Obama's Amnesty Move!!

Hansel wrote: Just yesterday Dave even used the fact that the rich are getting richer at his expense in an argument against people of even less means. I don't even know what to make of these lines of argument sometimes.

This was in response to the preposterous statement that we could bring 700,000 people from the lower class to the middle class and somehow raise UP those already there at a time of stagnant growth. There is a fundamental math discrepancy there. Some times rather than make a protracted argument I put my tongue in my check and just use the lefts "accepted facts", unfortunately there is not an emoticon that says Hey, I am pimping you by using your own reasoning to make an argument. Maybe a little smiley thumbing his nose would work. Of course again we are distracting from a the real question which is why are we accepting unconstitutional practices from our president who swore an oath to uphold the Constitution.

I think I can, I am saying the sum of two plus two is four. Somehow you have them adding up to six. The economy is stagnant with an anemic 2 two percent growth, Many have declared it and only a few on the left try to refute it. If we were in Regan's third year with five to eight percent growth your math would work.

Sorry Joe, I'm calling foul. Basic math and economic principles have no place in a political discussion.

Please return to exchanging hearsay and whimsical anecdotes.

TRBenj wrote: Sorry Joe, I'm calling foul. Basic math and economic principles have no place in a political discussion. Please return to exchanging hearsay and whimsical anecdotes.

Tim, I think that you are on to something! :)

It was Al Gore that invented or at least coined the phraise "Fuzzy Math"

JoeinNY wrote: you are sayin that 2+2 = 4 and 2+4 = 4 because 2+2 = 4. I am saying that 2+ 4 will equal 6. If you want to bring reagans third year into it you should actually go to the real economics of it and you will see that any money spent by the government gets added directly to the growth of the economy. So yes when he raised the level of government spending the economy grew... unfortunately you cant do that forever as a method of economic growth, sometimes you need to add more workers or get them to produce more valuable work which is exactly what you do when you add 700000 motivated workers to the workforce. You also get an increase in tax revenue to help undo the debt you got by reagan (and others) not replacing what they spent with tax dollars. I am not make this stuff up Y = C + I + E + G where Y = GDP C = Consumer Spending I = Investment made by industry E = Excess of Exports over Imports G = Government Spending In this case I does not equal buying monetary investments it is only related to the actual things that businesses buy to do future work. If you increase the wages of 700000 people they will in aggregate spend more (increasing C) and the economy will grow. One could in a stretch argue that I will go down because businesses facing higher labor costs will not be able to invest. It is possible, although very much unlikely to match the increase in C... why because corporate profits are at record levels, because not all 700,000 would be working for existing corporations many would start businesses or be employed by businesses that are started to take advantage of the increased growth rate, and because corporate profits are highly saved by the 1% and wages that will diminish them will be highly spent by the 700000. Saving doesnt contribute to GDP spending does.

I had been to busy to get back to this, but in a stagnant economy Y is for practical purposes fixed. We know G is increasing, which means we have to reduce everything else on G's side of the equation to keep it balanced, or increase future debt. Thus we can truly grow the economy by increasing C,I,or E which can self perpetuate, or we can appear to grow the economy by increasing G with future funding, which will have to decrease C,I,E at some future point(which with baseline budgeting creates a permanent liability that has to be funded every year further taking away from future growth of C.I,E) How do we grow C,I,and E? By taking away unnecessary burdens like excessive tax and regulation.


This is not an equation that specifically addresses the middle class, but here is one, If U and I equals the the middle class, and $ = our resources, and W= individual wealth, then

W= $/U+I

Add 700,000 to U and I

W= $/u+I+700,000

To balance the equation we have to divide what belonged to U and I with the additional 700,000 (I made this this last stuff up)

lawlessness

JoeinNY wrote: The actual driver of the American economy has been C, will be C and can be nothing but C.

unfortunately it's the case that consumer spending is and has been the major driver...while it should be manufacturing...a nation should be judged by what they produce and NOT what they consume.

are you advocating a planned economy??

Planned economies don’t work… neither do completely unregulated economies. Both have been weighed and measured and both have been found wanting.

I am advocating for reality-based conversation, and the use of actual history, factual data, and proven economic theory to determine the proper course of government action (or inaction) that will benefit the entire country.      And advocating against overblown rhetoric and propaganda from either side, in particular that which serves to pit one portion of the population against another in an effort to make both them easier to control.

in a planned economy... by defintion manufacturing is to plan and not to demand. In a market driven economy market never calls for production it calls for product. Somewhat of a technicality... but you have to have the C unless you want to move to a planned economy.

that's why I asked...the wako face was in case he was advocating the planned economy.

my point regarding spending vs. manufacturing is where the products are made...70% consumer spending on made in US products = good...70% consumer spending on made in china products not so much...

