Part of the problem in the Economics field

[Allentownjake]

Yes and the best kind of stumulus.  Letting people keep more of the money they earn so they can decide how and where it's spent.


Tax cuts don't cause the debt...nor do they prevent the government from paying it off.  That's typical Liberal tripe.

OUt of control spending of other people's money and an unwillingness to put actual meaningful reform and cuts into the bloated social welfare programs run by the Fed are a large part of the problem.

Name one welfare program or aid program that has EVER been cut.

Yes.  You're misguided.

Income = Revenue - Expenses

Assets = Liabilities + Owners Equity

Taxes are Revenue, Spending are expenses

I'd prefer to focus on capital expenditures in the government.  Power plants, Roads, Bridges, Schools, Milatary Equipment, maintaining national parks etc.

Transfer payments are a problem, I will agree there.

With all this talk of capitalism and socialism the very notion of a democratic republic is socialist in nature.  Shared assets controlled by elected representatives.

There is also a capitalist component to our way of life in the form of private ownership.  

However we are mix of socialism and capitalism the argument is how much of a mix we should be.  I think the answer is in the US Constitution and the State Constitutions.

A court system everyone has access to, is a socialist endeavor as is a Military that protects the country as a whole.

I'm very socialist about the Military.  I want that controlled by elected representatives and not private forces.  

I'm very capitalist about my Grocery store.

I look at the country from an accounting perspective.  I'm sure a lawyer looks at it from a legal perspective.

[RightCoast]

I'd prefer to focus on capital expenditures in the government.  Power plants, Roads, Bridges, Schools, Military Equipment, maintaining national parks etc.

You want to "focus" on all the things the government is supposed to spend money on. Everything after this line was drivel, I believe you have run your course.

[Allentownjake]

You want to "focus" on all the things the government is supposed to spend money on. Everything after this line was drivel, I believe you have run your course.

Thanks

[TheSarge]

Income = Revenue - Expenses

Assets = Liabilities + Owners Equity

Taxes are Revenue, Spending are expenses

And it's amazing how that revenue to the federal coffers grows when taxes are cut.

I'd prefer to focus on capital expenditures in the government.  Power plants, Roads, Bridges, Schools, Milatary Equipment, maintaining national parks etc.

I would too.  But I think the Federal government would be better suited and would actually improve the tings you mention...if they were to let the states and private firms do it. 

With all this talk of capitalism and socialism the very notion of a democratic republic is socialist in nature.  Shared assets controlled by elected representatives.

It's only socialist to those that don't understand the principals this country was founded on under the Republic form of government.

If you truly comprehended that...not only would you NOT call is "socialist in nature" you'd weep at how far our elected officials have taken us from our establishment.

There is also a capitalist component to our way of life in the form of private ownership.

 

Which is a good thing that Liberals seem to despise for some reason.

However we are mix of socialism and capitalism the argument is how much of a mix we should be.  I think the answer is in the US Constitution and the State Constitutions.

Socialism is ONLY mixed in there because the Democrats have shoved it down our throats and told us to like it.  Were we to go back to our roots so to speak as a nation...Socialism would still be the dirty word that it should be.  And NOT something even remotely associated with the word America.

A court system everyone has access to, is a socialist endeavor as is a Military that protects the country as a whole.

Care to elaborate on this genius?  Sounds like typical Liberal clap trap/moral equivalence to me.

Not to mention a fundemental lack of understanding about this country and it's history.  Which with you being a leftist is not really surprising.

I'm very socialist about the Military.  I want that controlled by elected representatives and not private forces.

 

Well you've finally gotten one thing right...you're Socialist.

I look at the country from an accounting perspective.  I'm sure a lawyer looks at it from a legal perspective.

And neither one of them look at it from the perspective of the every day regular American.

[Allentownjake]

You seem to deny that public ownership of land or resources under democratically elected officials, which is what representative government is, is basically is socialism.

If we want to go back to founders intent we could talk about their absolute disgust over the East Indies company which used its relationship with the king to screw with colonial competition.

