Fogbow

Slim Cognito wrote: ↑Fri Sep 23, 2022 3:07 pm I've been told that, if you have to tell people you're smart...you're not.

Sort of like if you're stupid, you'll never know it.

So she's a "right" angle?

All bent out of shape

sugar magnolia wrote: ↑Sun Oct 02, 2022 7:09 pm So she's a "right" angle?

Yeah, but she’s also “obtuse”!

He's sitting there talking about Trump, and he is raging on Bill Clinton for having a blow Job? And considering that the Bill Left W with an Unemployment rate of 3.4%?

I haven't watched the video but that's what the guy should have asked the guy. Not only that bu Obama had a Job growth rate that Trump never matched in his 3 pre-covid years, so what's with the "no jobs" bullshit?

Suranis wrote: ↑Wed Oct 05, 2022 7:32 pm He's sitting there talking about Trump, and he is raging on Bill Clinton for having a blow Job? And considering that the Bill Left W with an Unemployment rate of 3.4%?

. . . and a balanced budget.

noblepa wrote: ↑Thu Oct 06, 2022 9:46 am

Suranis wrote: ↑Wed Oct 05, 2022 7:32 pm He's sitting there talking about Trump, and he is raging on Bill Clinton for having a blow Job? And considering that the Bill Left W with an Unemployment rate of 3.4%?

. . . and a balanced budget.

Not true -- Clinton left Bush with a budget surplus.

Slarti the White wrote: ↑Thu Oct 06, 2022 1:38 pm

noblepa wrote: ↑Thu Oct 06, 2022 9:46 am

Suranis wrote: ↑Wed Oct 05, 2022 7:32 pm He's sitting there talking about Trump, and he is raging on Bill Clinton for having a blow Job? And considering that the Bill Left W with an Unemployment rate of 3.4%?

. . . and a balanced budget.

Not true -- Clinton left Bush with a budget surplus.

True, but to be honest it was a pretty small surplus. But it was a surplus.

The point is that Bush promptly turned that small surplus into a huge deficit. It seems that the budget deficits have been the largest (and therefore added the most to the national debt) under Republican presidents, who always scream about the Democrats "tax and spend" policies.

BIDEN IS A SUICIDE BOMBER

An actual Subject for an e-mail I received today from Wayne Allyn Root.

The loonie is deep in that one.

The body gets worse:

Our country is being destroyed. It’s clearly a purposeful communist attack upon America from a thousand different directions. But the President isn’t Biden. He is just the figurehead/puppet. The real president is Obama.

noblepa wrote: ↑Thu Oct 06, 2022 2:14 pm

Slarti the White wrote: ↑Thu Oct 06, 2022 1:38 pm

noblepa wrote: ↑Thu Oct 06, 2022 9:46 am


. . . and a balanced budget.

Not true -- Clinton left Bush with a budget surplus.

True, but to be honest it was a pretty small surplus. But it was a surplus.

The point is that Bush promptly turned that small surplus into a huge deficit. It seems that the budget deficits have been the largest (and therefore added the most to the national debt) under Republican presidents, who always scream about the Democrats "tax and spend" policies.

Back in the middle of Obama's presidency, I looked at the raw treasury data on the deficit. If you consider the budgets as belonging to the president who was in office when they were passed (i.e. the previous year's president) it is clear that deficits go down durning Democratic presidencies and go up during Republican ones. The difference was truly striking.

Actually, this is something where an understanding of basic calculus is very helpful. Consider the debt as a function of time since the start of Reagan's presidency. If you just look at the function itself, it is (mostly) going up -- each President has a more or less higher debt than the one before, but if we unpack that in light of what I said above, each Republican president comes into office with the debt trending down slightly in their first year in office (from the previous Democratic administration). Which gives them cover for, for instance, the tax cuts they are so fond of which dramatically increase the debt as their terms go on. On the other hand, Democrats tend to come into office with huge deficits built by their predecessors which means that, regardless of what they do, there will be an unprecedented level of debt by the end of their first year in office. The Republicans have used this appearance of Democratic fiscal irresponsibility (and their superior skill at messaging) to make the debt their issue throughout my lifetime. But if you do the math, so to speak, a very different picture emerges...

In calculus, we find that knowing about a function's derivatives are key to understanding its behavior. So let's differentiate D(t). The first derivative is, of course, the rate of change of the debt over time -- i.e. the deficit. From what I said above, we can infer that this tends to rise during Republican administrations and fall durning Democratic ones. Still, while the deficit may wax and wane, it is mostly positive, meaning that the debt is increasing the vast majority of the time. Too, also, this "velocity" of the debt doesn't radically change because it is, after all, bound by a serious amount of inertia. While it is a better illustration of the difference between D and R administrations, it still isn't that great. Which brings us to the second derivative...

