Political Roundtable - Part VI

[penbeast0]

Quite a bit to do with political feminism. One of the major issues of the 10 years before Clinton took offense was defining sexual harassment and the major womens' organizations were among the leaders in that movement . . . only to sweep the issue under the rug when Clinton was caught in exactly the kind of situation that they had been trying to create a backlash against.

[Zonkerbl]

Quite a bit to do with political feminism. One of the major issues of the 10 years before Clinton took offense was defining sexual harassment and the major womens' organizations were among the leaders in that movement . . . only to sweep the issue under the rug when Clinton was caught in exactly the kind of situation that they had been trying to create a backlash against.

Well that's my point. Consensual sex isn't harassment. Lewinsky was 19 and legally capable of consent, and she gave it.

So as far as the feminists are concerned, complete non-issue.

A poorly kept secret of feminism is that they are totally gung ho about sex. Women are allowed and encouraged to enjoy guilt free sex when they want it. I actually got dressed down by one of my feminist girlfriends when I felt like I was using her and she was like "oh no. I wanted to have sex with you. Don't you worry about that."

[dobrojim]

deleted

[dckingsfan]

Meh...

http://www.nfib.com/Portals/0/PDF/sbet/sbet201506.pdf?utm_source=WhatTheyThink+Newsletters&utm_campaign=f81881988d-2015_06_11_Economics&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_0e715f456d-f81881988d-322082785

The Index of Small Business Optimism increased 1.4 points to 98.3 in spite of 5 months of lousy growth. May is the best reading since the 100.4 December reading but nothing to write home about. The 42 year average is 98.0, a bit lower than the 99.5 average through 2007. Eight of the 10 Index components posted improvements. Overall, the Index remained in a holding pattern, a few points below the pre-recession average, although at the 42 year average, and showing no tendency to “break out” into a stronger pattern of economic growth.

[penbeast0]

Quite a bit to do with political feminism. One of the major issues of the 10 years before Clinton took offense was defining sexual harassment and the major womens' organizations were among the leaders in that movement . . . only to sweep the issue under the rug when Clinton was caught in exactly the kind of situation that they had been trying to create a backlash against.

Well that's my point. Consensual sex isn't harassment. Lewinsky was 19 and legally capable of consent, and she gave it.

So as far as the feminists are concerned, complete non-issue.

A poorly kept secret of feminism is that they are totally gung ho about sex. Women are allowed and encouraged to enjoy guilt free sex when they want it. I actually got dressed down by one of my feminist girlfriends when I felt like I was using her and she was like "oh no. I wanted to have sex with you. Don't you worry about that."

You are missing the point. Consensual sex with anyone over the age of 19 isn't harassment; but sex with someone working for you and who you later get one of your subordinates to get a higher paying job for is not acceptable. Even if Lewinsky wasn't pressured into the sex (and as far as anyone can tell, she was anything but pressured), sex with a subordinate is inappropriate and when Holder got her another, higher paying, job, that's inappropriate too.

As for "slut shaming," that's a pretty nastily sexist thing to do to, even when it's a woman doing it. I've never heard of anything like that happening to a man though I am sure that somewhere, somehow, it has.

[Zonkerbl]

Writing something for work and found myself citing Hayek's "The Use of Knowledge in Society."

That's right, I'm citing papers from 1945, bitches.

Some good recreational reading for you:

http://www.kysq.org/docs/Hayek_45.pdf

http://digamo.free.fr/hayek48.pdf

[Zonkerbl]

Quite a bit to do with political feminism. One of the major issues of the 10 years before Clinton took offense was defining sexual harassment and the major womens' organizations were among the leaders in that movement . . . only to sweep the issue under the rug when Clinton was caught in exactly the kind of situation that they had been trying to create a backlash against.

Well that's my point. Consensual sex isn't harassment. Lewinsky was 19 and legally capable of consent, and she gave it.

So as far as the feminists are concerned, complete non-issue.

A poorly kept secret of feminism is that they are totally gung ho about sex. Women are allowed and encouraged to enjoy guilt free sex when they want it. I actually got dressed down by one of my feminist girlfriends when I felt like I was using her and she was like "oh no. I wanted to have sex with you. Don't you worry about that."

You are missing the point. Consensual sex with anyone over the age of 19 isn't harassment; but sex with someone working for you and who you later get one of your subordinates to get a higher paying job for is not acceptable. Even if Lewinsky wasn't pressured into the sex (and as far as anyone can tell, she was anything but pressured), sex with a subordinate is inappropriate and when Holder got her another, higher paying, job, that's inappropriate too.

