Go vote

[Kuya]

I don't think anyone (politicians, anyway) is blaming democrats for democrats losing seats, at least not publicly. Obama said something vaguely to that effect a few weeks ago and then almost instantly walked back from it

I was referring to pundits because i was referring to pundits:

Ten minutes was the absolute maximum I could endure of any one television news outlet last night without having to switch channels in the futile search for something more bearable, but almost every time I had MNSBC on, there was Lawrence O'Donnell trying to blame "the Left" and "liberalism" for the Democrats' political woes. Alan Grayson's loss was proof that outspoken liberalism fails. Blanche Lincoln's loss was the fault of the Left for mounting a serious primary challenge against her. Russ Feingold's defeat proved that voters reject liberalism in favor of conservatism, etc. etc. It sounded as though he was reading from some crusty script jointly prepared in 1995 by The New Republic, Lanny Davis and the DLC.

[Yugl]

So what criteria is everyone using for "X is causing the deficit"? Don't tell me that you just rank order the amount of spending then say the top of the list is the causal factor.

Edit: Kuya, that's media not knowing wtf.

[Kuya]

I think it's a problem. The Democratic party has shown sensitivity towards these kinds of discourses ever since the New Left showed up. I think it can be very dangerous if the lesson that the Democrats get from this is that they need to be more "moderate" or "bipartisan" in these next few years. How do the Democrats and the Obama administration perceive this election?

[Kuya]

I have not seen Obama's speech, but i am going to take from Krugman's comments that my fears are justified:

Nobody Cares About Process
Urk. I just gave up on the presidential press conference. When Obama declared that Americans rejected Democrats in part because “We were in such a hurry to get things done that we didn’t change how things got done,” I checked out.

Nobody cares about this stuff — they care about results. Nobody really cares about earmarks; they’re just code for spending less (less on somebody else, of course, not me). Nobody cares about civility and bipartisanship, which in practice are code for Democrats giving in to Republican demands. Nobody cares about parliamentary maneuvers: we can argue about the role of health reform in the election, but I bet not one voter in 50 knows or cares that it was passed using reconciliation (as were the sacred Bush tax cuts we must, must retain).

If Obama had used fancy footwork and 2 AM sessions to pass a big public works program, and this program had brought unemployment down, Republicans would be screaming about the process — and Democrats would have comfortably held control of Congress. Remember the voter backlash against the way Medicare drug benefits were passed? Neither do I.

Oh, by the way — nobody cares about the deficit, either.

[Kurokikaze]

So what criteria is everyone using for "X is causing the deficit"? Don't tell me that you just rank order the amount of spending then say the top of the list is the causal factor.

Really was just pointing out the fact that those are the places in the budget that consume the most money. In order to make any kind of significant change they have to compromise on those. I think we can all agree that removing them outright would be wrong and set the country back, but something needs to give.

These reps keep mentioning cutting things across the board by never tell you what specifically.. It would be upsetting to have stuff like Dept of Education or Science budgets cut.

[Atreides]

So what criteria is everyone using for "X is causing the deficit"? Don't tell me that you just rank order the amount of spending then say the top of the list is the causal factor.

Edit: Kuya, that's media not knowing wtf.

I think the only reason that graphic is brought up is because the Republicans are talking about either "massive tax cuts" or "stopping out of control spending" but then when pressed on the issues, they don't talk about the 4-5 programs that account for nearly all federal spending. A lot of them talk about cutting a program here or there but if you cut, say, the Department of Education like some candidates propose it's not going to even come close to covering the 300 billion dollar shortfall caused by extending the Bush Tax Cuts for people making over 250,000 a year. While yes, I agree that graph and the causes of the deficit aren't entirely congruous, nearly everyone on both sides of the aisle will agree that unless the economy improves suddenly we're going to have to make some very hard choices about entitlement programs over the next decade, something that Republicans have been wholly unwilling to admit publicly during the election season. It's also useful in for pointing out the logical fallacies of Tea Party candidates advocating smaller government without being willing to discuss cutting the largest and most costly government programs.

[Kuya]

I can compromise on entitlements if Defense spending receives the biggest cuts. If not, conservatives can fuck right off.

edit: many of the Tea Party candidates DID talk about cutting social services such as medicare or social security, take for example Rand. What happened was, they noticed that talking about cutting these things might hurt their chances for election, but that doesn't mean that they won't bring the knife to these services if given the chance. Because they would love nothing more than to cut Social Security.

[Atreides]

sadly that will probably be the last thing they cut lol

[Dimmauk]

sadly that will probably be the last thing they cut lol

They wont even sniff it. LOL

[Kuya]

Then nothing will be cut (well, maybe the republicans will make the democrats cut something if past experience is any indication on how this works), which doesn't matter anyway since the federal government seems to be leaning towards messing with currency to fix its trade deficit problem.

