Fiscal Cliff

[CPCFTW]

If you think Canada has 5% of its population as undocumented then you really don't understand the numbers or demographic differences between the two countries. Which is quite obvious whenever you post.

I'll wait for your citation on the Canadian numbers but I wont hold my breath.

I'll wait for your citation on the US numbers. FYI you said "estimates are 10-15mil".. which is about 3-4% of the US population. Why should I find 5% for Canada?

[punked]

I'll wait for your citation on the US numbers. FYI you said "estimates are 10-15mil".. which is about 3-4% of the US population. Why should I find 5% for Canada?

How about you even find 1% for Canada.

Here is my citation.

http://www.pewhispanic.org/2011/02/01/unauthorized-immigrant-population-brnational-and-state-trends-2010/

[CPCFTW]

How about you even find 1% for Canada.

Here is my citation.

http://www.pewhispan...te-trends-2010/

What's your point? Do you believe all those illegal immigrants are working? If so, how much taxes are they paying on their sub-minimum wage?

Jobs are meaningless if they do nothing for the economy. The only thing illegal immigrant employees do for the economy are to lower fast food and landscaping prices (oh and cause a massive increase in crime).

We're talking about real employment here punked. The kind that you build an economy on. Facts are facts. Let me remind you:

Real employment numbers:

61.8% employed in Canada (17.56M employed out of 28.41M working age population)

58.7% employed in US (143.384M employed out of 243.983M working age population)

3% more people employed in Canada.

And on top of that, 15 year olds are part of the working age population in Canada, whereas the US only counts those 16 and over. Why don't you take a guess what the 15 year old unemployment rate is like?

There's no question: Canada's current employment situation is far healthier than what Obama has created in the US. But I'm not surprised you tried to mislead people otherwise.

By the way, I would suggest the illegal immigrants have a much higher unemployment rate than American citizens... so I'm really not sure where you're going with this. Counting illegal immigrants would likely make the job situation look even worse. As usual, you're not making any sense.

Edited November 12, 2012 by CPCFTW

[punked]

We're talking about real employment here punked. The kind that you build an economy on. Facts are facts. Let me remind you:

By the way, I would suggest the illegal immigrants have a much higher unemployment rate than American citizens... so I'm really not sure where you're going with this. Counting illegal immigrants would likely make the job situation look even worse. As usual, you're not making any sense.

It is like you say "they are taking our jorbssss"! If there were 15 million less illegals in the country would would do the work they do? Again your stats are off when comparing total numbers when Canada and America are different beasts. Comparing the Unemployment numbers of those seeking work would be a better measure to compare because of this.

[CPCFTW]

It is like you say "they are taking our jorbssss"! If there were 15 million less illegals in the country would would do the work they do? Again your stats are off when comparing total numbers when Canada and America are different beasts. Comparing the Unemployment numbers of those seeking work would be a better measure to compare because of this.

Your link says around 11mil with 8mil in the labour force, so let's stop exagerating. And like I said, illegals almost certainly have higher unemployment than 7.9%. That means counting illegals in the US would actually raise unemployment numbers.

I guess your point is that illegals are not actually people and if the US euthanized them all then their jobs could be taken by Americans for a better wage (probably unionized too). Sorry but I don't agree with euthanizing illegal immigrants.

How is comparing unemployment numbers of those seeking work a better measure? Do you really think that people leaving the labour force is a good thing for the economy? Do you think that if the US had 20% of the labour force working, and 80% not actively seeking work and collecting big unemployment cheques that they'd be better off because of 0% unemployment among those seeking work? You're more lost on this issue than I thought.

[Argus]

The "fiscal cliff" is unlikely to cause a recession. But regardless, the Republicans really have no decent cards to play here. Obama can get pretty much all he needs simply by waiting until the tax cuts expire, then proposing his own tax cuts. He can negotiate with the Republicans right up to the end, and portray them as intransigent lackeys of the rich, and let all the cuts in spending and increases in taxes kick in.

Then on January two, he puts a bill before congress calling for tax cuts for the middle class. Are the Republicans going to turn it down? Turn down tax cuts for the bulk of the middle class? They might try to amend it to extend that to the rich, but that has terrible optics, and he will certainly announce from the start that his bill is only for the middle class, and he will veto it if the Republicans amend it to give breaks to the rich. That will make them look even worse if they amend it or try to block it. He can also introduce a bill lowering taxes on capital gains and dividends on those with a certain income or below. Same situation. Are they going to block that? Very bad optics to do so. And either way it helps the Democrats.

I would argue, though, that he should cut a deal and not push them like that, because it will make it even harder to get anything else done for the rest of his term.

