So what difference do you all think he will make?

[aronsearle]

Not that I like the democrats, but as it is it may be for the best. Look at the EU - more gov't power, more funding, and the recession is less severe despite countries' economies being smaller and more dependent on the exports that are decreasing by day.

But larger government can also get you into more debt, and deeper into the hole instead of out of it (cough cough UK), I don’t see any evidence to show whether a big or small government is better at dealing with recessions. I am not into American history, but I have heard several comments from people who are that say the great depression could have been solved quicker if it wasn’t for certain government programmes or interventions.

As for your Minessota example, I think that it's either a bad example or you are getting it backwards. Social programs are exactly that - some people paying taxes so that others can benefit.

There is charity and there are social programs. If it doesn’t directly benefit me, it is charity, the government isn’t there to force charity.

Sure the metro example could benefit you, but it’s also a good example of flimsy justification for a social programming. The metro might benefit an area 100s of miles away, as the extra business it might allow could trickle down, but then surely if it creates extra business it could be self funding?

Far far to many companies these days go running to the government for money when they get into trouble, or go looking for government money for various research or construction projects, money that they could get through private means, but of course if the government is offering a free meal……

That is the very real threat of local money being used for non local projects, it gets spent on projects that don’t benefit the locals a great deal, and it could be funded privately or by the people it does benefit, but often isn’t simply because the money is there.

Governments are great at spending money, simply because they have the money to spend.

The rich pay so that the poor can have unemployment payments, the healthy pay so that the unhealthy can have medical treatment. It all comes around and is necessary to get economy going - if only those who needed the benefits would pay for welfare, the economy would stagnate.

I’m not sure I agree with your stance that paying benefits to the unemployed helps the economy, not that I disagree with some level of benefits.

As for gay marriage, it's a grey area, although not like the issue has any importance other than the social and the moral argument. I don't think politics should be mixed in. From an efficiency stand point (this will sound wrong but...) there is enough reason for gov't to oppose same-sex marriage because those to-be families are "dead branches" and do not contribute to country's well-being because they are unable to produce offspring.

The 2 words you are looking for are “Social engineering”.

 

[CriticalCheck]

I massive because I'd be pumping another 40 bucks a week into the bank. That would be $2240 dollars a year before figuring compound interest.

So you would in a minimum government interference economy trust the banks with your money? I mean, seeing how good they have been with peoples money recently.

I'm going to reply to this first off. The banks have been doing poor because of bad loan decisions and bad practice. They were running it like they had the option to bailout when they sunk their profits. They were giving out loans that would make them lots of money up front then they sold the debt down the line to another agency. Who sold that debt down the line. Eventually no one wanted to buy it. They got stuck with the initial bad decisions and stupid purchases that the buck got passed on.

In a small government world I WOULD trust the banks because they would be ran like a company. They would be ran by responsible business people who understand how to properly take care of the people they offer a service too. If at any time one bank showed that it was incompetent of keeping it's promise I would move it to a bank that was ran properly.

I'm going to kill the "everyone would have to be perfect for this to work" argument before it comes up. If someone isn't doing their job you get rid of them. Or you move your business somewhere else. If you aren't smart enough or motivated enough to research who you are doing business with you are at fault. Know what you are getting into.

The banks were stupid for giving out loans people couldn't pay for. The people were stupid for getting loans they couldn't pay for. I'm getting ready to invest in a 401k and my nest egg like mad. I'm excited for this time of my life. I'm young and responsible.

CriticalCheck

The traditional American "small government" approach you described has worked for years but is also known for its weaknesses during recessions. In the current economic crisis having a democratic government could as well be a good thing - to cushion the fall a bit, and to control the resources better. Government spending and government control need to both increase to effectively deal with a recession.

I could argue that the small government situation would fuel greater amounts of contest between companies and create a race to reduce scarcity on things. As well as create the need for people to rely on good business practice instead of a plan B government bailout. Reducing the chance of a recession. But then we would be splitting hairs.

