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Santorum Calls Democrats 'Anti-Science'
ndogg writes with news that Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum has counterattacked those critical of conservative views on science, saying that they're 'anti-science' themselves. From a CBS report:
"In his remarks Monday, Santorum went beyond his usual discussion of the importance of increasing domestic energy production to deliver a blistering attack on environmental activists. He said global warming claims are based on 'phony studies,' and that climate change science is little more than 'political science.' His views are not 'anti-science' as Democrats claim, Santorum said. 'When it comes to the management of the Earth, they are the anti-science ones. We are the ones who stand for science, and technology, and using the resources we have to be able to make sure that we have a quality of life in this country and (that we) maintain a good and stable environment,' he said to applause, and cited local ordinances to reduce coal dust pollution in Pittsburgh during the heyday of coal mining."
Santorum Calls Democrats 'Anti-Science'
Not only is he from the party that brought you Intelligent Design, he is the candidate that epitomizes anti-science.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
... how stupid America really is ...
Please don't feed the troll.
I'm not sure if I should say that Santorum is anti-truth, or go with the less harsh, anti-reality.
Maybe next he can explain to us about how all of the studies regarding contraception are clearly wrong. Or was contraception an "Obama conspiracy?" I forget...
Scott Swezey
You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
Nuff said!
Santorum claiming that environmentalists are "anti-science" is like saying anti-rape activists are against sex. What a fucking lunatic, I can't believe this is the best the GOP can come up with. Are they sitting this one out or something?
Both political parties are willing to throw science under the bus when it suits their agendas. The more ideological the wing of the party, the more busses they find driving by.
By the same token, both parties are willing to embrace the infallibility of science, and the certainty of the consensus, when it validates what they already believe.
Science is in good company though; politicians will do the same with the Supreme Court, the Constitution, Religion, or anything else that they can get their hands on.
Just kidding!
nt
[quote]In his remarks Monday, Santorum went beyond his usual discussion of the [b]importance of increasing domestic energy production[/b] to deliver a blistering attack on environmental activists.[/quote]
Increasing US domestic energy production won't do squat where it matters: prices at the pump. I can't say Santorum's views on this issue are anti science, but they sure are anti economics.
Santorum's claim to have come "from the coal fields" is a stretch - by two generations. He has never worked in a coal mine. His parents' professions were psychologist and nurse, and Santorum is a lawyer who has spent all of his adult life in politics.
By that measure, I come "from the shipyards of Baltimore." I'll have to remember that if I ever go into politics.
I find this new definition of political science funny. Politicized science is what he meant, I guess. All these fools should just admit that they like science and regulation when it supports their preconceived notions about how the world should work, and when science and regulation contradict those notions, science and regulation are evil.
"Anyone who [rips a CD] is probably engaging in copyright infringement." - David O. Carson
... It's a debate classic!
The Bolachek Journals
Let me go get my popcorn this should be a good fight....
I think you guys just got trollled...
I like Santorum. He says what modern Republicans are thinking, as wrong as that may be. He does not hide the crazy behind a manufactured persona like Romney. Ron Paul has too many heart felt beliefs that are antithetical to the GOP. Gingrich is a dishonest retread from a previous era, pushing the same failed policies.
But Ricky is a true reflection what Republicans are all about, and proud of it. If there is any justice, Rick will win the nomination where he faithfully campaign for what the GOP believes in.
Though this comment comes from someone who would have been on the front-line torching heretical thinkers and scientists during the Inquisition, it will soon enough be a meme accepted by the masses due to the steady drum beat of the Fox echo chamber. The more they trash and dismantle education, the easier it will be for the church to subvert individual freedom, speech and self determination.
We have seen the end of the enlightenment with the rise of the church state in the United States. I, for one, will fight our new overlords.
No incumbents, not no where, not no how.
Vote them out every term.
The bible says that man has dominion over the earth, and it is ours to do with as we please. And it is immutable, so nothing we do can affect God's work:
Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”
What a crock of shit. Santorum's "science" is nothing but avarice and ignorance.
Sen. Santorum can see the sun from his house.
Nothing more will need to be said!
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
The irony....
Dust pollution is a health risk, not an environmental one.
...considering it's coming from someone whose view of science is something that you believe on faith, ignore inconvenient research, and consider even the slightest doubt or margin of error that an opposing viewpoint has to completely debunk it. It's not science to believe that since you have 100% confidence in your faith-based theory that has no evidence, but you can imagine a miniscule source of error in an opposing theory, that the person with the fewest doubts "wins". But just try telling a "Creation Scientist" that...or someone who believes on faith that there is not any possibility that there is human-caused global climate changed. They hold their views on faith, their minds will not be changed no matter how much evidence they're presented with.
and cited local ordinances to reduce coal dust pollution in Pittsburgh during the heyday of coal mining."
A deregulationist citing the protection from local environmental regulations. That's rich.
The hypocrisy is double because Pittsburg is currently undergoing a massive battle over fracking regulations.
Pittsburg has banned fracking outright and PA Republicans were trying to pass a State law to nullify local regulations.
When that was deemed a politically untenable idea, they switched to a straight-jacket of State level regulations.
Read about it here: http://www.npr.org/2011/11/30/142948831/a-debate-over-who-regulates-gas-fracking-in-penn
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
I'd give my left arm for for a pro-science, rationalist candidate. I'm pretty sure Santorum is right and the Dems are anti-science....I will however return to that play ground gem...."it takes one to know one".
Politics and political leadership has become a swarming mass of vipers all pandering to biases and cultural predispositions and have very little to do with rational decision making and leadership (if it ever did). Both parties are just interested in the science that supports their predefined ideologies and ignore or discount that which doesn't. It is sad but that's what we have for "leaders" these days on both sides.
Santorum couldn't recognize a phony study if you handed one to him and went over the methodology in detail. His understanding of science, and the scientific method makes most 5th graders look like Einstein. I'm pretty sure his definition of "phony study" means "a report that I don't understand, but the results disagree with my beliefs."
make imaginary.friends COUNT=100 VISIBLE=false
... endorses his comment. Fits well with all the other right-wing rhetoric that dominates the front page here. I'm not sure if this is part of their mission to bring the site back to relevance or not, but I'm not sold it is a good idea regardless. Some of us remember when slashdot was, for the most part, apolitical. Now they are slightly less political than Glenn Beck, and spending most of their time in his same philosophical camp.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
Control the definitions, control the conversations.
Santorum is pro-science.
Liberal is anything bad.
War is peace, freedom is slavery.
Anyone can call anyone else anything they please, doesn't really mean anything, though.
sic transit gloria mundi
wut... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FopyRHHlt3M
GENERATION 24: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the generation. Social exper
In other news, the irony meter was destroyed in a freak explosion earlier today.
"People don't want to learn linux" hasn't been a valid excuse since '03.
...he is also from the primordial ooze.
Democrats on economics for example... little things like the Laffer curve that they swear doesn't exist in one breath... and then in the next suggest we have an international minimum tax. Why? To keep other countries from offering a low tax and thus creating a situation remarkably like the Laffer curve.
So both parties do this... which one is more anti science is debatable and likely an accidential result of which ever one happens to have run randomly into more problems with their ideology.
Ideologies are always wrong just as any scientific theory is always incomplete. Perfection isn't something human beings create. And so far as I've seen every ideology is intolerant of changing core principles.
I'm about to get all sorts of flame messages now. So I'll just say this... Imagine if science proved that whatever you believed caused terrible damage... do you honestly think most of the people in your party would switch away from it? Do you think your party leaders would admit it?
Of course not. They'd try to sweep it under the rug and pretend it didn't happen. That's what ideologies do...
So... I'm mostly anti ideology. My core principle is the survival and continuing evolution of humanity. Everything else I believe is derived from that. If anyone can show me a value or principle I hold that harms that goal... then I'll change it.
That's still an ideology. But it's very general and vague one that should be very adaptable when I discover the mistakes we all make.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
It is rumored that if Santorum actually gets the nomination, the GOP will draft Gov. Christie of NJ for the Republican candidate. But he's one cannoli short of a heart attack, so not many will vote for him. Nobody wants Romney, either, because of Romneycare and the whole Mormon thing. And Paul, as much as he may appeal to some people, is one fall away from a hip replacement.
So here's an interesting fact? Jeb Bush and his father showed up at the Whitehouse back on the 27th of January for a long talk. (Oh, to have been a fly on THAT wall.) The other interesting thing is that Jeb's wife, Columba, has made it neuteringly clear that he's not available until 2016.
So! 3 completely unelectable candidates so far as the GOP is concerned. The party favorite-which is why they're sometimes known as the "Waiting For Jeb" party-isn't available either.
I'm going to guess that the "fix" is in, and Obama is going to be president for another term. Then after that, we'll have another Bush in the Whitehouse. So everything that's happening in this "election" is just a dog & pony show, just as it's always been.
[End Of Line]
It's good to see a heavyweight intellectual like Rick Santorum weighing in on a complex environmental question. I think we can call "problem solved" on this one.
Somebody ought to ask Rick about global overpopulation. I bet he could solve that problem too! He'll just say "It's God's will. There's no overpopulation." Another problem solved.
Maybe Rick can solve all our complicated problems for us--so we don't have to think at all!!
I hope he's the nominee just for the drama and entertainingly twisted logic. Think of it as 7 months of new Monty Python episodes.
The amphibian dude is generally smart enough to stay away from science details because he knows better (although does drop hit-and-run statements on occasion to make the base happy), and Dog-Roof Willard hedges and haws such that he never commits, taking on the same view as the interviewer via vague language.
However, this Santa Sweater Claws actually tries to explain his view and perceptions with details from the model in his mind without fear and self-censorship so that we get to see how the cartoon world in his head all works together.......and then laugh our cabooses off.
Consistent and honest boloney is the tastiest boloney of them all.
Bring it on....
Table-ized A.I.
Democrats talk a lot about science when it comes to climate change (to justify government control of the economy), embryonic stem cells (to give abortion an upside), or evolution (out of a dislike of creationism). But where are they when it comes to science for the sake of human knowledge instead of some blatant political agenda? Obama gutted the space program. Democrats killed the Superconducting Super Collider. Nobody on the left has a bold scientific vision like Newt Gingrich's moon base proposal.
To begin: I would like to hear Santorum's definition of "science". How would he describe science, its methods, and its purpose? That should be good for a few yuks.
His opinion might fit perfectly with his understanding of science.
Reading Slashdot is ruining my spelling and grammar.
that Obama isn't quite as bad as Hitler.
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/02/santorums-doomsday-warning-voters/
To be fair, Obama hasn't gassed 6 million minorities. Yet.
Best Slashdot Co
"Democrats on economics for example... little things like the Laffer curve that they swear doesn't exist in one breath"
Which Democrat has sworn the Laffer curve doesn't exist? And honestly 99% of the people who base low-tax arguments on the Laffer curve don't really understand what it is (and what it's not). Most of them tend to forget it's a curve.
The Laffer curve is a theoretical idea. The data does not back it (or at least a very weak correlation). I looked at multiple Keynes-like stimuluses by inspecting the unemployment numbers with my own eyes, and stimuluses appear to help more often than not. There is usually a bulge of improvement within about 4 months after the stimulus starts to flow that lasts until about a year after the stimulus ends. If Laffer works, show us the data.
Table-ized A.I.
Note that the most recent stimulus is generally considered too small given the size of the recession (which was not known when it was proposed) by most economists.
However, if you look at a graph of the change of UE rate, you see what appears to be an upward trend matching what is expected from an under-powered stimulus. And it trailed off when the stimulus ran out, giving us the "flat summer".
Table-ized A.I.
Science and Religion are not at odds with each other and they should never be, however religious institutions and scientific institutions are commonly at odds with each other. It is very important to distinguish the difference and while generalizations are usually the case, it needs to be understood that exceptions will always exist.
Science is humans best attempt at understanding/explaining the world we observe around us.
Religion is humans best attempt at understanding/explaining the world we sense but cannot directly scientifically observe around us.
Science and Religious institutions are usually at odds with each other and this is a normal occurrence due to the natural behavior of humans using their knowledge, abilities, and experience to ridicule, harrass, or oppress others. I have seen evil conducted in the name of science and religion. We have waged wars for even less and getting rid of science or religion are not he answers.
The persecution and degradation is readily available from the religious and non-religious alike and proves that institutions and the heart of man are the core of what is wrong with everything in society and government.
Science and Religion can both be trusted when the pursuit is of the truth, however the human element will continually persist in polluting that truth to their own ends casting doubt everywhere.
Calling someone "anti-science" because they advise restraint when using up natural resources and changing the environment, is like calling someone "anti-capitalist" if they refuse to spend all their money and go into debt.
Huh...I think I just figured out Republican fiscal policy.
an iota of attention?
Some days it's just not worth
chewing through my restraints.
Pot, kettle, and the rest.
Everyone, listen. I can explain this, as I have a degree in "political science". Through careful observation of the political cycle, we have learned that there is a percentage of the voting populace who know very little, who get confused by information, but have mutated to hold a few beliefs very, very, strongly. They have adapted from being ignored by the majority of Americans, who don't hold those single beliefs as strongly. At each extreme of each party, these single belief mutants compensate by participating very early in the election cycle, to try to kill off the common sense bearing candidates, much as a new male lion kills off the progeny of the previous pride leader. As the common sense candidates are killed off by filicide earlier and earlier in the caucus cycle, the remaining candidates evolve to express the same strong opinions of the early influencers. The majority responds by electing the opposite party (House ore Senate) from the executive party in order to balance out the risk of extreme legislation taking place. Some candidates try to survive the cull by camouflaging their beliefs (flip flopping), or allowing their own core beliefs to evolve very rapidly to meet the polling environment. It's all normal, move along, nothing to see here.
Gently reply
Humans survive by adapting their environment to their needs.
This is wrong. Whilst we do adapt our environment somewhat, the key to our success as a species was and still is the fact that we are also adept at adapting _to_ changing environments. The diversity of the biomes humankind has thrived in shows this. In the early history of humankind not an awful lot of engineering of our environment took place. The vast majority of it only happened once we _adapted_our_skillsets_ to allow us to work raw materials into manufactured items, thus enabling us to 'adapt' ourselves shelter (as opposed to, say, digging a rabbit warren).
Frothy. Need I say more?
It actually does and has repeatedly. Though it is unpopular with those that don't want to admit that there is a connection between raising taxes and reducing economic output.
Much of the difference between the productivity of the US economy over the last 30 years versus europe can be attributed to much higher taxes.
Still, a socialist is as likely to admit this as a creationist is to admit evolution. So I won't ask you to admit it. You'll just do the economic equivalent of saying radio carbon dating is fake.
You're proving my point. The central issue of which is that ideologies ignore what they don't like.
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It seems to me Santorum is confusing Science with Technology. He says things about using resources and improving quality of life. Science can help with that, but science is also learning about the effects those things have on the world.
Democrats don't deny the Laffer curve, we deny the claim by Republicans that we're on the right side of the curve. I would actually say that Republicans don't seem to believe in the Laffer curve - it seems more like they believe in a straight line where tax revenue increases whenever you lower taxes, no matter where you're currently at. Why do I say that? Because Republicans are constantly complaining about wanting to lower taxes, but by historical standards, the US currently has one of the lowest tax rates of the past 80 years.
Any failing system can be made to look like a success by spending money just as a stone can be made to fly by throwing it in the air.
When the stone strikes earth you'll just say I didn't throw it hard enough... for the purposes of ideology lets ignore orbit... which isn't flying anyway.
Try it... find a crack head... an actual crack head... ideally he should be in withdraw but not cleaning himself up. Just shivvering and the picture of a human mess.
Then give him a billion dollars to start an industrial concern. People will get employed. There will be activity.
But there will also be a strong burn rate. And at some point he'll have eaten through that billion dollars. At which point the activity will slack of.
Solution?
Give him more money, right? Rinse repeat.
The japanese did a similar thing in the 90s by pumping cheap credit into failed japanese businesses. They were called the Zombie corporations because they were dead but kept alive by the debt. People like you, argued that if they were just given enough money they'd come back to life. They never did. Japan went through a prolonged recession for no reason.
You base your position on the post WW2 growth of the US economy and basically nothing else. What you ignore is that europe and asia were destroyed by that war where as the US was not. So why did the US enjoy decades of undisputed trade dominance? BECAUSE WE BLEW UP EVERYONE ELSE"S FACTORIES!!! It's kind of obvious isn't it?
You can run up all the debt you like, the chinese will still be there eating your margins. If you want to repeat the post WW2 economy then you're going to need to blow up china's factories. Game for WW3?
No? Then maybe we should try something else that also works.
I don't think you'll do it... because you're ideological and your ideology simply doesn't believe in these things. But the universe doesn't care what you believe... it is what it is...
Cheers.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
> How do you spell Progressiveism?
Wish I had some mod points. Instead, I can just offer you kudos. Well said.
Paul Krugman if you want a single name. But if they mention it all it is with contempt and derision.
As to other people that propose low tax arguments... that isn't what I'm talking about.
I'm talking about how ideologies make facts and observed principles disappear if they find them inconvenient.
The more specific and complex your ideology becomes the more likely you are to filter.
I don't want to argue with you about the laffer curve any more then I want to argue with a creationist about whether evolution is real. It's besides the point.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
Some estimates put the maximum of the Laffer curve at 75% taxation, is that where you want to go? And of course the curve has nothing to do with differential taxations between regions.
Play Command HQ online
The economy is heading for disaster thanks to the "borrow your way out of debt" policy, a tenet of the failed Keynesian economic system that is still somehow the most followed theory worldwide. See Europe and Japan for how it works out. Anyway, the point is: once the economy crashes next year they'll pull science funding to fund new bailouts anyway, making this all pretty irrelevant.
There is one candidate who doesn't subscribe to Keynesian economic theory but of course no one will vote for him because they've been led to believe he can't win.
Well, at least you admit it works in the short-term. That's a start. (Ideally we build up a rainy-day fund to prepare, but W blew that.)
That is not what I propose. The "Wall-Street bailout" is a different debate. If we knew the recession would be as long as it did, then infrastructure work would be almost the ideal because we have a lot of things breaking that need repair ANYHOW. We will have to pay to fix them eventually, and construction rates are cheapest during recessions. Delaying fixes will just make it worse financially and safety-wise. Further, construction workers were the hardest hit sector. Fixing schools would help that sector.
Where did I do that?
Table-ized A.I.
No, they correctly think that if you can change opinions in your favor, then reality doesn't matter (or at least is someone else's problem).
So true. So sad.
/amazes/ me that smart people -- Republicans -- don't revolt against the weasel words.
Karl Rove explicitly said as much, and it
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
The Laffer Curve is a theoretical construct with no actual evidence to define where it would take place. Yes most people agree that taxes at 100% would reduce output, but at what point people stop caring is highly debatable (and no where near the US tax rate). It's a different topic than having a minimum tax to prevent companies from moving to a country with the lowest tax rate (typically countries with other incomes sources).
Whatever the bible says about life, the universe, and everything, it is most assuredly NOT a theory in the true scientific sense. It a mix of myths and goatherder tales and is no different in that regard than creation myths from native americans, the incas, or any other religion.
So you think you can eat 75 percent of the GDP of an economy and not have a negative impact on growth?
As to the curve not having a relation to different regions... how could it not? That's like saying a person's choice in where to vacation has nothing do with relevant prices in those regions.
Look this is all hilariously prophetic and everything... I mean all you guys did exactly what I said you'd do... and you don't even seem to realize it. But this is pointless. You're not open to discussion on the issue any more then a creationist is on evolution. I know I know... jesus road a dinosaur... it was amazing. You have your beliefs and I don't want to take them away from you. believe whatever you want. Just please tone it down with the claims that your little religion is the one true path to salvation. Every religion says that... it's irritating.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
I take a more extreme view of faith as a form of solipsism. If you fully separate faith from science, faith becomes an entirely personal matter: you can only gain faith by some kind of mysterious internal light inaccessible to the methods of science. OK, fine. From this view there's no reason not to believe that God created the universe five minutes ago, exactly as we recall it to have been five minutes ago, replete with another 13.7 billion years of back story (which can be boiled down rather succinctly to the big bang, QED, and self-organizing primordial goo--for which the exact mechanism in the last case remain a trifle mysterious). For some reason, God loves the evolutionary back story. No creation is complete without one. Either way, evolution is the minimum description length account of what we observe as the history of the universe in rocks and oceans and nebulae. This is true whether or not evolution actually happened. Even if God created the earth and human kind a mere 10,000 years ago evolution is still the minimum description of what we observe in the fossil record and the genetic heritage of life (an exploding data set which poses a looming and insurmountable challenge to 10,000 year literalism).
If you feel the illumination of faith from within, you can show it by how you choose to live. If you inner glow so moves you, you can reflect honour on the divine creator by living your life to a high moral standard however you perceive this.
Where I tend to draw the line is when two people get together who each feel an inner glow, who then compare notes and decide that they believe in the same divine spirit. This consensus is not achieved through a scientific process. Faith is not amenable to science. How do you really know you believe in the same deity as anyone else?