Our founders were weary of many things.  Central banking, standing armies, and corporations. 

I can quote Jefferson and be called a commie.

[RightCoast]

You have now proven yourself worthless, truly it was only a matter of time.

A wise and frugal government, which shall leave men free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned - this is the sum of good government.

Dependence begets subservience and venality, suffocates the germ of virtue, and prepares fit tools for the designs of ambition.

Educate and inform the whole mass of the people... They are the only sure reliance for the preservation of our liberty.

Every government degenerates when trusted to the rulers of the people alone. The people themselves are its only safe depositories.

Experience hath shewn, that even under the best forms of government those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny.

[Allentownjake]

You have now proven yourself worthless, truly it was only a matter of time.
 

We can pick and choose Jefferson...or Smith, which a few of you seem to do, a great deal.

"There shall be no standing army but in time of actual war." --Thomas Jefferson: Draft Virginia Constitution, 1776. Papers 1:363

"The Greeks and Romans had no standing armies, yet they defended themselves. The Greeks by their laws, and the Romans by the spirit of their people, took care to put into the hands of their rulers no such engine of oppression as a standing army. Their system was to make every man a soldier and oblige him to repair to the standard of his country whenever that was reared. This made them invincible; and the same remedy will make us so." --Thomas Jefferson to Thomas Cooper, 1814. ME 14:184

"There are instruments so dangerous to the rights of the nation and which place them so totally at the mercy of their governors that those governors, whether legislative or executive, should be restrained from keeping such instruments on foot but in well-defined cases. Such an instrument is a standing army." --Thomas Jefferson to David Humphreys, 1789. ME 7:323

"That we are overdone with banking institutions which have banished the precious metals and substituted a more fluctuating and unsafe medium, that these have withdrawn capital from useful improvements and employments to nourish idleness, that the wars of the world have swollen our commerce beyond the wholesome limits of exchanging our own productions for our own wants, and that, for the emolument of a small proportion of our society who prefer these demoralizing pursuits to labors useful to the whole, the peace of the whole is endangered and all our present difficulties produced, are evils more easily to be deplored than remedied." --Thomas Jefferson to Abbe Salimankis, 1810. ME 12:379

"The system of banking have... ever reprobated. I contemplate it as a blot left in all our Constitutions, which, if not covered, will end in their destruction, which is already hit by the gamblers in corruption, and is sweeping away in its progress the fortunes and morals of our citizens." --Thomas Jefferson to John Taylor, 1816. ME 15:18

"The banks... have the regulation of the safety-valves of our fortunes, and... condense and explode them at their will." --Thomas Jefferson to John Adams, 1819. ME 15:224

"The States should be urged to concede to the General Government, with a saving of chartered rights, the exclusive power of establishing banks of discount for paper." --Thomas Jefferson to John W. Eppes, 1813. ME 13:431

"I sincerely believe... that banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies, and that the principle of spending money to be paid by posterity under the name of funding is but swindling futurity on a large scale." --Thomas Jefferson to John Taylor, 1816. ME 15:23

I'm sure if I said such things as a candidate right now, you'd have choice words for me.

[Allentownjake]

Don't know if you figured it out yet, my biggest problem is an Island of off NY State called Manhattan where the money lenders need to be chased from our Temple.

[RightCoast]

Don't know if you figured it out yet, my biggest problem is an Island of off NY State called Manhattan where the money lenders need to be chased from our Temple.

Without them in some form we'd be Kenya. Only not as hot.

[Allentownjake]

Without them in some form we'd be Kenya. Only not as hot.

We are in some form of Kenya.  Just wait.  

Zimbabwe is probably a better description.

[RightCoast]

We are in some form of Kenya.  Just wait. 

Zimbabwe is probably a better description.

Thanks to 4 years of a Liberal congress and 2 years of a totally incompetent boob surrounded by American hating, far far left socialist advisers, cabinet, and staff.

[Allentownjake]

Thanks to 4 years of a Liberal congress and 2 years of a totally incompetent boob surrounded by American hating, far far left socialist advisers, cabinet, and staff.

