural riches like norway has a boatload of oil - so it is very hard to compare them to the US.

mell says

and some do have natural riches like norway has a boatload of oil - so it is very hard to compare them to the US

their per-capita oil wealth is nice, 170 bbl/yr per capita while we're at 9.

170 bbl at $100/bbl is a $17,000/capita hard-wealth tailwind (gross) for their economy.

We do own the most productive part of a pretty big continent so we can close the gap in other production. We have $430B in gross farm income, that's $1400/capita.

We're doing good with natgas, with 24 tcf of production. At $5 per mcf, that's, hmm, $120B, only $400 per capita, not as much as I was expecting, LOL.

But we produce $1.7T of value via our manufacturing sector, that's another $5000 per capita. (We *do* need to expand this, LOL, it makes no sense to have millions of people sitting around doing nothing when our trade deficit with China, Germany, Japan, and Mexico is so high).

http://www.census.gov/foreign-trade/top/dst/current/deficit.html

Plus if we ever monetize our insolation:

we'll be doing a lot better, energy-wise, exporting (or further productizing) our fossil fuel wealth instead of just turning it into carbon.

The background point with all of the above is, though, we need to zero out our trade deficit. That's sucking $600B/yr of money out of our economy (and I think it's no accident that the Fed is adding just about that much via QE3).

I agree with the points about smaller, more homogenous and socially integrated nations. Never hurts. My point of analysis with all of this is that we can easily produce more wealth than we consume, and I think we are, but the problem is the wealth creators here are only seeing or keeping a fraction of their value-add, so much of our labor is being captured by the corporations that employ us ($1.6T after-tax profits) and/or extorted from us via multi-thousand dollar per-capita rents in real estate and health care.

>Cuts need to be made everywhere,

That's nice, now stop using the passive voice and make them.

I wouldn't mind cutting the DOD $400B, but I just probably made 10 million people unemployed doing that.

Bellingham Bill says

Should your state legally recognize same-sex marriage?
No: (D): 26% -- (R): 71%

I don't care if 99% of the people think that slavery of the other 1% should be legal. It's a human rights issue. Same for same-sex marriage.

curious2 says

And I replied with a list. You still haven't named any.

------------------------------
Oooooh. 24 Reps. yes, I know I asked for Congressman. I should have asked for Senators. 24. I wonder how many have been run under the bus by the DNC by now. So you give me 24 Reps, and ask for a conservative GOP prez? I'd say Reagan, and you'll probably whine about massive military spending. Well, some presidents don't have to worry about trying to end a cold war w/ a super-power. He also happened to pass on one of the healthiest economies off to Clinton via tax cuts. SPeanking of tax cuts and fiscally conservative democrats. I would definitely vote for JFK if he ran today. But you know what? He'd never be nominated by the DNC. Too defense-minded, liked tax cuts, etc. Aaaand if he didn't have his family name? Fuggedaboutit....