I will however rebuttal with something that seems a little more real world. Do you know about the airlines in America? They are a leech on the government. More spending by the government may cushion us, possibly, but at the same time the recovery wont be significant. They can bailout and buy all they want. It's just going to postpone the issue that Americans are wasteful.

CriticalCheck

As for your Minessota example, I think that it's either a bad example or you are getting it backwards. Social programs are exactly that - some people paying taxes so that others can benefit. The rich pay so that the poor can have unemployment payments, the healthy pay so that the unhealthy can have medical treatment. It all comes around and is necessary to get economy going - if only those who needed the benefits would pay for welfare, the economy would stagnate. You are looking at things in too much of a close-up perspective. The light rail system may come back to benefit you eventually - without you realizing it. There is more than just the direct benefits.

My point is that the metro area with a population of 2,367,200 could probably privately raise the money for the light rail system. It isn't a bad example. My point is that it shouldn't be a state expense. Even if a train line that doesn't even get to the town I live in happens to benefit my area, which is slightly plausible, I don't see how it will benefit the rest of the state. It's a pathetic use of state money. Roadways across the state could use some repair. But the road tax is going to a light rail commuter line.

Also I would like to point out that if the rich weren't stuck paying for poor people to be unproductive they could expand business and hire them. Again lets not jump into the "Everyone has to be perfect" argument. Some companies WILL have frivolous spending habits. But they wont do so hot anyways. Without the government to bail them out they will either correct their ways of spending or go under. Leaving a gap for a well ran competitor to step in and expand. Thus recreating the lost jobs. Free market system at it's finest.

 

[fedaykin]

The banks have been doing poor because of bad loan decisions and bad practice. They were running it like they had the option to bailout when they sunk their profits. They were giving out loans that would make them lots of money up front then they sold the debt down the line to another agency. Who sold that debt down the line. Eventually no one wanted to buy it. They got stuck with the initial bad decisions and stupid purchases that the buck got passed on.

And the reason that happened was because of lax regulations. Which brings up the "everyone would have to be perfect for this to work" argument again, which you so cleverly pushed aside. Apparently, it wasn't some banks that were run badly. It was a lot of them. A surprising number of people were imperfect. And this is the weak side of the free market system - it doesn't work as well in practice as it does on paper. There needs to be a compromise between government oversight and freedom.

 

[CriticalCheck]

I didn't so cleverly put it aside. I logically set it aside. The error ISN'T in the market. It is in the people that are holding the power over those banks. Do you think that people would be so reckless if they were truly held to standards? What was the repercussion for all of their bad business behaviors? Some bailouts. Some slaps on the hands. Naughty naughty.

It isn't a matter of everyone would have to be perfect. It's a matter of if we actually took time to consider and read what we are getting into we'd be able to more correctly guide ourselves. The bottom of the housing market falling out didn't have to happen. People could have explored the contract and realized that in 2 years 800 dollars a month was going to turn into 2,200 a month and they wouldn't be able to both own the house and feed themselves.

Should government control be increased because people are stupid enough to accept something without exploring what it means? No! Because if the people dug into the situations they would have avoided those contracts. The banks would have been forced to stop outrageous dealings or go under. Period. Because one of the laws that I do very much love is that it's not like it's chaos. They have to tell you the conditions that you are going to be involved with. They have to have the information for you. If you don't look into it or consider what it could mean shame on both parties involved in the shady transaction.

 

[Ausdoerrt]

The unemployment benefits exist to provide people time and opportunity to look for new jobs. Imagine the crazy fluctuations in life standards if you had none. Also, imagine the psychological costs of unemployment for people had there been to benefits.

Also I would like to point out that if the rich weren't stuck paying for poor people to be unproductive they could expand business and hire them.

I see two things wrong with the statement. First, most people who are unemployed don't choose to be unemployed, unless it's frictional. The poor people particularly, want to work, because as income goes down the value of leisure goes down and the value of work goes up. I think you have your idea of unemployment benefits backwards. Much rather than "wasting" money, it's a form of redistribution, and it basically funnels the money straight back into the economy. The welfare is there to ensure that the unemployed people can remain productive with as little cost as possible.

