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But if you just have to have more of me...
Sure! I'll bite...
Mr. Webb,
IMHO all the tortured analysis regarding SS finances strikes me as ivory tower BS, therefore I'd highly appreciate you setting me straight.
To wit: The Bush administration opposes including Social Security and Medicare in the audited deficit. Its reason: Congress can cancel or cut the retirement programs at any time, so they should not be considered a government liability for accounting purposes.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/was...icit-usat_x.htm
If the government truly intended SS to be an inviolable obligation then they would have stuffed that cabinet full of real T-Bills. They did not.
Very soon the government will find it difficult (if not impossible) to spend more than it receives on a cash basis. At that time, SS will be just one of a million different government programs -- all with their own vociferous constituencies -- subject to fiscal realities, promises be damned.
This is brooks.
Edited By Siteowner
tj & the bear | 05.25.08 - 9:51 pm | #
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USA Today is the least reliable reporter on this topic over the last ten years or so. If a you know about this topic was derived from the Op-Ed pages of USA Today it is fair to say that your information base is at this point negative. They quite literally don't know what they are talking about.
Bruce Webb | Homepage | 05.25.08 - 10:12 pm | #
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So what are you saying, tjatb? That the good faith and trust of the US government is no good? That the US government is gonna repudiate the debt it owes retiring boomers?
LOL!
Smarter concern trolls, please.
Joel | 05.25.08 - 10:13 pm | #
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hah!
Bruce that reminds me..
If I say opposing counsel has an ugly nose, that is ad hominem and out of court.
but if i say opposing counsel's argument has an ugly nose, that is not ad hominem and is as good a description of his argument as any.
in the case of some posters i can see why the distinction would be hard to maintain.
coberly | 05.25.08 - 10:30 pm | #
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tj
i am glad you and USA discovered that. Now we can stop worrying about that "44 Trillion Dollar Unfunded Deficit!"
which is just as well, since it was phony anyway.
but as usual with the privatizers arguments if they don't work one way, they can always turn them around and see if they work better backwards.
coberly | 05.25.08 - 10:33 pm | #
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tj
you might have noted that i commented on the substance.
Soc Sec will be just one of a very few government programs which are "off budget" with their own dedicated funding source.
and with a little luck i will be able to educate the people to understand it is their own money saved for their own retirement.
unless of course they are all as clever as you.
coberly | 05.26.08 - 12:19 am | #
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tj
what is it about intellectual, or honest, that you don't understand?
how about "Soc Sec is just fine forever, whatever happens to the Trust Fund"
and yes, printing those iou's involved collecting taxes from workers to borrow the money from. so i suppose redeeming them which will involve collecting taxes from the people who borrowed the money will be "just as easy."
it's a little hard for me to understand how you find the unfunded obligation figures optimistic when your president just said he doesn't have to pay them.
coberly | 05.26.08 - 1:13 am | #
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TJ. Social Security is a worker funded pay as you go insurance plan. It does not fundamentally rely on the Special Treasuries in the Trust Fund, at no point in the future are they counted on to pay for more than 25% of benefits to start with, and that under pessimistic assumptions, your argument depends on a total misconception of how Social Security finance actually operates.
Two the notion that there is any fundamental distinction between 'real' T-Bills and the Special Treasuries is just a bogus talking point made up by people who woke up in the nineties to find out that under reasonable assumptions Social Security Trust Fund Depletion might never actually happen, which led them to pivot to Shortfall in 2017 and the 'phony IOU' narrative. Well it is all bullsh-t and more serious opponents of Social Security like Andrew Samwick and Andrew Biggs freely admit as much, the Special Treasuries are as real as the Benjamin in your wallet and for all the same reasons, it is called Full Faith and Credit of the United States.
I don't care whether the original source of your information was USA Today or not, if all you know was drawn from the MSM then you are simply the victim of a very successful twenty five year propaganda campaign, one I discuss in the fifth part of this series What does Lenin have to do with this?
A little more study of the actual numbers and mechanisms in question and a lot less snark would serve you well here.
Edited By Siteowner
Bruce Webb | Homepage | 05.26.08 - 11:35 am | #
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No double binds here...
rdan | 05.26.08 - 3:05 pm | #
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same ip address...sock puppets.
rdan | 05.26.08 - 3:08 pm | #
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tj,
I haven't been following angry bear recently or the soc sec debates, although I am an old hand at them. I shall mostly just reinforce points made by Bruce W.
So, for starters, there is no difference between the different kinds of US securities. A US government security is a US government security is a US government security, whether it is owned by you, the Chinese central bank, or the Social Security Administration.
