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[disastermouse]

I understand that. What I stated in that post was that if he wanted to be correct about anything, he would have stated that price is related to labor. That's the only reason I brought up price. Man, you think I don't know the difference, when value is literally in the name of the theory?

That's why my second sentence responded to that. Because on its face, use value it derived from marginal utility, not labor inputs.

I read the manifesto, which is like a pamphlet really, not very substantive. I'll read capital if you read Why Nations Fail.

DEAL! But, unless you're a lot more technically intelligent than I am (you probably are, but still...), you'll need help with Marx.

There's an old saying that Marx is easy to understand if you read Hegel first.

Hegel is fucking unintelligible without charts, guides, graphs, and maybe the incentive of sexual favors if you get through it. Marx is marginally better. Oh, and better yet, he has in jokes that are extremely contextual to the mid-1800s and refer to the in-jokes of shit that isn't even published, but that was floating around cafe culture.

So yeah. I'd suggest David Harvey (as a guide) unless you have ideological objections.

Lastly, price is totally unrelated to use value. In Capital Vol. I he puts out a very simplified version by completely disregarding the complications. Most objections to Marx have to do with the simplifications in Vol. I. In Vols. II and III he brings the complications back in but in the context of what he elucidated in Vol. I. It is an extremely obtuse way to go about things, but he was infected with a very 19th century idea of the scientific way to put forth his ideas. And then he talks about vampires and wherewolves for pages and pages because, well...I dunno.

I have never seen an approach to Marx that isn't political. So keep that in mind, even if you do use David Harvey as a guide. Marx is so smeared with crazy shit (and was even at the TIME he wrote Capital), that you have to always keep the context in mind. It's not like reading modern economic theory.

 

[Holmes]

Honestly this conversation

 

[neurosisxeno]

Honestly this conversation

Not enough opinionated shouting.

Honestly I was another page of posts between them from saying;

 

[disastermouse]

Honestly this conversation

Hey man, just because you can't follow along...

It's okay.

 

[Cybit]

Honestly this conversation

Could be worse, could be the inanity of the political threads in OT currently. Left eating Left for not being Left enough in the ways that matter (to them).

 

[ugaboga232]

Y can't we have substantive debate without hating on each other

 

[Cybit]

Y can't we have substantive debate without hating on each other

Because people value identity over reason or logic.

Heck; it's part of my critique of much of TNC's writing post-reparations article.

 

[ugaboga232]

Because people value identity over reason or logic.

Heck; it's part of my critique of much of TNC's writing post-reparations article.

People don't value things, its how we are wired. The more we realize the tribal element inherent in the human brain, then we can begin to move forward. No one is immune from the binary dichotomy of us vs them, and we need to admit this bias and move forward.

Edit:

Spoiler

can you tell that I'm a neuroscientist

 

[Cybit]

People don't value things, its how we are wired. The more we realize the tribal element inherent in the human brain, then we can begin to move forward. No one is immune from the binary dichotomy of us vs them, and we need to admit this bias and move forward.

Edit:

Spoiler

can you tell that I'm a neuroscientist

I think the internet has supercharged the tribal element; though. we have infinite tribes we get to choose from at any moment, and no matter how tiny the identity factor is - you'll find thousands of people like you.

 

[ugaboga232]

I think the internet has supercharged the tribal element; though. we have infinite tribes we get to choose from at any moment, and no matter how tiny the identity factor is - you'll find thousands of people like you.

There's a reason you aren't supposed to give young kids ipads or access to internet, all the information will change their brains probably for the worse (better at internet browsing thats for sure). Could be something similar from the advent of the anonymous forum.

 

[campfireweekend]

Y can't we have substantive debate without hating on each other

I thought we were doing a pretty good job.

Not enough opinionated shouting.

Honestly I was another page of posts between them from saying;

Cool, the Pol in poligaf doesn't stand for policy or politics, but polls.

I'll note that and shut up.

 

[User 463088]

I'm just reminded that the only reason I actually attended all of my economics classes in college was because the TA was really cute.

