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Ted Cruz

7 (6.5%)

Rick Santorum

16 (14.8%)

Michelle Bachmann

13 (12%)

Chris Christie

23 (21.3%)

Rand Paul

49 (45.4%)

Total Members Voted: 107

[Baffler]

Republicans seem to be based on the idea that the more money the rich accumulate and don't spend, the better the economy is.

And that anything opposing this view is EVIL COMMIE PROPAGANDA!

Yeah, that and the whole "look how easily we can ruin things we're in charge of" shtick. Trouble is, people buy it. <anecdote> At least half of the people where I work are terrified that if the minimum wage goes up, the economy will crash and the plant will close. </anecdote>

[MetalSlimeHunt]

So a billionaire got a referendum to be placed on the ballot so he and his buddies can break up California into six states and take control.

Here's the map.

[Angle]

I might almost be willing to suport such a thing if I didn't think it was a blatant republican powergrab. Also, why six? Two states would work just fine. Sounds to me like they're trying to split things up just such that they can win some of the elections.

[SalmonGod]

Republicans seem to be based on the idea that the more money the rich accumulate and don't spend, the better the economy is.

And that anything opposing this view is EVIL COMMIE PROPAGANDA!

Yeah, that and the whole "look how easily we can ruin things we're in charge of" shtick. Trouble is, people buy it. <anecdote> At least half of the people where I work are terrified that if the minimum wage goes up, the economy will crash and the plant will close. </anecdote>

This one infuriates me to no end... I very nearly went on to write paragraphs about this, but there's no point...  It's just so fucking bizarre how it never even crosses so many people's minds to think that maybe employers are responsible for their actions.  That they choose to punish their employees in response to progressive economic policies.  Poor poooor Fedex shareholders would have had to lose 2% of their multi-billion dollar profit margins in order to offer the same quality of insurance coverage under Obamacare.  Of course they had no choice but to slash everyone's benefits!  They're not to blame at all for choosing to sacrifice the well-being of their employees for the sake of ensuring record-breaking profits for the umpteenth year in a row!

[Rolepgeek]

Link to minimum wage stuff.

So minimum wage going up does not equal death of economy, though I'm sure you were all aware of this.

Repression or something for a few months? Yeah, I can see it, before people start spending the newfound money and stuff really starts going for the economy(healthy economy equals money circulating, not stagnating, as far as I'm aware).

Also; greed is by far the worst motivating factor I can think of. Survival, self-sufficiency, planning against possible future misfortune, all fine. But greed...I mean seriously, this is getting ridiculous. Just look up the CEO pay ratio compared to their workers, by country.

America fails so hard at equality in so many ways, when that was supposedly our founding principle.

Though I suppose I shouldn't too surprised; the reasons the first colonists came here was for money, and for their religion, and no one else's. So I guess we're trying to live up to that example.

[Owlbread]

I might almost be willing to suport such a thing if I didn't think it was a blatant republican powergrab. Also, why six? Two states would work just fine. Sounds to me like they're trying to split things up just such that they can win some of the elections.

The State of Silicon Valley does sound good though. It's like a whole state for the tech industry; geek independence.

[LordSlowpoke]

wow scratch that cali is big but not enormous

[Duuvian]

I dunno, both parties seem to support the idea of the rich accumulating money being equivalent to the economy improving, they just have different methods of achieving that goal. The Republicans support tax breaks etc while the Democrats support literally giving them several trillion dollars indirectly via Federal Reserve purchases.

"Literally giving" in this case meaning "purchasing financial assets from them at market value".  The purchased assets are hardly worthless: conservative source, liberal source

So, sound principle, but they don't work much beyond the principle itself, meaning that the money just accumulates like a puddle of piss around a terrified three year old's legs?

I'm actually working on a presentation on this very subject for class this week and I'm stuck on the fence.  On the one hand, there is vast accumulation of those puddles of money: http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/EXCSRESNS

On the other hand, that's doesn't account for all of the QE money: http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/WALCL

But then there are questions with the M2 target and velocity and just... oh I dont know.

In my opinion one of the major downsides of having all that money sitting around in safe bank accounts is exemplified in the recession that my area still has not emerged from. During risky times even more money will be left than normal in those safe accounts instead of in circulation being used by less wealthy people where it would be purchasing consumer goods to help pull the economy out of recession rather than stagnating in an account to avoid risk of loss. What people will stow away in hard times seems like a hard thing to predict as well which helps make the effect unpredictable, leaving it unclear until years afterwards and the numbers have been seen. In my opinion it had a heavy effect, as jobs were being lost with very few being created in turn which caused consumer spending to go down. If I remember correctly the federal reserve had to lower rates much farther, well below what banks lend at to make them consider releasing more stagnant money to stimulate our top to bottom economy. Unfortunately the two liters of sweet caffeinated beverage I depend on to stay conscious has roughly doubled in necessary dollar amount to purchase due to inflation because the banks had to be more or less bribed to perform their main responsibility to society but that's a different issue.

