OT: Jibjab, Politics, the Big Bang and more!

[archaeolept]

uh, huzurdaddi, your response is itself quite lame, as you still have provided no evidence for your claims. and i have no ****ing clue what SES stands for either. perhaps it is an americanism?

edit: the top google results for "ses" involve geosyncronous satellites, New South Wales State Emergency Service, school evaluation service, standards engineering society...

They are indeed evidence.

yes, bad evidence

"Well, Your Honor. We've plenty of hearsay and conjecture. Those are kinds of evidence." - Lionel Hutz

[ July 27, 2004, 18:16: Message edited by: archaeolept ]

[vigabrand]

Originally posted by Arryn:

quote:

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Originally posted by Graeme Dice:
I think that a much more likely reason for the economy to be surging is that the government has added over a hundred billion dollars into the economy through deficit spending.

To add to this, for the sake of attempting to educate Viga, that deficit spending was/is the Iraq situation. And the surge is mainly in defense-related industries, and the local areas the plants are located in. Atlanta happens to be one of those fortunate areas. Houston isn't, hence I'm not reaping the alleged benefits of the government's (unsound) policy of mortgaging the future to cater to the present.

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First off, you aren't educating anyone. These are the same arguments leftists made when Reagan did the same thing. Sorry to burst your bubble, but those policies led to the good economy of the 90's. That and a repulican controlled Congress. Iraq is not the only thing causing deficit spending, perhaps you were not paying attention when Bush aided Ted Kennedy in the largest education bill ever. Perhaps you were sleeping when Bush got the prescription drup program passed. Congressional spending is rampant and I'm not happy with a lot of Bushes domestic spending, but I whole heartedly support spending in Iraq and wherever we decide to kick butt. Iraq aside, spending has got to be curbed and the budget balanced, WITH tax cuts. There is plenty of room to trim the fat while leaving more money for us to fuel the economy. You guys might argue that the gov't is what fueled the economy, but again I say, ask the experts. All consumer product selling companies are reporting greater earnings since the tax cuts, as are consumer creditors, real esatate is on the rise, tech is slowly recovering, health care is on the rise (private). Not everyone is feeling the effects, but most Americans are.

[Arryn]

Originally posted by archaeolept:
yah, massive deficit spending is the traditional way to get the economy revving. spend now, pay later. the hundreds of billions in deficit spending this Last year quite dwarf the few billion in tax cuts.

The tax cut isn't a "few" billion. It's well over 300 billion over ten years. For more info, check out this link, and this link, and this link.

To quote from the first article:

Economic Effects. Tax cuts have often been rationalized on the grounds that they would stimulate long-run economic growth, but that argument is implausible for this package. Relatively few taxpayers would see a reduction in their marginal tax rate beyond 2005 when the temporary AMT relief is set to expire. As a result, there would be negligible effect on incentives to work, save, or invest in unproductive tax shelters. Moreover, by adding to the burgeoning budget deficits, the tax cuts would raise interest rates and discourage investment by businesses and purchases of homes and cars by consumers. These responses would tend to stifle economic growth.

[Graeme Dice]

Originally posted by Huzurdaddi:
They are indeed evidence. They are not statistics.

Sure they are evidence. They also happen to be useless in drawing conclusions about the actual state of something.

Google it yourself willfully ignorant boy.

Failure to provide the evidence to support your own claims has very little difference from being unable to provide evidence to support your own claims. Failure to provide evidence indicates that the evidence doesn't even exist in the first place.

Lawsuits ( a ) give compensation for damage , ( b ) provide a strong disincentive to perform malpractice and ( c ) remove people who commit malpractice from the medical system.

Yes, they do all of these things. In fact, they provide such a strong "disincentive to perform malpractice" that many doctors are leaving the profession.

But, of course, you know this. Much like you know that Canada's health system is worthless compared to the US system *if* you can pay in the US.

