$18.1 Trillion Debt

Off Topic Politics, World Issues
41

[quote]thunderbolt23 wrote:

[quote]countingbeans wrote:
Posts video from Reich with “truth” in the title and isn’t joking?

lol Pitt… [/quote]

I don’t always agree with Reich, but there was nothing objectionable about what he said in that video. Middle class purchasing power has disintegrated over time, and real wage growth has not grown along with the economy’s productivity gains over the last 30+ years.

And I suppose conservatives could adopt a morally neutral, “that’s how the market has allocated wealth, can’t be upset but it”, but that would be a very big mistake, in my view.[/quote]

Didn’t watch the video so can’t comment on it, but what you say here is not quite the whole story in my humble opinion–while what you said IS true the economy has gundamentally changed from manufacturing based to service based (one might even cynically say speculation based). This requires a drop in middle class purchasing power due to manufacturing base power loss and therefor the loss of relative power for the class that predominantly worked those jobs.

Its not just unions, its nit just greedy corporate pigs, its a fundamental shift and a lot of people got caught in the cold

42

[quote]pittbulll wrote:

Wow, that was a huge pile of bullshit.

I agree with Beans on this one. Sowell is a much better resource than Robert “1,000 year” Reich.

It’s long, but worth the watch

43

[quote]thunderbolt23 wrote:

[quote]countingbeans wrote:
Posts video from Reich with “truth” in the title and isn’t joking?

lol Pitt… [/quote]

I don’t always agree with Reich, but there was nothing objectionable about what he said in that video. Middle class purchasing power has disintegrated over time, and real wage growth has not grown along with the economy’s productivity gains over the last 30+ years.

And I suppose conservatives could adopt a morally neutral, “that’s how the market has allocated wealth, can’t be upset but it”, but that would be a very big mistake, in my view.[/quote]

Reich is a very sharp advocate for the socialists in that a lot of the things he says are factually supported in a lawyerly sense, i.e., he can point to a source and say see, my facts are accurate. That said, you have to evaluate what he says very critically precisely because he is sharp and because he’s not the respected economist that he tries to pass himself off as. He is mainly trained as a lawyer and he’s very good at making big, unsupported causation leaps seem small and subtle in the way he makes his presentation.

44

[quote]usmccds423 wrote:

[quote]pittbulll wrote:
Here is to all those free marketers:) The Fed Is Not Printing Money, It's Doing Something Much Worse [/quote]

Umm, huh? The Federal Reserve is not a product of free market capitalism. It was literally created by an act of government (Congress) much like the SEC or any number of other initials. AKA it is regulation, the opposite of free market.

If you don’t like what the Federal Reserve is doing you’re espousing conservative principles Pitt.
[/quote]

You kind of don’t see the forest for the trees , My point was about debt and the free wheeling of printing money but I guess you have to argue about something

45

[quote]countingbeans wrote:
Posts video from Reich with “truth” in the title and isn’t joking?

lol Pitt… [/quote]

I am so shocked Beans I thought you would love the Reich Video:)

46

[quote]Alrightmiami19c wrote:

[quote]pittbulll wrote:

Wow, that was a huge pile of bullshit.

I agree with Beans on this one. Sowell is a much better resource than Robert “1,000 year” Reich.

It’s long, but worth the watch

I like Sowell , I will try and make time to watch it . I know a lot of people see these intellctuals as an either or I like to think of them as a collective

47

[quote]pittbulll wrote:

[quote]Alrightmiami19c wrote:

[quote]pittbulll wrote:

Wow, that was a huge pile of bullshit.

I agree with Beans on this one. Sowell is a much better resource than Robert “1,000 year” Reich.

It’s long, but worth the watch

I like Sowell , I will try and make time to watch it . I know a lot of people see these intellctuals as an either or I like to think of them as a collective
[/quote]

Like when he speaks about unemployment of blacks in the past , he says it was better before regulations , do you interpret it as he saying we should go back to Jim Crow ?

48

I like Sowell but my criticism is not of Sowell it is how so called conservative interpret him . The pick and choose , they take out of context . He is a complicated guy speaking about complicated things . He know his message can not be distilled down to sound bytes . Reich’s messages are simpler they are not about the complicated they are about the obvious .

