Why shouldn't we remember what President Clinton did and what President Bush did? As well as what President's Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush, Bush, Obama and Trump did. Not that it is meaningful but you seem to think so. Your economic worldview is what, by the way? I'm not sure that quoting yourself from 2011 is impactful but go for it. Your point has something to do with slave masters and public works jobs programs or ...? What creates jobs isn't "jobs programs", it's doing what the market calls for and the jobs follow as a benefit. It's not the purpose. I'll pay you to sweep the sidewalks if that helps but I find it largely irrelevant. Again, Capitalism isn't your thing so why keep speaking in terms of Capitalism. What is it you really want? Feel free to quote yourself from sometime in the past if that helps you to finally spit it out.
How do you belie a pretense? Do you like Democrat administrations? Do you like anything? Just curious?
According to Merriam-Webster↱: 2a: to show (something) to be false or wrong //The evidence belies their claims of innocence. -b: to run counter to : contradict //… appeared to belie all the rosy things I had heard about it. Maybe the achilles heel of conservatism is the permeating ignorance about conservatives.
An Achilles heel is a vulnerability. The vulnerability of conservatism would appear to be the ignorance OF conservatives. (To be fair, the same could be said of liberals.) Ignorance ABOUT conservatives would be a vulnerability of liberals. (And vice versa.)
You're right, I was unclear; the about I use is the similar to the of you suggest; see, Merriam-Webster↱, for "about" as a preposition (entry 2 of 3), definitions 2b ("on or near the person of") and 2c ("in the makeup of").
Granted it's hard to talk about specifics without defining specifics. Yet, it's tedious to have to re-invest the wheel in every conversation. Especially if you actually understand the point being made and your only objection is that it's isn't specific enough or that's it's too broad. An example of Democrats not seeming to consider economic principles and consequences... Everyone now seems to think the educational system was great when the Boomers went to college but that it's too expensive now. The problem is that Democrats didn't like the system when the Boomers went to college. Even though it was affordable either by paying outright or for some it required a Pell Grant or maybe a small loan or some work on the side or whatever. They wanted "everyone" to go to college even though most people who really wanted to, could. So they started the current expanded loan guarantee program. Tuitions when up of course. Some who couldn't really afford the loans, defaulted, some took out too much "easy money", etc. It was all predictable from the beginning. Now Democrats complain that tuition is too expensive. To a degree it is and to a degree it's just inflation, just like with everything else but they helped to make it that way. Another, similar, example. People who really want to buy a house generally find a way. It isn't easy for anyone. Now people talk about how affordable it was to buy a house for Boomers (it wasn't). Democrats wanted to make it easier for everyone to afford a house so they guaranteed the sub-prime mortgage lenders with little oversight. Predictably too many people got loans that they couldn't afford and eventually the industry had to be bailed out to protect the stability of the whole financial system which would have effected you, me and everyone else. The people who complained loudest at the bailout were the same people who supported the polices that created the problem in the first place. My point is that it's great to have empathy, to have a "heart" but you also have to use your brain and in this case it's just about basic economics. This is all predictable. Inflation is too many dollars chasing too few goods. During Covid the government basically shut down production (too few goods) and handed out stimulus checks whether you were out of work or not (too many dollars) . It passed PPP which was a paycheck protection plan that kept employees on the payroll for longer than employers could have afforded otherwise. Both were rushed programs IMO. Now Democrats are complaining the "the rich" had PPP loans forgiven (which was the idea of the program and benefited the employee, not the employer) as a justification to forgive student loans? None of it makes any sense, economically it was all predictable and yet the government is "surprised" that we have inflation? It's not a matter of Republicans being smarter than Democrats (and I'm not a Republican) but it's that politically the more liberal the party, individual, policy is, the less it seems grounded in sound economics. There is also a lot of cross characterizing of anyone that mentions anything about sound financial policy is somehow "conservative in a social sense", a Trump Republican with all the baggage that entails whereas probably half the country is actually centrist, doesn't like Trump and his carnage but is financially responsible whether it's Republican over-spending or Democratic over-spending. The Achilles Heel of the Democratic Party is economics and always has been. That's not to say that it's a bad party but that is their weakness. Most people in the party (as opposed to actual Democratic voters) haven't worked in the private section, don't understand, care or think about the economic repercussion.
