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Scott Adams's Political Survey of Economists
Buffaloaf writes "Scott Adams, the creator of Dilbert, wanted to have unbiased information about which presidential candidate would be better for the economy, so he financed his own survey of 500 economists. He gives a bit more detail about the results in a CNN editorial, along with disclosure of his own biases and guesses as to the biases of the economists who responded."
As to how many of those had point hair.
--- "When you gotta do something wrong. You gotta do it right. (Fighter)"
Now we actually turn to Scott Adams for actual unbiased information about economics? Or, at least an attempt to explain the biases up-front? That just hurts my head!! :-P
Where's the punch line?
But, seriously, good on Scott Adams for actually doing this on his own. I think had anyone else tried to do this, we'd all be screaming loudly that they were inherently biased and had an agenda.
No matter how it goes, Adams will get more material for the strips. ;-)
Cheers
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Pardon my ignorance, but what is a " Jigaboo ?"
That's a surprise. Maybe enomomists make less money than I thought.
Are there any other stat sites like this out there? When my wife was in High School her poly-sci teacher handed out papers describing the different platforms and the candidates. Then took the students down to get registered. Does anyone do this anymore?
CS: It is all sink or swim...oh and did I mention there are sharks in that water?
That has to be one of the most thoroughly explained and analyzed surveys I've seen in a long time. The fact that he analyzed the leanings of the respondents and took that into account was really well done.
Now, can we also ask them who is really responsible for the current bank crisis (whether profit hungry execs, slimy people luring people into bad mortgages, people flipping houses and then wanting a bailout when burned, government policy...)?
I RTFA since the summary is not very good, but I don't see any conclusive results as to who would be better with the imbalanced sample pool. It is very difficult to predict how the candidates will act once in power. I didn't expect that Bush would ignore the Constitution as bad as he did once he got in power, so we are still open to surprises for either candidate.
My initial reaction was: There's far more Democratic economists than Republican ones. Perhaps their Democratic bias is because of their evaluation of who's better for the economy, and not the other way around?
I think probably the easiest way to prove this would be to show not just independents, but those who have switched from Republican to Democrat, or vice versa. Someone who's been Democratic for 50 years isn't likely to change their mind, and that could influence the economic evaluation.
However, someone who tends to think independently, even if they actually register with one party or another -- that is, someone who was recently the other party -- might provide a better indicator.
Then again, it's still impossible to tell. Maybe, long-term, Democrats have been better for the economy, and thus, economists tend to be long-time Democrats?
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
Something to do with not voting for Senator Obama, I think.
I think it would have been better to fund a survey of 500 accountants. Economists are theorists, but accountants deal with hard data every day. It's like faith vs. science. ...IMHO
Catbert, Evil Director of Human Resoruces, for President!
High correlation between party affiliation and presidential preference. Independents split. In other words, "economists" aren't any better as a source of objective analysis then other mortals. Like you, "economists" are convinced they're preference is right and interpret reality to fit their certainty.
I find it disturbing that, in the rankings of economic issues, reducing the national debt wasn't even mentioned.
But it certainly doesn't surprise me. We are a nation of debt loving, got to have it now, give me, giveme, gimme idiots
I will never live for sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine.
Now we actually turn to Scott Adams for actual unbiased information about economics?
I am sure it is just as good as turning to any given economist for unbiased information about economics.
There *might* have been a time, long ago, when technological and cultural change were slow enough that the past ten years of data could reliably be used to make relatively accurate predictions about the next ten years worth of economic trends.
But in today's world, major technological and cultural changes continually happen in less than ten years. By the time you have enough data on which to build any kind of model, it is already outdated. I therefore posit that the discipline of economics is no longer useful (if it ever was) as a predictive tool.
There is just too much data, and too much randomness, for us to say what effect major decisions will actually have.
The results demonstrate that democratic economists lean left and republicans lean right. Economics ought to be unbaised. The fact that it is baised indicatse that economists can't be trusted to understand economic issues objectively.
The plain fact is that the economists surveyed think Obama would be better for the economy, by almost two-to-one. It's kind of sad how Adams had to dress the fact up by noting how many were Democrats vs. Republicans, essentially declaring it a tie:
Despite his own strong evidence that the economists were being objective -- their own income levels did not correlate to whether they thought the rich should be taxed -- he doesn't even tell us the plain fact until after he dresses it up.
His CNN writeup was an excuse to repeat three times that he would have his taxes raised by Obama. Well yeah, he makes zillions of dollars. No mention of Obama's plan to cut taxes, for almost everyone, by more than McCain's plan.
I look forward to his next survey of economists, in which he asks which is better economically, capitalism or communism, and then weights the results before revealing them. ("Not surprisingly, 88% of market-favoring economists think capitalism would be best, while 80% of socialist economists pick communism. Our economists favor capitalism on 11 of the top 13 issues, but keep in mind that" etc.)
Economists tend to be academics, and academics tend to be pro-government.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Both wish for more government manipulation of the economy. Obama would like absolute government control of services arbitrarily deemed as necessary (in order to buy votes). McCain, under the guise of "free market", offers false choices under a government-controlled system. McCain wants you to believe that you can have the benefits of a free market through government regulation - that, somehow, socialism with (forced) choices will not fail. All they're saying is, "pick your poison - and there's no option not to be poisoned."
All you have left is to determine which system will lead to a faster or slower death, and decide which death is more preferable.
From time to time, Scott will do something interesting and write it up on his blog. I subscribed to his blog for a while, but I ended up unsubscribing because of the over-the-top sarcasm and overall negative tone. It just didn't feel healthy to *read* it.
The fact that Adams has attached himself to a medium through which he distributes mockery as social commentary is really not surprising to me at all. I know smart people who are trying to make the world a better place by making positive things happen, so it frustrates me that Adams won't just drop all the grudges and stop acting so defensively. We need more smart people on the offense, starting awesome new projects and using their creativity to lift people up.
It's a racist epithet referring to black people.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
From the CNN article:
Moneywise, I can't support a candidate who promises to tax the bejeezus out of my bracket, ...
Then maybe you are in the wrong tax bracket. Try being in mine for a while. I think most people would prefer to be in a tax bracket that gets taxed like that and keep the rest, rather than where they are now.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
This kind of survey is a horrible predictor of actual outcomes because it confounds the political biases of the respondents with their expectations.
There is a good way to tease those motives apart and force respondents into the domain of prediction: grant financial rewards and penalties according to the accuracy of predictions. When there is reward or penalty for getting the answer wrong or right people are more inclined to tell you what they expect to happen than what they want to happen. That is why markets, such as the IEM outperform surveys
Ceci n'est pas une signature.
first 1000 people out of any phone book ran the country?" (paraphrasing) Although I imagine it was just a joke at a time, I am starting to believe more and more that it is true. It seems the problem of money and the unbelievable hassle of being vetted by the public simply drives away potentially excellent people from politics. Who wants your their life's history picked apart and every uncle, cousin, etc suddenly barraged by reporters to reveal everything about you that is really no one else's business?
Then where is the money going to come from? Well let see: one could align themselves with the MPAA, the RIAA, oil companies, pharmaceutical companies, and probably bring home suitcases full of cash as well as get their campaign funded.
killing my bad moderations...it's too easy to click the wrong button....
I think it's really cool that Scott Adams paid for this survey. And I was impressed by his analysis of the results. But I am not sure how much value there is in the result.
Democrat economists favored Obama (88%!). Republican economists favored McCain (80%!). Independents (who, as Scott Adams pointed out, are mostly in academia) favored Obama (just barely: 46% Obama to 39% McCain). Not really earthshaking results nor unexpected. Maybe he should ask for his money back.
