Republicans Starting To Outline Their Agenda.

medicineman said:

So, I do have a chance to meet you, when you are sweeping my street. Do a good job son, there may be a little something extra in it for ya.

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laughingduck said:

You will be able to recognize me, I will be the one with a big smile on my face. Happy to work.

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January 5, 2011, 8:37 am
Fiscal Shock

I see that the Washington Post editorial board is shocked, shocked to discover that the incoming Republicans aren’t serious about deficit reduction. Who could have suspected?
I was going to be snarky all the way here, but actually let’s be serious: the gullibility of much of the media establishment on all this amounts to journalistic malpractice..

Republicans have, after all, been the party of fiscal irresponsibility since 1980; the GW Bush administration confirmed, if anyone was in doubt, that unfunded tax cuts are now in the party’s DNA.

Then along comes a Democratic president who presides over all of two years of deficits in the immediate aftermath of a severe financial crisis – which is a time when you’re actually supposed to run deficits. Republicans begin inveighing against the evils of red ink – and, incredibly, get taken at face value.

And even if you didn’t know the history, if you actually paid attention to what leading Republicans were saying, their lack of seriousness was totally obvious. You had the Ryan plan, which claimed to reduce the deficit but, if you actually looked into it at all, relied completely on magic asterisks; you had the declarations by top Republicans that deficits are terrible but there’s no need to offset the cost of tax cuts.
The idea that these people were allowed to pose as deficit hawks is stunning.

Oh, and for those claiming that Republicans have always said that spending, not deficits is what matters: first of all, this is very much revisionist history; you can’t denounce the federal debt, then claim that you never cared about the revenue side of things. Beyond that, the deficit scare tactics lately have been all about solvency, not mere crowding out; repent, they said, or you’ll turn into Greeeeeece. That’s a scare story about solvency, for which the deficit, not spending, is what matters.

Why the blindness? I suspect a lot of it had to do with the desire to seem balanced. Journalists felt that they had to find Republican fiscal heroes, just to show how even-handed and open-minded they were. To say that the whole deficit thing was a political ploy, with no substance behind it, sounded shrill.
The truth often does.

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2nd: they would change how washington does busines. they are going for an up and down vote on repealing the entire health care law, without giving democrats a chance to debate on issues, or bringing any sort of debate on its popular provisions to the floor. this is to help newcommers in swing districts avoid having to vote against popular provisions, which could cost those lawmakers politically. a100% political motivation. this is after the GOPs leadership went out of its way to criticize how Nancy Pelosy refused to hear debates on the floor on some of the most important legislation she passed.

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redivider said:

here's another lil doozy.

this isn't a lonely blogger, it isn't some vegan walking around barefoot complaining about the establishment,

this is a Nobel prize winning Economist. His name is Paul Krugman.



source: http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/01/05/fiscal-shock-2/?src=twt&twt=NytimesKrugman

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NoDrama said:

Paul Krugman knows less about economics than my left testicle. He is what you might call a hack. Lots of Nobel prize winners are hacks, just look towards the white house for proof of this.

As for the Republicans, well gee its no surprise that they are just as bad as the Democrats. Same policies, just different tactics. The agenda is to enrich the elites with more power or more money. Down with the Demolicans.

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Krugman earned his B.A. in economics from Yale University in 1974 and his Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1977. While at MIT he was part of a small group of MIT students sent to work for the Central Bank of Portugal for three months in summer 1976, in the chaotic aftermath of the Carnation Revolution.[20] From 1982 to 1983, he spent a year working at the Reagan White House as a staff member of the Council of Economic Advisers. He taught at Yale University, MIT, UC Berkeley, the London School of Economics, and Stanford University before joining Princeton University in 2000 as professor of economics and international affairs. He is also currently a centenary professor at the London School of Economics, and a member of the Group of Thirty international economic body. He has been a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research since 1979.[21]
Paul Krugman has written extensively on international economics, including international trade, economic geography, and international finance. The Research Papers in Economics project ranked him as the 13th most influential economist in the world as of March 2010 based on his academic contributions.[22] Krugman's International Economics: Theory and Policy, co-authored with Maurice Obstfeld, is a standard college textbook on international economics. Krugman also writes on economic topics for the general public, sometimes on international economic topics but also on income distribution and public policy.
The Nobel Prize Committee stated that Krugman's main contribution is his analysis of the impact of economies of scale, combined with the assumption that consumers appreciate diversity, on international trade and on the location of economic activity.[6] The importance of spatial issues in economics has been enhanced by Krugman's ability to popularize this complicated theory with the help of easy-to-read books and state-of-the-art syntheses. "Krugman was beyond doubt the key player in 'placing geographical analysis squarely in the economic mainstream' ... and in conferring it the central role it now assumes."[23]
On a lighter note, in 1978, Krugman wrote The Theory of Interstellar Trade, a tongue-in-cheek essay on computing interest rates on goods in transit near the speed of light. He says he wrote it to cheer himself up when he was "an oppressed assistant professor".[24]

