. . . and the media (and special interests) squawk about his supposed insensitivity to the plight of those dependent on federal largesse, the Republican can just say he inherited a debt problem from his predecessor.
The Internet home for American gay conservatives.
I want the Republican to announce that he came to slay the debt problem that America’s grand children and great grandchildren were set to inherit from the intentional economy wrecking actions of Obama and his enthusiastic Democrat Party that set out to Californicate all of America.
My bumper sticker:
Hi Dan,
And as Europe shows, austerity in 2013 for this country will be a (not) great idea…
Unfortunately, unless Ron Paul or Gary Johnson can pull out a miracle, the President in 2013, whoever it is, will not cut spending one cent.
And @Cas: Most of Latin America went through just this kind of spending crisis in the 1970s, so we know perfectly well where it leads. We are headed for third world status.
Which I’m convinced is Obama’s real goal, and the goal of most other Democrats. At the very least, all of them have the quotes on http://www.green-agenda.com to answer for.
Then when?
Admit the truth: You think that austerity will *never* be a great idea. You *want* the country to spend and borrow and print and spend and borrow and print, without end. Which means: the end reached by Zimbabwe, Weimar Germany, revolutionary France, etc.
For the sane people: When a government chooses to create -unproductive, unsustainable- jobs by borrowing and spending (and printing) money, it takes the country to the poorhouse. And then it says “Oh look, we’re poor now, so this would be a bad time to stop.” Just like with an alcoholic it is always the wrong time to stop drinking, and with a drug addict it is always the wrong time to stop using.
Truth be told, NOW is always the right time to stop… because NOW is always the right time to get back onto a good track, and, get the inevitable withdrawal pains over with. If Obama had done the right thing in 2009 – cutting the deficit instead of expanding it, shrinking government instead of growing it, and letting the worst of his Big Banking and Big Labor buddies fail – we’d be booming right now, just like every country does after a few years when they do the right things and get the pain over with.
P.S. As for Greece: they still haven’t done the right thing, which is to admit they can never pay their debt, and default on it “honestly”. Europe doesn’t want them to… because then Europe would also have to get honest about a lot of things. And so they drag their crisis on, year after year, never getting it over with. That’s their problem. (And soon to be ours.)
Bingo, ILC.
The problem is not that the Greeks have debt they cannot pay; it’s that the Germans and the French forced and cajoled their banks to buy Greek debt at the same rate that they would German and French debt, under the same set of assumptions.
The other issue is that liberals like Cas do not pay taxes, either due to lack of income or refusal to pay, and live on welfare — either direct transfer payments or in unnecessary and overpaid Obama Party government or quasi-governmental jobs.
Cas’s mind, like Obama’s, is incapable of comprehending a free or private market. They were brought up in Marxist theory that requires all inflows to go to the government and all outflows to come from the government. Furthermore, they cannot understand that, in private industry, inflows must match or exceed outflows, otherwise the company collapses; they simply print more money or demand more inflows at gunpoint.
Hi Cas,
I would like to help you out with your anti-austerity campaign. Just click on the link and be at the head of the line to welcome in the future.
Hi ILC,
No. If you read Keynes (General Theory), you would know that Keynesians believe that when times are bad, as they are now (8% u/e) with inflation as tame as it is (and you and I, ILC, disagree about that, but so be it), the upside for expansionary fiscal policy is very high. Spend the money. When the economy improves, and is going well, pull back the fiscal stimulus, and start building a surplus/paying down debt for when times go bad again. That is the Keynesian prescription, ILC, not always spend, spend, spend.
Hi HT,
I like the link. Quite funny. But as you know, I do not believe we are going in that direction given current policy, as the many conversations with ILC will have shown you. Even still, I find it deliciously ironic that the bill has more value now then it did then… 🙂
Ah, but you see, Cas, your infantile blathering is easily contradicted by your own Obama Party’s statements.
Your Obama Party says the economy is booming.
Your Barack Obama Party says that there is nothing wrong and that the economy is fully recovered and going well.
But you and your Barack Obama Party state that you cannot cut government spending AT ALL because without massive government deficit spending, the economy will collapse — even though you claim that the economy is going well.
So you can either admit that the economy is NOT going well or continue in your delusion.
