Tim Eagan is shrill.
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If we can’t get people to start using ‘deficit vultures’ — which would be accurate, if insulting to the avian scavengers who fulfill a useful ecological role — can we at least start using ‘deficit chickenhawks‘ for those who want to attack any expenditures that don’t affect them?
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r€nato
Welfare for me, but not for thee!
Phoenician in a time of Romans
“Chickenhawk” is also actually slang for a gay predator who goes after teenage boys.
Using it to refer to right-wingers in general could cause confusion when it comes to talking about the constant supply of right-wingers who are, you know, gay predators who go after teenage boys.
Anonymous At Work
I prefer “Deficit Peacock” as most of them spend more time touting their attitude than doing anything.
General Stuck
It is true that hypocrisy abounds with the blue dogs and wingnuts when it comes to “deficit hawking”. It is also true that progressive dems used the issue during the Bush years to win over the independent vote to get voted back into power.
It is not the deficit that is toxic to dems, it is the old “liberal tax and spend” label that is, or has in the past become toxic to dems, after a certain point. It was a hard lesson learned by dems to change that image with things like “pay go” and showing concern for wasteful spending. And actions to match it.
The issue of stimulus and how much, and will it really help to overcome a broken economy deep into self reconstruction from years of conservative economic ideology creating the structural failures we have is not really knowable. I sure don’t know the answer to that. And deficit hawking should never be used to block basic safety net programs like unemployment benefits, food stamps, home mortgage relief, etc…
Krugman and those like minded economists are on the right side of the argument, but that doesn’t mean they really know where to draw the line on whether more spending will speed up the recovery. And completely ignoring deficit spending, which is borrowing from the Chinese amongst others, can be a political death spiral for dems if the tax and spend meme takes hold.
Hunter Gathers
How about Deficit Bigots, those who believe that we can balance the budget but cutting off aid to ‘those people’. Most of my immediate family falls into that category.
Hunter Gathers
@General Stuck: How is borrowing a shit-ton of money from China at around 3% a bad thing? Christ that’s 2 points lower than my fucking $44,000 mortgage for God’s sake. Oh, I forgot – Whitey will bitch, like he always does. Austerity, here we come!
Lolis
Everyone under 40 better start telling your Congress people that lowering the retirement age is unacceptable.
bobbo
I think either one works, but I’m leaning toward Deficit Vultures, because “Chickenhawks” didn’t really change any hearts and minds the last time we tried it.
Sentient Puddle
I linked this earlier, but I’ll link it again: Krugman.
They have no credibility.
General Stuck
Simply amazing.
Scamp Dog
@General Stuck: The line is to watch is interest rates. When they go up, it’s time to reign in the stimulus.
Right now there’s no good place to put your money. Businesses don’t want to invest because demand is so low, and besides, they’ve got plenty of idle factories, offices, retail spaces, etc. they don’t bother using.
Nobody is going to take a chance on a new business, and even the existing ones may go bust and take your money with them, so T-bills it is. And with so many people putting money in them the rates are spectacularly low.
Once businesses start making money, investors drop out of the government bond market unless the Feds start offering good interest rates. That’s when you know the economy’s working again.
karmakin
@Lolis: No god damnit.
Lower the retirement age. I want their jobs. Best fucking stimulus you can do.
Better yet. Make it mandatory.
Catsy
I am unclear about the mechanism by which you propose to prohibit people from working for pay after a certain age.
General Stuck
@Scamp Dog: Yes, but that still doesn’t answer the question of how much and how to spend stimulus money. Or, whether to invest it in works projects for temporary employment, or into safety net programs. Safety net programs that mainline that money into the economy for immediate stimulus versus slower works projects to do so. And whether either bring about businesses again willing to hire full time employees. It just seems to me that the deep problems in the economy are separate from short term stimulus, and mostly time and hopefully re regulation of the finance world and other industry is the end game. I am not against stimulus spending, if it is targeted properly, but relying solely on one armed economists, even nobel prize winners is risky business.IMO.
jwb
@Scamp Dog: Yes, my sense is that, at this point, the Fed would welcome the appearance of actual inflation because that would mean we were no longer up against the zero bound.
Chad N Freude
@Catsy: Logan’s Run. SATSQ.
Sly
Deficit Cardinals. The appeal of Austerity is purely theological.
Chad N Freude
@Sly: Now we’re back to chickenhawks.
Sly
@jwb:
If that were the case, the Fed would either buy up trillions in debt securities or increase their inflation projections. They’ve done neither and will likely continue to do neither. It’s easy to understand why once you accept the fact that the Monetarists have never really left the 1970s.
Hunter Gathers
@General Stuck: OK, I’m an idiot. But how else are we going to get employment down?
More stimulus now, deficit reduction later, say balance the budget in a CBO friendly ten-year window. Austerity measures at this exact moment will completely crush the tepid recovery. The only reason conservatives are pushing for it is because they know that it guarantees that Obama would be a one-termer. I don’t know about you, but the prospect of President Bible Spice outweighs any concern over inflation.
