The United States of America: A $53.9 Trillion GDP economy

Year: 2013 and The United States of America has a $53.9 Trillion GDP economy. Year after year we've made Trillions more than all the other nations combined. The richest and freest country on earth. With poverty eliminated, a healthcare system the envy of the world, a technocrats dream world and our first Mars colonies prospering.

Oh, but we don't have that world. We have this one. The one where "The Government" takes care of everything for us and the top 1% get bailed out while the rest of the country slides into a Detroit-like cesspool.

The Journal of Economic Growth recently published an article entitled “Federal Regulation and Aggregate Economic Growth”. The authors found that WITHOUT additional Federal Regulation since 1949, America Could Have a $53.9 Trillion GDP. Just imagine what life would be like with a $54 Trillion dollar a year economy. Imagine how much better life would be. Thank your Federal Government for NOT having that life.

Oh, and before we hear about the Government that saved us from a burning river once, those free roads or Somalia. In a truely Free society Citizens have Law, Private Property and Sound Money. This means if some company pollutes the river, the CEO gets sued by each and every person who lives on that river. The CEO is then tried by a jury of his peers and sent to prison and/or fined. As it stands now, the "Government" regulates the pollution - problem solved, for the petrochemical companies.

Thank God we have all those Michelle Backmans and Weiners and Bush Jrs and Darth Cheney's and O-blah-blah's in "Government" looking out for us and not that extra $40 Trillion in capital every year. Yes, it's so nice to know "Government" is building crime ridden Public Housing; drug ridden Public Schooling with less than 50% literacy rates; pothole riddled Public Roads; Public police who target minorities and Spy on law abiding Citiziens; oh, and now Public Hospitals. Yes, truly thank the Gods we instead have all that Government raping us instead of free market voluntarism, Law, Private Property, Free Banks, Sound Money and an extra $40 TRILLION EACH YEAR.

 

Log in or Sign up to hide all adverts.

And Bernie Madoff the richest man in the world.

The weirdest part is that your little fantasy there is more real, to you, than the actual events of the physical universe.

 

Log in or Sign up to hide all adverts.

Federal regulation and aggregate economic growth
Journal of Economic Growth
June 2013, Volume 18, Issue 2, pp 137-177


There's the peer-reviewed publication, why don't you make your argument to them. Secondly, Madoff made his money in THIS world iceaura. Not some fantasy world, this one. The 'regulated' one YOU support. The one that bails out the top 1% who continue to make all the gains while the bottom 99% sink into the gutter.

(publication by Professor of Economics UC Berkeley found here: Striking it Richer: The Evolution of Top Incomes in the United States).

The ONLY person living in a fantasy world is you. Your deluded fantasy land where you still think you live in a free republic and not the Progressive Fascist State you actually do live in.

One would think that the NSA spying would snap you people out of it, but nope.

IMO people who think like you, who think the small raison farmers should pay YOU to eat their raisins, make democracy untenable. These very real farmers are losing their farms due to USDA government theft, because people who think like you fully support stealing from them and calling it 'Tax'. You were very clear that the Farmer should pay a Tax to sell - well, I hope you're happy then because that's exactly what is happening. Only the 'Tax' is paid in raisins. Still not theft to iceura, how dare those greedy raison farms keep their produce! We voted!

Plato made it clear that people who think like you make democracies untenable, because once you people realize you can vote yourselves the goods from other people's hard labor, that's exactly what you will do. You tell yourself it's not really stealing because you voted and then make up some other fantasy semantics like For the Good of the "Nation" to post-hoc justify your theft... oh, I mean "Tax".

Well, I hope you like what you see, because you're going to get a lot more of it. This IS the recovery. THIS is the New Economy, and it's here to stay. And it will be YOU paying the 'Tax'. Do enjoy your just deserts.

 

Log in or Sign up to hide all adverts.

Federal regulation and aggregate economic growth
Journal of Economic Growth
June 2013, Volume 18, Issue 2, pp 137-177

Hey, who needs an EXTRA $40 trillion per year anyway? I mean, look what we get instead, vast bureaucracy spying on and sucking the blood out of the citizenry until they're bone dry.


