Political Roundtable Part XIII

Induveca · Post #1081 » by **Induveca** » Mon Mar 13, 2017 7:37 pm

Good luck impeaching a guy claiming "lies", when the entire MSM has been spewing half-truths and exaggerations about him for 20 months straight.

Better strategy would be less personal attacks and "questionable ties" claims, Nazi/fascist claims.....and actual hardcore facts.

DCZards · Post #1082 » by **DCZards** » Mon Mar 13, 2017 8:04 pm

dckingsfan wrote:
DCZards wrote:
dckingsfan wrote:The "facts" you are citing just aren't. They are opinions (although I respect Elmendorf, there is some disagreement between the CBO and Fed as you might expect). Those jobs would have come back - just with the Fed's quantitative easing. The real question is did the stimulus just accelerate the crowding out of other spending which would hold back long-term economic growth? Does the addition of the debt load created by that stimulus leave us less room to maneuver for the next recession?

If you aren't looking at the spin of WSH, NY Times or on the other side, the Heritage Foundation or Fox News. I think you might come up with a different perspective.

So my question to you is, if you don't believe either side, what leads you to the conclusion that the stimulus didn't work? Where are your facts? Otherwise, all you have to go on is your opinion, which, imo, is less valid and credible than that of the NYT.

Well, there seems to be two opinions. Rs - the stimulus failed. Ds - the stimulus saved the economy.

The NYT spins it as the latter. I will let you find the right wing media outlet that supports the former.

The truth is it was neither. If it did fail, it was only against what was promised by those who were passing the bill. The truth is that it didn't hurt the economy, it just didn't help as much as what the Fed did.

But it did have long-term affects that were negative. Continual crowding out of other spending due to the debt load and a diminished ability to respond to the next recession.

I don't even see those points mentioned in the editorial. Thinking that wouldn't help their "spin" which is clearly what the opinion piece was.

What is most worrisome is that as we accumulate debt, our ability to respond to these crisis becomes diminished. And all sides (well, the CBO and FED) agree on that.

dckings, you do realize what you did here? You just provided your basically evidence-free "spin" on the stimulus, which is exactly what you accuse the Ds and Rs of doing.

Cool. I get it. It's consistent with your narrative that the Obama Administration did little or nothing to help the economy. Fortunately, we have plenty of real evidence that says otherwise.

dckingsfan · Post #1083 » by **dckingsfan** » Mon Mar 13, 2017 8:07 pm

Zards - you are double spinning. If I say the stimulus had some (moderate affect) but little compared to what the Fed did (fact) that doesn't support your - Obama saved the economy premise.

Sorry about that...

The long-term affect of the debt load is probably a bigger net negative than the positive short-term affect (but we won't know that for quite some time).

Did the stimulus have some affect - meh - in comparison to the fed. Is it fair that the R hacks are saying it was a failure and pinning any growth issues on Obama, no. And here is your favorite guy - still spinning it but at least telling a bit of truth.
https://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/05/opinion/paul-krugman-presidents-and-the-economy.html?_r=0

So is the president responsible for the accelerating recovery? No. Can we nonetheless say that we’re doing better than we would be if the other party held the White House? Yes. Do those who were blaming Mr. Obama for all our economic ills now look like knaves and fools? Yes, they do. And that’s because they are.

Bold is the truth. Italic is the opinion.

Zards, are you a Debt Denier? This is kind of like my conservative friends that don't believe there is global warming. Don't worry about the short-term affect of using coal. We will be fine in the long-term

Wizardspride · Post #1084 » by **Wizardspride** » Mon Mar 13, 2017 8:45 pm

Read on Twitter

sfam · Post #1085 » by **sfam** » Mon Mar 13, 2017 8:47 pm

dckingsfan wrote:
sfam wrote:
dckingsfan wrote:Again, nice chart but who deserves credit?

Again, Trump is a serial liar, I get that - but unemployment is the wrong metric - look at employment rate of 25 to 64.

Come on sfam.

I think its pretty clear who deserves credit. Both George Bush and then Obama along in close coordination with the Fed took a series of actions at the end of the Bush administration to the beginning of the Obama administration to inject funds in the economy save the car industry and on and on. This is like 8 years back. To say Obama's actions on this had no impact is pretty strange.

Don't think I said "no" impact. I just said it was limited. The stimulus didn't turn out to be great policy. It didn't really help. Bush/Obama TARP - yes although it was limited to certain industries. Both parties are now claiming responsibility for the "good times" and neither should get credit.

My point - it was the Fed that did most of the work.

And Trump's assertion that Obama is handing Trump a mess is just an absurd lie.

