by Doctor Science
The Romney campaign has been running ads saying Obama is planning to remove the work requirement for welfare, so “your” money goes to “those” people. As reported by Ben Smith at Buzzfeed [emphasis mine]:
“Our most effective ad is our welfare ad,” a top television advertising strategist for Romney, Ashley O’Connor, said at a forum Tuesday hosted by ABCNews and Yahoo! News. “It’s new information.”
…
The Washington Post’s “Fact Checker” awarded Romney’s ad “four Pinocchios,” a measure Romney pollster Neil Newhouse dismissed.“Fact checkers come to this with their own sets of thoughts and beliefs, and we’re not going to let our campaign be dictated by fact checkers,” he said. The fact-checkers — whose institutional rise has been a feature of the cycle — have “jumped the shark,” he added after the panel.
David S. Bernstein of the Boston Phoenix tweeted:
Dear media critics: OK, entire news media called Romney’s welfare attack a lie. Campaign still pushing it. Now what?
Media critic Jay Rosen confesses himself baffled, and asks for ideas. He admits that the Obama campaign has released ads that are untrue and/or exaggerated, but says: [emphasis mine]
… in my view they do not compare to the use of falsehood and deceptive claims in the Romney 2012 campaign. Nor is there anything coming from the Obama machine that is like the open defiance of fact-checking we have seen from Romney and his team. I don’t think it’s a character issue but a kind of post-truth strategy in electioneering, which is itself a response to huge tensions within the Republican Party. I see the situation as highly asymmetrical, with just enough on both sides to make “both sides do it” sound plausible.
I also recognize that this conclusion is itself bitterly contested by other critics looking at the same facts and by opponents of Obama. Or it just sounds ridiculous to them, a substitution of political preferences for fair-minded analysis. That response, which flows to me constantly over social media, is part of the reality of culture war politics, media bias division.
In the comments, I asked:
Can a TV network legally refuse to run a campaign ad that is a lie? Can a network legally refuse to run *any* ad from an organization that is currently releasing lying ads?
I can’t imagine that any network would have the guts to do that, of course — campaign money is too much of a gold mine for them. But I don’t know if there’s any other way to counter the level of mendacious marketing Citizens United permits.
illusionist elements were employed, blurring the distinction between the viewer’s own sphere of reality and fiction: the pictures are presented on canvases painted in trompe l’oeil, suspended by cherubs in an equally fictitious painted architectural frame
. So it’s a picture about Truth, presented as a trompe l’oeil deception. I don’t think Rubens really intended that level of meta …
Rosen wrote an insightful piece and I would like to see some more about his point #5 wrt the following:
1. Who are these crazy loons Democrats who have “remained within normal bounds”? One could possibly point to an array of leftist types, but they generally are not members of the Democratic Party.
2. Yes. How can these crazies be stopped?
3. Worldwide phenomenon? Look at what is happening in Hungary. It could be this example is not germaine, given the country’s short fling with democracy, but hey, if idiots can assert that the level of our public debt and our current deficits will make us “just like Greece”, then why not join the broad brush brigade?
bobbyp: I’m confused. What is Rosen’s point #5? I don’t see numbered points …
Except Obama did, by fiat, remove the requirement. The also true fact that he did that by requiring them to assure him that they would move more people to work, with no enforcement possible, doesn’t change the first fact. Granting an exemption is removing the requirement. If the states move more people to work thats great, he can talk about that after it happens.
CCDG: Except Obama did, by fiat, remove the requirement.
The “fiat-ness” being….? Also, relevance?
The requirements were passed by Congress, signed into law by Clinton, there is not a process for executive branch exemption in the law. ). It matters, and more each time he does it.
So it is another announcement by Obama that his administration just isn’t going to enforce existing law.He undid them by fiat(an authoritative or arbitrary order : decree
The American people elected a Republican House that he can’t, or won’t, compromise with. So he bypasses that branch entirely.
It’s relevant.
the claims, they spiral, thinning all the while
This seems like a pretty good analysis.
I’m curious to know what requirement Obama has removed, and I’m curious to know what is meant by “fiat”.
Here is my takeaway: a person running for office as a Republican will never go wrong by kicking poor people in the nuts.
the fiat.
An example of a response from one the states, in this case Utah.
Fiats are notoriously unreliable, is all I know about this.
The HHS presents a legal argument for its authority to waive certain requirements in the federal TANF program.
I’ll let you all read it for yourselves, however if the cited brief is accurate, HHS does in fact have authority to do the kinds of things they are in fact doing.
I haven’t taken the time to reality-check the claims the brief makes by following the bread crumb trail all the way down to the relevant US Code sections, but the code is right here if anyone wants to take a look.
Fiats are notoriously unreliable
The good old 128’s were a not-bad car, at least for their time.
Of course, that time was 40 or more years ago by now, but the same argument can increasingly be made about me, so I’m not pointing any fingers.
shorter Romney campaign:
“we’re not going to let our campaign be dictated by fact”
Interesting that the WaPo fact check is pretty clear, four pinocchios as Doc mentioned, but again, based on the administrations intent. Noting:
And they also noted it was a three Pinocchio misstatement that Romney applied for a waiver while Governor.
so “your” money goes to “those” people.
Doc, these quotes imply that someone actually said this. Can you supply a link?
Still shorter Romney campaign…
“Obama baaaaad!”
McK:
My bad, I was using scare quotes, not quotation quotes. I was referring to the implicit racism of Romney’s ads — as evaluated by e.g. Ron Fournier, who is very much *not* a leftist. The Romney campaign appears to be using the Atwater approach to talking about race.
Though I disagree with Atwater’s conclusion, that being forced to move from one metaphor to another proves race is becoming less of an issue. That’s like saying that having to move from one euphemism for sex to another (as usage makes each euphemism more of a synonym) means that people aren’t thinking about sex as much.
we’re not going to let our campaign be dictated by fact checkers
I think this is totally reasonable, for both campaigns. Fact checkers are just a bunch of self-appointed weirdos who tend to have odd and idiosyncratic notions. Sometimes they can fact check reasonably, but other times they just go way off the deep end. I think that even if you run a fair-minded and very clean campaign, you can still get criticized by fact checkers.
Now, I also think that Romney’s campaign is lying in order to appeal to racist voters, but I think that because I’ve actually looked at their statements and made a judgement, not because some fact checking idiot awarded them -17 pinocchios on their way to the fourth grade.
But the administration appears to have done this without much consultation with Congress, and it also asserted a novel waiver authority that took GOP lawmakers by surprise. (Essentially, work provisions are contained in section 407, which cannot be waived, but because 407 is mentioned in section 402, which allows waivers, the administration asserted waiver authority.
OK, so for anyone who wants to play the home game:
USC para 1315, which grants HHS authority to waive requirements under section 602 (which apparently is the same as “402”?).
USC 602 (apparently the same as “402”?), which lays out the requirements on the states for complying with the rules for TANF.
USC 607 (apparently the same as “407”?), which lays out the work requirement rules for TANF.
Among other things, para 1315 gives HHS the authority to:
Bolds mine.
In other words, in the context of a demonstration project, an individual state can agree with HHS to modify the work requirements as defined in section 607/407, for purposes of satisfying the TANF requirements.
And section 407/607 isn’t “mentioned” in 402/602, the latter explicitly gives HHS the authority to modify the requirements of 407/607 in the context of demonstration projects undertaken with individual states.
And by “explicitly” I mean that’s exactly what the law – the US Code – says.
There’s nothing “novel” about this, waivers to legislation concerning federal aid were much of what led to welfare reform in the first place in the mid 90’s. Waivers are explicitly accounted for in the original act.
Unless I misread the law here, there is NO requirement for the executive to ask permission of Congress before soliciting state’s input regarding what would make the TANF program more effective, nor is any Congressional input or permission required to grant waivers as allowed for under section 602 so that individual states can try things that they believe will be more effective in getting people off of welfare and into the workforce.
I suppose the executive could have done so anyway, out of some abundance of politeness, but I’m not sure what the point or value of that would have been. If it took GOP lawmakers “by surprise”, perhaps they should pay closer attention next time.
So, long story short, Romney can piss up a rope.
And the WaPo can do likewise. It took me something less than an hour to look this stuff up, and I don’t get paid to do it. The WaPo, including their “fact check”, are a bunch of lazy-ass punks.
IMVHO, of course.
Please feel free to look over the cited sections of the US Code and explain to me what I’m missing.
Thanks.
Fact checkers are just a bunch of self-appointed weirdos who tend to have odd and idiosyncratic notions.
I am in general agreement with this.
Everybody’s got an agenda. If you want good information, you need to go get it yourself.
bobbyp: I’m confused. What is Rosen’s point #5? I don’t see numbered points …
click on your link “huge tensions within the Republican Party”.
I could have been taken to a different place….poor mousemanship, simple distractions, unknown internet portal, acid flashback….hell, according to current (it’s only a theory) particle physics, anything is possible.
Oh. And the Romney campaign is lying big time.
Where was the GOP hue and cry over NCLB waivers? And George Bush? In addition to governing by executive order (“fiat”), he also granted waivers.
So where’s the beef?
And this howler from above: “…there is not a process for executive branch exemption in the law.” Well, yeah. But only if you unilaterally define a lawful waiver as an “exemption from the law”. It’s amazing the beating the English language can take at times.
I wait with great anticipation for the Republican convention to denounce those Republican Governors who were among those who applied for the waivers. I mean, how could anybody be in favor of the kind of Federalism which would allow states to experiment with different methods to achieve a desired end (in this case, getting more poeple off welfare and into work)? Shocking, simply shocking!
russell:
Everybody’s got an agenda. If you want good information, you need to go get it yourself.
But that means you’ll fail, because there are more things you need good info on than there is time for you to get it yourself. If you follow me.
Look, science is a *really good* info system, probably the best one ever, and it’s based on taking other people’s word for (most) things. But I don’t know what peer-reviewed political information would look like …
But that means you’ll fail, because there are more things you need good info on than there is time for you to get it yourself. If you follow me.
You’re right about the number of things, but I’m not sure you’re right about the “fail” part.
Fail at what?
There are individuals who I find trustworthy, because they back up what they say with information, and because over time what they say has generally proved out.
Other than that, I generally take it all with a grain of salt. If it’s something I feel like I need to run to ground, I spend the time. If I can. Otherwise, I live in “grain of salt” land.
For stuff at the level of “what does the US Code actually say”, it’s actually not that hard or time-consuming to go look it up.
But no, I don’t assume that if a fact-check site weighs in, that they are correct. They have their own agendas and blind spots, like everybody else.
good post, doc. thank you.
Ok, so Russell researches and concludes that waivers are ok. Fine. So, is the lie that Obama’s admin is allowing waivers or is the lie that the admin is doing so illegally? Seems to me, it can’t be both.
That’s a good question, McT. I guess the question is does one classify blatant hypocrisy a lie? And if not, what is it?
McKinneyTexas,
The lie is the Obama eliminated the work requirment, which he did not do but ad asserts he did. He has not even granted waivers to any programs that would eliminate the work requirment.
That is the lie in this case. As far as I can tell Romney has yet to demonstrate that he can open his mouth to defend his positions without a lie coming out.
As far as I can tell Romney has yet to demonstrate that he can open his mouth to defend his positions without a lie coming out.
because, as he’s been demonstrating for the last 8 months, there is requirement for doing so and no penalty for not, we should expect more lying from the “conservative”.
s/ there is requirement / there is no requirement
It’s topsy-turvy day! CNN dismissed outright “factual errors” in Paul Ryan’s CNN speech as no big deal, because hey, what a speech! Whereas a soon-to-be-fired FOX News contributor noted what a big pack of lies it was.
(The latter, btw, immediately subjected to gendered attacks for daring to fact-check the lovable Paul Ryan.)
It’s interesting that there are people out there maintaining that the Janesville plant was closed before Obama was sworn in.