As for "slut shaming," that's a pretty nastily sexist thing to do to, even when it's a woman doing it. I've never heard of anything like that happening to a man though I am sure that somewhere, somehow, it has.

What does having sex with a willing subordinate have to do with feminism though?

And the whole GoP dog and pony show was basically one big slut-shaming witch hunt of Monica Lewinsky. Led by a child rapist. The exact opposite of feminism. Why would feminists participate in that? If anything feminists are kicking themselves now for not speaking out more against the GoP's simply reprehensible behavior.

[dckingsfan]

What does having sex with a willing subordinate have to do with feminism though?

You don't have sex with subordinates - period. The reason feminists should care (actually everyone should) is that women shouldn't have to sleep their way (or be perceived to have to sleep their way) into their positions.

Sexual harassment (which would include this type of behavior - wanted or unwanted) is certainly a feminist issue.

Zonk - your point that he was harassed by someone of the same ilk is ironic. But both set of behaviors shouldn't be considered acceptable by anyone.

[TGW]

An interesting article for all you Reaganomics-lovers out there:

https://mises.org/library/sad-legacy-ro ... ontrol=488

On August 2, 1988, President Ronald Reagan announced that he had changed his mind about the pro-union plant-closing bill. He had vetoed it three months earlier, but now let it become law without his signature after intense pressure from presidential nominee George Bush and former Treasury Secretary James Baker, now Bush's campaign chairman. Reagan claimed that only this action would enable him to sign a Congressional trade bill almost unequaled in its anti-consumer protectionism.

Ronald Reagan's faithful followers claim he has used his skills as the Great Communicator to reverse the growth of Leviathan and inaugurate a new era of liberty and free markets. Reagan himself said, "It is time to check and reverse the growth of government."

Yet after nearly eight years of Reaganism, the clamor for more government intervention in the economy was so formidable that Reagan abandoned the free-market position and acquiesced in further crippling of the economy and our liberties. In fact, the number of free-market achievements by the administration are so few that they can be counted on one hand—with fingers left over.

Let's look at the record:



Spending

In 1980, Jimmy Caner's last year as president, the federal government spent a whopping 27.9% of "national income" (an obnoxious term for the private wealth produced by the American people). Reagan assaulted the free-spending Carter administration throughout his campaign in 1980. So how did the Reagan administration do? At the end of the first quarter of 1988, federal spending accounted for 28.7% of "national income."

Even Ford and Carter did a better job at cutting government. Their combined presidential terms account for an increase of 1.4%—compared with Reagan's 3%—in the government's take of "national income." And in nominal terms, there has been a 60% increase in government spending, thanks mainly to Reagan's requested budgets, which were only marginally smaller than the spending Congress voted.

The budget for the Department of Education, which candidate Reagan promised to abolish along with the Department of Energy, has more than doubled to $22.7 billion, Social Security spending has risen from $179 billion in 1981 to $269 billion in 1986. The price of farm programs went from $21.4 billion in 1981 to $51.4 billion in 1987, a 140% increase. And this doesn't count the recently signed $4 billion "drought-relief" measure. Medicare spending in 1981 was $43.5 billion; in 1987 it hit $80 billion. Federal entitlements cost $197.1 billion in 1981—and $477 billion in 1987.

Foreign aid has also risen, from $10 billion to $22 billion. Every year, Reagan asked for more foreign-aid money than the Congress was willing to spend. He also pushed through Congress an $8.4 billion increase in the U.S. "contribution" to the International Monetary Fund.

His budget cuts were actually cuts in projected spending, not absolute cuts in current spending levels. As Reagan put it, "We're not attempting to cut either spending or taxing levels below that which we presently have."

The result has been unprecedented government debt. Reagan has tripled the Gross Federal Debt, from $900 billion to $2.7 trillion. Ford and Carter in their combined terms could only double it. It took 31 years to accomplish the first postwar debt tripling, yet Reagan did it in eight.



Taxes

Before looking at taxation under Reagan, we must note that spending is the better indicator of the size of the government. If government cuts taxes, but not spending, it still gets the money from somewhere—either by borrowing or inflating. Either method robs the productive sector. Although spending is the better indicator, it is not complete, because it ignores other ways in which the government deprives producers of wealth. For instance, it conceals regulation and trade restricdons, which may require little government outlay.

