America Hits the Debt Ceiling

[Stumblingdrunk]

Because we generally elect the living, Reagan does not get to vote on the debt ceiling, and among the living the Republican Party appears far more serious about cutting the deficit and reforming entitlement programs than do their Democratic counterparts.

If you were to map Obama's presidency onto that chart he has overseen a +13% increase in a little over half of one term, assuming those statistics are accurate, the current principle number is 96%.

It's pretty fucking dense to think that the party that says tax increases are "off the table" is serious about anything.

[kuronosan]

Hay guyz if'n we mapped Obama's presidency we'd see that he's the reason it's going to greatly rise. It's all Obama's fault! Damn democrats!

[Kuya]

Page one and we're already on partisan discussion.

[Cephius]

To me it all goes back to money and wealth having too much influence on politics. The top 1% of the population in this country control nearly half of the financial wealth, yet they pay a disproportionately low amount of taxes. We've seen how some multi-billion dollar companies pay no taxes at all because they've lobbied to create loopholes in the tax code for their own uses. People cry about socialism and use "spreading the wealth" like it's a blasphemous word but some correction is needed as this is completely out of whack. It's shame that raising taxes is political suicide yet cutting funds to essential services like education, health care, social security and medicade are a-okay. Even taxing the upper 1% a few percentage points would go a long way to easing debt.

Unfortunately I don't think it's going to change either unless the lobbying system in this country is changed drastically and I don't see how that's going to happen.

[Yugl]

Page one and we're already on partisan discussion.

It's actually page 2 by superior settings!

[Synbios]

Hey let's look at the bright side - if all the batshit Repubs in Congress get raptured maybe we can actually pass some truly meaningful legislation, starting with getting rid of the $21bil oil company subsidies.

And who do you think is going to end up paying for the lose of those subsidies? You really think the oil companies will just be like "well gosh, there goes 21b a year, oh well". Good luck with that. If Barry Obama actually stuck to his hope and change campaign promises we might not be in such bad shape. Heres a novel idea, lets stop fighting useless wars. Instead of pulling out of Iraq and Afghanistan he goes and starts another war with Libya because we have so much money we can throw around to fight yet another pointless war.

[Athas]

Hasn't the limit been raised a few times already? What difference does another raise make?

[Ferion]

That is only a part of what caused the meltdown. Scroll up to the video "Capitalism Hits the Fan" for pretty much the exact reason we're in the situation we're in, and continue in perpetuating.

There definitely were other causes of the recession, but it was already discussed in another thread about why that video is incredibly misleading when it claims that real wages remain flat while productivity is increasing exponentially.

[aurik]

Another sucker suckered into believing that video.

[tyven]

reminds me of people that saw loose change for the first time

[Antithesis]

reminds me of people that saw loose change for the first time

But Tyven! What crashed into the Pentagon?

[Plow]

Because we generally elect the living, Reagan does not get to vote on the debt ceiling, and among the living the Republican Party appears far more serious about cutting the deficit and reforming entitlement programs than do their Democratic counterparts.

If you were to map Obama's presidency onto that chart he has overseen a +13% increase in a little over half of one term, assuming those statistics are accurate, the current principle number is 96%.

That's extremely unfair to Obama given the situation, but I'll disregard that in favor of debating the first statement:

The people running now are arguing that Reagan and Bush had the correct policies, and to follow them further is the way out of debt. Which is certifiably retarded if you have even the laziest of layman's understanding of economics.

[Plow]

Also, Seno, since you still apparently haven't gotten it... the stuff you're posting is the Marxist version of Glenn Beck, albeit not nearly so outlandish.

[archibaldcrane]

it was already discussed in another thread about why that video is incredibly misleading when it claims that real wages remain flat

I must've missed that other thread, got a tl;dr version of why this is untrue?

[Ragnus]

I dunno. I'm kinda leery about the whole thing because I have a lot of savings bonds with the government that I don't wanna see turn into useless paper.