Have to hand it to Public Schooling, it sure does do one thing well, and boy does it.

 

I truly doubt an economy that large would even be physical possible, we are talking 4 times our present energy consumption. The price to extract that much energy would have slowed such an economy decades ago. In fact IRL america peak oil event in 1970 and reliance of OPEC and foreign oil was a big dampener on its economy growth.

 

Ah, yes. The libertard ideal of environmental law.

Claimant: "But your honor, my children are dying. Our doctor tells them they will die if this pollution isn't addressed"
Judge: "Are you proposing a murder charge?"
Claimant: "Well, no, they're not dead yet . . . ."
Judge: "What damages are you suing for?"
Claimant: "Well, we have good medical insurance so our bills aren't that much. Only $3000."
Judge: "Defendant is ordered to pay $3000. NEXT CASE!"
Claimant: "But your honor I don't care about the money. I want my kids to survive. And our neighbors are having . . . ."
Judge: "Look, what do you want here? After your kids are dead you can go after them for murder. Until then, take your $3000 and be happy. NEXT!"

 

Nice strawman - tell that story to the Iraqi's whose children breath in depleted radioactive uranium daily. You can tell them how wonderful our Republic is and what a wonderful job it does of ensuring the environment is protected.

1. Harvard Press: Depleted Uranium Radioactive Contamination In Iraq - An Overview
2. The US Federal Government: Largest Polluter in History


The fact is the CEO in your story would be found guilty in a trial by Jury and face life in prison - that alone would prevent this as well as other CEO's from polluting. Not to mention the employees in the chemical company probably live in the area, are a part of the community, and would be available to say something - particularly if it was their property being polluted. Not to mention this chemical plant just didn't *poof* into existence like in your idiotic story - during it's construction the people who live by it and would be affected would have health insurance and that health insurance company (itself a large corporation) would have the financial incentive to ensure the ground and water is clean - including when this chemical plant was constructed. As well there is property insurance (itself also a large corporation) - they would be at a great financial loss as they'd have to insure everyone's property - they'd also make sure this chemical plant was not polluting. Oh, and there's worker's insurance - and likewise.

But, that's not what happens in THIS world. In our "Glorious Republic" the Citizens are too f*cking stupid to take care of themselves and so they're relegated that responsibility over to the US Government at a cost of $40 TRILLION dollars a year in lost productivity. In exchange our "Glorious Public Servants" write the regulations that ensure the chemical company can legally pollute (see Fracking), the insurance companies do not have to pay, and Americans (many of whom are functionally literate High School Graduate) can waddle their fat-dumb Public Schooled asses over to the Magical and Glorious "Voting" Booth and click the button "LEFT" or the button "RIGHT". Yippie f*cking dippie.


The fact is, in our world (not the made up one you obviously live in) the US Federal Government IS THE LARGEST polluter on Earth. The "Civil Servants" who work for the EPA and FDA ensure regulation is there to protect companies like Monsanto and Chemical Companies - not peons like you. But hey, don't let reality get in the way of your idiotic fiction you like to live in. Just blame the "Right" or the "Left" and waddle home. The fact is, right now, you're eating food that legally contain poisons (preservative and sugars) that are banned in other countries - these will, statistically, make you unhealthy - and possibly even lead to your death. Unlike your strawman - this is a fact.




Sadly, we can only imagine what $40 TRILLION more each year would have done to make us a more prosperous nation. Perhaps we'd have colonies on other planets. Perhaps we'd have AI. Cured cancer - even aging. No one can know because instead of that - we have Glorius Big Government and a whole hell of a lot more Federal Bureaucracy. Perhaps your Civil Servants are right, maybe you are simply too stupid to take care of yourself and you do need them to look after you, for you?

 

Michael you are preaching the libertarian gospel yet again and we have been through this too many times before. The paper you are citing was a study bought and paid for by the Koch brothers – you know - the 1%ters you are always complaining about. The paper exaggerated the costs of regulation and completely ignored the benefits of regulation – fancy that. The “The Journal of Economic Growth” is just another Koch brother funded front created to extend the political and economic power of the Koch brothers by misleading/duping the ignorant and gullible.

