Next political debate?

[Bond]

How much does everyone know about economics? I was thinking perhaps our next political thread could center around it, but maybe it's safer to just stay with social issues. What does everyone think?

[BlueFire]

It's probably safer (and more entertaining) to stick to social issues, but eh.

Bond, out of curiosity, what are you studying as an undergrad?

[Vampyr]

Eh, I don't really know that much about Economics. My girlfriend is an Economics/Finance major, so I pick some things up listening to her, but that's about it.

[Professor S]

When it comes to economics, there are essentially three things that we know from time and experience:

1) Cutting taxes (income and capital gains) helps the economy grow on a macro level. This is not debateable, it is in reality proven fact.

2) Cutting taxes raises revenue through the growth in the economy (lower rates, but more to tax), but cannot raise enough revenue to pay for the cuts without spending cuts as well.

3) Punitive tax rates hurt business, but due to tax shelters based on trusts and corporations, they do more harm than good when it comes to revenue. The money that is intended to be taxed, isn't, but at the same time the money is not in the economy either.

So in the end, I think its safe to assume that low taxes and low spending is the bast way to help the economy. But the argument against it is that the poor and disenfranchised will suffer due to the decreased number of social services, but I believe that over time that would dissappear.

An excellent example of how eliminating unethical taxation has helped a nation increase its wealth and helped eliminate poverty is Bermuda. Bermuda does not tax its own people. There is no income tax, there is no real estate tax, there is no transfer tax, there is no estate/death tax and so on and so forth.

It is also one of the richest nations, per capita, in the world, and has next next to no poverty. But whats counter-intuitive is that less than 20% of their economy is based in tourism. Bermuda's attractive tax rates to businesses, attractive meaning NONE, has brought huge insurance and re-insurance corporation to their shores. There is a bank on almost every street corner. Their low income housing starts in the low $700,000's.

Now is everyone rich? No, but that is where the elimination of estate and transfer taxes comes in. Lower income Bermudan's can inherit homes without the worry that they cannot pay the taxes on the inheritance. The wealth stays in the family and ferry boat captains can live in the types of homes that celebrities own because of this.

Where does Bermuda make its money? Not on taxes, but instead on import and export tariffs. This makes things more expensive in Bermuda, but everyone there has accumulated so much wealth that the increased cost doesn;t affect them that much. I will tell you that paying $25 for a steak and kidney pie affected me, though. Ouch!

Bermuda could have easily fallen into the same trap as any of the other resort destination sprinkled around the US and gulf coasts, having fenced in "Haves" surrounded and served by the "Have Nots". Instead it went in a less conevntional direction, and their people have benefitted from it immensely.

Is Bermuda a perfect example of supply side being the obvious choice? Of course not, but there is no perfect example. No country or culture is the same, and there will always be extenuating circumstances if we look for them. But in the big picture I am convinced supply side is the most effective way to gain revenue while not punishing your own people's success. And quite honestly, the aletrnative has never proven to be anything but disasterous.

[Vampyr]

Like I said, I'm not an expert on this subject, but isn't part of Obama's plan to give more tax cuts? I understand he wants to stop giving tax cuts to the wealthy, but from reading what you wrote, they have "accumulated so much wealth" it doesn't matter. If he intends to stop giving tax cuts to the wealthy and instead give them to the middle and lower classes, that seems like a good plan, according to what you wrote.

I personally don't mind paying taxes, if I know they're being used for things I care about. Like gas tax; my state recently raised it, but I really don't care since I hate driving on bad roads, and I know that's what the money is being used for.

I also know that Obama voted NO towards a bill to reduce federal spending, but looking into that bill, there are a couple of things that they wanted to reduce spending on that I really hated to see there, and am glad he voted No towards that. One of the things they wanted to reduce was Student Loans. Any time someone tries to reduce money put towards education, I'm going to be against that. That is a short term solution for a problem.

My state recently tried to raise the tuition of all public universities by an outrageous amount, and at the same time cut down the amount of money they were giving on scholarships and grants.
EDIT: I just realized how dumb that sounded. They weren't raising the tuition, they were dramatically cutting the funding they were giving to public universities, which meant Universities had to raise their tuition dramatically. Not to mention my campus parking pass went up 40 dollars! It's $232 a year to park. >:|

I have very close friends who could not be in college right now without this kind of help, and a spike in tuition and a decrease in government help would pretty much mean they would have to drop out, in effect ruining their lives. This might save some money now, but it only hurts more in the long run.

