I need a liberal or dem's take on this

[Jim in CT]

Originally Posted by spence

You could say the pie on the right is 40% larger or has gotten 40% larger but they're not the same equation. Personally I think there's far less value in comparing the relative size of the budgets than in understanding the amount of change which is why I picked the one I did.

Even this though holds little meaning unless it's in context with the budgetary trends. It's no accident that the author picked a moment in time right before the bubble burst and yet just before TARP and Stimulus spending kicked in. Given that it's the pie on the left which is perhaps the anomaly.

We've beaten this dead horse before.

Besides, who ever said I was in finance?

-spence

"You could say the pie on the right is 40% larger or has gotten 40% larger "

Thanks.

"but they're not the same equation"

What does that mean?

"Given that it's the pie on the left which is perhaps the anomaly."

Until this fascist Bolshevik leaves the White House, I agree that the pie on the right is the new norm.

"who ever said I was in finance?"

I got that impression from someone, was I wrong?

Spence, if spending has increased 40% since 2007 (and whether you like it or not, it has), but revenues have increased nearly that much...do you see that as a problem, or are the conservatives crying wolf about a silly little thing like a $16 trillion debt and a $100 trillion shortfall for SS and Medicare?

[JohnnyD]

Originally Posted by spence

You could say the pie on the right is 40% larger or has gotten 40% larger but they're not the same equation.
-spence

I've read this 5 times now trying to understand how this spin can make any sense.

Then I remembered that in Obama-math, 2+2 doesn't equal 4. 2+2 equals whatever fits his agenda for that day.

[JohnR]

The problem is it is like a household making $80K per year and using another $20K on the credit card as income. Now that those credit cards have a $400K balance on them we are talking about taking out only $19K per year on the card.

Howze THAT for an analogy.

Two of the three branches of the government are failing us right now - party independent.

[JohnnyD]

Originally Posted by JohnR

Two of the three branches of the government are failing us right now - party independent.

With a number of recent rulings by the Supreme Court giving the feds impunity when trampling Constitutional rights... All three branches are failing us.

[Jim in CT]

Originally Posted by JohnR

The problem is it is like a household making $80K per year and using another $20K on the credit card as income. Now that those credit cards have a $400K balance on them we are talking about taking out only $19K per year on the card.

Howze THAT for an analogy.

.

It's a scary analogy, especially in that you left out the worst part. Using your scale, that household (making $80k a year) has also put their grandparents in a nursing home, and given that nursing home an IOU for exactly $2,760,000 that is payable in 50 years. Paying the IOU will require more than 30 years of that annual income of $80k a year.

But Nancy Pelosi says it's a "false argument" to say that family has a "spending problem".

[JohnR]

Jim - I was trying to keep it real simple. I could have mentioned we were only making minimum payments on the cards and that out interest rate was going up due to poor national FICO score.

[spence]

Originally Posted by Jim in CT

"You could say the pie on the right is 40% larger or has gotten 40% larger "

Thanks.

"but they're not the same equation"

What does that mean?

It means that by one measurement it's 40% and by the other it's 30%.

"Given that it's the pie on the left which is perhaps the anomaly."

Until this fascist Bolshevik leaves the White House, I agree that the pie on the right is the new norm.

If you were to smooth the curve you'd see the pie on the right is a continuation of the Bush trajectory while the pie on the left is an abnormality.

"who ever said I was in finance?"

I got that impression from someone, was I wrong?

Yes.

Spence, if spending has increased 40% since 2007 (and whether you like it or not, it has), but revenues have increased nearly that much...do you see that as a problem, or are the conservatives crying wolf about a silly little thing like a $16 trillion debt and a $100 trillion shortfall for SS and Medicare?

I think most everyone agrees the debt and healthcare costs are an issue, it's just that there are differing options on how to address it.

Here's the rub, a president Romney would still have the same debt, same deficit and the same Republicans out to protect their spending interests.

-spence

[detbuch]

Originally Posted by spence

If you were to smooth the curve you'd see the pie on the right is a continuation of the Bush trajectory while the pie on the left is an abnormality.


The trajectories are not the same. Nor are trajectories in and of themselves meaningful. Wars, for example, create a much steeper upward rise in spending than in peacetime.

What is your criterion for abnormality?

The nearly constant upward slope of the curve might be more meaningful than the periodic fluctuations in degree.

