American Politics

[Tiny 12]

I'll add that this "bothsider" pejorative gets plenty of misuse. Attempts to examine many variables or to find truth wherever it may be found is a matter of integrity, and depending on your field, a professional responsibility. Calling out the bias and fallacies of partisans isn't always "bothsiderism. " In fact calling it such often serves as an ad hominem that short circuits legitimate discussion.

I don't know what the deal is with "bothsiderism" here. I'm not sure what it means, but suspect it's a derogatory term used for people who aren't tribal. You've got to join up with the Trump tribe or the Sanders tribe, and heaven forbid you think for yourself. Is that how it works? If so, God help us. I fear that's what's happening to America.

[Tiny 12]

Looking forward, I think there is still carnage in the market to follow. You do not see the full effect of interest rate hikes for 12 months. The IPO market is totally shut down, the yield curve is badly inverted, capital is drying up, and finally we are seeing some slowdown in demand, and that is going to get much, much worse. The dollar's strength is another huge headwind for the market going forward.

If you get a chance, Tiny, check this out, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UA-jOLF2T4c.

This guy Peter Zeihan gives out information I have not seen elsewhere. He makes a compelling case for why Texas is going to be the best place for world growth in the coming decades. In my mind, the USA enters a recession and the rest of the world a depression in the next year.

Why? Well, some people really thought you can just shut down world production for two years, print a bunch of money, and everything is going to be fine. Yeesh. The economic effects of the pandemic have just been delayed.

And if you read what Eih wrote, you will see the pandemic was Trump's fault too.

Hi Elvis, I've blown way too much time this afternoon replying to Tooms, so haven't had time to take a look at the video yet.

One comment about the rest of your post. I'm privileged to know the smartest son of a bit**h, at least as far as economics is concerned, who posts on hooker boards. He used to go by Captain Midnight. He points out that the U.S. money supply, M1 and M2, have been flat since February. And commodity prices have been coming down. As such, he thinks high inflation may not last as long as many think. He still thinks we're in for a recession though. This makes sense to me for the USA. But I'm not so sure about other countries. If you look at M1 and M2 for most other countries, in their local currencies, they're still increasing at a rapid clip. And commodity prices haven't really fallen. If you live in Europe, you're looking at crazy prices for electricity and home heating. Why the difference between what's happening in the USA and other countries? Well a lot of it's the strength of the dollar. We in the USA are blessed to have the predominant reserve and trading currency.

Kudos for going short! You're right about interest rates and the stock market, but most people, including me, didn't take advantage of what we all knew was coming.

[PVMonger]

I once heard a twice Impeached defeated so-called potus mistake 4,996 living American voters for corpses:

Trump claims 5,000 dead people voted in Georgia but the real number is four.
Claim was part of push to overturn election but officials confirm four cases, all involving family members submitting votes

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/...on-dead-people

And, yeah, he was not using a teleprompter. It was 100% on him.

And I saw Donnie the Dumbass say that injecting disinfectant would cure COVID. I heard him say that shoving a lightbulb up your ass would cure it too. I heard him say that he'd make Mexico pay for the wall he was going to build. I heard him say thousands of stupid things.

Somehow, though, the Moron Brigade and the rest of MAGAt-nation gives him a pass on those things. And they wonder why I call him Donnie the Dumbass?

[Tiny 12]

I see you're scratching and clawing at every detail you can dig up to demonstrate that those Great Repub Recessions and Massive Job Losses over the past 100 years or so really weren't all the Repubs' fault or, oh look, that 25th crank of the meat grinder out of thousands in the sausage factory of legislation by a Repub and not a Dem produce a few jobs too and all that typical pro Repub Bothsiderism stuff....Here's the deal: Repubs are at war with this government by, for and of the people. Have been for many decades.

I don't much care what happened 100 years ago, during FDR's time or whenever.

My reasons for favoring Republicans are two fold:

1. I believe more Republicans than Democrats favor smaller federal government. And clearly, IMO, smaller government is correlated with greater prosperity. When you leave more money in the pockets of the people and businesses, instead of channeling it off as directed by politicians in Washington D.C. to a massive federal bureaucracy, we're better off. Government doesn't grow the economy, the private sector does.

