Cynthetiq

filth, by that it's safe then to assume that everyone is irrational.

__________________
I don't care if you are black, white, purple, green, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, hippie, cop, bum, admin, user, English, Irish, French, Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Buddhist, Muslim, indian, cowboy, tall, short, fat, skinny, emo, punk, mod, rocker, straight, gay, lesbian, jock, nerd, geek, Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, Independent, driver, pedestrian, or bicyclist, either you're an asshole or you're not.

roachboy

the people who administered the holocaust---you know, worked in the bureaucracy that implemented it, that set things up and put them into motion--operated what is sometimes called a bounded rationality. everyone does, but this is just an extreme example.
one feature of bounded rationalities is compartmentalization. one type of compartmentalization is the separation of a bureaucratically and/or politically sanctioned goals from their consequences.
so exterminating a population could come to be seen as a neutral administrative objective.
people inside that bureaucracy did their duty...they were bound by whatever they understood the professional code of ethics to be, say, as well as by social solidarities that dovetailed with and were reinforced by political or ideological consensus. they operated in social, political and professional contexts that normalized a day gig which was--if you thought about it this way---organizing the extermination of another group of human beings because of their religion and/or ethnicity.

within those contexts, participating in genocide was a rational action.
how useful is the category?

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

filtherton

I think that everyone is irrational to some extent.

powerclown

--^--

loquitur

Filtherton, I'll agree that you can't presume rationality based on the bare fact that a crowd is acting uniformly, without looking at what the particular behavior is. Ambulating by putting one foot in front of another isn't a rational choice, it's how people walk. But people's reactions to certain social stimuli is a totally different story.

filtherton

Here's what I think: I think we're getting caught up in a semantic argument about what it means to be rational. I get the impression that you think that "rational" status is something that need only be imposed on an actor post action, so that if someone's behaviors seem rational, then they are labeled rational. I can be fairly dense at times, so let me know if I've got you all wrong.

I think that people have many diverse reasons for doing the things that they do, and that many of these reasons wouldn't stand up well to close scrutiny. I include myself in this. I understand that these things may be considered rational in a local sense, that is, rational if you take into account the limited information processing capabilities of humanity and assume that everyone is doing the best they can with the information they have. This would mean that everyone is at least locally rational, but it would also destroy the notion that rational people are predictable, because as far as I can tell, outside of generalities or statistical distributions, they aren't.

It would be more appropriate to say that the collective behavior of rational people can be predicted sometimes, assuming we know enough and nothing odd happens in our period of interest.

loquitur

Couple of things:

1) we don't know what is inside people's heads. We can't. So of course we can only evaluate rationality by observing their actions and then measuring the actions against some yardstick. I suppose that can be called ex post labelling, but there really isn't any other way to do it, right?

2) of course people can only make decisions based on the info they have available to them and their own capabilities. That's the very definition of being a rational actor. Your position seems to be that there is some independent absolute definition of what a rational decision is, against which everyone's decisionmaking can be evaluated. I don't agree with that at all. I think you can point to general tendencies, but that's all, because each person is unique and has his/her own priorities and abilities. The ability to forecast can only be based on gross generalizations and tendencies, based on what most people would deem rational in a general situation.

aceventura3

The answer to your question in 226 is, yes. In the context of stochastic, what may appear to be random and irrational can in-fact be predicable. I use the stochastic oscillator frequently when trying to determine entry and exit points for stock market investments, often day to day price swings have no correlation to the intrinsic value of an investment, giving the appearance of irrational price movements. Often those price movements that appear irrational often are not.

In your post 226 question the pattern may be as simple as person #1, given 50/50 probability went left, and then those that follow have a inclination greater the 50% to follow the lead of the person in front.

---------- Post added at 03:08 PM ---------- Previous post was at 03:07 PM ----------

I am in a constant search to eliminate uncertainty.