Really, the biggest surprise to me is how solidly the recommendations aligned with the political party of the recommending economist. It makes me wonder whether economics is really that subjective, or whether ideology is trumping objectivity here.
I was amused that Scott Adams described himself as "Libertarian, minus the crazy stuff". I could say the same. My own recommendation: vote for gridlock. Since Congress is in the hands of the Democrats, vote for the Republican candidate, just to put some quicksand under the wheels of big government.
My favorite quote:
Heh. Scott Adams is a comedic genius. Actually, I think we can shorten that to: Scott Adams is a genius.
steveha
lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
Since actuarial tables suggest that John McCain has between a ~15% chance of dying in his first term, Scott Adams should see how Palin fares.
The rules that were put in place after the Great Depression were undone by Phil Gram (remember the "nation of whiners" guy?) and a corporate friendly congress. Surprise surprise, they turned the newly freed and unwatched credit market into a ten trillion dollar casino, and now the American tax payer will have to bail them out.
The next time anyone pushes for privatization, remember what they really want is to use taxpayer money for private benefit. Our answer should be no; corporate culture has proved time and time again that they are incapable of handling their own business. The free market works only when it is well regulated and continually redistributes wealth from richest to poorest.
The free market for me, and a great majority of society if you avoid tainted language, means that society benefits from the sharing of a strong infrastructure and equal access to health, education, and national resources. The "free market" as defined today means welfare for corporations, and an admonishment to "chin up" and "lift yourself up by your own bootstraps" if you're an individual.
Having read (okay, skimmed) the article...
Economists who call themselves "independent" are said to "lean towards Obama", but looking at the sample size I think you'd have to be biased to actually see that as significant - that one's a statistical dead heat.
Add that to Tastycrats favoring Obama, and Fingerlicans favoring McCain, and you're really no more informed than you were before you read the article.
However I do think it's pretty cool that Scott Adams put this together himself.
#DeleteChrome
Wow, the economists have joined the parties that they think are best for the economy. Shocking.
Not even this is surprising:
In January 2009, the total national debt will be the same, regardless of whoever is going to become president. This is a massive drag on the economy.
Furthermore, this is just a president, not a central committee chairman. The president obviously has some power, but he's definitely in second place. The part of government that has the most influence over the economy (congress), isn't getting nearly as much media coverage for their elections, as the president is. The next truly economy-related election is in two years, not in two months.
"Believe me!" -- Donald Trump
Anyone who says that we should increase someone's taxes by 30% of their gross (to roughly 60%) when they're just breaking the million-dollar income barrier during a credit crunch is GOOD for innovation and technology is just... just... I don't know what to say.... I NEED TO HIT SOMETHING!
The Scott Adams commentary contained this provocative remark:
Some of you will wonder how reliable a bunch of academics are when it comes to answering real life questions about the economy. You might prefer to know what CEOs think. But remember that CEOs are paid to be advocates for their stockholders, not advocates for voters. Asking CEOs what should be done about the economy is like asking criminals for legal advice.
Presumably criminals stand to benefit by giving others bad legal advice, and as criminals they could not be trusted to forgo personal gain for the principle of honesty. Likewise, CEOs stand to benefit by harming the economy and could not be trusted to forgo personal gain for the sake of improving the economic welfare of the nation.
Do CEOs benefit from a bad economy? "Yay! business is looking up because the economy is failing!". It is a more daft than deft analogy.
Ceci n'est pas une signature.
From TFA:
Man, that's sad. He's making more than 200K (must be, or the O-man's plan has him in line for a tax cut), and *that's* his whole basis for voting? No cocern for society as a whole huh? Just your own personal pocketbook. I guess in that case the %98 of the rest of us should blindly vote Democratic, as we'll get a tax cut.
Let's not even mention the fact that he's not actually going to *raise* taxes on the rich, so much as rescind the huge "temporary" emergency tax cut Bush pushed through in his first term as an "economic stimulus package". That economic experiment sure worked well, didn't it?
The results demonstrate that democratic economists lean left and republicans lean right. Economics ought to be unbaised. The fact that it is baised indicatse that economists can't be trusted to understand economic issues objectively.
It says nothing of the sort. You assume that being "liberal" makes you see economics in a certain way. There's also the possibility that through a study of economics, you come to be a Democrat or Republican.
The big question is, what is meant by "the economy"? Are we talking pure growth in GDP, or an equitable distribution of wealth, as well?
The question is, if there's a disagreement in science (like, say, about how life on Earth started), should we look at intelligent design "scientists" and evolutionary biologists and say, "Wow, there's a disagreement about the origin of life! Therefore, scientists cannot be trusted to understand the issue objectively!" Umm.... what a scary world that would be.
I'm sorry here folks, but this is a flawed premise to begin with.
How many of those economists based their opinions on hard data and rigorous modeling based upon a careful analysis of the facts? My guess is few, if any. From TFA:
What does this tell us? That economists, despite having had training on how to construct economic models, tend to be like other people. They form an opinion/bias (ie political party) and then they view the world through the haze of that opinion in a self-reinforcing way.
If you really want to shed some light on the economy, don't collect a survey of opinions from economists, fund detailed, rigorous studies.
I'm sorry, but I don't care what a bunch of pointy head economists say. They don't have a clue what is, what should be, or what could be.
and people saying It is better under (D) than (R) are just ignoring the facts, even considering "lag time". They tend to forget Stagflation of the late 70's where income tax rates were way up there, and on everyone.
No, the problem is that nobody knows what would have been, could have been, should have been if the government got out of the way.
But we can know that the FAILED policies of the LEFT, destroyed the African American community, by destroying the families in the name of "welfare".
And if Leftwing Economics is so great, why not move to Cuba or china where government controls everything aspect of the economy.
As far as I'm concerned, the government is a big part of the problem.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
When there is reward or penalty for getting the answer wrong or right people are more inclined to tell you what they expect to happen than what they want to happen. That is why markets, such as the IEM outperform surveys
Right, because $5-10 is a huge motivator.
You realize that another explanation is just as likely? The people making those markets work look at MULTIPLE polls and use their critical thinking to see which seem reasonable, what sorts of biases there may be, etc. Otherwise, where do you think they are getting their information?
It's sad that his wealth seems to have isolated and insulated him so that he seems increasingly to be just going through the motions - but he is well placed to report on the views of economists.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
I see a lot of analogies in this thread, but no car analogies. Could BadAnalogyGuy or someone else please provide us with some car analogies to explain the economy, this survey, Scott Adams, what economists do, and anything else you feel could be well covered by a good solid car analogy. Thank you.
First against the wall when the revolution comes
It appears that the Bush administration did see a train wreck coming:
New Agency Proposed to Oversee Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae
So see why the free market couldn't correct earlier check this commentary out:
Financial Markets Are in a Mess
The results demonstrate that democratic economists lean left and republicans lean right.
That's actually not what it says. It says that among economists, those who believe Democrats are more likely to be good for the economy are likely to belong to that party and vote for that party's candidate, and those who believe Republicans are more likely to be good for the economy are likely to belong to that party and vote for that party's candidate. That's pretty rational behavior.
It also tells us a significant but not overwhelming majority believe Democrats are more likely to be good.
There is no real information about how biased the thinking process that helped them arrive at these conclusions was.
Tweet, tweet.
"If all economists were laid end to end, they would not reach a conclusion." - George Bernard Shaw
Could you expand on that vague yet sweeping statement?
CEOs are hired for who they know, not what they know. Their contacts lead to favourable contracts and favours from politicians. In other words, they are the private sector version of politicians. These are frat people and as long as their staff can keep them out of making stupid decisions, they are worth it to the stockholders.
It's the exceptional CEO that knows about stuff as well as knowing about people.
1) Some of the questions were biased, such as "Increase taxes on wealthy." It's obvious Obama would be more likely to institute such a policy, but not whether that's "best" for the economy.
