American Politics

[Paulie97]

In the words of the late great Steve Jobs, "Details matter. " Analysis of economic policy and history are more complicated than "Democrat good, Republican bad. ".

Without a doubt.

[JustTK]

Great discusion here on the current US immigration issues. Causes, solutions, etc (first half of program).

Someone else watched this video and commented on it. Great comments here from Craig Jardula:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WAc23r2TwEU

[Tiny 12]

Now that Powell is being demonized, it is not Biden's Powell but Trump's Powell.

One other thing, as I noted below, Obama originally nominated Powell. And the total number of Senate Democrats, including Bernie Sanders, voting against Powell's reappointment this year was six. Thirteen Republicans voted against Powell and one abstained. So exactly why is Powell Trump's man? And why would you give him all the credit or blame for Fed decisions, when there are 7 governors and 12 voting members of the Fed Open Market Committee? And the current bunch is usually mostly in agreement? Is John Roberts the only person on the Supreme Court who matters?

[Tiny 12]

I have no issue with your facts, Tiny. Thing is Trump did huge giveaways too and the Fed added $3 trillion to its balance sheet. Outside of oil, I would say the blame with inflation goes three ways then: on Trump, on Biden, and on the Fed with each getting 1/3 of the blame outside of energy. Add in energy and at least half of the inflation mess is on Biden.

I just do not want to engage in the cheap shots like Eih does, calling Chair Powell, Trump appointee Powell. Powell was kept on as Chair by Biden: https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-...as-vice-chair/.

This is what I call the Dems here dumb Dems. In their eyes, the only bad people in government are Republicans. Now that Powell is being demonized, it is not Biden's Powell but Trump's Powell.

You've got a good point Elvis. Total stimulus spending was around $5 trillion, and the over half of the occurred during the Trump administration. McConnell and Senate Republicans, at least by December of 2020, were more than ready to cut off the spigot, but ended up compromising with Trump and Pelosi to keep the funds flowing. I'm not a fan of putting all the blame on specific individuals, but would perhaps put slightly more blame on the politicians than the Fed. And of course commodity prices and supply chain glitches hurt too.

[Tiny 12]

Yep. Some people are fine at one job and crappy at others. Eisenhower was a lucky General but as president he presided over three Recessions and one of the worst jobs creation records of any president in modern history. Go figure.

The Great Reagan Recession.

Below is a valuable piece of contemporaneous history in real time as it was happening. Later, revisionist historians, comfy Repubs and pro Repub Bothsiders such as yourself would lay it all on the Fed's monetary policy and leave Reagan's Repub agenda and economic philosophy out of it.

But the Fed had tightened the money supply and raised rates even more under Carter and we didn't plunge into a Great Recession then. Presidents matter. They can promote measures that either contribute to reducing if not narrowly avoiding economic disaster or light a flame to trigger one or do nothing or do something that only serves to exacerbate a downturn.

Dems are masters of the former, far more positive approach. Remember Obama's Cash For Clunkers and the extraordinary measures he took to keep auto sales going and rescue the auto industry so as to deftly avoid worsening the Great Repub Recession he inherited from GWB? Repubs laughed at him and derided him for it. "Stop the bailouts. Just let it happen. Laissez Faire". They weren't any kinder to his American Recovery and Reinvestment Act signed and passed in late February 2009. "he will only make things worse! In fact, he did make things worse"!

MittWitt Romney was still claiming such a ridiculous thing in 2012.

By mid June 2009, not only was the Great Repub GWB Recession not "worse", we were pulling out of it and heading to one of the best, recession-free, job creating runs in history.

By contrast, disproportionately high tax cuts for the top margins appears to be the all-purpose solution for every problem a Repub sees if he sees a problem at all.

And that's what Reagan did in 1981. It is not what Carter did in 1980. It is not what any Dem would have done on the mistaken belief that "Supply-Side / Trickle-Down" policies would improve anything in the economy. In all likelihood, Carter and most other Dems would have found a way to extend those auto rebates and more. Demand-Side economic stimulus, not Supply-Side policy.

Reagan just sat on his pony and waited for his Repub Coolidge-Hoovernomics tax cuts for the rich to do what they always do. And, sure enough, they did. LOL. Nothing.

