$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('kublikhan', 'T')he government is currently shrinking. And if you want to bring up George Bush, he greatly expanded government during his recession. By this much time into Bush's recession, government consumption and investment had expanded 12%. Yet under Obama and the liberals we are about back down to baseline.
PeakOil is You
This is the WORST RECOVERY EVER
Re: This is the WORST RECOVERY EVER
by Outcast_Searcher » Mon 04 Feb 2013, 04:06:50
So you quote a citation free NYT article by "there can NEVER be enough government spending" liberal Paul Krugman, who picks the figures he deems relevant, but doesn't define them -- and this is your case for government shrinking? At least he makes it clear he's mixing in multiple forms of government (including state and local).
I'll certainly agree that Bush spent FAR too much and was a screw-up. Are we STILL playing the "it's all George Bush's fault" card, or is there EVER going to be a time when Obama will man up and take some responsibility for his policies? (I know the answer -- it's a rhetorical question).
I'm talking about federal spending. We're up from about 18% of GDP to about 25% and the liberals still want more. There are more and bigger social programs like food stamps, bailout programs, housing assistance programs, Obamacare (and all the new taxes to pay for it), and endless new regulations which are thousands of pages long and will take years to figure out and fully implement (just to name a few examples). And we have $5 trillion plus in new debt and no end in sight to $trillion plus annual deficits under Obama.
But "government is shrinking". Sure. Only a liberal could say that with a straight face.
I guess with that kind of definition, government should outright be disappearing any time now.
(Give me a break).
Given the track record of the perma-doomer blogs, I wouldn't bet a fast crash doomer's money on their predictions.
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Outcast_Searcher - COB
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Re: This is the WORST RECOVERY EVER
by evilgenius » Mon 04 Feb 2013, 13:06:21
I'm trying to bring this discussion round to talking about some of the long term problems that underlie the current malaise. Several people want to poke fingers at current attempts to fix things without referencing any context other than ideology. I want people to understand that even if it could be fixed with ideology there are some long term problems that, should they go unaddressed, will eventually bring us back here again.
That being said, this is a truly pale recovery. It is so because of lack of growth. The growth is slight because people don't have money to spend. There are various immediate reasons why that might be so; fear, income, demographic changes, level of government spending, level of public sector lending, etc. Then there are the long term reasons; healthcare's drain on disposable income and its role as pressure release valve vis a vis employee demand for higher wages, the role of management increasingly as gods over corporations rather than another caste of employee, the something for nothing mentality of a populace imbued with the spirit of empire, the political game of bribery of the public over statesmanship and civic responsibility inherent to democracy due to the role of money in politics, the role of peak oil as a population continues to look upon the world resources scene with an outlook that borders on deliberate blindness, and a whole lot more! You can waste your time thumping Obama and Bush or you can begin to talk about what is really wrong with America. You stall and jive your way to the status quo, feeling pretty good about yourself for having denigrated the powers that be and saved us from your own personal conspiracy theory, or you can start to talk about what is wrong with us, yes us, not some other group. The people have brought this upon themselves and only the people can get themselves out of it.
That being said, this is a truly pale recovery. It is so because of lack of growth. The growth is slight because people don't have money to spend. There are various immediate reasons why that might be so; fear, income, demographic changes, level of government spending, level of public sector lending, etc. Then there are the long term reasons; healthcare's drain on disposable income and its role as pressure release valve vis a vis employee demand for higher wages, the role of management increasingly as gods over corporations rather than another caste of employee, the something for nothing mentality of a populace imbued with the spirit of empire, the political game of bribery of the public over statesmanship and civic responsibility inherent to democracy due to the role of money in politics, the role of peak oil as a population continues to look upon the world resources scene with an outlook that borders on deliberate blindness, and a whole lot more! You can waste your time thumping Obama and Bush or you can begin to talk about what is really wrong with America. You stall and jive your way to the status quo, feeling pretty good about yourself for having denigrated the powers that be and saved us from your own personal conspiracy theory, or you can start to talk about what is wrong with us, yes us, not some other group. The people have brought this upon themselves and only the people can get themselves out of it.
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evilgenius - Intermediate Crude
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Re: This is the WORST RECOVERY EVER
by kublikhan » Mon 04 Feb 2013, 14:38:24
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Plantagenet', 'Y')ou don't understand how a balanced budget works----if the government only spends as much as it takes in with taxes, then you don't have large deficits. Check out this week's ECONOMIST magazine and its special section on the Scandinavian countries and their economic policies----the ECONOMIST shows that the economies of the Scandinavian countries are doing great because their deficits are tiny compared to the huge deficits that Obama is running---the deficit is only 0.3% of their GDP this year in Sweden, while in the USA Obama is calling for deficit spending equivalent to 7% of the entire USA GDP.
Whoa! You are promoting the social democracies in Europe as a model for what we should be following? Countries which have some of the highest tax rates in the world? My jaw is bruised from hitting the floor. I accept your proposal. <end discussion>Outcast_Searcher, since others have been complaining about the constant ideology sparring going on I suggest we table this.