Here's how the slight of hand works in organized religion. You posit a sacred text, and then attribute authorship of the sacred text to a unique and singular deity. Yesterday's TED talk on the Cyrus Cylinder shows the Book of Isaiah attributing to Jehovah what had previously been attributed to the Babylonian god Marduk. One story, multiple originating deities. Fancy that.
I have a lot of problems when a group of 100 million people go around absolutely secure in the belief that they feel within themselves a sliver of the same divine flame, when most of them can't even agree on the right way to tie your shoe.
Santorum, to his credit, is not so secure: he views the Democrats as hewing to the wrong Christian god. Now let's repeat this bisection step until every believer is a faith until himself or herself. Faith as a personal matter. Wonderful.
I have no real problem with faith, but I have a deep problem with the aggregation of faith. Let's suppose Obama believes that he and Santorum both believe in the same god, but Santorum disputes this. How is such a discrepancy resolved? Remember, you can't use science. Faith is not amenable to science (or it wouldn't be faith). I guess you need a prophet of especially reliable connection to the Big One. Shades of Russell's type theory. And we agree on the nature of this prophet exactly how? Are we back to the aggregation of unique inner glows? I thought so.
There's no conflict between science and faith as such, but there is a conflict between science and the aggregation of faith (for some reason, faith tends to aggregate along racial lines, and never takes the last critical step to one world religion).
Message to Santorum: if you want to dis-aggregate the Christian granfalloon, by all means fill your boots.
into something their opponents supposedly are.
Take the abortion debate for example. They say liberals are anti-life, ignoring that most liberals want higher standards set before we go to war or no war at all, most are against the death penalty, want healthcare for children - many healthcare for all, support contraception to prevent abortions and support adoption programs.
Conservatives on the other hand are quick to side with war, are for the death penalty, are against government programs for healthcare for anyone, are opposed to contraception and defund adoption programs. Look at the last thirty years, when you have a Democratic white house, abortions go down. When you have a Republican white house, they go up.
Why that is is fairly simple to explain. It is because the espoused need by conservatives for the protection of life conflicts with their severe, incomprehensible disgust for sexual relations of any type. They push abstinence programs which clearly do not work. The result is more pregnancies and more abortions. Democrats push contraception, which does work. The result is less pregnancies and less abortions. It isn't rocket science. But we're supposed to believe they're for life? Or family friendly?
Let's forget that most of their followers tend to forget that just because something is made illegal doesn't mean the practice is ended; that the real result would be more hanger, back alley abortions. Those with money will simply go abroad for "cosmetic surgery". Let's forget that for approximately six years of Bush's presidency, the Republicans controlled both houses of Congress, and the White House, and didn't do a darn about abortion. They just like making it an issue and using it against the feebleminded so the feebleminded will vote for them.
Should a member of this feebleminded class be reading, I have a little thought exercise for you, who do you know that is for abortion? I mean, they adore abortions. They just want to get pregnant, to have another abortion. What's that? I don't know anyone either. There is no such person on the face of the Earth. No one likes abortion. Everyone dislikes the concept. The difference is those identifying as "pro choice" tend to recognize that there are situations where it is not a good idea to continue the pregnancy; such as the health of the mother or severe poverty. We recognize that the health of the mother and financial conditions of the family are very personal, private situations that are not the purview of government intrusion. We recognize that most abortions take place in the first trimester where the collection of cells is exceedingly small, and usually not yet specialized. There is no heart, brain, etc. yet. No real shape unlike those terrible photos too many of you walk around with. More cells fall off your arm on an average day.
Ack, a terrible rant and I would not be at all offended if the mod decided to kill my post, or edit it, to avoid this debate from muddying the anti-science discussion.
Science they actively fight on a daily basis. There was an article awhile back about a leak from a conservative think tank that showed they intended to spread what they knew to be misinformation about climate change. Not that that should come as a surprise to anyone. They deny evolution! Something we've been able to observe in a lab thanks to fruit flies. Something we can see over time by comparing genomes. It's insane.
Does anyone on /. deny evolution?
There are too many other differences to make that claim.
And Europe has a better safety net if things go south. One is less likely to lose their job and have to sell everything and pack up and move in desperation. Stability is sometimes more important than quantity and size of trinkets you own. (True, different people value different factors differently.)
And, some European nations (and Canada) are doing as well or better than us. The biggest difference is that they told slimy bankers to go to hell early enough.
I watch, I observe, and I compare. If that's evil or wrong, then shoot me now, because I won't stop.
Table-ized A.I.
start his comments in the subject line and end them in the comment block.
Similar to the upcoming US election results
First, yes they do deny it. In fact, if you keep talking about it and more democrats start commenting you'll probably see a few of them that will be on record denying it. Beyond that, the laffer curve is generally assumed to exist somewhere beyond 20 percent. Current federal taxes eat up about 16-18 percent GDP... if you add state and city taxes you could possibly be beyond the laffer curve in some parts of the US. Increasing federal taxes will likely put most of the US beyond that point.
As to republicans believing in no laffer curve because they think lowering taxes increases revenue... not really. Republicans rarely think they're going to make a lot of tax money by lowering taxes. They generally think they're shrinking government and giving the economy a chance to grow.
Anyway, your objection is really what I was going for here. You're proving my point. See how strongly you feel about this issue? Is it an entirely rational issue for you?
That's what ideologies do...
As much as possible, I try to be post ideological.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
The Laffer curve is a relationship between government revenues and tax rate.
Not growth.
Most economists believe the maximum of the curve is somewhere around 50% taxation. We are running at 15%, the lowest since Harry Truman was president.
I love the way they like to reach down like the "God" with the Big Hand of Government and tell people not to eat Trans Fats or Smoke. Then they get pious using the money other people earned to give the unfit food and money for their big screen TV's just because they crapped out several kids.
Of course they will deny that a "God" exists but they do a damned fine job "filling in for him" using other people money as a instrument to implement their own big government "Magic".
I believe in Evolution, both as a theory and in practice for dealing with people. It has worked for a couple billion years on Earth.
If the so called "Enlightened Progressive Democrats" actually believed in evolution they would be letting the junkie choke on their own vomit, the fat asses eat themselves to a heart attack, the drunkard dying from liver failure in the gutter. All of these things would work to help clean the gene pool out. Instead we rescue the junkie from their drug induced stupor to live another day and breed another future junkie, the fat asses get help so they can live longer and crap out more fat ass children who are dependent on other people's money to eat their fat ass fattening food. Instead of letting nature take it's course like a good student of Darwin these people think they "know better" and in the end weaken our Gene Pool.
Gee, Democrats are really the party of Darwin aren't they?
No, they are just as Hypocritical as the Republicans, but at least the Republicans don't steal "as much" of other people's money to "Play God" ie. more private voluntary charity rather than the state mandated theft "Big Government Charity" of the Democrats.
That ultra right-wing religious wingnut is calling anyone anti-science?
You've got to be fscking kidding me..
This is the guy the tea party people are rallying around. Remember, the ones who didn't care about social issues, and only about economics.
Scheeeeze!!
The growth of the US economy vs Europe over the past few decades is 100% attributable to population growth due to immigration.
http://www.thenewfederalist.eu/Europe-vs-USA-Whose-Economy-Wins
Hearing a politician calling out other politicians for politicizing science is like Cheech calling Chong a pothead.
None of these politicians give a rats ass about global warming, nuclear power, personal liberty, space exploration or anything that matters to me. If they did, they would be scientists, engineers, or ex-patriots. It's all about the money and the power. Trying to align your beliefs with a professional politician or major political party is giving away your ability to think freely and objectively. Just don't do it.
No, it didn't work. Look, I have no problem with pumping a little money in to get an engine to turn over... the spark plug that fires the engine is fine.
But this isn't a spark plug issue... you're spending good money to fund systems that are running at a net loss.
it's like those fusion energy projects where they pour 10 megawatts of power into some chamber to get a self sustaining fusion reaction going. That's fine as a experiment. hell, maybe they'll get it working some day. But it isn't something you could use to actually power the grid.
Why? Because the net output from those reactors is always something like 9.5 megawatts... about .5 megawatts less then was put into them.
Look at your stimulus programs and see how much money was put in and how many jobs were saved.
In one estimate it was over 500,000 thousand PER JOB. In most cases it would have been more efficient to simply give each of those people half a million dollars.
Worse, it isn't even Keynesian. Keynesian economics requires that the stimulus money go to NEW and UNPLANNED projects that wouldn't have happened at all with or without the recession.
So for example, if you sent a manned mission to mars that would be Keynesian because it wasn't something we were going to do. But instead most of the money went to state budgets to retain EXISTING workers or to pay for projects that were ALREADY going to happen such as paving roads.
That isn't Keynesian. That's just a bailout with no particular plan. If you want a Keynesian stimulus package then you need to fund totally new projects and hire people that are NOT CURRENTLY EMPLOYED. You have to hire as many unemployed workers as possible.
Even a new war would be more Keynesian then what Obama did. Just pick some random country and attack it. Recruit a million people into the army... and have fun.
that was Keynes's argument. Your belief that you can just make everything work by throwing money at it isn't even Keynesian... it's just irresponsible.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
Science can also refute beliefs for which you can offer no evidence: Profound absence of evidence, especially when said evidence has been searched for quite diligently using appropriate tools, is very strong evidence of absence. That's religion in a nutshell: There's nothing real there. And today's science does, in fact, show this. Prayer: Doesn't work. Afterlife: Nothing there. Bible, Koran, Talmud, etc.: full of nonsensical superstition. Foreknowledge and/or prophecy: 100% failure rate. Blessings: ineffective. Miracles: mundane events, and/or charlatanism.
Religion is bunk. Superstition. Fairy stories. The misapprehension of its stories as being reality-based is founded upon various degrees of fear, lack of critical thinking ability, and outright ignorance -- or, on the other side of the coin where awareness of reality is actually present, driven by power- and control-seeking entities. Talking about reality as illuminated by science exposes religion as (mostly) ages-old fiction that the poorly educated and/or rational-thinking impaired enjoy indulging themselves in for reasons that range from straight-up self-delusion to simple running with a "me too" crowd.
And here we go. See, other people were saying democrats didn't deny the Laffer Curve... and I said "wait for it"... and here you are.
Thank you for proving me right twice.
Once for proving that ideologies don't see what they don't want to see.
And again for proving that democrats do deny the laffer curve.
Cheers.
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As to europe having a safety net, possibly but that has nothing to do with economic growth or the laffer curve. The taxes. Countries that eat up a larger percentage of GDP in taxes have lower economic growth. Look at the numbers.
And if you understand compound interest then you know that even one percent of growth compounded over a 100 years can be massive. And if you keep growing just ONE PERCENT faster then other countries... with compounding... there will be no comparison between your nation and any other.
Einstein actually said there was no force in the universe as powerful as compound interest.
As i said when I started this, my ideology is human survival and continuing evolution. That's all I really care about. Your politics and theories don't mean much to me. take them or leave them. if you can show that a dictatorship or a king is better for what I want then a democracy then I'll side with that.
I want growth. I think growth makes us stronger as a species, I think it increases the rate at which we advance, and I thus think it enhances our ability to survive in an enormous, bleak, and hostile universe.
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Santorum is a piece of work.
But he is not presidential material, and never will be.
It is a measure of how shallow the pool is in the Republican
Party that scum like Santorum are even under consideration.
We get to choose among Santorum, a lying philanderer ( Gingrich )
and a cult member ( Romney the Mormon = bad news for any non-Mormons ).
Only a fool would vote Republican when the above choices comprise the menu.
The ancient Greeks were well on their way to it. If anything the church was responsible for setting us back a double handful of centuries.
Way more complicated then that actually.
First you have to consider that the reason you get less revenue as you increase the tax rate is that you're depressing the economy. That's why high taxes according to the curve are a bad idea. That brings the opposite of growth into the equation. And if you bring the opposite of growth... then you bring growth in as well.
As to what most economists believe, if you think you can eat 50 percent of GDP without having a negative impact on growth, then go for it. I'll point out that someone else just said that "most economists agree that 75 percent"... etc... so we have two different numbers that most economists agree with ... I threw out 20 percent because that is actually what the theory predicts.
But it doesn't matter. The point was not to talk about the stupid laffer curve. The point was to talk about how ideologies distort what people see and understand.
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You assume that the goal is to maximize tax revenue. That does not serve Republican interests. I don't think it even serves Democrat interests. Check with one of the genuine socialist parties, and you might find people who truly want to maximize tax revenue.
I'm not quite sure what your point is. Net efficiency isn't the primary goal: it's too help people get and retain jobs during difficult times.
Your viewpoint seems like it would be better to let a person suffer with a broken arm for another 3 hours because a cheaper shipment of arm splints is coming in 3 hours.
Put another way, $75 during bad times is often much more "useful" than $100 during good times. You are thinking like an engineer here instead of factoring in human emotions and suffering.
A future generation may have a smaller party during future boom-times because of a stimulus, and to me that's a worthwhile trade-off.
Those are the high-end side of estimates. And in part that's what Obama actually did by lengthening unemployment benefits, which the GOP complained about. Multiple techniques were used to avoid mucking up any one sector.
Table-ized A.I.
Sorry, no food for you today.
Don't blame me if you're confused. You changed the subject and are now wondering why we're talking about it.
I brought up the laffer curve as something democrats deny even though it's pretty obvious economic theory. the point being that all ideologies ignore what they don't want to acknowledge.
As to why states offer welfare, totally irrelevant to my comments.
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I'd say you are about as likely to get a supply-side economist to admit that lowering taxes won't always be revenue neutral (the Bush tax cuts were supposed to "pay for themselves") as you are to get a creationist to admit evolution.
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Who cares what the bible has to say?
Actually, a whole bunch of people here brought it up. God forbid that someone actually defends themselves. Seriously, how long do you expect to call someone an idiot before someone tries to set the record straight.
So what do you do? You try to belittle the guy. You are an asshole trying to be a bully.
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
In 2000, W called for a 'humble' foreign policy, so don't knock us Americans too hard in 2000. Americans should have called out Bush's 2000 foreign policy pledge then. Shame on us. In 2004, the democrats should have put in someone safe, but anti Iraq, but they didn't. Shame on them.
It's not hard to believe that something suddenly appeared from a great void. After all, those words magically came from your brain!
Never say never. Ah!! I did it again!
Beyond that, the laffer curve is generally assumed to exist somewhere beyond 20 percent.
Assumed by whom, and on what basis (i.e. what's the evidence)?
They generally think they're shrinking government and giving the economy a chance to grow.
The problem is, the're DEAD WRONG!
By refusing to either (a) collect revenues that cover the government's obligations, or (b) do the hard work to convince anyone to actually reduce those obligations, they sentence this nation to drown in a vast pit of debt.
Idiots.
I'm not anti-science, YOU'RE anti-science. And you have a butt for a face! YEAH!!!
There is an important election coming up, so can the adults talk now?
This is a hacked account, for which the owner can not be held responsible.
There's a reason that page is still in the top spot. And this is it.
You know, overall I really don't think the Republicans want to win this year. The best they could muster were Romney, Newt and Santorum. And they've gone through every single candidate trying as hard as they could to not vote for Romney, who's probably the only guy who even has a shot at taking down Obama. Well, every one of them except Ron Paul. I think they'd rather sit in the passenger's seat and bitch and moan about how much they're being oppressed and how much they think America sucks when a Democrat is running it and how Obama wants to make them all work 16 hour shifts in an abortion factory, only to come hope to their state-mandated same-sex spouse!
So ten-thousand quatloos to the guy who puts "Make gay marriage mandatory" up as a petition on the White House web site. And don't forget to click your Santorum link!
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Here's Richard Feynman on "Cargo Cult Science". It's all about the particular kind of severe honesty that is the scientific philosophy: http://www.lhup.edu/~DSIMANEK/cargocul.htm
"The first principle is that you must not fool yourself--and you are the easiest person to fool."
That kind of misrepresentation of your opponents' positions plays well on the Limbaugh circuit, but doesn't work well here where your audience can jump two inches up the page to confirm that yep, they didn't say what you said they said.
Why don't you try a little honesty for a change?
Play Command HQ online
Santorum and his ilk ignore the fact that per gernedis God frequently in the course of his creation called various parts of it good, and in fact the whole of it good. God singled out vegetations (trees, grass etc), fish birds animals and other things "and God saw that it was good" [King James version] God did not say that it was good except for the dodo, the passenger pigeon, the polar bear and whatever else they might find it convenient to exterminate. No exceptions at all. None. Zero. What kind of good shepherd wipes out his masters flocks for his own selfish ends?
Democrats on economics for example... little things like the Laffer curve that they swear doesn't exist in one breath...
If they do, then thy are correct. The Laffer curve, theory against reality.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Neo-Laffer_curve.svg
and then in the next suggest we have an international minimum tax.
If they do, that's no contradiction. A low tax country could take business away from a higher tax country regardless of the laffer curve being hokum.
Try it... find a crack head... an actual crack head... ideally he should be in withdraw but not cleaning himself up. Just shivvering and the picture of a human mess.
Then give him a billion dollars to start an industrial concern.
I wasn't previously aware that Keynsian economics required states to invest in crack heads. But if you say thats the way it works it must be true.
Keynesianism worked a threat at rebuilding Britain after the ravages of WWII. Of course they spent money on things like housing and a public health service, not crack heads, so it wasn't real Keynesianism.
Even though it was actually Keynes that was doing it...
Perhaps you misread my post. No one denies it exists. People that don't like paying taxes just think it's heavily weighted to the lower end.
The GOP likes to take the position against Science, in many places - saying the Democrats are the same because they don't have the same position on a philosophical position is a poor comparison.
I can see that you also are not a science type by the way you throw around philosophy in the same group as evolution, and think you have a proof in you post.
It actually does and has repeatedly. Though it is unpopular with those that don't want to admit that there is a connection between raising taxes and reducing economic output.
For the sake of argument, say that the Laffer Curve was true. No one has yet managed to identify the point at which the peak of the curve is.* So it might be at 70%. That would mean that raising the tax rate to anything up to 70% is a good thing.
Much of the difference between the productivity of the US economy over the last 30 years versus europe can be attributed to much higher taxes.
What's productivity? It's a measure of the extent to which you exploit people. It's a method of increasing the wealth gap.
Government shouldn't be about maximising productivity. It should be about maximising equitable quality of life.
Look at pretty much any measure of quality of life or happiness, and most of Europe has the USA beaten.
* = Because it's not true.
I want growth. I think growth makes us stronger as a species, I think it increases the rate at which we advance, and I thus think it enhances our ability to survive in an enormous, bleak, and hostile universe.
Come back in 20 years time when human growth but a finite Earth means that you can only afford gas and meat as occasional luxuries.
I'm told they're working on artificial meat hamburgers though.
Look at the last thirty years, when you have a Democratic white house, abortions go down. When you have a Republican white house, they go up.
Except, of course, that they don't.
I understand why you repeated this lie, it makes it sound like your side is the reasonable one in the debate. Well, it's not and the figure is untrue.
Look here. The claim was fact checked and debunked years ago.
Look here. Abortions peaked under the Reagan administration. They fell almost continuously through the Bush, Clinton and Bush administrations. At the end of GWs presidency, abortions had fallen to their lowest level since 1974. This isn't politics, it's fact.
Let's forget that for approximately six years of Bush's presidency, the Republicans controlled both houses of Congress, and the White House, and didn't do a darn about abortion.
Except re-institute the Mexico City policy and implement policies that reduced abortion to 1970s levels. You forget the abortion was placed into legal limbo by the third branch of government, the SCOTUS never explicitly made abortion legal. The SCOTUS held that the right to privacy trumped the states' rights to legislate abortion during the first trimester. In order to eliminate Roe v. Wade, what would be needed is for the SCOTUS to revisit the case and rule differently or a constitutional amendment. Regardless of the fact that the Republicans controlled the Executive and Legislative branches of government, they didn't have a 2/3 majority needed to amend the Constitution.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
Some people are not at all confused about these issues. They're just lying.
He means that Democrats are Doubleplusunscience.
he is the candidate that epitomizes anti-science.
I don't like him either but even a broken clock is right twice a day.
The Democrats are not just anti-science, they are actively bad for science.
Consider:
Democrats are the ones that overly politicized the whole global warming issue, casting doubt on all branches of REAL science as a result. Science was generally respected among most groups before that.
Democrats are the ones giving money to green companies not on merit, but on cronyism (all of the green companies given money had strong ties back to Democratic groups and lots of them were obviously in big financial trouble before the government gave them handouts). As a result the green industry has been savaged by inept but well-funded competitors killing viable ones, and then folding. The Democrats have probably set the green industry back five years at least.
Democrats are the ones that insist on large social programs, taking money away from scientific research.
Democrats are the ones who insist on an abundance of regulation of business, again stealing money away from private R&D. You have no idea how much research has been lost because of how much money SOX compliance takes.
I would never vote for Santorum, for all kinds of reasons. But no way in hell I would vote for any Democrat at this point, they are WAY into the groupthink thing and are basically a hive mind with really bad ideas all over the map, science being just one.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
And King Canute led the court to the sea, commanded the tide to turn back and it did not. He then turned to the onlookers and said what could be translated into modern terms as "can you stupid fuckers see now that you can't do everything just by talking about it?"
