"We need a government with less debt and an economy with more good paying jobs, and this budget fails to accomplish both goals, making it harder for more Americans to achieve the American Dream," Rubio said in a statement. "Instead, this budget continues Washington’s irresponsible budgeting decisions by spending more money than the government takes in and placing additional financial burdens on everyday Americans."The speculation, among tea party faithful, is that Boehner wants to clear the deck for negotiations on amnesty. The speaker has made up his mind to pass amnesty, and, the budget battle would only get in the way of that.
What do you think? Don't hold back.
Talking Points Memo
87 comments:
Boehner is as big a traitor to this country as Obama, which is saying something.
They all need to go.
Their aim is to replace the current voters with more compliant ones.
Mexicans are used to socialism and crony capitalism and strongman leaders. Bring 'em in and outnumber the crackers, let the whiteys die off.
That's the plan.
The Tea Party sellout is in full swing now, not that Rubio is in position to complain.
The obvious question is were the Tea Party's goals realistic or actually in the best interests of the country. Neither the Dems, nor an increasingly large fraction of the Repubs, appear to believe so.
If the GOP house passes amnesty - it's over. The GOP will never be in power again. Say hello to a permanent one party rule authoritarian left socialist dictatorship.
What a let down, ARM - Paul Ryan screwed the left over by compromising. The nation is in ruins after 5 years of Obama, and, with you, it's still about your party faithfulness and tea party bashing. Shameful.
ARM - Care to comment on Obama's promise (lie) that "If you like your health care plan you can keep your plan. Period."
Any thoughts on millions of Americans who lost or are about to lose their health care plans, because as the ACA is written those plans are considered "not good enough" and illegal?
(Americans who the radical progressive leftwing democrats don't care about)
The nation is in ruins after 5 years
I think you are confusing this time with the end of the Bush administration - banks and manufacturing base collapsing in a heap, setting up the largest recession since the Great Depression.
If the left had its way, the entire nation would be identical to Detroit.
The financial melt down didn't have much to do with Bush at all. It had everything to do with policies set in place by the left that were finally coming to fruition. --Despite warning bells, and kicking the can down the road. Fannie and Freddie were on solid ground according to many a leftwing idiot.
AReasonableMan said...
The obvious question is were the Tea Party's goals realistic or actually in the best interests of the country. Neither the Dems, nor an increasingly large fraction of the Repubs, appear to believe so.
I see no evidence of this. I see a lot of evidence that neither the Dems, nor a large fraction of Republican politicians believe it to be in their personal best interest.
But then, it was never intended to be in the best interests of the politicians.
ARM said ...
I think you are confusing this time with the end of the Bush administration...
I think you are confused about how similar the Bush and Obama administrations are, and who appreciates them. Trying to draw conclusions about them individually is silly, there were and are damn near the same...the latter just has a leader with a snot nose.
I think any politician voting for lower wages and more unemployment, which is what immigration reform will lead to, ought to be eviscerated and staked out near an ant mound to live out the rest of their worthless life in as much misery as possible.
No point arguing with ARM, or the like. Their personal GOD is The Party, and all they want is for it to be supreme, and to exterminate its enemies. They're no different than Stalin or Hitler or Mao or Pol Pot in that regard.
It's not only Boehner's plan, but Dingy Harry's.
Too bad Rubio didn't show this kind of backbone about 8 months earlier.
AnUnreasonableTroll said...
The nation is in ruins after 5 years
I think you are confusing this time with the end of the Bush administration - banks and manufacturing base collapsing in a heap, setting up the largest recession since the Great Depression
Ah, yes, the record.
Lessee now, we've had more banks collapse in the last 5 years than in the 2 before, all this is the result of Willie's tinkering with the CRA - a Democrat measure, real unemployment in somewhere in the 20s and has remained so for the last 5 years, and manufacturing has been dying mostly due to unions.
So this is more Choom's fault (he was the third highest recipient of bank money in his Senate days, you know and worked very hard as the Friend of Angelo's errand boy to kill all of Dubya's attempts to end sub prime mortgages) than Dubya's.
