We all have reason to be cynical, & the parties are more alike than different, but let's not pretend that the degree in which they differ is negligible without exception. Those few degrees of separation can effect millions of lives. The PPACA alone makes that case--let's not pretend that McCain or Romney would've attempted such a thing after campaigning to the right of their comfort zones (despite the latter person's history with state exchanges). Let's not pretend that drones vs. ground troops doesn't matter & we know how much the GOP love boots on the ground. Yes, we're all getting ****ed, but the degree to which it's being done, matters.

i'll just be glad when it's over so the damn ads will stop... i'm tired of hearing 2 candidates in kentucky going at each other's throats when i don't live in kentucky

I'm not saying that Obama and the Democrats had anything to do with how well the economy is doing. I'm saying that how well the economy is doing has been a good predictor in the past of which party would be elected in the midterms. Economy good: party in power (which in America means holds the presidency, because we're stupid) gains seats or holds ground. Economy bad: party in power loses seats. This does not appear to be the case this year.

I am also saying that Obama and the democrats had a lot to do with driving the defecit down.

Maybe because, unlike previous upswings, recent gdp growth hasn't translated into a corresponding increase in wealth for households. So maybe for the people deciding on this coin toss the economy isn't as great as it sounds.

Is this really a good thing?

plz write 800 word and have it on my desk by noon tomorrow

Jon, Antony, et al, I'd be very interested to hear your continuing thoughts on this. What do you think is the way forward for us as citizens of western democracies? If the system is broken, and if you believe voting is pointless, what then do you do? I'm not trying to be glib here, I'd just like this conversation to include some discussion on "what, if not this," I guess.

No, it isn't actually a good thing, but it's a thing that people care about, and think is a good thing.

We should not have contracted government spending as quickly as we did, and we definitely shouldn't have cut it as much as we did.

But the loudest parts of the country is all about the debt debt debt. And while a shrinking deficit does not shrink the debt, it does slow the growth of debt. Which they should be happy about.

More later. Class time.

I've clearly misunderstood something about your posts. You initially said that you vote democratic because of the positive outcomes, but we agree that the outcomes you've mentioned have all either been coincidental or negative (with a positive public perception). It seems we agree here, so I'm honestly not sure what we're talking about anymore.

Mostly its that I'm used to arguing with right wing trolls, so most of my arguments rely upon showing the claims they make about things they say they care about are wrong.

Also arguing with libertarians that vote GOP who think that the party supports more of their positions than just "cut taxes". If they really cared about "freedom" they wouldn't vote for Republicans because Republicans take away more freedoms. (To be fair, once theyre taken away, dems do little to nothing to give any back, so shame on them.)

Its been a while since I've posted here about politics and the economy. I forgot that most people here (OP excluded) agree with me.

Honestly, Jon'C, I owe a lot of my deeper interest in economics and better understanding of it to your posts over the years. Cheers.

I don't understand where recent GDP growth is coming from. Normally, business would have larger sales, need to hire more people, to meet greater demand, it would increase competition for labor, and wages would go up, but we aren't seeing a whole lot of this. I don't understand what is going on.

Excellent, that's the goal

The problem is GDP and how it's measured. GDP growth doesn't mean the same thing as economic growth. Western countries have economic growth in the same sense that eating your offspring is a survival strategy.

What (non-malfeasant) governments want to understand is potential output, i.e. the maximum output of an economy assuming 100% utilization. But you can't really measure that. Instead, they use the assumption that goods markets are generally efficient, and so the value of inputs ~= outputs ~= potential. Since they're already the gatekeepers of income, they can use the information they already have to estimate the total value of all goods that are produced, and they call this statistic GDP.

Unfortunately GDP includes corporate profits and interest payments*, which means stealing from the future shows up black on government reports. Meanwhile potential output is evaporating by any reasonable measure, as competitive productive firms are squeezed out of their own industry by finance giants speculating on commodities, or explicitly bought at discount and liquidated.

(* an astute reader will note that a sufficiently indebted household is double-counted by the United States government.)

You try to make your way the best you can in the scenario you're faced with. You know, like a grown up.

Sounds like another recession. Dammit.

I don't see what can really be done about this other than a cultural shift. It seems like it's just short sighted, short term profit and rent seeking.

It's not a recession, it's a return to the historical norm. The only reason we had it so good over the past century is because the two world wars vaporized virtually all previously accumulated wealth, creating a short-lived vacuum where a middle class could exist before a new upper class starved it to death.

Capitalism does not work.

The only way to solve this problem is to exterminate the rich. What follows after that reasonable and just step will dictate if it's a temporary condition or a more permanent one.

