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No, the debt ceiling brouhaha does not make the U.S. a "laughingstock" - it's "exactly what...
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Thursday, July 28, 2011, 6:40 PM ETNo, the debt ceiling brouhaha does not make the U.S. a "laughingstock" - it's "exactly what America needs" to face the hard choices it must make, Evan Newmark writes. "Ask yourself... Would I rather have my politicians fighting each other in Washington over the debt ceiling today, or my neighbors fighting each other in the streets when the nation goes bankrupt five years from now?"
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But don't worry. The smart people in WDC only put a small slice of a cut in 'the debate' about the size of a sliver in an elephants hide. Nothing to see here.
We are still on schedule for 1000 Watts riots I suppose sometime in the future, because Harry Reid only said we could have $1.7 trillion in cuts over 10 years, but that's only projected based on Afghanistan drawdowns. He's a real bright guy and knows what he's doing. It'll all be okay. I'll just close my eyes and pretend not to see these derelicts on TV anymore.
Please advise how a country that is autonomous and capable of printing its own (issuing its own) currency is capable of going bankrupt. I can see how they may precipitate hyper inflation by issuing too much currency given conditions, but in a deflationary environment like we are currently in, I hardly view that as an impending threat.
The problem is we will likely see both. These are not mutually exclusive results.
Are you sitting in the basement in RNC Headquarters where all the bu11S#!+ emails are dreamed up? In my minds eye I can see you sitting in the dark, staring at a computer screen with bloodshot eyes, drooling on a bib that says "NO" on it with an American Flag in the background and Joe the Plummer in the lower right hand corner. You guys really like NO, and that's why we're having to listen to this bu11S#!+
I agree with your characterization of Trueconsevative.
But I also know his attempt at sarcasm is a failure.
Well, if it's sarcasm, TrueConservative needs to quit twisting my brain.
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If you don't understand who TrueConservative is and what points he is making here, twisting of your brains can be considered as needed exercise for you
Eliminate the mortgage interest deduction. Housing is moribund, and likely will be for years. It is having no effect, so it is the perfect time to cut it.
Eliminate the health care subsidy to corporations. There is no reason for taxpayers to subsidize health care for employees of major corporations. Well, actually, the federal government is borrowing the money to subsidize their health care. And everyone says corporations are holding record amounts of cash. Again, a perfect time to get rid of it.
Just these two items would cut the deficit by 180 to 200 billion.
Spending & Borrowing is something they certainly do well.
"Debate" is only how much.
No matter how much, rest assured they will get "Something Done"
Also the assumption that the government can save the day & prevent neighbors fighting in the streets is quite laughable.
Austerity = Great depression, QE = hyperinflation to Great depression
Pick your poison the mirage of the US money for nothing & entitlement is about to break
That's never going to happen. As Dick Cheney once said, "deficits don't matter".
Cheney was wrong about a lot of things, but on this he was right.
In five years we'll raise the debt limit again and everybody's happy.
For now, I'm skeptical.
What people want to invest in is a company that takes on unsustainable debt and reduces revenues all while being run by a Republican!!!
The U. S. as a corporation, would you invest considering the following;
A boardroom distracted by in-fighting, distrust and dislike for one another.
Questionable top leadership in key positions.
Oppressive retirement obligations.
Lower cost competitors.
Core assets outsourced to third parties, without significant oversight capabilities.
Unyielding corporate structure without sufficient incentives to adapt to changing business conditions and weighted down by Byzantine labor rules.
Insufficient critical resources with no clear plan for a path forward.
Last, but most certainly not least, that ugly balance sheet.
I can appreciate the dissatisfaction with the current CEO, but there is rumor that he will be retiring soon, or be forced out by the voting shareholders. That be the case, can the the voting shareholders be trusted to make a solid choice for his replacement, can they be expected to read the prospectus, or will they allow their votes to be swayed by outsiders, emotion and entrenched prejudices?
It's a pretty good brand, with leading market share and world dominance in many key metrics, but maintaining that dominance can bleed the balance sheet red. Can it be expected to maintain it's lead in the race considering all of the challenges it faces, or will it fall behind as so many others have before it?
