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Yeah, it does, but you, nor anyone from Austria, actually knows what "human nature" is. It's kind of this catch-all term meaning "whatever I want it to mean to prove my point."

Case in point: that neat story that came out in the Guardian last week about the "real" "Lord of the Flies." We're all familiar with the William Goldman book, right? A bunch of kids get shipwrecked, and "human nature" comes out and they get pretty savage and hierarchical.

This actually happened to 6 kids from Tonga in the 1960's; they stole a boat, got wrecked on an island, and lived there for a year and a half. They actually did great and when they were rescued, their medical examiner was kind of surprised at how muscular and healthy they were. Now, they were lucky, because they wrecked on a previously-inhabited island that had bananas, birds, and fish around, and they were able to hollow out tree trunks to store water. But the other thing they did was, they didn't fight. They worked together, agreed not to resort to violence, and even splinted the leg of one kid who broke his leg doing something, and it healed perfectly.

So, "human nature" is...savage competition or cooperative, collective action? If the answer is even "it depends," then these models based on behavioral assumptions are meant to be taken with a GIGANTIC grain of salt.
Human nature, on a micro-economic level. All things being equal, people tend to make the best economic decisions for themselves. When the collective steps in and encourages or discourages those choices (lazy example: manipulating buying power via interest rate manipulation), it has a tendency to skew the market and will force a larger correction later.
 
Another problem I've had. John Kenneth Galbraith mentions in "The Affluent Society" (and that was written in like...the late 50's or early 60's) that one thing that shields Americans from realizing the economic problems foisted on them by their stupid leaders is our tremendous capacity to go into debt. Our entire society became structured around it post-WW2. Why? Well, there is a ton of money to be made on debt. And if you keep tweaking society to allow for more and more of it, people can go on living lives of tax cuts, increasing inequality, and less and less social services and not really "notice" because they just put it on a card. This is not possible in pretty much every other one of our peer countries. There are much, much more stringent limits on debt.

Talk about short-term thinking that will cause a collapse one day. We're already seeing that, and I would argue that is because the 2008 Crisis and this current crisis have shocked younger generations into noticing that a ton of debt only works if everything is rosy, and the older models of success (college, white collar job) seriously do NOT apply to "everyone," and they were never supposed to.

Agreed 100%, except I would say it was 80-82 that got the ball rolling, not 2008. Of course we had much more flexibility back then and were able to use the Keynesian model to avoid total collapse. It set the precedent and things accelerated from there, particularly in 2000-2001.
 
Amy Klobuchar is fairly close to that. Didnt get a sniff. Gabbard was probably there too.

Truth is by modern definitions trump is a moderate on the governance side. And most of us hate him. Me included.

Klobuchar has zero charisma. Yes her policies are moderate. I live in MN. Most people think she's fine. Nothing great, nothing terrible.

Trump is anything but moderate. His extreme right wing views on immigration and taxes don't balance out his extreme liberal lifestyle. It just makes him more extreme.

If you want to look into Mn politics as an example look at Colin Peterson. I'm not talking an any way about him for president but he's the kind of person I'm talking about. Democrat with an ag background, pro hunting/gun from a rural area in a midwest state with a very middle of the road voting record. He crosses the aisle often and votes with the Republicans. Nebraska used to have all kinds of politicians like that that were moderate.
 
Human nature, on a micro-economic level. All things being equal, people tend to make the best economic decisions for themselves. When the collective steps in and encourages or discourages those choices (lazy example: manipulating buying power via interest rate manipulation), it has a tendency to skew the market and will force a larger correction later.

Potentially, yeah. That depends. I think you can manipulate all kinds of things in the market to produce better outcomes, while also still trying to mitigate the potential for massively destructive corrections, collapses, etc. I mean that's sort of like arguing, "Well, if we cut you open to remove your appendix, you'll bleed to death or die of shock and an infection." Sure, at this moment, maybe, but what if we solve the problem of infection, pain mitigation, proper stitching, etc? And now, look, we have a higher quality of life because we learned how to escape the problems associated with this procedure.

The kind of thing you just articulated assumes no "next" action. It just assumes "From this point A. to this much later point F., CORRECTION."

Or am I not thinking about your point correctly?
 