2. Republicans are less likely to levy extortionate taxes on me.

So how do I justify "1"? Well, as follows.

This table shows GDP per capita, adjusted for purchasing power, by country:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...P) _per_capita

When you kick out small places and petrostates, including Norway, the wealthiest countries per capita in the world are Singapore, Ireland, Switzerland, the United States, and Hong Kong.

This table shows government expenditure and government revenue as a % of GDP, by country:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...centage_of_GDP

Sort this table by government revenue, in increasing order. Kick out developing countries, small places and petrostates. The countries with the lowest government revenue as a % of GDP are Taiwan, Singapore, Hong Kong, Ireland, the United States, and Switzerland.

You could also sort the same table by government expenditure as a % of GDP. But the ranking of the USA and other countries will be misleading because of the massive amounts dumped into economies for COVID stimulus in 2020. So, instead, look at the same table, with 2018 data, in the Wayback Machine. (Wikipedia never provided the 2019 data):

https://web.archive.org/web/20210224...centage_of_GDP

You'll need to copy and paste to Excel to Sort. Sort from smallest to largest by government expenditure. Again, kick out developing countries, small places and petrostates. The countries with the lowest government expenditure as a % of GDP are Singapore, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Ireland, Switzerland, and the United States.

Do you see a pattern? The five wealthiest countries in the world, sans small places and petrostates, are Singapore, Ireland, Switzerland, the United States and Hong Kong. And the developed countries, excluding small places and petrostates, with the smallest governments are Singapore, Ireland, Switzerland, the United States, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. So they're the same, except for Taiwan! And Taiwan is no slouch.

An interesting observation IMO, the United States has the most progressive taxation system in the OECD. And Hong Kong, if it were a country, would have one of the most regressive tax systems among developed countries. In other words, the level of taxation and government expenditure, i.e. the size of government, is what matters most, not the progressivity of the tax system.

The majority of the Democratic Party wants to grow government so it's comparable in size, in relation to the economy, to European social welfare states. I figure over the long term this would perhaps result in a 15% to 25% hit to GDP per capita. That is, a reduction to levels comparable to Germany or France. And that's huge.

The left's response to what I've thrown out would be, so what. The GDP per capita for those countries is pumped up by the billionaires. What does that do for the workingman? And I suspect they'd have basis to say that for Hong Kong, and to a lesser extent for Ireland. But in terms of "median equivalent adult income" for OECD countries, which represents median disposable income per person including all forms of income and taxes and transfer payments from government, the USA is number 2 and Switzerland is number 4. The number 1 country, Luxembourg, is a small place (600,000 population) and number 3, Norway, is a petrostate. Please recall the definition of median. Median means the 50th percentile -- half of Americans make more than the median income and half make less. Here's a link to median equivalent adult income by country, for the OECD:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Median_income

Note that median equivalent adult income for Germany is 27% less than the USA, and it's 33% less for France! We in the USA are blessed to have small (relatively speaking) government.

[EihTooms]

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.

I didn't say Reagan's Supply-Side / Trickle-Down disproportionately high tax cuts for the top margins exacerbated his Great Recession, although I think a case can be made for that. I said they did what they always do as an economic stimulus; nothing. And they did nothing to prevent that recession from being one of the worst in history.

I agree with you that tax cuts are often associated with higher GDP. I'll go further to state that tax cuts are also often associated with jobs creation and paying down the debt and deficit. But only when Dem Presidents propose tax cuts and get their way. Not when Repub Presidents propose tax cuts and get their way.

Where Repubs love to cut taxes disproportionately high is on the top margins. That is their signature Supply-Side / Trickle-Down tax policy move. Which does very little or nothing to produce the positive results you and I both cited above.

Where it leads to exacerbating economic downturns rather than averting them is the Repub generally has to cut taxes at a markedly lower percentage, if at all, for the middle and lower income earners in order to "pay for" those beloved disproportionately high tax cuts for "the wealthy. " That 70% to 50% cut you mentioned regarding the 1981 act.