The more serious questions have to do with whether or not they will have to be cashed in and just how bad are the forecasts and what, if anything, should be done about it. I am in general agreement with Bruce that there has been a massive overhyping of how bad the forecasts are by a whole lot of people, some of them with ideological agendas, some of them simply shilling for big Wall Street investment firms that would love to have the public mandated to deal with them, some just being overly cautious ("better to err on the side of caution"), this latter not necessarily being so bad, as long as people are willing to fess up that this is what they are doing.
So, in the last decade the low cost projection has beaten the other projections more often than not, but it is almost never reported in the media. But it says we never get to 2017, no deficit, no cashing in of the SSA's securities, not ever. The SSA just keeps on piling them up forever, lending money to the rest of the budget. Yes, we are now in a more or less recession and we are doing worse than the LC, but I agree with Bruce that there is plenty of time to wait and see whether or not we need to make adjustments or not.
Now, there is the further argument of Brooks, and let me stick to what I think is the substantive part of it rather than his now very old carrying on with Bruce and coberly (and me). He is concerned with the overall budget balance, and I agree that this is a concern. I would describe a defensible version of his position as being that any and all moves to improve the budget should be on the table, including social security. So, that argument says the actual projections and balances of social security do not matter, it is an area where by cutting benefits or increasing taxes we can improve the broader problem.
I have two responses to that. One is that if the projections about social security are overly pessimistic, then the overall balance situation is also being projected overly pessimistically (by that amount). The other is that I see other areas that should be more the focus of any efforts to improve overall balances, namely getting rising medical care costs under control, reducing military spending (on unnecessary and stupid wars), and raising taxes on the wealthy and higher income.
BTW, as of now, the surplus if the SSA is still actually increasing. This should change, maybe this year, maybe next, which in some perspectives means we have a problem. When that turnaround comes, the SSA will be lending the rest of the government less money each year rather than more as it has been for the last quarter of a century or so. If one wants to call this a crisis, fine, but it is a rather peculiar crisis. Nevertheless, it will mean some extra pressure in reality on the rest of the budget, irrespective of what the actual TF balance is.
Again, I prefer to leave SS alone and see what happens and work on other parts of the budget to deal with the broader balance issues that I think are of ultimate concern to Brooks.
Barkley Rosser
Barkley Rosser | Homepage | 05.26.08 - 3:10 pm | #
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Hmmm, thought I posted something and it has disappeared. Will try once more, given that I have not been watching here closely and have not commented on Bruces ss postings.
So, tj,
A US government security is a US government security is a US government security, whether owned by you, the Social Security Administration, or the Chinese central bank. Not the issue.
More seriously an issue is whether the forecasts have been overly pessimistic, which is very much a major part of Bruce Webb's line of argument, with which I am largely in agreement. So, the low cost projection has beaten the intermediate cost one more often than not in the last decade, a fact almost never mentioned in the MSM or most discussions. The low cost projection has 2017 never arriving, no deficit ever, no cashing in bonds or anything, the SS TF lending money to the rest of the federal government forever and piling up those securitiese, whatever they are.
Now, the serious argument of Brooks, aside from his long running personal feuds with various folks, is that what matters is the overall budget balance, and anything that can be done to reduce the deficit should be done from any and every part of the budget, including social security.
My response to that is twofold. One is that if the social security forecasts are overly pessimistic, then so are the general budgetary forecasts, and by the same amount.
The other is that when we get down to doing something about deficits, I would prefer to see controlling rising medical care costs (with medicare and medicaid projected to be much worse problems than social security, even under the pessimistic ss forecasts), cut war spending by the DOD for stupid wars, and raise taxes on the wealthy.
Finally, the SS TF surplus is still actually rising. Now I do accept that probably in the next year or so that will cease and go the other way. So, rather than lending ever larger amounts of money to the rest of the budget as has been the case for the last quarter of a century or so, the SS TF will start lending smaller and smaller amounts of money. This will in fact put pressure on the rest of the system, even though I would call this a joke of a crisis.
In any case, I argue for "wait and see," as the system can be jiggered well before we are in any actual SS crisis, if in fact the more pessimistic forecasts do come to pass.
