Captain America #602

[SPS]

I would have put this in the comics forum but this is mainly about politics as opposed to the actual comic in question.

response to Captain America's tea bagging incident

My solution: GET OVER IT! It was a lettering error. One that should have been caught by the editor no matter what, and frankly the letterer should have known better also. It isn't as bad as people make it out to seem.

On a comic related note: Who wants to bet that this is the incident that will get Joe Quesada fired once Disney finds out. If they even care? (Disney probably loves it BTW as they have always had a democratic lean IIRC)

[Ubereil]

The problem with your post is that you don't link to some article explaining what has happened. All I have now is a bunch of pepole commenting on an incident without me knowing what that incident was.

Übereil

[Dark Phoenix Rising]

However there is a link in the first few lines of the article he links to

[Ubereil]

Ahem... Here it is! For clarity, you know...

Übereil

[Elliot Kane]

I'd never heard of this 'Tea Party' movement, whatever it is. Still not sure what they are. I'm more annoyed that Bru changed the Watchdogs into white supremacists, which they never were. Sloppy research, IMO! ;D

As for the rest, yeah, storm in a teacup. I doubt this 'Tea Party' movement, whatever it is, will even notice or care.

[Ubereil]

For you, Elliot.

I saw it mentioned in one of the articles that Fox News mentioned this. Since the Tea Party movement wouldn't be what it was if Fox hadn't taken it to it's heart I think it's fair to say that they've both noticed and cared.

Übereil

[Elliot Kane]

Thanks, Ube

A group set up to protest over-taxation sounds entirely reasonable to me, I have to admit. If they notice what Marvel did, they'd have every right to be pissed off. That's a BIG if, of course!

[Ubereil]

It becomes far less reasonable when you realize that they're not so much fighting over-taxation as they're fighting America slipping into Socialism... ;D They do have points since American politics nowadays can't seem to balance a budget properly. In fact, they haven't been able to do so since the 70's (and it all started with this guy named Ronald Reagan...). So yeah, they do have a point.

It's the whole "fight socialism" part that makes the movement really difficult to take seriously.

Übereil

[SPS]

I really think that opposed to spending money the US government should be paying off it's debt. Keeping it high enough so that it won't make inflation rise to insane levels but low enough that China and other nations wouldn't have insane leverage against us.

I am an odd duck in that I wouldn't mind higher taxes. IF the government was held more accountable for its actions, and IF the tax increase was only temporary, like no more than five years. Those are big ifs but if we can avoid a defecit for at least one year (like during the Clinton years IIRC), it would set an example for the rest of the country. As like Americans right now some day the country is going to run out of credit.

[Glance A'Lot]

However temporary or interim tax levies have a tendency to become permanent...

Similar to earmarked or specially committed taxes - which we had several for a long time in Germany, however they all silently got their earmarks removed to be poured into the general expenditure pot
(or should I say bottomless pit?).

[Terrordar]

Hey SPS? For your government to pay off its debts it'd need a lot more than five years if you count unfunded liabilities >.>

[SPS]

True Terrordar but at least it would be a step in the right direction.

[Elliot Kane]

All that printing extra money Obama did isn't going to help your inflation, either. Plenty of other countries all resorted to the same idiocy (Including Britain - there's nothing so stupid the British govt won't do it!) but that won't help.

You're right that that debt needs paying down though, SPS. It should be Obama's major priority and I'm kinda baffled that it's not.

[Ubereil]

The middle of a financial crisis isn't the time to start paying off the debt though. They need that money to get the economy back on track again.

Übereil

[Elliot Kane]

The government can't get the economy back on track by spending, Ube. The government's job is to create the conditions FOR a recovery by lowering things like taxes and transport costs and streamlining the paperwork to make things easier for businesses.

Don't forget, no government actually generates money, they just spend other people's. For a proper recovery, you need things that generate money, which means the private sector needs to be encouraged to grow.

