Consumption vs. Production

I think fringe candidacy is a means of getting out the talking points and framing the debate. In my own experience, while certainly not a scientific study, the overwhelming majority of people supported the issues I talked about, including government spending, the influence of money on the outcome of elections and thus on policy, improving infrastructure and education, these were all issues that were important to the people I talked to and often times introduced by them. I was strictly non-partisan, made a point of stating that I was not fund raising, and I feel that I really could have made a difference in the election process. Were I to get involved in the debate, I would have had the capacity to drive the messages that are unifying and productive.

I think that the two ideas, running independent candidates and unifying the people behind their own self interests, are complimentary.

 

I agree. The candidate must arise from the movement though, not the movement from the candidate. The people must believe that it is their idea and they are the owners of it.

It is what makes the tea party so effective, tea partiers believe that the tea party platform is their idea. Weird as that sounds, they believe it.

 

If there are candidates, there is a movement, no?

 

Also, in my brief and limited campaigning, I found that many Tea Party supporters loved what I stood for and suggested that I should join their meetings. I simply don't have the time. I really didn't have the time to run for office. I really didn't think it through, but I was very encouraged by what I experienced. I found that when the partisan prejudices are stripped away, people talk about ideas rather than regurgitate talking points. People are open minded when they neither feel like they have to oppose you or agree with your position.

Last June my wife decided to leave me and our 4 children. I think part of my decision to run for office was because I was at a turning point, felt somewhat liberated, and it was something I'd always kind of wanted to do. I was serious about it, but unrealistic at best regarding my preparedness and my availability. In all honesty, with a little organization and a lot of hard work and effort, I think I could have possibly won.

When the Tea Party movement first developed, I was encouraged. It seemed like the middle/working class Republican base was finally realizing that the party didn't support the positions that it pretended to and that they were finally going to support some kind of legitimate fiscal conservatism. Unfortunately, their discontent was quickly steered towards opposing any and all things Democrat, effectively rendering them to be a puppet for the Republican Party and right back into the hands of the corporate oligarchy.

I don't support either party. I know that they both represent the same thing. People are becoming more and more receptive to that concept. We need to push the debate away from partisan demagoguery and towards the idea that we share more common interests than we oppose.

 

That's def a good question and it brings up the whole point on how to help an economy too. The left's way is to give money directly to the consumers, the right's way is to give it to the banks or financial firms. You have to look at it kind of like the economy is split down the middle. One side is the consumers side(regular people, the government, people in other countries) and the other side is the production side(companies and corporations, banks, investors, wall street). No doubt giving to both sides help the economy but probably at a lot different rates. Just a guess, the side that is trying to make money in the first place wins? well they are going to spend it to make more money, so they can hire more, so they can make more money, so they can hire more, and so on and so on.

It was Keynes who really started all this bailout stuff and that was during the time when world wars were underway so some countries had no choice but to rely on debt. His strategy was for a government to sell bond to its own citizens therefore not really going into debt but that also causing the incentive for the government to repay while having a large amount of borrowed money. For instance- if i borrow money from everybody in my house i still have the money for what i need to do and our household income is still the same without having to go to the bank for a loan. And i am on my toes about repaying it because i see my creditors everyday in their pj's.

 

the right's way is to give it to the banks or financial firms.

That is a full load of crap. And if you don't know it is pure crap then you've been irreversibly brainwashed by the lying left.

In case you have blocked it out of your memory, TARP, The Auto Bailouts, and the Stimulus were all done under a completely controlled DEMOCRATIC CONGRESS. The Republican party had no power to block any of those events.

And who the right wants to have access to money is private enterprise. The actual people that DO create jobs. And the right wants them to have money through lower taxes, not giveaways, that is the left's insanity.

 

It is demand that creates jobs, and demand comes from the bottom up not the top down. Just giving the wealthy more money with tax cuts will accomplish nothing except an increase in the stock market because that's where all that money will go.

Most jobs are created by small business owners who do not have large personal incomes, in fact the great majority of small business owners have personal incomes of less than $100,000 so cutting taxes for the wealthy will do nothing but require the government to borrow more money from the private sector which will result in less money being accessible to the small business owner to expand business and increase hiring.

