Ron Paul: Traitor to his country
- Thread starter dante
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The tahoe bear league and national park employees who relocate hundreds to thousands of bears annually to more remote locations sure think so.
All yours.
I'm done
I'm not going to patronize you with anecdotal evidence. And I'm sure you'd agree that an underwater basket-weaving degree from a 40k per year private school is not worth the money.
Historically degrees have been well worth the cost, but as costs rise, there has to be a point where the cost outstrips the value for each degree. There are difficulties in estimating the pure financial value of getting a degree, let alone the value of the education itself. On top of that, if we are talking about the decision to attend college versus another path, we have to look at the drop out rate as well.
Most studies look at college graduates vs. people who never attended college, and try to factor in the opportunity cost. This method has problems because people who attend college are usually more productive types to begin with, for whatever reason (intelligence, good role models, etc). I haven't seen any studies that try and factor this in, likely because it isn't possible without very expensive data. These studies mostly show that degrees are worth the investment, though the effect is not as dramatic as it used to be.
The second complication is that degrees are widely used to screen applicants by employers, adding value to the degree as a signalling device. This is starting to change, though I don't think it will ever completely go away. If the cost of education continues to rise then intelligent, hardworking people will start choosing other paths (apprenticeships, internships, trade schools, etc), and this will have to change. As far as I know no studies have attempted to factor this in. It would be prohibitively expensive to get this sort of data.
The hardest part about trying to analyze this situation though, is that all the data is old. It's tough to draw relevant conclusions from decades old data, but we just won't know the value of these degrees until the students of today actually get into stable careers.
I guess this is a long winded way of saying I don't have any hard data. Sorry.
There's a big difference there, and private loans are a bit more choosy with applicants.
Of course, if you don't think there's much difference, then getting rid of the federal ones shouldn't matter, right?
There were students at OWS pissed about rising tuition costs.
Important point if he hates freedom and liberty and tries to block abortion such as they do in some backwards part of the country, he'll be pushing for greater crime. History made it clear numerous times, abortion was one of the primary drivers of the huge drops in crime in the 90s in the US and has been in other countries like Canada, Australia, and Romania:
Freakonomics - Abortion and Crime
That's certainly a negative about Ron Paul. Gary Johnson might be a better candidate, but who knows how these things will actually play out in the unlikely event RP gets elected. I'm not up on my abortion politics. In order to have any effect on it he'd have to change out a couple judges, right?
Unless they invented a time machine they are looking at data from the past.
That doesn't mean that was the point of OWS.
Ummmm, no, not really. They just charge borrowers more based on their ability to pay it back, and an 18 year old with no income, no assets and a questionable ability to pay it back means they get utterly screwed with regards to the interest rate charged.
(By the way, the housing market proved this in '06, when only 25% of the subprime mortgage market was backed by Fannie/Freddie. The rest were backed by private lenders which meant that private lenders were LESS choosy with applicants than government entities. They just charged higher interest rates and offered sketchy loans like Option ARMs.)
Where did I say that? I'm a huge fan of federally subsidized loans because it means that students pay a lower % on their student loans than they would otherwise. That's not to say that more people go to college, as I've NEVER met a single student who didn't go to college based on the interest rate that their student loans would be. It's just that with private (only) lenders, students would be in even MORE debt than they are now.limitedslip said:
It's not subsidized lending that's driving up education (or housing, or any other asset pricing), it's DEMAND. When every single parent in the country say to their kids "ok, you're out of high school and now you're going to college", guess what, that's high demand and of course prices are going to go up. It's the same with housing, when people want to buy a house due to either a national mindset that "house=good" or the idea that you can buy a house, wait 2 years and double your profit when you sell it, that's higher demand. THAT is what drove housing prices through the roof, not government subsidies.
Furthermore, government subsidies have hardly any affect on *whether* you buy a house, only *how expensive* of a house you buy. Think about it this way: Let's say that the government subsidy of mortgage interest deduction allows for you to afford a 10% more expensive house, so you buy a median-priced house for $200k as opposed to $180k. If that subsidy had never been in effect, true you'd only be looking at houses that cost $180k, but builders would have been building houses that were 10% smaller/less expensive. That 10% government subsidy only shifts the median price, NOT the theoretical value compared to the cost to build it (ie, BUBBLE).
This kid is PISSED about his burdensome college debt and unmarketable worthless degree.
Come on statistics guy, how about some extrapolation and trending!!
But that's one thing you're finally right about. It is in fact hard to look at data from the future.
So, I was trying to get at this with the earlier post, but I'll try to rephrase my question.
You're very opinionated and angry about certain things that you've hard from the Ron Paul/Libertarians: The Fed, the idea that the Housing bubble was caused by federal subsidies, the value of an education, whether federal subsidies increased the cost of an education beyond what it would normally be, etc.
