Greeks Bearing Gifts....

[prole]

Thanks, Lick Sack Man!

 

JayB regularly posts thoughtful detailed, posts, chock full of plots, data, and citations. You, j_bot and other assclowns have nothing to post in response other than "you are wrong" coupled with lame insults and inanities. JayB may have the patience and feel it is worth replying to you as he does, but I don't. Lick sack is about all you really warrant for a response and your dancing gigolo video is just proof positive of that, not that further proof was required.

 

Actually, j_b has done a stand-up job of refuting most of Jay_B's cherry-picked distortions, statistical shell games, and ideological parlor games masquerading as "reason". None of which has ever gone anywhere. As you're fond of pointing out, this isn't the floor of the General Assembly of the United Nations, so what's your problem?

 

And, it's an "illusionist" for your information, not a gigolo.

[KaskadskyjKozak]

1)You are not a serious person to debate with (and you are mentally ill to boot).

2)All you want to do is harp on the same boring political bullshit endlessly. This is a climbing site, you moron.

 

still no response on topic from Attila.

 

There is no such thing as "on topic" on a flame-forum of a climbing web site you pathetic brain-dead freak.

[KaskadskyjKozak]

 

And, it's an "illusionist" for your information, not a gigolo.

 

You regressives are all alike with your absence of any sense of humor. Must be a genetic defect.

 

 

[prole]

Irony.

[KaskadskyjKozak]

Irony.

 

Try harder to be funny.

[prole]

But you don't even get the easy ones!

[j_b]

morons typically think that if you don't share their stupid sense of humor, you lack humor. Funny!

[KaskadskyjKozak]

morons typically think that if you don't share their stupid sense of humor, you lack humor. Funny!

 

progressives have no sense of humor

[prole]

Name one (intentionally) funny conservative.

[j_b]

progressives have no sense of humor

 

that must be why most of the decent humorists are liberal. Moron.

Edited June 15, 2011 by j_b

[Jim]

Thanks, Lick Sack Man!

 

JayB regularly posts thoughtful detailed, posts, chock full of plots, data, and citations. You, j_bot and other assclowns have nothing to post in response other than "you are wrong" coupled with lame insults and inanities. JayB may have the patience and feel it is worth replying to you as he does, but I don't. Lick sack is about all you really warrant for a response and your dancing gigolo video is just proof positive of that, not that further proof was required.

 

Actually, j_b has done a stand-up job of refuting most of Jay_B's cherry-picked distortions, statistical shell games, and ideological parlor games masquerading as "reason".

 

While I tend to agree with some of the basic concepts you and j_b are trying to explain - you both do he does a horrible job of making an argument -

 

 

 

Edited June 16, 2011 by Jim

[JayB]

When you factor in the value of transfer payments from the government (people that are paying income taxes) that goes a long way towards eliminating the effect of the "regressive" taxes on the folks at the lower ends of the income spectrum. I've posted various figures that demonstrated this quantitatively in the past.

 

My point when mentioning payroll and regressive taxes was to show that many more people pay taxes despite what your graph showed. It's a classic regressive talking point to only discuss federal income tax as if that was the only way people were taxed, which it isn't.

 

Ditto for the graphs showing that real hourly total compensation per worker has been rising steadily since whatever arbitrary starting point in the post WWII halcyon days that you want to choose. Most plots that show something different either use the statistical smudges like "households," or "income quintiles" instead of real hourly compensation per worker, and/or ignore the value of non-cash compensation and only tabulate money wages. That would make sense if benefits were free, but they aren't, so it doesn't.

 

Your "real hourly compensation" doesn't accurately account for real costs of living. One income family used to make the ends meet whereas many 2 income families can't make ends meet today. Their standard of living isn't higher than it used to be either (as shown by Warren's study among other evidence), so there is something wrong with your data, which isn't too surprising considering how many time methodologies have been tweaked to make numbers look better by successive administrations.

 

but none of the above addresses the salient points of my post above: inequalities that are as large as during the age of robber barons, trillions in profit not being taxed, paltry marginal rate of taxation, federal spending on many other things than the "welfare state", etc ...

 

-What data set are you using to define the total "cost of living." Some things cost more than they used to - most things cost less than they used to in real terms.

 

 

Etc, etc, etc, etc.

 

No one is forcing anyone to adopt a lifestyle that requires two incomes. The fact that people have chosen to adopt a lifestyle that does so is no one's business or problem other than their own. Everyone who overpaid for a McMansion or Luxury condo with an arm was equally free to choose to live in a modest apartment, rent a home in a less expensive neighborhood, or coop themselves up in a unabomber shack. Ditto for living someplace that requires two vehicles. Etc, etc, etc, etc.

 

If I presented you with papers stuffed with crappy data-sets that were full of confounding and/or improperly controlled variables for professional review in your capacity as a working scientist, you'd presumably toss them back to the authors in a nanosecond.