I think you will find that the 1981 act you referred to did cut taxes disproportionately high on the top, as you already mentioned, but at a much smaller percentage on the middle and lower margins, if at all. So what you got was a huge tax cut for a relatively tiny number of people, many of whom barely noticed it in terms of food on their table and cars in their garage, and meager tax cuts, if any, on a relatively gigantic number of people.

And, as that NYT article pointed out, there seemed to be an expectation that those Supply-Side tax cuts alone would avert a recession or at least diminish it without having to combine it with pro-acrive Demand-Side stimulus. Those auto rebates that were ended.

BTW, on that point, the NYT article didn't make the case that anyone expected the 1981 act to end the Recession "three months later". It was about how businesses had lost faith in Reagan's tax cuts to prevent a Recession in the first place, literally at his signing of it. And they were right to have lost faith in that. Maybe by then they did a little more due diligence on that 1929 Repub Crash and Depression.

And remember, in November 1981 nobody knew for sure we were officially in a Recession by then. So the tax bill was simply about stimulating and growing the economy, not to "recover" us from a Recession exactly. What was known was there was little to no positive sentiment and anticipation about the economy at the signing of the act.

I love tax cuts. One of the main reasons I vote for Dems is because of their tax cuts. Repub tax cuts have proven not to be worth shit for the general economy. But Dem tax cuts greatly improve the lives of most Americans. It's all about where, when and how the tax cuts are applied. You know, details.

So why did Dems vote for Reagan's ultimately practically useless except for racking up huge debt and deficits Supply-Side / Trickle-Down tax cuts in 1981? Three big reasons:

We had not yet seen that style of favorite Repub tax cuts demonstrate the disastrous pattern we are all familiar with now and learned more about from Reagan.

Dems believe in elections, Reagan ran on that nonsense, Reagan won, the electorate who voted for him should get what they wished for.

And most of all, Reagan had earlier that year taken a bullet from a nut with a gun trying to impress a lesbian actress. It would have been politically impossible to deny him his dream tax policy during his big comeback and recovery.

[EihTooms]

I totally agree, and that is why it is a cheap shot to call Powell, Trump's Powell. Of course, we are all familiar with Eih's constant refrain of Dems good, Republicans bad, and this is another example of it.

Eih stayed long the market even when the Fed was tightening rates. I went short, and the reason is the Fed said they were raising rates. If you watch CNBC, 75% of the discussion there is what is the Fed going to do. It is an economic law that if the Fed raises rates, the overall stock market will go down, and the Fed has been saying literally every week in the clearest language possible, they are raising rates. Hell, one Fed governor even said "good" after the stock market went down.

Eih and I got into about investing and he bragged about his wealth and how smart he was which I avoid like hell. The last thing I want to hear about is why you were right (or more likely lucky) in the past. I do not care that much about track records. Make your case for today. His case was Biden is president. When the Nasdaq was down 20%, he refused to say there was a bear market because the NASDAQ was not a real index; only the S&P 500 is. Of course, the S&P 500 is now in bear territory too.

Looking forward, I think there is still carnage in the market to follow. You do not see the full effect of interest rate hikes for 12 months. The IPO market is totally shut down, the yield curve is badly inverted, capital is drying up, and finally we are seeing some slowdown in demand, and that is going to get much, much worse. The dollar's strength is another huge headwind for the market going forward..

I have been generously giving you a pass on your lies about what I post lately, Elvis my boy.

Now I will generously give you some free advice; Stop lying about what I post just to make you feel better about your apparently pathetic life. Try living well instead. I guarantee that will make you a happier fellow.

You're welcome.

[EihTooms]

It just got a lot harder for the National Bureau of Economic Research to officially declare what is currently happening a "recession":

Jobless claims hit five-month low despite Fed's efforts to slow labor market

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/09/29/jobl...ndroidappshare

Initial filings for unemployment claims fell last week to their lowest level in five months last week.

