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08-05-2011, 07:14 AM   #1
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Worry about the growth vigilantes

Ezra Klein - Economic and domestic policy, and lots of it. - The Washington Post
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Congress can't solve the problems in Japan, China and Europe. It may not even be able to solve our problems. Consumer deleveraging is a powerful and ugly thing. But it could help. The way forward for America is clear. If the markets want to lend us money at next to nothing, we should take it to accelerate our recovery and set the stage for long-term growth, while putting in place the policy framework to show that the government will back off when the private sector steps forward.

It's absurd to think that rebuilding the nations roads and bridges and water systems, not to mention investing in broadband and mass transit, couldn't return more than 2.4 percent over time. In fact, the decision is more obvious even than that: if we put those investments off, we'll still have to make them later, when borrowing costs will be higher and bridges and roads that need to be repaired now are so dilapidated that they need to be fully rebuilt.

And it's absurd to think that stimulus now can't be paired with deficit reduction later. Again, the case is perhaps even stronger than that: It would arguably be unwise to make significant new investments now without putting in place a plan for deficit reduction later. We do need to convince the markets that we're not the next sovereign-debt risk. And more growth now would make deficit reduction easier, as every extra percentage point in growth adds $2.5 trillion in fresh revenues to the nation's coffers and allows us to lower spending on social supports like Medicaid.

The other day, a smart investor told me that he simply found Europe more interesting than the United States right now. Europe, he said, was dealing with something real. It was testing whether the Eurozone could survive, and whether economic crisis proves the need for more integration, or the impossibility of the monetary alliance. America, he said, was obsessed with problems of its own making. We have the capacity to do what is needed and we have the knowledge to know what is needed but we can't seem to simply muster the political will to do it.
He partially gets it but that's another story....

08-05-2011, 08:08 AM   #2
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We should start worrying about stupid measures that don't tell us anything - like debt and defict - and worry about what we can really observe: the length of the unemployment lines and the inflation. We're still using our Ferrari of a monetary system as if it were a horse-driven cart from the days of the gold standard.
The TC Rule and stuff that’s easy to see The Traders Crucible
08-05-2011, 08:14 AM   #3
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QuoteOriginally posted by skyredoubt Quote
We should start worrying about stupid measures that don't tell us anything - like debt and defict - and worry about what we can really observe: the length of the unemployment lines and the inflation. We're still using our Ferrari of a monetary system as if it were a horse-driven cart from the days of the gold standard.
The TC Rule and stuff that’s easy to see The Traders Crucible
I prefer the "flat earth" analogies myself .........
Flat earth economists, flat earth policies, flat earth Republicans (and unfortunately many Dems)
Definitely flat earth tea party.. Careful where you throw that tea.. "there be dragons".......
08-05-2011, 08:17 AM   #4
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On the other hand, Forbes provides us with a glimpse at the next conservative push to qualify/suppress voting:
If On The Dole Why Do You Still Get To Go To The Poll? - Bill Flax - The Courage To Do Nothing - Forbes

Excerpts:
QuoteQuote:
In America’s civic religion of political correctness, government is god, universal suffrage is holy writ and collectivized, and multicultural egalitarianism is heaven. Popular culture worships Utopia as we spiral upside down. Our genesis lay in negating the tyranny of taxes without representation. Today’s oppression stems from interests being represented without paying taxes.

Over 60% of federal outlays involve wealth redistributions and this will relentlessly rise as baby boomers retire. Since the ’60s we’ve wasted $16 trillion pushing water uphill to fight poverty. We’ve expended more on welfare than the national net worth of any other nation save Japan. Poverty remains, but even those furnishing food stamps in lieu of paychecks fashion the latest technological accoutrements.


Nonetheless, President Barack Obama instituted a relative “supplemental poverty measure” to justify additional handouts. Frederic Bastiat saw clearly, “The state is the great fictitious entity by which everyone seeks to live at the expense of everyone else.” Washington’s primary purpose has become paying people not to produce. Meanwhile, PhD economists are befuddled why production, as measured by sputtering GDP, stalls.

Too many Americans affix themselves to the government axle like bicycle spokes. Washington’s wheels spin crushing the unconnected while political favorites arc to new heights. As politicians gain power by promising pork and stroking covetousness the inevitable demise of democracy becomes imminent.

