quote:Heather Childers, a "straight news" anchor for the Fox News weekend program America's News Headquarters and co-host of Fox & Friends First, tweeted this afternoon: "Thoughts? Did Obama Campaign Threaten Chelsea Clinton's Life 2 Keep Parents Silent?" and linked to a blog post pushing a conspiracy involving the Obama campaign murdering, or threatening to murder, individuals to keep quiet questions about Obama's eligibility.
India's GDP growth has been pretty steady around 9% for the last decade. I'd be interested in what metric of economic growth the Economist article considered.
Vadon-
I absolutely agree with your take on the tax-and-spend vs. taxcut-and-spend issue. I think Republicans' (including Romney's) dogmatic aversion to increased tax rates is hugely problematic for our nation's long-term financial health. When we've engaged in wars, historically, the wealthy class has paid for them through significantly increased taxation. The same should happen today. Furthermore, I don't think there's a viable way (Ryan's plan notwithstanding) to sustain entitlement spending without 1) significantly cutting aggregate benefits, either through excluding some people currently covered or by scaling back coverage (or both) and 2) increasing middle-class (and upper-class) taxes.
Destineer-
I agree that, to some degree we're responsible for those deaths. In fact I said as much in my post. But I don't think we're majorly culpable, which I why I disputed the imputation of hundreds of thousands of innocents' deaths to US foreign policy. I think the moral question is how many excess deaths were caused by intervention. That's not something that can really be answered, since we can't run some sort of controlled experiment on history. But I do think you can make a credible argument, based on similar civil wars where the US was not involved, that it's much lower than the total number of deaths.
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There are absolutely some problems and people will do it differently and come to different conclusions but it is absolutely something that can and has been studied.
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Blayne Bradley
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quote:Originally posted by SenojRetep: Japan's state-directed capitalism hasn't saved it from the crippling economic stagnation it's been suffering through for the past twenty years. Nor will China's in the long run. National economies without significant state involvement, like India's, can grow just as fast (or faster), and are more adaptive to changing circumstances.
I dispute your knowledge of history as being accurate here, firstly you presume that state interventionism will harm china in the long run, but so far there has been no evidence of this aside from the truism you just stated. This is noticible when one remembers there is in fact considerable evidence that state intervention in China's housing bubble saved them from the worst effects and as a bonus,directed most of the downsides to the individuals responsible for perpetuating the bubble. Such as regulations designed to curb people from owning dozens of empty buildings and waiting for the price to rise and use the rising cost to buy more buildings and so on. Doing it the American way and the problem would have been worse.
Japan's government intervention arguably staved off a Great Depression and maintained their level of GDP and is what popped the bubble in the first place by raising interest rates. Austerity is hurting greece right now, you need the government to be keep things pushing.
Also going to point out that China might be in some ways even more laissez faire then the United States with less regulations and the ones that do exist not enforced, how's that been working out for them?
There are absolutely some problems and people will do it differently and come to different conclusions but it is absolutely something that can and has been studied.
Those are estimates of total excess deaths due to the war itself, which is significantly different than what I was talking about. They're also interesting, but significantly flawed, based on data that's become available since the time they were performed. They seem to overestimate deaths by about an order of magnitude.
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I was primarily thinking of the Wikileaks counts (which put the total around 110,000 for 2004-2009; including the initial invasion might bump that by 10-20 thousand. Note that this estimate covers a longer time frame than the surveys you cite, including the peak of the civil war from June 2006-Aug. 2007). There are also well-sourced estimates from the AP and the Iraq Body Count project that comport with the Wikileaks derived estimates, as well as the official estimates of the Iraqi Health Ministry.
Both the studies you cite* are indirect estimates, in that they're based on family surveys rather than first-hand accounts. The fact that well-sourced estimates are much lower than the indirect estimates leads me to question the accuracy of the indirect estimates.
*I confess that I was at first confused about the Iraq Family Health study, which isn't 'orders of magnitude' off of the primary-sourced estimates. I thought you were referencing the highly questionable Opinion Research Business survey that put the low end of their 95% confidence interval on the number of deaths higher than any of the mean estimates of other prominent studies. However, the family health study is still an indirect estimate based on survey respondents and subject to the same problems of data non-independence due to non-uniform sampling and possible overlapping counts.
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India's GDP growth has been pretty steady around 9% for the last decade. I'd be interested in what metric of economic growth the Economist article considered.
Correction: India's economy IS slowing down, GDP growth at the end of last year was down around the 6% mark.
