j_b

did you redo your math, because both Baker and Johnson disagreed on your arithmetic or CBS's version, which you bought hook, line and sinker?

gee, I didn't see this coming LOL Let's give more tax breaks to corporations (misnomer because most already don't pay taxes), it'll make them reconsider, for sure. How long will American youth accept to be canon fodder for imperial policies now that it is clear the looters are jumping ship?

except that Baker doesn't make shit up as he goes along the way you do. Both Baker and Johnson explicitly say that level of states spending didn't grow faster than the economy, but here you go again pretending the opposite.

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and the Baker piece on the topic where he develops a little more what he touches on in the interview above: The piece also told viewers at the onset: "There is also a trillion dollar hole iln their public pension funds." In fact, this shortfall is overwhelmingly attributable to the plunge in the stock market that followed in the wake of the collapse of the housing bubble. According to Federal Reserve Board data (Table L.119) if pension fund assets had increased at just a 5 percent nominal rate since the 4th quarter of 2007, they would have $935 billion more money at the end of the third quarter than is currently reported. "

Comments by Nicholas Johnson of CBPP on the 60 minutes program: State Budgets Nicholas Johnson of the CBPP sets the record straight on state finances: Some Right, Some Wrong in “60 Minutes” Story on State Budgets, CBPP: Last night’s CBS "60 Minutes" piece on state budgets made some important points but also — through some big mistakes and omissions — gave a deeply misleading impression of the state budget situation. Here’s what it got right: * As correspondent Steve oft put it, “The ‘great recession’ wrecked [states’] economies and shriveled their income.” State revenues are about 12 percent below pre-recession levels, after adjusting for inflation, yet the cost of basic services like education and health care — the two largest areas of state and local spending — is rising. * The real pain from states’ current fiscal problems has been visited on the most vulnerable people, from low-income families needing medical care in Arizona to recipients of mental-health assistance in Illinois. That’s because states are required to balance their budgets — they cannot borrow to cover operating expenses. States have responded to the loss of revenues, in part, by cutting health care services and payments to nonprofits that serve the needy. * Fiscal year 2012 (which will begin next July 1 in most states) will be the most challenging year yet for state budgets. States have largely drawn down their reserves, revenues are still depressed, and emergency aid from the federal government (hardly the “bailout” CBS suggested, but rather a way to keep more people working and protect a fragile economic recovery) is expiring. Here’s what "60 Minutes" got wrong: * Contrary to Kroft’s claim, states aren’t guilty of “reckless spending.” Total state and local spending, not including federal grants, is no larger now as a share of the economy than it was 20 years ago, according to U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis data. (Federal grants to states have grown over this period to cover rising state Medicaid costs that result from health care inflation and a rising number of families without private health insurance.) State general fund spending in 2011 will be 6 percent lower than it was in 2008, without adjusting for inflation... * Underfunding of state and local pension funds did not cause states’ current fiscal problems and is not an immediate crisis. To be sure, some states have failed to make required pension contributions, including New Jersey (which in past years chose instead to cut taxes) and Illinois (which has a chronic revenue shortage due to political gridlock over modernizing its tax system). Nevertheless, the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College estimates that states and localities could restore pension systems to health by raising their contributions moderately once their revenues recover from the recession and/or by adjusting benefits, retirement ages, and similar policies. Many states are already starting to do both. http://economistsview.typepad.com/economistsview/2010/12/state-budgets.html

is it really all that you have to say to Mr Baker who blew your specious arguments out of the water?

False. As Baker says before the looters crashed the economy there wasn't a large state budgets shortfall. It doesn't mean that it was sustainable, just that there was NOT an urgent problem contrarily to your gratuitous assertion. Did you actually do the math yourself? I didn't think so. Why don't you take your own advice? That guy, Dean Baker, was already discussing the real estate bubble in 2005: http://www.calculatedriskblog.com/2005/07/dr-baker-housing-bubble-fact-sheet.html

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If regressives are so concerned about public services, why aren't they going after the bloated salaries of corporate America that got bailed out by the taxpayer? Posturing hypocrites!

