Look Who's Lying Again - Page 2

Pretty much disproven? Please link to the proof that wealth redistribution is the only means of achieving economic growth. Stop with the insults just because you believe you're "pretty much" right because you've "pretty much" got the "pretty much" facts on your side.

Or that it even is a means of achieving economic growth! \

Well since conservatives proposed the theory in the first place where's your proof that the trickle down theory has helped the poor or middleclass in any significant way?

And which insults are those?

Fellows, I hate to break it to you, but Detroit is in ruins today because there was very little innovation and attention to detail and quality control in the American auto industry. There were also factors fighting agains fuel economics and trying to make cars bigger and heavier when they should have been making them smaller and lighter. The Germans cleaned up by focusing on luxury fit and finish and the Japanese cleaned up everywhere else.

Let me bring you a little closer to home. Why did Gateway computers fail? Were they paying their staff too much compared to, say, Apple?

Oh, and I could easily compare Vermont and Kentucky for your enjoyment.

Exactly. The unions didn't prevent management from innovating. The unions didn't decide to make gas guzzling tanks. The unions didn't decide to make management buy into this American Exceptionalism nonsense that leads to nothing but complacency and willful ignorance until the shit hits the fan.

And when there is stability. I think people have greatly underestimated the effect that Obama & Co.'s actions over the past couple of years in creating the sense of "regime uncertainty." Businesses, frankly, didn't know what was next. Businesses don't like this kind of uncertainty. Obama has even noted this (though would surely deny that his actions have created any uncertainty.)

I'd argue, though I think we need to look at a broader picture, that the reason hiring almost magically picked up at the end of 2010, early 2011 is because many businesses believe(d) (correctly or not) that with the Republican win in November, they might at least slow down this disastrous freight train that was Obama/Democratic rule for 2009/2010.

This is merely a theory of course.

The tax cuts for the richest two percent of Americans are not set in stone. They had there life temporarily extended for a few months and Obama has said he will not renew them.

Oh look, who knew?

"The Heritage Foundation predicted the cuts would result in the complete elimination of the U.S. national debt by fiscal year 2010."
~ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economi...on_Act_of_2001

While I don't disagree with you that management has had many issues over the years which has led to a decline in market share at the same time the world has put up stiff competition I would still argue that the trend in the country is to set up shop elsewhere in the country or indeed out of the country all together.

When I had my 2003 Dodge Ram quad cab truck it was assembled in Mexico and had sub-frame assemblies from Brazil.

I think part of this stems from cost control measures after the lessons learned that "The Company" can't afford all the pay and benefits / retirement pensions that once were just expected by workers say in Detroit in the good old days.

No?

The problem with Detroit is that the greed of the employees was not to be renegotiated by the fat and happy union workers. Hell no...

So "The Big Three" packed up and left. Shut down production where production costs were far too high and unsustainable.

Fellows

First please do compare because many of the Southern and especially South Western states are showning population growth (not decline from people fleeing) and economic growth. They might not make the top of the educational lists but that often has a lot to do with having more recent immigrants and the vexing issue of minority achievement.

Also you have to look at why America focused on those vehicles. It was where the biggest profit margins were to pay for those fat contracts. Ford as a company is very competitive in Europe as an example. European brands and Japanese brands make very competitive products with non-unionized American labor. American companies focused first on large cars and later on SUV's because they were the highest profit products and they needed those to pay for the union contracts that drove them into bankruptcy. As Fellows noted, they basically ended up shipping the labor abroad and paying people here huge salaries to do next to nothing. They were pension companies that just happened to sell cars.


See above, because, yes they did.


The poor and middle class are much better off today than they were 30-40 years ago. Find me a house that had a hundred channels of television, internet, microwaves, a dishwasher and A/C all affordable at the middle class and often below that.

You can't and you won't. Povery has become relative. Before the poor didn't eat. Now they eat but it has too many processed food and carbs. Now the poor have PS/2's and $5 games from Gamestop and $5 DVD's from Walmart instead of PS/3's and $30 Blue-ray movies. Those poor wretched creatures have to read books made of paper perhaps even borrowed from a library instead of reading them on their iPhones, or iPads.