However, you've also noted that you're not knowledgeable about some of them (ie, the Fed), and you certainly haven't brought many (any?) facts to the table with regards to the rest, including acknowledging that about the value of an education. So, my question is, why do you automatically believe things you hear from one side/group (without researching for yourself as to whether it's true or not), but not from others? You seem to grasp the concept of things like the Federal Reserve when it's spelled out in detail, but up until that point you seem to have just bought Paul's argument that it was a bad thing and therefore should be abolished.
I'm just trying to figure out what makes any of Ron Paul's (wild) claims so immediately believable?
mind control juice being spewed from jet engines - didn't you hear?
Dante FTW!!!
Dude, do you go to a church that has "Baptist" or "Assembly of God" or "Pentcostal" on the front?
I think he appeals to a demographic that loves that X-Files/conspiracy crap. I've got a couple of guys I graduated HS with that I've caught up on FB.........and all they froth about is 9/11 truth crap and RP.....
stupid ftw.
Don't knock it pal, I make a decent living making sure that stuff works.
......
Like most people I was taught Keynesian econ in school. Austrian economics makes more sense to me and seems to have better empirical results. I have researched plenty of this stuff fairly at a shallow level, but I don't have time to scour google for everything I've read and condense it into a nice article for you. That's a mistake on my part, I shouldn't have bothered debating if I wasn't willing to jump in with both feet.
You're doing the lord's work, sir.
Hey, I'm the same way. I read Moneyball, and now I feel like I have a better understanding of statistics than anyone else, even people with degrees in the topic...
(That's a lie, I actually haven't read Moneyball. You see what I did there, right?)
Tinfoil hats for all!
My main issue (don't really have time to get into the specific Keynesian/Austrian debate*) with politicians espousing an economic view that mimics their social/foreign policy views is that it looks awfully suspicious that they came up with their personal worldview first, and then went searching for an economic theory that supported it.
Ron Paul and the Libertarians have a smaller-government/hands-off approach on *everything*. Deregulation, isolation (ahem, "non-interventionalism"), less government, etc, and so when they push an economic theory that mirrors the rest of their views, you have to wonder exactly how much vetting / analysis they did before believing that that was the correct economic theory. I'm guessing none. Austrian economics was dead after the middle of the 20th century, and now has made a comeback because people preaching smaller government and a laissez faire attitude towards every aspect of a person's life are also preaching a laissez faire attitude towards global economics. It's either a massive coincidence, *or* it's a concerted effort to push general societal views onto a (thought-to-be-dead) economic theory.
* For the record Austrian economics is bunk, and not taught by modern economists for that reason. Keynesian (original) is closer to where I feel modern economic theory should be, but Keynesian (modern interpretation, particularly by Republicans) has severe shortcomings. Joker and I have had quite a few discussions on it in the past, but this is probably the best synopsis that I know. It (and other articles like it) are a pretty good sign as to why we *haven't* seen the hyper-inflation that the Austrians/Libertarians have been preaching about...
I'll read your link later, but I agree.
You certainly could be right about libertarians and Austrians. For example, I know my arguments about why torture should be illegal are formed after already "knowing" that it is wrong. And often looking at the motivations behind an argument can be helpful in determining the validity of it.
That's one of the main reasons I'm suspicious of Keynesianism. It gives politicians an easy excuse to spend money, especially on corporate welfare. Politicians love spending money of course, it helps them get votes and raise election funds. Invoking "Keynesianism" as an excuse to spend money has become so commonplace among politicians of both stripes that it has really become a perversion of real Keynesianism anyway (as you pointed out).
Not all Austrians suspect hyperinflation, Peter Schiff just gets on TV a lot more. I haven't bothered to look into it much, or bought any gold, etc.
You certainly could be right about libertarians and Austrians. For example, I know my arguments about why torture should be illegal are formed after already "knowing" that it is wrong. And often looking at the motivations behind an argument can be helpful in determining the validity of it.
That's one of the main reasons I'm suspicious of Keynesianism. It gives politicians an easy excuse to spend money, especially on corporate welfare. Politicians love spending money of course, it helps them get votes and raise election funds. Invoking "Keynesianism" as an excuse to spend money has become so commonplace among politicians of both stripes that it has really become a perversion of real Keynesianism anyway (as you pointed out).
Not all Austrians suspect hyperinflation, Peter Schiff just gets on TV a lot more. I haven't bothered to look into it much, or bought any gold, etc.
See: Original vs Modern views of Keynesian economics
From Wiki, that all-knowledgeable source of, um, knowledge:
The problem is that we never do the second half of that statement.....
I have decided, after extensive research, that silver has the best pithy one liners in this thread.
Not much to add that hasn't already been said though. RP is great, rah rah rah. He doesn't flip flop like those other damn dirty washington politicians, he picks a hardline of crazy and sticks to it. Except on racism, he seems to flip and flop on that. One minute he is, the next minute he's not... its all too confusing, I'm going to go watch fox news and vote for whoever they decide is the best.
Not much to add that hasn't already been said though. RP is great, rah rah rah. He doesn't flip flop like those other damn dirty washington politicians, he picks a hardline of crazy and sticks to it. Except on racism, he seems to flip and flop on that. One minute he is, the next minute he's not... its all too confusing, I'm going to go watch fox news and vote for whoever they decide is the best.