But even if you have the honesty to admit that the economy is bad, you know what? You have blown FOUR TRILLION dollars in the process of trying to fix it, which according to all your Keynesian equations should have us at 1% unemployment and 10% GDP growth.
Frankly, Cas, you and your Obama Party profane Keynes. The whole point of Keynesianism is the government as the lender of last resort to maintain companies and businesses. But you and your Obama Party hate business, hate industry, and hate productivity; you use all your “stimulus” money to purchase votes and ensure drunks and adult babies can continue to drink and avoid working.
Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight.
I mean, I know that’s what the doctrine says. But in practice? Think back to January 2007, Cas. Did the new Keynesian (Democratic) Congress say:
– “Oh, spending is too high, it’s time to pull back on stimulus. Bush has already increased domestic spending a lot in the last 6 years, let’s look for ways to cut back.”
– Or did they say: “BUSHITLER JOBLESS RECOVERY! 4% unemployment is TOO HIGH! We must SPEND! Won’t somebody PLEEZ think of the CHILDREN!”
Hint: It was the second one. And that’s why I say, Cas, that there is NO time for you and the neo-Keynesians (or MMT / neo-Chartalist people) that is the right time for fiscal responsibility, which you try to scare people off of by labelling it “austerity”.
Guess what – give me $4-5 trillion in new debt, and I could also produce a tepid recovery based on subsidized asset markets and a few hundred thousand more financially unsustainable jobs. But it won’t get us back to a 2007 economy… much less a 1990s economy.
Hey – in the 1990s, the government was fiscally disciplined and the economy boomed. Did it ever occur to you, Cas, that you have the causality reversed? That just maybe it is fiscal discipline which unleashes the private sector and enables people to grow the economy… rather than a growing economy that makes it a proverbial “good time” to start having a bit of fiscal discipline?
(continued) So, again – What the Keynesian doctrine says is no different from the alcoholic who says “When I get that new job, I’ll be less stressed and it will be a good time to cut back on drinking”, or the drug addict who says “If only my boyfriend would bring the kids back, I’d feel more loved and it would be a good time to cut back on using.” It’s a lie. It’s there for lip service… Not reality.
Hi ILC,
Look, one view of the Clinton years was exactly this thinking I have advanced. They had a surplus, then Bush did a fiscal expansion (increased gov’t spending and tax cuts), and back into debt we went. Yes, there was a bubble, but as you and I have argued before, we have a different view of how that bubble formed (me saying during some of the fiscal stimulus in ’98+). We view this differently, ILC. I am not going to convince you; and I don’t think your evidence is good enough to convince me, given the counter-examples.
Do I think I have causality reversed? It is always a possibility, ILC. I grant that. But the evidence you offer is just not convincing. After all, the tax rises in the early years of the Clinton administration should never have had the effects that they did, if you (and Heritage for that matter) are right. So, the same question can also be asked of you, ILC. To paraphrase Oliver Cromwell, “I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, can you think yourself mistaken”? Or is there no room for doubt in your mind as to the truth of your position?
One thing to look at is how much of Obama’s spending binge actually hurts the private sector. For example, the budget of the EPA has doubled under Obama, and that spending has gone entirely to feed the beast of an anti-business, anti-growth agenda.
Hi Cas,
Will you agree that accounting gimmicks create all manner of desired numbers that can be used to support assumptions? That accounting gimmicks can help the opposition or reinforce the status quo, depending on how they are employed?
Will you agree that the economy is a complex series of dependent and independent variables all of which can react in different ways at different intervals from one another?
Will you agree there are known and unknown chain reactions within the economy that can be set off by forces large and small?
Do you agree that
is a non-statement? What specific effects did the tax rises in the early years of the Clinton Administration have?
You are speaking simple cause and effect here, so the answer should be uncomplicated: there should be no accounting gimmicks involved; it should not be complex; it should be a clear and simple act and reaction that is plain for all to see; it should defy debate.
I will await your lucid explanation of the exact effect the tax rises in the early Clinton administration had on the economy and how we know that it was the tax rises alone that caused said effect.
Otherwise, you are riding your tricycle in a circle.
