TPS

Speaking from experience???

For both of you partisan hacks, there was a recession during Bush1's term; there was no recession at the start of Clinton's 8 years. For Bush2, the recession began before his term started--it began at the end of Clinton's term. It may be true that Bush2 is the only president since WWII to begin and end his term in recession, but that's not assigning blame, especially in terms of him inheriting the first one. As for what to expect, from my new favorite prognosticator: Roubini

The easy plan is to do the Chippewa scene, and there is quite a mix of bars there. If you're going to do the walking tour, then I'd start about 4pm. If you make it back to Chippewa and close the place down at 4am, then you are my idol.....

Best thread I've seen here in months.

Better yet, here's my assessment of that walk. 1. Goodbars: the ultimate dive bar. A good 20 beers on tap, and a nice patio to observe the little coeds walking down from the college. 2. Coles, the classic Buffalo bar. Another 20 beers on tap. Good Guiness, and maybe get your wings here (or try the Buffalo Shrimp--a take on wings). 3. Bullfeathers is next. Again, lots of beer choices, strange crowd. 4. Next up, the old "No Names" at the corner of Bidwell and Elmwood. Can't remember what it's called now, but a great place to sit for one of their many micro brews on tap. 5. Things get a bit dicey from here. Ok, maybe you can take your first trip to the east side of the street when you reach Merlins. Classic biker bar and a great little patio out front. Always have live music on Saturdays. Beer selection sucks, unless all you need is Blue or Molson. 6. A few blocks from there, you hit pay dirt again. You can stop in at Mode, but it's a bit too yuppity/artsy-fartsy. Go straight to Toro. Yeah, it's really a restaurant, but the scenery, read that as hot babes, is great. Besides, when you're ready for your next real beer, Faherty's is right next door. Have the Murphy's there, and play some tunes on the juke. 7. Better have a couple at Faherty's, because the next bar is a little hike. You basically need to walk to Allen at this point. Again, I'd recommend a trip to the East side just before Allen street, with a stop at Cozumel--best deck on the Elmwood strip. Might as well do a shot of tequila here. 8. Ok, now it's time to take a little detour. Turn right on Allen, and you have your hands full. There's Mulligan's Brick bar, the old pink (now something else), and The Allen Street Hardware Cafe (or something like that), which will have one of the best beer selections in the city. After that, head across the street and do Nietzsches--probably a cover because of live music, but always good. 9. At this point, a big decision to make. Do you wander back down Elmwood to the Hampton and Chippewa? OR do you head east on Allen toward Colter Bay? I suggest the latter. Colter Bay is another great beer bar. Of course, you will have to stop at Gabriel's Gate before you reach Colter BAy. 10. After Colter Bay, you've got Gallaghers, then head down Virginia. 11. On Virginia you've got Fat Bobs, Mothers, and Scarlet's (for the hot professional babe crowd). In fact, once you're done with Virginia, go back on the Delaware Ave side of that block and stop at "The Snooty Fox" (another babe hangout), and Stillwaters--very impressive upscale place. 12. From here, it's just a hop, skip, and a jump back to Chippewa, assuming you are still standing. Good luck.

There ought to be enough Bills' fans going to the game to hitch a ride with someone for a beer, or seven.... Yes, staying in the city at the Hampton is the choice. The suburbs suck. Friday (or Saturday) night catch the bus down Elmwood to Coles (or start at Goodbar's next door). Then start walking back and make a stop at every bar on the west side of the street. You'll never make it if you do both sides...

Enlighten me...the republicans passed it without any support from the democratic majority? How did the reagan revolution occur when the democrats were in power? Which is it? The democrats were responsible for only the increased spending and not the tax cuts?

Stupid me. All this time I was arguing that the Reagan tax cuts didn't do what they claimed. sh--, it was the democrats who were responsible for the "reagan revolution." Ok, I now believe supply-side was responsible for the expansion of the 1980s, but not the recession of 1991-2; and it set the foundation for the expansion of the 1990s. Way to go democrats!!!!

I think I said something similar when you finally admitted that tax cuts would intially cause a decrease in tax revenues, only I substituted "keynesian" for s-s. Does this mean you agree the impact is from spending and not saving? Because that is the difference. Keynesian fiscal policy has always described the possibility of using increased spending or tax cuts to spark the economy, and the initial impact is an increase in the deficit--just as the evidence shows (better run a lap in reverse now...). The difference is we keynesians argue that the impact comes from increased spending by consumers, which has the secondary effect of increased spending by businesses as their sales increase. As for deficits, if you look at the history of the debate, conservatives (and conservative economists) were the ones who argued deficits were bad. Since the republicans' supply-side borrow and spend policies have caused the largest deficits, conservatives now are in the "deficits don't matter camp." Your (and my) view on deficits is the standard keynesian view.

