Lets make fun of Obama while he is still relevant.

[David Horn]

(12-07-2016, 02:30 AM)Warren Dew Wrote: The plumber's productivity, measured in output per year, is absolutely not fixed.  He can work overtime to increase it.  He can go to part time or retire early to decrease it.

The plumber has a lot more ability to cut his output than increase it.  To increase it, there has to be a demand for his services, which may not be the case.  More to the point, higher demand may encourage others to enter the field, which would be a true expansion of the GDP base.  But the demand has to be there first.

Warren Wrote:

Mikebert Wrote:What you are advocating for is a form of Keynesian stimulus expressed in terms that are political palatable to conservatives.

Now you're starting to get it.  That was exactly what Reagan was doing, too.  He sold it to high tax low spending austerity fans as cost free, because the reduced rates would increase tax receipts, but ultimately the objective was quasi Keynesian stimulus, operating on the supply curve rather than on the demand curve to make it actually effective.

I think you're giving Reagan a lot of credit for things he never did.  When he reduced rates, the deficit exploded as expected.  He restored some of the revenue by raising Payroll taxes, so he actually gave to the rich with one hand and took from working folks with the other.

At that, his economy produced lower rates of growth than Clinton's, and he raised taxes substantially.  So your conclusions stand on a poor platform of few facts and much conjecture.

Warren continued Wrote:That said, operating on the supply curve rather than on the demand curve was and is important; that makes the stimulus deflationary rather than inflationary, due to the opposite slopes of the two curves.  At the time the deflationary effect was directly beneficial; today it would be beneficial in that it would permit additional stimulus on the monetary side to supplement the supply side fiscal stimulus without excessive inflation.

There is quite literally no argument for stimulating supply, when we are already awash in under utilized physical and human assets.  No business person worth a tinker's damn will hire or add to physical plant without some underlying demand for more of the product or service he sells.[/quote]