Besides, a perfectly smooth slope with an unchanging degree of rise would be an abnormality requiring a harmonious condition of rising stupidity (stupidity being gvt. spending beyond sustainable limits). That our politicians, as a class, might well be fiscally stupid is no surprise.

But there were actually periods in our history when the slope trended downward for sustained durations. Actually, those were times before progressive politics became the norm--times of Constitutional ascendency. Our post-constitutional era has loosed a centralized political class upon us whose appetite for spending seems limitless. And the constant upward rise of the slope might have a meaning beyond that of mere party differences. It might be an indication of the divide between progressivism and constitutionalism.

And, yes, what you call the Bush trajectory is due in a great degree to his progressivism.


I think most everyone agrees the debt and healthcare costs are an issue, it's just that there are differing options on how to address it.

The constitutional option would be to keep the Federal Gvt. out of the issue. It is this type of usurpation and thievery of our individual, local, and State rights that has created and continually expands an insatiable central gvt. which has forced us as a nation into insoluble debt.

Here's the rub, a president Romney would still have the same debt, same deficit and the same Republicans out to protect their spending interests.

-spence

That is more of an assumption than a rub. Romney, presumably, would have been more business friendly. He might have erased many of Obama's executive orders and their regulations, and that would have eased business burdens, and his policies might well have encouraged the spending of business money that is now being withheld due to uncertainty and fear of more of the coming regulations. Who knows what he could have done to Obamacare. But he might have brought a brighter more optimistic outlook, ala Reagan and Kennedy, to the American psyche and to the business climate, than the struggling gloom and discord that pervades us now.

But even that would just be a temporary bump until another election and the further encroachment of communitarian, progressive governance.

[ReelinRod]

Here is the epitome of liberal fiscal policy from where else, the land of fruits and nuts:

L.A. Unified uses ‘construction bonds’ to buy $500 million in iPads

Feb. 14, 2013

By Chris Reed

My five-month-old crusade to get the California mainstream media to acknowledge the insanity of “construction bonds” which take 30 years to pay off being used routinely by school districts for short-lived electronics and basic maintenance hasn’t gotten far yet. The most significant article from a respected mainstream education reporter about this outrage came in December from John Fensterwald in EdSource. State newspapers’ education reporters? They can’t be bothered.

Yes, the California media do care about nutty capital appreciation bonds, which can’t be prepaid and delay initial repayments for 20 years out, leading to such ridiculousness as the Poway Unified school district borrowing $105 million that will take $981 million to repay — beginning two decades from now. But the problem of using 30-year borrowing for short-term needs is much worse than CABs. It’s far more common; it’s everywhere.

- See more at: L.A. Unified uses ‘construction bonds’ to buy $500 million in iPads | CalWatchDog

[scottw]

Originally Posted by RIJIMMY

this is not a "gotcha" question, I really want to know how you feel about this.

apparently the "liberal" answer to Jimmy's question goes something like this....

"they all lie so it doesn't matter and Bush said this about that(which I cannot find for some reason) and it's a joke from both sides because defense and other things are not included in the "cuts"(I'm pretty sure that defense is included.... I think Obama recently cited a carrier not able to travel to the Gulf due to sequester worries)...the pie is misleading....it would be exactly the same if Romney had been elected(seems we were told for the last 4 years that it would be exactly the same if McCain had been elected)...and argue minutia to the point of nonsense (because on substance you'd have to admit that we have a deeply disturbed president whose actions and rhetoric are deeply concerning at best, clearly destructive to the nation and historically contemptible in terms of American Presidential behaviour)"..........




“In utopia, rule by masterminds is both necessary and necessarily primitive, for it excludes so much that is known to man and about man. The mastermind is driven by his own boundless conceit and delusional aspirations, which he self-identifies as a noble calling. He alone is uniquely qualified to carry out this mission. He is, in his own mind, a savior of mankind, if only man will bend to his own will. Such can be the addiction of power. It can be an irrationally egoistic and absurdly frivolous passion that engulfs even sensible people. In this, mastermind suffers from a psychosis of sorts and endeavors to substitute his own ambitions for the individual ambitions of millions of people.”

“Where utopianism is advanced through gradualism rather than revolution, albeit steady and persistent as in democratic societies, it can deceive and disarm an unsuspecting population, which is largely content and passive. It is sold as reforming and improving the existing society's imperfections and weaknesses without imperiling its basic nature. Under these conditions, it is mostly ignored, dismissed, or tolerated by much of the citizenry and celebrated by some. Transformation is deemed innocuous, well-intentioned, and perhaps constructive but not a dangerous trespass on fundamental liberties.”

