Hadn't thought of that, but I don't know that it would qualify as tax evasion. I know a few people who make their own boidiesel and haven't had any trouble with it. The state and federal taxes are on the gasoline you buy at the pump, as far as I know.

This tax evasion argument is silly. If you were to buy gasoline and just put it into a large jug and just let it sit in your garage, or perhaps use it to remove tarnish or something... I dont know, just a purpose OTHER THAN fueling a vehicle, would the government give you your tax money back? HELL NO. They are taxing the gasoline itself, not the way you happen to use it.



Go take a macroeconomics class and answer me this:

1. How was the economy "ruined" in the first place?
2. What did Bush have to do with any of it?
3. What could have been done, if anything to prevent it being "ruined".

If you were to take said macroecon class you would find that the president couldn't ruin the economy without commanding the military to shoot people for spending money. The economy is driven by the citizens and businesses.. all the government can do to help it is throw money at it, and you cant tell me they havent done that.

*derailment over*

That's why we need to figure out how to easily split water back into hyrogen and oxygen. Then you could just reuse the same hydrogen over and over again.

1. Biggest Debt/Defecit in history?
2. Started a war creating the biggest debt/defecit in history?
3. Not started a war creating the biggest debt/defecit in history?

That's so subjective in the case of George W I aint even gonna really try, but...

Firstly you said macro and then micro, yet these are all macro issues. You're almost as confused as Yoshi. Anyways...

It is irrefutable that a government plays a major role in any country's economy. If you go back a few pages and look at my GDP = C + I + G + (X - M) equation (the basis of all Keynesian macroeconomics) it's easy to see that the government is very influential in all those factors.

Consumption: through taxes, interest rates, and the money supply which will all effect disposable income

Investment: investment is utterly dependant on the interest rate, which is ultimately determined by the government.

Government spending; well that should be self-explinatory.

(X - M): the major factors effecting exports and imports are the exchange rate, which up until a few decades ago was dictated purely by the government, and interest rates. The government also has control over tariffs and subsidies, which can have huge effects on exports and imports.

So yeah, government has a lot to do with the economy in a macroeconomic sense. When an economy enters a recession the government is ultimately to blame, as in today's capitalist economies they are the only participant with enough clout to do anything about it.

There's a huge difference between the national economy, federal debt, and federal defecit. The economy is actually in pretty decent shape. The nation will always have a debt and is not so neatly intertwined with the defecit as many may believe.

I'm amazed at how quickly this thread has grown. I think it's understandable that many might not have the time to read the whole thing right now, like me, so hopefully I'm not covering too much that's already been said.

First, I'm glad this has finally passed. I'm sure many have been as frustrated as me by the fact that the Republicans have not been able to get most of their agenda through until now. I think we'll see much needed reform steam rolled through in the next few years.

Second, ANWR isn't necessarily the barren moonscape some would describe it as however much of it is very inhospitable arctic tundra. It's doubtfull that environmentally friendly drilling will adversly affect significant wildlife populations. In fact, it very well could benefit them as the pipeline has.

Lastly, it just seems really dumb to be opposed to the US doing what it can to be a little more self sufficient on oil. I'm sure the argument has been made in this thread already that some experts have said that there's only a years worth of oil there. That is such a deceptive number. Assuming that we could get all the oil out that fast, which we can't, and distribute it, which we couldn't, that would be a years worth of oil for the entire country, relying on no other sources. Hell, if we could do that that would be a pretty cool feat and just imagine the impact to the global market if the US bought no foreign oil for a year!

But, if you buy your vegetable oil fuel in bulk sizes at reduced prices (those little market bottles cost more than an equal ammount of gasoline, so its no practical to do it that way) you still have to pay sales tax on it, so you are not evading taxes. You are just paying sales tax instead of excise tax.

The only way to completely get fuel w/o paying tax of some kind on it is to grow the vegetables and process them into oil yourself. Of course, this is not practical for most people to do.

I havent bothered to read much of this thread, in fear of going mental at many redneck pro bush comments .

Sajn may not his point across very well, but I'm 100% on his side.

