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Elections 2012:What unites us is greater than what divides us

  • Thread starter Thread starter Priceless
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Re: Elections 2012:What unites us is greater than what divides us

Rover said:
Quick, name me one state that ended up refusing the money? Answer: none.
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Our Tea Party governor threatened not to touch the Stimulus money, but quietly accepted it. Good thing he did. Come November 1 I'll be able to walk to the new Amtrak station in Brunswick and get off at Boston Garden. I am so loving it!
 
Re: Elections 2012:What unites us is greater than what divides us

Priceless said:
Our Tea Party governor threatened not to touch the Stimulus money, but quietly accepted it. Good thing he did. Come November 1 I'll be able to walk to the new Amtrak station in Brunswick and get off at Boston Garden. I am so loving it!
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Fair warning. You're going to want to steer way clear of Amtrak and mass transit in general if you want to try to paint a rosy picture of government "stimulus" and "takeovers". And before you gleefully jump on that thing, at least have some respect for the millions of people it puts out of a job.
 
Re: Elections 2012:What unites us is greater than what divides us

geezer said:
Fair warning. You're going to want to steer way clear of Amtrak and mass transit in general if you want to try to paint a rosy picture of government "stimulus" and "takeovers". And before you gleefully jump on that thing, at least have some respect for the millions of people it puts out of a job.
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The millions of people it puts out of a job? Doing what? Driving a bus from Portland to Boston? That still exists. But we did have to hire workers to bring the tracks up to code and we'll still employ them to maintain the tracks...and we had to hire workers to build the train station (which has numerous private companies in it) and the downtown areas of Brunswick and Freeport are excited about the influx of tourists from Boston, NH and Portland who will be arriving on the train. But yeah, it's a real job killer.
 
Re: Elections 2012:What unites us is greater than what divides us

Priceless said:
The millions of people it puts out of a job? Doing what? Driving a bus from Portland to Boston? That still exists. But we did have to hire workers to bring the tracks up to code and we'll still employ them to maintain the tracks...and we had to hire workers to build the train station (which has numerous private companies in it) and the downtown areas of Brunswick and Freeport are excited about the influx of tourists from Boston, NH and Portland who will be arriving on the train. But yeah, it's a real job killer.
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OK, my math might be a little rusty. But the point is that projects run by the government (which, by the way, are paid for with tax dollars coming from actual people, they're not truthfully free) are highly inefficient and always cost much more than they ought to. The workers hired on that project represent huge losses to our collective GDP.

But then, I also think tourism is not a "real" industry in that it's simply moving money from here to there without actually producing anything. So in general those people who think of government as being the provider of all things by whose beneficence we exist think I'm crazy anyway.

Besides which, if you had redirected the tax dollars that went into rebuilding tracks and hiring those track maintainers, you could have hired twice as many people in the private sector to work at jobs that actually produce something, benefiting us all. Instead, they're on unemployment so you can ride your government subsidized, air conditioned train car to never-never land instead of getting off your Democrat butt.

This would be more accurate: As a whole, the horribly misguided Keysian federal stimulus boondoggle put millions of people out of work nationwide, many of whom are still unemployed today while a few close friends of the Chicago president who happen to be in the "construction" and "tourism" and "waste management" businesses are getting rich off America's tax dollars.
 
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Re: Elections 2012:What unites us is greater than what divides us

Rover said:
Congrats! [blah blah blah].
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I'm willing to bet that my knowledge of actuarial science exceeds yours by a fairly wide margin. :) (though it is within the realm of theoretical possibility that I am wrong on that bet...)


I'm telling you, the math doesn't work, and I'm not going to provide some lengthy mathematical disquisition with formulas and the like. The law will not work as designed. You have a bunch of amateurs trying to rewrite centuries of actuarial science. The hubris is breathtaking. it reminds me of the story about how the Indiana state legislature wanted to change the value of pi by statute. it doesn't matter how good your intentions are. you need cash flow in >= cash flow out or the enterprise fails.
 