As always, Troll gets it backwards.
banks and manufacturing base collapsing in a heap, setting up the largest recession since the Great Depression
Yep, 2 years of Democrat rule of the Congress did that along with a compliant Bush. Recovery began when the TEA party took back the House.
Hey ARM, what "Tea Party sellout?" You're beyond parody.
Jeff Sessions on immigration
April Apple said...
Jeff Sessions on immigration
This amnesty-first/enforcement-first debate is another squirrel. The issue is what number and kind of immigrants should be allowed to enter the country and obtain permanent employment.
The federal budget can only be fixed by breaking it down into several segments like soc sec, defense, medicare, transportation and all other. Today, it is one ginormous indecipherable clusterfuck and that enables two polar opposites like Ryan and Murray to go out and declare victory. They do so be using inscrutable, esoteric ten year projections and terms like user fees and no one really can say if they understand WTF they are talking about.
We need a 50 year plan for defense, soc sec, medicare and transportation where no one [including whoever is prez or in the senate on in the House etc] can get their grubby hands on the revenue and the outlays must be very well defined/ limited and restricted to those definitions/limits.
We then need to look at the "all other" stuff and see what is really necessary and what is only "nice to have". And then we have to figure out a way to pay for this all other stuff.
ricpic said...
Hey ARM, what "Tea Party sellout?" You're beyond parody.
Not according to Erik Erickson.
ARM - I know a bunch of construction workers and they are disgusted at the govt and Obama for its porous borders policy which expands the labor pool and undercut their ability to make a living.
WTF will Dems realize their open borders policies have caused more income inequality and harm to the middle class than the so-called robber barons ever did.
AJ Lynch said...
ARM - I know a bunch of construction workers and they are disgusted at the govt
They might want to focus that disgust on the employers (robber barons) who are the real problem, both by providing illegal employment and lobbying the government to allow it to continue.
Robber Barons? So, Arm, all employers are Robber Barons? Wow - you really are a radical leftist.
April Apple said...
Robber Barons? So, Arm, all employers are Robber Barons? Wow - you really are a radical leftist.
Didn't actually say that, nor did I bring up the robber barons meme. But large employers are the only ones with the political heft to keep this spigot open.
AJ Lynch said...
The federal budget can only be fixed by breaking it down into several segments ...
Quite true. That used to be called a "Annual Budget" years ago, but we've skipped bothering with them or demanding them for over 5 years now. Elections have consequences.
Truth be told, the Executive Branch prepares a new budget, in 12 parts broken down in to infinitesimal detail, for every year and submits it to Congress, who promptly does nothing with it more often than not.
I know this agency developed budget exists and still does because I helped prepare my part of it for a couple decades, and even consult my former subordinates now in the process.
Actually politicians from both the Executive and Congressional branches just frigging love Continuing Resolutions because of the lack of accountability in them, thanks to the allowances for prior years of spending replication.
AJ Lynch said...
Someone the other day use the term "Obama's Endless Recession". Repubs should use it every day -
If only to emphasize their lack of understanding of how a recession is defined.
This "Murray-Ryan Budget Deal" uses the word "budget" but that use is a sham. Not even close. The purported "agreement" isn't even a decent CR.
For giggles, to compare the "deal" that Patty & Paul hacked out, here are the primary elements of a real 2014 federal budget as proposed by the POTUS:
OMB Budget
Analytical Perspectives
Balances & Authorities
Appendix-Agency Details
Someone the other day use the term "Obama's Endless Recession"- it may have been Ace. That is a gem of term to describe the last 5 years. Repubs should use it every day and they should hold a press conference to announce: "Due to Obama's Endless Recession, we have no choice but to support an extension in unemployment benefits. To end it now would be very unfair to the many Americans who can't find work in Obama's Endless Recession.
In order to support this extension, we propose to end the fed govt's subsidy of unemployment benefits. But that change will not be effective until Jan. 1,2016.
When a president screws up the economy, as has been done in Obama's Endless Recession, he should not be able to bail himself out by printing unemployment checks and that is what happens today.
States and employers in the states should be the ones responsible for funding worker unemployment benefits.
But due to Obama's Endless Recession, it is not practical nor fair to Americn families, to make that change until January 1, 2016."