The truth is it was the average American got bailed out and that too has been explained many times to you. The American people, the average Joe’s and Jane’s, got ripped off when banking was deregulated in 2000 and were continuously ripped off until Dodd-Frank. The bailouts just put water on the raging fire which was The Great Recession which was created by deregulating the financial industry.

We tried your “free market volunteerism” it didn’t work. Yeah, people didn’t like their rivers spontaneously erupting in flames, or finding their homes were not livable or their water not drinkable or their air not breathable due to pollution or that their children suffered from lead or some other pollution related poisoning. And people got a little tired worrying if today would be the day they lost their life savings because the local bank or savings and loan went under or worry about a lost gold shipment sending the economy into a depression. The unfortunate fact for you and your Libertarian fellows is that we have hundreds of years of history and economic data that just does not support your ideological notions. That is why; as long as people are free and informed, libertarianism has been and will remain fringe ideology.

 

So were not getting casinos on mars?

 

Can you imagine how much richer the Koch brothers would be if they didn't have to worry about their pollution or getting caught stealing oil? Gee, I wonder why they don't like government regulation? My guess is it is the same reason the bankers pushed Congress to deregulate the financial industry. It's one of those five letter words, GREED.

"ENVIRONMENTAL VIOLATIONS & POLLUTION
◦In 2000, the Clinton administration leveled a 97-count indictment against Koch Industries for covering up the discharge of 91 tons of benzene, a carcinogen, from its refinery in Corpus Christi, Texas. The company was liable for $350 million in fines; 4 Koch employees faced up to 35 years in prison. “The Koch Petroleum Group eventually pleaded guilty to one criminal charge of covering up environmental violations, including the falsification of documents, and paid a twenty-million-dollar fine” (Jane Mayer, “Covert Operations”, The New Yorker, August 30, 2010).
◦The federal government sued Koch in 1995 over a reported 300 oil spills at pipelines owned by the company, which dumped an estimated 3 million gallons of oil into lakes and streams in 6 states. In 2000, Koch settled the case and agreed to pay $30 million in civil penalties.
◦“In 1999, a jury found Koch Industries guilty of negligence and malice in the deaths of two Texas teen-agers in an explosion that resulted from a leaky underground butane pipeline” (Mayer). See the National Transportation Safety Board’s report on the accident.
◦A jury found Koch Industries guilty in 1999 of stealing millions of gallons of oil from public and Indian lands through fraudulent mismeasuring. This concluded a 20-year long legal battle between Charles and David Koch and their estranged brother, Bill Koch, who revealed the scheme and spearheaded the lawsuit. See the 60 Minutes story about the case.
◦The University of Massachusetts at Amherst’s Political Economy Research Institute released a study this year that named Koch Industries one of the top ten air polluters in the United States" oilwatchdog

http://www.oilwatchdog.org/meet-koch-industries/

 

Sure, right after you tell your libertard story to the children who died breathing the particulate pollution from all the power plants in the US who have managed to skirt EPA regulations. Tell them that if only they had been free to pollute more their children would be alive.

Sure. You could afford the extra health care you'd need to pay for your chelation treatments to try to remove the heavy metals from your body. Or pay for your children's funerals. Or perhaps you could use the money to try to buy enough air filtration to let you breathe the air. If not, no worries; you'd be dead, and dead people don't need money. Perhaps it would go to a local needy CEO.

Or perhaps you could take your libertard bonus and pay for the protection you'd need from the local gangs. After all, no nanny state police to take care of the people too stupid to take care of themselves. Perhaps if you paid enough in protection money (sorry, the correct libertard expression is "earned income") you could have them lean on the local politicians a bit to skew the laws to your liking. No nanny state "anti-corruption laws" here! And if your neighbors didn't like it, well, freedom is not a right in the libertard society - it's a product for those who can afford it.

 

If you're suggesting the Journal editors are lying, then, it's within your right to ask to see the raw data - that's the nifty thing about peer-review Joe.