Yes.

sh--! Sorry I missed this. This is so ironic. When I was in grad school conservative economists, those who would've been under Reagan or Bush1, argued that deficits do matter. My group, the other side, argued they don't;rather, it depends on where you are in the business cycle. In the current mess, when the private sector isn't borrowing, the government can borrow until the cows come home to suport spending. However, if we're in the middle of an expansion, then government borrowing competes with private borrowing. The impact will depend on whether the FED thinks it needs to constrain borrowing. Now that the right, the republicans, have borrowed so much, they HAVE to argue that deficits don't matter--they have no choice. Thier platform is borrow and spend. And the right wiing idiots here still support that crap.

As I've stated quite often, the initial impact (first year or two) is lower revenues when you cut rates--simple math. And tax cuts will increase spending because you've increased after-tax income. The difference between us is that I believe they have a greater impact if you cut rates for those who spend, you believe they have a greater impact if you cut rates for those who save--true?. Of course as the economy eventually expands, from the expansionary fiscal policy tax cut, revenues increase as more people find jobs and incomes increase--that's why I said you need to compare years with similar unemployment rates. And, as you correctly point out, if one is lucky to have a bouyant stock market, you also get a nice cap gains impact on personal revenues. While that helped clinton, what helped even more was the fact that greenspan let the economy continue to grow, allowing unemployment to fall below 6%, what was believed to be the "natural rate of unemployment." Can you figure out what happens to tax revenues when an extra 2-3 million people are working?

Was there a real estate tax code change under bush that caused the bubble? You dance around quicker than FredAStaire. I tell you the difference between 20% and 18.8% represents some real $, and you bring in the "Clinton bad" retort. Pot calling kettle black! Look, if you want to make a relatively decent comparison, take two years that are similar in terms of unemployment. For both, in their 6th years in office, unemployment under Clnton was 4.5%, and for bush it was 4.6%. Since people who work pay taxes, it "normalizes" the comparison when the unemployment rates roughly equivalent. In those years, total revenue under clinton was 20%, and peronal federal income tax revenues were 9.6%. For Bush, the numbers are 18.5% and 8.0%. In addition, cap gains taxes were the same, so the main difference was the personal tax rates. Hope this isn't too tehnical... The background is different from 20-40 years ago...no sh-- sherlock. Btw, how many times do I have to tell you that I am focusing on your supply-side rhetoric that tax cuts lead to higher revenues? Look, tax cuts can stimulate short run growth--that's standard keynesian policy because people have more after-tax inome to spend. However, deficits increase in the short run because of this. As growth picks up and unemployment falls revenues do rise. As for the long run, growth is a function of technology (productivity) and labor force growth. Sure, low taxes helped lure mncs to Ireland, but they wouldn't have come if there wasn't an educated workforce--taxes alone don't explain it.

As they say, you can never have enough "Corner(s)"....

NY magazine

BAck at you--the difference is that Bush pursued your S-Side policies--majority of tax cuts for the top brackets, which I would argue (probably) exacerbated the financial crisis becuase the "wealthy" now have even more funds with which to speculate--errr...invest, and since equities were going nowhere, dump it into real estate. 3% is the average real growth of the US economy since 1950--it's just a fact. Yes, I guess it would be asking too much to see how real gdp growth under bush2 compares to that? My theory? You Supply-siders claim that tax cuts for the top lead to higher than normal growth, more tax revenues, capital formation, blah, blah, blah...but the facts have never supported the religion. The most significant impacts of supply-side policies, in both cases it was tested, were larger deficits, no better than average growth, and increased inequality. I guess when the facts let you down, you can always claim a new target--oh...ummm...we need to compare the policy change to other developed countries...yeah, that's the ticket... Last I looked, the revenues as a % of GDP were 18.8%, which might seem close to 20%, but that "little difference" of 1.2% means we're losing $170 billion in revenue from a $14 trillion economy... Btw, it's "Bush policies bad," not Bush bad. And, for the umpteenth time, I am not criticizing tax cuts, I am criticizing the predicted impact S-Sers claimed the cuts would have--I'm criticizing YOUR theory, one which sounds good in the classroom or on conservative message boards, but the reality, that's another matter... Ps. My platform is still (temporarily) cut the social security tax to put money into the hands of those who buy goods&services.