 

Why is it that you don't subject the data put forth to establish these social trends to the same level of scrutiny?

[prole]

Thanks, Lick Sack Man!

 

JayB regularly posts thoughtful detailed, posts, chock full of plots, data, and citations. You, j_bot and other assclowns have nothing to post in response other than "you are wrong" coupled with lame insults and inanities. JayB may have the patience and feel it is worth replying to you as he does, but I don't. Lick sack is about all you really warrant for a response and your dancing gigolo video is just proof positive of that, not that further proof was required.

 

Actually, j_b has done a stand-up job of refuting most of Jay_B's cherry-picked distortions, statistical shell games, and ideological parlor games masquerading as "reason".

 

While I tend to agree with some of the basic concepts you and j_b are trying to explain - you both do a horrible job of making an argument -

 

Well, that's okay because luckily there is a trove of well-reasoned, substantiated argumentation on virtually all of the topics that get brought up here. I often provide links to them in the contexts of those "discussions". I've always hoped that people here are spending more time reading those pieces and the places they lead to than on whatever I have the energy to bring to it, usually the polemical, nuance-free commentary that forums like this engender. Thanks for the feedback.

[Jim]

Well, that's okay because luckily there is a trove of well-reasoned, substantiated argumentation on virtually all of the topics that get brought up here.

 

Touche

[j_b]

-What data set are you using to define the total "cost of living." Some things cost more than they used to - most things cost less than they used to in real terms.

 

either you have a terrible memory or you are being disingenuous since we talked about this several times including a couple of weeks ago. But I'll say it once again and hopefully you'll remember next time you want to come up with the same talking points. Elisabeth Warren published a landmark study of middle class spending over the last 30 years and she found that consumer items indeed cost less (unsurprisingly the items that make up your cherry picked list) but people spend way more on a 2nd car for the other wage earner, day care, health care, housing, and taxes (payroll and sales + nickel and dime taxes), in other words most non elective spending went up. Thus the fable of the middle class overspending on elective items proved to be a myth.

 

No one is forcing anyone to adopt a lifestyle that requires two incomes.

 

as the very minimum consequence, without a 2nd income kids don't go to college especially after your type is done with completely privatizing education.

 

The fact that people have chosen to adopt a lifestyle that does so is no one's business or problem other than their own. Everyone who overpaid for a McMansion or Luxury condo with an arm was equally free to choose to live in a modest apartment, rent a home in a less expensive neighborhood, or coop themselves up in a unabomber shack.

 

while the rest of the time you argue for laissez faire policy tending toward urban sprawl and the refusal to fund public transit appropriately. way to speak out of both corners of your mouth.

 

Anyway, Warren found that people, on average, spend little more on big homes but much more on homes in good school districts as the quality of edu has decreased with the reforms and underfunding of the education system since the Reagan "revolution"

 

Ditto for living someplace that requires two vehicles. Etc, etc, etc, etc.

 

If I presented you with papers stuffed with crappy data-sets that were full of confounding and/or improperly controlled variables for professional review in your capacity as a working scientist, you'd presumably toss them back to the authors in a nanosecond.

 

Why is it that you don't subject the data put forth to establish these social trends to the same level of scrutiny?

 

First, Warren's work is peer reviewed by opposition to what the "scholars" at CATO put out or whatever think tank the Koch bros will think of. Second, do you need Warren's studies so that you can let us know what are your exact and precise criticism of her methodology?

 

but none of the above addresses the salient points of my post: inequalities that are as large as during the age of robber barons, trillions in profit not being taxed, paltry marginal rate of taxation, federal spending on many other things than the "welfare state", etc ...

Edited June 16, 2011 by j_b

[j_b]

While I tend to agree with some of the basic concepts you and j_b are trying to explain - you both do he does a horrible job of making an argument -

 

of course Jim, it's all about me and none about your tendency to take neoliberal talking points for granted.

 

That said, i am far from perfect and likely say silly things quite poorly. I am just waiting for someone to specifically point them out because wholesale accusations about me won't do.

Edited June 16, 2011 by j_b

[JayB]

Two year yields now at 28% and rising....oops - make that 29.6%...

 

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/quote?ticker=GGGB2YR:IND

 

[Jim]

Oh boy. That is nothing short of grim. I'm not sure what way is out for them right now. It ain't going to be pretty.

[prole]

It's called default. Oddly, people act like it's never happened before, despite the fact that it's been a mainstay of neoliberal capitalism.

[JayB]

It's been a mainstay of reality since the invention of statehood.

 

States spend more money than they have for wars, pyramids, palaces, etc and default in de facto terms by debasing the currency that their debts are denominated in or in de jure terms by not repaying what they owe.

 

"The basic coinage of the Roman Empire to this time – we're speaking now about 211 [A.D.] – was the silver denarius introduced by Augustus at the end of the 1st century before Christ. Augustus had issued a silver coin, a denarius, that was about 95% silver, and that coin continued for the better part of two centuries as the basic medium of exchange in the empire.