No, the bailouts were not needed, the ONLY people who were bailed out were the top 1% (mainly banking CEOs). The total losses would have been contained around $70 billion instead of the generational debt we have now. This will probably become clearer as the Federal Reserve 'tightens' (ha, gotta love their bs semantics) and 'tapers' the US economy right back into recession. Wouldn't want to much "Wealth Effect" now would we Joe.

No, we have not had a free-market - ever. Although it was much freer 100 years ago. Since the creation of the 14th amendment, which taxes the Worker of his labor, and the creation of the Federal Reserve, over the these 100 years they've finally destroyed the American Way of Life.

The fact is a small country town in the 1850s would have pretty much run like an Anarchy. While the very very few 'Public Servants' worked directly for the local community and were Public, if someone turned the sign around and made them Private - no one would have noticed. There'd literally be next to no difference as most people would have voluntarily paid for these very very very few public servants. There is NO WAY in HELL you'd get them to pay the 33% labor tax along with the hundred of other taxes to support a massive "Public Service" that we have today. Never. They'd of told you to go F yourself. It was a slow progress, one foot in front of the other to go from the Libertarian States of the later 1800s to the Progressive Fascist Spying-on-Americans GARGANTUAN State we have today.

 

I never cease to be amazed at your immunity to reality Michael. You never let little things like fact and reason get in the way of yourlibertarian faith.

 

You're the one posting stupid shit on this forum here, you can answer for your arguments yourself.

And he isn't the richest man in this world - in your fantasy world, he would face no regulations or taxes or physical boundaries or anything: sky's the limit.

Right about the time the last of the Reconstruction edifice was demolished, and the capitalist industry of the old Confederacy shook free of the oppressive Federal government and recovered its source of cheap labor from black people - the local prison systems. Freedom!

The reason rich people hate income tax, Michael, is because it's just about the only tax they actually get stuck paying.

There were towns like that, yep: No sewer or water system, no paved roads, high school for rich men's children only, grade school taught by a woman forbidden to court or marry and required to attend church, two or three families owning everything, the elderly (over 55) commonly malnourished and without medical care, volunteer fire fighting with gear brought from home, no firearms allowed (you checked them in with the sheriff, checked them out when you left), in the north a sign at the edge of town reminding the niggers that their presence inside town limits after sundown would be punished harshly (in the south that was not a problem, as the southern version of anarchy featured slavery) and so forth and so on - anarchy? I believe you've outdone yourself with that one.

 

From the end of the Civil War until 1910 was the most prosperous period in not only the USA but world history. A TEENY Federal Government, no Central Bank and no Labor Tax.


I'll keep this short, and because you seem to keep missing this point again and again: no regulation is not the same as no law. The problem you seem to have is that you think the State regulations are there to protect you - it's exactly the opposite. Private property rights protect your house, land and person. If any of these are polluted or poisoned - you can take the company owner to a court and sue them and a jury will determine reparations. Those regulations you love to much, they're to prevent you from suing the "corporations" that are poisoning you (whom the State thinks are people).

 

? actually it was post world war to to the 70's but hey why let little things like facts get in the way of that.



and the US has never had a labor tax not now not ever.

 

Hogwash Michael, do you want me to drag out the charts again?

Yes it is the same as no law. The problem you and your fellow conservatives/libertarians have is in drawing the line between how much is too much law and how much is not enough law. You have been repeatedly unable to answer that question in any substantive manner.

I find if funny, on one hand you want to get rid of all lawyers and then in the next you use them to justify deregulation. How would law suits have remedied The Great Recession? If you combined all the wealth of all the involved executives and stockholders, you wouldn’t have enough money to pay for the apocalypse that would have evolved if the US government had not taken action to remedy the problem. Additionally, corporate investors and executives are shielded from personal liability. So how would suing prevent pollution? In the past companies like WR Grace who were sued and lost in court just go into bankruptcy court and get the judgments dismissed. And in order to sue you have to first be damaged. That means if a company is polluting your air, land and water, you have to wait until you are damaged before you can sue. The reason we have pollution regulation is because law suits didn’t protect people from pollution – it’s one of those many historical realities biting you and your fellow libertarians in the derriere again.

