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So, now long term projections mean nothing? You guys need to make up your mind!! Or is it only okay when it fits your narrative?

Replace "same sex" with "interracial" and give me your answer.

The truth hurts bro. http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/spending_chart_2008_2017USp_XXs1li111mcn_G0f

Sick. Now, you're just knocking people for doing whatever they have to do to get by. If you haven't noticed, jobs aren't plentiful and ones that are available don't pay well. How you could chastise workers for wanting a bigger piece of the pie is beyond me. Keep sticking up for big business, you're fighting the good fight! I think when some of you get all ideological over this crap, you fail to realize real people are !@#$ing losing in the system we've set up. Earnings and profits are soaring and we see no return. Minimum wage is still $3 under what it should be adjusted for inflation. There is no more upward mobility in the job market. These problems are real, but keep cracking "jokes".

Biased much?? Those people with all the money don't create all that wealth on their own. Workers do some of that. A simple fact is that high inequality of wealth/incomes has an adverse effect on the economy. Keep squeezing out that last ounce of profit until there is none left... So are we just pretending the gap is just between "fat cats" and occupy people?? Wow. We're talking about blue collar workers, teachers, or anyone else in the middle class. Their wages have been stagnant of declining for years. It's a real problem but you keep living in fantasy land.

People aren't going to listen. Krugman is mostly right although I may not go as far as him to ignore entitlements completely but the #1 priority should be economic and job growth. Worrying about the year 2025 just hampers growth now. Long-term budget projections are a lot of the time useless because so many things can happen that changes the outlook like wars, a 9/11 type attack, a financial crisis like in 2007, etc. There can be positive booms as well that aren't predicted. (although, I don't see that happening this day in age) What Krugman points out is pretty simple: People want to cut benefits now for the sake of not having to cut them in the future. The cuts or tax increases are coming regardless. Paul Krugman is essentially a Post-Keynesian economist at this point. He isn't even part of a mainstream economic view. He, like most Keynesians only care about the short-term so it his opinion on this matter shouldn't surprise anybody.

Raising taxes for me has nothing to do with balancing the budget. Tax policy should be used to close the giant inequality of wealth and income.

Laughing at people claiming Obama raised their taxes. The payroll taxes were going up no matter what. It's not like he added some tax increase in the fiscal cliff deal. Maybe you should thank him for the extension of other tax credits instead...

Most rational Obama supporters understood that the payroll tax cut would be gone. Everybody should have known this really. I'm still delving into the details of the deal and I'm liking some things. For me, the main goal was to avoid harming the economic growth we have going and unemployment going back up. This deal will probably at least make that less likely in the short-term. Glad to see spending not take a big hit in 2013. However, I think unemployment benefit extension should have seen the chopping block. I like what the deal did for the most part with taxes. Now, we need to get to work on social programs reforms that make them operational for the long-term and grow ourselves out of these deficits.

This guy.

Wahhhhhhh, I'm a victim!! "Blame the media!" "Oh, I'm part of the media??" "I'm talking about the rest of the media!"

He ran for an office he didn't want for 5+ years?! Okay...

All politics still from both sides. Ugh...

He wasn't "crazy" enough for the Republican Party I know...

Speaking of Messina, he said that Jon Huntsman would have been a pretty tough candidate to beat in the general election. I know many Democrats and Moderates who liked him, including me. Link to comments: http://www.politico....-candidate.html

It just looks bad. Funny how the Republican party also threw Mitt under the bus after he made comments that they would have appraised just weeks or months earlier. I didn't really believe this myth of a conservative news bubble before but I'm starting to see it a little bit. You guys believe nothing except right wings news sites and radio.

Haha. It is a Graduate level course so I hope I learn something! Don't think I'm taking it anyways because of scheduling conflicts. But, you're probably right that I will learn more from Chef!

"Jobless recovery" refers to the fact that unemployment continued to rise even after the recession ended. Happened over the last 3 recessions dating back to 1990-91. We were discussing this recently in my Macro class. We came up with an idea that businesses wait until recessions are now officially deemed over by the NBER. That usually happens about 6 months after it actually ends. It's now a topic I plan on researching possibly for a paper.

Honestly, I am not entirely familiar with actual estate planning and the taxation of it. (Although an "Estate Planning and Taxation" class is offered this Spring). I'd like to see ways to protect current operating businesses if the owner were to pass away. I'm sure there are ways to do this already. I'm not an expert on it so I couldn't tell you how. People manage to pass down a lot of wealth down to heirs despite the taxation.

Stagnant may have been bad word choice. But, growth in the years after the giant crisis has not been all that different than before it. Real growth is tough for an economy that doesn't make things anymore (or as much as it used to). The housing market was a big reason for what growth we did see before the downturn. That was essentially "false growth" because as we all know now, it was a huge bubble and it all went down the drain. Take into consideration that incomes have flattened out and you see that we have ourselves a long term problem that has been going on for a while. I think we are making some strides in coming back by pushing education for higher skilled jobs in the medical, engineering, and energy fields. Gone are the days where you can make a great living working at the local manufacturing plant. I'd love to hear why this recovery is weaker according to you. 2002 to 2006 we did some growth but it was a facade basically. It was all based off of pushing the ownership society so everyone could own a house. That's not real growth. It all evaporated after 2007-2008. Everyday people didn't see any payoff from it.

I think an NFL Franchise is an extreme situation so I'm not exactly sure how to approach it. They are worth so much money now.

Sure.

^^^ All recessions are not created equal. There has been stagnant growth in the U.S. for 10 years now. There isn't some magic bullet fix.

HA. Equal opportunity right? Isn't that what the right usually argues for? I am a supporter of the estate tax. The 0% rate a few years ago was ridiculous. Steinbrenner made out though. I do not want to see the rates go to 55% and $1M exclusion. The exclusion has to be higher than that. I'd go with a compromise of $5M exclusion with 40-45% tax rate. Either that or make special exemptions for farmers. EDIT: I don't understand the title of thread either. These rates that go into effect are not Obama. Just reverting to prior rates.

Sour grapes still PPP?? Looks pathetic.