---------- Post added at 03:11 PM ---------- Previous post was at 03:08 PM ----------

Is this breaking left thing made up, or is there something to it?

__________________
"Democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on lunch."
"It is useless for the sheep to pass resolutions on vegetarianism while the wolf is of a different opinion."
"If you live among wolves you have to act like one."
"A lady screams at the mouse but smiles at the wolf. A gentleman is a wolf who sends flowers."

Baraka_Guru

Do yourself a favour and consider the fact that the best one can hope to achieve is the minimization of uncertainty.

Sure, you can eliminate uncertainty with things such as GICs and the like, and I'm pretty sure the sun will rise again tomorrow, but we must always factor in risk vs. reward in many aspects of life. Life is about managing uncertainty, not eliminating it.

__________________
Knowing that death is certain and that the time of death is uncertain, what's the most important thing?
—Bhikkhuni Pema Chödrön

Humankind cannot bear very much reality.
—From "Burnt Norton," Four Quartets (1936), T. S. Eliot

roachboy

aside

ace...

i did a bunch of research into crowd flows/stochastics when i was trying to figure out why a piece i did that involved putting the audience into motion didn't work as planned. the research didn't add much to what i already more or less knew (it was fucking cold that night for one thing; for another we didn't make the distinction between our performance and that of the collective that opened for us clear enough) but i did find out about the breaking left tendency.

there's alot of information about this kind of thing around design of fire exits for buildings not surprisingly. the way people flock around them in an emergency is really quite strange & creates all kinds of problems for designing what you'd think would be quite simple (a door)...

i think i still have the material around somewhere. if you want i can bounce you citations.

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

aceventura3

The pattern of we often find in history where good people fall victim of what is irrational behavior, is often grounded in the leaders good people follow, manipulating information or not exposing people to the big picture of what is occurring. So, the bureaucrat who compiles a list of names, the officer who rounds up those people, the engineer who operates the train, etc. may know what they are doing, but may not know what is being done in its entirety. The main reason why despicable leaders want to control speech and the flow of information.

---------- Post added at 03:29 PM ---------- Previous post was at 03:23 PM ----------

At the risk of sounding overly philosophical and stuff, if I ever find what I search for, life will no longer have meaning for me. So, I search for that which can not be found.

{added} And getting back to soaking the "rich", what are you folks going to say when democrats extend the Bush tax cuts for the "rich"?

__________________
"Democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on lunch."
"It is useless for the sheep to pass resolutions on vegetarianism while the wolf is of a different opinion."
"If you live among wolves you have to act like one."
"A lady screams at the mouse but smiles at the wolf. A gentleman is a wolf who sends flowers."

filtherton

Regarding ex post labelling, I agree that there aren't really a lot of viable other ways to make sense of people's behavior. However, I think it is important to keep in mind the limitations of the method, and that such a method, while frequently compelling from a common sense standpoint, doesn't really constitute proof of anything.

I don't think that there is some sort of absolute definition of rational. The kind of economic theory espoused by Ace assumes that there is an absolute definition of rational, and clearly I disagree. Hence my statement that the phrase "rational people behave in predictable ways" is a fallacy. One problem with the phrase, as used by Ace, is that the definition of rational that it uses is a theoretical construct that doesn't exist in reality. Another problem is that rational people aren't predictable precisely because there is no absolute definition of rational. In fact, rationality can exist within an irrational framework so that the rational status of a person can depend entirely on the scale at which they are observed.

For example: few would claim that Person A's motivation to spend time working to earn money to buy the things he wants is an irrational motivation. However, if you add a bit more context and mention that the Person A is addicted to buying cats and already has 25 that he can't take care, his motivations become a tad less rational. Is Person A a rational person? Is he predictable? How would he respond to a cat tax?

