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Debt Ceiling Deal (OT) BOHICA
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twinturbo2 said:
That's damn ridiculous since she represents a right-leaning district, but not unexpected at Hamsher's palace of purity.
I'd recommend avoiding all the bastions of "purity or death" whenever compromise is involved. That's DU, FDL, RS, and FR. If you don't know those initials, consider yourself lucky.
The only ideological blogs I can stand reading regularly are TalkingPointsMemo, FrumForum and ThinkProgress.
I dont get it folks. Why do the left complain they will never get what they want when what they want can never be feisable? I compleate empthise with many on the left conserns about education, welfare and so on. Im not some Conservitive who doesnt have empthy of those on the left or think that everything that Repub/Glenn Beck/Tea Party says is gospel.
The fact of the matter is, the left never needed the money nor the backing of rich sons of bitches that in the end were going to screw them over. That is: Since the left wants to antagonize the rich for many honest grievances, but then to go and take a sponsorship for a mega fund or corporation from the left is the GREATEST height of hypocrisy. Thats why the Left will never get anywhere.
The fact of the matter is, the left never needed the money nor the backing of rich sons of bitches that in the end were going to screw them over. That is: Since the left wants to antagonize the rich for many honest grievances, but then to go and take a sponsorship for a mega fund or corporation from the left is the GREATEST height of hypocrisy. Thats why the Left will never get anywhere.
When the bush tax cuts were enacted (FOR EVERYONE), it was estimated they'd cost us about $3.5-$4T over a decade.Novid said:
They got extened for another 2 years at an estimated cost of $960B, due to republican hostage taking. That's $4.5-$5T of revenue cuts. Without them, and the interest accumulated from the debt contributions of the bush tax cuts, our national debt would be under $8T, potentially even under $7T, right now.
the left complains because the right cuts trillions of dollars from the pool of funds available for the government to use and then complains about large deficits and how we can't afford these programs.
Choosing to not pay for something doesn't mean it can't be paid for. According to republicans that's not the case though.
Doc Holliday
SPOILER: Columbus finds America
Man all those tax cuts are doing wonders for the economy!
Fusion Pizza
Member
So, how long until the second american revolution? 6 months? a year? FUCK THIS SHIT!
Thunder Monkey
Banned
Never.Megalodactyl said:
We'll be pissed for a while, but the team sports mentality with start rearing it's head around July of next year when Reps have an actual candidate.
And the cycle of suck will begin anew.
http://current.com/shows/countdown/...t-the-four-great-hypocrisies-of-the-debt-deal
Keith Olberman comments on the situation I liked it lol but I know people are indifferent about him.I think he puts most of it right although he is a little over-dramatic but yeah..
Keith Olberman comments on the situation I liked it lol but I know people are indifferent about him.I think he puts most of it right although he is a little over-dramatic but yeah..
NullPointer
Member
Once Facebook launches a revolution app, and not a day sooner.Megalodactyl said:
GaimeGuy said:
What is sad is that the situation we are in is not nearly as dire as portrayed, and staging a debate about how to balance the budget now, as opposed to 4 to six years from now, is actually harmful both to the economy, and to the very cause of balancing the budget in the future.
The whole idea behind balancing the budget is to prevent the possibility of a loss of confidence in the ability of the government to repay its debt, reduce the amount of interest the government needs to pay on its debt, which would take money away from other programs if it got too high, and increase confidence in the economy so that people and businesses will invest and spend more money.
First of all, there is no evidence that investors are losing confidence in the ability to the U.S. of the U.S. government to repay its debt. Mere hours after the U.S. almost threatened default as a result of a politically motivated stunt, the interest that the United States needs to borrow remains at historic lows.
(click on the link for the graph)
Second of all, interest payments on U.S. debt won't even reach the percentage of the U.S. budget that they were in the 1990's until 2020.
http://www.cbo.gov/doc.cfm?index=11999&zzz=41471
(graph is in the PDF on the linked page)
Even if those projections were accurate, that fact suggests that the debate we are having now should occur between 2014 and 2018, not while unemployment is at historic highs and economic growth is at historic lows and seems to be slowing, thus threatening another recession. We should be stimulating the economy right now to restore it to full employment and back to its long term growth trend. That would make balancing the budget easier when it actually becomes time to cut the deficit since there would be a bigger economy to shoulder the costs.
