US Politics: the Lying Liars Who Lie edtion

[LongRider]

And there is this cannidate for Gov:

Quote

Kris Kobach, Brownback’s secretary of state who was once thought likely to join the Trump administration, entered the contest this week and is decrying the new tax increase. “It is time to drain the swamp in Topeka,” he wrote on Twitter on Wednesday, borrowing a phrase from President Trump.

O_o Kansas, this means your own personal kleptocracy if you vote this yahoo in.  Watch out, things could get much worse. 

[Paladin of Ice]

11 minutes ago, Nasty LongRider said:

Here's a real gem from the article posted above:

in other words, 'they ain't conservative enough' and the 'the cut taxes policy didn't fail, it was failed by those moderate RINO's'                           

Supply side economics will never fail, even though it fails every single time someone tries to implement it. It will only ever be failed by those damn dirty RINOs.

[LongRider]

11 minutes ago, Paladin of Ice said:

Supply side economics will never fail, even though it fails every single time someone tries to implement it. It will only ever be failed by those damn dirty RINOs.

Supply side economics is perfection and to reach perfection is a difficult thing.  Only the pure in dogmatic ideology with true hate for those humans who aren't in their privileged classes will reach perfection.  Only the ones pure in their tiny little black hearts and devoted to the cause will ever, ever reach the true supply side mountain top.

The rest are just RINO wannabe's who keep messing up the program and embarrassing their betters.  

[Zorral]

12 hours ago, OldGimletEye said:

Roosevelt (and Eleanor too who was a wonderful person I think) is a hero of mine. But, they're can be little doubt that the New Deal worked largely for the benefit of white men. In my view, a significant reason why the New Deal coalition came flyin' apart in the 1960s was because liberals started to say, "You know, the ethical thing to do here is to share the 'socialism' with women and minorities".

Yah -- I think you make an essential point here, alas.  Corollary with why they hadn't been included in the first place, because FDR would never have been able to get the social safety net components of the New Deal past the southern -- and probably, alas, a majority of northern, congress critters either if they'd been included.

[Cas Stark]

Conservatives say the same about modern Keynesian policies....things fail because not enough money was spent, just ask Krugman, LOL.

 

[OldGimletEye]

40 minutes ago, Cas Stark said:

Conservatives say the same about modern Keynesian policies....things fail because not enough money was spent, just ask Krugman, LOL.

 

Conservatives can try. But, their false equivalency bullshit here, fails epically.
There is plenty evidence that multipliers were over 1 during the last recession. And Krugman's predictions about inflation and so forth turned out largely to be correct, over say clowns working in a RBC model.
Anyway, just a couple of questions for you. Methodologically, do you believe prices are sticky? Do you believe in Walrasian market clearing? If you believe that prices are not sticky and Walrasian market clearing is true, you might have a point. 

When you are at the ZLB condition, your suggestion is to do what?

If conservative clowns had bother to read Krugman's 1998 liquidity trap paper, they might have not been around saying such stupid things in 2010 and being wrong.

And no most Keynesian's don't always go around saying that fiscal spending should be increased all the time and under all conditions. It's apparent you are trying to do a false equivalency here and it's not working.

In short, I'm callin' bullshit here.

[James Arryn]

Kind of OT, but I've never been part of a forum where the 'liberal' or 'left-wing' view wasn't the clear majority opinion, and I don't think the board themes are clearly left-leaning. Do you have to go to boards specific to conservative politics/issues (say guns or the like) to find that view the majority?

 

[Zorral]

37 minutes ago, James Arryn said:

Kind of OT, but I've never been part of a forum where the 'liberal' or 'left-wing' view wasn't the clear majority opinion, and I don't think the board themes are clearly left-leaning. Do you have to go to boards specific to conservative politics/issues (say guns or the like) to find that view the majority?

 

Whatever your question is, it is unclear from your text.  Are you stating that on alt right ideology forums the other commentators share your opinions?

 

[drawkcabi]

50 minutes ago, James Arryn said:

Kind of OT, but I've never been part of a forum where the 'liberal' or 'left-wing' view wasn't the clear majority opinion, and I don't think the board themes are clearly left-leaning. Do you have to go to boards specific to conservative politics/issues (say guns or the like) to find that view the majority?

 

Actually, you could go to porn forum...

Whatever that says about conservative policies  

You still have your left/progressive/liberal faction there but the rightwing side is just as strong if not stonger.

