Shutdown

[Guinevere]

Not only that, but the House Idiots also included the ridiculous "conscience clause" would allow an employer or an insurance company to opt out of preventive care for women, i.e. birth control.

[Econoline]

Jim, don't you get it? The whole POINT of EVERYTHING the house Republicans have been doing is to SHUT DOWN THE GOVERNMENT. It took them a while to settle on one particular pretext. but this has been their goal all along. It's not a bug, it's a feature.

[Econoline]

And, oh, BTW (speaking of "compromise")...The Senate Continuing Resolution is ALREADY a big compromise:

[rubato]

The Republican party continues to implode. Now Boehner is such a complete coward that he is letting 30 out of 232 Republican representatives "force" him to do something completely stupid even in narrow partisan terms. They tried this before and it backfired completely. This time it will be even worse.

The shutdown will hurt a lot of individuals and the economy overall as it goes on. Everyone knows who did this.



yrs,
rubato

[Guinevere]

Jim, don't you get it? The whole POINT of EVERYTHING the house Republicans have been doing is to SHUT DOWN THE GOVERNMENT. It took them a while to settle on one particular pretext. but this has been their goal all along. It's not a bug, it's a feature.

He is exactly right. The debate over the ACA is cover for the larger purpose - demonstrate the the world doesn't end because the government is shut down so to keep chipping away at it. The teapartyists hate government of any kind.

[oldr_n_wsr]

And we're down to complete mindless whinging.


yrs,
rubato

So you don't understand how a business can expand without spending more money.
Gotcha.
You must not work in the private sector.

[Guinevere]

So you flunked arithmetic? If you add jobs here and then cut jobs there you are not "hiring more people". "Hiring more people" means you have MORE people hired afterwards than before.

My net outlay may still be zero. Get rid of one highly paid person, hire x-ammount lesser paid employees. Or some part timers. I may even save money and expand. by the way, more than a few companies have gotten rid of older long time employees who have large salaries and hired less experienced but qualified people. 2-1 or 3-1 was not unheard of. Expansion

Or not a buy a piece of equipment and hire one or more people (expand) for the same or less the equipment cost.

Move location or renegotiate your lease allowing you to hire (expand) with $0 dollar outlay. Again, nore than a few companies have left high tax areas to settle in lower tax areas using the tax savings to hire more people (expand). Or negotiate with teh gov entities and get some tax breaks again using that money to hire more people (expand) with a $0 outlay.

Guess you never lived on a budget or figure out how to do more with less.

Do you work in the government accounting office?

Oldr, many of those things are not without costs. Moving isn't free. Foregoing equipment to hire may mean the people hired are less efficient without that equipment. Negotiations cost money too -- attorney's fees and other costs of the process. And not a whole lot of landlords will provide lease concessions for nothing.

[rubato]

And we're down to complete mindless whinging.


yrs,
rubato

So you don't understand how a business can expand without spending more money.
Gotcha.
You must not work in the private sector.

An even more stupid and disconnected from the topic at hand response to bolster a dumb comment.

You were trying, and failing, to show how the government could create new departments, hire more people, and not spend more money.

Run along, you've lost but are too dishonest to admit it.


yrs,
rubato

[rubato]

Jim, don't you get it? The whole POINT of EVERYTHING the house Republicans have been doing is to SHUT DOWN THE GOVERNMENT. It took them a while to settle on one particular pretext. but this has been their goal all along. It's not a bug, it's a feature.

You could be right. They were hoping to crash the economy again and try to blame it on someone else this time.


yrs,
rubato

[oldr_n_wsr]

You were trying, and failing, to show how the government could create new departments, hire more people, and not spend more money.

You're right, the government could never expand and not spend more money.

The private sector however can and does.

[Crackpot]

only if they were already profitable. (or taking govt handouts)

[oldr_n_wsr]

By implementing efficiencies I was able to hire more people (expand) and boost (expand) output with a net cost to the department of $0. Actually it was less than zero as the efficiencies gained saved more money than the cost of the new hires. A double win for the company, less cost and more output. And an added win for those we hired as they now have a job.

[rubato]

Bloombery throws the Republicans under a bus:

http://www.businessweek.com/articles/20 ... gn_id=yhoo

Republicans lost the legislative battle against Obamacare in Congress in 2010, then lost the political battle when President Obama was reelected in 2012 (along with a Democratic majority in the Senate). Like Medicare and Social Security before it, Obamacare is offensive to some conservatives on principle and to others on political grounds. The law’s conservative origins aside, that’s hardly surprising: Obamacare intrudes on the health-care and insurance markets and creates new bureaucracies to boot. If successful, it may also, as some Republicans fear, create new Democratic voters.
...

Yet Republicans have never grappled honestly with the law, resorting to hyperbolic denunciations without offering a viable alternative for public consideration. When the House majority leader calls a law to extend health insurance an “atrocity,” it’s hard to ignore the signs of panic.

