So you really hate Obama, huh. Don't lose it man. At this rate by the end of his presidency you'll either have jumped off a building or been arrested by the Secret Service.

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Only a big government man would think of calling a trillion-dollar tax increase a spending cut or "saving." Technically, of course, it is true. A trillion-dollar tax increase will reduce spending by a trillion dollars for those private citizens who were taxed. And, from the perspective of the federal government, a trillion dollars taxed is a trillion dollars saved from the greed of the taxpayers who produced the wealth - and might well want to spend or invest it in non governmental activities.

Think about this really hard.

Think about it.


It doesn't make any fucking sense.

It's nice to see you enjoy articles written by completely illogical out of touch morons.

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Originally posted by ******** Seplling don't demonstrate intelligence and educatoin - knowing does.

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Originally posted by The17sss

God, the Washington Times has really jumped the shark again.

It's now somehow wrong to point out that the United States enjoys lower costs for carbon-based energy sources than Europe, just because conservatives who pay electric bills don't have experience with costs anywhere else?

And human muscle power?

What are you trying to point out with this god-awful op-ed? That Democrats are out of touch with the people because they deal in facts and not simply slander?

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Originally posted by Clovis Think about this really hard. Think about it. It doesn't make any fucking sense. It's nice to see you enjoy articles written by completely illogical out of touch morons.

What don't you get about it? I rather enjoyed the article, even if it was a bit tongue-in-cheek in parts.

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Originally posted by Lebezniatnikov God, the Washington Times has really jumped the shark again. It's now somehow wrong to point out that the United States enjoys lower costs for carbon-based energy sources than Europe, just because conservatives who pay electric bills don't have experience with costs anywhere else?

Who gives a shit where the U.S. compares to Europe? Is that the best rationalization we have for raising costs (which will undoubtedly be passed through to consumers) during one of the worst economic environments in the last century?

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What are you trying to point out with this god-awful op-ed? That Democrats are out of touch with the people because they deal in facts and not simply slander?

I might point out that politicians are horrible economists. They are nothing more than binge spenders who think that hair-of-the-dog is actually a cure for a hangover.

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Originally posted by Shakka Who gives a shit where the U.S. compares to Europe? Is that the best rationalization we have for raising costs (which will undoubtedly be passed through to consumers) during one of the worst economic environments in the last century?

I don't think it was ever used as a rationalization - certainly not in the context of this article, which dropped that whole paragraph in for what seemed like the sole purpose of casting our new Energy Secretary as out of touch. Of course the consumer thinks prices are high - when don't they?

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Originally posted by Shakka Who gives a shit where the U.S. compares to Europe? Is that the best rationalization we have for raising costs (which will undoubtedly be passed through to consumers) during one of the worst economic environments in the last century?

how about raising the cost of petroleum products will result in a significant reduction in the transfer of wealth out of the US (the US imports on averages about 12 million barrels of petroleum per day, which at the current price per barrel comes to about 200 billion of US dollars leaving the country)? Once those dollars leave the country it helps develop Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Nigeria, Venezuela, etc...

The increased cost of energy will result in US jobs and a re-circulation of our own wealth within our own country. People seem to overlook this little fact. While an individual may pay more for energy under obama's plan, that increased expense is also likely to become income of another american at some point.

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Originally posted by jerZ07002 Once those dollars leave the country it helps develop Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Nigeria, Venezuela, etc...

There's actually a good deal of political economy research that shows the effect of resource rents on underdevelopment, so it's really a lose-lose situation. All one has to do is think on the situation in the Nigerian delta to see that the "resource curse" is a very real issue in most places that have significant oil deposits.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/18/m...ln_essay.1.html

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Take a look at Nigeria, which has the misfortune of possessing more than 35 billion barrels of oil, much of it around the Niger Delta. When I visited last year, traveling through stunted mangrove swamps near Port Harcourt, there was a near-absence of birds, and oil was everywhere - not only dripping from rusty platforms atop the delta waters, but in the water itself, in the air, which smelled of petroleum, and in the gas flares that are a scalding feature of the injured landscape. Because of a host of political and economic ills triggered by the drilling, the Niger Delta is alive not with marine life but with violence - bands of tribal warriors wage an off-and-on war against one another and army troops. Ecuador is another victim. After oil was discovered in its Oriente region in 1967, Texaco and a state-owned oil company operated an extraction program that, a quarter century later, had reduced parts of the Amazon to a deforested miasma of pollution and poverty. Chevron, which purchased Texaco, now faces a billion-dollar lawsuit accusing it of poisoning the land. Ecuador had a negligible foreign debt before oil was found but now owes $16 billion and, the greatest insult of all, more than 70 percent of the population now lives in poverty. The harms suffered by these countries (and many others) are symptoms of what is known as the resource curse. Though it seems counterintuitive - countries with a lot of oil are lucky and rich, right? - a succession of studies, the most notable of which was conducted by the economists Jeffrey Sachs and Andrew Warner, show that countries dependent on natural-resource exports experience lower growth rates than countries that have nonresource economies, and they suffer greater amounts of repression and conflict too. The reasons are complex - and there are exceptions to these dismal rules - but in general, a reliance on oil discourages investment in other industries, makes governments less responsive to the desires of citizens and fosters corruption by officials seeking and receiving funds that are not their due. An oil state is, almost by definition, a dysfunctional state.