Ah yes, the robber barons. The small construction companies you call to fix your house, the local restaurants you love, the guys who cut your grass, the local farmers who grow the organic vegetables you brag about buying. Yes, all robber barons. The next time you buy something insist on an all American workforce involved. Offer to pay double for it, or just refuse to buy, because otherwise you are a hypocrite.
The spigot is not held open by big companies - they go offshore. It's held open by Democrats who refuse to close it and only want to open it more. It's held open by people who want to buy things as cheap as possible, and then bitch about the people producing it not making enough wages. It's held open by us, so just stop passing the buck. As long as there is a demand for cheap labor, there will be illegal immigration, and we are the ones who want it cheap, because we know the work is good, and we all like to hang on to our money, as much as we like to blame other people for our problems.
ARM said ...
... their lack of understanding of how a recession is defined.
Okay, I'll bite...define it in detail for me.
What Bagoh20 said...plus this: liberal politicians like open borders & amnesties so they can entice new voters sooner than later.
bagoh, do you seriously believe that the Repubs are not going to move immigration reform through the house or bring in serious controls on illegal employment?
The Dems are on board but so are the Repubs. Both parties bought and sold on this issue by the chamber of commerce.
I don't particularly want cheap labor because I pay for it in another way, through my taxes, providing income support for people not paid sufficiently well in the first place. For people like me, 'cheap' labor comes with a second price tag. Why do we have to provide earned income tax credits or health insurance subsidies? Because people aren't paid a living wage in the first place. It is a completely nutty system.
Recesssion : a fall in GDP in two successive quarters.
If we lived in Italy or Greece you would have a point.
ARM ....what "point" do you think I was making?
Besides my unstated belief that the country is bankrupt that is...which is something I can help not at all. I appreciate your efforts to bless the beast, but I worked in the belly of it long enough to know it is corrupt beyond redemption.
Now tell me: do you think the Patty & Paul kiss-up is a "budget?"
PS: the "recession" formula intentionally ignores real inflation and costs rise. Just the cost of fuels alone, however much more is produced, is up by magnitudes greater than 1 at the consumption point.
Furhter: I spent a fair part of my last military years accounting for fuel and its cost and who could provide it .... and as an aside let me suggest that Rumsfeld and his crew in the early 2000's were crony lovers and crooks. You might note that Obama kept Gates who merely took over for Rumsfeld and continued the bullshit.
And that is how you/we have General f'ing Dynamics as the call center contractor for the PPACA.
You wouldn't have to pay income subsidies if libruls didn't whine about the poor poor who, at the end of the day, if we include govt bennies, have about the same amount in disposable income as a middle class worker who gets no govt bennies.
Librul policies hsave eliminated the incentive to work- hence the jobs available for illegal immigrants.
Good God you are a brainwashed maroon.
AReasonableMan said...
Why do we have to provide earned income tax credits or health insurance subsidies?
We don't.
"The Dems are on board but so are the Repubs. Both parties bought and sold on this issue by the chamber of commerce. "
You know who isn't? The Tea Party.
"I don't particularly want cheap labor because I pay for it in another way, through my taxes..."
You know who's fighting for your point of view? The Tea Party.
"For people like me, 'cheap' labor comes with a second price tag"
So by "people like me" I assume you mean the Tea Party.
It doesn't matter if you get people more money through forced higher wages or through tax and spend policies, it's the same effect - the jobs leave. That's the problem we have all over the world. Everywhere either thing is employed the result is the same.
There is a trade off between economic opportunity and economic security. The problem and the painful lesson is that economic security is a fantasy. I'll take opportunity every time. My life is a testament to it, as is every other successful person's.
Obama's persistent recession is a great phrase to use at every opportunity. And to create those opportunities where they fail to materialize on their own. I did not see that over there but it does sound like a good phrase to use, and using it all the time is cold, real cold, persistent nettling compulsive hammering repetition just bends the morale-universe toward ice but a better phrase is Obama's persistent stagflation because that is more than two quarters fuckuppery, it more accurately describes the situation where trillion of new dollars bloat the system to kick start it, presumably, leading prices to rise permanently while wages held relatively stagnate, with high unemployment and persistent low demand for A LOT FUCKING LONGER THAN HALF A FUCKING YEAR pardon me please I didn't mean to yell just now or say sweary words. Obama's persistent stagflation.