“There are also those who delusively if not enthusiastically surrender their liberty for the mastermind’s false promises of human and societal perfectibility. He hooks them with financial bribes in the form of ‘entitlements.’ And he makes incredible claims about indefectible health, safety, educational, and environmental policies, the success of which is to be measured not in the here and now but in the distant future.
For these reasons and more, some become fanatics for the cause. They take to the streets and, ironically, demand their own demise as they protest against their own self-determination and for ever more autocracy and authoritarianism. When they vote, they vote to enchain not only their fellow citizens but, unwittingly, themselves. Paradoxically, as the utopia metastasizes and the society ossifies, elections become less relevant. More and more decisions are made by the masterminds and their experts, who substitute their self-serving and dogmatic judgments — which are proclaimed righteous and compassionate — for the the individual’s self-interests and best interests.”


― Mark R. Levin, Ameritopia

[Jim in CT]

Originally Posted by spence

It means that by one measurement it's 40% and by the other it's 30%.



If you were to smooth the curve you'd see the pie on the right is a continuation of the Bush trajectory while the pie on the left is an abnormality.


Yes.


I think most everyone agrees the debt and healthcare costs are an issue, it's just that there are differing options on how to address it.

Here's the rub, a president Romney would still have the same debt, same deficit and the same Republicans out to protect their spending interests.

-spence

"It means that by one measurement it's 40% and by the other it's 30%."

Wrong. 3.8 is 41% larger than 2.7. That's fact. That's not 'spin'. The pie says that if spending was 2.7T, and now it's 3.8T, that spending is now 40% larger. You disagreed. You were wrong. You can't quite bring yourself to admit it, but you were wrong. Yet another example of liberals being hostile to arithmetic.

"If you were to smooth the curve you'd see the pie on the right is a continuation of the Bush trajectory "

Wrong again. Look at the post by ReelinRod at 1:43 PM on 2/27, it shows a bar graph of spending. If you look at that graph rationally (read: not the way you choose to look at things), you will see a distinct change in the trend in 2009.

Obama has taken spending to levels we have never seen. That's fact. Bush did increase spending compared to Clinton. Bush had to build a counter-terror infrastructure from scratch, and by most measures, it has been successful. Obama clearly chose to continue it. Bush also dismantled two brutal dictatorial regimes.

Obama spent his money to improve the economy. By any measure except the stock market perfoamance, he has failed (unemployment is the same, median income way down, GDP growth pathetic, slowest recovery in the history of our nation).

Facts. No spin. Facts.

"I think most everyone agrees the debt and healthcare costs are an issue"

Most everyone on your side? Really? Tell that to the people who made the Paul ERyan commercial, showing him pushing an old lady off a cliff. I didn't hear many liberals saying "Ryan is right that Medicare needs fixing, we just support a different approach"

What I hear liberals saying, is "mdicare works, and the mean Republicns want to take it away, because they don't care about sick old people".

What color is the sky in the world you live in, exactly?

[spence]

Originally Posted by ReelinRod

Here is the epitome of liberal fiscal policy from where else, the land of fruits and nuts:[INDENT]L.A. Unified uses ‘construction bonds’ to buy $500 million in iPads

My understanding is that 'construction bonds' are the primary mechanism for funding educational development regardless if it's actual construction or investment in the curriculum via no interest Federal loans. Reading a few articles on this subject I also don't see any mention of "iPad" just tablets which can be had for much less.

Also it looks like CA has some 2 million students in high school. That they would seek to purchase computers at a rate of roughly 1:4 doesn't seem that odd.

While I'd concede CA isn't exactly the archetype of how to run a state budget, what exactly is the epitome of again?

-spence

[spence]

Originally Posted by Jim in CT

"It means that by one measurement it's 40% and by the other it's 30%."

Wrong. 3.8 is 41% larger than 2.7. That's fact. That's not 'spin'. The pie says that if spending was 2.7T, and now it's 3.8T, that spending is now 40% larger. You disagreed. You were wrong. You can't quite bring yourself to admit it, but you were wrong. Yet another example of liberals being hostile to arithmetic.

I'm not wrong, I'm just looking at the chart a different way. The chart said "larger" not "increase". The formulas are not the same. I prefer to look at change.