So, even though the Fed rates were higher under Carter a year earlier and they were trending downward under Reagan a year later, Carter's recession was barely a blip on the screen while Reagan's was one of the longest, deepest and most damaging in history. While he and every other "Supply-Side / Trickle-Down" believer was waiting for their all-purpose solution to work its mythical and nonexistent magic.

And waiting. And waiting.

WHAT CAUSED THE RECESSION
November 24, 1981

https://www.nytimes.com/1981/11/24/b...recession.html

You're going to find very few economists who would agree with you, that high interest rates, to control inflation, weren't what caused the 1981/1982 recession. Or that the Economic Recovery Act of 1981, passed by Democrats and Republicans and signed by Reagan, exacerbated the recession. I have been known to read CBO reports for fun, and invariably tax cuts are associated with higher GDP growth. The incremental growth in some instances may not be that significant, but cuts don't cause GDP to be less than it would be otherwise. Furthermore, the 1981 act basically cut the maximum rate from 70% to 50%. The only people in favor of 70% maximum rates are Progressives and people like Saez and Zucman, who believe the revenue maximizing tax rate is about 75%. First of all, I believe that's bull shit, the maximizing rate is lower. And second I don't believe the chief end of man, or upper income earners, is to maximize government revenues, as I don't believe in slavery. And third, I believe the federal government, as opposed to my local and state governments, flushes a lot of the money I send it down the drain. And finally fourth, by eliminating loopholes and lowering the motivation to shelter income from extortionate taxation, the changes in tax policy during the Reagan administration may have increased the amount paid by upper income earners and even increased the progressivity of our tax system.

The tax cuts during the Bush and Reagan administration likewise may have increased the progressivity of the tax system. If you just look at tax rate tables, you'd say they did, as the % cut in rates for lower income levels was greater than for higher levels.

There's lots of blame to go around for the 2008/2009 recession, and our anemic recovery coming out of it, which resulted in higher deficits as a result of bailouts, stimulus spending and lower government revenues. Who do you blame? A lot of people and institutions -- politicians, regulators, mortgage companies, and investment banks among others. And perhaps most of all Americans who thought it was reasonable to buy $500,000 houses on $50,000 per year paychecks.

As to the NYT article, that's hilarious. The 1981 act was passed in August, and so by November, 1981, three months later, they hadn't ended the recession. No shit Sherlock (referring to the writer, not you.) Hell, the effect would have been limited to a reduction in a grand total of one quarterly estimated tax payment.

[Tiny 12]

And then with the wind at your back you jumped through 3 flaming hoops in a row and, behold, Great Repub Recessions and Massive Job Losses are no different than Great Dem Recoveries, Expansions and Historic Job Gains!

Fine. Then you might as well stop voting from now on because you can't tell the difference in the results of either Party anyway. Too many nit-picky irrelevant details have led you unavoidably to that conclusion. Congratulations.

In the words of the late great Steve Jobs, "Details matter. " Analysis of economic policy and history are more complicated than "Democrat good, Republican bad. ".

[PedroMorales]

Great discusion here on the current US immigration issues. Causes, solutions, etc (first half of program).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-E_CbkA0Enk

Note, these anti-American, US-hating presenters do not take sides. They reflect on ALL bad policy. All government parties are to blame. And these 2 should be hung, drawn and quartered for their disloyalty to the flag.

No doubt no one here will be able to credit this video bcos it not biased to one party or the other.

I am sure you have your own reasons for linking to such BS. Though the USA stinks, there are Egyptian plovers who feed off it. Interesting who gets deplatformed and de monetized and who does not. I didn't watch the video because a. Nasal American accent like hers make me puke (did someone break her nose or is it an American thing)? Be. Directionless yap yap.

I feel, tin hat foil time perhaps, the USA promotes its own micro oppositions so it can control it. One recent case is that of Caleb Maupin, an American leftie (sic). Google him and you will see he was running a cult, turning his junkie comrades into hookers and dominatrixes, and was into being spanked. Like wtf. The moderator has threads like this for family value apple pie reasons but when alternative Americans are the biggest sex freaks in the room.

Scott Ritter, done on a kiddie charge, most of the independent journalists in Ukraine seem to be sex criminals of one sort or another. And Joe Biden does like the little ones; he goes way back with them.

So, who but the desperate and the Jeffrey Epsteins would want to migrate to the land of the free and the food banks?

World War cannot come soon enough.

