2012-08-25, 17:47 | Link #5721 |
Logician and Romantic
Join Date: Nov 2004
Location: Within my mind
Age: 43
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You know the crazy thing? The comment section has people saying "it would be fine because economy would improve from having no government", never-mind that with no government comes zero taxes, which means zero tax income...
Are people watching Fox News really that retarded? How do they even manage to learn to read or write? Right now, GOP is counting on hypothetical impossible growth from tax cuts. While Democrats are counting on debt deduction via monetary inflation. Super inflation will destroy the world economy, but it would work. Though technically it is not much better than a default. So GOP doesn't have a solution, while the Democrats have a solution that isn't much better than doing nothing. Why? Because both sides know that they can't actually take the topic seriously and still get elected. In this, USA is no different from Greece. Greece wants to stay in the Euro, but also don't want austerity. This impossible situation is caused by democracy; by those who vote not being in the position to make reasonable demands. Seriously though... Empires actually go broke surprisingly often. This happened ALL the time through out history. How did old kings and emperors deal with it? Well, simple really; powerful nations have, well, power. This means unlike Greece, who would have nothing left if they default, USA can convert some of their political might into actual currency. This means telling people "no, I am not paying you back, what are you going to do about it huh?" This is why lending money to blue blooded aristocrats was a bad idea in the medieval days. They are more likely to refuse to pay. And this is the almost certain future of the USA. Soviet Russia did it. They are still around aren't they? Though they aren't the Soviets any more of course. They paid the price by no longer being as powerful. And that's really the path America HAS to take, eventually. Relinquish power and respect. (The sooner they do it, the more power and respect that they will have at hand to cancel debts. Time is not America's friend.)
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Last edited by Vallen Chaos Valiant; 2012-08-25 at 18:04. |
2012-08-25, 18:02 | Link #5722 | ||
Schwing!
Join Date: Dec 2005
Location: Central Texas
Age: 40
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2012-08-25, 18:38 | Link #5723 | |||
Senior Member
Join Date: Sep 2008
Age: 38
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Yes. Yes they are. Quote:
Yeah, that'll fly well with the GOP. America not #1? Blasphemy, you communist. |
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2012-08-25, 18:47 | Link #5724 | ||
Logician and Romantic
Join Date: Nov 2004
Location: Within my mind
Age: 43
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Because one major factor with the worth of the US banknote, is that you can pay taxes with it. Or use them to pay for government services. But if there are no government services and no taxes to pay, then the US dollar would all of a sudden lose that function. And money that loses function, loses value. "Government backed" money is "backed" by having the government willing to take them as payment. So zero government = zero backing. Quote:
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2012-08-25, 19:08 | Link #5726 |
Logician and Romantic
Join Date: Nov 2004
Location: Within my mind
Age: 43
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The Treasury bonds will gone down in value one way or another because they can't be paid back. They can either do it by defaulting or by inflation. I guess the political easier way is by inflation.
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2012-08-25, 21:41 | Link #5729 | ||
Love Yourself
Join Date: Mar 2003
Location: Northeast USA
Age: 38
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But I agree, the amount of money flowing Romney's way is pretty disconcerting. Even though we don't know all of the players who are throwing in money, the names that have been revealed aren't particularly surprising and their agendas are also pretty clear. I'm also a bit disturbed that so many Americans have turned into partisan hacks themselves. I think that every American should be a bit curious about Romney's reason for not wanting to release more than two years' worth of tax returns. It doesn't have to be an issue that makes or breaks the election, but come on - "you're not guilty if you have nothing to hide," right? However, the standard response that I hear from "conservatives" is that "it doesn't matter; where are Obama's college transcripts to prove that he was an American citizen?" Seriously? Quote:
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2012-08-25, 22:15 | Link #5731 |
Love Yourself
Join Date: Mar 2003
Location: Northeast USA
Age: 38
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I suppose so. I read a bit more on this, and it seems that the surplus allowed the government to pay down the public debt (but didn't pay it off completely, I guess?) while the federal debt continued to grow. I didn't realize that there was a difference between the two.
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2012-08-25, 22:39 | Link #5733 |
Logician and Romantic
Join Date: Nov 2004
Location: Within my mind
Age: 43
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America once made everything people wanted to buy. So the consumer culture was working fine as people buy local products. This is self-reinforcing. But now China makes everything. You know it is bad when you couldn't even buy locally if you wanted to. I once ran around a shop over and over to get a toy for my niece, trying to find something that isn't made in China. I managed to locate a toy truck that was made in Canada... But later I realised the toy bricks that was packaged with the truck was from China.
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2012-08-25, 23:09 | Link #5734 |
Obey the Darkly Cute ...
Author
Join Date: Dec 2005
Location: On the whole, I'd rather be in Kyoto ...
Age: 67
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Maybe if we actually *had* a conservative party...
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/22/opinion/friedman-we-need-a-conservative-party.html
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2012-08-26, 05:29 | Link #5735 | |
Knight Errant
Join Date: Dec 2007
Location: Dublin, Ireland
Age: 36
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Not much consolation for all the displaced factory workers though. |
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2012-08-26, 05:45 | Link #5736 | |
Senior Member
Join Date: Jan 2009
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The federal deficit is more worrying as it stands around 8.6% of GDP in 2011, which is very high. Comparable to a monthly imbalance between expenses and costs for an individual. The shortage is added to the debt. Rule of thumb is below 3% is healthy. Note that debt can decline even with a deficit as it is expressed as a percentage of GDP. A country can simply outgrow it's dept, which is the healthy option. The other way is through inflation but that is at the expense of the major debt holders:social security funds, pension funds, mutual funds, China and Japan. As for the causes of this budget shortfall: *Economic downturn: including lower than expected tax revenues (main source of income government) and greater safety net spending due to recessions and financial crises since 2000. *Bush era tax cuts *Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and greater military expenditure *More interest payments to service growing debt *Obama stimulus package to jump start economy after 2008 financial crisis. |
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2012-08-26, 05:53 | Link #5737 | |
Senior Member
Join Date: Jan 2009
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The federal deficit is more worrying as it stands around 8.6% of GDP in 2011, which is very high. Comparable to a monthly imbalance between expenses and costs for an individual. The shortage is added to the debt. Rule of thumb is below 3% is healthy. Note that debt can decline even with a deficit as it is expressed as a percentage of GDP. A country can simply outgrow it's dept, which is the healthy option. The other way is through inflation but that is at the expense of the major debt holders:social security funds, pension funds, mutual funds, China and Japan. As for the causes of this budget shortfall: *Economic downturn: including lower than expected tax revenues and greater safety net spending due to recessions and financial crises since 2000. *Bush era tax cuts *Wars in Iraq and Afganistan and greater military expenditure *More interest payments to service growing debt *Obama stimulus package to jump start economy after 2008 financial crisis. |
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2012-08-26, 12:57 | Link #5738 | |
Gamilas Falls
Join Date: Feb 2008
Location: Republic of California
Age: 47
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2012 elections, us elections |
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