The drop to 193,000 was below the estimate of 215,000.

A separate report showed inflation running hotter than previously reported in the second quarter.

A Bear Market decline, yes. Trump's Pandemic supply-chain destruction Inflation, yes. Putin's Dumbest War Ever oil and grain supply-chain destruction Inflation, yes.

But falling jobless claims, a Full Employment unemployment rate under 4% and monthly jobs creation in the hundreds of thousands do not typically spell "recession."

Powell probably should have led his board to increase the Fed Funds Rate to 5%+ months ago.

Yes, that would have thrown hand-wringing, crybaby Wall Street into a tizzy. But that's nothing new. Hand-wringing, crybaby Wall Street is always in a tizzy. Bad economic news, good economic news, no economic news, pending economic news, Wall Street is always in a hand-wringing, crybaby tizzy.

[EihTooms]

Biden proved today that without the teleprompter he is just plain stupid. When is the last time a president called out for a dead person to be acknowledged in the crowd. Brandon at his finest.

I once heard a twice Impeached defeated so-called potus mistake 4,996 living American voters for corpses:

Trump claims 5,000 dead people voted in Georgia but the real number is four.
Claim was part of push to overturn election but officials confirm four cases, all involving family members submitting votes

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/...on-dead-people

And, yeah, he was not using a teleprompter. It was 100% on him.

[Elvis 2008]

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?

I totally agree, and that is why it is a cheap shot to call Powell, Trump's Powell. Of course, we are all familiar with Eih's constant refrain of Dems good, Republicans bad, and this is another example of it.

Eih stayed long the market even when the Fed was tightening rates. I went short, and the reason is the Fed said they were raising rates. If you watch CNBC, 75% of the discussion there is what is the Fed going to do. It is an economic law that if the Fed raises rates, the overall stock market will go down, and the Fed has been saying literally every week in the clearest language possible, they are raising rates. Hell, one Fed governor even said "good" after the stock market went down.

Eih and I got into about investing and he bragged about his wealth and how smart he was which I avoid like hell. The last thing I want to hear about is why you were right (or more likely lucky) in the past. I do not care that much about track records. Make your case for today. His case was Biden is president. When the Nasdaq was down 20%, he refused to say there was a bear market because the NASDAQ was not a real index; only the S&P 500 is. Of course, the S&P 500 is now in bear territory too.

Looking forward, I think there is still carnage in the market to follow. You do not see the full effect of interest rate hikes for 12 months. The IPO market is totally shut down, the yield curve is badly inverted, capital is drying up, and finally we are seeing some slowdown in demand, and that is going to get much, much worse. The dollar's strength is another huge headwind for the market going forward.

If you get a chance, Tiny, check this out, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UA-jOLF2T4c.

This guy Peter Zeihan gives out information I have not seen elsewhere. He makes a compelling case for why Texas is going to be the best place for world growth in the coming decades. In my mind, the USA enters a recession and the rest of the world a depression in the next year.

Why? Well, some people really thought you can just shut down world production for two years, print a bunch of money, and everything is going to be fine. Yeesh. The economic effects of the pandemic have just been delayed.

And if you read what Eih wrote, you will see the pandemic was Trump's fault too.

[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..

I'll add that this "bothsider" pejorative gets plenty of misuse. Attempts to examine many variables or to find truth wherever it may be found is a matter of integrity, and depending on your field, a professional responsibility. Calling out the bias and fallacies of partisans isn't always "bothsiderism. " In fact calling it such often serves as an ad hominem that short circuits legitimate discussion.

[EihTooms]

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..

I see you're scratching and clawing at every detail you can dig up to demonstrate that those Great Repub Recessions and Massive Job Losses over the past 100 years or so really weren't all the Repubs' fault or, oh look, that 25th crank of the meat grinder out of thousands in the sausage factory of legislation by a Repub and not a Dem produce a few jobs too and all that typical pro Repub Bothsiderism stuff.

But I'll bet even the dead Steve Jobs would concede that one's intentions, agenda and goals matter much, much more to an outcome than dumb luck here and there and interesting but ultimately meaningless anecdotal details.

