U.S. Politics: The Bipartisan Dismemberment of the VA

[TerraPrime]

21 hours ago, ThinkerX said:

I have been having some on and off debates with conservatives/libertarians on Facebook over the past few weeks.  Something I have noticed:

Their first response - and pretty much ONLY solution to a issue/problem - is to blame somebody.  Anything else is 'stupid liberal reasoning.'  When flaws in their methodology are pointed out, they start talking violence.

That's a common reaction from many Libertarians that I have encountered on the net and off:

 

1. Define social/policy problems

2. Declare the fault to be the government's unwarranted interference

3. Conclude that the problem will be solved if we were to just scale back the government's control on that issue

 

Example 1:

1. Public Education in U.S. is neither fair nor equitable across income levels and ethnic divisions

2. Funding education through taxation compels participation, which results in bad decisions and creates unfairness

3. Let everyone fund the education of their own children with their own money and stop taxing people for public education

 

Example 2:

 

1. Ready-to-consume pharmaceutical supplements greatly vary in quality and potency, but as long as they do not advertise for therapeutic effects, we cannot stop them from selling these products.

2. The FDA's authority to approve drugs for therapeutic use creates this two-tier system that is being exploited by these companies.

3. Remove the FDA authority in testing and approving drugs, and instead, let each consumer do their own due diligence in finding out if a particular pill is safe and/or effective for what they want.

 

[Squab]

^

 

Many straw men seem to indulge in generic oversimplifications

[ThinkerX]

4 hours ago, Swordfish said:

That's a fairly universal reaction.  you see the same thing from the left when it comes to trump, republicans, tea party members....

On occasion, yes.

Much of the time, though, more 'left' will put forth a solution which does not involve playing the blame game.  These solutions are almost invariably denounced by conservatives/libertarians are 'progressive,' as though that's a bad term.  I have yet to see a conservative/libertarian solution to an issue that does not involve blaming somebody, and enacting some sort of punitive action against the somebody. 

[OldGimletEye]

On 4/18/2016 at 8:46 PM, ThinkerX said:

I have been having some on and off debates with conservatives/libertarians on Facebook over the past few weeks.  Something I have noticed:

Their first response - and pretty much ONLY solution to a issue/problem - is to blame somebody.  Anything else is 'stupid liberal reasoning.'  When flaws in their methodology are pointed out, they start talking violence.

Back a few years ago, if I recall correctly, the Koch brothers were kind enough to provide information to their employees on how to vote.

One of their arguments was that, evidently, minimum wage laws will cause lots of unemployment.

Well that's true under a certain type of model with regard to labor markets. If a labor market is purely competitive and the employer is a mere price taker, then yes minimum wage laws might cause lots of unemployment.

But, if the labor markets are not purely competitive, being one of monopsonic competition, where employers are price makers, then it's not true that minimum wage laws will cause lots of unemployment.

The problem with a lot of libertarian and conservative types is that they often rely on very simplistic models to make their arguments. As I often say, there is nothing more dangerous than a conservative or libertarian with a microeconomic 101 textbook in their hand.

Models are useful when thinking about issues. But, models may not always reflect actual reality. Accordingly, questions like the effect of minimum wage laws on employment often become empirical questions. And there is evidence to think that the negative elasticity associated with minimum wage laws might be rather small, in many cases.

Many libertarian and conservative types often, whether knowingly or unknowingly, assume models that don't account for things like informational asymmetries or coordination failures.

Over the last eight years or so, after the world wide financial crises started, I'd say we have been treated to a deluge of conservative/libertarian idiocy.

You'd think when the financial crises started, we would all agree to be, at least, good Friedmanites. But, evidently, Friedman wasn't a "true conservative", so you get idiotic conservative calls to return to the gold standard. And idiotic conservative conspiracy theories that the Fed's monetary policy was done just to help out Obama.

The Koch brothers are big Hayek fans, because I guess he was a "true conservative". Except, during the Great Depression Hayek was massively wrong. And it wasn't just Keynesian types that disagreed with Hayek. People like Irving Fisher, Jacob Viner, and Ralph Hawtrey all thought that Hayek was completely wrong about his solution to the Great Depression.

Soon after the financial crises happened, conservative or libertarian types were saying all types of dumb shit. Like, just for instance:

1. John Bonehead, oops Boehner, saying fiscal stimulus crowded out private investment. Evidently, Bonehead was working in a simplistic loanable funds model, a notion that Keynes took down in the General Theory. Also, if you tend to believe, like I do, there was a safe asset shortage problem, then arguably the US Government was doing the world a favor by issuing more safe US bonds. And then there was the plain old fact that bond yields were cratering.

