OT: US President (US Dom Players only)

[JimMorrison]

Originally Posted by chrispedersen

Assume that there were 7 democratic and 5 republican administrations in 48 years. What are the chances if you flipped a coin that the democrats would get 3.5 heads and the republicans 2.5 (zero). So the odds are someone will get more heads - but getting more has nothing to do with being democrat or republican.

Well how about we don't assume that. How about we look at the report, and see that of the 50 years used for the article, 30 years had Republican Presidents, and 20 years had Democratic Presidents. Now, using your example, that means that by sheer chance, the Republicans had more chances to do better. Unfortunately this forces you to stand strong on your refusal to give creedence to isolated statistics, as obviously they had more chances to do poorly, as well. And, in most cases, they in did manage to do more poorly. Of course there were more factors involved, but one thing that makes a good President, is the ability to harmonize with those factors, to get a more effective whole. You can argue what could be, or what also maybe had relevance, but it doesn't change the fact - over the last 50 years, Democrats have had significantly, and fairly reliably more positive economic figures during their time in office. That is a simple fact, it's backed up by other facts, and it's hard to effectively argue against it without presenting facts that support your position.


I will again clarify, for those who like to skim - I am not a Democrat, nor do I implicitly support that party. However I do feel that the Republican party has gone so far beyond the line of good sense, that our country could be much better off. Since we have a very broken 2 party system, I have nothing to compare them to, but the Democratic party, which has become almost as bad in many ways, but is still statistically, and (to me anyways) ideologically superior.

I do wish we could manage something better than either.....

[Agema]

Originally Posted by NTJedi

Providing tax breaks to the rich won't bolster the economy or provide higher wages. Increasing minimum wage has not improved the lives of those working minimum wage as the rest of the market adjusts upwards as well... the $1 menu's from fast food restaurants have been disappearing as a result. Another bad side effect of increasing minimum wage is other businesses don't match the increase... thus if you're earning $6.25/HR and minimum wage is increased from $5.00 to $6.15 you're out of luck and closer to the poverty level.

There's just no way on earth that paying the very poor another 20% is bad for them. Yes, technically it shifts the median wage upwards and statistically takes more people into poverty. But if another family goes from just above the poverty line to just below it because the extremely poor got a pay raise, it makes pretty much no difference to their household finances.

The market cannot shift that far up either. To counteract a minimum wage increase from $5.00-6.15 dollars would take inflation of 20% suddenly occurring. Bear in mind the rest of the population towards the middle class don't see pay rises when minimum wage is increased, so although wage rises are inflationary, the overall inflation is a tiny fraction of the wage increase for the minimum wage.

Also, when you say other businesses don't match the increase, I don't think you're right by the requirements of basic economics. Companies pay more because they need to attract better staff. When minimum wage goes up, if they want to keep attracting those better non-minimum wage staff they have to raise their wages. This will send ripples outwards increasing wages.

[Agema]

Sorry, part of that is wrong. Increase the minimum wage and whilst the mean income goes up, the median will not, so more people will not be put across the poverty line. Besides, I think I also slightly misinterpreted NTJedi's point, I think you were actually saying that people already above the new minimum wage become poorer because costs go up and their salary doesn't alter, although I don't agree that's the case for reasons stated above. Sorry about the double post, didn't have an edit entry option the previous.

[lch]

Originally Posted by NTJedi

Bill Gates found a way to pay zero in taxes for 1999

Since I couldn't find any indication of this the first time I looked around, I did it again. It turns out that Microsoft paid zero federal taxes in 1999, although they had $12.3 billion U.S. income. That's because they found a loophole through international tax evasion.

[chrispedersen]

Originally Posted by Agema

There's just no way on earth that paying the very poor another 20% is bad for them. Yes, technically it shifts the median wage upwards and statistically takes more people into poverty. But if another family goes from just above the poverty line to just below it because the extremely poor got a pay raise, it makes pretty much no difference to their household finances.