It’s almost like someone is trying to adjust the facts to fit the narrative.
not sure how Sally Kohn managed to get herself a Fox News contributor gig, but she’s certainly no “conservative”.
It’s almost as if our media believes that people are too lazy to Google.
Maybe it’s a “mostly dead” thing.
It’s interesting that there are people out there maintaining that the Janesville plant was closed before Obama was sworn in.
the announcement the plant was to be closed in Dec 2008 was made in Oct 2008. it wasn’t totally shut down until June 09, because they were finishing-up a contract.
let’s blame Obama for that!
(PS the captcha thing is completely unreadable 50% of the time)
Indeed, GM Chairman Rick Wagoner announced the Janesville closing at GM’s annual shareholder meeting on June 3, 2008 noting that it would close no later than 2010, but earlier if dictated by market conditions. Perhaps Obama traveled back in time to force him to make that announcement.
I wouldn’t break my arm patting myself on the back for Google skills if I were you, Slarti.
So this is the argument:
Republicans: “Obama made it easier to get welfare during a time of massive and persistent unemployment. We hate welfare!”
Democrats: “Liars! Obama did NOT make it easier to get welfare during a time of massive and persistent unemployment. We hate welfare too!”
Thank goodness there’s a difference between the two major parties.
Or, we could listen to what Ryan ACTUALLY said:
So unless candidate Obama didn’t say that then it sounds like government wasn’t there to support them, or he was just wrong. There were lots of plants closing announcements where the plants were reopened.
Ryan didn’t say Obama closed the plant, or that there wasn’t a problem when he became President, in fact he said in the paragraph before that line:
It’s tough to be fairer and more honest than his actual words.
I guess the question is does one classify blatant hypocrisy a lie? And if not, what is it?
I am fine with calling blatant hypocrisy a lie, although, for me, it’s just more Vaseline than I’d prefer in this season of political intercourse. Do we hold both sides to the same standard, or will this be another campaign where one side’s lies are much worse than the other’s and the other’s “lies” really aren’t “lies”, they’re just the normal hyperbole of an election season?
you know what’s really obnoxious about this whole plant closure issue?
Let Detroit Go Bankrupt
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/19/opinion/19romney.html
what a bunch of hypocrites. no need to parse anything, Romney and Ryan are trying to have it both ways.
When it comes to lies, I tend to differentiate between what a politician says his opponent has done (or will do), and what he say he will do. I expect that he will distort his opponent’s record as necessary. (Ryan was world-class at that, but not outside the norm.) Regretable, but not surprising.
But then there is what the politician says he will do. If he says he will do a bunch of things which are diametrically opposite of what he has been saying for years that he wants to do, there are two possibilities:
1) he has had a sincere change of heart. That can, and should, happen occasionally. But it does not happen wholesale, across a variety of issues, all at once, and just at the most politically convenient time.
2) he is lying in his teeth. Whether his previous rhetoric was all lies, or whether his current statements are, can be difficult to tell. But if he actually voted for a bunch of stuff that is the opposite of what he says now, I’m going with the former being what he really thinks.
On that basis, it seems pretty clear that Ryan is lying now. Admittedly, part of that is because, as a Vice Presidential nominee, he has to follow the line laid out by the Presidential nominee. But I expect an honest man to focus on talking about the things that they agree on — not on blythely ignoring everything he has done and proclaiming that he now wants to do the opposite, like his past never existed.
So unless candidate Obama didn’t say that then it sounds like government wasn’t there to support them
right. a government which Obama was not at the head of, at the time he said that.
and, are you people seriously complaining that Obama hasn’t bailed out enough auto companies? seriously?
Ryan’s full comments re: the Janesville plant, from this transcript of his speech:
The charge Ryan is making is that Obama made a campaign-speech claim, and failed to bring that claim to fruition once in office.
Which is, factually, true.
Whether that is a fair charge to bring, or not, is less clear. To me. Obama was not the only actor involved.
But yes, I think it’s fair to say that, in 2008, candidate Obama wanted to leave the people of Janesville with the impression that, if they voted for him, the GM plant would be that much less likely to close.
And, in fact, it closed.
I think it’s fine to hold Obama (or any President) accountable for the results he has, or has not, been able to make happen under his watch. In Obama’s case, as in most cases, it’s been a mixed bag.
That’s not totally down to him, but being held responsible, fairly or unfairly, “on your watch” kind of comes with the Presidenting gig.
I also think, however, that that needs to be balanced against what we might expect from a Romney/Ryan administration.
I believe cleek has addressed that, quite clearly, upthread.
any of you Ryan/Romney defenders feel up to defending the fact that your guys are using “The Government Didn’t Built This!” as a primary theme of the convention?
your entire party is a celebration of (yet another) bald-faced lie from the people at the very top of your ticket?
And not for nothing, but here is the opening para from Romney’s NYT editorial:
As it turns out, he was wrong. Completely and thoroughly wrong.
And had Romney been President for the last four years, the Janesville plant closing would have been the tip of the iceberg.
The two parties and the two candidates are not the same.
“any of you Ryan/Romney defenders feel up to defending the fact that your guys are using “The Government Didn’t Built This!” as a primary theme of the convention?”
Defend it? I’m absolutely delighted they’re doing this.
Look, Obama is standing things on their head. As, I think it was (Rand) Paul said, the highways didn’t create the businesses. The businesses created the highways. The government couldn’t do anything without the revenues they got from businesses they didn’t create. Everything the government does, it does only because there’s a private sector for it to tax, and usually to delegate the actual work to.
It’s a vile insult to say to somebody who, faced with the same circumstances a thousand other people faced, created the business they didn’t, “You didn’t build that!” Just because they’re using infrastructure the government could only provide because *other* somebodies had built something for the government to tax.
No, this “The Government didn’t build that!” theme is great.
“As it turns out, he was wrong. Completely and thoroughly wrong”
Well kind of, Chrysler didn’t really fare well. GM still can’t get out of it’s own way and is profitable because it uses, oh wait, tax credits from it’s carryover losses, and it got the benefit of a nonexistent Toyota competition for a year after the devastation in Japan.
Oh, and they closed another plant yesterday,
General Motors plant in Shreveport, LA closes, Detroit News reports
Thats one of those comparison things, would they be better off with a managed bankruptcy? Can’t know. But I will say that I, and I assume Romney, am pleased it turned out better tha expected so far.
Have we kissed it goodbye?
Is it’s demise virtually guaranteed?
It’s one of those comparison things.
It’s a vile insult to say to somebody who, faced with the same circumstances a thousand other people faced, created the business they didn’t, “You didn’t build that!”
Fortunately for all concerned, nobody made that statement.
There seems to be a lot of confusion about that point, though. In fact, some folks seem to be deliberately fostering confusion about that point. So, I can see how you may have come by your misunderstanding honestly.
I would also say that “contribute to through taxes” and “build” are not exactly the same thing. That’s just my take.
As, I think it was (Rand) Paul said, the highways didn’t create the businesses. The businesses created the highways. The government couldn’t do anything without the revenues they got from businesses they didn’t create. Everything the government does, it does only because there’s a private sector for it to tax, and usually to delegate the actual work to.
i’m not sure framing something as a chicken/egg situation does much for people who want to insist that chickens don’t need no stinking eggs.
and that’s not how the GOP is framing it. no, they are sticking with the I Built This line, which is entirely based on Romney’s fraudulent misquoting of Obama.
“The government couldn’t do anything without the revenues they got from businesses they didn’t create. Everything the government does, it does only because there’s a private sector for it to tax, and usually to delegate the actual work to.”
There’s a chicken and egg thing here. There wouldn’t be much in the way of business to tax if there weren’t a government, unless (like some anarchists apparently did), you think Somalia was a good model for how a society should be run. Anyway, it doesn’t conflict with what Obama said to point out that we live in a mixed economy, not a centrally planned socialist state.
“It’s a vile insult to say to somebody who, faced with the same circumstances a thousand other people faced, created the business they didn’t, “You didn’t build that!””
How fortunate then that Obama didn’t say that. He was talking about the infrastructure.
Got the captcha on the fourth or fifth try that time. I’d have sworn I was right on the third attempt, but the software didn’t agree.
Well russell, Ford didn’t get a bailout at all, Chrysler went through bankruptcy and is not an American company anymore and GM is still run by the government. So, they didn’t quite get the bailout they asked for and it’s demise is not yet assured, nor is it’s success nor is it the industry that it was. “It won’t go overnight” may still be prescient, especially if we get four more years of the current economy.
“any of you Ryan/Romney defenders feel up to defending the fact that your guys are using “The Government Didn’t Built This!” as a primary theme of the convention?”
Defend it? I’m absolutely delighted they’re doing this.
Of course you are! Especially since they’re doing it in a building that was financed 60%+ through government funding!
Not that that is very important. I would bet good money that the RNC did not get that venue for free.
Doesn’t matter who built the building, actually; if it hadn’t been that one, it would have been a different one.
“It won’t go overnight” may still be prescient, especially if we get four more years of the current economy.
Fine.
You tell me how long we have to wait for the US auto industry to go belly up before we can say Romney was, in fact, wrong.
I draw the line at 20 years. Longer than that, there are too many other factors in play.
In the meantime, I’m happy to say his quite strong prediction has thus far failed to materialize.
And yeah, I’m sure Romney is happy that the industry hasn’t gone belly up. I’m not saying he’s a sociopath, I’m just saying he was wrong.
That’s actually a relevant data point, considering he wants to be the guy calling the shots.
Also – not for nothing, but if I’m not mistaken Ford was given a substantial line of credit from the feds. So, not totally free of government support.
Long story short: Romney predicted disaster, disaster has yet to occur. On the contrary, the American auto industry is doing kind of OK.
So, that sounds kinda like “wrong” to me.
Yes, it stands to reason that they would have held the convention in a different convention center if they didn’t hold it in that convention center. Unless it’s some kind of Schrodinger’s Convention Center where they both hold and don’t hold it simultaneously.
It hardly matters, since convention centers generally rely on both public and private money, property tax abatements, development incentives, etc., rather than the sheer will of Galtian supermen. Which was exactly the point.
Someone’s been keeping current on the talking points, though.
Yes. Convention centers are built with tax dollars. And convention center space is rented out so that the convention centers may not operate at a dead loss.
Depending on who sprung for initial financing, convention centers can be built based on any combination of bonds, local, state or even federal assistance, all of which funding comes ultimately from the taxpayers.
I’m not sure how relevant is the point of how the building, which they rented space and time from, was funded. Maybe you’ll have to draw a picture or two.
Seriously, all buzz words aside, does anyone want to make the case that public investment in infrastructure does not foster private economic activity?
Or, maybe, that it’s really not public investment, because private businesses and individuals fund it through tax payments?
I mean, the floor is open, but I just don’t see what the argument there would be.
Maybe Rand Paul can fill us in.
I’m not sure how relevant is the point of how the building, which they rented space and time from, was funded.
I’m sure you don’t. Moving on.
Unless it’s some kind of Schrodinger’s Convention Center where they both hold and don’t hold it simultaneously.
That’s actually a pretty good description of the GOP convention these days.
I guess Democrats too.
“That’s actually a pretty good description of the GOP convention these days.”
Missing the cyanide gas that’s a crucial part of the original thought experiment. Maybe that’s what the speeches are for.
I think that’s a really ingenious defense, there, Phil.
It’s not a patch on “here’s the first Google result I found,” but I try.
A search for the quoted string on this page yields only one result.
Super!
russell,
The argument goes that the people who build businesses wouldn’t be able to do that without the government investment in infrastructure that supports the economy. So much of their success is based on this infrastructure being there, and they didn’t build that infrastructure.
The alternative argument is that the businesses came first, they either built their own infrastructure, or in the case of roads and bridges (and, the extension of the thought process, the internet), the tax dollars collected from their businesses and the people they pay built it as a choice in the budget.
No government built infrastructure would exist if there hadn’t been businesses and tax payers to fund it, and in most cases build it on contract. The idea that government built it and then all the businesses took advantage by using it is farcical.
