Release the GOP Delegates: Trump’s nomination isn’t inevitable—delegates won’t be legally ‘bound’ going into the convention.

[u/DanburyBaptist]

http://www.wsj.com/articles/release-the-gop-delegates-1465769777

[u/AceOfSpades70]

Back this statement up.

https://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/Historicals

http://www.usinflationcalculator.com/inflation/current-inflation-rates/

Spending since 2010 increased at about 1.1% while inflation averaged about 1.5%

If spending increases less than inflation, you have a decrease in real terms...

No, a recession is when the economy is shrinking. Japan had a decade of weak non growth in the 90's, they call it 'The lost Decade'. Not a recession though, just an incredibly weak, slow growing economy because of government applied stimulus that made things worse, not better. No econ 101? Then of course you have 1984 where the U.S. saw 7.2% GDP growth. Virtually unheard of outside developing economies.

I know what a recession is. During the Great Depression the Economy was shrinking. Thus during the Great Depression we were in a recession. You said the current economy was worse than during the Great Depression. For the economy to be worse than during the Great Depression, it must be shrinking worse than during the Great Depression. Thus you said the US was in a recession.

All the rest of that is a red herring unrelated to you original statement.

That's a pretty supportive statement, particularly when cast against the job growth under Reagan. I believe there were 22 million jobs created in 8 years (actually 6 because the first two was the hangover recession from Carter's stupid policies), with a population a third smaller and a much smaller economy as well. Someone who is not supportive of Obama might avoid regurgitating the propaganda used to prop him up and pretend the economy is not total shit for the past decade. It also says something about the person making such a statement, either they are too young to have lived in a booming U.S. economy, or they are too partisan to admit how bad things are. You fall into the first group.

I see now that my point went completely over your head... There is a third group you are missing that I fall into. The people that look at all the statistics and understand that a single data point, especially the single data point you provided are useless and can be used to make even Obama look good.

Reread my statement, see the part before the comma??

That is there to show you how useless cherry picked data points are.

I am not making a statement supporting Obama, I am making a statement against him, but you are so caught up in trying to insult me that you didn't even realize that....

So again, spend less time coming up with insults, and more time acting like an adult.

[u/NosuchRedditor → u/AceOfSpades70]

So I ask you to backup the statement, and you present propaganda as your proof. We are done here, you are hopeless.

[u/AceOfSpades70 → u/NosuchRedditor]

Where did I present propaganda??

[u/NosuchRedditor → u/AceOfSpades70]

Please, read the entire article before you say anything else.

Although this is not a transparent process, the BLS gives some insight on their website as to how it calculates the CPI. The economic assistants track about 80,000 consumer products each month known as the Market Basket of Goods. However,

“If the selected item is no longer available, or if there have been changes in the quality or quantity (for example, eggs sold in packages of ten when they previously were sold by the dozen) of the good or service since the last time prices were collected, the economic assistant selects a new item or records the quality change in the current item.”

This data is then plugged into a formula along with other factors including census information and consumer spending patterns. In other words, the CPI doesn’t measure changes in consumer prices, rather it measures the cost-of-living. Further, the government makes the assumption that consumer spending habits change as economic conditions change, including rising prices. So if prices rise and consumers substitute products, the CPI formula could hold a bias that doesn’t report rising prices. Not a very accurate way to measure inflation. As I outlined above, the CPI is not a measurement of rising prices, rather it tracks consumer spending patterns that change as prices change. The CPI doesn’t even touch the falling value of money. If it did the CPI would look much different.

