patrick.net

futuresmc says

Attack each other, not the source of our problems, their capturing of our government and the wealth inequity that they spawned.

I agree every word of what you said.

The biggest problem in America today is 'Legalized Corruption and a Broken Republic'.

bgamall4 says

Regulation is sometimes overruled but Glass-Steagall worked for decades.

What part of GS prevented consumers from believing homes values/prices appreciate at speculative levels of 10-20-50% ?
Even if we had GS, the bubble would not have been prevented since it started in 1997.

Consumers/Media call the current state of housing market as "depressed" even though it has gone back down to more reasonable levels. Does the current consumer and media believe home prices will go back up suddenly. Sure seems that way.

Furthermore, the Dems continue to point to mortgages as causes of the bubble, YET EVEN TODAY, not one has stated that HOME were extremely OVERPRICED to begin with...

Fact is ...even on Pnet, many who are pro-regulation dismiss the irrational behavior of buyers which stated this mess...

But they are just brainwashed in only seeing evil bankers and crony capitalism.

Boy I will say this and that is after the money printing party is over,the food stamps cut in half the extended unemployment benefits cut off,50 to 60% reduction in government pensions cut some with know pensions,medicaid and medicare cut off for most and a cut in social security just as the last jobs leave for cheaper labour the shit will hit the fan like no tomorrow.This country will be one big hell whole all created by the 1% and it will be one open sewer that the other 99% will have to live in a I bet most of the 1% have left this country for greener pastures.

I see alot of semi-socialists, big-govt-lovers, and 1% bashers, including Patrick. Most of you seem to blame the bankers, banks, other 1%'ers, and somehow you think liberty & freedom caused the housing bubble/crisis ? And somehow you think that the ginormous federal spending and intervention into the economy in the 1930s and 1/2 of the 1940s finally created 'demand' after 15 years so that 1945 finally saw improvement? Really? Is that how it happened in your worldview? So we should follow Krugman's advice to spend more and more and more, and maybe after 15 years we'll have a '1945 moment' again? Really? Fellas, after a few more years of this, we'll have a very tough time servicing the $20T or $25T debt, wouldn't you think? I think the Greek govt tried this excessive spending and if no one bails them out again, they'll finally default, explode and the big-govt-nanny-state will topple down. That will happen here, too, if this continues the way you all want.
Patrick: You can't have the govt basically confiscate the wealth of the 'lazy 1%'ers' and have that supply the revenue to help the deficit. Won't work and isn't Constitutional.....federal govt can't just confiscate property and call that a tax -- at least I hope not. It's time to leave this country if your idea gets implemented. I certainly would, and I'm not in the 1%.
All you 'anti-libertarians' who bash unfettered capitalism and its greed, FAIL to understand that 'freedom' did NOT cause the housing bubble/disaster. It was 99% govt-caused -- read this -- this woman is 10x smarter than Krugman:
http://theaffordablemortgagedepression.com/2010/03/11/origin-of-the-housing-bubble-the-national-homeownership-strategy.aspx

To Mr. "Justme": First of all, you should be banned by Patrick for swearing at people. It gives a hint of your intellectual status. And relying on Krugman is just weak. Yes, I read your 'stuff' by Krugman. He tries SO HARD to reach his conclusions that Obama/Pelosi/Reid and the current federal spending baseline of $3.5T is not very large -- he compares it to how high the GDP should have grown. Really? You can't make this stuff up, but Krugman tries. I 've read Krugman ALOT, the first time was 8-9 years ago when he was contemplating his naval and bemoaning the fact that the highest earners make a high multiple of pay compared to poor people. So what? Steve Jobs, Warren Buffett and Bill Gates have certainly created alot of good, high paying jobs under them, haven't they? So what if they make $100m/year or $1B/year. But Krugman seems to obsess on inanities. He is the most intellectually bankrupt 'expert' imaginable.

I beg to differ. Take the (formerly) great state of California, where I lived for 13 years til '87 -- it's a microcosm of our country, approx 1/10th of our country -- and the liberal utopian dreams, manifested by an all-powerful state govt, with innumerable state depts, regulations millions of state employees, with very high pay, lifetime bfts (just check out www.pensiontsunami.com ), not the mention the millions of illegals and the problems therefrom.........and govt overspending (and certainly not undertaxing)......all these reasons why businesses and job-creators are leaving the state. It has become, because of Democrats running the state for 40 years and their policies, a disaster of epic proportions. You really think the bankers are to blame, more important than all those other reasons? Really? Does that translate to Greece as well? Greece is going down the tubes. You don't think their semi-socialism, govt cradle to grave benefits, govt largesse and taxes so huge that many people give up and don't pay taxes. You think the bankers are to blame?