The fundamentals haven't been in good shape in quite some time. And both parties are happily kicking the can down the road.

We can quibble whether or not Presidents actually impact unemployment, but most think Carter was partly responsible for his unemployment numbers, and that Clinton and Reagan were responsible for their unemployment gains. I happen to think Bush bore some responsibility for crashing the economy, and that Obama gets credit for helping to save it.

But all of this is a side note. We've calculated unemployment figures the same for decades and decades. Trump and his folks have flat out accused Obama of fixing the books. Until now. Now, with no staff in place, the numbers are now magically good.

Anyone attempting ridiculous false equivalencies looks as silly as Trump. This is uncharted territory. The CBO, Bureau of Labor Statistics, NOAA, the EPA on down - they are fraudulent if they show numbers Trump doesn't like. They are filled with great people when Trump likes the numbers. Its just that simple. We have a lying sack of sh*t for a President. This is new.

sfam · Post #1086 » by **sfam** » Mon Mar 13, 2017 8:50 pm

Wizardspride wrote:

Read on Twitter

All this proves is that the CBA is fraudulent part of the Obama deep state. If it showed that more people gained insurance, than we would have had great people working there. Too bad for all of us.

sfam · Post #1087 » by **sfam** » Mon Mar 13, 2017 8:53 pm

dckingsfan wrote:Zards - you are double spinning. If I say the stimulus had some (moderate affect) but little compared to what the Fed did (fact) that doesn't support your - Obama saved the economy premise.

Sorry about that...

The long-term affect of the debt load is probably a bigger net negative than the positive short-term affect (but we won't know that for quite some time).

Did the stimulus have some affect - meh - in comparison to the fed. Is it fair that the R hacks are saying it was a failure and pinning any growth issues on Obama, no. And here is your favorite guy - still spinning it but at least telling a bit of truth.
https://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/05/opinion/paul-krugman-presidents-and-the-economy.html?_r=0

So is the president responsible for the accelerating recovery? No. Can we nonetheless say that we’re doing better than we would be if the other party held the White House? Yes. Do those who were blaming Mr. Obama for all our economic ills now look like knaves and fools? Yes, they do. And that’s because they are.

Bold is the truth. Italic is the opinion.

Zards, are you a Debt Denier? This is kind of like my conservative friends that don't believe there is global warming. Don't worry about the short-term affect of using coal. We will be fine in the long-term

Just another paragraph from the Krugman article you cite:

The point is that normally the Fed, not the White House, rules the economy. Should we apply the same rule to the Obama years?

Not quite.

For one thing, the Fed has had a hard time gaining traction in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, because the aftermath of a huge housing and mortgage bubble has left private spending relatively unresponsive to interest rates. This time around, monetary policy really needed help from a temporary increase in government spending, which meant that the president could have made a big difference. And he did, for a while; politically, the Obama stimulus may have been a failure, but an overwhelming majority of economists believe that it helped mitigate the slump.

Krugman is actually making the case that Obama affected the recovery a lot more than most Presidents usually do.

Induveca · Post #1088 » by **Induveca** » Mon Mar 13, 2017 8:59 pm

Read on Twitter

sfam · Post #1089 » by **sfam** » Mon Mar 13, 2017 9:02 pm

tontoz wrote:
A 24-year-old Indian sportsman has been arrested here on charges of sexually abusing a minor girl, days after he arrived in the US from Kashmir for a snowshoe competition.

Tanveer Hussain arrived in the small village of Saranac Lake in New York state for the World Snowshoe Championships.
Police said he had been charged with sexual assault and endangering the welfare of a child.

He had garnered much attention before arriving for the championship after the US Embassy in New Delhi denied him and another athlete Abid Khan visas around the same time President Donald Trump had issued an order barring people from seven Muslim-dominant countries to the US.

(Follow The Tribune on Facebook; and Twitter @thetribunechd)

Though India was not among the seven countries, the denial of visa was seen associated with the executive order.
Hussain was allowed a visa to enter the US for the competition following intense lobbying from local officials and residents in the Adirondacks, as well as by US Senators Kirsten Gillibrand and Charles Schumer.

Police arrested Hussain on Wednesday after the girl, who is under the age of 13, accused him of sexually abusing her, a report in the Adirondack Daily Entreprise said.

http://www.tribuneindia.com/news/sport/indian-sportsman-held-in-us-for-sexually-abusing-minor-girl/372092.html

I can imagine his defense.. ' I wasn't molesting her I am just looking for a wife and wanted to see if she was a good kisser'.