The idea that modern businesses would have exactly the infrastructure they have without the government building it is certainly questionable. But, barring governments building the highway system, would it have been built? Quite probably in some form, probably all toll roads, something Mass is good at also. People built bridges before the government did. They built roads, they built dams.
Demeaning the accomplishments of business people by pretending they are leeches off the largesse of “governments” investment is.just.wrong.
I’m not sure how relevant is the point of how the building, which they rented space and time from, was funded.
Actually, it is quite relevant to those who assert that government efforts to promote the common good by “building stuff” are just fine if they can nick a bit of profit out of the deal, obtain a subsidy, have their private property protected, or derive some other economic benefit, but that similar public efforts to “build stuff” that they do not approve of are deemed wholly illegitimate based on some kind of half assed universal principle having to do with freedom, liberty, free enterprise, “crowding out” or the stultifying dead hand of socialism.
It is further astounding to see it asserted that government spending “depends” on taxes when plainly it does not in the case of the federal government.
Perhaps too, Brett has some pictures of businesses out in the middle of nowhere just waiting for the interstate highway system to come by…like in the old days when towns sprung up trying to guess where the railroads would be built. Chicken and egg. Indeed.
The idea that modern businesses would have exactly the infrastructure they have without the government building it is certainly questionable.
questionable?
no, farcical.
Demeaning the accomplishments of business people by pretending they are leeches off the largesse of “governments” investment is.just.wrong.
nobody is doing that
we don’t live in libertarian Utopia. we live in the actual USA, where the actual, real-life, government did actually, in real-life, no-shit, build the no-fooling-there-they-really-are roads and bridges that these businesses depend on for, not only their day-to-day activities, but in a real way, their entire existence.
or, maybe you find a lot of thriving businesses located at the end of self-made roads which don’t connect in any way to any government-build roads?
the government, which yes, gets its money from tax-payers, built the infrastructure that American businesses use. and it didn’t do it out of spite, or out of a desire to put the shackles on all these energetic entrepreneurs who would’ve gone out and by-golly built their own roads(!); it built them because Americans want roads so that they can use them to run and patronize businesses.
and the government provides a legal and financial infrastructure which businesses rely on. and that infrastructure was put in place so that businesses could thrive. and the government provides military protection of US business interests – not because it wants a monopoly on the use of force but because Americans want the government to do that.
nobody’s trying to hold back your fncking business. just quit pretending your business is not taking advantage of infrastructures (physical, legal, financial) that have been built up by centuries of government and business partnership.
The idea that modern businesses would have exactly the infrastructure they have without the government building it is certainly questionable. But, barring governments building the highway system, would it have been built? Quite probably in some form
I think both of these statements – that it’s questionable whether the existing infrastructure would be there absent some form of public action, and that something else would have built instead – are accurate.
I also think the choice between “the government built it” and “private business built it” is a false one, and a foolish one.
Absolutely from the inception of this country, both the public and private sector have worked together to build the physical, legal, and social infrastructure needed to facilitate and encourage private enterprise.
It has been that way from day one.
“Chicken and egg” is actually an inaccurate way to describe the relationship between the two. “Hand in hand” is probably more accurate.
IMVHO all of that is completely appropriate, and as it should be.
Demeaning the accomplishments of business people by pretending they are leeches off the largesse of “governments” investment is.just.wrong.
As above, I agree with this.
Fortunately, nobody is accusing private business of being “leeches” off of government largesse.
Here’s the relevant passage from Obama’s statement:
Kindly note that the word “that” in the first graph refers not to folks’ businesses, but to schools, roads, and bridges.
Yes, there are some instances of private individuals building those things, but in the *vast majority* – and I do mean vast –
significant infrastructure like schools, roads, bridges, etc are built out with, at a minimum, the participation of the public sector.
Kindly also note the “but also” in the last graph.
Obama is not claiming “either / or”. He is claiming “both / and”. Which I, personally, believe is both historically accurate, at all periods of our national history, and appropriate.
And all of this – all of our discussion about this, here on this thread – is beside the point of how his statement has been distorted and used by the Romney campaign.
Romney would have us think that Obama is claiming that private individuals who build businesses have not really built their businesses. That is false, and at this point any possibility that Romney simply misunderstood Obama’s statement is risible.
Romney is lying. Full stop. Not spin, not “coloring” what Obama said. He is lying.
Yes, I know. Government can, does and maybe even should spend in a way that’s completely disconnected from any consideration of revenues.
It’s a lovely assertion; one that you might even find some agreement for in certain circles. But repetition of it isn’t going to have me believe it any more quickly.
If revenues were unimportant, taxes could be eliminated altogether.
“nobody is doing that”
Yes, yes they are. Here is two paragraphs on how you didn’t really do it yourself:
The only person that did anything good in those two paragraphs is “somebody”. Anybody except you.
Here is two paragraphs on how you didn’t really do it yourself
Yeah, CCDG, it’s two paragraphs on how you didn’t really do it yourself.
As in, all by yourself, with no assistance or support from anybody else.
Are you thinking that Obama is saying, if you have a successful business, that everybody except for you is responsible for that?
Or do you think he is saying other people in addition to you contributed to your success?
Can you point me to one successful person whose achievement was accomplished with no contribution or support from the public sector?
The only person that did anything good in those two paragraphs is “somebody”.
this is just so fncking ridiculous. it’s such a stupid, dishonest, bad-faith, deliberate misreading.
If revenues were unimportant, taxes could be eliminated altogether.
It’s the possibility of revenues that is important. Right now the U.S. gov’t is spending 50% more than it takes in and yet it can still borrow $$ over 30 years at 2.75%.
If it was taking in $0, what would the rate be?
“Are you thinking that Obama is saying, if you have a successful business, that everybody except for you is responsible for that?”
Yes, this is just his best summary
OK then.
That seems like a basically nutty reading of his statement to me, but everybody’s got their own set of baggage.
Different strokes.
My answer is: no one would issue an uncollateralized loan to you for the required funds at any rate of interest, if you don’t have an income and you’re already substantially indebted.
Can you point me to one successful person whose achievement was accomplished with no contribution or support from the public sector?
No, depending on how broadly you define ‘contribution or support’, *but* the role of gov’t in the vast majority of cases is very limited.
Public education, roads, police and fire protection, courts, life safety regulatory bodies and services(sanitation,clean water, food, public air travel, offshore drilling, etc) are miniscule gov’t outlays. Add in national defense, and it’s still easily affordable.
The infrastructure needed to sustain a vibrant private sector is chump change compared to current combined local, state and national spending.
So, if the subject is misleading statements, implying that we need the full range of gov’t programs and services for someone to start or maintain a business, well, that is misleading. We *need* far less than we are bestowing on ourselves for the private sector to thrive.
McK:
Public education, roads, police and fire protection, courts, life safety regulatory bodies and services(sanitation,clean water, food, public air travel, offshore drilling, etc) are miniscule gov’t outlays. Add in national defense, and it’s still easily affordable.
Where are you getting these figures? The data at this self-identified “conservative” site shows that education and defense are almost a trillion dollars each, which is not what I think of as “miniscule”. And I don’t know how much of the “Pensions” slice represents the cost of ed or defense, either.
If there’s any interest, I could crunch the OECD numbers and see what they say.
No, depending on how broadly you define ‘contribution or support’, *but* the role of gov’t in the vast majority of cases is very limited.
Public education, roads, police and fire protection, courts, life safety regulatory bodies and services(sanitation,clean water, food, public air travel, offshore drilling, etc) are miniscule gov’t outlays.
OK, IMO you’re making an interesting point here. Because Obama is making his pitch to call for, among other things, an increased tax burden on wealthier folks.
I agree that the outlays for the kinds of things we’ve been discussing up to now – material public infrastructure like roads bridges and transportation, legal and social institutions, education and support for professional training, etc. – makes up a relatively small, and quite affordable part of the federal budget.
The big ticket items are Social Security, Medicare, defense, and Medicaid.
Leaving defense off the table for the moment, what I take to be your point is that the very largest expenditures – SS, Medicare, Medicaid – are not relevant, or are at least far less relevant, to enabling successful private enterprise.
You might want to include welfare per se — TANF, food stamps, etc. — in that bucket as well, but IIRC they are actually not that large a piece of the federal budget, either.
If I’m missing your point please advise.
If I’m not missing your point, I think you’re correct as far as considering things that directly support the operation of private business.
More broadly, however, I would argue that the “safety net” stuff supports a relatively unregulated labor market without the downside of widespread poverty.
That’s why the programs were put in place.
There’s also, apart from the issue of supporting private enterprise, the idea of basic mutual responsibility that is often part of what people think of as belonging to the public sphere.
That, of course, has little to do with enabling entrepreneurial effort directly, it’s just a good thing on its own merits.
IMVHO.
I wonder if Govenments have any way of raising revenues aside from taxes? Some enterprising person should use Google and find out!
we don’t live in libertarian Utopia. we live in the actual USA, where the actual, real-life, government did actually, in real-life, no-shit, build the no-fooling-there-they-really-are roads and bridges that these businesses depend on for, not only their day-to-day activities, but in a real way, their entire existence.
Not only that, businesses WANT IT that way. If they had to build and maintain that infrastructure themselves,the barriers to entry would be insurmountably high for all but the highest market cap corporations. The way it works now, Joe’s Hardware can take advantage of the same electrical grid and freewy off ramps that Home Depot does, and everyone is (more or less) better off for it.
More broadly, however, I would argue that the “safety net” stuff supports a relatively unregulated labor market without the downside of widespread poverty.
Not only that, they enable people to, you know, *buy things*. Businesses like when people are able to buy things. It really helps their cash flow.
Also, given the state of our national infrastructure, that spending should be many, many times what it is now. If it isn’t it’s only a matter of time before we have more Minnesota bridge incidents.
Doc, you are correct. Education is 1/6th of the fed budget and defense about the same, all up slightly under 1/3. And, affordable. Actually, we’d run a big surplus.
Russ, you are not missing my point at all. There may be good, even excellent reasons, for a safety net. However, a safety net is not a condition or even much of an aid to a strong private sector. Education, yes. Roads and all the rest, yes.
The question I always have in my mind–and this is kind of what drives my fundamental thinking-goes like this: what can we least do without and survive as a society? The answer I get every time is: a strong private sector. Good, bad or indifferent–I think ‘good’, but that’s just me–if we take that piece out of the engine, it doesn’t run. The next two questions are: how much of a load can the engine, the economy, pull and what gets put on the load first (and what goes last?)?
Think of it as bare infrastructure and then as add-on’s. How much can we add on without breaking the engine?
Not only that, they enable people to, you know, *buy things*. Businesses like when people are able to buy things. It really helps their cash flow.
Sure, that’s what I want. Tax me at 35-50% so that maybe a safety net recipient of some fraction of my tax burden will hire me.
Surely you know someone who owns a grocery store.
The major shift of America from an agrarian nation to an industrial nation in the 1800s was in large part due to the development of railroads. These were largely subsidized by government grants of land. IMO this is the original basis for government having helped build America’s private industrial wealth.
Before then, the agrarian nation was built on land that the British and US governments obtained through their power and then gave to settlers. The homesteads that continued until about a century ago are a logical extension of this concept.
// Used to be, conservatives studied history. Nowadays forgetting fits the right’s narrative better.
IMO this is the original basis for government having helped build America’s private industrial wealth.
I go back further than that, to the essentially mercantilist policies of the first half of the 19th C., based on Hamilton’s American Plan.
That came out of the first few Congresses. So, founders.
Think of it as bare infrastructure and then as add-on’s. How much can we add on without breaking the engine?
IMO that’s a pretty reasonable way to think about it. I’d even go further and ask what we can do to make the engine stronger.
“Can you point me to one successful person whose achievement was accomplished with no contribution or support from the public sector?”
