Tell Dems: Vote for Back to Work Budget -- And Win in 2014

Part 2



Yet a post devoid of pretty much any meaning (Mankiw's - your posts are devoid of any logic or reason and it can be hard to differentiate), with text from the author stating as much, is the basis of proof for some sweeping conclusion of yours. And so your complete and utter remedial misunderstanding of what Mankiw's post says yields the expected irrational attack from you - an accusation that * I * am illiterate.



I'm used to this sort of tantrum-oriented, logic-less nonsense from your team. Screaming louder when people don't accede to your demands to agree with your nonsense doesn't make you right. It makes you a toddler... which is unsurprisingly consistent with the intellectual rigor you have brought to this discussion.
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Tell Dems: Vote for Back to Work Budget -- And Win in 2014

Part 1



You're a blind-from-birth person trying to argue that a 20/20 sighted person's description of a sunset is wrong.



Your side's constant insistence on relying on faith in garbage data to "win" arguments and penchant for projecting your personal faults onto others is embarrassing. The latest example you offer is how you believe Mankiw shows we are 4th in the world in amount of taxes paid.



If you actually READ his words in that post, he says 1.) he only did the calculations on a few countries ("Here are the results for some of the largest developed nations" - notice the word "SOME", oh lord of literacy??), 2.) he goes out of his way to note that his formula is fairly meaningless in general ("This post has been more controversial than I expected. I am surprised because I did not say much here. I merely presented an identity and some data, which illustrated international differences in a novel [and, I thought, interesting] way."), and 3.) the entire absurd direction to which you've now morphed Mankiw's post to be a sweeping statement of cost of government includes NO consideration of cost of living, defense budget priorities or needs, nor any other influences to overall costs incurred in delivering government services.
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Tell Dems: Vote for Back to Work Budget -- And Win in 2014

First, Mankiw is one of the most consistently wrong economists of our time. His track record before, during, and after the crash is abysmal.



Second, the page you referenced had a few random examples - which Mankiw himself notes! - and he mentioned nothing about state taxes.



Third, Mankiw's "taxes per person" concept is just another example of his tricks. The only thing he can do anymore is cook up bogus, alternate views of statistics. Worse, in that post, he suggests that high tax rates depress GDP - hey, prove that!! It's completely bogus circular logic (his opinion, really) with no evidence at all!



Mankiw converts the tax rate into a total amount of taxes paid based on GDP per person. By doing that, he apparently tricked you into thinking that you are taxed at a higher rate than Italy, because his cheap parlor trick makes you look at the total bill. Tax rates are how you compare tax burdens - the lower the rate, the lower your tax burden. You make $15M and pay 1% in taxes; I make $300K and pay 50%; both bills $150K - you're going to say our tax burden is identical with a straight face?!?! Seriously?!?!



The OECD's percentage of taxes on the average worker is the percentage of taxes on the average worker. US was 30.4% in 2010. Finland - 42.4%. Australia - 26.8% (my bad). Germany - 49.2%.



http://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/economics/country-statistical-profiles-key-tables-from-oecd_20752288
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The Good Thing We Can Learn From Anti-Abortion States

Sir, I'm honored to enjoy such an engagement with you on this matter!



The heart of your suggestion is safe, I suppose, from my critique. Perhaps mine is more complementary than is obvious. The crux of what I'm saying is that the NRA is an encephalitic monster that, as you essentially state, is bent on fomenting demand for certain products, no matter what. They will not be embarrassed, distracted, or slowed.



(In contrast, the ACLU stands for much more virtuous means and goals.)



I think the part we miss in our discourse on the subject are two very critical words in the 2nd Amendment - "well regulated." The way to pave the way toward common sense laws that really go to the core of the dangers of unbridled armament amidst the wide-spread persecution complex manufactured by the NRA is to deprogram the belief that the only words in the sentence are "right to bear arms."
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Tell Dems: Vote for Back to Work Budget -- And Win in 2014

If conservative ideology had something better in it than your sort of stream of illogic, then maybe the last 30 years where trickle-down, deregulation, and 'tax cuts mean huge growth in revenues' would have done something other than exactly what liberal economists have predicted - a smaller economy, lower incomes for the have-nots, off-shoring jobs, and a crumbling infrastructure.