The threat of law suits didn’t protect our rivers, our land, or our air. The threat of laws suits didn’t prevent either the Great Depression or The Great Recession. That is why we have regulations. At least you are consistent Michael, you and your libertarian fellows want to take us back to the failed policies of the past. You guys like repeating our mistakes instead of learning from them.

 

1) Regulation and Incorporation are in place to specifically prevent citizens from suing. In short, a century ago companies were being targeted with frivolous lawsuits, so they pulled on the levers of power and wa-la instant "Corporation" and "Regulated"/legalized amounts of pollution. Regulation was never there to protect fire-rivers, this is just asinine - that's a simple mater of property damage and any court could hand this.

As I stated, we have workers insurance, health insurance, home owners insurance, property rights, law and etc... if we hadn't resorted to 'regulation' these systems would have evolved to deal with crooked owners of companies; not to mention the EXTRA $40 TRILLION A YEAR IN GDP!

Tell me Joe, was the CEO of WR Grace put in prison? Why not?

FACT: The Federal Government is the largest polluter in the HISTORY of humanity.

2) With competing currencies and no income tax there wouldn't have been a so-called "Great Recession" (which, by the way Joe, if you bothered to look out your palace window you'd realize never ended - THIS is the new economy, hope you like it). The so-called business cycle isn't like the carbon cycle, it's artificially created by the Federal Reserve lowering and raising interest rates. Only now, they're stuck. They can't raise interest rates. Which means the value of money will remain near 0, which is fitting given the toilet-paper fiat currency the USD has become.

The ONLY reason we have massive Recessions (now the New Norm) is because we stuck using the same currency. Example: when M$ ZUNE went off the market, no one noticed because they simply bought an iPod and used iTunes. Of course, if you owned a Zune you were probably unhappy - but it didn't destroy the electronics industry. Starting to see the difference when compared to our currency? Starting to get why we have a Labor Tax that MUST be paid in US Federal Reserve Bank Notes. We NEED currency competition. Once the USD is toast - we will. Interestingly, the Federal Reserve is as "Federal" as "Federal Express" and has NO RESERVES.

TAX cattle Joe, moo moo.

3) The Banks would have lost $70 billion and some would have went bust, that's ALL that would have happened. This was all one big scare tactic, no different than the so-called WMD in Iraq. Just to bail out the top 0.1%. One lie after another and the public just keeps eating the shit shovelled onto them. Thank you Public School, not only have your achieved a functional illiteracy rate near 50% of Graduates but you've simultaneously ground any form of critical thought out of the children and trained an obedient consumer horde not able to question the statuesque.

FACT: 6 years later Joe, why do we have still have TBTF banks? Why aren't these institutions broken up? WHY are they BIGGER?

And you say the words "Free-Market" with straight face. What a joke.

FACT: If Hiroshima has taught us anything, it's that it's better to have a Democrat drop a nuke on your city than to govern it. See: Detroit.

 

But no regulation is the same as there not being any regulations enforced, of any kind - laws, rules, customs, practices, oversight recommendations, whatever. See how that works?

So the conquering and dominating of the Confederacy by an expanding and overwhelmingly coercive Federal government, the unprecedented blasting and forced modification of all local economies and State laws and ethnic customs over the entire southern half of the US by the central Federal government and its carpetbaggers, at gunpoint, is your idea of a "teeny" Federal government? The hardships and miseries and degradation of the postwar years in a society scraping its means from the remains of Sherman's march to the sea while under the bootheel of a conquering government, is your idea of "prosperous"? Your problem is you don't know any history or economics, and your vocabulary has been built up from reading goofy crap written by people who don't know what ordinary terms and references mean any better than you do. You have, for example, no idea what a "labor tax " would be - you like the term, your dingbat buddies use it, so you use it, but you look like a fool anywhere outside the wingnut circlejerks. Look up "corvee".

And better to have a strong central government, central bank, fiat currency, welfare state approach, and extensive government intrusion into all aspects of daily life, than to depend on a powerful capitalistic industrial corporation for one's economic wellbeing.