[Shady]

The "fiscal cliff" is unlikely to cause a recession. But regardless, the Republicans really have no decent cards to play here. Obama can get pretty much all he needs simply by waiting until the tax cuts expire, then proposing his own tax cuts. He can negotiate with the Republicans right up to the end, and portray them as intransigent lackeys of the rich, and let all the cuts in spending and increases in taxes kick in.

Then on January two, he puts a bill before congress calling for tax cuts for the middle class. Are the Republicans going to turn it down? Turn down tax cuts for the bulk of the middle class? They might try to amend it to extend that to the rich, but that has terrible optics, and he will certainly announce from the start that his bill is only for the middle class, and he will veto it if the Republicans amend it to give breaks to the rich. That will make them look even worse if they amend it or try to block it. He can also introduce a bill lowering taxes on capital gains and dividends on those with a certain income or below. Same situation. Are they going to block that? Very bad optics to do so. And either way it helps the Democrats.

I would argue, though, that he should cut a deal and not push them like that, because it will make it even harder to get anything else done for the rest of his term.

Let's pretend that's all true. That still doesn't do anything toward fixing the structural deficit problem that's almost entirely entitlement program related. He needs to start fixing problems, not continuing to campaign. He won the election, he has one term left and than that's it. There's no re-election for him after that. FIX PROBLEMS.

[Shady]

Not in the face of the current world reality. You should really stick to issues that you know about....although I'm not sure which issues those are.

Complete nonsense. America's economy is the largest in the world, and with the right economic and monetary policy, the American economic engine could be revitalized in a very short period of time. But the biggest obstacle for it's turnaround is Obama's bad economic policies. Obamacare is nothing like our health care system. It's a monstrosity of legislation that has so many unintended consequences, especially for businesses and job growth, that it acts as a giant wet blanket over the whole economy. Add in his EPA restricting energy production on newly found oil and natural gas reserves, so large that America could actually become energy independent within a few short years. And you get what we've got. Very small, tepid growth, minimal job creation, and a type of malaise not seen since the 70s. You need to get your head out of your butt, and realize that Obama's policies are almost all the exact opposite of our current federal government's policies.

[Smallc]

Complete nonsense.

More of your economic genius?

This isn't the past. Asia and Europe are as large as the US, and both are doing terrible. There's nothing Obama can do about that.

[punked]

More of your economic genius?

This isn't the past. Asia and Europe are as large as the US, and both are doing terrible. There's nothing Obama can do about that.

An in Europe they are doing so poorly because people like Shady are in charge demanding blood from a stone with out any tax increases. His economic policies are what is killing us right now and he just wants more and more of it. Some men just like to watch the world burn.

[TimG]

An in Europe they are doing so poorly because people like Shady are in charge demanding blood from a stone with out any tax increases.

No one is telling Europeans not to increase taxes. Also the Greeks, Spanish, etc are up the creek because they spent endless sums on various social programs that they could not afford. If fixing the problem makes things worse in the short term the blame rests *entirely* with the people like you who that think that the solution to any problem requires that the government spend money.

What I find most laughable about the POV you express because it presumes that the Greeks have a choice when it comes to austerity. Who exactly is going to lend them money to keep them afloat if they did not dismantle their welfare state? You? Would you buy Greek bonds if they made no effort to change? If not why not?

Edited November 16, 2012 by TimG

[punked]

No one is telling Europeans not to increase taxes. Also the Greeks, Spanish, etc are up the creek because they spent endless sums on various social programs that they could not afford. If fixing the problem makes things worse in the short term the blame rests *entirely* with the people like you who that think that the solution to any problem requires that the government spend money.

You don't even know what you are talking about. Spain's problem has nothing to do with social programs they were running budget surpluses and had fairly low debt until they had to nationalize their banks debts which lead to run away unemployment as a huge housing bubble crashed. Take your head out of the sand.

[cybercoma]

You don't even know what you are talking about. Spain's problem has nothing to do with social programs they were running budget surpluses and had fairly low debt until they had to nationalize their banks debts which lead to run away unemployment as a huge housing bubble crashed. Take your head out of the sand.

And besides, if social programs are a problem, how come the countries with the most social program (ie, Norway) aren't in a mess?

[TimG]

And besides, if social programs are a problem, how come the countries with the most social program (ie, Norway) aren't in a mess?

If you make 200K a year and buy a Porche then no problem. If you make 20K a year and buy a Porche then you will have big problems. It is called living within their means.

