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Author Topic: American Election Megathread - It's Over  (Read 763922 times)

alexandertnt

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Re: American Election Megathread - It's Over
« Reply #10020 on: December 01, 2012, 05:40:17 am »

I think the States should get more Centralized, not less. I also think we should lean more socialist than we do now, it seems to work well enough for the Europeans why not give it a try here? I'm independent because I don't want to affiliate myself with either major party (in fact I don't believe in the party system being useful AT ALL) but I'm mostly leaning democrat for now.

I do not live in America, so anything I say is only observation/for discussion. But I agree.

I think that a significant issue is the uncomfortable, awkward feeling people get when they hear the word "socialist", which tends to make arguing for things like socialized health care harder for all the wrong reasons (association fallacies etc).

America's party system makes it very hard for independents/third parties to do anything. If you vote for Democrat-alternative or Republican-alternative, then that is a vote away from a party that is much more likely to win (which makes alot of people think thay they are just throwing their vote away).
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This is when I imagine the hilarity which may happen if certain things are glichy. Such as targeting your own body parts to eat.

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SalmonGod

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Re: American Election Megathread - It's Over
« Reply #10021 on: December 01, 2012, 05:58:53 am »

I would like to see a centralization of equally accessible participatory organizational infrastructure, coinciding with a dispersion of authority.
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Maybe people should love for the sake of loving, and not with all of these optimization conditions.

Kogan Loloklam

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Re: American Election Megathread - It's Over
« Reply #10022 on: December 01, 2012, 07:53:18 am »

It's always interesting how people from other states (or countries?) seem to think Seattle is the crux of civilization in Washington state :P  It's not even the capitol of Washington, guys.  (Just poking fun, don't take it personally)
New York City isn't even the Capitol of New York State, and it's urban area spills into SEVERAL other states, but you don't see THEM legalizing Marijuana. Damn hippy states.
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... if someone dies TOUGH LUCK. YOU SHOULD HAVE PAYED ATTENTION DURING ALL THE DAMNED DODGING DEMONSTRATIONS!

GreatJustice

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Re: American Election Megathread - It's Over
« Reply #10023 on: December 01, 2012, 12:09:07 pm »

the income tax for the higher brackets should not be cut, that would just take money that could be used for welfare/schools/health and transfer it to people so that they can now afford their third beach house. The lowest brackets though, seem like a reasonable idea to lower (or perhaps increase the threshold). Particularly given that the lowest bracket (in America) I think starts at $0. The main problem with the economy being in poor shape is that these people in the lowest brackets are the ones that are suffering, and the ones in the upper bracket sure are not. The military should be cut, this should be more doable with the withdrawl from Iraq. Science is an investment, it is expected that it will make significant returns/benefits in the future (think of what ARPANET the internet did to economics).

Well obviously we can only cut taxes that are present. Sales/VAT taxes are effectively flat taxes that places more burdon on the poor (since the money is worth more to them, to eat etc) so cutting this may not be a bad idea. capital gains tax have been decreased several times and do not appear to have correlated with economic growth

The income tax being cut for all tax brackets frees up more resources for private investment, which can help soften the blow. It's also worth noting that quite often the people who are at the top brackets don't necessarily make that much money in the first place, whereas those who aren't can still be absurdly rich. For example, the established rich (the kind who would actually be buying their third summer home) would have most of their wealth in assets, not income, and would pay quite a bit less in income tax regardless of what the highest brackets paid. Inversely, someone who actually works their ass off to make their money, or actively runs an innovative business, gets taxed quite a bit more.

Science certainly is an investment, but the government has a tendency to crowd out the competition, and its most useful inventions have a tendency to be outlandishly expensive for what they're worth (eg. most of the innovations coming out of the DoD).

EDIT: Oh dear, I forgot to address Capital Gains. Well, the main point here is that, again, tax cuts in of themselves won't really help the economy or unemployment with the possible exception of the employer's side of the payroll tax. The main issues of a standard recession can be traced to a mixture of (enforced) wage rigidity and distortions in the capital structure, neither of which are really solved by tax cuts. However, Capital Gains tax cuts in particular incentivize investment, which leads to saving, which leads to sustainable production, which strengthens the economy in general. This is over a long term, but it certainly helps.
The governmnent has fluctuated in and out of debt/surpluss since many of these programs have been created. They seem quite possible to fund for the long run, with responsible and non-ideology based policies (eg avoiding the Laffer Curve, a gigantic oversimplification of a complex system).