Exactly. Did it work? The economy was clearly better than today’s, but, was it ever really on a good footing? I say no. Bush (and Greenspan) failed to do the right thing and let the Clinton “dot-com bomb” recession run its course… just as Obama (and Bernanke) have failed to do the right thing in 2009 and let the “housing collapse” recession run its course.
Government so-called “stimulus” is the economic equivalent of drinking or taking drugs. It does not produce real growth. The jobs it creates are not economically sustainable (in the absence of ever-*increasing* levels of “stimulus”). Being a violation of what markets (i.e., PEOPLE) would rationally choose to do, “stimulus” only creates economic imbalances – also known as malinvestment (over-expansion, bad debt, consumer debt, etc.)
Recessions are the period of withdrawal symptoms, the period where the economy clears out malinvestment from the previous binge of government “stimulus”. If you do the right thing, i.e., let the recession run its course under fiscal discipline and government restraint, then after a period of adjustment (defaulting on bad debts, clearing out the imbalances, re-valuing assets correctly and re-deploying them, etc.), the economy is in fighting trim again and ready to grow in real terms. Which it proceeds to do. Country after country has found that to be true.
If, instead, you try to abort the recession with more “stimulus”, you make matters worse. Just as with alcohol or drugs, larger and larger doses of “stimulus” are needed to get a smaller and smaller high.
Bush/Greenspan needed $400B deficits and 1% interest rates to short-circuit the “dot com bomb” recession (creating the housing bubble). And it semi-worked for awhile; unemployment got to 4%. Now Obama/Bernanke need $1.5 trillion deficits and 0% interest rates to short-circuit the “housing collapse” recession… and unemployment remains stubbornly above 8%, and the country is financially much worse off (being $5 trillion more in debt). See the pattern?
Indeed. So, Cas:
How about you? Have you applied it to yourself, first? I can’t see that you have. This:
…is just more lip service. You either know, or should know, that you don’t really believe it.
Plus, “what Heliotrope said”. Clinton got to a budget surplus because of spending restraint imposed on him by a Republican Congress (elected 1994). As Friedman said, the true burden of taxation (of what government takes from the private economy) is the spending level; tax collections are just a financing detail.
The spending restraint, further enabled by Reagan/Bush41 having ended the Cold War, plus a secular advance in computer technology (and thus productivity), are what enabled the economy to grow in the 1990s.
(continued) Where tax rates matter is in marginal terms, i.e. in terms of incentives. Clinton’s tax increases probably weren’t necessary to the 1990s surpluses (which, again, were driven by spending restraint) and may well have hurt the economy… yet because of the other factors mentioned, the economy did OK anyway. As Heliotrope said:
So no, I *don’t* predict that the world should have ended or something in the 1990s, because of the Clinton tax hikes. I refuse to be tagged with that.
BTW – courtesy of Ace, here is a nice clip of Friedman on why you can’t grow the real economy, just by growing spending or government jobs: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Hrg1CArkuNc
“Spending isn’t good, what’s good is producing.”
Hi HT,
I have no idea why, in constructing your claim about a “non-statement” in #14, that you ignore the rest of the sentence, “if you (and Heritage for that matter) are right.” ILC and I have had a conversation about this for quite some time, which you may or may not have followed. In answer to your question, the very idea that significant tax increases can lead to positive growth (as in the early Clinton years), is anathema to conservative voices on this blog. If you want a summary of my position, you can find it here. That will give you the “statement” that you have inquired about in your comment.
And as for complexities, oh yes, I agree. Models are simplifications of reality, but useful. I was brought up on IS-LM-BP models in my training. I am sad to say that we get quite a good read on the economy using those kinds of models. And I agree with Krugman on this. It is a tragedy in the way that European governments have chosen to ignore those lessons. And, it is a model that is consistent with the evidence that we have found to date, and which does not require a window of 10 or more years to see if it is correct.