The standard of living is absolutely higher but that doesn't change some issues which is people believing they can consume their way to prosperity. How can you blame them though when the government has the same philosophy. President Obama himself believes we can borrow or way to rich!


The points you make are good ones and the only part I would add is they didn't fully leave. They still had all those obligations and had to try to meet them essentually with the labor and skill of someone else. I call this the boomer blindspot. We see it in more and more areas of the economy. President Obama will invest in Brazil drilling off their coast while blocking drilling here. China can make stuff and we can just borrow to buy it here. Even within the U.S. there's a hierarchy. Bad fly over places like Texas and Nebraska can generate power and drill for that icky oil and places like California will have $40 billion dollar budget holes but demand no power or drilling occur there.

It is Baby Boomer Utopian nonsense and Obama is the purest version of it. The dollar can never be broken. It can always be borrowed against. The world is as it was just past WWII and nothing will ever need to change.

It will soon, quickly and decisively.

You are, of course, correct.

Understanding Poverty in America:







I'm afraid that I don't expect our anti-rich, anti-wealth, economically and factually ignorant friends on the left to allow facts or reason to get in the way of their dearly held, emotionally fueled fallacious thinking and caricatures.

Oh please! Everyone's standard of living has gone up in a technological sense. It's the 21rst century for Christ's sake! Show me how many poor people can afford $500.00 bucks for an iPad? In some cases they may not be able to afford the paper versions of books either ( especially for school ). Or would they rather eat that month? And hasn't poverty been on the rise in america for sometime now? http://www.associatedcontent.com/art..._the_rise.html

If TD had a real effect wouldn't this going in the other direction? Or at least slowing? There are some people I know that recently have canceled their cable and internet to make ends meet. So they have 100 channels available but they can't watch them.

Do you just choose to be that out of touch or do you do it on purpose? And how does this relate to " Trickle down "? You really get an " F " on this answer. All they've found from wanting this new stuff that they can't afford unless they charge is better ways of staying poor. This really didn't show an improvemnt for anyone poor or middle class because of some dubious " Trickle Down " theory.

Ten years in Baltimore and a European will know what real poverty looks like. I'd never seen anything like it and I didn't notice any trickle down over those ten years and I don't think anyone else did either.

Just when you think you hear a lot of talk about our government being too big it's nothing compared to this : http://www.aintitcool.com/node/49304

Utah's population is about 2.7 million and it's about 90% white. Detroit alone is something like 5 million and has an inner city that is mostly black. Black poverty is nothing new in the US and it's widespread across America, especially in the inner cities. Detroit has also got a growing economy, that's something like the 11th biggest city economy in the US. So what's your attitude? Cut the poorest peoples benefits who are barely surviving anyway?

So the answer lies in politically and economically joining Illinois with Utah.

I can't think of anything that would be as much fun to watch.

What do you mean?

"From the metro area economy, Michigan's 2004 rank was second nationally in new corporate facilities and expansions. From 1997 to 2004, Michigan was the only state to top the 10,000 mark for the number of major new developments. Among metro areas with more than one million people, Metro Detroit ranked 4th in new corporate facilities and expansions from 2007 to 2009. An indicator of economic strength, Metro Detroit has one of the nation's largest office markets with 147,880,000 square feet (13,739,000 m2). Major inter-connected office complexes include the 5,500,000 sq ft (511,000 m2) Renaissance Center, the 2,200,000 sq ft (204,000 m2) Southfield Town Center, and the 1,395,000 sq ft (129,600 m2) Cadillac Place joined with the 487,000 sq ft (45,240 m2) Fisher Building in the historic New Center area.

