Wrong.

12/4/2012 1:05:28 AM

Quote :

"How much stimulus do you think would be enough?"

Something like the last one (which stopped the downward tilt of the recession in its tracks), a bit smaller, maybe around 500 billion area.

The point would be to make up for the gap in consumer spending, which is still way, way down from 2008: http://www.gallup.com/poll/112723/Gallup-Daily-US-Consumer-Spending.aspx and the lost GDP growth as a result. The first stimulus was something like 750 billion during a year where we lost something like triple that in GDP growth, so it definitely didn't fill the gap but it stopped the bleeding.

Alternatively, I'd be even more into a rolling stimulus of maybe 100 billion apiece, spaced out every 2-3 months, so they could be drawn back if things started improving more quickly than expected.

Quote :

"Is there any amount that would be excessive, i.e. doing more harm than good?"

I can only see it becoming excessive one or two ways. One would be so much so that it'd cause a spike in inflation, but that'd be multiple trillions. Really anything over $1 trillion would probably be seen as slapdash and reckless, and probably spook investors. Below that, I think we'd see more confidence, especially after the abysmal failure of austerity programs in Europe.

As an aside, a little currency devaluation might not hurt. I'm hard pressed to think of a country that is doing better after the recession that Iceland, and they devalued the fuck out of their currency in a hyper-Keynesian spending and debt-settling spree (and banker-jailing...). A lot of savings accounts took a hit as a result, but their unemployment rate right now is about 6%, which means a lot of savings accounts are actually growing again.

Quote :

"I assume that Congress would be appropriating these funds. "

Yeah, aka Republicans, aka it'll never happen. With a Republican congress, the only stimulus you can hope for is a new war.

Quote :

"Which departments should get priority?"

If I were in charge? Infrastructure first, for two reasons (both of which are important). The first reason is that it's politically viable, most people can get behind infrastructure because it's a no-brainer multiplier. The second is that a lot of the money goes directly to the working class (Construction workers, for instance) so there'd be a simultaneous boost to employment along with the consumer spending that comes from putting the money there.

After infrastructure, probably a lot of relief to states to try and stop the hemmorhaging of public sector workers (teachers, policemen yada yada) who are all in the lower to middle classes.

After that, temporary tax breaks to small (actually small) businesses, maybe the ones that have greater than 50 employees to help with Obamacare costs.

After all that, maybe something like Bush did early in his tenure, when he sent a $300-$500 check to ever family. This is better than simple tax breaks because it's immediate, and lots of people don't even pay enough attention to their taxes to catch such breaks in April. Although, Obama would probably be lynched for the crime of reparations if he ever, ever tried something remotely like this, so maybe that could wait until we have a white President again.


I wouldn't nationalize anything, or convert businesses to Workers Councils, or land reforms or anything like that. These prescriptions have nothing to do with me being a Socialist on the side, this is strictly how I'd go about saving Capitalism.


[Edited on December 4, 2012 at 8:39 AM. Reason : .]

12/4/2012 8:22:04 AM

Str8Foolish, serious question. What is your experience in math? What classes have you taken?

12/4/2012 5:06:17 PM

The math they teach in schools? Or the real math, the kind they don't want you to know about.

12/4/2012 6:14:32 PM

first rule of secretmath is you dont talk about secretmath

12/4/2012 7:24:13 PM

Quote :

