Driftr
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Post by Driftr on Aug 10, 2011 14:20:31 GMT -5
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Bluerobin
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Post by Bluerobin on Aug 10, 2011 14:40:05 GMT -5
Oldtex, nothing is simple with 536 different points of view. One thing is sure - it has to be a slow steady plan. I still advocate some revenue increases.
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djAdvocate
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Post by djAdvocate on Aug 10, 2011 14:58:06 GMT -5
As far as "We need to cut slowly" sorry but no. We need to cut a lot, we need to start cutting now, & putting it off just means that maybe the public will forget about it & then it will never happen (just like in the past). That's exactly what got us where we are now & we as a country can't afford that. not really. what got us here is continually increasing spending, not decreasing it slowly. if we even FROZE it, it would take less than a decade to get back to even.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 10, 2011 20:31:47 GMT -5
As far as "We need to cut slowly" sorry but no. We need to cut a lot, we need to start cutting now, & putting it off just means that maybe the public will forget about it & then it will never happen (just like in the past). That's exactly what got us where we are now & we as a country can't afford that. not really. what got us here is continually increasing spending, not decreasing it slowly. if we even FROZE it, it would take less than a decade to get back to even.
In my view Yes Really. We need a smaller government...cut it. Long term payment plans may work with people (you or I) but they damn sure don't work with the government. Besides, we owe so much that the interest is a burden. Take those "cuts" as an example. Spread them out for 10 years & pay interest on them & we really aren't saving anything, we are just making payments. For to long we have tried to do everything with no money. it's time to manage what we have with saving money & paying down debt as the object. Not lengthening out the time before we collapse.
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djAdvocate
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Post by djAdvocate on Aug 10, 2011 22:15:35 GMT -5
As far as "We need to cut slowly" sorry but no. We need to cut a lot, we need to start cutting now, & putting it off just means that maybe the public will forget about it & then it will never happen (just like in the past). That's exactly what got us where we are now & we as a country can't afford that. not really. what got us here is continually increasing spending, not decreasing it slowly. if we even FROZE it, it would take less than a decade to get back to even. In my view Yes Really. We need a smaller government...cut it. Long term payment plans may work with people (you or I) but they damn sure don't work with the government. it worked in the 90's. is it really that much different now? democrat president, one branch of government with GOP.
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ungenteel
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Post by ungenteel on Aug 11, 2011 0:01:52 GMT -5
what kind of fool fails to recognize that if a large percentage of government spending were suddenly pulled out of the economy .. things would quickly get much worse?
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rockon
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Post by rockon on Aug 11, 2011 7:05:24 GMT -5
Call me a fool but our government removes money from our economy before it can spend it. The government can only spend money it borrows and pays interest on, prints and devalues all of our money or money that it takes directly from the economy through taxation. It is a flawed theory to believe a government can arbitrarily spend money to improve our economy. There are times and places that government spending makes sense when it is for specific purpose and reason but that is not what we have seen in recent years and would not likely happen if we raised taxes now. The fact of the matter remains that revenue has increased for decades and our debt and deficit still continued to go up. This is very much a management issue!
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Post by privateinvestor on Aug 11, 2011 7:52:28 GMT -5
I really don't think you will see much happening for the debt crisis until Thanksgiving when the so called Super Committee sends their plan to the House and the Senate floors for fast tracked votes by 23 December and if there is another impasse which some are projecting then the so called triggers will be employed....so we are a long way from seeing any resolutions and in the meantime congress and Obama will be on vacation for most of this month.... Business execs are amazed at how Washington DC is dealing with the debt crisis and some of them are beginning to take to the tv stations to voice their disapproval of this political process.. Here's one of the leading bank execs( Jamie Dimon) and his views on the debt crisis: Dimon, touring his California branch network in a bus, said the recent volatility hasn’t shaken his optimism about the U.S. economy, which was unnecessarily set back by a prolonged political debate over raising the government’s debt ceiling. S&P’s subsequent downgrade of the nation’s credit rating wasn’t “that material a thing,” and most executives don’t rely on those grades to make decisions, he said.
Still, “we shot ourselves in the foot,” he said. “The debt ceiling thing kind of demoralized the American public.”