Almost half of voters pay no taxes and thus look to continue the bounty. Before the market futilely tried to correct in 2008, approximately 37.9% of tax filers, on net, paid no income taxes. As incomes ebbed and spending surged, per the Tax Policy Center, 46.4% of family units will pay nothing in 2011. Those who fail to contribute show no qualms voting others’ output into their pockets.

Roughly half these non-taxpayers either earn too little or have sufficient deductions to offset their wages. The rest receive wealth transfers ensconced in the tax code as “credits.” These monies are available regardless of whether the recipient owes anything and are generally denied to high earners. It’s essentially redistributive welfare spending concealed as tax cuts.

Most political issues revolve to some manner around money. Once if you refused to work you couldn’t eat. Now you even retain an equal say in the public palate. But why do those who never replenish the till still help determine how it’s divvied up? Are welfare checks but consulting fees for voting how Washington should best distribute its fiscal booty?

That those who don’t contribute freely inflict debts on others betrays the basic ethical standards of civilization. Yet that’s precisely how we treat whole classes – those awful “rich” people – and our children. If it it’s true that “we the people” only have ourselves to blame, at least grant those we expect to bear this burden more say lest they go John Galt.

At inception, most states required property ownership or similar prerequisites prior to voting. In typical Marxist thinking, Obama highlights this as class driven oppression deriding the founding tenets as favoring “men of property and wealth.” Is planting roots scandalous? Should success be demonized?

Property rights boost the poor too, far more than do handouts. The acquisition of property is the only real means to escape material deprivation without suffering the moral depravation of dependency. Americans without property have never been prevented its attainment, which through a modicum of effort most do climbing the capitalist escalator to heightened prosperity.

Restrictions on the franchise prevent transients, outsiders and those with uncertain loyalties from swaying the community’s direction. Safeguards were established so unprincipled opportunists couldn’t manipulate social passions to, as Madison continued, provoke “a rage for paper money, for an abolition of debts, for an equal division of property, or for any other improper or wicked project.”

We now encourage those disengaged to participate even loosening the requirements for identification, residency, or the ease of casting an absentee ballot. Agitators like ACORN are enabled to exert undue influence through fraud and mischief. Bill Clinton insinuates that recent attempts to protect the integrity of elections equate to “Jim Crow.” But why encourage the listless to vote? If someone can’t even find a poll, produce an ID or form an opinion, what does their voice contribute?

The founders rightly feared that those whose primary interest pertained to culling from the public coffers would become instruments of the powerful. People will invariably vote for their ends in disregard for the community or any inkling of how society prospers. It is cultural suicide to exacerbate a false symbiosis where politicians exchange handouts for votes.

Plato warned, “Democracy passes into despotism,” and de Tocqueville echoed, “Despotism appears to me particularly to be dreaded in democratic ages.” Before we devolve into a Third World dictatorship where the mob denies the liberties of losing minorities we ought to ponder several potential solutions:

A basic literacy assessment;
•A non-partisan test ensuring competency of basic constitutional principles;
•A stake in the community reflected by property, employment or other measures;
•Restrict the franchise to lessen conflicts of interest regarding state employees, lobbyists, contractors, etc.;
•Surrender one’s voting privileges when seeking public assistance.


Washington reels from the lack of such discipline today.

Parts of this remind me of the old Aykroyd SNL skit, How to Get Money by Obtaining it


Last edited by Nesster; 08-05-2011 at 08:28 AM.
08-05-2011, 08:19 AM   #5
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Jussi, this is class warfare. This is scary stuff.
08-05-2011, 10:05 AM   #6
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I am a Christian, a patriot and a defender of individual liberties who tries to keep a sense of humor through the madness. I live in Cincinnati, Ohio and work in the banking industry. I'm blessed with a beautiful wife who homeschools our three children.

It has become evident Washington now embodies the gravest threat to liberty. We must restore the vision of the founders before it is too late. This prompted me to begin writing.

My new book, The Courage to do Nothing, will hopefully be the most politically incorrect book you'll ever read on economics.
I can picture a brown shirt or nice leather jacket on this character..........

Not sure about politically, but incorrect is assumed............

GOOD thing...........

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08-05-2011, 10:20 PM   #7
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QuoteOriginally posted by Nesster Quote
Americans without property have never been prevented its attainment, which through a modicum of effort most do climbing the capitalist escalator to heightened prosperity.
One thing for sure - he's not a historian.

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