Thank you sbourg!

Justme, Krugman sounds like Biden with his zany philospy of, "We have to go spend money to keep not from going bankrupt." Now, I appreciate Krugman as a comedian, but not as economist. The last time Krugman was funny was when he wrote about the 'Theory of Relativity' impact on compound interest.

Keynesian theory died with the Obama's and Bush's administration. Obama, is amazingly, a much more worst president than Bush.

sbourg, just like I thought, you could not be bothered with facts. Instead you are attacking the messenger (be it Krugman or myself) as being flawed.

Come back sometime when you are ready to have a rational (that includes fact-based) discussion.

http://thoughtcatalog.com/2011/how-to-have-a-rational-discussion/

Everyone else can enjoy the facts as presented by Krugman.

To Justme: What fact did I ignore? First, you ignored ALL my facts in my first long Comment. Now you think I ignored your fact.....your rebuttal went like this:
"sbourg thinks the federal govt spending $3.5T now is too much.......I'll tell him that in the 8 years of Bush, fed spending went from 2.xT to $2.8T, and that will prove to sbourg that $3.5T now is not too much....because Bush increased alot in 8 years and Obama increased alot in 3 years......and I'll link a Krugman article saying $3.5T is not too much because if the GDP had grown what it was supposed to 'grow at', then $3.5T would not appear to be so much."
Is that pretty much your logic? Or is it more or less complicated? That's what you put out there.

Birchtree: You NAILED IT!! And it's not only zany Biden's backwards logic -- it's Pelosi's, Reid's, Obama's, Krugman's -- we'll stimulate the economy and get it back on track by ramping up unemployment ins, food stamps, big bucks to states we like so they can keep overspending, medicaid, fed dept of education, and on and on, and we'll call it STIMULUS. And we'll stop right before our fiscal disaster hits the wall!! Right before we look like Greece, Italy, Spain, Ireland, or Portugal. We're alot smarter than they are because we can PRINT MONEY!

sbourg, you are making progress.

Now, how about the fact that when there is falling DEMAND for product, businesses will fire people and not hire people? Can you agree on that one, too? Can you agree that falling GDP means falling demand? No rational businessperson will hire people when demand is falling.

Which begs the question, where is demand going to come from? Please answer that.

Yes, that is part of the puzzle, I agree. But it's a complicated puzzle and govt spending that borrows and results in higher future taxes --when taxes are already ginormous -- govt overspending simply kicks the can down the road and we've come too far now with $15T debt. If interest rates ever hit 5% on that, WE'RE TOAST. So why keep overspending to this monstrous degree. Has to be ramped down. $3.6T, then $3.4T, then $3.2T, each year until it's in balance with federal revenues.
And can't you agree with the economic principle that all taxes, not just over-taxes, reduce the vitality of the private sector, reduce the wealth-creation of workers in private sector, increase their working careeers, etc. Taxes are a necessary evil, not something that should overburden everyone as they do now.

sbourg,

Good we can agree that falling demand is a problem.

>>the economic principle that all taxes, not just over-taxes, reduce the vitality of the private sector,

Nope. It is not true that "all taxes" reduce the vitality of the private sector", if by vitality you mean total output. Even Phillips himself, of the famed and much misused Phillips curve, would agree with that. Did you see him on PBS on Thursday?

>>Taxes are a necessary evil,

Nope, taxes are a net positive in general. Without taxes we would still be ruled by feudal warlords and living at the end of dirt roads (and sad to say we have been regressing back towards that system from 1980-2011, at least).

>> --when taxes are already ginormous -- govt overspending simply kicks the can down the road

The problem has been and continues to be that the wealthy have been severely undertaxed since 1980. Here is the history of marginal tax rates:

http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/taxfacts/displayafact.cfm?Docid=213

Of course the wealthy 1% are worried about the debt, since they may actually finally have to contribute what they should to pay it off. That is in a nutshell what all the jammering is about, but they hide behind lies and propaganda.