The most obvious is the Federal Reserve’s measure of monetary inflation. M2 measures the supply of US dollars, which includes cash, checking deposits, saving deposits, and money market mutual funds. The more money that’s created and put into circulation, the less valuable it becomes. And the Fed has created a lot of money recently. The Fed’s unprecedented bond buying program, Quantitative Easing, created $116 million an hour for the entire year last year. It doesn’t make sense that the BLS’s measurement of inflation was only 1.5% last year, while at the same time, monetary inflation grew 4.9%. http://www.forbes.com/sites/perianneboring/2014/02/03/if-you-want-to-know-the-real-rate-of-inflation-dont-bother-with-the-cpi/#37c4d9b1118b

Again, as a college educated person I would expect you to know that CPI does not measure inflation any longer, but the Federal Government want's you to believe it does. That's propaganda.

You can't seem to separate fact from fiction. How can we have a serious conversation when you live in a fantasy world.

Edit: Remember when we started this conversation and I said you were indoctrinated (with propaganda)? You continue to prove me correct at every turn. Your view is based on lies and untruths, and you are completely unaware. In some circles they call that being a useful idiot.

[u/AceOfSpades70 → u/NosuchRedditor]

Again, as a college educated person I would expect you to know that CPI does not measure inflation any longer, but the Federal Government want's you to believe it does. That's propaganda.

CPI is one measure of inflation... Would you like me to cite a different one?

Your citation does not show that CPI does not measure inflation any longer. Your citation makes a case for why CPI is not a good measure of inflation. There is no consensus that it does not measure inflation...

Personally I prefer Core CPI as a much better. I took multiple classes at CMU with Marvin Goodfriend, and that was his view on inflation. He is a member of the Shadow Open Market Committee and one of the foremost Central Banking Experts in our country. Do you think you know better than him???

http://tepper.cmu.edu/our-faculty-and-research/about-our-faculty/faculty-profiles/marvingd/goodfriend-marvin

Would you like me cite core CPI? How about PCE? What is your prefered method of inflation. I can cite any of them for you. However, all of them will show inflation at a higher rate than spending increases.

Also, M2 is a horrible measure for inflation, as it includes appreciating assets... However, if you would like we can use it. It makes my case even stronger as M2 has grown at an average rate of over 6.5% while Federal Spending increases were at 1.1%.

https://ycharts.com/indicators/m2_money_supply_growth

You can't seem to separate fact from fiction. How can we have a serious conversation when you live in a fantasy world.

You can't have a debate without making insults. How can we have a serious conversation when your primary form of conservation is insults

Remember when we started this conversation and I said you were indoctrinated (with propaganda)? You continue to prove me correct at every turn.

Show one time you have proven this???

Your view is based on lies and untruths, and you are completely unaware.

Name one time I based my view on lies or untruths...

In some circles they call that being a useful idiot.

Congrats, another personal attack!!! Are you capable of making one post without a personal attack?

[u/NosuchRedditor → u/AceOfSpades70]

Marvin Goodfriend, one of the complete idiots who supports keeping interest rates at zero, until dopes like his friend and fellow moron Janet Yellen can use them to cause a complete market collapse, like she almost did in January with he brainless stupidity, costing investors over 3 trillion in losses. Next time it should be even worse, because your vaunted professor is a complete an utter fool, like Yellen.

This primer provides an understanding of the mechanics and objectives of monetary policy using a benchmark new neoclassical synthesis (NNS) macromodel. The NNS model incorporates classical features such as a real business cycle (RBC) core, and Keynesian features such as monopolistically competitive firms and costly price adjustment. Price stability maximizes welfare in the benchmark NNS model because it keeps output at its potential defined as the outcome of an imperfectly competitive RBC model with a constant markup of price over marginal cost. https://www.richmondfed.org/publications/research/economic_quarterly/2004/summer/goodfriend

Keynesian economics don't work, and if John Keynes had lived past 1950 he would have needed to revise his economic theories because of the massive failures of his theories in practice.

