BoatShoes

posted by QuakerOats

 

The entire HB6 bailout was a crock, all for the benefit of bondholders at hedge funds – sickening.  Every politician that voted for HB6 was on the take; the electricity lobby in Cbus is by far the most powerful lobby in the state.  The lies and misrepresentations were of epic proportion.  Now there is a referendum afoot to repeal HB6 and again the big-money bondholders are throwing everything they can at defeating the signature drive to get the referendum on the ballot.  Their ads are so far out of line it is pathetic.  Now they are actually bullying the signature collectors and Yost finally issued a final warning to them.  Corruption at its finest, right here in Ohio …….Householder and others are the biggest sleaze balls we have had in a while.

Impressive to see you criticize the HB6 scam. Larry Householder is something else. Met him and a few lawmakers in his pocket at a bar in Cbus last year. 

posted by Dr Winston O'Boogie

Any press is good press for the attention-seeking.  She knows how to keep herself in front of the camera in any situation.  She will be a victim, bully, smart, dumb, wise, stupid, reserved, impulsive - whatever it takes to keep the focus on her.  She's seems to have Trump's knack for self-promotion.  Now he's been doing it a lot longer, so we'll see if she can keep it up.  In general though, I don't believe even she believes half her BS.  

She's basically an Instagram "celeb" in a position of political power. I don't see her losing a primary. She'll leave voluntarily leave claiming congress is broken and start a scam non-profit or PAC, etc. like Al Sharpton's National Action Network.

Hickenlooper I'm interested to hear more from.  He's a true moderate, and brings some needed sanity to these debates.  But in this Democratic party he might as well be a conservative Republican.

Of course, he gets laughed at for speaking truth and you can bet the DNC can't wait to get him off the stage.

posted by fish82

Tulsi Gabbard has also done a pretty good job so far at not being completely batshit insane. 

Gee - a hot charismatic rising star with military experience who has shown willingness to buck conventional views - even within our own party. Let's excommunicate her! The social justice warriors on our side have burned her at the stake ("I'll take anyone but Tulsi") because she grew up in a weird religious sect that was anti-gay - despite having one of the best and more believable stories on reforming those anti-gay views - saying her experience in the middle east changed them:

The contrast between our society and those in the Middle East made me realize that the difference — the reason those societies are so oppressive — is that they are essentially theocracies where the government and government leaders wield the power to both define and then enforce morality.

My experiences in the Middle East eventually led me to reevaluate my view regarding government’s role in our personal lives and decisions.

Slowly, I began to realize that the positions I had held previously regarding the issues of choice and gay marriage were rooted in the same premise held by those in power in the oppressive Middle East regimes I saw — that it is government’s role to define and enforce our personal morality.

More believable than Obama just deciding he was for Gay Marriage after Sleep Joe ran his mouth.

As a Democrat the debates were pretty depressing. Very hard to watch and found myself cringing many times and had to turn them off. It is going to be a long, long election.

Lol at Beto speaking Spanish in a debate.

Also, workers for Wayfair walked out today bc wayfair sold beds to the detention camps... bc they’d rather the kids have no beds? This border hypocrisy is laughable 

posted by ptown_trojans_1

Trump? 

To be fair, only when its his daughter...

posted by O-Trap

Seems like a rather apt parallel in practice to the attempt to prevent wealthy from emigrating to lower tax rate states.

Indeed and that has rightly been a failure.

posted by BoatShoes

Good idea. Will be fun to watch Ohio GOPers try blatantly violate the privileges and immunities clause of the constitution to try and prevent the abortion busses from pouring in from Illinois. 

Seems like a rather apt parallel in practice to the attempt to prevent wealthy from emigrating to lower tax rate states.

posted by gut

This demonstrates an absurd level of ignorance of economic history, but you've shown over and over you know neither the history nor fundamental theory.  Japan, for one, proves you wrong....and I could rattle off probably 2 dozen other examples without much trouble.  There's a mountain of empirical data of slower growth, higher inflation and higher unemployment with high public debt levels at countries that could print their own currency.  The claim you made above is unequivocally false.

