If one does so blindly, yes. It's good to have principles; we just need to recognize that sometimes our preferred ideology serves us poorly.That's why subscribing to any one ideology is bad and stupid.
This is a problem for both sides. The right believes that wealth belongs to those who earn it and will trickle down to everyone. (i.e. A rising tide lifts all boats.) The left believes that government should confiscate most wealth (or at least, most of other people's wealth) and trickle it down to everyone. Depends on whether one most trusts the free market or the bureaucrats/politicians, but reality is never going to completely align with either philosophy. This is also why smart people don't accept all parts of either philosophy.What about when reality (actual reality) falls *outside* their philosophical bent?
We could start with the virtues of trickle down economics & job creating austerity, move on through a variety of misperceived topics to arrive at Benghazi.
What then?
I think that's an excellent plan as long as you keep an eye on whether your intuitive take on the issue is panning out.Personally, I think my most often employed motivation to adopt an action or inaction would be my intuitive take on the issue. I'm not much of a fan of the philosopher over the benefit garnered by my own thinking. I think the very last thing I ask myself is, "Is this or that rational, logical or beneficial". It is what it is and I proceed based on how I view it... not why I view it this way or that way. An exception is, of course, scientific stuffs where folks far sharper than I have employed an empirical and peer reviewed analysis on the issue. Where I have expertise I listen to other views, etc. and incorporate what seems better and reject what seems less so.
I think that is how I behave... But, it is also possible that what I think is true might not be... but, it seems so.
lol People are amazing critters. A neighbor asked me to take a look at his wiring problem because he had a circuit breaker tripping every time he flipped a switch. On one pole of the switch is the hot wire; on the other pole is the neutral. So . . . what were you imagining might happen when you flipped the switch and connected the two?Sorry Moonbeam Screwed the whole thing up. Customer came in halfway thru post and I just lost my mind. I am gonna let it drop. So guy with no computer experience got into the advanced power saving setting on a laptop I sold him and set the battery to warn me at 98%. So when on battery power it would shut off very quickly. Like the post I came back to I was stupefied I figured out what he did and came back to the post dumbfounded.
Senior Moment
I have never seen anyone say trickle down = a rising tide lifts all boats. Probably because that is exactly opposite of reality. You've also built a laughable mischaracterization of the left's philosophy, which is probably how you justify to your CBD that it is wrong when it actually works in reality....
This is a problem for both sides. The right believes that wealth belongs to those who earn it and will trickle down to everyone. (i.e. A rising tide lifts all boats.) The left believes that government should confiscate most wealth (or at least, most of other people's wealth) and trickle it down to everyone. Depends on whether one most trusts the free market or the bureaucrats/politicians, but reality is never going to completely align with either philosophy. This is also why smart people don't accept all parts of either philosophy.
...
I don't disagree. However - when someone claims to be guided by reality and yet reality always falls exactly in line with their philosophical bent, then my conclusion is that either they were only pretending to be guided by reality or they are simply basically dishonest. No one philosophy (or party) is best for every conceivable situation, and if you never conclude that philosophically you'd like 'A' but pragmatically recognize that 'B' is the better course, you aren't very bright.
What about when reality (actual reality) falls *outside* their philosophical bent?
We could start with the virtues of trickle down economics & job creating austerity, move on through a variety of misperceived topics to arrive at Benghazi.
What then?
If one does so blindly, yes. It's good to have principles; we just need to recognize that sometimes our preferred ideology serves us poorly.
This is a problem for both sides. The right believes that wealth belongs to those who earn it and will trickle down to everyone. (i.e. A rising tide lifts all boats.) The left believes that government should confiscate most wealth (or at least, most of other people's wealth) and trickle it down to everyone. Depends on whether one most trusts the free market or the bureaucrats/politicians, but reality is never going to completely align with either philosophy. This is also why smart people don't accept all parts of either philosophy.
I think that's an excellent plan as long as you keep an eye on whether your intuitive take on the issue is panning out.
So let me get this straight...you would consider me rational if I happened to share your opinion regarding what 2 posters in this thread said and what they meant by their words. I find it interesting that you actually think my rationality is in question here.The feeling is mutual. Let's see if you can be rational. Would you agree that both Greenman and Overvolt have now said they are not interested in at least one experiment/study each in this thread?
I'm not asking you what they meant. I am asking you what they said in black and white. The fact that you don't know this definitely calls your rationality into question. Here, let me help you. Here are quotes by them:So let me get this straight...you would consider me rational if I happened to share your opinion regarding what 2 posters in this thread said and what they meant by their words. I find it interesting that you actually think my rationality is in question here.