Barkley Rosser
Barkley Rosser | Homepage | 05.26.08 - 4:01 pm | #
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Barkley Rosser,
Haloscan has been odd all week. Thanks.
rdan | 05.26.08 - 4:11 pm | #
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Rosser
yes it is a strange crisis indeed.
when you have been borrowing money and the time is coming to pay it back.
what to do, what to do?
clearly the answer is to put a bag over granny's head and convince her she owes US the money
and we'll be doing her a big favor if we cut her benefits.
that way we can use the money to invest in those flying saucers the young are so sure they are more likely to see than their Social Security benefits.
maybe they are smarter than we think.
coberly | 05.26.08 - 4:14 pm | #
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Brooks I have never deleted a comment and am not sure so even have the ability to do so but admitedly plan to explore the comment moderation powers.
You are not going to get anywhere or impress any one by addressing me as 'Brucey' which where it is not faintly pejorative implies a degree of intimacy you have not earned.
This is the blogosphere, if you extend courtesy you tend to receive courtesy, if you extend snark you tend to draw snark, if you start out on a note of rudeness you can expect some shove back. You started some months ago by advancing a particular point on several blogs and demanding a response. When the answers ranging from nationally recognized experts like Dean and Barkley down to plain folk like me and Dale didn't endorse your argument you frankly went into a months long snit that has now descended into something that from the outside cannot be distinguished from paranoid obsession and cyberstalking. In the course of that you have crosses over not only ethical lines but also some legal ones. You are free to call me a liar, telling third parties that I am a liar in an effort to disrupt the dialogue is in fact an actionable tort. I have neither the resources or the inclination to pursue legal action or except within very narrow limits any public reputation to defend but in the past your rhetoric towards people have both has verged on reckless.
You present yourself as victim and think that even if true that that fact would matter a rat's -ss to anyone but you. The first is a stretch, the second is laughable. Do you really think anyone was outraged when we slaggged on PRS? Or the various incarnations of Anon/FA/FFA? Or Marek?Your attempts to present yourself as a veddy, veddy serious thinker persecuited by the modern equivalent of book burners is falling flat. If your posts were not so long, so tedious, and so repetitive your presence might rise to the level of Marek style inadvertent comedy, but Christ even UF Marek has learned the lesson of brevity (though perhaps not civility).
In recent days HaloScan has been kind of shaky. Which led you immediately to jump to censorship/persecution accusations. Which is cruelly ironic because the site controller and me are in discussions about the possible ways and means of making effective moderation happen. Although I know you won't believe it, I have been arguing that you can be controlled by push back as opposed to banning or direct censorship. But then again I can be convinced.
Signed, Brucey
Bruce Webb | Homepage | 05.26.08 - 6:02 pm | #
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rdan,
You are lying or just incorrect. TJ is NOT me! There is a way it is possible that his IP address is the same as one I used in the past (I won't tell you how that's possible), but I am telling you flat out that not only is TJ NOT me, but I have no idea who TJ is.
You owe me a retraction and correction if you have any decency and integrity whatsoever. And next time be sure you're right before you make a false accusation like that.
Brooks | 05.26.08 - 6:13 pm | #
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rdan,
THIS is Brooks. I'm now submitting via a different IP since my comments are not appearing (I don't know if it's blocking or a halo problem).
You are lying or just incorrect. TJ is NOT me! There is a way it is possible that his IP address is the same as one I used in the past (I won't tell you how that's possible), but I am telling you flat out that not only is TJ NOT me, but I have no idea who TJ is.
You owe me a retraction and correction if you have any decency and integrity whatsoever. And next time be sure you're right before you make a false accusation like that.
Anonymous | 05.26.08 - 6:18 pm | #
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Dan while I understand and to some degree appreciate the edit, the deliberate vulgarism had a point, one that hopefully registered before it vanished.
Brooks has deliberately raised a dispute over a particular point of fiscal policy into continual attacks on my integrity and honesty not just here to my face (which is just part of the push and shove of the blogosphere) but to third parties here and elsewhere. He made this personal and my initial retort was just meant to show that it was personal. That this came in the form of language not generally associated with a graduate seminar was to that degree fully intended. I assume Halo will release my direct response shortly, but from this point on Brooks should understand that rhetorically we have entered onto pistols at dawn territory. Any collateral damage from stray bullets is regretted.
Bruce Webb | Homepage | 05.26.08 - 6:19 pm | #
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rdan,
Since you falsely claimed that TJ was me, I'm sure (ahem) that you'll have the decency and integrity to delete your statements to that effect, and I'm sure you'll allow the re-posts of my comments below to stand.
Below are the comments you deleted.
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I took Bruce up on his offer and suggested a topic -- and surprise, surprise: my comment was deleted. My guess: Bruce saw himself challenged and went crying to rdan about it, leading to deletion. Or maybe rdan just decided to be overly protective of little Brucey.