2. Newt Gingrich running around claiming that if Obama just did things "the way Ronnie did!", then all would be well. Except, the Reagen recovery was largely about monetary policy and given the high federal funds rate, the Fed had a lot of room to maneuver, which was not the case shortly after the 2008 recession. Plus there is plenty of research out there that seemingly indicates that recessions caused by financial crises tend to be very deep and prolonged.

3. Shortly after the financial crises, conservatives were claiming the "market would correct itself". Well that seemed to be predicated on some great belief in Walrasian Equilibrium, an equilibrium concept that I think we ought to be highly skeptical of and one that isn't likely to be true.

Many libertarian/conservative types often think they are just seeing reality and liberal types are off operating in la-la land. But, the fact of the matter is that very often conservative and libertarian types are the ones operating in la-la land.

[BloodRider]

3 hours ago, OldGimletEye said:

Back a few years ago, if I recall correctly, the Koch brothers were kind enough to provide information to their employees on how to vote.

One of their arguments was that, evidently, minimum wage laws will cause lots of unemployment.

<snip>

Here, here.  Also, I hate Mises to pieces.

[DireWolfSpirit]

4 hours ago, OldGimletEye said:

Back a few years ago, if I recall correctly, the Koch brothers were kind enough to provide information to their employees on how to vote.

One of their arguments was that, evidently, minimum wage laws will cause lots of unemployment.

Well that's true under certain type of model with regard to labor markets. If the labor market are purely competitive and the employer is a mere price taker, then yes minimum wage laws might cause lots of unemployment.

But, if the labor market are not purely competitive, being one of monopsonic competition, where employers are price makers, then it's not true that minimum wage laws will cause lots of unemployment.

The problem with a lot of libertarian and conservative types is that they often rely on very simplistic models to make their arguments. As I often say, there is nothing more dangerous than a conservative or libertarian with a microeconomic 101 textbook in their hand.

Models are useful when thinking about issues. But, models may not always reflect actually reality. Accordingly, questions like the effect of minimum wage laws on employment often become empirical questions. And there is evidence to think that the negative elasticity associated with minimum wage laws might be rather small, in many cases.

Many libertarian and conservative types often, whether knowingly or unknowingly, assume models that don't account for things like informational asymmetries or coordination failures.

Over the last eight years or so, after the world wide financial crises started, I'd say we have been treated to a deluge of conservative/libertarian idiocy.

You'd think when the financial crises started, we would all agree to be, at least, good Friedmanites. But, evidently, Friedman wasn't a "true conservative", so you get idiotic conservative calls to return to the gold standard. And idiotic conservative conspiracy theories that the Fed's monetary policy was done just to help out Obama.

The Koch brothers are big Hayek fans, because I guess he was a "true conservative". Except, during the Great Depression Hayek was massively wrong. And it wasn't just Keynesian types that disagreed with Hayek. People like Irving Fisher, Jacob Viner, and Ralph Hawtrey all thought that Hayek was completely wrong about his solution to the Great Depression.

Soon after the financial crises happen conservatives or libertarian types were saying all types of dumb shit. Like, just for instance:

1. John Bonehead, oops, Boehner saying fiscal stimulus crowed out private investment. Evidently, Bonehead was working in a simplistic loanable funds model, a notion that Keynes took down in the General Theory. Also, if you tend to believe, like I do, there was a safe asset shortage problem, then arguably the US Government was doing the world a favor by issuing more safe US bonds. And then there was the plain old fact that bond yields were cratering.

2. Newt Gingrich running around claiming that if Obama just did things "the way Ronnie did!", then all would be well. Except, the Reagen recovery was largely about monetary policy and given the high federal funds rate, the Fed had a lot of room to maneuver, which was not the case shortly after the 2008 recession. Plus there is plenty of research out there that seemingly indicates that recessions caused by financial crises tend to be very deep and prolonged.

3. Shortly after the financial crises, conservatives were claiming the "market would correct itself". Well this seems to predicated on some great belief in Walrasian Equilibrium, and equilibrium concept that I think we ought to be highly skeptical of and one that isn't likely to be true.

Many libertarian/conservative types often think they are just seeing reality and liberal types are off operating in la-la land. But, the fact of the matter is that very often conservative and libertarian types are the ones operating in la-la land.

