If a child asks you why the sky is blue, you can look her or him in the eye and say, it's because of the quantum effect involving Rayleigh scattering combined with lack of violet photon receptors in our retina - Phil Plait

Science has an answer for natural phenomenon,where it completely failed us is in economics. There's a lot of grey in economics and a LOT of NOISE.

I am trying to respond to Knickoftime's question about whether Trump's any better that HRC when it comes to economics - The easy answer is it depends. We don't know what he will end up doing and we can't judge him on it yet. But it's the offseason and we can make **** up to keep the flow going - so let's see where Trump stacks up against HRC on economic issues. I will start with the some background so we have foundation of what I consider to be right wing philosophy.

For good or bad the US seems to have embraced Neoliberal Dogma as religion. What is neoliberal dogma? Again the correct answer is no one knows - but here's what Wikipedia says(I like Wikipedia, because they write their stuff in English as opposed to Wall Street jargon)

Neoliberalism (neo-liberalism)refers primarily to the 20th-century resurgence of 19th-century ideas associated with laissez-faire economic liberalism. These include economic liberalization policies such as privatization, fiscal austerity, deregulation, free trade and reductions in government spending in order to increase the role of the private sector in the economy and society. These market-based ideas and the policies they inspired constitute a paradigm shift away from the post-war Keynesian consensus which lasted from 1945 to 1980. [

Now the neoliberalist high priests and priestesses (Ann Coulter comes to mind) will tell you

wealth is created by Clever business people who came along and found ways to add value to the natural resources around us, by extracting them for use in industrial processes. Thanks to the invisible hand of unfettered markets (keep governments small enough to drown in a bathtub and only allow regulations that support the hoarding of wealth by holders of financial capital), this “value add” creates wealth in the form of rising GDP and the creation of jobs. All you have to do is let the wealth “trickle down” from the super rich as they pile up increasingly huge masses of money.

Argentina is a great example of what happens to a "neoliberal" state (again from Wiki)

Argentina
Further information: José Alfredo Martínez de Hoz and Domingo Cavallo

In the 1960s, Latin American intellectuals began to notice the ideas of ordoliberalism; these intellectuals often used the Spanish term neoliberalismo to refer to this school of thought. They were particularly impressed by the social market economy and the Wirtschaftswunder (“economic miracle”) in Germany, and speculated about the possibility of accomplishing similar policies in their own countries. Neoliberalism in 1960s meant essentially a philosophy that was more moderate than classical liberalism and favored using state policy to temper social inequality and counter a tendency toward monopoly.[5]

In 1976, the military dictatorship's economic plan, led by Martínez de Hoz, was the first attempt at a neoliberalist plan in Argentina. They implemented a fiscal austerity plan, whose goal was to reduce money printing and thus inflation. In order to achieve this, salaries were frozen; however, they were unable to reduce inflation, which led to a drop in the real salary of the working class. Also, aiming for a free market, they decided to open the country's borders, so that foreign goods could freely enter the country. Argentina's industry, which had been on the rise for the last 20 years since Frondizi's economic plan, rapidly declined, because it wasn't able to compete with foreign goods. Finally, the deregulation of the financial sector, gave a short-term growth, but then rapidly fell apart when capital fled to US in the Reagan years.[citation needed] Following the measures, there was an increase in poverty from 9% in 1975 to 40% at the end of 1982.[49]

From 1989 to 2001, another neoliberalist plan was attempted by Domingo Cavallo. This time, the privatization of public services was the main objective of the government; although financial deregulation and open borders to foreign goods were also re-implemented. While some privatizations were welcomed, the majority of them were criticized for not being in the people's best interests. Along with an increased labour market flexibility, the final result of this plan was an unemployment rate of 25% and 60% of people living under the poverty line, alongside 33 people killed by the police in protests that ended up with the president, Fernando de la Rúa, resigning two years before his term as president was completed.

Before you can understand what is wealth creation, let's try to define what is wealth - Science says the total amount of matter and energy are constant in the universe, the physics of economic systems requires that we acknowledge a basic truth; that wealth arises from the natural world. It is part of nature. And yet, the Neoliberal Story presumes separation of markets from the natural environment. Wealth "creation" defined by the Neoliberals is not creation at all it is merely a transfer of value from one player in the economy to another.

The history of modern capitalism can be traced back to England

English Common Lands were forcibly privatised due to Acts passed by the British Parliament.

