JayB Posted January 4, 2011 Author Posted January 4, 2011 You sure about that? Do you really think it's primarily official tax regimes that explain the difference between France, Germany, and the countries with massive housing bubbles? If you can point to a specific set of tax policies that are present in Germany/France and absent anywhere that a real-estate bubble has developed that'd be very interesting. I suspect that the answer is more elusive than that - but link away if you've got good evidence to support that idea. Quote
JayB Posted January 4, 2011 Author Posted January 4, 2011 just in case you have lingering doubts the 100 billions bailout of Ireland wasn't for southern Europe. True - in Ireland's case it's Ireland's taxpayers that'll be bailing out the Northern European creditors that lent them hundreds of billions of dollars to fuel a speculative property bubble that should have been obvious to anything with an IQ higher than an amoeba's. Amoebas. Are you referring to the banking elite that have the gold-plated educations in economics from the world's finest universities that are and will continue to enjoy absurdly opulent lifestyles as a result of them taking the country down the tubes or are you talking about the Irish citizenry who, like Americans, have been forced fed and stupidly believed the free market, deregulatory, trickle-down, home-ownership horseshit from political elites and business-friendly media? There are many kinds of amoebas, but if you're referring to New-Classical/New-Keynesian economists that fell in love with idealized mathematical models of the economy - then we're talking about a special kind of Ptolemaic-astronomy stupidity that is a couple of orders of magnitude dumber than the folks who found themselves terminally leveraged without a greater fool to sell to. Quote
prole Posted January 4, 2011 Posted January 4, 2011 Nice try, but your conflation of neo-classicals with Keynesians doesn't hold any historical water. Attempting to do so in order to absolve neoliberal policy of lion's share responsibility for the financial meltdown and the fiscal aftermath simply tells me that your still in the denial stage. That conflation coupled with your born-again critique of economics (Marxian irony alert!) suggests that you're only auguring deeper into the utopian pure market fantasy. Quote
Hugh Conway Posted January 4, 2011 Posted January 4, 2011 I suspect that the answer is more elusive than that - but link away if you've got good evidence to support that idea. I've been linking for years and you still spew the same shit, why would I bother? You want your Europe is doomed fantasy, have it. sorry, I had my vision of the future stuck in traffic as the snot-faced high school brats got out and swarmed across the street, Sergey Brin (no shit, actually that pasty faced fuck) bought his new AstonMartin, and the mexican slave laborers refused to make eye contact with anyone Quote
JayB Posted January 4, 2011 Author Posted January 4, 2011 More American-style pension reforms should clear the problem right up! Together Again: More Retirees Moving in With Children Since 1980, one-third more Americans are living in multigenerational households When the value of stocks and bonds in your portfolio has declined, tapping the bonds of your family can be a valuable asset — especially in retirement. Joseph Jastrzebski, a 68-year-old manager at Home Depot, wants to retire soon. When he does, he and his wife, Valerie, plan to move in with extended family. The Sayreville, N.J., couple already live part-time with their daughter, son-in-law and grandchildren. Once they sell the family home the Jastrzebskis will move in permanently. "It will afford us an opportunity to save money and have something left for our children," says Valerie, a 63-year-old secretary. "We are doing it because this is a situation that presented itself that is ideal for everyone." Valerie's daughter, Sarah, mother of a five-month-old boy and step-mom to two teenagers, is working as an administrative assistant while studying for a master's degree in holistic health studies. She agrees combining their households makes sense. "A lot of times now with retirement we see someone ends up in a nursing home or other facility like that," Sarah says. "I think staying with your family is the way to go." As retirement investments have been eroded during this economic crisis, the number of multi-generational family households has been growing — returning to a trend from half a century ago. Since 1980, there has been a 33 percent increase in Americans living in multigenerational households. Investors may be recouping some of losses than have sunk their 401(k)s and other retirement portfolios over the past two years, but not enough to keep many soon-to-be retirees from