2) The definition of "best" for the economy is subjective. I'd interpret it as highest GNP, least debt/deficit, low inflation, strong dollar, etc. Some of the economists praised policies including "economic justice" (ratio of richest to poorest or some kind of ideal distribution) or "protecting the environment" (I have no idea what an economic indicator would be). There are also several "schools" of economic thought Austrian, Keynesian, socialist, free market, supply side, communist, capitalist. I'd have liked to see a breakdown of economic philosophy of the participants and opinions about definite economic indicators.
The issues most important, in order:
1. Education
2. Healthcare
3. International Trade
4. Energy.
Obama obviously leads on first 2. .. http://alisavaldesrodriguez.blogspot.com/2008/09/latinas-and-palin.html )
( but he isn't likely to win, now with Palin putting the white women's vote, and the Latina vote, to McCain
If the first most important items are dealt with Right Now,
then we'd be in much better shape to muscle the rest into line, right?
Triage.
Too bad it's going to be McCain, though..
TFA says that "most" of the Independents surveyed are in Academia, which has a noted lean to the left in America.
It is the economists on WALL STREET, not those on campus, whose lives directly depend on a strong economy. I have a strong feeling that if they were polled the results would be heavily skewed towards the candidate that is not announcing large tax increases...
Speaking of which, one of the issues asked of the economists is which candidate would "raise taxes on the wealthy". Does anyone contend that there is dispute on that issue? Also, doesn't posing that question imply that it is a presumed virtue of a candidate?
This survey is not seeking truth, it is seeking to influence political opinion of those reading it.
The odds of it mattering are too small to worry about. If they do vote, voting for president is the race where you'll definitely have the least influence.
The problem with economists, and other politicians, including the two major party presidential candidates we're stuck with, is that regardless of their knowledge of how to achieve anything (be it economics or anything else), they are more swayed by what they desire to achieve. Economists with a right-wing preference would look at an economy that swings wildly up and down over and over and say "see, it's working just fine". Economists with a left-wing preference would look at a state run economy that hands out money to people that don't work hard and say "see, it's working just fine".
What people need to do is figure out what kind of economy they want and choose the politicians who are dedicated to having that kind. They'll find whoever they need to get to achieve it. At the same time, everyone else who wanted a different kind of economy will be hell bent on sabotaging this effort. Ultimately, the only economy that has a chance of being politically stable is whatever economy is a political median, that is where half the population wants to go one way and half the population wants to go the other way.
So, don't ask the politicians about how they will achieve "fixing" our economy. Instead, ask them what their vision of a good economy is.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
Academia tends to align with the party that will funnel them the most grant money and won't screw with their tenure! Film at 11!
How about Mr. Adams give us some actual data which backs up their opinions instead of simply giving us some fun bite sized percentages?
A more accurate quote would be:
"The alternative to the guy who promises to hold a shotgun to my head is the guy who lets me choose what brand of shotgun he uses."
Economists are businessmen/women who can't get a real job.
he could probably get more valuable information about the economy from hookers. The oldest profession feels the pain. But its one thing that is harder to outsource- well except ........ (countries deleted to keep this post from being labeled Flame Bait)
All economic policies are is who controls the money supply in the US. Take the 80/20 rule and realize that the top 20% have 80% of the money. So a Republican (typically .. please note that) wants that person in the top 20% to decide more how that person spends their own hard earned cash. A Democrat (typically .. please note that) wants the government to decide who and how to re-distribute that 80% of money to the other 80% of people.
It all boils down to control. Do you want the government to control how you spend your money or do you want to be free to spend it how you see (invest in a business, TV, or what have you).
I am not trying to create a philosophical flame war or anything - just trying to break it down.
And, since there were more than 3x as many Democrats in the pool as Republicans, I would assume that many of the "Independents" were also left-leaning. For whatever reason, apparently "economist" is a field that attracts liberals.
It's entirely possible that the field makes liberals instead of attracting them. I suspect that the important factor is less "being an economist" than being an academic. Non-academic types go into industry, and (I'd imagine) would be more likely to be rightists.
One other factor: the economic mode of analysis encourages nonjudgementalism regarding individual decision-making, so I suspect that economists would tend to be socially liberal, whatever their fiscial position.
The one fact that jumped out at me though was the lack of correlation between the economists' view on taxation and their own income. This single fact mutes my own cynicism.
Wikileaks, no DNS
"We asked the economists which candidate for president would be best for the economy in the long run. Not surprisingly, 88 percent of Democratic economists think Democratic Sen. Barack Obama would be best, while 80 percent of Republican economists pick Republican Sen. John McCain."
Gee, you can't tell me that the rest of the study was objective. Bob Barr for el presidente!
"These two entities - Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac - are not facing any kind of financial crisis," said Representative Barney Frank of Massachusetts, the ranking Democrat on the Financial Services Committee. "The more people exaggerate these problems, the more pressure there is on these companies, the less we will see in terms of affordable housing."
Sarah-geddon
By Mark Ames
September 15, 2008
Last week, Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin declared that she was willing to go to war against Russia on behalf of Georgia. Palin wasn't talking about launching World War III on behalf of our Georgia--you know, the adorable Southern state famous for its peaches, June bugs and KKK marches--but rather for a tiny mountainous country that few Americans even knew existed before last month, and still couldn't locate on a map if their lives depended on it--even though their lives now do depend on it.
If the polls are correct, then come this January, Palin will find herself one melanoma growth away from the presidency. So when she says she's ready to go to war with Russia on behalf of Georgia, we better take it seriously.
What's even more frightening is that Palin's comments weren't some amateurish slip-up but rather the culmination of a neocon campaign to avenge Russia's crushing defeat of US-backed Georgian forces in August. What the neocons and McCainites want is another war--this time one in which Russia loses. And they have another brilliant plan to make it happen: transform picturesque little Georgia into the bloodiest hellhole on earth... and if that doesn't work, then hand the button to Palin and let her bring on The Rapture.
On August 14, just as the Georgians and Russians signed their ceasefire, the pro-McCain neocon rag The Weekly Standard published an article "The Pain Game: A military response to Russia's aggression?" calling for the Pentagon to refit Georgian forces to fight a protracted, Chechnya-style guerrilla war against Russia. The author, an old cold war goon named Stuart Koehl, admitted that pushing Georgia into a Chechnya-style guerrilla struggle against Russia would result in a "long and difficult war" and would be "messy," because the Russians "will probably respond to this as they did to the bloodletting in both Afghanistan and Chechnya"--in other words, by killing tens or hundreds of thousands of Georgians. But that's no skin off this neocon's back, because if Georgia managed to hang in as long as it takes for such a war, victory over Russia could be achieved "in a way that would not directly involve US or NATO forces." In other words, Koehl and the rest of the neocons are ready to fight Russia to the last Georgian. And that might literally mean the last Georgian, if you look at what the Russians did to Chechnya.
The idea seems to be gaining traction, as an anonymous defense analyst told a military reporter a couple of weeks ago that America should convert the Georgian armed forces into a "Hezbollah" guerrilla force for the same purpose--bleed the Russians into defeat, while we sit back and chant "Hoo-ah!"
Lost in all of these apocalyptic plans for "helping" Georgia is what the Georgian people themselves might think. How do they feel about the McCainites' plans for turning their ancient, charming country into one of the world's bloodiest hellholes--Chechnya meets South Lebanon by way of Afghanistan, according to the neocons' own words. As the popular war blogger Gary Brecher explained: "Starting a guerrilla war means sentencing most of the people in your address book to a very nasty death." Do Georgians really want that?
Last Friday, after hearing Palin say she was ready for war with Russia, I got on the phone and called some leading Georgian figures. Right away, it became clear to me why the neocons and Sarah Palin don't want you to know what the Georgians think about their plans for Georgia.