And IlC, I just don’t like the moral rhetoric you like to use. “Withdrawal”, “drinking” “taking drugs” are all terms I find trying to shape a conversation towards the “you have been naughty, now you have to be punished” idea. I find that exceedingly unhelpful in discussing economic issues. What we tend to end up with is a lot of pain for no (in my opinion) reason–except that scourging is “good for the soul (of the economy).” I ask for proof and evidence. As my conversations with you show, when I press you on evidence, you have used, what I call ad hoc assumptions and a desire to look at a time frame of 10 years or more. I am with Keynes on this, in the long run, we are all dead, and if we won’t know for ten or 25 years whether you are right or not, I think that is too long. I am open to evidence, ILC, even if you think not. But ask yourself–why would I think that you are doing anything else than “paying lip service” to your own claim of openness?
When I press you on the evidence you use, you come up with answers I find unsatisfying, as to the reasons for the lack of inflation differentials in inflation indexed and regular bonds. You based this on two classes of investors for which no evidence has been produced, and for which none can be produced. You may disagree with me, and still hold your evidence to be sufficient, but please understand, I disagree with you in good faith. You might want to shop your model around to other economists and see what they think about it. Because I do not think you will find many who like the assumption set that you have for that model; or its lack of evidence or provability.
Actually, Cas, the problem with Europe is not that its governments failed to follow Krugman; it is that for decades, its governments followed Krugman to a tee — ever-increasing taxes, ever-increasing welfare states, constantly-increasing borrowing, tax and spend, tax and spend, regulate and punish the private market and productivity.
The Krugman model is poison as food, poison as antidote. You ultimately reach the point in which everything you consume is poison, and that is where the European states are at. You and Krugman cannot fix it, because your only answer is more poison — raise taxes to crushing levels and destroy productivity, debase the currency and destroy wealth, nationalize industry and destroy the private market. Because you are addicted to statist poison, you cannot realize that every single one of your remedies makes things worse.
That is why you start flinging moral accusations — such as claiming Republicans hate the poor, screaming about “austerity”, “pain”, and the like. Your models have been thoroughly and completely debunked, your shining socialist states lie in ruins, and now you are trying to take the United States down the path that leads to Greece.
Your problem is this, Cas: you equate “pain” with “working and creating value”. As a welfare addict, dependent on the government, the thought of actually having to go out and get a job and contribute to society is painful on multiple levels to you. You much prefer being able to mooch and loot the sweat and effort of others rather than doing it yourself.
The country no longer can afford moochers and looters like you, Cas. We have reached a point where we recognize that you don’t care about the economy as long as you can continue to mooch and loot from it. As you yourself stated above, you don’t care about the future “because we’ll all be dead” — the words of the liberal, who steals from their children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren and sells their future labor so that the liberal can consume today.
You missed the point entirely, Hi Cas.
It makes no difference if your dowdy non statement was:
or
The issue is the same either way: Specifically, what specific effects were caused by the tax rises in the early Clinton Administration?
Having clarified that, how are you able to tie the effects directly to the “cause” you proffer?
I say again, your pontificating is no more than riding your tricycle in a circle. Paul Krugman or Freddie Kruger aside, it is your language and your implied cause and effect reference.
Now, please, edumacate us.
We never got out of debt. The only surplus was in the deficit. That’s something liberals STILL can’t seem to get right. Further under Bush, we had the highest revenues in this country’s history due to….drumroll…. the dreaded Bush tax cuts for the rich (those who pay taxes), cuts to the death tax and mostly from cuts on capital gains. Incidentally, that’s how we were able to create over 8.1 million jobs.
That’s how the deficit shrank from north of $400 billion to about $170 billion with projections of being back in a surplus until liberals got elected based on their usual bullshit fear mongering. In then the shit of Clinton’s mandated Free Homes for All hit the fan and we’ve been suffering under liberalism ever since.
It’s time for adults to run the country again. The Socialist liberalism has failed once again.
But nothing’s getting stimulated except for the unions, the cartels doomed to fail “green energy” companies etc. We’re pissing away money faster than we can print it and not a damn thing useful has been produced by it. If there’s any recovery at all, it’s IN SPITE OF ObaMarx and the liberal dumbasses who rubber stamp him.
Hi HT,
OK,
Hi TGC,
I am sorry, I thought the context made it clear that I was talking about the budget deficit (but I can see how I could confuse the issue); my apologies. For my take on contrasting these two periods, see here.
Hi Cas,
For a simple cause and effect relationship, you direct me to babble and gobbledygook.
