[mike777]

too suggest that Judeo/Christian Philosophy does not infuse the founding documents is to deny history. In fact theology runs through the founding documents/foundation that formed the USA.

Now if you want to claim it was delusion/ a lie that is a different subject.

In any event we are clearly more secular in 2016 and that is one reason we are at war with radical Islam.

[kenberg]

Sure Judeo-Christian Philosphy was involved. I think Judeo-Christian philosphy has a lot to do with how I see the world, and I gave up any belief in any God long ago. Religious beliefs are complicated. Perhaps Jefferson meant his words to be understood as literally true, perhaps not. The Constitution, our actual governing document, has much less to say about God endowing us with anything. This does not mean that the FFs were non-religious but it does seem to suggest that they thought governing a civil society was primarily a secular undertaking. Their religious views could guide them in what was valuable, but then there was work to be done.

I have known many very religious people who see religion as a guide to how to live. Exact theological truth often is not a priority for them.

Actually, I think of this as one of the major problems of our times. Can we keep the general moral and spiritual outlook without the support of theological structures that do not really (my opinion of course) hold up well to close examination. I think the jury is still out on this.

[Winstonm]

 mike777, on 2016-April-24, 16:55, said:

Winston I cannot speak for other countries but clearly here in America our founding documents say that some rights come from a higher power. Now if you believe this was just self delusion fair enough.

Mike, I think it is quite evident from these words: " "We hold these truths to be self-evident .." that it is an expression of at best an opinion, and more likely simply a statement in keeping with of the language of the times.

[Winstonm]

 mike777, on 2016-April-24, 20:20, said:

too suggest that Judeo/Christian Philosophy does not infuse the founding documents is to deny history. In fact theology runs through the founding documents/foundation that formed the USA.

Now if you want to claim it was delusion/ a lie that is a different subject.

In any event we are clearly more secular in 2016 and that is one reason we are at war with radical Islam.

The solution is to rid ourselves of inane beliefs on all sides instead of continually trying to prove one inane belief system superior to another.

[barmar]

 PassedOut, on 2016-April-24, 17:34, said:

As you've discussed earlier, the founders believed some things that were dead wrong. The good thing was that they wrote a Constitution adaptable over the course of history, but not lurching back and forth with the whims of the moment. When a politician mentions "the Creator" or anything about a "higher power," you can be sure that it really means that the politician is drumming up support for a particular position. That includes the founding fathers.

FYI: Jefferson's Religious Beliefs. Summary: He was a deist, but didn't believe that the Christian Trinity was the Creator. He didn't think Jesus was divine, but his teachings were "outlines of a system of the most sublime morality which has ever fallen from the lips of man.". And he played a leading role in the separation of Church and State.

So I think when he makes religious references in the DoI, he's writing to the audience. And even people who are not very religious use religious metaphors, like when Einstein said "God does not play dice with the universe."

[PassedOut]

 barmar, on 2016-April-25, 09:21, said:

FYI: Jefferson's Religious Beliefs. Summary: He was a deist, but didn't believe that the Christian Trinity was the Creator. He didn't think Jesus was divine, but his teachings were "outlines of a system of the most sublime morality which has ever fallen from the lips of man.". And he played a leading role in the separation of Church and State.

So I think when he makes religious references in the DoI, he's writing to the audience. And even people who are not very religious use religious metaphors, like when Einstein said "God does not play dice with the universe."

True. I believe that he created his own version of the bible, cutting out parts that are foolish nonsense. But as a politician, he knew how to appeal to his audience.

[kenberg]

 barmar, on 2016-April-25, 09:21, said:

FYI: Jefferson's Religious Beliefs. Summary: He was a deist, but didn't believe that the Christian Trinity was the Creator. He didn't think Jesus was divine, but his teachings were "outlines of a system of the most sublime morality which has ever fallen from the lips of man.". And he played a leading role in the separation of Church and State.

So I think when he makes religious references in the DoI, he's writing to the audience. And even people who are not very religious use religious metaphors, like when Einstein said "God does not play dice with the universe."