In my opinion all the talk of "Trickle Down" economics needs to stop because it looks good on paper but just doesn't work in practice because the general concept of Capitalism serves as a stopper for the "trickle". Personally I'm in favor of a no loopholes flat tax rate because, while again looking good on paper, the current system of staggered tax rates doesn't work because of the massive amounts of tax loopholes and breaks allowed by the government which can be exploited. Granted it would mean things like common people not being able to write off their mortgages but overall it will be better at the cost of a minimal universal sacrifice to gain less corruption.

I have to agree that America will just move on as we always do and just not give a shit about it. Because that's what we always do. >_>;;

[Ferion]

I must've missed that other thread, got a tl;dr version of why this is untrue?

When computing productivity you're using output data, so in order to compute real wages you also need to use output data. However, if you use consumption data to deflate nominal wages to real wages (the CPI index), you're going to see real wages fall or flatten out relative to productivity, but if you use a GDP deflator you should see real wages follow productivity. So the way the video is misleading is that he is using the CPI index to compute real wages and then claiming that they are completely flat, but in reality he is just using the wrong price index.

This picture is for the Canadian economy, but it pretty much shows what I'm talking about.
http://worthwhile.typepad.com/.share...p_rw_81_06.png

When computing the real hourly wage with the CPI (consumption data) the graph shows that wages are very low, but with the GDP deflator real wages follow productivity pretty closely.

Edit: There might be a bunch of other stuff wrong with the video, but I stopped watching as soon as he claimed that real wages have been completely flat since the 1980s.

[Olo401]

And who do you think is going to end up paying for the lose of those subsidies? You really think the oil companies will just be like "well gosh, there goes 21b a year, oh well". Good luck with that.

I don't care - Even WITH those subsidies the oil companies are STILL dicking us over at every turn. So FUCK THEM, cut the damn subsidies and let them raise their prices to the consumer. I already know that will happen, and I don't give a shit because when it DOES happen maybe this country will start getting serious about automobile fuel efficiency, curbing emissions from cars, and using mass transportation.

If Barry Obama actually stuck to his hope and change campaign promises we might not be in such bad shape. Here's a novel idea, lets stop fighting useless wars. Instead of pulling out of Iraq and Afghanistan he goes and starts another war with Libya because we have so much money we can throw around to fight yet another pointless war.

Totally agree with everything you said here, except for the damn myth about us and Libya - we are NOT at war with them and we NEVER WERE.

[Fhqwghads]

Sounds like we're headed towards the last straw when it comes to US citizens putting up with politician's crap. Shit's going to hit the fan when the government starts defaulting, not paying income tax returns, cutting government spending and terminating jobs, increasing taxes, etc. The American people have let these retarded politicians sit in their cozy jobs figuring out how to give each other pay raises while ignoring the deficit. When a big fat reality check is slammed on us if they don't figure out some miraculous way to get us out of the mess they put is in, it's going to be interesting to see what happens.

[Ragnus]

I don't care - Even WITH those subsidies the oil companies are STILL dicking us over at every turn. So FUCK THEM, cut the damn subsidies and let them raise their prices to the consumer. I already know that will happen, and I don't give a shit because when it DOES happen maybe this country will start getting serious about automobile fuel efficiency, curbing emissions from cars, and using mass transportation.

This so much. Couldn't have put it better.

[Kuya]

Sounds like we're headed towards the last straw when it comes to US citizens putting up with politician's crap. Shit's going to hit the fan when the government starts defaulting, not paying income tax returns, cutting government spending and terminating jobs, increasing taxes, etc. The American people have let these retarded politicians sit in their cozy jobs figuring out how to give each other pay raises while ignoring the deficit. When a big fat reality check is slammed on us if they don't figure out some miraculous way to get us out of the mess they put is in, it's going to be interesting to see what happens.

How can you talk with all those nuts in your mouth?