Specifically, the House Republicans.
Whatever current debate outcome is.
It is good debate.
Because it put the problem into spot light
"Process started going" used to say M. Gorbachev
Eventually he was ousted by process he has created.
Nevertheless country changed direction
Tea Party I wish you well
But the solution does not have to purist or all-at-once. Easing the economy off the stimulus drug will take a few years; entitlement reform can nonetheless start now. Tax revenue can be raised without raising marginal rates, through basic reform.
Too often it appears that American political debate is dominated by sentiments (likes, dislikes, nostalgia, worries and wishes) to the exclusion of searching discussion about what needs to be done and how best to achieve those things that are truly necessary.
And, arithmetic has nothing to do with it?
Nevermind that sustainability thing. Nothing to see here, just move along now.
it's amazing and ridiculous to me how anyone with half a brain ....
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it does not need to be either Bush or Obama
Just think about people of full size brain
I don't agree he had intent, Obama was doing what his indoctrination made him think he should do. I believe he really had no idea and, still today, does not have any idea the damage he is doing. The liberal indoctrination is that if a plan fails its because not enough money was spent, not that it was a bad plan. You see, there are no bad liberal plans. Even though they fail time after time.
I like Rand Paul's Penny Plan, but it will get no play. I like it for the very logic you laid out. Namely that Reid/Boehner's 'cuts' are not cuts. They are minor slow downs in the rate of spending, going from 8% annual federal spending increases to just 7.8%. Big whoop.
The Penny Plan is about starting with a freeze in future spending increases. That alone will arrest most of the problems of the next decade. Then, cutting 1% a year from actual spending. If we were to do this we hit a budget surplus in, I believe the 6th year.
There is no brass in Washington.
We have a leadership vacuum in WDC and its sucking all life into its dark hole.
And it illustrates that all this crisis talk is just BS. This plan is by no means audacious or austere and yet it gets us to where we need to get in a relatively short period of time.
Doing something like this should not require brass, courage, or for that matter any gonads at all. Indeed, if even a little austerity was injected into the plan like closing some loopholes or a very small raise in taxes and we would be in great shape in a fairly short period of time.
The only disagreement I have is the fact that you can't lead a bunch of freakin' idiots that refuse to be lead.
Geez, I'm even kinda sympathetic to John Boner and I thought hell would freeze over before that would happen. If only his predicament didn't make me chuckle and smirk so much.
I'd say its funny how Wall Street goes up when it thinks it has access to free money, bail-outs, and big Democratic parties and goes down when everyone starts talking about financial responsibility and obeying the law.
The man is simply a pawn. No one could possibly belive that he rose to this position with his background and experience. He was "installed" for the simple reason he could win an election. He is utterly incompetent and incapable of leadership. He is arrogant and his background should be enough to have disqualified him from his present job.....
There....I feel much better now.
Now, Mich McConnel could lead the Teabaggers, but, he wouldn't be able to lead anyone else. Same with our remarkable Speaker.
"installed"? simply for winning an election? I think that's what they call democracy you dunderhead!!!!!ddd And it's called inauguration.
The CIA must have slipped you something.
I am sure it is just a coincidence the economy is tanking since the Tea baggers got elected, Lol
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another bad omens
Rasmussen just crossed Gallup.
NBC, Fox and ABC at support level
USA and Pew have took double shoulder shape
CNN is uncharted territory
-------------------New 52 weeks low in the making----------------...
www.realclearpolitics....
TrueConservative and Dick Mellon are the same thing or they are two different things
Coddy the zero your argument is? Exactly try making a point instead of rallying people as badly as the republicons [republicans] are able to do in their own ranks
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Dickie
Why don't you subscribe to follow me
Here and there I am making great points.
SA will be gathering them for you and mail them to your mailbox afterwards.
As extra benefit, I will teach you how to spell word republican without revealing your true age
Now what do you suppose is going on this time?
Let's not forget that little tidbit.
But then I suppose if he had he'd be one of your heroes.