Your argument is based on the simpleminded and wrong belief that because the wealthy are the ones with all the money they simply must be the ones who make all the jobs so giving them more money must create more jobs. It is a stance that is completely ignorant of the reality of the modern economics of job creation which is from the bottom up, not the top down.

 

While I agree with your analysis, it's people's answer that can be the problem. Taxing the rich more isn't the answer, unless you mean gains made on Wall Street like Iriemon always pushes. There should be almost no taxes on money being invested in real growth with production nationally, tariffs on everything coming in from developing nations except raw materials, all regulation stripped outside of fundamentals that most can agree on. I do agree with real money coming from demand, bottom up. I just think state borrowing from the FED with interest to inject is a short term, band-aid fix that does nothing to solve the genuine dilemma. People are middle class and down because they aren't frugal with their money, and such people make or break a market. We can't have a bunch of people unemployed, underemployed, and those who are employed with stagnant wages and expect just simply raising prices on the few left will garner the same market results as when everyone had money to spend. Once we create a job heavy, employee market, unemployment benefits need to be reworked and welfare and food stamps as well. No one who could work should get anything. I work in a restaurant and too many obese people on welfare come in to eat every night getting fatter and fatter. Too many programs encourage problems. The state is as much to blame as the greed of internationalists, if not more. Basically, (*)(*)(*)(*) a globalist. In the eyes, ears, nose, mouth........

 

Perhaps you might want to look into a remedial reading course so that you might acquire at least some reading comprehension.

I said private enterprise, not the rich. That is personal income tax and there is not a single Republican or Independent advocating for any additional tax cuts for the rich. Being against raising personal income taxes ON ANYBODY is what Republicans stand for. More of your remedial reading needs. Republicans give 2 choices, no tax increases, for any personal taxes,,,,,,,,OR,,,,,,redo the tax code entirely.

Back to private enterprise. Lower taxes and regulations on private enterprise [regulations are simply taxes with a pseudonym] would be good all around. One, it makes our business more competitive internationally since ALL business taxes get incorporated into the price of goods and services so that the consumer pays the tax anyway. So reducing taxes on business lowers costs for poor people, in fact, all people. We could actually eliminate corporate taxes entirely, ZERO! What would happen? Would we lose billions in corporate taxes? Yes, but only about $200 billion. But the Trillions companies are holding offshore could come back to the US when business doesn't need to worry about a heavy tax bite. No corporate tax could also look VERY inviting to foreign companies to MAKE things here, rather than anywhere else. If US companies brought their money back onshore would it do much for the USA? Remains to be seen, but it certainly would be better than the money being camped off shore, No?

How onerous are govt regulations? Forget for a moment how much time and money it costs business just to comply with regulations. And forget too the cost of the fees that regulations require be paid to the govt. ALL of which ends up in the price of goods, so we the consumer, pay. Not the business.
But look at a small slice of regulations from the govt side. The EPA announced that it needs an increase of their budget of $21 billion dollars and needs to hire 230,000 more people to enforce their regulations.

That is ONLY the EPA. That should tell us that government regulations ARE out of control. And I'm not advocating orange skies and fluorescent streams throughout the nation. Every one of our government departments and agencies have high ranking people that can MAKE LAW outside of any voting. These people were in place before Bush, before odrama and were in place after Bush and will be in place after odrama and whoever is next. They are like a second, underground, but all powerful government within the government.

 

Sorry, but that is just not true as many economists who actually study these things will tell you. Not all cost increases are, or can be passed along.

What reduced regulation does is relieve business from the need to decrease pollution, improve safety and invest in increasing operational efficiency to stay competitive. It just ends up externalizing these costs which must eventually be born by someone, usually the public in the form of increased disease, injury and high cleanup costs.

We already tried that foreign profit repatriation thing, the same day HP repatriated $3.8Billion in profits at a 15% tax rate it laid off 35000 workers. Instead of racing to the bottom the US should enter into a pact with other nations for a single tax rate across the world. That would level the playing field and stop the tax shuffle of corporate profits that seems to egregious to you.

