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biccat wrote:What if I choose: "Please substantiate your claim that the Republicans wanted an 85/15 split and the Democrats wanted a 50/50 split."

Is that a valid choice?

It's necessary if you're unaware of the source of either figure, but that in itself is something of a concern.

Anyhow, from the Economist;

"Earlier this year House Republicans produced a report noting that an 85%-15% split between spending cuts and tax rises was the average for successful fiscal consolidations, according to historical evidence."
http://www.economist.com/node/18928600?story_id=18928600

They argued for such, based on this Republican paper, which makes the argument that the optimum balance for spending cuts & revenue increases is 85/15;
http://www.speaker.gov/UploadedFiles/JEC_Jobs_Study.pdf


As for the 50/50 split Democrats might have held as their ideal, I already explained you're free to reject that idea if you want. Doing so would mean accepting that Democrats wanted more spending cuts than tax increases, and would force you to accept they are, in fact, a quite conservative bunch and nothing like the socialists or 'tax and spend liberals' you've liked to compare them to in the past. So that's one option.

The other option is to continue to pretend they're socialists who just want to raise taxes and spend it on special projects, but they compromised a whole lot to get this bill passed. If you take that option, then you need to realise your claim that the Democrats were being jerks unwilling to compromise is utter nonsense, and it was the Republicans who took this to the 11th hour to give up just 2% from their ideal position.

So, again, choose carefully.


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biccat wrote:Then I have no idea what you mean when you say "capitalism."

Government involvement with markets is anti-capitalist because it transforms a free market into a regulated or controlled market, which is bad.

That's nonsense, and not supported by any economist, even the far right economists don't pretend that any government involvement is bad.

Thing is, people who actually study markets for a living talk about perfect competition as the best of all markets. These perfect markets rely on things like perfect information and no dominant buyer or supplier. It should take all of about two seconds to realise these things happen naturally very rarely, and tend not to last very long when they do.

At which point you realise the best way to move towards these ideal markets is to have some level of government intervention. It may just be regulation (the closest thing we have to a perfect market is the stock exchange, and that's regulated like nothing else on earth). It may in some situation necessitate government acting as a buyer or seller.

You really need to understand this idea common among the self-declared economic conservatives that the best market has no government intervention absolutely does not exist among economists.


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biccat wrote:A free market doesn't mean no government, it means no government involvement in the market except for evenhanded taxation and enforcement of private property and contractual rights.

A free market means whatever the speaker wants it to mean. Because it has no real meaning, because it isn't a term economists actually consider, because they recognise the need for government intervention in economics.

In the case of the 2008 bailout, the government stepped in to decide that market forces - that would have forced some companies to liquidate their assets and go out of business - shouldn't apply to certain companies. By propping up these companies, they prolonged the consequences of the "crisis."

This idea that there is a given level of harm, that can be suffered like removing a bandaid, slowly or all at once, is complete nonsense. Economics at the macro level is based around aggregate demand, and the realisation that system shocks impact throughout the economy, causing deficit spirals (less demand means less supply means less demand means less supply....). Once this is realised, it becomes plain and simple common sense to want to reduce the waste accompanied with the boom/bust cycle, and look for steady, sustained growth.

The Austrian school that you're quoting was built around pretending no such thing as the business cycle existed (and that a system shock could simply be gotten over with quickly, and that no such thing as recession existed without government) and spent the first half of the 20th century getting proved wrong about it, a lot. They were defeated in academia long ago, and no exist by preaching to people who don't know anything about economics. Don't be one of those rubes.

dogma wrote:You're conflating nation and state, which is, if I'm honest, a common conservative mistake. The state, as in those people who make up the state, have a set of interests which are not identical to those interests which are expressed by those people who exist in the nation the state represents.

Not confusing the two, I was referring to (for lack of a more specific term), the Apparatchik. The State, that is the government, can only act according to its agents.

dogma wrote:Sure it does. If any collective body has the ability to develop an interest, then all collective bodies possess this property; nations and states included.

There may be an interest that is held by the people who make up the government (Apparatchik), but these are not necessarily the same as the interests of the states.

dogma wrote:Sort of. The extrapolation of Amendments changed that.

