Displaying 211 To 240 Of 2,270 Comments The GOP’s Supermarket Shopping List GOP mixed drinks Night sounds potentially fatal… » Posted By funksands On February 21, 2014 @ 7:26 pm Awesome… Great list Ad! Wash it all down with a Ron Paultini: » Posted By funksands On February 21, 2014 @ 6:29 pm Modern Monetary Theory Part 1c Ad, isn’t it interesting what wheels start to turn when you look at these illustrations. Like the final scene in the “Usual Suspects” I feel like I’ve turned around to look at the wall and realize I’ve been had. Right now, NO national politician on the Dem side would have the fortitude to stake their political career on trying to re-explain and sell the American public on how our monetary system and thereby the underpinnings of our economy work. First they’d have to understand it, then they’d have to figure out how to sell it. Our hopes may lay in Congressional House Dems in safe Blue States. With no chance of losing re-election, this would give the time and space for these reps to start fashioning a strategy of slowly introducing these concepts, piece by piece into their constituents and the nation’s conscience. That will probably not happen with the current batch in office. Our current city councils, our mayor, state senators, the future Congress are probably the ones we’ll have to reach. » Posted By funksands On February 18, 2014 @ 10:57 am Nirek don’t worry, its taken me several times through to get a handle on things. Hopefully I’ve interested you enough to pursue that. » Posted By funksands On February 18, 2014 @ 10:48 am Republicans Have The Answer to Poverty: The Poor Need to Be Poorer to Stop Being Poor Ad, really great article. You probably could of stopped with “why are you such assholes?” and explore that theme, but lets just assume it is a given law. Perhaps we’ll call it “Newton’s 4th of Thermodynamics: A Republican that is an asshole tends to stay an asshole”. The key to all of this is to dehumanize the poor. Once that’s done, its very easy to come up with reasons to neglect them. I think that many Americans have a knee-jerk psychological revulsion to the poor and then back-fill the reasons why that it is appropriate to feel that way. When times are good and most are flush, this is easy to do. Witness the 80’s and 90’s. When times are tight or when a very very few are doing well, this creates a need for all sorts of gymnastics to rationalize public attitudes and public policy. This is not new. This is almost identical to the Victorian-era attitudes of the British government (almost all wealthy Britains in the 1810’s – 1830’s. Give the poor too much and they’ll lead lives of idleness. They’ll have babies for the sake of having babies, they’ll distort labor costs, they’ll wreck the very “laws” of supply and demand, for god’s sake, they’ll take us all down with them!!! What’s really frustrating is how the the GOP has managed to set different segments of the poor against one another. Having the poor in their base as their most fervent supporters and most scornful of other poor people has to be especially delicious for them. » Posted By funksands On February 14, 2014 @ 10:01 am If Chris Christie Became President, Who Would Be In His Cabinet? NoMan, you have a talent for this! Use it wisely… 😉 » Posted By funksands On February 7, 2014 @ 6:17 pm Drug Czar – Trey Radel » Posted By funksands On February 6, 2014 @ 10:14 pm Modern Monetary Part 1b: Modern Money Illustrated Dbos, I believe that is what they call “rent-seeking”. Every predatory entity in the private sector knows that the easiest way to quick profit is through legislation rather than innovation. The Afghanistan war is a prime example of this money-laundering. All money spent by the FG pot eventually ends up in the hands of the US or foreign private sector. Whether that spending is being used for the overriding Public Purpose is the rub. » Posted By funksands On February 7, 2014 @ 6:16 pm Kes, the second part of this was a real eye-opener. I knew enough about MMT that this part was an excellent visual refresher. But part 2 is pretty awesome. Coming very soon. » Posted By funksands On February 7, 2014 @ 6:13 pm Nirek, all social insurance programs eventually funnel back into the private sector pot. MMT’ers argue that because money originates from the federal pot, that funding these programs with payroll taxes is an unnecessary drag on the economy. » Posted By funksands On February 7, 2014 @ 6:12 pm BREAKING: The Ground Beneath Chris Christie’s Feet Just Collapsed Slob, if you didn’t know already “FunkSands” is simply the department name for a particularly nasty self-aware bot that tracks your movements on social media. Just a tip. » Posted By funksands On February 1, 2014 @ 11:26 am WATCH & CHAT LIVE: President Obama’s 2014 State of the Union Address – 6:00pm PST Can’t seem to get into the live chat. 