I'll try again.
BRUCE, here's a whacky idea: How about SUBSTANTIVELY addressing my conceptual point about SS "solvency" vis a vis our overall long-term fiscal imbalance ...FOR THE FIRST TIME (your false claims to have addressed it previously notwithstanding).
State what you THINK my point is, then if you think it's invalid...pay attention now...REFUTE IT. You know, like, with an actual argument. Or if you think it's valid but "trivial"...still with me, Bruce?...EXPLAIN why you think it's trivial, given my explanation for its purpose and importance.
I doubt you'll take me up on that suggestion. Heck, rdan will probably delete my suggestion again. Because suggesting a topic to you after your post invited suggestions for topics is clearly off-topic (ahem).
OK, Bruce, time for one of your patented evasions, since you've demonstrated that you'll do just about anything to avoid engaging me substantively on that point. Go ahead, throw out another baseless personal attack, or falsely claim once again that you've previously addressed my point, or simply call it "trivial" with no supporting argument whatsoever, or throw out yet another gross mischaracterization of my past comments or exchanges of ours, etc., etc., but by all means, DON'T have the integrity, guts and decency to actually engage in substantive, rational discussion/debate with me on that point.
Brooks | 05.26.08 - 1:27 am | #
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tj,
Let me let you in on a little secret in case you're new to this blog or to Bruce Webb anywhere: Bruce sees himself as under no obligation whatsoever to address the substance of anyone's argument. He thinks it's just fine to reject someone's argument with no refutation at all, and he has a whole bag of tricks for doing so: straw men; personal attacks; claiming you are being disingenuous and just hiding some sinister, conspiratorial motive; claiming he's already refuted your argument at some supposed time in the past; etc., etc.
And you can point out to him and explain time after time that he has not addressed your argument substantively and request repeatedly that he do so, but he won't if he has no sensible refutation but does not want to admit that your argument is valid (and I'm not saying whether or not yours is -- I'll stay out of this one because that's beside the point I'm making here).
But perhaps you'll have better luck with him than I have, particularly if he feels more confident that he can refute your point than he has regarding an important point I've made tried many times to get him to address.
Oh, and if he keeps responding to you with just evasive tactics and you request a couple more times that he offer a substantive response, rdan will probably delete your comments and perhaps ban you.
In fact, if you happen to catch this comment before rdan deletes it, and then see it gone (deleted) -- something I'd give about a 75% probability -- you'll get a taste for how the game is played here, just as it is on most partisan blogs.
Brooks | 05.26.08 - 1:39 am | #
Anonymous | 05.26.08 - 6:24 pm | #
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Bruce Webb,
You really are a piece of work. From the start -- and I mean from the first time I commented on the topic last year on Thoma's site -- all I've sought is substantive discussion/debate. You responded only with obvious straw men, attacks on my integrity, etc. When you posted as guest contributor on AB I saw an opportunity to possibly get you to engage substantively for once, thinking that perhaps as a guest contributor you'd feel some obligation (or even desire) to respond substantively for once. I responded to your post substantively, yet you once again refused to engage substantively, and instead once again accused me of being disingenuous, among other things. Repeated requests of mine that you engage substantively instead were met with more of the same from you, along with other evasive tactics, including gross mischaracterizations of my past comments and past exchanges of ours, as I've proven to anyone who took the time to see via the links I provided.
Anyone wishing to check the facts regarding the exchange on Bruce's first post, just start at these links:
http://angrybear.blogspot.com/20...y-i.html#696873
http://angrybear.blogspot.com/20...y-i.html#696875
http://angrybear.blogspot.com/20...y-i.html#696876
http://angrybear.blogspot.com/20...y-i.html#696926
And you just keep going, here on AB and recently on Andrew Biggs' blog, where, after I presented an argument addressing both Bruce's comment and Andrew Biggs' post, instead of responding substantively Bruce just accused me of bringing a "grievance" against him over to Biggs' site and actually accused ME of being rude.
Bruce, I have never encountered someone willing to put in so much time and effort, and sink to such depths, just to avoid acknowledging the validity of an obviously valid point. You are exceptionally pathetic.
Brooks
Anonymous | 05.26.08 - 6:41 pm | #
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Barkley,
Thanks for that sensible comment regarding what my point has been -- and it's the same now as it was back when you and I had our exchanges.