Biden has asked all US citizens to vacate Russia. Hopefully, they will return to Hamburger Land and stay there.

[JustTK]

Great discusion here on the current US immigration issues. Causes, solutions, etc (first half of program).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-E_CbkA0Enk

Note, these anti-American, US-hating presenters do not take sides. They reflect on ALL bad policy. All government parties are to blame. And these 2 should be hung, drawn and quartered for their disloyalty to the flag.

No doubt no one here will be able to credit this video bcos it not biased to one party or the other.

[PVMonger]

Werent you just the smelly vagina complaining to the admin about this very thing, I see you think its ok, but when others respond in kind.

You try to scream to mommy for help, so very typical from Dems.

There's a big difference between labeling a group of people the "Moron Brigade" and calling a single individual as you did a "smelly vagina", etc.

And my post, if you recall, was to complain about the unequal treatment of comments. Several of my posts have been banned because the mods felt that they were "generally argumentative" but I was not given any specifics about what in the post was argumentative. Contrast to your post above where you called me a "smelly vagina" which is not, for some reason, considered "generally argumentative."

Of course, anybody with a functional brain will see that what I said is correct. The Moron Brigade doesn't fit that category.

[PVMonger]

Tallahassee, FL Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is being hailed as a hero after he used top-secret technology to reroute Hurricane Ian to Martha's Vineyard.

"I'll tell you what, hurricanes have been tormenting Florida for too long. Not on my watch!" said DeSantis to a crowd of screaming fans. "So you know what? We're going to load this hurricane onto a plane and fly it north. Martha's Vinyard, you'd better board up your 10,000 square foot mansions and cancel your polo matches, because Ian is on its way!

Martha's Vinyard residents have responded by flying to their winter homes in Florida and directing their house servants to prepare their homes for hurricane landfall. "The fact that DeSantis would spare his own densely populated cities and send the hurricane to ravage our multi-million-dollar mansions as a political stunt is beyond the pale," said Vineyard resident Karen Von Karen. "First the migrants, and now this? Haven't the good people of Martha's Vineyard suffered enough?

The DOJ has also responded, saying they will investigate the governor for using unapproved top-secret hurricane trafficking technology.

Once again you fail to list the source of your cut-and-paste. This satire is from "The Babylon Bee."

https://babylonbee.com/news/hero-des...rthas-vineyard.

[EihTooms]

I have no issue with your facts, Tiny. Thing is Trump did huge giveaways too and the Fed added $3 trillion to its balance sheet. Outside of oil, I would say the blame with inflation goes three ways then: on Trump, on Biden, and on the Fed with each getting 1/3 of the blame outside of energy. Add in energy and at least half of the inflation mess is on Biden.

I just do not want to engage in the cheap shots like Eih does, calling Chair Powell, Trump appointee Powell. Powell was kept on as Chair by Biden: https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-...as-vice-chair/.

This is what I call the Dems here dumb Dems. In their eyes, the only bad people in government are Republicans. Now that Powell is being demonized, it is not Biden's Powell but Trump's Powell.

Did Trump or did he not initially appoint Powell as Fed Chair? By definition and all available evidence, that assumes he would be very bad at his job. And he has been. I have explained numerous times why Biden avoided making Trump's horrific handoff even worse by not replacing him on day one. In many respects, Powell being the Fed Chair was a part of Trump's total shit but typical Repub-to-Dem handoff.

Stating a fact is not a cheap shot. Trump appointed Powell. If you want to mention that Biden kept him in place when that was the least bad of his options at the time, fine. But that does not mean Biden thought he was a great choice to appoint as Fed Chair. Trump did.

[EihTooms]

Hey, I agree completely, that the Fed was asleep at the wheel. It's curious we're in agreement, because you support the Biden administration's extremely loose fiscal policy while you slam the Fed's extremely loose monetary policy. I can only figure it's because you somehow believe you can solely blame Jerome Powell for monetary policy, and let the other governors and the Fed bureaucracy off the hook. And, you believe since Trump originally elevated Powell to Chairman, Trump is somehow indirectly responsible. However, you fail to note that Obama originally appointed Powell to the Fed's Board of Governors. And you somehow brush off the fact that Biden re-appointed him as Chairman. You're really having to jump through hoops to blame Fed policy and inflation on Donald Trump.