If anyone has any doubt where these CEO's wages and bonuses are coming from: "What have we learned so far from the disclosure of more than 21,000 transactions? We have learned that the $700 billion Wall Street bailout signed into law by President George W. Bush turned out to be pocket change compared to the trillions and trillions of dollars in near-zero interest loans and other financial arrangements the Federal Reserve doled out to every major financial institution in this country. Among those are Goldman Sachs, which received nearly $600 billion; Morgan Stanley, which received nearly $2 trillion; Citigroup, which received $1.8 trillion; Bear Stearns, which received nearly $1 trillion, and Merrill Lynch, which received some $1.5 trillion in short term loans from the Fed. We also learned that the Fed's multi-trillion bailout was not limited to Wall Street and big banks, but that some of the largest corporations in this country also received a very substantial bailout. Among those are General Electric, McDonald's, Caterpillar, Harley Davidson, Toyota and Verizon." http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rep-bernie-sanders/a-real-jaw-dropper-at-the_b_791091.html

because the upward transfer of wealth that occurred over the 30+ years isn't wealth redistribution?

He is in part and the rest comes from the consumer. Verizon does get quite a bit of subsidy from the government. So does the rest of corporate America that got bailed out or got huge interest free loans over the last 2 years. These bloated corporate wages are coming out of the taxpayers' pockets anyway you want to look at it. http://voices.washingtonpost.com/posttech/2010/07/att_verizon_get_most_federal_a.html

you still refuse to acknowledge that effectively competing with people making a few dollars a day, without accounting for environmental degradation, implies there won't be a tax base to pay for services. But, please, keep focusing on the details to build your strawman rather than address the concepts.

Reading JayB ask what is better for the public good is nauseating enough but he still hasn't understood that once everybody earns the minimum wage there won't any money for services.

Messianic faith indeed, for there is no evidence that monopolies cannot endure indefinitely, especially once they are powerful enough to capture government (like today). Anyway, even if giving JayB's self-regulating wet dream the benefit of the doubt, what good would it do us that monopolies eventually perish down the road once they have destroyed all small and mid size competition. It's total nonsense, any which way you want to look at it.

better benefit packages in the public sector was explicitly understood to be a trade off for lower wages. Funny how regressives forgot that part, where public employees on average earned less than private sector employees but got better benefits and better job security. Of course, now that they forced private sector employees to compete with sweat shops from the land of the bottom cost so their effective wages haven't increased in 30 years, they claim that public employees earn too much. freaking hypocrites.

GOP Kills Bonds Program: Secret Plan to Bankrupt States, Bust Public Employee Unions? Posted by Art Levine on @ 6:02 pm The tax deal that passed Congress doesn’t just cost the federal government $850 billion in lost revenues. It also pushes state governments closer to defaulting on loans by failing to extend a federal subsidy program for states that has allowed them to raise billions and avoid bankruptcy. Cash-strapped state such as California and Illinois could indeed default on their loans, which would also cause the vital market in municipal bonds to plummet, a trend already underway. So with states across the country facing a $140 billion shortfall next year, some experts and union advocates also see the GOP opposition to extending the bonds subsidy –despite its support from even some Republican mayors and governors — as part of a broader scheme to bust public employee unions and wipe out pensions. http://blogs.alternet.org/speakeasy/2010/12/17/gop-kills-bonds-program-secret-plan-to-bankrupt-states-bust-public-employee-unions/

Quoting a thought bubble of yours from 1989? Exactly. Slovoj Zizek recounts how uncannily the "we didn't go far enough" narrative that free-marketeers employ today mirrors that of the Stalinists of old. Hilarious. Indeed, but with a small correction: I have never supported the eastern block so I certainly didn't think or say any such thing in 1989 or ever. Good example of how red-baiting works btw.

I am for tariffs, subsidies and taxation as determined by developmental policies - and thereby providing cover for consolidation into oligopolies..... cheap stunt, and JayB forgot about antitrust laws, whiich is to be expected since the free market zealots haven't had any use for antitrust laws over the last 30+ years. It's convenient that JayB is also against anti-trust laws so that he can speak from both corners of his mouth.

if you believe that free market ideology has any other function than providing cover for consolidation into oligopolies. It takes a child to realize that a winner takes all rule leads to anything but "free markets".

I am for tariffs, subsidies and taxation as determined by developmental policies. A carbon tax and subsidy to alternative energies look really good right now.

Quoting a thought bubble of yours from 1989? Once more JayB showing the limits of his Manichean mind.

Non-sequitur. There is no need for a principled objection to bailouts or subsidies as long as the interest of AMericans are taken into account. People will always need a developmental policy out of the hands of crooks despite your gobbledygook about free markets emerging if left un-tampered.

ALright, it didn't work THIS time and it's all the fault of mathematical models, but just trust the hand waving.