🙁 » Posted By funksands On January 28, 2014 @ 6:12 pm What Will Be The Focus of President Obama’s SOTU Speech Tomorrow? *Breaking* There will be FOURTH response to the President’s state of the union speech. Sen. Flesh-Eating Bacteria (R) will draw the privilege of speaking for his Streptocaucus. » Posted By funksands On January 27, 2014 @ 5:15 pm Great article Ad, I do indeed think that the minimum wage will be a significant topic in the speech. If the President is smart (and I think he is) this will be the launch of a mildly populist agenda that all the Democratic candidates for Congress can digest and run on in their home states. While not as radical as it needs to be, it will be enough to draw some very clear distinctions between the GOP candidate and their opponent. If wages had grown at the same pace as cop orate profits since the 50’s, the minimum wage would now be $17 an hour. » Posted By funksands On January 27, 2014 @ 5:00 pm MMT: Not Your Mother’s Monetary Theory Dbos, thanks for the reply. I have a question first: Are you familiar with MMT? If so, I’d love to hear your take on it. That said, I couldn’t agree with you more. The Fed, whether spoken or unspoken has been frantically trying to stimulate inflation in the economy since 2008. Deflation is the real fear. I do agree with you that inflation isn’t really good or bad, but that too much of anything can be harmful. I also agree (and most MMT’ers do as well) that the deficit should be as big as it needs to be to ensure full employment. The least “efficient” thing there is in an economy is a labor force sitting on its hands with nothing to do. Employers (myself among them) do not create jobs. We only hire when we are forced to by demand or circumstances. Many MMT’ers argue for job guarantees as a central piece of their “prescription” for the nation’s ills. I would tend to agree. I really appreciate you putting your two cents in. » Posted By funksands On February 4, 2014 @ 8:19 pm Nirek, I am going to publish the authors web and notes version of that video. It really is helpful formatted that way. According to MMT’ers the total public debt is simply the financial assets the public sector has created and transferred to the private sector. The federal government CAN spend whatever it likes. There is no monetary constraint to the federal government spending whatever it likes. There is however a budgetary constraint per Congress, and there is a fiscal restraint of inflation. Just because the Treasury can create an unlimited supply of money doesn’t mean it should. One helpful way to remember is that the deficit is a January 1st to December 31st measurement. The debt is a rolling accumulation of deficits. » Posted By funksands On February 4, 2014 @ 3:14 pm Ad, I would argue about the semantics of whether it is destroyed or recycled. MMT is very clear that that money is NOT recycled and is important to remember that because it starts breaking the chain of logic that taxes are somehow necessary for the government to finance it’s public purpose. Not trying to be nitpicky I think the best way to explain the deficit to the public might be to tell them that the deficit is as high as it needs to be to help keep the economy going and provide jobs for everyone that wants one. The private sector is unable to provide all the lift our economy needs, so our deficit is a result of the government spending to fulfill the public purpose of the United States. The deficit is not good or bad if it is low or high, its simply a reflection of what government has had to do to achieve it’s purpose.’ I think training the public to view the deficit (not debt, that’s a harder slog) as a neutral entity is maybe the easiest step. 1) Your government is nothing like your household AT ALL. 2) As such deficits for the government are nothing like your household deficit AT ALL. Maybe that’s a start. I really will get to inequality in my (3rd?) post. It does matter. Your last paragraph is spot on. We are SO far from the 99% creating inflation its laughable. » Posted By funksands On February 4, 2014 @ 11:36 am Why Kes, who knew that you were such a contrarian? 😉 Economics, IMO is 1 part math, 8 parts art, 1 part bullshit and 1 part politics. That’s the primary reason why I’ve stared at MMT for over a year before letting myself be convinced of many (not all) of it’s arguments and theories. Again, IMO Economics 101 classes at most universities teach what they teach not because they are looking to condition a new generation of scholars to think a certain way about economics, (though I could be wrong) rather they teach what they teach because the whole field is so squishy. How can you build a foundation of knowledge about economics without some concrete “laws” to build upon? Introduction to economics is taught this way because it is the only possible way for that professor to teach 18 year olds something. Laws of “supply and demand” , “labor”, “efficiency” and “productivity” are inherently screwed up and proven wrong by the simple fact that humans and all of their flaws are the ones implementing them. Much economic conventional wisdom is referred to as if they operate in a vacuum. Nothing could be further from the truth. For example: The price of oil. The supply of oil has never been greater on