[mainiac]

snip

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cOeKidp-iWo

The State of Silicon Valley does sound good though. It's like a whole state for the tech industry; geek independence.

Which means that state governments can no longer make sure that the high tech oligarchs pay taxes to take care of the welfare of the damn poors in the rest of the state.  Which seems to be the reason for this whole little charade.  If you just tried to split off Silicon valley it would be rather transparent but dressing it up into a bunch of a bunch of states obfuscates that.

[FearfulJesuit]

Silicon Valley would probably be an interesting case study in regional electoral politics, as it's probably the only place in the nation where state elections would be fought between Democrats and Libertarians, instead of Democrats and Republicans.

I wonder if they'd also experiment with any of the more esoteric voting or representation systems that have been proposed?

The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government, and shall protect each of them against Invasion; and on Application of the Legislature, or of the Executive (when the Legislature cannot be convened), against domestic Violence.

There's nothing saying you can't have a proportional representation system, or even a parliamentary system.

[GreatJustice]

I dunno, both parties seem to support the idea of the rich accumulating money being equivalent to the economy improving, they just have different methods of achieving that goal. The Republicans support tax breaks etc while the Democrats support literally giving them several trillion dollars indirectly via Federal Reserve purchases.

"Literally giving" in this case meaning "purchasing financial assets from them at market value".  The purchased assets are hardly worthless: conservative source, liberal source

Making several billion dollars in profits is pretty insignificant when not only is your profit basically being generated by your own gigantic purchases, but your expenditures are in the multi-trillion dollar range. Anyhow, besides that, a monetarist conservative would argue that cutting taxes can lead to increased revenues going by the Laffer Curve, but that's largely beside the point.

Meanwhile, besides direct asset purchases on Wall Street, the Fed also buys Treasuries, except it doesn't buy them directly; the Fed purchases are middle-manned by Wall Street firms, which basically constitutes about a trillion dollars literally going straight to Wall Street. Further, interest rates are held artificially low, which hugely stimulates the stock market, of which 90% is owned by the richest 10%. So people flip out about how the Republicans only care about the rich when they get tax cuts amounting to tens of billions of dollars each year, but have no comment when they receive trillions directly and indirectly.

[Mictlantecuhtli]

I'll help you on the real reason there, GJ:

The Fed’s portfolio of securities and other assets has swelled to more than $4 trillion since the financial crisis, growth driven largely by several rounds of bond purchases aimed at lowering long-term borrowing costs to spur more spending, investment and hiring.

[SalmonGod]

So people flip out about how the Republicans only care about the rich when they get tax cuts amounting to tens of billions of dollars each year, but have no comment when they receive trillions directly and indirectly.

I think understanding is pretty widespread that both parties cater to business.  Republicans are just more brazen about it, and thus easier targets for casual complaint.

[mainiac]

Making several billion dollars in profits is pretty insignificant when not only is your profit basically being generated by your own gigantic purchases

"Several billions" is a poor description of 88 billion.

A ~2% annual return on investment for safe assets is if anything a little above what you would expect for a zero leverage portfolio of that composition.

Meanwhile, besides direct asset purchases on Wall Street, the Fed also buys Treasuries, except it doesn't buy them directly; the Fed purchases are middle-manned by Wall Street firms, which basically constitutes about a trillion dollars literally going straight to Wall Street.

Yes that money literally goes to the group of entities that laypeople generally conflate with Wall Street.  It literally goes to them because of assets purchased at market value.

Just last week literally hundreds of dollars went from my boss to me.  Aren't I lucky.

[GreatJustice]

Making several billion dollars in profits is pretty insignificant when not only is your profit basically being generated by your own gigantic purchases

"Several billions" is a poor description of 88 billion.

A ~2% annual return on investment for safe assets is if anything a little above what you would expect for a zero leverage portfolio of that composition.

"Several billions" isn't too bad when, to my recollection, the Fed purchases 65 billion dollars worth of such assets monthly. Also, a 2% RoI isn't very good when you factor in the fact that stocks are generally shooting through the roof thanks for aforementioned low interest rates, which basically means that 2% RoI is "breaking even" after accounting for inflation at best.

Meanwhile, besides direct asset purchases on Wall Street, the Fed also buys Treasuries, except it doesn't buy them directly; the Fed purchases are middle-manned by Wall Street firms, which basically constitutes about a trillion dollars literally going straight to Wall Street.

Yes that money literally goes to the group of entities that laypeople generally conflate with Wall Street.  It literally goes to them because of assets purchased at market value.

Just last week literally hundreds of dollars went from my boss to me.  Aren't I lucky.

Assets purchased for the purpose of stimulating the stocks and bonds, which, again, overwhelmingly benefits the rich, ignoring the direct transfers of cash to Wall Street firms (which, again, make money from middle-manning the purchases). This is a similar end (with a different means) to the one sought by supply-siders, only with direct asset purchases instead of indirect tax cuts. I'm not sure why the latter is somehow unacceptable but whatever.