AhabTRuler
El Cid in 5…4…3…2…
jl
Deficit vultures, deficit chickenhawks are both fine.
I suggest deficit deceitists, which might come handy when a little variety is needed.
cleek
how about “frauds” ?
or “deficators” ?
General Stuck
I like Krugman, and as economist go, he is about the best imo. Here is a paper he wrote in 1996 about spending in recessions. an excerpt.
Fastforward to now, and the question is, is this recession more like the one in the 90’s or the 30’s? And what that means. I don’t know.
Shit, this stuff gives me a big headache, I am just about completely ignorant on the subject of economics. But I do have some clue about politics, and I think jumping on a spend at will bandwagon without thinking it through if it will work, could come around to bite dems. Just a not of caution.
jwb
@General Stuck: If I’m following Krugman’s arguments rightly, we’d be better off economically having the government spending money on the craziest of crazy projects right now than do what we’re doing, which is basically nothing—though politics of today certainly mean it would never happen. The biggest problem with crazy spending (besides the political problem of attack ads it would inspire), I think, is shutting it down quickly when the time came. Getting the timing right is almost impossible, which is why most economists, even sane ones, generally prefer to use monetary rather than fiscal policy for tuning the economy to the business cycle. But monetary policy is next to useless once you approach the zero bound. Krugman also claims that deficit spending in current conditions will basically have no long term effect, and might even more than pay for itself.
El Cid
@AhabTRuler: You are correct. The biggest threat this nation faces is inflation, caused by all the spendin’. I don’t give a damn that there ain’t no inflation and nobody sees any comin’ — I damn well just know that we got inflation now and it’s a comin’ and it’s gonna be bad and if we don’t stop all da spendin’ now none of us are gonna be able to afford a loaf of bread, and all your so-called ‘evidence’ and ‘numbers’ and ‘data’ and ‘measurements’ is gonna change my mind a damn bit. So there.
General Stuck
@Hunter Gathers:
LOL, join the club. My only concern from my ignorance of economics is a political one. People out there know when the permanent job market improves, and the difference with a temporary one. I just think, politically, dems are in more danger right now from the “tax and spend” label than a few points on the unemployment numbers. I am all for pouring as much money as needed into the safety net until the economy self corrects, which it is doing, albeit slowly from a severe meltdown. That money is stimulus and the most direct kind because it gets spent immediately. Or, basically, like everyone else, I don’t have a clue.
jwb
@Sly: It would mean a marked shift in policy if they were to say that. Nevertheless, Krugman suggests they are contemplating it. When I say they would like to see inflation, I mean that the Fed doesn’t really know what to do in current conditions. The Fed wouldn’t like the inflation, but they would think they knew how to handle it. The current situation: not so much.
Corner Stone
@Hunter Gathers: Now is the best time in modern history to be borrowing money.
Don’t let anyone tell you differently because they don’t know what they’re saying.
We should be borrowing all the money we can get to finance massive infrastructure overhaul.
Who’s a better credit risk than the US?
ETA and on a personal finance note, if you have a relatively secure income then you too should be borrowing money to make investments in tangible items like land or hardware with a long term depreciation table.
Nobody’s job is 100% (except for right wing scare mongers) but now is the time to take a calculated risk.
El Cid
Deficit carrion flies.
El Cid
I want to be lectured by my fellow Americans on how we have to balance our budgets just like families do when they have 20 year mortgages and 5 year car loans and are paying off student loans.
PurpleGirl
Deficit vultures gets my vote.
jwb
@Corner Stone: Yup, idle construction equipment and workers, low interest money. What’s not to like.
General Stuck
@Hunter Gathers:
There you have it, Professor Corner Stone has weighed in. We can all be comforted in his expertise.
Money, it’s a hit
Don’t give me that
Do goody good bullshit
El Cid
Remember, deficits can only be reduced by cutting spending, especially social spending.
Increased revenues due to greater recovery and growth cannot be considered, because that would be, like, cheating — I mean, what fun would it be to pay off deficits and debts by a stronger economy and fuller employment when instead we can bitch at those god-damned lazy bum unemployed to telekinetically create themselves a job?
Sly
@jwb:
Krugman suggests that they are contemplating small steps. Which is true. The really relevant part of that blog post:
Someone at the Fed could make a statement to the effect that higher inflation targets would be a positive step, but the Board of Governors are almost in unison in opposition to such a measure, and Bernanke poo-poo’d the idea when he was up for reappointment.
The only real guessing game at this point is trying to figure out an unemployment level the FOMC will be comfortable with for the next 5-10 years. They may not be comfortable with 9-10%, but that doesn’t mean they’ll be shrugging off their inflation policies to get it back down to 5%.
