All of your sources are weak. You’ve all said so much but established only a fraction of the real issues that correspond to the unemployment rate. uglypeoplefucking had some good points when he was first attacking Arminius but little elaboration and no sources. This thread is ridiculous.
Economics consists in Looking not merely at the immediate but at the longer effects of any act or policy; it consists in tracing the consequences of that policy not merely for one group but for all groups.
Actually no, there is not always a positive trend after a recession. The Great Depression in the 1930’s is an example. In 2008, the US was able to avoid depression, which most economists (at least, the ones not in the pocket of the GOP and FOX News - the apologists for the right wing policies that caused the recession in the first place) knew that depression was a very real threat. Had we elected a Republican in 2008 and had further tax cuts for the rich alongside a further escalation of the pointless, losing wars we are fighting, depression would almost certainly have proven inevitable.
But regardless, the point is not simply that there has been a positive trend, but rather that America’s recovery from the recession (which started in the US but became global in short order) was demonstrably stronger than the recovery of any other advanced nation in the world. That indicates that the recovery as it happened was not just a matter of course, but a matter of policy decisions. The US recovery almost certainly could have been even stronger than it has been, but obviously partisan politics put severe restraints on what can and cannot be done in response to economic calamities such as we saw starting around 06-07. Nonetheless, the federal government’s response with Obama at the helm has been very different than it would have been with a Republican at the helm.
Yeah, it does. More people working means more people getting laid off or quitting. Just like more people driving means more people getting speeding tickets and getting in accidents.
Well, yeah, that’s precisely what i said. You just told me i was off topic and then repeated me. In any case, i’m glad we can agree on this, at least.
Hmm, i don’t recall ever discussing this in other threads.
Nonetheless, a rise in the number of immigrant workers does not mean fewer jobs for natives (though, in the US, i’m not sure how you even draw a line between immigrants and natives after a generation in the workforce), not when the native population is increasing alongside the immigrant population, as it has been throughout the time period covered by your example. Indeed, as it has been throughout US history. That’s just arithmetic.
But, i don’t speak your first language at all, while you do speak mine. What good would it be for you to start speaking to me in your first language, as i wouldn’t understand what you’ve said?
Political correctness is beside the point: The economic reality is that women, when they are afforded the opportunity to work, contribute as much, if not more, to the economy as men, so it is not a negative economic indicator that more women are doing jobs traditionally done exclusively by men.
By the way, the belief that any given job should be done by men rather than women is also a form of political correctness.
Questions of justice are intrinsically linked with economic realities.
It is demonstrably untrue that “the overall population of the US rises just because of immigration”. In fact, that is about as blatant a falsehood as i have seen on ILP in a good long while. i am trying to give you the benefit of the doubt that your inability to provide honest counterarguments, and your inability to comprehend how the statements i make pertain to the discussion at hand, are a product of the fact that English is your 2nd language, but when you say things like that, i begin to wonder . . .
You need reputable sources. Mine come from the US bureau of employment statistics, and from mainstream press throughout Europe and the US (as opposed to ILP threads and obscure sensationalist internet articles by unapologetic right wing demagogues.)
In any case, the statement “you are not right, because you are left”, demonstrates that you are simply being reactionary - that is, not concerned with the truth, but merely with protecting and espousing a particular (flawed and anachronistic) ideology.
You don’t seem to understand what left and right mean relative to US politics. Perhaps this was not the best discussion to have with someone who knows American life only from far distance.
Correct, you don’t make money out of nothing, you make money by providing goods and services. That is why the economic policy of the American right wing, which rests on the pillar of cutting taxes for the wealthy, thus incentivizing speculation (gambling) and rent-seeking, and disincentivizing the production of goods and provision of services (i.e. - actually working for a living) has been so incredibly destructive to the US economy in particular and by extension to the global economy.