I agree that the ability to forecast can only exist in the context of general tendencies. I disagree that these general tendencies should be based on what most people would deem rational. I think it is much better policy to base these forecasts on actual data. The phrase "what most people would deem rational" means completely different things to different people. Things that seem rational to an objectivist may be completely counter to the things that seem rational to a socialist. Data doesn't lie. Statistics don't lie (though it is easy to misinterpret them if you don't know what you're doing).

People who say "We should/shouldn't enact this type of fiscal policy because the rational response of the populace will be ___________" are frequently drunk on their own overinflated sense of intellectual superiority. I place a great deal more trust in data than I do people who lack the intellectual humility required to avoid making grand predictions based on ideology. Besides, even with good data and a solid, ideology-free, grasp of historical trends, there is really no excuse for anyone to place a lot of faith in the accuracy of financial forecasting at the governmental level.

Uncertainty is always present. You'd be better of settling for the minimization of uncertainty. You should read Black Swan, it's a good argument against the problem with the illusion of certainty with respect to financial markets.

ASU2003

I am 'soaking the rich'. I have greatly reduced the amount of gas I buy (will be less when I get an electric car I am converting), the amount of fast food I buy, and the products I buy from large chain stores.

aceventura3

One problem with being a "rich" Democrat is that it is hard to do what your "rich" buddies can do and get away with it. Can you spell hypocrite - K-E-R-R-Y.

If Mass. taxes Kerry’s yacht, he’ll pay, aide says - The Boston Globe

I guess Kerry is not really a hypocrite since he is going to pay the taxes, if they send him a bill, if he uses the boat in Mass, if his wife gives him permission, if...

__________________
"Democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on lunch."
"It is useless for the sheep to pass resolutions on vegetarianism while the wolf is of a different opinion."
"If you live among wolves you have to act like one."
"A lady screams at the mouse but smiles at the wolf. A gentleman is a wolf who sends flowers."

dogzilla

So he pays his taxes only if he gets caught not paying taxes. Just like Tim Geithner.

Why does this work for wealthy Democrats and not for me?

roachboy

this is hilarious. tony haywood looses bp more than any ceo in its history, costs british pensioners a very considerable amount and he gets pensioned off with a roughly 10 million pound severance package so he can go live on a fucking yacht.

and you think *this* is a problem?

the problem is the class structure brought into being by neo-liberalism itself, not which faction inside the political oligarchy which oversees it manages the more effective tax scam.

and in this particular glenn beck-style non-issue, kerry's already noted his intention to pay.
and i don't like the guy particularly.

it's time for rational people to ignore american conservatives.
they've lost whatever tenuous grip on reality they ever had.

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

aceventura3

I will try to connect the dots.

BP failed, they should pay a price for that failure - potentially going out of business.

Investors should not have invested in BP without knowing and understanding the risk. Investors who assume too much risk should be allowed to fail.

On the other hand oil companies being run properly should be allowed to thrive. Success should not be punished.

Investors who invest in successful companies should be allowed to succeed..

If you try to punish success and those who do things correctly, you get less of it. Or, it moves away, it goes to a place where success can be enjoyed.

Also, if you punish success and bailout failure, you get more failures in your systems. So, when we go after companies doing the right thing or their profits, and protect failure, it does not result in a net benefit to anyone.

Kerry and many liberals embody what is wrong in terms of economic policy, and the hypocrisy of - do as I say, not as I do - is far to obvious to anyone paying attention.

__________________
"Democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on lunch."
"It is useless for the sheep to pass resolutions on vegetarianism while the wolf is of a different opinion."
"If you live among wolves you have to act like one."
"A lady screams at the mouse but smiles at the wolf. A gentleman is a wolf who sends flowers."

dogzilla

Yes I do. If the Democrats are going to invent all kinds of giveaways of taxpayer money on welfare projects, to the tune of raising the deficit to over $1 trillion dollars, they better be participating in paying the costs of their giveaways.

The only reason Kerry is willing to pay taxes now is that he got caught.

So now Kerry takes over from Charlie Rangel as the Democrat's current poster child for lack of ethics.

