CRC wrote:gcomeau wrote:Ok, forget waiting for agreement on the analogy. To reiterate:
Debt = Water level in the boat.
Deficit = How fast water is coming into the boat
...
Captain Obama spends his entire time as captain patching the giant gaping wound in the hull while also dealing with all the other damage. The flow of water slows from a rushing torrent to a strong flow to a still concerning rapid leak... but it's getting slower and slower while everything else gets gradually stabilized as well. But OF COURSE while this is being done the water level is rising really really fast. Because there's no other way for things to go. It's up around people's chins by the time it's time for Obama to hand off the job to Captain Trump...
Got to figure out this forum one of these days.
So now I understand completely. You're hard core democrat/progressive. Just had to dial you in to understand your perspective. Thanks for the enlightening description.
Progressive yes... Democrat no...
And I'm unsure how basic descriptions of numbers, which is all that analogy did, treat with objective facts and figures... has anything to do with that?
I come at this from a far more objective perspective.
More objective than the actual numbers in the budgets? That analogy perfectly reflected the actual debt and deficit load impacts over time.
Your analogy is somewhat off a bit. its not up around people's chins, its over their head - re GDP.
It's an analogy, choose any scale you like. It doesn't change the underlying reality of what happened under each president.
If you really insist on saying today's levels are over the head instead of under the chin, whatever. Then scale all the levels in the previous presidents terms appropriately by raising the water levels in the boat about 10% too. What difference does that make to the point being illustrated? Absolutely none.
But to add a few historical items to your treatise, you did forget to mention "the Peace Dividend"...that Clinton enjoyed - due to both Reagan and Bush Sr.
Ummm, bull? Reagan and Bush Sr. didn't cause peace in the 90s.
Then there was the little 9/11 thing when it comes to Bush the Jr.
In case you missed it at the time, Bush wiped out the surplus with a giant tax cut giveaway instead of using it to pay down the debt *before* 9/11.
And the impact of 9/11 on the national economy was a temporary blip. The underlying structural soundness of the national economy wasn't significantly impacted by the destruction of two building in New York and the damage to the Pentagon, or by the death of a few thousand people. In terms of human tragedy 9/11 was massive. In terms of damage to the economic soundness of a nation of over 300 million people with a GDP of almost 13 Trillion dollars it was insignificant. It was poking an elephant with a sewing needle.
It was a temporary disruption only. There were short term impacts on tourism and such, but compared to the near total collapse of the entire global economy that was occurring in 2008/2009... 9/11 was a *blip* in economic terms. No, it took Bush's *reaction* to 9/11 for it to do real damage on a national rather than just a local scale.
Nobody made Bush start *two* wars... one of them (and the more expensive one by a long way) having absolutely squat to do with 9/11.... after 9/11. That's on him.
And yes, there was the "Great Recession" that Obama inherited - just to be fair.
Yes... the worst economic catastrophe since the Great Depression dumped on his lap just as he entered office... "just to be fair."
So let's talk about your boat analogy and expand to real world. The issue is really, you don't know how much water the boat will hold before it sinks, nor do you know how unstable the boat is and how small a swell could cause it to capsize and sink, nor do you know the condition of the pumps bailing out the water.
All somewhat true... none of which however change the point being made. Under some Captains the boat got patched and the holes got smaller and the rate at which water was pouring in reduced.
Under other Captains giant freaking holes got poked in it and water poured in faster and faster.
If you're so very worried about the water levels, which Captains do you want in charge? The ones making the holes smaller, or the ones making the holes bigger? It's a simple enough question.
