Are you excited for the next big recession?

[Cutlass]

Is Obama a conservative?

He was much too conservative for the situation. And Congress was even more so in 2009, and then took a hard turn to the right. Liberals would have gotten through the 8 years with less than half the debt. Conservatives always fought for higher debt policies. They did in Britain as well.

Do central bank interest rates have any effect on taking on debt?

Nope. Congress chooses the amount of debt. They don't look at interest rates when they do so.

 

[Lexicus]

He was much too conservative for the situation. And Congress was even more so in 2009, and then took a hard turn to the right. Liberals would have gotten through the 8 years with less than half the debt. Conservatives always fought for higher debt policies. They did in Britain as well.

Had "liberals" succeeded in halving the debt in the crisis years it's likely we would still be in recession.

 

[El_Machinae]

Had "liberals" succeeded in halving the debt in the crisis years it's likely we would still be in recession.

Not sure if that's true. Liberals might have been much, much better at filling in the missing dollars from the bottom. The deleveraging would have been happening on the 19% credit cards and the 8% lines of credit. Meanwhile, the productive employment would have been focusing on products and services needed at the bottom as well.

If you look at the wealth transfer that happened to the 0.1%, it was an awfully, awfully expensive deleveraging process. Buying liquid assets from lenders and then still forcing the indebted to suffer through the bankruptcy process really doesn't help very much.

 

[Lexicus]

The only way to have addressed the crisis while keeping debt about half what it actually was would have been to do a bunch of things that I know the Democrats would never have done. They had the chance to do a lot of them in 2008-10 when they had control of the White House and Congress and they declined to do most of them.

 

[El_Machinae]

You're right. And your quotes around "liberal" were obvious. Mea culpa.

(still coulda been done with a much lower creation of and net transfer upwards of assets, obviously)

 

[Lexicus]

You're right. And your quotes around "liberal" were obvious. Mea culpa.

(still coulda been done with a much lower creation of and net transfer upwards of assets, obviously)

Well yeah, for example I'm on record arguing that we should have bailed out the underwater mortgage-holders rather than the banks. At the very least some conditions on bailout money should have been imposed.

The most important failure was the total lack of prosecution for the frauds, which effectively signaled the destruction of the rule of law in the United States, paving the way for Trump.

 

[Hehehe]

Nope. Congress chooses the amount of debt. They don't look at interest rates when they do so.

I wasn't talking about US government debt exclusively, although monetary policy does influence the cost of borrowing for governments too

 

[Cutlass]

Had "liberals" succeeded in halving the debt in the crisis years it's likely we would still be in recession.

That's not how it works. You halve the debt in the long run by the process of ending the recession. The total debt was as high as it was because the recession was allowed to drag on for 8 years.

I wasn't talking about US government debt exclusively, although monetary policy does influence the cost of borrowing for governments too

Sure. A tight money policy increases total debt. The irony here is that most of the people who are saying 'central bank bad' do so because they think money is too loose. But in the real world tight money causes the problems that they are complaining about.

 

[Lexicus]

That's not how it works. You halve the debt in the long run by the process of ending the recession. The total debt was as high as it was because the recession was allowed to drag on for 8 years.

Ah, I see what you mean. I still don't think you're exactly right. The Democrats had control in the first two years and the Republicans won back the House in 2010 in part because the Democrats hadn't done enough, and too much of what they had done was for Wall Street and not for the American people.

 

[Cutlass]

Ah, I see what you mean. I still don't think you're exactly right. The Democrats had control in the first two years and the Republicans won back the House in 2010 in part because the Democrats hadn't done enough, and too much of what they had done was for Wall Street and not for the American people.

You're making the mistake of conflating Democrats with liberals. You'll never understand American politics if you do that.

 

[Lexicus]

Oh, well in that case I apologize, and you're basically right. Except again what you call liberal I call socialist

 

[Cutlass]

Oh, well in that case I apologize, and you're basically right. Except again what you call liberal I call socialist

And this is why I do not want you on my side.

I do not want you to agree with me. Not on anything.

If you call it socialist, then you are my opponent. I am an opponent of socialism. Nothing that I want is socialism. And nothing that is socialism is anything that I want. Socialism has nothing to offer.

When you call liberalism socialism:

Then

You

Are

Working

For

Conservatism.

If you call liberalism socialism, conservatism wins.

There is no ifs ands or buts about this. When you call liberalism socialism, then you are working to cause conservatism to win. You are actively an opponent of what I am working for. You are as much of my enemy as Trump is, because you are choosing to give Trump a free win!

Not only are liberalism and socialism fundamentally different things, but the reason that liberalism exists, the reason it exists, is to prevent socialism.