And while we are apportioning blame for the BP fiasco, this whole mess is in part just another example of the Obama administration's incompetence, with Obama's administration approving the drilling in the first place.

roachboy

yeah, i'm not going to waste my time with limbaugh-logic concerning the bp fiasco. i've done far too much research on it and have posted far too much information on this board to bother. if you want to live in an information-lite neo-fascist framed fantasyland, you go right ahead. just don't expect to be treated as though you're trafficking in perspectives that are of any interest. except perhaps as an anthropological matter, were one keeping track of the daily mutation in the "thinking" of american neo-fascism.

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

dogzilla

Right. Even though Obama's administration approved the drilling, Obama's administration repeatedly refused offers of assistance from other countries early on, and Obama's administration refused to approve plans to reduce the damage, none of this is Obama's fault.

Just as the screwing of the taxpayers by Obama's idiotic stimulus that accomplished very little is not Obama's fault. Or just like his appointing members of his cabinet that thought taxes were optional wasn't his fault.

roachboy

i am not sure who you imagine yourself to be talking to, dog. o wait that's right: it doesn't matter. you're just following the limbaugh script. it's always impressive to see the ways in which those heroes of individuality on the right repeat the script they're handed by their cretin pundits.

suffice it to say that obama did not put the regulatory apparatus into place that enabled the disaster in the gulf to become a disaster. that bon bon is on the head of the right.

so for that matter is the largest transfer of wealth away from the "middle class" and into the hands of the top five percent in terms of income since such numbers started being kept. that's another consequence of the lunatic policies of conservatives.

profit uber alles. the state is evil. blah blah blah.

and i'm sure that the demon obama whispered into the ear of john kerry's accountant that it'd be a great idea to fuck up his taxes.

idiocy. all of it.

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

aceventura3

In your world is it rational for people to attempt to save $570,000 in taxes?

Doesn't this little maneuver cost the people of Massachusetts in terms of jobs, taxes collected and severely hurt the boating industry?

Who benefited from Massachusetts tax policy on boats?

Why would a man who represents the people of Massachusetts, the cause of the average man, and taxing the "rich" go out of his way to dock his boat where he does not live?

All these and other questions you won't answer because the answers don't fit neatly into you ideology on this subject, BP and many others, so I ask who is in a fantasy-land, you or me?

__________________
"Democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on lunch."
"It is useless for the sheep to pass resolutions on vegetarianism while the wolf is of a different opinion."
"If you live among wolves you have to act like one."
"A lady screams at the mouse but smiles at the wolf. A gentleman is a wolf who sends flowers."

roachboy

ace you haven't the faintest idea what you're talking about.
you don't know anything about "the boating industry" in massachusetts.
do you have any idea how much it costs to get a slip for a season, if you can do it?
do you have any idea how much gas costs if you get it dockside?
do you have any idea how much a boat costs?

who do you think is doing the boating?
do you seriously think people from this social class are affected by a tax on the already quite extortionate cost of owning and keeping a boat?

if you want to talk about the fishing industry, the "boating tax" is the least of their problems.
but you'd have to know what the fuck you're talking about to get to that.
and you don't.


i'm done wasting my time with you.

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

aceventura3

This is true, but my points have much broader application.

No.

Do you know the reason why it is difficult and costly? Without any direct knowledge I bet the problem is related to government interference.

No. But, I argue that the "rich" alter behavior based on costs. Some argue the opposite point or simply pretend that increasing costs and taxes on the "rich" have no consequences.

Yes.

In general or in Massachusetts? Where I live, boating can be affordable, and even people considered poor have boats (as opposed to yachts like Kerry's, some even use them for a purpose other than pure luxury, i.e. like for fishing). Or in your world is there only one kind of "boating"?

Yes.

Some "rich" people got that way because they put effort into saving a half a million here and there.

Not the least, but they do have other problems other than taxes.

Only if you say so.