worrying. "What we're seeing here is they don't have confidence in what they think of as the public safety net — a pension plan," says Paul Taylor of the Pew Research Center. "So they are reverting to the age old private safety net, and that's the family. The Pew Research Center found the number of Americans living in multigenerational households grew by 2.6 million between 2007 and 2008, the most recent data available. ( Read the entire Pew study here.) For many families, this living arrangement has significant financial benefits. The Jastrzebskis won't have to pay rent or a mortgage when they move in with their daughter's family. They'll also help defray household expenses for daughter Sarah's family and care for their grandchildren. "We are not paying anything per-se to live here," Valerie says. "But if there is something we see in the house that is needed, we buy it. It is a whole family situation. It is not them and us." Quite a bit tougher when there are no children to move in with, no? Quote
JayB Posted January 4, 2011 Author Posted January 4, 2011 Nice try, but your conflation of neo-classicals with Keynesians doesn't hold any historical water. Attempting to do so in order to absolve neoliberal policy of lion's share responsibility for the financial meltdown and the fiscal aftermath simply tells me that your still in the denial stage. That conflation coupled with your born-again critique of economics (Marxian irony alert!) suggests that you're only auguring deeper into the utopian pure market fantasy. There really aren't very many pure Keynesians around anymore in the realm of practicing economists, other than New-Keynesians. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Keynesian_economics IMO the main one-line-summary difference I can detect between them and the new-classicals is that they tend to believe in fiscal stimulus and the new-classicals tend to believe in monetary stimulus. Other than that I from what I can tell they're pretty much the same page when it comes to being preoccupied with constructing and perturbing highly formalized DSGE* models of the economy that assume many of the conclusions that they're attempting to prove. Good summary of the problems with that approach below. http://blogs.ft.com/maverecon/2009/03/the-unfortunate-uselessness-of-most-state-of-the-art-academic-monetary-economics/ IMO the main problem for folks like you is that you have had massive asset bubbles everywhere from highly liberalized economy's like Irelands, to places with heavily administered mercantilist-cartel models like Japans, and its very difficult to identify a plausible set of crazy-ass Friedmanite market zealots calling the shots everywhere that leveraged speculation has ended badly in the past 40 years, much less in the historical context ranging from the South Sea bubble onwards. *http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamic_stochastic_general_equilibrium Quote
JayB Posted January 4, 2011 Author Posted January 4, 2011 That's what homeless shelters are for, no? Might be able to outsource the parents to India and other places where its still customary to 1)have children, and 2)take care of one's parents or...grant permanent visas to third world families on the condition that they provide home-care for a pair of aging, barren first-world hedonists. Quote
JayB Posted January 4, 2011 Author Posted January 4, 2011 Thought a little gallows humor might lighten the mood. One of these days you're going to have to at least make a pretense of understanding the topics that you throw out there as a pretext for going meta. Elinor Ostrom, Diedre McCloskey, and Nassim Taleb might be good places to start. Quote
Hugh Conway Posted January 4, 2011 Posted January 4, 2011 One of these days you're going to have to at least make a pretense of understanding the topics that you throw out there as a pretext for going meta. Elinor Ostrom, Diedre McCloskey, and Nassim Taleb might be good places to start. I believe you meant pretentious Jay_B. Quote
Hugh Conway Posted January 4, 2011 Posted January 4, 2011 Now back to the usual anti-"Europe" screed. If you keep pointing out how bad off someone else is maybe you'll forget how much America sucks. Quote
prole Posted January 4, 2011 Posted January 4, 2011 It is good to see economics as a discipline rediscovering political economy, however much destruction it's taken to drag it to begin to grudgingly acknowledge what the critical social sciences have understood for decades. Your own personal conversion is somewhat less inspiring if only due to your trying to convince us it's been your position all along. It's rather creepy really. Quote
