how about blaming BOTH sides for having some part in causing the debt problems?

Personally I like to blame the supermarket that stopped selling the cookies I liked. From there all problems started.

i blame them for attempting to create a two party system with two sides of a spectrum in order to seperate a proper voting pool into smaller less effective majorities. I don't think there should be political parties involved in the senate whatsoever, we should judge each person by thier choices, which seems to be hardly the case.

I blame both parties for being unable to resist large unnamed investments "because of the 2nd bush" that detur them from making proper decisions in an effective time. the fact is they wait until things are already too bad and then rush some crap unread bill through.

I blame both sides for passing tax cuts AND injeting cash for a whopping effect of tanking the system. they act like different parties but tend to the same things they think work, but they only want them to go through if they are the controlling party.

@twoisdeath and CrazyOne

First of all, I don't agree with either of your statements.  The two-party system has managed to survive for... 200 years.  Kind of a long time for an unsustainable system to continue.

But anyway, that's not really why I made this post.  What both of you are engaging in is the same terrible politics which creates the problems you're worried about.  When we ask about the causes, and solutions, to economic crises and the best solution someone can come up with is to overturn non-economic sectors of a society, they really aren't engaging in economic policymaking.  Instead, either you're using the crisis to justify your own beliefs (you begin with the assumption that the two-party system is bad, and cite only slightly related issues as the cause of the crisis to justify your thesis) or you're simply grasping at straws in coming up with actual policy prescriptions.

Either way, your prescriptions don't help.  The best you can hope for with those policy prescriptions is that someone who knows what to do will magically appear and make everything better.  It doesn't work that way, because it still relies on people like you to vote... people who either don't know or don't care about the workings of the economy and ways that it will be fixed.  Long story short... even if a two-party system is removed, you'll still have a screwed up economy because people such as yourselves who aren't evaluating the economic issue aren't able to effectively vote for good economic policy... and the problem repeats itself.

***************************************

Okay, now that my slight rage post is done, let me try to better explain what I mean... If you understood the above, you can ignore this:

Regardless of whether or not your political prescription is adopted to solve the crisis, economic solutions will be needed (stock investors won't suddenly say "We have a multiparty democracy... quick, let's hire another 2 million workers, drop the price of oil, and fix the banking industry!").

Instead, the best case scenario for your idea is that better politicians come into play to make better economic decisions.  However, your system (just like two-party democracy) relies on the voters, as they are the ones with the power to hire and fire.  As a result, without actually knowing the best economic decision, your policy equates to restructuring government in the hopes that someone magically comes and fixes the economy, without going through the work of actually figuring out how to best fix the economy.  Even if your multiparty system was adopted, the result would be that you would get your multiparty system, then say "Um... okay, now what?"

> twosidedeath wrote:

> i fail to see how blaming something suggests a solution, but thank you for your point of veiw

If by "blaming something" you mean a policy (like what dpenguins did), then you have a problem.

If we can summarize that X policy causes Y, and Y is bad... and thus blame X for Y... preventing or undoing X can either reverse Y or prevent another instance of Y.

In Dpenguins case, he cited a logical statement that a specific policy caused the economic crisis.  Whether it's true or not can be debated.  But if, through debate, we can identify that the policy in question did trigger the economic crisis, it stands to reason that avoiding that policy would avoid future economic crises. 

You may believe the two-party system works or doesn't work.  I'm not really posting to argue that.

However, considering the subject matter at hand in this thread is the economic crisis, its causes and effects... if you're blaming the recession on the two-party system, similarly to how twoisdeath was doing, then you're engaging in the terrible politics I mentioned above... and not actually presenting anything to address the recession in any substantive manner...

If you aren't, then you're off topic. 

Bush reduced taxes by record levels and massively increased spending. Obama wasted a trillion on fiscal stimulus and increased spending.

you dont just turn around one day and are 14 trillion in the hole.

The point, CrazyOne and twoisdeath, is that you're playing a diversionary tactic here.

In the end, the only way to fix an economic crisis is through an economic solution (whether it be some sort of tax relief, change in inflation rate, regulatory restructuring, or whatever) will be the policy that finally fixes the economy.

Your policy won't.  People will not suddenly begin investing, hiring, and spending because we change our legislative structure.  The best case scenario you can hope for is that, following your policy enactment, someone will randomly do something to make the economy better.  You don't know what, though.

