Sometimes you read something at one of the wingnut websites that is so spectacularly stupid you think it has to be performance art:
I think it is time to call it “The Obama Recession.” Using Obama’s own numbers, we are now worse off than we would have been had Obama’s stimulus not gone into effect.
***The figure should speak for itself. Not only are the actual unemployment numbers worse than predicted with the Recovery Plan, they are worse than predicted had there been no stimulus at all!
Does it get any clearer than this? The “stimulus” was a failure at best, and at worst, a hoax in the first place.
This caused me physical pain.
Balconesfault
I’m afraid to hit the link, for multiple reasons.
burnspbesq
“American Thinker,” eh?
Anything I could say would be wholly inadequate.
JenJen
It rather reminds me of the comment made by a veteran of the 101st in Normandy today, while watching the D-Day Ceremonies on Fox News (paraphrasing:)
“I think the country could endure a war today. But damn it, I don’t ever want to see another Depression.”
I wish in my heart of hearts that somehow, those words reached the teabaggers.
gbear
Shouldn’t this one be in the ‘I read these morons so you don’t have to’ category too?
..because I’m not going to. I am going to walk across the street to avoid this one.
cleek
it’s kindof nauseating, seeing how giddy Republicans get when they learn that more Americans are struggling than was expected.
Seebach
Clearly Obama’s fault. I’m surprised the republican moderates didn’t take out the $23 million in tax breaks for firing people.
cleek
OT: look at this bullshit from Ed Whelan.
MattF
The remedy, obviously, is to fire the Treasurer. And then… um… er…. suck on a teabag?
Screamin' Demon
It made me want to ralph.
Laura W
MildlyHorrendously OT, but totally works with the post title.I’ve been meaning to watch this again since last Saturday night. By far one of the most hysterical Celebrity Jeopardy skits ever.
Will Ferrell Rules
steve s
I used to be center-right, but these days I can’t even go to any of the right wing sites like The Corner. It’s just a waste of my time because the things said there are very stupid.
Brick Oven Bill
Oligarchies are systems of government where unaccountable bureaucrats make national decisions benefiting a small class of rich people. Oh wait…
These workers would gainfully employed constructing nuclear power plants and electrical transmission lines for railroads IF I WERE IN CHARGE. But does anyone listen to me, NO. Instead we hear these dumb O BA MA O BA MA chants.
In my interactions with the high desert population, people keep asking when they are going to get their stimulus money. As far as I can tell the only ones who have benefited are members of the teacher’s union. They were out in force last night.
Crusty Dem
Fucking hell, cleek, is Whelan trying to wrestle the “Biggest douche in the universe” award away from current co-holders Jon Edwards and John Edwards?A shame about confusing”having a big dick” with “being a big dick”?
I’m heading to moderation for sure, aren’t I?
Pseudonymous Bosch
sorry. misread. please disregard
Scott de B.
Are you or are any of your friends employed? If so, you should have noticed your paychecks are bigger because you are paying less in taxes. That’s part of the stimulus — the tax cuts, remember? The thing that Republicans consider the cure for all worldly problems?
DaBomb
Next it will be Obama’s fault that mothers are getting abortions and gas prices have gone up.
It’s just ridiculous to blame him everything. When are the Republicans going to take some credit for their own screw-ups
AhabTRuler
@DaBomb: Ummm…ooooh, I know…never!
PeakVT
That’s a really stupid post at AmericanNumbnut, but at the same time the Obama economic team has been overly optimistic/insufficiently honest about how bad things are going to get. They should not have made such low projections (assuming that’s actually their projections).
asiangrrlMN
@gbear: I’m with gbear on this one. You read it so I don’t have to injure my eyes. I can’t be bothered with such abject, willful stupidity.
r€nato
I thought that wingnuts considered the DJIA as the single most important verdict on the state of the economy, at least from 1/20/09 to the first week of March 2009…
kommrade reproductive vigor
At some point they will claim it’s Obama’s fault they’re so fucking stupid and then the circle will be complete.
Ked
Oh, look, our least favorite spoof troll is back.
I dunno, John. You know and I know why this is a logical fallacy, and I’m willing to bet that the majority of your readers are smart/educated enough to know, but it would be nice to see you put in at least a sentence refuting it, lest the wingnuts link to you to prove that the liberals have no pants. Or something.