India has absolutely horrific sexual violence issues. Its usually done by upper caste members on lower caste members, but pretty much all dimensions of it are over the top horrible, especially the gang rapes. I did an event in Mumbai bringing together about 50 tech and gender experts in the Mumbai/Pune area to address this and got to know it in more detail than I ever wanted.

Regarding your comment (a joke I'm sure), as whether its done by foreigners or US citizens, at its core, this is predator behavior based on a belief that women are lessor beings or property in some way. That may be more codified explicitly in other countries whereas its tacit here, but at its root, there is little difference.

AFM · Post #1090 » by **AFM** » Mon Mar 13, 2017 9:03 pm

Induveca wrote:

Read on Twitter

Assange has to be careful, man...

Wizardspride · Post #1091 » by **Wizardspride** » Mon Mar 13, 2017 9:08 pm

http://www.cnn.com/2017/03/13/politics/sean-spicer-donald-trump-wiretapping/index.html

Spicer: Trump didn't mean wiretapping when he tweeted about wiretapping

The White House on Monday walked back a key point of President Donald Trump's unsubstantiated allegation that President Barack Obama wiretapped his phones in Trump Tower during the 2016 election.

Namely, White House press secretary Sean Spicer said Trump wasn't referring to wiretapping when he tweeted about wiretapping.
"I think there's no question that the Obama administration, that there were actions about surveillance and other activities that occurred in the 2016 election," Spicer said. "The President used the word wiretaps in quotes to mean, broadly, surveillance and other activities."

Spicer also said that Trump was referring to the Obama administration broadly -- and not accusing Obama of personal involvement -- when he tweeted that "Obama had my 'wires tapped' in Trump Tower" and accused Obama of being a "bad" or "sick guy."

Induveca · Post #1092 » by **Induveca** » Mon Mar 13, 2017 9:10 pm

AFM wrote:
Induveca wrote:

Read on Twitter

Assange has to be careful, man...

Guy is locked up in an embassy, nothing to lose. Not a fan of this leak, but this could be bad for EU/US if they release it....

EU/US has kept this guy locked up for 4 years, can't discount him doing anything at this point.

For the record not a fan of this release, and depending on the contents could boost Wilders claims against the EU. Must wait and see if it's all bull.

sfam · Post #1093 » by **sfam** » Mon Mar 13, 2017 9:15 pm

Induveca wrote:
AFM wrote:
Induveca wrote:

Read on Twitter

Assange has to be careful, man...

Guy is locked up in an embassy, nothing to lose. Not a fan of this leak, but this could be bad for EU/US if they release it....

EU/US has kept this guy locked up for 4 years, can't discount him doing anything at this point.

For the record not a fan of this release, and depending on the contents could boost Wilders claims against the EU. Must wait and see if it's all bull.

Can we just get dispense with the absurdity that Wikileaks is a nonpartisan, independent organization? Its a tool of the Russian government, and has been so for a long time. This is where Assange has found his benefactors.

sfam · Post #1094 » by **sfam** » Mon Mar 13, 2017 9:17 pm

Wizardspride wrote::P

http://www.cnn.com/2017/03/13/politics/sean-spicer-donald-trump-wiretapping/index.html

Spicer: Trump didn't mean wiretapping when he tweeted about wiretapping

The White House on Monday walked back a key point of President Donald Trump's unsubstantiated allegation that President Barack Obama wiretapped his phones in Trump Tower during the 2016 election.

Namely, White House press secretary Sean Spicer said Trump wasn't referring to wiretapping when he tweeted about wiretapping.
"I think there's no question that the Obama administration, that there were actions about surveillance and other activities that occurred in the 2016 election," Spicer said. "The President used the word wiretaps in quotes to mean, broadly, surveillance and other activities."

Spicer also said that Trump was referring to the Obama administration broadly -- and not accusing Obama of personal involvement -- when he tweeted that "Obama had my 'wires tapped' in Trump Tower" and accused Obama of being a "bad" or "sick guy."

Jake Tapper did a pretty good segment on this on the opening of his show today. Trump says one thing, and then his staff scramble to completely change the meaning to something within the bounds of normal conversation. Meanwhile it bares little or no resemblance to what Trump actually said.

dckingsfan · Post #1095 » by **dckingsfan** » Mon Mar 13, 2017 9:27 pm

sfam wrote:We can quibble whether or not Presidents actually impact unemployment, but most think Carter was partly responsible for his unemployment numbers, and that Clinton and Reagan were responsible for their unemployment gains. I happen to think Bush bore some responsibility for crashing the economy, and that Obama gets credit for helping to save it.
The key word is "partly"
sfam wrote:But all of this is a side note. We've calculated unemployment figures the same for decades and decades. Trump and his folks have flat out accused Obama of fixing the books. Until now. Now, with no staff in place, the numbers are now magically good. Anyone attempting ridiculous false equivalencies looks as silly as Trump. This is uncharted territory. The CBO, Bureau of Labor Statistics, NOAA, the EPA on down - they are fraudulent if they show numbers Trump doesn't like. They are filled with great people when Trump likes the numbers. Its just that simple. We have a lying sack of sh*t for a President. This is new.