It is not just that liberalism and socialism are diametrically opposed, it is that the term socialism is so fundamentally toxic in the American political context that it poisons anything that it is in contact with.

If you are going to call liberalism socialism,

I

Do

Not

Want

You

On

My

Side.

 

[Lexicus]

And this is why I do not want you on my side.

I do not want you to agree with me. Not on anything.

If you call it socialist, then you are my opponent. I am an opponent of socialism. Nothing that I want is socialism. And nothing that is socialism is anything that I want. Socialism has nothing to offer.

When you call liberalism socialism:

Then

You

Are

Working

For

Conservatism.

If you call liberalism socialism, conservatism wins.

There is no ifs ands or buts about this. When you call liberalism socialism, then you are working to cause conservatism to win. You are actively an opponent of what I am working for. You are as much of my enemy as Trump is, because you are choosing to give Trump a free win!

Not only are liberalism and socialism fundamentally different things, but the reason that liberalism exists, the reason it exists, is to prevent socialism.

It is not just that liberalism and socialism are diametrically opposed, it is that the term socialism is so fundamentally toxic in the American political context that it poisons anything that it is in contact with.

If you are going to call liberalism socialism,

I

Do

Not

Want

You

On

My

Side.

K, well, enjoy being atop the dustbin of history because my generation doesn't have this nonsense hangup

Also if you really think liberalism and socialism are diametrically opposed you should probably read more. Interestingly, the tankies who actually think Stalin was okay are in full agreement with you on this point.

 

[Broken_Erika]

K, well, enjoy being atop the dustbin of history because my generation doesn't have this nonsense hangup

Sure thing, Comrade Lexicus.

 

[Lexicus]

Sure thing, Comrade Lexicus.

https://news.gallup.com/poll/191354/americans-views-socialism-capitalism-little-changed.aspx

That's from 2016 so I imagine 55 has only gone up since then

 

[Chose]

https://news.gallup.com/poll/191354/americans-views-socialism-capitalism-little-changed.aspx

View attachment 498851

That's from 2016 so I imagine 55 has only gone up since then

Do you have any historical data on this? That would be much more useful. You have to tease out the "I'm young and I know how to fix the world" variable. I would guess young people have almost always had more positive views towards socialism than their older counterparts.

 

[Ajidica]

Not only are liberalism and socialism fundamentally different things, but the reason that liberalism exists, the reason it exists, is to prevent socialism.

I dunno, Liberalism and Socialism got along rather well in the UK 1945-1979.

 

[Quintillus]

Excited might be a bit of an exaggeration, but in some ways I am looking forward to it. The biggest one being that it would show the Donald and his supporters that he isn't such a hotshot after all, despite all those stock market Tweets last year. And from a future of the country standpoint, that would be a very good thing. Putin had the benefit of managing Russia for a decade of strong growth, which he got credited for and was able to fall back on. We don't need that here.

I've also decided not to buy a house till the next recession. House prices have been going up rather quickly where I am; it's an extreme seller's market. My rent's been stable, so I haven't bought (though new apartments tend to be quite pricey). Between the stable rent, flexibility, and the possibility that we're in the equivalent of 2007, however, I've decided the prudent choice is to continue renting a couple years, and then buy during the next recession. Admittedly I also kind of like renting and not having the maintenance of a house, so I'm not in a hurry to buy from that perspective either.

An interesting article I read on the topic recently is this one on the yield curve. Assuming current patterns continue, I interpret it as saying a recession is likely in the next 12-30 months; other signs pointing in that direction include the time since the last one and the emerging trade war. Accordingly, while not abandoning the market or stopping investment (especially for retirement accounts, which are long-term for me), I've been diversifying (particularly internationally, including Asia), and putting more of my new savings into fixed-return assets.

 

[sophie]

I don't generally take pleasure in the suffering of others, no.

 

[Lexicus]

Do you have any historical data on this? That would be much more useful. You have to tease out the "I'm young and I know how to fix the world" variable. I would guess young people have almost always had more positive views towards socialism than their older counterparts.

Historical data is much less useful than you might think given that the economy young people inhabit in 2018 is different in many important respects from the economy young people inhabited even in the 2000s. What makes people conservative is not aging but accumulating a stake in the status quo, embodied most of all by the ownership of property.

Do you think that the generation of people who have come of age during and after the financial crisis have much of a stake in the status quo? I'm better-off than probably 90% of it and I think the system we currently live under is going to kill us all if we don't tear it down as fast as possible.

The biggest one being that it would show the Donald and his supporters that he isn't such a hotshot after all, despite all those stock market Tweets last year.

Come on, you don't seriously believe that the minds of Trump and his supporters will change to respond to reality do you?