Wrong again. Look at the post by ReelinRod at 1:43 PM on 2/27, it shows a bar graph of spending. If you look at that graph rationally (read: not the way you choose to look at things), you will see a distinct change in the trend in 2009.

The 2009 budget was set by Bush and approved by a Republican House in 2008. Yes, Obama signed it into law but to claim he alone instigated the spending would be false.

The chart posted was only about spending, the pies by comparison include both spending AND deficit.

Obama has taken spending to levels we have never seen. That's fact. Bush did increase spending compared to Clinton. Bush had to build a counter-terror infrastructure from scratch, and by most measures, it has been successful. Obama clearly chose to continue it. Bush also dismantled two brutal dictatorial regimes.

The counter-terror infrastructure could have been implemented without engaging in long-term massive scale wars that Obama inherited. Even considering the rampant fraud and waste of both actions...if this is legitimate spending under Bush I don't see how you can blame Obama for continuing it...you just refuted your own point.

Obama spent his money to improve the economy. By any measure except the stock market perfoamance, he has failed (unemployment is the same, median income way down, GDP growth pathetic, slowest recovery in the history of our nation).

Yes, good to note that the DOW is near an all time high. The recession was a massive correction and far worse than most imagined it would be. What you don't know is how much worse things could have been had we not bailed out the banks and shored up GDP via the Stimulus.

Most everyone on your side? Really? Tell that to the people who made the Paul ERyan commercial, showing him pushing an old lady off a cliff. I didn't hear many liberals saying "Ryan is right that Medicare needs fixing, we just support a different approach"

Never saw it.

What I hear liberals saying, is "mdicare works, and the mean Republicns want to take it away, because they don't care about sick old people".

What color is the sky in the world you live in, exactly?

Depends on the day...right now it's pretty gray.

-spence

[Jim in CT]

Originally Posted by spence

I'm not wrong, I'm just looking at the chart a different way. The chart said "larger" not "increase". The formulas are not the same. I prefer to look at change.


The 2009 budget was set by Bush and approved by a Republican House in 2008. Yes, Obama signed it into law but to claim he alone instigated the spending would be false.

The chart posted was only about spending, the pies by comparison include both spending AND deficit.


The counter-terror infrastructure could have been implemented without engaging in long-term massive scale wars that Obama inherited. Even considering the rampant fraud and waste of both actions...if this is legitimate spending under Bush I don't see how you can blame Obama for continuing it...you just refuted your own point.


Yes, good to note that the DOW is near an all time high. The recession was a massive correction and far worse than most imagined it would be. What you don't know is how much worse things could have been had we not bailed out the banks and shored up GDP via the Stimulus.


Never saw it.


Depends on the day...right now it's pretty gray.

-spence

" I prefer to look at change"

Spence, you need to learn to quit when you are behind.

The "change", if that's what you like, between 2.7 and 3.8, is 40%. The chart says that the spending of 3.8 is 40% more than when we spent 2.7. You said that was wrong. But it was not wrong, you were wrong. Every 4th grader who didn't flunk math, knows you were wrong.

"but to claim he alone instigated the spending would be false."

And where did I claim any such thing?

Obama is the president. The buck stops with him, at least it is supposed to stop with him.

"...if this is legitimate spending under Bush I don't see how you can blame Obama for continuing it...you just refuted your own point"

Do you ever, ever get tired of being wrong? Obama's spending hike is not a function of his continuation of the Bush anti-terror policies. In fact, Obama is benefitting from the fact that Bush's wars are winding down on his watch, which lowers spending. If Obama did nothing but allow Bush's policies to run their course, spending would be lower. Obama's spending increase comes from his desire for economic justice, as he sees it.. You really don't know that?

"What you don't know is how much worse things could have been had we not bailed out the banks and shored up GDP via the Stimulus."

No one can know what didn't happen. Any benefit of that stimulus, has to be weighed against the fact that your kids and my kids will be paying the bill for that.

When all you can do is say "the economy sucks, but it would have been worse without Obama's spending", that is pure speculation. Wild, rampant speculation. I like to deal with what we know as fact.

We know Bush freed millions of Muslims from other, monstrous Muslims, I saw that firsthand, unlike you, who get your news from The Daily Worker. Bush also managed to save more than one million lives in Africa, thanks to his AIDS initiative which he spearheaded.