It's depressing that the "we can define our own reality" bullshit has crept in so far. The only way to directly change physical things is to do physical things
Huh. Never thought I would find a monist on /. ( Don't take it as an insult :) )
The Obama says I have to pay for abortions through my taxes. Santorum says that is wrong, and I agree with him. BTW, what is a granfalloon? new words always interest me.
... you're Anti-Science!
You are over-extrapolating concepts specific to finance into a more general area. In short, misusing a specific tool that was formed and tested in a more narrower venue.
That's your opinion. Bigger tools without bigger wisdom to match can be a dangerous thing. Your "growth at the expense of anything else" is a bit frightening. Does humanity want to be a flower or a cancer?
And bubbles and crashes due to lack of regulation are hardly pro-growth.
Table-ized A.I.
Who's more pro-science - republicans or democrats?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x7Q8UvJ1wvk
That's the parties, mind you. You can still have the ridiculous fringe pundits; Santorum is most certainly one of those and it scares me the type of people who openly maneuver within the republican party these days.
Personally, I find the democrats disgusting and/or out of their minds...yet end up voting for them sometimes because the republican party is lost and floundering. Where the hell has the party gone? Surely not where I'd care to follow. I'm conservative* and spiritual, but not one iota religious; separation of church and state is what I hold sacrosanct.
*I'd prefer "progressive" in the Teddy Roosevelt sense, but that's yet another term that has been corrupted and co-opted to mean "bad."
A preposition is a terrible thing to end a sentence with.
It's not "pretty obvious" because it depends on the psychology of motivation, if I am not mistaken. And psychology is still half-science-half-art.
If there were clean data that showed consistent results of "doing this much X results in this much Y", then you may have a point. But, you don't.
Table-ized A.I.
So now folk wisdom constitutes science and we're lead to believe that some politicians won't bend science to their will? Lawls.
Note that many on the left are not really "against GM foods" per se, but rather just want such products labelled as GM so that consumers have more info about the product. But the industry fights that also. There's a big difference between banning and labeling.
Table-ized A.I.
To quote J. B. S. Haldane, "If one could conclude as to the nature of the Creator from a study of creation, it would appear that God has an inordinate fondness for stars and beetles." Evidently, humans not so much.
To be fair, the granola types (which is to say "not Republicans") are generally the ones opposing GM crops and arguing that WiFi causes cancer.
The idea of an all powerful, all knowledgeable, and all good God only emerged well after the caveman era.
Yes both parties are have there idiots and wise men/women, but it is the parties themselves that have created that image. But Mr.Sanitarium has continued to stereo-type the conservative party.
I never did understand what hell "conservative" means to these people, conserve what exactly? Times change and so do countries, He is one example of how we would still be ran and dictated by religious morons, if it were up to him you would be hung for making fun of Christ. He would probably never come out and admit to thinking that but he has thought that.. I do know what the word means to the Conservatives, but...
The Right wing, as claimed the want to save your rights but then they pass or allow laws that take away your freedoms. They also have created more government in passing these laws. The Left wing does the same but the go further and create watch groups to make sure the government gets enough complaints to investigate suspected activity.. The recent approval for UAV's to be used by just about any enforcement agency that Obama passed, would have been something the Right wing would have also passed.
The Right wing seems to be together on not pushing for alternative energy, beside drilling for more crude in are backyard, or creating more nuclear power plants.
The Right wing has pretty much stereo type themselves, so has the Left Wing. We need to get rid of these idiot political system and its "two party" dictators and just have Individuals who all have the same overall goal for what the people want. Go even further and force these morons to volunteer there time instead of them getting hoards of money to do a job with the brains of a monkey. There should be a standard for who gets to be involved and it should be in tune with the original ideas of the country, but the "party" system we have has become completely stupid.
We (I think) can agree that both are slow and retarded in doing anything.
As would Orwell.
Attack your opponent with what your opponent should be attacking you on.
Turn the truth and the meanings of words completely around.
It goes so far beyond lying that I'm not sure that there's a word for it outside of a Newspeak dictioary.
Check your premises.
Nice. Already posted, so I can't mod, but I think this dovetails nicely into my own feelings about faith's role in modern society. I wrote about it elsewhere in this thread--tl;dr: faith can certainly be a backstop for those things that we can not yet understand--and the main thing I left out is the personal aspect of it.
This is one of the reasons that--to me--of all of the formal religions, Buddhism is most pleasing to me. There are teachers and there are texts, but it's core is around experience rather than absolute truths. One of the things you'll hear a Buddhist saying is, "If you find the Buddha, kill the Buddha." There are, of course, a lot of ways to interpret this, but one which fits with your comment is that it's an inoculation against demagoguery; if someone goes around claiming to know everything, i.e. to be the Buddha, that person should be removed from your spiritual practice because he (or she) is by definition not the Buddha.
And yes, I do appreciate your Bokononism references. Bokononism, to me, is simply Buddhism with a little bit of an angry edge, or conversely, Buddhism is a happier, more hopeful version of Bokononism.
The CB App. What's your 20?
Democrats on economics for example... little things like the Laffer curve that they swear doesn't exist
The empirical data does not actually support the Laffer curve. (See the Wikipedia article for some examples.)
Perhaps it would if it took all the relevant variables into account. And meanwhile it does offer a sensible intuition about tax policy: too low and revenues will go down for obvious reasons, and too high will strangle the economy and cause revenues to go down for that indirect reason.
So what you want, if the goal is to optimize revenues, is to identify the "sweet spot" between those extremes that maximizes payoff.
However, people who bring up the Laffer curve never want to identify that sweet spot, or even offer it as a way of optimizing revenues; they just invoke it as an "reason" to lower taxes, which even the fantasy curve does not support.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
You're still conflating growth with revenue. There's no reason to believe that maximum revenue happens at a point of maximum growth. There's a differential equation here, summing more than one term.
Increasing the tax rate has an obvious effect on one of the terms which increases the revenues.
It also has a less obvious effect negative effect on economic expansion. Hence the right side of the Laffer curve.
There may be (and probably are) tertiary terms too. Eg. increased government revenue allows the government to make an investment in infrastructure that stimulates the economy again. Or, if you're so inclined, allows the government to fund an initiative that further depresses the economy. Or a little of each.
The point is, just because government revenue is not going down with increased taxation, does not mean economic expansion is still stable.
Your ideology argument kind of shines through hypocritically with the unsubstantiated claim, "I threw out 20 percent because that is actually what the theory predicts". I have yet to read anything that suggests we know where that point is. It's obviously > 0%, and my intuition strongly suspects that it's significantly less than 100%, but after that it's complicated.
I actually mostly agree with your original argument, and I will agree that Democrats have some common beliefs which are ridiculous even if I think they have fewer ridiculous beliefs than Republicans.
As to republicans believing in no laffer curve because they think lowering taxes increases revenue... not really. Republicans rarely think they're going to make a lot of tax money by lowering taxes. They generally think they're shrinking government and giving the economy a chance to grow.
Which makes you wonder why they've adopted the Laffer Curve as their magical incantation, since it's all about tax revenues as a function of tax rates.
Anyway, your objection is really what I was going for here. You're proving my point. See how strongly you feel about this issue? Is it an entirely rational issue for you?
Some of feel strongly about maintaining the distinction between facts and bullshit.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
So you think you can eat 75 percent of the GDP of an economy and not have a negative impact on growth?
He didn't say that. He said that by some estimates the Laffer Curve says that.
You should be disputing the Laffer Curve rather than ranting at the messenger.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Most republicans aren't against "global warming", just the left wing infiltration of the movement. The leftist GW movement wants to end carbon pollution and take too drastic of steps to solve the "problem". The only problem with it is the evidence points to the conclusion that it is not urgent, as the leftists would claim. It is not going to increase in temp as much as the leftists claim. Water vapor is not having as great of an effect of amplifying the carbon's effects.
The WSG just published a large letter to this effect from serious, big name, big deal scientists.
Leftist weenies need to educate themselves before you pretend to understand the right. You don't speak for us, and you fancy yourself an intellectual when you misrepresent our stance and then shoot it down like a dodo bird.
It's gotten to be simply hilarious. Your boy Obama has failed miserably, so it's time to roll out the attack machine...again.
Funny view. In the reality that the rest of us inhabit, the main arms of the attack machine is the other Republican hopeful's super-PACs.
As apathetic as people are about Obama, I'm guessing that he'll win by a substantial margin. Not due to any merit on his part, but because the Republicans are slinging so much shit at each other that the winner won't be able to wash the stench out before election day.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
We may have adapted and in doing so stretched the limit of the environments which we have been able to live in. However, we are still constrained to rely on ecosystems to keep us alive by providing suitable conditions that permit us to grow the plants and animals that we eat and use for resources. As we alter global environments, most notably through habitat destruction and carbon dioxide pollution, we are reaching the limits beyond which many of these plants and animals we depend on can not survive and as a results imperil our own existence. Yes, a few will be able to weather these problems better than others, but the fact that most will not will force others to try to usurp what the wealthy few have saved for themselves and consequently all will be in peril. As the planet heats and environments degrade, there will be fewer and fewer sanctuaries.
"By refusing to either (a) collect revenues that cover the government's obligations, or (b) do the hard work to convince anyone to actually reduce those obligations, they sentence this nation to drown in a vast pit of debt."
Which of course is precisely what the GOP bankers want.
We may all hate bankers, but regardless of party they always seem to get what they want. You owing them money and you giving them your money to invest for you, paying you less than you could get investing elsewhere just as they do.
Very few economists deny the Laffer curve completely, although it's a gross simplification and a theory with no real empirical evidence. However, Laffer himself (and most economists who research the topic) have said the "top" point on the curve for income taxes was at around 65-70% marginal rate. Everywhere in the world is on the "left" side of that curve. For certain types of taxes, such as capitol gains taxes or corporate taxes, the rate may be more like 20-40%.
The idea that reducing taxes from 23% to 19% would INCREASE revenues is completely insane. Holy shit. Even "The Economist", a fiscally conservative rag, has said that the Bush tax cuts were the largest contributor to the current deficits.
The concept of international minimum taxes has very little to do with a Laffer curve and certainly can't be interpreted strictly as there are a lot of other factors. I hear Nigeria has a very low corporate tax rate, but I don't see companies running off there to do business. Concepts like international minimum taxes are insane anyway and will never happen. They're just rhetorical memes used to hold down one side of an argument without making concessions on other points.
It might be worth pointing out that your casting "Democrats" in a single light, being completely ignorant of all topics remotely related to economics.... is an ideology, and a bit of a shallow one at that. Your last sentence is grossly smug yet bald on its face.
"First you have to consider that the reason you get less revenue as you increase the tax rate is that you're depressing the economy."
BS. Taxes where higher under Clinton and the economy was much much better than it ever was under Bush, whose tax policies we are still basically living with since republicans have blocked virtually all efforts to change them.
Like Bush and the GOP said, the war in Iraq didn't cost us anything right. It paid for itself.
"As to europe having a safety net, possibly but that has nothing to do with economic growth or the laffer curve. The taxes. Countries that eat up a larger percentage of GDP in taxes have lower economic growth."
BS. Look at Germany and Denmark.
"I want growth. I think growth makes us stronger as a species, "
In that case, you will just love cancer.
Economies are not static qualities. Economies are like rivers. They're a flow. It is impossible to have any rational economic theory that does not take into account CHANGES in the economy is constantly changing. If your system does not account for those changes then it is of no value.
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As to facts versus bullshit... would not a creationist say the same thing about carbon dating? By all means, tell me about the great archeological conspiracy underpinning the science.
The problem with rejecting the laffer curve is that it doesn't actually even need to be proved. It's obvious. It's like saying 1+1 =2 . If you take money out of an economy at some point you are going to depress economic productivity and thus reduce revenue. Lets say I took 100 percent of the GDP from the economy. Are you honestly going to argue that that would have no impact on productivity or growth? Of course not. that would be stupid. Furthermore, will productivity remain high and then suddenly cut off at a specific number or will it more likely resemble a bell curve where the productivity will slowly taper off after a given point?
By all means, lets have an experiment to find out where the curve starts curving and what it's exact shape will be. But claiming that it doesn't even exist is idiotic.
Yet socialists don't like the idea since they want to claim that high taxes don't negatively impact economic growth or productivity. They must impact it. That is not to say that high taxes are good or bad. Simply understand that when you take money from column A it isn't in column B. There is a price. You don't get to eat your milk and cookies without a cow somewhere getting sore tits and a few eggs getting broken.
Just acknowledge what you're doing so there is a fair assessment of the costs.
Anyway, you won't agree... that's fine. The point wasn't to get you to agree about the laffer curve anymore then it was to get a creationist to agree the world was more then 6000 years old. The point was that ideology blinds everyone that has it.
I try not to have one. Maybe your argument now is that I've failed and that I'm blinded by my own ideology... and thus believe the laffer curve exists when any right minded person such as yourself knows it doesn't exist? Possibly. If I am blinded then I won't know it any more then you'd know it if you were blinded. That's how it works.
Claiming either party is blind to science is naive. They're both blind.
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The economist has been left of center for some time now. I think 15 years ago it was right of center but it's not the same.
As to 75 percent, that is where the point of maximum revenue for the government is... not where maximum productivity for the people is... Notice how long before 75 percent is reached on the graph there are diminishing returns. That is because prior to the 75 percent mark there is diminished productivity. People are fired... factories are closed and children starve... whatever bad things happen when the numbers go the wrong way.
Look at the graph again. This time see at what point the economy starts producing LESS wealth as a result of money being taken out of it. You'll note that is arrived at long before the government actually starts making less money itself. That is the point where you should stop taxing people. Not because the government will make less money. But because you're hurting the country beyond that point.
If you know how to read the graph properly then that will be obvious. Look at the bell curve again.
The wikipedia example shows the point where there are diminishing returns to be around 40 percent. And of course that example is likely not a derived figure.
Where the curve starts to curve is something that has to be tested more. My only point is that it does exist. It must exist. Take 100 percent of hte money out of an enemy and it dies. Take none out and it's clearly fine. So you're going to get a curve.
Democrats don't believe in the curve. They don't say "oh it's higher" they just deny it exists at all. Look at the other people replying to me in this thread. At least half of them are telling me the curve doesn't even exist.
Point proven.
Good day, sir.
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It's this country where the people can choose between a Giant Douche and a Turd Sandwich, right?
No one denies it exists? Read some of the other comments to in this very thread. Several people have outright denied it exists.
Very stupid of them of course since it must exist. The logic is undeniable. The instant you actually understand what it is you realize be a relationship between taxation, economic productivity, and the revenue.
I am not arguing about the point at which it triggers. If you like, we'll say it triggers shortly before 100 percent simply for the sake of argument. Well, it exists then. There are many of your political allies that through a mixture of ignorance and indoctrination think denying its existence is a rational response. You can't dispute that. The evidence of their denial is in this very thread.
That they are denying it proves my point. Both sides ignore what they dislike.
Do you honestly think that your ideology is the only one in the history of the human race to be free from self delusion? Does that very hubris not strike you as itself deluded? It should.
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I just spit my coffee all over my macbook, thanks! Thankfully, it WASN"T frothy.
It's funny that you're denying it exists in this post because half of your allies are saying that NO ONE denies it. So I've told them that if they read the other posts to me... such as yours... they'd see that many people are in fact denying it.
Your denial is what I wanted. Your denial proved my argument that all ideologies... or at least yours in addition to the republicans will ignore science if they find it to be inconvenient to their argument. You've proved it by even saying "For the sake of argument assume it's true"... it can't not be true. The logic is elementary in its simplicity. This is 1+1=2 sort of stuff here.
As to why science hasn't found the exact point on the curve, that probably has something to do with economists not being handed nations to perform economic experiments upon. What do you think sport?
Economics is very hard field to practice because no one will let them test anything. They have to wait for things to naturally happen and then try to draw conclusions from those events. But they're never able to directly influence events and see the results. As you can imagine that is very frustrating. Psychologist have it easier... they occasionally get to play with some university students. But while economists will sometimes try the same thing with 50 or so college kids it's not really applicable to an economy of millions.
You could conclude then that economics isn't a science at all and all economic theory of any kind can be ignored as nonsense. That would be a some hilarious mistake... but it would be a typical response for those that find economic theory to be inconvenient. Thus reinforcing my point again about ideology.
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Ah, a Malthusian!... well, your spirit is impressive but your ideology has been predicting that for about 200 years and has been wrong repeatedly.
You're sort of like those rather sad religious cults that always says their savior or god or grand invisible spirit will arrive on some specific day and rain fire upon the unbelievers. Predictably, the day arrives, nothing happens, and everyone laughs at them.
So... if you want to walk around wearing a barrel holding up a sign that says "REPENT THE END IS NIGH!!!"... that is your business. However, your comment if anything strengthens my point about ideology blinding people to their own weaknesses. You can't very well rail against another ideology for it's blindness to observing the physical world when you belong to an ideology yourself that has been predicting global doom for 200 years and been wrong every single time.
Do you know what Malthus based his theory upon? His study of the Irish people during the Potato famine. What he failed to grasp at the time was that the Irish weren't starving because of the famine. They were starving because of English oppression which the famine made worse. Take the English out of the picture and the Irish are fine. And of course, the whole incident is not applicable to any other situation in which oppression and systematic mismanagement are not common place.
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As to my extrapolation. The concept has no meaning if it has no application to growth. Why would revenue reduce as taxes are increased if higher taxes were not depressing economic productivity? If it had no impact on growth then you could raise the taxes all the way to 100 percent and at no point would there be diminishing returns. In fact, you could not only do that one year but every year there after since we're not taking growth or any time effect into consideration.
The insertion of growth and time are implicit. You can't have a rational discussion about anything that effects the economy without including those concepts.
As to bigger toys without wisdom. Only way to get wise is to play with the big toys.
Do you know what the first person to discover fire said?
Ouch.
What's the lesson there? Don't use fire? Clearly it hurts if you touch it. Your ancestors were probably protesting the first guy that started cooking with... A cartoonish suggestion but an amusing one.
Look, if you want to stay up in the trees with the other monkeys I won't threaten your bananas. In return, leave me and what becomes of the human race as it evolves alone. I've no patience for Luddites. I respect your right to do as you wish with other consenting adults... live like the amish if that makes you happy. But I won't play that game.
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Santorum's just pandering to another crowd. The American People seem to have an amazing ability to treat facts as an inconvenience. Pretty gutsy slight of rhetoric there he's using too. The climate scientists are anti-science. They must be, because we don't like what they say. It works, because people hear what they want to hear. Murdoch knows this better than anyone. Maybe we can help these manipulators demolish their own credibility before they talk us into doing the same to our future.
Not at all. It works with ants and even fire. The curve just curves in different places.
The economy is a system. Motivation operates within that system but if you want to claim money doesn't motivate you to work then why did you show up to work yesterday? If I paid you half as much to work would that impact your work? What if I paid you twenty five percent of what you're making right now?
Some have suggested here that the taxes could be raised to 75 percent before the laffer curve starts reducing revenue. So that leaves you with 25 percent of your pay... will you work if you can only keep 25 percent of your money?
What if I said, you'll get free medical care! Feel compensated? What if I say not only will you get free medical care but I'll even give it to you if you don't work at all.
The logic here is inescapable. Of course, that assumes it can get through your cognitive dissonance which I sort of doubt. It is said that Polynesian natives didn't see european ships... they couldn't see them because they were so unimaginable in their world that they simply couldn't perceive them. I won't claim that's true since I have no means of confirming it. But it was a claim by early european explorers. The natives thought the ships were clouds or something... they couldn't conceive of a ship so large or strange. Likewise, if your ideology won't accept certain things there isn't really a limit to how much it can prevent you from recognizing.
Also, I don't claim to be the best at explaining things. So it might just be I've done a bad job of presenting an argument. I've tried...
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That you should stone your wife if she wears clothes made of two different fibers.
Why anyone would ascribe any authority to it, I've never understood.
The right wingnuts are loaded with christian contradictions; more than the religion itself has. It is not less a leap than a lot of other positions they take. They don't realize contradictions are not good; that is, if they can even identify them in the 1st place. Remember, we've had an increase in people who can't tell fact from fiction in the last 10+ years (about as long as fox news.) Probably longer but since that test was college bound students and the Rush dittoheads were not measured before Fox "News" accelerated the dumbing down of the nation.
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
England was bombed out after WW2 and the money to rebuild came from an external source.
For the same thing to work in the US, you'd need to blow up most of US industry... with explosives... kill a fair number of young men between the ages of 16 and 35... you'll volunteer I'm sure... and then pump money into the country from a much larger economy... I'm assuming Mars and the Martians will do that... for years. Oh and most of our competitors should also be bombed out. So maybe if we start WW3 and make a point of blowing up china... then when the Martians bail us out we'll make boat loads of money.
Here's a word to the wise, basing any economic theory on a single data point is stupid. WW2 happened once. You'd need to show the same thing happening at least twice to draw a line between then and it's generally frowned upon if you can't prove the relationship with at least a few hundred examples of it working out a given way every time.
As to Keynesian theory, it requires money be pumped into NEW activity with NEW workers.
