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Awesomelyglorious
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24 Mar 2008, 4:28 pm

JohnnyCarcinogen wrote:
True, our federal deficit is a major problem in our economy. But corporate profits are getting a little out of control, considering the golden parachutes CEOs have been given lately.

Not really, corporate profits are still a rather low percent of the overall production of the companies. Heck, the golden parachutes really are not that much at all compared to the the overall production of these companies.

Quote:
The rich already shoulder most of the burden of the government?? I greatly disagree with this statement. If they are "shouldering" most of the taxation burden, then why are the members of this upper class becoming more wealthy? Why is the middle class disappearing?

That is because you are looking at the wrong data. The top 20% takes care of about 70% of our government tax burden. http://www.marginalrevolution.com/margi ... ay-fo.html That alone proves my point. Taxation is not the only factor in the distribution of wealth within a nation though, and that is where you mess up. The reason for the changes that you are talking about are based upon changes in production due to technology and trade.

Quote:
True, we may not put the majority of our money into congressional pay, but I have to disagree that it isn't a major burden. Paying for the health insurance and wealth of elected officials and their aides is a significant drain on our economy and our government.

No, it really isn't a major burden, look, if we spent a million dollars on the health insurance AND pay of every congressman plus the president, then that'd be less than a billion dollars a year. Our budget is a multi-trillion dollar budget. That means that congress likely costs a fraction of 1% of our budget, which is not a lot.

Quote:
Social Security is a burden, but that's due to the fact that we can't seem to balance a budget or provide quality health care to everyone at an affordable cost.

No, burden has nothing to do with other burdens. Social security demands a lot of money, period. Therefore it is a burden. Whether or not we balance the budget or have a different medical system, it still will be a massive expenditure.

Quote:
We've paid way too much in the way of defense, with the Pentagon's budget exploding over the past 7 years. That, of course, is in correlation with the illogical and greedy wars waged by an administration tied to corporate agendas.

We have, but the pentagon's recent spending is not a major part of that. The fact of the matter is that for the most part, military spending, as a percentage of GDP has been on the decline for decades. This administration represents some change against that but I doubt it is supremely enormous change.

Quote:
Sure, the economy may not fall apart in the next 10 years or so, but the fact that our societal and cultural values are tied up into an aggressive capitalist economy that is rapidly outsourcing jobs and erodes local and small business is a sign of an economy that will eventually fall.

Why is that a sign we will eventually fall? Outsourcing is merely the efficient use of resources, and small businesses aren't necessarily good anyway due to issues of economies of scale.

Quote:
Sargon - just because I don't use technical economic science terms and phrases doesn't mean my ideas or opinions have any less merit. I didn't shout my opinion across the web - I merely expressed it on this forum. If you have a problem with that, then you obviously are in the wrong place.
You may not support my views, and I may not support yours, but I will defend your right to say whatever you want just as I would defend my own opinions.

Perhaps Sargon was being a bit cold, but he does have a point. Expertise does make an opinion or an idea more or less meritorious, if it didn't then we would never bother to have experts. I don't think that this is an issue of freedom of speech as you seem to think, it is really an issue of economists hating the economic thoughts of non-economists. Even though I think most economists will admit to a right of non-economists to speak on economics, they consider most of the stuff said to be rather annoying bits of bad logic and wrong facts. There is even a recent book written by economist Bryan Caplan(a teacher at Sargon's old university) that goes into detail about how the average non-economist is wrong on economics and argues that this is a threat to public policy and welfare, but even ignoring that, I have seen many PhD economists argue a number of times that various ideas commonly held by the public are bad ideas from most standpoints.(economists obviously cannot argue that an idea is absolutely bad, but only that the idea will fail to reach its objectives or is based upon bad logical premises)



Johnnie
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24 Mar 2008, 7:20 pm

JohnnyCarcinogen wrote:
Johnnie wrote:
Most of the replies to this topic are so warpped it's unreal. For anyone with a brain, don't sit around hoping the government is going to make your life better, go apply yourselves and work around the liberal mess. There is nothing wrong with the economy for people who will go apply themselves.


"Pull yourself up by your own bootstraps", eh?
I'm sure the millions of young disabled adults and children are just waiting to hear that advice. Even though they don't have the money for their own healthcare - much less a means to earn the substantial payments for it - by golly they just need to apply themselves and "bam!" their problem is solved.

Come down off of your high horse and read between the lines. No one here is sitting around hoping the government will make their lives better - in fact, many, if not all, apply themselves on a daily basis as much as they can. When they need help, they ask for only the amount they need to move themselves up and out of the problem they were in before.