Re: Elections 2012:What unites us is greater than what divides us

Priceless said:
The millions of people it puts out of a job? Doing what? Driving a bus from Portland to Boston? That still exists. But we did have to hire workers to bring the tracks up to code and we'll still employ them to maintain the tracks...and we had to hire workers to build the train station (which has numerous private companies in it) and the downtown areas of Brunswick and Freeport are excited about the influx of tourists from Boston, NH and Portland who will be arriving on the train. But yeah, it's a real job killer.
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Facts have no place in a discussion of economic theory. ;)

The cornerstone of the Austrian school is that their dicta is by definition true, therefore anything empirical to the contrary must simply be wrong.
 
Re: Elections 2012:What unites us is greater than what divides us

Kepler said:
Facts have no place in a discussion of economic theory. ;)

The cornerstone of the Austrian school is that their dicta is by definition true, therefore anything empirical to the contrary must simply be wrong.
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I'm noticing that...
 
Re: Elections 2012:What unites us is greater than what divides us

As compared to the incongruity of the argument regularly parrotted around here that if only the government would spend more and more money, the economy would be fine. It's those darned folks that want to limit government spending that are killing the economy. Yup, lots of unsound economic theories out there.
 
Re: Elections 2012:What unites us is greater than what divides us

Bob Gray said:
As compared to the incongruity of the argument regularly parrotted around here that if only the government would spend more and more money, the economy would be fine. It's those darned folks that want to limit government spending that are killing the economy. Yup, lots of unsound economic theories out there.
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LOL.

We've had over 10 years of massive tax cuts and they've netted us zero. Our tax rates are still nowhere near what they were under Clinton.
 
Re: Elections 2012:What unites us is greater than what divides us

Bob Gray said:
As compared to the incongruity of the argument regularly parrotted around here that if only the government would spend more and more money, the economy would be fine.
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Except nobody says that.

This is an argument between pragmatists who use different tools for different jobs and ideologues who insist that the same tool must be used for every job, always (and if empirical evidence doesn't support them then the evidence is wrong). Nobody says "taxes are always good," but some do say "taxes are always bad." The latter is simple, it fits on a bumper sticker, it works great in a stump speech, and it's vacuous.
 
Re: Elections 2012:What unites us is greater than what divides us

Kepler said:
Except nobody says that.

This is an argument between pragmatists who use different tools for different jobs and ideologues who insist that the same tool must be used for every job, always. Nobody says "taxes are always good," but some do say "taxes are always bad." The latter is simple, it fits on a bumper sticker, it works great in a stump speech, and it's vacuous.
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People regularly say it. They don't usually say it quite as directly as I did, but the argument is made regularly. Like when people have argued for more and more stimulus and railed on those opposed to more stimulus.
 
Re: Elections 2012:What unites us is greater than what divides us

Bob Gray said:
People regularly say it. They don't usually say it quite as directly as I did, but the argument is made regularly. Like when people have argued for more and more stimulus and railed on those opposed to more stimulus.
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The stimulus was way too small and ended up being a hand out to donors to the Obama campaign. But, it didn't fail like most would have you believe. Without it the recession would have been many times worse, and most economists agree with that assessment.
 
Re: Elections 2012:What unites us is greater than what divides us

Kepler said:
Facts have no place in a discussion of economic theory. ;)

The cornerstone of the Austrian school is that their dicta is by definition true, therefore anything empirical to the contrary must simply be wrong.
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You're barking up the wrong tree to try to pin this view on me. I'm actually pretty liberal when it comes to taxes in general for things the people couldn't do as well themselves (wars, mental hospitals, freeways, space ships etc.) I've been supporting higher tax rates for a long time.
My point here, beyond the obvious of just trying to piss off Priceless for the fun of it, is that mass transit and especially Amtrak is an example of everything that's WRONG with tax & spend. It's an endless black hole of funding. Always has been, always will be. ANY example of the "public good" would be a better one than mass transit.
 
Re: Elections 2012:What unites us is greater than what divides us

Kepler said:
Nixon was both a micro-manager and a paranoid. There is no way he didn't have advanced knowledge about the break-in.
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"The first shot would always be the most accurate."
 