 

By the time of Trajan in 117, it was only about eighty-five percent silver, down from Augustus' ninety-five percent. By the age of Marcus Aurelius, in 180, it was down to about seventy-five percent silver. In Septimius' time it had dropped to sixty percent, and Caracalla evened it off at fifty-fifty. Caracalla was assassinated in 217 and there then followed an age that historians refer to as the Age of the Barrack Emperors, because throughout the 3rd century all the emperors were soldiers and all of them came to their power by military coups of one sort or another. There were about 26 legitimate emperors in this century and only one of them died a natural death; the rest were either assassinated or died in battle, which will give you some idea of the change since this was totally unprecedented in Roman history – with two exceptions: Nero, a suicide, and Caligula, assassinated earlier.

 

Caracalla had also debased the gold coinage. Under Augustus this circulated at 45 coins to a pound of gold. Caracalla made it 50 to a pound of gold. Within 20 years after him it was circulating at 72 to the pound of gold, reduced to 60 at the end of the century by Diocletian, only to be raised again to 72 by Constantine. So even the gold coinage was in fact inflated, debased.

 

But the real crisis came after Caracalla, between 258 and 275. In a period of intense civil war and foreign invasions, the emperors simply abandoned, for all practical purposes, a silver coinage. By 268 there was only five tenths percent silver in the denarius. And prices in this period rose in most parts of the empire by nearly a thousand percent. The only people who were getting paid in gold were the barbarian troops hired by the emperors. The barbarians were so barbarous that they would only accept gold in payment for their services..."

 

Etc, etc, etc, etc.

 

The only new thing here is the politicaly constructed currency mechanism that has transmogrified something that should be a routine default by a small, marginal basket-case country - with bondholders getting reamed and borrowers paying penalty rates for a long period of time into a much larger problem.

[j_b]

We'll just have to assume that JayB forgot about inequalities that are as large as during the age of robber barons, trillions in profit not being taxed, paltry marginal rate of taxation, federal spending on many other things than the "welfare state", etc when he claimed there wasn't enough money to pay for services and public employee compensation. Either that or it was his usual dodging of the inconvenient reality.

[j_b]

It's been a mainstay of reality since the invention of statehood.

 

States spend more money than they have for wars, pyramids, palaces, etc and default in de facto terms by debasing the currency that their debts are denominated in or in de jure terms by not repaying what they owe.

 

It's been a mainstay of reality way before the invention of statehood or do you really believe the private sector never goes into default?

[prole]

The only new thing here is the politicaly constructed currency mechanism that has transmogrified something that should be a routine default by a small, marginal basket-case country - with bondholders getting reamed and borrowers paying penalty rates for a long period of time into a much larger problem.

 

Fair enough, but these crises have grown in frequency, severity, and scope as a result of the financial liberalization, hot money flows, tax-offshoring associated with neoliberal globalization. Europe is simply the latest to experience what numerous countries in SE Asia and Latin America have already been through just in the last decade and a half that have had global repercussions. It's nice for you to have the Greek welfare state to scapegoat but the structural issues are far broader as you already know.

[j_b]

It is also ignoring that Europe is undergoing a long process of unification and until recently it was strictly a trade partnership. If Europe was a political entity they would absorb the Greek debt that amounts to a couple % of Europe's GDP, adjust and move on.

Edited June 16, 2011 by j_b

[JayB]

The only new thing here is the politicaly constructed currency mechanism that has transmogrified something that should be a routine default by a small, marginal basket-case country - with bondholders getting reamed and borrowers paying penalty rates for a long period of time into a much larger problem.

 

Fair enough, but these crises have grown in frequency, severity, and scope as a result of the financial liberalization, hot money flows, tax-offshoring associated with neoliberal globalization. Europe is simply the latest to experience what numerous countries in SE Asia and Latin America have already been through just in the last decade and a half that have had global repercussions. It's nice for you to have the Greek welfare state to scapegoat but the structural issues are far broader as you already know.

 

I don't know enough financial history to know if the financial crises are actually more frequent and severe now than they were in, say the 19th century.

 

I'd be willing to bet that the main feature that distinguishes now from then is the willingness/ability of sovereign states to bail out private creditors/enterprises who made bad investments.

 

It's really not the "Welfare State" per se that is the problem with Greece. Sweden and Denmark, for example, seem to be able to run a welfare state without it going bust in the immediate future. Greece is one of many nations that can't. No nation that consistently consumes more real wealth than it produces can.

 

As far as I can tell, the only impact that globalization had on their situation is keeping them plugged into a store of real wealth outside of their borders that kept them afloat and gave them much more breathing room to close the production-consumption gap than they would have had otherwise. I'm not sure that's a bad thing for all nations at all times.