So he says for the umpteenth time!

Roach, be a man of your word or interact on a higher level. The choice is yours. I regularly interact with you because I am flawed and I know what my problem is, do you know what your flaw is?

__________________
"Democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on lunch."
"It is useless for the sheep to pass resolutions on vegetarianism while the wolf is of a different opinion."
"If you live among wolves you have to act like one."
"A lady screams at the mouse but smiles at the wolf. A gentleman is a wolf who sends flowers."

dogzilla

Actually, I don't spend any time listening to Limbaugh, Rush or any of the other commentators from either the conservatives or liberals. They are all pretty much paid to bring listeners to their advertisers.

However, I have learned a few things in the 36 years I've been earning a living.

Regardless how clever the government thinks it is in taking money away from the rich, the rich are going to find loopholes or find other places where they can take their money. I'd rather the rich keep their money in the US.

I can whine about how the rich are keeping all the wealth and expect the government to redistribute the rich man's money to me. Then I can complain some more when the government giveaways end and I have to fend for myself. I can also decide to do something to improve my lot and make myself a decent living. I figure I've been a whole lot more successful fending for myself than living on the government dole.

When the government says they are here to help, they really aren't. All they are trying to do is buy some votes. When some more gullible voters come along, government priorities change.

You may be right. However, this rig was approved in 2009. Obama's presidency, Obama's responsibility. Obama's continuing to blame his problems on Bush after a year and a half is getting pretty tiresome and not very credible.

Harry Truman got one thing right, with a sign on his desk that said "The buck stops here". Obama is no Harry Truman.

What I find amusing is that with all the claims of the disintegration of the middle class, there are statistics that the number of millionaires in the US in increasing as time goes by. For instance, here Millionaire - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


If that's contributing to the disintegration of the middle class, then I'd like to see more disintegration. I know my living standards are way better now than they were 20 years ago and better than they were 10 years ago, and I'm just a working guy.

Baraka_Guru

Um, you're making it sound as though people are on welfare if they aren't wealthy. Are you ignoring the middle class?

For every new millionaire, how many people have had their real incomes eroded? I think the disintegration is happening far faster from the bottom down than it is from the top up.

I'm happy to hear about your situation though. However, I don't think a lot of people are experiencing what you have.

__________________
Knowing that death is certain and that the time of death is uncertain, what's the most important thing?
—Bhikkhuni Pema Chödrön

Humankind cannot bear very much reality.
—From "Burnt Norton," Four Quartets (1936), T. S. Eliot

aceventura3

I have little experience outside of the US, but the current standard of living in this country is as high as it has ever been and the trend line has been consistently up. In this country "rich" people get rich, but everyone benefits. I don;t think there is any basis for your statement as it applies to the US. In corrupt nations or nations with corrupt leaders, I know this is not always true.

__________________
"Democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on lunch."
"It is useless for the sheep to pass resolutions on vegetarianism while the wolf is of a different opinion."
"If you live among wolves you have to act like one."
"A lady screams at the mouse but smiles at the wolf. A gentleman is a wolf who sends flowers."

Baraka_Guru

This might be true for many, and it certainly looks that way if you look at averages. If you parse the data, you have something that looks like this:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi..._1947-2007.svg

You will notice that those in the bottom 20th percentile has seen barely an increase in overall income since the '70s. Those in the 40th percentile have seen a modest increase. Those in the 60th are doing pretty well. However, if you're in the 80th and especially the 95th percentile, you've clearly seen the most growth.

So I guess you could say an overall increase has happened. However, the bottom 20th looks dangerously like a flat line. I wonder what the numbers look like since 2008.

__________________
Knowing that death is certain and that the time of death is uncertain, what's the most important thing?
—Bhikkhuni Pema Chödrön

Humankind cannot bear very much reality.
—From "Burnt Norton," Four Quartets (1936), T. S. Eliot

Derwood

01 ) 83% of all U.S. stocks are in the hands of 1% of the people.