I got a B. The only B I've ever gotten.

Spoiler

Didn't get the D, though, amirite?

 

[Bam Bam Baklava]

I'm just reminded that the only reason I actually attended all of my economics classes in college was because the TA was really cute.

I got a B. The only B I've ever gotten.

Spoiler

Didn't get the D, though, amirite?

Damn, the only B you've ever gotten? I'm always happy I've never gotten a C.

 

[neurosisxeno]

Cool, the Pol in poligaf doesn't stand for policy or politics, but polls.

There's a difference between discussing Policy issues and discussing in-depth details about Marxism. PoliGAF is about Politics and Policy within the confines of the US Government--something the intricacies of Marxism have almost nothing to do with. Half of the back and fourth exchanges were arguing semantics, and we went like a full page without anything mentioning US Politics, Policy, or the Politicians tied into them.

 

[User 463088]

Damn, the only B you've ever gotten? I'm always happy I've never gotten a C.

I...I have issues. Clearly. But, I have issues with trying way too hard in school. I used to memorize all of my notes. Literally. I would sit down and I could recite whatever notes I'd taken on that particular test/quiz topic. If I got less than a 95, I would go into full meltdown mode.Grades and school in general was a HUGE trigger for my OCD. I've chilled sense, especially since I pretty much only do writing workshops anymore.

Cs get degrees.....As get....a pathetically lonesome social life.

 

[User 406]

Hmm, that's tough. Am I literally the god of this simulation? MMT would be really fun to see. I'm like really sure that indefinitely financing deficits with money not backed by bonds would be bad, but it'd be interesting to finally know at what percent of GDP the US would experience a sovereign debt crisis.

But why wouldn't the government in the simulation cut spending and increase taxes to reduce the money supply if the economy heats up too much? And what's this about money being backed by bonds? If the government is the issuer of currency, then there's no need to pretend that a bond program is needed to fund government spending. Bonds are still useful as an investment tool for the private sector, but it's not like they are how money is created.

Really trying to understand here, because what I've read about MMT and what empty vessel talked about absolutely did not say that eternal deficit spending was good or desired, but every time criticism seems to loop back to "infinite deficits".

 

[campfireweekend]

There's a difference between discussing Policy issues and discussing in-depth details about Marxism. PoliGAF is about Politics and Policy within the confines of the US Government--something the intricacies of Marxism have almost nothing to do with. Half of the back and fourth exchanges were arguing semantics, and we went like a full page without anything mentioning US Politics, Policy, or the Politicians tied into them.

In depth details like it's prima facie takeaway and underlying theme?

The entire back and forth carried the undertones for why someone would back Hillary over Bernie, through the lens of incremental vs immediate change.

Plus dude, it was a sunday. What news that came out then was never given a chance because of that back and forth? Like seriously.

But why wouldn't the government in the simulation cut spending and increase taxes to reduce the money supply if the economy heats up too much? And what's this about money being backed by bonds? If the government is the issuer of currency, then there's no need to pretend that a bond program is needed to fund government spending. Bonds are still useful as an investment tool for the private sector, but it's not like they are how money is created.

Really trying to understand here, because what I've read about MMT and what empty vessel talked about absolutely did not say that eternal deficit spending was good or desired, but every time criticism seems to loop back to "infinite deficits".

In order to avoid cluttering up the page with the intricacies of monetary economics, here's a link where Krugman talks about why money issued under deficits does in fact need to be backed by bonds.

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/08/15/mmt-again/

Also, there's a difference between indefinitely financing deficits with fiat currency backed by bonds, and eternally deficit spending.

The former simply speaks to how deficits are financed, not how often they occur.

And of course it's not how money is created! It is however quite obviously how debt is created, which is why it is really odd to state that governments can or should run deficits but fail to issue debt. That makes no sense.

 

[Yellowtail]

Someone @ PD.

Barack Obama, that prematurely gray elder statesman, is laboring mightily to remain neutral during Hillary Clinton’s battle with Bernie Sanders in Iowa, the state that cemented his political legend and secured his path to the presidency.