Neither are %100 percent right but their disagreements are not as profound as you would believe

49

[quote]pittbulll wrote:

[quote]usmccds423 wrote:

[quote]pittbulll wrote:
Here is to all those free marketers:) The Fed Is Not Printing Money, It's Doing Something Much Worse [/quote]

Umm, huh? The Federal Reserve is not a product of free market capitalism. It was literally created by an act of government (Congress) much like the SEC or any number of other initials. AKA it is regulation, the opposite of free market.

If you don’t like what the Federal Reserve is doing you’re espousing conservative principles Pitt.
[/quote]

You kind of don’t see the forest for the trees , My point was about debt and the free wheeling of printing money but I guess you have to argue about something [/quote]

Lol, so government spending and government policies aka regulation aka non-conservative principles.

50

[quote]Aragorn wrote:

[quote]thunderbolt23 wrote:

[quote]countingbeans wrote:
Posts video from Reich with “truth” in the title and isn’t joking?

lol Pitt… [/quote]

I don’t always agree with Reich, but there was nothing objectionable about what he said in that video. Middle class purchasing power has disintegrated over time, and real wage growth has not grown along with the economy’s productivity gains over the last 30+ years.

And I suppose conservatives could adopt a morally neutral, “that’s how the market has allocated wealth, can’t be upset but it”, but that would be a very big mistake, in my view.[/quote]

Didn’t watch the video so can’t comment on it, but what you say here is not quite the whole story in my humble opinion–while what you said IS true the economy has gundamentally changed from manufacturing based to service based (one might even cynically say speculation based). This requires a drop in middle class purchasing power due to manufacturing base power loss and therefor the loss of relative power for the class that predominantly worked those jobs.

Its not just unions, its nit just greedy corporate pigs, its a fundamental shift and a lot of people got caught in the cold[/quote]

I agree, and I think that is totally fair criticism. Reich pins all the responsibility on the commencing wealthy when other impersonal forces have had a huge impact on the diminution of the middle class - globalization and technology. While I do think there is some truth to Reich’s approach (I don’t think the wealthy are evil, mustache-twisting scoundrels, but they are politically active and our tax and trade policies are blindly tilted toward the investor class, of which the wealthy clearly is), structural issues are to blame as well.

But, regardless, I still think the shrinking of the middle class and the evaporation of the economic security that once defined the middle class is a bad thing, and not something to be indifferent to, and conservatives make a mistake if they are.

51

Beans,

I hear you, and I think it’s fair to criticize what Reich leaves out (no doubt intentionally).

But there’s simply no debate that the middle class has not shared in the gains of the productivity of the last 30 years. While you could argue we have more and cheaper gizmos, much of that “success” is offset by the rid in fixed costs that are essential (housing, health care, etc.) as well as the lack of security (the chances of job loss are higher, etc.). There’s data out there showing that even with two incomes, modern middle class families have less discretionary income than a single earner family a generation ago.

I agree that this transformation isn’t solely driven by evil rich people, as Reich claims. But regardless, it still is not good for the middle class. On this point, do you agree? If you do, what do you think we should do about it?

52

[quote]pittbulll wrote:
Like when he speaks about unemployment of blacks in the past , he says it was better before regulations , do you interpret it as he saying we should go back to Jim Crow ?

[/quote]

No, he’s saying “look here, our people did better when the government shit on us, and have done worse once the government tried to wipe our ass. Maybe we should reconsider inviting government into our lives/voting for the people that have made it worse for us while telling us it’s for the best.”

53

[quote]thunderbolt23 wrote:
Beans,

I hear you, and I think it’s fair to criticize what Reich leaves out (no doubt intentionally).

But there’s simply no debate that the middle class has not shared in the gains of the productivity of the last 30 years. While you could argue we have more and cheaper gizmos, much of that “success” is offset by the rid in fixed costs that are essential (housing, health care, etc.) as well as the lack of security (the chances of job loss are higher, etc.). There’s data out there showing that even with two incomes, modern middle class families have less discretionary income than a single earner family a generation ago.

I agree that this transformation isn’t solely driven by evil rich people, as Reich claims. But regardless, it still is not good for the middle class. On this point, do you agree? If you do, what do you think we should do about it?[/quote]

Do I agree? Sure.

But I don’t subscribe to the idea that “the next generation should have it better than the last” as a general rule or a given. It’s a lofty and worthy goal, particularly for parents, to have, but I don’t buy into the seeming prevalent notion it’s a guarantee.