02 ) 61% of Americans "always or usually" live paycheck to paycheck, which was up from 49% in 2008 and 43% in 2007.


03 ) 66% of the income growth between 2001 and 2007 went to the top 1% of all Americans.


04 ) 36% of Americans say that they don't contribute anything to retirement savings.


05 ) A staggering 43% of Americans have less than $10,000 saved up for retirement.


06 ) 24% of American workers say that they have postponed their planned retirement age in the past year.


07 ) Over 1.4 million Americans filed for personal bankruptcy in 2009, which represented a 32% increase over 2008.


08 ) Only the top 5% of U.S. households have earned enough additional income to match the rise in housing costs since 1975.


09 ) For the first time in U.S. history, banks own a greater share of residential housing net worth in the United States than all individual Americans put together.


10 ) In 1950, the ratio of the average executive's paycheck to the average worker's paycheck was about 30 to 1. Since the year 2000, that ratio has exploded to between 300 to 500 to 1.


11 ) As of 2007, the bottom 80% of American households held about 7% of the liquid financial assets.


12 ) The bottom 50% of income earners in the United States now collectively own less than 1% of the nation’s wealth.


13 ) Average Wall Street bonuses for 2009 were up 17% when compared with 2008.


14 ) In the United States, the average federal worker now earns 60% MORE than the average worker in the private sector.


15 ) The top 1% of U.S. households own nearly twice as much of America's corporate wealth as they did just 15 years ago.


16 ) In America today, the average time needed to find a job has risen to a record 35.2 weeks.


17 ) More than 40% of Americans who actually are employed are now working in service jobs, which are often very low paying.


18 ) For the first time in U.S. history, more than 40 million Americans are on food stamps, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture projects that number will go up to 43 million Americans in 2011.


19 ) This is what American workers now must compete against: in China a garment worker makes approximately 86 cents an hour and in Cambodia a garment worker makes approximately 22 cents an hour.


20 ) Despite the financial crisis, the number of millionaires in the United States rose a whopping 16% to 7.8 million in 2009.


21 ) Approximately 21% of all children in the United States are living below the poverty line in 2010 - the highest rate in 20 years.


22 ) The top 10% of Americans now earn around 50% of our national income.

__________________
"You can't shoot a country until it becomes a democracy." - Willravel

dogzilla

No, there's a fair sized middle class that still exists in the US, which does manage to get by without government handouts.

I don't have any statistics on that. But the fact that there are more millionaires now than in prior years proves to me that it's all not the doom and gloom that the liberals make it out to be. Besides which, if the number of millionaires is growing over time, that implies to me that there's growth in the number of people who haven't made it to millionaire status yet.

---------- Post added at 10:31 PM ---------- Previous post was at 10:24 PM ----------

I can see a half a dozen or so of the items on your list that could very well be lifestyle choices. I could be making $250,000/year and still living paycheck to paycheck, no savings, delayed retirement, etc.

I'm also unconvinced that anyone deserves a nice standard of living just because they show up to work and collect a paycheck. If the guy working a low skill job has as good a living standard as the guy who has a high pressure, complex job, then why wouldn't the majority of the people just opt for the easy job?

Willravel

Holy shit, I didn't know that. That's insane. Over 1/3 of Americans aren't even in a position to save for life after 55 and people still insist there's no problem? That's gotta be some tasty cognitive dissonance kool-aid.

BTW, it's totally rock-n-roll to be quoted in a signature. Now I know what Journey feels like.

dogzilla

How many of that 36% can't save for retirement and how many of that 36% don't save because they think the government will save them? How many of the 36% that can't save can't because they have blown all their money on McMansions, fancy toys, etc.?