And, while that is decidedly NOT the “end of story”, it is the root of our current economic woes.
i very much agree Omar, Obama made some significant missteps with regards to the economic recovery. Things could have been much better than they are right now if, for example, the bank-bailout bill had imposed greater regulations on banks receiving federal money and broken up those banks (a la Bernie’s position) so they would not be able to rely on the too-big-to-fail excuse when they fuck up and go bankrupt again in the future. As it stands, they are essentially free to go back to the same irresponsible and dangerous lending practices that created the real-estate bubble of the mid 2000s. Further, there should have been comparable funds made available to underwater mortgage holders who got completely fucked up the rear when the bubble burst in 2007. It is basically unconscionable that large financial institutions received so much unconditional federal largess while the victims of those institutions were left to fend for themselves. Of course, that is not entirely Obama’s fault, as he was butting heads with a Congress full of Republicans in the pocket of large, private lending institutions and tea party libertarians who would have just done nothing and let the country fall into a second great depression. Like i said in my most recent response to Arminius, there are political realities that have tied the hands of the president at every turn.
i was anticipating this kind of response. i agree with the spirit and thrust of this, but i would still like to defend my point:
If blue collar Trump supporters are victims of anything in backasswards, Republican run states like West Virginia it is not actually the great recession, but rather A) Republican policies which provide economic life-support to doomed and dying fossil fuel industries, like coal-mining, instead of working to promote industries which, as you suggest, can actually provide a future for the residents of those states. And AGAIN, the political reality in such right wing states is that any move in the direction of newer industries holding the promise of future job-creation are vetoed outright in favor of artificially prolonging the slow death of older, increasingly obsolete industries, and extending the suffering of workers in those industries who are seeing their wages fall or losing their jobs, etc. The president cannot reasonably be held responsible for such situations, as those decisions are made at a state and not a federal level. By extension, the struggling blue-collar Trump supporters are then ALSO victims of B) Their own naivety and ignorance insofar as they keep electing the state officials that prolong the slow death of the industries that employ them, while also supporting Trump, who would do the same at a federal level, extending the economic problems that have befallen places like West Virginia and the rust belt states to the rest of the country and, of course, the rest of us who live and work in that country! If my sympathy for them is somewhat half-hearted, it is because their deeply flawed political reasoning and economic short-sightedness poses a significant and extremely dangerous threat to the well-being of the rest of the country.
What you see is that a positive trend is after a recession. Recession is always a part of the business cycle. So it is correct to say that there is always a positive trend after a recession. We were not talking about when, whether sooner or later, … and so on.
And it is also true that a recession is after an expansion. The boom between them does not change that correct statement. 13 o’clock is after 11 o’clock. 12 o’clock does not change that correct statement.
You are biased (since 1958 like Faust?), and I guess it is because you are a member of a political party.
Again: I can give you thousands of examples where just the opposite of what you are telling is true.
Then you would have to learn that language. My point was that at least one of the conditions for your so-called „challenge“ was not fair. And then you just started to misunderstand me again - you are either not capable of understanding or using rhetoric here again. Actually, it is not difficult to understand what fairness means, but either you don’t want to understand or you can’t understand it.
Unfortunately, political correctness is never beside the point. How could or should I forbid you your political correctness, and the government wants you to be politically correct. Political correctness is never beside the point. It is always present, if there is someone who wants others to be politically correct and others or only one who is or seems to be politically correct (like you, for example).
No. Not currently. And not for you, because you are or seem to be (rhetoric!) politically correct. You are using stereotypes again, then mixing women and men so as if they were the same, but finally playing them off against each other (“if not more”). In the long run and for almost all humans, it is a negative (if not the most negative) economic indicator that women are doing jobs traditionally done exclusively by men, because woman will be replaced as well and because of the chaos effected by businessmen and politicians (political businessmen).
They can but do not have to be, and questions of justice are intrinsically linked with social realities (welfare for example) too and often if not oftener than with economic realities. I could give you many examples again.
No. It is true that the overall population of the US rises just because of the immigration (and of the blacks, your former slaves). Obviously, you have absolutely no inkling of demographics. Additionally, it is just politically incorrect, thus a taboo, to talk about demographics in a certain way.
You need reputable sources, because you have no single one. You are a left wing populist, a left wing demagogue. Why should I continue this discussion. I am waisting my time with your leftist rhetoric, your leftist political correctness, your leftist propaganda, your leftist populism, your leftist demagoguery. The fact that the leftists seem to represent a majority (at least in Europe) does not automatically mean that they are right (sic!). Leftists are wrong. Left is wrong.
The word “reactionary” is - again - a rhetorical word that indicates your membership of a political party for leftists. I could also say that you are simply reactionary. There are always arguments for it, if there are certain words for accusing X of being y. But it is a fact that being left is not being right.
Instead of being rhetorical again - as usual - you could say “what left and right mean relative to US politics”. You are always prefering rhetorical statements - just like a politician. Why are you not saying what “left” and “right” mean according to your American lif. By the way: Do you mean a South or a North American life, or is “American” - again - a rhetorical word for you as a reactionary nationalist?