But in any case, it’s just sloppy talk-radio “logic”. Only 0.4 wingularity masses.
TenguPhule
It’s screaming for help because it’s being held hostage by idiots.
trizzlor
Another perfect example of the one-way hash argument. The point is dumb and blunt, but it’s easy to grasp. Any tips on explaining this to my coworker who thinks Nazi = National Socialism = Socialism = Democrat Party?
Brick Oven Bill
Gas prices going up are a function of a weak dollar which is a function of the Federal Reserve buying Obama’s Treasury Bills so that we can give-loan-guarantee $12.8 trillion for the financial industry and friends, doubling the money supply for starters. Gee, I wonder what Wall Street has on this Administration.
This pretty much counteracts the six or whatever dollar tax cut we have been granted by the Benevolent One. Just wait until food prices start going up. Go Teabags. The DJIA is also indexed in dollars Renato. It will continue to rise.
The Grand Panjandrum
Q: How do you know you are close the the Wingularity Event Horizone?
A: The kids on the short bus can’t find a seat.
JenJen
@Brick Oven Bill: Looking forward to your historic “If I Was In Charge” run for office.
Money where your mouth is, and such.
Dave C
I see that BOB is in fine form today.
Mike G
Shorter American Stinker —
While admittedly Obama’s stimulus works in practice, it’s a complete failure in theory.
gnomedad
I hope I’m just unusually thickheaded today, but I gotta ask: what am I missing here?
InflatableCommenter
@Brick Oven Bill:
No, gas prices going up are pretty much an indication of more demand for gasoline.
Really, Bill, do you ever get anything right?
Dave C
Maybe I spend too much time reading internet creationist rants, but this just seems like a run-of-the-mill logical fallacy, not brain-hurt stupid.
Mike G
Gas prices going up are a function of a weak dollar which is a function of the Federal Reserve buying Obama’s Treasury Bills blahblahblah
So gas prices rocketing from $1 in 2001 to over $4 a gallon last year was because the Fed was buying T-Bills issued by Illinois state senator, US senator and presidential candidate Barack Obama in those years?
That must be some powerful hallucinogens you’re taking.
DaBomb
@trizzlor: It’s always good to pull out good ole’ Webster’s and highlight the definition. Then proceed with examples that apply to reality, and if your co-worker still has a blank and glazed over look in the eyes, then pictures, pie charts, and graphs always work for the feeble-minded. Make sure they are colorful and real purty!
Bad Horse's Filly
Blah, blah, blah..it’s Obama’s fault, blah, blah, blah, republicans are idiots, blah blah blah.
What I really want to know is did you take Missy/Abby/Scout/Andi to the vet today and did she get an all clear, thus starting the I may be coming to live with John process?
TenguPhule
@gnomedad
The chart is saying the exact opposite of what the ranter is claiming.
I.e. the recovery plan reduced unemployment compared to not having a recovery plan.
Brick Oven Bill
You might like me as President JenJen. And as I wrote that, a large flock of birds, a breed of which I have never seen out here before, which I believe to be pelicans, just flew by. This could be a sign.
Contact me at the Brick Oven site to make campaign donations.
$4/gallon gas was a function of the market not believing that demand destruction was possible, along with a greater awareness of Peak Oil. When I am President, we will have $30/bbl oil for 400 years from domestic shale. I will also investigate Peter Orszag and if a conviction can be obtained, and if he spills the beans on the deals that have been made that got us to this point, I will pardon him.
We will also have nuclear power to run the trains.
Ash
For christs’ sake, even the fucking WALL STREET JOURNAL had to refute this stupid ass graph. It’s apparently the new Rethuglican talking point.
Can you just permanently ban B.O.B., JC? You’re the dictator of this blog, it’s not a democracy. It hurts my head having to skim past all his stupid comments and then all the comments that reply to his comments. It makes me crabby. :(
Dave C
@TenguPhule:
Actually, I don’t think the chart is saying that at all. I think what we can draw from the chart is that the unemployment is worse than what we anticipated it to be. What the wingnut is trying to say is that Obama’s stimulus plan, actually caused unemployment to be worse than expected, but the chart doesn’t support that at all.
