The Gaming Den

This is your actual argument? That an alternate past you made up seems pretty bad? Strongly implying that if I make up an alternate past that's less bad you'll reject it? Yeah, that sounds like a worthwhile game to play. Fuck right off with that shit.

+1. Lago is being nuts on just about every point up there. There's more than a mouthful of stupid to chew on in there.

O'Malley >> Warren or Sanders?
The end is nigh on the American economy?
You'd rather give the keys to the republicans allowing them to enact changes that can take multi-decades to undo (like court appointments and shit foreign policy)... so that you can hope to come back and beat them in 4 years?

That's burning the house to fix the plumbing level stupid.

Lago PARANOIA wrote:Here's a hypothetical for you then, angelfromanotherpin: say that John Kerry actually won the 2004 election. Please tell me how you think that 2004-2012 would've gone. And be sure to include the financial crisis of 2007 in your answer.

Would that time period have been better or worse than what we actually got? I'm going to say worse, because it's 2015 and we haven't gotten the Ryan budget and we're out of Iraq. Yeah, Hurricane Katrina wouldn't have been so devastating if Kerry was in charge, but still: Ryan Budget.

You are retarded. With Kerry in office we would not have Roberts as chief justice. Then when we passed health reform, we'd be able to laugh off the court challenges like we laugh off the congressional repeal votes.

-Username17

So, Rubio is running.

Mostly, I find that interesting as IMO he's going to suck off some of Bush's support. Not enough to matter in the primary, but certainly enough to allow the crazies to stay in the race for a while, which will hurt Bush's chances in the general.

Marco Rubio is not even a has been. His entry means nothing.

-Username17

And I look forward to more occupants of the clown car next month...

Ben "Obamacare the worst thing since slavery" Carson to make 'major announcement' on May 4: CNN

angelfromanotherpin wrote:This is your actual argument? That an alternate past you made up seems pretty bad? Strongly implying that if I make up an alternate past that's less bad you'll reject it?

I'm sorry, what exactly was so implausible about the alternate path that I projected? The 2007 Financial Crash, even if Kerry was aware that the late 90s financial deregulation would lead to it, was politically inevitable by 2004. Unsurprising, since the seeds for that crash were sewn a decade earlier. 2004 Kerry would not have gained Congress and in 2006 Republicans would have further clobbered his power. So he would've just flailed helplessly while the country went to shit and the opposition laughed at him. Hell, it's almost certain that the crash would've been even worse as the Republicans obstructed even quarter-loaf measures to avert the worst of the crash

What part of that sounds like an implausible fairy tale to you? What part of that is so tortured and contrived that it's not even worth engaging?

erik wrote:O'Malley >> Warren or Sanders?
The end is nigh on the American economy?

I'd rather vote for Warren, too, but she ain't running. She has vehemently denied running. She has no campaign apparatus in place. She's a great fundraiser and I don't think it'd be too late for her to jump in, but if she ain't running then she ain't running. O'Malley, for all of his faults, is running and he's running the only kind of campaign that has a chance to win Congress in addition to the Presidency.

President Sanders or even Serious Presidential Contender Sanders will never happen. He's venerable, has the socialist label, and isn't even a registered Democrat.

You'd rather give the keys to the republicans allowing them to enact changes that can take multi-decades to undo (like court appointments and shit foreign policy)... so that you can hope to come back and beat them in 4 years?

Here's why I think that a recession is eminent: the deficit is about to turn into a surplus given current trends (which will lead to a recession) and no Democrat who is running the Clinton-Obama playbook without making a serious play for the white working class (which includes Hillary Clinton) will have the power to avert it. If the deficit wasn't declining or if Clinton decides to run the McGovern playbook then I wouldn't forward this complaint, but it is what it is.

