Politics

[Buckrub]

Man, I get tired of it........but it's so 'magnetic' that I can't stop being drawn to it on occasion.

I am TIRED of both sides in America. BOTH of them want to spend, spend, spend......the ONLY flipping difference is that both sides say "If you IDIOTS on the OTHER side would stop spending all that money on what YOU want, and let me spend it on what I want, then we wouldn't be broke".

But we spend it on BOTH of them.

If the debt is not being reduced today, and yesterday, when we have same income but a "shutdown(?)" of the government, then we have no hope.

and I offer as evidence:

http://i279.photobucket.com/albums/kk131/Buck7088/DebtCeiling_zps85eaf2c3.jpg (http://s279.photobucket.com/user/Buck7088/media/DebtCeiling_zps85eaf2c3.jpg.html)

[Captain]

The proposal OBummer, Reid and Pee-losi want will extend the debt cap till PAST the next election.

And just the increase (not what is current) will add a million dollars a minute, 24 hours a day till after the next election. I hope they dead lock, shut it all down and everything goes to shit.

Take Care, Captain

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[Buckrub]

It'll bankrupt me, but I want it too. I can't see a better long term solution to a real problem. If I thought there was another solution, I'd listen. But I'm convinced we are at a Permanent, Major, Unchanging Stalemate in this country.

I can't see any outcome other than a physical split, really. I just hope I don't have to move............but I probably will.

[BarryBobPosthole]

Politicians will say whatever they think will get them a vote. It's their nature. But american business is the same way. It seems like being a hypocrite is accepted practice these days.

I didn't get to get on the lake this weekend by the way. We went to Silver Dollar City. And we all had a good time. I think it really ought to be called Type II Diabetes City but that's another story. Outside the gate, there's a big sign proclaiming American craftsmen and crafts and so forth and a big American flag. Every store you go into, 90% of the crap they sell is made in another country. But everyone was real nice. That's the midwestern in 'em.

I don't think I need to go back now that I've seen it, but its a pretty cool place. They do like their taters. We ate at a place where they were frying taters and sweet taters together on a huge grill and turned them with what looked like a big scoop shovel. Cost nine dollars for a heap of those taters and a couple slices of smoked sausage. Another place had tater slices on a stick with a wiener stuck up the middle and all of that deep fried. Have no idea what its called. Buck Taylor had some cool stuff there. There was a portrait he did of Kilmer as Doc Holiday with the quote 'My hypocrisy knows no bounds' underneath it that I would have bought for Captain if I'd have had the money to buy it. His art is kinda spendy. But that's the first person I thought of!

BKB

[Captain]

That's cool Posty and one if my favorite sayings, as it DOES pertain to me an white liquor... :D
But hey, at least I know it and admit it!

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[Penguin]

Kind of like watching a slow motion train wreck huh? :)

The answer is obvious as hell: Spend less, tax more.

We ain't there yet. Even if we were ready to accept this it would mean a hell of a lot of pain for most of us. What scant growth we've had for 5 years is mostly a product of government and central bank balance sheet expansion.

In the end though I have to admit that from the bottom of my heart I believe the conservatives are going at it backward. First you fix the trade deficit. Then you fix the budget deficit. Then you can make long term headway without doing damage for the sake of doing damage. Balancing the budget first probably means living through a depression. And having the dollar lose reserve currency standing.

In the end though what can you do? It ain't like I have President Obama or Speaker Boehner calling me asking for advice. :)

Will

[Buckrub]

They should.

[BarryBobPosthole]

I think we need to sell Florida to Cuba. We could get a good price and half our social security problems would be solved. Then we could go there on vacation.

BKB

[Penguin]

Not a chance! :)

But I do think that these folks should have more interaction with normal folks who they represent. Especially if they disagree with them on policy. Even if they walk away completely unchanged they would at least start to recognize that folks can disagree with them without being evil.

Right now that is not a popular thing to say but it is true.

Another big problem is that we have government flirting with what could be a complete economic catastrophe and ~some~ people urging it on. Some want a front seat to the apocalypse maybe? A bunch more don't really believe it would be ~that~ bad. And you have some who see default as an escape hatch.... not understanding that what they would cause is not going to make the problem go away.

We ran up the debt and we are going to have to live below our means to pay it off. Not Jesus nor the Space Brothers nor anyone else is going to come down here and let us escape from the pain of having to pay up. But that is a lot less sexy than bringing out the righteous indignation and trying to blow it all up.

Will

[Buckrub]

I don't want it to happen. But I have said that if it doesn't, there is NO OTHER VIABLE SOLUTION that will result in a better deal. Name me one. And don't include "Working Together" in it anywhere.

The debt has been run up more in the last 6 years than is acceptable. It didn't used to really mean much. Now it's catastrophic. You can live with a skin problem and a few visible scars. But multiple melanoma's will kill your a%%.

And yes, we have come to where we have a King, not a President. That's what I see. Even Congress act like Earls and Counts. And the court believes themselves to be gods.

