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Post 13 Feb 2018, 8:41 am

Fate
Raising the minimum wage to a living wage sends a message too: don't improve yourself. The government will provide!


It sends a message that your labor has enough value that you can earn a living and don't need to depend on government hand outs.
Its cheaper and easier to simply make certain that when people work they don't have to rely on assistance from the government (SNAP etc) to make ends meet. By decreasing the need for assistance for those working poor - you lower the need for government programs.
And you raise dignity of the working poor, who no longer require a hand out.

Fate
A lot here. I don't think it's "safety net" cuts that scare Republicans so much as entitlement reform. As our population gets older, we need to do something. Both sides just ignore it because it's not popular.
We live in a nation of political cowards and greedy people.


Did you know that 55% of Americans have at one time received benefits from the government?
In fact, it's 86% if you broaden the definition to households. . After you add veteran benefits and college assistance, 70% of individuals -- and 86% of households -- receive a government benefit of some kind. Put differently, one in seven households doesn't receive assistance from the federal government.
So what do you define as a "greedy" person?
And what benefits do you want to scale back?
When income inequality is so great ..... the percentage of people who require assistance is so high - and American programs all seem to be so complicated, over regulated and some times lacking in dignity in their deliverance... I think the problem is not going to be "How do we balance the budget by cutting "benefits". Its got to be a reexamination of the government compact with the military industrial complex, and more progressive taxation regimen.
Not unless the US wants to be great again by going back to the "gilded age." For most people that wasn't great.
https://www.theatlantic.com/business/ar ... em/266428/
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Post 13 Feb 2018, 11:50 am

geojanes wrote:
bbauska wrote:
geojanes wrote:
rickyp wrote:I think some people want the budget to be balanced. In good times, that's usually the goal.


That's true too. Running huge deficits in a times like today is completely irresponsible.


Or ANY time.


OK Herbert Hoover.


I recently read a biography of Grant. It's amazing to read how Americans viewed the national debt back then. It was not something to be ignored, but something to pay off.

What a novel concept!
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Post 13 Feb 2018, 12:47 pm

geojanes wrote:
bbauska wrote:
geojanes wrote:
rickyp wrote:I think some people want the budget to be balanced. In good times, that's usually the goal.


That's true too. Running huge deficits in a times like today is completely irresponsible.


Or ANY time.


OK Herbert Hoover.


Thank you. That was a great compliment.
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Post 13 Feb 2018, 2:12 pm

fate
I recently read a biography of Grant. It's amazing to read how Americans viewed the national debt back then. It was not something to be ignored, but something to pay off.

What a novel concept!

Why go back to Grant?
After WWII the USA had a debt 119% of the annual GDP.
It was being paid off till 1981 when the debt to GDP was at 31%.Through the period of 1946 through 1979 one other thing shrank. The GINI coefficient which measures income inequality.

Then debt started to grow again... So did income inequality as the Gini coefficient rose...
Why do you think that was?

https://www.thebalance.com/national-deb ... ts-3306287
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Post 13 Feb 2018, 2:47 pm

Ray Jay wrote:
danivon wrote:
Ray Jay wrote:Danivon
Hang on, aren't you the one saying that the wage increases have led to a fall in stock prices?


A 4% fall after a 25% increase?
It was a 4% fall in a single day, compared to 25% over a year. The global markets are still a bit jittery.

Danivon:
And overall, wages (especially when you look at median rather than mean averages) have not been rising as fast as GDP or productivity.


source for 2017?
By "overall" I meant looking back over several years, not just the latest one.


OK. The big issue is whether the Trump policies are better or worse than the Obama policies, broadly speaking, for working and middle class people. That's why the 2017 data is very important, as there have been many regulatory changes in this country with the new administration.

And when did those changes actually come into effect? And will that have immediately impacted growth if is there a lag effect?

It usually takes a bit of time to see policy actuate.
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Post 13 Feb 2018, 3:29 pm

Doctor Fate wrote:
geojanes wrote:
bbauska wrote:
geojanes wrote:
rickyp wrote:I think some people want the budget to be balanced. In good times, that's usually the goal.


That's true too. Running huge deficits in a times like today is completely irresponsible.


Or ANY time.


OK Herbert Hoover.


I recently read a biography of Grant. It's amazing to read how Americans viewed the national debt back then. It was not something to be ignored, but something to pay off.

What a novel concept!


