Romney’s voters are not moochers or victims

[Pliny]

Obama was in Ohio the other day and said he didn't see any victims, he said he saw a lot of hard working people. No necessity for redistributing the wealth now. There goes his sole purpose in life, his raison d'etre...he can contentedly retire now.

Maybe he can create some to keep himself busy which is what liberal politicians do best.

[punked]

I believe he is right. The government cannot further the economy. The private sector and a free market drives the economy.

Considering Obama is the ONLY president in the last 40 years to less public employees emplyed over his presidency you must think he is great. Or is this all just rhetoric that really doesn't matter.

[Pliny]

Are you joking?

What the government does is create distortions in the market that don't allow for necessary corrections or proper growth. Proper growth comes from real savings, not inflating the money supply through borrowing. Real corrections are not bailouts and subsidies. Each intervention creates further distortions that make predictability of the market increasingly dependent upon whatever the next whim of some politician becomes or whatever crisis that he believes demands some change in monetary policy. Eventually, after the currency is entirely debased and exists by fiat alone, it is a short journey to the edge of the cliff.

We'll have to straighten it out someday. We can grab the bull by the horns or we can just let it go and rebuild out of the rubble. Hopefully, Keynes will be forgotten.

[Pliny]

Considering Obama is the ONLY president in the last 40 years to less public employees emplyed over his presidency you must think he is great. Or is this all just rhetoric that really doesn't matter.

Untrue. Since he has become President 98,000 federal employee jobs have been created according to this graph here

Do you have some other stats?

[punked]

Untrue. Since he has become President 98,000 federal employee jobs have been created according to this graph here

Do you have some other stats?

Did I stutter? Again Obama is THE ONLY PRESIDENT in the last 40 years to see the Public sector have less employees now then when he started. You want to go to the Employment numbers and tell me what the Public had in 2009 and what it has now? Again you don't even understand what I am saying.

Unfortunately, it’s still a tiny number, and it is dwarfed by a much larger figure: 607,000. That’s the number of public sector jobs — federal, state and local — that have been lost since Obama took office. It’s a story that probably isn’t getting told enough about the Obama administration: Big government keeps getting smaller.

http://www.salon.com/2012/05/04/bush_vs_obama_jobs/

Those are the numbers. ]

Edited September 28, 2012 by punked

[Pliny]

Sure, we can debate with economic illiterates that think borrowing and spending can stimulate the economy, while they tell us that a phase of deregulation that never took place is to blame for the financial decline starting in 2008.

Better jump on that one dre! It was the greedy banks, right? Wha..ha ha. Real economists know better.

[Mr.Canada]

I don't think that the economic status of anyone's voters should matter. Instead what should matter is that the yare voting at all.

Punked, if that's true then that is a good thing. Every country needs less government not more.

My biggest problem with Obama is the healthcare. In Canada healthcare takes 1/2 of the total budget increasing by 6% every year. This isn't sustainable in Canada(but no politician wants to do anything about it) and it won't be doable in the USA either.

[Smallc]

My biggest problem with Obama is the healthcare. In Canada healthcare takes 1/2 of the total budget increasing by 6% every year. This isn't sustainable in Canada(but no politician wants to do anything about it) and it won't be doable in the USA either.

You're overlooking the real problem (and the number is not yet half). The real problem is, there is only one payer. No matter if we're talking government, insurance, or out of pocket, there is only one payer. As long as healthcare costs are rising faster than economic growth, we have a problem (thankfully, the growth has started to slow, but is still too high). There's no reason that a public system is any less sustainable.

[punked]

I don't think that the economic status of anyone's voters should matter. Instead what should matter is that the yare voting at all.

Punked, if that's true then that is a good thing. Every country needs less government not more.

My biggest problem with Obama is the healthcare. In Canada healthcare takes 1/2 of the total budget increasing by 6% every year. This isn't sustainable in Canada(but no politician wants to do anything about it) and it won't be doable in the USA either.

In Canada healthcare eats up less of the GDP, that is a fact. In the end the GDP is the number that matters.

[Mr.Canada]

You're overlooking the real problem (and the number is not yet half). The real problem is, there is only one payer. No matter if we're talking government, insurance, or out of pocket, there is only one payer. As long as healthcare costs are rising faster than economic growth, we have a problem (thankfully, the growth has started to slow, but is still too high). There's no reason that a public system is any less sustainable.