From a friend. "There needs to be a paradigm shift. Welfare discourages motivation to find work or learn something new. Public utility regulation, while helps achieve lower costs, defies market pricing causing financial deficits. Standardized education punishes excellence and discourages competition. Often what liberalism finds to be societal benefits have nasty secondary consequences.
On the environmental front, deregulation is allowed because pollution creates an infringement on the individual property rights of the citizens. What many people fail to realize is that under libertarian ideals you can remove laws that limit liberty and replace them with the simple laws already in the constitution."
I pretty much have exhausted the part of my brain that fights the stupid.
On the environmental front, deregulation is allowed because pollution creates an infringement on the individual property rights of the citizens. What many people fail to realize is that under libertarian ideals you can remove laws that limit liberty and replace them with the simple laws already in the constitution."
I pretty much have exhausted the part of my brain that fights the stupid.
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Your idiotic friend does know that with Welfare (Temporary Assistance to Needy Families, TANF):
1) Recipients (with few exceptions) must work as soon as they are job ready or no later than two years after coming on assistance.
2) Single parents are required to participate in work activities for at least 30 hours per week. Two-parent families must participate in work activities 35 or 55 hours a week, depending upon circumstances.
3) Failure to participate in work requirements can result in a reduction or termination of benefits to the family.
4) States, in FY 2004, have to ensure that 50 percent of all families and 90 percent of two-parent families are participating in work activities. If a state reduces its caseload, without restricting eligibility, it can receive a caseload reduction credit. This credit reduces the minimum participation rates the state must achieve.
You can also only qualify for Welfare for a maximum of 5 years, TOTAL throughout your life. Spent 2 years on it in your early 20s, and then another 3 in your 30s? You're off the Welfare rolls, forever. Done. Welfare has gone from 4.6% of the population when Welfare was reformed in 1996 to 1.4% of the population now.
Your friend is a fvcking idiot.
Like I said, I have literally exhausted the part of my brain that instinctually combats stupid.
Probably, but not altogether off base.
My sister-in-law is a single mother of two (had them when 19).
Lives in subsidized housing (until recently with her now ex-bf who wasn't kids father).
Took a gov't funded nursing program for 18mos because it allowed her to not work. Never used the skills or even looked for a job in that field.
Works a min wage job; has subsidized child care for her kids, takes food stamps etc.
All health care paid by the state.
Three years later nothing has changed.
Drives a 2yo Accord, Coach purses, iphone 4s, fake tan, fancy hair cuts, new furniture, flat screen tv etc .
Just got back from her annual trip to LA to party with friends.
She has at least 4 friends in the same situation.
They ALL know how to work the system because it's easy to abuse.
The whole housing unit she lives in (4yo townhomes in nice neighborhood) is full of people like her.
Did I mention she has a $100k inheritance sitting in the bank?
Those welfare rules may sound tough but, like the unemployment deadlines that keep getting expanded, aren't necessarily how the real world works.
As a self-employed person with zero safety net (no unemployment, self insured etc) I find it appalling how easily the system can be, an is, abused.
That doesn't mean you eliminate the program, it means you enforce eligibility requirements.
I love all the wonderful statements without anything to back them up.
http://www.ktvu.com/news/news/national-govt-politics/epa-cracks-down-major-metal-recycler-bay-pollution/nGKFR/
Would libertarians suggest that citizens be responsible for inspecting all industrial activity in their vicinity?
How does that work?
Here's a recent local story showing why the EPA is a good thing. I doubt local residents would have even noticed the pollution.
http://www.ktvu.com/news/news/national-govt-politics/epa-cracks-down-major-metal-recycler-bay-pollution/nGKFR/
Would libertarians suggest that citizens be responsible for inspecting all industrial activity in their vicinity?
I never said anything about eliminating, or even curtailing, social programs.
Just illustrating that reality doesn't match policy in black and white terms.
Also, im not making those statements, and I cannot answer for dudes comments. Im just tired of these idiots acting like the problem will just be resolved poof!
Knowing this Dan-o, why have you not contacted the state board and informed them of this abuse?
I'm so tired of all these watchdogs exposing fraud, but not actually doing anything about it.
AFAIK, she meets all the criteria (with the exception of the live-in boyfriend, which was a violation, that the case workers/housing authority staff could easily enough see for themselves). I think the inheritance is tied up in a trust and therefore not considered in regards to her finances. (don't know, I don't deal with her much).
If this has been going on for "3 years", she's in for a RUDE surprise in another 2 (or less, depending on what state she lives in, some states limit it to 4 years, others are contemplating going to 3)...
http://www.fns.usda.gov/snap/applicant_recipients/eligibility.htm
Basically as soon as the 5 year TANF period runs out, she's going to be cut off not only from that but from SNAP (food stamps) as well. You know, the system actively kicking people who don't deserve it off of benefits.
lol, Dan-O's take on government spending sounds about right.
My favorite part of government waste would be the purchasing binges in September.