Are You Good at Counting Lies?
I received this video in an email from MoveOn.org yesterday. The email read:
Dear MoveOn member,
Do you have a conservative uncle, or someone in your family that you've gone 'round and 'round with over the budget fight that nearly shut down our federal government? Or did you find the whole thing totally impenetrable as the story seemed to change daily? Well, here's a video that breaks it down. It's a quick, funny, and honest explanation of what's actually happening in D.C. Check it out, and then share it with anyone you think could benefit from a little straight talk.
We need to have a real national conversation about how we can address the deficit. This video can help kick that off, but only if you share it.
I've now watched this video a couple of times, in an attempt to figure out how many lies, falsehoods, and misrepresentations are in it. I think I've counted 15.
Grab a pencil and paper and see if you can find as many lies as I did - or if you can find more!
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Jan '11
Re: Are You Good at Counting Lies?
One or 15, enough is as good as a feast.
Now, if you're after grading magnitudes, there you might stimulate some interesting speculations.
Jul '10
Re: Are You Good at Counting Lies?
This is on par with The Story of Stuff http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gLBE5QAYXp8. Both appeal to the barely literate - politically, economically, and in the case of Stuff, also ecologically. Both appeal to these peoples' emotions.
What a way to earn votes. Sadly, though, it works. Conservatives need to take a page from their playbook and fight back with the truth. Hard.
A quick count yielded 11 - need to go back...
Jun '10
Re: Are You Good at Counting Lies?
OK. Time to get Keynesian with my fellow conservatives. Deficit spending is required in a growing economy. New dollars must be created to meet aggregate demand. In a time of high unemployment and low productivity and output, huge non-government savings and high trade deficit, Government spending is all there is to pick up the slack. With this in mind, there is no immediate threat of inflation. Granted, commodity prices are high, but that is directly related to the price of oil. The US is not broke and cannot go broke. Spending constraints are political. We issue our own currency. Tax revenue is not required to spend. The federal government is not beholden to the rules of state, local and household budgets. Our dollars value is based on our productive capacity to provide goods and services. The government exists to provide the most ideal environment for that productivity. I will concede govt. waste, inefficiency, cronyism and fraud, but cutting Medicare and Social Security and Education etc. will only deepen a recession and send us along the same path Japan has taken the last 20 years. Once everyone is working and productive, then we'll cut deficits.
May '10
Re: Are You Good at Counting Lies?
At the risk of perpetuating this tangent, I'll bite: so, the deficit isn't a problem? Inflation and higher interest rates don't threaten growth?
Hey, I guess it worked for Zimbabwe.
May '10
Re: Are You Good at Counting Lies?
Why is removing private sector disincentives (i.e., high taxes, economic and fiscal uncertainty) not a better way to increase, or even preserve, our productive capacity that leaving it to the government?
Dec '10
Re: Are You Good at Counting Lies?
Robert Kelly: OK. Time to get Keynesian with my fellow conservatives.
· Apr 23 at 7:46pm
Perhaps you could point out just what it is that makes you a fellow conservative?
Heck, if cutting social programs will only make us weaker, I suppose we could increase those programs and really light the rockets.
Jan '11
Re: Are You Good at Counting Lies?
So, "Deficit spending is required in a growing economy."
Right. And our economy is growing, is it?
As you explain it, the solution is clear: Print more money, raise taxes, expand our foreign debt burden, disincentivise small business start-ups with more regulations, increase union participation in business decisions, and extend unemployment benefits. Oh, and yes, reload the bail-out and stimulus pipelines. Works for anyone without a sense of direction, I suppose.
Dec '10
Re: Are You Good at Counting Lies?
Big Mike is a doofus. The fluff and sweeping statements he makes to denigrate Republican/conservative strategies for managing our current fiscal crisis/es are typical of his ilk. Talking points are all they ever have. For one thing, educational spending is proven at least wasteful given the results and trends in our system. Removing or cutting the Department of Education would be a good first start given the return on our investment.
The Keynesian stuff is as condescending as Big Mike. It does not work that way in reality. Why does that seem so hard for people to admit. Theory is just that. If capital gains were slashed and taxes lowered on individuals and business(except GE) and government regulations were lessened where proven unecessary, just stand back and watch the deficit disappear. Oh yeah, and cut spending. Then freeze the debt ceiling and start to lower it so beaurocrats won't have to figure out where to spend all the excess revenue.
Re: Are You Good at Counting Lies?
The federal government is spending more this year than it's ever spent before. Yet, we're going backward. Keynesian theology = fail.
Aug '10
Re: Are You Good at Counting Lies?