MMT is a quack theory that appears to be primarily promoted by socialists that know their programs can never be funded by taxes alone.

Provide some links if you are so confident. Ironically Japan is a good example that proves us right! Why are they still able to sell gov't securities at such low rates despite high amounts of debt? Sovereign currency. The Gut's of the world have been saying the end for Japan is imminent for over a quarter of a century and yet it remains a hugely prosperous nation. 

The Japanese keep making mistakes like the impending sales tax hike to stupidly reduce the deficit. They need to increase the deficit with policies that will address The serious problems on the supply side with their aging population and unwillingness to have children e.g. something like huge child tax credits or immigration reform. Japan needs to go all-in. The persistent return to trying to follow the Gut's of the world's advice to close the deficit keeps holding them back. 

MMT is gaining ground by the day. Marco Rubio just put out a paper in which he cited MMT founding economists. MMT allows for policies that cohere with both conservative and progressive values. Indeed, the American GOP has functionally been operating the federal gov't under MMT principles w/ conservative branding (tax cuts pay for themselves) since Reagan. Donald Trump has thankfully just dialed it up to 11 (save the idiotic trade war). 

But hey Gut will go on proclaiming inevitable doom for the rest of his life and never change his mind like the false preachers who say judgment day is coming no matter how many times their prediction is wrong). 

posted by gut

Who said deficits drive inflation?  I'm not sure you've ever understood the concepts and arguments being discussed.

But, sure, there are global forces helping to keep inflation at bay.  That's not exactly an endorsement for massive increases in the debt, but simply kicking the can down the road.

Maybe it is just a case of not having to outrun the bear.  Nevertheless, ample empirical evidence PROVES high debt is correlated with high unemployment, higher taxes and lower growth.  And plenty of economic theory tells us why that is.

So your eagerness to declare a new normal because the canary hasn't died yet isn't the least bit compelling.

We MMTers say that. The limit on a monetarily sovereign country's ability to run "deficits" is the real capacity of the economy. Accordingly - assuming the central bank doesn't offset expansionary fiscal policy with tighter monetary policy (Ironically this is why Trump is hammering the Fed because he views the FOMC as tempering the effects of the TCJA by tightening. I agree! Trump! The MMT hero we need!) - too large of a deficit can generate demand-pull inflation. 

High public debts only drag on economies without monetary sovereignty e.g. Greece which has to pay its debts in Euros. 

7 or so years now since the "Economic Collapse is Inevitable Thread." Continually proclaiming that the Canary's death is coming while it never comes is nit compelling. 

posted by gut

But first they'll increase Planned Parenthood's funding so they can provide bus service....

Good idea. Will be fun to watch Ohio GOPers try blatantly violate the privileges and immunities clause of the constitution to try and prevent the abortion busses from pouring in from Illinois. 

posted by QuakerOats

 

If we can get passed the damage done to America's reputation around the world and get through the next few years without some crisis resulting from Trump's idiocy like a war with Iran or Venezuela - thank God for this experiment that is Donald J. Trump. He has shown beyond doubt that we can run the kind of deficits I've said we can run even in a good economy and we still aren't blowing past the Fed's inflation target and interest rates on treasuries have not soared into oblivion like they naysayers claimed. And, he's proven beyond doubt the complete fraud that deficit-hawkery is and was in the Republican party. Through it all, the Dems might finally be waking up (slowly but surely) that they too can run fiscal policy the same way or even better rather than being fooled into trying to prove that "dEmz ArE MoaR F1sCallY RuhSponS1bull"

 

The tax cuts were NOT financed by deficits.

The tax cuts have resulted in MORE revenue to the treasury.  Without the cuts in the marginal tax rates, economic activity would not have been spurred to such an extent resulting in more tax revenue.