Yet Bush gets called a racist, and Obama gets the Nobel Peace Prize before he had done anything noteworthy. Kudos to you and your ilk. You added trillions to our debt, and all you have to show is a net gain of around zero jobs, pathetic GDP growth, and lower median wages. If that is the measure of "a job well done", if that's a good result for adding more than $5 trillion to the debt, then you have low standards indeed.

Oh, and if you say everyone knows SS and Medicare are in deep trouble...what exactly has your hero done about that, in 4 years? Precisely zip.

Spence, you cannot win. I'm holding all the cards.

[scottw]

Originally Posted by Jim in CT

Spence, you need to learn to quit when you are behind.

Spence, you cannot win. I'm holding all the cards.

Quote:
Originally Posted by spence
I'm not wrong, I'm just looking at the chart a different way.





I'm pretty sure he just looks at the cards a different way

you could be holding all ACES and he'd tell you that's not how he sees it and walk away with your money grinning while you were sitting there trying to figure out how he came to that conclusion...sometimes the mistake is ever sitting down at the table in the first place....

[Fishpart]

WOW, some people are insane. Who in their right mind would buy an item that lasts for 15 years and pay for it for 30? The second one os already used up before the first one is paid for, no wonder we are in trouble..
Posted from my iPhone/Mobile device

[The Dad Fisherman]

Originally Posted by Fishpart

WOW, some people are insane. Who in their right mind would buy an item that lasts for 15 years and pay for it for 30? The second one os already used up before the first one is paid for, no wonder we are in trouble..
Posted from my iPhone/Mobile device

15 years......you're giving them WAY to much credit.....does anybody still use the same PC they had 15 years ago? And you don't have a bunch of kids banging away on them all day

Try more like 5 years.....if they're lucky
Posted from my iPhone/Mobile device

[scottw]

you guys are racists..this is an investment in poor kids and disabled kids probably, who are mostly minorities and Undocumented American Citizens living in the shadows currently, who are about to be harshly victimized by the sequestration which the evil republicans concocted in a smoke-filled back room in order to hold the nation hostage to their warped version of fiscal sanity and unnecessary, non-surgical, meat cleaver, draconian cuts ....it doesn't matter how much the devices cost, how long they last or how long it will take to finally pay for them because Corporate greed is much worse...or even if they're being paid for by interest free loans from the Federal Government which is apparently rolling in dough despite sequestration and trillions and trillions in debt and current and future obligations before ever loaning a single dollar for a tablet because Corporate Welfare and unpaid inherited Bush wars cost far more...when the schools crumble, they'll still have "the internets"...... opposing important investments like this, refusing to give up "pleasures" by Rich Fat-Cats in order to support the general welfare and a stubborn adherence by some to the Constitution and the principles and ideals represented is what is hurting our nation and preventing us from "leaning forward" into the Marxist Progressive Utopian dream that Dear Leader Obama has brilliantly planned out for us if we would only step aside and let him work his wondrous deeds


or it could just be more bread and circus

[detbuch]

Originally Posted by spence

The 2009 budget was set by Bush and approved by a Republican House in 2008. Yes, Obama signed it into law but to claim he alone instigated the spending would be false.


By the same reasoning Bush's first year, which you call an abnormality in the higher spending curve, was a budget set by Clinton in 2000. So the "abnormality," by your reasoning, is due to Clinton, not to Bush. And the trajectory of Obama's first year, which you claim was a continuation of the Bush trajectory, actually contained about $200 billion in added spending above the Bush budget due to Obama's stimulus bill, and to it was added the spending that occurred in the last 3 months of the year after the Bush budget expired. So the steeper trajectory of spending was not due to the Bush budget and was not a continuation of it.

The counter-terror infrastructure could have been implemented without engaging in long-term massive scale wars that Obama inherited.

This "inherited" crap must either be applied equally to all presidents or it will just be cover for one president's malfeasance in blaming it on another. Bush, as well as Obama, "inherited" some pretty bad stuff such as Osama Bin Ladin and the burst Dot.com Bubble economy. During his administration, the economy recovered from the dot.com recession and the cost of wars so that it grew at a much higher rate in less time than Obama's "recovery," which still lingers at a much slower pace.

Even considering the rampant fraud and waste of both actions...if this is legitimate spending under Bush I don't see how you can blame Obama for continuing it...