What should we do about it? Grind on, save more, spend less and encourage the brilliant minds of today that are pissing away their time on Xbox, facebook and making cat memes, to go out and take a risk. Start a business, invent some shit…

I hold more computing power in the palm of my hand than they had when they landed on the moon in '69 and what do I (and most people do) argue on the internet, watch porn and read books… If someone were to release a viable replacement for the internal combustion engine tomorrow at Ford, our economy would explode. It’d be the roaring ass twenties all over again.

We need less meddling government, and a more robust population that is looking to provide for themselves.

54

[quote]countingbeans wrote:
If someone were to release a viable replacement for the internal combustion engine tomorrow at Ford, our economy would explode. It’d be the roaring ass twenties all over again. [/quote]

YEP!!! But Big Auto (and Big Oil) is doing everything in their capacity to prevent that very thing from happening. Elon Musk is the current pioneer, but I’m sure there are many others out there who have truly viable alternatives…there are just a lot of road blocks to breaking through the mainstream. Wanna have more competition? Figure out what (or who) is preventing newer car/engine technologies from entering the large-scale market and determine how to enable them to compete.

55

[quote]HeyWaj10 wrote:

[quote]countingbeans wrote:
If someone were to release a viable replacement for the internal combustion engine tomorrow at Ford, our economy would explode. It’d be the roaring ass twenties all over again. [/quote]

YEP!!! But Big Auto (and Big Oil) is doing everything in their capacity to prevent that very thing from happening. [/quote]

I don’t buy this particular conspiracy theory.

I’m pretty sure if GMC had the engine that would revolutionize and change the world, they would release the shit out of it, and have a stock price higher than Apple in less than 36 hours.

If you had an engine that didn’t use gas, and was comparable to an internal combustion engine in every other way, that didn’t just transfer the use of fossil fuels to another source (ie: plug in cars), you’d be the riches human the world has seen, rather quickly.

Just like the cure for cancer, no one is sitting on that cash cow because “oil company” or “big pharm” influence.

56

[quote]countingbeans wrote:

I don’t buy this particular conspiracy theory.

I’m pretty sure if GMC had the engine that would revolutionize and change the world, they would release the shit out of it, and have a stock price higher than Apple in less than 36 hours.

If you had an engine that didn’t use gas, and was comparable to an internal combustion engine in every other way, that didn’t just transfer the use of fossil fuels to another source (ie: plug in cars), you’d be the riches human the world has seen, rather quickly.

Just like the cure for cancer, no one is sitting on that cash cow because “oil company” or “big pharm” influence. [/quote]

That’s likely true for the auto industry, but the oil industry would be severely impacted if the demand for gas/oil dropped sharply in the face of new technology. Industries have to fight for survival the same as anything else. Because if a new tech, on the scale we’re talking here, came to be, it would be adopted on a global scale very rapidly. Do you think that does not incentivize/motivate the oil industry to take actions necessary in order to ensure their survival?

57

[quote]HeyWaj10 wrote:

[quote]countingbeans wrote:

I don’t buy this particular conspiracy theory.

I’m pretty sure if GMC had the engine that would revolutionize and change the world, they would release the shit out of it, and have a stock price higher than Apple in less than 36 hours.

If you had an engine that didn’t use gas, and was comparable to an internal combustion engine in every other way, that didn’t just transfer the use of fossil fuels to another source (ie: plug in cars), you’d be the riches human the world has seen, rather quickly.

Just like the cure for cancer, no one is sitting on that cash cow because “oil company” or “big pharm” influence. [/quote]

That’s likely true for the auto industry, but the oil industry would be severely impacted if the demand for gas/oil dropped sharply in the face of new technology. Industries have to fight for survival the same as anything else. Because if a new tech, on the scale we’re talking here, came to be, it would be adopted on a global scale very rapidly. Do you think that does not incentivize/motivate the oil industry to take actions necessary in order to ensure their survival?
[/quote]

I think you don’t understand what the stock market is.

58

[quote]HeyWaj10 wrote:

[quote]countingbeans wrote:

I don’t buy this particular conspiracy theory.

I’m pretty sure if GMC had the engine that would revolutionize and change the world, they would release the shit out of it, and have a stock price higher than Apple in less than 36 hours.

If you had an engine that didn’t use gas, and was comparable to an internal combustion engine in every other way, that didn’t just transfer the use of fossil fuels to another source (ie: plug in cars), you’d be the riches human the world has seen, rather quickly.

