Based on Bruce’s comments if social security goes up by 2.01 percent this means in his example that someone making 50k would pay 50,000 * .0201 = $1,005 per year (or 100 times the 20 cents a week that coberly came up with).
Dales says an increase of $.20 or .025% weekly applied annually will solve the SS short fall. That annual increase applied over the same 75 year time frame cited in the SS Report is ~1.87%.
You continue to try to obfuscate the obvious by refusing to do the actual calculations. Why? You are not making points, winning, even partially, your argument, or I think you phrased it demonstrating your intellectual integrity.
Lessee, an annual .025% increase while the wages will probably be going up at a rate ~ 100 times that, and you continue trying to make points? You’re wrong, hard headed, and in this matter much more ignorant than Dale, Bruce and most of the readers here.
I don’t know who you are, but from the current dialog can remember similar others. The end of which resulted in that commenter banned. You’re a Bulldog, but in this instance are biting and holding on to your own foot.
Dales says an increase of $.20 or .025% weekly applied annually will solve the SS short fall. That annual increase applied over the same 75 year time frame cited in the SS Report is ~1.87%.
You continue to try to obfuscate the obvious by refusing to do the actual calculations. Why? You are not making points, winning, even partially, your argument, or I think you phrased it demonstrating your intellectual integrity.
Lessee, an annual .025% increase while the wages will probably be going up at a rate ~ 100 times that, and you continue trying to make points? You’re wrong, hard headed, and in this matter much more ignorant than Dale, Bruce and most of the readers here.
I don’t know who you are, but from the current dialog can remember similar others. The end of which resulted in that commenter banned. You’re a Bulldog, but in this instance you are biting and holding on to your own foot.
I think we should talk about Rush Limbaugh and Pat Robertson’s remarks on the Haiti situation. Is there anyone around who has the appalling guts to endorse what they said? Second question: why does the GOP allow these despicable low lifes to pretend to represent party views? Why has the GOP not clearly denounced their unthinkable remarks? Why does the GOP make itself a friendly home for crazies and morons and assorted dangers to the republic? Why is the GOP hand in glove with Fox News, and its distortions and lies?
no one here to waste their time. i think i have said before that by the time you add 20 cents per week per year for 75 years you end up with 15 dollars per week or 780 dollars per year. close enough to your thousand on a slightly higher income than the 40,000 i based the 20 cents on. a thousand a year sounds like a lot until you realize it is going to go to pay for about six extra years in retirement.
don’t know why you didn’t hear this the other three (?) times i explained it. the problem you are having is that you are trying to apply your intuition to a problem that is more complex than even i can solve by intuition alone. i cheated, i used the Trustees numbers as a starting place. actually, iused their answer as a starting place and just unfolded it so ordinary people could get a “feel” of what it would mean to them.
i really hate to start folding it back up to that 1000 per year becasue ordinary people cannot get an honest “feel” of that. they go all crazy thinking that it’s a thousand dollars out of each paycheck and they comletely forget that they are going to need that much money “in the bank” if they are going to be able to retire.
no one here but us chickens. so i can safely say i am not sure i much care. the dems haven’t shown me much with their majority. only the repubs scare me too much to vote for them. they would get the wrong message from that.
i spent the day watching a crowd of people desperately trying to get a Senator to hear their lonely cries. They didn’t know much, but they thought it was important. i was in that crowd.
Paulson’s agenda as Treaury Secretary was to bring home the bacon; the SS withholding. Unfortunately I was one of the few that realized what the “conservites” had in mind. Incredibly, we may be among the most naive asss on earth. For example, we think that a President has to come from “Harvard” or Yale. Same with the Wall Street “rocket scientist” who built a great big turd and sold it to us.
Well, they got it anyway. With a great big dry hump behind the so called “financial” crisis. And we bought it. Barack O’Bama, the child President, has bought into the crap. How can we expect an African American to say no to the man. We can’t and shouldn’t. Collin Powell and his Son Michael, were both tools of the white majority. BO is under the same pressure and acting appropriately.
I asked Bruce to help me with the calculation and he did. He has payroll taxes going from 12.4 to 12.7 percent, or an increase of .3 percent. When you multiply this a against a 50 k salary you get a pretty small number (although more than 20 cents which is not Coberly’s number). I get close to 12.7 when I multiply 12.4 by 1.021. However, looking at the SSA’s website they describe the needed increase affect as 2.01 + 12.4 =14.41 percent.
This added 2.01 percent adds over $1,000 a year for someone making 50k and over $2,000 a year for someone making 100 k a year; which is a lot more than 20 cents a week comes out to about 10 bucks a year You asked me to do some math and I did so I don’t know why you don’t accept the fact. Also, this is an example of why you were wrong on your objection to peer reviewed journal articles. The more people you have going over the calculations the higher the chance you’ll find an error. And maybe the way I set up the problem is wrong. These sorts of things get worked out when you make the analysis explicit. This is why I suggested putting all the data and analysis in a neat well organized spreadsheet model and then put a permanent link to it from this website.
I asked Bruce to help me with the calculation and he did. He has payroll taxes going from 12.4 to 12.7 percent, or an increase of .3 percent. When you multiply this a against a 50 k salary you get a pretty small number (although more than 20 cents a week). I get close to 12.7 when I multiply 12.4 by 1.021. However, looking at the SSA’s website they describe the needed increase affect as 2.01 + 12.4 =14.41 percent.
This added 2.01 percent adds over $1,000 a year for someone making 50k and over $2,000 a year for someone making 100 k a year; which is a lot more than 20 cents a week which comes out to about 10 bucks a year You asked me to do some math and I did so I don’t know why you don’t accept this as fact. Also, this is an example of why you were wrong on your objection to peer reviewed journal articles. The more people you have going over the calculations the higher the chance you’ll find an error. And maybe the way I set up the problem is wrong. These sorts of things get worked out when you make the analysis explicit. This is why I suggested putting all the data and analysis in a neat well organized spreadsheet model and then put a permanent link to it from this website.
I live close enough to Mass to hear the ads. I change the channel anymore.
Coakley is utterly boring!! Will lock step with Obama.
Brown is Mitt Romney WASP hollow suit. Will vote lock step with the rethugs.
Brown has promised to make sure he won’t allow the US to treat terrists like human beings. He is scaring the seniors about medicare under the Obama reform.
Chokeley makes a few valid assertions about lopsided tax rules, and health care
“One interpretation of this negative actuarial balance (-2.00 percent of taxable payroll) is that it represents the magnitude of the increase in the combined payroll tax rate for the entire 75-year period that woujld allow the combined trust funds to remain solvent thoughout the period. The combined payroll tas rate is 12.4 percent today and is currently scheduled to remain at that level. An incease of 2.01 percentage points in this rate for each year of the 75-year projection period (1.005 percerntage point sor employees and employers each, resulting in a total rate of 14.41 percent or a rate of 7,205 percent each) is estimated to produce enough income to pay all benefits due under current law for that period. Alternatively, all benefits during this period could be reduced by about 13.3 percent on average (or there could be some combination of both tax increases and benefit reductions) to achieve the same effect.
For the combined OASDI Trust Funds to remain solvent throughout the 75-year projection period, the combined payroll tax rate could be increased during the period in a manner equivalent to an immediate and permanent increase of 2.01 percentage points, benefits could be reduced during the period in a manner equivalent to an immediate and permanent reduction of 13.3 percent, general revenue transfers equivalent to $5.3 trillion in present value could be made during the period, or some combination of approaches could be adopted. Significantly larger changes would be required to maintain solvency beyond 75 years.
I take the phrase “immediate and permanent increase of 2.01 percentage points” to mean that the tax hike they say is needed now to achieve actuarial balance is 2.01 pecent a year. This comes out to around a $1,000 increase for someone earning 50k and $2,000 for those earning 100k.
Thus again proving my theory that the wingers somehow are driven to say the opposite of the truth, usually in the most blatant ways. Why, I still don’t know. Kind of a Tourette’s-like thing, perhaps.
Social Security rates were last adjusted in the mid-1980s when life expectancy was around 74.5 years. It’s around 78 now. The adjustment included changing the retirement age by 2 years. So OASDI had to cover 9.5 years of average retirement in 1985 vs 11 years now. (1 – 9.5/11) = 13.6%. Substantially oversimplified, but that pretty well explains the required 2% increase.
Comparison of US life expectancy to Canada make one suspect that universal health insurance might (not will, but might. There are other factors) add a couple of years to US life expectancy which implies that the required adjustment might eventually be closer to 4% than 2%.
Cantie, let me make it as clear as I can! You and Dale are saying essentially the same thing. The major difference is in the implementing strategy.
Dale is assuming/recommending a gradual increase in FICA starting when the money is needed. You are assuming the increase is immediate when it is not needed. Moreover, there is NO EFFORT underway to raise FICA, so it is not even close to a reality-based view.
Both approaches reach nearly the same impact point, ~2%. Dale’s approach of adding .025% annually is much more politically and economically feasible, as it has a lesser impact on incomes. You continue to compare the 2% against today’s income, and Dale provides an approach increasing collections gradually as needed. His comparison is much less frightful when compared against the end state which should have income up ~500-600%. Does a total 2% increase against that 500-600% increase still frighten you?
We are not saying the same thing. $10 a year is not the same thing as $1,000 or $2,000 a year. Given that you don’t like refereed journals what about my spreadsheet model idea. At some point if you want credability you have to layout the analysis in an organized way and make it available. If they made it available you could look at it at your liesure or when you wanted to enter the debate. Coberly could say look at the spreasheet and get back to me.
It seems to me that Bruce and Coberly overriding goal is to preserve social security in its current form. I doubt they ever supported private accounts. Therefore, as protectors of the status quo they see any questioning of the system’s solvency as an attack on the system’s current organization or even its existence at all. Thus they jump all over some pancake like this Bruce Krasting character (they also do it because it’s fun). Their hyper defensiveness does not mean they’re wrong but it does raise a flag indicating that you need to check out their analysis. Ways to do this is to see if they’ve published in reputable journals, that their opinions and conclusion square with experts in the field, and or for them to make their analysis available in an spreadsheet model.
this is what is so heartbreaking about dealing with you. The 2% “now” increase described by SSA would indeed balance the books over the next 75 years. but so would raising the (combined) tax one tenth of one percent each year the Trustees project short term actuarial insolvency. You need to know what these words me, and you need to know why both “answers” are correct… though they would lead to different results. This means you would have to work harder than you have done so far. You can’t sit in front of your computer and take pot shots based on your non-understanding and hope to say or undertand anything that’s true.
the SSA “answer” would lead to an immediate surplus, increasing the Trust Fund, the intersted from that larger trust fund, and ultimately paying it down, wold add to the increased tax and the books would balance in year 75. but at the end of that time, the 2% (combined) increase wouldn’t be enough to pay full benefits going forward. the “nw” plan would let the current Trust Fund pay (mostly boomer) retirements now until it runs down to one years reserve (predicted ten years ahead) then it would raise the tax one tenth percent “each” or two tenth’s combined. this would balance the income with outgo and preserve the one year’s reserve. this is predicted to have to occur seventen times over the next seventy five years. at the end of that time the trust fund would be in balance with a one years reserve, and the tax increase would have added up to just less than 2% for each, or just less than 4% combined… it is worth pointing out that half of that number is caused by a hidden tax CUT that is expected when employers shift pay to untaxed “benefits.” but now the tax rate would be high enough so that SS would go into the future with no immediate deficit in prospect (as in the SSA “answer”). quite probably some future adjustment would be necessary, but at a much lower rate that the 20 cents per week per year average that it will take to get us through the first 75 years of the rest of our lives.
i already know this is way too complicated for you to follow. but it may help others.
For those who are interested in how real economists estimate fiscal multipliers and the effects of fiscal stimulus, here is a very clear explanation and comparison. This is from Menzie Chinn.
Down in the comments section someone refers to Michael Boskin’s 13 Jan WSJ op-ed piece regarding multipliers. The Boskin piece is an example of dishonest hackery because what he doesn’t tell you is that those DSGE models predicting a multiplier < 1.00 also assume that the Fed acts to sterilize any fiscal stimlus. If that happens, then yes...the fiscal multiplier will be less than 1.00. That's clearly irrelevant here since the Fed is working alongside the Administration to stimulate aggregate demand.
this is what is so heartbreaking about dealing with you. The 2% “now” increase described by SSA would indeed balance the books over the next 75 years. but so would raising the (combined) tax one tenth of one percent each year the Trustees project short term actuarial insolvency. You need to know what these words me, and you need to know why both “answers” are correct… though they would lead to different results. This means you would have to work harder than you have done so far. You can’t sit in front of your computer and take pot shots based on your non-understanding and hope to say or undertand anything that’s true.
the SSA “answer” would lead to an immediate surplus, increasing the Trust Fund, the intersted from that larger trust fund, and ultimately paying it down, wold add to the increased tax and the books would balance in year 75. but at the end of that time, the 2% (combined) increase wouldn’t be enough to pay full benefits going forward. the “nw” plan would let the current Trust Fund pay (mostly boomer) retirements now until it runs down to one years reserve (predicted ten years ahead) then it would raise the tax one tenth percent “each” or two tenth’s combined. this would balance the income with outgo and preserve the one year’s reserve. this is predicted to have to occur seventen times over the next seventy five years. at the end of that time the trust fund would be in balance with a one years reserve, and the tax increase would have added up to just less than 2% for each, or just less than 4% combined… it is worth pointing out that half of that number is caused by a hidden tax CUT that is expected when employers shift pay to untaxed “benefits.” but now the tax rate would be high enough so that SS would go into the future with no immediate deficit in prospect (as in the SSA “answer”). quite probably some future adjustment would be necessary, but at a much lower rate that the 20 cents per week per year average that it will take to get us through the first 75 years of the rest of our lives.
i already know this is way too complicated for you to follow. but it may help others.
Menzie also has a link to Robert Hall’s paper on multipliers. Again, you have to follow the footnotes, but most of the reasons why a multiplier is apt to be less than 1.00 do not apply in the current situation; however, they probably did apply during the 2001-2002 recession.
all this has already been done. what you call hyperdefensiveness is just anger at having to do it again and again for people who can’t read but still want to be listened to.