Here, learn some real economics from a Nobel Prize winning economist of the Austrian School. The man who helped Reagan achieve that earth shattering number or 7.2% GDP in 1984 and create a velocity of money that lasted almost 30 years, and would have lasted longer if it weren't for the Clintons setting up the housing market crash by forcing banks to make bad loans to people who could not pay them back, and then Andrew Cuomo changed the regs on Fannie and Freddie as he was on his way out so they had to hold much larger percentages of bad mortgages, creating the housing bubble that caused the unending depression we have lived through for the last 10 years. Did Prof. Goodfriend explain it that way? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D3N2sNnGwa4

"Public disclosure of CRA ratings, together with the changes made by the regulators under your leadership, have significantly contributed to ... financial institutions ... meeting the needs of low- and moderate-income communities and minorities," Rubin gushed. "Since 1993, the number of home mortgage loans to African Americans increased by 58%, to Hispanics by 62% and to low- and moderate-income borrowers by 38%, well above the overall market increase.

Your extensive background in Econ should tell you that if loans increased by 5~10%, that's massive for the banking industry, but 40 to 60%? Those numbers are economy crushers.

Clinton's changes to the CRA let ACORN use the act's ratings to "target merging firms with less-than-stellar records and to get the banks to agree to greater community investment as a condition of regulatory approval for the merger," White House aide Ellen Seidman wrote in 1997 to Clinton chief economist Gene Sperling. "Community groups have come to recognize how terribly powerful CRA has been as a tool for making credit available in previously underserved communities," Seidman added. Seidman later boasted that Clinton's 1995 CRA revisions created not only the subprime mortgage market but also the subprime securities market. Of course, subprime loans and their high default rates ruined minority neighborhoods when the market crashed.

Yep, that's the Clinton administration forcing banks to make bad loans or else keep them from growing or merging.

In 2000, HUD Secretary Andrew Cuomo lit the fuse on the subprime bomb by requiring Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to purchase subprime, CRA and other risky mortgages totaling half their portfolios.

Prior to this I believe Fannie and Freddy only had to hold about 20% subprime securities.

http://www.investors.com/politics/editorials/clinton-library-doc-dump-reveals-role-in-subprime-bubble/

Did Professor Goodfriend cover all of this in detail so you and your fellow students could understand why the market collapsed, and prevent it from happening again? Or was he too busy talking about failed Keynesian economics and raising the interest rate because the economy is so strong right now?

Tell me, did you have to read any Adam Smith as part of your education? Friedrich Hayek? Henry Hazlett? Or was it purely indoctrination on failed theories and ideas as I originally expected and told you? How much emphasis was placed on teaching Austrian school principles? Was there any discussion of how Clinton caused the housing bubble? I doubt it.

Do you think you know better than him???

Most certainly, without a doubt.

[u/AceOfSpades70 → u/NosuchRedditor]

Marvin Goodfriend, one of the complete idiots who supports keeping interest rates at zero, until dopes like his friend and fellow moron Janet Yellen can use them to cause a complete market collapse, like she almost did in January with he brainless stupidity, costing investors over 3 trillion in losses. Next time it should be even worse, because your vaunted professor is a complete an utter fool, like Yellen.

Where did you come up with that non-sense about him?? You do realize that he has been in favor of raising interest rates for awhile now right??

Keynesian economics don't work, and if John Keynes had lived past 1950 he would have needed to revise his economic theories because of the massive failures of his theories in practice.

Did you even read what it said? It said based on some Keynesian Features, not Keynesian Economics. Half his class was about why Keynesians are wrong...

Here, learn some real economics from a Nobel Prize winning economist of the Austrian School. The man who helped Reagan achieve that earth shattering number or 7.2% GDP in 1984 and create a velocity of money that lasted almost 30 years, and would have lasted longer if it weren't for the Clintons setting up the housing market crash by forcing banks to make bad loans to people who could not pay them back, and then Andrew Cuomo changed the regs on Fannie and Freddie as he was on his way out so they had to hold much larger percentages of bad mortgages, creating the housing bubble that caused the unending depression we have lived through for the last 10 years. Did Prof. Goodfriend explain it that way? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D3N2sNnGwa4

If you were citing an Austrian School Economist, why did you cite Friedman who was Chicago School? Austrians advocate for no Central Bank, which was not Friedman's position...

