Difference is Reagan, over 8 years, added about $2.5T to the deficit (adjusted for inflation). That took Obama less than 2 years.

BoatShoes;1232998 wrote:I understand the point you're making but let me explain why I don't think the point you're making in this particular debate matters much.

If Barack Obama were saying in the normative sense, "You didn't get their on your own therefore we ought to pass laws that tax the successful more" and those laws come to pass...I agree it is different because it is obligatory whereas a pastor saying "you didn't get there on your own therefore we ought to tithe more or support a government of the people, by the people and for the people that redistributes more wealth to the poor as an efficient way to follow what Christ commanded" is not.

I'm saying that difference doesn't matter in this particular debate surrounding Barry's quote because it's not about the normative proposition really.

This debate is about how Barry has shown himself to be sufficiently anti-capitalist allegedly simply because he got grandiose in his suggestion that successful people don't earn their success totally and wholly on their own.

I'm saying that people use this type of language all the time, particularly pastors as one example (since a lot of conservatives wouldn't call their pastor an anti-capitalist) and yet that doesn't mean they're anti-capitalist/free-enterprize/success or whatever.

I agree with what you're saying but to me the pastor example was just used to show that people who believe in this grander scope of success or whatever aren't considered anti-capitalism.

Ah ... I see what you mean now. I agree that his belief that someone doesn't do something completely alone does not make him anti-capitalist. Hell, nobody builds EVERYTHING himself or herself. The difference with true capitalism is that what isn't done on one's own is a matter of choice. Hence my distinction with pastors. As far as what they want to do with the money, churches and their constitutions usually include some semblance of charity.

gut;1233167 wrote:Difference is Reagan, over 8 years, added about $2.5T to the deficit (adjusted for inflation). That took Obama less than 2 years.

He also had around a 5% inflation average over the course of his two terms and effective conventional monetary policy that brought the economy to full employment before the end of his first term lasting for the decade. Obama has had conventional monetary policy maxed out before he even got in office and the fed is treating the 2% inflation target like an impregnable ceiling while allowing unemployment to mire well above target. As is evidenced by the "fiscal cliff" which would include more spending cuts than Reagan could have dreamed of, such austere measures are going to contract the economy. Reagan, however, in 82' could pull off a deficit reduction act because interest rates were sky high and Paul Volcker could counter any negative effects.

If we were at full employment (and we would be if we had the same growth in government jobs that Ronald Reagan had...meaning Republican governors weren't firing people and putting them on the Federal dole which automatically makes the deficit rise) and Reagan's inflation rate these deficits you complain about would not be materializing.

So it always comes back to the point that Reagan benefited from things you say suck; non-value adding gubmint jobs that "don't create wealth", "high" inflation, high marginal tax rates, big increases in discretionary government spending (not automatic stabilizers), tax raises to close deficits as opposed to spending cuts and on and on.

If there were 4% inflation now, BGFalcons would be declaring the end of the world. If gubmint jobs were increasing at the same rate they were for Reagan, MB would remind us how worthless all of their labor is and that they might as well be digging holes. If marginal tax rates were as high we'd hear about the demoRats confiscating the labor of the producers from HitsRus and if taxes were raised (on the job creators no less) instead of spending cuts to improve deficit concerns we'd hear about the community organizer punishing the successful when the problem is spending not lack of revenue from QuakerOats.

Yet, all of those things occurred under a president all of those guys consider to be the best president since probably before WWII.

But I don't know I guess it was probably Reagan's movie star smile inspiring the confidence fairy that had more to do with it all. :rolleyes:

BoatShoes;1232840 wrote:Not really.

He doesn't understand the fact that they're both fruit

" MB would remind us how worthless all of their labor is and that they might as well be digging holes."

Apparently I need to do do that again, their labor is worthless. Most of these people are bureaucrats whose job is to stop progression. We need to push more paper?

"(and we would be if we had the same growth in government jobs that Ronald Reagan had...meaning Republican governors weren't firing people and putting them on the Federal dole which automatically makes the deficit rise)"

Boatshoes I am begging you at this point, what in God's green earth are all of these government employees supposed to do? Do you even begin to have an answer for this? You can't be this naive.

I Wear Pants;1232486 wrote:How is it incorrect?

If I have a restaurant or factory I didn't build the roads and schools that allow me to ship/receive my products and have educated employees. He was talking about the roads not their businesses when he said "you didn't build that".

Incorrect isn't the word for it. Stupid is the word. Do you actually think he was talking about roads or schools? How about thanking God or Allah, or the trees for converting carbon dioxide into oxygen for our breathing. This is without a doubt the dumbest comment I've ever heard from a sitting POTUS.

BoatShoes;1233005 wrote:Imagine QuakerOats' Rage if Barack Obama proposed the same repeal of accelerated depreciation deductions and reducing the basis for investment tax credits that Ronald Reagan signed into law with Tax "EQUITY" (Read "fairness") and fiscal Responsibility act of 1982!

LOL!

.....all as if MR. Reagan had not signed the Kemp-Roth bill the year before.....LOL.

