on PolicyMic
Paul Anderson Robert - You don't understand basic economics. Everyone with a brain - aside from this website, which for some reason is concentrated with libertarian nuts - thinks your opinion is stupid.
Paul Anderson Wow. you're pretty ignorant. Libya is doing pretty well. And we didn't lose single American life.
Paul Anderson Wow. You're a traitorous person! Congrats. Move away to your moron libertarian country.
Paul Anderson That's what we've been doing.... Once Bush left, we started doing that. Bush was concerned about politics. He wanted to kill terrorists so he could pound his chest. Obama just wants to kill these bastards. Like everyone else in both parties. And he's fine with doing it quietly with robot planes.
Paul Anderson I mean - it helps that we've murdered almost everyone even tangentially involved with Al Qaeda. And you know what also helps? That we've done it quietly. George W. Bush, one of our most pathetic and moronic presidents, would brag about killing some Al Qaeda rando every once in a while. And then he'd raise a terror warning. Because he was so stupid that he believed that "strength" and "FERRRRRDOM'" would help use beat the "TERRRRRRSTS". Anyway. Thankfully, that moron left the White House. And now we kill these murders quietly without using them as props. Because doing that will inflame people we want to avoid inflaming. Except for Bin Laden. No one on earth supports him who isn't already a sociopath murderer. So - stamping on his grave is warranted.
Paul Anderson HAHHAHAHAHAH!!!! You're one of those paranoid nuts who thinks that we're seeing inflation. Good for you, chap! Have fun with that.
Paul Anderson Don't worry. He's not actually serious. He's just trying to set himself up for after Romney loses.
Paul Anderson Who cares? He's lost all credibility. He's one of the most dishonest politicians alive. This is exactly the pathetic thing that a discredited liar would say to try to win back a few pathetic morons.
Paul Anderson "Romney has criticized Obama for not being decisive in Chen’s case " And herein lies the crux of the problem for conservative foreign policy. Lately, they rarely weigh that actual implications of their actions. They rarely look at the practical impact. Or the nuance involved in negotiating behind closed doors. They're obsessed with optics. They're obsessed with how America looks. Do we look strong? Did we look decisive? Did we look like we were mighty? They seem to be incredibly insecure about America's place of dominance in the world. So insecure, in fact, that they would sacrifice results if it meant a chance to make a tough public statement. They'd reject negotiations if - in order to win a victory for America - they were forced to make public concessions that made them seem "weak". It's all about optics. It's really quite pathetic.
Paul Anderson The question is this: how much? This is a bump from the convention. Convention bumps are artificial, but they sometimes persist (but only partially). All of the trackers show small jumps in the polls (2-3% or so), but Gallup and Rasmussen trackers release 7 day averages, so we won't know how big the bump was until Monday or Tuesday.
Paul Anderson "This devalues the purchasing power of the dollar as more of them now chase and compete for goods and services." Inflation is really low. People have been practically SHRIEKING about massive hyperinflation for 3 years straight now. They predicted it would happen a long time ago. When will these people finally lose their credibility? And frankly...we need some mild inflation right now. The middle class is still overleveraged. If we could relieve some of that debt, that would be helpful. That being said - I'm not sure QE3 is going to do much at this point. This, however, intrigues me: http://www.businessinsider.com/michael-woodford-endorses-ngdp-targeting-2012-9
Paul Anderson Great story, Alex. People will mock this, but the threat of a catastrophic virus is very real. Kind of a hobby of mine to study this stuff (ever since I saw Twelve Monkeys, I suppose?) Anyway. it's kind of scary. Once a virus hits a tipping point, there's very little we can do to prevent 10, 15, even 20% of the population from perishing. The key is to prevent a virus from reaching that tipping point.
Paul Anderson Internment camps? Have you lost your mind?
