Itinerant Air-Cooled

http://jessescrossroadscafe.blogspot.co ... force.html

This is a terrific article, right on point, getting the bigger picture that almost all economic writers are missing, or failing to state in a clear and direct manner without mincing words. The moneyed interests are not beneficent wealth creators doing God's work and creating jobs and value. These are more like white collar criminals who are able to bend the law to their will, acting like parasites on the real economy.

"Wall Street’s overarching function today is that of an institutionalized wealth transfer mechanism, propped up by compromised regulators and a dysfunctional Congress."

Our society is out of balance and distorted as a result. Corporations take precedence over people, and money directs the course of public policy and foreign entanglements, to its own ends. And the people are left to suffer.

And shame on the liberal economists, who will promote stimulus of any sort in their ideological fervor, and cheerlead the results along with the White House, without being mindful that stimulus in itself is not a good thing, if it stimulates the wrong things. QE is not an effective means of stimulus for the real economy, but it is a windfall and a sinecure for the financial sector and the one percent.

denjohn wrote:http://jessescrossroadscafe.blogspot.co ... force.html

And shame on the liberal economists, who will promote stimulus of any sort in their ideological fervor, and cheerlead the results along with the White House, without being mindful that stimulus in itself is not a good thing, if it stimulates the wrong things. QE is not an effective means of stimulus for the real economy, but it is a windfall and a sinecure for the financial sector and the one percent.

I took issue with this one. There is a tedious "false equivalence" effort to make sure to give examples of "both sides".

Who are the liberal economists who promoted Quantitative Easing? I only remember how desperately they urged Congress to enact infrastructure rebuilding NOW with high unemployment and record low interest rates.

Even here January 2015, record low gas prices my god we could increase the federal gas tax for the first time in 18 years to help rebuild our roads and those stupid republicans are once again saying, "that is dead on arrival" while they plan to sue Obama for his immigration directive.

Now, I wonder how we are going to falsely equivocate the gas tax suggestion in some future article describing the impending new collapse of the American economy?
Colin

Who are the liberal economists who promoted Quantitative Easing?

Some would consider Paul Krugman.

I took issue with this one. There is a tedious "false equivalence" effort to make sure to give examples of "both sides".

I thought perhaps I missed something, so reread the linked article.
I still do not see two sides represented or any equivalence.
The two sides I do see are Wall Street, compromised regulators, a dysfunctional Congress (and economists, of any stripe, who promote QE as 'an effective means of stimulus for the real economy') versus the rest of us, those who "are too little to matter, except as a convenient source of their income."
I read the author daily and know that he is not picking on just liberal ecomomists, but rather shaming those who support the interests of the elite.
I hate to detract from the substance of what I thought a fine article, but Colin, please clarify the 'both sides' and the tedious false equivalence you refer to.
That seemed to come from a need to defend anything with the word 'liberal' in the sentence.

I detected nothing partisan in the article but did notice you drift off topic to go there and again get your republican digs in. (edit.....mmmmm, I haven't been following much around here, but just looked at some of the more recent topics, good to see you also find fault w the dems on occasion.)
and pleeeeeeezzze......don't think I'm defending republicans, I think even less of them than democrats, there is plenty of culpability on both sides of the aisle.

And reform cannot happen in a system where the moneyed interests vet the presidential candidates in advance, for whom they will allow you the privilege of voting, whipped up into an enthusiasm by the emotional directed messages of their corporate media. Vote for Red! No, you fool, vote for Blue!

The Banks must be restrained, and the financial system reformed, with balance restored to the economy, before there can be any sustainable recovery.

More on how rebublicrats, banks, and big corporations are trying to totally screw the "too little to matter, except as a convenient source of their income."
The 2.5 minute video by a liberal economist who does not condone QE.
http://jessescrossroadscafe.blogspot.co ... never.html

Obama's hypocrisy seems to know no bounds. He was for hope and change, openness and transparency, jobs and civil society.

He is a brand, a marketing product of identity politics. Unfortunately, most of the politicians of both the left and the right are the same. They are just targeted to different segments of the public.

They say what is required for their marketing campaigns, and then do what they have been told to do by the moneyed interests who have bought and shaped them after they are elected.

denjohn wrote:

Amskeptic wrote:I took issue with this one. There is a tedious "false equivalence" effort to make sure to give examples of "both sides".

I hate to detract from the substance of what I thought a fine article, but Colin, please clarify the 'both sides' and the tedious false equivalence you refer to.
That seemed to come from a need to defend anything with the word 'liberal' in the sentence.

I detected nothing partisan in the article but did notice you drift off topic to go there and again get your republican digs in.

there is plenty of culpability on both sides of the aisle.

There is a rich culpability to both sides of the aisle, pun intended.

I am just irritated by liberal vs conservative being applied to economics, applied to education, applied to science, applied to justice, and I saw the "sides" being trotted out again. Can we discuss quantitative easing as a tool rather than a party line (I was against it, but from a limited understanding)?

Krugman, Yes, I see his byline "Conscience Of A Liberal" . . .

I get my digs in on anyone who is not addressing the common good, the exercise of a vibrant American experience where all can participate. It seems clear to me that the republican *platform* is not addressing the common good.

Now, just as an American citizen, not a partisan hack libtard, I take issue with:

"Obama's hypocrisy seems to know no bounds. He was for hope and change, openness and transparency, jobs and civil society. He is a brand, a marketing product of identity politics."

Obama was for hope and change and jobs and civil society! He met a Wall Of Resistance from moneyed interests who happen to fund his political opposition. He had to compromise or knuckle under. He is a human being, he is our President, and I for some reason, see the constraints he has been laboring under, and I still manage to respect him (unlike the difficulty I had in respecting George Bush's choices that ended up killing tens of thousands of innocents and wounding hundreds of thousands and devastating our nation's balance sheet, and grotesquely enriching military contractors , and no! this observation does not make me a partisan!!!)