Maybe its more a case of FoxNews, a stretch if there ever was one, being in lock step with reactionary politics for the purpose of selling its prkoducts. For some reason the average American enjoys jingoistic and reactionary distortions of reality. Watch the program Jersey Shore, if you can get over the very first appearence of one of their faux Italians. The media ouotlets like Fox provide us with caricatures of life in both social and political situations. The social distortions are supposed to be entertaining. The political revisions serve a more propagandist end. Either way the end result is profitability from catering to the popularity of the the lowest common denominator. The popint is there is no good end to discussing such cynical opportunists. Rush, Robinson and Ailes are at the front line of the reactionary disinformation industry. It does pay well.
For the combined OASDI Trust Funds to remain solvent throughout the 75-year projection period, the combined payroll tax rate could be increased during the period in a manner equivalent to an immediate and permanent increase of 2.01 percentage points
What don’t you understand about the word immediate.
2slugs, we’ve had this discussion re: multipliers, but in the reality-based world they are not proving to be true. Indeed, in the reality-based world the two parties’ economic policy results are showing to be one more efficient than the other. Let’s compare 2001-03 results versus 2008-2010 (and on.) Or for that matter the results from saint FDR.
Your party is causing immense economic and national security pain. How much longer do we think the electorate will let it continue. I’m guessing one more year.
As an empirical fact those claiming a 1.5 multipier also claimed that unemployment would not go above 8 percent but as we all know its 10 percent today.
it is you who don’t understand immediate. i have been trying to be kind to you for 12 hours now. i am getting tired of it. you are either too dumb to understand or you are just playing dumb to get attention.
I don’t much like the term “child” but I see quite a bit of merit in other aspects of your comment. It is VERY disappointing that Obama would let Wall Street control the “correction” of Wall Street stupidity and excess. You are probably right, sadly enough, that in still racist America a “black” president has to kow tow to (mainly rightwing) racists for fear of all sort of sneak attacks. (His authority is, in this crisis, not nearly that of Roosevelt in the former crisis because, in my opinion. Roosevelt was an upper class white and Obama is not). Powell and Rice and Thomas are Uncle Toms, blacks who do the bidding of white masters. Sad that too. So in general you make telling points that are in fact sad truths about America. PS Bush was, mentally speaking, closer to an ape than to, say, Paul Krugman.
It is undeniable that Fox has a large following. I think all that would bear a close study. Does it attract all the morons in the US? Do MSNBC and CNN that are less rightwing have lesser audiences because the more intelligent Americans are simply not so addicted to TV? I don’t think Fox’s success, the reasons for it, are completely clear. It is for sure a success.
Brown now attacks Obama’s tax on banks to repay the public funds used to save them. I find it difficult to understand why such a position would not damage him. Are Americans, or rather people in Mass. so stupid that they don’t want the banks to repay us for their bailout? Do they adore rich smug bankers that much? Best probably not to answer. Americans can be VERY stupid.
Its what is called pandering, a phrase often reserved for the publication of salacious material. In regards to Fox that may be the point. Roger Ailes should probably be given control of Fox Entertainment so that FoxNews would be more accurately housed.
Jack, MM, 2slugs, and the other Libs who deny that the conservative message is more resilient than you were told. Told, BTW, by MSNBC, CNN, CBS, NBC… (need I go on?)
Next Tuesday, 2010 and 2012, will finally give an indication of just how poorly this Prez and your Dem administration has done. I’m predicting that the denial will go up until 2010. After Tuesday, the Dem fear factor will significantly increase.
What’s funny, it doesn’t matter whether Brown wins or loses, his message is already heard loud and clear. Expect an even increased rush to get a HC vote, but then the 2010 elections will be dominated by those who pledge to repeal it.
fox success is based on the fact that humans are apes. it takes a lot of work to make a civilization. fox appeals to the uncivilized part of our nature. always the strongest, both among the poor and uneducated and,surprisingly, among the more successful… who get ahead by shoving in line…
this doesn’t mean we don’t need the shovers in line. it does mean we need to regulate them a bit. when times are very hard, like during the depression, the poor and uneducated can understand the need. when times have been good for 70 years, the poor start to think they are doing fine and if the government will just leave them alone they will be rich too one day.
i agree that the pres and the dems are not doing well. but i think their problem is that they are too heavily in the pockets of the same people who fund fox news.
as for why the message is resiliant see my reply to margery.
Just a wee little footnote to something I posted here some time ago about Americans being so “whiny” about the 3,000 people killed on 9/11 and how we have made it into one of the world’s greatest disasters. Here is a REAL WORLD DISASTER: 200,000+ dead in Haiti. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jan/16/haiti-earthquake-update-toll-aftershock But Americans are and will not be nearly as upset about this as they are about 9/11. Why? Well it is blacks who are dying. Second it was an act of God and most important it didn’t happen to us. So while we may think it sad. we will never take it anywhere near as seriously as 9/11.
How about a little Global Warming reality? I have said that the climategate issue rested on three legs, 1) the emails, 2) the S/W code, and 3) the data. We are seeing more an more evidience that the adjustments to the data (lowering older data and raising newer) has been rampant. Earlier we have talked about the Darwin, AU data which showed this propensity, but below we have some of the US data also undergoing this same effect.
Adjusting raw data is normal, but always adjusting in the same direction is not.
There is so much more, but I get the impression this discussion subject has been exhausted here at AB.
Jack, MM, 2slugs, and the other Libs who deny that the conservative message is more resilient than you were told.
I don’t know where you got this idea. I thought I’ve been very clear that voters are nitwits…half the electorate has an IQ under 100. Voters are easily fooled and the GOP has done very well at playing upon voter stupidity and ignorance. I am quite sure than many voters are buying what the GOP is trying to sell them. That’s unfortunate.
It’s unfortunate that Romer included a chart in her paper that showed unemployment topping out at 8 percent. Afterall, unemployment was already at 7.7 percent at the time the paper was released, so it was crazy to claim that it would top out at 8.0. Of course, she didn’t actually say that if you actually read the deep parts of the paper. And most real economists (as opposed to the fools at FoxNews) understood that Romer was really talking about when GDP growth would turn positive and the unemployment rate was kind of a dumbed down way of saying that for dumbed down voters.
In any event, Romer’s error is small when you compare it to the freshwater economists who were denying even then that the economy was in recession…and many of them were in denial that there was a housing bubble collapse. The same names that write regular columns for the WSJ op-ed page. That too is an empirical fact.
The 2001-2002 recession is noteworthy for being both mild and showing an exceptionally weak recovery. The current recession is nothing like the the 2001-2002 recession. Not even close. You sound stupid pretending that they are.
The GOP prescription for this recession was a four page cartoon with no numbers. That was supposed to be a serious economic proposal. Cantor and Boehner are idiots.
FDR had a very good record up until 1937 when he started listening to Republicans and thought started to worry about deficits with a weak economy.
The Menzine Chinn link was about how real economists actually analyze economic policies. It’s not ideological…it’s just math and econometrics. I’m sorry if you don’t understand it.
I get the impression this discussion subject has been exhausted here at AB.
There is nothing to discuss. There is no warming, there is cooling. Unless you use dicredited data. Not only that:
“A recent study from the University of Bristol (UK) by Wolfgang Knorr suggests that the airborne fraction of man-made carbon dioxide (CO2) has not increased during the past 150 years. ” “……the trend in the airborne fraction since 1850 has been 0.7 ± 1.4% per decade, i.e. close to and not significantly different from zero.” http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2009/2009GL040613.shtml
So no warming, no CO2 increase. What’s to discuss?
Here are some recent interviews with leading economists at the University of Chicago. They sound pretty sensible (unlike Krugman who is the McDrool of the economics profession).
On the economy, predicting the economy would turn positive a couple of months before reaching the length of the longest recession since WW2 according to the NBER was not a heroic forecast. The administration went out of their way to slap on an excessive stimulus bill so they could jump in and take credit when the inevitable happened. However, it looks like they jumped the gun. The stimulus is a dud, they look stupid, and it appears like the political headwinds have done a 180.
Menzine Chinn link was about how real economists actually analyze economic policies.
I’m not impressed with anyone pedding the output from a VAR model as truth and beauty. I have no confidence that these people can successfully isolate the compenents of growth between growth caused by the stimulus and that from a natural rebound out of a recession. And the total rebound is looing like a dud too; and Obama’s only just getting started.
i need to apologize. I do believe the “conservative” message today depends on the more primitive aspects of human nature. But I frequently think of myself as a conservative in the George Washington, Dwight Eisenhower mold. Both of those guys were very practical, and they understood the uses of government and why a government needs to be strong, but the people need to carefully protect themselves from letting it get too strong.
It is very easy to go from protecting liberty, however, to just making it impossible for government to do what has to be done. Ten million people out of work is not good for the country. Not even for your business. We KNOW that “free enterprise” cannot solve this problem by itself in any reasonable period of time. So we have invented a few ways for the government to help out. Those ways do cost a bit of money in taxes from time to time. But i can’t see any evidnce that they don’t pay for themselves ten times over.
I will assume you are a conservative of the same mold as Ike and the original George W. But I will argue that you are in danger of crippling the country with excessive concern about small taxes, while you seem willing to let liberty be destroyed in the name of safety. I think the Republican propaganda can win elections. I don’t hold that against them. God knows the democrats play to the mob too. What I hold against them is that they elect people who believe their own propaganda. And are willing to destroy the country to win the next election.
2slugs, I forgot to mention the environmental and energy policy differences along with the national security and economic policy results. Still under a year in office, and the electorate has turned from awe of his rhetorical abilities to awe and anger over the administration’s ineptitudes.
Eugene Fama is a fool. He made some pretty stupid claims in that interview. For example, his claim that it wasn’t the market but govt intervention that caused the housing collapse is laughable on the face of it and just shows that the guy doesn’t know the timeline. The REASON Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac got into the subprime market was because the unregulated free market was gobbling up the market. Fannie and Freddie were latecomers…very latecomers to the party. Maybe you should take the time to look at at the quantitative studies that clearly show this mess was baked in the cake long before Freddie and Fannie ever got involved. It was the unregulated market that created the problem….Freddie and Fannie joined late and went along for the ride. And it was the govt’s effort to effectively deregulate Fannie and Freddie that caused the problem. Sorry, but Fama is an idiot. He’s said a lot of really crazy things over the last year.
And your claim that the economy was going to recover on its own is without foundation. And you even contradict yourself when you say that the economy is sputtering now but would have recovered on its own. Think about that for a moment. If you don’t see how dumb that statement is, then maybe you need to crack open a few macro textbooks. One day you’re arguing that a tax hike will depress demand and the next minute you’re arguing that a stimulus package will depress demand. Keep your stories straight.
And the total rebound is looing like a dud too; and Obama’s only just getting started.
That’s an argument for a larger stimulus. I agree. And a year ago I said that the stimulus was not large enough. And recall that Romer also said that the stimulus needed to be almost twice as large as it was (she estimated $1.3T).
I’m not impressed with anyone pedding the output from a VAR model as truth and beauty. I have no confidence that these people can successfully isolate the compenents of growth between growth caused by the stimulus and that from a natural rebound out of a recession. Now you’re assuming that there is such a thing as a natural rebound. That’s a huge assumption and you haven’t presented any evidence that it exists. Afterall, the arguments for a natural rebound actually depend upon the argument that recessions cannot happen. The economy was in freefall and pretending that there was some kind of natural rebound is just magical thinking. The Recovery Fairies were sprinkle magic dust on the economy and aggregate demand would just spontaneously burst forth. That worked real well for Japan, didn’t it. There are a couple of new papers that are out now that look at recessions caused by financial collapses, as opposed to recessions caused by supply shocks, recessions induced by the Fed, or whatever. Recessions caused by financial collapses take the longest to recover and do not just fix themselves. In Japan’s case it took close to 20 years to get things right, and that number is not unusual for that kind of recession.
No doubt that the electorate is angry. That’s one reason why Obama should have totally ignored the GOP and their dishonest gameplaying over the summer. Grassley has even admitted that he was negotiating in bad faith over the healthcare bill. He even brags about it to his core constituents. The GOP has worked very hard to make sure that Obama’s policies fall flat. But the GOP has aligned itself with the Old Confederacy and they have some firsthand experience with treason in that part of the country.
But as angry as the voters are at the Dems, they are even angrier at Republicans.
The GOP will probably do quite well in 2010, but that will likely be the last hoorah for the GOP because after that things do not line up well for them. So they’re only shot at regaining control of Congress is 2010. If they don’t succeed in 2010, then they will be a permanent minority party for a long time. And the numbers look like the GOP will fall short of controlling Congress. Demographics are not the friend of the GOP.
Cantab you have ignored the employer split and as noted you miss the difference between applying an immediate fix of 2.01% or dividing that into 17 pieces.
The NW plan applies a 0.15% tax to both sides of the split right away. That yields a much smaller number than a 2.01% increase that assumes the entire incidence falls on the employee. This is not that hard.
For a guy challenging the patience the siteowner you are oddly confident in your ability to issue civility orders to Dale. You really are not in position to make demands.
Cantab those projections assumed a bigger stimulus. The package was cut back at the insistance of Republicans and Conservadems and proved o be less effective than Romer projected.
At which time the people ho crippled the stimulus blame it for limping.
Slugs, Now you’re assuming that there is such a thing as a natural rebound. Yes, and I have a good case. People are optimizers and this optimization creates an upward bias. It’s not like they’re sitting there indifferent if things get better or worse. rather they are actively working to make things better for themselves and thus collectively better for society. Greed is good, still.
2slugs, you’ve got all the talking points well down, memorized. I remember all the claims after the last two elections, and still less than ayear from the great win, we are looking at a potential landslide victory for that … how di you phrase it … “they will be a permanent minority party for a long time.“
So which is it? Permanent or a long time? I am leaning toward a long time, say several decades. Just like the last time, but not minority.
2slugs, you’ve got all the talking points well down, memorized. I remember all the claims after the last two elections, and still less than a year from the great win, we are looking at a potential landslide victory for that … how did you phrase it … “they will be a permanent minority party for a long time.”
So which is it? Permanent or a long time? I am leaning toward a long time, say several decades. Just like the last time, but not minority.
slugs – “The GOP has worked very hard to make sure that Obama’s policies fall flat. But the GOP has aligned itself with the Old Confederacy and they have some firsthand experience with treason in that part of the country.”
So, Massachusetts is part of the Old Confederacy? Treason, no doubt, but the Confederacy… Nah. Can’t be true.
