Let the campaign begin!

Yuri Yukuv wrote:Well Im not against all money printing to be honest, Im a big fan of QE3 for example. I think money printing should be done only when its very transparent, when its goals are well targeted and it has objective (QE3 did much of that) and it also has to accompanied by structural change. This didnt happen first two times as the money got clogged with most investors (banks and corps) not spending it the cash is still there, only money that seeped through was to basic consumer staple areas like food and energy (not in official inflation estimates). They didnt spend it because the structural environment sucks, as soon as economy strengthens the money will rush in and cause a good amount of inflation. Inflation itself is not that bad, but when it happens this way it will cause missalocation of capital and well be back in trouble again.

My point is that money printing is a great weapon but Obama wasnt able to use it properly because of his persona biases against business, in long term this will backfire against us.

Swanhends wrote:I'm a registered Independent for what its worth, but I just don't see how Libertarianism would work in a practical sense...I would go back to my quote earlier

Everyone loves Libertarianism until theres a natural disaster, or their bank collapses, or theres some other crisis...

"There are no atheists in foxholes" is the religious version of the argument "There are no libertarians in a crisis/disaster"

I also think it gives humans in general too much credit...What do you do as a libertarian society when people eventually fall behind? Whether through their own laziness/incompetence, or through no fault of their own...what do you do?

Leave them behind? How long does that last? How stark can the gap between rich and poor grow before we wind up with a literal revolution on our hands? And if you're answer is "Of course not, we need to help them" - well then aren't you already straying from libertarianism?

Libertarianism is fantastic if you can trust everyone to be responsible...
Maybe I just have a low opinion of humans, but I don't....not even close

Edit: Those werent rhetorical questions btw...genuinely curious

BarrileteCosmico wrote:

Yuri Yukuv wrote:Well Im not against all money printing to be honest, Im a big fan of QE3 for example. I think money printing should be done only when its very transparent, when its goals are well targeted and it has objective (QE3 did much of that) and it also has to accompanied by structural change. This didnt happen first two times as the money got clogged with most investors (banks and corps) not spending it the cash is still there, only money that seeped through was to basic consumer staple areas like food and energy (not in official inflation estimates). They didnt spend it because the structural environment sucks, as soon as economy strengthens the money will rush in and cause a good amount of inflation. Inflation itself is not that bad, but when it happens this way it will cause missalocation of capital and well be back in trouble again.

My point is that money printing is a great weapon but Obama wasnt able to use it properly because of his persona biases against business, in long term this will backfire against us.

So you're disappointed that Obama didn't get the fiscal act together while monetary policy was otherwise mostly sound? I could agree with that. There's a number of policies that could've/should've been taken to alleviate the housing crisis on the fiscal side that could've helped before QE3, of which I'm also a fan but only if it's a stepping stone to other more output oriented policy decisions. The large number of unused reserves is largely due to interest on reserves though - which was never very clear to me as to why they exist in the first place.

VivaStPauli wrote:

kiranr wrote:I just want to get a general idea from you guys who like Obama. Until now, whatever i have read (not much) has given me the impression that Obama is increasing regulations and taxes which in general does not bode well for the economy. So i just want to know if there is something that i have missed about his last term.

And here is where you're wrong. History has shown that rampant deregulation has lead to crisis after crisis. The dotcom and housing bubbles, as well as the Great Depression and Japans deflation can all be pretty much attributed due to neo-liberal deregulation and free-market capitalism with lack of oversight and security.

I'm not saying that regulation is a great thing in of itself, but you do need some regulation, and being blindly against all forms of government oversight is going to invite the obvious kind of abuse that actually did take place.

VivaStPauli wrote:It certainly didn't help, but it wasn't responsible. Lack of regulation and oversight made the entire bubble possible in the first place.

And that aside, artificially low interest rates are a classic tool of the Monetarian ideology, which is closely associated to fiscal conservatives, so that's what you'd expect to come from Republicans together with deregulation either way.

RealGunner wrote:Is the Fiscal crisis really worrying for the USA citizens ? What impact will it have on them ?