We do not say to a brick mason, as he walks away from a wall, “You didn’t build that!”, just because he bought the bricks, instead of digging up the clay and baking it himself. We don’t tell the baker, “You didn’t bake that!” of the loaf coming out of his oven, just because he didn’t mill the flour, and build the oven.
Businessmen DID “build that”, in every sense the phrase is normally understood to mean. Did they use roads? Yeah, and paid for them. Did they employ workers educated in schools? Yeah, and paid them salaries.
The “You didn’t build that!” rant, (And it was quite a rant, in context, makes you understand why Obama doesn’t usually do extemporaneous, if that’s what’s lurking in him.) is an accusation of something more than that. It’s a claim the success was due to somebody else, and so the reward is, too, and be thankful the government responsible for your success lets you keep anything at all.
It’s a way of thinking some people share, and so they don’t see that rant for the PR disaster it was. But it’s going to be thrown in Obama’s face from now to November, and justly so. He let the mask slip for a moment, and isn’t going to be allowed to pretend it didn’t happen.
I wonder if Govenments have any way of raising revenues aside from taxes? Some enterprising person should use Google and find out!
No need to google. Some governments have (and some still do) draw(n) significant revenue from control of natural resources and have used that to keep taxes low. Most oiligarchies (no misspelling) seem to run that way.
And if we follow Romney that fees are not taxes (the very basis of his claim of orthodox Groverism in his Mass. govrnorship) ‘ideal conservative’ government does not need taxes at all. OK that is pure sarcasm on my part
the agrarian nation was built on land that the British and US governments obtained through their power and then gave to settlers
Thank you. The Government gave it away. No individual person had to “win” it. People, perhaps, had to “build” it, but they were given the freaking land. Just imagine, in the 20th or 21st century if people were “given” stuff. Socialism!!!!!!
Tax me at 35-50% so that maybe a safety net recipient of some fraction of my tax burden will hire me.
nobody is proposing taxing anyone at that level. and you know it.
We do not say to a brick mason, as he walks away from a wall, “You didn’t build that!”, just because he bought the bricks, instead of digging up the clay and baking it himself. We don’t tell the baker, “You didn’t bake that!” of the loaf coming out of his oven, just because he didn’t mill the flour, and build the oven.
which would be a fucking awesome point if that was in any way what Obama actually said.
you people have gone full Limbaugh. you’re piling delusion on top of delusion, mistaking your own tumescent fantasies for reality. you can’t even read a banal restatement of what it means to have a functional democratic government without concluding that it’s rock-solid proof of your delusions.
pathetic.
Sapient replied to me:
the agrarian nation was built on land that the British and US governments obtained through their power and then gave to settlers
Thank you. The Government gave it away. No individual person had to “win” it. People, perhaps, had to “build” it, but they were given the freaking land. Just imagine, in the 20th or 21st century if people were “given” stuff. Socialism!!!!!
This is not as socialistic as it sounds. These governments profited on the development of the land they gave away, including taxing its fruits. This sounds a lot like selling inkjet printers under cost, to create customers locked in to your ink cartridges.
We do not say to a brick mason, as he walks away from a wall, “You didn’t build that!”, just because he bought the bricks, instead of digging up the clay and baking it himself.
Yeah, not to pile on, but you are correct, we don’t say that, because it’s not true.
It’s also got nothing whatsoever to do with the point Obama was making.
Brick masons work in a social, legal, and material context that allows them to work efficiently and in a profitable and useful way. As do we all.
They, individually, did not create that context. Nor, individually, did any of the rest of us.
I do in fact have a “way of thinking”, that I do in fact share with a lot of people. According that way of thinking, what I do affects other people, and what they do affects me. So it’s freaking bone ignorant for me to say that any success I have in life is purely down to my personal effort.
I’ve worked my ass off, and I’ve also benefited from the efforts of thousands of other people. Both things are true.
If you want to tell me everything you’ve achieved in life has been due to nothing but your own effort, you have a hell of a lot of convincing to do.
Give it your best shot, I’m all ears.
This is not as socialistic as it sounds.
Yes, I agree. I’d say that taking public property and handing it over to private actors so they could develop it for their own profit is about as far from socialism as you can get.
There were in fact public benefits flowing from the arrangement, but “socialism” it was not.
My answer is: no one would issue an uncollateralized loan to you for the required funds at any rate of interest, if you don’t have an income and you’re already substantially indebted.
A convenient phase shift and totally inappropriate little allegory that somehow skips over the fact that in our current monetary system the government essentially floats bonds to satisfy the public’s liquidity preference (and provide a nice little subsidy to the financial sector to boot).
How we get from an entity that has the monopoly power to issue THE currency at will to some pitifully busted flat “you” who nobody will loan money to even at infinitely high interest is, well, mind boggling.
As to taxes (federal). Taxes create a demand for the currency.
what can we least do without and survive as a society?
Public health, public safety, etc. People tend to forget that capitalism (read, ‘private sector’) is a relatively new way of social relations, and societies got along without it for thousands of years. And I don’t really give much credence to this particularly utopian scheme of endless accumulation getting us much further into the future if it insists, socially speaking, on not internalizing the true costs of externalities such as climate change….but you could make the argument that it is human (social) nature to do so, and the wonderful Soviets (pokes finger in my chest)did the same thing. I wouldn’t deny it. That could make for an interesting discussion.
Education is 1/6th of the fed budget..
Good lord, Tex…what or who’s budget are you reading?
But, barring governments building the highway system, would it have been built? Quite probably in some form, probably all toll roads, something Mass is good at also. People built bridges before the government did. They built roads, they built dams.
In fact, building a road is almost impossible without active government support. If the road is in an area that you don’t fully own, and there are lots of landowners, it will be quite impossible to buy the land through voluntary purchases. There will always be people who will not sell, whatever the cost. (People don’t like to give up their homes, for example.)
Thus, using eminent domain is needed for road construction. This can only be accomplished through governmental support. Or if you’ve got a biker gang or a group of “made men” ready to lend a hand in making sellers more pliable, you are actually the government.
In the Anglo-Saxon history, private roads were either built using eminent domain or by lords of manor whose stature in the local agricultural community essentially made them the government. (In fact, most English lords of manor were actually magistrates and leaders of the local government even in the legal sense.)
If you want to see what a society looks like without a safety net (but with a fairly effective infrastructure) look at Victorian England and the novels of Dickens, etc. I don’t know what the US equivalent would be, but someone better informed on American literature could doubtless add examples. What you see is a society where if you are unlucky you die, you survive by charity or you turn to crime.
One of the reasons that nineteenth and twentieth-century UK governments (by no means all socialist) put in safety nets was to prevent the poor rioting, stop the French Revolution happening in London or Manchester. The other main reason was mass conscription. One of the big drivers towards serious concerns about public health was finding how badly nourished Boer War conscripts were. The National Health Service and the welfare state was developed in the aftermath of World War Two, when everybody did feel they’d been in it together fighting Hitler.
The modern US, however, seems to be a moving towards a system in which you have a small but very technically advanced military (so you don’t need mass consciption) and vast swathes of the population can be left to rot in jail(so the rich needn’t worry about crime). They may have therefore have found a way to overcome the normal pressing reasons why the rich have conceded safety nets in other industrialised societies.
That is a very interesting way of looking at these developments, magistra, but I think, if I were putting the case, I’d argue that the armed forces, given their support of affirmative action, should really reject that thinking. Not trying to bust your observation, but having the widest possible population base from which to draw from seems to be a much better strategy than to hope that get the best, even though you are condemning a sizable number of poverty with no hope of escape.
Look, I know the defense that’s been decided upon is “Context! He didn’t mean that!” So you’re going to keep yelling “Context!” no matter what.
Well, I read the remarks in context, viewed them in context, and context doesn’t make them look good.
It’s all about how, because you didn’t build your business in a vacuum, you’re not entitled to complain if your taxes are too high. STFU, and pay the taxes. And don’t feel so proud about what you did, either.
Well, that still doesn’t justify saying “You didn’t build that!”, because if a thousand people have the streets, and live in a country full of educated people, and only two of them create a business, those two damned well DID build that. They provided the difference between them, and the other 998. That difference was the crucial thing. If a thousand people have the opportunity, and only 2 of them make anything of it, those two damned well are entitled to think they’re “so smart”, that they “worked harder than everybody else”.
They’re entitled to feel proud, they’re entitled to think that they did it, because everything Obama is talking about was there for the others, and they didn’t do squat with it.
AND, they’re entitled to think they’re over-taxed. Because as much as some things were necessary for their success, and had to be paid for by taxes, there’s an end to those things. They’re finite, they can be paid for, and once you’ve paid for them, and they keep demanding more, you’re perfectly entitled to think, “Yeah, I may have needed that, but you’re still over-charging me for it.”
There’s a big freaking step from “No man is an island” to “No man should feel proud of his accomplishments”, and a bigger step to “No man should complain about his taxes.”
My cousin runs a catering business. Society doesn’t get up at 4AM to prepare the food. Society doesn’t find somebody to cover for her when she was at my mother’s death bed. Society didn’t show up to handle the grill at that family reunion wearing a leg brace because society threw out a knee but had a contract to fulfill.
Society didn’t build that, she did. But society is perfectly happy to take from her more of the proceeds from all that work than society’s share in creating them. Because society, or rather the government, doesn’t hire an accountant to determine how much of her profit was due to the roads, and how much was due to getting up at 4 AM.
The government just takes everything it can get, and then blows it on crony capitalism loans to the politically connected, which my cousin never was, and never got.
The donations Obama got from Solyndra investors? My cousin built them.
AND, they’re entitled to think they’re over-taxed. Because as much as some things were necessary for their success, and had to be paid for by taxes, there’s an end to those things.
“the end” to a bridge is a bridge in pieces at the bottom of a valley. “the end” to a road is impassable rubble. “the end” to a school is no school at all. the end to a judge is a coffin.
The government just takes everything it can get, and then blows it on crony capitalism loans to the politically connected, which my cousin never was, and never got.
then go someplace where there is no government! if you hate actual, real-life America as much as you seem to, then, for the sake of your health, you might want to just pack it up and go. go live out your life in a paradise where government is invisible and guns are as plentiful as left arms.
Thank you, cleek. I wish these people who think they “built it” would just go build it. There are plenty of opportunities!
Well, that still doesn’t justify saying “You didn’t build that!”
he was talking about the roads, not your business. what you didn’t build was the infrastructure. that’s the whole point of that section of the speech: we need to build and rebuild America’s infrastructure because that’s what makes building a successful business possible.
infrastructure. he’s not saying you didn’t build your precious business, he’s saying you (on your own) didn’t build the conditions that made the business possible.
and this is such a banal point that your collective* freak-out over it looks ten times more childish and more manufactured than your usual freakouts.
you’re building delusions on top of delusions. you’ve abandoned reality for your fantasy world where Obama is the evil criminal mastermind/doofus the Limbaughs have told you he must be.
—
* – no, you didn’t build this freak-out on your own. Romney helped you. Limbaugh helped you. Fox News helped you. you aren’t as smart and clever as that. you didn’t build that outrage machine. somewhere along the line, some wingnut told you that you needed to be upset about it. and here we are.
They’re entitled to feel proud, they’re entitled to think that they did it, because everything Obama is talking about was there for the others, and they didn’t do squat with it.
The 998 people you’re talking about aren’t all sitting on the @sses.
They may not have started their own business, but they did something else.
AND, they’re entitled to think they’re over-taxed.
Everyone is entitled to think whatever they like.
Society doesn’t get up at 4AM to prepare the food. Society doesn’t find somebody to cover for her when she was at my mother’s death bed. Society didn’t show up to handle the grill at that family reunion wearing a leg brace because society threw out a knee but had a contract to fulfill.
With no disrespect toward your cousin, I can assure you that folks who don’t happen to own and operate their own businesses have done *all* of the things you mention here. In spades.
Some people go into business for themselves, some don’t. Everybody’s effort adds value, to themselves and to other people.
Starting your own business is great, but not everyone is going to do it, for lots and lots and lots of reasons.