How many God damn times do we have to go through this?

 

As for our reputation around the world; it is pretty clear that we are regaining the respect that was pissed away over the last 10 years.  We are the leader; not the rogue states follower.  

 

Get in the game!

 

Jmog gave your answer which we have indeed gone over before ( but you can't shake the faith of a true believer). Nominal tax receipts have risen as tgey always do but they haven't as a percentage of gdp. 

Tell us Quaker - what do you think is the cause of Trump's trillion dollar deficits even in a booming economy? Why do you not post daily articles about the soaring debt and deficit. 

To paraphase the GOP congressman with a spine - Justin Amash - "Turns out Republicans weren't really for smaller gov't. They just didn't like the president".

posted by gut

You do understand that Keynes never advocated for perpetual deficits?  So your "deficit as a % of GDP..." is nonsense not supported by any theory, aside from the MMT clowns.  It would be equally laughable to try to claim inflation in the 70's/80's was the result of too small a budget deficit - see, Reagan increased the deficit and inflation went down!

I said as much in my post Gut. I am an original "MMT Clown". 

And yes Gut, too large of a budget deficit that pushes aggregate demand beyond supply-side capacity. In this world with a global supply side - despite huge deficits we're not even in the universe of 70's style inflation. 

posted by gut

I really thought this might be some 5th-level behind the scenes string pulling to take abortion away from Dems as a campaign issue.  But I don't think that's actually the case, and there's probably not enough time for the courts to rule on this definitively.  Although it could, theoretically, get fast-tracked to SCOTUS and they just decide not to hear the case (assuming the law is overturned at lower levels based on precedent).

It would be a brilliant tactical move if that was the case.  Your buddies in AL take some heat, but probably survive it.  The rest of the party gets to point to it and say Roe v Wade is settled law, once and definitively for all.

Doesn't make much sense to me.  I don't see the pro-life agenda helping Repubs to win many elections.  You gotta go with the "I'm pro-life, but I recognize abortion will remain legal and I don't oppose that".

I'm not so sure. Yes, Trump won over some traditionally Democratic voters on trade and immigration but he has maintained his strident support among a large faction of the conservative base because - despite all of his flaws - he was the vehicle through which conservatives would be appointed to the courts and hopefully overturn Roe v. Wade. 

Also - even if it gets overturned, I think you'll then see a surge of legislative action to try and stop Ohioans from going to Illinois and New York for abortions, etc. And, on the left, they will then be on a crusade to codify roe v. wade or something like it. So it will still be a political football in my opinion. 

posted by gut

I predict this whole abortion thing is going to end with the courts affirming Roe v. Wade.  Unfortunately, that probably won't end it as a political issue.

I agree partly. The court in recent years has been framing many things from campaign finance to union dues through the first amendment and I think they'll preserve the substance of the ruling through the first amendment while perhaps undoing the right to an abortion under the 5th/14th amendment. Interestingly, this is the argument that Church of Satan has made and that restrictive abortion laws functionally establish a state religion and deny them the right to the free exercise of theirs. So far the courts have avoided this argument throwing out their previous lawsuit on the grounds that they didn't have standing since the plaintiff was no longer pregnant. 

posted by geeblock

Never thought I would ever agree with Tammy on an issue

I predict this whole abortion thing is going to end with the courts affirming Roe v. Wade.  Unfortunately, that probably won't end it as a political issue.

I recant my earlier statements about the naysayers. I went through the 5 stages of grief over the last season and was clearly in the denial or bargaining stage after Episode 3 that they'd find a way in the remaining episodes to tie it all together. Could have been ok with the ending but the writers rushed the ending of the show IMHO and just left too many plot holes open for an ultimately satisfying ending. 

Of the many things that did not make sense I'll just comment on one thing. It made no sense that the multiplied unsullied would have imprisoned Jon IMHO. He should have just noped out of there and gone beyond the wall on his own after killing her.