If you pay the OLD people to do the SAME thing... its not keynesian.... it's just pissing stimulus money down the drain. Of course, you can do that even with keynesian theory... it's just that if you're not even following the man's theories it's pretty dumb to then claim you were after blowing HUNDREDS of BILLIONS of dollars. One would assume you'd have a plain if you were going to do that. But hey... plans are hard, right? Just half ass it... I'm sure no one will notice.
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FML... did you read the post I was responding to? Read it again... let me quote it for you:
"The Laffer Curve is a theoretical construct with no actual evidence "
which means he's denying it exists which was what I would say he would do... and he did it. So I said "now we have people denying it as predicted"...
Then you respond "they didn't say what you said they said"... Except they did. Word for word? I'm not sure... it really doesn't matter since what I said is that they'd deny the concept exists. And there are several people commenting to me right now who have said that repeatedly. So... point proven.
Try again.
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Observation of economic growth between similar countries with competing tax structure. I'm not saying that the peak of the curve is at 20 percent. I'm saying that you start getting diminishing returns after 20 percent. Fewer people start to be hired... fewer factories are opened... less happens.
the government probably will keep making money until 60 percent or more. But that will be long past the point where there is increased unemployment and decreased national growth.
And compounded over time... any decrease in growth will seriously impact revenue.
Compound interest... it's a bitch.
if your tax system only reduces economic growth by a tenth of a percent... compounded over 200 years that can make a big difference. And of course, as time goes on that difference if sustained will only increase throughout time. It's exponential.
In short... anything that impacts growth negatively is very very very bad. You won't notice it because you live in the present. But if you step back and see the flow of history... upon little things like that are empires built and civilizations crushed.
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Taxes would have to be very high for a large reduction in taxes to not impact government revenue.
Of course, I'm not arguing that republicans aren't blind to such matters as well.
I'm arguing rather then EVERYONE with a side is blind. I try to cheat by not having a side... but maybe I've failed? Possible... I wouldn't know it if I had... just as you won't know it if you've failed. Such is the nature of consciousness. You're either aware or you're not... and if you're not aware of something then you won't notice that you're not aware because you're not aware of it.
Around and around in circles... :D
As to supply side economics... no system of economics that looks only at one side is going to be complete. Supply side is no more accurate then demand side economics.
Look at the housing bubble... that was demand side economics. You gave money for people to buy houses. You put money into demand. But did you build more houses? No. And so housing prices inflated because you kept subsidizing demand without subsidizing supply.
The same thing has happened with education. You give money to students to buy educations with but are you building new universities? Not as much as you're pumping into demand. Result... price inflation.
And now you want to do the same thing with medical care. If you want hospital bills to come down... then you will need to increase supply. that won't give poor people medical care because they likely can't pay anything. So you'll have to subsidize demand. But now you're going to have to subsidize supply again to balance out the subsidization you made to demand.
Soviet union had this problem. Managing a centralized economy is almost impossible. You have to balance everything, motivate people to work even though they're often working for someone thousands of miles away that will never check their work... it's very challenging. Soviets couldn't make it work.
Maybe you will... I'd just assume let the market do it... but then I hold that view mostly because I don't think you can manage it. If you could actually manage a centralized economy with ANY competence, then I'd support you.
It's not that I think your economic view is bad. I just think you'd need to be GOD or some freaky scifi super computer with skynet level AI to manage the whole thing. I don't think you can do it.
So I'd prefer the crazy jungle of the market. Say what you will about it... it's scalable.
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That has no bearing on my argument. I didn't say the economy would be better or worse if the clinton taxes were imposed. I simply pointed out that there is an undeniable link between economic productivity and tax rate. Where it triggers is debatable. That it exists is not debatable.
If I take 100 percent of the money out then clearly there is going to be an impact right? Okay... what if I only take 80 percent out? Clearly we'll get a different result then if we took 100 percent. What if we took amounts out ranging from 100 and 0 and then graphed the result... think we'd get a curve, sport?
That's the laffer curve. Where it curves is debatable... that it exists or does curve is not.
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However this is Rick Santorum. Religious nutbag, creationist, global warming denier and taker of various other anti-scientific positions. For him to accuse others of being anti science is the most blatant projection. I assume his advisors have told him to come out swinging, that by calling the other side names he somehow takes some of the heat of himself for some of his more recent ridiculous remarks. I really pity the Republican party if they choose this guy and the world if somehow he becomes elected. The other republicans might all be slimeballs in their own way but at least they have a basic grasp on reality.
That assumed the oil fields could be tapped directly to pay for the invasion and occupation. That became politically impossible shortly before the war given that many allied nations objected to the matter to say nothing of the fact that the Iraqis themselves felt they should get it. So contrary to the US military being paid by the oil fields... the US government pumped a huge amount of aid money into Iraq that will likely never see returned in any meaningful way.
Don't take this as a defense of the Iraq war in anyway... I'm merely clarifying that the whole "it will pay for itself" remark was based upon the idea of tapping the oil fields to pay for it. Under that premise the fields could pay for the occupation and over time would pay off the cost of the initial invasion. However, as Iraq has little else to call an actual economy... the people there might well starve without it. So it was an ignorant claim made without fully understanding how dependent they are on that money. The US for example has a much larger oil industry in real terms but it's much smaller as a percentage of the economy. Everyone is prone to judge others in their own terms rather then the terms of those others. It's not wrong so much as it makes it impossible to actually understand anyone else. Ideally people should be judged both ways. So you can understand someone and then also relate them to yourself. If you merely relate without understanding then it's very easy to misinterpret those relationships.
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There are lots of angry people here.
Only a problem if you spend more then you have. High school students are taught to balance a checkbook. One would assume grown men with literal armies of accountants could balance a budget but apparently they can't.
Go figure. And every time revenue increases due to a good economy, are the debts paid off? Rarely... typically spending is simply increased to match current revenue... and then when the good times end and the revenue falls... they keep spending using debt money until the checks start bouncing. Look at Illinois... the checks are literally bouncing. They're writing IOUs... California has done that as well. It's funny because when tax season rolls around they get their IOUs back in the mail. No interest on them sadly...
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Santorum lying about the Netherlands.
As a native Dutch, let me try to explain it to Americans: this is beyond taking the Jerry Springer Show as portraying the average American life.
(PS: I don't believe this is ignorance. You cannot spout such nonsense in ignorance.)
As to your citation, that graph doesn't make any sense. Are you sure that's an actual graph of something? because it looks like the result of a child playing with powerpoint. It seems to be focusing further on corporate taxes rather then upon taxes in general. The nature of the curve is that it should focus on everything. It would be interesting to see such a graph that took into consideration all fees, licenses, and taxes at all levels. It should count income tax, sales tax, capital gains tax, payroll tax, all the licenses everyone pays to live, and all the various use fees from the special taxes on gasoline to the special taxes on cigarettes. The whole thing. Add it up and do the graph again. With the VAT tax many europeans could be paying over 75 percent in taxes and it would be hard to argue that doesn't have a negative impact on growth.
As to the contradiction, if you lose businesses as result of increasing taxes... that will do what to your revenue? It will go down. Which corresponds to what?... Oh right...
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And quite often, when covering the US elections, the reporter finds a homeless person waving a flag for a Republican candidate who wants to use the homeless for fuel. There are an amazingly high number of dumb people among the poor and dumb people really believe it that THEY can make it rich someday... quite why when you are rich you need to worry about a few millions more or less in taxes is beyond me (and also beyond a rich guy like Buffet) but the poor believe it. There is an incredibly large group who believes that a certain politician making more then 100k a year is ready for the poor house if his taxes go up a bit.
Voters are dumb. There is a reason the people who introduced democracy never intended for everyone to be a voter. Not the Greeks and not the Americans. Votes were once restricted to people who could at least be presumed to have more then two braincells to rub together. In modern times... well that homeless guy can vote...
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
So why did the US enjoy decades of undisputed trade dominance? BECAUSE WE BLEW UP EVERYONE ELSE"S FACTORIES!!! It's kind of obvious isn't it?
Japan maybe, but Europe was burning from London to Moscow long before the US entered the war and with or without Pearl Harbor we'd be pretty bombed out. So to claim the US did it would be a wild exaggeration.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Politicians lie.
Yeah, that's all. There really is nothing to add to that.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
Oh, by "we" I meant the allies collectively. But if you like... the war did it.
Point is that the US had a vast industrial base that was untouched by the war. The only large industrial base in the world that was intact. So why did our business boom? Gee... well, they weren't going to buy from the germans because they were smashed and/or now Soviet citizens. They weren't going to buy from the Japanese as you pointed out... because we nuked them. The Germans pretty much took care of the English industrial base. To say nothing of all the little rebellions and collapses in the old European imperiums... both England and France lost much of their imperial holdings as a result of the war and that meant that resources that once flowed to europe flowed instead to anyone offering the best price. At the time, that was often the US since we could actually do something with it... turn it into a product... etc.
I really hope the US isn't nostalgic for the post war era. It sounds like a lot of people are... or look back to it as an example. It was a nice time for the US but it was made possible in large part by everyone else having their industrial base wiped out.
It's sort of like shooting everyone in the knee or if you prefer "someone" shooting everyone in the knee... except you... and then patting yourself on the back for beating them all in sprint races.
I suppose we could have "someone" shoot everyone else in the knees again... Probably would help US industry out...
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Atheism is a belief system in the same way that non collecting stamps is a hobby.
Bad analogy; bad grammar, and copypasta of someone elses views as your own. Not collecting stamps is far more akin to agnostic mode of thought than athetist.
No, you're just a typical socialist who thinks that the goal of the state should be to take away as much money from citizens as possible. Meanwhile republicans would rather just spend their money themselves than have the nanny state take it from them and spend it on their behalf. Laffer curve has nothing whatsoever to do with that - the goal isn't to increase the revenue of the nanny state, it's to get more money to stay in the pockets of citizens (and cut back on the nannying).
It should be obvious that lowering taxes CAN actually increase revenue, in some cases. (If your taxes are 100%, then in that case people will actually not bother to work, lowering taxes will increase productivity). What's not clear is whether we're in one of those situations.
High school students are taught to balance a checkbook.
As I said, Republican borrow-and-spenders FAIL this task.
Listening to this sort of thing from all sides and calling on religion also just makes me think Voltaire was right when he said:-
"The world would be a far better place once the last politician is strangled to death with the small intestines of the last priest!"
You realise that occam's razor is a completely flawed idea though right? "In the beginning god created the heavens and the earth" vs [insert 7 volumes of complex physics descriptions of the big bang through star formation through accretion disks to plate tectonics, vulcanism and atmosphere formation].
In this case the simple explanation is probably wrong. In fact, if you take Occam's razor to the extreme, you want to just start subscribing to the belief system know as nihilism, it is the simplest.
This is one of the reasons that--to me--of all of the formal religions, Buddhism is most pleasing to me. There are teachers and there are texts, but it's core is around experience rather than absolute truths.
Karma, rebirth, samsara, the four noble truths, ans so on are all dogmatic, absolute "truths".
Buddhism is a happier
As exemplified by the first noble truth: Life is suffering. Couldn't get more happy than that. I know, I don't "understand" it.
You know, I am told that posting this link contributes to a web site that reveals embarrassing information about Santorum every time someone Googles on his name.
This link does the same for Romney.
Oops. I am off topic and disrespectful of thugs and clowns.....um Republican candidates for the presidency.
...you :)
"he said to applause"
Does that scare anyone here?
tl:dr
n/c
Most popular response:
Least popular response:
Middle road response:
At least it's carbon neutral.
Agent Brian Terry's family is certainly waiting for an investigation and charges for the conspiracy that killed him. But Obama has definitely voiced that killing American citizens is where he is the decider.
If we're no where near the maximum on the curve, then for the point of debate, it doesn't exist.
I'm sure you can find some ideological issues if you look a bit harder, even if the democrats make it a lot more difficult than the republicans. This just wasn't a good example.
Denying that the Malthusian angle has any validity at all in any case is totally loopy. It amounts to saying that 'because predictions of running out of x have so far been wrong, we can carry on using x at an increasing rate indefinitely with no consequences'.
As to your citation, that graph doesn't make any sense. Are you sure that's an actual graph of something? because it looks like the result of a child playing with powerpoint.
I'd suggest that if you can't understand this very straightforward graph, you should are either well below the intelligence level required to understand very basic economics, or more likely are deliberately not understanding it because it provides some hard evidence that the Laffer curve may well be a load of bullshit, and you have obviously invested so much mental capital in it being true that it has become an item of religious belief to you - which is pretty funny for someone who is calling others anti-science for rejecting it.
As a foreigner it's simply amazing and sad, to watch you destroy your magnificent country the way almost every European country has fallen. A flock of narrow-minded confused sheep, mindlessly following the useful idiots of the lame stream media.... So sad.
You're anti-science.
No, you're anti-science. And you smell.
Wish I had mod points for this
Actually, sorry for the Grammar Nazi attittude towards economy, (Bachelors degree in Cultural Anthropology while still being a card carrying geek (I wouldn't have failed basic math if I hadn't spent so much time re-creating space invaders on my graphic calculator), but that does give enough of a background do get my head around most Macro-economics textbooks and I'm also a bit of an economics buff.
That said, I just wanted to point out you're actually half right, Keynes proposal was actually that you could pretty much just toss money around aimlessly and it would still be enough to restart the economic engine, (there is a reason social security and unenployment insurance where established around the same time)
what he did posit was that of course if you're going to spend time and money anyway, you might as well try to maximize your investment and focus on things like large work-force intensive infrastructure projects that would never get political/financial support In normal times and take advantage of the boost they would provide later on when the economy would be up and running to not only get to economy back to full capacity but also to enhance maximum that maximum economic capacity.
(I mean if a server suffers total hardware failure and you have to spend time and resources getting services back up, and running tests on the hardware, why not take the advantage slip some upgrades in while you're at it, you're already going to have to do most of the work anyway)
This .... from the arrantly anti-intellectual knownothing far-right republicans? The foolishness of Santorum's gibberings has me gasping for air.
I didn't say we were no where near the point of the curve. I said where the point was is debatable.
Furthermore, I don't care where the point is for the purposes of this discussion. I merely said the curve itself exists. I pointed out that many democrats deny the entire existence of the curve which actually has to exist. It's not possible for it not to exist. And yet, they deny its existence. There are several people commenting to me in this thread that have repeatedly done that.
And did I say any of this to suggest democrats were less likely to listen to reason? No. I merely said you were the SAME. Get over yourself. You're human beings. The average test scores for democrats going through school is a C AVERAGE just like the republicans or any other political party that wins POPULAR elections. You're not a race of ubermen. You're just people... and like all people you have a large collection of idiots. I'll stress an obvious implication because some people are slow... I am saying BOTH parties have around the same proportion of idiots in their ranks. I am NOT claiming some sort of ideological superiority. The very act of aligning yourself with any large group of people tends to mean you aligned yourself with a bunch of idiots. That sounds elitist but it's simply statistics. And democrat idiots deny the laffer curve. I say that because everyone that has ever done so to me has been a democrat or a political analog of the same. And you'd have to be pretty ignorant of basic logic and economics to deny the laffer curve. It elementary. It's seriously 1+1=2 sort of logic here. Again, where the curve starts and peaks is debatable. That it exists is not.
As to where the curve starts... just for fun... I thought this was sort of funny. There was an article in the UK today about the British possibly finding the laffer curve! They increased a tax and got less revenue.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/personalfinance/consumertips/tax/9097219/50p-tax-rate-failing-to-boost-revenues.html
Now, I am not saying that is a confirmation of the peak on the laffer curve for england. There could be lots of reasons for why revenue fell when the taxes went up. Maybe the economy declined for entirely unrelated reasons. Whatever. This is at MOST a data point. If we get a few dozen more data points from the UK or very similar economies that all seem to show a peak around this number... then tentatively we might conclude that COULD be where the peak of the curve is in the UK and similar economies.
Anyway, I found it funny that this article came out just as I was getting attacked by dozens of angry poodles on the internet.
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In one estimate it was over 500,000 thousand PER JOB. In most cases it would have been more efficient to simply give each of those people half a million dollars.
That's dishonest, and you're confusing the slackjawed among us. Just because you can divide the total by the number of jobs doesn't mean you can ignore the capital investments and the knock-on effects they have. Example: build a bridge, employ 30 construction workers, buy millions in capital. The materials in steel and concrete add to employment at steel-mills, mining, trucking, and when the bridge is done people can drive to work on it. One of the construction workers saves up enough and gains enough experience to start his own company in construction, while another one hires him to build his restaurant... and so on. It's not the optimum economic model, but downplaying the stimulating effects is not fair either.
... I think you mean both parties when they borrow and spend fail this task.
Because both parties do it. Claiming otherwise is simply willfully ignorant.
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I've heard this, and I don't understand it. The Scandinavian countries all have much higher taxes than the US, and also much higher per capita GDP. How is this possible?
The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts -Russell
Furthermore, I don't care where the point is for the purposes of this discussion. I merely said the curve itself exists. I pointed out that many democrats deny the entire existence of the curve which actually has to exist. It's not possible for it not to exist. And yet, they deny its existence. There are several people commenting to me in this thread that have repeatedly done that.
At the same time, there are also people who say that democrats (at least some of them, anyway) do not deny its existence, to show you that it's not all black and white and your comment is not as insightful as it appears ...but for the most part you just ignored them and keep on trumpeting about democrats deny the curve... ... which in other words, you yourself are ignoring things you don't like.
Anyway, I found it funny that this article came out just as I was getting attacked by dozens of angry poodles on the internet.
What's really funny here is that, as shown above that you are a hypocrite and ignore things you don't like yourself, that you actually call other people "angry poodles" and that the GP needs to "get over himself", when you are probably the dog who is barking the loudest and most angry about people disagreeing with you on the Internet (you started this thread after all, and have continuously replied)
I know you're superstitious and antiscience, but what am I?
Observation of economic growth between similar countries with competing tax structure. I'm not saying that the peak of the curve is at 20 percent. I'm saying that you start getting diminishing returns after 20 percent. Fewer people start to be hired... fewer factories are opened... less happens.
So what are those similar countries? Be more specific.
In short... anything that impacts growth negatively is very very very bad
Growth is not the end-all be-all of things. I don't care about growth if the majority of citizens won't enjoy its fruits, or will only enjoy the scraps - which is what happens with ultra-low taxes, when wealth starts to gravitate rapidly towards the top.
But you claim the Republicans are better because they put the government in debt so they can "shrink" it. The truth is, that's bunk. It's putting the cart before the horse.
If they had any principles, they would refuse to ever support any deficit spending, even if it means that taxes have to go up drastically. Then if peoples' taxes were to high, the people would support cutting government spending until the taxes become acceptable. The republican's purported goals would then be achieved in a fiscally responsible way.
Underneath everything, economics is nothing more than group psychology. Math, algorithms, and rates are irrelevant in the long run; what matters is peoples' frame of mind. No amount of theoretical short-term stimulus from some people inexplicably believing that they're on the left side of the Laffer curve is going to overcome the overwhelming nationwide psychological gloom of seeing the country suffocating under an insurmountable mountain of debt.
However, the past 30 years have shown that the truth is Republicans don't give a shit about any of that. They're happy to borrow and spend any amount of money at all, as long as they can claim that they haven't raised taxes, damn the consequences. It's this bald-faced hypocrisy is what makes them worse than the democrats.
Why would you be immune to "cognitive dissonance" but not me? Why are your self-correction and self-auditing mechanisms superior to mine? Why am I subject to the foils of human nature in terms of stubbornness and ego but not you? Why can I be self-deceived but not you? I realize I could be flat wrong, but so far the tax and unemployment charts and data over the past 80 odd years suggest I'm not.
And the shape of the curve is the million-dollar question. I believe conservatives exaggerate its impact on middle class wealth and jobs. Bush's tax-cuts should've done miracles for the economy based claims of the power of tax-cuts, but they didn't, and perhaps made it worse by creating an upper-class-fueled investment bubble.
I believe people are motivated mostly by their relative rankings to their competition and peers rather than absolute rewards. Ranker #18 is still ahead of #19 if the taxes are increased a bit. This is how most pack mammals operate: rank is the king currency in the pack. Many of the very wealthy have had so much wealth that they couldn't/can't even spend it all before they died. They are driven to collect more and more rather than being driven by the quantity of actual possessions. Steve Jobs said to follow your passion first, and money will eventually come as a side-effect.
Table-ized A.I.
The lesson here is these types of people are unconsciously aware of what they are; they know, at some level, what they are doing.
If you beat your wife and then you run around calling other wife beaters, it's because it's on your mind in the first place- because you do it.
deniers know they're deniers. They also know that their denial is putting the United States and in fact everyone else also in harms way; a harm so great the denier can never live it down.
Sorry to go Freudian here but this is classic classic denial and projection.
From Reagan tearing the solar panels off the White House to the conservative assault on the scientific veracity of human caused global warming, conservatives are single-handedly responsible for the looming destruction of civilization itself.
This is not the type fo thing any political movement survives. Not only is it going to take down "conservatism" and have human garbage like Rick Santorum and that 25% of the US population that thinks he's being "raised up by God to lead us" covering their tracks and denying they were every deniers in 20 years time, it's going to also destroy once and for all the anti-regulatory / "free market" / "small government" mantra that started with Reagan in "modern times" .
