The Obama Presidency

[Yoshi]

Yoshi. Taxes are pretty low. How can the country survive on more and more tax cuts while neither party will cut spending? For all intents and purposes, tax cuts and spending are both the same cancer killing the U.S.

I agree. Cut 99% of social programs entirely.

[MarkRyan]

And let's not pretend that the government is any less corrupt than industry. At least industry requires skin in the game. The government gets to play with other people's money and then benefit corruptly.

Government takes "other people's money" and sends it to giant corporations nowadays. And those giant corporations take some of that money and use it to buy and sell the new breed of politicians. A lot of these corporations actually don't have a lot of "skin in the game", because they've influenced the laws and the lawmakers to the point where they don't even play the game by the same rules as everyone else.

We've got a gross marriage of government and corporations. I certainly don't know for sure that real capitalism would turn things around, but I don't think it's what's lead us to the economy of today.


Skip to 4:40 for what I feel is an honest description of our economic system. Both Republicans and Democrats are complicit.

[Drewbacca]

If not abolishing lobbyism the lobby should be open and public on the floor. So a company / rep would have to go in and speak his piece to the Senate/Congress openly. No backroom deals. This way the people / media would have a chance at sniffing out the rats.

[icarusfall]

Lobbies should be outlawed.

[Yoshi]

If not abolishing lobbyism the lobby should be open and public on the floor. So a company / rep would have to go in and speak his piece to the Senate/Congress openly. No backroom deals. This way the people / media would have a chance at sniffing out the rats.

Totally agree with this.

[dave is ok]

I agree. Cut 99% of social programs entirely.

And raise taxes. Boom fixed

[Yoshi]

That doesn't fix anything. You need to increase the base income that is taxed, not the rate at which a lower number is taxed. This is the piece that idiots like Obama who never ran a lemonade stand don't get.

[dave is ok]

What? So 15% capital gains rate hasn't lost the U.S. billions over the past however many years? Oh ok

[Diff-chan]

That doesn't fix anything. You need to increase the base income that is taxed, not the rate at which a lower number is taxed. This is the piece that idiots like Obama who never ran a lemonade stand don't get.

You're calling Obama an idiot but you are the one bringing up moronic Laffer curve bullshit in this thread. Why don't we just drop the tax rate to 1% and after the economy grows by 2000% it will all work out? Because that's the logical conclusion of the shit you're peddling.... of course that's not reality, which is the whole problem.

[Gooch]

Michael Moore is an idiot. And I respect aspects about Ron Paul but he is too blinded by his Austrian beliefs (though there are many aspects of the Hayek/von Mises/Rothbard school that I do agree with). He is a man whose voice is needed in governemnt to diversify our perspectives but he should never hold the Presidency. Free markets have always and will always be influenced and shaped by fiscal policy, by politics, by governments. They have to be because there are so many different people, ideologies, cultural and religious influences that contrast so starkly coordination of what people advocate in terms of pure free market forces in any other form would be near impossible. Free markets in the closest to realizable form could not exist without political cooperation and coordination. Without the latter, we would revert back to the days of imperialism and mercantilism and even more severe nationlistic and protectionist policies, all of which are anti-free market. Post-WWII the open door policy negotiated by the U.S. govt and governemnts of Europe, Japan, and developing and emerging markets opened up our markets, our consumer base to theirs. At that point the U.S. began to convert to a more trade deficit nation (the trade balance itself is poorly understood by politicians and citizens alike). Our consumption allowed those nations to rebuild themselves and prosper, and the continuation of this open door has led to a new world order based on variable shares in the global economy, one in which market driven adjustments only possible by the infrastructure built through political coordination are made to address imbalances, one in which disputes are negotiated via organizations such as the WTO and NATO, disputes that are settled politically rather than militarily. These free markets have brought a pause to the string of wars, wars that now really only involve non-WTO, non-NATO nations versus those within those organizations.

Look at the non-capitalist nations and see that they are gradually shifting towards capitalism, whether it be Russia in its post-USSR redefinition and current modernization drive to Communist China attempting to maintain stability while gradually attempting to evolve into a more domestic demand driven economy. Capitalism is the only hope for world peace and too often people confuse what capitalism really is, fail to see the obvious benefits it has brought to their lives and others, people who under other systems would be oppressed far worse (just try to get scotch in Venezuela, try to get electricity there) because they don't feel they are getting their equitable share of economic prosperity yet their own productivity and skill set is sorely lacking. They fail to see how they are already being greatly subsidized in many aspects of their own lives because a sense of entitlement blinds them and a lack of understanding emboldens their beliefs.