It was a time when peasant farmers were forcibly removed from their land, where they had engaged in subsistence farming for generations. Wealthy merchants and aristocrats began a systematic campaign to privatise the land-based commons and kick the peasants off their land, which they turned into sheep runs for the highly profitable wool industry. This became known as the “enclosure” movement, and historians regard it as the birth of #capitalism as we know it today.

Millions of people were forcibly displaced, creating a monumental humanitarian crisis. For the first time in English history, the word “poverty” came into common use to describe the masses of people who literally had no way of surviving. They poured into cities like London and scratched out a living in sprawling slums — fodder for Dickens’s bleakest novels.

In this example, we can see how the aristocracy “created wealth” by transferring shared ownership of land into the new form of privately held landholder deeds. Peasants were separated from the means to grow their own food and became wage laborers who worked the land to pay rent — with the corollary movement of money from merchants to landowners as they amassed ever larger amounts of financial wealth.

What was created was POVERTY and some wealth was transferred from the rightful owners to the greedy pigs. Sound familiar?

OK now that we have seen what "Neoliberalism" is, we can look at how it played out in US politics (again the wiki obliges us)

United States
See also: Reaganomics and Reagan Democrats

David Harvey traces the rise of neoliberalism in the US to Lewis Powell's 1971 confidential memorandum to the US Chamber of Commerce. A call to arms to the business community to counter criticism of the free enterprise system, it was a significant factor in the rise of conservative organizations and think-tanks which advocated for neoliberal policies, such as the Business Roundtable, The Heritage Foundation, The Cato Institute, Citizens for a Sound Economy, Accuracy in Academia and the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research. For Powell, universities were becoming an ideological battleground, and he recommended the establishment of an intellectual infrastructure to serve as a counterweight to the increasingly popular ideas of Ralph Nader and other opponents of big business.On the left, neoliberal ideas were developed and widely popularized by John Kenneth Galbraith, while the Chicago School ideas were advanced and repackaged into a progressive, leftist perspective in Lester Thurow's influential 1980 book "The Zero-Sum Society".

Early roots of neoliberalism were laid in the 1970s, during the Jimmy Carter administration , with deregulation of the trucking, banking, and airline industries. This trend continued into the 1980s, under the Reagan Administration , which included tax cuts, increased defense spending, financial deregulation and trade deficit expansion. Likewise, concepts of supply-side economics, discussed by the Democrats in the 1970s, culminated in the 1980 Joint Economic Committee report, "Plugging in the Supply Side." This was picked up and advanced by the Reagan administration, with Congress following Reagan's basic proposal and cutting federal income taxes across the board by 25% in 1981.

During the 1990s, the Clinton Administration also embraced neoliberalism by supporting the passage of the North American Free Trade Agreement, continuing the deregulation of the financial sector through passage of the Commodity Futures Modernization Act and the repeal of the Glass–Steagall Act, and implementing cuts to the welfare state through passage of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act.[79][81][82] The neoliberalism of the Clinton Administration differs from that of Reagan, as the Clinton Administration purged neoliberalism of neoconservative positions on militarism, family values, opposition to multiculturalism and neglect of ecological issues.

Funny how that Glass-Stegall thing keeps showing up like bad penny, huh? But let's keep moving on to more recent politicins and see how the rate on the Neoliberalism score? (I will use +1 for core neo-lib position support, -1 for the opposite and zero for largely left alone)

HRC - Free Trade (+1), Deregulation (+1), Govt Spending cuts (0?), Tax Cuts(+0.5) : Score +2.5**
Trump - Free Trade (-1), Deregulation (+1), Govt Spending cuts (+1), Tax Cuts(+1) : Score +2
Obama - Free Trade (+1), Deregulation (0#), Govt Spending cuts (-1), Tax Cuts(+1) : Score -0

That's all I have time for, and I hope KOT wont chop this up line by line in his response.

** Clinton was one of 69 Senators who voted for the disastrous American Jobs Creation Act, which included a repatriation holiday for corporations. This holiday turned out to be a debacle. The lavish tax breaks it gave to multinational corporations did not lead to any job creation and gave companies a green light to stash even more of their profits offshore to avoid taxes in hopes of receiving another holiday in the future.
# Deregulation(+1) cancels out Dodd-Frank(-1) https://www.thenation.com/article/obama-pulls-clinton-deregulation/

wiki https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoliberalism

nixluva wrote:Here's the thing. HRC would be under a different atmosphere with the Democratic Party compared even to how things were under Obama. The Dems have moved further left due in part to Bernie successfully debating and pushing Progressive Ideals. There's no way that she would've been able to ignore these things. It's just not logical that at least SOME of the things Progressives were looking for would be on the agenda. There's NO WAY there there would've been ZERO Free Trade but they could've worked to make sure it was the best possible deal for the U.S. Contrary to what some think Free Trade does actually benefit American business too. There are jobs that benefit from it.