This is idiocy on steroids. Didn’t you ever learn about suboptimizing behavior? What’s good for one person is not necessarily good for all if everyone did it. Saving too much of your income makes sense from an individual’s perspective, but it’s awful in terms of the macro economy. Geez, it’s like you never took a macro course.
It’s my understanding that the stimulus that was passed was the one that was supposed to keep unemployment capped at 8 percent. Anyway, the democrats always had the votes. And as much as I would like to see Scott Brown win on Tuesday and even though the bookies have him ahead right now I would bet against the way i’m going to vote this tueday. I think the take away is there are not enough people on the far left to turn us into Sweden. A lot of democrats are really democrats in name only and they respresent conservative parts of the country — so the bottom line is the far left agenda just does not have the votes to win.
When analysts talk about adjusting and correcting raw data, they don’t just mean fixing obvious errors due to corrupt data points. They certainly do correct corrupt records, but when you do real analysis you have to do more. For example, look at the attachment. If you relied solely upon eyeball analysis you would be quite certain that the raw data shows a downward trend. In fact, that’s wrong. I created this data set. The raw data has no corruption errors and in fact is complete white noise. The data was created using a random number generator and then applied to a function that I created that had a deterministic trend INCREASE with a slope of 5 percent. But yet the visual data looks like a strong decreasing trend. That’s why you cannot do eyeball analysis. You have to employ lots of sophisticated time series approaches, and when real analysts talk about adjusting raw data that’s mostly what they mean. From what I’ve seen here you do not have the skill set needed to decompose a time series into deterministic and stochastic trends. Just dumping data into an Excel spreadsheet and then drawing a fitted line through the data points is not analysis.
the policies of the new repubs are very much the polcies of the old south. when i lived in Mass they called it “taxachusetts” so that doesn’t sound like the place the repubs have alligned their policies to.
or are you just saying that the repubs look like they may take a seat in Mass. i hope you can understand this is not “allinging their policies with”. but i am learning that the random connections made by someone else’s synapses don’t necessarily parallel the random connections made by my own.
You have badly misinterpreted what the GRL study actually said. It did not say that CO2 is not increasing. It said that the ability of the ocean to absorb manmade CO2 is not degrading. Once again what we have here is a failure to understand the difference between flow variables and stock variables. What Knorr is saying is that the flow variable in the ocean’s ability to absorb manmade CO2 has not degraded. That does NOT mean that the level of CO2 is not increasing. The problem from your side is that the ocean is not showing any increased ability to absorb CO2, whichi is what the arguments from the climate change deniers actually make even though most are not aware of it.
But you are not alone in completely misunderstanding the GRL paper. Most of the climate change denier sites have also misunderstood it….and again, it’s for the usual reason: an inability to distinguish between flow variables and stock variables.
One of your issues is you go right to macro economics without considering the micro foundations. A real economist is an economist that understands the fundamentals and builds his analysis based on the fundamentals. The fact that you parade out some guy with his VAR model and label him a real economist because of his new data mining toy means to me that you need to think more about what makes a good economist.
The reason the Fresh water economists took over the profession is that they do the fundamentals correctly. The University of Chicago is great at treaching from the fundamentals and then pairing theory with data analysis. And not there is no fresh water versus salt water economic schools, today we have fresh water coast to coast.
Right now givent he result I wish we never did the bank bailout. I also wish we never did Obama’s stimulus. My usual preferrred policy in the face of economic downturns is to liberalize regulation and cut taxes permanetly if they’re too high. We should have stuck to this last year.
One of your issues is you go right to macro economics without considering the micro foundations. A real economist is an economist that understands the fundamentals and builds his analysis based on the fundamentals. The fact that you parade out some guy with his VAR model and label him a real economist because of his new data mining toy means to me that you need to think more about what makes a good economist.
The reason the fresh water economists took over the profession is that they do the fundamentals correctly. The University of Chicago is great at treaching from the fundamentals and then pairing theory with data analysis. And now there is no fresh water versus salt water dichotomy, today we’re all fresh water economics (with a crazy uncle Krugman or two locked in the attick).
Right now given the results of intervention policy I wish we never did the bank bailout. I also wish we never did Obama’s stimulus. My usual preferrred policy in the face of economic downturns is to liberalize regulation and cut taxes permanetly if they’re too high. We should have stuck to this last year. Slow recovery is what you get when you don’t take your medicine. And the slow economic recovery seems to be the most significant way Obama has made us more like Europe — and that’s a change we can live without.
The heart and soul of the GOP (to the extent that the GOP has a soul) is in the Old Confederacy. That doesn’t mean the GOP won’t occassionaly win seats outside of the Old Confederacy, but those seats will largely be transient. A Republican in Massachusetts is really just a fellow traveler. The GOP is about as close to a regional party as you’re going to see in this country.
If you’re a politician, long time and permanent mean the same thing.
Demography is not the friend of the GOP. The reason the GOP will do well in 2010 is because the base of today’s GOP is the elderly white voter and the elderly tend vote in non-Presidential election years. But hitching your electoral wagon to a (literally) dying demographic is not a long term winning strategy. And notice that there have been more Republican retirements this year than Democratic retirements. That tells you a lot about the GOP’s prospects for regaining control of Congress. The GOP will will a lot of seats in 2010, but they won’t win enough to regain control of Congress, and that’s bad news for them because 2010 is probably their last, best chance.
If you’re a politician, long time and permanent mean the same thing.
Demography is not the friend of the GOP. The reason the GOP will do well in 2010 is because the base of today’s GOP is the elderly white voter, and the elderly tend to vote in non-Presidential election years. But hitching your electoral wagon to a (literally) dying demographic is not a long term winning strategy. And notice that there have been more Republican retirements this year than Democratic retirements. That tells you a lot about the GOP’s prospects for regaining control of Congress. If GOP politicians actually thought that they had a realistic chance of regaining control of Congress, then they would not be retiring. But being in a “permanent” minority is no fun, so they are bailing. The GOP will win a lot of seats in 2010, but they won’t win enough to regain control of Congress, and that’s bad news for them because 2010 is probably their last, best chance.
We also called ourselves taxachusetts. Massachuetts voted for Reagan twice so voting for the democrat is not a forgone conclusion. The only reason we voted for George McGovern in 1972 was Nixon was ran against one of out local boys. This flipped around in 1980. Another factor in Massachusetts is that we don’t have a strong tradition of electing women to high office. The current polls are a suprise to me but it’s not the bizzaro world.
We also called ourselves taxachusetts. Massachuetts voted for Reagan twice so voting for the democrat is not a forgone conclusion. The only reason we voted for George McGovern in 1972 was Nixon ran against one of out local boys. This flipped around in 1980 and worked against Jimmy Carter after he beat Teddy Kennedy in the primaries. Another factor in Massachusetts affecting the current special election is that we don’t have a strong tradition of electing women to high office. The current polls are a suprise to me but it’s not the bizzaro world.
2slugs, you do amaze me. Wjy do you care that I do or do not know how to do a time series analysis? What has that to do with the article references I provide? It would be a whole lot more meaningful if you took your issue up with the original authors. Who by the way do know how to do the appropriate analysis. Not all of which is use of statistical toolsets.
As I said the raw data is now available for public access, and preliminary results are showing just how poor the raw data is. The key info in my latest was that even that data purported to be unaltered wasn’t, and that the alterations were always in a manner to accentuate recent warming.
With the independent raw data analysis/comparison to current processed data starting, the cherry picking is being identified. For instance, the number of stations used has dramatically diminished. Why? Why are the remaining stations mostly urban/coastal? Why are the colder rural/mountain sites dropped?
It doesn’t take a set of statistical or data analysis tools to make some preliminary determinations. The data is horrid. The Quality Control efforts are not appropriate for this level of data errors. Data collection is problematic creating somel of the data errors. Storing this horrid data with an incomplete set of metadata exacerbates the preliminary processing/preparation for later detailed analysis. For these reasons, reliance on the outputs from prior analysis should be taken with some trepidation.
For these and many more reasons still to be found, the UK Met decided to completely recalculate/analyze their temperature data. Others are already independently undertaking this effort. A comparison of these multiple efforts should improve the understanding and add a level of confidence to the future calculated Global Average Temperature.
2slugs, you do amaze me. Why do you care that I do or do not know how to do a time series analysis? What has that to do with the article references I provide?
Providing your own graphed unrelated dataset adds what value? It only proves your desperation to make a meaningless point. It would be a whole lot more meaningful if you took your issue up with the original authors. Who by the way do know how to do the appropriate analysis. Not all of which is use of statistical toolsets.
As I said the raw data is now available for public access, and preliminary results are showing just how poor the raw data is. The key info in my latest was that even that data purported to be unaltered wasn’t, and that the alterations were always in a manner to accentuate recent warming.
With the independent raw data analysis/comparison to current processed data starting, the cherry picking is being identified. For instance, the number of stations used has dramatically diminished. Why? Why are the remaining stations mostly urban/coastal? Why are the colder rural/mountain sites dropped?
It doesn’t take a set of statistical or data analysis tools to make some preliminary determinations. The data is horrid. The Quality Control efforts are not appropriate for this level of data errors. Data collection is problematic creating some of the data errors. Storing this horrid data with an incomplete set of metadata exacerbates the preliminary processing/preparation for later detailed analysis. For these reasons, reliance on the outputs from prior analysis should be taken with some trepidation. Garbage In/Garbage Out?
For these and many more reasons still to be found, the UK Met decided to completely recalculate/analyze their temperature data. Others are already independently undertaking this effort. A comparison of these multiple efforts should improve the understanding and add a level of confidence to the future calculated Global Average Temperature.
The heart and soul of the GOP (to the extent that the GOP has a soul) is in the Old Confederacy.
You can’t see this in the data. Following the civil war if you looked at an electoral map the republican states were the one that were in the Union and the solid democrat base was the old confederacy.
Over time as the southerners have become more progressive they have left the democrat party and become republican.
Providing your own graphed unrelated dataset adds what value? The point is to demonstrate that eyeball analysis not analysis. And what you posted was eyeball analysis. The whole point of your post was to imply that raw data showing a decreasing trend with adjusted data showing an increasing tend can only be explained by dishonesty. That was your point and you know it. What my little example shows is that “trend” is a statistical term and it something that is teased out of the data. Just displaying raw data and drawing a downward sloping line through it does not mean the trend was downward sloping. So your charts were basically worthless and misleading.
The key info in my latest was that even that data purported to be unaltered wasn’t, and that the alterations were always in a manner to accentuate recent warming.
Your main point was to suggest that the data was altered in a dishonest way. Your charts do not demonstrate that for the reasons I described. And “raw data” does not mean unaltered data. It almost always goes through some kind of transformation function unless the problem is trivial.
It doesn’t take a set of statistical or data analysis tools to make some preliminary determinations. Yes it does. Otherwise all you get is eyeball analysis, and that is useless.
For instance, the number of stations used has dramatically diminished. Why? Why are the remaining stations mostly urban/coastal? Why are the colder rural/mountain sites dropped?
If you can’t understand how it is possible for a naive eyeball look at raw data to appear downward sloping even though the actual data generation process was built to an increasing slope, then it is probably hopeless to try and explain why it is appropriate to reduce the number of rural and moutain sites. The explanations are out there. They are technical, but they are out there.
As to the quality of the data, that’s an argument for more sophisticated analysis tools. It’s not just that there are calibration errors, repeating data streams from Russian sites, changes in instrumentation. Those are the easy problems. The hard stuff is in decomposing the data.
And it’s good that the UK Met is going to recrunch the numbers. That’s all for the better. But don’t get your hopes up that it will materially change the conclusion. As I said, the UK Met has already hinted that they’ve preliminarily recrunched the numbers and informally they are saying that the difference is miniscule. It will take a couple of years before the final results get published, but don’t kid yourself…they already know what the answer will be. What will be your excuse then?
you are delusional. the South was Democrat and pro slavery. the Republican party was formed to oppose the push of the Southern Slaveocrats to extend slavery into the west… and ultimately into the North. The South remained Democrat after the Civil War because they hated the Republican…party of Lincoln. they only turned Republican when Johnson (D.Tx) pushed through the civil rights act, and Nixon Republicans developed their “southern strategy” strates rights (code word for pro-slavery). The average Southern voter… my old friends and neighbors… is a complete ignoramus. but the one thing he knows is that the Gumming is going to force his daughter to marry a (N-word deleted becasue there are idiots on the other side, too.)
PRogressive is one thing the southerners have not become. they only reason they have any money at all is because Johnson sent them goodies to try to make up for civil rights.
I could never grasp why people in Mass. would even consider voting for a guy who thought taxing banks to make them repay their bail out money until I saw this. His opponent, gasp, is a black woman. And Brown has allied himself with the low lifes who slur Obama re his birth and his race. Please don’t tell me the US isn’t racist. It is RACIST TO THE CORE.
We also called ourselves taxachusetts. Massachuetts voted for Reagan twice so voting for the democrat is not a forgone conclusion. The only reason we voted for George McGovern in 1972 was Nixon ran against one of our local boys. This flipped around in 1980 and worked against Jimmy Carter after he beat Teddy Kennedy in the primaries. Another factor in Massachusetts affecting the current special election is that we don’t have a strong tradition of electing women to high office. The current polls are a suprise to me but it’s not the bizzaro world.
2slugs, you caught me out,even again: “ The whole point of your post was to imply that raw data showing a decreasing trend with adjusted data showing an increasing tend can only be explained by dishonesty.” But, what fascinates me is that none of the graphs show raw data with a decreasing trend.
I hinted strongly, that these were not my graphs, but you persist in treating them as my personal work. I have taken to NOT referring readers here to the original source, as few have apparently gone to the source. I have often recommended that the commentnter making a point that they make the point with the author, but have yet to see you or any AB commenting over at their sites where such action might actually add some clarity to your argument(s).
Moreover, in the past you have been caught out being less than truthful or exagerating, and I seriously suspect this statement: “As I said, the UK Met has already hinted that they’ve preliminarily recrunched the numbers and informally they are saying that the difference is miniscule. It will take a couple of years before the final results get published, but don’t kid yourself…they already know what the answer will be.” My first bold may fall into that category of exageration, but the real travesty is the second bold. If you actually believe this then you are truly accepting of poor (no bad) science. Skepticism is the hallmark of a scientist. “Already knowing” is a long way from science.