Since Biden became president, there have only been two dissenting votes when the Fed Open Market Committee was setting the fed funds rate. Bullard wanted to increase the rate 0.5% instead of 0.25% in March, 2022, and George voted to increase 0.50% instead of 0.75% in June, 2022. Lael Brainard, the Vice Chair of the Fed who progressives were promoting to replace Powell, has voted with Powell and the majority every time..

Yep. Some people are fine at one job and crappy at others. Eisenhower was a lucky General but as president he presided over three Recessions and one of the worst jobs creation records of any president in modern history. Go figure.

The Great Reagan Recession.

Below is a valuable piece of contemporaneous history in real time as it was happening. Later, revisionist historians, comfy Repubs and pro Repub Bothsiders such as yourself would lay it all on the Fed's monetary policy and leave Reagan's Repub agenda and economic philosophy out of it.

But the Fed had tightened the money supply and raised rates even more under Carter and we didn't plunge into a Great Recession then. Presidents matter. They can promote measures that either contribute to reducing if not narrowly avoiding economic disaster or light a flame to trigger one or do nothing or do something that only serves to exacerbate a downturn.

Dems are masters of the former, far more positive approach. Remember Obama's Cash For Clunkers and the extraordinary measures he took to keep auto sales going and rescue the auto industry so as to deftly avoid worsening the Great Repub Recession he inherited from GWB? Repubs laughed at him and derided him for it. "Stop the bailouts. Just let it happen. Laissez Faire". They weren't any kinder to his American Recovery and Reinvestment Act signed and passed in late February 2009. "he will only make things worse! In fact, he did make things worse"!

MittWitt Romney was still claiming such a ridiculous thing in 2012.

By mid June 2009, not only was the Great Repub GWB Recession not "worse", we were pulling out of it and heading to one of the best, recession-free, job creating runs in history.

By contrast, disproportionately high tax cuts for the top margins appears to be the all-purpose solution for every problem a Repub sees if he sees a problem at all.

And that's what Reagan did in 1981. It is not what Carter did in 1980. It is not what any Dem would have done on the mistaken belief that "Supply-Side / Trickle-Down" policies would improve anything in the economy. In all likelihood, Carter and most other Dems would have found a way to extend those auto rebates and more. Demand-Side economic stimulus, not Supply-Side policy.

Reagan just sat on his pony and waited for his Repub Coolidge-Hoovernomics tax cuts for the rich to do what they always do. And, sure enough, they did. LOL. Nothing.

So, even though the Fed rates were higher under Carter a year earlier and they were trending downward under Reagan a year later, Carter's recession was barely a blip on the screen while Reagan's was one of the longest, deepest and most damaging in history. While he and every other "Supply-Side / Trickle-Down" believer was waiting for their all-purpose solution to work its mythical and nonexistent magic.

And waiting. And waiting.

WHAT CAUSED THE RECESSION
November 24, 1981

https://www.nytimes.com/1981/11/24/b...recession.html

...Economists offer several theories to explain the sudden shift downward. One was the further deterioration of consumer buying, which occurred gradually. The Fed's tight monetary policy is viewed as one factor behind the slowdown in sales. Another factor was inflation's continued erosion of personal real income. Yet another blow was the end of the rebates that stimulated automobile sales. 'An Additional Whammy'
....
'I think that business thought that the tax cuts would move the economy forward, and that by the fourth quarter, everything would work out,'' Mr. Ratacjzak said. 'A Shift in Perceptions'

But as the summer waned, so did confidence. ''There was a dramatic shift in perceptions between July and August,'' hed added. ''The mood had been that everything still looked good. Then the feeling that there would be immediate gains from the President's economic program just vanished, about the time the President signed the tax bill last August..

[Travv]

Tallahassee, FL — Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is being hailed as a hero after he used top-secret technology to reroute Hurricane Ian to Martha's Vineyard.

"I'll tell you what, hurricanes have been tormenting Florida for too long. Not on my watch!" said DeSantis to a crowd of screaming fans. "So you know what? We're going to load this hurricane onto a plane and fly it north. Martha's Vinyard, you'd better board up your 10,000 square foot mansions and cancel your polo matches, because Ian is on its way!