Baraka_Guru

Canada often has mirror-like statistics to the U.S. with things like these. I'm a part of this group. It's not just a case where I have no retirement savings; I have a negative net worth. This being a result of borrowing for post-secondary education (my only option, unless I wanted to make it in the world with a high-school diploma) and following a path of underemployment. The latter is something I am slowly (but hopefully surely) rectifying. When I was finished with school, my education debt load exceeded my annual salary. Do the math. Now put "extraneous" credit card debt (i.e. living expenses) on top of that. And I even worked part time while going to school full time.

My situation might be uncommon, but I don't think it's rare to have graduates today starting out in the "real world" with a burden that would make baby boomers lose their shit.

I think a small proportion honestly think the government can take care of them. Even in "socialist Canada," most of us know the eroding value of the Canada Pension Plan. I'll be lucky to be able to draw as much as $600 per month from that in today's dollars. Mind you, this isn't a "hand out"; it's something we pay into.

Regardless, those with McMansions, toys, etc., are likely in a better position to save for retirement than those who can't get these things due to a lack of cash flow. You see, to save for retirement, you need cash flow above and beyond what you pay for rent, utilities, clothing, food, and other expenses, plus whatever discretionary spending you do. And the problem is with those with little discretionary cash available after the necessities have been paid for.

While I'm sure many people waste money on going out, TVs, lattes, fast food, etc., I find it hard to judge people for wanting a piece of the pie that is popular culture. It really sucks living under a rock. I can't allocate more than $100 per month in discretionary spending without going into the red. How far do you think that goes each month? And I try not to spend any of that because I'd rather put it on my credit cards. You wouldn't believe the shit I miss out on. And to think that I owed money after doing my taxes.

I'm not even thinking about retirement.

__________________
Knowing that death is certain and that the time of death is uncertain, what's the most important thing?
—Bhikkhuni Pema Chödrön

Humankind cannot bear very much reality.
—From "Burnt Norton," Four Quartets (1936), T. S. Eliot

Derwood

just wanted to point out that the GOP Obstructionism 2010 Tour has gotten so out of hand that today they fillibustered a Senate Bill that would have provided $30 billion in loans and tax breaks for small businesses.

why?

because they tried attaching bullshit amendments, including a repeal of the health care act.

So now the party of "no" has gotten to the point where it's voting against its own political platform.

Not that Republicans have EVER given two shits about small business......it's just a talking point/single issue voter ploy for votes (like gun rights and abortion)

__________________
"You can't shoot a country until it becomes a democracy." - Willravel

aceventura3

Income is not a true measure of standard of living. when we look at people in this country at the lowest income levels, it does not account for the goods and services that they receive not requiring income.

For example a person in the lowest income category can obtain a college degree at no cost, but the cost to a person in a higher income category may spend $100K+. Further the increasing costs of higher education has been going up faster than inflation, so the value for the poor is greater today than it was in the past.

There are many such examples.

---------- Post added at 10:38 PM ---------- Previous post was at 10:33 PM ----------

We can take these points one at a time or just the one of your choice and drill down into and give it meaning other than the obvious, or we can take a more general approach, I will give you the choice. My premise is that the standard of living in this country is as high as it has ever been and the major trend has consistently been up. Is that what you dispute?

__________________
"Democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on lunch."
"It is useless for the sheep to pass resolutions on vegetarianism while the wolf is of a different opinion."
"If you live among wolves you have to act like one."
"A lady screams at the mouse but smiles at the wolf. A gentleman is a wolf who sends flowers."

Derwood

define "standard of living"

__________________
"You can't shoot a country until it becomes a democracy." - Willravel

aceventura3

I post this from IBD editorial pages for two reasons: one, to highlight the foolishness of ad hominem arguments often presented by those against "conservative" publications when they are not familiar with them. IBD consistently presents "left" view points on its opinion pages. Two, it further illustrates a fundamental problem with looking at the issues of income, taxation and living standards.

