Stockman: Four Deformations of the Apocalypse

[Marcus Bryant]

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/01/opinion/01stockman.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all

[Marcus Bryant]

In 1981, traditional Republicans supported tax cuts, matched by spending cuts, to offset the way inflation was pushing many taxpayers into higher brackets and to spur investment. The Reagan administration’s hastily prepared fiscal blueprint, however, was no match for the primordial forces — the welfare state and the warfare state — that drive the federal spending machine.

[Marcus Bryant]

The third ominous change in the American economy has been the vast, unproductive expansion of our financial sector. Here, Republicans have been oblivious to the grave danger of flooding financial markets with freely printed money and, at the same time, removing traditional restrictions on leverage and speculation. As a result, the combined assets of conventional banks and the so-called shadow banking system (including investment banks and finance companies) grew from a mere $500 billion in 1970 to $30 trillion by September 2008.

[Marcus Bryant]

The day of national reckoning has arrived. We will not have a conventional business recovery now, but rather a long hangover of debt liquidation and downsizing — as suggested by last week’s news that the national economy grew at an anemic annual rate of 2.4 percent in the second quarter. Under these circumstances, it’s a pity that the modern Republican Party offers the American people an irrelevant platform of recycled Keynesianism when the old approach — balanced budgets, sound money and financial discipline — is needed more than ever.

[TeyshaBlue]

The day of national reckoning has arrived. We will not have a conventional business recovery now, but rather a long hangover of debt liquidation and downsizing — as suggested by last week’s news that the national economy grew at an anemic annual rate of 2.4 percent in the second quarter. Under these circumstances, it’s a pity that the modern Republican Party offers the American people an irrelevant platform of recycled Keynesianism when the old approach — balanced budgets, sound money and financial discipline — is needed more than ever.

Troof. Add in needed tax increases.

[Marcus Bryant]

Taxes need to rise and spending needs to be cut, drastically. Of course, politicians need to get elected so what needs to happen will not.

[boutons_deux]

"modern Republican Party offers the American people an irrelevant platform of recycled Keynesianism"

I found this to be a surprise given all he said before, a non-sequitur and totally out of sync with the Hate-Keynes venom from Repugs and conservatives.

[Parker2112]

stop the war efforts. stop the imperialism. bring the boys/girls home, and arm them with jobs. Sell our military machine to canada.

[Marcus Bryant]

The middle class needs to pay for its goodies and share in the cost of the federal government's operations, then perhaps its bitching and moaning about taxation will be justified.

[Parker2112]

Fuckin' repugs.



The second unhappy change in the American economy has been the extraordinary growth of our public debt. In 1970 it was just 40 percent of gross domestic product, or about $425 billion. When it reaches $18 trillion, it will be 40 times greater than in 1970. This debt explosion has resulted not from big spending by the Democrats, but instead the Republican Party’s embrace, about three decades ago, of the insidious doctrine that deficits don’t matter if they result from tax cuts.

In 1981, traditional Republicans supported tax cuts, matched by spending cuts, to offset the way inflation was pushing many taxpayers into higher brackets and to spur investment. The Reagan administration’s hastily prepared fiscal blueprint, however, was no match for the primordial forces — the welfare state and the warfare state — that drive the federal spending machine.

Soon, the neocons were pushing the military budget skyward. And the Republicans on Capitol Hill who were supposed to cut spending exempted from the knife most of the domestic budget — entitlements, farm subsidies, education, water projects. But in the end it was a new cadre of ideological tax-cutters who killed the Republicans’ fiscal religion.

Through the 1984 election, the old guard earnestly tried to control the deficit, rolling back about 40 percent of the original Reagan tax cuts. But when, in the following years, the Federal Reserve chairman, Paul Volcker, finally crushed inflation, enabling a solid economic rebound, the new tax-cutters not only claimed victory for their supply-side strategy but hooked Republicans for good on the delusion that the economy will outgrow the deficit if plied with enough tax cuts.