It's all over for conservatives and religion and crap like Citizen's United and the human garbage that spawned all that , all over but for the screaming.
Everyone thought it was amusing or at best a little sad when a huge part of the US population decided to "find Jesus" and go all evangelical - fundamentalist and mainstream crap like evolution denialism and "young earth science" and Intelligent Design.
But that's exactly what laid the foundation for global warming denialism.
Not so funny now is it?
Check your stats again. Only Norway has that claim and possibly Luxemburg if you consider that Scandinavian.
Norway is very oil rich. It's the saudi arabia of europe. Look at their main exports.
As to Luxemburg, they're a tax shelter... and a very tiny country. Imagine the Bahamas with fewer people and worse weather... and more money laundering.
I'll point out that Qater has higher per capita GDP then Norway. Why do you think that is?.. Do you think it's all the manufacturing they're doing? Maybe its the intellectual property? Maybe it has something to do with oil and finance? I say that rhetorically because it's obvious... and I point that out because lots of people have been missing the obvious in this thread.
if you look at the per capita GDP list you'll see that Sweden makes about 40k a year and the US makes 48k. What about Germany? Germany only makes 37k a year.
If you want an example of a high per capita GDP country... Look at Singapore. Fairly large population and a higher per capita GDP then the US or Norway for that matter. Of course, they're also big oil exporters. But if it matters to you their tax rate is 14 percent of GDP. The US is reported at 15 on the same graph but latest reports have put us closer to 18 percent. In any case, your argument doesn't make any sense. The nordic states are not the utopia you imagine.
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There's nothing that's in the Bible that is contradictory to the evidence we have today. Big Bang is an interpretation of how we got here based on the evidence that we see today. All events in the Bible are supported by what we see today. You can't recreate the "experiment" of the Big Bang so you have to come up with an explanation of how we got here. Creationists have their interpretation and evolutionists have theirs based on the evidence we have today. The same applies to evolution. There's not evidence of evolution only mutations. Evolution requires that transmutation exists and we have no evidence that it does.
the laffer curve is generally assumed to exist somewhere beyond 20 percent
The laffer curve exists over the range of 0-100%, you mean the maximum is somewhere beyond 20%
A) If the maximum is indeed somewhere beyond 20%, and we're currently at 16-18%, doesn't that put us below the maximum?
B) Wikipedia tells me that the maximum is closer to 70%
They generally think they're shrinking government and giving the economy a chance to grow.
That is a Republican talking point, yes, but no-one (except Ron Paul) has actually said they will reduce specific areas of the budget by enough to make a difference.
Is 1563649 a prime number?
I'm afraid growth is the end all be all of things OVER TIME. And the more mature you are the more you understand that time matters. Growing up means making reservations. It means planning for the winter. It means making long term investments. It means putting some money away so you kids have college money in 18 years.
Compound interest. Lets have some fun with math!
Okay. Lets say the US and EU economy is equal as of now... just for the sake of argument. If you prefer we can say country 1 and country 2. Now lets say the US(1) Grows ONE percent faster then the EU(2) annually. After one hundred years that will mean the US(1) has an economy 2.7 times larger then EU. That's assuming everything else remains equal. So the US(1) on average will be making 2.7 times more per capita.
Do you see how a small decrease in growth over time can have an impact on revenue... OVER TIME?
Growth and compound interest are enormously important. One percent growth over a century is the difference between the first world and the second world. We're already making about 10k more a year per capita then most of europe. That's just the last few decades of 1 percent higher growth. We keep it up and the gap increases.
And if you're going to say "what about the poor people"... I'll reply with the obvious... rich countries take care of their poor. Poor countries don't and can't. What about the environment you say? Rich countries take care of the environment. Poor countries cannot and do not.
Everything is better with more money. Everything is easier. Many projects we fund today would be impossible were the US a poor country. We are a rich country because of growth. It is the end all and be all. More growth will make more of your programs sustainable and it will make us able to fund new programs you have yet to dream of.
And because math is fun... and I feel like driving this point in with a solid gold sledgehammer:
200 years of 1 percent higher growth: 7.31 TIMES larger
300 years of 1 percent higher growth: 19.8 TIMES larger
400 years of 1 percent higher growth: 53.5 TIMES larger
And it just gets crazier from there on out. Compound interest.
If the US maintains it for 100 years above europe then there will be as big an economic difference between the US and Europe as there is between the US and Mexico.
If the US maintains it for 200 years then Europe will basically be a third world country in comparison to the US.
Three hundred years and were not even vaguely related civilizations anymore.
Now some might argue these figures are not sustainable. One percent is entirely sustainable. Some might say "what about natural resources, etc"... Malthusian logic fails to take into consideration advances in technology and advances in methods of doing things. His theory also fails to grasp that what was not a resource in the past can be a resource in the future. Oil for example... it was a menace in ancient times. It wasn't used for anything. It would bubbled out of the earth in some places and poison crops or kills live stock. It was bad. Today we have a modern economy based upon it. You can't predict what future generations will base their economy on or how they'll solve problems. All you can do is give them the best chance possible to solve those problems by leaving them a legacy of wealth, wisdom, and drive.
In any case, I believe in growth. To the extent I have an ideology that is my ideology. I believe in it. It is something I will sacrifice for compromise for... I see it as a goal because it achieves many things at once. And sustained growth decade over decade doesn't lie... You can fake it for a few years... maybe ten. But you can't fake it for fifty.
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I'm afraid you can't wish economic problems away with a group sing-a-long.
Just because something has psychological aspects involved doesn't mean you can substitute sound economic theory with dragons, elves, and witches... and other convenient bits of fantasy that you felt like incorporating because it doesn't matter what you put into it.
You don't believe in economics? Fine. Creationists don't believe in biology or chemistry. That was my point. Both your ideologies find things in the real world you don't like and you pretend they don't exist.
Ideologies do that. Join the club... there's a t-shirt and everything.
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There is no way to apply math to mass hysteria. It's inherently chaotic. All economic models eventually fail, as was proven again just a couple of years ago.
Economics is a cargo cult science. The sooner you realize this, the sooner you'll give up stupid religious beliefs like "tax cut === good".
Oh I wouldn't be immune. It's just that if and where I suffer it I can't be aware of it just as you can't be aware of your own failures. 'Tis the nature of these things. It's like asking a colorblind person how many times he saw the color red or green. The nature of things is that he can't know. I make no claim to perfection... merely the attempt to get a little closer then most. Am I just as blind as you? Maybe. But that does your argument no favors. My argument is that ideology blinds. Arguing am blind doesn't help you. You are in the impossible position of trying to claim your ideology has no imperfections or blindspots or aspects in which it is intolerant and given to seek convenient self delusions. You can't win that argument.
So... it's heads I win... and tails you lose.
See?... I rig the dice... all the sides are painted with smiley faces. :-)
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I wasn't talking about the apex... I was talking about the CURVE. Prior to 20 percent the relationship between tax rates and revenue will likely be a 1:1 ratio. After 20 percent you should start gradually seeing diminishing returns. That doesn't mean you make less as you increase taxes. It mean the relationship between the tax increase and the revenue increase is no longer 1:1. Furthermore, in the economy your tax increase is likely causing a gradual rise in unemployment, fewer businesses are getting started, less investment is occuring... etc.
That's just the curve starting. The apex is likely somewhere between sixty percent and seventy percent. But at that point you have very high unemployment, low economic growth, and what is really a dying economy.
If you tax AT the apex that's only efficient if you only look at ONE year. For that ONE year you've maximized revenue. However, you've also likely consumed ALL capital that would have been invested in the economy to grow it. Which means zero growth. And zero growth tends to mean recession over time because businesses die... and if you create no businesses then the die off rate will be the rate at which your economy declines to zero.
So... as I said... it is believed that the curve starts somewhere after 20 percent. Maybe we're wrong. Maybe it starts sooner. But it doesn't start later then 20 percent. It's a gradual thing.
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It's possible (though unlikely) that it doesn't exist. You don't have proof because you haven't run any experiments or have anything to observe tax income at different rates. Either way, it's not relevant since the peak is much higher than we're at. It's like how in physics you learn that F=mA, even though that's not exactly true, for the cases that it's used it works. Ignoring the existence of the Laffer Curve makes no difference to the debate over whether taxes should be raised a small amount.
Now saying that vaccines cause retardation is both unscientific and harmful to the debate of the subject. See the difference here?
Sure, and a creationist would argue that it's impossible to know what happened 6000 years ago because we weren't there. We're just measuring isotope ratios in rocks and making calculations based on observed ratios as they relate to know time factors.
You want to claim economics is purely chaotic and therefore you can make up any economic theory you like and its as good as another? Very convenient.
For the sake of argument. If I were right about democrats having a blind spot for economics... isn't that EXACTLY what you would say IF you were blind to the issue? Just put yourself in... your own shoes.
You're doing it and you don't even realize it.
I'm not making fun of you. Cognitive dissonance does that to people. You can't know when its happening. Its like being color blind. You don't know if it's red or green. You're not stupid or foolish or ignorant. Your brain which is doubtless perfectly healthy and sane is messing with you. Brains do that. It's a known and very common psychological phenomenon. And it is extremely common with things like religion, politics, and philosophy. Basically anything that creates your world view tends to form static bonds in your mind. And if the world... through your senses tells you that your world view is wrong... it is common for people to ignore it. That isn't a moral weakness. It's neurological. It's the way our brains are wired.
And I'm sure you're going to ask how I don't know if I'm doing it right now? I don't. I could and possibly am as blind to my own issues as you are to yours. The difference is that I'm not basing my argument on whether I'm clean. I'm arguing instead that everyone is dirty. So arguing that I'm dirty won't help you. You'll have to argue that your ideology is the only one in human history to be free of self delusion. You can't win.
It's head I win the argument or tails you argue I'm corrupted but by doing so you give my argument towards universal corruption more credence and so lose.
Either way... my argument wins.
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No it isn't possible. Again this 1+1=2 stuff. It isn't possible that 1+1 SOMETIMES equals 3. It equals two.
Under real world conditions you can of course get weird results but that's like saying under real world conditions a deadly poison can sometimes be survivable. For example... many poisons can be neutralized by eating activated charcoal... if you just happened to stuff a bunch into your mouth for some reason... you could survive all sorts of deadly poisons. Doesn't make them not deadly poisons.
For example, lets say your raise the tax rate but at the same time you increase the number of loopholes such that the official tax rate is meaningless. During the 60s and 70s when the US tax rate was a great deal higher there were also a lot more loopholes. This disguised the actual tax rate which was quiet a bit lower.
In France personal income is negotiable. What you CLAIM to make is not rigorously audited as it is in the US. So the tax rate can be high but you claim to make less then you actually make thus you pay a lower tax rate. This is especially common for side investments that are harder to track and the old favorite... the Swiss bank account.
The laffer curve is not about the fake tax rate. It's about the ACTUAL tax rate. It's the tax rate after the games with the tax auditors and the loopholes. After... EVERYTHING. Once you've accounted for all the relevant variables... you should be able to see it as taxes go up. Again, too bad we don't have a country to play guinea pig with, eh? Just a few million people and we can play with the tax rate and economic structure just to see what happens.
And then when we're done we can use our giant magnifying glass in orbit to burn them from space... SIZZLE!
Sorry, I'm getting bored... tenth time I've explained the same thing to someone... in a row. :D
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The term "beginning of time" may not make sense in any physical sense. It may be the case that time has no beginning, even if what we typically call the "universe" does have a beginning. (I'm not even a layman, but as far as I understand it, some current theories suggest that the universe is the result of the collision of eternal vibrating/fluctuating "branes" in higher-dimensional space.)
(Also AFAIUI:) "Singularity" simply means that the math of the currently known laws of nature breaks down or diverges -- it doesn't necessarily mean that time somehow didn't exist.
HAND.
Read Kurt Vonnegut's book Cat's Cradle for the origin of the word granfalloon.
Thank you for clarifying your point. So many people would just rant and not move forward with the discussion, and I'd like to thank you for your interest in an intelligent debate.
Here's a different way to look at it. The maximum point on the curve is the point where economic activity has dropped enough that people aren't investing any more, so the total revenue goes down. So of course, having a low tax increases economic activity, leading to higher revenue overall. The low tax rate we've had has indeed sparked some serious economic activity, but is that really a good thing? Year-on-year growth has caused people to expect serious returns on their money, which indirectly caused the risk taking behaviour seen by the banks and insurance companies, which in turn contributed to the collapse. If we had a higher tax rate, there would be less economic growth in the short term, but the long term stability would increase, and after the first crash we avoid we'd be ahead.
Is 1563649 a prime number?
Santorum wouldn't know science if he stepped in it.
You're basing your proof on what you appear to believe an absolute truth on...nothing. Common sense might make it true in your mind, but that's not a scientific method.
Yeah! Cavemen had bigger things to worry about, like getting eaten by a huge dinosaur!
Oh wait Newt... never mind...
It wasn't people's expectations that caused the housing bubble. It was the cheap credit injected into the housing market by Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. Congress told Freddie and Fannie to increase home ownership in America by giving loans to more people. Freddie and Fannie responded by telling mortgage lenders that they'd back stop nearly any loan to someone that wants to buy a house. Take a loan out from a hobo living in a tree. Freddie and Fannie will buy the loan. Then they got wall street involved and wall street convinced themselves that they had a genius mathematical way to make horrible investments profitable. Unfortunately the whole system created an economic feedback loop. Ever put a microphone close to a speaker. The tiny electrical whine from the microphone or the speaker will be enough to set in motion a loop in which a tiny amount of sound will be amplified by the speaker, recorded by the microphone, played by the speaker, picked up by the microphone and so on... until the speaker explodes or maxes out. It doesn't matter how much money you have... how big your economy is... that's as meaningless as just using a bigger speaker. It will just get louder.
It wasn't risk taking that caused the problem. it was the interaction between government intervention in the economy and the natural capitalistic process. What the market was doing is eating the government's money. It was a feeding frenzy. Drop a dead whale in the ocean... wait a few days and the water is slick with whale fat as hundreds of sharks take turns to take bites out of it and thousands of little fish swim around to snap up bits.
Okay well whales die in nature. That's normal. Imagine if a whale the size of road island died in the middle of atlantic... and lets remove rot and decomposition from this analogy. You'd have whole generations of life that would be born, raised, and die within the context of this giant pile of meat just being there. Explosive population growth. And then imagine the day dawns when the meat is gone. Bones picked clean. Nothing but millions... possibly billions of hungry mouths to feed and no giant dead whale to eat!!! CRISIS!!! COLLAPSE! DISASTER!
That in part is what happened with the housing bubble. Fannie and Freddie dumped money on the market for nearly 20 years. It started gradually... but it was consistent and it increased more after every recession. Every recession they said "oh and give more money to the housing fund."... and so it got more and more inflated.
The system is stable, self regulating, and self evolving. Housing prices prior to about 20 years ago remained stable in the US in relation to inflation since the Civil War. That is EXTREMELY stable. Buying a house historically was not an investment because you didn't make money on it. You wouldn't lose money on it. It could be said to be a store of value. But you'd generally sell it for what you paid plus inflation plus improvements. Minus wear and tare... and any gentrification or degradation in the community. If your community turned into a crack den in the mean time your house value was going to go down. But it could go up as easily if things improved. Point was that you couldn't flip houses prior to 20 years ago. Even doing it with improvements wasn't really worth it. You just got what the improvements were worth. You'd make more money offering yourself out as a carpenter or a plumber. That you could flip houses WAS the problem. It was a symptom of the syndrome. It was the feed back loop. And the faster houses flipped the faster the system fed back on itself. Housing prices going up and up and up and up. The same house sold a dozen times in a just a few years every time for a big profit.
Capitalism like nature upon which it is modeled can be upset by external forces. Take a lot of money out of the system and you can cause a depression or a recession. Inject a lot of money and you'll create a bubble as everything rushes in to consume the capital as quickly as possible before there's nothing left but bones.
Growth is good.
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Obama and Bush say I must pay for pre-emptive war through my taxes. Ron Paul says that is wrong, and I agree with him.
:(){
Not the laffer curve. You can't claim that taking 100 percent of the money out of the economy won't cause it to crash. Nor can you claim that taking none of the money out will not cause it to at least perform "well"... Between point A and B how exactly would you graph that line?
Do you think it would be a straight line? Do you think it would be a wavy line? Or do you think it would be a curve?
Think about the function you're modeling.
That math is simple and impossible to argue against.
it exists. It cannot not exist. It is an inevitable consequence of known market forces interacting with each other.
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Pittsburgh has an h at the end, thanks.
The only place where it's "Pittsburg" is inside Kennywood, and that's because the sign there is really old.
The one thing I hate about any discussion re: Keynes is that everyone focuses on the "stimulus during recession" part.
More generally, Keynes' theory suggests counter-cyclical pressure applied by the government. This not only means "stimulus during recession", but it also means raising taxes and interest rates when the economy is booming to prevent it from "overheating".
Unfortunately, our government decided to CUT taxes and LOWER interest rates when the economy was good. And then the economy over-heated, aka the Subprime Mortgage Crisis.
:(){
This ought to tickle your fancy.
The highest income bracket when the Federal Income Tax was enacted was $500,000 (NOT adjusting for inflation! with inflation it's like $11 million)
Our current highest tax bracket is roughly $379,000.
The highest income in the US last year was in excess of $1 billion. That means there's about four orders of magnitude between the top tax bracket and the top income.
IMO, we need to keep existing tax brackets and add new ones at $1 million, $10 million, $100 million, and $1 billion. For rates, let's go with Clinton's (39%), Reagan's (50%), Nixon's (70%), and Eisenhower's (90%).
Note that those last three were Republican presidents.
:(){
...Saruman accuses the Ents of rallying against forestation.
You want to know how to help your kids? LEAVE THEM THE F*&K ALONE. --George Carlin
Could you try again? It's clear to any honest observer that you took his quote out of context. What he actually said is "The Laffer Curve is a theoretical construct with no actual evidence to define where it would take place". So the difference? He's not denying the curve exists, he's denying we have any idea which side of the curve we're on.
We hope your rules and wisdom choke you / Now we are one in everlasting peace
Well at 100%, the government will also be providing more services. There could be more to think about with a fully communist community.
I disagree. I think he's denying that curve has any meaning as concept. Furthermore, which side of the curve we're on isn't the issue.
If you understand the curve you know you DO NOT want to get anywhere near the peak. A misunderstanding about the laffer curve is that the apex is the point of maximum efficiency. That's only true for ONE year. If you hit the apex in a given year you can consume ALL investment capital that would have been invested in further investment or productivity in the following year and eaten it all in taxes. If you reach the apex of the curve you're eating seed corn. You're eating the seeds that the farmer was going to plant to grow next year's harvest.
What you want is to be OFF the curve. Towards the start of the curve there is a 1:1 relationship between tax revenue and tax rate. Raise taxes 5 percent and you should get 5 percent more income. You're on the curve when the ratios stop being 1:1 ... and you start raising a tax 5 percent and getting a 4.999998 return. The INSTANT it drops below a 1:1 ratio economic activity is slowing as a result of taxation. Maybe the slowing is very low. But someone somewhere lost their job or wasn't hired or a factory shut down or something. And the effect was large enough that it was statistically significant in the national tax revenue. By definition small changes in in big numbers often hide bigger events simply hidden by the big number.
Point being, you don't want to even be on the curve. You can be a utilitarian and say "This tax revenue is more important then these other people having jobs. So I'd rather them be out of work then not get the money." That's fine. Just understand you made that choice. The damage doesn't start towards the end of the curve. When the curve starts to turn over that's the economy dying. That's breadlines and the doom of industries.
So understand that the laffer curve is not about the apex. It's about the curve which starts like the foot of a mountain... at the base. As soon as tax revenue stops acting in a 1:1 ratio... Understand after that point you're depressing the economy. Maybe not a lot... maybe it's worth it... justify it how you like. Simply be aware.
You don't need an exhaustive scientific test. Look at the tax receipts. You know how much you increased taxes. Did you get 1:1 return?
This probably works in both directions. If you lower taxes by 5 percent did you lose five percent revenue? If you lost 4.9 percent revenue then somewhere someone got hired because you lowered taxes. And it means you're climbing DOWN the curve. If no new economic activity had been created then you should have lost 5 percent for the 5 percent reduction.
Now obviously economies are not static qualities and you're not going to get pretty numbers out of them. The economy like trying to figure out what the level of the tide is to the mm by watching waves. It's always jumping around a little. But year over year there should be enough data to see if SOMETHING went up or down as a result. Small changes are meaningful if they react to the tax and are consistently reinforced by similar actions.
Does that mean lowering the tax 10 percent will be revenue neutral? Unlikely. But instead of losing 10 percent of your revenue you might only lose 8 or 7 percent. And that two to three percent of revenue is being used somewhere to generate new jobs. And the other eight to seven percent... well, the people that earned the money got to keep it and as of this moment aren't spending it on anything. But maybe if you let them keep the money for a few years they'll do something with it. You can't very well ask them all.
In any case... if you think I'm being unfair unreasonable... that's not my intention. I offered a meeting of minds. that was how I saw it. Take it for what it's worth and know it was meant in good faith and cheer.
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No because the government won't be producing things it will just have consumed all the profit.
