Miscellaneous And Off Topic Subjects

[hack]

You know what I'm talking about, Geezer. Stop it and have a normal discussion, like I know you can.

How the heck is he going to push GDP growth to 4.4%? If I have it right, that's happened three times in ten years. http://www.tradingeconomics.com/unit...tes/gdp-growth. The one way you could push it up to a one-time boost at that level is to spend a fuckton on procurement on infrastructure. Tender out all the contracts in advance and pay up front. A proper rightie skeptic notes that this is not sustainable private-sector growth, but even if you choose to be a cheerleader regardless of facts, the volume of projects you'd need in order to accomplish it would be quite the thing. Are there that many shovel-ready projects he can just sign off on? If not, you have to do the feasibility studies, environmental assessments and all the other things that make infrastructure a marathon and not a sprint.

[hack]

Of local interest, it'll be interesting to see what this means for the Gordie Howe International Bridge. Canadians think Trudeau isn't as interested as Harper was. But that's as crucial a piece of infrastructure as any, and Canada has offered to pay the cost and even share the profits. Trump could score an easy win there and claim credit for negotiating a good deal.

[Da Geezer]

What was the bill that threatened to jail you for not believing in man made climate change?

Not a bill, yet. Sorry for the delay, I completely skipped page 663.

http://www.newsweek.com/should-climate-change-deniers-be-prosecuted-378652

[hack]

Wow! ``controlled media'' going off script to sell fear to the right! Whaddaya know...

[froot loops]

Isn't the Gordie Howe bridge all set on the Canadian side? It has been a matter of acquiring the property in the Del Ray neighborhood. And whatever shenanigans Maroon tries.

[hack]

It's all anecdotal and hearsay, but on the Cdn side there's definitely concern that the Harper>Trudeau exchange is a real loss of momentum. Commissioning date moved back to 2023 from 2020. Wondering if it's an attempt to get in the right contractors/patronage deals, or just a lack of appreciation for the importance of it. Another angle is that in two years Snyder is termed out. Canada needed Snyder to approve it by whatever the state version of an executive order is, rather than seek a vote in the state leg. All that may just be handwringing, but what seemed like a done deal is no longer that, and perhaps not just because Moroun has had time to find a ninth life.

Which illustrates that infrastructure is a marathon, not a sprint. It would take some seriously aggressive accounting for Trump to double the GDP growth rate with a one-time infrastructure hit.

[Da Geezer]

HOWEVER, and I am doing this to infuriate you guys, environmentalism, particularly anthropogenic global warming, has all the same elements of any religion.

You're also surely aware of the stark difference between an unverifiable set of beliefs and knowledge acquired via the scientific method. Put the whack-job side of you back in the box please, if this is to continue.

Ah yes, the scientific method, which has as its basis replicative results and/or predictive results. But, hey, "scientific method" sounds important and intellectually satisfying. How about a link to any climate study that even includes the warm period of the middle ages or the Little Ice Age.

I'm trying go be kind to WB here, but my point is that all I want is to be left alone. If you want to pay these scientists to speculate on the temperatures of the earth in 2100, fine with me, I just don't want to pay for it. I remember the global cooling scare where our scientists told us of the particulates in the air (from nuclear testing) that were leading to Nuclear Winter. Never happened. Given the age of the earth, your sample size post-industrial revolution is simply too small.

Further, every model you can possibly produce, no matter how perfect, cannot predict disruptive technologies, much less sunspots or meteors. If cold fusion were discovered tomorrow, you would still cling to your religious belief that you can predict the future because that belief gives you power over me, and that is what you want like any other religious zealot. (not you WB!, I'm just tweaking the boys now)

Environmentalism, particularly climate change, has all the elements any religion. Most particularly, it involves FAITH in a belief system, which, if followed, will lead to salvation from an apocalypse. No different than Christianity or Islam. Simply another "set of unverifiable beliefs" promulgated by a true believer.

But you want to lock me up for what I believe since it doesn't comport with your religion. You want to tax me to support your religion. I just want to be left alone, and the Constitution guarantees me freedom from your oppression.

[Wild Hoss]

Well, it is not only that, but that is part of it. I personally have no doubt that after 8 years of Hillary, the SC will have held that much of the Bible is hate speech. That is me personally. Obviously, I don't speak for every Evangelical. But, yes, Evangelicals do think Hillary would prohibit them from proselytizing. Why would the Evangelicals believe any differently given what the transnational progressives have done in Europe? I hope you can see how this dovetails into a mistrust of "the global elites".