Yes both presidents, as well as most before them all the way back to Hoover, were, in some degree, progressives. And as such they expanded the size of government and increased spending that was not "legitimate." We have to go all the way back to Coolidge to find a fully constitutional, not a progressive, president. And the national debt decreased under Coolidge.

Yes, good to note that the DOW is near an all time high. The recession was a massive correction and far worse than most imagined it would be. What you don't know is how much worse things could have been had we not bailed out the banks and shored up GDP via the Stimulus.

-spence

It is a wonder that the DOW can go through the roof while the "economy" drags. Isn't it amazing how that sector whose wealth in large doses is accessible to the top percent, many of whom do not "pay their fair share" of taxes, does so well while the bottom 40 to 50% go begging?

And, perhaps the recession was not so much worse than many other recessions, but made to appear so due to a recovery that is slower than other recoveries. It is beginning to look like the depression recovery, both in length of time and in the massive spending and regulation and growth of government which may be the real reason the recession appears to be much worse.

I thought Obama was going to fix all of that. The rich seem to be getting richer, even than before, and the "economy" languishes. Just needs more time.

Actually, the sequester may help by reducing the rate of spending a little bit. That might help the "economy" grow a wee bit faster. And if the less progressive Repubs in Congress maintain their solidarity against increased spending, maybe things will turn around in Obama's time. And he will get credit.

[Fishpart]

Originally Posted by The Dad Fisherman

15 years......you're giving them WAY to much credit.....does anybody still use the same PC they had 15 years ago? And you don't have a bunch of kids banging away on them all day

Try more like 5 years.....if they're lucky
Posted from my iPhone/Mobile device

Actually I used 15 because in RI we buy 15 year busses on 30 year bonds and wonder why there isn't any money. For tablets with a 5 year (?) life you are paying the interest on 6 replacements by the time the first one is paid off; only an educated person could think that is a good way to fund advancement in education.. Clearly a great example of how intelligent being educated in a monopoly system controlled by the government has made all of us.

[Jim in CT]

Originally Posted by scottw

Quote:
Originally Posted by spence
I'm not wrong, I'm just looking at the chart a different way.





I'm pretty sure he just looks at the cards a different way

you could be holding all ACES and he'd tell you that's not how he sees it and walk away with your money grinning while you were sitting there trying to figure out how he came to that conclusion...sometimes the mistake is ever sitting down at the table in the first place....

OK, so now, with your back completely against the wall, when you have been mathematically proven to be wrong, you insult me. It's not that you are wrong, or that Obama is incompetent. it's that I'm not smart enough to sit at the table.

Spence, I could lose an argument supporting slavery before I can lose this argument with you. When I say I have all the cards, it's a result of the fact that I consider all the facts. You dismiss everything which doesn't support your pre-determined (determined for you by the White House) opinion.

[spence]

Originally Posted by Jim in CT

OK, so now, with your back completely against the wall, when you have been mathematically proven to be wrong, you insult me. It's not that you are wrong, or that Obama is incompetent. it's that I'm not smart enough to sit at the table.

Huh? I think you're misreading ScottW's post.

Spence, I could lose an argument supporting slavery before I can lose this argument with you. When I say I have all the cards, it's a result of the fact that I consider all the facts. You dismiss everything which doesn't support your pre-determined (determined for you by the White House) opinion.

There are two ways to interpret one element of the data in the chart. That I jumped to one over the other has for some reason consumed you...so much so that you're missing the point.

The cartoon is intentionally misleading.

-spence

[spence]

Originally Posted by Fishpart

Actually I used 15 because in RI we buy 15 year busses on 30 year bonds and wonder why there isn't any money. For tablets with a 5 year (?) life you are paying the interest on 6 replacements by the time the first one is paid off; only an educated person could think that is a good way to fund advancement in education.. Clearly a great example of how intelligent being educated in a monopoly system controlled by the government has made all of us.

I would agree that a 30 year bond may not be the best investment for a short-lived device, although with the size of the potential investment I'd think a deal could be arranged with a produced to provide more perpetual service.

Also, my understanding of the qualified construction bonds is there's little if any debt service.

The bigger issue is how does a mammoth school system like California update it's curricula and equipment without spending money?

-spence

[Jim in CT]

Originally Posted by spence

Huh? I think you're misreading ScottW's post.


There are two ways to interpret one element of the data in the chart. That I jumped to one over the other has for some reason consumed you...so much so that you're missing the point.

The cartoon is intentionally misleading.