"If America goes to war against Russia, that would mean nuclear war," said a bewildered Alexander Rondeli, president of the Georgian Foundation for Strategic and International Studies, a think-tank closely tied to the government of President Mikheil Saakashvili. "As for Georgia becoming like Chechnya, Chechnya is a disaster. What the Russians have done there is a genocide, so Chechnya is not a good scenario for us. We Georgians want to live normally. No, our country is not in favor of starting
It's quite thorough and useful, but it reads as if the personal bias affected the results. This isn't surprising. I've found that my friends have a reaction to Sarah Palin that's 100% correlated with their politics. So I'm not surprised that the economists felt the same way. So I'm sticking with the independents who conclude that it's a toss up. The real problem here is that we're trying to guess "better" when the two paths are just different. Obama will certainly pour more money into infrastructure and rebuilding the industries that hire Americans to do things. McCain will probably pour more money into bolstering America's influence abroad, probably through military action. Is one better? It depends what you want. But we'll get one. That's for sure. I don't think the Libertarians are going to win.
Moneywise, I can't support a candidate who promises to tax the bejeezus out of my bracket, give the windfall to a bunch of clowns with a 14 percent approval rating (Congress), and hope they spend it wisely. Unfortunately, the alternative to the guy who promises to pillage my wallet is a lukewarm cadaver. I'm in trouble either way.
if you check out those sentences, you may think that the republican administrations up to date, especially this administration, havent taken cash out of his pocket. and democrats, supposedly, take cash from your pocket, and give it to senate to waste. how simple. but also, how stupid.
...
yea republican administration didnt increase your taxes, up until now. but what did they do instead ? they used EXISTING public funds and wasted them on foreign wars and crap, totaling to $400bn/year for iraq, ALONE.
spent money, has to come from somewhere, right ? sure. and since these republicans are the puppet of big business, and they cant tax them, and since they wont tax you also, what can they do ? they used existing public funds from ELSEWHERE. juggled all kinds of government funds, issued bonds, sold bonds to chinese and so on.
i dont think there is anybody among you who would be stupid as to not understand that these spendings, these debts are going to be paid from somewhere.
from where ?
not the little green men, for sure. YOU are going to pay it. EVEN IF it doesnt come directly from your pocket in the form of taxes.
and here you have, a financial disaster, in which you not only sank yourselves, but dragged ENTIRE world down with you. what a shame, what ignorance, what foolishness. EVERYone of us on the globe, suffering because of this.
'deregulation' 'hands off business'
economy is another SOCIAL aspect of human life. as with every social aspect of life, because there are more than one person involved, there are going to be opportunists, schemers, bastards, criminals, fraudsters, every kind of people.
if you do "hands off", that basically means that all these ill willed elements of the society will be free to roam as they like in that field of life.
and so it did happen. some smartyboys came up with a scheme to make quick bucks over another segment of society, painted some high risk loans so nicely that low income people were lured to take them, and then also sold bonds tied to these high risk loans not only nationally but internationally. and, because 'hands off business', they werent regulated, overseen, controlled and checked if they were attempting anything fishy.
way to go.
now we are all headed towards the bottom of the trash can, globally.
and yet, a person like scott adams, STILL talks about 'take money from my pocket with taxes'.
HELLOOOOOOOO !!!?!?!?! with this goddamn global crisis, more cash is going to get out of your pocket than democrats can EVER tax out of you !!!
holy cow.
people, it happened. it should NOT have happened, but it happened.
so please, this time, be smart, think long term, and elect someone who is not as idiot as to still say "deregulation" every other sentence.
Read radical news here
Marxists? No, they were mostly Democrats, not Republicans.
Republicans have consistently increased spending and the size of government during their tenures. 8 years of George Bush, with 6 of them having all branches of government dominated by Republicans, and we've got trillions of dollars of extra debt and a new federal department of pork.
It's been a long time.
For whatever reason, apparently "economist" is a field that attracts liberals.
Maybe that's why republicans think you can cut taxes and increase spending and everything will work out okay.
OK, I'll bite.
The truth is that for the last 50 years or so, the "profession" of "economist" has attracted what you would call "liberals" (or what I would call "statists") who believe in increased government control of or interference in economic affairs.
Since the late 1940s Keynesian macroeconomics have been the fashion with the vast majority of economists. Therefore, economics has tended to attract people who agree with his theories, ie. central government planning of the economy.
Keynesian theories are regarded as "gospel" for most economists. People who view it as wrong are generally not considered "credible." It's not hard to see how this profession would then attract people with a similar political philosophy.
From there, it's not such a stretch to see a fairly heavy statist-leaning bias in this survey of economists.
N.B. : I am not saying one or the other is right, nor faulting Scott Adams in least. I'm merely trying to point out the flaws inherent in the system....
http://clightnirish.wordpress.com/
Also consider Academia is historically liberal / democrat. It is like asking a government worker if he wants more government so he can have a raise...
Oh, so those who disagree with you have biases. Really smooth move there, Scott!
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
We want to encourage the most productive members of society and not tax them more than the rest of us. The work of these people benefit both rich and poor.
That is why society gives them things - good schools, roads, security. The tax dollars of the poor are also used to benefit this more well off sector of the economy. Remember that.
These productive people usually start off with better odds. Those who start without the socially provided benefits of those well off can follow all the rules, work twice as hard and have worse odd of succeeding than the suburban kid who just sluffs along. Remember that. That is what pisses some off who then call for 'social justice'.
A "fucking cartoonist"?
How many books have you written? Have you started your own food company yet?
Wealthy people don't get that way by being lazy, son.
They don't grade fathers, but if your daughter's a stripper, you fucked up. --Chris Rock
You mean he didn't just ask the garbage man?
Then maybe you are in the wrong tax bracket. Try being in mine for a while.
If you were more productive, maybe you would be in a higher tax bracket.
How many books have you written? Ever start a food company?
No. You just sit around and wish you made more money.
They don't grade fathers, but if your daughter's a stripper, you fucked up. --Chris Rock
No shit.
FTFA:
Nationally, most economists are male and registered as either Democrats or Independents. The survey sample reflects that imbalance.
48% Democrats
17% Republicans
27% Independents
3% Libertarian
5% Other or not registered
That's to be assumed, since Fox News is the punch line to the joke that is the mainstream media. Since everyone with half a brain knows that fox news is biased, and Bill O'Reily is one of the worst, what reason could you possibly have to make that comment except to start an argument?
Do CEOs benefit from a bad economy?
Corporations benefit from an economy that has certain characteristics. For example, consider unemployment.
If the unemployment rate is too low, corporations have to pay too high a cost for labor, and profits are reduced. If the unemployment rate is too high, corporations don't see enough demand for their goods and services, and profits are reduced. There is a certain level of unemployment that benefits corporations.
Similarly, there is a certain level of unemployment that optimally benefits people who work for corporations... too low, and the company makes less profits, and wages stagnate. Too high, and there's more competition for jobs, and wages stagnate.
These two levels are not necessarily the same. In fact it would be unlikely in the extreme for them to be the same. The optimal level of unemployment, as seen by perfectly honest and omniscient CEOs, is not the same as the optimal level of unemployment, as seen by professional workers, and that in turn is likely to be different from the optimal level as seen by factory workers.
And none of these would levels imply a "bad economy".
Just about any other economic statistic can vary over quite a wide band, without being necessarily a sign of a "bad economy". Ask different people for economic advice, and they are likely to give you answers that leads to an economy that benefits them. If you ask people whose interests are not representative of the average voter the answers they give you are not going to help the average voter decide who to vote for.