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('evilgenius', 'I')'m trying to bring this discussion round to talking about some of the long term problems that underlie the current malaise
1. Deleveraging from decades long debt bing(if you want to delve into what caused this that is a rather long discussion in itself)
2. Peakoil/High oil prices acting as a drag on the economy
As to suggestions on how to fix it, for the first one I would say let the deleveraging run it's course. We need to let the bad debt get cleared out of the system. Recessions have a wonderful way of restoring reality to the system, even if they are a bit of a blunt instrument to accomplish the task. Once that is accomplished, we still have other under lying problems in the system to be fixed like low worker wages, money in politics, etc.
For peakoil, I think an accelerated mitigation program would be helpful.
For transportation:
1. much higher mileage on new vehicles. The US has made some improvements in this area but continues to lag Europe and Japan.
2. more mass transit encouraged. Again, some progress in this area but more needs to be done.
3. Car pooling
4. Alternatives to motor vehicle transportation like telecommuting, biking, etc.
5. EVs are still too expensive IMHO to be economical, but with battery prices projected to continue falling, this could become a valid alternative as well
For heating:
1. accelerate the transition away from heating oil. Install natural gas lines would be my first thought here. I am not sure if cold weather heat pumps are any good but Maine's current pilot program could help answer that question.
2. Increase efficiency programs: insulation, high efficiency furnaces, etc
For petrochemicals:
1. Use natural gas instead. Natural gas is dirt cheap in this country and makes an excellent alternative to oil for petrochemicals.
For electricity generation:
1. Stop burning oil to generate electricity. There are better alternatives available. Wind, natural gas, and solar come to mind.
The oil barrel is half-full.
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kublikhan - Master Prognosticator
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Re: This is the WORST RECOVERY EVER
by kublikhan » Mon 04 Feb 2013, 15:42:53
Oh I forgot one for transportation: moving long haul freight off our highways and onto rail. Here's an article on this topic of oil mitigation options:
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'O')ne big-picture thing that's worth pointing out is that our crude dependency isn't just a question of our love affair with gas-guzzling SUVs.
As it turns out, passenger travel—planes and cars, mainly—only accounts for 47 percent of our oil use. This is probably the trickiest item to fix and needs to be attacked from a whole bunch of different angles: ratcheting up CAFE standards, rolling out electric cars, bolstering mass transit, developing alternative fuels like clean diesel or some sort of futuristic and actually sustainable biofuel, plus smart-growth measures that can reduce the number of miles people need to drive in the first place.
But that's only half of it. There's a lot of other oil use out there that may be easier to tackle in the short run. About eight million buildings, mostly in the Northeast, use oil for heating, and this accounts for 15 percent of the country's crude consumption. Renovating these buildings so that they can get their heat from natural gas or electricity would be a worthy endeavor. And there's no good reason why we should still be burning oil to generate electricity during peak-demand times—smarter grids or even solar power could help whittle that down.
Then there's freight, another 18 percent of oil use. I've noted before that it makes an enormous amount of sense to shift a good portion of freight from long-haul trucks to rail, especially electrified rail. As Philip Longman detailed in this Washington Monthly piece, moving 85 percent of the trucks off the road would U.S. curb oil use by as much as 22 percent while boosting the economy 13 percent by 2030 (thanks to better efficiencies), and lead to fewer traffic accidents and less congestion. What's not to love?
There's More To Oil Use Than Massive SUVs$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'O')ne big-picture thing that's worth pointing out is that our crude dependency isn't just a question of our love affair with gas-guzzling SUVs.
As it turns out, passenger travel—planes and cars, mainly—only accounts for 47 percent of our oil use. This is probably the trickiest item to fix and needs to be attacked from a whole bunch of different angles: ratcheting up CAFE standards, rolling out electric cars, bolstering mass transit, developing alternative fuels like clean diesel or some sort of futuristic and actually sustainable biofuel, plus smart-growth measures that can reduce the number of miles people need to drive in the first place.
But that's only half of it. There's a lot of other oil use out there that may be easier to tackle in the short run. About eight million buildings, mostly in the Northeast, use oil for heating, and this accounts for 15 percent of the country's crude consumption. Renovating these buildings so that they can get their heat from natural gas or electricity would be a worthy endeavor. And there's no good reason why we should still be burning oil to generate electricity during peak-demand times—smarter grids or even solar power could help whittle that down.
Then there's freight, another 18 percent of oil use. I've noted before that it makes an enormous amount of sense to shift a good portion of freight from long-haul trucks to rail, especially electrified rail. As Philip Longman detailed in this Washington Monthly piece, moving 85 percent of the trucks off the road would U.S. curb oil use by as much as 22 percent while boosting the economy 13 percent by 2030 (thanks to better efficiencies), and lead to fewer traffic accidents and less congestion. What's not to love?
The oil barrel is half-full.
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kublikhan - Master Prognosticator
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