Christ...you've disarmed me...no, you are not christ...it was an expression...

Oh boy, your response is "what would the other guys have done." Put the onus on me, because you can't explain it. Well...you and I have been debating the efficacy of "supply side" economics forever. You were touting how great things were for that one, maybe two, year(s). Given the 7+ years of Bush2's (SS) economic policies, please enlighten us on how "successful" they have been. Where has all the "capital formation" gone? You are so quick to criticize everything but your own beliefs. Please explain why the Bush2 tax cuts didn't create more than 1 year of above 3% real gdp growth. And 3% is the average, which means every other year was below average. All you other homers can chime in too....

I understand. It must be difficult when all you have room for is the "I'm arrogant prick chart."

That was the point of my original post, as the quote by Keynes indicated: "Speculators may do no harm as bubbles on a steady stream of enterprise. But the position is serious when enterprise becomes a bubble on a whirlpool of speculation. When the capital development of a country becomes a by-product of the activities of a casino, the job is likely to be ill done." Speculators are fine when they are the minority players in the market, but when they dominate markets, "the job is likely to be ill done." The futures markets were created to provide actual dealers with the ability to hedge price risk. When you allow "investors" to dominate these (relatively) thin markets, we get the kind of volatility we're currently experiencing, and the manipulation. This says it all:

Of course Pollyanna... There have always been financial innovations --or evolution of finance--which support the continued expansion of debt (Minsky wrote about this some 40+ years ago). There have always been bubbles, speculation, crashes, recessions, etc (I mentioned a book by Charles Kindleberger on the long history of finacial crises). His analysis (as well as those of Keynes and Minsky) focuses on the macro variables. There have been real estate bubbles before securitization. For someone who's predictions haven't been all that great, you're being a bit picayune. So all we need to do to end this is let banks carry their (mortgage) assets at historical values? And they are "superficial losses"? If someone (or a lot of somones) stops paying their mortgage, doesn't that also create a cash flow problem for banks? You believe the crisis is solely limited to housing too? Love the terminology--"wholesale mispricing and underestimation of risk." That's the definition of a speculative bubble, yes? 99% of the people are believers. Interested in hearing your take in retrospect. Was the the 1 out of 8 years of above average growth under Bush2 a supply-side success? Again, it's not the innovations that are the cause. Innovations from profit-driven institutions are a natural occurence in the market system. As Minsky (and Keynes) would argue, the "pricing issue" is an "expectations" issue. Pricing is based upon our expectations of future cash flows (or asset appreciation) and the future is uncertain. At the time, who is to say the "pricing" was wrong? It's easy in hindsight isn't it? As I argued elsewhere, China attacking us economically will be as a consequence of a political crisis between the two countries. And why would the US cut off its nose to spite its face? Purposely putting the economy into recession to take down the developing world? I think you've lost it here... You don't seem to understand what he's implying here. He's essentially saying that the bull sh-- macro theory, which believes markets are self-equilibrating, can't explain this crisis. Rather, people need to understand Minsky's "financial instability hypothesis," which explains how a modern capitalist economy is inherently unstable.

Haven't I been around here long enough for you to know that was an "iTPS" post? Inebriation makes me post silly things... Burp!

Go back to the part where I said the right skills don't get taught at 90% of k-12 institutions. People like you, I"M assuming, can learn most things on your own. Distance ed works for people who are self-motivated. However, the majority of students that attend college need their "hands held." My experience is that most students don't know how to write a research paper; they lack critical assessment skills; etc. So, maybe YOU don't need to attend college to learn how to think critically, but a hell of a lot of people in this country do. Until we fix education at the k-12 level, the majority of college kids will need to attend this old fashion institution to learn the skills necessary for them to compete...

Sorry wrong site. Should've mentioned that Obama sucks or something...or all is well...or Bush is great...or Liberals suck...or...republicans cut spending...or ....whatever you dopes believe in...oh, yeah, liberals are the cause of all evil...good thing you have something to focus on, otherwise you might have to face up to the truth that the republicons are worse than dumbocrats. You dopes make sure that we keep divided enough so that we don't throw both m...f..ing parties out.

N. Roubini Anyone se this in the NYT mag on economist Nouriel Roubini who called the current financial crisis? Note that he says two economists that have influenced him significantly are Keynes and Minsky.