But in a candid 40-minute interview for POLITICO’s Off Message podcast as the first flakes of the blizzard fell outside the Oval Office, he couldn’t hide his obvious affection for Clinton or his implicit feeling that she, not Sanders, best understands the unpalatably pragmatic demands of a presidency he likens to the world’s most challenging walk-and-chew-gum exercise.

....

But the Obama-Clinton race in Iowa wasn’t simply a matter of hard work and spreading his optimistic vision of the future; it was a bitter political fight. Obama hammered away at the notion that the New York senator was on the wrong side of generational change, and his team successfully convinced reporters that every Clinton campaign swipe was an underhanded personal attack – something he’s less than proud of in retrospect.

“The truth is, in 2007 and 2008, sometimes my supporters and my staff I think got too huffy about what were legitimate questions she was raising,” he admitted. “And there were times where I think the media probably was a little unfair to her and tilted a little my way in calling her out.”

In fact, he said, Clinton “had a tougher job throughout that primary than I did.”

“She had to do everything that I had to do, except, like Ginger Rogers, backwards in heels,” he said. “She had to wake up earlier than I did because she had to get her hair done. She had to, you know, handle all the expectations that were placed on her.”
“Had things gone a little bit different in some states or if the sequence of primaries and caucuses been a little different,” Obama added, “she could have easily won.”

But he also offered a surprisingly blunt assessment of Clinton’s weaknesses.

She is better in “small groups” than big ones, he remarked, and he agreed that her first campaign appearances showed her to be “rusty” – comparing them to his God-awful first debate of the 2012 campaign. “he’s extraordinarily experienced – and, you know, wicked smart and knows every policy inside and out – [and] sometimes [that] could make her more cautious, and her campaign more prose than poetry,” he told me.

This, from a president who has been governing in prose, especially during his second term. In fact, Obama’s experiences in office have brought him around to Clinton’s hardheaded view of the presidency, first forged during her eight years as first lady. “I think that what Hillary presents is a recognition that translating values into governance and delivering the goods is ultimately the job of politics, making a real-life difference to people in their day-to-day lives,” he said, echoing the very critique Clinton makes of Sanders.

 

[PBY]

http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/01/how-iowa-hijacked-our-democracy-213557

good read

 

[Black Republican]

Someone @ PD.

Basically nothing personal, just business

Chicago raised V Chicago born

but are they homies now? i donno

 

[User 463088]

“The truth is, in 2007 and 2008, sometimes my supporters and my staff I think got too huffy about what were legitimate questions she was raising,” he admitted. “And there were times where I think the media probably was a little unfair to her and tilted a little my way in calling her out.”

In fact, he said, Clinton “had a tougher job throughout that primary than I did.”

 

[User 406]

In order to avoid cluttering up the page with the intricacies of monetary economics, here's a link where Krugman talks about why money issued under deficits does in fact need to be backed by bonds.

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/08/15/mmt-again/

Also, there's a difference between indefinitely financing deficits with fiat currency backed by bonds, and eternally deficit spending.

The former simply speaks to how deficits are financed, not how often they occur.

And of course it's not how money is created! It is however quite obviously how debt is created, which is why it is really odd to state that governments can or should run deficits but fail to issue debt. That makes no sense.

Ok, here's the part that doesn't make sense to me.

A treasury bond is a temporary removal of money from the private sector, with the promise to return that money later along with more money as interest.

So, while the purchase of the bond can temporarily reduce the money supply, in the end it ends up increasing it, and is therefore effectively a government spending program.

And if the same amount of money that was removed to purchase the bond is then used on other government spending, that plus the expected interest when the bond matures just further increases the upwards inflationary pressure.

But if you disconnect the bonds from the spending, and don't require a certain amount of bond sales to spend what you need to spend, that extra interest from the bond sales that never were doesn't go into the private sector, and therefore the "deficit" is actually less than it would have been.

And if tying spending to bond sales is an artificial means of putting the brakes on spending to avoid inflation, wouldn't it make more sense to attach those brakes to a mechanism that doesn't make it harder for the government to spend more when the economy is in a slump?