This is my general understanding of Jefferson, I have not particularly looked into it. I have found that most mature religious people are really not interested in debating the exact truth of Biblical assertions. Did it really rain for forty days and forty nights, did Eve really tempt Adam with an apple, was there really handwriting on the wall, etc etc.

My wife, who is not particularly religious but maybe more so than I am, once explained that she figures if there really is a God then He probably confined her to hell long ago so she isn't going to worry about it.

[Winstonm]

 mike777, on 2016-April-24, 20:20, said:

too suggest that Judeo/Christian Philosophy does not infuse the founding documents is to deny history. In fact theology runs through the founding documents/foundation that formed the USA.

Now if you want to claim it was delusion/ a lie that is a different subject.

In any event we are clearly more secular in 2016 and that is one reason we are at war with radical Islam.

The idea that the U.S. was established as a "Christian" nation is a myth from what I can tell. Here are a few things I discovered that I did not know:

Quote

In 1793, just five years after the Constitution was ratified, the Reverend John M. Mason of New York attacked that document in a sermon. Mason called the lack of references to God and Christianity “an omission which no pretext whatever can palliate.” He predicted that an angry God would “overturn from its foundations the fabric we have been rearing and crush us to atoms in the wreck.”

Conservative pastors continued whining well into the nineteenth century. In 1811, the Reverend Samuel Austin thundered that the Constitution “is entirely disconnected from Christianity. [This] one capital defect [will lead] inevitably to its destruction.”

In 1845, the Reverend D. X. Junkin wrote, “[The Constitution] is negatively atheistical, for no God is appealed to at all. In framing many of our public formularies, greater care seems to have been taken to adapt them to the prejudices of the INFIDEL FEW, than to the consciences of the Christian millions."

And, of course, there was this group during the Civil Was era that recognized that the U.S. was not a Christian nation and tried to have that changed.

Fortunately, a secular government won out which allowed both Christians and Muslims to have religious freedoms.

[PassedOut]

Jared Bernstein, who testified before the Joint Economic Committee of Congress last week along with his friend, Art Laffer, has written a couple of clear articles in the Post about supply-side economics.

A graphical assault on supply-side tax cuts

Quote

Art is widely known as one of the main brains behind “supply-side” tax cuts: the idea that if you cut taxes on labor and capital, the extra economic activity you’d engender would make up some share of the lost revenue. The fabled “Laffer curve” plots this theoretical trade-off.

I and many others have spent years debunking this unfortunate yet highly influential theory, but let’s begin by noting that reasonable people make the reasonable argument that, under certain conditions, a tax cut that raises the after-tax wage or lowers the after-tax cost of capital could boost the supply of these critical variables, increase growth, and spin off some revenues. That said, such reasonable people stop far short of claiming tax cuts will come anywhere close to offsetting the revenue losses they cause.

In real life, there are just too many slips between that cup and the lip. My testimony, to which I’ll provide a link later, explains how and why the conditions alluded to above rarely exist. Here, I’d like to barrage you with scatterplots showing the pervasive lack of evidence for any of the links in the supply side chain.

How tax falsehoods flourish

Quote

This argument is not theoretical. Politicians at both the national and state level listen to supply-siders such as Art, and numerous states, most notably Kansas, have cut taxes sharply in response. The results, as you’d guess based on the evidence I’ve been trotting out, are predictable. From my testimony:

“The cuts in Kansas that took effect in 2013, for example, have now blown a $400 million hole in the state’s budget. When [Art] helped design these cuts, he predicted (along with Stephen Moore of the Heritage Foundation) that they would provide an ‘immediate and lasting boost’ to the Kansas economy. Yet not only have the cuts caused serious underfunding of the state’s education system, they’ve also coincided with weak job and GDP growth. The Kansas Legislative Research Department’s projections suggest that the economy will remain weaker than the overall US economy for the foreseeable future.”