[Kalbear]

53 minutes ago, James Arryn said:

Kind of OT, but I've never been part of a forum where the 'liberal' or 'left-wing' view wasn't the clear majority opinion, and I don't think the board themes are clearly left-leaning. Do you have to go to boards specific to conservative politics/issues (say guns or the like) to find that view the majority?

 

Largely, yes. The kinds of people who routinely communicate in forums are not the kinds of people that tend to lean conservative, at least not any more. 

[Cas Stark]

1 hour ago, OldGimletEye said:

Conservatives can try. But, their false equivalency bullshit here, fails epically.
There is plenty evidence that multipliers were over 1 during the last recession. And Krugman's predictions about inflation and so forth turned out largely to be correct, over say clowns working in a RBC model.
Anyway, just a couple of questions for you. Methodologically, do you believe prices are sticky? Do you believe in Walrasian market clearing? If you believe that prices are not sticky and Walrasian market clearing is true, you might have a point. 

When you are at the ZLB condition, your suggestion is to do what?

If conservative clowns had bother to read Krugman's 1998 liquidity trap paper, they might have not been around saying such stupid things in 2010 and being wrong.

And no most Keynesian's don't always go around saying that fiscal spending should be increased all the time and under all conditions. It's apparent you are trying to do a false equivalency here and it's not working.

In short, I'm callin' bullshit here.

There is nothing to 'call bullshit' on here.  Everyone here is so defensive when there is the slightest challenge, or not even a challenge, just a statement that doesn't align with conservatives and everything they say, believe in or do is awful.

It's an objective fact that conservatives criticize Keynesian economics in the same way you criticize conservative economic policies.  It's also an objective fact that Krugman absolutely did say on many, many occasions that the 09 stimulus wasn't successful because it was too small.

 

[OldGimletEye]

39 minutes ago, Cas Stark said:

There is nothing to 'call bullshit' on here.  Everyone here is so defensive when there is the slightest challenge, or not even a challenge, just a statement that doesn't align with conservatives and everything they say, believe in or do is awful.

It's an objective fact that conservatives criticize Keynesian economics in the same way you criticize conservative economic policies.  It's also an objective fact that Krugman absolutely did say on many, many occasions that the 09 stimulus wasn't successful because it was too small.

 

It may be an objective fact that conservatives criticize Keynesian economics.

But, it is also an objective fact that conservatives were wrong in the criticism and were bleating out nonsense.

You know, when their predicted inflation didn't materialize, that should have made them rethink the model they were working in.

Krugman did say the stimulus was too small. So did others. And they were right. When the FED is easing interest rates and is willing to accommodate the fiscal spending, fiscal stimulus can prove to be very powerful indeed. There was a reason why Bernanke was asking Congress for additional fiscal support.

To the extent, you were trying to do an equivalency here, you were not successful in pulling it off.

By the way, just in case you were confused about how Ronnie (or any other conservative) did it. Here:

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/FEDFUNDS

Notice the center of the graph. And then take a look at the right hand side.

I think you're working under the assumption that both sides should be equally wrong or it isn't fair or something. It doesn't work like that.

[Cas Stark]

16 minutes ago, OldGimletEye said:

It may be an objective fact that conservatives criticize Keynesian economics.

But, it is also an objective fact that conservatives were wrong in the criticism and were bleating out nonsense.

You know, when their predicted inflation didn't materialize, that should have made them rethink the model they were working in.

Krugman did say the stimulus was too small. So did others. And they were right. When the FED is easing interest rates and is willing to accommodate the fiscal spending, fiscal stimulus can prove to be very powerful indeed. There was a reason why Bernanke was asking Congress for additional fiscal support.

To the extent, you were trying to do an equivalency here, you were not successful in pulling it off.

By the way, just in case you were confused about how Ronnie (or any other conservative) did it. Here:

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/FEDFUNDS

Notice the center of the graph. And then take a look at the right hand side.

I think you're working under the assumption that both sides should be equally wrong or it isn't fair or something. It doesn't work like that.

You make it sound like economics is something that exists in black and white, but it doesn't, obviously, if the correct/optimal economic policy were as easy to determine as you seem to think it is, every country would embrace this obviously correct economic policy and we would be living in a world where almost everyone is prosperous.  

My assumption is that both sides have flaws in their various theories and that, as they say, the proof is in the pudding, results are what matter, not intentions or theory, or 'the other guy is less wrong than my guy so I must be right' type of attitudes.