It's the difference between the government running a shoe factory and the government showing up and taking ALL the shoes and paying for not one of them.
Can we agree that if the government showed up and took all the shoes and never paid for them that would have a negative impact on the shoe factory? We can. In fact, it would annihilate the factory. It couldn't survive. What are people eating? Not money made from selling shoes. They didn't sell any. The government took them all.
So sure, maybe the government then says "okay because I took all your shoes, I'll feed you and provide housing"... the economy is still going to die because while that might work for subsistence workers it provides no incentive for anyone else to work hard. It would have to trend to communism very quickly and even then they'd have to basically lower the amount the government was consuming or the government would destroy itself.
So the line between point A and B exists. Most of the other democrats in this thread LONG ago admitted that and realized that it is STUPID to deny the curve. What they argue instead is where we are as a nation ON the curve. I don't contest that. Its' debatable. I'm merely saying there is one and we're on it. Furthermore, my point was that lots of people like you in the democratic party would deny the existence of the curve. You did that.
I win.
*takes a bow, picks up some thrown roses, kisses a pretty girl.*
Thanks you been great.
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It's funny that you're denying it exists in this post because half of your allies are saying that NO ONE denies it.
What allies? I speak for only my self. And if they are saying the opposite from me it's particularly bizarre to label them as my allies.
Your denial is what I wanted. Your denial proved my argument that all ideologies... or at least yours in addition to the republicans will ignore science if they find it to be inconvenient to their argument.
What science? You're just asserting it's true. That's not science.
As to why science hasn't found the exact point on the curve, that probably has something to do with economists not being handed nations to perform economic experiments upon. What do you think sport?
I think you don't understand science. It's perfectly possible to do science just with observation, you don't need control. Take astronomy for example.
You could conclude then that economics isn't a science
Of course economics isn't a science. It's philosophy (and not natural philosophy either.)
You have quite a talent for being wrong.
Personally I believe there is a curve, but without any evidence, I can't be sure. There's unlikely to be any proof unless some countries do some serious changes in tax rates.
This isn't like global warming where we have trends to go off of and lots of data collected. There is very little data on the subject and mostly just philosophical musing on the subject (such as all your posts have).
call them like minded people... those who in a popular election you would rely upon utter to have any significance what so ever. They're your allies whether you like it or not. Without them the halls of politics you'd be one man. And I think we know what that's worth in popular politics. Slightly more then zero. Right or wrong... it is.
As to science... Sigh. You're going to go full on creationist on me aren't you? I have to personally prove carbon dating. I have to argue against all your theories about dinosaurs. I have to go through geology, stellar astronomy, and basically everything to explain the simple fact that the world isn't 6000 years old. that's what you're asking here. You're saying "prove the world is older then 6000 years old." But fine... I'll make a half assed attempt at it. I can't do better in a reasonable amount of time or in this medium.
Let me first try the short cut. Do you agree that if the government consumed 100 percent of the national product that would have a negative impact on the economy? That is... ate everything. People were not compensated for work at all. For the sake of argument just answer that question.
Okay. I'm going to assume you agreed that would cause a total collapse. We're in agreement.
Lets say hypothetically we have no taxes none. For the sake of argument we're not going into goods or services provided by the state. We're just keeping it very simple at this stage. So the government is eating NOTHING and everyone and every company gets to keep 100 percent of profits and pay no taxes at all. Can we agree that the economy would be more productive if everyone and every business were able to keep ALL it's money an pay NO taxes at all?
Again, I'm going to assume you agreed.
Okay, lets draw a line between Point A and Point B... with the line representing the function of taxation as it relates to economic productivity and thus government revenue as it takes a percentage of that revenue.
What is the shape of that line?
Is is a straight line?
Is it a jagged line that randomly goes up and done unpredictably?
Is it curved? If it curves does it curve up as increasing taxes increases revenue?
That is the laffer curve.
There is a great deal more written about it but that is it in a nutshell. I'm REALLY hoping we're if not on the same page then at least in the same library.
How did I do? Do we have enough to keep going or do I have to start proving the economic equivalent of carbon dating? :D
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Not really, there is a lot of data. You just need to know how to read it.
Are you telling me you can read 10,000 weather stations and determine if there is a .5 degree warming trend over 100 years? Come now.
Likewise, taxes are increased and decreased all over the world. It is rare for a 5 percent tax to result in a 5 percent increase in revenue. It will typically be more or less then five percent.
If you get lots of data you can filter out outliers and see patterns in the data. You can also graph trend lines.
Problem then will be if you'll believe the graph? What if top economists start saying you're too high up on the curve and governments should cut taxes radically? Will you believe them? What if they won't show their methodology? What if they're connected with right wing political organizations and an ex republican Vice president is trying to push their agenda?
How much do you trust them now? What if they won't release lots of data even if you hit them with FoIA requests? What if they tell judges that the data was destroyed and they can't provide raw data?
Skeptics aren't stupid or as Al Gore suggests "racists"... they just have trust issues given the source and the context. It's all very convenient for certain political organizations. Especially since ol' saint Al made a fortune selling carbon indulgences to anyone willing to buy one. What a racket.
If you want to touch that argument you need to enter it with a lot of humility because the alarmist movement abused their authority, abused the audience, and abused trust.
Once trust is lost it hast to be rebuilt patiently. Calling everyone racists or relating them to holocaust deniers isn't a good way to rebuild it.
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Bush is irrelevant. Why bring up a former president? Should I accuse Obama of sexual infidelity because Kennedy was unable to keep it zipped?
call them like minded people... those who in a popular election you would rely upon utter to have any significance what so ever. They're your allies whether you like it or not.
I've no idea what it is you're trying to say.
Without them the halls of politics you'd be one man.
You don't know how I vote.
As to science... Sigh. You're going to go full on creationist on me aren't you? I have to personally prove carbon dating. I have to argue against all your theories about dinosaurs. I have to go through geology, stellar astronomy, and basically everything to explain the simple fact that the world isn't 6000 years old. that's what you're asking here. You're saying "prove the world is older then 6000 years old." But fine... I'll make a half assed attempt at it. I can't do better in a reasonable amount of time or in this medium.
Are you on crack? You claimed the Laffer Curve is science. I asked you on what basis it was science. You first of all start on about creationism, and you then go on to prove you haven't the first idea what science is, using an argument worthy of a junior school child.
The Theory of The Laffer Curve assumes that at 0% tax rate the tax take is zero. That's true, although tax isn't the only means by which a government has revenue. It further assumes that at 100% the tax take will also be zero because no one will do anything taxable. That's not true, as people have other motives for doing things than money. It will be small, but not zero.
But OK, it's not too unreasonable so far. The next bit is where the Laffer curve is false, and your decription of why you believe in it (and describe your belief is as "science) is cretinous.
Here it is. The Theory (and therefor you) assume that:
1) The tax rate is the only (or perhaps the overriding) input by which the tax take varies. That's wrong.
3) That the curve on the graph is a smooth one with a single maxima. There's absolutely no science behind the chart being that shape. Yes, it can indeed be a jaggy line that goes up and down predictably. Unless you prove by scientific means that it is not. And no economist, nor you, have done this. Despite all the economic data for many years in hundreds of countries.
The Laffer curve is a philosophical theory, not a scientific one. And your blind belief in it is religious, not scientific.
How did you do? Far worse than I imagined.
Seeing as how both Bush and Obama administrations have launched pre-emptive wars, I don't see how he is irrelevant. Nice try though.
:(){
Not a Malthusian. Malthus didn't have a clue about Peak oil.
And the part about meat is just the repercussions of China and India becoming more wealthy. Huge countries. At the moment their diet is mostly vegetarian. They eat very little red meat compared with the west. As they become more wealthy they'll want to consume more meat. Meat uses an awful lot more resources to produce than crops. Meat prices are largely fungible on the world markets. And supply and demand will mean prices are going to soar in the not too distant future.
Malthusianism is about the limits of population growth. I'm talking about price rises due to limited resources of consumables.
I could point out the cult status of the cornucopian, and their unscientific belief that resources are infinite.
England was bombed out after WW2
Ah right. So what you're saying is that Keynesianism only works if stuffs been blown up. Any other cause of recession is obviously completely different.
and the money to rebuild came from an external source.
It was borrowed just as money for government investment in recession is today.
Here's a word to the wise, basing any economic theory on a single data point is stupid. WW2 happened once.
War didn't stop with WWII. There's not been a year without war since. Many countries have had to rebuild themselves after war. There's loads of data points.
As to Keynesian theory, it requires money be pumped into NEW activity with NEW workers.
If you pay the OLD people to do the SAME thing... its not keynesian.... it's just pissing stimulus money down the drain.
Well there I agree. The so called stimulus money is just giving more money to the people that fucked it up in the first place. And who profited from fucking it up. Money should be spent on building capital infrastructure, and directly employing people to do it. Not given to banks, on the vague notion that they might lend it to people who might create some jobs.
As to your citation, that graph doesn't make any sense. Are you sure that's an actual graph of something?
Yes, i's a parody of the Laffer Curve. It reveals that the assumption it is a smooth curve with a single maxima is naive guesswork, not born out by any data.
Cognitive dissonance is funny sometimes. Oh well, I got about five of your allies to admit my point. If I can't convert one foaming fanatic then I suppose I just can't win them all. Still I got the rest of them. I'm actually pretty impressed with it. Of course that speaks more to the higher then internet average quality of people on slashdot. I love this place.
On the off chance that you're willing to continue the conversation you can answer my questions from before and tell me where you balked. the logic is pretty simple. I just need to figure out where you're slipping. I've decided it isn't worth it to go through the whole process since it would take hours and I'm guessing you're not open minded enough to really listen. But if I keep it simple enough I might be able to give that slippery bubble around your mind a spike it can't avoid. Who knows.
I'm game. Just let me know which questions I asked that you disagreed with and I'll work from there.
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Same difference people have been claiming peak oil since 1920 and their predicted dates come and go while we laugh.
Malthus was wrong. Human population does not grow geometrically and resources do not arithmetically. They grow together and humans aren't lemmings. Our populations stabilize naturally.
As to peak oil we've had the biggest oil strike in the US in US history. By industry estimates we might have more oil using new technology in the US then has been pumped TOTAL since 1903 GLOBALLY.
The new technology is totally transforming our options.
The oil is going to keep flowing... making a fool of everyone that said otherwise decades ago.
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Same difference people have been claiming peak oil since 1920 and their predicted dates come and go while we laugh.
No, peak oil theory dates from 1956. Peak oil fo rthe US was predicted in the US for between 1965 and 1970 and it actually happened in the early 1970s. Oil oil production has fallen ever since.
Exactly the same has been predicted in the prediction validated in many other countries since.
The oil is going to keep flowing... making a fool of everyone that said otherwise decades ago.
Peak oil doesn't predict oil will ever stop flowing. Just that production comes to a peak and falls afterwards. And that fall will bring huge grow in prices, and worldwide economic turmoil.
Have you even noticed the world oil prices in recent years. And the fact that we're in global economic turmoil. Do you ever get the feeling that you don;t really know what's going on, and that your news sources are not telling you what's really going on? You should.
If you don't know that global peak oil is happening round about now, then no other opinion you have on economics is worth anything at all.
I've told you most clearly why the Laffer Curve is bollocks. And I've show that your claims to science are risible. I can do no more. You're religious about it, you're not going to change your mind no matter how clearly it's explained to you.
The claim that you've managed to convince 5 others on slashdot of your crank economic theories just underlines your complete state of delusion.
You're a crank.
My point was that I disagree with killing the innocent. I also disagree with tyrants killing innocent people, and sometimes that means taking away their guns. By force. It would be more appropriate if you compared our kill-rate of innocent civs with Saddam's rate, or Bashirs, or The Talibans.
How is looking over unemployment, taxing, and spending charts an "ideology"? If you can prove that tax-cuts-for-rich are like economic high-fructose caffeine without big side-effects, I'd be for them also. If dancing the Jig is the grand econ fix and the data shows it, sign me up and me to the shoe store! Jig away I will.
But, I don't see it in the historical numbers. The curves and bumps are not showing it. They just don't go up when they should go up, according to supply-side theory. A flat woman is a flat woman. I Dolly Parton there but I see flat anyhow because I'm biased?
Table-ized A.I.
correction 1: "and take me to the shoe store"
correction 2: "Is Dolly..."
Table-ized A.I.
Most global warming deniers are generally stupid, or as Al Gore aptly put it, they'll be looked upon the same as the people who though blacks were inferior because of their skin color. If you're going to trust people, go with the consensus of experts - not the think tanks funded by oil companies or the scientists with no experience int he field of climate.
Some things like philosophy can be debated (e.g. Laffer Cuve peak), while others such as global warming should be properly researched, not ignored as a giant conspiracy by science to _____? help the Earth?
I'm probably religious about 1+1=2 as well... what a dogmatic ahole I am, eh?!
oh well... Better luck next time to both of us. :-)
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I never defended supply side theory, pumpkin. I said BOTH were required.
If you only look at supply or demand you'll only see HALF the equation.
Pump money into supply and prices come DOWN a supply goes UP. that doesn't put goods in the hands of poor people. It just makes it easier for "anyone" to buy a good. Don't believe in that? We do it with corn... does the US have a lot of cheap corn? Yes we do... we subsidize it. That's supply side. Just as your free education and other little things are demand side.
Supply and demand. In either case we're talking about subsidization though. Really, in economic terms we probably shouldn't be doing EITHER. So supply and demand should be left to find their own balance.
But if you pump money into demand you're going to increase prices. That's simply how it works. So be careful giving away free stuff to the poor. Not saying you can't do it. Just be aware you're pumping money into DEMAND. At some point to stablize prices you're going to want to pump money into supply JUST to cancel the price inflation. That way you can keep giving away stuff to the poor without distorting the economy.
For example, all those people you're bringing into Ameican healthcare? Great... but did you build any new hospitals or train any new doctors? OOOPS! Same number of doctor and now more patients?! Well... price inflation now because you've got the same supply and more people want to use it.
Gotta build some more hospitals... probably increasing the total number by 30 percent would be a good start. That's a LOT of hospitals but then you're bringing a LOT more people into the system. And then you need to train about 30 percent more doctors... NOW. And nurses...
Supply and demand. Democrats also seem to get very exercised about "supply" like it's disloyal to their leftist agenda to consider WHERE everything actually comes from in the first place. Or they seem to think the concept only arrived during the Reagan administration. Supply side economics is THOUSANDS of years old just like demand side economics. And if you're going to use ONE of them then you're a fool to not use BOTH.
Just saying.
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Kind of impossible to have a rational discussion with that attitude isn't it?
Anyway, you no longer have the power to strong arm anyone.
You now need to convince people like me to get anything done in this matter. :-)
Calling me a racist or a holocaust denier is not going to help your argument. If you make me mad and I stick my fingers in my ears... and sing... you lose. You people like me to agree or you'll get NOTHING done. We have successfully forced you back politically on this matter and can hold this line indefinitely.
I would also caution you against taking political advice from Al Gore. he's not actually a successful politician. He was HANDED the presidential election by Clinton. He should have won. But he sabotaged himself repeatedly. And look at what he's done to the environmental moment. Everyone he associates with suffers from taking his advice.
Be smarter... rethink your strategy. Even if you think I'm wrong. Think of a way to deal with that situation that wasn't thought up by saint Al... because that strategy is just going to fail.
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You doubtless find this of no comfort, but the oil industry doesn't think much of your prophet:
http://oilprice.com/Energy/Crude-Oil/What-is-Peak-Oil-Theory-A-Thorough-Look-at-This-heavily-Debated-Topic.html
Also, I'm sure you'll find this of no comfort either but I found it interesting... call it what you will:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=vOImnCrKPZ8#
You are of course aware of the huge oil projects started recently on private land in the US right?... The higher the price goes on oil... the more these projects are going to explode... and not just in the US. Globally. There is a LOT more oil then we previously thought.
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You are exaggerating. I never suggested all-or-nothing. It's a balancing act. We try to find the best mix point on the knob.
Or let 30% of the population stay sick or die. Conservatives take Darwinism out of science and move it into policy instead. Ironic.
Table-ized A.I.
Okay, then clearly you're a believer in supply side economics. Because it's a balance... think supply side people did nothing with demand? Come now.
In any event, the whole label is misleading and needlessly politically charged. Supply side or demand side is not a right or left issue unless you're ignorant.
Both republicans and democrats should be equally comfortable doing both. Now maybe the republicans should be less comfortable with subsidizing things in general but if you're going to subsidize then doing it on the demand and supply side is often important.
As to your hospital comment... that isn't a rational reply to my comment. Furthermore, the creationists make up a tiny minority of our numbers. There are as many radical environmentalists in your party that want to limit everyone to a 1 child per family rule or something. The creationists are our PETA crowd. How proud are you of peta? Same thing. The creationists embarrass us as well... nothing we can do about it.
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My dear chap, I've been following the peak oil story for years. I've read a few books on the topic. The things you are raising are those things you find out the first day that you hear about peak oil theory and start Googling.
The US passed it's peak oil production in 1970. Just as predicted.
http://truecostblog.com/2009/07/14/is-peak-oil-real-a-list-of-countries-past-peak/
Nothing will reverse that as all the easy oil has already been taken. Once upon a time they just has to drill a hole in Texas and oil would gush out. All the US oil now is hard. Deep sea, fracking, oil shale etc.
And most other oil producing nations have also passed their peak. For example my country, the UK with it's North Sea oil, passed it's peak in 1999.
You are of course aware of the huge oil projects started recently on private land in the US right?... The higher the price goes on oil... the more these projects are going to explode...
"The higher the price goes". There you are. You said it yourself, but didn't realise the implications. The price only goes up in real terms because the supply (production) has gone down. Extracting oil from these difficult sources are what happens on the way down the curve, after the peak.
This is all fully part of peak oil theory, it's not an argument against it.
Newt Gingrich can't talk his way out of peak oil. He probably doesn't even believe it. He just wants what every politician wants. Votes.
The oil industry generally don't admit to peak oil because they don't want governments and people to turn to alternatives, or be more frugal. The more demand for oil there is, the more profits they make.
The US military on the other hand has to live in the real world, where their ability to do their job relies on huge amounts of oil. And they have openly and a number of years accepted peak oil as a fact and shaped policy accordingly.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2010/apr/11/peak-oil-production-supply
The thing about the military is that they are pretty much immune to the lies of politicians and big industry. They have access to all the top level information themselves.
Still, I know from other economic topics we've been talking about here that facts don't really matter to you, so I don't expect to change your mind on this one either. But do yourself a favour: read up on this topic. And don't just google. Pick up an actual book or two. Don't just read for talking points for arguments, read for you. This topic, more then any other, is going to affect your life over the next few decades.
I didn't call you either of those things. It's a sad day when people who are faced with science stick their fingers in their ears and sing. No need to look for political advice as I'm looking at this from a scientific point of view.
This man claims to believe in the god myth... How much more anti- science can you get?
I feel I should clarify the "like an engineer" comment, being on slashdot. There is nothing wrong with considering the "efficiency" side of things. However, politics is also about human emotions, and during dire times, long-term efficiency may "feel" secondary.
Further, perhaps this can be turned into an engineering problem also. The "value" or "worth" of something varies based on circumstances need. If you are dying of thirst in the desert, then a glass of water is far more valuable to you than when you are sitting around watching American Idol. Thus, spending more to either get that water to the desert or spending more on your behalf to pay for it makes sense in terms of resource and money allocation.
Models of need, worth, and human psychology can be built that following well-known rules. However, they are harder to test and measure against actual situations. But being hard to test or measure does not make it an unimportant factor.
In Soviet Russia there is a story of a shoe factory that was pressured to increase production, as measured by quantity of shoes produced. However, the factory was a bit short on materials. So to increase production, the factory decided to produce more children's shoes, which require less material. Eventually there was a severe shortage of adult shoes, especially larger sizes. However, the factory was meeting its production goals on paper.
We can also imagine that if size quotas were given, there'd be lots of ways to skimp on quality. For example, less threads could be used. If the authorities start counting threads, then old thread can be used. If they find a way to measure the age of the thread (however unlikely), then use cheap leather, cheap glue, cheap paint, etc. (story courtesy c2 wiki)
The point is that over-focusing on only things that can be quantified can still lead to an undesirable outcome.
Table-ized A.I.
That's clearly false. All of the current Republican candidates claim to be creationists who don't believe in evolution, in 2008 none of the Democratic candidates claimed to be members of PETA.
That's false equivalency, the truth is that the lunatics are driving the Republican agenda, where they don't even get invited to the Democratic campaign events.
Fanatically anti-fanatical
I'm sorry, but your theories on the collapse just sound like Republican talking points. I know that you blame Fannie and Freddie because you already believe that all recessions are caused by government action, but in this case the sparks may have been caused by the government policy, but the kindling and logs were placed by the unregulated derivative markets. Any spark would have set it off, it just happens that the end of the housing bubble was the spark that did.
Fanatically anti-fanatical
There's a funny thing, governments tend to spend the tax money they collect, they rarely "eat it".
Fanatically anti-fanatical
You supported Al Gore's sentiment on the issue and he has made such remarks on a regular basis.