[rubato]

Tea-Party America wants more and even poorer poor people.



stupid but true!

yrs,
rubato

[Econoline]

Why is it that the ones who so loudly and constantly trumpet the un-Constitutionality of the ACA completely ignore the completely Constitutional process that it went through? Congress passed the law? Check. The President signed the law? Check. The Supreme Court ruled on the Constitutionality of the law after it was challenged? Check. Also commonly ignored is the fact that we had a little referendum about a year ago where repeal of the ACA was one of the centerpieces of the Republican campaign. So now, we're subjected to yet another hostage crisis by the folks who lost and lost big.

Is it just me, or are the teabaggers playing a huge game of Calvinball? "Nuh-uh! We did NOT lose! You forgot to tag ninth base while hopping on one leg and singing 'God Bless the USA!'"

-- shamelessly stolen by me from an anonymous commenter in the "Comments" section of this post at one of my favoritest-EVAR blogs, Stonekettle Station...because that guy there said it *PERFECTLY* (also, anyone who can reference "Calvin and Hobbes" while simultaneously skewering the Tea Party truly deserves immortality!)

[rubato]

And we're into day 5 of "America Held Hostage"


http://economistsview.typepad.com/econo ... tdown.html

Comments on the Federal Government Shutdown

Two of my colleagues have comments on the government shutdown (for more comments from University of Oregon faculty from other departments, see here, and more comments should be added over the next few days):

Tim Duy

Professor of practice and senior director of the Oregon Economic Forum

UO Department of Economics

A protracted shutdown creates another headwind to an economy still struggling to regain ground lost during the last recession. Moody's Analytics, for example, estimates that a month-long shutdown would cost the U.S. economy $55 billion. As a result, we will see only slower resolution of pressing problems such as the crisis in long-term unemployment or stagnant median income growth for households. Moreover, the possibility of default on U.S. debt payments threatens the stability of the financial system at its core and could trigger a crisis that leads to another recession, pushing the economy back deeper into the hole. No faction in Congress should find it acceptable to hold the American economy hostage like this for any reason.

George W. Evans

John B. Hamacher Chair of Economics

UO Department of Economics

The partial government shutdown will operate as a perverse fiscal policy, adding negative pressure to a tepid recovery. The reduction in government spending will directly and indirectly act to reduce GDP and employment in the US, with spillover effects on Europe and the rest of the world. Given the weakness of the recovery in the U.S., this is a dangerous “policy.” The chairman of the Federal Reserve has made it clear that there are some adverse fiscal shocks that it may not be possible to offset with monetary policy. A failure to increase the debt limit would additionally test those limits, because it would make conceivable the possibility of default on U.S. federal government obligations, and because default risk would lead to higher interest rates. Both the partial government shutdown, if it continues for a significant length of time, and a failure to increase the debt limit, would increase the probability that the U.S. economy returns to recession. The House of Representatives should immediately pass a “clean” continuing resolution, to end the partial shutdown, and vote a “no strings” increase in the debt limit.

yrs,
rubato

[Guinevere]

I ban Econo for failing to check his inbox.

Oh, wait, wrong thread.

But check your PMs anyway......

[rubato]

Maybe they are just a bunch of mean drunks?


http://www.salon.com/2013/10/01/grayson ... n_the_job/

Tuesday, Oct 1, 2013 11:23 AM PST
Grayson blames shutdown on GOP literally drinking on the job
"Many of them seem loaded," the liberal congressman says, charging his GOP colleagues smelled like alcohol
By Josh Eidelson

Alan Grayson (Credit: AP/Evan Vucci)

In a Tuesday interview, Rep. Alan Grayson charged that Republican House members have been literally intoxicated while casting votes on the continuing resolutions that set the stage for today’s government shutdown. Noting “a number of public reports that you can smell alcohol on their breath as they’re voting gleefully to shut down the government and create chaos,” Grayson said that he had personally witnessed GOP colleagues smelling like alcohol. “Many of them seem loaded,” said Grayson. The Florida congressman declined to name names, saying, “it’s the usual suspects,” but that he didn’t “really feel like getting that personal with people.”

A spokesperson for Speaker John Boehner did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Politico reporter Ginger Gibson tweeted Saturday that she could “smell the booze wafting from members as they walk off the floor.”

Grayson said he thinks on-the-job alcohol consumption by GOP House members has “been a problem all year long.”

“It’s a fact we all have to live with,” Grayson told Salon, “and it’s making them violent and abusive towards America.”

... "

yrs,
rubato

[Lord Jim]

Maybe they are just a bunch of mean drunks?

And your excuse would be what?

That you're a kind hearted drunk?....

[Econoline]

Is it just me, or are the teabaggers playing a huge game of Calvinball? "Nuh-uh! We did NOT lose! You forgot to tag ninth base while hopping on one leg and singing 'God Bless the USA!'"

anyone who can reference "Calvin and Hobbes" while simultaneously skewering the Tea Party truly deserves immortality!