And yes, my point is that it is WRONG to suggest -- as some do -- that SS "solvency" means that SS spending is unrelated to our overall long-term fiscal imbalance and that therefore we should take off the table, a priori, consideration of reducing projected SS spending as we seek to reduce that overall long-term fiscal imbalance. Even if, arguendo, under current policies SS would be fully "solvent" forever, we could still reduce projected overall deficits by reducing projected SS spending. If that generated undesirably high SS surpluses, we could just lower SS FICA taxation, offset the lost revenues with increases in other taxes, and the result would be lower projected overall spending, unchanged projected overall revenues, and therefore lower projected deficits. It's really just very basic algebra. Why it has been so fiercely resisted by the likes of Bruce Webb and company is quite a case study in the psychology of partisanship.
As for your responses:
One is that if the social security forecasts are overly pessimistic, then so are the general budgetary forecasts, and by the same amount
Yes, and I long ago said as much. What matters is the OVERALL fiscal balance (or imbalance). SS "solvency" per se is irrelevant to our decision of whether or not to reduce projected SS spending. SS revenues and SS spending are only relevant inasmuch as they are part of overall revenues and overall spending. So, as I said long ago, by all means it is important to get SS projections right (and to debate which projections are best), but from the standpoint of the policy question, the reason to get SS projections right is to get overall projections of fiscal balance/imbalance right.
The other is that when we get down to doing something about deficits, I would prefer to see controlling rising medical care costs (with medicare and medicaid projected to be much worse problems than social security, even under the pessimistic ss forecasts), cut war spending by the DOD for stupid wars, and raise taxes on the wealthy.
That's a statement of policy preference. It has nothing to do with my conceptual/analytical point discussed above. You see that, right?
But regarding policy preferences, I also favor tax increases, and yes, projected entitlement spending (Medicare and Medicaid) is an even greater contributor to our long-term fiscal imbalance, and I assume will take longer to impact, so if I had to pick the more urgent of the two (vs. SS), I'd pick Medicare/Medicaid to focus on. But having said that, I don't think that that prioritization means we should just put aside SS as a potential means of reducing projected deficits. There is lead time there, too, since we would want to phase in any reductions in SS benefits or eligibility to give people time to plan and adjust.
Brooks | 05.26.08 - 7:10 pm | #
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Well Dan you talked me into it. If this post shows up after the last two I put up then great, otherwise Halo has just introduced a big disconnect this weekend.
Bruce Webb | Homepage | 05.26.08 - 7:14 pm | #
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coberly,
Actually, the irony here is that the benefits that will get cut will not be Granny's but those of the future generations, the Gen-X-ers and whatever we are calling the one after them. That is what makes their support for this stuff so ridiculous. When I oppose changing the benefit schedule of social security, I am thinking of my grandchildren. My bennies will not get cut nearly as much as theirs.
Barkley Rosser | Homepage | 05.26.08 - 7:19 pm | #
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I AM not COSI.
Ignore the Wizard behind the Curtain!
Bruce Webb | Homepage | 05.26.08 - 8:10 pm | #
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Rosser
you are right of course.
but in the minds of those who believe in flying saucers, they will never get old, and it is granny who is greeding on them.
coberly | 05.26.08 - 9:45 pm | #
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Bruce Webb lies yet again! I guess he assumes (perhaps correctly) that no one will ever notice.
Bruce writes:
I AM not COSI.
Interesting. He presents a statement obviously designed to seem like a quote -- something I supposedly said that makes my claim not to be TJ not credible -- but he doesn't put it in quotation marks, presumably so he can deny he intended to create that impression. Why does he do this? Because he's deliberately putting words into my mouth. He can't provide a link to my ever denying that I was Cosi, because...you guessed it...I never denied I was Cosi. And eventually, after I was no longer commenting as Cosi and after others had rightly identified Cosi as me, I made a joking reference to something Cosi said (I said something like "As Cosi pointed out so brilliantly the other day..."), making it obvious to anyone with more than one brain cell that Cosi was me, and I said so explicitly later.
Ignore the Wizard behind the Curtain!
Ignore a serial liar.
Brooks | 05.26.08 - 10:25 pm | #
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Bruce Webb,
(rdan, this comment is long, but given that Bruce has once again made baseless personal attacks, I think I'm entitled to set the record straight...yet again).
Bruce,
It gets tiresome to correct you on all sorts of things (and perhaps a battle of attrition is your strategy – lie, lie, lie, evade, evade, evade, attack, attack, etc. – because perhaps you see that as a way you can “win” regarding my conceptual point that you obviously can’t refute because it’s irrefutable).