Reagan did sign TEFRA in return for the promise of Congress to reduce spending by $3 for every $1 in new tax revenue. Alas, the liberals in congress lied ---- so what's new.

BoatShoes;1233015 wrote:And, did we hear a word of praise from QuakerOats about the wealth of accommodation for depreciation schedules and investment credits in BHO's porkulous sammich?

Those provisions are meaningless when everything else obama does squelches any chance that businesses are going to invest in new equipment. NO ONE IS RISKING CAPITAL WITH THIS CLOWN IN THE WH ...... you could have an immediate write off $5 million in capex, but no one is going to spend the money until they know obama is leaving office. For obama to entertain any such provisions is mere window dressing.

How many times will we cover the same ground.

QuakerOats;1233562 wrote:Those provisions are meaningless when everything else obama does squelches any chance that businesses are going to invest in new equipment. NO ONE IS RISKING CAPITAL WITH THIS CLOWN IN THE WH ...... you could have an immediate write off $5 million in capex, but no one is going to spend the money until they know obama is leaving office. For obama to entertain any such provisions is mere window dressing.

How many times will we cover the same ground.

You repeating the same thing over and over again doesn't make it true.

QuakerOats;1233558 wrote:.....all as if MR. Reagan had not signed the Kemp-Roth bill the year before.....LOL.

Reagan did sign TEFRA in return for the promise of Congress to reduce spending by $3 for every $1 in new tax revenue. Alas, the liberals in congress lied ---- so what's new.

That's exactly the point...he undid the very tax cuts you gave him credit for in your post the very next year! If Obama did that you would scream! And, Reagan's own budget director doesn't blame the liberals but the administration for lack of spending cuts materializing.

QuakerOats;1233562 wrote:Those provisions are meaningless when everything else obama does squelches any chance that businesses are going to invest in new equipment. NO ONE IS RISKING CAPITAL WITH THIS CLOWN IN THE WH ...... you could have an immediate write off $5 million in capex, but no one is going to spend the money until they know obama is leaving office. For obama to entertain any such provisions is mere window dressing.

How many times will we cover the same ground.

So that's it...it is all of your arguments that are just window dressing. What it really comes down is Ronald Reagan's movie star smile and platitudes about capitalism inspiring the confidence fairy. Our great, heroic, job creators are afraid of an empty suit. An entrepreneur with a golden opportunity to earn an impressive return with a high demand for his product isn't going to risk his capital because he fears the skinny lawyer in the white house. What a joke.

BoatShoes;1233585 wrote:So that's it...it is all of your arguments that are just window dressing. What it really comes down is Ronald Reagan's movie star smile and platitudes about capitalism inspiring the confidence fairy. Our great, heroic, job creators are afraid of an empty suit. An entrepreneur with a golden opportunity to earn an impressive return with a high demand for his product isn't going to risk his capital because he fears the skinny lawyer in the white house. What a joke.

It's like QuakerOats thinks all our entrepreneurs are cowards. That's certainly not the case.

Manhattan Buckeye;1233356 wrote:" MB would remind us how worthless all of their labor is and that they might as well be digging holes."

Apparently I need to do do that again, their labor is worthless. Most of these people are bureaucrats whose job is to stop progression. We need to push more paper?

"(and we would be if we had the same growth in government jobs that Ronald Reagan had...meaning Republican governors weren't firing people and putting them on the Federal dole which automatically makes the deficit rise)"

Boatshoes I am begging you at this point, what in God's green earth are all of these government employees supposed to do? Do you even begin to have an answer for this? You can't be this naive.

They seemed to find jobs that added to GDP during the Reagan and Bush Jr. administrations following their first term recessions. There are plenty of jobs that we could think of for people to do that would create value in the minds of conservatives and pay them with money that investors are willing to lend for free these days. I don't think it'd be so bad if there were more auditors at the GAO for instance; there's an awful lot of unemployed lawyers out there and a lot of overworked public defenders; there's a lot of dilapidated homes that could be ripped down.

There's all kinds of things people could do that would create value for our society when they're being paid with free money (which is essentially the case for federal bonds at these rates)...certainly more so than them sitting on the couch waiting to get foreclosed, on unemployment insurance, eating food they paid for with their SNAP card and all the while thinking about those student loans they're defaulting on.

I mean look at the real yield curve on treasuries right now.

http://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/data-chart-center/interest-rates/pages/textview.aspx?data=realyield

Investors are willing to pay the government a lot of money to take it for 10 years! There's also clearly no concern in the market about our debt and deficits. Even without considering multiplier effects, we could be paying people to fix up our dilapidated infrastructure with free money or have them sit on their ass unemployed.

It should really be a no brainer and if Romney could borrow at those types of rates at Bain Capital you bet your ass he would have. If we were running the U.S. like Romney ran Bain it is an easy call to make.

I Wear Pants;1233592 wrote:It's like QuakerOats thinks all our entrepreneurs are cowards. That's certainly not the case.

He has nothing else to justify his wanton dislike of BHO based upon actual policy comparison to his hero so he has to make things up to alleviate the cognitive dissonance.