It’s all about how, because you didn’t build your business in a vacuum, you’re not entitled to complain if your taxes are too high.
I think you almost have the gist of it.
It’s all about how, because you didn’t build your business in a vacuum, you’re not entitled to any kind of special treatment from the rest of us.
Everybody complains because their taxes are too high. *I* complain because my taxes are too high. Business owners and operators can just join the club.
And yes, after I have my little pity party, I STFU and cut a check, because on the whole my life is actually pretty damned good, and the things that my tax money buys go a long way toward making that so.
Business owners work hard, so does everybody else. Business owners create jobs, working people create value for the business owners.
One hand washes the other. So yeah, folks can think whatever they want, but in the end they should STFU and pay their taxes.
That’s my take. Hope your cousin’s leg is better.
For the record, my wife is in the same boat. Self-employed, for years, she may be looking at knee surgery. That will mean no, or at least less, income for several weeks.
We’ll deal, just like your cousin did and does.
go live out your life in a paradise where government is invisible and guns are as plentiful as left arms.
You don’t even have to go to Somalia. There are plenty of places in this country where you can go and live pretty much however you like, and have damned little government interference.
Most of those places are rural, far away from any kind of services or infrastructure or social support of any kind.
I have friends who have, at some point in their lives, done this. Given the choice of put up or shut up, they put up. It ain’t easy, but it can be done.
Go there, and live your life. You can probably even arrange to have zero tax burden. You’ll have to make some adjustments to your way of life, but TANSTAAFL, right?
Go and live your happy free life. None of us will get in your way.
These were largely subsidized by government grants of land. I
The gov’t built the land?
the agrarian nation was built on land that the British and US governments obtained through their power and then gave to settlers.
That power being, by and large, the settlers. It was the settlers who formed what passed for gov’t back then, and which bears hardly any relationship to gov’t today.
nobody is proposing taxing anyone at that level. and you know it.
Actually, I’m already taxed at well over 35%, adding in my state and local obligations, but that wasn’t the narrow point I was making to Phil.
Good lord, Tex…what or who’s budget are you reading?
The one Doc linked to.
I wish these people who think they “built it” would just go build it. There are plenty of opportunities!
Ok, no gov’t, no ordered liberties. Unrestrained, fully independent humanity has never existed. There were, initially, family units, then tribes and so on.
The philosophical issues are how much gov’t and involvement in what aspects of our lives? That’s really the left/right divide.
I picked Sapient’s statement because, to pick up on Russell’s question: how do we make the engine stronger, the problem these days is that you can’t ‘just go build it’.
To build something, assuming you have a marketable product or service, you need seed capital and an environment that doesn’t so limit you operationally that you can actually get the business going.
Two underlying issues here are taxes and regulations. Sure, we obviously need taxes to support essential gov’t services (defining ‘essential’ being one of the many divides) and you can’t have anyone who wants to pumping water out of a sewer and selling it as a cold remedy.
That said, there is X amount of a tax burden on income that people will bear. Also, the greater the tax burden, the more you limit a business’ ability to grow. Taxes are a cost of doing business, they come off the bottom line and the benefit to the business of its tax dollars is so attenuated that, what you really have, is a significant outlay with no return. Plus, that outlay cannot be used to expand the business, or put money back for a down cycle.
On the regulatory side, the compliance cost is heavily weighted in large companies’ favor. Small operations, start-ups etc have to look to unregulated areas. Another aspect of the regulatory drag on the private sector is illustrated by a company I am well familiar with that decided not to open a plant in California, because of a two year delay in filling our regulatory forms, and did it in Texas instead. Good for us, too bad for CA.
Fans of the regulatory state can defend the status quo or concede that, here and there, there has been overreach and actually work to fix it. Not BS statements like Obama’s that no one believes and that has shown zero execution, but an actual top down and critical review of the bazillion regs we currently have.
Look, I know the defense that’s been decided upon is “Context! He didn’t mean that!”
Dang it, guys, if you aren’t going to read my memos, I don’t see what the point is. I realize that explaining how the antecedent ‘that’ refers to ‘this unbelievable American system’, not ‘a business’ is a little more involved than just yelling context, but, if you looked over my memo, you can simply point out that “You had a business and you bankrupted that” is not acceptable. If Barack really wanted the let the mask slip, he would have said ‘it’. Or just point out to Brett that when he writes Context! He didn’t mean that!
‘that’ obviously doesn’t refer to ‘context’, it refers to the previous notion of Barack’s planned takeover of Brett’s way of life. But this now runs into the problem that you’ll have to convince Brett that Barack has access to the same grammatical intuitions about English as Brett does. Good luck with that.
Anyway, we have bigger fish to fry, so please get back on task or we won’t be able to get the banks and airlines nationalized by 2014. Not to mention getting the death panels up and running and your favorite NWA tracks as elevator music. You have your orders.
For the record, my wife is in the same boat. Self-employed, for years, she may be looking at knee surgery. That will mean no, or at least less, income for several weeks.
Indeed. My mother is 64 and needs a complete left knee replacement, and it’s urgent. She has, literally, no cartilage left, and does continuing damage every time she walks on it. But she can’t get it anytime soon because:
a) She works 40+ hours per week at an employer for whom she’s worked for over a decade, and still only gets two weeks – or 80 hours – of PTO every year.
b) She also is one of three primary caretakers – my mom, her boyfriend, and her sister – who provide care for my 83-year-old grandmother who has severe Alzheimer’s and is basically wheelchair bound thanks to a broken hip earlier this year.
My aunt (mom’s aforementioned sister) is retired, but mom and her boyfriend both work; he runs a remodeling business of which he is the sole employee. Their lives are basically a rotating cycle of bathing and feeding my grandmother, and attempting to keep her from inuring herself or anyone else (Alzheimer’s sufferers can have violent outbursts) in between hours of work.
They literally have no time to themselves, and my mother can’t get her knee replaced because she can’t take the time away from caring for my grandmother, and doesn’t have enough PTO for both the surgery and recovery anyway. (It doesn’t carry over; use it or lose it.)
If anyone wants to imply to me that they don’t work as hard as Brett’s sainted cousin, they’re welcome to try, but it will go poorly for them.
That said, there is X amount of a tax burden on income that people will bear.
Even if one believes in the silliness of the Laffer Curve, all indicators show that we are WELL below the revenue-maximizing tax rates beyond which they would become a disincentive.
Forgot to add: Mom already spent a great deal of last year with no or reduced income, as she spent five months in treatment for lymphoma; and has continuing thyroid and endocrine problems as side effects of treatment, so she has to use her PTO for doctor’s appointments for herself. She can’t afford to reduce or go without income again.
(I know, I know, in Brettland, she’s supposed to fall to her knees and heap praises on her Galtian Superman employer who continues to give her a job at all given her medical history. )
“Anyway, we have bigger fish to fry, so please get back on task or we won’t be able to get the banks and airlines nationalized by 2014. Not to mention getting the death panels up and running and your favorite NWA tracks as elevator music. You have your orders.”
Yes comrades, no one ever said building socialism in one state would be easy. Look at the difficulties our lost leader Stalin had with his wreckers. But enough of this whining–in the words of Boxer, I will work harder.
On the regulatory side, the compliance cost is heavily weighted in large companies’ favor.
Just wanted to chime in to say that, IMO, this is a very apt point.
In the political spectrum, at this point I’m probably some flavor of democratic socialist. So, I’m fine with a fairly robust regulatory state, per se.
But I think it behooves me, and folks who think like me, to recognize that all of the instruments of the state – taxation, regulation, etc. – are not ends in themselves.
They need to be productive. They need to address some actual, tangible need or purpose, and they need to do so effectively.
They need, at a minimum, to solve more problems than they create.
So, I do get it when people complain about regulations that are counter-productive, or about debacles like Solyndra, or when (as is not uncommon) folks’ all-in tax burden edges up into fairly high numbers.
IMO, in the modern context, the benefits of a robust state outweigh the downside. But there is a downside.
Just thought Brett, McK, CCDG, slarti, et al deserved to have that recognized.
People tend to forget that capitalism (read, ‘private sector’) is a relatively new way of social relations, and societies got along without it for thousands of years. And I don’t really give much credence to this particularly utopian scheme of endless accumulation getting us much further into the future if it insists, socially speaking, on not internalizing the true costs of externalities such as climate change….but you could make the argument that it is human (social) nature to do so
Bobby, you are hard to follow at this point. Sure, capitalism is relatively new and so is the accompanying widespread relative prosperity. But what was there prior to capitalism that any of us really would like to see revived? And who is talking about a utopian scheme of endless accumulation?
Public health, public safety, etc.
I sense much more lurks beneath these very general categories. First things first: food, shelter, clothing. Someone has to produce these. You get the best results when people are motivated by their own self interest, but bound by the rule of law.
They need, at a minimum, to solve more problems than they create.
If this view were widely held and executed on the leftish side of our divide, much good would come of it, although I would modify this principle to acknowledge that many ‘problems’ are a part of life and do not need the delicate hand of gov’t to ease our burden.
It’s all about how, because you didn’t build your business in a vacuum, you’re not entitled to complain if your taxes are too high. STFU, and pay the taxes.
It’s actually something someone says only in response to people complaining about historically low tax rates. When people dispute basic things, other people are left defending those basic things. Even if they come off sounding like jackasses to some people, it is only because of the jackassery they are forced to respond to. It’s too bad someone even has to make these basic points, but that’s what you get when the other side cries “tax cuts! tax cuts! waahhh!” in response to every issue on the planet. (Yes, I’m being hyperbolic, but only a little.)
If revenues were unimportant, taxes could be eliminated altogether.
See above. You should take it up with “fiscal conservatives.”
But more seriously, the problem is that taxes are not necessarily revenue at all. They are financial resources that are extinguished from existence. Spending creates money and taxation destroys it. That’s how it really works today.
Taxation functions to keep the currency relevant, since it’s the only thing the government will accept when it taxes you, and it keeps the economy from overheating from the excessive demand that would result from the government and the private sector from competing too vigorously over limited resources. It makes space for the goverment to do what it has to do, however we arrive at “what the government has to do” via our semi-democratic system of government.
Currently our deficits are appropriate, or too small, considering the lack of demand and how far below its productive capacity our national economy is operating.
But, I know, that sort of talk only gets traction in certain circles.
If this view were widely held and executed on the leftish side of our divide, much good would come of it
was there a poll done which suggests it isn’t widely held on the leftish side?
because i personally don’t know anyone who thinks regulation for the sake of regulation, and damn the consequences, is a good thing.
“Yes, I do own the road!”
If this view were widely held and executed on the leftish side of our divide, much good would come of it,
Is this a view that’s widely held and executed on the rightish side of the divide? The recent history of nonsensical abortion legislation would seem to suggest it is not, so physician heal thyself, mote in one’s eye, etc., etc.
although I would modify this principle to acknowledge that many ‘problems’ are a part of life and do not need the delicate hand of gov’t to ease our burden.
No burden is too heavy for the one who never has to bear it at all.
Fans of the regulatory state can defend the status quo or concede that, here and there, there has been overreach and actually work to fix it. Not BS statements like Obama’s that no one believes and that has shown zero execution, but an actual top down and critical review of the bazillion regs we currently have.
Obama has been doing that top down critical review. What is your specific beef with his regulatory overreach? You don’t like clean air? Go to China and check out what happens when there isn’t effective regulation.
…but an actual top down and critical review of the bazillion regs we currently have.
Obama’s the President of the United States, not Brazil. Get it straight, man.
was there a poll done which suggests it isn’t widely held on the leftish side?
because i personally don’t know anyone who thinks regulation for the sake of regulation, and damn the consequences, is a good thing.
I’m sure you don’t. Can someone find me a single regulation that this administration has rolled back?
Can someone on the left find a single regulatory regime impacting commerce that they think has gone too far?
More seriously, though, a top-down critical review is required before cutting regulations as well as before adding them. I’m not so sure we’ve cut the right ones, not having much more than relatively short-term profit margins for industries with cozy lobbyists and beefy campaign contributions in mind. Maybe it’s just me.