(I'm hacking off the abortion part because it didn't pertain to me, and I don't want to wade into those waters, at all)

Geez, all I see is propagandized paranoia, sorry. Its probably worth considering that if this ridiculous level of dogwhistling is required to motivate, there are fundamental issues within the Evangelical movement to be addressed. That would dovetail with the election results in fact, as it does not appear that Es came out in large numbers to support our Hedonist-Elect.

It does however, shed an unfortunate light on the positions of others here in re fact-denial. IDK how we find common ground when, in attempting to reason commonly that 1+1=2, one side believes 1=potato.

[Da Geezer]

You know what I'm talking about, Geezer. Stop it and have a normal discussion, like I know you can.

How the heck is he going to push GDP growth to 4.4%? If I have it right, that's happened three times in ten years. http://www.tradingeconomics.com/unit...tes/gdp-growth. The one way you could push it up to a one-time boost at that level is to spend a fuckton on procurement on infrastructure. Tender out all the contracts in advance and pay up front. A proper rightie skeptic notes that this is not sustainable private-sector growth, but even if you choose to be a cheerleader regardless of facts, the volume of projects you'd need in order to accomplish it would be quite the thing. Are there that many shovel-ready projects he can just sign off on? If not, you have to do the feasibility studies, environmental assessments and all the other things that make infrastructure a marathon and not a sprint.

OK. But it might have been just easier to point out an example of me changing the clear meaning of language if you could.

Anyway, you are operating under an implicit assumption that an increase in economic activity has everything to do with government spending. That is part of it, but not all. I don't want to debate the numbers, but the Federal budget is 3.6 T in an economy of 17 T. I don't know the other governmental numbers, but let's just say 2T. It really doesn't matter except to say that government spending, in general, is about 1/3 of economic activity. This includes "services". Spending on what accountants call capital, like infrastructure or tanks is a small percentage of total spending(eg Military spending is 3% of the budget, and that includes payment for labor).

This is really all about tax cuts. let me just use a proposition I heard Rand Paul make this morning. He proposed to charge corporations 6.5% on repatriated money from the $ 3T now stashed overseas, and to limit the time corporations can avail themselves of this rate. Let's just say that $2T comes back. Forget about the $ 130 B in taxes received (never thought I'd say that!) but focus on the, $1.87 T. I'm going to call it 2T for ease in calculation.

The multiplier is a calculation of how much a new injection of money into the economy will increase overall economic activity. In its simplist terms, the Multiplier is (1) divided by (the marginal propensity to save) assuming only save and spend are options. So, if the economy as a whole spends 90% of its paycheck, and saves 10%, the calculation is 1/.1=10. This means that you get your paycheck, bank 10% and spend 90% to another guy, who banks 10% of his income and spends the rest (now 81% of your original 90%) Over time, your (let's say $ 90.00) will convert to $ 81.00 and then $ 72.90 by the next guy and so on. Your original paycheck of $100.00 will create $ 1,000.00 of economic activity. Keynes' error was that he didn't understand that this only happens with NEW MONEY.

getting back to our $ 2T, if the MPS in the economy is 10%, then $2T creates $20T in new activity. Without being political, you can safely say that poor and middle-class folks save less of a given paycheck than the rich do. Their marginal propensity to save is lower making 1/(MPS) higher. Money paid to the rich just creates less economic activity than money to the poor, all else equal.

So we now have $20T of activity (over a time frame which gets into the velocity of money which is complicated). That is an amount that about equals the entire economy for a year. Heh, the $1.87B actual number injected into the economy at a multiplier of 10 almost exactly equals the economy for a year.

I don't mean to be too simplistic, but you can see how this process might create economic growth rising from 1.8% to 4.4% annually. Lifting unnecessary regulations is another $ 1.9 T to be multiplied.

http://www.economicsonline.co.uk/Managing_the_economy/The_multiplier_effect.html

The 10-year bond yield went up about 20 basis points (.2%) on Wednesday to over 2%. That is an enormous increase, actually historic. Dow up 250 after an 800 point plunge when it became clear that the exit polls were off. So it took the US about 12 hours to recoup the "losses" created by the uncertainty of a Trump Presidency. The rise of the ten-year to over 2% means that the demand for money is up sharply, probably because businesses are gearing up to invest. That creates jobs, and no matter our political persuasion, that is a very good thing.

[Da Geezer]

Geez, all I see is propagandized paranoia, sorry. Its probably worth considering that if this ridiculous level of dogwhistling is required to motivate, there are fundamental issues within the Evangelical movement to be addressed. That would dovetail with the election results in fact, as it does not appear that Es came out in large numbers to support our Hedonist-Elect.