-spence

"Huh? I think you're misreading ScottW's post. "

Guilty as charged.

"There are two ways to interpret one element of the data in the chart. "

The one way that anyone who understands numbers would interpret it, is to say spending is 40% more than it used to be. You tried to use your interpretation, whatever it was, to refute that. You were wrong.

[spence]

Originally Posted by detbuch

By the same reasoning Bush's first year, which you call an abnormality in the higher spending curve, was a budget set by Clinton in 2000. So the "abnormality," by your reasoning, is due to Clinton, not to Bush. And the trajectory of Obama's first year, which you claim was a continuation of the Bush trajectory, actually contained about $200 billion in added spending above the Bush budget due to Obama's stimulus bill, and to it was added the spending that occurred in the last 3 months of the year after the Bush budget expired. So the steeper trajectory of spending was not due to the Bush budget and was not a continuation of it.

Spending under Bush rose dramatically during his entire tenure, not just in the first year. Certainly there's a big jump in 2009, but most of these appropriations were set before Obama was sworn in. I've seen the "extra" that Obama could take credit for around 140-200B and most of this was the Stimulus.

This "inherited" crap must either be applied equally to all presidents or it will just be cover for one president's malfeasance in blaming it on another. Bush, as well as Obama, "inherited" some pretty bad stuff such as Osama Bin Ladin and the burst Dot.com Bubble economy.

I see, so the actions of a previous President are off limits in political discussions? Good, now everybody can stop blaming Clinton for the housing bubble

During his administration, the economy recovered from the dot.com recession and the cost of wars so that it grew at a much higher rate in less time than Obama's "recovery," which still lingers at a much slower pace.

Gross oversimplification, almost recklessly so. Very, very different situations.

Yes both presidents, as well as most before them all the way back to Hoover, were, in some degree, progressives. And as such they expanded the size of government and increased spending that was not "legitimate." We have to go all the way back to Coolidge to find a fully constitutional, not a progressive, president. And the national debt decreased under Coolidge.

How long does some of this progressiveness have to stand before it's regarded as having durability?

It is a wonder that the DOW can go through the roof while the "economy" drags. Isn't it amazing how that sector whose wealth in large doses is accessible to the top percent, many of whom do not "pay their fair share" of taxes, does so well while the bottom 40 to 50% go begging?

And, perhaps the recession was not so much worse than many other recessions, but made to appear so due to a recovery that is slower than other recoveries. It is beginning to look like the depression recovery, both in length of time and in the massive spending and regulation and growth of government which may be the real reason the recession appears to be much worse.

I think it was worse in that the recovery was stalled because unemployment. Some of this is simply a global correction, companies who had to cut back found they could perform at a similar rate with what they had. The ripple of the credit bubble (both in housing and household savings) stalled "trickle up" market forces that would generate more employment.

Fortunately, despite Jim's best intentions to spread doom and gloom the economy is looking better. Housing is recovering and household debt is dropping.

I thought Obama was going to fix all of that. The rich seem to be getting richer, even than before, and the "economy" languishes. Just needs more time.

That's the nature of an economy where wealth generation has less emphasis on individual labor and more on service and speculation.

Actually, the sequester may help by reducing the rate of spending a little bit. That might help the "economy" grow a wee bit faster. And if the less progressive Repubs in Congress maintain their solidarity against increased spending, maybe things will turn around in Obama's time. And he will get credit.

If anything the Sequester will lower the GDP at least in the near term. I don't think we're going to see any real action until they reach a deal later this year.

-spence

[detbuch]

Originally Posted by spence

Spending under Bush rose dramatically during his entire tenure, not just in the first year.

But you pointed out that his first year was an abnormal rise. Yet, as you point out for Obama, the first year's budget of a new president is created by the preceding regime. So, by your reasoning, the abnormality for Bush's first year spike was "inherited" from the Clinton administration. As for the spending during Bush's entire tenure, a great deal of it was for two wars, and an initial cost of those wars was the retooling of the military which Clinton had eviscerated (and which we seem to be in the process of doing again).

And, of course, TARP. But he did "inherit" the housing bubble, and warned Congress several times about what was going to happen. But the Democratic controlled Congress disregarded his warnings.

None of which exonerates him from spending on other stuff he initiated which the Federal Gvt. has no constitutional foundation to deal with.

Certainly there's a big jump in 2009, but most of these appropriations were set before Obama was sworn in. I've seen the "extra" that Obama could take credit for around 140-200B and most of this was the Stimulus.