But the problem isn't a lack of government interference, it's too much, or at least (and here's the important distinction), the wrong kind of interference. Tee hee. I must have been tired when I read the article or just skimmed it. But yeah, you might like it now because it backs you up.
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Either way, due to government meddling or lack of same, I'd say the author is making a big deal out of what may be a very temporary deviation. The article is concerned over a quarter of slowed growth (down to 'just' 6.1, or maybe closer to 7.0 after adjustment) from what had been 9 percent over the past several years. One bad quarter does not a narrative make.
That said, this chart does show several consecutive quarters of slowed growth, so maybe there really is something to it.
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Again, back in the land of the actual primaries, Romney evidently pulled a Paul in North Dakota.
quote:Most of North Dakota’s 25 presidential convention delegates will trot off to Tampa this summer as supporters of current frontrunner former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney. But how can that be? Just a few weeks ago North Dakota Republicans gathered in caucuses in every county in the state and (guess what?) handed former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum a convincing win.
Remember that Paul (and Santorum) have previously stated that part of their strategy was to use the non-representativeness of the caucus systems to stack the national delegates with supporters, irrespective of the outcome of the initial straw-poll portion of the caucus. The theory was that their die-hard supporters cared enough to sit around the additional hours after the vote to get seated at the state caucus. Well, it seems it's possible to pull off such a strategy, but not necessarily by either of them.
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Are you going to answer the question as to why China "long term" is going to encounter problems "because" of government intervention? So far all of the issues that make it "fragile superpower" are all only solvable via government direction.
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Honestly Blayne I didn't feel that engaging you in a conversation on why I feel China's government-controlled industrialization will lead to long-term problems was going to be productive for either of us, so I chose not to respond.
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quote:Also going to point out that China might be in some ways even more laissez faire then the United States with less regulations and the ones that do exist not enforced, how's that been working out for them?
Pretty good if you are a government lackey. Pretty crappy if you are an independent entrepreneur. Why are the Chinese manufacturing I-Pads, not inventing them?
Also you underestimate the effects of deregulation, because the government puts a lid on it whenever things bite them in the face. Mysterious illness? Cover it up! Keep shipping the products to the US, they'll check them for problems!
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Blayne Bradley
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quote:Originally posted by SenojRetep: Honestly Blayne I didn't feel that engaging you in a conversation on why I feel China's government-controlled industrialization will lead to long-term problems was going to be productive for either of us, so I chose not to respond.
So you concede?
quote: Pretty good if you are a government lackey. Pretty crappy if you are an independent entrepreneur. Why are the Chinese manufacturing I-Pads, not inventing them?
Also you underestimate the effects of deregulation, because the government puts a lid on it whenever things bite them in the face. Mysterious illness? Cover it up! Keep shipping the products to the US, they'll check them for problems!
This is a pretty terribly constructed argument all things considered.
1) The argument of innovation vs duplication was something I've already discussed at length in another thread, so long as you don't have a stupidly narrownminded view as to what constitutes "innovation" China does plenty of innovation. You could ask "Why is Canada not designing their own planes?" and it would be equally silly.
2) Actually independant entrepreneurs have a pretty good environment to work in, the "China Rises" documentary series I think I vaguely recall linking to had interviews with a bunch of such people, one of them launched the Chinese version of Ebay and competes with it.
3) Finally and again, how is this actually an argument against state intervention? How is it valid on any level? It isn't an issue inherent with state intervention, but a problem specific to those cherry picked issues.
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If that's the kind of victory you really want, I'm a little sad for you.
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Blayne Bradley
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He brought up something that he decided not to substantiate or backup and then cut and run, this is extremely bad form and I feel is a fairly contemptuous form of posting.
He should substantiate or he should concede, there's no validity in entertaining "agree to disagree" stances until this much is shown, that some effort is actually put in, otherwise it's low content you know what and run posting.
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Blayne Bradley
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I don't feel like making a new thread and considering NASA gets talked about here sometimes I would like to take a moment to mention the new anime series "Space Bros" is kinda like Apollo 11 though set in 2020's about two Japanese brothers wanting to get into space as astronauts. So anyone vaguely interested in anime and vaguely interested in NASA should watch it, it's a "serious" anime so no silly cliches.
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quote:This is a pretty terribly constructed argument all things considered.
1) The argument of innovation vs duplication was something I've already discussed at length in another thread, so long as you don't have a stupidly narrownminded view as to what constitutes "innovation" China does plenty of innovation. You could ask "Why is Canada not designing their own planes?" and it would be equally silly.