I really wish Bush, along with all of the like minded oil guzzling iraq raping redneck cowboys, die asap and make this world a better place to live in.

Well done to those who re-elected him.

if(getThingFlags(source) & 0x8){
  do her}
elseif(getThingFlags(source) & 0x4){
  do other babe}
else{
  do a dude}

thanks.

Sales Tax != Fuel Tax

They're different.

It's not like I agree with it being Tax Evasion for me to use Vegitable Oil for fuel....

And it might only be in Maryland.

1. Hmm, That couldn't possibly have anything to do with all the bloated government programs and deficit spending that has been going on sense FDR could it?

2. Yeah. A two hundred billion dollar war caused a seven trillion dollar deficient. I'd like a word with your Math teacher.

The Economy: It's generally accepted that it takes four years for a president's decision to have an effect on the economy. Unemployment rate right now it at 5.2 percent. The DOW is back up past 10,000 again despite a little thing called 9/11. On top of that, economists had been predicting from years to come that their would be an economic down turn around 2000. Well, it's been four years and the economy is back up.

Wait wasn't the US showing a profit instead of a deficit for the first time in many years when Bush came into office? Damn that FDR!!!

[Edit: I may have been overzealous saying the war CAUSED the debt, but it sure didn't help, and I'd like to see a source for that 200 billion statistic, because I think they're spending that much just rebuilding Iraq]

.....I voted for that motha Kerry.

After reading the U2 thread in the music forum I have come to a conclusion that may or may not be correct. A lot of people arguing against Bush are U2 fans. I wonder if you are for Bush do you like U2?

WE didn't re-elect him. The majority did. There's a difference. So shh.

As for hydrogen--here

Obi--FDR did a lot to hurt, and a lot to help our country. And as far as spending goes, Bush is by far more liberal with funds than any other republican, and quite a bit more than most Democrats. So think before you speak next time.

Not to mention, Bush has plummeted us almost another trillion or I think even more into debt. The 200 billion dollar war bill doesn't help much either, now does it?

And drizzt--that's not really pertinent.

i voted for bush and i like u2.

I'd like to address the argument that keeps getting ignored: ANWR won't have much effect on the economy and it won't have any effect for at least 10 years.


1. The problem with much of this discussion is there is a strong lack of actual reasons why ANWR drilling would be BAD. The environmental impact of it is being assumed and asserted.

Newer drilling technology has much less effect on the environment. This only makes sense---oil companies look better if they take care of the environment more, so they'll develop better practices as a mechanism for improving their image. An improvement of image will definitely help them profit because people are A) less likely to boycott/protest and B) more likely to buy from the most environmentally friendly of the competition.


2. This argument looks at only one benefit ANWR drilling will have on the economy. When Bush uses his capital in congress to help get ANWR through, the perception is: he's pro-business and anti-environment. Well, a lot of people on this forum have proven this perception with their emotionally driven posts (example: SAJN). But this perception is actually a good thing. If businesses percieve the president as being for them---even in the face of environmental risk---they are more confident. This business confidence leads to an increase in investment by businesses; they feel safer to innovate. This can have a bigger impact on the economy than oil...

Think of it this way. Many of you want alternative energy sources. But if businesses think the president is a fan of regulation and not business, they'll play tighter. After all, it's a risk to try to create a new energy source as it is. You're not going to want to do that unless you think your current business practices (IE drilling) are safe. If we want alternative energy sources, we want a good economy, a confident economy.

3. Without doing research, I can make the argument that at the very least the economy will be benefited, even if the benefit is small. If the environmental impact is insignificant and all we can do is improve economically, there's no reason to reject ANWR.

4. Since we're concerned about the environmental impact and weighing that against the economic impact of the world, we should also look to the local economic impacts and give them some weight. What do I mean? I mean, even if the global economy isn't helped, the local people will be greatly helped.

The Minnesota Soybean has reported that the local people support this measure. http://www.mnsoybean.org/News/FridayFocusArticles/ANWR.cfm


it continues to show that the local people are even concerned about the environment---THEIR environment---and support the drilling anyway.