For those who need the Cliff Notes version, it says that the BBC is considering dropping the UK Met as its official weather service. The Met has been so heavily invested in the AGW mystique, that its seasonal forecasts, driven by those beliefs, have been just atrocious. They had become laughable, but the last straw was when the UK Met Director had to apologize. He, in a recent interview, claimed that the Met short range forecasts were the best in the world, then within just a few days they completely missed a crippling snow storm for Southern England.
Arrogance is commonplace in the softer sciences. Y’ano fields like climatology and economics.
I hinted strongly, that these were not my graphs, but you persist in treating them as my personal work.
I know those are not your graphs. Most of the graphs you post here are the same ones that you post on your clearinghouse website, and most of those are derivative…typically from Anthony Watts, who in turn regurgitates a lot of graphs. So yes, I am well aware that the graphs you post are usually 3rd or 4th derivatives. But you post graphs with comments and the comments are yours.
It will take a couple of years before the final results get published, but don’t kid yourself…they already know what the answer will be.” If you actually believe this then you are truly accepting of poor (no bad) science… Skepticism is the hallmark of a scientist. “Already knowing” is a long way from science.
They’ve been working with the data for years and over that time they’ve no doubt analyzed the data sixteen different ways…upside down, inside out. When you work with data for a long enough time you get to know what kind of revisions it would take to upset the result. In fact, the Met was actually fairly eager to recrunch the numbers against the wishes of the UK govt. And most of the time it will take to publish new results isn’t due to analysis time, it’s due to getting the necessary permissions from all of the governments involved in data collection. In other words, it’s a political problem, not an analysis problem.
2slugs, I see you bought into the data ownership argument. When there is ample evidence that the data was widely shared within the pro-AGW community without Govt approvals. That is mostly just a smoke screen to protect them from the inevitable FOIA lawsuits.
I let this one go earlier because of its absurdity: “And “raw data” does not mean unaltered data. It almost always goes through some kind of transformation function unless the problem is trivial.” From that statement I can assume you have never or seldom actually dealt with unprocessed/raw data.
Raw data is the original data. Raw data is NOT transformed data. It might be transcribed, but not transformed. It is especially never transformed to correct a “trivial problem.” That transformation step is data processing, and therefore, the new dataset is processed data. Often times, even the transcibing step can alter data from its original form and generate errors. Goals for manual transcription of data were to keep them below 1%, but that is from this old man’s memory and could be wrong.
Only in the past few years have the temperature (and other climate) data been collected using automated tools. The vast majority has been collected manually and been transcribed manually. So having access to the raw data is important to identify possible “collection” and “processing” errors.
So, I’m sure your example above, as you described: “The raw data has no corruption errors and in fact is complete white noise. The data was created using a random number generator and then applied to a function that I created that had a deterministic trend INCREASE with a slope of 5 percent.” may very well represent what is going on in climate science. A set of noisy data is processed to “tease” (your word) out a signal. A signal that was predetermined because of the belief that it must exist with a known trend.
Happened on a TV channel that had Obama talking in Mass. What was interesting was (1) the extreme rightwing screaming crazies were out in force trying to shout him down and keep people from hearing what he was saying; and (2) this gross disrespect for a US president is clearly related to his blackness that many Americans can’t tolerate because of their racism. Since they can’t throw rotten eggs at him (I suppose they would if they could) or call him a “dirty nigger” (as they doubtless would like to do) they show their contempt for him and his race in this fashion. I don’t recall lilly white Shrub ever being shouted down in this fashion. Only our first black President. It makes one ashamed, really, to be an American.
A lot of the new population coming to the United States are Catholic. Now the democrats are saying that Catholics need not apply for jobs such as working in an emergency room. I don’t see demographics working for the democrats.
A lot of the new population coming to the United States are Catholic. Now the democrats are saying that Catholics need not apply for jobs such as working in an emergency room. I don’t see demographics working for the democrats.
the race card is two way. there are blacks and women in Mass who will vote for your candidate just because of that.
racism is part of basic biology: fear of the other. goddam geraniums are racists. hutus and hottentots are racists. what we have done in this country is made legalized racism illegal. that’s a huge step forward in human history.
the people yelling at Obama may think they are doing what your side did when they yelled at Bush. some of them may be racists… the real kind, not just the kind who aren’t sure “how to make a black person comfortable”… but they think they are yelling about his health care plan.
that said, i voted for obama, and i don’t like his enemies. but i don’t much like his friends like Ben Bernanke or Tim Geithner either. I am no more of a racist than a geranium.
Here’s people screaming at Obama. Please post equivalent evidence of people screaming at Shrub. You can’t. You’re very wrong that the gross disrespect shown Obama is not covert racism. It is. Face the fact. To say racism is everywhere and therefore okay is silly and wicked. Perhaps some of them don’t understand their own racism. Lots of stupid Americans are not self aware at all. But it is there and it is shown is this kind of disrespect. Shrub never got that kind of treatment in public nor any previous WHITE president. Sorry that you don’t understand this.I don’t like Geithner too, not do I approve of Obama’s kow towing to Wall Street, but that has racist reasons too. Obama knows that if he really took a left wing line, his blackness would really stir up trouble for him. So he genuflects to the plutocracy and the GOP in an attempt to seem not “too black” (ie leftwing.)
A mild murmur in the Congress that might have been of approval in fact. No comparison at all to the Obama clip. If you can find something that reveals Bush being treated as badly as Obama I would love to see it. I await your response.
I previously posted a link to a UK newspaper article about how Obama’s election didn’t put racism to rest in the US at all, contrary to what many thought would happen. If anything it has caused it to reemerge in all its ugly intensity. Americans don’t like to be called racists BECAUSE THEY ARE in vast numbers and they know it is wrong and they hated being exposed as such. You can get the extreme of it in Limbaugh’s saying Obama loves the Haiti disaster because he can use it politically or Robertson saying the disaster came about because Haitians made apact with the devil when they revoted against their French overlords. Both people are important Republicans, politically important, and I have never seen anything about the GOP denoucing them at all. Have YOU???
I’d like to have a convincing explanation why the people of Mass. would prefer a rightwing extremist who thinks Palin is great and who thinks bankers shouldn’t have to pay back the money the government gave them to save the banks. After all Mass has a tradition of being somewhat leftist. But when you look at this you see THE REASON IMMEDIATELY. She is black; he is white. Full explanation.
Coberly, “I am no more of a racist than a geranium.”
By chance were you a flower child? I wholely agree with your comment regarding Obama’s friends and enemies. It seems that they play for the same team and we don’t seem to be members of that team. But I think that Margie has a valild point regarding the outright rudeness of the reactionaries vs the protestations of the so-called left-wingers. Worse yet, thoe reactionaries have a captive media on their side.
that “full explanatioin” reasoning is exactly the kind of reasonong that underlies racism itself. “i don’t know much but i know enough. all blacks are lazy.”
please dear god note the quotes. i was not saying that, some racist was saying that. but Margery’s reasoning is the same. “There is no explanation but the explanation I give myself.”
She does not even bother to notice that Mass has a large black population and a large female population. nope, Mass will vote against a black woman because of racism.
she doen’t think that Obama’s health plan has angered a lot of people… rightly or wrongly… and they will vote against the Dem because of that. my own suspicion is that the dem health care plan is going to blow up in the face of the dems and we may see only repubs in office for a long long time.
i hasten to add that that is not what i want to see. i just expect to see it.
So Margery, please examine your backwards-racism and look for more complicated answers than “she’s black and that explains it.”
You’re wrong. Sorry about that. The “all blacks are lazy” is an inference made from a couple of observations. That racism is prevalent in US society is proved by vast amounts of data, not from “a few observations”. Or are you saying that a white president would have been treated the same? If you are, you have no understanding of US society.
I might add that as far as I know the crazy shouting by the extreme right wingers was never present in the USA until we got this black president. Having a black president clearly, to me, has driven the rightwing crazy and these people have essentially taken over the GOP. They are not merely conservative or reactionary, but semi-crazy. And they shout down people they don’t like because they have no rational arguments to offer. Nothing pertinent to say, so they simply try to stop the others from saying anything.
We don’t know how the election will turn out. It is probably blacks will vote for her. What would create the upset would be liberal whites voting for Brown in spite of his anti-liberal views. That would be due to racism. We know quite well that many poor whites are racist even if that means supporting the rich. They refuse to acknowledge their kinship with other poor Americans because the others are black. This characterizes a lot of people in the South.
Why? Have you ever looked at the percent of african americans in jail versus the total polulation. And Ms. Coakly is the tool that has been putting a disproportionate number of African Americans in jail.
Why? Have you ever looked at the percent of african americans in jail versus the total population. And Ms. Coakly is the tool that has been putting a disproportionate number of African Americans in jail.
Here’s Jim Cramer, stock market dunce, cum plutotool, on the Mass. race:
What does a Brown election mean larger than this? Well, first you’re going to get a knee-jerk rally in all the so-called penalized stocks — the HMOs, the drugs, the medical device-makers. I call it “knee-jerk,” though, because these stocks have been on fire for months. Look at Cramer fave WellPoint, or United Health. 52 week high. 52 week high. Merck, 52 week high. It’s been clear as a bell that the healthcare reform wasn’t going to affect most healthcare stocks. That’s versus what we thought last year. More important, though, I think investors who are nervous about the dictatorship of the Pelosi proletariat will feel at ease, and we could have a gigantic rally off a Coakley loss and a Brown win. It will be a signal that a more pro-business, less pro-labor government could be in front of us. Hey, would you say it is more China like perhaps? No, we can never be as capitalist as the Communist Chinese. But how about a little bit less like the old Soviet Union? Yeah, that would be a bit more like it. Pelosi politburo emasculation! Everything from the banks, which are usually in the Democrats’ penalty box, or the oils which are despised by this administration for being carbon, could be propelled dramatically higher all of this Tuesday night
So, you see the spin: Pelosi is a “commie” bringing us the “dictatorship of the proletariat”…those wicked ordinary, non-rich people….and supporter of detestable labor unions that stand in the way of more riches for the greedy rich, and Brown will save us from those terrible people by turning us all over the Wall Street and making the investments of the rich skyrocket. Pretty picture, no?
A thousand apologies. I looked at the video on Krugman’s site and she certainly looked black to me there. If she is not, and I now am quite sure she is not, you can disregard my wrong headed comments. I think they would still be valid IF she were black, but she isn’t, so they don’t apply. This makes it all the more bizarre to me that she might lose. I find it inexplicable that Mass, citizens would vote for the candidate of the plutocracy (see Cramer quote that I just posted). I’d be happy to have a believable explanation.
??? I thought you’d be delighted that someone is putting blacks in prison, where, no doubt, you think mansy of them belong. Gee you seem very inconsistent. You think she is prejudiced?
I believe I said I was in error about her race. Did you not read that? Or didn’t you want to read it?
I do think that if a state that is or has been predominatly liberal and Democrat votes in a reactionary pro-plutocrat who loves Wall Street bankers and hates anything to help the general public, something needs to be explained. We know that lots of Americans are easily confused by the Tea Party screamers and those who finance them, but it may be that they are so weak minded they don’t know left from right.
I looked again at the video and indeed the woman beside Brown IS black. I thought she was Coakley when in fact she was the station host who interviewed him. I also would add to his “stupid” credentials that he is admirer of Palin. She is so intelligent and informed and bright, Mass voters should certainly vote for a senator who admires her, right? Disgusting beyond belief. If Mass votes for him I hope the plutos really exploit the state to the hilt. I deserves that for its stupidity.
MG I’m surprised that you don’t accept that MM admitted to an error. Regardless of ideology I was under the impression that you were fair minded, not a Cantab extrmist. Continuing to knock the points made in the error is like spitting into the wind. Wipe your face and show a little more fairness in your analysis.
Based on Bruce’s comments if social security goes up by 2.01 percent this means in his example that someone making 50k would pay 50,000 * .0201 = $1,005 per year (or 100 times the 20 cents a week that coberly came up with).
Cantab, when will you do the math?
Dales says an increase of $.20 or .025% weekly applied annually will solve the SS short fall. That annual increase applied over the same 75 year time frame cited in the SS Report is ~1.87%.
You continue to try to obfuscate the obvious by refusing to do the actual calculations. Why? You are not making points, winning, even partially, your argument, or I think you phrased it demonstrating your intellectual integrity.
Lessee, an annual .025% increase while the wages will probably be going up at a rate ~ 100 times that, and you continue trying to make points? You’re wrong, hard headed, and in this matter much more ignorant than Dale, Bruce and most of the readers here.
I don’t know who you are, but from the current dialog can remember similar others. The end of which resulted in that commenter banned. You’re a Bulldog, but in this instance are biting and holding on to your own foot.
Cantab, when will you do the math?
Dales says an increase of $.20 or .025% weekly applied annually will solve the SS short fall. That annual increase applied over the same 75 year time frame cited in the SS Report is ~1.87%.
You continue to try to obfuscate the obvious by refusing to do the actual calculations. Why? You are not making points, winning, even partially, your argument, or I think you phrased it demonstrating your intellectual integrity.
Lessee, an annual .025% increase while the wages will probably be going up at a rate ~ 100 times that, and you continue trying to make points? You’re wrong, hard headed, and in this matter much more ignorant than Dale, Bruce and most of the readers here.
I don’t know who you are, but from the current dialog can remember similar others. The end of which resulted in that commenter banned. You’re a Bulldog, but in this instance you are biting and holding on to your own foot.
So, let’s talk about that ole MA senatorial election. What will be the message if Coakley loses?
I think we should talk about Rush Limbaugh and Pat Robertson’s remarks on the Haiti situation. Is there anyone around who has the appalling guts to endorse what they said? Second question: why does the GOP allow these despicable low lifes to pretend to represent party views? Why has the GOP not clearly denounced their unthinkable remarks? Why does the GOP make itself a friendly home for crazies and morons and assorted dangers to the republic? Why is the GOP hand in glove with Fox News, and its distortions and lies?
Cantab
no one here to waste their time. i think i have said before that by the time you add 20 cents per week per year for 75 years you end up with 15 dollars per week or 780 dollars per year. close enough to your thousand on a slightly higher income than the 40,000 i based the 20 cents on. a thousand a year sounds like a lot until you realize it is going to go to pay for about six extra years in retirement.
don’t know why you didn’t hear this the other three (?) times i explained it. the problem you are having is that you are trying to apply your intuition to a problem that is more complex than even i can solve by intuition alone. i cheated, i used the Trustees numbers as a starting place. actually, iused their answer as a starting place and just unfolded it so ordinary people could get a “feel” of what it would mean to them.
i really hate to start folding it back up to that 1000 per year becasue ordinary people cannot get an honest “feel” of that. they go all crazy thinking that it’s a thousand dollars out of each paycheck and they comletely forget that they are going to need that much money “in the bank” if they are going to be able to retire.