Now, given that there is a fairly popular meme that the interests of corporations are best matched by an economy with a lot of low paid workers with high unemployment and a smaller consumer class buying stuff from corporations making the owning class richer, well... the Dilbertian position that "Asking CEOs what should be done about the economy is like asking criminals for legal advice." is only to be expected from Dilbert's creator.
Being an economists means that you work in a profession where you can be wrong more frequently and be further off with your predictions that those who create the weather forecasts and still keep your job.
Cheers,
Dave
They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither safety nor liberty.
Ben
Of course the survey leans towards Obama - look at the demo's:
"Nationally, most economists are male and registered as either Democrats or Independents. The survey sample reflects that imbalance.
48% Democrats
17% Republicans
27% Independents
3% Libertarian
5% Other or not registered"
Ave Molech Setting
The nationalization of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac is nothing new. From their creation in the 1930s, these entities were government controlled. Whether government controlled them outright or had partially privatized them, government always called the shots. Government set terms on what types of mortgages they could offer, to whom, and in what amount. Most importantly, government provided a widely understood "implicit" guarantee of the debt issued by these entities. Unlike other financial institutions, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac could issue debt (which was then lent out to mortgage borrowers) with the backing of the U.S. Treasury and Federal Reserve. That gave Fannie and Freddie an edge over private banks in making mortgage loans, by design. Reportedly, 50% of all outstanding mortgages are guaranteed by Fannie and Freddie, and as much as 75% of all new mortgages in recent years were issued by these agencies.
The government's purpose in forming these entities was to make mortgages more widely available. Absent Fannie and Freddie, the other way to get mortgages has always been from private, profit-seeking banks, banks that had to safeguard their credit by striving to lend their money only to creditworthy borrowers. The only way Fannie and Freddie could out-compete these banks was by doing the one thing its government backing enabled it to do: lend to less creditworthy borrowers. This is a case of the bad credit driving out the good credit. In the space of 70 years, millions of uncreditworthy borrowers got mortgages as these government agencies pushed out the more prudent private banks and gained the largest market share in the mortgage market.
Now the loans are being called. The credit and stock markets are calling these loans en masse. The sheer weight of thousands of deadbeat borrowers has created a crisis that even the implicit guarantee of Fannie and Freddie's debt by the U.S. government cannot ameliorate. So, this weekend the implicit guarantee has been made explicit.
That should make it fully clear to everyone, if it wasn't during the past 70 years of the "implicit" guarantee. The lender to all these deadbeat borrowers, borrowers who didn't qualify to get loans from private banks, is you, me, and everyone else in this country. We are all on the hook for the bad loans to our neighbors. That is socialism, and now it has been made explicit.
--Retail falls after August sales' unexpected decline
--Economists React: An Unexpected Rise in the PPI
--Economists Say UK Inflation to Peak Soon Despite Larger-than-Expected CPI
--US Service Sector Sees Unexpected Rise In August
--Chicago: Unexpected bump for area economy
--New-home sales post unexpected gain in July
--US shares soar as unexpected figures paint better picture
--German investor confidence posts second surprise rise
Economists, it seems, have supplanted weather casters as the only profession where you can be wrong most of the time and still keep your job.
I can already see the November headline: McCain Wins Unexpected Landslide Victory
Scott Adams is an idiot. He had a funny take on the other idiots who surrounded him in his PacTel cubicle in the 1990s, but that's just the idiot leading the idiots. Read his "Dogbert management books" for business insights that aren't even funny, in ways that show he actually knows as little about business management as the idiots he mocks.
Here's Adams' latest demonstration of his idiocy, in this stupid (and not funny) editorial:
The surge escalation has failed. Of course throwing tens of thousands of new US troops at a civil war will succeed in beating back the enemies, making them less likely to try attacks than when the US military was spread too thin to intimidate. No one questions whether our military is good at killing and intimidating enemies, when Washington (run by Bush and McCain's Republican Party) isn't keeping them too weak to do the job.
But the surge's job wasn't just to drop the killing. That was a means to an end, to create a political opportunity that was totally squandered. The Iraqi government is a farce that hasn't governed anything, even when we give it a break in the action during which it can concentrate on governing. It has failed. And since the purpose of the surge escalation has failed, the surge has failed. Anyone saying any different just thinks that the purpose of war is to kill. It's not, and those people have lost the Iraq War since they started it.
But hey, if the surge worked, then we won. Let's get the hell out of there already. Not stay the "100 years, maybe forever" that McCain thinks equals victory. If we've got to keep troops there, we're losing. Only getting out of there is any real measure of victory.
Yeah, and then he totally ignored that most economists are Democrats. Because people who understand the economy vote for Democrats. Even among Republican economists, more Republicans support Obama than Democrat economists for McCain. That speaks much more than what Adams' single datapoint survey says.
Of course, that is what every single American (who isn't crazy) says about their political bias.
And there we have the basic evidence of Scott Adams idiocy. Or rather, his lying. Obama might be raising Adams' taxes, if he makes over $250,000 a year. He's almost certainly not going to raise yours. You can see for yourself with the Obama Tax Cut Web Calculator, which takes 15 seconds and 3 status facts about you to show you the dollar amount of your Obama tax cut.
Adams is a rich guy who makes his money satirizing incompetents running big orgs. His pocketbook is threatened by Obama because he's made so much more money than most people, benefited so much more than most people, from the exact kinds of idiots he needs in power for him to sell more books and cartoons. He's as scared of McCain as he is of Obama, because though he believes McCain won't tax him (but the country would fall apart, an expensive proposition even for a cartoonist who has to live in it), because McCain is boring. Which means he won't be a good c
--
make install -not war
It is really a balancing act.
A full politically planned economy will fail as it is to slow to react to supply and demand.
A free for all economy without safe guards will make it to risky for people to take any risks and do something new and rewarding.
There are some areas that should be privatized as competition spurs lower prices, better quality, and/or more innovation, and its budgets and how it uses them are not fixated on your boss trying to get to get elected for the next term, and can do things that people may not like but is necessary.
There are other areas that shouldn't be privatized as failure may not be an option and need people with focus on making it work and not money, for it to succeed, or monopolization factors take in place.
Equal access can be considered tainted language as well. Part of the reason for free market society is not so everyone gets equal access, but access based on the supply and demand of the work they do. A person doing a job that none wants to do and hard to find people to do it will get paid more. Doing a job that is easy and easy to find people to do it will be paid less. I often see the CEO's car parked cold early in the morning when I get in and still there when I leave after a long day and ultimatly the take the blame for a messup, it is not that easy of a job and deserve to be paid more then the average employee (CEO prices may be too high now for its curve but that is an other problem). But why should you for working hard and increasing your value should be paid the same as some guy who never worked hard and just slides by.
But there services that people need that should be shared equally as the costs for the have not's could be detramental to society as plauges spread or people growing up without skills to be productive, and resources that can use, and not be horded by the have's.
There is a real fine line you need to follow. It is not simple by any means go one direction and an opposing effect will kick in. There are tons of factors going on some are more flexible then others so to say it worked with X then it will work with Y may not be true. Or it failed with Y so it will fail with Z. It seems like you are trying to invision a perfect world... It won't happen there are way to many factors that will stop that. Some of the worlds most disparate and poor countries are that way because there rulers tried to control things (To the Left and to the Right) so much that it ended up not working. We should work on being better on the average but not trying to fix all the problems.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
I'm sorry, but that is flat out wrong. If you are poor and working several jobs, the tax prep you have to do is unbelievable and the burden is large.
And don't forget, the burden to the middle class is : I can't get that new flat screen TV.
The smaller d burden to the poor is still : I can't afford the gas to get to work.
That being said, I believe overassisting the poor creates dependency and discourages real work.
Why on earth would you cite the MOONIES as a source?