Many european countries have managed to sustain significantly larger government programs (especially in regards to welfare ahd universal education). (I am using the non-broke countries as an example here, of course. The cause of the other countries debt is often placed on mishandling/corruption of managing the economy *cough*Greece*cough* and is a different discussion).

With the exception of Germany, I actually can't think of any European countries that have sustained their government programs without causing huge economic imbalances (France), running up massive debt (Italy, Spain, the UK, etc), or recession followed by major reforms (Sweden). Even Germany's debt has shot up rather dramatically over the years, and they're easily the strongest economy in Europe.

Also, a lot of American welfare is distinctly different from European welfare. For example, Medicare and Medicaid, taking up a gigantic portion of US spending, were originally attempts by the US government to make healthcare more affordable to the groups they're aimed at, and we can see today how successful THAT was. Most European countries don't have such a program at all for rather obvious reasons. The other major expensive American welfare project is Social Security, which European countries DO have in the form of pensions. However, aforementioned pensions are generally kept afloat by raising the age limit at which they can be received or reducing payouts, in short, screwing over the elderly who paid into them.

On that note, I've never understood the rationale behind Social Security. You can't opt out, even these days in the US it doesn't pay out much more than any other pension, and in the long term necessitates screwing over either the young (by forcing them to pay huge amounts of money for a benefit they'll likely never receive) or the elderly (by taking away the benefits that they actually did pay for).

yes, it would stop the Fedeal Reserve from messing with things, but damn this would fracture the economy. Imagine not being able to pay a supplier, becuase they use a different currency. The supplier has to change currency to another one to pay the manufacturer. The shop that sells stuff after all this only accepts some form of money and not others, so you have to change the currency there. Not to forget international trade. Which countries will work with what currencies?

Having many types of currencies would make a confusing mess of the economic system.

It would also seem likely that large manufactures would all default onto one currency anyway to reduce this (particularly in regard to international trade). That would influence wholesalers etc to do the same thing, resulting in one mostly dominant currency. Now the owner/printer of that currency has the same, if not more power, than the Federal Reserve had, accomplishing nothing.

I don't think many economist's would support this idea...

Most currencies would end up being backed by different things, but I'd imagine a lot would just revert to a gold standard of some kind. In turn, conversion would be simple, straightforward, and rejection of currency unlikely. If one of the major producers began cutting its reserves back too much, or inflating heavily, pulling out would be fairly simple and the overall effects on the economy wouldn't  be as harsh. On the other hand, when the Fed does such things, Americans are basically stuck with the consequences of whatever boneheaded policy they implement without many alternatives.
« Last Edit: December 01, 2012, 12:43:48 pm by GreatJustice »
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Helgoland

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Re: American Election Megathread - It's Over
« Reply #10024 on: December 01, 2012, 12:14:36 pm »

I would like to see a centralization of equally accessible participatory organizational infrastructure, coinciding with a dispersion of authority.
Whoawhoawhoa, that sentence takes five minutes to even begin to understand. Sounds interesting (and slightly anarchist >:( )though - care to elaborate?

GreatJustice: That post was a bit TL;DR, but wouldn't you agree that welfare reform would be better than shrinking the welfare state while keeping the inefficiencies?
Economically I'd say (purely subjectively) that Europe did about as well as the US, at least where Joe Average (Jean Moyen, Otto Normalverbraucher) concerned.
And, last but not least: If a gold standard is what you see as the de facto replacement, why not opt (once more) for reform instead of abolition? Keep the Fed, but keep it in check, so to speak ;)
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Owlbread

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Re: American Election Megathread - It's Over
« Reply #10025 on: December 01, 2012, 12:18:21 pm »

Do you guys think the USA will ever have a bearded or moustachio'd president again?
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MetalSlimeHunt

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Re: American Election Megathread - It's Over
« Reply #10026 on: December 01, 2012, 12:25:16 pm »

Whoawhoawhoa, that sentence takes five minutes to even begin to understand. Sounds interesting (and slightly anarchist >:( )though - care to elaborate?
SalmonGod does in fact identify as an anarchist, if I am remembering correctly.
Do you guys think the USA will ever have a bearded or moustachio'd president again?
Unlikely. Facial hair permanently went out of style in the US after World War I. Can't wear a gas mask unless you're clean shaven.
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GreatJustice

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Re: American Election Megathread - It's Over
« Reply #10027 on: December 01, 2012, 12:27:06 pm »

I would like to see a centralization of equally accessible participatory organizational infrastructure, coinciding with a dispersion of authority.
Whoawhoawhoa, that sentence takes five minutes to even begin to understand. Sounds interesting (and slightly anarchist >:( )though - care to elaborate?