If we look at government revenues as a percentage of "national income," we find little change from the Carter days, despite heralded "tax cuts." In 1980, revenues were 25.1% of "national income." In the first quarter of 1988 they were 24.7%.

Reagan came into office proposing to cut personal income and business taxes. The Economic Recovery Act was supposed to reduce revenues by $749 billion over five years. But this was quickly reversed with the Tax Equity and Fiscal Responsibility Act of 1982. TEFRA—the largest tax increase in American history—was designed to raise $214.1 billion over five years, and took back many of the business tax savings enacted the year before. It also imposed withholding on interest and dividends, a provision later repealed over the president's objection.

But this was just the beginning. In 1982 Reagan supported a five-cent-per-gallon gasoline tax and higher taxes on the trucking industry. Total increase: $5.5 billion a year. In 1983, on the recommendation of his Spcial Security Commission— chaired by the man he later made Fed chairman, Alan Green-span—Reagan called for, and received, Social Security tax increases of $165 billion over seven years. A year later came Reagan's Deficit Reduction Act to raise $50 billion.

Even the heralded Tax Reform Act of 1986 is more deception than substance. It shifted $120 billion over five years from visible personal income taxes to hidden business taxes. It lowered the rates, but it also repealed or reduced many deductions.

According to the Treasury Department, the 1981 tax cut will have reduced revenues by $1.48 trillion by the end of fiscal 1989. But tax increases since 1982 will equal $1.5 trillion by 1989. The increases include not only the formal legislation mentioned above but also bracket creep (which ended in 1985 when tax indexing took effect—a provision of the 1981 act despite Reagan's objection), $30 billion in various tax changes, and other increases. Taxes by the end of the Reagan era will be as large a chunk of GNP as when he took office, if not larger: 19.4%, by ultra-conservative estimate of the Reagan Office of Management and Budget. The so-called historic average is 18.3%.



Regulation

For all the administration's talk about deregulation (for example, from the know-nothing commission which George Bush headed), it has done little. Much of what has been done began under Carter, such as abolition of the Civil Aeronautics Board and deregulation of oil prices. Carter created the momentum and Reagan halted it. In fact, the economic costs of regulation have grown under Reagan.

Some deregulation has occurred for banks, intercity buses, ocean shipping, and energy. But nothing good has happened in health, safety, and environmental regulations, which cost Americans billions of dollars, ignore property rights, and are based on the spurious notion of "freedom from risk." But the Reagan administration has supported state seat-belt and federal air-bag requirements. This concern for safety, however, was never extended to the Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) rules, which, by imposing fuel-efficiency standards, promote the production of small cars. The shift to small cars will cause an estimated 10,000 to 20,000 highway deaths over the next ten years.



Bureaucracy

By now it should not be surprising that the size of the bureaucracy has also grown. Today, there are 230,000 more civilian government workers than in 1980, bringing the total to almost three million. Reagan even promoted the creation of a new federal Department of Veterans' Affairs to join the Departments of Education and Energy, which his administration was supposed to eliminate.



Trade

The Reagan administration has been the most protectionist since Herbert Hoover's. The portion of imports under restriction has doubled since 1980. Quotas and so-called voluntary restraints have been imposed on a host of products, from computer chips to automobiles. Ominously, Reagan has adopted the bogus fair-trade/free-trade dichotomy, and he was eager to sign the big trade bill, which tilts the trade laws even further toward protectionism.



Results

Reagan's fans argue that he has changed the terms of public-policy debate, that no one today dares propose big spending programs. I contend that the alleged spending-shyness of politicians is not the result of an ideological sea-change, but rather of their constituents' fiscal fright brought about by $250 billion Reagan budget deficits. If the deficit ever shrinks, the demand for spending will resume.

This is the Reagan legacy. He was to be the man who would turn things around. But he didn't even try. As he so dramatically illustrated when he accepted the plant-closing bill, there has been no sea-change in thinking about the role of government.

[Zonkerbl]

What does having sex with a willing subordinate have to do with feminism though?

You don't have sex with subordinates - period. The reason feminists should care (actually everyone should) is that women shouldn't have to sleep their way (or be perceived to have to sleep their way) into their positions.

Sexual harassment (which would include this type of behavior - wanted or unwanted) is certainly a feminist issue.

Zonk - your point that he was harassed by someone of the same ilk is ironic. But both set of behaviors shouldn't be considered acceptable by anyone.