CoRev
no one here but us chickens. so i can safely say i am not sure i much care. the dems haven’t shown me much with their majority. only the repubs scare me too much to vote for them. they would get the wrong message from that.
i spent the day watching a crowd of people desperately trying to get a Senator to hear their lonely cries. They didn’t know much, but they thought it was important. i was in that crowd.
Duh ! The problem seems to have surfaced after George Cheney’s tax cuts for the wealthy, which you and I are not members, Duh !
Why don’t we increase the marginal tax rate, Duh !
Why is the US still maintaining a sugar tarrif, Duh !
Seems like the Southerners have taken over and run the economy into the ground. Duh !
Paulson’s agenda as Treaury Secretary was to bring home the bacon; the SS withholding. Unfortunately I was one of the few that realized what the “conservites” had in mind. Incredibly, we may be among the most naive asss on earth. For example, we think that a President has to come from “Harvard” or Yale. Same with the Wall Street “rocket scientist” who built a great big turd and sold it to us.
Well, they got it anyway. With a great big dry hump behind the so called “financial” crisis. And we bought it. Barack O’Bama, the child President, has bought into the crap. How can we expect an African American to say no to the man. We can’t and shouldn’t. Collin Powell and his Son Michael, were both tools of the white majority. BO is under the same pressure and acting appropriately.
CoRev,
I asked Bruce to help me with the calculation and he did. He has payroll taxes going from 12.4 to 12.7 percent, or an increase of .3 percent. When you multiply this a against a 50 k salary you get a pretty small number (although more than 20 cents which is not Coberly’s number). I get close to 12.7 when I multiply 12.4 by 1.021. However, looking at the SSA’s website they describe the needed increase affect as 2.01 + 12.4 =14.41 percent.
This added 2.01 percent adds over $1,000 a year for someone making 50k and over $2,000 a year for someone making 100 k a year; which is a lot more than 20 cents a week comes out to about 10 bucks a year
You asked me to do some math and I did so I don’t know why you don’t accept the fact. Also, this is an example of why you were wrong on your objection to peer reviewed journal articles. The more people you have going over the calculations the higher the chance you’ll find an error. And maybe the way I set up the problem is wrong. These sorts of things get worked out when you make the analysis explicit. This is why I suggested putting all the data and analysis in a neat well organized spreadsheet model and then put a permanent link to it from this website.
CoRev,
I asked Bruce to help me with the calculation and he did. He has payroll taxes going from 12.4 to 12.7 percent, or an increase of .3 percent. When you multiply this a against a 50 k salary you get a pretty small number (although more than 20 cents a week). I get close to 12.7 when I multiply 12.4 by 1.021. However, looking at the SSA’s website they describe the needed increase affect as 2.01 + 12.4 =14.41 percent.
This added 2.01 percent adds over $1,000 a year for someone making 50k and over $2,000 a year for someone making 100 k a year; which is a lot more than 20 cents a week which comes out to about 10 bucks a year
You asked me to do some math and I did so I don’t know why you don’t accept this as fact. Also, this is an example of why you were wrong on your objection to peer reviewed journal articles. The more people you have going over the calculations the higher the chance you’ll find an error. And maybe the way I set up the problem is wrong. These sorts of things get worked out when you make the analysis explicit. This is why I suggested putting all the data and analysis in a neat well organized spreadsheet model and then put a permanent link to it from this website.
I live close enough to Mass to hear the ads. I change the channel anymore.
Coakley is utterly boring!! Will lock step with Obama.
Brown is Mitt Romney WASP hollow suit. Will vote lock step with the rethugs.
Brown has promised to make sure he won’t allow the US to treat terrists like human beings. He is scaring the seniors about medicare under the Obama reform.
Chokeley makes a few valid assertions about lopsided tax rules, and health care
Frankly, I don’t give a tinkers dam!
From the social security administration
“One interpretation of this negative actuarial balance (-2.00 percent of taxable payroll) is that it represents the magnitude of the increase in the combined payroll tax rate for the entire 75-year period that woujld allow the combined trust funds to remain solvent thoughout the period. The combined payroll tas rate is 12.4 percent today and is currently scheduled to remain at that level. An incease of 2.01 percentage points in this rate for each year of the 75-year projection period (1.005 percerntage point sor employees and employers each, resulting in a total rate of 14.41 percent or a rate of 7,205 percent each) is estimated to produce enough income to pay all benefits due under current law for that period. Alternatively, all benefits during this period could be reduced by about 13.3 percent on average (or there could be some combination of both tax increases and benefit reductions) to achieve the same effect.
http://ssaonline.us/finance/2009/RSI%20Social%20Insurance.pdf
For the combined OASDI Trust Funds to remain solvent throughout the 75-year projection period, the combined payroll tax rate could be increased during the period in a manner equivalent to an immediate and permanent increase of 2.01 percentage points, benefits could be reduced during the period in a manner equivalent to an immediate and permanent reduction of 13.3 percent, general revenue transfers equivalent to $5.3 trillion in present value could be made during the period, or some combination of approaches could be adopted. Significantly larger changes would be required to maintain solvency beyond 75 years.
http://retirement.gov/OACT/TR/2009/II_highlights.html#76460
I take the phrase “immediate and permanent increase of 2.01 percentage points” to mean that the tax hike they say is needed now to achieve actuarial balance is 2.01 pecent a year. This comes out to around a $1,000 increase for someone earning 50k and $2,000 for those earning 100k.
ilsm,
I think that Brownie is doing a heck of a job.
“…child…”
Thus again proving my theory that the wingers somehow are driven to say the opposite of the truth, usually in the most blatant ways. Why, I still don’t know. Kind of a Tourette’s-like thing, perhaps.
Social Security rates were last adjusted in the mid-1980s when life expectancy was around 74.5 years. It’s around 78 now. The adjustment included changing the retirement age by 2 years. So OASDI had to cover 9.5 years of average retirement in 1985 vs 11 years now. (1 – 9.5/11) = 13.6%. Substantially oversimplified, but that pretty well explains the required 2% increase.
Comparison of US life expectancy to Canada make one suspect that universal health insurance might (not will, but might. There are other factors) add a couple of years to US life expectancy which implies that the required adjustment might eventually be closer to 4% than 2%.
Cantie, let me make it as clear as I can! You and Dale are saying essentially the same thing. The major difference is in the implementing strategy.
Dale is assuming/recommending a gradual increase in FICA starting when the money is needed. You are assuming the increase is immediate when it is not needed. Moreover, there is NO EFFORT underway to raise FICA, so it is not even close to a reality-based view.
Both approaches reach nearly the same impact point, ~2%. Dale’s approach of adding .025% annually is much more politically and economically feasible, as it has a lesser impact on incomes. You continue to compare the 2% against today’s income, and Dale provides an approach increasing collections gradually as needed. His comparison is much less frightful when compared against the end state which should have income up ~500-600%. Does a total 2% increase against that 500-600% increase still frighten you?
Noni,
Grow up. They called Bush a “monkey”. Insults and put downs by people that don’t like you are part of the President’s job description.
CoRev,
We are not saying the same thing. $10 a year is not the same thing as $1,000 or $2,000 a year. Given that you don’t like refereed journals what about my spreadsheet model idea. At some point if you want credability you have to layout the analysis in an organized way and make it available. If they made it available you could look at it at your liesure or when you wanted to enter the debate. Coberly could say look at the spreasheet and get back to me.
It seems to me that Bruce and Coberly overriding goal is to preserve social security in its current form. I doubt they ever supported private accounts. Therefore, as protectors of the status quo they see any questioning of the system’s solvency as an attack on the system’s current organization or even its existence at all. Thus they jump all over some pancake like this Bruce Krasting character (they also do it because it’s fun). Their hyper defensiveness does not mean they’re wrong but it does raise a flag indicating that you need to check out their analysis. Ways to do this is to see if they’ve published in reputable journals, that their opinions and conclusion square with experts in the field, and or for them to make their analysis available in an spreadsheet model.
Cantab
this is what is so heartbreaking about dealing with you. The 2% “now” increase described by SSA would indeed balance the books over the next 75 years. but so would raising the (combined) tax one tenth of one percent each year the Trustees project short term actuarial insolvency. You need to know what these words me, and you need to know why both “answers” are correct… though they would lead to different results. This means you would have to work harder than you have done so far. You can’t sit in front of your computer and take pot shots based on your non-understanding and hope to say or undertand anything that’s true.
the SSA “answer” would lead to an immediate surplus, increasing the Trust Fund, the intersted from that larger trust fund, and ultimately paying it down, wold add to the increased tax and the books would balance in year 75. but at the end of that time, the 2% (combined) increase wouldn’t be enough to pay full benefits going forward. the “nw” plan would let the current Trust Fund pay (mostly boomer) retirements now until it runs down to one years reserve (predicted ten years ahead) then it would raise the tax one tenth percent “each” or two tenth’s combined. this would balance the income with outgo and preserve the one year’s reserve. this is predicted to have to occur seventen times over the next seventy five years. at the end of that time the trust fund would be in balance with a one years reserve, and the tax increase would have added up to just less than 2% for each, or just less than 4% combined… it is worth pointing out that half of that number is caused by a hidden tax CUT that is expected when employers shift pay to untaxed “benefits.” but now the tax rate would be high enough so that SS would go into the future with no immediate deficit in prospect (as in the SSA “answer”). quite probably some future adjustment would be necessary, but at a much lower rate that the 20 cents per week per year average that it will take to get us through the first 75 years of the rest of our lives.
i already know this is way too complicated for you to follow. but it may help others.
CoRev,
Since Brown is a member of the National Guard maybe Obama will send him to Afghanistan so he can’t cast the 41st vote against the healthcare bill.
How Real Economists Estimate the Effects of ARRA
For those who are interested in how real economists estimate fiscal multipliers and the effects of fiscal stimulus, here is a very clear explanation and comparison. This is from Menzie Chinn.
http://www.econbrowser.com/archives/2010/01/assessing_stimu.html
Down in the comments section someone refers to Michael Boskin’s 13 Jan WSJ op-ed piece regarding multipliers. The Boskin piece is an example of dishonest hackery because what he doesn’t tell you is that those DSGE models predicting a multiplier < 1.00 also assume that the Fed acts to sterilize any fiscal stimlus. If that happens, then yes...the fiscal multiplier will be less than 1.00. That's clearly irrelevant here since the Fed is working alongside the Administration to stimulate aggregate demand.
Cantab
this is what is so heartbreaking about dealing with you. The 2% “now” increase described by SSA would indeed balance the books over the next 75 years. but so would raising the (combined) tax one tenth of one percent each year the Trustees project short term actuarial insolvency. You need to know what these words me, and you need to know why both “answers” are correct… though they would lead to different results. This means you would have to work harder than you have done so far. You can’t sit in front of your computer and take pot shots based on your non-understanding and hope to say or undertand anything that’s true.
the SSA “answer” would lead to an immediate surplus, increasing the Trust Fund, the intersted from that larger trust fund, and ultimately paying it down, wold add to the increased tax and the books would balance in year 75. but at the end of that time, the 2% (combined) increase wouldn’t be enough to pay full benefits going forward. the “nw” plan would let the current Trust Fund pay (mostly boomer) retirements now until it runs down to one years reserve (predicted ten years ahead) then it would raise the tax one tenth percent “each” or two tenth’s combined. this would balance the income with outgo and preserve the one year’s reserve. this is predicted to have to occur seventen times over the next seventy five years. at the end of that time the trust fund would be in balance with a one years reserve, and the tax increase would have added up to just less than 2% for each, or just less than 4% combined… it is worth pointing out that half of that number is caused by a hidden tax CUT that is expected when employers shift pay to untaxed “benefits.” but now the tax rate would be high enough so that SS would go into the future with no immediate deficit in prospect (as in the SSA “answer”). quite probably some future adjustment would be necessary, but at a much lower rate that the 20 cents per week per year average that it will take to get us through the first 75 years of the rest of our lives.
i already know this is way too complicated for you to follow. but it may help others.
Continued…
Menzie also has a link to Robert Hall’s paper on multipliers. Again, you have to follow the footnotes, but most of the reasons why a multiplier is apt to be less than 1.00 do not apply in the current situation; however, they probably did apply during the 2001-2002 recession.
cantab
all this has already been done. what you call hyperdefensiveness is just anger at having to do it again and again for people who can’t read but still want to be listened to.
As an empirical fact those claiming a 1.5 multipier aslo claim that unemployment would not go above 8 percent but as we all know its 10 percent today.
Maybe its more a case of FoxNews, a stretch if there ever was one, being in lock step with reactionary politics for the purpose of selling its prkoducts. For some reason the average American enjoys jingoistic and reactionary distortions of reality. Watch the program Jersey Shore, if you can get over the very first appearence of one of their faux Italians. The media ouotlets like Fox provide us with caricatures of life in both social and political situations. The social distortions are supposed to be entertaining. The political revisions serve a more propagandist end. Either way the end result is profitability from catering to the popularity of the the lowest common denominator. The popint is there is no good end to discussing such cynical opportunists. Rush, Robinson and Ailes are at the front line of the reactionary disinformation industry. It does pay well.
Guest,
For the combined OASDI Trust Funds to remain solvent throughout the 75-year projection period, the combined payroll tax rate could be increased during the period in a manner equivalent to an immediate and permanent increase of 2.01 percentage points
What don’t you understand about the word immediate.
PS. please log in before making any new posts.
2slugs, we’ve had this discussion re: multipliers, but in the reality-based world they are not proving to be true. Indeed, in the reality-based world the two parties’ economic policy results are showing to be one more efficient than the other. Let’s compare 2001-03 results versus 2008-2010 (and on.) Or for that matter the results from saint FDR.
Your party is causing immense economic and national security pain. How much longer do we think the electorate will let it continue. I’m guessing one more year.
As an empirical fact those claiming a 1.5 multipier also claimed that unemployment would not go above 8 percent but as we all know its 10 percent today.
i misstated above: the one tenth of one percent increase should be “each”, not “combined.”
coberly
cantab
it is you who don’t understand immediate. i have been trying to be kind to you for 12 hours now. i am getting tired of it. you are either too dumb to understand or you are just playing dumb to get attention.