That's the big fuck-me-in-the-ass. If the sequester never happened or the Democratic Party was willing and able to cut a deal with the Republican Party to pass new tax cuts/spending increasing, I'd be willing to take a chance on Clinton or Generic Democrat. But that's not the world in which we live in. The world in which we live in has a politically handcuffed Democratic Party with a shrinking deficit. What's more, the Democratic Party sees this as a good thing, so even if they had the wherewithal they'd probably still fuck that chicken to a huge election day defeat and blame the recession on something like tech bubbles. To this day, Democrats will crow and boast about the Clinton surpluses, not realizing that if Clinton had been in office for that time period they would've paid the price during the upcoming election. Err, a bigger price than they already did.

FrankTrollman wrote:You are retarded. With Kerry in office we would not have Roberts as chief justice. Then when we passed health reform, we'd be able to laugh off the court challenges like we laugh off the congressional repeal votes.

And yet, in the timeframe from a hypothetical 2008-2012 in which the Democratic Party was in the hotseat for the 2007 crash and the Republicans clean-swept government, we would not have had Sotomayor or Kagan either. So it's still just trading momentary relief for greater pain later.

I'd rather not have the Reps in power. I honestly don't think that it would be good for a Rep to take the pres seat as long as they control so much of congress and the Supreme court. Rep shenanigans would be too costly but since we're on the subject, I don't know dick about economics beyond what I can glean through conversations on youtube videos and whatever I pick up here. I've been of the opinion that we should've let our big banks fail during the financial crisis but, failing that, we should've just paid off our people's home owning debts instead of just giving the money for free to the banks. Would either of these things have changed things for the better (in theory)?

MGuy wrote:I've been of the opinion that we should've let our big banks fail during the financial crisis but, failing that, we should've just paid off our people's home owning debts instead of just giving the money for free to the banks. Would either of these things have changed things for the better (in theory)?

Unless the Democratic Party was willing and able to use the bloody shirt of self-immolation as cover to nationalize the banks, they should have not let the banks fail. We would not be talking about Obama 2012 otherwise. However, you are right in that the administration absolutely did not go far enough in subverting the 2007 financial crisis. The mostly centrist resolution, while certainly better than what the Republicans were offering, engendered a lot of resentment and hostility. As you can see with the rise of the Tea Party.

In retrospect, the Democratic Party should've bet it all on getting the biggest stimulus package they could've gotten passed rather than diddling with the ACA. I mean, universal health coverage is awesome, but after the party got trounced in 2010 and 2014 I can't help but feel that that particular battle was given undue priority.

MGuy wrote:I'd rather not have the Reps in power. I honestly don't think that it would be good for a Rep to take the pres seat as long as they control so much of congress and the Supreme court. Rep shenanigans would be too costly but since we're on the subject, I don't know dick about economics beyond what I can glean through conversations on youtube videos and whatever I pick up here. I've been of the opinion that we should've let our big banks fail during the financial crisis but, failing that, we should've just paid off our people's home owning debts instead of just giving the money for free to the banks. Would either of these things have changed things for the better (in theory)?

Depends on your definition of "for the better".


For the majority of the population? Yes, it would've been better.

For the dudes on top that makes rules (or give money to the dudes who make the rules)? No, it would've been worst. Because they would lose personal money and power.

The dudes on top make sure they play a no-loss scenario. They have several layers of contigencies to make sure that even if they royally screw up, somebody's else gonna pay the bill, never the dudes that actually made the big decisions. If they weren't allowed those layers of contigencies, they would just take their money somewhere else that would allow their shenigans.

Okay, so... elseboard, someone brought up the possibility of 'so what if Hillary Clinton is able to win 2020 despite having this recession you predicted?'

I honestly hadn't considered that until now. And... I think it's a valid point. Raw demography can give her the edge needed so that she can win the Presidency in 2020 again even if 2016-2020 ends in tears. She'll have at least a 5% edge over 2012 Obama then from the simple increase of Millenials + racial minorities. And it's not like Obama won in super-favorable circumstances either.

So, with much embarrassment... I retract my position. Don't I feel like a jackass, trying to be all hard and swoll with clever liberal weasel positions.

Lago, even if your predictions are all completely accurate, I still disagree with your position. Even if I accept that whoever wins the white house for 4 years in 2016 loses for 8 years in 2020, I still want a D next to the president for the more immediate years.

