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PoliGAF 2013 |OT2| Worth 77% of OT1

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G

Gotchaye

Member
rocketknight said:
MMT endorses a job guarantee even just for digging holes and filling them back in. There's actually a lot of good stuff to read on the topic!
Click to expand...

It's still wasteful, though. Even if you want to give cash to people without requiring that they do useful work, requiring them to do useless work is obviously somewhat wasteful of their time.

The economic argument for useless work instead of just handing out no-strings cash is that you have to make this sort of handout unnecessarily painful in order to give people an incentive to stop taking your money by finding another job. The political argument is that people have to abase themselves if they want help. Even if there's just nothing that needs doing that the people we want to help can do, there's not really a good reason not to pay people to do something that actually develops their skills instead. This both requires effort on their part and gives them a bigger incentive to stop taking public money over time by increasing the wage they can get in the market.
 
T

The Librarian

Banned
Hitokage said:
Eh, it's still wasteful, but a good counterargument is that it's not particularly hard to find productive things to do with public money, especially when our roads are already full of holes. Even without this, it can be a net positive if the people doing the work gain skills and experience which are still required even after government work is over.
Click to expand...

Oh, I know it was a (ultimately) meaningless point on his part. But my general line of thought was it's important for people to be out there doing projects and getting paid to do them.
 
E

ElectricThunder

Member
At this junction, a part of me is morbidly curious to witness a What If scenario where Rand Paul too has a son that enters into politics...and behaves like even more of a jackass. 3 would make for a proper streak to see if the idiocy is indeed worsening down the line.

Given his insane notions on what constitutes lethal force, we'd better hope he never gets any sort of say over how to deal with a riot lest there'd be nothing left.
 
empty vessel

empty vessel

Member
ClassyPenguin said:
Funny, considering Keynes was being a smartass (he was notorious for that) when he wrote the holes in the ground being effective for unemployment.

"'To dig holes in the ground', paid for out of savings, will increase, not only employment, but the real national dividend of useful goods and services. It is not reasonable, however, that a sensible community should be content to remain dependent on such fortuitous and often wasteful mitigations when once we understand the influences upon which effective demand depends." - From his General Theory
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He was being a smart ass, by saying that even that would be better than doing nothing in cases where aggregate demand is inadequate. Indeed, so would helicopter drops. Both of these policies would be better than current policy. That's an indication of how ridiculously bad current policy is when paying people to dig holes and cover them up and dropping money from helicopters are better.
 
C

Chichikov

Member
rocketknight said:
MMT endorses a job guarantee even just for digging holes and filling them back in. There's actually a lot of good stuff to read on the topic!
Click to expand...
It says it's better than nothing, but again, I can't think of a scenario wherein such program will run out of useful things to do, that type of framing is only useful if you're trying to make MMT look bad.
 
S

Shirokun

Member
Cyan said:
From Black Mamba's thread, Rand Paul response:

douchebag said:
"My comments last night left the mistaken impression that my position on drones had changed.

"Let me be clear: it has not. Armed drones should not be used in normal crime situations. They may only be considered in extraordinary, lethal situations where there is an ongoing, imminent threat.
Click to expand...
http://www.paul.senate.gov/?p=press_release&id=779
Click to expand...

Kinda like if some guy robbed $50 from a liquor store.
 
C

ClovingWestbrook

Banned
So did we not discuss how Boehner couldn't even pass a bill today that would have taken about $3 billion out of the ACA into a fund for those with preexisting conditions?

Amid opposition from conservative members and Democrats, House Republican leaders abruptly cancelled a vote on legislation designed to simultaneously undermine a progressive piece of Obamacare and boost the party’s credibility with voters who support protections for people with preexisting medical conditions.

The legislation would have transferred $3.6 billion from the Affordable Care Act’s prevention and public health fund to a temporary, underfunded high-risk pool plan in the law to cover sick people with preexisting conditions for the rest of 2013, until Obamacare’s guarantee of insurance coverage for all people kicks in.

Republicans described it as an effort to help sick people where President Obama had failed.

The move is a significant blow to GOP leaders and their efforts to soften the party’s image. It reflects their inability to secure sufficient conservative buy-in for even modest legislation aimed at improving the Republican party’s brand, and suggests that their only real hope for moderating the GOP’s reputation is to buck the right and pass genuinely moderate and bipartisan legislation with Democratic support.

