ForestBoard

Turbeaux, if I may, I'm just going to pick out one of the assertions you've made:

Turbeaux wrote:

It is a well-known fact that money trickles down (That is the reason why the economy has been thriving under Trump. The stock market is the only legitimate indicator of economic health.).

The term "trickle down economics" was conceived as a joke, as a criticism of the idea of supply-side economics, laughing at the idea that tax cuts that target the richest somehow benefit the poorest. It's far from a "well-known fact". Rather, it's unsound drivel with no robust evidence base behind it, and actually most evidence points in the opposite direction: that injecting wealth at the level of the poorest of society actually has the most stimulus effect on an economy.

Citation: https://www.nber.org/papers/w21035.pdf

We're not just talking about a left vs right divide here, by the way.

George H W Bush described trickle-down economics as "voodoo economics".
Pope Francis described it as "opnion, never confirmed by the facts", and was highly critical of the idea.

In fact, if you look at the evidence base, it seems that the effect of favouring tax cuts for the rich has the exact and obvious effect you'd expect it to have: the rich get richer.

Supply-side economics benefit the richest in society. They widen wealth-gaps.

I think part of the misunderstanding behind supply-side economics is a misunderstanding of what money is. Money itself is not valuable. What money actually is, is an indicator that denotes what share of the world's resources you are allocated. If I have $100 and you have $1, then I get one hundred times your allocation. If we increase your allocation to $10 and then increase mine to $1000000, then I I get one hundred thousand times your allocation.

That's what trickle-down economics achieves. It says "but you've got $10 now, you only had $1 before" and expects you to be grateful for that, despite the fact that your allocation of society's resources has actually decreased.

Now let's look at the assertion that the economy is doing well under Trump. I'll put aside your claim that the stock market is the only legitimate indicator of economic health. That's clearly wrong, as there's a multitude of ways we can measure economic health, from employment rates, to GDP growth, to real wage increases, to homelessness rates, to access to healthcare, to number of hours an individual has to work to survive, to population happiness. If your goal is to have maximum stock market performance, then obviously a presidency that is favourable towards the stock market is going to be best.

And, yes, the Dow Jones index is going up and up under Trump. Of course, you know who else it soared under? Obama.
While Trump has managed an increase in that index during his tenure, the rate of increase has been almost exactly the same as it was during Obama's administration. Obama took office with the index at 7949.09, and ended on 21,271. The Index at present is at 26,671. But do these figures then suggest that Obama and Trump were BOTH great on the economy? No, of course not. The Dow Jones is not purely an indiciator of response to current White House policies. There's good days and bad days, and decisions within and without the control of the US president can have impacts immediately and ten years down the line. Look at the Global Financial Crisis of 2008, for example. The cause for that is suggested by many to be financial deregulation back in 1999. Look at the impact of Coronavirus to the US economy: Is Trump handling it well or badly? It's almost impossible to tell, in the absence of a suitable control group to compare against. Likewise, Obama took office during a slump in the Dow Jones, which continued to slump after he took office, then boomed a short while later. That wasn't his doing, either positively or negatively!

But the Dow Jones is NOT the only indicator of economic health, and it's crazy to assert that. You can also pick and choose stats that support your case. For example, many advocates of Trump's economic policies observe that average hourly earnings in the US have gone upwards notably during the Trump years, much more so than during Obama's tenure. And that's true. But inflation has also been higher, and if you adjust wages for that, then average wages have actually increased LESS than under Obama. So, basically like the example I gave. You get a bigger number as your money now, but you can buy less with it. That's trickle-down economics!

And lets look at employment. Under Trump it improved, to 3.6% unemployment, one of the lowest levels in half a century. However, Obama also brought unemployment right down, all the way down from almost 10% to just under 5%, and if you look at the rate of change, unemployment fell faster under Obama than Trump. Does this mean Obama was better for unemployment? The numbers don't tell the whole story, because unemployment is changed by world events as well as presidential decisions.

And finally, because we're here in Forest, let's look at a completely different measure of economic success. Is Trump's America economically successful in being environmentally sustainable?
Some might say that's a different category, but of course it isn't. It's just looking at the bigger picture. Environmentalism is worrying about the economy of tomorrow, rather than the economy of today. What's the point in higher GDP growth today if you end up with a planet that can't sustain human life? Is it good economics to gain a million dollars today, at cost of death of a million generations?

And Trump has been terrible for the environment, stripping back environmental legislation at every level, stripping back NEPA obligations, dismantling the Clean Power plan, blocking the phasing out of inefficient lightbulbs, blocking the Kigali amendment, rolling back methane pollution laws, loosening emission standards for automobiles, and -- of course -- exiting the Paris Climate Change agreement.

Those who categorise the massive anti-environment changes as being "good for the economy", then we're being far too short sighted. We're not even talking about this year vs a hundred years time. We're talking about boosting the Dow Jones for a few months, in exchange for the environmental survival of the planet in the next ten to twenty years. Almost all of us will still be alive when Trump's environmental irresponsibility wrecks the world.

Hell, Trump's damage to the environment is a bigger thing than his mismanagement of COVID-19, and that's really saying something.