Now sure you can talk about Trump's rhetoric around Free Trade but he's the complete opposite of what Republicans in Congress want in terms of Free Trade. I believe Congress would push Trump back to the Right when it comes to Free Trade. Trump is spending all his time cancelling all the things Obama did with a malicious and thoughtless approach. He's simply not good for the country and just cuz someone may like his rhetoric around Protectionist Policies that doesn't supercede all his other severe flaws. In so many areas Trump is a F'n Train Wreck!!!

So we should just believe that this time it would be different, while all the historical evidence is screaming time opposite? This truly IS the definition of insanity.

meanwhile, reading nix's posts on this thread, its easy to see why our politics are in the big pile of doodoo that they're in. nix being a democrat (id say the same if he were voting republican) refuses to see or say anything positive about the other side. i thought him being a knicks homer was bad, it's even worse with politics and worse it comes with being holier than thou - what gives you the right to tell ANYONE that they voted wrong? that is some bs man. i dont care how old you are and how many different relatives you have in different states, you got a lot to learn. we can all take a page from meloshouldgo and choose to look at the whole picture and not just the aspect we're interested in.

nixluva wrote:

meloshouldgo wrote:

nixluva wrote:Here's the thing. HRC would be under a different atmosphere with the Democratic Party compared even to how things were under Obama. The Dems have moved further left due in part to Bernie successfully debating and pushing Progressive Ideals. There's no way that she would've been able to ignore these things. It's just not logical that at least SOME of the things Progressives were looking for would be on the agenda. There's NO WAY there there would've been ZERO Free Trade but they could've worked to make sure it was the best possible deal for the U.S. Contrary to what some think Free Trade does actually benefit American business too. There are jobs that benefit from it.

Now sure you can talk about Trump's rhetoric around Free Trade but he's the complete opposite of what Republicans in Congress want in terms of Free Trade. I believe Congress would push Trump back to the Right when it comes to Free Trade. Trump is spending all his time cancelling all the things Obama did with a malicious and thoughtless approach. He's simply not good for the country and just cuz someone may like his rhetoric around Protectionist Policies that doesn't supercede all his other severe flaws. In so many areas Trump is a F'n Train Wreck!!!

So we should just believe that this time it would be different, while all the historical evidence is screaming time opposite? This truly IS the definition of insanity.

Tell me WHEN did the Democratic Party ever have the kind of influence from the Progressive Wing that we have now? The Progressive Wing is ascending and more influential than ever and you think this isn't meaningful?

You're going to eventually have to recognize that things have been shifting Left Since Obama! Before Obama there was no serious discussion of Progressive Issues. Now the discussion is how to KEEP Healthcare and expand it. Before Conservatives only spoke of blocking then Repealing Healthcare. A complete Republican Controlled Govt couldn't repeal the ACA! So other Progressive Policies will likely have more support come 2018!

We will never know - but I would contend if Hillary was POTUS assuming progressives voted for her and had enough votes to sway the results - lots of moderate centrists would be reminding us that she beat Bernie in the primary handily so it means we don't have any mainstream ideas and we are impractical, purists etc. Heck you've been already doing that - to take that and project that the centrists in power would embrace progressive agenda is a bit thick in my opinion.

A single payers system is great idea - I understand the incremental progress rationale but unlike Social Security etc - this was set up with too much reliance on the states and as a result it was open for being ripped to shreds by republicans. They may not have repealed it but escalating cost of insurance will mean people will come to hate it. I do not see this as a major accomplishment, maybe something will give and it will take a turn for the better but I am not betting on it.

nixluva wrote:

meloshouldgo wrote:

nixluva wrote:

meloshouldgo wrote:

nixluva wrote:Here's the thing. HRC would be under a different atmosphere with the Democratic Party compared even to how things were under Obama. The Dems have moved further left due in part to Bernie successfully debating and pushing Progressive Ideals. There's no way that she would've been able to ignore these things. It's just not logical that at least SOME of the things Progressives were looking for would be on the agenda. There's NO WAY there there would've been ZERO Free Trade but they could've worked to make sure it was the best possible deal for the U.S. Contrary to what some think Free Trade does actually benefit American business too. There are jobs that benefit from it.

