Political Roundtable - Part V

[Zonkerbl]

I've been excited lately because I can tell the liberals are winning all the important arguments, either through reason or by simple demographics. The Republican party in particular is either going to self-destruct from within, or evolve into a more robust political machine that represents more than just rich people. I can't wait.

Oh, sorry Indu.

I CAN'T WAIT!!!!!!

[Induveca]

Haha, the excitement is palpable.

[Induveca]

The push for 15 bucks an hour at fast food restaurants blissfully seems to be dying.

However a ton of innovation came out of their unrealistic demands.

Here's a great article on a 3d printer printing an entire pizza by rehydrating ingredients. Going to be used for astronauts initially, but the obvious implication is your McDonald's burgers are going to be 3d printed in 10 years.

Pretty amazing. Now begins the search for who holds the patent for such a process and how I can invest in said company.

[dckingsfan]

RR Donnelley recently started printing antenna -- 3D printing applications are just starting to come to the forefront.

I think fast food applications will be a combination of robotics/3D printing.

[dckingsfan]

I've been excited lately because I can tell the liberals are winning all the important arguments, either through reason or by simple demographics. The Republican party in particular is either going to self-destruct from within, or evolve into a more robust political machine that represents more than just rich people. I can't wait.

Oh, sorry Indu.

I CAN'T WAIT!!!!!!

I would agree that the Rs are really struggling with a message that cuts across demographics. I think the Ds are just struggling on convincing folks they can actually manage an administration. Either way - more that 40% of the population doesn't identify with either party.

I don't see either party dominating. They both have way too many holes. I think we will have the cyclical back and forth for the foreseeable future.

[Nivek]

I don't know who was behind the #RepublicansArePeopleToo campaign, but what a colossal miscalculation. As bad as the concept was, the execution was worse. As nearly anyone who works in PR or marketing would have told the planners, YOU CANNOT CONTROL SOCIAL MEDIA.

[Severn Hoos]

So the choice is between a party that brings a disastrous rollout of a PR campaign vs. a party that brings a disastrous rollout of the entire Healthcare system that encompasses a quarter of the national economy.

But hey, it provides great fodder for some wicked clever hashtags...


(Snark aside, I do agree - social media is a beast that you can't control, and will absolutely devour you if you think you can manipulate it to your political advantage.)

[W. Unseld]

I've been excited lately because I can tell the liberals are winning all the important arguments, either through reason or by simple demographics. The Republican party in particular is either going to self-destruct from within, or evolve into a more robust political machine that represents more than just rich people. I can't wait.

It's been a few months since I've given my whiny lecture so here goes: Do not root for political parties like you root for sports teams. All political parties have some corruption in them and all political parties have people within them that you do not want in power (I would also argue that none of them are infallibly "right" on every issue but then we're getting subjective). You do not want a one party system. The entire premise that there are two sides to every issue is faulty. This is not meant to start an argument, nor is it meant to be pro one party over the other. Until next time.

[Nivek]

So the choice is between a party that brings a disastrous rollout of a PR campaign vs. a party that brings a disastrous rollout of the entire Healthcare system that encompasses a quarter of the national economy.

But hey, it provides great fodder for some wicked clever hashtags...


(Snark aside, I do agree - social media is a beast that you can't control, and will absolutely devour you if you think you can manipulate it to your political advantage.)

The ACA rollout was a debacle. Maybe even worse than the party that managed the response to hurricane Katrina, right? My guess is we could play this game for quite a while. Not with my party, though. My party hasn't screwed anything up (yet) because it doesn't exist (yet).

My view on healthcare is that ACA is needlessly complicated because it's policy contorted around ideology, not designed primarily to fix a problem. And that sorta gets at what "my party" would be: the Pragmatist Party.

[montestewart]

So the choice is between a party that brings a disastrous rollout of a PR campaign vs. a party that brings a disastrous rollout of the entire Healthcare system that encompasses a quarter of the national economy.

But hey, it provides great fodder for some wicked clever hashtags...


(Snark aside, I do agree - social media is a beast that you can't control, and will absolutely devour you if you think you can manipulate it to your political advantage.)

My wife was kicked off her insurance and now pays much more, with a much higher deductible, and DC Health Link royally effed up her timely filed application so she's currently literally without insurance until they straighten it out.

How can the Democrats ever hope to compete with Michael Steele's off the hook campaign?

[nate33]

Maybe even worse than the party that managed the response to hurricane Katrina, right?

You're right. Ray Nagin really did botch that.

[Nivek]

Maybe even worse than the party that managed the response to hurricane Katrina, right?

You're right. Ray Nagin really did botch that.

Like I said, it's a game that could go back and forth for a VERY long time.