So maybe let's lose this notion of "the stock market is the only legitimate indicator of economic health".

It really isn't.

Candlewhisper Archive wrote:

Turbeaux, if I may, I'm just going to pick out one of the assertions you've made:

The term "trickle down economics" was conceived as a joke, as a criticism of the idea of supply-side economics, laughing at the idea that tax cuts that target the richest somehow benefit the poorest. It's far from a "well-known fact". Rather, it's unsound drivel with no robust evidence base behind it, and actually most evidence points in the opposite direction: that injecting wealth at the level of the poorest of society actually has the most stimulus effect on an economy.

Citation: https://www.nber.org/papers/w21035.pdf

We're not just talking about a left vs right divide here, by the way.

George H W Bush described trickle-down economics as "voodoo economics".
Pope Francis described it as "opnion, never confirmed by the facts", and was highly critical of the idea.

In fact, if you look at the evidence base, it seems that the effect of favouring tax cuts for the rich has the exact and obvious effect you'd expect it to have: the rich get richer.

Supply-side economics benefit the richest in society. They widen wealth-gaps.

I think part of the misunderstanding behind supply-side economics is a misunderstanding of what money is. Money itself is not valuable. What money actually is, is an indicator that denotes what share of the world's resources you are allocated. If I have $100 and you have $1, then I get one hundred times your allocation. If we increase your allocation to $10 and then increase mine to $1000000, then I I get one hundred thousand times your allocation.

That's what trickle-down economics achieves. It says "but you've got $10 now, you only had $1 before" and expects you to be grateful for that, despite the fact that your allocation of society's resources has actually decreased.

Now let's look at the assertion that the economy is doing well under Trump. I'll put aside your claim that the stock market is the only legitimate indicator of economic health. That's clearly wrong, as there's a multitude of ways we can measure economic health, from employment rates, to GDP growth, to real wage increases, to homelessness rates, to access to healthcare, to number of hours an individual has to work to survive, to population happiness. If your goal is to have maximum stock market performance, then obviously a presidency that is favourable towards the stock market is going to be best.

And, yes, the Dow Jones index is going up and up under Trump. Of course, you know who else it soared under? Obama.
While Trump has managed an increase in that index during his tenure, the rate of increase has been almost exactly the same as it was during Obama's administration. Obama took office with the index at 7949.09, and ended on 21,271. The Index at present is at 26,671. But do these figures then suggest that Obama and Trump were BOTH great on the economy? No, of course not. The Dow Jones is not purely an indiciator of response to current White House policies. There's good days and bad days, and decisions within and without the control of the US president can have impacts immediately and ten years down the line. Look at the Global Financial Crisis of 2008, for example. The cause for that is suggested by many to be financial deregulation back in 1999. Look at the impact of Coronavirus to the US economy: Is Trump handling it well or badly? It's almost impossible to tell, in the absence of a suitable control group to compare against. Likewise, Obama took office during a slump in the Dow Jones, which continued to slump after he took office, then boomed a short while later. That wasn't his doing, either positively or negatively!

But the Dow Jones is NOT the only indicator of economic health, and it's crazy to assert that. You can also pick and choose stats that support your case. For example, many advocates of Trump's economic policies observe that average hourly earnings in the US have gone upwards notably during the Trump years, much more so than during Obama's tenure. And that's true. But inflation has also been higher, and if you adjust wages for that, then average wages have actually increased LESS than under Obama. So, basically like the example I gave. You get a bigger number as your money now, but you can buy less with it. That's trickle-down economics!

And lets look at employment. Under Trump it improved, to 3.6% unemployment, one of the lowest levels in half a century. However, Obama also brought unemployment right down, all the way down from almost 10% to just under 5%, and if you look at the rate of change, unemployment fell faster under Obama than Trump. Does this mean Obama was better for unemployment? The numbers don't tell the whole story, because unemployment is changed by world events as well as presidential decisions.

And finally, because we're here in Forest, let's look at a completely different measure of economic success. Is Trump's America economically successful in being environmentally sustainable?
Some might say that's a different category, but of course it isn't. It's just looking at the bigger picture. Environmentalism is worrying about the economy of tomorrow, rather than the economy of today. What's the point in higher GDP growth today if you end up with a planet that can't sustain human life? Is it good economics to gain a million dollars today, at cost of death of a million generations?

And Trump has been terrible for the environment, stripping back environmental legislation at every level, stripping back NEPA obligations, dismantling the Clean Power plan, blocking the phasing out of inefficient lightbulbs, blocking the Kigali amendment, rolling back methane pollution laws, loosening emission standards for automobiles, and -- of course -- exiting the Paris Climate Change agreement.

Those who categorise the massive anti-environment changes as being "good for the economy", then we're being far too short sighted. We're not even talking about this year vs a hundred years time. We're talking about boosting the Dow Jones for a few months, in exchange for the environmental survival of the planet in the next ten to twenty years. Almost all of us will still be alive when Trump's environmental irresponsibility wrecks the world.

Hell, Trump's damage to the environment is a bigger thing than his mismanagement of COVID-19, and that's really saying something.

So maybe let's lose this notion of "the stock market is the only legitimate indicator of economic health".