This system no longer works. It's really that simple.

[BarryBobPosthole]

Because the outcome wasn't what you wanted it to be, the system is broken. There's some folks, like THE WHOLE OTHER HALF OF AMERICA, that doesn't necessarily think it's the system being broken as much as it is the people we have in charge of it. No party represents the majority any more is my take on the quandary we're in. I'm not as worried about debt as you righties are, but then again neither party has done doodley squat about itwhen they are in power so I have to say, if the majority of Americans are concerned a bout our debt, then neother party is representing the majority. and on and on about any number of 'important' issues of the day. Reagan did as good a job as any representing the majority but he sure screwed up a lot of stuff. Lucky for us, he fixed more than he screwed up. Clinton was the same. We need another Reagan. Another Clinton though is prolly what we'll get.

BKB

[Buckrub]

That's what I said to start this thread. BOTH sides are spending us into Oblivion, and if you are on a Side, you sit and say "NO NO NO, don't spend it on THAT!!! Instead spend it on THIS!!!"

But because we DO have both sides, BOTH stuff gets funded.

It's like if Julie says "I want a new haute coiture dress", and you say "Well, dang, if the old biddy can spend a grand on a dress, I am going to go spend a grand on a new rifle".

Meanwhile, the bank could care less who is on the "Made Out To" line of both checks. They only look at the number to the right.

[Penguin]

I don't want it to happen. But I have said that if it doesn't, there is NO OTHER VIABLE SOLUTION that will result in a better deal. Name me one. And don't include "Working Together" in it anywhere.

The debt has been run up more in the last 6 years than is acceptable. It didn't used to really mean much. Now it's catastrophic. You can live with a skin problem and a few visible scars. But multiple melanoma's will kill your a%%.

And yes, we have come to where we have a King, not a President. That's what I see. Even Congress act like Earls and Counts. And the court believes themselves to be gods.

This system no longer works. It's really that simple.

What do you mean in the red faced quote Bill? Do you mean a better political deal for conservatives or a better deal as far as repayment terms for the nation or something else entirely?

As far as the debt we have run up over the past 6 years? On the one hand it is VERY bad. That was real money that has to be repaid. And doing so is going to hurt. I won't deny that a bit.

But why was it done?

My opinion is likely far different than what you will hear from others. When the house of cards that was the housing bubble came crashing down we had a choice: Write down the debt and suffer then or try to maintain the status quo and pay later. We chose door number 2. As badly as we would like to believe otherwise, once that choice was made the decision was permanent. To try and rechoose now only means being much deeper in debt and still suffering through a depression... AND doing away with the status quo. We ignored the bad debt and insolvent banks to protect a very powerful group of people. In a depression there would be nowhere for them to hide.

I would offer up Japan as exhibit number one. They ignored the debt. Ran up astronomical amounts of government debt to compensate for crippling effects of private debt peonage. Had an extreme right wing backlash where they tried to bring down debt accumulation. Went back into recession. Panicked, swung back to the left and started up the money printing again. Rinse. Repeat.

Once that decision has been made there is no turning back. Although the order of things may have been different under a different president we still face the dilemma: Keep running up debt or shrink your economy. The right wing reaction, left wing reaction wouldn't change a bit.

Will

[Buckrub]

I am not completely sure why it was done. I haven't delved as deeply as you have into the 'why'. I do know that that everyone overspends, all Administrations, and All Congresses. That's all that they do. They invent "Programs" and "Aid". What else do they do??? I do know that it's gotten far worse lately, and it just seems to me, on the surface, that Obama believes (and half the country and half of Congress goes with him) that we "need to do more programs" and that he's sent the debt into the stratosphere. Before that, it was manageable, or invisible! Wars don't help, but neither do social programs. Again, the bank doesn't care whom the check is made out to.

What I meant is........that I, me, personally........my simple opinion..........is that there is nothing that can or will be done to fix this. It can NOT be fixed. Even if it could, it WILL not be fixed!! How could it? Who would fix it?? Our Leaders belong to a group. There are two of these groups. Neither group is EVER going to allow the other one to fix it. And as I said, do NOT try and tell me "Well, they'll have to work together". No, they never will. Never again. NEVER. On nothing. Ever.

I liken it to the discussion on Global Warming and what actions the US can or should take. It doesn't matter what caused it. It doesn't even matter if it's real or imagined. NOBODY ANYWHERE is going to change one iota of their lifestyle, not in this country. Period, end of sentence. So the discussion of fixing things is Blather.

I believe that. The Chasm is too wide, the Rift too deep, the Delineation too fixed. It's over.

So, I don't see anything working. But I don't see the people, either half of us, allowing it to just crumble.

So, my prediction is that it will just keep going till it blows up entirely, and then we'll do the action below. Or we will a bit more slowly morph into this same action. But either way, this action WILL occur, and no other action will ever fix this mess.