The legislation failed because it was neither a straight attack on the ACA, which likely could have passed with Republican votes alone, nor a genuine effort to improve it. It was a backdoor attempt to damage a permanent piece of Obamacare — which alienated the entire Democratic party — in order to temporarily bolster another part of the law, costing them conservative votes.

Earlier in the day, conservative GOP members spoke out against the measure, lamenting that it merely tinkers with the law when they wanted nothing less than repeal. Some said they opposed the high-risk pool portion of the law to begin with, despite its popularity among many Republicans and conservative health care wonks.

“Subsidizing health care is not what Republicans should be about,” Rep. Raul Labrador (R-ID) said at a Capitol Hill event organized by the Heritage Foundation.

Conservative groups were split on the legislation. While FreedomWorks and Grover Norquist’s Americans For Tax Reform supported it as an effort to undermine Obamacare, Heritage Action and Club For Growth urged lawmakers to vote against it.

The bill cleared a procedural vote in the afternoon and was all set for an up-or-down floor vote before House Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy’s (R-CA) office announced its cancellation.

Majority Leader Eric Cantor’s (R-VA) top aide suggested they may try again another day.

“We’re going to continue to work the bill. We had positive conversations today and made good progress. We remain focused on stopping the biggest entitlement expansion in a generation,” Cantor’s deputy chief of staff Doug Heye told TPM in an email. “We intend to bring the bill back up when Congress returns in May.”
Click to expand...
 
G

Giant Panda

Member
PhoenixPause said:
Did he? He won one (souther) primary and then imploded. The majority of his cash on hand came from one donor...

The only period where Romney truly looked vunerable (as in "wow he just might lose" vunerable) was when Perry entered the race, and we know what happened immediately afterwards.
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He was leading in the polls at one point, and that is really incredible for someone as messed up as Newt.
 
G

GhaleonEB

Member
Giant Panda said:
Not Huntsman :(. It really just shows how much of a circus freak show the Republican Party was.
Click to expand...

The amazing part is, I still think only Huntsman among that GOP field would have given Obama run for his money in the general. Naturally, he got no support.

Crazy to think they could just repeat that cycle in 2016, but it's sure starting to look like it.
 
O

Oblivion

Fetishing muscular manly men in skintight hosery
GhaleonEB said:
The amazing part is, I still think only Huntsman among that GOP field would have given Obama run for his money in the general.
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Well, Romney was kind of a threat to Obama too. Hence why he was eventually selected despite the fact that everyone fucking hated him.
 
T

The Librarian

Banned
mcnut3.jpg


I think what got me was Kim Jung Il and the Saudi King in the back. :lol
 
R

rocketknight

Member
empty vessel said:
He was being a smart ass, by saying that even that would be better than doing nothing in cases where aggregate demand is inadequate. Indeed, so would helicopter drops. Both of these policies would be better than current policy. That's an indication of how ridiculously bad current policy is when paying people to dig holes and cover them up and dropping money from helicopters are better.
Click to expand...

Yes. This is what I was going for. I don't think you need to be a chartalist to agree that without evidence of even normal levels of inflation (let alone high inflation) the government needs to be increasing demand/employment somehow.
 
O

Owzers

Member
Hannity really wants to waterboard the terrorist in custody. " you're not going to know the truth until you dunk his head in water" today, lots of advocating for waterboarding previous nights being that it's no big deal and it's not torture. I wonder why he doesn't invite McCain onto his show anymore....
 
C

Chichikov

Member
Dax01 said:
I just noticed there's only one minority in the chained crowd. hahaha
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He's going to snitch on whitey for cutting his chains.

p.s.
He hid 6 keys in the picture!
Someone get Nicolas Cage on the case, he can solve the debt crisis!

el retorno said:
Whats up with the random cock?
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The Rooster
I am reminded of the story of Peter in the New Testament. On the eve of Christ's crucifixion he denied Jesus three times. When he heard the cock crow it said he went and wept bitterly. (Matthew 26:75) As with Peter, Americans are in a state of denial. We must WAKE UP to our situation.

Pop quiz hotshot - real life or the onion?
 
R

rocketknight

Member
sillymonkey321 said:
Hannity really wants to waterboard the terrorist in custody. " you're not going to know the truth until you dunk his head in water" today, lots of advocating for waterboarding previous nights being that it's no big deal and it's not torture. I wonder why he doesn't invite McCain onto his show anymore....
Click to expand...