Martha's Vinyard residents have responded by flying to their winter homes in Florida and directing their house servants to prepare their homes for hurricane landfall. "The fact that DeSantis would spare his own densely populated cities and send the hurricane to ravage our multi-million-dollar mansions as a political stunt is beyond the pale," said Vineyard resident Karen Von Karen. "First the migrants, and now this? Haven't the good people of Martha's Vineyard suffered enough?

The DOJ has also responded, saying they will investigate the governor for using unapproved top-secret hurricane trafficking technology. "Hurricane trafficking is a serious offense, almost as serious as protesting at a school board meeting," said Attorney General Merrick Garland. "We will not let this horrific act go unpunished. The FBI will be sent to kick in doors, confiscate cellphones and stuff, and investigate to find what crimes he can be charged with!

At publishing time, the National Guard announced they will return all the Venezuelan migrants back from detention on the Army base to Martha's Vineyard to assist in Hurricane cleanup efforts. . .

[EihTooms]

Say you decide you want to start running the mile when you're in your mid 20's. The first time you go out to the track, it takes you 7 minutes. You do it a while, maybe a month or two, and your time goes down to 5-1/2 minutes. That's all well and good. Now, how long is it going to take you to get to 5 minutes? Will you ever do it?

It's the same with employment numbers. How many people have you got left to fill jobs as you get closer to full employment? The unemployment rate was 4. 7% when Obama left office, which is pretty respectable. It was 3. 5% in February, 2020, before we were feeling the effects of COVID. 3. 5% was the lowest we'd seen since 1969, and we haven't seen significantly lower numbers since the early 1950's.

Also, the wind was at our back, in terms of demographics. The working aged population increased by 2. 3 million during the three year period from 2013 to 2016. It only increased by 270,000 during the 3 years from 2017 to 2020. There were more working aged people entering the work force to fill jobs during the last three years of the Obama administration..

And then with the wind at your back you jumped through 3 flaming hoops in a row and, behold, Great Repub Recessions and Massive Job Losses are no different than Great Dem Recoveries, Expansions and Historic Job Gains!

Fine. Then you might as well stop voting from now on because you can't tell the difference in the results of either Party anyway. Too many nit-picky irrelevant details have led you unavoidably to that conclusion. Congratulations.

[Tiny 12]

So says leading economist Jeremy Siegel.

I see Siegel agrees with Summers and me that the earliest cause of persistently high inflation in the wake of Trump's Pandemic's global economic destruction is that Trump's Fed Chairman appointment was just not good at his job.

Wharton's Siegel says Jerome Powell owes 'the American people an apology'

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/09/26/whar...ndroidappshare

Powell is certainly no Carter appointee, Paul Volker, who manipulated rates early and effectively enough beginning in late 1979 to establish a steady month-over-month decline in inflation starting in early 1980, almost a full year before Reagan took office.

And he barely triggered a recession in Carter's strong, job-creating economy at all. It was over just a few weeks after it began.

Hey, I agree completely, that the Fed was asleep at the wheel. It's curious we're in agreement, because you support the Biden administration's extremely loose fiscal policy while you slam the Fed's extremely loose monetary policy. I can only figure it's because you somehow believe you can solely blame Jerome Powell for monetary policy, and let the other governors and the Fed bureaucracy off the hook. And, you believe since Trump originally elevated Powell to Chairman, Trump is somehow indirectly responsible. However, you fail to note that Obama originally appointed Powell to the Fed's Board of Governors. And you somehow brush off the fact that Biden re-appointed him as Chairman. You're really having to jump through hoops to blame Fed policy and inflation on Donald Trump.

Since Biden became president, there have only been two dissenting votes when the Fed Open Market Committee was setting the fed funds rate. Bullard wanted to increase the rate 0.5% instead of 0.25% in March, 2022, and George voted to increase 0.50% instead of 0.75% in June, 2022. Lael Brainard, the Vice Chair of the Fed who progressives were promoting to replace Powell, has voted with Powell and the majority every time.

Here's a link.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Histor...mittee_actions

And as to jumping through hoops, painting Volker, a Carter appointee, as one of the heroes who savaged inflation (which I agree with btw) while elsewhere pinning the blame on Reagan for the 1981/1982 recession takes the cake.

About my last reply to one of your posts, I forgot to include a link for population growth in the 18 to 64 year old age group. Since you like to see supporting links, here's one.

https://datacenter.kidscount.org/dat...03/13515,13516.