Free beer everyone! Or, the candidates and the economy

Prime Junta

RPGCodex' Little BRO
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The American presidential candidates appear to be financial geniuses. They all seem to have figured out how to produce something from nothing. Free beer for everyone!

Romney wants to cut taxes across the board, with no mention of spending cuts. Not to mention the $20bn he already promised to snow down on Michigan. (Deficit? What deficit?)

[ http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=YjdmZmM2MzFiYzEzYmNjN2MxZDUwYjcxYjY5ZmUxYjA ]

McCain wants to, surprise surprise, cut taxes. A quite a lot, in fact. He proposes to fund this by eliminating pork barrel spending, and, naturally, cutting out "waste" and "inefficiency" from government. (Damn, why didn't anyone think of that before?)

To put this into perspective, pork barrel spending amounts to about $20bn a year, give or take a few billion. The federal budget is about $2.9 trillion, so eliminating pork would cut about 1% off the budget. The budget deficit is currently around $500 billion.

[ http://www.johnmccain.com/Informing/Issues/0B8E4DB8-5B0C-459F-97EA-D7B542A78235.htm ]

Huckabee wants to spend $150bn on building highways. Oh, and eliminate the income tax. He says that his proposed alternative is (a) revenue-neutral, i.e., doesn't reduce government income, but (b) reduces the tax burden. (I guess he figures God will provide the difference, not to mention that $150bn.)

[ http://www.mikehuckabee.com/?FuseAction=Issues.View&Issue_id=5 ]

Hillary Clinton wants to create a $50bn alternative-energy fund, provide free health care, make college affordable for everybody, and lower taxes on the middle class. Oh, and balance the budget. (I'll give her credit for mentioning balancing the budget, but if she has ideas on how to actually go about it, she isn't letting on.)

[ http://www.hillaryclinton.com/news/release/view/?id=3618 ]

And Barack Obama? He combines the best of both worlds -- he wants to cut taxes and increase government spending. Yay for Barack Obama!

[ http://www.barackobama.com/issues/economy/ ]

Seriously, folks -- isn't anyone going to ask these folks how they intend to get the numbers to line up? It's pretty simple, really -- all they have to do is tally up what their free beer will cost, and the explain where the money comes from:

(a) borrowed from the Chinese
(b) collected from Americans as taxes
(c) by auctioning off rents from natural and other resources (e.g. the airwaves)
(d) off the printing press -- the Fed will provide!
(e) something else (what?)

Doesn't anyone care?
 
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Why not, you've been doing it for years!! :)
 
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An informed, critical voter? You are a danger to western civilization, sir!
 
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Doesn't anyone care?

I thought Obama wanted to re-implement the pre-Bush income tax rates for those whose annual income is (approximately) $80,000+ .

Anyways, the Republicans you mentioned will have no problem funding their government... they'll simply invade Iran, Syria and Venezuela, seizing all the assets, oil and wealth. Omni-prosperous nation-building...... YIPPEEEEE !
 
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It's only going to get worse and make less sense as they go along. The first thing to bear in mind is that none of what they are saying now has any bearing on what they actually will or won't do if elected; it really has no bearing on anything except influencing people to vote for them. They are under no compulsion to make sense of a complex fiduciary reality--in fact, au contraire as it doesn't heat up the voting machines like gay marriage or something else really important. :roll:

I don't think it's that no one cares, it's that no one seems able to cut through the hype and let people know the emperor has no clothes. It's marketing that's in charge, not little academic things like facts and reality. People's need to hear what they want to hear walks hand in hand with their ability to believe what they want to believe. Successful politicians grasp this at their mother's knee-if they have mothers and aren't generated in some nether hell.

Pie in the sky, and free beer to wash it down.

That said, after someone is elected she'll find somebody to figure things out a bit(like her husband), and perhaps even appoint someone competent to do whatever can't be avoided, and let the rest slide. That's about the best we can hope for, imo.
 
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I thought Obama wanted to re-implement the pre-Bush income tax rates for those whose annual income is (approximately) $80,000+ .

Anyways, the Republicans you mentioned will have no problem funding their government... they'll simply invade Iran, Syria and Venezuela, seizing all the assets, oil and wealth. Omni-prosperous nation-building...... YIPPEEEEE !

Yeah, what could possibly go wrong with that plan? Worked so well in Iraq...

Let's do a little back-of-the-envelope arithmetic.

The Bush tax cuts are worth about $200bn. Repealing them would still leave the budget about $300bn in the red (if you didn't increase spending at all). Economically the most sensible savings would be to cut money that doesn't get spent in America. Iraq costs $130bn and Afghanistan, $35bn, and other foreign aid $13bn. Cut all of that, and you're still about $125bn in the red.

