What Could the Republicans Do to the Economy that Could Be Worse than Obama?

[BigSkyBob]

He has followed the Japanese model, and, as a result, we should expect the Japanese result: twenty-plus years of stagnation.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

He has followed the Japanese model, and, as a result, we should expect the Japanese result: twenty-plus years of stagnation.

1. It's better than the Russian model.
2. You're aware that the effect of the Lost Decades on actual living standards for most people in Japan has been less than dramatic, right?

[Wonkish1]

He has followed the Japanese model, and, as a result, we should expect the Japanese result: twenty-plus years of stagnation.

1. It's better than the Russian model.
2. You're aware that the effect of the Lost Decades on actual living standards for most people in Japan has been less than dramatic, right?

You might wake up a year or so from now and realize you spoke to soon.

[Beet]

He has followed the Japanese model, and, as a result, we should expect the Japanese result: twenty-plus years of stagnation.

1. It's better than the Russian model.
2. You're aware that the effect of the Lost Decades on actual living standards for most people in Japan has been less than dramatic, right?

You might wake up a year or so from now and realize you spoke to soon.

Or not.

[Cincinnatus]

What could the Republicans do?  Decreased revenue by continuously allowing higher income earners large tax cuts won't exactly help things.

He has followed the Japanese model, and, as a result, we should expect the Japanese result: twenty-plus years of stagnation.

1. It's better than the Russian model.
2. You're aware that the effect of the Lost Decades on actual living standards for most people in Japan has been less than dramatic, right?

I wouldn't mind some insight into this, considering it's your region of study.  I'm quite interested.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

It's less that it made no difference to living standards and more that surprisingly many people were disinclined to care as much as one might expect.

The conspicuous consumption in Japan in the eighties didn't quite become locked into the national perception of what standards of living should be, at least not to the extent that it did in the United States. People certainly liked having loose cars and fast women at their beck and call (I'm not sure why exactly), but the cutbacks in the nineties actually became more or less permanent even when the economy on paper started to improve; this was seen during the early-to-mid-00s recovery period as frugality and playing safe rather than inherently a problem.

It's damaging to Japan's economic standing in the world and to pretty much all relevant balance sheets--there would be no sense denying that--but from the perspective of actual Japanese people, particularly younger people who for obvious reasons don't have a particularly rosy view of life in general, it has more in common with some sort of strange neo-Kamakura wabi sabi ideal introduced to supplant the now-impossible neo-iki of the eighties.

[Jacobtm]

Look at Britain. They have undertaken a ton of austerity measures to ''reassure markets and get their debt under control''.

Yet their defecit keeps increasing because the economy is shrinking faster and faster as government spending shrinks.

[BigSkyBob]

He has followed the Japanese model, and, as a result, we should expect the Japanese result: twenty-plus years of stagnation.

1. It's better than the Russian model.

The failures of command economies to efficiently allocate resources, and, financial bubbles popping in market-oriented economies are different in kind. Had every Japanese company gone bankrupt, their factories would still be there.  Had the USSR collapsed, the factories would still be there, but, they couldn't produce output at a proper rate.

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And, you're aware that their national debt has ballooned to achieve nothing, right?

When their day of reckoning comes, and, it will if they continue on their deficit/stimulus path, Japanese living standards are apt to decline.

They should have taken the pain. Sure, a lot of Japanese companies would have failed. But, they came back from being fire-bombed to ashes, and, they could have come back from a financial meltdown.

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

Ron Paul wants to take us back to these days.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_Depression

[BigSkyBob]

He has followed the Japanese model, and, as a result, we should expect the Japanese result: twenty-plus years of stagnation.

1. It's better than the Russian model.
2. You're aware that the effect of the Lost Decades on actual living standards for most people in Japan has been less than dramatic, right?

You might wake up a year or so from now and realize you spoke to soon.

True enough.  Their policies of massive deficits year after year, like Obamanomics, can't go on forever.

[Jacobtm]

True enough.  Their policies of massive deficits year after year, like Obamanomics, can't go on forever.

Bush's tax cuts and wars contributed way more to the debt than anything Obama ever did.

Repealing his tax cuts and ending his wars would be far more fiscally responsible than anything Republicans have done in the last 30 years.

[BigSkyBob]

True enough.  Their policies of massive deficits year after year, like Obamanomics, can't go on forever.

Bush's tax cuts and contributed way more to the debt than anything Obama ever did.

No, the "stimulus" bill was equally bad, if not worse.

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Reality check. Bush's tax cuts expired after ten years. Are you suggesting we repeal the Obama tax cuts?

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

He has followed the Japanese model, and, as a result, we should expect the Japanese result: twenty-plus years of stagnation.

1. It's better than the Russian model.

The failures of command economies to efficiently allocate resources, and, financial bubbles popping in market-oriented economies are different in kind. Had every Japanese company gone bankrupt, their factories would still be there.  Had the USSR collapsed, the factories would still be there, but, they couldn't produce output at a proper rate.

I said 'Russian', not 'Soviet'. I meant 'Russian', not 'Soviet'.

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And, you're aware that their national debt has ballooned to achieve nothing, right?

When their day of reckoning comes, and, it will if they continue on their deficit/stimulus path, Japanese living standards are apt to decline.

They should have taken the pain. Sure, a lot of Japanese companies would have failed. But, they came back from being fire-bombed to ashes, and, they could have come back from a financial meltdown.
[/quote]

Serious question: Have you ever studied Japan at all?

They did take the pain. That's what Takeshita popping the bubble before it popped on its own was. Their policies since then haven't been particularly good but Japanese people don't socially construct 'living standards' the way you or I would and the Japanese economy is structurally different to the American one, because Japanese society is structurally different to American society.

The main crisis facing Japan is its birthrate, not anything economic.