No, I don't "know" that the U.S. system is superior if one has the money. Are you telling me that you would rather get treatment for Parkinson's disease in the U.S. instead of in Saskatchewan? After all, one of the leading Parkinson's researchers in the world works in Saskatoon. I also take it that you would ignore the Edmonton protocol for implanting pancreatic islets into diabetics. I can name numerous examples of areas where you would be better off receiving treatment in the Canadian health care system, which blows your claim that the Canadian system is "worthless" out of the water.

You've yet to do anything other than continually repeat the assertion that "Canadian Health Care sucks". You haven't made a useful argument until you can back up your statement with something more than "Because I say so".

Ahh I see your definition of meaningless. If you do not understand something it is meaningless. If you disagee with something being evidence it is not. I think I start to understand.

Right, so the acronym doesn't actually mean anything. Thanks for clearing that up. If you aren't willing to define your terms, then your argument is worthless.

And I explained why the statistics you provided show that free medical coverage increases aggregate health figures.However that does not mean that the health system is "better." Of course as always you fail to realize this.

Aggregate health statistics are the _only_ meaningful measurement of whether a health care is better at serving a population.

[Arryn]

Originally posted by vigabrand:
Sorry to burst your bubble, but those policies led to the good economy of the 90's.

You are massively clueless. If you think that deficit spending leads to a good economy you should talk to former Soviet economists. Deficit spending was the ultimate cause of the collapse of the USSR. The US (along with NATO) bankrupted them by forcing them to spend more on their military than they could afford. Contrary to Khrushchev's famous line "we shall bury you", we buried them -- in debt.

EDIT: what led to the good economy of the 90s was the so-called "peace dividend" when we dramatically cut back on how much money we spent on defense after the USSR collapsed. IOW, when we quit deficit spending.

[ July 27, 2004, 18:52: Message edited by: Arryn ]

[archaeolept]

The tax cut isn't a "few" billion. It's well over 300 billion over ten years. For more info, check out this link, and this link, and this link.

in the context in which i was speaking, that of a yearly 400 billion dollar deficit or so, the comparable tax cut for that year does qualify as a "few billion" and is still dwarfed by the deficit, which was my claim.

[vigabrand]

Originally posted by Arryn:

quote:

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Originally posted by vigabrand:
Sorry to burst your bubble, but those policies led to the good economy of the 90's.

You are massively clueless. If you think that deficit spending leads to a good economy you should talk to former Soviet economists. Deficit spending was the ultimate cause of the collapse of the USSR. The US (along with NATO) bankrupted them by forcing them to spend more on their military than they could afford. Contrary to Khrushchev's famous line "we shall bury you", we buried them -- in debt.

EDIT: what led to the good economy of the 90s was the so-called "peace dividend" when we dramatically cut back on how much money we spent on defense after the USSR collapsed. IOW, when we quit deficit spending.

---

Your argument is based on a comparison to the USSR? You obviously don't remember the economy during the Carter years. Reagans policies pulled us out of the worst and kept us afloat until the economy was able to create a wider tax base. More people employed + higher paying jobs = more tax dollars. Yes the money saved from defence helped, but you leave out other great things, like welfare reform, the first balanced budget in decades, cutbacks to almost all social programs. You could look at the defense return as a result of Reagans investment in the military. Looks like the deficit spending was eventually fixed when congress cut their spending. Meanwhile the bandaid it gave primed us for the 90's. I'm no fan of deficit spending, but the fix is not raising taxes. BTW please keep your arrogant personal comments to yourself. I'd like to keep this civil.

[Gandalf Parker]

Originally posted by vigabrand:
Meanwhile the bandaid it gave primed us for the 90's. I'm no fan of deficit spending, but the fix is not raising taxes. BTW please keep your arrogant personal comments to yourself. I'd like to keep this civil.

Your kidding right? I know its common to say the good things are because of my guy in office or my guy who just left office (depending on your party) and all bad things are because of their guy in office or their guy who just left office (whoever the other party is). And usually Id consider such things not worth commenting on. But thats with the 4 year thing.