Here is cause and effect: The EFFECT of “X” taking a man’s $10 in taxes CAUSES the man to have $10 less to spend on his own (food, alcohol, rent, charity, dog care, etc.)
Your model of cause and effect: The EFFECT of the early Clinton administration rise in taxes CAUSED the economy to: kjsdlfkjocudjv lmfnosdcin ;aoshdnkf alkdfuo8en ; foaoendi lsnekf
and….on….down….the…..page.
Say it HI Cas, have some guts. Your claimed this simple cause and effect: the tax rises in the early years of the Clinton administration directly caused prosperity, economic growth, and a type of budget surplus.
If anyone wants concrete proof of that economic strategy and outcome, one can go to a long, convoluted economic babblefest written by none other than Hi Cas. Thus, Hi Cas says that the “cause and effect” cloaked in the incomplete sentence is “fact” because it is the product of and depends upon the opinion of Hi Cas.
Wow! An economics rule maker walks among us. Who would ever have guessed? Well, I guess maybe I did, because I sensed from the outset that circular Hi Cas would ride her tricycle around and around and around and around her chosen and specific reference points and then call it the order of the stars in the economic universe.
So, we are now to choose whether to follow Hi Cas and her economic pontifications based entirely on the case that she said it was so.
Cool! I pass. Just another day with Hi Cas supplying some homework assignment so we can argue with Hi Cas on the terms set by Hi Cas for the amusement of Hi Cas. (With a little Krugman thrown in for spice.)
Hi HT,
It is clear you couldn’t bring yourself to read what I wrote with any care or attention, e.g., bypassing the corollary I set up, so: thank you, HT, but I think I will pass on taking the opportunity to either explain or defend my argument to you.
Hi Cas, it is clear that you do not understand the “rules” of cause and effect statement.
I will pass on taking further opportunity to either explain the age old rules of logic and rhetoric to you or continue with my attempt to guide you away from being a silly goose who rides a tricycle around and around and around in circles while yelling: “Look at me!” Wheeeeeeeee! All you need now is a pinwheel. You might call Geico.
Hi HT,
Who knows, you may be right, but then again, you do not appear to read very carefully! Cheers.
And since you don’t agree with ILC, TGC, or Heliotrope, Cas, it is clear that you could not bear to read their statements with any care or attention.
After all, as you make clear, failure to agree with someone completely means you didn’t read their statements. Therefore, your constant disagreement here shows only that you are careless, inattentive, and unable to bear reading anyone’s statements because they threaten your worldview.
And since you can’t bear to read and won’t read attentively or carefully anything anyone posts, why should they bother responding? You’re a careless, stupid student, so trying to educate you is a waste of effort.
Actually, Cas, since you don’t agree with Heliotrope, it’s clear to everyone here that you are careless and inattentive and cannot bear to read his statements very carefully.
After all, certainly you can apply your own “logic” to yourself — or are you just a fine example of a childish intellect that screams everyone who disagrees with you is wrong?
Back in the Clinton-Bush Era, wasn’t the economy doing a lot BETTER and Federal Spending was a lot LOWER?
How can this possibly be?
OK, I did the parsing on the Cas essay:
A statement of fact, by the author. Take it or leave it.
A statement of fact by the author, take it or leave it.
Perhaps. Are we going to deal with the statement or the corollary of the statement?
A statement of fact, but also a statement of support of the “conservative argument.”
A statement accepting possible admission of the “conservative argument” and another corollary based on a “possibility.” (Thin ice getting thinner.)
Where did the WRECKED THE ECONOMY metric come from? It is not a proposed corollary in the argument and it is a rush straight to doom and gloom not hinted at elsewhere. How did we get from “damage” the economy to “WRECK THE ECONOMY” without anything in between? (No more thin ice, it has broken down entirely.)
No “grant” is necessary if the figures prove the point.
A statement of fact with a cautionary proviso introduction [But then again] which leads directly to this confounding bit of logic which immediately follows the statement:
This is a conclusion. Finally, a conclusion. Finally a cause and effect conclusion. Albeit one that supports the “conservative argument.”
”It can be argued” that the moon is made of cheese. Does the supposition of an argument provide a premise that will lead to a conclusion? Never.