earth. The demand for oil was at a 20 year low as late as 2010. Why then did the price not go down significantly? Well, there is supposedly a lack of refineries, there is Middle East instability, 20% of the price of a barrel of oil is due to speculation, lack of competition in most community gas stations, cartel control of the price, etc etc etc. All of these things are human caused and mess up a perfectly good “Law” that never really existed in real life. Supply and Demand obviously is a real thing. The less there is of something and the more people want it, the price does TEND to go up. Perhaps these “laws” should be taught as what “typically” occurs unless something or someone intervenes. Now, how does this relate to MMT? I think you’ll be please with the follow-up piece. It does very much so fit into MMT, but maybe not in the way that you think. Not surprisingly there is nearly unanimous agreement among MMT’ers about the DESCRIPTiON of how our country and money work. There is robust discussion among them about the PRESCRIPTION for our ills. I’ll talk about that soon. » Posted By funksands On February 4, 2014 @ 11:25 am Ad, I’m glad you found it valuable. Looking back on it, I’m not sure that this was the way to start off the discussion. The video might be the place to start. I found the author’s written web version with notes explaining the diagrams shortly after finishing the article and find it to be the perfect way to introduce the concept. I may just add that as a follow-up piece to this to really tie things together. Your first observation exactly matched my own. Seems obvious, but feels awkward when you first think about it. Your first question is partly correct. MMT’ers would argue that taxes are a way of destroying money in the system, rather than being recycled back to the federal govt. MMT’ers are pretty agnostic about taxes for that very reason. Since the Treasury can create money with a keystroke, it isn’t necessary to collect taxes to pay for stuff the federal government needs to buy. Their argument is that the tax rate needs to be the rate it needs to be in order to accomplish the task of taming inflation and achieving other public purpose. Money taxed is money destroyed and adds nothing to the economy as a whole other than providing inflation control. However, they readily acknowledge that the greater economic benefit comes from taxing the working poor and middle class less, because they are far more likely to spend the money in the economy. This is why some MMT’ers loudly call for a partial or full repeal of the FICA tax. A) It puts money in the hands of those that will spend nearly all of it. B) Funding and financing Medicare and SS with payroll taxes is dumb. They view it as purely a political decision to fund it this way rather than a necessary one. I’ll explore this more. Inflation is when there is too much money chasing too few goods. MMT’ers would argue that having vast sums of money in the hands of people that probably won’t spend much of it is hardly a recipe for inflation. MMT’ers don’t foresee any inflation of much significance in the future, because there simply isn’t enough demand in the general public for goods and services that they can’t buy because of not enough dollars and/or not enough goods. Many MMT’ers would argue that stashing money offshore really doesn’t hurt the federal government at all, because it really doesn’t have to rely on tax revenues to operate. It does that by political choice. That said, they also don’t think being able to flaunt and rig tax laws is a good idea. It corrodes the public trust, enhances inequality, and makes it harder for the public and private sector to work properly. Why won’t any public official just come and say that focusing on paying the debt off is stupid and that the deficit matters, just not the way anyone thinks? Simple. Lack of credibility. Until the general public understands any of this, that official will be viewed as a crackpot. The media daily reinforces this wrong-headedness. » Posted By funksands On February 3, 2014 @ 8:11 pm Nirek, thank you and re-reading it is a good idea. It’s taken me several times through to start to feel some order to the info. Watch the video too. To your question, the chart doesn’t show the rich getting richer, it shows the ebb and flow of money in and out of the private sector. Meaning all of us. It doesn’t differentiate between rich, poor, individual or corporation. As the blue line in chart 1 goes up, that means the wealth of the entire private sector is going up. The red line is the public sector, same story. » Posted By funksands On February 3, 2014 @ 7:44 pm JUST IN: The Nominees For The Republican Academy Awards! ‘Scream 5’ [img]http://immizen.