And then there is the capital gains tax rate, which has also been much too low (lower than what middle class people pay on regular income, and it is even a flat tax, not progressive at all)

http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/taxfacts/displayafact.cfm?Docid=161

BONUS:

Krugman on debt, with a historical perspective. Look at the graph:

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/12/31/a-thought-on-debt-history/

And while I am at it, look at how median family income is severely lagging GDP/capita, starting around 1981

(you might have guessed , correctly, that early 1980s would be the timing, for Reaganomics reasons)

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/01/14/things-were-supposed-to-be-quiet-about/

I just love it when Krugman posts DATA like this. All the lies and all the propaganda just crumbles when counteracted with real DATA.

Patrick/JustMe/GaryAnderson, et al: According to you all, if we just taxed the 1%ers more, and stopped the greedy speculation by the banks with the money given to them by Obama/Geithner, then we'd be on our way to prosperity. Back in the boom-decades the highest tax rates were so much higher and our middle-class did so much better. Is that just about your thesis?
Never mind that those highest tax rates were paid by almost no one, our manufacturing ramped up with american ingenuity and europe/japan infrastructure destruction by 1945, and never-mind that correlation does not imply causation. Would you argue the high marginal tax rates were responsible for the boom-decades? If so, I'd like to see some causation, because of course they weren't the cause.
All this whistling by the graveyard, of you guys thinking if we just did x and y we'd be in much better shape, is sad. Don't you read about the financial crumbling of CA, IL, Detroit, RI, NY.......these are 'blue' areas dominated by big-govt, and big-govt pay/bfts, and illegal immigration problems, high regulations on small businesses, etc, etc. And nationally, the debt we're accumulating will come back to haunt us and crush us (hopefully just temporarily)......but the HUGE pensions promised, and being paid to govt workers will be cut drastically unless the pension assets earn 8% returns the next 10 years, which they won't.
You all really should read more variety: pensiontsunami.com, market-ticker.org, globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com, instapundit.com.
We're in BIG trouble, and it's NOT because the 1%ers aren't taxed enough. Even one of Obama's idiot economic-advisors admitted to me in an email exchange a few weeks ago, that it would not be smart to raise taxes on ANYONE much less the high-income-earners, during a period of economic trouble such as we're in now.
BTW, FDR did it in 1933, and much more -- read about the NRA -- and all his policies made the Depression much worse and much more lengthy. Didn't end until he died and Truman announced that he'd improve the business regulatory environment and be a friend of American businesses -- that's a fact.
So start reading more variety, and maybe you'll bash the 1%ers and bankers a little less. Start with: www.theaffordablemortgagedepression.com
to see part of the problem you've might not been aware of. Cheers!

sbourg says

You all really should read more variety: pensiontsunami.com, market-ticker.org, globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com, instapundit.com.

I read two out of these four (BR and CR) every day. What makes you think you know what I read, in general? I can't speak for Barry Ritholtz and Calculated Risk with authority, but my distinct feeling is that neither one of them agrees with your thesis on taxes.

sbourg says

Would you argue the high marginal tax rates were responsible for the boom-decades?

Strawman argument. Nobody claimed that high taxes were "responsible" for the boom. What *I* implied was that high marginal tax rates did NOT HINDER the economy as a whole, and was a net positive.

sbourg says

We're in BIG trouble, and it's NOT because the 1%ers aren't taxed enough.

More strawmen. Nobody said it was ONLY because the 1% were not taxed enough. It was also because the 1%, including bankers, were speculating like crazy with OUR bank deposit money, after first having corrupted congress and the regulatory agencies.

Also please understand that 30 years of unfunded tax cuts for the 1% is one of the major causes of the public debt, along with the illegal wars we entered into at the behest of George W. Bush. These are both unproductive debt. Debt incurred to stop depression, OTOH, is productive.

sbourg says

FDR did it in 1933, and much more -- read about the NRA -- and all his policies made the Depression much worse and much more lengthy. Didn't end until he died and Truman announced that he'd improve the business regulatory environment and be a friend of American businesses -- that's a fact.

That's not a fact. The depression dragged on because there was not enough DEMAND, and stimulus was too low. Once again, if you read Krugman, you would know that what stopped the great depression was the ultimate stimulus and DEBT program: World War II.

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/08/15/oh-what-a-lovely-war/

And before you get in a tizzy about Krugman being a war monger, as if that was ever true, here is another one.