https://theintercept.com/2022/08/25/student-loans-debt-reagan/ but yeah its the democrats fault right
"What would you say is the major weakness of liberalism and what is the same for conservatism?" ― Seattle (29 August 2022↗) "All the talk about Republicans and Democrats is misguided and analogous to taking your eye off the ball. It's all noise." ― Seattle (5 September 2022↗) So, yeah. Something about noise. A make-believe narrative depending entirely on ignorance in its effort to separate conservatives and conservatism from the results of their political struggle—i.e, canceling Trump and his supporters from conservatism—is just noise hoping to distract people so they take their eye off the ball. It's like your note about not being a Republican; yeah, we've heard a lot of that through the decades, and there is an interesting phenomenon that even ranges into provocateurs and appeasement: It is a range of advocates who are not something, but advocate the policies of that identity. Twenty years ago, saying one was not a Republican but an "independent" was so common it could be jangling and jarring when the last decade would remind us that "indpendent" voters tend to break toward Democrats. After Trump was elected, you could find people trying to convince us that what their fellow liberals needed to do was throw women overboard in order to satisfy conservatives. Trust me, this whole, "I'm not a Republican", bit has already been used to death; in fact, you help demonstrate your suggestion that talk about Republicans and Democrats is just noise. And in its way, this manner of self-invalidation shot through your noisy post is not unfamiliar in the history of conservative behavior. That, however, involves the kind of sentences you find too complicated.
I think you are conflating modern republicans with conservatives. Liberalism and conservatism are political positions. Democrats and republicans are political parties. They are not the same, although often there is a significant match.
I was for Obama, Hillary Clinton and Biden. I was less enthused about the choice of Clinton and Biden as the party nominee than was the case with Obama. I'm not a Republican. You seem to have a paranoid fixation on that subject (but not exclusively just on that subject). I was probably more enthused about Clinton and Biden than you were however. Let's face it, Sanders is to the right of you. Your sentences aren't "complicated", they are just needlessly wordy and obtuse. It's not concise. It's not effect as a writing style. James can probably help you with that if you are open to accepting help. It's as if you skipped all of the writing courses but showed up for notation day.
Jobs programs do, of course, create jobs. Two big ones that come to mind are World War II and the Public Works Adminstration. One can certainly argue that there are better ways to create jobs - but you can't really argue that they don't work.
If there are better ways to create jobs then I could argue that they don't work. Obviously, in one sense they "work", how could they not? We could just give them money to stay home and that would "work" but not in the way that we usually use that word. The point is that jobs are a side-effect of starting a business and not the point of starting a business. No one should argue for greater military spending because it's a great jobs program. The point of the military is for defense. As you allude to, there are more effective ways of creating jobs if that is the goal. The high-level point of starting a business is to efficiently allocate resources.
But that makes no sense. Do aircraft not work because someone thinks it's better to take the train somewhere? Well, not really - they would produce no economic output. One of the biggest benefits of the WAP for example was the infrastructure created - the dams, roads, schools, bridges, airports, canals - that supported dozens of other industries in the US. Agreed there. If a company could eliminate its employees it would. (Which is happening now.) Definitely agreed there. Also agreed. However, World War II is an excellent example of what a strong driver of employment it is.
WWII is an excellent example of what running a huge deficit can do for the short-term economy and what bombing all competitors industrial base can do for your competitive advantage over the next few years. The choice of a train over a plane makes no sense giving the point you are trying to make. Does an apple not work if I prefer a banana? This is not some of your best work. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
Yes, everything has more than one effect. However, I would point out that one of the results of World War II is that we CREATED a new competitor for our markets - Japan. Nope, it still works. It would be much more accurate to say that you prefer a banana. You're making my point for me here.
At the end of the day I'm a finance guy who has also studied political science and who is interested in economics. All else coming from your tortured soul regarding Republicans, Trump, what you've seen in the past, your self-quotes is just wordy, conflicted, nonsense. Really, your writing style is just ridiculous and more people, IMO, should state the obvious, for your own sake.
No, you are making my point. It would make more sense to say that I prefer a banana and a train. A train over a airplane is just a preference. A jobs program over a business that is focused on the efficient allocation of resources is not just a preference. The two aren't equal with the only difference being subjective. By that logic a boat with a hole in it is just a preference over a boat without a hole in it. It's just whatever you prefer.