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/Scream_Fear.png[/img] » Posted By funksands On January 16, 2014 @ 6:12 pm Social Security, Medicare, The Deficit, Poverty, Unemployment – One Vote Could Help Them All Since 1961, there’s been 20 minimum wage increases. Only once the following year (2008) did gdp drop. Only 4x did corporate profits drop. (1966, 1969, 1982, 2008) Thereby proving to Republicans that minimum wage increases are a disaster for the economy. » Posted By funksands On December 17, 2013 @ 6:32 pm Ad, these are the averages of 1400+ minimum wage studies done from 2000-2013. » Posted By funksands On December 17, 2013 @ 6:31 pm Ad, this is a really good piece. It also will tie in nicely to the new piece on MMT that I am working on. If Democrats DON’T pursue this policy as a primary plank in their platform, then they are either cowards or utterly tone deaf to the mood and preferences of the electorate outside of the DC chattering class. The main benefit of this political winner is that it will actually help people! Wow! After trillions and trillions of dollars have flowed from the pockets of the lower-middle class into the pockets of the wealthiest of us, yanking a few bucks back will be attacked as “class warfare”. Wags will shake their heads and endlessly debate the effect on “work ethic”, “productivity” and even the “moral hazard” of a higher minimum wage, while 90% of the rest of America will actually support it because its a good idea. I’m no so concerned about how it strengthens Social Security, because funding SS is simply a political challenge rather than a mathematical one. If making the bottom line of SS makes it politically stronger, then good. I’m not totally convinced that it will increase hiring (see below) It will undoubtably create more economic activity and lessen dependence on State agencies A average of 1,492 minimum wage studies showed the average effect on employment rates to be “0”. There were many factors that were likely to occur in some form in the majority of the studies: 1. Reduction in hours worked – Inconclusive http://www.cepr.net/documents/publications/min-wage-2013-02.pdf I’d be interested to get your take on this. If the NET result of a higher minimum wage is simply that those workers lives are better, then that in itself is a good enough reason for me. » Posted By funksands On December 17, 2013 @ 12:56 pm Ladies and Gentlemen, Our Corporate Anthem RF, great piece. You are absolutely correct that we are not alone and it is never ‘one man’ against the ‘system’. Unlike in the movies, most corporations aren’t malevolent entities that will stop at nothing to get what they want. They don’t have to be. They realized a while ago that the best and easiest path to profit was innovation through legislation. As long as our political system is captive to the corporate system, then corporations don’t need to find the path of least resistance to big profits, they simply need to CREATE that path in their own choosing. Americans, cynical and disenfranchised as they are, have to layer by painstaking layer rebuild a new body of representatives that believe as they believe, that multi-national corporations, given that 40% of their earnings come from overseas, may not have the same goals as the nation’s. And as such should occupy a different spot than the top of the democratic totem pole. » Posted By funksands On December 15, 2013 @ 7:16 pm KT, try William Gibson’s “Neuromancer”. Great book written in 1984 that has turned out to pretty prophetic » Posted By funksands On December 15, 2013 @ 7:06 pm AOL To Buy Delta Airlines: Will Require All Passengers to Fly Naked Ad, that would be one awkward holiday gift basket…. » Posted By funksands On December 12, 2013 @ 3:30 pm Ad, I heard the Planet is going to force us to register with Hickory Farms and Gridr before we are allowed to comment. Care to comment? » Posted By funksands On December 12, 2013 @ 2:56 pm Huffington Post Goes NSA on Its Members Hey TPS! Great to see you! » Posted By funksands On December 18, 2013 @ 9:47 pm CADawn, that simply means you’ll be forced to endure more of me. Tough price to pay. 🙂 » Posted By funksands On December 17, 2013 @ 12:16 pmComments Posted By funksands
8 oz fine cognac
1 gallon battery acid
Secretary of Housing and Urban Development – Paul Bremer
FAA Head – Larry Craig
I think that’s interesting.
2. Reduction in non-wage benefits – Little or no change
3. Reduction in training – Inconclusive
4. Changes in employment composition (upgrading skill level of employees) – No evidence of change
5. Higher prices – “A 10% minimum wage increase led to no more than a 4% increase in food prices and no more than a .4% increase in overall prices”
6. Improvements in efficiency – Inconclusive
7. More efficient workers – Inconclusive
8. Wage compression for more skilled employees – Broad consensus that raising the minimum wage does indeed to lead to broader wage compression for higher earners in the community.
9. Reduced profits – Inconclusive. U.S. studies show minimal decrease in profits. British studies showed a noticeable decrease.
10. Increase in demand – Conclusive evidence that economic activity increased significantly in communities with minimum wage increases.
11. Reduced turnover – Conclusive evidence that employers experienced much lower turnover after minimum wage increases.
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