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Politics : President Barack Obama -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: RetiredNow who wrote (145217)	8/21/2014 10:43:06 AM
From: Wharf Rat	2 Recommendations Recommended By Alex MG Metacomet Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 149319

"I probably have more economics courses under my belt than you and I've read more econ theory books, as well as econ history books than most on this thread" That makes you more wrong than most on this thread. Just because you think you can tell the difference between shit and shinola doesn't mean you actually can. "The Founders are rolling in their graves." The Founders didn't have a clue about free-market policies, socialism, and central planning. They discuss socialism about as often as the bible mentions abortion... zero. If they are rolling in their graves, it's cuz we now think Blacks and Indians count as much as a white man, and cuz women can vote and run for office. If we could tell them about SS, they would say, "Promoting the general welfare was our idea, eh."

To: RetiredNow who wrote (145217)	8/21/2014 11:02:11 AM
From: Wharf Rat	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 149319

Italy is a perfect example of what happens when your way of thinking collides with this reality... Italy: adapting to collapse The new San Lorenzo mall in Florence, Italy. An American style food court designed mainly with international tourism in mind. It is an example of the attempt of the Italian economy to adapt to the ongoing collapse of its traditional manufacturing sectors, trying to exploit new sources of revenue. So far, this brand new set of restaurants seems to have been successful. Unfortunately, however, even foreign tourists may be an unsustainable resource. If you happen to visit Florence, these days, you may notice the brand new food mall on the upper floor of the ancient downtown market. It is a major restructuration of what used to be a vegetable market, which used to be patronized mainly by locals. Now, it is a typical American style, "food court" with many different restaurants sharing the same tables. From my personal experience, I can tell you that the food in this place is of medium quality; overpriced, but not terribly so. It is the kind of food that foreign tourists have come to expect in Florence, I'd call it fusion food with a Florentine veneer. Note that I have no intention of discouraging you from trying this place. On the contrary, it is at least a way to avoid the many abominable tourist traps you may be unfortunate enough to stumble upon in Florence (you may also like to take a look at some notes of mine on the ancient Florentine cuisine). I just wanted to note how it the new food court is an example of the present trends of the Italian economy. I have already discussed the Italian collapse in previous posts ( one and two). The collapse keeps going and the latest results from the Italian Statistical Institute (ISTAT) indicate that Italy has lost 25% of its industrial production after 2008, with no signs of improvement in view. Politicians are screaming about "restarting growth" but there is little that anyone can do facing such a disaster. The best they seem to be able to conceive is to trick the statistics in order to create the appearance of a non-existing recovery. The collapse is mainly the result of the increasing burden on the Italian economy of more and more expensive imported mineral commodities. This extra burden has destroyed the competitivity of the Italian manufacturing industry. As a consequence, the Italian economic system is actively re-adapting, trying to find new resources. It must find "light" market niches, areas which don't need large amounts of energy and minerals to be run. It is finding them mainly in the fashion and the food industries. If you live in Italy, and especially in Florence, you can't avoid noticing how the fashion industry is prospering; you can see that also from highly debatable initiatives such as "dressing" the Baptistery church in Florence as if it were a gigantic foulard. Gone are the traditional manufacturing power centers, and with them there went much of the traditional financial power in Italy. The Monte dei Paschi Italian bank survived the Black Death during the Middle Ages, but it may not survive peak oil! Even the celebrated new prime minister of Italy, Mr. Matteo Renzi, is a consequence of the new balancing of the economic power in Italy. Tourism is also quickly gaining a new status of fundamental resource in the Italian economy. Tourism has always been a traditional Italian industry, but now it is becoming something new: with impoverished Italians traveling less and less, International tourism is becoming dominant. But it is not any more the time when international visitors would stay in Italy for months or years, to explore the ancient culture and landscape. Now, tourists stay a few days at most and have little time and interest to explore things other than the standard sightseeing tours in the art cities: Venice, Florence and Rome. The result is the concentration of tourism in areas where it can be efficiently exploited by initiatives such as the food court in Florence I was reporting about. Outside these centers, tourism is in trouble, too. So far, the expanding economies of some countries, primarily China, are providing an increasing flux of tourists to the main touristic centers of Italy. However, it takes little to expose the fragility of this small economic boom in Italy. Think of the possibility of a new financial crisis, such as the one of 2008, and you can imagine what's going to happen. Will the upper floor of the San Lorenzo market return what it used to be? Maybe, and my impression is that we really lost something by dismantling the old vegetable market. cassandralegacy.blogspot.com

To: RetiredNow who wrote (145217)	8/21/2014 11:09:06 AM
From: tejek	Respond to of 149319

