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Originally posted by Renegade EDIT: Holy shit: http://www.syracuse.com/news/index....uld_draw_c.html

Also in that article but conveniently omitted from context to make her look horribly hypocritical...

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But they're being carried out across the country by new grass-roots leaders like Wilder, who are upset that the government seems to be bailing out everyone but them.

I don't think this is the prevailing mindset of your average tea party protester. They are against more and more debt being piled on and them when too much spending is what got us here in the first place. It's not some innate jealousy that they aren't getting a bailout. THEY DON'T WANT THE ENDLESS BAILOUTS AND DEFICIT SPENDING. Bush was horrible with his, but it pales in comparison to what is being spent now, let alone the more than doubling of the Fed's balance sheet that is only going to get worse before it gets better.


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Smith said he became involved because Obama is causing class and racial divisiveness by promoting policies that benefit select groups of Americans. Americans need safety nets, but Obama and Congress are pushing programs that foster dependency and weaken capitalism, said Smith, who acknowledged he collected food stamp benefits for a few months last year

I mean really, you can't make this shit up...

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

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Originally posted by BARS-N-STARS blah blah blah i eat shit

srsly....did you even watch the video??

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Originally posted by Shakka I don't think this is the prevailing mindset of your average tea party protester. They are against more and more debt being piled on and them when too much spending is what got us here in the first place. It's not some innate jealousy that they aren't getting a bailout. THEY DON'T WANT THE ENDLESS BAILOUTS AND DEFICIT SPENDING. Bush was horrible with his, but it pales in comparison to what is being spent now, let alone the more than doubling of the Fed's balance sheet that is only going to get worse before it gets better. ...

The average tea party protester is a retard. Oh they don't want endless bailouts and deficit spending??? Well they sure as hell picked the MOST opportune time to take affront to it during the WORST recession since the great depression. Look, I can't take these people seriously ... when the economy was booming, unemployment was down at 5% (below historical full employment levels), and every decent economist was saying we needed to leverage the business cycle by reducing spending, raising interest rates, and increase the savings rate all these very same "teabagging" type people supported all the Bush tax cuts and were saying "MORE TAX CUTS! LOOK AT THE BOOST TO THE ECONOMY THESE TAX CUTS ARE HAVING! WHAT DEFICIT???". These people need to just shut up. They didn't understand then and they certainly don't understand now. This tempermental-Keynesian attitude is either sheer stupidity ... or willful ideological ignorance at best.

As for the doubling of the fed balance sheet, I don't really see how that's bad. I mean looking at the other central bank balance sheets, and given treasury auction sales .... I don't see anything at all to be concerned about to be honest.

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Originally posted by DjWhooCares Blah,blah,blah I eat shit too.

I watched all the videos. I like the parts where MSNBC says this and that about Bush and his spending and nobody was saying anything then story after story. Bush didnt campaign shouting change and cut back on goverment spending now did he? Obama is a flat out liar and one of the biggest hypocrites I have ever seen. I guess spending our money and our kids money doesnt count as goverment speding. Get it straight I am a Nationalist. Just be thankfull Texas doesnt depend on state taxes like California does or Texas would be in a shit hole right now too because of all those damn illegal imigrants. Why should I care I am going to be retiring in the Philippines anyway. Maayong gabii.

Chalk one up for Susan.
http://gawker.com/5216313/fox+bashi...or-a-job-at-fox

Whatever point the teabaggers are trying to make (that rich people should get the same tax decrease they're currently getting? what?), they've completely trumped themselves by being completely and thoroughly annoying to anyone that may have been sympathetic to their (faux) cause.

I mean seriously, you don't know how aggravating riding the Metro in DC was this week... grrr tourists and teabaggers.

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Originally posted by occrider The average tea party protester is a retard. Oh they don't want endless bailouts and deficit spending??? Well they sure as hell picked the MOST opportune time to take affront to it during the WORST recession since the great depression. Look, I can't take these people seriously ... when the economy was booming, unemployment was down at 5% (below historical full employment levels), and every decent economist was saying we needed to leverage the business cycle by reducing spending, raising interest rates, and increase the savings rate all these very same "teabagging" type people supported all the Bush tax cuts and were saying "MORE TAX CUTS! LOOK AT THE BOOST TO THE ECONOMY THESE TAX CUTS ARE HAVING! WHAT DEFICIT???". These people need to just shut up. They didn't understand then and they certainly don't understand now. This tempermental-Keynesian attitude is either sheer stupidity ... or willful ideological ignorance at best. As for the doubling of the fed balance sheet, I don't really see how that's bad. I mean looking at the other central bank balance sheets, and given treasury auction sales .... I don't see anything at all to be concerned about to be honest.

Let me add to what I was saying. I wasn't necessarily trying to say I agree or disagree with what these people are doing, though I did say that some of the silly backlash made me a bit more sympathetic to them. I think you're probably right that most of them don't really understand the economics behind what is going on. And I will gladly volunteer that the Fed is doing what they SHOULD do in a time like this. However, it's what got us here that is the reason we're having this discussion. As Paul McCulley suggests when he and others talk about the Paradox of Thrift and the Paradox of Deleveraging, when the public is deleveraging like they are now, the only entity capable of levering up to absorb the deleveraging in the private sector is the government. I think there are legitimate arguments that a lot of the spending from TARP I is not the kind of stimulus we need, however. And all of the smart people I read suggest that TARP I is only a down payment and that there will at least be TARP II, TARP III, etc.