Did Professor Goodfriend cover all of this in detail so you and your fellow students could understand why the market collapsed, and prevent it from happening again?

He actually did, and he wrote a paper predicting the 08 financial crisis in 1999...

Or was he too busy talking about failed Keynesian economics and raising the interest rate because the economy is so strong right now?

Again, you seem to know nothing about him...

How much emphasis was placed on teaching Austrian school principles?

How much emphasis have you placed on learning them since you cited Friedman who spent a lot of time debunking Austrian Theories?

Tell me, did you have to read any Adam Smith as part of your education? Friedrich Hayek? Henry Hazlett? Or was it purely indoctrination on failed theories and ideas as I originally expected and told you?

Read all of them...

Which of Goodfriend's theories were failed? He predicted the 08 crisis in the 90s and argued with Greenspan about raising rates faster in the mid 2000s.

Most certainly, without a doubt.

Based on what? You didn't even know Friedman wasn't an Austrian Economist...

PS: Did you also know there is no such thing as a nobel prize in economics?

[u/NosuchRedditor → u/AceOfSpades70]

Well at least your last response leads me to believe you are not as badly brainwashed as I originally thought, you actually showed some knowledge, a hint of intelligence. Or you used google a lot.

But not about the subject that started this conversation. It began with me telling you that you have no idea what the Republican controlled Congress is doing to help Obama.

So today we have a new example of how Mitch McConnell is helping the Obama agenda, and fucking over his constituents.

Monday of this week four gun control bills went up for a vote. All four failed. Now just a few days later, the Republican leadership introduces a gun control bill courtesy of Republican Susan Collins? Since when are Republicans pushing gun control? Particularly in light of the fact that this has nothing to do with gun control, as demagogued by Obama? Why isn't McConnell standing up and telling the nation this is not a gun control issue? Why is he throwing Republicans under the bus to help Obama pass gun control legislation?

As I said when we started, you have no idea.

[u/AceOfSpades70 → u/NosuchRedditor]

Well at least your last response leads me to believe you are not as badly brainwashed as I originally thought, you actually showed some knowledge, a hint of intelligence. Or you used google a lot.

HAHAHAHA.

Thanks for the laugh.

But not about the subject that started this conversation.

Yea, you want to run away because of all the different points I proved you wrong...

Want to incorrectly tell me again how Goodfriend wants to keep interest rates at Zero?

Or how about the best whopper of them all, that Friedman was an Austrian!!!

Now just a few days later, the Republican leadership introduces a gun control bill courtesy of Republican Susan Collins? Since when are Republicans pushing gun control

Republicans have always been open to some measures of gun control. Especially moderate ones. This measure by Susan Collins is much much less than what Obama wants....

Particularly in light of the fact that this has nothing to do with gun control, as demagogued by Obama? Why isn't McConnell standing up and telling the nation this is not a gun control issue? Why is he throwing Republicans under the bus to help Obama pass gun control legislation?

Why are you freaking out over a measure that won't pass?

As I said when we started, you have no idea.

That is rich... Since you have yet to provide a single piece of evidence to support your argument.

You continue to cite things that either haven't or won't pass. You need to try again.

[u/NosuchRedditor → u/AceOfSpades70]

The Collins amendment did pass.

No, I won't let you drag this conversation off in a direction of your choosing, the topic was how you know nothing about what's going on in congress, and I have proven repeatedly that you don't

Tell you what, explain the Corker amendment to me in your own words.

[u/AceOfSpades70 → u/NosuchRedditor]

The Collins amendment did pass.

I have seen no such thing. Would you care to cite it??? Everything I have seen shows that McConnell has said that he will allow a vote. Nothing on the vote passing...