The market cannot shift that far up either. To counteract a minimum wage increase from $5.00-6.15 dollars would take inflation of 20% suddenly occurring. Bear in mind the rest of the population towards the middle class don't see pay rises when minimum wage is increased, so although wage rises are inflationary, the overall inflation is a tiny fraction of the wage increase for the minimum wage.

Also, when you say other businesses don't match the increase, I don't think you're right by the requirements of basic economics. Companies pay more because they need to attract better staff. When minimum wage goes up, if they want to keep attracting those better non-minimum wage staff they have to raise their wages. This will send ripples outwards increasing wages.

It also causes unemployment, as businesses evaluate costs vs production. One computer > 10 low paid accountants.

[chrispedersen]

Originally Posted by JimMorrison

Well how about we don't assume that. How about we look at the report, and see that of the 50 years used for the article, 30 years had Republican Presidents, and 20 years had Democratic Presidents. Now, using your example, that means that by sheer chance, the Republicans had more chances to do better. Unfortunately this forces you to stand strong on your refusal to give creedence to isolated statistics, as obviously they had more chances to do poorly, as well.

I don't know if you are deliberately misunderstanding or not.

What I am saying is:

1. The sample size is *too* small to determine causality between performance and party.
2. Performance is greatly overshadowed by external factors such as the putative ending of the cold war.
3. The choice of 1954 as an ending point is arbitrary, and designed to make the democrats look good. Throw in the great depression years and the democrats look abysmal. Lies, damn lies, and statistics.

Any decision to chose an arbitrarily starting point (throwing out hundreds of years of data) you have to immediately infer that any legitimate reason has been tossed out the window.

Its like saying.. yes.. we are going to measure the mpg of this car - but only during the times its running *down* the mountain.

Since we have a very broken 2 party system..

For the sake of argument, what makes you think its broken? I think it is working as well as usual, and as well as intended, more or less.

[NTJedi]

Originally Posted by Agema

There's just no way on earth that paying the very poor another 20% is bad for them. Yes, technically it shifts the median wage upwards and statistically takes more people into poverty. But if another family goes from just above the poverty line to just below it because the extremely poor got a pay raise, it makes pretty much no difference to their household finances.

It's not bad for the very poor it provides the very poor a short term benefit, but it's bad for the working class just above them. When minimum wage increases the vast majority of those small businesses either cut staff and make the remaining staff work harder or raise the prices for food/services provided.
The family above the poverty line which is pushed closer to minimum wage DOES suffer because of the adjustment businesses must make. When I was a teenager I worked in the fast food restaurant and recognized the owner had no choice except to raise prices every time minimum wage increased. One example is our grocery stores with employees earning minimum wage (not the cashiers)... as minimum wage increases the grocery stores balance the increase by raising food prices. There's plenty of articles describing the long term effects of raising minimum wage.

Originally Posted by Agema

Also, when you say other businesses don't match the increase, I don't think you're right by the requirements of basic economics. Companies pay more because they need to attract better staff. When minimum wage goes up, if they want to keep attracting those better non-minimum wage staff they have to raise their wages. This will send ripples outwards increasing wages.

In the majority of cases these other businesses do not match the increase of minimum wage. I've never met anyone such as friend, relative, coworkers who reported receiving a raise because minimum wage increased... unless they were at minimum wage. Simply walk around and ask the employees at small businesses and you'll see. Also the more minimum wage increases the more companies will consider sending call center job overseas!

[Agema]

Erm... are you sure the Great Depression will make the Democrats look bad?

It started during a Republican presidency (Herbert Hoover) following a previous Republican incumbent, and the drop in US GDP is almost entirely in his stewardship. The US recovered under FDR (Democrat).

[JimMorrison]

Originally Posted by chrispedersen

What I am saying is:

1. The sample size is *too* small to determine causality between performance and party.
2. Performance is greatly overshadowed by external factors such as the putative ending of the cold war.
3. The choice of 1954 as an ending point is arbitrary, and designed to make the democrats look good. Throw in the great depression years and the democrats look abysmal. Lies, damn lies, and statistics.