NOT. Because no matter what this guy does, even if it's precisely what you want and ask for you'll demonize him.
The President does not caste a vote on this issue. He could have vetoed the bill. But, it didn't get to him.
WRONG.
That's a fact Wyatt and optionsgirl.
But, "you can't handle the facts".
Reid and Obama both sound like Tea Party fanatics in the clips below.
If you must, to be convinced, in their own words...
www.youtube.com/watch?...
All elected officials must STAY THE COURSE like our Lord and Savior, George W. Bush! New information? What rubbish! We don't need no "information"! New or otherwise! Different circumstances? Bah! Circumstances shmircumstances!
Governing in a democracy is about doing what you believe in, no matter what the cost to everyone else!
It is a matter of public record that he voted down the debt ceiling.
Here is a fact for you, Monngle:
Senator Barack Hussein Obama voted down an increase to the debt ceiling, along with Senator Harry Reid. 48 Senators voted against raising the debt limit in 2006.
Here is a direct quote:
March 20, 2006: This was the last stand-alone debt limit vote on which then-Senator Obama voted. He was one of 48 members to vote against the increase, which passed with 52 votes.i He said: “The fact that we are here today to debate raising America's debt limit is a sign of leadership failure. It is a sign that the U.S. Government can't pay its own bills. It is a sign that we now depend on ongoing financial assistance from foreign countries to finance our Government's reckless fiscal policies. ... Increasing America's debt weakens us domestically and internationally. Leadership means that ‘the buck stops here. Instead, Washington is shifting the burden of bad choices today onto the backs of our children and grandchildren. America has a debt problem and a failure of leadership. Americans deserve better.” See article below for footnotes.
rpc.senate.gov/public/...
You should try to differentiate between facts, opinion, and pure fiction.
Not making this up. Its on the youtube link.
Use s'more exclamation points and all caps thyroid case, but the record doesn't lie even if you do.
Anyway, so kmi, thanks for making my point even more cogent. The economy in 2011 is much worse post-bubble from a deficit perspective which makes it even more bizarre to oppose spending reductions now than the mere political posturing of Obama & Reid in 2006.
Your reductionist argument that
(a) the deficit has greatly expanded since the 2008 meltdown,
(b) therefore spending should now be reduced sufficiently to reduce the deficit to some earlier level
simply avoids addressing
1. Why increase in the deficit could not have been avoided (leaving aside to point 3 below the question of whether the deficit should have been further enlarged in 2008-10 as a matter of public policy).
2.What the effect would have been if rigorous efforts had been made post 208 meltdown to prevent any enlargement in annual deficits.
3. What benefits, if any, were gained through maintaining or enlarging deficits during the period in question.
4. in sum, what the important issues other than deficits are at present and how those issues can best be addressed along with the dificit issue going forward in stages.
I assume from the foregoing comment and others of yours I've read that fundamentally you believe that
1. Macroeconomics is an illusion; the better view being that the concepts of microeconomics apply equally to the national economy.
2. It follows that counter-cyclical fiscal and monetary policy initiatives are simply costly follies. The State should simply preserve the value of the currency and maintain a balanced budget in all economic circumstances.
3. While the concept that the State should not use its fiscal and monetary powers to minimize economic downturns may mean that such downturns may be swift and deep, a more efficient and effective recovery will happen sooner.
4. This all may be tough but tats life. Deal with it.
5. Further, it is more important to strive for justice rather than fairness. Interfering with one's property or taxing one for the benefit of others is unjust. The State legitimately exists therefore only insofar as it facilitates the individual from interference by others and by the community as a whole.
While I believe you are very mistaken, I acknowledge that you have the honesty to say what you believe and don't gloss over the nasty bits.
So we can safely assume that you believe its the purpose of government to remove risk by taking from those that have planned for the downside and give to those that failed to plan correctly. Ops that's socialism, where the government theoretically takes care of everyone. (We all know in reality it does not work that way, but it does make people feel good thinking that it does).
In your third point, however, the state has no 'fiscal and monetary powers' since they are granted to them first through confiscatory measures. So in essence they are usually creators of crisis through state expansion and meddling.
