StrangeSox

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Sep 22, 2011 -> 09:46 AM) So the plan is to exchange one reliance, for an even more unreliable one? No thanks. Especially because that is counter to why the US even exists. The US exists to govern US citizens according to the citizens' wishes, period.

We aren't "supposed" to live in a society where the rich keep getting extraordinarily richer at the expense of everyone else and where millions of people who can't find work face having what little assistance they get cut in the name of austerity and an absolute refusal to raise tax rates on the wealthy above their current low levels.

Based on what was in the review from a year or so ago and the language in the conclusion, you literally have to prove your innocence once convicted. It isn't enough to cast legitimate doubt on the entire case.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Sep 22, 2011 -> 09:32 AM) Pure class-warfare. By the way the real point here was to illustrate that having the global economy over-reliant on any one thing is a bad system.

QUOTE (Rex Kicka** @ Sep 22, 2011 -> 09:35 AM) Just once I'd like to see some class-warfare where the richest don't win every battle. That hasn't seemingly happened in my lifetime. It's only class warfare if you want to raise taxes on the rich above historically low levels or point out that having our economy increasingly reliant on the financial sector's invention of exotic products or show that wealth and income inequalities are historically high and growing. It's not class warfare if you want to cut taxes for the wealthy, cut corporate taxes, cut or eliminate dividend and capital gains taxes and cut or eliminate estate taxes and then propose spending cuts for a wide variety of social programs to pay for those tax cuts. It has been interesting to see the GOP adopt the identity politics and language of the 60's left, though.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Sep 22, 2011 -> 09:30 AM) Or rises in projected taxes, and that is plenty to draw the right-wing fear mongers. Or fantasies about bond vigilantes and hyper-inflation.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Sep 22, 2011 -> 09:32 AM) Pure class-warfare. Yes, and the top 2% has been winning it for decades.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Sep 22, 2011 -> 09:29 AM) If austerity is the problem, yet it tells you everything you need to know. Not really. Lack of demand is the problem. Austerity worsens that problem since those job-creating risk-takers seem content to sit on huge piles of cash and record profits while more and more people lose their jobs. It's not that the economy is dependent on the government always, but that it's dependent on it when you're in a liquidity trap and no one wants to spend money. Pointing out that austerity measures are a complete failure and a bad idea that hurt economies around the globe doesn't reinforce the idea that government is too big and we need more austerity measures.

When the Wall Street financiers' money-making schemes imploded, the world economy collapsed. If the economy is that dependent on Wall Street financiers, it is way too dependent.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Sep 22, 2011 -> 09:25 AM) This article gives 3.1:1 at the end of 10 http://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/a/-/newsh...alian-downgrade These two senetences next to each other make no sense:

Seriously, the government could be 5% of GDP, and if the GDP output gap still falls by $5T dollars, you still need $5T of stimulative spending to make up that gap. That doesn't tell you a single thing about the size of government.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Sep 22, 2011 -> 09:22 AM) If economy is so dependent on government, that it is going to collapse without it, government is too big. I hope you realize that this makes no sense at all. The private banking and finance sector collapse, not the government spending. Any economy will collapse without a government, by the way. That's pretty universal.

Please explain how it was proven "without a doubt" that the federal government was too big because the GDP output gap was several trillion dollars.

The "need" for the US government to make cuts during a major recession is because political ideologues are exploiting a situation in order to enact their decades-long policies of shrinking government no matter what. Having only a "few people who are able to do the hiring" is a problem in and of itself, as is the fact that they are sitting on enormous piles of cash and not hiring.

REX IS OUR QUARTERBACK!

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Sep 22, 2011 -> 08:52 AM) Blaming austerity is silly. It acts like there is some magic money ferry out there to deliver the money to save everyone. The economies are collapsing because their levels of spending are unsustainable. They have to cut spending. There isn't a choice. Most of these economies were fine before wall street's money-making schemes imploded. Since then, revenues have fallen and social safety net spending has shot up to keep people from starving. Meanwhile, we have trillions in idle capital and tens of millions of people unemployed, yet the problem is too much spending and we need to cut, cut, cut. That's a sure-fire plan to get the capital utilized again.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Sep 22, 2011 -> 08:42 AM) The fact that austerity is needed in Europe is the best possible lesson out there not to spend money like idiots. You might actually need that money later, like we do now. The fact that austerity is prolonging and worsening a recession going on 4 years now and that every person crying about "bond vigilantes!" has been dead wrong is the best possible lesson we can learn. The second best lesson is to not spend like idiots on unnecessary tax cuts and wars.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Sep 22, 2011 -> 07:54 AM) But that can't be right... the stimulus worked! If you want to say the stimulus failed, what can you say about austerity programs that aren't keeping things steady but actually driving everything down?

I'm not sure why Jerry would allow that sort of nepotism.

AUSTERITY NOW, PROSPERITY SEVERAL DECADES FROM TOMORROW!

The state of georgia murdered troy davis.

QUOTE (greg775 @ Sep 21, 2011 -> 10:00 PM) Rios now has 12 homers which means he also has more than Dunn. Wow. When was Dunn's last home run of the 2011 season? June? I know he hit one in late July off of Verlander, it was the only game I went to this year.

QUOTE (mr_genius @ Sep 21, 2011 -> 09:35 PM) that manages to top Moore's recent "most feared and hated man in the country" claim for oblivious egoism.

"established me as one of the nation’s great thinkers" lol

yes the joke was that driving is heavily subsidized.