40 years of banking dominance in Washington more likely.  Obama is just the death throws of a 40 year march.

I have no problem with banks, that do banking.  Our banks do everything but banking.

[RightCoast]

40 years of banking dominance in Washington more likely.  Obama is just the death throws of a 40 year march.

I have no problem with banks, that do banking.  Our banks do everything but banking.

Not banks, government.  Lobbyists, and congress critters that enter "public service" as upper middle-class, and leave or die in office as multi-millionaires. No one should get rich while working in office. Congress - both party's - have so broken the trust of the people as to be truly criminal. The people that run the banks just do what comes natural to people; try to make as much money as possible.

[Allentownjake]

Not banks, government.  Lobbyists, and congress critters that enter "public service" as upper middle-class, and leave or die in office as multi-millionaires. No one should get rich while working in office. Congress - both party's - have so broken the trust of the people as to be truly criminal. The people that run the banks just do what comes natural to people; try to make as much money as possible.

I'm still bitter about the federal repeals of state banking laws.

As to the rest of what you said, Amen.

[DumbAss Tanker]

"The Greeks and Romans had no standing armies, yet they defended themselves. The Greeks by their laws, and the Romans by the spirit of their people, took care to put into the hands of their rulers no such engine of oppression as a standing army. Their system was to make every man a soldier and oblige him to repair to the standard of his country whenever that was reared. This made them invincible; and the same remedy will make us so." --Thomas Jefferson to Thomas Cooper, 1814. ME 14:184

Appllingly inaccurate, really, but then Jefferson was far more interested in bending history to support his political arguments than accurately recounting it, and we probably know a much deeper version of it today than he had from simply reading the surviving classics.

[TheSarge]

You seem to deny that public ownership of land or resources under democratically elected officials, which is what representative government is, is basically is socialism.

You seemy to be in complete denial that those public lands have been stolen by said elected officials either without the knowledge or consent of the people that elected the representatives.  And it's been done for whackjob leftist environmental groups who donate large sums of money to the political party that is addicted to these land grabs.

Funny how you leave reality and proveable fact out of your little America = Socialism rant.

If we want to go back to founders intent we could talk about their absolute disgust over the East Indies company which used its relationship with the king to screw with colonial competition.

Ok

Our founders were weary of many things.  Central banking, standing armies, and corporations. 

Considering that most of them were small business men or farmers themselves...your revisionist history doesn't fly.

They had noproblem with standing armies.  One of the few clearly defined powers of the Federal Government in the Constitution is to maintain a standing army for our national defense.

You need to actually read the Constitution and not rely on DU for your information.

I can quote Jefferson and be called a commie.

And I can show you parts of the Virginia State Constitution that he wrote that would make him look like a bible thumping Islamophobic religous zealot.

Your point?

[Allentownjake]

We pick and choose based on our ideology. 

I love Adam Smith as well.

I never said I had any problem with small businesses, I have a problem with a legal entity that limits the liability of those who manage it and get wealthy of it from their actions.  Oh wait, personal responsibility from leaders...scary concept. 

[TheSarge]

40 years of banking dominance in Washington more likely.  Obama is just the death throws of a 40 year march.

I have no problem with banks, that do banking.  Our banks do everything but banking.

How much tinfoil do you have to wrap your head in when you write this stuff?

[Allentownjake]

How much tinfoil do you have to wrap your head in when you write this stuff?

I'm going to enjoy watching you guys after November

[TheSarge]

I'm going to enjoy watching you guys after November

 

[Allentownjake]

Hey I think we are screwed regardless of who wins the election, the hand wringing of anyone who thinks the GOP is going to be able to fix anything with Keynsian tax cuts (tax cuts done without spending cuts to offset them).

[TheSarge]

Hey I think we are screwed regardless of who wins the election, the hand wringing of anyone who thinks the GOP is going to be able to fix anything with Keynsian tax cuts (tax cuts done without spending cuts to offset them).

Riiiiiiiiiiight because they've been such a failure before. 

Tel that to Reagan and Bush 43.  Hell it even worked for Kennedy in the 60's.

