Has not Swan sworn out an Oath of Office to serve Australians rather than use his position to sway sentiment for the purpose other foreign political elements? Who does he think pays his wage, or maybe he is pandering to another secret master other than the Australian people? Should he not sweep his own doorstep first before giving his personal advice?
Hey, I completely agree the wars are a complete waste of money and that would be a great area to cut back on, but failing to raise the debt ceiling doesn't mean they decide to cut spending, it means they run out of cash. I'm sorry but I can't see anything good happening if 50 million social security payments just don't get made one week (or get paid at 60% of what they were supposed to). That's don't-have-money-to-eat territory and people aren't just going to sit around and starve. They're going to break stuff. And when the ratio of guns to hungry people starts narrowing, there'll be a lot of people getting hurt too.
It's either cut spending or wait until the bond market breaks. Or destroy the currency. The good options were available a decade or more ago. The petulant children pretending to be adults decided they wanted more and more stuff and wanted to load up the credit card and pretend they'd never have to pay it off. "Deficits don't matter".
Of course you head straight down the democrat propaganda route. Do you really think that social security cheques would be the first thing cut if Obama had to drastically cut his budget? You really think if Obamas budget was cut by 40% that dole cheques would get the chop first? Barack Hussein Obama? Are we talking about the same president?
"There will be no carbon tax under a government I lead" , Politicians can always be taken at their word right ? Not like anything they say is said for political purposes or anything like that. Obama 'will close Guantanamo Bay' http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/obama-will-close-guantanamo-bay-1021731.html
This isn't about credibility, this is simple maths. Every month, the U.S. government spends $125 billion more on "stuff" than it receives in tax revenues. If they get to the end of one month and haven't borrowed $125 billion to pay the next month's bills, they run out of money and next month's bills don't get paid.
Yeah, uh, "discretionary spending" includes social security cheques, the education system and salaries for the heavily armed soldiers wearing the uniform of the United States military. If the debt ceiling isn't raised when it needs to be, payments to make these things function stop. being. made.
I can think of 5 useless departments that could be dismantled tomorrow/assets sold. in fact I can think of 1.5billion .40cal S&W bullets that could be flogged
Well, if the US can't live without that money, better hope the Chinese keep on lending it to them. What did they do in the days before they weren't borrowing this massive amount of money? Life in the US must have been awful 20 or 30 years ago! People must have had to do actual productive work. Shock, horror! Thank god those days have gone and they have a platinum credit card from the People's Bank Of China now. That's progress!
Big A.D. is right. From: http://www.heritage.org/federalbudget/spending-cuts Now from Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013_United_States_federal_budget#Total_revenues_and_spending Total revenue = $2,902 billions Total spending = $3,803 billions Of the total spending, $2,293 billion is mandatory, leaving just over $500 billion for discretionary spending. Note that in the discretionary spending, this includes: - defence $666b - homeland security $55b - veterans affairs $60b - health $80b Even if they cut every bit of discretionary spending, besides defence, they will still be over budget. Which means they have to cut defence, but that won't fit with their plans no doubt. Also I don't expect to see them cutting homeland security anytime soon, nor would they be smart to cut veterans affairs due to potential backlash. And the only way they are currently allowed to spend over budget is by borrowing, which means increasing the debt ceiling. Keep in mind this is Govt spending, not Federal Reserve spending. There are some interesting charts here: http://www.heritage.org/federalbudget/entitlements
They got to do something, you cant live on credit forever. Source: Some great facts and figures here http://www.usfederalbudget.us/
I also heard Swan say yesterday that "The Chinese economy doesn't really effect Australia". The GFC was nowhere near as bad for Australia as the "Labor Financial Crisis" that this clinical idiot is causing. .
Back to the original video, I was pondering on why the world's best treasurer took the stance that he did? Why, 12 months later, resurrect memories of the the debt ceiling row? At the time, this was portrayed in the MSM as a fairly regular democrat/republican argument. The cranks and crazies thing was fabricated more in order to discredit the Ron Paul libertarian movement, and their "attack" on the GOP presidential nominee system. If he was toeing the global socialist party line, he would have attacked the republican party in general, but he didn't. Swannie's remarks were designed to assist the GOP/Romulans. Why? Does he want to keep a foot in both camps, just in case? Does he realise that it doesn't matter who is the next POTUS and that things will carry on in their usual Keynsian way, as long as it is an Obamney clone? Does TPTB think that the only threat to the global elite's lifestyle is starting to gain a real foothold, and they're instructing compliant governments to start talking them down? Or was he just trying to get a headline?
You know you are in trouble when the country's biggest "Fiscal Pygmy" is also the Treasurer. That's what happens when you vote the political arm of the ACTU into government. .
Mr Swan, lives in a bubble, his idealisms are wrought from an upbringing of maoist and stalinist ideals. He would most certainly of been bullied at school, probably by the same kids that went on to be union heavy or even the faceless men. He seeks revenge on the rich who 'didnt earn that' or 'dont deserve success. He would rather see small business go broke paying tripletime on weekends just so he can garner more tax to give to the ironically unemployed.
I suspect the reason he made the comment now - months out from when the next debt ceiling increase is needed - because someone needs to tell America to stop being so f***ing stupid and not put the world's economy at risk of a catastrophic meltdown. Somebody has to say it. It is not a typical Republican vs. Democrat squabble about whether this bridge should be built with taxpayer's money or that program produces good outcomes for the citizenry, it's about whether the U.S. government will continue to pay their bills as they fall due. It isn't about finding and eliminating wasteful spending or increasing taxes for the richest 1%. That's all secondary. Reaching the debt ceiling means one day, a lot of people who were expecting to receive money don't receive it. And they'll continue to not receive it until the debt ceiling is raised. Last time around, the "cranks and crazies" were the extreme right wing of the Republican party who have taken over the Tea Party movement. Many of them are members of the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate and they're on the public record (including YouTube) as saying they were using the debt ceiling issue specifically to attack Obama and not to improve America's financial situation. Guys, you know how we talking about the S H-ing TF? If the debt ceiling issue isn't resolved, we'll actually get to see what the SHTF looks like.
