I don't see the Tea Party members as crackpots, the conservative establishment created a colossal economic failure, they are the ones who should be derided, not those who are calling for a functional system to replace the current dysfunctional one. The system that we have is fractured beyond repair, trying to prop it up instead of changing it seems more of a crackpot idea to me. Reminds me of the Church deriding those who preferred science to Establishment fairy tales as lunatics.
I would say also that the reason that the US govt is still supported by so many regardless of what it does, how many people it kills overseas, how many draconian laws it sets up back home, is because it has promised so many people so many benefits from it's treasure chest. Except the treasure chest is running low and they are supplementing it with the treasure of other countries that they are promising to pay back with even greater amounts of treasure at some point. I'm sure it makes sense to someone somewhere. But I think the majority just don't think (and don't want to think about) the logistics. EDIT: it's also why the MSM is able to get away with all the lies and propaganda. The last thing most people want is to hear the truth of the situation.
The Tea Party used to be a grassroots movement that advocated for responsible fiscal management but it was infiltrated and taken over by the far Right-wing of the Republican party. And there is no point in saying "Oh, but that's not the real Tea Party" because there is no "real" Tea Party any more. Of course there are still people who believe in the original ideals from when it was a grassroots movement but "The Tea Party" now stands for "the opposite of whatever the Democrats want to do" and is populated by the Right's lunatic fringe. "The Tea Party" has simply become the new moniker for "Neo-Cons" after the neo-con brand was trashed during the Bush administration. They can't use the title "neo-con" any more because it stands for "wasteful spending on wars, homeland security and deregulating the financial markets so they become more like casinos" so they've found a clean, positive political brand and hijacked it.
Thanks for validating my point on your use of democrat propaganda. Of course he would say that, he's trying to get another blank cheque and to do so was trying to throw the Republicans under a bus in public opinion to get what he wants. Of course he won and the budget spiraled out of control even worse. Pick any single thing on the list of things he would have had to cut if he was forced to spend to his budget/ income and the social security cheques would have been the last. Foreign Aid, pentagon farm subsidies ALL would have been cut WELL before a socialist president touched social security cheques.
Umm. Doggie, most of the "entitlements" are NOT mandatory. They make the laws that made them "mandatory" they can break them as well. We already know the future pension plan promises won't be kept as that system is already insolvent. They'll just have to cut other current "entitlements" as well. Whether it happens sooner or later depends on how long they keep trying to kick the (growing) can. But it WILL happen one way or another.
Agreed The US is completely turtled either way, because no party actually wants to fix anything, they're happy with the status quo, with power, with deficit spending. Sure the voters are sick of it, but they suffer from the same two party disease we do here.
It's a bit of an idealist perspective. We know that nothing is actually mandatory, except maybe the president's paycheck. But the reality of the situation is that the US is in a depression, the people are looking to the Govt to save them by creating jobs and making everything okay again. Blind patriotism and the US ego make them think that they're the best country in the world, so it seems absurd that they should suffer. In such an environment, where the keynesian minds seem to believe that the answer to all the problems is to 'boost consumption' which will 'create jobs' - the eternal growth economy - do you think that they will ever subscribe to the idea of cutting spending? That and the potential civil war they would face if they cut welfare and defence. IMO it is a lose/lose situation, and they have no other choice than to kick the can down the road and leave the problem for another day, or take their medicine right now and suffer today. The best country in the world will never choose suffering.
It isn't "Democrat propaganda" and I don't know how to explain this any more clearly: they could completely cease all other "discretionary" spending and still be in deficit. Please, do what the Tea Party loonies won't and look at the U.S. national budget. The numbers simply don't work the way you want them to. There is simply no way that they can not raise the debt ceiling and still make welfare payments and send out pay-cheques to their military. That means hungry people rioting at home and soldiers deserting abroad.
You're correct about the deficit obviously. The question is though, how long can it go on? The problem will magnify over time. I think what people are ultimately saying is, we can either try to deal with it now, in as orderly a fashion as possible. Or end up having to deal with it in a disorderly fashion when the money does run out. I agree that the debt ceiling had to be raised this time. You couldn't not do it because there was no plan at the time going forward for anything else. Thing is, there still is no plan and it looks at this point like there never will be.