Bankers and other businessmen, also politicians, suggest that money can be made out of nothing, regardless whether they know or not know what they suggest. And this suggestion is relevant, especially in societies that economically live according to Keynesian(istic) or Neo-Keynesian(istic) politics: making DEBTS - and nothing else.
John Maynard Keynes wrote: “In the long run, we are dead.”
Maybe, but that is not the only aspect of it. Obama depends as much on the money givers as or even more than those politicians of the “American right wing”. And what is the “American right wing”, if not a rhetorical word again? Do you mean, for example, the Chilean, Mexican, Canadian, or which one of the so-called “American right wing”?
Arminius, overall, you get a big “whatever” from me. For you, any political opinion you don’t like is “politically correct” and therefore wrong. There are so many flaws in that assumption that it’d be a waste of my time to relay them all to you, because you wouldn’t understand half of them, and the other half you would just say, “you are wrong, because you are being politically correct”.
In any case, the term “American right-wing” refers to a specific collection of political ideologies and worldviews that are currently very much alive and active in US politics, ideologies and worldviews generally affiliated with the Republican party, this being a 2 party system.
And yes, Obama is in the pocket of plenty of special interests as well, but his economic policies avert the destruction that policies offered and advocated by the right wing have now been shown to cause.
Ok, the world keeps turning and the seasons keep changing . . . so what is your overall point? Are you saying that government policy has no impact on the behavior of the economy?
These are just labels but what I think he meant was “immediately” after a recession (which can be a depression) then eventually followed by a positive trend.
I’m just saying that the fossil fuel industry is made up of thousands of Americans, people who are dying. Talking about the “doomed and dying fossil fuel industries” hides the plight of real people and marks as a “success” what should be marked as a failure. It is basically a “let them fail” attitude that is heartless and betrays an American voting group that has seem millions dropped on other “doomed and dying” industries to give them a chance. We cannot write off an entire state! Are you fucking kidding me?!! If you would like to see coal eliminated, then start by creating a process to do so rather than killing it in one or two administrations. It is the oath of the President, in my opinion, the least a President ought to do. If you kill off an industry without creating its replacement simultaneously, creating a crisis in the process, then that is a failure. Just as the POTUS regrets not having a plan for what would replace Gaddafi, it should also be regretful to destroy the leading industry in W. Virginia without any thought about the consequences, in fact worse because the future that you ruin will be of the people you’re supposed to protect.
Then that should be the message, one of regret of being blocked from doing better for those affected by progress and a commitment to continue to provide alternatives and help for their transition. Like I said, just as the federal government can help veterans get a leg up on gaining employment by offering incentives to companies, so can that courtesy be extended without being limited by the individual state.
The thing is that the same can be said of Bernie Sanders. I am not comfortable with the populism of either candidate. Trump is a threat, and more experts are saying so on both sides of the aisle. But Donald is a symptom of a disease that has been ailing our political process for much longer. The Tea Party, the Occupy Wall Street movement, anticipated Trumpism in some ways. The demand for purity in our political system has created Trumpy. This polar view of the world that excludes any middle ground and punishes those who seek it, is a far greater threat to our political process than Trump. What has aided this political puritanism is the belief that the democracy is no longer representative, that it is geared for the benefit o the few at the expense of the many. This is why Trumpy won, even at Ted Cruz’ expense. This is a movement of delusion willing to set fire (Trump) to the whole thing (democracy as we know, or “the establishment” as they know it) and start from scratch. Republicans with their belief in small government have given shelter to some that would rather have no government. It is time that both Democrats and those conscious Republicans to explain better why America is Great Right Now for Everybody. That is a tall order if you don’t address where there is room for improvement and how it is an on-going process. Obama has to use that podium like a pulpit and show the level of commitment to victims in Flynt and W. Virginia that Larry Wilmore showed. He may not resonate, but at least he will be keeping it a 100.
And that is all I am saying. Is coal the future? No. But the people are the future. It is the job of govt. to look out for the future of all Americans. If policies that would work for coal miners have been blocked by do-nothing congress, then let’s call that a regret and not a victory, or imply that they are suicidal by voting for Trump. They are simply people who have not better choice at this point. If MY options were voting for someone who wants to shut down my plant and leave me on the street, or a guy that will keep it open, at least until there is something in its place, then what do you think will be my vote?