I guess what I'm getting at here is that if we agree that countercyclical fiscal policy is needed to avoid excessive inflation, why is it important to maintain the fiction that government money needs to be borrowed from somewhere? We don't want to spend infinite money anyway, because that would be stupid, and in times where we do need to spend more, that pretense hobbles us.


Also, don't sweat the complaints about these discussions not being enough masturbation over polls, this is all political policy stuff, and is helpful for keeping PoliGAFfers informed on just what we're ostensibly voting for. I'd definitely like a higher proportion of policy discussion than what we normally get.

Edit:
Sorry, confused treasury bonds with shorter term t-bills, and yes, bond sales help reduce inflationary pressures by removing money from the money supply over a longer term. If not enough bonds are being sold, then either higher taxes or spending cuts are needed in a situation where high inflation is a danger. But that still doesn't require that government spending be financed by debt though. The ARRA is pretty much universally considered to be smaller than it needed to be, and misplaced deficit paranoia is why.

 

[Diablos]

Hillary is running the most bland and uninspired campaign on the Democratic side since Al Gore.

 

[Y2Kev]

Can't wait for Obama to endorse hilldawg :smooch

 

[HylianTom]

Someone @ PD.

Wow. Nice to wake-up to. Takes very little effort to read between the lines..

 

[User 406]

Well you know, Obama is establishment. :X

 

[Iolo]

Not sure if it was posted, but Rick Perry endorsed Cruz.

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/01/rick-perry-endorses-ted-cruz-218170

 

[NeoXChaos]

.

 

[B-Dubs]

Not sure if it was posted, but Rick Perry endorsed Cruz.

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/01/rick-perry-endorses-ted-cruz-218170

From one Texas asshole to another, the baton is passed.

 

[Black Republican]

.

surprised at Libertarian being kinda low

 

[Diablos]

Not sure if it was posted, but Rick Perry endorsed Cruz.

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/01/rick-perry-endorses-ted-cruz-218170

Texan Republican bro code.

 

[gutter_trash]

David Brooks: "It's Going To Be Rubio! I'm Telling You It's Going To Be Rubio!"

Looks at Florida polls......... looks at Brooks...... looks at Florida polls

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/poll-tr...big-edge-in-new-hampshire-and-south-carolina/

that 4% low energy

 

[Cheebo]

Someone wake me up when the primary is over and the Bernie crazies leave this thread.

 

[ItWasMeantToBe19]

......................................

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/02/01/the-duel-faceoff-ryan-lizza?mbid=social_twitter

 

[gutter_trash]

Someone wake me up when the primary is over and the Bernie crazies leave this thread.

Hibernate the rest of the winter; it should be a done deal when Spring rolls around with the flowers and the birds

 

[Makai]

 

[Cheebo]

.

I want to meet those who see civil rights and family values as negative terms.

 

[PBY]

I want to meet those who see civil rights and family values as negative terms.

To be honest - I could see "civil rights" as this weird trigger/buzzword for those who view BLM as a terrorist or hate group. Conversely, when I think of "family values" in the political sphere, I immediately go to: anti-gay marriage, anti-abortion, anti-marijuana and against various government welfare programs.

 

[Makai]

I want to meet those who see civil rights and family values as negative terms.

"Family values" is a negative for me. I hate traditionalism.

 

[pigeon]

Cool, the Pol in poligaf doesn't stand for policy or politics, but polls.

I'll note that and shut up.

Just ignore that stuff, I thought it was interesting. Much better than another back and forth about Bernie/Hillary.

 

[Iolo]

Texan Republican bro code.

Trump also made that crack about Perry's glasses. I wonder if that factors into it.

