Freakazoid_ posted:

So how do I, a typical us citizen, get my hands on a free loan?

McDowell posted:

Keynes won. In 2000/2001 we had a recession and the Enron / Arthur Anderson scandal. The Bush Administration papered over the problems with deficit spending (and the <1% Federal Reserve Rate) on the glorious jihad of freedom When all the cooked books finally imploded in 2008 they passed TARP to balance the sheets.

ColoradoCleric posted:

Lol if you think anyone in DnD understands economic policy

Typo posted:

Well, shoot, I might as well see if I'm able to answer it

Jagchosis posted:

Nothing because he doesn't have that authority over the Fed

Typo posted:

Besides, the whole he doesn't control inflation thing, the big question is whether you can even reach 5% inflation per year.

Freakazoid_ posted:

What markets need an increase in demand? Rather, how do I determine if a market needs demand?

Badger of Basra posted:

According to the website it's designed to be revenue neutral (which is the latest tax reform buzzword) so it wouldn't grow revenue. The repatriation rate is also ridiculous.

e: also it would be very appealing to the mega-rich since it reduces the top tax rate from 39.6% to 25%

Ardennes posted:

One thing it is likely there is going to a greatly increased deficit from the plan even if it populist to some degree.

Cerebral Bore posted:

The problem is that there really isn't much sense in trying to shrink the wealth gap by monetary policy when there are far better tools to use. In fact, by limiting the debate as you have done, you're also severely limiting the available topics than can be meaningfully discussed, because monetary policy is only one part of our political-economical system. Not to say that you're wrong in limiting the topic, but one needs to keep the drawbacks of that approach in mind.

Deteriorata posted:

They don't. Fiscal policy is a tool with which to gain electoral advantage.

Despite your best efforts, there is no way to discuss fiscal policy without introducing ideology and political motivations.

Badger of Basra posted:

Such a policy has been labeled "unserious" in most of the developed world, so whether it would work or not is irrelevant because no one is going to do it. A lot of economists and policy people would agree that if your interest rates for debt are rock bottom you should be issuing more debt to take advantage, since it won't be any cheaper in the future.

Deteriorata posted:

So at first blush it appears to be cut out of the same cloth that the rest of the Republican candidates - throw in a tax cut for the middle class to sell a tax cut for the rich, then claim it's revenue neutral without providing any actual details as to how it's possible.

Don't ever take anybody's tax plan at face value, basically. While they all tend to be overly optimistic regardless of party or ideology, some rely more heavily on smoke and mirrors than others.

Guavanaut posted:

Looking at birth rates across the world, it seems like the best fiscal strategy for increasing them is "increase inequality and massively defund health and education". It does seem like some governments in Europe are toying with this, but I'd rather they didn't.

GulMadred posted:

Yes, if you're willing to consider "spending money on social programs" as a valid example. If you want some kind of general Taylor Rule answer (e.g. fertility = marginal tax rate * depreciation rate ÷ GINI coefficient) then I can't help you.

Educated women tend to have fewer children. Women pursuing careers tend to have fewer children. Both of these effects can be mitigated by ensuring that child-related programs (such as family planning, obgyn, parental leave, pediatrics, nutrition, primary education, busing, and daycare) are highly available and delivered at minimal cost to parents. Here's an in-depth case study involving daycare in Norway. Here's a high-level comparison of childcare policies among OECD nations and their effects on fertility rates.

The cheapest legislative answer for a wealthy nation facing sub-replacement fertility is probably "accept more immigrants." But that's not strictly fiscal policy, and it strays into political territory _{(viz. criminals, rapists, and - I assume - some good people)}.

McDowell posted:

CommieGIR posted:

Look, you really can't separate the two too much, considering that the GOP has basically made the Fiscal policy of the Federal Government key to their entire "Prove the Government Is Broken" stratagem.

Kansas, Wisconsin, and now Illinois are living proof that Fiscal Policy is directly and overtly decided, made or destroyed by political agenda and its important to keep that political agenda in view when discussing Fiscal policies and their issues.

Kafka Esq. posted:

Perhaps a reading list would be a good idea. I've been reading The Money Machine: How the City Works and I'm aching for more stuff like it.

asdf32 posted:

The other Asian tigers, Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan and then Japan before that are the primary examples.

The best conclusion is that it comes down to decent government which is able to improve institutions as the economy develops. With "bad government" (very hard to define) you stall like Argentina (which was unstable and made some huge mistakes).

asdf32 posted:

I'm not sure what you're asking for but we're pretty far from the topic of the thread. Those are a list of countries which have succeeded at developing.