Mr. Kelly,
1. Aggregate demand is a fallacy. How can the demand of 300+ million people be aggregated? We all have different preferences on different days. What is the correct amount of deficit spending to met AG? We have unlimited wants and demands so why doesn't the government create an unlimited amount of debt?
2. Why are new dollars needed to met increased demand? If tomorrow Obama decided GM had to manufacture 1,000,000 Volts why does the money supply need to increase so GM can sell the Volts? The price of the Volt would need to drop to met the ability of costumers to pay.
3. Savings not debt are the driver of economic growth. The more we save the more we invest the more growth we have.
Dec '10
Re: Are You Good at Counting Lies?
Keynes is one of the three most overrated intellects of all time.
Why don't we just break all the windows, then everybody can be rich!
Jul '10
Re: Are You Good at Counting Lies?
Keynes prescribed maintaining government spending at pre-recessionary levels even if borrowing was required to avoid deepening the downturn. The scenario he had in mind was one in which revenue and expenditures were closely matched.
There is nothing, not a single, solitary thing, about this preposterous $4 trillion spree of waste, corruption, and road signs that in any way has earned being associated with any economist more credible than the devil spawn satan hound Krugman. All of that $4 trillion represents spending and borrowing increases over the pre-recession baseline.
When John Maynard Keynes was alive and feckless crap weasel politicians tried to pull this kind of stunt "in his name," he would cheerfully call them out for what they were in print and broadcast.
Our current batch of drooling losers are pretending that their world record political payoff and road side sign campaign is good monetary policy and good jobs policy. These wretched, decrepit, incompetent wind bags have given America the amazing shrinking workforce and double digit inflation. The catastrophe they have created dwarfs the one they claimed to be solving.
Aug '10
Re: Are You Good at Counting Lies?
As a hater of Keynes, the Neo-Keynesians are giving him a bad name. Massive government deficits were never advocated by Keynes. He wanted government spending to fill the gap of private sector spending during a downturn then fade away when the private sector returned. But he was wrong:
Think of a balloon. If you blow up a balloon until it pops then you keep blowing hoping to keep the balloon inflated then your breath is wasted. That is the theory of Keynes. After a massive bubble has been inflated and burst the government should try and reflate the balloon.
Oct '10
Re: Are You Good at Counting Lies?
Eww, gross, the far left groupthink. I'm not sure I can stomach it, but I'll give that video a try.
Oct '10
Re: Are You Good at Counting Lies?
I got two-thirds through the video. It amazes me he could demagogue tax reform with a straight face--Obama himself claims to support it! Certainly "get rid of Medicare" isn't true--especially not with those 55 or older grandfathered into the current system.
His rhetoric on the 2011 cuts didn't work very well, either. The "Bush tax cuts for the wealthy" rhetoric hasn't been as effective since Obama fought tooth and nail to save the "middle-class tax cuts"--oh, so Bush really did cut taxes for everyone, not just the rich?
There are pieces of the Bush tax cuts I dislike, but this idea that the problems are somehow limited to the cuts on the upper end is absurd. Paul Ryan's tax reform is an excellent way to solve the problem.
Oct '10
Re: Are You Good at Counting Lies?
Nattering nabob of negativity
Mr. Kelly,
1. Aggregate demand is a fallacy. How can the demand of 300+ million people be aggregated? We all have different preferences on different days. What is the correct amount of deficit spending to met AG? We have unlimited wants and demands so why doesn't the government create an unlimited amount of debt?
Aggregate demand is just the sum of Investment + Consumption + Exports + Government Spending - Imports. The left wants to amp up consumption and government spending--which is insane, the financial crisis was caused by precisely that--while the right generally focuses on investment and exports (aka the national savings rate, the single most important variable for both).
Robert is correct that a growing economy requires new dollars. However, it doesn't require very many of them--3 percent a year or so, if I remember right--and it doesn't require federal deficits (if there aren't enough Treasury bonds for the Fed to implement monetary policy it can simply buy government-guaranteed debt instead).
Edited on April 24, 2011 at 11:03amMay '10
Re: Are You Good at Counting Lies?
Every word, including 'and' and 'the'.
Jul '10
Re: Are You Good at Counting Lies?
Piling on:
The government exists to secure the Rights and Freedoms of Individual Citizens.
Apr '11
Re: Are You Good at Counting Lies?
But Japan did do exactly what you are advocating. That is what sent them along the path that they have taken for the last 20 years. Your own example undermines your entire point.
May '10
Re: Are You Good at Counting Lies?
Thank you, Kevin, for your public service. I will pass up the opportunity to watch this video myself, for the same reason that I get my dose of reality TV from The Soup.