My point is that you act responsibly when times are good and you save and build up reserves, and when there is a crisis you respond. "Oh sorry fellas, we can't fuel up the ships and planes for D-Day because we'd have to borrow money." It's not a hard concept.

And Brad, Herbert Hoover had perhaps the best ex-presidency ever, but his resolve to balance the budget during the worst financial crisis ever was perhaps the dumbest thing any politician ever did, and I'm including our current Great Leader. Want to treat it like a complement? OK. . . .
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Post 13 Feb 2018, 3:51 pm

Harry (from In Bruges): "You've got to stick to your principles".

[he then proceeds to shoot himself because his principle was that if you shoot a child even accidentally you should take your own life...but here he accidentally shot a dwarf that he mistakenly thought was a child]
Last edited by freeman3 on 13 Feb 2018, 4:04 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Post 13 Feb 2018, 4:01 pm

geojanes wrote:
Doctor Fate wrote:
geojanes wrote:
bbauska wrote:
geojanes wrote:
rickyp wrote:I think some people want the budget to be balanced. In good times, that's usually the goal.


That's true too. Running huge deficits in a times like today is completely irresponsible.


Or ANY time.


OK Herbert Hoover.


I recently read a biography of Grant. It's amazing to read how Americans viewed the national debt back then. It was not something to be ignored, but something to pay off.

What a novel concept!


My point is that you act responsibly when times are good and you save and build up reserves, and when there is a crisis you respond. "Oh sorry fellas, we can't fuel up the ships and planes for D-Day because we'd have to borrow money." It's not a hard concept.

And Brad, Herbert Hoover had perhaps the best ex-presidency ever, but his resolve to balance the budget during the worst financial crisis ever was perhaps the dumbest thing any politician ever did, and I'm including our current Great Leader. Want to treat it like a complement? OK. . . .


Your position is noted. We all aspire to different aspects. Personally I admire his desire to balance the budget. Not having the reserves built up in the first pace is a problem. If there was a large built up reserve, then the war/depression/crisis would be more easily dealt with. To be such a debtor nation opens our security and ability to help others to reduced effectiveness.

The problem has compounded itself to the point that this is not possible at this time. I cannot think of a better time to reduce the budget expenditures to a point where we can see an end to the debt. Right now it is unforeseeable.

Do you think debt forever is the best for our nation's capability to help others?
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Post 13 Feb 2018, 4:43 pm

rickyp wrote:fate
I recently read a biography of Grant. It's amazing to read how Americans viewed the national debt back then. It was not something to be ignored, but something to pay off.

What a novel concept!

Why go back to Grant?
After WWII the USA had a debt 119% of the annual GDP.
It was being paid off till 1981 when the debt to GDP was at 31%.Through the period of 1946 through 1979 one other thing shrank. The GINI coefficient which measures income inequality.

Then debt started to grow again... So did income inequality as the Gini coefficient rose...
Why do you think that was?

https://www.thebalance.com/national-deb ... ts-3306287


Um, why go back to Grant?

Because it was a biography about Grant.

Act like a child much?
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Post 13 Feb 2018, 4:45 pm

geojanes wrote:My point is that you act responsibly when times are good and you save and build up reserves, and when there is a crisis you respond. "Oh sorry fellas, we can't fuel up the ships and planes for D-Day because we'd have to borrow money." It's not a hard concept.


So true.

Since there's no crisis right now, we ought to be cutting government spending, not increasing it.
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Post 14 Feb 2018, 5:11 am

Ricky:
And what benefits do you want to scale back?


I think food stamps is a good idea, but did you know that about 20% of food stamps are used to purchase soda and salty snacks? What are the medical costs associated with allowing that? Do they allow this sort of thing in Canada?
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Post 14 Feb 2018, 5:14 am

Ricky:
It was being paid off till 1981 when the debt to GDP was at 31%.


I have real hard time with Ricky's dishonesty. Here are some facts. http://www.polidiotic.com/by-the-number ... t-by-year/

In 1946 the national debt was $269 Billion

In 1980 the national debt was $907 Billion

It was not being paid off. It is true that it was going down as a % of GDP.
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Post 14 Feb 2018, 6:34 am

Danivon:

And when did those changes actually come into effect? And will that have immediately impacted growth if is there a lag effect?

It usually takes a bit of time to see policy actuate.


