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Politics : Ask Michael Burke -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Skeeter Bug who wrote (111258)	2/10/2008 12:17:27 PM
From: Freedom Fighter	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 132070

Skeeter, 1. Virtually all statistics having anything to do with politics are about as useful as used toilet paper because there are agendas associated with all of them. In addition, the journalists (print, TV, etc..) usually also have biases and few have any understanding of the economics to begin with. People simply gravitate and believe whatever manipulated stats make the case for what they want to believe. There are plenty of stats on the other side. 2. Do you understand what the term "long term" means in economics? In economics, the long term is a "very" long time. It means 15-20 years or "more", not the length of a presidential administration. A single administration is the very definition of "short term" in economics. Much of what happens in any administration is the result of the business cycle, policies that were in place many years before the president took office, and things that are out of the control of government. In addition, much of the damage of bad policies that may have helped in the short term doesn't show up for decades. For example, the current Bush administration suffered greatly in the beginning from the fallout of the Clinton, Rubin, Greenspan bubble that produced a lot of paper prosperity and favorable stats, but a lot of short term damage after it. Future presidents will inherit the budget excesses and long term spending additions to programs like Medicare (that were already wildly underfunded over the long haul) from Bush etc... Only a political hack or someone that doesn't understand the basics would attempt to dispute things like that. You keep saying it's all a theory, but I have to tell you if you don't believe that savings and investment is what drives long term economic growth, increased standards of living, and brings prosperity to a country, you are one of the few people left. Take a very basic economics course. That much is really not in debate. If you don't believe the text books, move to a poverty stricken country that doesn't believe in free markets and private property. You may have a tougher time finding a major one these days because the long term has already demonstrated that being pro business and pro free markets increases standards of living and drags people out of poverty etc... That's why much of the non-free world started converting to pro business, private property policies. That's also why they are booming, creating vast wealth, and beginning to drag their poor into the middle class and wealthy ranks of the world. You have fallen for the propaganda, stupidity, jealousy, and hate of the system by some on the left. It's all really a political debate about meeting the short term needs of the poor vs. maximizing the long term for all. There's a tradeoff that needs to be debated. (at least among people that aren't left wing scumbags that hate wealthy people, business, and unequal distribution of wealth etc....).