So what you are telling me is that Ron Paul can release his budget that has balances within one term but it's physically impossible for Obama to do the same? Make the numbers work! How much of the US budget comprises welfare cheques and military wages? [+] Pensions 819.7 [+] Health Care 846.1 [+] Education 153.1 [+] Defense 902.2 [+] Welfare. 451.9 [+] Protection 62.0 [+] Transportation 102.6 [+] General Government 33.6 [+] Other Spending 199.6 [+] Interest 224.8 [+] Balance 0.0 [+] Total Spending 3,795.6 [+] Federal Deficit 1,327.0 [+] Gross Public Debt 16,350.9 Don't tell me you couldn't cut enough out of all that to come up with 1327 billion dollars in savings and still pay the military wages, welfare and pensions.
No, that is not what I'm saying. What I'm saying is that you can't suddenly stop spending the amount of money they do on the range of stuff they do without having extremely nasty consequences. That is what happens if the debt ceiling isn't raised before they reach it. The last time around, the Republicans wanted to cut spending and the Democrats wanted to raise taxes. Common sense dictates that both spending cuts and tax increases would be required to even have a hope of balancing the budget, but they both sat around and squabbled while the the cash ran out. There was even a point where Apple was had more cash than the U.S. government did. And to go back to the beginning of the thread, Wayne Swan simply told them to get their s*** together and start acting like grown ups and that is a perfectly reasonable position for anyone to take, even if you don't happen to like Wayne Swan.
One certainly could say that, but it doesn't mean that someone who's lucky can't tell when someone else is being stupid.
I have several relatives and mates in the USA. They are all members of the Tea Party and the far right. They despise Obama with a fury that has it's roots in the hatred of any to do with "socialism". To them, "socialism" is "communism" in disguise, especially to those who are old enough to remember The Cold War. Based on my occasional talks with them, trust me - Wayne Swan is correct in his description,,,,,,,,,,,"cranks and crazies". It's not just about finances but everything to do with the way society operates in the USA. They'll take the USA back to dark days of the Wild West given half a chance. They are "fundamentalists". Whether "Our Wayno" is correct in "name calling is another contention altogether.
Look at our accounts (and debt ceiling) and compare them to the start of Swan's tenure. Swan is in no position to tell someone else to get their shit together, he has dragged Australia into an economic mire. He has no qualifications, history or ability to be treasurer. They put the Shop Steward in charge of company finances and he spent the entire company budget painting the lunchrooms and building canteens.
Grown ups face the music they don't keep kicking the can down the road. USA should declare bankruptcy and start over with a new currency, one not created by a private reserve bank.Whats the alternative? Another 20 years like the past 4, getting continually worse before the inevitable collapse? This is madness.
The moral argument for default is the easiest to follow. Treasury securities represent a stream of future tax revenues, and investors have no more just claim to those returns than to any investment in a criminal enterprise. I favour total repudiation of all government debt for the same reason I favour abolition of slavery without compensation to slaveholders. However, on topic, keep in mind that even if the debt ceiling weren't increased, the Treasury could still roll over its debt as existing bonds matured. The only thing the Treasury couldn't do would be to issue more debt. Based on its revenues, it could still comfortably service all interest payments on existing debt. Hence not increasing the debt ceiling does not automatically equal default. If the debt ceiling is not increased then congress would have to slash costs or raise revenues. Revenues do not have to be through increased taxation. The federal government has tens of thousands of buildings, millions of acres of land not to mention the Strategic Petroleum Reserve and many other assets that could be sold off to cover short term budget short falls. Eventually however, congress would have to cut the pay and benefits of its employees (Roosevelt cut them by 25 percent in the depths of the Great Depression) as well as the number of such employees. Real wage rates would decline, allowing entrepreneurs to hire more employees to produce consumer-valued goods. On the face of it this sucks (and it would suck for a period) but it is what needs to happen. A bit benefit though is that Congress would have to cut back on its far-flung regulatory operations, which are in fact one of the biggest drags on the economy due to the burden and uncertainty that Obama and Congress have created in terms of healthcare, financial-market, and environmental regulations. Sweet! But as I said in my earlier post, perhaps the strongest argument for not raising the debt ceiling is that the US Govt is bound to default at some point anyway whether explicitly by reneging on payments, or implicitly by massive inflation so why prolong the pain? That Elmo picture is simple enough.
