Predisent Donald J. Trump: Episode V: Trade Wars Strike Back: Kanye's Opioid Addiction Support Group

[Zetanio]

Given their stake and that they've already been selling off quite a lot (100 billion at least since last August), they'd like take a pretty decent loss. If you consider that rates are going up for Treasury's that would further deepen their losses.

[Kaslo]

It's funny, I've looked into it and no one can factually explain how the federal debt is a bad thing.

[Zetanio]

Because it isn't. It's demonstrably a good thing.

[Day]

Good posts zet im a little bit smarter now ty

[Yuri-G]

I feel like AG took over zet's account and nobody told us


it's the only explanation. he's being wayyyyyy too helpful and informative.

[Zetanio]

I'm fighting against the retarded shit that people pass off as actual financial news.

This isn't the first time I've had to quit shitposting to correct people.

[Moss]

I feel like AG took over zet's account and nobody told us


it's the only explanation. he's being wayyyyyy too helpful and informative.

Zet is a finance bro, this is his area

Sent from my HTC6525LVW using Tapatalk

[6souls]

http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-43649018
https://newsroom.fb.com/news/2018/04...g-data-access/

Cambridge Analytica harvested the data of 86M Americans & 1M Britons from Facebook.

[Andalusian girls]

It's funny, I've looked into it and no one can factually explain how the federal debt is a bad thing.

then you have not looked very hard. government borrowing is not inherently a bad thing, it enables governments extra funding beyond normal outlays to invest in economic growth, it enables foreign investors to subsidize things like infrastructure development and education without the risk of foreign direct investment, and as Zet said T-bonds function as a mechanism to rearrange government funding, as the safest of investment options for capital both foreign and domestic, and as an injection of extremely liquid assets into the market. propositions such as the balanced budget amendment are economically illiterate doggerel that would paralyze a government through inflexibility.

but, irresponsible overspending has numerous destructive effects and examples of such litter both the modern world and the historical record. the most obvious and easiest to see is in interest payments on the debt, the non-productive amount of money that must be spent in the long term for access to money in the short-term. interest payments on the debt will consume 7.5% of the federal budget this year, and because of recent prodigal spending it will consume 12.5% by 2024, and be the single largest line-item in the federal budget by 2030. by contrast the Department of Education is 3% of the federal budget. that is to say the entirety of federal spending on education will be cannibalized by only the increase in interest payments in the next few years.

there is also a well-established inverse correlation between levels of government debt and levels of domestic investment. the investor and his capital are finite resources in any economy and both are simultaneously chased by private opportunities and government debt, to choose one is to not choose the other. the historian Paul Kennedy posited that militaristic empires (Habsburg Spain, Napoleonic/Roi Soleil France, the USSR) which had enormous government outlays siphoned enough private capital away from domestic investment that they inevitably fell behind less profligate powers in internal development and R&D leading to their declines vis-a-vis their contemporaries. this may be of some interest given China's public debt is proportionally less than half of ours (though they have serious issues with private debt).

and, of course, finance is as much psychology as science. when debt rises to levels investors find risky (even if it not truly risky), and when the market for T-bonds at a particular RoR is tapped out, investors demand higher rates of interest for their capital. rising interests rates make both financing the debt more expensive and retard other avenues of economic expansion such as home loans, auto loans, etc. though this fear is one for the future as our interest rates are presently too low, it is one of the more fatal aspects of overspending as it can form a positive feedback loop from which it is difficult to extricate.

in the worst case scenario these phenomena lead to a sovereign debt crisis and the inevitable economic crashes that follow (see Argentina's and Iceland's and Russia's bankruptcies, see Greece avoiding such only by mass infusions of EU capital). it is very unlikely the U.S. finds itself in similar circumstances given the unrivaled strength of our economy and the ability to manage our own currency through printing money and quantitative easing, but even the secondary deleterious effects of overspending are beginning to make themselves known. while they will not result in a Grecian collapse they could well see us immersed in a Japanese-style period of prolonged stagmire where servicing an albatross of public debt consumes such a high proportion of tax revenue and providing funding for continual annual deficits siphons away such a large amount of capital from the private sector economic growth is inhibited for a prolonged period of time.

[Fiye]

when did maroot take over AG's account.

[Zetanio]

I agree with all of this. While government debt is a demonstrably good thing as with anything else that exists in the world too much of it is bad. It doesn't help that a large majority of the things that have been funded with this recent debt outlay contribute very little back to the economy.

[Zealot]

I wasn't aware our debt payments were such a huge portion of spending relative to other outlays, that's a point to campaign on.

[Gredival]

It's almost like militaristic adventurism in the Middle East is really expensive. Who knew?

[Zetanio]

It's almost like militaristic adventurism in the Middle East is really expensive. Who knew?

Don't forget Afghanistan!

[6souls]

https://www.npr.org/2018/04/03/59800...-mexico-border

Trump is calling upon the US military to secure the Mexico border.

https://www.mprnews.org/story/2018/0...mexican-border

National Guard, again, with as many Troops as it takes and for an undetermined amount of time.

[mallister]

love me a lean border.

wait, this is the opposite of lean.

[Xno Kappa]

https://www.mprnews.org/story/2018/0...mexican-border

National Guard, again, with as many Troops as it takes and for an undetermined amount of time.

Can’t wait until the first shitstorm involving the Posse Commitatus Act.

[Dantrag]

Talked to a super libertarian/conservative/religious dude today. Basically wants there to be 0 government. Guns for everyone. No school funding. No taxes. Etc. Blames "progs" for pretty much everything(lol). Thinks life and death should just happen without any intervention. Thinks charities should take care of everything. Thinks everything should be privatized.

Was painful to listen to eesh.

[Fiye]

Talked to a super libertarian/conservative/religious dude today. Basically wants there to be 0 government. Guns for everyone. No school funding. No taxes. Etc. Blames "progs" for pretty much everything(lol).

Was painful to listen to eesh.

So you talked to my old chief. I feel for ya.

[Andalusian girls]

It's almost like militaristic adventurism in the Middle East is really expensive. Who knew?

the wars were extremely expensive at a time we could ill-afford it but the primary drivers of the national debt were/are the recession and entitlement spending, particularly entitlement spending impacted by the explosion of healthcare costs and demographic shifts.

for example the heaviest days of fighting in the Middle East were between 2001-2008 (invasion of Afghanistan to the beginning of post-surge withdrawals) and the national debt went from 56% to 62% as share of GDP. in the 10 years since, as war expenditures have fallen drastically, it has increased to 106%, and is scheduled to increase by about 50% over the next 10 (going from $20 trillion to $30 trillion) even in the absence of another major war or recession.