2) Actually independant entrepreneurs have a pretty good environment to work in, the "China Rises" documentary series I think I vaguely recall linking to had interviews with a bunch of such people, one of them launched the Chinese version of Ebay and competes with it.
3) Finally and again, how is this actually an argument against state intervention? How is it valid on any level? It isn't an issue inherent with state intervention, but a problem specific to those cherry picked issues.
Oh, well, since it's such a terrible argument, and I am a narrow-minded person, I'll not waste anymore of your time Blayne.
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quote:Originally posted by Blayne Bradley: He brought up something that he decided not to substantiate or backup and then cut and run, this is extremely bad form and I feel is a fairly contemptuous form of posting.
You really have no idea how tiresome you are. Keep calling everyone who doesn't play your idiotic games a coward and "contemptuous." Perhaps you enjoy being a figure of fun. I have no idea why, but perhaps you do.
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Blayne Bradley
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Please continue to pretend you live in the Czech republic.
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Speaking of contemptuous and cowardly. Thank you for proving my point.
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Blayne Bradley
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quote:Originally posted by BlackBlade: Blayne:
quote:This is a pretty terribly constructed argument all things considered.
1) The argument of innovation vs duplication was something I've already discussed at length in another thread, so long as you don't have a stupidly narrownminded view as to what constitutes "innovation" China does plenty of innovation. You could ask "Why is Canada not designing their own planes?" and it would be equally silly.
2) Actually independant entrepreneurs have a pretty good environment to work in, the "China Rises" documentary series I think I vaguely recall linking to had interviews with a bunch of such people, one of them launched the Chinese version of Ebay and competes with it.
3) Finally and again, how is this actually an argument against state intervention? How is it valid on any level? It isn't an issue inherent with state intervention, but a problem specific to those cherry picked issues.
Oh, well, since it's such a terrible argument, and I am a narrow-minded person, I'll not waste anymore of your time Blayne.
*shrug* well it is, you raise "why doesn't china innovate?" Why do you raise this question? What does it have to do regarding the original point? It's irrelevant.
The original point was "state interventionism will hurt china in the long run" following on from his point that "National economies without significant state involvement, like India's, can grow just as fast (or faster), and are more adaptive to changing circumstances." Implicitly saying that state direction of the economy is inherently stagnative, making it inherently a discussion of state interventionism vs laissez faire.
You post essentially jumps straights to being about China and cherry picked issues without actually addressing the broader point.
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Blayne Bradley
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quote:Originally posted by Orincoro: Speaking of contemptuous and cowardly. Thank you for proving my point.
That's rich, since you would've answered that regardless of how I responded or not responded, which is essentially indicative of how worthless you, your posting, and you response ultimately are.
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Well, you could have endeavored not to prove that you are a hypocrite when it comes to "decorum," who's only really interested in getting the respect he never deserves while refusing to show the slightest bit to others. So, really, you could have not proved my point. I couldn't have very well said that if you hadn't- not without it looking rather strange. But you did, predictably, so I suppose I should admit that it was inevitable that I would say: "thank you for proving my point," because you're not really capable of changing the reality- that is, me being right, and you being a child.
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quote:Originally posted by Blayne Bradley: He brought up something that he decided not to substantiate or backup and then cut and run, this is extremely bad form and I feel is a fairly contemptuous form of posting.
He should substantiate or he should concede, there's no validity in entertaining "agree to disagree" stances until this much is shown, that some effort is actually put in, otherwise it's low content you know what and run posting.
If you were two random people both without a particular history on this subject who met, a gauntlet was thrown down, and then one preemptively use the "agree to disagree" argument, then I'd back you up, because it would look like a cop out.
But come on Blayne. You've both been here long enough, and you in particular have posted on every Chinese issue of significance under the sun to the point where we all know exactly what you're going to say, and we all know that you aren't going to change your mind. So if he decides that, knowing all this in advance, he'd rather save himself the trouble and not engage in a fruitless conversation, is he really being that awful?
And knowing all that, do you really think he's backing away because he knows he's wrong and can't back himself up, or because he knows that no matter what be brings to the table, you won't accept his thesis?
And when considering that question, then, does opting out of an argument before it starts really amount to "bad form" and "contemptuous" posting?
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quote:Originally posted by Blayne Bradley: He brought up something that he decided not to substantiate or backup and then cut and run, this is extremely bad form and I feel is a fairly contemptuous form of posting.