Well, years of relentless budget cutting along with a steady increase in its mandate will do that to an agency.

Maybe not personally but the people you support certainly seem intent on doing so. You should probably let them know that you do not support that part of their agenda.

The government bureaucrats make regulations because the congress is too lazy, ignorant and distracted by idiotic political maneuvering to write them itself and tells them to do it. If you have problems with government bureaucrats writing regulation you should be addressing them to your elected representatives in the congress.

Where important things are concerned the republicans are certain to step in to stop job killing regulations, like their recent move to preclude OSHA from spending any money to step up enforcement of safety rules for the prevention of construction workers from falling off of roofs. Apparently they believe that looking in on construction sites to make sure that roofers are wearing their safety harnesses is some sort of gross imposition on a workers freedom to plunge off a roof to their death. They seem to have conflated job killing into the killing of workers.

 

So to make your long story short. You have absolutely no interest in the well being of the USA. Your only interest is in promoting liberal propaganda.

Sign a treaty to have taxes the same worldwide. That has to be the most naive statement you will ever make in your life. At least, for your sake, I hope that's the most naive statement you ever make.

 

So what is your answer in this age of multinational corporations and vast sums of money sloshing around the world creating serial economic calamities? Sacrifice the US standard of living in a race to the bottom with China?

Global problems require global solutions. It is time to get your head out of the sand and look around.

 

No different than competing with the company down the block. My suggestion was to do away with corporate taxes in the USA. Because the consumers, not the corporations pay them in any case. Some years ago the Democratic Party decided to stop looking to corporate tax revenue for that very reason. This Democratic Party has conveniently forgotten the lessons of their much more sagacious elders. So zero corporate taxes here makes the USA more inviting to both US companies AND for foreign companies to come here. What can the other countries do to combat this? Lower their taxes to zero too. But then we are on an even keel and STILL more attractive to be here than anywhere else in the world.

 

The quality of consumption should be more important than the sheer expenditure. Discretionary spending creates competition in the market, and better and cheaper products. It is under-consumption which got us to where we are today as opposed to 1600's feudalism. And it's over-consumption which got us where we are today as opposed to 2007. We "consumed" too many houses, the price sky-rocketed, and then people couldn't afford them and they (prices) plummeted, and now the consumer is in debt paying off his debt from over-consumption (which does nobody any good).

The prime suspect in a flourishing economy, in a long term sense, is having a substantial amount of production (including investing) minus consumption. That is, consuming overall, less, than we produce. The larger this margin is, the better the future economy will be. This margin is where progress comes from. Notice that in the bust of the boom-bust cycle, no progress is made. It's because we are producing less than we consume(d).

 

What is that supposed to gain? Aside from a heavier tax burden on individuals, that is...

The Democratic Party and the Republican Party are two sides of the same Hegelian dialectic coin.

How would lowering corporate taxes entice companies to operate here? The environment as it stands would simply allow them to "headquarter" here and keep all operations where ever it is most profitable.

How did we get to a point that we have given corporations legal personhood and yet have so many people reciting the mantra that they should be paying less or even no taxes?

 

I have answers, you have questions.

My answers may or may not work. Your questions have no value.

 

LOL...ok, well, thanks for playing...

 

In case you missed this as well as life itself. If you're not part of the solution, you ARE part of the problem. You wail like at wet pants girl about how awful EVERYTHING in the USA is, but you offer zero suggestions to correct anything.

Do you have a purpose?

And I'm not playing, I'm serious. This nation can be fixed and will be fixed by the people that CARE. You are evidently not one of them.

 

I wasn't wailing about anything and you have shown to be unable to argue anything without proposing straw men positions. I never said anything about how awful everything in the USA is. I also have on this thread and many others offered several suggestions. The single most effective thing the American people could do to make things better here would be to reject the two party corporate oligarchy, take back our government, and take measures to eliminate the influence of money on the electoral and legislative processes. I have said it countless times on this forum and others.