Well, I'm sorry that I'm not willing right now to engage in all of the philosophical. A few things I'd like to get out there.

First, I learned quite some time ago that Jon`C is pretty amazing. You can't get into an argument/debate with him and assume that because he has challenged you, he holds the opposite opinion.

Second, what Antony cited wrt to his governor is a splendid example of why Kasich is a failure. He has pandered to both sides and, therefore, neither really likes him. I could elaborate but will have to do so later.

Thirdly, wrt voting out incumbents, if the incumbent tends to be on my side of the political spectrum and has not lived up to my expectations then I want them "primaried". Unfortunately, many Republican incumbents successfully destroyed their primary opposition so...

Lastly, there is a strategic aspect to which party I vote for in federal elections. As horrid as the Republican leadership in congress is, Democrats winning is so against my ideals that I'm left with little choice unless there is a greater specific reason to vote a certain way.

This is very abridged. I need to get on to something else I've put off for far too long. I figure I'll get through tomorrow and then come back to the discussion here.

I'm not so sure. Without some way to incentiveize business builders and speculators, the whole system will be brought down by perverse incentives, and general ****tyness.



I know the two world wars were destructive, but Europe constantly bankrupted itself with wars in the 19th century. I don't see how the 20th century was particularly more weath destroying than the one that proceeded it, especially given the enforced truce of the latter half. I also don't see what mechanism would allow the middle class to grow if the upper class looses its wealth. If anything, it seems like rapid technological growth was responsible for the growth of the middle class. In the US, it also helped that we were the only nation in the world left with intact an intact manufacturing base.

It isn't anyway?

Because unlike previous wars, capital was destroyed deliberately. Factories were bombed in order to inflict economic damage. Beyond that, both the fascists and communists styled themselves enemies of wealth and finance, seizing assets and wiping out rich families.

During previous wars those banking families actually made off quite well because they financed the wars, de facto engineering the European political landscape and putting the various governments deeply in debt to them in the process. The European old rich were literally wealthier than multiple colonial powers. Our rich aren't quite there yet, but give capitalism a bit more time and it's going to happen.



Choose your own adventure:

If you have time for a 600 page book, turn to page http://www.amazon.com/Capital-Twenty-First-Century-Thomas-Piketty/dp/067443000X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1415079058&sr=8-1&keywords=piketty

Otherwise, turn to page

No. No no no no no no no no no no no no no.

This is the problem. Kasich did not pander to both sides. He made a reasonable statement saying that a piece of legislation helps too many people to be repealed, despite the fact that he disagrees with it because his party affiliation means he has to. Then he reversed course after his base became enraged and said that regardless of the fact that it helps people, we should do away with it. This is only pandering to one side of the aisle. He was doing it to a lesser degree at first, which no political party will have any of, so then he went back to full-blown "I hate democrats and democrat ideas" mode, and the polls show that he will be re-elected by a significant margin.

This is the goddamn problem: Your politicians aren't running on a platform of issues that are actually relevant. The odds of the ACA being repealed are pretty damned slim, but republicans are still using it as a campaign talking point because it engages their base (because their base is convinced that it's terrible socialism). The ACA is the new abortion. It's the thing you can't do anything about, but as a republican you'll promise to do your best to ruin it. This will get you elected, because your base doesn't care about actual things. Your base cares about making sure brown people don't come to America, making sure the brown guy in the white-meant-for-white-men doesn't take all of your guns, making sure brown people have the hardest time possible getting government assistance, and making sure the police can shoot as many brown people as they want to. Oh, and let's not forget about making sure that we live in a Christian nation with Christian ideals, and laws based on Christianity, which is to say that we treat all non-heterosexual non-white non-male humans like the inferior beings they are, right?

None of this **** matters to anyone that it doesn't hurt. The only person who is actually hurt by not being able to come to America from Mexico is the poor ******* who is trying to escape living in a country that is controlled by militarized organized crime. It goes on and on and on like that. Your party fools you into supporting ridiculous ideals like how you shouldn't "punish" rich people by taxing them more, because they also feed you this fairy tale that someday we'll all be rich.

People like you complain that there's some kind of "liberal intellectual elite" out there that treats you like a bunch of morons. No, that's not it. Everyone treats you like a bunch of morons, because that's exactly what you are. You're morons, who are extremely susceptible to manipulation based on your own personal hangups. The difference is that liberals chastise you for it, and the rich people in this country take advantage of it. The Koch brothers know you're a moron who cares about things that don't matter, which is why they spend tens of millions of dollars on political advertising each election cycle to get you to vote for politicians on issues that don't matter, so that once elected, those politicians can forward policy that makes Chuck and Dave even richer. It's a giant bait and switch, and you ****ing idiots have been falling for it for decades.