It does however, shed an unfortunate light on the positions of others here in re fact-denial. IDK how we find common ground when, in attempting to reason commonly that 1+1=2, one side believes 1=potato.

I appreciate the tone.

I don't understand how the empty churches of Europe are a "fact denial". That is one thing that Evangelicals are afraid of. Remember, we were talking about freedom of "worship" versus of "religion" and about manipulation of language. What I hear you saying, please correct me, is that to fear the destruction of what I hold dear, as has already happened in a cultural milieu very similar to ours, by progressive policies, defies reason. I disagree.

I was reading Thursday's WSJ. In it, Dan Henninger has an article called "The Trump Opportunity". Read it. I just don't see where what he says is "1=potato". You might disagree, but it is not beyond your scope of comprehension. I might sue the guy for plagiarism.

What I'd like to know is what is it in the progressive mind that seems to say " I'm talking facts....but you are talking nonsense" without any argumentation or evidence. My fear is that you have these beliefs as handed-down facts from our education system. You are able to understand a "living" constitution, but you somehow can't seem to see that most of what you think are "facts" are really "evolving" opinion. Maybe you can start by explaining to me why it is nonsense to make a statement like " I think the SC will hold that the Bible is hate speech if Hillary appoints another Justice".

Getting late.

[Da Geezer]

Geez, all I see is propagandized paranoia, sorry. Its probably worth considering that if this ridiculous level of dogwhistling is required to motivate, there are fundamental issues within the Evangelical movement to be addressed. That would dovetail with the election results in fact, as it does not appear that Es came out in large numbers to support our Hedonist-Elect.

It does however, shed an unfortunate light on the positions of others here in re fact-denial. IDK how we find common ground when, in attempting to reason commonly that 1+1=2, one side believes 1=potato.

I appreciate the tone.

I don't understand how the empty churches of Europe are a "fact denial". That is one thing that Evangelicals are afraid of. Remember, we were talking about freedom of "worship" versus of "religion" and about manipulation of language. What I hear you saying, please correct me, is that to fear the destruction of what I hold dear, as has already happened in a cultural milieu very similar to ours, by progressive policies, defies reason. I disagree.

I was reading Thursday's WSJ. In it, Dan Henninger has an article called "The Trump Opportunity". Read it. I just don't see where what he says is "1=potato". You might disagree, but it is not beyond your scope of comprehension. I might sue the guy for plagiarism.

What I'd like to know is what is it in the progressive mind that seems to say " I'm talking facts....but you are talking nonsense" without any argumentation or evidence. My fear is that you have these beliefs as handed-down facts from our education system. You are able to understand a "living" constitution, but you somehow can't seem to see that most of what you think are "facts" are really "evolving" opinion. Maybe you can start by explaining to me why it is nonsense to make a statement like " I think the SC will hold that the Bible is hate speech if Hillary appoints another Justice".

Getting late.

[froot loops]

It's all anecdotal and hearsay, but on the Cdn side there's definitely concern that the Harper>Trudeau exchange is a real loss of momentum. Commissioning date moved back to 2023 from 2020. Wondering if it's an attempt to get in the right contractors/patronage deals, or just a lack of appreciation for the importance of it. Another angle is that in two years Snyder is termed out. Canada needed Snyder to approve it by whatever the state version of an executive order is, rather than seek a vote in the state leg. All that may just be handwringing, but what seemed like a done deal is no longer that, and perhaps not just because Moroun has had time to find a ninth life.

Which illustrates that infrastructure is a marathon, not a sprint. It would take some seriously aggressive accounting for Trump to double the GDP growth rate with a one-time infrastructure hit.

The Canadian government just sent out RFPs yesterday

[Dr. Strangelove]

Geezer has provided an incredible amount of well-reasoned thought and evidence to support his argument that the Supreme Court is about to ban the Bible as hate speech, and you fools are too blinded by your book learning and education system to see the truth!!!

We challenge you to prove a negative! Prove it wouldn't happen!

[froot loops]

Why even bother with the dude?

[hack]

The Canadian government just sent out RFPs yesterday

See it now, thanks. I think it was The Windsor Star story from a few weeks ago that anticipated that as a sign. Glad to hear that next steps are being taken. It may not be a walled off Mexico, but here's something the neighboring country will build and pay for and even share in the profits, so Trump can claim an Art of the Deal victory. That support could be needed if Moroun can keep the land-seizure suits going until Snyder's out, and then get the next governor to reverse the executive decision that cut out the state leg. I'm gonna read up on this fuller next week and get a fuller understanding of the MI politics side of it.