To a large extent, even Saudi is a highly dysfunctional regime.

In any case, this just goes to show that America's reliance on carbon-based fuel is a lose-lose situation for both consumer and supplier.

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Originally posted by Shakka What don't you get about it? I rather enjoyed the article, even if it was a bit tongue-in-cheek in parts.

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Only a big government man would think of calling a trillion-dollar tax increase a spending cut or "saving." Technically, of course, it is true. A trillion-dollar tax increase will reduce spending by a trillion dollars for those private citizens who were taxed. And, from the perspective of the federal government, a trillion dollars taxed is a trillion dollars saved from the greed of the taxpayers who produced the wealth - and might well want to spend or invest it in non governmental activities.

It's not what I don't get, it's what you guys seem to not get.

Read the paragraph.

A trillion dollar tax increase will reduce spending by a trillion dollars for those private citizens who were taxed.

That is the biggest load of fucking bullshit I've ever heard. There's no possible way to come to that conclusion logically. If you make 2 million dollars a year and your taxes increase by 4%, are you gonna skip buying a new BMW and put more money in the bank instead? If you make that much money you're not going to intentionally stop spending it just because of a relatively minor increase in your taxes. You might put less in the bank, but I don't see why someone in that position would stop spending money on things they want and or need just because of a small percent increase in their taxes.

Do you guys want to keep pretending that tax cuts for the wealthy spur the economy like no other? Were you all frozen in carbonite the last 8 years while we were doing just that?

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Originally posted by ******** Seplling don't demonstrate intelligence and educatoin - knowing does.

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Originally posted by Clovis It's not what I don't get, it's what you guys seem to not get. Read the paragraph. A trillion dollar tax increase will reduce spending by a trillion dollars for those private citizens who were taxed. That is the biggest load of fucking bullshit I've ever heard. There's no possible way to come to that conclusion logically. If you make 2 million dollars a year and your taxes increase by 4%, are you gonna skip buying a new BMW and put more money in the bank instead? If you make that much money you're not going to intentionally stop spending it just because of a relatively minor increase in your taxes. You might put less in the bank, but I don't see why someone in that position would stop spending money on things they want and or need just because of a small percent increase in their taxes. Do you guys want to keep pretending that tax cuts for the wealthy spur the economy like no other? Were you all frozen in carbonite the last 8 years while we were doing just that?

It may be a broad brush, but it's a simple comment. Perhaps it depends on each person's marginal propensity to consume, however in the arena of aggregate demand the author is simply saying $1T more for the government is $1T less in the "consumers'" pocket. Why is it such a stretch to believe that consumers won't spend what they no longer have? Especially now that we are all so keenly aware of the debt/leverage problem that got us here. Shit, Clovis, with that backdrop it's not even a stretch to say that pulling $1T away from consumers will cause them to contract their spending by even more than $1T since savings rates are on the rise (and thankfully so!). With less of a DPI cushion, a consumer might be even more inclined to save whatever else he/she can.

Quit watching Star Wars and get with the program. For an interesting look at taxes/spending/economic growth, I posted an interesting analysis by Paul Kasriel in another thread--it's a great read, you should check it out.

Here's the link

Look at what huge tax increases did in the 1930s--particularly when they were increased at a much higher rate among the "rich."

Even if they don't spend the money and chose to save or invest it instead, it would still do a hell of alot more good for the country than if the government gets it's greedy claws on it. Money is never doing "nothing" unless it is being truly useless by sitting under a mattress. Fortunately most rich people don't put their money under a mattress. They tend to put it into banks which then lend money to entrepreneurs and consumers..or they invest it in other productive enterprises which create jobs and wealth.

Contrary to what the left believes, money left in the hands of the people who earned it is never "lost" or "wasted". It is always working to improve the economy in one way or another..and each dollar is likely to do much more good in their hands than under the direction of a disconnected bureaucrat in Washington.