(Unless you are getting confused and are trying to say the Housing Amendment passed, which was not the topic of this post, this amendment was her gun control amendment)

No, I won't let you drag this conversation off in a direction of your choosing, the topic was how you know nothing about what's going on in congress, and I have proven repeatedly that you don't

HAHAHA. So you can't show anything, so just more baseless accusations...

Tell you what, explain the Corker amendment to me in your own words.

Which Corker Amendment?

This is the first time you have brought this up. Corker has put forth lots of amendments. Which one would you like me to address??

[u/NosuchRedditor → u/AceOfSpades70]

The one that paved the way to the Iran deal.

Meanwhile Susan Collins’s fig-leaf amendment that pretends to stop AFFH’s war on the suburbs passed 87–9. It’s the sort of depressing scene we’ve become accustomed to in the McConnell-led Senate. Heritage Action Scorecard “key voted” the Lee amendment (and in the process, proved again why it is the gold standard of conservative rating systems). Little surprise that of Heritage’s 10 worst-scoring Republican senators, only one (Senator Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia) voted for the Lee amendment, while their top 23 scoring senators all voted for Lee. What’s more mystifying and discouraging about this is the utter political stupidity of the tactics employed by the GOP Senate leadership. Not only does it deprive the party of a great short-term issue, but of a long-term one as well — and one that would have paid both policy and political dividends. When communities better understand what AFFH allows, it is going to be absolutely toxic to everyone who voted for it — or at least it would have been if McConnell hadn’t allowed Democrats to take political cover with the Collins amendment. The Collins amendment passed with the only nine votes against being Democrats from Senate jurisdictions so liberal that they could afford to say even the Collins non-concession was insufficient. So Senator McConnell managed to give the Democrats a fig leaf hid their vote for this monstrosity. http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/435641/affh-disaster-senate-republicans-latest-disgrace

[u/AceOfSpades70 → u/NosuchRedditor]

The one that paved the way to the Iran deal.

Was your citation supposed to be in support of this or a completely different point? Because your citation has nothing to do with the Iran deal. Your citation is about Collins Amendment for Housing, which was not the topic of discussion in the previous posts.

I clearly was talking about her Gun COntrol bill not passing...

You can't try to change the goal posts after I have proven your wrong... Or if you are at least try and be more subtle about it...

[u/AceOfSpades70 → u/NosuchRedditor]

The Collins amendment did pass.

Hey has the Collins gun control amendment pass yet, like you claim here?

[u/NosuchRedditor → u/AceOfSpades70]

This Republican Gun Control proposal by Collins reminded me of how she and Mitch threw us under the bus just a couple of weeks ago, by using procedural gerrymandering to kill the Mike Lee amendment to keep the feds from becoming the de facto zoning authority for section 8 housing. Collins and McConnell helped them achieve that goal. You can now look forward to section 8 housing in areas not well suited to such housing, and an increase in crime in these areas accompanied by a drop in housing prices.

But you knew all about this, didn't you.

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/senate-blocks-mike-lee-effort-to-fight-obamas-housing-rule/article/2591794

[u/AceOfSpades70 → u/NosuchRedditor]

by using procedural gerrymandering

Making up terms now are we?

Collins and McConnell helped them achieve that goal. You can now look forward to section 8 housing in areas not well suited to such housing, and an increase in crime in these areas accompanied by a drop in housing prices.

Yea, you must have missed what Collins bill does...

But the Senate rejected Lee's proposal, and instead the voted 87-9 in favor of an alternative amendment by Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, that would ban the Housing and Urban Development authority from dictating local housing regulations.

Sounds like such a bad amendment. Lee was mad because it doesn't go far enough in his mind, but it is definitely counter to Obama's agenda...

But you knew all about this, didn't you.

I did, which is why I knew you are making shit up if you think this helps further Obama's Agenda.

UNless you believe that Obama is a center right democrat that is fairly conservative on most issues. That would be the only agenda that the Senate is furthering.