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PoliticalGround >> attn: thirdleg, marck, and other neocons
| 3/14/09 1:59 AM | |
Buddhadev
12 
Member Since: 1/1/01 Posts: 3514 |
jimmydoylee - Obama will fail, same as Carter, and every other far left fruit cake over the past century. Just a matter of time. Libs refuse to learn from history. I agree, but the GOP turned down their one guy (Ron Paul) who could have stopped him |
| 9/24/09 3:34 PM | |
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Buddhadev
12
Member Since: 1/1/01 Posts: 3714 |
Let's see how "temporary" (as Info claims) this meltdown is: - Gold is practically at the same heights it reached at the top of the housing/asset bubble -- pointing to weakening dollar - If we calculated unemployment the same way we did during the Great Depression, we'd be close to those levels and have seen no signs of it improving - We're approaching deficits that are greater than the size that the entire national debt was when I was born. Hmm...sounds like this "temporary" problem has the potential of being just as "temporary" as the Great Depression or 1970's stagflation were. |
| 9/24/09 3:34 PM | |
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Buddhadev
12
Edited: 09/24/09 4:12 PM Member Since: 1/1/01 Posts: 3715 |
| 9/25/09 12:58 PM | |
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Buddhadev
12
Member Since: 1/1/01 Posts: 3717 |
rock, Are you a neocon? (look at the diagnostic questions I asked Thirdleg above) |
| 9/29/09 8:33 PM | |
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Buddhadev
12
Member Since: 1/1/01 Posts: 3720 |
^^^Gee, and here I thought we were friends. ;-) Maybe you'd feel friendlier to me if you and I entered into an economic arrangement wherein I built things and loaned you the money to buy them from me? I think the most interesting thing coming from this exchange might (inadvertently) have been Squatdog's participation--because of the questions that his charges against you beg. He seemed to be quite eager to rake you over the coals on the areas where he disagrees with you, but doesn't seem terribly eager to engage the issue of the degree to which your ideologies harmonize and depend on many of the same foundational assumptions. |
| 9/26/10 9:14 PM | |
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Buddhadev
12
Member Since: 1/1/01 Posts: 3950 |
Hey Info, Not sure if you're following this thread or not still: Gold closing in on 1300. Dollar index back below 80. Unemployment at 9.6% Still think our problems are NOT structural? |
| 9/27/10 10:06 PM | |
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Buddhadev
12
Edited: 09/28/10 2:36 AM Member Since: 1/1/01 Posts: 3951 |
Information - Yes. (On a side note: Yay! I'm glad you're still on this thread! The offer to buy you a beer if you're ever in the Seattle/Tacoma area still stands!) Look, seriously-- you need to take a Macroeconomics course. Now. I'd tell you when I took Macroeconomics, but that would highlight my age and make me feel depressed about being old, so I'll dispense with that. Interestingly enough, I got more out of my high school Marco class than my college one because in the former case, I didn't care about my grade and so happily ate up entire class periods arguing with the teacher. More sadly, in my college econ class, many people were, like me, working students who didn't really challenge the professor at all and probably came out of that class believing that Paul Krugman is either the second coming of Jesus or the tenth avatar of Vishnu. Fortunately for me, I've had a curious mind and enough self-learning to realize that labor and capital actually have to PRODUCTIVE rather than just ACTIVE and that the bipartisan consensus behind our current policies is unsustainable for the country.
Your claims are patently ludicrous! You go from pontificating about me being ripped and athletic when I started partaking in unhealthy foods, smoking, late nights, and alcohol and to now having health on par with Barney from the Simpsons...because I partook in unhealthy foods, smoking, late nights, and alcohol! (Info, I've debated with you often enough that I can see it coming a mile away when you run with sophistries, rhetorical games, ridicule, and over-simplifications. Instead of trying to "win" or embarrass me, look deep into why you believe what you do and present a counter argument that substantively addresses what I've said. I don't mean to come off preachy when I say this.)
I've taken a look at what's going on in our economy and country. The conclusions I've drawn, unfortunately, won't win me too many friends at cocktail parties thrown by people who read The New Republic or The Atlantic, but I don't see any alternative until someone provides a logical and factual refutation rather than just snottiness. |
| 7/12/11 1:56 AM | |
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Buddhadev
12
Member Since: 1/1/01 Posts: 3996 |
A few years into it...gold is at 1500, unemployment is still north of 9% (and it's been going back up in recent months), budget deficit is two trillion and climbing, we're facing the possibility of an actual debt default, moody's has talked about downgrading the AAA rating of us treasuries, and if all this wasn't bad enough our sugar daddy China is seeing its growth cool off and its diversifying its reserves. But apparently this is all still "temporary" and we can't POSSIBLY consider voting for Ron Paul and changing course away from our Invade-the-World/Invite-the-World path. |
| 7/12/11 7:40 PM | |
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Buddhadev
12
Member Since: 1/1/01 Posts: 3998 |
If you'll notice, I actually tend to quote you line by line and reply to each assertion. I guess you can feel free to show me some argument you made which you feel I didn't address. If this is a structural weakness, which part of our economy's structure changed between the "boom times" and now? Which "boom time" specifically? Boom time as defined by what? GDP growth? Low misery index? Financial health of all levels of gov't? I don't necessarily see GDP growth as always being an end in and of itself or always the best indicator of the economy's health (afterall we have GDP growth both now and through all of the 0's decade and neither of those were economic situations I'd consider healthy). I'm not trying to be difficult, I'm genuinely trying to make an effort to establish some definable and understandable context to give you a good answer to your question. In *general* however, every economy is always some mix of allocation of resources to productive ends and unproductive ends/malinvestment. To the extent that "now" differs to some time whose policies I'd prefer, it's because we're structured to allocate more resources to things that are not productive (social welfare, law enforcement beyond a certain level, education beyond a certain level, war/defense, entitlement programs). |
| 7/12/11 10:23 PM | |
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Buddhadev
12
Member Since: 1/1/01 Posts: 3999 |
Info: I'm rereading a lot of what I wrote and I came off and more snide and sniping that I wanted to. I apologize for any disrespect that may have come through in my tone. At the end of the day, part of the reason that I "bump" our debates is that I think you're a genuinely intelligent guy. Being that I'm not someone who's emotionally attached to my views, many of the questions I ask and arguments I make are because I'm genuinely trying to understand where you're coming from. Just out of curiosity (and I don't mean to derail our current conversation...please continue that one as well), where are you on our current Libya policy and our campaigns in Yemen and Pakistan? Also, what is your opinion on our troop reduction in Iraq--both in terms of whether or not you endorsed such a policy and what you see happening as a result of it. |
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