The Raven
Heee. I suppose Obama has now replaced Clinton as the wingnut root of all evil.
John Cole
@Ash: Link to the WSJ?
kid bitzer
36–
that was my first read on it, but i’m not sure.
the “without” and “with” lines (the dark and light blue lines) were earlier projections. the red dots are actual measurements. the red dots are higher than either of the projections.
so i think the chart is at least saying what the ranter says it says.
i take no stand on whether the numbers are accurate, whether the chart really comes from the source it’s alleged to come from, whether the ranter has a brain, etc.
but at least so far as the chart depicts it, the red dots, i.e. the actual unemployment figures, are higher than, i.e. worse than, either of the two projection lines.
gnomedad
@TenguPhule:
I was expecting and trying to see that, but the “actual” figures (if true), the “maroon dots”, are higher than either of the blue curves. Sorry, still don’t get it.
Ash
@John Cole: Forgive me, it’s not about that actual graph, but along the same lines.
http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2009/06/05/republicans-launch-misleading-attacks-on-obama-job-numbers/
Which basically proves what everyone knows: statistics is st00pid.
Ejoiner
Ok, I’m confused.
Aren’t the two lines the projections of what was expected – one with recovery money and one without? And aren’t the dotes with dates the actual unemployment figures? So doesn’t that seem to indicate that unemployment is actually worse than what the Obama team predicted it would be without doing anything? Maybe I missed something there. Or something.
BTW – before I get flamed I’m in the Krugman camp of “we need a BIGGER stimulus” not the Beck “I love me a good teabagging” one!
Fern
@TenguPhule:
Hmm. That’s not how I read the graph – I understood the two blue lines to be projections (with and without a stimulus plan), and the three dots are actual data points.
Bad Horse's Filly
Belmont Stakes…only care because I’m really liking Calvin B.
Edit: Last place to first…then to 3rd.
John Cole
@gnomedad: There are several things wrong with it. First, they are arguing that since job loss was worse than predicted, the stimulus caused the job losses.
Second, they do not seem to realize that the “blue lines” were just predictions. It was all a guess as to how bad things would get. They clearly got worse than expected.
Third, since under no circumstances would the stimulus make the job loss worse, the logical extension to that graph is that above the dots would be another line detailing what job losses could have been without the stimulus and given our actual data- and it would have been higher. The only point of debate is how much worse unemployment would have been without the stimulus, not whether it would have been.
And then finally, for the wingnut cherry on top of it all, just the fact that he is calling it the Obama recession when the job losses, according to HIS OWN IDIOTIC GRAPH, clearly show that this recession started WELL before he was even the frontrunner to be the Democratic nominee.
This is a wingnut tour de force of stupid. Almost every aspect of this post was idiotic. It caused me pain.
Shygetz
Err, dude, the US dollar is surging and gas prices continue to rise. The main factor in the increase in oil and gas is optimism at economic recovery buoying demand in the near future. Commodities as a hedge against inflation are mainly attractive to those pessimistic about equities, and people are optimistic about equities. How ass-backwards can you possibly get it, BOB?
SpotWeld
Basically if they want to look at the lines on the graph and say that the dots invalidate the stimulus projection, then the only honest conclusion is that the non-stimulus line is also invalid.
In short, the initial predictions were wrong,.. all of them
kid bitzer
there is, of course, the independent stupid of trying to blame this on obama.
i mean, in the middle of a warehouse fire, the fire chief might say, “this fire keeps getting bigger–it looks like we’re going to need ten trucks, not just six like i thought before”.
and american thinker says, “you see? all that water you’ve been pouring on has made the flames bigger!”
mr. whipple
Why? It’s a graph, with numbers and lines and colors and stuff. Very scientificey.
John Cole
@kid bitzer: This. Exactly.
gnomedad
@John Cole:
OK, thanks, that’s the “opposite” part I missed. The projections did seem incautiously optimistic to me.
The Other Steve
One of the forums I also read has come up with the acronym TFM to describe these guys.
It’s like complete, only it’s totally fing different.
Little Dreamer
@Ash:
This was my understanding too. It takes time to see change. Also, doesn’t the fact that the chart John referenced above show that unemployment started rising BEFORE Obama took office make Bush’s policies the cause?