If you want to have a rational discussion on the issue it is best to not attach your movement to offensive people with no interest in rational discussion. He has done nothing in this whole campaign besides make crude attempts at brow beating people.
I'm open to a discussion... but only under equal terms. The instant you claim superiority and start dictating terms it ends.
That whole political movement needs to learn a little common courtesy.
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The housing bubble started before the derivative market got out of control. You've got your order backwards.
The housing market bubble caused the problem in the banking sector. Not before. The housing bubble started at least as far back as 1995. It was slow initially. But every new budget saw that segment given a larger kick of cash and the banks encouraged more to make subprime loans. Eventually it became hard for the banks to manage the risk so they brought in wallstreet to spread the loans around.
That is when it got completely out of control. But that wasn't wall street's fault. Wall street was under the impression that you wanted everyone to have a home and price was no object. Well... they did it. And the mistake made was that you wrote checks you couldn't cash.
If Freddie and Fannie were not securing those loans the banks wouldn't have issued them and they wouldn't have sold them to wallstreet.
if you hand someone an unlimited credit card and say "buy houses for everyone"... who's fault is it when the bill comes in at trillions of dollars?
Wallstreet made the feedback loop run faster. They were not responsible for the bubble itself.
In the future, if you want to back home loans for poor people... do it competently. Incompetent action is what we expect from government but then that only justifies clipping their wings. If you want to fly free with this stuff... do at least a C average job of it. We're tired of the F grade management.
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Hey, you could be right unlike everyone else who has ever made the same or similar comments in the past.
Maybe the DOOOOOM is approaching chicken little... or was that the boy that cried wolf? One of the two... both... either...
Look even if you're right and if we sinners don't repent the lord will smite us... there is nothing we can do about it.
All we can do is adapt as best possible to circumstances as they arise and do our best to make your predictions not come true.
Do you WANT peak oil? because my experience with doomsayers is that they LIKE the idea of the apocalypse. They've got a big throbbing hard on for doom. I don't. I want us to get out of this and I think we can.
Do I acknowledge changes in the oil industry and that it's harder and harder to get oil? Yes. It's clearly a finite resource and even if the earth is producing the stuff we're burning it up at a much faster rate. So of course, we're going to run out eventually.
However, you can't predict where peak oil is or even predict exactly how much oil we have. The very notion that you would think this guy in the 50s would be able to predict that peak oil would be hit in the 70s is idiotic.
Furthermore, we're pumping a lot more oil IN THE WORLD then we were in the 70s so we passed peak oil ages ago. Now did US production cap out around the 70s? I don't know... that's possible. But there are so many political restrictions that it's hard to say that's because we can't pump more.
It is relevant that all off shore drilling in the US has been stopped besides some in the gulf. it is relevant that the majority of land used for oil production tends to be government land and the government has made a point of NOT letting oil and mining companies exploit resources.
It's not just oil. Look at the rare earth mining company in California. They were shut down effectively by the state of california for not meeting a new in a long series of environmental standards. Every one of the seemed to come in right after the other and didn't really stop until molycorp decided to close their operation.
You see the same thing with lumber as well. So we're dealing with a more complicated problem.
This country has a bad case of NIMBYism and it makes us irrational on these subjects.
Everyone wants oil... no one wants an oil refinery. Everyone wants electronics... no one wants a rare earth's mine. Everyone wants paper and wooden furniture... no one wants a lumber mill or logging operation.
So was there a high power of a lot of that stuff in the 70s? Probably... also when the environmental movement started getting their way.
Your data is polluted by that complexity. You can't make clear connections in that environment.
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His statement on race was misunderstood by people looking to attack him. He was pointing a similar issue where people were stuck to a past view point, but eventually moved overwhelmingly to the new view. Other similar issues are the Earth being flat, gays being sick pedophiles, and the earth not changing temperature.
Probably would have been best to use the Earth being flat (though then he would have offended the Catholic church instead of the racists).
No they don't. You're claiming Newt Gingrich and Ron Paul are claiming to be creationists?
The only one that MIGHT be a creationist is Santorum and I rather doubt he is either. So it's more likely none of them are.
Try again.
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*laughs* No it wasn't.
1. He uses the term "deniers" on purpose which is intentionally trying to associate skeptics with holocaust deniers. They've admitted this repeatedly so don't even bother.
2. He's not quoted... he's on video. And not just some out of context clip. Watch the whole thing. He associates himself and other warmists with the civil rights movement. He's basically making himself the Martin Luther King of the warmist movement. And who is opposing him? Bigots and racists of course.
Anyway, you're clearly about to call me a nazi demon from outer space... that's fine. Enjoy your religion of hate... if I'm a denier then you're a climate fundamentalist... which is to associate you with the Islamic fundamentalists that like to blow up children. Hey, you started it with the "denier" remark.
And because demonizing people is fun... I'll call the activists climate terrorists! Why not.
Careful with the bullshit you're spewing. We want a meaningful dialog here but Al Gore doesn't want one. He wants to play political games. And if that's all you've got then we'll just play them right back at you until you give up.
The last ten years were very embarrassing for the warmists... planet didn't warm. If that keeps up your whole sad argument will collapse before a laughing planet.
So... Want to try again... this time with without the crap? Enough with Al Gore. He's persona non grata. He's consistently made it impossible to have a meaningful discussion about anything in which he's involved.
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Well at least in the end, science usually wins out. Despite your political views on the former vice president, he has done some great work raising awareness of the issue and pushing the subject to improve the science. Scientists weren't embarrassed when their models aren't perfect. If science proved (or at least had strong evidence) that the world wasn't warming, then that's what we'd be going with. The anti-science people that deny the existence of climate change on the other hand are generally basing their beliefs on ...nothing.
Science does tend to win but there are scientists on both sides so you can't claim too much confidence there.
As to the work by saint al, he's ruined your whole movement. Had you done this in a nonpartisan fashion you would have accomplished more. By trying to strong arm everyone and making everything very political you've wasted time and money.
Furthermore, Al has used you. You do know he was making money off of selling carbon credits before he started campaigning right? Do you even know what they were? You give him money and he invests in green companies. He doesn't plant trees or save the rain forest. He just buys STOCK in green companies. And if he makes money doing that... he keeps it.
In return, you get a little card that says "you've offset X tons of carbon"... and how does he know your investment in his company off set carbon? He doesn't. It's entirely arbitary.
You were played. He made an ass of you all. And as for me, I'm just not interested in joining you.
Any cooperative effort can't include al gore. He's at best a con artist.
As to scientists not being embarrassed by their bad models, we have the emails... they literally say they're embarrassed.
As to science proving the world isn't warming... it has at least over the last 10 years. The peak was around 1998. It's been below that since.
As to anti science people, we're not anti science. We're anti scam artist. If you want to get us on board then we need some of the research repeated to confirm it. We also need transparency in the models and methodology. And then we need to have an open forum on what it all means.
We need this because you're asking for trillions of dollars in investment. If you just wanted a few million and you'd leave us alone we'd give it to you. it would be cheaper to pay you off.
But you don't even want billions... you want trillions. And for trillions... we want a FULL audit of everything. We're not giving you trillions EVERY YEAR without it. And yes, that was what Kyoto would have cost.
If you think you can win this argument and get trillions without winning us over... you're dreaming. It will never happen. Saint Al will have to be content with taking your money. He's not getting ours.
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The Economist is certainly right of center, economically. They are downright "right-wing" by European standards and slightly right of center by US standards.
Of course, they don't often speak highly of the Republican party because of all the other crazy fringes like the moralistic religious wing, or the libertarian kooks who think the EPA is wasted space.
It's NOT the Economist who has shifted positions in the last 15 years. If you read back, they have been very very consistent.
It's the Republican party who has gone completely insane. Frankly, Obama is to the RIGHT of Bob Dole and quite a bit further to the right from Ronald Reagan.
I don't live in the US anymore. While you may find some of the crazy nuts on the left wing to be a little bit nuts (as do I), Most of the world sees the Republican "base" as completely insane... often even not too far behind some of the crazier Islamic regimes. I mean.. seriously, 68% of republicans don't believe that evolution is a scientifically sound theory. 32% answer surveys saying that Obama is "definitely a Muslim". 51% believe that he wasn't born in the US.
That's pretty damn insane too.
Your commentary on ideal taxation rates not being strictly related to maximum income collection is reasonable, but it is worth pointing out that I might argue the small change in slope of the curve between 19% and 20% (the differences in federal tax rate as a portion of GDP between the Bush tax cuts and Clinton rates) hardly justifies the estimated $1.2 trillion deficits that it likely causes. Additionally, we are NOWHERE NEAR the range where the slope starts to change dramatically.
It's very very hard to argue that at the rate of between 22-26% of GDP, the overall US taxation rate is too high. In fact, it's lower than ANY OTHER developed nation already, as a fraction of GDP (unless you count Korea and Lithuania)... and that data is according to a study conducted by the Conservative "Heritage Foundation", so it's hard to question the source as "liberally biased" as so many like to do when they don't like the conclusions it points to.
I'm not sure what your point is other than you are angry some people aren't well versed in economics. But it is important to remember that arguments about the Laffer curve is almost completely irrelevant because we are, by every study I've ever heard of, not only left of the peak, but possibly left of even the linear part of the curve and into the area where government cutbacks begin to drag down infrastructure and research investment, actually HURTING productivity, rather than increasing it. (This is the reason the bottom part of the Laffer curve is likely logarithmic, rather than linear)
And I do want to point out that the Laffer curve is a hypothetical theory that is essentially based on nothing more than a thought experiment. While it MUST be true from a sheer economic sentiment, the actual shape of it is highly theoretical and probably not even consistent across various cultures and countries. Despite this, most evidence indicates it would probably take the shape similar to a negative-skew lognormal distribution with a peak at around 70-80% taxation as a portion of GDP.
In case you aren't familiar with a lognormal, here is a picture: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/b3/Skewness_Statistics.svg/446px-Skewness_Statistics.svg.png
I do feel obligated to point out that the "fall off" in productivity you mention as the curve begins to inflect is probably not significant in the types of rates we are talking about (20-26% of GDP).
The ONLY other countries in the world (excluding the artificially stimulated economies of Dubai and Singapore) rivalling the US in per-capita GDP output (the best approximation of "productivity" we have) are all very high taxation countries. In fact, the majority of the top 10 regions in "productivity" are also
Sorry, I meant to say "with a peak around 70-80% marginal rate", which would generally imply about a 50-60% share of GDP.
And no, I'm not arguing for those kind of taxes, although top marginal rates in the most "productive" country in the world (Norway) are that high.
There are scientests on both sides, as there should be. But the vast majority of them endorse global warming as the most valid theory. I'm sure you could find some scientists that would explain to you why the Earth is flat if you looked hard enough, that's not where the scientific consensus is. If you were trying to push people towards a new way of living that would vitalize a new industry, wouldn't you also invest in that industry? In a few years, people will look back on the anti-science conspiracy theorists as ignorant and stuck to the past.
However, you can't predict where peak oil is or even predict exactly how much oil we have. The very notion that you would think this guy in the 50s would be able to predict that peak oil would be hit in the 70s is idiotic.
And yet it's a fact that he did. What's idiotic is your refusal to accept facts that you don't like.
Do you WANT peak oil? because my experience with doomsayers is that they LIKE the idea of the apocalypse. They've got a big throbbing hard on for doom. I don't. I want us to get out of this and I think we can.
If dreams were ponies. It's interesting how you are describing a mirror image of yourself.
Go away and read. And keep your opinions until you know something about the topic.
I don't want to be illuminated from within! Light sources that bright are HOT!
As to the economist, you should read it more often then. I used to subscribe.
They changed at some point and started advocating social programs and economic policies that are more in line with the socialist norm. I'm not interested in debating it since I doubt you read it much or would recognize the difference.
As to Obama moving to the right of bob dole? He's an advocate of social medicine. Are you saying bob dole would advocate a stronger government backed system?
And you call us insane? You're crazy.
As to not wanting to live in the US anymore, the world is full of socialist countries. Go join one. We have no where else to go. This is the last bastion of individual freedom in the world. If one of us is going to go then its you. Go to france and enjoy the suck.
As to the change the in the slope, it wasn't the shortfall in revenue that is killing you it's the expansion in spending. If we repealed all the bush tax cuts your deficits would be similar.
the problem is that you're growing the government faster then the economy is growing. That means you need to keep raising taxes to make up the difference which changes the slope so the economy grows even slower as you increase the taxes. And that leads to a faster rate of tax increases... and collapse.
You need to slow down the rate at which government is growing so it AT LEAST is no faster then the economy. Short of that, any change of tax policy is meaningless.
As to the laffer curve being theoretical... so is 1+1=2... neither are disputable. I've explained how the curve works repeatedly. If you were paying attention at all then you should be well aware that it exists. It CANNOT not exist. It must exist by definition. The economic principles are very simple. Denying it is a sign of economic fundementalism not unlike the creationists with their insistence that the world isn't more then 6000 years old.
Disagree? Try to get them to accept carbon dating. They'll show you all sorts of "scientific" reports about how it isn't accurate.
Your whole approuch on this is cargo cult science. You've given the impression of thinking about things and the impression of going through a process. But you don't actually understand what that process is supposed to do or why you are doing it.
Science to you is just a word meaning 'authority'.. the underlying skepticism, humility, and truth seeking is something you neither understand nor respect.
The laffer curve is a very very simple idea that is obvious once you grasp the basic concepts involved.
There are many similar theories that leftwing people believe all the time. And it's funny because within those theories IS THE LAFFER CURVE.
You know it's there. Your economists know it's there. Your politicians know it's there. You just don't want to admit that taxation has a PRICE. When the government takes money it CAME FROM SOMEWHERE. Because you took it something else didn't happen.
Maybe it was going to go into savings so you argue it's better that the government spend it? Well, maybe they were saving up for something that won't happen now or will happen much later because their rate of savings is lower? Maybe a business that was going to expand will delay by a year. And throughout the system there is a cost for that.
Now if you want to argue your spending is more important then the growth of the economy, then that's fine. You did make that argument in the last post. BUT that isn't my argument. I have no problem with you saying that. I do have a problem with you pretending that there is no consequence to the taxation and spending. Just understand that you caused unemployment to go up a little bit and slowed the growth of the economy a little bit. Maybe not a lot and you can argue that it was worth it. But know that was the price.
As to where the curve starts, it's very easy to test and it has to be tested on a market by market basis. There is no ONE place where the curve starts. And even if there is a national place where it can be said to sta
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Science is not a popularity contest or a democracy. It's about who's right and who's wrong.
The majority has been wrong in science many times and even recently. This is why mixing politics with science is a bad idea. You don't understand what science means if you think majority rules or you must be right because certain authorities agree.
The argument is right if it's right. And that requires debate and evaluation.
The atomic weight of hydrogen for example is not settled science. Why? It's changing... or has been observed to change. If the atomic weight of hydrogen is not settled science then you really think the 'debate is over' in climate change?
Saying the debate was over was easily one of the stupidest and most self destructive things the warmist movement did. When that happened it meant it was no longer a scientific discussion. It was just politics.
That means facts don't matter anymore.
It means data doesn't matter anymore.
It means peer review doesn't matter anymore.
All that matters is votes.
THAT is what you did when you said the debate was over. You destroyed your own scientific position by surrendering any attempt to discuss it. Science is about that exploration and that continuous evaluation of what is and is not true.
If you want to have a HOPE IN HELL of getting anything done then you had better get really comfortable with debating the science and doing so over and over again in the LEAST political way possible.
The days when you could strong arm us without respecting our right to contest are over. Gone. You've wasted all your political capital on the stupid strategies of a FAILED presidential candidate.
And in all likelihood he's just been using you from the start. Do you know the energy usage in his home has gone up since he started all this?... The man has mansions all over... and we have his energy bills. They just go up and up and up. His home consumes many times the national average in power, heat, and water. He has enough money that he could run everything on solar and reuse gray water. Does he do any of that? Of course not. Because he probably doesn't even believe.
You've been scammed.
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It's not possible to make such a prediction. It's like coming up with a theory about what is inside this black box in my left hand. What is in it? You don't know. It could be a lemon, a small mouse, an acorn, bow tie, box of tic tacs, or nothing at all.
Claiming to have a theory that will predict with any accuracy what is in that box is stupid.
As to claiming intellectual superiority because you believe in peak oil, the industry thinks you're stupid. Most of geologists think you're stupid. And even if you were right and you're not... we'd still have to do the same thing anyway. Which makes your complaint stupid.
Try again.
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No one said the debate was over - science is always looking for more answers.
The exact atomic weight of hydrogen might not be known, but we're pretty sure it's a positive number, not 0 or negative. Of course you could probably find some scientists that will tell you it's 0 for the right price.
That argument that "science is not a democracy" is ignoring what the situation is. It's not that scientists have voted and decided on global warming, it's that multiple independent and reputable scientists have come to the same conclusions through peer review. The data points to the same place. There are only a few fringe groups with suspect funding sources that think there is no global warming. Following their methods and research you would come to the same conclusion.
I suppose next you're going to tell me that the moon landing was fake too because you saw a scientist on youtube tell you there are no stars.
PETA is the "god hates fags" equivalent.
The creationists represent 18-61% of the party base, depending on how the question is asked. In that sense, they are the foil to trade unionists or supporters of gay marriage or something like that to the Democratic party, not PETA.
As to the economist, you should read it more often then. I used to subscribe.
I'll leave this alone. It's a stupid argument. They've always supported "safety net" programs. They criticized the Torries in the UK in the 80s for wanting to dismantle them. They're still right-of-center globally. In a European grid, they might be called "neo-liberal", which is a "socially liberal, economically conservative" stance but the Americans have turned "liberal" into a bad word, so you will probably freak out at that label, I gather.
As to Obama moving to the right of bob dole? He's an advocate of social medicine. Are you saying bob dole would advocate a stronger government backed system?
And you call us insane? You're crazy.
WHAT?! YES!! Prior to "Obamacare" Bob Dole himself (released through his think tank, the "Bipartisan Policy Center") released a draft legislation that was modelled after Mitt Romney's solution is Mass. He actually lobbied for its passage.... This ended up being almost identical to the plan passed under Obama. I can't believe you would pull this argument out of your ass, since it's not only false, it's arrogantly false. Are you for real? Bob Dole helped WRITE the damn legislation. And you're calling me crazy for claiming he supported it?!?
The "Institute for Policy Studies" think tank has written that Obama is probably to the right of Ronald Reagan as well on many issues. It's insane that he's called a socialist. He's also far right of the "Conservative Party" Prime Ministers of Canada and the UK who are proponents of single-payer healthcare as it is enacted in both countries and have both proposed tax increases and further economic regulatory structures.
As to not wanting to live in the US anymore, the world is full of socialist countries. Go join one. We have no where else to go.
Yeah, I did, thanks, I have more freedom here and I find much less rancor in both political and social discussions. The crime rate is half, my small business has much lower overhead, thanks to not having to carry health insurance for workers, massive liability insurance for crazy ass tort laws and unemployment insurance for stupid state-run systems that don't buy much. It's quite nice. The slightly higher marginal tax rate I pay here is far less than the extra cost of those services, plus, I know if my business were to fail, I wouldn't be destitute. It's actually really great. You should try it.
As to the change the in the slope, it wasn't the shortfall in revenue that is killing you it's the expansion in spending. If we repealed all the bush tax cuts your deficits would be similar.
I didn't say the only cause of the deficit issues were revenues. But more than half were (around 60% by most estimates) and almost any independent analysis acknowledges this. Countries like Canada, Sweden, France and Germany have not suffered the depths of unemployment and GDP stagnation that the US and the UK have, much due stronger social safety nets, unemployment rules and education systems as well as due to greater regulation in the financial sectors. Additionally, they all ran a surplus at some point during the "boom" years so do not have the crippling deficits that the US is dealing with. The US was running a surplus in 2000 but Bush said in a speech that it was "wrong" for the government to run a surplus and he gave it all back in a big rebate. I remember getting that cheque in 2003.
However, spending, itself, is an issue, certainly. Nobody denies that. It shouldn't be ignored, but most Democrats, according to polls, support decreases in spending provided they are also accompanied by increase in revenue. Bringing the US tax reciepts *back up* to the long-run average of 21% of GDP would be a good start, but that would require expiring the Bush tax cuts. Like I pointed out before, at 21%, the US would STILL have the lowest tax rates of all OECD countries (
WRONG.
Al Gore said the debate was over and the rest of his movement followed suit.
Why do you think your faction has made a point of NOT debating the issue and instead simply demonizing anyone that questions you? That's what we've been subjected to throughout this whole process and frankly we're not going to forget or forgive that without some serious kowtowing. We deserve at the very least common courtesy and an apology from your whole movement.
THEN maybe we can start going through this again bit by bit in a non-partisan fashion. But I REEEEALY doubt they'll do such a thing. Rather, the instant anyone suggests a debate is even needed the insults will start again.
As to multiple scientists coming to the same conclusions... there are problems.
One, most of the studies are not independent and rely on information in other studies. In total, there have been about two independent studies on the matter that were large enough to actually have meaningful findings. Of those two only one has released its report and the other promised to have done so by the end of last year. That was the Berkeley earth study. But they're delaying that release now for some reason. We'll see what happens. Everything prior to the Berkely study was based on a single filtered/modified/etc data set that no one had methodology on how it was created.