How can it be that these ideas remain as strong as ever, showing up, for example, in the tax plan of almost every Republican running for president in recent years, including George W. and Jeb Bush (the former pushed through aggressive tax cuts early in his term, yet GDP, job and wage growth in the 2000s was uniquely weak), Mitt Romney, Ted Cruz and Donald Trump?

Of course, a big piece of what’s going on here is that Art and others are telling politicians exactly what they long to hear: that they can cut taxes and not worry about the budget. That’s like telling them they can eat all they want and not gain weight, especially if they ignore the scale.

But the other problem is that there’s no mechanism to evaluate such claims in political settings. Art and I disagreed, shook hands, went our separate ways, and no one was the wiser.

Considering the stakes, we must do better. Here’s a thought: When, in a congressional hearing, there’s a clear, testable, factual disagreement about the economic record, the chair or ranking member should be able to refer the matter to one of our statistical agencies, such as the Congressional Budget Office or the Bureau of Labor Statistics. They would then adjudicate the factual dispute and, if a witness were found to be wrong, after giving her a chance to defend her claim (with the possibility of overturning the agency’s ruling), the public record would reflect the correction.

I don’t know whether that is practicable, but it’s all I can think of. If anyone’s got a better idea, let me know. Somehow, we’ve got to find the way back to Factville.

Bernstein's suggestion seems like a good one to me, regardless of one's political orientation.

[blackshoe]

 Winstonm, on 2016-April-24, 23:05, said:

The solution is to rid ourselves of inane beliefs on all sides instead of continually trying to prove one inane belief system superior to another.

Now you sound like an Objectivist.

[blackshoe]

The problem with the whole "cut taxes" thing is that we have to cut expenditures as well. There is no easy solution. One thing seems clear though: we can't go on increasing spending by increasing debt. At some point, the system will break. I was hoping to be dead by then, but it looks like I'll still be around.

[Winstonm]

 blackshoe, on 2016-April-25, 15:44, said:

Now you sound like an Objectivist.

No, but I accept objectivity as valid.

[Winstonm]

 blackshoe, on 2016-April-25, 15:52, said:

The problem with the whole "cut taxes" thing is that we have to cut expenditures as well. There is no easy solution. One thing seems clear though: we can't go on increasing spending by increasing debt. At some point, the system will break. I was hoping to be dead by then, but it looks like I'll still be around.

Why do you think deficit spending is a negative for the U.S.? Is it possible that the relationship between a country and its debt is different from a person or family and his/their debt?

You speak of a solution - what is the problem? It sounds as if your view is that gross amount of debt is the problem. Does the GDP/debt ratio factor in? What do you see as the end result of carrying the debt you wish to reduce?

[kenberg]

 PassedOut, on 2016-April-25, 13:43, said:

Jared Bernstein, who testified before the Joint Economic Committee of Congress last week along with his friend, Art Laffer, has written a couple of clear articles in the Post about supply-side economics.

A graphical assault on supply-side tax cuts


How tax falsehoods flourish


Bernstein's suggestion seems like a good one to me, regardless of one's political orientation.

Yes but. The but is that I would say more. Much of their testimony is hardly unexpected. Laffer was not going to come in and support raising taxes, and while I don't know anything about Bernstein I imagine everyone at the hearing expected him to disagree with Laffer.

So yes, having data put in front of them would be good. They don't do this? A witness should be treated with respect, but you can show full respect and still ask them how they reconcile what they say with data. This should not be Republicans expressing skepticism of Bernstein and Democrats expressing skepticism of Laffer, it should be members of the Joint Economic Committee of Congress expressing a joint interest in understanding and evaluating expert testimony.



From the cited link:

Quote

"The cuts in Kansas that took effect in 2013, for example, have now blown a $400 million hole in the state's budget. When [Art] helped design these cuts, he predicted (along with Stephen Moore of the Heritage Foundation) that they would provide an 'immediate and lasting boost' to the Kansas economy. Yet not only have the cuts caused serious underfunding of the state's education system, they've also coincided with weak job and GDP growth. The Kansas Legislative Research Department's projections suggest that the economy will remain weaker than the overall US economy for the foreseeable future."