[dckingsfan]

We have had some epic f'ups in the past - but these past two administrations take the cake.

I tally much of that to the size and overreach of the current government. It seems to be falling in on itself. But alas, the population is believes that government will solve all the problems. So I see a general trend of:

- Growth in government (faster than the CPI)
- Increasingly not be able to pay for new programs
- Increasingly expanding current programs until they are unmanageable
- Not winding down failing programs

[Zonkerbl]

We have had some epic f'ups in the past - but these past two administrations take the cake.

I tally much of that to the size and overreach of the current government. It seems to be falling in on itself. But alas, the population is believes that government will solve all the problems. So I see a general trend of:

- Growth in government (faster than the CPI)
- Increasingly not be able to pay for new programs
- Increasingly expanding current programs until they are unmanageable
- Not winding down failing programs

It's fun to say, but not really true. Our current government is pretty small and not growing much at all given the deadlock in Congress.

Our government collects and spends a lot of money in medicare and social security, but the ACA, with all its warts, is eventually going to fix the medicare expenditure problems (at least it's explicitly designed to).

Our government is much less intrusive than those in Western Europe, so I'm not complaining.

The primary purpose of our government is to stay stable and predictable and not screw things up, which it has done a rather admirable job of over the last few years. My one big kvetch is the Tea Party, a bunch of terrorists who took the world economy hostage for some petty partisan bickering. As an economist I will forgive politicians for just about anything, because I don't believe they can really do much harm. However, the one bad thing politicians can do is not pay our bills, which would plunge us into a worldwide recession that would make the 2009 Great Recession look like a boat ride down the Thames. Threatening the creditworthiness of the economy the rest of the world depends on to be creditworthy is just unforgiveable ignorance and hubris.

Until the Republican Party expunges these insane terrorists from their ranks I will be hardcore against everyone and everything Republican.

Speaking of which, go Rand Paul!

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plu ... e/?hpid=z3

“Society’s changing,” he said. “I mean, people change their minds all the time on this issue, and even within the Republican Party, there are people whose child turns out to be gay and they’re like, oh well maybe I want to rethink this issue. So it’s been rethought. The President’s rethought the issue. So I mean, a lot of people have rethought the issue.”

[dckingsfan]

We have had some epic f'ups in the past - but these past two administrations take the cake.

I tally much of that to the size and overreach of the current government. It seems to be falling in on itself. But alas, the population is believes that government will solve all the problems. So I see a general trend of:

- Growth in government (faster than the CPI)
- Increasingly not be able to pay for new programs
- Increasingly expanding current programs until they are unmanageable
- Not winding down failing programs

It's fun to say, but not really true. Our current government is pretty small and not growing much at all given the deadlock in Congress.

OK, maybe it is perception. Just to be clear, we are going to collect record revenues this year (17.3T) + will add another 650B to the deficit. That will be in the 21% range of GDP. Not a historic high but probably unsustainable given our demographics if the countries economy will continue to expand.

Also we have 2.1 million federal workers, up 3.2 percent since January 2009. My take is that the number should have gone down instead of up during a recession.

And remember, that is just at the federal level. State and local levels are going to need to collect record receipts to keep up with their unfunded liabilities as well.

Remember, Federal Government expenditures have increased from under 3 Percent of the Economy in 1900 to nearly 25 Percent of the Economy in 2012 (US bureau of economic analysis). It has been a slow creep and one that is going to be near to impossible to rollback. And that is really tough for us given our aging demographics.

[Nivek]

Where'd you get that 2.1 million federal workers number? According to OPM, there were 4.43 million federal employees in 2009 vs. 4.31 in 2012. Small decreases came in executive branch civilians and uniformed military. Judicial and legislative parts of the government remained flat.

As for the federal budget, according to data on government data, spending as a percentage of GDP peaked at 24.4% of GDP in 2009 and has been falling since then. For 2013, spending was 20.8%. For 2014, it's projected to rise slightly to 21.1%.

Federal government receipts are interesting. They peaked at 19.9% of GDP in 2000, and plummeted from there -- presumably from the Bush tax cuts. They're ticking back up since the recession, but are still at 16.7% of GDP.

Interesting.

[dobrojim]

the pragmatist party...<sigh> if only

problem is money and special interests tend to usurp and win out over what is in the
broader public interest. Social media may help in being a partial antidote to that money.
We shall see.

[Zonkerbl]

The NIP -- "Not Idiots" Party.

[Nivek]

The NIP -- "Not Idiots" Party.

And who doesn't like nips?

[hands11]

How about an update on ...

invest in Gold .. and the sky is falling rant.

http://finance.yahoo.com/echarts?s=GLD+ ... D;range=5y

http://www.marketwatch.com/investing/in ... style=1013