Well you have to rtemember that the US is way more conservative then Canada. They only have conservatives and liberals with no real left wing option. When Obama comes and says he doesn't care how much it will cost that he's doing it anyways people get upset. I still haven't seen a number as to the real cost of this program. Once they do this there is no going back, no saying sorry it didn't work. It could bankrupt the nation in real terms.

[Smallc]

Well you have to rtemember that the US is way more conservative then Canada. They only have conservatives and liberals with no real left wing option. When Obama comes and says he doesn't care how much it will cost that he's doing it anyways people get upset. I still haven't seen a number as to the real cost of this program. Once they do this there is no going back, no saying sorry it didn't work. It could bankrupt the nation in real terms.

I'm sorry, were you responding to me?

[dre]

I believe he is right. The government cannot further the economy.

You didnt read the discussion. Nobody is saying that the government can create a net increase in overall economic activty over time with stimulus. Thats not what its meant to do. What it CAN do is shift consumption from the future to now.

[dre]

Better jump on that one dre! It was the greedy banks, right? Wha..ha ha. Real economists know better.

I already casually dispatched that particular bit of nonsense.

[jacee]

In Canada healthcare takes 1/2 of the total budget increasing by 6% every year.

Is it rising faster than the increase in the elder population, or just increasing predictably with the aging population?

And what can we do about it?

[Pliny]

I already casually dispatched that particular bit of nonsense.

Still sticking to your guns, ay?

Government never encouraged lending and ACORN never picketed the banks because they weren't creating a level playing field so "everyone could have a shot" at the American dream of owning a home. Banks decided to create these mortgages and then create derivatives out of them for unwary investors around the world and then the banks hedged themselves against losses if the mortgage business took a dive. Those shysters.

What is it that could make every bank on Wall St. act in unison to take their customers to ruin?

In a normal market businesses can and do fail but what makes all businesses fail at once? Why does the whole economy go bust? It isn't normal or possible unless something is common to them all. A natural catastrophe could make a lot of businesses fail but generally that would be obvious. So what else could be common to all of the market? I know - the money, government intervention in the market and the manipulation of the economy through its monetary policy.

You couldn't have casually dispatched the truth. You can deny it, if you like.

[GostHacked]

Considering Obama is the ONLY president in the last 40 years to less public employees emplyed over his presidency you must think he is great. Or is this all just rhetoric that really doesn't matter.

I think he is a horrible puppet president. I don't support much of what Obama has done to drag the US down into the gutter. But he did not do it alone. I just can't see Romney as being a good alternative when the trend will just continue to go down.

[Pliny]

Did I stutter? Again Obama is THE ONLY PRESIDENT in the last 40 years to see the Public sector have less employees now then when he started. You want to go to the Employment numbers and tell me what the Public had in 2009 and what it has now? Again you don't even understand what I am saying.

http://www.salon.com/2012/05/04/bush_vs_obama_jobs/

Those are the numbers. ]

Sorry punked all information I have found shows a growth in the size of the federal government workforce.

Some of the left wing blogs try to hide behind big State and local government losses in jobs but the Federal government shows an overall slightly upward statistic, around the 100,000 mark, since he took office and now.

[GostHacked]

Sorry punked all information I have found shows a growth in the size of the federal government workforce.

Some of the left wing blogs try to hide behind big State and local government losses in jobs but the Federal government shows an overall slightly upward statistic, around the 100,000 mark, since he took office and now.

Sectors in which the government has grown, security.

[kraychik]

Did I stutter? Again Obama is THE ONLY PRESIDENT in the last 40 years to see the Public sector have less employees now then when he started. You want to go to the Employment numbers and tell me what the Public had in 2009 and what it has now? Again you don't even understand what I am saying.

http://www.salon.com/2012/05/04/bush_vs_obama_jobs/

Those are the numbers. ]

This is very misleading statement. First of all, Obama only has some control over one level of government - federal. And guess what? The federal workforce has significantly expanded during Obama's tenure. Obama doesn't control state or municipal levels of government (he can have some impact by trying throwing money at his political allies in other levels of government, but that's about it). So trying to credit Obama with shrinking state or municipal workforces in Republican states and cities is quite rich.

I've heard this talking point before, it's parroted around by leftists in order to deceive people like you who don't look beneath the surface. Krugman tried to sell that lie on an MSNBC panel, and was lucky that the discussion didn't go further.

Unfortunately, you have dishonest "journalism" like this and this spinning the facts. The first article doesn't take into account government contracts which aren't included in BLS statistics (which I think Politifact is actually misreporting) over federal employment, and the second link has a blatantly dishonest headline and tries to justify it with Obama increasing proportional spending less than his predecessors, rather than looking at absolute dollars.