I mean, the alternative is the Republicans having control of all three branches during the decennial Census.

Yeah, at this point the Republican party has made it abundantly clear that if rigging elections and murdering democracy is their only viable path into the future then they will rig elections and murder democracy. They bragged, publicly, about the 2010 gerrymandering. They have been floating plans in various states to tie the electoral college to the districts they gerrymandered the fuck out of, which would let Republican presidential candidates lose the popular vote in those states and still walk away with most of the state's electoral college votes. And I'm pretty sure if they thought they could they do it all in one big sweep and never have to face another fair election that might unseat them then they'd fucking do it - and anything else they needed to do while they were at it. Republicans cannot control all three branches of government. That is the fucking end of this country's elections in all but name. They already have congress and the supreme court, and it doesn't look like they're gonna lose them anytime soon.

One more reason that the republican primaries are likely to be a clown car festival- Super PACs.

If you've still got millions to spend in support then you can keep chugging along longer even after humiliating losses hoping for some darkhorse victory to come.

Lago PARANOIA wrote:She's about where Obama is on the economy, that is someone who believes that horsepucky that deficit and debt reduction is a good thing

Lago PARANOIA wrote:Here's why I think that a recession is eminent: the deficit is about to turn into a surplus given current trends (which will lead to a recession)

I must admit, these statements confuse me, greatly. Anyone able to explain it? Is there a reason that deficit and debt reduction are bad? (serious question here; I'm kinda lost)

http://www.forbes.com/sites/johntharvey ... -deficits/

A deficit means more money is being spent by the government than it is taking in, and thus more money in the pockets of the private sector. A surplus means the government is taking in money and not spending it all, basically sucking money out of the economy and not putting as much back in.

Hadanelith wrote:

Lago PARANOIA wrote:She's about where Obama is on the economy, that is someone who believes that horsepucky that deficit and debt reduction is a good thing

Lago PARANOIA wrote:Here's why I think that a recession is eminent: the deficit is about to turn into a surplus given current trends (which will lead to a recession)

I must admit, these statements confuse me, greatly. Anyone able to explain it? Is there a reason that deficit and debt reduction are bad? (serious question here; I'm kinda lost)

The recession that's followed the 2009 banking crisis is demand driven. See, we bailed out the banks but we didn't bail out the people, so now the average consumer is struggling to crawl out from under their own mortgages and credit cards. The only way to do that is for them to spend less on goods and services. When consumers spend less on goods and services, businesses produce less of those things. Businesses produce less of those things by firing people and closing their doors. People thus fired have a very hard time crawling out from under their mortgages and credit cards, because they don't have jobs. It's something of a vicious cycle, and it can last for a very, very, very long time (see Japan) if you aren't careful.

But interestingly, when investors don't want to invest in capital and open new businesses (because demand is too low to support those businesses), they're left holding onto giant piles of cash. And you know what? When the economy is in the shitter and nobody trusts a startup, people do still trust that the U.S. government will be around in ten, twenty years to pay its debts. So they buy bonds, and they buy lots of bonds, and they buy them even if the rates on those bonds are abysmal.

It's a time when the rich are haording cash, debt is cheap, printing money doesn't cause inflation, and there are tons of unemployed people looking for jobs. The smart to do would be
1) raise taxes on the top (the rich aren't investing), and/or
2) take on debt (the debt has an almost zero interest rate), and/or
3) print money (it won't change the value of the dollar), and
4) have the government use that money on social programs that put people to work.

Now, eventually there will come a time when you hit full employment again. And then maybe you want to lower taxes again (probably not), start paying off that debt (you can afford to, because the economy is functioning on its own legs now), and tone down the money printing (because when the economy is back in working order it will cause inflation).

But talking about deficits/the debt in the middle of a demand recession is just a thing conservatives do because they don't want poor people to have jobs, food, or healthcare.

DSMatticus wrote: It's a time when the rich are haording cash, debt is cheap, printing money doesn't cause inflation,

...