The GOP is trying to do everything in their power to pass the buck (including attempts to change history by putting the “I love my Dad” girl on tv).
The Other Steve
Mine that Bird did not win the Belmont.
This is clearly Obama’s fault
gnomedad
@kid bitzer:
Also, the fire department is social ist.
BDeevDad
Deleted because I’m slower than Little Dreamer
Brick Oven Bill
The US Dollar (paper) is surging against the Euro (paper), Yen (paper), and Pound (paper). That is a race to the bottom and America is in a long-term leadership position due to its natural resources and history.
Being on assignment I do not have any recent datapoints regarding the dollar vs. flour (grain), tomato sauce (vegetable), pepperoni (meat), or cheese (dairy). But this is being tracked with the Pepperoni Pizza Index (PPI). The PPI had bottomed out last winter and hit its old highs recently.
But I do know that gold (metal) is pushing $1000/oz and gas is getting expensive again. Cheese out here costs twice what it does back there. This could be a function of the Obama stimulus plan, or it could be a function of location.
Robertdsc-iphone
I know it’s not his style, but I wish the President would smack these fools in explicit terms just one time. In public.
Little Dreamer
You took a tennis ball to a football game? Shut up!
ronin122
@Brick Oven Bill: You do know that gold prices nowadays are pretty much determined by paranoid nutballs that buy and hoard like a motherf*cker anytime they think the economy is going down to never come back up (basically thinking it’s the fall of the Roman Empire once again), right?
Montysano
The graph supports the writer’s claims. So what? Fuck these people and their “Hey boy…. why ain’t the economy fixed yet?” I hope they keep it up. So far, every time they whittle a new club, Obama has snatched it away and beaten them senseless with it.
Just saw Liz Cheney on CNN, debating John Zogby. Jeebus, what a nasty piece of work.
MikeJ
Be suspicious whenever you see a nice curve in a plot. It’s probably not measuring anything real, but somebody’s idealized projection of what things ought to be. This is true regardless of the political leanings of the person producing the chart.
BDeevDad
Can someone point me to the pie script. I’m with Ash and just plain tired of BOB. It’s become tedious and nowhere near DougJ level of quality.
LD50
You must not know any teachers, dipshit.
gnomedad
BOB reminds me of this guy.
Little Dreamer
@BDeevDad:
Well, considering I’m dealing with a feeling of total incompetence these days, thanks, I’ll accept that as a compliment. ;)
JL
@Ash: Thanks for the link the the WSJ article. I could not figure out the projections because Obama has always stated that unemployment would remain high throughout the year. After reading the article it’s clear that the Republicans are just making up shit again. Oh well. I’m sure FOX will correct the chart.
ppcli
I nominate Kid bitzer at 51 for explainer in chief. Wish I could have thought of that illustration.
BDeevDad
@Little Dreamer: Just realize, I have Parkinson’s. ;-)
Little Dreamer
@BDeevDad:
Does that mean I have to give that compliment back? I really needed it, and liked it. It’s mine, I don’t want to give it back. ;)
Anne Laurie
Heck, I’m a mathematical idiot, and the post gave me such a stab of pain in the sinuses I thought I would get a nosebleed!
Maybe we can translate our Reality-Based(tm) objections into terms the Creationists can understand…
“If that alarmist Noah whines about how everyone should help him build an ark, but he predicts it will rain for 37 days straight, and then it rains for FORTY days (43 in some of the most depressed areas)… the world will *still* be covered by the waters, and Yahweh will have drowned you in a bucket.”
Brachiator
@Ash:
Thanks for the link to the WSJ article. It’s a thing of beauty when even a conservative newspaper flatly declares that the Republicans are full of it.
The graph that the American Thinker is so proud of fails on all kinds of levels. To come to a conclusion about anything using only 3 data points is freakin insane. And since we don’t have doorways into alternate universes, we can’t know what the unemployment rate for the same period would have been if there were no recovery plan in place, so the piece is utterly irrelevant because it makes an assertion that can not possibly be proven.
But I also like the articles invitation to political suicide to the GOP. I can’t imagine any Republican (except maybe Sarah Palin) who would be stupid enough to say, “President Obama’s recovery plan was a mistake, as was the Bush Administration’s initial rescue plan for the financial markets. We propose doing absolutely nothing and let the free hand of the market solve all our economic problems.”