You have to be just as careful about deregulating as you do regulating, particularly when dismantling long-standing regulations for the sake of unleashing the Godly powers of private-sector innovation.
Those unintended consequences go both ways.
just a google:
http://content.usatoday.com/communities/theoval/post/2012/05/obama-cuts-five-regulations-says-it-will-save-6b/1
McKinney, you might want to read this, as an example.
I’m sure you don’t.
so, no you don’t actually have any evidence that anyone thinks that way; you’re just fightin’ the straw.
Can someone find me a single regulation that this administration has rolled back?
here’s one. here are 46 more.
there’s this tool called “Google” you could use, if you want to find more.
Cleek, your examples are pretty lame. Here’s one:
The Obama administration and the Environmental Protection Agency announced Thursday they intend to phase out the rubber boots on gas pump handles now used to capture harmful gasoline vapors while refueling cars.
The EPA says the vapor-capturing fuel pumps are redundant because more than 70% of all cars on the road today are equipped with on-board systems that capture the harmful vapors.
The 46 regs you refer to are actually waivers of 46 compliance deadlines imposed on state and local gov’t under the MUTCD. Big deal.
Can someone on the left find a single regulatory regime impacting commerce that they think has gone too far?
I’m sure there’s a bunch of stupid stuff in Dodd/Frank that doesn’t do much to prevent banks from taking undue risks with other people’s money, but that creates work that otherwise wouldn’t have to be done. If only Glass/Steagall weren’t eliminated, we might not have that stupid stuff.
But that’s sort of general. Maybe you could propose something specific that you think is stupid and see if “someone on the left” agrees with you, Mck. Would I qualify as “someone on the left”?
Cleek, your examples are pretty lame.
i gave you what you asked for (x47).
don’t like those? Google away!
Maybe you could propose something specific that you think is stupid and see if “someone on the left” agrees with you, Mck. Would I qualify as “someone on the left”?
I recall reports, in the aftermath of Katrina, that EMS units responding from out of state had to receive mandatory sexual harassment training before proceeding to NO. Was that urban legend?
There were a number of bureaucratic obstacles to rapid response clean up following the Deep Water Horizon debacle, IIRC.
The feds subsidize certain crops, including wheat. Way back in the day, I worked as a farmhand for a guy who grew wheat, sorghum and soy beans. Only wheat was subsidized. Wheat produced a lower yield per acre dollar wise, even with the subsidy, but the rules then were that if a farmer didn’t plant X amount of wheat for even one year, he/she was excluded from the subsidy program for 10 years. Plus, in order to qualify for the subsidy, a farmer had to let X percent of his/her arable land lie fallow.
There were reasons for these rules, they just weren’t very good ones.
Yes, HSH, you are on the left. I am on the right. That we have common ground here and there doesn’t change our relative headings.
That we have common ground here and there doesn’t change our relative headings.
I wasn’t really trying to dispute that. I was just trying to see if my agreement on the stupidity of a regulation would statisfy the conditions within your question. But, just on their face, the farm subsidy conditions you mention seem pretty stupid. The other things are too vague or not sufficiently established as fact for me to give much consideration.
Something I can say generally about regulations is that I don’t like when they go unnecessarily far into the “how” of things rather than the “what” of things. In other words, I prefer that regulations require outcomes rather than means and methods, where possible, of course. I like bottom-line standards of the form “achieve this level of such and such” rather than “do this, that and the other thing to achieve this level of such and such” if you know what I’m getting at. (Then you can also avoid the “fill out the forms documenting that you did this, that and the other thing while achieving this level of such and such” since there is no “this, that and the other thing” to document.)
That’s not to say that there aren’t cases where “this, that and the other thing” are necessary, because sometimes it’s too late when you find out the “level of such and such” wasn’t achieved, especially when you have, say, dead people involved. You know, really bad, irrevocable, unfixable kind of stuff.
Cleek, your examples are pretty lame.
Am I wrong or is this a pretty standard gambit of yours whenever you’re presented with examples that you request?
Yes, HSH, you are on the left. I am on the right. That we have common ground here and there doesn’t change our relative headings.
I’m not so sure about that. Maddow has this line about how she is an Eisenhower Republican Now, maybe you think that Eisenhower wasn’t really on the right, or that these are the chunks of common ground and we have to go rocketing off in opposite directions, but to me it suggest that we shouldn’t think of these oppositions as being carved in stone, in that it seems that can be amenable to change, albeit slowly. However, locking in votes makes that sort of change toxic, which seems to be why the Republican party can’t really renounce the anti-immigrant, anti gay marriage aspects of its base.
It seems to me that regulations are necessary because:
1) People/entities/corporations with large amounts of money/power have a disproportionate influence over the rest of us, and
2) have proven unable or unwilling to act in good faith/for the public good over making A Dollar.
If I could trust Dow Chemical [or whomever] not to dump toxic sludge in the rivers/air/whatever — even absent being forced — I would be in favor of lifting all the pollution regulations.
But I can’t.
If I could trust Management/Ownership [very broadly speaking] not to sh!t on Labor every time they get the chance, up to and including wage slavery, poor working conditions, viewing Labor as disposable, fair pay, collusion with other Large Interests [again; whomever] to keep Labor down [poor, desperate, in surplus, uneducated]…and so on…I would be in favor of lifting wage and labor regulations.
But I can’t.
If I could trust banks to deal fairly and intelligently with [all of, basically] our money and keep capital from deposits [or whatever; IANAB] away from crazy meta-gambling profit schemes, I would be in favor of lifting the restriction between…oh, wait. We already lost that one. Fnck.
Power corrupts. Money is power (broadly speaking, and increasingly so thanks to the SCOTUS). Capital-ism means “capital” is your “ism.”
This fosters and encourages competition and growth, which is good.
It also encourages worship of capital, which can be detrimental to anything that’s not profitable or commoditizable [sic?], e.g. education, sustainable environmental practices, basic standards of living, gross income inequality (to combat which, as mentioned upthread, is necessary to prevent French Revolution-style redistributions of wealth/power), and other intangibles that are broadly speaking in the “public good.”
Everybody wants a dollar.
Yes, regulations get ridiculous. When Dow Chemical cannot be trusted not to pollute, it causes oversight and regulations, which requires men with checklists and clipboards and sets of rules. And bureaucracy. And tax dollars. That sucks, and can become inefficient, and does. Too freaking bad we can’t count on [large powerful/rich actor] to [not behave in odious/destructive ways in the name of profit].
You go to war [life] with [*not* against] the -ism you have, not with the -ism which may or may not be better.
.02
the agrarian nation was built on land that the British and US governments obtained through their power and then gave to settlers.
That power being, by and large, the settlers. It was the settlers who formed what passed for gov’t back then, and which bears hardly any relationship to gov’t today.
Spoken as true son of the West. No criticism intended, it’s just an observation.
Where I live, the “settlers” were Puritans. Or, at least, the settlers who established a government and ran things were Puritans.
Those dudes regulated everything that wasn’t nailed down.
I live in a commonwealth, whose Consitution was written by real, live American founders. It precedes the US Constitution by almost a decade, and was in fact a model for the US Constitution. It contains the follow passage in its opening paragraphs:
Different strokes, McK. History will out, and yours is not the same as mine.
The US is a plural society. We don’t all have the same history, or social values.
We used to respect that via our national mottor, until we traded ‘e pluribus unum’ for the highly questionable ‘in God we trust’.
Sometimes I think whoever cooked that up misspelled “guns” as “God”, but I digress.
My point here is not to assume that what comes from your own history is normative, or authentically American. There are many versions of authentically American.
up to and including wage slavery, poor working conditions
You left out “waging war against them with a private army”.
Can we agree that, while there might be debatable regulations, ethanol requirements in gas aren’t among them? Fermenting human food to feed at great expense to cars… It never really made sense, but that should be obvious to everybody by now.
Ethanol regulations may or may not be worth getting rid of (I’m fine with getting rid of them), but the corn used in ethanol production is not eaten by humans anyway. It might result in a shift in production from field corn to sweet corn, but that’s not the same thing.
If I could trust Management/Ownership [very broadly speaking] not to sh!t on Labor every time they get the chance, up to and including wage slavery, poor working conditions, viewing Labor as disposable, fair pay, collusion with other Large Interests [again; whomever] to keep Labor down [poor, desperate, in surplus, uneducated]…and so on…I would be in favor of lifting wage and labor regulations.
I’m sure we’ve all seen the story from this past week of the Ohio mine that was shut down for a day, the workers required to go to a Mitt Romney speech, and then docked for that day’s pay because they didn’t work. The mine owner defended his actions with the excuse that, although they were told it was MANDATORY, nobody was PHYSICALLY FORCED to attend.
“but the corn used in ethanol production is not eaten by humans anyway.”
That’s just rationalization. While the specific sort of corn used in ethanol production might not be eaten by many people, production of it directly substitutes for corn or other crops which are consumed by humans, either directly or indirectly.
Considering the amount of fertilizer involved, ethanol was never anything more than carbon laundering anyway.
Here we’ve got a regulation which drives up food prices, drives up energy prices, actually *increases* pollution, and the best you can say is that it’s a toss up? You’re validating that case that lefties just indiscriminately love regulations.
Right, that’s why I said I’m fine with getting rid of them, and acknowledged the substitution effect.
What language IS English for you? Fourth? Fifth?
You’re validating that case that lefties just indiscriminately love regulations.
and you’re demonstrating a severe case of confirmation bias.
“That power being, by and large, the settlers. It was the settlers who formed what passed for gov’t back then, and which bears hardly any relationship to gov’t today.”
“Spoken as true son of the West. No criticism intended, it’s just an observation.”
Someday I’ve got to read Patricia Limerick–
The legacy of conquest summary
I gather she has a few things to say about our impressions of what the old West was like.
I have read somewhere that in early colonial days, lobsters were so plentiful off the New England coast that fishermen used them for chum. If true, this would be an example of using “human food” for industrial purposes. If it “never really made sense”, it would also be an example of The Free Market, unfettered by Government Regulation, doing something silly.
I have also read somewhere that “corn” comes in many varieties, not all of which are “human food”. Most corn is already used more or less like chum (i.e. as animal feed) and as an industrial feedstock (e.g. for processing into syrup) rather than eaten.
My point is not that corn ethanol makes sense. My point is that Brett’s argument against it is superficial.
Corn, like any other plant, is a solar collector. We humans are too dumb to photosynthesize, but we nevertheless live on solar power — and fossil fuels, of course. To the extent that we have a surplus of corn and a limited supply of fossil fuels (not to mention an atmosphere with limited capacity to absorb oxidized fossil carbon), there is nothing inherently nonsensical in the idea of growing — rather than mining — fuel for our machines.
Corn ethanol may be the major way we “grow fuel” at the moment. It may be a really dumb way. If so, let’s find a smarter way. The extraction industries will surely not like it, but Brett might.
–TP
Can we agree that, while there might be debatable regulations, ethanol requirements in gas aren’t among them?
I agree with this.
Considering the amount of fertilizer involved, ethanol was never anything more than carbon laundering anyway.
A very apt point.
Corn-based ethanol does not provide a worthwhile return on energy invested. It seemed like a good idea at one time, but the evidence changed that. That’s how it’s supposed to work, right, even for tree-hugging liberals like me?
It’s probably poor form for me to write this, but I can’t help but wonder whether you’re happily surprised that people here are agreeing with you or you’re disappointed that we didn’t meet your expectations of being steadfast, dogmatically ethanol-based-fuel-loving liberals whom you could easily demonstrate to be lacking an understanding of basic reality, Brett.
In any case, I’ll be sure to raise a glass of corn squeezins to you tonight.
When the private sector tries something new and it wastes resources and fails miserably, it is lauded as “creative destruction”. When we do the same thing using the government, it is held up as an example of government’s innate inability to do anything right.