So again, I'm not voting today, because for every vote cast by a sensible intelligent person, there will be five cast by people who are convinced that the democratic candidate for state senator is "a rubber stamp for Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi" because the Kochs tell you they are.

I voted for Sideshow Bob.

What about you all? The Matlock Express really sold me.

Antony, your little rant was cute but it's irrelevant. Keeping to Obamacare and your governor, mostly because the rest is nonsensical and asinine, of course your governor pandered by suggesting "too many" [read: a few] people benefiting from Obamacare means it can't be repealed. Of course this president won't repeal his own healthcare agenda but Republicans pledged to gut the single most unpopular legislation I can think of in recent memory through the same means it was passed despite overwhelming unpopularity [read: against constituent desires]. Apparently that was pandering because they have back peddled severely from that position too, essentially, yours and attempt to destroy any newcomers that don't play by the GOP rules.

I'd appreciate it if you would stop with your unfounded insults. It's not warranted and it's childish. Of course it appears Tibby is not very active here anymore so there might be a place for childishness. Just kidding, Tibby.

Dismissive. ANYTHING I DON'T LIKE TALKING ABOUT I WILL PRETEND DOESN'T MATTER!



I ONLY WANT TO TALK ABOUT THE THINGS I WANT TO TALK ABOUT



I'm not sure you know what pandering means.



[read: millions]



Please tell me why it is unpopular without spewing platitudes you heard on Limbaugh.



I'm sorry that some republicans are smart enough to see that hurting poor people doesn't make you look good.



The only rules the GOP has at this point are god, guns, and money.



I won't and they're not.



It is, and sure, I suppose it also is.



I KNOW, RIGHT?



I will always find that place.



I see what you did there!

See, this is the massassi I remember.

AMERICANS ARE AT IT AGAIN.

JOB WELL DONE.

BURGERBOYS.

Damn, been four long years since BROWNPERSONCARE drove such an overwhelming defeat for Democrats. See, what I did there, Antony?

I just think it's so adorable how much Republicans hate a bill which

- stops insurance company collusion and forces them to offer their services in a competitive free market
- forces people to do the responsible thing and get health insurance, if they can afford it
- includes a 'gimmie' for big business
- helps the ultra poor, which is the Christian thing to do

Which you'd expect ticks every Republican's checklist, assuming their opinions are consistent with what they say.

Social cohesion is so overrated.

Well, at least the facade has lifted.

FWIW, I honestly believe now that Wookie sees Kasich's comments as pandering.

What you do is pretend to be reasonable in order to try to make people like you despite the fact that you have a history of being an insufferable douchebag, but when people who know better than to believe it don't buy it, immediately reverse course and overcompensate by becoming a cartoonishly exaggerated version of the **** you've always been.

Kasich, I mean. Not Wookie.

I see what you did there.

Also until just now I read this as "BROWNPERSONSCARE" and didn't even think to question it because, well, duh. A republican won. The only thing a republican hates more than a brown person is a sick person.

If I were an American who still believed that vote outcomes in any way had an effect on policy I would be incensed.

OMG, I saw that too!

Don't forget the horribly violent labor struggle of the 1920s and creation of actual labor union protections in the 1930s, only possible because of the horrible depression, which are all but gone now

no on 1

That's pretty easy to answer. People have extremely poor experiences anytime they have to deal with the US government. DMV, IRS, the Police, ect. There's no trust that the government can do something well. They already dislike the doctor's office, and with Obamacare being pitched as essentially "the government taking over medicine", there is a fear that what they have, crappy as it is, will become hopelessly unusable. The way the website was rolled out hasn't really done anything repair everyone's trust either. The US government really needs to work harder on rebuilding trust with the population.

I bounced from the Republican Party in 2012. Got sick to death of a party for Old Rich White Men and the Christian Right. I seriously believe a modern day Republican/Tea Party would be happy as a clam in feudal Europe.

Reasons:

1. They own everything
2. They have money. Lots of it.
3. They have people doing work for them under coercion for free or substantially unfair pay.
4. It is perfectly legal to kill, maim, or berate your peasants for the are just property.
5. They can tell people how to live their lives.
6. They would be friends with the other lords.
7. When not friends, it is perfectly legal and honorable to kill your enemies.
8. They would have all the swords.
9. They could command troops against neighboring duchy.
10. War would be about 60% of their entire life.
11. Women are merely vassals upon which to carry their progeny.
12. When not at war with the next Count or Duchy, they ally with Christendom to fight in wars of Really Old Books.
13. Technological and scientific

That's a very interesting idea. The one fatal flaw with it, however, is that it assumes most opinions go deeper than "this is what my brand of news tells me to think", where "my brand" should be understood to have the same mental heft as the choice between Cheer and Tide.