Now, if you reduced military spending to 1990 levels (you know, back when the Soviet Union still existed and you fought your only victorious war since WWII), you'd save another $200-$300bn or so, putting you comfortably in the black.

However, you'd be wise to spend at least part of that, since military spending does go, at least in part, into the real economy. Suppose you spent half of it, $100bn or so, which would yield a roughly balanced budget. If you targeted it carefully, you would be able to create infrastructure that would yield a return in the future, as well as stimulating the economy more effectively than the $150bn package now sailing through Congress. I would suggest built-in stabilizers for the economy -- measures that only kick in during a downturn: specifically, see which sectors of the economy are hardest hit, and figure out how to best use their idle capacity to build infrastructure. That would have a double benefit -- the government would get more for your money, and it would help maintain employment and provide economic stimulus.

I'm not sure that would be my plan for the US economy -- I'd have to think about it more -- but I would want to see this type of arithmetic from my candidate.
 
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That said, after someone is elected she'll find somebody to figure things out a bit(like her husband), and perhaps even appoint someone competent to do whatever can't be avoided, and let the rest slide. That's about the best we can hope for, imo.

LOL! Was this a Freudian slip, or do you really think the election is already decided?

The thing that worries me most about a Hillary Clinton presidency is that what worked in 1992 will not work again now. Stiglitz's book on the 1990's explains pretty nicely what, exactly, happened when Bill Clinton's administration managed to magically turn a deficit into a surplus *and* get the economy booming at the same time. It was a very particular set of circumstances highly unlikely to recur. IOW, if Clinton tries to do the same again, the economy is more likely to nose-dive than to pull out of the slowdown/recession/depression it's going to be in.

Whoever is going to be in charge, s/he's going to need to be tough as nails to do what has to be done -- and smart enough not to let wishful thinking get in the way. I don't see this combination in any of the candidates.
 
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Pie in the sky, and free beer to wash it down.
Put it in your sig, magerette. Wisdom for the ages.

In another thread, some brilliant soul mentioned that being able to balance your checkbook makes you an economist in the USofA. We're not going to let a problem like income/spending balance get in the way of our handouts. Politicians don't get elected to do the right thing; they get in office and stay in office by giving us Grandpa's $20 Handshake and Grandma's Kiss on the Cheek.
 
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LOL! Was this a Freudian slip, or do you really think the election is already decided?
Not really a Freudian slip; more of a throwaway bit of cynicism--(was going to do the s/he thing) Already decided? God I hope not but see below.

The thing that worries me most about a Hillary Clinton presidency is that what worked in 1992 will not work again now....

Economically it may not work now, politically everything that worked for the Clintons then is working now, the faithful zombie of past successes. They are masters of the media, and can turn almost anything short of Monica to their advantage-(-and they almost made it there with their "when clinton lied, no one died" and "the first black president" shtick)

Whoever is going to be in charge, s/he's going to need to be tough as nails to do what has to be done -- and smart enough not to let wishful thinking get in the way. I don't see this combination in any of the candidates.

Regrettably, I think Hillary is all of the above--harder than nails-(-nails made of ice though so perhaps under the right circs they could melt or shatter-)-and wishful thinking is not her policy. Right now she's trying to look like the earth mother, but the Ice Queen is her real persona, and my assessment is she's capable of doing pretty much anything to get what she wants. (There's a major catfight with Nancy Pelosi in there somewhere that ought to be entertaining, anyway.)

That's the real danger, (Hillary getting her way, not the catfight) because what she wants is a recipe for disaster as you noted in your original post.

On the other hand, not everybody is buying at the Clinton candy store, and I think there's still hope that Bill will go too far or Obama will do too much damage to her demographics. I just don't like the feel of things.

dte wrote:
Put it in your sig, magerette. Wisdom for the ages.
Feel free to use it--I'm trying to live by the Tolstoy thing atm, though this post is way more like a rope. ;)
 
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That's the real danger, (Hillary getting her way, not the catfight) because what she wants is a recipe for disaster as you noted in your original post.

But there's the rub -- she can't possibly be so dumb that she doesn't know it doesn't add up -- it would implode well before she could get herself re-elected. That means she has something else in mind -- either some hefty tax hikes to pay for it, or, well, just not going through with that program, or something between the two.

What worries me is that people have a tendency to repeat patterns, especially successful patterns. The Clinton administration *did* turn a deficit into a surplus in record time, and the economy *did* simultaneously recover. That means that there's huge pressure to try the same thing as in 1992. Which won't work this time. Now that's a mistake even an intelligent person could make -- especially a tough-as-nails, determined, stubborn, intelligent kind of person.