By fiscal year 2009, the tax-cutters had reduced federal revenues to 15 percent of gross domestic product, lower than they had been since the 1940s. Then, after rarely vetoing a budget bill and engaging in two unfinanced foreign military adventures, George W. Bush surrendered on domestic spending cuts, too — signing into law $420 billion in non-defense appropriations, a 65 percent gain from the $260 billion he had inherited eight years earlier. Republicans thus joined the Democrats in a shameless embrace of a free-lunch fiscal policy.

[Parker2112]

Fuckin' blood sucking welfare-momma corps.


But the trillion-dollar conglomerates that inhabit this new financial world are not free enterprises. They are rather wards of the state, extracting billions from the economy with a lot of pointless speculation in stocks, bonds, commodities and derivatives. They could never have survived, much less thrived, if their deposits had not been government-guaranteed and if they hadn’t been able to obtain virtually free money from the Fed’s discount window to cover their bad bets.

[Parker2112]

Repugs betray thier ideals...what else is new.



The day of national reckoning has arrived. We will not have a conventional business recovery now, but rather a long hangover of debt liquidation and downsizing — as suggested by last week’s news that the national economy grew at an anemic annual rate of 2.4 percent in the second quarter. Under these circumstances, it’s a pity that the modern Republican Party offers the American people an irrelevant platform of recycled Keynesianism when the old approach — balanced budgets, sound money and financial discipline — is needed more than ever.

[Parker2112]

Repugs and big corps: the root of all evil.

[boutons_deux]

"Repugs betray thier ideals"

Don't have any, never had any. All Business-Friendly Politics, All The Time.

[Wild Cobra]

The middle class needs to pay for its goodies and share in the cost of the federal government's operations, then perhaps its bitching and moaning about taxation will be justified.
If wealth wasn't redistributed as much as it is, maybe we wouldn't be so pissed.

[Marcus Bryant]

The middle class are beneficiaries of redistribution.

[Wild Cobra]

The middle class are beneficiaries of redistribution.
WTF...

How do you figure?

[Winehole23]

Medicare and SS for starters.

[Winehole23]

Repugs and big corps: the root of all evil.^^^Echo of boutons with slightly less swearing. What a treat.

[Marcus Bryant]

Medicare and SS for starters.

As well as the cost of everything else, unless we are placing households with annual incomes above $300K in the "middle class." Class warfare isn't just for the left.

[Marcus Bryant]

The corporations do alright under Democratic administrations too.

No doubt.

[boutons_deux]

"If wealth wasn't redistributed as much as it is"

bitch, meet youe today's slap-happy facts:

"Capgemini and Merrill Lynch Wealth Management's World Wealth Report covers the two groups that interest them: High Net Worth Individuals (HNWIs) and Ultra-High Net Worth Individuals (Ultra-HNWIs). The first group counts all individuals with at least $1 million of "investible assets" in addition to the values of their primary residence, art works, collectibles, etc. The second group includes individuals with at least $30 million of such investible assets.

Their latest Report, covering the year 2009, finds 10 million HNWIs in the world that year: 3.1 million in North America, while Europe and Asia-Pacific each had 3.0 million. The rest of the world had a mere 0.9 million of the rich and richer.

The 10 million HNWIs -- in a global population of 6.8 billion in 2009 -- amounted to 0.14 per cent of the earth's people. Together, they owned a total of $39 trillion in "investible assets." To see what this means: in 2009, the US GDP (total output of goods and services) was $14.6 trillion. The combined GDPs of the world's 9 richest countries (US, Japan, China, Germany, France, UK, Italy, Russia, and Spain) totaled less in 2009 than the investible assets of the world's HNWIs.