How you reach this “conclusion” from the chain of statements above is beyond my understanding. But I rather think it fits the bill for assessing the author’s ability to present a cogent argument and make her case.
None of my parsing is actually about economics and charts and reading numbers. It is about constructing a logical argument. What is presented is a series of postures and poses that are supposed to signify a theory that is in some manner of form compelling.
Grade: “F” The debate was never enjoined. No argument was stated.
Anyone wishing to check the validity or care of my parsing work may read the essay here.
Hi HT,
Just a quick reply:
“According to the model these type of conservatives have, tax hikes damage the economy….”
So, how many conservatives here do not think that is a fact (given where we are now?)
“The issue can be framed as some conservatives do—tax cuts good—lower taxes, and they produce more revenue.”
So, how many conservatives here do not think that is a fact (given where we are now?)
What say you to these two claims HT? Agree or disagree?
“Finally, a conclusion. Finally a cause and effect conclusion. Albeit one that supports the “conservative argument.””
You do realize that I am arguing that raising tax rates actually helped the economy, right?
What actually interests me is that when you say:
“A statement of fact, by the author. Take it or leave it.”
you completely IGNORE the statement I was referring to–since “these types of conservatives” refers to something earlier in my comment. Why no mention of that HT?
“Where did the WRECKED THE ECONOMY metric come from?”
Well, HT, it came from that reliably conservative bastion, the Heritage Foundation. Admittedly, “fuel new government spending, increase the budget deficit, depress savings and in vestment, destroy jobs, boost tax shelters, punish families, and hinder America’s international. competitiveness” is not Armageddon. But, using this rhetoric of “wrecking” would not be out of place with conservative voices on this site, who would also argue that doing what Clinton did, today, would also be characterized as “wrecking the economy.”
Thank you for taking the time to read my comment. I appreciate it a great deal. I will take to heart your thoughts on strengthening the connectivity of cause and effect in my piece. But just as you recently admonished a commentator for “cherry picking” something you wrote, I point out the same tendency in your work.
Nicely done, Heliotrope.
You have reduced the infantile Cas to blubbering this:
You should know, Cas. After all, you made the statement asserting what conservatives believe. Certainly you wouldn’t have been so foolish and unscientific to do so without testable, provable evidence that you could provide when you were challenged on it.
Or were you that unscientific and foolish, Cas? Did you make a statement without having testable, provable evidence, and then expect to find it after the fact?
Tell us, Cas; what educational institution, what research facility, teaches its students or advocates that they should make conclusions and state them as fact PRIOR to having evidence — because clearly, that is what you were taught and what you apparently are teaching people.
And here’s another fine example.
Then you should be able to link to it directly. Do so.
And then you spin again:
“Would” is future tense and does not qualify as evidence, only conjecture.
So Cas, you have no facts, no evidence, and only conjecture to support your arguments. It is clear that you are arguing in bad faith.
Short and sweet, Cas, I did not parse the validity of any of your statements. I simply outlined your argument, without facts and took then as they progressed. I used the standard rules of logic and rhetoric that is applied in judging debates and examining the “validity” of the argument in terms of structure.
Since your thoughts more or less jump around and take huge leaps without substantiation and you fail to make valid premises which lead to a valid conclusion, you fail to make an argument.
You received an “F” because your role of disparate snapshots show your different moods, but they do not complete a picture. You directed me to go to your site to find “a summary of your position” which I did. I found nothing there that was probative. Then you accused me of not reading your link.
So, I though it would be instructive for others, if not you, to see how extended rambling does not create a deeper understanding of a non-existent statement of an unspecified position.
I suggest you concentrate on how to structure a premise and build a syllogism in order to help you in your efforts to communicate what you so dearly want to be true. This will also force you to face the utility and the frustration of dealing with cause and effect.
Anyway, your welcome.
Hi HT,
The argument I made was sloppy enough to obscure the syllogism you wanted to see.
1A. According to the model [many] conservatives have, Clinton tax hikes would damage the economy (categories…)
1B. Conservatives claimed that this impact would also be felt very quickly (categories…)
2. Clinton’s administration enacted [tax hikes]
3. [Contrary to conservative predictions], Clinton economy had sustained growth after tax hikes even without large increases in government spending
4. [Many] conservatives are going to have to come up with a better model of how an economy works [given the failure of their prediction].