Sorry, not interested in the experiment, and certainly not interested in writing about it. Your mind is made up, and there is zero possibility of me changing it, so it's an exorcise in futility that isn't amusing. Just not worth more than 30 seconds of my time.
Don't get so defensive about LR, it's not like anyone really cares, or that it matters at all, it's just an interesting little thought that runs around inside my head once in a while. You can be whoever you choose to be, or as many as you want to be, and I don't mind at all.
I'm really disinterested in any material like that. If its bouncing around from god to science to politics its probably psychobabble. Its like you have to have a brain disease (ADHD) to even follow it to begin with. Where you forget what it was you were reading in lock-step with how he changes what the hell is is writing about. A perfect match.
Reagan's economic policies (aka "trickle down economics") ushered in the Great Moderation which was second longest peacetime economic expansion in U.S. history. GDP growth went from -0.3% to 4.1%, unemployment rate went from 7.1% to 5.5%, and inflation fell from 13.5% to 4.1% during Reagan's presidency with effects persisting for many, many years after.I have never seen anyone say trickle down = a rising tide lifts all boats. Probably because that is exactly opposite of reality. You've also built a laughable mischaracterization of the left's philosophy, which is probably how you justify to your CBD that it is wrong when it actually works in reality.
I think you missed my point.I'm not asking you what they meant. I am asking you what they said in black and white. The fact that you don't know this definitely calls your rationality into question. Here, let me help you. Here are quotes by them:
If you ever achieve self-awareness, this simultaneous conceit that "ideological belief on the Right is a disconnect from reality" and that the right refuses to accept reality is going to be quite embarrassing for you.When I point out that ideological belief on the Right is a disconnect from reality, you merely assert one of the Right's loaded terminology canards, compare it to a strawman meme you assign to the Left.
Obviously, a rising economic tide does not lift all boats & the so-called non-Marxist "Left" has no intention of confiscating most wealth. Neither claim has any basis in reality.
Which is what I was talking about in the first place.
I think you missed my point.
Yeah...that's it.I missed your point? Are you fucking kidding me right now? LOL. I asked you a question and you responded by saying me asking you something entirely different than what I asked you makes me the irrational one. I didn't ask you what you claim I asked you. I asked you what I asked you. At least we can see you can't even answer a simple question without twisting what I actually said and then using that dishonest representation as justification for not answering in the first place. You don't like debating with me because you get stuck between two choices: looking like an idiot or admitting something you don't want to believe.
It also resulted in this:Reagan's economic policies (aka "trickle down economics") ushered in the Great Moderation which was second longest peacetime economic expansion in U.S. history. GDP growth went from -0.3% to 4.1%, unemployment rate went from 7.1% to 5.5%, and inflation fell from 13.5% to 4.1% during Reagan's presidency with effects persisting for many, many years after.
Yes. That's it. You can't even be honest enough to answer a simple question about what two people actually typed in this thread. That IS it.Yeah...that's it.
If you ever achieve self-awareness, this simultaneous conceit that "ideological belief on the Right is a disconnect from reality" and that the right refuses to accept reality is going to be quite embarrassing for you.
But, but Reagan...you're too funny. Curious that your chart ends during Bush's administration. This is what Obama is doing about the problem.
United States Is Now the Most Unequal of All Advanced Economies
The United States has such an unequal distribution of wealth so that it's in the league of corrupt underdeveloped countries, no longer in the league of the developed nations, according to the latest edition of the world's most thorough study of wealth-distribution.
The most authoritative source comparing wealth-concentration in the various countries is the successor to the reports that used to be done for the United Nations, now performed as the Credit Suisse Global Wealth Databook. The latest (2013) edition of it finds (p. 146) that in the U.S., 75.4% of all wealth is owned by the richest 10% of the people. The comparable figures for the other developed countries are: Australia 50.3%, Canada 57.4%, Denmark 72.2%, Finland 44.9%, France 51.8%, Germany 61.7%, Ireland 58.4%, Israel 68.9%, Italy 49.8%, Japan 49.1%, Netherlands 54.6%, New Zealand 57.6%, Norway 65.9%, Singapore 61.1%, Spain 54.0%, Sweden 71.1%, Switzerland 71.5%, and U.K. 53.3%. Those are the top 20 developed nations, and the U.S. has the most extreme wealth-concentration of them all. However, there are some other countries that have wealth-concentrations that are about as extreme as the U.S. For examples: Chile 72.5%, India 73.8%, Indonesia 75.0%, and South Africa 74.8%. The U.S. is in their league; not in the league of developed economies. In the U.S., the bottom 90% of the population own only 24.6% of all the privately held wealth, whereas in most of the developed world, the bottom 90% own around 40%; so, the degree of wealth-concentration in the U.S. is extraordinary (except for underdeveloped countries).