Now sure you can talk about Trump's rhetoric around Free Trade but he's the complete opposite of what Republicans in Congress want in terms of Free Trade. I believe Congress would push Trump back to the Right when it comes to Free Trade. Trump is spending all his time cancelling all the things Obama did with a malicious and thoughtless approach. He's simply not good for the country and just cuz someone may like his rhetoric around Protectionist Policies that doesn't supercede all his other severe flaws. In so many areas Trump is a F'n Train Wreck!!!

So we should just believe that this time it would be different, while all the historical evidence is screaming time opposite? This truly IS the definition of insanity.

Tell me WHEN did the Democratic Party ever have the kind of influence from the Progressive Wing that we have now? The Progressive Wing is ascending and more influential than ever and you think this isn't meaningful?

You're going to eventually have to recognize that things have been shifting Left Since Obama! Before Obama there was no serious discussion of Progressive Issues. Now the discussion is how to KEEP Healthcare and expand it. Before Conservatives only spoke of blocking then Repealing Healthcare. A complete Republican Controlled Govt couldn't repeal the ACA! So other Progressive Policies will likely have more support come 2018!

We will never know - but I would contend if Hillary was POTUS assuming progressives voted for her and had enough votes to sway the results - lots of moderate centrists would be reminding us that she beat Bernie in the primary handily so it means we don't have any mainstream ideas and we are impractical, purists etc. Heck you've been already doing that - to take that and project that the centrists in power would embrace progressive agenda is a bit thick in my opinion.

A single payers system is great idea - I understand the incremental progress rationale but unlike Social Security etc - this was set up with too much reliance on the states and as a result it was open for being ripped to shreds by republicans. They may not have repealed it but escalating cost of insurance will mean people will come to hate it. I do not see this as a major accomplishment, maybe something will give and it will take a turn for the better but I am not betting on it.

I Feel confident that we would see Progressive voices grow and become ascendant with HRC and more Dems in Congress. The cat was already out of the bag in terms of voters not wanting HRC to go into the past on policy. Bernie moved her WAY over to the left from where she started.

No matter how you slice it there's no way you can say that Progressive Policies wouldn't have more chance of being put forth and passed under HRC and the Dems. It may have taken some time to flip congress but I believe the prominent position of Progressives would move the ball in the right direction.

The point I have been trying to make with all the past history of the Clinton clan is that they are completely devoid of progressive ideas. I absolutely do NOT think HRC would have increased the chances of pushing a liberal agenda. We just have to agree to disagree on this.

meloshouldgo wrote:

nixluva wrote:

meloshouldgo wrote:

nixluva wrote:

meloshouldgo wrote:

nixluva wrote:Here's the thing. HRC would be under a different atmosphere with the Democratic Party compared even to how things were under Obama. The Dems have moved further left due in part to Bernie successfully debating and pushing Progressive Ideals. There's no way that she would've been able to ignore these things. It's just not logical that at least SOME of the things Progressives were looking for would be on the agenda. There's NO WAY there there would've been ZERO Free Trade but they could've worked to make sure it was the best possible deal for the U.S. Contrary to what some think Free Trade does actually benefit American business too. There are jobs that benefit from it.

Now sure you can talk about Trump's rhetoric around Free Trade but he's the complete opposite of what Republicans in Congress want in terms of Free Trade. I believe Congress would push Trump back to the Right when it comes to Free Trade. Trump is spending all his time cancelling all the things Obama did with a malicious and thoughtless approach. He's simply not good for the country and just cuz someone may like his rhetoric around Protectionist Policies that doesn't supercede all his other severe flaws. In so many areas Trump is a F'n Train Wreck!!!

So we should just believe that this time it would be different, while all the historical evidence is screaming time opposite? This truly IS the definition of insanity.

Tell me WHEN did the Democratic Party ever have the kind of influence from the Progressive Wing that we have now? The Progressive Wing is ascending and more influential than ever and you think this isn't meaningful?

You're going to eventually have to recognize that things have been shifting Left Since Obama! Before Obama there was no serious discussion of Progressive Issues. Now the discussion is how to KEEP Healthcare and expand it. Before Conservatives only spoke of blocking then Repealing Healthcare. A complete Republican Controlled Govt couldn't repeal the ACA! So other Progressive Policies will likely have more support come 2018!