Very good, agreed.  They have this hellbent obsession with laughably flawed pseudoscience, read this for a good chuckle- http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Ludwig_von_Mises

a few quotes from the above lolol-

"His brother Richard von Mises was a real scientist and doing actually philosophically important work in developing an early definition for randomness. Obviously, they didn't get along."

also-

"From here, Mises goes into how awesome completely laissez faire market policy is, gold buggery, and other typical Austrian hijinks. However, sane students of economics probably closed the book way back at the point when Mises declared his "theories" unfalsifiable."

[BloodRider]

13 minutes ago, DireWolfSpirit said:

Very good, agreed.  They have this hellbent obsession with laughably flawed pseudoscience, read this for a good chuckle- http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Ludwig_von_Mises

a few quotes from the above lolol-

"His brother Richard von Mises was a real scientist and doing actually philosophically important work in developing an early definition for randomness. Obviously, they didn't get along."

also-

"From here, Mises goes into how awesome completely laissez faire market policy is, gold buggery, and other typical Austrian hijinks. However, sane students of economics probably closed the book way back at the point when Mises declared his "theories" unfalsifiable."

Unfalsifiable is a virtue with that crowd.

[DireWolfSpirit]

Exxon in a legal dispute over it's first amendment rights to mislead stakeholders and the general public on climate change- http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/exxon-first-amendment_us_571662c6e4b0060ccda46d63

[Swordfish]

16 hours ago, ThinkerX said:

On occasion, yes.

Much of the time, though, more 'left' will put forth a solution which does not involve playing the blame game.  These solutions are almost invariably denounced by conservatives/libertarians are 'progressive,' as though that's a bad term.  I have yet to see a conservative/libertarian solution to an issue that does not involve blaming somebody, and enacting some sort of punitive action against the somebody. 

Silliness.  Look at the title of the thread, FFS. 

koch brothers

Tea Party

Fox news

Etc.. Etc.. Etc...

[ants]

Certainly left-leaning posters blame a lot of things on many individuals as well. However, that is far more on optics and the political side of things. I think the point was that when it comes to solutions, we actually have a number and they don't depend on blaming anyone.

It isn't chance that after almost 8 years (more if you consider the Bush years) the Republicans have still failed to come up with alternatives to the ACA. Because they fail when it comes to policy.

[Swordfish]

14 hours ago, ants said:

Certainly left-leaning posters blame a lot of things on many individuals as well. However, that is far more on optics and the political side of things. I think the point was that when it comes to solutions, we actually have a number and they don't depend on blaming anyone.

It isn't chance that after almost 8 years (more if you consider the Bush years) the Republicans have still failed to come up with alternatives to the ACA. Because they fail when it comes to policy.

I'm quite sure it appears that way to you.

We will have to agree to disagree.

[Altherion]

The Saudis decided to use Obama's visit to Riyadh as an opportunity to insult him:

Quote

When Obama touched down in Riyadh shortly after 1 p.m. local time, there were no kisses with the kingdom's ruler as President George W. Bush once exchanged. The Saudi government dispatched the governor of Riyadh rather than a senior-level royal to shake Obama's hand, a departure from the scene at the airport earlier in the day when King Salman was shown on state television greeting the leaders of other Gulf nations on the tarmac.

Social media users quickly termed the reception, which was not carried live on state TV, a snub and a sign that a relationship long lubricated by barrels of oil is now facing deep questions on both sides.

Our Middle East policy of the last few years has been... curious. We've gotten somewhat closer with countries that were our enemies there (e.g. Iran), but nowhere near enough for them to be allies. We've also alienated our allies (e.g. Israel, Saudi Arabia), but again, nowhere near enough for them to stop being our allies. The result is that there is no practically no goodwill at all from any country in the region and they're all trying to defy us to whatever extent they can.

[Swordfish]

15 minutes ago, Altherion said:

The Saudis decided to use Obama's visit to Riyadh as an opportunity to insult him:

Our Middle East policy of the last few years has been... curious. We've gotten somewhat closer with countries that were our enemies there (e.g. Iran), but nowhere near enough for them to be allies. We've also alienated our allies (e.g. Israel, Saudi Arabia), but again, nowhere near enough for them to stop being our allies. The result is that there is no practically no goodwill at all from any country in the region and they're all trying to defy us to whatever extent they can.

'Curious' seems to me to be a fairly generous way of putting it.

[TerraPrime]

I think it's a good thing that U.S. relations with Israel and Saudi have cooled, while we have increased engagement with Iran.

[Altherion]

27 minutes ago, Swordfish said:

'Curious' seems to me to be a fairly generous way of putting it.