There are problems with an economy that values extremely cheap labor, obscene corporate profits (Halliburton, ExxonMobil, etc.), devalues personal character, integrity, morals and ethics; and using any way shape and/or form to make a buck.


i wrote

Quote:
For anyone with a brain


the reply starts off with

Quote:
I'm sure the millions of young disabled adults and children are just waiting to hear that advice.


seeing as how your reading comprehension leaves a lot to be desired, it's not likely you could comprehend profit margains

try Cuba, sounds like their system would be more to your liking.



JohnnyCarcinogen
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25 Mar 2008, 9:56 pm

Johnnie wrote:
JohnnyCarcinogen wrote:
Johnnie wrote:
Most of the replies to this topic are so warpped it's unreal. For anyone with a brain, don't sit around hoping the government is going to make your life better, go apply yourselves and work around the liberal mess. There is nothing wrong with the economy for people who will go apply themselves.


"Pull yourself up by your own bootstraps", eh?
I'm sure the millions of young disabled adults and children are just waiting to hear that advice. Even though they don't have the money for their own healthcare - much less a means to earn the substantial payments for it - by golly they just need to apply themselves and "bam!" their problem is solved.

Come down off of your high horse and read between the lines. No one here is sitting around hoping the government will make their lives better - in fact, many, if not all, apply themselves on a daily basis as much as they can. When they need help, they ask for only the amount they need to move themselves up and out of the problem they were in before.

There are problems with an economy that values extremely cheap labor, obscene corporate profits (Halliburton, ExxonMobil, etc.), devalues personal character, integrity, morals and ethics; and using any way shape and/or form to make a buck.


i wrote

Quote:
For anyone with a brain


the reply starts off with

Quote:
I'm sure the millions of young disabled adults and children are just waiting to hear that advice.


seeing as how your reading comprehension leaves a lot to be desired, it's not likely you could comprehend profit margains

try Cuba, sounds like their system would be more to your liking.


Well I'd definitely enjoy the cigars. :lol:

Last I heard, the same people I mentioned have brains, some with highly-conscious thought.
By the way, if you're going to try to attack my "reading comprehension" then you should at least learn to spell correctly.


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25 Mar 2008, 10:09 pm

Awesomelyglorious wrote:
JohnnyCarcinogen wrote:
True, our federal deficit is a major problem in our economy. But corporate profits are getting a little out of control, considering the golden parachutes CEOs have been given lately.

Not really, corporate profits are still a rather low percent of the overall production of the companies. Heck, the golden parachutes really are not that much at all compared to the the overall production of these companies.

Quote:
The rich already shoulder most of the burden of the government?? I greatly disagree with this statement. If they are "shouldering" most of the taxation burden, then why are the members of this upper class becoming more wealthy? Why is the middle class disappearing?

That is because you are looking at the wrong data. The top 20% takes care of about 70% of our government tax burden. http://www.marginalrevolution.com/margi ... ay-fo.html That alone proves my point. Taxation is not the only factor in the distribution of wealth within a nation though, and that is where you mess up. The reason for the changes that you are talking about are based upon changes in production due to technology and trade.

Quote:
True, we may not put the majority of our money into congressional pay, but I have to disagree that it isn't a major burden. Paying for the health insurance and wealth of elected officials and their aides is a significant drain on our economy and our government.

No, it really isn't a major burden, look, if we spent a million dollars on the health insurance AND pay of every congressman plus the president, then that'd be less than a billion dollars a year. Our budget is a multi-trillion dollar budget. That means that congress likely costs a fraction of 1% of our budget, which is not a lot.

Quote:
Social Security is a burden, but that's due to the fact that we can't seem to balance a budget or provide quality health care to everyone at an affordable cost.

No, burden has nothing to do with other burdens. Social security demands a lot of money, period. Therefore it is a burden. Whether or not we balance the budget or have a different medical system, it still will be a massive expenditure.

Quote:
We've paid way too much in the way of defense, with the Pentagon's budget exploding over the past 7 years. That, of course, is in correlation with the illogical and greedy wars waged by an administration tied to corporate agendas.

We have, but the pentagon's recent spending is not a major part of that. The fact of the matter is that for the most part, military spending, as a percentage of GDP has been on the decline for decades. This administration represents some change against that but I doubt it is supremely enormous change.

Quote:
Sure, the economy may not fall apart in the next 10 years or so, but the fact that our societal and cultural values are tied up into an aggressive capitalist economy that is rapidly outsourcing jobs and erodes local and small business is a sign of an economy that will eventually fall.

Why is that a sign we will eventually fall? Outsourcing is merely the efficient use of resources, and small businesses aren't necessarily good anyway due to issues of economies of scale.