Ah, ok. Well that's a valid point. And if the Republicans braying at Clinton's heels had made this point I would have more respect for them.

[fishercob]

Just leaving this here to stir up trouble.

On Matthew Dellavedova and white privilege.

[dobrojim]

do I have to read that?

OK. I had to read it. Good piece. I posted the link to the gen board page
where all the fanboys are fawning all over Dela. That ought to stir up
some response.

[Zonkerbl]

Well the Kyle Korver play was not intentional.

Actually haven't been watching the finals because I'm stuck in Morocco on business.

If you don't like Dellavedova's play then punch him in the face. What else can you do?

[dobrojim]

Ask Taj?

actually, the answer is to stay poised.

[pineappleheadindc]

What does having sex with a willing subordinate have to do with feminism though?

You don't have sex with subordinates - period. The reason feminists should care (actually everyone should) is that women shouldn't have to sleep their way (or be perceived to have to sleep their way) into their positions.

Sexual harassment (which would include this type of behavior - wanted or unwanted) is certainly a feminist issue.

Zonk - your point that he was harassed by someone of the same ilk is ironic. But both set of behaviors shouldn't be considered acceptable by anyone.

Concur with dckingsfan a lot here.

+1

[Zonkerbl]

What does having sex with a willing subordinate have to do with feminism though?

You don't have sex with subordinates - period. The reason feminists should care (actually everyone should) is that women shouldn't have to sleep their way (or be perceived to have to sleep their way) into their positions.

Sexual harassment (which would include this type of behavior - wanted or unwanted) is certainly a feminist issue.

Zonk - your point that he was harassed by someone of the same ilk is ironic. But both set of behaviors shouldn't be considered acceptable by anyone.

Concur with dckingsfan a lot here.

+1

Agree with the "sleeping your way to the top" point.

Disagree that this is in any way shape or form harassment. Well, let me put it this way. No one ever presented any evidence, or even showed even the slightest interest in, whether Bill had made Lewinsky any sort of promises in exchange for his bj. The only point anyone has ever made, then or since, is what a dirty bastard Bill Clinton was for having sex while President.

THAT I find absurd. The fact that the chief finger pointer was a child rapist makes it only slightly more absurd.

I wonder what would happen if it was discovered that George W. Bush was secretly having gay sex while President?

[popper]

If you haven't had a chance to listen to or read about Carly Fiorina then you should treat yourself to the pleasure. She is an incredible person and much more impressive than any presidential candidate I've seen in the last 30 years.

[W. Unseld]

I loved Bill Clinton but I do think the feminists were awfully quiet during his years in office. Kathleen Willey was a well respected widow from my area, if she says he grabbed her breasts and tried to kiss her in private, I suspect she was telling the truth b/c she had never accused anyone of that before, she was a democrat and she was scared to come forward. The list for Clinton is a long one and the rumor that's admittedly an unverified rumor but it keeps popping up is that Hillary led the charge to attack and discredit all of the woman that came forward. Bill Clinton is also a repeat visitor to an island were underage prostitutes are provided to the guests.

I still really like Clinton but the only way anyone fights this issue is if they're viewing the world only through the lens of their own political party, or they are one of those people who has to argue everything.

[Zonkerbl]

I loved Bill Clinton but I do think the feminists were awfully quiet during his years in office. Kathleen Willey was a well respected widow from my area, if she says he grabbed her breasts and tried to kiss her in private, I suspect she was telling the truth b/c she had never accused anyone of that before, she was a democrat and she was scared to come forward. The list for Clinton is a long one and the rumor that's admittedly an unverified rumor but it keeps popping up is that Hillary led the charge to attack and discredit all of the woman that came forward. Bill Clinton is also a repeat visitor to an island were underage prostitutes are provided to the guests.

I still really like Clinton but the only way anyone fights this issue is if they're viewing the world only through the lens of their own political party, or they are one of those people who has to argue everything.

I think the unending throwing of stones at Clinton has to stop. It's hypocritical. Does it really make sense to endlessly dwell on how awful a person Clinton is while at the same time ignoring the child raping leadership of your own party?

Let those without sin cast the first stone. And glass houses and stuff. BIBLE BIBLE BIBLE!!!

[Zonkerbl]

Furthermore, which would you prefer: A harassing commander in chief who does not get us into trillion dollar wars over oil?
Or a secret gay sex having President who does?