Yes, my goal is to help mindless partisans understand that they are merely supporting the system that works against their interests by supporting either Democrats or Republicans.

You only care to blow hot air and stroke your own ego by spewing out pre-conceived talking points that support the BS you've been brainwashed into believing. You refuse to open your mind or your eyes and only care to misrepresent people and throw around insults to shape the debate to reflect your pre-existing positions. If you think that is going to fix this nation, by all means continue as you've been.

 

"The single most effective thing the American people could do to make things better here would be to reject the two party corporate oligarchy, take back our government, and take measures to eliminate the influence of money on the electoral and legislative processes. I have said it countless times on this forum and others."


How do you propose that be accomplished?


Money has always and will always be an influence. The only way for money to not be an influence is to have no money. No money means no USA.

My tea party support is the best chance I see of changing things. Probably not in the time I have left. But thinking of doing away with the 2 party system is not a bad idea. But like all liberal ideas, not that you're a liberal, it is an idea that won't work. Assuming you're much younger than I, it will not work in your lifetime and certainly not in mine. And after taking decades to do away with the 2 party system, WHAT do you replace it with? A 3 party system, 4? 5? Some EU nations have a half dozen parties. The party in power can represent less than 1 in 4 people, but they got the most votes. nowhere near a majority, but the most. Is that a good system? No bailouts or incipient defaults in Europe,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

There is no stopping the influence of money on politics. Idealistic nonsense might say there is but that just naive. Reducing the influence is why I'm for SHORT term limits for Congresspeople, and the revocation of bureaucrats ability to make law. It is the bureaucrats, long in office and out of public scrutiny, that lobby money is best spent. Take away their ability to make laws and the lobby money achieves no purpose. If the Congress person will not be around long, there is less time for him/her to be corrupted.

Hoping for a Utopian world where money didn't talk is a waste of time. Putting systems into place where it is very difficult or impossible for it to talk is the only way. Its not a philosophical cure, it has to be a systematic cure.

 

People said the same thing about church until America came around. I think you're a smart guy who wants the best for America. You just lack vision. Putting band-aids on tumors will do nothing to get rid of said tumor.

 

Of course money will always have some influence on politics and everything else. The system as it is now utterly lends itself to rampant corruption and the wealthy elite use that advantage to dominate government. They finance both parties to the point where their voice is the only one that matters when it comes to policy decisions. This is not a democracy. We live in a corporate oligarchy and the democratic process only exists to give us the impression that we have a say in governance.

My solution would be to eliminate all private funding of political campaigns, granting matching public funds for all candidates that make the ballot for all races as well as equal air time on broadcast television and radio.

There is no reason to assume this cannot be done, but first we need to get people to stop assigning each other to "sides" and assuming we all see things as either black or white.

 

a small problem with the above equation. As you pointed most of the production is done overseas so money must go overseas to pay the workers.....something the banking industry calls leakage. Meaning a net outflow of funds. Now if enough funds leave the nation then you develope a shortage of wealth. This is why there is low consumption right now.....money leaves the nation at a faster rate than money coming here!

This is also why one industry towns fail if that one industry leaves the town......too much money leaves the town to purchase goods like food and electronics etc and not enough money coming to the town.... the net result is a shortage of wealth....hence the town eventually dies.

 

The 'church' has always been and always will be an elective belief. It has never been a necessity. Money, in whatever form, including barter, has always been a necessity.

Part of the reason the Berlin Wall came down was that East Germany as a nation had no money and next to no economy. And the church was outlawed. Not there there weren't a few underground churches. But what there was, was a strong, vibrant underground economy based on barter. Trading lumber for pigs, nails for eggs, labor for flour, etc. The people had "money," the govt didn't. And the real 'money' won. The phony DM currency lost.

 

LOL. Do you think the founding fathers focused so much on church and state for fun? Kings had to kiss the church's butt to do anything for centuries. Roman emperors were crowned by the pope. I assure you, there was a time when if someone suggested getting church out of politics people said, "you're nuts, it will always be there, we must plan around it." Until we separate wealth and state, we are all just dogs chasing our tails.