Am I a democratic partisan hack libtard when I say that the spineless bought-and-sold congressional democrats are a key cause of Obama's inability to effect substantive change in the financial sector? That I hate them worse for hypocrisy than the republicans for their looting of the poor and middle class?
Colin

Professional sports, including the Super Bowl, is a negative economic force...and a negative cultural force, as well.

Jivermo wrote:Professional sports, including the Super Bowl, is a negative economic force...and a negative cultural force, as well.

Explicate, if you would.

I see gross inequity, yes, I see team owners somehow getting their host cities to provide tax abatements and other subsidies, I see some players are stinky rich, I see ticket prices are picking pockets, I see advertising as a grotesque tumor splatted on taxpayer-supported arenas, but other than that, what are you talking about?
Colin
(glad New England won!)

Jivermo wrote:Professional sports, including the Super Bowl, is a negative economic force...and a negative cultural force, as well.

One problem...NFL is NOT a sport nor has been for quite sometime. It was deemed a form of 'Entertainment' back in the late 60's and given a tax free status. It operates and is funded heavily with guess what? US taxpayer money thru subsidies. This needs to stop. Not $1 dollar of tax payer money should go to funding entertainment...cough...cough...football (aka a sport).

A snippit from an Email that just arrived from CREDO:

Last week’s Super Bowl was the most watched show in television history, with ads selling for $150,000 a second.1 And while the National Football League brings in over $9.5 billion in revenue a year, it is somehow considered a “non-profit organization" and hasn’t paid a penny in taxes since 1966.2

The notion that the NFL is some kind of "non-profit" is beyond ridiculous, but that could change soon if Congress does the right thing. Rep. Jason Chaffetz, the chair of the House Oversight Committee, recently suggested he may call NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell to testify before Congress about the NFL’s tax-exempt status.3

With a historic Super Bowl game fresh in everyone's mind, now’s the perfect time to force Commissioner Goodell to testify before Congress about the NFL's tax-exempt status.

Tell Chairman Chaffetz: Make Commissioner Roger Goodell testify before the House Oversight Committee about the NFL's non-profit status. Click here to sign the petition.

The idea that the NFL is a “non-profit organization” is absurd. There is no justification for treating the NFL like a charity when Commissioner Goodell earns an incredible $44 million per year, and when America’s top brands pour hundreds of millions of sponsorship dollars into its coffers every year.4

Since 1998, the NFL has spent more than $14 million on lobbying to keep its incredible, tax-free deal, and the League has doled out nearly $2.5 million in campaign contributions since 1992.5 Congressional hearings featuring the NFL’s highly compensated top executive will shine a national spotlight on this massive taxpayer handout.

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/ne ... 209?page=3

It was bad enough when we were merely enabling drug lords for the sake of "financial stability." But it looks now like the U.S. government knowingly bent over backwards to make sure that a major Western tax evader kept its license to operate here in America. Even worse, our next Attorney General was the person responsible for negotiating the deal.

Put another way, what can you say about a government that allows a major bank to systematically help the world's richest people evade taxes when it not only has the power, but an excellent reason to put that bank out of business? The only conclusion to draw is that said government doesn't have strong feelings about the rich evading taxes.

denjohn wrote:A snippit from an Email that just arrived from CREDO:

There is no justification for treating the NFL like a charity when Commissioner Goodell earns an incredible $44 million per year, and when America’s top brands pour hundreds of millions of sponsorship dollars into its coffers every year.
Since 1998, the NFL has spent more than $14 million on lobbying to keep its incredible, tax-free deal, and the League has doled out nearly $2.5 million in campaign contributions since 1992.

This is the problem in a nutshell. Advantage proffered becomes advantage leveraged, becomes unfair advantage. This nation is getting dragged down by the dingos of greed.
Colin

Hey man, dont be pointing fingers at dingo(e)s....we live outside the realms of your cannabalistic society, and when we raid by night, we only take what we need, culling the weak and sick from the herd.

dingo wrote:Hey man, dont be pointing fingers at dingo(e)s....we live outside the realms of your cannabalistic society, and when we raid by night, we only take what we need, culling the weak and sick from the herd.

Interesting . . . still looking for a noble Dingo analogy in human society . . . got one?
Colin

Amskeptic wrote:

denjohn wrote:http://jessescrossroadscafe.blogspot.co ... force.html

And shame on the liberal economists, who will promote stimulus of any sort in their ideological fervor, and cheerlead the results along with the White House, without being mindful that stimulus in itself is not a good thing, if it stimulates the wrong things. QE is not an effective means of stimulus for the real economy, but it is a windfall and a sinecure for the financial sector and the one percent.

I took issue with this one. There is a tedious "false equivalence" effort to make sure to give examples of "both sides".

Who are the liberal economists who promoted Quantitative Easing? I only remember how desperately they urged Congress to enact infrastructure rebuilding NOW with high unemployment and record low interest rates.

Even here January 2015, record low gas prices my god we could increase the federal gas tax for the first time in 18 years to help rebuild our roads and those stupid republicans are once again saying, "that is dead on arrival" while they plan to sue Obama for his immigration directive.

Now, I wonder how we are going to falsely equivocate the gas tax suggestion in some future article describing the impending new collapse of the American economy?
Colin

Record low gas prices. Uh! Based on what record? The 70's, 80's, early 90's...

What about now? Oil is at a 30 year+ low, demand is down, oil glut is at an all time high...yet I just filled up for ~ $3.00 per gallon. The price for a gallon of gas should be no where near 3 bucks.