There's an interesting analysis (partisan Republican) here: http://online.wsj.com/public/article_print/SB122117691244025843.html. Looking at them, I think the bottom line is that the historical growth/party statistics don't really mean anything, and any information they have is swamped by the "usual" information about each candidate, economic theory etc.
Therefore, the capitalist system needs regulation to keep it out of those corners where it doesn't work anymore.
This is why when we get people in power who don't realize this, and start turning off more and more of government's regulatory facilities, (rather than making them less oenerous but keeping them effective) we end up with problems in our economy.
- "History shows again and again how nature points out the folly of men" -- Blue Oyster Cult, 'Godzilla'
Can't remember the survey, but a (seemingly nonpartisan) group projected forward and found that McCain would add a trillion dollars more to the debt than Obama based on their known program expenditures and tax plans. The major problem I have is that both intend to increase the national debt by several trillion dollars. To me, that's a bad thing.
It is interesting to see what the economists think is important to the economy. I was a bit surprised that the debt is gaining ground (28% ranked it 8-10 in importance). I'd much rather see the country acting like a business wrt debt - you have to rest your line of credit at least once every (n) years to keep in good standing. I can see lots of reasons to have a debt, but very little reason to have it expanding so quickly with no plan to retire it.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
" But remember that CEOs are paid to be advocates for their stockholders, not advocates for voters."
Well who says that economists are advocates for voters? Economists are usually advocates for their own faction of economic ideology. What many economists believe depend as much on their politics as any set of financial data.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
I'm glad to see it came up on the survey but I'm sad to see that it's not a priority, and right now only one post in this thread even mentions it.
Does anyone else see that there's something seriously wrong with a government rewarding your lifetime of paying taxes by applying what is effectively a flat tax to everything you owned when you died? It's enough to make a man rise from the grave and eat the brains of his oppressors.
You may be thinking "Oh great a whining trust fund baby who's upset he had to settle for a Zonda instead of a Veyron because he didn't get enough of his parents' money" but I'm not rich by a long shot, maybe that's why I see this as such a big issue. The lower and middle classes are badly hurt by this and the upper class and super rich just shrug it off. This only accelerates the concentration of wealth into the hands of a few.
And while this is about American politics, I see this as an issue in any country where there is an estate tax.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
Garbage in, garbage out, as they say.
With these two clowns, the question isn't "which one would be better for the economy?", but "which one will do the lesser amount of damage to the economy?"
In times of universal deceit, telling the truth gets you modded -1 Troll
Getting taxed by a Democratic administration, then I'm okay with that...because I sure am not anywhere near his tax bracket then, and I think I make a pretty good living compared to most other folks in my community. I wouldn't mind it at all if Scott Adams takes a tax hit and even a bit of that cash is used to fix the potholes in the street that causes me to have flat tires that cost me considerably more than I'd pay in taxes relatively to get my wheels fixed.
That said, it's painfully obvious that by reading replies to this story, what party the posters belong to. When your side is on the losing side of a study, you whine and bitch, when your side is on the winning side, you lavish praise. Personally, I think it's really interesting that only 3% of those economists call themselves libertarians, while almost half define themselves as Democrats.
My opponent wouldn't even know the answer to that question. If you ask him the same question he would not answer it! He would just stand around and babble on and on about nothing, until finally he was saved by the buzz--
"Man, that's sad. He's making more than 200K (must be, or the O-man's plan has him in line for a tax cut), and *that's* his whole basis for voting? No cocern for society as a whole huh? Just your own personal pocketbook."
Thanks for providing a blatant example of hypocrisy.
For years, Democrats have been indignantly telling voters "Fool! Why aren't you voting your economic interests?", completely rejecting any notion that money shouldn't be the most important thing to voters. But Adams indicates that's exactly what he's doing... voting his economic interests... and now he's a bad guy for it? He's not allowed to vote his interests?
So, do vote economic interests for a Democrats, because its the only logical choice.
But don't vote economic interests for a Republicans, because there are more important things than money. Have I got that right?
Well, thanks for clearing that up there, Janus.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
To eliminate the political bias, you don't count those votes of people that are sheeple enough to actually claim affiliation to one party or the other.
Then you run through the numbers and see how the fluctuations run.
Then you'll find out that people touting this to be a critical, world changing, one of the most important elections ever are totally wrong. Independent economists surveyed find that neither one of them are likely to make a difference in the long term.
Thus, the inherent problem with the two party system rears it's ugly head.
American politics isn't about choosing which candidate is best, it's about choosing which one isn't worse. Just follow their television advertising, it's always about how the other guy is worse, not how the one is better. Picking which candidate won't be worse is about as effective as taking a sampling of 6th grade boys by height and predicting which of them will play in the NBA.
In Scott Adams's survey of members of the American Economic Association, he found 48% Democrats, 17% Republicans, 27% Independents, 3% Libertarian, and 5% Other or not registered. However, in this working paper by Gross and Simmons (at Harvard and GMU, respectively), surveying economists working in academia, they find 34.3% Democrats, 37.1% Independents, and 28.6% Republicans.
Anyone have ideas on what's up with the disparities in the statistics? The only explanation I can think of is that the AEA includes economists in the public sector, where (as one might expect) folks tend to favor government intervention in the economy.
(By the way, for anyone curious, the stats for academia as a whole are 45.2% Democrats, 38.9% Independents, and 15.9% Republicans. In English it's 51.0/47.1/2.0, in computer science it's 32.3/58.1/9.7, and in electrical engineering it's 13.2/55.3/31.6)
"The surge escalation has failed."
It didn't succeed? Funny. Even your beloved political messiah now says that it has.
Ive already said its succeeded beyond our wildest dreams. - Barack Obama, Sept. 4th
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
I'd really like to know what Smith, Keynes, or Friedman would think. Unfortunately, 2 of them are long dead and the third probably doesn't like to think about it anymore, let alone able to feed or wipe himself.
That is the more likely scenario, the coalition of maximum profits will impose a naval blockade and embargo around Iran to try and bankrupt them and foment internal revolution. Failing that, I would expect a false flag attack on one of the coalitions ships to be used as an excuse to attack them heavily from the air. Iran has to import refined fuels, they export crude but don't produce enough internally of the refined and usable. A naval blockade would be felt there immediately.
As to big oil, I am expecting them to keep trying and drop crude prices in advance of the election, one, to help mccain get in, two, to kill off alternative energy.
So he funds a survey of economists who are mostly registered Democrats and then subtly criticizes the validity of the study because (presumably) they favor the candidate who (in his opinion) will tax the bejeezus out of his wallet and who happens to be a democrat.
Is this a joke or what?
The 1998, 1999, 2000, and 2001 budgets had total spending for the year lower than total income for the year, not based on any sort of future payoff. Those were the first surplus budgets since 1969's small surplus. The deficit returned as soon as Clinton left office, as all of Bush's budgets have been in deficit.
See the CBO data, the past 15 years of which Wikipedia nicely graphs.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
I'm giong to ask how you get to Socio-economic liberalism through cultural and ethnic diversity when a poll shows a socio-political and socio-economic viewpoints across party lines not numerically equal...how does this have anything to do with the abundance of liberal vs conservative viewpoints based upon population concentration?
Mildly disjointed, but still noteworthy...
Academia as a whole is fairly left-leaning, but economics departments are probably the most conservative field of academia. Where do you think the underpinnings of the libertarian philosophy were carried out? In university economics departments, in the U.S. centered around the University of Chicago's.
Of course, it depends on what kind of conservatism you're looking for. If you're looking for free-market, minimal-regulation, efficient-capitalism, free-trade sorts of conservatism, it's not only still present but probably the dominant position in American economics departments, the so-called "neoliberal consensus" (the "liberal" in "neoliberal" is not very closely related to modern American political liberalism). Only a minority of American economists take any sort of strong opposition to that in favor of social democracy or socialism or anything of that sort.