We've done it your foolish way - and listened to your silence while republican Presidents have outspent Dem Presidents by an order of magnitude (on purpose) - and the proof is conclusive: you're wrong... on just about everything that requires any analysis at all (unless you're trying to reshape us into an aristocracy and serf class in the US).
About Teachers
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Obama: Budget Deal May Be Impossible If Republicans Continue To Insist We 'Gut' Entitlements

You need to stop hiding behind the lie of "hate the sin, love the sinner" fairy tale.



If romney got his start by being financed in his company's raiding and destroying of American companies (yes, he built a couple - but they're minimum wage shops) by wealthy abortion clinic owners, you'd NEVER say that he "earned" his money. It'd be filthy money that ultimately brought benefit to no one except his original investors, his partners, and himself.



But the FACT that most of his original funding came from wealthy El Salvadoran death squad operators (look it up) - that's fine!! What's the brutal murder of hundreds of thousands of Salvadorans worth anyway, right? They're just foreigners! At least none of them are gonna have abortions now, right?!



You can't change the definition of morality like you're changing a pair of socks. I was taught that there is often a difference between what's right and what you can do (even under the law). Maybe I should have rejected that. Because if I did, I'd be able to think well of the draft-dodging, tax-dodging, job-destroying man who "earns" $15 million a year while doing NO work at all (paying 18% tax rate while I pay 25% with only 1/100th of that), who openly hates "takers" whose jobs don't pay squat (some of whom he fired), and got rich on the blood of thousands of innocent civilians.
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The Good Thing We Can Learn From Anti-Abortion States

Robert, please understand I've been one of your 743 fans for a very long time and I'm in tune with your style. :-)



I come at this stuff from the perspective of a former elected official who managed zoning ordinances, police, etc. So maybe that bends my lens a little. The loudest performer in the circus that was frequently our public meetings was the local gun lover. His performances usually centered on irrational and unreasonable verbal defec@tion.



There are many 'standard' laws that involve guns in PA. For example, there are common setbacks from neighbor homes from which you can shoot guns. So there are surely plenty of similar, common sense laws that can be enacted to help improve overall safety. Unfortunately, those laws don't really help prevent massacres of innocent citizens.



My point was just the expression of the depressing reality that my old buddy from open meetings and his ilk will sell half their possessions and donate it to the NRA in order to defeat any newly proposed controls. They won't tolerate 'momentum.' And they're not all that in touch with reality when discussing the topic as I'm sure you're well aware.



Also, the NRA is like the ACLU - they don't care how popular they are, they're going to do what they think is right. And if fewer politicians are taking their donations, it leaves more to spend on lawyers.
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Obama: Budget Deal May Be Impossible If Republicans Continue To Insist We 'Gut' Entitlements

No, start with making the rich pay their fair share. My 17 year old daughter in high school makes about $3,000 a year, pays medicare taxes, social security, municipal taxes, school taxes, and state taxes. You're going to put the import of getting 10% of her pathetic income that she needs for college at the same level as GE who has paid NO TAXES at all on nearly a trillion dollars of profit in the last several years while benefiting from the safety and privilege this nation casts on them?



That's not being fair - it's sick!



That's just you getting jollies from gouging people who don't have anything. There is nothing at all wrong with the exception to federal income tax for income up to several thousand. If you think that there are people who are making pennies solely to avoid federal tax, then I'm not surprised that your fixation on taxes would lead you to such an absurd and purely illogical position.
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Obama: Budget Deal May Be Impossible If Republicans Continue To Insist We 'Gut' Entitlements

The saddest thing is that you've admitted your real cause for being a republican - the welfare queen myth. Who gets more, the rich and corporations in tax breaks and loopholes - or welfare recipients?



I have a brother in law who doesn't lift a finger and claims to be disabled when it's all his own fault. Difference between you and me is I'm not ready to send more kids to bed hunrgy just because there are freeloaders out there. Perhaps you're fine with romney making millions a year DOING NOTHING, but I'm not. When virtually all of the 'new' income is going to the top 1%, we have to address the real problem with the economy (the market is shrinking because of wealth concentration), not assuage your petty prejudices.
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Obama: Budget Deal May Be Impossible If Republicans Continue To Insist We 'Gut' Entitlements

"Neither side’s gonna get 100%. That’s what the American people are lookin’ for."