Has obama said anything about medicare ?

free_cat wrote:No need to argue about economy Yury and BC. Don't know if you have noticed, but Economy is a pseudoscience. It has 0 predictibility capacity and sometimes can't even agree to explain the past. You have to concede that politicians are like a blind man when they are deciding their economic policies, so it's obvious that they will mess up.

BarrileteCosmico wrote:

free_cat wrote:No need to argue about economy Yury and BC. Don't know if you have noticed, but Economy is a pseudoscience. It has 0 predictibility capacity and sometimes can't even agree to explain the past. You have to concede that politicians are like a blind man when they are deciding their economic policies, so it's obvious that they will mess up.

Lol no they are not. I 100% disagree with you, but it sounds like whatever I say will not change your mind, so let's just leave it at that

VivaStPauli wrote:So... Americans... Are you communist yet?

As an American living in Europe, I can tell you that Augstein makes the same mistake about America that almost every European, especially those of the German speaking countries, make. That is, they have a profound misunderstanding of separation of powers and the system of checks and balances in the U.S. As a result of this misunderstanding, they simply cannot make any sense of things that happen in the U.S., and therefore jump to the easy conclusion that the U.S. must be dysfunctional.

Let's just take one of Augstein's many examples:

"The United States Army is developing a weapon that can reach -- and destroy -- any location on Earth within an hour. At the same time, power lines held up by wooden poles dangle over the streets of Brooklyn, Queens and New Jersey."

Augstein, like most German's imagine that the U.S. is ruled from a central authority in Washington D.C. (most imagine this to be the President of the USA). Germans and Austrians can't help thinking this way because this is how their own countries are organized, i.e., in a very hierarchical political system, with a powerful leader at the top that calls all the shots. They fail to understand that in the American federal system, the federal government in Washington D.C. DOES NOT rule the states, and that the states are politically independent and sovereign entities.

In Germany, the federal government is supreme. It calls all the shots and is headed by one single person, the Chancellor, that wields both executive and parliamentary power. The German federal government is responsible for almost all important aspects of German life. The German mind therefore, simply CANNOT understand or comprehend, that the American federal government has no say in the domestic affairs of the State of New York. Germans imagine that the President of the United States, and by extension, the government of the United States is somehow responsible for the dismal state of the power lines in Brooklyn. Hence the constant criticism of the "United States" by German intellectual.

I spend a lot of time here explaining to my German and Austrian friends the strict separation of powers in the United States. I explain how the federal government is a distinct political entity from the states, and that the US Constitution guarantees the states autonomy in all areas not explicitly ceded to the federal government. I try to explain to them that the federal government's power is severely restricted by the constitution and that it's only responsible for foreign policy, currency, postal system, patents, national defense and trade between the states. All other areas of responsibility belong to the states.

The federal government therefore has absolutely nothing to do with the cities of New York. If Augstein has a complaint about the power lines in Brooklyn, the proper venue to vent this complaint is the government of the State of New York, not the government of the United States. Similarly, the government of the United States has exclusive rights to conduct foreign policy. If has the right to develop new weapons and no U.S. state can object. The United States government has its own budget, which differs entirely from the budget of the State of New York. There is no overlap.

To blast the United States therefore, for the condition in Brooklyn is like someone complaining to the European Union about the ghettos of Paris. Apples and oranges.

But then again, hating the U.S. is a favorite pastime of German intellectuals nowadays. Augstein delights in the destruction of America by "Total Capitalism", however he conveniently forgets that it was Germany that destroyed the world. Twice. It was America, with it's "Total Capitalism" rescued and rebuilt Europe and it's the capitalist American military, funded by capitalist American taxes, that continues to safeguard Europe's security and prosperity. It is America that does all the dirty, back-breaking work around the globe that Europeans consider themselves too refined and civilized to undertake. Let's not forget that almost all the world's current major problems are a direct result of Europe's adventures of the 19th century.

These facts are far too painful for German intellectuals to ponder. It's much easier, and more satisfying, to point the finger at America. Bad, bad America!

RedOranje wrote:Please do NOT take the time to explain what you mean by "Polishing your penis," thanks.