Bu-bu-but the undeniable truth!

Just because the right thinks they have made references to the causes of our economic crisis off limits doesn't mean the rest of us have to agree with that idiotic and conveniently partisan idea. The plain fact is we cannot figure out how to repair the damage done to the economy without recognizing what the damage was and who caused it.

"Isn't this following the Reagan deficits-don't-matter prescription?"

Either you didn't read the editorial Ray or you're just being dishonest, neither I nor the authors of the editorial ever said deficits don't matter. I have been screaming about deficits from the first posts I ever made here. Be that as it may, when Obama entered the WH we were also dealing with a huge recession which further reduced taxes flowing into the Treasury on top of the Bush tax cuts. We will not cut our way out of this kind of recession, we have to grow the economy and we won't do that by cutting right now. Once the economy is growing again then sensible cuts can be considered but not until or else we may as well just throw in the towel because big cuts in spending now will just start the swirling motion as the economy is flushed.
We have two choices. ONe we can do it Obama's way, no big cuts, tax incentives to get higing moving, increase exports, let the Bush tax cuts expire for those making over $250,000.
or
We can do it RAy's way and start massive cuts in spending. When we begin this watch the stock market crash, employers fire millions, unemployment benefits run out for millions, welfare end for millions, etc. Then what will you have??? You'll have millions of pissed off, hungry, stupid people with lots of guns. Good luck with that Ray, I am sure no one will bother the guy who brags about how much gold he has. Oh, and you think you'll run away to a better place, think again, that depression will be worldwide.

"Taxes and regulations wrecked the manufacturing base we would have needed for a recovery."

You are full of crap tool. That is hilarious that you would even try to trot out that tired old disproven talking point.
Get fucking real, cheap wages overseas wiped out manufacturing, low capital gains taxes and lower income tax rates compounded the problem by eliminating incentive to reinvest profits into manufacturing capacity.
Interesting that Germany's manufacturing capacity is still doing fine though they tax their citizens more than we do and provide a much better safety net too.

"OK Danni, lets tax our business at the same 15% rate as the germans."

Be fine with me but let's also collect all 15%. We may have high tax rates but we don't have a high rate of tax collection on corporations. There are so many ways to avoid them that many companies pay little or none.

"WASHINGTON Two-thirds of U.S. corporations paid no federal income taxes between 1998 and 2005, according to a new report from Congress."

BTW that is why I say that high corporate tax rates is really just a talking point and is not the basic problem that led to the dismantling of our manufacturing base.

"Union demands for excessive pay and benefits that management stupidly agreed to, combined with excessive tax rates, ineffective trade tarriffs, as well as general cost of living generated by our own success forced companies to move overseas seeking less expensive ways of doing business."

Then tell me why Germany's manufacturing sector is still doing just fine. Clue. Nothing "forced" American corporations to outsource. Anyone remember when Nike was one of the pioneers of this concept....manufacturing shoes for less than $1.00 but selling them here for $100+????
Nothing forced Nike to do that, profit motivated it.

"Perhaps that will clarify what we need to do today, rather than try to win battles that have already been fought."

In other words make economic policies based on nothing more intelligent than talking points. Don't consider the ramifications of decisions, just let simpletons parrot right wing talkers who were claiming deficits don't matter not that long ago.
More brilliance from the simplistic right

"FRANKFURT, Germany (AP) Manufactured goods are still powering Germany's thriving exports, and there is little sign of the country's services sector catching up, according to a survey published Monday by a leading research organization."

"It is really sad if you think corporations make business decisions based upon political affiliation."

It would be even sadder if that is what you got from my posts, it shows a need for some remedial reading classes. And no, I am not a government employee nor do I base my arguments on some liberal blog. I have been preaching the same economic theories since long before I ever posted here, and I've been posting here for a long time.

"Replacing them with offshoring brings immediate cost savings," Mr Vedala said."

Exactly as I said, reduced labor costs are the motivation for outsourcing. Now, it remains to be seen if the EU will allow their market to be undercut with imported goods. Americans fell for the baloney that we'd replace manufacturing with a service economy. Now we're quickly discovering much of that can also be outsourced. Hopefully for Europeans they won't be as dumb as Americans. They haven't been on other topics so I doubt they will be on this.

""Tax and spend," or "spend and tax" seems like ground-breaking work!"

It would certainly be superior to what we have had these past thirty years....borrow and spend.
And no, I don't live beyond my means do you???
Your stupid attempts to argue by use of personal attack reveal your obvious lack of any knowledge on economics at all, not that I'm an expert, but it wasn't rocket science to notice that when REagan cut taxes and created our first multi-trillion dollar debt that REaganomics was snake oil. My "economic theory" is simply get rid of Reaganomics and go back to the sensible polices of Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Nixon, Ford, Carter.

"I am sure many people on this site would agree with me."

I am a proud Democrat, it shouldn't surprise you that I agree with the Democratic Party.

"Translated---I don't think for myself and wouldn't hold dumbocrats accountable for doing the same things I would hold repuklicans accountable for."

You can't argue against the ideas of the editorial nor my own so you pretend that you have an argument by saying I am partisan. It simply isn't my fault that the Republican Party did indeed pass the tax cuts and started the wars that brought the US to where it is today, with the help of Bill Clinton signing NAFTA and pushing for "free" but unfair trade. Funny thing, on trade, me and Pat Buchanan aren't far apart, is he a Democrat spouting Democratic talking points??? Do you think Obama is saying what I am saying about trade??? He only recently announced his opposition to the Bush tax cuts being allowed to expire, he hinted before but many of us didn't really know which way he would go on it. I also disagreed witht the DNC position on health care, far too willing to give up the Public Option and unwilling to use nuclear option or reconciliation.