Second of all, you pretty much suggest that we go back to the "free market" approach. It doesn't work well for recessions - and welfare, minor inflation and higher taxes is a price to pay for smaller recessions. Compare the GDP fluctuations before and after WWII. And also think back to the Great Depression, and how the free market approach failed to solve it.

You are free to state that the free market is perfect, but then you'd be dismissing the last 70 years of studies in Economics.

Apparently, it wasn't some banks that were run badly. It was a lot of them.

Yup, if you read newspapers, you'd notice it's basically some of the biggest and strongest banks in the country that are going down. The government has no choice but to find a way to keep them in place, otherwise the entire economy goes "boom".

Same goes for the airlines example. Sure, all the government can do is cushion the fall and hope to buy enough time for the industry to recover. Alternatively, it can nationalize the infrastructure, but that is last thing they'd do, only if cornered. Consider the opposite - you do not "bail out" the airlines, most companies go bankrupt and the few that are left raise the prices to the extreme because demand exceeds supply manyfold, and still end up with shortage of service because of lack of resources. This certainly does not look very helpful for the economy.

 

[CriticalCheck]

First off I didn't say we should entirely remove unemployment. I'm saying that we should localize it. We should put the problem in the hands of the government facility closest to the problem. A person might need unemployment and I know that. But handling that on a national level is wasteful. If you need me to state reasons why I'll just list the most obvious. Government administration.

I'm just going to reiterate the fact that the banks may have been corrupt but all the bad loan decisions they made were shown to customers. The customers weren't corrupt. Chances are they weren't out to default on a home loan and get in financial shit up to their eyeballs. But it also seems like these people didn't care if they would have the means to pay for their home or not because they didn't research their own decision.

I know that business can be ran corruptly. I'm not denying that. But it would be a million times easier to tell people WATCH WHAT YOU ARE DOING! EDUCATE YOURSELF ON YOUR SITUATION! than to try and weed out and remove corrupt business people. If people would educate themselves they would have taken so much business away from the banks that they would have to find a new way to conduct business, a more customer friendly one, or sink.

Because people are greedy and want to run business corrupt, and people are stupid and don't read and consider what everything means, Americans tax dollars are paying to keep us from sinking.

 

[fedaykin]

So your argument, once again, boils down to "people have to be smarter". Newsflash: people are stupid, and they are not going to become smarter. For your free market delusion to work, most people would have to be perfect - which isn't going to happen. And that's why there needs to be some regulation by government.

 

[CriticalCheck]

My point is that people should want to be smarter! If you explained to a person just one time in detail what can happen face to face they would start to care. They wouldn't just sign a contract without finding out what all the terms and numbers mean.

I just don't understand why you want to hand something over to the government that the people could handle if we just made them more responsible for it. The banks put all the terms and all the fancy numbers on the contract. All it would have taken is them asking someone exactly what that means.

My argument isn't one that requires a utopia. It's one that is just logical. I dedicate so much of my life to learning about an issue, finding the most logical conclusion that I can, and then talking to family, friends, or just random people about exactly what that means for everyone. People want to spread knowledge. I tell people the contract thing from time to time and they go "Oh yeah! Good point!" and I bet 90% of them actually consider what I said next time they are trying to swim through a word contract that high priced lawyers had their hands on.

 

[Ausdoerrt]

People as a collective intelligence are stupid. REALLY stupid, and you can't change that. So "you have to be smarter", for one, is not a proper argument.

Also, just like I said, you pretty much try to deny that the last 70 years of economics never happened. It's the evil business people's fault? Well, not so evil, they are acting naturally to maximize their profits. Like, would you call a customer who looks for sales and travels between stores to find lower prices "greedy"? The unanticipated recession caught everyone off guard, so claiming that it's some kind of conspiracy on the part of the higher-ups is honestly ridiculous.

