Economy: Human Hardship

@leowis1,

Fact check:

leowis1 wrote:

I think the Buffet Rule would generate like 50billion over 10yrs. That's alot of money, but its nothing when you run 1trillion dollar deficits each year.

The Democrats say otherwise:

The LA Times wrote:

As envisioned, the Democratic package would generate as much as $120 billion over the next 10 months with a 50-50 combination of new taxes and spending cuts that could be swapped out for the “meat ax” cuts, as some have taken to calling the scheduled reductions.

...

Revenue from the Buffett Rule could cover almost half the cost of the 10-month package; the remainder would come from spending cuts.

SOURCE: http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-pn-democrats-buffett-rule-sequester-cuts-20130212,0,4652938.story

Looks like the Buffet Rule actually generates $60 billion over 10 months...

1 Reply

@Kolyo,

The Huffingtonpost says $31Billion over 11yrs. Its not $60billion in 10months.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/20/buffett-rule_n_1367591.html

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@leowis1,

You wrote,

Quote:

The Defense Department contracts out most of its business to Lockeed Martin, Boeing etc. They don't build their own air planes and missles.

How does that translate into "the rich creates jobs?" FYI, the Defense Department is a federal government agency.

Charter schools are still funded by the government. Without taxes, those charter schools would disappear.

You are your own worst enemy, because you don't know what you are talking about.

0 Replies

@leowis1,

You insult your own intelligence; the people vote for their representatives, we we continue to get the "same" representatives into congress.
You wrote,

Quote:

To speak these words without doing anything to change it is insulting to my intelligence.

No one person has the ability to change how voters vote. Is that news to you?

How did you vote in the last election?

1 Reply

@cicerone imposter,

Perhaps I was not clear. If Obama is unhappy with certain loopholes, he can call Harry Reid to propose a bill to eliminate them. Members of Congress have this ability. It offends me to hear things they say are wrong, but they do nothing to fix it.

I voted for Obama in 2008 and Romney in 2012. Have you ever voted for a republican? Or are you just a sheep that believes everything told to you?

2 Replies

@leowis1,

Charter schools do operate with tax dollars, but they provide better cost effective education because they can admit the students they want to admit and set their own rules.

I am not my worst enemy. I answered all of your questions with solid examples but you keep moving the goal post. Privatization can provide the same service as govt at a cheaper cost. The sequester is needed to align revenues with expeditures. To keep the same level of spending will lead us to Greece.

Have a nice day.

2 Replies

@leowis1,

So, what's your point? Do you believe all commerce are operated efficiently?

Provide some credible source evidence that the rich creates jobs.

0 Replies

@leowis1,

Even at $31 billion over 11 years, nobody knows for sure, because nobody can predict how the economy will operate in the next 11 years, and how that will impact tax revenues.

0 Replies

@leowis1,

leowis1 wrote:

Charter schools do operate with tax dollars, but they provide better cost effective education because they can admit the students they want to admit and set their own rules.

This illustrates exactly why charter schools don't work. According to your own argument for why they succeed their success is illusory.

Consider a school district that initially had 300 'A' students, 300 'B' students, 300 'C' students, and 300 'D' students. The average student performance is halfway between a B and a C. Now suppose a charter school picks out the 300 students it wants and does absolutely nothing to improve their scores. The average student performance at the charter school will be 'A' quality, while the average performance at the public school will be 'C' quality. This will not be due to any improvement in instruction; it will be entirely due to selection bias.

Selection bias doesn't scale to the entire population, and the supposed "improvement" that charter schools offer will erode as they admit more students. However, the adverse effect on teacher job security will deter academically qualified people from entering K-12 education. Being a teacher will look less attractive than being an office assistant because it will pay the same, and there will be less job security. Your teachers will be of such poor quality, they'll have trouble reading all the big words in the textbooks.

I can't wait until Kansas goes in whole hog for charter schools. Those short-sighted, extremist, Brownbackistani nut jobs will get the schools they so richly deserve.

1 Reply

@leowis1,

leowis1 wrote:

I voted for Obama in 2008 and Romney in 2012. Have you ever voted for a republican? Or are you just a sheep that believes everything told to you?

I can honestly say I have never voted for Barack Obama. Smile

2008 primaries: Hillary Clinton
2008 general election: busy, didn't vote
2012 general election: Jill Stein

0 Replies

@Kolyo,

I was under the impression that admission was controlled by lottery, though this likely varies from state to state. Maybe someone is thinking of 'magnet schools'.

I recall that in Freakonomics or Super Freakonomics, students in charter schools in the Chicago system did do better than the conventional public schools. The author also noted that those that had applied and not been selected also performed above the system norm in the public schools.

1 Reply

@leowis1,

leowis1 wrote:

The Huffingtonpost says $31Billion over 11yrs. Its not $60billion in 10months.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/20/buffett-rule_n_1367591.html

Q) How to explain the disparity between your info and mine?
A) Your source is a year older, and the details of the Buffet Rule may have changed.

1 Reply

@Kolyo,

Mr K, Trying to forecast tax revenue for the next 11 years is almost impossible - as I've explained in my previous post. It's because nobody can forecast our economy for 11 years accurately. There simply aren't any tools that will provide that information; it's a guessing game by economists.

1 Reply

@roger,

roger wrote:

I was under the impression that admission was controlled by lottery, though this likely varies from state to state. Maybe someone is thinking of 'magnet schools'.

Hmm...

So was I, roger!

I was just going by what Leowis said.

1 Reply

@cicerone imposter,

But you should be able to make a decent forecast for ONE year, eh?

1 Reply

@Kolyo,

I'm not sure what you mean by "decent." Even with the upcoming sequester, nobody knows how much impact that will have, because the pundits are talking about extending some funding for the "needed" programs - whatever that means.

Laying off of thousands of workers will have a direct impact on our economy.

I don't have much faith in our government to do the right thing.

2 Replies

@Kolyo,

Kolyo wrote:

Hmm...

So was I, roger!

I was just going by what Leowis said.

@roger

My reply to you, above, isn't very clearly worded. What I meant to say was that I had ALSO been under the impression that charters selected kids by a lottery. In my argument with leowis1, I decided to trust his claim that charters selected the kids they wanted, despite what I'd heard about lotteries in the past. Why? Because trusting his claim made it easier to win CI's and my argument with him about charters.

Now, if charters DO select kids by a lottery system, that to some extent undermines my argument about selection bias. Nevertheless, there could still be some selection bias at work, if the kids whose parents sign them up for the lottery are already doing better in school than the kids whose parents don't sign them up.

1 Reply

@cicerone imposter,

cicerone imposter wrote:

I'm not sure what you mean by "decent."

My source said the Buffet rule would net us $6 billion per month.

leowis1 cited someone claiming it would net us $3 billion per year.

Those claims differ by a factor of 24.

By "decent" I mean a forecast that would at the very least get the order of magnitude of our added revenue correct.

1 Reply

@cicerone imposter,

cicerone imposter wrote:

I don't have much faith in our government to do the right thing.

We need radical change. Join my "Sheila Bair 2016" campaign! Smile

(She'd completely turn our economic policy on its head.)

0 Replies

@Kolyo,

Of course there's a selection bias in a lottery system. Even if the system doesn't select for kids "eager to learn", at least it selects for kids or parents who have some idea of the value of education, if not the actual learning process.

Note that one of the two books I mentioned showed reports of rejected applicants also exceeding the Chicago school system's norms. The had the same motivations as the lottery winners, even if they didn't win the exact same environment.

I have no stake in either Freakonomics nor Super Freakonomics. They do provide some interesting insights.

0 Replies

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