"The 1980's were good for me."

My kids will still be paying the debts left behind from the 80's through taxes. I'm glad you got yours, the hell with their generation, right???

"Clinton stole monies essentially from the intergovernmental holdings to pay down expenses on the public debt,"

All that argument says is that taxes still weren't high enough under Clinton. I have always thought that the highest rates needed to be back near pre-Reagan levels when we did not incur debt.

"In any event, the implication of those "sensible" policies of the 60's and 70's was stagflation."

WE had one period of stagflation following Nixon/Ford and the Vietnam war. Yes it was a problem but Carter finally appointed Volker who used high interest rates and got it under control. Unfortunately the "cure" also caused a deep recession. That in no way justified the REagan tax cuts which did appear to bring us out of the recession but just as did the Bush tax cuts it was all borrowed money fueling the economy and left huge debts behind.

" If you would EVER bother to look at facts, you would see income for the government went UP from thoes tax cuts."

"Reagan muscled through a major tax cut in 1981, he followed up by raising taxes in 1982, 1983, 1984 and 1986. In 1983, in fact, he not only raised payroll taxes; he raised them to pay for Social Security and Medicare"

"If you can, with a straight face, defend Carter's handling of the U.S. economy, then you are truly a shameless shill for anything with a (D) after its name."

I don't have to defend it, Reagan did that by continuing his policies and keeping Paul Volker on as Chairman of the Fed.

"Many domestic companies had to move their manufacturing fascilities overseas to survive. Of course, you would spin that into some version of economic terrorism."

Sure, after we eliminated most tariffs that protected those industries while our competition overseas did not. It isn't a level playing field and China and Japan and S. Korea laugh at the stupid Americans.

"First, tariffs impoverish consumers."

We've had tariffs in the US since the beginning of our country. TAriffs protect jobs which prevent poverty, so no tariffs do not impoverish consumers they actually have had the opposite effect. Tariffs kept the labor market small enough that wages had to rise thereby enabling workers to become consumers. Free trade is actually impoverishing most American consumers by reducing their incomes though exploding labor markets allowing workers in Communist China to compete with workers here in America. The only real beneficiaries of free trade are our trading competitors and the transnational corporations, Americans for the most part suffer under "free trade" which is not fair trade.

"Every intervention in the market has unintended consequences."

Free trade was an intervention in a market and yes it had unintended(?) consequences....like falling wages and unemployment.

Sheeple, make your point don't frame it in questions.

"earlier you claimed to be a proud democrat and yet that party has bought into the notion 100% that free trade is good.....meaning that the position of the dems is virtually the same as the repubs."

I don't agree with them on that but I am still a Democrat, they will come around to my way of thinking before Republicans will. Already Obama has raised tariffs on tires and some other goods. I think they are beginning to reevaluate the whole free trade concept. Now Obama is saying he wants to double exports within five years, something has to change pretty dramatically to make that happen.

"We have had very low unemployment in this country in the past and that didn't eliminate poverty."

Not completely but poverty before the New Deal was the norm in this country. When we created the large middle class we eliminated a huge portion of the poverty in this country.

"Don't stump for tariffs like it will solve more problems that possible."

I don't know that it would solve much but I think we need to do something quick. It just seems to me that we should be charging our competitors the same as they charge us.
I found this site interesting. Seems to me that we virtually agreed to finance China's new economy and I doubt many Americans would approve of the deal.

China-US Agreement on China's WTO Accession

"China's got us bent over a barrel."

It is purely voluntary on our part, unfortunately our trade policy benefits the corporate profiteers who outsource for cheap labor but costs Americans their source of income. As long as we let them the corporate importersof cheap manufactured goods will drain our economy of wealth which will flow to themselves and China but not to most Americans.

"Corporations started moving jobs overseas long before Bush was President."

One of John Kerry's campaign promises was to change tax laws to penalize companies that outsource jobs.

NOOBAMA just doesn't like folks who deal in facts instead of talking points.

130 posts and really no a single real refutation of what the NYT editorial says, mostly just poor examples of name calling, etc. When confronted with facts the right has few effective arguments and thus falls back on their same tired talking points.

"This is the first shot in what is a complete turnabout of Obama's campaign agenda. Neither side recognizes it, but Obama has been listening exclusively to Wall Street fatcats."

I keep hoping that's not the case but every day it seems more likely that it is.

"As you can see, 9/11/01 had quite an impact. Don't forget the WTC. After 2004 it started back down again but then 2008. I guess nancy and harry just couldn't help themselves."

Well, something definitely did make the deficit increase but it is sort of ridiculous to claim that the destruction of the WTC was the main thing responsible when in the same year the one of the largest taxs cuts in history was passed.

"Facing opposition in Congress for an initially proposed $1.6 trillion tax cut (over ten years),[22] Bush held town hall-style public meetings across the nation in 2001 to increase public support for it. Bush and some of his economic advisers argued that unspent government funds should be returned to taxpayers. With reports of the threat of recession, Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan said tax cuts could work but must be offset with spending cuts.[23] Bush argued that such a tax cut would stimulate the economy and create jobs. In the end, five Senate Democrats crossed party lines to join Republicans in approving a $1.35 trillion[24] tax cut program one of the largest in U.S. history."