Remind you of someone?
You know something terrible horrible too horrible to speak? Here goes: Do you know who is hit hardest when trillions new dollars are pumped into a system like this? You think immediately 'the poor' as well you should for they are hit hard with that frustration indeed. Their incomes fixed while prices rise, because of government interference but do you think they are hit hardest?
Government is. It must grow along with those dollars it pumped in. If not then it strangles. And being so big it starves fastest of all. Ha ha ha I didn't mean to laugh just now, no, I am concerned for all those government agencies, their budgets fixed, Ha Ha Ha there that is again the glee seems irrepressible, why, it's the same thing as strangling them with your own bare hands. You end up with departments using floppy disc memory Ha ha ha ha ha ha oh dear, when then rest of the developing planet already exceeds that capacity in their phones.
The rich are swimming in the current policies. They are raking it in. They love this constant money printing and "stimulus" spending. It mostly ends up in their hands, because scooping up money that the government throws around is a skill the rich are by definition better at than most. Sure it might go to some "needy" person first, but they very quickly pass it up the ladder. The needy person just continues to need, and the rich continue to vie for position to scoop it up.
Meanwhile the rich are discouraged from hiring domestically, and the spiral descends. There is no need for a middle class as we just recycle the cash from rich through poor and back to rich again. With each cycle a little more goes overseas to create a global middle class everywhere else but at home.
Ignorance is Bliss said...
AReasonableMan said...
Why do we have to provide earned income tax credits or health insurance subsidies?
We don't.
But we do, irrespective of whether or not we should. I read a piece the other day, which I can't now find, suggesting that the poverty level had remained relatively stable. Although bottom level salaries had declined, programs like EITC and medicaid had made up the difference. In effect there is a certain level of poverty that the society tolerates and it keeps that level relatively constant.
If true it would seem much preferable to have people earn higher wages and be less dependent on the government. Either way most of us end up paying for that 'cheap' labor it is just the method of payment that changes.
Chip Ahoy said...
Obama's persistent recession is a great phrase to use at every opportunity.
GDP grew at a 3.6 percent annual rate last quarter. That is not anyone's definition of a recession.
Chip- you are a trained economist right- Worked at the FED I think so the term stagflation comes natural to you but I don't think the average voter will get it even though they are, in fact, getting it right in the neck everyday.
And yes, Jimmy Carter is what I think of instantly when I hear the word stagflation! Is that your answer too?
ARM:
Unfortunately for Obama and the Dems, the average voter thinks the recession has never ended so technical precision is not important.
A friend of mine asked last night "when was the last time you heard the MSM bring up the 7-8% unemployment as a big problem?" They are protecting OBAMA but it can't work for much longer.
" In effect there is a certain level of poverty that the society tolerates and it keeps that level relatively constant."
Who really tolerates that poverty? Is it the society as a whole, or the person who doesn't lift themselves out of it. There was a time when I was young and broke, and it was due to nothing more than apathy, which I outgrew eventually. Thankfully the society I lived in provided ample opportunity once I was ready to take advantage of it. Most of the long-term poor I know are missing only one thing - drive. The rest need our help through charity and some government, but the majority of our poor have been talked out of doing better with a destructive combination of manufactured excuses, and easy money for deploying them.
Not so fast, ARM.
The government's GDP numbers are mostly hype smoke and mirrors.
bagoh20 said...
Who really tolerates that poverty? Is it the society as a whole, or the person who doesn't lift themselves out of it.
I think when entry level wage jobs, like McDonalds, are now filled with middle aged people with families then it us as a society that determines what poverty we put up with. The Dems electoral success with non-minimum wage earners in part reflects that desire to see these people have adequate heath care, education etc.
Excellent points, Bagoh.
The left don't want equal opportunity -they want equal outcomes.
The quality of government run education in this nation will continue to deteriorate as long as the democrat/teachers union alliance exists.
Thankfully, people are waking up to this reality.
