S. F. LAVALLE'S PROFILE

I'm not taking the extreme position that Republican presidents do not do any good and that Democratic presidents do no wrong. Obama is quite unpopular now with some Dems even for Obamacare and not addressing the economy when Dems had the majority. I'm well aware that the economic effects of policies may not be felt until after a 4-year term. This also partly explains why I find it a little ridiculous to vilify Obama for not "fixing the economy" even though he made promises he obviously couldn't keep (I attribute that to politics more than a single person).

It's the ideology that bothers me. It seems like Republicans are content to cut taxes and let government sort out how it makes up the difference. That it's ok to increase the debt as long as they are not increasing spending, and further that it actually is ok to increase spending as long as it is going towards war. I don't blame Bush for the war in Afghanistan, I disagree with the war in Iraq, but I believe allowing the tax cuts to continue while engaged in these wars is irresponsible.

The problem seems like the increasing deficit and debt before Obama was just business as usual, but since Obama took office just before we hit rock bottom, the recession made anything short of laying off half the government somehow egregious. I'm not a fan of the US Treasury's no-limit, no-interest credit cards for financial institutions, but we already discussed whether we believed Obama could do anything to halt it.

Getting to things that are more directly controlled by the president, Obama's economic plan still fills me with much more confidence than Romney's. I don't say that because I'm an Obama supporter; I support Obama because of it. Cutting taxes so drastically seems like a very big mistake.

author=harmonic
Yikes, there is absolutely no one else on the fiscal conservative, or hayek/austrian economic philosophy in this thread except me. This is difficult odds. But as they say, most people thought the world was flat at a time. Seems pretty boring just having a giant echo chamber, so let's bring some balance to the table.

I appreciate that you welcome the handicap. I'm certainly not looking to tilt the thread in "our" favor ("we" being people who don't share your views but have no other established positions with each other). In fact I'm hoping to learn more about the economy, and you have given me new insights.

Before that, if by my positions I'm not a fiscal conservative, where does that put me? Fiscal liberal? The sound of it is scary, and my inclination is to reject it. I think a large part of the debate lies in what we all define "fiscal responsibility" to be.

I have no love for the Wall Street bailout. I don't have much to go off of there besides the sentiment of it, that big banks (GSE's or not) pull us into recession for their mistakes and then get our tax dollars to stay afloat BAD BAD BAD. Nevertheless, all the big players on both sides said it needed to be done, so it got done. US automakers, mired in their own debt from their own mistakes, took a much deeper and sudden hit with the recession. The auto bailout I am much more in favor of, as it produced much more tangible results; i.e. cars to drive. Seeing they likely would have had to liquidate assets that affect global markets, I'd like to think it also helped the American bottom line from loss of exports, although I realize this amount could be small. Both bailouts saved jobs. Your position on the importance of jobs is interesting, and where I think a key difference lies in our beliefs.

To me, jobs means money, and money means sales. We're still the world's largest consumer economy. All the jobs in China won't matter if people here in the US don't have the money to buy goods. More money, more sales, more growth. I think the gist of what you are saying (correct me if I'm wrong) is that it isn't jobs that we need so much as exports, whether they are produced by local jobs or not. We need something we can sell to the world. In principle, I agree with this. But as the largest consumer economy in the world, I think the importance of domestic jobs is going to provide the most transient boost in the economy. Meanwhile, we need to have a serious talk about domestic production opportunities.

This is all I have time for now while I'm at work, I'll read more when I get home.

Regarding the fiscal cliff, sure, it's not the be-all-end-all economic disaster it might sound to be, but it's generally to believed to come at the expense of many jobs. Across-the-board tax increases coupled with reductions in entitlement spending is a rough combo.

To be sure, the Republicans have a lot more to lose out of this deal, but Obama doesn't want all of these cuts and tax hikes either (with the 1% being the notable exception).

I don't see the harm in putting up files that are being rejected. I think people understand that by submitting work they are allowing others to use them. Even if they don't make it in the pack, they can still be of use to others (especially if it's rejected for being pre-existing, because it can still be a good song).

If you're worried about songs not included in the back thus not being properly licensed, keep in mind that anything can apply any creative commons license to any work they create themselves. Check out creativecommons.org or the provided text file for info. There's probably an mp3 or ogg tag you can embed with the CC license number.

Pretty awesome idea, Link. Makes me wish I could actually play an instrument.

For a lot of you, there should be a relatively cheap/easy way to record from your keyboards. Most keyboards have a headphone jack, and just about all computers have a line-in for microphones. If you go to Radio Shack and buy a stereo 3.5mm cable (it looks like a headphone jack on both ends) for a few bucks you can plug one right into the other, set your computer's recording device to Line-In, and voila; use Audacity or Sound Recorder to make some easy recordings. You may also need to buy a quarter inch adapter for the cable if your keyboard's output is that large.

This is an example of such a cable: http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.jsp?productId=12475706&retainProdsInSession=1

I can't play, but I have plenty of stuff to engineer mixes with (or I can record your stuff in you live in the Seattle area). Catch me anytime on AIM if you want: plainoldsean.