A similar argument can be made for the Bush tax cuts and their failure to start raising revenue in constant 2005 dollars, till 2006.
Once again, thank you for taking the time to critique the post.
Once again, Heliotrope, well done — and a beautifully-executed rope-a-dope.
By simply calling Cas out on its logical fallacies, you have forced Cas to actually define things — and in the process demonstrate that the argument Cas started with has changed, shifted, morphed, and twisted in completely contradictory fashions.
What you have made clear is that Cas has stood logic and facts on their head and thrown them out the window. Cas is obessed with imposing massive and crushing tax increases — none of which it has any intention of paying — and has decided to construct an entire reality, devoid of facts and logic, to explain why Cas and its Obama Party should impose massive, crushing tax increases on the American public and businesses.
You have exposed the basic problem; by forcing Cas to assume a rational structure, you have demonstrated that Cas is completely irrational.
Hi Cas,
I will leave the courtroom after this. You have strung a few premises together which do not prove either of your conclusions.
1. You have not shown that the Clinton tax cuts created sustained growth, etc. Therefore, the premise is left inferring a cause and effect relationship, but it fails to prove it. There are myriad fallacies of logic that could be the cause of this, but without a second premise to tie the two to the conclusion, we can not know what fallacy you might have employed.
Of course, you might actually have two premises that do prove your conclusion. Then you would be a champion in the debate. But without the second premise, we are left blind.
2. The conclusion you did not prove can not be used as the premise to achieve the final conclusion (#4) and if it could, you would still need a second premise, which is missing.
Scholarly debate is more than tossing “enlightened” chit-chat about. You can read all manner of economics or history or whatever and develop a theory that intrigues you. But when you step forth to promote the theory, the data must then become organized in a logical way in which you understand what you do not yet know and what you do know and how things might possibly/probably have progressed.
Welcome to the skepticism trained minds and intuitive minds have toward Obamacare, man made global warming, the origin of the species, Social Darwinism, eugenics, political correctness, militant atheism, state socialism, transfats, monetizing the debt, and much more. It takes more than a whiff of “hope” and clever or impassioned rhetoric to make a case.
Hi HT,
I will just have to disagree with you. You appear to confuse cause and effect with logical entailment. If conservatives predict an outcome based on some model of the economy, and the outcome does not come true, the inference that one makes is that the model they used is inadequate, not that I didn’t prove “that the Clinton tax cuts [sic] created sustained growth.” Up to this point, I have enjoyed what you have said about my post, but this is off the mark; sorry.
And again, Heliotrope, an excellent job of rope-a-doping the foolish Cas, who is again reduced to sputtering this:
And there you have boiled matters down to the essentials. Cas is not testing the models of conservatives; Cas is creating strawmen to knock down in the attempt to “prove” Cas’s blind prejudice that conservatives are always wrong and that only the enlightened Cas knows anything about the economy.
In consecutive posts, Heliotrope, you have managed to show that Cas is a blind and irrational bigot who will say and do anything to smear and attack conservatives. As you have forced it to demonstrate, Cas is not laying out an intelligent premise or proposing an alternative model; it is only trying to attack and silence conservatives. It has no logical consistency to its argument other than to assert that conservatives are always wrong, which is nothing more than bigotry and lack of intellect or curiosity on its part.
Also, in news today, the Obama/Cas Party proposes hiking taxes 40% .
Cas is merely the example of the stupid Obama troll pushing battlespace preparation in an attempt to force Americans to enslave themselves to the government. The screaming Cas and its fellow fools like Paul Krugman think that, if they discredit conservatives, they can put into place their dream 70-80% tax rates on anyone who works.
I acknowledge my error in writing Clinton tax “cuts” instead of “increase” in #39. And while I am at acknowledging my errors: 3rd graph @ #36 – “role” should be “roll” and last graph @ #36 – “your” should be “you’re”. I do not print out what I put into comments and my fingers do not always connect with my brain and my tired eyes do not catch the proofreading dumb mistakes on the computer screen. That is no real excuse, but it is the one I am using.
Your effort at disambiguation is an “F.”