Just like the cure for cancer, no one is sitting on that cash cow because “oil company” or “big pharm” influence. [/quote]

That’s likely true for the auto industry, but the oil industry would be severely impacted if the demand for gas/oil dropped sharply in the face of new technology. Industries have to fight for survival the same as anything else. Because if a new tech, on the scale we’re talking here, came to be, it would be adopted on a global scale very rapidly. Do you think that does not incentivize/motivate the oil industry to take actions necessary in order to ensure their survival?
[/quote]

I’m with beans, I don’t believe that if anybody was sitting on a magic solution they would not develop and produce the idea.

I’m no expert, but do work in the oil industry. From what I see, a lot of the major oil companies are VERY aware of the fact that one day we will no longer use oil as our main energy resource. As a company, they need to plan for the future and some of them (Exxon from my limited exposure to the majors) are heavily investing in renewable energy to see what the next viable energy will be. The fact is, at this point, oil is a FAR superior energy resource. The technology for wind/solar/batteries just doesn’t exist yet. People like Elon Musk are making great progress, but Tesla was/is propped up by the government to be able to get by. Battery technology just isn’t ready yet.

I do not blame oil companies for taking advantage of the fact that globally we use a significant amount of oil, and will continue to do so until something better comes out. That is the beauty of free markets. If the companies don’t adapt, they will fail. People love to use the term “big oil” as a negative for chasing money, but money is there to be made in the current market. It will certainly be interesting to see what happens when the energy market begins to change.

Also, I do not believe the new technology would be adopted quickly and would change overnight. I like to think of it like the computer. The technology will have an initial concept that companies will start taking advantage of it but it will be expensive. As the technology becomes cheaper you will have more innovation. Over years of development it becomes more mainstream (apple computer in 1984?) and continues to slowly take over the market until we are where we are at today. Will everyone hate on “big battery” once they are heart of the energy industry?

59

[quote]countingbeans wrote:

[quote]HeyWaj10 wrote:

[quote]countingbeans wrote:

I don’t buy this particular conspiracy theory.

I’m pretty sure if GMC had the engine that would revolutionize and change the world, they would release the shit out of it, and have a stock price higher than Apple in less than 36 hours.

If you had an engine that didn’t use gas, and was comparable to an internal combustion engine in every other way, that didn’t just transfer the use of fossil fuels to another source (ie: plug in cars), you’d be the riches human the world has seen, rather quickly.

Just like the cure for cancer, no one is sitting on that cash cow because “oil company” or “big pharm” influence. [/quote]

That’s likely true for the auto industry, but the oil industry would be severely impacted if the demand for gas/oil dropped sharply in the face of new technology. Industries have to fight for survival the same as anything else. Because if a new tech, on the scale we’re talking here, came to be, it would be adopted on a global scale very rapidly. Do you think that does not incentivize/motivate the oil industry to take actions necessary in order to ensure their survival?
[/quote]

I think you don’t understand what the stock market is.
[/quote]

Wouldn’t speculation of a new engine technology, potentially strong enough to wipe out the combustion engine, sweep the legs right out from under the oil industry’s stocks?

60

[quote]HeyWaj10 wrote:

[quote]countingbeans wrote:

[quote]HeyWaj10 wrote:

[quote]countingbeans wrote:

I don’t buy this particular conspiracy theory.

I’m pretty sure if GMC had the engine that would revolutionize and change the world, they would release the shit out of it, and have a stock price higher than Apple in less than 36 hours.

If you had an engine that didn’t use gas, and was comparable to an internal combustion engine in every other way, that didn’t just transfer the use of fossil fuels to another source (ie: plug in cars), you’d be the riches human the world has seen, rather quickly.

Just like the cure for cancer, no one is sitting on that cash cow because “oil company” or “big pharm” influence. [/quote]

That’s likely true for the auto industry, but the oil industry would be severely impacted if the demand for gas/oil dropped sharply in the face of new technology. Industries have to fight for survival the same as anything else. Because if a new tech, on the scale we’re talking here, came to be, it would be adopted on a global scale very rapidly. Do you think that does not incentivize/motivate the oil industry to take actions necessary in order to ensure their survival?
[/quote]

I think you don’t understand what the stock market is.
[/quote]

Wouldn’t speculation of a new engine technology, potentially strong enough to wipe out the combustion engine, sweep the legs right out from under the oil industry’s stocks?
[/quote]

The vast majority of their losses would be them selling their own stock to buy it in the company that just released the most important innovation the world has seen in decades, if not centuries.

“Big Oil”'s loyalty to oil is money, not love of burning fossil fuels. And you don’t get that fucking rich being stupid and sentimental.