He should substantiate or he should concede, there's no validity in entertaining "agree to disagree" stances until this much is shown, that some effort is actually put in, otherwise it's low content you know what and run posting.
If you were two random people both without a particular history on this subject who met, a gauntlet was thrown down, and then one preemptively use the "agree to disagree" argument, then I'd back you up, because it would look like a cop out.
But come on Blayne. You've both been here long enough, and you in particular have posted on every Chinese issue of significance under the sun to the point where we all know exactly what you're going to say, and we all know that you aren't going to change your mind. So if he decides that, knowing all this in advance, he'd rather save himself the trouble and not engage in a fruitless conversation, is he really being that awful?
And knowing all that, do you really think he's backing away because he knows he's wrong and can't back himself up, or because he knows that no matter what be brings to the table, you won't accept his thesis?
And when considering that question, then, does opting out of an argument before it starts really amount to "bad form" and "contemptuous" posting?
Posting something he as such "knows" might be contentious and then not back it up is pretty bad form Lyrhawn. Additionally its clear that the thesis is that state interventionism is disadvantagous to the economy, so there's a double duty here, one: to show why this is, and two: why does this apply to china?
It does become questionable if he has good evidence to back up either of these when they so nicely line up in a single statement "long term state interventionism will hurt China" he would need to show both points and why they relate. This however is not an argument that has actually been made or substantiated upon per se on this forum, so you wouldn't know what I would say.
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I know the Pope's position on buggery, but I wonder how he feels about somnophilia... I have no possible way of knowing!
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I'm actually curious, but I suspect there's no real way to get a serious answer: do you really believe that in this exchange you've won against Senoj, Blayne? Or that he was actually reluctant to take up a challenge from you because he doesn't trust his rhetorical skill and the validity of his arguments against you? Or is this rather just a means by which you can drive him from the field, so to speak, and declare victory, and you know it? That whole matter is one which will most likely get nothing but shades of 'I was perfectly reasonable and my arguments were just too good' as it ever does, but still. I'm curious. I suspect nobody else would characterize Senoj as reluctant to take up a challenge, but perhaps you really are the one to lay him out, so to speak.
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Blayne: this is one of those times where everything you think you are utilizing strategically in your favor is really just working against you, no matter how many words you devote to insisting that this exchange is you winning against someone else conceding thus making your point stronger.
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And just as a general rule of thumb, if you are arguing with someone one of the poorest indicators that you've "won" the argument is declaring it so yourself.
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Blayne Bradley
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quote:Originally posted by Rakeesh: I'm actually curious, but I suspect there's no real way to get a serious answer: do you really believe that in this exchange you've won against Senoj, Blayne? Or that he was actually reluctant to take up a challenge from you because he doesn't trust his rhetorical skill and the validity of his arguments against you? Or is this rather just a means by which you can drive him from the field, so to speak, and declare victory, and you know it? That whole matter is one which will most likely get nothing but shades of 'I was perfectly reasonable and my arguments were just too good' as it ever does, but still. I'm curious. I suspect nobody else would characterize Senoj as reluctant to take up a challenge, but perhaps you really are the one to lay him out, so to speak.
You post something, you are obligated to take responsibility for those words, if your right then you should take the time to explain why you think you are right and put effort into your posting. If you don't feel like it you really shouldn't have posted it in the first place, because you wasted people's time who took the effort to respond to you. This is why it is bad form and I feel that there should be a disincentive to making unsubstantiated statements and then not backing them up. If next week Sen makes another statement about the role of governent in the economy or the long term trends of chinese economic growth and continues to make unsubstantiated arguments is that fair? Of course not, and that is why he should concede the point.
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Blayne, not everyone has the same "rules" about posting as you do. Some of us state things once, as clearly as possible, and are then done. You may not like that style of posting, but it is every bit as valid and "fair" as yours, which some may find overly confrontational.
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Another question: do you think your repeated insistence that someone is chickening out or behaving contemptuously is an incentive to respond as you demand, or an incentive to refrain from discussing a few clusters of issues with you?
(Hint: this is one of those questions about what IS, not what should be. Further hint: how easy is it for you to find someone to have a lengthy discussion with you that follows the sorts of forms you like on, say, Republicans or China?)
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I do like how in this circumstance, blayne's explanation about what senoj's statements are/should be according to blayne's own decorum policy (for others) is pretty legitimately what has most validated senoj's disincentive to engage blayne in the first place.
quote:Originally posted by Rakeesh: Another question: do you think your repeated insistence that someone is chickening out or behaving contemptuously is an incentive to respond as you demand, or an incentive to refrain from discussing a few clusters of issues with you?