Paul Anderson The thing to remember here is that there is a lag in state polling. Most of the state polling you're using was taken this week, last weekend, and late last week - when Romney had his mild convention bounce. I hate spinning polls in my favorite candidate's direction, because it's a pet peeve. And perhaps Romney's bounce will be permanent. Sometimes that happens. I'm just saying.... Even with that said, Romney has definitely inched closer in Ohio and Virginia. The problem for Romney is that if he loses either one, he's basically cooked. He's given up on Michigan and Pennsylvania. Both were really long shots, but there was a point where Romney had hoped to compete in PA. Michigan was never actually in play. I think they were just trying to get Obama to waste money there.
Paul Anderson And as a result, we now have an amazing social safety net. The elderly poor don't starve to death in mass. I realize that's disappointing to Randian sociopaths, but oh well.
Paul Anderson Oh good lord. The Hoover institute? Please don't cite economic data from 1919. Unless you want to discuss bailing out the horseshoe industry. In general, recessions followed by financial crises take longer to recover from. This is backed by international data. Most recessions simply involve a bubble bursting in a sector of the economy or a natural downturn in the business cycle. As soon as the market clears and all of the bad investments are weeded out, we hit a bottom and move forward. Financial crises are tougher, because they tend to create over-leveraged consumers, banks, and governments. So - when things calm down and good investments exist, we can't take advantage of them because credit remains tight, consumers are over-leveraged, and government output stays stagnant. Oh wait - ignore that last one. Government can only hurt people. But the first two are common sense.
Paul Anderson Dan - I'm trying to avoid writing an insult here. First of all - Obamacare hasn't started yet. The reason why you can't afford insurance is because the individual exchanges haven't been setup yet. But let's assume that you already knew that... Why would you refuse to purchase insurance if subsidies were available?
Paul Anderson When you can provide workers with better compensation, you can hire more productive workers. I know that the new conservative thing is to pretend that all human achievement can be credited to the Job Creators. But...it turns out that businesses function thanks to the collective efforts of an entire team of employees.
Paul Anderson Here's a new flash: This is the last election when Republicans can run a candidate who fails to appeal to non-whites. Rand Paul opposes the civil rights act. The End.
Paul Anderson How does Ron Paul "expose corruption"? My understanding is that he opposes all regulations. His perfect world involves unbridled corruption and the triumph of the strong over the weak. Social darwinism.
Paul Anderson Santorum is a joke. He only finished high this year because Mitt Romney ran an incompetent campaign.
Paul Anderson Rand Paul and Ron Paul are different in a ton of ways. Ron Paul is much nuttier. For example: he literally believes that the UN is trying to brainwash our children. But he's an old kook, so his stupidity is almost charming. Ron Paul's bigotry is kind an old white man's racism. We can sort of write it off, because it's surely faded away from inside of him. Rand Paul is not as nutty. He's much more intelligent. But he's also more social conservative and intolerant. He doesn't respect women or gays, whereas Ron Paul respects women (but wants to destroy their lives from a public policy standpoint) and is afraid of gays.
Paul Anderson "Romney has a five point plan for the economy: promote more domestic energy," Domestic energy production is at all time highs in the oil, natural gas AND clean energy sectors. "cultivate skills for economic success" Ummm. OK. "make trade work for America" Does that mean he's calling off his stupid trade war with China? "cut the deficit" If he would just specify the loopholes he wants to close or the cuts he wants to make, maybe I could believe this! "and champion small business" By taking away the heath insurance exchanges, which allow their employees to receive subsidies and collect healthcare? "He will push for the repeal of Obamacare and cut regulations that prevent economic growth at a time when families need it most." 30 million people won't benefit from health insurance?
Paul Anderson Well - if you reject all basic economics, then yes, you can say "Who knows?" But here are the only credible cases to be made against the stimulus: 1. It was too small 2. It was comprised of the wrong types of stimulus (type of spending/tax cuts/etc).
Paul Anderson "In 2009, the Obama administration had projected that unemployment would be at 5.3% by this time if we passed their $830 billion stimulus program. We did, and the effects didn’t even make a dent." Why are you being deliberately obtuse? No one knew until 2010 or 2011 how low the baseline for employment had fallen. It was humanly impossible. You know, the thing I'd like for one of you "economists" to show me is evidence that the market was going to correct itself in February of 2009 without intervention. Point me to some green shoots that were ready to sprout before we crushed them.
on PolicyMic
Paul Anderson Robert - You don't understand basic economics. Everyone with a brain - aside from this website, which for some reason is concentrated with libertarian nuts - thinks your opinion is stupid.