Brooks I have never deleted a comment
If that’s supposed to be a response to some claim of mine, thanks for adding to your straw man list. Other than several of your posts ago, I have assumed that rdan is the one doing any deleting, or at least that you are not one doing deleting, and I’ve addressed rdan, not you, on deletion matters. and am not sure so even have the ability to do so but admitedly plan to explore the comment moderation powers.
You are not going to get anywhere or impress any one by addressing me as 'Brucey' which where it is not faintly pejorative implies a degree of intimacy you have not earned.
No one who has followed any of our exchanges would think I was implying “a degree of intimacy”. At least no one with more than one or two brain cells. Which is to say, I understand your confusion.
This is the blogosphere, if you extend courtesy you tend to receive courtesy, if you extend snark you tend to draw snark, if you start out on a note of rudeness you can expect some shove back. You started some months ago by advancing a particular point on several blogs and demanding a response. When the answers ranging from nationally recognized experts like Dean and Barkley down to plain folk like me and Dale didn't endorse your argument you frankly went into a months long snit that has now descended into something that from the outside cannot be distinguished from paranoid obsession and cyberstalking.
Bruce, I’ve provided an extensive set of links and commentary in past comments on AB that provide the facts to anyone interested in knowing which of us is correctly characterizing my past comments and my past exchanges with you. Anyone who checks the comments/exchanges at those links, which start from my very first comment anywhere in the blogosphere in which I made my conceptual point, will see that you are grossly mischaracterizing just about everything. No doubt your fellow partisan Coberly will concur with your version, for obvious reasons. The only element of truth to your paragraph above is that, in the face of repeated straw men, non sequiturs, and other non-response responses, I have been persistent in requesting direct, rational responses to my actual arguments and questions related to my conceptual point.
As for “cyberstalking”, please explain. The only unusual thing I did was to copy and post onto a new blog (that just about no one will see other than those whom I direct there) a thread from your web site that you deleted (because it was the one place you finally admitted that I was right – so you hastily erased the evidence, not knowing that I had made a copy). And I gave it a fitting name, but one that I’m sure you found irritating, “The Bruce Web of Lies”. Oh and I gave myself a goofy name on that blog, “Bruce Webb Watcher” (or something like that). Other than that, all I’ve done is comment on econ blogs that I visit and comment on anyway, and when you have presented a comment with which I disagree in some way, I refute your argument. Is that what you call “cyberstalking”. Oh, and over the past month or month and a half, I’ve sent you a grand total of two emails, and upon your replies I replied back, otherwise known as a conversation, even if unpleasant ones. And just the other day you comment on Biggs’ blog, and I point out what I see as a major flaw in your argument, and instead of responding substantively you complain that I’m just bringing a “grievance” against you to Biggs’ site and say that my supposedly doing so is “rude”. Bruce, it’s not the first signs of paranoia I’ve seen in you – the first came almost immediately, when, after I first made my conceptual point (which is obviously valid as a matter of basic algebra) you essentially accused me of being dishonest and hiding my part in a sinister, right-wing conspiracy. But you really should get a grip, IF, that is, you really believe your own bullsh*t. It is just as likely that you know you’re full of it, but as always, you can’t refute my point, you don’t want to admit I’m right, so substantive discussion/debate is something you wish to avoid by any means necessary while APPEARING to have some legitimate reason for ducking and dodging. So all the lies, gross mischaracterizations, baseless attacks, etc. are just some of your tools in that evasive effort.
In the course of that you have crosses over not only ethical lines but also some legal ones. You are free to call me a liar, telling third parties that I am a liar in an effort to disrupt the dialogue is in fact an actionable tort.
Big Time LOL!!! First, I don’t know what’s funnier, the thick irony that comes from you, or your utter obliviousness to it. Do you actually not remember, despite the several times recently that I’ve linked to our very first exchange and to our first exchange on the thread of your first guest contributor post here on AB, that while I repeatedly requested that you engage substantively, you refused and made baseless accusations that I was being “dishonest”?? Need yet another reminder? Here ya’ go: http://angrybear.blogspot.com/20...y-i.html#696926
As for your silly quasi-threat to take legal action, go for it, Brucey. I’d end up with you covering my legal fees (and probably more), if the case even went that far. I doubt any attorney would even take such a case for a plaintiff. And by the way, as I’ve told you, you are a walking (or typing) case study in research I’m doing on political discourse in America today (and no, I don’t have to “stalk” you at all to collect an abundance of material), so you’ll eventually have more from me to feed your fantasies of legal action.