The individual is the market and the market is comprised of individuals making millions of micro decisions everyday of which the government cannot impede since it can't know the proper intersection for all these decisions where supply constantly meets (and parts from) demand, again and again. This is freedom. This is uncoercion. Where profits are not stolen by bureaucrats and reshuffled elsewhere in order to purchase more power.
Some quotes from Claude Frédéric Bastiat (1801-1850):
"Life, faculties, production—in other words, individuality, liberty, property—this is man. And in spite of the cunning of artful political leaders, these three gifts from God precede all human legislation, and are superior to it. Life, liberty, and property do not exist because men have made laws. On the contrary, it was the fact that life, liberty, and property existed beforehand that caused men to make laws in the first place.
When under the pretext of fraternity, the legal code imposes mutual sacrifices on the citizens, human nature is not thereby abrogated. Everyone will then direct his efforts toward contributing little to, and taking much from, the common fund of sacrifices. Now, is it the most unfortunate who gains from this struggle? Certainly not, but rather the most influential and calculating.
Government is the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else.
People are beginning to realize that the apparatus of government is costly. But what they do not know is that the burden falls inevitably on them.
Law cannot organize labor and industry without organizing injustice.
The plans differ; the planners are all alike...
Now, legal plunder can be committed in an infinite number of ways. Thus we have an infinite number of plans for organizing it: tariffs, protection, benefits, subsidies, encouragements, progressive taxation, public schools, guaranteed jobs, guaranteed profits, minimum wages, a right to relief, a right to the tools of labor, free credit, and so on, and so on. All these plans as a whole—with their common aim of legal plunder—constitute socialism.
But how is this legal plunder to be identified? Quite simply. See if the law takes from some persons what belongs to them, and gives it to other persons to whom it does not belong. See if the law benefits one citizen at the expense of another by doing what the citizen himself cannot do without committing a crime.
It is easy to understand why the law is used by the legislator to destroy in varying degrees among the rest of the people their personal independence by slavery, their liberty by oppression, and their property by plunder. This is done for the benefit of the person who makes the law, and in proportion to the power that he holds.
If you wish to prosper, let your customer prosper. When people have learned this lesson, everyone will seek his individual welfare in the general welfare. Then jealousies between man and man, city and city, province and province, nation and nation, will no longer trouble the world.
Here I encounter the most popular fallacy of our times. It is not considered sufficient that the law should be just; it must be philanthropic. Nor is it sufficient that the law should guarantee to every citizen the free and inoffensive use of his faculties for physical, intellectual, and moral self-improvement. Instead, it is demanded that the law should directly extend welfare, education, and morality throughout the nation.
It is easier to show the disorder that must accompany reform than the order that should follow it.
The sort of dependence that results from exchange, i.e., from commercial transactions, is a reciprocal dependence. We cannot be dependent upon a foreigner without his being dependent on us. Now, this is what constitutes the very essence of society. To sever natural interrelations is not to make oneself independent, but to isolate oneself completely.
...the statement, “The purpose of the law is to cause justice to reign,” is not a rigorously accurate statement. It ought to be stated that the purpose of the law is to prevent injustice from reigning. In fact, it is injustice, instead of justice, that has an existence of its own. Justice is achieved only when injustice is absent.
But we assure the socialists that we repudiate only forced organization, not natural organization. We repudiate the forms of association that are forced upon us, not free association. We repudiate forced fraternity, not true fraternity. We repudiate the artificial unity that does nothing more than deprive persons of individual responsibility. We do not repudiate the natural unity of mankind under Providence.
Socialism, like the ancient ideas from which it springs, confuses the distinction between government and society. As a result of this, every time we object to a thing being done by government, the socialists conclude that we object to its being done at all.
We disapprove of state education. Then the socialists say that we are opposed to any education. We object to a state religion. Then the socialists say that we want no religion at all. We object to a state-enforced equality. Then they say that we are against equality. And so on, and so on. It is as if the socialists were to accuse us of not wanting persons to eat because we do not want the state to raise grain.