General Stuck
@jwb: We are hardly doing nothing. They just passed a highway bill, the first stimulus is still largely in the pipeline, and there are various other appropriation bills like defense that continue government spending which is stimulus. What I would like to see is dems go full metal populist on wingers blocking unemployment benefits, and even upping the anty to increasing them and their payout. If you are arguing for the fastest surest way to inject money into the economy this is the fastest way, and that seems to be what Krugman wants. Infrastructure products are fine and dandy and have the benefit of improving infrastructure, but the stimulus effect is much slower and really wouldn’t put a dent in the monthly employment numbers, at least for permanent jobs, or really temporary that much.
Corner Stone
@General Stuck:
What?
General Stuck
@Corner Stone:
What?
Corner Stone
@General Stuck: Usually your posts have a certain amount of gibberish and incomprehensible blah to them. The sentence I quoted makes me wonder if you’re high or just incapable of forming a coherent sentence.
General Stuck
@Corner Stone:
But you’re an idiot. Why should I care what you think? If you want to query something I write, try and do it with more than idiot speak of “What?”
El Cid
@Sly:
At this point I wouldn’t be too surprised if official employment got up to even 30, 40% and no one would do much more than whine about the deficit and debt and how lazy everyone is.
Sly
@General Stuck:
The problem with this argument is that it basically establishes short-term and long-term stimulus as (a) a zero-sum game and (b) that we don’t need much in the way of long-term stimulus.
For (a), long-term stimulus like infrastructure spending and short-term stimulus like aid to states tend to be self-reinforcing. In you look at the TVA, for instance, it resulted in both short-term employment gains and long-term economic development for the region. Same with the transportation boom that occurred in the NYC metro area in the decades proceeding the Depression. While the bulk of the growth from those projects occurred later as communities took advantage of the infrastructure once it was in place, the government still paid people to build them.
For (b), its important to remember that along with our short-term unemployment problems we have long-term unemployment problems. While I would say that our short-term ones are more important (if only because they exacerbate the long-term ones), what we really want to avoid in the next few years is that short-term unemployment converting into long-term unemployment. Some of that, I fear, has already happened, and no amount of immediate stimulus will correct it.
Sly
@El Cid:
I understand your pessimism, but, in all seriousness, if unemployment got up to 40% there would be an absolute revolution in this country.
General Stuck
Does any one think that creating a few thousand temporary jobs will effect this number of unemployed.
The number of people unemployed because they lost jobs climbed to 4.2 million; that figure has grown by almost one million in a year.
Corner Stone
Shorter Stuck:
Things aren’t created except what’s created and even then they don’t make much in long term or even really shorter but for the times when they do.
General Stuck
@Sly:
This is the problem. Outsourcing has depleted severely our manufacturing base long term jobs and short term stimulus will not help that. That is why the first stimulus was mostly long term with R and D into new industries, and the new permanent jobs it will create say in alternative energies. So there is a huge stimulus in this area that hasn’t had time to germinate. Of course, those jobs will likely get outsourced too. So the problem comes down to a degree of protectionism, or all in for the world economy concept. The latter portends poor for our long term jobs. The former has it’s own shortcomings. I don’t know. But we butter do something to keep our decent middle class supporting jobs in this country, or shit will just hobble along forever, and at some point the Chinese will say no more.
And I am not saying infrastructure projects are bad, just that they are slower in stimulative effect, and political effect for Obama and dems. I am certain that stimulus that is large enough to jump start quickly our 14 trillion dollar economy is possible in theory, but not in political practicality.
El Cid
@Sly:
And as far as I know it’d be in favor of getting rid of all government, and making fundamentalist Christian churches run the country and whatever else. Sort of a maximally retarded popular fascism.
jwb
@General Stuck: Actually, I think the states are the biggest threat. Just watch what happens to the states’ budgets after the elections in November and all our pols have to be more honest about the numbers. It’s going to be horrifying.
jwb
@El Cid: If official unemployment ever approaches 20% you’ll see people in the streets with pitchforks and guns, because the official figure understates actual unemployment significantly.
Sly
@El Cid:
I’m not talking about a political revolution, like 1932/34. Or even a radical coup, like Russia in 1917. 40% unemployment would lead to a deflationary spiral that is truly unprecedented. I’m talking packs of feral humanoids roaming the decrepit streets of a post-apocalyptic wasteland. Two-Men-Enter, One-Man-Leaves territory. We just wouldn’t have Super Mutants or President John Henry Eden to contend with.
General Stuck
@Sly: Just give me a telepathic dog for company and a six shooter.
Mark S.
@Sly:
I call dibs on Charon.
Ailuridae
@Sly:
Or even a radical coup, like Russia in 1917. 40% unemployment would lead to a deflationary spiral that is truly unprecedented.
Not to quibble but if we get to 40% unemployment regardless of whether its U-3 or U-6 you are talking about then the economy will already be in a deflationary spiral.
jake the snake
@General Stuck:
.
I see you sneaking around in the desert looking for Susanne Benton there, Albert.
KS in MA
@El Cid: FTW.
El Cid
@Sly:
Oh, you mean Mississippi?
Yutsano
@General Stuck: I claim the hyperintelligent Welsh corgi.
Catsy
@Chad N Freude: Lawl, you win.