"Justin Amash Rumor has it that I’ve been removed from the House Committee on the Budget. Remarkably, I still have not received a single call, e-mail, or text from Republican leadership confirming this story. In fact, I wouldn’t even have learned about it if not for the news reports. I look forward to hearing from my party’s leaders hip about why my principled, conservative voting record offends them. That’s sure to be a lively and entertaining conversation. In the meantime, I can only speculate as to what specifically would make Republican leadership punish several of its party’s most principled members. Rep. Tim Huelskamp, who was kicked off of both Budget and the Committee on Agriculture, voted with me against the 2013 House budget resolution because it does not sufficiently address the federal government’s debt crisis. That was one of only three times during this Congress that I voted against the Chairman’s recommendations in committee. In fact, I voted with the Republican Chairman more than 95% of the time, and I have voted with my party’s leadership more than three-quarters of the time on the House floor. What message does leadership’s heavy-handedness send? It says that independent thinking won’t be tolerated, not even 5% of the time. It says that voting your conscience won’t be respected. It says that fulfilling your commitment to your constituents to work with both Republicans and Democrats to reduce our debt takes a back seat to the desires of corporate special interests. And, most troubling for our party, it says to the growing number of young believers in liberty that their views are not welcome here. I’ll miss working with my colleagues on Budget. I don’t relish this situation, but if one thing is clear based on the response from the grassroots, it’s that leadership’s actions will backfire. If they think kicking me off of a committee will lead me to abandon my principles or stifle my bipartisan work toward a balanced budget, I have a message for them: You’re dead wrong."

Straight from Justin Amash's facebook
http://www.facebook.com/repjustinamash/posts/474813089224769

12/4/2012 10:32:10 PM

Seems like there's no way out of this for congressional republicans.

12/5/2012 1:06:27 AM

12/5/2012 1:40:38 AM

Quote :

"Str8Foolish, serious question. What is your experience in math? What classes have you taken?"

I'm a robotics engineer, that means I do electrical engineering, mechanical engineering, and computer science (control theory, AI, computer vision, etc). Take a wild guess at how many of those fields involves maths 10x more complex and demanding than the highest you could have attained in high school had you stayed there.



[Edited on December 5, 2012 at 9:03 AM. Reason : 2+1]

12/5/2012 8:50:24 AM

So you don't understand Limits and the behaviors of numbers as they approach infinity?

12/5/2012 9:17:11 AM

I doubt they ever covered that in his government-provided, brainwashing math class

12/5/2012 9:26:04 AM

Jesus fucking fuck...

12/5/2012 9:36:09 AM

Here's a proposed solution

12/5/2012 9:45:30 AM

but I mean, um... sigma limit something delta?

12/5/2012 9:47:30 AM

Let's put your money where your mouth is.


Show me a graph.

x= #of dollars printed and disbursed
y= price of goods

[domain x>0 to infinity]
[range y>0 to infinity]
aaaaaaaaaand go!

12/5/2012 9:50:08 AM

I actually liked a lot of the elements of the GOP counter-proposal. Structural tax reform aimed at limiting deductions and streamlining the tax code as well as reforms to Medicare and SS. Both of these ideas need to happen. Now if the GOP would just give a little on the top tax rate and accept the need for some infrastructure spending, we might actually have a good plan to advert the cliff.

Too bad the GOP hates the plan Boehner put forth, and the Dems won't agree to entitlement reform no matter how obviously we need it.

12/5/2012 9:51:15 AM

Show me potato salad.

12/5/2012 9:53:55 AM

Quote :

"Too bad the GOP hates the plan Boehner put forth"

you're missing information if you're agreeing with Boehner's plan.

12/5/2012 9:54:50 AM

Quote :

"Let's put your money where your mouth is. Show me a graph. x= #of dollars printed and disbursed y= price of goods [domain x>0 to infinity] [range y>0 to infinity] aaaaaaaaaand go! "

I'll go

          |
          |
 price of |
  goods   |
in dollars|
          |
          |
          |
          -----------------
            # of dollars
               printed

12/5/2012 10:02:00 AM

Function: show me the curve that illustrates the behavior of #of dollars printed and disbursed and its affects on the price of goods

12/5/2012 10:08:10 AM

That's not math.

12/5/2012 10:10:50 AM

What is your experience in math? What classes have you taken?

12/5/2012 10:19:33 AM

I think what he's trying to talk about is an asymptote, so I'll give him at least high school geometry.

12/5/2012 10:27:24 AM

12/5/2012 10:35:59 AM

I assume that he has an elementary understanding of fractions, unless someone else is slicing the pizza for him.

12/5/2012 10:39:43 AM

Kris can't do it. Anyone else care to give it a shot?