All the growth rates are indexed for inflation, but not population growth. Job creation is another layer of complexity in because of the need to take into account inventory and productivity levels. Most of the gains over the last couple years have definitely been in productivity and therefore went to corporate profits and not to employment. At the same time uncertainty still rules (in particular whenever congress threatens to shut down government and crash the economy) and so businesses are prone to keep inventory levels lower than usual.

The pushing people down theory does not take into account Entrepreneurs     

Entrepreneurs, those whom the current job market does not well serve and so they chose to go out and redefine that market through invention or competition. They are the heart of the free market. Some feel they are currently being crushed by the weight of burdensome regulation… and in some cases they are. Where government chooses to intervene it is the entrepreneurs that should be protected for it is their innovation in product and production that allow every member of society to prosper, none at the expense of others. The lack of the Entrepreneurs innovation is why a planned economy will always fail… as one can never plan to innovate. The stifling effect of monopolies and other entrenched interests on the entrepreneur in a completely unregulated economy is the reason it will also always fail. For the market to be truly free and bring the greatest reward to those that work the hardest and bring the most talent simply being bigger or being born rich cannot be enough to determine success (or to cause failure). The government doesn’t owe you and can’t help you get a job. But done right it can and should provide you with an environment where you determine your own success. Those who feel hard work can and will be rewarded work hard. You get a bunch of people working hard combined with innovation and you won’t need to worry about unemployment.   

Some portion of that 700000 will not only become employees but will also become employers, maybe mine, maybe yours.   

JoeinNY wrote:    Where we currently are in relation to what has worked is also apparent if you look to facts and not fox, tax rates are too low to be sustainable and regulation is only approaching what is needed.

Whew! Man, when you get on a roll, you get on a roll. You missed your calling. You should have been a politician. Are you sure you aren't an MSNBC consultant??

The key thing that I noticed that I REALLY disagree with that you said (and there are many) is that tax rates are too low to be sustainable. Has it ever occured to you that spending is too high to be sustainable? We are borrowing $.40 cents of every dollar we spend from China (deficeit spending).

Talk about the problems Europe is having?? I would say their spending has been much too high to be sustainable, and that's why they are tanking over there. Spain, Greece, France, and others have had heavy socialistic spending, and they are now collapsing under their own weight. They are all looking to Germany to bail them out. Germany has obviously been on a long term, sustainable, austerity program, and they are rightfully saying why should we bail everyone out that spent like drunken sailors over the past 10/20/30+ years.

While I don't have the ability to express this in a mathmatical equation, I see the U.S. on that same "too high of spending" track. Our debt has already been downgraded once, I bet it will be again soon if we don't put our own austerity program in place. Look at how people in your state are fleeing NY. Ask them about not paying enough taxes.

You put a dressing on the wound before you feed the patient but you don’t keep them starving until the scar fades.

We have increased border enforcement, we are deporting the actual criminals at a record rate. We have more than doubled spending on border patrol and ICE since 2005, ask my buddy Andy down there in New mexico riding around 4 wheelers in the desert they are hiring guys as quick as they can. Short of the magical fence that kills everyone who is not carrying the proper papers the second they consider entering our borders what more should be do before we can start to deal with the people that are here? In particular these ones that are here due to no fault of their own and that we have already paid to educate? Should net immigration of Mexico have to be down to 0… wait it is… or do we have to get every illegal immigrant out of the country before we can do anything. That is impossible and would only be proposed by those who want to make sure we never do anything, like those whose business depends on slave wages and conditions to keep their prices low enough to make them billionaires.

I see absolutely no downside to any of the 700000 moving from an off the books job to an on the books job. If it is 200000 then at least some of those jobs will determine they have to honestly compete in the labor market for legal labor.   People aren’t risking their lives to rush over the border to make 3 dollars an hour, they rushed over the border during booms when they could make real money building a bunch of houses no one really needed in the middle of the desert. They should have been able to do it legally as there truly was a labor shortage, however those that didn’t want to pay them real wages spent a lot of money to maintain the status quo. Once they are here and the boom jobs dry up they take whatever they can get. Some even leave. These 700000 people didn’t rush over the border at all, and they got no place to go so they won’t. 10 percent of them will likely end up criminals plaguing society before we finally give them a chance at a productive job in the prison system.   It ain’t got to be like that. It only takes one of the 700000 to cure cancer or figure out how to get a Ski Nautique to go 70mph, if those two of them are forced to work at Tyson for the rest of their lives we all suffer.