In short, the graph perfectly stupid because you can’t easily figure out what it is trying to say at a glance, and once you examine it more closely, you discover that it is absolutely meaningless.
Tonal Crow
Silly GOPers, lying is for hacks. Come back when you have something serious to say.
Sarcastro
Oligarchies are systems of government where unaccountable bureaucrats make national decisions benefiting a small class of rich people.
Now that is ten pounds of fail in a five pound sentence.
Left Coast Tom
@Brachiator:
And Sarah Palin would only say such a thing because she’s shamelessly hypocritical, being governor of an oil-state whose residents receive annual checks merely for living there.
steve s
I bet there are a lot of people like me. Pretty much in the political center, but then we glance at the GOP side and see
“Sotomayor is a hard-left liberal judicial activist”
“The stimulus made unemployment worse”
“Obama likes a certain type of mustard sold at Wal-Mart, therefore he’s unamerican.”
“Torture is super-awesome and not really torture”
“Spending freezes are great during recessions”
“Global warming is a hoax perpetrated by thousands of scientists”
“tax cuts increase tax revenue”
and we say, well, I might lot like the Democrats, but since the GOP is about 5 IQ points below retarded, Dem it is.
steve s
“might not”, i meant.
Comrade Mary, Would-Be Minion Of Bad Horse
John, it looks as if you kindly cleaned up here, but publius has now responded to Whelan here.
mclaren
Oh, for crap’s sake, why is anyone confused about this? The economic meltdown turns out to be a lot worse than anyone dreamed, so Obama’s and congress’ stimulus plan hasn’t helped quite as much as people had hoped.
And therefore that makes…this near-depression Senator Obama’s fault????????
Simple analogy: a guy gets gets a severe gash in an industrial accident — Obama ties a tourniquet on him but the guy still passes out. The wingnuts scream, “Look! Look! The guy’s unconscious! Obama should never had tied that tourniquet on that guy!!!’
The whole line of reasoning is so stupid it makes your vision blur.
YellowJournalism
A BOB presidency would probably resemble the part in the Wizard of Oz where the Cowardly Lion sings, “If I Were King of the Forest”, complete with the perfect administration around him: a guy with no brain who’s constantly falling apart, some stiff jerk with no heart, a girl who couldn’t find her way home if it was attatched to her feet, and some poor animal who’s probably smarter than the rest of them but has absolutely no say.
Josh Hueco
I’m with the guy who’s tired of skimming over BOB’s comments and then all those comments in reply.
The Other Andrew
Does anyone remember the whole “The stimulus package is just a secret plan to create legions of Democrat Party voters!” thing? Shouldn’t the wingnutosphere be working feverishly on emergency protocols to counter these easily-bribed masses, given that it’s now in effect? If they just stopped talking about it, it’d mean that it was just a lie that outlived its usefulness, and I’m sure that can’t be true…
grumpy realist
Price of gold doesn’t have much to do with economy; has more to do with wish-fulfillment gold-bug nuts and “rush to safety” people outside US. Price jitters all over the place.
Price of gas has more to do with OPEC keeping spigot off and the quotas down. Hey, wingnuts, can you say C-A-R-T-E-L? I knew you could!
I’m not that optimistic about recovery yet but the thing about dumping a lot of $$$ into the economy at the start of a recession is an attempt to alleviate the recession. I think the whole system is far more chaotic than Economics 101 would lead people to believe and it’s quite likely the whole system will settle down at a different point of equilibrium (one reason why economic chaos theories haven’t ever really developed, IMO, because you can’t ever really predict what your actions will result in.) But I think that yes, in general, you can at least avoid making things worse.
I’m very suspicious of graphs of chaotic systems having lines “behavior of system if we didn’t do anything.” How do they *know*?
Little Dreamer
@YellowJournalism:
POTD!
LMAO
Tonal Crow
Today I was skulking under my bridge. I was irritated because someone had vandalized my gate, which now says, “Careful! Troll on board!” and includes a drawing of a hideously ugly Asian baby. My mood got worse when the mailman dropped my mail several yards beyond the usual spot, and I had to get up and chase it with the net. I got all but one letter, which caught the breeze and flitted slowly, side over side, down into the river. It was a white envelope with black printing on a light green background showing through the window. I’m almost out of gas, and the river is falling. I don’t know what happened to my letter. Probably the teachers’ unions stole it.
