"with a giant diamond dildo on top"

white house is the equivalent of the servants quarters in a saudi "house"

What is the point in having gold taps if the outside world that you're trying to impress still think you're an, incesteous, dirty Arab and wouldn't trust you as far as they can throw you?

who cares. they're fucking gold taps

he said dildo

You could maybe convince your country to sell some land, or other assets that it holds in order to increase its liquidity though.

Naaah, they'll just inflate.

Never thought I would actually witness a collapse of a superpower, but that of the USA is imminent.

lol you are a young one aye

Well, I actually meant superpower in an economic sense, which USSR was certainly not. But still, I was 2 when it collapsed so the point of me not witnessing it is quite valid.

As to the main topic, I would really like to see the white house being auctioned off for 1.6 trillion dollars to patch up the hole in the budget.

There's not really a budget problem. It's just a game republicans play to try to get smaller government, aka fewer social and infrastructure services. If the deficit actually becomes a problem there's plenty of room to just increase capitol gains taxes to like... above zero percent.

Increasing revenues won't get you far without cutting spending.

Well that was a dumb video.

Yes, we know you approve of robbing Peter to pay Paul.

This wasn't about what I believe but about that video being dumb.

Of course it's dumb. A smart person knows that stealing is immoral and to convince dumbasses like Mike Moore (what a fat hypocrite....) a dumb movie is necessary.

On a more serious note, Obama took the deficits to a whole new level. To balance the budget with the current revenues, they would have to spend as much as in 2003 and as far as I remember in 2003 (the times of this ardent laissez-faire maniac Bush) there was Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and people didn't die on the streets (I mean they did but that's because of the minimum wage law, which is another story).

The video is dumb because it is an attempt to indirectly refute the fact that it is more than necessary to remove the tax cuts for the wealthy, through a ridiculously off-topic demonstration loosely presented as an answer to Michael Moore's rhetoric. It is the kind of demonstration that tries to convince people through an appeal to "common sense", when in reality it proves absolutely nothing and what it tries to suggest is completely off-the-mark.

Obama's policies increased the public debt because the U.S. was facing a recession - public spending was used to improve the economic situation, which it did. In fact, the effort should probably have been maintained even longer to help the recovery, like Krugman recently argued in a column. Regarding the increase in the public debt, it is pure demagogy to argue that there is no revenue problem. The overwhelming majority of economists believe taxes need to be raised for a long-term reduction of the debt to be possible. The cuts in spending put forward by the Republicans are also largely ideological - they're using the crisis to take aim at social programs they've always wanted to get rid of instead of seriously addressing the problem.

It's like I am back in the second year of university, listening to a macro lecture about how great stimuli are.

The stimulus package didn't work - unemployment is still high, prices are going up even measured by the phony CPI, and I don't even mention the bond and stock market bubble that Bernanke blew up by 2 years of near-0% interest rates.

Give it a month after QE2 is over and Helicopter Ben will see how bad the economy really is and think up another technocratic term for injecting funny money into the system because I highly doubt QE3 will sell well to the general public.

I am amazed how you can't grasp the message of this video. It demonstrates that if the rich were to be taxed at 100%, you still wouldn't be able to even get close to balancing the budget.

The fact that it would be balanced with the level of spending from 2003 clearly indicates that it is a spending problem, not a revenue problem.

Besides, government spending is bad economics.

Besides #2, Paul Krugman is not an economist.

It's like I am back in the second year of university, listening to a macro lecture about how great stimuli are.

Then use this opportunity to pay attention this time.

The stimulus package didn't work

Yes it did. Did it magically solve everything? No. Did it help the economy considerably? Yes.

I am amazed how you can't grasp the message of this video. It demonstrates that if the rich were to be taxed at 100%, you still wouldn't be able to even get close to balancing the budget.

I did grasp the message of this video, which is why I wrote it "proves absolutely nothing and what it tries to suggest is completely off-the-mark". What you just said is wrong by the way, since in the video they attempt to balance the budget by only taking money from the rich, which is not the same as adding that money to the existing revenue of the government. Regardless, nobody is arguing that the budget will be balanced only through taxing the rich. What IS argued is that increasing taxes is a necessary element in any serious effort to balance the budget.

The fact that it would be balanced with the level of spending from 2003 clearly indicates that it is a spending problem, not a revenue problem.

No, it does not. You can't use ceteris paribus to make such a broad statement, economics are a little more complicated than that.

Besides, government spending is bad economics.

No.

Besides #2, Paul Krugman is not an economist.

That's a funny statement considering he has a PhD degree in economics (MIT), is a professor of economics and international affairs at Princeton and won the Nobel Prize in economics.

"That's a funny statement considering he has a PhD degree in economics (MIT), is a professor of economics and international affairs at Princeton and won the Nobel Prize in economics."