[James Arryn]

22 minutes ago, Cas Stark said:

You make it sound like economics is something that exists in black and white, but it doesn't, obviously, if the correct/optimal economic policy were as easy to determine as you seem to think it is, every country would embrace this obviously correct economic policy and we would be living in a world where almost everyone is prosperous.  

My assumption is that both sides have flaws in their various theories and that, as they say, the proof is in the pudding, results are what matter, not intentions or theory, or 'the other guy is less wrong than my guy so I must be right' type of attitudes.

You can have something being clearly wrong while still having doubt about what's clearly right. I don't know how to cure headaches, but I can be pretty sure decapitation ain't the way to go.

[OldGimletEye]

1 hour ago, Cas Stark said:

You make it sound like economics is something that exists in black and white, but it doesn't, obviously, if the correct/optimal economic policy were as easy to determine as you seem to think it is, every country would embrace this obviously correct economic policy and we would be living in a world where almost everyone is prosperous.  

My assumption is that both sides have flaws in their various theories and that, as they say, the proof is in the pudding, results are what matter, not intentions or theory, or 'the other guy is less wrong than my guy so I must be right' type of attitudes.

Well no, not everyone would embrace the correct theory if they don't know it or if they choose to ignore facts and logic for ideological or emotional reasons.

You want to make it sound like Supply Side Economics and Keynesian Economics could be just equally valid or the equally wrong. And I'm afraid that is just not the case.

With regard to Supply Side Economics start with Martin Feldstein's 1989 paper, and that boy ain't no Democrat. He concluded (along with others) that the great supply side experiment under Reagan was mostly due to monetary policy. And certainly the "Bush Boom" didn't make a great case for supply side economics, nor did the "Brownback Boom".

The fact of the matter is there is plenty of econometric evidence that multipliers were over 1 and particularly likely to be so when you're at the ZLB.

But aside from this econometric evidence concerning multipliers, what I'm quite sure about is: Prices are sticky. If they weren't then monetary policy and fiscal policy wouldn't matter much. Now there could be many reasons why prices are sticky, but I think the main reason is that there is no Walrasian market clearing, like say what happens in a RBC* model, and is usually  tucked in that model right after log linearizing the solution to the  representative consumer's maximization problem and then setting y = c or something like that.

And because there is trading at prices, other than their Walrasian prices, is why we seemingly have many historical episodes where monetary policy played a key role like 1)The Great Depression, 2) The Recession that happened shortly after the Great Recoinage Act, 3) Events in the early 1980s, 4) economic problems we hear about during the Middle Ages because of bullion shortages and other episodes.

Monetary expansions or contractions can affect aggregate demand. That much we should know. But also, we should know that the demand for money is interest rate sensitive. That's the reason, you know, why the FED can expand it's balance sheet by 5 times and we don't get rampant inflation. As the interest rate declines to 0 and can go no further (or at least the interest rate is being held constant) we have every reason to think increasing Government spending should raise the overall level of aggregate spending without doing any "crowding out", particularly once we recognize that many consumers are credit constrained.

I know there is often a temptation by people wanting to be centristry sorts to split things down the middle, but that temptation can often result in error.

*But even some RBC models recognize that government spending might be desirable under cost benefit analysis. With low interest rates, spending likely would have made sense under RBC models. So there is that too.

[Zorral]

In connection with this latest topic, I have been thinking about this:

 

http://www.illawarramercury.com.au/story/4705647/talk-of-recession-as-australia-takes-world-record/?cs=7

Not that I have necessarily understood all or even most of what is being said in the piece!

[BloodRider]

6 hours ago, Cas Stark said:

Conservatives say the same about modern Keynesian policies....things fail because not enough money was spent, just ask Krugman, LOL.

 

Conservatives don't understand modern Keynesian policies, or they do and they present a strawman to thick headed dupes who parrot their talking points.

[Martell Spy]

Quote

Conservatives don't understand modern Keynesian policies, or they do and they present a strawman to thick headed dupes who parrot their talking points

.

Well, they tried this Keynesian mumbo jumbo in Europe. It didn't work out. Now they just use the flat tax and everything is fine and dandy.

[Fragile Bird]

Someone posted a meme on Facebook pointing out that at this point in Obama's presidency, Fox news was attacking him for using Dijon mustard on hot dogs.

[all swedes are racist]

46 minutes ago, Fragile Bird said:

Someone posted a meme on Facebook pointing out that at this point in Obama's presidency, Fox news was attacking him for using Dijon mustard on hot dogs.

but hot dogs are haram