That action is that we split. Two countries. Lefties and Righties. A mess. Chaos. Blood maybe, but not like 1860 at all. Just everyone scattering to move West or East or wherever their new Center is. And both can run things their way, in their country. American League and National League. But no Commissioner. Each funds its own way, makes its own rules, etc. But they won't fight each other, I don't think. Because your kids will be in one League and you'll be in Another.

If there is another solution anyone can viably predict, I'm all ears.

[Captain]

To Buckys point. This is about right...

Once upon a time the government had a vast scrap yard in the middle of a desert.
Congress said, "Someone may steal from it at night."
So they created a night watchman position and hired a person for the job.
Then Congress said, "How does the watchman do his job without instruction?"
So they created a planning department and hired two people, one person to write the instructions, and one person to do time studies.
Then Congress said, "How will we know the night watchman is doing the tasks correctly?"
So they created a Quality Control department and hired two people. One was to do the studies and one was to write the reports.
Then Congress said, "How are these people going to get paid?"
So they created two positions, a time keeper and a payroll officer then hired two people.
Then Congress said, "Who will be accountable for all of these people?"
So they created an administrative section and hired three people, an Administrative Officer, an Assistant Administrative Officer, and a Legal Secretary.
Then Congress said, "We have had this command in operation for one year and we are $918,000 over budget, we must cut back."
So they laid off the night watchman.

NOW, WE HAVE TURNED OVER THE BANKING SYSTEM, HEALTH CARE, AND THE AUTO INDUSTRY TO THE SAME GOVERNMENT?

Hello!! Anybody Home?

Signed...The Night Watchman

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[Buckrub]

VERY GOOD.

But it's even worse than that.

Not a single person in that group, including the night watchman, was any good at protecting the scrap, and it was all stolen, every week. No one could figure it out. But yeah, they formed a Commission to study it, and another group to Fix It. But that group had their chairs stolen out from under them, and two were fired for boinking their secretaries.

Meanwhile, NO ONE brought any more scrap to them, so they didn't have to even have a Watchman or any of these groups to manage it, because there was no scrap.

So what did they do? Formed a Commission to study that situation, and formed an Agency to "Attract and Maintain More Scrap". They too had their stuff stolen, and boinked their secretaries, and had huge parties on their money, and no scrap was ever seen anyway.

That's the Government.

[Penguin]

If there is another solution anyone can viably predict, I'm all ears.

Well I am not sure that I can offer a solution. That can vary from person to person. But I can tell you what I think ~will~ happen.

As far as debt and all of that goes? It will come to an end. Maybe not in your or my lifetime but we will stop accumulating it. The thing to remember is this: We aren't in this predicament (notice I did not say problem, a problem can be solved) alone. Almost all advanced countries are in the same boat. There are a few lessons that the world will learn when it is over and that will shape how we move forward.

One, no country can or should be given the responsibility of having control of the reserve currency. The temptations are too great. The cost to the productive side of the economy are catastrophic. It slowly smothers your industrial base and leaves you debt enslaved. An anchor to debt accumulation and the currency must exist.

Two, there is a minimum interest rate that must be respected. At some point in the future the central bank, in whatever form it takes, will recognize that lowering interest rates past a certain point brings long term consequences that outweigh any short term damage that a recession will bring. We escaped the dire consequences of three decades of idiotic trade policy with interest rate manipulations and debt accumulation. Now we see the long term consequences and they are ugly.

Three, there are vital national interests in being as independent as reasonably possible and maintaining your industrial base. Trade and industrial policy was used to hurt political enemies in our recent past and even in the present. A couple hundred million accountants, mid level managers, investment bankers, government employees, and fast food joint workers does not a healthy economy make. At the bottom of every healthy economy is a large produce/consume economy.

As far as the rest?

A lot of what you talk of Bill is nothing more than the symptoms of an empire that is dying. It is not liberals or conservatives ruining anything, it is a group of folks competing for a bigger slice of the pie when the pie is shrinking. The real reason for this is energy. We are rubbing up against energy constraints for the first time in a long time. And what is different this time around is that for the first time ever we are having to transition into lower quality forms of energy. Higher cost per kilo Joule. And barring major technical breakthroughs that probably won't come it will only get worse from here. When you extract energy you have to spend energy. That leftover part is called Energy Return on Investment. It is what modern society in general and industrial civilization in particular is built on. It is shrinking. Barring major breakthroughs it will continue to shrink. That has dire consequences.

Some day when I am feeling more cheerful I will tell you what I think the long term future holds. It is probably much more depressing than your scenario. :)

Will

[Buckrub]

Dang.

Mine's awful.

I fear for NYC and Chicago and Atlanta. Those folks will be eating each other while I'm eating meat.

Know my worst fear? You'll laugh.

It's not ever again knowing what happened to you dufes.

[Thumper]

Bucky quote:


I fear for NYC and Chicago and Atlanta. Those folks will be eating each other while I'm eating meat.

Ummm, wouldn't that mean THEY would be eating meat also? ;)