/BOB
Bubblegum Tate
@steve s:
Welcome to my world, steve s.
I tend to vote Democratic not out of any affinity for the Democratic (Oh, excuse me, “Democrat Soc ialist”) party, but because the GOP is wholly unacceptable and ridiculous.
kid bitzer
@71–
thanks for the kind words, but actually my 51 left out the most important point:
americanthinker voted for the arsonist. twice.
anonevent
@Josh Hueco: Luckily, almost everyone starts with a linkback to BO(o)B, so I can figure out what to skip.
Bill H
Of course it can! You pour all this money into the economy and because all this money is flooding into the economy the people that are actually working for money quit working because they can get free stimulus money and then the companies that they were working for can’t ship their products and close their doors and fire all of the people that didn’t already quit.
CapMidnight
If Obama really cared about America, he would’ve gotten himself elected President eight years ago.
And that goes for his little dog, too.
Wile E. Quixote
@Mike G (in response to some tedium from BOB)
No, see Obama used his secret Qu’ran powered time machine to do this while he was traveling back to 1962 to plant the fake birth certificate. Once you understand about the secret Qu’ran powered time machine everything becomes clear.
Brachiator
@Bill H:
This is satire, right?
I mean it’s true that we’re all getting $200 grand each in government bailout money and delivery of our choice of a shiny brand new GM automobile, but this is not enough to quit a job for.
Cain
@Josh Hueco:
Use cleek’s greasemonkey script and take him out. I personally enjoy his posts.
cain
Evolved Deep Southerner
Brick Oven Bill is one of the primary reasons I keep coming back to this blog. Is he crazy as a shithouse rat? Oh, yes. Yes he is. But damn if I haven’t come to love the man.
To those who would say “Ban BOB,” I’d say this: I may not like okra, but I’d be the last person to ask that it be taken off the menu.
Deborah
I’ve seriously considered the possibility that the GOP has been infiltrated by dada performance artists ever since that guy at The Weekly Standard attempted to argue against gay marriage on the grounds that marriage is a terrible thing imposed on whimpering straight men, and damn it, gays would just use if for fun.
Steve S at 79 summed up my recent voting philosophy, too. I’m amazed the Dems have held togetherish as long as they have, but the Reps aren’t putting up any competition at all for independents. I think it’d be easier to leave them and start a new conservative party with uncrazy people.
gwangung
@Deborah: As a theatre artist, I caught on FAR before that….
JD
48 by John Cole:
You have absolutely no evidence or reason to think that the job loss would have been worse without the stimulus plan. Who knows, maybe employers cut back on hiring b/c they saw that huge tax increases or inflation would be needed to pay for all the stimulus borrowing. Who knows.
In any event, what we do know is: Obama predicted a certain job loss absent the stimulus; he predicted that the stimulus would reduce the job loss; but the job loss actually went in the OPPOSITE direction from what he predicted.
Even if the American Thinker article is dumb to say that Obama cause the further job loss, it is even more colossally stupid for you to say that this proves that Obama’s plans and predictions were correct.
Yutsano
I gotta get me one of those.
John Cole
You are right, it would be “colossally stupid” for me to say that their predictions were correct. Thank goodness I didn’t say that.
Is this the best the wingnut A-team can do?
Ivan Ivanovich Renko
@John Cole:
Yes.
SA2SQ, etc, etc, you know the drill.
Bruuuuce
Brick Oven Bill @60: Cheese out here costs twice what it does back there.
I guess the cows in California just aren’t happy. Blame it on the idiots holding up the state’s budget because they won’t sanction any tax increases, ever (and the ones who put in the stupid two-thirds rule — IIRC, that was Saint Ronny and his fawning disciples, still wrecking the US economy after all these years).
Phoenix Woman
Oooh, oooh! I see BOB is a gold fetishist, as are too many middlebrow wingnuts who think they’re highbrows.
Guess what? Going off the gold standard is what made it possible for our asses to be saved in the 1930s.
r€nato
even though I occasionally make the error of responding to his posts, put me in the “I like BOB” camp.