(Hint: this is one of those questions about what IS, not what should be. Further hint: how easy is it for you to find someone to have a lengthy discussion with you that follows the sorts of forms you like on, say, Republicans or China?)
% Wise I hardly ever post about Republicans or US politics anywhere nearly as much as other posters here. Additionally I do not believe I've in the past experience people "chickening out" from a conversation, this is arguably the first time.
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I coach speech and debate. I instruct students how to write cases, win arguments, and win rounds in good fashion. They learn how to pick apart an argument based on logical fallacies, the importance of substantiating claims with evidence, and how to persuade different kinds of people to their position. I teach them how to win.
But the most important lesson I teach is that in the real world, debate isn't about winning and losing. What I'm coaching is a competitive event, a game. Debating a real person isn't about finding weaknesses in their arguments and trying to exploit them. Debate is about trying to find the truth or the closest thing to it. There's no "winning" a real-world debate unless everybody wins, there's no judge to give you points, no trophies at the end of the day. The only thing you can hope to gain is that some progress has been made in understanding the issue you discussed.
I have a competitive drive. I fully understand why it can be frustrating to present an argument you spent a lot of time writing only to be ignored. But that's the way it is, sometimes. Rather than be contemptuous with people for not engaging me, I choose to figure out why no one engaged me. It has never been because they're weak-willed or operated in poor faith. At worst, it's because they weren't interested. And that's not an inherently bad thing.
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India's various levels of government have been ultra-strongly involved in micromanaging its economy, down to the smallest of its small businesses, since Independence. It is only after China's EconomicMiracle had totally blown away India's pretense to equivalent economic/military might that India has allowed some economic reforms to get the worst of the highly bribable politicians&bureaucrats outta business micromanagement.
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meh... Extremist rightwing funding of FactCheck and economic rightwing Republican funding of PolitiFact have always been the primary influence on those organizations output. If ya ain't willing to lie to the point just short of making yourself look obviously absurd, ya don't work there for long.
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"There's no "winning" a real-world debate unless everybody wins, there's no judge to give you points, no trophies at the end of the day."
Frankly you don't even live anywhere vaguely close to the real world. Getting people to swallow complete&utter bilge has always been the main road to economic success and political power.
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quote:Originally posted by aspectre: meh... Extremist rightwing funding of FactCheck and economic rightwing Republican funding of PolitiFact have always been the primary influence on those organizations output. If ya ain't willing to lie to the point just short of making yourself look obviously absurd, ya don't work there for long.
Man, considering that Politifact is reviled by the Right and apparently also the Left for being biased (each in favor of the other), it's amazing they've survived as long as they have!
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Do you think the Huffpo article is wrong in this case?
It seems like the phrase "Republicans vote to end Medicare" is a decent abbreviation for what actually happened, namely, "Republicans vote to end Medicare gradually over the course of 30 or so years, and replace it with a completely different program."
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The Right reviles it cuz its associates won't allow themselves to look obviously absurd: eg won't endorse "Obama is an illegal alien Muslim extremist bent on the total destruction of America."
The Left reviles it cuz it uses extremely narrow definitions to brand as false what is true: eg Cheney profited from the Iraq War. Defining profit as what he made after the war was declared; and not including the multi-million dollar bribe* he accepted upon resignation from a major oil company and military contractor to accept the position of VicePresident.
* It wasn't a performance bonus cuz the company was worse off at the time he left than at the time he had joined.
quote:Originally posted by Destineer: Do you think the Huffpo article is wrong in this case?
It seems like the phrase "Republicans vote to end Medicare" is a decent abbreviation for what actually happened, namely, "Republicans vote to end Medicare gradually over the course of 30 or so years, and replace it with a completely different program."
Rhetorically speaking it is, perhaps, a decent abbreviation.
But as a statement of fact, no, it would be far more accurate to say they voted to radically change Medicare, since their goal was to maintain a program called Medicare that fulfilled the same basic function that Medicare currently does.
Whether or not their plan would be particularly effective is yet another issue, in my opinion. Even "Congress votes to cripple Medicare and ruin it for everyone within 20 years" would be more "accurate," albeit highly partisan.
Analogy Time!
If Congress votes to radically restructure our military presence in Afghanistan, removing all current troops stationed there and replacing them with new recruits or military contractors like Xe, and change all of the overall objectives of the occupation... I don't think a headline "Congress votes to end the war in Afghanistan" would be accurate, and I don't think you would either.
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