I imagine this view, from Bernstein, surprised no one.I also imagine that Laffer has views about this, and those views surprised no one. The committee needed to be prepared to explore this conflict beyond saying "We see you disagree, and of course we side with one or the other based on which party we represent". If the committee does not insist on detailed explanations about how to reconcile known history with known views, they are not doing their job and they need to be told so. There is [Oops, mea culpa, there are] data, there is history, there are known conflicting views, surely the expert witness can be asked to explain how his views hold up in light of the data. This is not disrespectful of their expertise, quite the opposite, and it is committee members doing their job.

Btw, did Laffer respond to the quoted comment above? I imagine that he did.

[barmar]

 blackshoe, on 2016-April-25, 15:52, said:

The problem with the whole "cut taxes" thing is that we have to cut expenditures as well. There is no easy solution.

Well, it's no coincidence that tax cuts are mainly favored by Republicans, who also believe that we should reduce government.

But the supply-siders actually seem to claim that you don't have to cut expenditures (or not as much as the tax cuts). The trickle-down theory claims that tax cuts at the top will be offset when the people at the bottom see the benefits, so they make more (and pay more income tax) and spend more (so pay more sales and/or property tax). And if it lifts some people out of poverty, government spending for entitlements will go down.

The problem is that the basic premise is wrong, and so are the conclusions drawn from it.

[Winstonm]

Speaking of supply side and supply/demand, I was once asked on these forums about something like Apple, how invention created a demand for the Apple product (This is close to the idea someone asked. I hope I have reflected it reasonably accurately.) I don't think I responded so here it is:

The demand for inventions that intrigue, interest, fascinate, make like easy, etc., is intrinsic to humankind. Apple's product did not create a demand; their products fulfilled an existing, intrinsic demand.

[Al_U_Card]

Counter-intuitively, here in Canada, historically the "tax and spend" deficit-creating Liberals battle versus the "cut taxes with loopholes for the rich and be financially "responsible" Conservatives.

My recollection, for here and in the US, is that this conventional wisdom belies the actual GNP/deficit type economies where it is the Liberals (Democrats) that end up having to increase taxes to be "relatively" fiscally responsible because of their policies that increase the existing deficits caused by previous Conservative (Republican) regimes that have fewer taxes to pay for their increases in defense spending, etc.

[mike777]

 Winstonm, on 2016-April-26, 11:50, said:

Speaking of supply side and supply/demand, I was once asked on these forums about something like Apple, how invention created a demand for the Apple product (This is close to the idea someone asked. I hope I have reflected it reasonably accurately.) I don't think I responded so here it is:

The demand for inventions that intrigue, interest, fascinate, make like easy, etc., is intrinsic to humankind. Apple's product did not create a demand; their products fulfilled an existing, intrinsic demand.

Quite an interesting question that has long puzzled those in marketing.


Did ESPN create a demand for 24 hour sport news or did they simple met a demand that everyone, everyone knew was there?

[blackshoe]

 Winstonm, on 2016-April-25, 16:07, said:

Is it possible that the relationship between a country and its debt is different from a person or family and his/their debt?

It is possible that the idea that the relationship between a country and its debt is different from that between a person or family and his or their debt is a myth?

I read somewhere recently that Saudi Arabia threatened to cash in all their US debt if Congress passed some law or other the Saudis don't want. Something to do with prosecuting people who support terrorists. What do you think will happen to the US economy if the Saudis do that? Or if China does it?

[mike777]

 blackshoe, on 2016-April-26, 19:40, said:

It is possible that the idea that the relationship between a country and its debt is different from that between a person or family and his or their debt is a myth?

I read somewhere recently that Saudi Arabia threatened to cash in all their US debt if Congress passed some law or other the Saudis don't want. Something to do with prosecuting people who support terrorists. What do you think will happen to the US economy if the Saudis do that? Or if China does it?

Speculation.....if both...I mean both did that....in the first moments...



CHOAS/PANIC/END OF THE WORLD
-----


as for the rest of us.....we would make millions and live the life....in the long run
assuming we are not killed in the food riots.