I probably have more economics courses under my belt than you and I've read more econ theory books, as well as econ history books than most on this thread. I've come to the conclusion through all this study and observation of historical consequences that modern Keynesianism is flat out idiotic. Spending money on stupidities does not create growth, but stifles it. Our own economy is a classic example of how we can spend $10 trillion in new debt and $4.5 trillion in newly printed money from the Fed since Obama came to power, and have fuck all to show for it in the economy. The last vestige of the Keynesians is to prove their untenable fantasies by just changing the way the metrics are calculated. Unemployment rate going down? Sure. Never mind the rock bottom labor participation rate nor the fact that most jobs created are part time, shitty pay jobs, while the good jobs are disappearing. Little to no inflation? Sure, if you don't eat, drive, need health care, or need a roof over your head. Keynesians wave their magic wand and show you statistics that are meaningless in terms of the impact on real live human beings. Its funny how you all work it over time coming up with new Euro charts to prove you're point. The funny thing is the charts keep moving and changing......more and more in your favor. Its called manipulating the numbers to make your case. As for all the econ courses you've taken, unfortunately, you don't seem to even understand the basics. So all those courses apparently were a big waste of $$$. So sorry. The US saw it's peak in 2000. Everything has been going down the tubes since then. You got what you wanted and it's not working. Free market forces are inexorable and will have there way, although we're doomed to live through this hellish distortion because of your central economic planners and their Socialistic policies that are destroying our economy and our freedom. The Founders are rolling in their graves. Here's another example closer to home. Conservatives have had free reign in Kansas and have implemented all the econ policies you conservatives love. And you know what, Kansas is a big fail. So now go ahead and try to find charts or make them up as needed so you can prove that Kansas is a huge success story. Oh, and since the article below came out, Kansas got a second downgrade...........from the S&P.........in case you thought Moody's downgrade was a liberal plot. SMH. Conservatives Have Free Reign In Kansas. It’s Failing. In Kansas, Republicans dominate the state government. They have the Governorship (Former Senator Sam Brownback), the State House (92-33 for the GOP), and the State Senate (32-8 for the GOP). Democrats don’t have a say in this blood red state that went 60%-37% for Mitt Romney in 2012. Brownback and his buddies have enacted all manner of conservative economic policy in the state. Cutting taxes, etcetera. What is the result? Guess. Citing a sluggish recovery from the recession, risk inherent in the governor’s tax plan and uncertainty over the Legislature’s ability to keep cutting spending, one of the nation’s two major debt rating agencies downgraded Kansas’ credit rating Thursday. Moody’s Investors Service dropped Kansas from its second-highest bond rating, Aa1, to its third highest, Aa2. The Kansas Department of Transportation also took the same downgrade. As Businesweek explained, “the immediate effect has been to blow a hole in the state’s finances without noticeable economic growth.” Even with the cut in taxes, big companies like Applebee’s and Boeing have moved out of Kansas. As a result, the most recent polling there shows Brownback’s approval rating down to 33%, while he’s slightly behind the Democratic challenger. In Kansas, they can’t (honestly) blame liberals for this. They’ve been given a free hand. They were able to enact whatever they wanted, and it has been a miserable failure at a time when other states – including very blue Democratic states like here in Maryland – have been recovering from the Bush recession. Why? Because conservative economics doesn’t actually work. It is a faith based program untethered from reality. The numbers don’t add up and it is destructive to societies. But this won’t deter them. They’ll do it again. They’ll go to the well and bring up another bucket full of excrement and tell the true believers that it’s spring water. thedailybanter.com

To: RetiredNow who wrote (145217)	8/21/2014 1:17:34 PM
From: tejek	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 149319

Oh here is some more evidence of Republican, non Keynesian economics at work..........southern states are mired in poverty. Be sure to get some charts set up disputing those facts and proving that these states are prospering under R economics. ;) The South Is Essentially A Solid, Grim Block Of Poverty The Huffington Post \| By Mark Gongloff Posted: 07/02/2014 7:55 am EDT Updated: 07/02/2014 7:59 am EDT Print Article The Great Recession and Not-So-Great Recovery have been bad news for most Americans, but some people have suffered more than others. We call those people "Southerners." North Carolina and a handful of other Southern U.S. states saw the biggest increases in the number of people living in what are known as "poverty areas" between 2000 and 2010, according to a new Census Bureau report. Poverty areas are places where more than 20 percent of the people live below the federal poverty line, which varies by family size. For a family of four, the poverty line in most states is an annual income of $23,850. Today, 25.7 percent of all Americans live in such areas, up from 18.1 percent in 2000, according to the report. Having a quarter of the nation living this way is a problem: Poverty areas are typically marked by "higher crime rates, poor housing conditions, and fewer job opportunities," the report points out. This map, created by plugging Census data into the Datawrapper mapping tool, shows the rise was not exactly spread evenly across the country: Note that Southern states were five of the six biggest gainers. This should not be much of a shock, as Southern states consistently lag the rest of the country in good things like wages, economic mobility and access to health care, while leading it in bad things like poverty, obesity and general unhappiness. Another thing Southern states have in common is Republican political leaders that have spent the past decade shrinking the social safety net. Bucking the trend, two Southern states, Louisiana and West Virginia, actually saw the number of people living in poverty areas shrink during the decade. And the region that saw the biggest overall rise in the number of people living in poverty areas between 2000 and 2010 was the Midwest, not the South. That may be because the Midwest had relatively low numbers to start. Its numbers are still relatively low -- though it now has more people living in poverty areas than the Northeast, which fared pretty well during the recession and recovery. As you can see from this Census graph, the South started out with very high rates of people living in poverty areas and got even higher, with nearly a third of all Southerners living in poverty areas: And this Census map highlights the difference between regions even more starkly. Look at that solid, grim block of poverty: More: Maps of America Poverty in the South The South Poverty Southern Poverty Poverty Recession Maps of the South South Poverty Grim huffingtonpost.com