We will never know - but I would contend if Hillary was POTUS assuming progressives voted for her and had enough votes to sway the results - lots of moderate centrists would be reminding us that she beat Bernie in the primary handily so it means we don't have any mainstream ideas and we are impractical, purists etc. Heck you've been already doing that - to take that and project that the centrists in power would embrace progressive agenda is a bit thick in my opinion.

A single payers system is great idea - I understand the incremental progress rationale but unlike Social Security etc - this was set up with too much reliance on the states and as a result it was open for being ripped to shreds by republicans. They may not have repealed it but escalating cost of insurance will mean people will come to hate it. I do not see this as a major accomplishment, maybe something will give and it will take a turn for the better but I am not betting on it.

I Feel confident that we would see Progressive voices grow and become ascendant with HRC and more Dems in Congress. The cat was already out of the bag in terms of voters not wanting HRC to go into the past on policy. Bernie moved her WAY over to the left from where she started.

No matter how you slice it there's no way you can say that Progressive Policies wouldn't have more chance of being put forth and passed under HRC and the Dems. It may have taken some time to flip congress but I believe the prominent position of Progressives would move the ball in the right direction.

The point I have been trying to make with all the past history of the Clinton clan is that they are completely devoid of progressive ideas. I absolutely do NOT think HRC would have increased the chances of pushing a liberal agenda. We just have to agree to disagree on this.

I suggest you go down to HRC website and look at all the very Liberal Policies she was proposing. It sounds ridiculous to try and suggest she doesn't have Liberal Policies. No what you're doing is limiting the argument to just a very select set of economic policies as if that's all that matters. Most Progressives do in fact care about more than your favorite few issues. Of course the former Obama voters that went Trump this time probably think just like you and focused mostly on the Economic issues.

https://www.hillaryclinton.com/issues/

Bernie and HRC have a lot in common in terms of Policies
https://berniesanders.com/issues/

Should the rich be taxed more? A new paper shows unequivocally yes | Larry Elliott

Denis Healey never actually said he intended to squeeze the rich until the pips squeaked. The man who would soon be Labour chancellor was referring solely to property speculators when he made the remark during the February 1974 election campaign.

But the rich knew full well that Healey was coming for them, too. At the previous year’s Labour party conference, he said: “We shall increase income tax on the better off so that we can help the hundreds of thousands of families now tangled helplessly in the poverty trap, by raising the tax threshold and introducing reduced rates of tax for those at the bottom of the ladder. I warn you, there are going to be howls of anguish from the rich. But before you cheer too loudly, let me warn you that a lot of you will pay extra taxes, too.”

Healey was as good as his word, with the top rate of income tax set at 83%. By contrast, the manifesto pledges outlined by John McDonnell, the current shadow chancellor, were modest. Under a Jeremy Corbyn government, someone earning around £125,000 or more would have been eligible for a new 50% income tax bracket and there would have been a 45% rate for people on more than £80,000.

Still, this is a different age. The abiding principle is that we should cut the rich some slack because the tax system needs them. Reducing tax rates for the better off is supposed to lead to a higher tax take by stimulating entrepreneurship and making the super-rich work harder. For those who don’t believe this neoliberal fairytale, there is a fall-back position: the top 1% pay a lot more than 1% of tax receipts – and the proportion has been rising. The top 1% of earners in the UK accounts for 27% of income tax receipts, more than double the percentage when Healey was at the Treasury. So, stop grumbling, we’re told. Without the sacrifices being made by those at the top, the cuts would be even deeper.

This, though, is not the watertight case for the defence of the rich that it appears at first sight, as is demonstrated by a new paper from John Hatgioannides of the Cass business school, Marika Karanassou of Queen Mary University and Hector Sala of the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona and IZA in Bonn.

The trio accept that in “an absolute, dry, sense” the rich are supporting the tax system more than any other group, but say this tells only half the story. The past four decades have been extremely kind to those at the top. They have seen their incomes grow faster than the rest of the population and hold a far bigger share of wealth in the form of property and financial investments than the rest of the population. Over the years a bigger slice of national income has gone to capital at the expense of labour, and the rich have been the beneficiaries of that, because they are more likely to own shares and expensive houses.