Paul Anderson Wow. you're pretty ignorant. Libya is doing pretty well. And we didn't lose single American life.
Paul Anderson Wow. You're a traitorous person! Congrats. Move away to your moron libertarian country.
Paul Anderson That's what we've been doing.... Once Bush left, we started doing that. Bush was concerned about politics. He wanted to kill terrorists so he could pound his chest. Obama just wants to kill these bastards. Like everyone else in both parties. And he's fine with doing it quietly with robot planes.
Paul Anderson I mean - it helps that we've murdered almost everyone even tangentially involved with Al Qaeda. And you know what also helps? That we've done it quietly. George W. Bush, one of our most pathetic and moronic presidents, would brag about killing some Al Qaeda rando every once in a while. And then he'd raise a terror warning. Because he was so stupid that he believed that "strength" and "FERRRRRDOM'" would help use beat the "TERRRRRRSTS". Anyway. Thankfully, that moron left the White House. And now we kill these murders quietly without using them as props. Because doing that will inflame people we want to avoid inflaming. Except for Bin Laden. No one on earth supports him who isn't already a sociopath murderer. So - stamping on his grave is warranted.
Paul Anderson HAHHAHAHAHAH!!!! You're one of those paranoid nuts who thinks that we're seeing inflation. Good for you, chap! Have fun with that.
Paul Anderson Don't worry. He's not actually serious. He's just trying to set himself up for after Romney loses.
Paul Anderson Who cares? He's lost all credibility. He's one of the most dishonest politicians alive. This is exactly the pathetic thing that a discredited liar would say to try to win back a few pathetic morons.
Paul Anderson "Romney has criticized Obama for not being decisive in Chen’s case " And herein lies the crux of the problem for conservative foreign policy. Lately, they rarely weigh that actual implications of their actions. They rarely look at the practical impact. Or the nuance involved in negotiating behind closed doors. They're obsessed with optics. They're obsessed with how America looks. Do we look strong? Did we look decisive? Did we look like we were mighty? They seem to be incredibly insecure about America's place of dominance in the world. So insecure, in fact, that they would sacrifice results if it meant a chance to make a tough public statement. They'd reject negotiations if - in order to win a victory for America - they were forced to make public concessions that made them seem "weak". It's all about optics. It's really quite pathetic.
Paul Anderson The question is this: how much? This is a bump from the convention. Convention bumps are artificial, but they sometimes persist (but only partially). All of the trackers show small jumps in the polls (2-3% or so), but Gallup and Rasmussen trackers release 7 day averages, so we won't know how big the bump was until Monday or Tuesday.
Paul Anderson "This devalues the purchasing power of the dollar as more of them now chase and compete for goods and services." Inflation is really low. People have been practically SHRIEKING about massive hyperinflation for 3 years straight now. They predicted it would happen a long time ago. When will these people finally lose their credibility? And frankly...we need some mild inflation right now. The middle class is still overleveraged. If we could relieve some of that debt, that would be helpful. That being said - I'm not sure QE3 is going to do much at this point. This, however, intrigues me: http://www.businessinsider.com/michael-woodford-endorses-ngdp-targeting-2012-9
Paul Anderson Great story, Alex. People will mock this, but the threat of a catastrophic virus is very real. Kind of a hobby of mine to study this stuff (ever since I saw Twelve Monkeys, I suppose?) Anyway. it's kind of scary. Once a virus hits a tipping point, there's very little we can do to prevent 10, 15, even 20% of the population from perishing. The key is to prevent a virus from reaching that tipping point.
Paul Anderson Internment camps? Have you lost your mind?
