Gyroscopic Investing

Personally, I find it amusing, if not completely distasteful, that the average republican lawmaker has to first fall off the cliff before they are allowed to vote for higher taxes.  The party of NO is so repugnant that they couldn't even vote for tax increases on millionaires...

Instead, they need to wait until mandatory tax increases HARM all Americans, then they can finally feel safe in voting for a more sensible plan like preventing tax increases on those making less than 400K...

Your elected officials are abhorrent and should be kicked to the curb like the dogs they are...

I completely agree. These intransigent Republicans are so eager to avoid tax hikes for a small number of people that they'll allow taxes to be raised on everyone. It's such foolish short-term thinking. I don't know how any of them think there will be positive consequences for them if we "go over the cliff." Everybody's gonna blame them.

I wonder what they think they're gaining by engaging in this dangerous brinksmanship.

As a libertarian I want taxes to be reduced on everyone, including the wealthy. And I despise both the Rs and the Ds... except I despise the D's worse because their platform is more personally injurious to me.

I'll gladly pay hire taxes if it means no new gun control laws. Heck, guns, ammo and magazines have gone up 200% to 300% in the last week. I'd rather pay double my current taxes but be able to buy things I want at "regular" prices again. Then again, I'm one of those responsible gun owners who likes to shoot a few thousand rounds of ammo each year to retain proficiency... which apparently buying 1000s of rounds of ammo at a time is a sign of sociopathy.

Speaking of hypocrisy...it amuses me that you find it so repugnant for the Republicans to be intransigent, but are apparently on board with the Democrat behavior. 

Obama is willing to allow 98% of Americans to suffer in return for raising taxes that equates to about 8 days of the Federal budget.  Taxing income above $1 million at 100% only raises about $600 billion...not even enough to cover the deficit, let alone make any dent in the debt.  This is assuming that the tax increases won't have a negative impact on the economy, which is fairly well accepted as I understand it.

I think the Republicans are being complete morons and deserve to be fed into a wood chipper, but the chipper would be well lubricated because I'd feed the Democrats in first.  I wish everyone would stop pretending as if we had more than a bare handful of mature adults in the entire Federal Government.

Personally I liked Simpson-Bowles.  It pissed off everyone and should have been passed into law based on that fact alone.  Anything that the Dems and Repubs hate that much can only be good.

Also, what do you mean by "your" elected officials?  Everyone I've seen who's identified their political stance is either a Libertarian or a Liberal.  Are you not American?

My take on the cliff:

Pol A: "Oh noes! Raising taxes and cutting spending could kill our economy!"

Pol B: "Oh noes you are right! Let's debate about how we should raise taxes and cut spending"

Pol A: "Good idea"

RuralEngineer wrote: Obama is willing to allow 98% of Americans to suffer in return for raising taxes that equates to about 8 days of the Federal budget.  Taxing income above $1 million at 100% only raises about $600 billion...not even enough to cover the deficit, let alone make any dent in the debt.  This is assuming that the tax increases won't have a negative impact on the economy, which is fairly well accepted as I understand it.

Let's be realistic here.  Obama has all the cards.  If we go over the cliff, defense spending gets cut, but no entitlement programs do.  That deafening sound you hear on January 2nd will be every K street defense lobbyist firing up their speed dial and making their favorite R house member cry uncle.

Also, Obama didn't propose raising taxes only on those over 1 million in income.  That was Boehner's plan B.

Also, what do you mean by "your" elected officials?  Everyone I've seen who's identified their political stance is either a Libertarian or a Liberal.  Are you not American?

My elected representative is a D so it does me no good to complain that over half the country voted for people that would hold their tax cuts hostage because they want to help their millionaire buddies out.

Melveyr is right,  the entire thing is stupid.  We should not be raising taxes or cutting spending at all right now,

Pointedstick wrote: I wonder what they think they're gaining by engaging in this dangerous brinksmanship.

Keeping their integrity by not compromising on their principles?  Isn't that kind of the problem with America today, lack of integrity?

Storm wrote: Melveyr is right,  the entire thing is stupid.  We should not be raising taxes or cutting spending at all right now,

Storm for President!!!

A good article on NPR about the tea party conservatives that are urging representatives to say no to a deal.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/stor ... =167949179

A lot of choice biases in there, this one in particular:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reactance_(psychology)

"It weakens the entire Republican Party, the Republican majority," Rep. Steven LaTourette, R-Ohio, said Thursday night shortly after rank-and-file Republicans rejected Boehner's "Plan B" — a measure that would have prevented tax increases on all Americans but million-dollar earners.

"I mean it's the continuing dumbing down of the Republican Party and we are going to be seen more and more as a bunch of extremists that can't even get a majority of our own people to support policies that we're putting forward," LaTourette said. "If you're not a governing majority, you're not going to be a majority very long."