Isn't Hannity the one who volunteered to be waterboarded at some point and then never did it? Maybe this is why we never get the truth out of him.
 
O

Oblivion

Fetishing muscular manly men in skintight hosery
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) hosted a press conference earlier this week to complain about the White House following the law with regards to Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, but during the event, a reporter raised a good question: why not stop people on the Terrorist Watch List from buying guns?

"I think, anyone who's on the Terrorist Watch List should not lose their Second Amendment right without the ability to challenge that determination," Graham replied.
Click to expand...

...
 
O

Oblivion

Fetishing muscular manly men in skintight hosery
Chichikov said:
He's right though.
Obviously, that should apply to everyone, not just gun owners, but fuck it, baby steps.
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The problem is that he doesn't provide the same courtesy to suspected terrorists when dealing with things like 4th amendment.
 
H

Half and half

Member
ClovingWestbrook said:
So did we not discuss how Boehner couldn't even pass a bill today that would have taken about $3 billion out of the ACA into a fund for those with preexisting conditions?
Click to expand...

iirc, funding for these high risk pools were the center point of Boehner's original counter to the Affordable Care Act. My understanding is that they're really expensive and don't let everyone in, so they're not appropriate for everyone.

I thought ACA boosted PCIPs anyways until the full thing kicks in? Since there is some common ground, I'd say they squandered their chance to look like they give a shit about sick people. Now they have to live their decision to obstruct it.
 
R

rocketknight

Member
Half and half said:
iirc, funding for these high risk pools were the center point of Boehner's original counter to the Affordable Care Act. My understanding is that they're really expensive and don't let everyone in, so they're not appropriate for everyone.

I thought ACA boosted PCIPs anyways until the full thing kicks in? Since there is some common ground, I'd say they squandered their chance to look like they give a shit about sick people. Now they have to live their decision to obstruct it.
Click to expand...

Yes. The PCIPs are just temporary until private insurers are required to accept everyone (and not reject people for preexisting conditions) - they were to give people options in the four years between 2010 and 2014. It ran out of money because they didn't give it enough to start with - the people forced to use it generally have conditions that are expensive to treat. FWIW they weren't super expensive. I had to look into the one in my state a few months ago and while it was more than private insurance, it wasn't unreasonable. I was glad it was there as a last resort if I couldn't do COBRA or a private insurer.
 
S

speculawyer

Member
Metaphoreus

Metaphoreus

This is semantics, and nothing more
speculawyer said:
I can't even process this. He did a 13 hour filibuster about it . . . and they just casually changes his mind on the issue? WTF? Just a huge waste of time over nothing? A showing of being deeply committed and then you just flip-flop?
Click to expand...

There's a separate thread on this in the OT, but I'm not sure he has changed his mind. I think there are two separate ways to interpret his comments so far: (1) his filibuster comments about never using a drone on American soil were generalizations subject to certain exceptions, such as being able to use a drone to kill a suspect who poses an ongoing imminent threat of serious harm; or (2) he once believed that drones should never be used to kill an American on American soil without a conviction in court, but now has amended his beliefs to an extent. (Note that (1) would be akin to someone saying, "The police should never kill an American without first obtaining a conviction in court," then later saying, "The police can kill an American if he poses an imminent threat of serious harm.")

What I don't think you can realistically do is interpret his comment as HuffPo does, as a statement that drones can be used against arm robbers all the time. I think his point was obviously that, when lethal force is justified, it can be done by drone.
 
H

Half and half

Member
rocketknight said:
Yes. The PCIPs are just temporary until private insurers are required to accept everyone (and not reject people for preexisting conditions) - they were to give people options in the four years between 2010 and 2014. It ran out of money because they didn't give it enough to start with - the people forced to use it generally have conditions that are expensive to treat. FWIW they weren't super expensive. I had to look into the one in my state a few months ago and while it was more than private insurance, it wasn't unreasonable. I was glad it was there as a last resort if I couldn't do COBRA or a private insurer.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the info. I don't have any direct or indirect experience with these but I know they were struggling in part to lack of awareness. But it's good to know that it's not super expensive.

I'm looking at the possibility of COBRA at the moment and that shit is pretty expensive for me. I can cover it, but it'll put a little dent in my financial game.
 
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