BoatShoes;1233323 wrote: So it always comes back to the point that Reagan benefited from things you say suck; non-value adding gubmint jobs that "don't create wealth", "high" inflation, high marginal tax rates, big increases in discretionary government spending (not automatic stabilizers), tax raises to close deficits as opposed to spending cuts and on and on.

Very nice post. But doesn't explain or excuse the MASSIVE MASSIVE and completely INEFFECTIVE deficits Obama is running. There's not enough lipstick in the world for that pig. Obama has corporations scared to invest, that's a fact liberals (most of whom are in the ivory tower or behind a newsdesk) refuse to acknowledge. Talk to people actually out there in the business world, decision makers, and they will tell you it's 100% true. So there IS an Obamaconomy overhang that crushes growth for no purpose or reason, meaning ANYONE else under these conditions would be doing better.

gut;1233658 wrote:Very nice post. But doesn't explain or excuse the MASSIVE MASSIVE and completely INEFFECTIVE deficits Obama is running. There's not enough lipstick in the world for that pig. Obama has corporations scared to invest, that's a fact liberals (most of whom are in the ivory tower or behind a newsdesk) refuse to acknowledge. Talk to people actually out there in the business world, decision makers, and they will tell you it's 100% true. So there IS an Obamaconomy overhang that crushes growth for no purpose or reason, meaning ANYONE else under these conditions would be doing better.

Bullshit, that's not a fact at all.

The massive corporations aren't investing because they're making record profits doing what they are now so why would they take any risk at all to invest? Not because the magic confidence fairy hasn't visited them.

BoatShoes;1233576 wrote:That's exactly the point...he undid the very tax cuts you gave him credit for in your post the very next year!

HE DID NOT; all the economy-lifitng marginal tax cuts remained. Please stick to the facts.

BoatShoes;1233604 wrote:He has nothing else to justify his wanton dislike of BHO based upon actual policy comparison to his hero so he has to make things up to alleviate the cognitive dissonance.

You have elevated yourself into fantasy land. Reagan's policy of drastically lowering marginal tax rates is in complete conflict with The White House occupier's policy agenda of rasing marginal tax rates. Reagan's agenda to get out of the way of the private sector is in direct conflict with The White House occupier's agenda of crippling the private sector.

Perhaps you got into the pinot grigio a little early today.

I Wear Pants;1233669 wrote:Bull****, that's not a fact at all.

I love how people with knowledge and experience in the area keep saying this, and people without keep claiming it isn't so. Just because you refuse to believe this reality doesn't mean it's not true.

And part of your ignorance is based on the fact that corporations operate and invest on 5-yr plans with expectation of forward-looking regulatory and tax environments, hence the "obama overhang".

I Wear Pants;1233592 wrote:It's like QuakerOats thinks all our entrepreneurs are cowards. That's certainly not the case.

They are hardly cowards; they are, however, very smart. And smart people don't squander their money when there is considerable doubt they will earn an appropriate return. They attribute their doubt directly to the White House occupier.

Here's the deal --- I get phone calls every week from financiers looking to fund capex; I tell them we are doing nothing until The White House occupier is gone. They all reply: "I can't tell you how many times I hear that every day".


You need to get in the real world.

QuakerOats;1233698 wrote:They are hardly cowards; they are, however, very smart. And smart people don't squander their money when there is considerable doubt they will earn an appropriate return. They attribute their doubt directly to the White House occupier.

Here's the deal --- I get phone calls every week from financiers looking to fund capex; I tell them we are doing nothing until The White House occupier is gone. They all reply: "I can't tell you how many times I hear that every day".


You need to get in the real world.

Explain the record profits then, if Obama is killing business so thoroughly as you allege then profits should be shrinking not massively growing.

gut;1233694 wrote:I love how people with knowledge and experience in the area keep saying this, and people without keep claiming it isn't so. Just because you refuse to believe this reality doesn't mean it's not true.

And part of your ignorance is based on the fact that corporations operate and invest on 5-yr plans with expectation of forward-looking regulatory and tax environments, hence the "obama overhang".

Or it could be that despite all the money we through at them and all the basically free loans we gave them that banks still are not lending money out to people looking for traditional business loans and such. Much more profitable for them to continue their shenanigans and collude together to manipulate LIBOR and such.

Talk to your local community banker about how great things are in the regulatory arena. Talk to them about loan qualifications. Talk to them about the mood of potential customers.

Then come talk to us.

QuakerOats;1233825 wrote:Talk to your local community banker about how great things are in the regulatory arena. Talk to them about loan qualifications. Talk to them about the mood of potential customers.

Then come talk to us.

Oh wow, please, please tell me you're insinuating that our problems are caused by too much banking regulations. That's just beyond hilarious if you are.

I Wear Pants;1233777 wrote:Explain the record profits then, if Obama is killing business so thoroughly as you allege then profits should be shrinking not massively growing.

I am not sure what record profits you are talking about; enlighten us. Regardless, my point was not about profits; it was about capex, and what businesses are doing either with their alleged profits, or in the borrowing arena. Are they rolling their alleged profits into new investments/capex, and/or are they looking at taking on more debt to fund investments/capex ----- the answers are essentially NO! And that is because business managers do not like what they see ......wonder why.