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/08/24/anti-keynesian-switcheroos/

sbourg says

So start reading more variety, and maybe you'll bash the 1%ers and bankers a little less. Start with: www.theaffordablemortgagedepression.com
to see part of the problem you've might not been aware of. Cheers!

That link is to a web site dedicated to the very wrong idea that the government was the cause of the housing bubble.

This BS is what Barry Ritholz (loc. cit) calls THE BIG LIE. You can read about it here

http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2011/11/the-big-lie/

So sbourg, pretty much everything you said in that last post is wrong. I fully understand how difficult is to throw off the yoke of 30 years of right-wing lies and propaganda, but it is time to do so.

Folks, enough with all this back and forth about too much government or not enough government. It's not the government that is at fault here. The government can share in some of the fault for laying out the drug/easy credit and the Kool aid but the fault lies with the real purpetrator and that is the entire American public. Americans all thought that they could administrate and speculate themselves a living and paycheck. All Americans actually believed that they were better than real work. 70% of the 99% hasn't really worked/WORKED at their jobs in 3 decades. They shuffled among papers and computer screens between coffee breaks and actually thought they deserved an $80K a year salary for doing it. NOT! The American Middle Class have all become Fat, Dumb and Happy and are totally addicted to football, pornography and consumerism as so stated by Paul Craig Roberts. We have the government we deserve. In fact, we have earned much worse from our complacent and greedy/lazy attitude. Lastly, Americans haven't done shit to earn good government, a safe country, fair laws or their freedoms. They have lived and totally survived as cattle and don't act like people anymore. So how do you handle a herd of cattle? Exactly the way we are being led to the slaughter house right now.

Raven Stole My Potato says

but the fault lies with the real purpetrator and that is the entire American public.

Sort of. The american public in general has fallen prey to 30+ years of relentless right-wing propaganda.

Yes, the public has imitated the richest 1% in pursuit of rents and business freebies, and they have responsibility too, but most Americans did not participate directly in the housing bubble.

The American public has not truly had a real government BY the 99%, FOR the 99%, for the last 30 years. Even Clinton was so constrained by the Republican loonies in congress that he could not get it all done. He did a great job under the circumstances, but not nearly enough.

referenced by sbourg: http://www.youtube.com/embed/HEQ6L2QIMUo&list=UUBo6wgTHF-8vzTjZ3_lEe0g&index=4&feature=plcp

Zachary,

Oh please. This is the kind of tripe propaganda that the Republican party is fielding against Obama?

"Obama does not look at America like the rest of us do, like a shining city on a hill...." [this is a reference to a speech by Ronald Reagan].

Barf. What absolute drivel. Can these clowns not argue about the substance of policy, instead of making this emo-porn propaganda speeches? I guess not. They have no substance, so they resort to misleading the Republican sheep with this kind of drivel.

justme says

The american public in general has fallen prey to 30+ years of relentless right-wing propaganda.

The public sucks. F--k hope.

http://www.youtube.com/embed/xIraCchPDhk

(George Carlin) Funny and with more than a few grains of truth.

What Carlin does not say is that the it is the STRUCTURE of our political system that is fundamentally unsound.

With an unsound structure, you get unsound results.

sbourg says

BTW, FDR did it in 1933, and much more -- read about the NRA -- and all his policies made the Depression much worse and much more lengthy. Didn't end until he died and Truman announced that he'd improve the business regulatory environment and be a friend of American businesses -- that's a fact.

That is a statement of complete and utter bullshit.

oh really, tatupu70 ? That's the best you can do -- swearing/name-calling ? That's the rebuttal of someone who has no argument to defend your position.

Zachary : That's your 'take-away' ? You are utterly clueless to think that 1 second of John Drew's characterization of Obama is simplistic to a degree you think makes no sense. This short sentence happens to be proven by everything John Drew (who I went to school with at Occidental, and who knows something about marxism) -- this short sentence is proven by everything John and I know about Obama.
Zachary: What do you know about Obama to the contrary? Answer: Nothing.

You're a know-nothing, who slams other beliefs with no substance. Nice going. I hope your middle-school kids learn more about defending their beliefs. You're a simpleton, a 'mud-thrower'. Hope you're happy, again, with your vote for Obama this year.

