yup... it's definitely one of those faux "little guy" groups... sadly, it is not the only one....

So two decades to fix a problem that has been fixed numerous times in the past?

Seems achievable to me. What with how social security is always on the verge of problems then it is tweaked so it no longer is. This is by design. It is a feature not a bug.

1. lol "Trust fund." That hasn't been true for a while.
2. Your argument that there would be a necessary reduction in benefits 20 years down the road, therefore we should make drastic if not total cuts now is not especially compelling. Why do we have to end Social Security right now when your worst case scenario, a 25% cut in benefits 20 years down the road, solves the problem and is itself a plan for keeping Social Security going?

Seems like a really easy prediction actually, and something that wasn't very controversial among mainstream economists.

I'm no economist myself but I understand the basic layman's logic can be boiled down to

if money = debt

then large amounts of default = deflation and the bank losses are magnified in the overall money supply through the same fractional reserve math that works the other way where increased borrowing inflates the money supply

This deflation can be partially offset by central banks increasing the money supply in the public sector through means such as stimulus or QE. Admittedly the right amount can be hard to judge here, but it's not exactly a crapshoot

the only real people who disagreed were the people with a public agenda like the end the fed guys (which are not anywhere near half of economists) or the small government at all cost tea party types and the people who listened to those people's arguments.

It wasn't an easy prediction. Easy when you look backwards.

The right amount is the key. But nobody knew back in 2009 what that right amount was. It was basically do whatever it takes with QE to make sure the economy doesn't collapse in a few months.

They set aside 700 billion, didn't end up using it all but I'm sure if they needed more they would not have cheapened out at the margins. 700 billion was about 30% of GDP at the time. You telling me QE at 30% GDP = little inflation if you think of it from 2009 shoes.

I don't agree that in 2009 looking forward it was easy call with respects to how much inflation would happen.

The 60's were just a result of years of damage companies and people did to the environment.

Yeah, the Ron paul end the fed types end up helping the fed more than anyone. Drowning out serious criticism of fed policy with dollar crash paranoia that was never a remote possibility. Just because your pediatrician didn't give your kid autism with vaccines doesn't mean he knows what he's doing.

This is correct. Just because I'm right-wing, doesn't mean I think the right-wing has done a good job. The left is not inherently more fiscally responsible in a theoretical sense, but in reality the right has not lived up the ideas they espouse making them even worse than the left imo.

A vibrant woman, Gammy.

Made a mistake in my post. Meant 30% of tax receipts.

Alllllllll thanks to government and the fed.

I have my popcorn ready when drastic austerity measures are put into place. Going to be fun to watch.

I mean, just look at how these zombies behave on Black Friday to get a flat screen. Just imagine when government employees by the 10's of thousands are instantly out of there non essential job and the EBT cards are shut off.

Gonna be a bloodbath.

Where are the right wing leaders running the country??? We haven't had right winger constitutionalists running the country or on any majority of congress in over 100 years.

I hope you aren't going to tell me Bush was a right winger like our great founding fathers and early presidents were..... Are you?

Right wingers in Washington are extinct and have been for a looooong time .

Dude, you scam rubes with medical coupons for a living

???

Like the government scams the unwashed masses and poor with currency inflation and interest rate manipulation to benefit the politically well connected and Wall Street?

Not sure why you have a problem with whoever you have a problem with above. If you are in fact a big government supporter.

People are often way too over-confident about what they know (or as you suggest are just laughing), particularly on stuff like this. We still don't now how it will play out and there was never only one possibility.

But that doesn't mean it wasn't an easy decision - the good thing to do was to avoid the mess in the first place but once the **** hit the fan then what possible alternative to QE or something along those lines was there? All possible options sucked and risked consequences in the future because the underlying damage had already been done.

Any real difference between left and right on this issue is about regulation and economic management to avoid future problems.

Long-term everything will probably be fine because of innovation making peoples lives easier, creating abundance in essential resources, businesses becoming more efficient etc

If this didn't happen and the world looks largely the same in 20-25 years as it does right now, then we could begin to have problems.

Factoring the effects globalization into this is very challenging as well.

So you know people who cheat on their taxes, and suspect that there is widespread cheating? Cool story bro. Maybe that works for some superrich living purely on investments. Lots of rich people have lots of income specifically from California sources so this just isn't gonna work for them.

Did you miss where I said just increase immigration?

Well, to be fair, the people he "knows" who do this don't exist. So it doesn't really "work for them", either.

I'm sure the half dozen people who actually live in CA (pop. 39 million) but claim to live in their weekend Tahoe house in NV (pop. 3 million) are just absolutely wreaking havoc on the Bay Area's tax rolls.

Ya my point was that private property laws were not protecting the environment back then. So I'm not sure why Ron Paul and his ilk would think they would in the future should we abolished the EPA.

Lol QE successful? The problem with QE is that when you start doing it you can't stop! QE4 is going to be bigger than 1 2 and 3 combined. This is supposed to be the end of the recovery and we are already worse off now than before the 2008 collapse. The patient needs rehab, not more drugs, or he will crash harder.

Sorry, but you are way off if you think there is a good chance that this is going to be some mild downturn. It is going to be really really bad.

And the sick part is if it wasn't for all these QE's and manipulated low interest rates. The economy wouldn't have had anywhere near the severe downturn that we are going to have as a result of all the fed and government manipulation and QE. We would have been well past a REAL recovery already. Instead we have a huge bubble and no real recovery, and a really bad downturn coming.

It's the drugs that is killing us... Not the illness.

What huge bubble?

Of course there is distorted true value of stocks. This stock market bubble the last 7 years fueled by the fed is just paper profits that is going to collapse. There's no real wealth being created to justify the increase in the stock market. Just like there was no real wealth being created before the 08 collapse, just paper profits that got erased. And it is going to happen again but even bigger this time.

Insert meme of someone glaring at you in disbelief.