If we look at the rate of change of the deficit, things become clearer: the acceleration of the debt tends to be positive for Republican administrations and negative for Democratic ones. As this is where policy decisions effect things, this is where their impact comes into better definition: since each new budget is based on the previous years, interventions are directly effecting the second derivative, not the debt or the deficit. Finally, it is instructive to consider the third derivative of the debt (known as the "jerk"). The jerk shows where changes in policy happen -- how big they are and in what direction. I would suspect (this is a pretty sparse data set on which to look at third derivatives) that when administrations change from D to R that there follows a large positive jerk and when the opposite happens that we have a (smaller) negative jerk.

I can't say why the debt isn't analyzed using these (relatively) simple mathematical tools, but it certainly seems to me that the Republicans have been able to make great strides in controlling the narrative around the debt because no one talks about this stuff.

Just my $0.019999999...

Absolutely. I don't know calculus, but that all makes sense.

Also, see The Two Santa Claus Theory, Jude Wanniski, late 70s, so just in time for Reagan.

Slarti the White wrote: ↑Thu Oct 06, 2022 7:21 pm

Back in the middle of Obama's presidency, I looked at the raw treasury data on the deficit. If you consider the budgets as belonging to the president who was in office when they were passed (i.e. the previous year's president) it is clear that deficits go down durning Democratic presidencies and go up during Republican ones. The difference was truly striking.

You been reading Steve Stoft's zFacts haven't you?

I think this zFact post shows what you are trying to say Balanced Budgets – Tax Cuts

An excellent essay on Voodoo Economics that does a great, if simple, takedown on supply-side.

Another good essay on Who Owns The National Debt?

keith wrote: ↑Thu Oct 06, 2022 8:42 pm

Slarti the White wrote: ↑Thu Oct 06, 2022 7:21 pm

Back in the middle of Obama's presidency, I looked at the raw treasury data on the deficit. If you consider the budgets as belonging to the president who was in office when they were passed (i.e. the previous year's president) it is clear that deficits go down durning Democratic presidencies and go up during Republican ones. The difference was truly striking.

You been reading Steve Stoft's zFacts haven't you?

I think this zFact post shows what you are trying to say Balanced Budgets – Tax Cuts

An excellent essay on Voodoo Economics that does a great, if simple, takedown on supply-side.

Another good essay on Who Owns The National Debt?

Never seen that site until I followed your link. As I said, I looked at the data somewhere around the end of Obama's first term and did the math. The author at zFact is making a causal argument about policy that could be supported by the data that I'm talking about, but I'm just talking about what the data says (correlation not causation). I'm not trying to make a political argument, I'm just suggesting that people who are trying to make a political argument (at least regarding the debt/deficit) would be well served by an understanding of the underlying math and data.

Slarti the White wrote: ↑Thu Oct 06, 2022 9:05 pm


Never seen that site until I followed your link. As I said, I looked at the data somewhere around the end of Obama's first term and did the math. The author at zFact is making a causal argument about policy that could be supported by the data that I'm talking about, but I'm just talking about what the data says (correlation not causation). I'm not trying to make a political argument, I'm just suggesting that people who are trying to make a political argument (at least regarding the debt/deficit) would be well served by an understanding of the underlying math and data.

Yeah, Stoft's an economist that has been putting this stuff since around the Obama days, that's when I found it.

He's got another chart mapping Republican Congresses vs Democrat Congresses and the budgets the associated President asked for and the budgets they got. It's another eye opener, but I can't find it now. I seem to recall that it showed Democrat Congresses reign in Presidents requests much more than Republican Congresses - no matter which party is in the White House.

Rambo ought to sue for something or other

Gross.

Someone needs to make a poster of him as he would actually appear.

Candy doesn’t rot your brain, RWNJ media does.

Ron Filipkowski 🇺🇦!@RonFilipkowski wrote: Guy at Trump rally says Obama caused Putin to invade Ukraine because he built bio weapons labs there and made them give up nuclear weapons. Also says he understands why Russia invaded because Ukrainians are all Nazis, but the media won’t say that.

raison de arizona wrote: ↑Fri Oct 07, 2022 3:53 pm < snip image of rambohulktrump >

Shame it's not a full length picture — we can't see the legendary home spurs that give him Incredible powers.

Sam the Centipede wrote: ↑Sun Oct 09, 2022 4:43 am

raison de arizona wrote: ↑Fri Oct 07, 2022 3:53 pm < snip image of rambohulktrump >

Shame it's not a full length picture — we can't see the legendary home spurs that give him Incredible powers.

Y'see, what happened was they treated those bone spurs with an experimental gamma ray dose, don'tcha know.