Patrick, JustMe, GaryAnderson, Tatupu, Zachary and you other semi-socialists out there: will your extra 5% marginal taxes on the 'rich', and $100B/year LESS spending on the military doing whatever you disagree with.....and more regulations on the banks.......actually produce your utopian vision? Are those your answers? Will they add up to a more prosperous middle-class in the private sector?
Really ??? If you think that........and apparently you do....you're all semi-retarded, and that's being kind. See how that's going for Greece, Italy, France, England, Spain, Portugal. Oh, I know.......you think Norway is perfection......well they drill the living daylights out of their resources, and they don't have an underclass of illegals.......so they're not a fair comparison. We can't copy them. Sorry... can't.

Freedom is the answer........smaller govt, smaller taxes, more energy independence by permitting energy-production, getting rid of illegal immigrants permitting our own citizens to get jobs, getting the federal govt OUT of the private sector.......etc.

You SEMI-SOCIALISTS have NO ANSWERS THAT MAKE ANY SENSE.

Everytime I hear Reagonomics I remember this poster - Funnny

sbourg says

Patrick, JustMe, GaryAnderson, Tatupu, Zachary and you other semi-socialists out there: will your extra 5% marginal taxes on the 'rich', and $100B/year LESS spending on the military doing whatever you disagree with.....and more regulations on the banks.......actually produce your utopian vision?

Let me do the math for you.

Number of US Households 2012, 116 million:
http://www.census.gov/prod/1/pop/p25-1129.pdf

Average Income of the top 1%, $1,137,684
http://motherjones.com/politics/2011/02/income-inequality-in-america-chart-graph

1% of 116 million is 1.16 million. The highest marginal tax bracket starts at $388,351. Lets leave that alone and only change the law saying if you have income in this bracket, you must pay 35% on capital gains as well.

$1,137,684 minus $388,351 is $749,333. $749,333 times (.35-.15) is $149,866. Multiply this times 1.16 million, and you get $174 billion more revenues each year.

FWIW, discretionary spending has increased $410 billion since 2007, with $168 billion of that being solely defense and the War on Terror (Homeland Security). Another 50 billion of the discretionary increase was in Veteran's benefits.

sbourg says

Patrick, JustMe, GaryAnderson, Tatupu, Zachary and you other semi-socialists out there: will your extra 5% marginal taxes on the 'rich', and $100B/year LESS spending on the military doing whatever you disagree with.....and more regulations on the banks.......actually produce your utopian vision?

Who said that the people who discuss here wanted a utopian vision?

That's not realizable at all. But with severe income disparity, the country is bound to get f--ked no matter what. This is a fact.

What we need is a sustainable economy.

sbourg says

Freedom is the answer........smaller govt, smaller taxes, more energy independence by permitting energy-production, getting rid of illegal immigrants permitting our own citizens to get jobs, getting the federal govt OUT of the private sector.......etc.

We should stop taxing the income, tax the non-productive assets and rent-seeking.

bgamall4 says

You need to tax accumulated wealth, because income is actually distorted. These folks likely make way more than what is reported. Tax the wealth. The wealthy have an even more disproportionate share of wealth than income!
And taxing wealth would stop a lot of speculation that is taking place in the world.

Wealth is accumulated "after tax income"... its already been taxed once before... so why tax it twice..

Gary: You mean by confiscating their property? This should and would start another revolution.

David1: You're assuming all that income by the 1%ers is cap gains -- no, alot or probably most, is sub-S and W-2 taxable at 35% right now.
Besides you're also assuming our federal govt does not have a spending problem.
You're also assuming the top 1% and perhaps top 5% aren't taxed enough now. In total, their fraction of taxes paid is much larger than their fraction of income. World-wide statistics show the top 1% and 10% of US earners are taxed more proportionally (to the total taxes paid in the country), compared with their fraction of income........worse than almost all other countries.
Besides, David, we have a serious spending problem, and even some of Obama's economists say we shouldn't raise taxes in a fragile economy with no job-creation like NOW.

thomas.wong1986 says

Wealth is accumulated "after tax income"... its already been taxed once before... so why tax it twice..

Personally, I think there should be no income tax on earned income, only a tax on income which was taken from other people as rent, interest, etc.

sbourg says

Gary: You mean by confiscating their property? This should and would start another revolution.

Property tax would start a revolution? We've had property tax for a long time.

