tvashtarkatena

"Tell me about the bunnies, George."

Neoclassical Economics in a nutsack. JayB has sophistry issues. He can't debate his way out of a nutsack, because he can't seem to remember what the topic of debate is. For example, here we've got an American budget balancing calculator, with all the proposals levied so far to to address the problem, that clearly illustrates the various options (and there are many) for getting rid of the deficit...and he hauls out a marginal European graph of herring catches per fortnight ratios. As if Europe was one country. And that country was us. Or something like that. Maybe. Include taxing the rich (duh) as part of the solution and he responds with a graph that shows that such taxation won't get rid of the entire deficit (um...OK...duh). It's like arguing with an 8 year old. It's really not his fault. He needs a Unified Theory of Economics with fewer than three parameters to avoid brain-stall.

That's because you didn't include WW2 in your data: http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/taxfacts/displayafact.cfm?Docid=205 marginal rates (your site) http://www.truthandpolitics.org/top-rates.php tax revenue as 20.9% of GDP in 1944, up from 13.3% of GDP in 1943. Marginal rate went from 88% to 94%. You'll also notice how far the top bracket fell in that time period as well. Similar occured earlier in the century when the top bracket went from 7% to 77% in 3 years I realize though that "facts" are uncomfortably at odds with your ideology. If the relationship between top marginal rates and revenues is a simple function of marginal rates and income thresholds then every cut in top marginal rates should result in a proportionate reduction in tax revenues, and should never lead to an increase - right? There's a reason that the Euro's like broad consumption taxes in addition to high marginal rates, because they figured out that there's not enough aggregated income in whatever income threshold they deem wealthy to cover the bills. You're actually quite thick when you get right down to it. ADHD? I don't know...who cares (other than Billcoe)? In any case, 10 minutes on the NYT budget balancer immediately reveals that all the doomsday talk about the necessity of 'overhauling entitlements' is, as we would expect, utter bullshit. It's the umpteenth round of the Right's ideological agenda, slightly rebranded for an even dumber America. Rub your knob all you want about European marginal tax rates and marginal/GDP ratios with all the 'outlier' data removed, but the numbers for OUR budget and its competing fix-it proposals speak pretty clearly for themselves. Ah, when politics dresses up like science. Ah sho loves me some BULLSHIT!

Throwing up one's hands and claiming 'it's too complex' is a great strategy for 'trusting the experts'. The 'experts', in this case legislators, are no smarter or more experienced (and the newbies often less) than anyone else. It isn't 'that simple'...it also isn't 'that hard' either. Work from your basic principles: social justice, for example, and the path usually flows pretty readily from there. As the NYT budget tool shows, it really isn't all that hard, although it is, of course, very political.

Or increase marginal rates on the wealthy and eliminate loopholes. Uh-huh.

With any of these policy proposals, you want to avoid a) firing people and b) driving at-risk people below the poverty line. Even if you're a sociopath who doesn't give a shit about these folks, they only strain social and law enforcement services more as a result - which makes the budget problem even worse. Taxing the wealthiest, of course, minimizes these problems. It represents a minor hit to people and businesses that can easily afford it.

The NYT has a great interactive tool where you can balance the budget yourself using all the proposals that have been put on the political table. I balanced the budget in about 10 minutes. Google it.

Obviously, if taxing the rich isn't enough, we need to do even more. Agreed. Massively cutting the military comes to mind. Hope you can keep your job if that happens. Of course, there is not reason whatsoever to leave the low-hanging-fruit of tax revenues from the hyperwealthy on the table. That would be kind of stupid. But, yes, we need to do much more. No one here, other than you and perhaps JayB (hard to figure out any of his, um, 'points') has claimed that taxing the rich would solve the problem completely. Unless you thought that's what we've been saying. Which would also be kind of stupid.

Bingo. If Obama had been using the fireworks from the speech last night to define the Administration's narrative from the get-go, the terms of the debate would look far different than they do now. A radical Ryan-plan would never pass the trial balloon stage. This is more of the same: allow the Right to frame the debate for a couple months, meet them "half-way", give an amazing speech, and then negotiate everything away. We should, as Greenwald does, be asking if this is by design. If it is, the liberal punditry that's eating out of Obama's hand today are getting played. Have to agree with that. While the Repubs always fail at governing they are crafty at politics. Something the Dems appear to be cluess about. You guys really need to check out the negotiated numbers sometime before you circle jerk each other like this.

So both you and JayB support taxing the rich, plus other measures. There's lots of common ground here if you look for it.

Our Museum of Flight failed to snag a space shuttle.

Interesting since it seems the rich have just as much trouble (if not more) "keeping their families together". that might be true, but that's generally more b/c they can afford 6k$/day coke habits? don't think the rich folks family problems revolve so much around keeping their kids in health insurance, w/ a roof over their heads, in a decent school, etc. etc. Would be interesting to compare the experiences of various poor immigrant groups with just as little money as the "native" poor and see how they score on all of the metrics of family dysfunction - divorce, delinquency, dependency, illegitimacy, etc. Willing to bet that household income would explain relatively little of the variance between groups that are equally poor. Interesting for a cyber voyeuristic sociopath with a bigotry issues, perhaps. For the rest of us, not so much.

You're not truly rich until you leave cocaine Berluti-prints when you leave the penthouse.

I should totally have my own Talk Radio show.

Hey, I hear we've even got an election coming up. Listen for that refreshing sound of reason and compromise.... ...except from Bachmann, et al, of course, but her party wrote her Stepford ass off a long, long time ago.

Contrary to some opinions here, the Tea Party has been crashed. The Dems knew that if they won (it was more of a slaughter) this round, they'd practically not even have to show up for the debt limit 'fight'. The Mandaterz can puff themselves up in the mirror all they want about the 'looming battle royale', but the old guard Rs...and most of the rest of us, I'd wager, already know that the only thing that's bleeding after this amateurish attempt to push a Trojan Horse, Plastic-Jebus-Meets-Bleed-the-Weak (oh, excuse, me, 'freeloaders') agenda is Ryan's asshole. This paves the way for more reasonable, compassionate budget reform: taxing the rich (duh) and, hopefully, real military spending cuts (ditto duh). But hey, thanks for all the street theatre. I only caught it after the fact, but it did bring me no small amount of joy.

I'd wager that a large number of all of us, if not all, would prefer if someone else foot the bill. Fortunately, the rich are a) in the minority and b) have the money to spare.

The well to do's I've talked to realize their taxes are low...too low - according to the older folks with a sense of history. Rich or poor; nobody voluntarily pays more taxes than owed, of course. These folks have told me they wouldn't have a problem paying Clinton era taxes.

You do remind me of Mr. Lahey, with the exception that he's actually taken seriously on occasion.

This would represent 16 to 20 % of all retail sales of electricity in the U.S., which, of course, is utter bullshit.

Hint: There is no victory to chant about. Ever. Just more bickering. Such is the way of the angry, hairless monkey.

Yeah, pretty much. That must explain why you failed to notice that Obama was regurgitating the deficit drivel and ignoring the creating jobs mandate. ...would that include his tax-da-rich plan? D'oh!

Yeah, pretty much. Doomsday predictions have a curious way of sorting themselves out.

Oprah's hiring analysts, guys. Go after that shit.