Potentially, yeah. That depends. I think you can manipulate all kinds of things in the market to produce better outcomes, while also still trying to mitigate the potential for massively destructive corrections, collapses, etc. I mean that's sort of like arguing, "Well, if we cut you open to remove your appendix, you'll bleed to death or die of shock and an infection." Sure, at this moment, maybe, but what if we solve the problem of infection, pain mitigation, proper stitching, etc? And now, look, we have a higher quality of life because we learned how to escape the problems associated with this procedure.

The kind of thing you just articulated assumes no "next" action. It just assumes "From this point A. to this much later point F., CORRECTION."

Or am I not thinking about your point correctly?
I think you're pretty much understanding what I'm saying. I'm basically saying that more small scale corrections that don't quickly and dramatically affect the market at large are preferable to a huge overarching correction later that encompass the entire economy. This is where I think the keynesian model is useful. Prop up a demand side issue that could cascade and bleed over with short term debt while allowing the market to correct, then recover that debt in the mid-term. Rinse and repeat. Modest growth followed by contraction is much easier to address in the moment than a huge contraction that happens quickly, as we are seeing now.
 
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I think you're pretty much understanding what I'm saying. I'm basically saying that more small scale corrections that don't quickly and dramatically affect the market at large are preferable to a huge overarching correction later that encompass the entire economy. This is where I think the keynesian model is useful. Prop up a demand side issue that could cascade and bleed over with short term debt while allowing the market to correct, then recover that debt in the mid-term. Rinse and repeat. Modest growth followed by contraction is much easier to address in the moment than a huge contraction that happens quickly, as we are seeing now.

Yep, I agree with that.
 
Klobuchar has zero charisma. Yes her policies are moderate. I live in MN. Most people think she's fine. Nothing great, nothing terrible.

Trump is anything but moderate. His extreme right wing views on immigration and taxes don't balance out his extreme liberal lifestyle. It just makes him more extreme.

If you want to look into Mn politics as an example look at Colin Peterson. I'm not talking an any way about him for president but he's the kind of person I'm talking about. Democrat with an ag background, pro hunting/gun from a rural area in a midwest state with a very middle of the road voting record. He crosses the aisle often and votes with the Republicans. Nebraska used to have all kinds of politicians like that that were moderate.

A moderate by definition can have extreme views on some things but they tend to balance out.

His economic policies are at best highly left leaning. At worst batshit insane. Lower taxes is barely right leaning in comparison to the money printing. At best he has no philosophy which means he will take the easiest way out. Which means end of day it will be printing which is the left solution to everything monetary.

He pretty much does nothing on the social side. That's moderate. Allowing right wing nuts freedom of speech isnt the same as actually acting.

I live in southern minnesota as well. I have some idea.

I wouldnt vote for any of them. Outright. I'm in one of the postal unions and I think how trump is handling that situation is flat out dishonest and wrong. I was for gay marriage, and honestly am generally socially liberal

But if you think for ONE second the democratic party is anything other than the most corrupt apparatus on the planet you're on crack.
 
While i generally side with the idea of monetarism, the one issue I have with a lot of the 60s and 70s monetarists is that they dismissed the final value-added aspect of production (other than Friedman in his later years). To me, ideally the money supply should outpace production by 4-5% to facilitate growth, not follow it dollar for dollar. I do think that taxation is the ideal way to keep that inflation in check and allow for those short-term problems, but it would require fiscal responsibility in government.

If we could go back to 1980 and follow the Friedman model of 2000, none of what we are facing would be a problem. Even the Iraq war wouldn't have been that big of a deal, financially speaking.
 
A moderate by definition can have extreme views on some things but they tend to balance out.

His economic policies are at best highly left leaning. At worst batshit insane. Lower taxes is barely right leaning in comparison to the money printing. At best he has no philosophy which means he will take the easiest way out. Which means end of day it will be printing which is the left solution to everything monetary.

He pretty much does nothing on the social side. That's moderate. Allowing right wing nuts freedom of speech isnt the same as actually acting.

I live in southern minnesota as well. I have some idea.

I wouldnt vote for any of them. Outright. I'm in one of the postal unions and I think how trump is handling that situation is flat out dishonest and wrong. I was for gay marriage, and honestly am generally socially liberal

But if you think for ONE second the democratic party is anything other than the most corrupt apparatus on the planet you're on crack.