[bush_cheney2004]

Norway has a population of only about 5 million, a very regressive tax structure, and is not very diverse. What a paradise.

http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/07/the_norwegian_miracle.html

[dre]

No one is telling Europeans not to increase taxes. Also the Greeks, Spanish, etc are up the creek because they spent endless sums on various social programs that they could not afford.

None of that is entirely true. Spain had a garden variety banking crisis caused by a fake property boom driven by interest rates that were too low. Quite similar to what happened to the US actually. Greece had the strongest economy in europe, and the reason they got into trouble was because the global recession hit them harder than anyone else because of their heavy reliance on shipping and tourism.

[Bonam]

Greece had the strongest economy in europe

Cite?

[Moonlight Graham]

[sharkman]

The "fiscal cliff" is unlikely to cause a recession. But regardless, the Republicans really have no decent cards to play here. Obama can get pretty much all he needs simply by waiting until the tax cuts expire, then proposing his own tax cuts. He can negotiate with the Republicans right up to the end, and portray them as intransigent lackeys of the rich, and let all the cuts in spending and increases in taxes kick in.

Then on January two, he puts a bill before congress calling for tax cuts for the middle class. Are the Republicans going to turn it down? Turn down tax cuts for the bulk of the middle class? They might try to amend it to extend that to the rich, but that has terrible optics, and he will certainly announce from the start that his bill is only for the middle class, and he will veto it if the Republicans amend it to give breaks to the rich. That will make them look even worse if they amend it or try to block it. He can also introduce a bill lowering taxes on capital gains and dividends on those with a certain income or below. Same situation. Are they going to block that? Very bad optics to do so. And either way it helps the Democrats.

I would argue, though, that he should cut a deal and not push them like that, because it will make it even harder to get anything else done for the rest of his term.

That makes some sense and explains why Obama seems content to fix blame instead of the problem.

[dre]

Cite?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Greece

After 2000 Greek GDP grew at an average of well over 4% with more than 5.9% growth in 2003, and 5.5% in 2006 easily outpacing most of the EU. Things looked good there and foreign investors were flocking to Greece until the global economic catastrophuck.

Greece saw high levels of GDP growth above the Eurozone average^[30] peaking at 5.9% in 2003 and 5.5% in 2006. Due to the late-2000s financial crisis and the European sovereign debt crisis, the Greek economy saw growth rates of −7.1% in 2011

Prior to the global recession Greece was one of the fastest growing economies in Europe and had a higher growth in industrial output that all 27 EU member states.

[Bonam]

http://en.wikipedia....onomy_of_Greece

After 2000 Greek GDP grew at an average of well over 4% with more than 5.9% growth in 2003, and 5.5% in 2006 easily outpacing most of the EU. Things looked good there and foreign investors were flocking to Greece until the global economic catastrophuck.

"Above the average" doesn't make it "the strongest". There were I'm sure other nations above the average. Also, growth is not the only measure of the "strength" of an economy, an economy's resilience to unexpected circumstances should be counted as part of its "strength". Further, during this same period, starting in about 2004, greek debt was rising compared to the rest of the EU, which was working itself out of the debt hole.

[cybercoma]

That makes some sense and explains why Obama seems content to fix blame instead of the problem.

So the person that has made the offers time and again to fix the problem, is not fixing the problem. Meanwhile, the people who are ignoring those offers and saying "it's our way or the highway" are?

[dre]

"Above the average" doesn't make it "the strongest". There were I'm sure other nations above the average. Also, growth is not the only measure of the "strength" of an economy, an economy's resilience to unexpected circumstances should be counted as part of its "strength". Further, during this same period, starting in about 2004, greek debt was rising compared to the rest of the EU, which was working itself out of the debt hole.

Like I said, they were particular vulnerable the global financial crisis because of their reliance on the shipping industry and tourism, so they were hit much harder. And the reason they had a sovereign debt crisis is because they gave up control of their currency and suffered interest rates that were way to low for their economy.

In any case the whole "lazy greeks" meme is pure unadulterated BS.

Edited November 16, 2012 by dre

[Bonam]

Like I said, they were particular vulnerable the global financial crisis because of their reliance on the shipping industry and tourism, so they were hit much harder. And the reason they had a sovereign debt crisis is because they gave up control of their currency and suffered interest rates that were way to low for their economy.

That's all well and good, my point was that it is a severe mischaracterization to say that the Greek economy was "the strongest" in the EU prior to the crisis. That is illustrated by its mounting debt and its lack of resilience to a downturn, among other things.

Edited November 16, 2012 by Bonam

[bush_cheney2004]

Greece isn't/wasn't the strongest anything except for endemic tax evasion. Even tiny Latvia had better growth rates and survived the crunch better than did Greece.