"Let’s not pretend it was about math, the GOP just wanted austerity" by LOLGOP at electablog

[applegrove]

Let’s not pretend it was about math, the GOP just wanted austerity

by LOLGOP at electablog

http://www.eclectablog.com/2013/04/lets-not-pretend-it-was-about-math-the-gop-just-wanted-austerity.html#.UW6WpJG1PwY.reddit

"SNIP.....................................


Ryan, of course, doesn’t care what’s best for the economy right now; his belief is the government is making people lazy.

Thus the government has to spend and tax less than it did during the 60s before Medicare, before the Baby Boomers retired. It’s a clownish belief that he substantiated with an academic study that said that countries with debt higher than 90% of their GDP experience much slower growth. The study’s authors have said they weren’t suggesting the causation. The debt could be causing the slow growth or vice versa.

But Ryan used the study to make his case for more cuts now, which would lead to more debt anyway.

Now it turns out that the study Ryan relied on is likely fundamentally flawed.

This is thrilling Ryan’s critics and those who know the basic formula to get out of an economic crisis is put people to work. But will it change Paul Ryan’s mind?

You can stop laughing now.





...................................SNIP"

[MrSlayer]

1. And they always seem to get their way.

Either fully or partially. When they win elections, they win. They lose in a landslide, they still win. Amazing how that happens.

[DJ13]

2. Its not "the GOP", its conservatives regardless of party

That includes our President, who seems to be a believer in making the SS recipients pay for the wanton greed of the 1%.

[Warpy]

3. They will continue to trot out Reinhart & Rogoff as proof

of their utterly and completely rubbishy economic dogma. We all know when they are contradicted by actual facts, they just cling more tightly to fantasy.

I don't know what we can do about these people or the nitwits who keep voting for them. I suspect we're going to need a change in FCC regulations and a breakup of media monopolies.

[sakabatou]

4. The only want the elites to survive

The middle class and poor can just go to hell.

[Aerows]

5. He's in Congress

Crashing the economy would benefit his investments, while it would make everyone with a 401K have a stroke.

There is a reason that Congressional members have higher returns on all investments than the best hedge fund managers.

Look up their rate of return - R and D a like. With some exceptions, of course. You can tell who is owned by how much they get ROI.

[Blue Owl]

6. He used that same fuzzy math to clock in the 3 hour marathon

Nice work there Paul! Now go play on the jungle gym while the adults handle this.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

7. Why don't we just say they cherrypicked like they did on WMDs?

[HiPointDem]

8. there is 30 years of evidence against their crap theories. the evidence doesn't matter. they just

do what they want and make a lot of noise so it looks like the public supports them.

but they don't.

[JDPriestly]

10. It seems obvious to me that, to the extent the study was at all accurate (and we know it

was off at least somewhat), it's the slowing economy that causes the debt.

It's easy to understand if you think about what happens when a an ordinary working person loses his job. His revenue declines. He needs to cut back and he knows it, but if he was already just barely paying his bills before he lost his job, he can't cut much, and so he gets deeper and deeper into debt until he finally gets another job and his income starts increasing.

The debt gets to be very high in relationship to GDP because tax revenues decline faster than expenses. That's because the economy is slowing. Cutting back more just reduces revenues all the faster and thus increases the percentage of the debt compared to GDP.

Again, I think that is obvious.

[applegrove]

11. We in Canada cut our debt in the good

Last edited Mon Apr 22, 2013, 04:29 AM - Edit history (1)

times. Thay has really made us stronger. Clinton did the same thing during his presidency. But of course you don't cut debt in a recession. We all knew this after the great depression. But the GOP myth machine went into overdrive after Bush crashed the economy and loaded the country up with debt during the 'good times'(when he should have been paying for his two wars). So not only are the GOP wrong about how to get out of a recession, they are wrong about what you do during the good times. They are the complete mirror image of what sound economic policy should look like. They truly are KAOS. They want to 'crack the back' of government. They want no entity to be as powerful as their corporations. They truly want to muck things up for the middle class and the poor.

[Kablooie]

12. Math is related to reality and Republicans don't believe in reality.