You have no real evidence for that. And are you trying to compare it to the Republican party, that is literally just a weird amalgam of social issue ideologies spliced together to rally poor whites to vote for rich whites? That literally has to cheat to try to stay in power in ways that go beyond political hardball and veer into actual corruption of the system? I mean, nothing is perfect, but YOU are an idiot if you think the biggest problem in America today is the Democratic party. And also, our political system is set up to have two parties, so you either work for the change you want to see, or you don't understand how our system actually works.
 
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You have no real evidence for that. And are you trying to compare it to the Republican party, that is literally just a weird amalgam of social issue ideologies spliced together to rally poor whites to vote for rich whites? That literally has to cheat to try to stay in power in ways that go beyond political hardball and veer into actual corruption of the system? I mean, nothing is perfect, but YOU are an idiot if you think the biggest problem in America today is the Democratic party. And also, our political system is set up to have two parties, so you either work for the change you want to see, or you don't understand how our system actually works.
you're getting way too political here.. think of the two parties as 2 different mob families. they hate each other, but if anyone tries to upset their card game, they both are going to turn on you.

I like the financial discussion in this thread, and it's impossible to keep some politics out of it, I just don't want to see the thread locked because of too much of it.
 
I got to hand it to you Dudz, you are ALL IN on that leftist stuff

I wouldn't bother posting, I just got sick over the years of all of the right-wing garbage being vomited up on here and going unchallenged. It's ridiculous, and it doesn't even belong on a football forum!
 
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you're getting way too political here.. think of the two parties as 2 different mob families. they hate each other, but if anyone tries to upset their card game, they both are going to turn on you.

I like the financial discussion in this thread, and it's impossible to keep some politics out of it, I just don't want to see the thread locked because of too much of it.

Tell the OTHER guy he's getting too political; I was posting in response to that.
 
You have no real evidence for that. And are you trying to compare it to the Republican party, that is literally just a weird amalgam of social issue ideologies spliced together to rally poor whites to vote for rich whites? That literally has to cheat to try to stay in power in ways that go beyond political hardball and veer into actual corruption of the system? I mean, nothing is perfect, but YOU are an idiot if you think the biggest problem in America today is the Democratic party. And also, our political system is set up to have two parties, so you either work for the change you want to see, or you don't understand how our system actually works.
remind me: is joe biden a poor minority? hildawg? bill?

Ds have checked exactly 1 box they claim to care about in their history. clap, clap, clap

human nature is survival first, like those Tongan kids displayed. take away all immediate threats to survival, surround yourself with wall-to-wall carpeting and flatscreens and human nature is left to chew on itself like a dog locked in a cage. we invent enemies to fight/flee. party politics thrives on the exact people who think they're doing all they can to try and make others see the light, both sides included.

COVID is serious. it's bad. luckily, it doesn't kill everyone. people should have the choice to open their business just like they should have the choice to patronize them or stay home.
 
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You have no real evidence for that. And are you trying to compare it to the Republican party, that is literally just a weird amalgam of social issue ideologies spliced together to rally poor whites to vote for rich whites? That literally has to cheat to try to stay in power in ways that go beyond political hardball and veer into actual corruption of the system? I mean, nothing is perfect, but YOU are an idiot if you think the biggest problem in America today is the Democratic party. And also, our political system is set up to have two parties, so you either work for the change you want to see, or you don't understand how our system actually works.

I don't. It's both. Remember what I said about them toasting each other behind closed doors about us being idiots?

It's all one big kabuki theatre. And you've obviously fallen for it.

I merely said the Democrats are the most corrupt organization on the planet. Which they are.

The rethugs are 2nd. Someone has to be.
 
I don't. It's both. Remember what I said about them toasting each other behind closed doors about us being idiots?

It's all one big kabuki theatre. And you've obviously fallen for it.

I merely said the Democrats are the most corrupt organization on the planet. Which they are.

The rethugs are 2nd. Someone has to be.

Yeah? Well that's just, like, your opinion, man.
 
you're getting way too political here.. think of the two parties as 2 different mob families. they hate each other, but if anyone tries to upset their card game, they both are going to turn on you.

I like the financial discussion in this thread, and it's impossible to keep some politics out of it, I just don't want to see the thread locked because of too much of it.

Well it isnt surprising. People don't need to know anything to discuss politics, they just need to choose a side. Economics isn't that simple and its intellectually taxing. Most people aren't geared towards being challenged that way.
 