12/5/2012 10:42:03 AM

Quote :

"I assume that he has an elementary understanding of fractions, unless someone else is slicing the pizza for him."

god damn, that was a quality burn

12/5/2012 10:53:39 AM

Why don't we raise the age on Social Security to like 67 and lower the age on Medicare to 60 while incorporating Social Security into the general budget? Medicare costs generally don't get crazy until people reach their 70s so it wouldn't cost THAT much and we'd save a lot more money from Social Security. From what I've read, after all the Baby Boomers are gone the SS demographics problem basically solves itself and the surplus to be gained in the mean time would help with the deficit.

12/5/2012 10:55:48 AM

Quote :

"Function: show me the curve that illustrates the behavior of #of dollars printed and disbursed and its affects on the price of goods"

Not enough information to complete. Are we assuming that both demand for dollars and the supply of goods are constant? Because neither of those are true in the real world. Typically a "function" has a defined relationship between the variables, not "Read my mind and convert my broken understanding of this relationship into a graph".

We've been through this, if the relationship was as simple as you thought it was then every single item would cost 3x what it did 10 years ago. Oh wait, but as you said, they're hiding the inflation. Everybody. Every single retailer on planet Earth. By putting it in differently sized syrup bottles and using high fructose corn syrup instead of corn syrup. FEMA camps. HAARP. Flouride.


[Edited on December 5, 2012 at 11:57 AM. Reason : .]

12/5/2012 11:43:09 AM

Quote :

"I assume that he has an elementary understanding of fractions, unless someone else is slicing the pizza for him."

No country for Told men

12/5/2012 11:45:51 AM

There is enough information.

I guess you just failed your exam.

Continue on joking me about my inability to do math without your own ability to do math.

12/5/2012 12:02:31 PM

Lmao

12/5/2012 12:08:59 PM

a guy who works at a pizza place telling an electical/mechanical engineer that he doesn't understand math

12/5/2012 12:09:27 PM

Would you like to give it another shot?

12/5/2012 12:10:01 PM

GXB let me try again, put it in the form of a differential equation, I'm a lot better with those.

12/5/2012 12:13:53 PM

Quote :

"GXB let me try again, put it in the form of a differential equation, I'm a lot better with those."

This makes no sense. Why are you going to do long division on a problem you can do in your head.

12/5/2012 12:19:07 PM

I can't do this until you give me the standard size of a maple syrup bottle.

12/5/2012 12:19:44 PM

Just admit you have no clue so we can move on.

12/5/2012 12:20:23 PM

whats the ratio of syrup to potatoes?

12/5/2012 12:36:45 PM

No, I'm really close, I just need to know whether the sum of goods and services is rising or falling.

12/5/2012 12:38:02 PM

Faggotxboy, stop wasting people's time with your stupid merry-go-round bullshit of asking people to prove a point for you that you can't manage to do yourself. If you've got facts/graphs/data to prove your point, then post them. Don't expect other people to do it for you. If you have actual data that shows the amount of money in the economy and its effect on the price of goods, then fucking post it.

12/5/2012 12:39:06 PM

^Dare you to walk up to your professor the next time he hands out a test using that speech. You'd probably get kicked out of school for being a moron and not understanding the concept of a test.

12/5/2012 12:41:36 PM

wait, you think you are a professor now?

12/5/2012 12:42:54 PM

Actually I've gotten plenty of tests with trick questions where the point is to identify why the problem isn't solvable with the given information.

12/5/2012 12:42:55 PM

This isn't a trick question. It's straight forward. Answer it with differential equations if you'd like. I'm not limiting your resources.

12/5/2012 12:44:11 PM

GXB draw me a graph

y - price of goods
x - number of goods in the economy

assume a fixed money supply

12/5/2012 12:44:22 PM

How is someone that can't answer my question going to quiz me on something similar?

12/5/2012 12:45:41 PM

why don't you answer it, it should be pretty easy for you

12/5/2012 12:47:47 PM

Yeah, based on your model the answer should be trivial.

12/5/2012 12:50:20 PM

"Hey professor, solve this similar problem first, then I'll go sit down and tell you the answer to the question you asked"


This might have worked for your professors, but it doesn't work on me.

12/5/2012 12:51:29 PM