The underlying economy and financial system remain strong, with mortgage, credit and other markets open and healthy, Dimon said. JPMorgan’s stock price, which extended this year’s 16 percent slide to $35.61 today from about $40 a share when he became CEO at the start of 2006, will be higher in five years, he predicted.
“The strength of the system is going to blow your socks off when it comes out of this malaise,” he said. “The fundamental strength of the nation is still there. We’re just stuck.”
Dimon also dismissed speculation that he’s a candidate for U.S. Treasury secretary if and when Timothy F. Geithner steps down, saying he would never be interested in that job.
“If you know me at all, and you all do a little bit, I’m not suited to politics,” Dimon said. “So you guys should stop asking that question. I know it, and you know itwww.bloomberg.com/news/2011-08-10/dimon-says-hogwash-to-whitney-s-description-of-lenders-as-zombie-banks-.html
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Post by Deleted on Aug 11, 2011 8:20:10 GMT -5
what kind of fool fails to recognize that if a large percentage of government spending were suddenly pulled out of the economy .. things would quickly get much worse?
This kind (me). I say hit the bottom quickly & start improving. We can't get better until we get over this. A good example of nursing the economy along was what FDR did. He did just as you suggest, used the government & government projects to help the economy. What did it really do? It put us on the road to recovery about 8 years AFTER the rest of the world. YOU CAN NOT SPEND YOUR WAY OUT OF DEBT. It doesn't work.
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floridayankee
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Post by floridayankee on Aug 11, 2011 9:20:59 GMT -5
what kind of fool fails to recognize that if a large percentage of government spending were suddenly pulled out of the economy .. things would quickly get much worse? What kind of fool fails to recognize that continued spending comes with the threat of another credit downgrade that would make things much worse? BTW, nobody fails to recognize the effect that reduced government spending would have on the economy. People are beginning to realize that the government debt bubble needs to be deflated before it blows. Sorry boys and girls...S&P has derailed the gravy train.
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djAdvocate
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Post by djAdvocate on Aug 11, 2011 11:46:17 GMT -5
Call me a fool but our government removes money from our economy before it can spend it. that is totally false- and a major problem with this debate, imo. deficit spending is by definition money that was not removed from the economy.
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djAdvocate
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Post by djAdvocate on Aug 11, 2011 11:46:53 GMT -5
what kind of fool fails to recognize that if a large percentage of government spending were suddenly pulled out of the economy .. things would quickly get much worse? What kind of fool fails to recognize that continued spending comes with the threat of another credit downgrade that would make things much worse? BTW, nobody fails to recognize the effect that reduced government spending would have on the economy. People are beginning to realize that the government debt bubble needs to be deflated before it blows. Sorry boys and girls...S&P has derailed the gravy train. not really. they have just increased the fare.
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djAdvocate
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Post by djAdvocate on Aug 11, 2011 11:47:43 GMT -5
what kind of fool fails to recognize that if a large percentage of government spending were suddenly pulled out of the economy .. things would quickly get much worse? This kind (me). I say hit the bottom quickly & start improving. We can't get better until we get over this. A good example of nursing the economy along was what FDR did. He did just as you suggest, used the government & government projects to help the economy. What did it really do? It put us on the road to recovery about 8 years AFTER the rest of the world. YOU CAN NOT SPEND YOUR WAY OUT OF DEBT. It doesn't work. not following you. how do you think the depression ended, tex?
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floridayankee
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Post by floridayankee on Aug 11, 2011 12:27:03 GMT -5
This kind (me). I say hit the bottom quickly & start improving. We can't get better until we get over this. A good example of nursing the economy along was what FDR did. He did just as you suggest, used the government & government projects to help the economy. What did it really do? It put us on the road to recovery about 8 years AFTER the rest of the world. YOU CAN NOT SPEND YOUR WAY OUT OF DEBT. It doesn't work. not following you. how do you think the depression ended, tex? If deficit spending stimulates economic growth, in theory the government could simply keep spending trillions a year to continually grow GDP and keep the economy humming right along. Unfortunately, deficit spending to stimulate the economy is a economic fantasy. Since congress cannot create new purchasing power out of thin air, every dollar spent must either be taxed or borrowed out of the economy. They could also inflate it out of the economy as well by continually printing money. "We have tried spending money. We are spending more than we have ever spent before and it does not work. And I have just one interest, and if I am wrong … somebody else can have my job. I want to see this country prosperous. I want to see people get a job. I want to see people get enough to eat. We have never made good on our promises. … I say after eight years of this Administration we have just as much unemployment as when we started. … And an enormous debt to boot." - Treasury Secretary Henry Morgenthau - 1939 Japan tried the same thing in the 90's, drew their recession out for a decade and built up the largest government debt in the world. It sure isn't reckless deficit spending that pulls countries out of a recession. The very idea that deficit spending can end a recession is no longer an exercise of theory. It has been tried repeatedly, and it has failed repeatedly. For some reason, people keep expecting this time to be different.