What is worse, the projections about how high the proportion of the budget devoted to paying interest on the debt will be are probably too high because they are based on economic forecasts that are too optimistic. The reason the amount of money the U.S. is forecast to need to pay to service its debt rises so sharply as the decade progresses is that as the economy recovers, the CBO is forecasting interest rates in general to increase. If the economy doesn't grow, however, interest rates won't increase. Instead they will stay low, as they are now. Look at what they thought the unemployment rate would be now - just north of 8 percent and dropping quickly, as opposed to over 9 percent and either holding steady or rising as it actually is. Does anyone really think we'll be on our way to 7 percent unemployment by 2012?
As a result, we are in a situation where there is a problem that won't really become a problem until the economy recovers, and the economy won't really recover while we are addressing that non-problem because addressing the non-problem involves measures that prevent the economic recovery which would cause the "problem" (I put the word "problem" in quotation marks because it would actually be a good problem compared to where we are now) in the first place.
I think that is why so many of the economists who are not members of an economic school of thought that was discredited by a financial crisis are freaking out.
Personally, I think that President Obama and the people advising him are operating under the notion that economic conditions are pretty much the same as they were in the early 90's, and that the economic recovery will pretty much pick up on its own. Unfortunately, I think that is a mistaken assumption, as the Federal Reserve can no longer stimulate the economy, as it did in the 90's by lowering interest rates, there is no equivalent of the tech boom/bubble that will drive a massive economic expansion, and consumer debt levels are too high to allow consumers to consume as they have in the past in order to fuel further economic growth.
MeBecomingI
Member
Cmagus said:
That was absolutely fantastic. I know a lot NeoGAF seem to hate Olbermann, but this man speaks the truth.
I didn't find him over-dramatic at all. Olbermann is extremely passionate about politics, and this is definitely a subject he feels strongly for, especially considering his overwhelming support of Obama, only to have him and the Democrats falter and implode on themselves... I would be just as angry and passionate if I was in his position. Glad to hear him unleash some hell... there isn't quite enough of people like him around anymore.
Fusion Pizza
Member
MeBecomingI said:
I liked it as well, to all you naysayers in this thread, Dig your heads deeper into the digital sands.
http://www.kpcb.com/usainc/
A nice presentation talking about how the USA debt became what it is today.
Everyone must watch this.
A nice presentation talking about how the USA debt became what it is today.
Everyone must watch this.
Wall said:
While I agree 100% with your post, I have heard from a few people in both economics and renewable energy that the potential is there for a green industrial revolution to rival that of the first one (the one that fucked up the planet). It will take hold in the EU / UK before the US but once it does it may be our salvation both economically and environmentally.
Of course it might be too little too late or just not happen in our lifetimes but it has to at some point.
Zoramon089
Banned
Wall said:
I mean, except for WW2...I'm not sure if an equivalent situation could ever arise again though
Cmagus said:
Steven Colbert really put it best. Republicans are like the boy who cried wolf, except Obama keeps believing them instead of not falling for it
Particle Physicist
between a quark and a baryon
SoulPlaya said:
You are right. They all share some blame, but the tea partiers were the ones to push for deficit reductions here. >(
Zoramon089 said:
Despite their unpopularity, programs like TARP, the auto bailouts ect., and the stimulus (as well as "automation stabilizers" like S.S., Medicare, Medicaid, ect.) helped to prevent a full on repeat of the Great Depression, so we won't need something quite on the scale of WW2 to restore us to full employment and full growth.
That being said, we shouldn't use the potential size of the measures that we need to employ as an excuse not to undertake them. It is simply wasteful, as well as being socially and personally destructive, to have massive amounts of people who want to work sitting around doing nothing.
SteveWD40 said:
I think the problem is that, compared to stuff like Facebook, the potential returns that investors see on Green tech are much lower, and occur over a much longer term.
The fact that Green tech faces competition from fossil fuels also poses a problem. Absent government intervention to subsidize the adoption of green technology, I would think that the spread of green tech would occur at a level basically proportionate to rises in fossil fuel price. That means that not only will growth in that sector not be as explosive as the tech bubble, but that, absent government intervention, any growth in that sector will necessarily be matched by an equal economic decline caused by a rise in fossil fuel prices.
That isn't to say that green tech won't grow in the future, or that it is not necessary.
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