I say you're either using the recession to advocate an issue unrelated, or you honestly don't know or give a crap about what economic policy will fix the economy.

You can blame whatever the hell you want, twoisdeath.  However, that doesn't make it right.  Answer this argument and show you're right... or concede the argument.  Simple as that.

Zarf: What if one believes that there are current politicians in parliament (i am kiwi, sue me) that have the know-how and plans to right the economy, one believes that these people have the vision, but they are hamstrung by being in one of two political parties. If the electoral process was reformed to allow a multi-party system then these people could form new parties with like minded people. One could believe that these people could then gain a large share of the seats in parliament and thus be able to set out the economic prescription one believes to be the correct one, be it tax increases or spending cuts or both. Then, in a way, setting out to reform the system helps to reform the economy, not by magic but by allowing the people you feel have the best plan to work on fixing the economy.

@You_Fool

1: First, let me make the assumption that you're right and the two-party system is inherently an obstacle to economic solutions.  For their proposal to be successful, the proposal would need the following steps to take place:

Step 1: Legal barriers to a multiparty system are removed.
Step 2: A new election takes place.
Step 3: The new election results in a multiparty representation.
Step 4: The multiparty representation passes economic policies that fix the economy.

Let me go through each of these steps to indicate the problems faced.

Step 1: There are a number of legal barriers one would need to overcome.  We're talking about everything from repealing restrictions on campaign finance law to probably reversing winner takes all results in elections.  Constitutional amendments require 3/4 approval from the states to pass... so even if the idea is accepted... it's going to at least take a couple years to scrounge up that 3/4 approval.

I'll be easy on you an say it takes 2 years to rally the votes through to get the amendment going... trust me, I'm doing you a favor with this timeline.

Step 2: Elections for the Presidency happen every 4 years, House every 2, and 1/3 of the Senate every 6 years.  Okay, so the '12 Presidential election won't be affected by the amendment... but you will be able to catch the midterm elections!

So... assuming you get the amendment passed in 2 years, the next soonest election you could influence would be the '14 midterms.

Step 3: You are making the assumption here that the election will automatically result in a multiparty system when legal barriers are removed.  Now, you could theoretically be correct... but the thing is, Republicans and Democrats haven't built themselves as the same types of political parties that your multiparty systems are familiar with.  They aren't issue-based parties.  The parties are more fluid, having a general philosophy, but having an interest in maintaining broad coalitions.  That's why you see the prevalence of moderates like McCain, Lieberman, etc., in their respective parties, despite having plenty with which to disagree from the mainstream unit.

It's likely, then, that more people will still embrace the Republican and Democratic parties, even with the ability to accept the Libertarian, Green, or other parties.

In addition, the prevalence of two parties means that many existing parties don't have the foundation to be challengers because they're issue-focused... which means they can't be broad enough parties to win over a large number of supporters.  I'm not saying it may be impossible... but it would take time.

Step 4:

I want to flag this issue, because this is also my a priori complaint with two's argument here.  The multiparty system, just like the two-party system, is still a democratic process.  In the end, it requires the voters to listen to the list of prospective candidates' arguments, and choose the candidate which they believe will enact the policies which best shape their country.  In other words, it falls on the voters.

Now, this thread is trying to discuss that very question: "What should fix the economy?"  When trying to analyze the economics behind the problem, twoisdeath and CrazyOne are silent.  Remember... it's the voters who, in the end, are responsible for electing the people who establish the policies.  If the voters don't know what they believe will fix the economy... then the voting itself is meaningless in exacting any change in representation which would result in effective policymaking.

Long story short, you guys are going it the wrong way.  Policymaking should be a question of "what do I want," followed by a question of "how do I get there."  Either twoisdeath and CrazyOne are engaging in answering the second first without knowing what they want... or all they really want is the multiparty system, which means they're being disingenuous.

You can have your multiparty system debate... but figure out the economic solution first.

Oh, right... one more problem:

Look at the timeline I set up there.  Those are pretty conservative estimates.  That means, if you adhere to the idea that this is your solution, you've pretty much gone with a "screw the economy until about 2015 at the earliest (this assuming a multiparty system can quickly establish a coalition to pass legislation... also unlikely).

This is under the quickest of circumstances.  A more realistic interpretation would say that you've left the economy to die for another 6 years without even examining the economic part of the solution.  I don't need to get into a sad story of the results... there's plenty of them.  What I can say, though... is that it would be pretty much on you... that's your well-thought out system, after all!