EDIT: Another quick edit, Jon McCain voted yes on that same bill, which is another reason I will never vote for him. Anyone who considers cutting that much money towards Education is not going to have my vote.

[Professor S]

Originally Posted by Vampyr

Like I said, I'm not an expert on this subject, but isn't part of Obama's plan to give more tax cuts? I understand he wants to stop giving tax cuts to the wealthy, but from reading what you wrote, they have "accumulated so much wealth" it doesn't matter. If he intends to stop giving tax cuts to the wealthy and instead give them to the middle and lower classes, that seems like a good plan, according to what you wrote.

No, I didn't write that. I apologize if my statement was confusing. I wrote that the tariff's indirectly increase the cost of goods and services, but that is an increase based on consumption, and not earnings. You control how much or little you are indirctly taxed via your spending habits. An income tax doesn't care how much you spend, it taxes you because you are lucky enough to have a job.

You miscontrue the main point of my argument: The reason why they are wealthy is BECAUSE they are not taxed. You can't then tax them on multiple levels and then expect the wealth to continue to grow when the wealth you are taxing is based on the lack of taxes. Its like baking a cake, and then saying "Hey, this is a good cake! Its so good it doesn't even need the flour or sugar! Lets remove them and bake it again!" Your result will be completely different, and highly unappetizing.

I personally don't mind paying taxes, if I know they're being used for things I care about. Like gas tax; my state recently raised it, but I really don't care since I hate driving on bad roads, and I know that's what the money is being used for.

But you don't know whether or not its being used properly. California and New York have the highest taxes in the nation, and they both have the highest debt as well. Taxes and waste tend to go hand in hand. Muadvice would be to follow the money of spending programs you believe in, and see how it is being used. Public spending isn't always corrupt, but it tends to breed corruption because few people are paying attention.

I also know that Obama voted NO towards a bill to reduce federal spending, but looking into that bill, there are a couple of things that they wanted to reduce spending on that I really hated to see there, and am glad he voted No towards that. One of the things they wanted to reduce was Student Loans. Any time someone tries to reduce money put towards education, I'm going to be against that. That is a short term solution for a problem.

The issue of public supplements for education is a tricky one. In the short term, it does help students pay for their education, but in the long term I believe it has drastically driven up the cost of education to the point that supplementation has become a necessity for middle class students, and not just to help the poor.

So my argument is that it has far surpassed its intent. But the real problem is that it is what it is, and even if I don't like how we have perverted the economics of education, how do we fix it without hurting thousands of eager students? That I can't tell you. We're kind of stuck in a catch 22.

I am not against all public funding, but my arguments fall in line with those detailed in the movie DAVE, where the government was spending millions to make people feel better about cars they already bought. It isn't the governments job to supplement industry, unless it is to prevent a collapse or in the case of airlines allow commerce to continue. I also tend to diagree with spending that wants to try and replace functions that a family or society should fill.

But to show you my feelings on public funding, I am a big proponent of federal and local fudning for asylums, for the insane and destitute. The insane can get treatment, and the destitute/homeless can get job and life training and help with drug dependence. In any case, its better than watching them freeze to death on a sewer grate.

EDIT: Another quick edit, Jon McCain voted yes on that same bill, which is another reason I will never vote for him. Anyone who considers cutting that much money towards Education is not going to have my vote.

Thats an understandable reaction, as I and conflicted on this issue, but I'd love to hear McCain's reasoning behind it as he tends to be very thoughtful about his decisions on controversial votes, much like his initial no vote for the Bush tax cuts where he voted no symbolicly because they bill didn't include spending cuts.

[Professor S]

Speaking of taxes...

http://www.comcast.net/articles/news.../McCain.Taxes/

While I dont necessarily disagree with an increase in SS payroll taxes as a last ditch effort to save the system, this is bad timing for his campaign. Conservatives are already on the fence when it comes to McCain, and this news migh just make them say "Whats the point in voting? They're all alike."

McCain can't afford to alientate his base if he wants to win this election. He needs the right wing to come out and vote because Obama is going to suck up a lot of the undecideds due to perdsona alone.

[Vampyr]

Originally Posted by Professor S

Thats an understandable reaction, as I and conflicted on this issue, but I'd love to hear McCain's reasoning behind it as he tends to be very thoughtful about his decisions on controversial votes, much like his initial no vote for the Bush tax cuts where he voted no symbolicly because they bill didn't include spending cuts.