I've "seen" that the extra for the stimulus was slightly under 200B, but don't forget that the Bush budget ended on September 30. So add to the nearly 200B stimulus outlay, any spending that occurred in the last quarter of 2009 to Obama's, not Bush's budget.

I see, so the actions of a previous President are off limits in political discussions? Good, now everybody can stop blaming Clinton for the housing bubble

I know now that what you see may be very different from what others may see, but I did not say what you claim here. I said that if you want to blame a previous President for passing on an "inheritance," then you should fairly grant that the previous President also "inherited" messes to clean up. That's why I referred to the notion of a President "inheriting" the burdens of his office as crap. The burdens are there for every President, and he doesn't "inherit" those burdens, he seeks them, applies for them, competes to get them. To complain about "inheriting" problems, especially on a constant basis, is not only unseemly, but a weak approach to dealing with them. If you can't handle the job with the grace and strength of character that is required, don't take the job. And know full well that you will most likely leave problems for your successor to "inherit."

Gross oversimplification, almost recklessly so. Very, very different situations.

All comments, including yours re mine, on the forum tend to be simplifications due to space and time. Whether they are "gross" are a matter of opinion. Like you, I see it differently.

How long does some of this progressiveness have to stand before it's regarded as having durability?

"This progressiveness" has stood for nearly a century and appears to be very durable. Reagan tried to roll it back and was successful to some degree, but it has stormed back exponentially. Ergo the still rising spending slope. Progressive government is largely that by lifetime unelected (therefor unresponsive to the people) regulatory experts. Politicians come and go with their hopes and changes and promises, but the experts stay on. And the more progressive the politicans become, the more reams of regulations they instruct the experts to create. And the more regulations are added to the massive list of existing ones and are passed on to be "inherited" by the next regime. That's why you can so often say "Bush did it too." And can, with some degree of validity, say that Romney or McCain would have had the same problems and results if they had won. They all "inherit" the entrenched regulatory State, and operate through it, so that much goes on in the same manner from one administration to another. Less progressive Presidents do cut back on some regulatory actions, but can't easily dispense with the system. Coolidge, the last fully constitutional president in the way he governed, did not have to deal with such a bureacracy so was actually able to reduce the national debt. The Federal Gvt. pre-Civil War which was Constitutionally structured and administered had a spending curve that mostly trended down, and had reduced the debt to mere hundreds of dollars two of those years. The Civil War and growing progressive tendencies spiked the debt and the progressive income tax and the 17th ammendment created the groundwork for gradual progressive governance until it fully burst upon us under FDR. And has been growing ever since. And the national debt has as well.

I think it was worse in that the recovery was stalled because unemployment.

Or unemployment remained because the recovery was stalled. This recovery is looking more like the depression recovery than other recession recoveries. The depression lasted as long as it did, not because of unemployment, unemployment was a result of the depression. And the depression could have been avoided by proper Federal Reserve policies. Once it happend, it was exacerbated and lengthened by insertions of new and powerful regulatory agencies and heavy taxation on wealth creators. The shock of transforming federalism to central power--the massive beginning of the Progressive State--depressed any recovery until more business friendly regimes rolled back or mitigated regulations.

Some of this is simply a global correction, companies who had to cut back found they could perform at a similar rate with what they had. The ripple of the credit bubble (both in housing and household savings) stalled "trickle up" market forces that would generate more employment.

Seems like a gross oversimplification, almost recklessly so. The credit bubble had a lot to do with, and was greatly a result of, regulatory policies.

That's the nature of an economy where wealth generation has less emphasis on individual labor and more on service and speculation.

And that is the nature of a growing regulatory State where emphasis is on government control over an ever expanding sphere of the private sector. As regulation and taxation increase, the cost and difficulty of creating business, of creating individual and private wealth, becomes more difficult. The wealth creation becomes gradually limited to smaller numbers of entrepeneurs who have enough capital and motivation to build. Speculation and service become a less resistant path to wealth. And individual labor is limited to a shrinking number of jobs. The wealth of speculators grows, the wealth and viability of the middle class shrinks, and the dependency class expands.

If anything the Sequester will lower the GDP at least in the near term. I don't think we're going to see any real action until they reach a deal later this year.

-spence

And that is the nature of Progressive government. We have to wait for it to act and regulate. Our economy and well-being are in its hands, not ours.