Since law necessarily requires the support of force, its lawful domain is only in the areas where the use of force is necessary. This is justice.
Every individual has the right to use force for lawful self-defense. It is for this reason that the collective force—which is only the organized combination of the individual forces—may lawfully be used for the same purpose; and it cannot be used legitimately for any other purpose.
Law is solely the organization of the individual right of self-defense which existed before law was formalized. Law is justice.
The law is justice—simple and clear, precise and bounded. Every eye can see it, and every mind can grasp it; for justice is measurable, immutable, and unchangeable. Justice is neither more than this nor less than this. If you exceed this proper limit—if you attempt to make the law religious, fraternal, equalizing, philanthropic, industrial, literary, or artistic—you will then be lost in an uncharted territory, in vagueness and uncertainty, in a forced utopia or, even worse, in a multitude of utopias, each striving to seize the law and impose it upon you. This is true because fraternity and philanthropy, unlike justice, do not have precise limits. Once started, where will you stop? And where will the law stop itself?
Law is justice. In this proposition a simple and enduring government can be conceived. And I defy anyone to say how even the thought of revolution, of insurrection, of the slightest uprising could arise against a government whose organized force was confined only to suppressing injustice. ...
As proof of this statement, consider this question: Have the people ever been known to rise against the Court of Appeals, or mob a Justice of the Peace, in order to get higher wages, free credit, tools of production, favorable tariffs, or government-created jobs? Everyone knows perfectly well that such matters are not within the jurisdiction of the Court of Appeals or a Justice of the Peace. And if government were limited to its proper functions, everyone would soon learn that these matters are not within the jurisdiction of the law itself.
If the natural tendencies of mankind are so bad that it is not safe to permit people to be free, how is it that the tendencies of these organizers are always good? Do not the legislators and their appointed agents also belong to the human race? Or do they believe that they themselves are made of a finer clay than the rest of mankind?
It seems to me that this is theoretically right, for whatever the question under discussion—whether religious, philosophical, political, or economic; whether it concerns prosperity, morality, equality, right, justice, progress, responsibility, cooperation, property, labor, trade, capital, wages, taxes, population, finance, or government—at whatever point on the scientific horizon I begin my researches, I invariably reach this one conclusion: The solution to the problems of human relationships is to be found in liberty.
Away with the whims of governmental administrators, their socialized projects, their centralization, their tariffs, their government schools, their state religions, their free credit, their bank monopolies, their regulations, their restrictions, their equalization by taxation, and their pious moralizations!
And now that the legislators and do-gooders have so futilely inflicted so many systems upon society, may they finally end where they should have begun: May they reject all systems, and try liberty; for liberty is an acknowledgment of faith in God and His works."
But this is nothing new.
From 1 Samuel 8, from the NIV:
"Israel Asks for a King:
1 When Samuel grew old, he appointed his sons as Israel’s leaders.[a] 2 The name of his firstborn was Joel and the name of his second was Abijah, and they served at Beersheba. 3 But his sons did not follow his ways. They turned aside after dishonest gain and accepted bribes and perverted justice.
4 So all the elders of Israel gathered together and came to Samuel at Ramah. 5 They said to him, “You are old, and your sons do not follow your ways; now appoint a king to lead[b] us, such as all the other nations have.”
6 But when they said, “Give us a king to lead us,” this displeased Samuel; so he prayed to the LORD. 7 And the LORD told him: “Listen to all that the people are saying to you; it is not you they have rejected, but they have rejected me as their king. 8 As they have done from the day I brought them up out of Egypt until this day, forsaking me and serving other gods, so they are doing to you. 9 Now listen to them; but warn them solemnly and let them know what the king who will reign over them will claim as his rights.”