This leads me to another point: self determination. If the people who live in an area support a policy, who are we to deny them it? The government should allow the people of Alaska control over their own environment.


5. Finally, going back to perception... even if we won't get away from foreign oil, we'll at least be percieved as trying to break away. This will, at the very least, make countries realize that they can't use oil as a hostage to get their way.


To quickly address the argument that we need to focus on alternate sources and pump the money that way:

There's no reason we can't have both: oil and development of other sources. It is truth, however, that we need oil in the mean time.

Finally, I want to mention one thing in regards to the Peak:

The fact that the crash is inevitable isn't a reason not to do ANWR---it's, in fact, a support of it. We can mitigate the impact and timeframe of the crash if we drill as much as possible now while developing alternate sources.

Bush inherited a recision from Clinton. 9/11 happened. SHut up with the "Bush ruined the economy" crap. It's easy to blame a figure head when you don't knwo what the hell you are talking about.

Honestly, I think bio-diesel made of hemp seed oil is the way to go.

However, with the negative image hemp has (DAMN HIPPIES) thats never going to happen.

Fine, but when do we stop? How do we know once we've reached the point where we go, "Ok, no more destruction of the environment, we've done enough of that"? At some point there won't be "plenty of environment" out there, and for some that point has already been reached. Who's right? I don't know, but to argue that the environment is still doing well even with all our negative intervention is sort of ludicrous.

Secondly, as has been mentioned by one or two people already (and promptly ignored, as most good points are), the oil is going to be sold to Japan, because they're so utterly desperate. And if it doesn't go to Japan, it'll go to China, because those two countries need oil so much that they will pay ridiculous amounts of money for it, and it's much easier to get the oil to them in the first place.

The people who are selling the land will make some money, but I don't see a widespread impact on the American economy as whole, other than what comes from taxes I suppose. We won't see that oil, and even if we did, the amount that we did get from drilling would hardly make a dent in what we (America) use. So don't say it reduces our dependence on foreign oil, because it's ridiculous.

And finally, Penn and Teller seem to have become somewhat of a cultural icon for "critical thinkers", which is sort of sad because their shows come wrapped in the appearance of real critical thinking but in substance don't match up. Often they will employ a "strawman" argument, in which they look at the opposing position and attack only the most far-out, absurd, and coincidentally, easiest to destroy parts of arguments. It's hard not to agree with them, because not many people in their right minds would try to defend what Penn and Teller are assaulting. So please don't rely on them in your reasoning.. there are plenty of good books out there that have much better and thorough arguments..

... But why do I keep hearing the exact opposite?

Who do you hear it from? Granted, Bush may not have made the best decisions to try to help the economy grow at the time, but if you're looking past what he inheritied, you're jsut blind to a couple of important facts.

I'll admit that my source is probably some other members on these forums, from some other debate, though I couldn't possibly remember who, or where; but I have heard on quite a few occaisons that what Bush inherited from Clinton was a good economy.

It was up there for sure, but it was on it's way down. The tech bust happened toward the end of Clinton's second term.

This is just one of those issues where people need to get past their ideologies. The economy was failing at the end of Clinton's presidency. Many people (including most conservatives) believe Bush is spending too much money. To be fair, there is a theory that heavy government spending is good for the economy but...

Generally speaking the economy seems to be in decent shape now but that isn't going to stop partisan rhetoric on either side.

Thanks JL for presenting a cogent and clear argument to the topic at hand. If you don't mind, I'd like to respond to you points.



I agree with you here. I'm not against drilling in the ANWR because of it's environmental impact. I understand new methods of drilling have been developed that won't harm the environment significantly.



I'm not sure that this would necessarily be the case. Yes, the businesses may be more confident, but would that really lead to confidence in innovation? Wouldn't the businesses be more content with continuing to do what is already giving them money? Necessity is the mother of invention.



Indeed, the economic benefit will be small. I'm going to tentatively say that the benefit would be so small as to be insignificant. When production of the oil peaks in 15-20 years, we'll be needing a lot more per year than we currently do. America's oil use will only keep increasing. Same with the rest of the world. As China continues to industrialize, they'll require more oil too. Could you imagine how much oil China would need if only half of it's farming population switched from traditional farming methods and bought tractors, combines etc.?