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djAdvocate
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Post by djAdvocate on Aug 11, 2011 12:40:47 GMT -5
not following you. how do you think the depression ended, tex? If deficit spending stimulates economic growth, in theory the government could simply keep spending trillions a year to continually grow GDP and keep the economy humming right along. Unfortunately, deficit spending to stimulate the economy is a economic fantasy. Since congress cannot create new purchasing power out of thin air, every dollar spent must either be taxed or borrowed out of the economy. They could also inflate it out of the economy as well by continually printing money. "We have tried spending money. We are spending more than we have ever spent before and it does not work. And I have just one interest, and if I am wrong … somebody else can have my job. I want to see this country prosperous. I want to see people get a job. I want to see people get enough to eat. We have never made good on our promises. … I say after eight years of this Administration we have just as much unemployment as when we started. … And an enormous debt to boot." - Treasury Secretary Henry Morgenthau - 1939 Japan tried the same thing in the 90's, drew their recession out for a decade and built up the largest government debt in the world. It sure isn't reckless deficit spending that pulls countries out of a recession. The very idea that deficit spending can end a recession is no longer an exercise of theory. It has been tried repeatedly, and it has failed repeatedly. For some reason, people keep expecting this time to be different. without agreeing with you, i will ask you the same question: how did we get out of the depression?
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Post by Deleted on Aug 11, 2011 13:01:21 GMT -5
not following you. how do you think the depression ended, tex?
djlungrot I posted a story about it about 3 months ago here. At the time of our depression there was a general depression across the world. We jumped behind FDR's works program to "feed" the people & came out of our depression (more or less) about 8 years behind the other countries. In retrospect economists look at it & believed that our massive spending was the reason that it took our economy so long to improve. If you do a search on it I bet you will find it real interesting (I did). Oh & when I say depression & 8 years I'm talking about the actual depression it's self & the barely measurable recovery period.
The bottom line here is that there are some problems that throwing money at just doesn't fix. President Obama is finding that out now & trying to "soften" the blow to the economy just increases the time period of recovery. And of course financing out a lifestyle that you can't afford so that you don't have to change that lifestyle just postpones the inevitable. Once you reach the point where it just isn't sustainable things need to change. I think you would agree with that even though we might disagree as to us being at that point now.
I am very in favor of front loading the cuts so that later payments make a more profound dent in our debt. As I've said many times before the "cuts" that we put in place as a bargaining chip to raising the debt ceiling were only political cuts & really did nothing to actually cut our debt. That's because nobody but the Tea Party (if they were & I think they were) were really willing to make cuts for fear that it would hurt their chance in the election.
Sadly from what I've seen once someone is elected for congress:
1. They become much more interested in keeping their job than doing their job.
2. They only see or care about their small section of the U.S. & that generally clashes with national interests.
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djAdvocate
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Post by djAdvocate on Aug 11, 2011 13:06:21 GMT -5
not following you. how do you think the depression ended, tex?djlungrot I posted a story about it about 3 months ago here. At the time of our depression there was a general depression across the world. We jumped behind FDR's works program to "feed" the people & came out of our depression (more or less) about 8 years behind the other countries. In retrospect economists look at it & believed that our massive spending was the reason that it took our economy so long to improve. If you do a search on it I bet you will find it real interesting (I did). Oh & when I say depression & 8 years I'm talking about the actual depression it's self & the barely measurable recovery period. i am quite familiar with the period. so, how did the depression end?
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Post by Deleted on Aug 11, 2011 13:29:50 GMT -5
i am quite familiar with the period. so, how did the depression end? It was blown up when the Death Star was destroyed.