Overtaxed Rich Is A Fairy Tale Of Supply Side - IBD - Investors.com

I first point to the paragraph in bold. 30% of $35 million is $10.5 million. 16.6% of $139 million is $23 million. In addition the top 400 in 2007 are not the same people as the top 400 in 1992. In this country the dynamics of wealth creation means those without generat new wealth, new wealth benefits everyone - even the tax collector.

---------- Post added at 11:02 PM ---------- Previous post was at 10:56 PM ----------

Objectively, I would say the dollar value of goods and services received and/or used to live. Subjectively, I would look at things like available leisure time, how its used, life span, quality of medical care, etc. I have never seen a detailed study based on my objective definition. If I ever decided to go into academia, and on the tax payers dime, I would request a government grant to look at this. I doubt, I would get a favorable peer review, what do you think?

__________________
"Democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on lunch."
"It is useless for the sheep to pass resolutions on vegetarianism while the wolf is of a different opinion."
"If you live among wolves you have to act like one."
"A lady screams at the mouse but smiles at the wolf. A gentleman is a wolf who sends flowers."

aceventura3

I was thinking about the issue of income disparity today and the fallacy in how some look at the issue. And I truly don't know if they purposefully ignore what is happening or if they just don't know.

For example:

If family (Two children, two adults) A makes $1 million more than family B over a twenty year period all other things being equal but:

Family B's two children get full scholarships to a university costing $100,000 and family A pays the full tuition. the $1 million difference drops to $800,000.

Family B's two children got free health insurance through a SCHIP program valued at $100,000 over 22 years, but Family A paid for the coverage. The $800,000 difference is now $700,000.

Family A was in a tax bracket where they paid taxes and Family B got tax credits. Let's say on the $1 million difference the difference in taxes paid was 20% or $200,000. Now the $700,000 difference is $500,000.

Etc.

Etc.

The point is that the $1 million dollar difference can easily go to $0 and both families may not have lived materially different. But if we looked at statistics simply related to income the picture painted would be totally different.

__________________
"Democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on lunch."
"It is useless for the sheep to pass resolutions on vegetarianism while the wolf is of a different opinion."
"If you live among wolves you have to act like one."
"A lady screams at the mouse but smiles at the wolf. A gentleman is a wolf who sends flowers."

Tully Mars

This article by P. Krugman not only details how and why Bush pushed through his tax cuts but it also predicted financial crisis.

Link

And he wrote that in 2003. Not surprisingly the financial crisis did indeed occur but it happened right on schedule as Bush was walking out the door.

__________________
I used to drink to drown my sorrows, but the damned things have learned how to swim- Frida Kahlo

Vice President Starkizzer Fan Club

aceventura3

Krugman presents interesting points of view and is often either wrong or misleading.

It is true, that I for one, supported Bush because of his campaign promises to cut taxes. So yes, the tax cuts played to Bush's base, that is in the - isn't it obvious category. However the reason people like me support tax cuts is because we believe people do a better job of spending their own money than the folks in Washington. So there is much more to the story, that Krugman ignores.

On the impact of the tax cuts - the deficits that followed Bush's tax cuts were due to spending. Tax dollars collected rose while Bush was in office, however spending rose faster. The additional spending was for things like two wars, entitlements, national security and a few other things. No one, even Bush, had the discipline to reduce spending. Obama and the Democrats in Congress have made it worse.

Economic cycles are normal and fit into patterns. There was a recession when Bush took office, and it should not have surprised a real economist that another recession would occur 8 years later. the difference is that Bush cut taxes (across the board, even for the rich) and it minimized the impact of the recession. Obama has not cut taxes (his argument that ~95% got about a $10 cut in their payroll deductions is a joke), and taxes are feared to go up - freezing a lot of potential economic activity.

__________________
"Democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on lunch."
"It is useless for the sheep to pass resolutions on vegetarianism while the wolf is of a different opinion."
"If you live among wolves you have to act like one."
"A lady screams at the mouse but smiles at the wolf. A gentleman is a wolf who sends flowers."