Every time a Republican President or Congress tries to reduce how much of a budget increase a Liebral social welfare program gets the Dems and their willing allies in the MSM start screaming that the Republicans are going to cut (program) and take food out of peoples mouths...starve kids and kill old people.

Every attempt at fiscal restraint is demogouged to death by the left and the media.

You and the rest of the left are only interested in lipservice to fiscal and budgetary restraint.

[Allentownjake]

Riiiiiiiiiiight because they've been such a failure before.  

Tel that to Reagan and Bush 43.  Hell it even worked for Kennedy in the 60's.

Every time a Republican President or Congress tries to reduce how much of a budget increase a Liebral social welfare program gets the Dems and their willing allies in the MSM start screaming that the Republicans are going to cut (program) and take food out of peoples mouths...starve kids and kill old people.

Every attempt at fiscal restraint is demogouged to death by the left and the media.

You and the rest of the left are only interested in lipservice to fiscal and budgetary restraint.

You seriously want to talk about Bush 43.

I mean Reagan we can have substantive arguments on policy successes and failures and a few of his former advisors have looked at the current economic problems and made some insightful remarks (tax cuts aren't the first words out of their mouths).  At the end of the day, the outsourcing began under his watch.

Bush 43 will go down as the 3rd or 4th worst President in US history.  All depending on how big Obama screws up the next 2 years with a GOP house.

We can have periods of awful insignificant Presidents and awful philosophy for long cycles.  

[Doc]

40 years of banking dominance in Washington more likely.  Obama is just the death throws of a 40 year march.

I have no problem with banks, that do banking.  Our banks do everything but banking.

The comment above, coupled with a remark you made in another thread regarding "mark to market" accounting (Sorbanes-Oxley) leads me to ask another question. 

Since you distain the government involvement in the banking system (and vice versa), are you equally outraged by the constant efforts of the likes of Barney Frank, and Chris Dodd (both Democrats BTW), whose efforts over the past several decades have been more or less singularly responsible for the legislation required to force the banking industry, as well as Fanny and Freddy, into providing mortgages to worthless deadbeats (primarily minorities) in order that they could aquire houses that they could not afford.

These "affirmative action" home loan policies (no docs, welfare as income, etc) that are the main element in the recent collapse of the housing market........and these same individuals, and their party, are still campaigning for "affordable housing" in order to both buy votes, and further impede the recovery of the housing market?

An intellectially honest answer would be "Tes, of course......even if it means that poor and minority families will NEVER be able to purchase a home without accumulating enough assets to qualify for a conventional loan like the rest of us......

I'm curious if your position on economics and politics has changed to that extent......

doc

[Allentownjake]

I don't like laws that dictate how something is to be done.  I like laws that prohibit a practice.

In PA we used to have usury laws.  The PA legislature determined it didn't want to deal with the societal consequences of high interest rates.  However if you do that, you can't dictate who can and cannot get a loan from a lender.

For instance if it has been determined that having a securities firm and a bank together ends up with a failed bank countless times, I have no problem with saying these businesses should be separate.

I like the fact that 401(k) assets are segregated from the securities firm assets in a separate account and you are prohibited from commingling assets.  

I don't think the federal government should dictate medical standards to doctors. I think there should be some oversight into how the board makes decisions but I don't think the government should be creating manuals on how to do a medical procedure.

I don't think the government should dictate to accountants how to do an audit.  I think the government can step in and say if you are doing an audit you can't have consulting with the client because it is a conflict.

I think the government can decide that the partner on an engagement is personally liable if the audit fails.

Fannie and Freddie are the worst of government and business getting together.

Private firm with an unlimited federal guarantee with political appointees on a board.  

This was initially set up to encourage low income housing financing.  I think the question should have been asked should we be financing low income housing.

Our regulatory code would be clearer if it simply said you can't do this you can do that.  Instead it is a complex mess.

I also think productivity and adherence to the rules would be clearer.  

As for what is going on in housing, this wouldn't have happened if everyone had to save 20% for a down-payment of a house.