Central banking has everything to do with financial bubbles. Control interest rates and watch the Mal-investment occur, every-time.

bgamall4 says

futuresmc says

iberertarianism didn't fail,

Of course it failed. Libertarians got what they wanted in the UK. You can continue to allow banks to be deregulated until the cows come home and you will get massive financial bubbles. You failed. Admit it. We have to put to death the idea that deregulation works. Regulation is sometimes overruled but Glass-Steagall worked for decades.

Gary Anderson strategicdefaultbooks.com

Yes we've had prop tax for a long time and it stinks........I guess it's Constitutional to the extent it's not an 'unreasonable seizure'........but it still stinks as a way to pay for services like schools, police & fire. The pymts should be more direct for those svcs -- if so, if it had been, taxpayers would've noticed a certain breaking point for getting ripped off -- now we're WAY beyond it -- the pay and lifetime bfts add up to $6M for the average NYCity cop age 22 to 82, for just a 20-yr wkg career.....I'm in the retmt plan business so I know. Govt ee pay&bfts have become unsustainable & the actual 'bubble' burst will be ugly.
By the way, you California Leftists never seem to think your govt's grown too large, cumbersome, intrusive, overpaid/bftd........etc, etc. You seem to wail agnst 'banks' and speculators, but the other 10 problems should not be ignored.

sbourg says

World-wide statistics show the top 1% and 10% of US earners are taxed more proportionally (to the total taxes paid in the country), compared with their fraction of income........worse than almost all other countries.

Of course they are. The rest of the country has no money.

This is not a tax issue, it's an income inequality issue.

sbourg says

Besides, David, we have a serious spending problem

We have a spending problem, a revenue problem, and an income inequality problem. All of them need to be fixed.

Why don't you fix it in California first? Before hoisting your sem-socialist tactics on the rest of the country? Answer: Because it doesn't work. But you still want to hoist it on the rest of the country.
You don't care that almost all economists believe it's NOT the right time to raise taxes on anyone. You don't care. You're like a 1-trick pony. You should be smarter, but can't figure out another trick.

sbourg says

David1: You're assuming all that income by the 1%ers is cap gains -- no, alot or probably most, is sub-S and W-2 taxable at 35% right now.
Besides you're also assuming our federal govt does not have a spending problem.

Doubtful, considering the average tax rate paid by the top 1%, according to this, is 23.3%.

http://mjperry.blogspot.com/2011/08/average-federal-income-tax-rates-by.html

This average rate would be impossible with an income of over $1 million given the current tax brackets unless a significantly high proportion of that income was taxed at 15%. In fact, we can figure it out. An income at the exact start of the top tax rate ($388,351), assuming no state income taxes paid, pays 27.1% in federal income taxes plus Medicare and SS of an additional 2.6%. $1,137,684 in AGI, if alll sub-s or w-2 income, would pay 367,328 (32.3%) in federal income taxes and 20,982 (1.8%) in ss and medicare.

Since they pay a combined 23.3% according to this chart, they pay a combined $265,080.37 in taxes based upon the average income of $1,137,684. Using excel, I have found the w-2 etc. income needed to pay an average rate of 23.3% is about $425,000.

Amending my calculation above, $1,137,684 minus $425,000 is $712,684. This mulitplied by .2 and 1.16 million HH is only $165 billion.

sbourg says

Besides, David, we have a serious spending problem

As I said, $410 billion increase in discretionary spending since 2007. $218 billion of that is on defense, war on terror, and homeland security, including veterens benefits. Less than $200 billion increase in discretionary spending on actual historical liberal "tax and spend" domestic programs. Less of an increase than on the Conservative "smaller government" defense policies and budget.

My point is, get your head out of your ass. Stop blaming Obama. He is not the culprit for the spending problem. There are no differences between Republicans and Democrats when it comes to spending. The only difference is Republicans don't want to pay for the most of the spending, and the little they do want to pay for they sure don't want those who benefit most from having the government pay for it.

sbourg says

even some of Obama's economists say we shouldn't raise taxes in a fragile economy with no job-creation like NOW.

Don't raise taxes on the super wealthy in a fragile economy? Who? Show me one.

Now show me one economist that recommends slashing government spending in a fragile economy. They tried austerity in 1932. How did that work out?

sbourg says

You're like a 1-trick pony. You should be smarter, but can't figure out another trick.

Now that's funny. I mention that spending is too high, revenue is too low, and our tax code is not progressive enough.

You, on the other hand, only mention spending being too high.

But, I'm the one trick pony?