Some of the regulatory changes were in the first 100 days and had immediate effect. Other changes will take longer. Here are some changes in the first 100 days from Wikipedia that impacted economic policy.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_100 ... regulation

One of the first acts by the Trump administration was an order signed by Chief of Staff Reince Priebus on January 20, under the subject "Regulatory Freeze Pending Review" to all Heads of Executive Departments and Agencies ordering agencies to immediately suspend all pending regulations and to "send no regulation" to the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OFR) until the Trump administration can review them except for "emergency situations" or "urgent circumstances" ...
On January 30, Trump signed his seventh Executive Order "Reducing Regulation and Controlling Regulatory Costs." ...

At a January 23 meeting with leaders of the United State's largest corporations, including Ford's Mark Fields, Dell Technologies' Michael Dell, Lockheed Martin's Marillyn Hewson, Under Armour's Kevin Plank, Arconic's Klaus Kleinfeld, Whirlpool's Jeff Fettig, Johnson & Johnson's Alex Gorsky, Dow Chemical's Andrew Liveris, U.S. Steel's Mario Longhi, SpaceX's Elon Musk, International Paper's Mark Sutton, and Corning's Wendell Weeks promised to reward the companies who stay in the United States with aggressive cuts on U.S. federal regulations governing their companies by "75 percent or more." ...

He also lifted a 14-month-old halt on new coal leases on federal lands. ...

On February 1, the Trump administration published a Statement of Administration Policy to allow coal companies to dump mining waste in streams by nullifying the Department of the Interior regulation known as the "Stream Protection Rule", established in the Obama administration. Under the Congressional Review Act Congress passed the resolution to repeal on February 1 and the Senate also approved it on February 2.[507][508] The Statement nullified the Waste Prevention, Production Subject to Royalties, and Resource Conservation which limited venting, flaring, and leaks during oil and natural gas production. The Repeal of Stream Protection Rule (115-5) was signed into law by Trump on February 16. ...

On March 29, 2017, EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt overturned the 2015 EPA revocation and denied the 2007 administrative petition by the Natural Resources Defense Council and the Pesticide Action Network North America (PANNA) to ban the widely used Dow Chemical Company's chlorpyrifos.[509] The eight-year delay by the EPA to respond to PANNA, had resulted in a court case, PANNA v. EPA, in which EPA was ordered to respond by October 2015. EPA revoked "all tolerances for the insecticide chlorpyrifos"[510][511][509] and Pruitt overturned the 2015 decision.

Accompanied by coal executives and coal miners, Trump signed a "sweeping executive order" on March 28, at the EPA. In his remarks he praised coal miners along with pipelines and U.S. manufacturing and addressed the coal miners directly, "Come on, fellas. Basically, you know what this is? You know what it says, right? You’re going back to work."[512] Trump instructed EPA "regulators to rewrite key rules curbing U.S. carbon emissions and other environmental regulations."[5



I'm not saying that all of these changes are good. I suspect that if I were to study them, I would be aghast at some. But to the question whether these policy changes impact US economic growth, the answer is yes. They are real and important. Trump has also given the business community confidence. When they make decisions, they perceive less government risk, and greater likelihood of success.
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Post 14 Feb 2018, 7:44 am

bbauska wrote:Personally I admire his desire to balance the budget.

Are you able to find any economist, historian, or, you know, someone who knows something about stuff that agrees with this?


bbauska wrote:Do you think debt forever is the best for our nation's capability to help others?


Nations carry debt. It's not good, it's not bad, it is. The question you are asking was debated in the 18th century. Alexander Hamilton won, and the US government took the war debt of the states. I have trouble seeing how it's even a relevant question today. Instead, you should be asking about the amount of debt, and the amount of deficit.
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Post 14 Feb 2018, 8:26 am

geojanes wrote:
bbauska wrote:Personally I admire his desire to balance the budget.

Are you able to find any economist, historian, or, you know, someone who knows something about stuff that agrees with this?


bbauska wrote:Do you think debt forever is the best for our nation's capability to help others?


Nations carry debt. It's not good, it's not bad, it is. The question you are asking was debated in the 18th century. Alexander Hamilton won, and the US government took the war debt of the states. I have trouble seeing how it's even a relevant question today. Instead, you should be asking about the amount of debt, and the amount of deficit.


Is annual borrowing of 20-25% of our budget acceptable?

How much interest will we pay if treasury bonds hit 5%?