Here's the deal: Repubs are at war with this government by, for and of the people. Have been for many decades. Their previous iconic Repub lord and savior, Reagan, popularized a war whoop against America; "In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem. Government is the problem. " Reagan wasn't talking about a dictatorship or a monarchy in some faraway country. He was talking about America. And in America, great crises are solved by us, the government, we, the people.

It was not a giant leap at all to go from there to the current iconic Repub lord and savior's literal war against the American form of government.

So it is blissfully easy to predict that a, say, Fed Chairman originally appointed by a Repub and that had to be kept by the incoming Dem and others to avert even greater disaster at a time of crises would not be very good at his job. Repubs are at war with the Federal Reserve, too, or hadn't you noticed that detail?

When an entire Party is at war with the American government and has been working mightily for decades to prove that it "doesn't work", please explain why on god's green earth an administration of that Party would ever appoint someone as Secretary of a department, Fed Chairman, judges, staffers, you name it, that would do a great job of it and show how well this government works?

Yes, this is quite the opposite of the Dem Party agenda. They actually want to prove that this government of, by and for the people works and works very well to produce positive results.

Do you honestly believe for one minute a Repub administration within memory has wanted a team working hard to show the American people and the world that this government of, by and for the American people that they have been at philosophical and now literal war against for decades and decades "works" great, hey everybody, join the club?

Of course, that doesn't happen.

There are thousands of decisions that need to be made by a POTUS and an administration every day. If your underlying philosophy and intellectual goal and agenda is to prove "government is not the solution to our problems" in America, that we really should just cater to the financial wishes of and advantages to those kindly corporate CEOs, top income margins and business owners because of course they'll do the right thing for America and all the good they do will come "trickling down" to everyone else, then by the end of each day you will have inched the country closer to the next crisis and not further away from it. And that is so even if one of those detailed decisions accidentally turns out not to be so bad.

You cannot then be surprised, puzzled or bewildered enough by the pattern of Great Repub Recessions and Massive Jobs Destruction vs Great Dem Recoveries, Expansions and Jobs Creation over the past 100 years to insist that if we just look at this or that silly detail, one out of a thousand cranks on the meat grinder of legislation, this or that perceived "hypocrisy", slight or imperfection, oh the demographics here, oh what that Senator did or said, magical economic cycles and so on unless you are just trying to stick your head in the sand and pretend the truth about it isn't the truth.

Steve Jobs would have kicked out an employee in a nanosecond if the overwhelming evidence was that employee was bent on making sure his company was a failure and decidedly not on making it a success. And he wouldn't have given a shit about some relatively insignificant detail. I doubt he would have even stood still for one minute to factor in such a detail before kicking out the traitor.

[Cali Guy]

Wait and see until after the bloodbath of Nov 8 LMAO seems they can't wait that long.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/28/u...-walorski.html

Biden proved today that without the teleprompter he is just plain stupid. When is the last time a president called out for a dead person to be acknowledged in the crowd. Brandon at his finest.

[MarquisdeSade1]

Wait and see until after the bloodbath of Nov 8 LMAO seems they can't wait that long.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/28/u...-walorski.html

[JustTK]

I am sure you have your own reasons for linking to such BS. ... I didn't watch the video because a. Nasal American accent like hers make me puke..

I didn't bother with the rest of your comments because your first comment carries such a strong contradiction.

[Spidy]

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

I am sure you have your own reasons for linking to such BS ... I didn't watch the video because ...

Outta all that rant and ramble, I'll agree, that QAnon/Repub/Bothsidesist, will offer up BS as evidence of what I don't know.

As he's still yet to formulate an opinion of anything.

I didn't watch said video, click on it or link to the "bothsidesist" BS either! Don't plan to either!

Great comments here ...

While the "bothsidesist" is at it, consider the fact that by extension, one could also equally blame ALL RELIGIONS, for all the ilk in the world, too.

Go think on it, in your "bothsidesism" neoliberal corner! An opinion would be much appreciated.