[Kurokikaze]

Yeaaaaah thats not gonna happen. Reps would never recover if they cut that. lol

[Yugl]

I'm asking a genuine question rather than undermining the graph posted. It seems we're (Or individuals in general) are quick to throw out the phrase "X is the cause of our deficit", but what is really being said? The only time when something isn't causing a deficit is when it's not being funded or creating funds that counteract its costs (Arguably, some of our most expensive programs achieve this counterbalance on some degree).

[Atreides]

I like how it hasn't even been 24 hours since the election and Mitch McConnell is already saying that congressional lawmakers should vote, "repeatedly if necessary" to repeal Obamacare, as part of a strategy to deny Obama a 2nd term in office. I know he's probably upset about not becoming the Senate Majority Leader but jesus, Mitch McConnell has got to be the biggest sniveling piece of shit in the whole country.

edit: pic related
http://t2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:q...emitch.jpg&t=1

[Correction]

Arguably, some of our most expensive programs achieve this counterbalance on some degree.

Social Security does not, by an increasingly wide margin. Most of what we have spent in Iraq and Afghanistan has not at all and probably never will.

[Atreides]

one could make the point that in the long run (the very long run) we might have a larger controlling interest in Iraq's oil reserves and Afghanistan's mineral wealth than we would have before invasion, and perhaps just as importantly a greater amount of control over how much of those two things flows to China, but you're right in terms of monetary reimbursement

[Yugl]

Social Security does not, by an increasingly wide margin. Most of what we have spent in Iraq and Afghanistan has not at all and probably never will.

I don't think these are benefits that are easy to pin down because they're external. For example, how do we know when investing in the military has off-set potential attack or ideas of attacks on the US? Maybe social security gives people a a personal incentive to work productively because they recognize they're retiring into a supporting system (Not that it's true, but some might still believe this). To make an assessment of the returns on these programs, you basically need psychic powers that let you see what would have happened and compare it with what has happened. Anything short of that is ad-hoc craziness.

[Rhinox]

oh god

[Norellicus]

Precedent dispels your "I'm investing in my future" idea quickly. Look back 40 years at what went into Social Security and compare it to what the average citizen gets from it now, and there is absolutely zero motivation to "work productively" to fund that.

[Anton]

we might have a larger controlling interest in Iraq's oil reserves and Afghanistan's mineral wealth than we would have before invasion,

Finance Watchdog to the rescue!

Sorry, but you aren't getting all of Iraq's oil reserves, unless you want to pay Europeans for it. Iraq publicly sold the rights to develop their oil fields in an auction. These also included a profit-sharing contract with the Iraqi government as a per-barrel tariff. The results arrived in Dec '09:

West Qurna Phase two superfield: Lukoil (Russia) leading a consortium
West Qurna Phase one superfield: Exxon Mobil with Royal Dutch Shell *the only US co.
Majnoon: RDShell and Petronas (malaysia)
Halfayah: CNPC china, Petronas, Total (france)
And several smaller fields going to Japex, SinoGas, AOA Gazprom, and a slew of others (Another US co, Occidental, landed a deal with one of the small fields. ie. less than 300,000bpd - barrels per day - output, in a consortium bid with a Korean company)

Although Chevron did try the old snuggle-up-to-a-Third-World-government game, they got nothing for it.

So, I guess that puts the final nail in the "We did it for the oil" coffin. It's worth mentioning the biggest winners in the oil auction, France, Russia, and China, were all vehemently opposed to Operation: Iraqi Freedom. A curious quirk of free market economics.

source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8407274.stm , http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE5BB18Q20091213
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
By the way, some interesting DOE figures. Trivia: Do you know who the largest oil exporters to America are?

Spoiler: show

No, it's not Iraq. They're like a really distant 8th. Or Kuwait - 13th. Or Iran (waaaaay down there). Or the UAE(way down there too). Or Saudi Arabia (5th 1.05 Million BPD). Or Venezuela(4th 1.1 million BPD).

Spoiler: show

#3: Nigeria 1.174 million bpd
#2: Mexico 1.289 million bpd
And....
#1: Canada 2.534 million bpd (that's more than every middle east partner combined by a longshot)
All figures from your own US dept of Energy

I saw very little "Reduce our dependency on Middle East Oil!" rhetoric this election, though I might have just missed it. Which is good, because Saudi Arabia hasn't been the top supplier since 1980.

As for the oil scarecrows, no we will not run out any time soon. The size of the Alberta Athabasca Oil Sands is an estimated 1.6 trillion barrels. Which, when you do the math, is equal to every other oil field in the world put together.

Watchdog, awaaaay!

*twinkle

[Atreides]

awesome info dude, interesting stuff to know

but isn't that a lot more US participation than before the first Iraq war? From what I understand before George the 1st invaded Iraq was gearing up to become China's #1 supplier (and cut us out of the picture?) and the war made them look to africa (since now most of theirs comes from Angola, iirc)