The KGB Oracle Forums General Public Discussion (SPECIAL ACCESS) KGB Political Debate Central " I am the 1% - Lets talk " - Awesome article

You forgot to add "can spend it all on abortion clinics". If you are going to go with hysterical hyperbola, at least do it with flare.

In fairness, the right has had this idea that we can just borrow money and still spend like mad. Maybe thats changing, and maybe the claims of change are just political rhetoric.


Though Sinij, Dems do like spending other peoples money.. very much so. You yourself hang out here and argue in favor of spending more of other peoples money on things that you personally think are rights/important, like health care and etc.

Not all Dems and situations are equal either. Clinton and Newt for example, were relatively responsible and taxes and revenues rose but some spending was cut and some things reformed. Ended up with a balanced budget and we didnt need to print so much money. Obama on the other hand was quite a bit less reasonable for the first 2 years of his term. The spending has reached insanity levels, though part of this was from idiotic ideas and programs that Bush initiated.

In most respects, Obama has actually been a continuation of Bush - except for being even worse for civil liberties, and implementing Obamacare. Same cronyism? Check. ( Check out all the Obama donors that got huge govt paydays after his term began, Solyndra is the most talked about but just the tip of the iceberg ) Same Authoritarian disregard for the Constitution? Check. ( In fact you could argue Obama is even worse, trying to make recess appointments when Congress isnt even in recess - Bush at least didnt do that despite the Dems blocking his appointments ) Same proclivity to throw hundreds of billions of dollars at problems in an ineffectual manner? Check.

He even continued the Bush wars. ( He didnt exit Iraq, the Iraqis effectively kicked us out. ) Heck, he has even started other interventions and foreign military expansion. Its frankly amazing that the neocons dont worship the guy.

I do think socialist is technically inaccurate to describe Obama. He is a Authoritarian secular Neocon. Honestly, outside of gays and abortion.. he fits the mold almost perfectly. And health mandates arent new to the GOP or Neocons either, Newt was for one until Obama implemented one.

Its just so hilarious that the media plays up different labels and people argue and bicker as if there is a real difference between most of the GOP and most of the Dems. Sure, the Dems are playing the populist "eat the rich" tune - for the cameras, and because they know it wont pass. Even if massive new taxes did pass, Pelosi would ensure that the Dem allies were protected and that there were plenty of loopholes that the truly wealthy could exploit. Its just the middle and upper-middle classes that get truly hammered.

Its all a crock on both sides of the isle, its all the same hypocrasy. sure there is a plurality on the left who truly believe in govt controls leading to prosperity, and a plurality on the right that genuinely wants to control wombs and bedroom behaviour - but the vast majority of the Establishment on both sides of the isle may as well be the same party, that plays to regional differences with their rhetoric.

For the record, I don't disagree with a lot of what Derid stated in the above post.

i agree. nice post, dude

Derid, have you seen this?

The Price of Inequality

The Cult of Smartness: How Meritocracy Is Failing America

Except when the debt/GDP ratio gets so high that the overall interest payments eat up significant portions of your tax base, meaning the only way to ever improve your debt/GDP ratio is to inflate your way out of it by printing more fiat currency. Which the dangers of have been heartily discussed here and in the world at large.

Strategic borrowing makes sense when going from 0% debt/GDP, but the picture is different when you are already sitting at 100% debt/GDP.

Having interest payments grow faster than tax income is not sustainable.

Even without factoring in the secondary and tertiary effects, and secondary and tertiary arguments revolving around who gets taxed, what the max sustainable tax base could be with higher taxation, what the money gets pent on, how much gets wasted, proper role of govt etc... our current debt/GDP and rate of real economic growth as measured in terms of real wealth production (as measured by production of real goods/marketable services) is already very high.

As far as cuts, I think homeland security and the military should be chopped as well as other services.

Also sinij, FYI I am still working on my response to the productivity/compensation graph you posted some time ago. It has actually been fascinating, I hope to have it finished reasonably soon. Quite a bit of original research going into that (I plan to use it beyond the discussions here), and I just have not had time to complete it. (Havent even played GW2 weekends, literally working 7 days a week the past couple months).

Looking forward to reading your research Derid.



Have you seen The Atlantic's article on wealth inequality?


Graph: Wealth inequality.

You do realize that most of those jobs were linked to federal money given to states for a limited time and they knew the money would run out and the jobs would be lost????

These are State jobs not Federal jobs, so once again the feds have fucked up by trying to look like the hero but then wait when no one is looking and take it away, then come out and say holy shit look at all the jobs lost we need more taxes.

I am a regular American and I can afford to pay for private school. I also pay for my kids to go to public schools but since they do not attend public schools I get screwed on my taxes.

Tell me how a private school and spend more the half the money per kid and get the same or better results then public.

It's not about pushing more money into public schools, which has yet to work, its getting the broken public schools to work.

BTW not all public schools are broken or broke. A lot of the the schools in my area are above national standards because they work hard at it, not bitch about not having enough money.