The metro area's resilience has kept the state's economy growing in spite of difficulties. From the third quarter of 2006 to the fourth quarter of 2009, Metro Detroit's residential resale housing market struggled, along with the residential real estate trend across the United States creating opportunities for buyers.The Case–Shiller index projects Metro Detroit as the nation's third strongest housing market by 2014, attracting interest from international investors. Among the top fifty metropolitan areas, Detroit ranked as the third most affordable in the United States in a Forbes 2011 report."
~ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy...olitan_Detroit

Just kidding around. Salt Lake City and Detroit are polar opposites (as you said).
It's fair to point out that much of Detroit looks like a war zone and big government approaches made things worse.

It's just that in all my years of watching politics, I'd never seen anybody compare the two. Seems weird to even try.

I don't see how cutting education and benefits and locking more people up for longer will make the situation any more tolerable in Detroit.

Are you purposely trying to start a flame war? Where did his post even come close to suggesting that?

A "flame war", sheesh!

Are you are a policeman in real life or something?

Please don't reply on this, it's not worth it, seriously.

So you actually believe that is the point he was trying to make?

If your goal is to remove safety nets from society, don't wince when being accused of not caring about the eventual grey matter splattered on the pavement.

If your goal is to coddle people no matter their circumstances and provide a net for every possible failure avoidable or not, don't get your back up when people balk at giving their money to continue the practice. (False hypothetical situations are fun aren't they?)

It's much more economically feasible to provide a safety net for everyone who might need one than it is to determine exactly who does need one. In fact, I would say that the latter is nearly impossible, and if it's attempted, some truly needy will slip through the system. It's better for some who don't need help to slip through the system and get free help then it is for some who do need help to slip through a system that we're paying more to maintain and die, or go on a crime spree.

Noah as a math teacher:

WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT? ONE PERSON IN THE CLASS CHEATED! ALL YOUR SCORES ARE INVALID! NO MATH BOOKS FOR ANY OF YOU!

Noah at a soup kitchen:

WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT? ONE PERSON TOOK TWO SERVINGS? NO SOUP FOR ANYONE! *slaps bowls out of people's hands*

That's the problem with conservatives. They are so fixated on the minority that abuse the system that they neglect to acknowledge that the vast majority of people are legitimately helped.

Poverty is what we define it to be. We could make poverty dramatically rise by simply defining everyone who makes less than $100,000. The point with noting actual items used in real life is that, and I'm pretty sure I noted this multiple times, we have had to move on to relative poverty as opposed to dire poverty. MJ also posted a nice article on this matter that you've complete ignored.


All recent actions should be ascribed to the Democratic president who has been in power for 2.5 years and the Democratic Congress that was in power for four years. The Republicans hold half of one branch of Congress and have done so for four months. Things are getting much worse because the Fed is destroying our currency to cover the fact the government cannot stop spending. Our government spends the entire worth of Apple every month.


Note the insults there. They can and do afford it. Talk about being out of touch Jimmac, when is the last time you priced some kid age consumer electronics USED? Go to a Gamestop. They have Gamecubes there for $30. Add a couple games for $5 each and you are good to go. Walk into a MetroPCS store and the cheapest cell phone is $9 and you can buy prepaid minutes on the service for $.04 a minute.

However this would presume the poor attempt to live under their means which they don't which is part of why they are.... wait for it.... poor. Government statistics show that poor households spend more than they earn, which is of course possible due to transfer payments and CREDIT choices. You also forget I VISIT these homes and work with these kids. I can guarantee you that when I visit the home of a student on free lunch, they have cable television (they watch it for 5+hours a day instead of reading) and one large screen television and if it is a recent consumer gadget they have some form of it.


Notice a trend?


Translation, the government and unions haven't managed to kill every bit of industry.... YET.


Strawman and ad-hom.


Veiled threat.


Totally unsupported statement. Providing for all versus for those who need it falls flat on its face as if for no other reason than just logic. This is why life isn't platitudes. It can't be cheaper to provide for 200 rather than the 20 who need it. Perhaps it might with government logic when you need 50 people to process the paper work for the 200.

Means testing is often mentioned as a solution and it is a viable one.