All government spending does is sucks money out of the private sector and then uses it inefficiently for projects that will generate no actual new income streams for the economy. It's all smoke and mirrors.

Any government truly wishing to help the economy will cut back on its own spending because that frees up more money for the private sector.

Don't forget too that all debts must be repaid at some point, which means a high likelihood of more taxes in the future, which can easily cause a fragile economy to stall or even crash.

Government spending can prolong a recession, but it can never cure it.

[Dark Phoenix Rising]

Government spending can increase the velocity of money which means that it reaches more people faster. This in and of itself can start the economy running again, not because the government has made money, but because it's moved it around. The biggest problem that a country can have with growth is when people start storing notes and not spending at all. At that point the money is no longer in the economy and is not being used as a replacement to barter.

Also when you are suffering financial difficulty the worst thing you can do is start paying off debts willy nilly. After all there are still normal payments that need to be met, which is why financial advisers suggest paying the minimum amount on a credit card unless paying it off will make it substantially easier for you get through the month e.g. with credit card income is £1000 and outgoings are £1010 without creditcard income is £1000 and outgoings are £990 if on the other hand your income was £1020 they'd recommend keeping the lump sum in-case of surprises and only pay the minimum amount on your credit card. After all if you're in financial difficulty getting credit is difficult, but paying of existing credit is easy.

This scales up to all levels of the economy.

[Elliot Kane]

There is no point in moving money faster if in the process you lose more of it. An economy based on debt is not viable in the long term and WILL crash, sooner or later. That's what happened THIS time, remember? People were spending money they did not have until the market couldn't take it any more. The debt bubble burst, and here we are.

When you're suffering financial difficulty, the worst thing you can do is actually to increase your debt levels, not pay off debt. Because owing more will not in any way help. So what you do is work out how to increase your revenue while at the same time cutting back on what you are spending on non-essentials. And THAT really does scale up to all levels of the economy!

[Ubereil]

Feb 17, 2010 10:13:34 GMT Elliot Kane said:

The government can't get the economy back on track by spending, Ube.

It's been done.

In fact, it's a mainstream economical theory that it should be done.

But back to paying off the debt in the middle of a chrisis: In order to pay back their debt they need to either increase their income or cut down on their spending. That either means lowered salaries for goverment employers or increased taxes. Which do you think should be done to increase the economy? Giving some less money or all less money? You say 'cut taxes', but tax cuts requires that you pay less as well, and how is that supposed to be achieved if you're at the same time paying back debts? Now is not the time to pay back the debt. At most you should keep it at Status Quo. Any dollar spent on paying back the debt will at this point slow down the recovery of the economy.

Besides, when the economy's recovered they'll make more money they can use to pay back the debt.

Übereil

[Dark Phoenix Rising]

Agreed, however not increasing your debt is not the same as paying off your debt. What's more important for any entity that's in financial difficulties to do is to balance the books (and preferably have more money coming in than going out). If you then get a windfall this goes into a savings bucket to pay for any extraordinary expenses (e.g. for private individuals the plumber when you have a water leak)

[Elliot Kane]

DPR - agreed.

***

Ube - actually, it has NOT been done. Research has shown that all Keynesian economics does is stretch out the recession rather than deal with it. I posted a vid that made the points a while back. It's mainstream theory, yes, but it's also mainstream wrongheadedness.

It is a fact that if you are making less money then you have to adjust your lifestyle to fit, right? Why do you think governments should be exempt from that? The size of the public sector has a direct impact on the economy and too large a public sector causes problems in the wider economy by draining too much money from it.

When you are the government, you need to balance the books (As DPR says, above). If world markets think you can't get a proper handle on your debts then your credit rating will plunge, your currency will go into freefall and your entire economy will plunge into the abyss.

I'm paying a lot of attention to this recently, as Britain is right on the edge of just such a plunge...

Fact is, the more tax and over-regulation there is on the economy, the slower it will grow - assuming it grows at all.