3) print money (it won't change the value of the dollar)

Why is it that printing money doesn't cause inflation in these circumstances?

Rather it is counteracted by the deflation of money hoarding. If you print a bajillion dollars then yes, you get inflation. But when billions to trillions are tied up, then you need to replace that money to keep the economy flowing.

We're in a liquidity trap, where

...fiscal expansion (the shift from IS to IS") leads to a higher level of output with no change in interest rates: Since interest rates are unchanged, there is no crowding out.

"Crowding out" is the idea that (stated simply) when a country's economy is doing really well, if the government spends a bunch of money on doing stuff then the people and resources that get swept up in these projects will come at the expense of people and resources that were already put to use in the private sector (e.g. engineers working for engineering firms jump ship to work for the government). This distorts the market and comes with the associated cost of printing money (if money was printed; this thought exercise doesn't demand that be the source of the money). However, in the situation we're now in, Crowding Out isn't an issue since there is so many people and resources being under-utilized. If the government created positions for a bunch of engineers, they'd probably be filled by engineers who were unemployed or had taken non-engineering jobs to get by. And even if gainfully employed engineers did take those government jobs, that'd leave private sector positions open for the aforementioned un/under-employed engineers. No crowding out, just a bunch of people getting paid to do stuff where they previously weren't.

RobbyPants wrote:

DSMatticus wrote: It's a time when the rich are haording cash, debt is cheap, printing money doesn't cause inflation,

...

3) print money (it won't change the value of the dollar)

Why is it that printing money doesn't cause inflation in these circumstances?

The short answer is that because it doesn't get spent in the real economy for goods or services; it just moves numbers around on paper in the banking system and ends up in a metaphorical or literal vault somewhere.

The long answer is the exact same except with bigger words and fancy diagrams.

Edit: For clarity, the reasons banks don't want to send that money out into the wild and instead want to stick it in their mattress is because the economy is so shit they expect better returns sitting on their money than trying to turn it into more money by loaning it to businesses, exactly as already mentioned.

erik wrote:Rather it is counteracted by the deflation of money hoarding. If you print a bajillion dollars then yes, you get inflation. But when billions to trillions are tied up, then you need to replace that money to keep the economy flowing.

DSMatticus wrote: The short answer is that because it doesn't get spent in the real economy for goods or services; it just moves numbers around on paper in the banking system and ends up in a metaphorical or literal vault somewhere.

So, if when the economy improves and that money does come out of the vaults, wouldn't that make the inflation happen then?

RobbyPants wrote:

erik wrote:Rather it is counteracted by the deflation of money hoarding. If you print a bajillion dollars then yes, you get inflation. But when billions to trillions are tied up, then you need to replace that money to keep the economy flowing.

DSMatticus wrote: The short answer is that because it doesn't get spent in the real economy for goods or services; it just moves numbers around on paper in the banking system and ends up in a metaphorical or literal vault somewhere.

So, if when the economy improves and that money does come out of the vaults, wouldn't that make the inflation happen then?

It would not make "the" inflation happen then. Money coming out of vaults would potentially be inflationary at that point, but not instantaneously and there is every evidence to believe that the central bank could withdraw money from the economy when needed to counteract any inflationary pressure. There hasn't been any serious question of whether the central bank could reign in inflation if it wanted to since the eighties.

-Username17

Of course, pumping money into the economy is easier said that done. Many banks and corporations will be very happy to get government money and just sit on it. And even when it's invested in real and useful applications, there's always a risk that the investment will turn out to be not so good (for example you build a new road/railway/tunnel to boost trade and you get something that nobody uses with a very high maintenance cost).

In any case, your money won't be exactly gone since people still got paid and used that money to buy stuff. But if they spent most of that money on Chinese products, this will do little for your economy.

At least, that's how it works in Europe right now. That and Germany hates you.

Blade wrote:At least, that's how it works in Europe right now. That and Germany hates you.

Now to be fair, if you ask, we will hate you for any reason you want. We were always proud of the highly efficient, always punctual part of our economy that is hate-based.