The examples with "no unemployment" were extremes I used to prove my point. With your suggestion, it would be still valid, but on a smaller scale. Still not very health for the country.

And also, I'd LOVE to hear exactly how one "weeds out" all the corrupt people, even assuming they do exist in the numbers you claim they do.

 

[Ravager69]

This is still the Obama thread, right?

I highly doubt in the sense of trying to guess what will a dude that I've never met do on the other side of the globe. He seems like a good fella and I will wait a year before making any kind of judgement on him.

This thread is more a fuel for a flame war than anything of use BTW.

 

[CriticalCheck]

First off people ARE stupid. You CAN change it. Saying you can't just tells me you don't have the tools to do it yourself. But some people in the world do have the tools and do try very hard.

I never said that the last 70 years didn't happen. I'm not debating the past in any way. I also never said that the people are "evil" and I didn't blame it on the people running the company. I SPLIT the blame between the people who had the sketchy practices and the people who blindly signed up to be part of that.

Did I use the words conspiracy, or did I blame it all on the higher ups? Also when did I claim that these people existed in such huge numbers? I haven't mentioned a specific anything. Most of what we are talking about is hypothetical. I'm saying in the situation that something is sketchy a person has the ability to find the details they need and make an informed decision.

By weeding out the corrupt business people I mean if a practice is sketchy people wont sign up for it. Not that we have to get our pitch forks and torches.

Finally I'll just give you the most simple way to help improve the intelligence of the masses. Give them the tools they need to BE intelligent. "You need to be careful while getting into a contract" doesn't mean anything. You have to inform them of just what that means.

"You need to be careful while getting into a contract."
"The contracts can have certain terms that may be beyond your means."
"Check all the terms and do math or ask questions to someone who understands the terms better than you do."
"Doing this can help you avoid you not being able to uphold your end of the contract."

Suddenly that person has more knowledge. That person has the understanding to make sure they don't get in over their head. So "You need to be careful" wasn't enough for them. Outlining it makes it enough for them. Many people are not intelligent enough to think of simple things like that. That doesn't mean that we should just let them roam around that way.

I work in tele-fundraising. The example about explaining things is very important for getting your point across to someone. Step them through it. My favorite generic example is;
"The car is red."
"You like red cars."
"You would like this car."
Helping people connect the dots to something with small steps is easier then expecting them to find a solution on their own. Also it's easier to use the small steps to make sure that someone is following you. When I try to tell someone something if they don't understand what I mean with my talking. If they don't connect the dots. I connect them for them one sentence at a time. Not just a very important thing for the job but also when talking to people day to day.

Oh and Ravager69 I haven't seen any flaming. Plenty of debate. But politics is often a very heated subject. I think we are all mature enough to keep it clean.

 

[fedaykin]

First off people ARE stupid. You CAN change it. Saying you can't just tells me you don't have the tools to do it yourself. But some people in the world do have the tools and do try very hard.

And what are those tools? How can we change it? Oh, that's right. Education. How can we provide it on a massive scale? Through government funding, which comes from taxes.

Finally I'll just give you the most simple way to help improve the intelligence of the masses. Give them the tools they need to BE intelligent.

If by tools you mean guidelines, see what I wrote above. If you mean more money in the form of a smaller tax burden, it would not work. An increased income does not serve as incentive for further education.

Many people are not intelligent enough to think of simple things like that. That doesn't mean that we should just let them roam around that way.

Indeed. And because it's impossible to look after every single person's financial decisions, the government needs to set rules which banks should follow when giving out loans, selling debt etc.

I work in tele-fundraising.

Great. You talk people into giving you money by annoying them. That sure gives you extra credibility points .

 

[CriticalCheck]

Why is it the things I'm saying don't correlate at all to the things you are responding with at all? I didn't SAY that more money for teachers would be an incentive for education. Holding them accountable for creating quality students would. Do your job or don't have it.

I never said there should be NO government. I've been saying SMALLER government. Put it in the hands of the people RIGHT in the community. Make the issues in your community the responsibility of your community.