But development economics is far larger in scope than fiscal or monetary policy. Both play a role behind the scenes but are actually subordinate to the overall political/economic environment (I.E trade policy, regulations, stability, rule of law etc).

icantfindaname posted:

Japan shouldn't really be on that list, it started industrializing in the 1880s. You might as well put Germany on there too.

The fact is that South Korea, Taiwan, and a handful of tax havens, oil baronies and city states don't really constitute a meaningful body of evidence that moving past the middle income trap is feasible for most developing countries

icantfindaname posted:

Basically the inability of a country, once it has progressed from a subsistence economy to a basic industrialized one, to continue increases in productivity and GDP, usually because of bad institutions


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

Mr Interweb posted:

So is it safe to say that it's nearly impossible to have good job growth without reasonably low interest rates?

Yoshifan823 posted:

I finished Robert Reich's new book tonight, Saving Capitalism. Basically, the thesis of the thing is that a "free market" still needs a government to set up and enforce the rules of said market (bankruptcy, contracts, property ownership, etc.), so instead of increasing the size of government, we need to change these rules so they work for the middle class/worker class. It's broken up into three parts, the first talking about the building blocks of Capitalism: Property, Monopoly, Contract, Bankruptcy, and Enforcement, and how these rules have been manipulated by the monied elites in America to further work to their advantage. This is where you get talk about the decrease in unions, how bankruptcy law massively favors corporations and the wealthy by not having student loans go away after a bankruptcy, the incredibly weakening of antitrust laws, abuse of copyright laws, and all of the changes over the last 30 or so years that have favored the big banks, wall street, corporations, and the wealthy in general. The second part talks about the myth of people being "worth what their paid", which is only true as a tautology, and how the idea of a meritocracy is flawed. It talks about CEO pay vs. median pay, compensation in ways other than a salary, and more about union busting.

The third part, then, is where he gets to the meat of the book: the policy we should enact. He's in favor of a basic minimum income, especially as more jobs end up destroyed or automated, as well as a lot of the Bernie Sanders Plan; he wants to re-enact Glass-Steagal, massively overhaul the copyright/patent system with strict limits to have innovation and invention benefit the general public more quickly, overturn Citizens United and McCutcheon and put some bones back in campaign law. In other words, your basic progressive plan for America. It's a good book, and it's well worth reading, not for any new ideas, but for a slightly different way of looking at them, as well as another thing you can hit your friends over the head with (literally or metaphorically) if they're being dumb.

Mr Interweb posted:

Did he actually say that? I know he came out saying that he definitely supports getting rid of the AMT, which should be fun to see in the next few weeks.

e_angst posted:

If there was ever any serious attempt to get rid of the mortgage interest deduction there will be riots in the suburbs. (Not to mention the enormous fight that the banks would put up.)

e_angst posted:

I think encouraging home ownership isn't a bad thing. But the amount they let you deduct is kind of crazy and probably skews things too far. Combine it with other policies that incentivize home ownership (like California's Proposition 13) and you end up with a really hosed up market.

Also, there are definitely a lot of middle-class people who don't realize (or at least don't admit) that they are paying the same tax rate as the working poor because of that deduction. Hell, I'm single and pulled around $60k last year. My effective tax rate should have been a little over 18%, but I ended up barely paying 12% (and the refund check I got was much, much bigger than anything I ever got a decade ago, when I was living near the poverty line on two part-time jobs).

Pervis posted:

Most middle and upper class people won't admit what their effective tax rate because doing so would undermine all the reasons to poo poo on the poor and talk about how they are paying for the poor, etc. The progressiveness of our tax structure is assumed in all political discussions (as a reason to lower taxes on the rich/business) but doesn't exist anymore in reality, except for very specific circumstances. And then add in poo poo like this (everyone that I know at a startup or who was at a startup, all regular low/mid-level employees did the same trick to get options in to a Roth free and clear):

http://www.forbes.com/sites/deborahljacobs/2012/03/20/how-facebook-billionaires-dodge-mega-millions-in-taxes/

But yes, removing the mortgage interest deduction would restore some of the progressive nature the tax system is supposed to have. It'd also cause an instant an immediate backlash against whoever did it, and would be something only to do after treating capital gains like regular income instead of special bullshit (or worse, tax free at the federal level), actually taxing corporations, and ending the more insane tax shelters that cause real effective tax rates on the rich to be vastly lower than people who make normal amounts of income. About the only way I could see it happening is much like what I've said for removing Prop 13 - a phase out at a time of known housing price increases (as a result of massive lowering of interest rates or something). Even then the political attack ads write themselves.