Sometimes you just can’t win.
When the private sector tries something new and it wastes resources and fails miserably, it is lauded as “creative destruction”
LOL.
My wife worked for many years in a small marketing consultancy. A lot of their clients, and a handful of the principals in the consultancy, were serial entrepreneurs.
If I had a penny for every dollar of investor money those guys lit on fire, I’d be retired and living on a smallish yacht somewhere near Menton.
Some of their stuff turned out to be home runs, and some of their stuff were total, absolute flame-outs.
IMO bobbyp’s point here is right on the money.
I’m left with the impression that when he posts, Brett has an empty chair next to the computer.
I’m left with the impression that when he posts, Brett has an empty chair next to the computer.
chairs are people too, my friend.
“When the private sector tries something new and it wastes resources and fails miserably, it is lauded as “creative destruction””
This is lauded, because when somebody in the private sector tries something new, and it wastes resources and fails miserably, they stop doing it. Because they don’t have the power to tax, and keep wasting resources indefinitely on miserable failures.
That’s certainly something to laud, compared to government.
“Ethanol regulations may or may not be worth getting rid of” left me with more of an “eh, whatever” impression, than “My God, that’s stupid!”, especially given the subsequent rationalization that field corn wasn’t really human food.
Which is just a rationalization, since growing it directly substitutes for growing human food. It’s not like celulosic ethanol, which theoretically could be generated from inputs which don’t compete with human food production, like forestry slash or switchgrass.
But if you really do think it’s more a case of “My God, how stupid!”, I’m glad to hear it.
“Ethanol regulations may or may not be worth getting rid of” left me with more of an “eh, whatever” impression, than “My God, that’s stupid!”, especially given the subsequent rationalization that field corn wasn’t really human food.
No, it was more of a “I’m not sufficiently well-read on the matter to have a particularly strong opinion on it, but at first blush I suspect we’re just as well off without.” Which, if you had an ounce of charity in your shriveled little Grinch heart instead of always assuming the worst of your “enemies” — a trait which, both predictably and amusingly, you always project onto others — you might have considered instead of leaping straight to “SEE THEY’RE ALL A BUNCH OF COMMIES BLAAAAAAARGH!”
Which is just a rationalization, since growing it directly substitutes for growing human food.
You do realize that stopping production of feed corn for ethanol does not mean growers will simply switch straight to sweet corn, right? That there, like, other factors? Which Tony outlined in loving detail above? (You want to talk about patently stupid, let’s talk about the protectionism that makes sugar too expensive relative to corn syrup.)
This is lauded, because when somebody in the private sector tries something new, and it wastes resources and fails miserably, they stop doing it.
Eventually.
Can we all just agree on this:
Corn lobby!
Hey, the rural heartland needs some welfare, too!
If Brett, or any other regular for that matter, would like to write a post outlining various aspects of the question, including utilization of forestry slash or sawgrass, I’d be happy to frontpage it.
Less than a century ago we were competing with our draft animals for food. Now we are competing with our SUVs.
Less than a century ago we were competing with our draft animals for food. Now we are competing with our SUVs.
And in both cases the non-humans take/took precedence over non-privileged humans.
Even if it was possible to feed the non-humans from stocks grown were no human food grows, the profit margin is usually higher when appropriating land suitable for human food. Case in point: Jatropha. Originally praised as the perfect solution (inedible, high oil yields, grows on extremly marginal soils), it has begun (at least in Africa) to go the way of other cash crops, i.e. poor farmers are driven off from ‘good’ land because there the yields are even higher. Apart from that, the stuff literally stinks and India has cancelled some projects of fueling public transport vehicles with it because of the dreadful smell.
And any plant material taken off the land to be used somewhere else takes with it the nutrients etc. from the soil. In the old days there was natural recycling because the digestive final products were used as dung fertilizer more or less were the original plants grew.
So, biofuel, maybe a good idea in theory but perverted by the usual suspects (including even most Gutmenschen in the West). Today we just need a veneer of good intentions while in the past it was not seen as wrong (by those who counted that is) to treat ‘lesser’ humans as lower than cattle without any noble pretence.
I think this might be the way for biofuel.
Am I wrong
I think you’re wrong. Cleek cites as 47 abandoned regs, a lifting of 46 deadlines on various state and local entities by the feds on street sign upgrading. Sure, this will unleash the economy.
the chunks of common ground
There are chunks of common ground, but I don’t think Maddow is any kind of a Republican.
When the private sector tries something new and it wastes resources and fails miserably, it is lauded as “creative destruction”. When we do the same thing using the government, it is held up as an example of government’s innate inability to do anything right.
The private sector normally makes mistakes with private citizens’ money who normally consent to the risk. The public sector, not so much. And, no one I know uses the phrase “creative destruction.” I vaguely associate that phrase with a subset of anarchist thinking. Bakunin maybe?
Phil, not for the first time I wonder if we’re even speaking the same language.
“but at first blush I suspect we’re just as well off without.”
“just as well off without” is nothing more than asserting that it might be a wash. I point out one of the most ill conceived, destructive regulations in the country, one which has driven up food prices, turned us from an exporter of corn to an importer, driven up the price of motor fuel, and actually makes for worse pollution, (The nominal justification of the regulation in the first place.) and in response you assert that it might be a wash. Not actually harmful, just no net effect. That’s apparently the worst you can conceive of a regulation (originated by your side…) being. A wash.
At least, that’s what the words say to me, when parsed by the rules of the language I speak. Does “just as well off without” mean something other than a wash in your language?
“You do realize that stopping production of feed corn for ethanol does not mean growers will simply switch straight to sweet corn, right?”
You do realize that I grew up on a farm, right? That I thus am aware that feed corn grown for ethanol production is directly competing for all the same inputs as corn grown for human consumption, (Of which sweet corn is a minority.) as well as other crops grown for human consumption?
Do you really think there’s land out there used for feed corn, that isn’t suited for raising corn for, say, corn chips? For corn meal? Masa? Being fed to cows, and other livestock?
You like Tony’s nuance. Tell me, do people not eat a lot of the animals fed corn? Does that syrup get used as a concrete additive, rather than being eaten and drank? Sometimes nuance is just a smoke screen. Corn for ethanol directly competes with human food. Nothing Tony said alters that.
This is such a stupid rationalization for why ethanol mandates might not effect food prices, that it is perfectly natural to conclude you’re just groping around for some excuse, any excuse, as to why this regulation might not really be destructive.
No, McK, I’m not wrong, because your request was: Can someone find me a single regulation that this administration has rolled back? Nothing about “unleashing the economy.” You regularly ask for examples of things you’re sure don’t exist, and when presented with them, you move the goalposts. Not a good look.
“There are chunks of common ground, but I don’t think Maddow is any kind of a Republican.”
When I cite Maddow, I’m not asking you to suddenly line up behind her, I’m asking if, like Maddow, you can be in “agreement with the Eisenhower-era Republican party platform.” If you are saying that Republicans can’t line up behind something because they realize that someone agrees with it is liberal and lesbian, I think that might be the problem in a nutshell.
The public sector, not so much.
If you assume we have a relatively functional democratic republican form of government we, as a society, explicitly do make and consent to these choices with “our money”, as the right terms tax dollars. If we do not have a functioning democracy, that’s another discussion.
a subset of anarchist thinking
Do the “wiki” on “creative destruction”. Joe Schumpeter was no anarchist, Marx possibly. Seeing it used commonly and with gusto by glibertarians and other assorted ilk on the right demonstrates only the extent of their radicalism, not their conservatism.
Sure, this will unleash the economy.
we could power many cities with the energy you put into moving those goalposts.
re: creative destruction
The Iowa Republican
This is the circle of life in the free market—creative destruction. While the short-term effects are painful and at times tragic for those laid off, their only hope for a better tomorrow is an efficient, productive free market that continually creates more capital, which leads to higher wages, increased jobs, new innovations, and a higher standard of living.
Economic progress can only be made through creative destruction.
Or those crazzzzy libertarians at Reason.com
And, no one I know uses the phrase “creative destruction.”
McK, you need to get out more.
And yes, taxes are mandatory, while capital investment is voluntary. That is one among many ways in which they are different.
The first, and foremost, way in which they are different is that they serve different purposes.
So I’m not sure there’s a lot of point in arguing about which is “better”.
It’s kind of like arguing about whether you should fix the roof, or have sausage on your pizza.
There are stupid, counterproductive public policies, programs, and regulations. Let’s fix them. Guess what? We can do that. Note bobbyp’s post upthread.
But arguing from there that public policies, programs, and regulations are inherently bad, stupid, or counterproductive is as weak an argument as saying that, because some private investments are not productive, that all private investment is bad.
It’s nonsensical.
Sure, this will unleash the economy.
Here’s my simple formula for unleashing the economy.
Don’t fire people every time the numbers don’t please you.
Pay people more. If you have a really profitable quarter, cut everyone a nice bonus check.
In short, distribute – NOT redistribute – more of the wealth generated by the economy to the folks who do the things that folks pay for.
Do that, and the economy will be fine.
And no, “capital flight” will not be a big problem, because everyone will be making money. Capital likes to go where folks are making money, because then capital owners get a piece.
It ain’t that hard. My two cents.
The private sector normally makes mistakes with private citizens’ money who normally consent to the risk.
Fascinating. So, when private agribusiness feed hundreds of millions of animals massive doses of antibiotics creating a perfect breeding for multidrug resistant bacteria that can now infect me, have I consented to the risk? Can I unconsent?
When the big banks decided that they weren’t going to even bother verifying income and assets on home loans because that’s boring and they were going to securitize it anyway and the result was a global financial meltdown, did I consent to any of that? I don’t think I did, but I suffered from it nonetheless.
Perhaps people who live near power plants and get exposed to higher levels of mercury consented to their mercury exposure too.
You know, everytime a conservative writes something about consent, I read it with befuddlement.
McKinney does not always argue that “public policies, programs, and regulations are inherently bad, stupid, or counterproductive”, of course. Last time we talked, it was McKinney and not I who wrote:
I meant to compliment McKinney, at the time, on his eloquent support of the principle of government regulation.
–TP
“If you are saying that Republicans can’t line up behind something because they realize that someone agrees with it is liberal and lesbian, I think that might be the problem in a nutshell.”
Or perhaps just because she is the Limbaugh of the left. I mean, do you ever watch her? It is tiresome to listen to how “extreme” the right is and then be confronted with Maddow as an example of a “reasonable” person on the left.
we could power many cities with the energy you put into moving those goalposts.
Not really. Unwisely, I should have qualified my request for examples with a word like “meaningful” or “useful” or something along those lines. You are correct, in the limited sense that my request was open-ended and unqualified.
I’m asking if, like Maddow, you can be in “agreement with the Eisenhower-era Republican party platform.” If you are saying that Republicans can’t line up behind something because they realize that someone agrees with it is liberal and lesbian, I think that might be the problem in a nutshell.
Is Maddow really an Eisenhower Republican? I have my doubts. And, we’d need more than a label to test the theory, we’d need a fairly firm definition. But, if you are positing that Republicans won’t buy into anything that a lesbian supports, I’d point out Dick Cheney’s daughter as one on the Republican side who has some traction. OTOH, sure, there are religious ideologues who run from anyone who is gay. I may be missing your point.
McK, you need to get out more.
Maybe you’re right. Here’s what I had in mind:
“the passion for destruction is also a creative passion”
Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/m/mikhail_bakunin.html#gdHrOCL323TlVkob.99
So, ‘creative destruction’ sounds a lot like someone’s been borrowing from Bakunin. If that is some libertarian’s thought for how the private sector ought to work, fine, but note that I’ve never endorsed Libertarian thinking.
TP–I adhere to the quote above. Someone in this thread claimed that Obama had ordered a major look at regs that burden the economy. I agree he said he would–but has he? Where’s the beef? To me, it’s window dressing.
So, when private agribusiness feed hundreds of millions of animals massive doses of antibiotics creating a perfect breeding for multidrug resistant bacteria that can now infect me, have I consented to the risk?