It's a concern that does not seem to resonate with conservatives such as tea party activist Frank Smith of Cheyenne, Wyo. He cheered Boehner's failure as a victory for anti-tax conservatives and a setback for Obama, just six weeks after the president won re-election on a promise to cut the deficit in part by raising taxes on incomes exceeding $250,000.

Smith said his "hat's off" to those Republicans in Congress who rejected their own leader's plan.

"Let's go over the cliff and see what's on the other side," the blacksmith said. "On the other side" are tax increases for most Americans, not just the top earners, though that point seemed lost on Smith, who added: "We have a day of reckoning coming, whether it's next week or next year. Sooner or later the chickens are coming home to roost. Let's let them roost next week."

To be honest, I'm not sure what bias or fallacy would cause someone to think that having everyone's taxes go up is better than having only 1 or 2% of the population have their taxes go up.  These tea-tards are giving the rest of the party a bad name.

I'd love to be a fly on the wall when you try to explain to Frank Smith, the blacksmith in the above quotes, MMT/MMR and how eliminating the federal debt would effectively bankrupt the private sector.

It is truly painful to watch both sides argue about what combination of spending and tax moves should be made to tackle "our huge national debt problem."

We need a trillion dollar coin, now.  I can't stand to listen to it any more. The political theater alone would be well worth the move.  Could you imagine what the deficit scolds would say?

Storm wrote: My elected representative is a D so it does me no good to complain that over half the country voted for people that would hold their tax cuts hostage because they want to help their millionaire buddies out.

Unfortunately the link above about logical fallacies seems to be broken but that sentence in your argument reminded me of this one....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poisoning_the_well

Have you considered going into politics yourself?

Why is this thread not about Democrats being unwilling to do entitlement reform?

Hypocritical thread about Hyporcrits?

(Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa, Inception music plays in the background)

Taleb (The Black Swan guy) on the cliff.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/24/opini ... inion&_r=0

Bean wrote: Why is this thread not about Democrats being unwilling to do entitlement reform?

Hypocritical thread about Hyporcrits?

(Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa, Inception music plays in the background)

http://inception.davepedu.com/

BWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAN

Here are two very reasonable politicians on both sides of the aisle:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p8m0JfCzAVA

"What we ought to do is take Speaker Boehner's last offer; the President's last offer, split the difference..."  Kent Conrad - D North Dakota

"Tax rate hikes are a part of the solution proposed by the President, but he's going to get tax rate hikes.  To my Republican colleagues, if we can protect 99% of the American public from a tax hike, that is not a tax increase in my books..."  Lindsey Graham - R South Carolina

Why can't more of the house R be like Lindsay Graham?  What they are doing now is throwing 100% of us under the bus out of principle.

I heard a good analogy the other day:

Imagine you find a large swimming pool where 100 people are drowning.  If you are able to save 99 of them, wouldn't you do so?  Or do you decide not to save any of them unless you can save all 100?

Storm wrote: Here are two very reasonable politicians on both sides of the aisle:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p8m0JfCzAVA

"What we ought to do is take Speaker Boehner's last offer; the President's last offer, split the difference..."  Kent Conrad - D North Dakota

"Tax rate hikes are a part of the solution proposed by the President, but he's going to get tax rate hikes.  To my Republican colleagues, if we can protect 99% of the American public from a tax hike, that is not a tax increase in my books..."  Lindsey Graham - R South Carolina

Why can't more of the house R be like Lindsay Graham?  What they are doing now is throwing 100% of us under the bus out of principle.

I heard a good analogy the other day:

Imagine you find a large swimming pool where 100 people are drowning.  If you are able to save 99 of them, wouldn't you do so?  Or do you decide not to save any of them unless you can save all 100?

Yeap, lets tax our way out of this(Sisyphus) or we could address the real problem of entitlements.

Bean wrote: Why is this thread not about Democrats being unwilling to do entitlement reform?

What is there left to do other than apply means-testing for SS or negotiate bulk discounts for Medicare?  There's no general welfare anymore.  Its all work requirements.  Republicans act like we're still living in the 70's with huge tracts of public housing and Welfare Queens driving Cadillacs.

MachineGhost wrote: There's no general welfare anymore.  Its all work requirements. 

Didn't Der leader get rid of those?

MachineGhost wrote:

Bean wrote: Why is this thread not about Democrats being unwilling to do entitlement reform?

What is there left to do other than apply means-testing for SS or negotiate bulk discounts for Medicare?  There's no general welfare anymore.  Its all work requirements.  Republicans act like we're still living in the 70's with huge tracts of public housing and Welfare Queens driving Cadillacs.

The programs were never designed to support this large of a percentage of the population.  Heck, when social security was created, the eligibility age was two years short of the average expected life.