[Link]

Reality check. Bush's tax cuts expired after ten years. Are you suggesting we repeal the Obama tax cuts?

Reality check...

[Lief 🗽]

Just look at what the Tories have done to the United Kingdom, and multiple it by a few degrees of Teabagger craziness.

[BigSkyBob]

True enough.  Their policies of massive deficits year after year, like Obamanomics, can't go on forever.

Bush's tax cuts and contributed way more to the debt than anything Obama ever did.

No, the stimulus bill was a porkfeast. Obamacare is a blackhole in the budget. Obama is insisting on yet another "stimulus bill."

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Bush's tax cuts expired. You mean repealling Obama's tax cuts don't you?

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[Person Man]

A porkfest actually sounds like something fun... :/

[Jacobtm]

Lol, Obama's tax cuts.

Republicans, you are marketing geniuses. Absolutely love it!

[BigSkyBob]

Lol, Obama's tax cuts.

Republicans, you are marketing geniuses. Absolutely love it!

The baseline was for the tax cuts to expire. The policy change from the baseline was to extend those cuts. Obama signed those cuts into law. He owns them.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Lol, Obama's tax cuts.

Republicans, you are marketing geniuses. Absolutely love it!

The baseline was for the tax cuts to expire. The policy change from the baseline was to extend those cuts. Obama signed those cuts into law. He owns them.

Even though he didn't want them and only gave them away to your side as a bargaining chip so that you would ratify a comparatively uncontroversial arms treaty and allow gays into the military like three-quarters of the country had been asking you to?

[TJ in Oregon]

Lol, Obama's tax cuts.

Republicans, you are marketing geniuses. Absolutely love it!

The baseline was for the tax cuts to expire. The policy change from the baseline was to extend those cuts. Obama signed those cuts into law. He owns them.

Even though he didn't want them and only gave them away to your side as a bargaining chip so that you would ratify a comparatively uncontroversial arms treaty and allow gays into the military like three-quarters of the country had been asking you to?

But that's part of the problem too: we spent the entire month of December passing an arms treaty with Russia and allowing gays in the military instead of passing a 2011 budget. That lead directly to some of the chaos this year in Congress.

And btw.. Obama was going to cave on the Bush tax cuts the same way the GOP was going to cave on cutting Planned Parenthood funding in the budget debate earlier this year. In each case, the poltical cost of making the opposite decision would have likely outweighed its political value.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Lol, Obama's tax cuts.

Republicans, you are marketing geniuses. Absolutely love it!

The baseline was for the tax cuts to expire. The policy change from the baseline was to extend those cuts. Obama signed those cuts into law. He owns them.

Even though he didn't want them and only gave them away to your side as a bargaining chip so that you would ratify a comparatively uncontroversial arms treaty and allow gays into the military like three-quarters of the country had been asking you to?

But that's part of the problem too: we spent the entire month of December passing an arms treaty with Russia and allowing gays in the military instead of passing a 2011 budget. That lead directly to some of the chaos this year in Congress.

And btw.. Obama was going to cave on the Bush tax cuts the same way the GOP was going to cave on cutting Planned Parenthood funding in the budget debate earlier this year. In each case, the poltical cost of making the opposite decision would have likely outweighed its political value.

I know, I know. It's still idiotic for Bob to refer to them as 'Obama's tax cuts'.

[BigSkyBob]

Lol, Obama's tax cuts.

Republicans, you are marketing geniuses. Absolutely love it!

The baseline was for the tax cuts to expire. The policy change from the baseline was to extend those cuts. Obama signed those cuts into law. He owns them.

Even though he didn't want them and only gave them away to your side as a bargaining chip so that you would ratify a comparatively uncontroversial arms treaty and allow gays into the military like three-quarters of the country had been asking you to?

If you have excuses for the fact that he owns them, so be it. Regardless of any excuses offered, Obama owns the current tax rates.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Lol, Obama's tax cuts.

Republicans, you are marketing geniuses. Absolutely love it!

The baseline was for the tax cuts to expire. The policy change from the baseline was to extend those cuts. Obama signed those cuts into law. He owns them.

Even though he didn't want them and only gave them away to your side as a bargaining chip so that you would ratify a comparatively uncontroversial arms treaty and allow gays into the military like three-quarters of the country had been asking you to?

If you have excuses for the fact that he owns them, so be it. Regardless of any excuses offered, Obama owns the current tax rates.

Because you say he does. Got it.

I, on the other hand, like most people who aren't batsh**t insane onanistic hacks, say that Addison Mitchell McConnell Junior, for better or for worse, deserves most of the credit or blame for the current tax rates, and hence 'owns' them as much as anybody 'owns' anything in politics.

[BigSkyBob]

Lol, Obama's tax cuts.

Republicans, you are marketing geniuses. Absolutely love it!

The baseline was for the tax cuts to expire. The policy change from the baseline was to extend those cuts. Obama signed those cuts into law. He owns them.

Even though he didn't want them and only gave them away to your side as a bargaining chip so that you would ratify a comparatively uncontroversial arms treaty and allow gays into the military like three-quarters of the country had been asking you to?

If you have excuses for the fact that he owns them, so be it. Regardless of any excuses offered, Obama owns the current tax rates.

Because you say he does. Got it.

I, on the other hand, like most people who aren't batsh**t insane onanistic hacks, say that Addison Mitchell McConnell Junior owns the current tax rates.

Because, the standard asserted in the original article here assigned to President's responsibility for the fiscal impact of changes in policy during their watch. Before Obama took office, existing policy was that the 2001 tax cuts would expire. Obama changed that policy to lower tax rates. Whether, or not, that is a fair standard is beside the point. That was the standard asserted, and that was the standard I demonstrated hadn't been applied consistently to both Bush and Obama.