He’s a great reminder of how utterly lost the GOP is.
Yutsano
A friend of mine (who’s an avowed Communist, he even defected to East Germany in the 1980’s, yes I’m trying to get him to write a book about it!) and I had a saying we kept repeating over and over during the election: KTH. Keep Him/Her Talking (we used it A LOT about Sarah Palin). Make sure their nonsense gets as far and wide as possible. Shutting them up only bottles up the wingnuttiness.
r€nato
@Yutsano: I always find it disappointing when fellow liberals want to ‘shut up’ someone from the other side.
Hate speech is one thing. So is flooding a comments thread (or usenet thread) such that it becomes useless to everyone else.
Simply stating one’s opinion, however daft it may be… what’s so harmful about that? Avert your eyes if it bothers you so much.
JasonF
@JD:
It is the height of intellectual dishonesty to accept President Obama’s projection of what the but-for unemployment rate would have been and use that to bootstrap an argument regarding the fact that his projection of the actual unemployment rate turned out to be optimistic.
cleek
here it is.
Chuck
@ronin122:
Actually one of the paranoid gold-bug nutballs driving up the price appears to be the Chinese government. Commodities are not only cyclical, they’re damn near periodic, and they’re all pretty much linked. The current mess is pushing the upswing longer this time around, but it’s bound to fall Real Soon Now. ‘course if I could tell you when that was, I’d be much smarter than anyone else in the world.
Chuck
BOB sure likes pie. And I love that script.
Brachiator
@Chuck:
The problem with cyclical views of economics is that they discount actual events in the world, and fall back on the false idea that patterns tell you all you might need to know.
The Chinese are holding a huge amount of US debt (treasury notes, etc.). The Chinese also manufacture a crap-load of the West’s products. Since they have a reasonable fear that in the future they might get paid in devalued currency — or worse, not get paid at all — it is reasonable that they would hedge their bets any way that they could.
A perhaps related example. There are about a billion dollar coins in circulation. However, they are not used much in the US. They are, however, very popular in countries like Ecuador. The dollar is seen as more reliable than local currency, and is much easier to get access to than gold would be. And the coin is sturdy and tangible, as a gold bar might be.
Mr Furious
BOB “on assignment” = “Bill, when you’re done stocking the milk, stack the crates out back.”
Mr Furious
Oh, and BOB, gases prices going up for the summmer starting with Memorial Day every year for as long as I can remember is all the fault of Obama’s handling of T-Bills?
IndieTarheel
Now I know why the GOPosaurs are so anti-education. It takes a spectacularly special starburst level of stoopid to be incapable of competently explaining your own PowerPoint slide.
Josh Hueco
Thanks for the link to Cleek’s script. I’m not pro-shutting up those who I disagree with. It’s just a pain in the ass to bother with BOB’s rotten egg brain farts and the subsequent nose-holding and pointing and ‘Ewwwww’ by the other commenters.
EriktheRed
@Bill H:
You’re shitting us, right?
JD
You are right, it would be “colossally stupid” for me to say that their predictions were correct. Thank goodness I didn’t say that.
Um, what? Your earlier comment said:
Third, since under no circumstances would the stimulus make the job loss worse, the logical extension to that graph is that above the dots would be another line detailing what job losses could have been without the stimulus and given our actual data- and it would have been higher. The only point of debate is how much worse unemployment would have been without the stimulus, not whether it would have been.
You’re clearly saying — albeit without any evidence or reasoning whatsoever — that the stimulus plan can’t possibly have made the job loss worse, and that without the stimulus plan, the job loss would have gone up even more. In other words, you’re taking the only evidence we have (stimulus gets enacted, job loss goes in the opposite direction of what was predicted) and pretending that it really means that the stimulus plan somehow prevented the job loss from going even higher.
This is just like the guy who claims that his rain dance will bring the rain. After he does his rain dance, the drought gets worse. Then he claims, “Aha, but without my rain dance, the temperature right now would be 150 degrees!!!! My rain dance is keeping the drought from getting that bad.”
JD
And by the way, obviously you weren’t saying that Obama’s specific predictions about the jobless rate were correct. But you were saying that his predictions about the EFFECT of the stimulus plan were correct (i.e., that the plan would bring down the jobless rate from what it otherwise would have been).