Violent Agreement.

dckingsfan · Post #1096 » by **dckingsfan** » Mon Mar 13, 2017 9:30 pm

sfam wrote:
dckingsfan wrote:Zards - you are double spinning. If I say the stimulus had some (moderate affect) but little compared to what the Fed did (fact) that doesn't support your - Obama saved the economy premise.

Sorry about that...

The long-term affect of the debt load is probably a bigger net negative than the positive short-term affect (but we won't know that for quite some time).

Did the stimulus have some affect - meh - in comparison to the fed. Is it fair that the R hacks are saying it was a failure and pinning any growth issues on Obama, no. And here is your favorite guy - still spinning it but at least telling a bit of truth.
https://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/05/opinion/paul-krugman-presidents-and-the-economy.html?_r=0

So is the president responsible for the accelerating recovery? No. Can we nonetheless say that we’re doing better than we would be if the other party held the White House? Yes. Do those who were blaming Mr. Obama for all our economic ills now look like knaves and fools? Yes, they do. And that’s because they are.

Bold is the truth. Italic is the opinion.

Zards, are you a Debt Denier? This is kind of like my conservative friends that don't believe there is global warming. Don't worry about the short-term affect of using coal. We will be fine in the long-term

Just another paragraph from the Krugman article you cite:

The point is that normally the Fed, not the White House, rules the economy. Should we apply the same rule to the Obama years?

Not quite.

For one thing, the Fed has had a hard time gaining traction in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, because the aftermath of a huge housing and mortgage bubble has left private spending relatively unresponsive to interest rates. This time around, monetary policy really needed help from a temporary increase in government spending, which meant that the president could have made a big difference. And he did, for a while; politically, the Obama stimulus may have been a failure, but an overwhelming majority of economists believe that it helped mitigate the slump.

Krugman is actually making the case that Obama affected the recovery a lot more than most Presidents usually do.

Only because of who he is - if it had been Bush, he wouldn't have given him any credit.

gtn130 · Post #1097 » by **gtn130** » Mon Mar 13, 2017 9:35 pm

is everyone sufficiently convinced yet that repealing Obamacare is all about tax cuts for donors and not much else?

dckingsfan · Post #1098 » by **dckingsfan** » Mon Mar 13, 2017 9:54 pm

gtn130 wrote:is everyone sufficiently convinced yet that repealing Obamacare is all about tax cuts for donors and not much else?

I am not... I think it is more about the Rs mantra that the ACA was a train wreck. Now they have to repeal it or they will look bad and their egos will be bruised.

If there was no tax hike in the ACA, this wouldn't even be an issue? No. They would still be trying to repeal it.

Either way, they are sooooo screwed.

gtn130 · Post #1099 » by **gtn130** » Mon Mar 13, 2017 10:13 pm

dckingsfan wrote:
gtn130 wrote:is everyone sufficiently convinced yet that repealing Obamacare is all about tax cuts for donors and not much else?

I am not... I think it is more about the Rs mantra that the ACA was a train wreck. Now they have to repeal it or they will look bad and their egos will be bruised.

If there was no tax hike in the ACA, this wouldn't even be an issue? No. They would still be trying to repeal it.

Either way, they are sooooo screwed.

Huh? The republicans are the ones touting how important it is to REPEAL it. If they wanted some lame political victory, they could make minor modifications to ACA, rename it, then champion how great it is for the next few months and call it a day.

They would be taking the hardest route possible to earning brownie points from their base. That's not what's going on here.

sfam · Post #1100 » by **sfam** » Mon Mar 13, 2017 10:51 pm

gtn130 wrote:is everyone sufficiently convinced yet that repealing Obamacare is all about tax cuts for donors and not much else?

Well, clearly the rich are the beneficiary, but this is the case for most Republican legislation. However, I give them the benefit of doubt of really wanting to eliminate a new entitlement, which is what the ACA did. It covered more people, and gave the tacit belief that health care is a right. This is what the Republicans want to change. In the best of cases, removing an entitlement is near impossible.