Re: Elections 2012:What unites us is greater than what divides us

Rover said:
KNUCKLEDR--- oops, sorry. :o

I appreciate any study that a top notch consultant like McKenzie has to offer even if they are mostly made up of Harvard grads. ;) My response is the Massachusetts experience. When I posed this question previously a conservative tried to change the subject to insurers being forced to take on pre existing conditions, a point that has nothing to do with the question at hand. So, we have one hand a well thought out opinion, and on the other a factual experience with a 6 year track record.

Now, there are some significant differences between this state and the country as whole. Its far wealthier for one and had less uninsured people when the program which I'll call Romneycare was first launched. However, businesses aren't much different. Liberty Mutual, EMC, Boston Scientific, etc all should have dumped their employees onto the state by now but didn't.

As to why this hasn't happened, I'll speculate for two reasons. 1) It may not be that much cheaper to dump your employees off onto the state even before counting all the administrative costs it would take to do so, and 2) I question whether companies really want to pay their employees 20K more for the same job as another company down the street. More likely they'd pay 5 grand more and pocket the difference which would cause smelly Occupy Wherever protestors to camp out in their lobby. At this point it might not be worth the trouble.

A lot of analysis of this particular issue looks at things in a bubble. Meaning the idea that people will say, oh the fine is 500, insurance is 1000 so I'm up 500 if I don't get it. That's a faulty analysis IMHO because you're getting nothing for paying a fine but getting something (coverage) for your thousand bucks. Not sure if McKenzie did that or not, but human behavior is a lot more complicated than some of the speculation I've seen.
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interesting points. if i may add.

1) mckinsey probably interviewed many, many companies to get their ideas.
2) i would think in the case of just MA, it would be very tough to pull this on employees in one state and not the others.
3) i know companies offer some payback now if you don't take part in their insurance (use your spouse for example). it is nothing close to their actual savings.
4) ... indulge me a moment. smart people (i'll call them 'adults') think things through and make contingencies. [not 'children' like priceless who just say "oh yeah, the stock market was gonna crash too..."] if companies opt out of supplying health coverage and let their employees buy into obamacare (with, oh say a $10k raise)... that is no longer pre-tax health care - but now taxable salary. ingenious really! -- when companies supplied health care it was an expense and reduced their corporate taxes. and the 'money' employees paid out of their salary was pre-tax. now that goes to employees as taxable income and employees pay into obamacare. taxable revenue received by the federal govt goes up. and we move more toward a single buyer. i am very impressed with how this may play out.
5) the first company to do so will have some big balls. but these are publicly traded and have to meet estimates and satisfy shareholders. if they can cut this cost by 50% that is free cash flow. and what better excuse than "the future for our country is a single payer system, and we at ATT and going to support our president!"

... will it happen? no idea. but the behind the scene planning is genius.
 
Re: Elections 2012:What unites us is greater than what divides us

geezer said:
Fair warning. You're going to want to steer way clear of Amtrak and mass transit in general if you want to try to paint a rosy picture of government "stimulus" and "takeovers". And before you gleefully jump on that thing, at least have some respect for the millions of people it puts out of a job.
Click to expand...

Because all those highways are being built privately and aren't government subsidies for the auto industry.

Yet somehow people expect Amtrak to work without similar investment...
 
Re: Elections 2012:What unites us is greater than what divides us

Bob Gray said:
It's those darned folks that want to limit government spending that are killing the economy. Yup, lots of unsound economic theories out there.
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Americans fall into two groups. There are those who don't talk frequently about limiting govt...and don't want to pay for others pet projects while wanting to pay for their pet projects. And there are those who do talk frequently about limiting govt...and don't want to pay for others pet projects while wanting to pay for their pet projects.

The difference is not their desire to spend...but rather their honesty on the topic.
 
Re: Elections 2012:What unites us is greater than what divides us

Overly simplistic. There are some people who want spending cut across the board.
 
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