Clinton had 2 terms and I remember first election of his. Much of it was all fear of communism and the horrible debt that looked like it would be with us forever. At then end of Clintons second term we had balanced budget, no debt, no russia, no job problem, no real wars, and the important topics of the day were things in tabloids and entertainment magazines. I got a tax refunds. I bought a house. I put kids thru school. Life was good.

Now I admit that I havent studied the subject but really are you STILL trying to say that ALL of the good stuff was from the guy BEFORE Clinton? And all the bad stuff now I guess was done by him? I didnt vote for him but still I have some problem swallowing that fish whole.

[vigabrand]

No Gandalf, I was specifically talking about Reagan's economic policies enabling the 90's boom. Had the economy persisted as they were under Carter, Clinton and/or Bush Sr. would have been dealing with what Reagan had to. Whether you want to give credit to Clinton or the Republican Congress for jump starting it and keeping it going into 9/11, that's up to you, I won't argue. I don't really know what the heck Clinton did to help, but take a look at how much he wanted to spend, and then how much he spent. Look at the wars we were in like Somalia, Haiti, Serbia, bombing Baghdad. The debt was erased, but do you remember how much congress had to fight him, and override his vetoes, in order to get a balanced budget? He did act to have defense cut, but he wanted giant increases in almost all social programs. I guess the fact is, good things happened when he was president so he gets credit. Oops, I said I wasn't going to argue, sorry.

[Stormbinder]

Originally posted by Gandalf Parker:

quote:

---

Originally posted by vigabrand:
Meanwhile the bandaid it gave primed us for the 90's. I'm no fan of deficit spending, but the fix is not raising taxes. BTW please keep your arrogant personal comments to yourself. I'd like to keep this civil.

Your kidding right? I know its common to say the good things are because of my guy in office or my guy who just left office (depending on your party) and all bad things are because of their guy in office or their guy who just left office (whoever the other party is). And usually Id consider such things not worth commenting on. But thats with the 4 year thing.

Clinton had 2 terms and I remember first election of his. Much of it was all fear of communism and the horrible debt that looked like it would be with us forever. At then end of Clintons second term we had balanced budget, no debt, no russia, no job problem, no real wars, and the important topics of the day were things in tabloids and entertainment magazines. I got a tax refunds. I bought a house. I put kids thru school. Life was good.

Now I admit that I havent studied the subject but really are you STILL trying to say that ALL of the good stuff was from the guy BEFORE Clinton? And all the bad stuff now I guess was done by him? I didnt vote for him but still I have some problem swallowing that fish whole.

---

Well, actually USSR collapsed 1 year before Clinton took office Gandalf. But the rest of your comments are correct and I generally share your position. I am certanly not big fan of Kerry, but Bush irritates me too much with his self-righteuous attitude that he applys to each and every policy issue. "Consolidator" my arse! I mean, the guy who lost a popular vote should at least *try* to govern from the center and *try* to be somewhat moderate, as he humbly promised during his election compain. As it is, he is most radical USA president that I know since Nixon.


To be fair, I have to say that I do approve several of his major actions as a president, including even some controversial ones. However I disaprove significantly more of his deeds both in internal and external policies.


But what worries me most is that during his first term Bush had to always keep in mind the reelection year, and moderate his retoric and his urges somehow, to avoid alienating too many people with his policies. But it is scary to think what he may do during his 2nd term, if he gets reelected, since than he will likely to pull all breaks off, reshaping the America according to his vision during his future 4 years in the office. I mean, think about it - if during the Last 4 years we have seen "careful, compasionate, moderate" Bush, as he proclaimed himself, than what the hell he will do during his next 4 years, when he will no longer have any 2nd thoughts due to his need to be reelected?!? Frankly I think it is scary. This guy is loose cannon and I don't trust him and his extremely self-righteous attitude. I am not democrat. I share a lot of GOP's values. I don't like Kerry at all. But I think he is certanly a lesser of two evils here, and I don't want to live in the USA shaped acording to Bush's image for the next 4 years.

-Stormbinder