Ad-homs via caricature. 35% of income in the United States is "earned" via transfer payment. Labor participation is at the lowest rate in quite some time and dropping more. Unemployment is being subsidized and we have more long term unemployment rather than short term. When you can get a check for nearly a grand while sitting on your butt, who's going to go out and look for work? The sneering complaint during the Bush years was that the jobs weren't good enough. Everyone could have 2-3 McJobs if they wanted. Well now they not only cannot have that, they are being paid to stay home rather than do something.

Detroit is in bad shape on the crime is tremendous there to start and also foreclosure on the houses .The auto industry was a big factor in Detroit years ago but now it just dried up completely.These are some reasons.

thanks for proving my point BR. My post was intentionally an over the top false hypothetical and labeled as such. You replied to it as though it were not. Ratchet down the rhetoric. Try to actually understand what the other guy actually believes I stead of your interpretation and then mischaraterization of what he believes.

Let me start. BR, I like your heart on this matter. I agree with where you are coming from compassionately. People need help and they should be helped. People sometimes fall and they need to be picked up. Some are poor due to circumstances that are beyond their control and some are poor due to simple laziness or unwillingness to take responsibility for themselves. I have no way of knowing what the actual numbers are for which is which. I grew up poor. Very poor. Lived on food stamps and welfare. My father was not there for a long time due to bad decisions he made in his life. This left my mother to pick up the pieces as best she could. Needed help and food stamps and welfare checks were the fry last stop for my mother. She still hates the fact that we had to use them and was proud to get off of them at the first opportunity. We could have survived without them had we really tried. We had land and a garden and the ability to raise animals for food. But to do that would have cut us off from most social interactions and isolated us from school friends and others. My mother made a hard choice and decided that this was more important for us due to all the other things going on in our lives at that time. Did we abuse the system? Not at all. Did we need the system, a case could be made both ways. If it were not there would we have starved? Probably not. What about our church friends you might ask? We were constantly receiving things from them. My mother however does not like to ask for help, even now when she needs it more than ever. She stopped asking when things didn't get better as soon as she would like. It is hard to rely on someone else for things when you are used to self reliance. She made the decision that was right for her and that she felt was right for us.

I know the system that you speak of. I have lived in it and I believe that it helps. But I also know others in it that would not be if they simply turned off the TV and went to work. There is no excuse for a 2 parent household to be on welfare and not be working if they are able. Those are the circumstances that I speak of when I talk about abuse of the system. Neither one has a job, they are both physically capable and they are both too self involved to do anything about it. If the system were not there, I do believe they would be forced to actually fend for themselves and they would work for a living.

It is a very tough thing, and from the background I came from it sickens me to see those that can do something about their circumstances not do anything because they don't really have to. I know what it is to be poor. I know what it is to be needy. And I believe that there are circumstances where social programs help. In my mothers case it allowed her to receive help semi-anonymously from a faceless system that she did not have to have any emotional attachment to.

So have fun with the mischaracterizations and over the top false hypotheticals. I ask that a person does what they can for themselves and beyond that, if they still need help, there is no shame in receiving it. But they should not stop there, and they should continue to work to not need that help. That is my position. People need to have enough self respect to not be comfortable needing to take charity when they can do something about it. And yes, it is hard to determine who those people are who abuse the system. Does that mean we should allow the abuse or ignore that it happens?

Yes poverty is what " We " define it to be. And not just you fortunately.

And trumpy real life is all those voters out there that will be looking at your republican friends when they take the bread out of their mouths so they can please tthe Tea Party in an attempt to capture the next election ( please don't say : " What do you mean by that? " you know very well ). Good luck to them and their plan. They'll need it.

Your crystal ball is a bit cloudy. We are already out of your cycle predictions. Yes, many of the cuts to social program will be unpopular. Does that mean that those who make them are simply out? Not necessarily. I think that you will get a better idea of where the people are going to be leaning in about 6-9 months.

Yes and hate to break it to you but "we" includes more than you and the minority of people that voted for your party last November. "We" also happens to include the Tea Party, Republican Party, any other third parties and those of no party.