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By RICARDO ALONSO-ZALDIVAR, Associated Press Ricardo Alonso-zaldivar, Associated Press – Tue Jan 18, 11:25 am ET
WASHINGTON – Republicans pushing to repeal President Barack Obama's health care overhaul warn that 650,000 jobs will be lost if the law is allowed to stand.
But the widely cited estimate by House GOP leaders is shaky. It's the latest creative use of statistics in the health care debate, which has seen plenty of examples from both sides.
Republicans are calling their thumbs-down legislation the "Repealing the Job-Killing Health Care Law Act." Postponed after the mass shootings in Tucson, a House vote on the divisive issue is now expected Wednesday, although Democrats promise they'll block repeal in the Senate.
[ For complete coverage of politics and policy, go to Yahoo! Politics ]

A recent report by House GOP leaders says "independent analyses have determined that the health care law will cause significant job losses for the U.S. economy."
It cites the 650,000 lost jobs as Exhibit A, and the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office as the source of the original analysis behind that estimate. But the budget office, which referees the costs and consequences of legislation, never produced the number.
What follows is a story of how statistics get used and abused in Washington.
What CBO actually said is that the impact of the health care law on supply and demand for labor would be small. Most of it would come from people who no longer have to work, or can downshift to less demanding employment, because insurance will be available outside the job.
"The legislation, on net, will reduce the amount of labor used in the economy by a small amount _roughly half a percent_ primarily by reducing the amount of labor that workers choose to supply," budget office number crunchers said in a report from last year.
That's not how it got translated in the new report from Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, and other top Republicans.
CBO "has determined that the law will reduce the 'amount of labor used in the economy by.roughly half a percent.,' an estimate that adds up to roughly 650,000 jobs lost," the GOP version said.
Gone was the caveat that the impact would be small, mainly due to people working less. Added was the estimate of 650,000 jobs lost.
The Republican translation doesn't track, said economist Paul Fronstin of the nonpartisan Employee Benefit Research Institute.
"CBO isn't saying that there is job loss as much as they are saying that fewer people will be working," explained Fronstin. "There is a difference. People voluntarily working less isn't the same as employers cutting jobs."
For example, the budget office said some people might decide to retire earlier because it would be easier to get health care, instead of waiting until they become eligible for Medicare at age 65.
The law "reduces the amount of labor supplied, but it's not reducing the ability of people to find jobs, which is what the job-killing slogan is intended to convey," said economist Paul Van de Water of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. The center advocates for low-income people, and supports the health care law.
In theory, any legislation that increases costs for employers can lead to job loss. But with the health care law, companies can also decide to pass on added costs to their workers, as some have already done this year.
To put things in perspective, there are currently about 131 million jobs in the economy. CBO projects that unemployment will be significantly lower in 2014, when the law's major coverage expansion starts.
A spokeswoman for House Ways and Means Committee Republicans pointed out that CBO's report did flag that some employers would cut hiring. "The CBO analysis does not claim that the entire response is people exiting the labor market," said Michelle Dimarob.
The law's penalties on employers who don't provide health insurance might cause some companies to hire fewer low-wage workers, or to hire more part-timers instead of full-time employees, the budget office said. But the main consequence would still be from more people choosing not to work.
That still doesn't answer the question of how Republicans came up with the estimate of 650,000 lost jobs.
Dimarob said staffers took the 131 million jobs in the economy and multiplied that by half a percent, the number from the CBO analysis. The result: 650,000 jobs feared to be in jeopardy.
"For ordinary Americans who could fall into that half a percent, that is a vitally important stat, and it is reasonable to suggest they would not characterize the effect as small," she said.
But Fronstin said that approach is also questionable, since the budget office and the GOP staffers used different yardsticks to measure overall jobs and hours worked. The differences would have to be adjusted first in order to produce an accurate estimate.
Said Van de Water, "The number doesn't mean what they say it means."

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laughingduck said:

Would the quickest way out of poverty be TO GET A JOB? That's just some hillbilly logic.

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medicineman said:

Say, not bad, are you hiring? I'll bet not, and that is why there is no way out of poverty, no fucking jobs. Geeze, do I have to school you righties on every subject.

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NLXSK1 said:

If the unofficial unemployment rate is 20% then that means that 80% of the people have jobs.

Math is not your strong suite...

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medicineman said:

7.25 an hr., is not a liveable wage job. One has to live with their parents, with 2-5 buddies sharing an apt. or house. The area of income I was referring to was the lower brackets and even for those jobs nowdays, there are 5-10 applicants for every opening. If you want to get rid of poverty, Which I'm pretty sure you don't give one fuck about, you must provide living wage jobs. Here's an example of why poor people on welfare or any government assistance don't want to get a low paying job, it will cost them more to travel, dress, child care, etc., than what they would earn as opposed to getting assistance. Provide living wage jobs and watch them come out of the woodwork. Lets say that the minimum wage would be 12.00 an hr. Everything would go up in response to that, Like fast food etc, but still, the workers would all be better off. If the rich pricks would donate more of their money to the government to provide social services for the underclass, the playing field could be much more even. I'm not advocating giving money to anyone not willing to work for it, but making sure that those that are willing get a fair shake.

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bluewavexx said:

Republicans are the Kool aid.

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NoDrama said:

It does not matter what the minimum wage is, poor folk will stay poor, even if the wage they are working for is $5000 per hour. The more the Min Wage, the more expensive everything else is. Do away with the min wage I say and make it a contractual agreement between employer and employee and remove the bureaucratic BS in the middle.

If $7.25 an hour is not a livable wage, how come the average Chinese person makes $250 a MONTH and yet can make a living, but someone who makes $1160 cannot?

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