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- Jun 3, 2002
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Originally posted by: bamacre
Originally posted by: Evan
...if the right people are in office.
And there's your unsolvable problem.
Not really. Ron Paul wouldn't change anything either, btw.
Originally posted by: bamacre
Originally posted by: Evan
...if the right people are in office.
And there's your unsolvable problem.
Originally posted by: Evan
Originally posted by: bamacre
Originally posted by: Evan
...if the right people are in office.
And there's your unsolvable problem.
Not really. Ron Paul wouldn't change anything either, btw.
Originally posted by: bamacre
Originally posted by: Evan
Originally posted by: bamacre
Originally posted by: Evan
...if the right people are in office.
And there's your unsolvable problem.
Not really. Ron Paul wouldn't change anything either, btw.
Of course not, he'd never get elected. Half the people in this country want tax breaks and "free" stuff. The other half want to kill brown people overseas.
Originally posted by: Evan
Originally posted by: bamacre
Originally posted by: Evan
Originally posted by: bamacre
Originally posted by: Evan
...if the right people are in office.
And there's your unsolvable problem.
Not really. Ron Paul wouldn't change anything either, btw.
Of course not, he'd never get elected. Half the people in this country want tax breaks and "free" stuff. The other half want to kill brown people overseas.
Americans have done pretty well the last 100 years, that's just the reality. Most Americans just don't want a kook who gives interviews to Alex Jones.
Originally posted by: bamacre
Originally posted by: Evan
Originally posted by: bamacre
Originally posted by: Evan
Originally posted by: bamacre
Originally posted by: Evan
...if the right people are in office.
And there's your unsolvable problem.
Not really. Ron Paul wouldn't change anything either, btw.
Of course not, he'd never get elected. Half the people in this country want tax breaks and "free" stuff. The other half want to kill brown people overseas.
Americans have done pretty well the last 100 years, that's just the reality. Most Americans just don't want a kook who gives interviews to Alex Jones.
Oh boy. :roll:
Is that the best you got? :laugh:
Don't worry, I'm sure Obama will cut spending and balance the budget.
Originally posted by: bamacre
Actually some of Paul's constituents are farmers, and as you know he is against farm subsidies.
Pandering is exactly one thing Paul does NOT do. There's a reason lobbyists avoid him like the plague. He has a political philosophy that he adheres to, not the ideas out of the mouths of those with their wallets out.
But this isn't about Ron Paul. He's irrelevant, like you say. His supporters are small in number. He has no strong say in what goes on in Congress. Maybe if you'd spend more time bitching about those who actually do, we could get some things done. Hold your own party and your own candidates to higher standards.
The only standard you guys seem to have is "better than Bush."
This country needs something better than that. Much, much better.
We need someone who has the courage to tell the truth. That our foreign policy is absurd. That taxpayers shouldn't be sending foreign "aid" to countries like Israel and its neighbors. That marijuana should be legal, and not just for medical purposes. We need someone who understands that the money Congress spends is OUR money. We need someone who believes that the Bill of Rights and the Constitution are things that aught to be respected, not trampled upon. Someone who can tell you WHY health care is a problem before discussing any solution.
Originally posted by: bamacre
But we won't get that.
Originally posted by: soccerballtux
Originally posted by: venkman
If taking on debt allows you to generate a greater % increase in return than you are paying interest on debt, then go for as much as you want.
counting chickens/hatch. Nobody knows the future. This is why I say...moderation.
Originally posted by: halik
Originally posted by: bamacre
Originally posted by: halik
Alright, let me add to it - if you say as little as possible, why is debt bad?
Debt in the general sense does not have to be bad. I would never support a forced balanced budget, because there could be times of emergency when it would be wise to run a temporary deficit.
But this is certainly not what we have today. Why is it bad? Because of interest payments for one. Wasted money. Malinvestment.
Right, but it's interest payments vs. opportunity costs (taxing people). If the return on people keeping their tax money is greater than the interest on the debt, then it would be irrational to tax - the more debt you have, the more return you get on your $1 of taxes paid due to the additional risk from leverage.
Same way from a tax payer perspective, you can maintain a constant amount of debt and your return in the form of government services is greater than if government only uses taxes to finance themselves. It's really a questions of capital structuring much like any other company.
Originally posted by: Evan
Americans have done pretty well the last 100 years, that's just the reality.
Originally posted by: Jhhnn
Originally posted by: halik
Originally posted by: bamacre
Originally posted by: halik
Alright, let me add to it - if you say as little as possible, why is debt bad?
Debt in the general sense does not have to be bad. I would never support a forced balanced budget, because there could be times of emergency when it would be wise to run a temporary deficit.
But this is certainly not what we have today. Why is it bad? Because of interest payments for one. Wasted money. Malinvestment.
Right, but it's interest payments vs. opportunity costs (taxing people). If the return on people keeping their tax money is greater than the interest on the debt, then it would be irrational to tax - the more debt you have, the more return you get on your $1 of taxes paid due to the additional risk from leverage.
Same way from a tax payer perspective, you can maintain a constant amount of debt and your return in the form of government services is greater than if government only uses taxes to finance themselves. It's really a questions of capital structuring much like any other company.
I think that's false logic. A private concern can think in such terms because they make a profit on borrowed money. That's an impossible task for the govt- they just pay interest on it. Giving tax breaks to the wealthy so that they can buy govt bonds with the difference merely grants them financial safe haven and a permanent subsidy. Making federal debt available to foreign entities flush with balance of payment deficit dollars also props up dollar value in the world market, greatly encouraging offshore investment and domestic job loss.
