Did you watch the CNBC Debate from start to finish?

[Torie]

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.

[Torie]

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.

Using data based reasoning with gold bugs is a fool's errand, and often before you know it, things degrade into claims that it's all Unconstitutional to boot.

[Torie]

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.

[Torie]

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.