Two, actually getting the raw data this is based upon is almost impossible. They're saying that the weatherstations and various sources they got it from won't release their little portions of it so all they have is some composite/modified list which they are allowed to publish. It's impossible to reverse engineer the modified data set without the original set.
Three, they have not released the source code for their models. They briefly let a japanese team that offered up the earth simulator super computer have the code. However, the super computer was unable to output meaningful results. Basically the planet kept cooking in two years or freezing. It is theorized that the forcing variables built into the models were so unstable that it caused the system to fail. They were only able to get the system to output reasonable results by using plug variables. Basically they told the machine what the right answer was at intervals and disallowed any answer that was in variance with that result. By doing that the spastic results the machine was giving evened out to results that APPEARED reasonable. But the findings were essentially pulled out of someone's ass. It was not what the computer calculated using the model.
Four, EVEN IF the whole global warming argument is entirely valid and you have to go through steps 1-3 at least to do that. The solution has to be affordable. We're not spending trillions of dollars a year to effect a 3 percent change in the rate of warming. Anyone that isn't a complete fool that sees the cost of Kyoto and then the proposed results would determine that on a cost/benefit basis it's a stupid plan. So possibly we could consider some geo-engineering or something that has a bigger impact with a lower cost.
Five, if the scientists want to be taken seriously they have to distance themselves from the politicians. They're being used by political operatives and it poisons their credibility. Scientists must be above politics... and by partnering with Al Gore they lost that. They must appear unbiased and outside our various factional rivalries. They inserted themselves directly into them and as a result the deference typically afforded scientists is void in their case. If they want to regain it, then they need to distance themselves again and they should start regaining some of their credibility over time.
I'm sure there's more but that's what strikes me now.
As to the moon landing... In so far as I can see it happened and have never had any reason to doubt it happened. Of course, no one is asking for trillions of dollars a year to fund a space war against aliens either. If you were asking for less in regards to climate change then I
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wait, you left the US and you're saying you want to leave the US?
I'm just picking out the most obvious of your many self contradictions.
What is it like being you? Are there elves and dragons where you live because you seem to exist in some strange fantasy land that isn't actually present anywhere on earth.
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Ron Paul wants "both theories taught" in schools.
Table-ized A.I.
His words only had the ability to change things because he had the resources of the USA behind him. In any other position for one thing he would not have been pardoned and would be in prison. The same holds for when Colin Powell took a bullet for Bush in front of the UN with the blatant lies that ended his political career as anything other than a professional lackey (which is a pity) - the words about WMD were considered bullshit and an insult to probably everybody in that room but they had to be treated as real because the force of the US was behind them.
Using words to shape reality usually requires something of physical substance to back them up.
You may have some facts correct but your analysis is wrong. The housing market bubble was a separate phenomenom from the rest of the economic collapse. The collapse of the housing bubble ignited the rest of the problems in the financial sector but it could easily have been some other event that triggered the collapse. The unregulated derivatives markets were a disaster waiting to happen. Freddie and Fannie may are nothing but a distraction that free marketers like to blame for the structural problems in the financial sector, they're convenient scapegoats. It works especially well with people, like you, who are predisposed to blame the government for any problem.
If Freddie and Fannie were not securing those loans the banks wouldn't have issued them and they wouldn't have sold them to wallstreet.
Freddie and Fannie secured less than half of the loans. The majority will still issued and were sold to wallstreet (and beyond) even when not backed. So that statement rings entirely false. Why did so many lenders make sub-prime loans? Because they could lie about the risks and sell the liabilities to someone else and collect a substancial profit on bad loan risks. As long as housing prices were increasing, they could claim that the loans were risk free because the houses were going to worth much more than the principle owed on them when they eventually failed.
The government isn't blameless in this, they repealed some critical regulations on the financial sector, failed to regulate the derivatives markets, and failed to raise the federal reserve's interest rates long after they should have, but the wider collapse was wall street doing what it does best, play games with money. The problem with playing wallstreet's games is somebody always loses.
Fanatically anti-fanatical
Well the debate on whether the climate is changing is pretty much over. The current debate is whether it's caused by humans. The oil companies would like you to believe that it isn't and we should keep buying their product. And what if we spend trillions of dollars to end up with more advanced technology and a better planet? That's bad for some reason? This point shows the real reason why people want to ignore global warming - it's an inconvenient truth.
Ron Paul has said he doesn't believe in evolution. You might be right on Newt's count, looking at his statements, he seems to claim to believe in both evolution and creationism, though I suspect his "belief" in creationism is pandering to the religious right in the party.
Huntsman was the only candidate who was willing to take a stand for science and he's out of the running now.
Fanatically anti-fanatical
and goddamn are there a lot of blind people.
I'm afraid it wasn't.
if you ask the banks and the finance sector in Wall Street they'll tell you it was the housing market.
I don't know why some people never go to the source for information.
People talk about creating jobs but no one asks companies what they need to create jobs.
People talk about problems in the finance sector but does anyone ever ask the banks?
It's like having a problem with a 747 and not asking Boeing or Airbus or General Electric why the plane fell out of the sky. If anyone knows they do... oh you could argue a conflict of interest that could compel them to shave the truth but that doesn't mean you start asking people that simply CANNOT KNOW because they're not competent to know the answer. Rather you have to try and get the real story from the people that actually know the answer.
And invariably you don't seem to care what those sources say about anything.
The housing bubble had TRILLIONS in it. And once wallstreet figured out their magic system for making risk vanish... we exported the idea to other countries which is part of the reason it went global. But the idea was pinoeered in the US and it was the result of Freddie and Fannie assuming responsibility for a market they weren't large enough to backstop.
No one trusts freddie and fannie anymore. That is why the economic picture is recovering. You can't flip houses anymore. The banks now know that the promises to buy all home loans good or bad is a lie... or simply not true. So the market is returning to rationality.
On the horizon we have a possible burst in the university bubble... again caused by poorly managed government subsidization... and a bubble in medicine caused by the exact same thing.
Ideally the subsidization should be balanced with demand side subsidization at the very least. If you're going to give everyone the money to buy a house then you should probably BUILD a lot of houses otherwise you're obviously going to cause a rise in housing prices. Same thing with everything else. If you want to bring 30 percent more people into the US medical system building a few more hospitals and doctors would be a REALLY good idea unless you want a huge rise in medical costs.
What makes the whole feedback system worse is that the government keeps increasing the size of the subsidy every time the price goes up and never seems to grasp that it would save more money if it just increased supply a little.
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the big bang, QED, and self-organizing primordial goo--for which the exact mechanism in the last case remain a trifle mysterious
A mysterious trifle, or perhaps a time-traveller and some Dream Topping.
~deltab
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/intersection/2011/08/29/ron-paul-doesnt-accept-evolution-as-a-theory/
Apparently paul was saying that evolution isn't validation of atheism. Which is a policy I think most believers in evolution would agree. Many christians that believe in evolution think the process was set in motion by god such as god put the planets in orbit... it's just a system for managing life as there is a system for managing planetary bodies.
I'm not a theist... I'm agnostic... so I don't particularly care either way.
I find theistic discussions in general to be a distraction. I don't enjoy them because I don't care. You can worship green fairies or nothing and it's the same to me.
I judge people by what they do not by what they say. If you're a good man and worship satan... then I'm going to think you're weird but I won't burn your house down. If you're a christian or a muslim or a jew I won't assume you're any less likely to rape a child or slit a throat.
Religion for me is a distraction... it's a waste of time. If it gets people to be better people then it's great. But that's a personal matter between those people and their beliefs. It has nothing to do with me.
As it regards public institutions, obviously their religion cannot be binding upon civic institutions. However, I think some institutions involve themselves in what can be a personal matter.
For example, I see no reason why public schools, marriages, or hospitals must be controlled to this extent by the government.
Each of these institutions should be individually allowed to manage their own affairs.
In regards to schools, I think we should privatize the whole system. Still give everyone a free education but make the actual schools themselves private entities. Ideally non-profit, designed for mass acceptance, and meeting all federal minimum standards. I think they'd do a better job given the same resources we spend on education in the US. Some of the schools will be more theistic then others. That's freedom. Let people have what they want. No one should be forced to go to a school that doesn't represent their beliefs. That goes in both directions. So if you're an atheist and want no theism in any of your classes then you should not be forced to suffer it. I believe in giving everyone what they want.
As to marriages, I think everyone should get civil unions and the whole practice of state marriage should be abolished. Marriage is traditionally a religious concept. It's ancient. And I see no reason to involve the government in it at all. If people in addition to getting married want to give each other power of attorney over each other, share assets, etc.... then I'm fine with that. But you don't need to get married to make those relationships. Furthermore, you can pretty much set up such a contract with anything. I mean, you can civil union yourself to a company or entirely theoretical entities that might not even have existence off paper. Then there's no issue about there being gay marriage or not. Call me Solomon... I'm very happy to split the baby in half if it will just get these two crazy women out of my throne room.
And then hospitals, neither the feds nor the state governments should tell a hospital what procedures it preforms. If the hospital administrators or doctors don't want to do something then they have a right not to do it. Understand this goes in both direction. I'm against banning abortion and I'm against forcing people to offer it as a service. I'm against putting a gun against a doctor's head and saying "do this or I'll destroy your practice/hospital."
Anyway, those are my views on the matter. I believe in freedom. I think everyone should be able to do what they want so long as it doesn't hurt anyone else. You could argue the doctors hurt people if htey don't do a procedure but the doctors are free too. They're not slaves. If they don't want to do something you can't make them without violating their rights.
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The only argument I need to fight is that your solution to the problem is a bad one.
What is actually happening is something I care about mostly because I do care about science. I am actually curious.
If all I wanted to do was stop you from enacting a policy then I could stop it at the touchdown line. Kyoto's trillion dollar expenses are very easy to defeat indefinitely. No one is signing it.
The chinese and indians will never agree to cut back their economy. Even the Canadians have pulled out of the agreement.
And while many european countries signed it the US reduced it's carbon footprint more then them even though it didn't sign it.
There is smart environmental policy and there is stupid environmental policy. Kyoto is stupid. We all breath the same air and live on the same planet. No one wants to hurt the earth. But we're going to have to be rational about this stuff. Trillion dollar programs are not going to be acceptable especially when they don't actually fix the problem. By kyoto's own estimation even if we enacted kyoto it would not stop global warming. So we'd be pissing away trillions a year for nothing.
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if you ask the banks and the finance sector in Wall Street they'll tell you it was the housing market.
I don't know why some people never go to the source for information.
Considering that the primary alternative explanation is that the banks and the finance sector were responsible, it would not at all be surprising if they said it was the housing market. They have a vested interest in not being found criminally responsible.
Fanatically anti-fanatical
You can ask segments of the industry that weren't even involved.
What you're basically doing now is asking people that don't even know in an effort to find people that aren't biased.
That's like a murder happening in one city and you trust no one there so you ask people in a totally different city what happened.
They might not be biased but they also have no clue what you're talking about.
There are plenty of institutions in the finance sector that were not involved in this crisis that also have enough knowledge and experience to ACTUALLY KNOW WHAT THEY"RE TALKING ABOUT. Talk to them.
Same thing with job creation. If you want jobs... talk to the people that HIRE people. Ask them point blank "what do you need to hire people?" And work within that context.
Don't just talk to one company. Talk to them all.
Some will say the ever unhelpful "oh we just need more customers"... Sure, but government can't really do anything about that. So anything they say besides increasing the number of customers might be something to consider. Not to do blindly without consideration... simply to consider.
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What I've heard from the experts that weren't involved is exactly what I've already explained to you, that the derivates games the banks were playing was an explosion waiting to happen, and that the housing bubble is a small part of that. They say that without the games, the housing bubble would have produced a small recession in America.
Fanatically anti-fanatical
The housing bubble was a multi trillion dollar issue. Small it was not.
In any case, I think we've both expressed our opinions on the matter.
You think we should do business as usual with more government regulation.
I think we should have both more regulation on wallstreet AND stop carelessly pumping money into markets without taking into consideration long term consequences.
On the regulation, we agree. That wallstreet needs to be kept under control. We agree.
Where we disagree is that you don't seem to think profligate subsidies to everything anything are a problem and I see them as one of the most consistent causes of economic collapse over the last 150 years.
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Because all that money would just be burned? No, it would go into better technology and be payed to companies to produce it.
That's not how kyoto works. It doesn't work by funding better technology. It works by restraining existing economic activity and disallowing certain technologies.
As a result, nearly all the money would be spent on LOST productivity.
For example, lets say I have a field that I want to plant. That field will bring in 1000 dollars on harvest... just for sake of argument simple numbers. Okay lets say someone says I hurt the environment by planting that whole field. So what I have to do is plant half of it. Fine. Now I'm only growing half as much and I can sell that for 500 dollars. Where did the other 500 dollars go? Did it go into new technologies? No... I can't spend it because I never made it.
So yes, the money is destroyed because it was never created. What your policies do is depress our economic activity thus resulting in a lower economic output. That means instead of making 1000 dollars like now we only make 500 dollars. There is no extra money somewhere that goes into special technology. The only spending on technology would be if you said "you can plant the other half of the field if you use new technology"... then we'd have an incentive to develop that technology but that money would be NO WHERE NEAR the losses of the 500 dollars and I would have less to spend on such things because the money to spend on new technology would have to come out of the REMAINING 500 dollars.
Your policies cause money to not be made. So sure... it's not destroyed really... but the net effect is the same... it never exists at all.
Furthermore, we've seen that even green projects get shut down by environmental groups all the time. So it's a lie to say they'd be fine with it if we only used better technology. Wind farms get closed down for killing birds. Solar power plants get shut down for infringing on desert habitats. Wave farms get shut down for impairing coastal wild life. Geo-thermal plants get shut down for the baseless claim that they cause earthquakes.
There is no way to make the environmentalists happy besides getting a razor blade out and slitting our own throats.
If you care about the environment then stop attacking people that are trying to comply in good faith. It sends the message that you're not interested in the environment so much as power. And that's a very very old game. Humans have been playing power games with each other for hundreds of thousands of years.
If that's your game... then we can play it right back at you. So far the environmental movement has chosen to put personal power over the common good or even the cause of environmentalism. So we no longer regard them as negotiating or arguing in good faith.
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Money doesn't appear out of thin air - it comes from somewhere and goes somewhere. Replacing coal plants with cleaner sources will hurt the coal industry, but others will benefit.
Pretty much all projects will have people upset - usually NIMBY complaints. I agree it's ridiculous to complain about wind/solar/wave/geothermal/nuclear power when the alternative will be a more polluting source, not nothing.
Really?
So 50,000 years ago the world economy was equal to the world economy today?
If I sing a song that makes lots money... where did the money come from? Pretty much thin air in that case.
If you want to argue that the money is all in natural resources and the only thing that can be called a real source of value is those resources then why is a marble statue that weighs 1 ton worth less then a block marble that weighs 10 tons? Obviously something happened to increase the value of that marble that has nothing to do with the raw materials. Rather, it is the skill and scarcity of the labor involved in finishing that material. And where does that come from? Can you say that labor can be expressed by the cost of maintaining the person that produced it? If that were true all labor would be equally valuable since all people generally have the same basic needs.
As to replacing the coal industry benefiting others, there is a NET higher cost for using other energy sources. Which means if when you turn on the lights you're paying MORE. That doesn't benefit you and the money that comes from you isn't going to new technologies.
As to the NIMBY complaints... well, I live in California and we can't build anything. We can't build solar. We can't build wind. We can't build geothermal. We can't build nuclear. We can't build anything. And it's the environmental groups doing it.
We couldn't build the golden gate bridge today if we wanted to... they'd do some environmental study for ten years before letting anyone even clear the site. And then they'd probably ban the project because it endangers seagulls or something.
I'm sorry, but the movement is a rabid foaming dog. It needs to be take out back... and put out of feared misery. Then we can have a little cry over it and move forward.
I'm not saying environmental concerns should be disregarded. I'm saying that the current environmental movement is no longer rational. We need a reboot on the whole movement. Start over. Many of the people involved have become corrupt or too radical to be a constructive force. Just start over with a fresh batch and lets go through these problems one at a time.
Short of that, we have to match fire with fire. Their screaming foaming fanatics versus any other group of fanatics we can herd into combat with them... ideally mutually wiping both out as politically relevant.
The modern environmental movement is killing my society. We are being strangled to death. Their hands are on our throats and they're squeezing. It can't be tolerated.
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If you make a lot of money from a song, the money is coming from the people that pay to listen to the song.
The environmentalists that you read about on the news blocking projects are the most extreme ones. They don't represent the whole movement, but they do counter the people that have no regard for the planet and would seek to destroy the coastline in order to get a slightly cheaper source of oil.
And where did they get it from?
Look, for your comment to ANY sense, the amount of money/wealth would have to be static in time. So there would have to be as much of it 50,000 years ago as today.
Does that make sense? No it doesn't.
So money can clearly be created and value can clearly be created. And if it can be created then it can both be destroyed or simply never created in the first place.
In the case of Kyoto it both cost money and caused large sums of money to not be made. Net result is a MUCH poorer society. If we actually implimented it the US would become a third world country and so would any other first world country that followed suit.
Point blank. You're a fool if you want kyoto. It would accomplish nothing but the destruction of our civilization. it wouldn't even save the environment since the first thing that happens when a country becomes poor is that environmental policy goes RIGHT OUT the window. Look at poor countries... always bad environmental policy.
If you want the world to have good environmental policy then you need to find a way to allow us to remain rich or better yet become richer. The richer we become the more we can afford luxury expenses like environmental policy.
I know I know... you don't think environmental policy is a luxury expense. It is. Poor countries can't afford it. They focus on Security, Water, Food. That's about it. And while you'd think that environmental policy falls under food and water it only becomes relevant when it is actually threatened. Long term threats are not something third world countries or poor countries deal with. They deal with immediate short term problems.
As we become richer we can focus on additional things and focus on problems that are in the future. But if the first thing your policies do is make us poor... then you've destroyed yourself because the first thing that will happen then is no one will care about any of your ideas. Your whole movement will die like a rose in a blast furnace.
Be mature enough to see the big picture here. You're fighting human nature here. You can't win by arguing this anymore then you can argue young men out of wanting to have sex with young women. Human nature. What you need to do is adjust your policies so they work within what is possible.. otherwise known as the material universe.
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If money was so easy to create, we'd have huge inflation. There is some growth of the world wealth, but it's mostly poorer countries becoming industrialized. When we have large growth, it's generally unsustainable and we get things like the housing bubble.
Environmental policy definitely is a luxury - and the US is definitely rich enough to afford it as the wealthiest country. It's also an investment in the future of the country. Coal/Oil are unsustainable fuel sources, so the quicker we move off of them, the better off we'll be in the future, even if we seem poorer compared to third world countries growth wise.
Okay, you don't understand any of the fundamental concepts. I'm apparently trying to explain color to a blind man.
I've tried in post after post after post... unsuccessful... I'm sorry... I just can't be bothered to waste any more time on this...
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Karma, rebirth, samsara, the four noble truths, ans so on are all dogmatic, absolute "truths".
No talk I have ever attended has ever treated rebirth/samsara as anything but metaphors for the cycles of life. Karma, similarly, is, in my experience, treated more as a guideline than as a black-and-white fact. Growing up in a more Ju-Ch environment, I definitely heard "you will go to hell if you do x", and "when the savior returns, y will happen". But with regards to karma, it's more like, you have an effect on your surroundings, and your surroundings have an effect on you; you can choose to make your world a better or worse place to live in. The four noble truths aren't dogma, but a foundation for a practice, something that you may pause and consider, and maybe decide for yourself if they are true. The difference here is that while some modern Buddhists are certainly smug mofos, they're not likely to tell you that you're a sinner or that you're going to hell if you don't agree with them.
As exemplified by the first noble truth: Life is suffering. Couldn't get more happy than that. I know, I don't "understand" it.
That's one interpretation. I prefer, "Life is bittersweet." The idea is that life is not just one thing; at least at this point, we haven't figured out immortality, and so as eternal (from a human perspective) as life itself is, it contains death and destruction as much as it contains growth and new beginnings. Joy and pain are all part of a full life.
The whole idea is one of acceptance over denial, the idea that you will be able to live a fuller life if you are able to experience even your deepest pains, and then move on, rather than running from them and have that act of avoision (trust me, it's a cromulent word) be a defining factor in your life.
The CB App. What's your 20?
Beyond that, the laffer curve is generally assumed to exist somewhere beyond 20 percent.
Citation needed.
The difference here is that while some modern Buddhists are certainly smug mofos, they're not likely to tell you that you're a sinner or that you're going to hell if you don't agree with them.
I agree. The montheistic religions are by far more intolerant and obnoxious than the other belief systems that are still around today.
For all the rest: I'm not sure if all the good things you say about Buddhism are really part of Buddhism or part of your interpretation of all the metaphors, i. e. your positive outlook on life comes from within yourself not from Buddhism. Buddhism, just like all other religions, doesn't really have anything to offer; it's vague, hollow, ambigious, and in parts just factually wrong. You have a positive outlook on life and you project that into the meaningless wish-wash of Buddhism.