Oh, then he must be the real deal. Just like Paul Samuelson, who in 1976 said that it's a "vulgar mistake to think that most people in Eastern Europe are miserable,"

If some recognitions in a totally lost profession that economics is are enough for you to call him an economist despite nonsense he said about Greenspan having to inflate a housing bubble to replace the NASDAQ bubble, then you're as lost as economics is since the late 1930s.

Hey, I didn't know being always right was a prerequisite to be called an economist. Looks like there aren't many economists on Earth after all. You might want to notify the American Economic Association about this, since after all they awarded him the John Bates Clark medal which is given every two years to "an economist under forty who is adjudged to have made a significant contribution to economic knowledge".

A bunch of neo-commies awarding one another for thinking up an "economic model" with surreal assumptions but elegant mathematical notation is no recognition as far as I am concerned.

Making a mistake every now and then is a far cry from suggesting that the country should be thrown into the biggest bubble ever that ultimately ended in a recession. But how could he know that, right? Well, some people knew...

You are basing your criticism of Krugman on one sentence he wrote in one of his blog. That sentence was hardly advocacy - Krugman was saying that a housing bubble was basically the only way to get out of the recession, not that it was a good scenario. Can you find any article by him where he actively promotes the idea of creating a housing bubble? I thought so.

At this point, though, you're trying way too hard. Paul Krugman is obviously an economist, whether you like it or not.

Someone who believes that war spending can get an economy out of a recession is not an economist, just a brainwashed Keynesian and, in the case of professor Krugman, a brainwashed idiot savant Keynesian.

Krugman was saying that a housing bubble was basically the only way to get out of the recession, not that it was a good scenario.

Yes, that might have been his way of getting the economy out of a recession. If only this FED-induced boom wasn't followed by an even bigger recession.

Someone who believes [bla bla bla].

Krugman is an economist, deal with it. Saying he isn't an economist is a factually incorrect statement.

Yes, that might have been his way of getting the economy out of a recession.

Again, he wasn't advocating policy. I'll ask again: can you find any article by him where he actively promotes the idea of creating a housing bubble?

To fight this recession the Fed needs more than a snapback; it needs soaring household spending to offset moribund business investment. And to do that, as Paul McCulley of Pimco put it, Alan Greenspan needs to create a housing bubble to replace the Nasdaq bubble.

The entire post can be found here.

And before you start spitting out nonsense about it not being an article, let alone a working paper, what exactly is the matter with advocating funny money in a blogpost? Is it somehow of less credibility?

Are you having difficulties reading what I write? I had already read the blog, which is why I was saying he was NOT advocating policy. Again, he was providing an analysis - he thought the Fed could probably only fight the recession if a housing bubble developed. He wasn't saying it was a good scenario.

And before you start spitting out nonsense about it not being an article, let alone a working paper, what exactly is the matter with advocating funny money in a blogpost? Is it somehow of less credibility?

That's the point - this wasn't advocacy. I am asking you to find an article where he does actively advocate creating a housing bubble because if he had thought it was a good idea surely you'd have no trouble finding one.

7th December 2001:
“Post-terror nerves aside, what mainly ails the U.S. economy is too much of a good thing. During the bubble years businesses overspent on capital equipment; the resulting overhang of excess capacity is a drag on investment, and hence a drag on the economy as a whole.

In time this overhang will be worked off. Meanwhile, economic policy should encourage other spending to offset the temporary slump in business investment. Low interest rates, which promote spending on housing and other durable goods, are the main answer. But it seems inevitable that there will also be a fiscal stimulus package”

You know what the word "should" means, right?

In the first two sentences you JUST quoted, he precisely explains why bubbles are bad for the economy. He's therefore not saying it would be a great idea for the FED to "inflate a housing bubble" like you originally claimed, he's merely arguing that spending should be encouraged in other areas than capital equipment, including housing, to "offset the temporary slump in business investment". It's dishonest to claim he was advocating a housing bubble when he was just done explaining the harm bubbles do to the economy.

So if a doctor says "chemotherapy will make you bald but you need it", leaving aside whether it be a right treatment, it is dishonest to say that he advocates chemotherapy?

Here you're going back to the phrasing of the first blog post, and you're presenting it incorrectly. If I say "if Russia wants to annihilate the US it needs to launch a nuclear strike first, take the U.S. by surprise and take out its retaliatory capabilities. To annihilate Russia, the U.S. also needs to strike first", am I simultaneously advocating that both the U.S. and Russia strike first or am I providing an analysis of which scenario would allow them to reach their own goal in each case?

Nice strawman. So now you're in doubt whether Krugman wants the economy to get out of a recession? I think it's safe to say that he does and he's presenting his way of doing it, which is why your little story about Russia and USA is irrelevant.

The point of the example was to explain to you that he's doing an analysis, not advocating policy, something which seems to have gone right over your head again. If you want an example of a strawman, look at your previous post.