Here is an item of news that should be read by those who so adored the Vietnam war on a previous topic:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100116/ap_on_re_as/as_vietnam_us_back_to_the_battlefield;_ylt=AodyS3Z1aPrADg1kI8JeYMys0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTQ5bWMwaGNyBGFzc2V0A2FwLzIwMTAwMTE2L2FzX3ZpZXRuYW1fdXNfYmFja190b190aGVfYmF0dGxlZmllbGQEY2NvZGUDbW9zdHBvcHVsYXIEY3BvcwM4BHBvcwM1BHB0A2hvbWVfY29rZQRzZWMDeW5faGVhZGxpbmVfbGlzdARzbGsDdXN2ZXRzcmV0dXJu
Such a wonderful war, wasn’t it, for all concerned? And it did so much for the USA.
I don’t much like the term “child” but I see quite a bit of merit in other aspects of your comment. It is VERY disappointing that Obama would let Wall Street control the “correction” of Wall Street stupidity and excess. You are probably right, sadly enough, that in still racist America a “black” president has to kow tow to (mainly rightwing) racists for fear of all sort of sneak attacks. (His authority is, in this crisis, not nearly that of Roosevelt in the former crisis because, in my opinion. Roosevelt was an upper class white and Obama is not). Powell and Rice and Thomas are Uncle Toms, blacks who do the bidding of white masters. Sad that too. So in general you make telling points that are in fact sad truths about America. PS Bush was, mentally speaking, closer to an ape than to, say, Paul Krugman.
It is undeniable that Fox has a large following. I think all that would bear a close study. Does it attract all the morons in the US? Do MSNBC and CNN that are less rightwing have lesser audiences because the more intelligent Americans are simply not so addicted to TV? I don’t think Fox’s success, the reasons for it, are completely clear. It is for sure a success.
Brown now attacks Obama’s tax on banks to repay the public funds used to save them. I find it difficult to understand why such a position would not damage him. Are Americans, or rather people in Mass. so stupid that they don’t want the banks to repay us for their bailout? Do they adore rich smug bankers that much? Best probably not to answer. Americans can be VERY stupid.
Its what is called pandering, a phrase often reserved for the publication of salacious material. In regards to Fox that may be the point. Roger Ailes should probably be given control of Fox Entertainment so that FoxNews would be more accurately housed.
Jack, MM, 2slugs, and the other Libs who deny that the conservative message is more resilient than you were told. Told, BTW, by MSNBC, CNN, CBS, NBC… (need I go on?)
Next Tuesday, 2010 and 2012, will finally give an indication of just how poorly this Prez and your Dem administration has done. I’m predicting that the denial will go up until 2010. After Tuesday, the Dem fear factor will significantly increase.
What’s funny, it doesn’t matter whether Brown wins or loses, his message is already heard loud and clear. Expect an even increased rush to get a HC vote, but then the 2010 elections will be dominated by those who pledge to repeal it.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/barackobama/7004383/Under-Barack-Obama-US-is-obsessed-with-race-but-cant-talk-about-it.html
Good article by a Brit on how racist the USA still is.
margery
fox success is based on the fact that humans are apes. it takes a lot of work to make a civilization. fox appeals to the uncivilized part of our nature. always the strongest, both among the poor and uneducated and,surprisingly, among the more successful… who get ahead by shoving in line…
this doesn’t mean we don’t need the shovers in line. it does mean we need to regulate them a bit. when times are very hard, like during the depression, the poor and uneducated can understand the need. when times have been good for 70 years, the poor start to think they are doing fine and if the government will just leave them alone they will be rich too one day.
CoRev
i agree that the pres and the dems are not doing well. but i think their problem is that they are too heavily in the pockets of the same people who fund fox news.
as for why the message is resiliant see my reply to margery.
Just a wee little footnote to something I posted here some time ago about Americans being so “whiny” about the 3,000 people killed on 9/11 and how we have made it into one of the world’s greatest disasters.
Here is a REAL WORLD DISASTER: 200,000+ dead in Haiti.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jan/16/haiti-earthquake-update-toll-aftershock
But Americans are and will not be nearly as upset about this as they are about 9/11. Why? Well it is blacks who are dying. Second it was an act of God and most important it didn’t happen to us. So while we may think it sad. we will never take it anywhere near as seriously as 9/11.
Re Fox News. This is very very interesting. Murdoch’s son in law saying Fox News is an embarrassment to the family???!!!
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/jan/15/fox-news-newsinternational
How about a little Global Warming reality? I have said that the climategate issue rested on three legs, 1) the emails, 2) the S/W code, and 3) the data. We are seeing more an more evidience that the adjustments to the data (lowering older data and raising newer) has been rampant. Earlier we have talked about the Darwin, AU data which showed this propensity, but below we have some of the US data also undergoing this same effect.
Adjusting raw data is normal, but always adjusting in the same direction is not.
There is so much more, but I get the impression this discussion subject has been exhausted here at AB.
CoRev,
Jack, MM, 2slugs, and the other Libs who deny that the conservative message is more resilient than you were told.
I don’t know where you got this idea. I thought I’ve been very clear that voters are nitwits…half the electorate has an IQ under 100. Voters are easily fooled and the GOP has done very well at playing upon voter stupidity and ignorance. I am quite sure than many voters are buying what the GOP is trying to sell them. That’s unfortunate.
Cantab,
It’s unfortunate that Romer included a chart in her paper that showed unemployment topping out at 8 percent. Afterall, unemployment was already at 7.7 percent at the time the paper was released, so it was crazy to claim that it would top out at 8.0. Of course, she didn’t actually say that if you actually read the deep parts of the paper. And most real economists (as opposed to the fools at FoxNews) understood that Romer was really talking about when GDP growth would turn positive and the unemployment rate was kind of a dumbed down way of saying that for dumbed down voters.
In any event, Romer’s error is small when you compare it to the freshwater economists who were denying even then that the economy was in recession…and many of them were in denial that there was a housing bubble collapse. The same names that write regular columns for the WSJ op-ed page. That too is an empirical fact.
CoRev,
The 2001-2002 recession is noteworthy for being both mild and showing an exceptionally weak recovery. The current recession is nothing like the the 2001-2002 recession. Not even close. You sound stupid pretending that they are.
The GOP prescription for this recession was a four page cartoon with no numbers. That was supposed to be a serious economic proposal. Cantor and Boehner are idiots.
FDR had a very good record up until 1937 when he started listening to Republicans and thought started to worry about deficits with a weak economy.
The Menzine Chinn link was about how real economists actually analyze economic policies. It’s not ideological…it’s just math and econometrics. I’m sorry if you don’t understand it.
CoRev,
I get the impression this discussion subject has been exhausted here at AB.
There is nothing to discuss. There is no warming, there is cooling. Unless you use dicredited data. Not only that:
“A recent study from the University of Bristol (UK) by Wolfgang Knorr suggests that the airborne fraction of man-made carbon dioxide (CO2) has not increased during the past 150 years. ” “……the trend in the airborne fraction since 1850 has been 0.7 ± 1.4% per decade, i.e. close to and not significantly different from zero.” http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2009/2009GL040613.shtml
So no warming, no CO2 increase. What’s to discuss?
just a test to see if i am a good enough blog expert for Cantab to allow me rejoin the conversation here.
Here are some recent interviews with leading economists at the University of Chicago. They sound pretty sensible (unlike Krugman who is the McDrool of the economics profession).
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/johncassidy/2010/01/interview-with-eugene-fama.html
On the economy, predicting the economy would turn positive a couple of months before reaching the length of the longest recession since WW2 according to the NBER was not a heroic forecast. The administration went out of their way to slap on an excessive stimulus bill so they could jump in and take credit when the inevitable happened. However, it looks like they jumped the gun. The stimulus is a dud, they look stupid, and it appears like the political headwinds have done a 180.
Menzine Chinn link was about how real economists actually analyze economic policies.
I’m not impressed with anyone pedding the output from a VAR model as truth and beauty. I have no confidence that these people can successfully isolate the compenents of growth between growth caused by the stimulus and that from a natural rebound out of a recession. And the total rebound is looing like a dud too; and Obama’s only just getting started.
CoRev
i need to apologize. I do believe the “conservative” message today depends on the more primitive aspects of human nature. But I frequently think of myself as a conservative in the George Washington, Dwight Eisenhower mold. Both of those guys were very practical, and they understood the uses of government and why a government needs to be strong, but the people need to carefully protect themselves from letting it get too strong.
It is very easy to go from protecting liberty, however, to just making it impossible for government to do what has to be done. Ten million people out of work is not good for the country. Not even for your business. We KNOW that “free enterprise” cannot solve this problem by itself in any reasonable period of time. So we have invented a few ways for the government to help out. Those ways do cost a bit of money in taxes from time to time. But i can’t see any evidnce that they don’t pay for themselves ten times over.
I will assume you are a conservative of the same mold as Ike and the original George W. But I will argue that you are in danger of crippling the country with excessive concern about small taxes, while you seem willing to let liberty be destroyed in the name of safety. I think the Republican propaganda can win elections. I don’t hold that against them. God knows the democrats play to the mob too. What I hold against them is that they elect people who believe their own propaganda. And are willing to destroy the country to win the next election.
2slugs, I forgot to mention the environmental and energy policy differences along with the national security and economic policy results. Still under a year in office, and the electorate has turned from awe of his rhetorical abilities to awe and anger over the administration’s ineptitudes.
Awww. My 10 month grandson just left and I have been saying “good job” all afternoon. Dale, you deserve a “good job” also for signing in.
You were throwing me off. Any reason for going underground?
Cantab,
Eugene Fama is a fool. He made some pretty stupid claims in that interview. For example, his claim that it wasn’t the market but govt intervention that caused the housing collapse is laughable on the face of it and just shows that the guy doesn’t know the timeline. The REASON Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac got into the subprime market was because the unregulated free market was gobbling up the market. Fannie and Freddie were latecomers…very latecomers to the party. Maybe you should take the time to look at at the quantitative studies that clearly show this mess was baked in the cake long before Freddie and Fannie ever got involved. It was the unregulated market that created the problem….Freddie and Fannie joined late and went along for the ride. And it was the govt’s effort to effectively deregulate Fannie and Freddie that caused the problem. Sorry, but Fama is an idiot. He’s said a lot of really crazy things over the last year.
And your claim that the economy was going to recover on its own is without foundation. And you even contradict yourself when you say that the economy is sputtering now but would have recovered on its own. Think about that for a moment. If you don’t see how dumb that statement is, then maybe you need to crack open a few macro textbooks. One day you’re arguing that a tax hike will depress demand and the next minute you’re arguing that a stimulus package will depress demand. Keep your stories straight.
Cantab,
And the total rebound is looing like a dud too; and Obama’s only just getting started.
That’s an argument for a larger stimulus. I agree. And a year ago I said that the stimulus was not large enough. And recall that Romer also said that the stimulus needed to be almost twice as large as it was (she estimated $1.3T).
I’m not impressed with anyone pedding the output from a VAR model as truth and beauty. I have no confidence that these people can successfully isolate the compenents of growth between growth caused by the stimulus and that from a natural rebound out of a recession.
Now you’re assuming that there is such a thing as a natural rebound. That’s a huge assumption and you haven’t presented any evidence that it exists. Afterall, the arguments for a natural rebound actually depend upon the argument that recessions cannot happen. The economy was in freefall and pretending that there was some kind of natural rebound is just magical thinking. The Recovery Fairies were sprinkle magic dust on the economy and aggregate demand would just spontaneously burst forth. That worked real well for Japan, didn’t it. There are a couple of new papers that are out now that look at recessions caused by financial collapses, as opposed to recessions caused by supply shocks, recessions induced by the Fed, or whatever. Recessions caused by financial collapses take the longest to recover and do not just fix themselves. In Japan’s case it took close to 20 years to get things right, and that number is not unusual for that kind of recession.
CoRev,
No doubt that the electorate is angry. That’s one reason why Obama should have totally ignored the GOP and their dishonest gameplaying over the summer. Grassley has even admitted that he was negotiating in bad faith over the healthcare bill. He even brags about it to his core constituents. The GOP has worked very hard to make sure that Obama’s policies fall flat. But the GOP has aligned itself with the Old Confederacy and they have some firsthand experience with treason in that part of the country.
But as angry as the voters are at the Dems, they are even angrier at Republicans.
The GOP will probably do quite well in 2010, but that will likely be the last hoorah for the GOP because after that things do not line up well for them. So they’re only shot at regaining control of Congress is 2010. If they don’t succeed in 2010, then they will be a permanent minority party for a long time. And the numbers look like the GOP will fall short of controlling Congress. Demographics are not the friend of the GOP.
Cantab you have ignored the employer split and as noted you miss the difference between applying an immediate fix of 2.01% or dividing that into 17 pieces.
The NW plan applies a 0.15% tax to both sides of the split right away. That yields a much smaller number than a 2.01% increase that assumes the entire incidence falls on the employee. This is not that hard.
For a guy challenging the patience the siteowner you are oddly confident in your ability to issue civility orders to Dale. You really are not in position to make demands.
Cantab those projections assumed a bigger stimulus. The package was cut back at the insistance of Republicans and Conservadems and proved o be less effective than Romer projected.
At which time the people ho crippled the stimulus blame it for limping.
Slugs,
Now you’re assuming that there is such a thing as a natural rebound.
Yes, and I have a good case. People are optimizers and this optimization creates an upward bias. It’s not like they’re sitting there indifferent if things get better or worse. rather they are actively working to make things better for themselves and thus collectively better for society. Greed is good, still.
CoRev
you better watch that kid. in a few years he will take apart your computer and put it back together so that even i can make it work.
2slugs, you’ve got all the talking points well down, memorized. I remember all the claims after the last two elections, and still less than ayear from the great win, we are looking at a potential landslide victory for that … how di you phrase it … “they will be a permanent minority party for a long time.“
So which is it? Permanent or a long time? I am leaning toward a long time, say several decades. Just like the last time, but not minority.
2slugs, you’ve got all the talking points well down, memorized. I remember all the claims after the last two elections, and still less than a year from the great win, we are looking at a potential landslide victory for that … how did you phrase it … “they will be a permanent minority party for a long time.”
So which is it? Permanent or a long time? I am leaning toward a long time, say several decades. Just like the last time, but not minority.
slugs – “The GOP has worked very hard to make sure that Obama’s policies fall flat. But the GOP has aligned itself with the Old Confederacy and they have some firsthand experience with treason in that part of the country.”