I'm so sorry, Mr. President. I don't know who's telling you that, but it's a lie.



Americans aren't looking for compromise between parties. 25% of the population that are hardcore republicans want to see you shipped in a cell to Africa. 30% of us on the left want you to close tax loopholes for the rich and corporations, protect social security and medicare, breakup TBTF, bring sense to college tuition, and on-shore jobs. In the middle 45%, there are degrees of agreement with the things that the left wants.



There are NO congressional republicans who want any part of the agenda desired by 75% of this nation's citizens. NOT ONE.



When are you going to get that through your head?!? 75% don't want you to institute any poisonous, regressive, middle-class and poor-bashing policy that the republicans want.



Any compromise on any solution that includes the republican's poison is intolerable. No one with any sense of community or justice can tolerate any more of their "solutions." You fail us everytime you have done so thus far.



Tell Ryan to put up or shut up - close loopholes NOW. Before any budget deal, pass a bill that blocks all the other tricks the wealthy use to avoid paying their fair share. I'd beat him with that issue until doomsday. The word "compromise" doesn't even exist until ALL the loopholes are closed - period.
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An Etiquette Lesson for Elizabeth Warren From 'El Loco'

I'm asked on occasion why I'm angry. I will point them to this article to minimize the time required to answer the question.



When my fellow Dems start to demand, in numbers, the immediate resignation of Holder, I will start to feel that there is light at the end of the tunnel (or if Obama announces Holder's termination or resignation). He has no excuse for his nonfeasance - and if an impeachment were possible for a cabinet official, then his sworn testimony should be all that's needed to make it a slam dunk.



And on top of that, we should all know by now that the President agrees with Holder. If he didn't agree with the, "oh no, if we do something that upsets the market then that's much worse than letting the powerful break every law with impunity" nonsense, there would be stuffed shirts in the federal "resort" for these "bankers."



If I sold a pack of batteries to Iran, I'd be in jail. One set of laws for me, one set for the powerful. And the man who spent two presidential campaigns whining about a lack of fairness isn't just tone deaf to this, he's complicit due to his depraved indifference. He's either leading by telling them not to pursue these perpetrators or he's been cowed into agreeing with their practice of kindly asking these banks to 'please stop violating the law from now on.' Either one is a disgrace.
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Professor Krugman and Crude Keynesianism

"Economist" jumps the shark with deliberate misrepresentation of facts.



The person with the pitchfork leading the mob shouting "witch!" is usually the one you have to be concerned about.



When you lay down with dogs [like Scarborough], you wake up scratching fleas.



I'm running out of cliches to bend... so many things can bend... like the truth.
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Professor Krugman and Crude Keynesianism

Your co-authored editorial was full of deliberate inaccuracies and was clearly a take-down piece in which honesty and integrity had no place at all. And it's shocking - shocking, I tell you! - to see such a thing associated with Scarborough.



In the process, you have joined the realm of the "Very Serious People" who have no credibility whatsoever. You have a personal agenda here, Mr. Sachs. I guess we'll see whether it's just petty jealousy of Professor Krugman, something to do with career advancement, or something else in the future....
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Disarming Republican Anarchists

Apparently making up your own facts is even MORE fun, huh skippy?!



http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2011/crime-in-the-u.s.-2011/tables/table-4



Murder rates in California are lower than that of Pennsylvania, Florida, Georgia, Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Louisiana, Tennessee, Mississippi, Alabama, South Carolina, North Carolina, Maryland, Illinois, Michigan, Missouri, and Indiana. The average murder rate for US is almost the same as California's (US 4.8%, CA 4.7%).



Of the 14,612 murders in the US, 1,792 occurred in California.



http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2011/crime-in-the-u.s.-2011/tables/table-20



OK, this one shows that all 2011 US murders by firearm total to 8,583. California accounted for 1,220 of them. Since you probably don't have access to a calculator, that comes to 14.21% of all firearm murders.



That makes your nonsense, made-up garbage off by around 485%. You were off by orders of magnitude. We're all embarrassed for you. And if this demonstration of yours is consistent with your other positions, you are a probably wrong about most things that require some basic research and application of logic.
About Republicans
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