You never stated a syllogism. Your calculus for “entailment” is now in your court. You are hereby invited to parse your own work and play by the rules of valid inference (entailment) in constructing the syllogism. No undistributed middle terms, no equivocation, no false cause, no denying the antecedent, no hasty generalization, no sweeping generalization, no connotation fallacy, no irrelevant conclusion, no correlation implying a causal relation, no accidental succession implying a causal relation, no circular reasoning, no double questions in a single question, no argument by innuendo, and all the rest of list of ways that syllogisms can be little more than a charade to support a deductive argument when it includes a logical fallacy.
Through the years, I aided many people in learning how to avoid logical fallacies and get their deductive and inductive reasoning on track. Others, however, stubbornly stuck to their pride and self-assurance and flicked me off. Either way, you’re welcome.
NDT,
I have enjoyed reading your frisking of these few posts. As you well know, any argument can be detached from its specific data and tested for validity according the the rules of formal logic. Those of us who have faith know that we can not prove God. Nor can those who don’t want God in the equation come up with proof of no God. Some arguments are just moot. But, it would seem, when you deal with numbers, as economics does, the argument should be fairly easy to “prove” with the correct manipulation of the numbers.
But, when the argument involves the “theory” of economics, the numbers become supporting data only. The “theory” is laid bare to all the rules of basic formal logic as the ancients laid it out so completely, beautifully and (for me) awesomely.
When I infer that whitewall tires lead to more sex, I had better have some data that I can logically string together without committing a fallacy or fallacies of logic in order to make my case …… or I should just wear loud clothes, carry a megaphone and tell people who disagree with me that they are politically incorrect, hate crime purveyors, contributing to global warming, agents of hate and spreaders of pestilence.
Hi HT,
Very impressive listing of logical fallacies that syllogisms are prone to. I think I will stick with the syllogism I outlined in #37, thank you. Let us take one place where I see you as being confused about the relationship between logical entailment (does this statement necessarily follow, given what has come before) and cause and effect (did this event cause this effect). The syllogism I offered @ #37 is about logical entailment. With regards to cause and effect–given I agreed I had to do more work on that issue earlier in the thread, if I wanted to make a causal connection between tax changes and economic growth, it is not clear to me why you keep bringing this up. The syllogism does not rely on that requirement at all. When you say:
I have no idea what you speak of. I didn’t claim that cause and effect relationship in the syllogism, HT.
If the premise is that conservatives predict a result B (based on their model), if A happens, and if A happens and B does not–in fact the opposite of B happens–the inference to draw is that starting prediction is based on a FAULTY model that needs work. Perhaps you disagree? I do not have to speak to the causality of why the conservatives are wrong in their prediction (in economic theoretical terms). I just note that they are wrong. They need to rethink their causal models to fit real world data! I am sorry that you cannot see that.
This I found interesting:
I assume you are speaking to economic theory. Cool. I would love to understand what this very abstract claim means, in the context of actual economic theory, so, an example of how logical rules/syllogisms apply to the building of economic theory/models (i.e., an application) would be greatly appreciated.
And Heliotrope, you have rope-a-doped the desperate and foolish Cas again.
Again, Cas is stating that its assertion that conservatives are wrong should not be questioned or contradicted and stands as an infallible truth.
So, Heliotrope, you have forced Cas to admit that there is no logic to its argument, that there are no facts that it can bring forward, and — the real kicker — that Cas feels it needs to neither provide facts nor argue logically in its attempts to “prove” conservatives wrong. Conservatives always are wrong and will always be wrong, forever and ever amen, according to the all-knowing and all-wise Cas.
The true power of what you have done is that Cas no longer has credibility in argument because Cas has stated that it need not provide facts or follow the rules of logic in reaching its conclusion. Cas has attempted to create for itself the ultimate appeal to authority — that Cas is the ultimate determiner of right and wrong, and that no one who disagrees with Cas can ever under any circumstances be wrong — and has now openly admitted that that is the case.
Hence, Cas is exposed as an irrational bigot who will say and do anything to push its predetermined prejudice that conservatives are always wrong and that Cas is always right. This is something that all of us have known or suspected since Cas began posting here, but to have Cas admit openly that it feels it needs neither facts nor logic to make its argument is a watershed.
Well done, truly.