So, Massachusetts is part of the Old Confederacy? Treason, no doubt, but the Confederacy… Nah. Can’t be true.
Cantab,
This is idiocy on steroids. Didn’t you ever learn about suboptimizing behavior? What’s good for one person is not necessarily good for all if everyone did it. Saving too much of your income makes sense from an individual’s perspective, but it’s awful in terms of the macro economy. Geez, it’s like you never took a macro course.
Thank you CoRev
there are also compounding effects that close the gap between 1.87% and 2.01%
Bruce,
It’s my understanding that the stimulus that was passed was the one that was supposed to keep unemployment capped at 8 percent. Anyway, the democrats always had the votes. And as much as I would like to see Scott Brown win on Tuesday and even though the bookies have him ahead right now I would bet against the way i’m going to vote this tueday. I think the take away is there are not enough people on the far left to turn us into Sweden. A lot of democrats are really democrats in name only and they respresent conservative parts of the country — so the bottom line is the far left agenda just does not have the votes to win.
CoRev,
More eyeball analysis posing as real analysis.
When analysts talk about adjusting and correcting raw data, they don’t just mean fixing obvious errors due to corrupt data points. They certainly do correct corrupt records, but when you do real analysis you have to do more. For example, look at the attachment. If you relied solely upon eyeball analysis you would be quite certain that the raw data shows a downward trend. In fact, that’s wrong. I created this data set. The raw data has no corruption errors and in fact is complete white noise. The data was created using a random number generator and then applied to a function that I created that had a deterministic trend INCREASE with a slope of 5 percent. But yet the visual data looks like a strong decreasing trend. That’s why you cannot do eyeball analysis. You have to employ lots of sophisticated time series approaches, and when real analysts talk about adjusting raw data that’s mostly what they mean. From what I’ve seen here you do not have the skill set needed to decompose a time series into deterministic and stochastic trends. Just dumping data into an Excel spreadsheet and then drawing a fitted line through the data points is not analysis.
Movie guy
is this incoherent or is it just me.
the policies of the new repubs are very much the polcies of the old south. when i lived in Mass they called it “taxachusetts” so that doesn’t sound like the place the repubs have alligned their policies to.
or are you just saying that the repubs look like they may take a seat in Mass. i hope you can understand this is not “allinging their policies with”. but i am learning that the random connections made by someone else’s synapses don’t necessarily parallel the random connections made by my own.
groundhog day coming up. watch for it.
Limbaugh and O’Reilly and Buchanan and other assorted racists are NOT going to like this:
http://www.nbcmiami.com/news/local-beat/Operation-Pierre-Pan-Starts-at-Miami-Hospitals-81767767.html
LOL
sammy,
You have badly misinterpreted what the GRL study actually said. It did not say that CO2 is not increasing. It said that the ability of the ocean to absorb manmade CO2 is not degrading. Once again what we have here is a failure to understand the difference between flow variables and stock variables. What Knorr is saying is that the flow variable in the ocean’s ability to absorb manmade CO2 has not degraded. That does NOT mean that the level of CO2 is not increasing. The problem from your side is that the ocean is not showing any increased ability to absorb CO2, whichi is what the arguments from the climate change deniers actually make even though most are not aware of it.
But you are not alone in completely misunderstanding the GRL paper. Most of the climate change denier sites have also misunderstood it….and again, it’s for the usual reason: an inability to distinguish between flow variables and stock variables.
Slugs,
One of your issues is you go right to macro economics without considering the micro foundations. A real economist is an economist that understands the fundamentals and builds his analysis based on the fundamentals. The fact that you parade out some guy with his VAR model and label him a real economist because of his new data mining toy means to me that you need to think more about what makes a good economist.
The reason the Fresh water economists took over the profession is that they do the fundamentals correctly. The University of Chicago is great at treaching from the fundamentals and then pairing theory with data analysis. And not there is no fresh water versus salt water economic schools, today we have fresh water coast to coast.
Right now givent he result I wish we never did the bank bailout. I also wish we never did Obama’s stimulus. My usual preferrred policy in the face of economic downturns is to liberalize regulation and cut taxes permanetly if they’re too high. We should have stuck to this last year.
Slugs,
One of your issues is you go right to macro economics without considering the micro foundations. A real economist is an economist that understands the fundamentals and builds his analysis based on the fundamentals. The fact that you parade out some guy with his VAR model and label him a real economist because of his new data mining toy means to me that you need to think more about what makes a good economist.
The reason the fresh water economists took over the profession is that they do the fundamentals correctly. The University of Chicago is great at treaching from the fundamentals and then pairing theory with data analysis. And now there is no fresh water versus salt water dichotomy, today we’re all fresh water economics (with a crazy uncle Krugman or two locked in the attick).
Right now given the results of intervention policy I wish we never did the bank bailout. I also wish we never did Obama’s stimulus. My usual preferrred policy in the face of economic downturns is to liberalize regulation and cut taxes permanetly if they’re too high. We should have stuck to this last year. Slow recovery is what you get when you don’t take your medicine. And the slow economic recovery seems to be the most significant way Obama has made us more like Europe — and that’s a change we can live without.
Movie Guy,
So, Massachusetts is part of the Old Confederacy? Treason, no doubt, but the Confederacy… Nah. Can’t be true.
I don’t know about that. I suddently getting a craving for Kentucky Fried Chicken and I’ll be voting for Brown on Tuesday.
MG,
The heart and soul of the GOP (to the extent that the GOP has a soul) is in the Old Confederacy. That doesn’t mean the GOP won’t occassionaly win seats outside of the Old Confederacy, but those seats will largely be transient. A Republican in Massachusetts is really just a fellow traveler. The GOP is about as close to a regional party as you’re going to see in this country.
CoRev,
If you’re a politician, long time and permanent mean the same thing.
Demography is not the friend of the GOP. The reason the GOP will do well in 2010 is because the base of today’s GOP is the elderly white voter and the elderly tend vote in non-Presidential election years. But hitching your electoral wagon to a (literally) dying demographic is not a long term winning strategy. And notice that there have been more Republican retirements this year than Democratic retirements. That tells you a lot about the GOP’s prospects for regaining control of Congress. The GOP will will a lot of seats in 2010, but they won’t win enough to regain control of Congress, and that’s bad news for them because 2010 is probably their last, best chance.
CoRev,
If you’re a politician, long time and permanent mean the same thing.
Demography is not the friend of the GOP. The reason the GOP will do well in 2010 is because the base of today’s GOP is the elderly white voter, and the elderly tend to vote in non-Presidential election years. But hitching your electoral wagon to a (literally) dying demographic is not a long term winning strategy. And notice that there have been more Republican retirements this year than Democratic retirements. That tells you a lot about the GOP’s prospects for regaining control of Congress. If GOP politicians actually thought that they had a realistic chance of regaining control of Congress, then they would not be retiring. But being in a “permanent” minority is no fun, so they are bailing. The GOP will win a lot of seats in 2010, but they won’t win enough to regain control of Congress, and that’s bad news for them because 2010 is probably their last, best chance.
Movie Guy,
So, Massachusetts is part of the Old Confederacy? Treason, no doubt, but the Confederacy… Nah. Can’t be true.
I don’t know about that. I’m suddently getting a craving for Kentucky Fried Chicken and I’ll be voting for Brown on Tuesday.
We also called ourselves taxachusetts. Massachuetts voted for Reagan twice so voting for the democrat is not a forgone conclusion. The only reason we voted for George McGovern in 1972 was Nixon was ran against one of out local boys. This flipped around in 1980. Another factor in Massachusetts is that we don’t have a strong tradition of electing women to high office. The current polls are a suprise to me but it’s not the bizzaro world.
We also called ourselves taxachusetts. Massachuetts voted for Reagan twice so voting for the democrat is not a forgone conclusion. The only reason we voted for George McGovern in 1972 was Nixon ran against one of out local boys. This flipped around in 1980 and worked against Jimmy Carter after he beat Teddy Kennedy in the primaries. Another factor in Massachusetts affecting the current special election is that we don’t have a strong tradition of electing women to high office. The current polls are a suprise to me but it’s not the bizzaro world.
2slugs, you do amaze me.
Wjy do you care that I do or do not know how to do a time series analysis? What has that to do with the article references I provide? It would be a whole lot more meaningful if you took your issue up with the original authors. Who by the way do know how to do the appropriate analysis. Not all of which is use of statistical toolsets.
As I said the raw data is now available for public access, and preliminary results are showing just how poor the raw data is. The key info in my latest was that even that data purported to be unaltered wasn’t, and that the alterations were always in a manner to accentuate recent warming.
With the independent raw data analysis/comparison to current processed data starting, the cherry picking is being identified. For instance, the number of stations used has dramatically diminished. Why? Why are the remaining stations mostly urban/coastal? Why are the colder rural/mountain sites dropped?
It doesn’t take a set of statistical or data analysis tools to make some preliminary determinations. The data is horrid. The Quality Control efforts are not appropriate for this level of data errors. Data collection is problematic creating somel of the data errors. Storing this horrid data with an incomplete set of metadata exacerbates the preliminary processing/preparation for later detailed analysis. For these reasons, reliance on the outputs from prior analysis should be taken with some trepidation.
For these and many more reasons still to be found, the UK Met decided to completely recalculate/analyze their temperature data. Others are already independently undertaking this effort. A comparison of these multiple efforts should improve the understanding and add a level of confidence to the future calculated Global Average Temperature.
2slugs, you do amaze me. Why do you care that I do or do not know how to do a time series analysis? What has that to do with the article references I provide?
Providing your own graphed unrelated dataset adds what value? It only proves your desperation to make a meaningless point. It would be a whole lot more meaningful if you took your issue up with the original authors. Who by the way do know how to do the appropriate analysis. Not all of which is use of statistical toolsets.
As I said the raw data is now available for public access, and preliminary results are showing just how poor the raw data is. The key info in my latest was that even that data purported to be unaltered wasn’t, and that the alterations were always in a manner to accentuate recent warming.
With the independent raw data analysis/comparison to current processed data starting, the cherry picking is being identified. For instance, the number of stations used has dramatically diminished. Why? Why are the remaining stations mostly urban/coastal? Why are the colder rural/mountain sites dropped?
It doesn’t take a set of statistical or data analysis tools to make some preliminary determinations. The data is horrid. The Quality Control efforts are not appropriate for this level of data errors. Data collection is problematic creating some of the data errors. Storing this horrid data with an incomplete set of metadata exacerbates the preliminary processing/preparation for later detailed analysis. For these reasons, reliance on the outputs from prior analysis should be taken with some trepidation. Garbage In/Garbage Out?
For these and many more reasons still to be found, the UK Met decided to completely recalculate/analyze their temperature data. Others are already independently undertaking this effort. A comparison of these multiple efforts should improve the understanding and add a level of confidence to the future calculated Global Average Temperature.
Slugs,
The heart and soul of the GOP (to the extent that the GOP has a soul) is in the Old Confederacy.
You can’t see this in the data. Following the civil war if you looked at an electoral map the republican states were the one that were in the Union and the solid democrat base was the old confederacy.
Over time as the southerners have become more progressive they have left the democrat party and become republican.
CoRev,
Providing your own graphed unrelated dataset adds what value?
The point is to demonstrate that eyeball analysis not analysis. And what you posted was eyeball analysis. The whole point of your post was to imply that raw data showing a decreasing trend with adjusted data showing an increasing tend can only be explained by dishonesty. That was your point and you know it. What my little example shows is that “trend” is a statistical term and it something that is teased out of the data. Just displaying raw data and drawing a downward sloping line through it does not mean the trend was downward sloping. So your charts were basically worthless and misleading.
The key info in my latest was that even that data purported to be unaltered wasn’t, and that the alterations were always in a manner to accentuate recent warming.
Your main point was to suggest that the data was altered in a dishonest way. Your charts do not demonstrate that for the reasons I described. And “raw data” does not mean unaltered data. It almost always goes through some kind of transformation function unless the problem is trivial.
It doesn’t take a set of statistical or data analysis tools to make some preliminary determinations.
Yes it does. Otherwise all you get is eyeball analysis, and that is useless.
For instance, the number of stations used has dramatically diminished. Why? Why are the remaining stations mostly urban/coastal? Why are the colder rural/mountain sites dropped?
If you can’t understand how it is possible for a naive eyeball look at raw data to appear downward sloping even though the actual data generation process was built to an increasing slope, then it is probably hopeless to try and explain why it is appropriate to reduce the number of rural and moutain sites. The explanations are out there. They are technical, but they are out there.
As to the quality of the data, that’s an argument for more sophisticated analysis tools. It’s not just that there are calibration errors, repeating data streams from Russian sites, changes in instrumentation. Those are the easy problems. The hard stuff is in decomposing the data.
And it’s good that the UK Met is going to recrunch the numbers. That’s all for the better. But don’t get your hopes up that it will materially change the conclusion. As I said, the UK Met has already hinted that they’ve preliminarily recrunched the numbers and informally they are saying that the difference is miniscule. It will take a couple of years before the final results get published, but don’t kid yourself…they already know what the answer will be. What will be your excuse then?
CAntab
you are delusional. the South was Democrat and pro slavery. the Republican party was formed to oppose the push of the Southern Slaveocrats to extend slavery into the west… and ultimately into the North. The South remained Democrat after the Civil War because they hated the Republican…party of Lincoln. they only turned Republican when Johnson (D.Tx) pushed through the civil rights act, and Nixon Republicans developed their “southern strategy” strates rights (code word for pro-slavery). The average Southern voter… my old friends and neighbors… is a complete ignoramus. but the one thing he knows is that the Gumming is going to force his daughter to marry a (N-word deleted becasue there are idiots on the other side, too.)
PRogressive is one thing the southerners have not become. they only reason they have any money at all is because Johnson sent them goodies to try to make up for civil rights.
I could never grasp why people in Mass. would even consider voting for a guy who thought taxing banks to make them repay their bail out money until I saw this. His opponent, gasp, is a black woman. And Brown has allied himself with the low lifes who slur Obama re his birth and his race. Please don’t tell me the US isn’t racist. It is RACIST TO THE CORE.