1) It's the only sample that we have. Post WW2 we see the plastic revolution, computers, television, etc etc. For so many reasons, the rest of history isn't even entirely relevant to the current situation, because life and the economy have both evolved tremendously, changing the dynamics of cash-flow forever.

2) Going back to your "chances of positive or negative events" argument, I can only state that given how many extenuating factors exist, the only thing that we can do, unless we can achieve full transparency from our government and our corporations, is assume that over time, the net effect of positive and negative factors upon the performance of the Presidency, has been roughly equal.

3) There is no "choice" of an ending date for the study, and it is not arbitrary. That year was chosen for one simple reason, it is the first year that all relevant factors was tracked by the Economic Report to the President. And as I postulated before, it's all that really matters to the here and now. 70 years ago for example, our economy was balanced around the concept of single income families. It was considered generally disreputable for a married woman to be working in America, rather than taking care of her children. The advent of so many of our modern trappings, and the rapid rise in apparent cost of living, has transformed our economy in ways that make historical dynamics inapplicable to the present state of the nation (and the world), thus invalidating data culled from another era. Otherwise, we must both bow to the assumption that Despotism is the superior form of government, as the greatest empires of all time, Alexander the Great's Greece, and Ghengis Khan's Mongolia, were essentially led by intensely charismatic and intelligent dictators. Ignoring that fact, is arbitrarily skewing results towards some sort of representative government, and thus ignoring the ability of a strong dictator to make a nation grow and flourish beyond expectations.

Originally Posted by chrispedersen

For the sake of argument, what makes you think its broken? I think it is working as well as usual, and as well as intended, more or less.

Certainly not as intended. The type of conflict in Washington that was originally intended, has all but faded away. Our elected officials are no longer elected based upon their ability to debate, their ability to innovate, or their ability to help our government evolve. Our Federal Government was intended to change and grow over time, to meet the changing needs of the nation, and her people. But as politicians perfected spin, and their ability to manipulate people into voting for charisma, rather than for integrity and courage - as the focus was taken away from serious national concerns, and placed upon petty social issues - we failed ourselves, and our government failed us.

Both parties have failed us. Just, the Republican party has managed to fail us just a bit more.

[Bwaha]

WASHINGTON -- A Republican congressman from Georgia said Monday he fears that President-elect Obama will establish a Gestapo-like security force to impose a Marxist or fascist dictatorship.

"It may sound a bit crazy and off base, but the thing is, he's the one who proposed this national security force," Rep. Paul Broun said of Obama in an interview Monday with The Associated Press. "I'm just trying to bring attention to the fact that we may -- may not, I hope not -- but we may have a problem with that type of philosophy of radical socialism or Marxism."

Broun cited a July speech by Obama that has circulated on the Internet in which the then-Democratic presidential candidate called for a civilian force to take some of the national security burden off the military.

"That's exactly what Hitler did in Nazi Germany and it's exactly what the Soviet Union did," Broun said. "When he's proposing to have a national security force that's answering to him, that is as strong as the U.S. military, he's showing me signs of being Marxist."

Obama's comments about a national security force came during a speech in Colorado about building a new civil service corps. Among other things, he called for expanding the nation's foreign service and doubling the size of the Peace Corps "to renew our diplomacy."

"We cannot continue to rely only on our military in order to achieve the national security objectives that we've set," Obama said in July. "We've got to have a civilian national security force that's just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded."

Broun said he also believes Obama likely will move to ban gun ownership if he does build a national police force.

Obama has said he respects the Second Amendment right to bear arms and favors "common sense" gun laws. Gun rights advocates interpret that as meaning he'll at least enact curbs on ownership of assault weapons and concealed weapons. As an Illinois state lawmaker, Obama supported a ban on semiautomatic weapons and tighter restrictions on firearms generally.

"We can't be lulled into complacency," Broun said. "You have to remember that Adolf Hitler was elected in a democratic Germany. I'm not comparing him to Adolf Hitler. What I'm saying is there is the potential."

Obama's transition office did not respond immediately to Broun's remarks.
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You see why there's such concern about where our country is going.