At least this article at the hardly controversial USA Today illustrates Obama's ongoing expansion of the federal government, which is really all he can credited with.

Edited September 28, 2012 by kraychik

[kraychik]

Sorry punked all information I have found shows a growth in the size of the federal government workforce.

Some of the left wing blogs try to hide behind big State and local government losses in jobs but the Federal government shows an overall slightly upward statistic, around the 100,000 mark, since he took office and now.

Also, the majority of these reductions in state and municipal government jobs has occurred in Republican states and cities. But hey, let's give Obama credit (or blame?) for it.

[kraychik]

What the government does is create distortions in the market that don't allow for necessary corrections or proper growth. Proper growth comes from real savings, not inflating the money supply through borrowing. Real corrections are not bailouts and subsidies. Each intervention creates further distortions that make predictability of the market increasingly dependent upon whatever the next whim of some politician becomes or whatever crisis that he believes demands some change in monetary policy. Eventually, after the currency is entirely debased and exists by fiat alone, it is a short journey to the edge of the cliff.

We'll have to straighten it out someday. We can grab the bull by the horns or we can just let it go and rebuild out of the rubble. Hopefully, Keynes will be forgotten.

It's not even that the government can't stimulate the economy through borrowing and spending, but the government actually destroys wealth by doing this. Essentially, it spreads poverty by engaging in these "stimulus" spending programs. These distortions you talk about wreak havoc on the economy.

[dre]

Still sticking to your guns, ay?

Government never encouraged lending and ACORN never picketed the banks because they weren't creating a level playing field so "everyone could have a shot" at the American dream of owning a home. Banks decided to create these mortgages and then create derivatives out of them for unwary investors around the world and then the banks hedged themselves against losses if the mortgage business took a dive. Those shysters.

What is it that could make every bank on Wall St. act in unison to take their customers to ruin?

In a normal market businesses can and do fail but what makes all businesses fail at once? Why does the whole economy go bust? It isn't normal or possible unless something is common to them all. A natural catastrophe could make a lot of businesses fail but generally that would be obvious. So what else could be common to all of the market? I know - the money, government intervention in the market and the manipulation of the economy through its monetary policy.

You couldn't have casually dispatched the truth. You can deny it, if you like.

Banks decided to create these mortgages and then create derivatives out of them for unwary investors around the world and then the banks hedged themselves against losses if the mortgage business took a dive.

Actually most of the sub prime lenders were not even BANKS. They did not collect FDIC insured deposits and were not subject to the CRA at all.

So what else could be common to all of the market? I know - the money, government intervention in the market and the manipulation of the economy through its monetary policy.

Yes the government certainly helped set the macroeconomic stage. Interest rates were too low, and trade policy over the last three decades resulted in foreigners sitting on a mountain of US dollars which they invested into the US realestate market by purchasing derivatives. This is certainly part of it, and as I said earlier in this thread theres a real debate to be had over all this easing. But that doesnt change the fact that investors were basically tricked into buying all these loans, and that 80% of sub prime loans were made by private lenders like countrywide were that were not in any way forced to make them. Since the mid 90's a number of schemes were devised by investment banks to hide risk from investors. The CDS market grew from a few hundred million to almost 40 trillion dollars, and a whole new class of securities was rolled out designed to hide risky loans by packaging them with some pretty good ones. Private ratings agencies ate them up and stamped them all TRIPLE AAA.

Iv been over this with you dozens of times, so your caricature of me as blaming the private sector and letting the government off the hook, is really just a painfully stupid lie. Even earlier in this very thread I explained how monetary easing to ward off a recession can create bubbles, and is questionable policy when looked at over the long term.

I have more posts about the problems inherent in our debt/fiat/money/central banking system than any other poster here. So your "evil banks" strawman is just complete BS. I blame the private sector for the things they REALLY DID... nothing else.

Edited September 28, 2012 by dre

[kimmy]

MSJ provided some excellent reading material on this subject. Go read it, Pliny.

-k

[-TSS-]

It was clear from the start that people like Obama more as a person than Romney so Romney's only chance of winning the election is to present himself as a much more competent leader than Obama. By declaring 47% of the population as hopeless losers is not exactly very good tactics by him.

[jacee]

It was clear from the start that people like Obama more as a person than Romney so Romney's only chance of winning the election is to present himself as a much more competent leader than Obama. By declaring 47% of the population as hopeless losers is not exactly very good tactics by him.

Yup.

Gotta love him for that!

He must be a secret Obama supporter.