If you're looking for something more narrowly political, like people who think George Bush's (or Ronald Reagan's) economic policies are good, well yes, you'll look more in vain, but not really because of anything to do with liberals vs. conservatives; more because supply-side economics has never been widely respected among even the conservative wing of economists.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
You have to remember that a lot of futures trading is based on perception. Notice how oil ran up to almost $150/barrel based on, well, nothing really. There was no reduction in supply, no spike in demand, etc. It was all based off of fears about the future.
Well, such a thing can work in reverse. Even though working to increase US production won't have a supply impact now, it will in the future. Thus it could make the market decide to trade oil futures at a lower price, even though nothing has changed but perception.
The market is more emotion and perception than most would like to admit. Facts play a part, but a whole lot of it is just how people perceive things. Thus even if a drilling project does nothing more than change perceptions, it could help.
Not advocating it as a solution, just trying to help you understand.
Given this choice, I'd vote for a cadaver in a heartbeat. Fortunately, McCain is quite hale and healthy, so the choice is perfectly clear.
There is a deeper truth in here. You may disagree — and most Libertarians do — with both major movements (the Left and the Right). We despise the Left's intent to spend our money (taken from us at gunpoint, remember) as they see fit, while the Right's quest to control our bodies is quite repulsive too.
The reason most Libertarians end up siding with the Right, is because it is possible to escape them. As long as I have my money, I can travel to Canada to have an abortion, put blinds on my windows, or move to a less conservative State. On the other hand, if my "windfall" income is taxed, being able to engage anal sex and have an abortion (in a state-run clinic, of course) is poor consolation — I'm not into most of those things anyway, even though I think, they ought to be perfectly legal as a matter of principle.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
I will never forget a conversation I had with a Dutch friend while visiting Holland.
The Dutch, in general, are a fairly conservative people overall. (yes, I know - generalization....)
So we got to talking about the conservative people vs the liberal laws they have regarding social issues. I asked him about this apparent contradiction and I will never forget his reply: "Holland is a very very diverse country. The alternative to social liberalism is chaos. There are so many different groups with different beliefs that we have to have liberal laws".
Which is exactly opposite of what we seem to do here in America. There's a lesson in there somewhere.....
it was totally a lack of regulation and oversight. ie - LAW's rule.
it doesnt matter whether the event stemmed from a malicious intent, or with the best of intentions. what matters is, regardless of intentions, it happened, and it is bringing the whole world down.
Read radical news here
Out of 500 economists only 17% are Republicans.
This in itself has to be statistically significant. I'm just not sure what it is signficant of.
So, through the use of wishful thinking and vacuous statements, we can control market prices today?
I can't decide if it's freaking hilarious or pathetically sad, but, yeah, that does appear to be how the game of global finance is played.
Knowledge != Intelligence
78th Congress (1943-1945): House: D Senate: D Prez: FDR
79th Congress: House:D Senate:D Prez:Truman
80th Congress: House:R Senate:R Prez:Truman
81st Congress: House:D Senate:D Prez:Truman
82nd Congress: House:D Senate:Tie Prez:Truman
83rd Congress: House:R Senate:R Prez:Eisenhower
84th Congress: House:D Senate:D Prez:Eisenhower
85th Congress: House:D Senate:D Prez:Eisenhower
86th Congress: House:D Senate:D Prez:Eisenhower
87th Congress: House:D Senate:D Prez:Kennedy
88th Congress: House:D Senate:D Prez:Kennedy/Johnson
89th Congress: House:D Senate:D Prez:Johnson
90th Congress: House:D Senate:D Prez:Johnson
91st Congress: House:D Senate:D Prez:Nixon
92nd Congress: House:D Senate:D Prez:Nixon
93rd Congress: House:D Senate:D Prez:Nixon/Ford
94th Congress: House:D Senate:D Prez:Ford
95th Congress: House:D Senate:D Prez:Carter
96th Congress: House:D Senate:D Prez:Carter
97th Congress (1981-1983): House:D Senate:R Prez:Reagan
98th Congress: House:D Senate:R Prez:Reagan
99th Congress: House:D Senate:R Prez:Reagan
100th Congress: House:D Senate:D Prez:Reagan
101st Congress: House:D Senate:D Prez:Bush
102nd Congress: House:D Senate:D Prez:Bush
103rd Congress: House:D Senate:D Prez:Clinton
104th Congress: House:R Senate:R Prez:Clinton
105th Congress: House:R Senate:R Prez:Clinton
106th Congress: House:R Senate:R Prez:Clinton
107th Congress: House:R Senate:R/D Prez:Bush
108th Congress: House:R Senate:R Prez:Bush
109th Congress: House:R Senate:R Prez:Bush
110th Congress: House:D Senate:D Prez:Bush
"I believe that the individuals right to property is very important, but I don't extend that to artificially protected entities such as corporations"
Corporations are treated legally as individuals because they must be in order to have liability. Are you opposed to that? It seems important. . .
"and I don't believe that the right to that property inherently includes uses of it that impact others."
But practically all uses of property inherently impact others. If you grow food on your land, it will impact others by increasing the supply of food. If you do not grow food on your land, you are impacting others by not allowing them to use the land for that purpose. I don't see how you can say that someone has property rights but then dictate how they can use their property.
"aren't flat taxes regressive"
No, regressive taxes tax higher incomes at a lower marginal rate. A flat tax is by definition flat, neither regressive or progressive. In the US SS is regressive, income tax is progressive and sales tax is flat.
"Of course the part they will be neglecting is that they didn't really pay into the system, they paid and then spent on other purposes every extra nickel rather than setting it aside for retirement."
You don't know the half of it. The money they did save and invest (on their own) was invested heavily into mortgagees and short-term debt. As the baby boomers get older, they will require more resources (health-care and assisted living) and will produce almost nothing. The younger generations will need to produce significantly more just to get by, to say nothing of a higher standard of living. These resources will be extracted from younger generations through loans, mortgages and rent. A young person buying property will need to take out extensive loans to secure it, a person renting will be in an even worse situation because they will be paying but never see the end of it.
If we want to be free from this impending nightmare, we need to take preventative measures right away. We need to build new housing, and energy infrastructure. We need to streamline our economy to eliminate all the unnecessary work we do, and we need to start training new doctors and health care professionals right away. We also need to fix SS benefits to the CPI so that it won't balloon even further out of control.
Is this going to happen? No. To few people seem to understand the fundamental rule of the economy: insufficient resources means that someone will go without. Everyone thinks the problem with health care is that the prices are too high. No, the problem is that the industry is too small to support the needs of the population. Expand it! Price controls will accomplish nothing.
People think the economy is bad. So they say we need to focus on "job creation". What does that mean? People don't need jobs, they need housing ans health care. Get busy building houses and training doctors! There's plenty of work to be done, we don't need to "make" it.
There's nothing magic about an unregulated free market. While doing nothing technically illegal, a bunch of investment bankers just made billions of dollars vanish out of the American economy. Market regulation happens because in many real situations, investment managers are able take high-risk positions to which they are never personally exposed, and that their customers aren't fully informed of.
If you really want to see the unfettered free market in action, I suggest you check out the Colombian cocaine trade. While it's not wholly unregulated, certainly it's free of oppressive government intrusion.
I applaud Scott Adams for his research. It seems while some economists may find BHO a good pick people who own websites favor Senator McCain. ... nearly 50% intend to vote for John McCain in November compared to just over 35% for Barack Obama."
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"Want to know what the Web's small entrepreneurs think of the election? Domain registry Register.com polled its customers and found
.