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djAdvocate
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Post by djAdvocate on Aug 11, 2011 13:32:00 GMT -5
i am quite familiar with the period. so, how did the depression end? It was blown up when the Death Star was destroyed. no further questions. ;D
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floridayankee
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Post by floridayankee on Aug 11, 2011 13:48:04 GMT -5
without agreeing with you, i will ask you the same question: how did we get out of the depression? Let me guess...you want to hear me say deficit spending to fight in WWII, right? I'm sure the war had an effect simply by getting back to work, but the single biggest factor for getting out of the depression was dropping the gold standard. Countries worldwide were doing this were better able to manipulate their monetary policies and get out of the depression much quicker. I red this OSU paper a few years ago and it's a pretty good read if you care.... www.shsu.edu/~eco_www/resources/documents/WhatEndedtheGreatDepression.pdf
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djAdvocate
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Post by djAdvocate on Aug 11, 2011 14:31:38 GMT -5
without agreeing with you, i will ask you the same question: how did we get out of the depression? Let me guess...you want to hear me say deficit spending to fight in WWII, right? this may surprise you a bit, but i am actually just looking for you to answer the question. how you answer it is entirely up to you, and i may or may not have follow up questions depending on the answer.I'm sure the war had an effect simply by getting back to work, but the single biggest factor for getting out of the depression was dropping the gold standard. Countries worldwide were doing this were better able to manipulate their monetary policies and get out of the depression much quicker. I red this OSU paper a few years ago and it's a pretty good read if you care.... www.shsu.edu/~eco_www/resources/documents/WhatEndedtheGreatDepression.pdfwait....i thought the gold standard was dropped during the NIXON administration, no? that is like...over two decades after the end of WW2....
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floridayankee
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Post by floridayankee on Aug 11, 2011 14:49:59 GMT -5
wait....i thought the gold standard was dropped during the NIXON administration, no? that is like...over two decades after the end of WW2.... There you go thinking again. Nixon simply put the final nail in the coffin of the gold standard when he backed out of the Bretton Woods agreement in '71. Ben Bernanke and Harold James, in a paper called "The Gold Standard, Deflation, and Financial Crisis in the Great Depression: An International Comparison" published in 1991, noted that 13 other countries besides the U.K. had decided to abandon their currencies' gold parity in 1931. Bernanke and James' data for the average growth rate of industrial production for these countries (plotted in the top panel above) was positive in every year from 1932 on. Countries that stayed on gold, by contrast, experienced an average output decline of 15% in 1932. The U.S. abandoned gold in 1933, after which its dramatic recovery immediately began. www.nber.org/chapters/c11482
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djAdvocate
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Post by djAdvocate on Aug 11, 2011 15:51:45 GMT -5
wait....i thought the gold standard was dropped during the NIXON administration, no? that is like...over two decades after the end of WW2.... There you go thinking again. be nice. if i were sure, i would have said so.Nixon simply put the final nail in the coffin of the gold standard when he backed out of the Bretton Woods agreement in '71. Ben Bernanke and Harold James, in a paper called "The Gold Standard, Deflation, and Financial Crisis in the Great Depression: An International Comparison" published in 1991, noted that 13 other countries besides the U.K. had decided to abandon their currencies' gold parity in 1931. Bernanke and James' data for the average growth rate of industrial production for these countries (plotted in the top panel above) was positive in every year from 1932 on. Countries that stayed on gold, by contrast, experienced an average output decline of 15% in 1932. The U.S. abandoned gold in 1933, after which its dramatic recovery immediately began. www.nber.org/chapters/c11482interesting. thanks.
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rockon
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Post by rockon on Aug 12, 2011 8:01:59 GMT -5
Like I said earlier there are times when borrowing money is the proper thing to do when you have a specific purpose or need and when an analysis shows that it makes sense to do it. We have been doing it for over 5 decades as a matter of doing business while we also have increasing revenues. Also borrowed money does take money directly from the economy in interest costs and payments and since we continue to add more to this debt each year the cost to service this debt takes more directly from our economy each year. Taxation comes 100% out of our economy before the government can give part of it to the receiver of their choice. Again in a time of emergency or specific need borrowing or taxation for that specific need or purpose may make sense but increasing taxation or borrowing more money at a time when we are drowning in debt and when our corporate taxation rates are some of the highest relative to our trading partners we would most likely be a major mistake to give our government the supply to spend even more then they currently do particularly at a time when our businesses have a difficult time competing with the the countries we have chosen as trade partners.
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