I say curious because I don't understand it -- there isn't any rhyme or reason to it. For example, the primary concern of the Neocons was that Halliburton et al were paid. The results were bad for the US and bad for Iraq, but Halliburton et al were most certainly paid. On the other hand, the current administration does not appear to have any overarching goal (unless it is to spread chaos and destruction for their own sake, but they're not insane in other respects so I don't see why they would do that).

[Swordfish]

2 minutes ago, Altherion said:

I say curious because I don't understand it -- there isn't any rhyme or reason to it. For example, the primary concern of the Neocons was that Halliburton et al were paid. The results were bad for the US and bad for Iraq, but Halliburton et al were most certainly paid. On the other hand, the current administration does not appear to have any overarching goal (unless it is to spread chaos and destruction for their own sake, but they're not insane in other respects so I don't see why they would do that).

yeah..  i think that's a pretty fair assessment.....

I suppose it's possible they have some strong goals and just can't talk about them for whatever reason, but i certainly can't see what they might be.

My fear is that it basically amounts to 'do something different and be more neutral or whatever'.

[Kalbear]

Quote

On the other hand, the current administration does not appear to have any overarching goal (unless it is to spread chaos and destruction for their own sake, but they're not insane in other respects so I don't see why they would do that).

Obama does not, full stop, like being an ally of the Saudis. Especially given their brand of Islamic teaching and their proclivity for human rights abuses. He wants the US to get out of dodge and get away from them. He's stated this pretty publicly. 

Similar but not the same as Israel, save that he feels that Israel is really jonesing for war that he doesn't want to support. He seeks more diplomatic ends and more balanced power struggles in the region.

Mostly, Obama is a fatalist when it comes to the Middle East. He has seen intervention just fail over and over, and even the best intentions and ideas fall flat. He wants to help, but he doesn't want to do so with such uncertainty. 

[Squab]

Isnt Obama in Saudi now trying to fix that relationship?

Not sure Iran is the right country to cosy up to.

Iran on Israel: Ataollah Salehi, commander of Iran’s army, “Israel only barks, no matter how much weapons are given to [it], we are going to destroy them, we will promise this task will be done,” Sep 15 2015.

Iran on the nuclear deal: President Hassan Rouhani, Foreign Minister Zarif, and Deputy Foreign Minister and senior negotiator Abbas Araghchi emphasized that Iran has no intention of abiding by UNSRC 2231, which includes the JCPOA [Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action] and another element; rather, that they will abide only by the original JCPOA - from Middle East Media Research institute http://www.memri.org/report/en/0/0/0/0/0/0/8761.htm

Iran on LGBTI rights:  Any type of sexual activity outside a heterosexual marriage is forbidden. Transsexuality is legal only if accompanied by a sex change operation. Homosexuality is a crime punishable by imprisonment, corporal punishment or execution.

Womens rights:  On August 20, 2012, 36 Iranian universities announced that 77 courses would become male-only for the following school year.  The fields chosen include most sciences and engineering, among others. Universities like the Oil Industry University have completely barred women from attending, citing the "lack of employer demand".

I like to drink Shiraz, my best mate at work is from Shiraz.  Its illegal to make wine there now.  Its all he drinks, well not all but its all he orders when we have dinner together.

[Kalbear]

To my knowledge Obama is in Saudi Arabia to join the rest of the leaders there. It was a gulf summit, no? 

I'm not saying that Iran is great to cozy up to either - though historically they've been a lot more permissive than they are now, and part of the reason they're the way they are is precisely as a reaction to US intervention. But Saudi Arabia is viewed by Obama as a very questionable ally at best, and while he doesn't want outright war he does want to change the deal that they've had. He wants the Saudis to be doing a lot more of their own fighting, to be doing a lot less of prosletyzing, and he wants reform. 

[Squab]

14 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

To my knowledge Obama is in Saudi Arabia to join the rest of the leaders there. It was a gulf summit, no? 

I'm not saying that Iran is great to cozy up to either - though historically they've been a lot more permissive than they are now, and part of the reason they're the way they are is precisely as a reaction to US intervention. But Saudi Arabia is viewed by Obama as a very questionable ally at best, and while he doesn't want outright war he does want to change the deal that they've had. He wants the Saudis to be doing a lot more of their own fighting, to be doing a lot less of prosletyzing, and he wants reform. 

Which part of Iran's plans to ignore the nuclear treaty, plans to wipe Israel off the map and terrible stance on equality and freedom are a reaction to US intervention?  Seems an odd shift of accountability.