The reason why your example is inadequate is that getting out of a recession is universally accepted as a positive thing and when somebody lays out a plan on how to do it, he automatically advocates that this plan be introduced, as it leads to a superior state of matters. Starting a war, on the other hand, isn't considered to be a positive thing and is generally avoided. That's where the difference lies.

And we didn't even discuss the stupidity of keeping malinvestments afloat through low interest rates as a cure to a recession caused by those malinvestments...

We're running in circles here. You essentially do not make a distinction between analysis and advocacy while I do. You're free to think he's a terrible economist if you want, I frankly don't care.

Of course I do, and I certainly agree to the example about Russia and USA being just an analysis. If, however, the analysis pertains to a phenomenon regarded as a shift from an inferior state to a superior one, which getting out of a recession quite obviously is, I find it reasonable to assume that it is also advocacy of the presented solution, i.e. slashing interest rates to stimulate housing. I think it's hard to argue the opposite, even for a talented spinmeister that I now consider you to be.

This is the point you refuse to accept because it would make Krugman look stupid in this particular case and also pull the rug out from under your defense of him.

You calling me a spinmeister is pretty rich considering the paragraph you quoted from Krugman to support your claim that he was advocating a housing bubble contained an explanation by him of why bubbles are bad for the economy.

The distinction between analysis and advocacy remains even when one is studying social phenomena with implications for the well-being of humans.

Before talking about pulling the rug out from under my defense of him, you might want to look into putting a rug under your attack of him, since your claim that he isn't an economist would be wrong even if he was the dumbest economist on the planet, which he isn't.

In the first paragraph, you've basically said that a statement "chemotherapy will make you bald but you still should go through with it" is an analysis without a recommendation.

In the second one, you've restated your claims without adressing my counterarguments and to top it all off added an irrelevant part about well-being of humans. No matter what we consider, presenting a solution which is to yield a better state than the present one is automatically an advocacy of that solution. One'd have to be incredibly daft or a spinmeister not to agree with that.

And there's the third paragraph, in which you've seriously addressed my tongue-in-cheek distinction between Keynesians and economists. A+ for sensing that.

My first paragraph had nothing to do with what you just wrote.

In the second one, you've restated your claims without adressing my counterarguments and to top it all off added an irrelevant part about well-being of humans.

You have no counterarguments. In fact you have no arguments period, YOU simply stated that "if [...] the analysis pertains to a phenomenon regarded as a shift from an inferior state to a superior one [1] [...] it is also advocacy of the presented solution". This statement is wrong, carrying out an analysis is different from advocating a policy regardless of the phenomenon being studied. The two can go hand-in-hand but the distinction remains. There's nothing else to say really, you're wrong.

By the way, regarding your disparagement of Keynesians (how witty of you!), don't kid yourself into thinking Keynesians are the only ones saying there's a revenue problem.

[1] This is what I was referring to when I mentioned the well-being of humans btw.

No matter what we consider, presenting a solution which is to yield a better state than the present one is automatically an advocacy of that solution.

Explain to me how this isn't the case and then you might look a bit less ludicrous.

You're the one making the claim. Why would the distinction between analysis and advocacy sometimes magically disappear depending on the phenomenon being studied?

It's quite hard to imagine the opposite, but let's try: Krugman tells how to get out of a recession and in the back of his head thinks "Fuck it, we'd better stay in a slump."

That's a weird approach to me.

Your reasoning is completely flawed. Let's say an extraterrestrial entity which has no incentive at all to help the US, and won't ever contact a human being, decides to analyze the economic situation in the US. As part of his analysis, the entity concludes that path A will get the US out of the recession it is facing.

Let's now imagine that an American economist conducts the exact same analysis and concludes the exact same thing. Why would this automatically become advocacy instead of being an analysis?

Again, one can very well lead to the other, but nothing makes the process intrinsically automatic like you're arguing.

I'd also like to point out that you're now making statements about what's going on inside Krugman's head and implying out of thin air that he cannot possibly have reservations about the implications of a certain solution to get out of the recession. Since you're yourself critical of the said solution (I'm simplifying), I don't see why it'd be logically impossible for him to have his own reservations.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_confidence_model

Has it ever happened, that Jonesy and Jamerio argued about something against each other? That would be an engrossing experience

Jonesy smokes so much dope he doesn't care if you agree with him or not. You can't beat that.

That is true, he seems not to even care about the responds he receives. And what does "G.I." stand for?

G.I Joe..

Pretty sure it means General Infantry

Who the fuck doesn't know about G.I Joe?

i always assumed it was

God . Incarnate

... or sell Alaska back to the russians... and give them cannada as an extra deal. ... they wont know it isnt yours. + then russians come into canada thinking its theirs... BAM instant war... then you can realy get some profit... since war economy is a US thing.

Don't think that Russians don't know that Canada is not USA. If it was, then we Russians could nott say with proud that we have the biggest country in the world, since USA would have more land then.

"with a giant diamond dildo on top"
you hatin Monica Lewinsky much bro, isn't it? =(