So you are right, it is like we are still living in the 70s.

there's another thread running about shrinking population...might this have lots to do w/ the current finances / entitlement programs? Many more claiming benefits than the system could ever possible sustain as percentage of the workforce? Not to mention the gold-plated pensions of public sector workers.

The programs were never designed to support this large of a percentage of the population.  Heck, when social security was created, the eligibility age was two years short of the average expected life.

Wasn't this debunked on this forum a while back? Life expectancy WAS a lot lower back then but it was due to higher mortatlity in infancy and childhoof (infectious diseases) and more dangerous workplaces, not due to people who reached retirement at 65 dying as soon as they were able to receive SS. Even in 1900 (I'm assuming things had improved even more by 1935; 13 years of remaining life seems to be the average then) someone who reached 65 could (actuarially speaking) expect to live 10 or 11 more years. Anyway, the increase in life expectancy for the bottom 30 or 40% of income earners has been almost offset by the increase to age 67 anyway.

We MAY (depending on how the economy performs in the future) have a problem with too many SS recipients vs SS contributors but it seems that is due more to people having fewer children than anticipated, not due to seniors failing to keel over a year or two after they started receiving SS.

http://www.slate.com/articles/health_an ... e_age.html - life expectancy at 65 in 1900

http://www.ssa.gov/history/lifeexpect.html - life expectancy at 65 in 1935

Benko wrote:

MachineGhost wrote: There's no general welfare anymore.  Its all work requirements. 

Didn't Der leader get rid of those?

I believe you're right, he did change something on that front, but I don't recall the details.  The states can still set their own work requirement rules, however.  CA requires you to engage in welfare-to-work as a precondition for getting SNAP.  I think the more lax states are in the Rust Belt where you have a higher proportion of unemployed and few jobs.... understandable.

But sometimes I wonder if people realize how little "welfare benefits" are relative to the high cost of living.  For the means-tested programs that one somehow manages to qualify for by living in a cardboard box...  SSI is $698/mo, SNAP is $133/mo.  So, does anyone still want to pull the rug out from under people seriously dependent on those pithy amounts?  It's not like you can buy and drive a Cadillac on that!  It's not even minimum wage, nevermind living wage.

Are we proposing we means-test recipients of the earnings-contribution programs such as OASI and SSDI?  Wouldn't that be fraud?  Highly controversial.

I think seriously tax code reform (i.e. eliminating loopholes and subsidies, pro-growth policies) will do more than squeezing what are only minor concessions left from the entitlement programs.  Medicaid is already farmed out to be run by private or non-profit insurance companies.  Now, maybe there is room for improvement in Medicare, but private companies (Medicare Advantage) are offering is the same or better services for the same monthly cost as Medicare.  What's left to do other than eliminate the public-option and how will that improve anything other than cost-shift the time bomb to the private sector which now can't deny anyone with a pre-existing condition?

My prediction - last minute capitulation by the Republicans.  They can't win the optics on this one:

Senator John McCain of Arizona said his fellow Republicans will stop insisting on using a new inflation measure that would lead to smaller Social Security cost-of-living increases.

“It’s not a winning argument to say benefits for seniors versus tax breaks for rich people,”? McCain told reporters.

If they go over the cliff they are basically saying "fuck you, 99% of America.  We're bought and paid for by the 1%."

Storm wrote: My prediction - last minute capitulation by the Republicans.  They can't win the optics on this one:

Senator John McCain of Arizona said his fellow Republicans will stop insisting on using a new inflation measure that would lead to smaller Social Security cost-of-living increases.

“It’s not a winning argument to say benefits for seniors versus tax breaks for rich people,”? McCain told reporters.

If they go over the cliff they are basically saying "fuck you, 99% of America.  We're bought and paid for by the 1%."

I think you underestimate their stupidity.

My prediction:

They allow us to go over the cliff and end up with HIGHER taxes on a LARGER percentage of the people with SMALLER or NO spending cuts.  In other words, they'll trade their burger for a turd on a stick because it wasn't the t-bone steak they were wanting.

RuralEngineer wrote: I think you underestimate their stupidity.

My prediction:

They allow us to go over the cliff and end up with HIGHER taxes on a LARGER percentage of the people with SMALLER or NO spending cuts.  In other words, they'll trade their burger for a turd on a stick because it wasn't the t-bone steak they were wanting.

You could be right.  These high stakes negotiations are all about who blinks at the last minute.  In the end, nobody wants to go over the cliff.  We'll know who's right tomorrow, but I predict a last minute deal just like the last minute debt ceiling deal.

I picture it like 2 drunk teenagers driving their parent's muscle cars in the 70s, playing a game of chicken.  They are driving towards each other at 90 mph, and whoever swerves at the last split second ends up flipping the car over in a ditch.  Or, nobody swerves and they find out what happens when the human body absorbs 180mph of energy in a split second...