 

[Roland_Gunner]

"He was a smart and talented guy, but completely taken with himself and his own ideas. He would offer up opinions on everything, even matters outside his portfolio. He was a policy guy, but he would push his ideas on campaign strategy. He would send memos on everything to everyone. He would come to meetings where he wasn't invited—and wasn't wanted." In fact, this Bush alum recalls, "the quickest way for a meeting to end would be for Ted to come in. People would want out of that meeting. People wouldn't go to a meeting if they knew he would be there. It was his inability to be part of the team. That's exactly what he was: a big asshole."

Mother Jones has a story today on just how much Ted Cruz is hated by other Republicans. Its pretty amazing how almost everyone actively dislikes the guy. Its also somewhat impressive that Cruz has managed to get this close to the nomination while being incredibly unpopular.

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/01/ted-cruz-jerk-hated

 

[PBY]

Just saw those 2 new-ish NH polls... uhh is Rubio gonna come in 3rd?

http://elections.huffingtonpost.com/pollster/2016-new-hampshire-presidential-republican-primary

 

[gutter_trash]

"Family values" is a negative for me. I hate traditionalism.

I remember George H. W. Bush ran entirely on ''Family Values'' in 92 and got his ass whooped by Bill Clinton

Spoiler

(and Ross Perrot's involvement, lol)

''Family Values'' is a political code word for Pro-Life, Anti Planned Parenthood, against gay marriage, intrusion of the Church on family, against helping single mom's.

Anyone who remembers Bush-Quayle's campaign ads will know what I am talking about

Just saw those 2 new-ish NH polls... uhh is Rubio gonna come in 3rd?

http://elections.huffingtonpost.com/pollster/2016-new-hampshire-presidential-republican-primary

Trump needs to stop attacking Cruz because Cruz's loss seems to translate into gains for Rubio. Keep the opposition split Donny

 

[Makai]

http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/...-iowa-and-gets-a-lesson-in-humility?CMP=fb_gu

Trump has appeared to struggle to affirm his Christian credentials and during an hour-long service at Muscataine’s First Presbyterian Church, the Rev Dr Pamela Saturnia also indirectly questioned some of his policy positions.

“Jesus is teaching us today that he has come for those who are outside of the church,” she said, preaching a message of healing and acceptance for “those who are the most unloved, the most discriminated against, the most forgotten in our community and in our world”.

Among those she cited were “the Syrian refugees” and “the Mexican migrants”.

“I don’t know if that was aimed at me … perhaps,” Trump said after the service.

 

[PBY]

Trump needs to stop attacking Cruz because Cruz's loss seems to translate into gains for Rubio. Keep the opposition split Donny

The polls look to me as if Rubio is dropping though?

http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/...-iowa-and-gets-a-lesson-in-humility?CMP=fb_gu

Of course he is.

 

[Holmes]

I want to meet those who see civil rights and family values as negative terms.

I react negatively to the term family values as a gay man.

 

[HylianTom]

I remember George H. W. Bush ran entirely on ''Family Values'' in 92 and got his ass whooped by Bill Clinton

Spoiler

(and Ross Perrot's involvement, lol)

''Family Values'' is a political code word for Pro-Life, Anti Planned Parenthood, against gay marriage, intrusion of the Church on family, against helping single mom's.

Anyone who remembers Bush-Quayle's campaign ads will know what I am talking about

Trump needs to stop attacking Cruz because Cruz's loss seems to translate into gains for Rubio. Keep the opposition split Donny

Yup. I see "family values" and think of Mr Potatoehead fighting Murphy Brown, or Jerry Falwell, or the Moral Majority, etc etc.

 

[dramatis]

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/01/ted-cruz-jerk-hated

It's tough to pinpoint any one cause, but Cruz made female students uncomfortable by frequently walking to their end of the floor in his freshman dorm, wearing only a paisley bathrobe. When he announced his bid for president of the school's debate society, the other members had a secret meeting to pick an anyone-but-Cruz candidate. The eventual winner later acknowledged that "my one qualification for the office was that I was not Ted Cruz."

History repeats itself...

 

[ItWasMeantToBe19]

Every Republican presidential candidate's response to Flint is hideous and sad:

http://www.salon.com/2016/01/21/ted...er_in_flint_but_only_to_anti_abortion_groups/