Also, because portions of union dues go to support democrat causes and democrat candidates (300 to 1) - states are beginning to offer teacher-opt-outs. The assumption that all teachers want their money spent on democrats is absurd and illegal. But now - in some states, they can request a refund and opt-out. Silly they have to ask for their money back.
"entry level wage jobs, like McDonalds, are now filled with middle aged people with families"
What happened to the better jobs? Why did they go away? If we keep doing the same things, won't it get worse? And when we have even fewer jobs, we will need to supply adequate health care, housing, food, education, transportation, entertainment, and everything else to even more people, because nobody will be earning those things. How do more burdens on employers like higher taxes, higher wages, and more regulations stop that death spiral?
Bagoh, if we were currently living in some workers paradise you would have a point but low income wages have fallen and most everyone else, other than the very top, have seen their income stagnate for decades now. Productivity gains are now captured almost exclusively by those with the most capital. The high priests of our society are not the scientists and engineers who conjure these gains in wealth out of thin air or the workers who make it happen but the hedge fund managers who tend to the capital of a small elite.
You can argue that neither party speaks to this problem but it is a tough sell to argue that the Repubs have had anything useful to say.
Who needs high wages if the government pays for everything, or forces your employer to?
I agree we are not in a workers paradise. We are in a non-workers paradise, which is just like a prison to those who want a chance to accomplish something.
People are not poorer. Thhey have more than ever. They just earn less, which means fewer people are actually producing the wealth. They are getting more of their costs of life paid for by others than ever in history. They are reduced by this dynamic, not strengthened. They are made dependent, and less valuable to their fellow citizens. This has no good ending.
If you want people to have more, someone has to produce it. Asking people to do it themselves and opening up that opportunity is the only thing a reasonable man could conclude.
One of the - if not THE - primary things that made our modern standard of living possible was the the development of a financial system including banks, hedge funds, stock markets, etc. It gave those ever-present greedy humans, who otherwise had little to offer, a valuable service to provide to the workers, innovators, managers, and visionaries. Without that sector, they are just left toiling in their workshops, dirty and unknown with their contributions hamstrung by what they can produce on their own.
Of course, this sector needs regulation, but when regulators are more concerned with punishing greed than harnessing it, or making a name for themselves in the process, then we lose a keystone of modern man's success.
We need banking, boring good old banks that were genuinely conservative. That is very different to having half the Harvard graduating class entering the financial field in search of personal financial rewards. What a waste of human capital. Finance is a non-productive field that is parasitic in nature. A lot of service industries fall into this category but they are not generally seen as the golden path to personal wealth.
If you are arguing that our current balance between finance and the rest of the economy is the correct balance then I think you are very wrong.
When we had excesses on the side of capital (the robber barons) it looked bad, and was in many ways, but it had no other eventuality possible but the advancement of most people and the general welfare. It was growth, and to continue required people getting richer overall.
In response to the excesses, we developed unions and government regulations to even it up some, and it was better like that until the government and the unions got too powerful and took over the role of being excessive.
Then globalization took care of the unions, but government kept growing, because it could tax and print money and extract from all sides what it needed.
Now government is in it's heyday in the west, and it's excesses have reached a threshold. It can no longer do anything well, nor is it willing to let the private sector do it. The result is stagnation, and the remedy will come one way or another. It always does. People will not be held back forever. I'm just glad I'm on the right side of that conflict. I'm not overly optimistic about the route it will take, but I'm proud of the side I've chosen.
bagoh20 said...
One of the - if not THE - primary things that made our modern standard of living possible
This is also wrong. Plumbing is much more important. And let's not forget all those scientific discoveries from fire and domesticated crops onwards.
bagoh20 said...
When we had excesses on the side of capital (the robber barons) it looked bad, and was in many ways,
But we are back to those same days in terms of wealth distribution. They don't look as bad because of the generally improved standard of living but the reality in terms of who is actually benefiting from our economic advances is much the same as it was in the age of robber barons.
A simple effective financial sector isn't possible as long as government has made it so complicated. Corrupt regulation combined with corrupt taxing and spending policies have made playing congress and regulators more profitable than simply providing capital and its services. The biggest players today are the ones most closely connected to government. That's where the juice is.
