Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : View from the Center and Left -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Sam who wrote (165990)	7/13/2011 9:31:25 PM
From: epicure	Respond to of 541853

Both forums are echo chambers, when they are functioning. IMO it's the trolls- of whatever persuasion- who seek out people who are different, so they can go poke at them (often with a little chirping coterie of cronies at their back on some other thread.) Look, this is, or should be, mostly social. There's nothing to be gained by "discussion"- the only thing that happens (at least on a forum like this, where there is a moderator who prevents outright insults)- is that both "discussion" participants walk away thinking the other person is wrong, and (probably, secretly- or in the case of folks who have a peanut gallery they are playing to, not so secretly) an idiot. IMO this should be about meeting people you like, sharing the stories you find in the news that you find interesting, bonding over the stupid things you see happening (and on each thread, of course, we see different stupid things)- and then you make friends, you take some of those friendships off SI and become 3d friends, and you build a network. I am so grateful to the friends I've met on SI, and then transferred to my 3d world- SI allows you to sort people fast, partly because some people are so up front about their politics, so you can write off the really aggressive ones and not waste your time. So while I get why it's frustrating when people don't answer- the answers never matter, as the person you are talking to might as well be inhabiting another dimension. That's how differently people see the world. There's no chance of that changing. Which is not to say I don't sometimes argue- I do- but I try to waste very little time doing it, and I understand the onanistic nature of the whole thing.

To: Sam who wrote (165990)	7/14/2011 1:32:41 AM
From: Win Smith	Respond to of 541853

Yeah, well, I sort of slipped up today replying to the esteemed Mr. mj, but I always like to look things up. Didn't find any clear figures, but found this nice graphic site which gave this expandable GDP history chart, see usgovernmentspending.com For the non-mathematical, a semilog plot is usually used to look at growth rates; constant growth rate will look like a straight line. If you crank the graph up to full screen, and look at 1981, when Arthur Laffer's napkin graph became the root document of Republican economic orthodoxy, and go 25 years forward and back, you'll see that 1981 is sort of an inflection point. The curve after 1981 is pretty flat and has a lower slope than the curve before 1981. And the curve before 1981 was, in general, concave up, e.g. showing increasing growth rates. After 1981, it's straighter, but a little bit concave down, e.g. decreasing growth rates. It's just a graph, and I'm not an economist, but 25 years before 1981 takes us back to 1956, a reasonable distance after WWII. And after 1981, Republican orthodoxy on taxes evolved from dubious economic theory to iron-clad dogma. In Reagan's time, Arthur Laffer's napkin was used to claim that lower tax rates would generate increased government revenues. Now, nobody bothers making arguments like that, Republican dogma on taxes is just something you have to believe if you're a real American. "Progress" in some alternative universe, but pretty depressing in the reality-based community.