The government has simply run out of money. It hasn't run out of the printing press of course but they have to exchange those dollars with other countries and those countries won't keep taking infinate amounts of made up monopoly money in exchange for real items. Interest rates on borrowing have been held down due to the fed reserve printing money to buy our governments own debt. The second this can't go own interest rates will need to jump or the obvious inflation that exists will have to be officially acknowledged.

Then the real pain begins for Democrats and for anyone dependent on the government because the people that make and own real things will continue to have them and the people who want to trade worthless or inflation pieces of paper to get them will be screwed.


His track record is oh so accurate so far. Cycles, cycles, cycles!!!

That was my point. It includes more than you ( and your highly skewed analysis ) and I.

After the way the GOP has been yes let's see who votes for who next time. Boom!

Seems this is the tune you were singing pre-November 2010, before the "shellacking."

It appears that "the liberal part of the cycle" only lasted until the very next election.

I find it absolutely hilarious that when we're talking about social assistance programs, you guys on the right scream, "The 'War on Poverty' has failed! Poverty has not been reduced!" But when we're talking about trickle down economics, you shockingly query, "Who says the poor haven't been helpd!?"

There's no paradox there. The factors that limit the ability to generate wealth have not improved.
The conveniences of life and cost of food staples have dramatically improved.

The government provides access to education, child care, encourages or discourages creation of stable households, sex education, etc.

It has failed on all those counts. They have gotten far worse.

Industry that is measured in their ability to create a product, lower the cost of it and expand their market for items like air conditioners, dishwashers, cars, phones, etc. has done a great job.

Bullshit. It could easily be argued that without social assistance programs, the poor still couldn't afford the air conditioners, gas-guzzling American cars and flatscreen TVs (and I'm not saying that they CAN, that's your assertion) because they couldn't afford to buy food in the first place. It could also easily be said that without reducing corporate and millionaire taxes, industry would continue its growth as it always has, yet we wouldn't be having a budget crisis that is forcing us to reduce social assistance programs.

So which is it? Has poverty been reduced or not? Yes or no? There absolutely is a contradiction there, if you say "both".

I don't think there's a real contradiction here at all, and if there is, then government poverty program advocates have as much to answer for as anyone else.

The reason there is not really a contradiction is that those claiming "the poor getting poorer" and other such things keep moving the goal posts on what material poverty actually is and/or ignore the total picture of material prosperity and focus exclusively on monetary income as the measure. Trumptman has tried to point this out but your blinders are preventing you from seeing it.

The second reason why the claims government poverty program advocates make about poverty are dubious is that it is highly unlikely that in the vast majority of cases it is the same people that are poor. You, and others, assume these broadly named groups are always the same people through the years. This is almost certainly not true in most cases. In other words there is class mobility in the US.

Finally, the reason why government poverty program advocates should have to answer for any contradiction is this: In the last 40-50 years since the so-called "war on poverty" has been fought by the government, the poverty rate doesn't appear to have gone down.

What's the explanation for this?

Here's mine: Real poverty has been reduced by the great economic engine of the US, but "poverty" is continuously redefined to a more relative rather than absolute measure (or at least the absolute bar keeps getting raised) so those who profit from persistent poverty (those running, working for and managing government poverty "prevention" programs) can continue to justify their existence and even expansion. Sorta like health clubs defining what "fat" means. What happens when fewer and fewer people are "fat"? Change the definition of "fat".

So, in order to have a more useful discussion, perhaps someone can provide a clear, objective, measurable definition of "poor" or "poverty." When we have that, we can objectively look at that measure over time. We can also objectively look at the things that have contributed to its increase or decrease over time. We can also try to determine whether or not large groups of the same people have been stuck in that or have moved out of it over time.

It all starts with a clear, objective, measurable definition that we could apply and look at over time.

And I notice you're very careful not to say the poor have been helped through jobs. But that's the whole premise of "Trickle-down", not that goods and services will become more affordable through corporate profitability, but that the more money the rich and corporations keep, the more jobs will be created. Again, that's not happening.