GreatJustice: That post was a bit TL;DR, but wouldn't you agree that welfare reform would be better than shrinking the welfare state while keeping the inefficiencies?
Economically I'd say (purely subjectively) that Europe did about as well as the US, at least where Joe Average (Jean Moyen, Otto Normalverbraucher) concerned.
And, last but not least: If a gold standard is what you see as the de facto replacement, why not opt (once more) for reform instead of abolition? Keep the Fed, but keep it in check, so to speak ;)

Quite frankly, the best "welfare reform" in my eyes would be removing the welfare state altogether. Of course, that isn't going to happen in the near term barring a total collapse of some kind, so cutting back is good enough. Plus, there are people who are owed something from the welfare state regardless of whether it should have existed in the first place, like Social Security and Medicare recipients. The ideal method of ending SS, for example, would be offering an opt-out while immediately trying to pay off present recipients, which would shrink it to the point of being something reasonable (it could function as a harmless, voluntary, self funding program after a point, or be repurposed as a non-profit). 

The entire problem of the Fed is that it has monopoly privilege, has a pile of different benefactors it has to keep happy (from the banksters over at Goldman Sachs to Congress to the President to the angry, increasingly anti-Fed American citizenry), and quite obviously fails at the one half of its purpose of creation, specifically to prevent inflation.

So far as reform  goes, besides removing this monopoly, I can see only see a few reforms besides removing the monopoly privilege, and all of them have distinct problems, particularly the ones that start with "Let's give Congress more control!". Maybe there are alternatives, though.
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The person supporting regenerating health, when asked why you can see when shot in the eye justified it as 'you put on an eyepatch'. When asked what happens when you are then shot in the other eye, he said that you put an eyepatch on that eye. When asked how you'd be able to see, he said that your first eye would have healed by then.

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Owlbread

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Re: American Election Megathread - It's Over
« Reply #10028 on: December 01, 2012, 12:31:49 pm »

Whoawhoawhoa, that sentence takes five minutes to even begin to understand. Sounds interesting (and slightly anarchist >:( )though - care to elaborate?
SalmonGod does in fact identify as an anarchist, if I am remembering correctly.
Do you guys think the USA will ever have a bearded or moustachio'd president again?
Unlikely. Facial hair permanently went out of style in the US after World War I. Can't wear a gas mask unless you're clean shaven.

I think you can have a small moustache, like Hitler's. Some say that's why he shaved it like that but others say it was because the Fascist movement were composed of working class Germans who wanted to distance themselves from the handlebar moustached upper classes and militiarists.

I've always thought that if I invent anything in my life it will be a gas mask that accomodates a full beard, so the military will have no excuse other than "discipline" aka control. Soldiers in the British army are also allowed to have quite decent-sized moustaches as long as they don't extend to a certain length, I think.
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tryrar

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Re: American Election Megathread - It's Over
« Reply #10029 on: December 01, 2012, 02:09:01 pm »

Again you guys have lost me. Can you guys just sum up this discussion with what you'd like to see the government do economics wise and move on to something else?
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No. I suppose there are similarities, but I'm fairly certain angry birds doesn't let me charge into a battalion of knights with a car made of circular saws.

Owlbread

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Re: American Election Megathread - It's Over
« Reply #10030 on: December 01, 2012, 02:11:57 pm »

Again you guys have lost me. Can you guys just sum up this discussion with what you'd like to see the government do economics wise and move on to something else?

Make moustaches compulsory for all men over the age of 16 (those who cannot grow them will be liquidated) and pump billions of funds into gas mask research to allow the army to have full bearded soldiers. It will be a new golden age.
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tryrar

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Re: American Election Megathread - It's Over
« Reply #10031 on: December 01, 2012, 02:15:41 pm »

ha ha. Very funny.
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This fort really does sit on the event horizon of madness and catastrophe
No. I suppose there are similarities, but I'm fairly certain angry birds doesn't let me charge into a battalion of knights with a car made of circular saws.

Owlbread

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Re: American Election Megathread - It's Over
« Reply #10032 on: December 01, 2012, 02:19:15 pm »

ha ha. Very funny.

I'm deathly serious.
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mainiac

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Re: American Election Megathread - It's Over
« Reply #10033 on: December 01, 2012, 02:32:07 pm »

I'm deathly serious.

Stop being so ghastly.
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EveryZig

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Re: American Election Megathread - It's Over
« Reply #10034 on: December 01, 2012, 03:22:12 pm »

Quite frankly, the best "welfare reform" in my eyes would be removing the welfare state altogether.
So... what is your position on the poor then?
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