I completely agree that we should prosecute employers that hire illegal immigrants, so does the vast majority of the American people. However any attempt to do so is attacked as crippling regulation and unnecessary growth of government and it dies in congress. The money behind those attacks comes from the chamber of commerce and farmers groups, the money from the other side comes from… well unions used to try and support enforcement but as an evil special interest group being attacked from all sides they are mostly just fighting for the right to exist now.   If we could take all the special interest money out of it perhaps we would just elect people that do what is in the best interest of the majority of us. The executive branch does however have some leeway within existing funding and regulation to do some things, they should continue to do it while the others talk about magic fences. If we vote out of office those talking about magic fences while filibustering any attempts at real reform maybe we will start to make some progress. That would be easier to do if citizens united weren’t allowing unlimited money into politics by overturning bipartisan election reform supported by the vast majority of the American people.

Spending is too high and unsustainable primarily due to run away healthcare costs and longer life spans, however the tax rate is also too low and unsustainable. The two are not mutually exclusive and there is no logical reason to address one and not the other unless you are just trying to promote gridlock to sustain the status quo. The reason our debt was downgraded was because of the gridlock caused by a bunch of misguided tea partiers

Beyond that a capital gains tax rate that maxes out at 15% while the marginal income tax rates peak at twice that will destroy the American experiment, logically there is no doubt about it.   It discourages the work of building a company and building product and encourages raiding and moving production off shore selling your stake and taking the quick and relatively untaxed buck. It was easy to predict and the results are staring us in the face. Locking in a tax rate much lower than that which has ever produced a balanced budget in even the best modern times by getting people to sign a pledge that they would never ever under any circumstances raise a tax of any sort was silly, logically it could only lead to huge deficits during bad economic cycles and just kinda big deficits in boom times. Again the results are staring us in the face. Arguments such as but yeah it’s a spending problem are not necessarily wrong… but are used to keep us from facing the reality that yeah it is also a tax problem specifically on certain rates and taxes and it is a fairness problem.

Greece is a mess because of corruption and general sillyness, the rest of Europe is broken from the US driven real estate boom and credit bust. Germany has just as much of decried “socialist spending” as spain or france.   You wouldn’t believe the amount of spending going into alternate energy stuff over there, it ain’t exactly austerity baby. Big difference between them and the rest of Europe right now is that their real estate was already so expensive that it couldn’t boom quite as much in the last cycle. Plus, they are the germans they value production over service and in an economic downturn it is certainly going to be the vacation countries that feel it first. But as an engineer for a german company (who gets less than half the vacation or 1/12th the paternity leave of my Germany counterparts) I am slightly biased.   Btw the germans are investing in NY this is a cheap labor market for them.   

Dave you can keep making circular arguements if you really want to, but it does no one any good to address them if you are making up the answers and then using them to prove the answers you made up it is what it is.

All I see in our current immigration policy is special interests that don’t want to compete for labor on the open market perpetuating the current system and doing so by exploiting fear and racism. What can I say. I am a free market guy. When Scalia says something like 200,000 americans are now going to have to compete with dreamers who can now legally be employed… I say hell yeah they should be competing That there is the free market. Those who can do the best job get the job. That’s America! That’s the whole damn point! Immigration policy should be used to secure the borders and protect us from our enemies but not from protect us from having to work hard and be productive.

Anyone not a threat to national security and willing and able to go to work, sign them up and let them come on in… if they prove their mettle give them a path to full status, I ain’t willing to put them on welfare but I don’t have a problem educating their kids.. someone is going to need to pay my social security someday.   Hell someone has to live in all those extra houses in the desert that were built on spec.   Having people want to come to America to compete for jobs is what makes us unique and dominant. Very few of us are native americans or came over on the Mayflower. Creating a second class of citizens that compete in an illegal market benefits very very few. Perhaps we have lower chicken prices but having a group of workers that doesn’t pay their fair share of taxes costs us all.   I ain’t worried about my ability to compete with anyone that has to play by the rules, seems like maybe some of seem like you are?

Fear not action, fear only the crippling effects of inaction!