Paul Anderson The thing to remember here is that there is a lag in state polling. Most of the state polling you're using was taken this week, last weekend, and late last week - when Romney had his mild convention bounce. I hate spinning polls in my favorite candidate's direction, because it's a pet peeve. And perhaps Romney's bounce will be permanent. Sometimes that happens. I'm just saying.... Even with that said, Romney has definitely inched closer in Ohio and Virginia. The problem for Romney is that if he loses either one, he's basically cooked. He's given up on Michigan and Pennsylvania. Both were really long shots, but there was a point where Romney had hoped to compete in PA. Michigan was never actually in play. I think they were just trying to get Obama to waste money there.
Paul Anderson And as a result, we now have an amazing social safety net. The elderly poor don't starve to death in mass. I realize that's disappointing to Randian sociopaths, but oh well.
Paul Anderson Oh good lord. The Hoover institute? Please don't cite economic data from 1919. Unless you want to discuss bailing out the horseshoe industry. In general, recessions followed by financial crises take longer to recover from. This is backed by international data. Most recessions simply involve a bubble bursting in a sector of the economy or a natural downturn in the business cycle. As soon as the market clears and all of the bad investments are weeded out, we hit a bottom and move forward. Financial crises are tougher, because they tend to create over-leveraged consumers, banks, and governments. So - when things calm down and good investments exist, we can't take advantage of them because credit remains tight, consumers are over-leveraged, and government output stays stagnant. Oh wait - ignore that last one. Government can only hurt people. But the first two are common sense.
Paul Anderson Dan - I'm trying to avoid writing an insult here. First of all - Obamacare hasn't started yet. The reason why you can't afford insurance is because the individual exchanges haven't been setup yet. But let's assume that you already knew that... Why would you refuse to purchase insurance if subsidies were available?
Paul Anderson When you can provide workers with better compensation, you can hire more productive workers. I know that the new conservative thing is to pretend that all human achievement can be credited to the Job Creators. But...it turns out that businesses function thanks to the collective efforts of an entire team of employees.
Paul Anderson Here's a new flash: This is the last election when Republicans can run a candidate who fails to appeal to non-whites. Rand Paul opposes the civil rights act. The End.
Paul Anderson How does Ron Paul "expose corruption"? My understanding is that he opposes all regulations. His perfect world involves unbridled corruption and the triumph of the strong over the weak. Social darwinism.
Paul Anderson Santorum is a joke. He only finished high this year because Mitt Romney ran an incompetent campaign.
Paul Anderson Rand Paul and Ron Paul are different in a ton of ways. Ron Paul is much nuttier. For example: he literally believes that the UN is trying to brainwash our children. But he's an old kook, so his stupidity is almost charming. Ron Paul's bigotry is kind an old white man's racism. We can sort of write it off, because it's surely faded away from inside of him. Rand Paul is not as nutty. He's much more intelligent. But he's also more social conservative and intolerant. He doesn't respect women or gays, whereas Ron Paul respects women (but wants to destroy their lives from a public policy standpoint) and is afraid of gays.
Paul Anderson "Romney has a five point plan for the economy: promote more domestic energy," Domestic energy production is at all time highs in the oil, natural gas AND clean energy sectors. "cultivate skills for economic success" Ummm. OK. "make trade work for America" Does that mean he's calling off his stupid trade war with China? "cut the deficit" If he would just specify the loopholes he wants to close or the cuts he wants to make, maybe I could believe this! "and champion small business" By taking away the heath insurance exchanges, which allow their employees to receive subsidies and collect healthcare? "He will push for the repeal of Obamacare and cut regulations that prevent economic growth at a time when families need it most." 30 million people won't benefit from health insurance?
Paul Anderson Well - if you reject all basic economics, then yes, you can say "Who knows?" But here are the only credible cases to be made against the stimulus: 1. It was too small 2. It was comprised of the wrong types of stimulus (type of spending/tax cuts/etc).
Paul Anderson "In 2009, the Obama administration had projected that unemployment would be at 5.3% by this time if we passed their $830 billion stimulus program. We did, and the effects didn’t even make a dent." Why are you being deliberately obtuse? No one knew until 2010 or 2011 how low the baseline for employment had fallen. It was humanly impossible. You know, the thing I'd like for one of you "economists" to show me is evidence that the market was going to correct itself in February of 2009 without intervention. Point me to some green shoots that were ready to sprout before we crushed them.