Tuesday, November 13, 2012

Is There Really a "Fiscal Cliff"?

In an otherwise terrible technocratic dancing post that hints at approval of government macro-management of the economy, Tyler Cowen does make an important observation:
 First, I don’t like calling it the fiscal cliff; it is not a cliff and in any case, as with “austerity,” why not disaggregate the issues? 

The reason it is all jammed together as a "fiscal cliff" is to hide how much of the automatic plan, or its alternatives, are mostly about raising taxes.

5 comments:

  1. "The reason it is all jammed together as a "fiscal cliff" is to hide how much of the cliff or its alternatives, are mostly about raising taxes."

    Precisely.

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  2. Wait, a Keynesian wants to disaggregate something? Hahaha

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  3. The fear factor ... crisis anyone ... never let a good one go to waste

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  4. The idiots in Washington haven't figured out the obvious: the parasite (them) is killing the host (us).

    Their lack of understanding and the desire to further raise taxes during an economic depression is all you need to know about these clods. The more they try to extract, the worst it will get. The tax base will shrink when the wealthy stop working and the jobs go away. Then they'll raise taxes on more people with lower incomes to compensate, thus ensuring a further bout of contraction in a self-perpetuating death spiral.

    When will these morons finally get clued in that the parasitic class is enormous and needs to shrink drastically? End the wars, dismantle the empire, abolish all welfare, means test and phase out Social Security and Medicare, eliminate 95% of the government, and return to a gold coin standard. Too bad we'll have to hit rock bottom before these ideas are even considered.

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  5. There is no fiscal cliff. What exists is an addiction to easy money. Corporations are flush with cash and aren't hiring since consumer sentiment is down and people aren't buying. It's knee jerk inaction. Raising taxes on those that can afford it will curtail the wealth divide as there is no trickle down benefit that's ever been observed. Just pure greed. Short term pain such as a redistribution of the workforce out of wasteful industries such as Defense will benefit society. More importantly, recycling Congress will also accomplish the same thing. There's nothing wrong with making tons of money until it becomes an obsession to claim bragging rights as to who's the biggest winner. Secretly, most of these people are also concerned with having a huge cushion when their current arm candy trades them in for another Mr. Goodbar and walks away with the hard candy.

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