 

Hogwash, corporations were first created some 400 years ago and they were created to accumulate capital for trade ventures. It had nothing to do with pollution or frivolous law suits. And regulations really were created to prevent and control pollution and to keep our banks sound. And the reason regulation was created is because litigation was expensive and it didn’t work. Additionally, as you were previously informed, in order to initiate a law suit an individual must be damaged. It’s kind of difficult to initiate a law suit when you are dead or struggling to stay alive. And suing people and especially large corporations is a very expensive endeavor and unaffordable for most people. The unpleasant fact for you Michael is litigation failed to solve problems like bank failures and other miscreant behaviors. That is why we have regulations. That is why we have a criminal code. The criminal code is another form of regulation.

I am always amazed by your ability to ignore reality Michael. Just when I think it couldn’t get any worse you surprise me and exceed my expectations. Workers insurance, health insurance and homeowners insurance are regulated and heavily so. And there is no indication that those systems would have evolved. Because insurance over the course of hundreds of years and no regulation failed to solve the problem of “crooked owners” and as previously pointed out to you your claims of 40 trillion in extra GDP is stupid to say the least. It is not founded in fact or reason for the many reasons previously mentioned. They failed to offset their grossly over stated costs with the benefits of regulation and failed to account for the opportunity costs of failing to regulate and you assumed that a cost reduction automatically translates to GDP growth. If you save more, it doesn’t mean you earn more.

No because what he did was not illegal. It wasn’t criminal.

Is it? Or is it just more nonsense? It is also the largest single employer. Let’s see some credible evidence to support your claim.

Well Michael this is yet another in a long series of departures from reality for you. Competing currencies and income tax had absolutely nothing to do with The Great Recession nor have they ever created a recession. That is just ignorance in favor of ideology. And as has been repeatedly proven to you over the course of years, The Great Recession really is over. You may not like it, but that doesn’t change the fact that the economy has been growing for more than three years now. And despite of your libertarian machinations, the Federal Reserve didn’t create business cycle. Business cycles as also repeatedly proven to you predate the creation of The Federal Reserve. And we have currency competition and there is no such thing as a labor tax – something that has also been repeatedly pointed out to you over the course of the years.

Yeah you really need to stop being a dupe for your ideological masters.

And where is your evidence to support that claim? You have no evidence, because none exists. Frankly Michael your claim here is just ignorant. You probably just pulled it out of the aether as you like to do. The fact is the bank bailout program was 700 billion dollars alone and that doesn’t include the costs that would have occurred had the banks been allowed to fail as you advocated, nor does it include the costs of supporting the auto industry or the downstream costs and the opportunity costs, nor does it include the 700 billion dollar stimulus needed to end the panic. If the banks and the economy had been allowed to fail as you had advocated the costs would have been into the several trillions of dollars.

And then there is the small matter and cost of indemnifying the 8 million workers who lost their jobs during The Great Recession caused by the malfeasance of financial executives and political leaders. Do you really think they have enough money to pay the salaries of 8 million workers for one year let alone 3 years? I will give you a hint Michael; it’s going to cost a little more than 70 billion dollars. And if the US government had not stepped in and stopped the panic, that 8 million dollar job loss would look good compared to what could have occurred if the panic were allowed to run out of control. The unemployed would have soared into the tens of millions. And then there is the small matter of the trillion plus dollars in lost federal tax revenues caused by The Great Recession...not to mention lost state and local tax revenues. Do you really think those few, the few who caused the problem, could have coughed up the money to pay for the damages they inflicted on the economy?

I take it you are a product of the American educational system? You do eat a lot of shit my friend.

This too has been answered umpteen times over the years. We don’t have TBTF banks. Banks are larger but they can now fail because a mechanism has been put into place to prevent systemic risk rising to the levels which caused The Great Recession and there is a mechanism to orderly liquidate those banks should they fail. But this like all the other many facts go in one orifice and out the other.

Yeah I do, and I know what they mean.

LOL, that is just more nonsense Michael.