Marco's internal polling must show he really screwed up over that amnesty thing with the base.
" in terms of who is actually benefiting from our economic advances is much the same as it was in the age of robber barons."
And it always will be. Do you imagine an economy where only good honest people would thrive? Where the richest smartest most driven people would make maybe only twice the minimum wage of $100K?
There will always be a wide income inequality whether under the most free system or a totalitarian one. The only difference is level of opportunity for a child born to rise to his potential via merit rather than nepotism and corruption.
We need to be concentrating on creating opportunity, and open competition to find and create our best and reward them to whatever level they can achieve.
bagoh20 said...
And it always will be.
No, these things run in cycles. When the system gets too far out of whack people rise up or wars get started. Something will reset the system. Maybe with the influx of hispanics we really will get a socialist government. The balance of wealth fluctuates a lot over time. Back in the 50's things were much more equal.
Back in the 50's we did not have so many whiny, librul news media and sociologists and social workers and govt workers. Back in the 50's when we saw Grace Kelly's family home in Ocean City NJ, we'd say "wouldn't it be great one day to own a shore home". Now we have a bunch of the above-mentioned pisants whining that the Kelly's were robber barons or some such.
AJ Lynch said...
Back in the 50's when we saw Grace Kelly's family home in Ocean City NJ
It is a very nice house. I would have avoided a corner block.
Back in the 50's things were much more equal.
Ah, the glorious 1950's when even the poor paid income taxes and had "skin in the game." Social mores were different then too. There's really no going back, is there?
El Pollo Raylan said...
Ah, the glorious 1950's when even the poor paid income taxes and had "skin in the game."
This is one of my favorite moves, Repubs complaining that some people don't pay enough taxes. It would be perfect if you could just get the right people in you sights.
The left seek to control, vilify, punish, tax, and regulate-- punitively.
They vilify achievement and call it robbery.
It's a conflict of visions.
The best way to achieve economic prosperity is to stop all that.
ARM, I'm just pointing out what the 1950's were really like. You, like Michael Moore, only want the the higher taxes on the rich part and nothing else.
It's like me saying I want 1966 back in pop music and nothing else from that era.
Does it hurt to be compared to Michael Moore? :)
A great goal in my opinion.
Government spending as a percentage of GDP:
Average 1951 - 60 = 25.2
Average under Obama = 35.6%
That's a 41% increase on a multiple times higher GDP.
And the 50's included the cold war, building the U.S. highway system and a lot of the other infrastructure we depend on today. What do we do with all that extra money today? We now use it to prevent our people from having to take any risks or make any effort on their own, whether they be rich, poor, capable, or not.
I agree with what bago said at 3:19.
"Plumbing is much more important. And let's not forget all those scientific discoveries from fire and domesticated crops onwards."
None of it was providing beyond bare survival until the development of the financial system which allowed a few to produce for many, and which freed up the visionaries to do their miracles without worrying about mere sustenance, and then financed their ideas into entire industries and new areas of human understanding and technology. What changed medieval man into modern man was finance.
I enjoy my bankers about as much as my dentist, but some things you just can't do yourself.
Bags there are all kinds of government spending. Federal government spending as a percentage of GDP spiked after the Great Bush Recession but has steadily fallen under Obama.
I think this quote gets at the problem that I see:
"OMB tracks a category of spending called "Total investment outlays for major physical capital, research and development, and education and training"-which is a pretty decent measure of government investment in infrastructure and human capital. Over the past 50 years, our spending on this type of investment has plummeted. In 1963, a whopping 34.5 percent of the federal budget was devoted to this type of investment; by 2013 the percentage had more than halved to 15.0 percent. And as a share of GDP, spending on major investments fell from 6.4 percent of GDP to 3.1 percent."
I would like to see this discretionary spending rise, this is what drove the US to become such a technological and scientific force in the 50's and 60's. If that means that there has to be caps on social security and medicare in the form of means testing that is fine with me. I have not heard the Repubs ever seriously address how to get the big entitlement spending under control.
bagoh20 said...
None of it was providing beyond bare survival until the development of the financial system
I don't know when you want to date the start of the modern financial system but it is certainly well after the Greeks and the Romans, each of whom built cultures that produced the most dramatic advances in human civilization ever seen.