The broadest mathematical measure of wealth-inequality is called "Gini," and the higher it is, the more extreme the nation's wealth-inequality is. The Gini for the U.S. is 85.1. Other extremely unequal countries are (pages 98-101 of this report) Chile 81.4, India 81.3, Indonesia 82.8, and South Africa 83.6. However, some nations are even more-extreme than the U.S.: Kazakhstan 86.7, Russia 93.1, and Ukraine 90.0. But Honduras and Guatemala are such rabid kleptocracies that their governments don't even provide sufficiently reliable data for an estimate to be able to be made; and, so, some countries might be even higher than nations like Russia.
Under Barack Obama, the U.S. has, for the first time in this nation's history, increased the concentration of its privately held wealth during an "economic recovery" from a financial crash. (Consequently: the bottom 90% have experienced no benefit from this "recovery.") Usually, there is more instead of less economic equality in the wake of a crash; but Obama's policies of holding harmless the Wall Street insiders who profited enormously from creating the bubble, and of restoring their wealth by taxpayers buying up their toxic assets via the bailouts, etc., have made the U.S. more like nations such as Chile, India, Indonesia, and less like nations such as Australia, Canada, and Finland. Although Mr. Obama's rhetoric has been opposed to extreme wealth-concentration, his policies have actually intensified that tendency. Republicans are not satisfied with the extent to which he has done this, and they call for even more extreme wealth-concentration policies, but Obama has actually benefited America's billionaires a great deal. Romney received most of their campaign money, but Obama has performed extraordinarily well for them.
According to the latest study by the highly regarded economic-concentration specialist Emmanuel Saez, the richest 1% of Americans have been receiving 95% of the income-gains during the Obama "economic recovery." This "recovery" has raised incomes for the top 1% by 31.4%. Everyone else has seen income-gains of 0.4%. Other studies have shown that the bottom 95% of Americans have actually experienced overall reductions in their incomes under President Obama. So: for most Americans, the "recession" has merely continued.
This discussion is about Reagan's policy and you want to switch gears to Obama in order to avoid discussing the failures of trickle down economics. I'm so surprised. Keep pretending that the spike to over 3% during Reagan's term after decades of staying around 1.5% or less is Obama's fault. Conservative debate style, lol. Deflection, misdirection, revisionism.But, but Reagan...you're too funny. Curious that your chart ends during Bush's administration. This is what Obama is doing about the problem.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/eric-zuesse/us-is-now-the-most-unequa_b_4408647.html
But, but Reagan...you're too funny. Curious that your chart ends during Bush's administration. This is what Obama is doing about the problem.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/eric-zuesse/us-is-now-the-most-unequa_b_4408647.html
I gave you many facts indicating huge successes of his economic policies bringing us out of a severe double dip recession...yet you ignore these facts and instead want to focus on blaming Reagan for our present day wealth inequities. You act as if subsequent administations since 1988 have been helpless to address this problem (who, in fact, have exasperated the problem through their own economic policies), choosing instead to blame our current wealth inequity problem on the economic policies of a President who left office nearly 3 decades ago.This discussion is about Reagan's policy and you want to switch gears to Obama in order to avoid discussing the failures of trickle down economics. I'm so surprised. Keep pretending that the spike to over 3% during Reagan's term after decades of staying around 1.5% or less is Obama's fault.
Sigh.Conservative debate style, lol. Deflection, misdirection, revisionism.
So now 1986 is present day. Sigh indeed.I gave you many facts indicating huge successes of his economic policies bringing us out of a severe double dip recession...yet you ignore these facts and instead want to focus on blaming Reagan for our present day wealth inequities. You act as if subsequent administations since 1988 have been helpless to address this problem (who, in fact, have exasperated the problem through their own economic policies), choosing instead to blame our current wealth inequity problem on the economic policies of a President who left office nearly 3 decades ago.
Sigh.
Wealth inequity increased roughly 1.5% under Reagan....not too shabby considering larger increases that occurred under subsequent administrations. If this is you biggest beef with Reagan's economic policies, you may want to direct your outrage elsewhere.So now 1986 is present day. Sigh indeed.
I wasn't aware that tax rates have since returned to pre-Reagan levels. Oh they haven't? Well maybe that is why things aren't getting better and only continue to get worse. Next thing you will tell me is that the President doesn't have the authority to change tax levels himself.Wealth inequity increased roughly 1.5% under Reagan....not too shabby considering larger increases that occurred under subsequent administrations. If this is you biggest beef with Reagan's economic policies, you may want to direct you outrage elsewhere.