Did you watch the CNBC Debate from start to finish?

[eric82oslo]

I did watch the entirety, however I watched it many, many hours later on YouTube. I still haven't watched the kids' table though, and still haven't decided whether I should bother at all. I'm so sick of Jindal (& of Santorum to a lesser degree), that I'm not really tempted to it. However, to me personally, Graham is more entertaining than both Trump and Carson combined, so I might watch him to see what jokes he puts out of his pocket this time around.

[eric82oslo]

Donald Trump - Mr. Trump continued do do what he does best: entertain. He couldn't answer questions on policy, he came across as obnoxious, and he is unrefined. He was the clear loser of this debate.

Not really. He was boring and repetitive and only recited old, and by now pretty lame, talking points. However, he didn't make a disgrace of himself like in the past two debates. And the one time he was attacked, by Kasich, he hit back really hard and on point. I believe that he must have prepared that Kasich knock for a few months already. It was effective and he could keep standing, unlike that embarrassing moment he had versus Fiorina in the previous debate. I'd rank Trump as the 5th or 6th best in the debate, while I think I had him dead last in the previous two debates.

[eric82oslo]

The insanity and chaos was great theatre. Interestingly, some pundits think Cruz's meandering mess of an answer on the federal reserve that had almost no nexus with the facts (hamburger meat going up 40%, and without saying it, sort of saying wouldn't it be great if interest rates bounced up) was viewed as one of his best moments.

Cruz, and I guess Paul, want high interest rates and no inflation (as in 0.0%). That's exactly the recipe for high unemployment and economic disaster for anyone but the super rich. Do these guys really know absolutely nothing about basic economics at all??! The worst thing is that they actually seem to get away with it too.

[eric82oslo]

I recorded it on my DVR and watched it three+ hours delayed. I scrolled along the Atlas live comment thread as the debate progressed, which provided an interesting parallel read. I wanted to see the whole debate since the first two had surprises at all points that included both body language and words. I thought it useful to see the bits in context before they were isolated for wide distribution and comment.

For policy wonks, the debate was a very painful experience I suspect. The moderators of course deserve some of the blame with their stupid questions. The one area of real substance was the idea of raising the retirement age for Social Security, which is precisely the wrong way to go for a host of reasons (including inter alia, that lower income folks have shorter life spans), and the Dems are going to pound on that, but that was about it really. Granted Christie's means testing idea has much more merit. The rest was largely garbage, including all those insane tax plans. Pity Kasich lacked the skill to eviscerate them all. The numbers claimed have no nexus to reality.

So when most people start to live till they're 100 (and that will happen very soon if current, dramatic trends continue), you think that they should just surf along on their retirement benefits for the last 30-40 years of their lives? Really?!? That's not a very sane position to have, unless you want people between 30 and 65 to pay 80% or more of their income in taxes.

A much better proposal would be to reduce the work day, prolong holidays and work benefits more broadly, and perhaps even give seniors some extra benefits (like 1 or 2 more weeks of holidays, further reducing their work day or cut their work week from 5 to 4 days, things like that which can help them stay longer in their jobs).

[eric82oslo]

I recorded it on my DVR and watched it three+ hours delayed. I scrolled along the Atlas live comment thread as the debate progressed, which provided an interesting parallel read. I wanted to see the whole debate since the first two had surprises at all points that included both body language and words. I thought it useful to see the bits in context before they were isolated for wide distribution and comment.

For policy wonks, the debate was a very painful experience I suspect. The moderators of course deserve some of the blame with their stupid questions. The one area of real substance was the idea of raising the retirement age for Social Security, which is precisely the wrong way to go for a host of reasons (including inter alia, that lower income folks have shorter life spans), and the Dems are going to pound on that, but that was about it really. Granted Christie's means testing idea has much more merit. The rest was largely garbage, including all those insane tax plans. Pity Kasich lacked the skill to eviscerate them all. The numbers claimed have no nexus to reality.

So when most people start to live till they're 100 (and that will happen very soon if current, dramatic trends continue), you think that they should just surf along on their retirement benefits for the last 30-40 years of their lives? Really?!? That's not a very sane position to have, unless you want people between 30 and 65 to pay 80% or more of their income in taxes.

Obviously if lifespans get that long, without work spans lengthening, something more drastic needs to be done. In the meantime, more means testing, and doing the chained CPI fix, will be enough. The black hole fiscally is medical subsidies as you know anyway. The solvency of social security is a far less serious issue, and easier to fix.

Well as Rand Paul pointed out (and then got mocked for by Atlas users, I agree that his wording could have been less ridiculing), some decades ago, I guess he meant the 1950ies perhaps, there were 16 workers for every retiree. Today there are 3 workers for every retiree. And if projections are right, that number will be reduced to 2 workers for every retiree fairly soon and perhaps even less. So something most definitely has to be done unless one wants USA to one day end up like Greece and being completely insolvent. Obviously it would help greatly with increased immigration as well (and not throwing hard working immigrants out of the country like Trump wants).