The trend has been particularly strong in the US, where labour’s share of income has fallen from a recent peak of 57% at the end of Bill Clinton’s presidency to 53% by 2015. The Gini coefficient – a measure of inequality – has been steadily rising since 1970 and is now at levels normally seen in developing rather than advanced economies.

Hatgioannides, Karanassou and Sala seek to take account of these profound changes in the distribution of income and wealth. They do so by dividing the average income tax rate of a particular slice of the US population by the percentage of national income commanded by that same group and by their share of wealth.

They then look at whether by this measure – the fiscal inequality coefficient – the US tax system has become more or less progressive over time. The findings show quite clearly that it has become less progressive.

In terms of income, the poorest 99% of the US population paid nine times as much income tax as the richest 1%, both when John F Kennedy was president in the early 1960s and when Ronald Reagan beat Jimmy Carter in the 1980 race for the White House. By 2014, they paid 21 times as much.

Similarly, the bottom 99.9% in the US paid 28 times as much tax as the elite 0.1% in the early 1960s and the early 1980s, but by 2014 they were paying 76 times as much.

The same trend applies – although it is not pronounced – when income tax is divided by the share of wealth. The bottom 99% paid 22 times as much income tax as the wealthiest 1% in 1980 but were paying 47 times as much in 2014. The bottom 99.9% paid 58 times as much income tax as the top 0.1% before the onset of Reaganomics; by 2014 they were paying 175 times as much. The paper’s research does not extend to Britain, although given that the distribution of income and wealth has also been tilted in favour of the rich and the very rich, a similar picture would almost certainly emerge.

As the authors note, since 1980, economic policy making has been dominated by the idea that deregulation, less generous welfare and tax cuts will stimulate higher investment, higher productivity, higher growth and higher living standards for all. None of this has occurred and, what’s more, the social mobility in the decades after the second world war has been thrown into reverse. The great American dream – the notion that anybody can strike it rich – is dead.

Even so, the main beneficiaries of Donald Trump’s tax plan – assuming he is able to get it through Congress – will be big corporations and the highest earners.

Any suggestion that this is entirely the wrong approach is met by three arguments. The first is that the call for the rich to pay more is simply the politics of envy. The second is that it would be a return to the bad old days. The third is that the rich would find ways of avoiding paying any more. Yet Hatgioannides, Karanassou and Sala show there is a reason for the bulk of taxpayers to be unhappy about the way the system is loaded against them. What’s more, for the average US worker, the bad old days weren’t really so bad. Finally, saying that the rich would never pay up is defeatist; tax loopholes could be closed, tax havens shut down, wealth – especially in the form of immovable land – could be taxed rather than income.

The argument that we should all be grateful to the ultra-rich is bunkum. As the paper concludes: “The overarching policy question is the following: in the current era of fiscal consolidation, should the rich be taxed more? Our evidence suggests unequivocally yes.”

meloshouldgo wrote:

TheGame wrote:At least he is consistent. Rather than avoid another political issue, Trump goes and pardons the former sheriff in Arizona. Trump is the trainwreck that won't stop until he destroys the republican party. The democrats need to get focused on a message directed at the economy (which the Democrats and Obama are responsible for improving from the disaster that was George Bush and the republicans). Democrats, stop focusing on race and civil rights and explain to people why democratic policies will create jobs and balance the budget. Cutting taxes is not the answer and the democrats need to do a better job explaining that. Clinton focused to much on what a bad person Trump was and not enough about how Obama's policies got us out of the worse depression since the Great depression.

This is a good example of what I find wrong with the narrative. The disastrous turn of events in the financial crisis want created by Bush alone. It's just played out when he was in the White House. Democrats did nothing to fix the economy other than agreeing to proposals set forth by Republican appointed people in various positions. I have asked you guys to provide specifics on how the economy was improved and I have heard zero. Dodd-Frank was a law being passed unless you can show me how it impacted the economy there's no case for it. Instead of repeating centrist talking points how about you come up with some real evidence of what the actually did to make anything better in the economy.

Lots of unpacking to do in the thread, so I'll try to stick to some of the major points. I think discourse is important so let me say as a preamble "instead of repeating centrist talking points" is a talking point.

That said, it's hard to have discussion like this given the limitations of the forum show when much time is spent back=and-forthing just finding a common reference point.

So in order to find common ground, can you identify a economic policy (contemporary, ideally) or two that improved the economy in the manner you're looking for, and how it did it?