I am not say bankers have no use but the tail shouldn't wag the dog.
I don't know when you want to date the start of the modern financial system but it is certainly well after the Greeks and the Romans, each of whom built cultures that produced the most dramatic advances in human civilization ever seen.
The Greeks and Romans embraced slavery as well.
Mediaval Florentines invented modern banking. The Renaissance followed.
El Pollo Raylan said...
Mediaval Florentines invented modern banking.
The Venetians claim priority. Not an expert, but they apparently developed double entry book-keeping.
OK. I should have looked it up too instead of answering off the top of my head.
Yes, of course finance existed before the dark ages as did many great ideas, but there is a reason we call it the dark ages.
Like many of the concepts mostly lost in the darkness of those times, finance was never broad based before or during. The Renaissance was in big part finance driven, and the industrial revolution most certainly was and was the first time it had broad based impact, rather than just among the merchant and royalty classes. It sent humanity around the globe, and then supported it where it landed.
I should say finance sent itself around the world. Humanity was already there, living as it had for millennia.
" I have not heard the Repubs ever seriously address how to get the big entitlement spending under control."
It's not real complicated - spend less. Is there another way? You probably mean they haven't come up with a way to address it, and not get beat over the head by Democrats for it. Yea, that's a little harder, and really the problem, isn't it?
This could go on forever. I don't think the critics of big banking/finance are wrong overall. There has been too much emphasis on finance in the economy and it is unproductive at two levels.
First it diverts human capital in unproductive ways. Whatever you may think about banking it doesn't absolutely require the brain power that scientific or technological professions do. The primary challenge is attempting to outwit your competitors and/or customers. I don't doubt this can be carried out at a very high level, but like chess it is not very productive. We would be all much better off if this brain power went into something a little more socially useful, like keeping us ahead of our technological rivals elsewhere on the planet. The distortions in financial compensation associated with the financial industry undermine our long term competitiveness. China was doing just fine with a fairly dumbass banking system and German banks are known for their stolidity. I think we could get by with a little less intellectual fire power in the banking sector.
Second the skimming off of money in the banking sector into enormous compensation packages creates inflation in top end salaries in every sector. It is one of the main reasons for the increase in wealth disparity. Not surprisingly I don't see this as a good thing. I am comfortable enough with Steve Jobs earning an enormous income, Steve Cohen not so much. I see a fundamental difference between the accomplishments and the value of these two individuals, yet financially Cohen was the better compensated. I can't see this as good thing for us as a society.
I had never heard of Steve Cohen, but intrigued by ARM's referral, I looked him up on Wikipedia. link. He seems to have taken risks and accomplished a lot early on and I wouldn't begrudge his billions.
One thing about financiers versus people like Steve Jobs: Jobs built a business which employed lots of people and gave many more beneficial products. With Cohen, it's more like employing a few dozen or so and reaping lots of rewards with other people's money. And yet plenty of everyday people rely on Wall Street for their 401(k) valuations. Perhaps, ARM, you just dislike people "saving" in the stock market?
ARM- your data is not apples to apples. In 1963, soc sec and medicare and Medicaid were miniscule parts of total fed spending. Now they represent enormous parts of fed spending and so they make infrastructure % of fed spending look a if it has shrunk considerably.
A much more meaningful metric would be fed spending on infrastructure per capita adjusted for inflation.
Steve Jobs is a perfect example of what I'm talking about. Jobs could have accomplished none of what he did without financial men getting his mind and drive powered by capital.
I'm an inventor, a worker, and a business man who has avoided borrowing money for most of my career, but in the last few years, I have learned how valuable capital can be in saving jobs, creating jobs, and making dreams come true. Attacking finance is just uninformed, while financial criminals are as low as they come. Let's not confuse them with the indispensable function. Finance is just another of many divisions of labor among humans.
I know unethical and despicable people who rescue kittens for a living. It doesn't make them OK or cat rescue evil.
AJ Lynch said...
A much more meaningful metric would be fed spending on infrastructure per capita adjusted for inflation.
Spending as a percentage of GDP was included in the quote. I think that is the relevant number.
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