Here is a GREAT example of misused money. A school gets money from the state from the beautification fund. They can't spend that on computers which they need. They can't spend it on text books. So they spend it on a giant marble statue or a fancy sign. Because they have to use the money or it goes away. Honestly does a schools educational ability increase because they now have a marble statue? No. But the money spent on that came from somewhere.

I wouldn't even have a problem with state ran education apposed to national. But it seems that the administration on the state level are too lazy to actually make good financial decisions about which schools require the use of what money.

Let me just lay this out real fast and easy for you to understand so that you stop confusing what I'm saying.

I'm conservative. That means better money management. Higher accountability for actions. Small local government having more say for local areas over big federal government. I do believe the Federal government has a place but it's not at the top of the food chain.

I'm NOT an anarchist. Some of my views may cross into libertarianism but I do not believe in the abolition of government. I just think that the focus is far too much on big government having big control.

The government DOES have rules. Didn't you catch the part where I said I LOVE the laws that require the terms to be outlined for the person? Guess what, that law WAS in effect when all of these bad loan decisions were made. So what is the excuse? What is the reason people signed up for these? The government had the laws! The terms were right there for them to read all about.

I'm not sure if it's post count over me that gives you the right to insult me. Just in case that is the hierarchy of NMA I'll keep my civility with you. But just let it be known that a personal attack is hardly the behavior I expected from this discussion.

People NEED to be helf accountable for their actions. Teachers need to be held accountable for education. Business people need to be held responsible for their actions. Government officials have to be accountable for the things they do in office.

 

[Ausdoerrt]

I simply meant that you choose to ignore 70 years of economic studies by advocating free market. It doesn't work. Nor does your theory of corrupt conspiracy (I'm exaggerating) have much credibility.

 

[CriticalCheck]

I didn't say that the world or the market should be lawless. There are some laws there that are great. My point is simply that people need to realize even with laws the real world is still dangerous. But let's shift gears from that part. Because what I'm saying isn't going to make sense without optimism.

 

[Brother None]

My point is that people should want to be smarter! If you explained to a person just one time in detail what can happen face to face they would start to care. They wouldn't just sign a contract without finding out what all the terms and numbers mean.

Huh?

I don't think you understand why the heads of the banks did what they did. It had nothing to do with feeling they had a safety net, it had to do with feeling they had no reason to care; any CEO is usually only at a company for a couple of years. In those couple of years, he can either set up long-term policy for steady growth and a healthy company, or set up short-term unwise policies that make the stock go up fast but unsteadily. There's nothing corrupt about picking the latter, in fact it is good business sense. It means direct wealth for you and for the stockholders, our entire system of pay, bonuses and stocks is set up to encourage CEOs to do exactly that. And it is and can be set up like that because everyone collectively refused to regulate the financial market.

Why? Because they stubbornly refused to completely let go of free market thinking. Absolute free market has shown itself not to work. Any pragmatic person can see that, neo-liberalism for that reason is not a pragmatic attitude, it's an ideology, and like other ideologies (communism) it floats under pressure, and will sink at the first sign of trouble. We've seen signs before that neo-liberalism doesn't work, either by the spectacular failure of Tricklenomics under Reagan and the Bush's, or the hardship of Thatcherian economic policy. This financial crisis should be the last sign and to many it is, many realise that you can now either hold on to your ideology in spite of facts or admit that free market thinking is bankrupt. There's not much else to pick from.

I just don't understand why you want to hand something over to the government that the people could handle if we just made them more responsible for it.

Because the government aren't the people? That's a false dichotomy.

But larger government can also get you into more debt, and deeper into the hole instead of out of it

I'm sorry, but lol. You just invalidated your own argument. No country has striven for small government as much as the US has consistently for 20 years - even the Clinton administration was barely a break in that. No country has accrued a debt as massively or run national fiscal policy as badly as the US (well, except some corrupt African countries I guess). Over those 20 years of striving for small government and being led by "fiscal conservatives", you've quadrupled your national debt

Well would be interesting to know who the right person would be in your opinion.