JayB Posted January 4, 2011 Author Posted January 4, 2011 How much does America suck? Can't think of anywhere I'd rather live than the PNW in the USA. Bits of the intermountain west come in second, and outside of the US I give high marks to BC and selected bits of NZ. Looking forward to visiting other places with mountain landscapes to play in, but really wouldn't want to create a life there. Where is your preferred alternative and why aren't you living there? You gotta be pushing 40 - how much longer are you going to suffer here? Quote
Hugh Conway Posted January 4, 2011 Posted January 4, 2011 Can't think of anywhere I'd rather live than the PNW in the USA. Nice to see the brainwashing worked The Alps (French, Swiss, Austrian, German, Italian, Slovenian) are the best place in the world for a mountain enthusiast - but intra-Euro immigration has filled their quotas currently(you need a stick to beat off the Scandos and flatlanders); living in a big city with a decent commute to mountains is living in a big city with a decent commute to mountains; whatever the benefits you gain from leaving are offset by the drawbacks of restarting. Quote
KaskadskyjKozak Posted January 5, 2011 Posted January 5, 2011 Can't think of anywhere I'd rather live than the PNW in the USA. Bits of the intermountain west come in second, and outside of the US I give high marks to BC and selected bits of NZ. Looking forward to visiting other places with mountain landscapes to play in, but really wouldn't want to create a life there. Quote
prole Posted January 5, 2011 Posted January 5, 2011 Can't think of anywhere I'd rather live than the PNW in the USA. Bits of the intermountain west come in second, and outside of the US I give high marks to BC and selected bits of NZ. Looking forward to visiting other places with mountain landscapes to play in, but really wouldn't want to create a life there. Yeah, Washington's great, as long as you're not trying to create a life in many of the places you're driving through to get to the mountains: Aberdeen Arlington Blaine Bremerton Burien Burlington Camas Carnation Centralia Concrete Darrington Des Moines Ellensburg Enumclaw Everson Federal Way Ferndale Fife Forks Gig Harbor Hamilton Hoquiam Kent Lynden Marysville Montesano Mukilteo Nooksack Pateros Puyallup Seatac Seedro Shelton Stanwood Sultan Tukwila Vancouver Yakima or Zilla Quote
Fairweather Posted January 5, 2011 Posted January 5, 2011 Where is your preferred alternative and why aren't you living there? You gotta be pushing 40 - how much longer are you going to suffer here? We've all seen the Meme Brother's alternative. It usually begins with a requisite cleansing and goes downhill from there. Quote
Hugh Conway Posted January 5, 2011 Posted January 5, 2011 Where is your preferred alternative and why aren't you living there? You gotta be pushing 40 - how much longer are you going to suffer here? We've all seen the Meme Brother's alternative. It usually begins with a good cleansing and goes downhill from there. oddly the "socialist" nations have worked hard to support small towns in the mountains - it's your ilk who kick them in the nuts while feeding them stupid lifestyle caramels Quote
KaskadskyjKozak Posted January 5, 2011 Posted January 5, 2011 Yeah, Washington's great, as long as you're not trying to create a life in many of the places you're driving through to get to the mountains: Aberdeen Arlington Blaine Bremerton Burien Burlington Camas Carnation Centralia Concrete Darrington Des Moines Ellensburg Enumclaw Everson Federal Way Ferndale Fife Forks Gig Harbor Hamilton Hoquiam Kent Lynden Marysville Montesano Mukilteo Nooksack Pateros Puyallup Seatac Seedro Shelton Stanwood Sultan Tukwila Vancouver Yakima or Zilla I call bullshit. You know you are big admirer (and frequent visitor to) Enumclaw. baa Quote
prole Posted January 5, 2011 Posted January 5, 2011 Thought a little gallows humor might lighten the mood. What's next, are you going to chop off your finger? Quote
j_b Posted January 5, 2011 Posted January 5, 2011 Where is your preferred alternative and why aren't you living there? You gotta be pushing 40 - how much longer are you going to suffer here? We've all seen the Meme Brother's alternative. It usually begins with a requisite cleansing and goes downhill from there. check out the fascistic goon buddying up to JayB and trying to smear people with his wild fantasies of gulags. WHat a fucking moron. Quote
Fairweather Posted January 5, 2011 Posted January 5, 2011 Let us know when you two dipshits get all the "bugs" worked out of your plan. Maybe we'll come by and visit. Quote
j_b Posted January 5, 2011 Posted January 5, 2011 incoherent drivel. Totally useless, except if one needed a henchman to guard the criminals. Quote
prole Posted January 5, 2011 Posted January 5, 2011 It's always been apparent that FW's greatest aspiration was to be a Kapo. Quote
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