Your attempts to present yourself as a veddy, veddy serious thinker persecuited by the modern equivalent of book burners is falling flat.
Falling flat in the eyes of the book-burning mob, sure. But your partisan blinders and the insular, echo-chamber world you live in lead you to think that the consensus view on partisan blogs represents objective truth.
If your posts were not so long, so tedious, and so repetitive
Usually when my posts are long it’s either because, as I say, it often takes longer to clean up bullsh*t off the floor than it took for the bull to drop it there (e.g., your comment and this reply of mine), or because people are disputing or misunderstanding obviously valid points that I’ve already made, so I break it down further to try to get them to understand. And when my comments are repetitive it’s because I’m responding to repetitions of the same errors or lies (the latter generally coming from you), and again, because people are not getting a point I’m making, so I try again to explain.
In recent days HaloScan has been kind of shaky. Which led you immediately to jump to censorship/persecution accusations.
I have not always made the assumption of censorship, but rdan has censored me quite a bit (both proactively and retroactively), so I think the level and frequency of suspicion I’ve expressed is quite reasonable in the situations in question.
Which is cruelly ironic because the site controller and me are in discussions about the possible ways and means of making effective moderation happen.
Bruce, of all the people in the blogging world, you are the one who should be kept the farthest from any powers of censorship. You have clearly demonstrated that nothing is beneath you if you are intent upon avoiding substantive debate on some point that someone made.
Anonymous | 05.26.08 - 11:19 pm | #
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What is this, deja vu all over again? This precisely the same argument being propagated by Brooks is being repeated like a broken record on each and every thread having anything to do with social security or the budget deficit. Brooks claims that he gets no answers, but when he does he argues that he is being conceptual rather then arguing policy.
His remarkable insight is that if we reduce SS benefits we can reduce payroll taxes and then raise general taxes so as to reduce the general budget deficit. That is truly creative budgetary thinking. The issue was answered repeatedly. I'll reiterate exactly what I said previously. Brooks, pay attention. Your conceptual point is just so much hash without the beef. As I said previously:
Brooks,
Why on earth would any sane worker want to see his/her SS benefits cut so that the SS payroll tax could be cut so that some other form of revenue could be raised in its place? Lower projected deficits can be achieved by cutting spending on a variety of government activities. Why SS, which has been a successful program for about seventy years. It has its own funding stream. It isn't supposed to be counted as a part of the general budget. You insist that you are right, when in fact your suggestion is only right wing.
We could achieve a more balanced budget by stopping the asinine war in Iraq. We could achieve a more balanced budget by reducing military spending in general. We could achieve a more balanced budget by raising the top marginal rates. People earning millions of dollars each year could be far more patriotic and show their appreciation for what the economy, with a good deal of government engineering, has done for them. We could include all forms of earnings at those top marginal rates since government activities protect all forms of capital. Why just pick on SS funds? Balance the budget on someone else's back. The working class have been contributing through out their working lives for the right to benefit from SS in their twilight years.
Who the devil are you to suggest that your scheme is better than any other budget balancing scheme? You offer no evidence whatever to support your point of view. Yes, it is logical that if you take from one very large sector of the population and redirect funds intended to benefit that sector you can achieve some form of budgetary change. So what. That's not the point. Taking from any source of funds will achieve that goal. I repeat, your focus on using SS funds for that purpose is only an opinion of what is best to do. Your opinion sucks, and cannot be justified any more so than any other opinion. That's the nature of opinions. They only have value or strength if they are shared by many, and its pretty clear that very few here share your opinion.
Jack | 05.19.08 - 1:08 am | #
You see Brooks. That was said almost a full week past and it still stands. If you want to pursue a concept and really hope to make it a policy, run for elective office. For pity sake, give it a brake already. We know the general budget is being destroyed by the current snakes in the current administration, but we don't want it balanced on the backs of the very people that have been working a life time and paying more than their fair share of the tax burden. Find another funding stream to promote on infinitum.
Jack | 05.26.08 - 11:20 pm | #
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Bruce,
Please, if the time comes that you can convince Brooks to me you on the Great Lawn at twenty paces I beg to be your second. Trust me, I shoot better than Hamilton.
Jack | 05.26.08 - 11:22 pm | #
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Above "Anonymous" was me.
Also, RDAN AND ALL,
Again, let me state in no uncertain terms:
I am not TJ.
I do not know who TJ is.
I have never communicated with anyone I know to be TJ anywhere other than on this thread.
I don't know how I can prove the above, but if I can do so without losing anonymity, I'll be glad to do so.