During 2009, as tens of millions lost their jobs, the number of HNWIs rose by 17.1 per cent and their combined wealth rose by 18.9 per cent. They had a genuine "recovery." HNWIs regained in wealth most of what they lost in 2008. No wonder they celebrate "recovery" while the rest of the world wonders (or rages at) what they are talking about. In the US, for example, the HNWI population grew by 16.6 per cent in 2009 while the US GDP fell by 2.4 per cent.

Only 1 per cent of all HNWIs were Ultra-HNWIs, but what a group that was and is. Ultra-HNWIs alone owned 35.5 per cent of the $39 trillion owned by all 10 million HNWIs. And they recovered more during 2009 than their fellow HNWIs."

http://www.truth-out.org/economic-recovery-few61906?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TRUTHOUT+%28t+r+u+t+h+o+u+t+| +News+Politics%29

As intended by Movement Conservatives 35 years ago, wealth has been sucked from the lower 95% and redistributed to the top 5%, resulting in the greatest US wealth inequality since the 1920s.

another fact: something like 85% of all US stocks are owned by a few percent of people.

[Wild Cobra]

Medicare and SS for starters.
Bullshit. Have you even considered doing the math, or you talking out your ass again?

By the time I retire, my SS payments if I could have invested them myself, with compound interest, would amount to my annual income until I reached the age of 102.

I'm losing money. SS doesn't even pay close to my annual income.

[Marcus Bryant]

Perhaps there would be fewer wars and new entitlements if the middle class actually had to shoulder the direct cost.

[Winehole23]

It's a benefit regardless. Just don't cash the checks if it bothers you so much, WC.

[CosmicCowboy]

Bullshit. Have you even considered doing the math, or you talking out your ass again?

By the time I retire, my SS payments if I could have invested them myself, with compound interest, would amount to my annual income until I reached the age of 102.

I'm losing money. SS doesn't even pay close to my annual income.

No shit. I pulled my last statement. I've already paid in over $215,000 for Social Security and over $70,000 for medicare and I've still got 11 years and 3 months to keep paying in till I qualify for $2400. a month that I probably won't get because the system will be totally broke by then and they will probably "means test" and say I no longer qualify.

Whoop-te-doo!

If I could have invested that with an average of 5% return compounded I would be hundreds of thousands of dollars ahead of my promised "benefit".

[Marcus Bryant]

Tax cuts are not effective for limiting the growth of the federal government. If anything, spending grows more rapidly after as larger parts of the population face a reduced amount of the direct cost of government.

[Marcus Bryant]

That it's a raw deal doesn't change the fact that the benefit formula results in a redistribution to the middle class, from above and below.

[Marcus Bryant]

The long suffering American middle class, full of John Galts on welfare. If Atlas truly shrugged they would bitch like there's no tomorrow.

[LnGrrrR]

The long suffering American middle class, full of John Galts on welfare. If Atlas truly shrugged they would bitch like there's no tomorrow.

If Atlas shrugged, he would find himself beset by a mob bearing pitchforks and torches.

All the moral arguments of "let me keep my money because I earned it" go out the window when too many people feel unsatisfied.

[Wild Cobra]

It's a benefit regardless. Just don't cash the checks if it bothers you so much, WC.

I will cash my checks because they will be pitifully small compared to what I invested. I would rather lose 60% or so of my investment than all of it.

[Winehole23]

My point exactly. People like "you and me" are the beneficiaries.

[Wild Cobra]

My point exactly. People like "you and me" are the beneficiaries.
How do you figure?

I get less than 40% of what I put in, and I benefit?

What planet are you from anyway?

wait...

I understand...

You are young enough, you were indoctrinated by the department of education.

[Winehole23]

Swing and a miss, WC. I never attended public school.

[Wild Cobra]

Swing and a miss, WC. I never attended public school.
Then why do you make such silly statements?

[Winehole23]

Dunno. Why do you?

[Wild Cobra]

Dunno. Why do you [ask]?
You act as if you were indoctrinated.

Was your private school a liberal one?

[Marcus Bryant]

Did yew go tew commie skuhl or one hunderd pursent Murican skuhl?