I actually tried to make a second edit discussing that vote, but I couldn't get the "save" button to work after I finished typing. I said something along the lines of "I'm fine with that, unless he wants to cut spending on education." And you're right, we may be in a Catch 22, because cutting the funding now isn't going to cause a fast enough drop in the price of education. Education is -extremely- over priced, I can see that quite clearly, but there's nothing to be done about it. Either you have wealthy parents who can afford it, or you have to find some kind of aid.

No, I didn't write that. I apologize if my statement was confusing. I wrote that the tariff's indirectly increase the cost of goods and services, but that is an increase based on consumption, and not earnings. You control how much or little you are indirctly taxed via your spending habits. An income tax doesn't care how much you spend, it taxes you because you are lucky enough to have a job.

You miscontrue the main point of my argument: The reason why they are wealthy is BECAUSE they are not taxed. You can't then tax them on multiple levels and then expect the wealth to continue to grow when the wealth you are taxing is based on the lack of taxes. Its like baking a cake, and then saying "Hey, this is a good cake! Its so good it doesn't even need the flour or sugar! Lets remove them and bake it again!" Your result will be completely different, and highly unappetizing.

I'm not really clear on the analogy you're trying to make. I think you think I'm making an extremist statement that wealthy people should be taxed into oblivion. I'm not, that would be along the same lines as saying I think we should be a communist nation, and I certainly don't believe that. The wealthy, for the most part, have earned their money and deserve to be rich. I'm just saying that no additional tax cuts should be given to them; clearly they should still be very wealthy, though. It seems to me that giving tax cuts to the middle class instead would galvanize the economy more than giving tax cuts to a small percentage of the population would. Isn't the entire point to encourage people to spend more money? Why only encourage a small part of the population? If they are wealthy, they're already going to be spending money. I'm not saying to take their wealth, but certainly don't aid it any more.

In any case, I think we actually agree on this, I just didn't communicate my opinion correctly. Both Jon McCain and Obama support giving more tax cuts to the middle class and less to the rich (I tried to edit that in too, whenever the save button wouldn't work), so I don't feel like either candidate is better than the other in that category. I do think Obama needs to understand that government spending does need to be cut, but hopefully not in the realm of education, I feel like that is the last place it should be cut from, as the future of our country depends on people being educated, and America is built upon an ideology that you can always change your social class, if you work hard enough. Taking the money that middle and lower class students NEED to raise themselves up would be un-American.

This also works back around to what I was talking about in another thread, it's making things harder to fix here when about $12 billion a year is being poured into Iraq. Whether you agree or disagree about us being there, you have to admit that that is hurting us financially. And in any case, with the current debt that we have, it's going to take a long time for either candidate currently running to work us out of the hole, and I'm not sure it can be accomplished within either of their terms of office.

One thing that bothers me about McCain is his actual knowledge of how an economy works. In 2005 he said "I'm going to be honest: I know a lot less about economics than I do about military and foreign policy issues. I still need to be educated." and again in 2007 he said "The issue of economics is something that I've really never understood as well as I should. I understand the basics, the fundamentals, the vision, all that kind of stuff."

But then in January of 2008, when an interviewer asked him if he was worried because the economy was such an important factor in this election, and by his own acknowledgement he wasn't well versed on, McCain responded: "Actually, I don't know where you got that quote from. I'm very well versed in economics." This is a bit of the "change" in McCain that I talked about in the other thread, and an example of where he is guilty of the "switching" that you accused Obama of. Not only this, but he has said:

"Part of the problem in any recession is psychological. I'm still optimistic that nothing is inevitable."

That's actually just...wrong. Recessions are inevitable, the economy fluctuates up and down like a sine curve, it cannot possibly stay at a peak forever, we must always sink back into a recession. That is just a fact of economics. That's why I believe people are more worried about our current recession than they should be; this is just how things work. We will pull out of it again, and we will sink back into it again.

And yes, I do need to look into how tax dollars are actually being spent, I'm being a bit to naive about it at the moment. Not exactly sure where that information is posted, though.

[Professor S]

I dont; think your being extreme in the least. In fact I think your being rather mainstrem as about 50% of the populace thinks the way that you do. I just think that its not effective as the alternative.