10 Samuel told all the words of the LORD to the people who were asking him for a king. 11 He said, “This is what the king who will reign over you will claim as his rights: He will take your sons and make them serve with his chariots and horses, and they will run in front of his chariots. 12 Some he will assign to be commanders of thousands and commanders of fifties, and others to plow his ground and reap his harvest, and still others to make weapons of war and equipment for his chariots. 13 He will take your daughters to be perfumers and cooks and bakers. 14 He will take the best of your fields and vineyards and olive groves and give them to his attendants. 15 He will take a tenth of your grain and of your vintage and give it to his officials and attendants. 16 Your male and female servants and the best of your cattle[c] and donkeys he will take for his own use. 17 He will take a tenth of your flocks, and you yourselves will become his slaves. 18 When that day comes, you will cry out for relief from the king you have chosen, but the LORD will not answer you in that day.”
19 But the people refused to listen to Samuel. “No!” they said. “We want a king over us. 20 Then we will be like all the other nations, with a king to lead us and to go out before us and fight our battles.”
21 When Samuel heard all that the people said, he repeated it before the LORD. 22 The LORD answered, “Listen to them and give them a king.”
The left is a sickening rash upon humanity.
You shouldn't be so quick to assume that someone adheres to the diametric opposite to some position he or she is critical of. There are lots of alternatives besides exact opposites and these other alternatives are often much to be preferred to the extremes at either end of the spectrum presented.
That, to my mind, is the case here.
Let me say again that you know your mind and do so based on wide reading and systematic thought about the issues. The fact that I come to very different conclusions based on a quite different set of premises take nothing away from my earlier observation.
Your talking about 2006 (ancient history) I'm talking about today.
Like I said, who gives a crap what happened in 2006.
But, never-the-less.
Your trying to criticize him for voting against raising the debt in 2006, when that's exactly what you want. But, perhaps you didn't want to hold the debt down then because "W" was a NOT SO FISCALLY CONSERVATIVE REPUBLICAN, with a Vice President that "didn't think deficits mattered".
So what's it going to be:
Your for him when he does precisely what you want?
Your against him when he does precisely what you want?
I think he could give each of you each a gold goose and you'd complain because its white with and orange beak.
He could morph overnight into a fruitcake teabagger and you'd complain because he isn't freakin' crazy enough. I can hear you now, "where's Glen Beck when you need him?"
So tell me how this thing works where I hate Obama = I love Bush, cheerleader. Its interesting and sad, this world of robots.
I'm a Constitutional minarchist. I hate big government. I believe in a radical reduction in the size of government or what our founders called 'limited government'. Bush was a thousand points of light globalist like his daddy.
Problem is, there's no one on the other side. Everyone on the other side supports bigger and bigger government. Rand Paul is getting close, very close. So is Marco Rubio.
You didn't even read our comments correctly, because your last rebuttal stated the "President" doesn't vote on bills, missing the point entirely that he was a Senator, a voting Senator.
Obama had it right in 2006. But, he's a politician, not a planner or administrator.
Therefore, he has no problem doing an about face in 2011. That's because he voted "no" in 2006 to create a democratic block, not because he gave a damn. Otherwise, he would not take the other side now. He'd have instituted "change"-- the kind he promised before he was elected, rather than chaos, which is what he has created.
He has weakened the USA immeasurably in a few short years, and may well go down in history as the worst president ever, in my opinion.
Don't bother to write another redundant, incorrect comment to me. I will not respond.You do not deserve any additional attention, imo.
I have not defended Bush. Find one comment here where I commended Bush. You can't. That's because you made up lies. My words are here as my record. That's the marvel of history. My truthful words are here as a record, along with your invention and lies.
And Obama is the only one in politics to do this? Clue: that's how politics works. Blocks of folks get together to push agendas.
" He'd have instituted "change"-" He didn't? Seems to me he passed a lot of legislation.
Lastly, talking about Obama's ''no'' vote on the debt ceiling raise suggests you support debt ceiling increases on principle. So considering he is in support of that you should be happy.
Just type in 'obama 2006 against debt ceiling'. Watch it on youtube.
Apparently I can't link to it here. SA editors will remove it.
LOL.
Yesterday I read that health insurers will now have to provide birth control for "free" and not subject to a deductible.
That's the kind of rule-making we can count on from President Barrack Hussein Obama. Personally, I do not want to pay for birth control via higher premiums. How else will it be paid for? He's a fairy god father sprinkling Loestrin like so much magical fairy dust.