It really isn't.

I just want to notify you that they were clearly being satirical, using the completely incorrect tropes used by many conservatives. They even said that they were acting like a 2020 conservative at the beginning. But you still made a great point about how trickledown economics don’t work (instead we must invest in the ever disappearing middle class and the ever lowered lower class), especially about how your “stock” in the worlds resources is decreasing in value, even if you have more money.

Forest, I am sorry to inform you that my time here is at an end. I have always enjoyed a debate, and I though this was the place to do it, but I have found that this community is not open to my ideas, and sometimes (though not deliberately) hostile to my beliefs. My horizons have been broadened by my stay here, and I feel that this is a rare group, as much as you give credence to the “dumb right“ stereotype, it is just as rare to find people who are intelligent and reasonable on the left as on the right.
As for my politics, I fancy myself a centralist, and my only ‘concrete’ policy is this: that no matter where a person is born, no matter what stage of their life the parents are in, no matter what skin color they come out with, no matter what defect, physical or mental, they have, they are equal are deserve life all they same. Other beliefs I hold, although these are malleable, is that all politicians will be crooks whether on the right or the left, no one’s opinion should be put down no matter how hateful or evil it is, violence breeds violence, and every deserves an equal sum of our resources, but their is no one who should have the power to make it so.
I thank you all once more, and bid you fair well.

The young ur wrote:

Snipsy Whipsy

Forest, I am sorry to inform you that my time here is at an end. I have always enjoyed a debate, and I though this was the place to do it, but I have found that this community is not open to my ideas, and sometimes (though not deliberately) hostile to my beliefs. My horizons have been broadened by my stay here, and I feel that this is a rare group, as much as you give credence to the “dumb right“ stereotype, it is just as rare to find people who are intelligent and reasonable on the left as on the right.
As for my politics, I fancy myself a centralist, and my only ‘concrete’ policy is this: that no matter where a person is born, no matter what stage of their life the parents are in, no matter what skin color they come out with, no matter what defect, physical or mental, they have, they are equal are deserve life all they same. Other beliefs I hold, although these are malleable, is that all politicians will be crooks whether on the right or the left, no one’s opinion should be put down no matter how hateful or evil it is, violence breeds violence, and every deserves an equal sum of our resources, but their is no one who should have the power to make it so.
I thank you all once more, and bid you fair well.

Just because you're not of the same opinions doesn't mean that you should go. As long as you're writing in good faith, and you're not a neo-Nazi or something seriously extreme, you'd probably get a fair hearing, I would expect and hope. :-)

Not that your ideas wouldn't be picked apart and argued against, but that's the nature of the debate, not a personal attack on you as an individual.

A moment of silence for The Cypher Nine's CTE.

I find it interesting that I have probably seen as many nations leave this region for reasons of it not being "left" enough as for it not being "right."

Northern Wood wrote:

I find it interesting that I have probably seen as many nations leave this region for reasons of it not being "left" enough as for it not being "right."

I dunno, sometimes I think that people are pretty wrong, so "not being right" claims may have merit.

Candlewhisper Archive wrote:

I know it is entirely beside the point (behind it even, so far removed as to be a continent away!), but all this mentioning of a Dow Jones niggled and wiggled and jiggled loose a stone in the misty caverns of memory, releasing a recollection of an eminently and utterly forgettable little musical I saw once upon a moonlit night, the fog of time obscuring a marquee that slowly emerged from the thick tendrils to read in dazzling lights: How Now, Dow Jones. Now what does this musical have to do with anything aside from the name?

Well, a major plot point was the Dow Jones reaching 1,000 points, a fantastical number for the time, yet laughably small compared to the more than 25,000 it is currently at. This was the late 1960’s, and your comments on money being units of measurement by which to apportion resources in a society made me think of inflation, and the madness of population increase that leads to the world’s population more than doubling in just over 50 years.

Now I’m back to considering the programs of dear Indira and her government during the Emergency. The application was unfortunate and bigoted, but ultimately effective for a time.

i'm not good with the satyre thing either. i think doug adams said it best; "its not the little green pieces of paper that are unhappy".

of course people can take anything we say many different ways, which is the problem i have with satyre, i'm not agaist it, but almost invariably it is difficult if not impossible to avoid ambiguity with it. its good at just the right moment, but its moment often has a short shelf life.

and the odds are good that every day is different, when we talk about anything other then how painfully slow it appears for people sometimes to catch on, but when they do, it can be a tsunami, and i hope that's what we're seeing in the u.s., that the numbers the polls represent currently survive and even grow further come november.

Candlewhisper Archive wrote:

Ah right, I missed the context!

Ah well, pretend that I was responding to your satirical fictional character then.

Thing it, the opinions you were satirically espousing are actually way less extreme than opinion I've heard honestly espoused, so it was hard to tell that was satire. :)

When fiction becomes a watered-down version of reality!!

Middle Barael wrote:

Edit: Have we reached a consensus as to the capital city of Forest yet? I nominate either Haventia (capital of Verdant Haven, the current Forest Keeper) or First Creek Falls (capital of Errinunderra, our founder)

I nominate Theed, my own city.