Well it isnt surprising. People don't need to know anything to discuss politics, they just need to choose a side. Economics isn't that simple and its intellectually taxing. Most people aren't geared towards being challenged that way.
dogma is very attractive.

turns out we're not so different than we were 100,000 years ago.
 
How is it NOT math? This isn't rocket science here.
It isnt a zero sum game where bigger government automatically means bigger corruption. The federal government was far larger than the Illinois state government for decades but nobody would argue that there was more corruption at the federal level.
 
A moderate by definition can have extreme views on some things but they tend to balance out.

His economic policies are at best highly left leaning. At worst batshit insane. Lower taxes is barely right leaning in comparison to the money printing. At best he has no philosophy which means he will take the easiest way out. Which means end of day it will be printing which is the left solution to everything monetary.

He pretty much does nothing on the social side. That's moderate. Allowing right wing nuts freedom of speech isnt the same as actually acting.

I live in southern minnesota as well. I have some idea.

I wouldnt vote for any of them. Outright. I'm in one of the postal unions and I think how trump is handling that situation is flat out dishonest and wrong. I was for gay marriage, and honestly am generally socially liberal

But if you think for ONE second the democratic party is anything other than the most corrupt apparatus on the planet you're on crack.

I have a hard time distinguishing the amount of corruption between the two. Saying Democrats are more corrupt then Republicans to me is like saying Auburn cheats more than Alabama. Would anyone really be able to tell the difference?
 
I have a hard time distinguishing the amount of corruption between the two. Saying Democrats are more corrupt then Republicans to me is like saying Auburn cheats more than Alabama. Would anyone really be able to tell the difference?

Only with math. But pretty much. Most people can't comprehend a trillion (million million) much less the numbers those two consume that they shouldnt.
 
It isnt a zero sum game where bigger government automatically means bigger corruption. The federal government was far larger than the Illinois state government for decades but nobody would argue that there was more corruption at the federal level.

Maybe by percentage but not by straight dollars.

Is it an axiom? Yeah. Is it going to be a perfect percentage every time? Oh please. If you're going to nitpick like that you need better things to do.
 
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I never claimed either side was clean. Or tried to pull the moral high ground by saying they are. Both sides suck. Acknowledge how ugly your side is -- and fix it -- and believe it or not trump wouldnt stand a chance.

Start with Pelosi. She of the 9 figure fortune and the hedge fund husband.

Why does everyone always come at Pelosi? Isn't Mitch richer than her?
 
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Maybe by percentage but not by straight dollars.

Is it an axiom? Yeah. Is it going to be a perfect percentage every time? Oh please. If you're going to nitpick like that you need better things to do.
I'm just saying that corruption isn't quantifiable, so saying that it is "math" isn't accurate.

The potential for corruption at the highest levels is much greater, but thats the nature of fascism. And yes, we are a fascist country and have been since the 1940s.
 
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His wife is... They are both really hard to listen to or look at. Our country would be a better place if both were no longer part of the political machine

Last time I checked my wife was worth the same as me. Maybe mitch asks his wife to pick up groceries when his checking account is empty. He'll pay her back when he gets paid.
 
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Hey, you'll get no argument from me that most politicians are slime balls. First off you have to make it through the party ranks and get"their blessing". Then if elected you are bombarded by lobbyists dangling carrots. Amazing how many go to DC flat out broke and leave as multi millionaires..... all on $170,000/yr. Hmmmmm.
 
Hey, you'll get no argument from me that most politicians are slime balls. First off you have to make it through the party ranks and get"their blessing". Then if elected you are bombarded by lobbyists dangling carrots. Amazing how many go to DC flat out broke and leave as multi millionaires..... all on $170,000/yr. Hmmmmm.
Agreed. Also look at how many are lawyers.
 
His wife's family is worth 50+ million

Are you saying that he reports his wife's family's money as his own? That would be strange. My wife's grandpa is a millionaire. Should I tell people how rich i am? I will inherit land when my dad passes away. Maybe I'll start listing that for assets on car loans. Apparently Mitch does it.

People have a really hard time coming to grips with reality. The narrative is that Nancy is a rich liberal and Mitch pulled himself up by bootstraps and is just a common man with a rich wife. Yeah right.
 
Agreed. Also look at how many are lawyers.
That's the problem with Nebraska legislature also. Very few are regular Joe's or Josephine's. How many people could quit their Joe job to do their civic duty for the piddly amount we pay our legislators.
 
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