I agree with you here too. The locals would probably gain employ with the oil companies and that would probably help them. Taxes levied by Alaska on the oil companies will go back to the community. We can't really say that we shouldn't drill because the local people don't support it, seeing as they do.



Perception around the world may change. They may see that we are trying to break away from our dependence on their oil. Unfortunately, because the oil from ANWR will provide about 1/35 of what we are predicted to be using daily, it won't mean much. They can perceive what they want, but the truth is, we will still be heavily dependent on foreign countries for our oil.

We can have both oil and alternative energy. That's what we have to do now. However, I'm worried that if we budget for one, we will keep putting budgeting for the other off. So long as we can still get oil, there's no point in innovating, right? It may seem like a silly view, but far too many people subscribe to it.

The main problem with switching to alternative sources is that doing so will require massive amounts of oil and other resources. Sure, we can build solar panels, wind turbines, hydroelectric dams, nuclear power plants etc. But consider all the material that needs to be shipped in trucks, planes, and trains running on oil. The manufacturing equipment used to make it all runs on electricity provided by a local power plant that burns oil. In the end, it will cost just as much if not more energy to make the switch over than switching will provide.

I'm very worried that we will have to drastically rethink our energy spending policy. Simple conservation may not be enough. When the oil market crashes, it will take everything along with it. Every other market in the world requires oil to keep running.

what does seal taste like?

Really good, IMO it tastes great when served cold. I haven't had it in years though, so I don't really recall what to compare the taste too, maybe moose.

<3<3 to whomever who changed the title of the thread

Anything will sound ridiculous if you dumb it down to the point of idiocy.

Nice debate tactic though.

I've never heard anyone who is an authority in the field of economics say the recession is/was Bush's fault. I'm speaking mostly of my economics teachers. And in case you're thinking they must be hardcore republicans... exactly the opposite. They teach in Madison, WI, aka Liberal capitol of the Midwest.

Now if you're getting most of your info from Massassi, you're going to the wrong source.

You're right. However, I think that any pro-business action Bush takes has an effect on the economy as a whole. But that's not really a justification for ANWR, since there is virtually an infinite number of other actions Bush can and has taken to help businesses. What we probably need more is consumer confidence, which is hurt by scandals such as Enron and Worldcom. I don't know enough about this argument to debate it out, really. Your argument on it seems quite valid.

Actually, if Bush passed a policy to give companies who work on alt. fuel sources money... that would be the best of all worlds. Businesses would love it---they call it an incentive for a reason. Alternative fuel sources would be more likely. The economy would probably be helped. Consumers might be more willing to invest in a company that is supported by government... plus smart investers will want to get in on alternative fuel sources while the stock is cheap because the company that invents a working alternative to oil will SKY ROCKET.

I like your idea JL. It honestly seems like it would work. Too bad it probably won't happen anytime soon.

You misunderstand, I haven't heard that it's Bush's fault, per se... just that Clinton left office with the budget in good shape.

And seriously Raoul, never reply to any of my posts, you have nothing constructive to say or add, and it's completely irrelevant.

"Anything will sound stupid if you make it sound stupid"

THANKS FOR POINTING THAT OUT CHAMP

The budget? That's strictyly a matter of opinion and wholey seperate from the discussion about the state of the economy at the time.

...

How is the budget seperate from the economy?

Sadly, no.

Although I have to admit Bush spends way to much. All that no child left behind crap, and the prescription health care thing was a total waste of money. Bush isn't exactly the greatest president we've ever had. On a scale from one to ten, I'd give him maybe a 6.5. We need Regan back. I think he was the only President in the last 60 years who actually cut spending.

My idea is too focused on the general will, not the particular interests that dominate politics.

Is SAJN coming back to his thread?

http://cato.org/pubs/pas/pa013es.html
http://slate.msn.com/id/2101829/


I got bored choosing good articles. A search for "Reagan spending deficit" (no quotes) had a lot of results.