Right. Sort of. There's a lot that can be written on this, particularly whether state soverengty still exists de facto or if it's a convenient legal fiction. And, probably more importantly, whether it's a good idea to maintain the legal concept of state sovereignty, regardless of whether it still exists as a factual matter.

dogma wrote:

biccat wrote:Now you're outright ignoring the right of petition. Everyone has the right to access the state's mechanism for resolving dispute regardless of whether they're relevant to the state. An immense amount of litigation and state power is engaged in and expended that is utterly irrelevant to the state.

Yes, and that is a mechanism of control. Said people are relevant because they're angry, and because the state said their anger is important.

I was discussing the right of petition more broadly, that is the right to ask for government assistance, for example in enforcing contracts. This doesn't necessarily result from anger (even if limited strictly to petition against government acts), and in many cases may simply be two parties seeking a neutral arbitrator in a dispute. There's no threat to the government if it grants or denies such a petition, but the right of petition is taken up as a convenience to the people as part of the operation of the state.

Kid_Kyoto wrote:There is no debt crisis.

This is Republican hostage taking.

Most of the debt is caused by the Bush tax cuts, the medicaid drug act and the Iraq war, all of which they voted for with NO PLAN TO FUND THEM.

Despite nearly a decade of Republican mismanagement there were no signs that our debt had suddenly become unsustainable until they found it was a useful weapon to hold the government hostage for the second time this year.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/07/30/1000924/-Debt-ceiling-follies:-how-we-got-here?via=blog_1

The Republicans have NO CREDIBILITY on this issue. None. They ran up this debt and now refuse to discuss any way to pay for it, except on the backs of the poor and working class.

This is exactly my point of view on the issue.

sebster wrote:"Earlier this year House Republicans produced a report noting that an 85%-15% split between spending cuts and tax rises was the average for successful fiscal consolidations, according to historical evidence."
http://www.economist.com/node/18928600?story_id=18928600

They argued for such, based on this Republican paper, which makes the argument that the optimum balance for spending cuts & revenue increases is 85/15;
http://www.speaker.gov/UploadedFiles/JEC_Jobs_Study.pdf

"Further, they show that the degree of success correlates to a larger share of spending cuts"

Error by omission. The above quote is from your second link.

The paper didn't argue that the optimum balance was 85/15, which you would have noticed if you read it. It showed that the emperical evidence showed that the average successful program was 85/15. It didn't "make[] the argument that the optimum balance for spending cuts & revenue increases is 85/15."

So again, unless you can find some support for your underlying assumption, I feel no need to answer your question.

Also, keep in mind that there is more than simply addressing how the reduction would be distributed. If Obama proposed reducing the debt by $100 with $50 in spending cuts and $50 in revenue, that would be a "50/50 split between spending cuts and revenue increases." Neither side (assuming we're still ignoring the Cut Cap and Balance bill) proposed dealing with the entire deficit, both were dealing with a portion of the deficit.

Every time I read this thead I keep thinking it's saying "America's Debt Circus"... frankly, at this point, that's kinda what it's become.

Freak show type of circus....

Jake

biccat wrote:
Not confusing the two, I was referring to (for lack of a more specific term), the Apparatchik. The State, that is the government, can only act according to its agents.

I agree with that formulation of your point, but I still maintain that groups have unique interests that have to be accounted for either by according them to the group, or a plasticene self; ie. a self that changes according to identity.

Admittedly, I did not offer this alternative before. In my experience it merely confuses the conversation.

biccat wrote:
Right. Sort of. There's a lot that can be written on this, particularly whether state soverengty still exists de facto or if it's a convenient legal fiction. And, probably more importantly, whether it's a good idea to maintain the legal concept of state sovereignty, regardless of whether it still exists as a factual matter.

If nothing else it should be fairly clear where I fall on, at least, the former continuum.

biccat wrote:
I was discussing the right of petition more broadly, that is the right to ask for government assistance, for example in enforcing contracts. This doesn't necessarily result from anger (even if limited strictly to petition against government acts), and in many cases may simply be two parties seeking a neutral arbitrator in a dispute. There's no threat to the government if it grants or denies such a petition, but the right of petition is taken up as a convenience to the people as part of the operation of the state.