As a historian I hate that question too. Because we don't really know. No matter how much history you analyse, it is hard to say because so much happens independently of great minds. Like, I dunno, the way the Civil War was not initially about the abolition of slavery but became so simply by lasting longer than it should, and that Lincoln would have been "fine" with just quarantining instead of abolishing slavery had the option existed.

It's easier to say when someone is wrong than when someone is right; Herbert Hoover was wrong because he was too inactive in mindset to actively battle the recession. In Cold War politics, Kennedy was wrong because he was too belligerent for the frail world-balance that existed. Nixon was right because he was the opposite of Kennedy, and Reagan was right because he had the same mindset as Kennedy but at a more appropriate time.

On the outside, Obama looks wrong because of the times. Because he's neither a reformer nor a conservative, and the US needs either one. He talks like a reformer, but for all his career he hasn't acted like one. If he does reform, then yes, maybe he'll turn out to be the right guy, but as it is, he's too halfway between nowhere, and that's the worst kind of guy...

 

[CriticalCheck]

Brother None, your response is a clever one but it dismisses everything I've said. It looks strictly at the fact that I'm supporting free market. But it skips entirely what I said about holding people accountable.

Maybe it's just that the general public is ignorant enough to not realize they are stupid? It's pathetic for this to be an acceptable situation. I advocate the free market because I also advocate personal responsibility. I wish I could figure out how to explain it in a way you could understand.

Also the Clinton administration only had a democratic majority in the house and senate for the first 2 years of his presidency. Speaker of the house Newt Gingrich spearheaded the 1994 Republican Revolution which took the house and senate from liberal control. For the next 6 years Clinton was receiving bills from conservative advocates of small government apposed to a democratic majority. Just so you know a little more about Clinton's presidency.

 

[Brother None]

But it skips entirely what I said about holding people accountable.

Ok. How? Accountability is not just a measure of social consciousness, though it begins there (that is the foundation of the modern nation-state), but accountability can only be executed by going outside the sphere of personal responsibility. The state, as far as I know, is the most efficient means of execution we have for this.

Deregulation to encourage personal responsibility actually doesn't work, or rather it only works in sphere where personal responsibility results in the greater good because it is the most rational path. For a bank CEO, creating a stable company in the short time he's there is not the most rational path. For stock-holders, worrying about long-term stability instead of making a profit by pumping up the stock and them dumping it is not the most rational path.

Also the Clinton administration only had a democratic majority in the house and senate for the first 2 years of his presidency.

I know. That's what I meant by saying his administration is not as aberrant as most people think it is in the 20-year period from Reagan to Bush jr. I'm not sure why you think I wouldn't know that, I study American history (and politics) at university level.

 

[CriticalCheck]

I'm not promoting deregulation. I don't see why people keep telling me I am calling for deregulation. I believe that

1) Social programs aren't the answer to all of our problems.

2) Regulation in free market is acceptable but at the same time we can't expect the federal government to baby sit people as they do things. The people have to keep an eye open for things that aren't to their benefit.

3) If people would have been more cautious the banking situation would have been less of an issue. People NOT just business practices caused the problem.

I think that the republican party is lacking true conservatives at this point. I also feel that the people of the United States don't know how to be very responsible with money themselves.

Let me just lay it out step by step. I feel the democrats will give you a fish every time you are hungry. I feel the republicans believe in teaching you how to fish and putting you in charge of yourself. I believe that if every person is given the tools to be independent they wont feel like they need to be looked after.

Maybe I am expecting to much of the world. I'd rather expect too much of every single person than agree to being baby sat by a government. Freedom is independence. Disagree with that all you want. While some regulation is needed I don't think people should count on it.

Finally, Brother None, I'm sorry that I misunderstood what you were trying to get across. I was just making sure to state a fact that I thought you were over looking.

 

[DammitBoy]

I predict nothing will change.