Quote:
Sargon - just because I don't use technical economic science terms and phrases doesn't mean my ideas or opinions have any less merit. I didn't shout my opinion across the web - I merely expressed it on this forum. If you have a problem with that, then you obviously are in the wrong place.
You may not support my views, and I may not support yours, but I will defend your right to say whatever you want just as I would defend my own opinions.

Perhaps Sargon was being a bit cold, but he does have a point. Expertise does make an opinion or an idea more or less meritorious, if it didn't then we would never bother to have experts. I don't think that this is an issue of freedom of speech as you seem to think, it is really an issue of economists hating the economic thoughts of non-economists. Even though I think most economists will admit to a right of non-economists to speak on economics, they consider most of the stuff said to be rather annoying bits of bad logic and wrong facts. There is even a recent book written by economist Bryan Caplan(a teacher at Sargon's old university) that goes into detail about how the average non-economist is wrong on economics and argues that this is a threat to public policy and welfare, but even ignoring that, I have seen many PhD economists argue a number of times that various ideas commonly held by the public are bad ideas from most standpoints.(economists obviously cannot argue that an idea is absolutely bad, but only that the idea will fail to reach its objectives or is based upon bad logical premises)


I agree with your opinion on expertise, and I do understand why many people who study economics state what is supposed fact rather than taking on every idea under the sky that comes from people who may know nothing about economics at all.

I don't agree, however, with a few of your opinions - but arguing that mine are right when I cannot prove that I have any expertise in economics will not produce anything of quality.

The only thing I can argue about is your source - marginalrevolution.com; a different source from a more educational background would make a better point.

Just an opinion.


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Awesomelyglorious
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25 Mar 2008, 10:31 pm

JohnnyCarcinogen wrote:
I don't agree, however, with a few of your opinions - but arguing that mine are right when I cannot prove that I have any expertise in economics will not produce anything of quality.
Perhaps you don't, and I will admit that
Quote:
The only thing I can argue about is your source - marginalrevolution.com; a different source from a more educational background would make a better point.

A more educational background? marginalrevolution.com is one of the top economics blogs on the internet and is run by 2 economics professors(professors Tyler Cowen and Alex Tabbarok) at a top economics university(George Mason university, which has notably had 2 Nobel Prize winners) and that specific post ties back its data to the US government's data. The blog, and its contributors even have wikipedia pages due to their renown. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marginal_R ... %28blog%29 The major failing I can see is linking to a biased source, and that alone is not enough to discredit my source.



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26 Mar 2008, 6:47 am

JohnnyCarcinogen wrote:
Johnnie wrote:
JohnnyCarcinogen wrote:
Johnnie wrote:
Most of the replies to this topic are so warpped it's unreal. For anyone with a brain, don't sit around hoping the government is going to make your life better, go apply yourselves and work around the liberal mess. There is nothing wrong with the economy for people who will go apply themselves.


"Pull yourself up by your own bootstraps", eh?
I'm sure the millions of young disabled adults and children are just waiting to hear that advice. Even though they don't have the money for their own healthcare - much less a means to earn the substantial payments for it - by golly they just need to apply themselves and "bam!" their problem is solved.

Come down off of your high horse and read between the lines. No one here is sitting around hoping the government will make their lives better - in fact, many, if not all, apply themselves on a daily basis as much as they can. When they need help, they ask for only the amount they need to move themselves up and out of the problem they were in before.

There are problems with an economy that values extremely cheap labor, obscene corporate profits (Halliburton, ExxonMobil, etc.), devalues personal character, integrity, morals and ethics; and using any way shape and/or form to make a buck.


i wrote

Quote:
For anyone with a brain


the reply starts off with

Quote:
I'm sure the millions of young disabled adults and children are just waiting to hear that advice.


seeing as how your reading comprehension leaves a lot to be desired, it's not likely you could comprehend profit margains

try Cuba, sounds like their system would be more to your liking.


Well I'd definitely enjoy the cigars. :lol:

Last I heard, the same people I mentioned have brains, some with highly-conscious thought.
By the way, if you're going to try to attack my "reading comprehension" then you should at least learn to spell correctly.


My last dispatcher in cross country trucking was in a wheelchair, so inspite of being crippled and brain dead he had a job. It seemed to be convincing me I needed a new one :lol: So short of being institutionalized or in need of a care giver 24/7 most people with a brain could make a go of it in the USA if they apply themselves and find something they can do and make a go of. geez talk about splitting hairs

48 years an I haven't learned to spell yet, don't hold your breath on it happening anytime soon. Some people can't cook, some can't garden, some can't fix things, everyone knows their limitations and moves on with life.