When I say "anger" I mean "generally dissatisfied with the state of relevant affairs" "unsettled" may have been a better form of shorthand.

Either way, when one petitions the state, even if seeking only neutral arbitration, the state is moved to act only in the sense that the interests of the state, or the Apparatchiks, compel it to do so. To speak directly, the threat to the government, in your example, is that it will be confronted with additional requests for mediation.

CptJake wrote:Freak show type of circus....

Jake

Where the Monkeys are equal opportunity Poo flingers...

As an update, the US has lost it's AAA credit rating anyway. S&P has downgraded the US to AA+, which makes us a worse investment then France, the UK, etc etc.

You're still level pegging with Belgium, though. That's got to count for something.

In the end, the credit downgrade will likely have a greater effect on spending than a refusal to raise the debt limit would have.

How the feth are Britain still AAA?

Were literally swimming in debt. Sure its less than Greece, but its still gak loads.

Plus were attached to Scotland, which has an economy that makes Greece look well off.

Because we're not literally swimming in debt, and we've got a tough plan in place for dealing with the problem.

Kilkrazy wrote:Because we're not literally swimming in debt, and we've got a tough plan in place for dealing with the problem.

I'll trade 1 Tea Party(full set! no missing members!) , for a tough plan!

Kilkrazy wrote:Because we're not literally swimming in debt, and we've got a tough plan in place for dealing with the problem.

Pfff.. then we must disagree on the term "swimming in debt"

Seriously, if ive got more than about 10 grand on my credit card and a car on finance, I think that's me swimming in debt.

Were in debt by 76% of our GDP, which is less than Greece, Ireland, Japan etc, but still.

You don't think that's swimming?! Just cos my neighbour has even less money than me, doesn't mean im not cracking a bit of swimming!

I've explained why our bonds are still AAA.

What is your explanation?

Kilkrazy wrote:and we've got a tough plan in place for dealing with the problem.

Yes, sack everyone in the public sector and pay the private sector less to do the same work. Because that always works out soooo well.

You'll have to excuse me. I'm a bitter Southampton City Council employee who was told that although his pay would be cut by 4.5%, "there would be no further redundancies". And the second the paycut was implemented, "Well, obviously there's going to have to be some redundancies." If the leader of Southampton Council is reading this, I am going to key your jag on my way out

On the plus side, if you're a political partisan of any stripe, you should find this useful. Virtually every party and personality involved in this fiasco can be legitimately blamed for this, to some degree or other. I look forward to a great deal of selective, self-serving and partial quotes from the report which puts the shine on this you'd prefer.

Ah well, I'm sure there's no room for error here. If the prestigious S&P, which gave a sterling rating to both Bear Sterns and Lehman Brothers virtually up to the moment each dropped dead, says it's so, it's so.

Would you allow that Greece genuinely is in trouble, and no-one has any worries about Germany?

I don't know the answer to those things. I pay little attention to the international side of economics; I know Greece is screwed up, but never looked into why.

Ouze wrote:As an update, the US has lost it's AAA credit rating anyway. S&P has downgraded the US to AA+, which makes us a worse investment then France, the UK, etc etc.

I really don't understand how S&P decided to downgrade the US credit. The rating is based on the chance of default by the organization issuing the debt. In the case of the United States, there's (almost) no chance of default on the debt, because we issue our debt in USD. We will always have the ability to repay the debt...you just might get it back in severely inflated dollars.

biccat wrote:
I really don't understand how S&P decided to downgrade the US credit. The rating is based on the chance of default by the organization issuing the debt. In the case of the United States, there's (almost) no chance of default on the debt, because we issue our debt in USD. We will always have the ability to repay the debt...you just might get it back in severely inflated dollars.

Sovereign credit ratings are little different. In general these ratings are still based on the risk of default, but because there is essentially no means of taking actions against a sovereign debtor the ratings tend to be based on, in practice, political concerns regarding the service of debt.

There's also the notion that, because USD is the world reserve, the US should have special standards regarding its credit rating.

You know the saying, with great power (should) come great responsibility and all taht.