As fot the inevitability of recessions, I agree, but I think public opinioin can make them worse. If you tell people we are in a recession, you get scared money, and scared money is hidden and not in the ecomnomy and that pushes the economy down even farther. Its one thing to be in a recession, but its another to be on the edge of one and then make it inevitable through public statements.

And Vampyr, McCain was joking when he said those things about the economy. he has had a long track record of being VERY involved in economic panels in the Senate. The media spun it the way they liked, but his experience with economic issues is vast and detailed.

But if experience and knowledge of the economy is so important to you, as you've stated...

...

Then why are you such an Obama supporter?

[Vampyr]

I didn't say anything about experience, I said knowledge. I know how experienced he is, and to still make a statement that the recession is not inevitable, something that someone who knows as little about economics as I do understands, feels like pandering to all the worried people to try to get them to come in under his wing.

I'm still under the assumption that actual experience isn't as important as you make it out to be. I think Obama has enough experience, some of the worst leaders have been experienced and inexperienced, and some of the best leaders have been experienced and inexperienced, I'm not judging either candidate based on that, it doesn't make me like or dislike either one any more than the other.

And yeah, those quotes could have been pulled out of context, I've only heard the actual lines, and I didn't hear it from his mouth so I don't know the tone of voice in which they were said.

Also, I'm an Obama supporter, not "such an Obama supporter", I don't worship the ground he walks on, there are things he believe that I don't agree with. I've said it before and I'll say it again, he just wins with me on a vast majority of the issues.

EDIT: I thought I would also add that, with all of McCain's experience, I disagree with the majority of the things he chooses to use it for. What good would it be to elect a president with experience if you don't even agree with what those experiences taught him? Experience for experience sake is another form of naivety, that they will somehow, naturally, be a good president because of it.

[Professor S]

Originally Posted by Vampyr

Also, I'm an Obama supporter, not "such an Obama supporter", I don't worship the ground he walks on, there are things he believe that I don't agree with. I've said it before and I'll say it again, he just wins with me on a vast majority of the issues.

If I gave the impression that I thought you were a fanatic, I apologize. That wasn't the intent.

EDIT: I thought I would also add that, with all of McCain's experience, I disagree with the majority of the things he chooses to use it for. What good would it be to elect a president with experience if you don't even agree with what those experiences taught him? Experience for experience sake is another form of naivety, that they will somehow, naturally, be a good president because of it.

Point taken. Historically I've been a huge fan of John McCain and his policies, excluding his absolutist anti-abortion stance, so I can see how you would not vote for him if you were on the other side of the isle.

I've never understood why anyone is on the other side of the isle, though.

[Bond]

Originally Posted by BLueFire

It's probably safer (and more entertaining) to stick to social issues, but eh.

Bond, out of curiosity, what are you studying as an undergrad?

I'm majoring in Finance, Investment, and Banking right now, with intentions to go on to law school.

You know, economics is complicated stuff. I definitely feel as though Americans should be better educated by the public school system in economics. There's a lot of misconceptions out there, primarily around trade and tariffs.

P.S. Bermuda is the best island ever.

[Bond]

What are you majoring in, BlueFire?

[KillerGremlin]

Originally Posted by Bond

I'm majoring in Finance, Investment, and Banking right now, with intentions to go on to law school.

You know, economics is complicated stuff. I definitely feel as though Americans should be better educated by the public school system in economics. There's a lot of misconceptions out there, primarily around trade and tariffs.

P.S. Bermuda is the best island ever.

May I ask where you are going to college?

I wish I had more interest in business...I'm pursuing a venture down the psychiatry path right now, but I love debating and I do enjoy law. Maybe I'll end up trying law school with a backbone in psychology, that would be cool.

My cousin majored in finance. He hit it big after college....he landed a job with Goldman Sachs...needless to say his wallet is happy. He's also marrying a lawyer....if you like money you are definitely in the right field, Bond.

[Bond]

I go to the University of Wisconsin. Since I knew I'm most likely going to pursue graduate school, I wanted to keep my undergraduate tuition on the low end, and UW is definintely affordable considering I live in state. We have a pretty good business school too. I believe it's ranked 12th.

I bet your cousin does investment banking at Goldman Sachs? That's one hardcore, cut-throat, business. I could never do it. I think the bottom 5% (performance wise) of GS's bankers get fired every year without fail.

Corporate law really interests me, it's a merger of business and law. You might like it...

Where do you go to school, KG?