In short, those who are actually hoping to make money, create jobs and survive as business people don't favor the Democratic nominee.
'I don't know what it's called. I just know the sound it makes, when it takes a man's life.' ~ Four Leaf Tayback
Life is abundant near oil rigs, in fact, much more so than in open locations. The food chain begins with the platform's legs and goes all the way up to the top rung of predator fish. They are protected from over fishing because the trawlers can't get near, and sport fishing doesn't take enough to harm the population. Diving is usually pretty good, too, with lots of visibility. Some studies indicate that less oil seepage comes from off shore platforms than from natural leakage (Santa Barbara is a case in point).
Impetuous! Homeric!
George Bush The Elder stopped using the term "Voodoo Economics" when Reagan picked him to be VP, but it still applied, and he was happy to continue the practice himself. Dubya Bush's policies were quite similar, except they tended to be more of a "What, Me Worry?" form of it than Reagan's academic "Proof by Vigorous Assertion" approach.
John McSame is still talking to the same political base, because he needs their support, so he's still doing the same thing.
Barack O'Bama, on the other hand, isn't much different - he's pretending that he's not going to raise taxes except for a few rich people who deserve it, and isn't saying how he's going to fix the deficit.
The Democrats are still the Party of Fiscal Responsibility by default, because even in their wildest dreams they're not going to be able to spend money as fast as Bush's military has. And they've got their own version of "Trickle-Down Economics", which is that instead of rich people spending money and having the leftovers trickle down to the little people, the government will spend money and the leftovers will trickle down to the little people. For the most part, I prefer how rich people spend money than how governments spend it, but YMMV.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
The thing that tips economists is, I suspect, the same thing that tips most other analytical minds: the Republican party has been steadily tightening ties to the religious right. While religion is not uncommon among thinkers, secularism is more common, and evangelicalism is generally distrusted as too prescriptive and intolerant
nope, as a degreed economist, the thing which tips competent economists is the republican attachment to reaganomics.
reaganomics attacks the consumption side of the GDP equation, which also happens to be the largest portion.
It places implicit trust in agents who have no real liability, and are subject to moral hazard which republican economic policy-makers ignore.
It ignores the long-term consequences of allowing producers to put the squeeze on their labor (hint: you become unable to sell what you make, and... and this is a very relevant one today... people are financially unable to support a home purchase)
There are numerous other aspects of economic policy which incompetent politicians on both sides ignore: such as the fact that offshoring as a multiple-round game results in destruction of the middle class, but that's a discussion for another time.
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Economists are for free trade assuming everything else is equal.
Any competent economist would be against free trade with nations which have no human or labor rights.
The idea behind free trade is to promote specialization among otherwise equal nations, and reduce the overhead of commerce, promoting lower prices and greater efficiency.
The "free trade" being put into practice is irresponsible political pandering.
At the time the policies are implemented, people see lower prices, but in the long term a nation without equal labor and human rights standards will be "more efficient" in every sector, not just a few. Thus, they parasitically drain the middle class of the the other one.
"efficiency" is not the goal of applied economics though. Maximizing economic stability well-being for the entire populace is. Encouraging efficiency in certain ways is one way, but imposing regulations where necessary is another.
Of course, the people at the top still get rich under this scheme, and as a bonus they erode labor rights in the nation with the higher differential, pulling them back to the gilded age.
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It will immediately cause a drop in oil prices before a single drop of oil is extracted.
it wont. even if you legislate it now, the first drop of oil to come from offshore drilling is to arrive in no earlier than 5 years. everyone and their dog knows that, and markets are not stupid either.
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exactly. An unenforceable law is worthless. People just choose to ignore it and that undermines civil society.
See the War on Drugs for a classical example. Or speeding. Or Copyrights. There are countless examples.
After following the discussion, I offer three points for consideration:
1) economics is fundamentally political because it deals with the allocation of scarce goods. In earlier times it's study was called "political economy". Moreover it is not a science as it deals with the study of human beviour.
2) the "debate", such as it is, over offshore drilling misses the point. The problem is not to increase supply, but to reduce demand. The American public is not quite ready to handle this.
3) education tends to make one "liberal" in the sense that it makes one away of the complexities of the world and the futility of simple black and white solutions. The political fissures in America today stem not from liberalism or conservatism (however they may be defined) but from the enduring frontier myth of the individual vs the rights and responsibilities of the community. In that sense, libertarians are selfish, socialists value community or collective society over the individual. Most Americans' political and religious views are hopelessly confused along these two poles.
Many people say that the expectation of US drilling domestically will drive down the oil future prices. While theorerically true, the size of the impact depends greatly on the amount of increased supply.
Bush's own energy department has this to say: "if Congress gave the go-ahead to pump oil from Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, the crude could begin flowing by 2013 and reach a peak of 876,000 barrels a day by 2025." "...would only slightly reduce America's dependence on imports and would lower oil prices by less than 50 cents a barrel."
'James Kendell, one of the authors of the study, said the refuge would add to domestic production, but "when you're talking of a world oil market of over 75 million barrels a day, adding 900,000 barrels by 2025 is a drop in the bucket."'
as reported here: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4542853/
In other words, add 1% of world wide production in 20 years is NOT going to drop crude oil prices by $40 a barrel. A MUCH MORE realistic reason for the oil price drop is the expectation of global economic slow-down/recession which leads to less oil consumption starting NOW.
Furthermore, people consistently conflate the gasoline price at the pump with the crude oil price. There is a long supply/production line between the oil rig to your gas pump. Local gas prices are much more influenced by taxes and refinery capacity (hence the dependence on hurricane impacts).
It's fine to argue for drilling in Alaska, but please stick to facts and logic and avoid ungrounded speculations.
5 years is a whop-ass time. if resources are diverted to renewable energy, immense progress can be made in the course of 5 years, and results would be much more plausible than sticking with oil.
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I'm giong to ask how you get to Socio-economic liberalism through cultural and ethnic diversity
I don't claim to do that. Take a look at this reply I wrote to someone else talking about this distinction.
how does this have anything to do with the abundance of liberal vs conservative viewpoints based upon population concentration?
Population concentration leads to a more diverse population, and far more passing interaction with far more people (and thus more diversity you come across). So concentration leads to what I discussed, but what I discussed does not lead to all things associated with population-concentration or with the "liberal" stereotype.
Population density may have other direct or indirect influences for some of the other things often lumped under "liberal". For example someone living in a city or even a light suburban area is unlikely to ever hunt and have no use for sport weapons. Thus they would have less sympathy and personal value for such things. Also someone living in a more urban area faces a far higher real danger from guns in general and especially assault-class weapons than someone in a rural area. That is not tied to diversity.
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Who'd have ever predicted a bunch of people in academia would support democrats?! :)
again my belief is, if the humongous investment (and even a fraction of it) that has been spent on oil since the onset of the century is spent for 5 years on alternative, im sure that we will be far better off with alternative energy sources than we are now with oil.
even the short period of issues we experienced in last 5 years caused much progress on that area.
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This regulation kept firewalls between types of investments, so that a huge a meltdown in one part would be contained to that part.
This was put in place after the last meltdown as big as this week's - the kickoff of the Great Depression.
Glass-Steagal was repealed thanks to efforts by Phil Gramm and John McCain, in 1999.
It's amazing what **doesn't** get blamed on de-regulation. De-regulation of major businesses, ventures and the stock market are almost always negative. That's simple history - look it up.
The Invisible Hand of the Free Market is what punches workers in the nuts.
like how unemployment has been, on average, lower in a Bush Presidency than Clinton's
The unemployment numbers are only better under Bush if you don't count the number of unemployed under Bush that have given up on looking for work - who are not counted as "unemployed" under the Bush numbers. And those people can still be collecting unemployment - they just don't count as part of the "labor pool".
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.