There may be a way that two people who have no connection to each other could be using the same IP address, but I'm not going to explain because that could take away a research tool of mine. In any case, the odds are somewhat low, so I am skeptical of rdan's claim that TJ and I were using the same IP address.
rdan, regardless of whatever your opinion of me is, the decent thing to do is to acknowledge your error and let people know that TJ was NOT me, as you falsely claimed.
Brooks | 05.26.08 - 11:26 pm | #
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Jack,
His remarkable insight is that if we reduce SS benefits we can reduce payroll taxes and then raise general taxes so as to reduce the general budget deficit.
Here's what you're not getting. I NEVER claimed my conceptual point was "remarkable". To the contrary, I've repeatedly said that is just a matter of basic algebra, and is obviously valid. The genesis of all this was that several bloggers and commenters were stating or strongly implying otherwise, and continue to do so (for just one recent example, http://angrybear.blogspot.com/20...cal.html#698667 ), and since then I've sought to correct them on the fundamental conceptual/analytical error they are making. It's not at all a trivial point; it's fundamental to the debate over whether or not to reduce projected SS spending as we seek to reduce our overall long-term fiscal imbalance. Those who say that SS "solvency" means that SS has nothing to do with overall deficits, that SS spending does not contribute to overall deficits, and that ON THAT BASIS we should, a priori, take off the table any consideration of reducing projected SS spending are allowing a fundamental conceptual/analytical error guide their policy preference on an extremely important issue.
And yes, I've always said that my point is obviously valid -- not at all "remarkable" -- but instead of people acknowledging its validity (or trying to refute it) I was met only with straw men, non sequiturs, personal attacks, etc., with Bruce Webb epitomizing this reaction. They didn't say, "well, yes, Brooks, you're right, but now let's talk about if cutting projected SS spending is something that we SHOULD do". Instead it's been just garbage all the way.
Take Bruce, for example. Just look at all the time and space he's devoting to NOT engaging me substantively on this point, and all the dirty tactics he's employed to try to create the impression that there's a legitimate reason for him not to. And of course, one of his claims is that he HAS responded directly, substantively and rationally at some fuzzy time in the past, not that he can offer any link proving it, because he never has. Equally interesting (and sad) is that no one says "Hey Bruce, instead of comment after comment giving reasons why you refuse to respond to Brooks substantively, why don't you...well, just respond to Bruce substantively. Then we can all see that you've done so and we'll know that you really have." Instead, rdan censors me to protect Bruce (and by extension, their "side's" talking points).
You, jack, have responded directly. You've essentially said that my point is correct. Your read on everything else (e.g., the nature of my comments and exchanges) is way off. But you have answered and said my point is correct. Coberly once (perhaps twice) in the past did so, too (on Beat the Press), but apparently has backtracked. And Bruce finally admitted it as well once (on his own blog, then promptly deleteing the thread to erase the evidence), and sometimes shifts to calling my point true but "trivial" with absolutely no argument to support that label, and despite the obvious importance of my correction of this pervasive, fundamental conceptual error, as I've explained.
Jack, HOW we should reduce our long-term fiscal imbalance is obviously something we all need to discuss and debate, and I'm glad to engage in such discussion/debate and I have, but (if I can help it) I'm not going to let people confuse and conflate a purely conceptual/analytical point with that policy debate, and reject that conceptual/analytical point on the irrelevant grounds of some policy argument. Because rejecting that conceptual/analytical point PRECLUDES rational policy debate. It decides it in one direction a priori, based on a fundamental conceptual/analytical error. Do you get that?
The worst I can be accused of, Jack, is trying to teach pigs to sing. As they say, "Never try to teach a pig to sing. It just wastes your time and annoys the pig". But my eventual audience (readership) is much wider than those of partisan blogs or right and left on which I am currently participating.
Brooks | 05.26.08 - 11:57 pm | #
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Bruce,
On the whole "pistol" thing, let me know when you want to stop shooting blanks, and I'll be glad to engage.
Real Bullets = Direct, responsive, rational, substantive debate.
You should try it sometime. And anytime you're game, just let me know. You know my conceptual point. If you can refute it, go ahead. If you think it's valid but "trivial", acknowledge its validity and provide an actual argument as to why it's trivial, given the importance I've explained in my comment upthread.
I doubt you will. Shooting blanks (personal attacks, straw men, non sequiturs, claims that you've already answered at some time in the past, etc, etc.) are all ya' got in that pistol.
Brooks | 05.27.08 - 12:01 am | # |