Vynertje wrote:
The author is a professor in economics. His work was used in the making of that article in that "most trusted [...] financial news paper in the world". Therefore your claims with regards to reliability are completely ********.
It makes me wonder if you even bothered to read what I said or just tried to look for ways to discredit my points.
I guess I didn't realize that Gerald Friedman wrote the blog, in any case it doesn't really change my point
I wonder if you even wrote the Wall Street Journal piece or just looked for a way to discredit my post. It was pretty evident that you didn't read it or at the very least don't understand the difference between citation and copy+pasting. The Wall Street Journal piece actually used the citation of an $18 trillion dollar debt increase while ignoring the "$5 trillion it would save". Now I already know you'll try and discredit this piece by saying 'they will pick and choose what they want to believe' and whatever other spewed ******** you will try and use; but as I will point out, if you had actually read the WSJ article you would have understood why they chose to discredit that portion of his work. (plus I did my own digging)
Friedman comes from a long line of liberal Keynesian Voodoo magic economists that believe the more money the government spends the more money it saves, which is both completely baseless and immeasurable. There is no sensible economist in the world that would say spending $18 trillion will save $5 trillion over the course of 10 years which is exactly why that part of his article was discredited.
Not only is his claim that we will save $5 trillion completely immeasurable, he claims that this $5 trillion savings will be the result of "Health Savings". Now because you haven't done your due diligence on Friedman, I'll let you in on a little secret, Gerald Friedman has kind of been behind the 8 ball in regards to his predictions on health care and cost savings. He wrote a piece for the 'Dollars & Sense' blog, a liberal leaning blog that attempts to show how terrible America is, which he predicted that Obamacare would be the saving grace for America and health insurance. Magically, under Obamacare the number of citizens insured by private healthcare providers will go up and the cost of said insurance will go down. He claimed that the vast majority of insured citizens would see a decrease in the expense of premiums, co-payments, and out-of-pocket spending over the next 10 years. Unfortunately for Friedman and the United States, these claims were wildly off-base and the complete opposite has happened since Obamacare's full implementation in 2010. Not only that, one of the reasons Friedman was criticized and completely discredited in his piece for Dollars & Sense was that he included illegal immigrants in his figure of uninsured Americans. It's pretty easy to skew the data the way you want when you include roughly 20 million people that wouldn't even be eligible for Obamacare in his uninsured figure.
So if you're wondering why the WSJ chose to ignore such a ridiculous claim that Bernie Sanders would save the United States $5 trillion by spending $18 trillion (which honestly I'm slightly surprised you are actually stupid enough to believe, but then again you come from Europe which has a long history of economic incompetence), it's because he's been so wildly off with his health care cost analyses before nobody is taking him seriously now.
Sources:
Sally Pipes, President of Pacific Research Institute on Obamacare:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/sallypipes/2015/06/29/obamacares-true-costs-are-finally-coming-to-light/
http://www.forbes.com/sites/sallypipes/2014/03/24/four-years-of-obamacare-failures-is-long-enough/
Friendma's predictions on Obamacare:
http://www.dollarsandsense.org/archives/2014/0114friedman.html
Thanks for the Signature MissMaw!
Vynertje wrote:
For a lot of countries immigration is actually 100% necessary to maintain positive population growth and also therefore economic growth. In countries like Germany/Japan, the fertility rate is below the natural replacement rate of 2.1. Besides that, immigrants are often willing to take jobs that most 'natives' do not and they are often very hard-working.
But is population growth really necessary? Overpopulation is a problem (in general), so would population growth really be necessary?
Mooninites wrote:
So if you're wondering why the WSJ chose to ignore such a ridiculous claim that Bernie Sanders would save the United States $5 trillion by spending $18 trillion (which honestly I'm slightly surprised you are actually stupid enough to believe, but then again you come from Europe which has a long history of economic incompetence), it's because he's been so wildly off with his health care cost analyses before nobody is taking him seriously now.
Please stop behaving like an angsty teenager. You may very well be right, but the way you're behaving I'm honestly not sure if I even want to read the things you write.
"Well, basically you should treat me like a prostitute." - TotalBiscuit
Searz wrote:
But is population growth really necessary? Overpopulation is a problem (in general), so would population growth really be necessary?
Please stop behaving like an angsty teenager. You may very well be right, but the way you're behaving I'm honestly not sure if I even want to read the things you write.
you don't even want to read what I write regardless so what do I care. In fact it would probably be better if you don't read what I write so you're not inclined to post some incredibly snarky and stupid comment in reply to what I've said.
besides if anything I'm edgy, not angsty
Thanks for the Signature MissMaw!
Searz wrote:
But is population growth really necessary? Overpopulation is a problem (in general), so would population growth really be necessary?
Please stop behaving like an angsty teenager. You may very well be right, but the way you're behaving I'm honestly not sure if I even want to read the things you write.
you don't even want to read what I write regardless so what do I care. In fact it would probably be better if you don't read what I write so you're not inclined to post some incredibly snarky and stupid comment in reply to what I've said.
besides if anything I'm edgy, not angsty
Thanks for the Signature MissMaw!
Searz wrote:
But is population growth really necessary? Overpopulation is a problem (in general), so would population growth really be necessary?
That's a question that is heavily debated between economists without a definitive yes or no answer. For the short term, there are definitely a lot of negative consequences. Problems such as an ageing population may put a lot of stress on social security and welfare systems in western countries or companies will have trouble finding qualified workers due to a decline in workforce.
However, there recently has been a surge in economists who think that population growth is not necessary to maintain economic growth. I sadly don't know much of these arguments as they weren't covered during my lectures on this topic, but it's something that can debated for sure.
@Moon:
That's already a much more convincing explanation than just dismissing it outright. As I said before, I couldn't read the article as it is behind a login/paywall and therefore I did not judge its contents either. All I tried to do by linking that source was to get a more critical view on the topic, which is why all I said about it was that "these figures are not set in stone" - I did not say anything about believing or not believing the exact figures. However, it should be a fact that accessible healthcare does have its benefits for the economy.
I'm not going to claim that I'm an expert on American politics and economics. What I do know is that a lot of the things that are seen in the US as "socialist reforms that would skyrocket national debt" are things we in (north-west-)Europe take for granted, without any economic incompetence or major debts. Therefore I simply question these figures and try to look for sources that perhaps show a different view.
That aside, I'm really curious why you even think that countries like UK/Germany/France/NL have a "long history of economic incompetence" compared to the United States. Of course, Greece, Italy etc. are countries with a very weak economic backbone but when talking about "European welfare systems", these are not the countries we are referring to to begin with.
Mooninites wrote:
you don't even want to read what I write regardless so what do I care.
False. I would if you weren't such a prick.
Quoted:
besides if anything I'm edgy, not angsty
Nah, you're both :P
"Moral justification is a powerful disengagement mechanism. Destructive conduct is made personally and socially acceptable by portraying it in the service of moral ends." - Albert Bandura
"Ultimately, if people lose their willingness to recognize that there are times in our history when legality becomes distinct from morality, we aren't just ceding control of our rights to government, but our futures." - Edward Snowden
"Ultimately, if people lose their willingness to recognize that there are times in our history when legality becomes distinct from morality, we aren't just ceding control of our rights to government, but our futures." - Edward Snowden
Hey, both of you two stop it. I said keep it civil and you two, no matter what thread it is, are anything but.
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How would you describe the linked plan as a band-aid? Do you or your preferred candidate have a better solution?
I don't think any of the candidates do. Which is why it's pointless to use that as a black mark against trump when it applies to everyone. My point is to apply an equal grading scale when judging candidates.