And yes, I do think it's a bit hypocritical of a lot of these people who have suddenly found religion with regard to deficit spending now that their party is out of power, but I've tried to stay as objective as my own political leanings will allow me to and I don't necessarily think that the policies being pursued are anything close to a cure or solution to the problems, rather I think continuing to add debt and spend more when excessive spending is such a large component of the problem are more akin to giving a heroin addict another fix to put off the pain of the real solution which is to kill the addiction. We may be helping to ease short-term pain, as all of these massive liquidity injections will certainly stimulate markets, help the stock market, help the public mood, etc. However, I fear that we're also kicking the can down the road, pursuing policies that are potentially extremely inflationary (depending on how successful the Fed is at withdrawing the liquidity if/when things start to perk up). Add in the fact that we're seeing very serious rumblings from the Chinese regarding the dollar and suggestions that their appetite for treasurys may diminish which has it's own ramifcations for the success of the government's plans and their ability to finance all of the money they're spending, potential for crowding out of private investment, etc. At the end of the day, the aggregate of public, private and government debt to GDP has not gone down, rather it has gone up. And with asset value deflation, the ratio is much worse. The problem is not getting better even if we get short term boosts that make us feel a little better about things.

As far as the Fed's balance sheet goes. Sure, they're doing what they should do in a situation, however that is not to say that there are not serious consequences (intended, unintended, and unknown) that go along with such aggressive policies. I think it's a bit risky to be so dismissive of doing things like potentially resorting to monetizing debt if that's what it comes to, aside from things like exposing the taxpayers to potentially massive losses (Even though Bernanke & Co. say they've never lost a dime, it's pretty clear they've taken on more risk then ever with the current slew of alphabet soup programs).

Anyway, yeah, I doubt the average protester is thinking about it that in depth, but I don't think that means they're necessarily wrong to protest. They do look pretty silly though, but no more or less silly than the fools who are criticizing them.

Last edited by Shakka on Apr-17-2009 at 21:35

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Originally posted by Lebezniatnikov Whatever point the teabaggers are trying to make (that rich people should get the same tax decrease they're currently getting? what?), they've completely trumped themselves by being completely and thoroughly annoying to anyone that may have been sympathetic to their (faux) cause. I mean seriously, you don't know how aggravating riding the Metro in DC was this week... grrr tourists and teabaggers.

teabagging is the gayest thing i've heard of in a while. protestors suck - conservative or liberal.

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Originally posted by jerZ07002 protestors suck - conservative or liberal.

You know what sucks? This emerging collective disdain for protestors and protesting. Just because you see a few people acting stupid on TV or code pink ladies getting escorted out of hearings doesn't mean that protestors suck.

Personally I'm glad we have the right to protest and I'll be exercising that right when I see fit.

Regardless of how ridiculous this "tea bagging" shit is, I still think it's good that people are involved enough to join a protest.

It just makes me laugh that this is what these people will protest for. Gay rights, illegal war, wiretapping, etc...they'll stay home for those, but when we propose a percent increase in rich people's taxes it's that big of a deal to them.

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

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Originally posted by Clovis You know what sucks? This emerging collective disdain for protestors and protesting. Just because you see a few people acting stupid on TV or code pink ladies getting escorted out of hearings doesn't mean that protestors suck. Personally I'm glad we have the right to protest and I'll be exercising that right when I see fit. Regardless of how ridiculous this "tea bagging" shit is, I still think it's good that people are involved enough to join a protest. It just makes me laugh that this is what these people will protest for. Gay rights, illegal war, wiretapping, etc...they'll stay home for those, but when we propose a percent increase in rich people's taxes it's that big of a deal to them.

Protesting is fine until it actually fucks with your normal daily functions. I work in times square, and for some dumb-ass reason every protestor wants to protest within a 10 block radius of my building. Today, I couldn't get work done (and i work on the 14th floor of my building) because people were protesting 'genocide' in Sri Lanka. Seriously, what the hell is yelling "what do we want, when do we want it!!" going to do to end their claims of genocide in Sri Lanka? I seriously doubt that BS even raised consequential awareness for their causes. It really just makes people who are inconvenienced mad.

Protestors suck because of the way they go about it and the causes for which they are protesting (which in my view are pretty stupid today). I wouldn't have a problem with protestors or protests if the people protesting were doing it for something that would further a real social need and if the protest had some effect on the cause for which they were protesting.

It's really easy for suburbanites to say protesting is blah blah blah when they aren't faced with protestors inconveniencing their lives on a normal basis. I deal with this stupid crap way too often (at least 6 or 7 times a year - it's unbelievably annoying). Oh yeah, and when Bush was in power there was always a group of nutjobs protesting something war related (or 9/11 related) right outside one of my train stations (holding up the flow of people).

Come live and work in NY or DC and I'm sure you'll feel a little differently when protesting isn't just some abstract concept.

Last edited by jerZ07002 on Apr-18-2009 at 00:02