As to Obama... well, let me put it this way: that radiant smile of his won't get the country out of a recession. That calls for unpopular policies (with the establishment, less so with the electorate), and I'm not sure he's tough enough to push those through. But all in all, I'm inclined to think he might be the better gamble. (Besides, there's something inherently corrosive about political dynasties, whether we're talking Kennedy, Clinton, or Bush.)
 
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That's easy, PJ. She's seen from her hubby that a good politician can ride the waves back and forth and look like a hero while going nowhere. Willie's one good policy was that he was smart enough to let the economy do its thing and not F with it. She has no real plan and doesn't need one. Unfortunately for her, she lacks Slick Willie's teflon persona so the bullets won't bounce off her.

I could see a future where we get 4 years of the Ice Queen that's so ugly for the nation that we get another 8-12 years of Republican leadership to wash the bad taste out (ala the Carter years). I might be willing to endure 4 years of disaster.
 
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If that happens, I sure hope the Republican party can get its act together again. There are some good people in it, but the Bush clique have thrust them far into the margins. You need more than Reagan nostalgia to make a party.

But then from what I've gathered, Republicans are well aware of that fact. It will be interesting to see what kind of party emerges from the current train wreck.
 
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How sordidly typical.
 
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Isnt it obvious? They all lie and the one who offers the biggest lie as a carrot gets elected. Allthough Im pretty sure US is not the only country having elections like this.

This time the hangover is going to be a bad one though I imagine.
 
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It's still a truism I think, that people get the government they deserve!! If you elect Clinton, you might even get more than you deserve!! :)
 
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I'm not sure that would be my plan for the US economy -- I'd have to think about it more -- but I would want to see this type of arithmetic from my candidate.

I think the problem there is that debts are starting to roll over more and more, and you're seeing the kind of government budget that existed in, say, 1916-1917 Russia.

They can only lend if they consume and they can only consume if they lend money.

I would think that the typical fear of the neo-liberal economist would be that the moment consumption ceases to grow, investor credit leaves and a huge recession happens.

Now I'll agree with anyone who says that consumption in America needs to stop growing, but that's not really a reality any politician would like to live up to, particularly not during elections.

Or not?
 
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BN wrote:
Now I'll agree with anyone who says that consumption in America needs to stop growing, but that's not really a reality any politician would like to live up to, particularly not during elections.

Or not?

No, not speaking realistically. Those who try to play hardball at election time usually have to drop out of the race, because anything of substance just gets chewed up by the hype machine and spat out garbled or never spat out at all. It's all personalities, and it will be at the tabloid level and lower before much longer.

I have to say though, that this particular election, thanks to GWBush, seems to be getting people much more involved than usual. If there were a man/woman with even a half-assed workable plan who could rule in the popularity contest yet still have some genuine grasp of reality beyond securing a large personal fortune and a "legacy", s/he could easily get elected and do some good. That's where the "change" mantra is coming from--an earnest, almost desperate desire for things to stop turning to crap and for someone to "do something."

It's impossible to say if any of the candidates really are that person-we only see their media reflections, and their whole political careers are built around appearances. To dig down to voting records, legislation, committee work and so forth ought to be the job of the press, but they're much more interested(because their audience is? or because their advertisers think so?) in the Reality TV aspect. So it falls on the individual, and it's a difficult job to untangle the facts.

But you never know. As Prime J says, it's a gamble. One of these slick and glib individuals may be more than just a talking head. Or so we hope...

Prime J wrote:
But then from what I've gathered, Republicans are well aware of that fact. It will be interesting to see what kind of party emerges from the current train wreck.

I think it's a bit of a hiatus for the Republicans. I only hope the crazed element that's supporting Huckabee--(what a mellifluous name, President Huckabee..) er,--the ultraright-wing element doesn't become the primary power base that the party decides to address, encorporate and represent. They're getting a lot louder, and people like Limbaugh are sharing the stage with the likes of Ann Coulter and Bill O'Reilly. I look back fondly to the time when I'd never heard of the Drudge Report.
 
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That's the big one right there. It seems to me that Americans, in general, are pretty fed up with politicians and politics -- even those of their own party, and even if they'll make an exception during the heady days of a successful presidential campaign.

So I think that there is room for someone who's willing to face the facts and say so -- *if* s/he can simultaneously describe concrete steps to make things better and start cleaning up the mess. The latter bit was what was missing from Carter's "sweater speech" -- and perhaps it's that what sunk him, rather than the gloomy news as such.
 
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