This has nothing to do with taking a risk with your own money and losing.
When the big banks decided that they weren’t going to even bother verifying income and assets on home loans because that’s boring and they were going to securitize it anyway and the result was a global financial meltdown, did I consent to any of that?
This is one reason why I inserted the word ‘normally’ in my statement. Also, those big banks, along with the fed (Freddie and Fannie) were playing with other people’s money.
“Or perhaps just because she is the Limbaugh of the left.”
So what would be the Maddow equivalent to Limbaugh’s 3-day misogynistic hate-fest against Sandra Fluke?
McTex, please note that the phrase “creative destruction” is often used by Alan Greenspan; for example see his book, The Age of, well, Turbulence. Where he uses it 25 times. Of course you realize that Greenspan is the quintessential Republican, the economic “maestro”. Over the last 3 decades, has there been any Republican economist more significant than Greenspan?
Also, note the title of Tyler Cowen’s book “Creative Destruction: How Globalization Is Changing the World’s Cultures”. Cowen is a GMU economics professor prominent in conservative circles; he’s no anarchist.
Frankly, the notion that “creative destruction” is an anarchist notion and not part of standard Republican economic thought astonishes me.
This has nothing to do with taking a risk with your own money and losing.
Getting infected with multidrug resistant bacteria is extremely expensive. Especially if it leads to death. There are many risks in life that we suffer without choosing; can you acknowledge that?
This has nothing to do with taking a risk with your own money and losing.
It seems to me that one would be more inclined to do so if there is a functional, allegorical “safety net” to make sure one is not sick/homeless for the rest of one’s days if one Fails at Capitalism.
How does one save for retirement, as a member of the middle class, without putting his or her money up for others to invest, without really having much say in what actual use that money gets put to? You really have very little choice but to do that, not much more than you do to pay taxes. The level of consent is minimal, perhaps no greater than the consent you give the government to do what it does with your taxes (if you subscribe to the notion that taxes are still revenue, necessary for spending in our modern monetary system).
Since most of us aren’t venture capitalists or the like, we don’t have the luxury of consent when it comes to the private sector any more than we do with the public sector, really. For those few who do actually have the means to give consent in private-sector endeavours, well … they also have the means to have a real say in what the goverment does, given the way our system actually works. I just don’t see a hell of a lot of difference, on the whole, between the levels of consent in the private and public sectors.
If you have enough money, you have the luxury of giving consent. Otherwise, not so much.
How does one save for retirement, as a member of the middle class, without putting his or her money up for others to invest, without really having much say in what actual use that money gets put to?
You don’t have to invest, at least not in anything risky–T Bills, for example. But, if you are going to invest, there are ways to mitigate risk.
As far as risking one’s money goes, what does that have to do with government, anyway? Are you expecting to pay a dollar in taxes today to receive a check from Uncle Sam for two dollars in the future?
And, if you invest in a private venture that is based on fraud, meaning you were ripped off by way of deception, who are you going to appeal to for redress?
Mitigating risk does not equal consent.
That aside, re-reading my previous comment, I suppose payroll taxes for SS are like paying a dollar today to get a check for two later. Stupid me.
McKinney wrote:
You don’t have to invest, at least not in anything risky–T Bills, for example.
I was going to reply with some major snark like:
McTx, you DO know that T-bills are GOVERNMENT DEBT, don’t you?
But then I thought:
Wait, I may be parsing McKinney’s sentence the wrong way.
Maybe “risky — T Bills, for example” is exactly what he meant to say 🙂
–TP
First, creative destruction is at the heart of the Republicans theory of capitalism. However, creative destruction is the cycle of new businesses being successful, not failing. New businesses are created that disintermediate or replace existing businesses. The new businesses, like Amazon, do things better and destroy old businesses, like Best Buy. This certainly has been happening since the car replaced the buggy.
If you invested in Ford you are a happy camper today, if you held onto your buggy whip company stock, not so much.
Second, if you invest in the “stock market” then you are not thinking it through. There are all kinds of companies to invest in and there are Funds for almost every ones priorities. If you aren’t putting your money to work in a company or fund where you are comfortable with the management then you are not investing, you are gambling. Don’t like the big banks? There are lots of regionals to invest in. Don’t like those Fortune 500 CEO’s, buy the Russell 2000. Can’t find any place yo’re comfortable investing? Start your own business. Want more direct decision making? Save a hundred grand and join an angel investing fund.
Wherever you put it, you are giving your support to management.
The stock(and commodity) markets are incredibly diverse and, though at a disadvantage to high volume traders and some hedge fund managers, there are better and worse places based on your risk profile.
I bet you get invited to a lot of parties, Brett. Just watching you order a pizza with more than one other person must be a genuine delight.
And now I will go have a laugh at CCDG’s idea of the working poor and the middle class having lots of spare time to sit around and research investment funds. If any of you ever met an actual poor person it’d probably scare the pants off you.
I suspect CCDG knows more than one poor person.
FWIW.
The relevant point is that to get into an investment environment *of any kind, at all*, you have to have dollars above and beyond what you need to survive.
That rules out a hell of a lot of people.
proyzhzkaic good rstnats!!
Ukranian?
Which is to say:
Save a hundred grand and join an angel investing fund.
You just lost about 95% of your intended audience.
Just saying.
russell,
I was responding to hsh, his comment assumed some money to invest. I did cover the whole range.
CCDG, McT, my reason for picking Maddow was not to start some debate about how radical leftist she is, it was to try and identify some common ground. Her quote stuck in my mind and so I was hoping you both would identify aspect of the Eisenhower Republican platform that you would agree with.
This thread has gotten a bit long, but with all the talk of creative destruction, I think that, speaking only for myself, two areas we want to avoid creative destruction is education and healthcare, not because I don’t want any innovations, but because those two areas are a place where you can’t measure outcomes in terms of dollars and cents.
lj,
At the heart of a forward for Eisenhowers platform in 1956 was:
That sounds a lot like the old tired policies that the current Republicans are bringing to the table, (that Maddow mocks incessantly).
I appreciate the view of trying to create common ground. And to be clear, she is the Limbaugh of the left because she is unceasing in her arrogance and snideness, so I can’t stand to listen to her any longer than I can stand to listen to him. The equivalence is enoug for me to dislike both of them, while people from both sides tell me that, hey sometimes they have good points.
CCDG, skipping a bit of stuff there, I think. Some things I glom onto.
From Taxation
Then, insofar as consistent with a balanced budget, we pledge to work toward these additional objectives:
Further reductions in taxes with particular consideration for low and middle income families.
Initiation of a sound policy of tax reductions which will encourage small independent businesses to modernize and progress.
Continual study of additional ways to correct inequities in the effect of various taxes.
From Labor
The Federal minimum wage has been raised for more than 2 million workers. Social Security has been extended to an additional 10 million workers and the benefits raised for 6 1/2 million. The protection of unemployment insurance has been brought to 4 million additional workers. There have been increased workmen’s compensation benefits for longshoremen and harbor workers, increased retirement benefits for railroad employees, and wage increases and improved welfare and pension plans for federal employees.
In addition, the Eisenhower Administration has enforced more vigorously and effectively than ever before, the laws which protect the working standards of our people.
…
The Eisenhower Administration will continue to fight for dynamic and progressive programs which, among other things, will:
Stimulate improved job safety of our workers, through assistance to the States, employees and employers;
Continue and further perfect its programs of assistance to the millions of workers with special employment problems, such as older workers, handicapped workers, members of minority groups, and migratory workers;
Strengthen and improve the Federal-State Employment Service and improve the effectiveness of the unemployment insurance system;
Protect by law, the assets of employee welfare and benefit plans so that workers who are the beneficiaries can be assured of their rightful benefits;
Assure equal pay for equal work regardless of Sex; (!)
…
Extend the protection of the Federal minimum wage laws to as many more workers as is possible and practicable;
Continue to fight for the elimination of discrimination in employment because of race, creed, color, national origin, ancestry or sex;
Provide assistance to improve the economic conditions of areas faced with persistent and substantial unemployment;
Revise and improve the Taft-Hartley Act so as to protect more effectively the rights of labor unions, management, the individual worker, and the public. The protection of the right of workers to organize into unions and to bargain collectively is the firm and permanent policy of the Eisenhower Administration.
Those seem like two areas where the current Republican party is quite at odds with the 1956 platform. The 2012 platform is here, I’d be interested to see what points you or McT would identify as common ground in that document.
and what else is in the 2012 GOP platform?
that seems like an odd thing to put in a party platform, until you start to dig around in the history of the Northern Marinas Islands and the GOP’s history with them.
lj,
I read the whole of both documents. Obviously theree are things that are not as important today, so they aren’t addressed.
However, the tax portion reads almost exactly like this:
Flatter, less exceptions, revenue neutral means higher effective rates on the welthy and upper middle class. Reduction in cap gains and eliminating them completely for the middle class.
There is one example, if you would caare to tell me where you think, in particular it is different in effect I would love to see it.
Another quick example is the union language. Note that in 1956 we were concerned about making the Taft Hartley act fairer for unions, companies and individual workers,
this year we are worried about companies and individual workers because the unions have taken control over that three way relationship.
And I’m pretty sure we don’t need to strengthen the pay and benefits of federal workers anymore.
Some things change, the underlying principles are very consistent.
That sounds a lot like the old tired policies that the current Republicans are bringing to the table
It’s a nice sounding platform.
If Eisenhower were alive, now, with the principles he held while alive, today’s Republican party would roast him alive on a spit.
They’d run Reagan out of town on a rail.
Today’s Republicans are not the GOP of the 1950’s.
CCDG: Flatter, less exceptions, revenue neutral means higher effective rates on the welthy and upper middle class.
This definition is strictly accurate. “Revenue neutral” means that TOTAL TAX REVENUE stays the same after you change the tax code. It’s a matter of simple arithmetic that if the changes REDUCE the tax bill of SOME people, they must INCREASE the tax bill of SOME OTHER people.
All we need to figure out now is who are the “some people” and who are the “some other people” in any proposed “revenue-neutral” tax reform.
CCDG seems to imply that the GOP’s proposal is to collect MORE TAX DOLLARS FROM THE RICH, and fewer tax dollars from the not-rich. I suspect this will come as big news to Grover Norquist and the Koch brothers, not to mention Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan.
–TP
Thank you, cleek, for that 11:21 a.m. link for the history of the Northern Marianas Islands. This is the kind of “deregulation” that really “unleashes the economy”! It’s called slavery.
cleek,
This is a GAO report on the economy and status of the increases in minimum wage since 2006. The attached report is over 140 pages and includes American Samoa. Perhaps we should be evaluating the state of the economy there now rather than back when all the things you talk about were true.
Interestingly additional increases have been pushed out to 2015, by the current administration.
So I guess what you’re saying CCDG is that things were horrifying in the 1990’s; Congress took steps to rectify the situation in 2006 (note: with the then recently elected Democratic Congress); and now the Republican Party wants to go back to the bad old days?
Sounds like the Republican Party alright.
This is a GAO report on the economy and status of the increases in minimum wage since 2006
it’s unsurprising that businesses would complain about minimum wage increases. i hereby invite these business owners to petition their local government to remove the islands from US control, or they can STFU.
i’d like to see if they value the benefits they gain from being within the US sphere more than they value their ability to pay their workers, who have little choice in such a economy, as little as possible.
Perhaps we should be evaluating the state of the economy there now rather than back when all the things you talk about were true.
two of the four sources i referenced were from Abramoff days (for obvious GOP-related reasons). two were current.
this year we are worried about companies and individual workers because the unions have taken control over that three way relationship.
This is an empirical claim that is totally divorced from reality. Utterly. Wholly. Completely. Totally.
“But I don’t know if there’s any other way to counter the level of mendacious marketing Citizens United permits.”
If Romney loses, I think Republicans and their billionaire supporters will get the point that lying ads don’t win elections. That’s how to counter their mendacity.