Feudal Europe never promised that every unkempt serf would one day take his rightful place among the iron-fisted oligarchs, given enough hard work and prayer to the correct god. Feudalism didn't bull**** people. It's a small difference, but it's still a difference.

Of course, if you were talking about our neoliberal masters, you'd be correct. I'm not sure they'd be able to tell the difference, though.

When I hear this argument, I'm often left wondering why the GOP always says this, yet always manages to praise the job that the government does on national security (when there's a Republican in the White House, of course). "The government can do nothing well, except national defense." --every Republican, ever. Many Americans like to ***** about bureaucracy but then they want to complain about their taxes. They hate filing their taxes but have no interest in paying more to enable a more efficient system (here in France, the government completes everything for you, you merely review it, sign it, & ship it). They like to complain about traffic while sitting on the federally constructed interstate highway, using up their subsidized fuel, while sitting in their affordable domestic/foreign vehicle, which they purchased with a loan their FDIC-secure bank. They like to complain about poor women using WIC, but when they're on it, complain about the lack of choices & wonder what they're going to do with all of that peanut butter. Let's not forget the massive number of people that voice these complaints over the Internet, while sitting at their low-cost Walmart desk, in their home that was more than likely built due to a combination of the GI Bill &/or the Federal Housing Authority. Blah, blah, blah, etc. Unfortunately, most Americans are too ignorant to notice how much worse their lives would be if it wasn't for the federal government & its current & past programs. Reid mentioned the history of unions. How many Americans do you think even know the history of unions? After working at least one union job with thousands of employees, I'm confident that I can count those that I've met on one hand. It's a miracle that they even exist now that employers are able to call in anti-union representatives from corporate to stamp out any fires when rumors of organization begin. I agree that it's partly a PR issue, but it's also one of education. Yes, the web roll-out for the PPACA was a disaster, but it took a massive amount of idiocy to keep the negative ball rolling once it became obvious that it would improve. In other words, people are just too ****ing bored/boring to stop watching the news, & too ****ing stupid not to believe everything that they hear.

Republicans love to praise the troops, but I don't think you'll find that they love to sing the praises of military industrial complex's efficiency.



This should actually save money. The issue is that, a) it's not a major campaign issue, so people don't talk about it, and b) there's a ton of lobbying to keep all the stupid special interest tax breaks that make the system so complected. This isn't really a GOP/Republican issue.



"It could be worse" isn't really going to cut it as for as inspiring confidence goes.


Working with union employees can be awful. I would be ok with the raised wages, but it seems like most of the time it's devolved into rent seeking. Union power bases seem to tend to shift toward *******s who think they should do whatever they can to get away with as little as possible. They can be nasty and unprofessional with impunity because they can just hide behind the union. Unions are just collective bargaining, but people seem to think that they should just be used to extort as much as possible out of a company. You can't expect barging to go well without a decent relationship. It's not that unions are bad in principal, it's just that US unions have poisoned the well.


Sure the GOP kept fanning the flames as long as possible, but it still showcased the fact that there is a lot of incompetence in the government. No one will belive that the website is going to be an isolated issue.

Why has this place gotten so bigoted and ignorant? I would think at least some of you would have some intellectual curiosity about your enemies' reasons for voting different than you. I mean, I know Jon`C will offer some humorous reasons dressed up as sincerity and Antony attempts to do the same but just comes across as an angry, depressed, mental patient but so many false assumptions and so little discussion or curiosity. I can understand why some of you might be so jaded but so many? Geez.

What's funny is that earlier today, I pretty much had the exact same thoughts as you, Wookie--but in reverse. I.e., I was thinking to myself, "how did it happen that so many of the posters here acquired such incisive reasoning vis. politics and power?" Clearly, getting a bit older has been a necessary condition for most of us, but not at all sufficient. No, it must have been the cumulative effect of the political threads we've had over the years that has caused a lot of us to converge on something of a consensus.

Of course, you might just call that an echo chamber, but whatever.

I wouldn't use that term. I prefer "intellectual circlejerk".

WHY DOESN'T EVERYONE AGREE WITH ME? WHY ARE ALL OF YOU BIGOTED AGAINST ME?

If everyone around you is acting like an *******, then odds are good the only ******* is you.