Permanent deficits mask the negative effects on taxpayers, for as long as they're sustainable. If I spend 10% of my income on debt maintenance and borrow a lot more, too, it all appears to be peachy. If I keep doing it, I'll eventually go broke, and that can happen rather suddenly.
How much debt is too much? Probably a lot less than we have today, particularly when the enormous amount of govt revenues derived from SS contributions will disappear over the next 10 years, and the citizens who loaned the govt that money will, understandably, want the govt to start paying it back...
That *is* the deal Ronnie Ray-guns made with Boomers, right? Or are his ideological heirs less concerned with honoring his contracts than exploiting his memory?
Gotta love Greenspan's pious intonations from 2001 wrt the undesirable nature of govt ownership of private assets, too. I guess that's all different now, just so long as the govt takes a loss on the "assets" bought with borrowed money, everything's copacetic, right?
Originally posted by: Evan
He is a strict ideologue, and the most unflexible kind of all; he doesn't budge on his positions nor his rhetoric. It's his greatest strength and his greatest weakness.
Also, lobbyists avoid him because his views represent less than 5% of the population. Most R's and D's hold positions in line with 40-50% or more of the population. Again, that's good for Paul in that lobbyist don't influence him, but bad because his interests don't reflect 95%+ of Americans. You want change that 95% of people don't want.
Huh? Congress' approval rating is in the low teens. Who isn't pissed off at Congress? Come no now.
Except what realistic proposals does Paul offer? His foreign policy is extreme, he wants to cut out embassies and foreign aid altogether, without even considering (out loud anyway) that he'd be ignoring the massive panic and political/social/economic consequences of not offering aid/embassies/support to other nations that would ensue.
Paul believes in cutting spending, certainly, except he'd cut it out completely, as in get rid of proven systems like the Federal Reserve,
And he's relevant in this discussion because this guy is the same man you go to for advice on how to balance the budget. Come on, the guy doesn't have a solid plan to do any of it. He just doesn't. He's so radical that he wants to live in an era that, currently, no one was alive to see.
And, ironically, you won't get that for one simple, infallible reason; democracy.
Originally posted by: bamacre
Oh please, if this is how you think lobbyists in DC work, you're very naive. And this is one of our biggest problems.
Gee, maybe the 95% of voters who are supporting Senators McCain and Obama?
Damn right. We are broke. We are $10 trillion in debt, with massive SS and Medicare expenditures about to explode.
We don't need to send $3 billion a year to Israel, another $3 billion a year to it's neighbors, $1 billion to Georgia, and so on and so on.
That's outrageous. This is taxpayer money. To send that overseas in this manner is absurd.
Proven huh? Read a newspaper lately? The Federal Reserve played a big part in creating the economic turmoil. It's proven alright, proven to create booms and busts and economic instability.
He would have worked to dump the IRS. But as he has said, this could not be done unless Americans change their attitudes about what government is and should do.
It's not like he'd go out and get a hatched and start cutting things without any regard for people.
Paul is about moving in a direction, not overnight change. This is a common fallacy.
This is just another stupid common fallacy. As if implementing his political philosophy would suddenly make today's technologies and advancements just disappear. That we'd all be riding horse and buggies. Totally ignorant point of view.
And ironically, the other candidates are moving this country toward ideologies much older than his.
Exactly. And it is the removal of our Republic to a Democracy that will lead us to Fascism.
$20,000 a person sounds about right since corporations are getting bailed out. Hell, Bush gave us $600 so let's up the ante a bit. You still haven't explained why this would be a bad idea (increasing our national debt). Please enlighten us.Originally posted by: Evan
Originally posted by: SP33Demon
So what is your tipping point until hyperinflation hits? 100 Trillion?
Why would hyperinflation hit because of a mismanaged budget deficit? We are far and away the most trusted seller of promissory notes in existence, and 8 years of irresponsible spending by Bush and Republicans isn't going to doom us long-term. Bush's idiocy just made it harder to get out of the hole, nowhere near impossible.
And tell us why the Fed shouldn't give each of us $20,000 apiece (a 7Trill surplus to help our hard economic times)? Of course debt is good, but what is your number. And tell us YOUR estimate of the inflation rate once SS and medicare are fully realized from baby boomers in 20 years (2028).
You first have to tell me why on earth giving $20,000 per person is feasible or sensible since I never argued we should do something that irresponsible.
My ideal number for debt is simple; accumulate as much debt as the U.S. can afford, so long as 1) public funding exists for it in the short-term (i.e. taxes) and 2) all current long-term obligations that are locked in (e.g. Medicare extension written into law from a few years back) can be paid for according to the BLS' future estimates of population growth (more people, more tax revenue, more domestic and foreign investment). Continue to have the Fed guarantee dollars so our T-bills are still far and away the most credible in the world, and repeat ad infinitum to the end of time.
Also, who the heck can predict inflation 20 years from now? Please tell me your methodology because I'd certainly love to make millions off of it. Btw, what are your ideal debt numbers?
Originally posted by: Evan
And exactly why are McCain and Obama any worse than Ron Paul? And please explain why Congress is at all time low if no one is "bitching" about them as you say? You know you can't.
Originally posted by: SP33Demon
$20,000 a person sounds about right since corporations are getting bailed out. Hell, Bush gave us $600 so let's up the ante a bit. You still haven't explained why this would be a bad idea (increasing our national debt). Please enlighten us.
RE: My ideal debt number, how should I know? I'm not the one with the econ degree which is why I'm asking you (you purport to be an expert). Please tell me why giving $20,000 to each citizen would be bad, Mr. Economist.