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/01/17/brown-coakley-and-the-outrage-gap/
meant to write “who thought it was wrong to tax banks”
We also called ourselves taxachusetts. Massachuetts voted for Reagan twice so voting for the democrat is not a forgone conclusion. The only reason we voted for George McGovern in 1972 was Nixon ran against one of our local boys. This flipped around in 1980 and worked against Jimmy Carter after he beat Teddy Kennedy in the primaries. Another factor in Massachusetts affecting the current special election is that we don’t have a strong tradition of electing women to high office. The current polls are a suprise to me but it’s not the bizzaro world.
2slugs, you caught me out,even again: “ The whole point of your post was to imply that raw data showing a decreasing trend with adjusted data showing an increasing tend can only be explained by dishonesty.” But, what fascinates me is that none of the graphs show raw data with a decreasing trend.
I hinted strongly, that these were not my graphs, but you persist in treating them as my personal work. I have taken to NOT referring readers here to the original source, as few have apparently gone to the source. I have often recommended that the commentnter making a point that they make the point with the author, but have yet to see you or any AB commenting over at their sites where such action might actually add some clarity to your argument(s).
Moreover, in the past you have been caught out being less than truthful or exagerating, and I seriously suspect this statement: “As I said, the UK Met has already hinted that they’ve preliminarily recrunched the numbers and informally they are saying that the difference is miniscule. It will take a couple of years before the final results get published, but don’t kid yourself…they already know what the answer will be.” My first bold may fall into that category of exageration, but the real travesty is the second bold. If you actually believe this then you are truly accepting of poor (no bad) science. Skepticism is the hallmark of a scientist. “Already knowing” is a long way from science.
Speaking of the UK Met office, take a look at this: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/01/16/the-bbc-may-drop-met-office-for-forecasts/
For those who need the Cliff Notes version, it says that the BBC is considering dropping the UK Met as its official weather service. The Met has been so heavily invested in the AGW mystique, that its seasonal forecasts, driven by those beliefs, have been just atrocious. They had become laughable, but the last straw was when the UK Met Director had to apologize. He, in a recent interview, claimed that the Met short range forecasts were the best in the world, then within just a few days they completely missed a crippling snow storm for Southern England.
Arrogance is commonplace in the softer sciences. Y’ano fields like climatology and economics.
CoRev,
I hinted strongly, that these were not my graphs, but you persist in treating them as my personal work.
I know those are not your graphs. Most of the graphs you post here are the same ones that you post on your clearinghouse website, and most of those are derivative…typically from Anthony Watts, who in turn regurgitates a lot of graphs. So yes, I am well aware that the graphs you post are usually 3rd or 4th derivatives. But you post graphs with comments and the comments are yours.
It will take a couple of years before the final results get published, but don’t kid yourself…they already know what the answer will be.” If you actually believe this then you are truly accepting of poor (no bad) science… Skepticism is the hallmark of a scientist. “Already knowing” is a long way from science.
They’ve been working with the data for years and over that time they’ve no doubt analyzed the data sixteen different ways…upside down, inside out. When you work with data for a long enough time you get to know what kind of revisions it would take to upset the result. In fact, the Met was actually fairly eager to recrunch the numbers against the wishes of the UK govt. And most of the time it will take to publish new results isn’t due to analysis time, it’s due to getting the necessary permissions from all of the governments involved in data collection. In other words, it’s a political problem, not an analysis problem.
2slugs, I see you bought into the data ownership argument. When there is ample evidence that the data was widely shared within the pro-AGW community without Govt approvals. That is mostly just a smoke screen to protect them from the inevitable FOIA lawsuits.
I let this one go earlier because of its absurdity: “And “raw data” does not mean unaltered data. It almost always goes through some kind of transformation function unless the problem is trivial. ” From that statement I can assume you have never or seldom actually dealt with unprocessed/raw data.
Raw data is the original data. Raw data is NOT transformed data. It might be transcribed, but not transformed. It is especially never transformed to correct a “trivial problem.” That transformation step is data processing, and therefore, the new dataset is processed data. Often times, even the transcibing step can alter data from its original form and generate errors. Goals for manual transcription of data were to keep them below 1%, but that is from this old man’s memory and could be wrong.
Only in the past few years have the temperature (and other climate) data been collected using automated tools. The vast majority has been collected manually and been transcribed manually. So having access to the raw data is important to identify possible “collection” and “processing” errors.
So, I’m sure your example above, as you described: “The raw data has no corruption errors and in fact is complete white noise. The data was created using a random number generator and then applied to a function that I created that had a deterministic trend INCREASE with a slope of 5 percent.” may very well represent what is going on in climate science. A set of noisy data is processed to “tease” (your word) out a signal. A signal that was predetermined because of the belief that it must exist with a known trend.
Not science. Confirmation of a belief.
Happened on a TV channel that had Obama talking in Mass. What was interesting was (1) the extreme rightwing screaming crazies were out in force trying to shout him down and keep people from hearing what he was saying; and (2) this gross disrespect for a US president is clearly related to his blackness that many Americans can’t tolerate because of their racism. Since they can’t throw rotten eggs at him (I suppose they would if they could) or call him a “dirty nigger” (as they doubtless would like to do) they show their contempt for him and his race in this fashion. I don’t recall lilly white Shrub ever being shouted down in this fashion. Only our first black President. It makes one ashamed, really, to be an American.
And don’t let me ever hear another idiot tell me, in view of all this, that Americans are not racist. What a whopping LIE that is.
A lot of the new population coming to the United States are Catholic. Now the democrats are saying that Catholics need not apply for jobs such as working in an emergency room. I don’t see demographics working for the democrats.
A lot of the new population coming to the United States are Catholic. Now the democrats are saying that Catholics need not apply for jobs such as working in an emergency room. I don’t see demographics working for the democrats.
margery
i was gonna stay out of this.
the race card is two way. there are blacks and women in Mass who will vote for your candidate just because of that.
racism is part of basic biology: fear of the other. goddam geraniums are racists. hutus and hottentots are racists. what we have done in this country is made legalized racism illegal. that’s a huge step forward in human history.
the people yelling at Obama may think they are doing what your side did when they yelled at Bush.
some of them may be racists… the real kind, not just the kind who aren’t sure “how to make a black person comfortable”… but they think they are yelling about his health care plan.
that said, i voted for obama, and i don’t like his enemies. but i don’t much like his friends like Ben Bernanke or Tim Geithner either. I am no more of a racist than a geranium.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2010/01/17/obama_heckled_at_coakley_rally.html
Here’s people screaming at Obama. Please post equivalent evidence of people screaming at Shrub. You can’t. You’re very wrong that the gross disrespect shown Obama is not covert racism. It is. Face the fact. To say racism is everywhere and therefore okay is silly and wicked. Perhaps some of them don’t understand their own racism. Lots of stupid Americans are not self aware at all. But it is there and it is shown is this kind of disrespect. Shrub never got that kind of treatment in public nor any previous WHITE president. Sorry that you don’t understand this.I don’t like Geithner too, not do I approve of Obama’s kow towing to Wall Street, but that has racist reasons too. Obama knows that if he really took a left wing line, his blackness would really stir up trouble for him. So he genuflects to the plutocracy and the GOP in an attempt to seem not “too black” (ie leftwing.)
Compare this to the Obama clip.
http://www.mererhetoric.com/archives/11275877.html
A mild murmur in the Congress that might have been of approval in fact. No comparison at all to the Obama clip. If you can find something that reveals Bush being treated as badly as Obama I would love to see it. I await your response.
I previously posted a link to a UK newspaper article about how Obama’s election didn’t put racism to rest in the US at all, contrary to what many thought would happen. If anything it has caused it to reemerge in all its ugly intensity. Americans don’t like to be called racists BECAUSE THEY ARE in vast numbers and they know it is wrong and they hated being exposed as such. You can get the extreme of it in Limbaugh’s saying Obama loves the Haiti disaster because he can use it politically or Robertson saying the disaster came about because Haitians made apact with the devil when they revoted against their French overlords. Both people are important Republicans, politically important, and I have never seen anything about the GOP denoucing them at all. Have YOU???
I’d like to have a convincing explanation why the people of Mass. would prefer a rightwing extremist who thinks Palin is great and who thinks bankers shouldn’t have to pay back the money the government gave them to save the banks. After all Mass has a tradition of being somewhat leftist. But when you look at this you see THE REASON IMMEDIATELY. She is black; he is white. Full explanation.
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/01/17/brown-coakley-and-the-outrage-gap/
Coberly, “I am no more of a racist than a geranium.”
By chance were you a flower child? I wholely agree with your comment regarding Obama’s friends and enemies. It seems that they play for the same team and we don’t seem to be members of that team. But I think that Margie has a valild point regarding the outright rudeness of the reactionaries vs the protestations of the so-called left-wingers. Worse yet, thoe reactionaries have a captive media on their side.
Margery
that “full explanatioin” reasoning is exactly the kind of reasonong that underlies racism itself. “i don’t know much but i know enough. all blacks are lazy.”
please dear god note the quotes. i was not saying that, some racist was saying that. but Margery’s reasoning is the same. “There is no explanation but the explanation I give myself.”
She does not even bother to notice that Mass has a large black population and a large female population. nope, Mass will vote against a black woman because of racism.
she doen’t think that Obama’s health plan has angered a lot of people… rightly or wrongly… and they will vote against the Dem because of that. my own suspicion is that the dem health care plan is going to blow up in the face of the dems and we may see only repubs in office for a long long time.
i hasten to add that that is not what i want to see. i just expect to see it.
So Margery, please examine your backwards-racism and look for more complicated answers than “she’s black and that explains it.”
You’re wrong. Sorry about that. The “all blacks are lazy” is an inference made from a couple of observations. That racism is prevalent in US society is proved by vast amounts of data, not from “a few observations”. Or are you saying that a white president would have been treated the same? If you are, you have no understanding of US society.
I might add that as far as I know the crazy shouting by the extreme right wingers was never present in the USA until we got this black president. Having a black president clearly, to me, has driven the rightwing crazy and these people have essentially taken over the GOP. They are not merely conservative or reactionary, but semi-crazy. And they shout down people they don’t like because they have no rational arguments to offer. Nothing pertinent to say, so they simply try to stop the others from saying anything.
PS You need to take another GOOD look at this. And absorb Krugman’s comments.
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/01/17/brown-coakley-and-the-outrage-gap/
We don’t know how the election will turn out. It is probably blacks will vote for her. What would create the upset would be liberal whites voting for Brown in spite of his anti-liberal views. That would be due to racism. We know quite well that many poor whites are racist even if that means supporting the rich. They refuse to acknowledge their kinship with other poor Americans because the others are black. This characterizes a lot of people in the South.
Margery,
It is probably blacks will vote for her.
Why? Have you ever looked at the percent of african americans in jail versus the total polulation. And Ms. Coakly is the tool that has been putting a disproportionate number of African Americans in jail.
MM said: “She is black; he is white. Full explanation. ” Are you saying Coakley is black?
Margery,
It is probably blacks will vote for her.
Why? Have you ever looked at the percent of african americans in jail versus the total population. And Ms. Coakly is the tool that has been putting a disproportionate number of African Americans in jail.
CoRev – Don’t feed the troll….
Yeah, you’re probably correct.
Here’s Jim Cramer, stock market dunce, cum plutotool, on the Mass. race:
What does a Brown election mean larger than this? Well, first you’re going to get a knee-jerk rally in all the so-called penalized stocks — the HMOs, the drugs, the medical device-makers. I call it “knee-jerk,” though, because these stocks have been on fire for months. Look at Cramer fave WellPoint, or United Health. 52 week high. 52 week high. Merck, 52 week high. It’s been clear as a bell that the healthcare reform wasn’t going to affect most healthcare stocks. That’s versus what we thought last year.
More important, though, I think investors who are nervous about the dictatorship of the Pelosi proletariat will feel at ease, and we could have a gigantic rally off a Coakley loss and a Brown win. It will be a signal that a more pro-business, less pro-labor government could be in front of us. Hey, would you say it is more China like perhaps? No, we can never be as capitalist as the Communist Chinese. But how about a little bit less like the old Soviet Union? Yeah, that would be a bit more like it. Pelosi politburo emasculation! Everything from the banks, which are usually in the Democrats’ penalty box, or the oils which are despised by this administration for being carbon, could be propelled dramatically higher all of this Tuesday night
So, you see the spin: Pelosi is a “commie” bringing us the “dictatorship of the proletariat”…those wicked ordinary, non-rich people….and supporter of detestable labor unions that stand in the way of more riches for the greedy rich, and Brown will save us from those terrible people by turning us all over the Wall Street and making the investments of the rich skyrocket. Pretty picture, no?
A thousand apologies. I looked at the video on Krugman’s site and she certainly looked black to me there. If she is not, and I now am quite sure she is not, you can disregard my wrong headed comments. I think they would still be valid IF she were black, but she isn’t, so they don’t apply. This makes it all the more bizarre to me that she might lose. I find it inexplicable that Mass, citizens would vote for the candidate of the plutocracy (see Cramer quote that I just posted). I’d be happy to have a believable explanation.
??? I thought you’d be delighted that someone is putting blacks in prison, where, no doubt, you think mansy of them belong. Gee you seem very inconsistent. You think she is prejudiced?
I’d love to be clued into when Mass. turned rightwing reactionary so that a plutotool might win the vacant senate seat there.
Margery Meanwell’s black candidate:
http://www.marthacoakley.com/splash_out_pre
.
Margery,
Gee you seem very inconsistent
The fact that my opinion differs from the voice coming out of your top button is not an inconsistency.
I believe I said I was in error about her race. Did you not read that? Or didn’t you want to read it?
I do think that if a state that is or has been predominatly liberal and Democrat votes in a reactionary pro-plutocrat who loves Wall Street bankers and hates anything to help the general public, something needs to be explained. We know that lots of Americans are easily confused by the Tea Party screamers and those who finance them, but it may be that they are so weak minded they don’t know left from right.
I looked again at the video and indeed the woman beside Brown IS black. I thought she was Coakley when in fact she was the station host who interviewed him. I also would add to his “stupid” credentials that he is admirer of Palin. She is so intelligent and informed and bright, Mass voters should certainly vote for a senator who admires her, right? Disgusting beyond belief. If Mass votes for him I hope the plutos really exploit the state to the hilt. I deserves that for its stupidity.
You made a phony claim. End of story.
Go complain about something else…
MG
I’m surprised that you don’t accept that MM admitted to an error. Regardless of ideology I was under the impression that you were fair minded, not a Cantab extrmist. Continuing to knock the points made in the error is like spitting into the wind. Wipe your face and show a little more fairness in your analysis.